Category: News

Grazed from NYTimes. Author: Quentin Hardy.

Cloud computing isn’t merely changing the way much of the technology business works. Now it is changing itself, and putting even more computing power in more places. On Monday, Microsoft, which operates one of the biggest so-called “public clouds,” or large and flexible computing systems available for remote rental, announced several changes to its data storage and processing services that will make them more powerful.

Microsoft also announced a partnership with Dell to sell a kind of “cloud in a box,” or hardware and software that created a mini-version of Microsoft’s cloud, called Azure, inside a company. The idea is that a company could work with its own version of Azure, then easily move up to the giant version Microsoft has to handle big workloads. Hewlett-Packard may be after something similar with its effort to create a private-public cloud business based on the HP cloud, which uses a kind of open source software…

Grazed from CRN. Author: Robert Westervelt.

Zscaler is pushing past its SaaS-based Web filtering technology, extending its add-on services to include licenses for cloud-based antimalware, data loss prevention and secure Wi-Fi services and aiming at Websense customers eager to shed outdated on-premise appliances.

Partners say the San Jose, Calif.-based vendor has been a solid choice for companies that are ripping out legacy, on-premise secure Web gateways that primarily were used for URL filtering capabilities to gain end-user productivity improvements. By tweaking DNS settings to send traffic through Zscaler’s platform, companies gain the same Web filtering controls and protection against known malicious websites, said Mark Robinson, president of Findlay, Ohio-based solution provider CentraComm, which has partnered with Zscaler for about three years…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Eric Knorr.

It’s not a question of if, but of when: Most of enterprise computing will eventually be sucked up into the public cloud, kind of like the rapture in slow motion. This is not exactly a radical notion, but signs of a great skyward event keep multiplying. Last week, Salesforce sent up a flare with the announcement of Wave, its new cloud analytics platform.

Although it’s far from the first public cloud analytics play — Birst along with such startups as Adatao, Platfora, Tidemark, and many others rolled out first — the announcement of Wave is a seminal event. Wave’s introduction is important because it sets up shop atop repositories of existing customer data already stored in the public cloud by Salesforce customers. This is a sort of triple play:…

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Frederic Paul.

Last month, I wrote about what Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst had to say about applications finally overshadowing infrastructure. But the rise of apps is only one of the big changes roiling the IT landscape. Cloud computing has had an equally dramatic effect. Has the cloud already won? Yes… and no

So I asked Whitehurst if the cloud had already won the war for IT infrastructure, but he gave me a more nuanced response than I expected: “I think there’s a new architecture combining computing and storage in an easily managed centralized data center,” he said. “Scaling out that architecture… That’s clearly winning.”…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has released two new standards for cloud computing, in an attempt to “put some order in the chaos” for users. The generally accepted definition of cloud computing was put together by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with the final version hitting the stands in September 2011. In it, cloud computing is defined as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources…that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

Yet the new standards from the ISO give a largely similar definition, choosing to call cloud computing an “evolving paradigm.” The document’s assessment of cloud’s key concepts – including broad network access, measured service, multi-tenancy, on-demand self-service, rapid elasticity and scalability, and resource pooling – ring very true with the NIST ruling…

Grazed from Microsoft. Author: PR Announcement.

Microsoft on Monday announced it will provide free cloud-computing and research applications to medical researchers working on the Ebola virus. "One of the things tomorrow morning we’re going to do is make available Azure computer power to the research community," CEO Satya Nadella said at a presentation in San Francisco.

Azure is the name of Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform, essentially a group of data centers that allow users to access large amounts of information and computing power remotely over the Internet. "In addition we have some tools that Microsoft researchers built to be able to do vaccine discovery, so we want to take all of that and make it available for the research community," said Nadella. Microsoft’s research division is soliciting cloud computing proposals for projects that are working toward “developing a better understanding of the spread and cure of the Ebola virus,” according to the company announcement. “Qualifying proposals will be awarded allocations of Microsoft Azure compute and storage resources.” Ebola has killed more than 4,500 people in West Africa.

Grazed from CSOOnline. Author: Pierluigi Paganini.

The rapid diffusion for the cloud computing paradigm and promised benefits for the adoption of cloud infrastructure are attracting a growing number of businesses and organizations. Of course, it is essential for organizations to maximize the benefits of migration to cloud architecture by reducing costs and minimizing risks.

Cloud computing represents a fundamental change in how companies use and provide their services. For many small and midsize businesses, it represents a choice to compete in a business environment with powerful competitors. IT managers are today inundated with countless business proposals. For this reason, I will give you some useful insights for moving workloads to the cloud…

Grazed from RedHat. Author: PR Announcement.

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced new results of its collaboration with SAP to drive the next generation of mobile database development and synchronization. With today’s news, developers now have access to new components of the SAP(R) Data Management portfolio in OpenShift, Red Hat’s award-winning Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering. The mobile data management cartridge for the SAP SQL Anywhere suite makes it easier for developers creating MySQL-based database applications to extend their data to remote and mobile applications, and keep it synchronized.

Today’s announcement builds on Red Hat’s existing collaboration with SAP to bring SAP components to OpenShift. In April 2014, Red Hat announced plans to offer free development cartridges for the SAP Data Management portfolio, including SAP Adaptive Server(R) Enterprise (SAP ASE), SAP IQ software and SAP SQL Anywhere for use with the OpenShift portfolio, aimed at enabling developers around the world to build next-generation applications…

Grazed from PR NewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

iCIMS, Inc., a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) talent acquisition software solutions for growing businesses, announced today that TMC, a global, integrated media company, has named the iCIMS Talent Platform a 2014 Cloud Computing Excellence Award winner.

The Cloud Computing Excellence Award, presented by Cloud Computing Magazine, recognizes companies that have most effectively leveraged cloud computing in their efforts to bring new, differentiated offerings to market. "It is an honor to be recognized for the third consecutive year by TMC’s Cloud Computing Awards, especially since we take so much pride in our software architecture," said iCIMS President and Chief Executive Officer, Colin Day…

Grazed from SmartDataCollective. Author: Jason Bowden.

As an IT provider, I am overwhelmed with all the options for Business Intelligence in the cloud and very confused by how to compare service offerings in order to effective provide the best solutions. In the article we will discuss some of the different offerings on the market and why all business are racing toward the cloud for Business Intelligence Solutions. I like to think of BI in generally two layers the visualization tools and the back end process tools. So let’s start there for WHY BI in the Cloud makes sense.

Presentation and Data Visualization

Data visualization in the cloud offers an intelligent solution for businesses to access data with better convenience and enhanced productivity. Business Intelligence (BI) cloud computing offers a more plug and play method to try new tools sets with an ease of implementation for a stand-up perspective. The tools are evolving quickly and as a solution you may want to not get tied to closely to a single solution…