Privacy policies will change by 2012, new research suggests

Recent security breaches have put a spotlight on companies’ privacy policies. According to new research from Gartner, at least half of the companies that host their clients’ data will be forced to update their privacy policies by the end of 2012 to appease their customers.

In addition to the security breaches, customers’ worries about where across the globe their data is being housed also play a role. Read Write Web says there is a “trend among cloud customers to request that their data only be housed in jurisdictions where law enforcement agencies would not be entitled to seek court-warranted access to them.”

But, Gartner Research Director Carsten Casper says instead of demanding your data be stored in a specific country, companies should tell their vendors where they don’t want their data stored.

“Don’t demand storage in a specific country for privacy purposes alone,” Casper was quoted on Read Write Web. “There are other cases when sensitive company information should not leave the country (for example, if there are export control or national security concerns), but in most cases – and usually under conditions – in-country storage is not mandatory for privacy compliance. In some cases, it will be sufficient to ensure that personal data will not be stored in a specific country that is known for its privacy violations.”

Gartner says, cloud computing is one of six areas that will be at the top of privacy officers’ agendas for the remainder of 2011 and 2012, in addition to data breaches, location-based services, offshoring, context-awareness and regulatory changes.

More data center managers using cloud computing

70 percent of data center managers say they are already using or plan to use cloud computing, according to a survey by AFCOM. Of that 70 percent, 36.6 percent of respondents are already using the cloud. That’s up from 14.9 percent of managers surveyed in 2010. However, another 28 percent tell AFCOM they have no plans for the cloud at this time.

On top of that, according to ZDNet.com, the AFCOM survey says “80 percent to 90 percent of data centers will have some form of cloud computing in the next five years.”

In a separate report, Gartner says the increased use of cloud computing is one of the factors that will lead to smaller data centers. According to the report, data centers could be 40 percent the size of what they are today by 2018.

“In the world of IT everything has a cascade effect and in data centers the traditional methods of design no longer work without understanding the outside forces that will have an impact on data center costs, size and longevity,” said Gartner, as quoted in TechDay.com.

AFCOM is an association for data center professionals. According to FierceCIO.com, 358 data center managers from around the world were interviewed for the AFCOM survey. 86 percent of those respondents have annual data center budgets of less than $10 million.

Cloud news round up: Know your rights in the cloud

Today in your end of the week cloud news round up:

• Confused about the cloud? Have no idea where to go next? Worried about what will happen once you make the move? Have no fear. The Cloud Computing Survivor’s Guide for Government is coming up, and you can still register. It’s hosted by David S. Linthicum, CTO of Bick Group. Learn more about how you might be able to make the cloud work for you.
• What can cloud really offer you? CIO.com’s Bernard Golden says there two kinds of agility you can find in the cloud that don’t exist elsewhere. Read more of his post as he discusses engineering resource availability, and business response to changing conditions or opportunity.
• You should know your rights — and responsibilities — in the cloud. Gartner has created a Bill of Cloud Computing Rights. ChannelWeb reports that the firm put together a Global IT Council for Cloud Services, which came up with the idea for a set of key rights to govern computing in the cloud. They say they hope it will help not only IT customers and clients, but also developers, vendors and other stakeholders.
• And NASA has joined forces with Rackspace Hosting, a cloud services provider. Daily Finance reports the agency is currently working on its Nebula software platform, which should be available by the end of this year. Rackspace has already contributed its Cloud Files system to NASA’s OpenStack code. Many in the industry think NASA’s code will serve as a best-of-breed technology.

Friday cloud news round up

Today, we bring you your weekly cloud news round up.

• As Microsoft continued a full-court press to get its partner companies to sell cloud-computing services, some of them were still scratching their heads over whether Microsoft’s advances in cloud computing could end up biting into a chunk of their own businesses. The Seattle Times reports that questions came as Microsoft announced new products and sales-support programs at its Worldwide Partner Conference this week that are aimed at helping partners make the jump. About 13,000 people representing companies that resell, build on and sell services based on Microsoft products are attending the conference at the Washington Convention Center.
• Analyst firm, Gartner, published a set of guidelines intended to ease relationships between cloud vendors and users. As cloud computing becomes more pervasive, the ecosystem (including vendors and analysts) is seeking ways to align expectations among relevant parties, ZDNet reports. Gartner specified “six rights and one responsibility of service customers that will help providers and consumers establish and maintain successful business relationships:”
• Navatar Group, a global Salesforce.com partner and Value Added Reseller, has introduced free cloud computing CRM for financial services firms. Officials with Navatar Group said that the company is now providing free CRM for eight months, to help one prepare for the expected rebound in the worldwide financial markets, TMCNet reports. Company officials said that this would help financial firms to get pre-built software-as-a-service for their business up and running within a day or two. They will also get the underlying force.com seats from Salesforce.com (News – Alert) free as part of this promotion.
• Information technology company IBM on Thursday announced a new IBM Cloud Computing Competence Centre in Ehningen, Germany, TradingMarket.com reports. Located in Ehningen, Germany, home to IBM’s largest data centre in Europe, the new facility will host a range of technology platforms and optimised service delivery processes and, according to the company, will provide a broad range of cloud solutions and services to clients locally and internationally.

Deputy CIO Wennergren outlines why DoD is migrating to the cloud

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Hear DoD Deputy CIO Dave Wennergren at ELC.

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“Did you hear cloud computing is all the rage?”

That is a recent — and direct — quote from DoD Deputy CIO Dave Wennergren, who just talked to FederalNewsRadio about a new open source memo.

But that’s not all DoD is doing.

Wennergren recently talked about what his agency is doing in terms of the cloud at the Executive Leadership Conference.

He began his remarks by likening the cloud to a double-edged sword.

“I have this theory that, if you can ride the wave of change about enthusiasm for something that’s in the public psyche, then it makes it a lot easier to do change within your organization. If there’s a demand signal on the part of your constituencies — your clients [and] customers, then it becomes a lot easier to tell them that [in order] to get that, they’re going to have to do something different.”

Throughout history, he said, it’s been the same. Not everyone wanted to use a personal computer when they first rolled out; nor did everyone trust the Internet at first; however, forward-thinking organizations demonstrated how to use this new technology in a beneficial manner, and thus got clients on board.

“You have that going on right now with cloud computing — which is the good side. The tough side is that, when you have so much hype . . . then you have that, as Gartner would say, the great risk of the trough of disillusionment. So, trying to do expectation management about — what does cloud computing mean to you and how would you leverage it and what would you leverage for? It’s not going to be the same for everybody.”

Though it is different for every organization and agency, Wennergren highlighted what DoD is currently doing in order to give everyone at ELC a better idea of how the cloud might work.

“So we have this vision in the Department of Defense that you’re going to be able to get on any computing device, slap your card in and find the people and information that you need to get your job done. That’s a different world than the one we live in today, but there is a whole bunch of activity that’s going on to break down those barriers.”

Currently, these activities range from leveraging Web services and move to a more service oriented approach to doing business to eliminating stovepipes to utlizing Web 2.0 tools.

“In DoD speak, we’ve been talking about net-centric for a long time, which is what this is all about. This movement to the cloud is a culmination of a data-focused approach, a service oriented approach and the ability to have your infrastructure ubiquitously available along with the services.”

Overall, Wennergren said DoD’s goal is having a massive ability to collaborate in a secure environment.

“If you do it right, you could actually do this better in a world that involves the cloud.”