Author: David

Grazed from GCN.  Author: Henry Kenyon.

The CIA is embracing big data to dramatically speed up the time it takes to analyze and act on the sea of data its sensors and agents collect, a top agency official said.

There have been profound changes caused by technology in recent years, much of it driven by social, mobile and cloud applications, said Ira “Gus” Hunt, the CIA’s chief technology officer, speaking at the recent AFCEA Emerging Technologies Symposium in Washington DC. One example of this is the Arab Spring uprising, which would not have been possible without those technologies, he said, adding that cheap, ubiquitous and networked devices change how the public and private sectors do business…

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

Wayin, the 18-month-old Scott McNealy start-up, has topped up its funding with a $14 million B round lead by US Venture Partners with the participation of TIBCO, the big Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini and a very locker room crowd of private investors including TV producer Burt Sugarman, real estate developer Michael Meldman, Gunthy-Renker co-CEO Ben Van de Bundt, former Great Plains CEO and ex-Microsoft SVP Doug Burgum, sportscaster Jim Gray and others.

Financing so far totals $20 million…

Grazed from B/OSS.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Carrier cloud providers are moving as quickly as possible to offer new services in order to build new channels and acquire new customers. They have solved technical challenges and have an impressive array of composite services. But now cloud providers need to monetize their investment, and it’s at this point that many carriers are challenged, having overlooked the creation of effective processes that enable the sale, consumption and ongoing performance of their services. Monitoring and management of cloud computing services require a customer-retention strategy…

Grazed from American Banker.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Grazed from DataCenterDynamics.  Author: Ambrose McNevin.

Companies issuing requests for proposals for cloud services can now tap into information on Carbon Footprint, IO Controls, Provider Assurance, Security Monitoring and VM Interoperability. 

These are the five usage models that feature in reports from the Open Data Center Alliance, a body set up to develop a standards based approach to cloud computing service provision.

Within the guidance offered on Carbon Footprint, the ODCA says ‘This Usage Model establishes an open standard approach for measuring the carbon footprint of services provided from the cloud.’…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Srinivasan Sundara Rajan.

Information Delivery Needs in Academics
Analyzing massive amounts of unstructured content and extracting information out of them is necessary for many industry verticals and particularly important for academics. The following points highlight the growing needs for information delivery in the field of education and research:

• (Higher) Education Going Virtual: With the increased costs of higher education and other federal-related restrictions on travel from other countries, higher education is turning more toward the virtual class room and this trend will increase in the future. This means that there are an increasing number of students who will look for information over the virtual classrooms and by other means such as social media, access through smart devices, etc. The more unstructured the data, the greater the need to process them toward meaningful content for students…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Ricardo Geromel.

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

According to Alpine Data Labs, the two-year-old Big Data start-up incubated inside Greenplum, all that stuff bulging out of your storage is useless.  Unless it’s susceptible to predictive analytics, but finding those nuggets of insight can be a pretty pricey exercise.

Alpine set out to take the sticker shock out of the equation with its initial product, Alpine Miner, which simplifies the process of building predictive models for massive datasets without using a single line of code…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: PR Announcement.

If you’re not familiar with cloud computing or Software as a Service, you’re not alone. Silicon Valley-based, SaaS Markets has launched an easy to use and powerful business tool for enterprises of any size. Appmerica (www.appmerica.com) and Appclick (www.appclick.co.uk) feature over 1,100 cloud-based software solutions that make streamlining the operation of your business fast and simple. With just a few clicks, you can simplify any organization with business solutions ranging from accounting to customer relationship management (CRM).

Need to set up a custom billing plan for your business? Cheddar Getter™ provides a full-featured, easy-to-use billing and recurring subscription management system so you can accept and track one-time charges and recurring payments. Aside from having a fun name, Cheddar Getter™ has three monthly billing plans ranging from free to $79 per month…

Grazed from BBC.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have access to greater computing power than ever before thanks to cloud computing.

This remote computing power – provided by a third party, usually over the internet using a web browser, and often without a contract – is transforming the way SMEs use IT and even do business.  Cloud computing is lowering the barrier to entry into business for some SMEs, and helping speed up exploitation of new opportunities for others.

It is democratising IT and enabling many SMEs to act like, and appear to be, organisations of much greater size and scope. In these ways, with SMEs the growth engine for many countries, cloud computing has the potential to have a positive impact on industries and economies alike…