Cloud Computing Transforming IT

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Patrick Burke.

One thing people can agree on is that the cloud is the most transformative information technology to come along in decades – on the same level as the rise of the personal computer or the Internet. And that means there is a lot at stake for enterprises struggling to lay down the foundations needed to support cloud operations going forward, according to a post on IT Business Edge.

It’s possible to identify the key factors in successful cloud development that will encourage the cloud’s transformative aspects while diminishing its disruptive ones. These include user attitudes, technologies and processes, all of which have a lot to gain and lose depending on the way cloud systems are architected and implemented, according to Arthur Cole of IT Business Edge…

"With something as complex as the cloud, it would be foolish to think that finding the optimal mix of services, infrastructure and resources would be easy," he writes, adding that pursuing the deployment, management and governance of the cloud is well worth it.

WWDC 2012: iCloud Weighs In for Prize Fight
Apple laid out some more details at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference of how Apple’s iCloud will integrate with its next desktop OS, OS X Mountain lion, as well as the iPhone and iPad.

According to Mike Barton at Wired’s Cloudline blog: "We knew it was going be a prize fight between Google, with Drive, and Apple, with iCloud, for cloud supremacy, and the news out of WWDC showed how far and wide Apple is going with iCloud integration – even spreading as wide as to the Safari browser, which will get iCloud Tabs."

Barton weighed in on Apple’s iCloud.

"Despite the clearly sure-to-be-popular moves with iCloud, I was a little underwhelmed. But perhaps that is the new consumer cloud landscape where the cloud becomes just part of the OS and the thrill is gone from touting the cloud itself," he writes.

Now that Apple has weighed in for the cloud prize fight, Wired asks, does Google have anything to worry about?

Centralizing Health Care Data in the Cloud
Health care in the United States could be improved while reducing costs and speeding services if hospitals joined together with insurance companies to provide centralized, secure access to patient information, according to a blog post on Computerworld.

Chris Poelker, who specializes in storage virtualization and data protection, wonders if the medical community can make better use of Big Data, government regulations and the cloud to improve service and save lives.

"Imagine the ability to sift through clinical data from every hospital in the U.S. to look for trends in health care. It would be much easier to share important test results between doctors and specialists when required. Patients would benefit by having their entire medical histories readily available in an emergency. There are thousands of examples of the benefits of moving patient data to the cloud," Poelker writes.

Poelker recognizes some of the challenges cloud computing faces, but says they aren’t insurmountable.

"I know some folks will have issues with their data being in the cloud, even if it is encrypted and secure, so there should be an option to opt out. For the rest of us, though, cloud-based medicine could have a dramatic impact on improving healthcare while reducing medical costs in the U.S."