Category: News

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: David Linthicum.

Following the Google Compute Engine announcement last week, the cloud market has a new player in the world of IaaS, and yet another provider with yet another set of APIs.

APIs, or application programming interfaces, are nothing new; they give developers programmatic access to services. This includes cloud services, such as storing data, updating a database, moving data, pushing data into a queue, provisioning a server, etc.

APIs are important in the world of cloud computing because of how they’re used. Lines are being drawn around groups of cloud providers that rely on certain types of APIs. And enterprises are beginning to notice, and while it makes an interesting conversation, consumer concerns still surround vendor lock-in and portability issues…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Kevin Fitchard.

Soon our cars will be the most connected devices we own. Consequently they could generate the most expensive monthly data bills of any device we own.

Cars will have built in Wi-Fi allowing them to not only share data, but quite possibly act autonomously on that information. If carriers like Verizon get their way, every car will have embedded LTE, allowing them to grab any manner and any quantity of content from the airwaves. But all radio connections aren’t created equal.

Wi-Fi is essentially free, while cellular data is expensive. The seeming liberation of an always-connected vehicle could easily be constrained by the shackles of an enormous cellular bill. Is there a way we can maximize the “free” connectivity of Wi-Fi while minimizing the costs of mobile data?…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Sharon Gaudin.

When one talks of computers today, he or she could be referring to a laptop, a desktop or maybe even a smartphone. However, if Google’s latest plan stays on track, the definition of a computer could broaden significantly.

At its Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco, the company threw a lot of effort behind the unveiling of a prototype of its so-called Google Glass computerized eyeglasses. The Android-powered eyeglasses are equipped with a processor, memory, camera, GPS sensors and a display screen.

Google co-founder and CEO Sergey Brin said the Google Glass development effort is all about "doing brand new risky technological things that are really about making science fiction real."…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Amazon Web Services suffered an outage in early June, and again this weekend. The outage affected more than just Instagram, Pinterest and Netflix users. Thousands of lonely singles using dating website WhatsYourPrice.com were also affected. Today, WhatsYourPrice.com, the world’s largest online dating website where members bid for first dates, announced it is terminating its use of Amazon Web Services EC2 permanently.

Cloud computing is sexy. However, as the recent outage at Amazon’s cloud computing services illustrates, it can also produce a lot of unhappy customers. In the past month, Amazon’s Internet-based computing services (AWS) have suffered two major outages. The first occurred a few weeks ago on June 14, caused by a series of problems with generators and electrical switching equipment. And again this past weekend, due to severe thunderstorms in the East Coast.

Instagram, Pinterest and Netflix users aren’t the only ones affected by Amazon’s recent server crashes. In fact, thousands of singles using dating website WhatsYourPrice.com was affected as well…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Steve Ranger.

Despite the hype, cloud computing is still a tiny proportion of overall IT spending, although it is likely to grow fast.

According to analysts TechMarketView, the UK market for cloud computing reached £1.2bn in 2011, 38 percent higher than the previous year. The analysts expect cloud-computing revenues to grow by 35 percent each year to reach £3.9bn by 2015.

That sounds like a lot of money, until you realise this means that cloud accounted for a mere two percent of the UK software and IT services market in 2011. Rapid growth will see cloud build to nine percent of the market in 2015, however…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Derrick Harris.

AOL is taking its flexible infrastructure strategy to a whole new level of flexibility by building data centers about the size of French door refrigerators. AOL Services CTO Mike Manos wrote about the units — part of a project code-named “Nibiru” internally — in his blog on Thursday, proclaiming July 4 (the day the first one arrived) AOL’s Data Center Independence Day. If they work as planned, AOL will be able to deploy new services and infrastructure when and where needed with little more than an electrical outlet required.

The Nibiru project, he explains, is a set of “incredibly game-changing” goals for transforming the way AOL’s services division carries out the work of managing the company’s infrastructure, and the newly materialized mini data centers we’re high on the list:…

Grazed from Business Insider. Author: Julie Bort.

A lot of startup CEOs say they want to change the world. But Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo has a pretty persuasive plan for how he’s going to do it. It starts with cloud computing, and ends with a world where factories aren’t just churning out disposable widgets.

If Marc Benioff is the god of cloud software, then Tzuo is his No. 1 disciple. Tzuo was employee No. 11 at Salesforce.com and worked his way up to chief strategy officer.

With Benioff’s blessing—and some of his money—Tzuo left in 2008 to launch Zuora, a cloud startup which does for invoicing and billing what Salesforce did for sales. With Zuora, Tzuo wants to change the way big companies think about how they treat their customers…

Grazed from MarketWatch. Author: PR Announcement.

Stoneware, the leader in Unified Cloud computing, announced the availability of the first "on-demand" Classroom Management solution, which enables Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs in schools and corporations. For organizations needing to enable their students or workers to bring their devices webNetwork 6.1 combined with LanSchool 7.7 delivers the world’s first "on-demand" Classroom Management solution from the cloud.

BYOD initiatives can save organizations significant amounts of money in hardware, but without administrative rights to computers, it can also limit the tools that IT, teachers and trainers use to get their jobs done…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Bert Markgraf.

Google has developed a network of data centers around the world to power its search, ad-serving, web mail, and application service functions. At the recent Google I/O conference, Google announced that it will start offering direct access to this infrastructure within an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) framework. The service is still in limited beta, which means only select customers can try it out for the moment. Eventually, it could offer a simple, open, and easily accessible cloud computing service that is geographically diversified to avoid outages caused by localized problems. When more mature, such a service might be attractive to midsize businesses.

network spheresAs configured, the service consists of virtual Linux machines running on the remote Google architecture. InfoWorld covered the Google I/O announcement. Google calls its service the Google Compute Engine. RightSpace CEO Michael Crandell identified three salient features:…