BT has recently been awarded contracts from the European Commission to provide public and private cloud services to a multitude of EU Institutions, including the European Parliament and the European Defense Agency. The contract is worth 24 million Euros and will
rum for 4 years. The services will be hosted on many servers throughout the European Union (EU) and will be managed on BT’s Computer Management System (CMS). Corrado Sciolla, BT’s Global Service President for Europe and global telecom markets commented, This is a milestone in our journey to be the leading global cloud services integrator, and demonstrates how we minimise the complexity, risks and costs for our customers as they move to the cloud.”

These contracts are not the first awarded to BT by the European Commission. The first was created in March 2015. Worth 55.7 million Euros, the contract aimed to provide Internet to EU institutions. The second contract was created in August 2015. This was a framework contract worth 15.2 million Euros and included voice services across more than twenty European Institutions.

ABOUT BT
BT has been delivering services to the European Union for ten years. BT, founded in 1969, is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its headquarters are located in London England and is currently conducting operation in over 159 countries. BT aims to “use the power of communication to make a better world.” It’s main services include networked IT, broadband, and mobile services.

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Markit, a financial information service firm has recently adopted Amazon Web Services (AWS). This adoption is set to optimize efficiency and capabilities of the firm while allowing for better performance of services such as thinkFolio, enterprise data management, and indices. Andrew Eisen, managing director, cloud strategy, enterprise software at Markit, has commented, “By embracing AWS’ services, we are extending our capabilities across divisions. Markit is taking a leadership role in how the financial services industry can leverage the cloud to create a step change in innovation. Our industry faces many dynamic challenges and this new partnership will enable us to be more creative in finding solutions to challenges faced by our customers.”

Scott Mullins, head of worldwide financial services business development, Amazon Web Services, has stated, “Markit’s migration of applications to AWS demonstrates the growing importance of data-driven decision making, increased risk management, accelerated go-to-market speed, and improved automation in financial services. Organizations like Markit benefit from the cloud’s global scale, cost efficiencies, and world-class security—all of which are also enjoyed by their customers.” Many customers are currently utilizing the new managed service.

About Markit

Markit is a global, financial information and services company consisting of upwards of 3,600 employees. Founded in 2003, Markit aims to reduce financial risk while simultaneously increasing efficiency. Its headquarters are located in London and its current CEO is Lance Uggla. In the third quarter of 2015, the company boasted a 5.6% increase in revenue. It also launched “Know Your Third Party” a centralized cloud based data hub that aims to simplify third party risk management processes.

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Ellucian has expanded its relationship  with Amazon Web Services, as many of Ellucian’s higher education solutions are offered on a cloud enabled platform. In the future, Ellucian plans to utilize the Amazon Web Services Cloud to power some of its services, allowing the more than 2,400 colleges and universities Ellucian serves to have access to cloud services. This will increase the both the accessibility of cloud solutions and the efficiency in which these are offered.

Jeff Ray, president and CEO at Ellucian, has commented “Cloud technology is essential to delivering an exciting new modern student experience for our institutions to deliver on student success. We are investing heavily in our strategic collaboration with AWS, a leading cloud infrastructure provider, to deliver a superior user experience for faculty, staff, and more than 18 million students within Ellucian’s growing higher education community.”

The collaboration between the two companies allows colleges and universities to move securely to the cloud at their discretion. Many services, such as Ellucian Mobile and Ellucian Pilot, are cloud ready. Some services like Colleague by Ellucian can be hosted on the Amazon Web Service platform today through a Software as a Service platform (SaaS) by the end of 2016.

Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, has stated: “Institutions across the world will benefit from Ellucian’s cloud-first strategy that combines their higher education product portfolio with the agility, flexibility and scale of the AWS Cloud. This will give educational institutions access to critical data and analytics that influence teaching decisions and enable successful learning outcomes campus-wide.”

The cloud has begun to transform education, healthcare, security; where will it go next?

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Oracle has recently acquired StackEngine, a Texas based startup that creates tools that aid in utilization of Docker containers. All StackEngine employees will work in Oracle’s Public Cloud unit. Terms of the deal were not released.

Docker containers popularity has increased in the past year, and the trends are looking to continue. The addition of Docker containers allows Oracle to compete with cloud giants that support Docker containers like Amazon Web Services.  Docker containers join Oracle’s extensive cloud portfolio, which includes Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Safra Catz, Oracle co-CEO, has stated that SaaS and PaaS grew sixty eight percent this quarter, following a seventy percent growth from the previous quarter. Oracle sales grew approximately thirty percent year to year, to $652 million.

StackEngine describes its Container Application Center as a path for businesses to be able to “transition from the costs and inefficiencies of virtualization to the flexibility, mobility and freedom of containerization.” Many StackEngine employees have previously worked at CopperEgg, an Austin based startup acquired in 2013 by Idera. CopperEgg specialized in keeping track of the efficiency of applications run through the cloud.

Oracle plans to construct a next generation technology campus in Austin, Texas that focuses on cloud computing. The employee base in Austin is expected to grow by fifty percent over a span of a few years. A majority of the jobs at this Austin location will be related to the cloud. Oracle will follow its tradition of hiring young college graduates and those just starting their careers.

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IBM has taken control of AT&T’s managed application and managed hosting services unit, as it plans align AT&T’s assets with its IBM Cloud Portfolio. The aim is to aid customers in network and cloud integration with IT environments. This deal benefits IBM by providing the company with access to equipment and area in the AT&T data centers that support the applications and managed hosting operations that IBM has taken control of.

Philip Guido, IBM general manager of Global Technology Services for North America, has commented, “Today’s announcement represents an expansion of our strategic relationship with AT&T and continuing collaboration to deliver new innovative solutions. Working with AT&T, we will deliver a robust set of IBM Cloud and managed services that can continuously evolve to meet clients’ business objectives.”

This is a huge change for AT&T, which has handled its managed applications and hosting services until this IBM takeover. AT&T will still provide services such as security and mobility. AT&T employees that serve in the sectors adopted by IBM will continue their current jobs at IBM. Financial details were not disclosed by IBM.

Jon Summers, senior vice president of AT&T Mobile and Business Solutions, has stated, “AT&T and IBM have worked together for nearly 20 years. This is a natural expansion of our relationship, and it demonstrates our continued commitment to serve customers based on our respective strengths and capabilities.”

IBM and AT&T have had other relations pertaining to cloud solutions; the two companies announced in October their intent to provide a scalable, mobile cloud solution that protects corporate data and applications.

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On Tuesday, December 8th, IBM announced its acquisition of Clearleap, Inc., a cloud based video service provider.

Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president of IBM Cloud “Clearleap joins IBM at a tipping point in the industry when visual information and visual communication are not just important to consumers, but are exploding across every industry. This comes together for a client when any content can be delivered quickly and economically to any device in the most natural way.”

Clearleap has gained the attention of prominent brands within the media and entertainment industry, such as HBO, BBC, and the NFL. The Clearleap video platform works to provide customers from around the world with a scalable, secure and open cloud-based solution in video asset management and multi-screen video processing.

Clearleap comes with open API framework which allows business to make their videos into applications. This open framework gives users access to third-party applications.
Clearleap video services provides 24/7 assistance and technical support. IBM intends to offer the Clearleap API’s on its Bluemix. This will aid in the efficiency of the video offering process.

Clearleap, centered in Georgia, has numerous centers around the world in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

The price for which IBM purchased Clearleap was not disclosed.

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Recently, Presidio, a managed service provider, has bought Sequoia Worldwide, a consulting, integration, and devices firm, for an undisclosed amount.

Sequoia specializes in private and hybrid cloud implementations, so it will operate as the Cloud Business Unit under Sequoia Cloud Solutions, a Presidio company. Presidio will use Sequoia’s expertise to expand its cloud computing sector.

Bob Cagnazzi, CEO of Presidio, commented in a statement: “The acquisition of Sequoia continues our leadership in advising, architecting and implementing solutions that enable our customers to derive maximum value from their cloud investments. Sequoia’s cloud expertise enhances Presidio’s capability to advise customers on the optimal way to leverage both private and public cloud resources to develop the optimal hybrid model that will deliver scalable, secure, high performing service delivery models for our clients.”

While Presidio said it will utilize Sequoia’s experience with cloud technologies from companies such as Cisco, Microsoft, and OpenStack, it all stated it will utilize Sequoia’s knowledge of cloud management and brokerage technology to help customers manage public cloud services.

Presidio is not the only one benefiting from this deal; Sequoia will have access to resource through Presidio. The symbiotic relationship between the two companies allows them to establish an innovative cloud solutions practice and catalyze cloud adoption. Steve Hanney, co-founder and managing partner of Sequoia, has said, “We are very excited about the opportunity to be part of Presidio. The addition of Sequoia will help Presidio drive innovation and improve business outcomes of its customers and business partners through innovative cloud services that accelerate time to market and create a competitive advantage.”

About Presidio

Presidio aims to provide an individualized cloud for different business models. It utilizes hybrid cloud services to accelerate the business benefits available through the cloud. Presidio’s partners include VMWare, Cisco, and EMC.

About Sequoia

Established in 1972, Sequoia has established an extensive cloud portfolio, making it extremely valuable to a company such as Presidio. According to the company website, it has partnered with the founders of companies that now have an aggregate, public market value of over $1.4 trillion since 1972.

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Cloud Sherpas, an Atlanta based global technology service provider, has recently been purchased by Accenture. Cloud Sherpas provides cloud based services to companies that wish to both manage their customer relations and make their IT processes more efficient. Since its origination in 2008, Cloud Sherpas has seen rapid growth, with its current 1,100 employees across the world in countries such as Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Accenture bought Cloud Sherpas so that it could strengthen the company and become a leading provider of cloud based services to clients that want cloud based solutions. The purchase allows for the combination of each companies skill set: Accenture’s powerful cloud strategy and technology consulting and Cloud Sherpas’ cloud implementation, integration, and management services.

Cloud Sherpas’ employees will join the newly developed Accenture Cloud First Applications sector. This new team will continue to provide Sherpas’ cloud services to companies such as Google, NetSuite, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and  Workday. Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s Chief Technology Officer has commented: “The addition of Cloud Sherpas to the Accenture Cloud First Applications team reinforces our position as a leading global provider of enterprise cloud services. We welcome the extremely talented Cloud Sherpas specialists to Accenture, where together we are even better positioned to help clients move their businesses to the cloud and achieve significant business results faster than ever before.”

Details pertaining to the amount paid for Cloud Sherpas were not disclosed.

About Accenture:

Accenture plc is a multinational management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing company. Founded in 1989, Accenture focuses on making investments in areas such as training, acquisitions, emerging technology, and offerings and assets.  Its headquarters are currently located in Chicago.

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SUSE has recently announced Datalounges., an enterprise cloud service provider that utilizes SUSE OpenStack Cloud to provide a cloud service environment for companies of a myriad  of sizes. SUSE OpenStack Cloud is Datalounges platform for delivering enterprise cloud services as well as support services.  Kai Kankaala, board adviser, Sales, at Datalounges, stated,” SUSE OpenStack Cloud gives our customers the power to do anything they want. We are seeing rapid growth in customers building their own revenue-generating services on our platform. They focus on their business opportunity, and we provide the robust cloud service that underpins it.”

Because Datalounges has focused on fully supported infrastructures instead of individual servers, the company has grown rapidly.  Customers have the power to choose anything from a self-managed to a fully managed solution. SUSE Manager is being utilized to give customers end-to-end coverage for the fully managed  environment. Datalounges is currently in the process of developing its own tool based on OpenStack Ceilometer for managing and automating virtual infrastructure.

Kankaala later commented, “SUSE OpenStack Cloud has been our cloud services platform from day one. We also tested pure OpenStack and the Red Hat variant. The SUSE option was superior in terms of pricing, the enterprise-level support and built-in automation features. We want to be the best OpenStack cloud computing service provider in Finland. That’s why we partnered with SUSE.”

Mark Smith, senior marketing manager of cloud solutions at SUSE, has commented, “Datalounges’ success with SUSE OpenStack Cloud is a clear example of OpenStack’s maturation as the leading open source solution for private cloud. Many businesses are seeking greater agility, speed and flexibility to create new, innovative projects to fuel business growth. That’s where SUSE OpenStack Cloud ties in, providing customers with a pain-free private cloud experience with built-in high-availability in a production-ready solution.”

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