HP, Microsoft Forge Four-Year Cloud Pact
HP (NYSE:HPQ) Enterprise Services and Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) have joined forces to offer global public and private cloud services, a four-year deal that will offer packaged bundles of HP and Microsoft gear and through which HP will resell Microsoft Office 365.
The two tech titans said Thursday that the goal of the pact is to bring customers into the cloud and help them make the shift from capital IT expenses to operational expenses.
For private cloud deployments, HP will offer Microsoft cloud productivity applications like Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Lync Server 2010 as a service from HP data centers as part of its HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Messaging, HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Collaboration and HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Real-Time Collaboration.
For public cloud, Microsoft will offer Microsoft Office 365 and other collaboration and productivity tools…
White House launches cloud computing security standards
Grazed from Washington Business Journal. Author: Jill R. Aitoro.
After two years of development, the Office of Management and Budget officially launched a program Thursday that establishes uniform security requirements that contractors will have to meet to sell their cloud solutions to the federal government.
Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel sent a memo to all agency CIOs requiring that they use the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program when purchasing cloud services. FedRAMP, as it’s known, establishes a set of approved, minimum security controls that cloud services will have to meet, as well as an assessment process for authorizing these services under the program…
IBM Buys DemandTec for Its Cloud-ified Analytics
IBM said Thursday morning that it was buying DemandTec for $13.20 a share, close to 57% premium.
Big Blue will ante up roughly $440 million, net of DemandTec’s cash on hand, to take over the cloud-based ISV for its 10-month-old Smarter Commerce initiative. IBM estimates the market opportunity for Smarter Commerce at $20 billion in software alone.
By running different customer buying scenarios, DemandTec’s subscription-based price, promotion, merchandising and marketing analytics are supposed to help users define their best price points and product mix based on customer buying trends both online and in stores…
Mobile Devices Now Driving Cloud-Computing Adoption
Technology giant CSC just released its latest Cloud Usage Index, a survey that looks at the current state of cloud computing. Not only divulging simply interesting facts, the survey found that cloud adoption is being hastened by the desire to access information through multiple devices, marking a clear shift from results of earlier cloud-adoption surveys.
Cloud Usage Index
The survey was performed by independent research firm TNS using funding from CSC and asked 3,645 IT decision makers from companies around the world about their current and upcoming cloud-computing situation. The survey results are now available as either a write-up or infographic, at the CSC website…
How capacity management changes in the cloud
Capacity management is all about creating a plan assuring the business there will be just enough volume (servers, storage, network, and so on) for critical applications and data when needed. This means creating complex performance and power models to make sure you’re neither spending too much nor too little money on IT infrastructure.
But what changes for capacity management in the emerging world of cloud computing? A few things come to mind…
PATRIOT Act and privacy laws take a bite out of US cloud business
While there are plenty of technical and functional concerns that have slowed adoption of public cloud computing and software-as-a-service, American companies trying to sell their cloud services outside the US or to large multinational organizations have another handicap to overcome: the USA PATRIOT Act. European, Asian, and Canadian data privacy rules and concern about US surveillance of data crossing international boundaries have even been used to market European data centers’ services. Today, ComputerWeekly reported that BAE Systems had ditched Microsoft Office 365 over PATRIOT Act concerns, because Microsoft could not guarantee the company’s data wouldn’t leave Europe.
Microsoft’s managing director in the UK, Gordon Frazer, made that admission in June at the Office 365 launch in London. After researching the PATRIOT act, Microsoft found that regardless of where data was stored, it could not ensure that data would not be turned over to the US government as the result of a National Security Letter or other government request, because the company is governed by US law…
In cloud security advice we trust? At your peril…
Talking at the launch of the Generation Cloud report recently, Fabio Torlini – vice president of cloud at report sponsors Rackspace – said businesses have a great opportunity to "shape consumer understanding of cloud computing and build trust."
Although the report was concerned with consumer attitudes towards cloud technologies, it did reveal a number of things that every business, from the smallest end of the SME scale to the largest international corporate, needs to take on board.
For example, 69 per cent of those asked did not trust their cloud service providers, and the biggest concerns were around security, privacy and transparency. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? And if it doesn’t, oh boy are you in trouble. These are exactly the kinds of issues that should be at the very forefront of any cloud adoption strategy, right at the top of your cloud agenda and carved in stone before you even consider going live…
European Commission vice-president warns businesses about cloud computing
In a speech to the GSMA Europe ‘Privacy in the Cloud: Data Protection and Security in Cloud Computing’ conference, Viviane Reding, vice-president of the European Commission, warned businesses that data protection and privacy must be taken extremely seriously when building and using cloud computing systems.
Reding told delegates that next month she will propose a new European data protection and privacy law which will clarify and reinforce European regulation in this area. At the same time coordination between national data protection watchdogs will be strengthened so that both the existing and new rules will be enforced consistently…
10 Amazing Uses Of Cloud Computing!
Cloud computing is one of the most promising technologies in the modern day world. Several companies have already popped in the cloud market and achieved desired goals they planned for their business’s expansion. To add more to cloud’s importance in the growing IT industry let us check on some of its uses and benefits that it offers to its users.
Use No. 1
Cloud Follows Pay for What you Use Model
This particular characteristic of cloud focus on the fact that cloud computing and managed cloud services are truly cost-effective. This means users will have to pay only for the amount of service used by them. This way, money spent on improving business through cloud doesn’t prove to be expensive. SMBs are benefited the most with such a type of facility that cloud offers…
Cloud Computing Flagged as Biggest Shift in Not-For-Profit Use of Information Technology
Cloud computing has emerged as the decade’s biggest shift in the way organisations use Information Technology according to a report to the Federal Government – and Not for Profit organisations have been urged to get on board.
Australia’s IT sector can be a global leader in developing cloud computing to drive innovation and national productivity gains, a report from an information technology (IT) industry advisory body has told the Federal Government.
And a local IT experts say cloud computing can benefit a Not for Profit organisation’s productivity and systems…