Cloud Central

"One of the major barriers holding back further cloud adoption is the time it takes to transfer large datasets from the lab to the cloud for analysis...."

Now that is a bar raising bit of news!

Developers Corner:

Email is an important part of how we get things done -- from planning an event with friends to organizing a trip to Paris. So much information is contained inside emails -- like the details of a dinner party or travel itinerary -- and so many emails require action -- like RSVP, or flight checkin.

By adding schema.org markup to the emails you send your users, you can make that information available across their Google experience, and make it easy for users to take quick action. Gmail, Google Search and Google Now all already use this structured data.

The issue of the Fed spying is not new. In fact it predates the cloud. No mater the security the thought will always be there.

All the big names are here, whether the order is correct is a matter of where your priorities lie. Still ...... read on.

The S40 and now Asha mobile phones are a very important market for Nokia in Asia. Due to these platforms being poorly represented in the West it is always going to be difficult to find Western Social Networks allowing easy integration. ShepHertz via their App42 platform have created a way by which developers for these two Nokia OSs are now able to communicate with Facebook.

Thanks to Mandeep Bajar of ShepHertz for the scoop.

While other aspects of IT (such as the development of CPU, memory and software) have continued to improve exponentially every 18 months for two decades, database technology has remained relatively static. However, new cloud data management systems have released this handbrake and could create a sudden surge in mobility.

Not all that surprising! "The result is that retailers use only about 10% to 15% of the computer capacity in their data centers. Some 85% is sitting idle at any time. Huge economies of scale could be gained by using the same infrastructure across multiple applications in a cloud-computing architecture."

Small businesses everywhere will be the first to move and for very obvious reasons, but it will always depends on the sensitivity of the data that is going to be ported into the cloud. The security issue will be the last hurdle to fall and it will not be easy to convince certain firms.

The cloud has brought a sense of control to end users like never before. IT's role has been thinned down and the need to work from office is even less a requirement.

Competition is beginning to bite.

Excellent article! Cloud Encryption, similar to what Mega are using, where the decryption key is held by the client rather than the cloud storage providor would solve most of the issues.

Security is the buzz word and wil remain so.

Good idea! Pinterest does need something to make it a bit more social.

Factual infographic from FireHost which rightfully points out that being in the cloud is not the end of the story. Poor response time will cost more in the end.

"The performance benchmark, an independent third party performed the study, including seven cloud hosting providers and four performance metrics, comparing overall server performance, memory speed, processor speed, and storage speed against a control group consisting of dedicated servers."

More here: http://www.firehost.com/secure-cloud/performance-benchmarks

Excellent article by Charles Babcock on the challenges facing IT, certainly worth a read.

Excellent infographic by BestVendor

Cloud would never be complete without streaming.

The problem is there and it is not going to go away all that easily. And mind you the US is not alone in this, the EU and the UK have their own security agendas. In the end, users will need to take into consideration the registered territory of the cloud service provider.