Category: News

Grazed from MidsizeInsider. Author: Rick Robinson.

A new survey confirms that mobile and cloud computing are the leading tech industry drivers — segments that tech executives and managers see as their big moneymakers. But looking ahead, these tech execs foresee data and analytics taking the lead, perhaps along with the Internet of Things (IoT). The tech industry’s moneymakers are a reflection of where the demand is, and much of that demand comes from IT at midsize firms.

Follow the Money

Consulting and auditing firm KMPG recently asked 100 top tech industry executives what their top moneymakers were in 2013. Responses, according to InfoWorld, showed that mobile and the cloud were the biggest revenue generators, and that they were also running ahead of projections. Of the firms surveyed, 53 percent said mobile revenue exceeded expectations, and 47 percent said the same of cloud computing…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Mike Kavis.

When putting together a cloud strategy for your company, it is easy to overlook some of the organizational challenges that must be overcome in order to be successful. Every company that has taken the plunge into the world of cloud computing has a war story or two to share. There is no user manual or instructional video to prepare you for some of the obstacles that must be overcome.

The best you can do is talk to people who have travelled down this road and learn from their trials and tribulations. The following is a short list of war stories that either I have personally encountered or a client has shared with me over the years. I call these the cloud’s dirty little secrets because all of these were learned the hard way…

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Antony Savvas.

The number of people using cloud services will increase to 3.6 billion by 2018, according to Juniper Research. The firm says that 2.4 billion people currently use cloud-based services in one form or another, with cloud-based data storage, social media, music and games helping to drive the trend upwards.

But what are the new cloud technology developments that cloud service providers will be delivering? This HP whitepaper takes a closer look and aims to help organisations get ready to make the most of them. Research firm Gartner says that organisations should not block the personal cloud services open to individuals that enable them to do their jobs more efficiently…

Grazed from CloudPro. Author: Alex Hamilton.

Cloud computing is the newest industrial revolution to hit the world and Europe needs to catch up, according to EuroCloud. Cloud computing will be the modern world’s equivalent of the industrial revolution, and the UK and Europe need to take advantage before they get left behind.

That is according to Dr. Tobias Höllwarth, who says the cloud is very much here to stay and that companies should begin their optimisation before it’s too late. “It has never been a good strategy to run behind someone else in a race,” Dr. Höllwarth, consultant and board member of EuroCloud, told journalists at the Cloud Enterprise Forum, Monaco…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Warwick Ashford.

Cloud innovation is enabling a wide range of businesses to access a secure, cost-effective means of protecting sensitive card payment data. Banks, utility companies and contact centres in particular are facing the increasing challenge of enabling card payments over the phone, while at the same time ensuring customer data is secure.

Specifically, businesses involved in card transactions need to meet the requirements of the payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS) as well as increasingly onerous data protection regulations. This has typically required costly dedicated on-premise systems that are either unable to cope with peak demands or are largely under-utilised during quiet periods…

Grazed from ProfitBricks. Author: PR Announcement.

ProfitBricks, the price/performance leader in Cloud Computing – IaaS, is pleased to announce that we have won two 2014 SIIA CODiE awards for Best Cloud Infrastructure and Best Cloud Management Solution. Winners of these prestigious awards represent the software industry’s best products, technologies and services.

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries. A SIIA CODiE Award win for Best Cloud Infrastructure and Best Cloud Management Solution is an especially prestigious honor as each award winner was reviewed by a field of industry experts, whose evaluations determined 125 finalists. SIIA members reviewed the finalists and voted to select this year’s CODiE Awards Winners…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Arista Networks, which sells 10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet switches and software for cloud-computing data centers, announced terms for its IPO on Tuesday. The Santa Clara, CA-based company plans to raise $200 million by offering 5.3 million shares at a price range of $36 to $40. At the midpoint of the proposed range, it would command a fully diluted market value of $2.8 billion.

Arista Networks, which was founded in 2004 and booked $417 million in sales for the 12 months ended March 31, 2014, plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol ANET. The company initially filed confidentially on January 31, 2014. Morgan Stanley, Citi, BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and RBC Capital Markets are the joint bookrunners on the deal. It is expected to price next week.

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Andrew Froehlich.

When designing infrastructure for corporate branch offices, you usually run up against one or more common pitfalls. Best-practice architecture documentation and common sense dictate that designing and implementing branch offices in a cookie-cutter fashion makes it much easier to manage all sites. But various factors commonly force designs to be altered to meet the needs of each individual branch.

Because of this, the architecture and, therefore, support of each branch office end up being decidedly different. Your support staff has to burn more time and resources to support disparate infrastructures — time that could be spent on more meaningful tasks. Thankfully, the growing acceptance of cloud computing allows for an opportunity to design branch office infrastructures in a far more homogeneous manner…

Grazed from CloudComputingToday. Author: Arnal Dayaratna.

On May 19, Microsoft and SAP announced that a suite of SAP applications is expected to be certified on the Azure platform by the end of Q2 2014. Specifically, Azure will certify SAP Business Suite software, SAP Business All-in-One solutions, SAP Mobile Platform, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (SAP ASE) and the developer version of the SAP HANA in-memory computing platform.

Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will address infrastructure problems related to certified SAP applications whereas SAP will manage application-related issues. In addition, customers will be able to deploy “pre-configured” SAP applications to the Azure cloud by means of the SAP Cloud Appliance Library tool. The agreement represents a win for both parties insofar as it extends the availability of select SAP applications while enhancing the pedigree of the Microsoft Azure platform. The real winner, however, is Microsoft Azure as it continues to add feathers to the cap of the Azure platform in an effort to remain competitive with Amazon Web Services, which already supports the deployment of SAP business applications on the AWS Cloud.

Grazed from SmartDataCollective. Author: Natalie Lehrer.

A new term has emerged in the cloud computing blogosphere and it has been aptly named “Cloudwashing.” The term is meant to play off of the popular word whitewashing. When something is so diluted that it turns white, we often call it whitewashing. When every single press release from a company includes the term cloud, we start to wonder if the term is being included arbitrarily or if companies are doing this just as a way to garner additional attention.

We encourage you to sift through press releases to see if you can spot this trend on your own. There are two schools of thought on this and each have valid points. On one hand, computing giants are moving into the general direction of the cloud being integrated into anything and everything they do. Wouldn’t it make sense for every press release put out to have something to do with cloud?…