Grazed from Datamation.  Author: Sean Michael Kerner.

The cloud business has often seemed like a race to the bottom in terms of pricing, with Amazon and Google constantly aiming to make cloud computing resources cheaper. It’s a race that Rackspace doesn’t want to win — instead Rackspace is aiming to find a niche in the managed cloud services market. It’s a market that is showing growth.

Rackspace reported its second quarter fiscal 204 earnings on August 11, with Net revenue coming in at $441 million for a 17 percent year-over-year gain. Looking forward, Rackspace provided third quarter guidance for revenue to be in the range of $454 million to $461 million…

Grazed from InvestorsBusiness Daily.  Author: 

Chip designer Cavium (NASDAQ:CAVM) is back above its 50-day moving average and appears to be working on the right side of a base.  If so, it would be a base-on-base pattern. The stock has been moving basically sideways since 2011. During that time, earnings growth slowed, but it has since revved up, thanks to new products and increased sales of chips used in new technologies.

Cavium designs systems-on-a-chip for the networking, telecom, storage, wireless, security and video markets. The company is best known for its core embedded chips and encrypting security processor chips. Its biggest customer, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), accounted for 19% of sales last year…

Grazed from WRAL.  Author: Editorial Staff.

SAS, the world’s largest privately held software firm, already offers clients use of secure data housing and "cloud" computing services, but the company is expanding its global footprint in an agreement with Amazon.  The deal was announced Tuesday.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

However, one big customer was identified as using the new Amazon Web Service-SAS offering: Lenovo, the world’s top PC manufacturer which operates its global executive headquarters in Morrisville.   SAS executives say that ‘Deal will "absolutely not" affect SAS’ own cloud and data hoisting services…

Grazed from MarketWire.  Author : PR Announcement.

 Today SwiftStack, the leader in software-defined storage for the cloud, proudly announced it won two industry awards, validation of the company’s strong momentum and innovation in the world of cloud storage. CRN declared SwiftStack one of 2014’s hottest emerging storage vendors and The Business Intelligence Group named SwiftStack a finalist in its Stratus Awards.

"The cloud storage market is crowded with public storage competition and large legacy storage players. Standing out underscores the market’s desire for software-defined storage," said Joe Arnold, CEO of SwiftStack. "Our vision is to simplify integration, scalability and management of storage for today’s modern data centers. Being recognized among other cloud innovators in the industry is a reflection of our team’s relentless work to keep our customers competitive."…

Grazed from TalkinCloud.  Author: Chris Talbot.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has hit an interesting point in its evolution as a business. The company is by far the dominant leader in the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) space—a technology category it arguably created.  Although Microsoft (MSFT) is nipping at its heels, Azure still has a long way to go to catch up.

And some believe it will catch up in time. But as Microsoft’s IaaS year-over-year growth looks rather impressive, Amazon’s year-over-year growth is starting to look less so. But don’t let that fool you; Amazon is still growing, but its annual growth rate is slowing, according to an essay on investment blog Seeking Alpha…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/iaas/081214/amazon-revenue-growth-slow-over-time

Grazed from V3.co.uk.  Author: Dave Neal.

Changes to the European data protection landscape could catch cloud computing providers unaware, forcing them on the backfoot if new laws are introduced.  Research by cloud company Skyhigh Networks, of 7,000 cloud services listed in its CloudRegistry directory, found that just one out of every 100 providers is likely to comply with the proposed standards.

This would force them into hasty revisions to their software, or risk falling foul of the new laws and potentially huge fines.  Skyhigh noted the numerous issues that cloud firms face at present, ranging from legislative and data protection rules to the Right to be Forgotten, as Skyhigh Networks’ European director Charlie Howe explained…

Grazed from TalkinCloud.  Author: Dan Kobialka.

IBM (IBM) has acquired Lincoln, Rhode Island-based identity and access management (IAM) platform provider Lighthouse Security Group. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.  Lighthouse Security Group is a subsidiary of IBM partner Lighthouse Computer Services, and its Gateway platform "protects identity and data in an increasingly complex IT environment where more company information is being stored in the cloud and accessed from mobile devices."

Latha Maripuri, director of IBM Security Services, told Talkin’ Cloud she believes the acquisition will help her company develop and launch new identity management solutions and ensure its customers can better manage their IT security deployments.  "This acquisition provides a cloud platform for us to build our future identity management offerings," she said…

Grazed from PRWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud specialist ITonCloud today announced a new service tailored specifically to professional services industries including legal, accounting and aged-care.  Hosted in multiple robust, secure environments in Australia, ITonCloud now offers bespoke cloud solutions specific to industry requirements from $199 per user per month, with no upfront fees and no lock-in contracts.  The service includes a fully maintained ITonCloud environment, an Intelligent Desktop Terminal, and unlimited support calls.

“We’ve been providing end-to-end cloud solutions that deliver the full benefits of cloud to customers, including line of business applications all Microsoft desktop application and licensing in a hosted desktop ,” said Andrew Tucker, Chief Executive Officer, ITonCloud.  “Delivered by our partners, we’re now including industry-specific, tailored applications for the legal, accounting and aged-care sectors in our managed services portfolio.”…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author:  John Brandon.

Horror stories don’t just happen at the movie theater. In a few cases, companies make a big play to use the wrong cloud application or experience widespread outages in their connection to cloud storage.  While vendors claim that cloud services are secure and reliable, that’s not always the case. A better way than relying or vendor promises? Make sure your migration plans, budgets, existing infrastructure, security and any ancillary services all match up before making the jump to the cloud.

What happens when a cloud provider declares bankruptcy?

Late last year, a cloud storage company called Nirvanix shut down and gave customers only a few weeks to move data to a different provider. According to Charles King, an IT analyst, this meant companies with terabytes or even petabytes of data in the cloud had to act quickly. "A business should always have a strong sense of the assets it has stored in the cloud, but it needs to consider those points in terms of the time and cost of retrieving them," King says…

Grazed from BusinessSpectator.   Author: Steve Regini.

Time and again, surveys reveal that cloud computing raises security and reliability worries with CIOs and other execs. Two-thirds (67 per cent) of respondents in an Autumn 2013 IDG Enterprise survey chose security as one of their top three concerns, with integration a distant second (46 per cent). Security is more of an issue for large companies than for small and midsize companies, according to the report.

While these concerns are more often associated with public cloud providers, securing internal networks and ensuring uptime is a perennial challenge. Plenty of harmful and costly incidents happen inside the firewall due to employee error and gaps in protection…