Microsoft Report Links Cloud Computing with Small Business Growth
Microsoft Corp. (IW 500/16) released a report this week demonstrating how small businesses are turning to the cloud to help them become major players in the global market.
With paid cloud services expected to double in the next five years and triple in the next three with small companies, the research report shows that small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are increasingly turning to these services to expand their geographical reach and identify global opportunities previously unavailable to them.
"Gone are the days of large enterprises holding the keys to enterprise-class IT and services," said Marco Limena, vice president of Operator Channels at Microsoft. "The cloud levels the playing fields for SMBs, helping them compete in today’s quickly changing business environment by spending less time and money on IT and more time focused on their most important priority — growing their businesses."…
Reality Check: Busting Through Cloud Computing Myths
How many times have you heard the following about cloud computing?
- “The cloud can work for SMBs, but won’t scale for our enterprise needs.”
- “If I can’t track enterprise data in the cloud, then I won’t put it there"
- “The cloud is not secure.”
As IT consultants, MCPc hears and assesses “cloud myths” like these every day. We bust through them by leveraging the latest virtualization and cloud computing technologies to enable secure, mobile anyplace workspace environments for our clients…
EMEA public sector cloud adoption still slow
Less than half of public sector organisations in EMEA have budget specifically assigned to cloud computing, IDC research has revealed.
And none of the respondents to a recent IDC Government Insights report have more than 15 per cent of budget allocated to the cloud.
According to IDC, the survey shows that the opportunity for public sector organisations to capitalise on the benefits of the cloud is clear, but their unease with walking into the unknown is equally evident…
Cloud Computing: GridGain Claims It’s Big Data 2.0
GridGain Systems has upgraded its namesake Java-based open source middleware platform for real-time Big Data processing.
Unlike complex, decade-old SQL, ERP or Hadoop ETL systems that use dead data for batch offline processing, the new GridGain 4.0 will process live data so businesses can get meaningful results faster from low-latency real-time transactional and analytical processing. By comparison GridGain CEO Nikita Ivanov claims Hadoop is only good for long-term historical storage. GridGain is more like "Big Data 2.0."…
The Not-So-Hidden Risk of a Cloud Meltdown, and Why I’m Not So Worried
In “The hidden risk of a meltdown in the cloud,” a Technology Review blogger reacts to a paper by Bryan Ford on “the unrecognised risks of cloud computing.” I don’t know, the risks seem familiar to me. Beyond security, they are:
- Unpredictable interactions among loosely-coupled services
- Inability to preserve or reproduce an application or data set
The Technology Review blogger, who is evidently known only by the nom de plume Kentucky FC, echoes Ford’s conclusion: We ought to study these risks “before our socioeconomic system becomes completely and irreversibly dependent on a computing model whose foundations may still be incompletely understood.”…
Cloud Computing Expert Says ‘Resistance Is Futile’
When it comes to cloud computing, tech consultant Michael Simon Bodner says, “This is not an option” — it’s mandatory.
Like Star Trek’s Borg, he says, “Resistance is futile.”
Bodner told a CEO audience Thursday that the advantages of cloud computing are just so compelling that every business will likely make use of it and benefit from it.
“Start experimenting and prepare to prosper,” Bodner told an audience of about 150 at the Vistage Michigan Technology Summit at the Inn at St. John’s in Plymouth. Vistage is a business leadership group…
Cloud Computing: Washington to Put $200 Million into Big Data R&D
The Obama Administration Thursday unveiled a Big Data Research and Development Initiative that will see the six federal agencies and departments put $200 million or more into Big Data R&D.
These new commitments are supposed to improve the tools and techniques needed to access, organize and glean discoveries from huge volumes of digital data.
Dr. John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said, "In the same way that past federal investments in information technology R&D led to dramatic advances in supercomputing and the creation of the Internet, the initiative we are launching today promises to transform our ability to use Big Data for scientific discovery, environmental and biomedical research, education and national security."…
UXFlip wins cloud computing Best in Show
UXFlip won the Best in Show award for its presentation at the Phorum 2012 National Cloud Computing Conference on Wednesday.
The West Chester, Pa., company was one of 14 companies to present at the conference, which was put on by the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies at World Cafe Live in University City. The companies presented during the conference’s “Demo Pit” segment and the “Best in Show” winner was selected by audience vote.
UXFlip is developing a platform that allows mobile-app developers to manage their apps’ user interfaces from the cloud. The company was part of DreamIt Ventures’ last Philadelphia class and the description of it on DreamIt’s website is more illuminating than the company’s own website…
Hexagrid and Cobalt team to develop a cloud-based disaster recovery offering
Hexagrid, a developer of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing solutions, announced this week that Cobalt Solutions, a Las Vegas based data center solutions provider, has utilized Hexagrid’s cloud computing platform to launch a cloud-based Disaster Recovery (DR) solution that offers true business continuity.
Hexagrid and Cobalt developed this solution to augment Cobalt’s already extensive DR portfolio of solutions which combine to offer businesses a comprehensive opportunity to proceed with “business as usual” when disaster strikes…
Private cloud-public cloud schism is a meaningless distraction
I’ve heard it all about private clouds over the last few years. "Private clouds are not true clouds," say the public cloud computing purists. "Private clouds are the best way to move toward cloud computing," say those who typically sell older technology in need of a quick cloud rebranding to become relevant.
The focus needs to be on the architecture and the right-fitting enabling technology, including both private and public cloud technology, and not gratuitous opinions. There should be no limits on the technology solution patterns you can apply. If that means private, public, or a mix of both, that’s fine as long as you do your requirements homework and can validate that you have chosen the right solution…