Grazed from Network Computing.  Author:  Chris Talbot.

Cloud computing has taken center stage over the last two years as the hot enterprise technology, but in the database realm, the public cloud and off-site hosted database services still represent too many unknown factors to truly have mass adoption. According to the co-author of the InformationWeek "State of Database Technology" report, the public cloud is so far having very little impact on enterprise databases.

Although enterprises are adopting cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM), email, enterprise content management and web hosting services, concerns and challenges related to the cloud are slowing the adoption of cloud-based databases, said David Read, CTO of Blue Slate Solutions and co-author of the report…

Grazed from Talkin Cloud.  Author: Matthew Weinberger.

File storage/sync solutions such as Dropbox offer a whole new world of functionality to many users otherwise unfamiliar with the barest concept of cloud computing. But there are still many IT decisionmakers out there who just don’t trust public cloud solutions. Enter SOS Online Backup and its SOS Collaborate Private Cloud, designed to bring full file-sync and sharing capabilities into the customers’ own data center.

In addition to the aforementioned Dropbox-style file-sync and sharing features, SOS Collaborate supports open source plugins for additional file type or application data; grants administrators deep visibility into and control over customer usage; and provides a regulatory compliance audit trail for later usage, according to the press release. It can be deployed as a virtual appliance or on a physical machine behind the customer firewall…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

LawLoop.com, ( www.LawLoop.com ), the complete cloud computing solution for lawyers, today announced its official company launch at LegalTech 2012 in New York. LawLoop.com provides a cloud-based solution that reinvents the way law firms of all sizes can securely and efficiently operate, collaborate and communicate.

LawLoop.com takes cloud-based solutions to the next level with uniquely designed "Loops" to safely and cost-effectively share documents, software and information both internally and externally. LawLoop.com’s advanced networking feature uses individualized profiles and avatars to create more transparent virtual collaboration that increases firm and project productivity…

Grazed from Bits.  Author: Quentin Hardy.

What kind of cartels will deliver business computing, and how should businesses respond?

Forrester, the technology research company, just released its business and technology outlook for 2020. The short version is that cloud computing will come on quicker than you think, it will be controlled by a very few companies that will fight for the right to own your data, and businesses need to think about what software they can write that will differentiate them from all the other customers of these giants.

Like a lot of these reports, Forrester has a couple of clichés (we have entered the era of individual empowerment; change is the only constant) and interesting facts that you don’t really know what to do with (there will be 22 billion connected devices in 2020; Moore’s Law dictates that the computing power of I.B.M.’s Watson will fit into a human hand by then)…

Grazed from PR NewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

CloudPassage™, the leading cloud server security provider, announces that Chris Brenton, cloud security architect will serve as a panelist at ITEXPO East, which takes place Jan. 31 – Feb. 3 at the Miami Convention Center. The session, “IT Risk Management: Securing the Cloud and the Enterprise,” will focus on IT risk management and security, including how to mitigate risks in a cloud computing environment.

Brenton and his fellow panelists will discuss how all organizations need to proactively ensure their IT infrastructure, systems, network, applications and data are secure and in compliance with applicable laws, regulations and best practices. Panelists will outline how securing the enterprise ensures an organization’s ability to operate, service their customers and protect its reputation in the marketplace…

Grazed from PRWeb.  Author: PR Announcement.

Ivara Corporation, the industry leader and innovator in asset performance management solutions, today announced the availability of EXP Cloud for Ivara EXP Enterprise 6.1. A cloud computing based library and online collaboration community, EXP Cloud is used in the development and sharing of reliability program content. Customers can download baseline content built by Ivara RCM2 Practitioners for common asset types or by other customers with similar assets. In addition, they can request to purchase and download authorized vendor content libraries and, in the future, OEM content.

This new online community allows authorized Ivara EXP Cloud users to request and share their content with other authorized users. Sharing can be limited to internal databases for global / multi-site companies, reach out to people in the same or similar industry or be open to all authorized Ivara EXP customers. The amalgamated content library is organized by company and sub-categorized by industry type, asset type and asset specifications…

Grazed from MarketWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Visitors to MSPWorld in Miami this week will be asking a multitude of questions about deploying and managing cloud computing services. ScienceLogic^™ Inc. CTO Antonio Piraino will be on hand to answer these questions during both one-on-one sessions at ScienceLogic booth #1119 and at a theater presentation. ScienceLogic will also demo its IT operations and cloud management platform, highlighting how service providers can deliver differentiated services, accelerate quote to cash, avoid costly service outages, and reduce customer churn by providing outstanding service delivery…

Grazed from TechCentral.ie.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud infrastructure was always meant to be based on open standards, and organisations that choose to buy capacity from public clouds that only support one standard are creating problems for themselves in the future, according to Ubuntu creator Canonical.

"All the world’s biggest clouds are built on open source technology," said Canonical’s vice president Chris Kenyon in a keynote session at Cloud Expo Europe. "They’re not all built on open standards, but open source underpins all of the largest plans."

Kenyon explained this is because open clouds are scalable, cheap and secure. He compared the evolution of cloud computing the evolution of the Internet, stating that although the Web existed before open standards, it was the arrival of HTML that prompted the explosion of innovation that made the web what it is today…

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Joe McKendrick.

Grazed from ITWorld.  Author: David Taber.

When developing and integrating cloud systems, the public interfaces and external "contracts" among services mean that design and architecture can evolve rapidly and in parallel. But when they do and the teams are not in the same room, this speed is an invitation to chaos. As two teams work on opposite sides of an interface (the service provider and the service consumer), it’s easy for the teams’ definition of variables and methods to fall out of sync. Of course the service provider team could update its document and notify the other team about a new semantic of a field value or behavior of a service. But the reality is too often that they don’t, and the classic problem of distributed version control rears its ugly head.

Let’s start with some assumptions about cloud design and architecture:

1. The teams value speed and smarts over rigor and process.

2. The teams use an Agile process that stresses iterative development, with continuous integration and testing cycles…