Cisco is the latest company to release customer research into cloud computing trends, and only an average of 18 percent of respondents worldwide said they are using the cloud in any capacity. However, the outlook is better, as 88 percent said they planned to take up the cloud in some capacity within three years. The world is full of good intentions, of course, and surveys tend to be optimistic. That’s why companies pay to have […]
cloud computing
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The research includes predictions for six technologies IT departments should consider in the coming year, including adoption of social media strategies, cloud computing and virtualization, as well as mobile applications and analytics tools. According to a study by IT analytics firm Info-Tech Research Group, 2011 will be the year of mass adoption for technologies the company said businesses have been slow to adopt. The research includes predictions for six technologies IT departments should consider in […]
Based on the work I have been doing in cloud computing Europe, Asia/Pacific, and North America, people have been regularly asking me the questions, “How are attitudes towards cloud computing different in Europe?” and “How has cloud adoption differed in Europe from it’s adoption in the United States?” In fact, I was asked back in September to write a blog on the differences I have seen in cloud adoption in Europe versus my experience in […]
2010 was the year “cloud computing” became colloquialized to just “cloud,” and everyone realized “cloud,” “SAAS” and all the other xAAS’s (PAAS, IAAS, DAAS) were all different implementations of the same idea — a set of computing services available online that can expand or contract according to need. Not all the confusion has been cleared up, of course. But seeing specific services offered by Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Citrix, VMware and a host of other companies […]
Citrix CTO Simon Crosby looks back at 2010 in the cloud computing sector–and ahead at what 2011 may bring–and isn’t very comfortable with a number of things emerging on the security side of that very hot business. Crosby has become a go-to resource for knowledge in virtualization, cloud computing and data security. He was founder and CTO of XenSource prior to its acquisition by Citrix for $500 million in 2007. Previously, Simon was a principal […]
If data is sitting in three jurisdictions, what laws apply to it? Dubai: Tighter budgets, less capital investment and fewer IT staff in the corporate world are expected to boost cloud computing storage demands past $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) per year in the Middle East in a third-party global storage market worth $68 billion annually. As the global number grows to $150 billion a year by 2014, some observers warn the amount of money saved […]
As the dominant IT paradigm continues to shift, companies need to manage critical components of the migration. Companies still face plenty of questions regarding cloud computing. Increasingly, however, the dominant question is not whether to do it, but how intensely. In fact, given the pace at which companies are offloading at least part of their IT infrastructure to public clouds (generally defined as third-party services that host computing workloads in multi-tenant data centers), those that […]
A growing number of small-business owners are expected to try cloud computing services next year, hoping to trim costs and stay up and running if disaster strikes. Cloud computing refers to any service that operates over an Internet connection, allowing immediate access from any computer or mobile device with Web access. Business owners can access software or store information—such as customer contacts, accounting data and presentations—and leave the technical maintenance to the cloud provider. As […]
This article is based on the book “Creating the Infrastructure for Cloud Computing: An Essential Handbook for IT Professionals” The virtualization models for clients are, arguably, more diverse than those for servers. For servers there are essentially two, the earlier model of static consolidation and the more recent dynamic model where virtual machines lightly bound to physical hosts can be moved around with relative ease. With virtualized clients there are also two main models, depending […]
Cloud Adopters Embrace Cloud For Both Innovation and Legacy Optimization Once thought to be the answer to deployment options for just the SMB market, early cloud adopters proved otherwise. Stereotypes about industry, size of company, geographies, and roles no longer hold back adoption. Cloud adoption at all 4 layers of the cloud passed the tipping points in 2010 as a key business and technology strategy (see Figure 1). For 2011, we can expect users to: […]
A few weeks back, I was on a panel of media pundits asked to make predictions about what might happen in the technology business in 2011. One prominent member of our group, seeking to stake out a bold, contrarian position, asserted that 2011 would be the year that “cloud computing” would be revealed to be a big nothing, an over-hyped concept that in the end is more about marketing than actual technology. He’s so, so […]
Once upon a time, a few decades ago, computers were extraordinarily expensive, room-filling machines – the kind decked out with whirring tape reels, flashing lights, and banks of switches. You didn’t pull up a chair up to use one; instead, using a process called timesharing, you accessed it via a remote terminal at the same time as a bunch of other folks. The PC revolution changed all that, but only for a while. Today, we’re […]
Cloud Computing can help your business reduce costs as you don’t have to invest in hardware and other physical infrastructure, your data is stored on a secure location and you only pay for what you use – there are no licensing fees associated with cloud computing. Legal Issues associated with Cloud Computing That said, there are some important legal issues that must be taken care of before you sign-up with any of the cloud vendors […]
When we first heard about cloud computing, public clouds got most of the attention. But as IT managers looked at the security risks of having data outside the corporate firewall, they turned their attention to private clouds, which analysts and various surveys suggest will get more enterprise investment in the next few years. But private clouds have their share of challenges too. There are management issues and operational processes to figure out. And, of course, […]
There seems to be a steady stream of news stories extolling the benefits of cloud computing and the positive impact it can have on an organisation. However, just as many organisations are in the process of implementing effective internal data governance processes, and are now faced with the question of whether their businesses’ sensitive data can be effectively managed in the cloud. The data governance and compliance issues faced by organisations are the same whether […]
This time last year I took the rather brazen step of optimistically suggesting that IT spend would recover from its annus horribilis in the new year. But even with a record number of costly tech disasters around data loss and security, lessons still are not being turned into budget realities. It is apparent to me that, for a great number of organisations, recession may have technically left the building but in the world of IT […]
Cloud computing is a transformative delivery model that is changing the way technology vendors, distributors, resellers, and consumers think about, approach, and implement IT systems. What exactly “the cloud” is remains a matter of debate, because there are more than two dozen definitions for cloud computing. Further, how the cloud is applied to the conventional IT channel is relatively uncharted and may ultimately prove difficult to pin down. Escaping the cloud is almost impossible. Cloud […]
One would think that for something with so much activity around it and so talked about that there would be a concrete definition of what cloud computing is. Instead, depending on who you ask, everyone seems to have their own definition of what cloud computing means. CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA ) vice-president and country manager for Canada, Jimmy Fulton, summed it up best by saying “there hasn’t been a more ambiguous term in the IT […]
Cloud computing is coming of age in large enterprises, according to a new study of North American and European IT professionals conducted by Management Insight on behalf of CA Technologies. The group surveyed IT professionals in organizations with 1,000 to 10,000-plus employees, revealing that enterprises are active in the cloud, and their virtualization efforts are contributing to broader interest in cloud computing. The results also indicate a shift toward approaching IT using “cloud thinking,” accelerating […]
Technological advances enabling companies to significantly cut costs have led to strong global growth in start-up activity, an American venture capital pioneer told Reuters. “In 40 years in the business, I’ve never seen such a vibrant start-up environment,” Alan Patricof, founder and managing director of Greycroft, told Reuters on a visit to Israel. He added that, in spite of the global financial crisis of the last two years, “there’s a lot of money around and […]
It’s pretty commonly understood that corporate computing has gone through three principal phases: centralized computing first, then the PC Era, then the age of the network. We could easily fit Enterprise 2.0, cloud computing, and lots of other recent developments into the network phase, but I think we’d be missing something if we did so. It became clear to me as I watched the digital economy in 2010 that we had passed a tipping point […]
Cloud computing is all the rage. “It’s become the phrase du jour,” says Gartner senior analyst Ben Pring, echoing many of his peers. The problem is that (as with Web 2.0) everyone seems to have a different definition. As a metaphor for the Internet, “the cloud” is a familiar cliché, but when combined with “computing,” the meaning gets bigger and fuzzier. Some analysts and vendors define cloud computing narrowly as an updated version of utility […]
CSC, the American technology firm announced the results of a study that reveals a willingness within the government and IT community to be flexible around security governance to benefit from cloud computing and shared services. Results show that users are open to sharing sensitive activities in the cloud, as long as the parties involved share similar characteristics and have the same cultural approach to security. The report, titled ‘Shared Services: A perfect storm of opportunity,’ […]
Gartner forecasts double-digit strong growth in revenue for the enterprise SAAS applications market in 2010 and 2011. Software-as-a-service worldwide revenues for enterprise applications will reach $10.7 billion in 2011, said Gartner on Dec. 14. The market generated worldwide revenues of $7.9 billion in 2009, and is forecast to reach $9.2 billion for 2010, according to the analyst firm. While growth was strong for 2010, with a 15.7 percent jump over 2009 revenues, “the market is […]
Cloud computing could be over hyped today, but more than half of large enterprises will rely on public clouds by 2015. According to Gartner, the industry analysts, cloud computing is currently still at the “peak of inflated expectations”, with users’ belief in the technology outstripping its ability to deliver. But within the next five years, half of the world’s 1000 largest enterprises will be using external cloud services for their “top 10 revenue generating processes,” […]
The tremendous growth of the cloud computing market, despite shortcomings in some areas, is a testament to the level of pent-up frustration that exists within organizations of all sizes across nearly every industry with legacy on-premise software and systems, and the tangible benefits today’s leading cloud vendors are quickly delivering to their early adopter customers. As the year winds to an end, it is incumbent on all industry pundits to make predictions about what they […]
Most companies now talk of adding cloud capabilities to their product and service offerings, and a number of companies, such as Google, now claim to be cloud-based. Such trend leads to network operators, as well as test equipment vendors, to decide if cloud computing presents them with any opportunities particularly in the enterprise and consumer areas. What is cloud computing anyway? According to Wikipedia, cloud computing is an Internet-based computing, where shared resources, software and […]
Even Bill Clinton is a fan of the cloud! From the New York Times: Back in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was president, cell phones weighed five pounds and no one dreamed of using them to do anything besides make phone calls. Now, they’re used to connect us for more powerful causes — like raising a billion dollars for Haiti, President Clinton said at the Dreamforce 2010 conference in San Francisco Wednesday. And that’s largely […]
CIO Magiazine has four predictions for cloud computing in 2011 here: It’s been an incredibly interesting, exciting, and tumultuous year for cloud computing. But, as the saying goes, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Next year will be one in which the pedal hits the metal, resulting in enormous acceleration for cloud computing. One way to look at it is that next year will see the coming to fruition of a number of trends and initiatives […]
Cisco announced today the final installment of the Cisco® Connected World Report, an international study about the behavioral trends of workers in accessing information anywhere, with any device, and the ability of information technology (IT) professionals to address their needs. The latest results focus on data center, virtualization, and cloud computing trends, and evolving IT roles, in the context of increasingly mobile and distributed workforces. The study found that global IT professionals are creating new […]