Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Barclay Ballard.

Amazon has revealed a pretty substantial piece of hardware for transferring large amounts of data to the cloud. Amazon Snowball weighs a hefty 50 pounds and can be used to store up to 50 TB of data before being shipped to Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS hasn’t really entered the hardware market before, but Snowball does fit the company ethos of helping customers gain access to cloud computing.

Some businesses find data migration to the cloud challenging, particularly when dealing with magnitudes in the order of terabytes or petabytes. Slow Internet speeds or inadequate network infrastructure can make wireless transfers impractical. Jeff Barr, chief evangelist for Amazon Web Services, believes that as the latest addition to the company’s Import/Export service, Snowball can provide a genuine boost for business customers…

Read more from the source @ http://www.itproportal.com/2015/10/08/amazon-snowball-launched-to-help-with-cloud-data-transfer/#ixzz3o56bsXcJ

Grazed from BusinessInsider. Author: Eugene Kim.

Amazon wants its internet cloud service to connect everything from trash cans to hand sanitizer dispensers. At its annual re:Invent developer conference Thursday, Amazon Web Services launched a new internet of things (IoT) platform that helps devices easily connect to cloud applications and send massive amounts of data to be analyzed for future actions.

That means developers will now be able to connect cars, turbines, or even trash cans to AWS services to process data coming out of those devices and come up with meaningful actions. For example, if a hand sanitizer is about to get empty, it can send a signal to the AWS platform and get it filled up in advance…

Read more from the source @ http://www.businessinsider.com/aws-launches-iot-platform-2015-10

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Alex Konrad.

As more devices from cars to thermometers and light bulbs get connected to the Internet, Amazon is the latest tech company to make its bid to play host. Amazon Web Services, the Seattle-based company’s cloud computing unit it launched in 2006, has become an increasingly strategic business for Amazon, with more than 1 million businesses signed up as customers and revenue of $7.3 billion.

To keep up that growth, AWS is increasingly looking to work with companies not traditionally top-of-mind as potential users of web services, unlike the startups and tech companies that host much of their business online through Amazon’s cloud. On Thursday, Amazon announced the AWS IoT, a platform for processing and using data from Internet-connected devices…

Grazed from CPAPracticeAdvisor. Author: Isaac M. O’Bannon

New guidance is available for state and local tax professionals that examines how cloud computing is increasingly affected by state sales taxes. Titled, Sales and Use Taxes: Cloud Computing, it is the latest Tax Management Portfolio from Bloomberg BNA, which provides expert analysis on evolving state tax challenges associated with cloud computing. This Portfolio has been made available to all subscribers to the Bloomberg BNA Premier State Tax Library, Bloomberg Law, and other Bloomberg BNA state tax services. It was authored by two leading tax industry experts, Stephen Kranz, Partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP, and Mark Nebergall, President of the Software Finance and Tax Executives Council.

“The rules governing cloud computing taxation are developing rapidly in state legislatures and administrative agencies across the country,” said the authors. “Unfortunately much of the administrative guidance is questionable at best. Disparate and changing interpretations by state tax administrators makes taxation of cloud computing transactions even more challenging for both sellers and customers…

Grazed from DQIndia. Author: Editorial Staff.

Teradata Corp. , the big data analytics and marketing applications company, announced that it is making its Teradata Database, the market’s leading data warehousing and analytic solution, available for cloud deployment on AWS to support production workloads. The initial version of Teradata Database on AWS will be offered on a variety of individual multi-terabyte virtual servers–known as Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) instances–in supported AWS regions via a listing in the AWS Marketplace.

“Today, Teradata is adding more innovation by coupling data warehousing capabilities with public cloud convenience,” said Tony Cosentino, Vice President and Research Director at Ventana Research, a leading benchmark research and advisory services firm. “No longer is cutting-edge technology the sole domain of the upper echelon of the corporate community; soon virtually any organization on the planet can tap into – and trust – the power of Teradata.”…

Grazed from Reuters. Author: Mike Stone.

Dell Inc., the world’s third largest personal computer maker, is in talks to buy data storage company EMC Corp, a person familiar with the matter said, in what could be one of the biggest technology deals ever. A deal could be an option for EMC, under pressure from activist investor Elliott Management Corp to spin off majority-owned VMware Inc.

The terms being discussed were not known, but if the deal goes through it would top Avago Technologies’ $37 billion offer for Broadcom. EMC has a market value of about $50 billion. Dell is also in talks with banks to finance an all-cash offer for EMC, the person told Reuters on condition of anonymity as the talks were confidential…

Grazed from CloudComputingNews. Author: James Bourne.

The term ‘enterprise transformation’ is frequently heard, relating to organisational change and moving away from legacy technologies. Accenture defines it as a “fundamental shift [of] strategy, in response to major disruptions through a complete, business-driven remodelling of how a company structures itself.” But how far down the company does change go?

Antonion Piraino, chief technology officer at IT management software provider ScienceLogic, argues organisations need to assess the effects of bimodal IT at an operational level as well as at the application layer. Speaking at IP EXPO, Piraino explained the consequences of bimodal IT – the idea that organisations need two speeds of IT, one for reliability and the other for agility…

Grazed from ITWeb. Author: Admire Moyo.

Cloud computing gives organisations the freedom to control their own destinies. That was the word from Andy Jassy, senior VP at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon Infrastructure, speaking during a keynote address at the AWS re:Invent Conference taking place in Las Vegas. There are about 19 000 delegates attending the event.

AWS, a collection of remote computing services, also called Web services, make up a cloud computing platform offered by Amazon.com. The most central and well-known of these services arguably include Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud and Amazon S3. Amazon markets these products as a service to provide large computing capacity more quickly and cheaply than a client company building a physical server farm…

Read more from the source @ http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=146795:Cloud-drives-freedom-control&catid=86

Grazed from FirstPost. Author: Editorial Staff.

Amazon’s cloud computing business Amazon Web Services kicked off its ‘Re:Invent’ conference with some statistics to show how the company’s shines above all others in the over-crowded cloud market. Ever since Amazon for the first time broke out financial details of its secretive cloud computing unit in April, we’ve known that AWS is "on track" to report $7 billion in revenue this year.

However, at the company’s Re:Invent conference, AWS’ senior vice president Andy Jassy said that AWS is currently running with an annual revenue run rate of $7.3 billion including $1 billion from its database service alone. He said the cloud unit has now over 1 million enterprise customers on the AWS platform; and that AWS is the "fastest growing enterprise technology company."…

Grazed from TheWhir. Author: Nicole Henderson.

Cloud services provider Fusion has acquired the assets of Chicago-based RootAxcess, a provider of IaaS, cloud storage, backup and recovery, and other cloud solutions as part of its near-term objective of growth through acquisitions. RootAxcess is expected to be fully integrated into Fusion by the end of Q1 2016.

According to the Monday announcement, the acquisition will help accelerate Fusion’s expansion in the cloud computing segment of its business, and strengthen its presence in the IaaS market specifically. A recent report by Synergy Research Group found that public cloud now generates more than $20 billion in quarterly revenue for IT companies…