Category: News

Grazed from DataCenterKnowledge. Author: Bill Kleyman.

As cloud computing continues to gain momentum, system administrators are looking for more ways to integrate with their cloud model. There are now more direct use cases for cloud computing, which require greater levels of customization. The ability to enhance the cloud experience and have cross-cloud compatibility has helped form the Cloud API (Application Programming Interface) environment. Now, administrators can integrate applications and other workloads into the cloud using these APIs.

But which model is the right one, and how can you incorporate an API into your cloud?…

Grazed from DataCenterKnowledge. Author: Patrick Jobin.

Now that cloud computing is officially in the mainstream, we’re seeing a growing interest in data center energy consumption. Since electronic components are constantly becoming smaller and more powerful, data centers must now deal with the heat generated by having thousands of high-power processors tightly packed into a small space. And because cloud computing is based on virtualization, the overall utilization of this hardware is much higher than it would be in a “one box, one application” data center environment.

The problem of exponentially-growing power consumption becomes even more pronounced when you consider steadily dropping hardware prices. We’ll soon reach a point where the electricity required to power data centers is a greater financial burden than even the hardware and maintenance costs put together…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Rachel King.

Juniper Networks and Forrester Consulting have released a new report revealing that new demands from big data, mobile and cloud computing have pushed networks to a "breaking point."

The study, "Building For the Next Billion: What The New World Of Business Means For The Network," posits that 86 percent of IT executives have not been able to provision new services or support business demands because their networks weren’t up to the task.

Here’s a glance from the report at how big data, the cloud and mobile devices are contributing to the overflow of traffic on networks:…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

There’s a new technology position you may have heard of: the cloud manager. Typically, cloud managers work in enterprise IT, in charge of maintaining the company’s adopted IaaS and PaaS public cloud services. The new job may sound like a great place to get in on the vanguard of technology adoption, but most cloud managers I meet aren’t so happy.

Why so glum? The job is quickly ballooning, and cloud managers don’t have the tools to control the huge wave coming at them. Though you’d think cloud managers have only one or two cloud services to deal with, I find they usually have four or five, with more expected by 2014. The reason? In large part, the growth in clouds to manage is due to "shadow IT" cloud computing projects coming to light. As a result, those cloud-based applications and data stores will move to central corporate IT control…

Grazed from Computing.co.uk. Author: Danny Palmer.

While Europe teeters on the brink of financial armageddon, the European Commission (EC) claims that a coherent cloud strategy for the bloc could generate £127bn per year and create 3.8 million jobs.

In its Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe report, the EC suggests that implementing a coherent cloud strategy across the region could cut the operational costs of IT departments for all types of organisations, along with boosting productivity and growth. According to the report, three key areas need to be addressed in order to enable a workable cloud strategy across Europe…

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Brandon Butler.

Further showing its commitment to the OpenStack project, Cisco has rolled out a free distribution of the open source cloud management platform, which it will package other services on top of, including virtual networking and high-availability features.

Cisco becomes one of a growing group of OpenStack member organizations that have released distributions of the open source code, joining the likes of Linux-distribution companies Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical and Ubuntu, as well as Rackspace and OpenStack pure-play vendor Piston Cloud Computing. The news comes as OpenStack backers meet this week at the semi-annual OpenStack Summit held in San Diego. Cisco VP and CTO of cloud computing Lew Tucker, who is also vice chairman of the newly formed OpenStack Foundation, says the value of the Cisco edition of OpenStack is around services that will be integrated into Cisco’s OpenStack distribution, especially virtual networking…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

New funding from GGV Capital and Onset Ventures will help Gridstore push its case that, with the right software, plain, old disk drives can scale out to do the heavy lifting for most web-scale applications.

Gridstore, which makes software that converts inexpensive, commodity disks into scale-out storage, has closed a $12.5 million Series A round led by GGV Capital and Onset Ventures. That brings total funding, including seed money, to $15 million, the company said. The new cash will be used to build out its sales channels…

Grazed from IT News. Author: Jorn Bettin.

Any large, software-intensive business considering cloud computing needs to weigh up the risks of the cloud against its reliance on in-house legacy IT systems. There are several risks involved when sweating legacy systems – outages at the Royal Bank of Scotland and NAB serve to illustrate, as do countless unreported delays in introducing new features.

I have come across global banks with legacy systems that require a gestation period of 18 months from requirement specification to delivery into production for the smallest of new software features. Below the surface, web-based business software is redefining the story of outsourcing and blurring organisational boundaries to an extent where business executives are no longer in any position to list all the software services that are consumed by an organisation…

Grazed from Government Health IT. Author: Tom Sullivan.

Tom Savel, MD, is that rare breed of physician who contends his real goal in life is to be a technologist. Savel, like any IT guy worth his weight in geek, thinks big – which is exactly how what started as a software-testing sandbox five years ago is now on the cusp of being a quiver of cloud computing capabilities offered to state and local public health entities.

Within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Savel is the director of the Informatics Research and Development Activity (IRDA), under the Public Health Surveillance and Informatics Program Office. The CDC is about to open IRDA’s cloud services to federal, state, and local public health departments…

Grazed from The Star Tribune. Author: Steve Alexander.

Cloud computing — using remote data centers over the Internet instead of buying computers — has been quietly creeping into companies under the noses of corporate executives. Departments are using it without permission by putting it on company charge cards, and employees widely use some common cloud applications such as Google Docs or Salesforce.com, said Bill Martorelli, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass.

"Corporations really need to reconcile themselves to cloud computing," said Martorelli, who will be the keynote speaker Tuesday at the Enterprise Cloud Summit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts that’s sponsored by Wisconsin-based TDS Telecommunications. "But they also have to find the balance between empowerment of employees and corporate control."…