Category: News

Grazed from Bloomberg. Author: Aaron Ricadela.

SAP AG agreed to acquire Fieldglass, a U.S. software supplier that specializes in managing contract workforces, furthering the German company’s push into Internet-based applications. Fieldglass, whose programs help businesses oversee contract employees and projects, would complement earlier acquisitions of personnel software supplier SuccessFactors Inc. and online marketplace Ariba Inc., Walldorf, Germany-based SAP said today.

Closely-held Fieldglass in 2010 received an investment from private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners LLC valuing the Chicago-based company at more than $220 million. The deal is the latest in a string of takeovers by Co-Chief Executive Officers Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe over the past four years in an attempt to vault SAP into the expanding market for cloud-computing tools delivered to customers online…

Grazed from Cloud Computing Intelligence. Author: Editorial Staff.

Microsoft has given a date for the launch of the hybrid cloud friendly SQL Server 2014, April 1st – no it’s not a joke – the database software is now released to manufacturing (RTM) and will be generally available on 1st April. Additionally, Microsoft has also announced the general availability of Windows Azure HDInsight with support for Big Data database Hadoop 2.2 and SQL Server Backup to Windows Azure Tool.

One of the key new features of the latest version of SQL Server 2014 is the ability for businesses to extend on-premises apps to the cloud, to quickly and easily backup to Azure, and to use the cloud as a Disaster Recovery (DR). Windows Azure also now supports version 2.2 of Apache Hadoop in Windows Azure through Windows Azure HDInsight which also includes support for YARN and Stinger Phase 2…

Grazed from Infor. Author: PR Announcement.

Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, today announced Infor CloudSuite™, the first group of industry-specific application suites available on Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) cloud. Infor CloudSuite provides beautiful software with deep industry functionality and a flexible, subscription-based delivery model that significantly reduces upfront IT expenditure.

Each industry suite within Infor CloudSuite is built by unifying multiple applications that historically were deployed independently to holistically support core business functions by industry. This core, along with fast and simple provisioning and a SaaS pricing model will enable Infor CloudSuite to change the way enterprise software is delivered to and consumed by customers…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Pedro Hernandez.

It’s official. Microsoft dives headlong into the cloud era by leaving Windows behind, even if in name only. Windows Azure, Microsoft’s suite of cloud computing services, will soon float on without being bogged down by its sometimes divisive PC-era brand. The software giant officially announced on March 25 that beginning in early April, its cloud computing platform will be renamed to Microsoft Azure.

"This change reflects Microsoft’s strategy and focus on Azure as the public cloud platform for customers as well as for our own services Office 365, Dynamics CRM, Bing, OneDrive, Skype, and Xbox Live," stated Steven Martin, general manager for Windows Azure, in a brief blog post. Microsoft will institute the change on April 3, day two of the company’s upcoming Build conference in San Francisco, noted ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley in her March 24 report…

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…