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Software giant Oracle has made a series of announcements at its Oracle CloudWorld event in New York, with the standout being the launch of three new cloud regions including the UK.

The new regions, in Virginia, London, and Turkey to be more precise, are expected to go live by the middle of 2017, while the company adds it expects further regions, in APAC, the Middle East, and North America, to be launched a year later.

Oracle adds that the new regions will comprise at least three high bandwidth, low latency sites – for which the company code is ‘availability domains’ – located several miles from each other and designed to be built to avoid failover.

Back in September, Oracle co-founder and CTO Larry Ellison spoke of these fledgling next-generation data centres to delegates at their OpenWorld event. “We have a modern architecture for infrastructure where there’s no single point of failure,” he said. “Faults are isolated, therefore faults are tolerated. If we lose the data centre, then you won’t even know about it.” At the time, Ellison told delegates that “Amazon’s lead is over” in infrastructure as a service.

“Oracle is committed to building the most differentiated cloud platform that delivers on the requirements of a wide array of customer workloads,” said Deepak Patil, vice president of development at Oracle Cloud Platform in a statement. “This regional expansion underscores our commitment to making the engineering and capital investments required to continue to be a global large scale cloud platform leader.”

Elsewhere, the company announced expansions of Oracle Cloud Platform with what was described as an industry first. The Oracle Database Cloud Service is now available on bare metal compute, as well as new virtual machine, compute, load balancing, and storage capabilities for the platform. Oracle says its Database Cloud Service is perfect for development, testing, and deployment of enterprise workloads, while the advancements to the overall platform gives it ‘differentiated database performance at every scale, and deeply integrated IaaS capabilities for customers of any size’.

“These latest investments in the Oracle Cloud Platform provide a clear path to develop, test, and scale applications – with the Oracle Database or third-party databases,” said Thomas Kurian, Oracle president of product development. “We offer customers the most comprehensive approach to moving to the cloud and accelerating their business strategies.”

In November, a study from Oracle argued various barriers remain for an enterprise IT cloud model to succeed, with proving return on investment and discord between infrastructures the key stumbling blocks.

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Total spend on IT infrastructure products deployed in cloud environments will hit $44.2 billion (£36.6bn) in 2017, according to the latest analysis from IDC.

The findings appear in the firm’s latest quarterly cloud IT infrastructure tracker, and argue that the primary spend (61%) will come through public cloud data centres, while off-premises private cloud environments will contribute almost 15% of spending.

Overall spend on IT infrastructure – including server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switches – will increase by 18.2% in 2017, while spending on traditional, or ‘non-cloud’ IT infrastructure will decline by 3.3% this year.

IDC argues that in the longer term, spending on off-premises cloud IT infrastructure will have a CAGR of 14.2% and an overall size of $48.1 billion by 2020, with public cloud data centres accounting for more than 80% of this figure.

“In the coming quarters, growth in spending on cloud IT infrastructure will be driven by investments done by new hyperscale data centres opening across the globe and increasing activity of tier two and regional service providers,” said Natalya Yezhkova, storage research director at IDC in a statement.

“Another significant boost to overall spending on cloud IT infrastructure will be coming from on-premises private cloud deployments as end users continue gaining knowledge and experience in setting up and managing cloud IT within their own data centres,” Yezhkova added.

Back in July, IDC noted in a short research note how public cloud IaaS will ‘transform’ the enterprise IT value chain. By 2018, the analyst firm says, four in five IT organisations will be committed to hybrid architectures, while public cloud IaaS revenues are set to more than triple between 2015 and 2020.

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Total spend on IT infrastructure products deployed in cloud environments will hit $44.2 billion (£36.6bn) in 2017, according to the latest analysis from IDC.

The findings appear in the firm’s latest quarterly cloud IT infrastructure tracker, and argue that the primary spend (61%) will come through public cloud data centres, while off-premises private cloud environments will contribute almost 15% of spending.

Overall spend on IT infrastructure – including server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switches – will increase by 18.2% in 2017, while spending on traditional, or ‘non-cloud’ IT infrastructure will decline by 3.3% this year.

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IDC argues that in the longer term, spending on off-premises cloud IT infrastructure will have a CAGR of 14.2% and an overall size of $48.1 billion by 2020, with public cloud data centres accounting for more than 80% of this figure.

“In the coming quarters, growth in spending on cloud IT infrastructure will be driven by investments done by new hyperscale data centres opening across the globe and increasing activity of tier two and regional service providers,” said Natalya Yezhkova, storage research director at IDC in a statement.

“Another significant boost to overall spending on cloud IT infrastructure will be coming from on-premises private cloud deployments as end users continue gaining knowledge and experience in setting up and managing cloud IT within their own data centres,” Yezhkova added.

Back in July, IDC noted in a short research note how public cloud IaaS will ‘transform’ the enterprise IT value chain. By 2018, the analyst firm says, four in five IT organisations will be committed to hybrid architectures, while public cloud IaaS revenues are set to more than triple between 2015 and 2020.

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An overwhelming 94% of cloud apps in enterprises across EMEA are not enterprise-ready, while two thirds of overall cloud services are not up to scratch, according to the latest research from Netskope.

The findings, which appear in the company’s latest quarterly cloud report, found that 82.4% of services do not encrypt data at rest, 66.4% of cloud services do not specify that the customers owns the data in their terms of services, while 42% do not allow admins to enforce password controls.

The report arrives amidst the backdrop of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect in May of next year. Netskope warns that businesses are potentially falling behind in their efforts to become au fait with the legislation; 40% of services analysed back up to a secondary location, the company says, not all of which are GDPR-compliant.

“Until very recently, organisations had to take an all-or-nothing approach to allowing cloud services,” said Sanjay Beri, Netskope founder and CEO. “If they sanctioned a cloud storage service for corporate use, they also needed to accept any additional personal instances of that cloud storage service or block the service entirely.

“As our customers make cloud services a strategic advantage for their businesses, when it comes to governing and securing those services, they are realising granular policies can ensure that sensitive data does not leak from the sanctioned instance of a corporate cloud service to an unsanctioned one,” Beri added.

The report also examined wider cloud trends. More than 90% of Netskope customers use IaaS services, predominantly AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, with enterprises using on average four IaaS services, while Office 365 remains the number one app with Slack continuing to rise up the top 20.

In February last year, Netskope reported that more than 4% of enterprises have sanctioned cloud apps laced with malware.

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An overwhelming 94% of cloud apps in enterprises across EMEA are not enterprise-ready, while two thirds of overall cloud services are not up to scratch, according to the latest research from Netskope.

The findings, which appear in the company’s latest quarterly cloud report, found that 82.4% of services do not encrypt data at rest, 66.4% of cloud services do not specify that the customers owns the data in their terms of services, while 42% do not allow admins to enforce password controls.

The report arrives amidst the backdrop of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect in May of next year. Netskope warns that businesses are potentially falling behind in their efforts to become au fait with the legislation; 40% of services analysed back up to a secondary location, the company says, not all of which are GDPR-compliant.

“Until very recently, organisations had to take an all-or-nothing approach to allowing cloud services,” said Sanjay Beri, Netskope founder and CEO. “If they sanctioned a cloud storage service for corporate use, they also needed to accept any additional personal instances of that cloud storage service or block the service entirely.

“As our customers make cloud services a strategic advantage for their businesses, when it comes to governing and securing those services, they are realising granular policies can ensure that sensitive data does not leak from the sanctioned instance of a corporate cloud service to an unsanctioned one,” Beri added.

The report also examined wider cloud trends. More than 90% of Netskope customers use IaaS services, predominantly AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, with enterprises using on average four IaaS services, while Office 365 remains the number one app with Slack continuing to rise up the top 20.

In February last year, Netskope reported that more than 4% of enterprises have sanctioned cloud apps laced with malware.

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The application container market is expected to grow to $2.7 billion by 2020 up from $762m in 2016, according to the latest note from 451 Research.

The analysts put app containers in the overall bucket of cloud-enabling technologies (CET) alongside virtualisation, automation, and private platform as a service, and argues that while by no means the largest segment, containers will see the quickest growth. The overall market will see a 15% CAGR over the next four years, and be worth $39.6bn by the end of 2020.

According to 451 Research, there are 125 application container vendors in the market – well, 125 that are worth tracking, at any rate – and expects many new entries into the market on a quarterly basis. The firm says it is ‘remarkable’ that vendors large and small are able to meaningfully leverage or offer app container technology and support.

The researchers also take the opportunity to compare app containers to OpenStack, which was valued at $1.8bn in 2016. With both markets being based on open source software and both experiencing rapid enterprise growth in a relatively short space of time, it makes sense to compare the two.

“Current estimates are conservative,” said Jay Lyman, principal analyst for cloud management and containers at 451 Research. “In the three years we’ve been tracking the OpenStack market, we’ve watched it grow from just 30 vendors in 2013 to more than 91 vendors today. We will be tracking the container market closely to see whether that translates into even higher revenue and faster growth than with OpenStack.

“Just as we saw with OpenStack, revenue generation in the early application container market is characterised by some pure-play vendors and larger established vendors generating significant revenue, but most players are just beginning to realise paid engagements,” added Lyman.

451 added it expects to see more movement for app containers beyond development and testing towards production use. The research firm cited Apprenda’s acquisition of Kismatic, a backer of Kubernetes, and Cisco acquiring ContainerX, a supporter of Docker Swarm, as signs of consolidation in the market.

Back in July, a study from NetEnrich found that 70% of 200 IT professionals surveyed were using containers within their environments, yet adding that integrating with existing IT ecosystems was the biggest challenge. Lack of experience in managing container technologies was also cited as an issue, with Docker, Kubernetes and Mesos being described as ‘moderately challenging’ to learn.

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The application container market is expected to grow to $2.7 billion by 2020 up from $762m in 2016, according to the latest note from 451 Research.

The analysts put app containers in the overall bucket of cloud-enabling technologies (CET) alongside virtualisation, automation, and private platform as a service, and argues that while by no means the largest segment, containers will see the quickest growth. The overall market will see a 15% CAGR over the next four years, and be worth $39.6bn by the end of 2020.

According to 451 Research, there are 125 application container vendors in the market – well, 125 that are worth tracking, at any rate – and expects many new entries into the market on a quarterly basis. The firm says it is ‘remarkable’ that vendors large and small are able to meaningfully leverage or offer app container technology and support.

The researchers also take the opportunity to compare app containers to OpenStack, which was valued at $1.8bn in 2016. With both markets being based on open source software and both experiencing rapid enterprise growth in a relatively short space of time, it makes sense to compare the two.

“Current estimates are conservative,” said Jay Lyman, principal analyst for cloud management and containers at 451 Research. “In the three years we’ve been tracking the OpenStack market, we’ve watched it grow from just 30 vendors in 2013 to more than 91 vendors today. We will be tracking the container market closely to see whether that translates into even higher revenue and faster growth than with OpenStack.

“Just as we saw with OpenStack, revenue generation in the early application container market is characterised by some pure-play vendors and larger established vendors generating significant revenue, but most players are just beginning to realise paid engagements,” added Lyman.

451 added it expects to see more movement for app containers beyond development and testing towards production use. The research firm cited Apprenda’s acquisition of Kismatic, a backer of Kubernetes, and Cisco acquiring ContainerX, a supporter of Docker Swarm, as signs of consolidation in the market.

Back in July, a study from NetEnrich found that 70% of 200 IT professionals surveyed were using containers within their environments, yet adding that integrating with existing IT ecosystems was the biggest challenge. Lack of experience in managing container technologies was also cited as an issue, with Docker, Kubernetes and Mesos being described as ‘moderately challenging’ to learn.

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The top three players in the colocation space – Equinix, Digital Realty and NTT – have grown three times as fast as the overall market over the last four quarters, according to the latest note from Synergy Research.

The research firm, which cast its eye over the overall cloud market earlier this month, found that while the total colocation market grew 9% from the previous year, the three leaders in aggregate grew colocation revenues by 28%.

Synergy adds that the colocation market is growing ‘steadily’ across all regions, with APAC being the fastest growing region and China, Hong Kong, and India being the major countries with the highest growth rates.

The figures also take into account the recent consolidation moves in the market. Equinix, the market leader, announced it was to buy 29 data centre buildings from Verizon for $3.6 billion, as well as acquiring the Paris operations of second-placed Digital Reality for $211m in August.

To put the three major players’ lead into perspective, CenturyLink, who announced plans to acquire Level 3 Communications in November, remains in the ‘best of the rest’ category, alongside China Telecom, CyrusOne, DuPont Fabros, Global Switch, KDDI, and Verizon.

Their market share combined rests at just over 15%, while the three leaders have more than a fifth of overall share. Despite being in third place overall, NTT was the fastest grower year on year at a rate of 36%, ahead of Equinix (26%) and Digital Realty (25%).

Synergy argues this is a long-running trend for the industry. “In some senses colocation is following the same path as the cloud with market power gradually being concentrated in the hands of a few focused and deep-pocketed operators,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director at Synergy in a statement. “In both cases the ability to run large data centre operations effectively and efficiently is vital to success and companies that are too diversified or unfocused will struggle.”

Dinsdale added that colocation growth opportunities will be ‘pulled along in the slipstream’ as cloud usage continues to rise; a point this publication made last year, arguing that “paradoxically, colocation is rising in popularity precisely because enterprises want cloud.”

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The top three players in the colocation space – Equinix, Digital Realty and NTT – have grown three times as fast as the overall market over the last four quarters, according to the latest note from Synergy Research.

The research firm, which cast its eye over the overall cloud market earlier this month, found that while the total colocation market grew 9% from the previous year, the three leaders in aggregate grew colocation revenues by 28%.

Synergy adds that the colocation market is growing ‘steadily’ across all regions, with APAC being the fastest growing region and China, Hong Kong, and India being the major countries with the highest growth rates.

The figures also take into account the recent consolidation moves in the market. Equinix, the market leader, announced it was to buy 29 data centre buildings from Verizon for $3.6 billion, as well as acquiring the Paris operations of second-placed Digital Reality for $211m in August.

To put the three major players’ lead into perspective, CenturyLink, who announced plans to acquire Level 3 Communications in November, remains in the ‘best of the rest’ category, alongside China Telecom, CyrusOne, DuPont Fabros, Global Switch, KDDI, and Verizon.

Their market share combined rests at just over 15%, while the three leaders have more than a fifth of overall share. Despite being in third place overall, NTT was the fastest grower year on year at a rate of 36%, ahead of Equinix (26%) and Digital Realty (25%).

Synergy argues this is a long-running trend for the industry. “In some senses colocation is following the same path as the cloud with market power gradually being concentrated in the hands of a few focused and deep-pocketed operators,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director at Synergy in a statement. “In both cases the ability to run large data centre operations effectively and efficiently is vital to success and companies that are too diversified or unfocused will struggle.”

Dinsdale added that colocation growth opportunities will be ‘pulled along in the slipstream’ as cloud usage continues to rise; a point this publication made last year, arguing that “paradoxically, colocation is rising in popularity precisely because enterprises want cloud.”

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Almost half of respondents in a new study from Redgate Software say they have adopted a DevOps approach to their projects – with a further third planning to join them within the next two years.

The study, the firm’s latest State of Database DevOps survey, polled 1,000 companies globally with more than half employing at least 500 people. While 47% polled overall said they are already on the road with DevOps initiatives, this number rises to 59% among companies with more than 10,000 employees.

IT services and retail are the industries most likely to favour DevOps, alongside finance and healthcare, while government, education and non-profit are the laggards, according to the research. Only one in five respondents said they are applying practices such as continuous delivery to their databases and their applications.

The biggest problem businesses looking at initiating DevOps face, according to the study, is a lack of appropriate skills. For those with no intentions to move over right now, the major hurdles remain a lack of awareness of business benefits, as well as not enough budget to spend on new tooling.

Naturally, any move towards DevOps benefits different job roles in various ways. Redgate argues that developers are on board because they want to be freed to do more value-added work, while database admins are more driven by collaborating between development and operations teams, as well as the need to reduce application downtime.

For Redgate, the results are somewhat unsurprising. “We’ve been helping our customers to improve the way they make changes to their databases for over 17 years now,” said Kate Duggan, Redgate product marketing manager. “This survey has highlighted that our customers are facing increasing pressure to speed up the delivery of software, and include the databases in the same processes they use for their applications. It means we can ensure we’re in a good position to help them overcome the particular challenges the database brings.”

You can read the full report here (registration required).