If there’s one thing we know about Parallels Desktop for Mac users, it’s this—you love Mac! And, obviously, so does the Parallels crew. And while that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the finer points of wrangling Windows, we still have a special place in our hearts for everything Apple. So much so, in fact, that […]
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Were you busy last week? Here’s a quick tech news recap of articles you may have missed from the week of 4/6/2015.
Microsoft celebrated its 40th anniversary. A data security laps at Auburn University left personal information belonging to roughly 370,000 current, former and prospective students accessible online for months. Virginia became the first state to enact a digital identity law. The Apple Watch sold out within two hours of debuting at retail stores and online. This has pushed delivery times back until mid-June for many customers. Log Angeles has announced that it will implement cloud controlled street lighting on all 7,500 miles of roads within city limits.
How has the corporate IT Department evolved? Has your department kept pace?
By Ben Stephenson, Emerging Media Specialist
Twitter is consolidating its grip on data analytics and resellers using its data in real-time
Twitter has suspended negotiations over the future use of the social media giant’s data with big data analytics provider DataSift, sparking concerns the firm plans to shut out others in the ecosystem of data analytics providers it enables.
In a recent blog post penned by DataSift’s chief exec and founder, Nick Halstead, the company aimed to reaffirm to customers that’s its business model “never relied on access to Twitter data” and that it is extending its reach into “business-owned data.”
But, the company still attacked the social media giant for damaging the ecosystem it enables.
“Our goal has always been to provide a one-stop shop for our customers to access all the types of data from a variety of networks and be able to consume it in the most efficient way. Less noise, more actionable results. This is what truly matters to companies that deal with social data,” Halstead explained.
“The bottom line: Twitter has seriously damaged the ecosystem this week. 80% of our customers use technology that can’t be replaced by Twitter. At the end of the day, Twitter is providing data licensing, not processing data to enable analysis.”
“Twitter also demonstrated that it doesn’t understand the basic rules of this market: social networks make money from engagement and advertising. Revenue from data should be a secondary concern to distribution and it should occur only in a privacy-safe way. Better understanding of their audiences means more engagement and more ad spend from brands. More noise = less ad spend.”
DataSift was one three data resellers that enjoy privileged access to Twitter’s data in real-time – Gnip, which is now owned by Twitter, and NTT Data being the other two.
The move to strengthening its grip over the analysis ecosystem seems aimed at bolstering Gnip’s business. A similarly-timed post on Gnip’s blog by Zach Hofer-Shall, head of Twitter more or less explained that the Gnip acquisition was a “first step” towards developing a more direct relationship with data customers, which would suggest other firehose-related negotiations may likely sour in the coming months if they haven’t already (BCN reached out to NTT Data for comment).
Some have, reasonably, hit out at Twitter for effectively eating its own ecosystem and shutting down third party innovation. For instance Steven Willmott, chief executive of 3Scale, an API services vendor, said shutting down firehose access will result in niche verticals being underserved.
“While it makes sense at some level to want to be closer to the consumers of data (that’s valuable and laudable from a product perspective), removing other channels is an innovation bust. Twitter will no doubt do a great job on a range of use-cases but it’s severely damaging not to have a means to enable full firehose access for others. Twitter should really be expanding firehose access, not restricting it”
Julien Genestoux, founder of data feed service provider Superfeedr, said the recent move to cut off firehose access is not very different from what Twitter did a couple years ago when they started limiting the 3rd party client’s API accesses, and that Facebook often does much the same with partners it claims to give full data access to.
“The problem isn’t the company. The problem is the pattern. When using an API, developers are completely surrendering any kind of bargain power they have. There’s a reason we talk about slave and master in computer science. API’s are whips for web companies. This is the very tool they use to enforce a strong coupling and dependence to their platform,” he said.
While Twitter seems to be severely restricting the data reseller ecosystem it’s also redoubling its efforts to capture the hearts and minds of the enterprise developer, with coveted access to its data being placed front and centre. Twitter is working with IBM to make its data stream available to Big Blue’s clients, and in March this year IBM said it has over 100 pilots in place that see the company working with enterprises in a range of verticals to create cloud-based services integrating Twitter data and Watson analytics.
Fujitsu and Microsoft are partnering on IoT for farming and agricutlure
Fujitsu and Microsoft announced an Internet of Things partnership focused on blending the former’s devices and IoT services for agriculture and manufacturing, powered by Windows software and Azure cloud services.
The move will see the two companies offer a solution that blends Fujitsu’s Eco-Management Dashboard, an IoT service for the agricultural sector, and Microsoft’s Azure database services so that data collected from sensors deployed throughout the operations can be analysed to help firms save money and streamline processes.
The companies said the platform has uses in other sectors and can be tailored to a range of different niche verticals.
“Leveraging the Fujitsu Eco-Management Dashboard solution alongside Microsoft Azure and the Fujitsu IoT/M2M platform, we are able to deliver real-time visualisation of the engineering process for big data analytics to improve the entire production process and inform decision-making,” said Hiroyuki Sakai, corporate executive officer, executive vice president, head of global marketing at Fujitsu.
“We are proud to partner with Fujitsu to enable the next generation of manufacturing business models and services enabled by IoT along with advanced analytics capabilities like machine learning,” said Sanjay Ravi, managing director, Discrete Manufacturing Industry at Microsoft. “Fujitsu’s innovation will drive new levels of operational excellence and accelerate the pace of digital business transformation in manufacturing.”
Fujitsu has been doubling down on IoT this year, with manufacturing looking to be a strong sector for those kinds of services according to anlaysts. In January the company announced plans to expand its two core datacentres in Japan in a bid to accelerate demand for its cloud and IoT services.
The 2nd annual Internet of Things World event to be held in San Francisco in May is due to address some of the challenges ahead of the industry in terms of IoT. Sign up here.
Manufacturers are flocking to cloud services to reap operational benefits
About half of all large manufacturers globally are using or plan to use IT services based on public cloud platform in a bid to driver operational efficiency, an IDC research survey reveals.
A recently published IDC survey which polled 437 IT decision makers at large manufacturing firms globally suggests manufacturers are looking to cloud services primarily to simplify their operations.
A majority of manufacturers worldwide are currently using public (66 per cent) or private cloud (68 per cent) for more than two applications, and nearly 50 per send of European manufacturers have adopted or intend to adopt ERP in the public cloud.
But only 30 to 35 per cent of respondents said operations, supply chain and logistics, sales, or engineering were likely to benefit through adoption.
“Manufacturers are in the midst of a digital transformation, in which 3rd platform technologies are absolutely essential to the way they do business and in the products and services they provide to their customers. Consequently, a strategic approach to adopting cloud is absolutely essential,” said Kimberly Knickle, research director, IDC Manufacturing Insights.
“Because of cloud’s tremendous value in making IT resources available to the business based on business terms –speed, cost, and accessibility- manufacturers must ensure that the line of business and IT management work together in defining their requirements,” Knickle said.
The firm said manufacturers are likely to opt for private cloud platforms in the near term in a bid to expand their IT estates to the cloud, but that capacity requirements will likely eventually shift those platforms onto larger public cloud platforms. A big driver for this will be the Internet of Things, with a cloud a key component in allowing manufacturers to more easily make use of the data that will be connected from sensors throughout manufacturing operations.
(c)iStock.com/janniwet
Hybrid cloud adoption is set to triple in the next three years with economics as the primary driver, according to new research from Peer 1 Hosting.
The study, which polled over 900 IT decision makers in the UK and North America, found cutting IT costs (49%) was the biggest IT priority within their organisations. Improving processes and operational efficiencies (45%) was also a popular response.
Currently, more than half (52%) of those polled said their primary IT approach was to use private cloud, followed by 31% for on-premise, 10% for hybrid cloud, and 7% for public cloud. Respondents expect this to significantly change by 2018, with private cloud deployments at 41%, hybrid at 28%, on-prem at 17% and public at 14%.
When asked what the key challenges were in achieving IT priorities in the coming year, security (53%) was the most cited choice, followed by data protection concerns (46%), budget constraints (39%) and lack of efficiency (25%).
The results chime in alongside current sentiment about hybrid cloud deployments and architectures. It makes sense to large organisations with complex, legacy architectures, who can dip their toes into a public cloud environment. As Sean McAvan, managing director of NaviSite Europe, penned for this publication earlier in April, the idea that certain data and workloads are better suited to a private cloud infrastructure, or a physical hosted platform, makes the decision to go hybrid a popular one.
Yet security is key – VMware, who made its relatively late push into hybrid cloud in February, has a disaster recovery set for those who are still concerned about where their data resides.
Toby Owen, vice president of product at Peer 1, noted this importance. “Hybrid cloud adoption appears to be held back by concerns largely related to security and data protection,” he said in a statement. “Clearly, these are areas where businesses cannot compromise.
“As the industry responds to this, with truly scalable, flexible and controllable hybrid cloud solutions, I believe that IT decision makers will be quicker to adopt hybrid cloud than this research suggests,” he added.
“Jelastic is focused on getting people to the cloud sooner, easier, without having to go to new APIs or different standards, to give them the full benefit of the cloud right away,” explained John Derrick, CEO of Jelastic, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the 14th International Cloud Expo®, held June 10-12, 2014, at the Javits Center in New York City
What keeps an IT manager up at night? Ghosts, goblins and ghouls? Guess again. It takes more than a few measly monsters to cause a lack of sleep in today’s IT department.
IT used to exist primarily to monitor and maintain systems, protect against data breaches and malware attacks, and repair or replace computers. However, with more automation in today’s always-connected business, IT has assumed an even larger role, graduating from mere maintenance and monitoring to driving and managing numerous mission-critical processes that support core business operations. As a result, a bigger role brings bigger fears. Here is a list of the modern IT manager’s biggest fears:
The US Army has begun to use IBM’s hybrid cloud technology to process their transactions, the amount of which surpasses the amount of transactions performed on the New York Stock Exchange. This occurred last year when the Army switched its Logistics Support Activity system to a hybrid cloud.
The hybrid cloud system is used by more than 65,000 personnel to obtain, manage and maintain inventories of products needed by the troops out on the field. Utilizing a cloud to perform these functions allow the Army to better utilize the data it collects, which in turn will provide better insight and service to members. IBM claims that since the switch, the Army has seen savings of up to 50%.
With the success of the use of a hybrid cloud, the Army has now set eyes on introducing new analytical services, such as data mining, that can be rolled out to all parts of the organization. Anne Altman, general manager for US federal at IBM, has said that hybrid cloud implementation has enabled the Army to keep its existing investments in on-premise technology while also benefiting from a hybrid cloud, such as security, scalability and being able to connect to existing infrastructure.
The Army has always been a progressive adopter of promising information technologies, and other agencies and organizations are following in their footsteps. For example, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) signed a $600 million cloud contract with Amazon Web Services, which IBM lost out on. After this loss, IBM went on to gain momentum in the federal space and signed other cabinet agencies and pushing forward with a cloud data center targeting defense department workloads. This center is housed in the Navy-owned Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in West Virginia.
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Ariba today announced innovations to its cloud-based applications and global business network designed to deliver a personal, contextual and increasingly mobile-first user experience for business applications consumers.
Among the announcements are a newly designed user interface (UI) and a mobile app based on the SAP Fiori approach, both due to be available this summer, for Ariba’s core procurement, spend management, and other line of business apps. Ariba, an SAP company, made the announcements here at the Ariba LIVE conference in Las Vegas.
“This gives us a cleaner approach, more tiles, and a Fiori-like user experience,” said Chris Haydon, Ariba Senior Vice President of Product Management. “Users see all the business network elements in one dashboard, with a native UI for a common, simple experience for Ariba apps upstream and down.”