Default choices are phenomenally powerful. (You can read any number of scientific papers and books about this.) Many businesses believe that they’ve got a low-risk project that they can toss on cloud IaaS and see what happens next. Or they’ve got an instant need and no time to review all the options, so they simply do something, because it’s better than not doing something [...click headline to read more !]

When was the last time you verified that all aspects of your data protection are in place and being met?. If it has been a while, maybe today would be a good day to try a restore, before you find yourself in a tight spot. Ensure that you have a data protection strategy with the proven ability to recover. It isn’t about the backup…it’s about the ability to recover that’s vital! [... click headline to read more!]

The issues with cloud computing at this point include security, performance, costs, service and vendor viability. Security will be a leading concern for the foreseeable future, but for users who have adopted the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), the cloud has just gotten a little safer. [...clieck headline to read more!]

To Cloud or Not to Cloud…that is the question. Are you an IT Administrator, IT Service Provider, or ISV faced with making a strategic decision about cloud adoption? Are you overwhelmed by all the cloud jargon and implementation choices? In this session, we will examine public and private cloud computing solutions across the industry, in the context of the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) definition. We’ll look at the technical and business elements that factor into the private/public/hybrid cloud decision. We’ll discuss the strengths of the Microsoft platform, focusing on Windows Azure and virtualization with Hyper-V. This session will include a case study of a managed service provider that made the decision to offer a public cloud solution on Windows Azure, and a live demo of the resulting solution. [...click headline for more]

EVault for DPM (EDPM) is an all-in-one backup and recovery solution that combines Microsoft DPM’s data protection for Microsoft Windows servers and applications with EVault’s protection for Linux, VMware, IBM i, IBM AIX, HP-UX, Sun Solaris, Novell Netware, and Oracle databases. EDPM is available as a appliance with software pre-installed or virtual instance that can be deployed within Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi virtual environments [...Click headline to read more]

i365 and Microsoft to Develop Heterogeneous Solutions Joining Microsoft DPM 2010 with EVault Backup and Recovery. Are you interested in participating in our Beta Program, and having the early opportunity to test drive this product ? [...Click headline to read more]

Most organizations struggle to meet backup windows and to improve recovery capabilities, to improve backup and restore success rates and to keep up with data growth. Sure there have been some improvements — the shift to disk as the primary target for backup did improve backup and recovery performance, but it hasn’t fundamentally changed backup operations or addressed the most basic backup challenges. Why hasn’t disk dragged backup out of the dark ages? Well, disk alone can’t address some of the underlying causes. [...click headline to read more!]

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX), is the world leader in hard disk drives and storage devices for enterprise, desktop, mobile computing, consumer electronics, and external/networking storage solutions markets. Seagate products span the storage application landscape, including data centers, mainframes, workstations, desktop and notebook PCs, netbooks, digital video recorders, gaming consoles, home entertainment devices, external backup and networked storage. [...Click headline to read more]

An online and mobile technology solutions provider and manager of an online media network with a focus on the development of community websites that offer leading edge local search solutions for business that enable consumers to search for local content and connect to local business on the Internet through technology that includes Online, Mobile, Click—to-Call, Voice-Based services and a innovative SMS mobile advertising platform called Mobinym. [...Click headline to read more]

i365.com provides proven solutions for the protection, retention, and discovery of electronic information to solve organizations’ compliance and data management problems [...Click headline to read more]

Public vs Private Clouds – Some History, Issues &  Recent Trends

Public Clouds

Cloud Computing was brought to masses by the public cloud companies like Amazon and Google. They helped the imagination of masses run wild with an attractive utility based pricing model and an ability to scale infinitely (albeit, theoretically) to meet any demand.

One of the major benefits of Cloud Computing is the utility base pricing model (pay for what you use) and bringing in an outside vendor into picture for offering the services; and on-demand use of resources. The single most defining element in the definition of Cloud Computing is the enormous cost savings in OpEx and the zero CapEx.

Enterprises started saying “yes, we can” to the idea of cloud computing. They saw the advantage of Cloud based technologies and wanted to adapt these technologies in their infrastructure. Seeing this trend, the reluctant ones like IBM and others jumped in. As we started digging in deeply about applying the idea of Clouds in a wider enterprise context, we understood that there were many needs and issues that were not obvious earlier. Everything from security to regulation to the need for better infrastructure to even the need to have some fine grained control. These issues became important and needed further understanding.

Private Clouds

The surging forward of public clouds and the initial debunking of the idea by enterprises and vendors like IBM, led to the development of Private Clouds. Private Clouds also grew in popularity out of the fear that Public Clouds needed to be made more secure especially in the enterprise realm and that public clouds failed to meet the regulatory requirements in certain countries.  A number of CTOs and CIOs, were afraid about putting their crucial business data in the hands of third parties; and how it was difficult to customize the public cloud infrastructure to meet their requirements and how the public clouds are too restrictive in this regard. There are many such issues that ensures that the idea of private [...Click headline to read more!]

Public Clouds are infrastructure services offered by companies like Amazon, Rackspace, GoGrid, etc. and platform services like Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine, etc.. These cloud providers take care of deploying, managing, securing the infrastructure and companies can consume it on demand with a pay as you consumption option, much like the utility consumption. Private Clouds are deployments made inside the company’s firewall (on-premise datacenters).

Larger companies and government departments are likely to consider going to the Cloud but in a more controlled and secure fashion via a Private Cloud. A Private Cloud has all the benefits of the Public Clouds but it is hosted inside the firewall of the company or department it is supporting. Full control of who has access to data is maintained while all the benefits of the Cloud are realized. [...Click headline to read more]

What is cloud computing , SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services ? Software is moving to the cloud because most of it belongs there. Cloud computing is the next big step on the path to a more efficient use of computing resources. It is going to be a disruptive technology that will totally change the way enterprises look to meet their IT hardware and software requirements. In this article we shall make an attempt to simplify the concept of cloud computing. [...Click headline to read more!]

Most experts agree that the cloud is poised for considerable growth, but customers worry about how their data is stored. Who might have access to it, and can it be read while it is in transit? The issues with cloud computing at this point include security, performance, costs, service and vendor viability. [...Click headline to read more]