Grazed from TechTarget.  Author: Jessica Scarpati.

Networks have developed a middle-child syndrome over the years.  Ever since the first server virtualization platforms allowed systems administrators to easily spin up or decommission virtual machines (VMs) within minutes, the data center solidified its place as the golden child, representing agility and efficiency in infrastructure. It paved the way for cloud computing, putting more pressure on IT to be responsive to dynamic environments.

While virtualization soon seeped into other parts of IT like storage and desktops, the network was largely ignored. Although Layer 4-7 appliance vendors released virtualized versions of their products — virtual firewalls, virtual load balancers, virtual WAN optimization controllers and so forth — their primary focus was on reducing expenses, not improving agility. Networking as a whole remained frozen in hardware governed by static architectures, and most attempts to innovate focused on moving bits faster…

Grazed from CFO.  Author: David M. Katz.

In a February editorial about the buildup of cyber attacks between the United States and Iran, The New York Times quoted President Obama’s observation that, compared with conventional weaponry, cyberweapons provide “no clear line between offense and defense.” For example, getting into the enemy’s networks to exploit its weakness and disable its ability to attack you is both offense and defense.

Citing “major banks, Sony Pictures Entertainment, [and] an electrical utility,” the newspaper observed that such recent examples reveal that even corporate computer systems once considered impregnable are vulnerable to attack.  In the borderless world of information technology, in fact, computer-security specialists and corporate risk managers have begun working on the assumption that it’s impossible for companies to keep their networks completely free from penetration…

Grazed from Wired.  Author: Jessi Hempel.

On a recent morning in downtown Manhattan, IBM’s Virginia Rometty and Apple’s Tim Cook sit on a small riser, each leaning back slightly with legs crossed. Between them sits Taizo Nishimuro, an older Japanese man with heavy black orthopedic shoes and an elegant cane. Nishimuro helms the Japan Post, a company that owns the country’s postal service, a bank, and its largest life insurer.

We are gathering to hear the trio make an announcement that, just by virtue of their attendance, must be important.  But it also feels a bit curious: what could be this important?  The venue is IBM’s new global headquarters, a 12-story glass tower designed by the Pritzker-Prize winning architect Fumihiko Maki. It sits just across the way from Facebook’s Silicon Alley outpost in Astor Place, eight blocks south of Google’s New York offices…

Grazed from FineChannel. Author: Editorial Staff.

HP on April 30 announced it has made multiple contributions to the OpenStack Kilo release, including new converged storage management automation and new flash storage technologies to support flexible, enterprise-class clouds. Drivers such as data growth, software-defined data center technologies, and the Internet of Things continue to fuel cloud adoption.

Enterprises are deploying OpenStack technology to overcome private and public cloud challenges, including costly vendor lock-in, lack of control or customizability, and inability to scale applications for the cloud, according to HP. As a testament to the company’s ongoing commitment to open source cloud technology, HP is a Platinum Founding member of the OpenStack Foundation and a key contributor to multiple OpenStack projects, including funding, code, reviews, testing, and training…

Grazed Forbes. Author: Jason Bloomberg.

In the days since a Bloomberg article let slip that Salesforce.com CRM +0.47% might be on the block, there has been no end of punditry regarding potential suitors. Oracle is the most likely – except it’s not. Salesforce’s Benioff had lunch with Microsoft’s Nadella – only perhaps it was dinner. IBM IBM +0.88%, Amazon.com, or perhaps even SAP are in the mix. Only it’s not SAP. Apple anyone?

The more interesting question, however, isn’t who, it’s why. Oracle ORCL +0.96% and Microsoft MSFT +0.06% are looking to beef up cloud computing operations, according to a Reuters article. It certainly couldn’t be because Salesforce has a booming business, as it lost $263 million in 2014, with no turnaround in sight…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Stanton Jones.

What does a typical enterprise cloud services buyer look like? It’s a tricky question to answer. Cloud services are everywhere: in the data center, in development teams, in shared services organizations on manufacturing floors. It’s also delivered in many different ways: as software, as infrastructure that behaves like software and as business processes supported by cloud software. Complicating matters further, what one buyer may call cloud another may call a rack of dedicated, virtualized servers, making the line of demarcation between “cloud” and “traditional” very blurry.

Regardless how one chooses to define this boundary, cloud is permeating just about every corner of the enterprise, and the buyers that are driving this transformation are as varied as the functions they represent. However, buying “archetypes” are starting to emerge. Here are six of the most common:…

Grazed from Phys.org. Author: Yijun Yu.

The recent earthquake in Nepal demonstrated yet again how difficult it is to reliably predict natural disasters. While we have a good knowledge of the various earthquakes zones on the planet, we have no way of knowing exactly when a big quake like the 7.8-magnitude event in Nepal will happen.

But we know that many animals seem able to sense the onset of such events. We could use powerful computers to monitor herds of animals and make use of their natural instincts to provide forewarning of natural disasters. Immediately before an earthquake, herds of animals often start to behave strangely – for example suddenly leaving their homes to seek shelter. This could be because they detect small, fast-travelling waves or because they sense chemical changes in ground water from an impending earthquake…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

Predictions tend to be more of an end-of-the-year activity, but I took some time to write down a few ideas and their likely outcomes based on patterns in the market that we can currently see. Here are a few to consider. There will be more market convergence around Google, AWS, and Microsoft. This is as easy to call as the sunset. Enterprises moving to public clouds are largely going with these three companies.

Moreover, the big three are placing their technology bets in cloud computing right now, and this will continue for the foreseeable future. Many thought this would be race of a dozen or so public cloud providers, but the market has taken care of most of them. Indeed, smaller cloud providers, such as Rackspace, could not keep up with the investment and have moved to a narrower and more niche-oriented focus…

Read more from the source @ http://www.infoworld.com/article/2916564/cloud-computing/4-predictions-for-the-immediate-future-of-cloud-computing.html

Grazed from Engineering. Author: Shawn Wasserman.

SimScale appears to be the latest to target its CAE tools to individual consultants and small companies. These users will have access to the web-based simulation platform, training and support from SimScale’s team of consultants. "Engineering simulation is now available not just for the largest companies, but for start-ups,” said David Heiny, managing director of SimScale.

“CAE simulation can help start-ups bring their designs to reality more quickly than ever before. The start-ups that we are working with are creating a wide range of projects, including structural mechanics and thermodynamics designs." The key features from SimScales’s product are similar to other cloud-based simulation offerings:…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Sander Van Vugt.

There’s little debating that VMware’s influence in the data center has been matched by few other companies. With vSphere, it has been the leading server virtualization market for many years. But now that VMware is moving into new areas, namely cloud computing, things aren’t quite so clear-cut.

In the cloud world, the big news of the last couple of years has been OpenStack. OpenStack is an open source cloud initiative that is developed by many leaders in the software and hardware industry. Because every significant player on the IT market seems to be involved with it, OpenStack has become the go-to cloud platform. It can be used to deploy public and private clouds…

Read more from the source @ http://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/VMware-Integrated-OpenStack-lifts-workloads-into-cloud