#info world

Everyone struggles with balancing what they want to do with what they need to do. It is a constant tug-of-war and a never-ending game. More often than not, the needs take up all of our time with our wants left behind. That being said, TimeRazor developed this easy game to see if your needs win out over your wants, or vice versa.

To play:

1. Pick the boxes relevant to you

2. Tally up your points for WANTS and NEEDS separately

3. SUBTRACT your NEEDS from your WANTS to get your final score

All -- and I mean all -- public cloud computing providers have some private cloud offering. No matter if it's a loosely coupled partnership with a private cloud provider or a private cloud computing version of its public cloud offering that it sells as -- gulp -- software. -David Linthicum, "Private cloud-public cloud schism is a meaningless distraction"

Let's say the Internet is a fight promoter, and it has been talking up the rivalry between Private Cloud and Public Cloud, two hotly contested up-and-comers with something to prove. That would be a pretty exciting situation for tech spectators, right?

What if the Internet was an unbiased reporter, with no stake in the sale of tickets (or in our case, page views and ad sales) or the public belief in the pretense that private and public cloud computing are such different animals?

The basics of the rumored differences are true: private clouds cost more. They require more hardware. As a concept, they are an easier transition for enterprises looking to enter the cloud without losing their security--which Linthicum describes as "the "I want to hug my server" aspect that keeps getting in the way of progress" among users and the cloud providers' "tendency to jump to private clouds when public clouds are a much better fit."

The un-sensational truth is that private clouds and public clouds are variations on a service, not opponents in a zero sum game. The "hybrid cloud" is not a distinct entity from public and private; it's a personalized (that is, by each company's needs) reliance on both. Each provides different solutions to different problems.

And the guidelines for when you need public and when you need private are pretty intuitive:

However, there are times when you need the advantage of cloud-based computing, such as auto-provisioning of resources, and you have a requirement to keep the processes and data in house. Private clouds work just fine for those requirements, as long as you focus on fit, function, and the value to the business, and not on some dumb argument that has gone on for too long.

  The Cost of Mobile Internet Around the World [Infographic]

  This infographic is an exploration of mobile Internet cost around the globe (2 GB a month) which also takes into account the type of data network deployed by each country. This information allows the reader to come up with their own opinions about which country offers a better deal by using both cost and quality as indicators.

The Internet of Things [INFOGRAPHIC]

Dave Evans | 

When we think of being connected to the Internet, our minds immediately shift to our computers, phones, and most recently tablets. This week at Cisco live, I shared that in 2008, the number of devices connected to the Internet exceeded the number of people on Earth.

That’s right. There are more devices tapping into the Internet than people on Earth to use them. How is this possible?

 The infographic below provides a visual representation of the increase in “things” connected to the Internet. With this increase, how will you prepare your network for the future?