Category: News

Grazed from PCMag. Author: Michael J. Miller.

As we’ve moved into a "cloud-first, mobile-first" world, corporate programming has changed. But I would argue that the change depends on the kind of cloud computing we’re talking about and that the long-term implications could be very significant. If we’re talking about moving from individual data centers to private clouds or even to Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), I don’t think the change in corporate programming is necessarily all that significant.

Sure new tools will be used—Open Stack, Amazon services, new mobile-centric frameworks, and languages such as Node.js, Angular, Swift, and Python. But programming is still programming. But when you think about moving from big monolithic corporate applications to using more Software as a Service (SaaS) services working together, that’s a completely different model. And I see that happening in a lot of places…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Itron, Inc. announced today its intent to use Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platform for Itron Analytics. The cloud computing and infrastructure platform will provide a secure, reliable and cost-effective option for hosting Itron Analytics, Itron’s analytic application that harnesses the value of the data generated by utility smart grid and smart distribution investments.

With Microsoft Azure, Itron will have access to highly-available, scalable and durable cloud storage, backup and recovery capabilities. Microsoft Azure maintains the infrastructure and performs routine maintenance, patching, load balancing and health monitoring for continuous availability. This will allow Itron and its customers to focus on running Itron Analytics rather than upgrading and maintaining hardware. Itron Analytics can either be installed locally, run by the utility in the cloud environment or operated and managed by Itron as a part of its Itron(R) Total Services…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Larry Dignan.

Red Hat has been on an acquisition run with the aim of building an open source stack that leads the hybrid data center. The primary rival: VMware. How the Red Hat vs. VMware duel plays out remains to be seen, but Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, argued that open source will ultimately define the enterprise IT architectures of the future. I caught up with Whitehurst to talk cloud, open source and Red Hat’s master plan. Here’s a look at some of the key themes from my conversation with Whitehurst:

Recent acquisitions and the big picture. Red Hat recently acquired OpenStack integrator eNovance and Inktank, a software defined storage company known for Ceph, an enterprise platform. Whitehurst said that Red Hat "is looking to create an open source stack for infrastructure and platform as a service." Red Hat makes acquisitions not based on intellectual property as much as people and involvement with innovative open source projects like Ceph, an object and block storage platform…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Joe McKendrick.

Is cloud computing finally a bona fide business strategy, versus an IT optimization strategy? It may well be, a new survey suggests. But this new second phase of cloud means things are going to be tougher to measure, define and conceptualize in the big picture. Business agility has become the primary advantage being delivered by cloud, says a new survey by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services of 527 HBR readers in large and mid-size organizations finds. The study was underwritten by Verizon Enterprise Solutions.

Business agility leads the list of drivers for adopting cloud computing, with nearly a third of respondents (32 percent) saying it was their primary reason for pursuing cloud. This was followed by increased innovation (14 percent), lower costs (14 percent), and the ability to scale up and down in response to variations in business demand (13 percent)…

Grazed from ITWire. Author: Editorial Staff.

Acronis, the global leader in new generation data protection, announced sponsoring new research from IDC that identifies complexity and data growth as key data protection challenges for small-and medium-sized businesses. The findings show that more and more organisations are dealing with simultaneously needing to back up physical, virtual and cloud environments, reveal varying levels of cloud backup adoption across different geographies, and bring to light the cost of downtime for SMBs.

The findings are based on a worldwide, cross-industry survey of small and medium businesses (< 1,000 employees) concerning their evolving data protection and disaster recovery needs. Respondents were from eight countries, including: France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Russia, Singapore, the UK and the US…

Grazed from ARN. Author: Mike Gee.

The announcement, a year after the company globally launched the Fujitsu Cloud Initiative, is aimed at strengthening the company’s commitment to unlocking the business innovation, cost efficiency and agility benefits of Cloud for its customers. Fujitsu said in a statement that it is well on its way to building a broad portfolio of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS); Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Integration Services. Having commited to a two-year investment of about $US2 billion in business innovation, social innovation and strengthening global delivery capabilities, the company has been bringing to market new offerings, deepening its deployments, and growing its customer base.

Fujitsu executive vice-president, solutions, global delivery, Cameron McNaught, said, ”Fujitsu has a vision of a Human Centric Intelligent Society, one where social and business innovation is driven by the intelligent use of information and communication technologies. "We see Cloud as the natural platform for delivering these new types of applications, which is reflected in both the increase we are seeing in cloud adoption and how it is becoming a standard part of IT service delivery models for many CIOs today…

Grazed from BoxFreeIT. Author: Sholto Macpherson.

The North American arm of financial services giant Zurich is the latest insurer to introduce a plan for companies that use cloud computing services. The property coverage for mid-market companies protected against business interruption or extra expense in the case of a cloud computing service failing.

Niche insurers have popped up targeting risks in cloud computing, including local providers in Australia. An alliance of cloud computing providers launched an insurance package to provide protection for cloud services providers in April last year, but insurers had dragged their heels on releasing plans for business customers…

Grazed from CloudWedge.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Spatial computing is an industry that is growing at an impressive rate. With Google’s ‘Project Tango’ due to be released later this year, and 3D imaging startup Matterport’s  $16 Million in Series-B funding, there is a lot of buzz surrounding who will be the next company to release this technology to the general public.

Late last year Apple acquired PrimeSense, 3D sensing company for around $ 360 million, and then very little was heard again on the subject. PrimeSence produced this video about where they had envisioned 3D technology would take us when combined with the internet of things:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w5QGf_9gGME

Grazed from TechTimes.  Author: Mike Cannon.

Google’s Kubernetes project seeks to provide an open-source standard for Docker container management. Kubernetes is receiving a surprising amount of support from other companies, with a number of tech giants collaborating on the project.

Supporters of Kubernetes now include Microsoft, IBM, RedHat, and Docker itself. Kubernetes promises to revolutionize cloud computing by making container management easier. By making the system an open-source standard, Google wants to make Kubernetes compatible with any system, making containers transferrable between different paltforms and operating systems…

Grazed from Business2Community.  Author: Marc Shaw.

Even though cloud computing has quickly gone mainstream, many business owners remain hesitant. One reason is because of the many myths still surrounding cloud computing. We’re examining several of these myths in our ongoing blog series.

One issue with cloud computing is its very name. It sounds vague, ethereal; I guess my data is “somewhere up there.” The image of the cloud serves primarily to communicate dislocation, but seems to carry vague mystical overtones: people often think moving to the cloud means their data is somewhere in the ether, moving back and forth between locations possibly. The term perhaps doesn’t quite capture the true nature of the cloud computing revolution, which is really a shift toward a utility computing model…