DALLAS, Aug. 21, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Amid the proliferation of real time data from sources such as mobile devices, web, social media, sensors, log files and transactional applications, Big Data has found a host of vertical market applications, ranging from fraud detection to R&D.; Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140821/138541 "Big Data Market: 2014 – 2020 – Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies, Industry Verticals & Forecasts" Key Findings: In 2014 Big Data vendors will pocket nearly $30 Billion from hardware, software and professional services revenues Big Data investments are further expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 17% over the next 6 years, eventually accounting for $76 Billion by the end of 2020 The market is ripe for acquisitions of pure-play Big Data startups, as competition heats up between IT incumbents Nearly every large scale IT ven... (more)

ISF Releases Program To Patch Windows Security Hole

What is being described as a "glaring" security hole in Microsoft's Windows platform, has prompted the Internet Security Foundation to releases a free protection tool, to counter identity theft. The security gaffe potentially exposes millions to identity theft. The security flaw involves the use of asterisks or other markers, to mask user-created passwords. Nearly 86% of polled Internet users, according to the ISF, believed the passwords hidden behind the asterisks are securely protected. This is not the case. Programs such as SeePassword (www.SeePassword.com), which is readily available and easy to use, allows "hidden" passwords to be viewed. Criminals can view sensitive information such as bank records, and other private information like credit card accounts, as a result. This comes when privacy issues are more important than ever, in an era when criminals and t... (more)

America's First CTO Should Come from Within the IT Industry

Coach Wei's Blog The notion of having a CTO for the USA is very exciting. It’s a job that I’d really want to have - I’m working on my resume right now!!! More important than the question of who will be the CTO is which industry this person should be coming from. I’d really really recommend the following three industries... Information technology industry Information technology industry Information technology industry Not because I’m from the IT industry, but rather because IT is the industry that the title of CTO is born from and IT is the industry that is leading society in terms of not only technical advances, but rather more importantly, culture evolutions. The biotech and energy industries are all hugely important, and may produce far more important technological breakthroughs than the IT industry would be able to, but IT has become part of our culture (as proven ... (more)

Infrastructure Matters: Challenges of Cloud-based Testing

An interesting thing happened on the way to testing that application from the cloud. We broke the innertubes! Pros and Cons of Application Testing in the Cloud A firm wanted to test their application and need 100 browser instances. In the old days it would have required 100 machines -- that would be a massive undertaking. Even with hardware virtualization, you would need 5 to 10 machines, and there would be some complex configuration issues. However, by putting it all in the cloud, they were able to sync up 100 virtual instances of the browsers and take them down over a weekend at a dramatic cost reduction. I won’t argue the point about needing one machine per browser instance for application testing (even though it’s not entirely accurate as plenty of tools support such requirements without requiring multiple machines – Ixia and Spirent to name just a couple of my... (more)

Big Data on Grids or on Clouds?

Now that we have a new computing paradigm, Cloud Computing, how can Clouds help our data? Replace our internal data vaults as we hoped Grids would? Are Grids dead now that we have Clouds? Despite all the promising developments in the Grid and Cloud computing space, and the avalanche of publications and talks on this subject, many people still seem to be confused about internal data and compute resources, versus Grids versus Clouds, and they are hesitant to take the next step. I think there are a number of issues driving this uncertainty. Grids didn't keep all their promises Grids did not evolve (as some of us originally thought) into the next fundamental IT infrastructure for everything and everybody. Because of the diversity of computing and data environments, we had to develop different middleware (department, enterprise, global, compute, data, sensors, scientifi... (more)

NetSuite Receives Leading Research Firm’s 2009 SMB Excellence Award in Cloud Computing

SAN MATEO, Calif. — November 18, 2009 —November 18, 2009 — NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), a leading vendor of cloud computing business management software suites, today announced that NetSuite has received IDC’s SMB Excellence Award in the Software as a Service and Cloud Computing category for providing innovative solutions to the small and medium-sized business markets (SMB). NetSuite was the only Software as a Service (SaaS) business software suite vendor to receive the award. The global industry research leader made its selections based on suitability to the needs of SMB companies, milestone accomplishments, and the competitive disruption caused by the company’s innovative on-demand technology for on-premise, legacy vendors such as Microsoft and SAP.  For more information about NetSuite’s industry recognition, visit www.netsuite.com/awards. IDC recognizes NetSuite alo... (more)

Cloud Computing Vendors Need More Transparency

Earlier this week, I wrote a bit about fear and how it may be driving ostensible concerns about potential security problems with Cloud Computing. I didn't mean to imply that all security concerns are disingenuous or obstructionist, and it behooves the big cloud services vendors to address these concerns by being much more transparent, ie, open, about how and where they work their magic. Faith-based IT just won't cut it. That dog won't hunt. I would imagine that even Billy Graham would "trust, but verify" that a cloud services provider shares every procedural and technical detail available. A number of presenters at this week's RSA Secuirty Conference homed in, not unexpectedly, on security and Cloud Computing. Some worried about "catastrophic" failure. Well, don't we all. This sort of comment does nothing to move the conversation forward. Register Today and Save $5... (more)

Rackspace Ranked as Top IT Services Employer for Third Year Running in The Sunday Times Best Places to Work Awards 2010

Future prospects and passionate employees helps Rackspace achieve top 30 award ranking LONDON, 9th March, 2009 - Rackspace (www.rackspace.co.uk), the world's leader in the hosting and cloud computing industry today announces that it has been voted as the 30th best place to work and once again the highest ranking IT Services company, in the prestigious Sunday Times 100 Best Companies Awards. Commended for its continued focus on employee engagement, Rackspace has ranked as one of the top ten companies for people, who love what they do, believe in the company and its future and deliver a great service. Rackspace has, for the third year running, been featured in the top tier of the Sunday Times Best Employer Awards. The Awards, which are based on employee interviews, indicate that Rackspace has created a fun and caring environment that helps nurture and grow individual ... (more)

A Message from Barry X Lynn, CEO 3Tera

3Tera Session at Cloud Expo We started 3Tera to radically ease the way IT deploys, maintains and scales - MANAGES - applications. Our AppLogic® cloud computing platform provides the foundation of our partners' orchestration of cloud services for public and private clouds around the world. Today, we're taking the next step in moving toward making cloud computing mainstream by joining CA. CA and 3Tera share a common vision for the future of cloud computing, and we are excited about the opportunities that this acquisition will create for our customers, partners and their cloud users. This is a historic moment in Cloud Computing. The significance of this acquisition is a heck of a lot more than just a land grab in a hot space. We are confident that as a team, CA and 3Tera, will extend our leadership of the cloud computing platform market. We are honored, given the pleth... (more)

Cloud Expo Preview: Security, Residency, and Malevolence

Cloud Expo Opening Keynote Security will be one of the top-of-mind issues at Cloud Expo when it opens April 19 at the Javits Center in New York. Here are just three examples: 1. A session to be presented by Intel architect Charlton Barreto addresses the challenge of "building a more secure, trustworthy cloud." Register Today and Save $550 ! Explore Sponsorship Opportunities ! As he says, "Cloud computing allows companies to perform feats of computation that would otherwise have been impossible, or at least prohibitively expensive. However, cloud computing has generally lacked the security features typically required by small and medium-sized enterprises. Likewise, in using public clouds, IT cedes control over key security parameters to the service provider." Barreto's session promises to cover "technology advances, such as Trusted Boot Chains to enable or disable a... (more)

Virtualization in the Enterprise

I spent last week at the annual IBM IMPACT event, and had a lot of great conversation with enterprise users about some of the transformations taking place in the IT industry. Most of my conversations focused on virtualization and the broader cloud computing architectural shift, and many of these conversations reminded me of how early in this journey we still are. Many enterprise users are still very much in the "toes in the water" phase when it comes to cloud computing. Specifically, that phase is somewhere between assessing the business value and working out a prototype for the organization. While it is clear that cloud computing is still steadily emerging, it is equally clear that enterprises have embraced virtualization whole-heartedly. In this sense, I am not talking about mainframe virtualization that enterprises have relied on for years. I am talking about hi... (more)