Grazed from TheCloud Network. Author: Editorial Staff.

More and more small businesses are moving to the ‘cloud’ and IT companies are offering more services and solutions in the ‘cloud’. Why are businesses and IT providers moving away from “on-premises”? This past week at the XChange Event in San Antonio, Texas, many IT and business experts brought up this popular topic.

Their response was that ‘cloud’ computing has many more benefits for all parties involved, no matter the size of the enterprise. Smaller companies are able to get ahead and compete with bigger players, as barriers are broken down and fast growth is not an issue anymore with a fully integrated solution in the “Cloud”, such as erpWizard…

Grazed from ThoughtsOnCloud. Author: Ahmed Banafa.

The term “fog computing” or “edge computing” means that rather than hosting and working from a centralized cloud, fog systems operate on network ends. It is a term for placing some processes and resources at the edge of the cloud, instead of establishing channels for cloud storage and utilization.

fog computingFog computing tackles an important problem in cloud computing, namely, reducing the need for bandwidth by not sending every bit of information over cloud channels, and instead aggregating it at certain access points. This type of distributed strategy lowers costs and improves efficiencies. More interestingly, it’s one approach to dealing with the emerging concept of Internet of Things (IoT)…

Grazed from MarketWatch. Author: PR Announcement.

Software defined storage provides customers with a vision and roadmap to the next generation data center including cloud deployments. NetApp(R) NTAP, +0.68% today announced new solutions that increase and simplify automation of software-defined storage elements and provide fine-grained management of VMware virtual machine data, including evaluation software that interoperates with VMware’s Virtual Volumes to help customers achieve more efficient IT operations at a lower cost. Additionally, NetApp is announcing new OnCommand(R) software with enhanced data protection and improved reporting capabilities, and flash-optimized FlexPod(R)(1) with VMware Horizon View(TM) for end-user computing.

Software-Defined Storage for the Cloud Era NetApp is a key design partner for VMware’s Virtual Volumes, a new data storage architecture designed to enable granular, VM-level management of storage resources and data services, based on application-centric policies. NetApp’s solution for VMware Virtual Volumes will deliver advanced policy based software-defined storage management. NetApp’s support for Virtual Volumes builds upon NetApp’s patented Virtual Storage Console (VSC) for VMware that improves data storage efficiency and reduces cost and complexity in a VMware virtual infrastructure environment…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has bumped its credentials with the Department of Defense. Following on a previous announcement in March in which Amazon received DoD Provisional Authorization under the DoD Cloud Security Model for Impact Levels 1-2, the cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider has increased its credentials to include Impact Levels 3-4.

Amazon said it is the first cloud services provider to receive certification for Impact Levels 3-4, anabling it to offer cloud services for sensitive workloads via GovCloud. "As part of the Level 3-5 Authorization, our partners and DoD customers will be able to implement a wide range of DoD requirements necessary to protect their data at these levels, including AWS Direct Connect routing to the DoD’s network, comprehensive computer network defense coverage, and Common Access Card (CAC) integration," wrote Jeff Barr, chief evangelist for Amazon Web Services, in a blog post…

Grazed from SysCon Media. Author: Editorial Staff.

CloudByte, the first provider of secure, multi-application storage for Enterprise applications, announced the worldwide release of CloudByte ElastiStor Appliance (ESA), a complete self-managed storage solution a couple of months back in three variants: A10, A50, and A100. ElastiStor Appliances enable any size organization to break away from vendor lock-in and high expense of legacy storage approaches. Subsequent to the global launch of ESA, CloudByte has tailored the current release to meet the strong demand for all-flash appliances in India.

While the SanDisk Optimus Eco SAS SSDs power the all-flash and hybrid storage pools, Netweb, the leading provider of server, storage and high-performance computing (HPC) solutions, facilitates distribution and hardware support. IndiQus Technologies is the implementation partner…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Joe McKendrick.

We’ve only just begun to embrace the potential of cloud. As the so-called Internet of Things takes hold, cloud computing services will need to acquire a new depth and breadth to handle petabytes of data, demanding, complex applications, and millions of users. New, evolving architecture is needed. The National Science Foundation (NSF) wants to promote a new generation of applications, including real-time and safety-critical applications such as those used in medical devices, power grids, and transportation systems.

These are among the reasons NSF recently announced two $10 million projects to create cloud computing testbeds–to be called "Chameleon" and "CloudLab"– that will enable researchers to develop and experiment with, as they put it, "novel cloud architectures and pursue new, architecturally-enabled applications" of cloud computing. Ultimately, the goal of the NSFCloud program and the two new projects is to advance the field of cloud computing broadly, its promoters said…

Grazed from CloudComputingTip.  Author:

Cloud computing services are those where different kinds of data and documents are being delivered over the internet from one place to another on a daily basis in order to run businesses properly. It is being considered as computer software where you can store your data and you can even access them from anywhere without giving any sort of information about the location of the user or even the configuration of the cloud system from where the service is being delivered.

The cloud services which include all kinds of applications, data resources and information are being managed in a virtual environment. The applications and data are basically found on cloud of web servers and that is why it is known as a cloud service…

Grazed from Midsize Insider.  Author: Shawn Drew.

Part of the allure of the public cloud is that natural redundancies reduce the number of system outages that customers experience. Some occasional downtime is inevitable, however, and how a business reacts to these outages may determine the overall success or failure of a cloud initiative. Some major companies are getting a head start by scheduling their own downtime to learn from the event, and midsize businesses should consider doing the same.

When the Cloud Goes Down

When dealing with modern technology, the cloud is no exception to failure. All the redundancies in the world are sometimes not enough to keep things running 100 percent of the time — a fact that more IT professionals, IT managers and business executives are slowly realizing.  This acceptance of downtime has led to some interesting practices, which have the potential to greatly increase the response to these unavoidable incidents…

Grazed from TheStreetInsider.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Research may have come up with a better solution for low-latency cloud-based gaming, something that could jettison the company ahead of peers in the gaming segment and something that could, potentially, set Microsoft apart in cloud computing as well. The following was posted to the official Microsoft Research blog on Thursday:

Abstract

Gaming is very popular. Cloud gaming – where remote servers perform game execution and rendering on behalf of thin clients that simply send input and display output frames – promises any device the ability to play any game any time. Unfortunately, the reality is that wide-area network latencies are often prohibitive; cellular, Wi-Fi and even wired residential end host round trip times (RTTs) can exceed 100ms, a threshold above which many gamers tend to deem responsiveness unacceptable…

Grazed from Midsize Insider.  Author: Jason Hannula.

Cloud adoption by small and midsize businesses (SMB) continues to march forward and is projected to reach almost 80 percent by 2020, according to an Emergent Research and Intuit report detailed in Forbes. Adoption of cloud computing is widespread, but the ways in which it changes a business and the implications in the SMB realm are just now becoming more clear.

According to the Emergent-Intuit report, the first stage of cloud technology engagement is to focus on creating efficiency gains within the business. The efficiency effects are occurring quickly for SMBs, and as a result they are now able to explore new structures and ways of conducting business. The impact is not limited to start-ups or technology businesses, as traditional, mainstream, product and services-based businesses are seeing benefits from the cloud…