Category: News

Grazed from ITWorld.  Author: Lucas Mearian.

Cloud storage service provider SpiderOak is taking on Dropbox, Box and other more established services with what it calls the first truly secure data backup and collaboration cloud for businesses.

There are three service levels for SpiderOak Blue, the company’s new cloud storage service, which span small-to-midsize and enterprise-class businesses.

SpiderOak has had a consumer cloud storage service — SpiderOak Orange — since 2006 that allows consumers to back up, share and sync their data. SpiderOak’s claim to differentiation is its "zero-knowledge" privacy standard, which allows users to create their own passwords so that the SaaS provider couldn’t read a customer’s unencrypted data even if it wanted to…

Grazed from Network World.  Author: Christine Burns.

We assembled this list with help from analysts at Cloud Technology Partners, Current Analysis, Enterprise Strategy Group, Gartner, IDC and Neovise who watch the public cloud Infrastructure as a Service scene very closely. Each was asked to name the companies they believed have the most influence — whether that’s measured in market share, mind share, revenue, existing enterprise pull or underlying technology links — in drawing enterprise customers into the realm of public cloud infrastructure. They are listed here in alphabetical order.

1. Amazon Web Services: The gold standard

Amazon is the standard bearer in the public IaaS space, as its paid-by-the-VM Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is both the market share and mindshare leader by a fairly big gap. It’s got a huge portfolio of services that run atop its Xen-based virtualized infrastructure and Amazon keeps adding to those offerings while it lowers its prices. The company has built a thriving ecosystem of partners around its public cloud, has clamored to get all the necessary security and compliance certifications and offers world-wide data center coverage…

Grazed from Midsize Insider.  Author: Bert Markgraf.

The IT departments of many companies are juggling the security issues that arise with employee requests for remote access to data, increasing data volumes, and cost reductions in an uncertain business environment. Suppliers are offering solutions, but with an emphasis on different features. Some companies operate their own cloud. The technology is evolving to a standardized service, but the standards are not clear yet.

The largest IT companies offer cloud computing with a wide array of IT infrastructure. In an article on ComuterWorld, HP presents its view of the future of the cloud. According to the company, there will be 10 to 20 major cloud suppliers with smaller clouds focused in particular industries or geographical areas. HP believes the cloud will be more than just remote servers and virtual machines. They think companies will want software services in the cloud, and requirements could range from simple apps to data analytics. An open environment leading to interoperability is also important…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Roger Strukhoff.

Graphics processing units (GPUs) are taking center stage in SoftLayer’s latest high-performance computing (HPC) strategy in the cloud, as the company now offers HPC servers with NVIDIA GPUs starting at US$879 per month for an entry-level configuration of one GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 500GB of storage.

Dallas-based SoftLayer is targeting traditional scientific environments – think oil & gas and other seismic applications – along with other numerical analyses, data mining, as well as "advertising agencies and web-design shops looking to develop interactive games, applications, and 3D content," according to Nathan Day, SoftLayer’s Chief Scientist…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Maureen O’Gara.

IBM has gotten as predictable in its acquisitions as it used to be in its suits.

It’s buying another analytics house. This time it’s Varicent Software from up Toronto way. And again IBM isn’t saying what it’s paying.

Nine-year-old Varicent does analytics software for compensation and sales performance management. More specifically, it automates and analyzes the collection and reporting of sales data across finance, sales, HR and IT.  Blue figures it can be used horizontally, and combined with other stuff in its grab bag delivered through on-premise or cloud models…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

InnoVergent ( www.innovergent.com ), a technology consultancy firm and reseller and system integrator of cloud computing accounting software, announced today that InnoVergent founder Paul Cammisa will speak at the Information Technology Alliance (ITA) Spring Conference in a session titled "Adopting a Cloud Solution for Your Practice."

"When you look at the benefits cloud computing can offer a growing business, it’s not overstating the case to say that this is the most exciting development in financial accounting technology since mainframe applications were traded for desktop applications," said Cammisa. "Cloud computing gives businesses the opportunity to take advantage of great applications; anywhere/any time access to information; freedom from budget-draining investments in hardware and infrastructure; and better compete in an ever-changing economic landscape."…

 

Grazed from Certes Networks.  Author: Q&A with Jim Doherty, the SVP of Marketing & CMO

Today, Certes Networks released a new virtual security appliance called the vCEP (virtual Certes Enforcement Point).  The point is to make the cloud safe for sensitive workloads by protecting the network traffic inside IaaS clouds and between locations.  To find out more about this, we spoke with Jim Doherty, the SVP of Marketing & CMO at Certes Networks.  Here is that conversation:

Grazed from Business Wire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Netelligent, a leading provider of cloud and managed services, today announced a partnership with Desktone, Inc., the pioneer of Desktops as a Service (DaaS), to offer cloud-hosted virtual desktops. Netelligent will leverage Desktone’s DaaS Platform, along with Cisco’s® Unified Computing System (UCS) and NetApp storage systems, to deliver full-featured virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) as a service on demand to any device.

Netelligent is a unified communications leader, providing cloud, virtualization, networking and telephony services to large enterprises and private organizations. Through its partnership with Desktone, Netelligent will expand its services to offer cost-effective cloud-hosted full Windows 7 virtual desktops that can easily scale to meet customer needs. By leveraging Desktone’s DaaS technology, Netelligent can provide end users with secure, convenient access to virtual desktops delivered from the cloud, without the need for costly on-site infrastructure…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Suresh Sambandam.

Cloud Computing , more specifically Platform as a Service (PaaS) is changing the business app developer demographic forever. Or should I say that, PaaS is reviving or giving a new lease of life for productivity focused business developers. The kind that existed during the Client-Server paradigm empowered by Power Builder, Developer 2000, Visual Basic and the likes. Pardon me for using a poor – Jurasic metaphor!  A great meteor in the name of "web development" hit software industry and nearly wiped out those folks. That changed the cost of developing software within the enterprises multi-fold.

Rewind, 15 years ago. Visual Developers were a boon for CIOs, VP and IT Managers in large enterprises. They understood the business and produced software quickly meeting the needs of the enterprise. Loosing them was a big handicap for the IT department. My hunch says that is one of  the large contributors for the IT department gradually loosing its innovation and eventually gave into outsourcing….

Grazed from Computer Technology Review.  Author:  John Humphreys.

Cloud computing is a term that has become part of our everyday conversations. More and more businesses want to be in the cloud and are taking steps to move to more virtual environments. According to the Open Data Center Alliance, more than 40 percent of its members expect to run more than 40 percent of internal IT systems in cloud environments within two years.

Recent discussions have also focused on the types of cloud services available. Whether businesses are using services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS), the end goal is the same: to reduce the costs of business operations. The challenge is to make sure businesses understand what each service offers and to determine which option makes the most sense for their specific cloud needs…