Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Ted Samson.

Cloud computing has grabbed the spotlight at this year’s RSA Conference 2013 in San Francisco, with vendors aplenty hawking products and services that equip IT with controls to bring order to cloud chaos. But the first step is for organization to identify precisely where the greatest cloud-related threats lie. To that end, the CSA (Cloud Security Alliance) has identified "The Notorious Nine," the top nine cloud computing threats for 2013. The report reflects the current consensus among industry experts surveyed by CSA, focusing on threats specifically related to the shared, on-demand nature of cloud computing.

First on the list is data breaches. To illustrate the potential magnitude of this threat, CSA pointed to a research paper from last November describing how a virtual machine could use side-channel timing information to extract private cryptographic keys in use by other VMs on the same server. A malicious hacker wouldn’t necessarily need to go to such lengths to pull off that sort of feat, though. If a multitenant cloud service database isn’t designed properly, a single flaw in one client’s application could allow an attacker to get at not just that client’s data, but every other clients’ data as well…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Archie Hendryx.

When you think Cloud, whether Private or Public, one of the key advantages that comes to mind is speed of deployment. All businesses crave the ability to simply go to a service portal, define their infrastructure requirements and immediately have a platform ready for their new application. Coupled with that you instantly have service level agreements that generally center on uptime and availability.

So for example, instead of being a law firm that spends most of its budget on an in house IT department and datacenter, the Cloud provides an unavoidable opportunity for businesses to instead procure infrastructure as a service and consequently focus on delivering their key applications. But while the understanding of Cloud Computing and its benefits have matured within the industry, so too has the understanding that maybe what’s currently being offered still isn’t good enough for their mission critical applications…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Red Hat is outlining its five big data "must haves" with a new strategy that pushes ahead with its cloud big data analytics workload plans for the next year or so. With a new Apache Hadoop plugin that connects Red Hat storage products into Hadoop open platforms, the company is looking to help partners provide customers with a comprehensive big data solutions portfolio.

"Red Hat is uniquely positioned to excel in enterprise big data solutions, a market that IDC expects to grow from $6 billion in 2011 to $23.8 billion in 2016.2 Red Hat is one of the very few infrastructure providers that can deliver a comprehensive big data solution because of the breadth of its infrastructure solutions and application platforms for on-premises or cloud delivery models. As a leading contributor to open source communities developing essential technologies for the big data IT stack – from Linux to OpenStack Origin and Gluster – Red Hat will continue to play a pivotal role in in Big Data," said Ashish Nadkarni, research director of storage systems and co-lead of Big Data Global Overview at IDC, in a prepared statement…

Grazed from CPA Practical Advistor. Author: Editorial Staff.

The American Institute of CPA’s framework for evaluating technology-related controls and other safeguards used by cloud service providers has been endorsed by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), a not-for-profit organization that promotes the use of best practices on security assurance within cloud computing.

The AICPA’s reporting framework, known as Service Organization Control Reports, was developed in 2011 and consists of three major document types. The first – the SOC 1 report – deals with controls over financial reporting, and replaces the widely used SAS 70 report…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

Rackspace lowered cloud storage prices for volume customers Friday, and it will lower prices on its network bandwidth and content delivery services in a bid to compete more strongly with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Windows Azure services. Rackspace reduced pricing 33%, from $0.18 to $0.12 per GB, for moving data and content over its Rackspace Cloud network and the Rackspace content delivery network (CDN).

Enterprises and online information services use CDNs to pre-distribute key content to Internet servers around the world, owned by CDNs such as Akamai or Edgecast, so that response times to users seeking that content will come from a server close to them. When content is downloaded from a server in the same region as the user, response times can be cut by a third or half. Among cloud service providers, Rackspace CDN competes with Amazon’s CloudFront and Microsoft’s Windows Azure CDN…

Grazed from CliQr Technologies. Author: PR Announcement.

CliQr Technologies, the leader in enabling businesses to move, manage and secure applications on any private, public or hybrid cloud, today announced its advisory board. The six advisory board members will shape the company’s direction and strategy in an innovative cloud computing industry.

"We’re pleased to announce these highly qualified appointed members to our advisory board because of the unique background and knowledge they each bring to the table," said Gaurav Manglik, CEO and co-founder of CliQr Technologies. "With years of expertise in their respected fields, each member will make a positive and insightful impact to CliQr. We are equally honored that despite the numerous opportunities associated with cloud management solution providers, these individuals saw the value and innovative nature of the CliQr platform and its ability to take the cloud to the next level."…

Grazed from NationMultimedia. Author: Asina Pornwasin.

Cloud computing is expected to be the next big move in the Infor-mation and Communications Technology (ICT) industry in Thailand and across the Asian region. It is expected that the global market for cloud computing will grow at a compounded annual rate of 28 per cent. Spending on cloud services will generate nearly 14 million jobs worldwide by 2015 and information technology (IT) innovation created by cloud computing could produce US$1.1 trillion (Bt33 trillion) a year in new business revenues. Cloud computing has been a new and major trend and is expected to be a major game-changer for businesses.

Gartner Inc, a technology research firm, forecasts public cloud services will be worth $109 billion this year, while the European Union expects the cloud to add as much as $206 billion to annual gross domestic product (GDP) between now and 2020. And, at the end of 2016, more than 50 per cent of the top 1,000 global companies will have stored customer-sensitive data in the public cloud…

Grazed from CityAM. Author: Tom Welsh.

According to technology consultancy IDC and IT firm EMC, the global digital universe will expand tenfold between 2012 and 2020, reaching a difficult to comprehend 40 zettabytes. To put this into perspective, in 2009 the internet was estimated to contain just half a zettabyte. Even then, if that quantity of data were printed and bound into books, it would form a stack stretching between the Earth and Pluto ten times.

Some businesses are managing to leverage this trend for the own purposes. Famously, Amazon not only tracks what its customers buy, but what they look at, how they navigate its site, and how much they are influenced by promotions, reviews and page layouts. It has developed algorithms that predict products customers would like to buy. And these algorithms get better and better the more often they are used. Amazon’s trick has been to personalise the mounds of faceless data that gets thrown its way…

Grazed from ITWorld. Author: Stephen Lawson.

Nokia Siemens Networks will expand the role of cellular base stations with a new platform that will store and deliver some application data locally, while tapping into information about subscribers and traffic to improve the process. The company announced the system, called Liquid Applications, at an event in Barcelona on the eve of Mobile World Congress. Liquid Applications can improve consumers’ mobile experience but cutting delays as well as delivering more relevant content, CEO Rajeev Suri said.

Caching data in base stations is not a new idea, but NSN says it is going beyond that with Liquid Applications. The platform uses both cloud computing and processing in base stations, moving tasks around based on current conditions and the subscriber’s location and needs, said Marc Rouanne, head of mobile broadband at NSN. "That’s why it’s liquid. It moves and it learns," Rouanne said…

Grazed from WSJ. Author: Stephen Rosenbush.

Royal Dutch Shell plc, the largest company in the world by revenue, could afford to build all the data centers that it desires. But like many other major corporations, it has enthusiastically embraced cloud computing, which has been introduced at multiple layers of its information technology, from routine applications to the very core of the energy giant’s global IT infrastructure.

Large organizations are adopting cloud technology for many of the same reasons smaller organizations have been attracted to the idea of renting rather than owning computing resources — greater flexibility and cost savings, resiliency in the event of natural disasters, and the ability to try new technologies without having to commit to them. And while they acknowledge concerns about cybersecurity, they believe they can safely pursue their cloud strategies while taking appropriate precautions. “For every application, we look at whether the cloud can be used, and at that moment we look at all aspects, including security. When all criteria are met we will launch on the cloud and therefore we believe that the cloud is secure enough for a number of scenarios,” said Johan Krebber, Shell group IT architect and lead architect for the Projects and Technology Business…