Author: David

Grazed from PCAdvisor.  Author: Anonty Savvas.

A casino-specific cloud has been built in the US, in a further sign of the trend towards industry-tailored software as a service solutions.

International Game Technology (IGT) is using the AppLogic cloud computing platform from CA Technologies to deliver its casino software through the cloud.  "Casinos of all sizes will find it more cost effective and have higher agility in managing their gaming content through the IGT Cloud," said Chris Satchell, chief technology officer at IGT.

"Using the IGT Cloud, customers will be able to optimise and monitor their operations and rapidly adapt the mix of games on their casino floor to match their customers’ tastes."  With its cloud initiative IGT aims to reach new markets where adoption and cost barriers exist around traditional software deployments. The IGT Cloud will streamline software deployments and reduce the infrastructure requirements of its casino customers…

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author: Muz Ismial.

While the Private vs Public Cloud debate continues to plod along, a major Public Cloud user struck an equally massive blow for Hybrid Cloud when Zynga decided to make the move from AWS to their own zCloud private servers. In a move which flipped 80% of their Public Cloud usage to specialized Private Cloud servers which Zynga have dubbed zCloud, the move illustrates one potential path for small startups and SMBs to follow in their pursuit of massive exponential growth on a Cloud Computing based platform.

Just a few years ago, Zynga’s piece of the online gaming pie was almost inconsequential, but the maker of games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars has quickly grown to include millions of subscribers with this number set to grow even further. Originally most of their needs were covered by Amazon Web Services mainly because they were unsure as to their exact data center needs…

Grazed from Mashable.  Author: Sarah Kessler.

When I imagine “the cloud” where most of my daily interactions with web services such as Facebook and Google compute, I think of a free-floating space — complete with scalloped edges — that isn’t tied to a physical location.

In reality, however, cloud computing is very much tethered to the physical world, through football-field-sized warehouses of connected servers that enable it. A computing job, though it can be accessed from anywhere in the world, can’t be easily moved from one warehouse to another. It can’t even necessarily be moved from one area of a warehouse to another area of the same warehouse…

• Part 1: General concept
• Part 2: Private cloud specifics (this article)…

Grazed from The Metropolitan Corporate Council.  Author: Joshua Gold.

Presently, there is heavy pressure to migrate company data to the cloud. Individuals already shift a large amount of their data to “the cloud” in the form of family photos, vacation videos, contact information, and music. Shifting sensitive business information to the cloud, however, brings with it more complex considerations. Should a company be sending information to a third-party cloud site that hosts data for other businesses? And just what specific information is being sent: customer information? Trade secrets? Employee health information?

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author:  PR Announcement.

Aquantia, the leading developer of High Speed Ethernet connectivity solutions for cloud computing and large scale data center deployments, announced today it will be joined by Cisco and Intel to present on a panel titled "Connecting the Next Big Wave of Cloud Computing Infrastructure" at this week’s Ethernet Technology Summit 2012 in San Jose, California. The panel will be held at 10:00am, on Thursday, February 23, as part of the Tutorial T1-2A: Ethernet and Cloud Computing (Emerging Technologies Track).

The panel will bring together experts in the areas of high-speed physical layer interconnect technologies and system-level architecture. The panelists will review the trends underlying the upcoming shift in cloud computing infrastructure from 1 Gigabit Ethernet to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. They will provide insight into choices for connectivity that Data Center administrators and planners will have at their disposition. As the next generation servers based on Romley platform are massively deployed, 10GBASE-T, in particular, is projected to play a critical role as a ubiquitous interconnect technology between servers and switches…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

2X Software, global leader in virtual desktop and application delivery solutions, today announced that TMC, a global, integrated media company, has named 2X Software as a 2011 Cloud Computing Excellence Award winner, presented by Cloud Computing Magazine.

2X Software earned this industry award for the 2X ApplicationServer XG, which combines the best in application delivery and virtual desktop (VDI) management by allowing administrators to publish applications and virtual desktops from an all-in-one platform. 2X Software’s flagship product lets you experience the full benefits of desktop virtualization and improve desktop manageability, security, accessibility and performance by delivering virtual desktops and applications to Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS from any virtualization platform. "Recognizing leaders in the advancement of cloud computing, TMC is proud to announce 2X Software as a recipient of the first Cloud Computing Excellence Award," said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. "2X Software has demonstrated innovation as well as the ability to improve the security of cloud environments."…

Grazed from ITNewsOnline.  Author: PR Announcement.

The mid-market is leading the charge towards the adoption of cloud computing, according to the latest research from managed services provider Claranet.

According to the research, there appears to be more use of cloud services amongst medium-sized businesses, where 60 percent of those organisations reported using cloud services. This compared to fewer small-sized (44 percent) and enterprise-sized (48 per cent) organisations.

The research, conducted in November 2011, into cloud adoption rates amongst businesses in the UK, polled three hundred senior IT decision-makers to build a comprehensive profile on the UK cloud computing market…

Grazed from KippReport.  Author: George DeBono.

Openness in software and architectures is a big win for users. This truth is so widely recognized that a lot of vendors seem to favor using “open” as a sort of mantra even though they’re often not, well, open except in glancing and incidental ways. This is nowhere truer than with cloud computing.

Having an open architecture and approach when building a cloud matters deeply. Only an open cloud allows customers to manage diverse infrastructures by bringing them together under the same cloud architecture. Instead of creating a new cloud silo or forcing them to (impractically) start their IT over from scratch, an open cloud extends its benefits to their entire IT infrastructure, delivering greater efficiency and agility and putting them in control of their technology roadmap and, ultimately, the future of their IT…

Grazed from IT Web.  Author: Alex Kayle.

Over the next two to five years, 80% of enterprises in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) will move mission-critical applications into the cloud.

This is according to Frank van Rees, MD and enterprise business lead at HP SA, who says the technology giant will be making big investments in cloud computing and security solutions in Africa this year.

“HP will be putting a lot of focus on cloud computing in EMEA this year. Cloud computing has passed the hype cycle, and now HP is driving the private and hybrid cloud further. Private cloud this year will be bigger than public cloud; however, we see most of the companies moving to a hybrid cloud model.”…