Author: David

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Joe Onisick.

In order to navigate the current landscape of IT, you need an economy-size can of Buzzword-Be-Gone. You can’t discuss any current technology without its marketeers describing it as a cloud-based, big-data solution that provides synergy and business value through blah, blah, blah. One term gaining tons of traction recently is software-defined data center. This one is being tossed around by execs at VMware, EMC and throughout the industry. Let’s dig into it some.

The concept of a software-defined data center is based on abstracting the hardware itself from the delivery of services to the business. This should sound quite familiar, as it’s a concept that’s been with us from the early days of virtualization through to the current cloud discussions. A software-defined data center is one in which the configuration of hardware is done through upper-level software systems. This allows new services to be turned on or off rapidly and existing services to grow and shrink as needed…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Gina Narcisi.

VMware has jumped on the open standards cloud computing bandwagon, recently announcing it will join the OpenStack Foundation and contribute to the development of the open source operating system for cloud computing.

The virtualization software provider has touted its vCloud product suite as a cloud operating system, which many view as a proprietary competitor to OpenStack. But while the cloud provider community may not have anticipated VMware’s move to join the OpenStack Foundation, the bid is a logical next step for VMware given recent industry events, noted Sam Barnett, directing analyst for data center and cloud at Campbell, Calif.-based Infonetics Research Inc…

Grazed from MidSize Insider. Author: Bert Markgraf.

The eventual goal of cloud computing is a virtual IT environment accessed through a universal virtual desktop. While VMware recently introduced a completely virtual data center, the more immediate IT configuration, especially for midsize businesses, is likely to continue to be a mixture of local storage, traditional company data centers, and cloud infrastructure.

Employees will be able to get access to their data from office PCs and mobile devices, but they will not have a uniform virtual desktop and universal access to all applications. The virtual desktop infrastructure still has some limitations…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Jon Yeomans.

Huawei has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Intel, signalling the two companies’ intention to work together in a number of fields.

The firms will collaborate on new server, datacentre, storage and cloud computing products, with a view to selling them in Huawei’s home market of China and elsewhere, the pair announced on Thursday. No further details on the new products were given…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

Pogoplug appears to be the first company to offer a service that uses Glacier, Amazon’s slow-but-cheap storage service as a data archival backend-in-the-cloud. But nobody expects it to be the last.

After Amazon announced Glacier, its slow-but-cheap data archiving service, a few weeks ago, it was only a matter of time before third-party service providers would take advantage of it. Now Pogoplug appears to be the first to do so. The San Francisco startup, which made its name with its shared storage service for small businesses and consumers has integrated Glacier as the archiving backend for that service…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Stacey Higginbotham.

Yandex, the Russian search engine, has taken its cloud storage product out of its invite-only beta. Like Box or Dropbox, Yandex.Disk offers users access to their files from any device, including their Apple and Android phones. Users will get 10 GB of storage for free.

Yandex, Russian’s largest search engine, has launched its own cloud storage product and will offer up to 20 gigabytes of storage for free. The service, called Yandex.Disk functions like Dropbox and Box, and comes immediately with 10 GB of storage. You can get more if you spam invite your friends…

Grazed from AutomationWorld. Author: Editorial Staff.

The cloud-computing concept has garnered headlines over the past few years through it’s application by giants like Amazon.com, but has made few solid inroads in the industrial sector. That may soon change as IT groups increasingly embrace the idea of cloud computing.

With more than half of IT professionals across industries saying there are significant business benefits to the use of cloud computing, it’s now safe to say that the concept has reached an important acceptance milestone. Unless something dramatic occurs to inhibit wider implementation of the technology in manufacturing in the next few years, I predict that its implementation will follow much the same path as industrial Ethernet has over the last several years…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Paul Krill.

Oracle is finding its road map for enterprise Java is a bit too ambitious, with the company now proposing a postponement in cloud computing capabilities that had been anticipated for Java EE (Java Platform, Enterprise Edition) 7 next year. Instead, the cloud capabilities would be included in Java EE 8 in 2015.

In a blog post, Oracle’s Linda DeMichiel cites slow progress in developing cloud technologies due to immaturity in the provisioning, multitenancy, and elasticity spaces, as well as in application deployments. Providing solid support for standardized PaaS (platform as a service) programming and multitenancy would delay Java EE 7 until spring 2014, more than a year behind schedule, she said. "In our opinion, that is way too long," said DeMichiel, who has served as Java EE 7 specification lead…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Rick Blaisdell.

The most common meaning of the term cloud computing refers to the delivery of scalable IT resources over the Internet as opposed to hosting and operating those resources locally. Cloud computing enables your company to react faster to the needs of your business, while driving greater operational efficiencies.

Cloud computing has a great impact on business thinking. It facilitates a change in the way companies operate, by offering shared and virtualized infrastructure that is easily scalable. It is also changing how we manage these resources. The challenge is no longer about how many physical servers a company has, but more about being able to manage these virtual resources…

Grazed from Sun Star. Author: Editorial Staff.

A serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, who is also a proud Filipino, allayed fears on Thursday that cloud computing threatens corporate security, saying it’s more solid than non-cloud environment.

Cloud computing is currently considered as one of the most significant shifts in information technology, promising cost-efficient applications and data that the public can use from the Internet like Facebook and Twitter…