Author: David

Grazed from GovWin.  Author: Joe Loong.

The federal government’s move to the cloud is fact, not fad, and agencies and contractors are anxious to go further. However, challenges remain, and panelists and participants agreed at GovWin’s Virtual Roundtable Webinar: The Federal Government, Contractors & the Cloud: Challenges & Opportunities — while technology challenges exist, many significant hurdles come from culture and policy.

Federal Cloud Implementation: Where Are We?

Hosted by GovWin and led by Senior Community Manager Michael Hackmer, the event began with Stanley Kaczmarczyk, FAS/ITS Director of the Cloud Computing Service, General Services Administration (GSA), summarizing agencies’ current cloud projects. Of the 78 identified, approximately half involved software-as-a-service (SaaS) projects, with the remaining covering infrastructure platform work…

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

AMD is giving up what remains of its ownership of its manufacturing plants, turning its 8.8% position over to the Abu Dhabi owners of Globalfoundries.

AMD will keep getting its chips made by Globalfoundries under a new negotiated take-or-pay wafer pricing commitment through 2013 but it doesn’t have to use Globalfoundries exclusively for certain of its anticipated 28nm APUs.

That concession, following serious 32nm yield, ramp and cost overrun problems at Globalfoundries last year, is going to cost AMD $425 million altogether: $150 million Monday, $50 million July 2, another $50 million October 2 and finally $175 million in 1Q13. As a result it’ll take a one-time charge of $703 million this quarter…

Grazed from V3.co.uk.  Author: Rosalie Marshall.

SAP is set to release a cloud computing version of its enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite for small businesses, Business One OnDemand.

The product marks the next step in SAP’s cloud strategy, having previously launched Business ByDesign in 2010 for midsize businesses, an ERP suite specifically developed by SAP for cloud computing.  Last year SAP teamed up with HP and Verizon to use their datacentres to deploy cloud versions of its Business Suite offering.

"SAP Business One has been a successful on-premise product with 34,000 customers worldwide. It was specifically designed for small enterprises. Many companies operate their entire company on Business One," Bobby Vetter, SAP channel readiness senior vice president, told V3…

Grazed from PR NewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

SEEBURGER and HP Germany today announced an agreement making SEEBURGER File Exchange (SEE FX), a solution for secure, traceable and compliant user-to-user file sharing, available on HP’s new cCell Services platform. The multi-tenant and private cloud options of HP cCell Services include a pay-per-use, HP-managed ‘cloud in a box’ that can be deployed in the customer’s own data center to avoid capital outlays and maintain data on company premises.

A first preview of the joint solution will be demonstrated at Cloud Computing World in Hall 4, Booth A58 at this week’s CeBIT conference in Hannover, Germany…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Ray DePena.

We’re seeing a lot of changes in the IT landscape. Oracle buying its way into the Cloud, AMD wants in on the server business, Dell is no longer a PC company, and some legacy players are learning about the Cloud market the hard way (see: Harris Scraps Secure Public Cloud).

Harris claims customers have a preference for on premise (private cloud) solutions, though a McKinsey survey mentioned in the article indicates CIOs will take a “balanced” approach (read: Hybrid Cloud). Besides, acquiring on-premise IT business won’t get easier in the Federal government space with its shift to a Cloud First Policy, nor in State government (see Time For State And Local Govs To Head To The Cloud)…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

For businesses contemplating a move to the cloud, there’s backup — and then there’s backup.  According to Infinitely Virtual, a leading provider of virtual server cloud computing services for small and mid-size businesses, data protection and backup must occur at the highest level, if cloud migration and implementation initiatives are to be successful.

The company knows whereof it speaks. Infinitely Virtual announced today that it has passed the SSAE (Standards for Attestation Engagements) No. 16 Type II audit, one of the most rigorous auditing standards for hosting companies. Conducted by The Moore Group, CPA, the audit confirms the highest level of service and reliability attainable for a virtual server hosting company. To be SSAE compliant, a hosting provider should offer SSL capability, enterprise-level, application level protection, hardware firewall, IP-restricted FTP, managed backups with 14-day retention, advanced monitoring and multi-level intrusion prevention…

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Dan Kusnetzky.

Chris Marino, the CEO and co-founder of vCider, stopped by to both introduce himself and introduce his company. vCider is offering tools to help organizations create their own virtual private networks to link applications and their components together as if they were all on the same local area network.

Grazed from InformationWeek.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Networking and connectivity solutions provider, D-Link has announced ‘personal cloud’ networking solution for the first time for the Indian consumers. With mydlink Cloud product line, D-Link aims to enhance its consumer networking products with innovative cloud functionality in order to personalize consumer Internet experience like never before.

The company claims that ‘mydlink cloud’ allows consumers to effortlessly control, view, share and access their network devices – anytime, anywhere. Under the umbrella of mydlink cloud services, the company has introduced a gamut of devices like cloud routers, cloud camera and cloud storage. All D-Link Cloud products are based on its mydlink platform and can be managed through mydlink website www.mydlink.dlink.com…

Grazed from IT Business Edge.  Author: Michael Vizard.

Like most things in life cloud computing is a double-edged sword. It can either eliminate internal IT or be used by IT to drive business innovation.

Speaking at the IBM Pulse 2012 conference today, Danny Sabbah, general manager for IBM Tivoli, strongly urged IT organizations to be a lot more proactive about pursuing the latter path. Clearly, many line-of-business executives are taking advantage of cloud computing to sidestep IT. What internal IT organizations need to do in order to make it less appealing for business executives to go around IT is to simplify, standardize and then automate their IT environments.

According to Sabbah, it’s all the complexity within IT environments today that is making it hard for IT organizations to dynamically respond to the needs of the business. Instead of relying on a “tools du jour” strategy, Sabbah says that IT organizations need to implement cloud computing in a way that accelerates business innovation or you risk being bypassed all together…

Grazed from Computer Technology Review.  Author: Oliver Moazzezi.

Cloud adoption is quickly gaining traction. A 2010 Forrester Survey found that 45 percent of European companies plan to adopt cloud-based IT services and it’s no surprise, as the benefits abound. Citing key advantages such as reduced costs and improved business efficiency, cloud computing also provides companies with inexpensive access to IT experience that they might not have in-house.

But despite companies embracing hosted cloud infrastructure and service, they are all too aware of potential pitfalls – one of the largest being data security. Because hosted services often store data in locations that are external to customers’ operations, IT managers realize that they are depending on the hosted providers’ in-house security capabilities to protect their data. This causes concern when dealing with high value data, such as financial information and customer contact details…