Category: News

Grazed from InformationWeek.   Author: Jayabalan Subramanium.

Data security keeps chief information security officers (CISOs) up at night, and with new computing models such as cloud, the stakes can be perilously higher. The possibilities of data loss, data leakage, service downtime, regulatory constraints, and risk of intellectual property theft create a treacherous risk environment. These security issues illustrate the significant hurdles a business must clear before adopting cloud computing. Any organization considering a move to the cloud must carefully assess what applications and data it can migrate to a cloud environment because cloud computing may not be appropriate for all business processes.

Organizations must carefully examine the capabilities of any potential cloud services provider. Security, compliance, availability, and scalability are all factors that must be thoroughly evaluated before embarking on the journey to the cloud. At the same time, it is important to consider the financial viability of the service provider. A business does not want a service provider to disappear the month after it moves its processes into the cloud. In today’s harsh operating environment, adding value and increasing efficiency are imperative. Cloud computing has matured to the point that it can be a secure, viable, and highly effective approach. But without careful planning and consideration of market concerns, the gains can be overshadowed by the risk exposure…

Grazed from PCWorld.  Author: Bernard Golden.

Last week I wrote about the fact that IT organizations are now executing an "and" cloud computing strategy, in the sense that their future plans include (most likely) an internal cloud based on VMware and an external cloud (most likely Amazon Web Services).

I pointed out that the traditional model of managing virtual machines–creating a VM template that contains all the software components that the VM contains–is inappropriate in a world in which applications may be deployed internally, externally, across both internal and external clouds, and even transferred between internal and external clouds. This is due to the fact that the virtual machine images are typically incompatible across deployment environments…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Joe McKendrick.

When it comes to cloud computing, the rule “no pain, no gain” seems to apply. Cisco just released a survey that had some rather colorful analogies relating to the attitudes IT managers have toward cloud computing deployments. Nevertheless, cloud is coming on fast and furious.

For instance, the survey of 1,300 managers finds that almost two in five,  39%, said they dread the challenge so much that they “would rather get a root canal, dig a ditch, or do their own taxes.” Further, almost one-third, 31%, said they could “train for a marathon or grow a mullet in a shorter period of time than it would take to migrate their company’s applications to the cloud.”

Security is also a nagging concern, cited by 72%. In fact, nearly two in five respondents said they would not trust their own personal information—such as medical records
and Social Security numbers—with the cloud provider they are currently using…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Adoption of cloud computing is largely being driven by software as a service and private cloud adoption according to a study released by Network Instruments. Although the majority reported improved application availability and user experience, over twenty percent indicated their ability to monitor and troubleshoot worsened after deploying cloud.

The onsite survey of 102 network engineers, IT managers and executives attending Interop found:

Cloud Becomes Commodity: Seventy-four percent of respondents have cloud computing services running on their network. Of these respondents, 45 percent have implemented some form of software as a service (SaaS) like Salesforce.com or Google Apps. This was followed by infrastructure as a service (16 percent). A smaller number (11 percent) rely on some form of platform as a service (PaaS) such as Microsoft Azure or Heroku…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Ignacio M. Llorente.

The European Commission has just published a report entitled Advances in Clouds – Research in Future Cloud Computing where a Group of Experts provides a state-of-the-art view on cloud computing technologies, its position in and its relevance for Europe. The Group of Experts was conveyed in 2011 and includes representatives from major Cloud players, like IBM, NEC, Google, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, France Telecom, Oracle, British Telecom, or T-Systems. The report brings valuable information for people defining Cloud Computing strategies, developing innovative research lines, or exploring emerging market opportunities beyond today’s Clouds.

The report features OpenNebula as one of the most widely used platform to build cloud infrastructures, and elaborates on OpenNebula and OpenStack as open cloud managers addressing different types of cloud needs, and implementing different distribution models and interoperability strategies…

Grazed from TechTarget.  Author: Adam Riglian.

HP detailed its cloud computing strategy at the OpenStack Conference in San Francisco to an audience that had long been wondering when the Silicon Valley superpower would finally make clear its cloud ambitions.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based tech giant had a major presence at the conference, headed by Zorawar “Biri” Singh, HP’s senior vice president and general manager of cloud services. Singh described HP’s plans for cloud computing services, described how its partnerships will work and talked about what he sees for the future.

It was a clear message that HP intends to compete in the cloud market at a high level…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Cloudcor(R) today announced that ActiveState, whose software enables developers and enterprises to innovate from code to cloud, is a Silver Partner at Cloud Slam’12 Cloud Computing Conference taking place May 30 — June 1, 2012 in San Francisco and online.

ActiveState will showcase its innovative secure middleware technology Stackato – the application platform for creating a private PaaS using any language on any stack on any cloud. From the desktop to the datacenter, Stackato makes it easy to develop, deploy, migrate, scale, manage, and monitor applications on any cloud.

"We are delighted to add ActiveState as a Silver Partner at the CloudSlam’12 conference," Cloudcor Chairman Khazret Sapenov said. "ActiveState offers leading-edge private PaaS technology helping Enterprise IT achieve new levels of data security, reduce time to market, save money, ensure compliance, and gain greater control over cloud."…

Grazed from GlobalNewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.  

Racemi, provider of technology that accelerates migrations to cloud computing, today announced it will be providing live demonstrations to showcase its SaaS (software as a service) migration service Cloud Path at the upcoming Citrix Synergy event. Migrating existing servers to the cloud is point-and-click easy, and free for a limited time.

Citrix Synergy takes place in San Francisco from May 9-11 and is expected to attract 4,000 attendees. Racemi’s booth will be in the CloudStack Community Pavilion where attendees can sign up for free online migrations.

The company will demonstrate how to quickly onboard existing applications to cloud computing providers, like Amazon EC2, Rackspace, Terremark, and GoGrid without the  need to rebuild servers from scratch…

Grazed from The Hartford Courant.  Author: Mara Lee.

A one-year-old company with five employees in Connecticut and seven in Sacramento is establishing its headquarters in Connecticut after receiving $1 million in funding from Connecticut Innovations and $200,000 from angel investors.

Jonathan Reeves, co-founder of NextCloud Inc., lives in Connecticut, and the vice president of finance, director of engineering, director of business development and a second engineer also are in Connecticut.

"The headquarters was always going to be in Connecticut," spokeswoman Betsy Gilbert said…

Grazed from MarketWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Epicor Software Corporation, a global leader in business software solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organizations, today announced a strategic alliance with Microsoft Corp. whereby Epicor® will use Windows Azure to expand on-demand delivery of its next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite worldwide. The Epicor ICE Business Architecture will also benefit from Windows Azure and SQL Azure.

Epicor and Microsoft share a common vision for cloud computing and building business applications that are delivered the way people want to work; virtually any place, any time on any device. With the open and flexible Windows Azure cloud platform, applications can be quickly built, deployed and managed across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters — using virtually any language, tool or framework…