Federal agencies seeking to deal with huge amounts of information have begun embracing the software-defined data center, a technology tool that has come into vogue for managing and storing data. The SDDC is an offshoot of IT virtualization that uses a software-defined architecture. Agencies have been striving to save money and improve data storage and management in response to government mandates.

Qualcomm has announced a collaboration with Microsoft to accelerate next-generation cloud services on the 10nm Qualcomm Centriq 2400 ARM-based platform. The collaboration will span multiple future generations of hardware, software and systems. The two have been working for several years on ARM-based server enablement, optimizing a version of Windows Server for ARM running on the Centriq 2400.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has inked a deal to acquire flash storage firm Nimble Storage, once viewed as a darling of Wall Street, for $12.50 a share in cash, or $1 billion. HPE also agreed to assume or pay out Nimble Storage's unvested equity awards, which are valued at $200 million. Upon completion of the deal, Nimble Storage will merge with a unit of HPE and become a subsidiary of the company.

Seeking Alpha is an online outfit that offers investors good research and analysis on tech vendors, and it is especially well versed in Oracle. Its writers' expertise involves matching technologies to investment attractiveness. I am sure you are familiar with the type. XYZ company's product does this, it should result in sales of this much, and that will drive profits so that the stock is worth so much. You get the idea.

SnapRoute, a developer of open source networking software, announced that it has raised $25 million in Series A financing led by Norwest Venture Partners with new support from AT&T and Microsoft Ventures. SnapRoute, founded by CEO Jason Forrester and other former Apple engineers, plans to use the funding to speed up the development of open source networking software for Fortune 500 firms.

Docker on Wednesday announced that it will spin out containerd, a key component of its Docker Engine, for open source use. Containerd will provide an open, stable and extensible base for building non-Docker products and container solutions, the company said. Some of the top cloud providers have committed to making contributions to the project, giving it instant credibility within the community.

Chip manufacturer Broadcom on Wednesday announced that it would buy Brocade Communications, a major supplier of fiber channel storage area networking technology to data centers, for $5.5 billion in cash and the assumption of Brocade's $400 million debt. That represents a 47 percent premium over Brocade's closing share price last week, said Brocade CEO Lloyd Carney.

Red Hat and Ericsson on Wednesday announced an alliance meant to speed adoption of open source solutions in the information and communications technology space. The alliance will help promote a range of fully open source and production-ready cloud solutions, spanning OpenStack, software defined-networking and software-defined infrastructure, the companies said.

Sunday's Oracle OpenWorld keynotes were good -- especially compared with prior years -- but they still suffered from the perennial problem of trying to stuff too much content into a two-hour event. Diane Bryant, SVP at Intel and a big Oracle partner, spent an hour covering a very broad landscape. Perhaps the most interesting information in Bryant's presentation concerned Intel's new line of chips.

Unknown attackers have been testing the defenses of companies that run critical parts of the Internet, possibly to figure out how to take them down, cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier warned. Large nation states -- perhaps China or Russia -- are the likely culprits, he suggested. "Nation state actors are going to probe to find weaknesses in all of our technologies," said Tripwire's Travis Smith.

Alphabet has been facing significant roadblocks in expanding Google Fiber into new U.S. cities, in part due to significant competitive and legal challenges from incumbent broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast. The companies currently are embroiled in a dispute over access to utility poles in Nashville, Tennessee, and the city council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a controversial proposal.

The FBI has launched investigations into malicious cyberattacks on the electronic election infrastructures in Illinois and Arizona, and federal officials last month warned states to take steps to protect their systems as the presidential campaign heats up, according to reports. The attacks, dating back to June, led to the illegal download of information on more than 200,000 Illinois voters.

Cisco Systems will cut up to 5,500 employees from its 73,000-strong global workforce, the company announced Wednesday as part of its Q4 earnings report. The restructuring will allow further investment in key priority areas such as security, the Internet of Things, collaboration, next-generation data center and cloud, the company said, along with optimization of costs in lower-growth areas.

SiFive on Monday announced its flagship Freedom family of system on a chip platforms. The platforms are based on the free and open source RISC-V instruction set architecture that several of the company's founders created at the University of California at Berkeley. SiFive's Freedom U500 and E300 platforms take a new approach to SoCs, redefining traditional silicon business models.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential candidate, this week unveiled a technology and innovation agenda that calls for a broader commitment to improving computer science and STEM education, expansion of broadband Internet to the entire United States, and deployment of 5G wireless networks. Clinton's plan calls for advancing high-tech training in American schools.

Just one quantum computer running artificial intelligence algorithms would be capable of connecting pretty much all the devices on the planet, Android creator Andy Rubin said Tuesday. Rubin, who also launched Google's efforts in robotics, is now CEO of Playground, which together with Redpoint Ventures has invested in an unnamed startup working on quantum computing.

Former NASA administrator Dan Goldin last week introduced a 10-year-old startup to the public. Backed by $100 million in private funding, KnuEdge is working to develop breakthrough technologies in voice biometrics and neural computing. KnuEdge launched two new products upon its emergence from stealth mode. KnuVerse offers military-grade voice recognition and authentication technology.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise on Tuesday announced it was open-sourcing The Machine to spur development of the infant computer design project. HPE has invited the open source community to collaborate on its largest and most notable research project yet. The Machine focuses on reinventing the architecture underlying all computers built in the past 60 years.

The Linux Foundation on Wednesday announced that it has taken the OpenSwitch Project under its wing. OpenSwitch last year began as a joint project of Hewlett Packard Enterprises, Broadcom, VMware, Accton, Intel and Arista. OpenSwitch is an open source, Linux-based network operating system, or NOS, that works with enterprise-grade switches from multiple vendors.

Antiquated IT systems are soaking up federal technology dollars and creating risks for both bureaucrats and citizens, the Government Accountability Office reported last week. More than 75 percent of the federal IT budget in 2015 went toward the operation and maintenance of nearly obsolete legacy systems that use outdated software languages and unsupported hardware parts.

NTT Data on Monday announced in a regulatory filing that it has agreed to purchase Dell's IT services business for just over $3 billion. Dell reportedly agreed to the sale to help finance its pending $67 billion purchase of EMC. "Dell reported in previous public filings that it would consider divestitures as it worked to finalize its acquisition of EMC," Dell spokesperson David Frink pointed out.

The federal program for improving the operation of thousands of government data centers has entered a new phase that will impact significantly how electronic information is stored and managed. Proposed updates to data center operations will affect providers of data management products and could spur the use of cloud technology. Vendors have been invited to comment on the proposals by April 1.

GoDaddy on Monday launched a pay-as-you-go cloud platform along with applications powered by Bitnami. The tools, Cloud Servers and Cloud Applications, are designed to help small businesses -- individual devs, tech entrepreneurs and IT professionals -- quickly build, test and scale cloud solutions. Provisioning takes 54 seconds or less, GoDaddy said.

Facebook on Sunday at the 2016 Mobile World Congress announced its Telecom Infra Project, an engineering initiative aimed at developing new technologies and approaches to building and deploying telecom network infrastructure. TIP will bring together telecommunications companies, infrastructure providers, system integrators and other technology companies, according to Facebook's Jay Parikh.

Facebook has been using artificial intelligence to sharpen its focus on the roughly 10 percent of the world that has been overlooked by the Internet revolution, the company announced Sunday at the Mobile World Congress. The work has been led by the Connectivity Lab, Facebook's research and development wing, which is tasked with making the breakthroughs needed to connect the world to the Internet.

IBM on Tuesday introduced the z13s, a mainframe computer system optimized for hybrid cloud deployment. The z13s is designed to provide advanced cryptography for mid-sized firms that need a high level of data protection. The advanced cryptography includes built-in hardware security features that effectively double the speed of data encryption and decryption over prior generations of computers.

Juniper Networks on Sunday informed customers that recent security threats to its ScreenOS were not as widespread as initially believed. The company last week issued an alert following its discovery in ScreenOS of unauthorized code that could allow an attacker to gain administrative control of devices using Netscreen or to decrypt a VPN. The two issues are unrelated to each other.

Federal information technology purchasing often involves large amounts of money based on the small print of acquisition requirements. Arcane procurement language seemingly can have a big impact on transactions. For IT vendors, provisions of recent legislation are prime examples of why it pays to scrutinize every line of the laws and regulations pertaining to federal acquisition programs.

The good news for federal information technology managers -- and the vendor community -- is that government IT budgets will remain stable for the next few years in terms of projected spending. An additional potential benefit is that a recent budget agreement will support agencies for two years. The spending stability doesn't mean federal IT procurement will remain boringly routine, however.

Cisco and Ericsson on Monday announced a partnership to build out a next-generation network for smart things and the carriers and enterprises that want to support such devices. The deal plays to the companies' strengths in cloud, data center, mobility, management, networking, routing and global services, they said. Each company expects to earn about US$1 billion in revenue by 2018 from the deal.