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Consumer knowledge of cloud still vague, says new survey

With the analysts predicting cloud computing to rise and rise in 2013, it can be refreshing to get a consumer perspective on how they use the cloud and their overall knowledge of it.

Yet the signs don’t appear to be good – a new survey from UK-based hosting group Webfusion has revealed that two thirds of UK consumers don’t have a clear view of what the cloud entails.

Webfusion polled over 1,000 people, with their findings giving little credence to a consumer shift in cloud perception.

When asked the question ‘when it comes to computers, do you understand what ‘cloud’ means?’, just over a third (33.8%) related most closely to the response ‘yes, I have a clear understanding’. 28.5% emphatically said ‘no!’ whilst 18.3% agreed with the response ‘I have some understanding’.

Not particularly good signs there and the response was similar when concerning understanding …

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Thirty-One Days of Servers in the Cloud |The Complete Series

If you’re interested in the full list of articles in our “31 Days of Servers in the Cloud” Windows Azure Virtual Machines and IaaS series…
“I’m interested in the links to the full series, Kevin.”
I was just getting to that. Anyway… here it is. ENJOY!
“Hey Kevin.. How come the list isn’t complete?”
Because the month isn’t over yet. Keep watching my blog every day for the latest article.

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Five Key ROI Considerations When Adopting IT Enterprise Software

Corporations around the globe rely on having highly efficient IT networks, and introducing a new piece of enterprise software into the mix will have a far-reaching impact on the entire organization. The decision to purchase and implement new business IT software is not one to enter into lightly. The process may be convoluted because it may affect many different parts of the business and can be difficult to manage without a dedicated workforce focusing solely on software implementation and integration. This article will present a set of recommended cost/benefit criteria that should be considered when evaluating, implementing and measuring the ROI of implementing new IT management systems.

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Cloud Applications: Some Assembly Required

Emerging applications will not just be cloud-enabled, but also mobile, connected to social media networks and able to consume and respond in real-time to patterns in Big Data. Most important, application building must become more productive with a reduced time-to-market. In his Day 3 keynote at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley Progress Software CTO John Bates presented ten imperatives for constructing next-generation applications that have been defined based on research findings from a community of 1,500 application building companies.
Dr. John Bates is Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Progress Software. In this role, he is responsible for creating, evolving and evangelizing Progress’ market strategy and technology vision. Previously, he was General Manager of Progress Software’s Apama Division – the market leading provider of Complex Event Processing (CEP) solutions.

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Cloud Computing: NetSuite Buys Retail Anywhere

NetSuite said Thursday that it’s bought 28-year-old Retail Anywhere in a deal that’s supposed to deliver the first cloud-based system that unifies POS and e-commerce in a single application.
The company, which is majority owned by Larry Ellison, says it’s bringing brick-and-mortar retail businesses to a global commerce cloud, grafting multiple-customer touchpoints onto its SuiteCommerce platform to deliver an integrated cloud business suite for retailers including POS, web sites, smartphones, tablets and call centers.

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Cloud to Be Most Disruptive Technology of 2013

As more organizations move critical data to the cloud, security takes on ever-increasing importance, according to a recent report on cloud security.
The Security for Business Innovation Council, consisting of IT security professionals from 19 companies worldwide, called cloud computing the main disruptive force for 2013. In its report, «Information Security Shake-Up,» the group said it was evident many organizations are preparing to move more business processes to the cloud. This year, it will even be «mission-critical apps and regulated data» consigned to the cloud, according to an article on NetworkWorld.com.
The Council includes security professionals from Coca-Cola, eBay, FedEx, EMC, Fidelity Investments, Intel, Johnson & Johnson and Walmart, among several others.

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Standardization versus Standards in the Cloud

I recently posited a question on Twitter to feel out the attitudes toward technology related to cloud bridges. As you might recall, IPSec VPN connectivity was cited by attendees (real people) as a major requirement for cloud bridges at Gartner DC. For some time now, SSL VPNs have been an effective alternative to IPSec VPN so I wondered why it was that IPSec remains the top choice.
Two answers (one from Steve Shah, the other from Hoff) in particular elicited an abstracted thought regarding standards in general.
As Hoff and Steve point out, there’s value in standards, particularly with respect to interoperability and the ability to leverage existing skills and infrastructure.

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Information security, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, PCI DSS, Standards

Six Degrees Group Achieves PCI DSS Compliance

Six Degrees Group, a provider of integrated managed data services, today announces that following an official audit its datacentres and security systems are now fully compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

The confirmation of PCI DSS compliance complements Six Degrees Group’s ISO27001: 2005 certification for information security, which emphasises the Group’s commitment to protecting and securing clients’ data.

PCI DSS is a set of comprehensive standards for ensuring the security of financial payment data that was developed by the founding payment brands of the PCI Security Standards Council including Visa Inc., American Express and MasterCard Worldwide. As a result of this certification, Six Degrees is now on the approved global Visa Merchant register.

Mike Ing, group business operations director of Six Degrees Group, stated: “These standards globally govern all organisations that store, process or transmit cardholder data. Achieving this compliance provides our customers and prospects with the reassurance that Six Degrees Group is committed to the security and confidentiality of sensitive data by meeting the physical security requirements of the PCI standard.”

Apache Solr, Collaboration, Document Management, FINRA, Solr

NetDocuments 13.1 Release Includes Secure Document Delivery

NetDocuments today announced their 13.1 release. This latest release contains more than 20 new and updated features, including document delivery via a secure link and a new search engine.

Available for the first time with this release, Secure Document Delivery enables public sharing of documents without loss of content control. Users select the documents they wish to deliver, and NetDocuments generates a secure URL for each document to be sent to multiple email addresses. This feature offers users a number of security and control options, including the ability to:

  • Password-protect the viewing of documents
  • Set document permissions, including the ability to download documents
  • Set a predetermined expiration date, after which the URL will no
    longer be active
  • Lock the original version of the document in NetDocuments, thereby
    prohibiting any changes to be made to the delivered document

Previously, third parties could only gain access to documents stored in NetDocuments by obtaining a username and password through a client portal. The Secure Document Delivery feature also improves collaboration and adds increased functionality to the suite of SEC-, FINRA- and HIPAA-compliant content management features.

As part of the 13.1 release, the NetDocuments’ NDSearch, an enterprise-class search platform embedded in NetDocuments and available to all users, now relies on the SolrTM search engine to power its functionality across 750 million documents for its global customer base in 140 countries.

Solr’s open source enterprise platform provides NetDocuments with the flexibility to adjust search functionality to meet customer needs. All previous search features remain available, including search analysis filters, find similar, dynamic filters and saved search. With Solr, users will enjoy quicker display of items in workspaces and other search result lists, an improvement in productivity made possible by Solr’s ability to index metadata for documents significantly faster.

“Collaboration has always been a main pillar of our company, and the new document delivery tool, which was highly requested by our customers, provides the easiest way for our customers to work with someone outside their organization while maintaining complete control of their documents,” said Leonard Johnson, vice president of marketing and product management at NetDocuments. “Our users have always valued our powerful search tool, and switching to Solr not only provides them with a superior search experience, but gives us greater customization and scalability as we near the billion document mark.”

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Seven Modeling Tools to Help Assess Cloud ROI

Gone are the days when the cloud meant simply a hosted virtual instance or resource on some provider’s network. We’re seeing all sorts of new variants and twists emerge. I’m not just referring to the use of storage or compute resources or those that allow for elastic computing, such as Amazon’s Reserved Instances.
We’re likely to see industry-specific community clouds emerge. These clouds are built to address the security and compliance needs within specific industries. Examples of community clouds may well be Verizon’s Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) cloud service, which targets the healthcare community; and Metal Lynx, a cloud community targeting buyers and sellers of precious metals.

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The cloud news categorized.