Grazed from DZone. Author: Nirav Sanghavi.

As cloud computing is growing at a rapid pace, enterprises and IT organizations are increasing adopting the cloud with a focus on infrastructure-as-a-service. As per the recent report by RightScale, 95% of respondents agree to using cloud with 77% private cloud adoption and 71% hybrid cloud adoption in 2016.

Considering these figures, it is apparent that more and more organizations are keen to migrate their mission-critical applications and systems to cloud to leverage the benefits of storage optimization, security, capacity and performance. However, migrating to the cloud is not easy as it may seem…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Virtustream, the enterprise-class cloud services and software provider and an EMC Federation Company, today announced that Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE:IRM), the global leader in storage and information management services, has selected Virtustream® xStream® and Virtustream Viewtrust® software to orchestrate, automate and secure cloud storage services for Iron Mountain’s cloud-based service offerings.

“Changes in technology and business processes are challenging the most progressive companies to adopt new strategies to handle the resulting explosion of high value data,” said Eileen Sweeney, senior vice president and general manager for Data Management at Iron Mountain. “To enable our customers to adapt their data management processes to these challenges, we are embracing technology and offering clients a hybrid approach to manage all types of data, through various stages of the data lifecycle…

Grazed from CloudComputingExpo. Author: Fouad Khalil.

In the business world, it’s hard to throw a rock without hitting a compliance requirement. All must be obeyed, but some call for a high level of control and auditability. Governing bodies are exerting their authority like never before, increasing the number of auditors and handing out heavy fines – sometimes as much as $1 million. This has become the new norm, and it isn’t likely to turn around any time soon. It’s important, then, to be aware of the primary threats that could undermine compliance efforts. The top three such issues are discussed below.

The Challenges of SOX

Public companies in the U.S. as well as foreign companies listed on U.S. exchanges are required by Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) to assess their internal controls, have that assessment validated by an external auditor and report the assessment to the SEC. Information security professionals need to ensure that their organization complies with requirement in Section 302 and Section 404 of the legislation…

Read more from from the source @ http://www.cloudcomputingexpo.com/node/3900000

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Sharon Gaudin.

Four years ago, the New York Public Library began to move its web properties to the cloud. Today, the library system has all of its approximately 80 web sites in the cloud. The library has shrunk the number of on-premise servers by 40% and is running those web properties 95% more cheaply than if it had bought the hardware and software to do it all by itself.

The library took a risk on the cloud, and on Amazon Web Services (AWS), and it paid off. "We’ve grown but we’ve grown in the cloud," said Jay Haque, director of DevOps and Enterprise Computing at the library. "Today, we’re primarily focused on the digital identity of the NYPL. How our properties look…

ZeroStack, a one-stop shop for hybrid cloud infrastructure that delivers agility without complexity, today announced that it is the first to build capabilities that enterprises expect for OpenStack-based hybrid cloud to support applications in production. The key functions now in the ZeroStack Cloud Platform include: 

• Virtual machine (VM) high availability
• Workload placement policies
• Data protection
• Support for external storage
• zApp store delivering single-click application deployment – part of the click and go model

These developments, coupled with ZeroStack’s self-healing software, make the ZeroStack Cloud Platform the only complete enterprise-ready OpenStack-based hybrid cloud solution.

"While most of our customers eventually use the full range of security controls in CloudPassage Halo, many are initially looking for a more tailored solution to a specific security problem," said Jack Marsal, Product Marketing Director, CloudPassage. "These solution-focused packages allow enterprises to address their most acute security problem in the most cost-effective manner while giving them flexibility to add a broader range of security controls as their security needs evolve. Customers can evolve their security systems and posture at the pace which is right for them."

Platform9, the company making cloud infrastructure easy, today released its High Availability capability for OpenStack users, supporting both traditional and cloud-native workloads. Platform9 will be showcasing this industry-first capability in its booth #649 at VMware’s VMworld, taking place August 28 – September 1 in Las Vegas.

"High Availability is fundamental to enterprise customers looking to run production workloads on OpenStack. Given the massive demand we’ve seen from enterprise customers, we are excited to provide a solution with the industry’s first High Availability capability for both traditional and scale-out workloads," said Madhura Maskasky, co-founder and vice president of product at Platform9. "This new capability makes it possible for customers to migrate to OpenStack for mission-critical workloads without sacrificing the powerful, enterprise-grade High Availability capabilities they’ve come to expect."

There are a large number of enterprise-level CIOs who will be moving their legacy IT operations to cloud environments in the next couple years. But when they talk about why they are making the move, what their cloud architecture will look like or how the internal operations will work, the answers aren’t so clear.

If not planned correctly, making the transition to the cloud can create just as many problems as it does solutions.

Using research from across the industry, the infographic below — created by SingleHop — addresses 10 important questions CIOs should consider before moving their operations to the cloud.

Infographic:

SaaS application adoption is significantly increasing and with it comes increasing business expectations to access any application from anywhere on any device. If IT teams discover new "grass roots" SaaS apps, it’s often after a purchase has already been made. End-users then have many accounts to manage, leading to security risks and a negative user experience. At the same time, the continuous drumbeat of major breaches has left many organizations scrambling to improve security. Organizations are seeking solutions that can help them reduce risks in their environment, deliver a better experience for their end-users, and adapt to the complexities of existing infrastructure and processes.

"With today’s hybrid application infrastructure, gaining performance visibility and connectivity into all components are more important than ever," said Christoph Pfister, executive vice president of products, SolarWinds. "Applications and data are now fluid, residing in single or multiple on-premises datacenters, cloud-based datacenters, SAAS solutions, or in combination. The SolarWinds suite of system and network products provides the user with a single interface to pinpoint application issues in their virtualized infrastructure, while also optimizing resources for optimized application performance. For hosted applications, SolarWinds provides performance visibility into all networking layers that were previously unknown to IT administrators. VMworld is the ideal place to showcase these capabilities and get vital feedback from our users and the larger virtualization community."