Category: News

Grazed from ComputerWeekly.  Author: Cliff Saran.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of open-source supplier Canonical, continues to strive towards the vision of a converged handheld device, despite his failed attempt to raise $32m through crowdfunding for Ubuntu Edge, the smartphone that doubles as a desktop PC.

Recalling the crowdfunding initiative that fell short by $13m, he says: “I’m really proud how people stepped up and said it was a good idea. We concentrated all our efforts on the software and now we’re shipping phones.”…

Grazed from EveryCloud. Author: Editorial Staff.

The cloud can be a difficult concept to wrap your head around. What exactly is the Cloud? When are you using it? Where is it found? Sure, the cloud is useful for backing up files and accessing globally distributed software, but how does one pin down those nebulous definitions? To make matters worse, terms like “PaaS” and “SaaS” have popped up recently, further mystifying peoples’ already foggy understanding.

Fortunately we’ve put together a simple infographic breaking down the three layers of cloud computing ­ PaaS, IaaS and SaaS ­ by explaining just what each one does and how it contributes to cloud computing as a whole. From providing core computer infrastructure like operating systems and file storage at a global level, to consumer-facing software users can download or access through their web browser, these three layers encompass pretty much everything about the cloud…

To read more from the source and view infographic, please visit http://www.everycloud.eu/blog/dispel-cloud-computing-confusion-with-our-3-layers-infographic.html

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Sean Michael Kerner.

Building a company from freely available software might not seem like the most logical idea, but it’s one that is working for many vendors in the OpenStack cloud ecosystem. In a panel session at the OpenStack Summit here, the founders of cloud service provider Blue Box Cloud, cloud database vendor Tesora, cloud storage vendor SwiftStack and cloud vendor Piston Cloud Computing as well as the CEO of Dreamhost detailed their experiences and challenges in building OpenStack-powered businesses.

Jesse Proudman, founder and CTO of Blue Box Cloud, told the standing-room only audience that he initially built his company as a single founder and that was a really hard thing to do. In retrospect, he found, having the right team from day one is a key element of success. As a single founder, for some of the early years of Blue Box, he was also bootstrapping the company with his own money, using every resource possible, including credit card debt…

Read more from the source @ http://www.eweek.com/cloud/entrepreneurs-share-how-to-build-an-openstack-powered-business.html

Grazed from BSMInfo. Author: Rick Delgado.

As cloud computing has gained in popularity over the years, many within the IT industry have been understandably excited and wary about what it would mean for them. Using more technology certainly opens up new opportunities for IT workers, but their roles and positions would likely change as the cloud was adopted by organizations around the world. Essentially, cloud computing brought about change and with change comes uncertainty on what the future holds. Now that the cloud has become mainstream and a common tool used by numerous businesses, we can get a better view of its overall impact on the IT industry. So far, the results have been promising, with cloud computing expanding the industry and opening up new opportunities for IT departments.

Of course, one of the overriding fears regarding the rise of the cloud was the effect it would have on IT jobs. With more organizations using cloud services, the worry was that they would need fewer IT workers on-premises, leading to reductions in IT staff. Luckily, that worst case scenario hasn’t happened. If anything, cloud computing has re-emphasized the need for IT experts on premises…

Grazed from ChannelPartnersOnline. Author: Jesse Frye.

IDC says that approximately $56.6 billion was spent globally on public cloud in 2014. By 2018, that figure will exceed $127 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate of approximately 23 percent — six times the CAGR of the overall IT landscape. According to Silicon Angle, throughout the next five years, we’ll see a 44 percent annual growth in workloads for the public cloud versus an 8.9 percent growth for “on-premises" computing workloads.

The size of the public cloud market means you can’t ignore it. Yet as Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft jockey for customers, price drops are becoming commonplace, ultimately making it difficult for channel partners to benefit financially from reselling public cloud to their customers. Google’s latest cuts mean services can be had for as little as $0.01 per core hour…

Grazed from CIO-Today. Author: Jeff Cozza.

CRM Relevant Products/Services giant Salesforce was named the top CRM company in 2014 by total revenue, according to research and advisory company Gartner Relevant Products/Services Inc. Salesforce led the pack with more than $4.2 billion in sales last year, according to Gartner’s report on worldwide CRM market share, titled “Market Share Analysis: Customer Relationship Management Software, Worldwide, 2014.”

In addition to taking the top spot in total revenues for the third year in a row, Gartner also named Salesforce number one in both revenue and market share growth. Salesforce also gained the most market share in the worldwide marketing software Relevant Products/Services category based on 2014 total software spend…

Grazed from TheServerSide. Author: Cameron McKenzie.

If you’re attending an OpenStack conference for the first time and don’t want to come across as a neophyte — either when talking to speakers about cloud computing, or to vendors about distributed storage and the pitfalls of using open source hypervisors while cruising the exhibitors’ hall — here are a few cloud computing terms you should become familiar with to create the impression you’re as knowledgeable as anyone else who’s pretending to know what they’re talking about.

OpenStack — This is the open source, cloud computing software everyone is talking about. If you’ve ever wanted to create your own private cloud, but knew that creating a scalable, distributed and easily managed product was just too much work, then OpenStack is for you. It should be noted that OpenStack is the only software piece that makes managing all the compute pools, networked servers, storage systems and centralized administration possible. However, the hardware on which this private cloud software is deployed is not associated with OpenStack…

Grazed from AFR. Author: Stewart Oldfield.

Larry Ellison’s Oracle is trying to transition from a mature data management software vendor into the world’s biggest play on cloud computing, a sector which could triple its revenues over the next five years. Off a relatively small base, Oracle’s cloud computing revenues are growing at 30 per cent a year, while the traditional on-premises software licence business on which the company was built is going backwards.

Given Oracle has a market capitalisation of US$190 billion ($233 billion) and a forward price-to-earnings multiple of more than 15, the market appears to be backing Ellison’s vision of becoming the global leader in cloud computing. To his credit Ellison, 70, was one of the first to see the threat/opportunity posed by the internet and cloud computing to big enterprises’ IT demands…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Ikoula and UShareSoft today announced Ikoula’s new Hybrid Cloud Toolbox, powered by UShareSoft’s UForge AppCenter, cloud application templating and migration services. The Toolbox enables Ikoula customers to easily onboard and migrate applications to Ikoula’s Public Cloud as well as to other public or private clouds. Drawing on UForge’s native hybrid cloud functionality, Ikoula’s Toolbox offers customers a fast, flexible way to take advantage of public cloud benefits with full reversibility and governance. Unlike many other public clouds, Ikoula customers will benefit from:

• Application Factory: the easy-to-use application templating and VM builder enable customers to quickly onboard new cloud-native applications to Ikoula’s cloud, as well as reusing application templates from the global catalog.

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Adrian Bridgwater.

Does anybody even make hardware any more? You’d be forgiven for asking the question, even if it does sound slightly ridiculous. But thinking about it… apart from the device you’re reading this on and the hardware in the server racks in the cloud datacenter serving this website, is anyone even making that much hardware?

The ‘trouble’ is, the whole world has gone software-defined and that means some of what we used to do with hardware, we now do with software. F5 Networks CTO Karl Triebes says that 90 percent of his firm’s innovation and development time is devoted to software, with the remaining 10 percent still focused on the hardware products that his firm is perhaps better known for…