Data collection is becoming a dirty phrase in the 21st century. As soon as it’s spoken, people’s hackles go up, they tense, and it makes them uncomfortable. When it comes to a business’s HR department, whether they’ve got cabinets full of folders or have implemented software like that offered by xcdhr.com, they are collecting data on staff, past and present. It’s unavoidable, but must be kept legal, and this is where some troubles have cropped up.

At the moment it’s not too big an issue, but as data crimes become more and more prevalent, you can bet your bottom dollar that companies and their HR departments are going to come under serious scrutiny…

Grazed from FinancialTimes. Author: Richard Waters.

When Satya Nadella takes to the stage in Germany on Sunday for his first appearance at Hannover Messe, one of the main events in the manufacturing industry’s annual calendar, it will signal a significant change for Microsoft. The chief executive of the technology company admits that in past years, “I wouldn’t have had much to talk about — whereas now I think I have something to say”.

He will not be pitching Microsoft’s traditional money-earners like Office, Windows and server software, or even its newer cloud computing services. Instead, says Mr Nadella: “We are now talking about the core.” This means the data being thrown off by cars, aeroplane engines, elevators and other industrial products, supplying the raw material to turn dumb manufactured goods into what he calls “systems of intelligence”…

Read more from the source @ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c8e2e1d0-0861-11e6-a623-b84d06a39ec2.html#axzz46Zg5vdHu

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Sharon Gaudin.

With Intel looking to lock in on the next big thing and cloud continuing to grow in importance, it makes sense for the chip maker to seize on cloud computing as a way to transform itself. That’s the word coming from industry analysts after Intel this week announced it will lay off 12,000 employees — or 11% of its global workforce — as it shifts focus from its traditional PC business to the Internet of Things (IoT) and the cloud.

With PCs seen as yesterday’s tech trend, Intel is betting its future on the growth of the cloud, which stores everything from music to corporate records and powers enterprise apps and billions of smart, connected devices. The cloud, Intel wagers, will be the company’s primary growth engine…

Read more from the source @ http://www.computerworld.com/article/3060206/cloud-computing/intel-refocusing-itself-and-its-revenue-stream-on-cloud.html

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

It’s an attractive story: Public cloud services that can allocate applications and services to users through a cloud broker. These brokerage systems sit between the consumers of cloud services and the services themselves. Brokers can gather data about the cloud service — including cost, efficiency, and functionality — to help you make better decisions about which cloud service best meets the needs of the cloud service consumer.

You can place many public and private cloud services behind the broker, then have it broker to the best service for your application. Though attractive, the sales pitch is a bit different from the reality. Most cloud-based applications have to be localized for the cloud platform they use. If you’ve allocated EC2 and S3 instances from AWS and you use the cloud-native features of that platform, then you’re pretty much locked onto that platform…

Grazed from CSO. Author: Carric Dooley.

When you moved your applications to the cloud, your attack surface changed while the vulnerabilities at the application, database, and network level persisted. To address these issues, securing your cloud perimeter, preventing unauthorized access, and protecting your data is crucial.

The first step to reduce the attack surface is to run a port scan specific to an instance IP and lock down all the unnecessary open ports. In addition, be sure to lock down your meta and user data. Detailed instructions on how to perform these security measures in AWS are available from our team…

Grazed from ScienceBusiness. Author: Eanna Kelly.

The EU is to spend €6.7 billion on a “science cloud” to provide computing power and data storage, giving the continent’s 1.7 million researchers access to a virtual environment to store, share and re-use their data across disciplines and borders. The results of future Horizon 2020 projects would be go to the cloud "by default", said Commissioner for Research, Carlos Moedas.

Of the €6.7 billion, about €2 billion will come from the Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation, with the remainder coming from sources of financing at EU and national level, and from industry. A pilot platform will start at relatively small at €50 million. Only researchers involved in the pilot organisations will have access at first, but ultimately it will be made open to everyone…

Grazed from TheInquirer. Author: Carly Page.

CHIPMAKER Intel has announced plans to axe 12,000 employees, a drastic restructuring that comes as a result of a years-long slump in PC sales. Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich announced the layoffs, which mark the most drastic change he has initiated since taking up the role back in May 2013, during the company’s first-quarter earnings on Tuesday.

As well as delivering the news that Intel’s revenues fell short of expectations, Kraznich announced that 12,000 positions, or 11 per cent of the company’s global workforce, will be axed by mid-2017. This follows 5,300 job cuts announced back in January 2014, which Intel also blamed on falling sales of desktop and laptop PCs…

Bright Computing, the leading independent provider of management software for high performance computing (HPC) clusters, big data clusters, and OpenStack clouds, announces that its Bright OpenStack solution is now fully integrated with Talligent’s advanced proprietary Openbook billing software for OpenStack clouds.

Openbook supports key cost and capacity reporting requirements for an efficient OpenStack cloud deployment. Its integration with Bright OpenStack will be a huge benefit for users who operate OpenStack clouds, especially when multiple clients, departments, or teams are sharing resources and a chargeback or usage reporting mechanism is required.

Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat Cloud Suite and Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8, helping to bridge the gap between development and operations teams at the scale of cloud computing. With today’s newly-available products, Red Hat now offers a complete, integrated hybrid cloud stack with a container application platform (OpenShift by Red Hat), massively scalable infrastructure (Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8) and unified management tools (Red Hat CloudForms), all available individually or via a single, easy-to-deploy solution with Red Hat Cloud Suite.

A growing number of organizations are building private clouds, to give them massively scalable and modern infrastructure, while maintaining increased security and control. According to the Red Hat Global Customer Tech Outlook 2016, a global survey of Red Hat customers, private cloud deployments are expected to outpace public cloud by 6x. In addition, development teams are looking to streamline the creation and deployment of new cloud-native applications while IT leadership is hoping to meet growing business demands with cloud-based automation.