Author: David

December 22, 2010 Off

A Year of Unified Communications Transition

By David
Grazed from IT Business Edge.  Author: Michael Vizard.

It’s hard to say that any one year is the seminal event in the history of unified communications (UC). Much like the evolution of the LAN technologies that UC depends on, it is going to take about a decade for mainstream UC adoption to play out across the enterprise.

Assuming that we’re about to enter the sixth year of the cycle, that would make 2011 a year of transition. In fact, if we consider 2010 to be a year where many of the fundamental technology issues were addressed, then 2011 should be the beginning of a series of cultural adjustments that will need to be made as UC becomes more of an everyday business tool.

December 22, 2010 Off

An Enterprise Without Desktops?

By David
Grazed from IT Business Edge.  Author:  Arthur Cole.

Pity the poor desktop in the age of the cloud. Where once it reigned supreme throughout the enterprise, many now see it verging on obsolescence as new generations of access devices tailor themselves to a more mobile and flexible workforce.

At the same time, IT itself is losing its position as the gatekeeper of all things digital, with individuals and business users increasingly willing to do end-runs around official channels to gain the resources they need to do their jobs.

It all adds up to a sea change in the working environment that will make today’s enterprise barely recognizable in 10 years’ time.

December 22, 2010 Off

5 Tips for Enterprises Considering a Private Storage Cloud

By David
Grazed from Cloud Storage Strategy.  Author: Steve Lesem.

Enterprises are increasingly looking to on-premise private storage clouds as a cost-effective way to share information.  Why?  A cloud behind the firewall enables users to easily access, share and collaborate without compromising data security, integrity and availability.  But there are still a few points every enterprise needs to consider before making the decision…

December 21, 2010 Off

NATO works with IBM on cloud

By David
Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Larry Dignan.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and IBM are teaming up on a project that aims to improve data sharing between the group’s 28 member countries.

Under the deal, IBM and NATO will aim to improve data center efficiency as well as information sharing. The partnership will also aim to create a cloud computing model that could be used for other military operations.

The effort will be developed by IBM at the Headquarters of the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (HQ SACT) in Norfolk, Virginia.

December 21, 2010 Off

Cloud Computing Services Have ‘Come Of Age’ In Enterprise: Survey

By David
Grazed from CRN.  Author: Andrew R. Hickey.

More than 90 percent of large enterprises are using at least one cloud computing service, illustrating cloud computing has "come of age" in 2010, a survey recently released by CA Technologies found.

That same 90 percent of large enterprises are also looking to increase their cloud usage and grow beyond cloud computing services like collaboration and start taking advantage of more complex infrastructure and platform cloud computing services.

December 21, 2010 Off

Maturing cloud, evolving BI headline 2011 IT trends

By David
Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Kevin Kwang.

In its Asia-Pacific IT Market Predictions 2011 released Tuesday, the research firm revealed that hype generated around cloud in 2009 and 2010 will give way to a "more sober, realistic understanding of the relevance and applicability of cloud computing" among CIOs and senior IT decision-makers.

December 21, 2010 Off

New AppFirst Monitoring Product Integrates With Top Cloud Providers

By David
Grazed from Network Computing.  Author: Robert Mullins.

AppFirst, a company that provides detailed monitoring and management of computing resources running in cloud environments, has introduced a new version of its solution that integrates with the systems of major cloud providers. The company announced this week that its AppFirst system–which constantly, rather than intermittently, monitors performance– works with cloud providers such as Amazon EC2, Rackspace, SoftLayer and GoGrid, and will support additional cloud providers in the near future.

December 18, 2010 Off

Rackspace Looks to Bring Order to ‘Cloud Chaos’

By David
Grazed from Server Watch.  Author: David Needle.

Cloud computing offers a potentially great way for IT to offload and expand infrastructure resources outside of the data center, but managing those cloud resources can be tricky.