Confidence in cloud, cybersecurity key to growth
Cloud computing and cybersecurity are both hot, fast-growing markets. But faith in the cloud took a knock with outages at Amazon and elsewhere in 2011. And the hacking of targets from Sony to Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson, whose email was broken into, underlines the need for better security.
Keeping data and services on someone else’s servers in the so-called cloud – all the while just clicks away – means companies don’t have to invest up front. They pay for what they need, and scaling up is easy. Hence the fast growth observed by research firms like Forrester, which pegs the cloud market at more than $60 billion by the end of 2012…
VDI Evolves Beyond Desktop Replacement
Once viewed as the formula for desktop PC provisioning and management roles, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) technology is moving into the mainstream via a new path, as a solution for business services.
Most enterprise administrators have viewed Virtual Desktop Infrastructure as a way to deliver enterprise desktops to users more efficiently. However, VDI can deliver more than just a typical business desktop; the technology can also be used to deliver specialized business services.
A case in point is bank hardware vendor Diebold, which is now running a pilot program to deliver ATM (Automated Teller Machine) services via VDI. Diebold’s program aims to transform how enterprises deliver business services by divorcing the dedicated/proprietary hardware from the business service through virtualization technology….
More Cloud, Web Companies Join SOPA Opposition
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) gained more vocal opponents from the cloud computing and Web community this week as DreamHost and Domain.com publicly denounced the bill.
DreamHost’s and Domain.com’s moral opposition to the proposed legislation, which is currently making its way through Congress, comes as rival Go Daddy faces a boycott and mass customer exodus over its support of the Hollywood-backed bill that, on the surface, seeks to stop online piracy and copyright infringement.
The companies also join a growing list of tech top dogs speaking out against SOPA. Some of the bill’s most vocal opponents include Google, Twitter, Facebook, and AOL…
The Rise of the Cloud: Launching Cloud Computing Imperative 2012
Global studies prove that ‘cloud services’ could add US $800bn in net new business revenue by end of 2013.
The time when IT was just a support function to a few businesses around the world is over. Global politics and the global economy are being shaped by IT. For the IT leader to survive and sustain in this environment they must lead by consistently changing the strategies and re-create IT. This new era brings with it urgent and compelling forces : the cloud, social, mobility and an explosion in information.
Fleming Gulf Conferences launches Cloud Computing Imperative 2012 to be held on 12-13 March followed by a cloud security workshop programme on 14 Marchin Dubai – UAE, which will set the stage for IT specialists from public, private and government entities to network with industry peers, share experiences and learn how to view and implement Cloud and its security…
10 Biggest Social Business Cloud Stories Of 2011
Before I try to rank social business stories, let me explain what I’m talking about.
Someone asked me to define "social business" the other day, and my take is that it’s broader than just "enterprise social networking" (social media applied inside the firewall) but still ought to be construed to mean serious business applications of social media, beyond publishing, advertising, and marketing. Naturally, the consumer applications of social media are serious business for companies such as Facebook and LinkedIn, but I’m more interested in social collaboration technologies and techniques that can be applied to any business–the enterprise 2.0 stuff…
IT pros will take a harder look at cloud computing in 2012
Despite slow adoption by enterprise IT in the years since cloud computing emerged, 2012 may turn out to be the year when cloud technologies finally begin to gain parity with more traditional data center staples such as virtualization and tape libraries.
TechTarget’s 2012 IT Priorities Survey found that a growing number of enterprises — some 24.1% — plan to grow their expenditures for cloud services over the next year. In fact, 27% of respondents said that cloud computing initiatives were viewed with high importance at their companies. Another 53% rated the importance of their cloud projects as medium…
4 security questions you should ask your cloud services provider
Cloud Computing is definitely the biggest trend in the market. However, the transition to cloud computing won’t realize its full potential until more vendors and buyers fully understand security requirements in the cloud. If you’re overseeing your company’s migration to the cloud, you need to ask some tough questions and consider getting an assessment done by a third-party before committing to the migration.
The questions can be broadly classified in one of the following categories –
1. Can you ensure segregation of my data from that of your other customers?…
New DoD Plan Could Be Big Boost for Clouds
When Congress passed the fiscal 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) last week, it may have done more for cloud computing than any other organization to date.
Now that his objections have been addressed, President Obama is expected to sign the final version of the NDAA (HR1540) into law. The majority of news coverage of the act has focused on controversial provisions for the indefinite detention of US citizens who are suspected of terrorism, but the cloud computing industry and IT departments should focus on “Section 2867: Data Servers and Centers.”…
Cloud storage sites by Amazon, Google, Apple, Carbonite compared
If you’ve ever had your laptop stolen, watched your toddler baptize your PC with Pepsi, or had your MacBook come to a cold, dead stop, you know that the digital memories we store on our home computers are anything but indelible.
But now there’s a special place coalescing where data never dies: It’s called the cloud.
Internet giants Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. have relied for years on cloud computing, where information is split up and stored across large networks of remote servers, rather than all in one place. When storing a holiday dinner photo, for instance, Google slices it into many shreds of data that are then duplicated and sent to dozens of data centers all over the world. That way, if one data center melts down or has a long power outage, your family portrait can be reassembled from the pieces still stored in the center’s surviving peers…
The Economics of Cloud Hosting
One of the primary reasons a company might turn to cloud hosting is the perception that it will save money. With rising energy costs, the demands for faster and more powerful hardware, and the cost of maintaining in-house servers, cloud computing seems like an economical choice. That perception may or may not be reality, and that largely depends on the business.
Over the course of five years, you may spend several thousand dollars on new server hardware and also have to pay for power and bandwidth. Still, you could conceivably end up paying more over the course of five years, even with low fees from a cloud hosting provider. That may make you wonder why so many people are moving to the cloud to save money…