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This Week in Cloud, September 22, 2011: NIST standards roadmap, Gartner says Google Gmail viable alternative to MSFT in the enterprise, 5 costly cloud migration mistakes. And more…

Cloud News

  • NIST released a NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap cloud computing roadmap and reference architecture to help federal agencies understand cloud deployment standards and the categories of cloud services that can be used across the government. For more information, read this Information Week Government article.
  • Gartner feels Google Gmail is a viable alternative to Microsoft in the enterprise, according to this recent Gartner press release and report. This Computerworld article summarizes findings from that research. While Google’s share of the enterprise email market is currently around 1%, Gartner predicts it will reach 10% within a few years. Some of the large organizations that currently use Gmail are Motorola Mobility, US General Services Administration, Jaguar Land Rover and the InterContinental hotel chain. Meanwhile, this TechTarget article makes the case based on interviews with IT execs and industry-watchers that Google enterprise apps are gaining ground, but more often as supplements than substitutes for on-premise apps.
  • Cross-platform mobile development company Appcelerator has launched the Open Mobile marketplace, which will give developers working with its Titanium platform access to modules and add-ons from cloud services companies. For more information, read this Mashable article.
  • EMC opened a new 450,000 square foot Center of Excellence in Durham, NC, which will house a virtualized cloud data center for EMC employees and include global R&D labs. Read this CIO Today article for more info.
  • Open Virtual Format (OVF), was accepted as an international standard by ISO. OVF describes an open, secure, portable and extensible format for packaging and distributing workloads consisting of one or more virtual machines and applications. Read more in this Cloud Commons article.
  • CSMIC (the Cloud Services Measurement Initiative Consortium) announces the public availability of a new version of the SMI (Service Measurement Index) Overview. This version incorporates the public review comments recently solicited on Cloud Commons and represents the final set of attributes that is being used to guide the ongoing measurement definition effort. This document can be downloaded here. If you have any comments on this version, you may submit them via email to SMI_review@cloudcommons.com.

Feature article

Pragmatic Cloud: Cloudy Views Bring Sunny Outlook for Cloud Consumers

By George Watt, CA Technologies

Last Thursday I participated as a panelist in Cloud Commons' "#CloudViews" Twitter chat (partial session archive here). The following is a brief summary of that event.

Put the Customers' Interests First

Though the topic of this chat session was "Cloud Outages" there was, I believe, another clear theme: It's all about the consumer. And the participants care about the well-being of the businesses to which they provide service. Whilst this was demonstrated in a somewhat subtle way in numerous posts, some of them were quite straight forward. Read the full article.

Cloud Views

  • This ZDNet article warns of 5 costly cloud migration mistakes and what to do about them. Mistakes include: choosing the wrong cloud environment, abandoning security policies, setting yourself up for vendor lock, failing to consider how you’ll move assets, and backsliding into overprovisioning.
  • In this CIO article, Bernard Golden discusses how cloud computing is changing data center design and cost.
  • Cloud computing: love it or leave it. This SearchCIO article shares the top 6 reasons users love cloud and the top 6 reasons they don’t. The list is courtesy of James Staten and his team at Forrester Research.
  • In this Cloud Commons article, Ryan Hughes, Skygone CEO writes about ‘Open source – the lovers, the haters and the converters.’

MSP Corner

  • AMI partners published a report stating that SMB customers will spend $50 billion on cloud services in the next two years and outlining the skills that SMB technology partners want most from IT partners. Read more in this MSP Mentor article.
  • The CRN article describes why solution providers should review their contracts regarding liability involving a breach of a customer’s data and provides some guidance.
  • This SearchCloudProvider article discusses the issues MSPs should be aware of as they consider rolling out cloud-based service offerings.

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About Cloud Commons

Cloud Commons is an independent online community of IT professionals, analysts, technology providers, and industry experts. Members can ask questions, learn from experts, and find the latest cloud-related news. Cloud Commons offers a forum to contribute and discuss best practices and successes, as well as research vendor solutions. Sponsored by CA Technologies, Cloud Commons has been growing steadily since its launch in May of 2010.

Hosted on Cloud Commons is the Service Measurement Index (SMI). Led by Carnegie Mellon University, SMI encompasses a growing consortium of members. SMI compiles user-submitted ratings of cloud services and scores them relative to other services of the same type. Ratings include metrics such as: quality, agility, risk, cost, capability, and security.

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