This Week in Cloud

By CloudCommons 2012	Article Rating:
May 10, 2012 07:58 AM EDT	Reads:	2,808

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Cloud News

Can Google Apps unseat Microsoft Office and Exchange? This CIO article shares insight from the CIO of New England Biolabs, which recently conducted proof-of-concept testing with Google Apps for Business. While New England Biolabs decided to stick with its Outlook/Exchange Server set-up and plans to transition to a hybrid solution that adds the cloud-based Microsoft Office 365, the article also highlights why organizations should consider Google Apps.
Facebook’s open-source data-center project gained momentum as some top technology companies joined the effort and introduced server designs. New members include HP, Advanced Micro Devices Fidelity, Salesforce.com, VMware and Supermicro. Read more in this PCWorld article.
Intel and its subsidiary McAfee announced a new secure cloud computing initiative that will combine hardware solutions (like Intel’s Trusted Execution Technology) with software solutions (like McAfee’s ePolicy Orchestrator) to provide consistent security-policy management across physical, virtual and cloud environments. Read more in this PCMag article.
Microsoft is rebranding many of its Azure cloud services to remove the name Azure. Learn more in this CNet article.

Featured Content on Cloud Commons

Gartner Report: Top Five Trends for Private Cloud Through year-end 2012, a significant number of pilot and production deployments of private cloud services will emerge, and hybrid cloud capability will become a major requirement. The market for cloud management platforms will expand greatly, but a number of vendors will be acquired or will exit the market. Outsourcing will become a mainstream alternative to internally deployed private clouds. This report by Gartner (compliments of Cloud Commons), examines the top five trends for private cloud and offers recommendations for your business based on those trends.

Feature article

Challenges of Cloud Automation and Adoption

By Keith Allen, CA Technologies

One of the challenges with the private cloud and cloud automation is a definition and understanding of ‘what is' a private cloud and the scope of a cloud automation solution. This creates the ‘cloud hype' challenge, where everyone claims their solution is a cloud solution, creating business indecisiveness and delaying budget dollars for cloud implementations.

Cloud automation is a foundation for orchestration, but the two terms might be incorrectly interchanged - automation is processes programmed for repeatable tasks while orchestration joins dissimilar automated processes together using workflows. Customers are willing to wait for returns on their current virtualization investments before spending more on automation - even while many claim that automation is a top initiative for private cloud implementation.

Read the full article which identifies the 6 top challenges of cloud automation and adoption.

Cloud Views

Transforming from a traditional technology company to cloud-based services one requires a dramatic departure from how most incumbent companies are run, according to a report published by Accenture. This InformationWeek article summarizes the report, which cites 3 companies that are succeeding with cloud business models that others should learn from: Salesforce.com, RightNow Technologies and McKesson.
This PCMag blog titled ‘No such thing as big data, but it will change your business anyway’ explores the big data trend, recapping some of the recent trends in data management and describing a variety of changes in how organizations deal with data.
This SearchSoftwareQuality article explains why application performance management tools are a must-have for the cloud.
This Thoughts on Cloud blog written by IBMers describes ‘Four reasons why I hate the term cloud.’

MSP Corner

STL Technology Partners offers a humorous outlook on the 5 stages of a cloud transition for VARs and MSPs, described in this Talkin’ Cloud article.
This MSPmentor article comments that, with all the emphasis on cloud computing, MSPs may be overlooking other related and rewarding opportunities and identifies what some of those opportunities are.