As cloud computing continues to take the IT industry by storm, it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between a good cloud partner and a “me, too” provider. Reminiscent of the dot com days, companies are popping up everywhere claiming to be cloud computing experts. In this environment, it is more important than ever to do your homework and sort out good, reliable companies from those that just want to cash in on […]
Just a few years ago, the small business tech catch phrase was Voice over IP (VoIP). By now VoIP is the standard in telephony. A Computer Economics study shows that by 2009, nearly 60 percent of organizations had adopted VoIP and more than half are investing in VoIP. The initial draw for small businesses to make the switch to VoIP related to cost savings — namely, there are no toll charges or long distance fees […]
While some concerns remain about data security and application uptime, there’s significant movement within the retail industry toward cloud-based solutions that can be delivered on an on-demand basis, and it’s easy to see why. Unlike many other technologies that retailers have had to adapt to meet their business needs, it’s as if cloud computing was designed specifically with the cost-conscious, data-deluged retail enterprise in mind. For retail CIOs seeking a quick ROI payback from any […]
Botnets and their masters can communicate with each other by calling into the same VoIP conference call and swapping data using touch tones, researchers demonstrated at Defcon. This gives the botmasters, whose top goals include remaining anonymous, the ability to issue orders from random payphones and disposable wireless handsets, said researchers Itzik Kotler and Iftach Ian Amit of security and risk assessment firm Security Art. Using phones and the public phone networks eliminates one of […]
Cloud computing seems simple in concept, and indeed simplicity of operation, deployment and licensing are its most appealing assets. But when it comes to questions of compliance, once you scratch the surface you’ll find more questions than you asked in the first place, and more to think about than ever before. Compliance covers a lot of ground, from government regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the European Union Data Protection Act, to industry regulations such as […]
Police across the UK are considering a major move to cloud computing, dumping on-premise IT in an aggressive bid to cut costs. In a move likely to be seen as controversial given the sensitivity of police data, the Metropolitan Police is planning how to run a variety of front-end systems “for managing patrols, operations, incidents and investigations, managing evidence and forensics, and collating information” in the cloud. It is understood that if the project goes […]
Next month – all being well – the UK Cabinet Office will lift the lid on what form the UK public sector Cloud Computing strategy will take. Notably absent from the national ICT strategy announced back in April, Cloud has not been forgotten, but the grandiose plans for an over-arching G-Cloud that were being formulated under the New Labour administration have been scaled down. Exactly what form the revised Cloud thinking will take remains to […]
Businesses can finally replace their old phone systems and get a far more flexible phone solution for a fraction of the cost. But it’s not just replacing one phone system for another. With Hosted voice, you get the benefits of a fully managed phone system, which means you’ll need fewer resident experts to handle things. What’s more, Hosted voice expands communications and productivity by providing a range of advanced features and functionality. And it does […]
If you came here for the article with the title, “How Cloud Computing Will Change IT”, unfortunately, it has been removed at the request of the publisher of the website from which it was obtained. Asking me to remove it was within their rights, but I believe it was a shortsighted decision based on old media ideas about the copyright “protection” of assets and the imagined potential loss of ad revenue. I am not competing […]
H&R Block’s virtualization project is putting thin clients in the tax preparer’s thousands of retail stores in an effort to simplify its operating environment and cut expenses. The change should also help it to better compete with chains such as Jackson Hewitt, as well as with independent tax preparers and software-only rivals such as TurboTax and Intuit (INTU). “Typical of any mature company, the competitive landscape is tough. You’re continually looking at ways to optimize,” […]
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 […]
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 […]
In the contact center space today, the cloud is having a significant impact. Not only does this deployment model offer lower cost and greater functionality, it can also open up a broader reach for those operating in nearly every industry. In a recent Contactual white paper, the company took a broader look at the two biggest affects of the cloud on the traditional contact center. Cost Benefits of the Virtual Call Center With the integration […]
Researchers from Swinburne University of Technology are looking for ways to reduce the high cost of internet data storage and retrieval in cloud computing. While cloud computing – which relies on remote, rather than local servers – offers almost unlimited capacity for data storage and processing, current usage charges mean the costs are expanding at the same near-limitless rate. Social media such as Facebook and Flickr are simple examples of cloud computing, but the drain […]
Meeting the requirements for cloud data security entails applying existing security techniques and following sound security practices. To be effective, cloud data security depends on more than simply applying appropriate countermeasures. Taken collectively, countermeasures must comprise a resilient mosaic that protects data at rest as well as data in motion. While the use of encryption is a key component for cloud security, even the most robust encryption is pointless if the keys are exposed or […]
Cloud computing is a reality, and it’s a force that I believe IT professionals need to come to terms with quickly. The economic motivation for cloud is high; business need for speed and agility is like never before, and the technology has reached a level where it makes prudent investments in cloud services not only possible but fast and easy. The cloud is here and it won’t go away, but what is it really, why […]
Zynga was created in 2007 with the idea that “play — like search, share and shop — would become one of the core activities on the internet.” Just 5 years later, the company has about 150 million monthly unique users in 166 countries, and has just filed for what could become one of the most important IPOs of 2011. There’s little doubt that Zynga is one of the fastest and most interesting growth stories on […]
Cloud Computing, which allows oganisations to share resources, software and applications, can bring radical change to public sector ICT services. Using the cloud will reduce costs and risks and bring scalability, and resilience. But many top managers believe the risks are too great. The author looks at the reality of Cloud Computing. It seems that board-level executives are not as keen as their IT professionals on the adoption of Cloud computing according to no less […]
Nearly half of small business owners do not believe cloud computing will help reduce their IT costs, according to a June survey of 1,000 independent business owners by Newtek Business Services. Newtek’s Authority Market Sentiment Survey, a monthly window into the concerns of independent business owners, found that educating small independent business owners regarding the benefits of cloud computing still has a long way to go. In addition, 42 percent of business owners surveyed prefer […]
Have you found yourself wondering what’s wrong with all of the marketing mavens out there in virtualization land? It seems that everything is virtualization and nothing is virtualization. Over the years, I’ve developed a tool or a model that has helped my clients better understand all of the layers of virtualization technology so that they could sort out what would be useful and what doesn’t fit in their world (or their network for that matter). […]
After a delay due to a complicated vendor-authorization process, the General Services Administration (GSA) is finally offering cloud computing services via its Apps.gov website. Federal agencies now can order from a menu of three Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings–cloud storage, virtual machines and Web hosting–from service providers that have received GSA authorities to operate (ATOs) to offer them. It was the process of acquiring ATOs that delayed the GSA’s plans to offer IaaS on […]
According to a survey carried out by hosted IT service provider Rise, 91 per cent of businesses strongly feel more needs to be done to educate end-users about the business benefits of adopting a Cloud infrastructure. The survey, conducted at a recent IT industry event, also identified that when it came to Cloud uptake the biggest concern for firms is where their data is being stored, with 64 per cent of surveyed participants identifying this […]