🌀 Luke Parker

Since 2019, Flexera's Spot Eco has been helping thousands of enterprises to maximise their commitment savings and keep their portfolio flexible for change across Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Flexera is happy to announce Eco’s new GCP dashboard, along with a wider list of supported GCP services. Read more here → https://lnkd.in/gUAkDSrr Google #GCP #AWS #Azure #Cloud

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As the UK government ramps up its adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) across the public sector, Jonny Williams, chief digital advisor for the UK public sector at Red Hat, is calling for a shift in strategy toward open source software.

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£14 billion in new cloud investment - but who is training the people behind it? Big news for the UK tech ecosystem: G-Cloud 15 is live: a £14 billion framework driving the next wave of cloud adoption across government. Now, the UK is taking a major leap forward, and that brings a huge opportunity because every cloud project creates a skills challenge: - How do you secure new environments? - How do you ensure teams can manage, govern, and optimise the platforms? - How do you make AI and data capability part of everyday operations? That’s where Firebrand Training steps in. We help government and enterprise teams build the technical and leadership skills to make digital transformation stick - from Microsoft Azure and AI to cyber security and project delivery. If the next four years are about investing in cloud infrastructure, let’s make sure the same energy goes into investing in people. #PublicSector #DigitalSkills #CloudTransformation #MicrosoftPartner #FirebrandTraining #GCloud15 #AI #CyberSecurity

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FIVE BILLION QUID! This announcement was made back in March, but we are already seeing the tangible value add in our UK Government Sovereign cloud region. Advanced AI services underpinned by advanced GPU hardware are dropping literally right now and are eagerly anticipated by our customers across Government departments: but especially Defence users who also value security and resilience at classifications up to OS. Oracle are serious about being the partner of choice to the UK for cloud and AI infrastructure and this investment underscores that. https://lnkd.in/eUBavKVx

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So Spectro Cloud will be reppin’ at AWS Summit London later this month! We’ve teamed up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to take the faff out of Kubernetes management for orgs running on EC2 and EKS — because let’s face it, managing clusters shouldn’t feel like herding cats in a rainstorm. Spectro’s Kubernetes management platform, Palette, enables teams to streamline full cluster lifecycle management at scale — a real game changer for organisations around the world. If you’re running Kubernetes on AWS, it’s worth learning more about Spectro Cloud’s expertise here: 👉 https://okt.to/Bi0uZq #Kubernetes #KubernetesManagement #AWSSummit #AWS #EKS

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⁉️Is university data sprawl bogging you down⁉️ Three months ago, AvePoint launched its new Jisc Agreement to help the UK education sector tackle Microsoft 365 storage challenges head-on — through rapid discovery, smart analysis, and intelligent remediation into more cost-effective storage solutions. 📽️ If you missed the webinar, the recording and presentation are available https://lnkd.in/e6HMMxqH 🔗 Explore the live agreement here: https://lnkd.in/eMJzU9t2 As well the increased storage costs, these challenges increase risk, reduce productivity, hinder collaboration. Data sprawl provides a poor foundation for using AI. If you have these challenges, lets discuss some ways to optimise your storage to avoid the charges and increase the sustainability of your M365 environment. #DataStorage #DataGovernance #DataSecurity #HigherEd #M365

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Oracle Academy joined forces with Oracle Social Impact and OCI Public Sector teams to support TeenTech Lancashire at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, England, encouraging #STEM careers exploration. Students enjoyed hands-on activities using Oracle APEX, GenAI and more! https://lnkd.in/eKxXp2D5

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Delighted to share that ServiceNow have expanded NVIDIA AI infrastructure capability in our UK data centres in support of helping UK Government and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology realise and deliver the ambition set out in the UK AI Opportunity Action Plan. As per the comment from the Minister of AI Kanishka Narayan MP 'This is a real shot in the arm for the world‑class AI infrastructure we're rolling out right across the country. Importantly, it means we can continue to drive forward AI development on our own terms by making sure we have the tools we need on British shores.' 👩‍🏫 Learn more about how to use ServicenNow's AI capability and upskill for free via the Government Digital Service Get Certified Campaign ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eumBxxtE 📖 Read more about how AI will help transform Government ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eriSuADR 🗣️ Come speak with our UK Public Sector teams to better understand how AI can help drive efficiency and deliver productivity gains https://lnkd.in/eHbj4whM Debbie J. | Chris Woodward | Max Beverton-Palmer | Matthew Higham | Liz Cook | Lee Stockwell | Natalie Farr | Dave Gomm | Maria Di Martino | Martin Turner | Ed de Minckwitz | Kevin Brooks

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For anyone unable to make it to the Microsoft AI Tour, London (appreciate spaces were at a premium!) Here is a handy summary of all the cool stuff that got discussed! Ambient clinical documentation with Microsoft Dragon Copilot is already helping clinicians at Manchester University NHS FT by “offloading the cognitive burden,” capturing consultation notes and automating follow‑ups so clinicians can focus on patients. ➡️🩺 A clear path to become Frontier Firms: live demos showed how Copilot Studio and AI agents can streamline admin, speed up insights and improve patient & citizen experiences across pathways. ⚙️⚡ Security first: guidance on countering AI‑enhanced cyber threats and reducing ‘Shadow AI’ risk—so innovation doesn’t compromise safety. 🔐 Serious UK commitment: part of Microsoft’s $30bn investment, including new cloud/AI infrastructure and the UK’s largest‑ever supercomputer—fuel for data‑driven care. 📈 Skills to make it real: free AI skilling programmes already reaching 1.3m+ people—vital for clinical and operational adoption. 🎓 If you’re leading in the NHS, ICS or life sciences, this is a 5‑minute read worth your time 👇 https://lnkd.in/eS4_mSGt #HealthTech #NHS #DigitalHealth #AIinHealthcare #MicrosoftAI #Copilot #UKHealthcare #PatientCare https://lnkd.in/eS4_mSGt

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Big news for the UK defense sector today. Red Hat announced today a new enterprise agreement with the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) to provide centralised and scalable access to Red Hat's hybrid cloud platforms for greater efficiency, faster innovation and a consistent security footprint. The agreement aims to enhance cloud-native and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and improve interoperability across MOD operations and approved third-party providers nationwide. https://lnkd.in/dy7eR_b4

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This is kind of unsurprising, no? Organisations capitalising on (genuine!) interest in and need for sovereign cloud without a) having built it or b) actually knowing how to build it isn't news. The majority of the sovereign data/sovereign cloud/sovereign AI compute that's been sold either isn't new, or hasn't been built. Some of it will get built, a lot won't. Loads of the projects are "phantom investments", to steal The Guardian's language, whether or not the companies are headquartered in the US. Any reasonable software vendor will deploy on public hardware, or virtual private, or yours. Most of us are happy to work air-gapped. And software is migrateable. The thing you actually want isn't a data centre in Loughton, or wherever. It's software you control, on infrastructure you trust, that works whether or not the scaffolding ever comes down. Everything else is marketing. https://lnkd.in/d3JDEG-V

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The Home Office has signed a new £54 million, five-year contract with Oracle for cloud infrastructure and platform services, continuing its long-standing use of Oracle systems. The deal, drawn from a wider £5 billion government framework, will run until 2030 and supports the department’s migration to Oracle Fusion applications, which began in 2021… This move forms part of the wider government Shared Services Strategy, under which multiple departments — including the Home Office, DWP, MoJ and Defra — are moving towards a common ERP and HR system under the £711 million Synergy Programme. The aim is to create standardised processes and shared data through a new Common Operating Model. The contract follows a trend of central government departments consolidating around Oracle platforms, with some still migrating from older E-Business Suite systems to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. #publicsector #cloud #governmentit #oracle #sharedservices

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AWS and GCP are pressing their case against Microsoft's cloud licensing practices in the UK, and the lobbying group they're part of - the Open Cloud Coalition (OCC) - is pursuing anti-competitive claims in the EU, and at the FTC in the U.S. as well. The Register has been following this for years, and while the article below relays AWS's and GCP's position that moving off of Windows Server and SQL Server is too challenging, the reality is more complex: some applications and databases *can* be modernized off of Windows and SQL Server, yielding dramatic cost savings and increasing innovation and feature release velocity. New generative AI tools and other techniques can dramatically reduce the effort required for some workloads. If you run Microsoft-stack workloads in AWS and want a no-cost modernization assessment with a recommended modernized target architecture and infrastructure, learn how by visiting the Evolve Cloud Services modernization page at https://lnkd.in/g4wh-3VR #aws #dotnet #sqlserver #modernization https://lnkd.in/gbyGDQ4P

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Nice blog post by Nasuni's John Capello on disaggregated storage and why Nasuni leads the way 👉 https://lnkd.in/e8ge9QcU I'd be remiss if I did not also point out the benefits to #AI of a disaggregated storage architecture like #Nasuni's. As John points out in his post, Nasuni is a textbook example of a file-centric disaggregated architecture. The UniFS global file system lives as economical object storage in the cloud, while lightweight, stateless edge appliances supply whatever performance and protocol mix a site or workload needs. Capacity is separated from performance letting metadata be served from these purpose-built edges. Because the two layers scale independently, an enterprise can add petabytes of capacity for pennies per GB and/or deploy extra edge VMs for cloud or local AI-inference. Nasuni’s architecture continuously streams every new or modified file from each Edge Appliance into a single, cloud-resident UniFS globally distributed file namespace. Although this may seem simple, it removes one of the hardest obstacles that companies have in production AI ie. keeping models and pipelines fed with the latest data, no matter where in the world it was created. Nasuni’s edge-to-namespace replication turns the 'plumbing problem' of getting fresh, geographically dispersed data into an AI-ready repository into a solved service, letting companies focus on leveraging AI models with their data, not file logistics. #EnterpriseAI #DisaggregatedArchitecture #AIInfrastructure #AIPowered #GenAI #DataForAI #UnifiedFileSystem #CloudFileServices #EdgeData #GlobalNamespace #HybridCloud

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