The traditional databases of the 20th century were never designed to scale to meet 21st century data demands. Google alone processes about 24 petabytes of data/day. With the added complexity of heavily virtualized hardware and storage plus apps being moved in and out of private, hybrid and public clouds, application developers, SaaS vendors, ISVs and enterprise IT all need a better answer.
Archivo mensual: marzo 2013
Calculating the True Value of Industry Specific Clouds
Industry-specific clouds are those PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS services that are tailored for a specific vertical, such as transportation, retail, finance, and healthcare. IDC sees a $65 billion market in these industry solutions for 2013, rising to $100 billion in 2016.
The value of industry-specific clouds is that businesses within a vertical can connect to applications, processes, and databases that are pre-defined for that vertical within a public or private cloud. They can extend processes and databases into the business domain, versus defining the data and processes within a generic cloud-based platform.
A de-provisioning proverb: When a door closes, make sure you don’t leave a window open
Earlier this week I attended a local cloud developers group, and I met a gentleman who consults with companies to engage in deep dive forensic examinations of their networks. He looks for the virtual fingerprints of misdeeds, fraud, and misdoings that can be used for e-discovery in legal cases. He essentially gets down to the bits and bytes of how much information flows to certain IP addresses to ascertain whether or not proprietary data has been tampered or stolen.
He confirmed something that I long believed to be true. One of the greatest threats to an organization comes from within. Not everyone who exits a company leaves with a handshake and a gold watch. Often time there are hard feelings; that the employer wronged the former employee and that employee will exact a matter of revenge or feel justified to extract some sort of perceived compensation. This includes everything from …
Step-by-Step: Tired of Tapes? Backup SQL Databases to the Cloud
I think every IT Pro I’ve ever met hates tape backups … but having an offsite component in your backup strategy is absolutely necessary for effective disaster recovery. One of the new features provided in SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 2 is the ability to now backup SQL databases and logs to Windows Azure cloud storage using native SQL Server Backup via both Transact-SQL (T-SQL) and SQL Server Management Objects (SMO).
Backup to cloud storage is a natural fit for disaster recovery, as our backups are instantly located offsite when completed. And, the pay-as-you-go model of cloud storage economics makes it really cost effective – Windows Azure storage costs are less than $100/TB per month for geo-redundant storage based on current published costs as of this article’s date. That’s less than the cost of a couple SDLT tapes! You can check out our current pricing model for Windows Azure Storage on our Price Calculator page.
In this article, I’ll step through the process of using SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 native backup capabilities to create database backups on Windows Azure cloud storage…
GP Strategies Moves infoMaestro to the Cloud
Global performance improvement solutions provider GP Strategies Corporation launched a cloud version of infoMaestro, a medical information solution that reduces compliance risk and enables companies to respond to complex medical inquiries anywhere in the world with a timely, accurate and consistent answer. GP Strategies will be showcasing this new solution at the DIA Medical & Scientific Communications Annual Forum March 18-20, 2013 in Phoenix, AZ.
With today’s information-driven, global economy, new challenges are presented for medical information authors and specialists. The number of medical information inquiries continues to rise, and unique questions require more collaboration than ever. With content stored in diverse internal and external systems and collaborators in different locations, the process for assembling response packages in a timely manner is becoming increasingly complex. For the past 12 years, GP Strategies’ infoMaestro on-premise product has supported the need for quick response package creation and delivery. The cloud version of infoMaestro addresses the need in the market to accommodate small to medium-sized pharmaceutical companies that require a solution with less overhead costs and complexity, while still improving response times and streamlining content.
Scott Metker , GP Strategies Chief Software Architect, stated, “Cloud-based medical information software is a logical next step for our customers who are looking for solutions that can be deployed flexibly, either for a single region or as a global solution. The infoMaestro cloud offering for medical information is a true, end-to-end solution that provides both inquiry tracking tools as well as a full, global medical library supporting translation and local adoption workflow.”
Innovative Analytics – Changing the IT Landscape
Log analysis is a unique use case that is being leveraged in multiple ways to gain deep insight into activities generated by multiple sources.
A common theme heard in the IT marketplace is that innovative technologies are enabling new insights to be harvested from data. Cloud computing provides the necessary infrastructure that allows smaller organizations to enjoy the value from these insights. As cloud computing becomes mainstream, analytics driven by new sources are leveraged by formation of new partnerships. GE and Google recently announced a partnership for the utility business that integrates Google map functions with GE’s geospatial analytical tools to improve visualization. Any way you look at it, integrating consumer and industrial assets with speed and ease is game changing.
Amazon Makes Virtual Private Clouds Its Default
Amazon has dropped more crumbs in the forest to entice the enterprise to ultimately abandon its own infrastructure for its doubtlessly cheaper public cloud.
It’s making its Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), which used to be separate service, a free default.
It said in a blog that the announcement was so important “If you use or plan to use Amazon EC2, you need to read this post!”
Undoubtedly VMware and other cloud merchants won’t care much for this turn of events.
Amazon is starting what it called its EC2-VPC roll-out in its regions in Sydney (Asia-Pacific) and São Paulo (South America). It’ll branch out elsewhere in the next few weeks.
A Pivotal or Cloudy Moment for EMC and VMware?
EMC and VMware (who is majority owned by EMC) have announced a new joint initiative called Pivotal (read more here and here) as part of their software defined data center strategies and architecture.
Is this a pivotal moment for both EMC and VMware signaling that they will be going head to head (via their new initiative based company) with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, HP Cloud services, Rackspace and a long list of others?
Part of the answer to that question would be based on what is meant by going head to head, and which aspects of those services. For Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) along with big data analytics related I would say yes. In terms of other Cloud AaaS or SaaS or IaaS probably not as much so at this time.
Soto: “Cloud does not absolve anyone from common sense IT”
CloudTech speaks with Juan Carlos Soto, Informatica senior vice president, cloud evangelist and member of the TechAmerica Foundation’s US Deployment of the Cloud, about iPaaS, SLAs and keeping secure in the cloud.
The difficulties around cloud security may be improving, but users don’t help themselves if they’re not street smart about their IT usage.
That’s according to Informatica senior vice president Juan Carlos Soto, who said that cloud computing shouldn’t “absolve anyone from common sense IT”.
“Cloud has tremendous benefits around cost savings and agility, and typically it’s not the absolute short term cost – it’s all the other benefits that go along with it,” Soto told CloudTech, adding: “Despite all those benefits, cloud does not absolve anyone from common sense IT good practices.
“For example, even as an individual user, we should back up our data. As an individual user, we should put …
The death of the enterprise boundary and the evolution of edge security
Across the globe, organisations in all industries are facing the increasingly complex job to control the security and privacy of their data – wherever, however and whenever it is accessed. In one way or another, this has always been a challenge for enterprises.
However, as big data, cloud services, mobile tech and social networks converge in the enterprise space, organisations today are under greater pressure than ever before to keep up with the impact this is having on security.
Staying on top of changing security needs
There has never been a more challenging time for business to stay on top of the security agenda. Meeting new information security challenges, whilst keeping employees happy and making the most of the latest tech innovation is a fine balance.
Gartner recently brought this into focus, predicting that by 2017, 40% of enterprise contact information will have leaked into Facebook via employees’ increasing use of …