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SMBs adopt the cloud without security

Security has take another knock as a prime barrier to the adoption of cloud computing.

A survey commissioned by Microsoft (whose involvement was not revealed to the respondees) found that small to medium-sized businesses might gain a fair amount from adopting cloud computing. The survey, conducted with organisations in Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore and the USA, reckoned that most organisations viewed a... Read more

Beware of the cloudburst

A big selling point for cloud computing is what's become known as cloud bursting. What this means is the ability to move spikes in demand for computing resources into the cloud, rather than having to build infrastructure to cope with peak loads. You only pay for what you need, in other words.

It's a bit like having an alternative supplier for commuter trains in the rush hour although -- if the analogy will... Read more

How clean is your cloud?

Now there's more data that could help answer that question.

Greenpeace has just released a report entitled How Clean is Your Cloud? In it, the environmental organisation highlights how the decisions all of us make as user/consumers are increasingly having an impact on technology's energy usage and CO2 emissions.

It also looks at and takes aim at some of the big names on the Internet, and the way that their... Read more

IBM gets converged but will it succeed?

It's like that final shoot-out in For a Few Dollars More. You've seen it: as Morricone's music builds, the three protagonists arrange themselves slowly in a circle, not taking their eyes off each other. The components of that scene come together after a long build-up: and so it is with datacentre converged systems.

We don't yet know who's going to win this shoot-out but we do know that the daddy of systems... Read more

New backup platform mixes local and cloud

When you think of Quantum, you usually think of tape drives. But the company's been morphing into a software developer -- and now has something to show for it in the area of backup, cloud and data reduction. But is a single-vendor approach the right one?

Quantum's new software platform pulls together the company's new deduplication virtual appliance, the Dxi V1000, and its vmPRO 4000 system -- which itself... Read more

Cloud management platforms paper over the gaps

Cloud management platforms -- they're a little bit like those desktop search and indexing applications that gained brief popularity in the 1990s and early 2000s, and which had to be updated each time a new application or file format appeared.

Why might you want one? The problem with cloud computing is that, unless you are a small company with relatively limited IT requirements -- just office productivity, web... Read more

It's cooler to soak your servers

Soaking your servers to keep them cool is not a new concept. Cray was doing it way back in the 1980s with the Cray-2. Wikipedia tells us that its use of liquid cooling led to the Cray-2 being given the nickname Bubbles, and to gags including "No Fishing" signs, cardboard depictions of the Loch Ness Monster rising out of the heat exchanger tank, plastic fish inside the exchanger.

I suspect that Iceotope, which... Read more

Could Xsigo help cut your cable count?

Amid the explosion of activity on the hypervisor technology market sits a company that could save you money and hassle -- and it's just launched a new management console and 40Gbps server fabric.

Xsigo sells datacentre fabrics: these consist of boxes designed to reduce the cabling load by connecting any server to any network or storage system. The company claims that it reduces complexity by "eliminating 70% of... Read more

Cloud provider offers DIY water-cooled servers

What would you say if you were offered hosting or cloud services by a company which not only built its own datacentres but whose datacentres are water-cooled using its own proprietary cooling systems, and its own servers and storage systems? In other words, a much more vertically integrated provider than the ones you're used to.

If you were talking to OVH, France's biggest hosting provider, the company claims... Read more

Software-defined networks hit the road

There's a new way of datacentre networking coming down the road: software-defined networking (SDN). Powered by the Open Flow protocol, the idea is that the control plane -- the intelligence that routes packets -- is separated from the data plane -- the mechanism that actually shunts packets from one port to another. If the plans of its proponents come to pass, the biggest loser is likely to be Cisco.

All this... Read more

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Coretech

What's going on in networking, operating systems, servers, storage and data centres?

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BarryGill

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ZDNet UK Live

annonymous2

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creative cloud $48/month in the USA, £48/month in the UK ($79). good for the competitors

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Tom Espiner

Hello KosGirl, Good question. I've asked Belfius for a response. The latest post I can find on Pastebin about it is here:...

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Have there been any further updates to this story? I can't find any information on whether the hackers released the data or not.

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Not before time, that people making films,dvd's get whats coming to them. Well done, Virgin Media.

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Simon Bisson and Mary Branscombe

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live realy sucks in facebook becuase people hack your profile

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Phil at Cloud4

Another good updaet, I have enjoyed going on the journey reading this series on SharePoint 2010 and have learned alot. Great writing.

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roumers of an ipad Mini, isnt that just an iTouch!?

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apexwm

Thanks for this article and bringing this issue to light. Unfortunately this type of activity is common not only with Adobe, but many other...

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helice041

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