Grazed from iHotDesk.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Contrary to what some people believe, cloud computing can work as an additional security measure.

Despite security issues being one of the biggest concerns brought up by businesses since cloud computing platforms began to take off a few years ago, John Dunn, security editor of Techworld, believes that the technology can actually help protect your company if used correctly.  Indeed, he feels that many people merely get the jitters when they think about off-site application hosting because, on the face of it at least, it does sound like a hacker’s dream.

"The security layer the companies have, the security software and products they buy and the infrastructure they run means there is a real move to actually buy that as a service," Mr Dunn said. "So all of the traffic that goes in and out of your company will come through a layer that’s run by a cloud company – it will be filtered and looked at…

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author: Sourya Biswas.

This is the ninth in a continuing series on startups raising funding.

You can read the series here:  Cloud Computing Startups Raise Big Money:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Today, there are two startups in focus – AppDynamics and ShopKeep.com.

AppDynamics (http://www.appdynamics.com/)

Top VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers led a $20 million Series C round for cloud-based performance management company AppDynamics. Previous investors Greylock Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners also participated, bringing to a total the funds raised by the San Francisco-based startup to $36.5 million. The company specializes in application performance management and claims over 50,000 customers including Priceline.com, Netflix, Swisscom, TiVo, Fox News, and Taleo…

Grazed from CIO Today.  Author:  Editorial Staff.

A report from Apple that 85 million people have signed up for its iCloud service is an indication a significant number of computer users are willing — even happy — to entrust their personal data, from documents to music to last summer’s vacation snaps, to other digital hands.

While not a new concept, Apple’s iCloud and its undeniable success shows the extent to which people are willing to trust "the cloud" — servers in a dedicated facility possibly thousands of miles away — to hold their data, not as a backup of what’s on their own hard drives but as the sole repository of their digital lives.

In addition to Apple’s offering, Microsoft says 17 million people a month use its SkyDrive service, and Dropbox reportedly has more than 50 million users…

Grazed from Cloud Computing World Forum.  Author: PR Announcement.

Grazed from Cloud Computing World Forum.  Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud computing will have "a major impact on everything from agriculture to education" in Africa, according to the editor of one of the region’s most prominent online IT publications.

Grazed from DataCenter Dynamics.  Author: Penny Jones.

Fujitsu made its impression of the Cloud clear at this year’s Fujitsu Forum, held in Munich in October. Fujitsu’s pragmatic German CEO Rolf Schwirz’s strategy was dished out with no ‘ifs and buts’ as he detailed the company’s move into the Cloud and how it plans to target the growing market.

In Schwirz’s view, Fujitsu is not competing in a new market, and it already has the technology the market requires. Instead, Fujitsu’s focus on the Cloud will be all about service levels and flexible offerings that promise easy deployment, easy contracts and little emphasis on the underlying technology behind the Cloud offering.

“From a technology perspective, cloud computing is actually internet computing – you use the Internet for cloud. It is not a new technology; it is simply a new delivery model. And for all delivery models, one thing will remain important: you have to offer a solution to the customer,” Schwirz said during his keynote speech…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

CLOUDSHARE, Inc., a global cloud-computing company that delivers innovative cloud-based IT pre-production solutions for developers, businesses and service providers, announced today that customers have provisioned over 150,000 SharePoint servers since the introduction of CloudShare ProPlus in March of 2011.

"CloudShare’s phenomenal growth in the SharePoint developer community is great proof for how important the cloud has become for developers and testers of software," said Guri Stark, CEO, CloudShare. "The cloud is irreversible; the genie is out of the bottle."

CloudShare ProPlus is designed for pre-production development, testing, POC, demo and training of applications of all sorts. It is the ideal development sandbox and it is all in the cloud…

Grazed from PR Web.  Author: PR Announcement.

AccessVia announces that the US Coast Guard Exchange has selected AccessVia Web dSignShop Software-as-a-Service to print shelf-edge signs and labels in the Coast Guard Exchange stores. AccessVia Web dSignShop SaaS, delivered in an enterprise cloud-computing model, delivers the best of both worlds to retailers: sophisticated and scalable signing systems without the hassle of operating the technology.

The AccessVia scalable Enterprise Cloud Platform and Web dSignShop SaaS application are designed for retailers who want to outsource implementation, maintenance and support activities. Retailers subscribing to Web dSignShop SaaS gain an unparalleled agility to deliver fresh shelf-edge merchandising programs and find that the availability of their IT department is no longer required to accomplish their goals…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Apica, a leading load testing and performance-monitoring provider for cloud and mobile applications, today announced its sponsorships for two significant cloud computing industry conferences being held next week, Cloud Connect and SIIA’s Cloud/GOV 2012.

Apica will also be exhibiting at both conferences and provide live demonstrations of its Apica WebExcellence Suite, which includes Apica LoadTest, Apica WebPerformance and Apica WebOverload. This suite helps users test, monitor and optimize cloud applications enabling a true understanding of how cloud applications will be and are performing…

Grazed from Enterprise Networking Planet.  Author: Sean Michael Kerner.

According to VMware, there are now 90 service providers and data center partners around the world that are vCloud Powered. The vCloud program was first announced in 2011 and by August had at least 25 data center partners. The new vCloud Integration Manager is all about helping data center partners to get their cloud deployments setup in an integrated way with existing customer relationship management systems…