Microsoft Azure

AFCEA: Cyberspace at the Cross Roads

By G C Network | December 1, 2009

Starting December 2, 2009, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) will be putting on a two-day cyberspace conference. Titled “Cyberspace at the Cross Roads: The Intersection of Cyber,…

“Cloud” Shows Promise during Navy Trident Warrior

By G C Network | November 17, 2009

Last month as part of the Navy’s annual Trident Warrior exercise, Dataline, LLC successfully demonstrated that a standard shipboard communications infrastructure could be used to manage a commercial cloud infrastructure-as-a-service…

Government Cloud Computing Value Survey

By G C Network | November 15, 2009

As part of a continuing Government Cloud computing education program, Dataline, LLC has released a Government Cloud Computing Value Survey. This online resource has been designed as an aid to…

“Hyper-Standardized” Cloud Computing Environment a Plus for DISA

By G C Network | November 9, 2009

Henry Sienkiewcz, DISA Computer Services Technical Director, credits the cloud computing “hyper-standardized” environment for the improvement they have been able to deliver through their cloud computing initiative. During remarks at…

Army Deputy CIO Cites Army/DISA Cloud Computing Partnership

By G C Network | November 8, 2009

This week’s Federal Executive Forum taping highlighted collaboration between DISA and the Army on the service’s transition to cloud computing. Army Deputy Chief Information Officer Mike Krieger called it a…

Navy CIO Discusses Cloud Computing

By G C Network | November 6, 2009

During this week’s Federal Executive Forum taping, Navy CIO Robert Carey discussed his views on cloud computing. Stating that the NGEN and CANES (Navy Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services)…

DoD, DHS and FBI Highlight Identity Management Interoperability

By G C Network | October 25, 2009

During this week’s Federal Executive Forum, key decision makers from DoD, DHS and FBI highlighted identity management interoperability as their key priority for 2010. Panelist included: Robert Mocny, Acting Director,…

EuroCloud Launches !!

By G C Network | October 22, 2009

Congratulations to Pierre-Jose Billotte for the successful launch of EuroCloud !! Established as a pan European network, EuroCloud are communities that represent a knowledgeable network of companies engaged local and…

Government Cloud Economics

By G C Network | October 17, 2009

In the The Economics of Cloud Computing, Gwen Morton and Ted Alford have published an EXCELLENT economic evaluation of the federal government’s push to cloud computing. Anyone interested in this…

Deputy CIA CIO Newest Ulitzer Author

By G C Network | October 13, 2009

Jill Tummler Singer, Deputy Chief Information Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is now a Ulitzer author. Appointed in November 2006, Ms Singer is responsible for ensuring CIA has…

With the announcement of Azure, Microsoft has finally made it’s cloud computing plans public. Maybe Larry Ellison is now ready to revise his opinion, huh? While this announcement is definitely a good thing, it also seems to be a defensive move on the software giant’s part. In a USA Today article “Ray Valdes, an analyst at researcher Gartner, said that Microsoft’s Web services strategy still isn’t cohesive. It’s “taking every major asset of intellectual property, and cloud-enabling it to some degree.”

Key components of the Azure Services Platform include:

  • Windows Azure for service hosting and management, low-level scalable storage, computation and networking;
  • Microsoft SQL Services for a wide range of database services and reporting;
  • Microsoft .NET Services which are service-based implementations of familiar .NET Framework concepts such as workflow and access control;
  • Live Services for a consistent way for users to store, share and synchronize documents, photos, files and information across their PCs, phones, PC applications and Web sites;
  • Microsoft SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services for business content, collaboration and rapid solution development in the cloud.

When this is coupled with Amazon’s October 1st announcement to host Microsoft solutions on its EC2 platform, one can only wonder how long it will take before agencies just stop buying licenses and paying for maintenance on these products.

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