Author: David

December 7, 2011 Off

New EU laws to protect data in the cloud

By David
Grazed from Public Service Europe.  Author: Daniel Mason.

New European Union laws to be proposed next month will oblige companies to act more quickly to tell customers if their data is compromised, reinforce individuals’ rights to remove photos and videos from an internet profile without leaving a digital trace, and reduce the regulatory burden of data protection rules so that businesses can maximise the benefits of cloud computing – European Commission vice-president Viviane Reding said today.

Speaking at a GSMA Europe conference on cloud computing in Brussels, Reding said she would propose next month to protect internet users and unlock the technology’s potential. "Reliable and consistent rules are essential if we want the digital economy and our digital single market to grow." These rules make people feel comfortable about using new technologies and services. We need a framework for privacy that protects individuals and boosts the digital economy." The EU is also negotiating a data protection agreement with the United States…

December 7, 2011 Off

OnX Enterprise Solutions Unveils New Cloud & Managed Services

By David
Grazed from MSP Alliance.  Author: Raju Shanbhag.

Looking to simplify and accelerate the design and deployment of cloud-based enterprise computing solutions, OnX Enterprise Solutions has launched a new family of cloud and managed services.

With certified staff and ITIL-compliant processes, OnX monitors and manages a client’s private or shared operations 24x7x365. Offering maintenance, upgrades, development integration and version control, the company offers clients four levels of service and support to accommodate differing in-house capabilities and requirements, ranging from network and server/storage break-fix and maintenance, remote monitoring and 24x7x365 support, to complete service level agreement (SLA)-compliant infrastructure management and full application support as part of its new OnExpert support service, the company stated in a press release

December 7, 2011 Off

IDT’s Latest WAN Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) Supports Both Synchronous Ethernet And IEEE 1588 Applications For Cloud

By David
Grazed from The Street.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Integrated Device Technology, Inc. ( IDT ®);(NASDAQ:IDTI), the Analog and Digital Company™ delivering essential mixed-signal semiconductor solutions, today announced that it has expanded its leading timing portfolio with the industry’s most versatile WAN PLL supporting both Synchronous Ethernet (Sync Ethernet) and IEEE 1588 applications in cloud-based networking and 4G wireless infrastructure.

The IDT82V3391 is an integrated, single-chip PLL that supports both Sync Ethernet and IEEE1588 with legacy support for SDH, Sonet and T1/E1 clock rates. The broad range of supported protocols makes this product highly versatile, allowing system designers to use a single PLL device to support a wide range of applications. In addition, the device is capable of synchronizing to a 1 pulse-per-second (pps) input signal while simultaneously providing a 1 pps output, a feature that has become popular with 4G and LTE technologies. Ultimately, the extreme flexibility of IDT’s new PLL helps customers simplify their bill of materials (BOM) and reduce the total cost of their systems…

December 7, 2011 Off

Eye on Earth Enables Cloud-Based Environmental Data Sharing

By David
Grazed from VAdvert.co.uk.   Author:  Kelly Dunst.

The European Environment Agency (EEA), Esri and Microsoft Corp. today announced, at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the launch of the Eye on Earth network, an online community for developing innovative services that map environmental parameters. The new cloud computing-based network provides a collaborative online service for hosting, sharing and discovering data on the environment and promotes the principles of public data access and citizen science. In addition, the organisations also announced NoiseWatch, a new web service available on the Eye on Earth network that measures noise in 164 European cities.

The Eye on Earth network provides organisations with a security-enhanced central location for managing their geospatial environmental content. It uses Esri’s ArcGIS Online cloud services coupled with Windows Azure and Microsoft SQL Azure, and it hosts the data in the Environmental Data Store. The network’s user interface enables the easy creation and sharing of map-based services, translating complex scientific data into accessible, interactive and visual web services. With Eye on Earth, users can create and share maps within their organisation or make the content publicly available as web-accessible services. Eye on Earth was first launched in 2008 as part of a public-private partnership between the EEA and Microsoft with the joint goal of making environmental data available to all 600 million citizens across the EEA’s 32 member and seven cooperating countries…

December 7, 2011 Off

Oracle boosts cloud options with Solaris Cluster and JD Edwards updates

By David
Grazed from V3.  Author: Shaun Nichols.

Oracle has released updates for the Solaris Cluster cloud computing platform and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne software suite.

Solaris Cluster 4.0 allows enterprises and service providers to better implement and manage cloud computing platforms based on the Solaris 11 operating system, the firm said.

New features include improved support for installation of Solaris 11 on server hardware, and expanded support for third-party applications. Solaris Cluster 4.0 lets administrators apply patches and run disaster recovery tools without distance limits…

December 7, 2011 Off

Clouds: Advantages, Types & Services Delivered

By David
Grazed from HedgeCo.net.  Author:  Mary Beth hamilton.

The increased use of cloud-based services is undeniable. Analyst firm Forrester forecasts that the global market for cloud computing will grow from $40.7 billion in 2011 to more than $241 billion in 2020. The advantages of using “the cloud” include the ability to:

  • Quickly implement and use enterprise-grade technology systems and applications without employing a dedicated IT team;
  • Outsource management and maintenance of technology to third-party experts responsible for ensuring continuous availability and high performance levels;
  • Transition technology spending from capital expenditures to operating expenditures; and
  • Easily scale technology environments to match business needs – eliminating the need to over or under buy when forecasting business growth.

When weighing adoption of cloud-services, it is important to understand the difference between cloud deployment models, namely public and private clouds…

December 6, 2011 Off

Is Cloud the Answer for the European Economy?

By David

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Jacqueline Vanacek.
 

My last blog, Cloud is The World’s Economic Opportunity, profiled the plans of key governments around the world who are investing heavily in cloud computing to enhance economic opportunity and quality of life for their citizens.

Europe is taking an aggressive stance on building a cloud economy, per the scale of the revenue opportunity that can be achieved from the disruptive nature of cloud to the entire industry landscape.

It is estimated that European companies could save 20-50% of their total Information and Communication Technology (ICT) costs, to reinvest in new business models that generate revenue.  Cloud computing alone is expected to contribute about 0.1-0.2% growth in GDP, and a cloud economy would significantly stimulate Europe’s labor market across all industries, with potentially significant job growth (Survival of the Fittest – RolandBerger Strategy Consultants and SAP, 11/2011)…

December 6, 2011 Off

“Server huggers” are an obstacle to cloud adoption

By David
Grazed from ComputerWorld.  Author: Patrick Thibodeau.

Chipita America may be as close to a server-less company as one can find. Its ERP systems, EDI, BI, Office, Exchange and file servers are all hosted in a service provider’s cloud.

About six years ago, when many IT managers were debating Nicholas Carr’s book " Does IT Matter ," Chipita CIO Scott Martin was moving the Tulsa, Okla.-based snack food maker’s email to a third party’s cloud hosted platform. Since then Chipita has moved the rest its core systems to the cloud.

Martin said he didn’t see a competitive advantage in managing internal systems, believing that his time could be best spent focusing on business needs…

December 6, 2011 Off

Cisco Beefs Up Cloud Computing Push

By David
Grazed from Wall Street Journal.  Author: Ben Worthen.

Cisco Systems on Tuesday unveiled what it’s calling a “framework” for building big data centers, letting potential customers know how they can use various Cisco products together–and hopefully leading to more sales of its equipment.

The products in the announcement are largely things that Cisco already sells. But now Cisco is laying out a vision for using them to better manage information across data centers.

“For a long time we’ve provided individual components,” said Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s chief technology officer, who issued a blog post on the announcement. “What we are doing now is bringing these sets of products together.”…

December 6, 2011 Off

Cloud Player Drops IPO Plans

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

Spooked by the "volatile economic climate" and "current market conditions," GlassHouse Technologies, which provides cloud, virtualization, security and next-generation data center consulting and managed services, has dropped its plans to IPO.

It said it would withdraw the registration statement that it filed with the SEC last year thinking it could raise $75 million.

It’ll be the second time GlassHouse has scrubbed an IPO. It wanted to raise $100 million in 2007 but pulled those papers two years later because of market conditions too.

The 10-year-old Pennsylvania company has raised close to $87 million over five rounds from VCs, according to CrunchBase, including not insignificant contributions from Cisco and Citrix…