Virtualization and cloud computing have forever changed how organizations achieve control and visibility over both core IT elements and IT services. Now it’s time to move away from solutions that are not ready to handle the dynamic high rate of change and service delivery in the Cloud. Traditional IT configuration and compliance tools cannot monitor changes that cause compliance violations in realtime.
In his session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, George Gerchow, Director of VMware’s Center for Policy & Compliance, will show you how to capture hundreds of significant changes in Cloud Infrastructure that alter our compliance posture without having to collect data or force manual assessments. To help customers address the fundamental challenge of getting the right information to the right people over an infrastructure that they can trust, VMware has adopted a two-prong approach to ensuring control and visibility for cloud environments. For areas that are fundamental to the deployment of secure, reliable applications in virtual and cloud environments, VMware offers solutions that are purpose built and embedded in the infrastructure. VMware has also raised the bar by providing a new set of Cloud Mission Critical Controls to help customers prioritize configurations as they migrate mission critical applications to Cloud environments. In addition, VMware is enabling a security ecosystem of industry leading security partners to provide a new generation of security and compliance solutions specifically designed for cloud infrastructure.

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Now that could computing has become a mainstream option for secure storage, the few who still publicly question its security are having a harder time finding an audience.

Corporate accountants and executives love any idea that saves money, and their aversion to risk dwindles each time another big company jumps on the cloud bandwagon.

And there are plenty of IT managers who are happy to pass on the responsibility of maintaining servers for data backups if the executive team is open to a different solution.

The big drawback to cloud computing, at least in my opinion, is that you can only outsource responsibility to a certain level before the risk becomes intolerable.

And the question that very few corporate leaders are asking is: what happens when a failure occurs?

In this modern era where companies spend endless resources on consultants and lawyers to pinpoint blame, a case of “cloud collapse …

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) represents a complete preintegrated platform offering for the development and operation of general purpose business applications. A fully preintegrated and standardized platform – offered in a multitenant mode as a managed service – means much less manual effort than installing and configuring middleware components in on-premise servers.
Enterprise architecture patterns and framework changed heavily during the last decade, the software / platform / framework upgrades eat up the major chunk of it budgets and leaving relatively smaller portion for business innovation.
However, due to the support for Java EE full implementation and open standards along with extended support for common relational databases, Redhat Open Shift provides a better option for porting existing Java EE applications to Cloud.

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I remember thinking as a 22-year-old just out of college that I would be able to make wise business decisions because I’d read Plato’s Republic. Even studied it in a Classics class, no less. Such is the hubris of youth, or at least of mine.

I’m drawing an analogy here with my question in yesterday’s piece about how to go about creating a specialized cloud-computing college degree.

A quick review of some CS departments in the US finds requirements that include many semesters of programming, a few of software engineering (including working with frameworks), and some new-fangled, specialized courses for developing mobile apps. An intro to cloud computing can be found as a special topic here and there.

Would it be beneficial to education, IT, and humanity if a more-or-less standardized cloud-computing regimen were to emerge? And if it did, would it create a new generation of IT employees who thought they were now able to drive an enterprise-wide cloud strategy because they’d taken a course in RESTful services?

Actually, CS students should probably be required to read Plato’s Republic to get a grasp on some of the ethical dilemmas they’ll face with the use of the technology they design and deploy. Sun co-founder Bill Joy would routinely cite The Greeks when talking about how he approached his work.

What does it take to become proficient with cloud? Does it truly require a lot of experience – seeing what can and does go wrong, understanding past approaches that caused past problems – in addition to getting up to speed on the different programs and environments one will encounter with cloud? How much can be taught at the undergrad level? What courses should be included, even if the newly minted grad cannot quite yet be deemed a cloud guru?

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Cloud in a box is the ultimate oxymoron. Purchasing new infrastructure is both costly and time-consuming, which defeats the purpose of moving to the cloud in the first place. However, there are ways to build highly available and highly secure private or public clouds that leverage your existing infrastructure investments while removing the inherent availability and security risks that cloud introduces. For instance, IT organizations need to consider the ramifications of keeping the entire multi-tiered business service that runs across virtual and physical infrastructure, highly available and protected even in the face of a disaster.
In their session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, VR Satish, VP and CTO for the Security and Availability Management Group at Symantec, and Dan Graves,Cloud CTO at Symantec, will discuss what is needed to build a highly available, resilient, safe and compliant cloud that keeps costs in check and provides IT services at the speed required by your business.

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After swinging back and forth like a garden gate in the face of online criticism, Amazon finally decided it would let customers who don’t want ads on their widgets opt out if they pay an extra $15 for the new Kindle Fires it brought out last week. Amazon is using ads to keep the price of the tablets between $199 and $499 less than iPads. Ad-free Kindle e-readers cost $20 more. The company claims from its e-reader experience that “very few people choose to opt out.” Oh, by the way, it appears the high-end Kindle, due to ship November 20, doesn’t have FCC approval yet probably because of the skinny newfangled 4G modem Amazon designed for it.

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Right off the bat, I know the title sounds like it’s all connected but they are only slightly related so I’ll give you the option of dropping out now. Still here? Cool. I’ve been traveling over the last couple weeks and stories catch my eye along the way that I probably would’ve written about but didn’t. Until now. Besides it’s always fun to roll up a few stories in one to get back on track.
TVs are becoming cutting edge multimedia devices that reside on your living room wall. You can stream movies, browse the web, check weather, plug in USBs for slideshows/video, play games, home network along with simply catching the latest episode of your favorite program. This article from usatoday.com talks about many of the internet enabled TVs and their capabilities. For instance, some TVs are now including dual-core processors to make web browsing more enjoyable since many TVs don’t have the processing power to load web pages quickly, or at least what we’re used to on our computers. Also coming out are TVs with screen resolutions four times greater than full HD screens – these are the 4K sets. These new 4K sets apparently has dampened any lingering 3D enthusiasm, which seems waning anyway. In addition to TVs, other appliances are getting smart, so they say. There are new refrigerators, air conditioners, washers, and dryers which are all app-controlled. Users can turn them on and off from anywhere. I know there are mobile ‘apps’ but it would be a easy transition to start calling our appliances, apps also. Close enough. How’s the clothes cleaning app working? Is the food cooling app running? I’ve mentioned many times that while all this is very cool stuff, we still need to remember that these devices are connected to the internet and subject to the same threats as all our other connected devices. It’s only a matter of time when a hacker takes down all the ‘smart’ refrigerators on the East Coast. I also think that TVs, cars and any other connected device could be considered BYOD in the near future. Why wouldn’t a mobile employee want secure VDI access from his car’s Ent/GPS display? Why couldn’t someone check their corporate email from the TV during commercials?

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Big Data and Web applications are putting serious pressure on the transactional performance, availability, and size of relational databases, and nearly everything is changing about app development and deployment. Companies are putting an emphasis on agile and lean development and increasing the shift to private, public and hybrid clouds.
In his session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, Sergei Tsarev, CTO and Co-Founder of Clustrix, will discuss the issues around Legacy relational databases currently representing the weakest part of the cloud stack, and how companies are using the scale, availability or simplicity needed from their cloud databases. He will discuss new DBaaS solutions for Cloud-Hosted Big Data Apps, citing case study examples of companies with seasonally variable business that can now focus on innovation and building more interesting customer-facing functionality.

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