The two open-source software companies, Red Hat and Horton Networks are aiming at speeding up enterprise big data Apache Hadoop projects. The two firms unveiled the beta of Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) combined with Red Hat Storage, which is designed to give companies a unified storage pool for all Hadoop workloads. They also announced the integration of HDP with Red Hat JBoss Data Visualization, enabling Hadoop to work with existing data sources including warehouses, SQL and NoSQL databases, on premise and cloud apps and flat and XML files. To know more on this aspect, go through the article by Toby Wolpe, senior reporter at ZDNet:

http://www.zdnet.com/red-hat-and-hortonworks-unveil-hadoop-big-data-collaboration-7000026154/

Hyper growth - this term is on its way to become attached with the 'Public Cloud' market.

As per the report of Forrester Research, the global public cloud market is expected to rise to $191 billion by 2020 as compared to 2013 which stood at $58 billion. The reason behind this growth is the shift from on premise technology to cloud which has proved to be cost effective. Nowadays cloud technology is considered as a replacement of the existing systems. Forrester’s report also predicts that by 2020, the global public cloud platform service will soar to $44 billion, the cloud business service will hit $14 billion and the cloud applications which will be Software – as – a – Service or SaaS, will hit $131 billion. The cause of this whopping valuation is attributable to the fact that more and more CIOs and their technology management organizations are taking initiative for this change.

So, what’s the future of public cloud market? Read at http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247883/Public_cloud_market_ready_for_hypergrowth_period_ for more details. 

Software as a Service and cloud computing service providers are targeting school administrators. The objective is to demonstrate to the students the virtues of the vendors' hardware products and software solutions to gain their allegiance later in the business world. So, smart SaaS companies can capitalize on the data they collect to provide benchmarks and KPIs that offer greater value to their customers.

To know more about this aspect, read the article by Jeff Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies and founder of the Cloud Computing Showplace, visit http://www.technewsworld.com/story/79979.html

Building a strong relationship with your customers is very important for your company to prosper because then only they will return to you and buy products or services from you time and again.

Earlier, what used to happen is that customers went to favorite retailer and the product they needed was made readily available in front of them – this happened because the retailer knew what type of product they wanted. Now there is a shift. People are going to supermarkets or even they are buying products online. Unlike the old days, where the retailer chatted with customers to know their likings, they do not chat with the owner – be it supermarkets or online shops. So, how, you as a shop owner or a retail owner must try to maintain strong relationship with your customers in order to attract them and make repeated purchases?

Thanks to Big Data, you can now again personalize your relationship with consumers and build strong bonding with them so that your customers buy more and more. But what are the ways to do so? Read them here: http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/21/5-ways-big-data-is-helping-companies-help-their-customers/.

When we talk about Big Data and the stuffs alike, we normally think of how it helps in running any business. But, hold on a second. Here, we will talk about something fundamental related to our society.

In order to drive a country economically forward, we need talented people, no matter whether the country is a developed country or a developing country. You know that talented people cannot be formed just like anything. For this, you have to invest in education and training. To end poverty, bridge the gap of economic inequality and rise on the economic ladder, we must find better ways to teach that are cheaper and can be applied on a vast scale – because, we are talking about a country. It is of no doubt that binding technology with education has proved fruitful tremendously; and now, with techniques of analyzing Big Data known to us, we can leverage the power of it for betterment of education. With the help of Big Data, teachers and companies can get several information about students’ learning patterns and depending on that, schools can design personalized instructions in a more sophisticated way.

Big Data technologies can even be used in strengthening a country’s national educational system. In fact, The World Bank Group in association with its private sector lending arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) are presently working on this to support national educational systems. They recently launched an initiative named Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER), which collects and shares comparative data on educational policies and institutions from countries around the world. In private sector, Big Data can create favorable impact by collecting information about interactions between teachers and students and between students and learning systems. Spreading the light of education can become much easy with increasing a country’s literacy rate and educating poor students.

Read more at http://businessdayonline.com/2014/04/big-data-for-poor-students/#.U1SHFPmSxqI on how the power of Big Data and adaptive technologies can be utilized in fortifying education.

It is of no doubt that switching to cloud platform will benefit you; but, have you ever thought which cloud platform will you use? Now, you may be wondering what the various cloud platforms are. Let's know it.

Cloud platforms can be private, public, managed or hybrid. The first two types are self-explanatory. While private cloud refers to an infrastructure operated and run for the benefit of your company only, in public cloud, this infrastructure is available for public use and can be accessible over the internet. On the other hand, managed cloud platform gives you services that are offered to manage and maintain the underlying technology to run cloud services.

So, what is hybrid cloud? You may have guessed it right – it’s the combination of two or more cloud services. Hybrid cloud has an edge over types of cloud services. If you opt for private, then it may prove costly to you, on the other hand, if you choose public, then although you will get the cost advantage, but a security concern will lie over you. However, if you go for hybrid, then they remain unique and in addition to that, you can access extra resources on an as – needed basis. So, for example, when you use hybrid cloud, you may use your private cloud application to store confidential data and for billing and ERP, you may use your public cloud application which is cost effective. The other main advantage of hybrid cloud is that, you have the option to switch to public cloud resources temporarily, if at any time your own capacity is exceeded.

Thinking of switching to hybrid cloud? Read more at http://cloudtweaks.com/2014/04/importance-hybrid-matters/ to get an idea about what is the importance of hybrid cloud and why it will matter to you. 

Whether you are a startup, entrepreneur, SME or a large business enterprise, cloud technology is the thing that should come to you handy. Unlike the past, where a newbie in a business has to think twice over investing in costly equipment, cloud has made the job easy. With scalability, ubiquity and user centricity, it is the cloud that should be on your agenda in setting or developing up your business, irrespective of size.

With cloud, you can have access to technological advancements at a cheaper cost enabling you to compete with your rivals. With cloud technology in your hands, it can even happen that you are defeating your rivals!

Read more at: http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/apr/15/cloud-computing-large-businesses-benefit.

As disruptive technologies are taking place often, CIOs need to take a look at their roles and they need to rebrand themselves as drivers of digital innovation. According to a survey done by consultancy firm EY (known formerly as Ernst and Young) titled 'Born to be digital: How leading CIOs are preparing for a digital transformation', social media, cloud, data analytics and mobile are acting as disruptive forces for businesses across all industries - whether it's a retailer or an automobile manufacturer. The way social network, cloud, data analytics and mobile have evolved; companies need to think alternate approaches to interact with their customers. Not only this, the change has helped the businesses to search for new opportunities to expand.

All these have redefined the roles and responsibilities of the CIOs. To take their organization forward, they have to become key drivers of digital innovation and can handle the technological transformations the businesses are undergoing.

Read more about how the leading CIOs are preparing for the technological changes that will guide you through the path here: http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY_CIO_-_Born_to_be_digital/%24FILE/EY-CIOs-Born-to-be-digital.pdf.

When technology is running fast in the cloud way, taking multinational companies as its partner, restaurants are not very much successful in it. Most of them are still using costly proprietary software that never gives benefits in return. If MNCs can adopt the cloud and mobile technology, why do restaurants, which have large number of transactions per day, are not able to do it?

With the world becoming increasingly mobile, cloud services becoming cheap, restaurants have ample chance to switch over to cloud and mobile technology. You may be thinking of what are the benefits of switching? Well, you will be able to increase your operational efficiency and better manage your employees and that too while dealing with your customers and simultaneously not sitting in front of your desktop.

So, what are you thinking of? Making your restaurant system interesting and keeping in sync with the technological advancement?   Larry Abramson, CEO of Red Book Connect writes about why you should switch to cloud and mobile technology. Read them at at http://www.fastcasual.com/article/231005/3-reasons-why-restaurants-need-mobile-cloud-technology.

An article by E-Commerce Times columnist, Peter S. Vogel, says that it is hard to detect which is growing at a faster pace - cloud or cybercrime. Cloud may be anywhere in the world which creates interesting and complex legal questions regarding privacy of data stored in the cloud. Nevertheless, more businesses are migrating to the cloud to host data, often without regard to the legal consequences.  Many companies are migrating to the cloud to reduce their IT costs but are creating new malware-based and cyber-crime risks to their businesses. If cybercrime and cloud-focused malware continue to grow along with the cloud, the predicted growth of cloud migration may not be realized.

To know more follow http://www.technewsworld.com/story/80107.html

MongoDB added new backup and recovery abilities to its monitoring service to track deployments. People can set up the monitoring service for free when they use it as a cloud-based service and companies can pay to run it in an onsite data center. In version 2.6, the database supports index intersection, which makes it possible to search for information with multiple characteristics.

To read more read the article by Jordan Novet, staff writer based in San Francisco, follow http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/08/mongodb-bigwig-says-new-features-keep-it-way-ahead-of-everybody-else/

Long ago, Google has integrated Hadoop on its cloud platform to provide customers a framework for storing and processing large amount of data. Earlier, the only way to get in and out of Hadoop on Cloud Platform was through Google’s Cloud Storage service. In order to run Hadoop on data within its “BigQuery SQL” and “Cloud Datastore NoSQL” databases, recently Google has launched connectors for both of these two products, complementing the existing Cloud Storage implementation.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/16/googles-cloud-platform-gets-improved-hadoop-support-with-bigquery-and-cloud-datastore-connectors/

A recent research on 1000 Information Technology executives and decision maker respondents by the cloud services company EvolveIP™ revealed that 84% of organizations that do not currently deploy Unified Communication features, are planning for, or considering the services, for their business in the next one to three years.For the study, Evolve IP defined UC as: "The concept of consolidating phone, email, fax, chat, video, and collaboration into a single unified channel, either on a device or on a computer”. The survey also examined UC components and uncovered that the most requested UC features are:

1. Audio & Web Conferencing (51%).
2. Unified Messaging (46%).
3.  IM&P Instant Messaging and Presence (40%).

To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/84-of-organizations-considering-unified-communications-uc-in-the-near-future-253461811.html

Red Hat aims to reduce the search time &solution search cost for customers with its OpenShift Marketplace. Customers will be able to easily find the information, tools and community they need to discover and procure the right solution. They will be able to securely access and manage leading OpenShift application technologies from a single location. Customers and developers will be able to easily search for third-party OpenShift solutions and add-on productivity offerings, including database, email delivery services, messaging queues, application performance monitoring, all managed from a central location.As more developers use enterprise PaaS for an increasing array of applications, a key to their success is a vibrant and robust partner ecosystem. OpenShift’s current partner ecosystem uses the OpenShift Cartridge specification method to link key technologies and services into applications built on OpenShift, giving customers access to a variety of offerings from cloud industry leaders.Will Shulman, CEO and co-founder, MongoLab, said "We're extremely excited to offer fully-managed MongoDB through the OpenShift Marketplace. Red Hat users will be able to quickly integrate MongoDB into their application and focus on product development instead of operations."

To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/141770/

Since its debut a year ago, Red Hat flagship application container Docker has generated much interest among technology professionals. It assists in packaging of applications in a virtual container so that it can be run across different Linux distributions. Docker containers can be easily moved across different Linux servers without the need for reconfiguration.Red hat is planning to release a variant of Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution that is customized to run Docker with maximum efficiency. It has also initiated two community projects to help Docker make better use of new technologies in the Linux kernel and ecosystem.  One- Project Atomic, will concentrate on simplifying maintenance, reducing the footprint, adding additional layers of verification and control to Docker containers. The second community project, called GearD, will integrate Docker into its PaaS hosting software, OpenShift Origin.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.techworld.com.au/article/543014/red_hat_adds_muscle_docker_container_technology/

For many enterprises, the most recognizable model of cloud computing is the public cloud model, which provides ultimate scalability, flexibility, location independent access and is of course cost effective. But workload evaluation is important before an organization moves to the public cloud. There can be situations wherepublic cloud such as AWS costs may far exceed on-premise infrastructure costs. According to research firm Gartner, the evaluation every organization must undergo before moving into a public cloud consists of taking into account few major things. These are: number of machines an organization will run, number of hours per day or per week they'll run and the amount of storage these machines will generate. The evaluation should also include the licenses that need to be paid for on a recurring basis; how many times and how often snapshots occur; the rate of change in the data; and how much new data they are going to generate. Mike Ryan, consultant, Epitech, said that “You're paying for the elasticity of Amazon, and if you're not using that, it makes sense to bring things into your own data centre”. The scaling flexibility of public cloud is great during the growth phase, but which solution is the best from an enterprise long term perspective?

Beth Pariseau, senior news writer, SearchAWS, wrote about this aspect on her recent article. To know more, visit the following link:

http://searchaws.techtarget.com/news/2240219066/Enterprises-hit-tipping-point-in-AWS-cloud-vs-private-cloud-costs

Kinesis is a service related to real-time processing of streaming data. It buffers data into a storage system with checkpoints to absorb the data into the Redshift cloud data warehouse. Users can store and process large datasets each hour from various sources like financial transactions, social media feeds, location-tracked events etc. With Kinesis, business customers can write applications, generate alerts, and make other decisions virtually apart from retrieving the stored data back instantly. According to Amazon, Kinesis can support applications and data streams of any size while replicating across multiple availability zones. Kinesis has been positioned as an answer to big data, with a “pay-as-you-go” pricing.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.zdnet.com/kinesis-amazon-web-servicess-answer-to-big-data-7000023223/

During 2013 December, Amazon launched Kinesis. It is a service for real-time processing of streaming data. Kinesis is designed to capture small records, which in turn forms huge amount of backend data. Amazon wanted to be able to capture all of that data, aggregate it, and put it into its AWS cloud storage service (S3), so that they could look at it at a later stage. Waite, General Manager of Data Services, AWS, said “This enables us to scale the metering service to new limits and give alerts in real time”.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/20/why-amazon-created-aws-kinesis-its-live-data-processing-service/

According to a recent research report “Clicking Clean: How Companies are Creating the Green Internet” by Greenpeace, most of the enterprise cloud service providers are powering their services with renewable energy sources. However, the cloud giant AWS received lowest grades on energy transparency, renewable energy commitments, energy efficiency initiatives, deployment and advocacy in the report. AWS, which has more than 50 % of market share over the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market in North America and Europe, seems to be lagging behind other major cloud providers in terms of its use of green energy sources to power its data centres. According to the report, AWS “remains among the dirtiest and least transparent companies in the sector, far behind its major competitors, with zero reporting of its energy or environmental footprint to any source or stakeholder.”

To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.businesscloudnews.com/2014/04/14/aws-increasingly-isolated-as-least-green-cloud/

A recent report by Rightscale revealed details about pricing changes by IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) vendors.Cloud Service Providers AWS, Rackspace, Google and Microsoft's Azure cut prices for computing services, storage solutions and networking 25 times in 2013, up from 22 times in 2012. According to Rightscale, cloud infrastructure prices continue to fall, especially for computing services and storage solutions. AWS leads the pack in price cuts and Microsoft's Azure is reacting most to these price cuts made by AWS.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.zdnet.com/infrastructure-as-a-service-price-cuts-accelerate-7000027581/