Category: News

Grazed from FierceHealthIT. Author: Susan D. Hall.

Advances in big data and cloud computing are providing more democratic access to the reams of information the government collects, federal officials said at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association annual health IT conference in Bethesda, MD. Before, data would be shipped to researchers on encrypted hard drives. Now any vetted research institution can access the same data through the cloud, reports the Federal Times.

With better tools and improved access through the cloud more scientists and researchers will be able to use the data in productive ways, said Mike Tartakovsky, the chief information officer and director of the Office of Cyber Infrastructure and Computational Biology at the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Penguin Computing, experts in high performance and enterprise computing solutions, today announced the immediate availability of Scyld HCA™, its new HPC Cloud Appliance. This appliance turns any HPC Linux cluster into a fully managed HPC hybrid cloud environment, which adds the ease of use and automation of a public cloud to an existing HPC cluster and has the added benefit of seamless hybrid access to Penguin Computing on Demand (“POD”) to support burst out compute and storage capability.

Scyld HCA™ is a fully integrated solution (software, hardware and managed service) that combines the flexibility and ease-of-access typically associated with a cloud based solution with the performance of “bare-metal” computing. Built on open standards including OpenStack and Ceph, Scyld HCA™ provides virtual login host lifecycle management, object and data storage, user and group administration, metering and reporting, authentication, a Web-based portal, and an interactive Web GUI for hardware and workflow management…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Gilad Parann-Nissany.

The cloud computing industry is currently experiencing tremendous growth. Studies predict that by 2014, 60% of server workload will be virtualized and the total size of the industry will be $150 billion (up from $48 billion in 2008). Alongside this growth, cloud computing has also seen an increase in criminal activities in the cloud.

Cloud computing faces many of the same threats as the physical workplace. Attackers use tactics such like social engineering or working from the inside. They take advantage of employees’ use of social media and downloading of applications on company computers to send attacks over the web. They continue to take advantage of email with increasingly sophisticated viruses that bypass anti-virus tools. Hackers focus on targeting specific organizations with valuable data – attacking in a planned and professional way. All of these threats affect the cloud, the data center, and personal devices…

Grazed from Webopedia. Author: Vangie Beal.

If you’re looking for a solid cloud storage provider, here’s 5 to try. Cloud storage basically means "the storage of data online in the cloud," wherein a company’s data is stored in and accessible from multiple distributed and connected resources that comprise a cloud.
Today businesses of all shapes and sizes use cloud storage, not only because of lower costs (you don’t need to purchase, manage and maintain expensive hardware) but cloud storage can provide the benefits of greater accessibility and reliability; rapid deployment; strong protection for data backup, archival and disaster recovery purposes.

5 Cloud Storage Service Providers to Try

If you’re looking for a solid cloud storage provider, here’s 5 to try:..

Grazed from ArsTechnica. Author: Sean Gallagher.

Apparently even the government can have too much cloud capacity. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has announced that it is putting the brakes on a $450 million commercial cloud-computing contract because of a lack of demand from within the Department of Defense.

In a notice posted by the DISA to the Federal Business Opportunities website, the agency’s contracting officer Scott Stewart wrote, "Initial indications are the demand will not require a contract with the ceiling estimated in [the] draft solicitation. We are currently revising our acquisition strategy."…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author:

Microsoft definitely doesn’t want developers to eschew its cloud, that’s for sure. Redmond’s latest additions to its arsenal of cloud-based resources are aimed squarely at developers, and while a new version of Visual Studio (2013) is part of that mix, there’s an entirely new offering: Visual Studio Online. Formerly branded as Team Foundation Service, Visual Studio Online is a Windows Azure-hosted development environment designed to work as an online complement to Visual Studio’s desktop tools.

Most of the features offered through Visual Studio Online ought to be familiar territory, both for Microsoft and non-Microsoft developers. The hosted source control system, for instance, works with Microsoft’s Team Foundation Version Control system, but will operate transparently with Git as well — a nice tip of the hat to those who already have projects managed with Git and don’t feel like scrapping it in favor of a Microsoft solution. Likewise, Visual Studio is the preferred software client for working with projects hosted in Visual Studio Online, but Eclipse and Xcode are supported too…

Grazed from EON. Author: PR Announcement.

Faronics, a global leader in simplifying, securing and managing multi-user computer environments, announced today the release of Deep Freeze Cloud – a cloud-managed version of its instant system restore solution. “Cloud computing is revolutionizing every sector of business including IT management. As cloud-based technologies grow in popularity and more and more organizations make the switch to the cloud, developing Deep Freeze Cloud is a natural next step for Faronics”

With Reboot to Restore functionality, Deep Freeze protects original workstation configurations by restoring the computer settings to their original, pristine condition with a simple reboot. By creating a “Frozen” snapshot of a workstation’s desired configuration and settings, Deep Freeze eliminates the need for IT administrators to perform manual rebuilds, re-image or troubleshoot computers every time something goes awry…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Dan Kusnetzky.

Adrian Lonel, Mirantis CEO and President, stopped by to chat about how organizations are adopting cloud computing and how, in his vision, OpenStack is positioned to win over the others. Although it is impossible for me to really do justice to our rapidly moving conversation, I’ll try to summarize what was touched upon.

Trends in developing Cloud-based applications

There are a number of groups seeking to define the stack of software everyone will use to develop cloud-based workloads. Amazon Web Services and its frenemy Eucalyptus Systems hope that the stack of software defined by Amazon will win. Microsoft hopes that Microsoft’s Windows Azure will become the standard. Two different open source communities, Apache CloudStack and the OpenStack believe that their approach to building cloud-based applications will win. Lonel believes that OpenStack is likely to win because of the following reasons:…

Grazed from PR NewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Virtustream, Inc., the leading enterprise class cloud software and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider, today announced they have fully integrated Intel® Trusted Execution Technology (Intel® TXT) into both the xStream 2.2 cloud management software and Virtustream’s IaaS cloud. These enterprise class cloud solutions provide companies with highly secure and compliant cloud computing, whether in private, public or hybrid clouds. Intel TXT provides strong hardware authentication and enables a range of advanced high security features including malware/virus prevention, BIOS authentication, hypervisor authentication, geotagging and geofencing.

“Virtustream’s partnership with Intel has been built on our common belief that enterprise class clouds must closely integrate software and hardware to give our clients the most advanced security features and compliance capabilities which reduce risk and costs,” said Kevin Reid, CEO and CTO of Virtustream. “By integrating Intel TXT, Virtustream’s xStream moves several steps ahead of any other hybrid cloud solution. The combination of application-level SLAs and security compliance gives our customers a tremendous advantage and new options for how they can deploy business-critical applications in the cloud.” …

Grazed from Computing.co.uk. Author: John Leonard.

Shadow IT – the bypassing of the IT department by employees who set up their own systems – is the inevitable consequence of the ease of use and quick deployment enabled by the cloud. Given the choice between waiting for days or weeks for the IT department to configure the CRM system to suit their needs, or ordering something over the web with a credit card (or even for free) that can be used immediately and turned off again afterwards, it is obvious which will win. And the consequences be damned.

But the consequences of shadow IT can be serious. As with other trends driven by consumerisation, such as bring your own device (BYOD), shadow IT leaves the IT department between a rock and a hard place: it does not want to be seen as a progress-denying jobs-worth, but neither can it afford to preside over the sort of free-for-all that is the logical conclusion of the boom in self-service IT, an outcome that could have seriously negative repercussions for the company – and the IT leader’s job…