With Cloud Foundations, customers can avail the benefits of the cloud today, with lower risk and simple, easy implementation. It is available immediately and is designed to expand the reach of the cloud, to enable people to use a real private cloud easily.

The package includes a comprehensive set of products including virtualization, cloud management, operating system, middleware, application management, and scheduling, cookbooks and reference architectures giving step-by-step instructions, consulting services, and training, backed by Red Hat’s exceptional customer support giving it an edge over other current products in the market.

Jim Whitehurst, CEO, Red Hat, said that cloud computing is threatened by the same kinds of vendor lock-in, software complexity and “feature bloat” that has kept IT to-date from realizing its full potential, in his keynote speech right after the announcement.

He also added that, “Cloud has the potential to be the mother of all lock-ins,”, and  that having data and workloads locked up in fragmented cloud-computing resources would be worse than having them locked up in a proprietary IT system. “If we don’t find ways to address these problems, cloud is going to be—in three or few years—the hype that died.”

Red Hat also mentioned that it is creating development tools and a technology roadmap for developers  to deploy their applications to the cloud and link them to on-premise systems. The new Platform-as-a-Service capabilities will become part of the next release of the Red Hat Cloud Foundation package and will be based on the JBoss Enterprise Middleware product line.

Source : Click here

[photo courtesy : www.lawtechtv.com]

But will it really serve to be a silver lining as described by Clickpress in its recent article “Cloud Computing – Healthcare’s Silver Lining” ?

The answer is straightforward. Data saved on the cloud is easily accessible from anywhere. Additionally, using software from the cloud not only gives faster processing, it also reduces the expenses. These are major advantages especially when healthcare is considered. However, the security measures have to be strong but the pros easily override the cons here.

]]> http://www.migrateforce.com/2010/05/18/healthcare-on-the-cloud/feed/ 0 http://www.migrateforce.com/2010/05/16/microsoft-steps-into-the-cloud/ http://www.migrateforce.com/2010/05/16/microsoft-steps-into-the-cloud/#comments Sun, 16 May 2010 06:25:59 +0000 Pallavi Swaroop http://www.migrateforce.com/?p=70 Microsoft made a major leap with the release of Office Web Apps, a cloud-based version of its Office software. Web Apps lets users to upload documents from their computer to Microsoft’s cloud-based Docs.com, and allows accessibility from any machine or device. Here the documents will also be stored in remote server instead of being stored only in personal computers, laptops or company server. Except for the security factor of sharing important files on the web, it will prove to be a good improvement.

[credit: Microsoft]

However since the release, Microsoft and Google have been in a very public debate over which cloud-based program is the better of the two. But as Preston Gralla says, “it’s as much trash talk as Kevin Garnett does in the fourth quarter of an NBA playoff game”. Not only he, but most people agree that the latest versions of both Google Docs and Microsoft Office 2010 are both very good, very solid pieces of work.

But what makes Microsoft a little better is its ease of use. Microsoft has taken its popular ribbon interface and extended it to all of Office 2010’s programs. So the users who upgrade will feel familiar with the new programs. Microsoft says the ribbon interface helps to find options quickly and reduces clutter on the screen, which saves users time. The fact that Word is world’s most widely used editing software adds to the “little better” factor however Microsoft’s attempt to step into the cloud might be small and a little late.

[source: Click Here]