Grazed from GameSpot.  Author: Eddie Makuch.

Microsoft will not keep outside developers from using its Azure cloud-based technology, not even developers of exclusive games for other platforms, Xbox gaming boss Phil Spencer says.  Writing on Twitter (via DualShockers), a fan asked Spencer about Titanfall 2 and how they would "hate to see the franchise lose out on Azure Cloud computing and servers."

Grazed from VirtualStrategyMagazine.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Skyhigh Networks, the Cloud Security and Enablement Company, announced the Skyhigh Cloud Security Manager has been recognized as both an Excellence Award and Trust Award finalist in the Best Cloud Computing Security Solution and Best Enterprise Security Solution categories, respectively, for the 2016 SC Awards.

Finalists for the Excellence Awards are recognized for outstanding leadership and for providing superior security products to the information security industry. Finalists for the Trust Awards are chosen by a distinguished group of leading IT security professionals from the SC Magazine readership and selected by the SC editorial team. Winners will be announced at the SC Awards 2016 ceremony to be held March 1, 2016 in San Francisco…

Grazed from Barron’s.  Author: Alexander Eule.

Five months had passed since Steve Ballmer announced his retirement in August 2013, and Microsoft was still searching for a CEO to replace him. Investors cheered the idea of new management, but some had begun to wonder if the long wait was another sign of failure for the struggling behemoth. In recent years, Windows had become a reason to stay away from PCs, not buy them. To make matters worse, Microsoft had missed the mobile revolution driven by Apple and Google.

 Grazed from UnicomGov.  Author:  Editorial Staff.

Grazed from DeccanHerald.  Author: N V Vijayakumar.

Huawei Enterprise, part of Chinese networking and telecommunications equipment and services company Huawei Technologies, reinforced its cloud and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategies to make deep impact in the market.  In an interaction with Deccan Herald, Huawei Enterprise India President Daniel Jiang said, besides partnering with the government initiatives like Digital India and Smart City projects, the company finds opportunities in cloud and BYOD spaces too.

Grazed from EINPressWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Carbon Sciences Inc. (OTC PINK: CABN), focused on developing breakthrough technologies based on graphene, the new miracle material, today announced that it recently entered into an agreement with the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) to fund the research and development of a new graphene-based optical modulator, a critical fiber optics component needed to help unclog the existing bottlenecks and enable ultrafast communication in data centers for Cloud computing.

Fiber optics technology is the backbone of the Internet. With the observed and predicted explosive growth of Internet data — as a result of Cloud-based services such as Netflix, Facebook, Google and many more — the fundamental speed limits of current state-of-the-art fiber optic materials are being challenged…

Grazed from StorageReview. Author: Editorial Staff.

Today Druva announced that it was the first company to provide Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) enabled endpoint data protection in the Amazon Web Service (AWS) GovCloud. This will be ideal for government agencies and contractors that must adhere to the FIPS 140-2 encryption standard but that want to run their applications in the cloud.

The Cloud First policy mandates that “agencies take full advantage of cloud computing benefits to maximize capacity utilization, improve IT flexibility and responsiveness, and minimize cost.” FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) includes publicly announced security standards developed by the US federal government for computer systems used by non-military government agencies and government contractors…

North Bridge, a seed-to-growth venture capital firm, in partnership with research analyst firm Wikibon, announced the results of the fifth annual Future of Cloud Computing Survey, which investigates trends in corporate cloud use on a yearly basis. The broadest and deepest exploration of cloud trends in the industry, this year’s survey reflects perspective from vendors and users spanning senior executives to practitioners across all industry sectors.

“Cloud has been gaining momentum year-over-year since the Future of Cloud Computing survey was launched five years ago. Looking at the adoption rates and trends at such a detailed level, it’s undeniable that the most successful technology leaders of today and tomorrow are scaling in the cloud,” said Jim Moran, General Partner at North Bridge. “Last year, we discussed the second cloud front and the rise of “cloud-native” companies. This year, we’re seeing the pervasiveness of cloud disrupt industries across the board as companies look to maximize and implement cloud as a strategic and integral technology. We’re also seeing the emergence of the cloud as the only way businesses can truly get more out of their data including analyzing and executing on it real-time. This will be a huge opportunity, but as the survey showed, because data rarely moves between clouds (Public/Private) companies must first learn how to interconnect disparate data sources into new applications.”

Racemi, a provider of automated server migration software, announces availability of updated DynaCenter software with performance improvements that speed Linux and Windows server migrations as much as 30 percent, while increasing reliability and delivering more flexibility.

This latest release of DynaCenter software comes with:

• near real-time change detection that dramatically reduce the time required to synchronize data during Windows migrations, particularly important when replicating changes on large databases or other workloads with lots of updates;
• automated migration pre-checks that identify potential configuration issues on source servers prior to capture, which includes checks on server connectivity, available memory and disk space, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and Volume Snapshot Service (VSS) integrity, and more;
• a new High Integrity Capture Mode for maximum security and reliability that performs checksum validation of individual data blocks during the transmission process;
• ability to capture in parallel large databases that are partitioned across multiple drives in order to ensure data integrity;
• support for the latest generation of Amazon Web Services (AWS) M4 server sizes.

Hillstone Networks, a leading provider of network security solutions, today announced the new Hillstone virtual firewall solution, CloudEdge, based on its Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) technology, is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in standard and advanced editions. Hillstone CloudEdge is deployed as an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) gateway to provide an additional layer of comprehensive security protection for AWS customers. The Hillstone virtual solution integrates with multiple security services, including firewall security, application visibility and identification, VPN, IPS, QoS, SLB, and attack protection, to ensure security for cloud deployments.

New features and benefits from Hillstone Networks include: