http://www.guardian.co.uk/cloud-computing/a-simple-piece-of-engineering

Companies that just need basic IT support may be better off using a cloud computing system, as Daniel Baker of Kitchons found out

According to Milind Govekar, an analyst at Gartner, cloud has rocketed up the list from number 16 to number two in Gartner’s annual CIO survey of key technology investments. “Like with anything new, the primary concern is security,” he says. In fact, the vast majority of clients who inquire about cloud, he says, would rather create a virtualized data center on their own premises—what some call a private cloud—because they’re uncomfortable with the security issues raised by cloud computing and the industry’s ability to address them.

http://www.csoonline.com/article/596819/cloud-security-the-basics

The Cloud Security Alliance and others are working to define security requirements for SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS cloud computing models.

As discussed in What is Cloud Computing and Why Should You Care?, more software vendors are deciding to develop and deliver new applications as cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. This model helps them reach a broader market and serve customers more efficiently and cost-effectively. And, because cloud computing can often provide significant cost, time and ease-of-use benefits, more companies are choosing to buy and deploy cloud computing solutions instead of conventional on-premise software as new solutions needs

http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/buyersguide/article.php/3886761

As you identify and prioritize new requirements to streamline and automate additional tasks, think about the overlaps they’ll require with workflows in the core on-premise solutions and processes that you’re using. For instance, if you decide you want to streamline payments processing, does your accounting software vendor provide a payments processing service that can easily snap into the accounting application?

The core issue is that Facebook has been focused on the data it is gathering and not the users it is serving. Facebook seems to view users as content providers and does not consider their core needs

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/196838/what_cloud_providers_can_learn_from_facebook.html

I suspect that some cloud computing provider will bite the security dust at some point and spin the resulting outage as a “blip” in service — in the same misguided way Facebook doesn’t admit that privacy matters to its users. Of course, it’s not a “blip” if you’re an enterprise depending on a cloud provider, losing a million dollars an hour during the outage.

ihotdesk reports that cloud computing is set to become increasingly popular in the coming years, with research firm IDC predicting that the innovation will become a common feature of more firms’ IT infrastructures.

http://www.rackspace.co.uk/rackspace-home/media-centre/news/article/article/cloud-computing-growing-six-times-faster-than-traditional-it/?tx_ttnews[backPid]=63&cHash=5e1860f3fe

Other research has supported the notion that cloud computing will be increasingly adopted over the coming years, with Mimecast informing IT support users that 62 per cent of firms are planning on rolling out cloud-based solutions in 2010.

There’s high-level support for cloud computing in the government space so, unsurprisingly, vendors are following the money. The latest to do so is Microsoft. The company this week rolled out a federal-specific version of its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).  And you can bet Google and Amazon Web Services will be making some federal cloud moves as well. Here are some of the details and implications.

http://www.mspmentor.net/2010/02/26/microsoft-google-making-federal-cloud-moves/

While the cloud is subject to a good deal of hype these days, federal officials appear to take it seriously. We’ll see in the next few months whether more agencies adopt the cloud and which cloud competitors will nail down the business.

The government is putting in a lot of effort towards going IT savvy and making its services more useful for citizens equally in urban and rural areas. However, there are many key issues in making the citizen-centric services accessible in rural areas. For service providers it is difficult to reach them and scale up the functionality. For the Below Poverty Line (BPL) population community accessibility and affordability are major issues.

http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20100222/technologysabha14.shtml

The basic tenet of the cloud deployment is multi-tenancy which implies a need for policy-driven enforcement, segmentation, isolation, governance, service levels, and chargeback/billing models for different consumer constituencies.

For Logiq³ Inc., the decision to go with a cloud-based provider of IT infrastructure as a service (IaaS) was a matter of cost and flexibility.

A start-up that began operations in 2006, the Toronto-based life reinsurance management firm could not afford to build and staff a data center from scratch, according to David Westgate, Logiq³’s vice president of technology. So Logiq³ instead chose cloud computing and managed IT services provider BlueLock LLC to handle its data needs in the cloud.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9149921/Cloud_security_Try_these_techniques_now?taxonomyId=

From divvying up responsibility to using third-party tools, here’s how some companies are approaching the problem.

There is significant discussion within government bodies as to what are the best ways to start realising the potential cost savings (and other benefits) offered by cloud service providers, including:

http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2747&blogid=35

When enterprise and Internet trends collide, the Internet trend will win. The Cloud will prevail in the public sector, but it will take time.

An annual customer-and-partner event is a good platform to announce intentions and showcase solutions. HP Software and Solutions did just that in its recently held HP Software Universe and Communications World event. It made three announcements for businesses and telecommunication service providers to realize the benefits of cloud computing. Of these, HP Operations Orchestration and HP Cloud Assure are essentially updated offerings, while HP Communications as a Service (CaaS) is a new offering.

http://voicendata.ciol.com/content/NetworkingPlus/110010508.asp

At its annual EMEA showcase event in Hamburg, HP makes its cloud intentions clear by announcing accelerated cloud computing adoption for businesses and telcos