Category: News

Grazed from CIO. Author: Emma Byrne.

Whether you’re a CIO or an executive in a non-technical role, you owe it to yourself to be aware of cloud computing issues—particularly data security. While there are no easy asnwers, new industry standards are here to help… In the previous parts of this series I said the cloud could help, rather than hinder, your organization’s security, and I outlined the responsibilities of the executive team when it comes to assessing your organization’s readiness for the cloud.

In this third and final part, I’ll explain how to ensure that your cloud services are as safe as possible…

Grazed from IBTimes. Author: Salvador Rodriquez.

Microsoft last month announced it would give Office 365 paid subscribers unlimited storage in the cloud — a bargain at just $6.99 per month for a service that also includes the Office productivity suite. It was the latest example of a tech giant using free storage to lure customers into paying for other products.

Yahoo last year began giving Flickr users 1 terabyte of free storage in an attempt to drive traffic back to the forgotten photo-sharing service. More recently, Apple gave its users more incentive to store their files within its ecosystem by dropping the price of iCloud storage, offering 20 gigabytes of space for $0.99 per month — down from $40 per year, or about $3.34 per month. And in March Google slashed its 1 terabyte plan from a monthly charge of $49.99 to just $9.99…

Grazed from TheVarGuy. Author: Christopher Tozzi.

OpenShift 2.2, the newest version of Red Hat’s (RHT) open source platform as a service (PaaS) for cloud computing, is out, bringing with it more enterprise-readiness than ever through the addition of two new JBoss services, the company said. The new services, JBoss Fuse and JBoss A-MQ, bring additional service bus and messaging features to OpenShift. Both are based on the standard JBoss tools of the same names, which are also maintained by Red Hat, for use in traditional server environments.

Red Hat said the new JBoss features, combined with other functionality introduced in OpenShift 2.2, will do much to streamline enterprise application integration and deployment on the company’s cloud PaaS. The updated version of the platform "opens the door to a new paradigm for enterprise application development," according to Red Hat, by integrating the company’s "middleware stack and PaaS technologies to create a unified development and operations experience."…

Read more from the source @ http://thevarguy.com/open-source-application-software-companies/111114/openshift-22-adds-enterprise-jboss-services-red-hats-clou?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheVarGuy+(The+VAR+Guy)

Grazed from CRN. Author: Steve Burke.

Hewlett-Packard has done the next-to-impossible with its new pay-as-you-go Flexible Capacity channel model, solution providers said. The new offering, which is being announced Tuesday, provides the framework for both customers and partners to take advantage of breakthrough cloud computing economics without the pain normally associated with making the transformation to the new style of IT.

Flexible Capacity opens the door for customers to free up a significant amount of working capital by putting in place minimum three-year, private-cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service deals with flex-up bursting or flex-down capabilities. The services agreements, under which HP Financial Services arranges the financing and HP Technology Services holds the sales contract, are based on the same monthly fixed-fee, pay-as-you-go model that has fueled public cloud adoption…

Read more from the source @ http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/300074764/partners-hp-flexible-capacity-is-cloud-computing-game-changer.htm

Grazed from TechTimes. Author: Christine deLooper.

Cloud computing is revolutionizing how we work and play, yet it’s not all good for the vendors competiting for users as they’re now embroiled in what the tech industry is calling the "race to zero." The phrase reflects the trend of increasing competition that is driving competitors to slash prices while offering more and more storage.

Luckily for the players, computer storage is getting cheaper so the price cuts aren’t killing bottom lines. For example, one gigabyte’s worth of storage in 1993 cost around $9,000. In 2013, that same storage space cost 4 cents. Cloud storage competition started heating up when Google began offering a free gigabyte of storage for Gmail users…

Grazed from Datamation. Author: Christine Taylor.

Backup as a Service (BaaS) provides backup and recovery operations from the cloud. The cloud-based BaaS provider maintains necessary backup equipment, applications, process and management in their data center. The customer will have some on-site installation – an appliance and backup agents are common – but there is no need to buy backup servers and software, run upgrades and patches, or purchase dedupe appliances.

Note that BaaS is not just a marketing term for online backup. Online backup is not a service: IT uses the cloud as a backup target, similar to disk or tape. In contrast, BaaS launches from the cloud service provider, who consults with the customer over needs and SLAs, and who manages the backup and recovery service…

Grazed from ChannelPartnersOnline. Author: Craig Galbraith.

Rackspace on Monday said it now supports Microsoft’s cloud platform, including System Center, Hyper-V, Windows Azure Pack and Windows Server, in all of its U.S. data centers. Part of its managed cloud strategy, Rackspace says the move gives customers options, whether it be the company’s own OpenStack-powered Rackspace Private Cloud, or Microsoft technology.

“Rackspace customers who use Microsoft software tend to be looking for the ‘whole package,’ meaning they want a place to host their servers along with a partner who can work with them to ensure they run better here than anywhere else in the world, wrote Rackspace’s Jeff DeVerter, in a blog…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Dan Newman.

I always find it interesting when two or more innovations blend together to give us something even more amazing. Cloud computing and mobile technology have been two of the most talked-about trends in the past few years and while they have brought significant changes in the way we do business, the interaction between these two innovations looks promising. As businesses are constantly trying to reinvent themselves, they are under the mounting pressure of coping with the fast-paced evolution of the marketing sector and the emergence of new marketing practices. So, what worked for you before might not show the same results today.

Mobile is where your customer is

We can conveniently say that we have left those days behind when mobile-enabled web presence played second fiddle to web usage via desktop. Research from CNN suggests that mobile usage among adult Americans has surpassed PC internet usage. As such, mobile has become one of the most important platforms for businesses to reach out to their consumers…

Grazed from VirtualizationReview. Author: Keith Ward.

The cloud "has quickly become an essential ingredient of modern IT," says CompTIA Inc., using data from its latest study, "5th Annual Trends in Cloud Computing," which reports more than 90 percent adoption, at some level, of cloud computing. That conclusion was based on a June/July 2014 survey, which also found that moving applications, infrastructure and other resources to the cloud isn’t nearly as easy as some vendors claim in the marketing materials.

"This may come as a surprise to some firms, as they may hold an expectation that the initial migration and integration posed the largest obstacles to smooth cloud operations," Seth Robinson, CompTIA’s senior director for technology analysis, was quoted as saying in a press release…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: CJ Arlotta.

Cloud services providers (CSPs) leveraging infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platforms seem to have differing opinions on which services provider offers the best option, especially when market research conflicts. Even Talkin’ Cloud’s own research confirms a difference in results among respondents. According to the 2014 Talkin’ Cloud 100 — which ranks the world’s top cloud service providers, aggregators, brokers and more according to cloud revenues and other metrics — Amazon Web Services (EC2) is the favorite IaaS platform among CSPs.

Not only did Amazon rank as the most commonly used IaaS platform among CSPs, the Seattle-based tech giant also showed its dominance on our research list overall, snagging the number three spot with $3.94 billion in total recurring revenue in 2013. Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Azure took the number two spot on Talkin’ Cloud’s most commonly used IaaS platform list. VMware (VMW) vCloud Hybrid Service ranked third. Citrix Systems (CTXS) took fourth…

Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing/study-amazon-microsoft-continue-iaas-battle