Category: News

Grazed from CloudComputing.net. Author: Pedro Venda.

Encryption in the digital world is akin to a safe in the physical world. Data is locked away and can only be seen by those who have the correct key. Among other things, encryption is what provides an assurance of confidentiality in data security and it is fast gaining ground in the cloud. But is encrypted data therefore more secure? Not if your keys are transferred in the clear, duplicated or mismanaged.

Data that goes to the public cloud is usually transferred securely and files are not kept on public web servers, so the obvious security measures are there. But once it gets to the storage server, data is beyond the user’s reach or control. It may be stored unencrypted or not, it may be read by the service administrator or not…

Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Loraine Lawson.

Cloud integration is generally viewed as a pain point, but maybe it’s time to look at how the cloud can support new and exciting integration use cases. That’s the view that Don Rippert, IBM’s general manager of Cloud Strategy, promoted at IBM’s Insight 2014 conference. When we look at managing data in the cloud, it’s easy to focus on the problems or the applications, but Rippert focused on cloud computing’s utility for data integration, access and replication, reports a recent Dataversity article.

“Arguably the most essential aspect of the Cloud is its ability to provide an integration of nearly limitless numbers of data sources involving structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data,” Dataversity’s Jelani Harper writes. “Such integration spans geographic location and includes both on-premise and Cloud sources, and is frequently typified by a speed of access that comes in real time or close to real time.”…

Grazed from TechRepublic. Author: James Sanders.

In 2014, the landscape of cloud computing has changed significantly with the ongoing price wars between the three major vendors: Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. New technology in cloud has led to more user convenience, as well as deploying systems with a smaller environmental footprint than traditional mainstream data centers. However, cloud providers face a stormy future amid litigation threatening the security of data stored by cloud users, as well as the liability cloud vendors face.

Price wars in enterprise cloud lead to savings for businesses

Undeniably, the big story of the year is the massive extent to which cloud prices have fallen. On March 25, 2014, Google slashed the prices of all of its cloud offerings, with Compute Engine prices cut 32%, data storage cut 68%, and BigQuery cut 85%. Further discounts can be had with sustained use discounts, cutting the reduced prices by a further 30%. Microsoft followed suit on September 25, 2014, announcing more modest price cuts to Azure cloud services…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Dan Kobialka.

A new report from Chicago-based cloud services provider (CSP) Trustwave shows that most businesses are fully aware of their legal responsibilities in protecting sensitive data. Trustwave researchers, however, also pointed out that few businesses host security awareness tutorials and security planning meetings to keep their employees up to date about ongoing IT security issues.

Trustwave’s "2014 State of Risk Report," released this month, revealed that 60 percent of businesses said they understand their legal responsibilities in safeguarding sensitive information, but 21 percent said they never perform security awareness training. Also, 23 percent said they never hold security planning meetings, and 24 percent noted they do not have employees read and sign their businesses’ information security policies…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Tom Nolle.

It’s impossible to read about cloud without reading about hypervisors and virtual machines; virtualization is at the heart of cloud. And for most, that means hypervisor-based full virtualization — where a host operating system and hypervisor run VM partitions, like independent servers, with their own OS and middleware. However, virtualization casts a wide net that can be valuable in the cloud. And that net contains a popular virtualization model — container technology.

In the container model, a server runs an OS that creates semi-autonomous containers to load applications. These apps share the OS or host, so servers don’t run a new OS copy for each VM. Containers stand between independent VMs and simple multi-programming and offer some application isolation — but not full separation…

Grazed from CIOToday. Author: Dan Heilman.

Online CRM Relevant Products/Services company Salesforce recently announced Salesforce Files Connect, a centralized file sharing service for the enterprise to enable users seamlessly browse, search and share files located in any repository, all from a single user interface. The new service lets users natively embed external files, including those from Microsoft’s OneDrive for Business, into Salesforce business Relevant Products/Services processes, according to Salesforce.

With the new product, Salesforce said it is the first company to combine CRM and native file integration with the most popular enterprise file repositories. Salesforce Files Connect will first natively integrate files from Microsoft OneDrive for Business and SharePoint into Salesforce. Connectors for additional popular enterprise repositories — including support for Google Drive — will be added over the coming months, according to Salesforce…

Read more from the source @ http://www.cio-today.com/article/index.php?story_id=112001UUX0A8

Grazed from Fool. Author: Timothy Green.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has long pointed to the free cash flow, not the net income, as the best way to measure the health of his online retail empire. Even as Amazon’s net income has turned negative in recent periods, free cash flow has remained at a seemingly healthy level. Most bullish arguments for Amazon ultimately boil down to pointing out this fact — that Amazon is still managing to generate cash despite the losses that it’s reporting on the income statement.

But here’s the thing: A company that’s growing rapidly and investing heavily in its business through capital expenditures should be burning through nearly every dollar that it brings in. How has Amazon been able to do exactly the opposite, recording multibillion-dollar free cash flows despite its heavy investments? The answer? Accounting gimmicks…

Grazed from Wired. Author: Dan Holden.

Today’s security landscape feels more like a James Bond movie than normal life. International intrigue is now a standard equation for any large-scale cyber-attack, as we’ve seen recently with the Sony breach and the potential for North Korea being behind it all. Events like this are great fodder for politicos and make for glib and gossipy water cooler talk about the latest celebrity leaks, but they obscure the real dangers just beneath the surface.

What if skilled, persistent attackers targeted critical infrastructure like the water supply or electric grid, rather than a Hollywood studio pushing a silly movie? What if they targeted your business? With many calling 2014 the year of the data breach, corporate security teams are on notice. They face a wide range of threat actors, from nation-state cyber espionage to highly skilled patient attackers for hire, down to home gamers and nuisance attackers…

Grazed from BizJournals. Author: Mike W. Thomas.

The OpenStack Foundation has approved Symantec, the security software company, as its newest gold member. OpenStack is the open-source cloud operating system that was founded by Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) in 2010. Symantec has been active in the OpenStack community through code contributions and has helped develop training and security guidelines for members.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Symantec, which has operations in San Antonio, joins Aptira, CCAT, Cisco, Dell, DreamHost, EMC, Ericsson, Hitachi, Huawei, Juniper, Mirantis, Nebula, NEC, NetApp, Piston Cloud Computing, and Yahoo at the gold member level. There are also eight platinum level members including Rackspace, Nebula, SUSE, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Canonical, IBM and Red Hat…

Read more from the source @ http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2014/12/22/symantec-joins-rackspace-backedopenstack-group-as.html

Grazed from FCW. Author: Troy K. Schneider.

Platform as a service promises significant savings of both time and money. The biggest names in cloud computing all offer PaaS solutions — as do countless providers that specialize in everything from mapping to content management to mobile app development. A few offerings already comply with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, and a 2013 survey of federal IT professionals found that 95 percent believed their agency would benefit from migrating to PaaS.

So why is PaaS still mysterious to so many? Partly it’s been a matter of structure and security. Many of the most popular early PaaS solutions, such as Heroku and Engine Yard, were available only in the public cloud, limiting their practical appeal for most federal agencies…