Grazed from Wired. Author: Edwin Schouten.

You’d think that by now, since we started talking about the term cloud computing back in 2008, we’d all know what its characteristics are and how it’s consumed and delivered. This, however, does not seem to be the case, even though there are some great recaps out there. I just read the Computerworld UK post, CIOs frustrated by ‘fake’ cloud services. But this is not unique to cloud alone. Think of SOA for instance, which was never really understood by the public at large.

In my opinion, this has to do with the fact that some of the large IT companies “define their own standards” and interpretations of information technology. Marketing teams at companies sometimes use different terms and abbreviations to add a false sense of uniqueness. They can also “interpret” well-known terms and abbreviations freely to suggest false similarities. This makes it more difficult for IT consumers to compare individual solutions on facts and capabilities…

Grazed from International Law Office. Author: Fiona Wilson and Oliver Bray.

The recent rise of cloud computing – both for businesses and at consumer level – is providing a decent challenge for the regulators tasked with applying established data protection principles to this new and fast-developing industry.

Until last year there had been little guidance at UK or EU level. However, in July 2012 the Article 29 Working Party – the independent advisory body made up of data protection regulators from across the EU member states – released its Opinion on Cloud Computing (05/2012). This was closely followed by guidance from the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO’s Guidance on the Use of Cloud Computing was published in September 2012…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Tom Nolle.

By all appearances, 2012 seemed to be a good year for cloud computing. In addition to being the darling of the media for all of last year, the cloud gained a lot of ground in terms of the number of businesses that have adopted cloud computing in some form. But despite this traction, the cloud is still largely a spectator sport for providers from a financial perspective. Even by optimistic estimates, the market has realized less than 1% of its total opportunity.

Cloud providers or prospective providers are concerned; how can a service already be turning into a commodity when it’s hardly begun to succeed? Fortunately, key improvements on both the buyer and seller sides of a cloud transaction will drive the future of cloud computing in 2013…

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

Storage titan EMC has quietly acquired Texas-based iWave Software, whose Automator suite streamlines the provisioning and management of storage systems, data centers and private clouds. No price was mentioned.

It will be another Storage-as-a-Service ornament for EMC’s Advanced Storage Division. EMC uses iWave widgetry in its VMAX Service Provider Platform. Users can provision, remove and extend block storage for Linux, VMware ESX servers and VMware clusters. The news got out through a posting by iWave Brent Rhymes, who’s of course "thrilled" with the acquisition…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Chris Kanaracus.

Zoho continues to flesh out the feature set of its cloud-based CRM (customer relationship management) application, adding a new document library, advanced email filtering, and location-aware mobile applications.

The features, which were announced Tuesday, come about a year after Zoho launched an update that featured an overhauled user interface, integration with LinkedIn and a social network-like feature called Pulse. Zoho CRM’s new Documents module provides salespeople with a central point for sharing sales-related materials, such as proposals and advertisements, with access controlled according to an individual’s role. Professional Edition customers get 250MB of storage per user, while Enterprise version customers receive 500MB…

Grazed from Business Wire. Author: PR Announcement.

Global Knowledge, the worldwide leader in IT and business skills training, today announced the availability of Cloud: Roadmap to Success: An Interactive Workshop. In the one-day workshop, cloud computing decision makers will learn what it takes to successfully implement cloud computing from their industry peers who have done it. Through a moderated question-and-answer format, participants will be engaged in a guided conversation with cloud computing veterans that is structured around the key decisions IT managers face when implementing cloud computing. Panelists include executives with real-world corporate cloud responsibilities and experience and cloud subject matter experts with wide industry views.

“Anyone who has to ‘do cloud’ is going to benefit from this workshop, whether he or she is just starting to implement cloud computing or is well on the way,” explained Hank Marquis, cloud solutions practice director at Global Knowledge. “Along with teaching participants things their peers have done to be successful, we’ll teach them what to avoid as well.”…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Jordan Shapiro.

At just $199, the Acer C7 Chromebook seems like the perfect kids’ computer. When I was a kid, my whole family shared one Apple IIc. All the graphics were green. The software that taught me touch typing came on multiple floppy disks. Print Shop was my favorite way to make use of the dot matrix printer. The internet was not accessible.

My kids obviously live in a different time. Their world is saturated with personal computing. At five and seven years old, they are already familiar with “Google” as a verb. They are tablet savvy, navigating Minecraft in ways that are puzzling to me. And they have their own gmail accounts. When other parents hear me talking about emails that my son sent, their first reaction is a smile. It seems cute. However, they also express understandable worry that the internet is filled with predators and cyber-bullying…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

Amazon.com’s Web Services unit is gaining larger cloud customers than the developers and startups who first found a home on its EC2 compute service. That’s one reason two analyst houses have come out with upside predictions for the firm.

The previously faltering stock moved toward recovery yesterday after Morgan Stanley analyst Scott Devitt upgraded his rating on the NASDAQ-traded equity to "overweight." The stock went up $9.31, or 3.59%, in a day to close at $268.46 — its highest level ever. If it were broken out into a separate company today, AWS would be worth $19-$30 billion, with a share price of $41 to $66. The high end might be justified because Amazon’s EC2 is moving beyond startups to enterprise customers who are starting to rely on its services…

Grazed from CloudPro. Author: Jane McCallion.

Android-powered device will bring cloud desktop computing to mass market, claims hardware giant. Dell has unveiled the newest product in its cloud client computing range – code-named Project Ophelia – during the second day of CES 2013.

The device is roughly the size of a wireless dongle and plugs directly into a user’s monitor or television and requires only two amps of power, which it gets directly from the screen. Running the Android Jellybean operating system, Ophelia will deliver a desktop experience to users without the need for hardware and will bring cloud client computing to the mass consumer and enterprise market, the company claims…

Grazed from FCW. Author: John Moore.

The Obama administration’s cloud-first strategy, data center consolidation directive, and security certification process for cloud products and services all point agencies toward greater cloud adoption. Indeed, the policies and programs that seek to spark cloud acceptance are now largely in place. What’s lacking, however, is a definitive statement on how to coordinate cloud resources. Over time, agencies will likely end up juggling their own private clouds, public clouds provided by companies such as Amazon and multiple software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings.

As a result, the concept of the cloud broker has emerged as a way to deal with increasingly complex cloud environments. A cloud broker, also called a cloud services brokerage, basically creates a buffer between the customer and the cloud solutions. Bob Bohn, cloud program manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said a broker “can take a complex situation for a consumer and make it manageable.”…