By Laurent Lachal, Senior Analyst, Software – IT Solutions

Users are unsure of – or have very different views on – what constitutes a private cloud, which makes any survey about the subject rather meaningless.

They approach private clouds from a variety of viewpoints including bottom–up versus top–down, technology versus design, and long-term versus short-term perspectives.

Ovum does not advocate moving from a short-term, technology-centric, bottom-up approach to a long-term, design-centric, top-down approach, but we do believe the latter is more useful than the former.

In the Ovum report, Cloud Computing Needs Service Level Management, Ovum advocates a balanced approach according to specific company requirements and culture, based on a shift from supply-led to demand-led IT.

Look at private cloud from all angles

The bottom-up viewpoint is that of the IT department. It looks at private clouds from a data centre industrialisation, consolidation, and standardisation perspective based on:

• virtualisation technologies (to …

Smartphones are generating new battlefields between those who want to service applications through the cloud and those that wish to distribute them through tightly controlled App marketplaces.

Ironically, it is the Chinese who believe their new mobile OS called Aliyun, built on Linux open source, is the true flag bearer for a new generation of cloud computing applications and websites which will run remotely in Alibaba’s cloud and mainly appeal to a Chinese audience (shortly set to overtake the United States as the world’s largest smartphone user base).

The hardware they chose to launch this assault was Acer, who enthusiastically partnered with Alibaba, only to be reprimanded by Google who claimed the Aliyun mobile OS was merely a knock-off of  the Android platform, currently governed by the Google-initiated Android Open Handset Alliance (OHA).

Google claims Alibaba, in making Aliyun, “forked” the operating system, which is now no longer …

Computer savvy business leaders are aware of the rewards of cloud computing.

However, for those with subscriptions, the benefits are more obvious since they use cloud hosting, receive monthly updates and spot on technical support all at an affordable price point.

Although the government, education and financial industries bask in the glow of cloud technology, there are certain risks to security and issues with downtime.

Still, cloud computing is desirable to many, as evident by the vast majority of companies who have jumped on board the bandwagon. But does it benefit manufacturers?

Cloud Manufacturing

The existing economic climate impacts all businesses, but such conditions mustn’t be allowed to hamper the pursuit of business growth or expansion. Instead, manufacturers need to look for innovative cost-cutting measures that increase profitability. Cloud computing provides such a solution.

That’s good news for today’s manufacturers who must regularly navigate within a global …

Customers are quickly reinventing how they choose to learn about new products, keep current on existing ones, and stay loyal to those brands they most value. 

The best-run companies are all over this, orchestrating their IT strategies to be as responsive as possible.

The luxury of long technology evaluation cycles, introspective analysis of systems, and long deployment timeframes are giving way to rapid deployments and systems designed for accuracy and speed.

CIOs need to be just as strong at strategic planning and execution as they are at technology.  Many are quickly prioritising analytics, cloud and mobile strategies to stay in step with their rapidly changing customer bases. 

This is especially true for those companies with less than $1 billion in sales, as analytics, cloud computing and mobility can be combined to compete very effectively against their much bigger rivals.

What’s driving CIOs – A look at technology priorities

Gartner’s …

Now that could computing has become a mainstream option for secure storage, the few who still publicly question its security are having a harder time finding an audience.

Corporate accountants and executives love any idea that saves money, and their aversion to risk dwindles each time another big company jumps on the cloud bandwagon.

And there are plenty of IT managers who are happy to pass on the responsibility of maintaining servers for data backups if the executive team is open to a different solution.

The big drawback to cloud computing, at least in my opinion, is that you can only outsource responsibility to a certain level before the risk becomes intolerable.

And the question that very few corporate leaders are asking is: what happens when a failure occurs?

In this modern era where companies spend endless resources on consultants and lawyers to pinpoint blame, a case of “cloud collapse …

The banking industry has faced a vast number of challenges recently and continues to do so, particularly with increasing regulations, unhappy customers, strengthening competition and decreasing levels of profitability.

So, in a time full of change, it would seem that banks need to keep up with the times! Cloud hosting can certainly help the banking industry do this…

Modern Demands

As more banks begin to transform their product offerings, channels and customer services to reflect modern day demands, banks will need to enable a more competitive, consumer-focused business model that will also need to be more efficient.

This is where cloud computing comes in.

Thanks to its low cost, high scalability, unlimited processing power, agility, storage benefits and speed, banks will certainly be in a beneficial position if they properly implement cloud hosting.

Some key movements in banks’ use of cloud computing have been identified this week, such as cloud …

A TechSoup Global survey has revealed that most non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are keen to move to the cloud but need to be better informed about its strengths and weaknesses.

TechSoup’s 2012 Global Cloud Computing Survey interviewed over 10,000 NGOs, non-profits and charities and found that many of these companies were unaware they were already using cloud services.

Sound familiar? Well a study from Citrix last month showed that 95% of 1000 Americans surveyed who thought they weren’t using the cloud actually were, so more knowledge on what the cloud encompasses can now be attributed to NGOs, as well as consumers.

Despite this, TechSoup Global – itself a non-profit – noted in its response how many NGOs were utilising the cloud.

The key takeaways from the report are:

• 90% of those surveyed are already using cloud computing, with 53% hoping to move “a significant portion” of their portfolio into the …

The unlimited ability to store data in the cloud is something of a dream come true for organizations that previously struggled to meet capacity requirements and keep up with fast-growing data stores, but lately, some new questions have arisen: How much cloud storage space do you really need? What data should you keep, and what should you throw away?

How can you evaluate your existing storage infrastructure to estimate your cloud storage needs? Answering these questions doesn’t have to be complicated; you just have to ask yourself what your needs are and be honest about the answers.

There are some basic cloud storage capacity planning questions that need to be answered. Rick Cook, a TechTarget writer, outlines the available capacity planning tools available and talks at length about how to best estimate your needs. He recommends asking five simple questions.

·      What data storage capacity planning tools do you have …

Advantage of cloud for smaller businesses “loud and clear”, according to Australia-based research

A survey by Australian cloud software provider MYOB has shown that many SMEs are not taking advantage of the cloud – but those that do experience tangible benefits.

The research, conducted by market researchers Colmar Brunton and commissioned by MYOB, polled over 1000 SMEs and found some intriguing trends:

• Accessing data from any location proved the biggest draw for SMEs migrating (42%)
• Working remotely (28%); reducing IT usage issues (26%) and data protection (23%) also popular
• But 27% of respondents said they didn’t know enough about the cloud to make a decision

Nearly four-fifths of the companies surveyed (79%) said they didn’t use the cloud for business. 14% said they did, while 8% weren’t sure.

The highlights from the research included various quick wins for enterprises. For example, 44% of SMEs in the cloud expected …

By Dr Steve Hodgkinson, Research Director IT, Asia-Pacific

The New Zealand government recently announced an all-of-government cloud computing approach, which features a positive “cloud-first” statement of intent for ICT procurement.

This policy is at odds with the more conservative policy position of the Australian federal government, which, while also aiming to promote cloud adoption, is actually more focused on the supposedly new risks and issues of cloud services.

Australia’s stance is formally “cloud neutral” but, in practice, is “cloud last,” because it lacks a clear vision of the benefits of the cloud model but is very clear about its risks. The contrast between the two country’s positions is subtle but important, because significant barriers to cloud adoption are deeply embedded in the twentieth-century ICT procurement policies and practices of agencies.

While caution is prudent, some degree of positive “cloud-first” leadership and a practical approach to confronting the benefit …