Grazed from FierceCIO. Author: David Weldon.

While cloud-based computing continues to dominate technology headlines, its impact on changing the IT workforce is beginning to get more attention. Specifically, the increase in outsourcing due to cloud services, and a corresponding need for more contractors. FierceCIO has reported in recent weeks on the growing ranks of IT professionals being lured to contracting and consulting firms. Part of this trend is a simple reflection of the recession and the number of IT pros who lost full time jobs in its wake.

But the number of IT pros who will switch gears from full-time traditional employers to contracting firms and consultancies will increase this year and next year due to cloud computing. As noted recently at CIO Insight, "Cloud computing is the most disruptive force in IT outsourcing today…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Do your cloud services meet federal security requirements yet? If not, you only have another six months to get your services up to spec. The FedRAMP accreditation process isn’t an easy one, but any cloud service that doesn’t meet the strict requirements won’t meet the feds’ trust test.

The entire FedRAMP review process takes time. The simplest and fastest way to go about it, which is to work with the FedRAMP office, takes approximately 4.5 months to complete the process. If a cloud services provider goes it alone, the process can take up to six months. With only six months to deadline, that’s not a lot of time, so for those who have been holding off to become accredited, consider making a move on getting started or risk being left behind and getting left out of future federal government cloud computing deals…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Karl Flinders.

Banks are built on massive IT infrastructures that process huge volumes of data on a daily basis. The cloud’s most obvious benefits will enable banks to keep up with technology changes while reducing costs. The digitisation of services is making it difficult for banks to ignore the cloud.

But concerns over a potential loss of control, availability and data security make moving to the cloud a massive leap in a heavily regulated sector. At a recent meeting at the Financial Services Club (FS Club), Chris Skinner, chairman at the club, said the cloud is still misunderstood, despite it being a talking point in financial services for years…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Editorial Staff.

TRENDnet, a best-in-class wired and wireless networking hardware brand, today announces from the 2014 International CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, new HD cloud cameras with build-in high speed Wireless AC networking. "This new line of Wireless AC cloud cameras provide consumers with more options when building their high speed Wireless AC digital network," stated Sonny Su, technology director of TRENDnet.

"This marks a significant milestone in the transition of wireless monitoring solutions to Wireless AC." Equipped with Wireless AC networking, this line of cloud cameras is not compatible with Wireless N networks. The listed cameras require the presence of a Wireless AC network, generated for example by TRENDnet’s TEW-812DRU Wireless AC router, in order to function…

Read more from the source @ http://www.sys-con.com/node/2914607

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Eric Knorr.

According to rumors floated by reliable sources a few weeks ago, Microsoft has finally done an about-face on Windows 8 with a forthcoming version dubbed Threshhold. Mary Jo Foley reported on ZDNet that inside sources told her two Threshhold flavors would return to a more "traditional" desktop look and feel, with a third version resembling Windows RT — presumably for tablets.

Paul Thurrott chimed in with his own inside dope that not only would the Start menu return, but also Metro apps would be able to run on the Windows desktop. (I can’t resist noting that InfoWorld suggested similar changes with our Windows Red proposal seven months ago.) Few now doubt that Windows 8 dealt a huge blow to already flagging PC sales and led hardware manufacturers to waste billions of dollars on desktop and laptop touchscreens…

Grazed from Enterprise Irregulars. Author: Louis Columbus.

Alan Kay’s saying that the best way to predict the future is to create it resonates through the best cloud computing and enterprise software predictions for 2014. Constraints that held start-ups back from delivering sophisticated new apps and services are disappearing fast. The dynamics of one of my favorite books, The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, are in full force across the cloud and enterprise landscape. There are many predictions being generated right now and instead of writing yet another set, I’m providing a listing of those that are the most interesting and thought-provoking. They are listed below:

10 Cloud Computing Predictions for 2014 – In-depth analysis of ten predictions including how more companies will realize they are really in the software business, private cloud computing having a moment of truth and continued adoption of cloud brokerages. This set of predictions is an interesting read and provides useful insight. I’d just add that as application developers go, so goes an industry, a point Bernard Golden refers to in this post…

Grazed from GreatResponder. Author: Maria Dehn.

Intensive snowfall in the North East region of the North American continent has hit the cloud hosting services badly due to failure of Amazon web services. Since the entire north east of North American region is caught under severe snow fall and snow storm, the day to day life has been seriously affected. Like many other utilities and services, internet services based on cloud computing are also facing serious outages due to the failure of Amazon web services. This impacted many websites and services hosted by Amazon very badly.

It was reported at around 12:30 AM last night that Amazon cloud services were observing serious glitches and subsequently failed. It brought many websites down, among such websites a few are Netflix, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon streaming media, Tumblr, Steam and many others. There were a large number of blogs, forums, and commercial websites that observed either serious glitches and degradation of services or went down completely…

Grazed from NewFactor.  Author: Barry Levine.

It’s a new year, and that means the big Consumer Electronics Show will soon showcase the latest trends and would-be trends for both consumers and businesses. Speculation is already rampant about what will stand out in this year’s mega-exhibition, which runs January 7-10 in Las Vegas.

Wearable Tech

One of the trends everyone is expecting is an explosion in so-called wearables, where smaller-than-ever computing devices double as watches, glasses, sneakers or other such form factors — even, reportedly, smart contact lenses. The wearable attracting the most attention has been Google Glass, which that technology giant has been rolling out in an extended alpha/beta phase. Recently, however, there have been a number of "hey, wait a minute" reactions in online publications and forums about Glass’ potential negative impact on person-to-person interaction, or its potential for privacy issues…

Grazed from ComputerWorld.  Author: Patrick Thibodeau.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is spending some $80 million in basic research on quantum computing. And what the NSA spends its research money on may ultimately help commercialize quantum computing — and even make it accessible via the cloud.  This is what Defense Department agencies do: They fund basic research that private industry sees as too risky, but if the work leads to breakthroughs, it’s the commercial sector that may benefit the most.

Information about the NSA’s quantum computing research comes from documents acquired by Edward Snowden and published by the Washington Post. These documents use macho sounding names for the quantum computing effort, including "Owning the Net (OTN)."…

Grazed from TalkinCloud.  Author: Joe Panettieri.

How can cloud services brokerages, channel partners and customers get a better handle on cloud costs? For those who are going Google, perhaps Google’s new Billing API can help. And for channel partners that leverage third-party clouds like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Rackspace, HP Cloud or IBM SoftLayer, perhaps CloudAbility’s billing management tools can help. Here’s the update.

Let’s start with Google’s cloud API effort. According to a recent Google blog entry:

"Tools for monitoring, analyzing and optimizing cost have become an important part of managing cloud services. But these tools are difficult to build if the usage data is only in the Google Cloud Console. We are happy to announce a solution to this problem. The Billing Export feature addresses this need, and it is available in Preview."…