Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: CloudVentures.

Despite all the hype of Cloud Computing the reality is that most large enterprises are still only at an early stage of adoption, mainly focused on applying virtualization internally to their existing application estate, what’s called Private Cloud.

This does achieve many business benefits but isn’t Cloud in the sense of outsourcing to a remote provider.

However although organizations aren’t yet ready to put their crown jewels entirely into the Cloud, it doesn’t mean that externally hosted Clouds don’t offer some kind of value to this scenario; indeed doing so is the first and primary goal of our ‘Cloud BCP‘ best practices…

Grazed from Business Cloud 9.  Author: Katy Ring.

Following the publication of the Strategic Implementation Plan for the Government ICT Strategy back in October, we were told that Cloud delivery will be increasingly important – g.g. by December 2015, the goal is for 50% of central government new ICT spending will be transitioned to public Cloud computing services.

This is an aggressive target, requiring a big culture shift within Government. To assist, the Government is establishing a G-Cloud Authority to act as a government-wide entity for commodity commissioning and direction of procurement as a “Cloud First” initiative is launched. And, as in the US, which pioneered this approach, the low hanging fruit with which to start populating the App Store is tactical and will probably be email…

Grazed from BusinessWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

The OASIS international consortium has launched a new open standards initiative to enhance the portability of cloud applications and services. The OASIS Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA) Technical Committee will advance an interoperability standard that will make it easier to deploy cloud applications without vendor lock-in, while maintaining application requirements for security, governance, and compliance.

“Freedom of choice is part of ASG DNA. Being able to participate in the elaboration of the TOSCA standard is for us a fantastic opportunity to ensure our current and future customers take advantage of seamless interoperability of Cloud environments.”

 

Grazed from PR NewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

OpenNebula 3.2 is the most feature-rich enterprise-class open-source software for comprehensive management of virtualized data centers based on Xen, KVM and VMware.

The OpenNebula Project is proud to announce the release of a new stable version of its widely deployed open-source management platform for enterprise data center virtualization. OpenNebula 3.2 is the first stable distribution produced by OpenNebula’s new release cycle aimed at faster delivery of new features and innovations to the community, based on their requirements and feedback, while also increasing technical quality.

"The most recent requirements of organizations building large scale production environments have been the driving force behind all our development and innovation efforts in OpenNebula 3.2," said Ignacio M. Llorente, Director of the OpenNebula Project. "Most of these organzations are using OpenNebula as an enterprise-ready open-source alternative to proprietary cloud solutions."…

Grazed from International Business Times.  Author: David Zielenziger.

More than a dozen of the biggest technology companies, including IBM, Cisco Systems and SAP, formally announced a new standards-setting committee Monday for the emerging sector of cloud computing.

The goal of the big guns is to develop some early benchmarks for the cloud, or Internet-based computing, as early as the fourth quarter of 2012, IBM’s chief technology officer for cloud computing, Chris Ferris, told International Business Times…

Grazed from The Register.  Author: Timothy Prickett Morgan.

Commercial Linux and Java development tool distributor Red Hat has big aspirations in the server virtualization and cloud computing arenas, and it looks like the company is getting ready to bust out the 3.0 version of its Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization hypervisor – RHEV for short.

Red Hat has cooked up an all-day event for this Wednesday, January 18, that it calls the "Virtual Experience", and that’s dedicated mostly to the RHEV hypervisor and its surrounding tools and ecosystem partners. (You can see the agenda here.) Paul Cormier, president and executive vice president of products and technology, and Navin Thadani, senior director of the company’s virtualization business, will kick off the event – and that almost certainly means RHEV 3.0 is ready for launch…

Grazed from V3.co.uk.  Author: Dan Worth.

IBM has announced it will launch a cloud-hosted document-editing tool in the second half of 2012 to help firms collaborate more effectively, as it looks to compete with similar offerings from Microsoft and Google.

The IBM Docs tool will form part of the firm’s LotusLive cloud computing platform, which is being rebranded IBM Smart Cloud for Social Business and said it will enable staff to share and edit text documents, spreadsheets and presentations in real-time…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Bill O’Dell.

Grazed from GigaOm.  Author: Barb Darrow.

Last Friday, when SAP pre-announced better-than-expected earnings for its 2011 fiscal year, there was no mention of cloud computing. But, there’s a feeling the company, as it completes its buyout of SuccessFactors and closes more Business ByDesign deals, just might be able to put its reputation of cloud cluelessness behind it.

SAP is the leader in enterprise resource planning (ERP): the software brains behind most companies’ inventory and accounting systems. But in the tough transition from client-server to cloud computing, SAP lost its way. It launched a subscription-based Business ByDesign ERP offering in 2007, boldly predicting it would attract 10,000 customers and contribute €1 billion in revenue by 2010. It came in just a little bit short — only 100 companies signed up…

Grazed from CloudBeat.  Author: Casper Manes.

You’ve probably seen tons of articles, editorials, and marketing anecdotes about how great the cloud is; how it can save you tons of money, empower you to do incredible things, free your staff up to do all kinds of important projects, and more. There’s a great deal that is true and accurate in all of those assertions to be sure, even if most of the writing is intended to convince you to buy into the hype. I’m a fan of cloud computing, having bought into it while at two separate companies and working in it now for a cloud services provider.

However, both as a customer twice over and as a consultant helping others move to the cloud, I have seen the other side of the rainbow; I’ve seen where the rain falls and where the reality doesn’t quite live up to the hype, and where you as a customer might be surprised or disappointed…