Twitchell: We actually dynamically shuffle the location of data blocks across different geographic locations to radically improve data security and integrity while improving network performance. Dispersive™ SDS underpins DispersiveStorage™; this new solution works seamlessly with Dispersive™ Virtualized Networks. Together, they comprise the web-based, virtualized global infrastructure that protects data-at-rest and data-in-motion.

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Zerto has announced the general availability of Zerto Virtual Replication 4.0 (ZVR 4.0). The company’s enterprise-class business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) software is the first to protect, replicate, and migrate data between VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors, as well as across private, hybrid and public cloud environments including Amazon Web Services (AWS). ZVR 4.0 also allows channel partners and cloud service providers to expand their offerings to grow revenues by providing Disaster Recover as a Service (DRaaS) as part of their Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings.

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The average length of time in the commercial sector between a network security breach and when the detection of that breach is more than 240 days, according to Gregory Touhill, deputy assistant secretary of Cybersecurity Operations and Programs for the Department of Homeland Security. What could happen to your company during that eight-month period? Could your company survive?

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We’ve all heard about the rapid adoption of JavaScript in recent years. To summarize, JavaScript is the #1 most-used language on GitHub and it looks like this trend will continue. In fact, as one article put it, “JavaScript is the number one language in the world; it’s the language of the web, and a starting point for so many new developers . . .” One of the major reasons behind the rapid adoption JavaScript has been the influence of Node.js. Node.js is a software platform used for building fast, scalable network applications. It’s based on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine, or the Chrome browser runtime, and has gained immense popularity among major enterprises in recent years.

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The concept of the public cloud has sparked a great deal of excitement and interest among IT executives.  Many are improving business agility and achieving superior results with cloud services. This, in turn, drives further investment in cloud.

Aside from the common expectations of agility and OpEx consumption pricing, some are drawn to the idea of expansive, highly centralised multi-cloud strategies. These executives envision managing multiple vendors with ease, orchestrating all processes efficiently and seamlessly moving workloads across different clouds. And of course, they can capitalize on every new feature and price drop along the way. Central to this panacea: a third party cloud management tool, with hooks into a variety of underlying cloud providers.

However, the true value of multi-cloud management is hard to quantify. Reality and expectations don’t always match up.

The perks of multi-cloud management

There are many benefits of multi-cloud management, especially for IT execs who need help managing basic infrastructure lifecycle tasks on various clouds. This allows users to reap the efficiency benefits of a third-party provider, while removing a lot of challenges associated with traditional infrastructure. Multi-cloud management integration can give customers access to a familiar interface, usually an on-premise virtualization tool, to access instantly scalable resources in the public cloud.

While this multi-cloud scenario is not necessarily a way to gain a competitive advantage from cloud, it can make the day-to-day lives of IT staff easier.

Challenges to multi-cloud management

However, reality often comes with a host of unexpected problems. Firstly, cloud interoperabilityis not a given and can be quite difficult to achieve. Workloads cannot simply be shifted from one place to another, even if the “ideal” of cloud suggests otherwise. From managing service provider APIs, to monitoring usage, and managing identity and access requirements, there are many challenges that IT executives face when trying to make multi-cloud management a reality for them.

Keeping up to date with innovation also takes time. New features from each cloud provider need to be integrated into the 3^rd party management tooling. By definition, the vendors will always be a few steps behind the latest features from each cloud provider. This results in a “lowest common denominator” UI where users typically end up only doing very basic VM operations across clouds. While this is perfectly functional, the element of competitive advantage – the whole point of cloud, and improved IT-business alignment – is notably lacking in this scenario.

Building an enterprise cloud strategy

Taking both the challenges and perks of multi-cloud management into consideration, being able to craft a practical enterprise cloud strategy remains a key concern for IT executives. Such strategies should not feature multi-cloud management focusing on portability at the infrastructure layer. Instead, leaders should focus on offering self-service and on-demand capabilities, under the backdrop of a management framework which still adheres to existing IT policies like governance, permissions, and billing transparency.

Portability is important. However, this should be a priority above the infrastructure layer, such as at the run-time, middleware, and application layers. This is where open-source Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings and containers come in to play.

What makes PaaS and containers different than the multi-cloud management approach at the infrastructure layer?  Consider the following three benefits often associated with multi-cloud nirvana in comparison to leveraging PaaS or container technology instead:

• Freedom from lock-in (interoperability). With Cloud Foundry and Docker, there is broad capability to easily move apps around different infrastructure providers.  Both platforms are open-source to boot.  That means more options for the customer.
• Access to innovation. Both services, in part because of their open source nature, have thousands of contributors working on new capabilities all the time.
• Pricing arbitrage. This is still a false promise – after all, you don’t move to cloud only for cost savings.  But if you are not satisfied with a current vendor for whatever reason – service, reliability, shallow product portfolio or otherwise – PaaS and containers gives you a path to move workloads where they run best.

PaaS, therefore, rather than multi-cloud management should be an essential component to the long-term vision of any cloud strategy. The incremental gains from multi-cloud infrastructure are no doubt helpful, but are not enough on its own, and definitely not a nirvana within which to carry out a successful cloud strategy. Instead, using the benefits of a multi-cloud world through application instances and containers are where true transformative and competitive advantage lies. 

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The significant disruption in technology today, driven by cloud, mobile, analytics and collaboration technologies, is changing the way organisations view enterprise content management (ECM), according to a report from the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM).

John Mancini, AIIM president and author of the report, described ECM as “past its prime” as a term which encompasses the revolution driven by cloud and mobile technologies. He explains: “The ECM industry is in need of a new label, and organisations are desperate for best practices to deal with the technology disruption that is occurring.”

It’s apparent that ECM isn’t doing its job – or, cloud technologies are superseding it. According to the AIIM survey, of over 400 organisations, 62% with a ‘significant’ ECM capability find their workers rely on file sharing for day to day information access. More than half (52%) of organisations polled have three or more ECM systems, with 22% having five or more. Yet 60% of respondents say user adoption has been a big problem in ECM projects. Are too many cooks spoiling the broth?

This isn’t a new theory, of course: Gartner has been proclaiming cloud, social, mobile and information as the ‘Nexus of Forces’ for IT for the last three years. And it’s concepts like formalised enterprise content management that are feeling the heat.

The report examined a variety of statements, and assessed whether they were high or low priority for organisations. Of particular interest were the three central roles of content management solutions in the future; determining the human user’s current situation, understanding precisely what that person wants, and using powerful analytical ability to make highly focused and insightful suggestions. However, when presented with the statement ‘95% of all workplace information and content will now be stored in the cloud’, organisations were more indifferent.

Mancini added organisations were ‘hungry for best practices’ in this emerging era, and three major disruptive forces were accelerating the pace of change – consumerisation, cloud and mobile, and the Internet of Things. Even though traditional ECM still had a place, he argued, more than half of those polled said within five years ECM would be an undifferentiated part of the IT infrastructure.

“All of this data points to an industry in transition,” he said. “There are still many organisations that can benefit from more traditional ECM solutions that automate document-intensive processes. But there is also an explosion of content outside the realm of these kinds of structured processes, along with a revolution occurring in how, where, and when knowledge workers do their jobs.”