Author: David

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author: Florence G. de Borja.

With the recent worldwide popularity of cloud computing, it is expected to gain more momentum with more and more industries making use of such technology. The accounting profession can experience the most benefits because the accounting field processes a lot of data which can be housed online through cloud computing. However, not every accountant knows cloud computing and it is but expected that they have doubts as to the integrity of the technology. As such, this article hopes to explain the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing with regards to the accounting profession.

Accountants can benefit from cloud computing because it eliminates purchasing software and servers, and maintaining and running them. The old technology infrastructure which requires all software and servers to be housed in the accountant’s office is now being replaced with a more robust and inexpensive technology known as cloud computing. Cloud applications are run through the web. An accountant just needs a computer or a laptop and an internet connection to be able to run accounting applications.  The software and server are managed not by the accountant but by the cloud application vendor. Typical applications available for accountants include full ERP (enterprise resource planning), payroll, and tax software. The accountant need not purchase a license to use the software. He/she just needs to pay subscription fees…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Aerohive Networks, the pioneer in cloud-enabled enterprise networking infrastructure, announced today that TMC, a global, integrated media company, has named Aerohive’s BR100 Router as a 2011 Cloud Computing Excellence Award winner presented by Cloud Computing Magazine in January, 2012.

News Facts

— Cloud Computing Magazine is the industry’s definitive source for all things cloud — from public, community, hybrid and private cloud to security and business continuity, and everything in between. The term cloud computing goes beyond VoIP, software-as-a-service (SaaS) or Unified Communications — it’s an entirely new way to build, deploy and scale enterprise communications systems…

Grazed from PRWeb.  Author: PR Announcement.

Hexagrid, a leading developer of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing solutions, announced today that Compare the Cloud, a leading independent cloud comparison provider, named Suresh Mandava and Dave Rokita as premier thought leaders in the worldwide IaaS field. Compare the Cloud made this announcement with the launch of a new cloud computing comparison website which brings together information and evaluation resources about trusted cloud vendors to ensure that customers find the right cloud solutions for the right price.

"Compare the Cloud is delighted to welcome aboard David Rokita and Suresh Mandava of Hexagrid as esteemed thought leaders in the field of Infrastructure-as-a-Service," says Luke Wheeler, Chairman of Compare the Cloud. "Hexagrid is at the leading edge of cloud computing, firmly establishing itself as one of the most innovative and exciting operators in this sector. As part of Hexagrid’s close involvement with Compare the Cloud.net, we look forward to expert commentary and advice for all our readers and business technology customers in the cloud computing sector."…

Grazed from Information Age.  Author: Hal Hodson.

Most IT leaders with an interest in cloud computing will have tried the technology out in some capacity by now, and many are beginning to use the cloud in production environments.

The debate is therefore moving from defining and describing the cloud to discussing how to get the most out of the service delivery model. 

Information Age’s most recent roundtable debate, which took place in January in Birmingham, invited IT practitioners to share their experiences of cloud computing in terms of how it has affected their IT operations.

One IT manager in attendance reported that adopting an infrastructure-as-a-service offering has liberated his staff from the more menial IT management tasks. "To think of all the jobs we had to do when we owned all our own kit," he said. "Now, with 90% of it in the cloud, you never even need to pick up a screwdriver."…

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

Red Hat is putting its bought-in Gluster scale-out NAS storage technology, acquired in October, on the Amazon cloud.

It’s styled Red Hat Virtual Storage Appliance for Amazon Web Services and other clouds are supposed to follow in short order.

It’ll let companies burst their unstructured data center storage to the cloud and aggregate both Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances for a highly available petabyte-size virtualized storage pool…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: David Linthicum.

We’ve all seen the PowerPoint presentations that show the business advantages of cloud computing: the ability to avoid hardware and software purchases (opex vs. capex), speed to deployment, elasticity, and so on. However, unless you’re prepared to provide real numbers that define real value, that’s so much fluff to those in the executive suite.

As I develop these business cases for enterprises, I’ve found some commonality or emerging patterns to consider. Here are my top three secrets to developing your cloud computing business case and getting it accepted…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Bob Gourley.

CumuLogic is a cloud computing company founded by Sun Microsystems’ alumni. The company has developed a Java Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) software that makes it easier and faster to develop and deploy Java applications (apps) in the cloud. By automating the management of the runtime environments for developing and deploying Java apps in the cloud, including automated scaling, CumuLogic’s Java PaaS can reduce the current time these steps take from upwards of multiple weeks to under a day. Cloud computing is not just about Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). The cloud is about the applications, and getting them to your customers in a timely and effective way.

CumuLogic’s Java PaaS is now in beta with general availability coming soon. Their offering provides a no-lock in PaaS solution for Java apps that works on either public or private clouds. An enterprise can easily move apps between their own private cloud and a public cloud if needed. CumuLogic PaaS supports Amazon EC2, Eucalyptus, Citrix/Cloud.com CloudStack, OpenStack, and VMware private clouds…

Grazed from CIOL.  Author: Ajay Goel.

Today’s SMB operates in a highly competitive and increasingly technology driven market. Operational efficiency is naturally a high priority for small and medium businesses to stay ahead and emerging technologies like cloud and virtualization have a crucial role in determining the same.

Cloud computing in particular, offers many advantages in terms of flexibility, agility and on-demand resources that can give organizations a real competitive edge. Cloud as a cost effective technology also fits in comfortably within the strained IT budgets of the SMBs. 

The interest levels around cloud adoption are rising, amongst SMBs.  Factors such as increased agility and fewer burdens on IT teams are making this a profitable option. The first step towards cloud adoption is server virtualization and SMBs are increasingly considering the adoption of this technology…

Grazed from NY Convergence.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Lower trading volumes and less than stellar profits mean that Wall Street firms are looking to cut costs, so the adoption of third-party cloud-based applications and services is expected to accelerate this year.

Scivantage runs  a retail online-trading portal and professional trading and tax applications in a private cloud. Joe Stensland, SVP and managing director of Scivantage, told Wall Street Technology that, “We deliver the application with a private cloud and allocate the resources needed for each client deployment so they don’t have to bring in resources and infrastructure.

While the interest in cloud services is moving up the list of priorities at large firms that have become cost-conscious, according to Stensland, “Midrange firms have become even more interested in the cloud’s pay-for-what-you-eat philosophy.”…

Grazed from Information Week.  Author: Doug 

Microsoft announced Monday that it will embrace rival mobile platforms and browsers with a planned second-quarter service update of its Microsoft Dynamics CRM application.

"In today’s hyperconnected world, customers need to be able to access their business-critical data on the device of their choice," said Dennis Michalis, general manager, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, in a statement.

That’s not exactly new news to customers, but cross-platform support is something Microsoft has only slowly–and fairly recently–embraced as it has moved into broad cloud computing services such as Azure and Microsoft Office 365…