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Cloud computing news

The Cloud Risk Framework
New guidance details a five-stage process that enables organizations to evaluate the risks and the potential financial impact of any change in risk profile involved in a shift to the cloud.
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•Date: 16th May 2012 • World •Type: Article

Cloud Security Alliance announces open certification framework for cloud providers
The Cloud Security Alliance has launched the CSA Open Certification Framework, an industry initiative to allow global, trusted certification of cloud providers.
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•Date: 10th May 2012 • World •Type: Article

Cloud Security Alliance seeks views on CloudTrust Protocol Reference Architecture Model
Open review and comments period for new cloud assurance reference ends on May 4th, 2012.
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•Date: 24th April 2012 • World •Type: Article

Cloud-based business continuity solutions take a step forward
QuorumLabs uses a hybrid cloud to develop 'instant recovery' solution.
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•Date: 22nd March 2012 • US/World •Type: Article

Choosing a cloud backup and disaster recovery solution: ten questions to ask
Tips from Cloud Nation.
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•Date: 2nd March 2012 • Region: World •Type: Article

Six principles for effective cloud computing
ISACA issues new complimentary guide.
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•Date: 29th February 2012 • World •Type: Article

Perceived risks over service control and fears over data sovereignty are the key issues holding back cloud deployment
Reliability and complexity of procurement are amongst other areas of concern.
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•Date: 29th February 2012 • UK •Type: Article

SunGard Availability Services enhances highly available cloud backup offerings with Amazon Web Services partnership
SunGard Availability Services has announced that it will provide highly available cloud backup through Amazon’s Direct Connect services to both Amazon Web Services and SunGard cloud customers during the course of 2012.
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•Date: 16th February 2012 • US/World •Type: Article

Zerto introduces Virtual Replication 2.0
Claimed to be the first Cloud business continuity and disaster recovery platform built for private, hybrid and public Clouds.
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•Date: 14th February 2012 • World •Type: Article

KPMG gives businesses advice on cloud adoption
Three areas that need to be looked at to ensure safe cloud usage.
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•Date: 3rd February 2012 • UK/World •Type: Article

Can you trust the cloud mega-companies with critical aspects of your business continuity?
Google decision highlights a key risk of relying on public cloud providers for business continuity. David Honour comments.
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•Date: 27th January 2012 • Region: World •Type: Article

NIST issues guidelines for managing cloud security and privacy
‘Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing’ (NIST Special Publication 800-144).
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•Date: 25th January 2012 • US •Type: Article

Google to close Message Continuity service
Existing contracts will not be renewed for Microsoft Exchange business continuity service.
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•Date: 24th January 2012 • World •Type: Article

Twelve cloud predictions for 2012
Cloud computing trends.
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•Date: 13th January 2012 • US/World •Type: Article

Cloud data trends for 2012
Seven predictions from TwinStrata for hot trends to watch for in the cloud data space.
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•Date: 23rd December 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Researchers looking to improve cloud security
Scientists at the Weizmann Institute and MIT are getting closer to the ability to remove the need to decrypt data to make it usable.
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•Date: 16th December 2011 • US/World •Type: Article

Hybrid cloud backup expected to be an emerging trend in 2012
Asigra Inc. has listed what it sees as the key 2012 market and technology trends in cloud backup.
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•Date: 15th December 2011 • US/World •Type: Article

SunGard offers CIOs cloud proof of concept survey
60 day trial for CIOs to experience resilience and flexibility of SunGard’s shared private cloud.
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•Date: 15th December 2011 • UK •Type: Article

Results of cloud provider informal stress tests published
Only six of the 16 major cloud storage providers tested provided the minimum level of performance, stability, availability and scalability that organizations need to take advantage of the cloud for primary storage, data protection and disaster recovery.
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•Date: 14th December 2011 • World •Type: Article

European Commission vice-president warns businesses about cloud computing
‘Businesses will have to pay utmost attention to security of information and privacy by design.’
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•Date: 8th December 2011 • Region: Europe/UK •Type: Article

Using good governance to control cloud risks
Mike Small, CEng, FBCS, CITP, explains how to go about identifying the risks that cloud usage presents and provides a helpful and thought-provoking checklist of ten questions which you should ask your cloud provider.
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•Date: 18th November 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

The growth of recovery-as-a-service
Gartner says 30 percent of midsize companies will use recovery-as-a-service by 2014.
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•Date: 8th November 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Draft Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap: comments requested
NIST documents aim to support both public and private sector cloud usage.
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•Date: 3rd November 2011 • Region: US •Type: Article

Cloud Security Alliance publishes guide to Trusted Cloud architecture
Aims to assist cloud risk management.
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•Date: 19th October 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Cloud-based business continuity strategies expected to increase in 2012
CA survey finds that over a third of organizations expect cloud computing to play an increasingly important role in their business continuity plans over the next year.
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•Date: 13th October 2011 • Region: Europe/UK •Type: Article

Cloud spending will skyrocket in 2012: KPMG
Rapid corporate adoption curve seen; cloud is widely impacting business operations.
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•Date: 11th October 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Researchers develop technique that offers enhanced security for sensitive data in cloud computing
New technique is called the ‘strongly isolated computing environment’ (SICE).
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•Date: 6th October 2011 • Region: US/World •Type: Article

Our security paradigm is out of date
According to CSA UK & Ireland President the current focus on complying with the myriad of assurance frameworks is taking focus away from the obligations placed on organizations to identify and manage the risks to their information assets.
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•Date: 6th October 2011 • Region: UK/World •Type: Article

Security as a service defined
Cloud Security Alliance issues security as a service white paper: aims to provide clear definitions of the different categories of security services that can be provided via the cloud.
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•Date: 27th September 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Managing cloud risks
Mike Small provides a useful checklist of the principal information security related issues that organizations adopting cloud computing need to address and explains how COBIT can assist in cloud risk management.
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•Date: 13th Sept 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Two cloud standards adopted by ISO/IEC
DMTF has announced that its Open Virtualization Format and Server Management Command Line Protocol specifications have been adopted as international standards.
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•Date: 31st August 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

SunGard Availability Services launches Recover2Cloud
Cloud-based managed recovery offerings backed by contractual service levels.
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•Date: 31st August 2011 • Region: US •Type: Article

CIO views on cloud computing surveyed
Only 10 percent of UK CIOs are 'completely confident' in the security and resilience of third party cloud solutions.
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•Date: 30th August 2011 • Region: UK •Type: Article

‘IT Control Objectives for Cloud Computing: Controls and Assurance in the Cloud’
How to manage continuity and risk in cloud computing operations.
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•Date: 3rd August 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Using cloud computing? Re-orientate your thinking about security
Managing cloud risks: user and provider responsibilities.
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•Date: 29th July 2011 • Region: UK/World •Type: Article

Cloud Industry Forum comments on IDC research: calls for more clarity within the cloud sector
Concerns about data security and reliability are still top of the agenda.
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•Date: 22nd July 2011 • Region: UK •Type: Article

How to get your board to approve your cloud plans
It seems that board-level executives are not as keen as their IT professionals on the adoption of cloud computing according to no less than three new reports.
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•Date: 19th July 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

SunGard Availability Services extends European enterprise-class shared cloud services
Highly flexible infrastructure as a service offering built upon world-class availability and resilience.
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•Date: 15th July 2011 • Region: UK/Europe •Type: Article

Minimising the risks of cloud computing
Key issues for businesses looking to minimise the risks of moving to a cloud computing model.
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•Date: 24th June 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Cloud: overcoming the fear
A better understanding of cloud computing is needed to combat CFOs’ concerns over security and loss of control says Keith Tilley.
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•Date: 21st June 2011 • Region: UK/World •Type: Article

The need for the introduction of a new layer of security to lock down public and private clouds
It is becoming apparent that a new security mechanism should be added to existing network layer protocols, such as IP, to provide for a more resilient, manageable and scalable trust environment. By Ben Maas, DCIG.
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•Date: 21st June 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

IBM launches SmartCloud for disaster recovery and data archiving
New cloud services extend backup, archiving and recovery services for critical data and applications.
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•Date: 21st June 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article • Topic: Cloud computing

FUD holding back corporate cloud usage
Cloud threats discussed by round table panel: fear, uncertainly and doubt being engendered by media hype.
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•Date: 14th June 2011 • Region: UK •Type: Article

If at first you don’t succeed: fail, fail and fail again...
Jim Preen wonders if the best way to avoid failure is to fail constantly.
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•Date: 7th June 2011 • Region: UK •Type: Article

Five reasons to move technology business continuity and disaster recovery to the cloud
But don’t do anything until you have conducted a business impact assessment...
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•Date: 7th June 2011 • Region: US/World •Type: Article

Cloud: top challenges remain unchanged since its emergence
CIOs believe the cloud has been over-hyped: survey.
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•Date: 26th May 2011 • Region: UK/World •Type: Article

Cloud computing risks explored
Protiviti Inc., has warned organizations to have a clear understanding of the risks associated with the implementation of cloud computing, as the number of UK organizations adopting cloud-based solutions steadily rises.
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•Date: 25th May 2011 • Region: UK/World •Type: Article

Best practices to reduce risk in cloud contracts
A procurement checklist developed by Gartner.
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•Date: 20th May 2011 • Region: US/World •Type: Article

NIST publishes Draft Guide to Cloud Computing
The cloud computing research team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology is requesting public comments on a draft of a new guide to cloud computing.
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•Date: 17th May 2011 • Region: US/World •Type: Article

Unexpected storage challenges in cloud computing environments
If you are starting to look at building your own/private cloud, there are a few things you should know up front about storage as these issues will affect your planning. Eric Burgener explains.
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•Date: 6th May 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Five considerations when evaluating cloud computing architectures
Advice published by SunGard Availability Services.
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•Date: 5th May 2011 • Region: US / World •Type: Article

New DMTF work group to focus on addressing security concerns for cloud environments
The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) has announced that it has begun work on a set of specifications to specifically address a cloud provider’s ability to audit their systems for potential security concerns.
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•Date: 5th May 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Security standoff in the cloud?
Ponemon Institute and CA Technologies study shows cloud providers and users have conflicting views on cloud security.
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•Date: 3rd May 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Interdependency lessons from the AWS outage
Amazon’s recent AWS outage affected a surprisingly large number of sites. What can we learn about cloud resiliency and how can we minimize these outages in the future? By Beth Cohen.
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•Date: 29th April 2011 • Region:US/World •Type: Article

Cloud computing security risks make UK organizations cautious
Almost two-thirds (62 per cent) of IT managers state that concerns about security are an obstacle to cloud adoption.
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•Date: 21st April 2011 • Region: UK •Type: Article

A snapshot of UK technology continuity practices
Neverfail survey finds that many organizations don’t know the hourly cost of downtime; and many have yet to be convinced that cloud platforms offer a reliable disaster recovery option.
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•Date: 21st April 2011 • Region: UK •Type: Article

Cloud Standards Customer Council launched
Aims to capture best practices and take cloud standards forward.
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•Date: 8th April 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Are cloud computing standards essential for assuring availability?
Justin Pirie takes a look at the ongoing debate around cloud standards.
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•Date: 5th April 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

New Cloud Backup and Recovery service from Recovery Point
Provides data backup and disaster recovery as a single integrated process.
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•Date: 31st March 2011 • Region: US •Type: Article

The ‘seven deadly sins’ of cloud computing: new Information Security Forum report
A new report from independent information security body, the Information Security Forum, identifies ‘seven deadly sins’ of cloud computing implementation and offers guidance on how to tackle them.
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•Date: 18th March 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Four risks that CIOs should address when contracting for cloud services
Advice from Gartner.
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•Date: 10th March 2011 • Region: US/World •Type: Article

Virtualization increases backup and disaster recovery complexity, warns Acronis
Users struggle to implement known backup and disaster recovery practices in a new hybrid environment.
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•Date: 1st March 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Cloud industry trends and best practices
BC and DR cited as the top reason for investment in the cloud: Hosting.com survey.
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•Date: 18th Feb 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

NIST releases draft cloud computing guides
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued two new draft documents on cloud computing for public comment, including the first set of guidelines for managing security and privacy issues in cloud computing.
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•Date: 4th Feb 2011 • Region: US •Type: Article

SunGard Availability Services announces general availability of Enterprise Cloud Services in North America
SunGard’s Enterprise Cloud Services were previously available only as a controlled customer release.
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•Date: 4th Feb 2011 • Region: N.America •Type: Article

Business continuity, the cloud and the Mad Hatter
By Paul Humphreys.
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•Date: 28th Jan 2011 • Region: UK/World •Type: Article

Advice for organizations selecting an infrastructure-as-a-service provider
TM Forum publishes 'Enterprise-Grade External Compute Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Requirements.'
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•Date: 28th Jan 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

Cloud backups fail the RTO test
65 percent of respondents to a cloud storage and data protection survey were not able to consistently achieve their own recovery time objective when using the cloud for backup.
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•Date: 27th Jan 2011 • Region: US/World •Type: Article

Frontier Technology survey identifies the biggest IT challenges to UK companies in 2011
Back-up, security and disaster recovery efficiency are all being impacted by squeezed budgets.
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•Date: 21st Jan 2011 • Region: UK •Type: Article

Business continuity and public cloud computing
Jim Kennedy looks at the different types of public cloud computing and lists the questions that are required for business continuity due diligence.
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•Date: 20th Jan 2011 • Region: USWorld •Type: Article

ENISA provides cloud security and resilience advice
New report is targeted at senior managers of public bodies.
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•Date: 19th Jan 2011 • Region: Europe/UK •Type: Article

Survey: the biggest challenges to corporate networks in 2011
Maintaining network uptime is the top concern.
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•Date: 5th Jan 2011 • Region: World •Type: Article

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