Author: David

Grazed from GCN. Author: Rutrell Yasin.

Almost half of U.S. state and local governments in a recent survey by the Unisys Corp. are planning or are already involved in cloud computing projects, according to the firm, which found that hardware and software cost savings were top drivers moving agencies to the cloud. The research, conducted for Unisys by the Center for Digital Government, surveyed 109 IT managers from 18 states between July and August 2013.

In addition to cost savings, about one-fifth of the respondents said the ability to meet the demands of a growing mobile workforce was a top incentive for cloud adoption. Forty-six percent of all respondents reported they have or are planning to launch mobility or bring-your-own-device programs…

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

CloudPassage ®, a leading cloud infrastructure security provider, announced today that its Halo cloud security platform has received HP ArcSight Common Event Format (CEF) Certification. Businesses today require IT support when they need it and only when they need it. That is the benefit of cloud computing and also the challenge. The adoption of cloud infrastructure creates new security and compliance burdens.

Security and compliance teams need extensive controls and processes built on Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions and seek to extend those investments to audit complex, highly dynamic cloud environments. The completion of CloudPassage’s Halo CEF certification unlocks the ability for these enterprise teams to gain deep visibility into cloud infrastructure systems anywhere, including virtualized, private cloud, public cloud, and even traditional hardware devices…

Grazed from RedHat.  Author: Event Announcement.

The Red Hat Summit, to be held on April 14-17, 2014, is the premier open source technology event to showcase the latest and greatest in cloud computing, platform, virtualization, middleware, storage, and systems management technologies.

The Red Hat Summit is meant for anyone looking to exponentially increase their understanding of open source technology and identify powerful solutions for their business needs. There is something for everyone to benefit from at both events. From community enthusiasts and system administrators to enterprise architects and CxOs, we have sessions and tracks for each level of interest and need.  By attending, you’ll gain the best knowledge in the industry through:…

Grazed from CloudSigma. Author: PR Announcement.

CloudSigma an international, customer-centric, pure-cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider, today announced a further drop of its compute prices for customers across all its locations. Similar to the previous benefits attributed this summer, the pricing drop is based on a combination of additional efficiency gains from the company’s proprietary cloud technology and falling underlying hardware costs.

As a result of CloudSigma’s recent cloud 2.0 upgrade the company is able to reflect the gains of higher utilization and better resource management capabilities through lower subscription and pay-as-you-go burst pricing. Moreover, the recent CPU, SSD and software defined networking innovations in CloudSigma’s cloud have shown an increase of 30-40 percent performance…

Grazed from CIO. Author: Bernard Golden.

In my presentation on hybrid cloud computing at Interop New York, I began (as I often do) with a review of the NIST definition of the five characteristics of cloud computing. I think the National Institute of Standards and Technology has done a great service in codifying its definition, and I rely on it to communicate the key characteristics of cloud computing — and, more importantly, to draw the distinctions between cloud computing and the traditional IT approach to infrastructure management.

The first characteristic in NIST’s definition relates to self-service: "A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each services provider."…

Grazed from The Guardian. Author: Jon Card.

For many businesses server rooms are a thing of the past. Rather than designating a corner of the office as a staff no-go area and housing boiling hot computer stacks in them, businesses have migrated their various software needs into the cloud.

The benefits for small businesses are obvious; cost, efficiency, mobility and also the ability to upgrade or switch when new programmes become available. For business owners such as Andy Atalla, founder of digital marketing agency atom42, the choice was a no-brainer. His business was established in 2007, but as it began to grow he was increasingly persuaded by the benefits of cloud computing. "Cloud computing isn’t just important to what we do, it’s part of the fabric of how we operate. Almost everything we do is cloud-based. Without these services, we wouldn’t be able to operate."…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Cloud traffic will soon be dominating data centers, according to new research from Cisco Systems (CSCO). The networking giant’s Cisco Global Cloud Index (2012 – 2017) forecasts that cloud traffic will be the fastest-growing part of overall data center traffic over the next five years, with a 35 percent combined annual growth rate (CAGR).

Considering how quickly consumers and businesses are shifting to the cloud, even in small ways, high cloud traffic growth within the data center probably comes as little surprise. But here’s what this really means in terms of bandwidth being consumed. In 2012, cloud represented 1.2 zettabytes (ZB) of traffic. By 2017, it’s going to consume 5.3 ZB of data center traffic every year. Total data center traffic in 2017 will reach 7.7 ZB…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

It’s been more than two years since GoDaddy took its first baby steps into the cloud computing world. The popular web hosting provider launched an IaaS and cloud hosting offering June 2011. Since then, the company has been slowly building out its customer base. Now GoDaddy has taken another big step through the acquisition of web hosting and cloud services provider (mt) Media Temple.

Its newly acquired company, which goes by (mt) in all of its corporate messaging, isn’t a huge name in cloud, but it does have its niche—specifically in the creative realm, serving digital designers, developers, entrepreneurs and innovators. That’s a bit of a departure for GoDaddy, which has a much more horizontal audience, although it does primarily aim to serve small businesses…

Grazed from JumpCloud. Author: PR Announcement.

JumpCloud™, an automated server ops, user management, and security tool for DevOps and IT pros, announced today that it has joined the Amazon Web Services™ (AWS) Solution Providers Program. An automated SaaS-based offering, JumpCloud installs in seconds and immediately starts protecting your servers.

JumpCloud completes the IT arsenal by automating many of the manual, tedious processes around server administration. Installed in seconds, JumpCloud equips IT pros with essential operations tools, and configuration management and monitoring solutions, such as Chef, Puppet, and New Relic…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Peter Waterhouse.

I’m a sucker for blockbuster movies, and one of my all-time favorites is Fight Club starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. For those of you unfamiliar with this gritty film, it’s the story of an insomniac office worker who meets a soap salesman and together they form an underground fight club. The fight club is a brutal affair, but founded on a set of spoken and indisputable rules.

This got me thinking about the importance of rules and the struggle IT professionals have every day trying to explain to their business counterparts the value of new disruptive technologies — and how like in the Fight Club, the winners will be those that stick to the rules…