Author: David

There are two prominent cloud technology strategies these days. First: Let’s copy everything Amazon Web Services (AWS) is doing. (You know who you are!) Second: Let’s rebrand our old technology as a private cloud.

The lack of innovation and creativity in cloud computing is beginning to bug me, and it should bug those of you in enterprise IT. Here’s how to spot technology providers that are, er, innovation-challenged.

What’s lacking is new ideas: specifically, ideas that bring different approaches to familiar problems. Ideas that should lead to new technology and service categories, as well as bring much more value to the enterprise. However, most of the bigger cloud computing providers seem to consider innovation and creativity as high-risk concepts. Instead, they focus on replicating products and services that already work in the market…

Cloud computing has been generating considerable hype these days. Every participant in the data centre and IT ecosystem has been rolling out ‘cloud’ initiatives and strategies from hardware vendors, ISVs, SaaS providers, and Web 2.0 companies – start-ups and incumbents are equally active.

Cloud adoption in Europe will lag the US by a minimum of two years due to concerns over data privacy, security and regulations.

Or so says abacus-stroker Gartner, which reckons that the eurozone’s economic meltdown won’t help either.

"However, some of cloud computing’s potential risks and costs – namely security, transparency and integration – which are generally applicable worldwide, take on a different meaning in Europe," he added…

According to the results of IDC’s latest cloud survey, Cloud Adoption in the Asia Pacific – Retail Industry, only 19 percent of APAC retailers have started looking to adopt some practice of cloud computing services.

However, the cloud deployment is slowly gaining momentum; 32 percent of respondents say that they are evaluating cloud implementation in the next two to five years…

The project, being presented today at the Social Innovation Summit at the United Nations Plaza in New York City, is designed to give nonprofit organizations the ability to share applications, services and IT support using cloud computing technologies. The idea is that nonprofits who participate may be able to save money on capital, hardware, software and IT support costs and allow them to access cloud apps from a variety of devices, according to the initiative’s website…

“HPC utilization is becoming increasingly complex and a new trend emerges almost every year. There’s multicore and manycore, scaling up and out, big data, digital manufacturing and the missing middle, green computing, and HPC in the Cloud,” said ISC Cloud General Chair Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Gentzsch, an international expert in HPC and Grids who now brings his expertise to the clouds. “What the end-user is really looking for is research flexibility, easy access to HPC, reduced management overhead, and possibilities to extend the existing and limited HPC infrastructure.”…

SECURITY

Security is undoubtedly an important question, however many people do not know their triple DES (data encryption standard) from their AES (advanced encryption standard). To keep it short, most banks operate at 128-bit AES; this is considered to be acceptably secure for financial institutions. However, a few cloud companies offer 256-bit AES data encryption to demonstrate their pledge of security to you, as computing power and therefore miscreants’ abilities to attack important data is increased every 18 months to 2 years. (Thank you, Moore’s law)…

Cloud & big data: The rise of the data centre

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0874140/Cloud–big-data-The-rise-of-the-dat…

This report explores the various technical and economic issues bound up with cloud computing and Big Data – giving readers a deeper understanding of these concepts that are the subject of so much talk today. Among the key points examined is the critical role that data centres play when implementing technical solutions. Readers will also get a detailed profile of the players, both public and private sector, who are shaping the market…