Cloud Computing News, Features, and Interviews

• Openstack Foundation branches out to 'open source infrastructure'

  Changes are underway at the Openstack Foundation, with the community branching out from the open source cloud platform to the umbrella of 'open infrastructure'.

• IBM launches new availability zones worldwide for hybrid enterprise clouds

  CIOs and data center managers who run large hybrid clouds worldwide have a good chance of hearing IBM knock on their doors in the next few months.

• Amazon joins list of blockchain-as-a-service providers

  Amazon Web Services (AWS) has joined the list of blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) providers that already includes IBM, HP, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.

• The Instillery expands cloud reach through Vo2 merger

  The Instillery has joined forces with Vo2 Group in New Zealand, in a merger designed to drive wider adoption of cloud technologies across the country.

• Open sass: Ubuntu/Red Hat drama erupts at Openstack

  Canonical founder and part-time hobby astronaut Mark Shuttleworth began his Openstack keynote last week by criticising Red Hat for being too expensive.

• Chef CEO: We want to be like Salesforce

  Barry Crist, the CEO of software automation specialist Chef wants his company's software to be as critical to enterprise customers as Salesforce has become to many.

• Forget Windows; Microsoft is now all about the cloud

  In the space of less than a week in late April, two events made one thing very clear about Microsoft: The company is now pursuing a cloud-first strategy, with Windows taking a back seat. And that will continue as far into the future as the eye can see.

• Ryanair goes all in on AWS

  Low cost Irish airline Ryanair is looking to shut down 'the vast majority' of its data centres over the next three years as it goes 'all in' on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. The airline says it is standardising its IT around AWS services, including databases, analytics, machine learning, and deep learning services.

• Microsoft takes step towards delivering FPGAs as a service

  Microsoft has taken another step towards allowing its Azure customers to leverage the capabilities of the field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) that the company has installed in its cloud data centres.

• Why IAG’s security team is learning to ‘speak developer’

  IAG is “right in the thick” of attempting to move its traditional workloads from its data centres into the cloud — and that’s forcing its security team to “fundamentally rethink” and challenge past methods that the insurer has used to protect its data, according to Ian Cameron.

• Fear not the startup, but the cashed-up company behaving like one

  Old-world businesses are reinventing themselves, says technology futurist Chris Riddell.

• Russia blocks Google, Amazon IP addresses in bid to ban Telegram

  Russia's state communications regulator says it has blocked IP addresses owned by Google and Amazon, saying they were being used by the Telegram messaging service which Moscow moved to ban this week.

• Machine learning is the ‘new normal’

  In the future, machine learning will be part of the business model, says Olivier Klein, head of emerging technologies at Amazon Web Services

• VMware Cloud Foundation coming to Amazon’s Sydney region

  VMware will have VMware Cloud Foundation, the bundle of its three key software products for virtualisation — vSphere, vSAN and NSX — available in AWS’s Sydney region from Q3 of 2018.

• Spark offers businesses security as a service

  Spark is offering a suite of managed security services to businesses, based on those provided to government agencies under Telecommunications as a Service (TaaS) panel contract.

• Microsoft adds depth to cloud security with ‘confidential computing’

  The growth of “confidential computing” approaches will help clear away any “last mile barriers” for enterprises that are concerned about processing highly sensitive data in the cloud, Microsoft Azure chief technology officer Mark Russinovich believes.

• Salesforce could buy MuleSoft

  Salesforce.com is in advanced discussions to acquire U.S. software maker MuleSoft, people familiar with the matter claim, as it looks to expand its offerings beyond customer relationship management software.

• How SAS IT is taking a different approach to digital disruption

  In a country inspired by innovation and dominated by disruptive thinking, market differentiation represents a challenging undertaking for Kiwi businesses.

• Dynamo6 adds Google Cloud talent, Deloitte gains AWS expertise

  Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services have both strengthened their market position in New Zealand, with cloud services and bespoke software specialist Dynamo6 appointed a Google Cloud partner, and with Deloitte expanding its AWS and cloud infrastructure offerings by absorbing a team from AWS specialist, API Talent.

• Dropbox IPO priced at nearly one-third below its peak valuation

  Dropbox this week priced shares for its initial public offering that would value it at up to US$7.1 billion, nearly a third below the valuation it commanded in 2014, a clear sign of how overheated the private tech market became a few years back.