(from PCWorld)
For others, cloud computing instantly raises concerns about security and reliability. After all, Gmail, a popular cloud-based e-mail service that has endured some high-profile outages, didn’t earn the nickname “Gfail” for nothing.
Before you dismiss the cloud as a lot of vapor, though, listen to what three small-business people told us about their experiences with it:
(from The Schwartz Cloud Report)
It seems everyone wants a piece of the cloud storage pie.
Cloud storage provider Dropbox this week received a whopping $250 million infusion from Index Ventures, with new investors Benchmark Capital, Goldman Sachs, Greylock Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, RIT Capital Partners and Valiant Capital Partners also contributing.
Dropbox is the subject of a cover story in the Nov. 7 issue of Forbes, which recounts a meeting nearly two years ago between founder Drew Houston and Apple founder Steve Jobs, who apparently had an interest in Dropbox. Jobs, who passed away earlier this month after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, warned Houston that Apple was looking to develop a cloud storage service like Dropbox. That service, of course is iCloud, which debuted last week.
And yet another cloud storage high-flyer, Box.net, last week received $81 million from Salesforce.com, SAP Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. The infusion brings Box.net’s total amount of funding raised up to $162 million, giving it a reported $600 million valuation.
(from ReadWrite Cloud)
There are some whose definition of cloud computing includes by rule, not by option, the capability to provision additional resources such as storage and processing into an expanding pool, without regard to brand, format, or protocol. That isn’t exactly what we’re seeing today from IBM, which many will recall was able to bend “grid computing” toward its center of gravity as well.
The new universe of IBM cloud services is covered in a layer of semantic goo. Swimming through it can be suffocating, so instead of replicating it here, we’ve surgically extracted the core elements of today’s multiple announcements, and we present them here all clean and free of metaphor.
This just in: IBM launched its current set of SmartCloud private cloud services for business last April. Not today, but six months ago. This was not IBM’s first entry into the cloud; it has been building Platform-as-a-Service around WebSphere since 2009. Further, IBM extended its private cloud services last June. So articles you may be reading today about IBM premiering private and even public cloud services today for the first time, are victims of the aforementioned semantic goo.
(from CRN
Solution Provider Teaches ‘Cloud 101′
Despite all the hype about cloud computing, many solution providers are still unsure of how to get started in the new technology.
Dave Sobel, founder and CEO of Evolve Technologies, a Fairfax, Va.-based solution provider, is on a mission to change that. Working with CompTIA, Sobel is teaching the basics of cloud computing to his peers, with an emphasis on customer requirements and what VARs can do to meet them.
CRN caught up with Sobel at this month’s Tech Data Channel Link partner conference during his presentation entitled, “CompTIA’s Quick Start to Building a Cloud Practice.”
Turn the page for Lesson One of the class we’ve entitled, “Cloud 101.”
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