How to guard your data as it travels among cloud providers
It’s 2 p.m. Do you know where your cloud data is? Really?
Executives at one large Fortune 500 company thought they knew, but a routine audit of the cloud provider uncovered a serious problem.
"The cloud provider that we thought we had became merely a shell, and it outsourced the provision of the service to an offshore company that no one had even heard of and that the company would never have provided data to," recalls Brad Peterson, counsel for the company and a partner in the Chicago office of Mayer Brown LLC. ..
Cloud Computing Startups Raise Big Money
Today, there are two startups in focus – Xeround and SurDoc.
Xeround, a California-based startup that describes itself as “The Cloud Database”, announced the successful completion of its Series C round of funding in which it raised $9 million. Previous investors that included Menlo Park-based Benchmark Capital, Israel’s Giza Venture Capital, Ignition Partners and Trilogy Partnership, put in money in this round as well.
According to a press release, Xeround “offers a database-as-a-service for MySQL-based applications that’s elastic, linearly scalable and always on for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) environments.” The company claims that its “database-as-a-service solution effectively manages auto-scaling, high-availability, self-healing and multi-tenancy, while guaranteeing continuous service during schema changes, resource modifications and the scaling process.”…
How Cloud Computing Could Change Consumption and Our Economy
My friend Conor Sen‘s piece on consumption in the cloud (See 2012: The Year of Cloud Consumption?) offers some things that are sorely lacking in the discussion of our current social and economic environment: Originality and, dare I say it, optimism.
That’s not an easy thing to do when the prevailing topics of discussion are Europe, Occupations, elections, and everything else that’s gloomy. It’s all become a well-rehearsed Broadway show by now because we’ve been doing it so often for so long. We know all the songs, the dance numbers and lines by heart…
Hiring for Cloud Computing Skills Grows 61%
Over the past 90 days, employers and staffing firms placed more than 10,000 job ads that included requirements for cloud computing skills and experience, according to WANTED Analytics™ (www.wantedanalytics.com), the leading source of real-time business intelligence for the talent marketplace. More than 2,400 companies posted job ads during this 90-day period and hiring demand grew 61% year-over-year. Computer Specialists and Programmers are most commonly required to have cloud computing experience. However, as cloud-based software increasingly impacts additional areas of business, other fields are more commonly required to understand and work with cloud-based applications. Other jobs that most often include these skills in job ads include Marketing Managers, Sales Managers, Customer Service Representatives, and Cargo and Freight Agents…
NCR Gets Cisco Recognition – A Boost for Cloud Computing in MEA Region
Cloud computing in Middle East Asia region gets a new high as NCR Corporation, a leader in helping companies across the world connect and transact business, has been given Data Center Unified Computing Authorized Technology Provider certification from Cisco. This recognition comes after NCR has gone through the required training and programs from Cisco to sell and support the UCS or Unified Computing System from Cisco. NCR had to also meet requirements like Cisco Data Center Networking Infrastructure Specialization and Cisco Data Center Storage Networking Specialization. The Cisco program is an integral part of its strategy to implement advanced technologies in this sphere…
Government Cloud Computing launched
NetApp, Cisco, VMware, Microsoft and CAT Telecom have joined the government cloud-computing initiative, whereby a new information-technology platform will be designed to pool resources and reduce the government’s IT spending.
Information and Communications Technology Minister Anudith Nakornthap said at the launch today that the scheme should help reduce the government’s IT spending by at least 30 per cent, while ensuring regularly updated technology as well as advancement in electronics-based public services.
He noted that each year, government units spent nearly Bt50 billion on hardware and software, but they ended up buying old but pricey technology…
The bandwidth risk in cloud computing
Grazed from FierceCIO. Author: Caron Carlson.
Security concerns continue to dampen enterprise eagerness to move applications to the cloud, but there is another cloud computing risk that could bring down doom if not anticipated: bandwidth bottlenecks. For an in-depth look at this less-discussed risk, see an article by Sandra Gittlen at Computerworld.
InterContinental Hotels Group has moved storage and in-house mobile phone applications to cloud services in recent years. The measure has saved money and improved customer service, leading to a current project migrating the room reservation system to the cloud. Despite the positive experience, IHG CIO Tom Conophy is quite clear that a successful cloud implementation requires careful attention to bandwidth needs…
Frost & Sullivan Recognizes MicroStrain, Inc. for Innovation in Sensor Cloud Computing
Based on its recent analysis of the sensor cloud computing market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes MicroStrain, Inc. with the Global Frost & Sullivan Award for Product Leadership for SensorCloud(TM), a platform for sensor data storage, visualization, and remote data management. MicroStrain leverages advanced cloud computing technologies in SensorCloud(TM) to provide data scalability, rapid graphing, and user programmable online analytics for sensor data.
One of the unique features of SensorCloud(TM) is Fast Graph, a visualization and graphing tool that allows customers to rapidly navigate through gigabytes of data, and discover points of interest. However, it is the computational engine feature that really makes MicroStrain’s SensorCloud(TM) stand out. This feature enables customers to remotely process and analyze vast quantities of sensor data in the cloud. As a result, users can quickly and easily create virtual sensors based on mathematical relationships. Scalable user options benefit academics, small companies, and large companies alike…
Generic Software Architecture in Cloud Computing Platforms
For the past few weeks I have been reading different articles, publications, blog postings and so one regarding the generic software architectural model for cloud-based applications, and I am very interested in hearing other ideas about this as well.
Through my reading, I have found the following three types of software architecture in use within the current industry for different types of web-based distributed applications…
From Viral to Spiral, Social Media Fizzle Forecasts Cloudburst
As we move in to this new year, questions on many of our minds course with anticipation over what might we expect moving forward in 2012 in the world, in our lives, and with our technology. Technology as a tool for our lives has given the economy a new dimension and we make an economy more effective and maneuverable as a consequence of its usage. This year, as predictions, resolutions and preparations for health, hearth, and livelihood convene, technology endeavors top the list for performance. Technology begins in Silicon Valley, where possibility meets imagination, and ideas grow with a well-executed plan. Topping the list for technology predictions for 2012, Vivek Wadhwa, a columnist for Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Washington Post, waxes prophetic on topics of security in this new era of cloud computing, and wanes subjectively on social media platforms and start-ups, in general…