Category: News

November 4, 2012 Off

Real Business Value in 30 Days With Cloud Consulting

By David
Grazed from Business2Community.  Author: Matthew Ramsey.

Cloud computing has created new opportunities to improve business processes through the use of technology. From freeing up resources, to letting employees use their preferred personal devices for work, to lowering your technology operating costs, operating from the cloud lets you remain focused on your core business objectives.

There are many ways cloud computing can drive business value. A respected cloud consultant can help you implement best practices for utilizing the cloud for your specific needs, your customers, and your overall operational structure.

So how can cloud computing create real business value?…

November 4, 2012 Off

Gartner: Public cloud services are both cannibalizing and stimulating demand for external IT services spending

By David
Grazed from InformationWeek.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Public cloud services are simultaneously cannibalizing and stimulating demand for external IT services spending, according to Gartner, Inc. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) adoption — the most basic and fundamental form of cloud computing service — has expanded beyond development and test use cases.

"Public cloud adoption is accelerating and public cloud services do, and will, cannibalize IT services spending in the coming years, most notably in the data center," said Bryan Britz, Research Director, Gartner. "At the same time, public cloud adoption offers service providers the opportunity to accelerate externalization of spending for the non-public cloud workloads and IT operations and service management responsibilities in tandem with clients pursuing a public cloud initiative."…

November 4, 2012 Off

This week in cloud: More outages, fewer data centers

By David
Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Barb Darrow.

By 2016, there will be fewer data centers but those that are built will be much bigger, according to IDC research. Cedexis launches tool to help AWS customers route computing loads around Amazon EC2 regions to mitigate service problems.

Superstorm Sandy made itself felt big time in data centers in New York, New Jersey and surrounding areas last week,  sparking concerns about the impact of climate change on data center deployment plans and the power grid…

November 4, 2012 Off

Top 10: why your cloud is only as good as your network

By David
Grazed from AME Info.  Author: Saad Kahn.

Revenue from cloud computing products and services are due to increase from around $20bn to almost $150bn by 2020 – a total of 8% for all technology spend, according to research by Bain & Company. Their study, titled The Five Faces of the Cloud indicates that the Middle East needs a better network to the cloud.

1 – Your cloud workload will evolve as applications change

Today you are running Software as a Service (SaaS), or infrastructure applications that stay resident in the provider cloud, often locked behind semi-proprietary architectures. This is a logical first implementation that’s common to most technology roll-outs. The next step is also predictable – a turn to a more open architecture with standards in place for APIs and management tools…

November 3, 2012 Off

5 ways to profit from your cloud

By David
Grazed from VentureBeat.  Author: Zev Laderman.

There’s more to cloud analytics than just saving costs.  When companies really know how to take advantage of cloud computing to increase profit and margin, they have the opportunity to achieve real cloud “nirvana.” The cloud can become a natural extension of their data center.  Here are five ways cloud usage analytics contribute to a company’s bottom line:

Scaling and meeting demand

If clouds are able to scale on the fly to meet unforeseen or variable demand, companies can capture additional revenue that otherwise would not have been achievable. When demand flattens, or – as we have witnessed over the last few years with the global recession – often fluctuates or declines, it is critical to immediately scale back infrastructure and reduce costs to ensure the highest possible profit margin from new levels of demand…

November 2, 2012 Off

Salesforce.com Cloud Apps Spread to UK Govt

By David

Grazed from ExecutiveBiz. Author: David J. Barton.

Cloud computing company Salesforce.com is joining the U.K. government’s G-cloud framework, the company has announced. As a result, U.K. public sector organizations can now purchase Salesforce cloud applications from the G-Cloud CloudStore. G-Cloud is a catalogued list of suppliers of approved cloud technologies which U.K. government agencies can access online.

According to the announcement, it is meant to simplify the cloud procurement process and provide easy access to approved technologies as the U.K. public sector looks to revolutionize a broad range of services in both local and central government…

November 2, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: Will AMD’s Ambidextrous Strategy Pay Dividends?

By David

Grazed from Sci-Tech-Today. Author: Jennifer LeClaire.

AMD’s new design initiative addresses the growing demand to deliver better performance-per-watt for dense cloud computing solutions. Unless Intel shifts its strategy, it’s probable that AMD will be the only processor provider bridging the x86 and 64-bit ARM ecosystems in the data center and for cloud solutions.

Forbes is pondering whether AMD’s move into ARM chips is positioning the company for a sale. Other media outlets are considering whether or not the move is setting the stage for heavy competition with Intel Relevant Products/Services on the server side…

November 2, 2012 Off

The Key to Success in Cloud Computing? Good Plumbing

By David

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Michael Kanellos.

Internet startups need to amass a compelling business model, defensible technology and an experienced team of entrepreneurs to achieve escape velocity. But they also need to make sure the trains run on time.

Operational competitiveness is the new dividing line between the success stories and also-rans in cloud computing and Internet services, said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation during a panel discussion at the Big Science conference that took place in San Jose this week. Companies offering cloud services have to have a good idea, in other words, but it is more important that they make sure their system doesn’t crash, annoy users or leak data like a sieve…

November 2, 2012 Off

Cisco Boosts Cloud Automation, Management Capabilities For Large-Scale UCS Deployments

By David

Grazed from CRN. Author: Chad Berndtson.

Cisco this week made substantial updates to its Unified Computing System (UCS) and cloud automation portfolios, including a centralized management tool for large-scale UCS deployments and the extension of certain connectivity tools to support rack-mount server versions of UCS in addition to blade server versions.

New to the UCS platform is UCS Central, what Brian Schwarz, director, UCS product management, described as a "big brother" to Cisco’s UCS Manager software. UCS Central creates a single management dashboard for large-scale UCS deployments and the many UCS Managers needed to control distributed server environments across large enterprises. Whereas an instance of UCS Manager covers up to 160 or up to 320 computing nodes, depending on a customer’s configuration, UCS Central can oversee as many as 10,000 physical servers. It’s based on the same data model and API structure as UCS Manager so IT managers used to the UCS Manager interface won’t find anything too new, according to Cisco…

November 2, 2012 Off

How To Build A Cloud Strategy In 10 Steps

By David

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Michael Brenner.

Is your business ready for cloud computing? We know there are cost-saving reasons to run your business in the cloud, but before signing with a vendor, there are some other things to consider. Processes, goals, and technology are just a few.

ViaWest’s white paper entitled How to Execute a Successful Cloud Strategy succinctly outlines 10 “cloud tenets” that are perfect for helping you develop a cloud strategy specific to your business. When evaluating a cloud vendor, the white paper recommends:

  • Analyze your long-term business needs – Cloud computing vendors aren’t “one size fits all.” Consider your organization’s present and future needs and match them to a cloud vendor that has a choice of technology…