Grazed from MotleyFool. Author: Sean O’Reilly.

Despite boasting famed billionaire investor Warren Buffett as a major shareholder, IBM (NYSE:IBM) has been unable to pick itself up out of the doldrums. Case in point: Despite dozens of acquisitions over the past six years, as well as laudable cost-cutting initiatives, both revenues and profits have continued to slide downward, particularly in the past two years.

While the picture isn’t all bad — IBM’s shares continue to benefit from healthy dividend payouts and share repurchases — something clearly needs to be done. This is not the same company that created Deep Blue and engendered mass adoption of the personal computer. To compete in the 21st century, IBM will need to get ahead of the curve and innovate…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Dawn Kawamoto.

With cloud computing becoming the platform that enterprises are turning to for their applications and data, it should come as no surprise that cloud positions are in extremely high demand. But what may be surprising are the top 10 positions that employers are looking for when staffing up for their move to the cloud.

In a study of online job ads that were posted between Feb. 15 and March 15, the term "cloud" appeared in 460,000 posted ads — making cloud knowledge No. 3 among the most in-demand IT skills, according to data collected by CEB TalentNeuron, the employee recruiting unit of consulting firm CEB…

Grazed from WSJ. Author: Steve Rosenbush.

Oracle Corp. on Thursday laid out a major element of its strategy for competing in the fiercely competitive market for cloud computing, launching a new service that it says addresses the security concerns and regulatory obstacles that have discouraged some companies from embracing the cloud.

The service, called Oracle Cloud at Customer, allows companies to place an Oracle cloud server within their own data center, essentially turning one of the basic concepts of cloud computing inside-out, according to Thomas Kurian, president of Oracle product development, who spoke to CIO Journal in an interview. The company is expected to formally announce the product later Thursday at Oracle CloudWorld, a customer event in Washington, D.C…

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Editorial Staff.

The cloud has been one of the most talked-about concepts in computing for years now, and a recent survey by RightScale found that 95 per cent of companies are now using some form of cloud service. However, a lot of this is still at the experimentation stage, with at least two thirds of workloads still provided via traditional IT systems. So there’s still a long way to go before market size predictions for the cloud are achieved. With huge potential economic benefits available from the cloud, here are 10 reasons (out of many more) that you can give your Chief Financial Officer, which might convince them it’s time to switch services over.

1. Fewer capital costs to worry about

One of the most attractive features of cloud computing is that you don’t need to invest in servers anymore, or at least not as many. So the three-year cycle of purchasing and replacement will no longer be such a huge issue, and you won’t need the periodic lump of finance required to upgrade. There will still be capital costs for end user equipment and infrastructure, including an increased focus on strong networking and Internet connectivity…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Karsten Strauss.

The job market in tech is competitive and employers are willing to shell out a bit more for talented personnel with wide skill sets. This according to a report released last week by multinational human resources firm Randstad, which found that a number of IT positions saw some notable jumps in pay between 2014 and 2015. Those jobs were more valuable, it seems, because they require more know-how and certifications.

The data Randstad used comes from The Economic Research Institute, and shows that network engineers – who command an average $93,000 annually in the U.S. – saw the biggest increase in median compensation, to the tune of 7.21% That more than doubles the average salary increase of jobs in the United States during that timeframe, which was about 3% overall…

Read more from the source @ http://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2016/04/12/5-it-jobs-that-saw-a-jump-in-salary/#3be5a9797e59

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Brandon Butler.

Open source cloud computing platform OpenStack has a new semi-annual version of its code out this month and one symbolically important aspect is a deepened partnership with Google’s public cloud. In a blog post, Google announced that the Mitaka release of OpenStack includes a native option to backup OpenStack Cinder storage volumes to its public cloud.

OpenStack’s block storage service is named Cinder, which houses virtual machine data and data at rest; most organizations deem this important enough data to backup. OpenStack provides a native backup driver that allows Cinder to be backed up to various storage platforms. Google has now integrated its public cloud as a native backup option for Cinder…

Read more from the source @ http://www.networkworld.com/article/3055195/cloud-computing/google-cozies-up-with-openstack.html

Grazed from MISAsia. Author: Nurdianah Mur.

Alibaba Cloud — the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group — has launched its first global startup programme called Create@Alibaba Cloud. The programme — which is an expansion from Alibaba Cloud’s previous initiatives in Hong Kong and China — is aimed at enabling startups to maximise their potential through Alibaba’s support network and suite of cloud infrastructure services.

"Our focus has always been to empower our global customers with our cloud expertise to achieve greater global coverage and expansion into international markets. We hope that this programme will make our sophisticated networking solutions and big data intelligence also available to start-ups and small enterprises to accelerate their business growth," said Yu Sicheng, Vice President of Alibaba Cloud…

Grazed from FederalNewsRadio. Author: Jared Serbu.

The Defense Department is taking a serious look at overhauling its process for accrediting commercial cloud computing products as secure-enough for military use. Among the ideas DoD is considering: Changing its security approach in a way that would give much more weight to the security techniques a company uses instead of whether one of their particular cloud offerings checks all of the security boxes in a fairly static government document.

Within the next several weeks, the Pentagon will announce a working group of DoD and industry security experts charged with improving the existing security and accreditation process for commercial cloud, the latest version of which was published in an updated security requirements guide (SRG) last month. “I think we have reached the point where we can no longer accredit specific hardware or software, we’ve got to accredit the process,” said DoD Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen…

Grazed from CXOToday. Author: Sawaram Suthar.

In my current scenario, cloud computing is on the rise and is all set to dominate the market. A majority of organisations have adopted or are planning to adopt the cloud technology due to its multiple benefits, including the vital role it plays in reducing operating costs as well as expenditures. However, to get the maximum benefit, it is very important to ensure a smooth transition.

Cloud computing enables companies to store and access data and programs over the internet instead of on the hard drive of the computer. It allows the companies to use computing resources as a utility, eliminating the need to build and maintain an in-house infrastructure. The cloud is metaphorically compared to the internet because it serves as a white, inflated cloud, accepting connections and distributing the information while floating…

Cohesity, the pioneer of hyperconverged secondary storage, today announced its hybrid cloud strategy that empowers customers to leverage the cost efficiency and agility of cloud infrastructure. Cohesity’s unified, intelligent storage platform was designed from day one to integrate seamlessly with public and private cloud services, and enables organizations to take a comprehensive approach to cloud adoption with its CloudArchive, CloudTier, and CloudReplicate features.

Cloud computing services have become a top focus for today’s companies, both as a foundation for innovation and a way to realize cost savings. In fact, a new report from ESG showed that the number of organizations using the cloud as a means to control IT spending has more than doubled (going from 13 percent in 2009 to 32 percent this year). During that same time span, cloud computing went from the least to the most commonly selected cost mitigation strategy for IT decision-makers.