Category: News

Grazed from ChannelNomics. Author: Larry Walsh.

With the release of Cloud Service Management, CA Technologies aims to give service providers and private cloud builders a simpler and effective platform for deploying applications in cloud environments. “The explosion of applications and devices deployed in the enterprise has made service delivery a cornerstone of employee and business productivity.

CA has designed a solution that unlocks the full potential of SaaS by focusing on what matters to customers — employee satisfaction, speed of deployment and reduced cost of ownership,” said Lokesh Jindal, general manager of IT business management at CA. Agility and elasticity — the ability to quickly modify infrastructure and resources — are pillars of cloud computing. Through hosted and virtualized resources, businesses add, scale or modify resources ranging from raw computational power to applications…

Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Mike Vizard.

One of the biggest issues that any IT organization has with cloud computing is a loss of the sense of control they have over those resources. As part of an effort to restore that sense of control, Virtustream, with the release of version 3.0 of its xStream cloud management software, is giving customers the ability to more granularly control application workloads running on any public or private cloud.

Virtustream CEO and CTO Kevin Reid says the company’s xStream software carves cloud resources into defined units of compute, memory, storage and networking resources using Micro-VM technology that presents the IT organization with a logical abstraction of those physical resources…

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Editorial Staff.

In its battle for public cloud supremacy, Microsoft announced a new service today that it plans to debut next month: A predictive analytics and machine learning tool. The move is interesting on a number of fronts. Firstly, it shows that the company is putting the peddle to the metal in terms of rolling out new products, services and features in its cloud computing portfolio to take on the giant of this industry and its biggest competitor – Amazon Web Services.

Secondly, focusing on data analytics is a natural area for Microsoft to invest in. The company has a strong history of managing data for its customers. Between SQL Server and its suite of Office 365 apps, Microsoft a lot of corporate data is managed using software from the Redmond company…

Grazed from TheVarGuy. Author: Christopher Tozzi.

Public cloud computing and Big Data analytics have converged in a new partnership between MemSQL and GoGrid designed to simplify the orchestration of MemSQL’s in-memory distributed database system for business intelligence. MemSQL and GoGrid are both invested in high-performance Big Data computing.

MemSQL’s platform leverages in-memory storage to speed both real-time and historical data analytics, while GoGrid tailors to customers interested in Big Data-oriented hosting solutions that include SSD storage, large amounts of RAM memory and dedicated servers. The new partnership between the companies, which they announced June 17, adds ease of use to the high-end services that each provides, they said…

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…