Grazed from JDSupra.  Author: Editorial Staff.

The term “cloud computing” has been tossed about as the new trend in IT. Unfortunately, just as often has you hear the term echoed as the “next big thing” a comprehensible definition rarely follows. So what is cloud computing? The United States National Institute of Standards & Technology (“NIST”) defines cloud computing as:

A model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.  This cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.

Perhaps more succinctly put, cloud computing “involves the sum of a service to store, transmit and process information and employs the internet as the means to access and move the information."…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Open-Xchange, a provider of communication and collaboration software for mobile apps, will begin deploying its new OX App Suite through cloud service providers in the new year (assuming nobody else on the Internet is predicting the end of the world).

The new "community version" of OX App Suite will provide a set of applications supporting easy management of email, contacts, calendars, media and documents, as well as optimizing workflow and productivity. According to Open-Xchange, the new OX App Suite integrates a variety of cloud and social media platforms, including Google Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook and LinkedIn to help end-users benefit from "intuitive" communication and sharing across various devices…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Beth Pariseau.

Big data will get even bigger, cloud performance monitoring will be a top priority, and cloud computing pros should beware of further government regulation in 2013, according to the heads of three cloud computing service providers. While it’s been a hot topic in 2012, big data still hasn’t fully hit its stride outside of startups and early adopters. But more vendors will come out of the woodwork to address this growing trend.

Companies including Austin, Texas-based hosting and cloud service provider Rackspace Inc. will do this in 2013 by wrapping products and services around open source tools such as Hadoop, according to John Engates, CTO of Rackspace…

Grazed from e27 Web Innovation. Author: Goutama Bachtiar.

With rising adoption of cloud deployments, users, IT managers and stakeholders will need to be better educated on cloud security standards and best practices.
In cloud computing, one of the bigger concerns among users and IT managers is security. It encompasses these fundamental aspects: authorization (who is allowed to access), authentication (what level of access does someone has), data integrity, and services availability. Furthermore, cloud security will refer to a set of controls, compliances, policies and technologies in regards to securing the data, applications, and infrastructure.

So let’s dig in for more. From a supply and demand perspective, the providers (infrastructure, software or platform) are expected by their users to provide for security measures. For instance, enterprise-grade cloud applications frequently utilize server virtualization, which introduces an additional layer that must be configured, managed and secured in the appropriate way…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Miles Kelly.

IT professionals including server and storage managers often think that the adoption of cloud computing in the enterprise puts their jobs in danger. To the contrary, the role of the IT professional is evolving into a more strategic position as more organizations adopt private and public cloud, with many using a combination of the two, which is often referred to as hybrid cloud. Recent reports suggest that the cloud will result in increased career advancement for IT professionals both in terms of responsibility and job opportunities. IT professionals should embrace the cloud, not fear it. Consider surfers who once rejected surf board leashes as "kook chords," dismissing them as unnecessary. However, as is the case with many innovations, the "kook chord" has gradually become a reliable standard used by virtually every surfer today.

Let’s be blunt: IT is a terrible place for old-school purists. To succeed, IT professionals must continually refine their skillsets to evolve into the role of strategic IT advisors for the enterprise on cloud initiatives. Rather than being just elbows-deep in motherboards and memory, they are moving from a tactical role into a more strategic role that requires a combination of hands-on work and sourcing, depending on the type of cloud environment that makes sense for the enterprise…

Grazed from DataCenterKnowledge. Author: Bill Kleyman.

To many, cloud computing and WAN utilization can be considered synonymous. More organizations are seeing the direct benefits of moving towards a cloud platform. Whether they’re trying to reduce their internal hardware footprint, or are trying to distribute their data; the data center infrastructure is very much a critical component of the entire process.

Business are trying to find ways to better deliver their information and continue to be more competitive in this “cloud-centric” market. WAN technologies continue to evolve as more bandwidth, better underlying infrastructure and optimization all create a more robust connection. As more organizations move to the cloud, they will increase their reliance on data center availability and technologies. This is where data center managers must look to the cloud to help them stay ahead of the curve and continue to offer great technology solutions…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Louis Columbus.

Retailers and marketers often face the challenge of getting coupons, offers and promotions delivered at the perfect time and in the right context to their customers. The rapid advances in cyber foraging, contextual computing and cloud computing platforms are succeeding at revolutionizing this aspect of the retail shopping experience. Context-aware advertising platforms and strategies can also provide precise audience and segment-based messaging directly to customers while they are in the store or retail outlet.

What makes context-aware advertising so unique and well adapted to the cloud is the real-time data integration and contextual intelligence they use for tailoring and transmitting offers to customers. When a customer opts in to retailer’s contextually-based advertising system, they are periodically sent alerts, coupons, and offers on products of interest once they are in or near the store…

Grazed from UC Strategies.  Author: Editorial Staff.

It was announced last week that Amazon Web Services had improved storage capabilities that could handle data intensive applications. The new storage designs are dubbed High Storage Eight Extra Large, and compliment applications with large amounts of data. Warehousing, Hadoop workloads and log processing are included in this.

Amazon stated: “We know that these applications can generate or consume tremendous amounts of data and that you want to be able to run them on EC2 [Amazon Elastic Compute 2].”…

Grazed from Globe and Mail.  Author:  Iain Marlow.

Every once in a while, industries collide and create immense opportunity. It happened a few years ago with smartphones, when increasingly more powerful computing was enhanced by the explosive growth of the wireless industry.

Dennis Kavelman has seen these collisions firsthand. He joined Research In Motion when it had only 20 employees, and he helped it become a global smartphone giant, 15,000 people strong. As COO at yet another fast-growing tech company, he may be about to see it again. Desire2Learn Inc., Kavelman says, is staring into a “perfect storm” of two industries converging: cloud computing and the enormous technological revolution taking place in the education sector. “We have a really hot market, at a time when it’s going to explode,” he says…