Category: News

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Stephen Lawson.

Cisco Systems’ "Intercloud" platform for interoperable cloud services could be combined with remote-computing technology to define the so-called Internet of Things from the weather-ravaged, intermittently connected edge to regional and global data centers. The Intercloud is Cisco’s vision for a "cloud of clouds" that encompasses both Cisco data centers and those of its partners.

The system, to be based on OpenStack, would be able to handle any workload on any hypervisor and work with any public or private cloud, the company said. Cisco plans to invest $1 billion in its cloud business over the next two years, it said in an announcement at its Partner Summit on Monday. It plans to sell cloud services directly to customers and through channel partners…

Grazed from TheChicagoTribune. Author: Noel Randewich.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang debuted new and upcoming graphics technology on Tuesday including a $3,000 high-end component for PC game enthusiasts and a cloud-computing partnership with VMWare. With the personal computer industry losing steam and the chipmaker’s move into mobile facing relentless competition, Nvidia is heavily promoting its graphics technology for a wider range of applications, including cars and data centers.

At the company’s annual graphics technology conference in San Jose, Huang wowed close to 3,000 attendees with souped up chips for machine learning and a self-driving Audi, powered by an Nvidia processor, that drove onto the stage during his presentation. Huang announced a new version of Nvidia’s high-end Titan graphics card, its top of the line offering for die-hard PC gamers…

Grazed from MidSize Insider. Author: Doug Bonderud.

If midsize IT professionals are asked about the benefits of cloud computing, most have easy answers: Lowered costs, increased agility and even improved security top the list of effective cloud deployments. If they are asked about drawbacks, however, cost may make the list again along with a more interesting concern: IT staff. Many staffers lack any kind of cloud computing certification, having developed their skills through real-world experience rather than classroom training. Midsize companies, therefore, may face a quandary: Experienced personnel hired away by other firms and new staff not up to speed on cloud technology. What is the solution?

The Flipped Classroom

It starts with initiatives like the one from Northern Illinois University (NIU). According to a March 24 article on the NIU Today blog, the university is launching what it calls their Cloud Genius Certification course. Raimund Ege, one of the primary course developers, notes that "research from International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that revenue from cloud services will reach $72.9 billion by 2015, which is four times the projected growth for the worldwide information technology market altogether." In other words, the cloud market is exploding; but to make the best use of it, companies need trained IT staff…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Paul Koreniowski.

How much of an impact is cloud computing really having on small and midsize businesses (SMBs)? FierceCIO helped to answer that question with a list of 20 intriguing industry statistics compiled by Silicon Angle. Below are some of the more striking figures. The first realization is that cloud computing has moved squarely into the business mainstream, especially in the U.S.: By 2015, end-user spending on private and public cloud services is expected to exceed $180 billion.

If a midsize business is leery of examining the technology because it is still nascent, the quoted statistic should mitigate such a concern. Firms are embracing this new computing model because it makes economic sense. Midsize firms are able to avoid making costly up-front investments in servers, network, equipment and storage; instead, they are able to spread their computing costs over monthly increments that are in turn spread out over a number of years…

Grazed from GoogleCloudPlatform. Author: Editorial Staff.

Today, at Google Cloud Platform Live we’re introducing the next set of improvements to Cloud Platform: lower and simpler pricing, cloud-based DevOps tooling, Managed Virtual Machines (VM) for App Engine, real-time Big Data analytics with Google BigQuery, and more.

Industry-leading, simplified pricing

The original promise of cloud computing was simple: virtualize hardware, pay only for what you use, with no upfront capital expenditures and lower prices than on-premise solutions. But pricing hasn’t followed Moore’s Law: over the past five years, hardware costs improved by 20-30% annually but public cloud prices fell at just 8% per year…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Karen S. Evans.

In the technology-rich world we live in, it’s critical for everyone to understand how their data is processed and used. For the government, it is arguably even more important, given the massive amounts of sensitive citizen data it possesses and stores. As we move to more sophisticated, data-driven technological environments such as the cloud, it is imperative that all government entities become hypervigilant about making sure that vendors are handling this information appropriately.

I am not the first person to say this, and I will certainly not be the last. Recent disclosures in a California lawsuit have raised several red flags about how government data could be used by cloud vendors — particularly vendors with business models that rely heavily on advertising revenue and monetizing user data…

Grazed from Wired. Author: Cade Metz.

Many people complain that renting computer power from Amazon and other cloud companies is too expensive. Though the cloud is a great way to get a startup off the ground or run a website where the daily traffic ebbs and flows, the voices say, there are other times when it’s far cheaper to just buy your own computer hardware. “I’m not a big believer in the public cloud,” one Silicon Valley CEO told us this past summer. “It’s just not effective in the long run.” But Google wants to change this.

Today, at an event in San Francisco, the tech giant significantly reduced the prices attached to several of its cloud computing services, seeking an edge over Amazon, the world’s dominant cloud company. “This brings you industry leading pricing without the complexity you’re used to,” said Urs Hölzle, who oversees Google’s cloud services and its entire online infrastructure…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Henry Kenyon.

The Department of Defense (DOD) is rolling out a new cloud computing service as part of its ongoing efforts to trim IT costs and provide more streamlined services to its military and civilian users. The service, called MilCloud, provides an integrated suite of capabilities, including the ability for users to configure infrastructure resources and manage applications on a self-service basis.

Developed by the Defense Information Systems Agency, the DOD agency responsible for managing the military’s communications infrastructure, MilCloud represents the latest effort by DOD to reduce IT costs. But DISA officials also claim the service will provide agencies with more flexibility and control over how they manage their computing environments…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

High Performance designed with enterprise customers in mind, LSN Cloud was built to provide high availability, performance and scalability. Using technologically advanced network equipment and hardware, including Intel SSD drives for speed, Juniper rack-level switches, Cisco core routers, Supermicro chassis with redundant power and dual Intel Xeon E5 series hypervisors, LSN Cloud is ready for the most demanding business applications.

LSN Cloud is located in a Tier 3+ state-of-the-art data center where it uses Tier 1 fiber carriers for optimal data transmission. Located in the former Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the data center is a stone fortress with government-grade security features and maximum failover…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Jelastic, Inc., the first company to deliver Platform-as-Infrastructure, has been named as one of "12 cloud computing companies to watch" by Network World. Brandon Butler, Network World Senior Writer says, "Startups are forming up and down the cloud stack, from optimizing infrastructure services to offering development platforms.

There are applications served from the cloud and new classes of apps that could not have been made without the cloud. Network World has scanned the universe of cloud computing startups founded within the past few years and built this non-exhaustive list of companies (listed in alphabetical order) that give a glimpse of what’s to come in this fast-growing market."…