About six years ago I wrote a blog titled “I have no idea what Web 2.0 means“. That blog had link to a video where IT leaders were helplessly trying to explain what Web 2.0 means. One guy said something like this, “Everyone wants to do it, and you can’t find enough people to do […]
Tracelytics Heats Up Cloud-based APM
Gaining visibility to application performance is key. Application Performance Management (APM) solutions are not new and provide insight to tiers within an application stack. With the entry of cloud based computing in the past couple of years, the APM world got a bit more complex. APM is mature enough to consider cloud-based providers in the […]
FedRAMP Releases Updated Security Assessment Plan Templates
Last week the GSA FedRAMP Program Office released the latest version of the cloud computing Security Assessment Plan (SAR) template. This document is the most recent step toward the Federal governments goal of establishing FedRAMP initial operating Capability by June 2012.
The Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is
a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment,
authorization, and continuous monitoring for Cloud Service Providers (CSP).
Testing security controls is an integral part of the FedRAMP security
authorization requirements and enables Federal Agencies to use the findings
that result from the tests to make risk-based decisions. Providing a plan for
security control ensures that the process runs smoothly. This document has been designed for CSP Third-Party
Independent Assessors (3PAOs) to use for planning security testing of CSPs.
Once filled out, this document constitutes a plan for testing. Actual findings
from the tests are to be recorded in FedRAMP security test procedure workbooks
and a Security Assessment Report (SAR).
a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment,
authorization, and continuous monitoring for Cloud Service Providers (CSP).
Testing security controls is an integral part of the FedRAMP security
authorization requirements and enables Federal Agencies to use the findings
that result from the tests to make risk-based decisions. Providing a plan for
security control ensures that the process runs smoothly. This document has been designed for CSP Third-Party
Independent Assessors (3PAOs) to use for planning security testing of CSPs.
Once filled out, this document constitutes a plan for testing. Actual findings
from the tests are to be recorded in FedRAMP security test procedure workbooks
and a Security Assessment Report (SAR).
This release also includes templates for:
- Information Technology Contingency Plan
- Control Implementation Summary (CIS)
- eAuthentication
- Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M)
- Rules of Behavior
- Privacy Threshold Analysis and Privacy Impact Assessment
- Security Assessment Plan; and
- FedRAMP System Security Plan
( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS – KLJ )
Follow me at http://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson
VCs Front Cloud Investment Downpour
Patrick Houston — VCs devoted $6.9 billion in 2011 to “Internet-specific” startups, a proxy term for “cloud” because that’s what most of them are doing, according to Steve Bengston, a director of a startups practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. That’s up 68% from last year.
In Q4 alone, cloud-related investments of $1.8 billion outdistanced the dollars that went into biotech ($1.3 billion), cleantech ($883 million,) and medical devices ($498 million.)
It’s not just the amount. It’s the number of deals, too. During all of 2011, VCs funded 1,004 software startups that were mostly in the cloud–or more than double the 446 biotech companies that received dough.
Not all those companies will survive to deliver a product one day, of course. A large number of startups makes the chance of success more likely.
Remember, VCs have a clear imperative to find the money. But it …
Yahoo Gets New Ultimatum
When Yahoo ignored Third Point’s ultimatum to fire CEO Scott Thompson for cause by high noon Monday Third Point read Yahoo Delaware General Corporation Law and demanded that the company open all its records about how it came to hire the man at the center of “ResumeGate.”
It wants them ready for inspection and copying by Friday, another deadline.
Section 220(b) of the Delaware General Corporation Law says any stockholder can inspect certain books and records of a public company on written request. If Third Point doesn’t get what it wants it will doubtless sue in Delaware’s reportedly stockholder-leaning Chancery Court.
Meanwhile, the Yahoo board is supposed to be doing its own investigation of how it came to make a regulatory filing saying Thompson got an undergraduate degree in computer science and accounting from Stonehill College, a Catholic school near Boston, when it was only in accounting.
Yahoo claimed last week that it was just an “inadvertent error,” but it appears that Thompson has been making that “inadvertent error” for years like at eBay where he was president of PayPal.
In a letter to the board Monday Third Point said, “We believe that this internal investigation by this Board must not be conducted behind a veil of secrecy and shareholders deserve total transparency.”
Third Point is Yahoo’s biggest shareholder and is embroiled in a proxy fight with the company aimed at filling four board seats with its own people.
The hedge fund happened upon and immediately advertised the discrepancy in Thompson’s CV last week.
It also discovered that the head of the board’s search committee Patti Hart fudged her resume too and claimed to have a bachelor’s degree in marketing and economics when it’s really in business administration. It wants her gone too.
Third Point wants any records related to her appointment to the Yahoo board as well as any records of how Peter Liguori, John Hayes, Thomas McInerney, Maynard Webb, Jr. and Fred Amoroso happened to get board seats.
If it gets its hands on the documents, Forbes thinks Third Point is going to find that Thompson wasn’t vetted at all; that no head hunter was involved; that there were no other candidates; and that Thompson simply reached out to the board and two weeks later was CEO. If so it will strengthen Third Point’s case of board mismanagement, an easy enough case to prove given Yahoo’s history.
It wants the board to drop its resistance to Third Point’s nominees for the board which include Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb, Maeva Group CEO Harry Wilson, former MTV Networks president Michael Wolf and former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker. Yahoo claims Loeb isn’t qualified to sit on the board.
Meanwhile, and utterly coincidently, Yahoo is supposedly working on a new deal to sell maybe 15%-25% of its holdings in Alibaba back to the China e-commerce company. A deal, which has previously eluded the two companies, could reportedly be done in weeks.
Thompson has supposedly been leading the latest negotiations.
This deal is supposed to be simpler than the others they tried and would see Yahoo pay heavy taxes on its gains. Of course selling an increasingly valuable asset that’s supposed to represent a large part of Yahoo’s $18.8 billion market cap may not strike everybody as the sensible thing to do right now no matter how much Alibaba complains.
Yahoo owns about 40% of Alibaba and the valuation is unclear. Its valuation last year was $32 billion. Yahoo hasn’t been able to bridge a “valuation gap” with Softbank, the majority owner of Yahoo Japan, so that deal’s going nowhere.
ComputeNext to Exhibit at Cloud Expo 2012 New York
SYS-CON Events announced today that ComputeNext Inc. will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
What’s the scope of your “single pane of glass”? If you’re a cloud architect wouldn’t you be better suited with a telescope than a magnifying glass? The ComputeNext marketplace and workload manager sprawls across public clouds, eliminating vendor and platform lock-in.
A single point of payment and integration enables choice and flexibility to build, deploy, and manage servers from a vast selection of platform-agnostic infrastructure – empowering businesses to maximize utilization of compute resources.
Cloud & Big Data Strategy | CEO Power Panel at Cloud Expo New York
In this CEO Power Panel at the 10th International Cloud Expo, moderated by Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan, leading executives in the Cloud Computing and Big Data space will be discussing such topics as:
Is it just wishful thinking to depict the Cloud as more than just a technology solution? If not, then what concrete examples best demonstrate cloud computing as an engine of business value?
Big Data has existed since the early days of computing; why, then, do you think there is such an industry buzz around it right now?
Do you agree that cloud computing is basically to technology what credit is in the financial services industry, i.e., it enables companies to leverage capabilities that they don’t own. Or are there better analogies?
APS and SaaS Webinar for Service Providers featuring Solgari, Ecwid, VMWare and Quest
Our recent case study describes how leading Hong Kong hosting service provider, Pacificnet Hosting Limited (PacHosting), used Parallels Application Packaging Standard (APS) to broaden its portfolio and reduce time-to-market for new services. With APS, PacHosting was able to create new revenue opportunities in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) space and rapidly ramp-up services. We have arranged for some leaders in the SaaS field to explain how your business can profit like PacHosting by offering the most in-demand applications to small and medium business customers. This is a great opportunity for service providers to learn how to easily market and sell high-demand commercial applications and services, and how Parallels can help providers of any size be successful in increasing ARPU and reducing customer churn.
This month’s scheduled presentations include:
Solgari – Discover the fantastic opportunity to provide Solgari Hosted PBX & Voice Services to your business customers
Ecwid – Find out how you can grow your ecommerce base with our 100% AJAX widget shopping cart
VMware – Learn how Zimbra Collaboration Server allows you to offer an advanced enterprise email & calendaring solution at a low TCO
Quest – Discover the many benefits of Quest’s OnDemand Migration for Email
Webinar starts Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 8am PDT. Don’t miss it – Register now!
WNS Partners with GT Nexus for Business Process, Supply Chain Services
WNS, a provider of global Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services, today announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with GT Nexus, a market leading cloud-based supplychain service provider, to deliver platform-based BPO services and solutions to the Shipping and Logistics industry. According to the agreement, WNS and GT Nexus will jointly work towards providing shippers, forwarders, 3PLs and carriers with improved quality of service for their end-customers and reduced costs in areas such as documentation, freight management, contracts, pricing and analytics.
“The shipping and logistics industry has been facing multiple pressures created by unfavorable economic conditions,” said Keshav R. Murugesh, Group CEO, WNS. “There is a strong need within the industry for managed services to help shift inefficient and manual transactions onto a global digital platform. We believe that the integration of GT Nexus’s proven cloud-based technology platform with WNS’ deep domain knowledge and operational process excellence will help companies effectively manage this transition.”
“One of the big opportunities for BPO providers is to build entire practices and services around existing, mature cloud technology platforms,” said Aaron Sasson, CEO of GT Nexus. “Through this partnership, WNS is taking advantage of our cloud supply chain platform and offering a much needed new service for the international logistics industry. WNS has made it simple for companies in shipping and logistics to move to a complete digital transaction business process.”
Jaison Augustine, Senior Vice President & Segment Head – Shipping & Logistics at WNS added, “Our ‘BlackBox’ solution will offer 40-60% percent reduction in costs incurred in the production of master and house bills of ladings for NVOCCs and freight forwarders. It will also help increase the digitization of shipping instructions which offers benefits to both shippers and carriers alike. By introducing cutting-edge tools like optical and intelligent character recognition, scanning & imaging and workflow solutions our managed services approach will reduce cycle times and enable error-free documentation at a fraction of the current cost.”
WNS currently offers a broad spectrum of services to the global shipping & logistics industry, including export and import documentation, freight audits, driver logs, trip records, Finance & Accounting and analytics. WNS’s clients in this vertical include ocean carriers, 3PL’s, express companies, truckers and shippers.
GraphOn Adds iPhone to iPad Windows Application Access App
GraphOn Corporation today announced its new GO-Global iOS Client. Available immediately as a free downloadable app from Apple’s App Store, the new GO-Global iOS Client is used in conjunction with GraphOn’s GO-Global Windows Host solution to seamlessly deliver Windows applications to Apple iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch users.
The new GO-Global iOS Client replaces GraphOn’s popular GO-Global iPad Client. New and improved features include support for iPhone and iPad Touch platforms in addition to existing iPad support, enhanced navigation, voice-to-text input, auto-resizing on device rotation, increased performance, plus iPhone and iPad 3 Retina Display screen optimization.
“iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch users can now interact with their favorite Windows programs using just their fingers,” said Christoph Berlin, GraphOn’s vice president of product management and marketing. “Our GO-Global iOS Client uses intuitive, multi-touch gestures to achieve popular mouse and keyboard operations. Windows applications appear on the iOS device just as though they were running locally, retaining all features, functions, and branding.”
GO-Global Windows Host securely delivers server-resident Windows applications to virtually any location, platform, and operating system. Current GO-Global Windows Host customers can gain immediate access to their remoted Windows programs from their iOS device by simply downloading the free GO-Global iOS Client from the App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/app/go-global/id441263366?mt=8. iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch users who are not currently using GO-Global Windows Host, but who wish to evaluate its remote access capabilities, can download the free GO-Global iOS Client and then immediately connect to GraphOn’s online demonstration server running several popular Windows programs. No sign-up or registration is required.
GraphOn’s GO-Global iOS Client requires Apple iOS 5.0 or later.
