Grazed from Datamation.  Author: Jeffrey Kaplan.

If you’ve been holding back about moving to the ‘Cloud, it is time to get onboard the Cloud Computing express.  Not only has every major research firm published market forecasts indicating that Cloud services are growing exponentially, but we see multiplying customer success stories that clearly illustrate the immediate and measurable business benefits of moving to the Cloud.

Here are some simple rules you should follow to help you move ahead in the coming year and successfully leverage today’s rapidly evolving Cloud alternatives:…

Grazed from: The Edinburgh Reporter.  Author: Phyllis Stephen.

Cloud computing is a term that we have all been hearing lots about over the last few years. You may already be making good use of its facilities. Or, you may be wondering what it means and whether it could be of interest for you. So, you could be surprised to learn that if you access or are active on YouTube, Gmail, Google Apps, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, you are already a cloud user.

To sum it up, Wikipedia defines cloud computing as the use of computing resources (hardware and software) delivered as a service over a network, usually the internet.  Cloud computing has a number of benefits, including its facility for on-line data backup. Its solutions that ‘know’ which files you have created or changed and back them up continuously and automatically can be especially helpful…

Grazed from Computing.co.uk.  Author: Peter Gothard.

The CEO of Linux-based software solutions company LinuxIT, Peter Dawes-Huish, slammed the public sector G-Cloud system this week, likening the current service level to a military mission "with an entry route and no exit route" that is "not just dangerous, but suicide".

"Data lock-in and data opaqueness is as prevalent in cloud offerings as in any other delivery model," Dawes-Huish told the Westminster cloud computing eForum.  "If you move your applications and data to a cloud service in the proprietary model then you’ll be held to ransom, and it doesn’t matter how flexible your opportunity for moving, you’re locked in."…

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…

Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Barb Darrow and Stacey Higginbotham.

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…

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…

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…

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?…