IT organizations face a growing demand for faster innovation and new applications to support emerging opportunities in social, mobile, growth markets, Big Data analytics, mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships, and more. This is great news because it shows that IT continues to be a key stakeholder in delivering business service innovation. However, it also means that IT must deliver new innovation despite flat budgets, while maintaining existing services that grow more complex every day.
This is where cloud computing can help to deliver business outcomes, especially if you look beyond just one or two cloud providers, to the almost limitless variety of interconnected and intermediated cloud services – what I call the ‘cloud of clouds’. This is true especially for foundational capabilities – like compute infrastructure, data storage, content delivery, or financial management; and cloud-native services like social media, mobile interfaces, or Big Data analytics. Indeed, it makes little sense today to waste time and resources to rewrite existing code every time you need one of these foundational or cloud-native services. By leveraging the cloud of clouds, developers can instead focus on writing new and unique application code that delivers the competitive advantage the business needs.
How to Secure Your Data in the Cloud in 2014
If you are worried about securing your sensitive data in commercial storage services here is a guide to how you can encrypt your sensitive data.
The recent PRISM Data snooping controversies have heightened almost every companies awareness of the potential vulnerabilities of data stored off-premise in the Cloud. Many Cloud Storage companies talk about encrypting data ‘at rest’ but the real issue is that the storage companies control the encryption rather than the company whose data is stored controlling the private key.
SYS-CON.tv Interview: Network Security
«AccelOps provides analytics driven IT operations management for cloud, virtualize infrastructure, and client-server environments,» explained Flint Brenton, president and CEO of AccelOps, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, held Nov 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Cloud Expo® 2014 New York, June 10-12, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
SYS-CON.tv Interview: Onboarding Software in the Cloud
«In a nutshell we provide a cloud software delivery and management platform. When you look at Infrastructure as a Service you can boil it down to two things: self-service and automation,» explained James Weir, CTO and co-founder of UShareSoft, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, held Nov 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Cloud Expo® 2014 New York, June 10-12, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
A roundup of cloud computing and enterprise software predictions for 2014
Alan Kay’s saying that the best way to predict the future is to create it resonates through the best cloud computing and enterprise software predictions for 2014.
Constraints that held start-ups back from delivering sophisticated new apps and services are disappearing fast. The dynamics of one of my favorite books, The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, are in full force across the cloud and enterprise landscape.
There are many predictions being generated right now and instead of writing yet another set, I’m providing a listing of those that are the most interesting and thought-provoking. They are listed below:
- 10 Cloud Computing Predictions for 2014 – In-depth analysis of ten predictions including how more companies will realize they are really in the software business, private cloud computing having a moment of truth and continued adoption of cloud brokerages. This set of predictions is an interesting read and provides useful …
China Unicom enters cloud race with Wo-Cloud service
The past couple of weeks have seen a variety of updates from players looking to up their cloudy stake in China, including Amazon and IBM.
Now China Unicom has joined the race, offering a service called Wo-Cloud, according to a report from Web Hosting Daily.
According to the firm’s president, Lu Yimin, China Unicom will focus on the IaaS and PaaS area.
“China Unicom will rely on its advantages in network resources, infrastructure, mobile internet technology, scope of customers, and dedicated service,” he said in a statement.
The firm also announced the launch of two data centres, in Hohhot and Langfang, and introduced the www.wocloud.cn gateway.
The service is based on OpenStack, which has also been in the news in recent times following the announcement of Oracle’s sponsorship of the OpenStack Foundation. The technology, developed by Rackspace and NASA, has a dazzling array of sponsors, from …
Forrester: Cloud Joins Formal IT Portfolio in 2014
Forrester Research is looking forward, and what it sees is cloud as commonplace in 2014.
In 2013, enterprises got real about cloud computing. In 2014, businesses will integrate it into existing IT portfolios, whether IT gives its blessing or not.
As the Age of the Customer arrives, all the focus shifts to the Systems of Engagement and the agility in refining these critical customer tools, according to an article on ZDNet. Cloud technologies and services represent the fastest way for the business to reach new buyers and breathe new life into aging applications.
In 2014 cloud leverage will be both traditional and disruptive as the business and IT put cloud to work. Here are the top 10 cloud actions Forrester predicts will happen in enterprise IT environments in 2014.
Looking Back and Forth
It’s the time of year to look at what was and contemplate on what will be. In Gartner the latter process has been formalized through the series of predict documents we publish towards the end of the year. Since a few years we precede these individual documents with a top predictions note that this year was titled “Plan for a Disruptive, but Constructive future” (press release). An important theme of this year’s predict was the rise of digital business, but also some of the darker sides of this. My section spoke about how – in the 2020 timeframe – the labor reduction effect of digitalization may cause social unrest and a quest for new economic models in several mature economies. Early signals of such movements may be larger-scale versions of Occupy Wall Street-type movements and increasing replacement of traditional paid jobs with bartering-based systems and increased reliance on volunteers in areas such as patient care.
Target Claims Strong Encryption Saves Their Neck
It seems Target got breached, really seriously, and 40 million credit card pins were stolen. However – and here is the ‘glass half full’ part in what otherwise would be a complete disaster – since the master key for the encryption of the credit card pins was separate from the breached Target system, it is claimed the bad guys cannot unencrypt those pins. Target is therefore able to claim a kind of ‘Safe Harbor’: that the key to decrypt the data could not have been taken, and “The most important thing for our guests to know is that their debit card accounts have not been compromised due to the encrypted PIN numbers being taken”.
Target Claims Strong Encryption Saves Their Neck
It seems Target got breached, really seriously, and 40 million credit card pins were stolen. However – and here is the ‘glass half full’ part in what otherwise would be a complete disaster – since the master key for the encryption of the credit card pins was separate from the breached Target system, it is claimed the bad guys cannot unencrypt those pins. Target is therefore able to claim a kind of ‘Safe Harbor’: that the key to decrypt the data could not have been taken, and “The most important thing for our guests to know is that their debit card accounts have not been compromised due to the encrypted PIN numbers being taken”.