networking-info

From the Wireless Business & Technology Cloud Computing News Desk : "Ballmer highlighted software-plus-service, associating it with a 'platform in the cloud and delivering applications across PCs, phones, TVs, and other devices, at work and in the home' (Microsoft’s Mesh widgetry) and promised 'more about our cloud platform initiatives and the next versions of our Live and Online technologies' at the company’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) at the end of October."

Interesting tidbits from Maureen O'Gara in Apple, Google, Yahoo & Cloud Computing : Industry gadfly John Dvorak is advancing a theory culled from the blogosphere that Microsoft wants Yahoo for some all-important patent or another that would give it an edge in cloud computing, SaaS and portable search advertising. Appirio, the two-year-old start-up with products and professional services using software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform -as-a-service (PaaS) from Google and salesforce.com that are supposed to jumpstart enterprises on the on-demand path, has gotten a $5.6 million B round from Sequoia Capital, the VC behind Google, Yahoo, LinkIn and PayPal. Appirio’s widgetry is also supposed to connect the Amazon, Google and salesforce clouds. It got a $1.1 million A round from salesforce.com and angels. Apple’s first flirtation with the Cloud has turned stormy. The Wall Street Journal’s great and powerful technology critic Walt Mossberg, a known Apple devotee, has panned its $99-a...

Correlative Analytics (A.K.A. " The Google Way of Science ") postulates that extremely large databases of information, starting in the petabyte level, may be sufficient to skip the theory part of the scientific method. This line of thought promises that "googling" can now be used to make predicted observation on the nature of all sorts of things. Although I'm not a scientist, I thought that a Google "Mindshare" Analysis on cloud computing would be interesting. First, I googled "cloud computing" and came up with a little over 1 million documents. I then "and-ed" that term with others I've routinely seen within the cloud computing space. The results were then used to come up with each terms "Cloud Computing Google Mindshare". I'm sure that this snapshot doesn't say much, but as a baseline for a future Google Mindshare analysis, it could be valuable. How do you think this could help in understanding the cloud comp...

Irving Wladasky-Berger, chairman emeritus of IBM's Academy of Technology, recently wrote and article on cloud computing titled "What is Cloud Computing, Anyway?" . The following is my interpretation of a few of the excellent points he made: Well designed cloud computing applications completely hide the underlying software and hardware Cloud computing is part of the evolution of the Internet Cloud applications scale up to support billions of users, a scale far bigger than what has been done to date Cloud computing represents the "industrialization" of IT infrastructures and datacenters Enterprises need to embrace cloud-like methodologies now !! The entire article is well worth your time to read first hand

In his blog article " The Rise of The Dark Cloud " Reuven Cohen wonders about a growing interest in covert computing. Although he briefly mentions malevolent uses of the net, the focus seems to be on a more active stance by corporations and governments to protect the Internet by covertly pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance. The members would have a benevolent mission with an ability to counter or block network threats in a private, anonymous and quarantined fashion. While this may sounds like a Internet United Nations Better Business Bureau, the underlying questions point right at the important of cloud computing for national security. As the world embraces cloud computing for its ubiquity, efficiency and cost savings, the world economic engine will become evermore dependent on cloud security and the active management of public-private cloud interfaces. No wonder the US DoD is jumping on the bandwagon so quickly.

This month's issue of Military Information Technology magazine has the Army's Chief Information Officer, Lieutenant General Jeffrey A. Sorenson, on the cover. The enclosed special report, titled LANDWARNET Transformation, has a major article on net-centric operations by Bill Gerety, Dataline CEO and Major General US Army Reserve (and co-authored by yours truly). " Net-centricity: Adjusting the Focus " ( MS Word version ) discusses requirements for a successfully force transition to net-centricity and how cloud computing concepts can be used to support the effort. In view of DISA's foray into cloud computing, it makes interesting reading. To quote from the article: "In meeting these significant challenges, DISA has actively leveraged the fact that these requirements have parallels in the general information technology industry. This fact has led to the rapid adoption and implementation of many commercial solutions. Service oriented architecture (SOA), hardware...

How do you predict demand from your distributors? Would you try demand simulation, predictive analytics, or a complex mathematical model? Try experimental economics. Wired points us to a story (found via Techdirt ) of Kay-Yut Chen who is an experimental economist at HP solving the complex demand forecast problems . One of Chen's recent projects involved finding a way for H.P. to more accurately predict demand from its nine distributors, who collectively sell as much as $3 billion worth of H.P.'s products. The problem? Its distributors' forecasts for demand were frequently off by as much as 100 percent, wreaking havoc on H.P.'s production planning. Chen's solution to the planning problem, which H.P. intends to test soon with one distributor, was to develop an incentive system that rewarded distributors for sticking to their forecasts by turning those forecasts into purchase commitments. In the lab, the overlap between distributors' forecasts and their actual ...