Too often, Information Technology leadership lives in its own world, far removed from business decision-making. This can result in IT being an easy target for blame. If everything goes well, IT is a high-spend cost center. If things go poorly, then IT isn’t doing its job. Non-strategic IT departments are too often seen as the bad guys—They are an obstacle, a process-loving bureaucratic group that slows everything down…Other departments must find a way around IT in order to launch those pet projects quickly. Now you, the CIO, are caught in a downward spiral, spending more time fighting political battles, less time addressing your organization’s immediate tech needs and zero time planning for the future. The IT Ops team is in a constant scramble to keep up, overburdened with administrivia and maintaining uptime. In this bleak picture, IT isn’t exactly a potent weapon in the battle for innovation.
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Think Through Your Cloud Plans – Or Else
Enterprise IT has a disturbing tendency to get excited about technology rather than architecture and planning.
According to David Linthicum, this sorry state is quite evident as cloud computing begins to take hold in the standard IT technology arsenal.
“The fact of the matter is that there are two worlds. One involves the hype and good feelings about next-gen IT, such as cloud computing, that tells us the technology itself will save us from the mistakes of the past. Then there’s the world of planning, architecture, and design that makes the technology actually useful – despite IT’s aversion to this crucial stage,” Linthicum writes.
The problem is not the fault of hyped technology, nor of those whom build and sell it. In many cases, the hyped technology works. Cloud computing is no exception.
Gartner Highlights the Importance of Third-Party Validation
Gartner recently published a report that highlights the growing importance of Cloud Access Security Brokers – solution providers that offer unified cloud security platforms. This solution category includes a new class of products that Gartner terms Cloud Encryption Gateways, which encrypt or tokenize sensitive information before it leaves an organization’s firewall. These solutions, if designed properly, allow organizations to maintain control of sensitive data since they replace the original “clear-text” values with indecipherable replacement values in the cloud. Businesses are adopting these solutions to address issues raised by data residency requirements and data privacy regulations driven by a host of industry compliance mandates. In addition to enabling organizations to satisfy the data protection needs, products like those from PerspecSys also preserve the user experience with the SaaS application (such as Salesforce.com or Oracle CRM). With PerspecSys, critical functionality like Search is retained even when strong encryption (e.g., FIPS 140-2 validated modules) or tokenization is used to protect the data being sent to the cloud.
Mature Maneuverings in an Immature Cloud Climate
Has cloud computing matured yet? This is of course the $64,000 question and if we knew the answer to this poser we would all be a lot clearer on the general ‘state of the virtualized multi-tenant nation’ than perhaps we are today.
What we see happening at the coalface of average company X may not be exactly in line (yet) with the general shape of the big vendors’ roadmaps. But if the industry gets it right architecturally, then surely there can be little doubt as to whether the average firm will get pulled along into the slipstream of cloud innovation momentum.
Redefining the Cloud: Blurring the Lines Between Virtual & Physical Cloud
There’s lots of talk today about the “cloud” today. But what exactly is it? Some may argue that the cloud is just marketing hype – a buzzword for a broad range of solutions being billed the latest, greatest trend that everyone is trying to exploit. Others – who oftentimes have a vested interest in a single product – may try to narrowly define the cloud as mandatory technical reference architecture comprised of a specific virtualization software residing on a particular hardware platform.
But, in reality, the cloud is something in between those two extremes. It can be a combination of virtual, physical and hosted solutions that give users capacity on demand from a pool of computing resources. It should deliver scalability and flexibility, and offer self-provisioning and management. And you should only have to pay for what you use.
Team File Sync & Share Solution for OpenStack
Earlier this month, Rackspace announced the release of Rackspace Private Cloud Software, powered by OpenStack and code-named Alamo. The new offering is designed to make it easy for organizations to install, test and run a multi-node OpenStack-based
Amazon Web Services Announces Amazon Glacier
«Amazon Glacier changes the game for companies requiring archiving and backup solutions because you pay nothing upfront, pay a very low price for storage, are able to scale up and down whenever needed, and AWS handles all of the operational heavy lifting required to do data retention well,» said Alyssa Henry, Vice President of AWS Storage Services, as Amazon Web Services today announced Amazon Glacier.
Cloud RFP: Hybrid Cloud Custom Solutions
Hybrid Cloud Custom Solutions is the channel partner program that underpins our Sales Consulting Service for Cloud Providers. This combines the sales best practices of Solution Selling with an integrated portfolio of leading Cloud capabilities and professional services, and is underpinned by the same body of knowledge used for our Cloud RFP service for end-user buyers.
Cloud Computing: Rackspace Moves into Apps; 100% SLAs Pledged
After years of supplying infrastructure one way or another, Rackspace is going to go after the nub of all computing: the application.
The move will give it a new way to sell.
It’s starting by extending critical services to Adobe CQ web content management customers on the so-called “open cloud” using a new version of the key software that works on hybrid and dedicated clouds.
It’s no idle pick. Rackspace’s largest order ever was recently for CQ, the foundation of Adobe’s Web Experience Management (WEM) solution, according to VP of Global Enterprise Solutions Robert Fuller, the head of the responsible unit Rackspace set up at the beginning of the year. Fuller says there’s more customer demand behind that plum contract and Adobe is a “willing partner.”
ERP 2.0 Is Here to Conquer SMBs
BizSlate.com just launched the beta of its innovative Software-as-a-Service supply chain solution that empowers small and mid-sized companies to compete on the global stage. BizSlate ERP comes with a host of features that cut order processing time by up to 90 percent and let wholesale and distribution companies monitor and quickly diagnose operational issues at a fraction of the cost of conventional enterprise-resource-planning solutions. We had some questions for CEO Marc Kalman.
Small businesses are hungry for someone to solve their biggest supply chain problems. We feel BizSlate offers something special. Something that no other ERP for small distribution businesses offers. Other ERPs are either too complex and cost prohibitive, or if affordable they offer businesses little or no ROI. It is not surprising that 50% of small distribution businesses continue using QuickBooks and spreadsheets even though they have clearly outgrown it and need something more. Working with our customer steering committee, we’ve smashed the mold of old school traditional ERPs, and incorporate fresh ideas that coincide with the way small distribution companies operate their businesses. We give them power…we give them efficiency…we give them intelligence…and we do this with a very easy to use, intuitive interface. Word spreads fast when you finally solve the problems small businesses have been coping with for years.