New survey data reveal that some of the initial concerns about cloud and on-premises data and app integration, and unifying the user experience, continue to be significant challenges. Yet IT governance and the maturing of managing technology have led to a surprising agreement between the data center jockeys and their business customers. A Harvard Business Review Analytic Services poll in the fall of 2015, about cloud implementation experiences, yielded 341 respondents from around the world […]
compliance
34 posts
Ten main reasons why cloud technology is taking center stage in call centers: Flexibility of OPEX over CAPEX. The shift from upfront capital costs to ongoing pay-as-you-go operational costs means that cloud-based solutions offer contact center managers a way to deploy new technology and scale up or down in a cost-effective way. For outsourcers and telemarketers who may have call volumes that vary dramatically depending on campaign levels, solutions with a flexible pay per usage […]
According to a new report by cloud security company CipherCloud, compliance is the single biggest concern for large organizations looking at cloud adoption. The company surveyed its 100-plus large global customers and found that, for 64 percent, compliance was their top cloud security obstacle, followed by unprotected data for 32 percent. Of those concerned most about compliance, 58 percent said that cloud services violated data protection laws in their country, 31 percent said they violated […]
As bank executives continue to debate, hesitate and worry over the security issues related to using applications that connect to the cloud, their employees are using cloud-based apps by the hundreds — often without banks’ knowledge. The average bank had 844 cloud services in use throughout its network in the third quarter of this year, according to an analysis conducted by Skyhigh Networks, far higher than bank IT departments estimated. “If you did a survey […]
Small and medium businesses have a lot to gain through adopting cloud computing, a recent research from comScore – sponsored by Microsoft – shows. Not only would these companies benefit from important time and money savings when adopting the cloud, but they also see increased security levels, the aforementioned research shows. According to the survey, which was conducted among both cloud and non-cloud SMBs in the U.S., India, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, most businesses […]
The demand for desktop virtualization is being driven, at least in part, by the explosive growth in mobile work styles. That’s a key takeaway from a new global market study commissioned by virtual solutions provider Citrix, whose virtualization, networking and cloud solutions are delivered to more than 100 million corporate desktops daily. The survey found that 55 percent of responding companies will deploy new desktop virtualization for the first time by 2013. Of those surveyed, […]
Companies are looking for cloud solutions that satisfy the requirements of the IT manager in terms of reliability, security and rapid access to data, while still receiving everything they need such as service, flexibility and user-friendliness. By consolidating resources into secure, redundant and hardened data centres, providers of cloud solutions can offer a considerably higher degree of reliability and increased network security than before. Yet many companies are still sceptical about these claims and doubt […]
Since Cloud computing is a new way of doing business you have to be clear about what you are letting yourself in for. For some, the business benefits of Cloud are many – for others it will be the simple fact that Cloud allows a small business to stop worrying about its IT – something that distracts from its core function of running the business. Cloud computing differs from conventional outsourcing in that the latter […]
By definition, Cloud computing is Web-based computing, whereby shared resources, both software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand through an Internet connection. Instead of having to buy, install, maintain, and manage these resources on your own computer or device, you access and use them through a Web browser. One of the major advantages to businesses using Cloud based technologies is that it saves time. Rather than managing technology in-house, you pay […]
Cloud computing is a remarkable phenomenon, with analysts at IDC predicting public cloud computing services to be a $73 billion market by 2015. However, many CIOs are still puzzled by the term and may not yet be familiar with how appropriate ‘The Cloud’ is for certain business IT functions. Concerns over security, too, remain an issue for some. The wide availability of computing power, storage capacity and software over the internet, through ‘The Cloud’, presents […]
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 […]
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 […]
The majority of large organisations are migrating internal virtual infrastructure to the cloud because they believe it will reduce costs, according to a recent survey. The survey finds that only 17 per cent of organisations achieved their utilisation and ROI goals with virtualisation and yet, they intend to use similar planning and management approaches for their move to the cloud. The survey interviewed 94 executives responsible for virtual and cloud infrastructure decisions at organisations with […]
Ask anyone in IT what the biggest barrier to adopting cloud computing services is and the most likely answer is security. As Shirief Nosseir, EMEA security product marketing director at CA Technologies, explains securing the cloud isn’t rocket science; cloud is just another environment in which security should be seen as an enabler rather than a barrier. Many organisations perceive the adoption of any form of cloud computing to change a company’s risk profile, but […]
In a troubled economy, cloud computing seems like a great cost saving alternative and it is. Whether in good times or bad, any pragmatic cost saving measure is a ‘good’ measure. Google, Microsoft, IBM and all other known and unknown cloud providers offer today’s CIO an array of major cost saving alternatives to the traditional data center and IT department. The temptation to put things on/in the cloud and sit back can be extremely compelling. […]
IT decision makers from a range of public and private sector organisations ranked loss of control of data and where data is held as the top security concern. Despite economic pressure for business to cut costs and fervent assurances from cloud computing technology suppliers, security remains a top barrier to cloud adoption, research by the UK’s National Computing Centre (NCC) has revealed. Interest in cloud computing is high and many organisations say they are planning […]
Cloud computing can help automotive manufacturers gain a competitive edge in every aspect of their business—from product design and manufacturing to global expansion. But, success will largely depend on their ability to fully leverage its capability in response to several emerging trends and challenges. When assessing what cloud can do for their businesses, automotive leaders need to take into account the distinct and rapidly evolving challenges that their industry faces today. These include the fundamental […]
Virtualization – not quite the nirvana it was promised to be. We expected exponentially better efficiency, higher availability and huge savings for IT budgets. However, now that the honeymoon is over, most organizations feel slighted. Not only have the promised benefits never been realized, but IT organizations also have been saddled with ever-increasing user demand and out-of-control costs – not to mention virtual sprawl, vendor lock-in and high provisioning effort. With all of these issues, […]
In more than a decade of talking about cloud computing, I have found the principle of ownership has been a recurring theme. People feel comfortable owning their computing. They know where they stand. Since cloud computing means giving up ownership, it makes people uncomfortable, uncertain of their ground. But while there’s comfort in ownership, it’s not of itself a guarantee of security or certainty. People often talk of the risks of trusting computing that lies […]
A lack of understanding about security risks is one of the key factors holding back cloud computing. Report after report after report harps on security as the main speed bump slowing the pace of cloud adoption. But what tends to be overlooked, even by cloud advocates, is that overall security threats are changing as organizations move from physical environments to virtual ones and on to cloud-based ones. Viruses, malware and phishing are still concerns, but […]
Cloud computing is a boon, but its vectors need to be kept on a short leash, says Mushegh Hakhinian, security architect at IntraLinks. The pace of business today requires that critical information be accessible anywhere, anytime, often among both internal and external parties. Hosted services are an important tool to enable this, but while the tools facilitate communication, they bring additional risk and challenges to the firms that use them. Technology is rapidly evolving to […]
Given all the hype about the software-as-a-service model, you’d think that it could be applied to every category of software. Not so, says a new report from Forrester Research Inc. In fact, SaaS will be “a disruptive force” in software categories that account for about a quarter of global software spending but will have “little or no effect” on many of 123 market segments studied, Forrester analysts Liz Herbert and Andrew Bartels wrote. Forrester said […]
When it comes to enterprise computing environments, the skies are getting increasingly cloudy–and dealing with that will mean covering up with flexible, dynamic security. This was the message of Art Coviello, executive chairman of EMC’s RSA security division, during his keynote at the RSA Conference today, in San Francisco. Last year, he told the audience, his speech was about the promise of the cloud–the assertion that it’s possible to achieve security and do it better. […]
The benefits of cloud services are often cited. They’re low-cost. They’re scalable. They’re permanently state-of-the-art. However, at least with traditional IT outsourcing, the customer can negotiate a balanced, even a customer-friendly contract. Cloud customers usually have little option but to accept standard T&Cs. It is a utility model, where multiple users each buy a slice of the same pre-existing service. Providers tend to have the “take it or leave it” mentality of a gas or […]
The biggest obstacle facing public cloud computing today is security. The major concerns include: internal and external threats, data collection, privacy and compliance. An essential part of any cloud implementation is the cloud service provider’s ability to have a secure infrastructure to protect customer data and guard against unauthorized access. Today’s public cloud is becoming more secure than on-premise computing. Cloud service providers are able to provide better security than enterprises in the following ways: […]
While the potential benefits of cloud computing, such as resource flexibility, are appealing to many IT executives, security and regulatory concerns are either limiting or preventing its use by Wall Street financial firms. That was the consensus of many attendees at the High Performance Computing in Financial Markets Conference held here Monday. Mats Andersson, CTO of Nasdaq’s OMX Exchange, said Nasdaq uses cloud computing systems, but only inside the company’s firewall and only to access […]
Despite the hype, the virtualization scenario in India is laced with implementation challenges and cost pitfalls. Mehak Chawla finds out the causes for reluctant adoption and what needs to be done for virtualization to live up to its image In a newsletter issued by an IT giant for its US customers last week, I stumbled upon the sentence “We think virtualization will be the hottest technology in 2011. It shall be adopted across verticals and […]
The market downturn gave impetus to cloud computing by forcing organizations to find new ways to press forward with IT innovation despite their constrained resources—so they could continue to improve their competitive position, boost productivity and gain actionable market insight. In other words, after years of talk about aligning IT and business, alignment has quickly become life and death. If IT can’t reduce costs while keeping a step ahead of an increasingly dynamic business climate, […]
Now is the time for virtual desktops. There are a lot of people in the industry saying that you should wait. We ask why? There are serious savings in support and energy costs to be garnered along with significant other factors that will increase agility and lower TCO. Don’t wait. If you follow the advice and steps outlined below, and build a solid business case, you will be successful. Virtual desktops are the hottest virtualization […]