Category: News

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Adrian Bridgwater.

Oracle has this month introduced the Oracle-flavoured Linux 7 open source operating system. Freely distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPLv2), Oracle Linux is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and follows the RHEL7 release, which arrived this June. This distribution of Linux represents what Oracle would like to us to consider as its more open and community focused side, although of course a paid support model is available and widely adopted.

But it’s not just about whether the software is free or not; what matters today is how open it is and how the software itself is architected and used by the developers and users who come into daily contact with it. The company asserts that its latest baby is the “only major enterprise Linux distribution” that publishes all bug fixes and security errata publicly. This openness is hoped to achieve more flexibility than other commercial Linux distributions…

Grazed from SfGate. Author: David Einstein.

After last week’s item about Comcast, I was deluged with responses from readers who, like me, received a letter from the company saying we had to upgrade our cable modems in order to get the most out of our Xfinity Internet service. As I wrote in the column, my old Docsis 2 modem was delivering the Internet at the advertised rate of 25 megabits per second, and when I asked Comcast, I was told I didn’t really have to upgrade to a faster Docsis 3 model.

On Friday, I got a robocall with the same message about the need to upgrade – which I thought was odd until I learned that earlier that day, Comcast had quietly doubled the maximum speed in California for its (and my) Performance Internet plan to 50 Mbps. Knowing that my Docsis 2 modem could only handle speeds up to 38 Mbps, I bought a Docsis 3 model at Target for $70, and now I am getting the faster service…

Grazed from WhaTech. Author: Editorial Staff.

A US provider of cloud computing services has put together a handy guide on all the issues to be addressed and the questions to be answered when planning a migration to the cloud. Along the way, drawing on quotes from multiple sources and experts, the guide makes a compelling case for adopting cloud services and indeed suggests they will soon come to dominate the IT landscape.

Windstream Communications’ ‘2014 Cloud Guide, Insights for a Great Migration’, quotes Joe McKendrick, an independent researcher and speaker on IT trends and markets, saying: “Cloud computing is set to become mainstream computing, period. … The biggest news for cloud computing is that it will not be news. It’s the way we do computing today.”…

Grazed from SysCon Media.  Author: Dana Gardner.

Over the past five years, the impetus for cloud adoption has been primarily about advancing the IT infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) fabric or utility model, and increasingly seeking both applications and discrete IT workload support services from Internet-based providers.  But as adoption of these models has unfolded, it’s become clear that the impacts and implications of cloud commerce are much broader and much more of a benefit to the business as a whole as an innovation engine, even across whole industries.

Recent research shows us that business leaders are now eager to move beyond cost and efficiency gains from cloud to reap far greater rewards, to in essence rewrite the rules of commerce.  Our latest BriefingsDirect discussion therefore explores the expanding impact that cloud computing is having as a strategic business revolution — and not just as an IT efficiency shift…

Grazed from PRNewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

IBM announced it has acquired CrossIdeas , a privately held provider of security software that governs user access to applications and data across on-premise and cloud environments. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Under the burden of more government regulations and increasing sophistication of security threats, business leaders are demanding that IT and security executives implement access governance policies and solutions that provide visibility into operational and IT risks. Based in Rome, Italy, CrossIdeas helps organizations seamlessly manage identities and application access by bridging the gap between compliance, business, and IT infrastructure to help reduce the risk of fraud, conflicts of duties, and human error in business processes…

Grazed from VMWare.  Author: Heidi Pate.

The linked infographic distills data behind what’s driving the demand for IT professionals with cloud-related skills and why the hunt is on for top talent. Scroll through the entire image for a final section of lucrative careers and top companies hiring…

To view the infographic and read more from the source visit:  http://blogs.vmware.com/cloudops/2014/08/skyrocketing-cloud-careers.html

Grazed from Business2Community.  Author: Jyoti Trehan.

Monitoring was the most important requirement when computers were just computers. What I mean by this statement are those times when there were barely any monitors or consoles attached to the computers, when printing was a costly affair and storing, backing up and restoring data was a big challenge! Monitoring was one of the main features that the mainframes provided to bridge the lack of transparently inherent in the erstwhile computer architectures.

The developers and users alike were inquisitive and actively looking for what was stored on the storage devices and how accurate and correct it was. It was hard for users to remember for a long time what exactly they punched on punch cards and how many cards really got read successfully by the card reader…

Grazed from Microsoft.  Author: PR Announcement.

Starting from today customers are able to buy Microsoft Azure usage credits through Open Licensing programs.
Open License is Microsoft’s volume licensing option intended for corporate, academic, charitable, or government organizations that wants to pay as you go.  The Open License agreement requires a minimum initial purchase of five software licenses, but then you can acquire additional licensed products through Open License in any quantity at any time during the two-year agreement term.

Azure credits could be bought in blocks of $100 and the total amount purchased is summed in a single OSA key and last for 12 months.  This new purchasing option fits between the large Enterprise Agreements and the nearly-unmanageable (at least for a mid-size company) credit card payment method, it allows to create a budget and consequentely buy upfront as needed.

Grazed from CloudComputing Today.  Author: Arnal Dayaratna.

ActiveState today announced the release of Stackato 3.4, the polyglot platform as a service based on Cloud Foundry. Key features of the release include advanced version control functionality that allows customers to roll-back an infrastructure to a previous version with zero downtime. Version 3.4 also features enhanced audit controls that give administrators streamlined visibility regarding user access to the platform.

Today’s release also contains enhancements to Stackato’s quota usage dashboard in conjunction with more granular application monitoring and management functionality. Moreover, Stackato 3.4 contains notable upgrades to its system upgrade functionality that facilitate upgrades from one version of the platform to another…

Grazed from RSA Conference.  Author: Robert Moskowitz.

As popular as cloud computing has become, and as fast as it continues to grow, it brings with it a whole new set of data security concerns. Without a robust cloud strategy for ensuring security capabilities, cloud computing has little strategic value, particularly since a single data breach can cost an organization far more than it has gained from the advantages of cloud-based data storage.

Even without the reality of lost or compromised data, the mere possibility of compromise gives administrators of public, private, and hybrid clouds nightmares. The very nature of cloud computing is in fact problematic, as organizations contract with third-party providers for a variety of cloud services but are frequently reluctant to permit them access to sensitive cloud-based data…