Author: David

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

Cloud computing is expanding rapidly, with an accompanying need for for cloud computing "experts" to make this technology work. That translates into many new jobs chasing very few qualified candidates. At the same time, many IT professionals are attempting to figure out how they can cash in on the cloud.

Most of the cloud jobs to be found these days require deep knowledge around a particular technology, such as Amazon Web Services, OpenStack, Salesforce.com, or Azure. This is typically due to the fact that the company has standardized on a cloud technology. I call these jobs cloud technology specialists, in that they focus on a specific cloud technology: development, implementation, management, and so on…

Grazed from IEEE TechTalk. Author: Tekla Perry.

An abundance of cheap, renewable energy, particularly hydropower and geothermal, has drawn aluminum smelters to Iceland. It’s become an industry that already consumes five times as much electricity as the country’s residents, and more aluminum plants are on the drawing board—raising concerns about how much the country’s economy is relying on one industry.

Meanwhile, there is another fast-growing, power-hungry industry in the world: cloud computing and storage. “The cloud” seems so light and fluffy, but building a cloud involves huge clunky buildings full of servers. Just one of these server farms, according to an April report by Greenpeace, can consume the energy equivalent of 180 000 homes. The companies that run them do their best to be efficient, because high energy costs hurt profits—and also, in some cases at least, because of a corporate commitment to the environment. The April Greenpeace report praised Yahoo and Google for “prioritizing access to renewable energy in their cloud expansion” but criticized Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft for rapidly expanding their clouds “without adequate regard to source of electricity,” relying “heavily on dirty energy.”…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

The nation’s biggest broadband and cable provider is joining the OpenStack Foundation, just in time for it’s big coming out party in San Diego next week. Comcast is also working with Cisco on applications that can build on that open-source infrastructure.

Updated: Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, is now aboard the OpenStack cloud effort having joined the OpenStack Foundation as a member, a Comcast spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday. That’s a big win for for OpenStack before the Foundation’s big coming out party at the OpenStack Summit next week in San Diego…

Grazed from HotHardware. Author: Seth Colaner.

You have to love the ideas that spill forth from a good futurist such as Ray Kurzweil, who recently remarked at an event that the cloud is potentially capable of expanding human brain capacity. The “cloud” is a computing revolution (or evolution, or devolution, depending on who you ask) wherein data, programs, and more are decentralized from the machine sitting in front of you to a data farm at some remote location where everything is served up to users and accessed over the Internet. Or put another way, the cloud stores data–all of the data, really–which people can easily access with a computing device and an Internet connection.

Metaphorically, our brainpower has already been immensely expanded by the paradigm of remotely stored data that is easily accessible. Just take the search engine as an example; before the ability to search the Internet and it’s deep wealth of knowledge, the simplest bits of information were frustratingly elusive…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Ryan Kim.

Not every business wants to store their files in the cloud. FileSpirit, a German company, is launching a new service by the same name that lets companies give their mobile workers remote access to company files and databases through a mobile file browser.

While companies are increasingly storing more of their files in the cloud, not every business is ready to go that route. For those customers who just want to provide private mobile file access to their mobile workers, FileSpirit is trying to be that tool…

Klickstein is certainly open to the idea of using the cloud, but so far CHA’s IT investments, though working with management firm Egenera, have been around optimizing the IT infrastructure behind the company’s firewall. The hospital has decreased the number of servers CHA uses through virtualization, and has automated as many processes as possible, including daily backups…

Read more from the source @ http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/101112-healthcare-cloud-263293.html?hpg1=bn

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Dave Einstein.

The upcoming Windows 8 launch will cost a staggering amount. Microsoft, the driving force behind personal computing for 30 years, is betting its future on the cloud and tablet computing. And there are two schools of thought about the sanity of that bet.

The Windows 8 release date is October 26; the tech bellwether whose operating system runs most of the world’s PCs is tying its flag to mobile devices and cloud-based apps. In the process, it may be cutting the apron strings to the traditional PC, the device that Microsoft founder Bill Gates once said he wanted to put on every desktop…

Grazed from The National Journal. Author: Juliana Gruenwald.

After 24 years, the Business Software Alliance is rebranding itself as BSA, the Software Alliance with a renewed focus on combating piracy and promoting cloud computing. The group formally unveiled its new look and focus Thursday. Along with the new name, the group will sharpen its focus on three main areas: combating piracy, opening global markets by fighting trade barriers, and advancing cloud computing.

When the group was first launched more than two decades ago, it was aimed at promoting the interests of the business software market. Since then, the distinctions between business and consumer software have largely disappeared, BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman said in an interview Wednesday…