Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Derrick Harris.

Although having a laugh at so-called “enterprise clouds” is a respected pastime in some circles, there’s an argument to be made that they do serve a legitimate purpose. Large-scale public clouds such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Compute Engine are cheap, easy and flexible, but a lot of companies looking to deploy applications on cloud architectures simply don’t need all of that all of the time.

So says Bill Hilf, the senior vice president of Helion (the company’s label for its cloud computing lineup) product management at HP. He came on the Structure Show podcast this week to discuss some recent changes in HP’s cloud product line and personnel, as well as where the company fits in the cloud computing ecosystem…

Grazed from CIOToday. Author: Jef Cozza.

Big Blue moved to beef up its Watson artificial intelligence operation with the acquisition of AlchemyAPI, a machine-learning systems maker. Announced Wednesday, the deal aims to bring 40,000 new developers into IBM’s Watson developer community.

IBM said it plans to integrate AlchemyAPI’s deep-learning technology into the core of its Watson platform, augmenting Watson’s abilities to identifiy hierarchies and understand relationships within large sets of data Relevant Products/Services. The company said it expects the new technology to significantly improve Watson’s learning capabilities. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed…

Grazed from Wired. Author: Alex Davies.

WE’RE ENTERING THE age of the connected car, wherein automakers pump resources into infotainment systems and technologies that let consumers use their phones (and laptops, for anyone still using those things) to communicate with their vehicle. Just about every major automaker has developed a proprietary app that lets owners do things like track their car’s location, review fuel consumption, and see how fast their kids are driving.

That means that everyone who bought a car before these systems became common (or was too cheap to spring for one) is a potential customer for an aftermarket system, and offerings have multiplied of late. Among them is Delphi’s Connect, which plugs into any car’s OBD-II port to provide location tracking, service alerts, and the ability to use one’s smartphone as a key fob and turn the car into a 4G LTE WiFi hotspot…

Read more from the source @ http://www.wired.com/2015/03/cloud-computing-can-make-old-beater-connected-car/

Grazed from CloudComputingToday. Author: Arnal Dayaratna.

The following Infographic, sponsored by Sauce Labs, provides data on the changing landscape for application testing given a computing environment increasingly characterized by agile application development, continuous integration processes and mobile apps. As illustrated below, the survey of IT professionals showed that continuous integration and agile methodologies led to the adoption of more automated testing.

Meanwhile, cross-browser testing has achieved greater importance and developers are finding that most of the issues applications experience involve mobile devices in contrast to desktops…

To view inforgraphic visit http://cloud-computing-today.com/2015/03/06/1072434/

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.

Not much over a year ago, few people knew about containers, and fewer still knew about Docker. Since then, the idea of building server and applications out of container-based micro-servers, has exploded in popularity. Red Hat has been watching this and now with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host (RHELAH) the company has its own operating system/container pairing to offer the business world.

RHELAB is a purpose-built container host for secure and reliable containerized applications across the open-hybrid cloud. It provides all of the components you’ll need to easily package and run applications written for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6 and 7 as containers…

Grazed from AFP. Author: Editorial Staff.

German software giant SAP said Friday that it would eliminate 2,200 positions as it accelerates its shift to delivering businesses its accounting and management applications via the Internet "cloud", but would avoid forced layoffs. SAP intends to "cut three percent of positions … over the short to medium-term," a spokesman said Friday, confirming plans reported by Bloomberg News.

That would make for 2,250 jobs in the company that employs 74,400 people. The plan does not include any forced layoffs, with the reduction to be achieved by voluntary departures and retraining of people employed in less profitable units, said the spokesman who noted that SAP created 7,800 jobs last year…

Grazed from Reuters. Author: Editorial Staff.

Telecom network gear makers are on a collision course with Silicon Valley computing giants as software and cloud computing have begun to change the way operators from AT&T to China Mobile run their networks. The shift, while in its early stages, involves relying on ever cheaper computer boxes and powerful software that promises to make networks more flexible and efficient.

As networks move to relatively standard hardware, formerly entrenched equipment groups must increasingly compete for contracts with the likes of Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and VMware, as well as a slew of startups. Relying more on software to run networks could boost the gear makers’ profit margins one day, but will also force them to search for new sources of revenue…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

As a longtime blogger, columnist, and general pundit in the technology space, I spend a lot of my day pointing out both the good aspects of enterprise technology and the technologies that may no longer deserve our support. Such was the case with a blog I wrote for InfoWorld back in 2009 where I described three technologies that cloud computing would kill. I still stand behind that post.

That post took a lot of heat from the powers that be in the world of service-oriented architecture (SOA), especially those pushing a specific type of SOA governance. My issue was not their technology but how cloud computing was changing our management and government of services…

Grazed from BankingTech. Author: David Bannister.

Cloud computing is becoming more prevalent throughout the financial sector but many firms say they are less than halfway to having a firm cloud strategy in place, with controls and security remaining primary concerns. In a new survey carried out by the Cloud Security Alliance, How Cloud is Being Used in the Financial Sector, 61% of respondents admitted that a cloud strategy is only in the formative stages within their organisation, with 39-47% planning to use a mix of in-house IT, private, and public clouds, and 18% planning to use private clouds. None of the respondents have plans to host a majority of their applications or systems in a public cloud.

The results of the survey also showed that the more a firm’s customer base uses electronic transaction channels, the less strict the cloud policy that firm takes, with only 3% of these types of organisations indicating having a strict cloud policy in place. “The results of this report are insightful into understanding how the financial services industry is progressing in terms of cloud adoption and how cloud providers can best serve their interests and needs,” said Jim Reavis, chief executive of the CSA…

Grazed from MSPMentor. Author: Michael Brown.

The cloud is not a stagnant creature, but an ever-expanding entity. Over the past few years, use of the cloud has grown exponentially—and that growth is only expected to continue. With more uses and even more vast an expanse, where will cloud computing and cloud-based file sharing go—or, grow—to in 2015?

In short, the cloud will (continue to be) everywhere. Research from Gartner, Inc. suggests that global cloud adoption is expected to reach $250 billion by 2017. Gartner also predicts that 50 percent of enterprises will employ hybrid clouds. That’s all good news for managed service providers (MSPs), but the important question remaining is whether or not this hybrid cloud will take the same shape we’ve grown accustomed to seeing…