Colocation is a central pillar of modern enterprise infrastructure planning because it provides greater control, insight, and performance than managed platforms.
In spite of the inexorable rise of the cloud, most businesses with extensive IT hardware requirements choose to host their infrastructure in colocation data centers. According to a recent IDC survey, more than half of the businesses questioned use colocation services, and the number is even higher among established businesses and businesses with an existing base of IT expertise.
Monthly Archives: June 2017
The Benefits of Hybrid IT: Expectations vs. Reality | @CloudExpo #AWS #Cloud #BigData
Hybrid IT is today’s reality, and while its implementation may seem daunting at times, more and more organizations are migrating to the cloud. In fact, according to SolarWinds 2017 IT Trends Index: Portrait of a Hybrid IT Organization 95 percent of organizations have migrated crucial applications to the cloud in the past year. As such, it’s in every IT professional’s best interest to know what to expect.
[slides] The Myths of Scale-up Architectures | @CloudExpo @FujitsuAmerica @FerhatSF #AI
When growing capacity and power in the data center, the architectural trade-offs between server scale-up vs. scale-out continue to be debated. Both approaches are valid: scale-out adds multiple, smaller servers running in a distributed computing model, while scale-up adds fewer, more powerful servers that are capable of running larger workloads. It’s worth noting that there are additional, unique advantages that scale-up architectures offer. One big advantage is large memory and compute capacity that makes In-Memory Computing possible. This means that large databases can now reside entirely in memory, boosting the analytics performance as well as speeding up transaction processing. By virtually eliminating disk accesses, database query times can be shortened by many orders of magnitude, leading to real-time analytics for greater business productivity, converting wait time to work time.
Box launches Box Drive to help firms retire legacy network file share infrastructure
Cloud storage provider Box has announced the launch of Box Drive, a desktop application which aims to match the power of the cloud with the more familiar feel of traditional network drives.
The goal of the product is to ‘make it easier to adopt the cloud without changing the way people work’. “The future of work is working in the cloud,” the company notes. “Box Drive makes moving to the cloud incredibly easy. Users are freed from the constraints of their local hard drives because they have instant access to all their files in the cloud and real-time collaboration is even more simple and intuitive.”
“Box Drive combines infinite access to the cloud with an intuitive, natively integrated desktop experiences that is familiar to hundreds of millions of people today in enterprises all over the world,” said Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box in a statement. “Not only will Box Drive make collaborating on content easier than ever before, it also signals the beginning of the end for expensive network file shares.
“With Box Drive, enterprises can accelerate their move to the cloud, enhance security, and significantly reduce IT costs.”
While not in the same ballpark with regards to technology, this move from Box is reminiscent of Amazon Web Services (AWS), who announced the general availability of Greengrass earlier this month. Greengrass enablers users to perform tasks on premise while leveraging the process, analytics and storage of the AWS cloud.
This differs from Box in that the storage provider is trying to help organisations phase out expensive legacy infrastructure such as traditional network file shares. The company added that estimated cost savings through retiring legacy tech – across industries such as real estate, healthcare, and finance – can be as high as $6 million over three years.
The product is free for all Box users and is available today in public beta. You can find out more here.
Virtual Reality Skipped Again
As a customer, you’d expect virtual reality in console games simply because virtual reality is becoming a mature technology and it adds a big dash of fun to any game.
Unfortunately, all the three top console makers, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, don’t think so. At least not yet.
The annual gaming conference E3 saw presentations and announcements by these three companies and none of them had any virtual reality games for their audience. In fact, many people flocked to the Microsoft press conference in the hope that there will be some form of virtual reality based console, but there was not even a mention of any of it.
Well, if you had been following Microsoft’s announcement closely, this lack of virtual reality mention shouldn’t come as a surprise for you. Over the last few weeks Microsoft has been hinting that it will not dive into “mixed reality”. This is an umbrella term that Microsoft uses to describe both virtual and augmented reality experience.
If you’re wondering why, the answer is the economics. Last October, Sony released Playstation VR, a virtual reality headset that gives users of Playstation 4 a whole new user experience. This product is definitely not top of the line, but sits in the middle between the high-end products like HTV Vive and lower end products like Google Daydream.
However, a look at the sales numbers of Playstation VR shows that it didn’t sell as much as Sony would have expected. So far, the company has sold 55 million pieces, which roughly translates to about 1.8 percent of the overall target market.
These numbers go to show that not all customers want virtual reality in their games. On the contrary, it has attracted only a small percent of its target market, so it makes no economic sense for a company to invest heavily in virtual reality when the audience is not ready to use them.
This bring us to the next question – why are the audience not ready for a virtual reality console yet?
First off, its’ expensive. Companies spend a ton of money in research and implementation and this is passed to the customers in some way. For example, the Playstation VR headset costs a whopping $400, and this is almost the same price of a brand new PS4 Pro.
The other reason, at least, one given by Microsoft is that it is not that practical to use. It argues that a quality VR experience requires a hard-line connection between the home base and headset and this could be inconvenient, to say the least.
So, this is typically a chicken and egg dilemma that could take a few years to become more mature. Maybe that’s probably when it would make sense to introduce VR as a viable option for entertainment. Until then, all VR enthusiasts would have to wait. Or if you’re in a hurry, you can always buy the uber-expensive products available today that aim to give you the experience you want.
The post Virtual Reality Skipped Again appeared first on Cloud News Daily.
IBM, Hortonworks Expand Partnership | @CloudExpo @IBM #ML #Cloud
IBM and Hortonworks have announced an expansion to their relationship focused on extending data science and machine learning to more developers and across the Apache Hadoop ecosystem. The companies are combining Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP®) with IBM Data Science Experience and IBM Big SQL into new integrated solutions designed to help everyone from data scientists to business leaders better analyze and manage their mounting data volumes and accelerate data-driven decision-making.
Opinion: Why ‘robotics as a service’ is on its way
It feels like everything is a cloud service these days, and it turns out that includes robotics. Robotics as a Service (RaaS) is quickly growing into a multi-billion dollar industry. An International Data Corporation report said that in 2015, global robotics spending was at $71 billion.
The report also stated that worldwide spending on robotics and related services are to hit $135.4 billion by 2019. According to research manager John Santagate at IDC Manufacturing Insights, “robotic capabilities continue to expand while increasing investment in robot development is driving competition and helping to bring down the costs associated with robots.” The industrial use of robots not only can cut costs, but it also drives a great transformation for customer experience.
In the healthcare sector, institutions are using robots to talk to each other to combine data that can be spread across multiple databases. Rather than build new integrations across the existing databases or replace them, institutions can instead, create a digital nurse that will gather relevant information from each database creating a simpler solution and lower risk option. A robot is installed in each back end system that consolidates and displays the needed information on a mobile device in real time.
In the consumer world, many startups are starting to build chatbots to be used in customer service processes. Chatbots can be used within already existing chat technology such as WhatsApp or Google Messenger.
As an overall view, service robotics offer a large advantage in taking over certain industry tasks that could be deemed tough, risky or even mundane. Ordinary daily tasks that require little effort can be quickly taken over with robots that provide a high degree of accuracy. At the moment, the manufacturing sector purchases the most robots and related services and it’s no wonder. Factories and assembly lines are one of the best areas to implement robotics. Process manufacturing companies that develop products based on formulas or recipes such as drugs or sodas have greatly benefitted from the infallible accuracy that robotics have offered. Not far behind the manufacturing industry, however, is the healthcare sector with projections of spending to double by 2019.
The global service robotics market has been projected to surpass 18 million units by 2020 with an expected CAGR of 23.7 percent from 2014 to 2020. The main factor that drives the industry is the demand for decreasing labor costs in developed countries and the growing occurrence of supported living. More and more companies have started to enter the industry hoping to evolve and refine automation techniques and user-end customer services.
RaaS can also be used to leverage the cloud making it possible to embed devices on the web and cloud computing environments. An obvious use for including cloud capabilities in robots is its use in stores, warehouses and distribution centres allowing businesses to never be “sold out” of hot items. Data captured by robots through video analytics or RFID tags like inventory and customer preferences can all be stored on a hybrid cloud-based system or all flash storage.
RaaS providers can handle maintenance along with integration of the robots and databases used within enterprises. Not only does this cut costs, but it also makes management and scalability easier along with offering greater flexibility. As technologies are expanded and innovated, robots will soon be more integrated with cloud servers and intelligent digital environments only meant to create smarter business networks. Rather than peg robots as merely a product, robots as a service can create new and better business models making things easier on our budgets and end products.
Keeping Pace with the Multi-Cloud Movement | @CloudExpo #Cloud #Storage #Compliance
A common misconception about the cloud is that one size fits all. Companies expecting to run all of their operations using one cloud solution or service must realize that doing so is akin to forcing the totality of their business functionality into a straightjacket. Unlocking the full potential of the cloud means embracing the multi-cloud future where businesses use their own cloud, and/or clouds from different vendors, to support separate functions or product groups. There is no single cloud solution ideal for all applications, and some applications might not fit the cloud at all. For example, certain applications have more stringent security or compliance requirements that require a private cloud or traditional on-premises deployment. For the foreseeable future, the majority of companies will maintain a hybrid cloud environment, and should invest in a multi-cloud strategy allowing them to leverage the diverse cloud market for the solutions that fit their specific application and storage needs.
Analysing the growing global demand for hybrid flash array storage
The emergence of hyperscale cloud service providers transformed the enterprise computing environment. IT infrastructure vendors have learned to adapt to shifts in market demand and embrace the ongoing changes that have affected the data centre server and storage markets. Enterprise CIOs and CTOs have also modified their traditional budget allocations.
Total worldwide enterprise storage systems factory revenue was down 0.5 percent year-over-year, reaching $9.2 billion in the first quarter of 2017 (1Q17), according to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC).
Data centre storage market development
Total capacity shipments were up 41.4 percent year-over-year to 50.1 exabytes during the quarter. Revenue growth increased within the group of original design manufacturers (ODMs) that sell directly to hyperscale data center operators.
This portion of the market was up 78.2 percent year-over-year to $1.2 billion. In contrast, sales of server-based storage were down 13.7 percent during the quarter and accounted for $2.7 billion in revenue.
External storage systems remained the largest market segment, but the $5.2 billion in sales represented a modest decline of 2.8 percent year-over-year.
“The enterprise storage market closed out the first quarter relatively flat, yet adhered to a familiar pattern,” said Liz Conner, research manager at IDC.
According to the IDC assessment, spending on traditional external arrays continues to shrink, while spending on all-flash deployments once again posted strong growth and helped to drive the overall storage market. Meanwhile, the hyperscale data center business segment displayed solid growth in 1Q17.
Dell held the top position within the total worldwide enterprise storage systems market, accounting for 21.5 percent of spending. HPE held the second position with a 20.3 percent share of revenue during the quarter.
HPE’s share and year-over-year growth rate includes revenues from the H3C joint venture in China that began in May of 2016. As a result, the reported HPE/New H3C Group combines storage revenue for both companies globally.
NetApp finished third with 8 percent market share. Hitachi and IBM finished in a statistical tie for the fourth position, each capturing 5 percent of global storage spending.
As a single group, storage systems sales by original design manufacturers (ODMs) selling directly to hyperscale datacenter customers accounted for 13.2 percent of global spending during the quarter.
The total All Flash Array (AFA) market generated almost $1.4 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 75.7 percent year-over-year. The Hybrid Flash Array (HFA) segment of the market continues to be a significant part of the overall market with $2 billion in revenue and 22 percent of the total market share.
Digital Transformation: It’s the Customer, Stupid! | @CloudExpo #DX #Cloud #Agile
If you cannot explicitly articulate how investing in a new technology, changing the approach or re-engineering the business process will help you achieve your customer-centric vision of the future in direct and measurable ways, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
At Intellyx, we spend a lot of time talking to technology vendors. In our conversations, we explore emerging new technologies that are either disrupting the way enterprise organizations work or that help enable those organizations to cope with disruption.