Archivo mensual: agosto 2016

Google, News, Services

Google Acquires Orbitera

Google has recently announced the purchase of Orbitera, which will improve Google’s enterprise service sector and allows Google to become a stronger competitor against companies such as Amazon and Microsoft. While terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, TechCrunch estimates that it closed for about $100 million.

orb

Orbitera CEO Marcin Kurc will continue to operate the company as a separate entity and will continue to support existing customers. Orbitera’s technology will improve support of software vendors on Google’s Cloud Platform.

 

This acquisition marks a great addition to Google, as Orbitera has already launched upwards of 60,000 enterprise stacks, including Adobe and Oracle. Orbitera focuses on four parts of constructing cloud marketplaces: billing and cost optimization, marketplace and catalogs, packaging and provisioning, and trials and lead management. This acquisition also improves Google in terms of personnel and perspective, as CEO Marcin Kurc had previously worked at Amazon Web Services.

 

About Orbitera:

Based in West Hollywood, California, Orbitera was co-founded in 2011 by Firas Bushnaq and Brian Singer and had accumulated $2 million in venture funding. The company was founded with the thought of breaking the mold in which enterprise software is sold and bought by making this process easier, and thus the Orbitera Cloud Commerce Platform was created. Since establishment, Orbitera has launched upward of 60,000 enterprise stacks.

 

Comments:

Nan Boden, Google’s head of global technology partners: “Orbitera has built a strong ecosystem of enterprise software vendors delivering software to multiple clouds. This acquisition is not only meant to improve the support of software vendors on Google Cloud Platform, but it also aims to reinforce Google’s support for the multi-cloud world.”

 

Boden: “The current model for the deploying, managing and billing of cloud-based software does not easily fit the way today’s modern enterprises operate. Orbitera automates many of the processes associated with billing, packaging and pricing optimization for leading businesses and ISVs (independent software vendors) supporting customers running in the cloud. More than 60,000 enterprise stacks have been launched on Orbitera.”
Orbitera CEO Marcin Kurc: “When we first started Orbitera, our mission was to enable frictionless sales of cloud-based enterprise software and services. Becoming part of the Google Cloud Platform team allows us to continue and accelerate toward this goal…. We will continue to deliver the products and services our customers rely on with the added scale that Google provides.”

The post Google Acquires Orbitera appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

containers, Docker, Miscellaneous IT

Running Docker on CentOS on ESXi

The post below was written by GreenPages Enterprise Consultant Chris Williams and was published on his Mistwire blog.

Recently I’ve been playing with containers a little bit in my lab. Today I’m going to show you how to get a Docker engine running on a CentOS 7 VM running on an ESXi host. It’s surprisingly easy!
First, what is Docker? It’s an engine that lays on top of an existing host OS and basically removes the “Guest OS” abstraction layer from the mix. This is good because the Guest OS is a big resource hog when you start having several of them per host.

So what does this mean? Is this (potentially) bad news for VMware and Microsoft?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss*

*VMware and MS are working on projects to get in on the containery goodness, so I won’t speak about that here. Instead I’m going to walk through how to set up your first Docker engine ON CentOS ON ESXi in your existing vSphere environment.

 

To read the rest of Chris’ post, click here!

 

Looking for more information around Docker? Download this whitepaper, “10 Things to Know About Docker.”

 

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Storage Flexibility Benefits Multitenant Environment | @CloudExpo #SDS #Cloud #Storage #DataCenter

Opus Interactive adopted a software-defined storage approach to better support its thousands of customers.
We’ll learn how scaling of customized IT infrastructure for a hosting organization in a multi-tenant environment benefits from flexibility of modern storage, unified management, and elastic hardware licensing. The result is gaining the confidence that storage supply will always meet dynamic hybrid computing demand — even in cutting-edge hosting environments.

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Azure Resource Manager: The Shift from Services to Resources | @CloudExpo #IaaS #Cloud #Azure

In the first part of this series, we discussed the evolution of Azure IaaS and role of Azure Resource Manager. The next installment of the series explains the key differences between Azure Service Management (ASM) and Azure Resource Management (ARM) models. We will also take a look at key concepts and terminology related to ARM.
ASM or ARM?
One of the key tenets of cloud, especially infrastructure services, is programmability. Almost every cloud provider exposes a set of APIs to manipulate the virtual infrastructure programmatically. Even before the Cloud Computing term became a buzzword, Amazon exposed APIs for storage and compute, which eventually became the core of AWS.

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Book Review: Expert T-SQL Window Functions in SQL Server | @CloudExpo #API #Cloud #TSQL #SQLServer

There is an old saying that good things come in small packages. This saying definitely applies to this book, which focuses in on a set of functions that most people are not aware of that are available in SQL Server. To start off with we need to answer the following question: What are T-SQL Window functions? These functions have nothing to do with the Microsoft Windows API. They are in essence a way to create a window into your data as you process each line in a query. Their strength lies in the ease with which you can solve tricky queries. The authors also point out that these functions don’t add any new functionality per se as you could create the queries the old way; however, in general the functions are much more efficient. One very neat capability of these functions is to allow you to include non-aggregated columns in an aggregated query, which is a big limitation with existing aggregate functions. These Window functions make it easy to calculate running totals, moving averages and more. Also starting with SQL Server 2012, you can add an order by to window aggregates to calculate running totals.

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Gold-Medal Tech, Your Cloud Shopping List | @CloudExpo #IaaS #Cloud #DataCenter

I just had to write an Olympic-themed headline, since today is the first day of the 2016 Summer Games! I love the Olympics. It’s so much fun watching athletes do what they’re best at. Plus, they have the extra challenge this year of swimming or boating in polluted, mucky water-so it’s even more impressive for the winners, I suppose. Technology is charging forward in sports, like everywhere else. New at this year’s Olympic Games are underwater lap counters for swimmers and an infrastructure powered by cloud computing, with a full disaster recovery center ready off-site. Keep an eye on network traffic these next few weeks when employees are streaming Olympic events during lunch.

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Ixia’s ThreatARMOR Delivers Zero-Day Malware Immunity | @CloudExpo @IXIAcom #IoT #Cloud #Security

Ixia has announced that the company’s ThreatARMOR™ solution, a key component of Ixia’s Security Fabric™, adds Zero-Day Malware Immunity™ (ZDMI), which blocks mutated versions of malware that use sophisticated obfuscation techniques to evade detection by signature-based security engines. The Ixia Security Fabric provides robust resilience, context-aware intelligent data handling, and security intelligence, ensuring the right data gets to the right tools every time even when encrypted, and enhancing the performance of existing security tools.

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Google acquires Orbitera to bolster multi-cloud play

(c)iStock.com/Nicolas McComber

Google has announced the acquisition of Orbitera, a cloud commerce platform, to help boost its multi-cloud efforts with one eye on rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft.

“Orbitera has built a strong ecosystem of enterprise software vendors delivering software to multiple clouds. This acquisition will not only improve the support of software vendors on Google Cloud Platform, but reinforces Google’s support for the multi-cloud world,” said Nan Boden, Google head of global technology partners in a blog post.

“The Google Cloud Platform team shares our vision for seamless purchase and deployment of IT services across heterogeneous cloud infrastructure,” said Marcin Kurc, Orbitera CEO. “It quickly became clear to us that becoming a part of Google would lead to the best possible outcome for our customers. We will continue to deliver the products and services our customers rely on with the added scale that Google provides.”

The move is particularly interesting given Orbitera’s links with the other leading cloud providers. Orbitera has a long-standing partnership with AWS, with six products available on the AWS Marketplace. The company is also a Microsoft gold partner. Matthew Leonard, hired as vice president of product in January this year, has previous experience in leadership roles for both AWS and Microsoft cloud commerce.

Google says that it is not looking to change Orbitera’s proposition with the acquisition. “We’re committed to maintaining Orbitera’s neutrality as a platform supporting multi-cloud commerce,” said Boden. “We look forward to helping the modern enterprise thrive in a multi-cloud world.”

Given the recent second quarter financial results released by many of the main players – including Amazon and Alphabet – it’s not surprising that analyst reports assessing the cloud infrastructure and services markets soon followed. Google was placed as a leader by IHS Markit, while finding a place as the only visionary – behind AWS and Microsoft – in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Orbitera acquired $2 million in a seed funding round in June last year.

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An Introduction to RESTful APIs | @CloudExpo #API #Cloud #RESTful

Imagine if every PhD dissertation resulted in something that changed the world?
That’s what happened when Roy Fielding presented his doctoral dissertation on the «representational state transfer» at University of California-Irvine in 2000.
This dissertation laid the groundwork for the staggering growth of RESTful web services, which have reshaped how organizations deploy and utilize APIs. In fact, today 70% of public APIs depend on REST services.

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app, CMA, Content & Applications, Mobile Banking, News & Analysis

CMA ruling requires open API for banks to bring finances into single app

Mobile bankingThe Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has released the final report from its retail banking market investigation enforcing widespread technological upgrades in some of the industry’s more traditional institutions, report Telecoms.com.

The five person investigation committee, which was initially launched in November 2014, were required to decide whether features of the retail banking industry distorted competition within the UK. After two years, the report stated traditional retail banks were not doing enough to ensure the consumer is receiving the best possible deal, and has now set out a number of new rules including the introduction of an open API to enable customer’s access to all their finances, irrelevant of organization, on a single app.

“The reforms we have announced today will shake up retail banking for years to come, and ensure that both personal customers and small businesses get a better deal from their banks,” said Alasdair Smith, Chair of the retail banking investigation. “Our central reform is the Open Banking programme to harness the technological changes which we have seen transform other markets. We want customers to be able to access new and innovative apps which will tailor services, information and advice to their individual needs.”

The development and adoption of an open API standard will have to be in place in all retail banks by Q1 2018, and will enable customers to see their finances, whether they be current accounts, savings accounts or mortgages, in a single app. By providing a single place for all accounts, the CMA hopes this will benefit consumers in a number of ways including avoiding fees incurred by unauthorized overdrafts, which currently adds £1.2 billion a year to the pockets of the retail banks.

Other rules from the CMA include enforcing banks to make all products available to customers through mobile applications, including loans, investments and mortgages. Despite the promise of banking apps, the report has concluded the technology in the more established retail banks is lagging behind other industries. Technology has proved to be a leveller in other sectors, AirBnB is a prime example of technology encouraging the growth of a SME, though this would not appear to be the case in the retail banking sector.

“Mobile financial services have long been approached as a luxury to the banked population in Britain, with banks offering limited services only through their respective applications,” said Maya Barkay, Product Marketing Manager for Mobile Financial Services at Amdocs. “In fact, the true potential of mobile financial services as a whole is being best explored in developing countries, such as Kenya and the Philippines, where these services are providing both basic and advanced financial services to a previously unbanked population.

“Regulation has time and time again been proven an essential enabler to mobile financial services, and this new ruling from the CMA is ensuring that British citizens will finally have the opportunity to harness mobile financial banking in a more useful and user-friendly way.”

The rules set in place are set to encourage more competition in the retail banking market, as larger organizations do not currently have to work hard enough to acquire or retain customers. Moving banks, irrelevant of the money which can be saved is too difficult, thus making growth for challenger banks more difficult and not encouraging competition in the industry.

Despite the efforts of the CMA to increase competition in the industry and provide more of a level playing field for smaller banks, some in the industry do not believe the report has gone far enough.

“As expected, the CMA’s report has fallen short and failed to deliver solutions to a number of the key issues it identified, in particular those facing SMEs seeking larger loans,” said Rishi Khosla, CEO of OakNorth Bank. “The CMA has explicitly stated in its report that a combination of factors make it difficult for new entrants and smaller banks such as OakNorth to effectively compete. Yet despite this, the solutions it’s provided for SME lending are limited to unsecured loans of up to £25,000, so won’t address the issues facing SMEs that need secured or larger loans.

“The fact that the CMA is simply going to pass the buck to the Treasury who won’t look to launch their own investigation until two years from now is extremely disappointing. There are millions of SMEs that are struggling to secure growth capital who may now need to wait up to four years for the situation to improve.”

While the CMA’s ruling does have the best interest of the consumer in mind, aiming to create a more transparent and competitive banking environment, the reception will not be truly known until the Open Banking app is released. During a time where security is top of the agenda and headlines detailing data breaches are not uncommon, it is not clear how many customers would agree to have all their financial information in one place.