Category: News

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…

Grazed from BSMInfo. Author: Terry Cronin.

Technology historians tell us that the idea of cloud computing dates back to at least the mid-’90s. That may be true, but the term’s more likely been in vogue since Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud hit the market 10 years later. In the years since, there’s been a steady and ever-growing migration to this model.

Still, in our business, a decade is eternity. That’s why what we should really be talking about is the next logical next step: solutions that don’t have to migrate to the cloud because they were actually born there. That’s the best way to look at virtual desktop service (VDS), or Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS)…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Dan Kobialka.

Vancouver, Canada-based endpoint management and security provider Absolute Software today unveiled Event Calling, a new alerting feature for its cloud security service. The alerting feature delivers "a proactive response to potential data breaches and security incidents," according to Absolute.

Event Calling is included in the Absolute Computrace cloud security service and allows customers to receive immediate alerts if an event they consider to be significant occurs. "[This feature] provides our customers with a policy-based approach to regulatory compliance, risk management and enterprise security…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: CJ Arlotta.

Bright Computing founder and CEO Matthijs van Leeuwen says his company has just closed a new $14.5 million financing round. Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and DFJ Esprit co-led the Series B funding round, with participation from Prime Ventures and existing shareholder ING Corporate Investments.

The San Jose, California-based company develops management software for clusters, grids and clouds for storage, big data and databases. The additional funds will be used to invest in the Bright Computing team, expand the company’s product line and extend its ability to serve customers, the company’s CEO said this week in a company blog post…

Grazed from TechPageOne. Author: Ian Clatworthy.

Dell works with a number of specialist industries, and it’s often a niche industry that drives innovation or at least indicates where we should concentrate our efforts in product development. Regardless of industry, the need to embrace cloud computing has been an overriding truth among businesses of all sizes. It’s unrealistic to think that all businesses will have the same needs. Maybe, some years from now, providing cloud services to businesses will be much simpler because adaptation will reach market saturation levels, but right now, businesses are only placing what they need to in the cloud.

The change in cloud adoption rate

Cloud computing obviously offers many benefits to businesses who are conscious of the need to improve their bottom line. Low initial spend and ease of growth are quite revolutionary in the world of IT. Just a few years ago, it was impossible to imagine that one could deploy and install software for and IT setup of a small office of 20 administrative staff in just one day. Today, businesses are able to do that for a staff of 200 employees or more, simply by connecting a room of thin clients to an Internet connection. As new businesses avoid time-consuming and costly IT setups, cloud adaptation will increase at an almost exponential rate…

Grazed from InfoSecurity. Author: Editorial Staff.

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has established the CSA Security Trust & Assurance Registry (STAR) Attestation, a specification for rigorous third-party assessments of cloud providers. The CSA developed it in conjunction with the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), and is aimed at CPAs who are conducting Service Organization Controls (SOC) 2 engagements with the CSA’s Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM).

“The AICPA is pleased to collaborate with CSA on STAR Attestation, which brings together best practices for Security Organization Control reporting,” said Amy Pawlicki, AICPA director of business reporting, assurance and advisory services, in a statement. Security is of paramount importance in cloud computing, and the complementary frameworks put forth by AICPA and the CSA provide a comprehensive foundation for practitioners to follow in performing engagements in this space.”…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

FuturePlus Systems today announced the shipping of its latest tool to help Data Centers and Cloud Computing Server validation engineers find elusive and unexplained memory failures. DDR3 memory is pervasive and used in nearly all cloud server systems today. This identified problem occurs when the memory controller under command of the software causes an ACTIVATE command to a single row address repetitively.

If the physically adjacent rows have not been ACTIVATED or refreshed recently the charge from the over ACTIVATED row leaks into the dormant adjacent rows and causes corruption. This failure mechanism has been coined ‘Row Hammer’ as a row of memory cells are being ‘hammered’ with ACTIVATE commands. Current understanding is that the charge leakage does not damage the physical memory cell which makes repeated memory tests to try to find the failing device useless…