Cloud Computing Has Become a Dominant Force in Financial Services
In the span of a few short years, cloud computing has gone from being an enigmatic and somewhat exotic technology management model to a dominant force that is changing how business heads relate to and value the underlying technology that supports business growth. In the financial markets in particular, the implications of cloud computing on the business, however, have been neither clearly defined by the service provider nor clearly understood by the average consumer.
Admittedly, early descriptions and definitions of cloud computing often relied on metaphors and analogies rather than concrete terms and value propositions. (By far my favorite analogy was the comparison to a "Mashup DJ" who blends multiple songs across various music genres into a continuous, uniform audio mix.)…
Calls for cloud security transparency getting louder
Cloud security transparency today equates to a non-disclosure-agreement discussion between an enterprise and service provider over the provider’s controls. The end result may satisfy the customer and lead to business for the provider, but the process isn’t efficient for either side.
A lot of CIOs are fearful they don’t believe they know enough about the cloud.Chris Richter, vice president of managed security services, Savvis.
Despite several standards-based efforts, providers don’t have a repeatable mechanism for these types of interactions, and customers often don’t get an apples-to-apples comparison of providers…
Microsoft’s New Cloudware Could Cast a Shadow over VMware
Microsoft staged a Private Cloud Day Tuesday to herald the coming of System Center 2012 sometime between now and the end of June.
System Center 2012 will put Microsoft squarely in the private cloud business and put VMware’s teeth on edge because it’s cheaper and reportedly has the same bells and whistles as VMware’s widgetry.
According to IDC VMware will have to start competing on price.
Once Microsoft’s private cloudware is out there it’ll have the makings of a hybrid model – which is what most people say they want – governed by the same management tools and offering a consistent view of application performance and data in both environments…
Quantum leap in the works for super-secure cloud computing
If the future is heading toward "cloud computing," where most of your data lives on someone else’s server, can you trust the cloud to keep a secret? Researchers say they’ve found a way to guarantee that your information will be secure in the cloud, using quantum entanglement.
The technique is called blind quantum computing, and it adds one more piece to a puzzle that could eventually be assembled into an entirely new infrastructure for data processing. Theoretically, quantum computers could outdo classical computers when it comes to making weather predictions, simulating biological processes, analyzing chemical reactions and, not incidentally, deciphering secret codes. Data security could become an even bigger issue than it is today…
U.S. DOJ: The Cloud Provides No Legal Cover for Criminals
Grazed from eSecurity Planet. Author: Sean Michael Kerner.
The Cloud is a model for computing that provides new opportunities for consumers, businesses — and yes, even criminals. As a result, one question that has emerged is: What is the reach of U.S. law enforcement agencies into the cloud, and to what extent are they able to operate in jurisdictions around the world?
In a conference call with press on the subject of Cloud Computing and Data Privacy, U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz addressed a number of myths about the cloud and how existing laws pertain to it. Swartz noted that there seems to be some controversy about the ability of U.S. law enforcement agencies to access information in the cloud.
"There is a myth that the advent of cloud computing changes everything or has somehow presented us with new problems that we haven’t had before," Swartz said. "In fact, while cloud has some important advantages for consumers and others, it doesn’t present any issues that have not always been present as long as there have been Internet service issues."…
SSAE 16 Audits Gain Momentum With Cloud Data Center Providers
When it comes to cloud computing data center audits, everyone seems to be jumping on the SSAE 16 bandwagon. Indeed, SSAE 16 is a relatively new audit standard that essentially replaces the aging SAS 70 standard. Scan the market and you’ll find numerous cloud computing companies and cloud services providers announcing SSAE 16 compliance since January 1, 2012. The big question: Will SSAE 16 really give customers peace of mind as they evaluate cloud data center partners?
Companies that have made SSAE 16 compliance announcements so far in January 2012 include:…
Federal CIO VanRoekel helping Congress grasp benefits of cloud
Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel isn’t concerned about possible pushback from Congress now that agencies are in full cloud computing mode.
But VanRoekel said he’s not taking congressional buy-in for granted, especially after lawmakers forced the Army to pause and report back to them on the benefits of putting their email system in the cloud.
"It’s an opportunity for us to work with Congress, to work with the Army and the Department of Defense to think about this stuff," he said in an exclusive interview with Federal News Radio after a recent AFFIRM lunch in Washington, D.C. "I think we have a great opportunity to work with industry on evolving the cloud and cloud technology to meet the needs of a 21st century government. It’s there in large part especially in a business-model side and I think on a technology side we could really take it further. I’ve been personally working with NIST — and as an extension of that, the industry — to rethink the cloud as we know it. I think we have an opportunity to continuously improve and drive this stuff forward."…
Cloud Computing Not Quite Ready for the Lab: US Government Report
For US federal government agencies, the rule is “cloud first” when looking to make new IT acquisitions. However, cloud isn’t always the best choice. The economics of cloud computing may be compelling for many front-line and transactional applications, but the costs and performance issues in applying cloud to specialized, deep analytical, or scientific environments may still be too prohibitive in many cases.
That’s the conclusion drawn in a recently issued report from the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Magellan project (“a cloud for science”), initiated two years ago to investigate the potential role of cloud computing in addressing the data-intensive computing needs of the DOE’s Office of Science…
Getting Started with Windows Server on Amazon Web Services
These days in the IT world, everything is about the cloud. Cloud services, cloud security, private clouds, hybrid clouds — the list goes on. It’s enough to make your head spin. For all this recent talk about cloud computing, one company has been offering a variety of cloud services for more than five years now. Amazon’s cloud offerings, known as Amazon Web Services (AWS), exist in the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) category. When you work with AWS, you’re responsible for managing and maintaining your own virtual machines (VMs), including the software that you choose to run on top of them. This is in contrast to companies such as Salesforce.com, which offers Software as a Service (SaaS), or Microsoft, which offers Windows Azure as a Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Many misconceptions surround AWS in the IT community. IT pros think that AWS is a developer technology or that only VMs that run Linux can run on the service. It doesn’t help that many AWS-specific terms can be confusing. What, for example, is Elastic Block Storage (EBS)? Fortunately, getting an AWS account and a Windows Server VM running on the service is straightforward and inexpensive. In this article, I’ll go through the steps to create such a VM and connect to it via Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)…
What Will it Take to Implement Cloud Computing in Your Enterprise?
As an enterprise IT decision maker, you can’t afford to dismiss the cloud computing model. You’ve heard all about how cloud deployments and managed services can benefit your business and take the pressures of managing and maintaining routine services away from you and your overburdened staff, enabling you to focus on maximizing profits and creating new efficiencies for your company.
There are so many variables to take into consideration when choosing to offload important business functionality to the cloud. Picking a service provider who offers the correct blend of services and solutions to meet your needs is a top priority, but pricing, service level agreements (SLAs), security, ease of management and administration/reporting are all important factors…