Cloud Cost Analyses and ‘Inherent Conflict of Interest’
IT Business Edge blogger Art Cole recently wrote that "the simple economics behind cloud computing is enough to foretell its imminent rise to data center dominance," citing data from Quest Software’s Dmitry Sotnikov that shows many popular cloud services are bargains based solely on the energy needed to run a typical in-house server — never mind cooling, maintenance, security and backup costs.
Security zone: Extending compliance to the cloud
Most security and compliance mandates were simply not designed with cloud environments in mind – an unfortunate state of affairs as a huge amount of our data is about to go "cloudwards".
Even recent updates to common compliance mandates such as PCI DSS 2.0 do not adequately address compliance issues when using cloud services. The key benefits of cost saving, agility, collaboration and availability often overshadow the implications of expanding your audit scope to include your chosen cloud provider. How do you guarantee your compliance when moving to the different forms of cloud services?
Data quality responsibilities ‘should be made clear’
Companies often struggle to determine what department is responsible when it comes to the issue of data quality.
This is according to Rob Karel, a Forrester analyst who has recently written a report on the topic of process data headaches for the organisation, reports Information Week.
In his study, it is pointed out that business departments often believe data quality to be the concern of IT teams.
Why high-performance clouds are best kept in-house
Most commercial entities don’t have the infrastructure to handle the intensive workloads of high-performance computing, And, if they do, it will probably be more expensive – in one case, 10 times more expensive – for them to run dedicated services than for some agencies to run their own private clouds.
At least that’s the case for officials from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who spoke at a recent symposium on high-performance computing.
What is cloud computing? A quick guide to the subject
There’s been plenty of talk about cloud computing ,widely being seen as the ‘next big thing’ in the IT world, but what’s it all about?
The fundamental idea behind the concept is to rent the provision of a service from another company, and for that service provision to be out on the Internet. Defining what we mean by “provision of service” is not easy, because different vendors mean different things. But the essential core idea is that you do not run central services inside your organisation, but push them out to these third party suppliers. Think of it as “outsourcing your servers” and you are mostly there.
Three steps towards drawing up ideal cloud computing contract
Once you’ve made the decision to move away from an IT environment that is physically located within your organisation, there’s another problem to solve.
One of the crucial elements of moving to the cloud is the type of contract that you have with the cloud provider (or a reseller of the cloud provider’s service). Get this part wrong and your business could be looking at some very serious financial consequences.
There are three main areas to concentrate on: reliability, security and liability and all customers should be paying keen attention to what a cloud providers’ policy in these three areas is.
Security: The Biggest Holdup to Cloud Computing
Master data management projects ‘should be focused on long-term goals’
Master data management projects need to have a focus on their long-term objectives, it has been suggested.
In a column for the IT Business Edge website, commentator Loraine Lawson noted a recent study from the Aberdeen Group contained this advice.
It said "minor tactical considerations" that crop up over the course of such a scheme should not become a barrier to meeting these goals.
"Make sure the end result will be driving profit and productivity in the areas that matter most," said the report.
FCCI Contractor Warns Of Cloud Pitfalls
Cloud computing uptake ‘being driven by marketing departments’
Marketing and other non-IT departments are helping to drive the adoption of cloud computing within their companies, a meeting in New Zealand has heard.
Speaking at the IDC Cloud for Business Conference in Auckland, Tim Dillon, research associate vice president of IDC Australia and Asia-Pacific, said his own organisation is an example of this.
He noted the use of Salesforce.com applications as part of an overhaul of the body’s customer relationship management systems was chiefly driven by its sales and marketing team.