Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Brian Prince.

Concern about the security of cloud environments has impacted the adoption of cloud services since their inception. But an initiative recently launched by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) may help protect cloud infrastructure by developing more secure networks.  Dubbed the Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP), the initiative is a collaborative effort between security vendors and members of the CSA’s Enterprise User Council. The vision is to develop a framework of security controls that takes some of the pain out of network security.

According to the CSA, the Software-Defined Perimeter leverages known security concepts such as federation, Secure Assertion Markup Language (SAML), Transport Layer Security (TLS), and geo-location in a bid to control and manage connectivity from any device to the cloud infrastructure…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Robert Lawson.

Small and midsize businesses of all types are investing in cloud computing operations in one way or another. But why? According to the Indiana Star, businesses have discovered that their customers demand a more streamlined approach that is integrated with their expectations. Internal operations also flow with less disruption. Employees find that data can be accessed much more quickly and more easily. Many businesses, however, still find it wise to be selective about which information, if any, is stored virtually.

Efficiency of Operation

As Forbes journalist Louis Columbus pointed out in the Roundup of Cloud Computing Forecasts Update for 2013, time to market, more flexible IT support for business strategies and faster response to competitive conditions are the secret ingredients to the success of the cloud. Businesses want systems that keep pace with their strategies. The Roundup cited data from studies done by Gartner, McKinsey and Company and others. Gartner predicted that the bulk of spending by 2016 will be on cloud computing platforms and applications…

Grazed from The Var Guy. Author: Marie Alonso.

Sit back, relax and listen to the tale of Dropbox, an online storage service that scored more than 200 million content-loving consumers in five years. Recently, it was reported that the colossal cloud storage leader is looking to raise an additional $250 million at a valuation of $8 billion.

A valuation of $8 billion? That’s sky-scraping territory! According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Dropbox has always had a flair for the dramatic. Evidently, the company’s San Francisco offices are quite decadent, but why shouldn’t they be? Dropbox, founded in 2007 by innovative young minds Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, deserves to treat itself, in my opinion. It has garnered attention for raising an inconceivable—some may say even preposterous—$257 million in funding during its five-year ascent to greatness…

Grazed from LiveMint. Author: Moulishree Srivastava.

More enterprises are interested in investing in bring your own device (BYOD)—permitting employees to use their personal mobile devices including laptops, tablets and smart phones at work—and mobile technology than investing in big data analysis and cloud computing, which are touted as the next big thing, according to a survey conducted by International Business Machines (IBM) Corp.

The survey that included chief information officers (CIOs), chief marketing officers (CMOs), chief technical officers (CTOs) and other information technology (IT) decision makers said that while 57% of the respondents are planning to invest in BYOD and mobile technology for their companies, 47% of them are interested in investing in big data analytics and cloud computing…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Ellis Booker.

Line of business decisionmakers are more interested in cloud computing’s strategic potential than are their IT counterparts. That was one of the surprises in IBM’s latest global research into the cloud-computing phenomenon. The survey, released in late October, involved 800 companies in 13 countries and 24 industries. LOB executives are embracing software-, platform-, and infrastructure-as-a-service more quickly than their IT peers, the survey found.

"Three years from now, 72% of the people we surveyed in the line of business believe it’s going to be ‘strategically important’ to transforming their companies," said IBM’s VP of cloud services Ric Telford, who teased some of the research’s top-level findings during his keynote at last month’s Cloud Connect conference in Chicago…

Grazed from InfoChimps. Author: Editorial Staff.

The enterprise is currently in a ‘Big Data Limbo’, where leadership has begun, or is preparing to invest in analytics – but lacks clear direction with where and how to implement. The technology is powerful, and like the moniker suggests, “Big Data” is massive, leaving some executives with the impression that for these projects to be successful, IT departments must ready themselves to boil the proverbial ocean…

To view the Big Data infographic, visit http://www.cloudtweaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Big-Data-Info.jpg

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Joe Weinman.

CIOs are already addressing the opportunities and challenges of cloud computing. It is now time to consider the next phase of the cloud: the Intercloud. In the same way the Internet enabled interoperability between proprietary networks, the Intercloud will enable proprietary clouds to interoperate, and it will encourage third-party services such as cloud marketplaces.

The IEEE is developing the IEEE P2302™ Standard for Intercloud Interoperability and Federation. Also, a recently announced complementary IEEE Intercloud Testbed initiative is under way to ensure that the standards work under real-world conditions. A number of interesting technologies and concepts, such as the eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) and the Resource Description Framework (RDF), are under evaluation as part of a comprehensive architecture and engineering plan…

Grazed from NextGov. Author: Michael Scaturro.

If Germany’s special parliamentary session on U.S. surveillance this week was any indication, European politicians are still worked up about former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks. Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that the revelations had “tested” U.S.-German relations. Green Party politician Hans-Christian Strobele urged the German leader to thank Snowden and offer him asylum for discovering that her cell phone “was probably bugged.”

Merkel even got called a “scaredy-cat” for not standing up to Washington. The criticism comes as politicians in the region—from Estonia to Germany—are calling for the European Union to create a cloud-computing infrastructure of its own to compete with American providers like Amazon, Google, and Verizon…

Grazed from ChannelPartnersOnline. Author: Carl Meadows.

Many channel partners see cloud solutions as a threat to their hardware sales, but in the case of private clouds, they can be a boon. Whether an enterprise establishes its own private cloud or retains a private cloud hosting provider, the partner can still sell the cloud hardware and, with the latter, the partner also can resell cloud hosting services.

Indeed, channel partners should be happy if their customers use either a combination of cloud and traditional solutions — a hybrid environment. Why? Because all signals point to a huge increase in spending for private cloud computing by businesses and organizations over the next few years…

Grazed from PR NewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) today announced that it is a winner of the 2013 Cloud Computing Excellence Award for its cloud-based Workforce Optimization (WFO) suite. The award, from TMC’s Cloud Computing magazine, recognizes companies that are able to effectively leverage the cloud to bring new, differentiated offerings to the market.

NICE’s WFO suite is the first one fully available in the cloud, enabling greater flexibility, lower upfront costs, and faster implementation for contact centers, back offices, branches, and retail. Driven by real-time, cross-channel analytics and Voice of the Customer insights, the NICE WFO offering delivers targeted solutions for enhancing the customer experience, enhancing operational efficiency across the enterprise, and improving employee performance. Organizations can mix and match on-premise and cloud-based applications, including Recording, Quality Management, Interaction Analytics, Workforce Management, Performance Management, Incentive Compensation Management, and Voice of the Customer…