Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Denise Dubie.

You may have heard that cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models can turn software technology into a pay-as-you-go utility that businesses can “plug in to” and use like electricity? Perhaps — however, software technology is far more varied, nuanced and diverse than electricity. You don’t win customers by having better electricity than your competition. Software, by contrast, absolutely is a competitive differentiator for any business today.

Companies in industries as varied as retail and finance use software at the very core of their value proposition to customers. It lets them deliver a variety of services to their customers, improve operational efficiencies, create new offerings and a lot more. That’s not to downplay the business flexibility that SaaS can bring. Being able to “switch on” software and infrastructure delivered as a service for a metered fee can be an attractive alternative to having to build and manage your own IT environments...

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Jacqueline Vanacek.

So much has been written about “the risks” of cloud computing, but that risk leads to bigger rewards, especially for small business. And as the engine of job creation, small business will accelerate the economic recovery. SMBs can launch new operations in the cloud with little up-front capital. This levels the playing field against market leaders and allows for rapid growth.

Seventy-four percent of small-medium businesses expect to use cloud services next year. They are also mobilizing their workforce (see Infographic). This can increase remote worker productivity by seventy-two percent...

Grazed from EINPressWire. Author: PR Announcement.

IT Governance Ltd, the leading expert in information security training, consultancy, books and tools, has reported that the Cloud Computing Foundation training course in November is available at a special discounted price of £450 + VAT. This exceptional offer of the EXIN-accredited course will help cost-effectively train your whole IT team in the basics of Cloud Computing. Places can be immediately booked online at www.itgovernance.co.uk/products/3719.

Cloud Computing presents every organisation with the opportunity to increase the effectiveness of its information technology, while potentially significantly reducing costs. Alan Calder, CEO of IT Governance, says, "Understanding the additional risks and supplier relationship issues associated with Cloud-based services are essential for all IT professionals." ...

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Jacqueline Vanacek.

When purchasing cloud computing services, here are nine practical considerations to manage your business and legal risks to ensure successful adoption of this emerging compute model. These recommendations were presented at the San Francisco-based CloudCon Expo by Riaz Karamali, legal expert and partner at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.

Mr. Karamali first suggested that if click-through terms do not fully meet your needs, writing the initial cloud contract to “factor in your business realities, compliance requirements and expectations” is the best way to ensure that your unique needs are met. While cloud services vendors usually offer one-size-fits-all terms, be sure to negotiate all ways to mitigate your risk.

The following checklist of nine practical tips can help you do that...

Grazed from BankInfoSecurity. Author: Eric Chabrow.

Ron Ross, the NIST IT security and risk guru, sees cloud computing as a vehicle to help organizations implement an information risk management framework.

Ross, senior computer scientist and fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, says in an interview that the costs of automated tools needed to implement the information risk management framework could be offset by savings realized by the use of cloud computing services.

The interview is part of an Information Security Media Group webinar by Ross entitled Risk Management Framework: Learn from NIST. An excerpt from that interview is presented here...

Grazed from CFO. Author: Rob Livingstone.

As the cloud carnival slowly makes its way through town, organizations (fortunately) are becoming increasingly aware of many of the pitfalls associated with the adoption of non-trivial, enterprise cloud computing solutions. Oft-cited risks include data privacy, uptime reliability, security, total cost of ownership, vendor lock-in, and jurisdictional jeopardy (the potential violation of rules and regulations that apply when your data, especially customer data, crosses borders).

Well, there’s another risk.

Under cover of darkness, and most likely already thriving in your organization, are Shadow IT departments. These arise when users and department heads go it alone, provisioning and deploying IT systems (most often cloud services) that are sourced externally and funded from local discretionary budgets without the involvement of the IT department or even the knowledge of the CFO...

Grazed from BusinessCloud9. Author: Marcie Terman.

Frustratingly – and perhaps inexcusably considering the huge volumes of ink dedicated to the serious considerations of pursuing a Cloud strategy – too many companies are making costly mistakes when migrating servers to the Cloud. Marcie Terman, Business Development Director at DataFort, selects the six most important areas of risk to consider.

Risks around service continuity

Commodity services – those ‘off the shelf’, cheap solutions – will often neglect to make any mention of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) concerning service continuity. But you must understand the risk to your business posed by service continuity, and what your provider is willing to guarantee within the agreement. After all, if you don’t know what the guarantees are, how will you ever convince your board of the merits of Cloud computing?...

Grazed from ITWire. Author: Beverley Head.

The advent of ubiquitous and affordable cloud computing is bringing to an end a 30-year long era during which change in IT systems was synonymous with risk.

According to Paul Strong, chief technology officer global customer and field initiatives for VMware who is currently visiting Australia, advances in cloud computing means that it is now far simpler and less risky to introduce information systems change to organisations as applications were increasingly being decoupled from infrastructure.

This he said would allow CIOs to be restored to their proper position as chief information officers, rather than chief infrastructure officers...