Tag: azure

Cloud giants should expect closer monitoring

Posted on January 11, 2022 by - News

Cloud giants AWS, Azure and Google Cloud should expect some closer monitoring from the Prudential Regulation Authority.

The Financial Times is reporting that the financial services regulator is looking for ways to access more data from Amazon, Google and Microsoft because of the impact that service outages and cyberattacks would have on British banks.

The watchdog wants more robust outages and disaster recovery tests given the increasing reliance UK banks have on a handful of cloud providers.

This could include the introduction of a “war game” which models AWS and Azure failing at the same time, executives said.

Uncrowd wins Microsoft up-start gong

Posted on July 14, 2020 by - News

Uncrowd, a British company  developing a  customer analytics platform for retailers, is this year’s winner of Microsoft’s inaugural global award for start-ups.

London-based Uncrowd, offers a customer analytics platform that enables retailers to understand customer preferences and behaviour, make immediate changes to marketing and operations, and dramatically increase sales.

TIBCO cloud runs on Azure

Posted on December 23, 2019 by - News

TIBCO Software said that its cloud product is available on Microsoft Azure.

The company said that with all of the TIBCO Cloud Integration application’s capabilities now running natively on Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS), customers and partners can easily connect applications and resources hosted both on-premises and in the cloud from their environment of choice.

TIBCO chief operating officer, Matt Quinn said that users who have standardised on Microsoft Azure or are planning to embrace a multi-cloud approach can use their preferred TIBCO Cloud Integration environment when deploying cloud-native applications and connecting applications and services across a business.

Cloud infrastructure services market soars

Posted on November 1, 2019 by - News

The worldwide cloud infrastructure services market increased by 37 percent  in the third quarter, according to beancounters at Canalys.

As you might expect AWS was at the top, followed by Microsoft Azure then Google Cloud.

Canalys research analyst Daniel Liu said that a lot of customers were using a mixture of providers to house their data and applications the analyst house is arguing that the big cloud providers need to make sure they have a decent network of channel relationships to reach the largest number of customers.

Giacom helps resellers to get server smart

Posted on November 1, 2019 by - News

Giacom, a reseller-only Cloud Services Provider (CSP), has launched its newest product, Cloud Server. Powered by Azure, Cloud Server claims to be a simple out-of-the-box replacement for an on-premises end of life server.

The outfit said that the cloud services market has grown rapidly over recent years and is projected to grow exponentially through to 2022. Yet, the complexity and pay-as-you-go pricing models of Azure can be a steep learning curve for IT companies supporting small businesses. Cloud Server, fits in the market by offering a simple, fixed cost server solution hosted in the cloud.

Gartner roasts big cloud

Posted on July 25, 2019 by - News

Analyst outfit Gartner has waded into the Big Public Cloud providers saying that they have reliability issues and poor services.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud remain in the Leaders segment, while Oracle, Alibaba and IBM retain their positions in the Niche Players quadrant. However, AWS, Microsoft and Google were blasted by Big G.

Microsoft adds Azure availability Zones

Posted on April 10, 2019 by - News

Microsoft campusMicrosoft has added ‘Availability Zones’ to its ‘UK South’ region datacentres in a bid to attract public sector customers.

Microsoft claims that “tens of thousands” of UK organisations already use Microsoft cloud services delivered from the UK following the launch of local capabilities in 2016 – a move cheered by partners.

Opportunity knocks for Microsoft’s rivals after Azure direct sale

Posted on February 12, 2019 by - News

Microsoft might have created an own goal with its decision to flog off Azure direct.

Beancounters at Canalys think that partner uncertainty around the deal will allow competitors to exploit the opportunity and gain more share in the cloud market.

The analyst predicted that this year would see partners handle an increasing share of the cloud business, particularly in the areas of services, deployment and integration.

Is Microsoft losing the cloud wars?

Posted on February 1, 2019 by - News

While the software king of the known universe, Microsoft still reigns. Its results show a double digit rise in revenue but there was some concern on Wall Street about the state of Azure.

The vendor’s share price fell more than four percent in after-hours trading, with sales slightly below expectations. Revenue for the three months ending 31 December increased 12 percent to $10.3 billion.

Microsoft did not mention its Azure revenue numbers, but offers a year-on-year growth figure. In this quarter sales rose 76 per ent, continuing a long-running trend of high double-digit growth.

But if you look at the numbers for last year this number is well behind the 98 percent growth it scored in the second quarter.

CloudHealth and Softcat team up on cloud

Posted on December 11, 2018 by - News

CloudHealth and Softcat have announced a new partnership.

The pair say that Softcat’s Cloud Intelligence Service, powered by CloudHealth, will bring enhanced visibility into public cloud environments, offering greater insight into spend, usage, and identifying efficiencies across all cloud platforms.

CloudHealth and Softcat will generate automated reports on all of an organisation’s public cloud usage, in Microsoft Azure

Rubrik launches Accelerator for Microsoft Azure

Posted on November 15, 2018 by - News

Cloud data management company, Rubrik launched its Rubrik Accelerator for Microsoft Azure to offer its enterprise customers what it describes as a “single solution” to protect and manage data from on-premises to Microsoft Azure.

Rubrik Accelerator for Azure adds to the Company’s already popular offering for Microsoft customers which features automated data protection for Microsoft Hyper-V, support for physical Windows, and instant database recoveries with SQL Live Mount.

Mike Tornincasa, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales at Rubrik said: ““Every enterprise customer I speak with has cloud ambitions. However, many organizations are held back by complex legacy data management solutions that keep the cloud migration process out of reach. The Rubrik Accelerator for Microsoft Azure makes it easy for enterprises to move to a hybrid cloud model, and in turn, innovate faster, be more productive and unlock cost-savings. Additionally, Rubrik offers customers the ability to manage their entire Microsoft investment on one platform, across on-premises and public cloud environments.”

Microsoft gave it its imprimatur. “Rubrik shares a commitment with Microsoft to drive business results for our customers”, said David Willis, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s US Partner Group. “Our deep collaboration with Rubrik is exciting. Together, we enable our mutual customers to accelerate their Digital Transformation with Azure and deliver for their customers.”

Rubrik continues to align with Microsoft on technology and shared go-to-market investments. Rubrik pioneered Live Mount for SQL to deliver near-zero RTOs and introduced cloud instantiation on Azure for “server-less” test/dev and disaster recovery. Rubrik helps customers leverage the full power of Microsoft with integration across Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office 365, Windows, Hyper-V, Azure Stack, and Azure Data Box. In addition, Rubrik offers support for Azure Government Cloud for customers in the federal space.

The Rubrik Accelerator for Microsoft Azure can be purchased from all Rubrik and Azure channel partners.

 

Azure Virtual WAN gets Barracuda support

Posted on September 26, 2018 by - News

banner_220x220Barracuda Networks is supporting Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN service through its CloudGen Firewall, extending enhanced networking security to organizations looking to deploy Azure Virtual WAN.

“Customers want choice and flexibility in the cloud, but they can’t sacrifice security,” said Tim Jefferson, VP Public Cloud at Barracuda. “By using our integration with Azure Virtual WAN, customers can have the best of both worlds — large-scale branch connectivity over Azure Virtual WAN with enhanced network security via the Barracuda CloudGen Firewall.”

In public preview since July, Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN service provides optimised, automated, and global-scale branch connectivity, Vole reckons. Azure Virtual WAN brings the ability to connect customers’ branches to Azure with SD-WAN and VPN devices (i.e. Customer Premises Equipment or CPE), with built-in ease of use and automated connectivity and configuration management.

The Barracuda connection to Azure Virtual WAN is automated: Users need to fill out authentication information and click “connect”. Barracuda uses dynamic routing protocols in the background to make sure new routes to new locations are automatically picked up and made available, the company claimed.

“We’re pleased that customers looking to simplify branch connectivity and extend application workloads on Microsoft Azure now have access to the Barracuda integrated Azure Virtual WAN solution”, said Ross Ortega, Partner PM Manager, Azure Networking, Microsoft. “The integration between Azure Virtual WAN and Barracuda provides ease of use and simplification of connectivity and configuration management, hence providing optimized and automated branch-to-branch connectivity through Azure.”

 

Microsoft shows off its new things for the Cloud

Posted on September 25, 2018 by - News, Products

banner_220x220Microsoft today announced a plethora of new Internet of Things-focused updates to its Azure cloud computing platform.

Some of today’s announcements are relatively minor. Azure IoT Central, the company’s solution for helping you get started with IoT, is now generally available and there are updates to Microsoft’s IoT provisioning service, IoT hub message routing tools and Map Control API.

Microsoft said that the Azure IoT platform will now support Google’s Android and Android Things platform via its Java SDK.

What’s more interesting, though, is the new services. The highlight here is probably the launch of Azure Digital Twins. Using this new service, enterprises can now build their own digital models of any physical environment.

It is the virtual counterpart to a real-world IoT deployment and the idea is that as IoT deployment in the real world changes, so does the digital model. It will provide developers with a full view of all the devices they have deployed and allows them to run advanced analytics and test scenarios as needed without having to make changes to the actual physical deployment.

Writing in its bog, Vole said: “As the world enters the next wave of innovation in IoT where the connected objects such as buildings, equipment or factory floors need to be understood in the context of their environments, Azure Digital Twins provides a complete picture of the relationships and processes that connect people, places and devices.”

Azure Digital Twins will launch into preview on October 15.

Acronis partners with Microsoft for Azure

Posted on August 10, 2018 by - News

Hybrid cloud data protection and storage solutions provider Acronis has announced a new strategic partnership with Vole for deeper integration of Acronis’ data protection products with Azure cloud services.

The new partnership will allow customers and service providers to even more easily store their data or clients’ data in the Azure cloud. Azure will be available as a storage destination option alongside Acronis Cloud and other public cloud vendors in future versions of Acronis products.

Service providers can choose to buy their Azure storage directly from Microsoft, or Acronis can include the Azure storage costs as part of a single invoice.

The partnership is part of Acronis’ overall strategy to support all workloads, delivering safety, security, accessibility, privacy and authenticity for data stored in local, cloud and hybrid environments.

By delivering full support of more than 20 platforms, native integration with PSA and RMM tools, and growing support of public cloud vendors, Acronis enables service providers to make the most out of their existing cloud arrangements

Acronis President John Zannis said: “A lot of products that we build deliver value to clients using Microsoft technology. With easy, reliable and efficient backup and built-in security in the form of active protection against ransomware, our clients enjoy complete protection of their data. Adding Azure as a native storage destination increases their options, making Acronis solutions even more attractive to use. For any organization that has built their strategy on Microsoft, this is great news.”

Judy Meyer, General Manager, ISV partners at Microsoft, said: “It’s great to see how Acronis is transforming the services it offers to its customers, innovating in anti-ransomware and data protection. Microsoft and Acronis have worked closely together over several years in planning the adoption of public cloud services as part of Acronis’ portfolio, and we’re delighted to see the progress that’s been made in using Azure and the Microsoft AI platform.”