Grazed from The Guardian.  Author: Editorial Staff.

The cloud has created a paradigm shift that’s every bit as important as the industrial revolution for businesses and consumers, says Gary Turner, managing director, Xero UK. For firms that haven’t already made the most of it, the opportunity to re-imagine services and create innovate new ways to add real value for clients is beckoning.

The year 2014 has heralded a real turning point in the maturity of digital. Almost three billion people – 40% of the world’s population – are using the Internet according to thelatest figures from the United Nations. Facebook has 1.35 billion active monthly users, which is incredible when you consider the site has only been around for ten years…

Grazed from ABCNews. Author: Brandon Bailey.

Federal regulators said a respected Internet privacy company gave its seal of approval to commercial websites and mobile apps but failed to check whether they were indeed meeting standards for safeguarding customers’ data. The company known as TRUSTe describes itself as a leading independent authority on consumer privacy.

But the Federal Trade Commission said it deceived consumers by not following through on annual reviews of websites and apps that carried its privacy seal. The FTC also said the San Francisco-based company let websites describe TRUSTe as a nonprofit service, even after it became a for-profit business in 2008…

Grazed from TechCrunch. Author: Frederic Lardinois.

Google continues to build out its cloud computing platform and today the company announced that its autoscaling service for Compute Engine, its infrastructure-as-a-service platform, is now available in beta. Using this new feature, developers can now have Compute Engine automatically spin up new machines based on demand.

If your CPU utilization goes above a certain value or your HTTP load balancer notices a spike in incoming traffic, for example, you can now have Google start a new machine to distribute that load. You can also connect the autoscaler to Google’s Cloud Monitoring API to select custom metrics that’s important for your application. This also means you don’t need to have machines on standby to take care of unexpected demand. Instead, they only spin up if needed, which could save you quite a bit of money…

Grazed from Stuff.co.nz. Author: Editorial Staff

Your business may use various IT infrastructures to store, access and manage data and IT resources – perhaps a primary common server in combination with some web-based services and cloud-based storage. You may not be aware, however, that a new generation of cloud-based platforms can integrate these services.

According to the IBM Centre for Applied Insights, it’s estimated that around 61 per cent of businesses will be using a ‘hybrid cloud’ environment to facilitate their data needs by the end of 2014. Essentially, a hybrid cloud combines internal and external cloud solutions with your traditional environment, giving your business the flexibility to move quickly, while also making full use of the IT resources you already have…

Grazed from FinancialBuzz. Author: Editorial Staff.

Amazon is gearing up to take on business technology solution providers like Oracle (NYSE: ORCL). At its recent conference, it announced a database designed to take Oracle head on. The move is a step towards offering more sophisticated solutions, not just basic computing. This would include software to manage user behavior and compliance solutions for clients in regulatory driven sectors.

Lofty goals

Amazon is already a dominant player in the global cloud infrastructure space. According to a report by Synergy Research Group, Amazon currently holds a significant 27 percent market share. However, recent pricing wars and fierce competition have put pressure on Amazon’s revenues. With growth stalling in recent quarters, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is looking for opportunities. Specifically, how to deliver database and software-like solutions via the internet. The idea is to get clients to trade in their servers, software and networking equipment for a cleaner cloud based solution…

Grazed from BusinessCloudNews. Author: Editorial Staff.

Research published this week by outsourcing and system integration specialist Infosys suggests four in five large enterprises plan to move mission-critical applications and workloads into the cloud over the next two years. Vishnu Bhat, the company’s senior vice president & global head, cloud & infrastructure services told BCN enterprises need to develop a consolidated approach to cloud service procurement and management if they are to overcome key inhibitors to adoption.

The research published this week suggests cloud has reached a tipping point in the enterprise. A survey of over 300 internationally-based senior IT decision makers administered by Forrester and Infosys suggests 81 per cent of large organisations plan to move mission critical apps over to the cloud in the next two years…

Read more from the source @ http://www.businesscloudnews.com/2014/11/17/enterprises-need-consolidated-approach-to-cloud/

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Taking its leadership in cloud-based High-Performance Computing (HPC) applications even higher, Nimbix today introduced the extension of JARVICE to support hybrid cloud implementations. The new solution extends on-demand big data and HPC applications to hybrid cloud deployments, allowing organizations to comply with data security and location requirements

JARVICE is a supercomputing architecture adcommodity web services platform not adept to running true HPC workloads. The architecture’s new hybrid cloud extension is specifically designed for organizations that need more control over their physical big data and HPC application platforms, without compromising performance or ease-of-use. Unlike other cloud infrastructure solutions, JARVICE is purpose-built for high-performance computing applications…

Grazed from GlobalNewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, today announced collaboration with Red Hat® andCirrascale® to deliver a high performance computing (HPC) cluster based on the world’s first ARM® 64-bit X-Gene^TM Server on a Chip^TM to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory®. This cluster will be tested and evaluated as a platform for HPC and Big Data technologies.

The X-Gene-based cluster delivered to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory comes in Cirrascale RM1905D chassis and is based on a software platform developed as a part of the Red Hat ARM Partner Early Access Program…

Grazed from Inquirer. Author: Carly Page.

That’s the opinion of 83 percent of our readers, who voiced their distrust in cloud services during last week’s INQUIRER debate. During the debate, Dr Lee Gillan, senior lecturer at the Department of Computing at the University of Surrey, argued for the statement that ‘the cloud is fundamentally secure’, while technology commentator Chris Merriman argued against it.

At the debate’s close on Friday, it appears that the majority of INQUIRER readers agreed with Chris. A landslide 83 percent voted that the cloud is not fundamentally secure and were keen to say why. One reader said: "I’m sorry but there’s no way on earth the cloud is more secure than traditional IT systems…

Grazed from EETimes.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Fujitsu has unleashed its "Human-Centric IoT" platform geared to ease the creation with customers of valuable and innovative businesses which, based on an understanding of customers and consumer needs, make use of all kinds of digital information. Aimed at fostering new business and social innovation, the company came up with the Human-Centric IoT by building a global ecosystem with business partners.

The IoT platform, which enables access to an easy-to-use cloud-based application development environment, is a comprehensive systems environment which, for IoT models whose feasibility has been validated, can bring together a variety of products from Fujitsu, including sensors and devices, networks, middleware and applications. The company also stated that the use of these resources makes it easy and inexpensive for customers to quickly create innovative business models…