Thursday, 25 March 2010
Bond International Software Moves Into The Cloud To Provide Added Resilience And Security
Bond International Software, a global provider of recruitment and human capital management (HCM) software and services, has signed a new ongoing agreement with the Cloud Computing Centre, to provide Cloud-based services to host its large enterprise customers’ payroll, HR and recruitment services... Read more...
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Selima Goes Into The Cloud
Selima, a provider of HR software solutions to the public sector, has signed a new multi-year agreement with the Cloud Computing Centre, to provide Cloud-based services to host and manage its customers’ payroll, HR and expense management software in the Cloud... Read more...
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Securing the cloud
Another conference last week, the Westminster eForum on cloud computing had vendors and delegates discussing security within the cloud. Computer Weekly reported that IT security professionals must work out how to implement cloud computing securely to enable enterprises to take advantage of the benefits. It quotes one of the eForum speakers saying that the business case is overwhelming, referring to the reduced cost, rapid provisioning, scalability and flexibility of cloud computing, adding that security professionals need to work out how their organisation can use the cloud securely with minimum risk.
Cloud Computing Centre security experts are always available to discuss potential pitfalls or problems of security.
Cloud Computing Centre security experts are always available to discuss potential pitfalls or problems of security.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
UK Government to set up its own cloud computing system
The recent article in The Guardian, Let’s open up cloud computing has provoked a lot of interest, and indeed a lot of scepticism within the IT industry, and I for one have a reasonable amount of both.
The article highlights an issue that has huge potential cost savings for Government. The reduction in the ridiculous number, over 500, of Government run data centres down to just 12 highly secure and robust “super data centres” to facilitate Government Cloud Computing. The argument for this is obviously compelling, and, if managed successfully, could easily deliver the massive savings to the UK exchequer of £3.2 billion per annum as quoted (http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/cio/ict/ict_strands/g_cloud.aspx). In fact, I would be amazed if more than a small fraction of the current capacity is actually being used. Just using virtualisation technologies could reduce the amount of equipment required - such as servers - down to as little as 10% of current requirement and, in the process, probably save enough power to consider cancelling more than half of one of the proposed new nuclear power stations!
The key question, however, would be who would run this immense project. The UK Government will spend about £16.5 billion on IT in 2009/10, equivalent to 1.4% of GDP. Most of this money is wasted, with only 30% of projects succeeding, writes IT expert Liam Maxwell in a new report (It's Ours: why we, not government, must own our data (PDF)) published by the Centre for Policy Studies and described as a "must-read" by the Ideal Government Project.
The NHS fiasco shows clearly that the UK Government has no ability whatsoever to deliver this as a successful project; indeed you could almost guarantee a catastrophe. And indeed a failure on this magnitude would make the current level of UK debt look positively manageable. The only way this could ever be contemplated would be by giving the project to the organizations highlighted in the article, who have at least successfully built similar sized computer resource pools, such as; Google, Amazon, Microsoft etc. Of course, if this sea change in policy was to be achieved, there would need to be safeguards in place to stop these types of organisation from bleeding us dry! For example, fixed price contracts as opposed to the “whatever it takes” disgraces of the past. Prudence would suggest that an exercise to take a smaller government department, and give it to one of these giants as a trial, would be an excellent proof of concept.
Is there a party out there that would like to champion this level of IT savings?
The article highlights an issue that has huge potential cost savings for Government. The reduction in the ridiculous number, over 500, of Government run data centres down to just 12 highly secure and robust “super data centres” to facilitate Government Cloud Computing. The argument for this is obviously compelling, and, if managed successfully, could easily deliver the massive savings to the UK exchequer of £3.2 billion per annum as quoted (http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/cio/ict/ict_strands/g_cloud.aspx). In fact, I would be amazed if more than a small fraction of the current capacity is actually being used. Just using virtualisation technologies could reduce the amount of equipment required - such as servers - down to as little as 10% of current requirement and, in the process, probably save enough power to consider cancelling more than half of one of the proposed new nuclear power stations!
The key question, however, would be who would run this immense project. The UK Government will spend about £16.5 billion on IT in 2009/10, equivalent to 1.4% of GDP. Most of this money is wasted, with only 30% of projects succeeding, writes IT expert Liam Maxwell in a new report (It's Ours: why we, not government, must own our data (PDF)) published by the Centre for Policy Studies and described as a "must-read" by the Ideal Government Project.
The NHS fiasco shows clearly that the UK Government has no ability whatsoever to deliver this as a successful project; indeed you could almost guarantee a catastrophe. And indeed a failure on this magnitude would make the current level of UK debt look positively manageable. The only way this could ever be contemplated would be by giving the project to the organizations highlighted in the article, who have at least successfully built similar sized computer resource pools, such as; Google, Amazon, Microsoft etc. Of course, if this sea change in policy was to be achieved, there would need to be safeguards in place to stop these types of organisation from bleeding us dry! For example, fixed price contracts as opposed to the “whatever it takes” disgraces of the past. Prudence would suggest that an exercise to take a smaller government department, and give it to one of these giants as a trial, would be an excellent proof of concept.
Is there a party out there that would like to champion this level of IT savings?
Friday, 12 February 2010
IT costs less in the cloud
Last week’s ‘Powered by Cloud’ conference had a number of vendors explaining the substantial cost savings that are introduced by moving into the cloud. According to this week’s Computer Weekly.com, representatives from mobile network operator Vodafone and TV broadcaster Channel 4 said the cost of their cloud based processing was a tenth of traditional in-house computing. Also reported was comms vendor Verizon, which said its customers were saving between 25- 75% of the traditional costs. These sorts of claims should focus the attention of CIOs and IT management on looking into the alternative options that are offered to both large and small enterprises by the cloud.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Decisions Moves Into The Cloud To Guarantee Business Continuity And Disaster Recovery
Decisions, the independent database software provider, has chosen the Cloud Computing Centre to host and manage all of its Software as a Service business for its contact manager™ CRM solution... Read more...
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Snow Problem?
Whilst the snow decimated the UK during January it was great to see technology making a difference for Strictly Education, the school support services. They pay about 40,000 teachers each month who were slipping and sliding their way to their respective schools only to find they were shut, and then getting stuck in the snow for days trying to get home again.
No such problems for the Strictly Education payroll team, the snow wasn’t an obstacle for them. Those who could get to the office readily did so. Those who could not, simply logged into the Strictly Education system via the Cloud from home and did all their payroll input work as per normal. So all their 40,000+ teachers were able to get paid without any issues.
All of this could only be achieved because they run their ICT systems in the Cloud provided by The Cloud Computing Centre.
Maria Mason, Head of Payroll at Strictly Education said, “If the snow had come whilst we still had a traditional ICT arrangement running from servers in the office then the people who weren’t able to get to work physically couldn’t work. With Cloud Computing that’s not the case and it’s saved us money, aggravation, time and our customers don’t suffer at all.”
Through using the Cloud Computing Centre Strictly Education have gained a Business Continuity solution - the whole idea of Cloud Computing brings a new dimension to continual up time which is so vital to maintain a healthy business. No fuss, no hassle just computing power like an everyday utility! Even when it snows!
No such problems for the Strictly Education payroll team, the snow wasn’t an obstacle for them. Those who could get to the office readily did so. Those who could not, simply logged into the Strictly Education system via the Cloud from home and did all their payroll input work as per normal. So all their 40,000+ teachers were able to get paid without any issues.
All of this could only be achieved because they run their ICT systems in the Cloud provided by The Cloud Computing Centre.
Maria Mason, Head of Payroll at Strictly Education said, “If the snow had come whilst we still had a traditional ICT arrangement running from servers in the office then the people who weren’t able to get to work physically couldn’t work. With Cloud Computing that’s not the case and it’s saved us money, aggravation, time and our customers don’t suffer at all.”
Through using the Cloud Computing Centre Strictly Education have gained a Business Continuity solution - the whole idea of Cloud Computing brings a new dimension to continual up time which is so vital to maintain a healthy business. No fuss, no hassle just computing power like an everyday utility! Even when it snows!
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