Category Archives: Cloud Computing

At a .NEXT 2017 conference today, Nutanix unveiled a cloud operating system based on its hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) software capable of unifying public and private clouds under a common hybrid cloud computing architecture.

Sunil Potti, vice president of engineering for Nutanix, says Nutanix Calm, due out by the end of the year, extends the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS multi-cloud strategy by making it possible to deploy applications at a higher level of abstraction employing a common stack of software that can be deployed at the edge of the network, in a local data center, in a hosting service, or on a public cloud.

That capability is being complemented by Nutanix Xi Cloud Services, which is a turnkey cloud service due to be available under an early access program in the first quarter of 2018. It can be employed to both provision Nutanix infrastructure as well as provide additional capabilities such as disaster recovery services.

Based on the stack of software that Nutanix developed as an alternative to the implementation of VMware that Nutanix also supports, Nutanix Calm is an ambitious effort to make hybrid cloud computing an everyday enterprise norm.

Potti says, ultimately, Nutanix expects to automate almost every aspect of a hybrid cloud computing.

If we cant do that, it will be a missed opportunity, says Potti.

In the meantime, Potti says, Nutanix is committed to making the process of lifting and shifting of workloads between clouds invisible. Of course, Nutanix isnt the only IT vendor with similar ambitions. But its arguably the only one with an existing footprint in both the public cloud as well as its own and other third-party platforms from Dell EMC, Lenovo and others. The challenge and opportunity now is to turn that reach into a federated environment that effectively erases the lines between one cloud platform and another.

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Nutanix Unveils Hybrid Cloud Computing Platform - IT Business Edge - IT Business Edge (blog)

Over the next few years, we will learn whether cloud computing is a nice little business that will settle into maturity by the end of the decade or a once-in-a-generation business opportunity.

Thats the view of Morgan Stanleys Brian Nowak, who delivered the Wall Street view of Cloud City earlier this month at our Cloud Tech Summit. Theres no question right now that cloud computing is at a point of inflection, he said, with very strong growth expected over the short term as more and more workloads move into the cloud.

Right now, Morgan Stanley estimates that about 20 percent of all workloads run on the cloud. That 20 percent is a very important number because if you look at other adoption cycles, whether its notebooks, smartphone penetration, the x86 server, even digital music and video games, when you get to that 20 percent penetration point, that curve inflects and growth accelerates, Nowak said.

When you get to that 20 percent penetration point, that curve inflects and growth accelerates.That shouldnt come as a surprise to anyone who has noticed the surge in Amazon Web Services revenue over the last few years. The real question is whether or not growth continues to accelerate this pace once public cloud hits the 50 percent penetration mark, which Morgan Stanley expects to happen around 2020.

Historically, when you look at other markets, like in server virtualization, after that, growth in the market slowed considerably, down to the single digits, Nowak said. Just to be safe, Morgan Stanley is making that projection to its clients, given the historical trends.

However, he acknowledged a bullish case for the cloud based around the fact that a lot of cloud workloads are brand-new workloads; instead of lifting and shifting, the industry jargon for taking applications running on homegrown infrastructure and moving them into the cloud, lots of companies are starting new workloads on cloud services.

As those workloads scale, thats a ton of new business for cloud providers that simply didnt exist on on-premises hardware. And, of course, there are still lots of companies moving those older workloads onto the cloud as well, giving cloud companies several sources of growth over the next few years.

Another trend to watch is the growth of hybrid cloud strategies, with workloads spread across the public cloud and internal servers, which might put a damper on the most bullish case for public cloud but still mean companies are increasing what they spend in the cloud.

Watch the full video of Nowaks talk above, and stay tuned for more highlights from the event in the days ahead.

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Morgan Stanley: Cloud computing is at 'an inflection point' but how big will it get? - GeekWire

Trainer Chad Brown sent out a number of graded stakes winners to work on Belmont Park's main track June 25.

Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence's grade 1 winner Practical Joke breezed four furlongsin :48.09 as he gears up for the $400,000 Dwyer Stakes (G3) July 8.

The Into Mischief colt, who will make his first start in the Dwyer since a fifth-place run in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1), seeks his first win of his 3-year-old campaignafter runner-up efforts in the Xpressbet Fountain of Youth Stakes and Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (both G2).

"He breezed and continues to train very well ahead of the Dwyer," Brown said.

Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Cloud Computing also put in a maintenance work Sunday, breezingfour furlongs in :49.49. It was his second work since winning the second leg of the Triple Crown May 20. Also owned by Klaravich and Lawrence, Cloud Computing is training toward the $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes (G2)July 29 at Saratoga Race Course.

Grade 1 winners Lady Eli and Antonoe breezed in company and covered four furlongs in :49.42. Lady Eli, who most recently won the Gamely Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita Park, is slated to make her next start on Saratoga's opening weekend in the $500,000 Diana Stakes (G1T).

Brown said Antonoe, fresh off her win in the Longines Just a Game Stakes (G1T)June 10, is also a possibility for the Diana.

"They went together. They're a good team and we're happy with both of them," Brown said.

Don Alberto Stable'sRubilinda, the first U.S. winner for 10-time group 1 winner Frankel, was scratched from the June 24 Wild Applause Stakes after the race was moved off the turf.

"It puts me in a bad spot. I likely now will have to go on to an allowance race and if she does well, then on to a stakes race," Brown said. "I'd like to run her (at Belmont)if I could."

Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T) winnerNew Money Honey and grade 3 winnerFifty Fivetwo of the four expected Brown entrants for the $1 million Belmont Oaks Invitational (G1T) July 8are expected to breeze on the turf June 26 at Belmont.

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Lady Eli, Cloud Computing Among Workers for Brown - BloodHorse.com (press release) (registration) (blog)

Cloud computing is a crucial technological trend and has become an important technology during the fourth industrial revolution, according to Nguyen Thanh Phuc, Director General of the Authority of Information Technology Application.

Cloud computing is a crucial technological trend and has become an important technology during the fourth industrial revolution

Phuc made the remarks at the recent Vietnam Cloud Computing Conference 2017, sponsored by the Vietnam Software Association (VINASA), in coordination with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (National University of Singapore).

Of note, Vietnamese ministries and authorities have boosted information and technology applications, the building of e-government and improved the investment environment to create clear and favourable conditions for enterprises, said he.

Also at the conference, Associate Professor Dr. Vu Minh Khuong from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy delivered a presentation about a survey on cloud computing at 800 enterprises and organisations in Vietnam.

The survey results indicated that the country had the fastest growth in investment for cloud computing in the 2010-16 period among ASEAN countries, increasing 64.4 percent per year, higher than the average in ASEAN (49.5 percent) and the world (42.5 percent).

However, real spending on cloud computing in Vietnam was still rather low last year, which was 107 times lower than in Singapore; 6.5 times lower than Malaysia; 2.4 times lower compared with Thailand and 1.3 times lower compared with the Philippines, he added.

The above numbers revealed that there were many barriers to promoting cloud computing in Vietnam. The largest barrier is the popular use of unlicensed software, the lack of knowledge about the benefits of cloud computing, information security concerns and the quality of cloud services in Vietnam, he said.

According to experts at the conference, in the early stages of digital transformation, priority should be given to developing ICT infrastructure, especially broadband connections and cloud computing applications.

At the same time, there should be priority policies created for cloud computing, in order to trigger digital conversions using big data and Internet of Things applications.

Nguyen Dinh Thang, VINASA Vice Chairman, added that cloud computing offered tremendous benefits, such as product and service standardisation, investment cost reductions, the shortening of the time to develop products and improvements in the quality of services.

Therefore, the agency proposed that the government need to have an orientation policy, while businesses and organisations need to develop strategies on research, investment and early cloud applications to improve production and business efficiency, contributing to the countrys economic development and boosting the countrys progress during the fourth industrial revolution.

VNA

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Cloud computing key to 4th industrial revolution - News VietNamNet - VietNamNet Bridge

A few years ago, the cloud was a promise to reduce costs of IT and improve flexibility and scaling by providing on-demand computing, storage and services to every organization.

Today, the cloud is a ubiquity we take for granted. We expect every file, every service and digital asset we have to be available across all our devices everywhere we go, at any time of the day.

The omnipresence of the cloud has streamlined and transformed quite a number of domains, including education. Today, thanks to cloud computing, education and training has become more affordable, flexible and accessible to millions of people and thousands of businesses.

Heres a look at how cloud-based education has changed things for the better.

One of the problems schools and training departments in organizations have constantly struggled with is to keep up with hardware, software and IT staff costs and complexities. In contrast, the cloud has been offering low-cost, subscription-based model that can support more companies and organizations.The elegance of the cloud is that the user only requires little more than a browser and an internet connection. This is a welcome shift from the need to manually install and update applications on every single computer in a department.

In the past years, solutions such as Googles suite of educational tools have provided schools with a free access to general classroom tools such as word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software. Cloud applications such as Google Docs allow students to easily collaborate on assignments in an easy-to-use environment.

Microsoft has also made its move to the cloud, providing subscription-based access to the cloud version of its popular Office suite, which it offers for free to students and teachers.

One of the interesting developments in the space has been the advent of virtual classrooms in the cloud. Virtual cloud classrooms provide teachers with a paperless way to set up classes and courses, distribute material and assignments, and track and grade student progress from their desktop browser or smartphone.On-premise virtual classroom software have existed for a while, but their installation and deployment came with heavy technical and financial requirements. In recent years, established companies such as Blackboard have started offering cloud-based services, making it possible for more schools and institutions to enroll.

Bigger tech corporations are also entering the space. Google launched its Classroom app as part of G Suite for Education in 2014 and Microsoft released its own Classroom last year. Both solutions revolve around providing a unified environment to better use office cloud apps in managing classes.

Cloud platforms can be a boon to professional education. For instance, IT training is traditionally associated with large investments in hardware and complex setup costs. However specialized cloud platforms have provided a flexible, cost-effective and easy-to-deploy alternative.

One example is CloudShare, a provider of cloud-based virtual machines, which enables companies to setup virtual training labs for their training sessions. With CloudShare, trainers can create any number of VMs of various operating systems in a virtual class environment, assign them to students, monitor their use and actively assist students when needed.The use of cloud computing and virtual classes in IT training brings huge benefits by cutting back hardware costs and complexity while providing an interactive experience that is not possible in legacy classroom settings. It also benefits companies that need to train staff and employees across the world by sparing them additional traveling and trainer fees.

By 2025, the global demand for higher education will double to approximately 200 million students per year, mostly from emerging economies. Elsewhere, the disruption of the economy and employment landscape by artificial intelligence is increasing demand for professional training in various fields.

But thanks to cloud-based education, more and more people can now attend academic and professional courses. In recent years, weve seen the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs) platforms, which provide easy and affordable (sometimes free) access to knowledge and training.

In 2012, Stanford University professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller founded Coursera, a cloud platform that offers online courses, specializations, and degrees in a variety of subjects, including data science, computer science, engineering and medicine. Aside from Stanford, other top universities such as Princeton, University of Michigan and Penn State University are now using the platform to offer their programs to students worldwide.

Applicants can enroll for courses, specialization certificates or full higher education degrees. As of 2017, the platform offers more than 2,000 courses and has more than 24 million registered users worldwide.

edX, a platform similar to Coursera created by Harvard University in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, added high school education to its platform in 2014 to help people across the world get access to secondary education.Tech corporations have launched their own education platforms to give access to knowledge and education in specific fields. One example is IBMs Big Data University, a free platform that aims to put more people into data science and machine learning jobs and now has more than 400,000 signed up users.

Cloud-based learning platforms offer anyone with an internet connection classrooms, lectures, course material and a seamless environment where they can learn at their own pace and work on assignments and projects on any device and anywhere they go.

With such huge amounts of data being collected and processed in the cloud, the next step of cloud education is the integration of artificial intelligence in the process. AI algorithms can assist both teachers and students in the learning process, finding pain-points in the teaching process and lending a hand where learners are struggling. Most major vendors have either taken their first steps or are now considering integrating AI-powered tools in their training solutions.

Weve already seen acceleration and enhancements in education and training thanks to the cloud. What will come next can be even more exciting.

Read next: Facebook has a magical Harry Potter easter egg to celebrate the books 20th anniversary

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How the cloud has changed education and training - TNW

It's not just Amazon that will make money from cloud computing and artificial intelligence, according to Wall Street.

Morgan Stanley believes Microsoft's Azure business will thrive riding the same hot technology trends.

The firm reiterated its overweight rating on Microsoft shares, predicting the company will report profits ahead of expectations next year due to cloud computing demand.

Microsoft's "top line drivers include the Azure (Microsoft emerging as a public cloud winner), data center (share gains and positive pricing trends), and O365 [Office 365] (base growth and per user pricing lift)," analyst Keith Weiss wrote in a note to clients Monday.

"With a strengthening secular positioning and rationalization of underperforming portions of the solution portfolio, Microsoft is back to showing durable double-digit EPS growth and investors should be willing to pay a higher multiple for that growth," he added.

Weiss raised his price target for Microsoft to $80 from $72, representing 14 percent upside from Friday's close.

The analyst cited how the growing "machine learning" [artificial intelligence] trend will spur demand for the company's Azure cloud computing services and it could add up to $110 billion in market value for Microsoft.

As a result, Weiss estimates Microsoft will generate fiscal 2018 earnings per share of $3.45 compared with the Wall Street consensus for $3.32.

"Windows 10 gives Microsoft an improved story on tablets, a new leg of rev. growth and downstream opps. for synergy with the Surface, Xbox, and the device ecosystem," he wrote.

CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this story.

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Microsoft will ride artificial intelligence, cloud computing to higher ... - CNBC

BBC News

Amazon accuses Walmart of bullying in cloud computing clash BBC News Walmart, the US's biggest retail chain, has been accused of trying to coerce its technology suppliers into shunning Amazon's cloud computing service. Amazon has accused its rival of attempting to "bully" the IT companies into picking a rival platform ... Wal-Mart Prods Partners, Vendors to Leave AWS for AzureMSPmentor Wal-Mart to vendors: get off Amazon's cloudFox Business Amazon, Microsoft Still Rule Cloud; Oracle, Alibaba May Catch Up (ORCL, BABA)Investopedia Newsmax -TheStreet.com -Wall Street Journal all 51 news articles »

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Amazon accuses Walmart of bullying in cloud computing clash - BBC News

Oracle Corp. co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison predicted three months ago the company's cloud-infrastructure business would "soon" grow faster than its other web-based, on-demand applications and services.

He didn't say then when soon would be. But it wasn't three months.

On Wednesday, Oracle reported fourth-quarter results that topped analysts' expectations, sending its stock soaring in after-market trading. The company also changed the way it reports its cloud-computing business.

Oracle is mixing its nascent infrastructure-as-a-service business, where it provides computing resources and storage on demand, with its more tenured business of selling access to app-management and data analytics tools, called platform-as-a-service.

In its fiscal fourth quarter, Oracle posted solid results in its cloud-infrastructure business, where it competes against leaders Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. Revenue from the business rose 23% to $208 million.

The Redwood City, Calif., company's platform-as-a-service business, combined with its other cloud business that sells access to applications -- known as software-as-a-service -- saw revenue climb 67% to $1.15 billion for the quarter ended May 31.

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Going forward, it isn't clear whether Oracle will continue to break out its progress in the cloud-infrastructure market. On a call with analysts, co-Chief Executive Safra Catz said Oracle combined its platform and infrastructure cloud businesses because "synergies and cross-selling between these two businesses is very high."

Over all, Oracle earned a profit of $3.23 billion, or 76 a share, in its fiscal fourth quarter, up from $2.81 billion, or 66 cents a share, a year earlier. The company said adjusted per-share earnings, which commonly exclude stock-based compensation and other items, were 89 cents.

Revenue rose 2.8% to $10.89 billion. Excluding the impact of a strong U.S. dollar, revenue would have grown 4%, the company said.

According to estimates gathered by S&P Global Market Intelligence, analysts expected Oracle to earn 78 cents a share on an adjusted basis, on revenue of $10.45 billion. Shares jumped 9.5% to $50.18 in recent after-hours trading.

Mr. Ellison has made building the cloud-infrastructure business one of Oracle's key missions, saying last summer "Amazon's lead is over" after introducing Oracle's latest technology for the market.

Amazon, though, continues to pull away. Its Amazon Web Services unit, whose net sales are largely comprised of its cloud-infrastructure business, grew 43% in the most recent quarter to $3.66 billion.

To keep pace with rivals in the cloud-infrastructure market, Oracle will need to meaningfully expand its capital spending and operating expenses, Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Brad Reback recently wrote in a report.

Last year alone, Amazon, Microsoft and Google spent a combined $31.54 billion in 2016 on capital expenditures and leases, much of that on data centers to deliver cloud-infrastructure services.

Oracle spent $2.02 billion on capital expenditures, up from $1.19 billion a year earlier. That, in part, led to operating margins of 34%, compared with 43% in the previous fiscal year. The company has said it doesn't believe it needs to spend as much as rivals to catch up, arguing its technology is superior.

Mr. Reback, though, believes that the company will invest more in data centers to compete in the cloud-infrastructure market.

"They will need to continue to spend $2 billion or higher a year," Mr. Reback said in an interview.

Growth in Oracle's entire cloud business is outpacing the decline in its legacy business of selling licenses to software customers run on their own servers. The cloud business grew $502 million year-over-year while Oracle's new software-license revenue fell $140 million. It is the fourth-consecutive quarter in which Oracle's cloud-revenue gains outpaced declines in its legacy software business.

Over all, revenue from new software licenses fell 5% to $2.63 billion.

The biggest piece of Oracle's software business remains its massive software-license updates and product-support operations. That segment generated $4.9 billion in revenue, a 2% gain from a year earlier.

Write to Jay Greene at Jay.Greene@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 21, 2017 17:45 ET (21:45 GMT)

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Cloud-Computing Business Lifts Oracle's Profit -- Update - Fox Business

(Bloomberg) -- Oracle Corp.s push into cloud computing is picking up momentum, sparking a fourth straight quarter of revenue gains for the software maker.

The company, which set a record closing high Wednesday for its shares, reported total sales that easily topped analysts estimates.

Oracles cloud businesses grew 58 percent in the fiscal fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, new software licenses, a measure thats tied to the companys traditional on-premise software offerings, declined 5 percent compared with a drop of 16 percent in the previous period.

Oracles long shift to the cloud, which lets customers access services without installing them on their own computers, is now producing more sturdy growth, indicating that the company can compete against rivals such as Salesforce.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

It benefited in particular with applications that help companies in areas such as human resources, customer relationship management and financials.

Sales for that piece of Oracles business, which was detailed for the first time in the earnings report, jumped almost 70 percent.

Everything looks very, very strong, said Joel Fishbein, an analyst at BTIG. Oracle is a legitimate and formidable cloud player.

Shares of Oracle rose as much as 12 percent in extended trading after the earnings were released. Investors have been optimistic this year with the companys stock increasing 20 percent to a record $46.33 at the close in New York.

We continue to experience rapid adoption of the Oracle Cloud, co-Chief Executive Officer Safra Catz said in a statement. This cloud hyper-growth is expanding our operating margins, and we expect earnings per share growth to accelerate in fiscal 2018.

Adjusted revenue increased 3 percent to $10.9 billion in the period ended May 31, the company said Wednesday in a statement.

On average, analysts had projected $10.5 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Profit, excluding some costs, was 89 cents a share, topping the estimate of 78 cents.

Net income rose 15 percent to $3.2 billion.

During a call with analysts, Catz said she expects adjusted revenue in constant currency to rise 4 percent to 6 percent in the current quarter.

She also projected adjusted earnings of 59 cents to 61 cents per share, adding that Oracle should see double-digit growth in earnings per share for the fiscal year.

Oracles finally turned the corner in terms of its cloud momentum, said Josh Olson, an analyst at Edward Jones. For years, its been kind of struggle. But theyve, I think, found their footing.

Oracle executives used the call to tout the interest of customers in its cloud business.

Last month, the company said that AT&T Inc., the telecommunications giant, had signed a deal to move thousands of databases to Oracles new platforms.

While it provided no revenue at all in Q4, its a very strategic win as a reference to all of our customers about the modernization of databases and the movement of them to the cloud, co-CEO Mark Hurd said during the call.

Still, the better-than-anticipated performance in the traditional business helped deliver much of the positive news in the quarter, said Pat Walravens, an analyst at JMP Securities.

The real outperformance came in the part of the business that theyre moving away from, Walravens said.

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Oracle Revenue Blows Away Estimates on Surging Cloud Demand - MSPmentor

INDUSTRY INSIGHT

Traditional IT infrastructures were built for a different time, and conflict with many of the core requirements of modern day computing that is exponentially increasing the worlds connectivity expectations and requirements. Todays government must find a path that leverages disruptive technologies, such as cloud computing, without disturbing agency personnel's ability to deliver on their core missions.

As agencies try to escape the legacy systems built decades ago, benefits such as cost and energy savings are compelling them to move to cloud environments. In 2011, the White House rolled out the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy was rolled out to address the fact that it can take years to build new data centers for new digital services, or months to increase capacity of existing data center services. The start-small approach enabled by cloud computing lets agencies provision capacity incrementally so they can develop and test applications with smaller initial investments than traditional IT models allow. At the same time, the nature of some expenses change from being capital investments in hardware and infrastructure to a pay-as-you go model, making the cloud was very appealing.

However, a 2014 assessment by the Government Accountability Office revealed that government cloud adoption is lagging often because existing legacy systems are not due to be modernized or replaced. This, coupled with other challenges -- such as the decentralized structure of technology investments, lengthy procurement processes, complexities in identifying and then managing an appropriate migration path to the cloud, data governance/control issues, lack of insight into vendor technologies and capabilities and concern about vendor lock-in -- has severely impacted the success of cloud adoption.

However, understanding how an agency fits into the use cases for government is the first step in justifying the switch to the cloud. Other reasons include capabilities for the following:

Data analytics on demand. By integrating on-premises computers with pay-per-use cloud computing resources in a seamless user experience, government big data analysts working with massive datasets can shave wait times down to a fraction of an hour.

Distributing applications to users. With smaller footprints in more geographically dispersed collection points connected to the cloud for computing power, agencies can decrease latency, improve reliability and reduce network costs.

Internet of things. By integrating existing systems with various cloud platforms that can seamlessly share data, agencies can provide new digital products and services to demonstrate rapid innovation.

Disaster recovery and continuity of operations. Unplanned outages occur for reasons as routine as human error or hardware failure, and as extreme as natural disasters or acts of terrorism. Simple and cost-effective geographic distribution of disaster recovery sites or mix-and-match cloud services give agencies the redundancy and resiliency they need to still deliver, even in the event of a disaster.

Multicloud flexibility. A multicloud environment introduces the ability to seamlessly use compute power from multiple cloud providers or to easily migrate data from one cloud to another.

The interconnected cloud ecosystem

As government is pushed to think digitally, hybrid and multicloud environments are being seen as the logical next step in the value chain since integrating users, services, capacity and connectivity creates a much better user experience. Connectivity across clouds could be the most important feature of all, as standalone cloud environments can be as isolating as traditional IT infrastructure.

Some agencies have turned to the public internet to connect to clouds only to find that security and performance issues in using the public internet introduce more hurdles. Others have explored establishing dedicated links (via multiprotocol label switching extensions) from their network to each chosen cloud provider. However, this approach is expensive, requires more connections, takes months to provision and leads to vendor lock-in.

To achieve the promise of digital transformation, an interconnected government must use a new strategy to directly and securely connect people, locations, clouds and data. Integrating an interconnection-first approach with a cloud-first strategy enables digital users to gain access to multiple clouds from any location or any device. This paradigm accelerates a new level of interconnection to the multicloud environment and gives users the following benefits:

Government cloud pioneers are demonstrating real and significant cost savings. They are getting unprecedented abilities to scale up and down quickly, are not being locked in and even get enhanced levels of security. Although each agency has a unique mission, security requirements and IT landscapes, the benefits of an interconnected government address every possible scenario.

An interconnected cloud ecosystem creates a high-speed fabric of globally distributed cloud-based points of presence, expanded out to the digital edge. Just as the General Services Administration's Data Center Shared Services Marketplace is envisioned to be the central location where agencies can choose from an inventory of data center services, automated management tools and products to achieve efficiency and cost savings, an interconnected cloud ecosystem offers a neutral marketplace for providers and consumers to come together.

The government cloud marketplace is maturing, and agencies are becoming both providers and consumers of cloud services. This opens up new avenues for shared services. In order to fulfill the potential for an interconnected government, this platform layer of digital services requires participation by the broadest ecosystem of network and service providers so agencies can take advantage of all that digital transformation can offer.

About the Author

Jody McCann is senior director for government strategy and partnerships at Equinix.

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Catching up with an interconnected federal cloud - GCN.com