All posts by Business Cloud News

AT&T, IBM, News & Analysis, Telco Cloud

IBM Cloud to run AT&T’s managed app and hosting

IBMAT&T and IBM are to extend the scope of their 20 year working relationship partnership as IBM takes over the telco’s cloud based networking, application and hosting services.

In a new development AT&T will transfer its managed application and hosting service unit into IBM’s Cloud portfolio. IBM will acquire equipment and access to the AT&T data centres that currently host the services.

The new arrangement is about integrating networks and cloud workloads more easily with each vendor’s IT environments, according to a statement from IBM, which pledged to continue running the managed app and hosting services AT&T provides today. AT&T will continue to provide the security, cloud networking and mobility it currently contributes to the partnership. The two companies will collaborate on creating new services, IBM said.

“Today’s announcement is an expansion of our relationship with AT&T and continuing collaboration,” said Philip Guido, IBM General Manager of Global Technology Services for North America. “With AT&T we’ll deliver IBM Cloud and managed services that evolve to meet clients’ business objectives.”

On Thursday IBM announced details of another collaboration, Project Hyperledger, as part of its involvement in the Linux Foundation. The project brings a number of vendors together to develop blockchain security technology. The objective is to create an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework for the cloud. It also aims to encourage developers to create applications that can use blockchain technology to make cloud based financial transactions verifiable and secure enough to meet strict compliance regulations.

Partners in the Linux Foundation blockchain project include Accenture, ANZ Bank, Cisco, J.P. Morgan, the London Stock Exchange Group, VMware and Wells Fargo.

IBM will contribute tens of thousands of lines of its existing codebase and its corresponding intellectual property to this open source community. Another partner, Digital Asset, is contributing the Hyperledger mark, as well as code and developer resources. R3 is contributing a new financial transaction architectural framework designed to meet the requirements of its global bank members and other financial institutions.

All technical contributions will be reviewed by the foundation’s technical steering committees.

“Blockchain’s distributed ledgers will transform industries from banking and shipping to the Internet of Things,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation, “it needs a cross-industry, open source collaboration to advance the technology for all.”

Enterprise IT, Financial Results, News & Analysis, Oracle, Platform as a service, Software as a service

Oracle cloud sales boom but at what price?

Oracle plane However Oracle’s co-chief executive Safra Catz warned fiscal 2016 will be “a trough year for profitability as we move to the cloud.”

Oracle’s total revenues were down by 6% to $9.0 billion with the sales of ‘cloud plus on-premise software’ down 4% to $7.0 billion. Meanwhile, total cloud revenue has gone up in the last quarter by 26% (in US dollars) and Oracle made $649 million on pure cloud software. The two most successful categories of cloud software for Oracle have been SaaS and PaaS which accounted for $484 million, a rise of 34%. Cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) revenue was $165 million, a rise of 7%.

Expect the SaaS and PaaS revenue to grow by 50% in Q3 and 60% in Q4, said Catz. According to Oracle it won 100 Fusion Human Capital Management system contracts and over 300 Fusion Enterprise resource planning deals in the last quarter. Oracle said it is on target to sell and book more than $1.5 billion of new SaaS and PaaS business this fiscal year.

“We now have more than 1,500 ERP customers in the cloud, that’s at least ten times more ERP customers than Workday,” said Oracle’s other joint CEO, Mark Hurd. “It was a very strong growth quarter for our cloud business, with SaaS and PaaS bookings up 75% in constant currency and billings up 68% in U.S. dollars.”

Not everyone in Wall Street is convinced however. “While the company is showing some signs of cloud success, the meat and potatoes legacy database and app business is under major secular pressure,” FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives told MarketWatch.

Oracle’s Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.15 per share of outstanding common stock.

Cisco, Financing, Funding, News & Analysis

Cisco to create 200 new cloud jobs at Cisco Meraki UK

Cisco has announced plans to create 200 new UK jobs for cloud professionals with an investment of $2.5m in the UK-based Startupbootcamp accelerator.

The news came as Cisco entertained Sajid Javid the UK’s Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills at its new City of London HQ in Finsbury Square. Javid met with Cisco’s UK CEO Phil Smith to discuss the digitisation of the economy and Cisco’s role in catalysing this process in the UK.

In July Cisco announced it would invest $1 billion in the UK over the next three to five years. In November in announced its intention to buy London-based conferencing company Acano for £470m ($700 million) and Portcullis for an undisclosed figure.

The 200 new UK jobs will be at Cisco Meraki, a cloud controlled wifi, routing and security specialist arm which Cisco plans to grow three-fold by early 2017. Meraki is expected to grow in response to booming demand for solutions to the problems created by the BYOD trend in enterprises.

In a separate initiative Cisco is investing in Startupbootcamp, a startup accelerator that aims to nurture new digital talent. Cisco runs different technology themes in programmes across eight sites in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Eindhoven, Israel, Istanbul and London. Startupbootcamp claims that 80% of its alumni are still trading and have attracted an average investment of £400,000 each.

Cisco already runs an incubator, IDEALondon, in association with University College London (UCL) and DC Thomson. Last week as IDEALondon celebrated its second anniversary it announced it has secured £10 million in external funding and earned £2 million in revenue, creating 100 jobs. Cisco customers now have 50 pilot projects using technology from IDEALondon startups. The pilot projects help refine the systems and give Cisco customers access to new options that otherwise wouldn’t be available, it claims.

“There are still huge opportunities to improve productivity with digital technology,” said Cisco’s UK CEO Phil Smith.

“Two hundred new high value jobs is fantastic news,” said Javid. “Britain is the place to do business.”

Cloud Foundry Foundation, News & Analysis, Platform as a service

Cloud Foundry launches PaaS certification to combat vendor lock-in

Cloud computingTrade body the Cloud Foundry Foundation, has announced the industry’s first certification programme for platform as a service (PaaS) offerings as part of its drive to standardise the PaaS sector of cloud computing.

Cloud Foundry Certification aims to ensure all certified products use the same core Cloud Foundry software. Certification will be awarded to products and services that meet strict technical requirements outlined by the foundation’s technical governing body, it claims. Products called “Cloud Foundry” can only use that designation after meeting Cloud Foundry Certification standards. Products must re-certify every year.

The goal is to make applications work across any PaaS in a multi-vendor, multi-cloud environment. The first products to be tested for certification will be CenturyLink’s AppFog, HPE Helion Cloud Foundry, Huawei FusionStage, IBM Bluemix, Pivotal Cloud Foundry, SAP HANA Cloud Platform and Swisscom Application Cloud.

The standard is necessary because the first generation of cloud computing companies saved time and money by tying themselves to a single cloud provider such as Amazon or Google, according to Cloud Foundry CEO Sam Ramji. As the second generation of companies begins businesses want long term commitment and need an industry standard in order to regain control of their applications.

“Now that companies are regularly building new applications on their platforms they want broad standardisation across vendors,” said ESG Analyst Stephen Hendrick. Gartner research reports the PaaS market crossed the $4 billion mark this year and Wikibon Research predicts it will grow to $68.3 billion by 2026.

IDC predicts that by 2016, there will be an 11% shift In IT spending, with money being moved from traditional in-house IT delivery to the cloud and by 2017, 35% of new applications will use cloud-based as faster DevOps life cycles to streamline app production.

Cloud Foundry is collectively developed by 55 member companies in banking, telecoms, heavy industry, management consulting and large-scale computing vendors such as Pivotal, IBM, SAP, HPE, Intel, EMC, VMware, Cisco.

The platform is portable across Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, OpenStack and a range of data centre infrastructure.

Box, Enterprise IT, News & Analysis, Salesforce, Software as a service, Storage as a Service

Box and Salesforce unite for integrated in-app file management

mergerSalesforce and Box have worked together to integrate their respective cloud offerings so you can use files stored in Box without having to exit Salesforce. To this end they have jointly created a new Salesforce Files Connect for Box service, along with a Box software development kit (SDK) for Salesforce.

The Salesforce Files Connect for Box means that users of the former’s customer relationship management system can search, browse, access and share Box files from any device without coming out of their Salesforce app or jeopardising the existing access and security granted in Box.

The two firms claim the integration will make users of each service more productive, as content managed on Box can easily be connected directly to records, users and groups within Salesforce. The newly created cohesion between the two apps means that two Salesforce users can now collaborate together on material that is stored in the Box system.

The Box SDK for Salesforce aims to give developers license to use Box’s content management within any app built on Salesforce App Cloud. It also allows developers to embed Box’s content management functions within the Salesforce system. The upshot is that it gives Salesforce users mope options on the type of content they can use, even from specialised industries like financial services, healthcare and government.

Salesforce Files Connect for Box is currently being tested out by select customers and is expected on general release in Summer 2016. Box SDK for Salesforce is currently available for free on Github for developers.

Integrations like this help make it easier for enterprises to move to the cloud, said Box CEO Aaron Levie.

“As companies get more mobile, social and connected, it’s critical that anyone can instantly access the information they need, no matter where it is stored,” said Nasi Jazayeri, executive VP of Community Cloud at Salesforce.

News & Analysis, Research, The Bunker

Hybrid cloud proving a struggle for enterprise – research

Velostrata is the latest hybrid cloud vendor to come out of stealth

Hosting and co-location company The Bunker says the vast majority of companies are installing hybrid cloud systems but with a massive failure rate.

The Bunker’s Completing the Hybrid Cloud Puzzle, based on market research conducted by Vanson Bourne among CIOs and IT decision-makers, indicates that though hybrid clouds are overwhelmingly popular 63% of the survey struggled to execute their vision for the cloud.

Cloud migration failures were attributed to a lack of in-house skills (49%); confusing, biased or incorrect advice (44%) and alack of integration of Cloud Infrastructure and non-Cloud resources (41%).

Out of the survey group of mid-market and large corporations, ranging in size from 1000 to over 3000 employees, 90% are in the throes of creating a hybrid of cloud and on-premise computing. Meanwhile, 96% said they expect to migrate applications or data to their cloud infrastructure within the next 5 years.

It has not been easy, however, since 70% of the 94% of organisations that have already migrated applications or data to a cloud Infrastructure have experienced a failure. For some this failure was a failed or stalled project or the lack of any return on their investment. Despite many of the survey group claiming a ‘good level of engagement; for the cloud, both internally and externally, over half of respondents (54%) confessed they hadn’t got the optimum technical solution to address their needs.

The motives for adopting a cloud solution were efficiency, flexibility and scalability (identified by 60% of the group) and lower costs (40%) and the need to turn IT spending from a capital expenditure to an operational costs (which was identified by 38% of the group).

Around half (55%) of the study identified their ideal model for IT infrastructure to involved a mixture of in-house and outsourced IT infrastructure using a mix of private and public cloud.

“The business benefits of Cloud technologies may be compelling, but organisations continue to struggle when it comes to delivering on them,” said Bunker CTO Phil Bindley. The CIOs are failing to build technology systems that meet business needs, according to Bindley, but it’s not their fault. “CIOs and IT decision-makers do not appear to be getting the advice or support they need,” he said.

Enterprise IT, News & Analysis, Platform as a service, RedHat

Red Hat launches OpenShift Dedicated for enterprise public cloud

redhat office logoOpen source software vendor Red Hat has launched a new cloud service for enterprise IT and development teams who want help in braving the public cloud.

OpenShift Dedicated has the Docker container and Kubernetes orchestration technologies that were included in the recent OpenShift Enterprise 3.1 release. The new cloud service aims to build on OpenShift Online, Red Hat’s vehicle to help individual developers build, launch and host their own applications in a shared public cloud that it supports.

The new cloud service includes single-tenant isolation and a resource pool of 100GB SSD-based persistent storage, 48TB network Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) and nine nodes for deploying container-based applications. It offers admin and security controls to let each customer customise and secure their cloud environment using virtual private networking and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) functions. Customers will also be able to use Red Hat’s JBoss Middleware from applications developed and deployed on OpenShift.

The new cloud service gives potential customer a third option for using Red Hat’s OpenShift Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering, it says. Clients can now choose between OpenShift Enterprise, OpenShift Online and the new OpenShift Dedicated cloud service.

OpenShift Enterprise is for those who want to manage their OpenShift instances on their choice of on-premise hardware or cloud provider. The Online option is for those who want to access OpenShift as a service in the public cloud. The third option, the new OpenShift Dedicated service, is for those who want to use Red Hat technology to deploy, manage and support their OpenShift instances running on AWS, it said.

The new option is for the increasing number of customers who want more control over the building and isolation process for their applications, but not complete responsibility for admin and operational management.

OpenShift Dedicated is globally available today for Red Hat customers in all AWS hosting regions, with support for other public cloud options expected in future.

Content & Applications, Mendix, News & Analysis, Platform as a service, SIG

Mendix targets technical debt avoidance with PaaS release

Mendix aPaaSApplication platform as a service (aPaaS) vendor Mendix has launched a new Application Quality Monitor service, in partnership with software quality advisor SIG. The cloud-based service will initially monitor the upkeep of Mendix applications.

Bimodal IT specialist Mendix claims to help companies create a two-tier service, combining the basic foundations of a reliable but conventional IT infrastructure with the option for ‘Mode 2 capabilities’ to provide better speed and agility. According to Mendix, many CIOs fail to pay enough attention to detail when implementing Mode 2, which can lead to mistake on refactoring and ballooning ‘technical debt’.

Technical debt is defined by researcher Gartner as the loose ends that need resolving and the refactoring required as a result of the development process. The debt may take many forms, from design debt, to documentation debt, to unused and duplicated code. Addressing technical debt will be one of the big challenges of the cloud, according to Gartner. A new genre of cloud vendors will be needed to ensure that software is well-designed, well-written and maintainable, it says.

“Anyone can go faster; the challenge is doing so sustainably,” says Gartner analyst Mary Mesaglio in an April report released by the firm.

The Mendix Application Quality Monitor performs a daily monitoring of software quality, improving maintainability and cutting lifecycle costs. The cloud service is powered by SIG, which performs a static analysis of Mendix application models according to ISO 25010 standard for maintainability. The analysis covers key aspects of the application such as the ability to analyse, modify and divide it into modules. It rates the applications on values such as volume, duplication, unit complexity and dependencies. A dashboard offers the quality rating on a scale from 1 to 5, and highlights potential areas for further investigation. The ratings are based on benchmarks of thousands of projects.

There’s a strong correlation between the cost and effort of handling issues and enhancements and the maintainability rating of an application, according to Joost Visser, head of research at SIG and Professor of Large Scale Software Systems at Radboud University. “Issue resolution time and enhancement effort increase exponentially for applications with lower ratings,” he said.

container, containers, ElasticHosts, News & Analysis

ElasticHosts launches elastic containers – could cut some running costs by 50%

containersCloud server company ElasticHosts has announced its new model of container technology can adapt automatically to fit volatile shifts in demand for resource and bill clients accordingly. The new Linux containers are designed to make management easier for resellers, service providers, web developers and web hosting companies.

ElasticHosts’ new containers are now available with cPanel v11.52, from third party control panel vendor cPanel. ElasticHosts claims it offers the first containers to integrate with cPanel v11.52, which now creates the possibility for much more precise billing according to the usage of server resources such as memory, processing power and storage. It also gives service providers the option to automatically adapt to changing circumstances, so clients only ever have to pay for what they use while there is no risk of hitting a performance barrier in periods of intense activity.

The control panel from cPanel can streamline the process of creating and managing websites, claims its vendor. Prior to the new release cPanel could only run on virtual machine servers with licensing according to the virtual private server (VPS) model. The new ability to ‘autoscale’ and the capacity for exact billing will lower costs for clients, according to ElasticHosts. The usage-based billing offered by containers means website owners no longer have to pay for periods when server capacity is underutilised or the site is idle, typically saving up to 50% on hosting costs, it claims.

“We worked closely with cPanel integrating and testing the product to make this a reality and believe our technologies complement each other well,” said ElasticHosts CEO Richard Davies, “containers are gaining real momentum.”

“Linux containers are an exciting technology and we have recognized the groundswell behind them in the internet community right now,” said Aaron Phillips, Chief Business Officer at cPanel.

cognitive computing, Germany, IBM, Internet of Things Telecoms, IoT, News & Analysis, Watson

IBM aims to take Watson IoT to the next level with new global HQ

HighLight Munich Business TowersUS IT giant IBM has made a major statement of intent towards IoT by opening a global HQ dedicated to its Watson Internet of Things offering in Germany, reports Telecoms.com.

Watson is IBM’s cognitive computing unit, designed to use machine learning and natural language processing to analyse unstructured data. At the core of IoT will be the ability to collect vast amounts of data from billions of different sources and make sense of it. IBM is betting that positioning itself as one of the companies best able to help with that process is the way forward.

The Watson IoT HQ in Munich (pictured) will apparently employ 1,000 IBM developers, consultants, researchers and designers all exploring at the intersection of cognitive computing and IoT. IBM sees Europe as the hub of global IoT development and this HQ is its most extensive European investment in over 20 years.

“The Internet of Things will soon be the largest single source of data on the planet, yet almost 90 percent of that data is never acted upon,” said Harriet Green, GM of Watson IoT and Education. “With its unique abilities to sense, reason and learn, Watson opens the door for enterprises, governments and individuals to finally harness this real-time data, compare it with historical data sets and deep reservoirs of accumulated knowledge, and then find unexpected correlations that generate new insights to benefit business and society alike.”

One early Watson IoT partner is the smart building arm of Siemens. “By bringing asset management and analytics together with a deep technical understanding of how buildings perform, Siemens will make customers’ building operations more reliable, cost-optimized and sustainable,” said Matthias Rebellius, CEO of Siemens Building Technologies. “We are excited to stretch the envelope of what is possible in optimizing building performance by combining the asset management and database technologies from IBM’s Watson IoT business unit with our market leading building automation domain know-how.”

IoT is perhaps the defining technological trend for the next decade, encompassing every part of the ICT spectrum. IBM is right to say that all these embedded sensors and smart devices are pointless unless we use all the data they will generate to make useful decisions. In many ways this is the natural evolution of Big Data and it will be no less challenging to demonstrate ROI on IoT.