IBM has developed technology which will allow clients to move data between clouds and backed up whilst avoiding the dreaded vendor lock-in, it has been claimed.

A press release on the IBM website explains how the Armonk firm’s patent pending invention enables a “cloud of clouds” theory – the idea that a series of clouds can offer greater protection against outages and data loss than any single cloud.

This is alongside a software toolkit developed by IBM which allows storage systems to access third party private and public clouds.

“Our cloud of clouds invention can help clients avoid service outages and security incidents that impact the reliability and security of individual clouds,” Evangelos Eleftheriou, IBM fellow, said.

He added: “We are adding multiple levels of redundancy and reliability by making cloud migration and backup easier and faster than is currently possible.”

Pivotally, the solution uses object storage to target data …

As more business applications move to the cloud, security seems to be top-of-mind for all concerned parties. Also, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work trend, along with more smartphones and tablets that require wireless connectivity in the workplace, has increased the level of concern for many IT managers and executives.

Keeping business systems safe and protecting the data that they hold has never been more difficult to achieve, according to the latest market study by Ovum. The typical corporate ICT environment continues to be threatened by security attacks — ranging from opportunistic hackers using pre-built tools through to targeted, well-resourced, state-sponsored cyber activity.

Ovum believes that online attack volumes will continue to rise and no business should consider itself immune — since any type of organization can be targeted by hackers. Even the best-protected government, military and business systems have already been breached, and in 2014 they will to be …

It’s official: virtualisation has made it. On the Gartner Hype Cycle for Cloud Services, it has scaled the “peak of inflated expectations”, traversed the “trough of disillusionment” and is inches from the much coveted “plateau of productivity”.

For now, it remains on the “slope of enlightenment” — but it’s a technology right on the cusp of an evolution that will expand its influence further than ever.

The core concept of virtualisation, and its promise to increase efficiency by severing the link between hardware and software, has become common in informed businesses. Indeed, there’s now a huge range of examples, among a broad set of industries that demonstrate how to quickly take advantage of it and hit the ground running.

However, exploiting its full potential is not always trivial. Some of the larger and more enthusiastic businesses out there have the resources and expertise to write their own tools …

When infrastructure-as-a-service is referenced, we are generally discussing virtual server offerings. Bare metal challenges that assumption, having become a major part of how hybrid clouds blend public, dedicated, and private virtual infrastructure.

Gathering Clouds’ contributor and cloud computing expert David Linthicum notes: “…virtualization and cloud computing are not mandatory partners.”

Indeed, Linthicum’s point should not be ignored. Too often, virtualization is confused for cloud, leading to the wide spread “cloud washing” ideology that has occurred over the last few years. Many companies suffer as a result; gaining the agility that virtualization delivers for infrastructure management but gaining none of the cost and performance benefits that true clouds can deliver. Linthicum continues to mention:

“It’s a fact that virtualization is not a requirement when creating cloud computing services, but it is helpful to those who manage the service. “

So when considering leveraging bare metal as part of a cloud …

Cloud healthcare specialist ClearDATA has announced the conclusion of its series B round of funding to the tune of $14m, expanding its opportunities to provide cloud technology in the health industry.

The company, which describes itself as “exclusively dedicated” to healthcare in the cloud, has a solution which is approved by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and serves over 300,000 healthcare professionals.

The investors in the second round of funding included usual suspects Excel Venture Management and Norwest Venture Partners, as well as crucially the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, which is the company’s strategic investor.

Darin Brannan, ClearDATA CEO, said in a statement: “The IT demands on healthcare organisations are greater than ever – and they will continue to grow as big data and analytics take hold in the industry.

“Our investors recognise the escalating need for hosting and services in the cloud that can help …

Madan Sheina, Lead Analyst, Software – Information Management

Data integration continues to loom over organizations looking to move their applications and data into the cloud. With the announcement of the latest platform iteration of the cloud strategy it embarked on several years ago, Informatica continues to address the challenges facing these organizations.

Informatica Cloud Winter 2014, unveiled earlier this month and now generally available, is a major step forwards that (rightly) recognizes that integration across hybrid cloud spans data, services, and processes. Informatica continues to present a clear, disciplined, and comprehensive platform-driven roadmap approach.

Built on Vibe to span integration processes across data, services, and lines of business

Cloud Winter 2014 represents a new release, but not necessarily a brand-new product. It is in fact built on Informatica’s existing Vibe embeddable virtual data machine, announced this summer as a way to create integration logic (mappings) once, and run it across …

Time-to-market, more flexible support for business strategies by IT, and faster response time to competitive conditions are combining to accelerate cloud computing adoption today.

Of the enterprises I’ve spoken with over the last several months including several Fortune 500 corporations to small businesses just beginning to evaluate cloud-based CRM and manufacturing systems, one message resonates from all of them: they need enterprise applications that keep pace with how fast they want to move on new business strategies.

The latest round of cloud computing forecasts reflect the urgency enterprises have of making IT a foundation for strategic business growth.

The following is a summary of the latest cloud computing forecasts and market estimates:

• Public cloud spending will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.4% from 2011 to 2016, accounting for 17% of all IT product send by the end of the forecast period.  46% of all …

It’s that time of year again, with every analyst firm falling over themselves to predict what will happen in IT during the next 12 months.

IDC is no different, issuing the first of its 2014 predictions earlier this week with a straightforward claim: all the big players will make increased investment in cloud, mobile and big data because of the huge emergence of the “third platform” for IT management.

The term ‘third platform’ relates to the technology built on the pillars of cloud, mobile, big data and analytics – and the net result means a 5% growth in global IT spending year on year, to $2.1tn.

IDC has been banging this drum for several years, predicting last year that acceleration to the third platform will “shift into high gear”. Now, IDC claims that any major vendor not adopting this strategy will be at a competitive disadvantage.

Digging deeper into …

Fredrik Tunvall, Analyst, Software – Information Management

At its recent Software Analyst Insights summit in Stamford, Connecticut, IBM gave analysts an in-depth look at the products and underlying strategy of its extensive business analytics (BA) portfolio. A product that caught Ovum’s eye is IBM’s recently announced visual data discovery tool, codenamed “Project Neo.” The solution is the result of IBM Labs coalescing some of the company’s latest in-memory database, analytics, data visualization, and design initiatives.

IBM aims to attract nontechnical business users

Business analytics is front and center for IBM. Investments of nearly $20bn into R&D and M&A activity have left IBM with an impressive (and extensive) list of BA solutions. However, IBM has been somewhat underrepresented in the increasingly competitive market of visual data discovery solutions. Vendors such as Tableau, Tibco Spotfire, and QlikTech have led the way with intuitive solutions that have attracted a …

Google has announced general availability of its Compute Engine IaaS platform, with the search giant aiming to play alongside the likes of Amazon and Microsoft in infrastructure as a service.

The service was available to developers and as a preview for companies to sign up back in May. Now, it’s been fully launched – and the Mountain View giant hasn’t set the bar too high with a 99.95% SLA.

CloudTech readers will know full well the issues with claiming a 100% service agreement – so this, alongside 24/7 support, comes as refreshing news. Amazon’s EC2 and S3 clouds come in at 99.95% and 99.9% respectively.

Underpinning this step to avoid fallover, Google Compute Engine can be set up so that instances can be automatically restarted in the event of hardware failures or maintenance, meaning virtual machines can be up and running again within minutes.

Google …