Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Peter Long.

Companies of all sizes store their data on external servers every single day, whether they know it or not. This could be an organization whose employees bring their own devices and use file storage and sharing apps that the IT department isn’t aware of, or it could be a business looking to eliminate IT infrastructure costs and leverage the convenience of the cloud by moving data offsite.

One step that companies and individuals must take in order to use cloud storage is accept the provider’s terms and conditions. However, both organizations and individuals often fail to actually read those terms and conditions prior to clicking the "accept" button, putting companies in precarious positions that leave their data vulnerable to risk. What do you get in the fine print? Sometimes, it’s not as simple — or pretty — as you might think…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Beth Pariseau.

Amazon Web Services Inc. awaits new shipments of hardware for its recently launched C3 instances as the demand for cloud computing performance in its Elastic Compute Cloud exceeds supply. The shortage was first noted in a blog post last week by Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) chief evangelist, Jeff Barr, who wrote that it took just two weeks for C3 use in its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to exceed the level that the former fastest-growing instance type achieved in 22 weeks.

"The important takeaway here is the thirst for performance on AWS," said Carl Brooks, analyst with Boston-based 451 Research. The new C3 instances were revealed at the AWS re:Invent conference this year. They provide faster processors based on Intel Corp.’s 2.8 GHz E5-2680 version 2 "Ivy Bridge" technology, double the memory per vCPU of the previous C1 and CC2 lines of instances, as well as solid-state-drive-based instance storage…

Grazed from GreatResponder. Author: Maria Dehn.

Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform’s upgraded version of the scheduler can call services from inside and outside of the Azure platform to run them reliably on the schedule. The upgraded metrics provided deep insight into usage of cloud computing resources with many value added features.

Microsoft announced last week that they have released the preview of upgraded versions of scheduler and monitoring metrics for its well known Azure cloud computing platform. These upgrades are in its preview period and are being offered on very discounted terms. These both features of Azure platform would prove to be very useful for enterprise users to have deep insight into their the usage of their cloud computing resources and managing their schedules and planned tasks in a more effective way…

Grazed from FederalTimes. Author: Doug Bourgeois.

Cloud computing has been over-hyped. Everybody knows it. Most people now cringe at the sound of the word “cloud” and for good reason. A quick Internet search of the term “cloud computing” returns 392 million hits! That’s a lot of cloud. There is good reason for all this hype. Cloud computing has significantly transformed the information technology (IT) industry.

Much like the transformation from mainframe to client-server computing did a few decades ago, and the Internet after that, cloud computing is changing the fundamentals of IT once again. Unfortunately, the dramatic results in cost efficiency and agility that cloud promises have drawn attention away from the real goal: transforming to IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS)…

Grazed from CIO. Author: Bernard Golden.

It’s the time of year when darkness comes early and people begin to sum up how this year has gone and next year will unfold. It’s also the time of year that predictions about developments in the technology industry over the next 12 months are in fashion. I’ve published cloud computing predictions over the past several years, and they are always among the most popular pieces I write.

Looking back on my predictions, I’m struck not so much by any specific prediction or even the general accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the predictions as a whole. What really comes into focus is how the very topic of cloud computing has been transformed. Four or five years ago, cloud computing was very much a controversial and unproven concept. I became a strong advocate of it after writing Virtualization for Dummies and being exposed to Amazon Web Services in its early days. I concluded that the benefits of cloud computing would result in it becoming the default IT platform in the near future…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Brian Wallace.

As you can imagine, new technologies have brought many changes to the performance of server class CPUs beginning from the Pentium era. CPU performance itself has historically been measured by clock speed and front side bus of the processor. Clock speed is the speed at which a microprocessor executes instructions. The front side bus is the digital pathway connecting the CPU to the motherboard. Higher bus speed means faster communication with the rest of the system.

In 1993, the original Pentium featured a clock speed of 60 MHz and a front side bus speed that ranged from 60-66 MHz. Three years later, the Pentium II would boast clock speeds that ranged from 233-450 MHz and front side bus speed that ranged from 66-100 MHz. Many breakthroughs happened in the early 2000s…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

IBM (IBM) Labs has introduced—and patented; let’s not forget the importance of the patent—new technology that is intended to improve the security of cloud applications and mobile users. The technology aims to help businessess increase cloud security and support secure transactions by preventing mobile devices from accessing malicious software code, even if it was encrypted after it became infected.

The IBM technology was developed as a result of the increasingly common bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend that is seeing more and more employee-owned devices enter the workplace and connect to corporate data, applications and services. According to the patent (U.S. Patent #8,341,747, in case you want to look it up), the invention is listed as a "method to provide a secure virtual machine launcher."…

Grazed from ITWorld. Author: Nancy Gohring.

Today Cisco becomes the latest to make an announcement in the desktop-as-a-service market. It is offering a set of products to cloud providers so that they can offer DaaS to end users, based on either VMware’s Desktone or Citrix’s desktop virtualization technology. The announcement follows VMware’s acquisition of Desktone in October and Amazon Web Services’ entry into the market in November with its own desktop service for businesses. What’s driving all of this activity, given that desktop virtualization has been stagnant for years? Here are a few reasons for the buzz around DaaS:

–Consumerization of IT. “Increasing mobility and flexible workstyles in the midst of rising compliance needs — including the need to support multiple OSs and device types that are often owned or managed by the employee instead of the company — means that companies need simpler ways to provide secure, managed access to Windows desktops, applications and other systems of record behind the company firewall,” said Forrester’s Dave Johnson…

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Fifty percent of organizations will spend more on IT in 2014, investing heavily in public and private cloud-enabling technologies like infrastructure and virtualization, according to a survey of 1,000 IT professionals. However, half of all respondents participating in cloud initiatives within their organizations need more education on the technology and note their current skillsets do not adequately prepare them to do their jobs well in the coming year.

The survey, conducted by next generation IT monitoring software provider ScienceLogic, found that lack of education is not the only headache employees will face in the coming year. While IT spend is increasing in 2014, survey results reveal a lack of industry investment in employees, with 40 percent of respondents confirming they would make the same or less money year-over-year in 2014…

Grazed from eCommerceTimes. Author: Editorial Staff.

Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud is a must-have reference guide for any IT manager or sysadmin whose job involves working with computer systems that are tethered to the cloud. Author Brendan Gregg is no newcomer to writing definitive books on computer networks and system performance, but his latest release could well be his best work so far. Gregg received the 2013 LISA Award for Outstanding Achievement in System Administration. He is lead performance engineer at Joyent; before that, he was a Solaris kernel engineer at Sun Microsystems.

Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud is a detailed guide to optimizing systems performance. It treats a topic of immense importance in today’s enterprise computing environments. Large-scale enterprise, cloud and virtualized computing environments face serious new challenges…