cloud computing - News, Features, and Slideshows

Features

• NHP Electrical Engineering Products on making the jump to public cloud

  A substandard data centre that leaked water and had air conditioning failures forced NHP Electrical Engineering Products to move its entire IT infrastructure to the cloud.
  

• Cloud BI: Going where the data lives

  Historically, cloud BI has been mostly used by smaller businesses, but larger enterprises are starting to make the trek.

• How to Set Up a New Business Using Only Cloud Services

  As recently as five years ago, setting up a new business and equipping it for a PC-literate workforce was a costly affair. You needed to acquire server hardware and pay various software licensing fees.

• Why a Media Giant Sold Its Data Center and Headed to the Cloud

  Two weeks ago, venerable media company Condé Nast -- publisher of magazines like Vogue, The New Yorker and Wired -- decommissioned its Newark, Del. data center. The 67,200 square feet facility had already been sold and the deal closed. The 105-year-old company had gone all-in with the cloud.

• Amazon Web Services Sharpens Focus on Public Sector

  Hardly content to rest on its laurels, Amazon is adding clients in the government, education and nonprofit sectors, vying for public-sector contracts and looking to build its apps marketplace into a research and development hub.

• Impact of today's hardware and software applications in Cloud-based environments: Part 1

  As an industry, we have been looking at cloud-based technologies both from private and public structure and how best to optimize design, engineer and develop such technologies to better optimize the world of wireless and the Internet of Everything.

• VMware: We're aiming to be a top 3 Cloud provider

  Gartner's annual Magic Quadrant is a sort of who's who of the cloud computing market. And while VMware made the company's most recent list, it didn't receive the highest of marks.

• Healthcare Cloud Use Prevalent, Poised to Spread, HIMSS Says

  Survey results from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's analytics arm says more than 80 percent of organizations use cloud services, primarily to host apps and data. Concerns remain, particularly around security and uptime, but most users seem optimistic.

• Review: Microsoft Office Online vs. Apple iWork for iCloud vs. Google Drive

  Online word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation apps can be surprisingly useful, or surprisingly lame, and not even Microsoft aces Office document compatibility

• Hopping aboard the cloud

  Three very different organisations - Open Universities Australia, Les Mills, and Boeing - talk about how they are using cloud in their operational environments.

• How to Use OpenStack in Your Small Business

  The OpenStack cloud platform works well for companies that aim to deploy software or infrastructure as a service but remain wary of doing so using public cloud services. Here's how to find out if OpenStack is right for your business.

• Cloud Apps Soar, CIOs Take on New Role

  As cloud apps become more business-critical, the CIO is emerging as the cloud services broker. In this new IT model, which is expected to expand rapidly in the next 12 months, CIOs can push cloud service providers to deliver detailed SLAs.

• Why CIOs shouldn't block rogue Cloud apps

  Enterprises have an average 461 Cloud apps running in their organisations (nine to 10 times IT's estimates), according to some reports. Line-of-business managers hesitate to bring in the CIO out of fear of being blocked. If CIOs can remove this fear, everyone, it turns out, benefits.

• 5 reasons why Google can catch Amazon in the Cloud

  Google, according to industry analysts, is positioning itself to take on Amazon's dominance as a cloud provider. While it's lagging today, Google could catch Amazon and some day supplant its top position in the cloud.

• Salesforce at 15: Industry disruptor wards off midlife crisis

  Salesforce.com recently celebrated its 15th year in existence, and as the SaaS (software-as-a-service) vendor races toward US$5 billion in revenue its influence on the industry is being felt more than ever. At the same time, some signs indicate that Salesforce.com is having a few growing pains, as well as showing some trappings of the mega-vendors it once mocked with its "End of Software" marketing campaign.