All posts by Business Cloud News

acquisition, Dell, EMC, M&A, News & Analysis, VMware

Dell EMC takeover raises questions about Virtustream and Perot Systems

Dell office logoTwo new developments have been reported this week as Dell and EMC attempt to resolve the $67 billion question of how to finance one of the biggest mergers in the history of technology.

Cloud software giant VMware has withdrawn from a previous commitment to the Virtustream cloud service venture with parent company EMC, it has disclosed to regulators.

The new direction comes as Dell, the proposed new owner of EMC and a potentially controlling stakeholder in VMware, is allegedly looking at new options to finance the $67 billion deal. According to sources quoted in Re/code Dell is looking for a buyer for its $5 billion valued technology outsourcing business Perot Systems. The funds raised would help reduce the level of debt Dell must take on if the EMC takeover is to proceed.

In November, BCN reported how questions of financing of Dell’s takeover of EMC could scupper the deal, which BCN first revealed in October. A week after the deal was announced, EMC and VMware unveiled plans for a joint, equal partnership to create cloud service Virtustream, but unease about the announcement wiped 25% off VMware share values, according to some analysts. Since Dell and its backers were planning to use share value as a means of funding the transaction the decline in stock market value threatened to undermine the funding of the deal.

Shareholders in both EMC and VMware are allegedly unhappy with the idea of the Virtustream project, which appeared to be a “dumping ground” for money-losing assets, it’s claimed.

VMware shares fell 25 cents to $58.80 by mid-morning Monday.

Meanwhile, as Dell seeks to raise $10 billion in cash to lighten the potential burden of debt, it is allegedly courting suitors for Perot Systems, an outsourcing outfit it bought in 2009 for $3.9 billion.

According to reports, Dell has been in talks with India-based Tata Consultancy Services, French outsourcing giant Atos, New York based IT services company Genpact and Canadian IT firm CGI. Talks with Tata stalled on a disagreement about the valuation or Perot Systems, say reports.

According to Re/Code sources Dell began trying to sell Perot Systems three months ago and the cash realised would be a crucial enabler for the EMC acquisition. However, a range of potential buyers who were sounded out, including IBM, Infosys and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, have passed on the opportunity.

Cloudyn, Financing, hybrid cloud, News & Analysis

Cloudyn gets $11 million to take cloud monitoring global

Cloud monitoring service Cloudyn has raised $11 million to fund global expansion, brand raising and service integration from a Series B round of financing.

The latest cash injection comes 15 months after it was awarded for $4 million as investors noted how it had grown to monitor 8% of all Amazon Web Services. With cloud computing operators now generating $321billion a year, according to 451 Research, the monitoring of both infrastructure and platform services (IaaS and PaaS) is becoming increasingly critical.

The popularity of hybrid clouds, which straddle both public and private premises, has added complexity to the management task, creating a need for specialist monitors such as Isreal-based start up Cloudyn. A study conducted by 451 Research predicts that many companies plan to spend up to 50% of their cloud budget on these services.

Since 2014, when Cloudyn received $4 million in funding, the company says it has focused on winning clients among Fortune 1000 enterprises and managed service providers. Cloudyn has tripled its revenue for three consecutive years while doubling its head count. It currently monitors 200,000 virtual machines and 12,000 concurrent applications.

The new round of venture funding was led by Carmel Ventures and included contributions from previous investors Titanium Investments and RDSeed. Ronen Nir, General Partner at Carmel, will join Cloudyn’s board of directors.

There’s growing need for enterprises to perfect their resource allocation, boost performance and cut reducing cloud spend, according to Ronen Nir, the cloud specialist at Carmel Ventures. “Cloudyn’s technology provides meaningful and actionable data which has both operational and financial metrics,” said Nir.

“The funding will allow us to build on this momentum and increase our market share in North America and global markets,” said Sharon Wagner, CEO of Cloudyn.

Datacentre, News & Analysis, Safe Harbour, Skyhigh Networks

Skyhigh Networks opens European data centre to resolve Safe Harbour fears

datacentreCloud security vendor Skyhigh Networks has opened a new data centre in Germany as it moves to strengthen its support of European customers and multi-nationals.

The Frankfurt facility is a response to increasing demand for data localisation within Europe, which has been stoked by the recent Safe Harbour ruling by the European Court of Justices.

In October BCN reported how a Court of Justice of the European Union (CREU) ruling puts many companies at risk of prosecution by European privacy regulators if they transfer the data of EU citizen’s to the US without a demonstrable set of privacy safeguards.

The 4,000 firms that transfer their clients’ personal data to the United States currently have no means of demonstrating compliance to EC privacy regulations. As the legal situation currently stands, EU data protection law says companies cannot transfer EU citizens’ personal data to countries outside the EU which have insufficient privacy safeguards.

The new data centre will use a Hadoop cluster to analyse traffic analysis and identify and report on the risk of cloud services. It will provide interception, inspection, encryption and decryption services. The system will also run anomaly detection, reporting and data leak prevention services to secure SkyHigh’s clients’ cloud services.

SkyHigh said the new data centre gives customers a choice over where their data is processed and better performance in addition to privacy and sovereignty. The data centre is on a site owned and managed by European employees.

“We are delighted that Skyhigh Networks has opened a data centre in Europe,” said David Cahill, Security Strategy and Architecture Manager at AIB, a bank with 2.6 million customers and 14,000 employees. Cahill said that conforming to existing European data protection laws and the General Data Protection Regulation expected in 2016 need to be taken “very seriously”.

M&A, News & Analysis, Sophos, SurfRight

Sophos drops $32m on SurfRight to enhance threat detection

Cybersecurity2Security vendor Sophos has bought Dutch cloud security vendor SurfRight, which specialises in endpoint threat detection and response (ETDR) and threat prevention, for $31.8 million.

Sophos said it will immediately integrate the SurfRight technology into its line of endpoint security systems and on completion will make the technology available via its global channel of 15,000 partners.

Sophos will continue development and support for SurfRight’s existing product line including its popular HitmanPro range of malware scanning and removal tools, which has 20 million users worldwide. Sophos will retain all SurfRight employees and the company’s office in Hengelo. SurfRight CEO Mark Loman will join the Sophos Enduser Security Group.

Hengelo-based SurfRight develops technology that detects and stops attacks by interrupting the malware and advanced persistent threat (APT) vectors. The software spots any dubious looking memory manipulations, which are often a hallmark of malicious code that might be running furtive activity. The ability to nip these exploits in the bud can fortify endpoint security mechanisms, by thwarting malicious code’s abuses of processor and memory resources. Surfright’s portfolio also includes anti-espionage and anti-ransom software to prevent the growing threat of malware software such as CryptoLocker.

The logic of the deal, for SurfRight, is a high-growth industry leader with a world channel and the support of specialized product development teams, according to SurfRight CEO Mark Loman. “We built this technology to address every vector of an APT attack in an auto-responding, coordinated manner,” he said.

Sophos’ security strategy uses multiple components of security protection, including network security and endpoint security that continuously communicate with each other. This, says Sophos, makes for faster threat detection and cuts the time and resources needed for investigating security incidents.

Interrupting and mitigating custom-made malware is becoming increasingly important as traditional antivirus and network-based intrusion detection systems cannot cope with the speed of threats generated in the modern cloud environment, according to Dan Schiappa, senior VP of Enduser Security at Sophos.

Big Data, CDN, Database, Google, MySQL, News & Analysis

Google upgrades Cloud SQL, promises managed MySQL offerings

Google officeGoogle has announced the beta availability of a new improved Cloud SQL for Google Cloud Platform – and an alpha version of its much anticipated Content Delivery Network offering.

In a blog post Brett Hesterberg, Product Manager for Google’s Cloud Platform, says the second generation of Cloud SQL will aim to give better performance and more ‘scalability per dollar’.

In Google’s internal testing, the second generation Cloud SQL proved seven times faster than the first generation and it now scales to 10TB of data, 15,000 IOPS and 104GB of RAM per instance, Hesterberg said.

The upshot is that transactional databases now have a flexibility that was unachievable with traditional relational databases. “With Cloud SQL we’ve changed that,” Hesterberg said. “Flexibility means easily scaling a database up and down.”

Databases can now ramp up and down in size and the number of queries per day. The allocation of resources like CPU cores and RAM can be more skilfully adapted with Cloud SQL, using a variety of tools such as MySQL Workbench, Toad and the MySQL command-line. Another promised improvement is that any client can be used for access, including Compute Engine, Managed VMs, Container Engine and workstations.

In the new cloud environment databases need to be easier to stop and restart if they are only used on occasion for brief or infrequent tasks, according to Hesterberg. Cloud SQL now caters for these increasingly common cloud applications of database technology through the Cloud Console, the command line within Google’s gCloud SDK or a RESTful API. This makes admin a scriptable job and minimises costs by only running the databases when necessary.

Cloud SQL will create more manageable MySQL databases, claims Hesterberg, since Google will apply patches and updates to MySQL, manage backups, configure replication and provide automatic failover for High Availability (HA) in the event of a zone outage. “It means you get Google’s operational expertise for your MySQL database,” says Hesterberg. Subscribers signed up for Google Cloud Platform can now get a $300 credit to test drive Cloud SQL, it announced.

Meanwhile in another Google blog, it announced an alpha release of its own content delivery network, Google Cloud CDN. The system may not be consistent and is not recommended for production use, Google warned.

Google Cloud CDN will speed up its cloud services using distributed edge caches to bring content closer to users in a bid to compensate for its relatively low global data centre coverage against rivals AWS and Azure.

Adobe, Content & Applications, Creative Cloud, Financial Results, News & Analysis, Software as a service

Adobe posts 22% Q4 revenue growth, driven by Creative Cloud

AdobeAdobe Systems has claimed it is only just starting to gain from cloud adoption, after reporting record earnings.

Strong growth in subscriptions to Adobe Systems’ Creative Cloud has contributed to the ninth consecutive quarter in which the software vendor topped market expectations, as it reported revenue of $1.31b in Q4 of the fiscal year ending in November 2015. Of this, revenue from its digital media business, including Creative Cloud, rose by 35% to $875.3 million.

The vendor added 833,000 new subscribers to the Creative Cloud in the three months ending in November, some 150,000 more than market analysts expected. Meanwhile, Adobe Marketing Cloud brought in $352 million in revenue thanks to an unexpectedly strong adoption of its software as a service (SaaS) offerings.

Adobe’s strong growth from Creative Cloud has come as enterprises and professionals have adopted the new model of purchasing apps like graphic design tool Photoshop, web design software Dreamweaver and web video building application Flash. According to Adobe 52% of its customers subscribe to the full Creative Cloud bundle, with the remaining 48% subscribing to individual products within the portfolio.

Adobe Systems’ Photoshop Lightroom is now the fastest growing app in its Creative Cloud, CFO Mark Garrett told Reuters. “It’s growing the most because it’s attracting hobbyists and consumers,” he said. Since these were people that would never buy Adobe’s products before, the Creative Cloud and the switch from traditional licensing to web based subscription has expanded its market, Garrett said. “Our financials show that the benefits of our move to the cloud are just beginning.”

Adobe’s digital marketing business, which makes software that analyses customer interactions and manages social media content, grew by just 2.3% in comparison, to $382.7 million.

The company’s shares jumped 4.7% to $93.10 following the release of its latest trading figures.

Financing, News & Analysis, SnapLogic

SnapLogic raises $37.5m in venture capital for cloud integration innovation

Dollar SignsOne of the first cloud computing start ups has re-launched with a completely new offering, after industry evolution jinxed its first ground breaking invention.

SnapLogic has announced the receipt of $37.5 million in venture funding for a second major launch. The money was released from a Series E round of funding from backers including Microsoft and Silver Lake Waterman. The new incarnation of SnapLogic will concentrate on making technology that simplifies the process of shifting data between major platforms. It creates software that acts as a control plane which runs in the cloud and another set of software which acts as a data plane which can run anywhere.

This, according to SnapLogic, makes it easier for customers to shift data from, say, Salesforce’s customer relationship management apps into Workday. Another application would be in the emerging Internet of Things sector, where SnapLogic software makes it easier for data gathered from industrial sensors to be flowed into Hadoop data lakes. SnapLogic can be accessed on the cloud via a browser and can support hundreds of simultaneous users at a site.

SnapLogic is one of the few start ups to survive having the rug pulled from it by a major shift in demand, according to CEO Gaurav Dhillon, who launched the company on its search for capital. When it received its first round of investment, led by venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz in 2009, it offered customers “snaps” to connect cloud applications with on-premise applications, allowing them to shift data between the two. However, a combination of the increasing popularity of hybrid cloud alternatives, and SnapLogic’s proprietary nature, gradually undermined the popularity of this solution.

SnapLogic didn’t work in “pure cloud fashion,” Dhillon told the The Wall Street Journal, since every customer needed to create its own SnapLogic software, running on its own premises, to connect to its cloud apps.

Despite being abandoned by some of the original backers, SnapDragon has made a transition to create a new set of cloud system integration problems. Other contributors to the new round of funding include Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners and Triangle Peak Partners. SnapLogic has now raised nearly $90 million in five rounds of funding.

Cloud28+, Europe, HPE, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, Platform as a service, Software as a service

Cloud28+ promises to clear up the cloudy issues of compliance

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) claims its new Cloud28+ cloud service catalogue will simplify the search for compliant cloud services for European enterprises.

Cloud 28+ is a community of commercial and public sector organisations aimed at expanding cloud service adoption across Europe. The Cloud28+ catalogue, on the other hand, is a centralized enterprise app store which now lists 680 cloud services from 150 members across the range of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings. To date 1000 end user organisations have pre-registered to use the catalogue.

The matchmaking Cloud28+ service online catalogue, now on general availability, promises a broad range of benefits for European customers. It allows customers to specify data centre locations and providers, in accordance with local laws and business requirements. It will helps users to find cloud-native independent software vendors with whom they can partner and it will help companies market themselves more expansively by letting them publishing their own services in the catalogue. This could allow end user organisations to turn their IT teams into ‘revenue-generating engines’, claims HPE.

The main benefit of the Cloud28+ service catalogue, HPE claims, is that it gives open access to huge numbers of enterprise cloud services. This will help cloud buyers to compare the cloud market, on functional and non-functional criteria, including price, service level agreements and certification levels.

One of the main selling points of the system is that is makes it easier to comply with increasingly strict data protections laws in the EU, according to James Kinsella, founder of Zettabox a cloud storage and team sharing system and the latest addition to the Cloud28+ catalogue. “It’s a logical community for Zettabox to join, as its mission is to build a cohesive and collaborative cloud environment, for Europeans by Europeans,” said Kinsella.

The Cloud28+ technology framework is based on HPE Helion OpenStack. This will give it the portability of cloud services and eliminate vendor lock-in, said Xavier Poisson, Hybrid IT VP at HPE. “This is an important milestone on the journey to a European Digital Single Market,” said Poisson.

The overturning of the Safe Harbour agreement in European courts had tremendous implications for cloud service providers, according to one analyst. “It certainly makes services that comply with European data privacy requirements more attractive,” said William Fellows, analyst at 451 Research.

Azure, Backup, Enterprise IT, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Azure Backup gets fine tuned with speed, cache and retention improvements

AzureMicrosoft’s Azure has promised more speed, lower cache demands and better data retention among a range of improvement to its cloud backup services for enterprise data.

Azure Backup now uses a technology called Update Sequence Number (USN) Journal in Windows to track the files that have changed between consecutive backups. USN keeps track of these changes to files and directories on the volume and this helps to identify changed files quickly.

The upshot of this tweak is a faster backup time. “We’ve seen up to a 50% reduction of backup times when using this optimization,” said Giridhar Mosay, Azure’s Program Manager for Cloud and Enterprise. Individual file server backup times will vary according to numbers and sizes of files and directory structure, Mosay warned.

A new algorithm that computes metadata has slashed the amount of cache space needed for each Azure Backup by 66%. The standard allocation of 15% cache space per volume size being backed up to Azure has proved prohibitive for volumes greater than 10TB. The new algorithm makes the cataloguing of the file space to be backed up a much more efficient process, which creates so much less metadata that it demands only 5% cache space, or less. Azure is now modifying its requirement for cache space to a third of the old level.

Meanwhile the resilience of the system has improved as Azure Backup has increased the number of recovery points for cloud backups. This allows for flexible retention policies to meet stringent compliance requirements such as HIPAA (the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) for large enterprises. The new maximum number of recovery points has increased from 366 to 9999.

Other tweaks include more timeouts across the various phases of backup process to ensure that long running jobs complete reliably. Cloud backups will also run a bit more efficiently as a result of a decoupling of the processes of cataloguing and uploading the backup data. Intermittent failures, in the service to handle incremental backups, have also been identified and resolved, according to Mosay. “We are continuing our journey to make Azure backup enterprise grade,” he said.

Financing, Funding, ItsOn, News & Analysis, Telco Cloud

ItsOn gets $12.5 million funding to take Smart Services into LatAm and EMEA

Itson awardCloud based mobile service provider ItsOn has raised $12.5 million in a Series D funding round led by Delta Partners Capital Limited with follow-on investments from Verizon Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Tenaya Capital.

ItsOn’s technology aims to make mobile commerce a more enjoyable and secure experience through a range of services, content and apps. It currently runs its Smart Services primarily from North America data centres but the cash injection will help it fund regional data centres as it launches into markets in South America, Middle East, Africa and Europe.

ItsOn says it gives mobile customers better ways to buy wireless services and interact with their service providers. Its service is described as a ‘digital transformation platform for wireless operators’ that includes an integrated cloud service, on-device software and a mobile operator interface, the Service Design Center. These three components connect to IT and business systems, so operators can provide better experiences with a faster time to market for services, offers and mobile commerce growth.

Mobile operators desperately need to improve their social skills with end users and that requires a digital transformation according to Kristoff Puelinckx, co-founder at one of ItsOn’s investors, Delta Partners. Puelinckx said ItsOn’s mobile commerce platform is ‘at least five years ahead’ of every other player in this space, thanks to its engagement skills and contextual marketing for new products, services and incentives.

The ‘great digital experience’ is generally lacking among mobile operators, who rely on time-consuming and inconvenient store visits and call centre based cold callers in order to sell new services. Operators have suddenly woken up to the fact that they need to show greater transparency and more compelling service, according to Puelinckx.

Verizon Ventures started investing in ItsOn when it invented a virtual end-to-end carrier IT system, and it poured even more money in when it then created a cloud solution for OSS, BSS and user engagement, said Verizon Ventures director Ed Ruth. “It moved the mobile service market forward and we are pleased to continue investing in ItsOn,” said Ruth. The new system, he says, will help operators sell a lot more services to consumers, SMBs and IoT companies.

“There’s a rapidly growing demand for our technology as wireless service providers face increasing end-user expectations, new opportunities and new competition,” said ItsOn CEO Dr Greg Raleigh.