Category: News

June 16, 2012 Off

Computex: Asus Cloud Solution Touted, but Windows 8 Devices Draw Buzz

By David

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Doug Bonderud.

At a pre-Computex press release event, technology developer Asus announced their version of a unified cloud-computing solution, called Asus Open Cloud Computing (AOCC). Described as a "total solution for the ubiquitous cloud computing era," the Asus cloud offering appears to be a mashup of existing solutions into a more cohesive total package. But while those in attendance were curious enough about Asus’ supposedly next-gen solution, it was the company’s rollout of devices that drew the most buzz.

What’s on Display?

Several of new Asus offerings are described in a June 4, 2012 CNET article, including the Taichi hybrid, which is a combination laptop and tablet. While it looks like a notebook at first glance, the device comes with full-HD screens on both sides of the lid. The inside screen functions like a typical laptop display, while the outer screen is touch and stylus-capable. The screens are independent and can be used for different applications at the same time – something that requires Windows 8 to work…

June 16, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing Forecast Not Quite So Certain, Recent Research Shows

By David

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Doug Bonderud.

The cloud is inevitable, or at least that’s what you hear if you are a midsize business looking to beef up current IT options. Providers across the globe will tell you that the cloud computing forecast not only calls for a massive, global overcast but also private pockets of deepening rain; if you’re still working on a mainframe, they warn, you’ll be left behind. But new research from analyst firm Forrester says that it’s commoditization, not cloud computing that will dominate the IT landscape, and companies need to be prepared for such a shift.

Ring the Bell

There are a number of cloud computing IPOs hoping to make a strong impact on the market in the near future, according to a Jun 8, 2012, article at the Financial Post. Companies like analysis provider Tableau Software, virtualization developer AppSense, and security software maker Rally Software all hope that the current upward trend of cloud computing will help shield their fledgling IPOs from the kind of trouble that has hounded Mark Zuckerberg and his social media site…

June 15, 2012 Off

Cloud management dashboards need a rear view mirror

By David

Grazed from CloudPro. Author: Adrian Bridgwater.

On the geological time scale of data we can see various plateau marking points along the way. First the Earth cooled, then the dinosaurs came… and then we started to build databases and data centres, which eventually evolved into their preferred niche habitat existing as virtualised hosted resources delivered via computing-as-a-service solutions.

So the cloud happened and it was there and it was good.

Actually, it was good, but it could have been better, said the vendors. It could have been more optimised, more managed and more automated. We could have had a world where clouds could be (wait for it) “provisioned for interoperable orchestration” so that applications and their data could be controlled like obedient children perhaps…

June 15, 2012 Off

Mobile Computing and Cloud: Made for Each Other

By David

Grazed from CFO.com. Author: David Owens.

It’s no secret: companies large and small are scrambling for growth. And as businesspeople turn over every last stone in that quest, they can’t afford to spend all their time chasing down information. They need their information to catch up to them. Operational agility is key, and it’s rooted in the ability to communicate and collaborate with anyone, anytime, anywhere.

That requires mobile technology — smartphones, tablets, laptops — and companies are busy supplying it. In a research report published this past March, titled “Uncrossing the Wires: Starting — and Sustaining — the Conversation on Technology Value,” CFO Research asked both CFOs and IT executives what technologies would be most important for their companies’ success within the next three years. Nine out of 10 (89%) answered mobility, the use of mobile devices…

June 15, 2012 Off

Qualcomm 2net Cloud Platform to Connect Independa Remote-Monitoring Sensors

By David

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Brian T. Horowitz.

Qualcomm Life’s 2net platform will bring interoperability to Independa’s line of Artemis sensors, allowing seniors to send vital data to the cloud.

With cloud computing, tech vendors are looking to keep seniors independent yet wirelessly connected to health-monitoring devices. On June 14, Independa announced it will integrate its Artemis system of sensors that monitor patients’ vital signs with Qualcomm Life’s 2net cloud-based remote-monitoring platform.

Seniors will be able to transmit data from sensors on scales, blood pressure cuffs and glucometers to 2net, where doctors will monitor the readings…

June 15, 2012 Off

Security Threats Loom Even for Cloud-Free Businesses

By David

Grazed from CIOInsight. Author: Editorial Staff.

The COO of the Cloud Security Alliance warned attendees of a cloud computing conference that businesses are mistaken if they say they don t use the cloud because individual employees may be doing it on their own.

There’s a lot that businesses still have to ask their cloud service providers before signing up for service, especially about how secure their cloud environment is, the chief operations officer of the Cloud Security Alliance said at a cloud conference here.

John Howie explained the security risks associated with cloud computing and the ways businesses can protect themselves and their data at the Cloud Leadership Forum held June 13 and 14. Howie warned that some cloud providers actually turn around and have customer workloads managed by yet another cloud provider. He also warned against using free consumer-grade cloud services for enterprise-grade computing…

June 15, 2012 Off

Will Amazon outage ding cloud confidence?

By David

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

A significant Amazon Web Services outage, which took down popular sites including Heroku for hours late Thursday, shows the risk of putting too many loads in one data center. While this outage occurred in Amazon’s cloud, it wasn’t just a cloud-specific problem. It shows that building in redundancy is critical — whether your app runs in your own data center or in someone else’s cloud.

In short, AWS users should make sure their workloads run across AWS regions to prevent future snafus.

As Om reported earlier, Amazon attributed the failure to a power outage affecting its U.S. East data center in Virginia. That makes sense, US East is Amazon’s oldest and biggest data center. It suffered another major outage in April 2011 and was also beset by performance problems as Amazon rebooted thousands of EC2 instances in December…

June 15, 2012 Off

Does Oracle Have The Most Comprehensive Cloud On Planet Earth?

By David

Grazed from Cloud Tweaks. Author: Sourya Biswas.

The reasoning behind the question posed in the title to this article is the claim made by Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison. In a presentation to introduce his company’s latest suite of cloud computing services (See: Things All Cloudy: Oracle Takes The Inevitable Plunge), the maverick entrepreneur made the claim that, in his opinion, Oracle has “the most comprehensive cloud on planet Earth.”

Let’s take a step back and review Oracle’s journey on the cloud. Looking at Oracle today, it’s hard to believe that once Ellison had this to say about cloud computing – “What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?” However, a lot has changed over the last year and a half…

June 15, 2012 Off

Chrome OS reviewed: The final verdict on Google’s cloud platform

By David

Grazed from ComputerWeek. Author: JR Raphael.

Today, I’ll get my head out of the cloud.

Chrome OS ReviewI’ve spent the past two weeks, you see, using Google’s Chrome OS. I called it my Chrome OS experiment: I wanted to dive in head first and experience what it was like to live completely in Google’s cloud-centric world.

I used a combination of the new Samsung Chromebook (Series 5 550) and the new Samsung Chromebox for the bulk of my computing needs, both in the office and out. Day by day, I detailed different parts of my journey — ranging from my thoughts on the hardware to my impressions of Google’s reimagined software and what it’s really like to work with Chrome OS offline…

June 15, 2012 Off

‘Cloud era is built on a completely different set of assumptions’

By David

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Vinita Gupta.

Sameer Dholakia, Group VP and GM, Cloud Platforms Group, Citrix Systems shares the company’s vision and strategy for powering cloud services.

Please share Citrix’s vision for powering cloud services.

The cloud era is built on a completely different set of assumptions than past generations of IT — in fact, many of the exceptions from the PC era now represent the norm in the cloud era. This is forcing enterprise IT organizations to re-evaluate IT strategies, causing them to search for lower costs, greater capacity and improved agility. Our vision for powering cloud services starts at the front of the private cloud with a single point of control that unifies the provisioning and security of Windows, web, SaaS and mobile apps through an enterprise storefront. At the back of the private cloud, a bridge to public clouds transparently enables infinite data center capacity. The third element of our cloud services focus is to enable the building of Amazon-style clouds — from bare metal servers, storage and networks to high-level software services…