Category: News

August 17, 2012 Off

Securing The Cloud With A VAR, MSP, ISV Audience In Mind

By David

Grazed from Business Solutions. Author: Andrew Hay.

Customers have always looked to their vendors, be they VARs, MSPs or ISVs, to distill the challenges of migrating to a computing architecture. This continues to be true with regards to cloud – perhaps one of the most misunderstood and confusing architectures to arrive since the introduction of the personal computer to replace aging mainframe technology.

Extending security beyond traditional on-premises perimeter controls, adhering to regulatory compliance mandates and revising policies and procedures to encompass a platform owned by a third-party (not to mention shared with other customers) are but a few of the concerns customers wrestle with when thinking about making the jump to cloud…

August 17, 2012 Off

Amazon’s Vogels ponders the new IT metrics: a topic even foggier than the cloud

By David
Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Stacey Higgenbotham.

Amazon’s CTO Werner Vogels offered up some cloud-related eye candy Thursday night in a blog post discussing the challenge of choosing the right metrics for cloud computing. The post contributed to the ongoing conversation about how to calculate the benefits of choosing on-demand infrastructure over building your own with some charts from an Amazon white paper and a few AWS customers explaining what they have saved and spent in going to the cloud…

August 17, 2012 Off

Bad assumptions about cloud computing and the Patriot Act

By David

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Gery Menegaz.

Anyone reading about the Cloud has heard the common dangerous assumption that the Patriot Act gives the government unprecedented access to your data. The misconception is that the level of access that the government has in the cloud is beyond what they would have if the data were hosted elsewhere.

Recently the European Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding, “spearheaded and vigorously advocated for the Commission’s proposals to update and modernize the privacy framework in Europe through a detailed new Regulation.”…

August 17, 2012 Off

Privacy In Cloud Computing: Assured Or Assumed?

By David

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Rick Watson.

All avid computer users have enjoyed the benefits and conveniences of cloud computing, either knowingly or unknowingly. Most of us rarely understand what is happening behind the screens, especially when lost in interesting movie or music, or even when perusing the information about your competitors. As a result, the privacy and security of the information in cloud is sometimes assured. What of other times? Is it assumed?

Most of us overlook privacy warning and security procedures when utilizing the ever-dazzling gadgets, most of which expose us to an elevated echelon when it comes to compromises. A certain tech-user had his digital life taken over and destroyed over a span of minutes, with the perpetrators committing vilifying broadcasts in his identity. What started as a simple breach to an email ID boiled down remote erasure of data on multiple gadgets…

August 17, 2012 Off

Hybrid cloud: It’s not as secure as you think

By David

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Dan Sullivan.

Despite the appeal of using public cloud, some IT admins are concerned about turning over all their production applications to a third party or losing their substantial investment in on-premises infrastructure. In such cases, a hybrid environment can capitalize on the benefits of both public and private cloud.

But hybrid cloud isn’t perfect; it still includes a few security obstacles. As you analyze the business and technical hurdles of maintaining a hybrid cloud, keep these five security issues in mind…

August 17, 2012 Off

IBM moves mainframe into business continuity cloud

By David

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Robert L. Mitchell.

Would you entrust your mainframe to the cloud? Perhaps not for production, but IBM is hoping to gain customers for its cloud-based disaster recovery services by offering support for virtual mainframes. Currently, IBM offers cloud-based backup and disaster recovery services for the AIX, Windows and Linux platforms.

"We’re moving away from just backup to a replication environment in the cloud for all critical servers" — including the mainframe, said Rich Cocchiara, distinguished engineer and chief technology officer for Business Continuity Recovery Services, during a recent one-on-one meeting at Computerworld’s offices. "What cloud is doing is bringing the price down," perhaps to the point where more organizations may be willing to give up building or owning their own backup data centers. Instead of paying the capital expense of creating a backup data center, IT pays for access to virtual machines, as well as for the data backups and storage of the information…

August 17, 2012 Off

Army eyes tactical cloud computing to distribute situational awareness on the battlefield

By David

Grazed from Military and Aerospace Electonics. Author: Editorial Staff.

U.S. Army researchers are attempting to apply tactical cloud computing to battlefield command and control (C2) by enabling warfighters to access crucial C2 and intelligence services with a wide variety of military computers of variable link capacities located anywhere on the battlefield.

The Army Communications Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. issued a broad agency announcement (BAA W15P7T12RA216) entitled Command and Control Applications For the Decisive Edge, which includes a topic called Command & Control Tactical Cloud Computing Environment.

The tactical cloud computing project, sponsored by the CERDEC Command, Power & Integration (CP&I) Directorate, seeks to enable warfighters on the forward edge of the battlefield to use cloud computing to access important situational awareness information using data radios, wearable computers, rugged laptop computers, and other rugged mobile computing devices…

August 17, 2012 Off

‘Shadow IT’ can be the cloud’s best friend

By David

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

"Shadow IT" — where users acquire and manage IT resources outside the control of corporate IT — is the bane of many IT organizations. We’ve seen numerous instances of this over the years, including the use of PCs, the Web, the iPhone, and now cloud computing resources without a formal policy and support from corporate IT.

It’s easy to see why users resort to shadow IT: Employees charged with running profit centers see a need for a specific type of technology. Rather than fight through IT’s red tape and endless meetings, they go out and get what they need. Indeed, a PricewaterhouseCoopers study finds as much as 30 percent of IT spending coming from business units outside the official IT budget…

August 17, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: Optimum User Experience, High Performance and Minimum TCO with IGEL Thin Clients and 2X ApplicationServer XG

By David

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

2X Software, a global leader in desktop virtualization and application delivery, today announced full compatibility with IGEL Linux thin clients. The company’s 2X ApplicationServer XG is now available on IGEL Linux thin clients with the "Advanced" firmware package, including the IGEL Universal Desktop Converter (UDC) software.

2X Software offer a wide variety of cloud computing solutions via 2X ApplicationServer XG, the leading application and desktop delivery solution that allows administrators to publish applications and virtual desktops from an all-in-one platform. IGEL thin client solutions complement 2X features, with the aim of IGEL’s Universal Desktop Strategy being high customer performance with secure, yet flexible, access to the private and public IT cloud…

August 17, 2012 Off

Avnet Technology Solutions expands off-premise Cloud training offerings

By David

Grazed from eChannelLine. Author: Mark Cox.

Avnet Technology Solutions has announced a new training framework available through its recently launched Avnet Cloud Solutions group, which will be available in the U.S. and Canada. The new framework is focused on the off-premise cloud computing market. It includes fundamental, advanced and mastery training related to developing a cloud practice, specializing in high-growth off-premise cloud workloads and gaining in-depth expertise in off-premise cloud offerings.

This announcement is a followup to Avnet’s announcement in May of Avnet Cloud Solutions, a new organization specifically focused on off-premise cloud solutions for VAR, MSP and ISV partners in the U.S. and Canada, the same as the new announcement. At that time, Avnet announced a number of cloud providers would be named to provide those offerings, and announced one, Savvis, a global enterprise-class cloud and managed services provider. Now it has announced another, ITpreneurs, which works in collaboration with CompTIA and the Cloud Credential Council to offer a vendor-neutral cloud certification program…