Summary Bullets:

• Hyperscale cloud providers report a surge in demand for both their on-demand infrastructure services and productivity and collaboration services

• Past experience is so far helping guide capacity planning but there are still some limitations that are impacting performance as some users and applications involved in critical healthcare and emergency services get priority

The COVID-19 pandemic is driving businesses in virtually every field to deploy a remote workforce model overnight. This shift comes with immediate need for cloud-based productivity and collaboration applications. Organizations are also looking to virtualize other elements of their infrastructures, and thus requiring more cloud capacity to support these changes. Continue reading “COVID-19: Hyperscalers Ramp Up, Clamp Down to Meet Soaring Demand” →

Summary Bullets:

• COVID-19 has driven organizations to shift to more virtual and remote operations, highlighting flaws in our connectivity, as well as challenges with our current collaboration and other business applications.
• While still at a relatively nascent stage, edge computing is beginning to play a role in enabling latency-sensitive use cases such as telemedicine applications for remote diagnostics that could potentially help address future global issues like the coronavirus outbreak.

The COVID-19 outbreak is driving an overwhelming shift to virtual operations for many traditional enterprises and educational institutions. The mass migration to a remote workforce and distance learning exposes technology gaps and inspires some deeper thinking on ways in which organizations can apply innovation to their models. Can more work be done remotely on a longer-term basis? How can students with limited Internet access be connected in a cost-effective and efficient way? What transformational use cases can emerging technologies drive forward that could help resolve the pandemic and address other complex problems around the world? Continue reading “Cloud Rising: Hyperscale Providers Play a Crucial Role in the Race to Connect During the COVID-19 Outbreak” →

Summary Bullets:

• Two months after Amazon filed a protest with the courts over the JEDI contract award to Microsoft, the company asked a judge to suspend work on the project

• Amazon wants the court to halt work on JEDI while it considers whether the bid process was fair

Summary Bullets:

• In the same month DXC announced two new acquisitions, the company said it is may sell off three non-core business units

• DXC wants to invest the proceeds to strengthen its core IT outsourcing business

Less than two months after assuming the role of President and CEO at DXC, Mike Salvino made waves when he told financial analysts on an earnings call the company is considering the sale of non-core business units. Saviano said executives are looking seriously at divesting three organizations: Workplace & Mobility; U.S. State and Local Health Human Services; and Horizontal Business Process Services. This comes as DXC posted dismal Q2 FY 2020 earnings that saw revenues slide 3.4% versus the same quarter a year ago. Continue reading “DXC Technology Considers Divesting Non-Core Units After Reporting a Multi-Billion Quarterly Loss” →

Summary Bullets:

• Microsoft’s JEDI win after an often controversial procurement process that many said favored AWS caught the industry off guard

• Arguing that the process was tainted by Department of Defense (DoD) employee conflicts of interest and political interventions, Oracle and AWS are both contesting the procurement in court

The DoD sent shockwaves through the cloud computing sector in October with the announcement that Microsoft Azure had won the multi-billion single award Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI). Cloud behemoth AWS, long considered to be the one to beat in the closely watched and often controversial process, expressed surprise at the outcome. Some insiders have suggested that challenges during the bidding gave Microsoft the time to pull together a more cohesive and competitive cloud play. But others, including Oracle, a one-time competitor for the deal, are calling out the process as inherently unfair.
Continue reading “AWS and Oracle Protest Microsoft’s Surprise $10 Billion Pentagon JEDI Contract Win” →

Summary Bullets:

• With John Chambers leading Pensando’s board as well as HPE making a big investment and stepping up as a partner, the startup is looking to make waves.
• The company has grand ambitions to play a major disruptor role–and the leadership and intellect with a potential to achieve them.

When a startup enters the IT landscape with the kind of backing that Pensando Systems has, the industry takes note. Founded in 2017 by Cisco veterans Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, Luca Cafiero, and Soni Jiandani, the team behind a number of cutting edge products including the Nexus 9000 switch series, the company disclosed that it has secured third-round funding valued at $145 million from HPE and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Pensando also announced HPE CTO Mark Potter is joining the board of directors and that his company will be a key distribution partner for its technology.
Continue reading “Out of Stealth Mode, Edge Computing Startup Pensando Wants to be a Giant Slayer” →