Internap Corporation, a provider of high-performance Internet infrastructure services, today announced the expansion of its OpenStack-based bare-metal Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering, AgileSERVER 2.0, to its data centers in Amsterdam, Dallas and Santa Clara, Calif. Launched in 2015 out of Internap’s New York Metro data center in Secaucus, N.J., AgileSERVER 2.0 is now available in four locations globally, enabling enterprises and devops teams running mission-critical applications and big data workloads to build scale-out infrastructure environments that are higher performing and more cost-effective than commodity public cloud platforms.

"OpenStack has become the emerging platform for innovation and digital transformation, and Internap is focused on making this adoption seamless for companies worldwide," said Satish Hemachandran, senior vice president and general manager, cloud and hosting, Internap. "Our next generation of OpenStack-powered AgileCLOUD and AgileSERVER provides IT organizations a way to rapidly deploy a flexible public or private cloud environment using open standards and simplified management tools. This latest expansion of our OpenStack cloud footprint enables our customers to build out high-performance infrastructure environments for their applications on a global scale."

"The path to digital business transformation demands a cloud strategy that addresses the most challenging real-world requirements encountered by enterprise IT departments," said Matt Quinn, executive vice president of products & technology and chief technology officer, TIBCO. "By joining the Cloud Foundry Foundation, we have an opportunity to cooperatively enhance the Cloud Foundry platform, equipping developers with the best tools to swiftly and safely architect the kind of cloud-native applications that grow businesses."

Skyhigh Networks, the leading cloud access security broker (CASB), today announced its Cloud Security Technology Partner Program designed to provide customers with the most advanced cloud security solutions on the market. The Skyhigh CASB delivers unparalleled visibility, compliance, data security, and threat protection capabilities across 17,000+ cloud services. With the Skyhigh Cloud Security Partner Program, enterprises can seamlessly integrate the Skyhigh CASB with their current and planned security investments, thereby ensuring comprehensive and integrated deployments.

According to the Gartner Market Guide for Cloud Access Security Brokers by Craig Lawson, Neil MacDonald, and Brian Lowans, published in October 2015, “CASBs provide a number of critical points of integration with the environment, and these integration points play an important role in preventing enterprise security delivery from becoming yet another silo. CASB integration points cover identity and access management (IAM) integration; reuse of data security policies for the cloud; and event integration with technologies such as security information and event management (SIEM) for a single view of an organization’s security events, plus support for a number of existing security processes such as incident response.”

Grazed from CIO.  Author: Andy Patrizio.

When running down the list of top cloud vendors, the name Verizon doesn’t come up immediately, but the firm is looking to expand its particular brand of cloud services that complement main players like Amazon and Microsoft. It’s also fending off rumors it’s getting out of the cloud business. 

 Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: Pete Johnson.

Grazed from eWeek.  Author: Pedro Hernandez.

Jim Hanna, former sustainability exec for Starbucks, joins Microsoft to help the tech titan float greener clouds.  Jim Hanna has joined Microsoft as the director of data center sustainability, a newly created position.  Hanna previously served as the director of environmental affairs for Starbucks, the Seattle-based coffee chain.

"Over the past decade, he has driven global strategies to address sustainability issues across the company, from the supply chain to energy and water reduction to policy engagements," stated Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist, Rob Bernard, in a blog post. At Microsoft, Hanna will work to minimize the environmental impact of the company’s globe-spanning network of cloud data centers…
 

Grazed from NetworkWorld.  Author: Khalid Raza.

dinCloud, a cloud services provider that helps organizations rapidly migrate to the cloud, today announced that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, named David Graffia, dinCloud’s VP of Sales, to its prestigious list of 2016 Channel Chiefs. The executives on this annual list represent top leaders in the IT channel who excel at driving growth and revenue in their organizations through channel partners.

Channel Chief honorees are selected by CRN’s editorial staff on the basis of their professional achievements, industry standing, dedication to the channel partner community, and strategies for driving future growth and innovation. Each of the 2016 Channel Chiefs has demonstrated loyalty and ongoing support for the IT channel by consistently promoting, defending, and executing outstanding channel partner programs.