With the UK government yet to produce its own Cloud Computing national strategy, the Americans have been setting yet another example to follow with the publication of new guidelines on the potential of Cloud and how to procure services. The Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud (or Cloud2), foundation composed of figures from the Cloud market including Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff and VCE CEO Michael Capellas, has presented the federal […]
Cloud Computing
The world’s largest DNA-sequencing outfit is looking to the clouds. The BGI (formerly the Beijing Genomics Institute) this month announced plans to roll out its cloud computing capabilities, which it hopes will help it to dominate bioinformatics in the same way it does the world of sequencing. Research labs often lack the storage, computing power and technical know-how to cope with the current deluge of genomic data. Services such as the BGI’s offer a solution, […]
A quick look at the trends facing most CIOs should send anyone with a large IT budget into a state of worry. In every dimension, CIOs are facing an increased pace of change at the same time they are losing control over the computing environment. The number of assets they must manage is exploding. Consumerization, virtualization, cloud computing, software as a service, mobility are all increasing the complexity of the job of managing IT by […]
Talk to vendors and they will tell you that desktop virtualization is heading for an inflection point. Clearly, in the IT/ITES segment, this technology makes a lot of sense. Other industry verticals, BFSI in particular, also stand to benefit. However, it must be noted that desktop virtualization isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. It needs a large number of users who are deskbound at work. While you can deploy the technology on a laptop and solutions […]
Three-fourths of respondents said that they have virtualized their cloud servers, the survey found. A survey of cloud decision makers at large enterprises in North America found that 52 percent of those polled said that internal change and learning was the leading roadblock to cloud project success, pointing to possible pent-up demand for advisory services, as users struggle with the change brought on by the cloud. According to the study, conducted by TheInfo Pro, a […]
One of the topics most associated with cloud computing is its cost advantages, or lack thereof. One way the topic gets discussed is “capex vs. opex,” a simple formulation, but one fraught with meaning. At its simplest, capex vs. opex is how compute resource is paid for by the consumer of those resources. For example, if one uses Amazon Web Services, payment is made on a highly granular level for the use of the resources […]
The move to almost fully virtualized computing environments is driving a fresh approach to security [1] in the enterprise, according to information technology security managers applying controls for VMware and Microsoft [2] Hyper-V. “We’re very close to being 100 percent virtualized,” says Gurusimran Khalsa, systems group supervisor in the state of New Mexico’s human services department. That organization’s servers are based on VMware’s vSphere, and a virtual desktop project is being started, too. The agency’s […]
Channelling voice calls over IP networks has brought many advantages to enterprise communications, but it also creates some security risks. Though Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services are available for both consumer and business markets, it is from the latter that most enthusiasm for it has come; for this reason, it is also where most of VoIP’s security issues occur. While the commercial sector has, of course, invested heavily in protecting their data networks from […]
If two technology trends were ever made for each other, at least in vendor marketing materials and generically simple diagrams of IT infrastructure, they are the consumerization of IT and desktop virtualization. Analysts who study desktop virtualization say many of its use cases fit neatly into problem areas that their client companies face, such as the consumerization of IT. End users who insist on using non-standard or unapproved computing devices, such as tablets and iOS […]
Those in the know say that cloud computing will fundamentally change the way we office creatures work. “I am slightly too young to remember the workplace before the arrival of the PC,” says Jacqui Thomas, director of Comms at the UK and Ireland chapter of the Cloud Security Alliance. “But cloud is the same kind of game changer.” Adrian Steel, head of infrastructure at the Royal Mail, also sees big changes ahead, especially once cloud […]