For organizations that have amassed large sums of software complexity, taking a microservices approach is the first step toward DevOps and continuous improvement / development. Integrating system-level analysis with microservices makes it easier to change and add functionality to applications at any time without the increase of risk. Before you start big transformation projects or a cloud migration, make sure these changes won’t take down your entire organization.

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Rackspace has confirmed it has completed the acquisition of TriCore Solutions, a managed application and infrastructure provider.

The move was first announced in May, at a similar time to the San Antonio-based managed cloud provider announcing Joe Eazor, formerly of EarthLink, as the company’s new CEO. Mark Clayman, CEO of TriCore, will head up the newly created enterprise applications division at Rackspace, reporting directly to president Jeff Cotten.

“We acquired TriCore in response to customer demand,” said Matt Bradley, Rackspace vice president of strategy and corporate development. “Customers want a managed application expert to deliver a high quality service experience at a lower total cost for these complex applications and TriCore has been doing this for nearly two decades – they’ve done an incredible job and now our customers will be able to benefit from their experiences.”

Rackspace was recently named as a niche player in the most recent Gartner Magic Quadrant for cloud infrastructure as a service, alongside companies including Virtustream, CenturyLink, and Fujitsu. Yet as David Linthicum pointed out in an InfoWorld article, Rackspace’s position as a managed services ‘enabler’, for clouds such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google, sets them apart from the competition in that particular square, which he describes as ‘niche IaaS providers to enterprises.’

In its analysis, Gartner praised Rackspace’s ‘evolution’ from OpenStack-based public cloud IaaS to its roots in managed services, making it “well-positioned to deliver hybrid and multi-cloud solutions”, but noting public cloud IaaS customers may expect more of its offerings.

The completed acquisition of TriCore, alongside the continued recognition from Gartner, will augur well as Eazor settles down in the CEO role. “Let me emphasise how excited I am by the huge market opportunity that Rackspace has in front of it, as companies move out of their corporate data centres and into multiple clouds,” he wrote in an introductory blog last month. “Rackspace is uniquely well positioned to take advantage of this trend, as the only provider who can deliver expertise and exceptional customer service for all of the leading public and private clouds, along with managed hosting.”

Eazor officially started work at Rackspace on June 12. But whither previous CEO Taylor Rhodes? Rhodes did not have a long period away from the hot seat – he has since become chief executive of SMS Assist, a multisite property management provider.

Picture credit: Rackspace Afterparty TechStars Boulder 2011, by Andrew Hyde, used under CC BY / Modified from original

In the race to move to hybrid cloud, enterprises are looking at containers to increase efficiency and developer productivity, according to a new study.

Of the more than 200 enterprise IT decision makers polled by CoreOS and 451 Research, their usage of containers was relatively even across the board. A quarter (24%) said they had a broad implementation of production applications, while 17% said they were still as the discovery and evaluation stage.

When it came to the drivers of container usage, greater efficiency (33%) and hybrid cloud and cross-cloud integration (32%) were the most frequently cited. The most popular benefit was developer productivity, cited by 30% of respondents, just ahead of efficiency (29%), but these numbers not surprisingly swung for DevOps (55% developer productivity) and infrastructure (37% efficiency) workers respectively.

Docker Swarm was cited as the most popular orchestration platform overall (36%), ahead of report sponsors CoreOS (27%), Kubernetes (22%) and Mesos (14%). For the largest organisations – those with 5,000 or more employees – Kubernetes saw a rise to 27%, with CoreOS going down to 19%.

The report also found that twice as many IT operations workers were identified as the primary users of containers – in other words, not developers – while a similar trend occurred with purchasing, albeit noting a ‘growing developer influence’ on this area.

“Organisations are looking for ways to create a consistent developer deployment model across on-premises and hybrid clouds,” said Jay Lyman, principal analyst at 451 Research in a statement. “The need to empower developers, the push to realise the benefits of public clouds and need to support mission critical on-premise applications have created multiple computing environments within the enterprise.

“In order to manage this increasingly chaotic IT infrastructure and avoid the mistakes of the past, organisations are turning to container software to deliver a single platform for application deployment across clouds and operationalised efficiency across the organisation,” Lyman added.

According to a report from NetEnrich last July surveying 200 IT professionals, two thirds of respondents described learning the likes of Docker, Kubernetes and Mesos as ‘moderately challenging’. CoreOS was the most popular main container technology cited by 33%, ahead of Kubernetes (32%), Docker (25%) and Joyent (11%).

As a result, it can be assumed that the technology’s usage is proliferating, if a major player has not quite burst through yet. 451 Research concludes that “given these survey results and the strong, growing production use not only of containers, but also container management and orchestration software at this early stage of the market, we expect the container market’s momentum to continue through 2017.”

Speaking at the OpenStack Summit in Boston last month, Edward Snowden warned that the use of public cloud providers is ‘fundamentally disempowering’.

As reported by ZDNet, Snowden told the audience – through video conference, of course – that ‘we can’t let people be mindless when they’re building clouds.’ “You give them money, and they provide you with a service, but you are also providing them with more than money. You’re giving up control, influence.”

But what does this mean in terms of keeping vital workloads in the public cloud? Below, industry experts weigh in on the issues:

David Griffiths, VP of EMEA, Tintri

Many have been quick to recognise the benefits delivered by public cloud, but what is also clear are the sacrifices made when it comes to control over data. The public cloud provides agility and ability to scale, however, as Snowden explains, often at the cost of freedom to shape an environment to specific workload requirements.

Put simply, pouring money into a third-party infrastructure that companies have no real ownership of doesn’t make good budgetary, business or security sense – especially when the technology exists to provide the same scale and efficiency within their own data centre.

Enterprise cloud, however, provides public cloud-like agility allowing organisations to benefit from similar applications and services. Additionally, it allows for massive scale-out with the security, privacy and governance levels you would expect from a private environment. Alongside predictive analytics, granular-level abstraction and the ability to automate, it ensures organisations know exactly where their data is at any given time.

Gary Watson, founder and VP of technical engagement at Nexsan

One of the main points Snowden addresses is the ability for third party providers to access encrypted user data. Trusting a third-party provider with data is a step that should be very carefully considered. In today’s digital age, data is the lifeblood of any organisation and it is fundamental that organisations can guarantee control, security and locality. However, there is no doubt that organisations require the flexibility and agility of the cloud, as it promotes a more collaborative way of working and we are certainly seeing an uptake in cloud-based solutions.

On-premises private cloud solutions are available, which allow organisations the benefits of the cloud while keeping data on site through a privately-owned appliance. Forward thinking organisations that can incorporate the agility and flexibility of the cloud while still being able to maintain control over security and data locality will be in a far better position in the market. In order to do this, it is key that businesses understand their unique data needs and opt for a solution that will enable secure, reliable access.

Jake Madders, director at Hyve Managed Hosting

No one can deny that public cloud is a hugely successful IT innovation that shows no signs of slowing down. While there are numerous benefits to entrusting your data with one of the big public providers, there are also considerable drawbacks when it comes to performance, security and compliance with an unmanaged public cloud. AWS-like auto-scaling cannot identify bottlenecks and over-used resources in the way a Managed Service Provider (MSP) can, nor can an unmanaged public environment provide the same level of security and adherence to regulation, which is especially important with big changes surrounding GDPR about to take place.

Working with an MSP can guarantee optimum service levels across all platforms, taking the best aspects from each, all while offering continual support for business looking to make the best out of cloud computing.

Paul Mills, group sales director at Six Degrees Group

Edward Snowden’s comments raise some interesting considerations, but adopting public cloud should not be about giving up control.  Public cloud services have an important role to play for organisations of any size and can provide a significant springboard to business transformation when used in the right way.  

However, in choosing any type of cloud service – public, private or hybrid – privacy, governance and regulation need to be at the forefront of the decision-making process to keep you in the driving seat and to ensure the correct services are chosen.  There are many options available and organisations should plan this activity carefully, seeking advice from their trusted technology partners to ensure they find the best solution to meet their needs.

To celebrate Parallels’ birthday we wanted to spotlight co-founder Nikolay Dobrovolskiy. He power-boosted his career early as the winner of the Russian National Software Development Competition at the age of 14. Nick’s accomplishments with technology propelled his professional career as a software engineer. Flashback to the ’90s, when a simple need kick-started the revolution of […]

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SYS-CON Events announced today that CA Technologies has been named “Platinum Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place October 31-November 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. CA Technologies helps customers succeed in a future where every business – from apparel to energy – is being rewritten by software. From planning to development to management to security, CA creates software that fuels transformation for companies in the application economy. With CA software at the center of their IT strategy, organizations can leverage the technology that changes the way we live – from the data center to the mobile device. CA’s software and solutions help customers thrive in the new application economy by delivering the means to deploy, monitor and secure their applications and infrastructure.

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SYS-CON Events announced today that IBM has been named “Diamond Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 21st Cloud Expo, which will take place on October 31 through November 2nd 2017 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California.

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