The data center industry is heading toward an inflection point that has significant impact on enterprises. It seems many aren’t looking far enough ahead, but the timeline appears to be 12-18 months, which is not that far out! The issue is a typical supply chain issue of supply, demand and timelines.
First, let’s start with a bit of background… The advent of Cloud Computing and newer technologies, are driving an increase in the number of enterprises looking to ‘get out of the data center business. I, along with others, have presented many times about ‘Death of the Data Center.’ The data center, which used to serve as a strategic weapon in an enterprise IT org’s arsenal, is still very much critical, but fundamentally becoming a commodity. That’s not to say that the overall data center services are becoming a commodity, but the facility is. Other factors, such as the geographic footprint, network and ecosystem are becoming the real differentiators. And enterprises ‘in the know’ realize they can’t compete at the same level as today’s commercial data center facility providers.
Monthly Archives: October 2013
Asigra Cloud Backup Appliance Offers Distributed Enterprise Data Recovery
Asigra Inc. has announced volume shipping of the company’s Cloud Backup Connector Appliance. The Asigra Cloud Backup Connector Appliance leverages the Cisco ISR G2 router and UCS E-Series server blade and includes the latest version of Asigra Cloud Backup software. The appliance provides onsite backup data storage and the ability to replicate to external cloud service providers at the user’s discretion for both local and remote recovery.
For globally distributed mid-market and enterprise organizations with multiple branch offices, the Asigra Cloud Connector provides more efficient use of storage and networking resources. The appliance provides a new and innovative way to bring flexible end-to-end enterprise-class data recovery to organizations. The Cloud Backup Connector appliance ensures that branch-office users receive LAN-like performance from their cloud backup application and that data is highly available and handled in a secure manner. The improved linkage of the network with Asigra cloud-enabled services contributes to increased performance and enhanced end-user experience.
“Our network had become increasingly more complex, storage was growing and our previous backup solution was struggling to keep pace,” said Simon Johnson, Finance Director at Opus Trust. By implementing the Cloud Connector Backup Appliance powered by Asigra, we simplified the infrastructure and improved the levels of data protection and recovery across all of our network and applications. We now have local backup to disk, automated offsite backup and a complete IT DR plan through the OnDemand Recovery service, implemented by Project Vision.”
“Our switch to the Cloud Backup Connector Appliance helped the company to achieve several business benefits,” said David Van Eck, Head of IT at L.K. Bennett. “Through a centralized online monitoring portal made available by our service provider, Backup Technology Ltd., we receive guaranteed backup and recovery for all of our data systems as a professional and fully managed service. The backup forms the basis for our enterprise-wide data recovery solution, which is essential to L.K. Bennett.”
The Cloud Backup Connector Appliance features:
- Asigra Cloud Backup v12.2 pre-installed for plug-and-play mass deployment and agentless protection of all computing environments
- The ability to perform standalone local backup and/or connect to the service provider of choice for offsite recovery
- End-to-end data protection of storage, servers, desktops, laptops and mobile devices (tablets and smartphones)
- High-performance data recovery across physical, virtual and cloud operating environments
- Autonomic healing to ensure data integrity/recoverability
- Enterprise-class security for regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services and government with FIPS 140-2 certification
- 2TB internal storage standard which scales to 10TB per appliance to store compressed, de-duplicated data for local recovery
- Capability to leverage external cloud service providers for offsite data recovery
- Connectivity: Three integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports with 1 port capable of RJ-45 or SFP connectivity, one service module slot, three onboard digital signal processor slots and one internal service module for application services
The failures of HealthCare.gov are symptomatic of larger issues with federal IT
Nishant Shah, Senior Analyst, Government Technology
Since its October 1 launch, HealthCare.gov – the $400m portal through which uninsured Americans are supposed to be able to enroll in Obamacare – has experienced widely reported technical problems, prompting President Obama to publicly express his anger over the situation and promise a “tech surge” to fix the site.
There have also been Congressional hearings grilling the contractors and federal Health and Human Services (HHS) staff involved. Warranted or not, rarely has an IT failure received this kind of mainstream attention from the public and the media.
If HealthCare.gov – the public-facing portion of one of the White House’s signature achievements and highest priorities – is suffering from major IT failures, one can imagine the level of systemic dysfunction that plagues non-public-facing IT projects that do not receive the same level of scrutiny. Clearly major departures from the status quo are needed, and this …
Cloud computing the most valuable IT job skill to have, says survey
Research from recruitment specialists Robert Half Technology has revealed that cloud computing is the most lucrative skill to have in the IT job market today.
Cloud topped the bill in the survey of 100 IT directors and CIOs across the UK, with 39% of respondents citing it as the most important.
Security (37%) and project management skills (33%) were the next popular, with virtualisation (29%) and network administration (27%) rounding out the top five.
Interestingly, coding and development skills were mentioned although not as popular; knowledge of C# was cited by 15% of those polled, compared to 13% who said Java.
This translates into the hiring of staff, according to the research. Nearly half (41%) of IT directors said they would hire specialist staff to support cloud initiatives, although the same number of respondents said they had enough employees for their cloud projects. More than four in five (82%) of …
Weemo to Exhibit at WebRTC Summit at Cloud Expo
SYS-CON Events announced today that Weemo, a provider of a real-time video cloud platform, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 1st WebRTC Summit, which will take place on November 6–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Weemo’s real-time video cloud platform enables software vendors, service providers and developers to easily embed video collaboration into their web and mobile applications. The Weemo platform relies on WebRTC as well as other best-of-breed technology to make real-time video available on every browser and device at a global scale.
Cloud Expo® 2013 Silicon Valley, November 4-7, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Prepare for the Surge… Before It’s Too Late
Outages, downtime, lost revenues and damaged customer trust seem to be on the rise as millions have turned to online shopping, entertainment and daily tasks. Ironically, these same recent events also highlight how cloud infrastructures, when managed correctly, actually provide unprecedented capabilities to deliver high availability, resiliency, and business continuity in IT operations.
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Rishi Vaish, VP, Product at RightScale, will describe how American Girl dealt with a major online scaling issue. They needed to launch a social game in a matter of days to meet a marketing deadline, but their architecture was not scaling properly. Hear how the American Girl team was able to build a scalable environment and launch their application into the public cloud, all in time for the catalog drop.
How to Find the Right Cloud Services Partner: Five Tips for Success
The cloud services sector is growing rapidly, particularly in the public cloud space. Market analyst IDC estimates that global spending on public cloud services will top $47 billion this year and more than double by 2017 to reach $107 billion. The analyst attributes this growth in part to a shift in focus from savings to innovation: The first wave of cloud adoption was driven by end users’ need to reduce costs and increase efficiency, whereas the next wave will focus on leveraging cloud services to expand company offerings and improve competitive positions. As the market is shaping up, both end-user companies and cloud service resellers are poised to be beneficiaries of a growing cloud services market.
Cloud Expo | Understanding Workloads: All Data Is Not Created Equal
Cloud data centers must support a full spectrum of workloads from the highest performance and lowest latency (hot) to bulk storage and archive (cool and cold) low workload applications. Balancing the right mix of storage helps data centers manage explosive petabyte growth, while efficiently managing performance, power consumption, cooling and storage space to help reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). Depending on the storage tier – hot, warm, cool or cold – each workload requires different SSDs or HDDs for meeting performance, capacity, availability, physical space and economics.
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Clint Ludeman, a Technical Product Line Manager at HGST, to discuss the key to selecting the right storage design with the right specifications for the right workload.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Ten Myths of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is transforming the way businesses think about and leverage technology. As a result, the general understanding of cloud computing has come a long way in a short time. However, there are still many misconceptions about what cloud computing is and what it can do for businesses that adopt this game-changing computing model.
In his general session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Rex Wang, Vice President of Product Marketing at Oracle, will discuss and dispel some of the common myths about cloud computing that still exist today. Attendees will learn about the flexibility and choice that the cloud can offer so that they can make more-informed decisions when choosing the cloud for their business.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Scaling Big Data in the Cloud
Need to scale your data tier? The foundation of every application is the database layer, and today application architects have more choices than ever. With these choices come new questions: Which database technology is best for your application? How can your application take advantage of Big Data technology? Can you run your relational database at Big Data scale? What does it take to implement a comprehensive data infrastructure, including your core database, incorporating SQL, No SQL and Big Data platforms?
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Cory Isaacson, CEO/CTO of CodeFutures Corporation, will answer these questions and more. You will learn exactly what it takes to scale your data tier, and how to keep it reliable – despite the challenges presented in cloud environments. You will also enjoy a quick review of the primary types of database platforms, enabling you to choose the best technology for your application challenges. We will close with a high volume social application/gaming case study, showing exactly what it takes to run a high-volume, multi-terabyte database infrastructure in the cloud.