Oracle to Provide Cutting-Edge Cloud Platform to help K-12 School Staffs to Simplify Business Processes

K-12 school systems in the US are currently espousing Oracle's Cloud services to simplify their business processes. The Oracle Cloud will also maximize resources and help in better management of students and staff. There is a fluctuation in the budgets and federal and state-wide guidelines post-pandemic. Therefore, many educational institutions seek different ways to do more things without risking the excellence of their educational offerings.

As schools return to offline or hybrid environments, the staffs face difficulty in scheduling, promoting the safety, well-being, and academic achievement of students. To reduce this, many schools and colleges across the US are now implementing finance, HR, and data management processes with the help of the cloud, especially the K-12 school systems are taking advantage of the cloud to improve efficiencies and reduce costs.

Oracle will help educational institutions address critical issues that the school administrators generally face by equipping them with the most robust and intelligent data, insights, and planning capabilities required to help schools adapt in real-time.

 

 

New Cloud-Native and Orchestration Center of Ericsson is all set to make its debut in the US

Ericsson is all set to double down on cloud-native with the latest Cloud Native and Orchestration Center in North America. In recent times, cloud-native has been used to run and build software apps that make use of the scalability, resilience, and flexibility of cloud computing. As of now, the company is focusing on North America because operators there are at the forefront of the transformation. More than 100 experts from Canada and the US have come together to launch the latest infrastructure. The new center from Erricson will make use of this expertise to develop, implement, support, and design life cycle management for global cloud-native solutions.

Senior VP and Head of Digital Services at Ericsson, Jan Karlsson, has stated that most of the networks in the digital age are migrating to the cloud and the telcos in the US are way ahead in this transformation. He furthermore added that the company’s global customers are having challenges while migrating to the cloud, so this new solution will focus on easing those troubles. The new center in the US was set up to help the companies overcome these challenges. Telcos are the main target for the same because they tend to face even more complex challenges.

 

Cloud Kitchens Remain on Cloud Nine

A cloud kitchen, also known as a ghost kitchen, is a restaurant that operates online. With the advent of cloud technology, these virtual kitchens shot to fame since their first appearance in New York in 2010. There’s a concrete reason as to why restaurateurs in the city chose this model while abandoning their original brick-and-mortar businesses: Rent was skyrocketing. More recently, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, cloud kitchen space got even bigger with more brands opening their subsidiary ‘delivery only’ kitchens. Again, there’s a reason that why established brands launch their online kitchens other than expanding their footprint: The food delivery industry is booming and it continues to expand wings across continents. However, these established brands face challenges operating these kitchens as they find it puzzling to manage two different business models parallelly. The brick-and-mortar facilities are conventional and these brands are not accustomed to running a ghost kitchen.

On the other hand, individuals who run cloud kitchens have shown promising results. Let’s analyze how running a cloud kitchen is a lucrative business. First things first, location is not mandatory, wholly depends on online ordering mechanism (that promises better reach), basic kitchen equipment will suffice, and minimum staff requirement. With that said, no or less investment is required to launch a cloud kitchen. However, there’s a small hitch that might play a spoilsport: acquiring the license.

In addition, the popularity of a cloud kitchen relies on how efficiently it collaborates with third-party food delivery platforms, such as Grubhub, UberEats, etc. A better reach is directly proportional to an increased number of orders.

In a nutshell, launching a cloud kitchen is as convenient as ordering a meal online. Although there must be proper research in place that going forward will play a vital role in running the business effectively. In countries like India, cloud kitchens are fairly a new concept. It takes just Rs 10, 000 to acquire the license and start the business at any given place.

According to Restaurant Times, “Licensing is an integral part of setting up a restaurant. Few licenses are essential to procure in the first month of operations for a hassle-free business. These are FSSAI license, GST Registration, Municipal health trade licenses, fire licenses, etc. It is advised to hire an agency for applying for all the permits because it is the most tedious and time taking task. Apart from this rest of the permits would cost you around Rs 10,000 (if the FSSAI license is applied for one year).”

The quote used in this piece was extracted from the mentioned publication.

 

 

Cloud Telephony Platform Exotel Secures $35 Million in Series C

Cloud telephony pioneer Exotel has announced that it has raised $35 million in Series C round. The round saw the participation of IIFL AMC, Sistema Asia Fund, CX Partners, Singularity Growth Opportunities Fund, and Arun Sarin. Existing investors Blume Ventures and A91 Partners also participated in the round.

"CPaaS is a $6Bn market in India and SEA and one of the fastest growing technology areas in the post-covid world. Exotel has quietly emerged as the CPaaS platform of choice in India through their market-best reliability and comprehensive product suite. We are delighted to partner with them and expect them to become a globally relevant platform in the years to come," said Sumit Jain, Senior Partner of Sistema Asia Fund.

Exotel is currently growing at 70% YoY and is at ARR of $45 million. The company plans to use the funding to boost its product offerings. It is looking to hit an ARR of $200 million over the next 5 years and raise the headcount in the company to over 200 in the next 12 months. Read More Blogs

 

Microsoft Plans to Expand Azure API Health IT and Cloud Computing Offerings

planning to expand its Azure API (application programming interface) for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) while providing customers with additional data management and cloud computing health IT tools. Also, the existing customers can continue using the product without service disruption or pricing changes.

Azure Healthcare predominantly APIs aims to help care organizations manage protected health information (PHI) data at scale by streamlining the health-based workloads and improving healthcare analytics. Microsoft stated that the company would be offering health data across patient outputs in the cloud sector to make PHI data sharing easier.

The new service aims to support the rapid exchange of data using the latest APIs in compliance with health data standards like FHIR and Digital Imaging Communications in Medicine (DICOM). The customers can manage imaging files in the cloud through APIs uniquely designed for DICOM. Also, the users can manage enterprise data workloads with high availability and disaster recovery support. Azure Healthcare APIs allow customers to manage their data regulations with certifications for ISO, HITRUST, FedRAMP, SOC, and in scope for the Azure BAA.

 

Singapore-based Cloud Delivery Platform Parcel Perform Raises $20 million

 

The cloud-based delivery experience platform Parcel Perform announced that it has secured $20 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Cambridge Capital, with new investor SoftBank Ventures Asia. Existing investors Wavemaker Partners and Investible joined the round too.

The Singapore-based company manages over 100 million parcel tracking updates every day and provides real-time visibility of tracking data. It also helps businesses to increase customer lifetime value by up to 40%. The company has seen fantastic growth, with its revenues growing five times since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are thrilled that our investors recognize our ability to build a sustainable and profitable business by serving some of the most sophisticated enterprise customers worldwide to help them boost their customer satisfaction online,” said Dr. Arne Jeroschewski, CEO and Co-founder of Parcel Perform. 

Parcel Perform will be using the fresh funding to support its global expansion and recruitment efforts. The company will also use the funding to build its technology offerings and invest in AI solutions, which will include scaling its proprietary ‘Date of Arrival’ prediction engine which allows customers to know precisely when their parcels will arrive. Further, the company also plans to establish a regional headquarters in North America and grow its global employee count to 150 by the end of this year.

 

Huawei Unveils Its Plan to Commit $100Mfor Startups in APAC

At the inaugural HUAWEI CLOUD Spark Founders Summit that took place simultaneously in Singapore and Hong Kong, Huawei has announced that it will be investing $100 million on the startup ecosystem in the Asia Pacific region for the next three years. This investment will go towards its Spark Program in the Asia Pacific region, which aims to build a sustainable startup ecosystem.

Huawei also announced that this program will focus on developing startup ecosystem in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The company aims to recruit a total of 1,000 startups into the Spark accelerator program and is looking to shape 100 of them into scaleups.

“Startups and SMEs are the innovators, disruptors, and pioneers of our times. 34 years ago, Huawei was a startup with just 5,000 dollars of registered capital. Recently, we have been thinking: How can we leverage our experience and resources to help more startups address their challenges? Doing so would allow them to seize the opportunities posed by digital transformation, achieve business success, and develop more innovative products and solutions for the world,” said Huawei Senior Vice President and Board Member Catherine Chen.

Last year, Huawei launched the Spark Program in Asia Pacific to work with local governments, well-known VC firms, leading incubators, and top universities to build support platforms for startups. Currently, 40 startups are participating in this program.

 

Alphaus Makes an Entry into Southeast Asia

Cloud Financial Management company Alphaus has made an entry into Singapore. The company plans to provide its suite of cloud financial management solutions to the fast-growing MSP Cloud Comrade in Singapore.

This move into Singapore will mark its journey of expansion in the Asia-Pacific region where it plans to pioneer in simplifying billing/spend management and tackling cloud waste for companies. Its SaaS products serve it as a catalyst to faster, greater, and better adoption and use of the cloud.

“The SaaS solutions from Alphaus for billing management and cloud cost optimization provide us with the requisite tools, information, and intelligence to achieve these seamlessly. These tools are integral to our operations and in use 24/7. Alphaus’ Wave and Ripple go a long way in helping maximize ROI, one of the key value propositions for moving to the cloud,” said Andy Waroma, Co-Founder & Co-Managing Director of Cloud Comrade.

Alphaus was founded in 2015 and is backed by DNX Ventures, NTT DoCoMo Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Archetype Ventures, Accord Ventures and 500 Startups. The company counts NTT Data, Nomura Research Institute (NRI), and ISI-Dentsu, as its clients. Headquartered in Japan, the company has a growing Global Delivery Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia comprising 10 team members. Alphaus is looking to further expand in the APAC and Oceania regions.

 

Rapid.Space Cloud Announces New Japan Zone

The European company Rapid.Space has launched its first point of presence in Japan in partnership with Nexedi KK. The company has a presence in over 200 points all around the world.

This new zone will provide its clients in Japan the advantages of Rapid.Space hyper open architecture including open source software, open hardware and transparent, open services.

Rapid.Space will be offering its flagship virtual machines "VPS" (195€/month for 256 GB RAM and 20 cores) and "VPSBrute" (495€/month for 1 TB RAM and 64 cores), as well as web acceleration via its global CDN (content delivery network) and SDN (software-defined networking) through this Japan zone. These offerings will help its Japanese clients meet their high computational requirements.

"We are very proud to be growing our global infrastructure with the presence of Rapid.Space cloud in Japan. It is a country with one of the most innovative and technologically advanced economies — but also one with significantly higher cloud infrastructure costs. Here, we hope to carve out our niche with our Rapid.Space high-performance, hyper open virtual machines and access to our global CDN and SDN while also adding more points of presence throughout Japan," said Jean-Paul Smets, CEO of Rapid.Space.

 

Deloitte Join Forces with Palo Alto Networks to Improve Multi-Cloud Security

Deloitte, which operates the topmost MSSP and Palo Alto Networks in a recent press meet, has announced a strategic partnership in order to deliver robust multi-cloud security solutions to enterprise and government organizations. The two companies have developed innovative solutions that Deloitte will be offering through its zero trust and cloud security orchestration automation and response services.

Deloitte will combine its most innovative cyber risk consulting services with Palo Alto Networks' security capabilities with this partnership. By doing this, Deloitte and Palo Alto Networks can help their joint customers simplify the most critical security infrastructure and get the most value out of their cybersecurity investments. Palo Alto Networks will use its Prisma Cloud solution for cloud security posture management (CSPM) to help organizations eliminate security threats and will protect the servers against alert fatigue.

The Deloitte-Palo Alto Networks integrated multi-cloud security automation, and orchestration solutions are currently available in the United States. Both the companies aim to deliver application security, data and privacy, and other cybersecurity solutions to various global organizations. They will be offering these services to organizations in financial services, government, and other industries.