Category: News

Grazed from CloudWedge. Author: Editorial Staff.

In June 4, 2013, Salesforce chairman and CEO, Mark Benioff called it, a “historic day for cloud computing.” This was the date that Salesforce entered into an agreement to acquire the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud company for $2.5 billion. Benioff further stated, “Our whole industry is changing. Mobile and social have entered the cloud.[ExactTarget] has been along on the ride with Salesforce and we saw in them a perfect partnership. I’ve never been more inspired and motivated about what we can do to automate CRM.”

In April of 2013, Gartner released their Magic Quadrant analysis of how CRM companies performed in lead management. Salesforce.com was labeled a serious competitor despite the fact that it fell behind some of its competitors with regard to turnkey solutions and lead management. In addition, ExactTarget Marketing Cloud was called a visionary…

Grazed from CIOToday. Author: Dan Heilman.

In a flurry of recent activity, Oracle has announced a slew of new products and updates aimed at enterprise database users, e-business Relevant Products/Services owners, open-source enthusiasts, and marketing professionals. The latest announcements revolve around Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Project Procurement, Oracle Linux 7, and Oracle Data Cloud.

The new products come at a time when the Redwood City, California-based company seems poised for growth. Oracle opened a new cloud Relevant Products/Services computing Relevant Products/Services technology center Relevant Products/Services in Seattle this week that will be home to 100 of its cloud engineers. Oracle also is trying to buy Maryland-based hospitality technology maker Micros Systems, but has met resistance from that company’s shareholders…

Grazed from TheVarGuy. Author: ChristopherTozzi.

The Linux Foundation has extended its partner network further this week with the addition of BearingPoint GmbH, Daynix, Linaro Limited and Systena, who will add to the open source consortium’s strengths in cloud computing, Internet of Things technology, Linux-based embedded automotive computers and more.

As the official announcement details, each of these new members of the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit consortium focused on promoting Linux and open source software, will help to expand the organization’s reach to several industries and segments of the channel across the world. Perhaps the most interesting part of the news, however, is that surrounding Linaro, which focuses on developing open source software for ARM devices…

Grazed from CloudComputingTech. Author: Kathy L. Grise.

The overarching theme around cloud computing is truly ubiquitous and reaches across not just the computing industry and professionals, but really touches across academia, government, and industry, plus the average, general consumer. A successful cloud implementation happens when it all functions effectively and is transparent to the user.

The user should not have to worry about the where, how, or what behind the cloud. Issues like privacy, security, reliability, and accessibility should be transparent. Naturally, the success is based upon a sound architecture(s) behind cloud computing. There are numerous pieces and parts that host, drive, and support cloud computing, ranging from its SaaS, PaaS, etc. to the basic and fundamental physical components…

Grazed from TechNet. Author: Brendon Lynch.

At Microsoft, we know that customer trust is essential to our business. People will use technology only if they can trust it, and our commitment to protecting customer data is an important element in building and maintaining that trust. The issue of who owns email is at the center of an important hearing in U.S. federal court in New York this week, at which Microsoft will argue that the U.S. government can’t force American tech companies to turn over customer emails stored exclusively in company data centers in other countries – in this case, in Dublin, Ireland.

The government argues that customer emails stored in the cloud become the business records of the cloud provider, and therefore have a lower level of legal protection than an individual’s personal communications. Microsoft believes you own your emails stored in the cloud and that they have the same privacy protection as paper letters sent by mail. You can read more on this case in an op-ed written by Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel and executive vice president for legal and corporate affairs.

Grazed from Hosting.com. Author: Editorial Staff.

In our July 14th blog post, How Stable is Your Cloud Provider?, we gave examples of some “seismic shifts” occurring in the cloud computing industry today. The industry witnessed a high level of volatility in the first half of 2014 as cloud solution providers (CSPs) anxiously watched their status slip in Gartner Inc.’s Magic Quadrant for Managed Cloud Hosting, went on massive acquisition sprees, or slashed their pricing for the umpteenth time. Following are some insights into what we can expect in the second half of 2014.

1) Public, Unmanaged IaaS Providers Will Continue to Race to the Bottom

If the recent pricing moves by Google and Amazon are any indication, we can expect to see cost cutting accelerating in 2014. Last March, Google cut its prices massively, reducing the prices of on-demand, pay-as-you-go services by 30%-85%. Amazon fired back the next day with a blog post that begins with the sentence: “It is always fun to write about price reductions.” This price cut by Amazon is the 42nd since 2008, and there is no indication that they will stop anytime soon…

Grazed from Linux.com. Author: Katherine Noyes.

Orchestration can bring benefits to many parts of IT, but its potential may well be greatest of all in the highly complex world of cloud computing. While there are numerous cloud orchestration tools available today — both proprietary and open source — a new contender recently emerged that aims to provide a universal and open source solution.

Specifically, GoGrid-sponsored OpenOrchestration.org hopes to advance the open data services ecosystem with a free orchestration service, software library and community. Essentially, the effort aims to do for entire clouds what virtualization did for servers by delivering a range of complex, “full-stack” solutions. Users, in turn, can then easily deploy complex applications in a single cloud, across multiple clouds, on-premises or any combination in between…

Grazed from NetSecurity.org. Author: Ran Rothschild.

When designing your cloud architecture you may notice several differences between the cloud-computing environment and the “old world” of physical infrastructure. Two of the main differences are elasticity and dynamism, which are part of the cloud’s DNA. The fact that security-related components can be easily tested, evaluated and deployed allow many companies – both existing and newly established start-ups – to launch their solutions also or solely in the public cloud. Moreover, I argue that by combining the tools supplied by a cloud provider with external third party solutions, higher levels of security – not to mention peace of mind – are achieved.

Best-of-breed

By thoroughly evaluating your architecture, you can highlight the main areas of concern that are derived from either a business need or regulatory requirement, so that you can find the optimal security solution to fit that specific need. The optimal solution is a very personal matter as each company has their own unique sets of requirements, financial capabilities and technical expertise…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Clark Buckner.

Cloud Connect is partnering with Interop New York to bring its cloud-as-as-business-enabler programming to Interop attendees at the Javits Center this fall. Clark Buckner of TechnologyAdvice spoke with Cloud Connect conference chair Steve Wylie about how cloud is transforming enterprise IT, and about Cloud Connect’s role at Interop.

“The nature of enterprise IT is changing because of cloud computing,” said Wylie in a podcast interview. “The risk for people in IT is becoming less relevant in the business technology strategy if they don’t embrace cloud and understand how to fully leverage it to drive the business forward.”…

Grazed from GovTech. Author: Jessica Hughes.

Cloud technology can simplify many computing tasks, but solving a digital crime is not one of them. That’s why the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently issued a draft report that identifies 65 forensic science challenges in the cloud, with the aim of building a roadmap to overcoming them. The report, NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Challenges, collects and aggregates the problems and is the result of research from NIST’s Cloud Computing Forensic Science Working Group.

The 65 challenges reveal the magnitude of the problem that cloud computing presents, though it’s not an exhaustive list, said Martin Herman, senior adviser for forensics and IT at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "It shows that there is a lot work that needs to be done to overcome these challenges," said Herman, who co-chairs the working group…