Category: News

Grazed from GCN. Author: William Jackson.

Cloud computing offers both unique advantages and challenges to government users. The advantages are well-advertised: Greater efficiency, economy and flexibility that can help agencies meet rapidly changing computing needs quickly and cheaply while being environmentally friendly.

Among the challenges, security is the most commonly-sited concern in moving mission-critical services or sensitive information to the cloud. To address this, a recently released roadmap from the National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends a plan to ensure cloud offerings meet government security needs while being flexible enough to adapt to the policies and requirements of multiple tenants, including foreign governments…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Mike Vizard.

One of the things about Microsoft’s (MSFT) cloud computing strategy that isn’t always fully appreciated is the enormity of the ecosystem being built around Windows services in the cloud. For example, with the recent addition of Rackspace to the number of cloud service providers running the same core Microsoft Cloud OS platform now extends to well more than 100 different companies.

Based on Windows Server 2012, the Microsoft Cloud OS platform provides a consistent set of IT services customers can invoke consistently no matter where Microsoft provides them via its Azure cloud platform or any one of more than 100 other cloud service providers. In stark contrast to that ecosystem, the cloud services from Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM and others are only available via a single provider…

Graze from TechTarget. Author: Ofir Nachmani.

The market recognizes AWS and Google as the leaders in cloud computing. However, because of its range of cloud capabilities up the stack, AWS is currently leading the race. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for your company. One way to decide is to compare both clouds on price, global reach and capacity. And even then, it may be difficult to settle on AWS, Google or both.

The price/performance debate: Industry experts and research show a balance between Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Compute Engine (GCE). Google’s price per hour for the same instance specifications (more or less) is lower and it provides better performance results compared to AWS…

Grazed from ITWorldCanada.

The other day I had a problem with my iPhone — a 4S, with 64GB running iOS 8.1 — so here’s my story: First, some context. I have 420 apps taking 22.78GB storage and 4,000 songs taking 7.82GB of storage on my phone, and a few miscellaneous items such as photos and calendar data. I use iTunes on my PC as an intermediary, and iCloud.

I am still waiting in line for an iPhone 6 Plus from my local cable provider. I am an IT strategy/management consultant, and my focus is currently on cloud computing and its impact on systems. I am neither a bits-and-bytes technical specialist nor am I a programmer. I do try to keep my apps up-to-date, however, and I sync and backup my iPhone frequently (sometimes daily)…

Grazed from BSMInfo. Author: Megan Williams.

Answering your clients’ needs in responsible ways means that no one can ignore the benefits that cloud computing can bring to the healthcare space. With all the benefits of flexibility, location independence, and cost-savings that cloud computing carries with it, the risks that it poses to the industry can’t be understated, especially when you consider the sheer number of regulatory violations that can occur. Thankfully, with advancements in the sector, staying HIPAA compliant while reaping the benefits of cloud computing is very much possible.

Data Collaboration

Sharing files outside of the healthcare space is simple, especially with the proliferation of services like Dropbox and Google Drive. Within healthcare’s boundaries though, HIPAA compliance can become a huge challenge, especially for business associates like VARs and other IT solutions providers. Citrix has introduced a new and helpful offering to the field…

Grazed from BusinessWeek. Author: Adam Ewing.

A decade ago, telephone pioneer Ericsson (ERIC) managed to reinvent itself as a maker of network equipment, selling pricey hardware to telecommunications companies struggling to keep up with mobile subscription growth. Suddenly, the Swedish company was more relevant than it had been since the 1920s. Now, with its biggest customers slowing the pace of their expansion or shifting more of their data crunching to the cloud, Ericsson is trying to follow.

About 40 percent of the world’s wireless calls and data move through Ericsson’s network hardware. The company, with a market valuation of $39 billion, sells to and often operates the equipment for carriers including AT&T (T) and Vodafone (VOD). Ericsson’s revenue fell in three of its past five quarters, and analysts are projecting that the company will see a third straight year with little or no sales growth…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: CJ Arlotta.

Microsoft (MSFT) on Thursday announced it has bought Aorato, an enterprise security solutions provider. According to Microsoft’s blog, the Israeli-based company leverages machine learning to detect suspicious activity on a company’s network. The Redmond, Washington-based software giant did not disclose the terms of the acquisition.

Tech Crunch today, however, reported that its sources put the deal at approximately $200 million in July, which is when the two companies began talking. "We are making this acquisition to give customers a new level of protection against threats through better visibility into their identity infrastructure," said Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of Cloud and Enterprise Marketing at Microsoft, in the blog post…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing-mergers-and-acquisitions/microsoft-buys-security-solutions-provider-aorato-hybrid-cl

Grazed from BusinessInsider. Author: Julie Bort.

There’s a huge change going on in the tech industry that will create a whole new crop of winners and losers: cloud computing. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently declared that Microsoft was already in with the winners. "We absolutely caught the trend … it’s no longer up for debate, whether we get the cloud," he said. One reason he gave to back up his claim: Microsoft’s cloud business is on track to be a $4.5 billion business. But sources tell Business Insider that this $4.5 billion number isn’t as straightforward as it seems…

The Dirty Secret

The $4-billion-mark is a major milestone for cloud computing companies. Pure cloud company Salesforce.com just hit over $4 billion in revenues in its last fiscal year and expects to hit $5.3 billion at the end of its current fiscal year. It took it 15 years and a major acquisition, marketing automation company Exact Target…

Read more from the source @ http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-cloud-business-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-2014-11#ixzz3IzVGfPZ3

Grazed from ARS Technica. Author: Peter Bright.

At its AWS re:Invent cloud computing conference today, Amazon announced AWS Lambda, a way of performing computing in the cloud in response to events without the need for virtual machines, compute instances, or any kind of administration. The usual model when performing computation in cloud services is to create some kind of a persistent application, such as a Web server on a virtual machine.

Sometimes the developer manages everything on the VM. Sometimes aspects of this are abstracted away—Azure’s Web roles, for example, leave management of the base operating system and server up to Microsoft, letting developers focus solely on the Web content—but those persistent deployments, with their time-based billing, have become the basic model of cloud computing…

Grazed from MSPMentor. Author: Dan Kobialka.

Avnet Technology Solutions (AVT) has unveiled a cloud toolset to help its American and Canadian managed service provider (MSP) and value-added reseller (VAR) partners "govern, consolidate, manage and track cloud accounts across multiple cloud providers." The Phoenix-based IT solutions distributor this week launched the Avnet Cloud Toolset (ACT) to help partners support their Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM SoftLayer customers.

Avnet said ACT gives its partners better visibility and usage data across various cloud platforms providing insights on how to optimize cloud resources. ACT provides Avnet partners with:…