Category: News

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Trevor Jones.

Cisco has struggled to make inroads in public or private cloud, so the vendor is banking on its networking experience to play a key role in enterprises’ hybrid cloud deployments. The San Jose, Calif.-based company’s cloud strategy relies on shifting its networking focus from hardware to software. Cisco made a splashy roll out of its cloud intentions last year that hasn’t translated into much yet, but its latest efforts around a unified cloud networking platform and subscription models could change that — at least with its existing customers.

"They’re going out with their strength, which is connectivity between all these clouds rather than differentiating with one cloud itself," said Dave Bartoletti, principal analyst with Forrester Research, Inc., based in Cambridge, Mass. "Cisco wants to be the glue that connects all your clouds together and not battle it out with commodity vendors for cloud servers."…

Grazed from BetaNews. Author: Editorial Staff.

Many of the things we do online require an ID and password, but typically whilst this makes things easier for the site it doesn’t always do a lot to protect the user, who may be revealing more information than they need. For example you may have to reveal your full date of birth and address to a video streaming service in order to verify your age and region, running a risk that the information may fall into the wrong hands.

Now researchers at IBM have announced plans for a new cloud-based technology to help consumers guard their personal data. The technology, called Identity Mixer, uses a cryptographic algorithm to encrypt the identity attributes of a user, such as their age, nationality, address and credit card number in a way that allows the user to reveal only selected pieces to third parties…

Grazed from Computing. Author: Sooraj Shah.

Technology giant EMC is to cut jobs after it forecast a lower-than-expected profit for the year, but CEO Joe Tucci said that he expects the launch of six new products to bring in more than $1bn (£663m) in revenues in the next few years.  Although Tucci did not divulge what the new products would be, he said that they would be focused on cloud, mobile, social and big data.

But EMC staff will be more concerned about the firm’s plans to axe a number of employees. "EMC management approved a restructuring plan," the company said in an SEC filing. "The plan consists of a reduction in force which will be substantially completed by the end of the first quarter of 2015 and fully completed by the end of 2015," EMC added…

Grazed from WSJ. Author: Juro Osawa.

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur in Hong Kong, there’s a new fund that may give you financial support – as long as you are setting up your business on Alibaba Group Holding’s platforms. The Chinese e-commerce giant said in a statement over the weekend that it is spending 1 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$129 million) to create the Alibaba Hong Kong Young Enterpreneurs Foundation, which provides select Hong Kong startups with funding, technical assistance and training to help them build up businesses through Alibaba platforms.

The venture investment program will likely start in the second half of this year, Alibaba said. In the long run, the nonprofit foundation could help Alibaba increase its presence outside mainland China by turning young entrepreneurs in Hong Kong into loyal Alibaba customers…

Grazed from WilmingtonBizInsights.  Author: Shaun Olsen.

You love your technology. In fact, it’s with you more often than your spouse – and may actually know you better, given both Android and Siri’s propensity to find you/follow you/anticipate your next move.  You’re committed to your platform, in part because it has made you more productive. But start a new job, and you’re likely to find that they use a different platform, and you’re stuck learning a new skillset just to get started.

A movement to allow you to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work began in 2009, and despite significant push-back from corporate IT departments, it has continued to grow. If the data included in recent reports from analyst firm Ovum are true, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is “here to stay.”…

Grazed from ComputerWorld.  Author: Katherine Noyes.

Focusing in particular on users of the Amazon Web Services cloud, the new tool takes advantage of NEC’s ExpressCluster software. The tool can automatically detect system faults as SAP Hana runs on AWS and switch over to a standby server when problems arise. The result, NEC said, is to shorten downtime and improve both availability and operational efficiency.

The tool is aimed both at companies using SAP Hana for high-speed Big Data analyses and those using it for core business-critical systems, the company said.  Eventually, NEC plans to make the software available for other cloud-based services as well.  The new offering fills a distinct need at the intersection of the four key technologies involved, said Kirk Borne, a data scientist and professor at George Mason University…

Grazed from CloudWedge.  Author: Sean Shado.

The most cited barrier to entry for cloud into the enterprise continues to be the security concerns involved with an infrastructure overhaul. Many IT decision makers are hesitating on making the switch to cloud as far as mission critical apps are concerned because of the unknown variables posed by cloud security risks. A KPMG report mentions that cloud security is still a top concern as IT executives look for ways to reduce costs.

The report mentions that 45% of respondents said data loss and data privacy were their top hesitations in regards to cloud implementations. What exactly are the biggest cloud computing security risks that will emerge in 2015?…

Grazed from Tom’s IT PRo.  Author: William Van Winkle.

Operating officially since 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is closing in on its 10-year anniversary. Some might call that old, while others would say that Amazon has merely had that much more time to build an incredible head start over its competition. One of those competitors, Microsoft Azure, entered the market in 2010. But by this time had Amazon already sprinted ahead to an insurmountable lead?

Microsoft doesn’t think so, clearly, and has been building its infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offering out from AWS’ shadow ever since.  Of course, insurmountable leads and shadows are largely irrelevant to your own enterprise. These companies are both global titans with the resources to make their respective cloud services as robust and expansive as they want…

Grazed from TechCocktail.  Author: Santosh Satya.

A little more than a decade ago, three famous paintings were on display at the Whitworth Gallery, an art museum in Manchester, England. Since the works of Gauguin, Picasso, and Van Gogh were valued at about $8 million, they were heavily protected by security guards and electronic systems. Guards patrolled the gallery. Alarms were set in place. And closed-circuit television scanned the paintings.

Still, none of this was enough. Burglars broke into the Whitworth Gallery in late April, 2003 and stole the three paintings. A few days later, the expensive masterpieces were found in a public restroom near the art museum. A note attached to the masterpieces dismissed the episode as a caper designed to test the woeful security measures. This bold art burglary is a lesson for network administrators who guard information systems…

Grazed from SysCon Media.  Author: Kira Makagon.

There’s no denying we’re in the midst of a cloud craze – but, behind all the hype, is cloud adoption really imperative? How much of the cloud buzz is fabrications of possible benefits, and how much of it is reality? To decipher what’s true and what’s false, I’ve put together a list of five reasons why cloud adoption is important, according to the facts:

  1. Freedom from responsibility and costs. Yes, when you move services to a cloud provider, you immediately relinquish some control. However, you instantly free yourself from the cost of hardware and server management, and gain back the time (or manpower) that it would ordinarily take to run IT systems. In fact 84% of CIOs report they’ve cut application costs by moving to the cloud…