IBM Hybrid Cloud Debate: Are Hybrid Clouds the End All Be All?

A hybrid cloud may become the solution as the debate between public vs private cloud becomes so 2013. The industry’s experts will debate on when the hybrid clouds are and are not the be all and end all and if the infrastructure supporting the hybrid clouds really matters. As stated by IBM, “Dynamic hybrid cloud environments are harmonizing computing demands and capabilities – public and private clouds, on and off-premise clouds, and traditional IT environments.”

read more

Moving your law firm’s data to the cloud: Easily said, easily done

This blog post is for informational and educational purposes only. Any legal information provided in this post should not be relied upon as legal advice. It is not intended to create, and does not create, an attorney-client relationship and readers should not act upon the information presented without first seeking legal counsel.

In a profession notorious for being slow to change, cloud-based solutions for many of the traditionally office-based systems like calendaring, matter tracking, remote access to email, document storage, and backup are gaining traction with law firms, especially small and mid-sized law firms.

A recent survey by LexisNexis, a popular legal research and services provider, indicates that half of the small law firm lawyers who responded to their survey were more likely to use the cloud for their practice in 2014 and that more than 70% of attorneys who responded believed their law firms would move aspects of their …

Egnyte Expands Global Operations to Meet Rapid Growth

Egnyte, the provider of the most comprehensive file-sharing platform for the enterprise, has announced its global expansion plans, with the establishment of regional centers in Spokane, Washington and New York, as well as a European headquarters in London and broadened operations in Poland. This expansion will enable Egnyte to meet the rapidly growing global demand for enterprise file sharing.
Egnyte’s revenue has doubled year-over-year for the past two years, and the company expects to more than double revenue ending 2014. Egnyte’s accelerating growth and the rapid expansion of the enterprise file-sharing market overall underscores the need for a platform-based approach that provides complete file sharing, sync, and storage capabilities, and also enables complete control over data and user access.

read more

The Open Compute Project gets down to business

Karen Liu, Principal Analyst, Components

Open Compute Summit V, held last week, was a birthday party for open source hardware. The movement seeks to map lessons learned from open source software to the hardware world. Open Compute Project (OCP) has grown beyond serving the unique needs of its hyperscale founders and playing in the sandbox of open source architecture.

This year’s announcements got down to business, with designs adapted to fit more traditional enterprises. The goal is no longer just to demonstrate new hardware, but to offer a path to migrate from old to new data centers. Two partners, ITRI (Taiwan) and University of Texas at San Antonio, have set up compliance certification labs. OCP appears – despite its anti-standards rhetoric – to be taking the best of the standardization world as well as the open source world.

Time to market is a primary motivation, but standards do have their uses …

Open Source Innovations for Mobile Application Development

Enterprises need an API tier to meet the demands imposed by mobile technology. The impact of next generation of API servers on mobile and middleware development can be equated to the impact J2EE application servers like WebLogic, JBoss or WebSphere had on web development. It enables enterprises to surface business critical data residing in traditional back ends, databases and service tiers on-premises or on the cloud to multi-channel mobile apps.
An API tier is technology “super glue” that ties together endpoints of disparate enterprise systems, then exposing a uniform API to all clients. The clients include web browsers, mobile smartphones, tablets, and wearables. Each has its own set of capabilities and limitations and therefore unique user experiences. An API tier works on top of existing data and services to leverage existing systems in the context of mobile and next-generation clients. It acts as a natural bridge between front end and back end, providing for increased efficiency as well as rapid iteration to meet changing requirements.

read more

Sex, Lies and Acquisitions

Has it really been one whole year since my last post? I suspected I was near that milestone, but it’s still surprising to discover it has been so long. Blogs have a natural ebb and flow, governed by the irregular rhythms of the day job. But this was a pretty big ebb—maybe more accurately described as a catastrophic drought.

Naturally, my absence was not lost on the spammers. That curious breed who prey on dormant blogs left me with a mountain of weirdly unctuous commentary that I needed to shovel out of the way just to get to the front door. But now that I’ve finally worked my way inside, it’s time to turn up the heat, blow out the cobwebs, and get back to work.

read more

Sex, Lies and Acquisitions

Has it really been one whole year since my last post? I suspected I was near that milestone, but it’s still surprising to discover it has been so long. Blogs have a natural ebb and flow, governed by the irregular rhythms of the day job. But this was a pretty big ebb—maybe more accurately described as a catastrophic drought.

Naturally, my absence was not lost on the spammers. That curious breed who prey on dormant blogs left me with a mountain of weirdly unctuous commentary that I needed to shovel out of the way just to get to the front door. But now that I’ve finally worked my way inside, it’s time to turn up the heat, blow out the cobwebs, and get back to work.

read more

Cloud Computing: Impact of Comcast’s Acquisition

COMCAST’s recent $45 billion acquisition of Time-Warner Cable was big news in the Cable TV world, but it should be big news in the area of cloud computing and network diversity.
Instead of looking at COMCAST as a cable TV provider, it is time that we should be looking at it as another alternative to the traditional network carriers like AT&T and Verizon for our data needs both at home and at the business location.
Do you have network redundancy in place in your cloud computing applications? They cannot be considered “mission critical” if you only have them running on one connection to the central office.

read more

A Tale of Two Enterprise Public Cloud Applications

This first person “in the trenches” enterprise Public Cloud story candidly examines the project from inception to delivery. Attendees will hear first-hand the real-world challenges, opportunities, lessons-learned, and what it takes to architect and implement a real-world application in the public cloud.
In his session at 14th Cloud Expo, Brian McCallion, founder of New York City-based consultancy Bronze Drum, will focus on the organizational, cultural, and technical hurdles to designing and implementing a strategic application in the Public Cloud in a regulated industry.

read more

Multisite Fabrics: Distance Does Not Have to Be a Challenge

Not entirely unexpected, the optical capabilities in our switch have provoked questions from customers and potential customers on whether the Plexxi solution could be used to create campus, metro or even long distance multi site fabrics. The answer to that question is a resounding yes, and with the newly introduced switch 2 platform, some of the connectivity options added to that platform make it extremely flexible to do just that.
The whole topic of Data Center Interconnects tends to attract strong supporters and strong opponents at the same time. In a world without constraints, the ability to tie public or private clouds together across distance without losing any of the L2 or L3 capabilities and freedom is very attractive. Virtualized platforms love networks that provide seamless L2 and L3 connectivity from anywhere to anywhere. Virtual machines can be moved around at will without much worry about VLAN and subnet boundaries. The reality of course is that this is not necessarily easy to create or maintain.

read more

The cloud news categorized.