Cutting Through the Cloud Hype: Talking With Micro Focus

Mark Haynie, CTO for Application Modernization and Cloud Computing for Micro Focus gives an excellent explanation on which applications are right for the cloud, along with does it make sense to test applications in the cloud. Read the transcript here or listen to the 24 minute podcast.

Hybrid Cloud Startup Gets Funds

"The cloud operating system startup Nimbula, which came out of the stealth mode in June, has raised $15 million in second round of venture capital funding, bringing the total amount to over $20 million. ... According to Nimbula, the new funding will be used to develop hybrid cloud computing technologies, as well as to drive the adoption of the company’s product offerings for the management of on- and off-premises infrastructure." Read the rest here.

IaaS Isn't Just Cloud Computing Fluff: Survey

"In its report, "Is IaaS Moving Beyond Just Cloud Fluff?," which is part of its "Anywhere Enterprise: 2010 U.S. Cloud Computing FastView Survey," Yankee Group found that 24 percent of large enterprises with cloud experience are already using IaaS, and another 37 percent expect to adopt IaaS within the next 24 months." Read the rest here and more here.

AFCOM Releases Cloud Computing Guide

"Based on AFCOM's 2009/2010 Data Center Trends Survey, only 14.9% of all large-scale data centers worldwide had implemented any form of Cloud Computing as of September, 2009; however, it is the collective opinion of the Data Center Institute, that the next five years will see the adoption of Cloud Computing grow dramatically, and that its impact on data center management will be felt throughout the industry." Buy the report here.

Comparing the Cost of Cloud vs. Colocation

"Is colocation cheaper than using a cloud computing services to run the same workload?" Read the article here.

CA Technologies Acquires Virtualization and Cloud Infrastructure Consulting Firm

"As part of its continued investment in virtualization and cloud management, CA Technologies today announced the acquisition of privately-held 4Base Technology, a virtualization and cloud infrastructure consulting firm. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed." Press release is here. Host.Net provides all that under one roof plus the transit, too.

Startup Taps Grid Computing For High-Performance Security

"Unified threat management (UTM) has been aimed primarily at SMBs and branches offices, largely because of performance issues. UTM appliances often struggle when running multiple security applications in high-traffic environments. Newcomer Red Lambda has a novel approach to this problem: grid computing. The company believes it can scale up security performance using an enterprise's own computing resources. The software-based product, FireGrid, leverages unused computing capacity to deliver application firewall, intrusion detection/prevention, anomaly detection and application-based traffic shaping at 10Gbit/sec speed, Red Lambda claims." Read the rest of the grid computing for security article.

Tech Watch: Vaporising cloud confusion

"The cloud is confusing. To me, that's a very strange statement to be making. As a journalist I find myself writing about the cloud every second day (or at least that’s how it feels). However, from a customer perspective, it’s still a buzz word..... Of course, from Salesforce’s perspective, there’s no need for a private cloud at all, and the industry would be much clearer if there was just the one type of cloud being pushed." Read the rest here.

LinkedIn Snaps Up SaaS Player mSpoke

"LinkedIn, the leading social network for professionals, has shelled out to acquire mSpoke, a firm specializing in a cloud-based recommendation engine to help surface more relevant content." Read the rest here.

How Big is Amazon’s Cloud Computing Business?

"It goes without saying that with its array of web services, Amazon has transformed the computing landscape and nurtured what is generically known as the cloud computing industry. By turning expensive storage and computing hardware into a billable service, it has opened up new vistas for entrepreneurs and made corporations rethink how they build and use their computing and storage resources. The question often people ask: How much money is Amazon making from these web services? I’ve heard some wild estimates." Read the rest.

Six Questions to Ask Before Jumping Into A Cloud

"MSPmentor talks a lot about the power, promise, and perils of the cloud. But how can you know when it’s the right time to make the jump to SaaS? Solutions provider Logicalis has six questions MSPs can ask to help make that decision. They’re worth a read."

6 Questions For Accenture's Cloud Computing Captain

"Accenture has a multi-pronged plan of attack for cloud computing. The New York-based solution provider is attacking the cloud on several fronts, whether it's from strategy, consulting, systems integration or its own brand of software, Accenture has a cloud offering for all clients....But along with making it perfectly clear what it is in the cloud, Accenture is also quite clear on what it's not:" read the rest.

Colocation for the Changing Cloud

"Cloud computing is widely acknowledged as the major force driving IT into the future. International Data Corporation (IDC) has predicted that spending on cloud services is set to increase from $16.2 billion in 2008 to $42 billion by 2012. (1) But as the cloud revolution continues, companies need to consider how they’re going to update their IT infrastructures to prepare for this growth." Read the rest of the article here.

Accounting in the Clouds: Is it all Hype?

Accounting software is already available via SAAS. QB Online, FreshBooks and others have been offering an online version for a while. Read the article here.

Why Most Cloud Contracts Shouldn’t Be Negotiable

"This week brought news that pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has ended its use of Amazon EC2 because of an inability to negotiate contractual liability with Amazon Web Services in the case of outages or data breaches." Read the rest here.