To manage complex web services with lots of calls to the cloud, many businesses have invested in Application Performance Management (APM) and Network Performance Management (NPM) tools. Together APM and NPM tools are essential aids in improving a business’s infrastructure required to support an effective web experience… but they are missing a critical component – Internet visibility.
Monthly Archives: February 2017
Announcing @CAinc “Platinum Sponsor” of @CloudExpo NY and CA | #DevOps
SYS-CON Events announced today that CA Technologies has been named “Platinum Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 20th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, and 21st International Cloud Expo, which will take place in November in Silicon Valley, California.
LeaseWeb Exhibited at @CloudExpo NY and CA | @LeaseWebUSA #DataCenter
SYS-CON Events announced today that LeaseWeb USA, a cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider, will exhibit at the 19th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 1–3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. LeaseWeb is one of the world’s largest hosting brands. The company helps customers define, develop and deploy IT infrastructure tailored to their exact business needs, by combining various kinds cloud solutions.
AWS is still the king
Amazon Web Services (AWS) reinforced its position as the continuing leader of the cloud market when it announced the fourth quarter results of 2016. During this time, sales from its cloud business touched a whopping $14 billion, signaling a 47 percent jump in its earnings. Though it was slight lower than expected, as analysts had predicted a revenue of $3.6 billion, it nevertheless is twice the growth of the company as a whole.
To give you a perspective, Amazon’s North American segment posted an earnings of $2.36 billion, which is lower than the earnings from AWS. Also, the operating profit of AWS increased by 25 percent, and this looks huge when compared to the paltry increase of 2.95 percent by the North American segment of its business.
Much of this growth can be attributed to the fact that almost every company in the Silicon Valley, starting from small businesses to giants use cloud in one form or the other, and they all seem to prefer to AWS because of its sprawling infrastructure. Many companies in other fields that are not based in the Silicon Valley are also looking to move their operations to AWS, with Capital One Financial and Workday being the latest to join this bandwagon.
Amazon’s total net income was $2.4 billion, resulting in an earnings of $4.99 per share. The overall revenue for 2016 increased by 27 percent to $136 billion, compared to a total revenue of $107 billion in 2015. The operating income was $1.3 billion during the last quarter of 2016, while it was $1.1 billion during the same time the previous year.
It’s no brainer to understand why its cloud segment had such a stellar performance. Besides the ever-increasing demand for cloud services, AWS introduced more than 1,000 new services and features in 2016, as against 700 in 2015. It also offered seven price cuts in the fourth quarter, and this made AWS cheap and accessible to many small and medium businesses.
In addition to this excellent performance by AWS, the company also showed a positive outlook for the upcoming year. In fact, Amazon as a whole feel confident about achieving higher growth levels in subsequent years. To this end, the company announced that it will create more than 100,000 full-time jobs in the US within the next 18 months, and this will include positions spanning across different education and skill levels. It also hinted that these new jobs will spans across the entire country, and not just within a specific region, thereby signaling that it is eyeing a country-wide expansion.
As for its cloud arm, AWS has announced that many companies like Matson, McDonald’s and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) have agreed to move tens of thousands of applications to its cloud over the next few years, and this means, more revenue for the company in 2017 and beyond. It also plans to open 11 new centers spread across the US, Canada, India, Korea and the UK.
All this surely points to an amazing year for AWS!
The post AWS is still the king appeared first on Cloud News Daily.
AWS hits $3.5bn in revenue for Q416, takes on ‘surge’ from Microsoft, IBM, and Google
(c)iStock.com/Prykhodov
Amazon Web Services (AWS) hit $3.54 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2016, representing an almost 50% increase from this time last year, according to Amazon’s latest financial results.
The cloud infrastructure leader earned $926m in operating profit at a 26% margin, while its annual operating profit margin was at more than 25%. Third quarter revenue for AWS was $3.2bn, while overall Amazon revenue was at $43.7bn.
The press release across all of Amazon’s portfolio has a full 38 bullet points in the ‘highlights’ section – go on, count them yourself – with AWS being mentioned 51 times in total. Customer highlights included Workday, whose migration was announced at Re:Invent in November, Capital One, and Matson, which this publication covered last month.
AWS meanwhile ‘continues to grow, and enterprise customers have committed to migrating tens of thousands of applications’, the company noted. Speaking to analysts, and fielding a question around the impact of AWS price cuts in November, Brian Olsavsky, Amazon SVP and chief financial officer, said the company was ‘very happy’ with the response from customers.
“I feel we’ve got a very broad base of customers from startups to small medium businesses to large enterprises to the public sector,” he said, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha. “We’re continuing to see strong growth across all those sectors.”
With all of the market leaders having now declared their fourth quarter results, it is worth examining AWS’ results with the competing players. IBM said its fourth quarter cloud revenues had gone up 33% to $4.2bn, Microsoft said Azure revenue went up 95% in constant currency, while Alphabet’s ‘other revenue’ bucket went up 62% to $3.4bn in the most recent quarter.
This, roughly translated, means while AWS continues to maintain its strong leadership, Microsoft, Google, and IBM are snapping at the incumbent’s heels – and according to figures released by Synergy Research yesterday, this means bad news for companies further down the table.
Comparing Q4s of 2016 and 2015 (above), Synergy sees minimal change in the 40% market share for AWS – if anything, ever so slightly down – while Microsoft, Google and IBM go up 5% to break the 20% threshold between them. The next 10 players, who include Alibaba and Oracle – Synergy says these two firms are bucking trend and growing at ‘impressive’ rates – do not have 20% share between them.
How best to sum this up? A recent Quartz article, published before Amazon declared, said AWS was the “financial life preserver that Amazon desperately needs”, and cited the fact it was still growing, but not as quickly as before. Synergy’s figures confirm this is the case, although it is a drop in the ocean in comparison.
“While a few cloud providers are growing at extraordinary rates, AWS continues to impress as a dominant market leader that has no intention of letting its crown slip,” said Synergy chief analyst and research director John Dinsdale. “Achieving and maintaining a leadership position in this market takes huge ongoing investments in infrastructure, a continued expansion in the range of cloud services offered, strong credibility with the large enterprise sector, consistently strong execution, and the wholehearted and long-term backing of senior management.
“AWS is checking all of those boxes and any serious challengers need to do likewise.”
AWS hits $3.5bn in revenue for Q416, takes on ‘surge’ from Microsoft, IBM, and Google
(c)iStock.com/Prykhodov
Amazon Web Services (AWS) hit $3.54 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2016, representing an almost 50% increase from this time last year, according to Amazon’s latest financial results.
The cloud infrastructure leader earned $926m in operating profit at a 26% margin, while its annual operating profit margin was at more than 25%. Third quarter revenue for AWS was $3.2bn, while overall Amazon revenue was at $43.7bn.
The press release across all of Amazon’s portfolio has a full 38 bullet points in the ‘highlights’ section – go on, count them yourself – with AWS being mentioned 51 times in total. Customer highlights included Workday, whose migration was announced at Re:Invent in November, Capital One, and Matson, which this publication covered last month.
AWS meanwhile ‘continues to grow, and enterprise customers have committed to migrating tens of thousands of applications’, the company noted. Speaking to analysts, and fielding a question around the impact of AWS price cuts in November, Brian Olsavsky, Amazon SVP and chief financial officer, said the company was ‘very happy’ with the response from customers.
“I feel we’ve got a very broad base of customers from startups to small medium businesses to large enterprises to the public sector,” he said, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha. “We’re continuing to see strong growth across all those sectors.”
With all of the market leaders having now declared their fourth quarter results, it is worth examining AWS’ results with the competing players. IBM said its fourth quarter cloud revenues had gone up 33% to $4.2bn, Microsoft said Azure revenue went up 95% in constant currency, while Alphabet’s ‘other revenue’ bucket went up 62% to $3.4bn in the most recent quarter.
This, roughly translated, means while AWS continues to maintain its strong leadership, Microsoft, Google, and IBM are snapping at the incumbent’s heels – and according to figures released by Synergy Research yesterday, this means bad news for companies further down the table.
Comparing Q4s of 2016 and 2015 (above), Synergy sees minimal change in the 40% market share for AWS – if anything, ever so slightly down – while Microsoft, Google and IBM go up 5% to break the 20% threshold between them. The next 10 players, who include Alibaba and Oracle – Synergy says these two firms are bucking trend and growing at ‘impressive’ rates – do not have 20% share between them.
How best to sum this up? A recent Quartz article, published before Amazon declared, said AWS was the “financial life preserver that Amazon desperately needs”, and cited the fact it was still growing, but not as quickly as before. Synergy’s figures confirm this is the case, although it is a drop in the ocean in comparison.
“While a few cloud providers are growing at extraordinary rates, AWS continues to impress as a dominant market leader that has no intention of letting its crown slip,” said Synergy chief analyst and research director John Dinsdale. “Achieving and maintaining a leadership position in this market takes huge ongoing investments in infrastructure, a continued expansion in the range of cloud services offered, strong credibility with the large enterprise sector, consistently strong execution, and the wholehearted and long-term backing of senior management.
“AWS is checking all of those boxes and any serious challengers need to do likewise.”
Five key cloud trends to look forward to in 2017: Containers, AI, and more
(c)iStock.com/binabina
There’s no denying that cloud computing has changed the way both large enterprises and small businesses operate.
The latest market analysis from Cisco states that global cloud IP traffic will almost quadruple (3.7-fold) over the next 5 years. It will grow at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 30% from 2015 to 2020.
With the increased acceptance of cloud computing, we can look forward to better and greater tapping of cloud resources this year. A few trends to watch out for in 2017 are:
Migration will continue to accelerate
The only question that remains to be answered for most business enterprises is when to move their services to the cloud as cloud providers are constantly updating their services. It is not only the small businesses that are shifting their services to the cloud, but large commercial organisations are doing so as well.
A new report from McKinsey’s Silicon Valley group has found that cloud migration will gain maximum acceleration for large enterprises that have, until now, been reluctant to accept the changing technology. While nearly 77% companies relied on traditional IT infrastructure in 2015, this number is likely to drop down to 43% in 2018 as large businesses will migrate to cloud-based infrastructure, the report concludes.
Cloud security will take precedence
Though an increasing number of commercial enterprises are moving their services to the cloud, a few companies still have reservations in using this technology. Security remains the biggest concern for them. As an increasing number of organisations in manufacturing and healthcare industries are migrating to the cloud, data security will need to stay one step ahead.
Though there is no iron-clad consensus about cloud security capabilities, several IT experts, including Scott Chasin, believe that cloud computing can offer robust security in the coming years. “There’s a growing call for security to be treated as a fundamentally basic utility where safety can be assumed. The cloud is the key to enabling this, with benefits like storage options, scalability, and ease of deployment,” says Chasin.
The continued rise of containers
The cloud computing industry has witnessed a surge in the use of containers as they can make operations more portable and efficient. Flexibility and lowered costs are the driving forces behind this trend. They are a good means to develop and deploy micro-services, especially for cloud-based applications.
According to Anand Krishnan, EVP and GM of cloud at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, “Containers will be used for deploying solutions to solve real-world business problems. Companies will use them to provide new services that are secure, efficient, elastic, and scalable.”
Machine learning and artificial intelligence will gain prominence
Machine learning and artificial intelligence can be the next big waves in the cloud computing industry. The four biggest players in this industry Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and IBM have already introduced machine-learning and artificial-intelligence-based cloud services.
Microsoft offers over 20 cognitive services, while IBM launched its first cloud-based platform for AI-powered decision-making in September last year. The platform called Project DataWorks automates the intelligent deployment of data products on the IBM Cloud using Machine Learning and Apache Spark.
Google too unveiled a set of cloud computing services last year. Though the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in the industry is still in its infancy, it is going to shape the future of cloud computing platforms.
Hybrid cloud continues to proliferate
Though small-and-medium-sized businesses can shift their services to the cloud, it may not be a financially-viable solution for large enterprises, at least not immediately. As they usually make significant investments in on-premises IT infrastructure, these companies will move only a part of their operations to the cloud.
This is not the only factor that will drive the development of hybrid clouds. It’s about having the best of both. A hybrid approach will enable businesses to take advantage of the scalability offered by cloud computing, without exposing critical data to third-party vulnerabilities.
Hybrid cloud development, however, faces several challenges including integration and application incompatibilities. The lack of management tools and common APIs is also a top concern for public cloud providers. But according to Ed Anderson, research vice president at Gartner, these top concerns also highlight some of the top opportunities for cloud providers. “We know that both public and private cloud services (of various types) will become more widely used. Therefore, providers must focus on the top hybrid cloud challenges to be successful in meeting the growing demand for hybrid cloud solutions,” says Anderson.
Conclusion
Just a few years ago, several enterprises moved to the cloud in a bid to gain advantage over their competitors. However, it has now become necessary to use cloud computing services and why not? The sheer flexibility, scalability and cost-friendly nature of cloud computing technology has started to attract consumers from a wide range of industries, including aviation, healthcare, and automobile. With the largest commercial organisations increasingly tapping into cloud services, cloud adoption is expected to increase to a greater extent in 2017.
Five key cloud trends to look forward to in 2017: Containers, AI, and more
(c)iStock.com/binabina
There’s no denying that cloud computing has changed the way both large enterprises and small businesses operate.
The latest market analysis from Cisco states that global cloud IP traffic will almost quadruple (3.7-fold) over the next 5 years. It will grow at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 30% from 2015 to 2020.
With the increased acceptance of cloud computing, we can look forward to better and greater tapping of cloud resources this year. A few trends to watch out for in 2017 are:
Migration will continue to accelerate
The only question that remains to be answered for most business enterprises is when to move their services to the cloud as cloud providers are constantly updating their services. It is not only the small businesses that are shifting their services to the cloud, but large commercial organisations are doing so as well.
A new report from McKinsey’s Silicon Valley group has found that cloud migration will gain maximum acceleration for large enterprises that have, until now, been reluctant to accept the changing technology. While nearly 77% companies relied on traditional IT infrastructure in 2015, this number is likely to drop down to 43% in 2018 as large businesses will migrate to cloud-based infrastructure, the report concludes.
Cloud security will take precedence
Though an increasing number of commercial enterprises are moving their services to the cloud, a few companies still have reservations in using this technology. Security remains the biggest concern for them. As an increasing number of organisations in manufacturing and healthcare industries are migrating to the cloud, data security will need to stay one step ahead.
Though there is no iron-clad consensus about cloud security capabilities, several IT experts, including Scott Chasin, believe that cloud computing can offer robust security in the coming years. “There’s a growing call for security to be treated as a fundamentally basic utility where safety can be assumed. The cloud is the key to enabling this, with benefits like storage options, scalability, and ease of deployment,” says Chasin.
The continued rise of containers
The cloud computing industry has witnessed a surge in the use of containers as they can make operations more portable and efficient. Flexibility and lowered costs are the driving forces behind this trend. They are a good means to develop and deploy micro-services, especially for cloud-based applications.
According to Anand Krishnan, EVP and GM of cloud at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, “Containers will be used for deploying solutions to solve real-world business problems. Companies will use them to provide new services that are secure, efficient, elastic, and scalable.”
Machine learning and artificial intelligence will gain prominence
Machine learning and artificial intelligence can be the next big waves in the cloud computing industry. The four biggest players in this industry Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and IBM have already introduced machine-learning and artificial-intelligence-based cloud services.
Microsoft offers over 20 cognitive services, while IBM launched its first cloud-based platform for AI-powered decision-making in September last year. The platform called Project DataWorks automates the intelligent deployment of data products on the IBM Cloud using Machine Learning and Apache Spark.
Google too unveiled a set of cloud computing services last year. Though the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in the industry is still in its infancy, it is going to shape the future of cloud computing platforms.
Hybrid cloud continues to proliferate
Though small-and-medium-sized businesses can shift their services to the cloud, it may not be a financially-viable solution for large enterprises, at least not immediately. As they usually make significant investments in on-premises IT infrastructure, these companies will move only a part of their operations to the cloud.
This is not the only factor that will drive the development of hybrid clouds. It’s about having the best of both. A hybrid approach will enable businesses to take advantage of the scalability offered by cloud computing, without exposing critical data to third-party vulnerabilities.
Hybrid cloud development, however, faces several challenges including integration and application incompatibilities. The lack of management tools and common APIs is also a top concern for public cloud providers. But according to Ed Anderson, research vice president at Gartner, these top concerns also highlight some of the top opportunities for cloud providers. “We know that both public and private cloud services (of various types) will become more widely used. Therefore, providers must focus on the top hybrid cloud challenges to be successful in meeting the growing demand for hybrid cloud solutions,” says Anderson.
Conclusion
Just a few years ago, several enterprises moved to the cloud in a bid to gain advantage over their competitors. However, it has now become necessary to use cloud computing services and why not? The sheer flexibility, scalability and cost-friendly nature of cloud computing technology has started to attract consumers from a wide range of industries, including aviation, healthcare, and automobile. With the largest commercial organisations increasingly tapping into cloud services, cloud adoption is expected to increase to a greater extent in 2017.
Don’t Be Blinded by the Cloud Migration Light | @CloudExpo #Cloud #DigitalTransformation
It wasn’t too long ago that cloud computing had more detractors than supporters. Companies (especially in the enterprise world) just weren’t ready to relinquish control of applications and business processes.
And yet, the light of cloud benefits has slowly drawn the business world in as SaaS apps and cloud infrastructure become entrenched in IT.
The benefits of cloud migration are great, but you have to be ready for the challenges that come along as well. Don’t be blinded by the cloud migration light.
Windows 10 Cloud – Microsoft’s Answer to Chromebooks?
Microsoft aims to dominate in as many sectors as possible, and this is why it has such a wide array of products. Its current crop of PC products compete right from the high end Macbook Pro to the lowest Chromebooks. In fact, to take on this low end version, Microsoft has released a new operating system called Windows 10 Cloud. This new OS comes after multiple failed attempts in the form of Windows RT and Windows 8.1 with Bing, both of which didn’t take customers away from Chromebook or Macbook.
At this point, not much is known about Windows 10 Cloud, as Microsoft has decided to maintain a veil of secrecy around it. Some reports however suggest that this new operating system can be a simplified version of Windows 10, possibly one that could run only on Unified Windows Platform (UWP) apps installed from the Windows store. In this sense, it could be similar to the earlier ones – Windows RT or Windows 8.1 with Bing. Hopefully soon, we’ll get to know how similar or different it is from its earlier operating systems.
One thing that’s for sure is that Windows 10 Cloud has little or nothing to do with cloud. The name is misleading, and maybe with an intent to make users guess about its connection with Azure. Or it could be to keep tune with Microsoft’s policy of “cloud first.” A look into Microsoft’s latest earnings show that much of the profits are driven by the company’s cloud business, and maybe this name could reflect the rapid transition that Microsoft is making to become the leader in cloud computing.
Another theory is that this operating system will rely on Microsoft’s cloud services when using the hardware that ships with this OS. In other words, it means Office 365 for productivity, Bing for search engine, Cortana for help and OneDrive for storage. On top of it, Microsoft is expected to bundle its key services as default, including Bing, with an intent to keep customers within its own ecosystem of products and services.
Reports of this new operating system has been found by Windows sleuths and experts when they browsed through the latest builds. From these log files, we can make an intelligent guess about the due date, which could be on or before April 2017. Alternately, it can also be shipped along with the second planned update to Windows 10, that is expected to roll out later this year.
So, what is it that Microsoft wants to achieve through this product? Obviously, it wants to capture the lower end of the PC market, and want users to take to its product over Chromebooks. Experts opine that this is highly unlikely given that Chromebooks is already quite popular among people, and unless Microsoft offers something extraordinary in its Windows 10 Cloud, such a shift is unlikely.
Currently, reports show that Microsoft may either reduce the price of its Windows 10 Cloud systems or it may provide additional features such as a larger display for the same cost.
The post Windows 10 Cloud – Microsoft’s Answer to Chromebooks? appeared first on Cloud News Daily.