Almost a quarter of companies are willing to pay $1m ransom to hackers
We all know that cyber attacks can be enormously disruptive, but how far would companies go to prevent an attack?
A new survey by the Cloud Security Alliance and Skyhigh Networks reveals that 24.6 percent of companies would be willing to pay a ransom to hackers to prevent a cyber attack and 14 percent would pay more than $1 million.
Microsoft Azure now lets you backup VMware instances
Microsoft has launched an enhanced version of its Azure Site Recovery (ASR) targeted especially for VMware customers.
The ASR concept allows you to backup virtual machines into the Azure storage, update them and then run the VMs in Azure as a disaster recovery option. Microsoft charges $54 a month per VM instance stored in Azure, but doesn’t pay any compute or storage costs until you run the VM, which would make sense as it is only a file until the VM is spun up.
IaaS and PaaS see 51 percent revenue growth
The cloud sector’s revenues, both IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) and PaaS (platform as a service) have grown 51 percent in the last year, a new research by Synergy says. It has had the strongest growth out of all cloud services.
Private and hybrid cloud infrastructure services grew 45 percent, while operator and vendor revenues grew 28 percent.
The future of enterprise storage [Q&A]
Storage has undergone some major changes in recent years. The growth of cloud usage, the Internet of Things and the exploitation of big data have all meant increased demand and a shift towards different solutions. But how has this affected the storage industry and and what further changes can we expect to see?
We spoke to Mark Lewis, Chairman and CEO of storage specialist Formation Data Systems to get his view on how the industry is evolving.
Hybrid IT systems hinder innovation
Research from Sungard Availability Services, a provider of information availability through managed IT, cloud and recovery services, has revealed a dark side to hybrid IT systems.
Sungard’s findings based on a study which questioned 150 senior IT decision makers in UK organizations with more than 500 employees with an average IT spend of around £36m per year, found that over half of UK organizations believe that the complexity of their IT environment is hindering their ability to innovate.
The challenge of managing the cloud in the enterprise [Q&A]
It's an increasingly rare business today that has all of its IT on its own premises. The cloud has led to many systems being moved off site and also contributed to the growth of shadow systems.
How can business manage these challenges and make sure that they're not putting their information at risk? We spoke to John Purrier, cloud visionary and CTO of business automation company Automic Software to find out.
Is your data integrated across platforms?
The lifeblood of any application is the data it uses to make decisions. It used to be that all data and applications resided within the confines of the corporate firewall, but public cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure provide elasticity and cutting-edge features to today’s organizations. Because of that, more and more companies are challenging the conventional thinking that all corporate data should always be stored on premises.
But when is it appropriate to silo data, versus integrating it across different cloud platforms?
Adoption of cloud computing in the enterprise: The progress in 2015
In general, cloud penetration across the enterprise in terms of workloads being completed continues to be at a relatively low level, with many analysts firms reporting that penetration is at rates of less than 10 percent.
That said, the journey has begun in most organizations and Ovum has identified that nearly 75 percent of organizations will adopt some hybrid cloud strategy by 2016.
Google+ is too much ghost town for me
As the New Year approaches, and I contemplate 2016, my online social space surely will change; my like-affair with Google+ draws close to an end. Nearly six weeks ago, the service "reimagined", as a "fully redesigned Google+ that puts Communities and Collections front and center".
Since then, my Google+ engagement has dropped by more than 90 percent. I don't find as many posts to Plus-one, to share with others, or on which to comment. Similarly, I see shocking decline in the number of responses to my posts—not something I actively seek so much as by which to judge interest in what I write and also to interact with other Plusers. After years of misguided critics calling Google+ a ghost town, the tumbleweeds roll.
Expect faster adoption and more localization in a cloudy 2016
The growing maturity of the cloud has been one of the major trends of the past year and this is something that looks set to continue into next year.
There will be new challenges, however, and we've looked at what some of the industry's experts think the cloud will have in store for 2016.
Here are the system requirements for Microsoft Azure Stack
Microsoft has announced the hardware requirements needed to run its Azure Stack – the upcoming on-premise hybrid version of the Azure cloud.
The Azure Stack first gets installed on a server and delivers Azure services in a customer’s datacentre, enabling developers and IT professionals to build, deploy and operate cloud applications using consistent tools, processes and artifacts.
The enterprise trends of 2015
Businesses tend to be quite conservative in their approach to technology, so it's always interesting to look at what's been sparking their interest.
Identity and mobility management specialist Okta has released a new report, based on analysis of its customers, looking at the big winners and losers in the enterprise over the past year.
Microsoft has a bright future, says Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs thinks Microsoft is making a comeback. The investment banking firm has produced a 22-page document -- titled Righting a Wrong -- looking at Microsoft’s current business, the recent changes it has made and it’s future opportunities.
The research analyzes Microsoft’s core businesses of Azure, Windows and Office and believes that the future looks bright for the company, going as far as to change its stock rating from Sell to Neutral.
Holiday 2015 Gift Guide: Stocking stuffers
Here we are, days before Christmas, and you're thinking about last-minute stocking stuffers. I've got an eclectic selection of things I would want to get or give for December 25th. Some of them will demand rushing online to take advantage of last-minute shipping offers. Others require no shipping at all, like music subscription services. Confession: Some items will require a larger stocking but no wrapping.
I present the list alphabetically, and in no order of preference.
Google dedicates $1 million to independent research for Drive security
Google is placing an increased importance on security in 2016. The company has set aside $1 million to fund independent research into the security of its Drive cloud storage service, and will continue to offer a bug bounty program.
Acknowledging that "keeping files safe in Google Drive is super important", Google says that next year it will make the money available to independent security researchers. The money comes in addition to the funds that are used to employ hundreds of security experts at the company, with independence bringing an extra level of scrutiny.
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About Us - Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy - Sitemap.