Rackspace Adds Virtual Desktop Platform To Cloud Channel Arsenal
Rackspace Hosting launched a hosted virtual desktop platform on Monday that the company said leverages its hosting services to let customers host their virtual desktops on any dedicated or cloud solution.
And the platform can be paired with desktop virtualization plays from others like Citrix (NSDQ:CTXS) or solution providers, San Antonio-based Rackspace said.
Spreading VDI Through the Cloud
Is it possible that virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is already past its prime?
It’s sort of a trick question because it certainly looks like the concept is as sound as it ever was, it’s only the infrastructure component that seems to be changing.
Evaluating Your Cloud Options
Usually, the phrase "head in the clouds" is used to mean that a person was caught daydreaming or is otherwise not engaged with what’s going on or the topic at hand. But, when the subject is cloud computing, and when the task at hand is to gain information in order to make a choice for your company, you’ll find that solid research on your options is critical. In other words, you’ll need to have your head in the cloud to make good decisions.
What’s missing from the cloud? An exit strategy.
You can get into the cloud, but do you have an exit strategy to get out?
Ninety percent of federal IT managers recently surveyed either say their agencies don’t have or report being unaware of whether their agencies have a cloud computing exit strategy, according to a survey commissioned by Quest Software Public Sector.
Agencies need a cloud exit strategy if they want to move their data or change cloud providers, government and industry experts say. To avoid vendor lock-in, there should be mechanisms for data exchange that encourage portability across platforms, they add.
Will cloud computing make traditional vendor relationships obsolete?
Network World has conducted multiple tests of cloud-based services over the past year, and our overarching conclusion is that shifting compute processes to the cloud can help companies save money and become more flexible.
IBM: Nearly Two-Thirds Of Global CIOs Ready For Cloud
Sixty percent of global CIOs are ready to embrace cloud computing over the next five years, IBM (NYSE:IBM) found in a recent CIO study. That’s double the number of organizations that were planning to leverage the cloud in the same study two years ago.
How to prepare for cloud outages
When Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) came to a juddering halt this April, the outage was traced to a data rerouting error made in a storage network in the US state of Virginia. The company explained the problem succinctly, "As with any complicated operational issue, this one was caused by several root causes interacting with one another."
SAP offers HANA cloud platform for in-memory applications
SAP is opening up a cloud-based platform for its HANA (High Performance Analytic Appliance) in-memory computing technology, enabling partners to develop applications that take advantage of its capabilities, the company announced.
"We believe the future of the cloud is in fact an in-memory cloud," said CTO and executive board member Vishal Sikka. The HANA application cloud is now in "pre-beta," he added. Other details, including a general availability date, weren’t immediately available.
Microsoft and SAP team to ease cloud deployments
Microsoft and SAP are configuring some of their cloud software products so that they work more easily together.
SAP will expose some of the functionality in its software so it can be readily harnessed within the Microsoft .Net platform as well as from the Microsoft Azure cloud computing service. These tweaks should speed development of .Net applications that interact with SAP programs, as well as make it easier to connect Azure cloud applications to internal SAP systems, the two companies said.
Move To Cloud Means Closer Look At Encryption, Experts Say
Following massive breaches recently at Sony’s PlayStation Network and email marketing firm Epsilon, cloud services users need to look closer look at data protection and encryption, security experts warn.
Information stored on Internet accessible servers, especially customer data or critical corporate data, needs to be properly protected by encryption — not just to satisfy industry and government regulations, but to protect the business, says John Considine, founder and CTO of CloudSwitch, which provides an encrypted software infrastructure to lock down data in the cloud.