By Laurent Lachal, Senior Analyst, Ovum Software

Cloud computing is an increasingly multi-faceted phenomenon. It continues to quickly evolve not just at private and public cloud levels (and increasingly in the continuum between these two extremes) but also at infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-service (SaaS) levels.

In the Ovum report, 2013 Trends to Watch: Private and Public Clouds, Ovum advises that cloud service providers and consumers need to take into account the latest IaaS developments at network level, get their head around the PaaS market, and understand how – and to what extent – SaaS is evolving into business process-as-a-service (BPaaS).

IaaS is more competitive but bleeding edge at network level

The IaaS market has so far been dominated by VMware and AWS. Ovum expects Microsoft and Google to increasingly make a dent into this domination.

For all players, the network is the next IaaS frontier: increasingly important, but a growing …

The latest round of research data from analyst house Gartner reveals that worldwide platform as a service (PaaS) revenue is on target to hit $1.2bn (£754m) by the end of 2012.

This figure represents an increase from $900m (£565m) from the previous year, and integrates various sub-aspects of the PaaS infrastructure, such as aPaas (application platforms as a service) and iPaas (integration platforms as a service).

Following the prediction through fully, Gartner believes the platform as a service market will hit $2.9bn (£1.8bn) by 2016.

This news appears to confound research last week from Symform detailing the struggle of PaaS compared to the more mature cloud markets of IaaS and SaaS.

The key cornerstone of the Symform report was that 79% of companies surveyed used SaaS, yet 48% had no plans to utilise PaaS in the next 12 months.

It’s no real surprise that SaaS continues …

It has recently been shown that 80% of private businesses involved in foreign trade are small or medium sized businesses and many of these are growing or looking to expand and develop.

Expanding a business however means more people, bigger servers, more complex IT management, more computers and ultimately, more data to manage.

The solution to this is increasingly being seen to be cloud computing with its offerings ranging from dedicated servers, managed hosting and so on.

Small businesses have embraced this new way of facilitating business expansion, using it to control data and finance management. Here are five reasons why small businesses are choosing the cloud:

1. Using cloud servers means that you’ll be getting protection 24/7. Your information will be constantly monitored remotely and companies experiencing power cuts or hacker infiltrations will have their systems and data secure.

2. Cloud servers will simplify your filing system …

By Brad Robertson
CEO, CX

While ‘cloud storage’ is one of the hottest tech buzz terms floating around now, there are still many questions people have about the benefits of having their own online storage accounts.

The more educated you are on your cloud storage provider, the more you’ll feel at ease with storing your files with them.

Here are five things to consider before taking on cloud storage to ensure your service is the most beneficial for you.

1. Make sure your data is secure

   There are two primary areas of security to inquire and demand are secure. First is an in-transit/in-flight/in-motion characteristic – that is, the path the data takes from your device to its destination.

   Think about the bank offering a pick-up and delivery service. They have the most impenetrable vaults at their location, but they send a 10-year-old on a skateboard to come and pick …

A new post from Amazon Web Services’ Jeff Barr has detailed how President Barack Obama’s campaign team utilised the AWS cloud to their advantage.

“The words ‘mission critical’ definitely apply here,” wrote Barr, adding: “With the opportunity to lead the United States as the prize, the stakes were high.”

But how did cloud computing influence the outcome of the election?

The use of technology to influence the presidential campaign has been widely reported, especially in regard to analytics tools designed to alert campaign teams of how voter turnout went in various swing states.

Yet the Republicans’ Orca tool – so named because it’s the only predator of a Narwhal whale, the name of the Democrats’ system – “buckled” for 90 minutes in the final, vital moments of the campaign on Election Day as the system couldn’t cope with the amount of incoming traffic.

The Obama campaign call tool, by …

Laurent Lachal, Senior Analyst, Ovum Software

Cloud computing has emerged as a major disruptive force for both IT vendors and users. It is still very early days, and 2013 will see cloud computing continue to evolve rapidly as vendors and enterprises get to grips with the opportunities and challenges it represents. In the Ovum report, 2013 Trends to Watch: Cloud Computing, Ovum points out that cloud computing is an increasingly crucial IT and business enabler.

Enterprises are slowly coming to terms with it, and vendors are experiencing similar issues as those faced by enterprise users, only on a larger scale. In the meantime, apart from its roles as a user and regulator, the public sector is increasingly focusing on its economy-manager role, and many countries have ambitions to use cloud computing to boost the local economy as they continue to face economic difficulties.

A quick search on Google Trends reveals …

In business, data is currency. It is the oil that keeps the commercial engine in motion and databases are the digital banks that store and retrieve this valuable information. And, according to IDC, data is doubling every two years. But as the overall amount of data grows, so does the amount of sensitive and regulated data. All this data stored by enterprises requires high levels of security. Presently (again, according to IDC) only about a quarter of that data is being properly protected now. Like all currency, data must be protected.

And herein lays a key issue. Too many executives see security as a cost center and are often reticent to invest beyond the bare minimum–whatever keeps the nasty viruses out; whatever is absolutely necessary for compliance. Their thought process is akin to “we haven’t been attacked before…or we don’t have a high enough profile for …

By Roy Illsley, Principal Analyst, IT Software

VMware has been the force behind many of the server infrastructure virtualisation transformations that have taken place in the data centre over the last decade.

The infrastructure virtualization market is now reaching maturity, with about 50% of x86 data centres now virtualised, and VMware needed to extend its solutions to expand beyond server virtualization.

At VMWorld 2012 Europe, more than 8,000 delegates witnessed the shift in emphasis as VMware’s new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, announced the company’s move to become a heterogeneous data centre and cloud management vendor.

The other key announcement, following on from VMWorld US where VMware released the tools needed to build the software-defined data center (SDDC), was the move to provide the management tools needed to operationalize the SDDC. VMware also signaled a change in approach to end-user computing, focusing on the management and governance of applications …

A week after VMware released its Asia Pacific Cloud Index Survey, another report has come up from the Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA) claiming Japan is the most ‘cloud ready’ nation in the Asia Pacific region.

Japan’s ranking is unchanged from last year at number one, with South Korea leapfrogging Hong Kong and Singapore into second place.

Hong Kong and Singapore, according to the VMware survey, were the most cloud-knowledgeable Asia Pacific nations, with nine out of ten IT professionals in Hong Kong claiming to have a strong knowledge of virtualisation and 82% of respondents in Singapore having a strong cloud knowledge.

Elsewhere, Australia slipped three places to 7^th position overall out of 14 nations, mainly due to its poor international connectivity score. Australia only beat New Zealand in connectivity, scoring a meagre 2.7. For comparison Japan scored a maximum 10.0 in this category.

Perhaps surprisingly …