Grazed from MTB Europe. Author: Dr. James Coffin.

When scientists embarked on the 13-year journey to map the human genome in 1990, they envisioned a future where the knowledge of DNA would aid in the diagnosis, treatment and even prevention of thousands of diseases and disorders.

Fast forward to 2012 and that dream is closer to reality thanks to ongoing advances at the nexus of high-performance computing and genomics research. Though we have yet to identify cures for diseases such as cancer and AIDS, personalised treatments based on a patient’s molecular makeup — as opposed to a “one size fits all” approach — are optimising and extending lives…

Grazed from BizTech2. Author: Editorial Staff.

The potential impact of cloud on propositions of platform business process outsourcing (BPO) and business-process-as-a-service (BPaaS) has caused distinctions among the various propositions to become increasingly blurred, leading to confusion among buyers, according to global analyst firm, Ovum. In a new report, Ovum finds that the BPaaS concept appears to be a logical evolution of cloud services, in that standardised processes have been wrapped around software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering.

Thomas Reuner, Ovum Principal Analyst, IT Services and author of the report, commented, “In the narrower context of BPO, Ovum believes that BPaaS is a future vision that is not yet resonating with buying organisations. Most marketing messages are reminiscent of the early hype around cloud services.”…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: John Omwamba.

One of the great aspects of cloud computing is that it is quantifiable. It takes a challenge and accounts for it in hard figures. If it is software, one rents it and pays for the time he or she spends on it. If it is education, particularly, students come to know the time they spend in a remote learning environment will come back to them in the form of a certificate or degree. There are different ways in which the ubiquity and easy accessibility of otherwise expensive resources and data has affected micro-learning. Here are five such ways, beginning with the most quantifiable revolution.

Expanding the scope of class

One intriguing remark from a professor appeared online, recently, to the effect that he now reaches a hundred thousand learners in a single session, via the Internet, whereas it would take him two and a half lifetimes (each lifetime a 100 years) to teach such a multitude in his typical four hundred-strong physical lecture hall. This shows that with just a few resources that micro-learning places one’s way, it would be easy to extend boundaries and meet new challenges. It only requires a computer with a video teleconferencing icon, a few saving programs and back up, to appear on some remote student’s desktop in a later podcast, if not live…

Grazed from CRN. Author: Jack McCarthy.

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) is aiming to capitalize on a coming cloud computing shift from delivering small, consumer-focused services to sustaining secure and reliable enterprise-scale workloads, HP’s cloud chief said Wednesday.

"One of the challenges right now is getting to a true, open, scalable, integrated cloud, and an ecosystem around that for the enterprise," Biri Singh, senior vice president and general manager for HP Cloud Services, said in a keynote address Wednesday at the OpenStack Design Summit and Conference in San Diego…

Grazed from Information Management. Author: Mark A. Smith.

SAP executive Vishal Sikka followed up in person to his written response to the statements Oracle CEO and Chairman Larry Ellison made at Oracle OpenWorld on the limited nature of SAP’s HANA in-memory computing technology. Sikka presented a SAP HANA server with 100 terabytes of DRAM processing 1 petabyte of raw data to counter Ellison’s commentary, and Oracle has yet to release its comparable Exadata X3 appliance. SAP also announced that SAP HANA Cloud is available in Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide anyone the opportunity to use the technology, though the AWS version will be limited in the size of data it can process in its in-memory environment. Amazon’s Andy Jassy, the senior vice president of AWS, spoke about the company’s work with SAP to advance cloud computing’s utility for developers.

In truth, appliances and in-memory computing have varying use case scenarios. Our big data benchmark research finds a place for both approaches. They are just about even in demand, and our research finds that those who provide the highest business value in the shortest period of time will gain the most adoption…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Stephen J. Bigelow.

Few technologies have affected the IT industry as profoundly as cloud computing, which delivers computing as a service or utility. Part of cloud’s appeal is clearly financial; it allows organizations to shed at least some of their expensive IT infrastructure and shift computing costs to more manageable operational expenses.

The cloud also eases much of the technological burden involved with IT systems support and maintenance, helping companies focus on the productive business use of their workloads rather than on underlying systems and software. Regardless of the motivation, business owners and data center managers are increasingly turning to cloud for vital computing services. This report examines key findings of a recent TechTarget survey about cloud adoption and services…

Grazed from nVidia. Author: PR Announcement.

The VGX K2 will not be available until early 2013, but Nvidia released some initial specs of its first cloud computing GPU product.

ZoomThe K2 will be the flagship board to enable smartphones, tablets and PCs to access substantially more GPU performance over a cloud infrastructure and expand the processing horsepower of their own local devices. The K2 is essentially two merged Quadro K5000 workstation graphics cards. It integrates two GPUs with 2×1536 active processing cores and 2x4GB GDDR5 memory. The board is rated at a power consumption of 225 watts and receives a passive cooling solution…

Grazed from WSJ. Author: Spencer Ante.

For International Business Machines IBM -1.10%, cloud computing is both an opportunity and a risk. And the risks of the cloud materialized in its most recent earnings announcement where IBM’s revenue fell short of analyst estimates.

The opportunity for IBM is in becoming a sort of arms provider for the cloud, selling customized hardware and software that helps governments, large and mid-size companies, or Web developers and hosting providers offer applications over the Web. In September, IBM ramped up its initiatives to sell cloud services to mid-size businesses in an effort to take on market leaders such as Amazon.com and Salesforce.com. In the third quarter, IBM said it achieved double digit growth in its cloud business, though it declined to detail the components of that revenue…

Grazed from Information Management. Author: Justin Kern.

Worldwide implementations of cloud computing standards might not yet be a reality, but industry groups are making progress in areas such as security, interoperability, interfaces and inter-cloud infrastructure, according to an expert panel discussion held Tuesday, entitled “The State of Global Cloud Standards.”

The panel was led by Winston Bumpus, chairman of the board of the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) and director of standards architecture at VMware. Additional panelists included Dr. Jieping Wang of the China Electronics Standardization Institute; Ryuichi Ogawa of Japan’s non-profit cloud standardization group GICTIF; and Monique Morrow of the International Telecommunications Union. The four organizations represented by these panelists have cooperative agreements on computing system standards and each group represents hundreds of vendors and businesses engaged in cloud deployments around the world…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

In a world awash in data, where complexity is on the rise and the pace of innovation has never been faster, the need to streamline new application development is driving demand for a relatively new form of cloud computing known as Platform as a Service (PaaS). This was the finding of a new study released today by the IBM (NYSE: IBM) Center for Applied Insights. In response, IBM is today announcing the general availability of a new PaaS offering for the fourth quarter to help organizations build and deploy their own software applications quickly and effectively by renting IBM’s PaaS cloud computing platform of integrated middleware, monitoring, networks, servers and storage.

IBM’s survey of more than 1,500 IT decision makers from 18 countries found that forward looking IT leaders are blazing the trail with early adoption of PaaS for business advantage – citing big data as the #1 reason among several strategic initiatives they were targeting. The study also showed that nearly 20 percent of respondents are currently using PaaS, although more than half recognize the opportunity…