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Amazon Cloud Storage, Box, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Storage as a Service

Amazon follows Box, Microsoft in removing cloud storage caps

Amazon, Box and Microsoft are also offering unlimited cloud storage plans now

Amazon, Box and Microsoft are also offering unlimited cloud storage plans now

Following a move to give unlimited cloud storage to Amazon Prime customers the company has now announced unlimited cloud storage plans for its Amazon Cloud Drive service. The move comes some time after a number of the company’s competitors in the cloud storage space made similar moves.

The company announced two new cloud storage plans – Unlimited Photos Plan, which allows users to store an unlimited number of photos and includes 5GB for other file types, and an Unlimited Everything Plan, which includes unlimited storage for any file type.

The Unlimited Everything Plan costs $60 per year; the Unlimited Photos Plan, $12 per year.

“Most people have a lifetime of birthdays, vacations, holidays, and everyday moments stored across numerous devices. And, they don’t know how many gigabytes of storage they need to back all of them up,” said Josh Petersen, director of Amazon Cloud Drive in prepared remarks.

“With the two new plans we are introducing today, customers don’t need to worry about storage space—they now have an affordable, secure solution to store unlimited amounts of photos, videos, movies, music, and files in one convenient place,” he said.

The move may be a sign Amazon is starting to feel the heat from competitors in the cloud storage space. Box, which recently went public, had last year announced that it would remove storage limits for enterprise users of the popular storage suite, with Microsoft following suit with its Unlimited OneDrive storage offering soon after.

Anise Asia, Asia Pacific, News & Analysis, SAP, Simon Aspinall, Suhaimee Abu Hassan, Vendor, Virtustream

Anise Asia taps Virtustream to help serve up SAP cloud software to SMEs

Anise Asia is working with Virtustream to deliver SAP applications to SMEs

Anise Asia is working with Virtustream to deliver SAP applications to SMEs

Malaysia-based cloud service provider Anise Asia has selected Virtustream to help the company offer SAP Business One software via the cloud to SMEs.

The partnership will see Anise Asia deploy Virtustream’s micro-VM technology in a bid to help it scale and bill for SAP cloud services, which will be aimed primarily at Malaysian SMEs.

“With SAP Business One Cloud, we answered our clients’ call for an ERP solution that was quick to deploy and easy to run and maintain. By moving those solutions into the cloud, we are addressing their demand for more flexibility, security and cost savings,” said Suhaimee Abu Hassan, founder and chief executive officer of Anise Asia.

“Virtustream is a trusted partner with vast SAP application and managed services expertise, and SAP certification that enables us to provide our customers with the best and most comprehensive set of services available in the market,” he said.

Virtustream said the move will help expand the reach of its cloud and software services, as well as its professional services unit.

“This is a strategic move for both companies,” said Simon Aspinall, president of service provider business, Virtustream. “Together, Anise Asia and Virtustream are able to address the growing demand for enterprise-class cloud services in the ASEAN market.”

Bernard Chiang, managing director of SAP Malaysia said: “Our partners are an extension of the SAP network and, quite often with their local knowledge and expertise, play the critical role of fulfilling the ‘last mile’ of implementation.”

Andrew Kellett, data protection, Data security, News & Analysis, ovum

Ovum: Security skills shortage remains most prevalent barrier in cloud

Security skills shortages are hampering IT's ability to adopt cloud services

A security skills shortage is hampering cloud adoption

Security and an IT security skills shortage remain the most prevalent barriers to cloud uptake, according to Ovum principle analyst Andrew Kellett.

Although Ovum’s research suggests the volume of sensitive corporate data stored in the cloud continues to grow, with enterprise cloud adoption rates exceeding 80 per cent, in many cases this data is not adequately protected.

“Security, or lack thereof, is a significant issue. If there is one problem area inhibiting further adoption of cloud-based services, it is enterprise concerns about shortfalls in the protection regimes of many cloud service providers,” Kellet said, adding that since more sensitive data appears to be stored in the cloud the most basic security practices and controls aren’t necessarily enough.

“On too many occasions, security policies only come into place once a new technology has already gone mainstream, and this is certainly true of the cloud industry. Many cloud providers have been guilty of ‘bolting on’ security as an afterthought, something which has left previous generations of technology vulnerable to malware attacks, advanced persistent threats and other breach tactics.”

“Whether they like it or not, organisations are putting their trust in the hands of the service provider, often without being completely satisfied that such trust is justified or that service levels and protection can be maintained,” he concluded.

Other recently published research from Ovum suggests enterprises are quite concerned with how their cloud service providers implement security controls. The company recently surveyed 818 ITDMs for their views on cloud security and found that in the US specifically, respondents seemed most concerned about lack of control over the location of data (82 per cent), increased vulnerability of shared infrastructure (79 per cent), and “privileged user” abuse of the cloud service provider (78 per cent).

FinancialForce, Funding, News & Analysis, Salesforce, Software as a service, VC

FinancialForce raises $110m to grow Salesforce-based ERP

FinancialForce has raised $110m from TCV, Salesforce

FinancialForce has raised $110m from TCV, Salesforce

FinancialForce, a provider of a Salesforce-based ERP and HR services has raised $110m in a round led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) with participation from Salesforce’s investment arm, Salesforce Ventures. The company said it will use the funds to expand sales, marketing and development.

The latest funding round comes less than a year after the company scored $50m from Advent International.

“Our goal has always been to transform the ERP market in the same way that Salesforce has for CRM. As our growth indicates, the industry is responding to our customer-centric approach to ERP where our apps, built natively to run alongside the Salesforce Customer Success Platform, help businesses create meaningful relationships with customers and employees to grow their top and bottom lines,” said Jeremy Roche, chief executive officer and president, FinancialForce.com.

“With TCV and Salesforce Venture’s contributions, FinancialForce.com can continue our rapid rate of growth and become the cloud ERP choice for all forward-thinking companies,” Roche added.

The company has reported strong growth over the past couple of years, no doubt bolstered by the continued success Salesforce seems to be realising.

FinancialForce said 2014 was its “banner year” for the firm, reporting 91 per cent annual subscription run rate growth and $50m in revenue. It also increased its global headcount by more than 80 per cent, from 250 employees at the end of 2013 to more than 450 at the end of 2014. The company said it currently has more than 500 employees spread across six global offices.

The funding round speaks to what now seems to have become an entrenched industry dynamic – where younger, more nimble cloud-native startups like NetSuite and FinancialForce are starting to overtake large IT incumbents, particularly in areas where software is traditionally bulky and relies heavily on tight integration (i.e. ERP). Salesforce, the platform upon which FinancialForce is based, recently announced full fiscal year 2015 revenue hitting $5.37bn – no small sum by any stretch of the imagination.

data privacy, data protection, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Public Sector

Microsoft, civil liberties renew calls for Patriot Act reform

Microsoft and close to 50 tech companies and civil liberties assocaitions have renewed calls to reform the US Patriot Act ahead of the expiry of the law's provisions governing bulk data collection

Microsoft and close to 50 tech companies and civil liberties associations have renewed calls to reform the US Patriot Act ahead of the expiry of the law’s provisions governing bulk data collection

Microsoft, along with nearly fifty other technology civil rights associations and technology firms have signed an open letter to senior members of the US government calling for reform of the Patriot Act, a cause célèbre for Microsoft among other cloud firms in recent years.

Microsoft has previously criticised the US government’s bulk data collection practices, and the ability of its authorities to act on warrants beyond US soil (particularly when such acts contradict local laws where those businesses operate).

In an open letter to very senior members of the US government including Michael Rogers, director of the NSA, senate minority leader Harry Reid, and US president Barack Obama, the organisations reaffirm the need to end the US government’s bulk data collection practices, and make government and corporate reporting on any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decisions more transparent.

The US Patriot Act Section 215, which currently serves as the legal basis for the NSA’s bulk collection of metadata, is due to expire in June this year.

“We the undersigned represent a wide range of privacy and human rights advocates, technology companies, and trade associations that hold an equally wide range of positions on the issue of surveillance reform. Many of us have differing views on exactly what reforms must be included in any bill reauthorizing USA Patriot Act Section 215,” the letter reads.

“That said, our broad, diverse, and bipartisan coalition believes that the status quo is untenable and that it is urgent that Congress move forward with reform.”

“It has been nearly two years since the first news stories revealed the scope of the United States’ surveillance and bulk collection activities. Now is the time to take on meaningful legislative reforms to the nation’s surveillance programs that maintain national security while preserving privacy, transparency, and accountability.”

Microsoft is among a range of technology companies in support of reforming how American legal entities treat data, both within the context of surveillance activities or general legal proceedings. But US lawmakers have signaled they are prepared to act on longstanding promises to reform the legal landscape. Last month American lawmakers introduced two bipartisan bills that seek to limit the reach of US courts over data stored in cloud services located outside the US, a move welcomed by a broad coalition of technology and telecoms firm – including Microsoft.

engineering, Enterprise IT, Khatib & Alami, News & Analysis, private

AEC firm K&A moves from private to public cloud, saves 40% in costs

Khatib & Alami moved onto iland's public cloud platform this year

Khatib & Alami moved onto iland’s public cloud platform this year

Global architectural design and project management firm Khatib & Alami (K&A) has moved from a private cloud platform onto a public cloud, which the company said has led to a 40 per cent reduction in IT operations management spend.

K&A, which was set up in 1964 and has offices in the Middle East, Africa, Western Europe and North America, offers a range of architectural and engineering services.

The company originally moved to deploy its internal applications on a private cloud platform hosted in iland’s datacentre in London, which it did in order to consolidate its IT environments.

At the time the company also experimented with public cloud platforms, but preferred to maintain its private cloud deployment. However, while it’s difficult to narrow down an exact figure where private and public cloud platforms are equal in cost, the company’s corporate IT manager Mohamed Saad said the public cloud option began to make more sense at the company’s growth began to outpace its ability to scale efficiently, both in terms to technology and personnel.

“The hardware was becoming too restrictive because we weren’t able to scale up.  We would have had to purchase more hardware and then deploy that and add more virtual servers with capacity for additional processing power. We would also have needed to employ the maintenance staff that went along with purchasing more hardware. Then we’d have to maintain all this equipment,” he explained.

“All of the maintenance and management headaches and the fact we needed rapid scalability helped us come to the decision that having our own private cloud infrastructure was just too much of a hassle.”

“What’s more, iland’s public cloud was considerably more economical than using our own equipment. We’re getting close to 35 to 40 per cent cost savings with iland’s cloud. iland now hosts all of our mission critical applications, allowing us to focus our IT efforts on activities that drive our business forward,” he added.

Europe, HP, News & Analysis, OpenStack, Public Sector, Xavier Poisson

HP, EC launch public sector cloud pilots in several European cities

The EC is working with HP to bring cloud to municipal governments in Europe

The EC is working with HP to bring cloud to municipal governments in Europe

HP announced it is working with the European Commission on several pilot cloud implementations in a bid to test how internal and citizen-facing public sector services cloud be moved off legacy platforms into more elastic cloud environments. The move is part of the Commission’s broader efforts to catalyse the use of cloud services in the public sector.

HP is working with the EC on the organisation’s ironically-named STORM (Surfing Towards the Opportunity of Real Migration) cloud project, which envisions the establishment of a public services cloud that allows services and data to be securely shared between the public and private sector partners.

The project currently includes three HP-led trials in Valladolid, Spain; Águeda, Portugal; and Thessaloniki, Greece. As part of the initiative HP is defining, designing and implementing an OpenStack-based infrastructure-as-a-service platform.

The initial stage of the project will see Valladolid pilot Urbanismo en Red, an application that gives citizens access to municipal development plans online. Thessaloniki will trial Virtual City Marketplace, a portal to buy and sell local services, while Agueda aims to increase public participation by allowing citizens and communities to express their opinion online and submit ideas for urban improvements.

The goal, the company said, is to accelerate the “cloudification” of public services in Europe, and to fine-tune and seed out a cloud platform model that can be replicated in other cities in Europe.

“Europe must ensure that new IT devices, applications, data repositories and services interact seamlessly anywhere – just like the Internet,” says Xavier Poisson Gouyou Beauchamps, vice president, cloud computing EMEA, HP.

“This project aims to make collaboration between public authorities easier and more cost effective through the sharing and re-use of common platforms, components and infrastructures. As a result, municipalities across the EU will take a step closer to becoming truly ‘smart cities’.”

“HP is working closely with the EU across a number of projects tied to accountability, security and compliance in order to accelerate digital growth in Europe,” he added.

Enterprise Strategy Group, Funding, Gene Stevens, News & Analysis, Scott Chasin, Universal Music Group

ProtectWise scores $17m to bring cloud security DVR to the enterprise

ProjectWise has exited stealth and announced it has raised $17m in funding

ProjectWise has exited stealth and announced it has raised $17m in funding

ProtectWise, which specialises in providing cloud security services, has exited stealth mode and announced it has secured $17m. The company, which was founded by former McAfee executives Scott Chasin and Gene Stevens, said it will use the funding to expand its sales and marketing efforts.

ProtectWise offers what it’s essentially calling a “cloud network DVR” that the company says can recall and analyse traffic going back weeks, months and even years in a bid to uncover any threats.

“By creating a network memory in the cloud, we’re able to provide a time machine for threat detection,” said Stevens, the company’s chief technology officer. “It automatically replays and analyzes stored network traffic whenever new threats emerge to uncover threats that were previously unknown.  This makes it possible to continuously analyze what we observe in the past and the present together to refine and reveal the threats that matter most.”

It also applies machine learning algorithms in conjunction with a number of commercial intelligence feeds to generate a broad security posture overview of a company’s digital services.

Some of the company’s early customers (it claims over a dozen overall) include the Enterprise Strategy Group and Universal Music Group.

“Enterprises today are grappling with Defense in Doubt,” said Chasin, the company’s chief executive officer. “The traditional defence in depth approach has left security professionals with a costly daisy chain of endpoint solutions that provide only a point-in-time view of threats and emit a tidal wave of security alarms with no context or correlation across solutions. By shifting network security to the cloud, we make it possible to leave this outdated, ineffective model of enterprise network security behind.”

Cloud security firms have attracted significant funding over the past couple of years, a testament to a growing shift towards cloud services. Earlier this month cloud security provider Elastica announced it had secured $30m in series B funding, a year after the firm exited stealth mode and announced its first investment round.

CGI, Datacentre, Keith Jefferies, Ministry of Defence, News & Analysis, Private Cloud, Steve Smart

UK MoD launches dedicated private cloud for internal apps

The UK MoD is using a hosted private cloud for internal shared services apps

The UK MoD is using a hosted private cloud for internal shared services apps

The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MOD) Information Systems and Services (ISS) has deployed a private cloud based in CGI’s South  Wales datacentre which is being used to host internal applications for the public sector authority.

The ISS said it received Approval to Operate for the new Foundation Application Hosting Environment (FAHE), which is hosted as a private cloud instance in CGI’s facilities, and that the first applications have successfully transitioned onto the new platform.

The hosting environment was procured through the G-Cloud framework, the UK government’s cloud-centric procurement framework, and the contract will run for at least two years.

“FAHE provides the foundation of our Applications Services approach and a future-proofed platform for secure application hosting. Our vision is that ISS will be the Defence provider of choice for applications development, hosting, and management,” said Keith Jefferies, ISS Programmes, EMPORIUM deputy head, UK Ministry of Defence.

“FAHE is the first delivery contract under the broader banner of the Applications Programme and we have selected CGI on their ability to deliver a secure environment coupled with a flexible commercial model that allows us to rapidly up and down-scale in line with future demand,” Jefferies said.

Steve Smart, UK vice president of space, defence, national and cyber security at CGI said: “MOD ISS is taking an important step towards delivering the Government’s vision of using  flexible cloud services. The CGI platform is compliant to Defence and pan-Government ICT strategies and architectures. It will provide multi-discipline services from the most appropriate source with the agility and cost of industry best practice.”

The move comes just a few months after the MoD contracted with Ark to design a new state-of-the art datacentre in Corsham, Wiltshire, a move that will allow the department to decommission its Bath facility and save on energy and operations costs.

Enterprise IT, Newfield Exploration Company, News & Analysis, oil and gas, Oracle, site connectivity, Thomas Smouse

E&P firm sends HR function to the cloud

Newfield Exploration Company is moving its HR operations to the cloud

Newfield Exploration Company is moving its HR operations to the cloud

Newfield Exploration Company, an independent oil and gas exploration and production company has adopted Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud (Oracle HCM Cloud) in a bid to streamline global HR operations and make them more mobile-friendly.

The company, which has E&P operations in the US and China, said it wanted to improve employee access to central HR resources (corporate profiles, previous interactions, staff photos) in order to improve global collaboration.

It said moving its HR systems to the cloud will also reduce maintenance costs and help its IT department focus on end-user delivery and adoption.

Newfield will also deploy Oracle HCM Cloud Mobile as the mobile interface its 1,500 employees will use when application launches later this year.

“Advanced technologies like Oracle HCM Cloud are critical to our success as a company that thrives on discovering and working in uncharted territories,” said Thomas Smouse, vice president of administration and human resources, Newfield Exploration Company.

“With Oracle HCM Cloud, we are transforming the way we communicate our goals throughout the organization, creating a more transparent environment. The increased clarity around goals has led to better collaboration and more productive employees focused on common milestones, which inevitably results in better business outcomes,” Smouse said.

While E&P firms are traditionally more conservative in terms of moving their IT systems to the cloud, there is a trend that sees some independents – that don’t have the capability to build or deploy their own private datacentres – moving some of these systems. Many E&P firms have diverse operations spread around the world, which can make accessing these systems quite challenging (of course, once these systems are centralised in the cloud, site connectivity becomes pivotal).