SYS-CON Events announced today that delaPlex will exhibit at SYS-CON’s @ThingsExpo, which will take place on June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
delaPlex pioneered Software Development as a Service (SDaaS), which provides scalable resources to build, test, and deploy software. It’s a fast and more reliable way to develop a new product or expand your in-house team.
Monthly Archives: March 2016
Spirent Builds on Ethernet Test Leadership with New WLAN Test Capability | @CloudExpo @Spirent #Cloud
Spirent Communications has announced the availability of Spirent TestCenter WLAN test capability, with the highest-performing and most realistic 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) multi-client emulation scenarios available on the market today.
Spirent TestCenter WLAN is used for functionality and performance testing of Access Points (APs) and end-to-end testing of WLAN ecosystems that include WLAN access controllers and gateways. It emulates a large number of realistic WLAN clients through both in-chassis Ethernet and WLAN test ports.
Isomorphic to Exhibit at @DevOpsSummit | @IsomorphicHQ #IoT #DevOps
SYS-CON Events announced today that Isomorphic Software will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 1@DevOpsSummit at Cloud Expo New York, which will take place on June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Isomorphic Software provides the SmartClient HTML5/AJAX platform, the most advanced technology for building rich, high-productivity enterprise web applications for any device.
SmartClient couples the industry’s broadest, deepest UI component set with a java server framework to deliver an end-to-end solution for building web applications.
Announcing @TechTarget “Media Sponsor” | @CloudExpo #IoT #M2M #DevOps
SYS-CON Events announced today TechTarget has been named “Media Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 18th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 7–9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, and the 19th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 1–3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
TechTarget is the Web’s leading destination for serious technology buyers researching and making enterprise technology decisions. Its extensive global network of online and social media, powered by TechTarget’s Activity Intelligence™ platform, allows technology sales and marketing teams to leverage real-time purchase intent data to more intelligently engage technology buyers and prioritize follow-up based on active projects, technical priorities and business needs.
Report Cites @LiaisonTech’s ALLOY Platform as ‘Strong Performer’ | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Liaison Technologies has announced its new ALLOY™ platform has been named a “Strong Performer” in “The Forrester Wave™: Master Data Management, Q1 2016” report. The report profiles the 12 most significant vendors in the market.
Liaison‘s new ALLOY platform earned its highest scores in the big data, cloud and product strategy criteria, and the report noted that the solution is set to converge (integration and) data management capabilities into a single platform for analytics.
NTT Data to acquire Dell Services for $3.06 billion
Japan’s NTT Data is to acquire Dell’s IT Services business for $3.06 billion, in an effort to bolster its footprint in the North American region.
The announcement confirms speculation over recent months as to the future of the IT Services division, as Dell has been rumoured to be searching for a buyer for the business unit to aid financing of the EMC deal. Dell Services was initially formed through the acquisition of Perot Systems in 2009 for $3.9 billion. The new agreement with NTT Data will see Dell absorb an $800 million loss on the division and could indicate that financing the EMC acquisition is more difficult than initially expected.
In December, BCN reported Dell had been facing challenges in financing one of the biggest financial deals in history. For the $63 billion EMC acquisition to proceed, Dell has had to reduce its levels of debt with the Perot Systems business unit rumoured to be a favourite for sale.
The company will initially remain under the leadership of Suresh Vaswani, current President of Dell Services, who will continue to report to Dell CEO Michael Dell until the completion of the deal. It is believed that as part of the acquisition NTT Data will take on 28,000 Dell employees, though future leadership of the business has not been confirmed.
“NTT Data is pleased with the unique opportunity to acquire such high-calibre talent, and a corporate culture that shares common values with NTT Data, with emphasis on client first, foresight, teamwork and a commitment to innovation,” said Toshio Iwamoto, President and CEO of NTT Data Corporation. “Welcoming Dell Services to NTT DATA is expected to strengthen our leadership position in the IT Services market and initiates an important business relationship with Dell.”
NTT Data’s acquisition of the IT services division is the largest by the company to date and continues to bolster its North American footprint. Revenues for NTT Data in overseas markets has more than doubled since 2011 and in the same period the company has spent more than $600 million on acquisitions. The company has prioritized growth in the North America region, primarily targeting lucrative contracts in the healthcare, banking, financial services and insurance.
Since 2011 NTT Data has been proactive in bolstering its overseas business with a number of acquisitions throughout the world. In Europe it acquired companies including Everis and Value Team, in North America Optimal Solutions Integration and Carlisle & Gallagher were added, whereas iPay88 increased the company’s footprint in Malaysia.
“There are few acquisition targets in our market that provide this type of unique opportunity to increase our competitiveness and the depth of our market offerings,” said John McCain, CEO of NTT Data. “Dell Services is a very well-run business and we believe its employee base, long-standing client relationships, and the mix of long term and project-based work will enhance our portfolio.”
The deal could indicate that financing the EMC agreement has proved to be more difficult than initially expected. Dell Services as a business unit was reportedly to be valued in the region of $5 billion, which could highlight Dell’s urgency in completing the sale. If reports are correct, it would appear NTT Data has negotiated a good deal.
Microsoft announces R Server availability inside Azure HDInsight
Microsoft has announced the availability of R Server inside Azure HDInsight, the company’s Hadoop-as-a-service aspect of Azure Data Lake.
Speaking at Strata + Hadoop World, the company is seemingly hoping to capitalize on the growing trend of open source technologies. Microsoft R is now 100% compatible with Open Source R and any library that exists can be used in the R Server context.
Microsoft acquired Revolution Analytics in early 2015 as a means of entering the R-based analytics market, and has since delivered SQL Server R Services on SQL Server 2016 CTP3. R is one of the world’s most widely used programming languages for predictive analytics.
“By making R Server available as a workload inside HDInsight, we remove obstacles for users to unlock the power of R by eliminating memory and processing constraints and extending analytics from the laptop to large multi-node Hadoop and Spark clusters,” said Oliver Chiu, Product Marketing, Hadoop/Big Data and Data Warehousing at Microsoft. “This enables the ability to train and run ML models on larger datasets than previously possible to make more accurate predictions that affect the business.”
The company claims that by making the R Server available as a workload inside HDInsight, it will remove memory and processing constraints allowing developers to better utilize the power of Hadoop and Spark clusters. If correct, organizations will be able to run machine learning models on larger datasets, increasing the accuracy of business predications which are made by the model.
“This gives you the familiarity of the R language for machine learning while leveraging the scalability and reliability built into Hadoop and Spark,” said Chiu. “It also eliminates memory and processing constraints and easily extends their code from their laptop to large multi-terabyte files producing models that are more powerful and accurate.”
IBM launches brain-inspired supercomputer with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
IBM and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have launched a new project to build a brain-inspired supercomputing platform for deep learning inference.
The project will be built on IBM’s TrueNorth chip, which the company claims will process the equivalent of 16 million neurons and 4 billion synapses and consume the energy equivalent of a tablet computer. The neural network design of IBM’s Neuromorphic System aims to be able to infer complex cognitive tasks such as pattern recognition and integrated sensory processing in a much more economical manner than current chips.
“The delivery of this advanced computing platform represents a major milestone as we enter the next era of cognitive computing,” said Dharmendra Modha, Chief Scientist for Brain-inspired Computing at IBM Research. “We value our relationships with the national labs. In fact, prior to design and fabrication, we simulated the IBM TrueNorth processor using LLNL’s Sequoia supercomputer. This collaboration will push the boundaries of brain-inspired computing to enable future systems that deliver unprecedented capability and throughput, while helping to minimize the capital, operating and programming costs – keeping our nation at the leading edge of science and technology.”
The technology itself will be utilized in a number of different manners within the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), including the organizations Stockpile Stewardship Program, a program of reliability testing and maintenance of its nuclear weapons without the use of nuclear testing.
“Neuromorphic computing opens very exciting new possibilities and is consistent with what we see as the future of the high performance computing and simulation at the heart of our national security missions,” said Jim Brase, Livermore National Laboratory’s Deputy Associate Director for Data Science. “The potential capabilities neuromorphic computing represents and the machine intelligence that these will enable will change how we do science.”
While Artificial Intelligence has been one of the more prominent trends in the cloud computing world, the success of the technology and PR stunts launched has been varied.
AlphaGo is an example of the success of AI, as Google Deepmind’s AI program beat world Go champion Lee Se-dol in a five match series. As traditional machine learning techniques could not be applied in this instance, the team combined an advanced tree search with deep neural network allowing the program to readjust its behaviour through reinforcement learning. The win came as a surprise to commentators, as the game Go relies on intuition and feel.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Microsoft has had to release an apology after its twitter inspired AI stunt backfired. The program tweeted controversial comments as it was unable to grasp the politically incorrect nature of the messages it received from users, as reported by the Independent.
Yin and WAN? Analysing the relationship between network and cloud provider
(c)iStock.com/DundStock
More than half (56%) of businesses have expressed concern over security gaps at the point between their wide area network (WAN) and public cloud provider, according to a recent research study.
The report, conducted by IDG and commissioned by XO Communications, argues this potential pain point could compromise data used in the cloud. Less than two in five (38%) of the 55 survey respondents say they have good visibility into their WAN cloud connection points, while the biggest security nightmare for businesses is vulnerabilities being exploited by insiders (53% of respondents), data theft (47%) and the introduction of malware (35%).
“There’s definitely a vulnerability there, when you step back and take a look at the situation as a whole of connecting public cloud services to the data centre,” said John Grady, XO senior manager of solutions marketing. “That’s because you basically have two very separate environments coming together – protecting the data centre and protecting the corporate network – so IT managers have to ask themselves which approach makes the most sense.”
Of the 38% polled who say their visibility into the network is good, the unifying reason is because they have deployed a specific dedicated solution, such as a next generation firewall and managed security. Perhaps not surprisingly, XO is touting its own system to marry the network and the cloud provider, the snappily named XO MPLS IP-VPN service. Yet in turn, recent research argues the cloud is becoming more secure, but still at a high cost; 64% of enterprises polled by analyst house Clutch argue cloud infrastructure is more secure than legacy systems.
Grady argues of XO’s platform a reason this publication has heard frequently; hypervendors have great appeal, but perhaps not for specific use cases. “There are such compelling economic reasons for using services such as AWS, but because it’s a public service, enterprises don’t have enough control,” he said. “By bringing this managed offering to the table, we can offer protection that existing solutions can’t match.”
You can read the IDG whitepaper here (PDF).
Cloud Workspace Suite 5.0 Released by @IndependenceIT | @CloudExpo #Cloud
IndependenceIT has announced Cloud Workspace® Suite 5.0. Highlights of the latest generation software include automated cross platform software defined data center deployments and management; orchestration and workflow automation for third-party Workspace-as-a-Service (WaaS) platforms; support for Azure Active Directory-as-a-Service across public/private/hybrid clouds, and hyper-scalable application services for the delivery of application workloads.
Technology buyers continue to gravitate toward WaaS solutions to increase business agility and lower costs. However, many challenges still remain with the majority of solutions on the market. Most of the available products are not built for cloud infrastructure, making it difficult or impossible to operate in cross-platform environments. As a result, large capital investments must be made by IT service providers on infrastructure to support distributed deployments. Because the majority of options are extremely complex, there is a steep learning curve that reduces time to deployment and revenue for WaaS providers. Additionally, the fragmented management of infrastructure, hypervisor, OS, application, master image, Active Directory, and end-user environments add extra layers of complexity and risk.