Grazed from Data Center Knowledge. Author: Bill Kleyman.

There’s very little argument that WAN technologies have helped shape many organizations now do business. Self-service and data delivery over the Internet, referred to as cloud computing, is helping organizations grow organically, while still keeping costs stable. With increased bandwidth and better technology behind the cloud, this solution can be a powerful tool for any business.

Cloud Options

But what type of deliverables does the cloud really offer? Disaster Recovery, Backup, Test/Dev and other capabilities of the cloud have helped create an interesting solution set for organizations to choose from. Aside from just knowing what the cloud can offer, organizations and managers must be able to explain the benefits of the cloud in a top-down model. This means that if managers know the end goals of a cloud strategy, while the engineering staff is left clueless, the success of the entire project can be limited. The main goal here is to understand the various solutions that the cloud can bring to an organization, and how to show these benefits to the entire IT team…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Charlie Osbourne.

A new cloud computing company, Numergy, has been created by French operator SFR and IT group Bull in partnership with government investment firm Caisse des Depots.

Headed by formerly president of IT services group Capgemeni subsidiary Sogeti France Philippe Tavernier, the company aims to provide cloud-based services to governments, businesses innovative start-ups around France and Europe. Based close to Paris, the new firm hopes to eventually support 400 employees and generate sales worth 400 euros ($503 million) in four years…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Brandon Butler.

While big-name players such as Amazon, Google, IBM, Verizon and VMware sit atop the burgeoning cloud computing market, an entire ecosystem of early stage startups are looking to stake their claim, too.

And why not? As Ignition Partners’ Frank Artale sees it, enterprises are on the precipice of the next major shift in computing and venture capital firms are "very aggressive" in looking for companies that can help customers ease their transition to the cloud…

Grazed from ChannelPro. Author: David Blackman.

When cloud computing first made its appearance some years ago it was heralded as the start of a revolution within the IT industry. IT companies and resellers, eager to climb aboard the bandwagon, rushed to bring new ‘cloud-based’ services to market, and the concept quickly gaining a momentum all of its own. Gartner[1] went so far as to predict that 20 percent of businesses would own no IT assets at all by 2012.

The analyst house wasn’t alone in its views; when questioned for the Acronis Global Disaster Recovery Index at the end of 2010, businesses estimated they would have 30 percent of their infrastructure in the cloud in the next twelve months, an increase of 87 percent. However, the reality of the situation was that those companies only grew their cloud-based infrastructure by 19 percent…

Grazed from Gadgets and Technology. Author: PR Announcement.

A new book from IT Governance Publishing, the specialist publishing arm of IT Governance, is helping companies protect business information in the Cloud.

Securing Cloud Services: A pragmatic approach to security architecture in the Cloud explains how to establish an appropriate set of controls to manage the risks.

The book’s author, Lee Newcombe, is an experienced enterprise architect currently working at Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: John Omwamba.

When industry pundits forecast in 2006 that the usage need of data would surpass that of the voice market, not many could not conceptualize such a market outlook. Five years later and the ratio would pitch data market at nearly 70% of the mobile market and growing. The mobile technology has witnessed tremendous advances in recent years such that experts have reckoned that mobile cloud will colligate cloud computing in the next few years.

Mobile cloud computing is set to impact and transform the mobile communication landscape and the whole computing infrastructure. This means that cloud computing services, whether at home or at the work place, is getting more accessible and more utilized. So what more does the future hold for mobile cloud computing?…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Justin Crotty.

Cloud computing is more than just a services model. It’s changing expectations of what IT can do for midmarket and enterprise businesses. Already IT buyers are rapidly moving their cloud utilization from experimentation and rudimentary technologies, to mission-critical applications and workloads. Within the next few years, enterprises are expected to seek even more complex cloud-based automation and business productivity from their cloud providers.

Historically, systems integrators have done well for themselves in designing IT systems and infrastructures, selling and installing the underlying products, and providing ongoing professional support. The legacy IT infrastructure powering the global economy was built by systems integrators one server, one SANs appliance and one switch at a time…

Grazed from EIN PressWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Data privacy and protection remains a major impediment to the broad adoption of Cloud services. In an effort to help Cloud Service Providers and potential Cloud customers objectively evaluate privacy standards, and to support the implementation of Art. 29 WP and EU National Data Protection Regulators recommendations on Cloud Computing, the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) launched a new Privacy Level Agreement (PLA) Working Group.

The scope and objective of the PLA Initiative was presented today at the European Parliament as part of the General Data Protection Regulation discussion being led by CSA’s Managing Director EMEA, Daniele Catteddu, in collaboration with Paolo Balboni, Scientific Director of the European Privacy Association and co-chair of the PLA Working Group…

Grazed from Tech Crunch. Author: Leena Rao.

Nebula, a company that allows businesses to deploy large private cloud computing infrastructures has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Comcast Ventures and Highland Capital Partners with Kleiner Perkins, William Hearts II, Maynard Webb, Scott McNealy, and Innovation Endeavors participating. Also joining the round are Google’s first three investors, Andy Bechtolsheim, David Cheriton and Ram Shriram.

Founded by Chris Kemp, the former CTO of NASA and OpenStack co-founder; Nebula allows businesses to create a private infrastructure and data systems. As Kemp explained to TechCrunch’s Semil Shah earlier this year, Nebula’s infrastructure is similar to Amazon Web Services and runs behind your own firewall in your own data center environment…

Grazed from CloudTimes. Author: Saroj Kar.

The digital economy is experiencing rapid growth driven by broadband penetration; parallel computing power and storage capacity continue to grow. These developments contribute to the emergence of global markets content for the benefit of rights holders, but also create a new threat – copyright, which could seriously harm the creative industries.

The intellectual property rights are central to share innovations, stimulate creativity and strengthen consumer confidence. But the digital world is in a new challenge – how to find a good balance in a context where the consumer and creator merge, where the marginal cost of copying is zero, where it is extremely difficult to enforce existing legislation and where many consider the access free as a right…