Grazed from The Street.  Author:  PR Announcement.

Interphase Corporation (NASDAQ: INPH) announced today that its clouDevice™ desktop virtualization portfolio is now available from PBG Networks, a systems integration firm specializing in virtualization. PBG Networks has introduced a new customized version of clouDevice virtual desktop clients which is designed to serve the cloud computing needs of the K-12 education community. The PBG K12Cloud client bundles a clouDevice client with various application access, virtualization, and security services to enable school IT directors to safely and reliably employ educational applications deployed in a public or private cloud.

“By leveraging the clouDevice technology, which offers an affordable and innovative substitute for traditional desktop computers, PBG has created the K12Cloud, a cloud services solution that meets the specific needs of K-12 school systems,” said Scott Brousseau, Senior VP & CTO of PBG Networks…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Maureen O’Gara.

Nexenta, the open storage shop, has picked up a $21 million C round from Menlo Ventures, which led the investment, as well as Sierra Ventures and Razor’s Edge, which participated.

The threesome joins existing investors Javelin Venture Partners and TransLink Capital.

The start-up says it’s been growing 400% year-over-year for the last three years, which is supposed to make it the fastest-growing company in enterprise storage. It claims 4,000 customers like the US Army and Korea Telecom representing $300 million in hardware sales through the channel and partners such as VMware, Citrix, Cisco, Intel, Dell and Arista…

Grazed from IT Business Edge.  Author: Michael Vizard.

One of the factors limiting the globalization of cloud computing has been concerns about the various legal principles that would be applied by governments in terms of preserving the sanctity of that data. For example, many companies outside the U.S. have been concerned that the U.S. government might apply some of the more draconian aspects of the U.S. Patriot Act to data that belonged to them.

Given the general sensitivity to privacy, this has made many companies outside the U.S. reluctant to store data in data centers that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction. This week, however, Bruce Schwartz, deputy assistant attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, during a conference call took pains to stress that the Patriot Act does not supersede U.S. international treaty obligations, especially, Schwartz says, the terms of a Convention on Cybercrime that was signed in 2001 in Budapest…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: James Carlini.

“Once you get into Cloud Computing and past the glossy euphemisms, you better watch out for the real rocks in the road,” observes James Carlini.

“Cloud computing is the major approach that most organizations should be adapting for their applications in this new era of mobile computing.” You have all read the ads and the articles that hype it, along with all the overnight experts that tout how they know that Cloud Computing is the universal solution for today’s and tomorrow’s organizations. Now, let’s get back on the ground and understand what some of the real potholes and obstacles are on the road to a more efficient and effective IT infrastructure.

Rules of the Road, Rules of the Clouds
There are many “experts” out there touting all the positive aspects to Cloud Computing but like anything else, there are issues and concerns to address…

Grazed from FierceIT.  Author: David Perera.

Public cloud computing environments for scientific applications have the potential to be up to 13 times more expensive than existing Energy Department supercomputing centers, finds a final report of a 2-year federal study.

The study (.pdf), released in December, chronicles the build out of a private cloud dubbed Magellan by the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, as well as a study of attitudes to cloud computing among scientists and cost estimates of running scientific applications in a commercial cloud…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

IDC Government Insights announced the availability of a new report, Best Practices: Regional Community Cloud Hubs — The New "Trickle Down" Effect That’s Boosting State and Local Computing (Document #GI232470). According to the new report, IDC Government Insights believes a new type of government cloud services, labeled "regional cloud hubs", will significantly change the way state and local governments procure online computing services. These regional cloud hubs, defined as one government agency (often at the state level) offering computing services to other government agencies, have proven successful in the State of Michigan and State of Utah and are further examined within the report. In addition, the new research provides a framework for building similar regional cloud solutions.

According to Shawn McCarthy, research analyst, IDC Government Insights, "We believe that cloud hubs will see rapid growth, since the first multiagency efforts have already shown a positive return on investment and solid service levels for cloud solutions subscribers."…

Grazed from IT World.  Author: Brian Proffitt.

Enterprise users are still doubling down on their Linux bets, thanks to the motivation brought on by big data, cloud computing, and virtualization.

That’s one takeaway of a new report released today by the Linux Foundation, based on a survey of just over 400 enterprise Linux users. The survey, conducted in conjunction with the Yeoman Technology Group, reveals that 84 percent of companies currently using Linux have expanded their usage of the operating system over the past 12 months.

Much of that growth is driven by big data: over "75% of respondents expressed concern about supporting ‘Big Data,’ and nearly 72% are choosing Linux to support it," a release from the Linux Foundation stated. "Only 35.9% are planning to use Windows to meet the demands of this new environment."…

Grazed from The Hosting News.  Author: Nicole Henderson.

OpenStack OS developer Piston Cloud Computing announced on Wednesday that it has launched its Piston Enterprise operating system, pentOS, to the general public.

Piston’s operating system is the first OpenStack distribution specifically focused on security and the operation of enterprise private clouds.

In September, the WHIR talked to the founders of Piston about its cloud operating system for managing enterprise private cloud environments.

According to the press release, Piston Cloud’s Null Tier Architecture combines storage, compute and networking an every node to deliver massive scalability…

Grazed from Economic Times.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Sequoia Capital, one of the most active risk capital investors in the country, has acquired a minority stake in Knowlarity, a Gurgaon-based company that offers cloud telephony-based solutions. This is the first investment in the cloud computing space in India for the PE firm that will invest 35 crore in the Indian start-up.

Founded in 2009 by IIT- Kanpur graduates Ambarish Gupta and Pallav Pandey, Knowlarity provides voice and data communication services over the internet to companies and individuals in India and Indonesia.

With this round of investment, the start-up aims to expand services to other emerging markets, including Thailand and Brazil. "We built the company to deliver simple and useful telephony products to help other businesses, primarily in the SME segment," said Gupta, who received his MBA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2007…

Grazed from CenterBeam.  Author:  Editorial Staff.

For people interested in what the future of next-generation video games may hold, Square Enix worldwide technology director Julien Merceron said he believes cloud computing will be a big factor and play an "instrumental role" in newer consoles.

"I think it has tremendous benefits," he told GamesIndustry.biz. "I don’t see any good reason not to investigate for platform holders how they could actually think about cloud storage and cloud computing for their next platforms."

He said when it comes down to future platforms, the cloud will be extremely important, as the back end of each system will become more powerful…