Grazed from The Guardian. Author: Editorial Staff.

We are conditioned to expect everything faster, better and cheaper. In short, impatience has become the new 21st century virtue and influences all aspects of business, particularly when it comes to technology. When we switch on our computers, we expect the web page or the video we want to be served up immediately. The arrival of fibre optic network links delivered just that – access to the worldwide web at the speed of light. This opened the door to cloud computing and, with it, high expectations of accessing cloud platforms from any location in an instant.

However, fibre’s ability to deliver at the "speed of light" doesn’t automatically equate to all applications being delivered in this manner. It’s the makeup of the cloud that makes it fast – its location, type and technology dictate whether those pulling down information from the cloud find themselves in the slow or fast lane. So how can organisations guarantee lightening speed access to their cloud-based, business-critical information?…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Editorial Staff.

For Microsoft and VMware, the high-stakes effort to supply management software for the virtualized data center continues, with both companies now using some of the same terminology. But the similarities stop with talk. The two competitors have very distinct points of view on how to build out the enterprise private cloud.

At a virtual event Tuesday, Satya Nadella, President of Microsoft’s server and tools business, released Windows Server 2012 as an operating system "built from the cloud up." Nadella said Windows Server 2012 can be used to power both Microsoft’s public Azure Cloud and Microsoft customers’ private clouds…

Grazed from PR NewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Kognitio, driving the convergence of Big Data, in-memory analytics and cloud computing, today announced that Kognitio Cloud, its innovative analytical platform, has been selected by PlaceIQ to help marketers more effectively target their messaging to smartphone users, based on factors such as their location and the time of day.

PlaceIQ, which has partnered with companies such as The Weather Channel, Verve Wireless and Jumptap, extracts intelligence from large amounts of place, social and mobile location-based data to create hyper-local, targetable audience profiles, giving advertisers the power to connect with consumers at the right place, at the right time, with the right message. These anonymous audience profiles provide powerful targeting opportunities for advertisers…

Grazed from New York Times. Author: Quentin Hardy.

Microsoft just went further into the cloud. The Redmond, Wash., software giant announced Tuesday the new version of its computer server software. The product, called Windows Server 2012, is designed both to work independently and to connect with some 200 online services that Microsoft offers through its Azure cloud computing system. That is in addition to the usual upgrades in things like storage and networking capability.

While expected, this is a pretty big deal, and not just because the servers business is Microsoft’s second largest division in terms of revenue. (It brought in $18.7 billion in the fiscal year that ended last June 30.) It may be the most significant effort to date in Microsoft’s plan to change with the times…

Flexible Coexistence for Office 365

Virtustream, Inc., the leading enterprise cloud solutions provider, today announced that Veyance Technologies, exclusive manufacturer and marketer of Goodyear Engineered Products worldwide, has selected Virtustream’s xStream cloud platform to run its global SAP production environment, consisting of over 3,000 users.

Veyance Technologies critical production systems are run on SAP and were previously deployed on physical hardware in a traditional outsourcing arrangement. Veyance made the decision to move their systems to the cloud to gain the efficiencies and dynamic advantages that a cloud solution could offer. Veyance selected their cloud provider to meet their sophisticated enterprise requirements including true consumption based pricing, guaranteed compute resources, data protection and industry leading SLAs. The xStream platform met all of these requirements and, in addition, will provide Veyance with the necessary resources to ensure comprehensive disaster recovery and data protection.

HP today announced it is expanding its Converged Cloud portfolio with joint HP and Microsoft solutions that simplify and enhance every aspect of a client’s private cloud journey.

The HP and Microsoft Joint Private Cloud initiative features optimized, preintegrated solutions based on extensive joint technology development, and offers one-stop-shop life cycle sales and support.

While organizations are attracted by the flexibility and financial benefits of cloud, they are struggling with how to get started quickly while addressing risk areas such as data loss, security and vendor lock-in. By providing a clear, proven path along with a single-vendor client experience, HP and Microsoft are greatly simplifying and accelerating the evolution to cloud computing.

Bitdefender, an award-winning provider of innovative security solutions, today announced that Security for Virtualized Environments (SVE) is now available as Security-as-a-Service on Amazon’s AWS Marketplace. For customers seeking a flexible licensing model, the new service allows organizations to choose security licensing based on administrative and financial requirements — on-demand per hour utility based monthly subscription.

"With other security solutions, many organizations must deal with rigid licensing models that seldom allow horizontal scalability and policy changes based on the needs of the business," said Robert Krauss, Director Enterprise Sales and Alliances, North America, Bitdefender. "Security for Virtualized Environments offered as Security-as-a-Service (SaaS) on AWS Marketplace was developed to extend the benefits of the cloud — giving organizations security how they want it and when they need it. With our licensing model, organizations have uncomplicated and adaptable security solutions, in terms of administration and scalability, and like a utility, businesses pay for it as they need it."

Grazed from SCMagazine. Author: Editorial Staff.

I have known about the SC Awards for years and years, and have watched all the high-quality companies and products it has recognized. Each year it seems to gain more widespread attention in the industry.

Porticor has a first-in-the-industry, unique service to secure cloud computing and data in the cloud, and we were prompted to participate because we believe our solution is a quality participant and has a strong chance of being recognized…