Grazed from eWeek. Author: Jeffrey Burt.

Cisco Systems is adding to its data center and cloud portfolio by buying Virtuata, a company that specialized in virtual machine security.

Cisco officials announced July 16 that Virtuata will be incorporated into the company’s Data Center Group, which is headed up by Senior Vice President David Yen. No financial terms for the deal were announced.

Officials with the networking giant see a huge growth opportunity in the cloud and virtualization, as enterprises and network operators alike look to bulk up their infrastructure to leverage the rapid adoption of the cloud computing model. Cisco has been building up its data center capabilities over the past few years, not only with its networking portfolio of switches and routers, but also through its Unified Computing System (UCS) converged solution…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Florence de Borja.

The core agencies of the US government have a central plan, Cloud First, which aims to shift the majority of their operations to the cloud. Before the plan can be implemented, it must go through a process of evaluation by the agencies concerned. In December 2010, a Cloud First policy was released by the Office Of Management and Budget so that federal agencies could implement the shift to cloud computing services if such agencies could find a cost-effective, reliable, and secure cloud computing service. The target was to move three of the core agencies’ technology services by June of the following year.

The Government Accountability Office recently released an overall progress report on the implementation plan. It reported that the Office found common challenges which the organization feels represent a hindrance to the Cloud First initiative. According to the report, one of the common threats is that cloud computing providers must first meet federal security requirements. Each of the government’s core agencies has their own security requirements, which cloud computing suppliers must satisfy first before such suppliers can be provided with a service contract. The problem is that most of these agencies have very strict requirements which suppliers find hard to meet…

Grazed from The Wall Street Journal. Author: Editorial Staff.

Despite the advantages cloud computing can offer larger enterprises, adoption continues to be slow.

Lanham Napier, CEO of Rackspace, predicts the take-up of cloud systems will accelerate. But he warns the industry has to innovate or risk being commoditized itself. Mr. Napier said infrastructure-as-a-service, or IaaS, was the most widely used service as it was the easiest for the market to understand, but that it was a “race to the bottom.”

“If all you are selling is a [gigabyte] of computing power, you are in trouble,” he said. “The big boys are in a race to zero. They are trying to drive that price down to halfpennies.”…

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Mary Shacklett.

The CIO called a 4 p.m. meeting to gather his chief data architect, senior systems manager, applications group director and QA and help desk managers over a fresh pot of coffee to talk about the finer points of cloud adoption.

This wasn’t a meeting about "cloud in a box," or cloud services implementation. The real challenge now was ensuring that the company’s cloud services strategy would pay off the way everyone believed it would. This meant understanding and being willing to do what it took to get there.

The first step was service…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Eric Knorr.

It’s been over a month since Larry Ellison strutted across the stage and unveiled Oracle Cloud and its first three enterprise applications: CRM, human capital management, and enterprise social networking. Plus, Ellison took the wraps off cloud versions of WebLogic and Oracle Database itself.

All told, Oracle’s fearless leader said that more than 100 applications would be available, including ERP eventually — typically the last application category enterprise customers consider trusting to the cloud.

Quite a few responses to the announcement have been cynical: another golden opportunity for Oracle lock-in. Or: The same old stuff, now available by subscription through the cloud at rates Oracle hasn’t even seen fit to announce yet. Some even questioned whether it was a cloud offering at all, since Oracle touted the fact that each customer would get its own instance of the software…

Grazed from CRN. Author: Joe McCarthy.

This week marks the second anniversary of the founding of the OpenStack cloud computing platform, and it will be an occasion for celebration in the open-source community. After all, OpenStack is leading a movement in cloud computing, garnering the label of the "Linux of cloud computing," a reference to the hugely successful open-source operating system.

OpenStack started as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud computing project by Rackspace and NASA, and has grown at a rapid pace with more than 150 companies participating in the project. On Wednesday at the OSCON open-source convention in Portland, Ore., an expected 3,000 attendees will salute OpenStack.

OpenStack is supported by many tech stalwarts, including Dell, HP, IBM, NetApp and Red Hat, all endorsing the OpenStack commitment to open-source development and the use of nonproprietary technologies within cloud stacks. In April, Rackspace turned control of the project over to the OpenStack Foundation, which will continue to develop the platform…

Grazed from MarketWatch. Author: PR Announcement.

ProfitBricks, the Cloud Computing IaaS Service company that has completely reengineered the delivery of cloud computing, announces today the first public preview of its groundbreaking virtual data center service. Verified by independent testing, ProfitBricks’ new cloud architecture offers IT professionals dramatically improved performance over all current cloud providers at costs up to 56% below what is possible with competitive 1st generation cloud platforms. Pilot programs of the production-ready cloud service are available on an exclusive basis to qualified customers during the two month preview period.

"Cloud IaaS architectures are broken on many levels so our team set out to architect a new technology infrastructure that delivers on the full promise of cloud computing," said ProfitBricks’ Chief Executive Officer, Achim Weiss. "Data Centers hosted in the cloud should be simple to design and build. They should scale on demand, be as flexible as on-premise infrastructure and they should be less expensive. The cloud should have more sophisticated metering and billing structures that support agile businesses with computing needs that expand at the speed of market demand. We decided it was time to break free of legacy cloud systems and start new. Now is the time to build the future of cloud architecture."…

Grazed from MarketWatch. Author: PR Announcement.

In these budget-conscious times, getting the best value at a competitive price is an especially compelling proposition. Infinitely Virtual, a leading provider of virtual server cloud computing services for businesses, today announced new pricing that enables customers to get the full benefits of premium McAfee anti-spam protection for 30 percent less.

At the same time, the company announced a similar 30 percent price reduction on email archiving options.

Customers of Infinitely Virtual’s Dedicated Exchange Hosting services can now choose from either a Basic or Premium bundled, anti-spam package. Under the new pricing structure, the rate for the Basic plan remains unchanged. The bundled Advanced tier has been eliminated, and customers now under the Advanced plan are being automatically upgraded to Premium. Customers may continue to purchase the Advanced level as a standalone product, also at a 30 percent discount…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Celina Conner.

If you have an ongoing business or you’re about to start one, one of the more important decisions you have to make is do I or do I not use cloud computing for my business processes?

Cloud ComputingCloud computing allows businesses to be mobile, doing work whenever and wherever they need to, which is the growing trend these days. It allows a company’s employees to work with their files no matter where they are at the moment. But if you come from the thinking that I need an onsite server for my business needs, then you most probably have dozens of questions before you dive into this thing they call cloud computing.

First, let’s define what Cloud computing is. Cloud computing is using the Internet to store, manage, and process data from anywhere with a computer, tablet, phone, or similar devices. This makes it possible for users to access, collect, and manage data from anywhere with internet connection…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Lucas Mearian.

Increasing numbers of weather-related disasters — violent storms, wildfires that have ravaged more than 2 million acres in the Rocky Mountains, and drought conditions affecting some two-thirds of the United States — should have IT executives scurrying to update their disaster recovery plans.

The message to IT managers from business continuity experts is a familiar one: Put backup data centers in diverse, far-flung locations, and make sure your cloud service providers maintain geographically dispersed hosting facilities.

Those calls have been largely ignored in the past, and it’s unclear whether the changing weather patterns will spur corporate executives to take more notice now…