Best of LinkedIn: Cloud Insights CW 15/ 16

Pilot‑test blueprints now start with outcome‑based baselines, rigorous tool selection and phased cut‑over to de‑risk large migrations

FinOps discipline on “show‑back” billing is emerging as a prerequisite for both budget control and security posture clarity

Fiori‑based EDI in S/4HANA demonstrates how API‑first design removes integration friction and accelerates order‑to‑cash

On‑demand GPU clusters provide a fast lane for AI experimentation, eliminating CapEx and queue times

Google’s latest generative‑AI builders give teams rapid prototyping capability while embedding governance hooks from the outset

Mature risk‑management frameworks call for threat‑modeling across every layer of multi‑cloud estates, not just the perimeter

Greenfield S/4HANA is gaining favour as the quickest route to cloud value, avoiding legacy technical debt

Cloud‑security posture management must shift from point‑in‑time audits to continuous, automated validation

Digital‑sovereignty demands are steering European buyers toward regional providers and open, portable architectures

Boards increasingly treat cloud modernization as existential – laggards face growth and valuation penalties

Azure Arc is being positioned as the control plane for uniform policy and lifecycle management across hybrid resources

Volkswagen breach drives renewed focus on zero‑trust analytics and proactive data‑governance tooling

Google Workspace partners with Schwarz Digits’ STACKIT to deliver a sovereign collaboration stack for EU customers

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 fast‑tracks compliance programs for SAP workloads on Azure

Open Telekom Cloud powers European AI workloads with GPU‑rich clusters hosted under local jurisdiction

IBM expands hybrid capability with z17 mainframe and new multi‑zone cloud regions in Montréal and Toronto

AWS and Germany’s BSI join forces to embed native cyber‑resilience into federal workloads

Rackspace relaunches its OpenStack portfolio with enterprise‑grade Flex IaaS for vendor‑neutral deployments

DDN teams with Google Cloud to bring high‑performance storage to large‑scale AI training

Lloyds Banking Group deepens Oracle partnership to accelerate core‑banking modernization

CDW adds Azure Local and AVD services, targeting scalable remote‑work environments

Snowflake’s Data Cloud + AI crosses the $900 m ARR threshold, underscoring demand for converged data‑and‑AI platforms

Microsoft enables FOCUS‑standard billing export, giving FinOps teams downstream automation leverage

Startup landscape signals continued innovation across infrastructure, data and application layers

Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework provides a structured playbook for transformation at scale

ASUG case study on IBM’s SAP migration highlights disciplined change‑management as the critical success factor

Comparative guide to SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and XaaS clarifies economic and control trade‑offs for provider selection

Banking leaders now frame cloud as strategic growth engine rather than a pure cost lever

Mobility‑payments firm XXImo showcases Azure‑based scale‑out architecture for real‑time transactions

Hybrid‑cloud study finds native tooling reduces latency and management overhead for edge workloads

Palo Alto Networks’ Cortex Cloud unifies SecOps with AI‑driven detection and response

Healthcare forums underscore cloud as the backbone for patient‑centric data exchange and regulatory compliance

Security symposium surfaces new thinking on data‑protection, zero‑trust and privacy‑engineering patterns

Partner round‑tables track Q1 milestones for start‑up ecosystems in infrastructure and platform services

SAP Business Data Cloud workshops illustrate real‑time analytics powering next‑generation planning