For many enterprises, moving business processes and data to the cloud has become a next step for improving both operational and technological capabilities. The cost savings and efficiencies created by utilizing cloud applications continue to increase, including opportunities for more business functions to be put on the cloud. For those currently using the cloud or planning to begin or expand cloud adoption, a growing concern is cloud security and specifically this question – “Why is cloud security such a big challenge?”
The challenges of cloud security begin with an enterprise’s need to keep control over their data and to ensure that their data is kept private and protected. Whether it is outsourced data storage or the use of popular cloud SaaS applications, putting more data in the cloud inherently means more opportunity for unwanted or unauthorized access to that information. But cloud adoption by the enterprise is simply too compelling because of its business benefits, so enterprise security and IT teams have to search for ways to secure their data in the cloud while permitting access and use by legitimate corporate users.

read more

Anytime we in IT encounter a new paradigm, our natural reaction is block, control, stop. In many shops, our first response is to prohibit users from accessing websites that the company has not approved, including cloud-based software, mobile applications, and other “bring your own apps” candidates. Instead, we ought to put more of our attention on words like partner or enable. That’s what IT is really striving for.
IT managers want to serve their company’s needs and to enable employees to do their job better. But the perception of IT is that is has been on a long trajectory towards (let’s face it) irrelevance.

read more

No student has walked away from a cloud computing course knowing less about the role, impact, and potential of implementing cloud in nearly any organization. Normally, when we think of technical-related training, images of rooms loaded with switches, routers, and servers might come to mind. Cloud computing is different. In reality, cloud computing is not a technology, but rather a framework employing a variety of technologies – most notably virtualization, to solve business problems or enable opportunities.

read more

Software Defined Networking and overall network programmability concepts are becoming top of mind for many cloud providers seeking to drive efficiency and simplicity into their Data Center switching fabrics.
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, David Klebanov, Technical Solutions Architect at Cisco Systems, will review various deployment options leveraging centralized and distributed control plane models to help guide organizations in their journey to build next-generation programmable Data Center switching fabrics for the cloud.
David Klebanov is Technical Solutions Architect at Cisco Systems.

read more

The choice to move to cloud is becoming clearer every day. But the choices within that decision are becoming more fraught as the marketplace develops and a wider selection of delivery models and platforms.

The onus is also increasingly falling on CIOs to be the chief decision makers with regards to how cloud should fit within the organization.

Here are a few measures for how to best determine what cloud will be best for your business.

The technology

The component pieces of the cloud provider’s technology need to sync with what you are already working with, as well as what you will be looking to integrate going forward.

One of the great things about cloud platforms (generally) is that there is a degree of interchangeability since the technology is treated as a commodity. However, depending on whom you choose to go with, this is going to be easier or …

Cloud Computing – let’s take a deep breath and level set for a minute. Public or private? Reduce IT cost & complexity or drive new business innovation? Is cloud always less expensive? What is meant by an “open” cloud? What is a cloud ecosystem? Cloud and the nexus of technology? The cloud promise has evolved so quickly over the last 5 years, that embarking on the cloud journey can be a challenging task in itself. While many companies are enjoying tremendous value and innovation from adoption, others are still mapping out their unique roadmap.

read more

Conventional wisdom is that the fastest connection between two points- for example between today and tomorrow – is a straight line. But just like in aviation this is not necessarily true in cloud computing. First because cloud computing is not one thing (not one dot on the map) it is a conglomerate of many different types of services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, BPaaS) each with its own characteristics and following its own timeline.

read more

According to a report from Verizon, enterprises are increasing their average monthly cloud spend by 45% with cloud environments becoming “more mainstream”.

The overall sense from the Verizon report, which was conducted between January 2012 and June 2013, was that the enterprise cloud was becoming more and more critical to business strategy.

Cloud-based storage capability went up by 90% during this time, with cloud-based memory usage increasing 100%.

The report examined the current state of the enterprise cloud, quoting a survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit whereby almost half of professionals evaluate cloud models over traditional software when it came to investments.

Verizon puts this down to six primary reasons: cost; provisioning speed; compliance; focus; performance and accessibility.

Despite this however, the report notes the majority of enterprises are in “phase one” of cloud adoption, only risking low commodity items. Yet the future, as one would expect, is hybrid.

“Hybrid …