Getting the most out of Big Data means unprecedented amounts of processing power and storage, a wide variety of tools and technologies, and plenty of sandbox space for data scientists to play in. Choosing whether to execute on a Big Data strategy in the cloud or on-premise is not cut-and-dry. For many companies, a thoughtful analysis often leads to a hybrid strategy.
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Paul Zolfaghari, President of MicroStrategy, will discuss how “hybrid BI” began as a strategy for complete transition into the cloud and has become a viable long-term strategy to reduce risk and deliver Big Data analytics effectively, efficiently and economically.
Monthly Archives: September 2013
Pivotal Debuts Spring IO Platform at SpringOne 2GX 2013
“Spring IO is a platform that ushers in a new era for Spring,” said Adrian Colyer, CTO of Application Fabric at Pivotal, as the Enterprise PaaS company announced today at the SpringOne 2GX 2013 conference the new Spring IO Platform with a complete set of new enhancements designed to extend the capabilities, and application development performance of the Spring foundation.
“It features significant new capabilities for developers that will increase productivity, decrease time to production through integrated DevOps capabilities, and enable new classes of applications exploiting big data, analytics, and mobile,” Colyer added.
Pivotal Debuts Spring IO Platform at SpringOne 2GX 2013
“Spring IO is a platform that ushers in a new era for Spring,” said Adrian Colyer, CTO of Application Fabric at Pivotal, as the Enterprise PaaS company announced today at the SpringOne 2GX 2013 conference the new Spring IO Platform with a complete set of new enhancements designed to extend the capabilities, and application development performance of the Spring foundation.
“It features significant new capabilities for developers that will increase productivity, decrease time to production through integrated DevOps capabilities, and enable new classes of applications exploiting big data, analytics, and mobile,” Colyer added.
Is Hosted Private Cloud the Future of Cloud Infrastructure?
Every business is different, and their infrastructure is sure to follow suit. However, just as there are standards within best practices for cloud, so too are there consistencies where cloud platforms are concerned.
When we say cloud platforms, however, we don’t mean open or closed clouds, like Rackspace versus AWS. Instead we are referring to public, private and hybrid clouds.
A recent Business Technology Roundtable blog post delved into an IDC study, finding that companies are increasingly leveraging hosted private clouds. IDC points to the hosted private cloud as the new backbone to the infrastructure services, “…transforming existing provider models for IT outsourcing, hosting infrastructure services, and other key IT industries.”
Myth Busting: Top Five Hosted Exchange Myths Busted
Maintaining email servers is a full-time job including server maintenance, filtering spam, blocking viruses, and creating backups. A hosted Exchange service frees up IT time by putting all of these tasks in the hands of the email host. Even still, the myths surrounding hosted Exchange persist. Let’s knock them out one at a time to see why Exchange might make sense for you.
Myth #1: Hosted Exchange is Only for Large Businesses
Because of the time it takes to manage an Exchange server, small businesses can take the most advantage of a third-party email system. While large businesses can also use Exchange, small business IT departments have more tasks to keep the company running. Allowing the host to manage the email servers takes much of the busy work away from IT personnel, so they can focus on more internal issues instead of maintaining servers.
Is Hosted Private Cloud the Future of Cloud Infrastructure?
Every business is different, and their infrastructure is sure to follow suit. However, just as there are standards within best practices for cloud, so too are there consistencies where cloud platforms are concerned.
When we say cloud platforms, however, we don’t mean open or closed clouds, like Rackspace versus AWS. Instead we are referring to public, private and hybrid clouds.
A recent Business Technology Roundtable blog post delved into an IDC study, finding that companies are increasingly leveraging hosted private clouds. IDC points to the hosted private cloud as the new backbone to the infrastructure services, “…transforming existing provider models for IT outsourcing, hosting infrastructure services, and other key IT industries.”
Achieving Application Portability for DevOps
Enterprise applications are increasing in complexity, with multi-tier and distributed applications being the new standards for dealing with high-volume, high-scale requirements. In many development environments, the ideal scenario is to enable DevOps teams to manage dev/test environments in public clouds, with on-demand, usage based billing model – and to ultimately deploy these complex applications in on-premises clouds. Achieving application portability between heterogeneous cloud environments is critical to achieve the productivity goals of DevOps – yet often requires time-consuming workarounds. This article will present examples of approaches employed today, including newer options for model-driven cloud management platforms with their emphasis on automating application portability and approach to eliminating cloud lock-in.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Best Practices in Scaling Cloud Architectures
Cloud scalability and performance should be at the heart of every successful internet venture. The infrastructure needs to be resilient, flexible, and fast – it’s best not to get caught thinking about architecture until the middle of an emergency, when it’s too late.
In his interactive, no-holds-barred session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Phil Jackson, Development Community Advocate at SoftLayer, dives into how to design and build-out the right cloud infrastructure.
Phil Jackson is Development Community Advocate for SoftLayer. He helps customers and partners integrate with the SoftLayer’s API. He also architects the company’s Drupal websites, writes API documentation, and maintains the developer blog. Formerly, he was a Sales Engineer building internal tools and providing technical consultation for potential and existing customers.
Jackson started his career in webhosting at Ev1Servers where he led the training department. With a passion for technology that started at a young age, he has developed skills in a variety of scripting and programming languages and enjoys sharing his knowledge with the tech community.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Advanced Analytics for All
Today when it comes to analytics it’s a choice between simplicity and power:
Experts can use automated techniques like machine learning
Analysts can manually do statistical analysis
Business users can use rudimentary visual analysis
The future is Advanced Analytics for All (AA4A) combining the power of machine learning with the simplicity of visual analysis. Cloud computing cuts the cost of such computationally expensive analysis, and makes it available to everyone over any device.
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Arijit Sengupta, CEO of BeyondCore, will discuss through real case studies how AA4A methodology is already saving lives, money and delivering invaluable insights automatically.
Is the Cloud Really Less Costly Than On-Premise?
To state the obvious, businesses of all sizes are moving their applications to the cloud or renting software as a service (SaaS) instead of licensing or buying the software outright.
The number one reason people cite is cost. Businesses large and small are under the impression they can save a bundle by moving their apps to the cloud. At the same time, companies who handle a move to the cloud badly can suffer a negative backlash from their user community.
When you consider all the cost factors, like your time, energy and risk to your business, will you save money in the long run by going with SaaS? The short answer is no.
One thing is clear: businesses will pay less up front for cloud vs. on-premise. Modern SaaS systems are rented on a pay-as-you-go basis, or might have short-term contracts. Average license fees for equivalent on-premise software range from two to three years’ worth of SaaS subscriptions. Add in 20% annual maintenance when you buy and install your own software and you are in concept paying three years’ worth of subscription revenues up front for the same tools.