Grazed from Business2Community.  Author:  Louis Columbus.

A good friend of mine recently became CIO of a financial services firm and was given his first major project last month: make the complete accounting, financial, and loan provider data and applications available 24/7 on any iPad or Android-based tablet from any office, at any time.

The majority of loan provider applications are cloud-based and his company is running NetSuite.  His corporate office is in Asia and cloud-based applications made it possible for the company to launch and operate in California within months.   He’s been given six months to transform this mobile vision into reality…

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Larry Dignan.

Grazed from Talkin’Clouds.  Author: John Moore.

The e-discovery sector has been moving to managed services and cloud computing for a while now. An additional data point comes from CaseCentral, a company that focuses on cloud-based e-discovery for corporations and law firms.

Steve d’Alencon, chief marketing officer of CaseCentral, said the 18-year old company has gone through previous iterations of cloud software delivery including  the application service provider (ASP) approach. Today the company offers its Case Central eDiscovery Platform, which integrates early case assessment with review and production.

The company uses direct sales, but also works with channel partners. Those include legal process outsourcers that provide managed review and others services.  Partners in that category include Cobra Legal Solutions LLC, Compliance, and Peak Discovery. In addition, CaseCentral works with vendors such as Hitachi Data Systems and Symantec Corp…

Grazed from Information World.  Author: Jeremy Edberg.

Everything old is new again. I’ve heard this adage many times but only recently realized what it really means: The old thing isn’t new again; it’s just technically feasible now.

Take Big Data, which isn’t a new concept. Companies have been dealing with large datasets for a long time, almost since the invention of the computer. What has changed is the way we deal with that data.

It started with the rise of cheap computing and storage. It became possible to store vast amounts of data and then split up workloads to have each computer deal with a small piece of work that it can complete in a short time. We can store and measure more as a result of technological advancements, and people are collecting more data than ever before. This data screams to be mined for valuable insights…
 

Grazed from PR NewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Fasthosts’ ‘Cloud Attitudes’ study, conducted by IDC, has found that 60 per cent of UK businesses still do not leverage any type of cloud-computing service and so miss out on benefits such as increased performance, scalability, and cost savings. Taking the example of storage, whilst a pleasing 82 per cent of firms recognise the need for data back-up off-site, only 16 per cent are using a flexible cloud-based storage option for this. Over two thirds (69 per cent) have no plans to explore cloud-computing in this way.

A key finding of the research is that a total of 1 in 5 companies suspect they will side-step cloud-computing all-together. The study suggests that performance, scalability and cost benefits are not widely known by UK business users. A key reason for reluctance to embrace new cloud computing technologies is a lack of staff expertise, with 1 in 4 firms admitting this is a primary concern for them…

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Paula Rooney.

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Check Point(R) Software Technologies Ltd. /quotes/zigman/60511/quotes/nls/chkp CHKP -0.57% , the worldwide leader in securing the Internet, today announced its security gateways are now available to customers through Amazon Web Services, enabling organizations to extend their security to the cloud with a full range of protections, or Check Point software blades, such as Firewall, Intrusion Prevention, Application Control, URL Filtering and many more. With a few simple steps, customers can easily deploy a Check Point virtual appliance — a security gateway for virtual environments — in the Amazon Cloud to activate protections that prevent network attacks and data breaches, while enabling secure connectivity in dynamic cloud computing environments.

As the adoption of cloud computing brings enterprises many benefits, including business continuity, flexible computing power and cost savings, businesses are increasingly leveraging the cloud to spend less time managing IT resources, and more time focusing on core business objectives. To keep an organization’s infrastructure and business secure, organizations must enforce the appropriate levels of protection both on premise and in the cloud…
 

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcment.

Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, today announced that the Wyse Xenith zero client has been named a top technology product for K-12 educators by District Administration and eSchool News. For the second year in a row, a Wyse cloud client solution has been named to District Administration’s annual Top 100 Products feature. The December 2011 issue of District Administration highlighted the Wyse Xenith zero client built for Citrix HDX. The Wyse Xenith also received the same recognition in eSchool News Readers’ Choice awards appearing in the January 2012 edition.

As education budgets are dwindling and human resources are scarce, schools and universities all over the world are looking for better and more efficient ways to manage their computing resources and rid themselves of the security, sustainability and manageability problems of personal computers. Wyse’s complete line of cloud client and virtualization solutions have become the secret weapon in network administrators’ arsenal for creating a computing infrastructure with a lower total cost of ownership, improved reliability, simplified management, and enhanced security…

Grazed from CIOL.  Author: Milind Khirwadkar.

Cloud computing generally gets equated with IT infrastructure.  Today, it is considered to be ‘the new deployment model for software applications’ which offers benefits like pay-as-you-go, on demand usage and scalability.

How is the development community affected by the trend? Two key paradigms emerge and are impacting software makers. First, developing for the cloud, which is more about bringing cloud enabled applications to market. Second, developing in the cloud, this focuses on using the cloud for dev/test of applications. The article explains important touch points between cloud computing and software development and their implications under both paradigms…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Polkast, a revolutionary new service that lets users securely connect to their PC directly from their mobile devices, announced today it is transforming personal cloud computing with its new PC-to-PC Access feature. Polkast is filling an important gap in the market with this pioneering file virtualization system. Users can now easily connect multiple computers directly, providing complete access to all of their files, no matter where the files are stored. The PC-to-PC Access feature is part of the upcoming Pro Version, which is geared toward business users who want to connect multiple computers and create their own secure personal cloud.

The new PC-to-PC feature transcends typical cloud services and negates the need for online cloud sync and storage. It addresses any security concerns associated with storing data on a third party server, i.e. cloud storage provider. It also resolves any speed, compatibility or reliability issues commonly associated with cloud computing. It is the ideal solution for anyone who wants anytime access to their digital content while keeping their files within their own environment and control…