The Pentagon is yet to decide what company is to win the 10-year contract, which will provide cloud services to the Department of Defense.

Despite this, Department of Defence agencies are certain the contract will be awarded to Amazon while it transits to GovCloud; Amazon’s cloud infrastructure for government use.

‘Broadest range of tech services’

This is because of Amazon owning 44% of the cloud market, which offers the broadest range of technology services; followed by Microsoft with 7%; and Alibaba Group (3%).

AWS wrote in a blog post: “Adoption of cloud computing is critical to maintaining our military’s technological advantage. Our nation’s warfighters deserve the most innovative and secure solutions at the tactical edge – whether on land, in the air, or at sea.

“The AWS Cloud provides secure, scalable, and cost-efficient solutions that help agencies meet mandates, drive efficiencies, increase innovation, and secure mission-critical workloads across the US Department of Defense.”

‘Rich revenue stream’

Furthermore, the CEO of Oracle was found dining with Donald Trump on Tuesday.

Following the meal, the US President wrote on Twitter that Amazon is “costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy” and “not paying its fair share of taxes, and putting other companies out of business”.

Oracle is also said to be doing all it can to prevent Amazon from winning the award in a couple of months by communicating with tech allies, courting trades, mainstream media, lobbying lawmakers, defence officials and the White House.

Nevertheless, most tech firms are hoping for a piece of The Pentagon’s cloud business as it is sure to provide a rich revenue stream, as well as a lot of benefits.

Written by Leah Alger

The post Will Amazon win the US$10billion Pentagon cloud contract? appeared first on DevOps Online North America.

The act allows mutual agreements between the USA and other countries, enabling efficient lawful access to more data, as well as gives Australian authorities the opportunity to access encrypted communications.

‘Government efforts to protect safety’

Angus Taylor, minister for law enforcement and cyber security, said to CIO: “The CLOUD Act will greatly improve the efficiency of law enforcement’s access to the information they need to do their job and strengthen protections of people’s data, no matter where their data is held.

“Timely access to electronic data held by communications service providers is an essential component of government efforts to protect safety and combat serious crime, including terrorism, child sex offenses, and organised crime.”

TRUMP Administration can also sign agreements with other countries as part of the new CLOUD Act.

Written by Leah Alger

The post Australian government backs United States Congress CLOUD Act appeared first on DevOps Online North America.

In April, president Donald Trump signed an executive order for a new technology council to take over the government’s IT systems.

The USA Government Accountability Office report estimated the USA government spent more than US$80billion on IT annually in 2016, revealing spending on technologies has fallen by US$7.3billion since 2010.

A White House report revealed: “Difficulties in agency prioritisation of resources in support of IT modernisation, ability to procure services quickly, and technical issues have resulted in an unwieldy and out-of-date federal IT infrastructure.”

The White House also noted most of the government’s 6,100 data centres will be moved to a cloud-based storage system by June 2018.

Written by Leah Alger

The post Donald Trump: USA government needs more cloud-based tech appeared first on DevOps Online North America.

He has instructed federal agency heads to inspect all federal departments’ cybersecurity vulnerabilities and capabilities, using all government resources to support data and studies.

The American Technology Council will be mostly relied on to carry out the studies, with the initiative to oversee the federal governments modernisation efforts, by pulling in practices from the private sector – even though they are heavily criticised for replicating the work of other government agencies, according to Politico, an American political-journalism company.

“One provision may indicate that the administration isn’t closing the door on private cyber security companies,” says the Director of the Cyber Security Project at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Michael Sulmeyer.

“His order instructs the Department of Commerce to help identify ways to reduce the threats posed by botnets, swarms of compromised computers or smartphones acting on the instructions of a hacker. If they decide to run an inclusive process with private sector input, then hats off. If they don’t, then I’m sure the private sector will feel cut out.”

The Director of the American Technology Council has been asked to submit a report within 90 days.

Edited from source by Leah Alger

Source: SFGATE

The post Trump aims to bring cyberattacks to a halt appeared first on DevOps Online North America.