Microsoft has announced a deal that will see the company bring support for Oracle products to its Hyper-V and Windows Azure cloud platforms.

The companies said that the deal will allow Hyper-V and Azure to support Oracle Database, Java and WebLogic Server platforms as well as Oracle’s Linux build. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said: “Microsoft is deeply committed to giving businesses what they need, and clearly that is the ability to run enterprise workloads in private clouds, public clouds and, increasingly, across both.

“Now our customers will be able to take advantage of the flexibility our unique hybrid cloud solutions offer for their Oracle applications, middleware and databases, just like they have been able to do on Windows Server for years.”

The move marks an uncharacteristic truce between Microsoft and Oracle. The two firms have long been at odds with one another and Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison has a history of criticising Redmond’s policies.

In making a deal, analysts see the two companies putting aside their differences to deal with the realities of business in the 21st century.

Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, said: “Larry Ellison had been adamant against working with Microsoft for years and I think he realised that both companies now face bigger threats from cloud services than they do from each other.

“Microsoft had always tried to work with Oracle, and Oracle support folks often had secret relationships with Microsoft for the benefit of mutual customers but now that all comes out of the closet.”

The move also signifies what is likely to be a growing trend in the enterprise IT space. Pund-IT principal analyst Charles King told V3 that such partnerships will become increasingly vital for large vendors.

“It behooves companies to partner with as many other companies as they can,” King explained. “We are not looking at a future cloud that is going to be as amenable to single player dominance that past markets have been.”

The move brings a formidable competitor to Amazon Web Services for Oracle’s business. The AWS platform had previously been the only cloud infrastructure as a service platform to support many of Oracle’s offerings.

King said that providing the choice between AWS and Azure will help Oracle avoid alienating customers who are heavily invested in one cloud service over the other.

“When you look at strategic partnerships, very often they come around because vendors look around and realise if they cut themselves off from too much of the market, customers that want to use AWS or Azure will go to someone else,” King said.

Microsoft has made available Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 preview versions, enabling IT professionals to start to get to grips with the new features coming in the updates of these major packages.

The software giant made the preview builds available at its TechEd Europe conference in Madrid, after showing off some of the capabilities of Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 at its TechEd event in New Orleans earlier this month.

For the updated Windows Server, these include automated storage tiering using a combination of direct-attached SSDs and conventional hard drives. There is also better support for hybrid cloud computing deployments thanks to software-defined networking (SDN) features and virtual machine portability between a customer’s on-premise cloud and that of service providers and Windows Azure.

Many of these new capabilities, such as virtual machine portability, also require System Center 2012 R2 to implement.

SQL Server 2014 also aims to offer more mission-critical performance capabilities, including in-memory analytics for real-time handling of online transaction processing (OLTP), and a new point-and-click user interface in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to enable customers to easily deploy SQL Server databases onto the Windows Azure cloud computing platform.

In a blog post covering the releases, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for Windows Server Brad Anderson said that Microsoft has made a big bet on its “cloud-first” design principles, and that the updated data centre products will have a massive impact on companies around the world.

“IT pros are going to see the traditional boundaries between data centres vanish and a true hybrid cloud emerge,” he said.

The full release versions of Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 are scheduled for release by the end of this year, while SQL Server 2014 is due to follow early next year.

Customers can download the preview releases of the software from the TechNet Evaluation Centre from today.

Microsoft has been given the go-ahead to build a massive $700m datacentre facility in the rural US.

The Des Moines Register said that Iowa state authorities have approved a $20m tax credit plan which would clear the way for the Redmond giant to begin work on its new datacentre facility. The facility would be housed just outside of the state’s capital city in West Des Moines.

While specifics on the datacentre itself were not given, the report said that Microsoft’s total investment in the project could top $1bn.

The move adds Microsoft to a growing list of firms which have chosen the largely rural state as the site for a new datacentre facility. With favourable tax policies and cheap land costs, Iowa houses large datacentre facilities for Google and Facebook as well.

The state is also getting the thumbs-up from green technology advocates due to its heavy use of wind power plants. With energy-hungry datacentres increasingly being built, environmental groups have pressured firms to choose locations which favor green energy sources over coal in local power plants.

While datacentres in the US have largely been installed in more remote rural locations, many firms in the UK have chosen locations within London itself. The plan has drawn some criticism from opponents who claim that infrastructure and security concerns could arise when datacentres are installed within a large city.

Microsoft has announced a deal which will see the company bring support for Oracle products on its Hyper-V and Windows Azure cloud platforms.

The companies said that the deal will allow Hyper-V and Azure to support Oracle Database, Java and WebLogic Server platforms as well as Oracle’s Linux build. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Microsoft is deeply committed to giving businesses what they need, and clearly that is the ability to run enterprise workloads in private clouds, public clouds and, increasingly, across both,” said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

“Now our customers will be able to take advantage of the flexibility our unique hybrid cloud solutions offer for their Oracle applications, middleware and databases, just like they have been able to do on Windows Server for years.”

The move marks an uncharacteristic truce between Microsoft and Oracle. The two firms have long been at odds with one another and Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison has a history of criticising Redmond’s policies.

In making a deal, analysts see the two companies putting aside their differences to deal with the realities of business in the 21st century.

“Larry Ellison had been adamant against working with Microsoft for years and I think he realized that both companies now face bigger threats from cloud services than they do from each other,” explained Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group.

“Microsoft had always tried to work with Oracle, and Oracle support folks often had secret relationships with Microsoft for the benefit of mutual customers but now that all comes out of the closet.”

The move also signifies what is likely to be a growing trend in the enterprise IT space. Pund-IT principal analyst Charles King told V3 that such partnerships will become increasingly vital for large vendors.

“It behooves companies to partner with as many other companies as they can,” King explained.

“We are not looking at a future cloud that is going to be as amenable to single player dominance that past markets have been.”

The move brings a formidable competitor to Amazon Web Services for Oracle’s business. The AWS platform had previously been the only cloud infrastructure as a service platform to support many of Oracle’s offerings.

King said that providing the choice between AWS and Azure will help Oracle avoid alienating customers who are heavily invested in one cloud service over the other.

“When you look at strategic partnerships, very often they come around because vendors look around and realise if they cut themselves off from too much of the market, customers that want to use AWS or Azure will go to someone else,” King said.

The European Commission (EC) has issued a call for self-proclaimed cloud computing experts to help it draw up fairer terms in how cloud services are offered to consumers and businesses.

The EC wants to ensure that businesses and citizens can benefit from cloud computing given its enormous economic potential to the region, but it fears one-sided contracts are putting off too many from embracing such services.

Now, the EC wants those that consider themselves experts on the subject to come forward and help draft terms that will be fairer and clearer for all those in the industry to abide by when using cloud tools.

“Contract law is an important part of our cloud computing strategy. Making full use of the cloud could deliver 2.5 million extra jobs in Europe, and add around one percent a year to EU GDP by 2020,” said vice president Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner.

“Uncertainty around cloud computing contracts may hinder cross-border trade. As this is a very complex area, we are asking experts for advice before we decide on the next steps.”

The EC expects the experts to come from across industry such as cloud services providers, consumers and small firms, academia and legal professionals. They will work on the Cloud Computing Strategy previously launched by the EC in 2012. Those interested should register on the EC’s tender page.

While cloud computing is a key part of the EC’s digital push, its strategy on the matter has been heavily criticised in the past by other bodies within the organisation, claiming it lacks direction and is not bold enough at making Europe a ‘cloud-active’ region.

Cisco has disclosed its intent to acquire data virtualisation firm Composite Software to bolster its next-generation IT services strategy. The move is intended to help customers get a coherent view of data from disparate sources in the era of cloud computing and big data, according to Cisco.

Composite Software specialises in technology that pulls together multiple data sources and presents them in a simplified consolidated view. The deal is planned to expand Cisco’s portfolio of Smart Services and extend its next-generation services platform by connecting data and infrastructure, the firm said.

The acquisition is due to close in the first quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2014, which ends in October, and Cisco is expected to pay $180m for Composite. Upon completion, Composite employees will join the Cisco services team.

Writing on Cisco’s blog, head of business development Hilton Romanski claimed that a proliferation of new and traditional data sources plus movement of data to the cloud is making it difficult for organisations to access all of their data assets.

“Composite’s technology connects and optimises many types of data from across the network and makes it appear as if it’s in one place, allowing companies to make better business decisions. Together, Cisco and Composite will help to accelerate the shift from physical data integration to data virtualisation,” he said.

This acquisition is set to build on Cisco’s plans for a unified platform and software services strategy and ties in with the recent acquisition of cloud integration firm SolveDirect.

Cisco’s vision is that Composite’s data virtualisation tools combined with SolveDirect’s process integration platform will provide cross-domain data and workflow integration capabilities to enable real-time business insights and operations, the firm said.

A new private cloud service, intended for use in departments dealing with confidential information, has been unveiled by a government IT supplier.

The new offering from FCO Services, which makes use of various Microsoft productivity and office tools, is intended to cut costs and improve productivity in departments such as the police, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

FCO Services is a trading fund of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and provides various secure IT services to UK and overseas government departments.

David Smith, interim head of IT at FCO Services told V3 that the new product’s aim is to keep installations ‘evergreen’, thereby cutting the financial and time costs associated with system updates. “The intent is that we would be on the prevailing version once it’s on a service pack release,” he explained. “You’ll either be on the current or previous version. It presents a chunk of cost avoidance.”

Smith hopes that the services will see widespread adoption among the relevant government departments. “There’s a big pipeline at the moment – we have 14-20 serious conversations going on at the moment,” he said.

The new service is also targeting a greater amount of flexibility. Available on the government’s G-Cloud IT procurement scheme, PSN360 can be purchased as a commodity and therefore scaled as usage requirements change.

PSN360 will sit among relatively few equivalent products on G-Cloud’s CloudStore, and will be part of a select group of private and secure solutions, according to Microsoft’s Nicola Hodson.

“Accredited private cloud services are still rare among large IT suppliers but by working with FCO Services we’re able to bring Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Dynamics, and Lync to the G-Cloud with IL3 [departmetns storing confidential information] certification,” she said. “This means public sector bodies can use business-critical programmes in a highly secure manner, protecting sensitive data and information.”

The services included with PSN360 include PSN360 Mail, Collaboration and Communicator, and can be accessed from any accredited device, anywhere in the world.

The service is now available for purchase on G-Cloud, a scheme that has seen mediocre uptake in recent months. Yesterday, the Home Office encouraged government departments to ‘take a risk’ on purchasing services on G-Cloud.

Toshiba has announced an upgraded version of its Stor.E Slim portable external hard drive, which now holds up to 1TB of data and comes with access to 10GB of free cloud-based storage.

Available immediately, Toshiba developed the Stor.E Slim portable hard drive to tackle two issues: backup of valuable data and provide users with secure access to digital content while on the move. It provides this in a compact enclosure no bigger than an iPhone 5, which connects to the host computer and draws its power via a USB 3.0 port.

While the original Stor.E Slim offers 500GB of storage, the new version can store up to 1TB. Suggested retail pricing for the two versions is £60 and £85 respectively.

Toshiba said it has also partnered with Pogoplug PC to provide owners of the new Stor.E Slim with a free subscription to the cloud platform that delivers 10GB of cloud storage. With remote access tools from Pogoplug, users can access their digital files stored on the Stor.E Slim from anywhere, providing the HDD is connected to a computer with an internet connection.

On the backup side, Toshiba provides NTI Backup Now EZ, which scans the computer and recommends the best backup coverage, giving users the option to back up to the Stor.E Slim. A backup can be scheduled to run automatically at any time so that users can ensure their data is always protected, according to Toshiba.

Oracle has announced an update to its scalable MySQL Cluster database platform, adding features such as an Auto-Installer to ease deployment and foreign key support to make it easier to integrate with packaged applications, both designed to make it more attractive to customers.

MySQL Cluster 7.3 introduces a number of enhancements intended to drive the software more and more into commodity use cases around the web and elsewhere, the firm said. The major new features are the Auto-Installer tool, foreign key support, integration with MySQL 5.6 and NoSQL JavaScript for Node.js.

However, Oracle has not compromised on the enterprise-grade capabilities of the clustering technology, according to Tomas Ulin, vice president of MySQL Engineering at Oracle.

“From the get-go it’s been about high-availability and scaling, and that continues to be the main attributes of MySQL Cluster 7.3,” he said.

With the Auto-Installer, Oracle wants to ensure the database can be used by anyone, Ulin said. Users just tell the tool what machines they want Cluster to run on, and it will scan the network, detect the hosts and check what their hardware resources such as CPUs and memory. With input from the user on what type of workload they intend to run, Auto-Installer suggests configurations based on Oracle best practices.

By adding foreign key support, Oracle hopes to see more adoption in the internet hosting industry and e-commerce by making it easier to integrate with packaged applications.

“We hope to reach even more customers through this foreign key support where a great many packaged solutions that are available require this,” Ulin said.

Another piece of the make it easy puzzle is Native JavaScript access to MySQL Cluster, implemented as a module for node.js.

“For those that don’t want to learn about SQL, they should be attracted by this interface, which makes it easier to get going,” said Ulin.

Integration with MySQL 5.6 means that MySQL Cluster can make use of improvements in the latest version of Oracle’s database, released in February, such as Optimiser improvements that boost query performance.

Ulin said that MySQL Cluster is ideal for applications needing millisecond response times, low cost and application agility with support for a number of development languages and frameworks, plus SQL or NoSQL options.

The government has admitted its IT services procurement scheme, G-Cloud, has ‘more to do’ in convincing users of its value, and has told its departments to ‘take a risk’ on the service.

Speaking at the Think G-Cloud event in London, the Home Office chief technology officer and former head of G-Cloud, Denise McDonagh, said that misunderstanding of G-Cloud is at the heart of its uptake issues.

“They have to think more seriously about G-Cloud,” she said at the event attended by V3. “People will be expected to make cloud adoption plans in central government. G-Cloud is not the root of everything, but you do have to at least test it first.”

The service aims to level the playing field for SMEs offering IT services to government departments. Most recent figures show that in the year up until the end of April, just £22 million was spent on the scheme’s buying website, CloudStore, with 62 percent of that figure going to SMEs.

“I am bedevilled by central government’s processes,” she continued. “There isn’t a willingness to understand that we do things differently.”

McDonagh, who was honoured with a CBE this week for services to IT, directed criticism of G-Cloud’s slow uptake to way in which the service was launched.

“We’ve been under the GDS [Government Digital Service] mantra of ‘get out there quick, fail quick and sort it out’. When we put out CloudStore we knew it wasn’t brilliant, but we have made significant strides. But there’s still a bit more to do,” he said.

She also encouraged government departments to ‘take a risk’ with buying services using G-Cloud. “It’s about experimenting,” she said. “Once you buy something you’re not locked in like you would have been. You can buy something for a matter of months. “

G-Cloud now falls under the banner of GDS, with Tony Singleton taking McDonagh’s role at the helm of the scheme.