Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

Buffaloed by the task of figuring out which cloud provider offers the best deal? A free service called PlanForCloud.com will do it for you, incorporating 12,000 different pricing possibilities offered by six different cloud vendors. Just plug in the resources you plan to use and compare the results.

Launched in February 2012, PlanForCloud.com was acquired by RightScale in June. RightScale maintains it as a free service and updates it with the frequent price changes that occur in the cloud market. For example, PlanForCloud has captured 29 prices reductions in cloud services over the past 14 months. Amazon alone during that period announced eight core service price reductions — for servers, storage or network bandwidth — and 11 reductions on add-on services such as database, caching and messaging…

Grazed from DataCenter Knowledge. Author: Bill Kleyman.

Today’s IT environment is being built around direct efficiencies. This means better resource utilization, improved monitoring, and the consolidation of enterprise systems. Many organizations are building a business around an efficient and well-controlled IT environment. The idea is to create an IT as a service model where administrators can allow for self-provisioned services and automation to help control administrative overhead.

This is where technologies around the converged infrastructure can really help. Intelligent storage systems can help an organization cut costs and control very vital resources. In HP’s whitepaper, we learn how utility storage creates a unified platform for efficiency and growth. Directly modeled for the needs of virtualization and cloud computing, HP’s converged storage infrastructure leads to three very direct benefits:…

Grazed from IBTimes. Author: Editorial Staff.

The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) has awarded $350,000 to the Cycle One team led by NJVC and members including Boeing, The Aerospace Corporation and Open Geospatial Consortium. Together they will create a cloud infrastructure to support a concept proposed by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA): namely, can cloud computing deliver services to non-traditional NGA users?

The project is designed to demonstrate the interoperability and movement of data in an open-cloud-based demonstration. NGA will provide unclassified data that supports a scenario depicting the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. NCOIC’s foundational model is based on a series of successful lab interoperability demonstrations, also based on Haiti, it conducted four times during 2010…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Abdul Salam.

Even though, cloud computing has become exceedingly common, the fact remains that people seem to have differing opinions when it comes to its definition. The issue is not the lack of definition or the lack of an agreed coherent one, but rather the lack of apparent direction. Cloud computing is an extremely large topic, but it is being used in very specific ways. In the same vein that makes it hard for people to stay on the same page when talking about general computing without agreeing to something specific, people need to be specific when they talk about cloud computing. This is because it encompasses infrastructure, architecture, deployment, applications, development, automation, operations, management, optimization and a dozen other topics that are equally beneficial and all would be a valid topic when referring to cloud computing.

Because of this inherent confusion with regards to conversation structuring, Yung Chou, a Technology Evangelist of the Microsoft US Developer and Platform Evangelism Team, devised an easy to remember principle that we can all agree on and use as a proper base when discussing cloud computing. The principle is called the “5-3- 2 Principle” and refers to the five essential characteristics of cloud computing, the three cloud service delivery methods, and the two deployment models which when put together properly describes what cloud computing is…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Mikael Ricknäs.

In a bid to improve data security, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched AWS CloudHSM, which uses a separate appliance to protect cryptographic keys used for encryption. There are already a variety of alternatives for protecting sensitive data on Amazon’s cloud. But for some applications and data that are subject to contractual or regulatory mandates for managing cryptographic keys, additional protections may be necessary. Here is where the CloudHSM (Hardware Security Module) fits in, according to Amazon.

Until now, organizations’ only options were to keep data locally or to deploy equipment in-house to protect encrypted data in the cloud, which has a negative impact on application performance, it said. The service is powered by a Luna SA appliance from SafeNet that has a tamper-resistant enclosure. An enterprise can store its keys on the unit and use them to encrypt and decrypt data, while having full control, according to Amazon. Potential applications include database encryption, authentication and authorization, document signing, and transaction processing…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Joe Panettieri.

Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) top cloud computing executives are set to invade the OpenStack Summit (April 15-18, Portland, Oregon). HP’s strong presence at the show will come at a critical time. Like IBM, Dell and other rivals, HP is building its public cloud atop OpenStack, the open source cloud platform. But it’s difficult to judge just how much progress HP’s Converged Cloud strategy is making — especially as public clouds like Amazon Web Services seemingly gain momentum by the hour.

During previous OpenStack conferences, former HP Senior VP Zorawar ‘Biri’ Singh often delivered keynotes and led media briefings. Singh was an engaging speaker who could describe highly technical topics to aspiring HP partners. But Singh exited HP in January 2013 — a move that surprised many HP and cloud industry pundits…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Melissa Tejada.

Personal mobile cloud computing is in demand. That’s according to a new survey that shows significant growth in the popularity and usage of cloud services like data back-up and content sharing. Midsize businesses are following this fast growing area of mobile because it directly affects their BYOD and security policies.

Consumer Cloud Habits

Digital security company Gemalto conducted a survey that looked at consumer back-up and digital sharing habits. Those interviewed included the digitally savvy to those wary of the technology. Half of them had lost valuable personal content and one third admitted they don’t have a back-up solution. The results of the survey, featured on ITP.net, shows consumers are ready for their own cloud-based backup and sharing services. 77 percent of those surveyed said that security was a must, 80 percent would use the cloud if their mobile operator provided it, and 60 percent would pay more to get the cloud services they want…

Grazed from Investors.com. Author: Rheinhardt Krause.

Stiffer competition and consolidation is in the air in the cloud. Smaller service providers, such as Rackspace Hosting (RAX) and privately held SoftLayer, loom as takeover targets as more tech giants — including IBM (IBM) and Google (GOOG) — expand in the cloud computing market. Large tech players have the scale — massive data centers packed with servers — that enable them to cut prices. They’re likely to dominate the cloud services market, says James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research.

"Cloud does favor scale; the top players have it in orders of magnitude that others can’t come close to," Staten said. "To compete with the Amazons of the world, they’re going to need scale and to build out data centers in front of customer demand." Amazon.com’s (AMZN) Amazon Web Services (AWS), the fast-growing cloud computing arm of the online retailer, faces a new challenger in Google. It’s expanding its Google Compute Engine cloud service…

Grazed from PR Newswire. Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud Technology Partners, the leader in transforming businesses with cloud solutions, today announced the appointments of David Linthicum , Lisa Noon and Brian Ott to its executive team. The addition of such well-known and highly respected thought leaders and technologists demonstrates that Cloud Technology Partners is not only universally recognized as a global leader in cloud strategy, design and delivery, but also prides itself on bringing together the industry’s premier cloud experts to work collaboratively towards a common goal: to provide clients with the cloud solutions that position them to be more innovative and competitive in their respective markets.

"The experience and mastery that David, Lisa and Brian bring to the table is nothing short of extraordinary," said Chris Greendale , Founder and CEO, Cloud Technology Partners. "Their proven ability to establish compelling visions, influence and motivate teams, spark progressive thinking and transform enterprise organizations will be critical as we continue to grow." Greendale continued, "Of course, these additions are hugely valuable for our clients as well. David, Lisa and Brian, together with our select group of cloud experts, will provide our clients with an unparalleled wealth of cloud knowledge and ensure we deliver the most advanced and sensible cloud solutions possible."…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

Alert Logic’s latest cloud security report has summarised that cloud security providers (CSPs) are “inherently no less secure than enterprise data centres”, and that cloud security threats continue to follow a consistent pattern. In its State of Cloud Security Report, subtitled “Targeted Attacks and Opportunistic Hacks”, the network security provider observed over 45,000 security incidents and found that some things don’t change; Web application attacks are the biggest threat for IT infrastructures.

The top three incident classes, for cloud hosting providers, were Web application attacks (52%), followed by brute force (30%) and vulnerability scans (27%). This compares interestingly with enterprise data centres, which saw malware and brute force as the number one incident class (49%). Perhaps unsurprisingly, brute force accounted for the most frequent type of assault, given brute force hackers try a wide variety of combinations in order to get in…