Since the mid 2000s one of the prevailing trends in the IT world has been to move networks, data, operating systems and servers into an environment where they are not tied to a specific piece of hardware. In the early days the emphasis was on virtualisation. Organisations concentrated on increasing the number of servers on one machine using a hypervisor program with the activities kept in-house. More recently there has been an emphasis on cloud […]
Pay-as-you-go
9 posts
It’s no secret that many organizations have begun to look at public and private clouds as alternatives to traditional IT infrastructure. In January 2012, Enterprise Strategy Group published their 2012 IT Spending Intentions Survey revealing that 28% of organizations surveyed were using cloud computing services as a way to control IT costs, up substantially from 13% in 2009. Cloud storage is one of the many ways that organizations are leveraging cloud services today. With public […]
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 […]
The cloud computing model represents an important change in how information technology works. Just as the major changes that happened first with the client-server application model and then with the Internet, the drivers of this new revolution are accessibility and cost – how can computing infrastructure, platforms and applications have more widespread usage and how can they be made cheaper. In fact, price and accessibility go hand-in-hand: the cheaper technology becomes, the more people will […]
Apple Inc yesterday announced the coming of its cloud based platform, aptly dubbed iCloud. According to news reports, the web service will synchronise and coordinate shared content across all devices – a key element being its ability to stream music; in other words an all-new iTunes. Following its hotly anticipated autumn launch, iCloud has the potential to revolutionise how music is acquired and distributed, offering a service to rival that of Google, Amazon, and Spotify […]
Cloud computing is a massively hyped but hard to pin down concept. It has existed in one form or another for some time now: Software-as-a-Service, Infrastructure as a Service, business process outsourcing and third party administration all fall under the cloud umbrella. In fact, many people use cloud services without even realising it: streaming on-demand movies or music, storing files online, or even a webmail service like Hotmail or Gmail are forms of interaction with […]
By now you’ve probably been barraged with messages about the value of cloud computing – so much so that you may be losing sight of the forest for the trees. The meaning of cloud computing seems to vary based on who’s describing it and where that person’s paycheck comes from. Hardware companies emphasize the hardware aspects of the cloud and software companies define it based around software. Here’s a definition of the cloud designed for […]
In my last post, I gave you an outline of what I see as the three biggest “killer apps” of cloud computing. There is, however, another facet to the cloud story that I think is very exciting right now: innovation on the core technical and operational models that form the basis of distributed computing. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) What I mean by that is this: cloud has made new ways of acquiring and consuming infrastructure, platforms, […]
In business, and in nature, it is the strong that survive. Rather than trying to coast through the down economy, consider ways to strengthen, improve, and grow your business. This will better your chances of “survival” and enhance the future of your company. Information systems streamline business operations and help you do more with less. By investing in new technologies and automating business processes, you can run your business more efficiently. It may even be […]