EU warns Governments on Cloud Computing

Private cloud computing environments are much more suited to the needs of government bodies than their public cloud equivalents, despite the latter offering higher service availability and improved cost benefits, according to the latest report from the European Network and Information Security Agency (Enisa).

The Security and Resilience in Governmental Clouds report presents senior management with a decision-making model with which to appraise the cloud solution which provides the best fit with their organisation.

Enisa concluded that, although cloud computing could theoretically offer better value, improved availability and stronger security than traditional environments, there are many weaknesses and threats "mainly linked to the lack of governance and control over IT operations and the potential lack of compliance with laws and regulations".

Public clouds are said to be the most risky from this standpoint because they can be owned by non-EU companies, and provide inadequate transparency about security and resilience measures and potential breaches.

The report also warns that internet connectivity may not be adequate in several member states to support such models.

"For sensitive applications, private and community clouds appear to be the solutions that currently best fit the needs of public administrations since they offer the highest level of governance, control and visibility," the report stated.

"Although, when planning a community or private cloud, special regard should be given to the scale of the infrastructure as most of the resilience and security benefits of the cloud model will not be realised if the necessary infrastructural critical mass is not reached."

Public clouds, on the other hand, should be used only for non-sensitive or non-critical apps and with a clear exit strategy, according to Enisa.

Government IT managers moving to the cloud need to establish a metrics framework including key performance indicators, and should test business continuity plans and carry out due diligence, the report concluded.

Also important is ensuring that security, resilience and legal requirements are detailed in service level agreements, and taking national cloud strategies into account, said Enisa.

Why is India still a Developing Economy

What is the definition of a Developed Economy? Wikipedia states that "The term developed country is used to describe countries that have a high level of development according to some criteria." What is this criteria? Has anyone come across the clearcut definition of this. This question is bigger and even bigger is the debate that it carries with itself.

Talking about India, when we categorically analyze these factors that differentiate between a Developed and a Developing economy, we come across many shortcomings with our own existence.

Looking around the world, we Indians are the most widely spread of the lot. More than 40% Indians have occupied NASA, the best brains available at the top Installations of Research are Indians. The biggest takeovers are done by Indians. A core industry like BPO has been revolutionized because of Indians.

So if we are so capable of doing things, then why is India is such a developing nation. We help create Developed economies, but what about our own Nation.

Cloud Computing: The Tomorrow

Cloud computing is location independent computing, whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid. Or more simply, remote computing. Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture and utility computing. Details are abstracted from consumers, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.

Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves over-the-Internet provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources. It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet. This frequently takes the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if it were a program installed locally on their own computer.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides a somewhat more objective and specific definition here. The term "cloud" is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network, and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online that are accessed from another Web service or software like a Web browser, while thesoftware and data are stored on servers.

Most cloud computing infrastructures consist of services delivered through common centers and built on servers. Clouds often appear as single points of access for consumers' computing needs. Commercial offerings are generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers, and typically include service level agreements (SLAs). The major cloud service providers include Amazon, Rackspace Cloud, Salesforce, Skytap, Microsoft and Google.

Some of the larger IT firms that are actively involved in cloud computing are Huawei, Cisco, Fujitsu, Dell, Red Hat, Hewlett Packard, IBM, VMware, Hitachi and NetApp.

Surface Computing

Surface computing is the term for the use of a specialized computer GUI in which traditional GUI elements are replaced by intuitive, everyday objects. Instead of a keyboard andmouse, the user interacts directly with a touch-sensitive screen. It has been said that this more closely replicates the familiar hands-on experience of everyday object manipulation.

Early work in this area was done at the University of Toronto, Alias Research, and MIT. Surface work has included customized solutions from vendors such as GestureTek, Applied Minds for Northrop Grumman.Major computer vendor platforms are in various stages of release: the iTable by PQLabs, Linux MPX, the Ideum MT-50, and Microsoft Surface.