Articles about Cloud

Earlier this year two different research reports came out describing the overall cloud computing market and Amazon’s role in it. Synergy Research Group saw Amazon as by far the biggest player (bigger in fact than the next four companies combined) with about 30 percent market share. But Gartner, taking perhaps a more focused view of just the public cloud, claimed Amazon holds 82 percent of the market with cloud capacity that’s 10 times greater than all the other public cloud providers combined. I wonder how these disparate views can be possible describing the same company? And I wonder, further, whether this means Amazon actually has a cloud monopoly?

Yup, it’s a monopoly.

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With Microsoft unveiling its latest operating system earlier this summer, many businesses are faced with a difficult choice about whether or not to take the plunge and migrate to Windows 10.

It’s a decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly, and it seems that many companies are hesitant about making the move. A recent survey found that 71 percent of businesses polled were looking to wait at least six months from its release date before migrating.

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Gartner predicts that cloud office systems will account for 33 percent of the overall office market by 2017. This is a big step considering a few years ago collaboration in businesses typically involved emails, phone calls, and perhaps a few instant messages (IMs) exchanged within the company.

However, nowadays the arrival of cloud computing and all the remunerations that come with it have shaped the path for collaborative cloud-based services, reforming how businesses work over the internet. Many collaborative services target a specific business need, such as social networking, productivity apps, storage, or good old fashioned email.

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Businesses are spending tons of money to keep their data in the cloud, but only a small portion of that data is actually business-critical. The rest is completely redundant, increasing their costs and putting their cyber-security at risk.

These are some of the conclusions seen in a new report by Veritas Technologies, backup and recovery solutions firm. The report, entitled Databerg report 2015, looked at how European organizations across the public and private sector manage their data.

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Oracle announced a new set of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) products earlier this week, going head to head with the likes of Amazon with its Web Services.

Among the new sets are the Oracle Elastic Compute Cloud, two new Storage Cloud services, as well as a number of technology stacks on the Oracle Cloud.

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More than half of consumers don't believe that cloud-based apps and services are keeping their data secure, according to a new survey.

Cloud security specialist Radware has released the results of a study of over 2,000 people which reveals that consumer perceptions and expectations are dramatically shifting with frequently reported hacks, which will have a major impact on how businesses secure their services, communicate with consumers and go to market.

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IBM’s artificial intelligence computer Watson is expanding into the weather forecast territory. According to the company, it is buying The Weather Company’s B2B, mobile and cloud-based web properties, including WSI, weather.com, Weather Underground and The Weather Company brand.

The TV segment -- The Weather Channel -- will not be acquired by IBM, but will license weather forecast data and analytics from IBM under a long-term contract, the company added.

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Wow, and weird, is my reaction to YouTube Red, which is live starting today. The experience is so different from the regular service, I am stunned. Fast-loading is the first thing, so be careful what you click—or turn off autoplay. Videos on Facebook feel like a moped racing a Lamborghini compared to YT Red.

Using this 2012 MissFender video as example: Pressing the stopwatch on my Nexus 6P at the same time I click to enter the URL, 9 seconds passes before I can start watching the vid. The time includes the auto-loading ad, how long it plays before YouTube permits me to skip, and lag caused by my own responsiveness dismissing the advert.

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The adoption of containerization platform Docker has been one of the big infrastructure trends in the past year. But while it's much talked about, what effect is it having in the real world?

Infrastructure tracking specialist Datadog has released the results of a survey, based on the real Docker usage of 7,000 companies, revealing a 5x growth in Docker adoption since September 2014.

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OpenStack is a popular open source tool for creating public and private clouds and is used by big companies around the world.

To make running OpenStack systems easier, open source network specialist Akanda is launching a new version of its Astara platform that radically simplifies the complexity and scale of implementations.

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Microsoft has just released its Q1 FY2016 (Q3 CY2015) earnings report, posting revenue of $20.4 billion, operating income of $5.8 billion, net income of $4.6 billion and earnings per share of $0.57 (all GAAP figures). The software giant's numbers beat analysts' expectations, which has added around 10 percent to its stock price in after-hours trading. Here are the highlights of the software giant's quarter.

Microsoft has divided its earnings in three categories, namely Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. The good news comes from Intelligent Cloud, where revenue is up by eight percent, while the bad news is in More Personal Computing, where the poor performance of Lumia and Surface devices lead to a 17 percent decrease in revenue, year-over-year.

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HP is going to shut down its cloud business, and this time it means it. Seriously. The company’s executive, Bill Hilf, wrote a post on the HP blog, where he announced that the Helion service will be put out of its misery next year.

"We will sunset our HP Helion Public Cloud offering on January 31, 2016", he writes. Instead, the company will focus on turning its hardware gear into the building blocks for private enterprise clouds.

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EMC Corporation and VMware have announced plans to combine their respective cloud capabilities into a new cloud services business.

The new business will incorporate existing Virtustream cloud offerings and will be marketed under the Virtustream brand, which will be jointly owned by VMware and EMC and led by Virtustream CEO Rodney Rogers.

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Keeping devices secure means ensuring that they're up to date with the latest software patches. For IT managers this can present a major logistical problem, especially where different operating systems are in use.

IT management systems specialist Shavlik is launching a new version of its Shavlik Protect patch management solution, as well as Empower, a platform that aggregates data to give IT departments more insight into and control over their systems.

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If you asked me two months ago about using a Huawei smartwatch or smartphone, I would have scoffed. Yet, here I am doing just that. Timing on the latter is ironic. On Oct. 15, 2015, I bought a 128GB silver (and white) iPhone 6s Plus using Apple's 24-month finance plan, rather than paying in full up front. Huawei-made, Google-branded 64GB Nexus 6P arrived the next day for review. The following morning (the 17th), I hauled down to Apple Store and returned the iPhone for full refund. That act sums up my reaction to the new Android flagship running "Marshmallow".

I didn't expect to be so wooed by Nexus 6P, but Google got me by delivering superior contextual experience. This device, and Android 6, is all about context, starting with what for me is the killer function I couldn't part with: the fingerprint reader on the back of the phone. Picking up the device and placing my forefinger on the circular indentation wakes and unlocks the 6P. Wow-way is right! The mechanism beats the Hell out of Apple's two-handed jimmy from the Home button.

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