News, analysis and context on enterprise technology for the CTO
Last week Amazon announced a new cloud-based, consumer-oriented service offering called Amazon Cloud Drive. According to the company, the Cloud Drive is “your hard drive in the cloud.” It will allow users to store “music, videos, photos and documents online and access them from anywhere.” Cloud Drive let people store up to five gigabytes of music, photos, videos and documents. The basic storage is free; additional space can be purchased for … [Read more...]
We've talked at length about cloud computing and cybersecurity, but cloud computing can also have an effect on physical security through its application to intelligence. The U.S. Army has recently launched its first tactical cloud in Afghanistan, the Distributed Common Ground System-Army. DCGS-A pools years of intelligence from various systems and databases into one cloud to allow seamless access and analysis. The data is bundled with advanced … [Read more...]
This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP. As part of federal CIO Vivek Kundra’s 25-point plan to reform federal IT management announced last December, federal agencies must adopt a “cloud-first” policy that requires them to move three applications to the “cloud” over the next 12 to 18 months. Agencies must identify the three “must move” services within three months, move one of those services to the cloud within 12 months and … [Read more...]
I've been checking out a few Android tablets lately. All three use ARM based processors and run Android 2.x. The Barnes and Noble Nook Color runs a skinned over version of Android 2.1, while the Stream TV Elocity A7 and Samsung Galaxy Tab run Android 2.2. All have 7" capacitive touch screens, however they are extremely different in real life. The A7 has only a 800x480 pixel resolution screen, while the NC and the GT both boast 1024x600 pixel … [Read more...]
Dear readers, With traffic increasing we have outgrown our current servers. This is, of course, a good problem to have and we thank you for giving us this issue! We are moving the CTOvision.com blog, as well as most of our other sites, to a new Rackspace Cloud Site capability. Rackspace, as you probably know, is a pioneer in turning new scalable cloud computing concepts into reality. We hope our move will not result in much downtime, but … [Read more...]
If you thought data management was difficult in business, imagine the nightmare it becomes in the Navy. The Navy faces monumental and unique challenges with its shipboard networks as, just like everywhere else, data flows continue to increase. The systems aboard US ships tend to be outdated since they can only be upgraded while the ship is in port, and incompatible with each other because they tend to run unique software on custom-made hardware, … [Read more...]
Since the CIO.gov site is down for maintenance I wanted to help spread the word on this new document, the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy. I hate to say this, but I have not read it myself yet! But I have read everything else Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has had a hand in publishing and I know this will be important for us all to read and digest and thought you might want an early look. Please stay in touch, I'll publish comments later (and please, after … [Read more...]
Our nation's technologists have always come to the aide of their nation. There are many great exemplars in this domain. two of my personal favorites are: Edwin Land, inventor famous for his work on consumer cameras but also a key designer of reconnaissance systems (including the U2). Frederick Terman, the thinker most responsible for creating what is now Silicon Valley, and the lead researcher on some of the most significant US/allied technologies in … [Read more...]
Looxcie is a great device that lets you film exactly what you see. I've been testing one out for the last several weeks and have enjoyed learning about it and thinking about its potential uses in the enterprise. It has a lightweight, over the ear form factor that frees your hands and eyes up while capturing video and audio. Looxcie (pronounced Look-See) is fun to use and when combined with its very low cost and well engineered capabilities will likely … [Read more...]
Facebook works its data magic at scales others only dream of. And they do this for over 600,000,000 people, in real time! (see: Facebook's New Real-Time Messaging System: HBase To Store 135+ Billion Messages A Month). Cade Metz just wrote a piece diving deeper into this at The Register. His article is titled "HBase: Shops swap MySQL for open source Google mimic." This great reporting underscores something we already knew, that Facebook is a pioneer … [Read more...]