A survey commissioned by Asigra and conducted by TechValidate has found security as the primary concern with storing data in the cloud.

Of the companies surveyed, security (21%) was the biggest concern, followed by location of company data (7%), cost (3%), cloud service provider going out of business (3%) and user error leading to data loss (3%).

There is a reason if these numbers appear particularly low – the top answer for respondents was “all of the above” (59%).

So, evidently, the majority of respondents can’t choose between various cloudy pain points, but of those who can, security worries once again come out on top.

3% selected user error leading to data loss – a pertinent worry, given data recovery expert Kroll Ontrack released its annual Top 10 Data Disasters list, including one man who ran over his camera and another whose iPad slipped into the sea off a Nigerian oil …

It’s been revealed that cloud computing has managed to revolutionise the hotel sector.

This comes thanks to Claudia Harris, event manager of new trade show Hospitality Technology EXPO. It is also expected that cloud hosting will remain an integral part of the industry’s future success.

Ms Harris has previously stated that cloud technology has enabled operations to be much smoother and easier. It has also been financially beneficial as operations are now more profitable for the hoteliers that have adopted it thus far.

Ms Harris has been quoted saying the following: “Cloud technology has revolutionised every aspect within the hotel industry, from hosting the property management system to all sorts of other software solutions, its biggest benefit is it takes all the hardware out of a hotel, which makes such a big difference.”

The main financial benefits have been that there has been a reduction in the maintenance …

Research published by analysts Frost & Sullivan this week has revealed that over half of New Zealand companies surveyed are looking to increase their cloud budgets.

Two in five organisations which use cloud services in New Zealand spend more than 10% of their total IT budget on the cloud, whilst 57% of organisations intend to increase their cloudy budgets in the next 12 months.

As part of its State of Cloud Computing New Zealand 2012 research, Frost & Sullivan examined the usual metrics concerning the cloud – primarily the biggest drivers, concerns, as well as costs.

The research found that software as a service (SaaS) was, unsurprisingly, the most commonly used cloud model, with lower costs, standardisation, and seamless integration with legacy systems cited as the main reasons for SaaS success. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise, as it hits prevalent trends.

Similarly, security was cited as the most important criterion …

Do you know the computer technology saying, garbage data in results in garbage information out?

In other words even with the best algorithms and hardware, bad, junk or garbage data put in results in garbage information delivered. Of course, you might have data analysis and cleaning software to look for, find and remove bad or garbage data, however that’s for a different post on another day.

If garbage data in equals garbage information out, does garbage big data in result in big garbage out?

I’m sure my sales and marketing friends or their surrogates will jump at the opportunity to tell me why and how big data is the solution to the decades old garbage data in problem.

Likewise they will probably tell me big data is the solution to problems that have not even occurred or been discovered yet, yeah right.

However garbage data does not discriminate …

Do you know the computer technology saying, garbage data in results in garbage information out?

In other words even with the best algorithms and hardware, bad, junk or garbage data put in results in garbage information delivered. Of course, you might have data analysis and cleaning software to look for, find and remove bad or garbage data, however that’s for a different post on another day.

If garbage data in equals garbage information out, does garbage big data in result in big garbage out?

I’m sure my sales and marketing friends or their surrogates will jump at the opportunity to tell me why and how big data is the solution to the decades old garbage data in problem.

Likewise they will probably tell me big data is the solution to problems that have not even occurred or been discovered yet, yeah right.

However garbage data does not discriminate …

Mike Sapien, Principal Analyst, Enterprise Telecoms, Ovum

In October 2012 AT&T and IBM announced a new strategic relationship that uses the telco’s secure private network to access the tech company’s back-end infrastructure. The goal is to give Fortune 1000 customers access to IBM’s SmartCloud Enterprise+ (SCE+) services with AT&T’s VPN network services. IBM and AT&T plan to launch the new service in early 2013. Either company could take the lead, but it seems likely that IBM will drive these opportunities among its Fortune 1000 customers.

This new relationship should take advantage of the earlier AT&T–IBM partnership, known as “Blue Sky”, and leverage the experience of that relationship. In fact, this latest move should ideally be positioned as an extension of the previous partnership.

With the addition of IBM’s SCE+ services, both players could position the new relationship as a unique …

A cornerstone study into cloud computing in the UK has revealed the key difference in opinion between cloud users and non-cloud users.

The study, from Raconteur Media and written by Mike O’Driscoll entitled ‘Navigating the Cloud’, had a relatively small survey base – just under 250 completed at least part of the survey – but of that number, there was a lot of clout – 84% saw themselves as the key IT decision maker.

Again, software as a service (SaaS) proved itself to be the most mature cloud market. 81% of respondents currently use SaaS, compared to 45% for information as a service (IaaS) and 38% for platform as a service (38%). Crucially, only 5% of respondents had no plans to use SaaS in their company.

This correlates with research from Symform which showed that SaaS “continued to be the entryway” for cloud platforms.

The survey showed less of a grasp for …

As market awareness and adoption increases, so customer confidence and clarity is growing and companies are better able to evaluate the benefits and challenges that big data presents their individual organisations.

It’s not surprising to see that big data is the top IT spending priority in Gartner’s recent global forecast.  These figures correlate with Cisco’s recent CloudWatch survey, which found that Big Data will be an important aspect of IT strategy and is set to increase in importance over the next 12 months.

Big data priorities

Two priorities emerge ahead of others – accessing data in real time and accessing data from multiple devices. It is no exaggeration to say that organisations of all shapes and sizes are experiencing a data explosion and that the IT department is in the eye of this data storm. Real time access to data is not only seen as a critical success …

As cloud computing continues to grow and cloud hosting is adopted by more and more individuals and businesses alike, it has been calculated that the use of cloud hosting can dramatically decrease the amount of carbon emissions produced by each and every business that makes use of the cloud.

Google has calculated that an SME can lower its energy usage by 65%-85% simply by switching to the cloud.

This is thanks to the fact that servers, located elsewhere, will be used for data storage rather than running pollutant in-house servers.

So, here at VI, we got thinking. If every SME around the world made use of cloud computing, could we really go some way to saving our planet from the ever worsening problem of global warming caused by rising carbon emissions?

Click the infographic below to find out:

By Laurent Lachal, Senior Analyst, Ovum Software

In 2013 Trends to Watch: Cloud Computing, we show that cloud computing platforms are increasingly approached not just as technology delivery platforms but as ecosystem hubs for cloud service providers, consumers, and their respective channel partners. These hubs are increasingly data-centric.

Ecosystem services will make or break cloud service providers

From the start Ovum has emphasised that cloud computing platforms are not just technology delivery platforms but are also business platforms.

We have stressed that they need to deliver ecosystem services consisting of marketplace services, business services (for vendors in the marketplace to manage their customers, send bills, and get paid) and community services (for customers to provide reviews and feedback on a vendor and its partners’ services, for all sides to interact with one another via forum, wikis etc.).

History is proving us right: cloud computing ecosystem services are becoming increasingly important …