Modern support services then need to be able to empower the workers and IT personnel alike to maintain peak control of systems, and to keep the applications, data and processes performing reliably at lowest cost.
Infographic: How Critical is a Business Backup?
BUMI, a provider of managed online backup and recovery solutions for small to mid-sized businesses, announced the findings of its annual industry survey, which analyzed current approaches to data backup and recovery. The survey, which polled CEOs, business owners and IT professionals at small- to mid-sized firms, found that 98 percent of respondents felt that more than one day to restore data after an incident was unacceptable even though almost a quarter of respondents did not regularly check the restore process of their data backup operations.
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“Backing up your data is only the first step in protecting your organization. What really counts is how quickly and effectively you can recover your information,” said BUMI CEO, Jennifer Walzer. “A common misconception is that once backups are put into place, you’re all set. Unfortunately, data backup is not a flawless process. Glitches occur and hardware fails. It’s important to routinely test backups so that you can catch problems before they become disasters, but most organizations just don’t have the time or resources.”
Survey Highlights:
- A large number of organizations test their restore process infrequently if at all. Nearly 24 percent never test and 17 percent only test yearly. Of the organizations that test more regularly, 27 percent do so quarterly, 19 percent monthly, 12 percent weekly, and less than one percent test on a daily basis.
- More than one-third (36%) of respondents have no idea how much an hour of downtime costs their organizations. Of the organizations that were able to place a dollar amount on downtime, 31 percent estimated the cost at thousands of dollars per hour. The rest valued it at hundreds of dollars (26%), hundreds of thousands of dollars (6%), and one million dollars or more (less than 1%), respectively.
- Thirty percent of respondents felt that business continuity was the most important consideration in backing up their data. Twenty percent listed disaster recovery as their top priority, while the same number ranked compliance the highest. The remaining participants were mainly concerned with security (16%) and redundancy (13%).
- Virtualization is playing a role in many of the survey participants’ disaster recovery methods. Forty-one percent of respondents already use virtualization and 31 percent plan to in the near future. The rest do not currently use virtualization and do not plan to.
Cloud Storage for Active Directory Users
As a continued discussion from previous blog – Migrate your file server to the cloud, this article discuss how to migrate active directory users to the cloud as well.
When you have an existing file server that you are migrating to cloud storage, in a hybrid access mode, you would like to keep the active directory users too. Hybrid mode means the local file server and cloud storage are in sync, allowing you to both accessing the local file server the old way, while accessing the same file server content from the cloud in the new way.
When you are accessing the file server the old way, the user identity is validated by active directory. When you are accessing the file server from the cloud, you would prefer the same active directory user allowed to access. This is the background context of the article.
How PaaS Can Change Manufacturing Software
Although cloud computing is just starting to make its way into the manufacturing industry, I think the cloud holds great potential for the future of manufacturing software. And I don’t think the potential of the cloud is limited to the application.
Cloud development platforms – or Platform as a Service (PaaS) – stand to change the way that manufacturing software is developed, distributed and consumed. Because PaaS significantly lowers the barriers to entry to develop manufacturing applications, it makes it significantly cheaper and easier for third-party developers to create applications for manufacturing-specific problems.
If you’re unfamiliar with development platforms, just think about an iPhone. The iPhone is the platform that third-party developers build apps for. To develop for the iPhone, you just need to build an app on the iPhone platform and anyone in the world can download it directly to their iPhone. PaaS takes that and moves it to an enterprise level.
Will CliQr end fears of cloud vendor lock-in?
As the Google I/O conference gets underway in San Francisco, a Google-backed start-up has launched a cloud solution which aims to eradicate vendor lock-in.
Cloud management providers CliQr Technologies has launched CloudCenter, a product which “enables applications to get to and fluidly move between clouds with optimal price-performance and without migration disruption and expense”.
The product will have an official unveiling at the Google I/O conference, with both Google Ventures and Foundation Capital providing venture capital for the start-up.
CloudCenter consists of two key products; Orchestrator and Manager. Orchestrator is an enabling technology which allows software to move effortlessly across different cloud providers, while Manager is an optimisation software allowing users to manage every aspect of their cloud applications through an intuitive dashboard.
Gaurav Manglik, CliQr CEO, stated his belief that the promises of on-demand resources and elasticity that cloud computing offers may now start to be fully …
Securing Your ‘Data at Rest’ in the Cloud
We’re all hungry for best practices and tips for securing data in the cloud and also how shared computer resources can and should work to ensure privacy and protection. The focus is on data security, especially data at rest.
Cloud computing is all about increased scalability and productivity. However, new cloud security threats such as “snapshotting” a virtual disk are emerging. These create new threats to private data, compared to when data was stored and secured between the four walls of a datacenter.
With cloud computing, multiple customers may share a single physical disk, although logically separated from each other. In theory, one can share the same physical disk with a competitor – without data crossing over. The same is true for physical servers. Equally, within a single cloud account, different projects may be sharing the same physical disks or physical servers. This virtualized approach is at the heart of cloud computing; it provides many of its benefits.
Cloud Expo New York: The Positive Show Reports Continue…
“It was my first time at a Cloud Expo show, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But man, what a blast it turned out to be. Great exhibits, great audience, great floor traffic, great conversations with IT leaders and folks in the channel.” With those words, Tom Laydos – Director, Marketing & Sales Operations at Evolve IP – begins a blog post on the “Cloud IQ” blog in which he reports on Evolve IP’s experiences at the 10th International Cloud Expo, which was held in New York’s Javits Center June 11-14, 2012.
Cisco’s Chief Strategist Leaves
Cisco deal maker and chief strategy officer Ned Hooper, who brought Tandberg, WebEx, Scientific-Atlantic, Starent and NDS into the fold and administered Cisco’s $2 billion venture fund, is leaving.
According to a blog posting Tuesday by CEO John Chambers and COO Gary Moore, Hooper’s going to start “an independent investment partnership company and pursue his goal to be a principal investor.”
Apparently “Ned has been working on his plan with us over a number of months, and we look forward to partnering with him in his new endeavor.”
That removes Chambers’ heir-presumptive since Chambers has no intention of retiring. Chambers has been deconstructing the un-agile bureaucratic management edifice he built.
With Hooper out, Cisco is going to give CTO Padmasree Warrior his job and simply expand her CTO role, making her responsible for determining Cisco’s strategy, investments and acquisitions.
Business Insider says “she’s not been considered CEO material. She’s mostly worked as part of a team, and it’s hard to pinpoint any big Cisco successes directly on her.”
The company has also put Pankaj Patel, who developed Cisco’s service provider business, which now accounts for ~35% of the company’s direct product revenue, in charge of engineering.
Five Ways Your Cloud Go-to-Market Better Be Above Average
Talking about his new book, “That Used to Be Us,” at a recent speech at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, best selling author Thomas Friedman said, “Average is over. Everyone must define and develop their extra, that unique value add that justifies, in this world of rising curves why they should be hired or promoted.” Friedman goes on to make a case that to win in the global market, American education must nurture students to become more creative and unique.
Friedman goes on to discuss the emergence of the “hyper-connected world” one where you cannot only outsource labor, but you can outsource “genius”. This is clearly one of the driving forces that create the glut of solution providers in every imaginable niche in the market today. While Friedman deals with macro nation level competitiveness issues, every day, the battle against average determines the micro level winners and losers in competitive markets.
OpenNebula 3.6 Sunstone Screenshots
We already posted the main features of OpenNebula 3.6 Beta, which are of course fully supported by Sunstone. But we have been working also on the Sunstone visual appeal, and we will keep polishing the interface for the final release. Here are some preview screenshots.