Grazed from The Guardian.  Author: Lei Wangyun.

An enterprise can opt for either the traditional model or a cloud model to deliver IT services. Under the traditional model, the enterprise first purchases hardware such as servers and storage devices, leases network bandwidth, and perhaps builds a data center. The enterprise then purchases licenses for operating system software and the software applications needed for delivering the required functionality. Of course, professional IT staff must be engaged to maintain the hardware and software. As the business grows and customers require new functionality, new hardware and software must be provided and software customized, while ensuring the interoperability between the old and new hardware and software. This process must be repeated whenever capacity is expanded or a new functional module is added.

Cloud computing changes this completely...

Grazed from BizTech2.com.   Author: Editorial Staff.

Continual monitoring of cloud computing trends, with regular updates to the enterprise's cloud strategy, will be essential to avoid costly mistakes or miss market opportunities over the next few years, according to Gartner, Inc. Although the potential for cloud computing is significant, the breadth and depth of the impact, as well as the level of adoption over time, are uncertain and will require frequent review.

"Cloud computing is a major technology trend that has permeated the market over the last two years. It sets the stage for a new approach to IT that enables individuals and businesses to choose how they'll acquire or deliver IT services, with reduced emphasis on the constraints of traditional software and hardware licensing models," said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow. "Cloud computing has a significant potential impact on every aspect of IT and how users access applications, information and business services."...

Grazed from OneStopClick.  Author: Dan Blacharski.

The language of IT backup, security, disaster preparedness and business continuity can be confusing. Having a network backup procedure in place doesn't necessarily mean you also have a disaster plan, and having a disaster plan doesn't mean you also have a business continuity plan. In short, the disaster plan outlines what to do when disaster strikes, the business continuity plan outlines how to keep things moving in the aftermath.

As any CIO who has been through a fire, hurricane or earthquake can tell you, the hardest part doesn't come until days after the terrible event has already occurred. Business failure occurs less as a result of immediate loss, and more a result of the delays suffered in getting back to business as usual. With every passing day, full recovery becomes less likely...

Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Kevin Fitchard.

At Mobile World Congress next week, Nokia Siemens Networks plans to reveal its most ambitious mobile network design to date: a complex system of 100 small LTE, HSPA and Wi-Fi cells that behaves, from the network’s point of view, as a single cell site. NSN is using a concept from cloud computing called a ‘fabric’ and retooling it for the purposes of mobile broadband. While we probably won’t see this technology in live networks for some time, it has huge implications for the heterogeneous networks (or hetnets) of the future, which aim to create a sea of cheap bandwidth through which our devices can leisurely swim.

Such architectures speak to the growing complexity in cellular networks as more people use more devices on them. Plus, the very mobility of such devices makes building out a network even more of a challenge. Base stations are fixed devices with fixed characteristics. Turning them into something that can scale to deliver capacity on command isn’t easy. But NSN thinks it has found a way...