Grazed from Salt Lake Tribune.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Vlad Shmunis, founder and CEO of the cloud communications company RingCentral, says new cloud-based phone technology lets customers take calls, listen to voice mail and send and receive faxes from anywhere.

What is cloud-based technology?

Cloud-based phone systems leverage the power of cloud computing to give customers the functionality of an expensive corporate private branch exchange, or PBX (telephone switching system). In plain English, cloud-based systems are hosted on off-site serversand are provided as a service. Because they don’t require customers to buy and maintain expensive telecommunications equipment, they’re much more affordable than conventional PBXs. In simple terms, this refers to any switchboard system, and because cloud-based phone technology exists on the Web, it can be accessed from anywhere — a desk phone, a cellphone or even a PC or tablet. Cloud-based phone service lets customers do almost anything on a phone inside and outside the office, enabling greater mobility and flexibility than conventional phone systems allow…

Grazed from IT Business Edge.  Author: Michael Vizard.

The days of Wyse Technology as an independent company are coming to a close as Dell formally prepares to acquire the company, and one of the more interesting cloud computing initiatives that Wyse has put in play has come to light.

In a move that could signal the future ambitions of Dell, Wyse Technology has launched a private beta of a new cloud computing service that not only provisions the thin clients that Wyse sells, but also mobile computing devices such as smartphones and tablet devices…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Mario Meir-Huber.

Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service offer us easy scaling of services. However, scaling is not as easy as it seems to be in the Cloud. If your software architecture isn’t done right, your services and applications might not scale as expected, even if you add new instances. As for most distributed systems, there are a couple of guidelines you should consider. I have summed up the ones I use most often for designing distributed systems.

Design for Failure
As Moore stated, everything that can fail, will fail. So it is very clear that a distributed system will fail at a certain time, even though cloud computing providers tell us that it is very unlikely. We had some outages [1][2] in the last year of some of the major platforms, and there might be even more of them. Therefore, your application should be able to deal with an outage of your cloud provider. This can be done with different techniques such as distributing an application in more than one availability zone (which should be done anyway). Netflix has a very interesting approach to steadily test their software for errors – they have employed an army of "Chaos Monkeys" [3]. Of course, they are not real monkeys. It is software that randomly takes down different Instances. Netflix produces errors on purpose to see how their system reacts and if it is still performing well. The question is not if there will be another outage; the question is when the next outage will be…

Grazed from Wired.  Author: Todd Neilson.

The next time you run into an IBM employee, ask them, “What can you do for me?” Their typical response: some flavor of, “Whatever you want.” This often brings some confusion in the small- and medium-size (SMB) market and the channel, but the truth is and has generally been that IBM can handle anything and everything when it comes to computing … and beyond.

When it comes to cloud computing IBM is making a big statement this week that the status quo remains. “Whatever you want,” seems to also apply to cloud computing.

The company revealed some stats and made some SmartCloud announcements that make a very strong statement about its cloud services…

Grazed from The Guardian.  Author: Lei Wangyun.

An enterprise can opt for either the traditional model or a cloud model to deliver IT services. Under the traditional model, the enterprise first purchases hardware such as servers and storage devices, leases network bandwidth, and perhaps builds a data center. The enterprise then purchases licenses for operating system software and the software applications needed for delivering the required functionality. Of course, professional IT staff must be engaged to maintain the hardware and software. As the business grows and customers require new functionality, new hardware and software must be provided and software customized, while ensuring the interoperability between the old and new hardware and software. This process must be repeated whenever capacity is expanded or a new functional module is added.

Cloud computing changes this completely…

Grazed from The Guardian.  Author: Dr. Nino Vidovic.

SMBs require both software-based and traditional hardware-based services, such as computing, connectivity, security and voice, provided via a plethora of in-house, networked hardware. But, as desktop functions transition to powerful mobile devices, and connectivity becomes ubiquitous, in-house boxes are nearing obsolescence. Their utility has diminished in a cloud-enabled world, as they contribute to office cost, complexity and clutter; there is now an emerging alternative.

Opportunity is knocking

There is enormous opportunity in delivering IT services to the small and medium business/enterprise (up to 500 employees) market. Huawei has estimated there to be 150 million small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the world, with their total IT spending easily exceeding USD500 billion in 2011. Exploiting this is difficult because the SMB environment is rapidly churning. The SMB market is the ultimate trial & error environment for business models and technology vendors. Many SMBs are replaced by new ones within three years. However, SMBs have been largely ignored by IT vendors because there is little a multimillion dollar business and a ten-person startup have in common. Existing IT technology is far too complex and costly for most SMBs, both in terms of staff and equipment. Only 10 million SMBs use IT in any meaningful way; a roughly 8% penetration rate…

Grazed from The Guardian.  Author: Liu Zhonglin.

High-speed Internet, Web 2.0, and information explosion have facilitated the beginning of the cloud-computing era. As all kinds of cloud devices and cloud services emerge, the cloud-computing data centre has become the foundation for promoting ICT convergence and deploying cloud services. Market transformations are creating demands to build cloud-computing data centres.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for the traditional DC infrastructure to meet the elastic demands brought about by cloud computing and virtualization technology, as they (traditional DC) cannot address the capacity expansion pressures caused by rapid business development to enterprises and governments…

Grazed from The Guardian.  Author: Dr. Fang Bingxing.

Cloud computing is reshaping the computing and Internet landscape. With breakthroughs made in relevant service and business models, cloud computing will inevitably expand its role as a backbone for IT services. As a revolutionary concept, its technological realization is set to change the way people work and live.

Key elements of cloud computing

Cloud computing involves three key elements, namely, resource pooling, capability supply, and the service model. As a process, the cloud provider concentrates a mass of resources and seamlessly provides them for users. These three elements are described below:…

Grazed from China Daily.  Author: Shen Jingting.

China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd, the nation’s second-biggest telecom operator by subscriber numbers, announced on Thursday it had started offering cloud-based services to enterprise customers, a move that will help diversify its revenue sources.

Grazed from Computer Technology Review.  Author: Olen Pepple.

Cloud computing is now part of the business vernacular, a term that circulates freely amongst companies and executives alike. But cloud computing also risks becoming a meaningless expression: an overused term that signifies different – and often conflicting – things to a variety of organizations. Think, instead, of the literal and figurative connections between clouds, those tiny droplets of condensed water that band together to form something greater, and the Cloud, which can provide value for businesses that want to maximize the power of technology. Educating ourselves about these similarities (and differences) is essential because we need a better working definition of the benefits – and limits – associated with cloud computing.

 

This emphasis starts with understanding the needs of organizations, where the need for certain services – such as data storage, analytics and process support – does not square with the costs of procuring and/or upgrading and maintaining new infrastructure and software. In that situation, companies will outsource these services to vendors. In turn, vendors typically provide these services through an on-demand, Internet-based model. And, by grouping these organizations together, vendors can – through economies of scale – aggregate expenses, deliver specific services and still make a profit…