Grazed from PropertyCasualty360. Author: Phillip Torres.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a model that can deliver business functionality while circumventing traditional issues related to the development, deployment, and support of large enterprise applications. SaaS is closely associated with centralized, remote architectures, cloud computing, and applications delivered via the Web and accessed via Web browsers.

Typically, SaaS vendors offer the enticement of lower deployment costs, with access to software on a subscription basis, and ongoing costs based on usage rather than outright ownership. A deployment model as attractive as this surely merits investigation by the insurance industry…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Centrify is taking its unified identity services offering to the Apple (AAPL) Mac world. The company launched Centrify User Suite, Mac Edition this week to provide Active Directory-based authentication, policy management, single sign-on (SSO) and user self-service for connected and remote Mac OS X systems.

Part of the announcement centers around the cloud capabilities being added for remote management and wipe of Mac computers. David McNeely, senior director of product management at Centrify, told Talkin’ Cloud this update of its Mac support essentially solves some of the SSO issues Mac users have had, but from a security standpoint, it also gives IT administrators and trusted advisors the ability to do remote wipes and remote locks via the cloud…

Grazed from Cloud Computing World Expo.  Author: Event Announcement.

For four years, the exhibition  World Expo Cloud Computing / Data Center Management Solutions  is becoming increasingly popular for a simple reason: it unveils the latest technologies and best practices of a professional computer finally mastered.  What is a perfectly controlled information system?  What is the Cloud?  What the best practices related to Cloud Security?

These points and more are the theme at the 2014 Cloud Computing World Expo, to be held in Paris La Defense, on April 9 -10, 2014 ...

For more information and registration, visit:  http://www.cloudcomputing-world.com

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Jonathan Birch.

Increasingly business complexity, broader technology adoption and changing expectations have forced a shift in the role of the IT department and how it delivers services. Part of this change has been driven by the advent of cloud computing, which has allowed CIOs to decrease operational budgets and focus more on designing and building applications as well as innovation.

The benefits of cloud computing are well established, but although it helps ‘do more with less’ it has drawbacks of its own. As such, what many companies are starting to realise is that a lack of integration between disparate applications and services is a major factor in the failure of organisations to achieve their larger strategic goals…

Grazed from MidsizeInsider. Author: Joe Hewitson.

Cloud computing, in all its ambiguous glory, offers midsize IT professionals an unparalleled combination of flexibility and power. It is this aspect of the popular technology that has led many to believe traditional IT operations will slowly become obsolete. After all, the cloud has an inherent streamlining effect on computing resource management and, with the advent of virtualized environments, many IT tasks can be completed with the click of a button. However, a new study discussed in a recent Forbes article paints an entirely different picture of the effects of the cloud on modern midsize IT.

Cloud Dynamics

Cloud adoption is growing. It’s growing in both midsize and enterprise IT firms, where the technology has expanded to account for 23 percent of IT spending. With cloud computing permeating many aspects of midsize IT, certain changes are inevitable…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the Leaders quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for On-Premises Application Platforms, for its solutions including Red Hat JBoss Middleware and OpenShift Enterprise, the company’s private Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering.

Gartner assessed 16 vendors in this Magic Quadrant, which profiles the leading application infrastructure vendors that provide IT developers and architects with complete end-to-end support for application projects for enterprise use. The full report is available here…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Thomas Claburn.

Mobile and desktop devices tend to be thought of as distinct things, but the boundaries between them have blurred considerably in recent years. It’s not just that devices can share data through cloud services and can run virtual machines. It’s that we’re starting to treat devices as interfaces for computing, rather than computers themselves. Our devices may be capable of handling local computation, but that’s becoming a separate consideration. Parallels Access, a new app for iPad, exemplifies this trend. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Parallels made a name for itself creating software to let Mac users run Windows.

Access allows iPad users to run applications on remote OS X and Windows computers through Apple’s tablet. Sorry, no Android. There’s plenty of software that provides computer-to-computer remote access, such as Chrome Remote Access, TeamViewer and VNC. And mobile devices can do this too, through apps like LogMeIn Ignition…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

The enterprise data center is going to be with us for a long time, despite the growth in off-premises cloud computing, according to VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger. He didn’t make this assertion in his keynote address at VMworld Monday or in his press conference on Tuesday. Gelsinger’s prediction of legacy data center longevity happened after Marc Andreessen, former Netscape developer and now a venture capitalist, stated in an executive roundtable on the first day of VMworld that Silicon Valley startups shun building their own data centers.

"It’s extremely rare to see a capital expense budget in a Silicon Valley startup anymore. It consists of four laptops [and cloud computing]," Andreessen said. Gelsinger responded, "We disagree. People who say put everything into the cloud have never met a highly regulated customer…

Grazed from PR NewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

MIS Training Institute and the Cloud Security Alliance are pleased to announce additional speakers and sessions for this year’s EMEA Congress, to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 25th – 26th September 2013. The Congress this year will cover the latest technological trends, changes in the European and Global policy landscape, cross-border security and cybercrime response, and case studies from some of the world’s largest corporations. Newly added sessions include:

• A panel on the NSA PRISM program and its repercussions for cloud providers
• A keynote overview of the current priorities and state of play on the European Commission’s Cloud Strategy, with Ken Ducatel (European Commission) and Tim Grance (National Institute of Standards and Technology)…

Grazed from FierceEnterprise Communications. Author: David Weldon.

If they haven’t already established a presence in the cloud, a vast majority of organizations are certainly considering it, according to new research from International Data Group (IDG). In its recently released report, "Cloud Computing: Key Trends and Future Effects," IDG found that 61 percent of enterprises have at least one application that is cloud-based in their organizations today. That number is up from 57 percent in 2012. Another 24 percent of enterprises plan to implement a cloud application within the next 12 months, and an additional 15 percent are planning to do so within one to three years.

The IDG report is significant for two reasons: its survey base (1,358 respondents, with 58 percent from the executive level); and the number of companion publications participating in the research: Computerworld, CIO, InfoWorld, ITworld, CSO and Network World. The survey was intended to investigate "how enterprises continue to struggle with security, integration and governance, while finding immediate value in collaboration and customer relationship management," according to the study report…