Category: News

Research shows that, by 2017, spending on cloud computing services is expected to reach $235.1 billion. A report from consulting firm IHS Technology shows that this prediction is three times higher than the $78.2 billion spent in 2011.

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This estimate is one of the highest spending predictions to date, which invites the question of how that money will be spent. According to an article from InfoWorld, those funds will be used for infrastructure, application hosting and data analytics. Most of the spending will be put toward infrastructure, including the migration and computing related to enterprise-to-cloud storage. The use of public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) clouds will see the biggest rise while private cloud growth is expected to spike in the next few years…

Grazed from IBTimes. Author: Christopher Zara.

The slogan “Amazon and you’re done” may have just taken on a whole new meaning — at least for enemies of the state. Privacy advocates and media watchdogs are challenging a contract between Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, calling it a potentially “ominous” convergence of mass surveillance and perpetual war.

In an online petition launched this month, the group RootsAction called on Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, to make a “legally binding” commitment to Amazon users that it won’t share customer data with the CIA. Following a lengthy legal battle, Amazon in October defeated IBM (NYSE:IBM) in a bid for a $600 million cloud computing contract. Under the 10-year deal, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, will build and operate a dedicated, private computer cloud for the agency…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Glenn Blake.

Experts predict that the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices will continue to drive innovations in cloud computing, paving the path for new applications geared toward the retail consumer. Mobile devices offer people the chance to use readily available tools for a wide variety of data and communications purposes.

While most Americans have become accustomed to using cell phones over the last 15 to 20 years, the expanded capabilities of hand-held devices increase the functionality of these gadgets exponentially. With suitable applications and providers, cloud computing options available for mobile devices will garner considerable appeal from users who have traditionally avoided high technology…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Rob Preston.

The irony of the storage industry is that as data volumes continue to soar and storage budgets grab a larger share of overall IT budgets, the system vendors positioned to profit from those trends are under intense financial pressure. The aggregate growth rate of storage vendors is flat to negative, as cheaper technology alternatives emerge and as some cash-strapped customers delay their storage purchasing decisions, in part to evaluate alternative models such as cloud, virtualization, and even open source.

NetApp, one of the industry’s leading vendors, is feeling that pressure. In its most recent quarter, the company’s revenue was relatively flat — down 1.2% from the year-earlier quarter to $1.61 billion — though its gross profit was up 3.9% to a very healthy $1 billion. In a wide-ranging interview just prior to NetApp’s third-quarter financial report, CEO Tom Georgens emphasized the company’s strengths as a "data management" vendor and integrator, that it’s not just a purveyor of commodity storage systems…

Grazed from CIO. Author: Kenneth Corbin.

For U.S. cloud computing companies that have long been fighting to defend the privacy protections involving data stored in their servers or passing over their networks, the ongoing revelations about the extent of the NSA’s surveillance activities could carry a huge price tag. For years, in markets such as Western Europe, cloud providers like Google and Microsoft have been trying to beat back concerns voiced by would-be customers — and stoked by competitors and governments — that the Patriot Act and other laws render data stored with American firms readily accessible to the U.S. government.

But the protectionist policies that some countries were pursuing — restricting cross-border data flows or requiring local hosting, for instance — had been a nuisance, but they didn’t seem pervasive enough to challenge U.S. hegemony in the cloud sector.  The equation began to change dramatically last June, when media outlets first began reporting on widespread electronic surveillance programs at the NSA, Daniel Castro, a senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said Tuesday at a policy discussion on the fallout of the disclosures of former government contractor Edward Snowden…

Grazed from Oracle. Author: Editorial Staff.

This chapter of the Oracle Cloud Cookbook introduces the Oracle Private Cloud Security Guide. The Oracle Private Cloud Security Guide applies to all Oracle VM, Oracle Database Appliance, Oracle Exalogic, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c and Oracle Linux releases.

The goal of the Oracle Private Cloud Security Guide is to provide a broader understanding of how Oracle VM, Oracle Database Appliance, Oracle Exalogic, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c and Oracle Linux fits within an Enterprise Architecture. The chapter startes with a brief introduction of Enterprise Architecture to illustrate how Oracle VM, Oracle Database Appliance, Oracle Exalogic, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c and Oracle Linux fits within an Enterprise Architecture, followed by numerious example policies and standards…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

As enterprise cloud computing adoption grows, the pre-boot sequence (BIOS) still remains an important part of many application configuration requirements and IT administrators’ needs. For some, moving to the cloud means losing control of this important hardware feature that occurs just before an operating system loads onto a virtual machine. Today ProfitBricks, the price/performance IaaS leader known for disruptive use of technology, returns this capability back into the hands of IT administrators by enabling BIOS-level access for all its virtual machines.

For decades, on-premises installations meant application developers and systems administrators had access to this pre-boot sequence, whether it was for easing asset management, helping to recover from failure, or fine tuning systems for performance. The move to the cloud meant losing access to this important level of control, as cloud providers offer administrative credentials to a server only once the operating system has loaded…

Grazed from TelecomPaper. Author: Editorial Staff.

Within Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Poland is at the forefront of countries using cloud computing, according to the survey IT Industry – Trends and Challenges, conducted by Kapsch BusinessCom. The survey was done with the participation of 900 IT managers from seven countries, namely Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Hungary and Slovakia. It found 31 percent of Polish firms use cloud computing, compared with an average across the seven countries of 27 percent.

It found 30 percent of IT managers in Poland plan to migrate part of their data to cloud computing within the next three years. Within the same period, 25 percent of them plan to buy integrated communication systems, against the survey average of 22 percent. Poland also comes high up in the ranking for mobile access to corporate applications via smartphones or tablets and the option of integrating one’s own mobile device with the corporate network. About 30 percent of Polish companies allow to their employees to use their own smartphones or tablets for work, compared with the region’s average of 25 percent and with leader Austria with 36 percent.

Grazed from ADTMag. Author: John K. Waters.

Java Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider CloudBees is partnering with broadband and wireless services provider Verizon to offer a version of its platform on the new Verizon Cloud, the two companies announced. Verizon unveiled its cloud computing and storage platform in October 2013, inviting interested companies to sign up through the Verizon Enterprise Solutions Web site.

Now in public beta, the Verizon Cloud comprises an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform, a cloud compute service (Verizon Cloud Compute), and an object-based storage service (Verizon Cloud Storage). The platform is being developed for the enterprise, but will be "nimble enough to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, individual IT departments, and software developers," the company says…

Grazed from TechPageOne. Author: Dennis Smith.

Low costs, availability, scalability, flexibility and speed are all ideal goals for cloud storage. New startups are benefiting from the relief in initial outlay needs for IT hardware. Older businesses are also making the shift, to cut down on maintenance costs of running in-house data centers. They find it easier to pay for what they use and expand as and when needed, as opposed to making costly upgrades and replacements.

Given the slower read ability on platter-based drives like the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) and integrated development environments (IDE), storage speeds seem to be the only bottle-neck in an otherwise ideal solution. High energy consumption is also a concern. So, can flash storage be the missing link between cloud computing and lightning-fast data processing?…