Infrastructure service cloud technology is proving as popular as flowers in the Spring. Recent research reveals that the Global Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Market will post a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42.9% from 2015-2019. Indeed, many believe the shift induced by IaaS is so seismic it can be compared to the introduction of an independent power grid, which led to the detachment of power production from its location of use and replaced co-located power generators with central power plants.
Archivo mensual: marzo 2015
Adobe Announces New Productivity Applications: Document Cloud and Acrobat DC
Recently, Adobe announced an overhaul of some of its subscription based productivity business with the launch of their Document Cloud, a place where professionals can handle their documents in one convenient place, and Acrobat DC, a newer version of its PDF viewing and editing program. These tools are expected to launch within the next month and start at around $15 per month.
The Document Cloud is Adobe’s third major move towards the cloud, following the Creative Cloud, a design app suite, and the Marketing Cloud, a bundle of marketing services. This cloud service is limited to documents and presentations for now, and can be integrated to work with Acrobat DC. This service was designed to deal with the waste an inefficiency that comes with document processes.
This product is targeted towards business and enterprises, not so much for consumers as many of its features help with efficiency within an organization. One technology that has been integrated into this service is EchoSign, an electronic signature service that Adobe acquired in 2005. Anyone using the Document Cloud can send another user documents to sign, all for only $2 per month.
Along with the Document Cloud, Adobe has launched (or will launch soon) some apps for use with the cloud for iOS and Android mobile devices. This includes a touchscreen based user interface for use on tablets. Another unique feature is an app called Fill and Sign that allows users to take a photo and get the text translated into a document that can be filled with text and signatures before being sent off.
Acrobat also now has a mobile app that brings most of the desktop abilities to a tablet. The app is free, but users can pay for more advanced features up to a full Document Cloud subscription.
The post Adobe Announces New Productivity Applications: Document Cloud and Acrobat DC appeared first on Cloud News Daily.
DevOps Teams Get Docker Flexibility @Ruxit | @DevOpsSummit [#DevOps]
In cloud-based architectures, the situation is different and the network has become even more important. Let’s imagine a typical cloud-based architecture situation. You run a datacenter with a flexible number of allocated computing instances (for example, due to the pricing model and volatile demands for CPU). Your datacenter serves distributed applications that are backed by, for example, microservices. Additionally, let’s say that your applications are distributed via Docker containers to give your DevOps teams some flexibility. In situations like this you need more networking than ever. Your network must shoulder all the communications required between the microservices. It serves as a virtual nervous system for your applications.
A roundup of cloud computing forecasts and market estimates for 2015
(c)iStock.com/tumpikuja
Global SaaS software revenues are forecasted to reach $106B in 2016, increasing 21% over projected 2015 spending levels. A Goldman Sachs study published earlier this year projects that spending on cloud computing infrastructure and platforms will grow at a 30% CAGR from 2013 through 2018 compared with 5% growth for the overall enterprise IT.
Centaur Partners and other firms mentioned in this roundup are seeing more enterprise-size deals for cloud computing infrastructure and applications. While each of these consultancies and research firms have varying forecasts for the next few years, all agree that cloud computing adoption is accelerating in enterprises on a global scale.
Key take-aways from the roundup are provided below:
- By 2018, 59% of the total cloud workloads will be Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) workloads, up from 41% in 2013. Cisco is predicting that by 2018, 28% of the total cloud workloads will be Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) workloads down from 44% in 2013. 13% of the total cloud workloads will be Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) workloads in 2018, down from 15% in 2013. The following graphic provides a comparative analysis of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS forecasts from 2013 to 2018. Source: Cisco Global Cloud Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2013–2018. (PDF, free, no opt-in).
- Centaur Partners’ analysis of SaaS & cloud-based business application services revenue forecasts the market growing from $13.5B in 2011 to $32.8B in 2016, attaining a 19.5% CAGR. Centaur provides a useful overview of current market conditions including M&A activity in their latest market overview published this month, Introduction to Centaur Partners: SaaS Market Overview, (PDF, free, no opt-in).
- 42% of IT decision makers are planning to increase spending on cloud computing in 2015, with the greatest growth in enterprises with over 1,000 employees (52%). The top five tech spending increases in 2015 are shown in the following graphic. Source: Computerworld’s 2015 Forecast Predicts Security, Cloud Computing And Analytics Will Lead IT Spending.
- Global SaaS software revenues are forecasted to reach $106B in 2016, increasing 21% over projected 2015 spending levels. Spending on integration, storage management, and database management systems are projected to experience the greatest growth in 2015. These and other key insights are from Forrester’s SaaS software subscription revenue by category show below. Source: Enterprise software spend to reach $620 billion in 2015: Forrester.
- $78.43B in SaaS revenue will be generated in 2015, increasing to $132.57 in 2020, attaining a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.14%. The following graphic and table provides an overview of Forrester’s Global Public Cloud Computing market size analysis and forecast for the years 2011 to 2020. Source: Institut Sage.
- Spending on cloud computing infrastructure and platforms is expected to grow at a 30% CAGR from 2013 through 2018 compared with 5% growth for the overall enterprise IT. Goldman Sachs estimates that Amazon has taken in $4B in revenue, or 26% of the IaaS and PaaS markets, in the past 12 months. These and other insights and the graphics below are from an analysis of the recent Goldman Sachs cloud computing report. Thank you Michael Coté, Research Director, Infrastructure Software at 451 Research for freely sharing your latest presentation, Cloud State of the Union, 2015. Additional interesting links regarding Goldman Sachs’ recent cloud computing study include Battle Of Cloud Titans Has Just Begun, Goldman Says and Red Hat: Goldman Cuts to Sell Amidst Bullish Cloud View.
- Security (36%), cloud computing (31%) and mobile devices (28%) are the top 3 initiatives IT executives are planning to have their organizations focus on over the next 12 months. Source: 2015 State of the Network Study, Technology Adoption Trends & Their Impact on the Network (free PDF, no opt in). A summary of the study can be found here: State of the Network 2015.
- IDC predicts that by 2016, there will be an 11% shift of IT budget away from traditional in-house IT delivery, toward various versions of cloud computing as a new delivery model. By 2017, 35% of new applications will use cloud-enabled, continuous delivery and enabled by faster DevOps life cycles to streamline rollout of new features and business innovation. Source: 2015-2017 Forecast: Cloud Computing to Skyrocket, Rule IT Delivery.
- By 2018, IDC forecasts that public cloud spending will more than double to $127.5 billion. This forecast is broken down as follows: $82.7 billion in SaaS spending, $24.6 billion for IaaS and $20.3 billion in PaaS expenditures. Source: Forecasts Call For Cloud Burst Through 2018.
- 27.8% of the worldwide enterprise applications market will be SaaS-based, generating $50.8B in revenue up from $22.6B or 16.6% of the market in 2013. IDC also estimates the overall enterprise applications market in 2013 was $135.9B. Source: IDC Predicts SaaS Enterprise Applications Will Be A $50.8B Market By 2018.
- By 2016 over 80% of enterprises globally will using IaaS, with investments in private cloud computing showing the greater growth. Ovum forecasts that by 2016, 75% of EMEA-based enterprises will be using IaaS. These and other insights are from the presentation, The Role of Cloud in IT Modernisation: The DevOps Challenge (free PDF, no opt in). The graphic below provides an analysis of cloud computing adoption in EMEA and globally.
- Microsoft’s commercial cloud revenue grew 128% in Q3, 2014, while server products and services revenue increased 13%. Source: 2015 Forecast: The Sun is Out for Cloud Computing.
- The SaaS Supply Chain Management (SCM) market is predicted to a $4.4B market by 2018, attaining a 19% CAGR from 2014 to 2018. The following graphic from a recent Accenture study is shown below. Source: Supply Chain Management in the Cloud: How can cloud-based computing make supply chains more competitive?
- Enterprise cloud subscription revenues are forecast to reach $67B by 2018, attaining a CAGR of 17.3% in the forecast period. This and other forecasts on cloud computing adoption are provided in the Apps Run The Cloud downloadable report World’s Cloud Top 500 Applications Vendors: Worldwide Cloud Applications Market Forecast 2014-2018 (free PDF, no opt-in). For a breakout of forecast categories and projected spending please see the blog post Worldwide Cloud Applications Market Forecast 2014-2018.
- By 2018, more than 60% of enterprises will have at least half of their infrastructure on cloud-based platforms. These and other are insights are from the keynote Cloud Business Summit presentation Digital Business, Rethinking Fundamentals by Bill McNee, Founder and CEO, Saugatuck Technology. Source: Digital Business, Rethinking Fundamentals.
How Can Hadoop Increase Governmental Efficiency? | @CloudExpo [#BigData]
From federal to state-level agencies, the functions and responsibilities of government are vast, ranging from maintaining infrastructure to neutralizing security threats. In light of recent budget cuts and refocused spending, agencies are under pressure to do more with fewer resources.
Fortunately, Apache Hadoop can help. With its organizational, storage, and collection capabilities, the platform allows government, defense, and intelligence agencies and contractors to obtain the information they need to protect and represent citizens.
UK IoT startups could generate over £100bn in ten years but barriers persist, Cisco claims
UK IoT startups could generate billions of pounds for the economy, but only if stakeholders are willing to incubate and accelerate innovation
A recently published report commissioned by networking specialist Cisco suggests Internet of Things startups could generate over £100bn over the decade as their offerings catch on in industries ripe for IoT-centric transformation (healthcare, retail, transport and energy). But Tom Kneen, head of business development, the British Innovation Gateway (BIG) at Cisco told BCN the industry needs to overcome key barriers in order to enable the market to flourish.
The report, The Internet of Everything: Unlocking the Opportunity for UK Startups, looks at the potential opportunities for IoT startups in four key sectors: healthcare, retail, transport and energy.
It claims the healthcare industry currently has the greatest opportunity, with the potential to access over £48bn over the next decade through IoT innovation. This is followed by the retail industry with £37bn, transport (£11bn) and energy (£7bn).
Cisco has not shied away in past from dropping large numbers to illustrate the potential of a segment in which it has vested interests – the company famously claims there will be around 50 billion IoT devices by 2020.
But it said that large firms, SMEs, and government organisations in the UK need to cultivate more joint innovation partnerships if any industry stakeholders are to reap the financial benefits of such a proliferation in internet-connected devices.
“UK companies of every size are devoting time and ingenuity to designing and building IoE applications, from the smallest SMEs to the largest enterprises. These companies are not just digitising in the conventional sense but finding completely new ways to connect people, processes, data and things, from their supply chains to their office spaces and their customers,” said Phil Smith, chief executive, Cisco UK and Ireland.
“The UK’s startup community is a great source of innovation, and we’re confident that we’re only witnessing the first wave. In the coming months and years, we can expect these businesses to be at the forefront of the transformation of the UK economy as we fully embrace the possibilities of a digital future,” Smith said.
Cisco’s Tom Kneen told BCN there are still a number of barriers preventing the IoT market from really kicking off – and that access to technology isn’t one of them.
“The hardest part for today’s tech savvy entrepreneurs when developing an IoE startup is not writing the code or building the infrastructure, but being allowed to play at all,” he said. “But while many traditional tech start-ups can build entire businesses using little more than free developer tools and rented server space, most IoT start-ups typically need much broader business-focused skillsets. Particularly when you factor in aspects like dealing with regulatory and standards bodies, which are more prevalent in some industries than others.”
“In addition, a typical customer for an IoT startup may not be your single app-focused consumer, but a large enterprise or government department. Even finding the right person to talk to, or the appropriate level to engage at can be a challenge in such large organisations – let alone talking the same language.”
Kneen said to succeed in the IoT space companies need both hardware and software-based skills, but that the UK has a number of areas cultivating these simultaneously – “such as Cambridge and the Midlands, where the development of low-cost, low-power processors to pioneering connected car technology are in full swing.”
Deutsche Telekom announces flurry of cloud partnerships with SAP, Salesforce, Cisco, Huawei
Deutsche Telekom announced a slew of cloud partnerships this week
Deutsche Telekom announced a number of cloud-focused partnerships with Salesforce, SAP, Huawei and Cisco at CeBIT this week.
T-Systems, the telco’s enterprise-focused subsidiary, worked with Salesforce to develop a Customer Experience platform for the automotive sector, which the companies said would connect dealers, workshops, vehicles and customers more closely via an interactive showroom on customers’ mobile phones.
Additionally, the company said it is working closely with consulting giant Deloitte to advise European clients on how to implement the cloud-based CRM platform.
It is also making SAP SuccessFactors available to corporate customers, and next month the company plans to implement the cloud-based human resources management platform internally to serve the company’s 220,000 employees.
Lastly, the firm announced an update to its September 2014 deal with Cisco to become an Intercloud partner. T-Systems is currently installing Cisco’s OpenStack-based infrastructure in datacentre in Biere, near Magdeburg, and said the first Software-as-a-Service product, a managed hotspot for small and medium-sized business, will be available in the second quarter of 2015.
Cisco is one of a number of DT’s partners when it comes to cloud infrastructure. This week the German telco also signed a global framework agreement with Huawei that will see the latter provide IT infrastructure and private cloud solutions to T-Systems.
The telco is aggressively moving forward with plans to expand its reach in the cloud sector. Ferri Abolhassan, director of the IT division at T-Systems, described the partnerships as “a systematic step on the part of T-Systems to consolidate its technology leadership in all matters cloud in Europe, and to expand globally.”
IBM says over 100 enterprises creating Twitter-integrated cloud services
Twitter and IBM are jointly deliver solutions leveraging IBM’s technology and consulting expertise with Twitter’s vast data troves
IBM said it has over 100 pilots in place that see the company working with enterprises in a range of verticals to create cloud-based services integrated with Twitter. The move comes months after the two companies inked a deal that would see Twitter make its data stream available to Big Blue’s clients.
IBM said the move enables social data-enabled application development via Bluemix, and the ability to combine predictive analytics and Watson services with Twitter data in compelling ways.
The company also said it has over 4,000 service professionals well-versed in Twitter data integration who are on hand to help enterprises integrate Twitter in their applications
“So much of business decision making relies on internal data such as sales, promotion and inventory. Now with Twitter data, customer feedback can easily be incorporated into decision making,” said Chris Moody, vice president of data strategy at Twitter. “IBM’s unique capabilities can help businesses leverage this valuable data, and we expect to see rapid demand in retail, telecommunications, finance and more.”
Glenn Finch, global leader of big data & analytics for IBM Global Business Services said: “The unprecedented partnership between IBM and Twitter helps businesses tap into billions of real-time conversations to make smarter decisions. Through unique expertise, curation and insights Twitter data is now able to inform decision-making far inside organizations”
IBM and Twitter originally announced the collaboration, which focuses on three distinct areas, in October last year, making IBM one of just a handful of companies to have full access to Twitter’s entire data stream.
Twitter offered up its data for developers to integrate into their big data applications built on IBM’s Watson Developer Cloud or Bluemix.
IBM and Twitter said they would jointly develop enterprise applications that integrate Twitter data with IBM’s customer engagement solutions (ExperienceOne) that help users map sentiment behaviour in real-time.
And the companies also planned to jointly develop solutions for specific industries such as banking, consumer products, retail, and travel and transportation, with IBM throwing its vast consulting resources behind the effort.
Cloud-based data management provider Reltio scores $10m
Reltio scored $10m, which will be used to expand its sales and marketing efforts
Reltio, a startup founded by Informatica veterans, has secured $10m in its first round of funding and announced the launch of its cloud-based data management platform.
Much like the integration element Informatica specialises in, Reltio is pitching its services at those that don’t necessarily want to acquire and set up all of the front-end and back-end big data tools in piecemeal, siloed fashion, but instead want an integrated platform that can query, analyses and display multiple data types.
The company said its data management platform is designed for those accustomed to using services like Facebook or Linkedin, but within traditionally data-intense industries like healthcare and life sciences, oil and gas, retail and distribution.
“Data is the new natural resource, but it’s truly valuable only when it’s effectively mined, related and transformed into insight with business actions that can be taken within the context of day-to-day operations,” said Manish Sood, founder and chief executive officer of Reltio.
“With Reltio, data is collated and analysed for actionable intelligence with the speed needed to support innovation and spark new revenue streams. IT gets a modern data management platform while business users get easy to use data-driven applications to address their everyday needs,” Sood said.
The company was founded largely by Informatica data management specialists: Sood led product strategy for master data management at Informatica; Anastasia Zamyshlyaeva, chief architect for Reltio, helped design the core components of Informatica’s MDM offering; Curt Pearlman, vice president of solutions, previously held positions in sales consulting with Informatica, as did Bob More, Reltio’s senior vice president of sales.
Reltio is throwing its hat into an increasingly competitive but lucrative ring. Analyst firm IDC estimates spending on big data and analytics will reach $125bn in 2015, with Database-as-a-Service growing in importance as cloud and commercial vendors open up their data sets.
Every little helps: How Tesco is bringing the online food retail experience back in-store
Tesco is in the midst of overhauling its connectivity and IT services
Food retailers in the UK have for years spent millions of pounds on going digital and cultivating a web presence, which includes the digitisation of product catalogues and all of the other necessary tools on the backend to support online shopping, customer service and food delivery. But Tomas Kadlec, group infrastructure IT director at Tesco tells BCN more emphasis is now being place on bringing the online experience back into physical stores, which is forcing the company to completely rethink how it structures and handles data.
Kadlec, who is responsible for Tesco’s IT infrastructure strategy globally, has spent the better part of the past few years building a private cloud deployment model the company could easily drop into regional datacentres that power its European operations and beyond. This has largely been to improve the services it can provide to clients and colleagues within the company’s brick and mortar shops, and support a growing range of internal applications.
“If you look at what food retailers have been doing for the past few years it was all about building out an online extension to the store. But that trend is reversing, and there’s now a kind of ‘back to store’ movement brewing,” Kadlec says.
“If we have 30,000 to 50,000 SKUs in one store at any given time, how do you handle all of that data in a way that can contribute digital feature-rich services for customers? And how do you offer digital services to customers in Tesco stores that cater to the nuances in how people act in both environments? For instance, people like to browse more in-store, sometimes calling a friend or colleague to ask for advice on what to get or recipes; in a digital environment people are usually just in a rush to head for the checkout. These are all fairly big, critical questions.”
Some of the digital services envisioned are fairly ambitious and include being able to queue up tons of product information – recipes, related products and so forth – on mobile devices by scanning items with built-in cameras, and even, down the line, paying for items on those devices. But the food retail sector is one of the most competitive in the world, and it’s possible these kinds of services could be a competitive differentiator for the firm.
“You should be able to create a shopping list on your phone and reach all of those items in-store easily,” he says. “When you’re online you have plenty of information about those products at your fingertips, but far less when you’re in a physical store. So for instance, if you have special dietary requirement we should be able to illuminate and guide the store experience on these mobile platforms with this in mind.”
“The problem is that in food retail the app economy doesn’t really exist yet. It exists everywhere else, and in food retail the app economy will come – it’s just that we as an industry have failed to make the data accessible so applications aren’t being developed.”
To achieve this vision, Tesco had to drastically change its approach to data and how it’s deployed across the organisation. The company originally started down the path of building its own API and offering internal users a platform-as-a-service to enable more agile app development, but Kadlec says the project quickly morphed into something much larger.
“It’s one thing to provide an elastic compute environment and a platform for development and APIs – something we can solve in a fairly straightforward way. It’s another thing entirely to expose the information you need for these services to work effectively in such a scalable system.”
Tesco’s systems handle and structure data the way many traditional enterprises within and outside food retail do – segmenting it by department, by function, and in alignment with the specific questions the data needs to answer. But the company is trying to move closer to a ‘store and stream now, ask questions later’ type of data model, which isn’t particularly straightforward.
“Data used to be purpose-built; it had a clearly defined consumer, like ERP data for example. But now the services we want to develop require us to mash up Tesco data and open data in more compelling ways, which forces us to completely re-think the way we store, categorise and stream data,” he explains. “It’s simply not appropriate to just drag and drop our databases into a cloud platform – which is why we’re dropping some of our data systems vendors and starting from scratch.”
Kadlec says the debate now centres on how the company can effectively democratise data while keeping critical kinds of information – like consumers’ personal information – secure and private: “There should only be two types of data. Data that should be open, and we should make sure we make that accessible, and then there’s the type of data that’s so private people get fired for having made it accessible – and setting up very specific architectural guidelines along with this.”
The company hasn’t yet had the security discussion with its customers yet, which is why Kadlec says the systems Tesco puts in place initially will likely focus on improving internal efficiency and productivity – “so we don’t have to get into the privacy data nightmare”.
The company also wants to improve connectivity to its stores to better service both employees and customers. Over the next 18 months the company will implement a complete overhaul of store connectivity and infrastructure, which will centre on delivering low latency bandwidth for in-store wifi and quadrupling the amount of access points. It also plans to install 4G signal booster cells in its stores to improve GSM-based connectivity. Making sure that infrastructure will be secure so that customer data isn’t leaked is top priority, he says.
Tesco is among a number of retailers to make headlines as of late – though not because of datacentre security or customer data loss, but because the company, having significantly inflated its profits by roughly £250m, is in serious financial trouble. But Kadlec says what many may see as a challenge is in fact an opportunity for the company.
One of the things the company is doing is piloting OmniTrail’s indoor location awareness technology to improve how Tesco employees are deployed in stores and optimise how they respond to changes in demand.
“If anything this is an opportunity for IT. If you look at the costs within the store today, there are great opportunities to automate stuff in-store and make colleagues within our stores more focused on customer services. If for instance we’re looking at using location-based services in the store, why do you expect people to clock in and clock out? We still use paper ledgers for holidays – why can’t we move this to the cloud? The opportunities we have in Tesco to optimise efficiency are immense.”
“This will inevitably come back to profits and margins, and the way we do this is to look at how we run operations and save using automation,” he says.
Tomas is speaking at the Telco Cloud Forum in London April 27-29, 2015. To register click here.