Grazed from PRWeb.  Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud computing is recognized by governments and private sector organizations as major, game-changing technology. It focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of shared resources. Whereas formerly most software programmes ran on a personal computer, cloud computing uses large networks of remote servers.

These enable the sharing of data-processing tasks, centralized storage and online access to computer services throughout the Internet. However, with the multitude of offerings and their fast-pace development, the need to ensure quality and compatibility through standardization was paramount…

Grazed from PrivacyLawBlog. Author: Mark Webber.

The summer of 2014 saw another ISO Standard published by the International Standards Organisation (ISO). ISO27018:2014 is a voluntary standard governing the processing of personal data in the public cloud. With the catchy title of “Information technology – Security techniques – Code of the practice for protection of personally identifiable information (PII) in public clouds acting as PII processors” (“ISO27018“), it is perhaps not surprising that this long awaited standard is yet to slip off the tongue of every cloud enthusiast. European readers may have assumed references to PII meant this standard was framed firmly on the US – wrong!

What is ISO27018?

ISO27018 sets out a framework of “commonly accepted control objectives, controls and guidelines” which can be followed by any data processors processing personal data on behalf of another party in the public cloud. ISO27018 has been crafted by ISO to have broad application from large to small and from public entity to government of non-profit…

Read more from the source @ http://privacylawblog.fieldfisher.com/2014/a-new-iso-standard-for-cloud-computing?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-new-iso-standard-for-cloud-computing

Grazed from Economic Times. Author: Editorial Staff.

The cloud market in India is heating up with the top four players — Amazon, Google, Microsoft and International Business Machines — trying different tactics to gain control over the still very nascent market here. Microsoft, which offers public cloud services under the Azure brand, says competing on price can no more be the strategy for cloud and it therefore is working on additional higher value services on top of its commoditised cloud offerings.

Amazon, which has cut cloud prices as many as 45 times since 2006, is forcing competitors to do the same, in turn impacting profitability and forcing them to look at other avenues to make money. Google on Tuesday announced a price reduction for cloud services, but corporate vice-president for Microsoft Azure Jason Zander said the company will not cut prices unless Amazon also decides to do so again….

Grazed from Computing. Author: Sooraj Shah.

Intel Capital, the global investment arm of chip giant Intel, has invested in 16 new companies covering a range of areas within IT, including big data analytics, the Internet of Things and cloud computing. The organisation has invested in Gigya, a Mountain View, California-based maker of a cloud-based customer identity-management platform that supposedly helps clients turn unknown web or mobile visitors into loyal and engaged customers.

Another US-headquartered company it has invested in is drone technology maker PrecisionHawk. The Raleigh, North Carolina-based company uses a small, unmanned aerial vehicle and cloud-based software to collect, process and analyse aerial data for clients within "civilian industries"…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Kat Popovic.

The more I read, the more it’s becoming clear that it’s midsize businesses who have the most to lose in the cloud.(Ironically, they also have the most to gain from a move to the cloud, so go figure!). The upside is that the shift to cloud based computing has made it possible for small and midsize businesses (SMB’s) to access software and applications they previously may not have been able to afford, which is pretty cool.

According to a report by Techaisle, 25% of firms with 100-999 employees are using one or more cloud computing-based systems. And these numbers are on the rise. The advantages are clear: cloud computing lowers costs and frees up time, money and resources to focus on productivity, innovation, and reaching new clients…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Heather Clancy.

Stealthy startup Bracket Computing made its debut last month with more than $85 million in backing for its radical virtualization technology, which allows businesses to move computing workloads from cloud to cloud more easily. The vision is to help organizations process applications wherever it makes the most sense from a cost or resource perspectives.

The approach could also be used to bridge operations between on-site servers and those hosted in a cloud service. "When you have a million servers at your disposal, you have the appearance of an infinite resource," said Bracket CEO Tom Gillis. "Our question to ourselves was: can we build a layer that could present applications with highly reliable and secure performance?"…

Grazed from The Australian. Author: Stuart Kennedy.

An upbeat Mr Dell took Dell private a year ago and was touting the ability of his firm to bring products to market quicker than as a public company. He described the new DCS XA90 storage unit as being capable of holding 90 3.5-inch drives in one 4U chassis and able to store 720 terabytes.

“This thing is cloud scale storage to the max,” said Mr Dell at the firm’s annual Dell World user and partner event in Austin, Texas. Dell also announced a number of fresh servers and an all flash memory storage array that sells for about US$25,000. Mr Dell described it as the cheapest all flash array from any major vendor…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Jeff John Roberts.

Microsoft is the midst of a defiant stand against the federal government, insisting that a U.S. search warrant can’t force it to turn over emails located on a server in Ireland. The company has even taken the unusual step of opening itself to a contempt of court order, as part of a larger plan to reassure cloud computer customers in other countries that their data is safe from U.S. surveillance.

But now Microsoft’s high-profile legal campaign, which has received support from the likes of Apple and Cisco, could get under cut from another quarter: the FBI is quietly lobbying Congress to rewrite the rules for search warrants in order to expand their reach. If the lawmakers agree, this would mean that “searches” authorized by American judges would no longer be restricted to a specific geographic location in the United States (which is how search warrants typically work.)…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Lori MacVittie.

The verdict is in. Organizations are going to settle on cloud, but they’re settling on a mixture of private (on-premise) and public (off-premise). Hybrid, in the common nomenclature.

• 74 percent of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy (RightScale, 2014 State of the Cloud Survey).
• 55 percent of respondents expect to have hybrid cloud in place within the next two years (NorthBridge Ventures & GigaOm Research, 2014 Future of Cloud Computing).
• Of the 36 percent of organizations running private clouds, nearly a third have hybrid systems (InformationWeek, Hybrid Cloud Survey).
• Half of all enterprises will have hybrid clouds by 2017 (Gartner Research). That paints a pretty picture for someone like Microsoft who, being what many considered ‘late’ to the cloud game, is giving leaders like Amazon and Google a run for their money. Literally…

Grazed from BroadGroup. Author: PR Announcement.

Outstanding players in datacentre and cloud are being asked to nominate themselves for the annual Datacloud Awards 2015 which will be presented at a gala ceremony that takes place in Monaco, 2nd June 2015. Now in its 8th year, the Judges have sought to set the bar even higher for 2015 and are seeking exemplar companies that demonstrate excellence and inviting nominations from service providers and end user organizations across Europe.

As such this year’s categories are designed to reflect changes in markets and technologies, but retain their focus on recognising excellence across the datacentre and cloud sector. Four main Awards will be given for datacentre companies, and four prizes for Cloud. Both datacentre and cloud will hold one prestigious accolade each of Prix européen…