The broad selection of hardware, the rapid evolution of operating systems and the time-to-market for mobile apps has been so rapid that new challenges for developers and engineers arise every day. Security, testing, hosting, and other metrics have to be considered through the process.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Walter Maguire, Chief Field Technologist, HP Big Data Group, at Hewlett-Packard, discussed the challenges faced by developers and a composite Big Data applications builder, focusing on how to help solve the problems that developers are continuously battling.
Archivo mensual: diciembre 2015
[slides] ‘Security Built for the Cloud’ Demo By @AlertLogic | @CloudExpo #Cloud
In their Live Hack” presentation at 17th Cloud Expo, Stephen Coty and Paul Fletcher, Chief Security Evangelists at Alert Logic, provided the audience with a chance to see a live demonstration of the common tools cyber attackers use to attack cloud and traditional IT systems.
This “Live Hack” used open source attack tools that are free and available for download by anybody. Attendees learned where to find and how to operate these tools for the purpose of testing their own IT infrastructure. They also witnessed a cyber-attack from both sides – attacker and defender. An inside view of how indicators of compromise are researched to develop security content to be deployed for detection based on these attacks.
EMC launches new open source tech for the software defined datacentre
EMC is launching RackHD and revised version of CoprHD and REX-Ray in its quest to be a top open source influence on tomorrow’s software defined datacentre industry.
RackHD is a hardware management and orchestration software that promises to automate functions such as the discovery, description, provisioning and programming of servers. EMC says it will speed up the process of installing third platform apps by automatically updating firmware and installing operating systems.
Meanwhile, version 2.4 of storage automator CoprHD was improved with help from Intel and Oregon State University. It can now centralise and transform storage from multiple vendors into a simple management platform and interface, EMC claims.
The updated version of storage orchestration engine REX-Ray 0.3 has added storage platform support for Google Compute Engine in addition to EMC Isilon and EMC VMAX.
These products are aimed at modern data centres with a multi-vendor mix of storage, networking and servers and an increasing use of commodity hardware as building blocks of software defined hyperscale infrastructure. In these cases the use of low-level operating systems or updating firmware and BIOS across numerous devices is a cumbersome manual task for data centre engineers, says EMC. RackHD was created to automate and simplify these fundamental tasks across a broad range of datacentre hardware.
According to EMC, developers can use the RackHD API as a component in a larger orchestration system or create a user interface for managing hardware services regardless of the underlying hardware in place.
Intel and Oregon State University have joined EMC’s CoprHD Community as the newest contributors to the storage vendor’s open source initiative. Intel is leading a project to integrate Keystone with CoprHD, allowing the use of the Cinder API and the CoprHD API to provide block storage services.
“We discovered how difficult it was to implement any kind of automation tooling for a mix of storage systems,” said Shayne Huddleston, Director of IT Infrastructure at Oregon State University. “Collaborating with the CoprHD community will allow us avoid vendor lock-in and support our entire infrastructure.”
Riverbed says it’ll make apps respond faster on BT’s cloud of clouds
BT is to use Riverbed’s SteelHead application accelerator in its global telecoms network to bolster its cloud of clouds strategy.
BT and Riverbed will embed the service at global business hubs in Europe, North America and Asia. Installations are to be made at any location where BT has direct links to major cloud providers and high-capacity internet breakout. The service will be globally available from early 2016 and accessible through BT’s IP Connect VPN from 198 countries and territories.
Steelhead is designed to boost application performance and optimise bandwidth use. As a result customers should get faster responses from BT’s own cloud services and other vendors’ Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings. This partnership is the first time Riverbed technology has been installed into the core of a global telecoms network.
App acceleration and bandwidth efficiencies aside, customers using the new service will have greater control over their applications, a more commanding view of performance across the network and significantly more reliability and security from applications delivered over the internet, says BT.
The new service uses network function virtualisation (NFV) to help customers get a broader range of virtualised functions, such as application performance management and fast access to private and public clouds.
The inclusion of Riverbed helps BT tackle the performance and reliability of applications in the cloud, which have become a big issue for clients, according to Keith Langridge, VP of network services at BT Global Services. “This joint offering with Riverbed is a milestone on the journey to software-defined networks and creates an additional differentiator against our competitors,” said Langridge.
CIOs want the benefits of a hybrid enterprise without the challenges of application delivery that this complex environment creates, according to Paul O’Farrell, General Manager for SteelHead at Riverbed. “Riverbed invented WAN optimization in 2004 with SteelHead and now it’s the leader in application performance infrastructure,” said O’Farrell, “we’re offering an easier on-ramp to cloud computing with BT’s Cloud Connect service.”
Invaluable Lessons from @CloudExpo | @IanKhanLive #Cloud #IoT #BigData
Just over a week ago I received a long and loud sustained applause for a presentation I delivered at this year’s Cloud Expo in Santa Clara. I was extremely pleased with the turnout and had some very good conversations with many of the attendees. Over the next few days I had many more meaningful conversations and was not only happy with the results but also learned a few new things. Here is everything I learned in those three days distilled into three short points.
Webinar Reminder: IT Help Desk for the Holidays
As a reminder, we’ll be hosting a webinar tomorrow morning at 11:00am ET! Jay Keating and Geoff Smith will be hosting a discussion on modern IT Help Desk approaches and how cloud platforms and a tech-savvy workforce have fundamentally changed the support game. Learn why your IT Help Desk can’t be an afterthought, and why it needs to be scientific and handled by professionals. Finally, discover how easy it is to leverage IT Help Desk services and why it’s the best present you can give this holiday season to your organization…and yourself.
Topics will include:
- Market trends in Help Desk: Modern vs. Old School
- Considerations for building your own IT Help Desk
- How to significantly reduce ticket resolution time down to minutes.
- Tailoring Help Desk to unique business needs and IT environments
- How to support complex devices that require different authentication methods
- Handling distributed appliances in private data centers needing VDI connections
About Jay Keating, VP of Managed Services – Jay has 21 years of IT experience, with the past 16 years focused on Managed Services, and is currently responsible for GreenPages’ Managed Services organization. He has a strong data center and infrastructure operations background with substantial experience managing and optimizing 24×7 delivery organizations to execute with quality.
About Geoff Smith, Director, New Business Development, Managed Services – Geoff has more than 25 years of experience working in all verticals and markets, from the SMB to the enterprise, focusing on the application of IT solutions that enable businesses to achieve their goals. As a Director of New Business Development, Geoff is focused on the development of co-sourced and federated infrastructure operations, help desk, and cloud service frameworks designed to optimize IT operations and drive economic value to the business
IBM acquires Clearleap’s cloud based video
IBM says it has acquired cloud based video service provider Clearleap in a bid to make video a strategic source of data on any device at any time.
Clearleap’s video services will be offered through IBM Cloud data centres around the world, which will give clients global 24×7 service and technical support for problem identification and resolution. Clients using the service can now share data and content across geographies and hybrid clouds. IBM will offer the Clearleap APIs on IBM Bluemix in 2016 so clients can build new video offerings quickly and easily.
IBM says Clearleap’s open API framework makes it easy to build video into applications and adapt it to specific business needs like custom workflows and advanced analytics. The framework also means that it works with many third-party applications that customers may already have.
In addition, the Clearleap platform includes subscription and monetization services and data centres from which to host digital video assets. This means IBM customers pass the multi screen video experience on to their own clients.
Clearleap will be integrated into the IBM Cloud platform to make it easy for clients to make money from user video experiences. IBM says this is part of its broader strategy to help clients realise the value of video as it becomes increasingly important in business.
With businesses increasingly using video for CEO webcasts, conference keynotes, customer care and how-to videos, a secure, scalable and open cloud-based system for managing these services has become a priority, says IBM.
Clearleap’s ability to instantly ramp up capacity has won it clients such as HBO, A+E Networks, the NFL, BBC America, Sony Movie Channel, Time Warner Cable and Verizon Communications. Clearleap is headquartered in Atlanta and has data centres in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam.
“Clearleap joins IBM as visual communications are exploding across every industry,” said Robert LeBlanc, Senior VP of IBM Cloud, “clients want content delivered quickly and economically to any device in the most natural way.”
Meanwhile, in a move that will support the delivery of video services over the cloud, IBM announced a new system that lets developers create apps that tap into vast amounts of unstructured data.
IBM Object Storage, now available on Bluemix, promises simple and secure store and access
Functions. According to IBM 80% of the 2.5 billion gigabytes of data created every day is unstructured content – with most of it video.
IBM announces Clearleap acquisition – will improve cloud users’ access to videos
(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/joel-t)
IBM has announced it has acquired Clearleap to improve cloud users’ access to videos, by integrating with Clearleap’s video library delivery platform.
The financial terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, but IBM has said that the seven-year old company based in Georgia will be integrated into its cloud platform. Clearleap’s platform securely delivers large video libraries to multi-screen devices and conventional televisions. With its integration into IBM’s cloud platform, enterprises will likely get a fast and easy way for growing, monetising and managing user video experiences.
The acquisition forms part of IBM’s largest strategy focused on video, which is growing in importance among businesses. Companies are increasingly looking at videos to connect with partners and customers by sharing training courses, how-to videos, customer care videos and webcasts.
The deal is a smart decision by IBM, according to Enderle Group analyst Rob Enderle. He said: «Video becomes a component of a complete cloud offering and without it, IBM would likely either be locked out of a lot of lucrative accounts or relegated to subcontractor status.»
«Video may not be a major cloud component, but it is a critical one that is necessary to their long-term strategy of becoming a complete cloud service provider at enterprise scale.»
IBM’s most recent video-based acquisition was that of Aspera in 2014. Aspera creates technology for faster large-data transfers in broadband. Another related acquisition in 2014 was Cleversafe, which builds unstructured data storage software and appliances. According to IBM, the Clearleap technology will be integrated with Cleversafe and Aspera technologies for its customers to better index, store, and retrieve video content on IBM Cloud.
Do you think Clearleap will make a valuable addition to IBM? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Better Data Analysis Leads to Greater Student Retention | @CloudExpo #BigData
Nottingham Trent University in England has devised and implemented an information-driven way to encourage higher student retention.
The next BriefingsDirect big-data case-study interview examines how Nottingham Trent University in England has devised and implemented an information-driven way to encourage higher student retention.
By gathering diverse data and information and making rapid analysis, Nottingham Trent is able to quickly identify those students having difficulties. They can thereby provide significant reductions in dropout rates while learning more about what works best to usher students into successful academic careers.
Cumulocity Is IoT Ready | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #BigData #Microservices
The keywords for this IoT company are Connect, Manage, Extend and do more things. In order to have wide applicability you can connect anything over any network. Connect at Cumulocity has the following features: Connect out-of-the box to more than 30 usable certified devices (whole list is here, but I could only recognize, Raspberry and a Arduino variant). Looks like it is heavy on LINUX and JAVA-based but I may be missing the others)