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AsiaInfo, AWS, BSS, News & Analysis, Public Cloud, Telco Cloud

AWS partners with BSS vendor AsiaInfo in telco cloud move

Veris cloud coreBSS vendor AsiaInfo has announced a strategic bet on the cloud by making its Veris suite available as a pre-integrated cloud offering deployed via a partnership with Amazon Web Services, reports Telecoms.com.

The new product is called Veris Cloud Core to distinguish it from the modular, on-premise Veris Agile Core, which is the current deployment model. Apart from generally future-proofing its main product as the world moves into the cloud, Veris Cloud Core claims many of the benefits generally associated with the cloud model, including speed of deployment, flexibility and the efficiency of a SaaS commercial model.

“We are constantly exploring brand new business models, promoting industrial innovation and cross-boundary integration, and striving to build a business ecosystem powered by the Business Internet,” said AsiaInfo’s Executive Chairman Dr. Edward Tian. “This collaboration with AWS Inc. is critical and makes our vision of ‘building the Business Internet’ a reality.”

The AWS partnership is significant on a couple of fronts. The first is the precedent set by a software vendor partnering with a specific cloud provider, creating a comprehensive cloud service offering that should simplify and speed up the whole process of changing and upgrading business software. Secondly this is a major bet on the public cloud by AsiaInfo at a time when there are still many reservations around data security, reliability and control. AsiaInfo, of course, doesn’t share these concerns and thinks it’s just a matter of time before the market follows suit.

“Working with AsiaInfo underscores the importance of helping telecommunications and enterprise companies innovate in their markets by leveraging the AWS Infrastructure to deliver faster and more flexible transformation IT infrastructure,” said Adam Selipsky, VP of AWS. “By removing complexity, companies are focusing their time and resources on adding real value to their business, and to those of their customers.”

AsiaInfo is not phasing out its Agile Core offering, which it thinks will remain a good option for a lot of customers. By launching of Cloud Core in partnership with AWS the company is looking to steal a march on its competitors, who it thinks lack the same kind of out-of-the-box cloud offering. AsiaInfo is also thinking long-term; it’s only targeting a single client win this year but is betting that as everything moves into the cloud in years to come, preparing for it now will pay dividends.

The slide below summarizes AsiaInfo’s claims regarding the benefits of the cloud model over the traditional one in this context.

Veris cloud core benefits slide

Cato Networks, Network Security as a Service, News & Analysis

Start up Cato Networks claims Network Security as a Service first

CybersecurityCheck Point founder Schlomo Kramer is launching a new cloud security firm with former Imperva colleague Gur Shatz as demand for traditional on premise firewall security diminishes. Cato Networks will offer a new cloud security concept that’s been dubbed Network Security as a Service (NSaaS).

The Cato Cloud has two complementary layers. One, the Cato Cloud Network, is based on a global, geographically distributed network of points of presence (PoPs). The second, Cato Security Services, is a suite of network security (such as firewalls, VPNs, URL filtering) delivered through the cloud as an integrated managed service.

Cato Networks’ software creates an encrypted network out of all the disparate elements of the connected enterprise, such as branch offices, remote locations, data centres and mobile users. The last two groups in that list have changed the model of security, according to Kramer, since the liquidity of the network has been exacerbated by the virtual nature of systems residing in data centres and the increasing prominence of mobile users. With new virtual machines being spun up in their thousands and mobile workers multiplying in both numbers and computing capacity, firewalls are not the right solution to this moveable vulnerability problem, according to Kramer.

The Internet of Things will only exacerbate security problems, according to a Cato Networks statement. Research commissioned by Cato showed that maintenance, costs and the complexity of managing policies for multiple locations is too challenging for up to 57% of security professionals.

Companies that use a variety of cloud services can tie their hybrid clouds into a secure network and forget about having to maintain firewalls or invest in expensive network security, according to Cato.

Cato would allow retail chains, which typically have hundreds of locations each with a multiplicity of devices, to securely connect directly to the cloud for Internet access.

Cato raised $20 million in financing led by Aspect Ventures and will launch its new cloud security offering around September 2016 with co-founder Kramer investing $4 million of his own money.

AWS, Enterprise IT, Google Cloud Platform, News & Analysis

Google adds to its Cloud Platform as vendors compete with AWS Lambda

Google officeGoogle has added to its public cloud infrastructure for developers, Cloud Platform, with a new service that allows app writers to set up functions that can be triggered in response to events. The new Google Cloud Functions has drawn comparison with the Lambda offering from Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The service was not announced to the public, but news filtered out after documentation began to appear on Google’s web site, offering advice to developers. According to the briefing notes, Google Cloud Functions is a ‘lightweight, event-based, asynchronous’ computing system that can be used to create small, single-purpose functions in response to cloud events without the need for managing servers or programming in a runtime environment. Access to the service is available to anyone who fills out a form on the web site.

Google’s answer to AWS Lambda is the latest attempt to catch up with AWS by filling in the omissions in its own service. In September 2015 BCN reported how Google’s Cloud Platform is being sped up by the addition of four new content delivery networks, with CloudFlare, Fastly, Highwinds Network and Level 3 Communications adding to Google’s network of 70 points of presence in 33 countries as part of a new Google CDN Interconnect programme.

Google has also bolstered its cloud offering with new networking, containerisation and price cuts, BCN reported in November 2015. Google has also recruited VMware cofounder Diane Greene to lead all of its cloud businesses, as reported last year.

Google Cloud Functions run as Node.js modules and can be written in JavaScript. A response could be set up to react to, say, circumstances in a user’s Google Cloud Storage, such as an unwanted type of picture file or title. The service also works with webhooks, which contributes to a speeding up of programming processes and code maintenance.

The prices for Cloud Functions were not listed, as the service is still in Alpha mode.

Meanwhile a new start up, Iron.io, has raised $11.5 million in venture capital to develop its own answer to Lamba and Cloud Functions. Microsoft is also rumoured to be developing its own version of Cloud Functions for Azure, according to a report in Forbes.

Cirba, hybrid cloud, News & Analysis

Cirba expands its infrastructure management optimiser to the public cloud

CloudInfrastructure management vendor Cirba has announced a new workload routing and management option for hybrid clouds. The Cirba infrastructure resource juggling service can now support cloud systems from Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM SoftLayer, allowing users to extend their internal management to straddle the public cloud too.

Cirba’s service provides the decision control points which automatically determine where applications can safely run in hybrid environments. It decides where each task runs by conducting detailed analysis of each application’s requirements. It then calculates how best to match them against the available security, cost and technical resources available across. Now the service extends beyond the private infrastructure to include the public clouds.

Though originally designed as an internal system for juggling resources more efficiently, from Thursday Cirba is offering new integrations to Azure, AWS and SoftLayer in order to bring centralised management for enterprise applications across hybrid cloud environments.

Cirba claims that customers will now have extended visibility into applications that are hosted externally. This means the client’s can judge whether their cloud vendor is apportioning the appropriate level of resources, it claims. Clients will also be able to assess these applications against on-premise hosting environments in order to determine whether they should be brought back in-house, claims Andrew Hillier, co-founder and CTO of Cirba. “Without analytics, organisations cannot automate their processes nor can they effectively determine how to meet application requirements without risk or excessive cost,” said Hillier.

Cirba says that the new additions mean that it can now support a range of system that already including internal versions of VMware vCenter, Microsoft Hyper-V, IBM PowerVM on AIX and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation-based environments.

In June 2016 Cirba aims to update its Reservation Console in order to create a centralised policy-based control system for hybrid clouds.

AWS, Content & Applications, games developers, News & Analysis

AWS targets games developers with Lumberyard and Gamelift services

computer game developmentAmazon Web Services (AWS) has launched new services, Lumberyard and Gamelift, to help developers create games and build communities of fans. By simplifying the infrastructure work it could help keep games developers loyal to its cloud services.

Amazon Lumberyard is a free, 3D game engine which developers can use to create games on any IT platform while using the computing and storage resources of the AWS Cloud. According to Amazon, Lumberyard’s visual scripting tool can open up the games development market because it allows non-technical game developers to add cloud-connected features to a game. It claims that features such as community news feeds, daily gifts or server-side combat resolution can be added in minutes through a drag-and-drop graphical user interface.

The other new AWS service, GameLift, aims to simplify the launch and operational management of session-based multiplayer games. Used in combination the two new services will make it easier for games developers to ramp up capacity to order as demand for high-performance game servers fluctuates. The services makes it easier for games developers to cater for fluctuating demand without the expense of additional engineering effort or upfront costs, says AWS.

Amazon Lumberyard is free and available today in beta for developers building PC and console games. A version for mobile and virtual reality (VR) platforms is ‘coming soon’ it says. GameLift is charged on a per-player basis, with fees currently $1.50 per 1,000 daily active users on top of the standard AWS services fees.

Developers typically need to bring 20 technology components to build the highest-quality games, according to Mike Frazzini, Amazon Games’s VP. The expense of resources such as real-time graphics rendering, animation systems and physics simulation make this a prohibitive and risky market to be in.

“Game developers asked for a game engine with the power of commercial engines but significantly less expensive and deeply integrated with AWS for the back,” said Frazzini. AWS now provides that with Lumberyard and GameLift, he said.

Developing and maintaining a back-end infrastructure for multiplayer games requires time, money and expertise that are beyond the reach of most developers, according to Chris Jones, Obsidian Entertainment’s CTO. “GameLift removes much of that burden from the developer, allowing them to focus their energy on bringing their game ideas to life,” said Jones.

Horizon, hybrid cloud, News & Analysis, VMware

VMware broadens its Horizon 7 and Horizon Air

VMWare campus logoCloud infrastructure vendor VMware has announced that VMware Horizon 7 and VMware Horizon will be simpler to set up, faster, easier to maintain and more flexible.

Version 7 of Horizon promises new features that VMware describes under the headings of just in Time Delivery, Blast Extreme, application life cycle management, smart policies and Integration with VMware Workspace ONE.

The new Just in Time Delivery option, a product of Instant Clone Technology (formerly Project Fargo) means managers can provision 2,000 desktops in under 20 minutes. Blast Extreme offers options for GPU off-load to increase scale and mobile network support. The new Application Lifecycle efficiencies promise to cut storage and operational costs by up to 70% and slash the time needed for managing images by up to 95%. Smart Policies and integration with VMware Workspace ONE will both improve management of internal resources.

Meanwhile VMware’s Horizon Air has a hybrid-mode that will pave the way for a simple out of the box set-up, the vendor says. Having achieved that, users can create and scale desktops faster, with new Instant Clone technology integrated with VMware’s App Volumes and User Environment Management technologies.

Another major advantage, according to VMware, is greater hybrid cloud flexibility. In practical terms this will mean that applications and desktop workloads can be moved back and forth from on-premises data centres to the cloud more effectively. The process will be managed from a consistent Cloud Control Plane and will support the use of the cloud as a primary system for everyday work, or as a secondary use case for desktop bursting or disaster recovery.

VMware Horizon 7 and VMware Horizon Air with Hybrid-mode are expected to be generally available before March 2016. VMware Horizon 7 pricing starts at $250 per user for on-premises perpetual licenses. VMware Horizon Air Hybrid-mode cloud subscription pricing starts at $16 per user per month for named users and $26 per user per month for concurrent connections.

“VMware Horizon Air will provide our team with the opportunity to scale desktops on an as needed basis with access to VMware’s public cloud in both Europe and the United States,” said user Jason Bullock, executive director of IT global infrastructure and support at BDP International.

News & Analysis, NFV, vCPE, Virtualisation, Wind River

Wind River launches vCPE NFV platform

Network Function VirtualisationIntel subsidiary Wind River has added to its NFV portfolio with the announcement of a new product which focuses on the virtualization of customer premises equipment (vCPE). The vendor claims it has strengthened its VNF offering to bring initiatives like vCPE management closer to reality.

Wind River’s new Titanium Server CPE software adds to the vendor’s existing NFV portfolio. vCPE is one of the primary NFV use cases mooted by the telecoms industry; the improvements to Wind River’s software could mean all functions traditionally configured on each piece of hardware at the customer’s premises can now be handled centrally and instantly replicated across the cloud.

According to Wind River, the improvements to the Titanium Server portfolio (Titanium Server and Titanium Server CPE) will create faster network performance, allow networks to ramp up in size instantly and simplify the commissioning of new additions to any network. The vendor also claims the Titanium Server portfolio’s new software stands up to the carrier grade needed for telecom networks.

The cost of administering moves and changes, which is often time consuming and labour intensive, is one of the areas that telcos view as ripe for efficiency improvements. However, the virtualization of CPE functions has proved a challenging ambition to fulfil. The replacement of a system which individually configures each physical appliance (such as a switch or handset) with a centrally managed one could slash operating expenditure (OPEX). The savings would come by substituting the work of multiple physical configurations, requiring a site visit, with a single software change that can be published to all devices on all points of the telecoms cloud, using the new Titanium Server CPE platform, according to Wind River.

Among the new features added to Titanium Server are dynamic CPU scaling, greater system scalability, a virtual switch packet trace tool and the capacity for bulk provisioning and automated deployment. The new release also now supports QinQ tunnelling, IPv6 support for all interfaces and has updated support for all the latest high-performance network interface cards (NICs). It also supports VNF access to hardware acceleration devices, such as the Intel Communications Chipset 8925 to 8955 Series.

The new incarnation of Titanium Server CPE launch follows collaboration with NFV software partners Brocade, Check Point, InfoVista and Riverbed.

Titanium Server and Titanium Server CPE will be showcased at Mobile World Congress 2016.

cloud security, CSA, News & Analysis, Research

CSA survey finds trust in the cloud increasing

Secure cloudSuspicion of the cloud has lifted so much that trust in cloud services is on par with on-premises applications, according to a survey by the Cloud Security Alliance.

Around 200 IT executives were quizzed about the state of cloud adoption, the evolving role of IT, and how enterprises approach cloud security. The results suggest that while trust in the cloud may be on the rise companies are trying to replicate the same security controls they did for their on-premises systems.

Cloud professionals are now caught between dual responsibilities, says the study: they are obliged to enable the business while at the same time they must tighten security. Only 35% of IT leaders believe that cloud-based systems of record are less secure than their on-premises counterparts. The other 65% say that the cloud is either more secure than on-premises software or equally secure. However, even when enterprise-ready cloud services are more secure than their own data centres, the users present more danger, which is why the ability to enforce corporate security policies is the number one barrier to moving applications to the cloud, said 68% of IT leaders. Another blockage was the need to comply with regulatory requirements (61%) and lack of budget to replace legacy systems (32%).

The top barrier to securing data is a lack of skilled security professionals as businesses are hiring IT security professionals faster than the market can train and develop experienced security professionals. In August, it was reported that JP Morgan expected to spend $500 million on cyber security in 2015, double its 2014 budget of $250 million. Rapid hiring is leading to a shortage of people to fill open positions. A 2015 report from labour analytics firm Burning Glass shows that cyber security job postings grew 91% from 2010 to 2014, more than three times the rate of growth in all IT jobs.

The most important new job is a chief IT security officer (CISO) the report found. Just 19% of companies without a CISO have a complete incident response plan while 54% of companies with a CISO have a complete incident response plan and those with a CISO are also more likely to have cyber insurance to protect against the cost of a data breach.

HCL Technologies, Internet of Things, IoT, Microsoft, News & Analysis

HCL and Microsoft launch IoT incubation centre

IoT cloud iconIndia based global services company HCL Technologies has launched an Internet of Things (IoT) incubation centre in Redmond, the home of Microsoft.

The two vendors will use the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite to create apps for industry and manufacturing and the Life Sciences and Healthcare sector. According to HCL these are the two key high growth vertical markets in which demand for IoT apps will be strongest.

The top three use cases named by HCL will be in industrial automation, remote patient monitoring and fleet management, but there will be a variety of other apps under development. The centre will develop new methods of using real-time analytics, sensory data and rapid co-creation, says HCL.

The Incubation Centre will aim to combine HCL’s skills in engineering and product lifecycle management, systems integration and infrastructure services with Microsoft’s leadership in IoT, it said.

IoT WoRKS by HCL promises to get more performance out of any company’s existing asset investment and create new services with measurable business outcomes. HCL’s offering has three phases, Define, Build and Run, to help design enterprise IoT programmes, develop IoT systems and manage the uptime of enterprise systems respectively.

“Industrial IoT is the next big productivity and revenue generation lever for enterprises worldwide,” said Sukamal Banerjee, EVP & Head of IoT WoRKS’s Business Unit at HCL Technologies.

Last week BCN reported that Microsoft has put its new Azure IoT hub on general availability. It claims the new system will be a simple bridge between its customers’ devices with their systems in the cloud. The new preconfigured IoT offering, when used with the Azure IoT Suite, can be used to create a machine to machine network and a storage system for its data in minutes, it claims.

App Stores, Apple, Cloudkit, Datacentre, News & Analysis

Apple augments CloudKit with new APIs – eyes enterprise

Apple cloudkitApple has given developers a new option in CloudKit, a new application programming interface (API) into its servers. The new feature is announced on the Apple developer news blog.

The new web interface gives users access to the same data as a developer’s app. It also makes it easier to read and write to the CloudKit public database from a server-side process or script with a server-to-server key, says Apple.

The interface is designed to help developers to extend the use of the iCloud CloudKit database beyond user interaction with iOS, Mac or web apps and run independent code on servers that can add, delete and modify records in the CloudKit stack. Originally, any user interaction with CloudKit was limited to the APIs that Apple provided in apps but now Apple has granted developers greater license for using the technology outside of the confines of its own technology.

Developers had complained that though the CloudKit stack was useful its limitations stopped them from putting the system to more advanced use. One of the complaints was that modern apps rely on servers to perform tasks whilst users are away. The addition of the web API means developers can create a wider portfolio of apps using CloudKit as the backend.

The restrictions had meant that even simple transactions were difficult to set up outside of the confines of Apple. According to specialist Apple user blog 9 to 5 Mac, users were previously restricted from using RSS readers unless they opened a CloudKit-powered app. This, said the blog, was ‘impractical’ and forced developers to use other tools. As a result of the more open API it is much easier to add new feed items to the CloudKit stack from the server.

“Expect CloudKit adoption to rise with this announcement,” predicted blog author Benjamin Mayo. However, the lack of native software development kits for non-Apple platforms may continue to limit uptake, Mayo warned.

With rival cloud framework Parse due to close in 2017, Apple’s addition of a server side request endpoint could position it as the replacement to Parse as a cloud database engine.

Meanwhile, there’s speculation among analysts that Apple is preparing for a move into cloud computing services for enterprise customers.

With Apple expected to invest $4 billion in 2016 on warehouse-sized data centres, analysts at investment banks Morgan Stanley and Openheimer Holdings have suggested that Apple may move its cloud business away from AWS as competition intensifies.

In a report, Oppenheimer analyst Tim Horan mooted the idea that Apple might start its own infrastructure as a service (IaaS) business as it targets the corporate market. IBM and Apple have partnered for enterprise marketing.