CloudCow Contributed Article.  Author: Sheldon Smith – Senior Project Manager, XO Communications.

Security in the cloud remains a top concern for businesses — according to a recent ITWire article, worldwide IT security spending will reach more than $71 billion this year and top $76 billion in 2015. And what’s driving these security concerns? Research firm Gartner describes a “nexus of force” made up of social, mobile and cloud (SoMoCo) solutions.

Used in concert, these technologies offer huge market advantages, but open up unique new vulnerabilities. One option to manage cloud security is a hosted PBX system, which supplants a traditional telecommunications company to supply all incoming and outgoing phone services. Here are five ways hosted PBX can help secure your cloud.

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Danny Ashton.

There has been a lot of buzz around cloud computing lately, but not many people know what that actually means. This infographic will try to resolve some mystery surrounding that topic. Cloud computing is a revolutionary concept that gives you the opportunity of accessing your data over a network, like the Internet. That means your data is located in a cloud and you can access it from any other computer or even from your mobile phone. This can save your life in cases of emergencies when you need to access some file quick and easy. If you have heard of it, but you are not sure if it is absolutely secure, you should read this infographic carefully.

Many companies are starting to see that cloud usage can be really useful in business world. Over 50 % of firms are currently using it in the United States. It definitely has a lot of benefits when compared with traditional computing. This infographic is based on a survey of 200 IT managers who use cloud security in their own workplace…

Grazed from MSPMentor. Author: CJ Arlotta.

BAE Systems (BASEY) has acquired cloud-based security solutions SilverSky in a cash-free, debt-free deal worth $232.5 million. SilverSky hopes to leverage its acquirer’s global resources to bring its solutions to market faster. BAE announced the deal on Tuesday. The company is a provider of defense, aerospace and security solutions and plans to incorporate SilverSky into its Applied Intelligence division.

SilverSky’s customers include more than 5,500 organizations in a variety of industries, including financial, healthcare and retail. It also serves a group of mid- to large-sized commercial enterprises. "BAE Systems is a large, multi-national company with a tremendous brand and financial resources," said Tim Harvey, CEO at SilverSky. "We expect to leverage their presence in the market to grow our business as quickly as possible."…

Read more from the source @ http://mspmentor.net/cloud-computing/102214/bae-systems-acquires-silversky-2325m

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Rackspace (RAX) updated its hybrid cloud offering with new security capabilities, increased scalability and an improved user experience. RackConnect v3 was designed to meet customers’ needs for public cloud scalability in a hybrid IT environment. RackConnect is typical in many ways of a hybrid cloud solution, in that it provides customers with a combination of traditional dedicated hardware and networks with various services deployed in the public cloud. In the latest version release, RackConnect has joined the growing software-defined networking (SDN) technology segment, with more SDN-focused features.

"RackConnect v3 redefines hybrid cloud by offering enterprise customers a migration path to the public cloud with none of the downside," said John Engates, CTO at Rackspace, in a prepared statement. "This unique hybrid cloud technology allows our customers to take advantage of our managed public cloud, private cloud and dedicated hosting offerings with a seamless integration backed by Fanatical Support. It is a unique offering in the market today."…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/hybrid-cloud-computing/102214/rackspace-rackconnect-update-adds-new-security-scalability

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Mike Vizard.

Relational databases were not designed from the ground up for the cloud or, for that matter, to handle big data. Nobody knows that better than Bob Muglia, former head of the Server and Tools division of Microsoft (MSFT). As the CEO of startup Snowflake Computing, Muglia has taken the wraps off a Snowflake Elastic Data Warehouse service in the cloud, built on top of a relational database that Snowflake developed specifically for that purpose.

In addition, Snowflake Computing announced it has picked up an additional $26 million in funding, part of which will be used to create a customer and partner ecosystem around the new cloud service. After a brief detour at Juniper Networks, Muglia is back in the software infrastructure business…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

EMC has announced it is to merge data centre biz VCE into its main organisation, buying out all but 10% of Cisco’s stake in the company. The news comes weeks after EMC announced the buy of open cloud provider Cloudscaling, and can be seen as an advancement of the ménage a trois-esque relationship between EMC, VMware and Cisco in ownership of VCE.

The converged infrastructure (CI) provider was originally set up as a joint venture between EMC, VMware and Cisco in order to create Vblock, a cloud computing platform which morphed into CI. In a blog post reflecting on this alliance Gary Moore, president and COO of Cisco and Howard Elias, president and COO of EMC, described is as “the most successful in IT history.”…

Grazed from BostonGlobe. Author: Jack Newsham.

Watson, the superintelligent computer built by International Business Machines Corp., is perhaps best known for its tour-de-force performance on “Jeopardy!” in 2011, with swift responses such as “Who is Eleanor Rigby?,” to a clue about the subject of a Beatles song who “died in the church and was buried along with her name.”

But IBM chief executive Virginia Rometty argues Watson’s genius is best used to come up with answers to much more serious, real world challenges — treating cancer, for example. The computer, which can understand questions posed in natural language, was a main feature of Rometty’s address in downtown Boston Wednesday about business uses of Big Data, cloud computing and cybersecurity measures…

Grazed from HP. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud computing is driving change in all aspects of business, large and small. Some of the most common uses include dev/test, data archiving, storage, and disaster recovery. Everyone is familiar with SaaS players such as Salesforce and Workday and storage options such as Google Drive, iCloud, OneDrive, and Dropbox.

Cloud-based collaboration tools such as Mikogo and Vyew are proliferating as well. In this post, I’d like to share what I consider some of the most interesting uses of cloud, and how they help enterprises achieve faster time to market, increase customer engagement, and drive revenue. Cloud plays a pivotal role in each of these customer stories:…

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Bill Kleyman.

The growth of cloud computing and truly distributed IT environments has created a demand for a new type of IT professional. Today’s IT pro must be well-versed in new and emerging technologies, but also have skills in a range of core areas such as storage. So what do you need to do to acquire cloud computing skills and advance your cloud career? Here are some tips.

Learn the language of cloud

APIs, SaaS, the Internet of Things (IoT), software-defined platforms, and much more make up the cloud dictionary. It really feels like acronyms are popping up everywhere. You have to keep an eye and ear out for new and emerging technologies. And because everything is so integrated in the cloud, you also need to understand how all of these technologies interact…

Grazed from Trefis. Author: Editorial Staff.

VMware announced its third quarter earnings on Tuesday, October 21. The company reported an 18% increase in net revenues over the prior year quarter to almost $1.52 billion – close to the upper end of the guidance given at the end of Q2. Services revenues were up by 21% y-o-y to $876 million while software license sales rose by 14% to $639 million. VMware has maintained its full year net revenues guidance at just over $6 billion, which is 15-16% higher than 2013 revenues.

In line with our expectations, software licenses gross margin (GAAP) expanded by almost 2 percentage points to 92.8%. On the other hand, as the company generated higher service revenues from hybrid clouds, network virtualization and end-user computing, its cost of services rose by nearly 50% y-o-y to $196 million. As a result, the gross margin (GAAP) for the services division was about 4 percentage points lower than the year ago period at 77.6%…