Grazed from TechTarget.  Author: Jack Vaughn.

It has long been thought that the place to find the most accurate information about customers is in a company’s enterprise resource planning system. But some within the IT industry say cloud computing applications — and specifically Software as a Service-based sales applications like Salesforce.com — may eventually become the place to find the most up-to-date customer data. A subtle shift in power may be underway.

Master data management (MDM) programs may someday look on Software as a Service (SaaS) cloud computing applications as the "newspaper of record" for customer data, some viewers predict. They may already provide access to the best and most recent information about customer names, addresses, phone numbers and histories, according to MDM veteran Zeb Mahmood, head of product management and strategy at SnapLogic, a data integration software vendor based in San Mateo, Calif…

Grazed from Business2Community.  Author: Pere Hospital.

The idea of Cloud Computing is that an Enterprise instead of purchasing expensive licensed software’s and hardware spends comparatively a fraction of that amount to rent out resources needed to fulfill its Computing requirements (Hardware and Software’s) from a Cloud Service Provider (CSP) via a network system (Internet).

Cloud computing works on the basis of three models:

• Infrastructure as a service (e.g. Servers, Storage, Network)
• Platform as a Service (Database, Web Servers, Development Tools)
• Software as a Service (e.g. CRM, Email, Games)…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Maureen O’Gara.

Something very exciting and provocative just happened to ARM and its server wannabe Calxeda. Univa, which can claim sprawling infrastructures, has ported its Grid Engine software to the Calxeda widgetry in support of its fancy high-brow dynamic workloads.

The stuff is in beta but Univa CEO Gary Tyreman says his customers are already testing it and that although the ARM chip is only 32-bit it can be used in production for integer apps, even Hadoop and protein folding, ahead of the eventual advent of the promised 64-bit ARM chip that will probably be out next year. They are trying to get ahead of the market, he says. They want to explore its potential and see what apps run best on the stuff…

Grazed from GlobeRanger. Author: PR Announcement.

GlobeRanger, a global provider of RFID, sensor and asset management solutions, releases iMotion Stratus, the cloud-based version of its award winning iMotion Edgeware Platform. iMotion Stratus delivers the features of the iMotion server-based platform from the cloud, easing deployment and enabling global capability. It provides a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) avenue for companies to begin utilizing RFID technology without the upfront costs of RFID software and the servers to run it.

The GlobeRanger solution enables economical small initial deployments with ability to scale up as needed – from a single location to thousands of locations globally. It integrates seamlessly with iMotion server-based and network appliance-based deployments to allow the best-suited technology for the specific application to be used, whether an on-premise server or cloud-based…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

There’s another new player in the cloud protection and recovery space. Vision Solutions, which provides replication, availability and disaster recovery services and solutions, has launched its Cloud Protection & Recovery offering, which combines Vision’s Double-Take and MIMIX products into a service that cloud cloud service providers can use to accelerate their own cloud service practices.

As part of a cloud services broker practice, Vision’s CP&R recovery-as-a-service was designed with service providers in mind. While providing a "low-risk path to the cloud," the CP&R service also gives service providers a new offering to take to their customers—something customers are looking for, according to the company. The new service includes:…

Grazed from Lexology. Author: Seth A. Mailhot.

Cloud computing involves the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product. In a cloud computing solution, shared resources, software, and information are provided much like a utility, over a network to computers and other devices. Cloud computing has been embraced by the medical industry, and is used as a vital technology in electronic medical record systems and telemedicine solutions, among other products.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), which regulates the vast majority of medical products sold in the U.S., generally applies its existing regulatory scheme when facing new technologies like cloud computing. This is typified by FDA’s approach to nanotechnology that was developed in the last decade…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

Cloud security is once again on the agenda after a report from Lieberman Research showed that nearly half of IT professionals were wary of keeping sensitive data in the cloud due to government intervention.

The survey was conducted at November’s Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Congress and found that the majority of respondents prefer to keep their most sensitive data on private networks rather than on the cloud. Other top-line findings were:

• Nearly nine in 10 (88%) of IT professionals believe some cloudy data could be lost, stolen or corrupted
• Less than half of respondents (46%) believe that moving to the cloud has increased their IT security
• Yet 56% think migrating to the cloud has saved money, and 86% think their move to the cloud has been successful overall
• “There are a number of reasons why so many IT professionals are apprehensive about storing corporate data in the cloud,” writes Philip Lieberman in a blog post, adding: “In my opinion, the key factor is data security…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Mikael Ricknäs.

Amazon Web Services has made available to all users its cloud-based data warehouse Redshift, which it pitches as a lower-cost alternative to on-premise deployments. Amazon Redshift was first announced as a limited preview at the AWS re:Invent conference, but has now been made generally available from its US East (North Virginia) data center and will be rolled out to other centers in the coming months.

Just like with its other cloud-based offerings, Amazon hopes to attract enterprises to Redshift with the speed and cost of setting up a data warehouse in its cloud. Traditional data warehouse solutions are really expensive and complicated to manage, Amazon Web Services’ Andy Jassy said when the product was launched. Redshift, on the other hand, is about a tenth of the cost, and also automates the deployment and administration, according to Jassy…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Maureen O’Gara.

VMware said last month that it was still into acquisitions although business had turned rocky and it was going to trim 7% of its workforce in a rightsizing exercise, an announcement that carved 20% off its share price. So, on Monday in that spirit of M&A it said it’s buying Virsto Software, a Valley neighbor that writes storage performance software and since late 2007, when it was founded, has raised $24 million in venture money from such firms as August Capital, Canaan Partners and Interwest Partners to do it.

VMware didn’t say what it’s paying, but evidently it’s a strategic as well as tactical move to help it compete with Microsoft with its Windows Server 2012, Hyper-V virtualization and Virsto-like Storage Spaces. VMware’s parent company, storage giant EMC, is also going to license Virsto’s widgetry in the name of the almighty software-defined data center. The deal should close this quarter and the Register suggests Virsto may get knocked down for $100 million…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: CJ Arlotta.

Cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider ProfitBricks has announced the availability of the ProfitBricks Foundation Program — an incentive program for startups. Qualifying startups are eligible receive ProfitBricks’ virtual data centers at a reduced cost for one year. ProfitBricks originally launched its startup program to New England-area startups in December and is now offering the same incentives to startups across the United States.

Startups with at least one U.S. office and revenue of less than $1 million per year are eligible for the program. Companies will receive 20 percent reduction in price on their IaaS services from ProfitBricks for one year and gain access to a cloud server from ProfitBricks for one year without cost to the startup. According to the company, ProfitBricks’ simple pricing model provides startups with the freedom to avoid long-term contracts and complex traditional cloud computing pricing models…