Grazed from TechTarget.  Author:  Wendy Schuchart.

VMware Inc. CEO Paul Maritz has been around the IT world for a long time — he started back in what he calls the "mainframe era," but cloud computing technologies and virtualization were the focus of his keynote Monday at the 2011 VMworld General Sessions in Las Vegas.

"I spent my whole life working on the PC," he told the 19,000 audience members. However, he explained, the future of IT is seated in cloud technology. "In three years … more than 80% of the devices connecting to the Internet will not be Windows-based personal computers. With that kind of scale, we’re going to have to see new techniques and new approaches introduced into the world of IT."…

Grazed from WebWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

LightEdge Solutions, a customer-centric leader in cloud computing and resilient collocation services, today announced that it has launched the initial phase of a vCloud administrative portal for its virtual server customers.  This addition elevates LightEdge within the industry as one of only two VMware VSPP partners in the Iowa with vCloud capabilities in place to support their public and private cloud virtual server customers.  LightEdge will use this tool as a critical differentiator for the company to continue to drive the rapidly expanding cloud computing market place…
 

Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Katie Fehrenbacher.

Remember that whole debate over whether moving to cloud computing is a greener option? Well, data center monitoring startup Sentilla is introducing an analytics tool that can predict whether moving your company’s IT to cloud computing (both private and public) is a smart play from an energy bill perspective…
 

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Today at VMworld(R), 2011, Symantec Corp. /quotes/zigman/78627/quotes/nls/symc SYMC +1.30% and VMware /quotes/zigman/464645/quotes/nls/vmw VMW +4.51% announced an expansion of their strategic partnership to define and architect Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) solutions with the goal to provide secure, pre-integrated and well-managed enterprise-quality virtual desktop computing environments for enterprises and IT service providers. This initiative will leverage VMware virtual desktop and cloud infrastructure solutions including VMware View(TM), VMware vShield(TM), VMware vCloud(R) Director 1.5 and VMware vSphere(R) 5 with Symantec Endpoint Protection and the Altiris Client Management Suite to deliver a secure, manageable and cost-effective DaaS solution…
 

Grazed from GreenBiz.  Author: Matthew Wheeland.

Cloud computing is still riding high on Gartner’s Hype Cycle, with private clouds at the peak of "inflated expectations" as of August 2011. 

High expectations leads to high demands in the enterprise, and CIOs now face questions from their bosses and their IT managers about developing a cloud strategy — especially one that saves energy and money…

Grazed from GreenBiz.  Author: David Metcalfe.

In today’s (more or less) post-recession market, CIOs and other senior IT decision makers are under pressure to do more with less. The demands on IT solutions are escalating, but execs are unable, or unwilling, to let technology budgets expand at the same speed…

Grazed from Zacks.  Author: PR Announcement.

Networking component major Juniper Network (NASDAQ:JNPR) is gradually tightening its grip on the cloud computing market. The company recently made significant additions to the Juniper Networks vGW Virtual Gateway solution for customers looking for a comprehensive virtualization security platform.

These newly added functions with virtualization-specific antivirus (AV) will secure and continuously monitor malware and hackers, as well as ensure that security does not impede virtualized workload performance or present a barrier to implementing large-scale virtualized environments…

Grazed from CMSWire.  Author: Josette Rigsby.

Security and integration are two of the biggest challenges of cloud computing. They drive many enterprises to manage their most sensitive assets internally — creating a complex portfolio of systems spanning public and private clouds. IBM wants to make the complexity a little easier to manage.

IBM Simplifies the Hybrid Cloud

IBM has announced a new hybrid cloud solution designed to reduce the time and challenge of connecting, managing and securing public and private clouds. The new solution leverages the application and data integration IBM acquired from Cast Iron and the company’s Tivoli cloud management software…

Grazed from BusinessWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

CSC (NYSE: CSC) today announced the introduction of Breezeway, a collection of cloud-based, Web-subscription services usable on multiple devices and platforms that enable insurers to tap into offerings in a secure, highly scalable environment. CSC’s first series of services in the Breezeway collection provides virtual agents with a desktop application built on Force.com, salesforce.com’s leading enterprise cloud computing platform, and will support a wide array of multiline insurance agency functions starting with the electronic new business application service…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly.com.  Author: Bill Goodwin.

Cloud buyers and suppliers on their first date

IT departments and suppliers have a long way to go before they understand each other on cloud computing.

That was the conclusion when IT practitioners and suppliers met at London law firm DLA Piper to discuss the barriers to cloud.

In the words of Mark O’Conor, partner at London law firm, suppliers and buyers are like a tentative couple out on a first date.

"It feels like we are at odds," he says. "Each side is looking to the other and both sides are waiting for each other to take a step forward."

Cloud computing – which offers IT departments the potential to buy in IT services as a commodity when they need them – has become one of the hottest, most hyped and perhaps most confusing topics in IT…