Google Cloud Unveils Anthos
Last week Google Cloud held its annual Cloud Next conference in San Francisco where the company unveiled several new announcements. Among those announcements was the new name of their Google Cloud Services Platform, Anthos, which allows enterprises to run applications in their private data center and in Google Cloud.
The name change isn’t the only new update for the platform; it will now have expanded support for competing AWS and Azure platforms. This will give businesses the ability to use a single platform to deploy and manage their applications on any cloud under a single dashboard.
Allowing customers to use their competitors’ products in conjunction with theirs would typically be an unusual move. Google says that the ability to utilize competition solves a big issue and is something their customers want. Liftr Insights is interested to see if other cloud providers follow the lead that Google has set.
Microsoft Doubles UK Region
Microsoft announced that it has more than doubled the size of its UK Azure Regions by adding additional Availability Zones since first going online in 2016. The regions compute capacity has increased by more than 1500% over the past 3 years. Microsoft’s expansion in the region will be helpful for potential customers that want to store their data securely but locally.
In addition, the company also announced their UK South Availability Zone, which offers customers access to separate, physical locations within the Azure region, as well as additional protection and choice.
Along with the new South region, the company will be launching Azure DevOps availability in the region, letting users create software using Microsoft’s toolset. Cindy Rose, Chief Executive of Microsoft UK said in a statement, “By doubling our UK regions and increasing our compute capacity by more than 1,500%, our customers can have the confidence they can access any Azure services available in UK regions whenever they want.
WeWork and Alibaba Team Up
Alibaba Cloud and the China unit of WeWork Labs, WeWork’s accelerator-type program, have partnered up to support entrepreneurs that are trying to grow their businesses both in Greater China and overseas. The partnership will allow the two to create 8 co-branded lab spaces across the country in 2019 in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen.
The companies said they aim to help 20 foreign startups to enter China and assist 30 Chinese companies to expand overseas. Li Zhongyu, Manager of Alibaba Innovation Incubation Department, said Alibaba Cloud will provide technology and entrepreneurial support to WeWork Labs across e-commerce, fintech, logistics, healthcare, entertainment and other industries.
This is just another move showing Alibaba’s continual push to grow outside the Asia Pacific. Time will tell whether this collaborative effort will help accelerate Alibaba Cloud’s growth in the U.S.
JEDI Contract Clears Major Hurdle
The highly sought-after $10 billion Pentagon JEDI Contract is back on track after a Pentagon investigation determined a former employee who went to work for AWS did not impact the acquisition process; the contract has been stalled by the courts since February.
Elissa Smith, the Department of Defense spokeswoman, stated, “The department’s investigation has determined that there is no adverse impact on the integrity of the acquisition process, however, the investigation also uncovered potential ethical violations, which have been further referred to DOD IG.” She’s referring to current AWS employee Deap Ubhi, who worked on the Pentagon’s Defense Digital Service for almost two years and spent seven weeks working on JEDI.
Smith went on to say that the department has narrowed its choices for bids, citing that they found only Microsoft and AWS to meet the contract’s competitive range determination. The Defense Department will be asking the court to lift the stay it requested in February to conduct the conflict of interest investigation, which stemmed from allegations made by Oracle in its lawsuit. Both Oracle and IBM are no longer under consideration for the contract. Smith says the Pentagon could make an award by mid-July.
That’s a wrap for this week’s Liftr Cloud Look Ahead. Has your business made major strides using the cloud? We want to hear from you! Email us at ideas@liftrcloud.com.
See you next week!
