Hostway, a provider of cloud, managed and hybrid hosting services, on Thursday announced the results of a survey the company conducted at Cloud Expo 2013 New York, held June 10-13, and widely attended by IT infrastructure professionals and others focused on Big Data and cloud computing issues. The survey was designed to measure participant perceptions about security, scalability and performance of key services in public cloud vs. in-house hosting environments.
On security issues, survey participants were asked which of the following services is more secure in a public cloud vs. an in-house setting: web servers, database servers, email services, CRM and additional collaboration software. Signaling a significant shift in perceptions, even among audiences generally comfortable with cloud services, 62% of survey respondents indicated that key services are more secure in a public cloud environment.
Monthly Archives: June 2013
What Happens When IT Teams Are Not Acquainted with the Word ‘No’?
Which market has already demonstrated multibillion-dollar revenues (forecast to grow to more than $7.5 billion by 2016), will have a 1.3 billion-strong mobile workforce reliant on it, continues to push the envelope on business model flexibility and innovation, leads the charge on cloud adoption and has a major impact on the way in which companies conduct business with their employees, customers, partners and suppliers? Would you be surprised if I were to say conferencing and collaboration (C&C)?
How many of us were using Web-based conferencing before the term “software-as-a-service” (SaaS) was even coined? C&C providers were doing multiprotocol mashups with public switched telephone network (PSTN) audio, T.120 data and H.323 video before the concept of a Web services mashup even existed. They were also doing billing on behalf of (BoBo) for resellers more than 10 years ago. Today, this market continues to evolve in many areas, including advanced IP audio codecs and noise-canceling techniques, seamless Web control, telepresence, social networking, unified communications and virtual meeting collaboration tools such as virtual, interactive whiteboards. It has also been a market that has exhibited the greatest innovation in pricing, bundling schemes and distribution and partner strategies. For those of us providing billing and compensation for the leaders in this market, we would say, “Yes, tell us something we don’t already know.” For outsiders, all of this comes as somewhat of a surprise even as they cannot imagine a work environment that does not heavily rely on this always-there service.
Convergence & Interoperability Will Define Next-Gen Cloud Architectures
Our more interconnected planet is accelerating the adoption and convergence of next-generation architectures, in the form of cloud, mobile and instrumented physical assets. Organizations that can effectively balance optimization and innovation, will be in a position to leverage new systems of engagement, out maneuver their peers and achieve desired outcomes.
In this 12th Cloud Expo Opening Keynote, Dr. Daniel Sabbah, CTO and General Manager, Next Generation Platform, at IBM Corp, detailed the critical architectural considerations and success factors organizations must internalize to successfully implement, optimize and innovate using next generation architectures.
Oracle & NetSuite Join Clouds to Chase SMBs
The third of the three “startling” alliances that Larry Ellison predicted would happen this week has come to pass.
Failing organic growth Oracle has tied up with Larry’s “other” company, sometime competitor NetSuite, one of the first SaaS companies, predating even salesforce.com by a year thanks to Larry’s nickel.
NetSuite’s specialty is selling cloud-ified ERP to SMBs. By the end of the year, the widgetry will be integrated with Oracle’s human capital management (HCM) software used to manage employees in a combination clearly aimed at Oracle’s new nemesis Workday, started by the folks driven out of PeopleSoft when Oracle bought the place out from under them.
Deloitte Consulting LLP also has a piece of the action. It’s going to start a practice to help customers deploy the widgetry.
The Cloud: The Most Disruptive Approach to DR/BC
Floods, fires, tornados, earthquakes, pandemics, riots, and hurricanes are just a small sample of the potential disasters that threaten businesses almost daily. Throughout my career, I have been responsible for preparing, managing, and rebuilding major communications infrastructure and the businesses they support before, during, and after disasters. Sometimes this was due to devastating natural disasters but most were the more common disasters that visit us every day like burst pipes, public transportation strikes and the extended loss of utilities to one or more locations.
Naturally, businesses are all building good Disaster Recovery and Business Continuance (DR/BC) plans for that inevitable bad day – or are they? According to the Small Business Alliance and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), between 25 and 40 percent of businesses never reopen after a major disaster. With all the cloud-based technology available, this statistic is astonishing and entirely avoidable.
Impetus Reiterates Its Leadership in the Cloud Computing / Big Data Space
Impetus Technologies, a Big Data thought leader and software services and solutions company, recently participated in the Cloud Expo in New York as speakers and exhibitor. The expo remains a major platform of interaction for C-level executives involved in cloud computing, Big Data, and data analysis.
Pankaj Mittal, CTO, Impetus, reiterated the company’s thought leadership in the cloud domain by exchanging views with eminent speakers in a power panel discussion. Mittal shared the stage with senior leaders from Appcore, Dell, IBM, and SOA, brainstorming with them on the topic, ‘Has Cloud Computing Changed IT for the Better?’ The panel addressed the issues and challenges surrounding cloud computing, focusing on the future of cloud.
CoreSite Selects FieldView’s DCIM Solution
“Data center providers like CoreSite need better tools and automation to support their customers,” said Bill Wosilius, Senior Vice President, Corporate Operations, CoreSite, as the company announced its selection of FieldView Solutions as a component in a technology transformation project.
“Data center infrastructure management is our livelihood, and a world-class customer experience is essential to our growth,” Wosilius continued. “Being able to support our customers more efficiently and effectively is a differentiator that enables us to create added value. That’s why our approach to our technology transformation project was to select best-in-class technologies like FieldView and further strengthen our integration.”
Understanding Red Hat’s ManageIQ Acquisition
Cloud Operations Management tools have different functions, starting from monitoring and management to automation of processes through both a virtual and cloud infrastructure. The tools in CloudForums can handle the monitoring, automation and measuring aspects in virtual as well as cloud based infrastructures but at a higher level, managing all these operations is basically about lifecycle management of the service. That involves workload management, transparency of costs and the proper retirement of resources when they have served out their purpose.
Understating the vitality of these functions, Red Hat bought ManageIQ so that these capabilities could be rapidly brought under the CloudForums umbrella. It is interesting to know that Red Hat now supports the ManageIQ EVM products that were already in the market prior to this ManageIQ – Red Hat CloudForums 2.0 merger.
Azure to Support Engine Yard
Microsoft and Engine Yard, the Platform-as-a-Service, announced a strategic alliance Wednesday to deliver a commercial-grade open source-based platform on top of Windows Azure’s on-demand infrastructure.
Engine Yard Cloud will be available in the Azure Marketplace beginning July 31.
It’s supposed to suit everyone from the smallest start-up to the largest enterprise. Developers who use open source languages and frameworks will be able to take advantage of the widgetry to create and deploy modern web and mobile apps more easily.
Engine Yard said it is delivering on its multi-cloud vision by bringing its automation and orchestration, as well as its expertise in open source cloud application development frameworks, to Azure. It’s set to come with an enhanced and modern user interface and advances in its new cluster model supporting applications, databases and load balancers for faster provisioning, configuration and deployment.
Amazon’s AutoRip helps ease consumer transition to the Cloud
Admit it, we all thought the CD was on its way out, and it probably is. Yet if any company wishes to hold on to sales a little bit longer, it’s Amazon.
Today the firm has announced ‘AutoRip’ which offers any physical media you’ve (ever) bought to stream for free from the Cloud.
Whilst many music-lovers have already subscribed to one of the extensive-list of new generation streaming services; such as Spotify, Google Play Music, Rdio, Pandora, Xbox Music, or Deezer. Many still prefer the reliability of a good ol’ fashion disc.
This new service could be the “gateway” for the physical format generation to move online.
Picture the scene – You’ve bought a new CD on Amazon for a camping trip; maybe it’s not been delivered yet, or maybe you’ve left it at home in your hurry to get the kids in the car.
Arriving …