Business standards and compliance services provider SAI Global is benefiting from a strategic view of IT enabled disaster recovery.
When we started to get into DR, we handled it from an IT point of view and it was very much like an iceberg. We looked at the technology and said, “This is what we need from a technology point of view.” As we started to get further into the journey, we realized that there was so much more that we were overlooking.
We were working with the businesses to go through what they had, what they didn’t have, what we needed from them to make sure that we could deliver what they needed. Then we started to realize it was a bigger project.

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Google finally introduced its long-trumpeted cloud-based Google Drive Tuesday hours before Apple released its Q2 results.
Drive happens to compete with iCloud and Apple’s results, which could have been, shall we say, edgy, turned out to be over-the-top.
Drive also competes with Microsoft’s SkyDrive, Dropbox, Box, Amazon’s Cloud Drive and SugarSync.
Google says Drive users will get 5GB of free online storage for videos, photos, songs, files and PDFs that they can upload, create, edit, view, sync, share by way of different rights, collaborate on, get notifications, recognize scanned files, store, search (by word, owner, even some images to a point) and access from anywhere from PCs, Macs and Android devices (Gmail, iPhones, iPads, Chrome OS and Linux to come).

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Traditional middleware is not suitable for the Cloud; it’s simply too complex and it doesn’t provide a pay-per-use charge model.
In their general session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Ash Massoudi, CEO & Co-Founder of NextAxiom Technology, and Sandy Zylka, VP Products & Technology and a Co-Founder of NextAxiom, will discuss a new middleware paradigm for developing and integrating applications: metered, virtualized middleware. The virtualized attribute allows you to easily build and run new applications in the cloud reusing existing on-premise application functionality.
The metered attribute has two aspects: it provides a usage-based charge model for the middleware and it provides a built-in, metered charge model, much like electricity, for your new applications.

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In the early years of cloud computing, the idea was just to get there – to start achieving some of the promised efficiencies. But now, as cloud initiatives mature, the focus has turned to ensuring data security and privacy – no small feat, given the range of threats and global regulations organizations encounter.
In their session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, George Gerchow, Director of VMware’s Center for Policy & Compliance, and Tom McAndrew, Executive Vice President of Professional Services at Coalfire Systems, will cover the security and privacy challenges in a cloud environment.

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While on the road at CloudCamp DC, I had the opportunity to interview long time friend and cloud expert JP Morgenthal (Principal Solutions Architect from EMC).

We talked Clouds, Hybrid, Federation, SaaS and the rise of PaaS, moving toward a services based architecture/economy.

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Venture capitalists devoted $6.9 billion in 2011 to cloud startups, which is an increase of 68% over 2010, according to this InformationWeek article. Author Patrick Houston recommends that enterprises develop a rigorous process for vetting IT cloud tools and vendors now to prepare yourself for the onslaught of new cloud services that will be coming soon.

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Earlier today I interviewed hot Cloud venture Appdirect, a company that offers a white label platform for implementing ‘Cloud Service Brokering’. This is one of the headline R&I focus areas for our road map. On the back of a $3.25m VC deal last year, Appdirect is one of a number of pioneers in this super hot […]

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As cloud-based applications grow and become more pervasive in our personal and business computing landscape, fixed and mobile networks will become even more vital as the platform that enhances the way we live, work, play and learn. Check out our new infographic to learn how region is currently equipped to handle basic, intermediate and advanced cloud services today.

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“All companies, even non-technology companies, have realized they are cloud companies,” says Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite.

“To effectively transition their business to this new model of reaching customers, they need to build their enterprise around an application suite like NetSuite that was designed to support operations in the Cloud Age,” he adds.

NetSuite is not one of the larger cloud players, but did just report record quarterly revenues of US$69.3 million, up 30 percent from a year ago. It shows a positive cash flow and squeezed out profits of $4.1 million in its most recent quarter.

The company had a strong presence in the Philippines, where I was just based for three years, as it tackles a lot of unfun challenges in the financials, ERP, and related spaces. Nelson says the company most recent results are driven by continuing momentum “as companies large and small…(continue a) migration from legacy offerings like Microsoft Dynamics GP/Great Plains, Sage and SAP to NetSuite.”

I like it.

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The latest generation of cloud computing is now capable of addressing the needs of the enterprise mission-critical applications. These applications require computing infrastructure that is secure, optimizes performance, and is highly resilient.
In his Day 2 Keynote at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Henry Fastert, Chief Technologist and Managing Partner at SHI, will highlight how the latest cloud computing designs have evolved in terms of security, availability, and overall service quality to meet the needs of mission-critical applications.

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