Monthly Archives: June 2015

Converged Infrastructure, Datacentre, HP, News & Analysis, Paul Morgan, Vendor

HP targets hybrid cloud users with CloudSystem, Helion updates

HP has updated its CloudSystem converged infrastructure offerings

HP has updated its CloudSystem converged infrastructure offerings

HP has updated its CloudSystem platform to include its distribution of OpenStack in a converged private cloud offering. Paul Morgan, HP’s cloud head in EMEA told BCN the company is looking to broaden its support for hybrid cloud deployments.

The HP Helion CloudSystem includes all of HP’s Helion software including CloudSystem (its own private cloud software), Helion OpenStack, Helion Development Platform (it’s Cloud Foundry distribution) and HP Helion Eucalyptus (for AWS workload portability).

The offering comes in two flavours: the CS200-HC, which is being pitched as an entry-level hyper converged system aimed at SMBs and enterprises and can scale up to 32 nodes (pricing will be announced later this year but Morgan suggested the cost would float around the $2,000 mark for three years with support and maintenance); and the CS700x/700, which is cabinet-sized, aimed at larger enterprises and can scale up to 100 blade servers.

The software loaded on top comes in two versions: Foundation, which includes the Development Pack and OpenStack; and Enterprise, which ships with everything the Foundation package offers as well as OneView, Matrix, and Eucalyptus service templates, and includes more robust architecting and publishing capabilities.

The company said it has expanded support for HyperV, enhanced VMware networking, and added a number of OpenStack ancillary services under the hood including Heat (for orchestration) and Horizon (for dashboarding). It’s also added OneView – its converged infrastructure operations management software – to the mix.

“We definitely think that down the road many of the applications and workloads we see today will be hosted in the public cloud,” Morgan explained. “But in reality many of those applications don’t move over so easily. The cloud journey really does start with hybrid, which is where we think we can add value.”

Morgan said that converged offerings can help IT departments save big because they improve automation and deliver orchestration and automation without needing to radically change applications. He added that some of its customers have saved upwards of 30 to 40 per cent using its CloudSystem offerings.

“That’s where these converged offerings can play a role – in delivering all of the agility and cost savings cloud brings and which enterprises are looking for when they refresh their hardware, but not necessarily forcing them to rush off and overhaul the application landscape at the same time.”

Internet of Things, IoT, Juniper Research, M2M, News & Analysis

Juniper: Connected cars to be 20% of car market by 2019

Jupiter Research says the connected car is the fastest growing segment of the M2M market

Jupiter Research says the connected car is the fastest growing segment of the M2M market

Analyst firm Juniper Research has forecast the connected car market to grow faster than any other M2M segment and to account for a fifth of total passenger car revenue by 2019.

As part of a broader report on M2M, Juniper compares connected cars favourably to other fast-growing segments such as healthcare and retail. The firm reckons the overall M2M market will generate service revenues of over $40bn globally by 2019, which is twice the current amount.

As well as cars, Juniper believes smart metering is set to boom, fuelled by state efficiency and green initiatives, but it won’t generate the kind of revenues cars will.

“Both India and China are expected to see rapid adoption of smart metering as new metering infrastructure is installed and smart cities are created,” said Juniper analyst Anthony Cox.

Other observations include an acknowledgement of the growing importance of M&A in creating companies with the range of products and competences to create and commercialise innovative M2M and IoT products. Western markets are currently leading the way in M2M, but China is unsurprisingly set to be increasingly prominent. Lastly Juniper stressed the importance of big data analytics in getting the best out of M2M.

Amazon, Avinash Lakshman, Cassandra, Facebook, Funding, Hedvig, News & Analysis, software defined storage

Hedvig bags $18m for software-defined storage

Hedvig secured $18m this week which will help fuel expansion of its software-defined storage offering

Hedvig secured $18m this week which will help fuel expansion of its software-defined storage offering

Distributed storage platform provider Hedvig has secured $18m in a round of funding the company said will be used to double down on development and expansion.

In the cloud space storage heterogeneity can cause big performance bottlenecks – particularly in tightly integrated systems, which many applications and services are quite clearly becoming – and legacy datacentres are struggling to keep pace.

Hedvig, which came out of stealth earlier this year and was founded by former Facebook and Amazon NoSQL and storage specialist Avinash Lakshman (also the brains behind Cassandra), offers a highly scalable storage platform (block, file and object) that the company says provides fully programmable, highly granular storage provisioning – software-defined storage in other words.

The platform supports pretty much every hypervisor or Linux container service above it, and uses REST-based APIs so cloud users can tap into the platform in a fairly straightforward way.

The investment round, which brings the total amount raised by the firm to just over $30m, was led by Vertex Ventures with participation from existing investors True Ventures and Atlantic Bridge. As part of the deal Vertex Ventures General Partner In Sik Rhee will be joining Hedvig’s board of directors.

“We’ve identified the potential in a broken and fragmented storage market, and are not only looking to bring software-defined storage mainstream, but fundamentally change how companies store and manage data,” Lakshman said.

“Riding the wave of momentum from our recent company launch, this new investment round further validates our technology and approach, and will fuel our unwavering commitment to be the leading force of innovation in software-defined storage.”

Hedvig’s success comes at a time of rising popularity of the concept of the software-defined datacentre, which sees the orchestration of almost everything – storage, compute, networking – through software.

diagnostics, Enterprise IT, Internet of Things, Komatsu, M2M, mining, News & Analysis

Telstra, Komatsu sign $23m cloud, IoT deal

Komatsu is tapping Telstra for its cloud, comms and M2M strategy

Komatsu is tapping Telstra for its cloud, comms and M2M strategy

Telstra inked a deal with mining and construction equipment provider Komatsu to help the company deploy and manage its ICT and IoT strategy over the next three years.

The deal, valued at $23m, is an extension of a move in 2010 to on-board Komatsu’s applications onto Telstra’s cloud platform.

As part of the latest agreement Telstra will provide the core telecoms (voice, data and mobile) and ICT services (IoT and cloud infrastructure services) to Komatsu. The company said it is building on a recent M2M trial which it said enabled a ‘zero touch’ remote download of performance diagnostic data from more than 700 pieces of its equipment on mine sites.

The company said being able to access and analyse the data from inSite Centre in Sydney in real-time removed the need to take the equipment out of the field to download data, resulting in improved fleet and production efficiency.

“From the beginning of our cloud journey with Telstra, the focus has been on giving more time back to the business so we can innovate and adapt, and not worry about IT. This new agreement will be an extension of our collaborative relationship and will ensure we continue to lead our category within the mining sector,” said Ian Harvison, chief information officer at Komatsu.

“Telstra understands where we’ve come from and more importantly where we want to take our business, and we feel very confident that our technology and business is future proofed to allow us to compete in a continually evolving and competitive landscape.”

Sean Taylor, Komatsu Australia’s managing director and chief executive said: “We’re committed to business innovation and staying one step ahead of our customer’s needs – and it’s only through relationships with key partners like Telstra that this is possible. We’re excited about the next phase in our ICT strategy and look forward to many more years of innovation.”

Coupa, Financials, Funding, News & Analysis, Rob Bernshteyn, Spend management

Coupa closes $80m funding to bolster financials in the cloud

Coupa secured $80m in its latest funding round

Coupa secured $80m in its latest funding round

Cloud-based provider Coupa has secured $80m in a funding round led by T. Rowe Price Associates and Iconiq Capital, bringing total investment raised by the startup to $165m.

Premji Invest, Crosslink Capital, Battery Ventures, El Dorado Ventures and Rally Ventures also participated with the latest funding round.

“This financing allows Coupa to continue investing in our go-to-market capacity and further expand our market-leading product portfolio and cloud innovations,” said Rob Bernshteyn, chef executive of Coupa.

“With our cloud spend management solutions we are redefining the value software should deliver to businesses and changing how customers define success from enterprise software solutions. We’re thrilled to have this roster of investors backing us as we grow our leadership and continue bringing our unique Savings-as-a-Service offering to the world’s most successful companies,” Bernshteyn added.

The spend-management provider said it plans to use the capital to bolster its global operations including sales, support and marketing.

Coupa said it wants to help “consumerise B2B commerce” for firms and their suppliers and make spend management simple, and the company seems to be enjoying a reasonable amount of success at convincing some of the largest firms – some of its customers include Salesforce, one of the largest Coca Cola bottlers in America, Royal Bank of Canada and BNP Paribas North America. It also claims more than $120bn in spend has passed through its platform to date.

Over the past year the company has focused on building out integrations and partnerships with ERP providers, announcing a deal with NetSuite in October 2014 for instance. Spend management software has long been high on the priority list of larger legacy incumbents. In 2012 for instance SAP bought cloud-based cash flow and expense management provider Ariba for $4.3bn, the same year Oracle introduced its own cloud-based expense management offering.

Citrix, Download XenApp, Parallels 2X RAS, Parallels 2X Remote Application server, Parallels Business Solutions, Remote Application Server

With Parallels 2X RAS, There’s No Need to Download XenApp

With the recent announcement of the End of Life (EOL) of Citrix virtualization products, a debate has started on the feasibility of downloading Citrix software or moving on to a more affordable alternative. Citrix offers virtualization solutions through multiple products: XenApp virtualizes applications, allowing easy centralized publication; XenDesktop enables you to publish virtual desktops; and […]

The post With Parallels 2X RAS, There’s No Need to Download XenApp appeared first on Parallels Blog.

Parallels Desktop for Mac, refresh Windows VM, run windows on mac

How to “Refresh” Your Windows VM in Parallels Desktop

Guest blog by Sergei Bobrovnik, Parallels Support Team Sometimes Windows hangs, freezes, or works slowly. Sometimes you can’t install an application, use the Internet, or errors start popping up. There are many different issues that can bar you from enjoying the performance of your Windows virtual machine or PC. These problems may be signs that some of the […]

The post How to “Refresh” Your Windows VM in Parallels Desktop appeared first on Parallels Blog.

Cloud Services, Cloud Technology

Coupa Closes $80 Million Financing Round

Coupa Software is the leading provider of cloud-based financial software, with over 500 customers in over 40 countries. Coupa provides a suite of true cloud applications for finance, including accounts payable, sourcing, procurement and expense management that allows customers to see a return on their investment within a few months as well as reduce their costs.

 

Coupa Software announced the closing of an $80 million investment round led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Iconiq Capital, with participation from Premji Invest as well as existing investors. Their total capital raises have now reached more than $165 million in aggregate.

 

Coupa plans to use the raised capital to further expand their global operations, grow sales, support and marketing worldwide, and increase product development to meet the evolving needs of global enterprises. One of their investors commented that they believe Coupa is delivering a disruptive force in the market with cloud innovations that are helping to redefine the value enterprise software delivers to businesses through creating business value for their customers and respective suppliers with an Open Business Network approach and Savings-as-a-Service offering.

 

coupa-software

 

The market opportunity for cloud spend management solutions, and therefore Coupa as well, is continuing to scale. Coupa paved the way for cloud-based spend management solutions and remains a leading pure play cloud provider offering an Open Business Network free of fees. They have taken the wheel of consumerizing B2 commerce for companies and suppliers.

 

Coupa was created based on the vision of delivering real, measurable customer success. This includes saving customers money and boosting profitability, earnings per share, and stock price. The software makes all of these things tangible and measurable.

 

Other benefits from the use of Coupa’s software include: seeing results sooner than with other software, consumerized user experience that leads to greater adoption, increased real-time visibility and control of spend across a global enterprise and purchase orders and invoices processed in days instead of weeks or months

The post Coupa Closes $80 Million Financing Round appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

Uncategorized

Enterprise recognises need to move from public storage to private cloud

(c)iStock.com/nadla

Employees at more than half (55%) of organisations use public file, sync and share (FSS) services. Yet almost three quarters (73%) said they were looking for or had implemented an alternative, according to a new report from CTERA.

More than half (59%) of that number said they favoured a private cloud FSS solution run either on hosted infrastructure or in their own data centre.

35% of organisations have experienced corporate data leakage in 2014 as a result of employees sharing files via usually unsanctioned FSS services. The key cause of driving enterprise file sync and share (EFSS) solutions is naturally security, as well as improved collaboration between internal and external users, and increased need for file access through mobile devices.

“To the enterprise’s credit, the vast majority of organisations are pursuing alternatives to consumer-grade file sharing services that carry security threats and legal risks that companies simply cannot afford,” the report notes.

The most interesting aspect of the report involved the usage and uptake of cloud storage gateways, a network appliance or server which translates storage APIs to block-based storage protocols in order to lower monthly charges and boost data security. Almost seven in 10 organisations have implemented or considered cloud storage gateways – the key reasons for this include off-site storage and universal access (71%), cost savings (71%), and minimising IT overhead (56%). Of that number, 33% of respondents had implemented a cloud storage gateway, with 36% considering it.

Naturally, this is a concern which has been raised by cloud storage providers such as Dropbox and Box, who implement their own enterprise solutions. Last week, Box announced it was working with the US Department of Justice in a major customer win, while Dropbox’s partnerships with Microsoft in recent months have been indicative of a need to beef up its enterprise presence.

“The report highlights the growing interest and need for enterprise-grade, private cloud storage solutions that empower companies with more visibility and control over FSS services,” CTERA concludes. “By providing added security with full integration into organisations’ existing storage and IT infrastructure, these services are also improving the end-user experience – a combination that effectively can put an end to rogue FSS usage.”

You can read the full report here.

Altera, Brian Krzanich, Intel, Internet of Things, IoT, John Daane, M&A, News & Analysis

Intel joins IoT M&A frenzy with $17bn Altera acquisition

Intel is buying Altera for $17bn to strengthen its position in IoT

Intel is buying Altera for $17bn to strengthen its position in IoT

Chip giant Intel has wasted little time in joining the recent flurry of semiconductor M&A activity by acquiring embedded chip company Altera for $16.7 billion, reports Telecoms.com.

Altera specialises FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays), which essentially are chips that can be reconfigured, making them useful for dynamic embedded environments such as software defined radio and whatever the Internet of Things eventually serves up. Intel believes this kind of technology can help it in the embedded space, where it often struggles to compete with more power efficient ARM-based products.

“With this acquisition, we will harness the power of Moore’s Law to make the next generation of solutions not just better, but able to do more,” said Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel. “Whether to enable new growth in the network, large cloud data centers or IoT segments, our customers expect better performance at lower costs. This is the promise of Moore’s Law and it’s the innovation enabled by Intel and Altera joining forces.”

“We believe that as part of Intel we will be able to develop innovative FPGAs and system-on-chips for our customers in all market segments,” said John Daane, President, CEO of Altera. “Together, we expect to drive meaningful value for our customers, partners and employees around the world.”

Intel has been getting serious about IoT for some time, especially when it became apparent how difficult getting into the smartphone market would be for it. Back in 2009 it bought embedded software company Wind River and it has recently broken out its IoT activities into a distinct reporting unit. Together with other acquisitions, such as cellular modem company Infineon, Intel is amassing a portfolio of silicon capabilities that could be combined into some highly versatile chips – just what you need when looking to future proof your embedded technology.