Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Lindsey Nelson.

Cloud computing is a catalyst for faster development, delivery of information, and pretty soon it will become a standard rather than a breakthrough technology. I’ve written frequently on how cloud is a disruptive technology, but now let’s talk about how it’s altering your business.

Now I know what you’re thinking, this doesn’t or won’t ever affect me. In reality, cloud computing isn’t just changing the role of developers; it is changing the role of your marketers, your sales force. And in the coming years, even the roles that having seemingly nothing to do with cloud will be affected. There are of course the skeptics, but here are a few ways it’ll transform the business…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

Two years ago, VMware made a small, tentative investment in OpenStack collaborator Puppet Labs, as one of six investors providing the firm with $8.5 million. Wednesday, VMware extended its support with another $30 million investment in Puppet, and there is a string attached.

VMware will appoint one of its executives to the Puppet Labs board, as happens frequently in cases of major venture capital investments. VMware was not prepared Wednesday to name who will fill the seat. But the increased funding from the virtualization market leader clearly shows it has a more direct interest in the open source code firm’s work this time around; it’s seeking a closer alignment of their respective product lines, not to mention a rapprochement with the open source community…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Matthew Ramsey.

Unless your enterprise is just becoming aware of cloud computing, you have probably heard much about Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) vendors. The IaaS model is an evolving one. As the applications and benefits of implementing one continue to mount, the number of vendors providing cloud services on this scale continues to grow.

The benefits of shifting to an IaaS model are as follows:

• IT can focus more on contributing to the corporate brand and the innovations that go along with producing successful product lines.
• Computing infrastructure, software applications, and supporting elements such as heating and cooling systems are not needed in-house, at least on the same scale as before. This contributes to a reduction of expenses, energy consumed, and Total Cost of Ownership.
• Hardware, servers, and storage are managed as separate services. You can either pay for what you plan to use or pay as you go, depending on the service provider. Based on what is actually needed, the services can be scaled up and down per demand.
• Provisioned users can access enterprise infrastructure from anywhere, supporting company wide efforts to include mobile devices in the network…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Editorial Staff.

In 2013, IT buyers will be looking for increased stability and better ways to prepare for the next five years in their business cycle, according the the latest market study by Ovum. "The fact that we live in very uncertain times makes investment decision-making even more difficult. With continuing instability across the global markets and even in locations with historically robust growth – such as China and India – the outlook for IT services in 2013 is unpredictable," said Jens Butler, principal analyst, IT Services at Ovum.

Ovum believes that business leaders will be looking for greater reliability in their IT usage and – as a consequence – seeking stability, capability and accessibility among their external service providers…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Leiden Johnson.

Making the switch from hardware to the cloud is a decision that requires a lot of thinking. While there are a lot of pros that can be said, there are also some cons which may affect the way a business runs. Before any major changes, a business must look into what they are potentially going to invest in.

There are so many services based on the cloud these days, from Google Drive to RingCentral but being well-informed is not a difficult task. Here are a few factoids from Vorsite, Nuage Consulting Group, D Cloud Computing, and Capgemini regarding cloud computing that may help make any decision-maker’s task a little bit easier while learning some trivia in the process…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Logicalis, an international IT solutions and managed services provider (http://www.us.logicalis.com), has been named “Best Cloud Consultant” at the Cloudcor UP 2012 Cloud Computing Conference held last month in San Francisco. The conference’s 2012 UP-START Cloud Awards have become the cloud community’s de-facto recognition for organizations that contribute to and cultivate the understanding, appreciation and advancement of cloud computing to the business and technology community.

Disruptive and next-generation cloud computing companies as well as innovative solution providers are invited to showcase their capabilities during the conference and to nominate themselves in any of 22 prestigious categories for consideration by a global community of cloud experts…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Randy Weis.

The idea of offering Disaster Recovery services has been around as long as SunGard or IBM BCRS (Business Continuity & Resiliency Services). Disclaimer: I worked for the company that became IBM Information Protection Services in 2008, a part of BCRS. It seems inevitable that Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage should have an impact on the kinds of solutions that small, medium and large companies would find attractive and would fit their requirements. Those cloud-based DR services are not taking the world by storm, however. Why is that?

Cloud infrastructure seems perfectly suited for economical DR solutions, yet I would bet that none of the people reading this blog has found a reasonable selection of cloud-based DR services in the market. That is not to say that there aren’t DR “As a Service” companies, but the offerings are limited. Again, why is that?…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Ted Samson.

Microsoft is rumored to be in talks to invest as much as $3 billion in Dell’s much-hyped buyout, according to various sources, leaving observers scratching their heads as to what the software giant would possibly have to gain from owning a significant chunk of the struggling hardware maker. One possibility: Microsoft needs a hardware partner to further its cloud ambitions and take on Google, and cloud-focused Dell could fit the bill.

The bottom line: Microsoft may believe it needs a hardware partner to further its cloud vision. Dell, meanwhile, is in a vulnerable position in the increasingly competitive PC market and is welcoming a buyout to go private and redefine itself as a cloud hardware company while avoiding the scrutiny, impatience, and fickleness of public investors. By sinking a couple billion dollars into helping Dell go private, Microsoft could leverage that investment to use Dell as its go-to hardware partner and as a vehicle to advance its cloud vision — the way it sunk $1 billion into Nokia to compete in the smartphone market…

Puppet Labs, a leading provider of IT automation software for system administrators, today announced that VMware, Inc. has invested $30 million in the company. Coincident with the funding, the companies agreed to a strategic partnership for delivering IT management solutions that will enable customers to fully realize the agility and productivity benefits of virtualization and cloud in heterogeneous, multi-vendor IT environments. Through the funding and partnership, Puppet Labs will be able to accelerate the development of its award-winning products, increase market adoption in new geographies, and work jointly with VMware to deliver, market and sell solutions.

"Puppet Labs is at the forefront of IT automation, and is a catalyst in the DevOps movement — accelerating service delivery and business agility," said Ramin Sayar, Vice President and General Manager, Virtualization & Cloud Management, VMware. "This strategic investment and partnership will further accelerate the software-defined data center, and will allow a more extensive automation and orchestration solution across infrastructure and application elements for VMware-based private and public clouds, physical infrastructures, OpenStack and Amazon Web Services."