SMBs tend to base cloud migration decisions on IT considerations – they move when it becomes too difficult, pricey or risky to continue hosting onsite. But the benefits of moving to the cloud go beyond the IT department. We looked at organizations from a variety of industries to learn what problems they’ve solved by moving to the cloud. 

1.     Moving to the cloud eases mergers and transitions. Mergers leave organizations with multiple technology stacks, hosted on separate hardware by different teams. This makes it very difficult to integrate the new company, and poses added security and compliance risks. Getting all the pieces to work together quickly is crucial to staying competitive and maintaining morale and investor confidence. Moving to the cloud with an experienced managed services partner is usually the most competitive way to do this.

Grazed from Computing. Author: Graeme Burton.

Microsoft has been backed by technology companies and a swathe of US corporates in a legal action against the US government over laws that could have major implications for the development of cloud computing. The law would enable US government agencies to seize data hosted on third-party computers, while at the same time barring the hosting company from informing its customers of the seizure.

Microsoft claims that the law is unconstitutional, and filed suit in April in a Seattle federal court in a bid to have the law overturned. Microsoft argues that the law violates the Fourth Amendment, prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, and requiring warrants to be judicially sanctioned and supported by "probable cause"…

Grazed from VCCircle. Author: Mansi Taneja.

In sync with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s Digital India initiative, the ministry of electronics and information technology (IT) plans to bring in private operators to provide cloud-based services for government departments, according to government officials.

As part of the exercise aimed at facilitating various e-governance initiatives, the ministry has shortlisted 11 firms including Microsoft India Pvt. Ltd, IBM India Pvt. Ltd, Tata Communications Ltd and Sify Technologies Ltd, among others, for empanelment to offer cloud services for an initial period of two years. This period can be extended by another year…

Grazed from CIO. Author: Clint Boulton.

When whistleblower Edward Snowden shocked the world in 2013 by revealing that the NSA was allegedly siphoning data from U.S. internet companies, pundits proclaimed that winter was coming for American cloud vendors in Europe. Evidence now suggests those fears may have been overblown.

IDC said this month that U.S. cloud vendors have increased their combined cloud infrastructure revenue two-and-a-half-times in Western Europe, topping $2 billion since the Snowden Effect was supposed to freeze the market. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, Alphabet’s Google and IBM increased their market share by a third in the region, hitting 40 percent in 2015…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Dan Woods.

Judging from the momentum from all of the big players, if you have a data warehouse, you will soon be asked if it is time to move to the cloud. This is a big decision. Most companies have been working for many years on their data warehouse, and are not going to move it anywhere or change how it works without good reason.

So, the vendors are going to have to make a strong case to justify this move. You will be provided with different reasons depending on who is doing the persuading. Some vendors will suggest you move everything to a new solution in the cloud. Others will suggest you add an outpost in the cloud. Others may suggest you move all or part of your existing data warehouse to the cloud…

Read more from the source @ http://www.forbes.com/sites/danwoods/2016/08/31/what-should-the-data-warehouse-become-in-the-cloud/#de348a61dd6c

Grazed from Brink. Author: Editorial Staff.

The future of cloud computing depends on the trust and acceptance businesses place in the industry to store their critical data, but a recent survey of four key markets in the Asia-Pacific region might give the $18.9 billion global market a reason to be concerned. According to the survey—of 130 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore—70 percent said they weren’t likely to adopt a cloud first strategy, while just 29 percent have either adopted it or will do so in the next 12 months.

More concerning: 73 percent of companies surveyed believe that their data is safer in their control than it is in the cloud, and only 12 percent believe it to be the other way round. This suggests while businesses may see the cloud as part of their strategy, a majority are not inclined to make it the focal point in terms of how IT is run…

Read more from the source @ http://www.brinknews.com/asia/doubt-darkens-19-billion-global-market-for-cloud-computing/

Grazed from RCRWireless. Author: Phillip Tracy.

Tech companies have been storing data and running programs on local hard drives for decades. But cloud computing, a less expensive, more scalable way of storing and analyzing data, has taken center stage in recent years. It is a key element providing the necessary platform for enabling the “internet of things.”

What is cloud computing?

According to IBM, cloud computing is the delivery of on-demand computing resources – everything from applications to data centers – over the internet on a pay-for-use basis. Amazon and Microsoft, leading cloud providers, offer a similar definition. This means that cloud computing uses the internet instead of your computer’s hard drive to access remote servers and processors that perform intensive compute and storage tasks over the internet…

Read more from the source @ https://www.rcrwireless.com/20160901/telco-cloud/cloud-computing-tag31-tag99

Grazed from CBROnline. Author: James Nunns.

Cloud computing technology has become one of the most disruptive forces sweeping across the business world. But while its benefits are widely lauded, it is still not being used as extensively as it could be. The reasons for this are numerous, with some holding more weight than others, however, it is clear that copious amounts of evidence is being laid at the feet of businesses to show them why they should be using cloud.

Many businesses are using cloud technology with 44% of companies surveyed by Oracle saying that they already have a ‘cloud-first’ policy in place, while 29% have a ‘cloud-only’ policy in place. It would seem then that businesses have recognised the technology that they need to support future growth…

Grazed from TechWeekEurope. Author: Ben Sullivan.

This is according to Oracle, which claims that the befuddlement is down to a majority of companies’ overall IT spend being driven by individual business units versus traditional IT departments, making it difficult for organisations to fully benefit from the cloud services they’re subscribing too. Another part of the problem, claims Oracle, is that most organisations are continuing to fund their IT investments without aligning to revenue potential.

Cultural transformation

These claims are from Oracle’s ‘Putting Cultural Transformation at the Heart of Cloud Success’ report. The findings reveal businesses should rethink their IT funding models and undergo a cultural transformation in order to fully exploit the benefits of cloud computing. One third of respondents said an inappropriate IT funding model is inhibiting their business. One third also believe their company’s IT culture is unfit for the cloud computing age…

Read more from the source @ http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/cloud/cloud-management/cloud-success-relies-on-cultural-shift-claims-oracle-196955#W6dKjtE7Q0PYrSQU.99