CSC Signs Record Cloud Deal with Royal Mail

Britain's hidebound state-owned Royal Mail is getting a cloud. Yup, CSC is supposed to provide 30,000 of its employees with access to newfangled web-based services using Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), part of Microsoft Online Services. CSC will also provide first line helpdesk support. The new contract is described as an industry first: CSC is the first Microsoft service provider to win a cloud deal of this size.

Secure Access to SaaS Applications

Static passwords replaced by two-factor authentication for applications in the cloud 

25 November 2009: With the growing demand for web-based SaaS applications, UK-based Signify has extended its two-factor authentication (2FA) hosted services to provide secure access to cloud-based applications such as Salesforce.com and Google Apps. While 2FA is becoming the de-facto standard for remote access to server-based business applications, most SaaS solutions including Salesforce.com and Google Apps still only provide authentication with static passwords that can be easily compromised.

In addition, the new Signify SaaS Login component of the service allows users to identify and authenticate themselves just once for access to all their network or cloud-based applications using a single set of two-factor authentication credentials. This increases the level of protection for corporate applications and data in the cloud by providing fast and convenient token or tokenless authentication.

"With the growing popularity of corporate SaaS applications such as Salesforce.com and Google Apps that present access to potentially sensitive data in the cloud, it is an anomaly that most enterprises still rely on just a user name and password for authentication," said Dave Abraham, CEO at Signify. "SaaS Login is designed to fill in this security blind spot with strong two-factor authentication and comply with industry policies and guidelines that increasingly specify 2FA for remote access. Many organisations do not realise that this includes access to SaaS applications."

Using the SAML (Security Assertion Mark-up Language) authentication protocol, the new SaaS Login component integrates Signfy's 2FA hosted services with SaaS applications. This enables users to log in using their existing two-factor token-based or tokenless credentials. Once logged in securely, Signify then allows easy 'one click' sign-on to each cloud or SaaS application, without requiring further authentication.

Are you thinking about investing time and money in the Cloud ?

We hear the buzz words echoing around the industry on a regular basis, Social Networking, Twitter, Facebook, iPhone and most interesting (to me anyhow) Cloud Computing. I've been in communications for almost 20 years and have embraced and sold many different technologies. Does anyone recall ICL DRS6000's or IBM AIX platforms ? Mainframes serving terminals ? Wyse 50's in Green, Amber or even White (that was the back colour of the screen itself, not a colour screen god forbid!). 

 

Technologies evolve and find their own niche or become the norm in a very short space of time if the time is right. Wyse (as an example) evolved from a green screen manufacturer into a provider and innovator of thin client solutions forging partnerships with Citrix and microsoft to become one of the major players in a new paradigm Server Based Computing. Cloud based Computing is simply one rung up the ladder from the server by putting the server in the Internet. It's simply yet another evolution in the world of communications and IT.

I read an article today stating that Cloud Computing will bring forth a 'Sea Change' in IT in the coming months and years. I believe we're already travelling through this change and the problem is we're all not getting it quick enough ! Technology changes, it does not wait for us to understand it and adopt, it forges ahead and expects us to take notice or pass it by... Everyone, from the one man start up to the latgest Enterprise needs to understand what Cloud Computing can do for their business because it will save everyone a vast amount of time, energy and money. Let's not lose out to our competitors as they sell Cloud solutions to our clients, let's embrace the space and innovate alongside the 'sea change' which is in play. 

Cloud Distribution are about helping partners jump on the bus, build a portfolio of solutions for their clients and start making money out of this next buzz word. The futures bright, the futures cloudy :-)

Cloud Distribution - OpSource Cloud

Cloud Distribution partners with OpSourceCloud - The Global Enterprise IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) leader

Kudos to Amazon for kick-starting the move to Cloud computing. But now you want to get serious about adopting the Cloud and you need a grown up enterprise-class solution. You need OpSource Cloud. As a reseller with clients asking "what is this cloud stuff all about?" you need to respond with a coherent, effective story. Cloud Distribution and OpSource are the story to tell.

What Amazon EC2 want's to be when it grows up

OpSource Cloud combines the best of Amazon like features with the security, performance and control your development projects and production applications require. You need professional features like private networks, dedicated configurable firewalls, configurable servers with burstable CPU and passwords for multiple users with role based permissions. And OpSource delivers these grown up features and more - all standard and all available on a no commit basis.
OpSource Cloud, the first Cloud to bring together the flexibility, availability and community of the public Cloud with the security, performance and controls the enterprise demands. Emphasizing security, OpSource Cloud provides every user with a Virtual Private Cloud within the public Cloud, allowing them to determine their own degree of public Internet connectivity.

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Real-World Cloud Computing Applications

In this article, we will see some examples of real-world Cloud Computing applications: Coca-Cola Enterprises uses a Cloud-based system to streamline operations with merchandisers in the field; Nasdaq uses Amazon's S3 Cloud Service to deliver historical stock and mutual fund information, rather than add the load to its own database and computing infrastructure; Animoto, a small start-up which decided to use Amazon's Cloud Services, was able to keep up with soaring demand for its service and scale up from 50 instances to 3,500 instances over a three day period.