Grazed from CloudVentures.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Recently the USA Government announced a Digital Government strategy.

Our new white paper ‘GovCloud 2.0′ describes how Government Cloud Computing can provide an accelerating platform for implementing this policy, covering topics such as:

• Business Transformation – Harnessing social media and collective intelligence models to reinvent government to be more collaborative.

• Procurement Frameworks – Cloud procurement best practices, such as the UK’s G-Cloud…

Grazed from SciCasts.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Salk researchers have reported a how-to secret for biologists: code for Amazon Cloud that significantly reduces the time necessary to process data-intensive microscopic images.  The method promises to speed research into the underlying causes of disease by making single-molecule microscopy of practical use for more laboratories.

 "This is an extremely cost-effective way for labs to process super-resolution images," says Hu Cang, Salk assistant professor in the Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center and coauthor of the paper. "Depending on the size of the data set, it can save over a week’s worth of time."…

Grazed from Business2Community.  Author: Matthew Ramsey.

While migrating to the cloud is ultimately intended to reduce costs and make it easier to run your business, not following the right steps at first can lead to the exact opposite. Ultimately, it is the risk of downtime, security of your data, and objectives of the cloud service vendor in question as your enterprise nurtures this ongoing relationship. A Statement of Work (SOW) should be developed from the start, with a focus on objectives, tasks, and deliverables. The SOW should also cover details on project management in a fixed price model.

A vendor often presents a special deal if an organization like yours signs a contract immediately. Signing a proposal is not the same as signing an SOW, as most proposals simply outline the services to be offered. These also do not break down the cost of services or list acceptable performance criteria. A proposal is just a legally binding contract, which could put your organization at risk if the services do not meet the qualifications for quality and consistency….

Grazed from Technorati.  Author: Geoff Simon.

Early Friday, Wisconsin based Widen Enterprises announced that its cloud-based digital asset management solution (DAM), Media Collective, will be adopted by WAGO Corporation, a German company that manufactures components for electrical connection technology and electronic components for decentralized automation technology. And the automotive industry isn’t the only one choosing to use cloud-based DAM solutions. From marketing, software, governments, and food industries, companies of all kinds are realizing the benefits of a more centralized digital media library.

Media Collective, which offers cloud-based asset management solutions, offers a centralized media library that companies like WAGO can use to manage all their digital media needs. In total, WAGO has over 18,000 individual products, each one with numerous images and other digital media attached to them…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: Chris Kanaracus.

SAP’s burgeoning portfolio of cloud-based applications has prompted it to make some changes to its PartnerEdge program.  More than 500 partners who have relationships with SuccessFactors, the cloud HCM (human capital management) vendor SAP finished acquiring last year, will be added to the program during the course of 2013, SAP said this week.

Partners "now have the opportunity to tackle the fast-growing cloud market and offer best-of-breed cloud solutions and suites to their installed base customers and prospects," SAP said in a statement. SAP is also trying to make life easier for partners on the contractual side of things. A single deal will allow partners to sell all of SAP’s cloud offerings, rather than requiring separate agreements for each one, according to the statement…

Grazed from The Ottawa Citizen.  Author: Ian Macleod.

American spies can snoop through Canadians’ computer data — including that of political organizations and without warrants — if the data resides within popular U.S. cloud computing services, says a former Microsoft executive.

In a report commissioned by the European Parliament, former Microsoft chief privacy adviser Caspar Bowden reveals, “it is lawful in the U.S. to conduct purely political surveillance on foreigners’ data accessible in U.S. clouds,” operated by U.S. firms such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, IBM and others.  One sweeping provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorizes the targeting of, “foreign-based political organization(s)… or foreign territory that relates to… conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States.”…

Grazed from DataCenterKnowledge. Author: Bill Kleyman.

As the data center continues to become an integral part of any organization, administrators are working hard to find ways to be as resilient as ever. The data center environment is a lot more complex now with many moving parts – all of which are vital to the efficiency foundation of an infrastructure. With cloud computing, more users, and an increase in data – the challenge has become disaster recovery and business continuity. All distributed systems have to be checked and the data points must all be monitored. In working with these more complex data centers, many administrators are turning to the cloud and virtualization to help them create a more robust DR plan.

The reality is this: a well-planned out cloud and virtualization solution can truly help any organization create a more agile environment. There are inherent benefits to working with specific types of cloud models and virtualization platforms. A large part of IT is creativity – that’s why using new types of technologies can help reduce management costs and keep an environment running longer…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

A new survey from Brocade finds the role of the CIO is changing, apparently driven by cloud computing. The survey of 100 CIOs from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa finds that half expect cloud adoption to take less time than required to deal with IT infrastructure issues, such as email and storage.

Moreover, one-third of the CIOs report that cloud computing is already in their enterprises — and IT had nothing to do with it. Finally, about 70 percent stated that cloud computing services are here to stay, and they would adopt more in the years to come. We’ve known for some time that cloud computing is showing up in all enterprises, with or without CIO approval. Although shortsighted CIOs push back hard on those who use cloud services such as Dropbox or Google Apps, CIOs who "get it" are using this interest in cloud computing to move in more productive and innovative directions…

Grazed from ERP Cloud News. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud computing — you’ve heard of it, you may even be using it without realizing it. What is it exactly, and what potential benefits does it offer for your small business? As the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) points out, cloud computing has been around in some way, shape or form for years. Facebook, Gmail and Flickr are just three applications of the technology that many of us use daily to store comments, photos, videos and other content in the cloud. But that are many other applications, says the SBA.

“Imagine being able to log onto a website and access all the tools and programs that your employees need to do their jobs without having to invest in lots of standalone software licenses,” it notes. “What if you could access all your office productivity tools (email, calendar, word processing, databases, invoicing, CRM, intranet, etc.) from any location or device? What’s more, all the software management and trouble-shooting can be done by the cloud service provider, freeing up your IT resources.”…

Grazed from Information Daily. Author: James Johns.

Before the birth of the electricity generating industry, any enterprise needing power had to build and run private generators. These were inflexible, inelastic and did not scale easily. In the mid 19th Century, centralised generation allowed electricity to be provided as a utility, meaning that consumers only had to pay for what they used. Consumption could be scaled up or down to meet demand without the need for capital expenditure. A century and a half on, this is precisely the emancipating effect that cloud computing is now having on the enterprise.

Organisations no longer need to build, maintain and renew cumbersome IT infrastructure in order to consume as much, or as little computing resource as they need. The cost implications of this model for both public and private sector organisations are clear inasmuch as cloud allows the enterprise to make use of sophisticated business solutions on a “pay as you go” basis with almost no capital costs…