Category: News

Grazed from CloudWedge.  Author: Editorial Staff.

The County of Los Angeles has nearly 100,000 employees on its payroll. When Richard Sanchez, CIO of LA County, saw an opportunity to begin evaluating a more matured Exchange Online Office 365 offering, he halted the onsite Exchange implementation and began testing out the cloud email service with some of his end users. Although Sanchez’s onsite Exchange migration was nearly 40% complete, Sanchez decided to put the project on hold.

What caused Sanchez to change the direction of Los Angeles County’s entire email system? Sanchez mentioned, “There were considerable costs we were incurring on for migration services, as well as for storage, computing facilities and the like.” While Sanchez’s crew hustled along with the traditional build out of on premises exchange server, Sanchez’s research showed him that his end users would get more functionality at a smaller price tag by choosing the cloud alternative. Once fully migrated to Office 365, LA County’s end users will receive full-fledged access to the Microsoft Office 365 suite including extras such as Sharepoint, Exchange and OneNote…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Joe McKendrick.

Do organizations that have mastered cloud computing have an easier time advancing into the digital realm? Is digital enterprise even possible without cloud computing? It’s very likely that cloud paves the way to the digital enterprise, but don’t expect overnight transformation as a result of cloud. Digital enterprise, associated with the design, development and delivery of innovative products and services through online channels, is the result of a long, multi-year journey that includes cloud computing as a vital component.

That’s the word from Saugatuck Technology, which just released two new reports that explore the connection between digital enterprise initiatives and cloud computing. Business and IT leaders still have plenty of work ahead of them — even if they are well along in their cloud implementations, says Saugatuck Technology analyst Mike West in a recent post…

Grazed from Decoded.  Author: Julie Sinclair.

The need for reliable operations and secure access increase as companies migrate to cloud technologies. Defending your applications from distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks is a top area of concern for your business. Before moving your company’s important data to a cloud service provider, implement a plan to deal with DDoS threats. When designing your DDoS plan for your business, understand how your cloud service provider protects your data.

Five Top Security Issues

1. Securing a new perimeter:

Moving your data to cloud technologies means your data is distributed to multiple data centers. How can you effectively create a new security perimeter for your company and protect your data from attacks? Understand what tools your cloud provider uses to protect your data against DDoS attacks. Check the comprehensive detection tools your cloud provider uses for detection of DDoS attacks. Understand the inline deployment used for examining all inbound and outbound traffic for DDoS attacks…

Grazed from BuildYourBestCloud.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud computing is becoming a more strategic initiative to many companies, according to a newly published survey. In fact, nearly half of companies queried said they’re using cloud to grow revenues and/or drive product development.

The survey, “2014 Future of Cloud Computing,” was conducted by North Bridge Venture Partners and Gigaom Research and interviewed 1,358 technology decision-makers.  There’s plenty of interesting data in this survey, and I’ll go over some of it in two blog entries. I think of particular interest is just how many view cloud computing as a strategic endeavor for their companies…

Grazed from Equities.com.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud computing is one the fastest growing areas within the technology space. According to research firm Gartner, cloud computing will become the bulk of new IT spending by 2016. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is one of the fastest growing segments within cloud computing. In fact, it is the largest overall cloud market segment.

Not surprisingly then, shares of Callidus Software Inc. (CALD) , a provider of a suite of SaaS solutions, have gained more than 80% in the past one year. Indeed, the small cap star is an excellent option for investors looking to capitalize on the burgeoning cloud computing market…

Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Signe Brewster.

In 2012, Google hired Ray Kurzweil to build a computer capable of thinking as powerfully as a human. It would require at least one hundred trillion calculations per second — a feat already accomplished by the fastest supercomputers in existence.

The more difficult challenge is creating a computer that has a hierarchy similar to the human brain. At the Google I/O conference Wednesday, Kurzweil described how the brain is made up of a series of increasingly more abstract parts. The most abstract — which allows us to judge if something is good or bad, intelligent or unintelligent — is an area that has been difficult to replicate with a computer. A computer can calculate 10 x 20 or tell the difference between a person and a table, but it can’t judge if a person is kind or mean…

Grazed from TechPageOne.  Author: Ann Newman.

I’ll take a storage service from Amazon, a test environment from Google and a cloud burst from Microsoft. I’d also like a Dell Cloud Manager with a side of support services — hold the mayo. Brokers can make cloud services acquisition as easy as ordering a burger with fries and a shake.

Cloud services brokers (CSBs) aren’t likely to offer fries on the menu, but they do simplify — and often add value — to the cloud procurement process.
What is a cloud services broker?…

Grazed from Greg Ness Blog. Author: Greg Ness.

The next five years ought to be challenging for infrastructure appliance vendors, especially those who see their future “in the box.” We just wrapped up at the AWS Public Sector Summit, held in Washington, DC. An ecosystem of about 3000 attended the 3 day event. Massively disruptive software companies are springing up throughout the AWS ecosystem. It reminded me of the early VMware days, as a robust partner ecosystem appeared out of nowhere.

Amazon AWS is transforming the competitive landscape and ushering in a new era of innovation; the Seattle-based juggernaut is allowing software startups to have strategic impacts in very short periods of time. Business impacts. Operating impacts. Culture impacts. The AWS infrastructure is elastic, almost boundless versus the tired, fractured, stovepipe IT that evolved out of the collision between the mainframe and PC era. It is a dream come true for a new generation of software startups…

Grazed from WallStreet CheatSheet. Author: Editorial Staff.

Facebook has quietly migrated Instagram and its 20 billion photos from Amazon’s cloud computing service to its own data center. The transition took about a year in planning and a month for the actual migration, and Instagram’s 200 million users didn’t notice a thing. Wired reports that the company calls the transition the “Instagration,” and the migration was unlike any that Facebook had previously undertaken. In moving other properties that it had acquired, like FriendFeed, Facebook was able to shut down the service before migrating it to its own data centers.

But moving Instagram, which Facebook bought in 2012, was a much bigger operation. The process involved moving the service from thousands of virtual machines on Amazon’s cloud computing service, where it was originally built, to a private data center operated by Facebook, all while avoiding disruptions to a service used by 200 million people. According to Wired, the move gives Instagram access to the wide range of software tools built into Facebook’s infrastructure…

Grazed from NextGov. Author: Rebecca Carroll.

At its best, cloud computing offers agencies a cheaper, more efficient, faster, more secure way to administer the information technology systems they’re already running. Whether it actually works out that way often hinges on who’s in charge, how much authority they have and the breadth of their perspective, industry executives say. Congress has been debating the best role for agency chief information officers, with broad — but not universal — calls for granting CIOs full authority over their budgets.

“It’s all about the business case,” Lt. Gen. Peter Cuviello, lead client partner for Deloitte Consulting LLP, told Nextgov during a discussion about cloud savings. “It’s not about technology; it’s about the business case. You have to have a business case that the agency agrees to, and then you’ve got to stick to it.”…