Category: News

August 17, 2015 Off

Cloud Computing: CA Technologies Joins Linux Foundation Open Mainframe Project to Advance Innovation on the Mainframe

By David

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

A Technologies CA, today announced it is a founding Platinum member of The Linux Foundation’s new Open Mainframe Project. The project is designed to create a collaborative environment among top industry leaders and academic institutions to drive both improvements and enterprise innovation on the mainframe. The project will initially focus on reinforcing four key areas: scalability, availability, performance and security.

The Linux Foundation is a non-profit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux and collaborative software development. As a founding Platinum-level member of the Open Mainframe Project, CA Technologies participation will help fuel innovation by participating in a neutral forum to drive support for Linux tools, associated hypervisors and open source components…

August 17, 2015 Off

How DevOps is demanding a whole new approach to cloud

By David

Grazed from InformationAge. Author: Chloe Green.

Cloud adoption is accelerating amongst businesses as they look to move their IT to a more efficient and streamlined process. This is often the business case for newer, more agile IT with complex distributed applications. However, security, flexibility and trust, which depends on the operating system as much as the network the cloud is built on, is becoming increasingly important.

In combination with this, enterprise demands are not limited to a particular geography; they demand a global networked cloud infrastructure. Connecting traditional in-house IT (more often than not, systems of record) with cloud based agile IT (a.k.a systems of engagement) is the optimal solution today for most companies’ IT requirements…

August 17, 2015 Off

Collaboration and agility shows why enterprise cloud is “worth the effort”

By David

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

A new report from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services argues that as cloud usage in the enterprise continues to rise, collaboration is now the key benefit ahead of business agility. The research, which had more than 450 participants and was sponsored by Verizon Enterprise Solutions, found 84% of respondents agreeing their organisation’s use of cloud computing had increased in the past year.

72% said their use of cloud increased collaboration options, while 71% argued business agility had been increased. Essentially, the value of the cloud comes from speed as opposed to cost savings, enabling more fluid working relationships between traditionally separate entities. One sign of a growing maturity in the space is that companies are not as quick to espouse the competitive advantage cloud normally brings…

August 17, 2015 Off

Cloud Computing: Chinese, Russian, tech giants join global open source efforts

By David

Grazed from TheRegister. Author: Simon Sharwood.

Notable tech companies from China and Russia are taking strides into the heart of the global technology community. Aliyun, the cloud computing offshoot of Business-to-business tat bazaar Alibaba, has become an Advisory Board member of the Xen Project, maker of the popular (if frequently-perforated) open source Xen hypervisor.

The Xen project says Aliuyn “has been contributing vulnerability fixes to the project for some time.” Xen Project Advisory Board members have the right to “propose and vote upon changes and additions to Xen Project test and validation infrastructure” and enjoy access to project leaders and the chance “to share technical and marketing priorities, and endorse new strategies for the project.” Financial contributions aren’t required…

August 16, 2015 Off

Cloud Computing: Digging beneath the surface of online disruption

By David

Grazed from Stuff.  Author: Editorial Staff.

I’m currently in the process of trying to hire a global business development manager for the South East Asian market.  There have been some great applicants, so I’ve been spending a good amount of time interviewing the short list.  I reckon the most telling exercises in interviews are those that make people think on their feet.
 
In these situations the answer is less important than observing how they get there.  One of my regular questions here is "what’s the difference between normal innovation and disruption".  A few days ago I got asked a similar question by the Institute of Directors (IOD) when I was invited to address their Auckland meeting…
August 16, 2015 Off

Cloud Computing: If Hardware is Commodity… Why Are We Still Spending so Much Time on It?

By David

Grazed from SysConMedia.  Author: Don MacVittie.

bWe really are moving in the direction of truly commoditized hardware. Some uses will always have specific requirements that are not mainstream and thus will require specialized builds; this is true in every industry. But increasingly, who made your hardware and where they got their parts from is a secondary issue.

Which makes one consider what really sells hardware these days. Years ago when I was working for Network Computing, I reviewed a low-end blade server company capable of cranking up blades at a fraction of the cost of most vendors. They (like far too many good companies) ran out of money before they could grab market traction, but they did show that it could be done at a price even small enterprises could afford…

August 16, 2015 Off

Machine ‘learners’ compute cloud cover to balance power supplies

By David

 Grazed from LATimes.  Author: Daina Beth Solomon.

Hendrik Hamann is into cloud computing — as in real clouds, those puffy things in the sky.  Working at IBM alongside some of the computer giant’s most advanced systems, Hamann and his team seek a breakthrough in cloud-cover forecasting. They’re aiming to help ease the introduction of solar electricity into the nation’s major power grids, as solar-generated power is increasingly being loaded onto the grid, propelled by government mandates and solar-technology price declines.

There’s a big problem with solar power that the IBM team is trying to solve: You can’t pump out much electricity on a cloudy day.  But the demand for electricity doesn’t decline when a solar plant can’t produce energy. Another source of power has to take its place. So utilities keep coal and natural-gas power plants humming, ready to pitch in when solar can’t do its job. That burns more fuel and costs more money…

August 15, 2015 Off

Incentivizing Performance In Cloud And Outsourcing Contracts: Key Points

By David

Grazed from Mondaq.  Author: Steve Gold.

Defining and incentivizing high-quality performance is often key to the structure of complex service or technology-oriented agreements. In this class of agreements, merely having a performance warranty that answers a yes or no question – in breach or not in breach − just doesn’t do the job. To augment those performance warranties, a common approach is to use a "service level agreement" (SLA).

The SLA is a familiar and essential feature in information technology-oriented agreements, such as outsourcing, cloud computing, software-as-a-service and the like. When properly structured and negotiated, SLAs can be an effective tool for more nuanced vendor management than a performance warranty alone could afford. This article will catalog some of the best practices for structuring a service level agreement, and discuss elements enterprise corporate counsel can put to use in the IT and service contracts that come across their desk…

August 15, 2015 Off

Cloud Computing: Firefly Algorithm Analyzes Online Social Networks, Predicts Loyalty

By David

Grazed from ScientificComputing.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Online social networking generates vast quantities of data that might be useful to the service providers, advertising agencies, and even the users of the networks themselves. Writing in the International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems, researchers in India describe an approach to establishing new connections in a network using what they refer to as a “firefly swarm approach.”
 
Ebin Deni Raj and Dhinesh Babu of the School of Information Technology and Engineering, VIT University, in Tamil Nadu, explain that the emergence of social computing, especially in the face of the advent of cloud computing, opens up new ways to extract, analyze and use big data from online networks…
August 14, 2015 Off

Netflix, Inc. To Become First Big Company Fully Reliant On Public Clouds

By David

Grazed from BusinessFinanceNews. Author: Jason Graul.

Netflix, Inc. is planning to close down its remaining data centers by the end of this summer, becoming the first big corporation to completely run its information technology through the public cloud, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Netflix told WSJ’s CIO Journal through an email: “For our streaming business, we have been 100% cloud-based for customer facing systems for some time now, and are planning to completely retire our data centers later this summer.”

Although corporate utilization of the public cloud is increasing, many companies still use sensitive software in their private cloud or data centers. While public clouds allow users to share a service provider’s resources, privates ones only dedicate cloud resource within their own premises or from a third-party. Majority of companies use all of these assets together under a hybrid arrangement…