As organizations shift towards IT-as-a-service models, the need for managing and protecting data residing across physical, virtual, and now cloud environments grows with it. Commvault can ensure protection, access and E-Discovery of your data – whether in a private cloud, a Service Provider delivered public cloud, or a hybrid cloud environment – across the heterogeneous enterprise.
In his general session at 18th Cloud Expo, Randy De Meno, Chief Technologist – Windows Products and Microsoft Partnerships at Commvault, discussed how to cut costs, scale easily, and unleash insight with CommVault software, the only singular data and information management solution for cloud data protection and beyond.
Monthly Archives: June 2016
University of Colorado Selects @FORTRUST for Data Center Services | @CloudExpo #Cloud #DataCenter
University of Colorado Athletics has selected FORTRUST, Colorado’s only Tier III Gold certified data center, as their official data center and colocation services provider, FORTRUST announced today.
A nationally recognized and prominent collegiate athletics program, CU provides a high quality and comprehensive student-athlete experience. The program sponsors 17 varsity teams and in their history, the Colorado Buffaloes have collected an impressive 28 national championships.
Maintaining uptime for CU Athletics is a critical component in fostering national team support, community involvement and fundraising capital for the program.
Why the healthcare industry’s move to cloud computing is accelerating
(c)iStock.com/wasja
Physicians are targeting breast and ovarian cancer through research that crunches massive amounts of information from more than 2,000 DNA sequences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The data set is gigantic — more than 100 terabytes — and the analysis happens aboard a secure cloud-based platform through Amazon Web Services.
“By using AWS, we can store source files securely and cost-effectively with significant durability and accessibility,” one of the researchers said. “We wouldn’t be able to conduct our research without it.”
The case illustrates several reasons the healthcare industry’s use of the cloud is growing aggressively. As Mount Sinai researchers hunt for the genetic causes of these cancers, their research platform helps them meet three key needs: The platform is secure, maintaining the confidentiality of patient information; it is scalable, allowing economic growth as the data set increases and performance needs change; and it is collaborative, enabling researchers to work with external partners.
These needs drove $3.73 billion in healthcare spending on cloud services last year and will push that number nearly threefold to $9.5 billion by 2020. Cloud-based computing is on the rise in healthcare as physicians, hospital administrators, and patients demand cost efficiency, access to information, and security.
The tipping point is here
Two years ago, healthcare professionals largely depended on cloud-based solutions for back-office needs, such as email and data storage, or supporting the secure exchange of patient information. A survey of 105 healthcare industry IT and leadership professionals this year shows the use case is expanding quickly.
For example, 59% of respondents said they’re using or planning to use cloud solutions for big data analysis, as in the Mount Sinai case. Virtual care, or telemedicine, is expected to explode in the next few years as researchers note that 70% of routine doctor visits don’t require face-to-face interaction. Virtual care will become commonplace, with 80 percent of patient interactions relying on the Internet of Things and big data — which both benefit from cloud computing solutions — to bolster patient care by 2021.
Meanwhile, 73% of industry professionals will use the cloud to host patient empowerment tools — another key driver toward the cloud. This means healthcare providers are increasingly using cloud-based applications to put resources into the hands of patients that will allow them to educate themselves, monitor their own health, and store and share their health records.
SweetSpot Diabetes Care is doing just that with a cloud-based application that empowers diabetics to take greater control of their glucose data. The company’s application takes data from a variety of web-enabled metering devices and lets patients analyse, store, and share their glucose data with healthcare professionals in a format that’s easy to evaluate.
Why is the cloud so critical?
Of all their options, why are healthcare organisations choosing the cloud to address their needs? Cloud-based applications can easily scale up or down as demand changes; from a development perspective, they’re flexible and accessible. They can be updated centrally and rolled out from their test environment easily. They can potentially perform better on cloud platforms dispersed around the country or the world, improving access.
That flexibility extends to include collaboration, creating increased opportunity. Big companies can partner with smaller innovators or third-party developers to execute on business and customer engagement strategies in a secure, agile, and cost-efficient environment.
And, yes, it certainly comes down to cost in the end.
Today’s healthcare IT professionals are under pressure to shift from capital-intensive technology investments to operational expenses that offer flexibility and center on their core business. Healthcare leaders want to funnel capital into cash flow-generating activities that allow them to deliver improved outcomes. Cloud computing lets healthcare organisations focus on healthcare rather than data centers, digital real estate to house them, and skilled professionals to maintain and operate them.
What about the future?
The explosion in the healthcare industry’s reliance on cloud-based computing — coupled with the industry’s need to be flexible, collaborative, and consumer-focused — means that healthcare will inevitably adopt new ways of utilising the cloud. This leads to several predictions about emerging trends.
- More patient-clinician interaction: Look for more two-way communication between healthcare providers and patients as care is increasingly delivered through mobile devices, wearable technology, instant alerts, and digital healthcare reminders.
- Records in real time: Connected devices will give both patients and healthcare professionals real-time access to health records, painting a more holistic picture of our health as it happens. The trend could also give us the benefit of information aggregated from a population level, exposing community and public healthcare issues more quickly.
- More ownership of our data: Expect developers to create tools to help individuals take more ownership of their own health and connect their experiences with schools, government organisations, legislative bodies, and beyond. Think of it as a virtual health information exchange.
The cloud is a highly effective platform for healthcare organisations to leverage, made more relevant by the industry’s evolution toward a consumer-driven approach to care and its need for greater collaboration to serve long-term growth.
Creating innovative, agile, and collaborative cloud environments for healthcare in which all players can participate helps to simplify, organise, and streamline its many moving parts. With cloud-based solutions, organisations can stop fretting over the small stuff and start focusing on improving the big picture for their patients.
Iliad undercuts Microsoft, Google and AWS in cloud storage wars
French telco Iliad has challenged the cloud storage market through its Online.net subsidiary, undercutting the standing players in the market, reports Telecoms.com.
The new product offering, C14, was launched under the radar as the team has not made a public announcement to date, but simply added a new page onto its website. C14 targets the long-term storage market, aiming to engage customers who do not need immediate access to data and will be aiming to use the service for years, if not decades.
“C14 is designed to store huge volume of data for long term, like digital archiving, digital long term preservation, logs storage, pictures, videos, backups, disaster recovery plan… Why not backup all your Hadoop cluster for a few euros?” the company states on the website.
“Your important data are encrypted AES-256 and replicated many times then stored in our 25 meters deep underground fallout shelter, located in Paris, with no known natural, technological and military risks. We offer a very high software and physical security and comes with 8 compliance certifications and can be used for medical, military and bank data and fit all requirements of disaster recovery plan needs.”
While the storage market is a congested arena for the moment, the Online.net team have seemingly pinned hope of success on price as opposed to a unique selling point. The team claim C14 offers the lowest TCO on the market, undercutting the likes of AWS’ Glacier offering, OVH PCA Object Storage and also GoogleCloud Nearline. Only the Blackblaze enterprise offering is cheaper than C14, assuming all the figures are accurate.
Intel reported to be looking for security exit
Almost six years after purchasing antivirus specialists McAfee, Intel is reported to be in the market to sell off its security arm, according to the FT.com.
Intel has yet to make a comment on the speculation, though those close to the deal expect it to be one of the largest in the security sector to date. The company initially announced the McAfee acquisition in August 2010 for $7.6 billion at a time where the concept of IoT was beginning to gain traction, and the size of the online security challenge was being realized.
“With the rapid expansion of growth across a vast array of Internet-connected devices, more and more of the elements of our lives have moved online,” said Paul Otellini, who was serving as Intel CEO at the time of the acquisition. “In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences.”
While the introduction of cloud computing has provided smaller business and entrepreneurs a platform to innovate and challenge the tech giants, Intel are one of a number of organizations who have had to evolve their own proposition to remain relevant in the cloud-enabled world. Back in April, CEO Brian Krzanich outlined the long-term Intel strategy, which was split into five areas; cloud technology, IoT, memory and programmable solutions, 5G and developing new technologies under the concept of Moore’s law. While the security business unit is one of the larger within the Intel portfolio, security was not mentioned in the announcement.
The new strategy intends to move Intel away from the PC market place, as declining sales have continued to impact the business. Despite reporting year-on-year growth of 7% during the last quarterly earnings call, this was not enough to deter the company from announcing 12,000 job cuts, equivalent to 11% of the global workforce.
“Our results over the last year demonstrate a strategy that is working and a solid foundation for growth,” said Krzanich, who is leading the company’s shift away from client computing and towards IoT and the cloud. “The opportunity now is to accelerate this momentum and build on our strengths. These actions drive long-term change to further establish Intel as the leader for the smart, connected world. I am confident that we’ll emerge as a more productive company with broader reach and sharper execution.”
Security is an area which is seemingly gaining traction in the venture capitalist arena, as there have been numerous deals announced in recent months. Blue Coat was acquired by Symantec earlier this month from majority shareholder Bain Capital for $4.65 billion, with Bain Capital agreeing to reinvest $750 million, and Silver Lake committing to an additional investment of $500 million. Vista Equity Partners has also agreed to purchase identify management company Ping Identity for an undisclosed sum.
How IoT, big data analytics and cloud continue to be high priorities for developers
(c)iStock.com/ismagilov
- 56.4% of developers are building robotics apps today.
- 45% of developers say that Internet of Things (IoT) development is critical to their overall digital strategy.
- 27.4% of all developers are building apps in the cloud today.
- 24.7% are using machine learning for development projects.
These and many other insights are from the Evans Data Corporation Global Development Survey, Volume 1 (PDF, client access) published earlier this month. The methodology was based on interviews with developers actively creating new applications with the latest technologies. The Evans Data Corporation (EDC), International Panel of Developers, were sent invitations to participate and complete the survey online. 1,441 developers completed the survey globally. Please see page 17 of the study for additional details on the methodology.
Key takeaways from the study include the following:
- Big data analytics developers are spending the majority of their time creating Internet of Things (IoT). The second-most popular big data analytics applications are in professional, scientific and technical services (10%), telecommunications (10%), and manufacturing (non-computer related) (9.6%). The following graphic provides an overview of where Big Data analytics developers are investing their time building new applications.
- Robotics (56.4%), Arts, Entertainment and Recreation (56.3%), and Automotive (52.9%) are the three most popular industries data mining app developers are focusing on today. Additional high priority industries include telecommunications (48.3%), Internet of Things (47.1%) and manufacturing (46.7%). A graphic from the study is shown below for reference.
- Nearly one-third (27.4%) of all app developers globally are planning to build new apps on the cloud. 66.9% expect to have a new cloud app within 12 months. Overall, 81.3% of all developers surveyed are building cloud apps today. The following graphic compares developers’ predicted timeframes for cloud app development over the next two years.
- Better security (51.9%), more reliability (42%) and better user experience (41%) are the top three areas that motivate developers to move to new cloud platforms. Additional considerations include a better breadth of services (39.4%), networking and data center speed (37.8%), better pricing options (37.5%), better licensing structures (34.6%) and completeness of vision (30.9%). The following graphic compares the key factors that most motivate developers to switch cloud platforms.
- 45% of developers say that Internet of Things (IoT) development is very important to their overall digital strategy. 7% say that IoT is somewhat important to their digital strategy. The study also found that 29.5% of all developers are creating Internet of Things (IoT) apps today. The following graphic illustrates the relative level of importance of IoT to developers’ digital strategies.
- 41% say that cognitive computing and artificial intelligence (AI) are very important to their digital strategies. In speaking with senior executives at services firms, the opportunity to provide artificial intelligence-based services using a subscription model is gaining momentum, with many beginning to fund development projects to accomplish this on a global scale.
- Most frequently created machine learning apps include those for the Internet of Things (11.4%), Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (10%), and Manufacturing (9.4%) industries. Additional industries include telecommunications (8.3%), utilities/energy (8.1%), robotics (7.2%) and finance or insurance (6.8%). The following graphic breaks out the industries where machine learning app development is happening today.
- The majority of developers (84.2%) say that analytics is important for enabling their organisations to operate today. Of that group, 45.7% say that analytics are very important for their organisations to attain their goals.
Hyper-converged Infrastructure vs Converged Infrastructure
Hyper-coverged Infrastructure Hyper-converged infrastructure is the latest buzz in IT circles. Thanks to virtualization and cloud computing technology, businesses are now able to integrate multiple IT components into a single entity to remove silos, optimize costs, and improve productivity. Converged and hyper-converged infrastructures provide this flexibility to businesses. This article looks at the differences between […]
The post Hyper-converged Infrastructure vs Converged Infrastructure appeared first on Parallels Blog.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley ‘Call for Papers’ Now Open | @CloudExpo #Cloud
The 19th International Cloud Expo has announced that its Call for Papers is open. Cloud Expo, to be held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, brings together Cloud Computing, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps, Digital Transformation, Microservices and WebRTC to one location.
With cloud computing driving a higher percentage of enterprise IT budgets every year, it becomes increasingly important to plant your flag in this fast-expanding business opportunity. Submit your speaking proposal today!
Meeting Today’s Data Security Imperative | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Organizations are experiencing a new emphasis when it comes to cybersecurity. They are moving from securing the perimeter to securing the data within it, which is the result of the proliferation of connected devices in organizations today: smartphones, tablets and the IoT. Organizations used to focus their efforts on keeping attackers outside the perimeter, because just a few years ago, the network perimeter was much more static and limited. Today, the perimeter is everywhere – and constantly moving.
[slides] Business Imperative for Cognitive Computing | @CloudExpo #CognitiveComputing
Cognitive Computing is becoming the foundation for a new generation of solutions that have the potential to transform business. Unlike traditional approaches to building solutions, a cognitive computing approach allows the data to help determine the way applications are designed. This contrasts with conventional software development that begins with defining logic based on the current way a business operates.
In her session at 18th Cloud Expo, Judith S. Hurwitz, President and CEO of Hurwitz & Associates, Inc., put cognitive computing into perspective with its value to the business. The session detailed what it takes to build a cognitive application and the types of solutions that are the best fit for this data-driven approach.