Following on from the announcement that Microsoft has opened the new Australia Central regions for Azure, in partnership with CDC, I spoke with the company's CTO for Azure, Mark Russinovich about this and the state of the cloud when it comes to local businesses and government.

Airbus recently announced a switch from Office 365 to Google. And while, on the surface this looks like a loss for Microsoft, it turns out that the initial story isn't the whole story. It's likely that what looks like a win for Google will turn out to be a vindication for Microsoft's hybrid approach to the cloud rather than Google's cloud-only approach. And there are some broader lessons to learn as well.

Chinese multinational Huawei has announced grand plans for its cloud computing arm. In short, it wants to form a global "cloud alliance" with telco partners around the world. This will allow for greater collaboration on the delivery of cloud solutions for international enterprises, similar to how airline alliances operate today.

According to a recent Microsoft survey of Australian business leaders,
40% of companies are using or planning to use hybrid cloud solutions -- set to rise a further 49% within the next 12 to 18 months. The most common roadblocks to cloud adoption: security concerns and staffing resources. That's where it pays to find the right independent tech partner. Here's what you need to know.

Not a day passes when someone I interview or a new piece of research appears bemoaning the IT skills shortage. New research, released today by SolarWinds, suggests the shift to hybrid IT infrastructure is exacerbating the gap as companies struggle to find people who can blend on-prem and cloud solutions.

Investment in private or public only cloud solutions is set to stagnate as Australian organisations favour a hybrid approach.

Public cloud services spending in Australia is set to reach $5.55 billion (US$4.18 billion) by the end of the year, while the global market is expected to hit $276.73 billion (US$208.6 billion). But surprisingly, a large number of organisations still have no plans to use cloud services, according to analyst firm Gartner. Read on to find out more.

Optus has signed up as Microsoft's first Cloud OS Network partner, meaning it can sell enterprise customers a mixture of Azure-based services and on-premises implementations. Private cloud ahoy!

In a world where a single provider can rarely handle every possible IT challenge, hybrid cloud is the inevitable outcome. If you work in IT, that means that skills in juggling multiple vendors are likely to be more important than technology platform knowledge.

Hybrid cloud -- a mixture of on-premises gear and commercial cloud services -- is a common approach in scenarios where pure cloud isn't acceptable for whatever business reason. But what happens when you want to throw more than one cloud service into the mix?

We're often told that cloud computing is the future, but making that assertion seems premature when arguments over what "the cloud" actually is continue to rage. Once that becomes clear, everything falls into place.

Deployment of a hybrid cloud solution (mixing public cloud infrastructure with on-site systems) is often said to be driven by security and data sovereignty concerns. For Coca Cola Amatil, however, hybrid reflects a more basic reality: key warehousing apps won't be allowed off the premises.

Cloud technology decisions are rarely as straightforward as 'all private' or 'all public'. A hybrid cloud approach gives you the benefits of both approaches, and Windows Server 2012 offers a host of tools to make shifting into the hybrid cloud easier and more productive.

Blending private cloud and public cloud systems into a hybrid model can be challenging, especially in terms of ensuring fast enough access to the public elements. Networked data centre provider Equinix is trying to solve that problem with its new NetApp Private Storage for Amazon Web Services.

The hybrid cloud -- a mixture of private and public cloud infrastructure -- is the reality for many businesses, but much discussion of the cloud insists on treating the two as separate concepts. How can you effectively deploy and take advantage of hybrid cloud environments?