Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

One of the largest potential savings of cloud computing is the ability to shut off the hourly-charge meter when the server instance isn’t being used. But many users sign up for a cloud server as if they plan to use it every minute of every day for the next year. That’s one finding from the statistics from RightScale’s PlanForCloud, a free tool customers can use to forecast anticipated cloud spending.

RightScale, a front end cloud workload management service, acquired PlanForCloud, an Edinburgh, Scotland, firm, last year and has kept its free online service available at www.planforcloud.com. On July 23, the company announced that PlanForCloud had completed cloud cost forecasting for 9,500 deployments with an expected cloud service use amounting to $1,016,619,975…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

The after-effects of PRISM means that companies are much less likely to use US-based cloud service providers (CSPs), according to a survey from the Cloud Security Alliance. 56% were less likely to use US-based providers, with one in 10 going as far to say that they’d cancelled a project which used US CSPs as a result. Only 3%, interestingly, said their confidence in US vendors had increased.

It’s noticeable that, from the vendors’ perspective, their confidence had not been diminished. 64% said the incident had not hindered their prospects of conducting business outside the US. Yet in terms of general security policy, respondents did not feel at ease about governmental transparency and legitimacy. Almost half (47%) of those polled said that their country’s processes in obtaining criminal information were “poor…there is no transparency in the process and I have no idea how often the government accesses my information.”…

Grazed from MoneyMorning. Author: David Mamos.

Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX) is currently the number two provider of cloud computing. The company has been under the microscope lately as its stock has dropped nearly 45% year-to-date. But the microscope is not just fixated on Rackspace, it’s also focused on the entire cloud computing sector. This sector is growing rapidly with analysts speculating enthusiastically that the overall cloud market could reach anywhere from $40 billion to $70 billion by 2016 or earlier.

But with extreme growth comes extreme competition. This competition is not coming from the under $6 billion market cap companies similar to Rackspace. The company’s competition comes from the largest names in tech – Microsoft and industry leader Amazon. For those unfamiliar with the term "cloud computing" the business is quite simple to describe…

Grazed from Digi-Key. Author: PR Announcement.

Digi-Key has announced the signing of a distribution agreement with Electric Imp, a company which supplies cloud services and associated wi-fi-enabled hardware platform to connect devices to the Internet. Two versions of the Wi-Fi-enabled Imp hardware, the small user-removable card (imp001) and solder-down module (imp002), are available.

The systems runs the proprietary Imp OS and the platform also features a customisable API, allowing users to control their devices over the Internet and access external web services “Connectivity is the name of the game in today’s technology-driven society,” said Mark Zack, vice president, global semiconductor product at Digi-Key. “Electric Imp is blazing a trail,” said Zack.

Grazed from CSO. Author: Editorial Staff.

‘Slowly, surely, stealthily but siloed’ is the current state of cloud computing according to Logicalis Australia from a recent mid-level poll of IT professionals around current and planned cloud uptake. The survey suggested an alarming trend: a increasing lack of control by the technology department with IT spend shifting to other departments resulting in a rise in siloed skills and resources.

IT professionals feel they are appropriately skilled for cloud computing but that unauthorised use of hosted apps and services (‘IT by stealth’) is direct result of senior management policies and attitudes that ignore the potential of cloud services. Interestingly, almost 70% believe that the new delivery model promised by cloud computing fundamentally affects the role of the CIO…

Grazed from EcoSeed.org. Author: JJ Moore.

Cloud computing has revolutionized the IT industry for the past decade and is still developing creative ways to solve current problems. Innovations such as cloud storage and non-native applications are unimaginable 10 years ago but a reality nowadays. Companies and research institutes are slowly moving to the cloud to address their computing needs. Services and applications are also common in the cloud right now. So why is the cloud attractive to the public and private sectors?

Time and Money

The cloud takes advantage of a centralized system and updates information real-time. Businesses with time sensitive data are quick to grab this opportunity and harness the efficiency of the cloud. For example, medical researches that needed months of in-house number crunching moved to distributed systems, significantly reducing computing time and expenses…

Grazed from ITWorld. Author: Zach Miners.

Google has introduced a cheaper rival product to the Apple TV set-top box with Chromecast, a small portable device that streams video and music from people’s computers and mobile devices to their televisions. The product, which will retail for US$35, will be available in the U.S. now from Amazon, BestBuy.com and Google’s Play Store. It will also be available from brick-and-mortar Best Buy stores starting Sunday, Google executives announced Wednesday during a meeting with the media in San Francisco. Google is working to bring the device to other countries as quickly as possible, executives said.

More than 200 billion videos are watched online each month globally, said Sundar Pichai, head of Android, Chrome and apps at Google, who hosted the event. But it is difficult to watch those videos on a television, Pichai said, adding, "we want to make this better."…

Support for the open source distributed storage technology will allow Flexiant’s customers to store their customer data including disks and images on the Ceph distributed storage system. The benefits include reduced hardware costs and increased scalability by eliminating centralized storage.

Grazed from SBWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Reportstack, provider of premium market research reports announces the addition of Global SaaS-based Enterprise Resource Planning Software Market 2012-2016 market report to its offering Analysts forecast the Global Software-as-a-Service based Enterprise Resource Planning (SaaS-based ERP) Software market to grow at a CAGR of 13.93 percent over the period 20122016. One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the increasing demand from SMEs. The market has also been witnessing increased influence from social media and mobile apps. However, data security issues and the lack of confidence of consumers could pose a challenge to the growth of this market.

Global SaaS-based ERP Market 20122016, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market in the Americas, the EMEA, and the APAC regions; it also covers the Global SaaS-based ERP Software market landscape and its growth prospects in the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market…

Grazed from FCW. Author: Frank Konkel.

Amazon Web Services has filed a complaint against the federal government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, challenging the need for and scope of corrective action taken by the Central Intelligence Agency in following recommendations made by the Government Accountability Office. GAO made the recommendations to the CIA in June in sustaining a bid protest filed in February by IBM after the CIA awarded AWS a contract worth up to $600 million over four years to build a private cloud for the entire intelligence community.

Taking the issue to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims – the final destination for some of the most contentious procurement cases – could help AWS avoid another bid protest from IBM if the CIA were to again award AWS the cloud contract, potentially expediting a resolution…