Grazed from FedTechMagazine. Author: Nicole Blake Johnson.

The Defense Department is seriously considering how it can move certain classifications of sensitive data into secure cloud environments operated by private companies. DoD’s acting CIO, Terry Halvorsen, said the department will announce five pilots within the next 20 days. “I won’t give you the exact timeline, but it could be the first of September,” Halvorsen told attendees Wednesday at the Federal Forum conference in Washington, D.C.

Halvorsen’s team received approval to begin testing how DoD can migrate level 3 and level 4 military data to the cloud. These classification levels are for controlled unclassified information (CUI), which includes data that are For Official Use Only (FOUO), Law Enforcement Sensitive (LES) or DoD Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

SUSE has launched an updated version of its private cloud solution. This latest version, dubbed SUSE Cloud 4, was designed based on OpenStack Icehouse, the latest version of the open source cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform. In addition to being based on Icehouse, SUSE Cloud 4 also supports the Ceph distributed storage system, but it also includes new VMware (VMW) capabilities and enhanced scalability, automation and availability features for easing enterprise adoption of OpenStack, the company stated.

"SUSE Cloud makes it easy and cost-effective to implement a highly available, mixed-hypervisor private cloud infrastructure. And the addition of Ceph distributed storage capabilities increases the value and flexibility of SUSE Cloud in almost any enterprise," said Michael Miller, SUSE vice president of Global Alliances and Marketing, in a prepared statement…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing-and-open-source/081514/suse-unveils-icehouse-openstack-private-cloud

Grazed from CloudComputingNews. Author: Jordan Tigani and Siddartha Naidu.

When you run your queries via BigQuery, you put a giant cluster of machines to work for you. Although the BigQuery clusters represent only a small fraction of Google’s global fleet, each query cluster is measured in the thousands of cores. When BigQuery needs to grow, there are plenty of resources that can be harnessed to meet the demand.

If you want to, you could probably figure out the size of one of BigQuery’s compute clusters by carefully controlling the size of data being scanned in your queries. The number of processor cores involved is in the thousands, the number of disks in the hundreds of thousands. Most organizations don’t have the budget to build at that kind of scale just to run some queries over their data. The benefits of the Google cloud go beyond the amount of hardware that is used, however. A massive datacenter is useless unless you can keep it running…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Brendan Gregg.

How do cloud-hosted workloads affect data center systems differently than virtualized and physical infrastructures? Are there steps that admins can take to prepare themselves for performance diagnostics and improvement once their infrastructure moves to cloud? Start by getting up to speed with different Web server and database architectures because scalability is more horizontal than vertical across new instances. You can scale further with cloud computing vs. virtualization, and more closely match your IT spend with the workload. That’s great, but you now have many more distributed systems to analyze.

On a cloud infrastructure with hundreds or thousands of server instances, you can’t solve performance issues until you identify the right instances to target. This requires skills in distributed system monitoring. Often the performance issue subsides naturally or from auto-scaling of the cloud infrastructure, so the administrator must identify the problem instances after the event. At the very least, enable the Linux tool sar to track historical data…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Emily Hines.

A few weeks ago, March conducted a training session, “Cloud 101 and the Internet of Things.” As an Account Coordinator here at March, I support clients that sit squarely in the Cloud and IOT space so this was a session I wasn’t going to miss. The training was presented by my fellow colleagues, Doug and James.

We began our session with a review of the basic types of clouds: cirrus, stratus, and cumulus. Once we all confirmed that we passed the third grade, we moved on to cloud computing fundamentals and the uses of the cloud. We agreed that “the cloud” is a technology term that is thrown around, overused and misused…

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/cloud-internet-things-101-0969778#k7oQsqWmve0rMSPU.99

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Software analytics company New Relic today announced that it has joined the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), a not-for-profit organization working to establish and promote best practices and education for security assurance in the cloud computing industry with industry leading members such as Google, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce.com and Box among many others. As a pure SaaS application performance management (APM) solution provider, New Relic is promoting industry transparency and customer visibility into the security practices. Customers can download the CSA’s STAR report that documents New Relic’s network and application security controls.

The CSA membership is only the latest security advancement New Relic has taken to assure the security of its network and its service for its over 200,000 users. Not only is New Relic hosted in a secure tier 3 SSAE-16 certified data center, but it has also undergone and completed a comprehensive SOC 2 Type II audit for three consecutive years…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

Back in March, Louis Columbus reported on some numbers from Glassdoor.com showing employees’ rankings of their cloud technology companies. They are not perfect indicators of company culture, but are certainly worth your consideration if you’re looking to work for a cloud provider — or trying to figure out which ones to use as a provider.

Reports like these give an insider’s view into some of the top cloud technology companies. I can get an idea of what the culture is really like, which is an indicator of how well they are building and deploying their cloud tech. People say that having a bunch of unhappy employees doesn’t measure the value of company’s technology…

Grazed from HostReview. Author: Eric Speidel.

The healthcare industry’s computing needs are as varied as its providers. From electronic health records and HIPAA compliance to the myriad paperwork involved in practice management, it is essential that software systems and files are easy to access and as secure as possible.

An important decision for healthcare organizations, medical labs, physicians and other healthcare providers face is whether or not to maintain an on-premise server or use a Cloud-based solution for their electronic health record (EHR) system. A further Cloud consideration is whether to go with a private Cloud solution, or use a public Cloud option (if it’s available from your software manufacturer.)…

Grazed from MarketWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Panthera Technologies, a professional service organization providing business strategy and technology consulting, today announced that it has expanded the breadth and depth of its cloud offerings. Panthera Technologies is now providing a full suite of cloud-based business solutions, including virtual desktops, secure and compliant cloud servers, disaster recovery and backup as a service, all powered by Cirrity, a secure cloud solutions provider.

"In order to succeed today, businesses must be agile and responsive, and cloud-enabled technologies fulfill those needs," said J. Todd Jennings, President and CEO of Panthera Technologies. "With the ability to quickly provision virtual desktops that provide anytime, anywhere access for a mobile workforce, plus the assurance that mission-critical data is protected and available should a disaster occur, companies can focus on their business rather than worrying about technology."…