Category: News

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Amy Larsen DeCarlo.

In less than a decade, cloud computing has grown from an intriguing niche to a mainstream market segment. Future expectations are high, with Morgan Stanley projecting Amazon Web Services will hit the $24 billion revenue mark in 2022. Of course, how successful any single provider is in growing its cloud business depends on its ability to help dispel the cloud security worries that still sideline some on-demand deployments.

The presumption that a highly virtualized, multi-tenant environment is intrinsically more susceptible to attack is a byproduct of the belief that the level of accessibility and flexibility that makes the cloud so appealing to customers also opens the door to opportunistic hackers who are ready to capitalize on the many points of entry…

Grazed from Diginomica. Author: Jon Reed.

The hype about cloud job growth is in full swing. Exhibit A: in a June 2013 report, IDC predicted 14 million new cloud jobs by 2015. But what do these numbers really mean to the enterprise? After taking a swing at a couple of simplistic pieces on cloud jobs in last week’s hits and misses, it seemed a good time to hold my own feet to the fire and see what I could dig out. Aside from Amazon’s recent announcement of the planned hire of 70,000 seasonal full time employees, I don’t see many large companies in bulk hire mode of any kind – cloud-related or not.

Hiring news – mixed at best

A cynical reader commented on Joe McKendrick’s Forbes piece on IDC’s cloud jobs numbers: No technological advance creates more jobs than it eliminates. It’s impossible because the very point of a technological advance is to increase productivity…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Kristin Burnham.

Western Digital Wednesday unveiled My Cloud, a new personal cloud device that lets users organize, centralize and secure digital content from their computers and mobile devices and access those files from anywhere.

An alternative to pricier cloud solutions, the My Cloud drive is available in three capacities: 2 TB for $149.99; 3 TB for $179.99 and 4 TB for $249.99. In comparison, 2 TB of storage on a personal Google Drive account will cost you $100 per month. "We believe that there’s no place like home for the cloud," said Jim Welsh, executive vice president and general manager of WD’s branded products and consumer electronics groups. "Everyone is inundated with thousands of digital files scattered across multiple computers and mobile devices, and controlling that chaos is a challenge."…

Grazed from VentureBeat. Author: Editorial Staff.

Once a catchy PR buzzword, the cloud has become a very real and vital element of the modern technology landscape. But as with every technological step forward, the cloud has brought with it some unintended side effects. In the case of enterprise cloud technology, those side effects include concerns over loss of control and security risks.

That’s especially true since revelations were made earlier this year about mass data surveillance programs, such as the National Security Agency’s PRISM project. If you host your company’s data in a public cloud, such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, what assurances do you have that government agencies aren’t monitoring — or may subpoena — your data? Cloud providers have stated unequivocally that they do not give direct access to the NSA, FBI, or other organizations — but it’s also widely known that the these agencies have broad access to many data sources once considered private…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

The federal government has embarked on an ambitious plan to transform IT acquisition and management by implementing cloud computing in every federal agency. WSO2 Federal Systems Director of Solutions Adam Firestone will explore the factors in making cloud computing a reality for defense, intelligence, and homeland security in his talk at the Cloud Computing & Network Symposium for Defense, Intelligence & Homeland Security. The conference runs October 8-9, 2013 at the Holiday Inn Rosslyn at Key Bridge in Washington, D.C.

The Governed Cloud

Through carefully governed cloud computing, the federal government aims to provide on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable resources that can be quickly established and quickly dismantled. The resulting savings in IT spending within the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and intelligence community could total more than 20 percent of operational costs. However, with these benefits come risks in maintaining security and assurance of services in highly mission critical business and tactical applications…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Josh Manchester.

What is SaaS? The ability to store data easily on third-party servers and access it quickly via the Internet creates the possibility of delivering software over the web. This is precisely what is meant by the phrase “software-as-as-service,” frequently abbreviated as “SaaS.” Indeed, this is the second half of cloud computing: if your computing is in the cloud, then your software is almost by definition delivered as a service over the Internet.

Some History and Evolution

Over the past twenty years, before the advancement of cloud computing, the process of developing, deploying, and using software was both long and expensive. Historically, the software development cycle underwent multiple stages. In the past, enterprise software businesses developed their products for installation on desktops or servers; this required a large expenditure in order to purchase the necessary hardware for the software’s operation…

Grazed from ITWorldCanada. Author: Nestor E. Arellano.

Communications software provider Avaya Inc. is looking to beef up its cloud computing, contact centre, and social media monitoring and management offerings with the acquisition of the software division of Israeli-based ITNavigator Ltd.

Avaya did not say how much the deal will cost but ITNavigator is the second Israeli company the American software firm has bought. In 2012, Avaya purchased video conferencing and telepresence technology firm Radvision Ltd. for $230 million…

Grazed from The Register. Author: Richard Chirgwin.

The ISA’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – recently accused of collaborating with the NSA to weaken security standards – has put together a paper highlighting the key-management challenge posed by cloud computing platforms.

As readers will know, key multiplication (and therefore management) can be headache-making even in in-house IT environments. Just one service, SSH, was criticised by its creator earlier this year for spreading 1unwanted keys far and wide. The paper, Cryptographic Key Management Issues & Challenges in Cloud Services, would be available at http://www.nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2013/NIST.IR.7956.pdf if it were not for the fact NIST’s site has been DOSed by the US government shut down. The Reg has popped it into Dropbox here as a PDF. (See – we don’t need no lousy government, do we?)…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Chris Kanararcus.

SAP may build a second data center in Australia in order to meet customer demand for locally delivered cloud services in the wake of revelations over the National Security Agency’s Prism surveillance program. "When I talk to the public sector . . . it’s clear they will only consume cloud if we can guarantee their data stays here in Australia. And we are ready for that," co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe told the Australian Financial Review in a report published Monday.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s stream of leaks about the agency’s spying programs have changed the game for tech vendors, Snabe told the AFR. "I think the stakes have moved up," Snabe said. "People have realized that you need to manage the data center in a physical location where the jurisdiction fits your assumptions."…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

CompTIA is expanding on its existing cloud certification program launched two years ago with a new Cloud+ designation. The association, which offers a growing number of vendor-agnostic certification exams to its members, collaborated with ITpreneurs two years ago on the CompTIA Cloud Essentials exam.

The new CompTIA Cloud+ certification is aimed at IT professionals with 24 to 36 months of work experience in networking, storage or data center administration. Although not required, CompTIA recommends professionals interested in gaining the credential to have CompTIA Network+ and/or CompTIA Storage+ Powered by SNIA certifications before pursuing the new credential…