Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: William Welsh.

NIST identifies 65 challenges that forensic investigators face in gathering and analyzing digital information stored in the cloud, seeks help developing standards to aid law enforcement. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released a draft report for public comment that sets forth the daunting challenges forensic examiners face in tracking down and using digital information stored in the cloud.

The draft report, "NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Challenges," sets forth 65 challenges of cloud forensics divided into nine categories that a working group drawn from the government, private sector and academia has identified in the course of its examination of the challenge…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Syed Raza.

Cloud computing technology is transforming our environment, workplaces, as well as organizations by provisioning massive quantities of computing power available to even the smallest companies on a pay-as-you-go basis. The exponential adoption of cloud is a welcome change, however, like coin having two sides, the innovations that have made cloud computing possible also have a slightly darker side.

As a foremost, we send e-mails, surf the Web, exchange messages and post comments to blogs, we inevitably leave a digital trail. At every stage of the communication process, no matter how many servers it passes through, established security parameters and protocols act as a watchdog, monitoring the flow of data. This, however, depends on the security tools and preferences…

Grazed from The Brookings Institute. Author: Joshua Bleiberg and Darrell M. West.

The first instance of “cloud” computing came in 2006, when Amazon released its Elastic Compute Cloud, a service for consumers to lease space on virtual machines to run software. Now, the cloud enables the transfer and storage of data around the world, in an almost seamless fashion. Using cloud services are a seamless experience from the consumer perspective.

This ease of use obscures significant regulation from governments on both sides of the Atlantic. The Safe Harbor Principles is a framework that ensures that personal consumer data being transferred from the EU to the US is still subject to a level of security in compliance with the EU’s stricter regulation on data protection. US companies must be certified within this framework, in order to transfer consumer data outside the EU…

Grazed from Reuters. Author: Harro Ten Wolde.

German business software maker SAP raised its sales forecast for web-based software on Thursday, saying competitors were unable to match the security of its cloud computing systems. Cloud computing allows businesses to cut costs by ditching bulky servers for network-based systems using remote data centres run by technology companies.

The company said it expected revenue from cloud subscriptions and support of between 1 billion and 1.05 billion euros in constant currency terms this year, up from a previous forecast for 950 million to 1 billion euros. Revenue from its cloud business jumped by 32 percent to 242 million euros in the second quarter, helping overall revenue grow 2 percent to 4.2 billion euros…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Kevin Maney.

Two of the hippest places to work operate out of anti-offices. At Airbnb’s headquarters in San Francisco, every meeting area is decorated to look, in remarkable detail, like some Airbnb rental somewhere in the world. One conference room is modeled on the War Room in Dr. Strangelove.

In New York City, product innovation company Quirky’s offices in a former warehouse look like a cross between a hip nightclub and a giant preschool, outfitted with a conference table made from industrial fans and a giant map that shows where your colleagues are going on vacation. (All employees can take as much vacation as they want. Yay!) The sign on the front entrance says: “Deliveries & humans: 7th Floor. Suits: Go away.”..

Grazed from EconomicTimes. Author: Editorial Staff.

Over the past few years, Cloud has become the preferred infrastructure mode for start-ups, helping them grow and scale rapidly. Dropbox, 99 Designs, Instagram, Parse and RedBus are some of the examples where Cloud played a significant role in their success. Realising the growth potential in this space, Cloud service providers started to lure early-stage start-ups to host their products on their Cloud platforms.

Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Rackspace and IBM have specific programmes designed for start-ups, so that they can easily get started on Cloud. These technology biggies are partnering with reputed incubators and accelerators to support their portfolio companies. Microsoft has gone a step ahead and invested in its own accelerator to attract start-ups to its Azure Cloud platform. Here are five resources for start-ups who want to join the Cloud bandwagon…

Grazed from Decoded. Author: Editorial Staff.

IBM, or the International Business Machines Corporation, brings to the world an exciting innovation of the widely adopted cloud technology. This US consulting and multinational technology corporation has been developing something new out of cloud computing, known as the “Blue Cloud”. Cloud Computing and Blue Cloud, what’s the difference?

Cloud computing provides shared services or resources, information and software to computers and other devices over a network like the internet. It is considered more to be a computing service rather than a product. The cloud technology is an emerging method giving emphasis on shared infrastructure and services wherein massive groups of systems are interconnected for the provision of IT services…

Grazed from SysCon Media. Author: David H. Deans.

Some people are never satisfied. These fearless agents of change are everywhere. They’re informed, confident and willing to experiment. They seek out the best business technology solution for the job at hand. They act on instinct. Yes, you could say that they’re driven. However, they’re also at risk of being labeled as "rogue employees" because they ordered a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering and perhaps expensed it without prior approval.

Sometimes they’re the champion of progressive projects that are referred to as Shadow IT — intentionally bypassing their company’s formal evaluation and procurement process. How can this happen? Is it just because their activities are tolerated, or are they being encouraged? If so, by whom?…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Dan Kobialka.

Cloud-based voice and data communications provider NetFortris yesterday unveiled new services for mid-sized, multi-location enterprises. NetFortris, previously known as Telekenex, is offering a Cloud Communications Platform (CCP) that manages application and network resources.

"The NetFortris CCP is a powerful platform upon which organizations can grow their business," NetFortris CEO Grant Evans said in a prepared statement. "We’ve built a world-class support infrastructure, giving companies the support they need as they build their IT infrastructure on the NetFortris platform."…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Thomas Landstreet.

When you read that IT spending is weak, as Gartner announced recently, don’t let it spook you – that’s the whole point of cloud computing. It dramatically lowers the cost of owning information technology. As more and more firms adopt cloud computing, legacy IT companies are left with bloated infrastructures and stale business models. I view cloud computing as a classic case of creative destruction with fat legacy software, hardware and IT services margins as the only victim.

As we approach earnings season, I want to highlight three companies that I think will report weak results driving their share prices lower. IBM IBM +2.05% and SAP report earnings tomorrow and CapGemini reports on July 31st. They’re all in the same boat but for slightly different reasons…