Grazed from MidsizeInsider. Author: Doug Bonderud.

Right now, there are no hard-and-fast rules governing ideal cloud computing standards. To address this issue, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is drafting a guide to help businesses choose the best cloud for their needs, and it wants public opinion on what metrics matter most. How will this push for improved standards impact cloud service providers?

Confusion Abounds

With no set standards for cloud computing, businesses often face an uphill battle when it comes to finding the right combination of price and performance. According to a press release from NIST, "Different organizations and groups often use the same cloud computing terms with slightly different, or even contradictory meanings, leading to confusion among cloud service providers, customer and carriers…

Grazed from ChannelPartnersOnline. Author: Kelly Teal.

As cloud computing, big data and mobility services grow more popular, you can bet that you, Mr./Ms. MSP, will see an increase in business, and it’s time to plan accordingly. MarketsandMarkets makes this prediction in a new report devoted to the indirect channel, noting that MSPs will see demand soar between 2015 and 2019 – by how much, however, the research firm did not say.

What is clear is that MSPs and the partners they team with, including VARs, ISVs and systems integrators, all stand to profit, as long as they offer vendor-neutral services and cater to customers’ specific needs, MarketsandMarkets said. That good news – albeit not new news – for MSPs and their associates comes as many enterprises and SMBs don’t want to take on the hassle of understanding, procuring and overseeing the technology that drives their organizations…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Lori MacVittie.

DevOps, it seems, is popping up everywhere. Sometimes it isn’t called out as DevOps, but when you read the details, it certainly sounds like DevOps. The drivers of software-defined data center (SDDC) was clearly one of those "DevOps by any other name" moments, as was a recent KPMG report on cloud in which "successful cloud" strategies included the avoidance of silos:

"Avoid silos. Cloud transformations succeed when organizations are able to embed change into every aspect of the business. As such, silos hamper transformation. In contrast, collaboration powers it. For example, business and IT professionals should work side by side as cloud is adopted into the enterprise."…

Grazed from TMC. Author: PR Announcement.

The potential benefits of Big Data for an organisation’s efficiency and bottom-line will be a particular focus of the upcoming GCC BIG DATA SUMMIT – taking place in Dubai during March 2015.

Regional public and private sector organisations already implementing Big Data solutions have signed up to present case studies of their experiences in generating growth from emerging analytics technologies. They consist of international and local thought-leaders from the telecommunications, airline, energy, utilities, healthcare, banking and retail industries.

The Summit’s Speaker panel accordingly includes senior representatives of Etisalat, Injazat Data Systems, DU Telecoms, Halliburton, ADNOC, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Gulf Air, ADWEA, Emirates Group, Etihad Airways, Daman Health Insurance and Mobily. This senior-management-only GCC forum has been designed for CEO and COO level participants – just as much as for CTOs and CIOs. It will take place at Dubai’s Address Marina Hotel from March 8-10…

Grazed from Cloudify. Author: Tamir Korem.

Nowadays, if you’re a huge technology company and you’re not venturing into the cloud, you’re living in the past. So it’s not surprising that many companies are investing heavily in cloud across the board. This is also true for IBM, that decided in 2013 to acquire SoftLayer for approximately $2B, like many others such as HP who invested just as largely in their Helion play, and this is only one example of many.

SoftLayer, which was at that time, the world’s largest privately held cloud computing infrastructure provider, served thousands of customers. Today SoftLayer (under the auspices of IBM) maintains a global cloud infrastructure platform spanning 16 data centers (and counting…) all over the world, and only intends to expand this reach to serve their strategic plans and penetration into the cloud market…

Grazed from GCN. Author: William Jackson.

Two powerful trends will shape the government cybersecurity agenda in the coming year, say security experts, but they have more to do with how government security is managed than what technologies will better defend agency systems.

First, cybersecurity will increasingly be integrated from the start into the platforms and software being acquired and developed by agencies. This means that perimeter defenses – already abandoned to the realm of what is necessary but inadequate – will receive less attention as cybersecurity becomes more integrated into the government infrastructure.

Also, cybersecurity will no longer be considered the exclusive province of the CISO or the CSO, but will become a professional requirement for everyone responsible for IT services to the agency. “As a security vendor, we are ending up in conversations with the IT shop,” rather than just the security shop, said Ken Ammon, chief strategy officer for Xceedium, an identity management company. “Next year will be the year of convergence.”…

Grazed from  CloudTech.  Author: James Bourne.

2014 was an extremely busy year for cloud computing, as more and more businesses migrate and cloud increasingly becomes the de facto setting for IT. The competition between vendors for infrastructure as a service continued ferociously, with Microsoft and IBM cutting back some of AWS’ market dominance.  Before we look at what might happen in 2015, here’s a quick reminder of the main events and highlights from 2014:

Cloud in 2014

March: IBM rebrands as a cloud-first company, lays out its strategy. 2014 has been a year of turbulence and change for the large legacy tech vendors. IBM announced it was to push $1bn of its resources into cloud and that it was rebranding as a cloud company. Rival companies also gave it the big one this year; SAP, for example, made frequent overtures about its ambition to become ‘THE’ cloud company.

Read more: IBM’s cloud strategy: Will it become the best in the business?…

Grazed from CloudWedge. Author: Hadley Jones.

Have you ever thought about how much money it takes to set up a cloud computing service? Behind the end-user convenience of low or no capital investment and pay-per-use agreements, somebody has to finance the infrastructure, the computing power, the networking and the personnel to look after it. Cloud service providers have to take a deep breath and write large checks to put the service in place – or find somebody else who is willing to make the investment. So where (if you were so inclined) should you put your money if you want a good return on investment?

The Money-Makers

Enthusiasm for cloud service providers as an investment opportunity seems to have calmed in recent times. Some emerging companies make it clear that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is still far away, if indeed it can ever be reached. Box Inc., the innovative online file sharing and synchronization service provider, recently filed to go public with this statement: “We have a history of cumulative losses, and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future.”…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Lillian Ablon.

When cybercriminals can easily buy cheap hacking programs with exotic names like Fiesta, Lucky, Nuke, Siberia, Sploit, Tornado, Sweet Orange and Cool, what chance that anything online can remain safe? Lillian Ablon and Martin C. Libicki offer ideas for how to close down Web thieves.

Black markets for computer-hacking tools, services and by-products, including stolen credit card numbers, continue to grow, posing threats to businesses, governments and individuals. A prominent recent example was the capture of an estimated 40 million credit card numbers and 70 million user accounts in the December 2013 breach of retail giant Target. Within days, those data appeared—available for purchase—on black market websites…

Grazed from USA Today.  Author: Mike Snider.

The pocket PC is set to make a return.  But these aren’t the forgotten Pocket PCs of the last decade. These are fully-powered portable Windows workstations for consumers and professionals alike.

L.A.-based start-up firm The Hive is unveiling its new Amplicity portable smartphone-sized personal computers this week at the Consumer Electronics Show. The Windows-based products are about the size of a smartphone – just more than half an inch thick and rectangular at about 3-by-5 inches (4.8 inches)…