Grazed from TalkinCloud.  Author: Lori MacVittie.

In 2011, Jocelyn DeGance Graham, founded Cloud Network of Women (CloudNOW), which focused on amplifying women’s contributions to technology with an emphasis on cloud computing. In the past three years the organization has grown in both numbers, reach and its mission. Most recently the organization branched out to sponsor a Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) program focused not just on encouraging women to enter STEM, but on mentoring and guiding them into and through a career.

Its roots in cloud computing arise from the reality that cloud computing has been a boon for women in computing technology. Its relatively low cost eliminates a significant barrier to entry for start-ups and encourages women to take the helm and make their mark on the industry…

Grazed from TopTechNews.  Author: Linda M. Rosencrance.

Aiming to boost its CRM Relevant Products/Services offerings, business Relevant Products/Services application software and cloud Relevant Products/Services services provider Infor has agreed to acquire the Saleslogix cloud-based CRM application from Swiftpage.

Saleslogix CRM, which will become Infor CRM, will add sales and service functionality to the Infor CloudSuite, its industry-specific software that’s available on Amazon Web Services. Swiftpage expects the transaction to close in the coming weeks. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed…

Grazed from Science20.  Author: Editorial Staff.

If you were a 1990s protester in a developed nation, you probably hate the idea of globalization, though democratization of culture and wealth have clearly been very good things. Globalization used to be controversial but by now no one sentient really thinks cultures that condone rape and stoning of women should be preserved.

Cloud computing will take that globalization to the next level, because it is a key enhancer of innovation and economic development – and it gives groups without giant budgets for hardware a way to compete, just like food science that lets crops grow in inhospitable climes saves lives…

Grazed from CloudTech.  Author: James Bourne.

Microsoft suffered a blow yesterday when its Azure cloud and virtual machines suffered a series of outages before later being restored.  According to Reuters, the downtime was due to interruptions in multiple centres, with a representative from the company explaining that a small section of its customer base was affected.

A cursory glance at Azure’s status history page gives a glimpse as to the various outages suffered, with downtime logged on both August 18 and 19.  “Starting at 18 Aug 2014, 17:49 UTC, we are experiencing an interruption to Azure Services, may include Cloud Services, Virtual Machines Websites, Automation, Service Bus, Backup, Site Recovery, HDInsight, Mobile Services and possible other Azure Services in multiple regions,” the update wrote. “Customers began to experience service restoration as updates were deployed across the affected environment.”…

Grazed from TopTechNews. Author: Jef Cozza.

Violin Memory announced today that data Relevant Products/Services deduplication and compression capabilities are now available on its Concerto 2200 solution. Customers will normally experience deduplication rates between 6:1 and 10:1, according to the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said. The data reduction appliance offers up to 672 TB of usable storage at a data reduction rate of 6:1.

The company markets the Concerto 2200 appliance as an enhancement to its Violin 6000 and 7000 all-flash Relevant Products/Services arrays by reducing the amount of data written to them. According to Violin Memory, the solution can reduce capital expenditure (CAPEX) by slashing hardware expenses through space savings…

Grazed from C4ISRNet. Author: Editorial Staff.

The Department of Defense CIO tasked DISA to be the DoD Cloud Broker to make it easier, safer and more productive to navigate, integrate, consume, extend and maintain cloud services, within the department and from other federal and commercial cloud service providers. As the department evolves to meet future requirements and a mounting demand for services and capabilities, DISA is charting the course to develop a robust cloud environment.

Likewise, while the department continues to gain momentum transitioning to a Joint Information Environment (JIE), the agency is acting on the necessity for a more streamlined, centralized, transparent and cost-effective system to fit current and future needs of all DoD agencies. Equally important, the JIE reduces the department’s overall attack surface to ensure secure cloud computing…

Read more from the source @ http://www.c4isrnet.com/article/20140819/C4DISA/308190007/DISA-harnesses-power-cloud

Grazed from PDDNet. Author: Editorial Staff.

Tier1 announced the availability of the Tier1 Private Oracle Cloud, the most optimized and protected computing environment for Oracle Applications and databases. Leveraging Oracle’s Virtual Compute Appliance (VCA) technology, the only virtual environment certified to use Oracle Trusted Partitions – the Tier1 Private Cloud provides the flexibility to license Oracle software on a virtual CPU basis.

The Tier1 Private Oracle Cloud is designed to minimize customer costs and the complexities they face when hosting Oracle applications in-house. Private cloud environments are hosted in a world class data center and designed specifically for Oracle customers. Tier1 CEO, Dave Busch, says, "We thoroughly evaluated the build versus buy for our private cloud solution and decided to purchase Oracle’s VCA for a number of reasons: The VCA uses all Oracle products that are pre-configured and wired. It’s a turnkey solution. It’s pre-built, and it’s easy to install and configure. We were able to get our virtual computer clients running very smoothly, very quickly."…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Editorial Staff.

CloudVelox offers the only highly automated solution for deploying multi-tier apps and services into the cloud without modification or virtualization. Critical authentication services (including LDAP and Active Directory) are integrated with the apps in the cloud, enabling hybrid cloud operating models and powerful new use cases, especially “pay as you go” disaster recovery and agile software development.

CloudVelox automates critical hybrid cloud infrastructure processes — from discovering the constituent hosts to replicating and provisioning and launching groups of systems — all with drag and drop menus. CloudVelox also extends the enterprise data center to the Cloud so that these distributed multi-tier applications can access any necessary services residing back in the enterprise…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Sharon Gaudin.

Venture capital fundraising has picked up steam in the U.S., with cloud computing, mobile technology and robotics getting solid backing. U.S. technology companies are looking at a strong investment climate with global investor confidence in U.S. companies up significantly for the third year in a row, according to the 2014 Global Venture Capital Confidence Survey released by consulting firm Deloitte & Touche and the National Venture Capital Association, a trade group for the U.S. venture capital industry.

"For the past three years the U.S. has seen a significant increase in investor confidence, continuing the trend which began to take hold in 2012," said Jim Atwell, a managing partner at Deloitte, in a statement. "Improving capital market conditions lifted the pace of initial public offerings, fed by a strong lineup of new and innovative companies like we see on the Technology Fast 500 list, along with increased investor confidence both in the ability to fundraise, as well as to achieve favorable returns on investment."…

Read more from the source @ http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9250480/VC_investors_hot_for_the_cloud_mobile_and_robots#sthash.bzZymMLF.dpuf

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

GTT Communications, Inc., the leading global cloud networking provider to multinational enterprises, announced today the release of a new white paper entitled Cloud Computing Success Demands the Right Connectivity. The white paper highlights why it is critically important for enterprises to use private connectivity, rather than the public Internet, to access their IT applications and services residing in the cloud.

"Cloud adoption has moved beyond the tipping point, with the majority of enterprises using some form of cloud computing in their business," said Rick Calder, President and CEO. "Many companies use the public Internet to access cloud applications, but a private network provides the security, performance and reliability many organizations need to support their mission-critical business operations."…