Cloud Computing Breaking News

Customizable cloud SLAs on the way, researchers predict

Service-level agreements and legal standards for cloud offerings will become more customized to individual customers and vertical industries as the cloud market continues to mature and providers look for ways to differentiate their offerings, researchers at the University of London predict.
10 years later, Alcatel-Lucent revisits Cisco and Juniper in the core

Alcatel-Lucent is set to give Cisco and Juniper another run for the money in core routing 10 years after its initial attempt failed.
New approaches to combat 'sources of evil' and other security issues

Eric Cole of the SANS Institute says threats to our networks have changed but the way we approach security hasn't changed. As a result, companies have spent heavily on security technologies but they are still getting compromised. He suggests some new approaches.
Avaya simplifies BYOD connectivity; EarthLink adds to cloud service

Avaya has enhanced its portfolio to deliver unified wired and wireless network access to employees, guests and their personal devices while maintaining enterprise security. The changes were announced at Interop 2012 just held in Las Vegas.
Cisco nemesis Huawei to demo 96-port 100G Ethernet switch

Huawei, Cisco's toughest competitor in networking, will debut its entry into enterprise data center switching at this week's Interop 2012 conference in Las Vegas.
Alcatel-Lucent brings 40G to the core

Alcatel-Lucent this week at Interop will flesh out its data center fabric vision with 40G Ethernet and higher-density 10G Ethernet capabilities on its core switches, as well as enhanced software for its top-of-rack and core switches.
SaaS offering provides detailed analysis of your software portfolio

Are you faced with the need to do a software portfolio analysis but find the prospect daunting given the scattered nature of your operation? A new SaaS-based offering from Cast might fit the bill.
Arista teams with VMware, Big Switch, Nebula for SDNs

Data center switch vendor Arista Networks next week will demonstrate how to build a software-defined cloud network using its switches, and controllers from partners VMware, Big Switch and Nebula.
Cincinnati Bell, EarthLink announce new cloud services

Two announcements of new cloud services we'd like to highlight this week, followed by some recent advice on hosted services courtesy of Webtorials' contributors.
VMware, Piston Cloud pledge to develop open source PaaS offering

In a pairing of unlikely partners, Piston Cloud Computing announced it will work to support integration of VMware's open source platform-as-a-service offering Cloud Foundry with OpenStack, the open source infrastructure-as-a-service model.
HCL CEO Vineet Nayar: Outsourcing is dead, and there's nothing innovative in cloud technology

The customer always comes first. Except when it comes to HCL, the $6 billion Indian outsourcing make that co-sourcing giant led by CEO Vineet Nayar, who literally wrote the book on a philosophy known as 'employees first, customer second.' In this latest installment of our CEO Interview Series, Nayar spoke with IDG Enterprise Chief Content Officer John Gallant about how that philosophy is fueling HCL's rapid growth and why more CIOs ought to consider adopting it.
The CFO's role in the cloud question

Cloud computing will affect everything in your organization -- right down to the bottom line. For the CFO whose job centers on managing risk, what happens to your organization's data in the cloud is directly relevant to your role in the organization. Yet, many CFOs, and even their CIO counterparts, don't hear about some cloud deployments until after they're rolled out.
Dropbox Boosts Free Storage Limit to 5GB to Match Google Drive

Dropbox boosted its free storage limit from 2GB to 5GB with the introduction of a new digital image offering.
5 Reasons Microsoft SkyDrive is Better Than Google Drive

Amid the excitement over Google Drive, the search giant's new Dropbox competitor, Microsoft recently improved a similar online sync and storage service, SkyDrive. Microsoft added the ability to store files online and sync across multiple devices right from your Windows or OS X desktop. That puts SkyDrive squarely in competition with Dropbox and Drive, five years after Microsoft first introduced its online storage solution in 2007.
Privacy advocates slam Google Drive's privacy policies

Privacy advocates and cloud services users are concerned about Google's terms of use for its new Drive storage services, saying Google can basically do what it wants with a customer's data.
Can Dropbox, other cloud providers survive Google Drive?

The 800-pound gorilla has landed and is leveraging its existing relationship with hundreds of millions of users to port them to their cloud storage and file sharing service Google Drive. Can smaller cloud storage players survive this assault?
Xerox throwing cloud computing coming-out party

Xerox for the past few years has steadily, and quietly, been building out its cloud offerings. Now officials from the venerable printer and copier company are ready to make some noise about it.
Amazon CTO: 'You should be able to walk away' from cloud providers

At an Amazon Web Services summit event in New York City on Thursday, Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels said one of the core philosophies related to the company's market-leading suite of infrastructure as a service products is that customers should be able to opt out whenever they want.
Large enterprises handing off data center builds

Demand for data center space is on the rise as enterprises try to accommodate growing requirements for computing and storage space.
From IT to ET: Cloud, consumerization, and the next wave of IT transformation

Businesses, schools, and governments desperately need tech-savvy managers who can innovate quickly, operationalize effectively, and keep their organizations competitive. IT is being replaced by "enterprise technology" -- technology that's no longer confined to offices and office workers, but is embedded throughout the enterprise.
What to consider before signing up for Google Drive

With Google reportedly looking to launch its GDrive service soon, would-be customers of cloud storage providers should consider several important questions about any service and their needs.
DEMO 2012 products that cater to the enterprise

While much of the draw to the 2012 DEMO Conference in Santa Clara surrounds consumer technology, such as the fantasy politics game or the electric skateboard, the conference still has plenty to offer those with a mind toward work productivity.
ISACA refreshes best practices for IT shops

Enterprise IT departments can look to the new COBIT 5 framework for governance and management best practices, according to ISACA, a global nonprofit IT industry group.
Mobility, cloud computing, security issues to dominate Interop

One of the premier technology shows of the year once again hits Las Vegas from May 6-10 and many of the themes IT leaders grapple with on a daily basis will be the hot topics at this year's forums and panel discussions. The show focuses on nine subject areas this year including: cloud computing, networking, wireless and mobility, virtualization, data center, storage, collaboration, information security and risk management, and IT management. Mobility is a dominant discussion point at this year's show though with 14 sessions on the topic.
Microsoft building new data center in Wyoming

Microsoft plans to build a new data center, this time in Cheyenne, Wyo.