Category: News

Grazed from TechCentral. Author: Editorial Staff.

Johannesburg-headquartered global technology services group Dimension Data has announced it is opening three new data centres as demand from businesses for cloud computing services expands. The new data centres are based in Toronto in Canada, Auckland in New Zealand and in São Paulo in Brazil.

Dimension Data, which is owned by Japan’s NTT Corp, says the launch of the new facilities brings the total number of “managed cloud platform” locations to 13. It has multiple data centres in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific and Australia. The launch of the three new facilities follows an announcement from Cisco that the giant US networking vendor will use Dimension Data’s managed cloud platform and software-as-a-service offerings to deliver a suite of midmarket cloud services to its customers and resellers…

Grazed from PCAdvisor. Author: Kate O’Flaherty.

It’s got the potential to cut costs and increase efficiency by allowing staff to work on move. Cloud computing is growing and it’s going to get bigger still. With the ability to scale and give you the clout of your bigger rivals, the technology is especially relevant to smaller firms: it makes applications such as CRM and sales management available to any company, regardless of its size. It’s also the ideal way to protect and back up your data in case it is lost or stolen. Microsoft’s latest operating system (OS), Windows 8, is the perfect platform to introduce cloud to your business. So how can smaller firms get the most out of the OS’ cloud capabilities?

Flexible devices

Small businesses are increasingly working on the move. With the help of Windows 8, alongside touchscreen devices made by manufacturers such as Dell, this is made even more efficient. Users can write a presentation on a laptop, share it using Microsoft OneDrive, and then work on it on the go via the cloud on a smartphone or tablet…

Grazed from ITWeb. Author: Admire Moyo.

Cloud computing supports the iterative nature of big data analytics and allows data practitioners to focus on the data itself and how to really derive value from it. So says Willem Conradie, BI consultant at PBT Group, who notes that, among other things, Cloud computing allows for on demand analysis.

He explains that data of any type can be loaded into the cloud, analysed as needed, and when complete, the cluster can be stopped and discarded, or additional data and capacity can be added depending on the outcome of the analysis. However, he points out that if it so happens that an organisation has more technical specific requirements around its analysis, meaning that its computations will be memory intensive, the cluster can be provisioned accordingly…

Grazed from MidsizeInsider. Author: Doug Bonderud.

In 2010, technology companies began appending the term "cloud" to every news release and project announcement, hoping the hype of distributed computing models would carry over to more traditional software or even hardware projects. Now IT cloudwashing has evolved into a far more subtle science, but it is often looked down upon by technology pundits as an effort to generate profit rather than advance the cloud cause. Is this merely a cover-up, or is something bigger going on?

Just Another Coat?

A May 15 article from ZDNet examines the concept of cloudwashing, with author Larry Dignan using recent news headlines to show the practice is still in full force. He points out that many companies that rely on hardware or software sales to drive their business instead focus on recent cloud acquisitions or amalgamations of cloud products than more traditional service and maintenance contracts. The argument here is for midsize IT professionals to watch for what Dignan calls a "culture change" before businesses buy into any vendor claims of a pure cloud experience…

Grazed from CRN. Author: Steven Burke.

Solution providers said the new NexGen Cloud Conference & Expo, to be held Dec. 3 to 5 in San Diego, fills a much-needed gap for vendor-neutral content in an increasingly partisan cloud-computing marketplace. The conference, the brainchild of CRN parent company, The Channel Company, is the first partner-centric, cloud-computing conference aimed at providing vendor-neutral content developed by and for the broad swath of solution providers delivering cloud migration strategies and services for customers.

NexGen Cloud is critical, solution providers said, because it provides an independent multivendor expo in a market filled with single-threaded, vendor-focused cloud conferences. The inaugural event with the theme “All Roads Lead To The Cloud,” will be held at the San Diego Convention Center…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

MemSQL, the leader in real-time and historical Big Data analytics based on a distributed in-memory database, today announced it has been included in the list of "Cool Vendors in In-Memory Computing Technologies, 2014"(1) report by Gartner, Inc. According to Gartner, "In-Memory Computing (IMC) technologies support the agility and large-scale, fast data processing needed to succeed in the digital era. Application architecture leaders should master IMC architectures and technologies, or run the risk of undermining their organizations’ ability to leverage digital business opportunities."

"IMC technology is increasingly emerging as a key enabler for the digital business by empowering the agility, Web-scale processing and fast decision making needed to respond to the business challenges of the digital era," states the Gartner report. In addition, Gartner recommends that enterprises, "Don’t just consider megavendors for your IMC initiatives; small, innovative pure players often provide more cost-effective and/or more technically valid alternatives to large vendors’ offerings."…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Nicholas Mukhar.

In its latest “Performance Management Study: Spotlight on Cloud and Mobile,” BPM Partners found further evidence that cloud-based software applications are “clearly the future” of the corporate performance management industry. What’s more, the leading independent authority on business performance management also found that cloud CPM is already in heavy use particularly among high-end midmarket companies worldwide. Below are some key takeaways from the report.

A Shift to the Cloud

More than 60% of the 300 survey responses from finance professionals, ranging from BPM Partners: Cloud is “Clearly the Future” of Performance Management image shift editsmall to enterprise businesses in a wide range of vertical industries worldwide, said they would consider cloud-based solutions when selecting performance management systems. BPM has asked this question through the history of the survey. According to the report, there has been a, “gradual shift toward cloud-based solutions…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

At the IBM Edge2014 conference, IBM (NYSE: IBM ) today released preliminary study findings of 750 global organizations revealing less than 10 percent are fully prepared to address the proliferation of cloud computing , analytics , mobile devices and social media . Addressing this challenge head-on, IBM is unveiling new systems, software and capabilities designed to help organizations create smarter infrastructures that yield faster access to Big Data insights through the cloud and improved business performance.

"Big Data is the transformative force driving every element of our clients’ computing infrastructure – starting with environments of traditional applications blended with the new requirements of social, mobile and analytic workloads that demand faster access at massive scale," said Tom Rosamilia, Senior Vice President of IBM Systems & Technology Group and IBM Integrated Supply Chain…

Grazed from WSJ. Author: Spencer E. Ante.

Red Hat is facing scrutiny from the open-source software community over a policy that some rivals and partners say discourages customers from using competing products. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Red Hat chose not to provide support for customers of its Linux operating system if they use rival versions of software called OpenStack, which is designed to run cloud-computing systems.

Red Hat says it would cost too much to support different versions of OpenStack, and that its cloud software needs to be tied tightly to its Linux distribution for technical reasons. The story inflamed some rivals, partners and customers at the OpenStack Summit in Atlanta, where nearly 5,000 technologists and developers gathered last week to discuss cloud computing and open source technology…

Grazed from FierceCIO. Author: David Weldon.

Nearly half of the world’s population will be using cloud computing services in some fashion by 2018, according to a new study by Juniper Research. In its report, Cloud Computing–Consumer Markets: Strategies and Forecasts 2014-2018, the research firm estimates that there are currently 2.4 billion people using cloud-based services in one form or another. But that number is expected to rise to 3.6 billion according to the study.

"The analysts said that advances in cloud storage, music and games would propel this figure over the next few years," says an article at Cloud Pro. "It is said that the bulk of revenues in consumer cloud services would be from streaming services, while cloud storage services find attracting paying subscribers a struggle."…