Category: News

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Pedro Hernandez.

In its bid to become a global cloud computing powerhouse, Microsoft is looking far and wide. This time, the Redmond, Wash.-based software company set its sights on Japan. Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of Cloud and Enterprise marketing at Microsoft, announced in a Feb. 25 blog post that the company was just about to flip the switch on its Windows Azure cloud operations on that day. "I am pleased to share that Windows Azure in Japan East (Saitama Prefecture) and Japan West (Osaka Prefecture) will be generally available later Tuesday [Feb. 25]."

The expansion of Windows Azure’s global footprint dovetails with the region’s increasing demand for cloud computing. "Japan’s cloud market has grown considerably in the last few years and this growth is only expected to increase, with the projected 2014 forecast estimated at around $1.6 billion," added Numoto, citing figures from IDC, a market research firm. In addition to providing business customers with a bevy of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings, Windows Azure in Japan’s dual-data-center layout can help them avert data loss…

Grazed from Bloomberg. Author: Editorial Staff.

EY has recently published the Worldwide cloud computing tax guide1to help support businesses facing the challenges presented by cloud computing. This article looks at EY’s findings and the insights into the tax treatment of the cloud in over 100 countries.

I. Background

Cloud computing has burst onto the commercial scene, affecting many industries. Generally defined as the hardware and software that supports transactions over a virtual network (i.e., the internet), cloud computing has a borderless quality that creates complexity for taxing jurisdictions and the tax teams that have to proactively manage tax risks for a product that is rapidly expanding on a global scale…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Marissa Tejada.

Cloud computing is prompting the use of file sync and share services. A recent Talkin’ Cloud article highlights not only the benefits of these services but also what security measures should be considered with their use. Midsize firms that are especially aware of these security priorities will have a better chance of protecting their corporate data amid the rise of third-platform technologies, mobility and bring-your-own-device (BYOD).

Security Measures

Citing an Enterprise Strategy Group study, Talkin’ Cloud reported that more than two-thirds of cloud-based online file sharing service users enjoy the flexiblity and control over their data that these services provide. They are also interested in hybrid options. Another article on the topic featured in CloudTimes reached the same conclusion, claiming that companies of every size find the value in online file sharing…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Daniel Price.

Last week we touched upon how a project in Finland had blended two of the world’s most important industries, cloud computing and green technology, to produce a data centre that used nearby sea water to both cool their servers and heat local homes. Despite such positive environmental projects, there is little doubt that large cloud data centres and social networking sites consume vast amounts of electrical power.

A recent Greenpeace report claims the Apple data centre in North Carolina uses more power than 250,000 European homes combined. Estimates now predict that cloud computing is responsible for as much as 2 percent of the world’s electricity use. Clearly, therefore, the data world uses extraordinary amounts of energy – but is it really all bad news?…

Grazed from InfoSecurity. Author: Editorial Staff.

Increased use of cloud computing in Europe could boost the economy by €100 billion and provide a net gain of 2.5 million jobs. But, says Neelie Kroes, "One of the obstacles to making the most of the cloud can be a lack of user trust; particularly about the security of systems (and for both individual users and businesses)."

A study undertaken by Ponemon for Axway demonstrates the depth of corporate concern over the use of public cloud services. The research questioned 621 IT professionals about the use of public cloud services, and found that 89% are unlikely to know if data is lost through the cloud, 80% are concerned about negative consequences from the loss of intellectual property, 69% probably don’t know whether staff are using the public cloud, 66% consider the practice risky, and nearly 50% believe popular cloud-sharing services are unsuitable for business…

Grazed from HuffingtonPost. Author: Phil Simon.

I had the pleasure of attending IBM Pulse yesterday in Las Vegas. Nearly 10,000 customers partners, IBM employees, and media members arrived at the MGM Grand to learn about the most recent advances in cloud computing, Big Data, and a host of other subjects. As with all technology conferences, it was quite a bit to take in. There’s no shortage of smart cookies and interesting exhibits. Here are a few of my personal highlights:

• Sandy Carter, General Manager, IBM Ecosystems and Social Business Evangelism, gave an interesting talk about what to expect in 2014 from the Internet of Things and social media, two subjects usually not far from my mind. The former is a arriving at a particularly fast clip. Sensors embedded in roads and bridges are going to allow for quicker travel and more efficient infrastructure repair. With respect to social media, imagine being able to see if your parents and friends will "like" a dress you’re thinking about buying-before you buy it…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

The fact that mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are becoming cloud devices is nothing new. What is new is that we seem to be nearing the point of feature saturation on those devices. When that happens, the use of the cloud by mobile applications and providers will accelerate.

Smartphones and tablets are getting about as fast as we need them to get, the platforms are more capable, and the apps more sophisticated. My smartphone can download faster than most DSL services can, the user interfaces are easy to deal with now, and the applications equal or exceed those that we can find on a PC. Indeed, were it not for the fact that my smartphone has a 4-inch screen, I would have written this post on it…

Grazed from ActivistPost. Author: Editorial Staff.

The revelations about NSA and its Five Eyes Alliance continue to mount, while a series of high-profile data attacks have compromised the information of hundreds of millions of customers of the planet’s largest companies. Just today, Apple is in the news after an epic security flaw was revealed to have gone undetected for 18 months. It’s one among many.

Despite assurances with each new tech release that the current security is impenetrable, it is instead shown to be populated with surveillance backdoors, and riddled with holes that average hackers can easily exploit. Co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, has gone on record to state that Cloud storage is also compromised. Cloud storage has been sold as a secure way to back up your information online, so as not to fall prey to the inevitable failure of directly connected devices such as a local hard drive. It is also a convenient way to store data where access is available anywhere you travel…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Rohan Pearce.

The rise of big data, cloud computing, mobility and social media — what IDC dubs the ‘third platform’ — represents a big opportunity for Linux and open source more broadly, analyst Sally Parker this morning told the SUSE Open Forum in Sydney. IDC describes the four technologies as representing the ‘third platform’ for IT. The ‘first platform’ was based on mainframes and terminals and the ‘second platform’ is IDC’s term for the era of PCs and classic client/server computing.

Parker, the research director for IDC’s Software and Services Research Groups, told the conference that the latest edition of the analyst firm’s quarterly server shipment tracker confirmed the continuing decline of Unix servers. The 3Q13 edition of the server tracker registered year-on-year revenue drops of 17.8 per cent and 22.5 per cent for mid-range and high-end servers, respectively…

Grazed from WhaTech. Author: Editorial Staff.

Before virtualisation and cloud computing became the norm managing software licences was relatively straightforward: you paid for every computer on which you wanted to run the software, or you made sure you did not run it on more machines than permitted by your licence. With the rise of cloud computing and ‘virtual machines’ all that changes. And it does not get any easier.

A white paper on the topic ‘Cloud licensing and software Asset management’ – authored by Peter Björkman, CTO and partner of Snow Software, a developer of software asset management technologies – gives one example. “Organisations using IBM’s enterprise applications are now required to navigate the complexity of its PVU (processor value unit) licensing model. Here, licensing obligations and costs are dependent on the hardware processing power accessed by the application(s) and therefore the total value derived to the organisation from hardware units rather than simply counting the number of users requiring access.”…