News

• GE thinks it's time to put industrial data in the Cloud

  Internet tools are just starting to be applied to industrial tasks such as maintaining equipment and optimizing operations, but the wealth of data being produced by industrial systems could make this a major focus of development in the coming years.

• Forrester: PaaS makes developers happy

  Although the platform as a service (PaaS) market is smaller than both IaaS and SaaS segments of the Cloud computing industry, research firm Forrester says this technology could be one of the most important cloud-based services for businesses moving forward.

• European and US cloud providers go head-to-head after NSA revelations

  European cloud providers think the U.S. spy scandal will result in more enterprises choosing local alternatives over the likes of Amazon Web Services and Rackspace, which, on the other hand, are adamant that they aren't taking part in programs such as Prism.

• Gartner: Start security monitoring in the public Cloud

  Security monitoring -- the type involving traditional security information and event management (SIEM) -- can be done in some public Cloud environments, according to Gartner. And if you're using public Cloud services, it's time to think about doing it.

• Google chases Amazon, both drop Cloud prices

  It's become a common scene in the Cloud industry nowadays: Every few weeks or months a Cloud vendor announces a price reduction on its services, and then within a couple of days at least one other competitor announces a price reduction as well. Today, it took just hours.

• IBM complaint might have just cost Amazon $600M CIA cloud deal

  Amazon Web Services may have just lost out on a $600 million contract to supply cloud computing services to the Central Intelligence Agency, after the federal government upheld a protest that IBM had made related to the awarding of the contract.

• Amazon's RDS database gets SLA, becomes generally available

  After three and a half years in operation, Amazon Web Services' RDS is finally generally available, and users can also get a service-level agreement if they choose to run the database in multiple places.

• Think cloud is no big deal? IBM and Salesforce.com just spent a combined $4.5 billion on it

  It's raining money from the clouds as Salesforce.com and IBM this week together spent a total of $4.5 billion to boost their cloud computing services.

• Microsoft overhauls pricing for Azure Web services

  Microsoft is cutting prices for many of its Azure services and revamping how it charges for many of its services, the company said during its TechEd North America 2013 keynote.

• Targeting cloud, Microsoft set to revamp major enterprise software platforms

  Microsoft today is showing off improvements to most of its enterprise infrastructure software designed to make it simpler for businesses to deploy hybrid cloud services that can allocate resources as needed.

• Hitachi adds Amazon Web Services to cloud lineup in Japan

  Hitachi said Monday it will officially support Amazon Web Services as part of its cloud solution offerings, a victory for Amazon over rival Microsoft Azure.

• The Cloud goes global

  As competition in the Cloud computing market intensifies, some of the biggest players are looking beyond their domestic borders to gain an international advantage.

• Amazon Web Services integrates with Google, Facebook for easier logins

  Using a new API announced by Amazon Web Services, developers can use Amazon.com, Facebook, or Google's sign-in systems for their cloud-based apps.

• Public cloud shakeup: VMware in, Dell out, and OpenStack in limbo?

  It's been a busy week in the cloud. Dell ditched plans to build its own cloud and instead will work with partners, while focusing on private clouds. In an opposite move, VMware revealed its plans for how it will compete in the public cloud market.

• Hybrid public-private Cloud usage more widespread than you think

  Many times in discussions about Cloud computing, the hybrid Cloud – meaning a service that combines both off-site public Cloud and on-premises private Cloud computing resources – is thought of as being some nirvana state that will be the dominant architecture at some point in the future.