Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Emma Joseph.

IBM has come up with great and easy ways to understand cloud computing and make it functional as well. IBM is a leader when it comes to cloud computing, so it is no surprise that they have managed to do this. Cloud computing can also go beyond cost savings by allowing your users to access the latest software and infrastructure offerings to foster business innovation. Think about what that simple statement means. Yes, saving money is good – even important – but even more important is how the end user uses software and infrastructure. Do you know what that really means?

From the infrastructure side of things, you should be able to offer something that has enough servers, storage and other essential components to get the task at hand done. In this case, the task is setting up a cloud computing structure. IBM offers four different types: X86, Power7, zEnterprise System and iDataplex…

Grazed from Wired. Author: Alexander Haislip.

It ought not surprise anyone that Google has entered the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) business. GigaOm’s Derrick Harris broke news of the plans in mid-May, but among knowledgeable cloud circles, it was a foregone conclusion that the search giant would enter into rentable infrastructure.

It was a natural move for Google to join the fray. HP entered the cloud game in April. Microsoft hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on its Platform as a Service (PaaS) in early June and brought it back as an IaaS. Google couldn’t afford to sit idle and hand over the future of an eleventy billion dollar industry to an online book store.

And Google needs new things to talk about. New tablets, new glasses, new media players, etc. “New” is the gas that keeps Google going, what gives it that sheen of innovation that makes it seem like more than an advertising company. More product launches mean more bonuses too, so it’s critical to keep putting products out the door. That’s the incentive plan that brought us Google Wave, Google Buzz, Google Answers and GoogleFlooFlaFlippidittyFloop…

Grazed from CloudTimes.org. Author: Florence de Borja.

Experts do not believe that an API standard will be implemented in the near future. This is primarily because each of the cloud computing service providers has its own API definition. Although there is a real need to standardize APIs, these providers are really not bent on moving towards standardization because the APIs are expensive to create and modify. As such, the public can’t expect API standardization.

Amazon Web Services, being the most successful cloud computing service provider to date, has become the norm. Proof to this is that other companies like Eucalyptus now offers API compatibility with Amazon Web Services. Other companies are also following suit. Because of this movement, it can be said that AWS’s API has become the norm…

Grazed from The Age. Author: Quentin Hardy.

June 2012 may well go down as the month the tech world entered a new era.

On June 11, Apple showed its next operating system for iPhones and iPads. It offered maps and speech recognition, plus music and movies on iTunes, all tied via the internet to Apple’s "cloud" of servers.

A week later, Microsoft, known better for software, demonstrated the Surface tablet, its answer to the iPad. The Surface interacts with both the web and Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure, called Windows Azure…

International Data Corporation (IDC) recently pubished the report, Guides on Implementation of Cloud Computing Infrastructure Projects in China, which proposes roadmaps for Chinese enterprises in constructing cloud computing infrastructures. The report is based on IDC’s in-depth surveys on the current status of China’s cloud computing market. It aims at offering suggestions to enterprises and organizations that are constructing cloud computing infrastructures that will help them to deploy cloud platforms rapidly and successfully.

IDC believes that the implementation of cloud computing infrastructures involves not only the integration of software and hardware, but also the transformation of businesses’ IT strategies. Therefore, users should evaluate cloud computing projects before implementation and cooperate with experienced IT consultancies or service providers to ensure that their plans take the management pattern of cloud computing centers into consideration and includes future operations. The cloud computing platforms should be expected to truly benefit the enterprises.

FortaTrust, a leading provider of dedicated and cloud computing services, has announced its Free VPS Program. “This program is designed to provide Technology Professionals with the opportunity to become familiar with our VPS Cloud Servers in a production environment, and have the ability to use them at their discretion for their internal operations,” said Octavio Diaz, FortaTrust’s Director of Industry Relations.

The Free VPS Program for Technology Professionals:

VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire DynamicOps, Inc., a provider of cloud automation solutions that enable provisioning and management of IT services across heterogeneous environments – VMware-based private and public clouds, physical infrastructures, multiple hypervisors and Amazon Web Services. Terms of the acquisition were not announced. The acquisition is scheduled to close in Q3 2012 subject to customary closing conditions.

“As IT organizations evolve from builders to brokers of services many seek to provide access to diverse cloud resources in a controlled, managed fashion,” said Ramin Sayar, vice president and general manager, Virtualization and Cloud Management, VMware. “DynamicOps’ multi-cloud and multi-platform capabilities help to strengthen VMware’s position as the infrastructure and management vendor of choice for cloud computing.”

Grazed from The Wall Street Journal. Author: Greg Bensinger.

Amazon.com Inc. on Saturday restored service to its cloud computing operations after electrical storms cut service to some customers including Netflix Inc. and Instagram. But Amazon waited until Monday to tell the world that those operations were fully back up.

In a statement Monday, the Seattle company said thunderstorms affected several of its datacenters on the East Coast on Friday night. But while “several of our datacenters had their utility power impacted,” Amazon said “in only one of them did the redundant power not operate correctly.” The power outage “ended up impacting a single digit percentage” of customers, Amazon said in the statement.

Amazon added that it restored service to most of its customers on Friday night, with the remainder restored on Saturday…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Bert Markgraf.

Proprietary models for cloud computing are a major barrier for midsize businesses considering moving data and applications to the cloud. It takes substantial resources to configure business functions to work in a cloud-based environment and companies must be able to move if there is a problem with one supplier.

Open source cloud platforms address this fear of lock-in by offering transparency and open structures at a basic level. This means that companies could transfer from one cloud supplier to another using the same open source platform, but it doesn’t mean that other open source platforms would be compatible. The key for a midsize business wanting to avoid lock-in to preserve its investment in cloud development is to choose an open source platform that will be adopted widely.

Sun BurstThree open source cloud platforms were represented at last week’s GigaOm Structure conference in San Francisco. OpenStack, CloudStack, and Eucalyptus representatives participated in a debate on the respective merits of their cloud technologies. InformationWeek reported on the discussions…