Category Archives: Cloud Computing
3 Cloud Computing Stocks To Buy Right Now – April 4, 2017 – Zacks … – Zacks.com
In the matter of just a few years, the Cloud has evolved from the new feature that your grandmother just cant quite seem to understand to one of the main factors driving growth in the computing sector. Cloud computing is now an essential focus for software-related companies, and cloud stocks have piqued the interest of many tech-focused investors.
New technologies and changing consumer behavior have changed the shape of the technology landscape, and an industry that was once centered on the personal computer has adapted to survive in the world of mobile computing and the Cloud. The markets have been paying attention, and some of the best tech stocks have been those that are either primarily cloud-based companies, or those that have shown growth in their cloud operations.
With this in mind, weve highlighted three stocks that are not only showing strong cloud-related activity, but also strong fundamental metrics. Check out these three cloud stocks to buy right now:
1. Wix.com (WIX - Free Report)
Wix.com is a developer of a cloud-based platform that helps users create online content. Using Wixs tools, one can relatively easily design a webpage or online portfolio. The company recently surpassed the 100 million registered user threshold, and its strength is underscored by its Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) ranking and its impressive EPS and revenue growth projections.
Wixs full-year Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has gained 10 cents over the past 30 days, and although it remains a loss-making company, current estimates would represent EPS improvement of nearly 61%. Our consensus estimates also call for sales growth of nearly 43% this year. Looking ahead, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Wixs fiscal 2018 currently suggests a profit of 35 cents per share.
2. Adobe Systems (ADBE - Free Report)
Adobe Systems is a provider of graphic design, publishing, and imaging software for Web and print production. The companys main offering is its Creative Cloud, which is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product that allows users to access all of Adobes tools at one monthly price. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Within the last 30 days, we have seen at least one positive estimate revision for Adobes current-quarter, next-quarter, full-year, and next-year earnings. After beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by an average of nearly 8% in each of the trailing four quarters, Adobe will look to continue its momentum with another impressive report. Our consensus estimate for the quarter call for EPS growth of 40% on sales growth nearly 24%.
3. j2 Global (JCOM - Free Report)
j2 Global provides cloud-based communications and storage messaging services. j2 markets its services principally under the brand names eFax, eVoice, Electric Mail, Campaigner, KeepItSafe and Onebox. The company also provides software-as-a-service communication services and solutions to the business market.
The company has now posted three straight earnings beats, and despite the fact that it is more than 20 years old, our current consensus estimate call for sales growth of over 30% and earnings growth of nearly 15% this year. On top of its Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), j2 has also earned a VGM score of A.
Bottom Line
Cloud-based companies have been some of the best performing stocks in the tech sector this year, and these cloud stocks also boast strong fundamental metrics. If youre looking to add tech stocks to your portfolio right now, this list is probably a good place to start.
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3 Cloud Computing Stocks To Buy Right Now - April 4, 2017 - Zacks ... - Zacks.com
VMware Sells Off Cloud Services Business to OVH – Talkin’ Cloud
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VMware has severed the final link that kept it in the business of providing cloud services and operating the data center infrastructure to support them. OVH, a French cloud provider that has been aggressively expanding in the US market, has agreed to buy VMwares vCloud Air business for an undisclosed sum, the companies announced Tuesday.
The Palo Alto, California-based data center software giant (now a subsidiary of Dell Technologies, following its merger with EMC) changed its cloud strategy last year, acknowledging that it was better off focusing on technology and leaving the costly business of infrastructure operations to those who do it best.
VMware chose to partner with cloud providers instead, becoming their gateway into the enterprise data center, where it rules. Last year it sold its government cloud business to data center provider QTS and partnered with AWS and IBM to provide its software defined data center technology as cloud services, making it easier for enterprises to extend their on-premise VMware environments into the cloud.
On a conference call with reporters Tuesday both companies executives denied the assumption that vCloud Air had not been a successful business.
Ajay Patel, VMwares senior VP of product development for cloud services, said the business has been successful with the specific use cases it has gone after, which are enterprises virtualized on VMware about 80 percent of them who want to extend their existing environments to public cloud, consolidate data centers, and use hybrid cloud for disaster recovery, all without having to re-architect their infrastructure. Weve done this successfully with some of our largest customers, Patel said.
OVH will continue providing the service, whose new name combines its existing branding with the new parent companys: vCloud Air Powered by OVH. Similar to its partnerships with AWS and IBM, VMware will now act as the technology supplier to OVH.
We are trying to help [enterprises] make the transition from the existing data center to the cloud, Octave Klaba, OVH chairman and CEO, said. Customers will be able to just click and move all the VMs to OVH.
The French companys 26 data centers in Europe and North America will add to the existing vCloud Air footprint. OVH designs its own servers and data centers. The company claims its energy efficient cooling system design has helped it cut cost by 50 percent.
We are an infrastructure player that has disruptive technology, Russel Reeder, president and CEO at OVH US, said. According to him, OVH competes with the public cloud giants on price, while also providing customer support, and SLAs.
The company is expanding its infrastructure globally, building data centers in the US (in Hillsboro, Oregon, and Vint Hill, Virginia), Europe, and Asia Pacific. The company said earlier this year it expects to invest 1.5 billion in the five-year expansion project to establish data centers in 11 countries.
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VMware Sells Off Cloud Services Business to OVH - Talkin' Cloud
MacB Awarded U.S. Army Cloud Computing BOA – Yahoo Finance
Dayton, Ohio, April 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MacAulay-Brown, Inc. (MacB), a leading National Security company delivering advanced engineering services, cybersecurity and product solutions, announced today that Enlighten IT Consulting (EITC), a MacB company, was awarded a Basic Ordering Agreement (BOA) from U.S. Army Contracting Command (ACC). The three-year Army Cloud Computing Enterprise Transformation (ACCENT) agreement has a $247 million ceiling value across all holders. Awardees will be considered the preferred source by all Army commands and organizations needing commercial cloud hosting, data center migration, transition support and application modernization services.
ACCENT, managed by the Armys Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS), is a contract vehicle to procure technical support for migration of enterprise systems/applications to a commercial cloud environment or an Army Enterprise Hosting Facility (AEHF). Requirements are derived from the Army Data Center Consolidation Plan (ADCCP) for modernization and migration. The goal is to move designated IT applications, systems, and associated data to authorized commercial cloud service providers (CSPs) and also consolidate data centers to AEHFs.
EITC will deliver cloud engineering services and application migration solutions that include Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Enlightens experts will provide application and security requirements analysis, business process reengineering, data preparation, migration planning and scheduling, modernization (code refactoring and augmentation), and virtualization. Work also will include cutover and back out planning, technical engineering, interface and service transition planning, training/compliance in a cloud service environment and go-live support.
We have a proud history of supporting PEO EIS technical initiatives, said Shawn Justice, Senior Vice President and General Manager of EITC. We view the ACCENT BOA award as another key vehicle to providing innovative cloud engineering practices and processes to meet the challenges associated with critical IT infrastructures, as well as business systems across the Army user community.
Our acquisition of EITC has shown an immediate benefit to not only MacB and EITC, but also to our valued customers, said Sid Fuchs, President and Chief Executive Officer of MacB. With the addition of EITC to the MacB portfolio, our strategic plan is on the right trajectory, thus enabling our combined companies to expand into valued defense markets with leading-edge capabilities.
ABOUT ENLIGHTEN IT CONSULTING (EITC), a MACAULAY-BROWN, INC. (MacB) COMPANY Since 2007, EITC has been an innovative provider of advanced and mission critical big data infrastructure, secure cloud engineering, and analytic solutions for federal, state, and local clients with specific emphasis on the warfighter and decision-makers responsible for national defense and security. EITC is headquartered in Linthicum Heights, MD. The company was acquired by MacB in December 2016.
ABOUT MACAULAY-BROWN, INC. (MacB)For more than 37 years, MacAulay-Brown, Inc. (MacB) has been solving some of the Nations most complex National Security challenges. Defense, Intelligence Community, Special Operations Forces, Homeland Security and Federal agencies rely on our advanced engineering services, cybersecurity, and product solutions to meet the challenges of an ever-changing world. With Corporate Headquarters in Dayton, Ohio and National Capital Headquarters in Vienna, Virginia, our more than 1,500 employees worldwide are dedicated to developing mission-focused and results-oriented solutions that make a difference where and when it matters most. Learn more about MacB at http://www.macb.com.
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MacB Awarded U.S. Army Cloud Computing BOA - Yahoo Finance
Overcome app portability hurdles of containers in cloud computing – TechTarget
Overcome app portability hurdles of containers in cloud computing TechTarget But as more organizations turn to containers in cloud computing, there are services on the market to help, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Container Service (ECS), Microsoft Azure Container Service and Google Container Engine (GKE). |
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Overcome app portability hurdles of containers in cloud computing - TechTarget
iSchool master’s program to focus on cloud computing – The Daily Orange
Daily Orange File Photo
Syracuse Universitys School of Information Studies will offer a new masters degree program in enterprise data systems this fall.
Due to a rise in companies relying on cloud based data storage, Syracuse Universitys School of Information Studies will offer a new masters degree program in enterprise data systems this fall.
The program will teach students how data is processed, stored and networked primarily through cloud-based infrastructure, said Carlos Caicedo, the curriculum lead for the new program and an associate professor in the iSchool. Applications have opened for the program and will officially close June 1. Students must complete 36 credits and have to take 12 credits of selected a secondary focus area to finish the program.
The purpose of this new masters degree is to train professionals who can simultaneously sit with a CEO in a meeting and immediately design technology to complete the required data-driven tasks, said Caicedo and Jeffrey Saltz, an associate professor in the iSchool.
The traditional IT guy thats in a basement moving cables around is becoming more obsolete as companies want more well-rounded professionals, Caicedo said. The new masters program was created over the past year and a half in response to feedback from industry partners.
The employers are now asking for more of these students who can manage storing, sharing, accessing all the data, said Elizabeth Liddy, the dean of the iSchool. So we develop these programs because its responsive. We want to ensure that our students get the best jobs and that our employers are happy with how the students are prepared.
This new program is different than other programs the iSchool already offers because it focuses primarily on combining management and technical knowledge. Previously, there was not a comprehensive masters degree that merged these skills.
Companies that rely on data, such as Amazon or Google, need employees who know how to handle data on a technological level and a management level which is how enterprise data systems function, Caicedo said.
This program also teaches students how to properly design and use cloud-based infrastructure as a system in which data is stored externally.
We want people to understand not just the technology and not just the infrastructure side of data, but also how people use that data, Caicedo said.
Cloud computing is becoming more prevalent as companies acquire large amounts of data without knowing ways to store or network the data, Saltz said. Everyone has heard about the cloud, but actually getting the technology and infrastructure of the cloud to work properly takes a lot of skill, he added.
SU now offers a range of data-related programs, including this masters program, and a pre-existing business analytics program in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and the data science program in the School of Engineerings computer science department.
The iSchools enterprise data systems masters degree has the capacity to teach students the technological components of managing data, unlike the business analytics program and the data science program.
There are lots of programs in the iSchool or Whitman or computer science that talk about building applications or the context of how to use applications, Saltz said. But theres a gap in how do we deploy the tools required to make those apps work.
The masters program is innovative in a way, because it caters to what companies have specifically said they needed, Liddy and the other iSchool professors said. The program is different because students will see both sides of the cloud: the side of the developer and the side of the user, Saltz said.
Liddy and the iSchool professors said they are confident that students, after completing the masters course, will be hired by a company to work with enterprise data systems.
In this data-driven world, you need professionals that understand all the details related to infrastructure that deals with the data, Caicedo said.
Published on April 2, 2017 at 9:12 pm
Contact Catherine: ccleffer@syr.edu
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iSchool master's program to focus on cloud computing - The Daily Orange
Teradata launches licence portability for hybrid cloud computing … – Hindu Business Line
Sunil Jose, Managing Director, Teradata India (file pic)
Nice, March 3:
The US-based data and analytics company Teradata has introduced licence portability for hybrid cloud computing for its customers.
With portable database licenses, Teradata customers can now choose, shift, expand, and restructure their hybrid cloud environment by moving licenses between deployment options as their business needs change, that is, between keeping this data on-premises or on cloud or on both. This new software licensing model is the first in the hybrid cloud market to feature portability a shift away from cloud lock-in or siloed on-premises deployments. With this new facility, Teradata's customers can develop an analytic solution on the on-premises system Intelliflex and later port the same to the cloud facility, Intellicloud.
Sunil Jose, Managing Director, Teradata India, said: The new facility "delivers lower up-front costs and, with a consistent operating expenses model, makes it easier for customers to budget and predict spending patterns."
At a press conference held here, Teradata also announced an all-memory update to its Intelliflex platform. The new system has been upgraded by a move to all solid state drives, which make it possible to reduce required data centre space while also delivering an increase in processiing power. The upgrade indicates a gradual shift to solid state drives and away from hard disk drives (HDDs), as the former - whose costs were too prohibitive to be included in data warehouse appliances - sees its cost now come down. Teradata believes that SSDs will eventually be the preferred mode of storage for enterprise-level analytics appliances.
The company is also updating its solutions in the customer experiences model that will give marketers easier access to analytics, dynamic visualisations, machine learning and predictive simulations.
(The correspondent is in Nice at the invitation of Teradata)
(This article was published on April 3, 2017)
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Teradata launches licence portability for hybrid cloud computing ... - Hindu Business Line
Cloud computing next battlefield for technology giants – Daily Nation – Daily Nation
Saturday April 1 2017
Cloud services offer data storage and computing through the Internet. PHOTO | AFP
Global technology giants are scrambling for a piece of cloud computing, making it the next battlefield in Africa and Kenya.
Cloud services offer data storage and computing through the Internet. A cloud user, be it an individual or company, does not need to run processors or store data in a locally based centre or hard drive.
The headache, however, lies in the level of trust that firms, especially financial providers, may have in them. Proponents of this technology argue that it reduces the costs associated with running and maintaining data storage facilities. With the exponential rise in information generation, these capital costs would otherwise keep rising.
Currently, Africa does not account for a large chunk of the global cloud services market but has potential for growth.
Over the past decade, cloud computing has shaped up as a battlefield for the worlds technology giants. Cloud services account for 17 per cent of IBMs revenue but the group needs a competitive edge, given that it is tailing market leaders Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
It is this competitive edge that IBM chief executive and chairman Ginni Rometty was sharpening when she declared cloud one of the key pillars of the companys business outlook.
Ms Rometty said the companys goal was to help clients glean insights that could inform strategy based on data stored on its cloud. Data is the worlds next natural resource, said Ms Rometty.
Microsoft has signed a deal with Internet service provider Liquid Telecom to get its Azure product into the hands of more small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) in Africa.
One of the stumbling blocks to adoption of cloud services in Africa has been the lack of reliable Internet connectivity.
IBM has signed a Sh307 million deal with Sidian Bank, the first local financial institution to sign up to Big Blues cognitive cloud services. IBM is betting heavily that augmentation of cloud services with cognitive computing capabilities will appeal to clients and strengthen its position in the market.
Cognitive computing systems deploy a number of tools, from natural language processing to pattern recognition, to learn from experience and even provide users with useful insight and recommendations.
In the case of Sidian Bank, IBMs cognitive computing system mines data stored in the cloud to help the bank detect and solve problems faster.
Research carried out by the University of Nairobis C4DLab in 2014 found that while 69 per cent of respondents were using some form of cloud computing, concerns around security and ambiguity of the regulatory framework in Kenya continued to be a hindrance to greater adoption of cloud services.
With rapid proliferation of data, cloud is becoming the platform that enterprises turn to for innovation, but security and compliance concerns remain, said Mr John Considine, IBM general manager for cloud infrastructure.
Safety concerns arise from the control that companys may cede when they opt for cloud computing. Particularly, on the public cloud, a firm has to trust that its service provider will keep its data secure and provide access on demand.
For companies in heavily regulated sectors such as health and financial services, such a proposition could be problematic. In Kenya, this is exacerbated by a lack of clear policy on data protection or cyber security.
IBM hopes to address these challenges through introduction of new safety features to its cloud. However, even with these provisions, the company faces an uphill battle.
In its 2016 report on the state of the cloud services market, American research and advisory firm Gartner remained unconvinced by IBMs cloud offerings. On the other hand, Gartner had a favourable view of Amazon Web Services.
While AWS is considered by Gartner many times the aggregate size of all other providers in the market, Microsofts Azure was ranked second and Google third.
Competition is also posed by local firms such as Safaricom that offer their own range of cloud services.
The Kenyans were among six aid workers killed by unknown gunmen in South Sudan last week.
The mudslides slammed Mocoa late Friday after days of torrential rain in the Amazon basin area
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Cloud computing next battlefield for technology giants - Daily Nation - Daily Nation
Amazon Launches Its Own Call Center Platform – CIO Today
Plenty of companies have wished they had access to the same call center technology Amazon uses for its customer service centers. Now, they can. Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the launch of Amazon Connect, a self-service, cloud-based contact center technology service that is based on the same technology the company uses to power its own customer service operations.
According to the company, the service will allow enterprises to set up their own call center operations without having to invest heavily in proprietary hardware and software systems. Instead, Amazon's enterprise clients will be able to set up and configure their own "virtual contact centers" in a matter of minutes, offering better customer service at a lower cost.
Amazon Sells Its Special Sauce
Traditional contact centers have typically been complicated, expensive operations to set up, often taking months or even years to fully deploy. They often involve proprietary technologies that require special skills to operate, and frequently come with restrictive licensing agreements that can make it difficult for companies to scale their call center operations in response to changes in call volumes due to short-term promotions, seasonal spikes, or new product launches.
Amazon said that was the reason it decided to develop its own call center technology. "Ten years ago, we made the decision to build our own customer contact center technology from scratch because legacy solutions did not provide the scale, cost structure, and features we needed to deliver excellent customer service for our customers around the world," said Tom Weiland, vice president of worldwide customer service, Amazon, in a statement.
This choice has been a differentiator for us, as it is used today by our agents around the world in the millions of interactions they have with our customers," he added. "We're excited to offer this technology to customers as an AWS service -- with all of the simplicity, flexibility, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of the cloud."
Natural Language Understanding
According to the company, Amazon Connect doesn't require any infrastructure to deploy or manage, so customers can scale their Amazon Connect virtual contact centers up or down, onboarding any number of agents in response to business cycles and paying only for the time callers interact with the service.
The platform features a self-service graphical interface that Amazon said makes it easy for non-technical users to design contact flows, manage agents, and track performance metrics, without the need for any specialized skills.
The new platform also makes it possible for enterprises to design contact flows that adapt the caller experience, the company said. Contact flows can change based on information retrieved by Amazon Connect from other AWS services or third-party systems including CRM (customer relationship management) or analytics solutions.
Businesses can also build natural language contact flows using Amazon Lex, an artificial intelligence service that has the same automatic speech recognition technology and natural language understanding that powers Amazon Alexa. Amazon Lex enables callers to say what they want instead of having to listen to long lists of menu options and guess which one is most closely related to what they want to do.
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Amazon Launches Its Own Call Center Platform - CIO Today
Cloud Startup Icertis Raises $25M, Plans To Double Staff – CIO Today
By Jef Cozza / CIO Today. Updated March 28, 2017.
According to the company, the service will allow enterprises to set up their own call center operations without having to invest heavily in proprietary hardware and software systems. Instead, Amazon's enterprise clients will be able to set up and configure their own "virtual contact centers" in a matter of minutes, offering better customer service at a lower cost.
Amazon Sells Its Special Sauce
Traditional contact centers have typically been complicated, expensive operations to set up, often taking months or even years to fully deploy. They often involve proprietary technologies that require special skills to operate, and frequently come with restrictive licensing agreements that can make it difficult for companies to scale their call center operations in response to changes in call volumes due to short-term promotions, seasonal spikes, or new product launches.
Amazon said that was the reason it decided to develop its own call center technology. "Ten years ago, we made the decision to build our own customer contact center technology from scratch because legacy solutions did not provide the scale, cost structure, and features we needed to deliver excellent customer service for our customers around the world," said Tom Weiland, vice president of worldwide customer service, Amazon, in a statement.
This choice has been a differentiator for us, as it is used today by our agents around the world in the millions of interactions they have with our customers," he added. "We're excited to offer this technology to customers as an AWS service -- with all of the simplicity, flexibility, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of the cloud."
According to the company, Amazon Connect doesn't require any infrastructure to deploy or manage, so customers can scale their Amazon Connect virtual contact centers up or down, onboarding any number of agents in response to business cycles and paying only for the time callers interact with the service.
The platform features a self-service graphical interface that Amazon said makes it easy for non-technical users to design contact flows, manage agents, and track performance metrics, without the need for any specialized skills.
The new platform also makes it possible for enterprises to design contact flows that adapt the caller experience, the company said. Contact flows can change based on information retrieved by Amazon Connect from other AWS services or third-party systems including CRM (customer relationship management) or analytics solutions.
Businesses can also build natural language contact flows using Amazon Lex, an artificial intelligence service that has the same automatic speech recognition technology and natural language understanding that powers Amazon Alexa. Amazon Lex enables callers to say what they want instead of having to listen to long lists of menu options and guess which one is most closely related to what they want to do.
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Cloud Startup Icertis Raises $25M, Plans To Double Staff - CIO Today
Cloud Computing Enters its Second Decade – IT World Canada (blog)
In its first decade, cloud computing was disruptive to IT, but looking into the second decade, it is becoming mature and an expected part of most disruptions. For the past 10 years, cloud computing changed the expectations and capabilities of the IT department, but now it is a necessary catalyst for innovation across the company.
As it enters its second decade, cloud computing is increasingly becoming a vehicle for next-generation digital business, as well as for agile, scalable and elastic solutions. As will be discussed at the upcoming Gartner CIO & IT Executive Summit in Toronto, CIOs and other IT leaders need to constantly adapt their strategies to leverage cloud capabilities.
By 2020, anything other than a cloud-only strategy for new IT initiatives will require justication at more than 30% of large-enterprise organizations.
During the past decade, cloud computing has matured on several fronts. Today, most security analysis suggests that mainstream cloud computing is more secure than on-premises IT. Cloud services are more often functionally complete, and vendors now offer migration options.
Importantly, innovation is rapidly shifting to the cloud, with many vendors employing a cloud-first approach to product design and some technology and business innovations available only as cloud services. This includes innovations in the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence.
As the pressure to move to cloud services increases, more organizations are creating roadmaps that reflect the need to shift strategy. At these organizations, projects that propose on-site resources are considered conservative, as the reduced agility and innovation options decrease competitive agility. Enterprises will begin to pressure IT departments to embrace cloud computing.
Keep in mind that not all projects can utilize cloud services due to regulatory or security concerns or even the money that has been invested in the projects. Also, some enterprises might lack the correct skill sets and talent.
By 2021, more than half of global enterprises already using cloud today will adopt an all-in cloud strategy.
The key to an all-in cloud strategy is not to lift and shift data center content. Instead, enterprises should evaluate what applications within the data center can be replaced with SaaS, refactored or rebuilt. However, an all-in strategy will have more impact on IT compared to a cloud-first or cloud-only strategy.
By and large, companies that have shifted to all-cloud have not returned to traditional on-premises data centers, with even large companies embracing third-party cloud infrastructure.
Enterprises should begin to plan a roadmap for their cloud strategy, and ensure that lift and shift is only being done when necessary, such as part of data center consolidation efforts. David Mitchell Smith is a vice president and Gartner Fellow at Gartner, Inc., where he leads the agenda for cloud computing and digital disruptors.
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Cloud Computing Enters its Second Decade - IT World Canada (blog)