Grazed from CIOToday. Author: Jennifer LeClaire.

Hewlett-Packard has just unveiled new, low-cost servers — the Cloudline family of servers — to meet the needs of service providers that want to differentiate themselves in the market. HP said its new open standards-based solutions, partnerships and flexible business Relevant Products/Services models will help service providers drive growth, accelerate service delivery and reduce costs.

HP may be right on time with its solutions, given IDC research that shows most organizations will stop managing their own infrastructures over the next five years. The IDC data Relevant Products/Services suggests enterprises will more often turn to dedicated and shared cloud Relevant Products/Services offerings in service provider data centers in the years ahead…

Grazed from DataCenter Knowledge. Author: Bill Kleyman.

Let’s start the conversation with the very real fact that cloud computing is growing quickly. Organizations are adopting the cloud as a new foundation for their business models. This kind of growth is only slated to continue as a recent Gartner report shows that cloud computing will become the bulk of new IT spend by 2016.

Furthermore, the idea and perception of cloud is changing as well. The Gartner report goes on to discuss how there is a flawed perception of cloud computing as being one large phenomenon. Rather, cloud computing is actually a spectrum of things complementing one another and building on a foundation of sharing…

Grazed from CloudComputing. Author: James Bourne.

90% of users polled in the LinkedIn Information Security group claim they are either very or moderately concerned about public cloud security. The survey, sponsored by CloudPassage, aimed to give a comprehensive examination of current security mindsets from a more than 250,000 respondent base with a broad section of company sizes, experience and cloud mindset. Here are the key stats:

• 71% of respondents are either in planning stages, actively implementing or in production with cloud environments. Hybrid cloud deployments are most common with 7 out of 10 respondents using both private and public clouds in their organisation – 71% hybrid, 17% private cloud, 12% public cloud
• Cloud adoption barriers are general security concerns (45%), data loss and leakage risks (41%), loss of control (31%), legal and regulatory compliance (29%), and integration with existing IT environment (29%)…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

National IT infrastructure and cloud services provider, Peak 10, Inc., announced today that it has teamed with Level 3 Communications, a global communications provider, to introduce Level 3 Cloud Connect Solutions – Ethernet to Peak 10 customers. This unique service provides performance and security of a private, scalable Ethernet connection into the Peak 10 cloud. It replaces distance-sensitive pricing with flat-rated pricing, and scales bandwidth on-demand to support changing business needs.

"Some applications and cloud-use models are best served by a private, secure connection to their cloud service provider. However, it can be cost prohibitive based on the physical distance between the customer and the cloud provider," said Monty Blight, vice president of sales operations and product strategy at Peak 10…

Grazed from CloudComputingIntelligence. Author: Editorial Staff.

Salesforce, today unveiled Salesforce Service Cloud Intelligence Engine (SSCIE) an added layer of intelligence in the Service Cloud that adds analytics to customer service. Studies show that businesses that adopt a smarter approach to customer service achieve a 91% greater year-over-year customer retention rate compared to those that don’t.

Yet, most companies are not equipped to address these new consumer demands and are in jeopardy of falling behind their competitors. Which is where Salesforce Service Cloud Intelligence Engine comes in to play. The new engine adds new features to the customer agent including:…

Grazed from FutureGov. Author: Editorial Staff.

Civil servants don’t like sharing their data. In the name of accountability, departments will happily shield their precious data from the eyes of other departments, let alone citizens. It takes an extreme act of political will, or a crisis, to drive transformation. This may explain the relatively slow uptake of cloud computing technology by Asia Pacific’s city governments.

“A lot of the opposition to the cloud comes from city officials not wanting to share their data,” says Vijay Jagannathan, Secretary General of CityNet, a network of over 130 cities and organisations focused on sustainable urban development in Asia Pacific. “In developing countries you find that a lot of power comes by not sharing. And it can be hard politically to force departments to share.”…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

In the e-book, “Demystifying the Cloud: A Guide to Understanding Cloud Computing,” available online or as a PDF download, Dell outlines the essential information IT leaders need to understand and make informed decisions about cloud computing. From explaining the difference between private, public and hybrid clouds to debunking some of cloud computing’s biggest misconceptions, “Demystifying the Cloud” offers a 20-minute overview of the cloud for anyone considering making it a part of his or her company.

This online guide also looks at the advantages cloud computing offers over more traditional computing models. It lays out how the cloud can be used to benefit a business and spells out some of the challenges businesses may face when adopting the cloud. The e-book also clearly explains the recommended steps to fully adopt the cloud and touches on the cost of cloud computing, while listing some of the top providers currently out there. Now available for download, this interactive resource will help IT and business leaders quickly understand cloud computing, and guide their business to a technologically savvy and more productive future. See the e-book here: http://dell.to/1BJ7ext

Grazed from ComputerDealerNews. Author: Editorial Staff.

Big Blue today took the wraps off its second SoftLayer data centre in the Montreal suburb of Drummondville. IBM Canada just eight months ago cut the ribbon on a Toronto-based SoftLayer facility. According to IBM Canada officials, the Québec facility is part of $1.2 billion investment in cloud computing from the Armonk, N.Y.-based giant.

SoftLayer currently has a customer base of more than 1,000 organizations including start-ups, financial services/insurance, public sector and retailers. One of those clients is New York-based Baseline Medical Inc. and Silanis Technology Inc. of Montreal, the two companies formed a joint partnership more than 15 years ago to develop and deliver e-business solutions to healthcare and insurance markets along with government…

Grazed from Talkin Cloud. Author: Christopher Tozzi.

Red Hat (RHT) has made its containerization intentions known by its launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host, an open source operating system tailored for running Docker and other container-based app platforms. Atomic Host, which Red Hat released March 5, is designed to streamline the process required to containerize any app that runs on modern versions of the company’s flagship Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform.

The new product is based, in part, on Project Atomic, an open source, community-based project for building hosting platforms for containerized apps that launched in 2014. There are important differences, however, between Atomic Host and Project Atomic, which is currently compatible with several Linux distributions related to RHEL — including CentOS and Fedora — in addition to RHEL itself…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Caroline Donnelly.

Research from IT services provider Telstra claims deploying cloud services from three or more suppliers can damage a company’s business agility. The Australian IT services company commissioned research house Vanson Bourne to interview 675 IT decision makers working for private sector firms with 250 or more employees operating in the US, UK, Hong Kong and Australia.

The UK portion of the survey garnered 200 responses, with two-thirds of respondents stating a preference for procuring cloud services from a single supplier for ease of management. Most failed to do so, however, because of the challenging of finding a single provider who does everything they need in the cloud…