Author: David

Grazed from ITWorld. Author: Joab Jackson.

The competition between Microsoft’s Windows Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) has moved to the caching layer: Both companies updated their caching services this week. Caching services can improve response times for applications by delivering frequently consulted data and functionality from a server’s working memory, or RAM, without calling it up from a slower hard drive.

AWS has expanded its ElastiCache service with a second popular open-source caching engine, Redis. The company has offered Memcached, on object storage cache, for some time. Like Memcached, Redis offers an in-memory key-value store, one good for storing sorted sets and lists. ElastiCache supports Redis’ master/slave replication capabilities, making it useful for offering multi-zone redundancy…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Richard Minney.

To state the obvious, businesses of all sizes are moving their applications to the cloud or renting software as a service (SaaS) instead of licensing or buying the software outright. The number one reason people cite is cost. Businesses large and small are under the impression they can save a bundle by moving their apps to the cloud. At the same time, companies who handle a move to the cloud badly can suffer a negative backlash from their user community.

When you consider all the cost factors, like your time, energy and risk to your business, will you save money in the long run by going with SaaS? The short answer is no. One thing is clear: businesses will pay less up front for cloud vs. on-premise. Modern SaaS systems are rented on a pay-as-you-go basis, or might have short-term contracts…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Steve Ranger.

You could be forgiven for believing that cloud computing floats on nothing (apart, perhaps, from the hot air emited by overexcited vendors), but it actually has a very solid base, otherwise known as infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). IaaS comprises the most fundamental building blocks of any cloud service; the processing, storage and network infrastructure upon which all cloud applications are built.

In a typical IaaS scenario, the service provider delivers the server, storage and networking hardware and its virtualisation and then it’s up the customer to implement the operating systems, middleware and applications they require…

Grazed from CDM Media.  Author: Event Announcement.

The Big Data Summit is an opportunity for C-level executives who are involved in data storage, data management and data analysis to gather and discuss how companies can effectively manage, protect and leverage the growing amounts of data in the enterprise.

With a focus on best practices, the event will allow attendees to explore strategies and technologies surrounding real-time data processing, data protection and privacy, meeting industry regulations and compliance, and data storage.


These points and more are the theme at the 2013 Big Data Summit, to be held in Scottsdale, AZ, on Dec 08 -10, 2013 ...

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Message Bus, pioneer of cloud infrastructure for email, mobile and social messaging, today announced it has been named a 2013 Emerging Cloud Vendor by UBM’s CRN Magazine: http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/cloud/240160022/emerging-vendors-2013-cloud-vendors.htm?pgno=1.

According to CRN, "Cloud computing is arguably the single most important trend to hit the IT industry in years. It’s not only forcing established vendors to change their game plans, but the cloud revolution has created opportunities for a whole new generation of emerging vendors."…

Grazed from TheWhir. Author: Justin Lee.

Automated server migration solution provider RiverMeadow Software announced on Wednesday it has closed a $12 million Series B financing round that included investors Cisco, Violin Memory and others. The move comes a few weeks after RiverMeadow Software released version 2.0 of RiverMeadow Cloud Migration SaaS which delivers a wide range of feature and infrastructure enhancements.

The new funding will help go to support RiverMeadow’s growth as the company drives deployments of the RiverMeadow Cloud Migration SaaS with carriers and service providers around the world. “This is a significant milestone for RiverMeadow which validates the enormous potential we see for our cloud migration solution,” said Mark Shirman, CEO of RiverMeadow. “The RiverMeadow Cloud Migration SaaS has already gained tremendous traction and acceptance with many of the world’s largest cloud infrastructure manufacturers and service providers…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Charles McLellan.

Organisations seeking to exploit today’s highly virtualised, flexible and scalable ‘cloud’ IT infrastructure have a number of deployment options, depending on the level of ownership and control they wish to retain over the server, storage and networking resources involved, and the data processed by these IT resources.

The most conservative approach is to house and manage the IT infrastructure in your organisation’s own data centre, running whatever workloads are currently suitable for deployment on a private cloud platform. Established organisations will probably run such ‘cloud-ready’ workloads alongside existing enterprise applications during a period of experimentation and transition, as they dip their toes into the world of private cloud computing…

Grazed from SecurityInfoWatch. Author: Hormazd Romer.

The cloud computing evolution is well entrenched, and has made significant changes to how organizations share, sync, edit, create and collaborate-on content. However, this computing revolution is a double-edged sword. There are benefits—increased computing power, ease-of-use, and new flexibility in the case of cloud computing. However, these new features and benefits also bring new difficulties and risks. The security risks alone are enough to make any government agency cringe.

For IT departments, these new risks typically emerge as security vulnerabilities. Attackers are quick to exploit design flaws or architectural weaknesses that can be used to steal data, sabotage networks, or siphon funds. Over time, vendors and customers discover these flaws and weaknesses—usually the hard way, by discovering that they have been exploited—and fix them…

Grazed from Computing. Author: Richard Moulds.

Encryption is not new – in fact, systems for ensuring message secrecy have been around for millennia. What is new is the unprecedented variety of options that enterprises now have at their disposal to encrypt data and the potential complexity that brings. The rise of cloud computing means there’s now another chair at the table – the cloud service provider – which requires a new examination of trust models.

Of course, effective cryptography depends not only on the ability to encrypt data, but also the management and control of the keys to decrypt and make sense of the information. While the cloud presents significant economic and operational benefits for enterprises, it also poses a substantial security risk. Organisations must decide how much control they are willing to relinquish to their cloud provider – where should data be encrypted, and crucially, who should hold the keys…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

En Pointe is spinning off its Cisco Systems-powered hosted solutions practice into its own company, in part to continue to build out its channel strategy. The previously-named En Pointe Collaboration Solutions is now known as collab9. Even with the name change, though, the newly renamed collab9 will continue to focus on cloud solutions based on Cisco (CSCO) technology.

This follows on to last year’s announcement regarding En Pointe Collaboration Solutions earning the Cisco Cloud Provider Certification designation in its growth of its cloud networking practice. At the time, En Pointe earned the right to carry the Cisco Powered Cloud Hosted Collaboration System (HCS) Service designation that was attached to its infrastructure and Cisco HCS solution…