Ruby Development Inc. to Exhibit at @CloudExpo Silicon Valley | #IoT #M2M #Cloud

SYS-CON Events announced today that Daiya Industry will exhibit at the Japanese Pavilion at SYS-CON’s 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Ruby Development Inc. builds new services in short period of time and provides a continuous support of those services based on Ruby on Rails. For more information, please visit https://github.com/RubyDevInc.

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Evatronix to Exhibit at @CloudExpo | #IoT #M2M #CloudNative #DevOps #DX

SYS-CON Events announced today that Evatronix will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Evatronix SA offers comprehensive solutions in the design and implementation of electronic systems, in CAD / CAM deployment, and also is a designer and manufacturer of advanced 3D scanners for professional applications.

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What does the new dropbox look like?

Dropbox has come up with a new design that’s colorful, vibrant and definitely more attractive than the current design of white and blue. The logo has also undergone a change and it’s a lot flatter than before. As a result, the logo looks like it’s inside a plane rather than a box, and it is hands down cool and elegant.

Dropbox-Digital-ZuluGavillet-Desktop2_01

This is the first time that Dropbox has redesigned over the last decade. If you look at the design of Dropbox’s competitors such as Box, iDrive and the like, you’ll notice that all of them are plain and predictable. Probably, Dropbox wanted to stand out amongst its competitors and this is a way to do it. The redesigned Dropbox looks absolutely wonderful when compared to its competitors.

Another possible reason could be that Dropbox wants to appeal to the younger generation as a cool app to use. In fact, the new typeface called Sharp Grotesk is well-liked by the millennials, so that could be a reason for the redesign.

An official statement from Dropbox also affirms to this idea that it wants to stay ahead of its competitors and maybe even create a strong impression and brand image in the minds of its customers.

In addition, Dropbox wants to establish itself as a tool to bring together teams and ideas, rather than just a place to store files. For this new outlook, Dropbox needed a brand new design.

In many ways, the new design is an ode to the creativity of its designers as it is both expressive, playful and at the same time, comes with rich images and vibrant colors.

However, besides the logo, the rest of the web and app user-interface is the same; the standard white with blue and gray accents. This may change over time, but for now, the new colors seem to be more on advertising and marketing campaigns than the actual user-interface. ALready, Dropbox has put up posters and hoardings on many major cities to project itself as a hipster brand that helps everyone to store and sync files.

Let’s see if this marketing and designing strategy gives Dropbox the edge it needs in the competitive file sharing market.

The post What does the new dropbox look like? appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

Why three quarters of executives are researching and launching IoT projects in 2017

  • Manufacturing-based IoT connections grew 84% between 2016 and 2017, followed by energy & utilities (41%).
  • 73% of executives are either researching or currently launching IoT projects.
  • The IoT platform market is expected to grow 35% per year to $1.16B by 2020.
  • B2B uses can generate nearly 70% of the potential value enabled by IoT.

These and many other fascinating findings are from Verizon’s State of the Market: Internet of Things 2017, Making way for the enterprise (16 pp., PDF, free, opt-in). The Verizon study found that the Internet of Things (IoT) gained significant momentum in 2016, with 2017 IoT investments accelerating. The majority of investments today are in IoT projects that are still in the concept or pilot phase, concentrating on tracking data and sending alerts. While easier to initiate and manage, the majority of pilots aren’t providing the depth of analytics data and insights IoT has the potential to deliver.

Key takeaways from the study include the following:

Manufacturing-based IoT connections grew 84% between 2016 and 2017, followed by energy & utilities (41%)

Transportation and distribution (40%), smart cities and communities (19%) and healthcare and pharma (11%) are the remaining three industries tracked in the study who had positive growth in the number of IoT connections. The following graphic compares year-over-year growth by industry for the 2016 to 2017 timeframe.

Manufacturing is predicted to lead IoT spending in 2017 with $183bn invested this year

Verizon’s study predicts that transportation and utilities will have the second and third-largest capital expenses in IoT this year. Insurance, consumer and cross-industry IoT investments including connected vehicles and smart buildings will see the fastest overall growth in 2017.


The IoT platform market is expected to grow 35% per year to $1.16bn by 2020

From well-established enterprise service providers to startups, the platform market is becoming one of the most competitive within the global IoT ecosystem. The design objective of all IoT platforms is to provide a single environment for enabling API, Web Services and custom integrations that securely support enterprise-wide applications. Please see the post What Makes An Internet Of Things (IoT) Platform Enterprise-Ready? for an overview of the Boston Consulting Group’s recent IoT study, Who Will Win The IoT Platform Wars?

Improving the customer experience and excel at customer service by gaining greater insights using IoT leaders enterprises’ investment priorities

33% of enterprises interviewed prioritise using IoT technologies and the insights it’s capable of providing to excel at customer service. 26% intend to use IoT technologies to improve asset management and increase Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Invested Capital (ROIC). Consistent with how dominant manufacturing’s investment plans are for IoT this year, production and delivery capabilities are the top deployment priority for 25% of all businesses interviewed.

IoT has the potential to revolutionize pharmaceutical supply chains by drastically reducing drug counterfeiting globally

It’s estimated that counterfeit drugs cost the industry between $75bn to $200bn annually. The human costs of treating those who have been sold counterfeit drugs back to health are incalculable. IoT platforms and systems have the potential to drastically reduce the costs of counterfeiting, both on a personal impact and market standpoint. Drug manufacturers operating in the United States have until November 2017 to mark packages with a product identifier, serial number, lot number and expiration date, plus electronically store and transfer all transaction histories, including shipment information, across their distribution supply chains. Pharmaceutical manufacturers have a high level of urgency to make this happen and stay in compliance with the US Drug Supply Chain Security Act. IoT solutions are flourishing in this industry as a result.

Hybrid Approach | @DevOpsSummit @CollabNet #Serverless #DevOps #AI #DX

The nature of the technology business is forward-thinking. It focuses on the future and what’s coming next. Innovations and creativity in our world of software development strive to improve the status quo and increase customer satisfaction through speed and increased connectivity.
Yet, while it’s exciting to see enterprises embrace new ways of thinking and advance their processes with cutting edge technology, it rarely happens rapidly or even simultaneously across all industries.

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[session] Cloud-Based Principles for Industrial Companies | @CloudExpo @Assembla #API #CloudNative

Large industrial manufacturing organizations are adopting the agile principles of cloud software companies.
The industrial manufacturing development process has not scaled over time. Now that design CAD teams are geographically distributed, centralizing their work is key. With large multi-gigabyte projects, outdated tools have stifled industrial team agility, time-to-market milestones, and impacted P&L stakeholders.

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Five lesser known Azure certifications and courses you need to become a cloud expert

By 2020 there will be 1.3 million unfilled jobs in Europe, many will be in cloud-related fields. As businesses invest in digital transformation (83% believe cloud skills are critical for digital transformation, according to Microsoft), demand for skilled cloud professionals is set to surge.

Microsoft’s leading cloud platform, Azure, now boasts more regions than any other major cloud provider and continues to integrate with more Microsoft’s services, like Azure’s LUIS.

For businesses transitioning to Azure, knowledgeable cloud experts are required. Luckily, Microsoft’s comprehensive Azure certification portfolio is ready to support professionals looking to build or prove their knowledge.

Whether you’re new to Azure, or seeking new certs to bolster your credentials, you may not have considered these five lesser known Azure certifications.

Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (Course 10979D)

Get to grips with the principles of cloud computing and how they apply within Microsoft Azure. The Microsoft Azure Fundamentals course will teach you how to create the most common Azure services, like Virtual Machines, Web Apps and Azure SQL Databases.

Released in September 2017, this new course was created to provide the fundamental Azure skills and knowledge needed for professionals fresh to cloud computing. If you’re unfamiliar with Azure and are aiming to achieve the MCSA: Cloud Platform certification this course is a great place to start.

While Microsoft Azure Fundamentals does not map to an exam as yet, it is an ideal precursor to the Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions and Implementing Microsoft Azure Solutions courses. Pass the certification exam for both of these courses and you’ll get the MCSA: Cloud Platform.

Microsoft also supports a self-paced, online Azure Fundamentals course provided through the Edx platform.

Perform Cloud Data Science with Azure Machine Learning (Course 20774A)

At this year’s Ignite Conference in Orlando, Microsoft announced a swathe of new machine learning services, including Azure Machine Learning Experimentation, Azure Machine Learning Workbench, and the Azure Machine Learning Model Management.

These new tools will be hosted on in Azure, which already supports machine learning with Machine Learning Studio – a platform for developing machine learning applications at big data scale.

Providing professionals with a route to gain machine learning Azure knowledge, Microsoft launched the Perform Cloud Data Science with Azure Machine Learning (Course 20774A) in June 2017.  

This lesser known course is aimed at professionals who need to gain the skills to analyse and present data by using Azure Machine Learning. IT professionals, developers and anyone who needs to support solutions based on Azure Machine Learning will benefit from this credential.

Plus, pass the associated exam (70-774) and you’re only one more exam away from achieving the MCSA: Machine Learning.  

Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack (Course 20537A)

Microsoft recently launched Azure Stack, an extension of Azure allowing enterprises and service providers to run their own mirror images of Microsoft’s cloud platform on premises.

Aligning with this announcement, Microsoft also introduced Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack (Course 20537A). Complete this course and you’ll get the crucial knowledge you need to help enterprises migrate to, and manage Microsoft’s new hybrid cloud technology.

Designed as an in-depth introduction to Azure Stack, this course is ideal for service administrators, DevOps and Cloud Architects who are responsible for using Azure Stack to provide cloud services.

Take this course and you’ll also learn how System Centre 2016 components can be added to further manage your Azure Stack Environment.

While there is no exam yet, Azure Stack is set to be hugely popular for enterprises demanding more control of their cloud. It may just be a matter of time before we see more Azure stack certifications and exams in the future.

MCSA: Linux on Azure

With the rise of Azure, Microsoft has embraced Linux – having this week announced it’s sponsorship of the Open Source Initiative.

20% of the operating systems on Azure are Linux and to cater to this growing audience, Microsoft introduced the MCSA: Linux on Azure certification towards the end of 2015. This MCSA provides Linux specialists with a path to transfer their Linux skills directly into Azure.

Achieve this MCSA and you’ll learn how to deploy, configure, host and manage Linux websites in Azure. You’ll also study Azure’s key features incorporating Linux, including Windows PowerShell, Azure Active Directory, virtual machines and virtual networks.

Created with the help of The Linux Foundation this unique certification requires you to pass a non-Microsoft exam. Pass Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions (Exam 70-533) and The Linux Foundation’s Certified System Administrator (LFCS) to achieve this certification.

Designing and Implementing Big Data Analytics Solutions (Exam 70-475)

This course previously awarded a “Specialist” certification, before that designation was retired by Microsoft. Nonetheless, this credential remains relevant and continues to provide valuable knowledge and skills.

The Designing and Implementing Big Data Analytics Solutions (Exam 70-475) supports data professionals who design and build big data analytics solutions in Microsoft Azure. Plus, this unique certification was updated in February 2017, removing elements of Azure Machine Learning to focus more on real-time data processing solutions.

Don’t confuse this niche certification with the similarly titled Designing and Implementing Cloud Data Platform Solutions (exam 70-743). The latter certification focuses on SQL Server and Azure SQL Database.

This exam also forms part of the MCSA: Cloud Platform, achieve just one additional exam after to achieve your MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure.

What are you waiting for?

After a recent certification overhaul, Microsoft’s credentials no longer expire, remaining valuable as long as the knowledge gained is useful.

Plus, pass any Microsoft Certification Exam and you’ll become a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), with access to the Microsoft Certification Program. What are you waiting for?

Read more: The top five in-demand cloud skills for 2017

Oracle officially unveils autonomous database cloud, reiterates Amazon price offer

It had been previously set up by Larry Ellison – and it did not disappoint when it finally arrived.

Yes, the keynote at OpenWorld promised a lot of heat aimed at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and duly delivered. But there was also the small matter of what is claimed as the world’s first fully autonomous database cloud, powered by Oracle Database 18c.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. Two weeks ago, Oracle’s chairman and CTO took to the stage to outline new pricing and licensing models – more of which later. Yet the autonomous database was the recurring theme, as well as focusing on what Amazon couldn’t do. “Our approach to the cloud business is to lower your costs and lower your risks by fully automating all sorts of platform services completely, with completely autonomous software that runs itself, eliminates the cost of human error, and eliminates the opportunity for human error,” said Ellison at the time.

This time, it was more of the same. “This is the most important thing we have done in a long, long time,” he told attendees. “If you eliminate human labour, you eliminate human error.” Discussing the importance of machine learning, Ellison added: “For years and years artificial intelligence did not live up to its promise, but there is a new type of AI…the first branch of artificial intelligence that really, really works.

“I don’t use the words ‘revolutionary new technology’ every year [at OpenWorld]… but this one is.”

18c aims to be self-driving, self-scaling and self-repairing, and offers a guaranteed 99.995% SLA. Here, again Ellison could not resist. “I’ve seen people claim four nines, five nines,” he said. “Read the fine print carefully. They specifically exclude unplanned downtime due to maintenance, unplanned downtime due to software bugs, unplanned downtime due to configuration change, or planned downtime for that matter due to security patches. They basically exclude all reasons you have downtime and then say we’re never down.

“This is everything – planned, unplanned downtime – you are down for less than 30 minutes a year with the autonomous database,” Ellison added.

This was emphasised by a series of benchmark demonstrations featuring various scenarios, such as Oracle’s database on Oracle’s cloud versus Amazon’s cloud. “I’m just going to run 6a and 6b because the Amazon side of the demo takes too long,” said Ellison. On the first, Oracle took 34 seconds and Amazon 255, and the bill came out at $0.04 compared with $0.23 respectively. With all this came the promise – again re-emphasised from previous gatherings – of a bill which was more than half of Amazon’s.

Amazon’s CTO Werner Vogels, writing in a blog post, highlighted the 10th anniversary since the company’s Dynamo whitepaper was unveiled, which aimed to change the database market to produce a horizonally scalable, distributed database that would scale out for reads and writes. Naturally, the desire for change came about because the company was struggling on an Oracle database.

The company did not comment on the claims in Oracle’s presentation when CloudTech enquired, however Business Insider reported that an AWS representative described it as “no facts, wild claims, and lots of bluster.”

One can read only so much into benchmark tests, but Ellison’s mantra remained. “If you want high availability, if you want lower labour costs, higher performance, all that stuff, you’ve got to be willing to pay four cents, not 23,” he concluded.

“Some people like paying 23 [cents] – I just don’t know any.”

Picture credit: Oracle

Oracle forays into blockchain technology

Oracle has been trying to get its act together and move on a path of technology and innovation that will make it a leader in the coming years. To this end, it has implemented many strategic changes and has been successful in a big way. The latest such strategy is to move into the blockchain bandwagon.

If you’ve never heard of blockchain, that’s the latest technology that could transform the Internet as we know it today. Invented by an individual or a group of ingenious developers, this technology allows digital information to be distributed, but not copied. You can imagine this to be a distributed database that is duplicated millions of times across different networks.

The obvious advantage of blockchain is that the information is automatically reconciled across all networks, so a single change is updated everywhere. Also, all records contained in blockchain are public and verifiable, which means, it allows greater transparency and security. Since there is no centralized database or repository, no single hacker can hack the information it contains.

In some ways, it is an Internet that comes with a built-in robustness to adapt based on the existing situation. To top it, this technology has no single point of failure. Probably the best implementation of blockchain technology is bitcoins, that could become the defacto standard of transaction if more people and companies start adopting it.

So, what’s Oracle doing with this technology?

Oracle has created its own blockchain service on top of an open source platform called Hyperledger. This is the second company after IBM to use the Hyperledger fabric project to create a robust blockchain technology.

Using this technology, Oracle plans to offer a wide range of cloud services that come with better flexibility and resilience when compared to existing services offered by its competitors such as AWS, Microsoft and Google. In a way, this is Oracle’s way of catching up with companies that have a lead in the cloud market because of their early foray into it.

Though blockchain sounds promising, it all boils down to how well it is adopted and implemented. Though oracle has jumped on the blockchain bandwagon, it’s hard to predict how it will eventually play out for the company.

The post Oracle forays into blockchain technology appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

How demand has grown for superior managed cloud services

The rush to move IT applications from on-premises enterprise data centers to public cloud service providers, primarily on the basis of the promise of a low-cost, has once again been challenged by recent market research findings.

In fact, savvy CIOs and CTOs are seeking comprehensive solutions that meet all their expectations, rather than merely a limited subset. Even if it costs more to achieve that goal, the demand for superior hybrid cloud services is gaining momentum across the globe.

As an example, seventy-five percent of respondents to the latest worldwide market study by 451 Research indicate that enterprise IT leaders are willing to pay a premium for enhancements to their server hosting and cloud services.

Cloud services market development

The most desired improvements are guarantees of security (48.7 percent of respondents) and service performance (43.3 percent) with less interest in paying service providers to take on the operational management burden (27.9 percent).

Despite customers citing cost savings as a driver of cloud adoption and using value for money as a metric for evaluating cloud services, 451 Research finds customers are willing to pay extra for cloud and hosting service enhancements. The average premium businesses are willing to pay is around 30 percent.

The highest premium is for enhanced customer service and support (33.3 percent) and the lowest is for the service provider handling operational management (27.9 percent).

Although 451 Research believes higher levels of service will attract those customers willing to pay higher rates, organizations surveyed say that their providers are failing to meet their expectations for service levels in several categories.

As an example, 58.1 percent of survey respondents say that managed services or security services bundled with the infrastructure or application service is an important capability for them. However only 38.8 percent of these respondents say their current vendors meet this expectation.

The largest such gap is the ability to migrate workloads and data from the customer’s data center to the provider’s or another data center, including public cloud. Moreover, 42.9 percent indicate this is important, but only 19.5 percent of these respondents say their current vendors meet this expectation.

Outlook for cloud computing enhancements

“We frequently talk about pricing competition in cloud infrastructure and applications, which leaves many service providers wondering how they can differentiate themselves,” said Liam Eagle, research manager at 451 Research.

According to the 451 Research assessment, the good news is that many hybrid cloud service customers tell the analyst that they’re evaluating vendors on total value, rather than cost. That value can reside in services like guaranteed levels of performance, security and support.

“We’ve found that customers still see shortcomings when it comes to service providers helping them strategize and execute around hosting and cloud,” added Eagle. “Service providers focused on adding value should regard these gaps as opportunities they can capture by improving the quality of their own service in specific areas.”