Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Arthur Cole.

The initial rush to embrace the cloud is over, and it seems the enterprise is finally taking a more thoughtful, reasoned approach to the new technology. But this still has many CIOs wondering: How do I craft a successful cloud strategy? And perhaps even more crucial, how do I ensure my cloud strategy won’t end in utter failure?

At its most basic level, the cloud is simply another piece of the enterprise infrastructure. In that vein, things like deployment, integration, ROI and TCO all come into play, although the calculations are different given the unusual price points and CAPEX/OPEX contrasts with standard servers, storage and other hardware-centric platforms…

Grazed from GuruFocus. Author: Editorial Staff.

The recent Apple (AAPL) iCloud accident has raised a lot of storm not only against Apple as the service provider but against the whole cloud system. Today on every media and web portal, people have voiced their concerns and anger against what happened on the iCloud and how they are now shying away from putting their data on the cloud. People have gone to the extent of terming the cloud as a big technical bubble that has now burst, and it’s time to lay the cloud under its tombstone.

This reminds me of the first massive motor car accident dating back to somewhere between 1908 when Henry Ford rolled out the first motor car, and 1970 when seatbelts came into existence. Henry Ford rolled out Model T cars from his assembly line in 1908; until then there hadn’t been any automobile fatality in nearly 40 years prior to that – not since Mary Ward was run over by a steam-powered car in Ireland in 1869…

Grazed from TopTechNews. Author: Jennifer LeClaire.

Is EMC selling itself? The data Relevant Products/Services storage products maker might be, if you believe the rumor mill. The Wall Street Journal first broke the story about a potential merger and other options, citing pressure from a shareholder activist and the retirement of its CEO Joseph Tucci sometime early in 2015.

In fact, the Journal reports that EMC has been in talks with Hewlett-Packard (HP) for nearly a year about a potential tie up. Those talks recently ended, but discussions are reportedly underway with Dell, Cisco Relevant Products/Services and Oracle, the paper reported. It’s unclear if EMC would be sold as an entire unit or broken up into parts and lose its brand identity altogether…

Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Michael Vizard.

Cloud computing represents something of a fundamental shift in how IT is deployed and managed. Given that, it only stands to reason that new approaches to securing IT in the age of the cloud are also going to be required. That’s the thinking that went into the development of a new cloud application security gateway from FireLayers that, as software running on a third-party data center, is designed to support any cloud computing environment.

FireLayers CEO Yair Grindlinger says rather than relying on traditional firewalls to secure cloud applications, the FireLayers Cloud Application Security Gateway allows IT organizations to make use of a service that eliminates the need to route every request to access an application through an appliance installed on their premises…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cisco recently announced its intent to acquire private cloud provider Metacloud, in an effort to bolster its global Intercloud platform and architecture. Metacloud provides private cloud solutions to organisations with its OpenStack-as-a-service model, delivering ready-to-use private clouds in clients’ data centers. The deal is expected to close by the end of the ongoing quarter (Q1 FY2015) and upon completion of the acquisition, Metacloud’s employees will join Cisco’s Cloud Infrastructure and Managed Services business division.

Cisco’s Cloud Services architecture is also based on OpenStack open source software and is designed to help customers to easily and securely use data across both private and public clouds. The acquisition is likely to provide a boost to Cisco’s plans to build the world’s largest Intercloud, which is a secure network of globally distributed and remotely managed clouds capable of meeting growing customer needs, especially as part of the Internet of Everything (IoE)…

Read more from the source @ http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/09/22/cisco-expands-intercloud-architecture-with-metacloud-acquisition/

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Elena Malykhina.

The federal government is known for its risk-adverse nature and tight control of IT assets. But with increasing data needs and constrained budgets, agencies are turning to cloud computing as a solution. Policies such as Cloud First have moved agencies in the right direction. Cloud First, authored by former federal CIO Vivek Kundra, mandates that agencies consider cloud computing before other options for new IT projects.

In an interview with InformationWeek Government earlier this year, Kundra, who is now with Salesforce as executive VP of emerging markets, said the public sector is experiencing a major shift in the IT landscape. "We’ve seen amazing proof points when it comes to cloud computing, like the $600 million contract that Amazon won with the CIA," he said…

Read more from the source @ http://www.informationweek.com/government/cloud-computing/5-early-cloud-adopters-in-federal-government/d/d-id/1315911

Grazed from TheVarGuy. Author: Christopher Tozzi.

Data storage vendor Tesora says it is making cloud computing easier than ever with the launch of what it calls "the first enterprise-ready, commercial implementation of OpenStack Trove database-as-a-service (DBaaS)," which is now available for enterprise use. Named Tesora DBaaS Platform Enterprise Edition, the software expands upon the open source Tesora Community Edition DBaaS that the company already offered by delivering enterprise-grade support and value-added tools, such as configuration scripts and installers, that make deployment easier, according to the company.

The product also features integrated data-backup solutions, certification for compatibility with a number of databases, pre-configured Trove database images and professional support. Working from the principle that because databases require special expertise to administer, they often "don’t work well in cloud environments, especially where high-availability and reliability are critical," Tesora is pitching the solution as the first implementation of the open source OpenStack DBaaS component that is ready for enterprise deployment without investment in special talent or additional hardware…

Read more from the source @ http://thevarguy.com/cloud-computing-services-and-business-solutions/092214/tesora-targets-enterprise-commercial-openstack-trove

Grazed from MarketWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Pertino, a company reinventing networking for the mobile and cloud era, today announced the launch of its BlueSky™ Partner Program, a new multi-channel program tailored for cloud-centric IT consultants, resellers, distributors, service providers and marketplaces. Additionally, the company developed the BlueSky Partner Portal to support partner selling, marketing and support activities, as well as new partner-based billing and onboarding capabilities for its Cloud Network Engine platform…

The BlueSky Partner Program is designed to provide a high degree of incentive and support for partners as they incorporate Pertino cloud networking services into their sales channels, product and service portfolios and marketplaces.  "The cloud is not only disrupting traditional IT models — displacing hardware with software and services — it’s disrupting long-standing channel models built on boxes…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Craig Such.

‘Cloud computing’ is no longer a buzzword, it’s an integral part of our digital vocabulary. But as the hype dies down, adoption of new cloud technologies shows no signs of slowing, especially when it comes to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). In fact, according to a recent report by Gartner ‘Adoption of Cloud ERP, 2013 through 2023’, nearly half (47%) of businesses plan to move their core ERP systems to the cloud within five years.

Craig Such, Director at Azzure IT, the company behind rapidNAV – the out-of-the-box Microsoft Dynamics cloud ERP solution, explains why you should move your ERP solution to the cloud:…

Grazed from CSO. Author: Brian Grant.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) in the enterprise is expected to grow at a rate of 37.3 per cent through to 2017, and is the fastest growing segment of the infrastructure service domain, according to Gartner 1and 2. The trend is supported by ESG’s 2014 Public Cloud Computing Trends report, which discloses that 47 per cent) of organisations with more than 500 production servers are already using infrastructure-as-a-service, compared to 23 per cent of those with fewer than 50 production servers.

So for larger enterprises, IaaS is no longer limited to ‘skunkworks’ proofs-of-concept (POCs). Hard contractual obligations, balance sheet objectives and increased complexity in hosting critical applications are driving IT to scale some processes off corporate premises towards a hybrid cloud model…