Grazed from IT Business Canada. Author: Michelle Warren.

Cloud computing offers significant benefits to enterprise users, not the least of which is the ability to provision IT services – software, hardware, services – when needed. It enables business and IT benefits include the ability to control costs, manage requirements, and purchase services on an “as-needed” basis.

Communicating those key value propositions is part of the challenge facing IT providers; as is sourcing, selling, delivering, and provisioning cloud services. All of which can be complicated for channel partners, as they face a fundamental shift in their business model. One time or repeat sales of hardware, software, even professional services, are relatively straightforward transactions. With cloud services delivery, there main layers of complexity exist: finding a cloud provider/solution, invoicing, and provisioning the service quickly and seamlessly…

Grazed from MIT Technology Review. Author: Tom Simonite.

Cloud computing teaches people not to worry about physical equipment for hosting data and running software. But a study by researchers at computer security company RSA suggests that this could be a costly mistake.

The researchers have shown it is possible for software hosted by a cloud-computing provider to steal secrets from software hosted on the same cloud. In their experiment, they ran malicious software on hardware designed to mimic the equipment used by cloud companies such as Amazon. They were able to steal an encryption key used to secure e-mails from the software belonging to another user…

Grazed from GovConWire. Author: Ross Wilkers.

Kevin Jackson, vice president and general manager for cloud services at NJVC, has published a sequel to his 2001 book “GovCloud,” where he outlines the characteristics of cloud computing and deployment and delivery models.

In “GovCloud II: Implementation and Cloud Brokerage Services,” NJVC says Jackson explains how the cloud economic model can help with mission and business capabilities while taking resource expenditures into account…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

Eucalyptus, the third, so-called ugly sister of open source cloud computing projects, gets less attention than OpenStack and CloudStack, but remains in contention to provide the software for the enterprise "private" cloud. The "ugly sisters" were so named by a less than diplomatic VMware executive, Mathew Lodge, VP of cloud strategies, in an April blog on the VMware site. Eucalyptus was around before OpenStack and CloudWatch, making it the elder of the three. In the eyes of Eucalyptus CTO Rich Wolski, the company will yet emerge as the belle of the ball.

Wolski is the University of California at Santa Barbara computer science professor who started a project five years ago to build open source APIs. In 2007, there weren’t many models to choose from. There was Amazon’s EC2 and not much else. So Wolski and his students created open source alternative APIs for the AWS S3 and EC2 compute and a few other basic AWS services…

Grazed from Gadget. Author: Editorial Staff.

In South Africa cloud computing is not a new phenomenon, and small startups and large enterprises alike are seeing the cost savings and resource optimization that comes from outsourced IT services. However, concerns remain due to concerns around where data is stored and how it is secured.

Today, the cloud landscape is rapidly changing. In South Africa, businesses understand the benefits of cloud solutions and are willing to adopt this new approach, but adoption rates are still slow. A survey conducted by Symantec revealed that eighty-three percent of respondents in South African are confident that moving to the cloud will have either little impact on or will actually improve their security. However, the same survey revealed that despite a great deal of consideration, many organizations are not ready to adopt cloud due to lack of experience among IT staff. The survey revealed that only 25 percent of IT teams have cloud experience and only the minority (between eight and fifteen percent) rated their staff as extremely prepared for the transition to cloud…

Grazed from BizJournals. Author: Michael Del Castillo.

After what could rightly be called a Voltron experience, Snap MyLife, today announced the launch of Snap Sync, a cloud syncing service that let’s users access content from the typical range of devices—phones, tablets, and desktops—with a few ususual ones to boot: such as, television and picture frames.

“We’ve identified the key things people are willing to pay for,“ said Jiren Parikh, the company’s chief executive and president, in an interview with Upstart Business Journal. “People are willing to pay for insurance, security, storage, safety for our family. And so that’s what we’ve done," in the cloud…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

It never ends. Oracle says its latest acquisition — Instantis — will make it a bigger player in cloud-based project portfolio management. Instantis capabilities will be combined with Fusion and Primavera functions, the company said. Oracle competes with — who else? — SAP in this space.

Oracle is positioning its buyout of Instantis, announced Thursday, as another way to beef up its cloud applications, although Instantis’ project portfolio management capabilities are available in both on-premise and cloud deployment modes. Instantis capabilities will be used in conjunction with the company’s Fusion and Primavera applications. The purchase price was not disclosed…

Grazed from Network Computing. Author: Ellen Messmer.

Any enterprise looking to use cloud computing services will also be digging into what laws and regulations might hold in terms of security and privacy of data stored in the cloud. At the Cloud Security Alliance Congress in Orlando this week, discussion centered on two important regulatory frameworks now being put in place in Europe and the U.S.

The European Union, with its more than two dozen countries, has had a patchwork of data-privacy laws that each country created to adhere to the general directive set by the EU many years ago. But now there’s a slow but steady march toward approving a single data-privacy regulation scheme for EU members…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Durba Sengupta.

When people are infatuated with the latest gadget on the market, they may fail to remember that somewhere beneath the surface someone is working on its next replacement and, unmistakably, with a bulk of more advanced features which one cannot even think of right now. When in 1999, BlackBerry made its breakthrough entry and pushed a new phrase, “mobile cloud”, in the dictionary, people were skeptical about its purpose. They used to carry a huge mobile phone in the pocket just to check inbox and send e-mails from time to time. But now, even college students prefer to buy a cell phone with a push mail feature.

That is how technology teaches us new things, changes our habits and way of living. The cloud is the latest addition to this list of life-changing technologies and, as morning shows the day, current cloud happenings shows a brighter future for all of us…

Grazed from CloudComputing News. Author: Mark DunLeavy.

More than eight in ten companies are now using some form of cloud computing solution; proof that the benefits of the cloud are becoming more widely accepted amongst enterprises. Moreover, positive steps are being made toward further boosting cloud services in the EU.

In September, Neelie Kroes, Europe’s Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, released the paper, "Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe." This outlines a number of recommendations designed to drive European businesses and the public sector into the cloud. The goal is to create 2.5 million new European jobs and boost GDP in the Single Market to EUR 160 billion by 2020…