Inclusion in the Microsoft Azure Expert MSP program is awarded to partners that meet a stringent set of requirements, including verified proof of excellence in customer delivery and technical expertise, and the successful completion of an independent audit of their managed services, people, processes, and technologies. Only the most high-fidelity cloud managed services providers are awarded the Azure Expert MSP badge.

Fueled by the successful adoption of the C3 Platform on AWS at more than 30 commercial and public sector organizations, C3 and AWS are increasing their investment in existing customer deployments, joint sales and go-to-market initiatives, a global event series, continuous technology integrations, and training on the joint solution for more than 5,000 sales and delivery professionals.

"Two years ago we embarked on an ambitious digital transformation effort to establish Engie as a leading force in the global energy transition. C3 and AWS provide a proven platform that helped us rapidly address our most strategic AI, big data, and IoT business initiatives, and we are very pleased with our results thus far," said Yves Le Gélard, Group CIO and Chief Digital Officer, Engie.

Together, the integration of Commvault Complete Backup & Recovery Software, which Commvault believes is the industry’s most fully featured and comprehensive backup and recovery solution, with HPE StoreOnce systems, optimizes storage costs, reduces network traffic, provides seamless data mobility and simplifies data management. Additionally, users can move backup data natively, reliably, and cost-effectively to the public, private, or hybrid cloud. This capability is delivered by HPE Cloud Bank Storage, a feature that is scheduled to be supported by an upcoming HPE software release in November of this year.

Aerohive Networks introduced Cloud Configuration Groups, a new and advanced operational micro-segmentation technology, that with just a few clicks enables "on the fly" operational grouping of discrete sets of Aerohive access points, switches, and routers.

The new Cloud Config Groups enhance Aerohive’s already existing and unique network-policy architecture and compliment traditional segmentation technologies (IP, VLAN, ACL, etc.) by enabling an IT administrator to select and structure (operationally micro-segment) any number of discrete Aerohive access points, switches, or routers on a single site, across multiple sites, or across their entire enterprise. Cloud Configuration Groups, with a few clicks, enable an IT administrator to operationally and dynamically segment the access network to align with the needs of the business, instead of struggling to adapt or settling for the limitations of traditional segmentation technologies.

Riverbed announced the latest release of its Digital Experience Management (DEM) solution Riverbed SteelCentral, with advancements that dramatically improve the performance of cloud applications. The new release fundamentally changes performance management for cloud architectures with greater visibility of cloud native apps and into cloud-based networks-through the introduction of new Application Performance Management (APM) and Network Performance Management (NPM) capabilities. Today’s announcement further strengthens the industry’s most comprehensive DEM solution, which unifies device-based end user experience, application, and network monitoring to provide the business with a holistic view to truly measure and manage the digital experience.

Cloud adoption is enabling massive business transformation and tremendous growth for today’s digital business, but it also creates huge visibility gaps and span of control challenges for organizations. While hybrid architectures are a reality for most modern enterprises and cloud is now considered an extension of the enterprise infrastructure, the majority of performance management tools available in the market are incapable of providing unified and user-centric visibility for hybrid cloud environments and the user’s digital experience. In the 2018 State of Cloud Monitoring Survey recently conducted by Riverbed, IT network and cloud business decision makers shared their difficulties with 92% of participants stating they faced challenges with performance management in their cloud environment, and 60% of participants stated that their end users experienced cloud performance issues first before companies knew about them.

CyberArk announced CyberArk Privileged Session Manager for Cloud. Through a transparent user experience, this new offering extends privileged access session isolation, monitoring and control to the most common web applications, cloud and social media platforms. As part of an integrated solution, Privileged Session Manager for Cloud also leverages industry-leading risk scoring capabilities to detect and alert on suspicious privilege-related activity.  

Cloud administrators and privileged business users often have elevated rights to sensitive cloud platforms and web applications, yet this access is not always managed by the IT team. This allows users to operate outside of corporate security, potentially exposing the entire organization to unknown risks. An external attacker or malicious insider who is able to hijack these types of user credentials could shut down cloud environments, execute a total compromise of web applications or DevOps tool consoles, steal sensitive customer data or post inflammatory comments on social media.

"As organizations take advantage of the flexibility of hybrid cloud computing, the agility and speed offered by DevOps methodologies, and leading containerized platforms like Red Hat OpenShift, cross-environment security monitoring is important," said Chris Morgan, director, Technical Marketing, Red Hat Cloud Platforms, Red Hat. "CyberArk Privileged Session Manager for Cloud enables administrators with web-based cloud and DevOps tool consoles to manage and administer these dynamic and powerful environments while providing security teams with more control and monitoring capabilities to help reduce risk."

MeriTalk, a public-private partnership focused on improving the outcomes of government IT, today announced the results of its new report, "Cloud Complexity: Navigating the Network Piece of the Federal Cloud Puzzle." The study, underwritten by Riverbed Technology and Tech Data Government Solutions, surveyed 150 Federal IT decision makers to understand their agency’s cloud migration plans and network modernization efforts.

The study confirmed that 67 percent of government agencies’ legacy network infrastructures are simply not prepared to handle the cloud migration lift or keep pace with the changing demands of cloud and hybrid networks. One of the biggest areas holding agencies back is the chaos and lack of prioritization to properly update networks necessary for cloud adoption and IT modernization efforts, 51 percent of managers reported. Respondents also noted that to reach their cloud goals, agencies need to increase network capacity and speed, reduce complexity, and improve visibility.

RiskSense, Inc., pioneering risk-based vulnerability prioritization and management, today announced its AI-Assisted Pen Testing Service called Attack Surface Validation for Election Systems which provides complete visibility and prioritization of security vulnerabilities that enables any district to remediate problems before the midterms. Immediate findings are delivered through the RiskSense cloud-service and cover the assessment of a district’s entire voting ecosystem, including devices, applications, databases, networks, etc., for vulnerabilities, missing patches, misconfigurations, and more. RiskSense allows resource and security expert-constrained districts to know what to urgently fix, and receive validation that remediation actions were successful.

"I am not a security expert, but I knew it was important to assess the security of the technology and processes used in my district," said the New Mexico Secretary of State. "The priorities and prescriptive actions provided to our IT staff by RiskSense allowed us to prepare and remediate quickly as findings came to light with the specialized attack scenarios. We have the results to share amongst our constituents that our district will not be idle nor let our community be vulnerable to tampering."