Friday Cloud News Roundup

Federal Government Defines Roadmap for Cloud Services A basic plan that defines the government’s top priorities for standards as well as defining the government’s requirements for future cloud services was revealed this week. Although still a draft version, it will serve to speed the rate at which agencies can adapt cloud computing services and provide action plans for meeting standards. The aim is to make it easier for government to purchase and implement cloud computing solutions and should also make it easier for anyone considering doing cloud business with any government agency to create cloud computing solutions that can be readily adapted.   What every Business Should Know About Cloud Forbes magazine takes a look at what has been developing in the cloud computing world for the last year. Why executives need to consider it and where it makes sense is examined in a closer look at what kinds of questions a CEO should be asking when considering a move to the cloud. A link to a webinar discusses how to evaluate a business case for the cloud for your business.   Vendor Neutral Platform for Financial Services Industry Debuts The announcement of NYSE Technologies release of an open source code that will sit between operating systems and applications could be a big boon to a wide variety of financial systems. They are donating the piece of code to allow trading, the development of market data and other financial services to be openly created at minimum costs. By turning over this piece of code to the Middleware Agnostic Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAMA) with the Linux Foundation, the non-profit consortium can make it available to be downloaded for free.   Gartner Symposium Points to Cloud Brokerage The recent Gartner Symposium was a huge success by all the numbers, with vendors, deals and attendance all up from last year. A topic that surfaced was the emergence of Cloud Brokers who help businesses by customizing cloud services to fit the needs of the consumers. This move reflects the changing role of IT and the re-imagining of various roles with it. Gartner looks at how these changes brought about by the cloud revolution will affect the post-modern business.   New Service Tracks Cloud Spending With new cloud services becoming easier than ever for employees to turn on and off with a credit care, how do you control the costs? Up until now, it was difficult to impossible. A new offering called Cloudability may be just the answer for many businesses who want to give their employees the flexibility to call up services as needed but still control the costs.