Author: David

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Joe McKendrick.

My eighth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Pedrick, probably would have a field day with her red pen if she ever read many of the IT-related blogs out there – including mine. One of her pet peeves was the loading up of sentences with redundancies; most thoughts could be expressed neatly and cleanly with an economy of words. Consider phrases such as “free gift,” “all-time record,” “foreign imports,” “advance planning,” “join together” and “new recruit.”

Perhaps “cloud computing” has become one of those redundant phrases as well. I recently had the opportunity to moderate a panel discussion on cloud at IBM’s Impact conference. One of the panelists, Dr. Angel Diaz, vice president of software standards & cloud for IBM, predicted that we may not even be using the term “cloud” within the next five years – any and all forms of computing will be taking advantage of a mix of network and local resources…

Grazed from 7thSpace Interactive.  Author: PR Announcement.

Over the past decade the workflow system paradigm has evolved as an efficient and user-friendly approach for developing complex bioinformatics applications. Two popular workflow systems that have gained acceptance by the bioinformatics community are Taverna and Galaxy.

Each system has a large user-base and supports an ever-growing repository of application workflows. However, workflows developed for one system cannot be imported and executed easily on the other.

The lack of interoperability is due to differences in the models of computation, workflow languages, and system architectures of both systems. This lack of interoperability limits sharing of workflows between the user communities and leads to duplication of development efforts…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Maureen O’Gara.

Developers behind the open source massively scalable distributed storage system known as Ceph have started a company called Inktank to commercialize the stuff.

It’s supposed to be the first company to offer enterprise-level support and services for Ceph.

They claim Ceph is the "future of storage," a self-managing, highly scalable, open source distributed storage system that delivers object storage, block storage and POSIX-compatible file storage in a unified platform that runs on commodity hardware…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

eDynamics, a leading provider of cloud computing solutions for organizations in regulated industries, has today announced the launch of Archive for Chatter, a Salesforce AppExchange listed application that enables firms to capture and archive their Salesforce Chatter content.

"The lack of an adequate archiving application has caused many regulated firms to shelf their Salesforce Chatter deployments," said Chris Ricciuti, CEO of eDynamics. "Similar to other forms of electronic media such as email and instant messaging, Salesforce Chatter content must be archived, should the need ever arise to produce such content to satisfy regulatory requests."

Archive for Chatter is a Salesforce Chatter archiving solution that automatically captures Chatter content- posts, comments, files attachments, links and private messages- and sends a copy of each item in real-time to your existing internal archiving solution…

Grazed from PCWorld.  Author: Damon Poeter

Intel and McAfee on Friday announced a broad new secure cloud computing initiative aimed at businesses that may be delaying cloud adoption because they’re concerned about protecting sensitive data and meeting compliance obligations.

Intel acquired McAfee in 2010 for $7.68 billion.

The "holistic approach" to cloud security taken by the chip giant and its subsidiary is nothing if not ambitious, according to Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel’s Cloud Infrastructure Group…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Bob Burke.

The irony about cloud computing in the higher education environment is that most schools have already been using it to some extent but may not even realize it.

Gmail is one example. Yahoo Mail is another. The fact is web-based applications, which many schools rely on for daily communication, don’t always register with most people as being part of the cloud computing trend. But they are, given that they essentially fit the layman’s rudimentary explanation of the cloud: where storage and computing capacity exist (provided by a vendor) so all that is needed on a PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone is a browser. There are more "technical details" to actual cloud infrastructure, platforms and delivery, but for the purposes here, we will stick with the basic view.

There’s no question that cloud computing usage has exploded and will continue unabated. An article in the September 30, 2011 issue of Campus Technology stated that a new industry forecast is predicting that cloud computing will account for 33 percent of all data center traffic by 2015 – tripling the current percentage and about 12 times the total current volume…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

BroadCloud, a leading provider of managed hosting, private IT cloud solutions, and managed security solutions, today announced it has selected Piston Cloud Computing’s Piston Enterprise OS(TM) (pentOS(TM)) to bring off-premise private clouds to its customers. BroadCloud will be offering pentOS as part of its managed services offering.

For a low monthly cost, customers will be provided with a hosted data center, infrastructure management and server and network equipment powered by pentOS software. By deploying pentOS, BroadCloud managed IT services customers will be able to easily build and manage their private cloud without requiring a large capital outlay.

Piston Enterprise OS is the first cloud operating system built on OpenStack, and the first OpenStack distribution specifically focused on security and the easy operation of enterprise private clouds. Piston Cloud’s innovative Null-Tier Architecture(TM) combines storage, compute and networking on every node to deliver massive scalability with unprecedented cost efficiency. Designed to address regulatory requirements, Piston Enterprise OS also represents the industry’s first implementation of CloudAudit, an open security standard for cloud and virtualized environments…

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author: Jeff Norman.

They say change comes slowly or not at all. The cloud computing movement is thankfully maintaining a slow crawl over the powers-that-be in our governments at every level: local, state, national, even international. (But let’s save the complex, meaty discussion of the global cloud for another piece.) Although practically all of us are quite aware of the influence cloud exerts over the Internet-savvy members of our communities — that is to say, “everybody” — the government still hesitates to truly engage with the growing technological power. True, our leaders and their processes rarely belly-flop into any venture. Yet, with the pace at which cloud is growing, shouldn’t our leading administration make a bigger effort to get hip?

One cogent reason for that hipness to set in asap is how cloud computing is rewriting the definition of boundary in government. Specifically, the cloud is slowly but surely restructuring the division between the public and private sectors. The concept of information technology as business is a primary impetus in this restructuring. Certain sectors predicted last May that the cloud would explode into both sectors, and that prognostication seems to be holding true. Yet a failure to acknowledge and embrace this news will sooner or later do harm to how relevant and effectual our country’s management can be…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Maureen O’Gara.

Informatica, which already counts its Cloud processing upwards of a billion cloud integration transactions a day, has upgraded the stuff. It reckons its new Cloud Spring 2012 release will deliver the industry’s most comprehensive cloud integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS).

The biggest addition is a new Cloud Developer Edition that consists of a cloud connector toolkit and dynamic cloud integration templates for rapid connectivity to applications. Developers can embed end-user customizable integration logic and connectivity into cloud applications and platforms.

System integrators and ISVs should be able to build, customize and deliver native connectivity to any cloud or on-premise business and social applications that have published Web Services APIs…