Author: David

Grazed from MidSize Insider. Author: Bert Markgraf.

Many midsize businesses are comfortable putting their email online and using the cloud for storage, but there are barriers to going beyond that. Ready-made cloud computing solutions are expensive, and IT departments are concerned about vendor lock-in. If the purchased system doesn’t meet expectations or if your needs change, do you have to scrap your investment and start over? Open source solutions such as OpenStack, CloudStack and Eucalyptus are available, but there have been few high-profile implementations.

network spheresThe eBay Project

Now eBay has announced that it is using OpenStack open source software as the basis for virtual networks that it will use to develop and test applications for its website marketplaces. An article on InfoWorld describes the project. The company is running Nicira Network Virtualization on the OpenStack cloud computing platform to let it start up separate virtual networks for its projects. Its multi-vendor approach led it to implement the already integrated Nicira/OpenStack solution rather than relying on its existing VMware cloud. Cost was also a factor. Jean-Christophe Martin, who is a cloud architect for eBay, says, "Before, we were mostly looking at vendor-provided solutions. I think that right now we are switching to more of an open source strategy."…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

In the era of cloud computing and big data, chief marketing officers can either sink or swim depending on their ability to recognize the importance of the consumer information available to them and ability to capture and put it to use.
marketing

Depending on what research you believe, chief marketing officers are either more powerful than they’ve ever been — or they’re on their way out. Early this year, a Gartner predicted that CMOs will have bigger IT budget power than CIOs by 2017. Naturally, that analysis was quickly bandied about by CMOs…

Grazed from betaNews. Author: Robert X. Cringely.

This is a followup to my recent column about Steve Wozniak’s warning on the perils of cloud computing, especially cloud storage. It might surprise many users to know there are firms that sell cloud storage and do not back it up. They rely on the disk RAID and some redundancy in the cloud to “protect” your data. If something happens to their datacenter, they could probably not recover your data.

Remember MailandNews.com? They did not have a viable business model. They also didn’t back up their servers. One day they had a big crash and relied on the RAID array to recover the data. It took two weeks and still not all of the data was recovered…

Grazed from Time. Author: Tim Bajarin.

Tim Bajarin is the president of Creative Strategies Inc., a technology industry analysis and market intelligence firm in Silicon Valley. He contributes to the “Big Picture” opinion column that appears every Monday on Techland.

We are witnessing the greatest shakeup in the world of computing that has ever taken place.

From a historical perspective, we started out with mainframes, moved on to mini-computers and in the early ’80s entered the era of the personal computer. Over a period of about 50 years, these three kinds of devices defined what computing was all about…

Grazed from Broadcast Newsroom. Author: PR Announcement.

Skytap, the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions, today announced that over 200 enterprises, including Trek Bicycles, Trend Micro, and WorkWise are using the company’s intuitive public and hybrid cloud solutions for development and testing, virtual technical training and software demonstrations.

Customers turn to Skytap Cloud for a fast, easy, and secure way to move dynamic workloads to the cloud in order to increase business agility, reduce time to market, boost productivity across teams and lower costs. Skytap provides the flexibility for customers to create a secure hybrid cloud or public cloud environment with a few simple clicks, enabling IT infrastructure and operations professionals to deploy Skytap Cloud as a secure extension and complement to their existing internal infrastructure and virtualized environments…

Grazed from The Register. Author: Chris Mellor.

What are the key trends we can discern in cloud networking? For a start it will take place at scale, with networks that are much bigger than we are used to and growing bigger by the day.

Traffic in cloud networks will be very heavy and will display some unique characteristics due to the on-demand nature of cloud computing and storage.

For example: consider the need to set up virtual machines in large numbers, to monitor and manage them, to move them as loads on different servers get balanced, and then to remove them when demand dies down. It is as if the volume of traffic on a motorway jumps suddenly by 30 per cent but cars already on the road continue to move at the same speed. There are no traffic jams, pile-ups or drivers getting lost…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Patrick Thibodeau.

U.S.-based corporations and government agencies have been shipping application development work to offshore IT services providers for years.

Now, thanks to cloud computing, foreign companies are starting to bring their business to providers of data center services located in this country.

Consider Grupo Posadas, a large hotel company in Mexico that today relies on five data centers to support more than 17,000 guest rooms in over 100 hotels. Grupo Posadas IT personnel run three of those data centers; the other two are run by outsourcing partners…

Grazed from NewsObserver.com. Author: Paul Gilster.

The cloud is going to be a big part of your computing life whether you like it or not. One reason you’ll like it is that your files will stay synchronized between your desktop PC and the various gadgets you carry with you, like tablet or phone. One reason you won’t like it is that using the cloud means giving up a large measure of control to big companies who will store your data.

Worried? Expect the good and the bad of cloud computing to dominate the news in the next 12 months. Apple users are going to see the iCloud become a major part of the user experience across all Apple devices, while Microsoft is folding its SkyDrive service into the next iteration of Office to synchronize settings, templates and documents. Google already offers a complete office suite available online and Amazon’s cloud options include 5 GB of free storage, competing with Dropbox to snare the interest of mobile-minded users needing desktop files…

Grazed from StarTribune Business. Author: Emily Duke and Asmah Tareen.

Cloud computing is changing the face of business.

The rapid expansion of cloud-based solutions for corporate planning, customer and human resources management, accounting and other key business functions has enabled organizations of all sizes to streamline by relying on agile and cost-effective technology services.

But as businesses rely more on technology vendors to manage critical data and facilitate key business operations, there are some best practices to consider. Consider the case of Lilting Loons, a fictional loon decoy manufacturer and distributor whose sad experiences illustrate storm clouds Minnesota companies should avoid…