Google: Use the Cloud, Save the Planet
Grazed from InfoWord. Author: Jeff Bertolucci.
Organizations generally switch to cloud-based services to save money, but there are environmental benefits as well. Cloud computing reduces energy use and carbon emissions, according to Google, which claims that an average enterprise can lower its energy usage by 65 percent to 85 percent by switching to online productivity tools such as Google Apps.
"Lower energy use results in less carbon pollution and more energy saved for organizations," writes Google’s Urs Hoelzle, senior vice president for technical infrastructure, in a Monday post on the Google Green Blog…
AWS Outage – Thoughts on Disaster Recovery Policies
AWS Outage – Thoughts on Disaster Recovery Policies
Simplifying the Building of Mobile Apps in the Cloud
Grazed from IT Business Edge. Author: Michael Vizard.
A lot of the developers trying to create mobile computing applications today don’t have a lot of experience with the backend server technologies needed to deploy a robust mobile computing application. And yet, when you look at the backend services required for any mobile computing application, they tend to be very similar.
Applicasa has turned that realization into a cloud-based service that masks all the complexity associated with building and deploying databases for mobile computing applications. The Applicasa service presents developers with a drag-and-drop interface for creating the database and custom queries in about 10 minutes. Once database objects and queries have been set up, Applicasa generates a customized software development kit that converts database objects to the native development environment without requiring manual coding…
Amplidata Shares the Secrets Behind Storage Clouds’ Exceptional Performance with Big Data at GigaOm Structure
Amplidata
Storage clouds are the conduit for an increasing percentage of business users to access their daily computing needs, not just for casual access to files while traveling, or sending an occasional large file among collaborators. Rather than base their storage clouds on traditional RAID architectures, service providers, online storage companies, and even large organizations are moving to achieve scalability and cost-efficiency in the same way as Facebook, Google and Amazon have done – with object storage implementations. This is particularly true with Big Unstructured Data applications, where the traditional file structure no longer can meet today’s demand for scalability and cost-efficiency…
Symform Wins Two Awards for Its Disruptive Cloud Storage Technology and Leading Corporate Culture
Symform, a revolutionary cloud storage and backup service, today announced two award wins that acknowledge the company’s innovative product and work environment. Symform won "Best Cloud Storage Solution" in the 4th Annual Cloud Computing World Series held in London earlier this month, recognizing Symform’s innovative and disruptive global peer-to-peer cloud storage network. In addition, Seattle Business magazine selected Symform as one of Washington’s ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ in 2012.
These latest accolades come amid a year of record growth and achievement for Symform, including 100 percent quarter-over-quarter customer growth with tens of thousands of active users across 138 countries, and the company’s recent $11 million Series B funding round…
Google Backs Green-Cloud Claims, Touts Apps
Google describes how reducing energy use for servers and server cooling works. Image: Courtesy of Google
The cloud is more green than traditional on-premises setups, according to a recent Carbon Disclosure Project survey. But that survey, which Cloudline put to a question in March, did not sit well with readers (see the comments section.)
Now Google is championing the Carbon Disclosure Project, and touting its cloud apps’ energy efficiency as well as their green cred (notably, too, the post was lifted from the Google Green blog)…
Corent Wins TechAmerica High-Tech Innovation Award For Best Cloud Computing Product Of The Year
Corent Technology, Inc., a disruptive innovator in the Cloud Computing space, was honored as the most innovative cloud technology provider at the 19th Annual TechAmerica Orange County High-Tech Innovation Awards.
"Our ‘Plug & Play’ suite of software products continues to be recognized by our industry peers as a game changer in the Cloud and SaaS space. We are honored to receive this award and look forward to continuing to deliver high value to SaaS and software vendors as well as to global enterprises, which can now gain a decisive competitive edge by delivering their SaaS solutions – on any public, private, or hybrid Cloud – at a significantly lower cost of service," said Feyzi Fatehi, CEO of Corent Technology…
Cloud Computing: Dell Reportedly Offers $2.15 Billion for Quest
Quest Software said last Thursday that it got an acquisition offer worth about $2.15 billion from an unidentified "strategic bidder."
Reuters claims the unidentified mystery bidder is Dell after talks to buy Quest broke down earlier.
The $25.50-a-share cash offer bests the $23 a share Quest accepted back in March from private equity house Insight Venture Partners. Insight has to sweeten its offer or let it go for a break-up fee of either $4.2 million or $6.3 million…
Predictive Analytics: The Perfect Use Case for Cloud Computing
Can cloud help predict the future? Okay, that’s a loaded question, but there are certainly voices out there making the case that cloud computing provides the processing and big data support needed for predictive analytics. Predictive analytics — matching current datasets against historical patterns to determine the probability of an event occurring in the future — requires a lot of compute power and draws on a lot of data. In other words, a perfect use case for cloud.
James Taylor, automated decision management proponent and author/co-author of two books on the topic, says cloud computing is elevating the art and science of predictive analytics to a whole new level. No longer do such efforts need to be be constrained by companies’ current server and storage capacity — with online, sharable resources, the sky’s the limit. Based on a survey Taylor conducted at the end of last year among 200 business intelligence professionals, 43% have already developed predictive analytics solutions within their companies,and 82% have predictive analytics in their plans going forward. “Separately, predictive analytics and cloud solutions are changing the way organizations do business,” he states. “Together, they open up a wealth of opportunities.”…
Cloud Computing: AWS Cuts Support Pricing
It must be getting competitive out there. Amazon Web Services has cut its support prices, expanded free support and added new support features like chat and proactive alerts.
Now all customers will automatically get free support and enterprise support will be based on usage rather than a flat fee, a potential cost saver.
Support levels have been renamed. Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum are now Basic, Developer, Business and Enterprise. All plans cover an unlimited number of cases and can be cancelled at any time. There are no long-term contracts. All plans are available worldwide…