Grazed from The Age.  Author: Danielle Kucera.

Amazon.com has apologised for a December 24 disruption in its cloud-computing services that hindered Netflix customers from watching movies, and said it is taking steps to prevent a recurrence.  Netflix said last week that many users in the Americas were unable to access online content on Christmas Eve because of an outage caused by Amazon’s web storage and computing system. Amazon didn’t identify Netflix in its statement, which was posted online on December 29, according to Tera Randall, a spokeswoman for Amazon Web Services.

"We want to apologise," Seattle-based Amazon said. "We know how critical our services are to our customers’ businesses, and we know this disruption came at an inopportune time for some of our customers."…

Grazed from The Calgary Herald.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Amazon has announced major expansion plans beyond its traditional retail operations that could see it competing with technology giants Google and Apple.  Amazon believes its cloud computing operation could end up dwarfing other parts of its business, a senior executive with the company has told The Sunday Telegraph.

Andy Jassy, head of the Amazon Web Services division, said the unit was growing so rapidly that it could end up catapulting Amazon past its rival Apple to become the largest technology business in the world…

Grazed from The Houston Chronicle.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Think you’re busy now? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. According to The New York Times blogger Quentin Hardy , with the proliferation of cloud computing into more and more aspects of daily life, your spare time is about to become even more, well, spare.

Computing giants like Amazon and Rackspace are leaders in the virtualization of computer servers, a core element in the development of cloud computing. This technology makes it possible for a single PC that was used 20 percent of the time to be used 80 percent of the time or more, Hardy said. Software that monitored workloads could identify when a machine was free, and assign it a workload that would keep it busy without distracting it from its original function, he said. But until recently, that kind of utilization efficiency was seen mostly in corporate data centers and computer-centric organizations…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Willie Pena.

The unstoppable migration toward cloud computing is creating a massive demand for IT workers trained in cloud computing and related technologies, such as virtualization, according to a new report issued by IDC and Microsoft. The report also shows that there is currently a dearth of workers possessing the necessary skill set required to fill these cloud jobs in the U.S.

Cloud-Ready Workers in Demand

InformationWeek reports that IDC predicts 7 million jobs will be created in the cloud computing industry in the next three years. In its study, IDC also states that there are currently 1.7 million open cloud jobs worldwide which remain unfilled due to a lack of cloud-based training, experience, and certification among IT workers…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Ignacio M. Llorente.

Time flies, and we are approaching the end of another successful year at OpenNebula!. We’ve had a lot to celebrate around here during 2012, including our fifth anniversary. We took that opportunity to look back at how the project has grown in the last five years. We are extremely happy with the organic growth of the project. It’s five years old, it’s parked in some of the biggest organizations out there, and that all happened without any investment in marketing, just offering the most innovative and flexible open-source solution for data center virtualization and enterprise cloud management. An active and engaged community, along with our focus on solving real user needs in innovative ways and the involvement of the users in a fully vendor-agnostic project, constitute, in our view, the OpenNebula’s recipe to success.

As 2012 draws to and end, we’d like to review what this year has meant for the OpenNebula project and give you a peek at what you can expect from us in 2013. You have all the details about the great progress that we have seen for the OpenNebula project in our monthly newsletters…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Matthew Candelaria.

Definitions of cloud computing are easy to find, but a single, authoritative definition is hard to come by. Perhaps the best work in this area was done by Böhm, et al. By compiling characteristics of 17 different scholarly and industrial definitions, the authors identified five primary characteristics of cloud computing allowing a definition such as: "Cloud computing is a service that delivers scalable hardware and/or software solutions via the Internet or other network on a pay-per-usage basis." (Emphasis indicates essential definition elements).

Cloud computing can further be broken down into three common types: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. SaaS (Software as a Service) allows users to log into and utilize preprogrammed software that is owned and maintained by the service provider. PaaS (Platform as a Service) gives users tools and languages owned and maintained by the service provider that can be used to build and deploy customized applications. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) provides users with storage and processing, allowing users full control over the use of that infrastructure. There are other divisions of cloud computing, but these are the most common…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: David Tom.

Google has earned recognition in the enterprise industry through its Google Apps software, a series of cloud-based applications that permit collaborative document writing, slide show construction, and text and video messaging. When the program began six years ago, Google anticipated that the program would catch on with small businesses and tech start-ups. However, they had no idea that larger corporations would follow suit.

Competitive Pricing and Online Collaboration

According to an article by The New York Times , the search engine company has recently formed contracts with drug-maker Hoffman-La Roche and the US Interior Department, businesses that each have over 80,000 employees using the product. It is believed that the software’s growth can be attributed to its competitive pricing model as well as the public’s transition to cloud-based technologies. Melissa Webster, an analyst at IDC, stated, "Google is getting traction. It looks like 2013 is going to be the year for content and collaboration in the cloud."…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Abdul Salam.

People often ask what is the real difference of cloud computing and “the internet” or “ isn’t the internet already cloud computing”. I often tell them that cloud computing does not equal the internet or vice-versa, the internet is simply the best delivery platform that cloud computing can make use of. You can have a cloud computing infrastructure totally isolated from the internet and it is called a private cloud network. Still, some private cloud networks are made to be accessible via the internet, but the argument still stands that cloud computing does not automatically mean or require the internet.

What makes cloud computing itself is not the hardware technology or the infrastructure, what makes it cloud computing is the way that services and functions are being handled and delivered. In essence what cloud computing means is that everything is being done by a server that is located somewhere that you and I should really not concern ourselves anymore, it’s somewhere out there, “in the clouds”. Behind all the services and applications that are labeled as “cloud” are servers, lots and lots of servers where all the processing elements are, the CPU, RAM, GPU, and even the storage devices…

Grazed from GamingBolt.  Author: Kartik Mudgal.

SimCity developers recently faced the wrath of Reddit in an AMA, where they were asked about the DRM that was included in the game. Reddit members completely rejected the game citing DRM and mentioned that the developers should remove it if they want any sales.

The developers have responded and since it’s a directive from the publisher to include DRM and other things, their hands are tied, but here’s what they had to say.  Maxis’ Lucy Bradshaw mentioned that there’s a lot of cloud computing required to power SimCity so the DRM was required…

Grazed from Bloomberg.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Mobily owns today a strong infrastructure supporting the 3G and 4G networks, said its CEO Khalid Al-Kaf.  He was speaking at the Mobily Application Developers Conference 2012.  Senior Mobily officials were also present.  A large number of local and international experts in information technology as well as amateur developers, professional mobile application developers are taking part in the event.

The CEO opened the conference with a speech about the future of telecommunications and information technology.  He said: "The technical world today is running at an accelerated pace, each day witnessing significant shifts and developments created by the people’s need to communicate in social media…