Grazed from TelecomPaper. Author: Editorial Staff.

The European Commission has presented its first plans for digitising industry, as part of the Digital Single Market project. The first initiative to start this year is the creation of a European cloud platform for the scientific community, aimed at sharing research data and making the EU a world leader in high performance computing.

In 2016, a European Open Science Cloud will be set up for European researchers and their global scientific collaborators by integrating and consolidating e-infrastructure platforms, federating existing scientific clouds and research infrastructures, and supporting the development of cloud-based services. Next year, all scientific data produced by projects under the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and development programme will be made available by default on the cloud platform, to ensure that the scientific community can re-use the enormous amount of data they generate…

Grazed from BelfastTelegraph. Author: Colin Hamill.

Over the past couple of years, the cloud market has matured. On-demand applications and services have been adopted by businesses, and that rate of adoption is set to grow exponentially over the next few years. Companies in Northern Ireland have developed a new understanding of what the cloud is, in terms of how it can fit with their business and objectives, as well as the benefits it can bring – from cost savings and the ability to scale at speed as required, through to access to the latest applications, without the capital outlay for hardware and software, and ongoing management.

But while the concept of the cloud is simple, experience teaches us that nothing in life – especially in IT – is ever that simple. A tangle of different cloud services can tie up a business’s network resources, frustrate employees and pose potential risks. A better answer is to wrap all your multiple clouds into one single cloud that you can manage and maximise. It’s an approach that BT calls the ‘Cloud of Clouds’…

Grazed from FederalNewsRadio. Author: Jason Miller.

Ever since the Office of Management and Budget’s cloud-first mandate in 2011, there’s been a gold rush of sorts. Like the 49ers of yesteryear, agencies and vendors alike saw the potential in this sparkling new, game-changing substance. But after that initial rush, agency chief information officers and cloud service providers saw there was a lot more work to strike it rich with the cloud than just a few apps like email or storage.

Now five years later, the cloud is everywhere. As of September 2014, the last time the GAO reported on cloud usage across government, agencies said they were using 101 instances of cloud and spending rising to more than $529 million. In 2016, the number of cloud instances and the amount of money spent on platform, infrastructure and software-as-a-service undoubtedly is ever-increasing…

Grazed from SBS. Author: Editorial Staff.

Telstra has bolstered its cloud computing offering, aimed at helping businesses navigate software online more easily. The teleco on Tuesday launched Cloud Gateway, targeted at businesses that need to "simply and securely connect to multiple cloud environments". It says Cloud Gateway, which will be available from June, will provide private and secure connectivity directly into multiple public cloud platforms.

The telco has also added Amazon Web Services to its cloud product offering. Cloud computing has turned into big business for tech companies, including US-heavyweights IBM and Microsoft and Germany’s SAP. "Telstra is very well positioned to help customers with hybrid and multi-cloud strategies, as we bring the cloud and the network together," said Philip Jones, Telstra’s executive director of global products and solutions.

Read more from the source @ http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/04/19/telstra-beefs-cloud-computing-offering

Grazed from NYTimes. Author: Steve Lohr.

IBM delivered a quarterly performance that shows the steady headway it is making in new businesses led by cloud computing and data-analysis software, like its Watson artificial intelligence technology. But the company’s transformation remains very much a work in progress. The erosion of some of its hardware and software products continues to be a drag on growth and profits, overshadowing the gains in the new fields.

IBM on Monday reported a 21 percent decline in net profit from continuing operations, to $2.3 billion in the first quarter that ended March 31. Its operating earnings per share fell 19 percent, to $2.35 a share, though that was above the average estimate of Wall Street analysts of $2.09 a share, as complied by Thomson Reuters…

Grazed from TechNewsPlus.  Author: 

The world’s top domain name and web hosting company GoDaddy revealed in a latest regulatory filing that its CTO and its cloud computing group vice president Elissa Murphy has resigned with effect from May 17. She is going to join Google.  The CEO Blake Irving of GoDaddy has said in a statement:

Grazed from AlbaWaba.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Ericsson was awarded the “Best Cloud Computing Solution” at the Cloud MENA Awards 2016, held at The Conrad Dubai on April 11, 2016.  Rafiah Ibrahim, Head of Ericsson Region Middle East and Africa, says: “Ericsson sees cloud, along with broadband and mobility, as a key enabler of the Networked Society. With our cloud capabilities, we are supporting our customers in transforming their operational environments which will result in a more lasting business value, speed and improved governance. We are proud to have received this award recognizing our innovation and highlighting our role as a true partner to our customers in the ICT industry.”

Ericsson Cloud Manager enables operators and enterprises to automatically change the makeup of the mobile network to conform to the more dynamic lifecycle and transient nature of newer services. It extends the virtual infrastructure of the cloud beyond the typical compute, storage and application resources to include network resources….

Grazed from Economist.  Author: Editorial Staff.

The Economist Group is using Rackspace’s managed cloud services and its Fanatical Support to satisfy its mission-critical requirements — almost 100% uptime and to address their PCI compliance requirements for the hosted infrastructure.  This means that The Economist Group’s customers can always access the group’s sites, and safely.

ATTN: VMware administrators.  Do you have plans this afternoon?  What about this weekend? 

"Patch now!" is the word coming down from the VMware mothership after the company revealed a new security flaw (VMSA-2016-0004) this week in the VMware Client Integration Plug-in that if exploited by an attacker could lead to a man-in-the-middle attack.

Rackspace has achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) DevOps Competency within the AWS Partner Competency Program, which recognizes members of the AWS Partner Network who have completed a rigorous third-party audit demonstrating their expertise in DevOps practices, tools, and proven customer success. Customers can access this expertise and 24×7 operational support through Fanatical Support for AWS architects and engineers, who collectively hold over 270 AWS Professional and Associate certifications across the globe.