Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Arthur Cole.

Following up on my previous post regarding hyperscale infrastructure, I feel I should point out that once the decision to go hyperscale has been made, it will most likely take place in a Greenfield hardware environment. Unless you are already working with a state-of-the-art data facility, any attempt to convert complex, multiformat legacy environments will almost certainly lead to a morass of integration issues.

The key benefit to hyperscale is that it is both large and flexible, allowing data executives to craft multiple disparate data architectures completely in software. This is why current hyperscale plants at Google and Facebook rely on bulk commodity hardware. But as I mentioned last fall, the average enterprise does not have the clout to purchase tens of thousands of stripped down servers and switches at a time, and besides, all those components still need to be deployed, provisioned and integrated into the cluster, which takes time, effort and of course, money…

Grazed from Smart Company. Author: Editorial Staff.

Often ‘The Cloud’ is spoken about with little context on what it offers that established systems don’t. It is easy to dismiss cloud or online services as nothing more than just buzz. After all, if it isn’t broke, why fix it? The reality is that computer systems are changing, along with the way we engage with them. Today’s workers are mobile and regularly work outside of traditional business hours. Cloud computing makes it easy for us to adapt to our new behaviours and enable us to be more efficient than we ever could with traditional software packages.

The freedom to let you work wherever, whenever

Our jobs and the way we engage with the workplace have drastically changed over the past decade. Today, many of us are using smartphones and tablets to handle day-to-day work tasks away from our office desks. With so many people working from multiple locations at different times, it is integral that users are able to access the software they need to get the job done…

However, there is far more to the story that many marketed financial indicators might suggest. Register for this Webinar and you will be exposed to the fundamental financial facts that surround flash storage and learn how modern storage systems help IT focus more on the business than ever before.

WHEN?  January 28, 2015 @ 2:00PM Eastern (11:00AM Pacific)

You will join the experts and hear from: Scott D. Lowe, vExpert and MVP Hyper-V; Rob Commins, Flash Storage Expert

As an attendee you will:

• Learn about the two primary metrics used to determine the overall cost of modern storage
• Discover how these metrics play a role in changing how IT does business
• Identify the key features that must be present in order to economic models to remain viable
• Understand the second order economic benefits that can be achieved in a flash storage environment

See you on January 28th!

REGISTER TO WIN A $300 AMAZON GIFT CARD!

Grazed from SysConMedia. Author: Pat Rominski.

CommVault has launched Simpana for Endpoint Data Protection, a new solution set designed to help protect and enable the mobile workforce by efficiently backing-up laptops, desktops and mobile devices and providing secure access and self-service capabilities.  With today’s mobile workforce increasing their reliance on information saved on local endpoints and outside IT’s traditional domain, the need to protect sensitive data residing on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices has become more critical than ever before.

As global data breaches reach an average cost of $3.5 million in US dollars according to a study by the Ponemon Institute due to lost or unrecoverable data on employee devices, including desktops, laptops, and mobile devices, organizations are beginning to embrace centrally managed platforms that can be used to simultaneously address data protection, collaboration, regulatory, and eDiscovery requirements in a secure manner…

Grazed from WSJ. Author: Shira Ovide.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spent his first year on the job making the company less dependent on Windows. This week, when Mr. Nadella is scheduled to show off the next version of Microsoft’s most famous product, will reaffirm the operating system’s key role in his company’s fate.

At a day-long press session Wednesday, Mr. Nadella and other Microsoft officials are expected to give the most detailed glimpse so far of Windows 10, slated to launch later this year. Microsoft also will explain how Windows will work more seamlessly with upgrades to the popular Office productivity software bundle and the Xbox videogame system, and it may offer views of a voice-activated digital assistant and a new mobile Web browser…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Dan Kusnetzsky.

The folks from DivvyCloud, Brian Johnson, CEO, and Peter Scott, CSO/CMO, came by to introduce the company and talk a bit about what they’re doing for their clients. After learning about the good, the bad and the ugly of using cloud computing as a platform while at Electronic Arts it became clear to them that managing in-house and off-premise platforms was a complex process. So, they decided to get together a team to make cloud use and administration easy.

DivvyCloud Management Platform

The company’s primary offering is a Cloud Management Platform (CMP) designed to gather cloud infrastructure and the needed cloud application lifecycle management data together and make it easy for developers to use DivvyCloud’s dashboard or write their own applications or use their on business intelligence tools for each cloud service they’ve chosen to use…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

The majority of Microsoft’s service errors in the first quarter of 2014 were advisory, while there were significantly more service interruptions in the following three quarters, according to analysis carried out by CloudEndure. The figures, taken from Azure’s Service Health Dashboard across last year, saw three full service interruptions in Q1, a whopping 28 in Q2, 16 in Q3 and zero in the final quarter.

The highest number of errors came in Q1 (259), yet also produced the lowest number of partial service interruptions (88), compared to 134, 129 and 127 for the other three quarters. The analysis came about after Azure suffered two debilitating outages last year; one in August, and one in November, which was caused by storage blob front ends going into an infinite loop – a process which went undetected during testing…

Read more from the source @ http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2015/jan/19/disaster-recovery-experts-dig-down-azure-cloud-outages-over-past-12-months/

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Rhonda Sherwood.

There’s no denying it: the cloud industry has reached maturity. And businesses are lining up to make a move to the cloud. According to Gartner, organizations will store 36% of their content in the cloud by 2016, a big jump from the meagre 7% they stored in 2011. Managed service providers (MSPs) who want to tap into this growing market will have to decide how to approach the cloud. They’ll have to assess their customers’ needs, what kind of offering they can deliver and what kind of strategy will ensure their success. What kind of MSP are you? Here are three common profiles.

The Risk-Taker

This type of MSP likes to be in control. To make sure he has complete ownership of the infrastructure, he won’t go with any public cloud provider. He’ll build his own cloud. The biggest benefit? 100% control. Guaranteed. From the infrastructure’s components to updates and maintenance, everything will be in the hands of the service provider…

Read more from the source @ http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2015/jan/19/msps-and-iaas-what-to-do-in-2015/

Grazed from CBROnline.  Author: Amy-jo Crowley.

SAP is looking to expand its presence in cloud computing and ecommerce across China, which it believes will bring "tremendous growth and change".  In an Interview on SAP TV, Mark Gibbs, president of SAP Greater China, said the software giant is aligning with partners to provide "great support and leadership to help China run better".

"We are doubling down and really focusing by industry across China, and I think we are aligning the whole of SAP and our partners by industry, and I think this will bring tremendous growth and change," he explained.  He pointed to areas in e-commerce, referring to China as the "e-commerce capital of the world", and cloud computing as opportunities for growth…

Grazed from StockWise.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is trying to interconnect business and social networking for the second time around. The world’s biggest internet retailer have quietly launched the app, called DingTalk, in December of last year. DingTalk, which the company says is still in its beta phase, is an attempt at “versatile mobile communications app that fills a gap in the market for corporate mobile messaging,” an Alibaba spokeswoman said, cited by Reuters.

Previously, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has launched a mobile messaging app called Laiwang, but it was never successful, losing out to WeChat of archrival Tencent Holdings Ltd. DingTalk, however, currently targets Alibaba’s active consumers…