Grazed from BusinessInsider.  Author: Matt Weinberger.

The market for cloud computing continues to defy all expectations.   Even as the startup craze starts to cool in Silicon Valley, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google all reported bang-up earnings last quarter, not least because of their big bets on the cloud. 

Grazed from Datamation.  Author: Editorial Staff.

 Cloud storage has proven to be extremely popular, with multiple Exabytes of data already stored there and the total growing by double digit percentages every year.  And why not – with a cost as low as $0.01/GB/month from hyperscale cloud vendors such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft, it’s affordable and readily accessible.   But the big players are not the only game in town.  Since backup/bulk data storage is still the largest use of cloud storage, many traditional backup appliance vendors have decided to provide their own cloud storage solutions.

These smaller players, while certainly price competitive when considering the entire solution, have wisely chosen to focus on service and added-value functionality instead of competing on cost alone.  So you have two decisions to make: first, is the hyperscale cloud right for your data protection needs and second, if it is not, then how should you go about selecting the right cloud-enabled data protection vendor. Let’s focus initially on the first question…

 Grazed from MalayOnline.  Author: Editorial Staff.

 Grazed from Dell.  Author: Brian T. Horowitz.

To manage 50 billion market events — nearly a petabyte of stored data — the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) turned to the Cloudera Enterprise big data platform along with an Amazon Web Services infrastructure.  FINRA is an independent regulator overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Apache Hadoop, an open-source framework written in Java that enables storage and processing of large data sets, powers Cloudera Enterprise.

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Sujain Thomas.

Keeping data safe is important. The task is hard to start and even harder to manage, but it must be done. Anyway, if you are finding data management to be difficult, then you are probably using the wrong equipment. Technology has made it possible for you to store billions of records effortlessly without spending a fortune in the process. Personal data storage should not be a problem. The main problem often lies in the storage of business data. For every business, data is a crucial asset. Businesses that do not keep records of their customers or marketing campaigns are always bound to fail at some point.

Proper data storage

There are many ways that you can store your data nowadays. There are flash drives of large capacity, memory cards, hard drives and humongous-capacity servers available for your use. It all depends on how much space you need. However, storage of data on the ‘cloud’ is the most popular practice nowadays…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Nicole Henderson.

Technology distributor Avnet has signed IBM as the first member of its new Avnet Cloud Marketplace, giving partners a one-stop shop for IBM’s cloud offerings, according to an announcement by the company on Thursday. The marketplace, launched this week, is available for partners in the US and Canada to offer cloud-based services to their customers through both consumption- and subscription-based models, Avnet said. Business Partners can also create branded storefronts in the marketplace to feature their own bundled cloud offerings.

“We’re at a pivotal moment where new cognitive and cloud computing capabilities are bringing about a major structural change,” IBM senior vice president of cloud Robert LeBlanc said in a statement. “Avnet is taking advantage of this opportunity to simplify how cloud service providers, IBM Business Partners, ISVs and customers create new routes to market, drive new revenue and inspire new ‘born in the cloud’ IBM solutions.”…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-distribution/avnet-launches-cloud-marketplace-signs-ibm-first-member

Grazed from eWeek. Author: David Needle.

The need to move to modern computer technology including cloud computing to enable the transition to digital health care and medical records was a hot topic during a session here at the Constellation Research Connection Enterprise conference. While many new technologies offer ways for hospitals and other health care institutions to improve payment systems and streamline patients’ access to their medical records, panelists said the transition is hampered by a reluctance to invest in new systems.

"The challenge is how do we catch up to and leapfrog to where consumers are today, while still trying to fix, for example, payment systems" running on aging mainframe systems, said Anne Kao, chief digital officer and CIO at MedAmerica. But as with enterprises in general, some health care providers are moving more aggressively to new technology…

Grazed from LiveMint. Author: Leslie D’Monte.

Building new types of computers, constructing an intelligent cloud and helping companies increase productivity are the three “interlocking ambitions” he wants Microsoft Corp. to pursue “boldly”, CEO Satya Nadella said in a conversation on Thursday. Nadella wants Microsoft to help companies reinvent their productivity and business processes with the help of tools like OneNote, Windows 10 and Office 365.

He wants it to build an intelligent cloud with the help of Azure. And he wants to introduce new types of computers such as the Surface Pro tablet, wearables such as Microsoft Band and mixed reality gadgets such as HoloLens. All three objectives are aimed at changing the face of computing…

"The public cloud is too open to provide a secure infrastructure and the private cloud is too costly and cumbersome.  We offer a unified architecture on a bare metal install that removes up to 30% of existing hardware requirements and eliminates vendor layer complexity in a cost-effective holistic solution. As enterprises and organizations look forward to cloud-enablement, the lightweight approach offered by Hive-IO provides a clear upgrade to traditional VDI, servers, storage, and platform solutions. " – Kevin McNamara, CTO and Founder, Hive-IO

The Initiative will extend the Swagger specification and format to create an open technical community within which members can easily contribute to building a vendor neutral, portable and open specification for providing metadata for RESTful APIs. This open specification will allow both humans and computers to discover and understand the capabilities of the respective services with a minimal amount of implementation logic. The Initiative will also promote and facilitate the adoption and use of an open API standard.