Category: News

July 20, 2015 Off

Amazon Surges on Confidence Over Cloud, Spending Discipline

By David

Grazed from Bloomberg.  Author: Spencer Soper.

Amazon.com Inc.’s shares reached another record, three days before the company’s earnings report, as investors expected upbeat results from the fast-growing cloud-computing business, a boost in sales from last week’s Prime Day promotion and signs that the company is controlling spending.  Amazon rose 1.1 percent to close at $488.10 in New York on Monday.

The stock set records three days last week and is up 12 percent this month, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Retailing Index has gained 5.5 percent.  The Seattle-based online retailer reports earnings Thursday. Analysts on average project earnings of $364 million on sales of $22.4 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg…

July 20, 2015 Off

ComputeNext Launches Cloud Training Program for Channel Partners

By David

Grazed from TalkinCloud.  Author: Nichole Henderson.

Cloud services brokerageComputeNext launched a new training program for the channel, calledCloudEd, which aims to help cloud resellers migrate wary customers to cloud-based solutions.

Created by ComputeNext’s director of channel development Dan Moore, CloudEd offers video tutorials for channel professionals partnering with the ComputeNext platform as well as an optional, free general cloud certifications provided by CompTIA…

July 20, 2015 Off

10 recommendations for cloud partners

By David

Grazed from ComputerDealerNews. Author: Paolo Del Nibletto.

One of the top market analysts in the world Tiffani Bova, VP of Gartner Research, has comprised a list of essentials for channel partners who are in tough with the transition to the cloud. The noted analyst delivered her top 10 list to an overflow audience at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference and said it’s not too late for the channel to embrace the cloud phenomenon. Before Bova unveiled her must-knows for the channel she told the crowd to ask themselves these hard, soul searching questions:

1. What kind of partner should I become?
2. Should I invest in cloud services?
3. Do I have the rights sales and technical skills?
4. Will our products and services resonate?
5. Can you think 2020 instead of 2015?…

July 20, 2015 Off

In Cloud Computing, It Pays To Commit

By David

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Paul Miller.

451 Research recently released the latest update to their Cloud Price Index. The basic cost of renting from one of the big public cloud providers* has fallen just over 2% since the Index began in October 2014. For those who are willing to commit to buying cloud-based resources for months or years at a time, prices fall dramatically: 451 Research reports a 44% saving over the on-demand price, in the best case.

At a time when commentators have cited recently announced increases to Microsoft’s pricing in some regions, 451 Research’s numbers indicate that — overall — the downward trend in cloud pricing continues. A 2% fall in 10 months is hardly a ‘race to the bottom,’ but the direction appears inexorably downward. This is not a surprise…

July 19, 2015 Off

Public, Private, Hybrid? Which Cloud is Right for your Agency?

By David

 Grazed from Business2Community.  Author: Caron Beesley.

Should your agency move data or applications to the private or public cloud or a hybrid combination of the two? But those aren’t the only options. Other choices include a community cloud, a multi-tenant infrastructure that is shared among several organizations from a specific group with common computing concerns.  Then there’s the hybrid cloud which composes two or more of the above (private, public or community)
 
In our eBook, we suggest that choosing public over private (or any combination thereof) really comes down to risk management and is very dependent on your specific workload, your use case, and your security profile.  DISA’s CIO, David Bennett agrees. “You have to understand the risk and the data you’re dealing with,” said Bennett at a recent Nextgov event…
July 19, 2015 Off

US Air Force Takes To The Cloud With Office 365

By David

Grazed from TechAeris.  Author: John Vincent.

The United States Air Force. Cloud computing. The pun-filled headlines virtually write themselves. However we’ll try to refrain from being too punny.  Last week, the Air Force, in partnership with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), announced that it awarded more than 100,000 seats of a Department of Defense dedicated version of Microsoft Office 365 to Microsoft, Dell and General Dynamics.
 
As part of the deployment, which will begin in the next government fiscal year, the Air Force will have access to secure e-mail, calendaring, Office Web Applications, Skype for Business, and other important collaboration tools, helping the agency communicate more easily across active, civilian, and reserve personnel and move toward a consolidated mobile and messaging platform. Just as important, the Air Force anticipates that the migration will help it realign critical resources to better support its mission in a trusted cloud environment…
July 19, 2015 Off

Cloud Computing: 5 Reasons Why Docker Is A Billion Dollar Company

By David

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Mike Kavis.

I have seen a lot of billion dollar valuations lately that have left me scratching my head. Many of those are in the B2C or social media space where companies are measured more on “eyeballs” (the number of active users) and less on things like revenue or business models.  So after Docker cracked the billion dollar club with a $95M round I decided to research exactly what it is about containers that could drive this type of valuation.
 

I have been covering Docker since the company, then called dotCloud, was toying around with the idea of pulling the Docker technology out of their core product and releasing it as an open source project. I saw the value of containers very early on. What I did not see coming was the vision that CTO Solomon Hykes laid out before our eyes at Docker Con in San Francisco last month…

July 19, 2015 Off

Are cloud price hikes a harbinger of the future?

By David

Grazed from CIO.  Author: Bernard Golden.

Last week, blogger Aidan Finn posted an excerpt from a Microsoft email announcing 13 percent price hikes in the European region. Reaction from the trade press was immediate, predicting that this action presaged ongoing price hikes.
 
Barb Darrow of Fortune, in her piece titled “Surprise! The cost of cloud is about to rise” said “Companies spoiled by round after round of price cuts on cloud computing services over the past year or so had better gird themselves for change.” David Linthicum, SVP at Cloud Technology Partners, in his blog titled “The era of ever-cheaper cloud services is over” went on to say:..
July 19, 2015 Off

Google Joins OpenStack Foundation To Create Better Cloud Computing Solution

By David

 Grazed from Yibada.  Author: Yen Palec.

Tech giant Google recently announced that it is joining the OpenStack Foundation in its plan to upgrade its own cloud computing platform.  OpenStack Foundation is the governing body that supervises the use of OpenStack, a free cloud-based program that counts some of the biggest names in technology as its member including Intel, HP and IBM.
 
Google’s decision to join OpenStack will save the company millions of dollars since it does not need to invest into its own data centers now that it is part of one of the biggest cloud computing server in the world.  According to Fortune, Google is joining OpenStack as a corporate sponsor and not the conventional mid-tier Gold or top-tier Platinum level…
July 19, 2015 Off

Cloud Computing Is Popular, But Not Ready For Prime Time, Survey Finds

By David

Grazed from Forbes.   Author: Joe McKendrick.

I’ve never liked the term “As a Service,” not only because it sounds awkward when associated with various offerings (Software as a Service, Database as a Service, Business Processes as s Service, and so on), but also because it attempts to pigeonhole discrete functions that often overlap or are fuzzily defined.
 
Monikers aside, it appears most organizations have only been plodding along on the road to the “As-a-Service” wonderland anyway. Sure, there are some highly visible business success stories in the market — Amazon Web Services for servers and storage, Salesforce for customer relationship management, NetSuite for enterprise resource planning, Google for email and collaboration, Microsoft 365 for office productivity applications, and so forth…