Category: News

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Derrick Harris.

IBM is at it again in the cloud computing space, this time acquiring Boston-based cloud database startup Cloudant. The company, which runs a distributed cloud document store based on the Apache CouchDB technology, was founded in 2008 and has raised about $16 million in venture capital to date.

Cloudant has made a name for itself handling distributed database and even big data processing for a number of large users. Recently, the company announced a new sync feature for Android and iOS apps that aren’t always connected, so consumers can still use apps offline and then sync data when they’re online again…

Grazed from TechPageOne. Author: Dennis Smith.

Cloud computing‘s popularity is on the rise. Service providers like Amazon are providing public cloud hosting at rapidly decreasing prices, while bandwidth capacities are increasing. However, just because it’s virtual doesn’t mean it’s infallible. Cloud computing outages – from a failed component to total service meltdown – are inevitable.

During such events, businesses will lose access to data and resources and suffer downtime, impacting revenues. Recovering from these disasters depends upon the strength of the business’ cloud outage contingency plan. The importance of a contingency/business-continuity plan cannot be emphasized enough…

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: David Hill.

What is data protection in the cloud? This isn’t an easy question to answer, since it comes in various forms and the tools and technologies for data protection are extremely numerous and can be used in different combinations. From IT’s perspective, a large number of choices can make cloud more difficult than traditional schemas. Still, we can cut the Gordian knot of cloud complexity with three steps that will help guide further exploration of data protection.

First, we need to understand in general what data protection models the cloud might solve. Second, we need to understand that big decisions related to the cloud and data protection include what is managed internally and what is managed by a third party. Third, we need a rough basis for putting together an inventory that an organization can consider when moving to the cloud. We can then use this foundation as a basis for future discussion of data protection in the cloud…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Lawrence Garvin.

Here a cloud, there a cloud. Everything today is a cloud service. Except most aren’t. In September 2011, after several years of discussion and 15 drafts, the National Institute of Standards and Technology adopted a real definition of cloud computing. Since then, however, NIST’s definition has been lost in translation due in part to opportunistic vendors and marketers, aided at times by ignorant media.

NIST defined five essential characteristics of cloud services: on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service. Virtually no "cloud" service offered today meets all five characteristics. NIST further defined three cloud models: software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, and infrastructure-as-a-service. But all three existed in practice long before the term "cloud" ever entered the vernacular…

Grazed from BusinessNewsDaily. Author: Chad Brooks.

Despite the persistent threat of security breaches, most businesses aren’t too concerned about unknown security risks, research shows. A new study by Dell revealed that although security breaches cost U.S. organizations an estimated $25.8 billion annually, many companies fail to effectively recognize and prioritize the next big wave of risk to IT security from unknown threats.

The research shows the majority of IT leaders around the world say they don’t view unknown security threats stemming from trends and technologies like BYOD (bring your own device), mobility, cloud computing and Internet usage as top security concerns. Therefore, these companies aren’t coming up with ways to find and address these potential threats…

Grazed from BusinessCloudNews.  Author: Jonathon Brandon.

Cloud-based ERP provider NetSuite announced Monday that the company has joined the Cloud Industry Forum, an industry body geared towards keeping enterprises and service providers abreast of the latest trends and best practice in the cloud space.

“We’re pleased to announce that NetSuite has become a member of the Cloud Industry Forum. As one of the premier voices of the cloud computing industry in the UK, CIF works hard to improve end-user understanding of the cloud and raise standards in the industry,” said Pete Daffern, President of EMEA and executive vice president of verticals at NetSuite…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Cliff Saran.

David Goodman, CIO of non-government organisation (NGO) International Rescue Corporation (IRC), needs a cloud that is open and flexible and available offline. Goodman is the organisation’s first CIO and he has headed IT for seven years. His objective has been to professionalise IT and provide value at a strategic and tactical level.

As IRC has grown from a multi-million dollar organisation to one with an annual budget of half a billion dollars, IT has had to adapt. "I have all the problems of Unilever, but none of the resources," he says. The scope of IT is typical of a large organisation and covers everything from infrastructure to business applications…

Grazed from ITWorld. Author: Joab Jackson.

Swiftly putting its recently acquired Softlayer global cloud to use, IBM is moving much of its software portfolio and all of its existing platform services to the Softlayer cloud, where they all can be accessed as services under a common open architecture. "We’re going to bring a lot of IBM middleware over into a cloud environment, so it will be consumable worldwide," said Lance Crosby, CEO of Softlayer, a public cloud company IBM purchased last year for US$2 billion.

IBM will also launch a marketplace where organizations and developers can search for and deploy their IBM applications and services of choice. It will offer a set of IBM software patterns for sets of applications and services that are commonly used in conjunction with one another for some predefined service. The marketplace will have over 2,000 products, including applications available as a service through application programming interfaces (APIs), as well as patterns and IBM services already in operation…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Louis Columbus.

2014 continues to be a year marked by the accelerating hiring cycles across nearly all cloud computing companies. Signing bonuses of $3K to $5K for senior engineers and system design specialists are becoming common, and the cycles from screening to interviews to offers is shortening.

The job market in the cloud computing industry is leaning in favor of applicants who have a strong IT background in systems integration, legacy IT expertise, business analysis and in many positions, programming as well. One of the most common questions and requests I receive from readers is who the best companies are to work for. I’ve put together the following analysis based on the latest Computer Reseller News list The 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Vendors Of 2014…