Grazed from Xconomy.  Author: Shellye Archambeau.
 

Despite concerns around data security, businesses are optimistic about the cloud. In fact, software-as-a-service adoption has more than quintupled from 13 percent in 2011 to 72 percent in 2014, according to a cloud computing survey conducted by North Bridge Venture Partners and Gigaom Research.

For startups, the cloud has always been a great equalizer, enabling nascent businesses to compete on par with their larger, more established counterparts. In a Rackspace survey on the economic impact of the cloud, a quarter of small and medium enterprises indicated that they had increased profits by at least 25 percent, and up to 75 percent, as a result of cloud computing…

Grazed from TheEconomist.  Author: Editorial Staff.

IF THERE were a prize for corporate secrecy, Amazon would have an excellent chance of winning. Interviewing its executives can be like pulling teeth. Even trivial details are not revealed, such as the approximate location of the office of Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive, in the company’s headquarters in Seattle.

Unsurprisingly, then, its quarterly earnings calls are mostly a dull affair. But financial analysts and many in the information-technology (IT) industry will pay close attention when the e-commerce giant releases results for this year’s first three months, on April 23rd. Nearly a decade after it launched Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company will enlighten its shareholders about the size, growth and profitability of its cloud-computing business…

Read more from the source @ http://www.economist.com/news/business/21648685-cloud-computing-prices-keep-falling-whole-it-business-will-change-cheap-convenient

Grazed from ProductDesignDevelopment.  Author: Dan O’Neill.

Having the ability to gather large quantities of data does not necessarily translate into also having the ability to use that data in a meaningful way. While technological advances have made it less expensive to collect data, a need remains for a way to store and analyze it.

Virtually every industry collects data on a regular basis for analyzing and monitoring various conditions. Industrial manufacturers, aerospace and defense companies, commercial businesses – they are all constantly monitoring and collecting information from systems to help with equipment health, performance envelopes, and business operations…

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author: Editorial Staff.

We’ve covered a fair bit of infosec here on CloudTweaks over the years. It’s an important area for all regardless of if you’re a consumer or a business.

Security expert and consultant – Chetan Soni, discusses some of the security issues and tools to consider as part of your business plan: “Cloud computing has become a business solution for many organizational problems. But there are security risks involved with using cloud servers: service providers generally only take responsibility of keeping systems up, and they neglect security at many ends. Therefore, it is important that clouds are properly penetration (pen) tested and secured to ensure proper security of user data…”

Grazed from AreaDevelopment.  Author: Editorial Staff.

oud computing is on the rise and so are North American data centers. Cisco forecasts that global data center traffic will triple by 2017 to 7.7 zettabytes, a compound annual growth rate of 25 percent. 



That means an expanding data center market, and even though demand is up, prices are still reasonable. In fact, the data center market is seeing high demand and low prices – an unusual combination. The competitive pricing is due in part to the large number of options available, yet the industry is expected to enjoy 32 percent growth in North America by 2016, ultimately becoming a $14.8 billion market, according to 451 Research...

Read more from the source @ http://www.areadevelopment.com/data-centers/Data-Centers-Q1-2015/top-data-center-markets-JLL-272726.shtml

Grazed from DataPipe.  Author: Craig Sowell.
 

When done correctly, cloud computing deployments can deliver incredible benefits to organizations of all kinds, from superior performance to greater flexibility to cost reductions and beyond. Given all of this, it’s no surprise that cloud adoption rates are rising quickly in every sector and across the globe.

Yet it’s important to note that, unfortunately, not every cloud implementation leads to such positive results. There are many reasons why cloud deployments may not deliver the hoped-for outcomes, as a recent Sungard Availability Services survey highlighted. Examining these results for CIO, Jeff Fleece asserted that all of the most commonly cited factors causing cloud computing implementation failures could ultimately be traced back to mistakes and misconceptions on the part of the companies affected…

Transaction Enables Engine Yard to Give Customers World-class Support for Docker Containers and Greater Orchestration Across Public and Private Clouds

Engine Yard, the leading cloud orchestration platform, today announced that it has acquired OpDemand, the developer of Deis, the first open source application platform purpose-built for Docker. With the addition of OpDemand, Engine Yard can offer customers more flexibility in application languages. The company will be able to provide full stack support for both Docker containers in public and private clouds, as well as traditional applications running on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Exclusive VMware will add database-backup-as-a-service to its vCloud Air cloud in June, the company’s veep and general manager of hybrid cloud Bill Fathers has told The Register.

The service will be based on technology VMware acquired last year along with Continuent, a provider of clustering, replication and disaster recovery services for databases. The new services, due to launch in June, will mean it becomes possible to replicate databases into vCloud air, sync them, and move operations into the VMware cloud as a disaster recovery option should that become necessary.

Extending Security and Data Protection in Cloud Environments

Because SoftNAS was created in the cloud and developed its software on industry standard open source technologies, SoftNAS Cloud Version 3.3 is hypervisor, platform, and hardware agnostic, which offers strong security and flexibility. SoftNAS can also front-end traditional storage solutions and storage area networks (SANs) for greater flexibility and reduced total cost of ownership. New features include:

“5nine is looking forward to participating in the Microsoft premier event of the year as an exhibitor and presenter,” said Symon Perriman, VP of Business Development and Marketing, 5nine Software. “Ignite is a great opportunity for us to meet and greet our customers, partners and community members as well as introduce the new solution for Azure Pack to the audience.”