Something I have been preaching for years to many companies of all sizes is that, before you go drop 100k on a new infrastructure and/or upgrade, think about the cloud. It will save you a great deal of money, time, efforts, and headaches. Well Steve Ballmer apparently agrees with me. And Steve, we have done what you are spending 9.5 billion, for less than 100k and have come up with a superior product. It is called HIVE Virtual Enterprise Steve.

Here is the article below:



Microsoft has kicked off a major campaign to promote the benefits of cloud computing
, with CEO Steve Ballmer pledging $9.5 billion in related R&D efforts.

Ballmer also revealed that at least 70% of Redmond's 40,000 engineers currently work on cloud-related products and services.

Microsoft says cloud computing is the future"The cloud is revolutionizing computing by linking devices to the processing and storage capacity of massive data centers," Ballmer wrote in a Forbes op-ed.

"[This] transforms computing from a constrained resource into a nearly limitless platform for connecting people to the information they need, no matter where they are or what they are doing."

Indeed, Microsoft seems to be quite serious about its endeavor, as COO Kevin Turner vowed on Thursday to "lead" the IT industry via the cloud.

To illustrate his point, Turner confirmed that a number of prominent entities - including Dow Chemical, Hyatt and the University of Georgia - had all recently selected Microsoft cloud solutions.

"[Clearly], the Microsoft cloud services ecosystem creates new opportunities for our customers," said Turner.

"It opens up new markets for businesses, improves operational efficiency and productivity and transforms what IT can deliver to advance business goals."

However, Real World Tech analyst and chip expert David Kanter told TG Daily that Microsoft had little interest in abandoning the traditional desktop market for the cloud.

"To a large extent, cloud computing today is a very hot area...Much like virtualization several years ago. It's also very nascent, so many companies are trying to make their mark. Microsoft's approach to the cloud is really a logical extension," explained Kanter.

"Conceptually, it's just another way to deliver the same software that MS has; however, there is additional integration work that is involved for a cloud offering to improve management and ease of use. So, I would expect MS to [simply] build on top of their existing products and internal infrastructure."

Source:
http://www.tgdaily.com/software-features/50869-microsoft-says-cloud-computing-is-the-future

The term cloud computing evokes whimsical images of angels compulsively checking their e-mails from pillowy cumuli. But in reality, the phrase refers to a ubiquitous but poorly defined method of virtual resource sharing. The concept has garnered a lot of attention, but skeptics have questioned whether private data and essential computing needs can be trusted to strangers in the cloud.

Computer scientists at Victoria University, in New Zealand; Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, in Germany; and Cardiff University, in the United Kingdom, say their approach could make the concept of cloud computing more palatable. At the IEEE Cloud 2010 conference in Miami on 5 July, they proposed the creation of a "social cloud," which would facilitate the sharing of information, hardware, and services by using the computing resources of a person’s online network "friends."

The researchers say that existing friendships on social media sites like Facebook could provide a reliable framework for long-term, regulated resource sharing. However, social networking would have to be combined with certain market controls like financial payments, social ranking, or credit trading to encourage appropriate behavior in such a setup, they say. Sharing within a network of friends, according to the researchers, could cut down on privacy concerns and certain inefficiencies inherent to conventional cloud computing.

Though they’re not the first to consider construction of a social cloud, the computer scientists say they are the first to propose a specific infrastructure through which it could operate. Their model integrates social networking, cloud computing, and "volunteer computing," which is a method of pooling storage and computational resources such as those used by the extraterrestrial-signal-seeking SETI@home.

In their early-stage research, the team used Facebook as its prototypical social network. The social cloud is presented as an application accessed through the site. According to Kyle Chard, a doctoral researcher at Victoria University, the model works by connecting users to resources posted in online "marketplaces." In the experimental model, users acquire the resources by exchanging virtual credits. Additional credits cannot be purchased, only earned through participation. A virtual economy like this one, the researchers say, acts as an internal control, encouraging the sharing of resources and preventing their overuse.

Some experts find the proposal intriguing but are troubled by fundamental questions. In today’s social networks, the general mind-set is "the more friends you have, the better," says Maik Lindner, who studies cloud computing at SAP Research CEC Belfast, in Northern Ireland, with funding from the European Union. This the-more-the-merrier mind-set is "contradictory to having trust derived from social networks," he says. Also, Lindner says, the fact that the social cloud operates on the premise of mixing business with pleasure could spoil the friend network, a possibility that may detract from its appeal to potential users.

The idea is "clever," says Bernie Hogan, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, in England, but he agrees with Lindner that there are downsides to introducing a market-driven system into a social network, because social networks are "based on different values and norms."

For now, the research team emphasized that this is a preliminary model. However, in response to skeptics who argue that most online friendships do not translate into trusting relationships, Kris Bubendorfer, professor of computer science at Victoria University, has an answer. "We don’t assume that all members within a social network have the same level of trust," he says. Rather, the social cloud relies on existing Facebook friend-sorting mechanisms, which group people according to the type of association they have with one another and could be used to assess different levels of trust between users, says Bubendorfer. Social cloud users would also be able to define the limits of their resource sharing, choosing to make their documents and services available to different groups depending on the perceived level of trust.

The result, say the researchers, could be a more active cloud-computing community that has the potential to expand and contract based on real-life relationships and the needs of users.

Source:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/how-facebook-could-make-cloud-computing-better

So many people are concerned that their application will not work in a cloud-based environment. Well I am here to say, jump on the cloud and a conversion tool for whatever app is available for you. We have setup more than 1000 companies in the cloud and its now time for you to start not only saving money, but to jump on board with a company with proven success.

As CRN reported, "68 percent of respondents said cloud computing will help their businesses recover from the recession" in a survey of more than 600 IT and business decision makers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Singapore on behalf of cloud infrastructure and hosted IT provider tekGIANTS.

The survey found that 96 percent of IT decision makers are as confident that cloud computing is ready for the enterprise, more so than in 2009, and that "7 percent of IT decision makers said they use or are planning to use enterprise-class cloud computing solutions within the next two years." So will this fuel economic growth?

[ Get the no-nonsense explanations and advice you need to take real advantage of cloud computing in the InfoWorld editors' 21-page Cloud Computing Deep Dive PDF special report, featuring an exclusive excerpt from David Linthicum's new book on cloud architecture. | Stay up on the cloud with InfoWorld's Cloud Computing Report newsletter. ]

While this is good news, it is perhaps a stretch to focus on cloud computing as something that will "fuel economic growth." Cloud computing is very effective, but the chances that business channels in two years will cover it as an economic change engine are iffy -- it's an expectation that's unrealistic to ask cloud computing, or any technology, to live up to.

A more realistic opportunity is growth in the cloud computing technology space, as providers ramp up for a hoped-for market explosion, and more venture and public money flows into the cloud computing technology companies. Much like the explosion of the Web in the 1990s, it could be the catalyst that gets more investment dollars back into technology -- and translates into jobs and the building of wealth. Now that will fuel the tech economy at least.

At the same time, I'm sure that enterprises and government agencies will find a use for and value in cloud computing, but the savings won't be apparent until 2013, if past patterns are a meaningful guide. Moreover, it will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Like other hyped technologies, we won't understand the true benefits until after -- well, it's no longer being hyped, and surveys such as this are long forgotten.

Man, I know India can do things cheap, but come on. Create an iPad-like device for $35 USD? Check it out:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10740817

Cloud Computing success is often tied strongly to the fine print of the contract with your cloud computing vendor. Forbes recently published a list of issues that you’ll want to understand before signing off on a cloud computing contract. Some of the points discussed in the article include:

Service Levels. It’s important to make sure that the service levels that the vendor is committing to match up with the requirements for you and your users intend to use the application. Clearly applications which are considered mission critical to your organization will require much more stringent constraints around permissible downtime and required performance and response time. Make sure your Service Level Agreement (SLA) addresses availability, planned outages, critical and noncritical outages, service credits and termination in a way that is consistent with how you plan to use the application.

Remedy for Violations. What is your remedy should the vendor not live up to his part of the agreement? Is the cloud vendor required to notify you in known cases of downtime or sluggish performance?

Representations and Warranties and Indemnities. A representation is a fact about the present or past and a warranty is a promise about the future. There is typically a representation that the cloud software will perform certain functions and within certain specifications. Warranties and Indemnities provide the protection and ensurance that the cloud vendor has the rights to be able to be providing the service.

Confidentiality. The cloud vendor needs to agree and uphold the privacy and confidentiality of the data that you will entrust them with. The agreement should detail the security measures that the vendor will employ to ensure that your data will not be compromised.

Backups and Recoveries. Are they done, how frequently, and what are their cost?

Upgrades. How often do upgrades occur and how much notice will you receive prior to the change?

Migration. How easy is it to get data back from the cloud vendor should you want to migrate your data somewhere else later?

Source: http://www.formtek.com/blog/?p=1364

I am really liking this Whale Wars show. You would never imagine that such a wonderful animal is just being Harvested like it was
Chum. Very sad and it's disgusting.

Taking a bite out of the cloud?

Apple has been giving some pretty clear indications that they plan on joining the cloud computing trend sooner or later, but they’re also known for delaying their releases until they’ve polished out every last bit of detail – which sometimes takes quite a while. However, according to some unverified sources, the company is planning on making a huge cloud computing-related revelation soon.

The service is supposed to come out by the end of the year, and will feature three notable components – first, there’ll be streaming music and video directly from Apple’s own servers to your computer as well as any of your Apple-made devices. Second, you’ll be able to stream your own media to other computers or devices made by Apple. Last but not least, your wireless iTunes devices will automatically be synced.

If this does come true, it will be a huge improvement to the current situation where users are pretty much limited by USB connectivity for the purpose of synchronization. Let’s hope we’ll actually see this on the market by the end of the year.