Grazed from Symantec. Author: Dennis Wenk.

Few markets have grown as quickly or have caused as must disruption as cloud computing. According to IDC, the cloud computing market will surged by 25% in 2014. The market will continue to expand rapidly as enterprise organizations realize the significant impact that embracing the cloud can bring in terms of productivity, agility, and competitiveness.

Security has often been cited as a reason NOT to adopt cloud services. In response to this concern Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) are investing more in security, as a result secuirty is now becoming baked into the cloud service. This fundamental shift caused by cloud computing continues to disrupt traditional security markets. This disruptive force is different than the usual competitive rivalry. In an effort to get a better understanding of ‘why’ cloud computing is such a market disruptor a quick a “Five Forces” analysis is in order…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Shawn Drew.

New research shows that the Internet of Things (IoT) is on the verge of major expansion, but taking advantage of this increasingly interconnected world requires mastering the other two initiatives that will define this era of IT: cloud computing and big data. The IoT is driven by a combination of both, and midsize businesses looking to leverage connected devices into a competitive advantage have to be on the leading edge of these technologies.

The Exploding Internet of Things

A recent report from Gartner predicts that 4.9 billion connected "things" will be in use by 2015, expanding to 25 billion by 2020. Gartner suggests that consumer-based devices will dominate the market, but it is important to remember that each consumer device is reporting back to one or more businesses, providing valuable information that can be investigated for future marketing, support or research uses…

Grazed from LegalWeek. Author: Robert Bond.

Data privacy regulations are becoming more complex in today’s changing IT landscape, and the consequences are huge. It’s increasingly important for businesses to keep up to date on legal and regulatory issues of using public cloud while complying with the EU data protection framework.

In terms of the current issues, it goes without saying that data and information is at the heart of any business – whether you are dealing with commercial contracts, M&A, big data, the internet of things, outsourcing and of course public and private cloud. It’s inevitable that almost all of these things will involve some movement or processing of personal data…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Trevor Jones.

Enterprises are typically behind the curve on innovation, but that needs to change as we enter a new phase of IT. It’s critical that enterprise IT looks at ways to optimize existing data centers and develop and implement new strategies around hybrid cloud deployments to be successful in a changing business world, according to a chorus of analysts from Gartner, Inc., based in Stamford, Conn.

"Cloud computing is here, it is a major wave and you must act immediately in developing your strategy and associated plans, otherwise that wave will certainly consume you," said Dennis Smith, research director at Gartner. IT has become more integrated into the business strategies as those decisions become more integral to the overall health of the company, the analysts said repeatedly during the Gartner Data Center, Infrastructure and Operations Management Conference here this week…

Grazed from Herold Online. Author: Editorial Staff.

Gravitant, the leading software company in the enterprise cloud services brokerage and management market, today announced that Ilyas Iyoob, PhD, has been awarded the INFORMS Service Science Best Paper Award for his publication titled, "Cloud Computing Operations Research."

"What is the role of ‘operations research’ in the cloud market’? asks Dr. Iyoob. "With prices decreasing, and margins decreasing, we question how the cloud market will prevail. Money is being made on the add-on services, not on the core infrastructure. So currently, operations research is applied primarily in the planning and control of cloud, but as cloud operations reach steady state, operations research will be used for optimal process control – akin to lean manufacturing."…

Grazed from CBROnline. Author: Ben Sullivan.

Huawei and Red Hat have revealed that they will be entering a partnership with each other to collaborate on OpenStack for Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV). OpenStack, the Linux-based open source cloud computing project, has recently received a raft of attention from some of the bigger names in enterprise IT such as EMC, HP, and IBM. Huawei also entered the fray in 2013, and is now firmly flying the OpenStack flag with this latest announcement.

Ren Zhipeng, President of Huawei’s Cloud Computing Product Line, said: "Huawei offers its customers a true carrier-grade OpenStack solution, and we are honored to expand our existing partnership with Red Hat to include collaboration on OpenStack for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)."…

Grazed from The Var Guy. Author: Christopher Tozzi.

Mirantis is betting that ease of use and simple documentation will speed OpenStack adoption. That’s the goal behind the new "Developer Edition" of Mirantis OpenStack Express, which the company calls "the fastest and easiest way to get an OpenStack cloud." The Developer Edition offering, which Mirantis announced Dec. 4, provides a hosted OpenStack development environment, along with round-the-clock support from Mirantis.

The environment for the basic package includes four virtual CPUs, 4GB RAM, 100GB of storage and two floating IP addresses. The service is free for the first year of use, and costs $39.99 per month after that. Additional storage, CPU and memory resources are available for an extra fee…

Read more from the source @ http://thevarguy.com/cloud-computing-services-and-business-solutions/120414/mirantis-targets-developers-hosted-openstack-solutio

Grazed from BizNews. Author: Jack Clark.

Amazon.com’s cloud is so vast and complex that it basically operates the largest computer on the planet. At its annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas this week, the company introduced a bunch of new stuff to make Amazon Web Services a more attractive option for businesses looking to build software in the cloud. “It’s very much analogous to a huge, general-purpose computer,” said Josh Stella, who used to work in Amazon’s Web Services group before leaving to start Luminal, a company that makes server-management software for gear rented from clouds such as Amazon’s.

For someone just scrolling through Pinterest or surfing television shows on Netflix — both AWS customers — it’s difficult to grok the sheer size of Amazon’s network of servers. Here are five numbers, culled from this week’s event, that express just how large and strange Amazon’s cloud is…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Editorial Staff.

A survey from analyst house Gartner has found key drivers for software as a service (SaaS) include redirection of in-house staff to other responsibilities, as well as quick deployment and faster access to innovation. The research, which polled across 10 countries in May and June this year, found that respondents were still not fully satisfied by going all in to the cloud, instead opting for a mix of SaaS and on-premises.

Even though Gartner expects the traditional deployment model and usage for on-premises software is going to almost half from 34% now to 17% by 2017, issues such as data loss, data breaches, and unsecure APIs remain a problem, as well as privacy and the fear of government snooping. As a result, adoption of private cloud (46%) was cited more than public (24%). Public cloud isn’t always the best model for all use cases within companies, and CIOs appear to be aware of this…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Kevin Casey.

There’s a litany of platforms and applications out there under the great "cloud" umbrella. Storage, one part of the broad category, epitomizes this trait of cloud computing as a whole: an almost overwhelming array of choices. The crowded storage field ranges from consumer champions like Dropbox, which have recently pushed to appeal to business customers, to tech titans such as Microsoft, which have long held sway with IT but are now trying to be all things to all people.

Microsoft alone offers a menu of backup and storage options across its OneDrive and Azure platforms. Choice isn’t the only hallmark of cloud storage. The category also typifies the twin prongs of many sales pitches for cloud as a whole: It’s cheap and it’s easy — especially relative to so-called legacy alternatives that require on-premises hardware, software licenses, and the manpower and expertise to manage it all…