Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Editorial Staff.

Reliability, in the cloud technology era, can be defined as the likelihood that a system will provide uninterrupted fault-free services, as it is expected to, within the constraints of the environment in which it operates. According to the Information Technology Laboratories (ITL) bulletin published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on cloud computing, reliability in cloud environments is composed of the following:

• The hardware and software services offered by the cloud service provider
• The provider’s and consumers’ personnel
• The connectivity to the services…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Marissa Tejada.

Global cloud computing is changing the future of the mega data center. Firms that aim to benefit from cloud computing will be a part of this future, according to new research.

Growth and Interconnection

A new report from Research and Markets featured in BusinessWire reveals that mega data centers will grow heavier in data loads thanks to the deluge of data that will continue to be transferred to them. According to the report, the growing global cloud computing market will provide the integration of both software and IT infrastructure. The data center landscape will be changed because firms can expand network capacity at a faster pace by moving their collaboration and computing applications via cloud computing…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Mike Vizard.

Almost by definition solution providers are going to be regularly dealing with hybrid cloud computing environments that typically expose different application programing interfaces (APIs) that need to be mastered. In fact, a recent study from CompTIA suggests that customers are already moving workloads not only in an out of clouds, but also between them at a fairly rapid rate.

To facilitate that process, many solution providers already rely on open source software such as the Dasein Cloud project to create an abstraction layer written in Java that enables developers to write applications that work on multiple clouds using a common layer of metadata…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing/11262014/abstraction-layers-simplify-hybrid-cloud-computing

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Louis Colombus.

IT spending for security technologies will increase 46% in 2015, with cloud computing increasing 42% and business analytics investments up 38%. . Enterprise investments in storage will increase 36%, and for wireless & mobile, 35%. Cloud computing initiatives are the most important project for the majority of IT departments today (16%) and are expected to cause the most disruption in the future.

IDG predicts the majority of cloud computing’s disruption will be focused on improving service and generating new revenue streams. These and other key take-aways are from recent IDG Enterprise research titled Computerworld Forecast Study 2015. The goal of the study was to determine IT priorities for 2015 in areas such as spending, staffing and technology. Computerworld spoke with 194 respondents, 55% of which are from the executive IT roles…

Grazed from VentureBeat. Author: Editorial Staff.

As the public-cloud market enters its adolescence, the pervasive concept of a “race to zero” has created an impression that only the established leviathans can compete in the space. On their path to dominance the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Compute Engine, and Microsoft Azure gobble up nascent software-as-a-service startups and lesser infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service providers as they aggressively drive down costs and make it seem unattractive for customers to not be in the cloud. Google’s latest round of price cuts on an array of services and applications have reaffirmed this popularly held belief.

Yet, now that last week’s re:Invent conference has left AWS fanboys and girls satiated by new features, I couldn’t help but notice the conspicuous absence of the familiar price reduction announcements that have consistently generated juicy headlines. I’m not the only one. What does this mean for the race to zero? Is the cloud price war effectively over with only Google and Microsoft left playing a game of “how-low-can-you-go” chicken?…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Keith Tilley.

Cloud computing has been touted as an IT game-changer for over 10 years, but it’s only now that businesses have become comfortable enough with the model that we’re starting to see real innovation in the market. Cloud computing has opened up a whole world of possible industry disruptions – allowing start-ups and SMEs to compete successfully with long-established enterprises. For as long as entrepreneurs can re-invent business models the capacity of the cloud will continue to surprise us.

Netflix is often, and deservedly so, cited as one of the best examples of using the cloud to disrupt the industry. While competitors such as Blockbuster and HMV poured time and effort into working out the best way to sell DVDs via the internet, Netflix rewrote the question, asking ‘how can we use the internet to help people watch movies?’…

Grazed from ScientificComputing. Author: Editorial Staff.

Tens of thousands of researchers nationwide currently harness the power of massive supercomputers to solve research problems that cannot be answered in the lab. However, studies show this represents only a fraction of the potential users of such resources. As supercomputing — also known as high performance computing or HPC — becomes central to the work and progress of researchers in all fields, from genomics and ecology to medicine and education, new kinds of computing resources and more inclusive modes of interaction are required.

Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced support for two new supercomputing acquisitions for the open science community that will complement existing resources with capabilities that allow advanced computing to be available to a broader portfolio of emerging scientific frontiers and communities. The new resources are anticipated to come online in early 2016…

Read more from the source @ http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2014/11/nsf-commits-16m-build-cloud-based-data-intensive-computing-systems-open-science

Grazed from NYTimes. Author: Quentin Hardy.

When celebrities break up, it is a “conscious uncoupling,” and done in a few weeks. At a big technology company, the split is no less deliberate, but considerably more complex. In the month since Hewlett-Packard announced it would become two organizations in a year, a team of 450 people has been designated to smooth the transition.

The company is also looking at ways that the two organizations can share in their component purchasing to contain the prices of their respective computers, HP’s chief executive said. What the announcement of the split has not done, apparently, is increase interest in buying HP products…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: CJ Arlotta.

Managed services providers (MSPs) leveraging technology from both ConnectWise and StorageCraft Technology Corp. now have an integration module available to them. According to a press release sent out by StorageCraft — a Draper, Utah-based disaster recovery and business continuity solutions provider — MSPs can now automate billing processes by mapping and synchronizing data from the StorageCraft MSP portal and StorageCraft Cloud Services with their Connectwise business management platform.

ConnectWise MSP partners can take advantage of this integration directly from within the StorageCraft MSP portal, where they can gain access to account and data mapping capabilities. The professional services automation (PSA) company’s customers can also manage licenses for components of the StorageCraft Recover-Ability Solution…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing/11252014/connectwise

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Brandon Butler.

When Amazon Web Services has a big press or customer event, the company usually has one staple that it announces: Price cuts. Such was not the case earlier this month at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, the third-annual installation of the company’s big cloud conference. So what’s going on here? Have the prices in the cloud market stabilized?

Or is AWS attempting to be rise above the fray of other cloud providers who are undercutting the market leader on price? We asked AWS and they did not respond. But, analysts say while price is important, it’s not the end all for users deciding whether to use the cloud or not. About a year ago the cloud price wars in the IaaS cloud computing market were at their height…