Tech Child’s Play: Is the Cloud Still a Kid? A new Information Week article, penned by well-respected expert Art Wittman, condemns cloud computing as a horny youngster still in the grips of puberty. Perhaps Wittman doesn’t attack the cloud so colorfully. But he solidly argues that, in terms of how IT people commit to its use the popular technology, cloud suffers from growing pains. Wittman reveals the results of a survey to IT organizations, asking them, “’What are your company’s plans for cloud computing?’… Two-thirds of [them] either have decided the cloud isn’t for them or have yet to pull the
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Can The US Government Assuage Cloud Privacy Concerns? Even as the world tries to find a balance between individual privacy and the eternal vigilance of a nanny state, cloud computing is a casualty of the heightened security concerns in post-911 America. This is something that I had explored in earlier articles, from the ramifications of the PATRIOT Act (See: Is Cloud Computing a Threat to Consumer Rights?), to how rivals of American cloud vendors are actually touting the latter’s vulnerabilities to government investigation as a key business differentiator (See: Your Data in Australia is subject to the US Patriot Act).
Cloud Computing: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility The cloud delivery model gives vendors a great amount of power. It is easier to create, deploy, maintain and enhance a service than it has been at any other point in computing history. Just look at Facebook, which grew to 500 million members in a very short period of time. People readily share within it, many with a limited understanding of the potential risks to their private information. The ability to make an enhancement and almost instantly put it into the customer’s hands is immensely powerful – and immensely dangerous. If you’re
Ubuntu Cloud: The Reseller Opportunity As market conditions remain uncertain, your customers are looking for new, more cost-effective ways to do business. This is dramatically increasing demand for cloud computing solutions that promise big savings on in-house infrastructure and management. By supporting your customers’ journeys into the cloud, you can generate new service revenues and take on the role of a trusted cloud adviser. Specifically, you can: • Support customer migrations from dedicated to cloud-based infrastructure • Deliver consultancy for building and deploying public and private clouds • Provide capacity planning, infrastructure management and monitoring services • Roll out authentication
Microsoft: Security Intelligence Report Volume 11 REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 11, 2011 — At RSA Conference Europe 2011 today, Microsoft Corp. released the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report volume 11 (SIRv11), which found that less than 1 percent of exploits in the first half of 2011 were against zero-day vulnerabilities — software vulnerabilities that are successfully exploited before the vendor has published a security update or “patch.” In contrast, 99 percent of all attacks during the same period distributed malware through familiar techniques, such as social engineering and unpatched vulnerabilities. In the report, Microsoft highlights the fact that some of the more
The Cloud Lock-In (Part 1): Public IaaS is Great ! It always good to start with Wikipedia’s definition as it helps to initiate a structured discussion, here is Wiki’s definition for Lock-In: “In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs. Lock-in costs which create barriers to market entry may result in antitrust action against a monopoly.” Read more on Wikipedia Does the cloud present a major lock-in ? Does the move create substantial switching costs? “Yes !” is the
CopperEgg™ Secures $2 Million to Bring Real-Time Analytics to the Cloud RevealCloud High-Frequency Data Sampling Redefines Performance Monitoring Paradigm AUSTIN, Texas, July 12, 2010 – CopperEgg, Corp., the real-time analytics company, today announced $2 million in Series A funding and the launch of RevealCloud™, a SaaS-based performance monitoring solution that helps companies accelerate the delivery of applications and services across public and private clouds. RevealCloud is the latest addition to CopperEgg’s suite of real-time performance monitoring solutions, including RevealStorage™, launched earlier this year to help IT organizations optimize the efficiency of critical datacenter resources. Silverton Partners led the first-round investment
To the Cloud? – Developing a Cloud Migration Strategy Following the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference last year, it became pretty clear that cloud computing had risen to dominance. This was going to be the next big thing, and following Microsoft’s lead, the concept of “cloud” rose to the top of everyone’s mind. So it was no surprise Microsoft soon after launched a huge ad campaign that included national television spots and placements in high profile mags such as Wired. With the prominence of cloud established, the question has now become, when you hear that cute little couple in the airport
