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This Week in Cloud, January 12, 2012: 10,000 cloud jobs, Cloud complexity, IBM buys Platform Comp., Gartner report on security testing inside. And more…
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Cloud News
- Talent research firm Wanted Analytics recently concluded that demand for cloud computing expertise has increased by leaps and bounds. This CRN article details the results of the study and reveals that in the past 90 days, 10,000 job ads have been placed with cloud computing skills and experience as part of the job requirements.
- According to this CloudTweaks article, the latest cloud supercomputer developed by Amazon promises to perform 240 trillion calculations per second, without incurring monumental costs. The supercomputer runs on Amazon EC2 and is ranked the 42nd fastest in the world. Though there are supercomputers that run faster, Amazon’s offering comes at a much lower cost.
- While the US government is shutting down 1,200 data centers, they are also enabling the remaining revamped data centers to lease out extra capacity to other federal agencies. To know more about the US government’s latest data center strategy, read this article at GigaOM.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently declared that the year-end opening of its data center in São Paulo, Brazil has doubled its overall data center footprint. AWS now has data centers in Asia Pacific, Europe, and on the east and west coasts of the US. To learn more about Amazon’s recent growth, read this article at The Register.
- Internap’s recent acquisition of Voxel for $30 million is another indicator of the aggressive wave of M&A activity centered on cloud services. Major IT firms and cloud providers continue to expand their offerings by purchasing smaller cloud firms. To learn more about how large firms including Rackspace, Internap, IBM, and HP are jumping onto the cloud acquisition bandwagon, read this GigaOM article.
- IBM recently acquired the Toronto-based firm Platform Computing. Platform Computing provides cluster, grid, and cloud management products for distributed computing environments. To learn more about how this acquisition can enhance IBM’s growth in the cloud computing sector, read this article at Technorati.
Featured Content on Cloud Commons
Gartner Report: Application Security Testing of Cloud Services Providers Is a Must
Enterprises moving business-critical information and processes into the cloud must ensure that their cloud providers meet their security policies. We believe that the recommendations in this report by Gartner (available compliments of Cloud Commons) will help secure your cloud by explaining the various models of security testing that a company can use to test their provider's code for vulnerabilities.
Feature article
Toward what future goes the enterprise app store?
By George Hulme, Independent Writer
The topic of IT consumerization in the enterprise - and what it means for data management and the role of IT departments - has garnered a lot of attention lately. Certainly, workers bringing their own devices, and choosing their own cloud services poses a challenge to the status quo.
Those who have read my opinions over the years know that I’m a proponent of IT departments actively competing to win the hearts - and ultimately the business - of the “informal” corporate IT buyers. Read the full article.
Cloud Views
- Will the cloud simplify your IT environment? James Urquhart thinks not. In this blog on GigaOM, he argues that the cloud will present new challenges, but that engineers and software developers will learn and adapt to the complexity of the cloud.
- Existing contracts may be slowing down cloud adoption and leaving some companies behind the competition. In this blog on GigaOM, Scott Bils details how an enterprise can leverage the cloud without violating existing contracts.
- This Network World blog details the concept of a web of interconnected clouds called Intercloud. Intercloud will be comprised of cloud computing resources which are owned, shared, and connected by multiple providers on an open platform. This kind of federation cloud will allow providers to buy, rent, and share cloud resources externally, especially benefiting smaller providers.
MSP Corner
- In this blog on Talkin’ Cloud, Justin Crotty describes how MSPs need to be innovative and set themselves apart from the common MSP. He also explains the difference between MSPs selling on an industry scale and an individual scale.
Upcoming Cloud Events
- Cloud Expo Europe: January 25 – 26, London, UK
- MSPWorld: February 1 – 3, Miami, FL
- Cloud Connect: February 13 – 16, Silicon Valley, CA
- Cloud/Gov: Plan, Implement, Succeed: February 16, Washington DC
