Category Archives: Cloud Services

Cohesity expands partnerships with Cisco and HPE to grow cloud services

Cohesity, a specialist in data security and management, has revealed Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) will each be offering Cohesity Cloud Services (CCS) to bring efficient data security and management to companies operating in today’s modern hybrid and multicloud environments.  Cohesity has benefited from strategic partnerships with Cisco and HPE to help deliver the benefits of… Read more »

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Preparing for the AWS-SA Exam with GreenPages’ Chris Williams

GreenPages Enterprise Consultant and Cloud Architect, Chris Williams, is currently preparing for his AWS-SA professional certification. Check out his 9 article series on the AWS Solutions Architect exam. Start with the intro here: http://mistwire.com/2016/10/aws-certified-solutions-architect-pro-study-notes/

Remaining eight articles here:

http://mistwire.com/2016/10/aws-certified-solutions-architect-pro-study-notes/

http://mistwire.com/2016/10/aws-certified-solutions-architect-pro-study-notes-domain-1/

http://mistwire.com/2016/10/aws-certified-solutions-architect-pro-study-notes-domain-2/

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http://mistwire.com/2016/11/aws-certified-solutions-architect-pro-study-notes-domain-5/

http://mistwire.com/2016/11/aws-certified-solutions-architect-pro-study-notes-domain-6/

http://mistwire.com/2016/11/aws-certified-solutions-architect-pro-study-notes-domain-7/

http://mistwire.com/2016/11/aws-certified-solutions-architect-pro-study-notes-domain-8/

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BT wins £24 million worth of EU cloud service contracts

BT Sevenoaks workstyle buildingTelco BT has won new two cloud service contracts with European Commission worth £24 million, which brings its total of EC contract wins to four in 12 months.

The brief, to provide public and private cloud services across 52 major European institutions, agencies and bodies, is one of the largest government contracts in Europe. Among the clients receiving the cloud computing services are the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Defence Agency.

The two framework contracts, announced this week, were awarded in December 2015, and will run for a maximum of four years once legal details have been finalised. Once work begins BT will implement the contracted private cloud services, after which it will become one of five providers competing to run public cloud projects.

The two new deals are the third and fourth European Commission framework contract wins awarded to BT in 2015, all of which involved open calls for tender from all EC approved suppliers.

In August 2015 BT signed a seven year £11.5 million (€15.2m) framework contract with the European Commission to provide voice services across 21 major European institutions, agencies and bodies. This followed March’s award of a five year £42 million (€55.7m) framework contract for the delivery of dedicated internet access to all major European institutions, agencies and bodies across the 28 member states. BT has provided services to the European Union for more than a decade.

The newly contracted services will be hosted from a geographically diverse spread of data centres within the European Union and all customer data will remain within the Union. As part of the tender process BT had to prove it could meet strict EU requirements for data sovereignty, compliance, security and privacy.

BT will integrate and manage the data centre estate using its Compute Management System (CMS), a single, federated portal for IT services which, BT claims, is its ‘secret sauce’ for winning contracts.

“This is a milestone in our journey to be the leading global cloud services integrator,” said Corrado Sciolla, BT Global Services’ president.

HP launches cloud service catalogue for European Union

HPHP has launched a new ‘one stop’ cloud shop for Europe. The announcement was made by HP Helion VP Xavier Poisson to a gathering of HP’s Cloud28+ partner community in Brussels.

A new catalogue – also called Cloud28+ – will be a centralised cloud services portal for all the systems created by the 110 official members of the community that create or use cloud services in Europe.

HP claims it has made it easier for enterprises to identify and implement the cloud services they need, while complying with local regulations. In addition, the EuroCloud Star Audit (ECSA) program will, it claims, save members from the expense of performing their own individual audits. The rationale is to create a high level of transparency and guidance for customers and service providers, Poisson told delegates.

Lack of knowledge, security concerns and legal uncertainty are the biggest barriers to cloud adoption in Europe, according to a Eurostat survey, quoted by HP. The study, conducted by the EU’s statistical office, asked staff at 151,000 EU companies about their aspirations for using cloud services and their reservations over purchasing processes.

In response, HP has designed an easy and transparent system for matching cloud services to both functional and non-functional criteria, such as security or data privacy regulations, according to Poisson. The system is also designed to provide a need to know briefing on legal and compliance variations across Europe. The Cloud28+ catalogue is to be hosted and secured in Europe.

It’s time for a common framework of quality, costs and security, said Poisson. “This is already creating new opportunities for cloud service providers, greater choice for enterprises, and better access for developers and will play an integral role accelerating organizations’ transformation to hybrid infrastructure.”

IBM Acquires Compose

IBM has recently announced that it has acquired Compose, a startup company that began in 2010, in order to continue expansion of its cloud services. Previously known as MongoHQ, it was the first database as a service which allows application developers to easily deploy and scale data store using with backups, monitoring, performance tuning as well as full suite of management tools.

As said in an announcement, “Today we are excited to announce that Compose is joining IBM. As founders, it was the biggest and most important decision we’ve ever had to make – much more difficult than we ever would have guessed back when we only dreamed of having a successful company. While we are profitable and growing fast, we think now is the right time to team up with a larger company.”

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An IBM spokesperson has relayed that users will not be affected under this deal as Compose will continue business as usual. IBM is always looking for cloud companies to acquire in order to expand its cloud services and compete with companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Derek Schoettle, general manager of IBM Cloud Data Services and former CEO of Cloudant, has commented, “Compose’s breadth of database offerings will expand IBM’s Bluemix platform for the many app developers seeking production-ready databases built on open source. Compose furthers IBM’s commitment to ensuring developers have access to the right tools for the job by offering the broadest set of DBaaS services and the flexibility of hybrid cloud deployment.”

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Reliance Communications Launches CloudX

Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Communications launched a next-generation cloud services delivery network in five cities across the country of India. Reliance Communications has positioned Cloud Xchange, abbreviated Cloud X, nodes in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. They plan to launch 120 more nodes in areas across the world by the end of 2015.

Reliance Group Chairman Anil Dhirubhai Ambani has shared, “We will achieve full deployment of our Next-Generation content and Cloud Delivery Network by the end of this year, with–what is a first in India–five fully-operational Cloud Xchange points. Cloud Xchange nodes can help government departments access 240 times the amount of compute power currently available in government data centers, and over six times the high-speed storage currently available in India.”

This next generation service offers on-demand low-cost cloud services. Users will be able to organize cloud servers and applications and manage lifecycle of these resources online, according to Reliance Communications.

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Reliance Communications and Global Cloud X CEO Bill Barney has stated, “Cloud X is changing the paradigm of cloud computing. The network must now undergo a profound transformation, from a static entity to a dynamic, intelligent, application aware fabric that can support multiple traffic requirements, diverse geographies and flexible pricing models.”

Manoj Menon, Senior Partner & Managing Director of analyst firm Frost & Sullivan, has added, “Cloud computing has already made an impact on the everyday life of many Indians. It is driving business model innovation and helping businesses. Going forward, the impact will be even more pervasive—with innovative solutions around safe cities, smart homes, connected cars and better healthcare.”

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ComputeNext Launches CloudEd

ComputeNext, a Bellevue-based cloud company, has recently announced the launch of its new Channel Training & Education Program, “CloudED.” The new program will serve to aid cloud resellers migrate customers to cloud-based solutions. The program, created by ComputeNext’s director of channel development Dan Moore, provides marketplace-specific video tutorials necessary for channel professionals as well as general cloud certification provided by partner CompTIA, which will be free of charge. The certifications include certificates for data recovery, IT security and unified communications as well as executive certificates in both cloud computing in beginner and advanced levels.

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ComputeBext claims the program “covers basic and advanced rationales for the cloud computing thought process, as well as hands-on tutorial training on the ComputeNext Marketplace itself.” The program was designed to help meet the difficulties of keeping revenues up while transitioning customers from traditional, physical IT to newer cloud services.

Moore also said there is “a huge need for education and training resources that can better equip these organizations to lead cloud conversations, understand the larger market dynamics of cloud computing, and ultimately exude a sense of trustworthiness to their clients. Unfortunately, the plethora of platform & technology vendors respective to cloud services coupled with the barrage of marketing information about ‘going to the cloud’ can be very daunting and confusing as to what your first steps should be.”

The company’s Marketplace is a platform that allows users to edit and manage cloud services from a multitude cloud hosting providers around the world.

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Google Becomes Corporate Sponsor of OpenStack Foundation

Google has become the newest corporate sponsor of the OpenStack Foundation and will provide engineering resources to the project, with their main focus on Linux containers and integrating container management technologies like Kubernetes with projects such as OpenStack Magnum. OpenStack is a free and open-source cloud-computing software platform. Users primarily deploy it as an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). It is used to build infrastructure supporting VMs, bare metal and containers under a single control plane. Users may utilize OpenStack for a multitude of tasks, including the acceleration of software development and the simplification of managing legacy workloads. Google has already collaborated with the OpenStack community on a myriad of projects.

OpenStack-logo

Craig McLuckie, Product Manager at Google, has said “We are excited about becoming active participants in the OpenStack community. We look forward to sharing what we’ve learned and hearing how OpenStack users are thinking about containers and other technologies to support cloud-native apps.” McLuckie will present on container management technologies at OpenStack Silicon Valley.

Mark Collier, COO of the OpenStack Foundation, has also stated, “OpenStack is a platform that frees users to run proven technologies like VMs as well as new technologies like containers. With Google committing unequaled container and container management engineering expertise to our community, the deployment of containers via proven orchestration engines like Kubernetes will accelerate rapidly. OpenStack continues to set itself apart as the single open source cloud platform for the widest diversity of workloads, all supported by one environment with one control plane, one API, one dashboard”

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Salesforce Adds Security Service

Salesforce has recently announced Shield, a set of services that expands the security and compliance tool sets of developers creating apps on the Salesforce1 platform for regulated industries. The service adds auditing, encryption, archiving and monitoring services to Salesforce1 to make it easier for developers to ensure that cloud apps meet the security, compliance and governance requirements of their organization and industry standards. Shield may be explored in a drag-and-drop interface instead of requiring app developers to search through code.

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Tod Nielsen, executive vice president of Salesforce1 Platform, said “[Companies] in regulated industries have struggled to take full advantage of the cloud due to regulatory and compliance constraints. With Salesforce Shield, we are liberating these IT leaders and developers, and empowering them to quickly build the cloud apps their businesses need, with the trust Salesforce is known for.”

Shield will have three main features: Field Audit Trail, Data Archive and Platform Encryption. Field Audit Trail allows developers to monitor data exchanged through their apps to ensure that it is kept up to date and compliant with industry regulations; it may track data changes for up to 10 years. Data may be deleted when no longer needed. Data Archive allows historical data that needs to be kept for a long time to be stored, which helps ensure data is available when needed. Platform Encryption allows developers working on the Salesforce1 platform to encrypt data without affecting the way it is used by other areas of the business so that they do not need specialist hardware or software.

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Microsoft Will Offer Azure In India

BqRtWXEIMAAQYhFMicrosoft will begin to offer its cloud computing service, Azure, for free to startups speeding up the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India.

Microsoft’s Indian subsidiary has said, “Our Azure cloud services, valued at $120,000, will be given free to qualified startups under the ‘BizSpark plus program’ for building the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country.”

Microsoft Ventures India director Rajinish Menon, has stated, “Startups need all the help they can to get access to the right tools, technology and guidance. At Microsoft, we are committed to supporting these startups and through the BizSpark Plus program we want to support India’s upcoming entrepreneurs.”

 

Microsoft also added qualifying startups must be privately held, below five years old with sub one million revenue annually and be a member of select accelerator or venture capital firm.

To begin, Microsoft is partnering thirteen startup accelerators, including 91Springboard, Reliance GenNext, Zone Startups, and Pitney Bowes. 91Springboard partner Pranay Gupta has said, “The BizSpark Plus program is a unique opportunity for startups who want to leverage the power of the Cloud and give a boost to their product development lifecycle.”

Microsoft BizSpark is a worldwide program that aids startups by offering free Microsoft software development tools, connecting startups with key industry players, investors and giving marketing visibility. Microsoft also added that startups will also receive the full suite of development and test software and Visual Studio, Windows and Office tools in this latest offering.

Microsoft currently has one hundred and fifty startup programs in forty seven countries.

 

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