Total end user spending on IT infrastructure products for cloud environments recovered significantly in the most recent quarter bringing overall 2019 levels above the red line, according to IDC.

Following two consecutive quarters of spending decline for server, enterprise storage and Ethernet switch for cloud, Q419 saw $19.4 billion (£x) in spending at a 12.4% year-over-year growth. Total spending for the year, at $66.8bn, saw 2.1% annual growth.

IDC noted that, aside from occasional swings, the IT...

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the general availability of Amazon Detective, a new offering which aims to help customers remediate security issues across their AWS workloads more easily.

Amazon Detective, which was launched in preview at re:Invent last year, automatically collects log data from a customer's resources and uses machine learning and statistical analysis to build interactive visualisations which customers can use to deduce security anomalies.

Sebastien Stormacq, Amazon senior developer advocate,...

Microsoft has announced it is to acquire Affirmed Networks, a provider of network functions virtualisation (NFV) software – as the telecoms space heats up for the biggest cloud players. 

As 5G is becoming more of a reality, cloud vendors see their role as enabling telecom operators to deploy and maintain next-generation networks more efficiently.  

“At Microsoft, we intend to empower the telecommunications industry as it continues its move to 5G and support both...

In the land of the hyperscale cloud operators, all remains relatively rosy in the garden. New data from Synergy Research shows that hyperscale operator capex set a new record in the most recent quarter.

In total, more than $32 billion was laid down in the fourth quarter of 2019, beating the previous record set by Q418. Synergy noted that a lot of spend – and strategy – was going into data centres. Capex...

Updated April 2 As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, with citizens across many countries urged to work from home where possible, it has posed a unique challenge for both frontend applications and the backend technologies underpinning them.

A lot of attention has, understandably, focused on the former. Zoom, which appears to be the videoconferencing tool du jour for many businesses, has held up well thus far, although at the time of print (March 23)

China’s cloud computing market continues to intrigue because of its potential – and according to a new study from analyst firm Canalys, cloud infrastructure services in China grew 67% in Q419, making the country’s spend at more than one tenth of the overall market.

Total spend reached $3.3 billion (£2.8bn) in the quarter, with Alibaba Cloud accounting for almost half (46.4%) of outlay making it the...

Google Cloud is postponing its Cloud Next event over coronavirus fears, having previously made the move to stage the conference virtually.

The company had at the start of this month announced that Next, originally due to be at San Francisco on April 6-8 with an expected attendance of more than 30,000, was going online-only.

Now Google is scrapping things altogether, although promising that the event will...

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...

Another day, another product launch in the land of the hyperscalers – and for Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS), their new services are focusing on machine learning (ML) and containers respectively.

Google’s launch of Cloud AI Platform Pipelines, in beta, aims to provide a way to deploy ‘robust, repeatable machine learning pipelines… and delivers an enterprise-ready, easy to install, secure execution environment...

As security best practice continues to be a battle between organisations closing the gap of hackers who stay one step ahead, a new report from cybersecurity asset management provider Axonius has argued the complexity of cloud infrastructure means companies are ‘rapidly’ losing sight of their asset landscape.

The study, put together by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) and which polled 200 North America-based IT and...

Google Cloud continues to secure the big-ticket clients, with the company announcing that Lloyds Banking Group is set to embark on its ‘cloud transformation’ journey with Google.

The bank is investing a total of £3 billion ($3.9bn) between 2018 and 2020 in wider IT initiatives, and in this five-year deal, Lloyds will deploy various Google Cloud services focused around the customer experience....

The hyperscalers continue to lead where others fear to tread – or at least those without the cavernous pockets of the biggest cloud players, at least. Gartner has gazed into its crystal ball and ranked the main vendors for cloud AI developer services, and it’s a 1-2-3 for Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and Google.

In its latest Magic Quadrant, Gartner defines ‘cloud AI developer services’ thus: as...

Updated March 6 Major League Baseball (MLB) has selected Google Cloud as its official cloud partner, bringing to an end the company’s long-standing relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

In what both companies described as a ‘powerful multi-year collaboration’, MLB will migrate its cloud and on-premise systems to Google Cloud, as well as move Google in to power tracking technology Statcast. Machine learning...

Data centre workloads, powered by the rise in cloud computing, may not be the threat to the climate many have feared, according to a new report.

The study, published in the journal Science last week, argued that while global data centre energy has increased over the past decade, this growth is negligible compared with the rise of workloads during that time.

According to the research, 2018 saw global...

Salesforce is to acquire Vlocity, a provider of industry-specific cloud and CRM apps, for $1.33 billion (£1.04bn) in an all-cash deal – amid an action-packed end to the company’s fiscal year.

The news was tucked away at the very end of Salesforce’s fourth quarter update. The company’s financial results were described as ‘phenomenal’ by CEO Marc Benioff – not co-CEO, more on which...

Google Cloud has beefed up its security offerings to include greater threat detection, response integration, and online fraud prevention.

The news, announced at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, focused predominantly on enterprise security product Chronicle, which was ‘acquired’ by Google Cloud last year having been a bet of the...

The potential of artificial intelligence (AI) revolutionising software is evident, from creating new data models to the improved insights gleamed from the data provided. If you’re a business intelligence (BI) vendor and you are not exploring AI or machine learning in some capacity, for instance, then there is a real danger of missing the boat.

But if you’re expecting AI software companies to eat up recurring revenues like...

StackRox, a provider of cloud-native, container and Kubernetes security, warned in its previous report that the security implications for Kubernetes were beginning to spill over to adoption – and the release of its updated winter study have proved the company right.

The paper, the winter edition of its State of Container and Kubernetes Security Report, was put together alongside 451 Research and polled more than 500 industry...

Google Cloud’s shopping list shows no signs of abating, with the company announcing the acquisition of Cornerstone Technology, a mainframe specialist.

The 30-year-old provider, based in the Netherlands, has an overall remit of ‘helping customers protect and improve their investments in essential legacy enterprise applications’, in Cornerstone’s own words. Cornerstone uses automation to break down programs, turn them into...

The hyperscale cloud providers are looking at Internet of Things (IoT) offerings and connectivity amid a swath of emerging technologies – and according to a new note from ABI Research, cloud suppliers will grow their share of IoT data and analytics management revenues from $6 billion (£4.6bn) to $56bn (£43bn) in the next six years.

The way to do this, the analyst firm notes, is through partnerships. As ABI...