Google Expands Cloud Data Center Regions, Sharpens its Focus

Google is consolidating its broad portfolio of cloud products, technologies and services under a single brand: Google Cloud. This includes user-facing collaboration and productivity applications (now named G Suite), all Machine Learning tools and APIs, enterprise maps APIs, and the Android phones, tablets, and Chromebooks that access the cloud.

Highlights:

• Google announced the locations of eight new Google Cloud Regions — Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Northern Virginia, São Paulo, London, Finland and Frankfurt.
  
• Google plans to announce more regions next year.
  
• The Google Cloud Platform now serves over one billion end-users through its customers’ products and services.
  
• Kubernetes version 1.4 has just been released, improving Cluster Federation to support straightforward deployment across multiple clusters and multiple clouds. The company is updating Google Container Engine (GKE) to this new version.
  
• The newly re-branded G Suite (formerly Google Apps for Work) includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Hangouts, etc.
  
• The fully-managed Google BigQuery data warehouse has been significantly upgraded to enable widespread adoption of cloud data analytics. BigQuery support for Standard SQL is now generally available.
  
• Cloud Machine Learning is now available to all businesses, and can be integrated with data analytics and storage cloud services such as Google BigQuery, Google Cloud Dataflow, and Google Cloud Storage.
  
• Adding Customer Reliability Engineering (CRE) support. This includes Google engineers who integrate with a customer’s operations teams.  

https://cloud.googleblog.com/2016/09/introducing-Google-Cloud.html

Read More

AWS Plans New Availability Region in France

AWS disclosed plans to open a new data center availability region in Paris, France during 2017.

This will be the fourth AWS Region in Europe. AWS data centers are currently running in Ireland and Frankfurt, Germany. An additional data center in the UK is expected to launch in the coming months.

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/

Read More

Nokia Launches Cloud Packet Core for Private LTE Networks

Nokia has expanded its Cloud Packet Core offering with a solution tailored specifically for private LTE networks deployed by global enterprises, the public sector and smaller operators.

Nokia said its new Cloud Packet Core solution provides the scale and performance for MTC and mobile broadband users and devices, supporting 50,000 simultaneous access users/devices and 100 eNodeBs.

The new offering leverages the Cloud Mobility Manager (CMM) and Cloud Mobile Gateway (CMG) software from Nokia's Cloud Packet Core solution, which is already deployed by the world's largest communications service providers.

"Our Cloud Packet Core solution leverages a native cloud architecture to purpose-fit smaller business and critical communications networks without sacrificing the ability to scale as needs dictate. All operators - regardless of size - get the same software foundation, rich capability set, field-proven software and high reliability. This allows them to fully embrace LTE today - and 5G in the future - to assure an optimal, secure and reliable experience and fully realize new mobile broadband, IoT and MTC opportunities for their business," stated Sri Reddy, general manager of IP routing business at Nokia.

http://company.nokia.com/en/news/press-releases/2016/09/29/nokia-expands-packet-core-portfolio-to-meet-private-lte-network-requirements-in-support-of-iot-and-smart-cities

Read More

IBM to Add Promontory to its Watson Expertise

IBM agreed to acquire Promontory Financial Group, a global market-leading risk management and regulatory compliance consulting firm, to expand the deep industry expertise of Watson.

IBM said Watson’s cognitive capabilities will directly address the massive operational effort and manual cost of escalating regulation and risk management requirements. Promontory's team of 600 professionals will train Watson to help manage financial risk and compliance.

More than 20,000 new regulatory requirements were created last year alone, and the complete catalog of regulations is projected to exceed 300 million pages by 2020.

“What Watson is doing to transform oncology by working with the world’s leading oncologists, we will now do for regulation, risk and compliance,” said Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM Industry Platforms. “Promontory’s experts are unsurpassed in this field. They will teach Watson and Watson, in turn, will extend and enhance their expertise. This initial offering of Watson Financial Services is emblematic of the transformative cloud-based solutions that IBM Industry Platforms will bring to clients.”

http://www.ibm.com

Read More

Microsoft Creates AI and Research Group

Microsoft has formed a new research organization with more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers focused on the company’s AI product efforts.001

The Microsoft AI and Research Group, which will be led by computer vision luminary Harry Shum, is dedicated "to democratizing AI for every person and organization, making it more accessible and valuable to everyone and ultimately enabling new ways to solve some of society’s toughest challenges."

“We live in a time when digital technology is transforming our lives, businesses and the world, but also generating an exponential growth in data and information,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “At Microsoft, we are focused on empowering both people and organizations, by democratizing access to intelligence to help solve our most pressing challenges. To do this, we are infusing AI into everything we deliver across our computing platforms and experiences.”

http://www.microsoft.com

Read More

Adobe Picks Azure as its Preferred Cloud

Adobe has agreed to make Microsoft Azure its preferred cloud platform for the Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Document Cloud.

The companies said their strategic partnership will help enterprise companies embrace digital transformation and deliver compelling, personalized experiences through every phase of their customer relationships. Together, the two companies will enable businesses to dramatically strengthen their brands through solutions with Microsoft Azure, Adobe Marketing Cloud and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

“Business leaders in every industry are focused on how to better engage their digital customers, wherever they are,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. “Together, Adobe and Microsoft are bringing the most advanced marketing capabilities on the most powerful and intelligent cloud to help companies digitally transform and engage customers in new ways.”

http://www.microsoft.com

Read More

Microsemi Intros Network Synchronization Phase-locked Loops

Microsemi introduced a new family of network synchronization phase-locked loops (PLLs) for Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE), IEEE 1588 and optical transport network (OTN).

The company said its new miTimePLL new products have one third the jitter and half the footprint of current devices, which, in combination with the company's new miTimePLL technology, is specifically designed to address the demands of phase alignment performance required by networks such as wireless infrastructure.

Microsemi's ZL307xx and ZL306xx family of network synchronization PLLs offers 180 femtoseconds (fs) typical jitter, ensuring a single chip, small footprint, low cost synchronization solution for 10GbE to 100GbE applications. These devices come with new features vital for network applications requiring phase alignment, including any-to-any frequency, better than 2 ns input/output (I/O) alignment, embedded 1 pulse per second (ePPS), time of day (ToD) registers, reference/synchronization inputs, and full monitoring and hitless reference switching between GPS/SyncE/1588. Microsemi's ePPS is already providing a simple solution for chassis systems with limited backplane pins by combining phase into a high speed clock, thereby using a single pin, where before two were required.

"Microsemi has a long history in IEEE 1588 PLL devices dating back to 2008 with our first product introduction, and our 1588 solutions are widely used within tier 1 telecommunications equipment vendors. We continue to invest strongly to drive our technologies forward, meeting new challenges to stay ahead of the competition with ultra-low jitter on our new miTimePLL devices—providing a highly integrated, cost-effective solution for our customers," said Maamoun Seido, vice president and business unit manager of Microsemi's timing products. "Customers can remain confident in our capabilities, as these products enable them to handle phase alignment seamlessly within their equipment with a smaller footprint and attractive price point."

http://www.microsemi.com

Read More