Federal agencies have until June 5 to certify their cloud systems. Here is what will happen in the event that they miss the deadline. Most Wasteful Government IT Projects Of 2013 (click image for larger view and for slideshow) As we reported last week in an in-depth analysis, cloud service providers are queuing up for a rigorous government review process that certifies their service meets a strict baseline of security standards. This certification, often called the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, is mandatory for any cloud merchant seeking to do business with federal agencies. But the stakes are equally high for the federal agencies. The Office of Management and Budget, which mandated in 2011 that agencies begin using cloud services, has given them until June 5 to turn that those services meet federal security standards. A big question now could be what happens if cloud service providers do not get the safety certification by the June deadline? And where does that leave agencies... Read More »

Watch out, Amazon Web Services. These younger cloud companies bring new architectures and provisioning tips on how to the sport. The cloud is sufficiently old, and Amazon Web Services mature enough at age seven, to make you wonder: Could market leader AWS be outflanked by a fresh architecture or a supplier with a more flexible approach to provisioning user-designed servers? So far, cloud vendors have defined services using their very own templates, with a given amount of CPU, memory, and storage. Market leaders Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Rackspace each do it roughly an identical way. But younger companies try new architectures and more flexible provisioning methods. On earth of cloud computing, where names like Savvis, Terremark, CSC, and SoftLayer predominate, here is a six-pack of contenders to be the following superstar in cloud computing. DigitalOcean in Big apple has an architecture which could pose a challenge in the future to Amazon, given its heavy reliance on solid-state disks and high-speed provisioning. However the firm has... Read More »

Examine this analogy closely. Open-source hardware and open-source software involve different processes with different levels of user participation. The analogy of the way Open Compute is analogous to Linux was made repeatedly on the Open Compute Summit V this week. The analogy is fair — open-source hardware shares many underlying values with open-source software — but i discovered myself curiously disagreeing with the statement every time I heard it. The Open Compute Project (OCP) is a bold initiative to position hardware designs into the general public sphere and let many parties use them. Collaborative groups have formed to specify what they need in an OCP-certified server, storage device, or datacenter switch, giving hardware manufacturers the choice to select to provide it or not. The goal is to cut back vendor lock-in, put more power into the hands of end users, and standardize key pieces of hardware within the datacenter to create more interchangeable parts. These are worthy goals, ones that potentially overturn some of the... Read More »

DigitalGlobe’s soon-to-be six satellites gather data at a freakish pace — capturing images of everything from natural disasters to shipping containers in ports. DigitalGlobe’s soon-to-be six satellites orbiting the globe are amassing image data at a freakish pace. Its archive would be ready to offer new services with that data, provided it could maintain the gathering, storage, indexing, and repair-delivery infrastructure had to support it. DigitalGlobe offers image services to forestry agencies, mining companies, government crop-estimating experts, and other organizations seeking information on everything from the choice of cars in a competitor’s car parking zone to the variety of shipping containers in port. The Longmont, Colo., firm has varieties of satellites in orbit, some collecting color images, some black and white. It applies different software to the resulting data — as an instance, stretching upward when it’s viewing the Himalayas and other mountain ranges, and chopping the shadows off tall buildings lest the picture misrepresent their true height. But one in all its biggest tasks... Read More »

Is Microsoft’s Office 365 Personal best for you? Here is what it’s a must to know. Windows 8.1 Update 1: 10 Key Changes (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) This week Microsoft announced Office 365 Personal, a version of the cloud-based subscription service with the intention to become available this spring. Since its launch in July 2013, Office 365 has tallied greater than 3.5 million consumer subscribers. Will the brand new version help the service further expand its reach? Listed here are five essential facts about Microsoft’s newest Office offering. 1. Office 365 Personal will cost as low as $70 per year. Office 365 Personal will allow users to run Office applications on one PC or Mac and one tablet. Users can subscribe for $6.99 monthly, or annually for $69.99. Microsoft confirmed to InformationWeek that Office 365 Personal will entitle users to Office Mobile on “multiple” non-Windows smartphones, and that the corporate will announce specifics soon. Like any flavors of Office 365, Personal will... Read More »