Grazed from DZone. Author: Benjamin Ball.

It was recently mentioned this week on OpenStack’s blog that OpenStack, the free and much-loved open source cloud computing platform, will turn 4 years old on July 19th, and they’re declaring it a cause for celebration. OpenStack celebrates its 4th birthday July 19, and we’re celebrating with the entire OpenStack community during July! User maturity, software maturity and a focus on cloud software operations are rapidly emerging for OpenStack and none of it would be possible without the quickly growing OpenStack community. There are now more than 70 global user groups and 17,000 community members across 139 countries, spanning more than 370 organizations. This calls for a big toast to the OpenStack community members and our users.

At DZone, we’ve always been big supporters of OpenStack and that companies that bring it to its full potential–so we’re going to be talking about OpenStack quite a bit up until their big day. And we hope that DZone readers will be talking about the cloud platform as well. To sort of kick things off in our look at OpenStack, I’ve collected the top four articles about OpenStack published on DZone in the last four years–during the OpenStack lifespan. This is just the tip of the iceberg!…

Grazed from Information-Age. Author: Chloe Green.

Cloud computing has achieved mainstream deployment in the UK according to the latest research from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), with some 78% of organisations formally adopting at least one cloud-based service. The research, conducted in June 2014, polling 250 senior IT and business decision-makers, indicated a nine-point increase or 15% growth over the last research project conducted in September 2013.

This suggests an annualised growth rate of nearer 20% by the end of September 2014. Since the first research was conducted in 2010, UK Cloud adoption has grown by 61.5%. Large private enterprises are showing the highest rates of adoption at just over 80% whilst the sub 200 employee organisations are standing at around 75% and the public sector is still lagging at around 68%…

Grazed from 10Zig. Author: Editorial Staff.

While they are often used as interchangeable concepts by non-IT staff, the concepts of cloud computing are related but quite different. They share the common characteristic of making computing more affordable and flexible. However, these two elements of modern IT infrastructure serve different purposes.

The Internet by Another Name

In the simplest definition of the term, the cloud is nothing more than the Internet, dealing with resources allocated to computing functions. However, use of the concept generally refers to the broader definition, which includes cloud-configured data centers and the related networking infrastructure. As the IT world has moved to use of cloud computing, huge data centers have come into use, dedicated to providing massive capabilities in the areas:…

Grazed from Porticor. Author: PR Announcement.

Porticor®, a leading cloud data security company delivering the only cloud-based data encryption and key management solution that infuses trust into the cloud and keeps cloud data confidential, today announced that TMC, a global, integrated media company, has named its Porticor Virtual Private Data (VPD) system as a 2014 Cloud Computing Excellence Award winner. The Cloud Computing Excellence Award, presented by Cloud Computing magazine, recognizes companies that have most effectively leveraged cloud computing in their efforts to bring new, differentiated offerings to market.

“Recognizing leaders in the advancement of cloud computing, TMC is proud to announce the Porticor Virtual Private Data system as a recipient of the Fourth Annual Cloud Computing Excellence Award,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “Porticor is being honored for its achievement in bringing innovation and excellence to the market, while leveraging the latest technology trends.”…

Grazed from TechCrunch. Author: Frederic Lardinois.

Amazon today launched its most affordable instances for its EC2 cloud computing service yet. Starting at just $0.013 per hour ($9.50 per month) for on-demand access (reserved instances are even cheaper), these new so-called T2 instances come with a caveat, however.

By default, they can only handle a relatively modest amount of computation. Indeed, the small t2.micro instance only runs at about 10 percent of it maximum power. Amazon, however, gives you a set number of credits per day that you can use to get full bursts of CPU power for a limited time…

Grazed from FedScoop. Author: Greg Otto.

For both the public and private sector, agility is starting to outweigh cost when it comes to cloud computing. A new Harvard Business Review survey released Wednesday found that large and midsize organizations that have adopted cloud computing have seen an increase in business agility.

Seventy-four percent of the 527 people surveyed said their business has gained “some” to “significant” advantages thanks to cloud implementation. When asked how cloud allowed businesses to achieve those advantages, the respondents said cloud enhanced their responses to market changes, provided easier data accessibility and boosted collaboration between team members…

Grazed from SeekingAlpha. Author: Editorial Staff.

Technology giant, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), has been restructuring its business to boost profitability and focus on new verticals that offer better growth opportunity. As part of this strategy, the company is continuously expanding its portfolio of cloud services. In a recent move, the company has struck a partnership with German enterprise software developer, SAP AG (SAP), to deploy SAP’s in-memory database platform HANA as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model.

We believe that this offering was a logical extension to an earlier deal according to which HP is the primary infrastructure provider for SAP-HANA deployment that will be carried out by Accenture. [2] In this article, we will explore why cloud services are important for HP, and how it can generate more revenue for the company in the future. Furthermore, we will briefly explain the new cloud product offered by HP…

Grazed from BetaNews. Author: Steve Browell.

Today’s workplace plays host to employees using a variety of cloud services side-by-side with corporate-sanctioned IT. This often results in incongruent information sourcing and storage, typically known as cloud sprawl. Whilst software as a service (SaaS) can boost smarter working and innovation in businesses, information disparity issues need to be addressed to sustain efficient working environments.

As businesses adoption and management of cloud services matures, some are still suffering organizational inefficiencies due to cloud sprawl. At the moment, different software is being selected for different solutions by different departments or even individual members of staff; there is a knowledge gap where businesses aren’t fully informed about how cloud technology can respond to business challenges in a different way to on-premise solutions, and so the potential for better information management is not being realized…

Grazed from DataCenterKnowledge. Author: Yevgebut Sverdlik.

Google and Microsoft have teamed up with Arista Networks, Broadcom and Mellanox to create a consortium around a new Ethernet standard for connecting servers to top-of-rack switches in data centers to support the next generation of cloud computing network requirements.

The 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium’s aim is to promote quick development of higher-bandwidth access networking equipment needed to support workloads in hyper-scale data centers whose requirements will soon surpass the 10 Gigabit per second Ethernet and 40 GbE protocols being supported today, according to the members…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Ellen Yu.

The number of virtualized systems in Asia is still very low and needs to ramp up in order for cloud to be more widely adopted in the region, concerns also have held back adoption, though businesses are now starting to realize the benefits of moving to the cloud are too great to ignore.

In an interview with ZDNet, Dimension Data Asia-Pacific CEO Bill Padfield pointed to industry stats that put the adoption of virtualization in Asia-Pacific at between 18 percent and 25 percent. The region is under-virtualized, compared to markets such as Australia where the level of virtualized systems clocked at 85 percent. As the underlying infrastructure and enabler of cloud computing, basic virtualization needs to be deployed before companies can adopt cloud services, Padfield noted…