Category: News

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Lindsey Nelson.

I know you have heard a lot about the “alleged” results of cloud computing, but as more and more businesses actually try it we now have hard data. Think of cloud computing like an entertainment system. It’s comprised of many different pieces, each working well by plugging into what you already have.

But the wow factor only truly arrives when you have a fully integrated, end-to-end system, working together to produce the perfect movie night. Cloud computing integration in business is no different. Did you know 79% of senior business and IT executives expected “meaningful improvements as a result of cloud initiatives” in the areas of “innovation, speed, and efficiency of processes”?…

Grazed from CIO. Author: Chris Meager.

A recent series of cloud briefings sought to address the technology, legal and change management aspects of cloud. They prompted some thought-provoking discussions around the longevity and value of cloud computing.

With so much noise around ‘cloud’ and so many opinions, it can be difficult to get consensus in the true benefits of cloud. There are many cloud-sceptics, quite understandably from the overload of cloud hype out there. During these briefings, we wanted to offer some insights into how to migrate IT services to a cloud-based model and some of the pitfalls to avoid – and to field questions on the challenges cloud might be creating. Topics of discussion included:…

Grazed from CBR. Author: Editorial Staff.

Dell has launched a new portfolio of cloud and virtualisation applications including data centre and cloud client computing applications as part of the firm’s collaboration with VMWare. Dell Networking added the new S6000 switching platform for data centres, which incorporates virtualisation and automation features.

The computer technology firm claims that the new S6000 platform offers two times more density and throughput while consuming up to 50% less power than its successors. S6000 will also support the latest network virtualisation and software-defined networking features such as hardware-accelerated L2 Gateway functionality for deployment with VMware NSX, linking traffic between virtualised and non-virtualised environments…

Grazed from HuffingtonPost. Author: Elaine Mah.

When news first broke that the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) was "operating a covert program, called Prism, which obtains email and other electronic data records from Internet companies," a furor erupted over the violated privacy of information once it enters the cloud. It shocked a nation and then the world. I’m not sure what was more shocking: the fact that it happened or that so few people were truly prepared for this possibility.

Concerns that our online information could face government scrutiny first arose over 10 years ago when the Patriot Act was signed into law, and has now raised questions for businesses as to the security and privacy which could be afforded when uploading content to the cloud. With the ongoing revelations from the NSA files, many organizations that have embraced cloud computing in recent years now face new uncertainty and may even go so far as to revert to on-site only access to information and abandon the cloud…

Grazed from HPCWire. Author: Tiffany Trader.

Today’s clouds are built on a mix of technologies, including virtualization, automation and orchestration. In some circles, virtualization is nearly synonymous with cloud, but above all a cloud is a pool of resources that is elastic, scalable and accessible on-demand. For the HPC community especially, much of the cloud computing that takes place is of the "bare metal" kind, aka non-virtualized cloud.

Although today’s server virtualization is a lot sleeker than in years past, nothing can beat the performance of bare metal. Some of the issues with virtualized cloud computing were detailed recently by Internap Vice President of Hosted Services Gopala Tumuluri…

Grazed from CFO. Author: David Wood.

By mid-2013 – meaning now — cloud computing will be in use by about 80 percent of about 600 companies with at least 500 employees each, according to a 2012 TNS Infratest survey. The trend is undeniable: Data management and storage are moving offsite to cloud computing vendors on a vast scale.

Touting cloud computing as a way to eliminate the costs of buying and maintaining on-site information-technology assets, vendors offer it in the form of software as a service (SAAS), a distribution model in which software applications are delivered to clients over a web-based network…

Grazed from TechRepublic. Author: Thoran Rodrigues.

It has been about a year since I last updated the comparison of cloud infrastructure-as-a-service providers. Over the course of this last year, we’ve seen even more changes to the market, from the pricing and plans to the market players to the services being offered. Some companies, such as Softlayer, have been acquired by others (IBM, in Softlayer’s case), and yet more new entrants have appeared.

To account for these changes, and for other situations, I’ve made some changes to the comparison. First, IBM was dropped from the list, since the pricing information for its public cloud offering is no longer available online (they’ve shifted the focus onto Softlayer). Hosting.com also had to be dropped from the list since their pricing data is no longer online for anyone to access either…

Grazed from IPWatchdog. Author: Steve Brachmann.

Siemens AG is a giant European corporation involved with electronics and electrical engineering; headquartered in the German cities of Munich and Berlin, it is the European continent’s largest such company. The company has faced instability in recent months, but it’s hopeful that new CEO Joe Kaeser, appointed at the end of July, will help stabilize the company’s activities.

Recently, the company was bolstered by an announcement of a $400 million contract to deliver two power plant blocks to Pennsylvania under an order from Gemma Power Systems LLC. The scope of Siemens’ technology development makes it a recurring feature in IPWatchdog’s Companies We Follow series…

Grazed from GCN. Author: Gunnar Hellekson.

The federal government’s march to the cloud has, at times, seemed more like a cautious ballet than anything else. While cloud-based projects are slowly rolling out, much of the agency emphasis is on private or community clouds as opposed to public providers. Security and data handling concerns play a role in this “tiptoeing,” but another reason is far more insidious: the fear of lock-in.

The Federal Shared Services Implementation Guide, the agency blueprint to the cloud, makes it very clear that government entities engaging in cloud computing need a clear “exit strategy” for anything as a service. It might seem ridiculous to consider how one should migrate from a technology before it is even implemented, but when it comes to the cloud, being able to get your data out is just as important as getting it in. It’s about choice and control…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

Rick Jackson is the former chief marketing officer at VMware. His exit was one of several earlier this year that seemed to say there was a mass migration going on from what had been one of the Silicon Valley’s leading companies. His followed on the heels of VMware CTO Steve Herrod’s and co-president Tod Nielsen’s departures.

Then, on the other hand, there had been regime change, with Pat Gelsinger coming in as CEO for Paul Maritz. Smart people don’t always wait around for the new boss to discover you’re closely associated with a high-profile failure of the previous administration, the vRAM pricing foray, and Rick Jackson was one of those smart people…