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…

Grazed from DataCenter Knowledge. Author: Pete Johnson.

There’s been a lot of coverage in the tech press lately about “per minute” billing of cloud services, which pushes the envelope of flexibility and the method may be putting pressure on Amazon to do the same. But what’s next? It’s fair to say that, after seven years of cloud computing, we’ve seen what Cloud Computing 1.0 is about. While better than traditional hosting, it’s still not all it could be. Not by a long shot.

What does Cloud Computing 2.0 look like? Here are some ideas:

1: Choose # of CPU cores, RAM, and amount of disk space independently

How cloudy is it really when your IaaS provider makes you pick from a list of cookie cutter sizes that makes life easier for them instead of more flexible for you? Really, think about it. How can a service provider force you to pick what is right for your app or database? For most IaaS providers now, it’s like buying a car — when you want to get the leather seats but they are only available in the package that also has a sunroof that you don’t want. Why use an IaaS platform that makes you pay for resources you don’t need? How very 1.0!…

Grazed from MarketWired. Author: PR Announcement.

Open cloud application company, Cloud Elements, today announced the availability of a new developer tool to connect Twilio and SendGrid, the two leading cloud API platforms for SMS messaging, voice and email respectively via a single uniform application programming interface (API). The Cloud Elements Messaging Hub provides a single console to provision, integrate, monitor and maintain these services, providing an integrated messaging platform that delivers seamless interaction between the leading SMS, voice and email service providers. With Cloud Elements’ Messaging Hub, software developers now have the quickest and most cost-effective way to bring Twilio and SendGrid services into their SaaS applications.

Available without charge for the remainder of 2013, the Cloud Elements Messaging Hub allows developers to easily provision and integrate services within their specific environments with a simple click of a mouse. The Element’s singular dashboard offers automated monitoring, innovative tagging for granular account tracking, and seamless, interoperability between services (e.g., send an email, receive a text confirmation)…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Sourya Biswas.

“The Network is the Computer.”  – John Gage, former Chief Researcher and Vice President at Sun Microsystems.

The above statement was adopted as the company tagline by the networking giant that recently merged with Oracle. However, perhaps this phrase is truer than ever before today due to the rise of cloud computing. Indeed, the Network has assumed extraordinary importance in the Age of the Cloud.

Whatever be the functionality of the servers that power the Cloud, without a robust network they are just disparate components that can never function as one. To use an analogy, without the nervous system, the individual limbs cannot function effectively. As this paper says, “IT managers should enforce these (cloud-compatible) requirements across all major datacenter components, not just the server infrastructure. This includes building cloud-like scalability into the network itself.”…

Grazed from V3.co.uk. Author: Shaun Nichols.

Security firm Sophos has launched a new service that will allow users to better run the company’s Unified Threat Management (UTM) platform through the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute (EC2) computing cloud service.

The company said that it would also be adding an hourly licence option to its threat management service on Amazon. The option will be available for users to purchase on the AWS Marketplace. Security services have long been a feature on Amazon’s AWS Marketplace since the company launched the feature in 2012. The market allows third-party vendors to integrate their products with AWS virtual machine instances…