Grazed from UAB.edu.  Author: Matt Windsor.

Imagine you are a security guard, charged with protecting a diamond necklace. Unfortunately, the necklace has been broken into a few million pieces—and they’re scattered from Seattle to Singapore and everywhere in between.

That’s the essence of the problem facing UAB computer security expert Ragib Hasan, Ph.D. Hasan is searching for ways to safeguard the far-flung packets of data created when companies entrust their information to “the cloud.” He is also preparing students for a new wave of technological change by getting them up to speed on one of the hottest topics in tech.

Apple and Google have invested heavily in cloud computing in recent years, offering users the chance to store their music and other files on computer servers rather than on their personal machines. The advantage: instant access to songs, documents, and other data from any device, whether it’s a cell phone, the office laptop, or a home computer…

Grazed from FierceTelecom.  Author: Michael Kennedy.

Cloud computing service delivery has a strong business case that includes cost reduction, service acceleration, and improved service delivery quality and reliability. Before developing the business case, however, it is necessary to define cloud services because the term cloud has been overused.

One simple definition is that cloud computing provides computation, software, data access, and storage resources without requiring cloud users to know the location and other details of the computing infrastructure. Unfortunately, this definition is inadequate as it applies equally well to the time share services of the 1970s. In my view a cloud services definition must necessarily include services accessed via the Internet and a Web browser, minimal IT skills required for implementation, use of underlying virtualization technologies, and Web services APIs. Even with these additional qualifications an argument can be made that the definition encompasses many legacy managed service and hosting offerings…

Grazed from BusinessCloud9.  Author: John Stokdyk.

Cloud Computing doesn’t just pose a challenge to IT managers. Moving an organisation’s technology infrastructure on to the internet also raises interesting tax implications that have attracted the attention of tax boffins at KPMG.

In a recent paper entitled Tax in the Cloud, the Big Four firm grappled with the fundamental principles involved and practical implications for businesses and their advisers.  Mike Camburn, indirect tax partner at KPMG in the UK, comments:…

Grazed from The Register.  Author: Timothy Prickett Morgan.

If you have a multi-billion dollar business selling servers and PCs directly to small and medium businesses, what happens when companies start shifting some of their computing needs to the cloud? You shift from being a manufacturer of IT gear to being a maker of cloudy systems and applications and a reseller of cloudy wares where you don’t have products.

This is the ambitious plan that Dell has for its Cloud Business Applications division, which was created last August to focus solely on software-as-a-service applications and which is one of the units that John Swainson, the former head of CA Technologies and a software bigwig at Big Blue before that, is taking control of now that he is president of Dell’s nascent software business…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

DynamicOps, pioneer of the Operations Virtualization(TM) platform that enables unified cloud automation and management, today announced that three key solution providers and consulting firms in the United Kingdom and Asia Pacific have joined its fast- growing global partner program. The program, launched in November 2011, focuses on partners intent on capitalizing on the growing interest in private cloud computing and the award-winning DynamicOps Cloud Suite.

DynamicOps also revealed that IDC named it a "company to watch" in cloud systems management software. IDC’s newly published "DynamicOps Private Vendor Watchlist Profile: Extending Beyond Cloud Management Automation(1)," by Mary Johnston Turner, IDC Research Vice President, notes that "IDC believes DynamicOps is a company to watch because the company’s extensible management platform has gained early traction with more than 90 enterprise-class customers… and its platform is architected to automate a range of server and desktop provisioning and configuration management workflows…

Grazed from IT Jungle.  Author: Jenny Thomas.

"Get your head into the clouds and get back to work!" If your boss has recently issued you this order, you are not alone. There was a time when being accused of having your head in the clouds meant you were spending too much time daydreaming and not enough time producing real work. But, according to a recent IBM study, the number of companies turning to cloud computing is expected to more than double in the next three years.

The study, titled The Power of Cloud: Driving business model innovation, surveyed 572 business and technology executives worldwide. The goal was to find out how companies are using the cloud now, and how they hope to use it in the future…

Grazed from The Washington Post.  Author: Marjorie Censer.

Vivek Kundra, the first federal chief information officer who became the face of the government’s information technology reform efforts, including shifting to cloud computing, surprised many when he left the government last year for a Harvard University fellowship.

He surprised observers again when after several months at Harvard, he took a job with San Francisco-based cloud-computing firm Salesforce.com. Kundra, now the company’s executive vice president of emerging markets, said he’s particularly interested in transformation related to social networking and the increased engagement the public expects from institutions…

Grazed from Yahoo.  Author:  Aurelia End.

Grazed from Business Insider.  Author: Julie Bort.

Thanks to Microsoft’s Windows 7 commercials, the term "cloud" has moved into the mainstream.

Most people understand that "cloud" refers to applications that stream from the Internet. But there’s a lot more to it than that.

The word "cloud computing" covers a bunch of technologies, which is why Forrester Research can say that the cloud was a $40.7 billion market in 2011 and will grow to a whopping $241 billion in 2020…

Grazed from QRCodePress.  Author: Editorial Staff.

In the world of mobile commerce, security is a serious issue. Many companies have begun investing and creating mobile applications that make mobile commerce possible. None, however, have been able to make an application that is adequately secure from hacking.

Even acclaimed technology company Google has failed to provide a resilient service. Cryptomathic, an electronic security firm, now claims that is has created the first secure mobile wallet platform. The company recently released the application to consumers worldwide…