Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Jan Stafford.

In the early days of cloud computing projects, platform as a service (PaaS) was perceived as a way for dedicated providers to offer functionality on demand. Now, major enterprises look at using PaaS concepts to expand their core competencies, improve engagement with existing customers and provide new revenue streams. At the recent WSO2 Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, enterprise architects from the Boeing Co. and Trimble Navigation Ltd. elaborated on this vision. Boeing, for example, is using service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles behind a new PaaS platform. Called The Boeing Edge, the system promises to reshape the way Boeing connects with its customers in the airline business, said Jim Crabbe, senior product manager at Boeing.

PaaS enables a paradigm change, bringing continuous improvement in products and services that solve problems for its staff and customers, Crabbe said. "Just forklifting something into the cloud does not give you the most value. You need to architect your application for the cloud," he explained…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Sean Michael Kerner.

As is the case with companies all around the world, organizations in China are considering the cloud as a vehicle to serve their computing needs. In a number of sessions at the OpenStack Summit here, new statistics emerged that detail the state and direction of cloud computing, particularly OpenStack cloud computing in China. Forrester analysts James Staten and Charlie Kun Dai provided their views during a session in which the pair provided survey results on what is actually going on in China. In a survey of 150 cloud and virtualization practitioners in China, 33 percent said that they are considering using OpenStack to build private or public cloud solutions—or both—to deliver OpenStack services.

While 28 percent of those polled said that they currently have no plans for deployment and are currently just learning about the architecture and the technology, 26 percent of respondents said that they are considering using OpenStack to build a private cloud system for their own companies’ needs. Of the respondents who are already engaged in some form of OpenStack initiative, 51 percent indicated that that are at the beginning of the process, while 26 percent said that they have already begun internal testing. Additionally, 16 percent indicated that they are already in active development, and only 7 percent said that they have actually begun online operations…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Sue Poremba.

Midsize businesses are turning to data centers-centric cloud computing for Web hosting, for easier collaboration and for storage of critical business applications. However, according to a new survey by AlgoSec featured on Softpedia, as organizations migrate applications to the cloud, most will face a connectivity disruption.

"Critical business applications fuel today’s data centers, but security teams lack visibility on how security activities impact the business," according to Nimmy Reichenberg, vice president of Marketing and Business Development at AlgoSec, quoted in an October 29 Total Telecom article. "As a result, provisioning connectivity for data center applications is time-consuming." This, in turn, affects business agility while increasing the risk of breaches, particularly security breaches due to errors in the firewall configuration…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

The International Association of Cloud & Managed Service Providers (MSPAlliance®) http://www.mspalliance.com today announced that it would be having discussions regarding cloud, security and data specific initiatives, with key industry leaders across the globe at executive networking dinners in Munich, Germany; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Sydney, Australia.

MSPAlliance Executive Networking Dinner events bring together industry professionals from the cloud and managed services industry to network and discuss business strategies and share best practices. The latest dinner series will address topics related to data security and privacy in the cloud and address country specific cloud initiatives.

Grazed from ITWorld. Author: Nancy Gohring.

The OpenStack PaaS market is heating up, with Ubuntu teaming up with Pivotal on a version of Cloud Foundry for OpenStack. Canonical’s founder Mark Shuttleworth made the announcement today in Hong Kong at the OpenStack Summit. You can watch a replay of his keynote online. “I’m really pleased to announce that Pivotal and Canonical will worth together to make the experience of Cloud Foundry on OpenStack absolutely fantastic,” he said.

But here’s where things get interesting. Canonical says it won’t only work on creating Cloud Foundry PaaS for Ubuntu clouds. “If there are vendors in the room who have OpenStack implementations, we’d like to certify and test on yours as well. This is not just for Ubuntu,” he said…

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Joseph Granneman.

The "year of the Linux desktop" has been prophesied by Linux supporters almost every year for the last decade. This was once a lofty goal in the Microsoft-dominated enterprise, but times are changing. Linux has grown into a formidable competitor in the smartphone and cloud computing markets, which has caught Microsoft off guard. More importantly, Google, IBM, Red Hat, Facebook, and Netflix have made huge investments into Linux innovations.

Now, with shrinking technology budgets and rising Microsoft licensing fees, it’s time for IT to seriously consider desktop Linux deployment as an alternative to Windows. The timing for this couldn’t be better: Windows 8.1 was just released, as was the latest version of Ubuntu, 13.10. Windows XP has just five months of support left, so companies need to make the switch to something new. Ubuntu may just have what companies need to support their desktop OS needs. I’ll look at various considerations for making the Linux desktop switch, including training and support, as well as potential complications…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

It just got a lot easier to build OpenStack clouds in a place where they were once deemed unlikely: atop the VMware-virtualized environment of enterprise data centers. VMware has formed a partnership with Mirantis to help its customers build OpenStack private clouds on top of their vSphere virtualized servers, as an alternative to using VMware’s own vCloud option.

VMware plus Mirantis is an unlikely pairing. Mirantis is a leading consulting firm on OpenStack implementations and an OpenStack partisan that has frequently suggested its distribution of OpenStack is a better alternative to VMware’s vCloud suite. Boris Renski, executive VP and co-founder of Mirantis, calls the VMware deal "a strategic partnership" that illustrates how both Mirantis and VMware "are trying to uphold customer choice."…

Grazed from MSPMentor. Author: CJ Arlotta.

Managed services provider (MSP) Datatility has partnered with data storage solutions provider Cleversafe, Inc. to create a multi-functional cloud storage platform for customers with storage challenges. Datatility’s Hydra Cloud, based on Cleversafe’s patented Dispersed Storage Network (dsNet) technology, aims to provide customers with a tiered public cloud storage solution that aligns storage needs with operating costs.

Cleversafe Product Strategy Senior Vice President Russ Kennedy said in an interview that Cleversafe’s solution does not use replication, unlike other open-source cloud storage solutions. This approach allows MSPs to lower costs, while increasing margins, he said…

Grazed from FinancialPost. Author: Editorial Staff.

Business software company Open Text is buying cloud-technology provider GXS Group in a cash-and-stock deal valued at approximately $1.17 billion. Open Text, based in Waterloo, Ont., will pay about $1.07 billion in cash and $100 million of its stock. When the deal closes, part of the cash portion of the purchase price will be used to repay some GXS debt.

GXS stockholders are expected to own about 2.1% to 2.4% of Open Text’s stock once the acquisition is complete. The company said the deal will expand OpenText’s information exchange and cloud service offerings, and expects the merged business will serve more than 80,000 customers once the transaction closes…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Antony Savas.

Apptio has unveiled a cloud-based system that allows enterprises to measure their IT costs and automatically compare them against industry peers. Apptio’s software-as-a-service (SaaS)system uses a combination of third-party benchmarking data from more than 3,000 organisations and its own anonymised customer service data.

Apptio’s new Cost Transparency solution automates the measurement of IT costs using the same categories and methods as its new IT Benchmarking solution, allowing customers to make direct annual or ongoing comparisons of costs against their industry peers…