The partnership between VMware and Amazon Web Services (AWS) is starting to bear fruit: the two companies have announced initial availability of the former’s cloud on the latter.

The announcement was made at VMworld in Las Vegas yesterday, where Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS, joined VMware chief executive Pat Gelsinger on stage to discuss the benefits of the two companies’ integration.

“This really is the ultimate hybrid solution that we’ve developed together – the ability to run any application on vSphere and seamlessly take that private cloud environment and move it into the public cloud and use VMware software that you’re familiar with to manage both your on-premise as well as your in-the-cloud infrastructure,” said Gelsinger.

As the press materials note, a variety of benefits were being offered to customers of both companies. Alongside the natural workload portability between private and public clouds, these range from flexibility to choose where applications are run based on business needs, to spinning up an entire VMware software defined data centre (SDDC) in less than two hours, to identical skills for public and private theoretically meaning consistency in operations, improved productivity and reduced costs.

This publication first referenced the proposed collaboration between the two companies back in October last year, with the ‘VMware Cloud on AWS’ effort being expected mid-this year. As Jassy put it, enterprises were previously forced into a binary choice; move into the cloud with AWS and ditch the VMware tools, or stick with VMware and find it more of a headache with AWS. “VMware Cloud on AWS gives them the best of both worlds,” he told attendees. “[It] gives them the world’s leading private cloud provider alongside easily being able to be used with the world’s leading public cloud provider.”

Early customers of the joint product include Moody’s, Symantec and Western Digital, while one of the more interesting use cases came from Ricoh, who are using VMware/AWS for cyclical computing and disaster recovery. Dell EMC was first to the punch in offering data protection for VMware Cloud on AWS, offering backup and recovery for workloads as made in a separate announcement.

Amidst the plethora of news coming out of VMworld over the past two days – you can catch up with them all here – the most interesting outside of the AWS collaboration was around new releases of VMware Integrated OpenStack and VMware vRealize Network Insight, to help organisations modernise their data centres through increased networking and security capabilities.

Picture credit: VMworld/Screenshot

Much like the earth’s climate has been undergoing a gradual shift, so has the climate for cloud-based business applications and systems. The use of cloud-based applications for personal purposes including email, picture-sharing, and listening to music has become ubiquitous.

As a result, people have become accustomed to accessing what they want, when they want, from wherever they want. Their tolerance for traditional desktop software has diminished. Each day, more businesses are embracing the cloud as they see how it can significantly reduce costs and virtually eliminate the need for the ongoing, time-consuming maintenance that’s required to keep traditional software running smoothly.

Commodity management companies’ slow adoption of cloud solutions

Many large companies have been slow to adopt cloud-based solutions because they hesitate to store a key asset – their data – offsite. Security concerns are the number one reason why they hesitate. The idea of having essential information out of company control creates discomfort. While security concerns make sense intuitively, the reality is that cloud providers have better security mechanisms than most companies. These companies invest time, money, and technology to plan for ways to avoid and counter attacks, much the way a bank invests more in security because management knows it could be a target. And companies do maintain control of their own data, which can be hosted on private servers and accessed at any time and from any device.

Commodity management companies have also invested a lot of time and money in their on-premise solutions, making a shift to cloud challenging. Having invested months, sometimes even years, implementing a solution makes users reluctant to admit the systems failed or subject themselves to another long, complicated implementation. They do not understand that cloud implementations are significantly shorter than on-premise implementations. Eka’s cloud-based CTRM software, for example, can be implemented in under two months.

The changing tide

Many commodity management companies are starting to adopt cloud-based CTRM systems due to technical innovations in cloud technology, increased pressure to reduce costs, and a growing need for more auditable, functionally-rich solutions to meet regulatory requirements.

As stated above, cloud-based applications can be deployed in less than half the time of an on-premise implementation, and they do not require capital expenditures because there is no hardware component. Users can easily scale cloud-based solutions by drawing on more of the vendor’s host servers. If they experience a decrease in demand, they simply scale back by using less capacity.

Cloud-based software updates are automatic and do not require end user input. The servers are offsite and updates are installed by the software company. Maintenance is also managed by the software provider.

Despite initial fears about data security, cloud-based platforms are more secure, with layered security and audit logs to guard against inappropriate access. Lost or stolen laptops can be wiped remotely to ensure data stays secure. Data is more accessible because it is stored in the cloud and can be accessed from any device, anytime and anywhere.

Why choose a cloud-based CTRM solution?

Choosing a cloud-based CTRM solution enables commodity management companies to decrease costs and lower risk while reducing reliance on often over-worked IT departments. 

• Companies don’t have to install hardware or software to use the software. Cloud-based solutions require no additional capital investment. As a result, implementations are faster and significantly less expensive.
• Upgrades and new functionality can be quickly and seamlessly implemented without relying on user IT resources. The vendor implements all changes on their servers, without any interference to users and their IT departments.  
• All implementation and technical risks are assumed by the vendor, because all hardware and software is hosted on the vendor’s servers.
• Capacity can be quickly and easily adjusted to meet changing business requirements. Users do not need to invest in new servers to expand, they simply ask the vendor for additional capacity when needed. This is less expensive, and much faster, than purchasing new servers.  
• Cloud-based solutions have web-based, open API platforms that can be accessed anytime, from anywhere. Users gain huge advantages by having access to data and reports wherever and whenever they want.  

Moving to cloud-based solutions provides tremendous advantages to companies, including increased security, lower hardware and software costs, decreased burden on IT resources, and the ability to access data anytime, anywhere, and from any device. While fear of losing control of data is a strong motivation to rely on on-premise solutions, the reality of lower costs and increased flexibility is shifting the tide and cloud-based software will soon outstrip on-premise solutions. At Eka Software, for example, 75 percent of new customers choose Eka’s cloud-based CTRM and analytics solutions to enjoy faster implementations and lower costs. 

Editor’s note: To read more about blockchain technologies, visit The Block.

Much of the initial interest in cryptocurrencies centered around their potential as alternatives to fiat currencies. Now attention has shifted to the upside potential of open distributed ledger technologies known as blockchain.

A clear indication of blockchain’s increasing maturity is how the emerging fintech sector, which was once dominated by tech start-ups, is becoming crowded with leading IT platform providers — many of whom are developing their own offerings.

The market leaders have been involved in collaborative ventures and consortia. As an example, IBM unveiled Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) for developers back in February 2016 that’s based upon the Hyperledger Fabric.

Blockchain market development

Meanwhile, market demand is growing rapidly across vertical industries. Juniper Research has found that 57 percent large corporations are either actively considering, or are in the process of deploying, blockchain technology, according to the analysis of the data from their latest worldwide study.

Almost 400 company founders, executives, managers and IT leaders responded to the Blockchain Enterprise Survey. Among those companies who have reached the Proof of Concept (PoC) stage, 66 percent expected blockchain to be integrated into their commercial systems by the end of 2018.

Using data from the survey, settlement, land registry and digital fiat currency were identified as the best-fit opportunities for blockchain deployment, but Juniper analysts cautioned that for each of these opportunities the scale and variety of barriers were significant.

Companies which would benefit from blockchain include those with:

• A need for transparency and clarity in (trans)actions;
• A current dependence on paper-based legacy storage systems;
• A high volume of transmitted information.

However, Juniper also argued that while awareness of blockchain and its benefits had increased dramatically during the past 12-18 months, there was a concern that companies might seek to deploy blockchain without having first considered alternative options.

Outlook for blockchain applications

“In many cases, systemic change, rather than technological, might be a better and cheaper solution than blockchain, which could potentially cause significant internal and external disruption,” said Dr Windsor Holden, head of forecasting and consultancy at Juniper Research.

Indeed, the research found that companies may have underestimated the scale of the blockchain challenge. For issues such as interoperability, the proportion of survey respondents expressing concerns progressively increased as companies proceed towards full deployment, while concerns also rose sharply regarding client refusal to embrace blockchain.

That scenario is fueling the demand for information and guidance from a qualified professional services provider that are already experienced with blockchain apps and the associated deployment challenges.

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