Grazed from CircleID. Author: David Eisner.

Your company can’t ignore cloud computing: Some kind of distributed-access model is now necessary to tap global markets, manage big data and get access to best-in-class software. But with increased cloud adoption comes the issue of management, since it’s no longer enough to simply spin up a cloud and hope for the best. Here are five of the top cloud management trends to watch this year — and the risks of opting out.

Standardization

According to a recent Cloud Tweaks article, there’s a growing need for cloud industry standards. Organizations such as the Cloud Security Alliance and ISO are on the forefront of this standardization effort — through 2015, expect to see SLAs and other cloud contract start adopting this change by including "typical" language and clear-cut descriptions of service availability…

Grazed from NextGov. Author: Patrick Boynton.

For what must have been a frustrating moment in the Venn diagram of history, Americans could buy light bulbs but not the electricity to power them. As early as 1878, Americans could order bulbs from the Edison Electrical Company, but it wasn’t until 1882 when Thomas Edison built his Pearl Street Station in lower Manhattan they could actually toss their private generators at the curb and connect to a shared power grid.

With the innovation of a grid, the per-unit cost of electricity dropped from the combined effects of comparative advantage, pooling and economies of scale. If we were to peel away our cities’ concrete shells today, we would uncover the pipes and wires of four utility grids, including electricity but also natural gas, water and sewage…

Grazed from CMSWire. Author: David Roe.

The only things everyone seems to agree about when it comes to hybrid cloud computing is that it’s going to be around for a long time to come — and many vendors have many ways of approaching it. For M-Files, the unique selling point is a system that can manage all your content without repositories. That sounds like a big claim … and maybe it is. However, M-Files has been developing this for years, first in Europe and now in the US, and the proof of its claims are clear in its continued and staggering growth rates.

Growing With Metadata

Companies like Alfresco and Accenture are all making strong moves in the hybrid space. But M-Files has a unique selling point in that it offers enterprises the possibility of managing content using metadata only. In fact, M-Files can attribute at good portion of its success over the past few years to its ability to convince enterprises that this is an effective way of surfacing all the content that is stored within the firewalls…

Grazed from GCC Summit.  Author: PR Announcement.

The British Government’s first Director of Transparency, Andrew Stott, will give the Guest Keynote  presentation on ‘Economic Growth and Better Public Services through Big and Open Data’ at Dubai’s  GCC BIG DATA & ANALYTICS  SUMMIT  in March 2015.

 Mr Stott will be the first in a series of specialist presenters looking at the role of Big Data in building smart nations and smart cities across the GCC region.  Other speakers from the public sector will include senior representatives of Etisalat, ADWEA, ADNOC, Daman Health Insurance, Injazat Data Systems, Emirates Group and Etihad Airways… 

Grazed from Smart Data Summit.  Author: PR Announcement.

The Middle East’s biggest Smart Data Summit, reopens its doors with an even more exciting second edition featuring stimulating presentations, roundtable sessions and case studies from an array of global experts, sharing their thoughts on enhancing customer experience across industries and sectors using smart data and analytics. This 2 day summit will be held at Sofitel Dubai The Palm Resort and Spa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates during May 25-26, 2015.

 Over 300 delegates across the GCC and worldwide are expected to attend the Smart Data Summit, which will explore the future of data management and how smart data and analytics can drive revenue growth. Focusing on using analytics to ensure superior customer experience and loyalty, the summit’s topics explore the myriad ways in which predictive big data and analytics can have a very real impact on business performance in industries such as retail, telecom and services…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Platform9 is hoping to make it easier for organizations to adopt private cloud with the introduction of Platform9 Managed OpenStack. The company is describing the new solution as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that "transforms an organization’s existing servers into an AWS-like agile, self-service private cloud within minutes."

And it makes sense, as OpenStack has really found its niche (a rather large and growing one) in the private cloud realm. The launch of the Platform9 OpenStack solution comes after six months of beta testing the service with various enterprise and service provider customers. During the beta, organizations deployed thousands of virtual machines on the SaaS-y solution every day…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing-and-open-source/platform9-launches-managed-openstack-private-cloud-solution

Grazed from TechRepublic. Author: Matt Asay.

Cloud may feel like old news, but most enterprises have yet to do more than scratch the surface on cloud adoption, according to a new Goldman Sachs report. In 2014, cloud accounted for 5% of the $300 billion enterprise IT market, a number that will climb to 11% by 2018.

This is good, and a testament to Amazon Web Services (AWS) leadership. But clearly, more needs to be done, which is why it’s disappointing that OpenStack doesn’t appear to be doing much to take the cloud forward. If anything, by enabling overly complex private clouds, OpenStack has taken the industry backward, not forward…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: CJ Arlotta.

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)’s decision to focus most of its efforts on cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security seems to have been the right one. Headquartered in Armonk, New York, Big Blue on a Tuesday earnings call with investors said its total cloud revenue for fiscal year 2014 hit $7 billion, up 60 percent from the prior-year period.

“We are making significant progress in our transformation, continuing to shift IBM’s business to higher value, and investing and positioning ourselves for the longer term," said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer, in a statement. Big Blue also reported that its cloud delivered as a service revenues of $3 billion are up approximately 75 percent year over year…

Grazed from MidsizeInsider. Author: Kelley Katsanos.

As businesses increasingly seek to partner with MSPs for their cloud business needs, they will want assurance that selected services will meet their business requirements before making a commitment. New insight indicates that MSPs should consider building a customer engagement plan using a "high touch" process in order to achieve successful cloud onboarding and ultimately reassure businesses of their decision.

Three Key Areas

A recent MSPmentor article suggests that MSPs should implement three key areas of the cloud onboarding process: assessments, transitional and cutover plans, and ongoing performance analysis. Before MSPs embark on a new cloud project, they will first need to include key business players, such as sales and executive management…

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Brandon Butler.

The newest feature added to VMware’s vCloud Air public cloud is the ability to spin virtual machines up and down with just a few clicks and pay for them by the hour. This better positions VMware to go head-to-head with public IaaS cloud vendors Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, but analysts say VMware still has lots of catching up to do.

VMware’s stronghold in the virtualization market has made it an important cloud computing vendor to watch. The company, touting a software-defined data center strategy since its VMworld event last year, has helped many customers migrate their virtual environments into private clouds via automation and self-service provisioning features…