Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Rick Delgado.

Cloud services have been able to store customers’ data for many years now, but the number of prospective clients for several vendors has recently dramatically increased. Back in late June, the announcement was made that three vendors had received special certifications from the federal government, allowing them to store sensitive data that the government had on hand.

Two of those providers are among the most popular within the cloud market, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, while the third is CSRA’s ARC-P IaaS, a vendor that might not be as universally known as the others but still carries enough weight for those in the know. The news was certainly noteworthy for those providers, but it also has tremendous implications for federal agencies as well as the cloud market as a whole…

Grazed from Fortune. Author: Barb Darrow.

Datapipe, which over the past three years has been busy snapping up cloud computing properties, is at it again: This time out, it is buying Adapt, a U.K.-based company that helps customers run Amazon Web Services. Terms were not disclosed. Adapt is what is called a “managed services provider,” or MSP, which means it offers an array of technology services in a way that is theoretically easy for the business customer to use.

An MSP is often thought of as a sort of outsourced IT professional. It might run the customer’s email and provide related security and other services, for example in a way so the customer does not have to sweat the details of upgrades and patches etc. The Adapt deal comes about a year after Datapipe bought DualSpark, a company founded by former Amazon AMZN 0.08% personnel to make it easier to move business applications from internal equipment to the AWS cloud, which is a massive array of servers, storage, and networking owned and managed by AWS…

Read more from the source @ http://fortune.com/2016/08/17/datapipe-buys-adapt/

Grazed from CXOToday. Author: Muqbil Ahmar.

On June 28, Internet services major Amazon launched its first set of data centers in India, saying that it is spending ‘tens of millions of dollars’ to set up data centers in the country. “The data center will help accelerate growth,” said Shane Owenby, managing director-APAC, AWS in an interview. In India, Microsoft by now has three data centers, IBM has two, whereas many others such as Japan’s NTT also have big data center operations in the country. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group too is reportedly planning to announce its India entry with a data center.

India is not unique to this as these days the Asia-pacific region has become a favourite destination for setting up of data centers. According to APAC Reach, a marketing and research company focused on assisting expansion throughout the Asia Pacific region, has reported a marked increase in European clients interested in data center investments in the area following the UK Brexit referendum…

Grazed from HostReview. Author: Brooke Chaplan.

Although the healthcare industry was initially slow to move its data and services to the cloud, more than 40% of healthcare companies and providers reported that they are using the cloud in 2016. The move to the cloud is due to enhanced security, cost-effectiveness, and the increased availability of services that enhance efficiency and patient safety.

Patient Registries

Patient registries are maintained by healthcare providers for many reasons, including follow-up and tracking of procedures. Because patient registries include confidential information such as the patient’s social security number, date of birth, and health conditions, security is essential. Cloud security has changed for the better so that healthcare providers can trust that patient confidentiality is maintained in the databases stored in the cloud…

Flux7, an IT consultancy providing cloud architecture and migration services and solutions to help businesses modernize their IT practices, today announced its new Microservices SmartStart architecture offering. Built on its award winning Assess, Attune, Engage methodology, the new Microservices SmartStart helps organizations increase developer efficiency and efficacy, speed time to market, and grow customer satisfaction with applications that provide a better customer experience.

“Microservices are a natural next step for many organizations as they look to further evolve IT efficiencies for business advantage,” said Flux7 co-founder and CEO, Aater Suleman. “With years of experience and deep expertise assessing, architecting and building AWS solutions that directly address business needs, we are excited to bring a custom microservices offering to our clients, enabling them to quickly achieve the benefits of microservices infrastructure and compete more effectively in the marketplace.”

Grazed from Clutch.

Cloud hosting is an overwhelmingly popular option among small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), as shown by a new survey from Clutch, one of the leading B2B ratings and reviews sites. Nearly 95% of SMBs say they either already use a cloud hosting service or plan to transition to it.

According to industry analysts, the Clutch survey findings are indicative of a necessary trend, who suggest the transition to cloud hosting services is a good strategic move for SMBs.

"I don’t think you can truly move forward within a company without using cloud in some way, whether that’s by buying software as a service from somebody or creating your own cloud infrastructure for your business," said Rachel Bair, Director of Hosting and Client Services at Unleashed Technologies, a web development and hosting service. "To stay competitive in your own vertical, cloud hosting will be the way to go."

As a Microsoft Gold Partner with deep expertise in virtualization technology, Hostway recently launched its Hybrid Cloud offering, giving organizations a choice of Azure-consistent environments backed by proven Hostway managed support, including:

According to a recent study by GetApp, a Gartner company, 90 percent of small business owners and managers place importance on the availability of a mobile app in order to use software on the go. Additionally, a new global study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) revealed that organizations leveraging a mobile-first strategy saw a 16 percent boost in productivity with 49 percent of survey respondents citing the importance of being able to work anytime, anywhere as the single biggest impact on their productivity. 

NeuVector’s Container Security Solution – Join Beta Program

There are many benefits of containers which are driving the popularity of container platforms like Docker.

It is easy to forget that container deployments are fairly new and the threats unknown. Like virtualization did, containers will bring a new set of risks, threats, and vulnerabilities to be assessed and mitigated.

At NeuVector we’re developing a run-time container security solution which protects running containers where and when they are most at risk – at run-time. In a nutshell, without giving away too many secrets, NeuVector will: