Author: David

Grazed from PC Advisor. Author: Ellen Messmer.

Many CIOs and chief information security officers are struggling to adapt security practices to a changing environment that includes cloud computing, social media and tablets , according to a survey of 1,850 such IT pros. The Ernst & Young 2012 Global Information Security Survey published today found cloud computing to be one of the main drivers of business model innovation and IT service delivery, with 59% of respondents saying they use or plan to use cloud services. But 38% admitted they have not taken any measures to mitigate risks.

Use of social media in business is prevalent, but 38% of the CIOs and CISOs surveyed say they don’t have a coordinated approach to address risks, such as defending the organization’s brand or determining how employees use work time to engage in social media. The Ernst & Young survey indicated that 31% of respondents said they saw an increase in the number of security incidents compared to the previous year…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

At just a few months old, Google Compute Engine is seen as a threat to public cloud leader Amazon Web Services. At least that appears to be what Amazon thinks given its lawsuit against a former exec who is joining Google. Google Compute Engine may have launched less than six months ago but it’s seen as a serious competitor to Amazon Web Services. At least Amazon appears to think so. It just lodged a lawsuit against a former AWS sales executive who is joining Google, according Geekwire which first reported the news.

Daniel Powers, an IBM veteran, joined AWS as VP of sales in 2010, learned the business “from top to bottom” and was privy to company trade secrets, according to the suit. In June, 2012 Amazon offered him a severance package in return for a signed non-compete agreement. This suit, filed in Washington State Superior Court, charged that Powers’ decision to join Google violates the terms of that pact, which required him to stay clear of directly competitive work for 18 months…

Grazed from ChinaBusiness Daily. Author: Chen Limin.

Microsoft Corp could be excused for being somewhat ambivalent in its attitude toward the Chinese market. The country is the world’s biggest personal computer market but the US software giant has failed to collect due revenues in the past two decades because of piracy. The company, however, has been trying to take another approach – cloud computing – hoping to improve its performance in the Middle Kingdom.

Last month marked the China launch of its Windows Server 2012, an operating system used for cloud-based services. The move came after it announced an increase in staff by 1,000 to its approximately existing 4,500 employees in China in the current fiscal year and boosted its research and development spending by an additional $500 million, with a considerable part of it going to cloud computing…

The organizers of the ‘Powering the Cloud’ conferences SNW Europe, Datacenter Technologies and Virtualization World have unveiled the latest agenda to reveal a program packed with valuable learning and networking opportunities for IT professionals looking to stay ahead of recent developments in data storage, virtualization, networking and other data center technologies. To be held at the Congress Frankfurt on 30th and 31st October 2012 and with a dedicated press day on 29th, the ‘Powering the Cloud’ sponsors line up now matches that of 2011 in numbers (70), a significant achievement at a time when independent trade shows and conferences are shrinking in size.

Keynote themes include Big Data and analytics, next-generation data protection, data center networking as well as a diverse range of sessions on virtualization and cloud computing. In addition, the conferences will feature a number of leading analyst houses and independent commentators hosting a series of half-day Spotlight sessions addressing the key issues and topics affecting most organizations’ IT strategies and needs.

Grazed from CloudTimes.  Author: Saroj Kar.

Cloud computing does not always prove to be an ecological choice. New research compiled by the WSP Environment & Energy and the Natural Resource Defense Council shows that cloud is not always as efficient for IT solutions for SMEs.

The results of the new study confirmed that rely on a server is generally more environmentally friendly, although care must be taken to a whole series of parameters to calculate the best real efficiency of the clouds.

“There are many reasons for moving to cloud computing, but a company choosing to do so for pure energy-efficiency reasons need to look closely at their whole IT set up as well as those of third-party offerings,” WSP director David Symons said. “Not all clouds are created equal. An on-site server room that is run with energy-efficiency best practices may be a greener alternative to a ‘brown cloud’.”

According to a new research from Pike Research, the global market for green data centers will grow from $17.1 billion in 2012 to $45.4 billion by 2016…

Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Barb Darrow.

It was a busy week in cloud, bookended by Amazon and Google App Engine outages. In between those snafus, OpenNebula updated its cloud and stealthy startup Yottabyte launched technology that it says will let companies yoke commodity hardware into clouds of their own.

Last week’s cloud computing news was highlighted — if that’s the right word — by major outages affecting Amazon Web Services on Monday and Tuesday and other snafus with Google App Engine, Dropbox and Tumblr on Friday. Amazon released a post-mortem late Friday attributing its problem to a memory leak. Google said its problems originated when traffic exceeded the capacity its routing capacity. (Cedexis posted its look at the GAE snafu here.)

But there was other news in cloud computing. Here’s a taste…

Grazed from CloudTimes.  Author: Xath Cruz.

Nowadays, more and more businesses are moving their operations to the cloud as the industry starts to realize the benefits that the cloud brings, whether it’s cost-efficiency, improved flexibility and agility, or any of the myriad advantages that comes from cloud computing. However, before you start migrating all of your data to the cloud, there are some considerations that you need to think about first, such as:

Bigger is Not Necessarily Better

Due to the popularity of cloud computing, you’ll see a lot of large companies from other IT related sectors now staking their claim on the rapidly growing cloud market, but don’t always assume that you’ll be better off with a certain provider just because they are a large, popular company – as they could have earned their reputation in another field and are still not used to the cloud business. It would be wise to do your research first and focus on the provider’s reputation regarding cloud services before signing up with one…