Category: News

Grazed from TechRepublic. Author: Nick Hardiman.

The rise of cloud computing has led to hyperscale providers–i.e., companies that provide more computing services than has ever been possible. The cloud giants are battling for control at every layer of the technology stack, and the winners will become the new cloud empires. Think about it: Did you become part of the Samsung empire when you bought your smartphone? When you moved your servers to Microsoft Windows Azure, did you become their citizen?

Hyperscale cloud providers are empires.

The biggest cloud providers are enormous. For instance, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google App Engine, HP Public Cloud, Rackspace, and Windows Azure are either huge in their own right (AWS turned over $3.8 billion in 2013) or are backed by huge companies (HP has approximately 331,800 employees). The hyperscale cloud providers spread across national borders and fight for market share. These providers have massive resources of money, employees, and equipment…

Grazed from VirtualQube. Author: Sid Herron.

Last July, Alistair Croll wrote an interesting post over at http://datagravity.org on the concept of “data gravity” – a term first coined by Dave McCrory. The concept goes like this: The speed with which information can get from where it is stored to where it is acted upon (e.g., from the hard disk in your PC to the processor) is the real limiting factor of computing speed. This is why microprocessors typically have built-in cache memory – to minimize the number of times you have to go back to the storage repository to access the data. What’s interesting is that this has practical implications for cloud computing.

Microsoft researcher Jim Gray, who spent a lot of his career looking at the economics of data, concluded that, compared to the cost of moving bytes around, everything else is effectively free! Getting information from your computer to the cloud (and vice-versa) is time-consuming and potentially expensive. The more data you’re trying to move, the bigger the problem is…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Ed Scannell.

While SoftLayer was known in the cloud computing world as an up-and-comer the last few years, making top 10 lists as a company to watch, it struggled to get a seat at the table of Fortune 500 companies. But with IBM’s acquisition of the company last July, things changed. Not only does Lance Crosby, CEO of IBM SoftLayer, now have access to the clients and resources of the world’s second largest high-tech company, he is at the heart of what will drive much of IBM’s cloud software strategies involving all of Big Blue’s software and hardware groups.

Crosby recently sat down with SearchCloudComputing to talk about some technologies that will be revealed during the company’s Pulse conference this month, its competition with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and what life is like working for a company with deep pockets. How will the recent $1.2 billion investment in your data centers move IBM’s SoftLayer-based strategies forward?…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Greg Ferro.

Regardless of whether you choose Software as a Service, Platform as a Service or Infrastructure as a Service, one thing is unavoidable: You need a good, reliable network to connect to the cloud. The network can easily become a stumbling block, since the cloud drastically alters the role of the network — and its accompanying hardware and software.

The real Achilles’ heel of cloud computing is that many in IT fail to consider the deeper challenges of building a reliable network and only unearth network problems after a migration has been completed. The success of a public cloud initiative is critically dependent on networking infrastructure, and it’s no surprise that IT managers have their share of concerns. How much bandwidth will you need?…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Mike Alley.

Before strapping themselves into the cockpit of a jet airplane, most reasonable people would want to have a pretty detailed idea of what was involved in flying a plane. They’d want to know how the controls worked and how to respond to the variety of situations they could expect to encounter in flight. They would understand that once airborne, things happen much too fast to study up on what to do in an emergency.

The same could be said about cloud computing: like jet airplanes, cloud computing involves many interrelated systems that need to perform within very exact parameters or risk zooming out of control at extremely high speeds. Unfortunately, there are IT directors today who are strapping themselves into a cloud computing strategies without fully understanding what has to happen to deliver IT services to their business users without falling out of the sky…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Joe McKendrick.

Technologists working with cloud need a range of specific skills, from Java or .NET framework to REST API development to knowledge about Amazon Web Services. But businesses are also crying out for people who can take leadership roles in moving operations into the cloud world.

When it comes to leadership, it’s the "soft skills" that matter, as cloud often requires the ability to look at the big picture, marshal organizational resources and funds, and sell new ways of doing things to skeptical line of business managers. Bill Kleyman, writing at Data Center Knowledge, provides several pointers for imporving cloud skills:…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Wharfedale Technologies Inc. (WFT Cloud), a leading SAP Infrastructure and SAP Cloud consulting firm, has made significant gains within the cloud computing domain by focusing on cost savings and faster ROI for customers when they deploy or migrate SAP Applications to a Private Cloud.

Understanding the true cost-saving and benefits for customers moving SAP landscapes to a Private Cloud, WFT releases the Vblock™ based on-premise Private Cloud Solution for SAP customers to meet the rapid and evolving market demands. Features of the Vblock-based Private Cloud on customer premises:…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Cloud security newcomer FireLayers is emerging from stealth today with the launch of a policy-based security platform that enables IT departments to deploy pre-defined and customizable rule sets for popular applications like Salesforce.com (CRM), Microsoft (MSFT) Office 365, Yammer and Workday, among others.

The San Francisco-based company is a venture-backed initiative that aims to provide policy-based security, compliance and IT governance for cloud applications. As the company noted in its announcement, cloud apps have become critical business enablers, but they also expose those same businesses to risks and vulnerabilities…

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Editorial Staff.

An increasing amount of companies are moving their processes and applications to the cloud and there are a large number of reasons for this. This HP whitepaper looks closely at those and seeks to help companies that are considering a cloud migration.

Cost savings

With the cloud, you have the ability to lower capital expenditure by not having to purchase and maintain expensive hardware. A cloud service provider can host your data on their own high performance systems, and you will no longer have the expense of maintaining and upgrading them either. Instead, cloud users can concentrate on improving their own products and services. In addition, there is also the potential to either reduce headcounts in areas of server and application management, or to re-allocate those staff to research and development or more strategic business roles on the technology side…