Consider the Cloud for Dynamic Workloads
When you mention cloud computing, most IT pros probably think of outsourcing their company’s applications and infrastructure. Certainly, that model is appropriate in some businesses. However, there are other circumstances that might call for cloud computing in a dynamic or temporary deployment, and a recent survey suggests that more businesses are looking at this model for uses such as big data or media files.
The survey was prepared by cloud security vendors CloudPassage and received input from 201 IT professionals ranging from C-level executives down to the systems administrators in the trenches. One of its key findings indicated that 70 percent more companies are planning to use public cloud environments for temporary workload or big data in 2013 as compared to 2012…
Official document reveals the rules of Oracle’s cloud
Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Chris Kanaracus.
An official document containing policies and pledges for customers of Oracle’s cloud services reveals that many aspects fall in line with industry standards, while others may prompt cause for worry among customers, according to analysts.
The document was last updated Dec. 1 and is marked "confidential," despite being openly available on Oracle’s website (PDF). It lays out the rules by which Oracle and its cloud customers must play, apart from any special terms that may exist in individual contract agreements. Oracle launched a wide array of cloud services this year, including its Fusion Applications as well as a PaaS (platform as a service), IaaS (infrastructure as a service) and social network…
What we’ll see in 2013 in cloud computing — Cloud Computing News
Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow and Stacey Higginbotham.
Next year, “the cloud” will finally be ready for enterprise workloads and big companies will finally start moving them there. Data centers will stop being enclosed by walls and those are just two of GigaOM’s 5 big cloud predictions.
The cloud has moved from concept to reality. Sure, startups have been buying computing and storage on demand for years, while enterprises talked up virtualization and hoped it was the same thing. But now big companies are finally getting this whole on-demand compute thing, and the next year we’ll see big IT companies buy up startups that will help transition enterprise workloads to the cloud, more companies that offer enterprise-class infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) get real applications and a more viable model of hybrid cloud that enables cloud bursting. Let’s see what’s ahead…
Cloud Computing: Intel Fields Atom for Microservers
Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Maureen O’Gara.
Intel is going to try going after the data center with a brand new Atom System-on-a-Chip (SoC) that can be built into relatively cheap, high-density microservers for cloud providers. It really rather not – it really wants to sell its high-end chips – but it has no choice. It has forecast that microservers could get to be 10% of the server market by 2015 and it will have to fight for a piece of it after losing a head start earlier this year when AMD plopped down $334 million in cash and stock for SeaMicro, a microserver start-up that already had Intel designed in.
But, given the tone in its voice this week, Intel is apparently serious about the sector, which it’s blown off before for defensive purposes.
Intel says the new 22nm dingus, code-named Centerton and seemingly in development since 2007, is the first low-power 64-bit dual-core SoC for these data center systems that’s in production and shipping to customers…
Cloud Computing: Total Defense for Business Provides Multi-Layer Security Protection
Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.
Total Defense is launching a new cloud-based security service the company is promising will provide SMBs and SMEs with a "complete" cloud security solution, protecting customers from a variety of threats.
The key to the new Total Defense for Business service is three-pronged. Included in the new solution is advanced endpoint malware and application controls, web filtering and malware protection, and cloud-based anti-spam and email threat prevention. Additionally, Total Defense noted, the cloud-based solution provides protection irrespective of location and system by applying and and enforcing policies consistently at the cloud level…
The role of software-defined networks in cloud computing
Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Tom Noelle.
It may seem ironic, but the most difficult thing about software-defined networking is actually defining it. Given the elasticity of views about what a software-defined network is, it’s hardly surprising that SDN’s specific role in the cloud is elusive. There are two software-defined networking models and two different SDN missions in cloud computing. Since networks create the cloud, managing the interplay between these two factors could be the key to cloud efficiency and success.
As an information service, the Internet treats the network as a transparent partner. With the cloud, a user’s applications reside in, and become part of, the cloud. And most agree that means at least some of the network must be integrated with the cloud. The current consensus is that the data center has to be made cloud-specific, but should the WAN also be a "resource" to the cloud?…
Service governance morphs into cloud API management
Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.
My good friend Loraine Lawson posts in her blog an observation that’s evolved for the last few years: SOA governance is morphing into API management. Coming from the world of service-oriented architecture (SOA), I may have been in denial. However, many of the items that were once considered SOA, such as service governance, are now focused on the cloud, including API management.
The technology is a great fit — runtime service governance products (from Layer 7, Oracle, Vordel, and a few others) have a huge value in controlling and managing cloud services or APIs. The technology providers saw the matchup. They rebranded to the cloud and followed many of the newer cloud API management providers, such as Apigee and Mashery…
Google lets more users host App Engine applications in Europe
Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Mikael Ricknäs.
Google is letting more App Engine users choose to run their applications in a European data center, in order to improve performance for local users or to meet compliance demands.
App Engine is Google’s cloud-based platform for hosting Web applications written using Java, Python or an experimental implementation of the Go programming language. The ability to host applications in Europe was first announced in June, but was then only offered to users with a so-called Premier account, which cost $500 per month. Google is now changing that to include all paying users, the company said in a blog post on Thursday…
Corona Labs Corrals A Cloud
Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Thomas Claburn.
Corona Labs, maker of the cross-platform mobile development framework Corona SDK, has acquired backend cloud service provider Game Minion to help game developers more easily create apps that integrate with server code. No price was disclosed. Game Minion is a Dubai-based company that relies on Amazon Web Services infrastructure, with funding from Draper Investment Company. Game Minion, which will be renamed Corona Cloud, is presently in closed beta testing and is expected to be made available in the first quarter of 2013.
Corona Cloud relies on a RESTful API, meaning that communication between a developer’s app and the remote server can be coded in a way that’s standardized and portable. This makes it easy to reconfigure a cloud-connected app to communicate with a different backend host if necessary. Mohamed Hamedi, co-founder of Game Minion, said in a statement that his company is focused on offering simple backend services to developers. "Through this acquisition, we will provide the most complete end-to-end mobile development platform on the market," he said. "Features that would normally require the integration of half a dozen SDKs will be offered by Corona Labs in just one, neatly packaged API."…
Cloud Computing: CA’s New CEO Faces Big Balancing Act
Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.
When the youthful Michael Gregoire takes over as CEO of CA Technologies on April 1, he will find he’s inherited a large company in a state of transition.
CA is caught between breaking away from dependence on mainframe products, which still provide 80% of its revenues, and initiating new cloud and virtual infrastructure management products, which have not yet taken off. Riding these two horses in tandem may prove a tricky balancing act for any CEO.
Gregoire, 46, was selected by CA’s board Thursday to succeed William McCracken, who initiated the company’s transition when he took office in January 2010. He is stepping down at the age of 70 before the transition can be brought to full bloom. Gregoire is the former of chairman, president and CEO of Taleo, the talent management software firm acquired by Oracle in February for $1.9 billion. Gregoire took Taleo from $78 million to $324 million over a seven year period. He will join CA on Jan. 7…