Category: News

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Matthew Finnegan.

Concerns over security are creating a barrier to the deployment of technologies such as cloud and mobile by UK banks, a survey has claimed. In Fujitsu’s ‘Financial Services Landscape’ report – which surveyed 176 IT decision makers at a range of financial sector firms – respondents indicated that uptake of digital technologies was slower than previously expected.

For example, although the number of companies to roll out cloud computing across their organisation had doubled from two years ago, it still meant that only 16 percent of banks have done so. Meanwhile, 20 percent do not see cloud as an ‘enabler’ for their business at all. “This presents cause for concern. While security should be a priority for any IT deployment, it shouldn’t be the blocker standing in the way of a technology with the vast potential of something such as cloud,” the report claims…

Grazed from NYTimes. Author: Quentin Hardy.

Microsoft has a new strategy to win cloud business: A supposedly comprehensive predictive analysis service — and all you have to do is store your data in Azure, the Microsoft cloud. The service, called Microsoft Azure Machine Learning, was announced Monday but won’t be available until July. It combines Microsoft’s own software with publicly available open source software, packaged in a way that is easier to use than most of the arcane strategies currently in use.

“This is drag-and-drop software,” said Joseph Sirosh, vice president for machine learning at Microsoft. “My high schooler is using this.” That would be a big step forward in popularizing what is currently a difficult process in increasingly high demand. It would also further the ambitions of Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, of making Azure the center of Microsoft’s future…

Grazed from SmartCEO.  Author: Simon Tutt.

You’ve probably heard a lot about the cloud recently.  Everything from smartphones to entire computer networks made better by the cloud.  But why should CEO’s care?  Consider this: According to a study conducted by SMB Group* at the end of 2012, 52% of small and mid-sized businesses (SMB’s) were using cloud solutions in their businesses. That number has definitely gone up since then.

What does this report mean to CEOs who are still on the fence about a move to the cloud? They are way behind their peers, and playing catch-up could end up costing more in the long run than the upfront cloud costs may present. In turn, the CEOs who are already making the move to the cloud are better positioned to see revenue gains and foster their company’s growth…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: Juan Carlos Perez.

Box has acquired Streem, a cloud storage and file-sharing startup that specializes in large media files and that has developed innovative technology for streaming that type of content.

"The entire team at Streem will be joining Box to help work on the future of content management and collaboration in the enterprise," wrote Box CEO Aaron Levie in a blog post Monday…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Analytics leader SAS has developed software to help clinical researchers instantly query and analyze data in the cloud. With the new offering, biopharmaceutical organizations can improve the efficiency and productivity of clinical research and speed lifesaving therapies and devices to market.

SAS Life Science Analytics Framework combines features of SAS Drug Development and SAS Clinical Data Integration to provide a single, integrated analytics foundation for clinical research. The solution delivers three key efficiencies:

• Provides a repository optimized for data standards management.
• Eases the burden of project management through easier workflows.
• Streamlines access to analytics…

Grazed from TechRepublic. Author: Michael Kassner.

Companies, large and small, are slowly leaning towards having a presence in the cloud. Many companies are using the stepping stone approach, leveraging a hybrid cloud-computing environment to gain experience, and to work out unforeseen operational issues. To that end, the hybrid cloud is considered the best choice, allowing companies to retain some digital resources in-house while relegating other resources to a cloud-service provider.

Companies using this approach have the ability to scale up or scale down as needed, along with knowing their most sensitive digital information is still completely under their control and behind their defenses. Security, data protection, privacy, and performance issues are areas of concern for system admins and security managers…

Grazed from ExecutiveBiz. Author: Andy Reed.

Cloud computing security company Porticor will integrate its encryption technology with the HP Atalla platform as the companies aim to help users securely pass data across public, private or hybrid clouds. Porticor’s data protection technology is built to protect the expanding fan of cloud environments and to combine data encryption with patented encryption and homomorphic management technologies to adapt to the changing landscape, the companies said Wednesday.

The companies announced their collaboration at the 2014 HP Discover event in Las Vegas. Porticor saying it is the first company to offer customers full confidentiality for cloud data. Gilad Parann-Nissany, Porticor founder and CEO, said that when migrating data to the cloud security should be anything but an inhibitor…

See more at: http://blog.executivebiz.com/2014/06/porticor-hp-form-cloud-encryption-partnership-gilad-parann-nissany-comments/#sthash.vRFsqB1R.dpuf

Grazed from MSPMentor. Author: Michael Brown.

The hype in the tech world is of course always becoming more centered on the cloud. Many businesses are switching over to storing their data in the cloud, rather than in traditional hardware. What makes the cloud the perfect solution for MSPs? We turned to the Philadelphia Business Journal for some answers.

Perfect for the Mobile Professional

“Personal cloud services offer many benefits and opportunities, including, but not limited to, security, scalability and redundancy of data. If you are a mobile professional, the personal cloud may be right for you!” Everything is being geared towards mobile – email, social media, web pages, etc. Likewise, since many business professionals enjoy the option of accessing their documents from no matter where they are (home, office, on the road), the cloud is the perfect solution…

Grazed from CloudComputing Info. Author: Editorial Staff.

Microsoft last week released a new tool which is capable of assessing your on-premise infrastructure and make recommendenations for migration of Active Directory, SharePoint or SQL Server workloads to Windows Azure, Microsoft’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution. In order for the Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine Readiness Assessment tool to run the following requirements must be met:

• Full access through firewalls or proxies are required.
• If static ports are used to access the service then access to them is required.
• Remote access (unless running locally) to WMI, the Registry and RPC.

Microsoft also has the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP), which provides similar functionality. MAP version 9.0 was released in December last year.

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Stacey Higginbotham.

Google is adding two new storage and networking features to its Google Cloud Platform ahead of its user conference next week, both designed to make its cloud offerings faster and easier when compared to competing products from Amazon Web Services or Microsoft. Google is adding persistent flash storage, which my colleague Barb Darrow has already covered, and HTTP load balancing across regions.

The load balancing is a fulfillment of the hope for automatic shifting of compute resources from data center to data center without disrupting the workload. It offers developers the opportunity to scale up compute in certain regions closest to demand and could theoretically offer a developer a chance to follow the cheapest computing costs around the globe if Google offered something like spot pricing…