Articles about Cloud

Every business is aware that cloud computing has become a globally dominating market. Some estimates have the cloud worth $75 billion, perhaps even more. It is expected to continue growing well beyond that. Still, the growing cloud market faces several challenges in staying competitive.

With exponential growth comes a plethora of challenges. Cloud computing organizations must be able to keep up, as companies, governments, and even business-minded individuals from all over the world represent current and potential customers. Cloud consumers are relying heavily on infrastructure services. According to Gartner, the forecast in 2016 for IaaS alone represented over $22 billion in cash flow. The growing demands and customers’ expectations are in a tight juggling act with the forces that promise to challenge cloud service providers.

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While there is huge interest in data analytics among the business community many organizations are struggling with failed projects according to a new study which reveals 88 percent of respondents have suffered failures with recent initiatives.

Reasons for the failure of analytics projects include low end-user adoption, projects going over budget, systems not providing the analytics users were expecting, and too many initiatives evolving into 'zombie' projects that were almost completed but not ready for end-users.

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Next month I return from my first—and hopefully last—summer sabbatical. I resume writing with a question for you: "When is stupidity fraud?" I ask because someone is using my gmail address to sign up for a humungous number of newsletters and websites. At first, I presumed someone trolled me. But that no longer appears to be the case. This guy, presumably living in North Carolina, either uses my address randomly to hide his identity, or he mistypes one that is similar. Given many of the services are for an unidentified widower looking for love, I assume the latter.

Behind my question are real concerns about identity and privacy that do not just apply to me. The email address gives me the ability to change the passwords and even cancel accounts—both of which I have done, treating his misuse of my email address as identity theft and violations of my privacy; after years of careful cultivation that reduced spam, crap is on the rise as this misuse spreads my gmail identity across dating and discount sites and sex webcams. Who knows on what mailing lists it will appear next.

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There have been numerous cases of iCloud accounts being hacked over the years, but it's the celebrity ones that hit the headlines. Well, that and things like the Fappening. The latest celebrity account to fall victim to hackers is Pippa Middleton, sister of British royal Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge.

A reported 3,000 images have been stolen from Pippa's account, and these are said to include photographs of Kate and her children. Leaked images also show photos from private parties, and shots of wedding dresses.

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British telecommunications company BT has announced  a new offering, expanding the cloud choice for its customers. BT Computer for Microsoft Azure allows BT’s customers to order Microsoft Azure together with BT’s cloud.

With the new offering, according to BT, customers will be able to create hybrid cloud infrastructure with a single service wrap, on a single bill.

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Deploying software and updates to computers across a global enterprise from the cloud can be slow and expensive using traditional methods.

Systems management specialist Adaptiva is launching OneSite 6.0, a serverless option for distributing software from the cloud using Microsoft System Center Configuration (ConfigMgr) and Microsoft Azure.

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Oracle has announced that it will purchase the cloud access security broker (CASB) Palerra, making this the company's eight acquisition in 2016.

The deal was announced at the beginning of Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco and the amount which the company is paying for Palerra has yet to be disclosed. Oracle made the decision to purchase the company for its Loric software product as it "protects and assures compliance of applications, workloads and sensitive data stored across cloud services".

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Businesses are increasingly recognizing that passwords are no longer an adequate way of protecting systems. But users still need a means of access that is easy to use, secure and doesn't get in the way.

Cloud-based access provider Duo Security is today announcing that it's combined its flagship two-factor authentication and device insight with single sign-on (SSO) capabilities to create a trusted access platform.

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Salesforce has announced the launch of its new Einstein artificial intelligence (AI) platform that has already been implemented into a number of the company's existing cloud services including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Analytics Cloud, App Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Community Cloud and IoT Cloud.

The company has also announced that it has formed a new unit called Salesforce Research that will be exploring deep learning, natural language processing and computer vision. The new unit's aim is to improve Salesforce products and it will be led by the company's chief scientist Richard Socher, who is responsible for co-founding the A.I. startup MetaMind which Salesforce acquired earlier this year.

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Migrating systems to the cloud leads to a shift in network traffic patterns that can present a performance challenge for businesses.

Network analytics company Kentik is launching its new Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) aimed at meeting the needs of modern, digital businesses.

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It might shock you to hear that managing data has never been more difficult than it is today. Data is growing at the speed of light, while IT budgets are shrinking at a similar pace. All of this growth and change is forcing administrators to find more relevant ways to successfully manage and store data. This is no easy task, as there are many regulatory constraints with respect to data retention, and the business value of the data needs to be considered as well.

Those within the IT world likely remember (with fondness) the hierarchical storage management systems (HSM), which have traditionally played a key role in the  information lifecycle management (ILM). Though this was once a reliable and effective way to manage company data, gone are the days when businesses can put full confidence in such a method. The truth of the matter is that things have become much more complicated.

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When it comes to corporate IT security, one of the biggest pain points is the mobile device. With almost every employee having one, and many bringing their own, the cyber-attack surface increases dramatically, putting corporate data at huge amounts of risk. Now, IBM is stepping into the game with a service of its own, which aims to protects mobile devices, via IBM Cloud.

The mobile-security-as-a-service, called IBM MaaS360, aims to help IBM’s clients address local data protection standards. It is currently in operation in the US, Germany and Singapore, with France and India already in the works. They will be followed by an "additional eight countries" planned for the next two years. IBM didn’t go into further detail, but we’re hoping the UK will be among them.

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Cloud storage is amazingly convenient. Unfortunately, the best part of the cloud can also be the worst. You see, having your files stored on someone else's severs and accessing them over the internet opens you to focused hacking, and potentially, incompetence by the cloud storage company too. As a way to have the best of both worlds, some folks will set up net-connected local storage so they can manage their own 'cloud'.

Today, Canonical and Western Digital (WDLabs) unveil an Ubuntu Core Linux-based cloud storage and 'Internet of Things' device called 'Nextcloud Box'. The box leverages the open source Nextcloud service and can be powered by a Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3, or oDroid C2. Will it be easier to use and manage than closed source solutions?

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Both businesses and consumers have embraced the cloud and Gartner projects that the worldwide public cloud services market will grow by 17.2 percent by the end of this year.

In 2015, the public cloud services market was worth $178 billion. Gartner's projection that it will grow by 17.2 percent in 2016 will bring that number up to $208.6 billion, which is a testament to the way in which the cloud has matured and won over businesses and consumers.

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Microsoft has announced that it will be bringing Azure Service Fabric, which allows developers to run and manage microservices, to Linux.

Azure's CTO Mark Russinovich is very enthusiastic about microservices, which the company has been using internally for seven years. Russinovich believes that the vast majority of apps even including enterprise apps will soon be built using this technology.

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