Grazed from Windows IT Pro. Author: Tony Redmond.

John Rhoton, someone who has held senior positions for cloud computing at HP and Symantec, has released the “Cloud Computing Protected: Security Assessment Handbook”. Jan De Clercq (who writes frequently about security for WindowsITPro.com) and David Graves, an HP Distinguished Engineer who specializes in cloud services, also contribute to the book. John’s previous books in the series are Cloud Computing Explained and Cloud Computing Architected, both of which are good reads for anyone who needs to understand the basic concepts that underpin this mode of computing. Given the rush to embrace the cloud as the preferred platform for a range of applications, it’s a good time to release a book to remind those considering the transition to the cloud that some work is necessary to ensure that data and access remains secure.

One aspect of migrating to a multi-tenant cloud platform is that you cede operational control over your data. Consumers have been doing this for a very long time. It’s always interested me that people are quite happy to upload some of their most precious memories to online photo sites like Snapfish.com without any knowledge of who now has access to their photos, where the photos are actually stored, and what the long-term future of the site might be. In effect, consumers transfer control over their data without batting an eyelid…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Juan Carlos Perez.

Yammer plans to roll out an integration with the SkyDrive Pro cloud storage product and the Office Web Apps Web-hosted productivity application suite this summer. The initiative is part of Yammer’s ongoing push to deepen and extend the integration of its cloud-hosted enterprise social-networking software with products from Microsoft, which acquired Yammer last July for $1.2 billion.

SkyDrive Pro, an enterprise version of the consumer SkyDrive cloud storage service, will become Yammer’s underlying file-storage platform for Yammer, Microsoft said on Wednesday. The link with Office Web Apps, a browser-based version of the Office suite, will let Yammer users preview and edit documents from applications like Word and Excel right from within the Yammer activity stream interface…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Joe McKendrick.

Cloud computing isn’t just potentially delivering savings and flexibility for existing organizations. It is also laying the groundwork for a new generation of business startups, a new survey finds. The study of 1,300 executives, conducted by Rackspace Hosting with support from Manchester Business School in the UK, finds cloud engagements are delivering positive impacts, from cost savings to more innovation. Interestingly, the survey also reveals that most of these executives see cloud as laying the groundwork for the next entrepreneurial boom.

Sixty-two percent of respondents either agreed totally or somewhat with the statement that “cloud computing is a key factor in the recent boom of entrepreneurs and start-ups,” the survey finds. Twenty-five percent agreed strongly with this idea…

Anuta Networks, the industry-first provider of network services virtualization solutions, today announced three new product enhancements for its nCloudX platform to enable cloud service providers and enterprises to achieve the promise of the software defined data center. Specifically, Anuta nCloudX now includes integration with VMware vCloud Director, support for virtual appliances from multiple vendors and integration with OpenStack.

"We are confident about the evolution of Software Defined Data Center, and the role of Virtual Appliances in the L2-L7 services. Anuta brings a unique technology of Network Service Orchestration for the Software Defined Data Center," said Tomohiro Iwamoto, General Manager, Net One Systems, Japan. "We believe that there is a strong requirement for this type of technology and solutions in Japanese market."

WiredTree (http://www.wiredtree.com), a leading managed virtual private servers (VPS hosting), dedicated servers, and hybrid servers provider, has been announced as the recipient of the 2013 Excellence in Information-as-a-Service award at Parallels Summit. The award, given to an organization that demonstrates year-on-year growth and customer satisfaction, recognizes WiredTree as a major figure in the field of managed VPS hosting.

“We are very pleased to have been recognized by Parallels in this way,” says Zac Cogswell, President of WiredTree. “We attended Parallels Summit 2013 to meet colleagues from the web hosting and IT industries and build relationships with new and existing customers. To receive this significant award is a real honor, particularly given the strength of the other finalists in our category.”

Organizers have announced two new keynote speakers joining the highly qualified line-up at the 5th Annual Cloud World Forum at Olympia National Hall, London on 26-27 June 2013; Oskar Stål, CTO at Spotify, and Adrian Gardner, CIO at NASA.

Authorities on building large-scale global cloud infrastructures, Stål and Gardner join a comprehensive conference agenda that will feature keynote presentations from Jeff Jaffe, CEO, World Wide Web Consortium, Dana Deasy, CIO, BP and Jeff Barr, Chief Evangelist, Amazon Web Services among others.

Grazed from InformationWeek.  Author: Charles Babcock.

The private cloud computing model isn’t a slapped together virtualization environment, with a few management bells and whistles thrown in on top. Instead, it’s a standardized set of pooled data center resources that allow end users to self-provision virtual servers, which run in a highly automated fashion.

If you don’t plan for such an architecture, you won’t get to real cloud computing, warns Dave Roberts, a frequent writer on the private cloud topic as co-founder of LeverHawk, a blogging site he shares with Scott Bils, discussing wide ranging cloud issues. Roberts is also a senior director of solutions marketing at BMC in Houston, Texas…

Grazed from Talkin Cloud.  Author: Joe Panettieri.

OpenStack, the open source cloud computing platform, won praise today from Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Seagate Technologies (NASDAQ: STX). Call it a hunch but I bet Seagate’s cloud backup business (EVault) makes some OpenStack moves, too. The applause comes as cloud services providers (CSPs) and the open source community prepare for a major OpenStack Conference in April 2013.

OpenStack seeks to offer a standard platform for public and private clouds, allowing partners and customers to move workloads more easily between various cloud systems. HP Public Cloud is built on OpenStack, and now Seagate has also endorsed the platform…

Grazed from Computing.co.uk.  Author: Danny Palmer.

We won’t be discussing cloud computing in two years’ time, not because the service has become obsolete, but because it will have become so ingrained in IT there will not be a need to talk about it as a concept.   That’s the consensus to come out of a roundtable discussion hosted by Rackspace, which explored the impact cloud computing is having on UK businesses.

"Most of our customers don’t even know they’re in the cloud. They consume IT through a server, as far as they’re concerned," said Raj Patel, executive deputy chairman of cloud-based accounting software provider Kashflow.   Patel added that in future cloud will be discussed as an entity which creates value for businesses, rather than just cutting costs…

Grazed from CtPost.  Author: Editorial Staff.

In 2012, the Informational Data Corporation (IDC) made some pretty bold predictions regarding the development of a new high-tech industry in the convergence of social networking, — cloud-based computing and data storage.

The IDC suggested that many industry giants may scramble to maintain relevance, while some startups would gain leadership positions in what some anticipate will be the technology industry’s fastest transition ever.  Today’s major players may be in trouble if they don’t prepare for change…