Will Cloud Computing Turn Us Into Dinosaurs?

Dispelling the Myth of Cloud Related Job Loss
Among the concerns with cloud computing, most of which we at ReliaCloud are happy to dispel, is the idea that it will lead to the loss of jobs in data centers. At least, that’s the fear spreading throughout IT circles in the UK.  This excellent piece from Kelly Fiveash published in The Register UK helps to dispel that myth.

Across The Pond, A Different View of the Cloud
Unlike our colleagues in the UK, IT professionals in the United States see cloud computing as creating more jobs while making prospective job candidates more employable.  See the survey results in this article in Business Computing World.

Uncovering the newest and most pertinent Cloud Computing news can be a challenge. Let ReliaCloud be that little bird in your ear. We’re monitoring blogs, forums and social media to bring you the best Cloud Computing news and resources each week.

Cloud Computing Mind Map
The Cloud Computing Mind Map from George Reese helps you get your brain around today’s Cloud players.

Serious About the Cloud? Read up on Cloud Thoughts from the Great Minds at Berkeley
Seeking Supernovae in the Clouds: A Performance Study, by Berkeley Lab team, wins best paper award at first Scientific Cloud Computing workshop.

Government Straddling the Line on Cloud Computing
U.S. Government agencies move data to the cloud – Lawmakers Debate the Security.

What Does Infrastructure, Demand, Scalability, Pricing & Accessibility all Have in Common?
Must read: Network World Key Concepts of Cloud Computing.

IT managers trust cloud now more than ever, according to coverage of a new survey. The survey, conducted on behalf of IT conference 360, found that the majority of European organizations now believe that cloud computing will result in an improvement in security defenses.

This represents a substantial increase from a similar study conducted in February of this year, and reflects a growing trend among IT managers on both sides of the pond who have increasingly relied on cloud computing as a secure and forward-thinking option.

As more and more businesses place their trust in the cloud, providers like ReliaCloud continue to work hard to maintain that trust. One way that we help ensure optimal security levels is through firewalls. Our cloud servers are located behind a two-layered firewall perimeter. The outer firewall security layer is provided by Cisco ASA hardware firewall devices, and the second security layer is provided by a virtual router running a software packet filter.

That was the sound of small business owners across the country taking a flying leap onto the cloud after reading Byron Acohido’s recent USA Today article. The cloud has appealed to increasingly broader circles over the past year, and now Acohido makes a strong case for the cloud as a tool for small businesses.

“Most small-business owners don’t realize this yet, but a mother lode of technology that can free precious cash and manpower is available to them as in no other time in history,” Acohido writes. “Small firms typically buy basic clerical and accounting software in shrink-wrap boxes and run them on a company computer. The owner, or a harried employee, invariably gets pressed into service as resident tech expert. Today, they can tap into a swelling portfolio of business applications residing in far-off computer servers. These programs come down from the Internet cloud.”

The inherent flexibility of cloud computing is what makes it so applicable and appealing to businesses of all sizes. Find out how the cloud can flex to fit your business!

If you think the cloud is big now, the IDC (International Data Corporation and Premier market intelligence provider) thinks you haven’t seen anything yet. The Wall Street Journal is among those reporting on a recent IDC study indicating that the cloud market is expected to experience dramatic growth over the next few years. What does this mean to you? Well, let’s take a look.

According to the Wall Street Journal coverage, the boom will be particularly strong among private cloud servers as more businesses embrace the era of automated and virtualized data centers as opposed to “In-house data centers that have become increasingly more expensive and complex to set up and maintain,” writes Journal staffer Benjamin Pimentel. In contrast, “Cloud computing enables companies to access computing power through a network.” This means companies can spend less time and money dealing with IT headaches and get back to their core business with less effort at every stage of the process.

The article quotes IDC analyst Katherine Broderick as saying that “now is a great time for many IT organizations to begin seriously considering this technology and employing public and private clouds in order to simplify sprawling IT environments.” Isn’t it worth a few moments of your time to see if Cloud Computing can save hours of it?

To learn more about how to get on the booming Cloud, contact ReliaCloud today.

The Open Group recently published a white paper on how the development of cloud computing is comparable with the emergence of the mainframe, the minicomputer, the microprocessor, and even the Internet.

The white paper pays particular attention to the potential return on investment awaiting cloud participants, concluding that cloud computing can provide many advantages over conventional approaches to IT provisioning – which can translate into significant improvements in ROI.

At a basic level, cloud computing prevents over- and under-provisioning of resources, allowing customers to receive the level of service appropriate for their business. The ability to increase performance while decreasing costs is one of the primary reasons businesses consider joining the cloud. But what makes cloud computing particularly exciting is that cloud computing’s potential effect on business is not just incremental improvement, but disruptive transformation through new operating models.

To learn more about the impact and ROI cloud computing can have for your business, contact ReliaCloud today.

Our CTO, Jason Baker, recently wrote an article for Data Center Knowledge on how to evaluate cloud computing providers. With new providers popping up every month, it can be difficult to know who to trust your information to. Jason focused on five main categories that need to be considered:

• Price
• Performance
• Security/Assurance
• Service Level Agreements
• Support

Read the article for yourself to find out how each of these categories plays into the big decision.

I ran across another interesting article the other day – this one by the BBC, stating that  cloud computing has come out from behind the clouds to shine in the mainstream business world. Tim Weber, Business Editor for the BBC news website, interviewed many people in both the business and information technology sectors. He cites five key reasons the cloud has attracted a growing fan base:

• Cheap: Your IT provider will host services for multiple companies; sharing complex infrastructure is cost-efficient and you pay only for what you actually use.
• Quick: The most basic cloud services work out of the box. For more complex software and database solutions, Cloud computing allows you to skip the hardware procurement and capital expenditure phase—it’s perfect for start-ups.
• Up-to-date: Most providers constantly update their software offering, adding new features as they become available.
• Scalable: If your business is growing fast or has seasonal spikes, you can go large quickly because cloud systems are built to cope with sharp increases in workload.
• Mobile: Cloud services are designed to be used from a distance, so if you have a mobile workforce, your staff will have access to most of your systems on the go.

Upon searching for up-and-coming cloud computing news, I ran across a new book with a title so long that I couldn’t help but read more: Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution: How Cloud Computing is Transforming Business and Why You Can’t Be Left Behind. The author, Charles Babcock, is a recognized expert in the business side of computing and information technology. In fact, he is an editor for Information Week magazine and blogger at Plug Into The Cloud.

While I haven’t had time to read it for myself, I did find a very informative review on the book. James E. Gaskin of IT World highlights Babcock’s assertion that cloud computing is a practical option. Babcock believes this is due in part to cloud servers’ ability to increase efficiency by reducing over-provisioning of a company’s own data centers.

If you are debating whether or not to believe the claims that cloud computing may actually benefit your company, you might consider checking this book out for yourself. Gaskin informs us that the book praises high bandwidth availability and relatively low cost of today’s cloud servers. Ultimately, Babcock’s book asserts that companies who aren’t already considering cloud computing should get up to speed or risk being left in the dust.