Grazed from The Huffington Post.  Author: William Brindley.

Two years ago at the NetHope Global Member Summit, NetHope co-founder Edward G. Happ pushed our member organizations to collaborate more to run more efficient operations. He said it is not NGOs’ core competency to run data centers or computer server-farms. In order to maximize their impact in Emergency Response, Humanitarian Development and Conservation, international NGOs would be better served by banding together to off-load IT operations tasks to solution providers who see hosting and cloud services as their core missions. This would allow the IT department to focus on more mission-moving technologies.

NetHope has since created an initiative to help NGOs adopt cloud technologies and better serve their beneficiaries. The idea is to increase uptake of successful cloud solutions among the NetHope membership as well as expand cloud service awareness and education to members and organizations, institutions and agencies beyond NetHope. Cloud-based technologies can be a good fit to solve challenges across all verticals — whether it’s mobile assessment of orphans and vulnerable children to increase their well-being or providing financial management training to increase numbers of small hold farmers without a commensurate increase in cost; many solutions can be reapplied to tackle problems in different sectors with minimal tweaking…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

In today’s day and age, many SMBs and enterprise-level businesses are "taking to the skies" with cloud computing. These companies realize that working in the cloud comes with many benefits — including reduced cost of in-house hardware, ease of implementation and seamless scalability. However, as you will read on and discover – performance-impacting file fragmentation and the need for defragmentation still exists and is actually amplified in these environments. Based on these factors, it must now be addressed with a two-fold proactive and preventative solution.

Let’s face it — we generate a tremendous amount of data and it’s only the beginning. In fact, findings included in a recent study by IDC titled "Extracting Value from Chaos" predict that in the next ten years we will create 50 times more information and 75 times more files. Now regardless of destination, most of this data is generated on Windows-based computers, which are known to fragment files. Therefore, when files are manipulated they become fragmented before even reaching the cloud. This occurs because as they are worked with, they get broken up into various pieces and scattered to numerous locations across the hard disk. The result is increased time necessary to access these files and affects system performance…

Grazed from InformationWeek.  Author: Beth Stackpole.

While the promise of the cloud is more cost-effective IT, the reality is that once companies move beyond simple deployment into a wholesale enterprise architecture shift, they often bump up against unanticipated expenses that threaten the cloud’s principal value proposition.

It could be a development team that spins up hundreds of servers for load testing that they then forget to switch off, or a marketing team reserving dozens of new server instances to run a specific campaign when there are untapped enterprise resources they could otherwise deploy. Whatever the case, the ‘aha moment’ around the cloud’s hidden costs typically presents itself along with a hefty bill that can leave some CFOs questioning the long-term viability of the cloud as a cost-effective platform.

"It’s the shocking bill problem–that’s when the pain first gets raised," said Sharon Wagner, CEO of Cloudyn, a provider of an automated cost management solution for analyzing cloud spending…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Venyu announced today that its recently-launched VenyuCloud virtualization platform, a low-cost, easily-deployed alternative to physical servers, is now available through its trusted channel partners. VenyuCloud, a VMware vCloud(R) Powered Service, provides a controlled, secure platform where IT managers can quickly provision cloud servers and virtual cloud data centers on demand that are compatible with their on-premise VMware based infrastructure.

Venyu’s channel partner program helps IT solutions resellers and systems integration professionals develop, grow and support their business. Channel partners can expand their portfolio of enterprise-grade cloud computing, virtualization, disaster recovery and data protection solutions with a cost-effective, end-to-end IT infrastructure solution that is part of the VMware vCloud initiative…

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author: Sourya Biswas.

For several years now, a Microsoft certification has opened doors to IT employment throughout the world. Whatever be the platform or application, a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) has found life easier on the job market. Almost every year we hear about a new contender to the title of youngest MCP, with the recent death of Pakistani prodigy Arfa Karim grabbing international headlines.

Now that cloud computing is set to rule the IT landscape and create millions of jobs worldwide (See: Cloud Hiring Reaches New Heights  and Cloud Computing to Fuel Job Creation in High Tech Industries, says London School of Economics), it isn’t a surprise that Microsoft has decided to revamp its certification program to address these developments…

Grazed from eReleases.  Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud computing is the IT trend du jour, and the term has spawned a variety of definitions and promises from different “experts.” With its new version of the semYOU Cloud Office (www.semyou.com), scheduled to be launched in late May, app computing system semYOU is taking users beyond the hype by offering businesses a comprehensive, flexible cloud-based enterprise office system based on software-as-a-service.

Now businesses that need software for human resources, project, task, scheduling management and more can gain access to required applications by simply pointing and clicking. The new semYOU Cloud Office is a complete software infrastructure for small or large companies that want to be flexible, are working globally and collaborate with different partners worldwide…

Grazed from IT News Online.  Author: PR Announcement.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, will outline the next stage of its Helix Nebula European cloud computing project at the Cloud Computing World Forum (www.cloudwf.com) on 12 and 13 June, with the aim of increasing participation in the scheme.

The Helix Nebula ‘Science Cloud’, was launched earlier this year to explore the use of commercial cloud computing services within European science organisations.

A number of cloud industry leaders are already involved in the project including HP, Intel, Oracle and Siemens. However, CERN is now looking for wider participation across the IT industry, in a bid to develop innovative solutions to be used by the global community working on the vast amounts of data created by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)…

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Gery Menegaz.

How do you know if cloud computing makes sense for your organization? And if it makes sense for your organization what sort of services should you buy into? Even though cloud computing is everywhere, is being offered by all the major technology players, and all agree you need it, definitions vary.

Cloud Computing refers to the delivery of infrastructure components and services. Its name is derived from architecture diagrams where a cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet. A cloud is used to abstract and represent the complex infrastructure environment.

The components that are housed in the cloud on the diagram are client devices, servers and data centers. Client devices include mobile devices, think and thick computers. While the data center in the cloud are defined as servers or collections of servers, for small organizations the cloud may represent a portion of a server. Being able to provide a portion of a server, or storage space, called ‘capacity on demand’ is one of the hallmarks of cloud computing…

Grazed from ITWeb.  Author: Nadine Arendse.

A global study by Microsoft shows that Malaysian and global small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are realising business and security benefits by adopting cloud services, CIO Asia reports.

Speaking in Kuala Lumpur on 22 May, Microsoft Trustworthy Computing GM Adrienne Hall said the new study in five geographies showed that SMEs are realising IT security, efficiency and cost-saving benefits from using cloud services…