Welcome!

Cloud Expo Authors: Pat Romanski, Keith Mayer, Liz McMillan, Sebastian Kruk, Jason Bloomberg

Blog Feed Post

This Week in Cloud, March 21, 2013: CIA & DHS shifting to cloud, Netflix developer prize, Top 5 cloud risks. And more…

RSA Conference Interviews!

Watch interviews from the RSA Conference featuring thought leaders from the Cloud Security Alliance, NIST, the CISO Executive Network, the International Association for Privacy Professionals and more on Smart Enterprise.

Cloud News

  • The CIA may have agreed to a 10-year cloud contract with Amazon worth $600 million, according to this FCW article. Amazon and the CIA have yet to confirm the contract, but sources say that Amazon will help the CIA build a private cloud and keep the agency up to date with emerging technology trends.

  • The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is shifting to a cloud platform and moving to agile development methodologies, according to this ComputerWorld article. The DHS expects the move to save costs and improve IT operations.

  • Netflix announced the Netflix Cloud Prize, a new developer contest which will award developers a total of $100,000 for improvements to Netflix’s cloud services, according to this TechCrunch article.

  • Rackspace Hosting announced the Open Cloud Academy, a new training program designed to provide students with IT certifications for open cloud technologies, according to this Herald Online article.

Featured Article

Is the financial services sector ready for cloud?

By Derek Stevens, CA Technologies

Derek Stevens

Over the past two years, I've had the opportunity to sit down with numerous cloud service provider executives as part of the Cloud Luminaries program and ask them about where the market is headed, the obstacles to cloud computing, and how the cloud improves on previous technologies. These companies that are on the cutting edge of cloud almost always cite security as the number one barrier to cloud adoption for their customers. Certain industries, such as the financial services industry, need to take special care to ensure that their data is secure. As a result many of them are making a slow move to the cloud, in most cases, through a private cloud model.

If you think that the mattress is a safer place for your money than the cloud, you might find it worthwhile to hear from companies that have concluded the cloud is actually more secure than on-premise (and more secure than money under the mattress, for that matter). Read the full article.

Cloud Views

  • What are the top 5 cloud risks that you should stop ignoring? In this InfoWorld article, Roger Grimes shares the top 5 cloud risks that companies face as a customer of a public cloud service, including the risks of shared access, virtual exploits, authentication and access control, availability, and ownership.

  • Are CIOs waiting for the public cloud to mature? In this InformationWeek article, Gary Flood reveals that some CIOs may be holding off on moving to a private cloud model so that they can jump to a public cloud model when the technology becomes more mature.

Trend Watch

  • Will the rise of internet connected devices mean big business for big data? In this GigaOM blog, Barb Darrow details how Guarav Dhillon, CEO of SnapLogic, envisions the impact of the Internet of Things on big data.

  • Will DevOps unite software development and the business? In this Smart Enterprise article (registration required), Doug Bartholomew takes a look at how Nationwide is using agile development and DevOps to reduce costs and unite software development and the business.

Upcoming Cloud Events

Read the original blog entry...

More Stories By CloudCommons 2012

CloudCommons is an independent online community of IT professionals, analysts, technology providers, and industry experts. Members can ask questions, learn from experts, and find the latest cloud-related news. Cloud Commons offers a forum to contribute and discuss best practices and successes, as well as research vendor solutions. Sponsored by CA Technologies, Cloud Commons has been growing steadily since its launch in May of 2010.

Hosted on Cloud Commons is the Service Measurement Index (SMI). Led by Carnegie Mellon University, SMI encompasses a growing consortium of members. SMI compiles user-submitted ratings of cloud services and scores them relative to other services of the same type. Ratings include metrics such as: quality, agility, risk, cost, capability, and security.

ThisWeekInCloud is Cloud Commons weekly newsletter listing the industry events we felt worthwhile reading about. Read them here or subscribe to have it delivered to you inbox as email or as RSS Feed.

Cloud Expo Breaking News
“Open source has always provided a number of benefits, including easing adoption costs, propagating a better understanding of the technology, and allowing for faster evolution and commercialization of products and services based on it,” noted Terry Woloszyn, Founder & CEO, Leeward Security Ltd., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This is clearly evident with the OpenStack and CloudStack,” Woloszyn continued, “and others that have been quickly commercialized as...
SYS-CON Events announced today that OpenStack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. OpenStack software controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed by a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface. OpenStack powers some of the most widely-used SaaS app...
SYS-CON Events announced today that Wowrack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. Wowrack’s core expertise lies in high-availability Private and Public Cloud IaaS Hosting Solutions. Wowrack provides a true Hybrid service – where business release all IT management and hardware provisioning – taking the data center and server system administrative headaches off our customer’s shoulders. ...
Many have heard of OAuth but are unsure of how it might apply to their business. In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Alistair Farquharson, CTO of SOA Software, will describe how OAuth can be used to facilitate certain business models and simplify the sharing of private data. Alistair Farquharson is a visionary industry veteran focused on using disruptive technologies to drive business growth and improve efficiency and agility within organizations. As the CTO of SOA Software A...
“Cloud has everything to do with what has happened with Big Data,” explained Jason Deck, Director of Strategic Alliances at Logicworks, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Big Data doesn’t exist in its easily accessible way without cloud. From reduced startup costs, to cheap storage, to fast processing, to adequate security, to the easy incorporation of third-party analytics tools, cloud made Big Data accessible to customers of all sizes, with all different bud...
SYS-CON Events announced today that nfina Technologies, a provider of highly reliable cloud server products, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. nfina Technologies develops, manufactures, and markets highly reliable cloud server products, designed to solve the most demanding data center requirements in mission-critical cloud applications. Nfina’s staff has decades of experience in co...
“Social, mobile, analytics and cloud can’t be looked at as distinct technology trends; they are facets of the same movement and an everyday reality for consumers and businesses alike,” said Craig Sowell, IBM VP of SmartCloud Marketing, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This means that businesses need to start looking at trends as one: cloud is the delivery, analytics is the unique insight, social is a shareable service, and mobile is the ubiquitous access.” ...
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Dave Eichorn, Global Data Center Practice Head at Zensar, will share a case study describing how a utility services company handled the migration of its Microsoft platform to the cloud. Challenged with the time-consuming task of opening operations out of temporary offices, this company struggled with the need to simultaneously access data that was accumulated from a vast amount of data-intensive jobs. Zensar migrated the company’s application ...
Organizations across the world are increasingly starting to see the benefits of moving more and more services to the cloud. The focus on the cost-saving potential of cloud is rapidly shifting to completely transforming the business with cloud. As organizations are investing enormous sums on technology they are starting to realize that in order to maximize the return on investment and accelerate the business transformation process the first area of focus should be people. By ensuring the organiza...
You're getting pitched every day from your legacy enterprise software and hardware vendors about "cloud." They're doing an amazing job of convincing your CIO and CTO about what cloud is and how you should use it. The reality is they're defending their shrinking market share and keeping you on the legacy treadmill for as long as they can by selling you solutions that aren't "cloud." In her session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelista for Rackspace, will talk thro...