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Azure, cloud security, Gemalto, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Gemalto’s cloud-based encryption now available in Microsoft Azure marketplace

Mobile securitySecurity vendor Gemalto is to sell its SafeNet ProtectV encryption system on the Azure Marketplace. This means Microsoft’s Azure users will find it easier to encrypt and protect data and applications in the cloud and meet compliance regulations, it claims.

Gemalto says SafeNet ProtectV simplifies the protection of data. It encrypts each virtual machine created in the cloud in its entirety and extends this protection to attached storage volumes. By automating this process it saves users from the aggregated admin burden of configuring each virtual machine individually. Though the process is automated, SafeNet ProtectV allows customers to separate security administration duties. This means security enforcers can exert ‘granular’ levels of control and establish clear accountability with audit trails and detailed compliance reporting, it claims.

Maryland-based SafeNet was bought by Gemalto in August 2014 for US$890 million. SafeNet technology protects 80 per cent of the world’s intra-bank fund transfers and it employs 550 cryptographic engineers. Gemalto specialises in the protection of data, digital identities, payments, and transactions, at all points from the point of sale to the data centre.

The cloud infrastructure services market is on target to be a $42.7 billion industry in the next four years, said Gemalto’s encryption product VP Todd Moore. But, he said, that momentum will only be maintained if cloud services like Azure can meet the top levels of security and compliance.

“Easy implements of strong data protection and security in the cloud are a major consideration when moving sensitive workloads,” said Moore. Gemalto’s strategy is to make robust encryption frameworks simple so companies can move to the cloud with confidence – and ProtectV provides the audit controls, according to Moore.

Adding companies with cloud-based data encryption, like Gemalto, will convince more companies that it’s safe to use the cloud, according to Nicole Herskowitz, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Microsoft Azure. “Azure Marketplace provides customers with choice, flexibility and access,” said Herskowitz.

Accenture, acquisition, cloud migration, Cloud Sherpas, M&A, News & Analysis

Accenture to buy Cloud Sherpas to help enterprise clients navigate the cloud

Accenture is to acquire advisory firm Cloud Sherpas, for an undisclosed fee, in a bid to beef up its cloud consultancy as more enterprises seek help with their hybrid computing strategies.

If concluded, the takeover will add 1,100 new staff to Accenture’s newly created Cloud First Applications team, which helps enterprises make their first moves towards a shared computing model.

Atlanta-based Cloud Sherpas has a similar mission statement, offering to guide enterprises through their cloud migrations. Since its creation in 2007 it has grown a global presence with offices in Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and the UK. With its main focus on helping companies to adopt off-premise software-as-a-service (SaaS) systems, its major technology partnerships are with Google, Salesforce and ServiceNow.

Cloud Sherpas has been recognised as a Salesforce Global Strategic Consulting Partner and is one of four ServiceNow Master Partners in the world. It has won Google’s Work Partner of the Year on four occasions.

Accenture, one of Salesforce’s first global partners, currently has 2,700 certified professionals. The acquisition of Cloud Sherpas could bring a further 500 certified professionals to its team. It claims to run 13,000 cloud computing projects, with a clientele that includes three-quarters of the Fortune Global 100. It has a total of 17,000 cloud computing professionals.

“Cloud Sherpas was born in the cloud and we are perfectly aligned with Accenture’s cloud first agenda,” said Cloud Sherpas’ CEO David Northington, “The new organisation should prove a good fit for Accenture’s cloud first push.”

Accenture needs the new intake in order to keep up with the rapid pace of cloud adoption by enterprises, according to Paul Daugherty, chief technology officer of Accenture: “We’ve reached a tipping point as our clients rapidly adopt cloud systems.”

Salesforce president Keith Block welcomed the combination of the firm’s two strategic partners. “It’s proof positive of the momentum around our customer success platform,” said Block.

Bistip, Cloud South East Asia, Content & Applications, Enterprise IT, Interviews, Opinion, social marketplace

How the cloud enables the Bistip social marketplace to scale efficiently

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERABCN has partnered with the Cloud South East Asia event to interview some of its speakers. In this interview we speak to Rohit Kanwar, CEO of Indonesian social marketplace service Bistip.

Cloud South East Asia: Who are Bistip and how are you shaking up the Indonesian market?

Rohit Kanwar:  Bistip is Peer to Peer market place for social delivery through which item seekers and travellers are connected. Bistip travellers can post their trips in the platform visible to everyone and item seekers offer them extra money for bringing them their desired items. Currently Bistip has close to 35,000 customers and more than 100,000 web visits per month.

We are analogous in the logistics industry, like Uber or AirBnB.  Social couriers existed in most of the Asian countries before, but they were limited to close friends and families. However, with the adoption of smartphone and cloud based technologies it’s faster and easier to scale and roll out services to more people now.

Indonesians love buying high value goods, which are often expensive to purchase locally; with the help of Bistip they are now accustomed to getting “Anything from anywhere globally ” within Indonesia, at affordable prices.  Our mission is reduce overseas travel cost by providing travellers with extra money. We are adding 1000 customers per month, with a revenue over 250K USD and plan to achieve 1 million registered customers by 2017.

How is technology helping you grow and reach new customers?

Our customer acquisition strategy is 100% digitally focussed; we are also using online advertising tools to reach out to new customers. We are actively using digital technology and analytics to reach our target audience and demography based on respective products. We also use social media listening technology to understand the sentiments of customers about our product and services. Modification of products based on customer insight helps us to reach new customers and better serves existing members.

What role does cloud computing play in your business?

All our web and app based platforms are on cloud based technology. Its subscription based model (Pay as you go) helps to scale up capacity in a cost effective way. Our Cloud vendors provide us with features such as managed services, Web Performance dashboards and analytics integrated platforms, which enable us to focus on our Business KPIs instead of day to day network operations. Cloud base technology is a boom to start-ups as it reduces high capex spending on IT infrastructure.

How do you think established, global technology vendors are supporting start-up companies in Indonesia?

Indonesia currently has 70 million smartphones and more than 100 million Internet users.  Jakarta generates more tweets than any other city in the world. There is huge paradigm shift among technology vendors towards Indonesia due to the growing, successful start-up ecosystem in the country. Global technology vendors such as Google, Cloudera, IBM, Microsoft, etc. are showing a keen interest in understanding business requirement for start-ups.

Tech Vendors have dedicated support teams assisting start-up companies with solving their problems. Global technology vendors regularly arrange boot camps, Hackathons and networking seminars in the country in order to support start-ups with fund raising and other mentorship activities.   A few technology vendors have venture funds to support start-ups as well.  Overall the atmosphere and ecosystem is developing faster than ever before in Indonesia.

What is next for Bistip?

Bistip is coming up with a mobile application, along with new features and services, to reduce the shipping time and provide more security to our customers. It will also have an integrated payment system. Bistip aims to achieve 1 million customers by end of 2017.

Bistip is also exploring the opportunity to start operations in other countries. We have signed two partnerships with Uber in Indonesia, Aramex and are likely to sign a few more with online travel portal and retail stores in the near future. We are also in final level talks with a VC for raising further funds. Hopefully our execution plans will follow our strategy and we can provide our travellers with more benefits and our buyers with a better service.

 

Learn more about how the cloud is developing in South East Asia by attending Cloud South East Asia on 7th & 8th October 2015 at Connexion @ Nexus, KL, Malaysia.

SEA Logo

Internet of Things, IoT, IoT cloud, M2M, Salesforce, Software as a service

Salesforce IoT Cloud promises to create meaning from M2M talk

Internet of Things flat iconic illustrationSalesforce has launched its Internet of Things (IoT) offering with IoT Cloud, which promises to convert machine to machine conversations, digital content and customer information into useful intelligence that sales staff can act on.

The IoT Cloud is powered by event processing engine Salesforce Thunder, which will allow customers to personalise the way they sell, service and market. Development partners include processor maker ARM, Etherios, Informatica, PTC ThingWorx and Xively LogMeln.

The service was unveiled by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at the company’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. “Salesforce is turning the internet of things into the internet of customers,” said Benioff. The IoT Cloud will allow businesses to create instant one-to-one proactive actions for sales, service, marketing or any other business process, Benioff said.

According to Salesforce, its ‘massively scalable’ cloud computing architecture can ‘listen’ to the connected world and make sense of the billions of events each day from all sources. The connections with wearables, windmills, telephones and turbines – and all other devices – can be contextualized by Salesforce’s own real-time rules, it claims. The IoT Cloud aims to give business users intuitive, point-and-click tools to define rules and logic for events that can trigger actions among the users of Salesforce’s customer relationship systems.

The rationale is to glean information reported by devices – such as the numbers of hard braking movements by drivers of a car fleet – in order to monitor and manage customer cases. Machine intelligence, such as vehicle braking data, could help Salesforce users negotiate from a position of superior knowledge with their customers.

According to Salesforce’s figures there will be 75 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2020, with the volume of data growing exponentially each year. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that IoT applications have the potential to make $11.1 trillion worth of economic impact per year by 2025.

The challenge is to make sense of all that data, said IoT market watcher Gary Barnett, chief analyst at Ovum. “IoT deployments only bring value when organisations can act on the information their IoT networks generate,” said Barnett, chief analyst, Ovum. “The ability to make sense of that data will be a key factor in turning it into action.”

Ctera, Data management, Enterprise IT, HP, News & Analysis, Storage, Storage as a Service

Ctera now integrated with HP’s hybrid cloud manager

Cloud storageCtera Networks says it has integrated its storage and data management systems with HP’s cloud service automation (HP CSA) as it seeks way to simplify the management of enterprise file services across hybrid clouds.

The HP CSA ‘architecture’ now officially recognises and includes Ctera’s Enterprise File Services platform. The logic of the collaboration is that as the HP service helps companies build private and hybrid clouds they will need tighter data management in order to deliver new services to enterprise users, according to the vendors.

Ctera, which specialises in remote site storage, data protection, file synchronisation, file sharing and mobile collaboration services, has moved to make it easier to get those services on HP’s systems. According to Ctera, the new services can now be run on any organization’s HP CSA managed private or virtual private cloud infrastructure.

Enterprises that embrace the cloud need to modernise their file services and IT delivery models, according to Jeff Denworth, Ctera’s marketing SVP. The new addition of Ctera to HP CSA means they can easily manage file services from a single control point and quickly roll out the apps using a self-service portal, Denworth said.

“HP CSA helps IT managers become organisational heroes by accelerating the deployment of private and hybrid clouds and IT services,” said Denworth. The partnership with HP will result in a ‘broad suite’ of file services, increased agility and cheaper hybrid cloud services, according to Denworth.

The partnership should make things simpler for cloud managers, who are being forced to take on several roles, according to Atul Garg, HP’s general manager of cloud automation. “Today’s IT teams are becoming cloud services brokers, managing various products and services across hybrid environments and fundamentally changing how they deliver value to the broader organisation,” said Garg. Now file services can be deployed easily to tens of thousands of users, said Garg.

business, Exact, News & Analysis, Research, SME, UK

Cloud business users grow faster and are twice as profitable says study

Companies that commit themselves to cloud computing are likely to grow faster and enjoy twice the profit of their non-cloud using rivals, according to a study. The research also indicates that the UK is leading Europe in cloud adoption. However, one critic said there is no evidence that cloud computing creates productivity, or is a consequence of it.

The Exact 2015 SME Cloud Barometer report, an independent study of 2,975 SME leaders in the UK, the USA, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, found a correlation between companies with three or more cloud products and revenue growth. The ‘heavy users’ of cloud achieved higher revenue growth and over twice the profit of their less committed cloud users.

Penetration of cloud computing in the UK is relatively high in comparison with its European peers, according to the study. The UK has the second highest number of ‘heavy’ cloud software users (27 per cent) behind the USA on 29 per cent. However, the Netherlands, Belgium and France were not significantly behind, with their rates of cloud adoption being 25, 24 and 24 per cent respectively. Germany, with a cloud adoption rate of 10 per cent, was more significantly behind.

Nearly half (47 per cent) of the UK sample of small and medium sized enterprises SMEs now use at least one cloud business software tool.

The study examined the correlation between growth and cloud adoption and found that on average those companies it defined as heavy users enjoyed revenue growth of 26 per cent in 2015. In comparison the companies that used only one or two cloud computing systems grew revenues by an average of 14 per cent. Those with no cloud systems at all showed the slowest growth rates, with revenues on average growing by 10 per cent.

Of the UK sample, the most popular reason given (by 54 per cent of the survey) for adopting new cloud systems was that the ‘need to replace outdated versions’. Saving money on IT was the most frequently cited motivation for cloud computing among UK SMEs. Getting better access to information was the third most important criterion for cloud.

Erik van der Meijden, CEO of study sponsor Exact, claimed that most SMEs see it as a strategic purchase. “[They] said they felt that technology is going to have a strong impact on the competitive landscape in their market over the next three years,” said Meijden.

However, analyst Clive Longbottom, principal researcher at Quocirca, said the link between cloud and productivity needs more definition. “Causality is something that doesn’t seem to be taken into account here,” said Longbottom, “slow-thinking companies that are performing badly are unlikely to be at the leading edge of technology. Those that see technology as a core part of their business will tend to perform better.”

analytics as a service, app cloud, Big Data, News & Analysis, Salesforce, Software as a service

Salesforce boosts its Analytics Cloud intelligence tool

Analytics1Salesforce has added new options for users of its Analytics Cloud intelligence tool. The new ‘Wave Actions’ flash up crucial information on dashboards so that salespeople can act more incisively as crucial information reaches them faster.

The new features allow companies to create customised Wave Actions, such as creating cases, updating accounts or assigning tasks. Since Wave is natively integrated with App Cloud, the Wave Actions are automatically pushed from Wave into the corresponding Salesforce record. The system instantly identifies the type of problem that sales managers need to know about as soon as possible, according to Salesforce. When an account suffers particularly bad customer attrition, for example, a sales manager will be alerted to this pattern more rapidly. This is achieved by customising the Wave Analytics App to alert managers about patterns on sales figures (such as defecting customers) and enables them to take action more rapidly.

A new Wave Visualizations feature aims to create a consistent user experience and create a more intuitive process. Salesforce has also revamped the Analytics Cloud’s user interface in a bid to encourage users to become more adventurous in their creation of reports and dashboards. This, according to the cloud software vendor, will bring Analytics Cloud in line with the Lightning Experience design that was rolled out first for Salesforce’s Sales Cloud.

New information has also been unveiled about the use of the Analytics Cloud within the portfolio of other vendor’s software offerings. According to Salesforce there are 81 companies in the Analytics Cloud’s partner ecosystem, with 13 software companies scheduled to unveil new apps based on Analytics Cloud, including Apttus, FinancialForce, SteelBrick and Vlocity.

In its most recent earnings statement, Salesforce revealed that subscription and support revenues from Analytics Cloud were ‘not significant’ for the three and six months ending on July 31, 2015.

The addition to Analytics Cloud comes exactly one year after it was first launched. According to Salesforce, the upgrade gives Analytics Cloud a wider, more active remit than its existing role as a standalone business intelligence application.

Bomgar, News & Analysis, Privileged Access Management

Bomgar launches system to secure cloud access for VIPs without a VPN

Cloud securityCloud security vendor Bomgar has unveiled its new Privileged Access Management (PAM) system aimed at securing cloud users.

The system protects ‘super users’ (i.e. elite workers) a task which market analyst Gartner has dubbed Privileged Access (AKA Privileged Identity) management. Securing those with privileged identities can take months and even years to complete, according to Bomgar, and often involves an extensive structural re-organisation.

Bomgar’s new PAM system will simplify this by through its use of cloud access control, it claims. The latest incarnation of Bomgar’s PAM allows security professionals to manage any VIP worker’s privileged access to cloud resources. It will also make it possible to conduct forensic searches on access activity and to monitor access from mobiles.

With companies facing rising numbers of cyber attacks, the complexity of management is making companies vulnerable, according to Bomgar, with VIP workers being especially vulnerable targets. Under the circumstances, a virtual private network (VPN) can become a liability, according to Bomgar, since the VPN can be hijacked by increasingly sophisticated hackers who know how to target key individuals. In both the 2013 Target and 2015 Ashley Maddison cyber attacks, the VPNs of privileged users gave hackers a foothold within a secure network, according to Bomgar sources.

Bomgar’s new PAM 15.2 offers cloud access controls, so that security managers can close all unnecessary ports, while still giving users shell and remote screen access. It supports Windows, Redhat, CentOS, and Ubuntu Linux VMs powered by AWS, Azure and VMWare. Its forensic search systems can audit log activity data across all privileged sessions so that auditors can identify critical security events, detect cyber breaches and compile forensic evidence. The audit trails can now be integrated with behavioural analysis tools. Mobile access consoles now make it possible to chaperone users directly from their Android or Apple devices. The mobile apps support access to internal critical systems from 3G and other mobile networks without needing a VPN.

“Hackers are constantly probing, infiltrating and compromising networks,” said Dan DeRosa, Bomgar’s SVP of product management, “meanwhile, securing privileged identities can take months. Our system is designed for easy implementation and to support current access processes.”

broadcast, Cisco, infinite cloud, News & Analysis, TV, Video

Cisco claims new Infinite cloud can deliver video services in 90 days

iptv_webCisco has unveiled its new Infinite range of cloud-powered video services aimed at service providers, broadcasters and media companies. It claims the cloud could cut the delivery time for a new video service from 12 months to 90 days.

The first two services in the range to be released are Infinite Home and Infinite Video. Home will deliver linear, on-demand and time-shift TV video to any screen over two-way cable and telco networks. Infinite Video offers the same service, but is geared to cater for a variety of consumer electronics devices reached over unmanaged mobile Internet connections.

Cisco claims its new efficiencies will make the tests, trials and roll-outs of new services quicker for service providers and make service updates easier. This, claims Cisco, will improve the subscribers’ experiences, cut costs and boost revenue for broadcasters.

Broadcasters can now launch a new video service in 90 days, according to Cisco, because the networking technicalities have been dramatically simplified by the new cloud infrastructure. Once running, service improvements that once took months can now be completed in minutes, because the functions are no longer installed on individual devices, having been centralised on the cloud infrastructure. This makes addressing changes a lot less complicated and time consuming. Advances in cloud orchestration software have also helped automate and simplify configuration and activation even further, Cisco said.

With the pace of management quickening, service providers will get a faster delivery of new features. The Infinite systems will be pre-integrated and will use open-source components with open application programming interfaces.

Getting video services to market quickly is crucial to today’s video operators, said consultant Colin Dixon, digital media analyst at nScreen Media. “This is exactly the type of technological approach needed. That agility will have huge implications.”

The Infinite Home service was used in beta trials by service provider Kabel Deutschland. “The platform moves control and functions into the cloud, making it quick and easy to update and offer new services,” said user Florian Landgraf, senior VP at service provider Kabel Deutschland.

health, health cloud, IBM, News & Analysis

IBM Watson health launches to new cloud services to speed research

healthcare ITIBM has launched two new cloud services and a range of initiatives which aim to eliminate the worst bottlenecks of clinical research in the health sector.

The IBM Watson Health Cloud for Life Sciences Compliance is designed to help biomedical companies bring their inventions to market more efficiently. This system aims to speed up the process of meeting the pharmaceutical industry compliance regulations govern the hosting and access of data.

IBM Watson Care Manager is a population health system which aims to amalgamate features from IBM’s own Watson Health with Apple’s HealthKit and ResearchKit, which allows researchers to conduct studies using their iPhone. The new Care Manager system could allow medical professionals’ to consider a broad ranger of factors when working out a personalized patient engagement program.

IBM also announced partnerships with Boston Children’s Hospital, Columbia University, Icon, Sage Bionetworks and Teva Pharmaceuticals. It unveiled how the partners are using Watson’s cloud application to improve a number of health sector business processes, including drug discovery and development, personalized medicine, chronic disease management, pediatrics and digital health.

CVS Health, Medtronic, Yale University, Teva and Sage also announced the Watson Health Cloud is their organizations’ preferred development platform.

Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) has been named Watson Health’s foundational pediatrics partner, with IBM integrating its health cloud systems with the hospital’s OPENPediatrics initiative for sharing pediatric expertise. IBM and BCH will jointly develop commercial systems for personalized medicine, heart health and critical care. Another objective is to use Watson’s image analytics to help clinicians improve diagnoses for children with heart conditions. A third project involves using streaming analytics on data from patients on ventilation systems, in order to pre-empt patient decline.

Columbia University Medical Center is to test IBM Watson’s capacity to translate DNA insights into personalized treatment options for cancer patients. Meanwhile, clinical research organization Icon is to use Watson for clinical trial matching, which aims to speed up the process of screening the subjects of clinical trials. According to IBM 80 per cent of clinical trials fail due to inadequate patient enrolment and only 2 per cent of patients are eligible for trials.

“The IBM Watson Health Cloud can help us break down barriers that hamper progress in research,” said Sage Bionetworks president Stephen H. Friend.