Category: News

Grazed from Voxy. Author: Editorial Staff.

A New Zealand IT company has rolled out a unique version of Microsoft’s Office 365 which it claims will save small business users thousands of dollars. Upper Hutt-based Layer3 has designed a Kiwi-ised Microsoft Office 365 portal that it claims is the next step in cloud computing.

Not only will it enable users to ditch their small business server, but they’ll also be able to ditch their expensive Microsoft user licenses. CEO, Hayden Kirk, claims Layer3’s offering will create significant cost-savings and efficiency gains for smaller companies. "Not only are we supplying the document storage facilities, but the unique bit is that we’re also supplying all the Windows programs and applications that you need to work on your documents and manage your systems…

The cloud market is in a state of unrest. There are cloud computing, cloud storage, cloud enablement, cloud management and cloud services offerings, among others. This has pushed many organizations to spend 2013 trying to wade through the choices available for their IT needs, and these organizations are no doubt more confused now than when they started. The approaches to deploying the cloud are countless, and 2013 saw more messages on the benefits of the cloud than ever before, but those messages often contradicted one another. The good news is that 2014 is here, and that 12-month span will be the pivotal period where enterprises, not the cloud companies, determine the real direction of the cloud.

Why Some Enterprises Aren’t Sold on the Cloud…Yet

Grazed from MSPAlliance.  Author: Event Announcement.

MSPWorld® the World’s Premier Managed Services and Cloud Computing Event, is coming to Orlando, Florida! The event will take place March 27-28, 2014, at the Orlando World Center Marriott. Since its inception, MSPWorld has been the only event with a single, vendor-agnostic focus of supporting Managed Service providers and their respective ecosystems.

MSPWorld is an MSPAlliance event and is the ONLY event in the managed services industry brought to you by MSPs. In other words, MSPWorld is driven by those that have had actual real-world experiences and successes in the managed services industry AS a managed service provider. Frequent MSPWorld attendees include senior analysts from Forrester Research, Gartner, influential members of the IT channel and business consumer press and other business executives that have a keen interest in the managed services and cloud market. And remember, MSPWorld is open to non-members as well…

Grazed from The Washington Post. Author: Editorial Staff.

Amazon’s cloud computing service plays host to some of the most prolific malware distributors on the Internet, security researchers have discovered. Of the 10 sites that pump out malware most frequently, four are hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) – including the number one site, download-instantly.com, according to a threat report published Wednesday by the IT security firm Solutionary.

The report comes a week after we learned that hackers allegedly used Amazon’s cloud hosting solution as a platform for a botnet that scraped personal information from potentially millions of LinkedIn subscribers. Cloud computing is becoming an attractive way for online criminals to launch attacks against businesses and consumers because of its low cost. It allows users to instantly set up an array of virtual servers that can be ordered to perform both legitimate and abusive functions…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Daniel Burrus.

Most technologies aren’t really "tools," as many people call them. They’re "enablers." Let’s take the Internet, for example. The Internet doesn’t do anything by itself. It’s what’s connected to it – what you do with it – that makes it powerful. In that same way, the cloud is really an enabler. The cloud itself has no value. It’s what you do with the cloud that makes it valuable. As I like to say, "It’s not the tool that matters; it’s how you use it."

The cloud, which refers to companies using remote servers that store data and allow users to access information from anywhere, takes three different evolutionary forms. Most of us first started using a public cloud provided by companies such as Microsoft, Google, or Apple, where we stored documents remotely on their servers, or we used a cloud service like Flickr to store and share photos…

Grazed from IBM. Author: PR Announcement.

IBM has launched new architecture for its x86-based servers to improve availability in cloud computing and data analytics. The architecture named sixth generation enterprise X6 Architecture integrates eXFlash memory-channel storage, a DIMM-based storage providing up to 12.8 terabytes of ultrafast flash storage close to the processor to reduce write latency which helps in improving processing performance in analytics software applications.

IBM says for memory-hungry applications, X6 delivers three times the scalable memory of current competitors’ and IBM x86-based systems to support cloud and analytics. The X6 architecture eliminates the need for external SAN/NAS storage units. X6 architecture supports multiple generations of CPUs. Server models supported by this new architecture currently include the System x3850 X6 four-socket system, System x3950 X6 eight-socket system, and the IBM Flex System x880 scalable compute nodes.

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Logicalis US, an international IT solutions and managed services provider (www.us.logicalis.com), today announced an agreement with IO, a global leader in software-defined data centers, to build a Logicalis data center presence in IO’s Dayton, Ohio, data center operations facility.

Logicalis already had existing deployments in the IO Phoenix and IO New Jersey data centers, extending the cost, agility, security and efficiency benefits of the IO Intelligent Control? platform to Logicalis’ clients on both the east and west coasts. Today’s announcement expands these offerings with additional compute resources strategically located in the central United States, an important expansion for Logicalis’ clients…

Grazed from DataCenter Knowledge. Author: Shawn Mills.

Cloud computing brings a certain set of risks. By nature customers put their faith in service providers to protect their data and keep it readily available. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are meant to protect the customer in case of downtime, allowing them to sue if data is inaccessible. Part of an SLA is generally a degree of redundancy, guaranteeing that every server and piece of infrastructure is backed up with an equivalent version. Customers often had their own data backups as well. An SLA, however, doesn?t protect anyone once a company is bankrupt.

In September, Nirvanix, a cloud storage company founded in 2007, suddenly revealed they were declaring bankruptcy. Users had two weeks?later extended until mid-October?to migrate their data, or lose it forever. With large customers storing 10 to 20 petabytes of data, those few weeks suddenly seemed like a few days. These types of shutdowns happen infrequently, but they do occur…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Editorial Staff.

"Introduction to Cloud Computing For Startups" Wondering what all of the hype is around cloud computing? Cloud computing has been a popular topic lately, including the discussion of various cloud computing solutions such as Amazon AWS, Google App Engine, and Salesforce.com. Many of the discussions revolve around the enterprise world, but few are talking about what this means for startups and small business.

You will find out how your startup may be able to take advantage of cloud computing as a new approach to launching your startup quickly, and stay up-to-date with their latest news!…

Grazed from DroidReport. Author: Jennifer Lynn.

Android startups and companies have been embracing cloud trends. Dropbox, Instagram, Spotify, Pinterest and companies such as Samsung have been leveraging cloud computing technologies to provide innovation. According to a recent article by The Guardian, it is predicted cloud will power exciting innovations that will touch every area of our lives. The article also highlights key four cloud computing trends that are set to become big in 2014.

Cloud will enable your content to follow you wherever you go

Cloud has changed how we interact with mobile devices. In the past content would be moved to the device, now devices are just a window to content and services that live in the cloud. This started with our smartphones and tablets, where regardless of which device we use, or the location, we have access to our content and subscriptions…