A recent paper on distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks by Neustar concludes that only cloud-based DDoS solutions offer a comprehensive defence against increasing attacks that are expected to surge by as much as 40% in 2012.

“Cloud solutions provide the bandwidth (as measured in Gbps) to absorb today’s massive network layer attacks, plus the technology diversity and processing power to handle application-layer and high packets-per-second strikes,” said Neustar.

Neustar agrees that all on-premise hardware, even at best, has limits.  At some point the sheer volume of traffic will clog network connections – before on-premise perimeter equipment even gets involved!

“Network-bandwidth attacks of 10Gbps or more were still 15% of all DDoS incidents Neustar mitigated. More than one out of 10 attacks came with hurricane strength, enough to overwhelm bandwidth and quickly cause an outage.”

Additionally, high packets-per-second (PPS) attacks grew in popularity.

“Instead of exhausting bandwidth, these drain processing …

Cloud computing continues to gain acceptance amongst enterprises and as a result, software vendors are working hard to meet the need.

Specifically, enterprise IT has had to address the challenges concerning security, integration with internal applications, performance, and reliability of the cloud.

With the combination of maturing platforms, generational and cultural shifts, and compelling economics, cloud-based solutions are fast becoming the undeniable choice for nearly all future non-core technology purchases. Once adopted, the cloud is inherently scalable and can be up and running within hours, designed specifically for an organisation’s needs. 

From our own research and insights into Axway customers, we predict that by 2014 the cloud will be the primary operating model for enterprise IT organisations, bringing unprecedented change to IT and a competitive advantage to early adopters. Put simply, by 2014, cloud computing will ultimately redefine the role of enterprise IT itself.

So, with cloud adoption taking …

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has been on the warpath for most of this week after announcing the data giant’s move to the cloud, in what was modestly described in the press releases as “the most comprehensive cloud on the planet Earth”.

Oracle Cloud had according to Ellison been seven years in the making, which perhaps explains its comprehensive nature, but the credentials sound pretty good at face value.

Delivering software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS), Oracle Cloud’s main strength is what they call “functionally rich, integrated, secure, enterprise cloud services” – in other words, a fully-fledged cloud system which incorporates 100 self-service applications and platform services.

The announcement also explained the cloud’s various facets, such as allowing users to schedule their own upgrades as and when, and claiming to be the only cloud which avoided business process fragmentation.

The numbers were impressive too …

Samsung have revealed that they will be offering a cloud-based gaming service which they will build into their flagship 7000 series HDTVs.

This is a big step forward for an idea that has been around for quite a while now. The back-end infrastructure is to be performed by Gaikai as they’ll provide cloud-based games from a number of high profile companies, including Electronic Arts.

Samsung have also said that the cloud service will support wired and wireless gamepad controllers from several manufacturers. PlayStation and Xbox owners should, therefore, have no trouble connecting to Samsung’s cloud gaming service.

The cloud service is currently entering beta testing and it has been announced that mouse and keyboard support is being considered, however it will not be available when the service first launches.

Ethan Rasiel, Samsung’s public relations director, has been explaining that only 2012 models of the 7000 series TVs …

According to Axway, the cloud is expected to become the primary operating system for enterprise by 2014.

Among other points, Axway explains that cloud in 2012 has become «serious» as the «hype is over», with strong adoption of mobile devices in 2013 resulting in cloud dominating enterprise IT organisations in 2014.

Paul French, Axway vice president, said: «It is important that [enterprise IT organisations] assess their organisation’s needs in relation to which type of cloud to adopt, how they will meet their service level agreements, what enterprise application stores or marketplaces they will develop or adopt and the service management role that the IT department will play in the adoption.”

This handy infographic goes through their forecast step by step, quoting supporting research from Gartner, IDC and Forrester in the process.

Mobile. Cloud. Social Media. These have been the juggernauts most commonly referenced in the IT industry over the last few years. But, there is one other term brewing that is receiving almost as much attention: Big Data.

According to Pat Gelsinger, EMC president and chief operating officer, when there is an IT problem a real smart administrator would start probing around the network and try to figure out what’s going on.

“Now I want to be able to do that in an automated fashion. That’s an area for Big Data,” he told Information Week recently in an article entitled “EMC President: Cloud’s interesting but not dramatic”.

A huge amount of information is now being collected in remote and onsite cloud datacentres around the world. There is thus a rising need for new software solutions that tells IT leaders what to do when a problem arises or even …

The question of course could be directed to none other than Larry Ellison.   While Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff took the term and made it a cornerstone of their CRM marketing, Ellison and Oracle took umbrage at trying to re-invent an operating model he believed had been around for a while.

At the recent D10 conference, Kara Swisher interviewed him about this famous brush-off of the term cloud computing.

“I objected to people saying, “Oh my God, we just invented cloud computing,” said Ellison.

He also said that while he resisted the term, he did agree consumers and the general public needed a simpler way to understand and use computing resources.    He thought the term was overly hyped and very promising at the same time.

“People said the PC would replace the mainframe. But IBM still does mainframes. PCs are more important than mainframes. I would argue that smartphones are …

Many European companies may be moving to cloud now but they’re two years behind America in terms of cloud adoption, according to research house Gartner.

The analysts have put the difference down to a wide range of problems, including the diversity of Europe’s 44 different nations, the recession and Euro crisis, as well as European privacy rules relating to data protection.

Gartner elaborated upon these “inhibitors” and commented on each one. The report stressed that there were ways of using cloud safely, despite worries about privacy.

Similarly, Gartner noted complex business-to-business (B2B) issues related to Europe’s diversity, stating that because cloud computing was a fast growing business it will subsequently slow down the productivity of those who want to offer cloud services across Europe.

Regarding the EU in general, Gartner commented that while the EU legislative process was extremely secure, it was time-inefficient because of it and …

UK cloud service provider Iomart is centring primarily on big data having posted “strong and solid” figures for the last financial year.

Iomart this week announced a two-thirds increase in pre-tax profits, up to £6.9 million, and a one-third increase in revenue, up to £33.5 million, and according to marketing director Phil Worms the figures were in line with company expectations.

Worms used a football analogy to describe the results, telling Cloud Tech: “We’re delighted obviously, but as with anything you’re only as good as your last result, so we’re now focusing on the next set.

“It’s extremely positive, but the market expected us to deliver,” he added.

Concerning the idea of big data – the transferral of data which exceeds the capacity of conventional databases – Worms stated that it was the “next buzz word” and that it was going to affect everyone in the …

It has been reported that cloud computing is quickly emerging as one of China’s fastest growing industries. The annual rate of growth has been calculated at 40%.

The nation currently accounts for less than 3% of the global cloud computing market share as it was valued at $90 billion in 2011, however with such a rapid growth this is sure to increase.

It has been estimated that China’s cloud computing market is estimated to grow from about 16.7 billion CNY (£1.67 billion) in 2010 to 117.4 billion CNY (£11.7 billion) in 2013, with a compound annual rate of growth of 91.5%.

This represents a staggeringly fast rate of growth in just a few years. Furthermore, by 2015, the Internet Society of China predicts that the Chinese cloud computing market will be worth 1 trillion CNY.

The majority of this growth is to be …