As cloud computing continues to materialise and mature in the fabric of today’s IT, one of the primary barriers to widespread adoption is the high proportion of legacy ICT in many companies.

That’s according to the latest survey, this time from NTT Europe polling 300 CIOs and IT decision makers on current trends, barriers and solutions.

56% of those surveyed cited the complexity of their IT layout as the biggest barrier to large scale cloud adoption, with the figure rising to 70% in the public sector.

In some cases, the reason for being so attached to older IT software is financial. 28% of respondents said their legacy systems were too expensive – or valuable – to completely trash.

“[CIOs] expect enterprise clouds today to be able to handle the complexity of their business engine, meet internal and external compliance requirements, and reduce the management burden on in-house IT staff,” the …

When people talk about a hybrid cloud storage solution, it typically means they want to keep using the existing file server. At the same time, they also want to replicate the file server data into cloud storage and make it available to remote users.
Basically, the local employees will keep using the local file server. The remote users will be using the cloud storage. The local file server and cloud storage will be in sync. If the file is changed locally, it is uploaded also to the cloud storage so remote user can use. If remote user changes the file, the change will also propagate back to the local file server.
It serves many purposes. First the local file server and cloud storage are like a backup system, backing up each other. Second, it is a VPN-replacement system, enabling remote users to access files without VPN. Third, it is an access system, it enables mobile users with iOS/Android and Windows Phone devices to access the files and folders.

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“When it comes to cloud, C-level people want to be thinking what it can do for their business and what type of efficiencies it can bring,” stated Chris Kivlehan, VP of Account Management at INetU, in this SYS-CON.tv interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 12th International Cloud Expo, held June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2013 Silicon Valley, November 4–7, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.

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The average CIO doesn’t think with enough clarity and granularity about the type of device used by employees within the corporate data pool. Actually we hope they do. So this statement is posed as more of a question than a definitive judgement, proclamation or observation of any kind.
Let’s put it another way.
Given the “device form factor sprawl” currently being witnessed within the tech industry, CIOs should look more closely at the type of unit(s) being used by employees within the corporate data pool.
This is because different devices lead to different data touchpoints and therefore onward to different security vulnerabilities, data management demands and application maintenance requirements.
Actually the term “sprawl” is unfair. Hardware vendor OEMs and chipmakers such as Intel or Microsoft would call it something like a “widening platform of device types to suit different user requirements and computing styles” one would expect.

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With so many stories about cloud computing, IT outsourcing, hosting, SaaS solutions and managed services, we should all be well beyond the question of whether organizations should be moving their enterprise applications to the cloud. For those companies that have not yet started to move these applications outside of their own four walls or, worse yet, have yet to develop a plan to do so, a window is ever shrinking on your ability to keep up with your competitors. Why? Because unless your value proposition to your customers is managing data centers, connectivity, routers, firewalls, servers, storage, backups, operating systems, databases, applications, etc., you’ll always be a step or maybe even two or three behind cloud service providers that do this day in and day out as part of their core business model.
When an organization moves its enterprise applications to the cloud and it’s done right, the benefits are compelling and real.

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“We have been partnering with salesforce.com for over 10 years and we’ve deployed over 1,800 different projects on their platforms or in one of their clouds. We help customers not only build and design the right systems for their companies, but we stick with them right through launch,” stated Joan Rothman, VP of Marketing at CoreMatrix, in this SYS-CON.tv interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 12th International Cloud Expo, held June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2013 Silicon Valley, November 4–7, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.

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When organizations look to protect sensitive data at rest in the cloud or in transit on the way to it, there are two primary obfuscation strategies most consider – tokenization or encryption. But some enterprises may not know the details of how these methods work or how they differ.
A newer technology, tokenization is the process of taking a sensitive data field and replacing it with a surrogate value called a token. De-tokenization is the reverse process of replacing a token with its associated clear text value.
Encryption uses a cipher algorithm to mathematically transform data. Encrypted values can be transformed back to the original value via the use of a key. With encryption, a mathematical link back to its true form still exists.

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“We’re analytic software. We’re designed to analyze all the supply and demand in an IT environment – virtual environments, clouds,” explained Andrew Hillier, Co-founder & CTO of CiRBA, in this SYS-CON.tv interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 12th International Cloud Expo, held June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2013 Silicon Valley, November 4–7, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.

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Few things in this world are guaranteed, but when it comes to the health of a small business, guaranteeing you’re backed up in the event of a disaster is of the utmost importance.
There are so many ways that cloud computing can streamline a business, yet one real advantage often goes overlooked until it’s too late.
It would be difficult to think of many organizations that could stay afloat for long periods of time where crucial information and technology was unattainable, especially for small businesses.
Following the increasing impact of natural and man-made disasters on the growing data cache required for managing a modern business effectively, it makes sense to think about combating this.
The beauty of cloud computing is it enhances “disaster readiness.” It does this in a number of ways, such as accessing files in the event of a disaster of any kind is usually a lot more speedy than if you needed to get hold of these another way. In some cases you simply would not have stored these anywhere but the potential disaster zone in physically accessible formats. Cloud computing solves this problem by allowing you to get at backed up information quickly and easily.

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“There are a lot of new things happening with Stackato and Private PaaS, and we acquired Appsecute that focused on multi-cloud management and we will be drawing those features into Stackato later on in the year,” explained Jeff Hobbs, CTO & VP, Engineering at ActiveState, in this SYS-CON.tv interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 12th International Cloud Expo, held June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2013 Silicon Valley, November 4–7, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.

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