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…

Grazed from CIO-Today. Author: Jef Cozza.

Hoping to hold on to enterprise Relevant Products/Services clients ahead of its looming breakup, Hewlett-Packard has announced a major reconfiguration of its enterprise hardware offerings, including several new products and services. The announcement includes new lineups for the company’s server Relevant Products/Services, storage Relevant Products/Services, cloud Relevant Products/Services systems and services catalogues.

“The new style of IT requires organizations to have a technology infrastructure Relevant Products/Services in place that drives innovation and business Relevant Products/Services outcomes,” said Antonio Neri, senior vice president and general manager, HP Enterprise Group. “Today, HP is bringing to market innovations across our enterprise portfolio that will enable our customers to capture new possibilities for profitability and growth, while reducing data Relevant Products/Services center costs and risk.”..

Read more from the source @ http://www.cio-today.com/article/index.php?story_id=0030001SGXQC

Grazed from BetaWired. Author: Editorial Staff.

New leadership at Microsoft talks about cloud computing, the upcoming Windows 10 operating system and the push for more diversity in the company. This emerged at the company’s shareholders meeting Wednesday. Chief Executive Satya Nadella and Chairman John Thompson oversaw a largely scripted affair touting the company’s progress in cloud computing, hopes for the Windows 10 operating system, and efforts to create a more inclusive company.

The company’s shares hit a 14-year peak last month. Nadella on Wednesday reiterated his view that Microsoft should follow consumers beyond the company’s Windows flagship, emphasizing mobile devices and cloud-computing. Microsoft during Nadella’s nearly 10-month tenure has taken steps some observers said were unlikely to have occurred Ballmer’s leadership, including allowing free versions of its Office suite on devices made by competitors and permitting developers to have access to portions of the code behind a key software development platform…

Read more from the source @ http://www.betawired.com/microsoft-talks-about-cloud-computing/1420236/

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Patrick Gioko.

Is the role of the CIO (chief information officer) still intact after the introduction and rapid advancement of cloud computing? According to a report by Advanced 365, cloud computing is one of the 12 disruptive technologies that are changing the nature of business. The CIO was initially called the data processing manager and then the title evolved to management information system director. Their main objective is to innovate in line to the IT vision of their company.

The role of the CIO has been evolving over time and today, three types of CIOs have emerged, fitting into different roles within a company. First, there is the CIO as an entrepreneur, who finds ways to innovate with the goal of commercial viability in mind. Then there is the CIO as a manager, who has his focus on the commercial success of a business and may not be much of an ideas person…

Read more from the source @ http://www.itproportal.com/2014/12/03/cloud-computing-cio-whats-best-business/#ixzz3KwK548HM

Grazed from TheHostingNews. Author: Editorial Staff.

Jelastic, Inc., the first company that combined unlimited PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) into one solution, has announced integration with Docker using Parallels Cloud Server. The collaboration will allow service providers to enable continuous application delivery, fully elastic scalability and integrated orchestration and management for hosting applications in the cloud.

This is the first industry solution that combines Docker´s application delivery approach and Parallels containers, fully managed via Jelastic PaaS. Docker, Jelastic and Parallels Cloud Server are complementary to each other. Docker addresses application assembly, delivery and portability; Jelastic provides orchestration and management for hosting applications in the cloud and Parallels Cloud Server offers container and storage infrastructure performance and availability…

Read more from the source @ http://www.thehostingnews.com/jelastic-announces-docker-integration-to-provide-the-most-advanced-orchestrated-application-delivery-33167.html