Category: News

Grazed from BetaNews. Author: Steve Browell.

Today’s workplace plays host to employees using a variety of cloud services side-by-side with corporate-sanctioned IT. This often results in incongruent information sourcing and storage, typically known as cloud sprawl. Whilst software as a service (SaaS) can boost smarter working and innovation in businesses, information disparity issues need to be addressed to sustain efficient working environments.

As businesses adoption and management of cloud services matures, some are still suffering organizational inefficiencies due to cloud sprawl. At the moment, different software is being selected for different solutions by different departments or even individual members of staff; there is a knowledge gap where businesses aren’t fully informed about how cloud technology can respond to business challenges in a different way to on-premise solutions, and so the potential for better information management is not being realized…

Grazed from DataCenterKnowledge. Author: Yevgebut Sverdlik.

Google and Microsoft have teamed up with Arista Networks, Broadcom and Mellanox to create a consortium around a new Ethernet standard for connecting servers to top-of-rack switches in data centers to support the next generation of cloud computing network requirements.

The 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium’s aim is to promote quick development of higher-bandwidth access networking equipment needed to support workloads in hyper-scale data centers whose requirements will soon surpass the 10 Gigabit per second Ethernet and 40 GbE protocols being supported today, according to the members…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Ellen Yu.

The number of virtualized systems in Asia is still very low and needs to ramp up in order for cloud to be more widely adopted in the region, concerns also have held back adoption, though businesses are now starting to realize the benefits of moving to the cloud are too great to ignore.

In an interview with ZDNet, Dimension Data Asia-Pacific CEO Bill Padfield pointed to industry stats that put the adoption of virtualization in Asia-Pacific at between 18 percent and 25 percent. The region is under-virtualized, compared to markets such as Australia where the level of virtualized systems clocked at 85 percent. As the underlying infrastructure and enabler of cloud computing, basic virtualization needs to be deployed before companies can adopt cloud services, Padfield noted…

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Antony Savvas.

Many enterprises mix-and-match multiple clouds depending on their needs, and that is where cloud deployments can get complicated. The developing cloud market is seeing organisations increasingly working with a blend of different cloud infrastructures, whether that be private, public or a mixture of the two by using hybrid clouds.

With these options having to be matched with a variety of cloud services, such as infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and well established software-as-a-service offerings, organisations need the right kind of cloud deployment support. Businesses deploying a blend of clouds to handle different types of application workloads means cloud management platforms must include a policy-based governance engine to make sure the right workload is matched to exactly the right cloud service…

Grazed from GlobalNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Racemi, a provider of automated server migration software, has closed a $10 million Series C round of venture financing. The round included new investors, led by Milestone Venture Partners, along with existing investors Harbert Venture Partners, and Paladin Capital Group.

The funds will be used to further scale Racemi sales, services and engineering to meet growing demand for its cloud migration software, which automates the process of migrating workloads to public, private and hybrid clouds. "The increasing adoption of cloud computing presents a tremendous opportunity for Racemi and this round will help accelerate our efforts to enter new markets and deliver the truly unique capabilities of our solution," said Lawrence Guillory, CEO, Racemi…

Grazed from ITWorldCanada. Author: Don Sheppard.

Some systems managers still believe the promise of cloud computing exceeds the technological reality. They cite the “ities” – security, customizability, longevity, quality, reliability and others – as being key inhibitors to adoption and valid causes for corporate hesitation. In my opinion, the elephant in the room is really the loss of control that happens when ICT becomes cloud-based and widely accessible to the public.

Giving up direct control has to be one of the hardest things corporate managers have to do (or more correctly to re-do). The basic premise seems to be that if it’s under your control, then nothing much can go wrong! Is the loss of cloud control a valid fear? Cloud systems are typically (but not universally) characterized by:

Read more from the source @ http://www.itworldcanada.com/blog/is-loss-of-control-the-biggest-hurdle-to-cloud-computing/95131#ixzz36KBNTYdZ

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Editorial Staff.

The enterprise IT industry faces a massive transition. The economics of cloud computing are causing IT organizations to rapidly adopt lean practices. The provisioning, installation and management of IT infrastructure is a $400 billion industry, with more than 1 million employees in the US. The quality, affordability and efficiencies of cloud computing are displacing more costly and error-prone traditional computing models. The days of the system administrator are numbered.

Starved for talent

The good news is that this cloud has a silver lining. The global economy is increasingly driven by software and the need has never been greater for developers and IT operators who can support DevOps, a new process of agile IT. DevOps, a portmanteau of Development and Operations, requires managers with a much wider perspective of technology development, where the IT Operator is responsible for provisioning servers, development of software and delivery of a complete service to the final customer. It’s a big change from the siloed approach of the last 20 years, where IT operations and development were not only separate but often hostile to each other…

Grazed from CNBC. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud computing company Rackspace could take itself private, as a source told TechCrunch the company has been negotiating with a private equity firm to fund the transition. Rackspace could make the announcement this week, TechCrunch reported. Rackspace, which is currently public, would not confirm to TechCrunch whether it was considering going private.

The company, which competes with Amazon.com, Microsoft and Google in a crowded cloud computing sphere, announced in May that it had hired bankers in an effort to partner with or be acquired by another company. At least three companies, including HP and IBM, have offered to buy Rackspace, TechCrunch said, citing a source within the company. Rackspace currently has a market value of $4.8 billion, and an acquisition could value it at upwards of $6.1 billion, TechCrunch wrote. Rackspace shares rose in pre-market trading Wednesday.

Grazed from CloudComputing News. Author: Editorial Staff.

Last week, the news that Code Spaces suffered a breach that overnight put the company out of business and cost their clients untold millions reminded everyone in the IT community how devastating a major data security breach can be for our companies and clients. At Logicworks, we manage highly available, compliant cloud infrastructure on Amazon Web Services, and in the wake of this catastrophe, we decided to publish a list of AWS security best practices.

Data security is not binary. Best practices are to use defense in depth and continuously evaluate what improvements can be made and how the threats are changing. AWS, and public cloud computing in general, provide many new capabilities, but along with that come new threats and new tools to counter them. Here are some of our recommendations to improve AWS security and build a good foundation for a secure scalable environment…

Grazed from LSE.ac.uk. Author: Dr. Monica Horten.

A judgement handed down in the US Supreme Court recently has underpinned the claim of a group of broadcast companies that royalties were due from a cloud-based service relaying copyrighted content. The ruling also raises a looming threat of new liabilities for the nascent cloud computing industry.

The case of ABC Inc et al vs Aereo Inc, concerned whether or not a cloud service transmitting broadcast television to computer users over the Internet infringes copyright law. In brief, the Supreme Court ruling means that it does, but it is in the detail of the ruling that the cloud liability is implied…