Category: News

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Dana Gardner.

Cloud computing has sparked the imagination of business leaders, who see it as a powerful new way to be innovative and gain first-mover advantages — with or without traditional IT’s consent.

This now means that the center of gravity for IT services is shifting toward the enterprise’s boundaries – moving increasingly outside their firewalls. And so how can companies have it both ways — exploit cloud’s promise but also retain rigor and control that internal IT influences and governance enables?…

Grazed from Technology Spectator.  Author: Shane Muller.

In some ways shifting from on-premise to cloud computing requires a leap of faith.  The former involves physical IT equipment located on your site.  You can see, touch and feel it whereas in a cloud environment, the really grunty hardware and software is nowhere to be seen.  Although still  running your essential business applications, the servers, the backups and the applications are managed by a third party and could be housed anywhere in the world.
 
Because the infrastructure is no longer under your roof or directly under your control, cloud computing raises many questions about systems performance, data ownership, management and responsibility. If you can’t see the system, how can you be sure you’re getting what you pay for?  How secure is the data? What happens in the event of a crash? Fortunately it’s a model that has been evolving for some time now and many of these questions have been resolved in practice…

Grazed from Business Wire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Connectria Hosting, a global managed hosting provider, today announced that it has launched a cloud solution for the IBM i platform based upon two years of testing, development and research done in cooperation with IBM.

“We are very excited to offer these Cloud Solutions for a technology with such longevity and value. Now customers can leverage Connectria’s superior IBM i managed hosting services in a flexible and affordable cloud computing environment.”

Connectria’s IBM i Cloud Hosting Solutions have been designed to run on the reliable IBM Power Systems Servers to deliver all the benefits expected from a Connectria Cloud Solution, including reliability, scalability, flexibility and affordable pricing. Customers of Connectria’s IBM i Cloud Hosting Solutions will be able to purchase the IBM i capacity and support they need, when they need it, for as long as they need it – backed by Connectria’s world-class 24/7 IBM i administration and support…

Grazed from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.  Author:  Ashlee Vance.

Contributed Article.  Author: Jon Reeve, Senior Director of Product Management, SolarWinds
 

Typically, private cloud initiatives get boiled down to how IT services are provided that meet target goals for:
 

Specifically, agility (time to react to business requests and needs) is a key driver and yardstick to measure the success of a private cloud implementation. When we speak with customers who have a private cloud initiative underway, they are typically highly virtualized (80% or more). This naturally leads to the question, “What is the difference between an environment that is 90% virtualized and a private cloud?” The answer almost always comes down to some combination of agility (and self-service) coupled with chargeback or showback (which is changing how IT services are consumed).

Grazed from PR NewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Eze Castle Integration, Inc., a leading provider of strategic IT solutions and private cloud services to hedge funds, today announced the inaugural Hedge Fund Cloud Summit, which is taking place on April 24, 2012 in New York City at the Sofitel Hotel. This premier half-day conference will cover four essential aspects of cloud computing – from making the business and financial case for cloud computing to hosting applications and protecting data in the cloud.

For the Hedge Fund Cloud Summit, Eze Castle is gathering executives from hedge funds, technology providers and industry associations including the Cloud Security Alliance, eSentire, Ledgex, Advent and others to dive deep into the dynamics of cloud computing at hedge funds. The conference agenda includes panel discussions on: …

Grazed from ABCNews.  Author: PR Announcement.

Hewlett-Packard Co. said Tuesday that its enterprise services unit has received a contract from the Army for cloud computing services that could be worth up to $249 million.  Cloud computing allows workers to fetch computer programs and key documents stored remotely on any device with an Internet connection.

The contract is for one year, with four one-year options. The Army wants to use cloud computing services to help it consolidate data centers and cut costs…

Grazed from CRN.  Author: Antonio Piraino.

While it seems like everyone is trying to get in on the cloud computing craze, service providers and VARs are in a unique position to capitalize on the growing demand for cloud services. The focus to date has been on creating or emulating the "top" cloud computing platforms, such as Amazon EC2 and Windows Azure, from an infrastructure, self-service and pricing perspective. As cloud infrastructure becomes more commoditized, service providers need to set themselves apart from the competition. Giving their constituents something palpable to hang their prized IT assets on, that would otherwise become discernably opaque to them in the clouds, is one way to elevate themselves above the fray…

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

For the second day in a row Dell Tuesday bought a company and left everybody to wonder what it paid.  This time it said it bought Chicago-based Clerity Solutions. It’s kinda amusing for a PC maker to be buying a mainframe company.

To IBM’s irritation, Clerity, which has been around almost 20 years, migrates mainframe users’ applications off the beasts and over to more modern x86-based widgetry.

Dell will put Clerity’s applications re-hosting UniKix automation widgetry and other soothing tricks with its services operation, which will get to rub elbows with the high-class set of corporations and public sector agencies still using mainframes. It says they will get a faster path to the cloud…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author:  Mikael Ricknäs.

Users need to become better at asking cloud providers questions about the finer points of availability and vulnerability management in contracts, according to a new guide from the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA).

ENISA’s goal is to improve the public sector’s understanding of the security of cloud services and the potential indicators and methods that can be used during service delivery, the authors said.

Procuring and managing service contracts for cloud services is an increasingly important task for IT staff…