An open cloud must have freely accessible, open application programming interfaces (APIs), the freedom to move data between providers at will and no on-site hardware requirement, according to Alex Williams writing at TechCrunch. 

And an open cloud is federated, meaning that your organization can move data, images and files across multiple cloud environments at will.

These factors make the cloud a perfect platform for storage solutions, especially open-source storage solutions. The cost savings of open-source software and the cost efficiencies of cloud storage software create a “perfect storm” for organizations, bringing greater cost savings, better security, higher quality software and the ability for businesses to avoid vendor “lock-in,” according to Williams.

Whether you’re a corporation, a service provider, a research lab, a university, a major enterprise, a midsized business or an SMB, adopting an open source storage solution and leveraging the support of a global open source community is …

A survey of over 800 US-based IT decision makers from Virtustream in conjunction with independent cloud research firm Neovise has revealed that over half of US enterprise are using cloud computing in one form or another.

54% of those surveyed said they were in the cloud, which certainly indicates an uptake in US adoption. Of that number, three quarters said they used public infrastructure as a service (IaaS) clouds, with 70% using private on-premise IaaS and 65% using private off-premise IaaS clouds.

The main takeaway from the research however centred on the increasing use of hybrid clouds, combining both private and public functionality.

Most notably, larger organisations are more likely to use hybrid clouds. 86% of those surveyed with more than 1000 employees used hybrid clouds, compared to the 59% with fewer than 1000 workers.

In terms of hybrid cloud preferences, there were three scenarios that respondents wanted to see …

Forward-thinking organizations realize that accelerating the speed with which they can deliver new applications and services is critical in making their enterprise more agile – and by extension delivering critical business competitiveness. In order to do so, they must break the cycle that holds many IT organizations captive. In many cases, development bemoans central IT for delays in provisioning development platforms, IT begrudges the Security and Audit teams for the processes and procedures that help create these delays, and these teams are in turn frustrated by the lack of compliance that results in unnecessary audit findings. In the process, Development is often seen as throwing the proverbial pig over the wall – sometimes with more lipstick than other times. When you add to this mix a healthy dose of firefighting and pressure from business units to innovate faster, it’s easy to see how this can become a downward spiral for organizations.

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Health care organizations are moving infrastructure and data to the cloud at a fairly rapid pace. A recent study suggests the cloud computing market in health care is expected to reach $5.4 billion by 2017. Enticing as the cloud is, when dealing with highly sensitive and regulated information, it’s important to proceed with caution.
The good news for pharma companies, biotech firms and research hospitals – organizations most likely to move heavy big data payloads to the cloud- is that there are some security best practices that can protect data at rest in the cloud.

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As the proliferation of the cloud continues, Cloud Protection Gateways are increasingly being discussed as a way to address security issues surrounding cloud adoption. Whatever stage of cloud adoption your organization is in, a thorough vetting of the different gateways available will be important to address key security issues, including data residency concerns, industry compliance and internal security best practices.
Cloud Protection Gateways will be an integral part of your cloud adoption strategy. These gateways are built to intercept sensitive data while it is still physically on the premise of an organization and replace it with a random tokenized or strongly encrypted value. This process renders the data meaningless should anyone attempt to hack the data while it’s in transit, being processed or stored in the cloud. Choosing a provider means trusting that provider’s technological capabilities and soundness.

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There’s no denying the opportunities that Open APIs and Business to Developer initiatives offer today, but for many businesses APIs are going to be a huge driver of business partner programs. Successful B2B API programs introduce a completely new set of requirements that go far beyond the capabilities of most API Management platforms.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Alistair Farquharson, CTO of SOA Software, will discuss how a B2B API program can help drive your business, what the challenges are, and how to make sure you succeed. In this session you’ll learn:
The differences between Open APIs and B2B APIs
Security Concerns
Monitoring
QoS Management
How to plan, build and run APIs to enable business partners
How to selectively share your APIs with your partners’ developers

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APIs are the coding interfaces that enable developers to create third-party apps, plug-ins, and add-ons that extend the functionality and potential of existing Software-as-a-Service products. Pedro’s comments reframe the entire API industry and, if pursued, would fundamentally alter the existing dynamics between developers and third-party app businesses.
“We’re now in a phase of market maturity and people are starting to realize that they need to be careful about what the API is exposing and what the end user will see around the SaaS product,” said Pedro after presenting at the API Strategy and Practice Conference, hosted by 3Scale and API Evangelist, and held in New York in late February, 2013.

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F5 Sr. Technical Marketing Manager Lori MacVittie received CloudNOW’s prestigious Top 10 Women in Cloud award for her exceptional contributions to the cloud community. CloudNOW, an executive consortium of the leading women in cloud computing, presented the award during UBM Tech’s Cloud Connect—the premier technology event for cloud computing.
I’ve had the good fortune to have known and worked with Lori for almost 7 years and sat down with her to talk about cloud, convergence and application delivery.
Peter: First, Congratulations Lori on yet another award. If I remember correctly, this is the 2nd year in a row that your contributions, accomplishments, and thought leadership has been recognized by CloudNOW. How’d you get so smart?

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Cloud solutions are evolving rapidly with users eager to easily leverage the underlying infrastructure. Platform as a Service (PaaS) is one option that help developers meet their needs.
Typical cloud computing conferences feature a large contingent of pay-to-pay sponsors who are looking primarily for ROI from marketing budgets at these shows. It is always refreshing to attend a sponsored event where speakers focus instead on energetic presentations and panel discussions aimed at gaining clarity on evolving topics. Platform as a Service (PaaS) is one aspect of cloud computing that is still evolving but maturing quickly. Deploycon 2013 was a good sponsored workshop (held in conjunction with the Cloud Connect conference) to set the tone on the future of PaaS.

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