Grazed from WWPI. Author: Anna Riberio.

Hewlett-Packard announced updates to the HP Helion portfolio with debut of the HP Helion CloudSystem 9.0, an integrated enterprise cloud solution, and enhancements to HP Helion Managed Cloud Services to manage enterprise workloads in a secure hosted cloud environment.

HP Helion CloudSystem 9.0 expands support for multiple hypervisors and clouds to provide enterprises and service providers with maximum flexibility, HP announced Tuesday at the ongoing HP Discover 2015 conference. Additionally, HP Helion CloudSystem 9.0 integrates HP Helion OpenStack and the HP Helion Development Platform to provide customers an enterprise grade open source platform for cloud native application development and infrastructure…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Editorial Staff.

Virtualization and cloud computing provider VMware has performed well in the network virtualization domain, which it ventured into relatively recently. The company launched the VMware NSX in late 2013, which merged its existing vCloud networking product line with the network virtualization platform of Nicira (which it acquired in 2012) into a single product family. VMware has since witnessed strong demand for the NSX, with the number of customers growing from just 30 to over 400 by the end of 2014.

The biggest challenge for VMware at this point is winning the ‘perception battle’ against once-partner Cisco. The networking giant has taken a different approach to network virtualization and software-defined networking compared to VMware. VMware’s approach holds the potential to make high-end and branded networking hardware/equipment redundant in the long term, which is a major concern for Cisco. In mid-2014, VMware’s CEO mentioned that Cisco branded VMware to be its “public enemy number one” following the NSX launch…

Grazed from Lexology. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud computing services for business purposes are rapidly gaining popularity. Gartner, an internationally renowned technology consultant, expects 33% of all companies to use cloud-based office systems in 2015. The reason for this growth is undoubtedly the flexibility of the solution: cloud services are generally provided based on the client’s demands and increases in the size of stored data do not generally incur significant incremental costs.

Although the cloud computing industry is not as strictly regulated as, for example, telecommunications, the provision of cloud computing services in Bulgaria must comply with certain personal data protection and information security requirements. Proper risk management can help business users and service providers minimise any potential commercial and/or reputational risks related to cloud computing…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Mike Vizard.

Now that most folks have a reasonably solid understanding of what the Apple Watch is any interesting new phenomenon is starting to occur in terms of how cloud services are being marketed directly to line of business (LOB) executives. Historically, mobile computing and the cloud have always been joined at the hip. In fact, it’s hard to think of one being nearly as useful without the other.

The Apple Watch and other devices like it simply extend that mobile computing experience out to the wrist. But the folks that can afford an Apple Watch tend to be fairly well off, which means most of them are to one degree or another line of business executives. Providers of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications have taken note of that correlation…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing/06022015/using-apple-watch-sell-cloud

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Jeffrey Burt.

Nokia Networks officials are continuing their efforts to better compete with larger rivals like Ericsson and Huawei Technologies in the rapidly evolving telecommunications space. Nokia in April announced plans to buy Alcatel-Lucent for $16.6 billion, a move that will give it greater scale against larger vendors and expand its capabilities in network-functions virtualization (NFV), a key technology being pushed and embraced by telecom operators.

Now the company an infrastructure platform designed to help mobile network operators more easily adopt NFV and cloud computing. The Finnish vendor’s AirFrame Data Center Solution that includes pre-integrated racks of ultra-dense servers powered by Intel Xeon processors, network switches and software-defined storage capabilities…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Thomas Claburn.

Google’s new account hub, for users of its Web services and Android smartphones, gives IT organizations a new tool to improve employee awareness of security and privacy. Following its developer conference last week, on Monday Google enhanced its security and privacy offerings with a unified security page and a Web resource for those with privacy questions.

For IT organizations that have to deal with the intricacies of employee devices in the workplace and shadow IT, Google’s effort to educate users about security and privacy provide a potential opportunity to raise awareness of issues that confront every company. In a blog post, Google product manager Guemmy Kim said the company wants to change the perception that people are unable to control their personal information…

Read more from the source @ http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-applications/google-centralizes-security-privacy-for-web-android-users/d/d-id/1320652

Grazed from NextGov. Author: Frank Konkel.

When you think about the hallmarks of cloud computing — on-demand service, resource pooling, elasticity, scalability and the like — it’s easy to overlook how you pay for those cloud services. Federal agencies often still use a fixed pricing model, where an agency purchases an allotment of cloud services and pays for them, whether they are fully used or not.

However, in the spirit of true cloud computing, it appears cloud vendors are coming around to offering government customers the same pay-as-you-go approach popular among commercial customers. Verizon Enterprise Solutions, buoyed by demand from existing federal customers, announced last week it is offering a new consumption model for federal customers who use its Enterprise Cloud platform…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Sharon Gaudin.

Google may not have caught up to Amazon in the cloud market, but that’s OK, according to a Google executive. The company is heading in a slightly different direction with cloud computing that involves helping customers analyze their data. "It’s not about catching up to [Amazon]," said Brian Stevens, vice president of cloud platform at Google.

"It’s not just about lifting and shifting servers and such. It’s not about doing exactly the same thing you’ve been doing. It’s about doing things in a new cloud way." That could change the way companies do business. It also could help Google become a cloud powerhouse. Stevens, who spoke with Computerworld during Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference, said he wants the company’s cloud offering to do more than simply enable enterprises to stop buying their own servers…

Grazed from GovernmentTechnology. Author: Liz Farmer.

Two years ago, Massachusetts took a bold step. The legislature passed a bill to tax the cloud. But they didn’t stop there. Lawmakers also levied taxes on other tech activities. While the cloud may be where the fastest growth is taking place, technology overall is an increasingly large part of a state’s economy. Massachusetts didn’t want to lose out on a chance to include it in its revenue base. Legislative analysts projected that the taxes would bring in $160 million a year.

But just two months after passing the “tech tax,” as it had become known, Massachusetts repealed it. Opposition from the state’s business forces rained down pressure on lawmakers. The new law, they claimed, was putting them out of business. “It got very bruising,” says Andrew Bagley, research and public affairs director of the antitax Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation…

Grazed from CNet. Author: Ben Fox Rubin.

Intel has agreed to buy fellow chipmaker Altera for about $16.7 billion — Intel’s largest acquisition ever — a move that could provide a boost in its data-server and Internet of Things businesses. Intel said Monday that it will pay $54 in cash per Altera share and that it expects to close the deal in six to nine months.

Altera’s stock has surged more than 40 percent since late March, when news of the companies’ negotiations first surfaced. Reports that talks fell apart came out about a month ago, though the New York Post on Thursday said a revived deal would be announced as soon as this week. Altera shares were up an additional 6 percent Monday, while Intel’s share fell 1.3 percent…