As the software delivery industry continues to evolve and mature, the challenge of managing the growing list of the tools and processes becomes more daunting every day. Today, Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) platforms are proving most valuable by providing the governance, management and coordination for every stage of development, deployment and release. Recently, I spoke with Madison Moore at SD Times about the changing market and where ALM is headed.
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Announcing 70 New World-Class Sessions | @CloudExpo #IoT #DevOps #DigitalTransformation
How do you evaluate a cloud provider for your database platform? How do you coordinate the diverse moving parts that must come together when developing your IoT product? What are the key challenges addressed by Data as a Service? DevOps, Digital, Cloud – three separate transformative trends, or one mega-trend?
Which cloud model is right for your company? How can you turn your corporate data into dollars?
Announcing Conference Schedule for @CloudExpo | @ThingsExpo #IoT #Cloud
IoT generates lots of temporal data. But how do you unlock its value?
How do you coordinate the diverse moving parts that must come together when developing your IoT product?
What are the key challenges addressed by Data as a Service?
How does cloud computing underlie and connect the notions of Digital and DevOps
What is the impact of the API economy?
What is the business imperative for Cognitive Computing?
Get all these questions and hundreds more like them answered at the 18th Cloud Expo | @ThingsExpo June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center, in New York City, NY. The Cloud Expo | @ThingsExpo programs are now available for you to inspect and investigate in advance.
Our upcoming June 7-9 event in New York City will present a total of 10 simultaneous tracks by an all-star faculty, over three days, plus a one-day “How to Create Angular 2 Clients for the Cloud” Workshop presented by Yakov Fain, a Java Champion and a co-founder of the IT consultancy Farata Systems and the product company SuranceBay.
DevOps Talent and Challenges | @DevOpsSummit #DevOps #Microservices
With DevOps becoming more well-known and established practice in nearly every industry that delivers software, it is important to continually reassess its efficacy. This week’s top 10 includes a discussion on how the quick uptake of DevOps adoption in the enterprise has posed some serious challenges. Additionally, organizations who have taken the DevOps plunge must find ways to find, hire and keep their DevOps talent in order to keep the machine running smoothly.
Achieving a Secure Cloud Infrastructure for Enterprise SaaS Applications | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a model that has become a popular choice for deploying enterprise applications, delivering efficiencies and value to organizations in many ways. The benefits SaaS solutions deliver include not only avoiding the major resource drain and licensing costs associated with deploying business-critical software across the organization, they also relieve IT from ongoing maintenance tasks associated with on-premise deployments, such as performing upgrades, installing patches and managing availability. Moreover, SaaS can enhance flexibility and scalability for enterprise applications and workloads. Of course, while these benefits gained from adopting SaaS solutions in the enterprise are significant, they must nevertheless be balanced against potential risks. In particular, consideration must always be given as to whether cloud applications are sufficiently secure.
Quantum Delivers Greater Storage Performance | @CloudExpo @QuantumCorp #Cloud
Quantum Corp. has announced three new reference architectures to optimize key surveillance and security environments, addressing the storage challenges presented by new fixed cameras, expansions of existing security systems, and law enforcement implementations. The reference architectures provide the storage performance, capacity and accessibility that customers and integrators require at the foundation of today’s new surveillance and security installations.
Webinars Parallels Desktop for Mac Business and Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM
We would like to invite you to our monthly Webinars about Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition and Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM. Our Sales Engineers Pat Begbie for Northern Europe (in English) and Robert Rengstl for Central Europe (in German) will give you an encompassing overview about all essential details in 30 minutes and will answer all […]
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How Collaboration Humanizes the Enterprise By @SmartBear | @CloudExpo #Cloud
I’ve spent enough time walking the halls of large-ish-to-massive organizations to have formed some opinions and made some observations.
If I had to characterize the motor that drives these beasts, I’d say it is comprised of two main components: intense risk aversion and an obsession with waste elimination that sits somewhere on a spectrum between neurotic and quixotic.
Understanding the economics of the cloud – its more than just a money saver
A recent survey from Spiceworks highlighted 93% of enterprise organizations are now using at least one cloud based service within their operations, but there does seem to be a general feeling within the community that the benefits are not clearly understood.
While most early adopters of such platforms, as well as other future tech, have focused on the performance capabilities which cloud can offer, the mainstream market believes the cloud is a cost reduction tool, a point which professional services giant Deloitte disagrees with.
“The image of the cloud projected by the market is sometimes that all forms of cloud are cheaper, but it is a question of using the right tool for the right job,” said Gwil Davies, Director & Cloud Lead in the EMEA IT Infrastructure at Deloitte. “What decision makers at these organizations need to realize is that the cloud is not necessarily cheaper.”
“I think it’s more important for organizations get a real understanding of how to use the cloud and perhaps not automatically assume that moving all of their current IT into cloud is going to be the cheaper solution.”
The concept of the cloud being a cheaper alternative to traditional IT is sometimes a case of a lack of understanding of the technology itself, but also the journey on which organizations need to undertake to ensure cloud computing is being used in an effective manner. Selecting a cloud provider is only a small facet of the cloud itself, a fact which can be under-appreciated by enterprise decision makers.
“Technology is a small part of the challenge, business transformation of the organization is key to the success of the cloud,” said Davies. “You have to be really clear on the why, the what and the how. Specifically you have to have a keen eye on value. Some of the most successful cloud implementation projects generate value in new ways. These decision makers have specifically identified where clear business value can be generated. If the answer is to reduce costs, the cloud is not always the right option.”
Speaking at Cloud World Expo, Davies highlighted that a successful journey to the cloud is not one which focuses on reducing CAPEX and OPEX throughout the organization, but identifies where value can be achieved through a cloud-enabled business. Identifying where the value is, but also monitoring the progress of the project can be the difference between effective investment and throwing money away.
“There are sometimes surprises – and most organisations will need to invest in some base capabilities, before a migration of systems into the cloud can begin,” said Davies. “The business case needs to be defined around what the value of the transition is to the business – huge benefits can be realised, and often it’s not just about reducing the current cost of your IT systems.”
One conclusion which can be drawn from the aforementioned survey as well as others, is the concept of cloud computing has penetrated into the mainstream market. But the question as to whether the benefits of scalability, compute power, agility, flexibility etc. have been effectively received is less clear.
“It varies very widely (whether benefits beyond cost reduction are understood), as customers are in different stages of their cloud journey,” said Davies. “In my opinion, the cloud as a technology is one of the most transformative opportunities available to enterprise organizations in recent years. The cloud is unlocking a huge amount of value throughout the organization, which wouldn’t have been possible even two years ago. There is a huge potential to reach new customers, create new opportunities and experiences, as well as become more competitive in the market place.
Different organizations are in different places though. The starting point for organizations, who are at the investigating the cloud, and haven’t identified what the cloud means to the wider business, is mostly cost saving.”
Red Hat bets on OpenStack, DevOps and Containers in new product offerings
Red Hat has launched general availability of Red Hat Cloud Suite and Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8, leaning on wider DevOps trends within the industry.
The company claims the new offerings will assist enterprise organizations in bridging the gap between development and operations teams at the scale of cloud computing, and successfully implement a DevOps business model.
“Everyone is now aware that Uber doesn’t own a car or Facebook doesn’t generate its own content, this is nothing new, but it does highlight the digital disruption which is taking place in the industry,” said Radhesh Balakrishnan, General Manager, OpenStack at Red Hat. “These disruptions are impacting decisions on infrastructure within the organization, but also what kind of development methodology gets adopted. Customers are demanding an agile infrastructure and a Devops model to ensure they can reduce time to market and accelerate innovation within their own organization.
“When you generally look at the CIO agenda, the need to be more responsive to business needs is a priority within almost every organization by default. Given that they are viewing DevOps as a means to facilitate the change in thinking and culture, DevOps is here now and it’s not a fad which the industry has grabbed onto.
“Even internally, we have been aggressive in embracing DevOps. Our oldest business is Enterprise Linux and security updates is an area which of key value to our customers. Heartbleed was a huge issue for our customers 12 months ago, and since we are following the DevOps methodology, we were not only able to provide a patch, but we also pushed out a tool which customers can use to see if they are now compliant. None of this would have been possible without DevOps, so we are seeing the benefits internally as well.”
Red Hat is currently pinning its ambitions on the growth of OpenStack and the belief it will become the choice operating system for cloud infrastructure and the data centres of the future. The company backed the growth of Linux in a similar fashion, effectively riding the wave to its $2 billion annual sales, and is now placing the same bet on OpenStack, and its adoption throughout the industry.
The launch is based on OpenStack Kilo, the release which came out last year, combining the Red Hat cloud, DevOps and container offerings on a single cloud suite, within a private cloud environment. Keeping on the theme of ‘openness’, the tools will also be available as individual products should customers want to work with other offerings also.
Building on another industry trend, Red Hat has also prioritized containers as a technology for its service offering.
“Containers are probably the most attractive technology we at Red Hat have seen in years. Every large customer we have wants to have a conversation around containers,” said Balakrishnan. “We’re including OpenShift in the cloud suite, which is a service offering which was designed from the ground up on Docker (for container image) and Kubernetes (for orchestration layer). We are excited about the fact that we are one of the first in the industry to be bringing container technology to mainstream.
“Containers are one of the biggest priority areas for us as a company, so much so that we include container technology in our Enterprise Linux offering. It’s pervasive both in our technology as well as in our customer minds.”