Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

Oracle is continuing its faux cloud strategy, adding to its private-cloud infrastructure offering the ability to rent for a monthly fee preconfigured application servers to be deployed in customer data centers. The available application servers — what Oracle calls "engineered systems" — include Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, Oracle Sparc SuperCluster, Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine, and Oracle Sun ZFS Storage.

The notion is they provide specialized capacity beyond what you deployed using Oracle’s private cloud systems, which Oracle labels "infrastructure as a service" but is not actually a cloud IaaS offering — it’s the usual Oracle data center gear. Just as Oracle IaaS is not a true cloud offering, neither is Oracle’s new "Iaas On Demand" selection of rental application servers. Unlike with a true cloud on-demand service, your monthly fee — which requires a three-year contract — covers just the hardware, its maintenance, and some degree of usage. You pay extra for the Oracle software licenses and for "peak" usage (no definition or price given). It’s not the standard cloud model, in which the entire service is included with the fee…

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

The National Association of Realtors®’ venture capital fund Second Century Ventures has become a strategic investor in Symform, a revolutionary, distributed cloud backup service. "Second Century Ventures was created to help develop and deliver real estate industry technologies to Realtors® so they can best serve their clients and customers," said Dale Stinton, SCV president and NAR chief executive officer. "This investment in Symform will give Realtors® access to electronic data management resources they can use to organize and protect the information of home buyers, sellers and investors in the real estate transaction."

Unlike traditional data center storage, the Symform Cloud Storage Network encrypts, shreds and globally distributes data. This technology provides a secure and high-performing cloud backup system. Customers join the Symform network by contributing excess local drive space and, in exchange, receive free cloud backup…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

The audacity of a database startup: NewSQL vendor NuoDB dares to propose an update to E.F. Codd’s 12 rules of relational databases, the blueprint for SQL databases for decades. NewSQL database startup NuoDB likes to think big. This week as it makes its scalable database generally available, it is also pitching an update to database guru Edgar F. Codd’s 12 rules of relational databases for the age of cloud computing. It’s a move that is bound to raise eyebrows since Codd, an IBM computer scientist who defined the relational database model, is viewed as a god in that arena.

NuoDB CEO Barry Morris (pictured above) seems girded for blowback.”The rules from Codd are intended to be obvious. If [the new rules] were strange or oriented around a particular product, they’d be self-serving, but they’re not. We want to say: ‘let’s stop screwing around with incremental database improvements. If you were to design your own requirements for an ideal 21st century database, what would they be?’ This is what we came up with. What’s missing? We want the conversation.”…

Grazed from TelecomReseller. Author: Ali Din.

2012 was the year cloud computing took off and went mainstream. Some startups recorded exceptional growth, and won numerous awards and recognition. But for some service providers, 2012 was a pretty tough year with a number of outages, affecting millions of users and some even causing permanent data loss to its customers. Still, this didn’t put a damper on the acquisition spree we saw during 2012 as cloud computing’s value continued to shine. Let’s look at what were the key developments and challenges for enterprise cloud computing in 2012.

The evolution of the cloud was much greater than what was expected. Cloud computing helped IT in many organizations become more dynamic – spending grew to over $109 billion, up 20% over the previous year. And that’s not all. Gartner predicts that the total outlay for cloud computing services could nearly double, to $207 billion, by 2016. , It appears that installing-and-upgrading software and infrastructure is becoming less popular by the day…

Logicalis, an international IT solutions and managed services provider, is warning CIOs about an emerging – and alarming – new trend in IT: Cloud Sprawl. Lured by easy-to-purchase and quick-to-install cloud applications, individual departments are finding and deploying their own cloud solutions.

CIOs don’t have to look too far today to see the effects of this bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) movement -employees are tapping into free Google Drive space, free Dropbox space, and free Box.com space -giving themselves more than enough online room to store confidential customer sales and other mission-critical data outside the company firewall and outside of IT’s control. Inexpensive cloud applications that don’t require corporate approval are walking through the door unchecked as well -from CRM to email to marketing automation. Along the way, BYOC has given way to a new, repackaged phenomenon dubbed "cloud sprawl" as poorly managed end-user cloud purchases and deployments make for fragmented, redundant, unmanaged and inefficient cloud-based outsourcing decisions with little or no input from IT.

Grazed from Microsoft.  Author: PR Announcement

Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of new solutions to help enterprise customers manage hybrid cloud services and connected devices with greater agility and cost-efficiency. System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1), the enhanced Windows Intune, Windows Azure services for Windows Server and other new offerings deliver against the Microsoft Cloud OS vision to provide customers and partners with the platform to address their top IT challenges.

“With Windows Server and Windows Azure at its core, the Cloud OS provides a consistent platform across customer datacenters, service provider datacenters and the Microsoft public cloud,” said Michael Park, corporate vice president of marketing for Server and Tools, Microsoft. “Powerful management and automation capabilities are key elements of the Cloud OS, taking the heavy lifting out of administration and freeing IT organizations to be more innovative as they embrace hybrid cloud computing and the consumerization of IT.”

Grazed from TechWorld. Author: Joab Jackson.

Oracle has launched a set of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) systems that companies can run in-house and pay for on a monthly basis, a project the company announced at OpenWorld in September. Oracle is not pitching the IaaS offers as an alternative to commodity cloud services, such as the Amazon Web Services (AWS), but rather as an alternative to purchasing Oracle systems for on premise deployment.

Using Oracle IaaS, the company claims, eliminates the upfront capital costs of buying new equipment, and could quickly provide additional capacity, at a price, when needed. With Oracle IaaS, customers can lease versions of many of Oracle’s integrated systems, including versions of the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, the Oracle SPARC SuperCluster, the Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine and the Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Sunil Pathak.

…The famous four in action and how they complement, and disrupt each other…..

1. Cloud and Mobility – A Match Made in Heaven….
Cloud computing is providing organizations with low-cost applications and storage, making it easier to manage the growing amount of information. Increased adoption of cloud-based systems (IaaS, SaaS, PaaS and everything else) in the enterprise will pave a way for a faster pace of adoption and acceptance of the cloud-based back end for mobile devices. With increased use of smartphones, tablets in enterprise (BlackBerry, Nexus, Surface, etc.), increased acceptance of BYOD, more and more business information and data will be moved outside the firewall. The trend will fuel the use of cloud infrastructure for mobile applications, and platform and infrastructure including storage. It’s a no-brainer. Private mobile cloud, private mobile app stores, standalone enterprise class mobile app stores, etc., will start taking shape. The mobile app and platform ecosystem will evolve.The growth will, however, also depend on the ability of SaaS and PaaS vendors to facelift their applications and platforms for the mobile devices…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Chris Kanakarus.

Cloud Sherpas is continuing its string of acquisitions of boutique consulting firms for cloud services, with the purchase of Innoveer Solutions and Navigis. Terms of the deals, which were announced Tuesday, were not disclosed.

Innoveer is focused on CRM (customer relationship management) software, with a particular emphasis on Salesforce.com. It has more than 750 customers and 2,000 successful implementations, according to Cloud Sherpas. The company also has European operations, giving Cloud Sherpas a physical presence in that region for the first time, Cloud Sherpas said…

Grazed from eNewsWire. Author: JBaker.

Computacenter offers end-to-end cloud computing solutions based on specific circumstances, needs, and objectives – this can help identify the right options for securing data. Computacenter can help maintain IT security and improve IT processes to deliver better ways of working on the move and collaborating which match the attributes of commercial consumer cloud services.  New research shows that 84% of employees are accessing and sharing company data using consumer cloud solutions like Dropbox and SkyDrive.

Computacenter conducted research amongst 150 IT decision makers and the findings highlight the risks and the need for action, offers insight into what can be done, and shows how important the issue of the consumer cloud really is. The research was led by Cloud Practice Leader, Paul Casey, who said, “It’s imperative that businesses address this problem now. It’s clear that everyone knows the risks of consumer cloud products, but until the correct solutions are put in place… Employees will continue to use them whatever the consequences.”…