What Is Virtualization? In the realm of computers and software, virtualization is the act of using a virtual version of hardware, software, operating systems, and networks. Virtual versions, as opposed to actual versions, allow for an emulation without losing functionality. Virtualization on a computer is similar to picture-in-picture on a television: You have two pieces […]
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Cloud delivery of enterprise applications is rapidly transforming the software industry, IT organisations, and the modern data centre. The as-a-service model for delivering advanced software functionality has moved into mainstream acceptance. IDC projects the cloud software market to grow to $151.6 billion by 2020 with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.6% – far exceeding the growth of traditional software.
Enterprise IT organisations are embracing cloud software for good reason. SaaS versions of enterprise applications introduce new innovations faster than traditional software. Faster public networks, pervasive mobile devices, and modern development paradigms enable excellent user experience. Powerful cloud-based data centres serve up sophisticated real-time analytics functionality to users accessing applications from a variety of devices. And probably most significantly, the adoption of SaaS frees up IT resources and simplifies enterprise data centres.
The adoption of SaaS and cloud based software is a cross industry phenomenon. Health tech, fintech, retail tech offerings are emerging alongside enterprise applications-as-a-service (e.g. ERP, CRM, HR, accounting). SaaS versions of enterprise applications to smaller businesses that never had the option to host complicated applications on premises. Looking ahead, the rise of IoT enabled businesses – including smart industry, connected health, and smart city oriented companies – will also be delivered through as-a-service offerings. These applications all share common infrastructure requirements. This growing demand is giving rise to a new generation of data centre technologies that address the needs of as-a-service businesses.
Modern SaaS and cloud-based software place new demands on data centre infrastructure. Some demands are simple evolutions of the requirements for traditional enterprise application infrastructure. Other are unique to the as-a-Service model where a single application instance is supporting many different organizations.
Modern SaaS businesses compete on user experience and functionality. Database platforms, server, and storage infrastructure must deliver the performance needed to deliver a positive user experience. Many modern applications incorporate sophisticated real-time analytics functionality. For instance, eCommerce sites may want to make real-time recommendations as part of a personalised shopping experience. Real-time analytics put complicated workload requirements on underlying infrastructure and require unique approaches to maintaining consistently high performance.
Part of staying competitive on user experience and functionality is the ability to constantly introduce new versions of a software offering. One of the benefits of cloud software is the ability to roll out new software versions to all users extremely efficiently. Modern software development organisations have embraced this concept with Agile development methodologies and by incorporating DevOps thinking into their organisations. As new functionality is rolled out continually, the underlying data centre infrastructure must be as agile as the application. Rigid management paradigms and complexity have no place in the modern data centre.
Probably the most significant requirement for as-a-service infrastructure is the need for scalability. Modern SaaS business models are based on the principle of scale. Scalable infrastructure strategies are critical as underlying business growth drives growth in users, in devices, in transactions, and in raw data. Infrastructure solutions that cost-effectively deliver performance, simplicity, and reliability for a single enterprise often do not support the scalability needs of SaaS and cloud software.
Service virtualization transformed the economics of data centre management, paving the way for the as-a-service world. Beyond that, several infrastructure technologies are continuing to transform the modern data centre.
Solid state storage: Enterprise storage platforms built for solid state disk technologies are rapidly taking share from traditional hard-drive based arrays. All-flash arrays that leverage the latest solid-state technologies and incorporate efficient data reduction technologies enable a step-change in performance with costs competitive with traditional storage.
Software defined data centres: Across the data centre stack (including servers, networking, and storage), software defined principles enable a new class of highly flexible, highly cost-efficient infrastructures solutions. Custom hardware based solutions are unable to innovate at the rate of software-defined solutions that can ride the commodity hardware curves.
Convergence: High speed data centre networking technologies including NVMeF will transform the notion of shared storage infrastructure. By connecting server resources to shared storage with this extremely low latency interconnect, data centres will achieve a new level of performance and flexibility.
New database paradigms: As the server and storage layers of the data centre transform, database and application development principles will shift to gain full advantage. Traditional RDBMS technologies will be augmented or supplanted with alternative database technologies like NoSQL/NewSQL to more efficiently deliver advanced functionality like real-time analytics.
The rapid growth of SaaS and cloud software is not reducing the market for data centre technologies, it is driving a massive shift in who is buying these solutions and what their buying criteria are. Data centre technologies that have been successful on premises, will not necessarily have the same success in the as-a-service world. Legacy solutions saddled with rigid hardware based architectures are unlikely to keep pace with more agile, software based solutions. Technologies with proprietary interfaces will lose to those that offer developers access through open standards. Complex technologies requiring specialist support resources will give way to simpler solutions that can be managed by generalists.
The as-a-service data centre will be architected for scale, for simplicity, and for the applications that will drive the future of digital business and digital lifestyle.
The Dell-EMC mega-merger is starting to bear significant fruit: according to the latest analysis from Synergy Research, which shows a three-way tie alongside Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) at the top of the cloud infrastructure equipment market.
With the overall revenues for cloud infrastructure equipment surpassing $70 billion in 2016 – or in other words, about $3 billion more than Dell shelled out for EMC, VMware et al – Dell’s stock has risen considerably since 2016’s second quarter, with Cisco and HPE suffering slight dips in market share.
Servers, OS, storage, networking and virtualisation software made up fully 95% of the overall market, with the remainder comprising cloud security and management. As readers of this publication will be aware, Cisco rules the roost when it comes to networking, while HPE has a clear lead in cloud servers. Dell EMC has the lead on storage, with Microsoft featuring heavily due to server OS and virtualisation and IBM ‘maintaining a strong position across a range of cloud technology markets’, Synergy added.
The previous quarter’s analysis, issued in December, saw HPE just ahead of Cisco with Dell EMC catching up fast behind.
“While spend on cloud services and infrastructure is already huge it is still relatively early days in the transition of enterprise workloads to the cloud,” said John Dinsdale, research director and a chief analyst at Synergy. “That means that success in the cloud infrastructure market is vitally important to IT vendors and they will be fighting long and hard to maximise their market shares.”
The move from Dell to acquire EMC, first announced in October 2015, had mixed critical reaction at the time; one Wired article infamously described the two companies, alongside the likes of HP, Cisco, IBM, and Oracle, as “the walking dead”. With the deal officially finalised in September 2016, the company hopes its hardware and software ‘will power customers’ traditional data centres and act as the backbone to various private or hybrid cloud computing scenarios’, as Fortune puts it, with hyper-converged and software-defined at the forefront.
SYS-CON Events announced today that T-Mobile will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 20th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
As America’s Un-carrier, T-Mobile US, Inc., is redefining the way consumers and businesses buy wireless services through leading product and service innovation. The Company’s advanced nationwide 4G LTE network delivers outstanding wireless experiences to 67.4 million customers who are unwilling to compromise on quality and value.
IBM is sure expanding its cloud footprint beyond the American shores. The latest agreement is with a Chinese company called Wanda, under which IBM will bring more of its services to China.
Both these companies have entered into an agreement to create a new company called Wanda Cloud, that is expected to become operational by 2018. Through this new venture, IBM will offer select cloud infrastructure and PaaS technologies in China.
The newly-formed Wanda Cloud will license IBM technologies and implement them in Wanda-owned data centers. In addition, Wanda Cloud will also sell and distribute these cloud services to companies and individuals, and at the same time, will ensure that their offerings meet the Chinese regulations. The revenue from Wanda Cloud will be shared by IBM and Wanda, though the exact percentage has not been released by the IBM spokesperson.
Wanda Group of companies is a large conglomerate that is mainly engaged in commercial properties, culture and finance. In 2015, the assets of Wanda Group was a 634 billion Yuan while its revenue was 290.16 billion Yuan. In fact, this is the world’s largest real estate enterprise and is the biggest five-star owner in the world. Besides real estate, Wanda Group is also the largest cultural enterprise in China and also, the world’s largest cinema operator. In addition, it also the world’s biggest sports company.
Last year, it spun a new company called Wanda Internet Technology Group to make a foray into the Chinese technology market that is currently dominated by only a handful of well-known names. This agreement is likely to give a big boost to the Wanda Group as it plans to expand into the technology sector in a big way.
As for IBM, this partnership can strengthen its grip over the Chinese market, where American companies have to enter into agreements with local Chinese companies to offer their services. Already, it had entered into an agreement with another Chinese company called 21Vianet to bring cloud services to China. This partnership is expected to expand its reach in a market that has virtually unlimited potential.
Currently, Alibaba is the largest cloud service provider in China. When Wanda Cloud becomes operational by next year, we can expect the competition to stiffen a bit in the Chinese cloud market, thereby threatening the dominance of Alibaba in this market area. For its part, Alibaba is looking to expand to other regions in the world to take on competition from giants like AWS, as it feels fairly secure in the Chinese market.
This partnership between IBM and Wanda Group, revealed during IBM’s Interconnect tech conference in Las Vegas, comes as a big surprise to many people. Nevertheless, it is sure to augur well for both IBM and Wanda Group, not to mention the many Chinese companies and individuals who can benefit from it.
According to research firm Canalys, the cloud storage market is expected to reach $135 billion by 2020, so it’s little wonder that all major companies are vying to get a lion’s share from this market.
The post IBM and Wanda team to bring cloud services to China appeared first on Cloud News Daily.
SYS-CON Events announced today that Ocean9will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 20th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Ocean9 provides cloud services for Backup, Disaster Recovery (DRaaS) and instant Innovation, and redefines enterprise infrastructure with its cloud native subscription offerings for mission critical SAP workloads.
2016 was a year of dips and dives, twists and turns. Judging by the first couple of weeks of the new year, it’s reasonable to expect 2017 will be another roller coaster year for providers, patients, suppliers and payers. As president and CMO of LeanTaaS, a growth-stage innovator of cloud-based solutions for healthcare, I have a front-car seat in partnership with the 30+ leading health systems with which we work all over the country.
In his keynote at 18th Cloud Expo, Andrew Keys, Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise, provided an overview of the evolution of the Internet and the Database and the future of their combination – the Blockchain. Andrew Keys is Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise. He comes to ConsenSys Enterprise with capital markets, technology and entrepreneurial experience. Previously, he worked for UBS investment bank in equities analysis. Later, he was responsible for the creation and distribution of life settlement products to hedge funds and investment banks. After, he co-founded a revenue cycle management company where he learned about Bitcoin and eventually Ethereum.
The taxi industry never saw Uber coming. Startups are a threat to incumbents like never before, and a major enabler for startups is that they are instantly “cloud ready.” If innovation moves at the pace of IT, then your company is in trouble. Why? Because your data center will not keep up with frenetic pace AWS, Microsoft and Google are rolling out new capabilities
In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, Don Browning, VP of Cloud Architecture at Turner, will posit that disruption is inevitable for companies that refuse to embrace the cloud and the culture shift that comes along with it.
Were you busy this week? Here’s a tech news recap of articles you may have missed for the week of 03/13/2017!
Hackers steal personal data of thousands of hospital staff. SUSE acquires HPE’s cloud assets. Microsoft to start previews of on-premises Dynamics 365. Microsoft releases new productivity app, Teams. Massive U.S. corporate database breach. Why SDN and DevOps are a perfect match and more tops news this week you may have missed!
Remember, to stay up-to-date on the latest tech news throughout the week, follow @GreenPagesIT on Twitter.
By Jake Cryan, Digital Marketing Specialist