Business Technology Roundtable

During the course of the last twelve months the OpenStack community has advanced as more users of the leading open-source cloud technology have been reporting their progress -- with the help of their partners -- towards making a meaningful impact on their business goals and objectives. We've also learned how these progressive technology users are pioneering changes in their own organizations -- enabling them to become more competitive in the Global Networked Economy. The OpenStack Summit 2014 opened with a keynote on the first day of the conference featuring lessons learned from industry leading organizations that have already deployed these open cloud technologies. Each case study had multiple instances of OpenStack that have been applied for a variety of commercial application scenarios. Jonathan Bryce, the Executive Director of the Foundation, introduced the growing community of  OpenStack Superusers . Glenn Ferguson, Head of Private of Cloud Enablement at Wells Fargo Ba...

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2012 to 2017 , worldwide mobile data traffic will increase 13-fold over the next four years, reaching 11.2 exabytes per month (for an annual run rate of 134 exabytes) by 2017. The expected steady increase in mobile traffic is partly due to continued strong growth in the number of mobile Internet connections (personal devices and machine-to-machine applications), which will exceed the world’s population (United Nations estimates 7.6 billion) by 2017. The forecast’s annual run rate of 134 exabytes of mobile data traffic is equivalent to: 134 times all the Internet Protocol traffic (fixed and mobile) generated in the year 2000, or 30 trillion images (e.g., via MMS or Instagram) — 10 images daily from each person on earth for one year, or 3 trillion video clips (e.g., YouTube) — one video clip daily from each person on earth over one year. “By 2017, global mobile data traffic will continue it...

The promise of cloud computing and application hosting benefits are already delivering practical solutions to very real business problems, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . In fact, many small businesses are using managed cloud services as their primary method to solve a variety of IT requirements. "Web hosting and data storage are the most obvious IT needs that can be addressed by public cloud services" says Greg Potter, Research Analyst at In-Stat. "With the advent of Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings many businesses are realizing that much of their IT needs can be fulfilled without the need for expensive networking equipment and high-end computers." Moreover, many small businesses are now re-visiting the use of thin clients for most of their employees, as the need for increased computer processing power is rendered moot by the cloud. SMB IT Applications Transition to the Cloud For the SOHO and small business market, there is consid...

Hiring a managed services provider shouldn't be a leap-of-faith decision-making process. Perhaps you have staff that could fulfill their responsibilities, but instead you entrust a key component of your IT infrastructure to another company. You believe they can do the job better and more efficiently. However, is that belief proven to be justified? This begs another question: who licenses or certifies a managed service provider? The topic came onto our radar thanks to a handful of companies claiming SAS 70 certification. The SAS 70 standard was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) to govern service organizations. (SAS stands for statement of auditing standards; see the AICPA page relating to auditing standards for more information.) Certification's Real Meaning You may assume that a managed service provider claiming SAS 70 certification has submitted itself to rigorous tests relating to its internal processes. However, according to Judith ...