Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Chris Kanaracus.

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff on Wednesday doubled down on the company’s embrace of social networking software, urging customers, partners and prospects to join him in a "social revolution," during a keynote address at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco that was webcast.

"We are standing on the shoulders of giants," he said citing those who created the mainframe, client-server model, and cloud computing. "Now here we are in the 21st century, and we have this incredible social revolution. We believe so strongly that Salesforce.com’s mission, our core mission, is to help you, our customers, to connect with your customers in a whole new way."…

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Joe Onisick.

There’s very little argument when discussing the need for change in traditional data center networking to support private cloud–most all agree it’s required. The real discussion typically focuses around how to implement that change. Concepts such as open APIs, SDN, OpenFlow, VXLAN and fabrics are all discussed as the solution. In some cases they may all be right, as they each have merit.

The main problem with traditional networking is its static configuration. Quality of Service is a prime example: QoS provides traffic prioritization for frames on the network. In order to do this, frames must be classified, tagged and prioritized. In current implementations, this is done on a switch-by-switch basis and must be maintained consistently across the network in order to provide the desired effect…

Grazed from Government Technology. Author: Editorial Staff.

There’s a problem with the cloud in federal government. According to a recent study by the Government Business Council (GBC), only 24 percent of federal managers felt cloud computing in government was of high quality and only 15 percent reported that they used cloud technology frequently, Government Executive reported. For context, 94 percent of the 548 respondents polled said they believed telephone conferencing was high quality and 85 percent reported that they used that technology frequently.

Either cloud technology in federal agencies really is terrible, or as GBC Research Manager Dana Grinshpan suggested, managers may not have a clear understanding of what cloud computing is. "With regard to the low quality and low frequency scores of cloud computing, it is likely one of a few things are at play: feds don’t know how to use cloud computing, don’t realize they are using it, or don’t actually know what cloud computing is," she said…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Joe Panettieri.

Tech Data is updating its TDCloud strategy for VARs and cloud partners today during a partner conference in Orlando, Fla. Stacy Nethercoat, VP, software and TDCloud, is describing how the distributor will empower partners for cloud computing.

“We want to help you monetize the cloud opportunities,” she said, asserting that Tech Data has the tools, the technologies, customer support and vendor partnerships to empower VARs for cloud solutions. “Our objective is to help you simplify the situation and add value.”…

Grazed from Computing. Author: Graeme Burton.

New trends in computing, including social media and cloud computing, are challenging traditional approaches to computer security that will force organisations to adapt – or to risk marginalisation and extinction, according to Gartner analyst Carston Casper.

Casper, speaking at the 13th Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit in London today, said that users – whether staff, partners or potential customers – were becoming increasingly demanding, and that organisations need to respond quickly to these demands or risk marginalisation…

Grazed from FierceTelecom. Author: Jim Barthold.

Japanese telecom giant NTT (NYSE: NTT) has expanded its strategic focus on cloud computing by acquiring Centerstance, a consulting company that specializes in cloud-enabled business transformation solutions, the two companies announced Tuesday. Centerstance will become a wholly owned NTT subsidiary.

No financial terms of the acquisition were announced. "NTT is focused on becoming the leading partner of choice to help clients transform their business as they move to the cloud," Hiroo Unoura, NTT’s president-CEO said in a news release…

Grazed from NonProfitQuarterly. Author: John Hoffman.

Today marks the kickoff of Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce conference, which the company bills as “the cloud computing industry event of the year.” Cloud computing, or the use of the Internet to run applications and store data, emerged in the early 2000’s. After the dot.com bubble burst, surviving and newer companies, like Salesforce, Google, Amazon and others, moved from using the Internet as a medium to place orders or communicate with customers and instead developed online platforms that leveraged Internet connectivity as a crucial part of their services. Today, cloud computing has become so ubiquitous that many people are unaware they are even using it.

TechSoup Global recently released a report that surveyed more than 10,000 NGO’s across 88 countries to measure their adoption of cloud computing. “People often don’t know whether or not the technology they are using is cloud computing” says Marnie Webb, Co-CEO of TechSoup Global. “It’s only when we asked respondents about specific technologies that we discovered that they were, in fact, using cloud computing.”…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Joe McKendrick.

Security is often a showstopper for cloud computing proposals, but at least one survey suggests that applications and data may be somewhat more secure out in the cloud than within on-premises systems.

In fact, cloud-based applications are less likely to be attacked than on-premises environments, a new study of 70,000 security breaches for a 12-month period across 1,600 companies, released by by Alert Logic, a security vendor, concludes…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

The new OpenStack Foundation is taking shape as a potentially potent force in cloud computing. Its governing board has been elected, and working groups are accelerating development in eight technical areas. Perhaps more important, it has organized itself on a self-sustaining basis and now has $10 million in the bank to pursue its goals.

That could have made it a more formidable competitor to VMware, which has also been active in establishing the vSphere and vCloud product portfolio adopted by many of its customers. At VMworld, outgoing CEO Paul Maritz said VMware has 8,500 service providers offering a VMware-compatible virtualization environment, many of them small co-location and regional data center operators…