Grazed from MarketWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) today announced the formation of the Incident Management and Forensics Working Group, a new CSA Working Group that will focus on the examination of incident handling and forensics in cloud environments.

To better understand the state of the cloud forensics industry, the Incident Management and Forensics Working Group conducted an assessment of current issues and published its findings in the Working Group’s first white paper, entitled: "Mapping the Forensic Standard ISO/IEC 27037 to Cloud Computing."…

Grazed from Xtium.  Author: Shawn Fichter.

Stress, hassle, time. These are all words typically associated with disaster recovery tests. In the past 15 years I’ve spent working in the business continuity space, I’ve seen DR tests be a burden. However if done correctly and properly documented, they don’t have to be. So what do you need to do to ensure you’re prepared for the inevitable? Here are the common questions I’ve heard from customers about DR tests over the years.

What is a disaster recovery test?

A DR test is a process to evaluate the procedures that an organization has in place for ensuring business continuity in the event of a major service interruption or catastrophic event. Tests allow service providers and their customers to ensure the integrity of protected data as well as execute and refine processes for making that data available in the event of a declared disaster…

Grazed from TechWorld.  Author: Sophie Curtis.

Businesses worldwide need to re-think their use of cloud computing, in light of recent revelations around the PRISM and Tempora surveillance programmes, according to independent privacy advocate Caspar Bowden.

Speaking at a House of Commons debate, chaired by Labour MP Tom Watson, Bowden said that the UK is in an “extremely exposed” position, because of its relationship with the US National Security Agency (NSA)…

Grazed from InformationWeek.  Author: Michael Endler.

On Thursday, Microsoft clarified the importance of Azure to its transitioning identity. If developers buy into the vision, Microsoft could use the popularity of mobile platforms, including iOS and Android, to become a cloud powerhouse.   During Thursday’s keynote at Microsoft’s Build conference, the company announced several new services for Windows Azure, its cloud computing platform. Microsoft hopes the offerings will inspire developers to make Azure the cloud infrastructure of choice, even for apps that run on non-Windows platforms.

Microsoft also touted not only the growing number of companies that use the platform but also how Azure supports many of the company’s homegrown products, such as Office 365.  Consistent with the Wednesday keynote led by CEO Steve Ballmer, Thursday’s session emphasized that Microsoft is a company in the midst of rapid transition, much of it fueled by the rise of mobile devices…

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author: Salman Ul Haq.

QoS of Cloud service providers has always been evolving and improving over time and is one of the primary discussion points in almost every gathering of Cloud service providers and practitioners. With the shift to Cloud computing around the world, researchers are keen to dig out the active and potential issues of quality of service that can affect the overall performance of a Cloud.

Quality of service standards like Service Level Agreements (SLA) are of immense importance in the multifarious communication protocols of Cloud computing as they facilitate the end users, brokers and service providers to communicate across different Cloud based channels with ease and elevated productivity. QoS aware Clouds are being regarded as the need of the hour because of their augmented usability. Quality of service is the most decisive factor in the Cloud computing as it can build or tarnish the image of the service providers…

Grazed from CloudPro.  Author: Jane McCallion.

Business software vendor Sage has opted for Windows Azure to deliver its Sage 200 Online cloud service.  Aimed specifically at medium-size businesses, this is the second accountancy Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering from the Newcastle-based vendor after Sage One, which was launched in 2011.

However, while Sage One was built on the Amazon Web Services platform, the company has instead plumped for Windows Azure to host Sage 200 Online.  Stuart Lynn, CIO at Sage, told journalists at a media event to mark the launch that Azure had been an obvious choice when deciding to take Sage 200 to the cloud…

Grazed from TechCrunch.  Author: Leena Rao.

Replicon, the developer of a cloud time tracking and expense management application, has raised $20 million Series A funding led by The Social + Capital Partnership and Emergence Capital Partners. This is actually the first time in the company’s 17-year history of raising money from institutional investors.

Co-founders Raj Narayanaswamy and Lakshmi Raj have largely bootstrapped the SaaS company on their own since its inception in 1996. Replicon’s products allow you to track project time and expenses, client billing, employee work schedules, and employee time and attendance. The company was originally founded in Canada but moved to Silicon Valley three years ago…