NASA is building an entirely new Web architecture that leans heavily on cloud computing, open source tools, and social media. It will be used both for public-facing websites and internal Web services, the space agency announced Tuesday.

The new Web architecture is part of version 2.0 of NASA’s Open Government Plan. All the major federal agencies released updates on their open government efforts this week as part of the Obama administration’s larger Open Government Initiative, which was jumpstarted by a memo from President Obama in January 2009, soon after he took office…

IBM has launched a new family of integrated, flexible, and scalable computing systems designed to simplify and automate enterprise cloud computing, acting as building blocks for cloud-ready data centers. The new integrated hardware and software solution is called PureSystems and will kick off with two models, PureFlex System and PureApplications System, that will begin shipping this quarter.

 PureSystems offers a more flexible approach to an integrated system. It supports four operating systems and five virtualization hypervisors, allowing users to manage all resources within a single management screen. The PureFlex system focuses on integrating servers, storage, and networking to anticipate resources and optimization. The PureApplication system uses IBM’s networking capabilities for easy deployment of new applications…

When Majestic Realty Co., a Los Angeles-based commercial real estate developer, moved to Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) for cloud-based email in early 2011, CIO Jon Grunzweig was shocked by the lack of technical support he found for BPOS in the marketplace.

"A year ago, no one knew anything about BPOS," he says. "We couldn’t get good advice ahead of time on what to look out for, what to think about. That knowledge wasn’t there. Microsoft didn’t have it. Neither did third-parties."…

The 2012 Telecom Cloud Services Summit will feature practical operator case studies, expert presentations, training masterclasses and informal brainstorming sessions that will enable delegates to find answers to their most pressing Cloud questions while enjoying an interactive, fun atmosphere.

Cloud computing is slowly upending the disaster recovery market. Only a few years ago, disaster recovery meant one of two things: For large organizations, it necessitated huge capital investments; for the mid-market on down, it meant backing up only the most important data to tape and shuffling it off to a secure location.

Actually, there’s a third thing. For many organizations, even today, disaster recovery (DR) means doing the bare minimum, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

The cloud is changing all of that. On one hand, it is democratizing DR, making it affordable for even SMBs to sign up for DR services. On the other, the disruption is causing confusion, often giving companies a false sense of security and luring them into bad decisions…

When computing data was focused in data centers securing it was a relatively easy task—just build a big wall around the center and lock the door with a really strong lock. But as cloud computing has brought data, well, everywhere, keeping it secure has become quite a task.

That mission has brought attention to companies like 2-year-old cloud security provider CloudPassage, which faces the hard-to-wrap-your-mind-around task of securing the cloud. Today, the company announced a $14 million series B fundraising round, bringing the company’s total funding to $21 million…

Cloudcor today announced that Nimbula, the Cloud Operating System Company, is an Elite Gold Partner for its fourth annual Cloud Slam’12 Cloud Computing Conference taking place May 30 – June 1, 2012 in San Francisco.

Nimbula’s flagship product, Nimbula Director, takes enterprises and service providers from bare metal to infrastructure cloud in a matter of hours rather than days. Nimbula Director is differentiated by its high level of automation and scale, reliability and ease of use. Providing a one-stop virtual data center management solution, Nimbula Director isolates customers from the operational and hardware complexity associated with deploying a private, hybrid or public cloud…

Just a decade ago, it would have been hard for all but the most tech-savvy to imagine the extent of cloud computing today. The cloud — what some are calling “the factory of the 21^st century” — is a complex system of data centers worldwide that store, process and deliver information on demand over the Internet, providing users with resources, applications and information that they previously would have stored locally. The cloud, run by a network of IT service companies, Internet firms and telecommunications services providers, offers services to all of us, from banks and retailers to individuals like you and me. It is both real — requiring traditional inputs such as electricity — and virtual.

Throughout the history of corporate responsibility, a few megatrends have redefined how we think about the ethics of business. The outsourcing of manufacturing to places with low labor costs and lax regulations, for instance, led to a rise in consciousness about working conditions at supplier facilities. Or the increasing number of people living at the “base of the pyramid” (the now 2.5 billion people who exist on less than $2.50 per day) prompted companies to address global poverty while advancing business interests…