cloud

Here are seven of the specific security issues Gartner says customers should raise with vendors before selecting a cloud vendor.

1. Privileged user access 2. Regulatory compliance 3. Data location 4. Data segregation 5. Recovery 6. Investigative support 7. Long-term viability

Full article on Infoworld.

I caught a touch of food poisoning yesterday and I'm not still not totally right. While generally not a great experience, something about pulling over in the Tenderloin to hurl felt all too comfortable.

Some links for your enjoyment:

Join me and John Rowell from Opsource, Wednesday, July 9, 2008 9:00am PDT on a webinar discussing how the Cloud affects the Enterprise and vice-versa.

Learn about common concerns organizations face when incorporating SaaS applications into their growing enterprise architecture and how to make the transition from on-site to internet based applications.

Click here to register

As the cloud continues to emerge as a serious option, many people are starting to catch on that there are limits to what can be done outside that particular platform.

Right now there only a few options if you are a cloud or PaaS provider: 1. Cordon off virtual machines and use VM images (like Amazon.com or Joyent) 2. Allow development on some programming language (like Google App Engine) 3. Force users onto your platform (like Salesforce.com)

The applications that are built on top of a particular vendor's infrastructure are locked into that provider's way of … Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Revamping existing data centers can achieve energy efficiency close to those built from scratch to be greener, according to an early report Thursday from Accenture, which analyzed results of case studies backed by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

The energy savings explored, if widespread, could prevent the release of carbon dioxide equivalent to taking 8 million cars off the road, researchers said.

Data center energy use could double by 2011, amounting to $7.4 billion in U.S. electricity costs and requiring the equivalent of 10 new power plants, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

"Just … Read more

I can't believe it took Yahoo! this long to create a Cloud Computing division. They are easily in the top 5 most impressive infrastructures and maybe will now take advantage of it.

In order to expand its cloud computing capabilities, the Company will form a Cloud Computing & Data Infrastructure Group, charged with developing a computing infrastructure that balances scalability with cost effectiveness.

Yahoo! is making changes to its technology organization, led by Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh, to better position the company to execute on its strategic priorities. Principal changes are developing a world-class cloud computing and storage … Read more

The Economist's Ludwig Siegele opens up one of the most important questions for the next 10 years of software: What happens to Microsoft after Bill Gates leaves?

In Ray Ozzie's (and, perhaps, Microsoft's) view, Microsoft's new goal is the same as the old goal: dominate everything. But the battle has shifted to the "cloud" now. Complicating the matter further, Microsoft no longer has a technical leader, one who combines vision, tenacity, and introspection. Instead it has an aggressive, sometimes bumbling bloodhound of a CEO, Steve Ballmer.

Can Mr. Protect-My-Desktop-Monopoly-By-Whatever-Means-Necessary really push Microsoft to the future? Can Ballmer deliver on this goal? According to Siegele, Microsoft's goal:

...is to become the dominant force in the forthcoming era of cloud computing--or, to refresh Microsoft's original mission: "to supply services to every desk, to every home and to every hand."

To understand what that means, and the difficulties it poses Microsoft, start with the idea that computing is undergoing one of its great periodic shifts....Now communications is catching up with hardware and software and, thanks to cheap broadband and wireless access, the industry is witnessing a pull back to the middle. This is leading much computing to migrate back into huge data centers. Networks of these computing plants form "computing clouds"--vast, amorphous, delocalized nebulae of processing power and storage.

This is a huge opportunity for Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and others. But only Microsoft brings a massive ball-and-chain to the party called the Windows desktop business, which accounts for the vast majority of its revenue and pervades its company culture. The very thing that makes Microsoft so successful may well ensure that it will play a bit part in the future of computing.… Read more

As part of its latest reorganization, Yahoo created a Cloud Computing & Data Infrastructure Group, which is chartered with developing computing infrastructure that balances scalability with cost effectiveness, according to the press release. It could also lead to Yahoo getting into the business of selling pay-as-you-go cloud infrastructure to developers and companies.

Yahoo has been building massive scale infrastructure (now known as cloud computing) for years, but the intent of the new organization is to streamline development by bringing the various people and teams working on the core technologies into a single group, according to Yahoo CTO Ari Balogh, who … Read more

After attending GigaOM's Structure 08, I came away with a cloud-computing hangover. Just trying to define cloud computing is daunting given all the hype and companies thunderclapping.

Today the research firm Gartner has jumped on the cloud computing bandwagon, proclaiming that it "heralds an evolution of business that is no less influential than e-business," and defining it as massively scalable IT-related capabilities provided as a service using Internet technologies to multiple external customers.

Yahoo just announced a Cloud Computing & Data Infrastructure Group, which will develop computing infrastructure that balances scalability with cost effectiveness. What was Yahoo … Read more