Category: News

July 15, 2012 Off

The CCSR: Canadian Cloud Security Rating

By David
Grazed from CloudBestPractices.net.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Canada has a notorious ‘Innovation Gap’, that is seeing the country slip further and further behind the rest of the world embracing the new technology-enabled Knowledge Economy.

They are scoring a ‘D for Innovation‘, which is no surprise given they are also scoring a D for openness to new IT models like Cloud Computing, as Telus reports in this press release.

The principle business benefit of Cloud Computing is that it provides a platform for encouraging and enabling more innovation – More prototyping, faster product development cycles, lower risk for trialling new ideas, and so on…

July 15, 2012 Off

45% of Networks Will be Obsolete in Next 5 Years

By David
Grazed from CloudTimes.org.  Author: Saroj Kar.

According to information released by Dimension Data, 45 percent of network structures of some 300 companies audited by the service provider during the year 2011 will be totally obsolete in next five years.

As per the Dimension Data’s Network Barometer Report 2012, a key factor for this massive jump in the initial stage of obsolescence is that suppliers of equipment are moving more products to the end line, aimed at the arrival of new technologies.

The data represents an increase of 38 percent over the previous year. In addition, all equipment that is in the cycle of obsolescence, the percentage that is out of line increased exponentially from 4.2 percent to 70 percent in calendar year 2011. At the same time, the percentage of stage equipment which is of maximum risk to contract renewal (EoCR) and end engineering (EOE) dropped sharply from 86.2 percent to 20.8 percent…

July 14, 2012 Off

What WORA can tell us about the future of the cloud

By David
Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: 

Sun Microsystems’ slogan, “Write once, run anywhere,” (WORA) was hot stuff in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Today, a new technology wave is forming, “Deploy once, scale anywhere,” or DOSA. So why should we care about WORA now? By understanding the evolution of Java and the emergence of WORA, we may discover insights into how the various cloud computing paradigms will evolve in the coming years.

As an enterprise architect with multiple large Java and cloud deployments, I have been intimately involved in both technology waves. Based on this experience, I can see the parallels and I believe that the various cloud platforms will ultimately provide the equivalent of the Java virtual machine (JVM) and create infrastructure independence that will enable new architectures…

July 14, 2012 Off

Gartner Study says Cloud i scutting traditional software, hardware sales

By David
Grazed from ITWorldCanada.  Author:  Brandon Butler.

Enterprise spending on cloud computing growing at a faster rate than overall IT spending will pose a challenge to legacy hardware and software vendors, Gartner cloud forecaster Ed Anderson says.
 
Cloud computing is expected to grow 19 per cent in 2012, becoming a US$109 billion industry compared to a US$91 billion market last year. By 2016, it’s expected to be a US$207 billion industry, according to Anderson’s latest findings. That compares to the 3% growth expected in the overall global IT market. While it’s true that the US$109 billion cloud market represents just a 3 per cent chunk of the overall US$3.6 trillion spent on IT globally, Anderson says it’s still responsible, in part, for a slowdown in growth for traditional on-premise hardware and software sales.
 
Software delivery is shifting from a traditional license sale to install an application on-premise, to a per-user cloud-based software-as-a-services (SaaS) model. Meanwhile, hardware is shifting from on-premise capital expenditures to off-premise operational expenditures…

July 14, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: Why Data Centers Are Becoming Strategic Service Hubs

By David
Grazed from eWeek.  Author: Chris Preimesberger.

Cloud computing is fundamentally changing the way users and enterprise use IT; most of us already know that. But what hasn’t been discussed too often is how advancing on-demand software and services supplied via the Web are changing the identities of data centers.

Investment in data centers and related infrastructures by large enterprises is becoming integrated into wider strategies that include additional service layers and customized functionality beyond traditional network services, U.K.-based telecom market researcher Ovum reported.

The independent analyst firm said that data centers are becoming "strategic service hubs" for new enterprise IT and communications services…

July 14, 2012 Off

Google Does Cloud: Should We Care?

By David
Grazed from Seeking Alpha.  Author: Editorial Staff.

At the I/O conference in June, Google (GOOG) announced Compute Engine – an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) product that will provide companies with raw computing power by way of the internet.

Infrastructure as a Service has been one of the largest growth areas in technology. Companies are forgoing maintaining their own servers, and instead, paying firms like Amazon (AMZN) and Rackspace (RAX) to provide that server power.

By outsourcing their server technology, companies receive several benefits. For starters, companies can "scale" very quickly by renting server power. Because companies are renting the IaaS they can simply rent more servers to add capacity very quickly. If companies were not renting IaaS, they would have to physically buy and implement their own technology — a slow and cumbersome process. Also, when companies physically buy servers, they must buy enough servers to maintain service during peak hours, meaning that the server power is wasted for most of the day. By having a flexible amount of server power, companies are able to pay only for the amount of server power they need…

July 14, 2012 Off

Cloud computing technologies to form basis of new virtual design fab

By David
Grazed from RushPRNews.  Author: PR Announcement.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and five leading Russian innovation companies: the Skolkovo Foundation, Rusnano, Rostelecom, Russian Venture Company and ITFY, have signed a collaboration agreement to help spur a new wave of innovation in Russian technology.

The five Russian companies have joined forces to foster a culture of applied research and commercialization and attract key talent and investment from around the world in the area of microelectronics.

Key to the initiative is the creation of a new Electronics Technology Center (ETC) to be housed at the Skolkovo Innovation City. The agreement will give the Electronics Technology Center access to IBM’s intellectual property for chip design. IBM will also provide cloud computing technologies to form the basis of a new virtual design environment to be used to develop new microelectronic devices such as sensors to be used in smarter infrastructure projects, industry and consumer electronics…

July 13, 2012 Off

SHI International Goes Back to the Future with New Cloud Briefing Center

By David

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Elizabeth White.

SHI International Corp. is going back to the future with its imaginative New York City Briefing Center, which was unveiled on Thursday at 1 Penn Plaza. The center is a futuristic office straight out of the pages of science fiction and delivers an immersive, interactive experience to give visitors a comprehensive view of SHI’s innovative cloud computing services, technologies, and capabilities.

The Briefing Center features bright white walls reminiscent of "2001: A Space Odyssey"; automatic glass doors that can transition from clear to opaque and even display images; and 3-D projectors that will put the world of traditional presentations to shame. A customizable 3-D tour of SHI’s cloud architecture creates an immersive experience from the moment visitors step through the door. It offers clients a look inside SHI’s next-generation data center and cloud solutions to help them find the best fit for their organization’s cloud computing needs…

July 13, 2012 Off

Ushering in the Future with Cloud-Connected Backup

By David

Grazed from The Var Guy. Author: Editorial Staff.

A recent survey by North Bridge Capital revealed that 50 percent of companies polled have “complete confidence” in cloud technology. That’s exciting news, but it also poses a challenge. After all, it means that the other 50 percent are not entirely convinced that cloud computing is a good for their business. Interestingly, only 3 percent of companies polled actually consider the cloud to be “too risky.” What that means for you is that a lot of your customers are in a gray area. They aren’t completely opposed to running business-critical applications in the cloud, but they also aren’t quite sure whether now is the right time or what the right products are.

For you, this is an opportunity to usher your customers into the future and increase your revenue stream by adding valuable cloud-connected services. In fact, cloud-connected services likely can alleviate a number of your customers’ operational pain points. Data backup and recovery is particularly ripe for innovation, since tape backup, a tedious and outdated process, is still used by many companies who simply aren’t up to speed on better options. These customers need a trusted adviser to help them move on. Explain the key benefits of a cloud-connected solution — scalability, mobility and infrastructure as a service — and you’ll be on your way…

July 13, 2012 Off

Cloud Providers: The Case for Universal Standards

By David

Grazed from The Wall Street Journal. Author: Charles Weaver.

With the adoption of cloud computing accelerating, there is now an urgent need for a globally accepted, universal standard and code of behavior for service providers delivering these solutions.

Today, the cloud is unregulated. It actually takes more licensing, oversight and continuing education to cut and style hair than it does to manage data in the cloud.

According to Ed Ferrara, principal security analyst with Forrester Research, “understanding the cloud provider’s underlying capabilities, resources, security processes and safeguards, as well as the provider’s overall financial health will be very important for organizations who want to safely and successfully utilize cloud computing.”…