VMware and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a strategic partnership to build and deliver a seamlessly integrated hybrid cloud offering that will give customers the full software-defined data center (SDDC) experience.  This alliance brings together two leaders in Enterprise IT, VMware as the leader in the private cloud market with vSphere on-premises, combined with Amazon AWS, the leader in the public cloud.  Together, the pair will allow customers to deliver a vSphere-based cloud service running on AWS, a service that will make it easier for customers to run any application, using a set of familiar software and tools, in a consistent hybrid cloud environment.

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Editorial Staff.

Google has announced a ‘major refresh’ of its cloud storage options, including Coldline, a new storage class aimed at long-term archival and disaster recovery. The revamped storage classes are multi-regional, for highest availability of frequently accessed data, such as video and business continuity, regional, for data accessed frequently within a region such as data analytics and general compute, Nearline, for infrequent access, and Coldline.

“Whether a business needs to store and stream multimedia to their users, store data for machine learning and analytics or restore a critical archive without waiting for hours or days, Cloud Storage now offers a broad range of storage options to meet those needs,” wrote Kirill Tropin, product manager in a blog post…

Read more from the source @ http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2016/oct/20/google-announces-low-latency-cold-storage-coldline-major-refresh/

Grazed from HostReview. Author: Kevin Castle.

The CEO hears it incessantly from his/her CIO in their weekly C-suite board meeting: “We need to get competitive and create a strategic architecture around our cloud computing technology.” Then, the landslide of questions begins: Public or private cloud adoption? A hybrid? Cloud migration? And what to do about effective integration?

These and related questions are increasingly becoming a challenge for not just the IT executive, but the corporate chief is finding himself or herself intimately involved in making decisions about the company’s technology direction. According to a Forbes piece: “Close to two-thirds (62 percent) of 500 mid-market executives say their company’s C-suite leaders have ‘some’ level of involvement in the adoption of next generation technologies.”…

Grazed from BizJournals. Author: Will Anderson.

Michael Dell took the stage Wednesday to reassure customers that a massive company like Dell Technologies Inc. is best equipped to manage the technological shifts roiling the industry. With cutting-edge developments in virtual reality, cloud computing, data analysis and artificial intelligence seemingly occurring by the week, Dell Technologies can provide the hardware and software to power all those advancements, he said during the opening keynote for Dell EMC World at Austin Convention Center.

It was the first Dell users conference since the Round Rock-based company completed its historic $58 billion acquisition of Boston-based EMC Corp. in September. Since then, the company has initiated layoffs to cut redundant positions in the huge, 140,000-employee company with a combined revenue of $74 billion. It has also raised cash through shedding divisions, such as the sale of its enterprise content business to Canada-based Open Text Corp. for $1.6 billion…

Read more from the source @ http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2016/10/19/michael-dell-size-experience-will-matter-as-tech.html

Grazed from Business Insider. Author: Julie Bort.

Snap, the company that makes the popular app Snapchat, just hired away Jerry Hunter from Amazon Web Services, Snap has confirmed to Business Insider. At Amazon he was responsible for Amazon’s data centers globally. At Snap he will be the VP of engineering, reporting to Snap engineering chief Tim Sehn, reports The Information’s Tom Dotan, who first reported the news.

Before Amazon, Hunter was running global data centers for another huge tech company. He was the VP of IT for Sun Microsystems which, before it got bought by Oracle, was also a pioneer in cloud computing (although the world didn’t call it that back in the day). The interesting thing about hiring a data center expert is that Snap doesn’t run it’s own data centers. It is, instead, a marque customer for Google’s cloud, its App Engine service…

Read more from the source @ http://www.businessinsider.com/snap-jerry-hunter-amazon-data-centers-2016-10

Grazed from CIO. Author: Paddy Padmanabhan.

The new guidelines recognize the growing importance of cloud computing in healthcare and are the right step in the bringing cloud service providers into the broader discussion on healthcare data security. But covered entities and BAs have to unpack the guidelines and address certain gaps. The cloud services market is growing exponentially, and research firm Gartner estimates the market for cloud services to be over $200 billion.

The healthcare sector has been getting on board as well, for enterprise IT workloads as well as cloud-based technology solutions. It’s no surprise that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released a set of guidelines for cloud service providers (CSP), clarifying their role as business associates (BA) in the context of HIPAA and healthcare data…

Grazed from Fortune. Author: Barb Darrow.

You’ve got to give UBS analyst Steven Milunovich major props. During IBM’s earnings call on Monday, he asked whether IBM Watson, the company’s golden child, will run on rival Amazon Web Services—and he was promptly shot down. “No. Watson runs on our cloud, and our technology will run on IBM’s cloud,” IBM chief financial officer Martin Schroeter responded tersely.

Milunovich’s question wasn’t stupid. Just last week, VMware VMW -0.15% , another big Amazon AMZN -0.18% rival, said that its bread-and-butter VMware software will run on AWS, starting next year. Indeed, it seems that most of the world’s most important business software including SAP’s SAP 1.85% HANA databases as well as databases from Oracle ORCL -0.31% and Microsoft MSFT -0.35% , run on AWS…

Grazed from GeekWire. Author: Dan Richman.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a cloud, server and storage company that split from Hewlett Packard in late 2015, laid off an undisclosed number of employees today in North America. HPE spokeswoman Meghan Fintland acknowledged in an email that “previously announced restructuring changes took place today,” including “workforce changes that are part of a company-wide strategy to give HPE the needed workforce to be a more nimble customer and partner-centric company.”

A source with knowledge of the situation speculated this morning that the Seattle offices might be closed. But Fintland said that “HPE will not be shutting its Seattle offices” and didn’t respond immediately to a request for more details on the layoffs. Several HPE employees posted about the layoffs today on Twitter. Here’s a tweet from Vicky Brasseur, a senior engineering manager for HPE based out of Portland:…

Read more from the source @ http://www.geekwire.com/2016/struggling-keep-pace-cloud-hewlett-packard-enterprise-cuts-staff/

Grazed from FCW. Author: Bill Aubin.

We’re in an intense era of digital transformation in which every industry is experiencing a shift. And out of this shift we’ve seen the rise of a new digital economy. Some consider that economy — driven by the arrival of new computer technology and a generation of people dedicated to innovation — to be the next Industrial Revolution.

The proof is everywhere: the prevalence of sharing services such as Uber and Postmates, automated business solutions, chatbots and more. Government agencies are under increasing pressure to adapt to the new economy while also facing the challenge of being a growing target for cyberattacks…

Grazed from JDSupra. Author: Editorial Staff.

On October 7, 2016, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”), released a guidance document (the “Guidance”) on the HIPAA-compliant use of cloud computing technologies. The Guidance includes “frequently asked” questions and answers for covered entities and business associates who use cloud products and services.

The Guidance focuses on cloud computing services provided by third-party cloud services providers (“CSPs”). The Guidance notes that “CSPs generally offer online access to shared computing resources with varying levels of functionality depending on users’ requirements.” …