Five Signs Cloud Services May Not Work for You
In an online forum over the last few days, a group of IT executives has debated the "real value" of cloud services. Here is the note that prompted the chat:
Will cloud computing deliver us genuine business benefits or is it a clever technology looking for a home? In the long term could it negatively impact our business?
Several forum participants weighed in, agreeing that they’d read and heard all the "hype" from cloud providers, only to be left still pondering the actual value to their businesses of adopting clouds. In some cases, it was clear that upper management and boards would view a move to cloud simply as an infrastructure upgrade — and an insecure one at that…
EVault Cloud Backup Seeks to Disrupt Symantec Backup Exec
In the cloud computing storage market, EVault — a wholly owned subsidiary of Seagate — is taking aim at Symantec Backup Exec and other client-server data protection platforms. The EVault effort, led by EVault President Terry Cunningham, is loaded with irony.
After all, it was Cunningham who helped to build the Veritas Backup Exec business before Symantec acquired Veritas in 2004. During the glory days of client-server, Veritas helped to position Backup Exec as popular platform for Windows NT Server data and application protection. The Backup Exec team made the Windows NT bet before Microsoft gained critical mass on the server, so the move was a gamble at the time…
Amazon cloud integration in Building Applications in the Cloud
Cloud providers lead you to believe you can take your existing applications and put them on the cloud with no fuss or muss. It is true, the applications can run; but you may find the performance is not what you expected. The fact is that application integration is one of the more complicated aspects of cloud computing, as Christopher M. Moyer told us recently while we discussed issues of iPaaS and application integration.
Moyer, vice president of technology at content aggregator Newstex LLC is the author of the recent Building Applications in the Cloud (Addison-Wesley, 2011). The book focuses on real world experiences with the Amazon cloud using Amazon Web Services (AWS). It discusses the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (ED2), Simple DB, how to properly construct Software as a Service, designing an architecture that takes good advantage of the cloud platform, patterns for executing actions on data and much more…
5 Major Types of Cloud Infrastructure Options
Cloud computing is not an all-or-nothing option. In the past decade, the industry has matured to a point where there are almost a dozen different options to move your data and processes to the cloud. In this post, we will cover the five major options and will talk about the enterprises for whom each of these options are best suited for.
Virtual machines
This is the most common form of cloud setup, where third party service providers give you shared computing resource in their datacenter for an hourly fee. The physical servers at the data center are turned into many virtual server instances, each of which can be run by a different enterprise. Virtual machines can provide you the best utilization of resources by keeping the machines from going idle. This setup is suited for workloads that are highly varying (most websites, blogs) and for smaller enterprises that do not need the flexibility and control of a private cloud. It is very cost-effective, though it might not be suited for high performance computing…
MCPc Enables Mobile Business With Anyplace Workspace
MCPc, Inc., a leading national technology products and solutions provider, announces anyplace workspace(TM), an approach to business technology dedicated to helping organizations reap the benefits of the modern, mobile IT ecosystem. Organizations with an anyplace workspace empower their employees to work from anywhere and on any device — all in a well-managed, secure environment…
While You’re in the Cloud, Can We Intrude?
Grazed from Fox Business. Author: Adam Stern.
Cloud computing has become a little bit like trendy fashion wear: Early adopters are aggressively moving in-house IT to “the cloud” while those with a more cautious style are taking the “hybrid” approach, keeping some data in house and moving other applications to the cloud. All indications are that cloud computing will enjoy healthy growth over the next several years, but in order to move from trendy to an enduring classic, one critical issue needs addressing: security.
In order for cloud computing to having staying power as an IT platform, businesses need to feel as secure about cloud hosting as they feel about the data housed in their IT operations on site. Specifically, when engaging the services of a cloud hosting provider, businesses need to evaluate the provider’s security and backup systems with the same level of rigorous scrutiny they apply to their in- house operations…
Cloud computing draft code released
The emerging cloud computing industry is opting for self-regulation in a bid to close down cowboy operators who may lose customers’ data. Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service over a network such as the internet.
The New Zealand Computer Society has released CloudCode, a voluntary code of conduct for data centre operators, for consultation. The sponsored code has been written by the society with the intention of increasing confidence in the sector and is only the second such document in the world. The industry’s reputation, the society said, was threatened by the lack of standards and practice guidelines…
Microsoft Inches Closer To Delivering Cloud-Based ERP
Nearly one year after announcing plans to offer its Dynamics enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications as cloud-based services, Microsoft finally will reveal specifics and details on those services on Monday at its annual Convergence Conference, being held this year in Houston, Texas.
The crux of the news: Dynamics NAV 2013 and Dynamics GP 2013 will be enabled for Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, and they will be generally available by the end of this year. A beta release of NAV 2013 is expected by May, and a GP beta is expected in late summer. Microsoft qualified that the cloud-based versions of NAV and GP will be "optimized for small and midsize businesses."…
Cloud, App Economy Converge to Create Extremely Lightweight Businesses
With the rise of cloud computing, we’re seeing more of a new breed of extremely lightweight company, unencumbered by capital investments, acting as a broker of services assembled from offerings drawn from or supported by third-party providers. Imagine the possibilities when this is combined with the emerging mobile “App Economy,” in which budding enterprises can be supported by micro-revenues streaming in from online app sales.
One such story is Visible Market, creators of StockTouch, an app that tracks financial data. Visible Market, launched about a year ago, represents a new breed of business startup, built on the cloud and catering to a highly mobile user base…
Cloud Computing: Apple to Pay Dividend
Breaking with tradition – and changing the definition of a growth company in the process – Apple Monday morning said it would start paying a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share in the September quarter.
At $10.60 a year that would currently be about a 1.8% yield, putting it among the highest dividend payers in the US, but disappointing analysts who thought it could easily afford 3% or more…