Category: News

Grazed from PRNewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Softmart’s Microsoft Strategy Director, Gina Montgomery, will be presenting a webinar series on the Microsoft Cloud. This three-part series will inform and educate all levels, from thought-leaders to technical experts to users, on Office 365, Microsoft Azure, and the new Enterprise Mobility Suite. Gina is a seasoned speaker at SharePoint Saturdays and conferences throughout the U.S. She provides expertise in helping organizations maximize their IT investments by focusing on strategy, project planning, analysis, and implementing successful business solutions.

The first webinar is a thought-leadership series and will occur on Thursday, October 2^nd. The talk will focus on trends that are driving organizations to consider a shift to the cloud. This session will be beneficial for anyone who has been encouraged to have their business switch to the cloud, but may be unsure of how to navigate this change…

Grazed from ABC.NET.  NIGEL STITT.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that – for most organisations – taking a ‘hybrid’ approach to cloud adoption makes sound business sense. By augmenting existing on-premise or hosted systems with extra cloud-based resources, they’re better placed to meet constantly changing IT requirements.

In some cases, a hybrid infrastructure will include one or more Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers. These services can be rolled out quickly and remove the need to purchase and manage extra hardware and applications.

Many hybrid setups are also likely to involve Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers. By using compute and storage resources in an on-demand way, an organisation can scale capacity to meet changes in requirements. You no longer have to provision internal or hosted systems to cope with peaks in demand but can simply rent extra capacity as it’s required…

Grazed from TechTarget.   Author:  Rob Wright.

The Cloud Security Alliance says support for global data privacy standards and a consumer bill of rights is increasing.  The CSA’s Data Protection Heat Index survey report, which was sponsored by Cisco Systems Inc., looked at some of the top issues around data protection and privacy in the cloud, including data residency and sovereignty, and lawful interception. The survey respondents include 40 of what the CSA called, "the most influential cloud security leaders" in the world, from CISOs to privacy and legal experts.

The findings show strong support for more global standards guiding the use and protection of private data.  For example, the survey showed broad support for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’sPrivacy Principles to facilitate better data privacy standards and protection…

Grazed from CIO. Author: Kevin O’Conner.

Extending your IT Service Delivery to leverage cloud computing shouldn’t be a one-way street into unfamiliar territory. By adopting a common platform that spans both private and public cloud environments, clients can dynamically scale their IT infrastructure without changing the way they run it.

VMware vCloud Air® provides this type of fast path to the cloud enabling customers to migrate existing virtual machines from on-premises to the cloud. Deploying a new app and need more capacity? vCloud Air applications deployed directly in the hybrid cloud mode can access and leverage on premise resources. The hybrid cloud deployment model of VMware vCloud Air lets you leverage new or existing resources, so you can grow with ease and begin to deliver IT workloads faster and more efficiently…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Roger Kay.

You might ask why an established company — with traditions going back to its founding by Lars Magnus Ericsson in 1876 and a solid business supplying telecommunications equipment to operators in nearly every country in the world — would want to enter the uncharted territory of cloud computing, where it must play the role of challenger against strong incumbents like Amazon, Microsoft MSFT -0.26%, and Google.

And you would be right in asking. Ericsson ’s pivot to cloud supplier isn’t entirely obvious. But events have conspired to push the company in that direction, and it’s taking a methodical approach to this new business direction, relying on its core values, engineering talent, and large store of intellectual property to see it through successfully…

Grazed from MSPMentor. Author: Michael Brown.

The Internet of Things (IoT) global market is still at its infancy and positioned for exponential growth over the next couple of years as people continue to connect to the internet through billions of devices and applications. As an MSP that provides cloud-based file sharing, IoT needs to be on your radar. Here’s a look at how MSPs will be able to leverage the cloud as the only platform and service flexible, scalable, and analytic enough to support the IoT as it grows.

Just how big is the IoT ecosystem?

The IoT ecosystem includes any form of technology that can connect to the internet. This means connected cars, wearables, TVs, smartphones, fitness equipment, robots, ATMs, vending machines, and all of the vertical applications, security and professional services, analytics and platforms that come with them…

Grazed from Reuters. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cisco Systems will invest $1 billion over two years to expand its cloud offerings, the company said on Monday, linking hundreds of data centers and cloud providers around the world in a network with more than 30 partners. The network, called Intercloud, will help businesses process and manage data generated from billions of devices and applications around the world, Cisco said.

Businesses in the network aim to bridge the gap between public and private cloud computing and will share cloud infrastructure the same way mobile telecommunications companies have roaming agreements. With partners including Deutsche Telekom, BT group and Equinix Inc, Cisco said it will add 250 data centers in 50 countries to its cloud network…

Grazed from SmartDataCollective. Author: Kyle Cebull.

Investors, bankers and financial planners have a responsibility to their clients to secure their personal and business financial information. It’s not just about good business practices; it’s the law. When your company reputation and livelihood is on the line, it’s important to have a full understanding of how any decision you make regarding the data of your customers and clients can affect security.

For the most part, financial services companies have been hesitant to adopt cloud technologies, labeling it as not secure enough. Many principals find themselves asking the question, “Is the cloud secure enough for the financial industry?” There are a few factors at play in the discussion of cloud security for the financial industry…

Grazed from Re/Code.net. Author: Arik Hesseldahl.

Business software giant Oracle kicks off its massive OpenWorld conference in San Francisco tonight with a keynote address by founder and newly named CTO Larry Ellison. It will be Ellison’s first public appearance since a managerial shift announced earlier this month in which he ceded his CEO job to presidents Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, who now jointly share the title and have split operational responsibilities.

In an interview Friday, Hurd gave Re/code a short preview of what Ellison will be covering in his remarks. Expect to hear the word “cloud” a lot, but not in the way you’ve come to think of it. Oracle, which sells large companies much of the software they use to run their businesses, has begun shifting its business toward selling software-as-a-service, or SaaS…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Joe McKendrick.

Overcoming any skepticism about Platform as a Service will require more of an operational focus. As discussed in our last post, there’s a lot of "dev" in PaaS, but not enough "ops." Recently, JP Morgenthal, director of the cloud computing & DevOps practice at Perficient (and a long-time enterprise software thought leader), led a BrightTalk panel discussion on promoting PaaS adoption to skeptical enterprises. He was joined by Ed Anuff, Apigee; Sean Allen, OutSystems; and Sarbjeet Johal of Unified Cloud.

The first challenge is that definitions of PaaS tend to be relatively murky, and often overlap with Infrastructure as a Service. (Even the Wikipedia definition of PaaS is flagged with "multiple issues.") Helping to kick off the discussion, Allen defined PaaS as "a cloud-based service that integrates and manages all aspects of your application stack…. anything that allows you to build cloud-based applications without worrying about storage or other stack-based components."…