Grazed from ARN. Author: Patrick Budmar.

Is the hype for the Cloud justified? If you ask Avnet A/NZ services general manager, Adam Chicktong, it is both a yes and no.

“I say ‘yes’ because the technology has advanced enough to enable this particular model of computing to be leveraged and consumerised in a way that was impossible before,” he said. The benefits of the Cloud typically include reduced costs, scalability, moving Capex to Opex, redundancy, and on-demand compute power as some of the advantages. “It has enabled business’ to develop and grow into areas they would not have been able to 15 years ago,” Chicktong said…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

Performance issues hold back some cloud computing efforts. This happens because many of those who stand up cloud-based applications did not account for the latency systemic to many cloud-based systems.

For the most part, these performance issues are caused by the fact that cloud-based applications are typically widely distributed, with the data far away from the application logic, which itself may be far away from the user. Unless careful planning has gone into the design of the system, you’re going to run into latency and even reliability issues…

Grazed from InformationManagement. Author: Jim Ericson.

A new study of cloud computing users in 50 countries finds that organizations remain concerned about many issues related to service providers, chiefly governmental regulations, exit strategies and data privacy. The latest Cloud Market Maturity study comes from a pair of non-profit industry organizations, the Cloud Security Alliance and ISACA, which develops standards and practices for information systems.

The study reports positive experiences that encourage adoption, including confidence that services are meeting expectations and that problems are being addressed by providers. That supports the perceived value of cloud computing, but business buy-in also needs to improve and senior management needs to perceive cloud services as a business asset rather than a technical issue.
“We must provide our organizations with new services and it must come from business leadership that understands cloud risks and value,” says Yves LeRoux, a member of CSA and the ISACA Guidance and Practices Committee. This is not a gadget, this is something to enable our people.”…

Grazed from Bloomberg. Author: Aaron Ricadela.

Oracle Corp. (ORCL) plans to unveil the first new version of its flagship database program in five years and an expanded line of high-end servers, as the software maker steps up its effort to win more cloud-computing business.

At its OpenWorld conference in San Francisco on Sept. 30, Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison will show the new 12c database, designed for cloud computing, and more powerful systems to handle ballooning amounts of corporate data more efficiently, Mark Hurd, co-president at Oracle, said in an interview yesterday…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Sharon Hurley Hall.

There are many myths and misunderstandings about cloud computing, says Ping! Zine. While Gartner predicts a huge increase in takeup of cloud services this year and in the future, others are not so sure. Matthew Finnie, chief technology officer of European cloud services provider Interoute, says that overall the cloud will benefit midsized businesses and others. He sets out to dispel five of the most common myths on Ping! Zine.

Many people may feel that the cloud isn’t right for everyone, but Finnie says this stems from a misunderstanding of how the cloud works. Virtualization is already a part of many IT setups, and this just takes it one step further. The lesson for IT administrators is to check the hardware that cloud service providers are using as well as the level of privacy control the administrators will have. That also relates to the myth that the cloud can’t be trusted, rooted with providers that are secretive about how they are storing data and may be less trustworthy than those that have a transparent process, robust service level agreements, and a track record of delivering services to similar customers. This means that IT administrators need to do a lot of legwork before deciding on a suitable cloud services provider…

Grazed from NASDAQ. Author: Editorial Staff.

On Tuesday, NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. ( NDAQ ) announced the launch of an Amazon Web Services-powered cloud computing platform – FinQloud. The platform has been created to assist the financial services industry in storing and managing financial data with a view to simplifying operations and helping companies meet regulatory requirements.

Global regulators are coming up with stringent regulatory requirements and gaining access to more in-depth data in order to boost transparency. This is increasing the pressure on financial services companies since they have to manage larger volumes of data, resulting in high data management costs…

Grazed from Xconomy. Author: Curt Woodward.

Cloud-computing service provider Tier 3 has raised another $10 million to expand its IT products for big businesses.

The new money first showed up in a filing with the SEC. A company spokeswoman says new investor Intel Capital led the Series B round, which also included investments from existing backers Madrona Venture Group and Ignition Capital. The new cash brings the total venture investment in Tier 3 to $18.5 million…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

With the cloud computing business still in its relatively early days, the European Union moved on Thursday to secure a toehold in a potentially lucrative market it says could deliver 2.5 million new jobs. "We want to make Europe not just cloud-friendly but cloud-active," said the EU’s commissioner for digital affairs Neelie Kroes, announcing plans to develop European standards and certifications to get business to join the cloud.

"Cloud computing" consists of storing data and software on remote servers accessed over the Internet by e-mail, social network or video-game users without having to invest in added software. Using remote servers in centres that can be the size of football fields is popular with services such as Facebook and Spotify but as an economy of scale, the system cuts IT costs for businesses by 10 to 20 percent…