Grazed from VirtualizationReview.  Author: Jeffrey Schwartz.

Although research firm Gartner Inc. listed both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure as leaders in its Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) report, AWS came out as the top dog. Microsoft, of course, begs to differ.

Close followers in the IaaS space, which Gartner describes as "visionaries," include CenturyLink, Google, VMware and IBM/SoftLayer. Among the others that Gartner described as "niche" providers were Rackspace, Joyent, Virtustream, Interroute, CSC, Dimension Data, Fujitsu, NTT Communications and Verizon…

Grazed from CloudComputingIntelligence.  Author: Richard Kemp.

As it approaches its first birthday, ISO 27018 – the first international standard focusing on the protection of personal data in the public cloud – continues to move centre stage as the battle for the Cloud moves up a gear.

At the highest level, this is a competitive field for the biggest companies – think billion dollar investments and million square foot data centres with a hundred thousand servers using enough energy to power a city.  According to research firm Synergy, the Cloud infrastructure services market – Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas), Platform as a Services (PaaS) and Private and Hybrid Cloud – was worth $16bn in 2014, up 50% on 2013, and is predicted to grow 30% to over $21bn in 2015…

Grazed from DarkReading.  Author Editorial Staff.

Huawei today launched its cloud service-oriented Cloud Fabric 3.0 Architecture at the HNC2015 (Huawei Network Congress 2015). By leveraging software defined network (SDN) technology, it supports fast service innovation and implementation, and efficient ICT resource integration in the cloud computing era.

"With core infrastructure carrying cloud services, enterprises are facing new challenges within data centers," said Liu Shaowei, President of Switch and Enterprise Communication Product Line, Huawei, "Our latest Cloud Fabric 3.0 is developed to help enterprise build data centers that are elastic and scalable to support evolving business needs."…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly.  Author: Cliff Saran.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of open-source supplier Canonical, continues to strive towards the vision of a converged handheld device, despite his failed attempt to raise $32m through crowdfunding for Ubuntu Edge, the smartphone that doubles as a desktop PC.

Recalling the crowdfunding initiative that fell short by $13m, he says: “I’m really proud how people stepped up and said it was a good idea. We concentrated all our efforts on the software and now we’re shipping phones.”…

Grazed from EveryCloud. Author: Editorial Staff.

The cloud can be a difficult concept to wrap your head around. What exactly is the Cloud? When are you using it? Where is it found? Sure, the cloud is useful for backing up files and accessing globally distributed software, but how does one pin down those nebulous definitions? To make matters worse, terms like “PaaS” and “SaaS” have popped up recently, further mystifying peoples’ already foggy understanding.

Fortunately we’ve put together a simple infographic breaking down the three layers of cloud computing ­ PaaS, IaaS and SaaS ­ by explaining just what each one does and how it contributes to cloud computing as a whole. From providing core computer infrastructure like operating systems and file storage at a global level, to consumer-facing software users can download or access through their web browser, these three layers encompass pretty much everything about the cloud…

To read more from the source and view infographic, please visit http://www.everycloud.eu/blog/dispel-cloud-computing-confusion-with-our-3-layers-infographic.html

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Sean Michael Kerner.

Building a company from freely available software might not seem like the most logical idea, but it’s one that is working for many vendors in the OpenStack cloud ecosystem. In a panel session at the OpenStack Summit here, the founders of cloud service provider Blue Box Cloud, cloud database vendor Tesora, cloud storage vendor SwiftStack and cloud vendor Piston Cloud Computing as well as the CEO of Dreamhost detailed their experiences and challenges in building OpenStack-powered businesses.

Jesse Proudman, founder and CTO of Blue Box Cloud, told the standing-room only audience that he initially built his company as a single founder and that was a really hard thing to do. In retrospect, he found, having the right team from day one is a key element of success. As a single founder, for some of the early years of Blue Box, he was also bootstrapping the company with his own money, using every resource possible, including credit card debt…

Read more from the source @ http://www.eweek.com/cloud/entrepreneurs-share-how-to-build-an-openstack-powered-business.html

Grazed from BSMInfo. Author: Rick Delgado.

As cloud computing has gained in popularity over the years, many within the IT industry have been understandably excited and wary about what it would mean for them. Using more technology certainly opens up new opportunities for IT workers, but their roles and positions would likely change as the cloud was adopted by organizations around the world. Essentially, cloud computing brought about change and with change comes uncertainty on what the future holds. Now that the cloud has become mainstream and a common tool used by numerous businesses, we can get a better view of its overall impact on the IT industry. So far, the results have been promising, with cloud computing expanding the industry and opening up new opportunities for IT departments.

Of course, one of the overriding fears regarding the rise of the cloud was the effect it would have on IT jobs. With more organizations using cloud services, the worry was that they would need fewer IT workers on-premises, leading to reductions in IT staff. Luckily, that worst case scenario hasn’t happened. If anything, cloud computing has re-emphasized the need for IT experts on premises…

Grazed from ChannelPartnersOnline. Author: Jesse Frye.

IDC says that approximately $56.6 billion was spent globally on public cloud in 2014. By 2018, that figure will exceed $127 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate of approximately 23 percent — six times the CAGR of the overall IT landscape. According to Silicon Angle, throughout the next five years, we’ll see a 44 percent annual growth in workloads for the public cloud versus an 8.9 percent growth for “on-premises" computing workloads.

The size of the public cloud market means you can’t ignore it. Yet as Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft jockey for customers, price drops are becoming commonplace, ultimately making it difficult for channel partners to benefit financially from reselling public cloud to their customers. Google’s latest cuts mean services can be had for as little as $0.01 per core hour…

Grazed from CIO-Today. Author: Jeff Cozza.

CRM Relevant Products/Services giant Salesforce was named the top CRM company in 2014 by total revenue, according to research and advisory company Gartner Relevant Products/Services Inc. Salesforce led the pack with more than $4.2 billion in sales last year, according to Gartner’s report on worldwide CRM market share, titled “Market Share Analysis: Customer Relationship Management Software, Worldwide, 2014.”

In addition to taking the top spot in total revenues for the third year in a row, Gartner also named Salesforce number one in both revenue and market share growth. Salesforce also gained the most market share in the worldwide marketing software Relevant Products/Services category based on 2014 total software spend…

Grazed from TheServerSide. Author: Cameron McKenzie.

If you’re attending an OpenStack conference for the first time and don’t want to come across as a neophyte — either when talking to speakers about cloud computing, or to vendors about distributed storage and the pitfalls of using open source hypervisors while cruising the exhibitors’ hall — here are a few cloud computing terms you should become familiar with to create the impression you’re as knowledgeable as anyone else who’s pretending to know what they’re talking about.

OpenStack — This is the open source, cloud computing software everyone is talking about. If you’ve ever wanted to create your own private cloud, but knew that creating a scalable, distributed and easily managed product was just too much work, then OpenStack is for you. It should be noted that OpenStack is the only software piece that makes managing all the compute pools, networked servers, storage systems and centralized administration possible. However, the hardware on which this private cloud software is deployed is not associated with OpenStack…