Category: News

Grazed from StarTribune. Author: Dee Depass.

In a potentially major breakthrough for data centers, 3M Co. today announced a new cooling fluid for large computer systems that reduces the need for powerful air conditioners and slashes energy costs. The technology is being portrayed as a game changer for massive data centers, which have proliferated with the rise of cloud-based networks for businesses and consumers and as storage for so-called “big data” applications used by business and government.

Such centers today use lots of energy to run computer servers and storage arrays and also to cool off those machines from the heat they generate. 3M will demonstrate its new 3M Novec Engineered Fluid at its Maplewood headquarters later today along with partners IntelCorp. and SGI…

Grazed from NationalLawReview. Author: Christine M. Wahr and Sarah T. Hogan.

In today’s world, it seems that virtually every business is using or offering some degree of online services. If you’re involved in making technology purchasing decisions for your business, you likely receive numerous requests related to purchasing hosted services, though the nuances of what a hosted service is and the particular legal considerations such a purchase raises may still be hazy concepts. If this resonates with you, you are not alone – even the most tech-savvy users can be left confused in this ever-evolving industry. To assist you in responding rapidly to these requests, we have pulled together a two-part series containing a quick reference guide of basics and top 5 considerations for purchasers of hosted solutions. Welcome to part 1 of this series, Hosting 101: The Basics.

What is a hosted service? The term “hosted service” is used to refer to a product or service powered by information technology resources that you do not own or control. Users are provided with access to the product or service without the need to purchase and maintain the necessary software,hardware, server space and other logistical and technical resources. You may run into hosted services that are provided on a dedicated server owned by the provider, but today, more often than not, hosted services are provided via the cloud…

Grazed from Parallels. Author: PR Announcement.

Parallels, a leading hosting and cloud services enablement provider, today announced a significant expansion of its strategic alliance with Ingram Micro Inc., a leading master cloud services aggregator and provider, as well as the world’s largest wholesale technology distributor and a global leader in IT supply-chain and mobile device lifecycle services.

As part of the relationship, Ingram Micro will adopt and deploy Parallels Automation as the core service delivery platform for its new global Cloud Marketplace, which was announced today at the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2014. Parallels expanded relationship with Ingram Micro also includes an equity investment by the distribution leader that demonstrates Ingram Micro’s commitment to the platform and the alliance…

Grazed from CMSWire. Author: Jeff Lawrence.

The choice between cloud-based and in-house DAM used to be easy. Between the high cost of cloud storage and bandwidth, and the limited capabilities of SaaS (software as a service) solutions — the argument for in-house DAM was clear. Cost is no longer the sole determining factor. Cloud computing and storage costs have lowered in the last few years, making SaaS a viable choice for many organizations. SaaS DAM vendors have responded to customer needs by offering new features and functionality that directly compete with the capabilities of in-house solutions — such as integration tools for social media — which places them squarely on the competitive playing field.

What’s the Difference?

SaaS is not a panacea, in-house solutions are still the right fit for many organizations. In general, in-house DAM solutions are limited only to the organization’s hardware infrastructure, security governance, network and quality of IT support. The client is responsible for the purchase and support of the hardware, software, database, storage, security and business continuity planning…

Grazed from UNSW.edu.au. Author: Editorial Staff.

UNSW researchers are using artificial intelligence to create a computer network capable of regulating its own consumption of public cloud services. The team, led by School of Computer Science and Engineering Lecturer Srikumar Venugopal, hopes the research will make truly elastic cloud computing a reality.

Elasticity is seen as a key benefit of the cloud, allowing companies to automatically and immediately dial up or down the consumption of cloud computing power based on need. The idea is to prevent companies over- or under-provisioning resources to run a particular workload. Presently, companies set rules to manage when to spin-up new virtual servers or shut them down. Systems administrators use their experience and historical data to set the rules…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Backupify, the leading provider of cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solutions for Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, today announced a significant feature enhancement to its Backupify for Salesforce product with the ability to restore objects in Salesforce. Backupify for Salesforce users can now securely, automatically back up and restore data in their Salesforce accounts.

Salesforce data is often considered the lifeblood of an organization and as such, the Backupify for Salesforce solution gives Salesforce admins an automated, daily backup of their critical Salesforce data. Now restoring this important data back into Salesforce is a seamless process. The one-click restore feature ensures that objects such as accounts, contacts, leads, campaigns, opportunities, contracts and more are quickly and easily restored back into a company’s Salesforce instance. Users can choose to restore an entire object or just a selection of records from that object…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Jelastic, Inc., the first company to deliver Platform-as-Infrastructure, has been profiled in a new 451 Research report: "Jelastic eyes opportunity in converged IaaS and PaaS". The report describes a key cloud trend, the convergence of the current technologies of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and describes Jelastic’s strategy and product portfolio. The 451 Research report also provides some key insights into enterprise strategies as they undertake the migration to cloud including:

• Enterprise IT departments are intent on functioning like hosting service providers.
• Enterprises have a growing appetite for PaaS.
• Whereas PaaS adoption was previously being driven by the polyglot programming trend, a new important driver is IaaS-PaaS integration…

Grazed from Technorati. Author: Steve Shattuck.

There’s a lot to be excited about in the nonprofit sector today. New technologies are allowing charities to reach current and potential donors at a rate and ease never seen before. Although charitable giving grew 4.9% in 2013, some metrics paint a cloudier picture of the sector’s overall health. Donor retention rates have dropped year-over-year over the past seven years – the entire span in which its been officially studied – landing at only 39%.

That same metric dips into the 20s when considering first-time donors only. Online giving’s percentage of overall giving contracted from 7% in 2012 to 6.4% in 2013 and effective social media usage still lags behind the for-profit sector. Some sub-sectors of the nonprofit world are reporting annual employee turnover rates upwards of 100%…

Grazed from TMCNet. Author: PR Announcement.

The Cloud Computing Desktop-as-a-Service Awards, presented by Cloud Computing magazine, will honor products that have demonstrated innovation, unique features, and noteworthy developments toward improving virtualized office technologies. The Cloud Computing Desktop-as-a-Service Award is not granted to the best-selling products, but instead to those representing a significant contribution to the industry.

Learn more and apply. The early bird deadline is April 17, 2014. Final application deadline is April 30, 2014. Results will be published in the 3rd Quarter edition of Cloud Computing magazine and on the Cloud Computing website. Winners of this exclusive award will be provided with an award press kit to begin their award marketing campaigns. The press kit includes a customizable press release to announce the achievement and the award logo in multiple formats to be placed on sales and marketing collateral…

Grazed from Fool. Author: William Alder.

While the cloud-computing market continues to grow, there appears to be some degree of blowback with the upcoming IPO of Box. While there are a few cloud-computing companies that are seeing far more investor buzz than profits, there are companies turning profits in the cloud.

Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) has a nice niche with its subscription cloud model, while IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) have different, but successful cloud strategies. The three large-cap companies are diversified, but have solid positions within the cloud segment. They offer investors a less-risky alternative to the companies that are cloud-only, but still have the ability to capitalize on the anticipated growth in the cloud market…