Technology group requires “Geneva Convention” to handle complex maze of knowledge laws that affect growth of cloud computing and global trade. As IT leaders get more well-off moving their data operations into the cloud, concerns are growing about conflicting international laws that govern data generated in a single country and stored in another. Policymakers around the globe are fueling those concerns. Anxious to offer protection to data privacy and security, they’re advocating requirements to store particular types of knowledge domestically, says Daniel Castro, a senior analyst with the data Technology and Innovation Foundation. Those policies, however, aren’t only creating headaches for technology managers moving data around the globe, they’re also bumping up against delicate free trade agreements that involve senior government officials well past the reach of the common CIO’s office. “We’re finding that businesses are being caught within the middle [between conflicting privacy and security laws],” said Castro in an interview with InformationWeek. The commercial stakes have grown so significant that the ITIF recommended... Read More »

Cloud pricing scheme in line with performance levels, as opposed to units of time, will be interesting play against rivals along with Amazon Web Services. Microsoft In 2013: 7 Lessons Learned (Click image for larger view and for slideshow.) Two Microsoft employees have applied for a patent on a cloud pricing scheme in response to the customers’ ability to set the performance levels of a cloud service. Customers will be guaranteed the designated level of performance, in keeping with the quoted price. The patent application illustrates how guaranteed performance levels may play a bigger role in future use of cloud services than they do currently. a typical criticism of on-demand pricing, together with that utilized by Amazon Web Services, is that it provides an hour of service time with none guarantee of the way well the system will run. Specific things including I/O levels is also set with a number of Amazon’s larger servers, together with a fee for that guaranteed performance. Performance metrics could... Read More »

As municipal needs get more sophisticated, more cities turn to cloud services. Want a wise city without cloud services? Good luck with that. The cloud approach, wherein providers outside city government deliver a technological platform for gathering and mining data and producing city applications over the general public Internet or a virtual private network, has become the well-liked means for municipalities to transport to a higher level. “While it’s possible for cities to enable smart technology without using cloud-based services, it’s unlikely it is possible for you to to take action in any meaningful way,” wrote Brian Robinson on GCN last month. Why is that this? Why can’t cities just get smarter with none involvement with cloud services? a more in-depth look turns up several reasons. For something, most city networks aren’t equipped to work with real-time input from sensors, smartphones, electric and water meters, or other sources of input concerning the functions of cities. Doing so requires specialized hardware and software to collect data,... Read More »

As Oracle integrates OpenStack cloud with its technologies, the community asks: Will Oracle really embrace the open-source code spirit? Despite recent pessimism, Oracle on Wednesday announced significant new support for OpenStack in an exceptionally ambitious manner, frequently saying that it’d support OpenStack as a management framework across an expansive list of Oracle products.  I do not believe you may get rather more validation of OpenStack’s importance one day of the enterprise data center than this endorsement. Remember, Oracle is the corporate that trumpeted a “cloud” strategy that was, in effect, to recreate IBM’s mainframe heydays of the 1960s. Oracle is the epitome of a standard enterprise vendor and to have it announce this level of support for OpenStack is astonishing. It’s also an indication of the days. Obviously, the primary, most-important question in all of this can be: Can Oracle engage positively with the open-source meritocracy that OpenStack represents? Admittedly, at the start blush it’s hard to be positive, given Oracle’s walled-garden culture. [... Read More »

Cisco’s version of an OpenStack private cloud helps Photobucket ease implementation and management of networking issues. Photobucket is using a Cisco-built OpenStack cloud to higher compete with the heavily financed Instagram, Pinterest, and Flickr as an entire life destination for users’ photos. Photobucket stores personal photos, provides editing tools, and generates a link to users’ photos that allows you to be displayed in documents or on other websites without being uploaded to these destinations. The 10-year-old, 74-employee company was your complete buzz. Now it has to compete with Pinterest, which desires to be everyone’s lifetime scrapbook site for photos, videos, and documents. In late October, Pinterest garnered $225 million in venture capital to expand its services, following $200 million it received in February. Its estimated valuation is $3.8 billion. Photobucket knows it lags behind Instagram, the moment sharing service that adds a telegram-like ability to deliver images wherever its users want. But Photobucket figures it has edged in advance of Flickr, since it hosts 4... Read More »