Category: News

Grazed from Eduserv.  Author: Ivan Harris.

In any relationship, breaking up is hard to do. This is frequently true when it comes to IT professionals where there can be a reluctance to walk away and move on from the in-house IT infrastructure they manage. And like any relationship which is near or past its sell by date, failing to move on when the time is right can result in a lot more pain in the longer term. So how can you tell if you and your in-house infrastructure need to go separate ways? Here are five signs you should be aware of:

1. Physical evidence: the most obvious sign is there is no room left for your IT infrastructure to grow and meet your future needs. This could be down to a lack of real estate for rack space or the inability to service the power or cooling needs of what is there already. Either way, if the only way you can grow is by major reconfiguration of people and office arrangements then it is a sure sign that you should consider cloud computing to meet your future needs…

Grazed from CIO.  Author: Rebecca Merret.

Private and hybrid cloud models, IT departments acting as cloud brokers, more competition among providers and a maturity in services is where ‘as-a-service’ computing is heading in 2014, say analysts.  Michael Warrilow, research director at Gartner, says more enterprises will look to use public and hybrid cloud models next year as they realise “it’s impossible to private cloud everything”.

“We will see ever-more public cloud adoption … public [cloud] is probably going to be 70 to 80 per cent of cloud workloads,” he says.  “It is hard work to private cloud everything. You have got to be like a cloud provider but you have also got to be like traditional IT as well. So you have got to do security, service delivery, etc. People will be too ambitious. We think they should only target private cloud for the most important and relevant workloads.”…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Rick Robinson.

As pilots know, cloudy skies can make for a bumpy ride. According to one analyst firm, IT managers at midsize firms may also need to plan to fly around turbulence. The cloud computing marketplace is maturing amid fierce competition, and as many as one in four of today’s cloud providers could be gone by 2015.

Most of these providers will be acquired by other firms, but there is also the potential for some to go bankrupt. For midsize firms, the risk of turbulence in the cloud could be a serious matter. In the worst case, a cloud provider could evaporate, with its data centers going dark and the data they hold being lost without a trace. That is the nightmare scenario. It is more likely that a cloud provider will disappear through acquisition. The transition might be seamless, or it might mean major changes in service offering, sending some firms looking for alternative solutions…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Derrick Harris.

Google’s Compute Engine cloud doesn’t yet have a Hadoop offering of its own, but the platform is making a name for itself as a viable, if not ideal, place to run big data workloads. The latest validation came on Thursday when Qubole, the Hadoop-as-a-service startup from Hive creators Ashish Thusoo and Joydeep Sen Sarma, announced an option that users choose to run on Compute Engine, which they claim provides better performance than Amazon Web Services.

Specifically, a company spokesperson told me via email, Qubole has seen 2-3x faster startup times for virtual servers using Compute Engine over Amazon EC2 and more reliable performance from Google Cloud Storage than from Amazon S3. We’ll also assume that AWS is the “CloudX” against which Qubole engineer Praveen Seluka benchmarked Compute Engine, some results of which he shared on the Google Cloud Platform blog…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Ben Kepes.

One of the common comments about cloud computing is that it opens up the floodgates to so-called shadow IT, the trend of end users self-provisioning solutions either because of IT reluctance to give them what they need or due to apathy about IT policy. A recent survey by vendor Workshare highlighted this situation and in particular the trend of mobile users to circumvent IT and use unsanctioned applications for file sharing and collaboration. The survey took in around 6000 employees in both the US and EMEA and looked at their broader mobile device and file sharing activities. Some high level findings:

• 72% of those questioned had not received authorization from their IT department to use their consumer-based file sharing application, up from 66% in 2012.
• Over half (62%) of knowledge workers use their personal devices for work
• The majority (69%) of these workers also use free file sharing services to collaborate and access shared documents, which is a 3% increase over the last year.
• Larger companies, with over 20,000 employees, had a greater grasp of data security issues around file sharing applications. In contrast, companies with fewer than 500 employees had a much lower proportion (24%) of employees using authorized file sharing solutions…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: David Prosser.

There was a time when technology represented a barrier to entry for companies targeting new markets. The high spend required on IT in order to break into many markets acted as a brake on competition. Small businesses, in particular, found it difficult to compete with larger, more established rivals.

The advent of cloud computing, however, has turned that argument on its head, levelling the playing field for companies of different sizes. As they are now able to buy software and capacity as and when it is needed through cloud-based structures, small businesses no longer have to make huge upfront investments in order to get up and running in a new market. Those with good ideas for innovation can just get on with it, challenging the existing players…

Grazed from GCN. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud computing is useful because it offers a new approach to IT, leveraging shared resources to maximize productivity and cut overhead. But with new approaches come new threats. How can agencies minimize risk in this environment? The Cloud Security Alliance and the Software Assurance Forum for Excellence in Code (SAFECode) have collaborated to identify a set of best practices for developing applications that meet the unique security requirements of cloud computing.

The resulting paper, Practices for Secure Development of Cloud Applications, applies established methods of producing secure code to the architectural requirements of the cloud. “For cloud computing to reach its true potential, all parties involved – both consumers and providers – will need new ways of thinking about security needs and related standards,” the paper says…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Wyatt Cash.

As IT leaders get more comfortable moving their data operations into the cloud, concerns are growing about conflicting international laws that govern data generated in one country and stored in another. Policymakers around the world are fueling those concerns. Anxious to protect data privacy and security, they are advocating requirements to store certain types of data domestically, says Daniel Castro, a senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Those policies, however, are not only creating headaches for technology managers moving data across the globe, they’re also bumping up against delicate free trade agreements that involve senior government officials well beyond the reach of the typical CIO’s office…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Todd Knapp.

Although the "year of VDI" never really came about, the desktop virtualization industry has seen many changes over the past year. Cloud computing, the consumerization of IT and improved graphics delivery have all contributed to a better virtual desktop experience — making virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) viable in more organizations. To help you get a handle on the big picture of VDI, we posed this question to five desktop virtualization experts:

What technologies or trends had the biggest impact on VDI in 2013?

Todd Knapp: The question itself supposes that something has, in fact, had a big impact on VDI in 2013. Sadly, I’m not so sure that’s happened yet. Nothing has had a big enough impact to make VDI see more adoption because there are still many obstacles to overcome…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: PR Announcement.

Five9, the leader in cloud contact center software, has earned a 2013 Cloud Computing Excellence Award from Cloud Computing Magazine. Specifically, Cloud Computing Magazine is honoring the Five9 SoCoCare social and mobile customer care solution. The Cloud Computing Excellence Award recognizes innovative cloud companies that are bringing differentiated solutions to the market to reduce operating costs and increase customer satisfaction among todays socially connected and smartphone savvy consumers.

“We are thrilled to be honored for our achievements in cloud innovation, as well as social and mobile product excellence. With the Five9 strategic acquisition of SoCoCare, two best-in-class cloud-based solutions have come together to deliver the next generation of cloud contact center software.” –Lance Fried, senior vice president of social and mobile, Five9…