Nothing levels the playing field like cloud computing, at least in terms of smaller businesses being able to gain a foothold in a particular market.
Small and midsize businesses have much to gain from embracing business cloud solutions. Cloud platforms allow SMEs to compete in the cloud giant-controlled environment and creates a level playing field required to succeed in business.
Some small and medium companies have yet to fully realize the advantages that cloud solutions can provide. In the meantime, hundreds of cloud vendors are preparing for the expected major upswing in popularity among cloud services for SMEs and for private consumers as well.
Business Development Director Paul Bryce of Node4 stated that one of the most important benefits of cloud computing is the extensive environment that gives enough leverage for SMEs to compete with the giants in the industry. With VMware, EMC and Cisco as one among the many cloud partners, SMEs can have the most cost-effective, yet very efficient IT infrastructure.
Can managed services balance BYOD security and compliance concerns?
BYOD security is and has been a major point of interest (perhaps hype) in IT for some time now. The desire for employees to use their own smartphones and devices frames an opportunity for businesses to cut capital expenses and increase efficiency.
Despite the potential upsides, and while there are many companies that have come to embrace such an approach, there are major hurdles where security and compliance are concerned.
As an added layer of complexity, many companies are also balancing the cloud and network requirements of BYOD with the degree to which they have outsourced their infrastructure to managed service providers or other outsourced cloud and infrastructure providers.
What primary concerns of BYOD do managed services figure in?
Security: One of the chief challenges to BYOD, and a major component of maintaining compliance, security on the technical end benefits from seasoned practitioners. Most companies instituting BYOD policies and procedures …
New research paper forecasts 2014 to be “year of ERP cloud”
With executives satisfied that they can get a return on investment for low-level apps in the cloud, 2014 is going to be the year when enterprise mission-critical apps will take charge, according to cloudy infrastructure platform provider Virtustream.
The findings have been released in a report, entitled “ERP – The Cuckoo in Cloud Land”, and gives insight both into the ERP (enterprise resource planning) landscape as well as the position of mission critical apps in the cloud.
The report initially shows that SAP still dominates the ERP space. 84% of respondents said they used at least one form of ERP, with SAP comprising 55% and rival Oracle 44%, forming something of a duopoly.
Further, SAP users have a more advanced cloud strategy according to the research. Almost nine in 10 (89%) SAP users have utilised cloud in their organisation, compared with 77% of overall respondents.
The report argues that each company …
Some Clouds Are Safer Than Others
More and more people are getting credit cards with a built-in RFID chip in them. That little RFID chip (Radio Frequency ID) can transmit your credit card info out several feet when it is scanned by any reader. Most people don’t know this.
You can tell if your credit card has an RFID in it because most cards will be marked by one of several symbols: PayWave, PayPass, or BLINK or the symbol that looks something like this )))) There are some cards that have no indication that there’s an RFID in them.
Cloud Expo: Driving Recurring Revenue Streams Through Cloud Billing
Businesses today have a distinct desire to develop recurring revenue streams to improve customer lifetime value and as a result they have been focusing on delivering new digital services via a subscription based model. This focus is creating a radical shift in the market, driving new relationships, and requiring the development of new billing capabilities.
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Brian Kracik, Director, Product Marketing SDP and Cloud Solutions at Oracle, will share use cases, trends, and the impact of the shift from physical to digital goods and how cloud billing is at the heart of a successful evolution.
SDN: Evolution to Special Purpose Clouds Challenges Traditional OSS/BSS
In just a few short recent years the idea of software-defined networks (SDN) has moved from a theoretical academic concept to a real-life practical proposition for making the world’s telecommunications networks more efficient, cost-effective, easier to manage and resilient. The SDN concept really started to take shape around 2008 [1], Google and Facebook have already implemented important features of SDN in their own networks. Now most major carriers are planning to move in the SDN direction, for example Deutsche Telekom [2, 3] and more recently AT&T [3] to reduce high operational costs while the over-the-top providers (e.g., Google, Amazon, etc.) impede the carriers’ ability to grow their revenues.
Put simply, the SDN idea is to separate out the control functions of the network into a cloud-like management layer leaving network elements in a data-forwarding layer. This means the smart component of networks can be made more efficient and less expensive by making use of the concepts of abstraction, modularity and virtualization that are already common in the IT world. At the same time the basic network building blocks – essentially the bit-carrying hardware – can be less expensive because they will become simpler and dumber.
Cloud Expo: Cloud Shifts the Burden of Security to Development
The move to the cloud brings a number of new security challenges, but the application remains your last line of defense. Developers are extremely well-poised to perform tasks critical for securing the application – provided that certain key obstacles are overcome.
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Wayne Ariola, Chief Strategy Officer at Parasoft, will explore three ways to help development bear the burden of security that the cloud places on them:
Use penetration testing results to help developers determine how to effectively “harden” the most vulnerable parts of the application.
Apply the emerging practice of “service virtualization” to provide developers the test environment access needed to exercise realistic security scenarios from the development environment.
Implement policy-driven development to help developers understand and satisfy management’s security expectations.
Vidyo Receives Top Ranking
Vidyo, Inc. has been cited as having the “the best overall video quality and performance” by Forrester Research, Inc. The company also received top ranking for its technology partners among all vendors in addition to being ranked as a “Strong Performer,” overall. Forrester invited 10 vendors to participate in its September 2013 report, The Forrester Wave™: Desktop Videoconferencing, Q3 2013. A complimentary copy of the report is available here.
Vidyo Receives Top Ranking
Vidyo, Inc. has been cited as having the “the best overall video quality and performance” by Forrester Research, Inc. The company also received top ranking for its technology partners among all vendors in addition to being ranked as a “Strong Performer,” overall. Forrester invited 10 vendors to participate in its September 2013 report, The Forrester Wave™: Desktop Videoconferencing, Q3 2013. A complimentary copy of the report is available here.
Cloud Expo: The Next Generation IT Department – Must Have Hybrid Cloud
Compelling consumer applications are created every day. Are you ready for the IT implications both internally and externally? As your datacenter needs more capacity, the cloud will be critical to success. What are the key considerations to help plan for the needed capacity over time? And how can the cloud best work with your existing applications?
In his General Session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Brian Jawalka, Sr. IT Strategist at Rackspace, will discuss how a hybrid approach can add agility, flexibility and speed-to-market for your organization. This session will potentially open conversation to talk about the SaaS consumer apps that are forcing IT to evolve.