Category: News

Grazed from MidSize Insider.  Author: Shawn Drew.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the cloud was an obscure new technology that only a handful of companies were successfully leveraging, but things have truly come full circle. Cloud computing is now almost ubiquitous, and cloud adoption rates by both IT and the public continue to soar. But a small group of businesses are rethinking their cloud strategy and finding that sometimes the cloud just isn’t the right fit.

The Realities of the Cloud

The benefits of cloud computing are undeniable. But as more and more businesses adopt individual cloud solutions, some cracks are starting to appear in this new technology’s armor.  For scalability or elasticity, the cloud reigns supreme, but for businesses that have outgrown the need for constantly shifting IT power, it may not always be the most economical option. As Wired points out, once a company can accurately predict their computing needs, buying hardware at a discount often contrasts advantageously with a public cloud solution for reasons of economy…

Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Arthor Cole.

The enterprise is fast approaching a critical juncture in the development of virtual and cloud architectures – the point at which public, private and hybrid infrastructure starts to meld into a unified data architecture. But while the idea of a fully seamless environment in which applications and data can burst across internal and external infrastructure at will is still a little fuzzy, the fact remains that cloud computing will soon become the norm for the enterprise, rather than the exception. And that means the pressure is on to convert existing silo-based infrastructure into a private cloud.

Too bad we don’t have a magic pill to make it happen. Instead, enterprise executives are forced into a soup-to-nuts evaluation of existing infrastructure, followed by a detailed plan as to how they intend to convert it into something that is still largely undefined. Industry-wide, however, the knowledge base is steadily increasing, and a quick scan of what some early adopters have learned can make the cloud transition a lot easier for all…

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Gary Hilson.

Aryaka officially launched its Cloud Network as-a-Service, which is aimed at simplifying access to public and private cloud services such as Amazon Web Services, Google Apps and Office 365. The Cloud Network is connected globally through a network of 25 data centers with multi-segment TCP optimization and integrated QoS. Like Aryaka’s WAN Optimization as-a-Service, the Network as-a-Service connects users to the geographically closest point-of-presence (POP), rather than the data center closest to the organization’s headquarters, in order to streamline user-to-application requests.

The new service makes use of the same underlying infrastructure as Aryaka’s WAN optimization, including TCP optimization, but does not include all of the application acceleration features. Aryaka said the Cloud Network is designed to help enterprises with distributed offices, which would normally have to traverse the public Internet to access services such as Office 365 or AWS at a single data center, and that more than 95% of the world’s enterprise business users are within 20 milliseconds from any of its POPs…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Convergent Communications now offers cloud computing services to improve the storage capacity and efficiency of businesses. The innovative Cloud Workspace reduces technology costs while allowing employees to access files and documents from anywhere. In addition, the Cloud Workspace improves data security and eliminates complex security challenges that business owners typically encounter.

“We are happy to offer this new technology that significantly improves the way businesses store information,” said Ian Breckenridge, General Manager at Convergent Communications. “Our approach is to provide innovative solutions to improve efficiency within businesses. The Cloud Workspace gives businesses new capabilities that increase productivity and security while decreasing expenses.”…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Doug Bonderud.

The US Federal government continues to ramp up cloud spending, with both public and private clouds on the radar for increased adoption over the next five years. Although security and reliability have in large measure driven the adoption of private solutions, public alternatives should see federal investment of up to $7.7 billion by 2017. Just like private sector enterprises, the government is aiming for a best-of-both-worlds model. So what does this mean for midsize IT?

Slow, Then Fast

According to a July 2013 report by IDC, the 2014 fiscal year will be "flat" for federal cloud computing investments; even so, the federal government will still spend $118.3 million on public clouds and $1.7 billion on private clouds. Shawn McCarthy of IDC says that beyond 2014, "[G]rowth potential looks bright. Investments should reach a critical mass around 2015 and beyond." The research firm predicts a renewed focus on cloud computing within the next 18 months…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Warwick Ashford.

The time has come for service providers and consumers to move to a security model better suited to the cloud computing era, says cloud-based content management and collaboration firm Box.com. The firm has pursued transparency or openness as a key policy to establish trust with customers concerned about security in the cloud environment.

Customers are able to access all activity and transactions related to their content and even download that data to their security information and event management (Siem) systems. They also have access to SOC1, SSAE16, SOC2, ISO27001 and internal audit reports and quarterly penetration test reports. Box.com even allows customers to perform their own penetration tests…

Grazed from Yahoo. Author: Editorial Staff.

Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer has announced that he is to retire from his position with the company within the next year – but not before a successor has been identified and hired. The unexpected news follows on the heels of former Xbox supremo Don Mattrick’s defection to Zynga earlier this year, and points at the possibility of futher managerial changes happening as the company restructures for the future.

Speaking about the announcement, Ballmer said "There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time. We have embarked on a new strategy with a new organization and we have an amazing senior leadership team. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our company’s transformation to a devices and services company. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction." There have been no rumours as to who may succeed Balmer, but Microsoft confirms it will be casting a wide net, looking both internally and externally for his replacement.

Grazed from Datamation. Author: James McGuire.

Looking for advice and guidance about private cloud computing? Visit the Private Cloud Project Center for case studies, a product comparison matrix, an RFP template and more. Clearly, the number of private cloud computing deployments is growing by leaps and bounds. Recent QuinStreet Enterprise Research indicates that private cloud is the most popular type of cloud deployment, and will likely far outpace the public cloud over the next year. The survey shows that 36 percent of respondents currently have a private cloud and an additional 29 percent expect to deploy a private cloud.

The popularity of this emerging technology is no surprise. A private cloud enables enterprises to use software to pool resources into a unified virtualized computing environment. This software defined computing resource – whether large or small – is far more dynamic and scalable than a traditional hardware-centric data center. In some cases it offers greater ability to leverage third party resources on an on-demand basis. While many enterprises host a private cloud in-house, some firms hire an external provider to host their private deployment…

Grazed from DataCenter Knowledge. Author: Bill Kleyman.

It’s been far too long since we’ve had another hot tech buzz term. But new conversations are beginning to emerge around Fog Computing. Closely resembling the concepts of cloud computing, the Fog aims to take services, workloads, applications and large amounts of data and deliver it all to the edge of the network. The goal is to provide core data, compute, storage, and application services on a truly distributed level.

Fog takes the data and workload technology to a new level. We’re now talking about edge computing – the home of the Fog. Data is now being delivered in large quantities to many more users. To optimize the concept of the cloud, organizations need a way to deliver content to end users through a more geographically distributed platform. The idea of fog computing is to distribute data to move it closer to the end-user to eliminate latency and numerous hops, and support mobile computing and data streaming…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Joe Donovan.

Tax laws are always a few beats behind technology. Interstate telephone calls were taxed based on the billing address of the phone customer and the location at the end of some copper wire of sending and receiving equipment. Now one end of a call may be on a subway line, the other in an airplane traveling from Boston to Paris. Who gets to tax it?

The latest conundrum: Both business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions are moving to the cloud, and some startups are putting all of their IT infrastructure in provider sites. How, in an integrated 50-state economy, are tax concepts supposed to deal with this in a way that’s practical and doesn’t become an unfair burden for any entity? Of course, all computing takes place on servers that are physically located somewhere. Maybe you hire a cloud provider to store company records. You may not know where those records are at any given moment…