Author: David

Grazed from TheVar Guy.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Oracle (ORCL) and Microsoft (MSFT) are poised to update their cloud computing partnership at OpenWorld 2013. Announcements are set for the next few days, The VAR Guy has confirmed. What’s on tap? Here are answers… and speculation.

As you may recall, Oracle and Microsoft announced a cloud relationship ealier this year. At OpenWorld 2013, it’s safe to expect the two technology giants to further explain how Oracle’s database, middleware and Java can run in the Windows Azure cloud. Also, watch for the two companies to further describe how Oracle applications run run more efficiently on Windows Server and Hyper-V…

Grazed from Christian Science Monitor.  Author: Leslie Meredith.

Cloud computing, or using remote Internet servers to store data, may be one of the most misunderstood terms in our country today.  A recent survey reveals the depth of misconception swirling around the simple term "cloud" — people say they don’t use cloud computing when almost all of them do, and they just can’t shake the association with weather. The problem may not be with understanding the technology, but simply a case of choosing the wrong name.

What’s in a name? TechNewsDaily turned to naming consultant Adam King of Sun Valley, Idaho, who named Spike TV, an action-packed cable channel geared toward men. He was not surprised at the confusion swirling around the meaning of "the cloud."…

Grazed from eWeek.  Author: Sean Michael Kerner.

The open-source OpenStack cloud platform is a rapidly growing effort that is driving increasing demand for skilled professionals who know what it’s all it about. To that end, the OpenStack Foundation this week officially announced the OpenStack Training Marketplace to help meet the demand for skilled IT professionals.  In 2012, a number of companies emerged that began to offer some basic training on OpenStack, Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the OpenStack Foundation, told eWEEK.

OpenStack, which was born in 2010 when NASA joined with Rackspace to formally launch the project, now has the support of many of the world’s leading IT vendors, including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Intel, Cisco and AT&T, among others.   "There is now a huge demand for OpenStack expertise, so what we want to do is to try and put in place some standards for OpenStack education and training," Bryce said…

Grazed from BusinessWeek.  Author: Aaron Ricadela.

Oracle Corp. Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison, whose sailing team is trailing Emirates Team New Zealand in the America’s Cup yacht race, is also facing headwinds in cloud-computing and business applications.

To combat that, the world’s biggest database-software provider is unveiling new products targeting customers of SAP AG (SAP) and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM:US) at the company’s OpenWorld customer conference in San Francisco next week. They include a high-end computer system that can tackle more data-processing jobs using fast memory chips…

Grazed from DifferenceBetween.info.  Author: Editorial Staff.

There is no precise definition to explain cloud computing. However, it is referred to as a model that provides an on-line network access to a shared pool of resources. Cloud computing is based on TCP/IP model and it is used to define a new class of computing that is based on network technology. Cloud computing takes place over the internet. It comprises of a collection of integrated and networked hardware, software and internet infrastructure.

These infrastructures are used to provide various services to the users. One of the biggest advantage of using cloud computing is that it hides the complexity and details of underlying infrastructure, and thus users can easily avail the services through simple graphical interfaces. These systems are virtually managed and often distributed…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Lisa Wirthman.

Should lawyers entrust client confidentiality to cloud computing?  The American Bar Association (ABA) says there’s a legitimate business argument to be made for using subscription-based legal software that stores certain data on a vendor’s servers but also cite ethical concerns over whether attorneys should hand over sensitive data to a third party.  And opinions vary over who has the ultimate responsibility to safeguard client confidentiality – cloud providers or users?

The Case for the Cloud

Attorneys use legal software for tasks such as case management, billing, document assembly and trial presentation. In a profession notorious for long hours, the ability to access legal software over the Internet from multiple computing platforms and devices makes it easier for attorneys to continue working while at home or on the road, says the ABA…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Bugsnag, the cloud-based crash monitoring platform for mobile and web apps, today announced that the company has secured $1.4 million in seed funding. The round was led by Matrix Partners and included participation from top cloud and SaaS angels, including Jason Seats, founder of Slicehost, and Andy McLoughlin, founder of Huddle.

Funding will be used to further Bugsnag’s leadership in app monitoring and expand the company’s engineering division to keep up with rising customer demand. As the only fully cross-platform application monitoring platform, Bugsnag is committed to investing in innovation around its core platform and expanding its mobile monitoring products…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Marissa Tejada.

Cloud computing has proven to do more than just save businesses money, and companies are responding by adopting the technology with more enthusiasm. A new survey by International Data Group (IDG) shows that companies are seeing the cloud for its overall value, which means increased adoption in the future. This trend will be especially noticeable among midsize firms.

IT Professionals Look to the Cloud

The IDG survey featured in InfoWorld took into account the responses from IT professionals at both the executive and mid-level management tiers. The results revealed that IT professionals are viewing the cloud as more than just a technology that saves money. Almost half of the executives surveyed said they believe cloud computing has the capability to positively shift their business strategies. Fifty-six percent said that their company’s business value would be improved by the cloud because of increased access to important business data and applications. Forty percent had their IT professionals researching cloud implementations. Only a small amount, 5 percent, stated that they find the cloud of no value to their business…

Grazed from 6Fusion. Author: PR Announcement.

6fusion, the company standardizing economic measurement of IT infrastructure and enabling a global marketplace for buyers and sellers, today announced the launch of the 6fusion Marketplace, which enables users and suppliers of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) to buy and sell in a standardized, yet flexible open marketplace.

The 6fusion Marketplace is based on two key technologies, the Workload Allocation Cube (WAC), the industry’s first patented benchmark to universally measure consumption and capacity of compute, network and storage resources, and compute types which represent categories of commonly occurring infrastructure consumption patterns. Leveraging the WAC and compute types, the 6fusion marketplace standardizes IaaS contracting across service providers and makes it simpler to determine the infrastructure type, quantities, timeframe, and pricing that best match business and technical requirements in the marketplace. The WAC and compute types make it simple to compare and contrast prices and terms against multiple similar suppliers improving overall IT spend efficiency…

Grazed from TheNextWeb. Author: Rich Quick.

In the third instalment of TNW’s enterprise cloud computing series, we take a look at security in the Cloud. Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, may have once claimed he’d never lost sleep over cloud security, as users just needed to choose harder passwords, but security is still the biggest roadblock to enterprise cloud adoption, with 30% of corporate IT decision makers saying it’s their biggest pain point, according to a recent survey by 415 Research. But what are the biggest risks to your enterprise’s security as cloud adoption increases?

Departments moving to the Cloud without involving IT

Despite all the technical security risks of cloud computing, the biggest risks are often human factors. IT departments are understandably cautious about moving mission-critical applications to the Cloud, due to fears about security, downtime and control. However, other departments in the same company may already be signing up to cloud services, without even involving the IT department…