Author: David

June 5, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: Asus Announces 802.11ac Router

By David

Grazed from PC Week. Author: Matthew Murray.

Tech giant Asus has already made a lot of announcements at Computex 2012 here, most of them centered on its Open Cloud Computing initiative that it claims makes "one seamless platform" of all the devices in your life.

But despite the tablets, laptops, all-in-ones, and various combinations thereof, Asus hasn’t left out the one most important piece: how you connect to the cloud in the first place. It’s providing that as well with its new RT-AC66U router…

June 5, 2012 Off

Supermicro® Exhibits its Latest X9 Server and Storage Innovations at Computex, Taiwan

By David

Grazed from MarketWatch. Author: PR Announcement.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. SMCI +1.43% , a global leader in high-performance, high-efficiency server technology and green computing, displays its full range of computing solutions optimized for large scale IT deployments at Computex, Taiwan June 5-9. Exhibits will include a vast selection of X9 Server Solutions, Serverboards, SuperBlade®, SuperWorkstations and SuperStorage systems with the latest Intel® Xeon® E5-2600/4600/2400 and E3-1200 v2 series processors optimized for a wide range of applications across Data Center, Cloud Computing, HPC and Embedded environments. Rounding out their exhibit, Supermicro will demo complete integrated solutions in a SuperRack® with their 10GbE top-of-rack network switch and their Server Management Software optimizing the power and performance of the interconnected systems…

June 5, 2012 Off

Cloud On-Boarding – The True Story

By David

Contributed Article. Author: Dotan Horovits, Senior Solutions Architect at GigaSpaces

Cloud On-Boarding – The True Story

Everyone wants to be in the cloud. Organizations have internalized the notion and have plans in place to migrate their applications to the cloud in the immediate future. According to Cisco’s recent global cloud survey:

Presently, only 5 percent of IT decision makers have been able to migrate at least half of their total applications to the cloud. By the end of 2012, that number is expected to significantly rise, as one in five (20 percent) will have deployed over half of their total applications to the cloud.

But that survey also reveals the fact that on-boarding your application to the cloud “is harder, and it takes longer than many thought”, as David Linthicum said in his excellent blog post summarizing the above Cisco survey. Taking standard enterprise applications that were designed to run in the data center and on-boarding them to the cloud is in essence a reincarnation of the well-known challenge of platform-migration, which is never easy. But why is there a sense of extra difficulty in on-boarding to the cloud? The first reason David identifies for the extra difficulty is the misconception that cloud is a “silver bullet”. Such “silver bullet” misconception can lead to lack of proper design of the system, which may result in application outage, as I outlined in my previous blogs. Another reason David states for the extra difficulty is the lack of well-defined process and best practices for on-boarding applications to the cloud:

June 4, 2012 Off

Is All Virtualization Destined for the Cloud?

By David

Contributed Article. Author: Mike Thompson, SolarWinds’ director of business strategy for virtualization and storage

Is All Virtualization Destined for the Cloud?

It seems that the message to the millions of virtualization users is that if you are not either working in a cloud environment or moving to a cloud environment, you are behind or you have yet to be enlightened.

Vendors, press and analysts publish maturity curves that often show the progression through which IT professionals should be moving to achieve cloud enlightenment. Often, the typical virtualization user would be in the “immature” portion of these maturity curves with a long road ahead of them before they get to cloud “nirvana”.

June 4, 2012 Off

Healthcare to Benefit Most from Cloud Computing

By David

Grazed from Cloud Times. Author: Xath Cruz.

John Sculley, former Apple CEO, believes that cloud computing is powerful enough to completely revolutionize healthcare systems worldwide. Sculley told The Guardian that he was quite confident that cloud computing would ring in the changes when it comes to the way we approach healthcare in the next couple of decades and that large data analytics would be central to the change.

A keynote speaker at the Cloud Computing Forum and Managing Partner of InflexionPoint, Sculley went on to explain why cloud especially was a central point of interest.

With the overall movement to cloud, the curve is accelerating upwards at such an advanced level that basically means that the market is seeing new technologies that allow people to do things no one even thought were possible two or three years ago…

June 4, 2012 Off

How to keep cloud projects agile, simple

By David

Grazed from ITWorld. Author: David Taber.

Now it’s time to work on an issue that underlies all of those problematic behaviors: saying "Yes" too often.

Saying "No" will keep a project on track and your credibility intact. (Image courtesy of Zazzle.com.

Of course this is heresy. User-centered design is at the core of good UI. It would be political suicide for IT to say "No" to powerful users. IT engineering exists to serve the business, not order it around.

All those statements are true. But so is this: Saying "Yes" when the answer really needs to be "No" is an invitation to a project failure. Improper expectations don’t just hurt budgets and schedules. They damage credibility-and, in the end, they force you to expend resources when you shouldn’t have to…

June 4, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: Network Janitors

By David

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: James Carlini.

If Cloud Computing is going to be part of the critical network infrastructure of an enterprise, senior executives better realize that no technology runs by itself. You need people that are very skilled in all aspects of planning, designing, implementing and managing these systems. There are dynamic people and there are also caretakers that can only do minimum maintenance on systems.

The idea that you can run Cloud Computing applications with a bare minimum of skilled people is a nice sales pitch, but in reality organizations better make sure they have skills on staff or skills readily available in times of emergencies as well as day-to-day operations…

June 4, 2012 Off

Cloud computing vendor lock-in: Avoiding security pitfalls

By David

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Ed Boyle.

Most of us already know from personal experience that changing from one service provider to another can be challenging. Think about, for example, the level of frustration you may have experienced in the past changing your telephone company, Internet provider or cell phone service. The process of ending a service provider relationship is always likely to be rockier than other interactions you have with them — that’s a natural consequence of business dynamics.

Let’s face it, a service provider isn’t usually inclined to provide a seamless process for sending business to competitors. But what customers may not realize is that less-scrupulous service providers can — and actively do — build in roadblocks with the specific intent of locking in customers. Meaning, they make the process of transitioning more difficult by design to help increase customer retention (i.e., “stickiness”)…

June 4, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: CGI Selected to Deliver Emerging Technology Solutions Thru the U.S. Government-Wide Contract Vehicle, CIO-SP3

By David

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) has awarded CGI Federal Inc. (CGI), a wholly-owned U.S. operating subsidiary of CGI Group Inc. (NYSE:GIB)(TSX:GIB.A), a prime position on the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ), multiple-award contract for the Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 3 (CIO-SP3). The ten-year ID/IQ has a program ceiling of US$20 billion.

Under the vehicle, CGI will deliver a range of technology services and solutions to federal health organizations, federal civilian agencies, and the Department of Defense across 10 task areas. Services include, but are not limited to: CIO support, outsourcing, systems integration, software development, data center consolidation, health IT, cloud computing, mobile solutions, and cybersecurity…

June 4, 2012 Off

Moving to the Cloud and Need to Protect Sensitive Financial Data?

By David

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Liz McMillan.

Among small and mid-size businesses, the refrain is increasingly familiar: “We’re responsible for sensitive financial data, and our customers trust us to protect it at all times. We want to move to the cloud but have concerns about the risks in handing this data off to another company. If we make the switch, how can we be certain our data will be protected?”

According to Adam Stern of Infinitely Virtual, a leading provider of virtual server cloud computing services for growing companies, the rationale for migrating to the cloud is sound, the questions are valid, and the answers are becoming ever more straightforward…