new cloud-computing marketplace by Helix Nebula

Last week, an event was held at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland,to mark the launch of Helix Nebula’s new cloud-computing marketplace. ‘Helix Nebula – the Science Cloud Initiative’ is a pioneering partnership between big science and big business in Europe, which charts the course towards the sustainable provision of cloud computing for science. Now, through a cutting-edge collaboration between commercial providers and public e-infrastructures, including GÉANT and the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI), the Helix Nebula Marketplace offers a first-of-its-kind production service to meet the needs of researchers and facilitate innovation in science. “Science today is in a process of very fast, radical change,” explains Zoran Stančič, deputy director general of the European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content, and Technology (DG CONNECT). “We need to support advancements in e-science at both a European and a global level.” Frédéric Hemmer, head of CERN’s IT department, agrees: “CERN is exploring the origins of our universe, but without the appropriate IT infrastructures — to deal with the large volumes of data produced by the LHC experiments — none of this research could be done.” Read more on >>

Five tips to have a career in cloud computing

The cloud computing space is evolving fast and the number of opportunities is intensifying by each passing day. There is a significant demand for fresh talent and for candidates with 2-5 years of experience for this role, according to the TimesJobs.com data. Organisations are seeking specialised skills while hiring these candidates. However, experts believe that skills and expertise can be built with experience and time. But there are other crucial factors that contribute to crafting a successful career in cloud computing. Shriranga Mulay, senior vice president - IT Engineering, Netmagic shares a few tips. Awareness of Application Programming Interface (API) Awareness of platforms & ability to build them for virtualisation Expertise to bring in a USP Awareness of solution designing and architecture General knack to be an explorer Certifications also play a pivotal role in building an effective career in cloud computing. There are two types of cloud computing careers that have emerged in the jobs space - IT professionals with specific cloud skills and IT administrators with cloud architecture know-how. According to TechGig.com, some of the top jobs available in these areas for cloud computing professionals in the experience category of 2-5 and 5-10 years include, System Engineer - Cloud (Windows), Cloud ArchitectLead Role, Cloud Technical Leads, Cloud and Smarter Infrastructure Consultant. More >>

Gemalto-CloudEntr Access Security

When more of today' s business are turning onto the cloud, security is becoming one of the major concerns. Cloud-based, business critical applications are becoming very popular, therefore the secure management and control of these applications presents a major issue. Gemalto, a cloud security company has a cloud security application called CloudEntr which claims to resolve existing issues around cloud applications security.  Nowdays anyone within the organisations can easily access any cloud-based applications from the cloud in a very short space of time. But remembering the passwords users use, changing them frequently, forgetting the passwords users have created, writing them down to remember, all these presents a lot of headaches, both for individual users and for the company and  the organisations. Cloud Security applications like CloudEntr is beleived to be the solution for the security protection. Claim is that the passwords of all web applications are securely managed within CloudEntr and cloud based users can access it from anywhere and from any device in the world. "Cloud Identity and Access Management is still an evolving field. While not as established as  on-premise IAM technologies, cloud IAM solutions are in general much easier and faster to  deploy and use than their on-premise counterparts. And companies with existing investments  in enterprise IAM may choose to extend their capabilities to the cloud through integration  with cloud IAM solutions.  "CloudEntr by Gemalto gives businesses a simple and secure way to manage cloud application  access. Using CloudEntr, businesses regain control of their trust networks and cloud  applications, while offering users convenient one-click access for all web applications in a  single interface. CloudEntr reduces complexity while helping businesses operate anywhere,  anytime, and at the right scale. Gemalto’s security and authentication expertise is trusted by  many of the world’s largest financial institutions and governments."  - Quoted from Whitepaper published by Gemalto

Public cloud market growth - HIGH

The global public cloud market is expected to hit $191 billion by 2020, according to a report released today by Forrester Research. That's a 20% jump from Forrester's last forecast, which was released in April, 2011, that predicted the market would be $160 billion by 2020. It's also a big jump from where the market is today -- Forrester says the market stood at $58 billion at the end of 2013. "You need to update your forecast to keep up with reality," said Andrew Bartels, an analyst with Forrester. "Now we have a new set of numbers to work with. One of the key trends behind this is that the cloud is starting to shift from a complement to a replacement for existing technology." Breaking down the public cloud market into segments, Forrester predicts that the global public cloud platform services will hit $44 billion by 2020, the cloud business services should reach $14 billion and the cloud applications, or software-as-a-service (SaaS) market, will hit $131 billion. Read More >>