1. Google Cloud Platform suffered major issues on Tuesday, causing outages at a number of notable online services. Snapchat, Spotify, and Discord were all victims, along with websites like Breitbart and The Drudge Report.  Google said all issues were resolved around 3:45 p.m. EST. Some sites were offline for about half an hour, although outage times varied. Other apps affected include Agile CRM, Instapage, Pivotal Tracker, Sourcegraph and PokemonGo. -CNBC

2. Users of Apple products in China now have their data stored in state-run facilities. Previously, Apple kept the encryption keys for iCloud stored in the United States, meaning Chinese officials had to stage a legal battle to gain control. Those keys, though, have been handed over to Tianyi, a cloud storage service of China Telecom. This move, which comes in response to orders from the Chinese government, makes it easier for officials to comb through user data. –THE INQUIRER  

1. Walmart has signed a deal to use Microsoft’s cloud and artificial intelligence technology. The agreement deepens a strategic partnership between two of Amazon’s largest rivals. Walmart will use the technology to make shopping quicker and easier for customers, especially online. Microsoft has also been working on a technology that could eliminate cashiers and checkout lines from stores that Walmart may one day look to utilize. -CNBC

2. Amazon Web Services will provide real-time statistics and graphics on live baseball games later this season as part of a new partnership with Major League Baseball. AWS will use its artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to develop new types of statistics to display during games. It is similar to a deal the company signed with the National Football League last November. One stat under development is a real-time pitcher heat map that changes based on specific situations to show fans where the next ball may be pitched. -REUTERS

3. IBM is expected to beat estimates for its second-quarter earnings. The company has seen continued growth with its cloud, big data and analytics business offerings, painting a rosier than expected picture for investors. However, investors would like to see IBM speed up its profitability in the cloud. The company’s mainframe business continues to sag and cloud and big data offerings have not quite yet filled the gap. IBM announces second-quarter earnings after today’s market close. –POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL

4. Epic Games, makers of the popular Fortnite video game, plan to partner with Amazon Web Services to use all of its tools going forward. Epic already uses AWS for its game servers and web site, but the company wants to fully embrace Amazon’s machine learning and analytics tools in future games. “We’ve been developing our services on AWS since 2012,” Epic’s Chris Dyl said. “AWS has the broadest and deepest portfolio of services that allow us to stay focused on driving innovation in our products rather than the basic infrastructure needed to get or keep a service running." –VENTURE BEAT

5. Microsoft has offered three years of support to Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 customers if they move to the cloud. Customers must move their workloads to Azure virtual machines or Azure SQL Database Managed Instance when it debuts later this year. Microsoft will stop supporting Windows Server 2008 in January of 2020 and SQL Server 2008 in July of 2019. Afterward, neither product will receive security updates, leaving them vulnerable to attack. –COMPUTER WORLD

6. Google has rebranded its Cloud Launcher service at GCP Marketplace. The marketplace serves as a place for third-party vendors to sell tools that can deploy in Google Cloud with just a few clicks. It also includes commercials applications that Google can bill users for as part of their regular GCP bill. Along with the rebranding, Google has added commercial and open source container-based applications to the service that users can deploy to Google Kubernetes. –TECH CRUNCH

7. An analyst digs into Microsoft’s deal with Walmart. The pairing not only threatens Amazon, but could greatly improve Walmart’s ecommerce business. -FORBES

8. Salesforce can seemingly not get enough AI. Following the company’s acquisition of Daorama, the question now becomes: How much AI is enough? -DIGINOMICA

9. Amazon Web Services announced it is now possible to run EC2 instances on on-premises hardware. The instances, though, will only be available to customers that own Snowball Edge devices. –THE REGISTER

10. Cloud vendors rely on trust but what does 99.999999999 percent availability really mean? It turns out that availability time means very little, at least compared to things like rebuild time and annualized drive failure rate. -ZDNET

3. Google Cloud hopes to connect the United States and France with a private trans-Atlantic subsea cable by 2020. The company has invested in three consortium subsea cables this year as it continues to build out its cloud business. The newest cable, announced today, will connect Virginia Beach, to the west coast of France and the company’s already-established cloud region in Belgium. -9TO5GOOGLE

4. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) will move some of its cyber awareness monitoring capabilities to the cloud. The agency’s cyber monitoring program, named Acropolis, collects and analysis cybersecurity network traffic from throughout the Defense Department. The program then combines it will information from commercial threat intelligence services to provide reports to interested parties. –GOVERNMENT COMPUTER NEWS

5. Esports and cloud gaming will continue to fuel growth over the next decade said AMD CEO Lisa Su. Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech Conference, Su said cloud giants Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have all invested heavily in gaming developer tools. These companies, and others in the cloud gaming market, will push developers to build the next generation of games on their platforms, requiring gamers to need the cloud in order to play. -FORTUNE

6. Amazon confirmed an Amazon Web Services outage on Monday. The service issues, which made it harder for AWS customers to control their usage, came as customers of the company’s e-commerce platform suffered technical issues. The outage lasted from about 5:10 p.m. EST on Monday until about 6:44 p.m. the same day. -CNBC

7. The United Nations has entered into a cloud partnership with Google. Under the agreement, Google’s technology will be used to help monitor the impacts of human activity on global ecosystems. –THE NEWS MINUTE

8. Erwan Menard, the new CEO of Elastifile, wants to intensify the startup’s cloud focus. A stronger public cloud emphasis would mean changes to the company’s overall product strategy. –TECH TARGET

9. CenturyLink will offer access to Oracle’s Cloud. CenturyLink will use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect to give customers a secure connection that bypasses the public internet. –CHANNEL PARTNERS ONLINE

10. Aktana has announced new product integrations with Salesforce. The partnership will help Aktana better support life sciences companies, along with offering technologies such as CRM, marketing support and artificial intelligence. –MARTECH SERIES

1. Salesforce will purchase Datorama for more than $800 million in an effort to boost its analytics capabilities. Datorama provides cloud-based, artificial-intelligence-powered marketing software. It has a number of prominent clients including Pepsi, Ticketmaster, and Foresquare. The acquisition is part of Salesforce’s move into other technology areas following the success of its CRM tools. -BLOOMBERG

2. Google Cloud’s Los Angeles region is now live. Google announced last month that the new region, aimed at serving the media and entertainment industry, would go live during July. Google now has five cloud regions in the United States, adding four in just the last three years, and 17 around the world. –TECH CRUNCH

3. Amazon Web Services has been working on a “white-box” switch it intends to sell to customers. Amazon might want to take on networking giant Cisco, although white box solutions have been used for years, and there is a demand for premium hardware equipment. Cloud providers have long developed their own internal hardware pieces but have rarely sold them to outside customers as Amazon appears ready to do. –GEEK WIRE

4. Oracle has made its Blockchain Cloud Service generally available. The service makes blockchain easily available for customers, charging them for each transaction that it handles. While blockchain adoption among major enterprises is still relatively low, Oracle has found some success since launching its product last October. That could increase in the coming months as Oracle officials said they have gotten increased interest from government agencies around the world. -ZDNET