Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Serdar Yegulalp.

Apache CloudStack, software for creating and managing private cloud infrastructures and IaaS generally, is now in its second release — 4.2 — since becoming an Apache Software Foundation (ASF) project. Formerly a Citrix product, CloudStack was open-sourced and then donated to the ASF, where it became an ASF Top-Level Project — a mark of ASF prestige — in March. Citrix still offers Apache CloudStack as part of its commercial CloudPlatform product, but one can always download CloudStack itself and use that for free.

Chip Childers of the ASF uses the term "cloud orchestration software" to describe what CloudStack is meant to be about, and he stressed its wide adoption. "[CloudStack is] used in hundreds of production environments today, powering everything from large-scale public cloud providers, to small dev/test lab infrastructure, and everything in between," Childers said…

Grazed from TechRepublic. Author: Nick Hardiman.

The cloud enables big data processing for enterprises of all sizes by relieving a number of problems, but there is still complexity in extracting the business value from a sea of data. Cloud computing democratizes big data – any enterprise can now work with unstructured data at a huge scale. At first glance, it isn’t obvious why the unstructured data methods of the new big data world are even necessary. Even if new methods bring new business value, why not stay on-premise? Why bother with cloud databases?

The big data label

Big data is one of those new, shiny labels, like SDN, DevOps and cloud computing, that is both hard to ignore and hard to understand. There is no single “big data” type – it is a collective label stuck on unstructured data, the technology stack it inhabits, and the new business processes that are growing up around it…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

The Amazon Web Services content delivery network CloudFront wants to give its subscribers a way to present a more meaningful message than "server not found" when their users encounter a bad link.  CloudFront now lets subscribers customize the infamous 404 message so people trying to visit their business site won’t be left with the baffling dead end that "server-not-found" messages so often represent.

"We’ve added two new features that allow to you to configure how CloudFront handles error responses for your website. Error responses can occur for many reasons. For instance, a user might request objects that don’t exist (and receive a 404 Not Found response)," wrote AWS staff in announcing the service. "Or a user you haven’t authorized might attempt to download an object you have secured using CloudFront’s private content feature (and receive a 403 Forbidden response)."…

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Lee H. Badman.

Aruba Networks is launching a cloud-based Wi-Fi management offering, including Aruba Central, its cloud management system. So how does Aruba stack up against Aerohive, Airtight and Cisco Meraki on the cloud front? So far, I’m intrigued but not impressed.

Cloud-based networking is becoming a more popular alternative to traditional premises-based management. This market gained a significant endorsement when Cisco purchased Meraki in late 2012. Thus, Aruba’s expansion into cloud-managed offerings is hardly a surprise…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

ForeScout Technologies has partnered with Splunk (otherwise known as Those Guys with the Cool T-Shirts at tech conferences) to provide bi-directional interoperability between ForeScout CounterACT and Splunk Enterprise, as well as the new ForeScout App for Splunk Enterprise.

According to the two companies, the partnership combines ForeScout’s dynamic endpoint visibility, access and security capabilities with Splunk Enterprise’s advanced machine data analytics capabilities to provide enterprises with better threat insight and more automated control…

Grazed from DataCenter Knowledge. Author: Bill Kleyman.

Before the cloud boom, there were virtualization, storage, networking (WAN/LAN) and data center engineers. These folks were the pillars and pioneers of what we know as the modern cloud infrastructure. These are the people that helped build the foundation of the cloud in conjunction with application and software teams. Today, we still have these positions. However, new job titles have been created as well.

The growing demand for cloud services has similarly created a quickly growing need for cloud architects and engineers. A new IDC report sponsored by Microsoft and published by Forbes indicates that the demand for a cloud-ready IT force will grow by 26% through 2015. Furthermore over the next two to three years, more than 7 million new cloud-related industry positions will become available globally. Here’s the reality: although this industry is expected to grow rapidly in the future, there is a demand for cloud engineers now…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Archana Venkatraman.

About half of large enterprises will have adopted a hybrid cloud computing model in the next four years, according to analyst firm Gartner. The findings show an appetite among enterprises for cloud services that combine public cloud scalability and private datacentre security principles.

According to a Gartner special report on the outlook for cloud, hybrid cloud computing implementation will gather pace as private cloud matures. Hybrid cloud today is at the same level of adoption that private cloud was three years ago — actual deployments are low, but aspirations are high, said Gartner…

Grazed from CloudComputing News. Author: Lee Fisher.

Most households have many services to keeping things ticking. No two households are the same; they have different priorities, values and structures, and different services suit different households. Water, gas and electricity all come from separate service providers, so if the electricity goes down in a house, it is not left in the cold. Like a household, organisations are unique and something that works for one organisation, may not work for its competitors.

Choices, choices, choices

Like household utility services, cloud services are designed to bring agility, simplicity, efficiency and self-service capabilities to a business. Organisations have freedom of choice in terms of selecting infrastructure and services; but in order to make the right choice it is vital organisations have an understanding of what the business requires and the capabilities of existing infrastructure…

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Brandon Butler.

Looking to solidify its refocused efforts on private cloud platforms, Dell today rolled out new features to improve security and manageability of its offerings. Dell now offers a payment card industry (PCI)-compliant cloud computing service. It also rolled out a new choice that allows customers to rent Dell-owned and operated hardware in their data centers. Dell is also expanding its cloud-based applications, adding a disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) option.

The moves come months after Dell announced plans to refocus its cloud computing strategy more on its private cloud business, instead of the public cloud market. The company had been developing an OpenStack-powered public cloud, but it halted those development efforts to focus on private and managed clouds this summer…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Ali Din.

Bad weather can cost companies money. It is an unfortunate lesson to learn the hard way, but natural disasters like hurricanes, floods or super storms are dramatic examples of the value of cloud solutions when it comes to resiliency in the face of a catastrophe, and the ability to recover and resume operations as quickly as possible.

The problem is that many workers lack the ability to work remotely – when they are away from the office or transportation systems fail. IT systems in the cloud allow workers to conduct business from anywhere by accessing emails, documents, lines of business applications, and communicating online…