Grazed from Data-Economy. Author: Joao Marques Lima.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) has unveiled a wave of new partners and members in one of its largest announcements of the year. The CNCF brings together a community of 1,500 developers and users from a large multitude of companies including Google, Fujitsu, Samsung SDS, Intel, RedHat and Huawei that work on open source technologies to orchestrate containers as part of a microservices architecture.

However, despite the advancements by the organisation and its partners, the industry recognises that there is a lot of confusion around the understanding of technologies and terminologies such as containers and new infrastructure architectures. As the CNCF explains, containers, software-based infrastructure, and microservices represent a major evolution in the way applications are deployed and managed…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

A new survey from machine data analytics provider Sumo Logic has found more than two thirds of enterprises either plan to adopt DevOps or are already doing so, while four in five are currently or plan to use at least one public cloud service. The study, titled ‘The New Normal: Cloud and DevOps Analytics Tools Reign in the Modern App Era’ and put together alongside UBM Technology, found that of the 230 IT operations, app development and information security professionals polled, 67% are utilising software as a service, while 42% are deploying and updating apps more frequently than in the past.

When it came to the types of public cloud service being used, Microsoft Azure (66%) and Amazon Web Services (55%) were the most popular. In another finding that was less than surprising, security was the biggest challenge to cloud adoption, cited by 27% of respondents. Only 6% of those polled thought the security of public cloud was ‘excellent’, albeit with 55% adding public cloud services were more secure than previously…

Read more from the source @ https://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2017/mar/29/two-three-enterprises-least-planning-moving-devops-survey-finds/

Grazed from CleanTechnica. Author: Steve Hanley.

If the human race has any hope of meeting the challenge of climate change, it will need to think its way out of the conundrum it has wrought. People need meaningful work to do. Business owners need profits to stay in business. Commerce takes energy — lots of it — to keep chugging ahead. But work and commerce generate effluent that poisons the land, the air, and the seas. The more successful mankind gets at lifting itself out of ignorance and poverty, the more it sows the seeds of its own destruction.

A few lucky souls can decamp to new colonies on Mars to escape the ravages of climate change, but that won’t help the billions left behind. And what’s to say our species won’t pollute neighboring planets the way it did the earth? Maybe what is needed is more collaboration and more innovation…

Cloud computing is absolutely one of those words that shows up on everyone’s "Tech Buzzword Bingo" cards. Even so, that shouldn’t and doesn’t negate the fact that cloud computing is driving innovation across many industries and will continue to provide a significant impact on revenue in the coming years. 

Recently, hybrid cloud has become the cloud model of choice for many companies looking to foster greater flexibility into their infrastructure, and it can do so in a cost-effective manner. For many, hybrid seems to be a good way to ease into things, allowing a company to keep some data on-premises while freeing up some of their infrastructure by moving other data up into the public cloud.

But like so many things in life, it isn’t all good all the time.  So what’s the good, the bad and the ugly? 

The Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC) has published a new whitepaper, Cloud Customer Architecture for API Management, that describes the architecture elements and capabilities of an effective API Management Platform. The architectural capabilities described in the document can be used to instantiate an API runtime and management environment using private, public or hybrid cloud deployment models. The new reference architecture is available for download here: http://www.cloud-council.org/deliverables/cloud-customer-architecture-for-api-management.htm

An Application Programming Interface or "API" is useful because it exposes a business’ defined assets, data, or services for public consumption. APIs allow companies to open up data and services to external third party developers, business partners, and internal departments within their organization to create innovative channel applications. The reuse of core business assets enables digital transformation. An effective API management Platform will provide a layer of controlled and secure self-service access to the APIs.

Last week at Domopalooza 17, Domo’s annual user conference, Domo announced Mr. Roboto, a new set of capabilities in the Domo platform that leverages machine learning algorithms, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, to power more advanced insights, recommendations and alerts for business decision makers across the enterprise.

As the world’s first advanced intelligence platform to be fully integrated into The Business Cloud, Mr. Roboto is uniquely positioned to provide a more holistic analysis of what’s happening across the business than any other machine learning or predictive engine available.

Domo is the first platform to bring together an organization’s people with massive amounts of business data from across the organization. Mr. Roboto takes advantage of this convergence and will be the first to leverage social patterns happening in The Business Cloud, to deliver deeper insights.

Grazed from SkyKick

SkyKick (www.skykick.com), a global provider of cloud management software for information technology (IT) solution partners, today announced that SkyKick Cloud Backup and SkyKick Migration Suites are now compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. The certifications, which come at no additional cost to existing SkyKick products, provide additional assurance that sensitive customer data is being handled securely around the globe.

"We take data security and privacy very seriously, and our products have always been in line with important regulations. However, the HIPAA and Privacy Shield certifications eliminate the overhead of outside compliance management and provides our partners significant peace of mind," said Brad Younge, SkyKick co-founder and CTO. "The number of SkyKick IT partners managing cloud deployments in healthcare and in Europe has grown tremendously over the past year, and we’re working hard to make it even easier for them to handle sensitive data."

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Janakiram MSV.

The cloud as we know it is going through a massive transformation. What started as an on-demand subscription service for consuming compute, storage, and the network is no more the same. The compute component of the cloud has become table stakes for the vendors in the infrastructure business. Spinning up virtual machines, adding storage, and configuring a network is no more exciting for veteran users. The cloud in its latest avatar is emerging as a data-centric, intelligent platform ready to deal with the next generation of applications and workloads.

At the front and center of this emerging intelligent cloud is Machine Learning (ML), which is undoubtedly the most disruptive technology of this decade. The rise of powerful computing environments based on GPUs and FPGA combined with cheaper but equally powerful storage backed by SSDs made it possible to store and process massive datasets…

Grazed from CrescentVale. Author: Matthew McGuire.

Amazon Web Services have announced today a new customer service known as Amazon Connect. The platform will allow businesses to provide call centers for their customers to interact with one-on-one. Customers engage with products and services on a wide range of different platforms. Amazon Web Services is using their cloud computing technology to enhance the user experience for customers that prefer to speak with customer service representatives over the phone.

Startups and smaller businesses will have more difficulty being able to provide engaging customer support, as well as developing and delivering products. This platform will help companies, even larger companies, provide better customer support…

Read more from the source @ http://crescentvale.com/2017/03/amazon-connect-offers-customer-support-businesses-cloud-computing/