Managed Services - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Windows Azure users can use hard drives to import and export data

  Microsoft is offering Windows Azure customers the facility of transferring their data offline to and from Azure storage accounts using hard disk drives.

• Microsoft goes Big Data with new Hadoop Azure service

  In much the same way that Microsoft brought spreadsheet crunching to the business world through its now-ubiquitous Excel, the company is hoping to make a similar impact with big data analysis with its new Windows Azure HDInsight service.

• Rackspace joins forces with Hortonworks on hosted Hadoop

  Enterprises can now run Hortonworks' Hadoop-based Data Platform in Rackspace's managed hosting environment and its public cloud.

• Google cozies up to Apple developers with cloud platform

  For Apple developers that want an easy way to add cloud storage or device-to-device push notifications to their apps, Google has announced Mobile Backend Starter for iOS.

• Verizon's next cloud services emphasize performance, granular billing

  Verizon is extending its suite of cloud services to offer a new IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) option, called Verizon Cloud Compute, as well as a new storage-as-a-service, Verizon Cloud Storage, that the company says offer finer granularity in pricing and stricter quality of service metrics than its competitors.

• Red Hat serves middleware to cloud developers

  In a move to jump ahead of other PaaS (platform as a service) providers in the enterprise space, Red Hat will augment its OpenShift offering with a suite of middleware to ease the process of deploying cloud-based applications.

• Cache warfare: Azure and AWS get updated caching services

  The competition between Microsoft's Windows Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) has moved to the caching layer: Both companies updated their caching services this week.

• VMware adds networking, storage to its virtual data center stack

  At the kick-off of its annual VMworld user conference, being held this week in San Francisco, VMware will fill in more layers of its software stack for running its envisioned software defined data center (SDDC).

• HP introduces SAP HANA based Cloud service

  Hewlett-Packard has introduced a Cloud service around SAP's HANA in-memory database, targeting customers who want to analyse Big Data.

• IBM, Verizon to compete for $10 billion in government cloud work

  IBM, Verizon and eight other companies will compete for US$10 billion worth of work to help move the U.S. Department of the Interior's IT systems to the cloud.

• Rapidly growing DigitalOcean opens second NYC data center

  Continuing its rapid expansion, cloud service provider DigitalOcean has opened a second facility in the greater New York metropolitan area -- a data center located in Google's gargantuan Manhattan facility.

• SAP reveals road map details for its HANA in-memory platform

  SAP has provided an extensive window into the future direction of its HANA in-memory database platform, which has emerged as the central pillar of the company's product strategy.

• Data.gov gets an open-source revamp

  The U.S. government's portal for the data it creates, Next.Data.gov, is getting a revamp that should make it easier to view and reuse government data.

• WA Department of Housing signs $11.3M managed services deal

  The Western Australia Department of Housing has signed a new $11.3 million contract with ASG Group (ASX: ASZ) for IT managed services.

• Rackspace supercharges MongoDB service

  Rackspace is now offering hosted versions of the MongoDB data store, using MongoDB management technologies it acquired from its purchase of ObjectRocket in February. It also has contracted with 10gen, the company shepherding the open source MongoDB, to provide advanced support for the service.