Category: News

Grazed from CCI.  Author: Mika Javanainen.

While cloud computing is credited with offering more effective ways to utilise applications, it can also further complicate the task of document and content management with the introduction of new sets of information silos.  Many companies are encountering issues with ‘dark data’ because they maintain multiple information silos in the cloud and on-premises that contain business-critical data sets that other systems cannot leverage. These repositories often contain massive amounts of Big Data (structured data) and Big Content (unstructured content).

To effectively connect these silos and ensure information workers have fast access to all of the content they need, it’s important to first understand their differences. Structured data (Big Data) is information that resides in various databases and business systems such as CRM and ERP solutions — much of which is often maintained by different lines of business and isolated to specific users and applications…

Grazed from eWeek.  Author: Pedro Hernandez.

CEO Satya Nadella is setting a new agenda ahead of its new fiscal year and the imminent, high-profile launch of Windows 10. More shakeups may be on the horizon.  Microsoft has a new mission statement as the tech giant prepares for the release of Windows 10 and the start of a new fiscal year, CEO Satya Nadella announced to employees in an internal email this week.

"Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. I’m proud to share that this is our new official mission statement," wrote Nadella (pictured) in the email obtained by GeekWire. "This mission is ambitious and at the core of what our customers deeply care about. We have unique capability in harmonizing the needs of both individuals and organizations."…

Grazed from TheVarGuy.  Author: Mike Vizard.

At the Red Hat 2015 Summit this week Red Hat (RHT) extended the reach and scope of its OpenStack ecosystem via alliances with third-party vendors that should have a significant impact on its relationships all across the channel.

Via a new alliances with Vantrix, a provider of storage systems optimized for video content, and an expansion of its relationship with Super Micro Computer, Red Hat is now making greater use of OEM partnerships to bring open source storage technologies such as Ceph and Gluster to market…

Grazed from LightReading.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Huawei has successfully demonstrated its Open Network Hypervisor (OpenNH) solution during the Open Networking Summit 2015 in California.  The OpenNH is a Software-defined Networking (SDN)-based independent tenant virtual network solution which supports operators with accelerating service deployment, providing innovative open networks and enhancing secure separation between tenants, and reducing operation costs. If the solution is commercially used in the future, it will bring new business opportunities for network operators, data centers, and virtual operators.

As 4G evolves into 5G, the number of network users will increase sharply, particularly as more people leverage the Internet of Things. During this transition, operators will encounter a complex operating environment…

Grazed from SysConMedia.  Author: Gregor Petri.

By now it is widely acknowledged that cloud enables a fast (agile) start. But more important than a fast start is getting results quickly. We are talking then about high productivity platforms, a category of PaaS. Funnily enough, several cloud providers – such as Microsoft and Google – launched a PaaS platform first and only later – when they saw how quickly the virtual machine based IaaS services from Amazon were becoming popular – technically did a step back to launch a lower level IaaS service.

Achieving cloudiness aspects such as scalability, elasticity, pay for use and service orientation is however quit difficult if your building blocks consist of merely virtual machines and load balancers…

Grazed from GreenBiz. Author: Lauren Hepler.

In February, Apple announced a massive $848 million solar deal as part of pursuit to power its operations with 100 percent renewable energy. Google, Facebook and Salesforce have all made their own 100 percent renewable energy commitments. Even notorious sustainability laggard Amazon is taking action on its goal of powering its hulking cloud computing division with clean energy.

The question now: if and how the tech industry’s highly visible — and once seemingly far-fetched — clean energy goals might make a bigger imprint on other industries during a crucial year for climate politics. “At least 11 big IT companies have committed to 100 percent renewables," said Ryan Schuchard, associate director of climate change for nonprofit sustainability membership group BSR. "(Tech) has one of the best levers of any sector to move on renewables."…

Read more from the source @ http://www.greenbiz.com/article/can-silicon-valley-sell-big-business-climate-action

Grazed from TechTarget.  Author:  Jeff Kaplan.

Amazon Web Services continues to set the pace in public cloud as it regularly rolls out new cloud offerings and prices its existing services to meet the changing needs of customers. But other players are seeking to gain a share of the market by creating their own cloud categories and pushing the boundaries of the cloud marketplace.

The proliferation of cloud services has created a double-edged sword. The stream of new cloud alternatives has produced a buyers’ market, characterized by intensifying price competition. But it has also made it more difficult for IT and corporate decision makers to determine which cloud offerings are best suited to meet their particular business and technological requirements…

Grazed from TechTarget.  Author: Beth Pariseau.

The United States federal government is moving beyond high-level cultural concerns as it looks to catch up to the private sector in cloud computing.  Instead of conversations about culture, this week’s Amazon Web Services Public Sector Symposium here featured discussions about legislation and regulatory initiatives that are in the works to connect the federal government to public cloud.

Federal government poster children were paraded before the crowd at a keynote presentation with tales of success in the trenches with cloud computing — including Healthcare.gov.  The site famously experienced freezes, crashes and other glitches when it first opened to the public in October 2013…

Grazed from Bloomberg.  Author: Jack Clark.

International Business Machines Corp. will expand the networking services available through its SoftLayer cloud technology, trying to catch up with deep-pocketed rivals.  IBM researchers and engineers are now making regular trips to SoftLayer’s headquarters in Dallas to discuss product plans and get educated about cloud operation, said Marc Jones, SoftLayer’s chief technology officer.

Increasing cloud revenue is critical for IBM. It has tried to boost sales for operations like cloud computing and data analytics but that hasn’t been enough to make up for declines in longstanding operations — such as services and hardware — and revenue lost from divestitures…

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Joe McKendrick.

Compliance is one of those thankless activities that add a lot more pain than gain to IT managers’ and professionals’ worklives. It’s a matter of doing the minimum that needs to get done and be done with it, so one can get back to the good things, like building commerce and analytics systems.

Accordingly, most IT departments are ill-prepared for any audits that may come their way. A new survey finds three out of five IT professionals say they’re not ready for compliance audits…