Ipswitch’s WhatsUp Gold (WUG) 2018 takes all the guesswork out of licensing, employing a simple points-based system. Each device, no matter how many network ports, CPUs and so on is considered one element and costs one point, while monitored applications or NetFlow data sources each cost ten points.

WUG 2018 introduces plenty of new features with a sharp focus on the cloud. You can now monitor performance of Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure cloud services, and Meraki cloud-managed wireless APs.

Licensing has been simplified with new Premium yearly subscriptions or licensed versions providing core features such as discovery, alerting, reporting and wireless, cloud and storage monitoring. The Total Plus version adds monitoring for flows, virtualized environments plus applications, and you can purchase these separately as add-on packs for the Premium versions.

Installation took an hour; the routine downloads the requisite .NET version and SQL Server 2014 Express, installs IIS if it isn’t already present and then loads all the WUG services. It gets a lot quicker from here on – the freshly designed web interface loads a discovery wizard which only took eight minutes to scan the lab’s IP subnet.

For more network insight, we created custom scans with additional device and cloud service credentials and scheduled them to run every day. The My Network tab neatly displayed all our discovered devices accompanied by colour-coded icons showing their status.

Devices are automatically placed in dynamic groups where, for example, all our Synology NAS appliances were dropped into the default Storage group for quick access. You can create custom dynamic groups with the builder tool and apply WUG rules to fine-tune membership, with criteria such as device status, properties and configurations.

The My Network workspace provides an interactive map and its overlay feature adds display options such as connection links and their status along with device dependencies. New overlays are now provided for wireless networks, virtualization hosts and devices hosting apps being monitored by the application performance monitor (APM) add-on.

APM can keep a watchful eye on many business apps including Exchange, SQL Server, Oracle and Active Directory. It’s easy to configure: we selected app categories and left APM to scan monitored devices and find them for us, after which we used profiles to monitor critical functions and assign alerts and actions.

You can now choose from no less than 23 actions, with the standard options of email, SMS, sounds and scripts enhanced with support for the Slack, IFTTT (If This Then That), ServiceNow and OpsGenie services. Policies link alerts with actions and WUG provides a policy builder tool to link them with state changes of selected monitored devices.

One complaint we still have is WUG’s lack of mobile apps. Ipswitch keeps promising these and with each successive year, they never materialise.

The Virtualization Monitoring pack has been improved as along with VMware, WUG 2018 discovers Hyper-V hosts and can now list all their VMs. From the Analyze Virtual Monitoring tab, we could view plenty of information about running VMs and their host resource utilization.

The console’s Analyze tab puts all monitoring features at your fingertips with the home page providing a graphical overview of all devices in alert states. From its drop-down menu, we could swiftly pull up views of the Top 10 busiest devices, alert summaries and dashboards for the APM and virtual host add-ons.

WhatsUpGold 2018 adds some valuable new features including improved cloud monitoring and Hyper-V support. It can’t match ManageEngine’s OpManager for value but it does offer an excellent range of monitoring features while its ease of use will appeal to SMBs.

IBM is killing off its AI-powered collaboration tool Watson Workspace after it failed to “resonate” with clients, according to a leaked memo.

Watson Workspace is IBM’s answer to Slack or Microsoft Teams, but with AI capabilities. It provided a platform for shared workspaces, collaborations and even hosted third-party apps. But, despite having only been released in 2016 in beta, the app is being shut down by the 28 February, according to a memo seen by The Register.

“While there is no question that Watson Workspace is innovative and agile, it hasn’t resonated with clients or obtained traction in the marketplace necessary for IBM to continue forward with the service,” the memo states.

“Despite our best efforts and enthusiasm for these offerings, our decision to withdraw them aligns to IBM’s investment strategy, focused on delivering solutions that deliver measurable value to our customers and business partners.”

According to the document, IBM has already stopped taking new orders for Watson Workspace and will not be adding any new features to it. It’s reportedly working with business partners to create options for handling subscriptions and contracts once the end of service is officially announced. Business clients that have already brought into Watson Workspace will, from today, see a banner in the user interface of the service that will provide a timeline for moving off the service.

“We will also provide access to a tool that will allow you to download and save your conversations and content from Watson Workspace. Please plan accordingly to capture any content you’d like to retain as we work to sunset the service. This option will only be available for a limited time,” IBM added in the memo.

The Watson, or the artificial intelligence factor, on Workspace was called ‘moments’ and was used mainly to search conversation history or catch up on work chat after a break. Arguably, this was perhaps a poor use of Watson AI given its capabilities – it famously beat two contestants on the game show Jeopardy – and also nothing different from popular apps like Slack, which also has AI functions for the same things.

Box has launched an additional data zone for its Box Zones offering, presenting a new zone for the UK with separate data centres in London and Cardiff.

Back in 2016, the cloud content management company first announced Box Zones and said that it would feature eight separate locations where users can store data.

Box offers data centres in the UK, USA, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Singapore, Japan and Australia. The company adds more zones when it receives enough demand from its 90,000 customers, which is why the UK has just received its own data centres.

“Businesses today face a complex and evolving regulatory landscape, none more so than here in Britain,” said Chris Baker, Box senior vice president and general manager of EMEA. “With the Brexit decision pending and the impact on regulation such as GDPR unknown, UK and European businesses are searching for ways to guarantee business continuity. The UK Zone will help companies to address data sovereignty concerns and provide certainty around their content.”

If you think that the decision has anything to do with GDPR or Brexit, then you’d be wrong, according to Baker. Even if Brexit goes ahead, a possibility that’s increased in likelihood over the past few days, GDPR is likely to still apply in UK law in every way but in name, so there must be another reason for opening a UK zone.

Speaking to Cloud Pro, Baker said that the main reason for launching the UK zone was because of contracts which have certain specifications which require data to be held in a certain jurisdiction. One of the requirements of GDPR is that businesses must be certain at all times where given data resides in the world.

“I know some wealth managers, for example, who in their contracts with their clients state that their information will reside in the UK,” said Baker. “It’s not a regulatory thing, it’s just something that the client has decided to do, perhaps because that client prefers that.”

Aerospace companies in the UK sell to governments in the EU, in the Far East and into North America such the USA’s Department of Defence. Usually, when selling to these entities or responding to a request for proposal (RFP), there will be conditions that demand all related content, designs and contracts must reside in that entity’s jurisdiction. So as a UK Aerospace company, you’ll need a zone in NA in order to business there, likewise with EU governments, Baker explained.

“At Virgin Trains, we are a digital-first company with staff and offices across the UK. We are committed to ensuring that those employees have the information and tools to do their best work, even as compliance requirements continue to rapidly change,” said John Sullivan, chief information officer at Virgin Trains. “The UK zone will give choice and control over our content. It is great to see Box’s continued commitment to helping UK customers like Virgin Trainsproactively prepare our data residency strategy.”

Data residency isn’t the only factor which influenced the need for another zone. Businesses often have to visit other countries in order to take meetings, attend conferences and conduct sales and when that happens “the speed of light can be a limiting factor,” said Baker.

“Latency is an issue for some customers. Box has a Singapore zone for that reason. If business people in Asia are going to the US and back, the speed of light is a limiting factor in the downloading and uploading of documents – so latency could be a reason for wanting to allocate data to a zone.”

Speaking further about the extent to which Brexit and GDPR could affect businesses and their requirements for a UK Box Zone, Baker said there is concern about divergent regulations following Brexit. It’s unclear whether the UK will change or amend GDPR’s laws which are now domestically enshrined. “This environment is only going to get more complex,” he said.

Oracle has revealed the latest version of its Java Card, used for securing internet of things (IoT) devices such as smartwatches and other hardware that process large amounts of information.

Java Card 3.1 can be used in a vast array of applications, from telecoms devices and contactless payments terminals to cars, smart meters and wearables. It will help simplify the rollout of 5G technologies, securing the transfer of data between the device and the network, whether 5G or NBIoT networks.

“Connected devices’ volumes are expected to increase in the upcoming years, posing an increasingly complex challenge as growth adds system complexity to the infrastructure handling device data,” Volker Gerstenberger, president and chair of the Java Card Forum said.

“Java Card 3.1 is very significant to the Internet of Things, bringing interoperability, security and flexibility to a fast-growing market currently lacking high-security and flexible edge security solutions.”

Some of Java Card 3.1’s new features include support for deploying edge security services using an I/O model to transport sensitive data using a range of physical layers and application protocols.

It also introduces new APIs that specifically address the rapidly-evolving IoT marketplace demands, such as the ability to exchange sensitive data with other connected devices. Multiple applications can be installed on each chip, with the option of adding more after it has been deployed.

With full developer support for creating new services and applications, Java Card 3.1 makes developing, enhancing and deploying security-centric applications a much easier task, Oracle explained.

“Java Card is already used and trusted as a leading security platform for countless devices in the multi-billion-dollar smart card and secure element industry,” said Florian Tournier, senior director for Java Card at Oracle.

“The 3.1 release enables the rollout of security and SIM applications on the same chip, allowing those services to be used on a large spectrum of networks from NB-IoT to 5G, and on a wide range of devices.”

Veeam announced it has received $500 million in investment from Insight Venture Partners to accelerate its growth in the data management sector.

As part of the agreement, Veeam will also receive support from the investor’s internal business strategy arm, Insight Onsite as well as the capital to invest in smaller organisations as part of its merger and acquisition plan.

Veeam and Insight Venture Partners have a solid history, with the investment firm contributing to Aelita Software, the first company set up by founder Ratmir Timashev, Bill Largent and Andrei Baronov.

“Back then, we relied on Insight to provide strategic counsel and support, and after we sold that company to Quest Software in 2004, we continued our relationship,” said Timashev. “Over the years, Insight has been a trusted advisor to Bill Largent, Andrei Baronov and me, even acquiring a minority share in Veeam back in 2013.”

Veeam has grown fast over the last five years, boasting more than 325,000 customers and 60,000 partners. It now wants to take this to the next levels and snatch a greater market share from the likes of IBM, Dell and Veritas.

Insight Venture Partners explained it wanted to invest in Veeam so it could help the data management business to become the “most trusted” backup provider through the Veeam Availability Platform.

“Over the past decade, Veeam has established itself as the premier vendor for on-premises backup and recovery software, and is now No.1 in the market for providing data management for public and private cloud environments,” Michael Triplett, managing director at Insight Venture Partners, and member of the Board of Directors at Veeam.

“Veeam has unparalleled leadership in terms of technology, vision and go-to-market strategies, which we believe will only further extend its No.1 market position. Insight is thrilled to continue this journey with Veeam’s management.”