Category: News

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Editorial Staff.

Just say the words "public cloud" and those in IT likely think of Amazon Web Services. And that was certainly the case in the Modern Infrastructure Impact Awards, with Amazon Web Services public cloud winning the Best Cloud Service Provider category. Since AWS entered the public cloud arena, it has continued to gain momentum — first with startups and one-off development projects, then gaining more widespread acceptance within the enterprise. "We’re currently using Amazon Web Services for a national website," noted one voter.

As the cloud market continues to grow, enterprises are faced with several choices for cloud service providers. How do IT pros decide which cloud platform to deploy? And how do cloud service providers differentiate themselves in a sea of options? Often, it comes down to cost…

Grazed from FierceFinanceIT. Author: Jim Kim.

Are we moving toward a day when banks will be forced to do everything in the cloud? That is a long ways in the future, given privacy regulations and the like. But it is fair to say that the sheer economics of cloud computing have led banks to embrace cloud-based initiatives across the board. Bank Systems & Technology looks at four areas that appear ripe for cloud approaches: payments, document management, platforms and analytics.

Payments certainly seem a good fit, even if bank executives do not know it. "As banks tentatively look to move more functions to hosted environments, perhaps one of the most natural to bring to the cloud is payments," the article states. "After all, notes Celent senior analyst Gareth Lodge, banks are already doing some payments processing in the cloud, even if they don’t realize it…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: InstantCheckMate.

In the modern world of Internet connectivity, cloud computing, online banking, social networking, personal privacy and information security is essentially dependent upon password protection. Passwords are the crucial barrier that safeguards the personal information contained in the perhaps dozens of accounts that we interact with every day from theft and exploitation.

In particular, with the advent of cloud computing technology, password security becomes even more important as individuals store more and more information on virtual server networks. Despite the many advantages offered by cloud computing, the system remains vulnerable to security threats…

Grazed from Computing.co.uk. Author: Graeme Burton.

The cloud computing industry is heading for a future of brownouts amid widespread power shortages. That is the warning of a senior Cisco engineer, who points out that major new data centres currently planned by Amazon, Google and others will have the equivalent power consumption of cities of 500,000 people.

Dave Ward, chief technologist of engineering at Cisco Systems, says that today major data centres consume between 40 and 50 megawatts (MW), but by 2020 the biggest data centres will be drawing as much as 120MW. Ward told EE Times that while advances in silicon photonics could reduce the need for such large data centres, generating the energy to power all the servers required by cloud computing by the end of the decade "will be one of the most important questions for getting to 2020"…

Grazed from SysCon Media. Author: Cloud Ventures.

TRANSFORM is the name of our consulting service, referring to the fact that our primary specialism is in business transformation, how it can be achieved through enterprise cloud computing. This is a message also defined by T-Systems. A TRANSFORM engagement therefore begins with the board room, deals in corporate strategy and then rolls this down through an adoption program featuring:

• Strategy and Enablement
• Metrics and Cost Controls
• Transformation through Maturity Models
• Driving Efficiencies through Outsourcing…

Grazed from Carrenza. Author: PR Announcement.

Leading cloud computing supplier Carrenza Ltd has launched a new infographic that illustrates some of the key trends that IT directors must be aware of if they are to successfully prepare their systems for the coming years. With more than three-quarters of businesses already using some form of cloud computing solution within their organisation, and around £448 billion set to be spent on this technology between 2013 and 2016, ensuring that businesses are equipped to make the most of this will be vital if firms are to efficiently use IT to drive business growth.

The infographic illustrates how cloud is impacting on the future of the IT department and what enterprises need to be aware of when planning for the future. The infographic aims to help sets organisations on the right path to a solution that is suited to their unique needs with clear explanations of the offerings available…

Grazed from Phys.org. Author: Editorial Staff.

Today, clients across all industries, including banks, retailers and government, are embracing cloud computing to drive business innovation and growth, but underlying concerns about security, reliability and vendor lock-in have inhibited widespread cloud adoption.
IBM’s patent-pending invention overcomes concerns about data resiliency, security and service continuity via an innovative technique which seamlessly stores and moves data across multiple clouds.

The method employs a "cloud-of-clouds" approach that invokes the resilience of separate clouds to offer stronger protection against service outages and data loss than any single cloud can deliver. "Our cloud-of-clouds invention can help clients avoid service outages and security incidents that impact the reliability and security of individual clouds," said IBM Fellow Evangelos Eleftheriou. "We are adding multiple levels of redundancy and reliability by making cloud migration and backup easier and faster than is currently possible."…

Grazed from HPCWire. Author: Jose Luis Vazquez-Poletti.

Usually terms such as high performance and high availability are addressed by big corporations and institutions; however, something has changed over the past years as a real revolution is emerging from university classrooms. Dr. Jose Luis Vazquez-Poletti, Assistant Professor in Computer Architecture at Complutense University of Madrid, describes some of the promising work being carried out by his students. Cloud computing represents an incredible boost for research in the HPC and HTC areas. Their adoption has increased thanks to this technology, and accordingly, so has the number of worldwide students with a focus on cloud-enabled technology.

Master thesis projects are not only the final challenge for our students, they are also a great opportunity to shine a spotlight on their efforts. This is crucial for attracting interesting job opportunities once they leave the university. Companies demanding technologically qualified employees see in these projects the perfect companion in their recruiting processes, as the candidates can easily showcase their competence with bleeding edge technologies…

Grazed from MSDN. Author: Igor Pagliai.

During the last two years, I had the privilege to work with some important Microsoft Global Partners, all over the world, on several important Azure projects. Since I personally like to share my findings and let the broader community to learn from my experiences, in this blog post I decided to discuss an interesting architectural pattern to overcome to one of the most known Azure Load Balancer (LB) limitation, which is the implementation of a MASTER-SLAVE architecture.

In this post, I will concentrate my attention on Azure IaaS Virtual Machines (IaaS VM). I am sure that at many of you already know that the Azure Load Balancer (LB) is great providing load-balancing on incoming connections/requests among a pool of VMs, but what happen if you need:…

Grazed from TechStars. Author: Editorial Staff.

There is a lot of discussion about whether or not cloud computing is secure. As you weigh the options for your business or organization, there are some very practical reasons we think cloud computing is actually more secure than having your own server or using basic office security software options.

Enterprise Hardware for a Small Business Price
With cloud computing your data is stored on enterprise-grade hardware, equipment generally unaffordable for most small businesses. By using the cloud for your business or organization, you are instantly upgrading to safer equipment!…