Grazed from TheWhir.  Author: David Hamilton.

I was sent a few infographics over the past few days regarding Amazon Web Services that provide some insight into how organizations are using AWS, as well as how it compares with other IT infrastructure options.  The first was from workload management provider 2nd Watch, which provides a look at what its customers typically used for their cloud services based on anonymized data from its thousands of customers over the four months from July to October.

Organizations using EC2 typically used Small instances (38 percent), followed by Medium (19 percent) and XLarge (15 percent). The very large (2XLarge, 4XLarge and 8XLarge) and very small (Micro) made up only 27 percent collectively…

Grazed from VentureBeat.  Author: Dean Takahashi.

Otoy makes tools that artists can use to create stunning 3D art that looks as real as anything captured on film. The company recently launched its X.IO App Streaming service so that developers can create cloud graphic services such as next-generation cloud games, streaming virtual reality media, and workstation applications that can run on low-end devices.

The service is the latest cloud-based innovation from Los Angeles-based Otoy, which has also created cloud-based tools for filmmakers via OctaneRender and for game makers with its Brigade tools. Those tools enable artists to create photorealistic images for games or movies using cloud-based computing resources, said Jules Urbach, chief executive of Los Angeles-based Otoy, in an interview with GamesBeat…

Grazed from CloudTech.  Author: James Bourne.

Docker, the Linux container for run-anywhere apps, has a major vulnerability in all but the latest version of its software which can enable malicious code to extract hosted files.

The vuln, described as ‘critical’ in severity, was first spotted by Red Hat’s security researcher Florian Weimer and independent researcher Taunis Tiigi, with Docker crediting them in a security advisory…

Grazed from HuffingtonPost. Author: Doug Clark.

The cloud isn’t just for techies anymore. Understanding what’s next for cloud computing is crucial for businesses at all levels. Managers are responding to the real opportunities that the cloud offers to develop new business models, forge closer ties with customers and tap into the expertise of employees and partners. From a technology that was initially adopted for efficiency and cost savings, the cloud has emerged into an innovation powerhouse.

So what is next for cloud?

The next generation of cloud computing will deliver value to businesses faster by automating everything from request to deployment and configuration–and it will do so up and down the stack and across the entire infrastructure. Here are five of the biggest things we see happening in cloud:…

Grazed from GeekWire. Author: Blair Hanley Frank.

It’s the Murphy’s Law corollary for cloud computing: anything that can go wrong will go wrong on the eve of a major holiday. Amazon’s CloudFront content delivery network is suffering from DNS problems worldwide, which means some users are having a hard time connecting to web services that count on CloudFront to deliver their content.

According to reports on Twitter, people are having problems with sites like Medium and Instagram, though it’s hard to tell just how widespread the issues are. According to the AWS service status page, Amazon is looking into the problems and is working on a fix as of 5 p.m. PST tonight. The outage began around 4:15…

Read more from the source @ http://www.geekwire.com/2014/amazons-cloudfront-hits-snag-causing-problems-across-web/

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Adam Stewart.

Who would you trust more to fix your car, a licensed mechanic or a guy who once saw someone do an oil change? The choice should be simple. But surprisingly, the debate over trusting an expert versus someone who claims to be an expert happens every day across all industries, so it shouldn’t be shocking that the debate rages in the cloud, too.

Cloud computing enables people and companies to access applications from any computer. But the cloud has created a new group of cloud posers — inexperienced software developers who make bold (and often untrue) claims about the performance of the cloud-based applications they manage…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Sean Michael Kerner.

Cisco first got involved with the open-source OpenStack cloud platform in 2011 with the Bexar release and initially was focused mostly on networking. Over the last several years, Cisco’s OpenStack involvement and product portfolio have grown beyond just networking.

In a video interview with eWEEK, Lew Tucker, vice president and CTO of Cloud Computing at Cisco, detailed his firm’s OpenStack platform efforts. Tucker commented that Cisco has been expanding its OpenStack efforts a lot more outside of networking as the adoption of OpenStack within Cisco has grown…

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Brandon Butler.

HP’s earnings came out this week, and while it was a mixed bag of good news and bad news revenue-wise, at least one analyst is optimistic that the split of the company in two will help the newly-formed HP Enterprise focus on what could be an important area of growth for the company: cloud computing.

New Hampshire-based Technology Business Review Inc. reports that HP’s $7.6 billion in Services revenue in 3Q14 was down 5.9% from the year-ago quarter and 0.8% sequentially. Enterprise Services declined 6% year over year. One area of growth was the company’s Strategic Enterprise Services segment which includes cloud, security, mobility and analytics, and reportedly grew by double-digits from the year-ago quarter, TBR said…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

Danvers Baillieu, chief operating officer at VPN provider hidemyass, says he can’t understand companies who are reluctant to move to the cloud because it’s so easy to set up “your mother could do it.” Baillieu spoke to CloudTech after research from Reconnix earlier this month found the majority of UK businesses weren’t ready to move to the cloud, citing a lack of in-house skills as the problem.

“I assume nobody is saying they can’t move over to Gmail apps because it’s so easy to set up that your mother could do it,” he says. “The whole point of a lot of those services [is] it requires no IT skills. “I think actually the resistance from the IT department comes because they see themselves being done out of a job when half of these things get implemented,” he adds…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Marissa Tejada.

New research indicates that cloud computing applications are proving to be a challenge for IT professionals. Part of the problem, it turns out, is that employees are overriding IT policies and bypassing the IT app approval process.

Keeping Up With the Growth

According to a recent report by GigaOM and CipherCloud featured in The Whir, cloud usage is predicted to grow 126.5 percent this year. Software as a Service (SaaS) in particular is predicted to grow at almost 200 percent. Yet IT professionals who have put an approval process in place are finding that 38 percent of employees are bypassing their security efforts, and 81 percent are using unauthorized SaaS applications. As a result, keeping track of cloud apps is a challenge…