Actian’s VectorH 5.0 | @CloudExpo @ActianCorp #BigData #IoT #Hadoop

Actian Corporation has announced the latest version of the Actian Vector in Hadoop (VectorH) database, generally available at the end of July. VectorH is based on the same query engine that powers Actian Vector, which recently doubled the TPC-H benchmark record for non-clustered systems at the 3000GB scale factor (see tpc.org/3323).
The ability to easily ingest information from different data sources and rapidly develop queries to make better business decisions is becoming increasingly important, particularly for those companies looking to respond to changes real-time or explore machine-learning. When paired with Actian VectorH, the industry’s fastest Enterprise SQL database that sits natively in Hadoop, Spark users have a new powerful way to help derive true business value from their data.

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Managed Services with @Commvault | @CloudExpo #DataCenter #IoT #Storage

“Being the one true cloud-agnostic and storage-agnostic software solution, more and more customers are coming to Commvault and saying ‘ What do you recommend? What’s your best practice for implementing cloud?” explained Randy De Meno, Chief Technologist at Commvault, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 18th Cloud Expo, held June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.

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UpGuard Becomes Member of the CIS | @CloudExpo @UpGuard #Cloud #Security #Analytics

UpGuard has become a member of the Center for Internet Security (CIS), and will continue to help businesses expand visibility into their cyber risk by providing hardening benchmarks to all customers. By incorporating these benchmarks, UpGuard’s CSTAR solution builds on its lead in providing the most complete assessment of both internal and external cyber risk.
CIS benchmarks are a widely accepted set of hardening guidelines that have been publicly available for years. Numerous solutions exist to run CIS benchmarks, including CIS’s own tool, but generating assessments that are insightful and practical for IT managers has been a persistent challenge for the space. UpGuard has been able to differentiate itself from legacy solutions by tackling that ongoing issue head on. Its data visualizations and advanced analytics enable users to find patterns in their results so that they can allocate IT resources and prioritize critical security issues.

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How the public cloud can benefit the global economy

(c)iStock.com/urbancow

A great deal has been written over the past few years about the financial benefit of migrating to the public or hybrid cloud for enterprises around the world. For enterprise looking for economic benefits of moving to the cloud, the main points have always been the ability to only pay for what you need, reduced operational cost, agility, availability, and elasticity.

The naysayers continue to point to the risks and the considerable labour involved in an enterprise-wide cloud migration. I will not delve into either of those topics here – there is enough to read about that as it is. But looking further ahead, a question comes to mind: is there a global economic impact due to the adoption of cloud computing?

While I am not an economist, I believe that there is a case to be made that, given the valid risks, the global economy does benefit from large scale cloud adoption. Here are some technical areas to contemplate.

New business models

Writing for this publication last year, Louis Columbus argued that enterprises are discovering new models for doing business based on their transition to the cloud. Individual enterprises are developing these new models and, as will be discussed below, finding new means of collaboration with partners and even former competitors. This can lead to major shifts in global industries’ business models as well as the individual enterprise.

Data sharing and collaboration between entities

As business models shift based on cloud technologies and collaboration, and data sharing becomes the norm, an atmosphere of cooperation/competition can emerge. This is as opposed to the strictly competitive atmosphere that exists today.

The best example of a leading indicator – note the economic reference – is the air of cooperation, at the cloud orchestration and container support layers, between public cloud providers. Imagine if, for instance, a group of global insurance companies utilised cloud technologies to share basic liability data. Instead of expending resources to develop their own methodologies, creating barriers for themselves and their competitors, the cloud’s inherent data sharing capabilities can securely share information that eventually all the entities involved would have anyway. This type of collaboration could change the face of major industries.

Better coordination of efforts between international entities

In a world where international security entities are scrambling to ‘know’ where the next threat is coming from, information is paramount. Instead of taking years in creating complex interfaces between nation based systems, placing common information in a highly-secured, globally distributed, continuously updated, cloud-based service would be of greater benefit.

Increased speed of international transactions

The basic concept of time value of money (TVM) is just as valid today in the digital world as it was years ago. The speed at which international financial transactions are carried out, and the volume of those transactions, are critical in today’s global economy. The rise of cloud-based technologies, such as microservices architectures and automated sending of cloud-based resources, are playing a major role in the speed and volume aspects of global transactions.

Conclusion

I have not attempted to present hard economic data to show that cloud technology is having an impact globally – instead, I have hopefully stated the conversation around the global uses of cloud technologies and the impact that they can have – and are possibly already having – at a global rather than enterprise scale. Cloud technologies have the potential to change not only the way enterprises do business, but possibly whole industries – thus shifting the global economy.

Virtual Machine Awareness | @CloudExpo @Tintri #DataCenter #IoT #Storage

«Tintri was started in 2008 with the express purpose of building a storage appliance that is ideal for virtualized environments. We support a lot of different hypervisor platforms from VMware to OpenStack to Hyper-V,» explained Dan Florea, Director of Product Management at Tintri, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 18th Cloud Expo, held June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.

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Security Considerations for API Testing | @CloudExpo #API #Cloud #Security

It seems like every day we see reminders of the importance of thorough security testing from all areas of the software world. Security has become an especially critical consideration for APIs in recent years. Organizations rely on APIs to share and receive information – either from a third party or between internal applications – so the level of security between these applications is critical for anyone who uses them.

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NoviFlow Chooses @IXIAcom to Validate SDN Switch Performance | @CloudExpo #SDN #Cloud #DataCenter

Ixia (Nasdaq: XXIA) has announced that NoviFlow Inc.has deployed IxNetwork® to validate the company’s designs and accelerate the delivery of its proven, reliable products.
Based in Montréal, NoviFlow Inc. supports network carriers, hyperscale data center operators, and enterprises seeking greater network control and flexibility, network scalability, and the capacity to handle extremely large numbers of flows, while maintaining maximum network performance. To meet these requirements, NoviFlow introduced the NoviSwitch, an advanced commercial-grade OpenFlow switching solution that offers up to 240 gigabits per second of true wire-speed performance.

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Maximize #SaaS Revenue | @CloudExpo @_Anexia #DataCenter #BigData

SaaS companies can greatly expand revenue potential by pushing beyond their own borders. The challenge is how to do this without degrading service quality.
In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Adam Rogers, Managing Director at Anexia, discussed how IaaS providers with a global presence and both virtual and dedicated infrastructure can help companies expand their service footprint with low “go-to-market” costs.

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Nintendo shares slump before Tokyo regulators step in to stop decline

Pokemon GO 2Nintendo has released a statement in which the company outlined the limited impact Pokémon Go will have on its annual revenues. Following the news, around $6.7 billion was wiped from the company’s market capitalization.

While Pokémon Go has proved to be one of the most successful product launches in recent years, as its release broke numerous records in markets around the world. EE stated it saw 350,000 downloads in the UK even before the app was officially released as users found another means to download it, such as accessing the US app store via a VPN. The success of the app is not under question, though Nintendo has not altered its annual revenue forecasts due to the limited role it has in the app itself.

“Taking the current situation into consideration, the Company is not modifying the consolidated financial forecast for now,” the statement read. “The Company will make a timely disclosure when the Company needs to modify its financial forecasts.”

Niantic Labs is an American company spun out of Google, who license the rights to the game from The Pokémon Company, who in fact own the Pokémon franchise. Nintendo itself owns roughly 32% of the voting rights to The Pokémon Company and therefore only entitled to a modest slice of the revenues from the game itself. Analysts at investment firm Macquarie Group estimate Nintendo will only be entitled to roughly 13% of the revenue generated by the Pokémon Go app.

Although many organizations would have done due diligence surrounding the game, the relationship between Niantic Labs, The Pokémon Company and Nintendo, as well as the potential for profit, it would appear the news caught certain individuals off-guard, as a substantial proportion was wiped off Nintendo’s market capitalization.

The announcement was made following the close of the markets on Friday, though this has led to a busy morning following the weekend. 18%, or $6.7 billion, was wiped off the market capitalization of Nintendo, though this could have potentially been worse, as regulations in the Tokyo market prevented a larger drop, as the maximum single day move allowed by the market is 18%. How much the shares would have shrunk if trading had continued will remain unknown, though Nintendo is still showing a net gain of 15% since the launch of Pokémon Go two weeks ago.

“The Pokémon Company is the Company’s affiliated company, accounted for by using the equity method. Because of this accounting scheme, the income reflected on the Company’s consolidated business results is limited.”

While this would appear to have come as a shock to certain investors in the Nintendo business, there is still potential for growth and long-term wins. In-app purchasing in the Japanese market will likely grow over future weeks, and the game has not been launched in two of the worlds other prominent app markets, Korea and China. There could be some big wins in these two markets, though it would be worth noting both have restrictions on the Google Maps product, potentially offering challenges for the way the app operates, and its overall success.

Should the app launch in China and/or Korea, the story is likely to roll on for some time, though how large the ripples will be following Nintendo’s revelation will likely be seen sooner. The success of the Pokémon Go is not under question, though Nintendo’s brief taste of fame following the surge in share price over the last two weeks would appear to be coming to an end.

Smartphones help Huawei to 40% revenue growth over H1

Huawei MWC 2016

Huawei has released financials for the first half of 2016 demonstrating a 40% revenue boost to $37 billion, partly owing to a healthy performance in the consumer business unit.

Although operating margin for the period has declined from 18% to 12%, the company posted stronger revenue growth for the period, slightly offsetting the decline. During the first six months of 2015 revenues grew 30%.

“We achieved steady growth across all three of our business groups, thanks to a well-balanced global presence and an unwavering focus on our pipe strategy,” said Sabrina Meng, Huawei’s CFO. “We are confident that Huawei will maintain its current momentum, and round out the full year in a positive financial position backed by sound ongoing operations.”

The decrease in the operating margin reflects the progress of the larger smartphone industry, as well as the competition which is increasing worldwide. Huawei currently sits in third place in global market share of the smartphone market, though it has been investing heavily to penetrate western markets in recent months. Samsung and Apple are currently defending their position as the top two, though Huawei’s efforts to chance the mid-range market are seemingly paying off.

Set against a backdrop of declining smartphone shipments, Huawei has held onto its strong position in the Chinese market, increasing its shipments from 11.2 million to 16.6 million in Q1 2016, compared to the same period in 2015. The move increased its market share from 10.2% to 15.8% taking it to the top of the Chinese leader board, while Apple lost ground dropping from 12.3% to 11%.

While this may be seen as unsurprising in some quarters of the industry, success in the international markets is becoming more apparent. According to research from Gartner, sales of smartphones to end users totalled 349 million units in the first quarter of 2016, a 3.9 percent increase over the same period in 2015. Samsung accounted for roughly 23% of the market, whereas Apple was just under 15%. Huawei increased its share 5.4% to 8.3%, taking it to third in the global market share tables. The company is expected to continue to ramp up its R&D focus over foreseeable future.

Although the company did not detail the enterprise business units figures though that is likely to be outlined in the coming weeks. The enterprise business, which includes cloud computing, storage, and SDN products, Safe City and Electric Power IoT solutions, did announce healthy growth of 44% to $4.5 billion during its annual Global Analyst Summit in April.

In the carrier business, the role of 5G and IoT was reaffirmed, and the team will be focusing on four areas within the telco industry, business, operations, architecture, and networks. While the carrier business has been demonstrating strong growth throughout the world, it has struggled in the US after its technology was effectively banned over concerns it would be used by Chinese authorities to spy on the US. While Huawei has continually denied the allegations, it has struggled to rebound and reassert itself in the market.

Elsewhere in the industry, competitor Ericsson has been experiencing slightly different fortunes after CEO Hans Vestberg resigned following another difficult quarter for the company. Last week, the company reported an 11% annual decline in net sales with pressure continuing to build against Vestberg.