Author: David

October 21, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing? Studies Say It’s a Gifted, High-Energy Kid

By David
Grazed from MidSize Insider.  Author: Doug Bonderud.
 

New parents are often amazed by the progress of their children. One day, they’re tiny, quivering creatures who flail and scream; the next, they’re walking and talking. These same parents are often overwhelmed by the sheer amount of energy a child generates–a seemingly inexhaustible supply that sends them spinning around rooms and through parks until they collapse, exhausted. A recent study and examination of cloud computing’s environmental impact leads to a similar analogy–although a bright, energetic and promising technology, it has more than one developmental milestone left to hit.

Give It Three Years

Or so says a recent survey by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and IT certification group ISACA, as reported by Forbes. The 252 cloud users surveyed said that "platform and infrastructure service offerings are still in the infancy stage of maturity, while software as a service offerings are just emerging from infancy and are in the early stages of market growth." In three years, respondents believe cloud infrastructure will be mature enough to start disrupting the market…

October 21, 2012 Off

The Cloud Business Case: Are Expected Cost Savings Realistic?

By David
Grazed from CloudTimes.  Author: Florence de Borja.

According to Claranet Product Director Martin Saunders, cloud computing is not a cheaper alternative to on-premise server. However, cloud computing services do make up for that disadvantage. According to Saunders, cloud computing isn’t about purchasing hardware and infrastructure only. Usually, companies and individuals only compare the cost of on-premise server to the cost of cloud server. In the minds of these entities, an on-premise server will depreciate itself in 3 years while the cloud computing server will be treated as a continuous expenditure. The costs of electricity, labor, and staff training as well as personnel requirement are often left out of the picture.

According to Microsoft Chief Technology Officer for Cloud Services Ron Fraser, oftentimes the cloud is marketed as a cost-saving device and that the Chief Information Officer is tasked to map out a cloud computing strategy. However, cloud services providers are now talking to Chief Financial Officers and Chief Marketing Officers…

October 21, 2012 Off

Salesforce CEO Benioff: Win 8 is ‘the end of Windows’

By David
Grazed from The Register.  Author: Neil McAllister.

The official launch of Windows 8 is only a week away, but Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff won’t be making the upgrade, and he doesn’t think most enterprise CIOs will, either.

"Windows is irrelevant," Benioff said, speaking at a press Q&A session at Salesforce’s Cloudforce event in New York on Friday.

Benioff explained that the rise of cloud computing and the bring your own device (BYOD) model means CIOs have more choices today than they did even 36 months ago, and that as a result, Windows 8 won’t be considered a mandatory upgrade the way previous versions of Windows were…
October 21, 2012 Off

The Cloud Versus The Device

By David
Grazed from The Motley Fool.  Author: Dennis Ehrman.

Ever since Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) introduced Google Apps, the company has made increasing inroads at changing how businesses, governments and individuals work. Where the classic software model, most completely embodied by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), has persisted for decades, cloud computing is gaining acceptance rapidly. Given the clear dichotomy between these two models, we now have a framework by which to consider how the next advances in computing will take place.

Not only is this inquiry an interesting intellectual exercise, recent and pending events are likely to see these approaches do battle. By examining the central questions now, we will be better equipped to profit from both the success of the ultimate winner and the path that leads us there. Representing the cloud is the recently announced Chromebook from Samsung, and representing the device is the Microsoft Surface, set to be released on October 26…

October 21, 2012 Off

Red Hat Joins The Cloud Security Alliance

By David
Grazed from BizTech2.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Many companies and groups are working to address security challenges in various ways. The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), founded in 2009, is one of the most important of such initiatives because it’s arguably the organisation taking the broadest view of the problem. It’s a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within cloud computing, and to provide education on the uses of cloud computing to help secure additional forms of computing.

Red Hat has been participating in the CSA community for nearly two years, and has been working to bring awareness and utilisation to the tools built by the CSA to provide security to physical, virtual and hybrid cloud environments. Now, as an official corporate member of CSA, Red Hat will continue to drive a focus around open standards and security to protect enterprise workloads in the cloud…

October 21, 2012 Off

Cloud computing 2012 – Looking back and moving forward

By David
Grazed from E27.  Author: Joash Wee.

Cloud computing has been a major topic for tech startups over the past few years. What has been done and what more opportunities are there in the cloud?  Cloud computing has evolved over the years and has become the backbone of a new breed of startups. From email backup solution service Dropymyemail to cross-platform syncing and sharing service Kleii to mobile apps like Instagram. In an earlier study, cloud computing is predicted to generate US$1.1 trillion in annual business revenues and nearly 14 million jobs worldwide by 2015.

A comprehensive infographic on Visual.ly on cloud computing through the years indicated that ads for full-time IT jobs focused on cloud computing grew almost three and a half times between 2009 and 2010, showing the demand for cloud computing professionals. Key features that attracted companies to cloud computing back in 2008 were efficiency, reducing capital costs and easing staffing…

October 21, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: U.S. and Japan Policy Cooperation Dialogue on the Internet Economy

By David
Grazed from Yuma Arizona.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Washington, DC – The United States and Japan held the fourth Director General-level meeting of the U.S.-Japan Policy Cooperation Dialogue on the Internet Economy in Washington, D.C.

The dialogue highlighted common positions on the following important Internet and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) topics:

(1) Internet Policy Issues

Participants recognized the importance of international coordination on Internet policy issues, such as preserving the successful multi-stakeholder system of Internet governance, protecting personal data online, and assuring the free flow of information for the further development of the Internet Economy. In order to preserve the open Internet and protect Internet freedom, participants reaffirmed the importance of the three activities identified in the thirdDirector General-level meeting:…

October 20, 2012 Off

Google’s New Chromebook Caters to Cloud Crowd

By David
Grazed from Technology News.  Author: Peter Suciu.

Google unveiled a new Samsung Chromebook on Thursday, available for pre-order at US$249. The new model is more streamlined and far cheaper than its predecessors.

It costs $200 less than the Samsung Chrome 550, which was released earlier this year, and $100 less than the Series 5 model, which debuted last year.

The sleek new form factor is compelling, said Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for compute platforms at IHS iSuppli.

"To have a successful product in mobile, it has to be very thin, very light," he told TechNewsWorld. "That is enough to draw attention from other products that are out there."…

October 19, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: EMC, VMware, Cisco Earn Top Scores for Data Center Management

By David

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Esther Shein.

EMC’s Unified Infrastructure Manager earned the highest score for overall performance in InformationWeek’s IT Pro Ranking: Data Center Management report. The report targeted data center management software that automates, orchestrates and monitors data center resources.

Three hundred fifty-seven IT pros who use or have used and evaluated data center management products evaluated 10 products on a variety of criteria, including general performance and data center-specific criteria. In addition to EMC, survey respondents weighed in on products from Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec and VMware. Note that other vendors, including CA, BMC and ServiceNow, were included in the initial survey but did not receive a sufficient number of respondents for their results to be reported…

October 19, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: Wither the hard drive? Facebook’s secret plans for flash memory

By David

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Stacey Higginbotham.

Facebook is planning to rely more on flash drives in places where most companies have used spinning disk, and based on conversations with sources and hints from Facebook, I think one of those places will be in Facebook’s cold-storage photo facility it’s building in Oregon.

Facebook has flash memory on the brain. The social network, which has helped rethink server design for its operations and is designing a new type of infrastructure from the ground up for storing infrequently accessed photos, is thinking about “more use cases for flash,” said Jay Parikh, vice president of engineering and infrastructure…