Category: News

Grazed from PRNewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

One of the world’s leading hosted IT business management software providers and one of the most trusted names in data backup and disaster recovery announced today the availability of an integration module that gives managed service providers (MSPs) the power to simplify and streamline their business processes leveraging the StorageCraft Recover-Ability Solution and the Autotask IT Business Management Solution.

The integration module allows MSPs to easily automate their billing processes by mapping and synchronizing data from the StorageCraft MSP portal and StorageCraft Cloud Services with their Autotask IT Business Management Solution…

Grazed from TechPageOne.  Author: Blake Snow.

What they don’t know can’t hurt them.  That’s modern end-user computing in a nutshell. So long as people get their stuff (i.e. data and apps) via a familiar interface, they don’t care how it gets there or on which device it’s accessed. They just want their digital stuff “to work” and are increasingly indifferent to the branded cogs delivering it.

“The PC is no longer the sole ‘go-to’ device for personal and corporate computing,” says Jeff McNaught, a chief strategist at Dell. “We live in the multi-device era.”  That era began with “bring your own device” or BYOD, a term coined in a 2005 academic report (PDF) to reflect more open IT policies. Back then, workers just wanted to access email from their favorite consumer phone or laptop, as opposed to a company issue. Kind of a hassle for IT departments, but not that big of a deal…

Grazed from CNet.  Author: Richard Nieva.

If there was any question that the cloud storage business is a high stakes game, Google erased all doubt this week. The search giant shook up the consumer cloud world by drastically slashing its paid plans. Fifteen gigabytes of storage are still free, but 100GB are now $1.99 per month, down from $4.99. Even more impressive is the fact that you can get an entire terabyte of space for $9.99 a month, which used to be $49.99.

The move signals a clear, ruthless investment by Google. And when a giant like Google makes a push like that, it reverberates through the entire ecosystem, and the other players have no choice but to react. This isn’t the first time Google has made a change that sent other companies jumping. When it began to re-categorize emails in Gmail, at least one firm that depends on the platform noted the change in an SEC filing, under the section "Risk Factors." The comparison isn’t directly analogous, but the fairly obvious point remains. Google’s stirrings are a big deal…

Grazed from InformationWeek.  Author: Michael Steinhart.

Some of us have our feelings written all over our faces. Others may pride themselves on being inscrutable. However, when a computer is analyzing our features frame by frame, it can glean insight from even the slightest quirk.

At last week’s Sentiment Analysis Symposium in New York, Jacob Whitehill, a research scientist with Emotient, demonstrated the company’s emotion recognition products. He showed how they isolate the faces in a video stream and track their expressions, from joyful to angry to sad. "It has many commercial applications," he said…

Grazed from MSPWorld.  Author: PR Announcement.

World’s Premier Cloud Computing and Managed Services Event Will Focus on Fundamentals and Best Practice for Growth.

 Chico, CA & Orlando, FL (March 12, 2014) The International Association of Cloud and Managed Service Providers, (@MSPAlliance), has announced that this year’s MSPWorld® Spring 2014 conference agenda will predominantly feature sessions designed to help Managed Services Providers build and run better Managed Services practices as well as provide them with practical instructions on how to achieve a more strategic, efficient and profitable business. 

MSPWorld, which convenes executives and industry leaders from around the world, will take place at the Orland World Center Marriott in Orlando, FL, March 26-28, 2014 (http://www.mspalliance.com/mspworld/)…

Grazed from ITWeb.  Author: Editorial Staff.

CommVault has announced that the Simpana 10 software platform has become the data protection platform of choice for more than 200 certified service providers, which provides cloud solutions to millions of client systems worldwide and protects hundreds of petabytes of data.  The company also unveiled a three-pronged cloud business strategy that builds on its leadership in software innovation and, through strategic relationships with service provider partners, delivers solutions to simplify and secure the transition of these service providers and their customers to cloud computing.

To achieve this, CommVault utilises its single software platform to power the most efficient cloud infrastructures, and is expanding market reach through a broad cloud ecosystem and further investing in its cloud solutions group. This vision is underpinned by CommVault’s early investments in cloud technologies in anticipation of the paradigm shift now taking place in IT consumption and infrastructure as a service (IaaS)…

Grazed from TheVar Guy.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Ingram Micro’s Cloud Summit is slated for April 7-9. Here’s why you don’t want to miss out on what’s become the largest cloud event in the IT channel.  The fifth annual Cloud Summit is being held in Hollywood, Fla., at The Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa, April 7-9. This year’s theme is “Rise Above,” which refers to rising above the status quo and traditional thinking to take your cloud business to the next level.

In this short (less than 2 minutes) video presentation, Renée Bergeron, vice president, Managed Services & Cloud Computing at Ingram Micro, highlights why you don’t want to miss out on what’s become the largest cloud event in the IT channel…

Grazed from PRNewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today showcased its industry-leading CloudEngine12800 (CE12800) series data center core switches and the world’s highest-performance T-bit 12x100GE line cards at CeBIT 2014, in Hannover, Germany. The CE12800 is a series of high-performance core switches designed by Huawei for cloud computing data centers, providing advanced switching capacity to help enterprises address the challenges brought by cloud computing and big data in the T-bit internet era.

Huawei CE12800 provide a maximum of 64 Tbit/s switching capacity, enable 4 Tbit/s bandwidth per slot, and support high-density line-speed ports, including 192x100GE, 384x40GE or 1536x10GE ports, with the configuration of the Huawei T-bit 12x100GE line cards…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Elad Yoran.

The ongoing case of the federal government versus Lavabit was a hot topic of discussion at RSA — not just regarding the merits of the case, but because it demonstrates how the increasingly stringent safe harbor provisions in the European Union can impact US companies doing business in the cloud.

For those who didn’t follow the story, Lavabit, an organization that offered encrypted email as a service, shut down last August without explanation. Under a gag order, Lavabit CEO Ladar Levinson was prohibited from disclosing any information relating to the shuttering of the business, as well as the details leading to the termination of Lavabit…

Grazed from CIO. Author: Kenneth Corbin.

CEOs at some of the nation’s leading tech companies see boundless potential for big data and smarter, integrated systems to address major social challenges in areas ranging from medicine to education to transportation — but at the same time, they worry that policymakers at home and abroad could stand in the way of that vision.

Top executives at firms such as Dell, IBM and Xerox gathered in the nation’s capital this week under the auspices of the Technology CEO Council, bringing with them a message that the data economy is imperiled by concerns about security and privacy and protectionist policies that could limit the growth of cloud computing and balkanize the Internet…