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28 posts

A small storefront with Japanese characters and a bicycle, illustrating cloud computing for small businesses

What Cloud Computing Means For Small Businesses

Cloud computing has been a buzzworthy topic for some time, as more and more enterprises move their computing infrastructure and software to cloud-based solutions. While the cloud continues to be a smart option for them, it’s also arguably even more beneficial for small businesses, whose resources can be miniscule. First of all, what exactly is cloud computing? To take a broad definition, Focus Research describes it as “the ability for organizations to share critical computing […]

Silhouette of man standing on high ground under red and blue skies, illustrating making virtual desktop projects succeed

How to Ensure Your Virtual Desktop Initiative Succeeds

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 […]

Person showing brown gift box, illustrating surprising cloud developments of 2010

5 Most Surprising Things about the Cloud in 2010

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 […]

Pink and black ceramic piggy bank, illustrating the economics of desktop virtualization

The Economics of Desktop Virtualization

With Thanksgiving and Christmas behind us and the New Year upon us, it is time to take stock and see what changed for desktop virtualization in 2010. One thing is very clear: We have moved from desktop virtualization being ‘about to take off’ to ‘has taken off’ — the evidence for this is pretty clear in the number of licenses sold. With volumes sold in the low millions, desktop virtualization is way beyond the tryout […]

Industrial complex silhouetted against a bright sunset, illustrating client virtualization in the cloud

Client Virtualization in a Cloud Environment: a Complex Landscape

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 […]

Woman in gray top, illustrating the arrival of cloud thinking

Cloud Computing Survey Points to Arrival of ‘Cloud Thinking’

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 […]

Open Dictionary, illustrating what cloud computing really means

What Cloud Computing Really Means

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 […]

A scale with a bowl on top of it, illustrating the risks and benefits of cloud life

Life in The Cloud: The Risks and Benefits

A short summary of the benefits of the cloud for organizations from here. A key point is to pick a professional and fully redundant supplier. meshIP has redundant systems, data centers and fully backs up your data each day. ‘Cloud computing’ sounds like a complicated idea, but if you use Flickr to store your photos, or Hotmail to keep in touch with friends and family, or stream music over Spotify, then you are, in effect, […]