Author: David

Grazed from ITWorld. Author: Joab Jackson.

Eucalyptus has updated its namesake software to make it easier for organizations to set up their own, in-house versions of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud, letting users run Amazon workloads in private cloud deployments. Eucalyptus 3.4, available now, also comes with a number of new tools to ease system administration management in the enterprise.

The open source Eucalyptus platform allows an organization to set up cloud services that duplicate all of the AWS application programming interfaces (APIs), guaranteeing that any workload running on AWS can also run on a Eucalyptus platform. The point is that users who like using AWS but who are afraid of getting locked into the service can deploy Eucalyptus as an in-house alternative…

Grazed from MidsizeInsider. Author: Doug Bonderud.

While agility and responsiveness are important factors for any midsize company considering a move to distributed computing, cloud pricing remains the top priority. But in a segmented market where any start-up can purchase servers and start to offer managed services, it is difficult to accurately evaluate cost: What is a unit of the cloud really worth to IT professionals?

Grab a Stopwatch

There is no exact date for the birth of public cloud computing though most experts use 2006 as a solid starting point since it marked the first time that cloud deployments were available to companies and consumers at large. Clouds have since struggled through an adolescence riddled with hype and expectation and have finally matured into a stable market with a host of players from technology mainstays to mom-and-pop start-ups capable of providing national and international compute power. The problem, according to a recent eWeek article, is that no one ever sat down and defined how cloud computing should be measured, let alone priced. The result is a market with providers who charge whatever businesses will bear…

Grazed from WashingtonPost. Author: Editorial Staff.

The National Security Agency broke into secure networks owned by Google and Yahoo, which gave the US spy agency “back-door access” to hundreds of millions of private records, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The report, based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, said the NSA infiltrated links connecting data centers of the two web giants around the world, yielding more than 181 million records over a 30-day period earlier this year…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

CSC has signed a definitive agreement to acquire ServiceMesh, an enterprise cloud management company. This strategic acquisition enables CSC to continue its transformation into a next-generation IT company that helps its clients migrate their applications into cloud computing environments.

"The future of next-generation IT infrastructure will involve a set of multiple clouds utilized simultaneously by enterprises," explained CSC President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Lawrie. "ServiceMesh allows us to catalogue enterprise applications and orchestrate those applications dynamically to run in different clouds based on the characteristics of the applications. From our unique position as an independent global technology company, we will integrate those workloads for our clients through our portfolio of services and technologies."…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Dan Sullivan.

Moving applications to a public IaaS or PaaS cloud may simplify your hardware management, but it opens new issues around software licensing. Some of your contracts may not address cloud computing specifically because a vendor’s licensing model may predate cloud. While Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other cloud vendors offer cloud-specific software licenses, they introduce their own complications. Here are five things to keep in mind as you assess how your cloud migration plans can affect your software licensing.

1. What licensing model does your software vendor use? Sometimes it seems there are as many software licensing models as software vendors. Some vendors’ license models are based on the number of named users, while others prefer to charge based on the number of concurrent users. Other providers use the server processor or number of cores for determining fees…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Crystal Bedell.

As organizations move beyond their initial Software as a Service (SaaS) deployments, they’re recognizing the increasing need to integrate data and processes between the public cloud and their on-premises databases and applications. In fact, according to a study by 451 Research, a New York City-based analyst organization, migration and integration together make up the second-largest cloud computing pain point cited by IT decision makers, behind only security. Not surprisingly, a variety of vendors have moved in to address the challenge of the cloud integration process.

"It’s still early in this market, just like it’s still early in cloud computing," said Bernard Golden, senior director of the cloud computing enterprise solutions group at Dell. "But there’s take-up of these solutions." While it’s still a nascent market, it’s one that he expects to grow a lot…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Janel Ryan.

The great IT debate about how best to leverage the benefits of cloud computing continues. Is it better to own or rent? The answer is, “it depends” on what you’re evaluating and your specific requirements. Rent to own furniture…I’ll save you the trouble. Don’t do it. With Cloud, businesses like yours need to look at what is the best fit for you – it is economics as well as strategic focus. And if you’re doing your homework right, it’s not a simple process.

Not only is it difficult to accurately quantify the true cost of cloud infrastructure from a provider versus building it yourself, you also need to assess your reasons for buying cloud. Most don’t make the move to cloud for anticipated savings. Most move for business reasons such as agility, scale, or simply “getting it done faster.” According to some stats, over 46% see cost savings as one of the benefits of cloud computing, while 43% see efficiency as a benefit…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Technology Marketing Corp’s. Cloud Computing Magazine has honored Interactive Intelligence Group Inc. ININ +1.32% with a 2013 Cloud Computing Excellence Award. Interactive Intelligence, a global provider of software and services designed to improve the customer experience, received the award for its cloud communications offering, Interactive Intelligence CaaS(SM). Interactive Intelligence CaaS(SM) gives mid-size to large organizations secure and reliable access to a wide range of contact center, unified communications, and business process automation applications, all built on best-practices for cloud computing.

"Interactive Intelligence saw the future of the cloud several years ago," said TMC Group Editorial Director Erik Linask. "Its execution speaks for itself. Last year the vendor reported an increase in cloud-based orders of 123 percent over the previous year. Its customers are clearly embracing the security, reliability, breadth of functionality, and flexibility that Interactive Intelligence CaaS(SM) offers."…

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Ashish Thusoo.

A recent Gartner report places big data at the peak of inflated expectations in a hype cycle of emerging technologies. While big data is experiencing the height of its buzz, cloud computing, on the other hand, appears to have slumped into the "trough of disillusionment," according to Gartner.

The graph strikingly plots how big data is still on a rise, as indicated by the report, while cloud computing has peaked and fallen in interest. This places decision makers in the difficult position of either investing in big data and risking resources on an emerging trend, or ignoring the trend and potentially being left behind. The example of cloud computing demonstrates that hype can, and often does, precede a paradigm shift in an industry. Time has shown that while betting on the cloud was risky, it ultimately gave a first-mover advantage to the risk-takers…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Joe Masters Emison.

Several months ago, I said that Netflix’s push to drive the adoption of its open-source cloud-management toolkit, NetflixOSS, had the potential to "ruin cloud computing." Part of my argument revolved around the Netflix Aminator tool, which facilities the creation of Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). While Aminator may be a good choice for Netflix, I argued that it encourages exactly the wrong habits for the majority of companies trying to deploy applications in the cloud.

After many long discussions about that initial article, I believe there is still significant confusion about how one should best use AMIs (or the equivalent from other public cloud providers), and so I am dedicating this column to what I call "the baking debate."…