Pentagon to ‘reconsider certain aspects’ of JEDI Microsoft cloud contract award

Updated 1530 GMT The Pentagon has asked a federal court for 120 days to ‘reconsider certain aspects’ of the decision to award Microsoft the $10 billion (£7.9bn) federal cloud computing contract.

The ruling, in a court order published on Thursday, noted that Amazon Web Services (AWS), who last month won a temporary injunction against the award, would ‘likely be able to show that...

Microsoft beats AWS to $10bn JEDI contract: Defining multi-cloud and analysing administrative influence

Analysis The announcement from the Department of Defense (DoD) on Friday that Microsoft had been awarded the long-detailed $10 billion JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) cloud computing contract elicited responses of surprise from many in the industry.

The release confirming the contract to Microsoft made for interesting reading. Transparency was the name of the game: the award was ‘conducted in accordance with applicable laws and regulations’, it...

Simplifying complex public sector environments through cloud: A guide

Government and public sector organisations continue to seek ways to improve services and mitigate the risk of migrating mission-critical applications to the cloud. Already, many organisations, focused on improving the citizen experience, have set their sights on the cloud. Flexible, agile and affordable, managed cloud can accelerate the agency mission.  Still, CIOs are cautious about which applications to prioritise and what steps they must take to ensure the reality fulfils the...

Microsoft expands government cloud offerings as company says IT shift ‘reaches tipping point’

Microsoft has beefed up its government cloud offerings, launching government-specific editions of Microsoft 365 and Azure Stack, as well as greater security and compliance in Dynamics 365.

Microsoft 365, which comprises Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS), and Azure Stack, which extends Azure to on-premises environments, are being upgraded as Microsoft acknowledges faster acceleration of government organisations moving to the cloud.

“This move...

How hybrid, multi-cloud and community clouds are coming together for the best of all worlds

What you look for in a cloud provider depends to a large extent on the drivers and challenges that you are experiencing.

People with large legacy estates, for instance, tend to be looking for a hybrid cloud solution that can support both their old legacy workloads and their new cloud ones. Some see this as a transitional arrangement to cover the period in which workloads are migrated to the cloud, but many realise that there are certain workloads for which migration will never be...

UKCloud partnership with Microsoft and Cisco pushes forward multi-cloud for public sector

UKCloud has announced a collaboration with Microsoft and Cisco to provide what is claimed to be the UK’s only implementation of Microsoft Azure Stack dedicated to the public sector.

The company says it is moving its focus from ‘public cloud for public sector’ to becoming ‘multi-cloud experts’, as organisations progress from initial cloud deployments. Through Cisco as an OEM partner, companies can use Azure alongside other platforms, such as Oracle,...

UKCloud becomes first European provider to offer cloud GPU computing service

GPUs are becoming ever more attractive to cloud service providers and customers as the demand for intensive computing increases – and UKCloud has become the first European cloud service provider to offer a cloud GPU computing service through NVIDIA’s Tesla P100 and M60 units.

UKCloud, formerly Skyscape, offers services for the public sector as well as healthcare. The company said the move for GPUs came about through its ‘maniacal focus’ on service excellence...

The key themes underpinning the continued momentum for UK cloud adoption

I recently read with interest the results of the latest Cloud Industry Forum research survey into UK Cloud adoption and a couple of aspects jumped out at me, undoubtedly mirroring the experience iland is having within the UK market.

Overall cloud adoption rates among British businesses now stand at 88% and the rate of cloud adoption has increased by a whopping 83% since 2010, with an increase of 5% since last year.  In fact, today, we rarely speak with a customer that isn't using...

One in three public sector firms have ‘no concrete plans’ for cloud

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A new research report from software and business services provider Agilisys has found that more than a third of public sector firms have ‘no concrete plans’ to adopt cloud-based technology.

The findings, which appear in the 2016 Cloud Adoption Survey, found that of the 180 respondents, 36% had no plans to migrate to the cloud.

Almost 60% said that cloud adoption would help to reduce on-site maintenance and IT support requirements, which...

Oregon joins AWS government cloud – while UK councils turn down G-Cloud

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced it has signed a criminal justice information services (CJIS) agreement with the State of Oregon, enabling AWS GovCloud services available to the state’s law enforcement officers.

Oregon joins California, Colorado, and Minnesota among others in signing up to AWS’s cloud services. The provider has two availability zones in its US GovCloud data centre.

“We are committed to doing our part...