Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Steve Player.

IT professionals often view cloud computing as a challenge to on-premises implementations. While this is true, the cloud also provides the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) function with a ready way to rapidly deploy advanced planning approaches. Read on to discover how cloud computing enables rapid FP&A technology deployment and find responses to common objections to using the cloud.

The need for rapid deployment in FP&A

The FP&A department in most organizations faces tremendous demands because the planning function serves as the organizational brain. It reads inputs of current performance in light of a changing external environment, constantly develops evolving courses of action to transform current capabilities into what the expected future requires, and tries to keep the organization on the path to prosperity…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Deney Dentel.

Cloud computing can simply be described as computing based on the internet. In the past, people depended on physical computer storage or servers to run their programs. However, with the introduction of cloud computing, people as well as business enterprises can now access their programs through the internet. This kind of computing is rapidly growing in popularity and especially with small business enterprises. To understand why so many businesses are making the transition to cloud computing, let’s have a look at some of its benefits.

Cost savings of the cloud

Opting for the cloud helps a business save money in several ways. For instance, it eliminates the necessity to invest in storage hardware and other physical infrastructure like servers. Besides, a business does not need to hire technical personnel to maintain and service the infrastructure. With cloud service, you pay after certain duration of time depending on the plan you opt for. All you do is use the virtual storage space without giving much attention to the actual infrastructure…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Zack Whittacker.

The cloud has suffered a bad rap as of late, with Brussels-based bureaucrats calling on a new European cloud away from the U.S. in efforts to avoid PRISM-related spying. But stateside, where U.S. law applies to U.S. clouds and nobody seems to care because "that’s just how it goes," everything is great — particularly for the U.S. federal government, which certainly doesn’t have to worry about spying on itself.

So says the latest research from IDC, which puts U.S. federal cloud spending in the "through the roof" category. According to the figures, private clouds are leading the way — away from existing networks and infrastructure in a bid to enhance security and wedge a divide between corporate data and government data…

Grazed from HeroldOnline. Author: Editorial Staff.

Infinitely Virtual, a leading provider of Cloud Server computing services, today announced support for Windows 2012 and Windows 8, a move that marks the completion of its VMware vSphere® 5.1 upgrade cycle. The company recently announced its implementation of vSphere 5.1, a comprehensive update of the world’s most widely deployed virtualization platform. The foundation of the VMware vCloud Suite, vSphere 5.1 includes more than 100 enhancements and new features aimed at delivering optimum performance across all applications.

Among the vSphere 5.1 enhancements is support for Windows 2012 and Windows 8. vShield Manager 5.1, a virtual appliance that is part of the vSphere upgrade, is integral to that support, providing firewall protection, traffic analysis, and network perimeter services to protect the virtual infrastructure. vShield Manager — the centralized management component of vShield — is used to monitor and push configurations to vShield App, vShield Endpoint, and vShield Edge implementations…

Grazed from NYTimes.  Author: Quentin Hardy.

Michael S. Dell is fighting a battle over a company that many say is doomed.Though his namesake company revolutionized the PC business, it missed the consumer shift to smartphones and tablets, and also missed the move of corporate computing to data centers and cloud-based networks. By trying to take the business private, Mr. Dell, in a sense, is trying to turn back the clock.

“Information technology moves faster than anything — even the worlds of fashion and retail don’t change as much,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of management at Yale University who said he had a Dell investment. “How do you keep the revolution forever young?”…

Grazed from TechRadar.  Author: Kane Fulton.

Fujitsu Laboratories claims to have developed a new infrastructure-as-a-service platform technology for its data centres that can configure and deploy physical servers on-demand on a per-user basis within 10 minutes.

While virtual IaaS servers are typically deployed on-demand, physical IaaS deployments can take several days after being ordered by the customer because service operators need to manually install servers and software in the data centre…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: David Deans.

We’ve certainly come a long way. Over the last couple of years, we’ve witnessed the trials and tribulations of the early-adopters of managed cloud services, and we’ve observed how the offerings have matured to attain broad-based market acceptance.

Cloud computing has become pervasive within today’s forward thinking companies. It’s already a transformative force throughout the global networked economy. Every enterprise that uses Business Technology is either considering or implementing cloud solutions — to create a strategic advantage over their late-adopter industry peer group in the marketplace…

Grazed from TheVar Guy.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Now that Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform is available, The VAR Guy has some advice for the open source company: Red Hat (RHT) needs to hijack OpenStack and the open source cloud conversation — for the good of channel partners. Here’s why.

As The VAR Guy’s Chris Tozzi reported earlier this week: Red Hat will be building a partner program around its OpenStack offering, beginning with "a small set of pilot solution provider and systems integration partners in select geographies" and scaling up from there.  That’s fantastic news as OpenStack enters its third chapter…

Grazed from ADTMag.  Author: John K. Waters.

Oracle today announced the 12c release of its Cloud Application Foundation, an integrated middleware platform for computing across conventional and cloud environments. This release includes a major update of the platform’s primary components: Oracle’s WebLogic 12c app server (v12.1.2) and Oracle’s Coherence 12c in-memory data grid (v12.1.2). It also integrates Oracle’s Enterprise Manager 12c R3 to provide the platform’s management component, and Oracle Database 12c; both of these updates were released on July 1.

Grazed from eCommerce Times.  Author: Editorial Staff.

A persistent myth in the tech world is that major enterprises in highly regulated industries are risk-averse and reluctant to adopt new technology innovations. In the case of the financial services sector, this has not been the case for years, and it is being disproved again as a growing number of financial institutions aggressively pursue a widening array of cloud computing alternatives.

One of the foundations for this myth in the cloud arena has been the initial small size of Software as a Service deployments. For instance, because Salesforce.com’s average deal size for many years was approximately 10 users, many industry observers misinterpreted this figure as indicating that SaaS was attractive only to small and medium-sized businesses.  In reality, SaaS was being adopted incrementally within a broad assortment of enterprises by disgruntled employees and business units via the clandestine procurement process we now refer to as "shadow IT" or the "consumerization of IT."…