Category: News

Grazed from BusinessInsider. Author: Matt Weinberger.

What the heck is "the cloud"? Like "non-GMO," "part of a complete breakfast,"and "Intel Inside" before it, marketers have convinced us that "the cloud" is something we should want without ever really truly knowing why. When Microsoft airs TV commercials touting its range of cloud services and how it helps research teams work on cures for cancer, it hopes we’re nodding knowingly.

So, where does the phrase come from? Let’s back up. Rewind to the early nineties: Computer scientists and engineers needed some way in their diagrams and slideshows to refer to "the network," that big grouping of computers and storage devices out there somewhere. In other words, they needed some way to refer to something that was, essentially, somebody else’s problem…

Grazed from Cloud Computing Today. Author: Arnal Dayaratna.

On Wednesday, Google announced the Beta release of Google Cloud Storage Nearline, a cloud-based storage product that transforms the economics of hot and cold storage. Whereas enterprises currently wrestle with the problem of managing frequently accessed data versus “cold” data, Google Cloud Storage Nearline renders cold data accessible within three seconds.

The ability of Google Cloud Storage Nearline to access cold data means that organizations need not have separate infrastructures for managing cold and hot data but can instead leverage Google’s high performance, low cost storage solution to render historical data available within a few seconds…

Grazed from TechRepublic.  Author: Matt Asay.

There are lots of ways to explain the explosion of public cloud computing and the comparatively conservative growth of private cloud. We can talk about elasticity, shadow IT, and a number of other contributing factors.

But every once in a while, someone manages to sum up an argument in just one tweet, as Owen Rogers, a senior analyst with 451 Research, did this week. In fewer than 140 characters, Rogers said everything you need to know about why public cloud is the future of enterprise computing…

Grazed from TopTechNews. Author: Jef Cozza.

With the announcement that it has just raised $28.5 million in venture capital funding, the cloud Relevant Products/Services-based monitoring company SignalFuse has emerged from stealth mode to announce the launch of a new monitoring platform to go along with the company’s new name, SignalFx. The San Mateo-based startup offers a software Relevant Products/Services-as-a-service application monitoring platform for infrastructure systems. SignalFx said it raised its financing from Andreessen Horowitz and Charles River Ventures.

Analytics-Based Insights

"An analytics-based approach to monitoring is essential for modern applications," said Phillip Liu, founder and CTO of SignalFx. "With SignalFx and SignalFlow technology, our customers can focus their efforts on interpreting operational metrics, discovering key patterns, and communicating insights with one another rather than building and supporting an undifferentiated metrics infrastructure…

Read more from the source @ http://www.toptechnews.com/article/index.php?story_id=030000HWQ866

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

The Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC) has published an update to the widely cited Security for Cloud Computing: 10 Steps to Ensure Success whitepaper. Version 2.0 of the whitepaper can be downloaded here. When considering a move to cloud computing, customers must have a clear understanding of potential security benefits and risks associated with cloud computing and set realistic expectations with their cloud provider.

The Security for Cloud Computing: 10 Steps to Ensure Success V2.0 whitepaper provides guidance and strategies designed to help decision makers evaluate and compare security offerings from different cloud providers in key areas. The Cloud Standards Customer Council will host a webinar on Tuesday, March 17 from 11am – 12pm ET to introduce the paper…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Dan Kobialka.

New Synergy Research Group data showed that Cisco Systems (CSCO) and HP (HPQ) maintained their status as cloud infrastructure market leaders during the fourth quarter of 2014. Together, Cisco and HP controlled 27 percent of the cloud infrastructure market. Synergy found that Cisco had a clear lead in public cloud infrastructure, while HP was the leader in private cloud.

However, the market intelligence firm also noted that both vendors saw their share of the total cloud market fall between the third and fourth quarters. Microsoft (MSFT) ranked third among cloud infrastructure providers, followed by Dell (DELL). IBM (IBM), meanwhile, fell from third to fifth; Synergy attributed the drop to Big Blue’s sale of its x86 server product line to Lenovo on Oct. 1…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing-research/03122015/cisco-hp-lead-cloud-infrastructure-market

Grazed from WhaTech. Author: Editorial Staff.

KPMG has just released its 2014 Cloud Survey Report on the insights gained from a web-based survey of 539 global business executives undertaken for KPMG by Forbes Insights. It’s a wake-up call for any organisation that has not wholeheartedly embraced cloud computing. "Are you keeping pace with the rapid evolution and impact of cloud on businesses today?" it asks.

"Are you leveraging your cloud investment to connect with your digitally savvy customers and employees? Are you prepared to seize the opportunities available from the next wave of cloud technology?" If your answer to any of these questions is ‘No’, then, says KPMG: "You have some considerable catching up to do…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Simon Langlois.

Everyone can agree, storage quotas for cloud services are increasing very quickly. And this means only one thing: cloud storage is getting dirt-cheap. This is nothing new, as organisations have been getting more and more gigabyte (GB) for their buck in the past months. Some of the industry’s biggest cloud players, like Amazon, Google and Microsoft have been engaging in a war on storage. Who will include the biggest quota at the lowest price? And who will cut down prices to low prices we’ve never seen before?

This trend is here to stay. If we back up in time a little bit, storage used to be an important part of bundling offers. The more GB you wanted, the more vendors charged you. That is still true, on some levels. Now, storage has little value. You want 1 TB of cloud storage per user? No problem! Combine it with some awesome apps that will allow you to do business more easily…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Max Cooter.

Successful cloud implementations need careful planning, with flexibility and the timing of the switch important considerations. The whole notion of cloud implementation has changed in the past five years. From being seen as a large and daunting manoeuvre to be undertaken only by the boldest of CIOs, the cloud has found its way to the heart of mainstream computing.

There has also been a change in the drivers for the move to cloud. Initially largely focused on trying to save money, the cloud was touted as a quick way to reduce costs. But that way of thinking has gone out of the window as companies begin to realise other advantages from cloud…

Grazed from IT Business Edge. Author: Arthur Cole.

Consensus is building that the cloud will subsume traditional data center infrastructure within the next decade. This is not to say that local resources will go the way of the dinosaur, but that whatever remains in the data center will be cloud-based. This means that both the hardware and software platforms that hope to support future data architectures will have to cater more toward cloud functionality than traditional data center constructs.

And yet, it seems that only recently have we seen anything that can be described as cloud-specific enterprise systems in the channel. HP took the wraps off of its Cloudline server this week, aimed specifically at helping cloud service providers gain an edge on competitors by offering not just lower costs, but advanced functionality as well…