Grazed from BusinessWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Zadara™ Storage, Ltd., announced today that Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) has invested $3 million in Zadara. The two companies will be working together to introduce innovative Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) products using cutting-edge technologies they have each developed. With today’s funding, Zadara has raised a total of $10 million to date, and will use the additional funds to expand the sales, support and engineering teams.

As everything-as-a-service become a mantra and software-defined efficiencies reinvent the data center, IT teams and service providers alike are looking to accelerate deployment of enterprise-class applications in the cloud but in ways that are private, high-performance, elastic, scalable and flexible…

Grazed from InfoSecurity. Author: Editorial Staff.

An audit of NASA’s progress in adopting cloud-computing technologies has revealed that the space agency’s current use of cloud falls short of expectations in IT governance and risk management. While noting that NASA has been a pioneer in cloud computing, "having established its own private cloud-computing data center called Nebula in 2009 at the Ames Research Center (Ames)," the Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit levies four particular criticisms of its current state of cloud adoption.

The first is that governance needs to be strengthened. "We found that the Agency OCIO [office of the chief information officer] was not aware of all the cloud services NASA organizations had acquired or which service providers they used." Furthermore, only 3 of 15 agency CIOs stated that coordinating with the OCIO was necessary before moving into the cloud. In short, governance is poor if not absent…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: CJ Arlotta.

Cloud backup and data protection services provider VaultLogix has enhanced its hybrid cloud backup solution with a new version for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and value-added resellers (VARS) called VaultLogix Advantage 11.3.

The company said this new release includes a redesigned backend architecture, which lays the groundwork for future advancements and releases. The company said that the new version does a better job of helping customers to balance their backup and storage needs with the ability to recover business critical data…

Grazed from PCWorld. Author: Chris Kanaracus.

Oracle is preparing to roll out the latest member of its family of "engineered systems" that combine software and hardware, with the upcoming product focused on virtualization. The company will discuss the new system on Aug. 13, during a webcast featuring Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president of Linux and virtualization, according to an announcement on Oracle’s website.

No proper name for the new machine was listed in the post, or a specific general-availability date. An Oracle spokeswoman said Wednesday that no further information was available at this time. Customers who buy the virtualization appliance will be able to "install and deploy [their] virtual infrastructure in just hours," according to the blog post. The system "provides a converged infrastructure powered by Oracle VM server virtualization and Oracle Virtual Networking, dramatically enhancing data center operations," it adds…

Grazed from FedTech. Author: Wylie Wong.

A real-time picture of the battlefield is an essential tool for U.S. combat forces, one that can provide a critical advantage over adversaries. If used effectively, information can be as important a weapon as any in the U.S. arsenal. The Army compiles this picture by sifting through petabytes of data, such as high-definition video from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as well as from cameras on the ground or attached to soldiers.

But putting the picture together and learning what it means can take hours, a time span that could mean the difference between life and death. The Army plans to speed up the process by equipping combat troops with small cloud computing systems that can quickly analyze extensive video footage and other intelligence to warn soldiers of impending threats…

Grazed from Calgary Herald. Author: Lloyd Lobo.

The Canadian Cloud Council and Boast Capital have just announced The Cloud Factory, a two day conference that will bring together senior enterprise executives, corporate M&A teams, venture capitalists, enterprise startups, industry disruptors, technology thought leaders and global media to discuss best practices and innovations in Big Data, Enterprise and the Cloud.

The Cloud Factory will be held on April 7 and 8, 2014 at the Banff Centre and will culminate in the first ever Canadian Cloud Awards dubbed as the Oscar’s of Cloud Computing. Each day will focus on a distinct theme – Democratizing the Enterprise and Growth Hacking the Enterprise – featuring keynote presentations, fireside chats, panel discussions, enterprise startup pitches, demo stations and post-event excursions and activities. The opening speakers for The Cloud Factory include Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat and Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware…

Grazed from Bloomberg. Author: Sarah Frier.

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), facing a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into how it reports revenue from offsite cloud services, said it stands by its accounting methods. IBM is cooperating with the SEC in the probe, which it learned about in May, it said today in a filing. The company books its revenue from cloud services, such as storing customers’ data and software applications remotely, under generally accepted accounting principles, said Ed Barbini, a spokesman for Armonk, New York-based IBM.

“IBM’s reporting of cloud revenue is the result of a rigorous and disciplined process, and we are confident that the information we have provided has been consistently accurate,” Barbini said. Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty has identified cloud computing as one of IBM’s chief sources of growth amid a slowdown in demand for hardware and for consulting services…

Grazed from UC Strategies. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud Foundry is an open source platform-as-a-service being developed by Pivotal, the EMC-VMware big data startup; this is now being backed by IBM. This move means that IBM will be able to assist developers get apps to the cloud, without worrying about the compatibility of technology.

IBM WebSphere Liberty is a lightweight version of IBM’s WebSphere Application Server, and is the first product to emerge from the IBM-Pivotal partnership. It helps developers respond to enterprise and market needs more quickly by getting less complex, rapid development and deployment of Web, mobile, social and analytic applications using fewer resources…

Grazed from BroadWay World. Author: Editorial Staff.

PRISM has brought many European and Asian companies to believe that using a U.S.-based cloud services provider is insecure and will allow the U.S. Government to snoop on their data. As a result, some are predicting a slow-down in cloud adoption, specifically the uptake of cloud services based in the United States. Unfortunately, the victim in this scenario is the enterprise themselves, since many of the leading and most in-demand cloud SaaS offerings are based in North America. But with the proper security solutions in place, enterprises can confidently adopt cloud services based anywhere in the world while keeping their data resident and within their full control, thereby eliminating concerns about 3rd parties accessing their sensitive corporate information.

Survey results recently released from the Cloud Security Alliance indicate that more than half of the non-U.S. residents questioned were less likely to use U.S.-based cloud services since becoming aware of the PRISM program. This sort of data has industry analyst firms such as GigaOM observing that PRISM may be a windfall for non-U.S. cloud providers. While there are some types of cloud services where the choice to move to a local provider may be fairly trivial, it becomes quite challenging at the SaaS “layer” of the cloud…

Grazed from PR NewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

EarthLink, Inc., a leading IT and communications provider, today announced that EarthLink ranks 15th among the world’s Top 25 Fastest Growing Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) based on percentage of revenue growth for 2012 versus 2011 according to Nine Lives Media’s third-annual Talkin’ Cloud 100 report. EarthLink was also listed among the world’s Top 100 CSPs in the report. In February of this year, EarthLink was ranked the number one managed service provider (MSP) on Nine Lives Media’s sister MSPmentor 501 Global Edition list and report identifying the world’s top 501 managed service providers (MSPs).

"As EarthLink continues its evolution as a Cloud and IT Service provider, we appreciate that Nine Lives Mediahas affirmed our robust growth in this sector," said Michael D. Toplisek, EarthLink Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing…