Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Barb Darrow.

If you don’t think that Amazon Web Services is the king of cloud, just look at what other cloud companies are announcing this week. Even paragons of the private cloud world are trying to cloak themselves in the glow cast by Amazon, which is squarely in public cloud realm.

On Monday, Citrix Systems said its new Citrix CloudStack 3 will let customers of all sizes build their own “Amazon style clouds.” The offering is actually the next release of Cloud.com, a private-cloud provider (and service) that Citrix purchased last July.

The new CloudStack, the first to come out under the Citrix brand, adds new support for Swift, the OpenStack object storage technology. And CloudStack 3 includes a “cloud-optimized version of Citrix XenServer as a core-integrated feature,” according to Citrix. Public cloud powers Amazon. Rackspace, GoGrid and SoftLayer all use XenServer or Xen virtualization. Having said that, CloudStack 3 will also support rival KVM, OVM, vSphere and Xen virtualization, Citrix said. CloudStack 3 is now in beta and will be broadly available later this quarter. The product also adds support for Swift, the OpenStack object storage technology…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Insight Enterprises, Inc., a leading technology provider of hardware, software and service solutions, today announced the InsightCloud Solution Center, which provides businesses and public sector clients a destination to learn, shop and manage cloud solutions. This first release features cloud-based messaging, security, infrastructure, and collaboration solutions with an enhanced shopping experience and management capabilities for messaging workloads.

With new solutions, dynamic content, and the ability to purchase and manage cloud solutions all in one place, the InsightCloud Solution Center offers clients these three key benefits:

— LEARN all about cloud computing and the benefits of cloud-based solutions, even chat live online with one of our Cloud Solutions Specialists.

— SHOP through our cloud solutions catalog and purchase these solutions through a simple shopping cart experience.

— MANAGE and provision cloud solutions from one place, and gain access to InsightCloud Client Care support and other cloud professional services…

Grazed from IT Wire.  Author:  Beverley Head.  

According to recruitment specialist Hudson ICT people “cloud is king”. The organisation found that people with market tested cloud skills and security specialists are in particular high demand by Australian enterprises and can command significant salary hikes.

The company released these findings from its 2012 salary and employments insight report today, which also revealed that the majority of employers last year provided their ICT staff with a modest salary increase of 2-4 per cent, and a similar level of increase is anticipated this year.

In all 52 per cent of ICT employees got a rise last year, while 27 per cent managed to score an increase of 10 per cent or higher…

Grazed from PR Web.  Author: PR Announcement.

Phoenix NAP, a full service data center, premier infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider and primary network access point (NAP), announced today that it will be attending Cloud Connect 2012, a four day conference and expo taking place in the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. The conference, which runs February 13 through February 16, is the premier cloud event, aimed toward recognizing the continual transformation of cloud computing and uniquely positioned to bring together the entire cloud eco-system of IT professionals, developers and cloud providers…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Joe McKendrick.

There are reports that the dean of Silicon Valley venture capital firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is very interested in cloud computing services, and may invest up to $100 million in the market this year.  Bloomberg quotes partner Matt Murphy as indicating the VC firm’s partners “have talked about it, and are intrigued by the idea…. Companies’ comfort level and willingness to adopt the cloud is hitting an acceleration point. Now’s the most interesting time in the last 10 years to be investing in enterprise-based companies.”

Interesting time indeed. Market Research Media, cited in the Bloomberg report, says the cloud market will reach $270 billion in 2020. Forrester is a tad less optimistic, predicting last year that the market will hit $241 billion by that time. Visiongain projects the cloud services market will be worth some $83 billion by the year 2016. Research firm IDC says the market will hit about $55 billion by 2014. But analysts at HP are super-optimistic, estimating that the cloud computing market will hit $143 billion by next year.  That’s a lot of billions — sooner or later, it will add up to real money…

Grazed from eWeek.  Author: Chris Preimesberger.

Reliable user authentication in deployment of a cloud service is of utmost importance. Even though a cloud service to which you subscribe may have two-factor or higher levels of secure authentication, certain protocols must be observed and rules must be followed to enter each session. Frequent changing of passwords is required, and those passwords often must be long and complicated.

However, in this day of increasingly sophisticated hacking practices, conventional online authentication for access to these systems and services is often not enough—especially for systems moving highly sensitive data, such as in the government, military, financial and retail sectors…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

HP today announced programs and solutions that enable channel partners to grow cloud and services revenue while helping customers ease their transition to the cloud.

Unveiled at HP’s 2012 Global Partner Conference, the new HP PartnerONE cloud specialization and collaboration programs and expanded HP ServiceONE offerings can extend channel partners’ sales reach and speed customers’ time to market.

The cloud computing market is projected to reach $143 billion by 2013, which offers channel partners new business opportunities. According to an independent survey commissioned by HP, partners want broad cloud solutions that incorporate software and services, offer more collaboration with each other to share cloud expertise, and are flexible enough to support a range of business models…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: James Carlini.

If cloud computing is going to spread to more mission-critical type applications, it needs to get more accurate when it comes to transaction-based applications. Trying to keep everything in a structured framework is going to require a more rigorous network infrastructure that includes timing down to milliseconds, if not nanoseconds.

One way to accomplish this is to use the IEEE 1588 protocol or "Precision Time Protocol" (PTP), which provides timing. In an earlier article entitled, "Cloud Transaction Synchronicity," I discussed the need for this type of capability if financial organizations are to look at cloud computing as a real solution for any transactions-based services…

Grazed from The Nation.  Author: Thomas Conrad Zack.

Cloud computing is coming and businesses need to be ready. The transition to public or private clouds is gaining pace as companies realise the potential for transforming business capabilities and driving new innovative services. In fact, while cloud services are still in a nascent stage, IDC estimates that the market was already US$16 billion (about Bt500 billion) worldwide in 2009 and is expected to reach $55 billion by 2014.

To put this in context, cloud-related IT spending was only 4 per cent of the total IT market in 2009, but is expected to increase to 12 per cent of the total IT market by 2014…

Grazed from TechCentral.ie.  Author: Editorial Staff.

A new joint cloud computing initiative called Cloud4Gov has been announced by the Government and EMC, with support from Cisco, VMware, VCE and Industrial Development Agency (IDA) Ireland, that will create a cloud innovation centre that will enable the development and testing of new applications and services for government.

The cloud innovation centre will have nodes in EMC’s Centre of Excellence and on government networks that will allow indigenous small and medium enterprises (SME) and multinational corporations to develop and demonstrate applications to the public service. As the centre provides public sector departments and agencies with a platform to trial cloud solutions, it will also allow for such solutions to be productised and sold to other governments…