Grazed from Scientific Computing.  Author: Editorial Staff.

After a two-year study of the feasibility of cloud computing systems for meeting the ever-increasing computational needs of scientists, Department of Energy researchers have issued a report stating that the cloud computing model is useful, but should not replace the centralized supercomputing centers operated by DOE national laboratories.

Cloud computing’s ability to provide flexible, on-demand and cost-effective resources has found acceptance for enterprise applications and, as the largest funder of basic scientific research in the U.S., DOE was interested in whether this capability could translate to the scientific side. Launched in 2009, the study was carried out by computing centers at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Called Magellan, the project used similar IBM computing clusters at the two labs. Scientific applications were run on the systems, as well as on commercial cloud offerings for comparison…

Grazed from HealthCareIT News.  Author: Michelle McNickle.

As the industry is slowly changing the way it serves patients, cloud computing has become a way to reduce costs, improve services and simplify management. But with the growing use of cloud service come concerns about its performance and overall quality, said Daniel Joseph Barry, vice president of marketing at Napatech.  

“Cloud service providers have established the necessary competence and IT infrastructure to deliver on demands, but there is one potential Achilles heel that can present a challenge: assuring cloud service quality and performance," he said.

Barry outlined five issues affecting cloud service quality and performance…

Grazed from Network Computing World.  Author: Esther Shein.

The Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA) Technical Committee recently formed by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), the not-for-profit open standards consortium, along with several IT vendors and consumer groups, will be good for facilitating cloud portability, industry observers say. The goal of TOSCA is to enable deploying cloud applications without vendor lock-in, while maintaining application requirements for security, governance and compliance.

TOSCA joins an already crowded field of standards and requirements principles for cloud computing that includes but is not limited to the Open Cloud Principles (OCP) from the Open Cloud Initiative (OCI), the Open Data Center Alliance standards for cloud providers, a guide to cloud computing from the Cloud Standards Customer Council, the OpenStack Compute for developing a cloud-based server environment and OpenStack Object Storage for cloud-based storage, the IEEE’s Cloud Computing Initiative and the Clouds Standards Customer Council (CSCC)…

Grazed from Private Equity.  Author:  PR Announcement.

Irvine, Calif.-based Numecent has raised $2 million of a planned $10 million Series A round. The company, which says it is developing “cloudpaging” technology, did not disclose the names of investors. The company said that it previously raised $7.5 million from investors.

Numecent™, a stealth startup pioneering next-generation “cloudpaging” technology, today announced it has received the first $2M tranche in a $10M Series-A funding round from unnamed corporate investors. This is in addition to the $7.5M of seed funding the company has so far received from private investors since its inception…

Grazed from SBWire.  Author:  PR Announcement.

4PSA, a leading-edge Cloud Computing software development company has announced today its participation at ITEXPO East 2012, the World’s Communications Conference and Expo. The event takes place on February 1-3, 2012 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, Florida.

During this year’s ITEXPO East, 4PSA’s President Mike Ross will be presenting in two highly engaging panels, exploring the increase in the adoption rate for Unified Communications as a Service and the synergies between Unified Communications and Social Media. "We’re always excited to attend ITEXPO. This event represents a wonderful opportunity to get together with top providers and industry experts, discuss the latest advancements in the field, and share insight", stated Mr. Ross…

Grazed from Talkin Cloud.  Author: Nicholas Mukhar.

SAP caught most of us by surprise at the end of 2011 by acquiring SuccessFactors, a Human Capital Management (HCM) and SaaS vendor, for $3.4 billion. Now, SAP President of Cloud On-Demand Sales and Go-To-Market Greg Tomb (pictured) is making some bold claims about SAP’s long-term cloud strategy.

“Three years from now, we will be the de facto leader in the cloud,” Tomb predicted as he outlined three ways through which SAP will accomplish that goal:

1. Acquisitions that deliver immediate value: Such as the SuccessFactors deal.
2. Software Development: SAP currently has roughly 3,000 cloud developers working on cloud-based business applications.
3. Sales: SAP is in the process of bringing aboard some 350 sales representatives just to sell cloud applications…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: Ed Zwim.

That there is growing company demand for cloud or software-as-a-service solutions should come as no surprise.

Finance and IT professionals, facing the need for greater computing power for everything from operational management to hedge accounting are understandably tempted by SaaS, given the cloud’s relatively low startup costs and the fact they may lack the skills needed to build their own analytic solutions.

And the corporate migration to the cloud is in fact proceeding apace, with nearly one-third of organizations polled in a Gartner research study responding that they either already use or plan to use cloud SaaS offerings to augment their core business intelligence functions…

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author: Rick Blaisdell.

While technology seems to be the cost and time efficiency driver in many industries, cloud computing is the emerging solution for the financial service industry, especially capital markets. In order for their assets to be used optimally by multiple consumers, financial organizations require ad-hoc access to significant computing resources, virtual desktops, shared data information, cost transparency, and “What-If” capabilities.

I will list some of the most important cloud changing perspectives that can benefit large corporations and SMB’s:

    * Resource Management – enables organizations to build agile, responsive data center infrastructures;
    * Pay per Use – organizations pay only for the computing resources they are using and not more;…

Grazed from Federal Computer Week.  Author: Camille Tuutti.

Despite mandates that direct federal agencies to transition to cloud-based services, federal IT managers express reluctance in making the migration due to security concerns, a survey reveals.

The 2011 State of Cloud Services in the U.S. Federal Government poll from Ponemon Institute shows that more than one-third of the managers surveyed cited safety concerns as one of the reasons for not using cloud services. An even bigger number of respondents (42 percent) said lack of suitable applications or services prevent them from using a cloud approach.

But security emerged as the primary fear. Nearly half the respondents said they were “not confident” about the overall data protection and security features of their current or prospective cloud service providers. Twenty-six percent chose “confident,” while only 17 percent stated they were “very confident.”…