Author: David

Grazed from ITWorld.  Author: Brian Proffitt.

According to Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, the biggest commercial Linux vendor is planning on hiring at least 1,000 new employees in 2012–increasing the size of its staff by 24 percent.

This interesting data was revealed in a recent interview in Investor’s Business Daily, where Whitehurst cites cloud computing as the big reason for Red Hat’s explosive growth.

Ironically, Whitehurst sees the success of Red Hat and companies like Amazon in the cloud as a factor in actually slowing overall economic growth:…

Grazed from Data Center Knowledge.  Author:  Rich Miller.

Internap Network Services has acquired hosting provider Voxel Holdings in a deal that will boost the company’s cloud computing offerings and expand its base of small business customers. The all-cash transaction, which closed Dec. 30, is valued at $30 million, with an additional $5 million in sweeteners tied to the delivery of specific objectives during the next two years.

Voxel is backed by Seaport Capital, which invested $5.5 million in the company earlier this year. Voxel is based in New York and offers hosting services atop an automation platform called VoxSTRUCTURE. Its services include on-demand physical and virtual cloud servers, a global content delivery network (CDN), and a full suite of managed services.  The company hass more than 1,000 customers and 50 employees…

Grazed from Minyanville.com.  Author:  Conor Sen.

Many years ago, Sun Microsystems coined the phrase “the network is the computer.” Sun was way ahead of its time in making this call, and despite being right in its vision didn’t survive to be a part of what we now know as cloud computing. Increasingly, it appears that we’re transitioning to a world where, to use a somewhat clumsy analogy, the network is the consumer.

A couple of pieces served as inspiration for this. First, Leigh Drogen had a post a year ago titled Social Capital and Collaborative Consumption with which I generally agree. But it was this New Year’s resolution from Leah Culver to “live in the cloud” that made the connection for me. Because while cloud computing companies like Salesforce.com (CRM), VMware (VMW), and Citrix Systems (CTXS) are changing the lives of IT professionals and systems administrators everywhere, cloud consumption has the potential to change the lives of everyone…

Grazed from eCommerce Times.  Author: Richard Taggart.

Cloud computing represents a powerful shift in how your company deploys applications, stores data, implements security and adheres to industry regulations. Cloud architectures can give your company the flexibility to scale resources as the business requires. And you can do so without incurring unnecessary capital expenses.

Whether your organization is actively looking at cloud computing options or just thinking about it, there are some important business, legal and security issues to consider about cloud computing before taking the plunge. Weighing these issues at the onset will help you avoid potential problems once you select a vendor and begin deployment.

You should also bring some key stakeholders into the conversion to ensure you’re looking at the benefits and potential risks from every possible angle…

Grazed from InformationWeek.  Author: Charles Babcock.

Use of cloud computing services continues to creep upward among those responding to the second InformationWeek Reports State of Cloud Computing Survey. But in the data we can see what will be the dominating cloud trend in 2012: IT teams looking to run more sophisticated services on top of basic x86 infrastructure.

One data point to look at is projected new uses of the different types of cloud computing. We see fewer new adopters of infrastructure as a service over the next 12 months. However, new users of platform as a service, software as a service, and the cloud computing services provided by virtualization vendors all show continued high or increasing percentages…

Grazed from Network World.  Author: Ann Bednarz.

Despite some hopeful fits and starts, the U.S. economy didn’t escape the doldrums in 2011. Unemployment remained stubbornly high, the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis and budget scuffles spurred more economic uncertainty, and Europe’s ongoing financial problems threatened global markets. If there’s an upside, at least it’s familiar territory.

"Back in 2008, nobody knew what was going to happen as a result of the global financial crisis and IT spending almost stopped overnight," says Richard Gordon, a research vice president at Gartner. "We’re not in that kind of situation now. The solutions to the problems [in the U.S. and Europe] are understood and known. The question is now, is there a political way to execute and make them happen?"…

Grazed from Business Computing World.  Author: Kevin Tea.

Is that’s time of year for making seasonal wish lists, new year’s resolutions so I thought I’d chip in with a few of my own personal choices.

In the two or so years that I’ve been blogging about cloud computing I have seen a plethora of services that have been great, average or downright bloody awful. Wading through all of these I have got a rough idea of my perfect cloud and social media mix so here is my slightly tongue in cheek breakdown.

Wish List #1

Please, please, please will Box open up desktop syncing to non enterprise users. This is holding back what is a great service and could be truly phenomenal. Looking back through the Box forums it seems that us pond life users have been promised this for more than a year so quite why the delay I have no idea. I really don’t want to have to give up on Box but manual synchronisation is so last century…

Grazed from Digital Journal.  Author:  PR Announcement.

OW2, the global open source community for open source middleware and generic applications today announces its presence at the Cloud Expo Europe in London, January 25-26. OW2 and the Open Source Cloudware Initiative (OSCi) will introduce two major cloud computing projects: CompatibleOne, a cloud interoperability platform based on a cloud broker, and CloudForce, a project dedicated to developing a cloud application life-cycle management environment.

Attendees at Cloud Expo are welcome to visit the OW2 booth and attend presentations illustrating the organization’s involvement in leading open source cloud computing collaborative projects…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Cloud Ventures.

Cloud Computing is now a maturing field with a number of sub-topics that make up its structure, and smart Cloud Providers can use these as building blocks for their service offerings, combining them through consultative selling techniques to deliver the ideal client solutions.

For example the core building blocks include ‘Cloud Identity’ as well as virtualization, and an excellent description of how they can be combined is this case study from BT of Norfolk County Council…