Oracle unveils cloud computing plans
Oracle has revealed details of its planned products for private and public cloud computing.
Rex Wang, Oracle vice president of infrastructure and management, explained that businesses are looking to save money in regards to their data centres and stated that his company believes they can be encouraged to move from silo models to the cloud.
He said that clients will want to switch between public and private clouds, with Oracle offering the option to do this, reports Reseller News.
Data management tools ‘to help tackle information growth’
More businesses will be seeking out data management tools in the near future as they attempt to meet the challenge of information growth within their organisation, Gartner has forecast.
According to research conducted by the independent IT analyst, 47 per cent of large enterprises rank this issue as their top data centre hardware infrastructure challenge, ahead of system performance and scalability.
Gartner predicted that corporations will be looking to address this problem by bringing in new data management tools, consolidating storage and investigating the use of information reduction techniques.
US Defense Dept. Expands Cyber-Security Role
When the US Department of Defense started the ball rolling to create US Cyber Command, its network and information systems security and intelligence organization, there were a lot of people who were uncertain what such a command would do — in fact, the whole idea of "cyber-warfare" was still sort of nebulous. There were concerns from within the government, in Congress, and from observers outside that Cyber Command would expand DOD’s activities out into the civilian domain.
Oracle submits cloud interoperability API
Oracle on Wednesday said it will submit an application programming interface to the Distributed Management Task Force in the latest move to address cloud interoperability.
Cloud interoperability is becoming a big theme for vendors, which are proposing various standards to avoid lock-in.
Oracle’s move comes a week after Intel and a bevy of IT buyers formed a coalition to make clouds interoperable. The Intel effort is called the Open Data Center Alliance.
Simplicity key to unlocking cloud benefits
Brian Prentice, research vice president at Gartner, said awareness of cloud computing has been rapidly increasing. According to a survey of CIOs the research firm conducts annually, cloud computing has climbed up the list of hot technologies IT heads are looking at, from non-existent at the end of 2007 to second place by end-2009.
Enomaly launches online cloud computing market
Enomaly has launched a compute market that will let anyone shop for low cost, no-frills compute power offered by a variety of providers. The company, which offers software that cloud services providers use, came up with the idea as a way to help its customers fill up unused capacity.
There are currently 15 cloud providers offering their services through the SpotCloud market. Enomaly is offering the market as a beta right now to make sure that it can handle requests, so end users must register and be approved before they can buy services.
Ocado moves into the cloud with Google Apps
Online grocery retailer Ocado is deploying Google Apps for Business for 1,250 staff, with the aim of cutting costs and improving productivity.
Ocado said the cloud-based product suite will facilitate remote working, improve productivity and boost internal communication for head office staff and regional managers. Staff will be able to log in from any secure internet connection to access their emails, documents, calendar and other internal information.
Cloud computing vendors ‘should address security concerns’
Cloud computing vendors looking to increase the number of companies using their services will be most successful if they can prove the security of the offerings.
According to Rob Ayoub, global programme director for information security research at Frost & Sullivan, many companies are currently holding back on a move to the cloud because of security and availability concerns.
He said that cloud computing providers should be in a position to provide reassurance to potential clients on these issues, reports Computerworld New Zealand.
Dell to make cloud computing acquisition
Dell is also going to build up a tablet computer product line, spreading out from the 7-inch and 5-inch Streaks launched in September. Michael Dell was speaking at an event in Hong Kong.
Dell lost out to HP in a bidding battle for 3PAR, which HP bought for $2.4bn in September. The InServ storage array from 3PAR had proved to be attractive to cloud computing providers because of its ability to scale, as well as its storage efficiency and highly automated management that integrated well with VMware.
Microsoft hopes to show its Cloud Power
The software maker is launching its largest-ever ad campaign targeting businesses, touting "Cloud Power" and its benefits over traditional server-based computing. The ads, which include TV, Internet, print, and outdoor ads, feature the line "cloud power" with actors portraying different types of customers and offering various takes on what products like Windows Azure, Office 365 and Windows Server can offer.