Author: David

Grazed from The Next Web. Author: Nick Summers.

Only three or four years ago, mentioning the phrase ‘cloud storage’ would produce shrugs and vacant stares from most of the general public. Oh, but how times have changed. With Apple, Google and Microsoft all entering the fray with their own homegrown services, the marketplace for cloud storage has suddenly become very crowded.

SugarSync, however, has experience on its side. The company has been operating since 2008, only a year after one of its most reputable rivals, Dropbox, opened its doors and started making cloud storage a normal part of computing and daily Internet use…

Grazed from CNBC. Author: Jennifer Parker.

Cloud computing is fast becoming as ubiquitous as the clouds circling the Earth. As more and more people depend on “the cloud” to store sensitive data, they also realize it isn’t perfect —and sometimes it fails because of storm surges or human error. The fact is there will be outages. If you only have one server location, you are exposed,” said Bernard Golden, vice president at enStratus Networks, an IT consultant supporting providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Storage, and VMware. “The appropriate response is to operate switch regions,” he said.

Events such as Amazon Web Service’s outage in October, which affected its most heavily used data center in Virginia, support Golden’s claim. Some AWS customers, such as Netflix, have duplicate cloud systems. As a result, their businesses stayed up and running during the outage. Others, including popular sites like Reddit and Pinterest, temporarily went dark…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

C12G Labs announces a new release of OpenNebulaPro, the enterprise edition of its widely-deployed open-source management solution for enterprise data center virtualization and private cloud computing. OpenNebulaPro integrates the most recent stable version of OpenNebula (3.8) with bugfixes, performance, and scalability patches developed by the community and by C12G for its customers and partners. OpenNebula 3.8 (codename Twin Jet), released one month ago, enhances its AWS and OCCI API implementations and provides a tighter integration with VMware and KVM.

C12G also announces the first stable release of the OpenNebulaApps, a suite of tools for users and administrators of OpenNebula to simplify and optimize cloud application management. OpenNebulaApps provides a service management layer on top of OpenNebula by configuring the software stack in the applications, managing multi-tiered applications, providing configurable services from a catalog, and building your own private market to distribute applications across several OpenNebula instances. Cloud applications consist of complex software stacks, OpenNebulaApps helps to manage their life-cycle and contributes to significantly reduce the time needed to build, distribute, and deploy cloud applications…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Stacey Higginbotham.

Big Switch Networks has come a long way since it launched in June of 2011, and two big announcements today showcasing its ecosystem and its newly launched products are signs that its going on the offensive in the software-defined networking space.

Big Switch Networks, the software-defined networking startup that last month scored $25 million, has pulled the covers off an impressive an ecosystem built around its Open Flow-based controller as well as applications built on top of that controller. The announcements, expected on Tuesday, should make Big Switch a force to be reckoned with in the software defined networking sector…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Samantha Robinson.

As more businesses are employing cloud computing for storage, information transfer and communication, the reality of adapting to a complex new system can seem daunting. This is partially because while many businesses are slowly reconciling themselves with cloud usage, they are not necessarily aware of cloud management strategies available to ensure a smooth transition to the cloud. These professional tools maintain the seamless running of infrastructure even without direct and immediate physical server access.

Cloud management is a term that refers those tools used to operate the data and services available on the cloud. Cloud management can include monitoring performance, security, and planning contingency plans for data loss. Cloud management tools need to be robust and flexible in order to ensure the safety of public-cloud networks. This article will explore the ways that cloud management makes cloud computing safer, more understandable for your staff, and a smart move for you business…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Derrick Harris.

Obama for America CTO Harper Reed had helped build Threadless, a site for selling hip t-shirts, but he had never done anything like this. Here’s how he and his team built a tech platform that might forever change how presidential campaigns are built.

When it comes to presidential elections, it helps to know your way around some disruptive technologies. The team of technologists that helped re-elect Barack Obama – led by Obama for America CTO Harper Reed and comprised largely of other political novices and accomplished hackers — certainly had that going for them. However, when the prize is the highest office in the land — and possibly the fate of the free world — it also helps to know your role…

Grazed from Web Host Industry Review. Author: Liam Eagle.

Hosting and network solutions provider XBT Holding Ltd. announced this week that it had acquired 1-800-HOSTING, a US-based hosting provider focused on fully managed hosting, dedicated servers and cloud hosting services.

XBT did not reveal the price paid, or any other terms of the acquisition deal, but it emphasized the importance of 1-800-HOSTING’s cloud computing offering in adding to its own portfolio of services. XBT owns a small stable of hosting brands from around the world, including Webzilla and Fozzy in the US, and 8 to Infinity in Singapore and Server.lu in Luxembourg (which XBT also acquired this year)…

Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Michael Vizard.

The dawn of a new era of cloud computing is upon us, and one that will be defined by more granular application workloads that are seamlessly integrated across an open and secure ecosystem. According to Dave Elliott, Symantec senior product marketing manager for global cloud marketing, the first step toward turning this vision of applications being developed and deployed with the cloud in mind is making sure that a cloud 3.0 ecosystem that will start to emerge in 2013 is secure.

To that end, Symantec is promising to provide that security via Symantec O3, a suite of cloud access control offerings, and new Symantec File Share Encryption software due in 2013 that is based on a new iteration of the company’s PGP encryption software. Symantec also plans to deliver a new Symantec Protection Engine for Cloud Service provider offering along with new features in Veritas Cluster Server software that are designed to make it easier to build and secure cloud applications that span multiple tiers…

Grazed from Trefis. Author: Editorial Staff.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) which experienced a slow quarter last time around is set to announce its Q2 results on November 14. Cautious IT spending and the slowdown in Europe weighed on the storage products maker in Q1 as net revenue for the first quarter was $1.44 billion, down 15% q-o-q and 1% y-o-y. Product revenue took a hit as it declined 23% sequentially and 7% annually at $898 million. Service revenue however showed robust y-o-y growth of 11% to $328 million.

For the upcoming quarter, the company has guided for revenues in the range of $1.5-$1.6 billion and EPS of $0.45-$0.5. NetApp is involved in designing solutions for storing, managing and protecting business data through enterprise storage and data management software as well as hardware products and services…

Grazed from Engadget. Author: Steve Dent.

NEC has launched a $880 per month service in Japan that lets merchants profile customers using just a PC and video camera. The system uses facial recognition powered by the company’s cloud computing service to estimate the gender and age of clients, along with the frequency of their shopping expeditions across multiple locations.

The firm developed the "NeoFace" tracking software in-house, claiming it was the highest ranked facial recognition system in NIST and that it plans to use it for other services like "intruder surveillance" in the future. NEC added that face data is encrypted so it can’t be "inadvertently disclosed," and is strictly to help retailers fine-tune their marketing strategies. After watching the system pick off face after face in the video after the break, we just hope it doesn’t go rogue…

Read more and view video from source @ http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/12/nec-outs-880-facial-recognition-system/