Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR NewsWire.

tw telecom, a leading provider of Business Ethernet and networking solutions, and Virtacore, a leading cloud services provider specializing in virtual infrastructure solutions, today announced a partnership to provide a combination of cloud, network and data center services, giving customers the ability to deploy flexible cloud solutions.

Virtacore provides customers the ability to cost-effectively extend their IT infrastructure in the cloud utilizing best-of-breed technologies built on Cisco’s UCS platform, VMware VSphere, and hybridized storage using either NetApp or Nimble storage devices hosted at Equinix data center ecosystems. Utilizing tw telecom’s eLynk service, customers benefit from a secure, dedicated and scalable Ethernet cloud connection…

Grazed from ISC-Events.  Author: PR Announcement.

The ISC Cloud and ISC Big Data conferences will be held this fall in Heidelberg, Germany. This will be the fifth ISC Cloud Conference to be organized by ISC Group, and it will take place in the Marriott Hotel Heidelberg from September 29 – 30. The second ISC Big Data will be held from October 1 – 2 at the same venue.

The ISC Cloud Conference

This year’s ISC Cloud Conference, chaired by European cloud expert Wolfgang Gentzsch, offers a comprehensive agenda, addressing the interests of the research community as well as the industry attendees. The topics lined up for the two-day event include:…

Grazed from Virtualization Review. Author: Dan Kusnetzky.

I’ve just returned from the IBM Analyst Insight event and have much to think about. I was given the opportunity to speak with IBM executives responsible for Big Data and Analytics, X86 and PureSystems, cloud computing, Flash storage and Power and System z hardware. Although each executive was highly focused on their own area, they all presented IBM’s main messages first and messages about their products second. I’m going to focus on my discussions with IBM about cloud computing in this article.

IBM’s Take on Hybrid Cloud

Most members of the cloud computing community would agree that there are three different implementations of a cloud computing environment: private, public and hybrid. Hybrid combines the first two into a single computing resource, from a management and development perspective…

Read more from the source @ http://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2014/09/15/ibm-hybrid-cloud-analysis.aspx

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Dan Kobialka.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has unveiled a cloud-based performance testing platform that is designed for Agile development teams that want to "apply smarter testing techniques into development."

HP said the new platform, StormRunner Load, can help Agile development teams accelerate application delivery and improve app quality. StormRunner Load is part of the HP Performance Testing suite. It supports HP’s mission to help Agile development teams accelerate application quality and delivery by providing them with a simple, intuitive and scalable cloud-based platform, according to the company…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing/091514/hp-adds-cloud-based-load-testing-performance-testing-suite

Grazed from MidsizeInsider. Author: Shawn Drew.

The right cloud solution can make a business more agile, more cost-effective and even more secure, but despite what evangelists might say, it is not an IT department’s panacea. Only by understanding the potential disadvantages of cloud computing can IT managers ensure that their migration is as successful as possible.

Finding Trouble in the Cloud

Over the past few years, the cloud has cemented itself as a developing technology that is going to be at the center of IT for decades to come. However, this does not mean that IT managers can simply schedule a cloud migration and assume success. Computer Weekly highlights the potential missteps when moving to the cloud, going over four real-world examples of instances in which businesses found trouble due to either a lack of understanding of how the cloud works or an overestimation of its potential benefits…

Grazed from Phys.Org. Author: Editorial Staff.

A team of computer scientists at NJIT has won a multi-year grant from the National Science Foundation to come up with a platform that would allow mobile devices to interact with each other with help from the cloud. The technology they are developing is designed to support collaborative applications in areas such as healthcare, safety, and social interaction, potentially benefiting millions of users.

The proposed mobile cloud computing platform would not only stimulate the creation of groundbreaking applications, it would also leverage the cloud to expand the processing power, network bandwidth, storage space, and battery life of individual devices.
"Our goal is to make smart phones smarter," says Cristian Borcea, associate professor and associate chair of the Department of Computer Science, who is the grant’s principal investigator…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Zulfikar Ramzan.

Security in the cloud is on a lot of people’s minds following the hacking of celebrities’ iCloud accounts. When we hear about user accounts on cloud services and SaaS applications getting compromised, we start thinking more about he types of security capabilities that cloud providers offer versus what they leave unaddressed, and where responsibility should lie.

Although many people think that security is a monolith, in reality it’s much more of a mosaic — full of nuances and subtleties. There are undoubtedly various kinds of threats associated with cloud services. From the perspective of the cloud service provider, the most pressing security issue involves protecting its back-end infrastructure from outside attackers. An attacker who can break in through the back door can abscond with a wealth of data…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Dan Kusnetzsky.

Hewlett-Packard’s move to acquire Eucalpytus (see HP buys Eucalyptus, puts Marten Mickos in charge of cloud unit by my colleague Larry Dignan) is the latest example of asupplier trying to be a part of every industry party. Like all major hardware players, HP wants want to be involved with cloud regardless of the stack of software used to create the cloud computing environment.

They do this because they wish to be chosen by their installed base regardless of the industry trend or technology. If we take a moment to consider the major systems and software players, a strong majority of them are involved with Amazon AWS, Azure, OpenStack, VMware vSpere and even Cloud Stack. I don’t believe that they expect any one of those to be the clear winner and all of the others will go away…

Grazed from CIOInsight. Author: Dennis McCafferty.

Momentum for cloud deployment is reaching full-throttle levels, according to a new survey report from Evolve IP. The accompanying report, titled "Cloud of Dreams: The Adoption of Cloud Services—2014," reveals that an immense majority of tech employees and leaders feel the cloud represents the very future of IT. Most have already launched cloud services, and nearly as many intend to expand their use of cloud resources.

Just as in the classic movie "Field of Dreams," "organizations built their ballparks (clouds), found some initial players (adopters) and waited to see if they were right to believe in themselves," according to the Evolve IP report. "They were, [as] rapid flight to the cloud continues with organizations planning on moving their infrastructure, applications and more to the cloud…

Grazed from WashingtonPost. Author: Linda Bernardi.

Everyone has heard about the cloud, which powers the smartphone apps we all love. The cloud is also vital to large companies, yet their adoption of the cloud hasn’t been as seamless. Large companies are hampered by years of old systems, programs and data, hundreds of thousands of employees spread across the world, distributed operations which are often siloed (disconnected).

They not only have to run their traditional businesses but now have to evolve to deploy across the complex cloud landscape and have everything readily available on smart devices. It is a complicated environment along with security, policy and other requirements. Not only do they need to deploy cloud for internal operations but also to support their massive customer base…