Writing for Information Week, president of Yeoman Technology Group, Michael Healey, notes that outsourcing is a large component of modern IT departments, but the methods of outsourcing employed are usually not optimised

http://www.rackspace.co.uk/rackspace-home/media-centre/news/article/article/cloud-computing-is-an-outsourcing-improvement/?tx_ttnews[backPid]=249&cHash=422199089f

The satisfaction rates for those using cloud computing as an outsourcing tool far outweigh those employing more traditional methods, Mr Healey explains. Citing figures from the outsourcing survey, he notes that 55 per cent of companies who’ve adopted software as a service or cloud computing feel it is of higher quality than traditional in-house services.

http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/cloud-computing-isnt-just-hosting-2-0/140427

Bernard Golden tells why some companies who think cloud computing is the same as Hosting 2.0 are running into problems putting apps on platforms like Amazon

Predictions are a dangerous game. Bill Gates once forecast: “Two years from now, spam will be solved.” That was in 2004, and unfortunately spam still makes up more than 90 per cent of business email.
However, as we head for the second decade of the 21st century, are there any solid trends emerging? What is the future shape of IT security? Will we still be swamped in malware and spam or will newer, more potent threats emerge? Will the infosecurity vendor community be able to innovate to meet the security challenges of the coming decade?

http://www.scmagazineuk.com/analysis-what-will-the-next-decade-bring-in-the-information-security-world/article/164741/

The move from desktop and internal data storage towards cloud-based systems is also likely to meld with the rise of the mobile world.

http://datacenterjournal.com/content/view/3605/40/

If the data center consolidation plan was being proposed by a private company, even a very large one, one might expect at least partial success, leading to reduced costs, reduced environmental impact, and increased efficiency.

ON A Thursday afternoon early last month an e-mail with the subject line “eTenders – Cloud Computing Warning” began to arrive in the inbox of public servants.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0305/1224265631949.html

“The agreements that support them are quite robust,” he says. “As with any technology there are thousands of ways to licence it but the issues can be surmounted.”

Last week we got two major briefings on completely different aspects of cloud computing.

On Friday, we were treated to Hewlett-Packard’s end-to-end cloud computing strategy by the highly energetic Lee Kedrie, chief technologist for HP Services Solutions Expertise Center. Basically, this was a run-up to the company’s HP Cloud Design Service announced today — a professional services offering aimed at cloud service providers, enterprises interested in creating private clouds, and business consumers of cloud services. Kedrie’s rousing pitch stretched all the way from needs assessment to governance.

http://www.infoworld.com/t/cloud-computing/cloud-computing-gets-little-more-real-261

HP rolls out a new cloud consulting practice, while Cisco takes a step toward erasing the line between the data center and the cloud

Last week, I wrote about the first of cloud computing’s revolutions: the revolution in IT operations. This week I want to turn to the revolution that will occur because of the changed nature of cost in a cloud computing environment. In the Berkeley RAD Lab report on cloud computing, it identifies “pay-as-you-go pricing” as a key characteristic of cloud computing. Pay-as-you-go pricing refers to the fact that computing resources in a cloud environment are typically charged for on a fine-grained usage basis.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/336602/cloud_computing_three_revolutions_part_2?fp=4&fpid=21

In the low cost fosters experimentation perspective, cloud computing is much like open source

iStore launched on Thursday Digital Oilfield Online, a cloud-based hosting service for its PetroTrek software suite. The company unveiled its online cloud computing capability at the Microsoft Global Energy Forum, where it announced the immediate availability of cloud-hosted PetroTrek solutions in addition to its existing on-premises offerings.

iStore, which helps oil and gas companies access, organize and visualize exploration and production (E&P) data, has adopted the Microsoft Windows Azure Services platform for delivering Digital Oilfield solutions in the cloud.

http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8216:istore-brings-cloud-computing-to-the-digital-oilfield&catid=230:cloud-computing&Itemid=2701186

The new service supports the Public Petroleum Data Model (PPDM), an open standard widely accepted by the industry for business-oriented data storage. This gives companies a roadmap for moving capital-intensive on-premises data management to the cloud.

The government’s chief information officer has said he expects the public sector to use commercial cloud-computing services as well as the ‘G Cloud’.

John Suffolk said organisations will make use of generally available clouds, as well as the environment being designed specifically for the government.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/itmanagement/0,1000000308,40004175,00.htm

Suffolk also suggested there is likely to be more than one cloud for public services, pointing out that healthcare bodies, the police and other organisations have different demands that would have to be satisfied.

The internet, our relationship with it, and our culture are about to undergo a change as profound and unsettling as the development of web 2.0 in the last decade, which made social media and search – Google and YouTube, Facebook and Twitter – mass, global phenomena. The rise of “cloud computing” will trigger a battle for control over a digital landscape that is only just coming into view.

The internet we have grown up with is a decentralised network of separate computers, with their own software and data. Cloud computing may look like an extension of this network-centric logic but, in fact, it is quite different.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/22/protect-open-cloud-computing

Before our digital lives disappear too far into ‘the cloud’, we must wrest it from corporate and governmental control