Microsoft rejigs Azure to take on Amazon

Microsoft Corporation officially threw down the gauntlet here on Thursday, right at the feet of Amazon’s web services, launching a revamped version of its cloud services platform and simultaneously hosting a software developer meet here.

 

“With the economic slowdown, large companies are eager to cut down capital expenditure, and funding for start-ups is even lesser. Cloud computing helps cut down expenditure without cutting down on capacity. To this end, we are also partnering venture capital firm Freemont Ventures to help fund non-professional developers and start-ups who are based wholly on the cloud,” Mr. Karnakota said.

 

Read More: http://goo.gl/JfdIF

 

 

Experts: Security is important to businesses using cloud computing

 

Experts in cloud computing told a meeting of Sacramento business leaders Friday that companies can reap benefits from shifting data storage and processing to remote servers -- but they must continue to think about security.

 

Cloud computing allows companies to store data and run applications from servers hosted or owned by third-party data centers, saving money by employing economies of scale.

Read More: http://goo.gl/amXsj

Telstra, Accenture, to deliver SAP cloud

 

German software giant SAP has signed a landmark deal with the nation’s largest telco Telstra and IT services giant Accenture that will see the pair deliver hosted SAP solutions to Australian customers from Telstra’s on-shore datacentre infrastructure.

 

Telstra doesn’t just want to sell businesses and government departments telecommunications services any more; it also wants to sell them cloud computing and software as a service offerings which will run over the top of those networks. Infrastructure as a Service, Microsoft Office 365, and now SAP; pretty soon I’m sure Telstra will be able to offer a complete enterprise IT package, with Accenture waiting in the wings to pick up the integration scraps from Telstra’s table.

 

Read More: http://goo.gl/UJmBZ

Dimension Data expands its cloud portfolio and channel

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Selling cloud services is no easy feat and finding ways to do so successfully can be a challenge. Dimension Data, one of the largest and best known channel partners in the world, recently acquired cloud provider OpSource, boosting its own cloud services portfolio and enabling smaller partners to resell its infrastructure and applications.

The acquisition marks a trend in the way that channel partners approach the cloud. They fall into two camps: Those that build their own infrastructure and become cloud providers and those that sign on to partner with the providers.

In addition to the OpSource acquisition, Dimension Data also announced the inclusion of managed Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Lync 2010 cloud services from its cloud. With this expansion, Dimension Data provides public, private and hybrid cloud service offerings in addition to managed messaging, collaboration and communication apps.

Read more: http://goo.gl/sp0PX

What is Cloud Hosting?

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Cloud Hosting is a new way of hosting your websites: instead of being stored on a physical machine or cluster or servers, your website is hosted in the cloud across thousands of servers.  This structure creates incredible speed and resilience which results in lower downtime, better site loading and fewer problems commonly encountered by website owners, such as sites going down when hit with a traffic spike or due to problems with your site.

Read More: http://goo.gl/8p9xJ

Cloud Hosting : don’t believe the hype?

Cloud Computing is the technological breakthrough which makes cloud hosting possible.

Cloud web hosting is the web hosting that becomes possible through the technology of cloud computing. Cloud web hosting is an example of cloud computing applied to the web hosting industry.  We are going to see a large proportion of computing functionality which we currently run on our own computers taken over by cloud based services over the next few years.

Read more: http://cloudhostingproviders.com.au/cloud-computing-cloud-hosting/

Cloud Hosting

While Cloud Hosting is a massive industry internationally, Australian Cloud Hosting providers have been a little slower onto the market.   Cloud Computing and Cloud Hosting are massive buzzwords in the internet industry, and for good reason, yet there is a lot of mystique around what actually constitutes Cloud Hosting.

Read more: http://cloudhostingproviders.com.au/australian-cloud-hosting/

Cloud Hosting

While Cloud Hosting is a massive industry internationally, Australian Cloud Hosting providers have been a little slower onto the market.   Cloud Computing and Cloud Hosting are massive buzzwords in the internet industry, and for good reason, yet there is a lot of mystique around what actually constitutes Cloud Hosting.

Read more: http://cloudhostingproviders.com.au/australian-cloud-hosting/

Cloud computing slugs it out with legacy

Adoption of cloud computing has reached a tipping point - but don’t expect legacy systems to disappear for at least two more decades according to Paul Daugherty, chief technology architect of Accenture. 

Speaking at the SuiteWorld conference in San Francisco Mr Daugherty said that Accenture, which is a systems integration partner with NetSuite, has now completed 1,700 cloud projects. “We initially saw interest in solving very specific issues. Now there are broader roadmaps for cloud,” he said. 

Read more: http://goo.gl/ob0dU

Mobile shopping service StreetHawk hosts in Ninefold's cloud

StreetHawk, a new location-based mobile personal shopping service, has chosen to host its business with Australian cloud computing and storage company, Ninefold. According to Ninefold, "At launch, the app needed to support terabytes of real-time retail inventory from 50 retailers and 300+ shop locations to successfully connect traditional bricks and mortars retailers with smartphone shoppers in Sydney.

Read more: http://goo.gl/ob0dU

Cloud Hosting Your Website: Cloud Hosting Providers

http://cloudhostingproviders.com.au/ Cloud Web Site Hosting can make your website faster, more robust and even save you money, compared with other premium hosting options such as Dedicated and Virtual Private Servers (VPS) Web Hosting. For more information, visit http://cloudhostingproviders.com.au/cloud-hosting-providers/

Cloud_Web_Hosting_-_04.13.2012.wmv Watch on Posterous

Google Drive Begs the Question: Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

Like any new technology, data storage in the cloud has gone through a maturation period. Employees started out, way back in 2007, moving a few files over to Dropbox.com. Then, IT started experimenting with cloud storage through more robust services like Rackspace Cloud Files. Now, executives are starting to wonder if all enterprise storage can be hosted in the cloud, and not in an on-premise data center.

Questions About Google Drive

Every so often, a debate about cloud storage crops up, and it presents a good opportunity for IT executives to take stock of their own agreements, especially when it comes to storage. Last week, Google announced Google Drive with great fanfare. Within a few hours, users were already gaining access to the service, which provided 5GB of document and media storage for free.

Enterprise Cloud Storage: Read the Contract

That's why, for enterprise cloud storage, most experts say the most critical step with storage policies is to investigate the actual contract you have with the vendor. This might require scrutiny from a corporate attorney, and further investigations into such intangibles as how to retain data archives if a cloud storage vendor goes under and how to encrypt access to the cloud storage.

In the end, Google Drive is a good reminder about studying vendor agreements and terms of service, negotiating terms that match existing corporate policies, and deciding which data is appropriate for the cloud and which data should never leave the servers in your own data center.

To know more about this article, go to http://goo.gl/qXK59.

Amazon Cloud Drive Gains Desktop App

Amazon has introduced a desktop application for Cloud Drive, its consumer data-storage service, to better rival the recently launched Google Drive and other cloud storage services.

Cloud Drive, which launched last year, gives people tiered levels, starting with 5 gigabytes of free storage, or enough to hold about 1000 songs or 2000 photos. Services are then available for US$20 to US$100 per year, depending on disk space, maxing out at 1000 gigabytes.

Google last week launched Google Drive, a similar service for storing and sharing files online, which also offers 5GB of free capacity — which is cheaper than the popular service Dropbox. With the desktop application, Amazon's service makes Cloud Drive a bit easier to use, and better integrated with a computer than its browser-based version.

Read this full article at http://goo.gl/DWa5v.

Copyright Lost In The Cloud

KPMG reckons that cloud computing will add $3 billion to our GDP in 10 years. But will the opportunities of the cloud be constrained if we don't fix copyright law?

Until now, the issue of copyright and the internet has been focused on the consumer space, but the implications could soon be felt in the business world, too.

Senator Stephen Conroy said that the copyright issue will be fixed by the inquiry into copyright reform being undertaken by the Law Reform Commission (LRC). The question is, of course, whether the inquiry will try to add to the existing complexities of copyright law, or whether it set a few high-level principles that will enable us all to benefit from the cloud. The LRC has a big, important job on its hands.

How do you think the copyright issue can be fixed?

Read more at http://goo.gl/S9ZWw

Go Daddy Serves It Up In The Cloud

Web hosting and domain name provider, Go Daddy, is now offering a cloud server service which it says gives businesses the ability to move from traditional hosting to more advanced, scalable servers with flexible network options, and at a lower cost.

Go Daddy vice president of hosting development, Brian Krouse, who oversaw the development of the technology says cloud servers takes “Infrastructure as a Service to a whole new level," and he adds, “helps businesses that need both cost effective flexibility and scalability."

Read the full article at http://goo.gl/UZj8z

Clouding the Issue

Though “the cloud” may sound like a cult or a threat from a horror movie, it’s actually an incredibly smart, efficient and cost-effective way of managing data in a business setting.  On its most basic level, cloud computing is the practice of using virtual data storage technology.  This can range from something as specific as Google Documents, to something as simple as uploading photos or documents onto a profile.

Former New York Jets quarterback, Tony Merendino, runs ServIT; an infrastructure company that provides hardware, middleware stacks, IT services and most importantly, cloud hosting and managed services, primarily for the manufacturing and distribution industries.

ServIT also provides what they call image-based backup, a process for a computer or virtual machine that creates a copy of the operating system and all the data associated with it, including the system state and application configurations. The backup is saved as a single file that is called an image. This insures that a company’s data and entire IT infrastructure are completely safe in the cloud.

For more information, please visit http://goo.gl/vzUVL

 

Fast Cloud Adoption Risks IT Export: AGIMO

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) has urged caution on cloud adoption, saying that it doesn't want to be on the leading edge. IT departments that wait too long and get left behind might find themselves redundant, according to one industry analyst.

Speaking at the Trend Micro Evolve.Cloud conference in Sydney today, AGIMO first assistant secretary of agency services, John Sheridan, said that there are many considerations when adopting cloud, warning that adoption isn't as simple as "ticking the iCloud box on your iPad".

Forrester vice president and principal analyst for Asia Pacific, Michael Barnes, who spoke earlier in the day, said that there is an air of urgency to cloud adoption, as there are external organisations out there that may represent a credible threat to internal IT departments.

"Internal IT has competition. Cloud providers and even traditional hosting service providers and other folks who have been in this space, who are now embracing cloud approaches — they are legitimate competition to us," Barnes said.

Read more of this article at http://goo.gl/wfgXa

 

Virtual-Q Announce Strategic Relationship with Rackspace®

Virtual-Q, a leader in Hosted Virtual Desktops, today announced a strategic relationship with Rackspace® Hosting, the service leader in cloud computing, for its hosting needs. Virtual-Q will use Rackspace's global datacenters to host their 'Q' hosted virtual desktop platform. The decision to select Rackspace was driven by Virtual-Q's rapid growth and the increasing needs of its customer base for a complete hosted virtual desktop solution that utilizes scalable and reliable datacenters.

To support a growing global presence, Virtual-Q needed a world-class data center provider with a geographically redundant infrastructure, robust network and industry leading uptime. Following an extensive evaluation process, Virtual-Q chose Rackspace to host the 'Q' not just because of their technology, but because of their Fanatical Support® service.

To know more about the collaboration of Virtual-Q and Rackspace®, read the full story at http://goo.gl/6zFRd

Microsoft's Office Live Small Business closing today

Microsoft is sticking to its plan to shut down its Office Live Small Business (OLSB) suite of cloud-based services on Monday, even though it seems many customers are either unaware of the deadline or are having difficulties migrating.

Microsoft first announced its intention to close OLSB about 18 months ago and launched the suite's replacement, Office 365, in June of last year. Customers also have the option to migrate to non-Microsoft email and website hosting providers such as GoDaddy.

It seems that many customers of this cloud-hosted email and website hosting suite won't make the deadline to transition to another service.

It's unclear how many OLSB customers remain oblivious to the suite's impending shutdown. OLSB is used primarily for email communications and website hosting.

Recently, some Microsoft partners developed automated tools to transfer websites from OLSB to Office 365, including CloudVisors. However, Microsoft never developed its own tool to do this.

Read more from this article - http://goo.gl/hB2xV

 

Hosting Provider Deploys Brocade Solutions For Cloud Services

Australian hosting and cloud services provider, 6YS, has deployed Brocade’s ethernet fabric and routing infrastructure as a foundation for what it says is the rapid growth of its Ironpoint Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering.

6YS CTO, Martin von Stein, said that after a highly-successful trial, Brocade VDX 6720 data centre switches had been deployed at the company’s two data centers as the basis of a single, scalable Ethernet Fabric, and leveraged within its IRONPOINT enterprise cloud architecture.

According to Brocade’s regional director for the Australia and New Zealand region, Graham Schultz, “6YS is well known for successfully pioneering software as a service, which is really the forerunner of the cloud computing services we are starting to see today.” said Graham Schultz, Brocade’s Regional Director for the Australia and New Zealand region.

 

Read this full article here.