Today’s small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face new challenges when it comes to data protection, including massive increases in data volume, complex computing environments, more digital business processes and mobile workers, as well as man-made and natural disasters and cyber-threats. In addition, SMBs struggle to protect data in virtual, physical, and mobile IT environments, with 48 percent of SMBs running both virtual and physical systems, and almost 60 percent of SMBs using mobile devices for work-related activities.

Catalogic Software recently announced a new software release that provides: dramatically easier management and use of Oracle database copies, the market’s only Copy Data Management (CDM) support for the EMC Unity storage family, and Integration with AWS S3 for cloud-based data retention. These are just a few of the many exciting new features in the latest release of Catalogic ECX 2.4.  To find out more, I spoke with Catalogic Software’s VP of Marketing, Tom Grave.

Grazed from InforWorld. Author: Eric Knorr.

It’s always unfortunate to start the definition of a phrase by calling it a misnomer, but that’s where you have to begin with serverless computing: Of course there will always be servers. Serverless computing merely adds another layer of abstraction atop cloud infrastructure, so developers no longer need to worry about servers, including virtual ones in the cloud.

To explore this idea, I spoke with one of serverless computing’s most vocal proponents: Chad Arimura, CEO of the startup Iron.io, which develops software for microservices workload management. Arimura says serverless computing is all about the modern developer’s evolving frame of reference:…

Grazed from DataCenterNews. Author: Sara Barker.

Alibaba Cloud announced last month that its data center operations will be expanding, with a second availability zone in Singapore. The company’s Singapore data center opened in 2015 to serve the Asia Pacific region’s growing need for cloud and big data requirements. The second availability zone enables Alibaba Cloud to provide enterprise customers with higher capacity for disaster recovery and high availability, which the company says will meet worldwide demands, says Sicheng Yu, vice president of Alibaba Group and general manager of Alibaba Cloud International.

"The expansion of our Singapore data center enables us to meet the rapidly growing demand for cloud computing resources in Southeast Asia. This expansion also demonstrates our ongoing commitment to providing one-stop global cloud and big data services to both Chinese and international enterprises. We will continue to grow our coverage worldwide," Yu says…

Grazed from ITWire. Author: Sam Varghese.

Microsoft and SUSE signed a patent-licensing deal in 2006, at a time when SUSE was operating under the Novell umbrella in the US. Novell was acquired by the Attachmate Group in 2010 and later sold to the British mainframe company Micro Focus in 2014. From the time of the Attachmate purchase, SUSE went back to operating as an independent business unit in Nuremberg as it had been before it was first bought by Novell in 2003. In July 2011, Microsoft announced the SUSE deal would be extended till 1 January this year.

Last year when Microsoft was asked about the continuation of the deal, the company refused to say anything openly. The 2006 deal did not go down well with the free and open source software community and one prominent developer, Jeremy Allison of the Samba project, left Novell in protest…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Louis Columbus.

These and many other insights are from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)’s Google-sponsored study, Trust in cloud technology and business performance: Reaping benefits from the cloud (PDF, no opt-in, 28 pp.) and found that enterprises that trust cloud computing apps and platforms to transform their businesses beyond cost cutting see revenue growth.

Fostering and continually supporting business transformations that leverage cloud computing’s inherent strengths is how high-trust enterprises are gaining greater revenue outcomes than competitors. The study is quick to point out that higher trust in cloud computing alone doesn’t lead to better financial results, and “put simply, higher cloud trust appears to facilitate behavioural and process change within an organisation,” according to the study’s results…

Read more from the source @ http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2016/07/10/google-study-finds-enterprises-who-trust-the-cloud-beyond-cutting-costs-see-revenue-growth/#35fb7c441b48

Grazed from Network World. Author: Brandon Butler.

Managing clouds can be a challenge given that virtual machines and storage are running in two different environments simultaneously. A crowded industry of cloud management platforms (CMP) has emerged to help. Gartner Research Director Mindy Cancila says the CMP market is young and maturing; customers should understand the limitations of various options. Here are four tips from Cancila for organizations considering cloud management products.

IaaS needs its own tools

Many organizations began their cloud journey by using SaaS tools like Office 365, Salesforce or some other business planning software. These SaaS platforms may require some new skills, but customers don’t usually need to purchase a whole new management platform to use them. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is different…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

Organisations’ fears of cloud-based backup are mostly down to inexperience or ignorance of how the systems work rather than technological issues, according to new survey results released by analyst house Clutch.co. The research, which surveyed more than 300 small to medium US businesses to measure the benefits and challenges of cloud-based backup, found that 87% of respondents said online backup was either equally or more secure than on-premises equivalents. 24% argued it was “much more” secure, with 32% opting for “somewhat” and 31% equally secure. Only 2% argued online backup was much less secure.

In terms of benefits to cloud backup, greater data security (31%) was most frequently cited, ahead of data space (21%) and simpler backup (21%), while more than a third (37%) of businesses polled said they had experienced no problems when utilising cloud backup, with downtime and bugs (36%) cited most often ahead of limited data space (22%), security issues (19%), and data recovery problems (14%)…

Grazed from YahooFinance. Author: Shudeep Chandrasekhar.

For the uninitiated, cloud computing can be a daunting subject. For investors, it’s a nightmare. ETFs like First Trust ISE Cloud Computing Index Fund (SKYY) do a good job of aggregating the best stocks in this segment, but as with any ETF you tend to get a lot of chaff with the wheat. This article showcases the three largest cloud providers in the world and highlights why they will remain at the top for the foreseeable future.

What is cloud computing?

In its simplest form, the cloud is merely virtual real estate space for data. As businesses started to move away from keeping manual records to "computerizing" themselves, they needed increasingly large amounts of hardware and a host of software applications to keep the engine running. In addition, they had to invest in networking solutions and other add-ons that made them more efficient…

Grazed from FTAdvisor. Author: Damian Fantato.

The Financial Conduct Authority has published guidance on how financial advisers should outsource to cloud computing providers amid concerns its requirements are too burdensome and onerous. Published today (7 July), the note stated firms using cloud services and other third-party IT providers must have a clear and documented business case or rationale if using them for “critical or important operational functions or material outsourcing”, as well as carrying out a risk assessment.

The regulator also stated firms must insist on being notified promptly in the case of any breaches, must have physical access to a provider’s data centres and there should be no restrictions on the number of requests firms can make of the provider to access or receive data. But some of these requirements were criticised during the consultation on the FCA’s proposals, while the regulator has watered down other rules after concerns were raised…