AWS and Microsoft ramp up war of words in JEDI cloud contract row

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has said it 'won't back down' in its appeal process for the $10 billion JEDI government cloud computing contract - as the war of words between AWS and Microsoft escalates.

The contract for the Department of Defense has long courted rumour and conjecture around alleged potential intervention by President Trump, whose relationship with Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO and owner of the Washington Post, is known to be antipathic.

Following the initial award...

By | 11 May 2020 | Amazon

Pentagon to ‘reconsider certain aspects’ of JEDI Microsoft cloud contract award

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 temporary injunction against the award, would ‘likely be able to show that...

By | 13 March 2020 | Amazon

Microsoft beats AWS to $10bn JEDI contract: Defining multi-cloud and analysing administrative influence

Analysis The announcement from the Department of Defense (DoD) on Friday that Microsoft had been awarded the long-detailed $10 billion JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) cloud computing contract elicited responses of surprise from many in the industry.

The release confirming the contract to Microsoft made for interesting reading. Transparency was the name of the game: the award was ‘conducted in accordance with applicable laws and regulations’, it...

By | 28 October 2019 | Government

Simplifying complex public sector environments through cloud: A guide

Government and public sector organisations continue to seek ways to improve services and mitigate the risk of migrating mission-critical applications to the cloud. Already, many organisations, focused on improving the citizen experience, have set their sights on the cloud. Flexible, agile and affordable, managed cloud can accelerate the agency mission.  Still, CIOs are cautious about which applications to prioritise and what steps they must take to ensure the reality fulfils the...

By | 11 October 2018 | Infrastructure

Microsoft expands government cloud offerings as company says IT shift ‘reaches tipping point’

Microsoft has beefed up its government cloud offerings, launching government-specific editions of Microsoft 365 and Azure Stack, as well as greater security and compliance in Dynamics 365.

Microsoft 365, which comprises Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS), and Azure Stack, which extends Azure to on-premises environments, are being upgraded as Microsoft acknowledges faster acceleration of government organisations moving to the cloud.

“This move...

By | 6 March 2018 | Compliance

How hybrid, multi-cloud and community clouds are coming together for the best of all worlds

What you look for in a cloud provider depends to a large extent on the drivers and challenges that you are experiencing.

People with large legacy estates, for instance, tend to be looking for a hybrid cloud solution that can support both their old legacy workloads and their new cloud ones. Some see this as a transitional arrangement to cover the period in which workloads are migrated to the cloud, but many realise that there are certain workloads for which migration will never be...

By | 16 February 2018 | Hybrid

UKCloud partnership with Microsoft and Cisco pushes forward multi-cloud for public sector

UKCloud has announced a collaboration with Microsoft and Cisco to provide what is claimed to be the UK’s only implementation of Microsoft Azure Stack dedicated to the public sector.

The company says it is moving its focus from ‘public cloud for public sector’ to becoming ‘multi-cloud experts’, as organisations progress from initial cloud deployments. Through Cisco as an OEM partner, companies can use Azure alongside other platforms, such as Oracle,...

By | 14 February 2018 | CIO

UKCloud becomes first European provider to offer cloud GPU computing service

GPUs are becoming ever more attractive to cloud service providers and customers as the demand for intensive computing increases – and UKCloud has become the first European cloud service provider to offer a cloud GPU computing service through NVIDIA’s Tesla P100 and M60 units.

UKCloud, formerly Skyscape, offers services for the public sector as well as healthcare. The company said the move for GPUs came about through its ‘maniacal focus’ on service excellence...

By | 20 October 2017 | Adoption

The key themes underpinning the continued momentum for UK cloud adoption

I recently read with interest the results of the latest Cloud Industry Forum research survey into UK Cloud adoption and a couple of aspects jumped out at me, undoubtedly mirroring the experience iland is having within the UK market.

Overall cloud adoption rates among British businesses now stand at 88% and the rate of cloud adoption has increased by a whopping 83% since 2010, with an increase of 5% since last year.  In fact, today, we rarely speak with a customer that isn't using...

By | 19 April 2017 | Adoption

One in three public sector firms have ‘no concrete plans’ for cloud

(c)iStock.com/RapidEye

A new research report from software and business services provider Agilisys has found that more than a third of public sector firms have ‘no concrete plans’ to adopt cloud-based technology.

The findings, which appear in the 2016 Cloud Adoption Survey, found that of the 180 respondents, 36% had no plans to migrate to the cloud.

Almost 60% said that cloud adoption would help to reduce on-site maintenance and IT support requirements, which...

By | 13 October 2016 | Adoption