Articles about Cloud

Cloud storage has come a long way in recent years, and the ever-increasing number of mobile device means that more and more people are finding different ways to make use of it. The importance of backing up valuable data, coupled with the widespread availability of high-speed broadband connections means that cloud storage is ideally suited to safeguarding files you need to protect, not only helping to avoid the risk of data loss, but also making it possible to access your files from other computers.

AVG is a company best known for its antivirus software, but AVG LiveKive sees it branching out into another area of security -- backups. Traditionally, this practice is something that has involved the use of a separated hard drive partition or perhaps a dedicated drive, but the feasibility of storing files online brings a number of benefits. As you are using remote storage, you do not need to worry about running out of space in quite the same way as when using a local hard drive, and the option of remotely accessing files that have been backed up from a machine other than the one from which the backup from created opens up even more opportunities.

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Nearly four months to the day after Google first unveiled its social network to the masses, the search giant on Thursday opened up Google+ to users of its Google Apps platform. While users of standard Google accounts have been able to sign up for the service without an invite since late September, those registered under a Google Apps account remained logged out.

Google claims that technical issues prevented a faster rollout for Apps customers, but did not specify the exact cause of the delays.

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Leading enterprise IT company Oracle announced on Monday that it will be acquiring cloud customer service company RightNow for approximately $1.5 billion.

Since CRM is a major aspect of Oracle's business, RightNow's cloud-based customer experience suite, RightNow CX will make an attractive addition to Oracle's cloud CRM platforms. RightNow CX is already used by almost 2,000 companies internationally, by companies such as NASA, eHarmony, Yahoo, Reuters, Overstock, The U.S. Army, and Nikon to name just a few.

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Information Technology market intelligence company International Data Corporation (IDC) released a report on Friday that forecasts the future growth in corporate spending on cloud-based storage. According to the report, spending on equipment for both public and private cloud storage systems will reach $22.6 billion by 2015.

IDC says we should expect public cloud service providers to increase their spending on storage hardware, software, and professional services over the next five years, and that it should amount to a compound annual growth rate of 23.6%.

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Google may need to act quickly to salvage its $7.25 million deal to migrate the city of Los Angeles to its Google Apps platform, following news that the delayed rollout is still not completed. The city approved the deal two years ago, but in July 2010 it was disclosed that delays had prevented full implementation.

The issue surrounds the Los Angeles Police Department: officials there are not satisfied with Google Apps' security for some sensitive police data. Instead of the original planned 30,000 person rollout, only about 17,000 have been transitioned.

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CloudStorageExplorer.com has released a major update of its paid-for Windows Live SkyDrive Explorer extension, SD Explorer Advanced.  The tool allows users to access their SkyDrive accounts via a drive in Windows Explorer.

SD Explorer Advanced 3.5 introduces a new Background Uploader Module, which simplifies the task of uploading large batches of files to SkyDrive accounts. It also includes a new Tune Up Tool for advanced users wishing to tweak hidden program settings, and an improved MUI (Multilingual User Interface).

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Businesses aren't exactly busting open their coffers, but IT spending will rise next year. Gartner predicts a 3.9 percent increase -- to $2.7 trillion, from $2.6 trillion this year. The analyst firm had expected 5.9 percent spending growth for 2011, and that's not happening.

What's important now isn't so much how much is spent but where. Social media, cloud computing and virtualization are disruptive technologies forcing IT departments and business leaders to re-evaluate technology adoption. Then there are the relentless, lingering effects of the global downturn. As such, Gartner claims that more enterprises are making IT a competitive, business priority -- and that affects who makes the decisions and how technology investments fit the top and bottom lines.

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Apple's rocky iCloud and iOS 5 launches haven't deterred determined upgraders. Today Apple revealed that over the first five days 20 million people had signed up for iCloud and 25 million upgraded to iOS 5. Considering that Apple claims a market of 250 million iOS devices, the numbers are either good or not depending on your view of 10 percent (or less) adoption. It's a fair guess the numbers could have been higher if not for the complexity of this upgrade or data center problems that delayed or thwarted many would-be updaters.

iCloud, Apple's data center-powered synchronization service demands, much during setup. To fully utilize the service, Mac users have to upgrade to iOS 5, iTunes 10.5 and Mac OS X 10.7.2. MobileMe subscribers also must migrate to iCloud, but only after getting the other upgrades. Many Betanews readers report difficulty getting all the updates and iCloud rightly working, particularly with desktop mail clients.

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Microsoft on Monday rolled out the stable release of Windows Intune 2.0, the latest version of the company's new browser-based remote PC management suite that has been in beta for the last three months.

This version of Windows Intune enhances the UI from the first version and adds a handful of user-requested features, most notably the improved ability to deploy software to remote PCs from a cloud storage account.

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We asked, and you surprised us with your answers. Many of you don't think much of iCloud. But perhaps you got off to a bad start because of the glitchy launch. First impressions are so important in any new relationship.

Yesterday, Apple flipped the switch on iCloud in conjunction with a rash of supporting software updates, including iOS 5. Getting those updates was no easy matter, as Ed Oswald reported yesterday and many of you also shared. iCloud is Apple's new connected synchronization service, which replaces iTunes as major sync hub and offers a rash of new capabilities. But to really get it, many of you have to persevere through more updates than I've seen necessary from Apple in years. The service also isn't working quite right for many of you, in a cascade of glitches that reminds of the catastrophic launch of MobileMe three years ago.

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Early this afternoon, Apple flipped the switch making iCloud and its next-version mobile operating system broadly available. To use one you'll need the other, and for Mac owners that also means OS X 10.7.2. If you didn't get iTunes 10.5 yesterday, you'll need it, too.

In many respects, the big news from Apple this week isn't iPhone 4S, no matter how long the buying lines might be come Friday, but iCloud and iOS 5. As I contended earlier today: "iCloud is Apple's killer app". iCloud is a synchronization service that pushes email, contacts and calendars -- like predecessor MobileMe -- and offers online data storage. But there's much more, such as synchronization of applications or digital content like music and movies purchased from the App Store across devices. It's unsurprising that Apple would take a sync-across devices approach. After all, the company generates most of its revenue from selling hardware, not offering cloud services.

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In March 2008, I wrote at Microsoft Watch: "Synchronization is today's killer application. It's either kill or be killed. If Microsoft doesn't strike the deadly blow first, Google will". Google got sync right first, but sometimes latecomers are the talk of the party, as Apple is today with the release of iCloud.

I'm not sure how many people get what iCloud is -- and more importantly what it is not. The service isn't an online storage space like DropBox. iCloud is fundamentally a synchronization service -- more importantly a push sync service. It's the feature many iOS device users will find they can't do without, and it's every company's dream product: Something that locks users into a broader platform, as Microsoft did with file formats and Office during the 1980s and 1990s.

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Today, Apple releases iCloud and iOS 5, two days before iPhone 4S launches in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and United States. The new operating system is a significant upgrade that can be installed on iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4. iOS 5 works in tandem with iCloud, which is Apple's Internet-enabled synchronization service; it replaces iTunes as the company's major sync hub.

We're crowdsoucing our initial reviews, and I ask for your first take ahead of anything that we might do. If you've got something to say about either iCloud or iOS 5 -- or both -- we'd like to get it right away. If you've tested either or both before their release, we request your full or mini-review even sooner.

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CTIA Enterprise & Applications kicked off today in San Diego with a brief tribute to Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, who died last week. CTIA President Steve Largent praised Apple's move into the smartphone market, also calling it "disruptive".

Dan Hesse, Sprint CEO, then took the stage -- the first of three chief executives. He checked off wireless industry accomplishments, such as the year's many natural disasters or the Arab Spring that toppled governments across Northern Africa and the Middle East. "We make a difference in the lives of nearly every person on earth", he asserted.

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Comodo has launched its online backup solution -- releasing a new dedicated desktop client, Comodo Online Storage, as well as updating its desktop backup tool, Comodo Backup, to version 4.0.6.

Comodo Backup 4.0.6, which had been split into separate free and paid-for versions during its beta testing phase, has been released as a single, free tool in the same manner as its predecessor, version 3 was, which will please those who had championed it as one of the best free backup tools available for Windows.

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