VeloCloud enables enterprise-grade performance, security and reliability to both enterprise and cloud applications as part of the MetTel managed SD-WAN and bonded Internet solution. VeloCloud Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN runs as an overlay over Internet and Hybrid links while simplifying deployments and reducing costs.

The solution is part of the Oracle Communications intelligent orchestration framework, which helps guide CSPs in their adoption of Network Function Virtualization technology and helps them maximize its benefits. The framework gathers and analyzes network performance information, evaluates the network’s operation against predefined policies and business rules, and can trigger the appropriate action to automatically modify the behavior of services, network functions, and virtualized infrastructure — in a closed loop manner.

Grazed from ChannelPartners.  Author: James Anderson.

Two cloud companies that do business in the channel have brought on new personnel.  CloudPassage, the cloud security provider, added a vice president of channel sales, Tim Colby, and a vice president of federal sales, Dan Brigati.  Colby most recently led worldwide channel sales at Infoblox. He said CloudPassage’s security platform address a major need in the IT space.

Grazed from InfoQ.  Author: Kent Weare.

Microsoft is approaching the cloud as a model and not something that is tied to a specific location.  For customers who are not ready for public cloud, Microsoft is trying to bring cloud based capabilities to local data centers that allow customers to develop and deploy IT services in a symmetric way to that of Azure.

In response to customer demand, Microsoft has been working on a private cloud solution called Azure Stack that shares much of the same computing fabric that exists in Azure. InfoQ previously covered the January 26th release of Azure Stack Technical Preview 1.  As a result, this article will focus on what has changed since then.  Following their Technical Preview 1 release of Azure Stack, Microsoft has launched Azure PaaS Services and DevOps tools, in preview, for Azure Stack…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

While the vast majority of organisations hope for 99.9% uptime throughout the year, 57% of companies polled by CloudEndure say they had at least one outage in the past three months. The survey, which quizzed 141 IT global IT professionals, found organisations are, in general, gaining confidence in cloud disaster recovery (DR) solutions. This is noticed in the key risks to system availability.

The number one risk remains human error, followed by network failures and application bugs. Downtime of cloud providers fell from the third highest risk last year to #6 in 2016. CloudEndure found the key challenges in meeting availability goals were insufficient IT resources, followed by budget limitations and a lack of in-house expertise…

Grazed from BDLive. Author: Jack Nicas.

While the increasing use of encryption helps smartphone users protect their data, another sometime-related technology, cloud computing, can undermine those protections. The reason: encryption can keep certain smartphone data outside the reach of law enforcement. But once the data is uploaded to companies’ computers connected to the internet — referred to as "the cloud" — it may be available to authorities with court orders.

Major cloud-computing suppliers, including smartphone providers such as Alphabet ’s Google, Microsoft and Apple, routinely comply with court orders and search warrants to turn over data that in many cases would have been harder for law enforcement to obtain had users kept it solely on their devices…

Grazed from Economist. Author: Editorial Staff.

THE future is already arriving, it is just a question of knowing where to look. On Changshou Road in Shanghai, eagle eyes may spot an odd rectangular object on top of an office block: it is a collection of 128 miniature antennae. Pedestrians in Manhattan can catch a glimpse of apparatus that looks like a video camera on a stand, but jerks around and has a strange, hornlike protrusion where the lens should be. It blasts a narrow beam of radio waves at buildings so they can bounce their way to the receiver. The campus of the University of Surrey in Guildford, England, is dotted with 44 antennae, which form virtual wireless cells that follow a device around.

These antennae are vanguards of a new generation of wireless technologies. Although the previous batch, collectively called “fourth generation”, or 4G, is still being rolled out in many countries, the telecoms industry has already started working on the next, 5G. On February 12th AT&T, America’s second-largest mobile operator, said it would begin testing whether prototype 5G circuitry works indoors, following similar news in September from Verizon, the number one…

"In 2015 there was a proliferation of data breaches and inadvertent exposures, affecting organizations across every vertical," said Manolo Gonzalez, Head of Alliance Partner Ecosystem at CloudLock. "We couldn’t be more thrilled to join forces with such a highly-respected authority on cyberthreats to address these emerging risks. We look forward to enhancing the impact of our collective cybersecurity expertise for our customers across the globe and expanding our relationship with FireEye in the areas of malware prevention and threat intelligence."

"Being able to deliver a consistent, secure and reliable computing experience across any device at any time is a service promise few channel partners have been able deliver on until now," said Scott Markley, senior vice president of sales, itopia. "Our new user friendly Cielo Suite gives channel partners the flexibility and control to move their clients’ on premises applications, infrastructure and workspaces to whatever cloud infrastructure they choose — whether it’s public, private or a combination of the two. Tailor-made for service providers, the Cielo Suite is the only true end-to-end WaaS solution on the market." 

Grazed from BNA. Author: Dennis Garcia.

All law firms continue to face a highly competitive marketplace for legal services. Embracing leading technology like cloud computing provides law firms with opportunities to differentiate their firms and better serve their clients as the cloud can help law firms save money, be more collaborative, increase productivity, and enhance the security of client information – assuming a law firm is working with a trusted cloud provider.

However, since cloud solutions can involve entrusting sensitive client data with a third-party cloud provider, concerns may arise regarding the legal ethics associated with a lawyer’s use of the cloud. Fortunately, a growing number of US state legal ethics organizations – more than twenty in total and the latest being Tennessee from last September – have rendered opinions generally clarifying that lawyers can ethically use cloud solutions (or similar technology) so long as they exercise “reasonable care” in protecting their client’s information…