Archivo mensual: julio 2015

Google, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, SQL, Windows

Google Cloud adds Microsoft support as Windows Server 2003 reaches EOL

Google made Windows Server support generally available this week

Google made Windows Server support generally available this week

Making good on commitments the cloud provider made in December last year Google has announced general availability of Windows Server on the Google Cloud Platform. The move comes the same week Windows Server 2003 reached its end of life.

“Making sure Google Cloud Platform is the best place to run your workloads is our top priority, so we’re happy that today Windows Server on Google Compute Engine graduates to General Availability, joining the growing list OSes we support. We’re also introducing several enhancements for Windows Server users,” the company said in a statement on its cloud blog.

“With its graduation to General Availability, Windows Server instances are now covered by the Compute Engine SLA. Windows Server users can now easily deploy a server running Active Directory or ASP.NET using the Cloud Launcher, and can securely extend their existing infrastructure into Google Cloud Platform using VPN.”

Google also said customers the purchase GCP support packages can get architectural and operational support for their Windows Server deployments on its cloud platform. And with Microsoft ceasing support for Windows Server 2003 Google is looking to lure in Microsoft developers by committing to support migration to more current Microsoft Server releases (2008, 2012).

In December last year the company announced it would begin offering Microsoft license mobility for the Google Cloud Platform, enabling existing Microsoft server application users to bring their own licenses and apps – SQL Server, SharePoint, Exchange – from on-premise to the cloud, without incurring any additional fees.

As before the move to expand support for the Microsoft ecosystem is likely to come as welcome news to the .NET crowd, which is fairly sizeable. Microsoft commands a 32.8 per cent share of all public web server infrastructure according to W3Techs.

Africa, Dubai, IBM, Infrastructure as a Service, Middle East, Mubadala, News & Analysis, UAE, Watson

IBM, Mubadala joint venture to bring Watson cloud to MENA

IBM is bringing Watson to the Middle East

IBM is bringing Watson to the Middle East

IBM is teaming up with Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Mubadala Development Company to create a joint venture based in Abu Dhabi that will deliver IBM’s cloud-based Watson service to customers in the Middle East and Northern Afirca (MENA) region.

The companies will set up the joint venture through Mubadala’s subsidiary, Injazat, which will be the sole provider of the Watson platform in the region.

The companies said the move will help create an ecosystem of MENA-based partners, software vendors and startups developing new solutions based on the cognitive compute platform.

“Bringing IBM Watson to the region represents the latest major milestone in the global adoption of cognitive computing,” said Mounir Barakat, executive director of ICT at Aerospace & Engineering Services, Mubadala.

“It also signals Mubadala’s commitment to bringing new technologies and spurring economic growth in the Middle East, another step towards developing the UAE as a hub for the region’s ICT sector,” Barakat said.

Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of IBM Watson said Mubadala’s knowledge of the local corporate ecosystem will help the company expand its cognitive compute cloud service in the region.

IBM has enjoyed some Watson wins in financial services, healthcare and the utilities sectors, but the company has been fairly quiet on how much the division rakes in; over the past year the company made strides to expand the platform in the US, Africa and Japan, and recently made a number of strategic acquisitions in software automation in order to boost Watson’s appeal in customer engagement and health services.

GE, Industrial Internet of Things, Internet of Things, IoT, Jason C. Dies, News & Analysis, Pitney Bowes, Predix, Roger Pilc

GE, Pitney Bowes partner on industrial Internet of Things

GE and Pitney Bowes are partnering on industrial IoT

GE and Pitney Bowes are partnering on industrial IoT

GE is partnering with American ecommerce solutions provider Pitney Bowes to develop a custom asset performance management (APM) application that analyses the data Pitney Bowes generates from its production mailing and shipping machines to improve the efficiency of its equipment.

Pitney Bowes handles the automated mailing and shipping for clients like banks and retailers, and will work with GE to adapt its Predix software analytics platform to its mail handing and shipping environment.

The platform will allow Pitney Bowes to hoover up data generated from IoT sensors embedded into mail handling equipment and analyse the information to help improve operational efficiency and capacity planning, as well as proactively identify, diagnose and resolve asset service issues “before the client is even aware” of any problems.

“Our partnership with GE will help accelerate Pitney Bowes’ pace of innovation in combining physical and digital solutions to enable commerce. It is an important step in a series of activities we are pursuing across Pitney Bowes as part of our technology strategy,” said said Roger Pilc, chief innovation officer of Pitney Bowes. “By adding this next generation of data analytics and digital solutions to our hardware products, we will be able to drive more valuable solutions and business outcomes for our clients.”

Jason C. Dies, president of Document Messaging Technologies at Pitney Bowes said: “We see this initiative as potentially transformative to our Production Mail business . ”By gathering digital data from production mail machines, Pitney Bowes can drive compelling business outcomes for our clients.”

Both companies have already partnered with one another elsewhere in the IoT ecosystem. Pitney Bowes and GE are members of the Industrial Internet Consortium, a membership group of telcos, research institutes and technology manufacturers formed last year and focused on developing interoperability standards and common architectures to bridge smart devices, machines, mobile devices and the data they create.

The move comes barely a week after GE ramped up its IoT commitments with NTT Docomo. The two companies agreed to combine GE Digital Energy’s MDS Orbit Platform, a wireless router for industrial equipment, and Docomo’s embedded communication module, which will provide remote access and monitoring capabilities, for industrial IoT applications.

Crowdstrike, Funding, Google, News & Analysis, Rackspace

Security as a service firm Crowdstrike bags $100 from Google, Rackspace

CrowdStrike secured $100m in funding this week from Rackspace, Google among others

CrowdStrike secured $100m in funding this week from Rackspace, Google among others

Security SaaS provider CrowdStrike completed a $100m round of funding led by Google and Rackspace this week, which the company said would be used to bolster its international expansion.

The funding round, in which Accel and Warburg Pincus also participated, brings the total investment secured by the firm to $156m.

CrowdStrike offers a range of threat intelligence, endpoint protections and cybersecurity services including a cloud-based software offering and a security operations centre -as-a-service.

The company, of which Rackspace is a customer, claims to have trebled billings revenue and employees year on year.

“It’s extremely gratifying to bring in a high-caliber investor like Google Capital which shares our passion for innovation and sees the opportunity to completely transform the security industry,” said George Kurtz, CrowdStrike’s co-founder and chief executive officer.

“As we continue to experience hyper-growth, this capital injection will help us firmly establish our SaaS-based endpoint protection platform as the leading solution to address today’s sophisticated attacks and will allow CrowdStrike to further accelerate our domestic and international expansion.”

The cloud-based security services market is growing along with enterprise adoption of cloud services in part because they can be deployed more quickly and flexibly than on-premise solutions, and because the architectures tend to be quite complimentary. Large cloud providers also see value in funding them because security services are quite capitally and operationally expensive – they require huge investments in code, infrastructure, monitoring and support staff – which means it’s challenging for these large IaaS providers to offer these services themselves. According to MarketsandMarkets the cloud security market is forecast to grow nearly 16 per cent CAGR from $4.2bn in 2014 to $8.7bn in 2019.

Infographic, Mac multi touch gestures, Mac trackpad, Magic TrackPad, Parallels Desktop, Parallels Desktop for Mac

All the Best Mac Multi-Touch (Swipe) Gestures (Infographic)

Your Magic Trackpad is one of the most efficient ways to navigate around OS X. Utilizing these Swipe gestures ultimately allows your Mac to serve you even better. From multi-tasking between work projects to quickly checking your notification center for the latest social update, here are the most popular/utilized swipe gestures for your Mac (OS […]

The post All the Best Mac Multi-Touch (Swipe) Gestures (Infographic) appeared first on Parallels Blog.

Cloud computing, Cloud Services, Microsoft, News

Microsoft Will Offer Azure In India

BqRtWXEIMAAQYhFMicrosoft will begin to offer its cloud computing service, Azure, for free to startups speeding up the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India.

Microsoft’s Indian subsidiary has said, “Our Azure cloud services, valued at $120,000, will be given free to qualified startups under the ‘BizSpark plus program’ for building the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country.”

Microsoft Ventures India director Rajinish Menon, has stated, “Startups need all the help they can to get access to the right tools, technology and guidance. At Microsoft, we are committed to supporting these startups and through the BizSpark Plus program we want to support India’s upcoming entrepreneurs.”

 

Microsoft also added qualifying startups must be privately held, below five years old with sub one million revenue annually and be a member of select accelerator or venture capital firm.

To begin, Microsoft is partnering thirteen startup accelerators, including 91Springboard, Reliance GenNext, Zone Startups, and Pitney Bowes. 91Springboard partner Pranay Gupta has said, “The BizSpark Plus program is a unique opportunity for startups who want to leverage the power of the Cloud and give a boost to their product development lifecycle.”

Microsoft BizSpark is a worldwide program that aids startups by offering free Microsoft software development tools, connecting startups with key industry players, investors and giving marketing visibility. Microsoft also added that startups will also receive the full suite of development and test software and Visual Studio, Windows and Office tools in this latest offering.

Microsoft currently has one hundred and fifty startup programs in forty seven countries.

 

The post Microsoft Will Offer Azure In India appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

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Announcing @HPMnetworks to Exhibit in Silicon Valley | #IoT #M2M #API

SYS-CON Events announced today that HPM Networks will exhibit at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
For 20 years, HPM Networks has been integrating technology solutions that solve complex business challenges. HPM Networks has designed solutions for both SMB and enterprise customers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Datacentre, Digital Realty, M&A, News & Analysis, Telx

Digital Realty to double datacentre footprint with Telx acquisition

Digital Realty is acquiring Telx to bolster its US datacentre footprint

Digital Realty is acquiring Telx to bolster its US datacentre footprint

Digital Realty is to acquire cloud and colocation solutions specialist Telx for $1.9bn in a move the company said would double its datacentre footprint in the US.

Telx is a direct competitor of Equinix and offers a combination of interconnection, cloud and colocation services to enterprises and IT service providers and as of March this year the company managed 1.3 million square feet in 20 facilities across the US – 11 of which are already being leased from Digital Realty.

“This transformative transaction is consistent with our strategy of sourcing strategic and complementary assets to strengthen and diversify Digital Realty’s datacentre portfolio and expand our product mix and presence in the attractive colocation and interconnection space,” said William Stein, Digital Realty’s chief executive officer.

“Telx’s well-established colocation and interconnection businesses provide access to two rapidly-growing segments with long-standing customer relationships in top-tier metropolitan areas such as New York and Silicon Valley.”

“The fact that more than half of Telx’s 20 facilities are run out of Digital Realty properties further highlights the strategic fit as well as the potential incremental revenue opportunities we expect to be able to pursue as one company on a global basis.  This transaction advances our objective of ensuring that Digital Realty’s suite of products and services is able to best serve our customers’ current and future datacentre needs,” Stein added.

Chris Downie, chief executive officer of Telx said: “The combination of Telx’s colocation and interconnection capabilities with Digital Realty’s expansive wholesale platform provides greater flexibility and optionality for our customers and creates a global solutions provider covering wholesale customer applications and smaller performance-oriented deployments in select high-growth urban submarkets across the US.”

The transaction is due to close later this year.

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Analysing the importance of cloud usage tracking and cost management

(c)iStock.com/kertlis

If organisations could track all cloud consumption and usage across the enterprise, the majority (57%) would utilise it to improve IT forecasting.

That was the key takeaway from a survey undertaken by enterprise software provider Cloud Cruiser, who collared 279 IT professionals at the recent Microsoft Ignite event in Chicago. Interestingly, 16% of respondents admitted they did not use Microsoft cloud technologies.

39% of those polled said they would use more wide-ranging tracking skills to compare costs across different platforms and vendors, while 34% said they would expand their on-demand and self-service access to cloud. 72% said tracking cloud usage and costs was extremely or very important to their IT function. Despite this, companies generally argued their ability to track and analyse cloud usage and costs was good. 17% described it as excellent, 28% described it as very good and good respectively, while only 27% put it as poor or horrible.

On the whole, almost a third (31%) of companies polled said they preferred a hybrid cloud strategy, while only 6% used all of their IT estate as public cloud. 37% of those polled have a quarter or more of their services in the cloud, 21% of respondents have between a quarter and half of their services in the cloud, while 8% respectively have between half and three quarters and more than three quarters.

“This latest survey is representative of what we are seeing in the market with our partners and enterprise customers,” said Deirdre Mahon, Cloud Cruiser chief marketing officer. “Once an organisation gets serious about cloud, they quickly hit a wall in terms of tracking usage and gaining full control on forecasts – essentially delivering services with efficiency and agility.”

Not surprisingly, Office 365 remains the most popular Microsoft cloud technology currently in use by businesses, with 58% of the vote. Virtualisaton hypervisor Hyper-V (35%), System Center (34%) and Azure (32%) all came a close second. A recent report showed the disparity between Microsoft and Google’s cloud office offerings; smaller businesses were more likely to opt for the search giant, while more Google Apps implementations are done in one go. Similarly, 62% of Office 365 respondents opted for a hybrid deployment strategy.

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CANCOM ‘Cisco Security Partner of the Year’ | @CloudExpo @HPMnetworks #Cloud

At this year’s Cisco Partner Summit in Montreal, Canada, CANCOM was awarded “Security Partner of the Year” for the Central Europe and Germany regions. Cisco recognized CANCOM’s successes in the development, implementation, and marketing of IT security solutions based on Cisco technologies.
CANCOM is one of the first partners to integrate all of Cisco’s security solutions into its own vertical business solutions. Among the sectors that enjoy the advantages of being in CANCOM’s comprehensive security portfolio are the automobile and manufacturing industries.

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