Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Zenith Infotech, an international company that specializes in delivering innovative business continuity and cloud computing for IT service providers, announced today the launch of an advanced series of events focused on cloud computing. These events, appropriately named "Cloud Check – What’s Your Next Move?" will begin in Mid-January in Los Angeles and continue throughout 30 U.S. cities as well as South East Asia and the Middle East.

Zenith is thrilled to partner with CompTIA to present an education-based program that will elevate IT service providers’ ability to gain entry into the cloud and/or improve their cloud computing business. The focus of the program is on educating attendees on setting business goals, developing effective marketing programs, enhancing the sales pitch and overall operations. In addition, attendees will be able to increase their knowledge by networking and sharing strategies with their peers…

Grazed from Cloud Pro.  Author: James Stirling.

Grazed from GigaOm.  Author: Barb Darrow.

For anyone needing yet another data point to show that cloud computing is driving IT, check out new projections from IHS.

The researcher predicts that unit shipments of “cloud servers” — computers used to power public and private cloud computing infrastructure — will soar to 875,000 in 2012, up a whopping 35 percent from 647,000 units shipped last year.  This server segment has nearly doubled since 2010, when 460,000 such boxes sold, according to IHS, formerly known as iSuppli.

These numbers bolster other research showing that the cloud computing juggernaut continues to roll. For example, recent CB Insights data found that venture capital investment in cloud computing companies accounted for more than a quarter of all Internet-related deals and more than a third of Internet investment dollars last year…

Grazed from MSPNews.  Author: Mini Swamy.

Demand for content delivery and high speed streaming have soared in recent years and content delivery companies are vying with each other to provide extra bandwidth for high quality media. The current Paragon Report focuses on this aspect and highlights the contributions of a couple of content delivery companies.

The press release states that cloud computing appears to be the answer to boosting customer appeal and enhancing the delivery of content and applications over the Internet. In this context, the report mentions Akamai (News – Alert) Technologies and Level 3 Communications.

Akamai Technologies, Inc., is well reputed for providing services that improve the delivery of content and applications. Toward this end, it acquired Israel’s Contendo for $268M. Contendo, which extensively uses cloud technology…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Dialogic Inc. /quotes/zigman/611063/quotes/nls/dlgc DLGC -0.03% , a leading provider of communications technologies that power advanced networks, today launched a powerful software-based media server for mobile, broadband and cloud environments. Dialogic(R) PowerMedia(TM) Extended Media Server (PowerMedia XMS) enables service providers to deliver standards-based video conferencing features to create new — and to enhance existing — audio and web conferencing services. The software based media server runs on a wide range of physical and virtual computing platforms and it scales easily to meet variable demand for conferencing and other value added services (VAS).

Software media processing represents a highly efficient approach to delivering VAS as it can reduce deployment and operational costs, giving service providers an opportunity to improve their overall business results by adding IP-based value added services such as conferencing. Standard SIP call and media control protocols can simplify the adoption and integration of PowerMedia XMS into a range of next generation networks…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the enterprise cloud computing ( http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/ ) company, today announced that Vivek Kundra has joined the company as executive vice president of emerging markets. Kundra is an accomplished technology leader with a demonstrated track record of driving innovation.

As the first Chief Information Officer of the United States, Kundra managed more than $80 billion in technology investments at one of the world’s largest information technology organizations. He was an early evangelist of the benefits of cloud computing in the public sector. Kundra authored the groundbreaking Cloud-First policy, which now serves as a model for government IT organizations around the world seeking to increase efficiencies with less resources…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: Ted Samson.

Among the allures of cloud computing is the promise of easily and seamlessly moving services from one cloud to another. Realizing that kind of portability, however, is difficult. Every cloud service has its own distinct requirements, such as security, governance, and compliance, as well its constituent parts, including Web server, database, storage, and networking requirements.

In an effort to make cloud service more portable, a group of tech giants that includes IBM, Cisco, EMC, CA, SAP, and Red Hat today unveiled the first draft of open interoperability specification called TOSCA (Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications). Capgemini, Citrix, NetApp, PwC, Software AG, Virtunomic, and WSO2, among others, are also contributors…

Grazed from ITWire.  Author: Stephen Withers.

One of the question marks around cloud computing concerns the offshoring of data storage and processing. For many purposes that’s not an issue, but in certain situations there are legal, regulatory or policy reasons for keeping things within Australia.

For that reason, Oracle has been offering a locally hosted implementation of its SaaS CRM product since November 2010, taking into particular account the needs of the public sector.

The company has now revealed that customers for the onshore service include NBN Co, the Victorian Department of Human Services, NSW Government agency NSW Businesslink, Suncorp, and energy and mining service provider AJ Lucas…

Grazed from Business Insurance.  Author: Judy Greenwald.

Grazed from ITWire.  Author: Peter Dinham.

That’s the view of research and market analysis firm, IDC, which says in its latest report on the region that the "cloud concept," which covers shared access to virtualised resources over the Internet while data and software are stored on servers, is becoming “more important for organisations.”

"The broad interest in cloud computing is understandable, considering that it enables IT organisations to become more cost-efficient and agile — for example, by centralising their applications, servers, data, and storage resources, and dynamically moving their resources, or virtual machines," said Sylvia Wünsche, research analyst, European telecommunications and networking for IDC…