All posts by Erin M

Telstra Acquires Readify

Telstra has recently announced the acquisition of Australian based Readify, a developer of Microsoft software applications. This acquisition adds to Telstra’s cloud portfolio, adding to earlier acquisitions of Kloud in January as well as O2 Networks, Bridgepoint Communications, and NSC.

About Readify:

Based in Melbourne, Readify has won several awards from Microsoft. Readify has approximately 200 staff members and 80% of staff members are software developers.

readify

Previous Acquisitions:

In January, Telstra aimed to expand its managed network application services by acquiring Australian based Kloud.  Kloud provides solutions for application development, cloud infrastructure, identity, productivity, and security. It also provides services to more than 80 government and corporate customers throughout the Asia Pacific region.

North Shore Connections (NSC) was acquired by Telstra in August of 2013. O2 joined Telstra in January 2014 for AU$60 million and data management provider Bridgeport was acquired in October 2014.

In March of 2016, Telstra announced a three software defined network (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) products in order to improve cloud security and global data center interconnection. The products introduced were Cloud Gateway Protection, Internet Virtual Private Network (VPN), and Data Center Interconnect.  

Cloud Gateway Protection is a virtual security application that aims to secure cloud services and internet access against cyber attacks.

Internet VPN aims to provide an encrypted office network over public internet for enterprises to utlize across a multitude of sites.

Data Center Interconnect, extends Telstra’s SDN PEN1 global data center interconnection by adding points of presence throughout the Australian region.  

 

Comments:

Michelle Bendschneider, Telstra’s executive director of Global Enterprise and Services: “As we know, apps and software in general are playing an increasingly important role in businesses. Readify is recognised globally for its innovative software solutions and will further help us create software-led digital transformations with our customers. Readify will provide application development and data analytics services, nicely complementing Kloud’s existing services. It will enable Telstra to add incremental value to customers in enterprise cloud applications, API-based customisation, and extensions, as well as business technology advisory services.”

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Amazon Launches New Cloud Region

Public cloud provider Amazon Web Services has recently announced the launch of a new cloud region in Mumbai, India. This marks AWS ’s 35th availability zone across 13 technology infrastructure regions.

This new region will provide services for over 75,000 active customers that have already begun to take advantage of the power of the platform. Launch of the region allows Indian enterprises, startups, etc. to harness the full power and scalability of the platform.

There are three edge locations in India currently: Mumbai, Chennai, and New Delhi and AWS has opened six offices in India to support it growing customer base within the country.

The region is set to consist of two separate availability zones that refer to two different distinct data centers. Most Indian tech startups create their businesses utilizing AWS and new cloud regions allows Indian companies to fully take advantage of the services Amazon has to offer. AWS is also offering training and certification programs to Indian developers that wish to take advantage of these technologies.

Comments:

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services: “These same 75,000 Indian customers, along with others anxious to start using AWS, have asked for an AWS India Region so they can move their applications that require low latency and data sovereignty. We’re excited to make this available today, with the same pay-as-you-go pricing, ability to get started immediately without having to negotiate enterprise agreements or wait days for access, and unmatched functionality that customers enjoy in AWS Regions worldwide – all of which allows customers to go from idea to launch faster than ever before was possible”

Jagdish Belwal, CIO of Tata Motors Limited; AWS customer:”We have been working with AWS since 2012, steadily moving workloads to the cloud, such as test and development environments for our core enterprise systems, we run one of the largest CRM based Dealer Management implementations in the world, more than 90 Tata digital properties in production on AWS, and many other applications.”

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Cisco to Buy CloudLock

Cloud giant Cisco has recently acquired cloud security startup CloudLock for $293 million. This $293 million includes cash as well as equity awards. CloudLock will be integrated into Cisco’s Networking and Security Business group under David Goeckeler. The deal is expected to close by November, 2016.

 

Cisco has utilized acquisition to build its security software and service sector; it paid $2.7 billion for Sourcefire, security hardware and software maker, in 2013 and $635 million for OpenDNS, which helps stop cyber attacks, in 2015. These acquisitions are similar to those of Microsoft, who purchased Adallom for $250 million, and Blue Coat, who purchased Perspecsys Inc.

 

About CloudLock:

Founded in 2007, Massachusetts based CloudLock currently has about 130 employees. It provides cloud access security broker (CASB) technology that allows enterprises to protect data within their cloud. This platform acts as a control point for users that are attempting to access cloud based applications such as Microsoft 365. This technology allows policies pertaining to data access to be established and enforced. It also allows security administrators to monitor third party applications that enterprise employees may be utilizing without expressed permission of the enterprise.

 

Essentially, CASB gives administrators a control point for cloud security and visibility. Because of these unique capabilities, the demand for CASB technology is expected to increase sharply in the coming years. This increase is driven by growing utilization of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications such as Office 365.

 

Comments:

Rob Salvagno, head of Cisco’s M&A and venture investment team: “‘Buy’ has been a key part of our innovation strategy, alongside significant internal product development, to drive towards a fully integrated security portfolio.”

Rob Salvagno, vice president of Cisco Corporate Development: “CloudLock brings a unique cloud-native platform and API-based approach to cloud security, which allows them to build powerful security solutions that are easy to deploy and simple to manage.”

Luke Burns, general partner at Ascent Venture Partners:”CloudLock rose to leadership in the cloud security sector with a pure-play approach of being cloud-native while leveraging other cloud platform APIs in a collaborative fashion. They were a trailblazer of this approach while the competition often focused their efforts on extending legacy methods.”

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Kstart Invests in ParaBlu

India’s leading venture capital firm Kalaari Capital’s seed program, Kstart, has recently invested $510k into cloud security startup ParaBlu. This funding will be used for both team expansion and marketing activities.

Kalaari Capital launched its Kstart program in February of 2016, allocating over $20 million for the program over the course of two years. ParaBlu marks Kstart’s fourth investment, following Affordplan, Active.ai, and Indee. Kstart plans to invest in over 40 startups over the next four years.

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About ParaBlu:
Founded in 2011, California based ParaBlu provides an award winning Cloud Access Security Broker data solution, among other cloud security solutions. The company provides Blukrypt, a secured cloud gateway, BlueSync, for secured data transfer, as well as two versions of its BlueVault solution.

Blukrypt is a CASB that allows users to manage their security policy whether the are utilizing public or private cloud.

With BlueSync, users are allowed to establish somewhat of a “mini-cloud.” These mini clouds allow different teams to operate underneath an enterprises singular large cloud network.

BlueVault comes in two versions: one for endpoints and one for servers. BlueVault for servers has the ability to backup files and databases from Windows servers.
Comments:
Vani Kola, MD, Kalaari Capital: “As cloud usage continues to increase within enterprises, there is tremendous opportunity ahead for ParaBlu’s unique product.”

Anand Prahlad, President, ParaBlu: “ParaBlu was founded with the singular vision of being the security vendor of choice for all enterprise data outside the firewall.The promise of that is already evident in our customer wins so far, and the investment from Kstart will help accelerate the realization of that vision. The experience and mentorship the Kstart team brings with them are without doubt among the best in the industry, and we’re excited to be able to take advantage of it.”

Ananda Rao Ladi: “Our solutions enable enterprises to become less dependent on in-house storage and adopt cloud with confidence. The association with Kstart will help us in expanding our product portfolio for global markets.”

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Samsung Acquires Joyent

Samsung Electronics has recently announced that it will acquire Joyent, a company that is important to the cloud hosting market, for an undisclosed amount. This acquisition marks Samsung effort to transition from just a device manufacturer; the company has begun to expand into software and services with things such as Samsung Pay. The acquisition of Joyent marks Samsung’s third major procurement of a US startup in two years. Acquiring Joyent allows Samsung to have another outlet of processing power, as it currently relies on Amazon and Microsoft for cloud services. As Samsung continues to delve into the realm of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, the extra computational service is much needed. Samsung also aims to use cloud services to collect and analyze data generated by its devices to create a more personalized experience for users.

samsung

Joyent will be integrated into Samsung’s mobile division. Joyent will keep both its name and top level management through this transition. Joyent will operate with a certain amount of independence from parent company Samsung. This acquisition allows Joyent to compete within the large, rapidly developing cloud market and will help Joyent’s worldwide expansion. As Scott Hammond, CEO, wrote on Joyent’s website, “ By bringing these two companies together we are creating the opportunity to develop and bring to market vertically integrated mobile and IoT services and solutions that deliver extraordinary simplicity and value to our customers. This will accelerate the speed of innovation for both companies in high growth market segments.”

About Joyent:

Founded in 2004, the Joyent team was among the first to experiment with public and hybrid cloud as well as to industrialize containers. San Francisco based Joyent has many industry leading but lesser known products and services such as Triton, containers as a service, and Manta, object storage solution. Similarly to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, Joyent allows customers to run their software on the cloud but Joyent also aids customers in constructing their own cloud like systems within their own data centers. Joyent has raised about $126 million in venture capital over the past eleven years.

Comments:

Senior vice president at Samsung’s Global Innovation Center Jacopo Lenzi: “As Samsung is increasingly focusing on software and services as part of its offering to users, it’s very important to build out our internal capabilities in cloud, not only in infrastructure but also in great talent. In Joyent we saw a combination of a proven platform that has been a leader in the forward-thinking elements of this space as well as a team that is world class.”

Joyent CEO Scott Hammond: “The partnership with Samsung gives us the global reach, the economic scale, the financial resources to not only innovate but to also extend our footprint globally. We’ll be building data centers around the globe.”

Chief technology officer of Samsung’s mobile division, “Big data is going to be a huge initiative for Samsung. Samsung devices will be increasingly intelligent, and big data is really a key component of intelligence and personalization.”

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China Shuts Down Cloud Storage Services for Pornographic Content

“Internet companies only provide the technology to build cyberspaces for online storage, but in the end, these spaces belong to China’s online territory and, hence, fall within the government’s jurisdiction,” Qin An, a cyber security expert at the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy. China has defined Cloud Storage as a territory of the Chinese government and therefore has the jurisdiction to regulate the content stored within Clouds, allowing for immense censorship.

Pornographic content is widespread on cloud services, with users uploading videos and then selling them. The government believes it should take necessary action to halt this “immoral” behavior.

President Xi Jinping has ignited a moral campaign that aims to tackle corruption within the country’s sprawling administration as well as crackdown on inappropriate online content. After the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications launched a campaign in March “to address the emerging practice of sharing and hosting pornography via cloud storage services.” Many companies cloud storage services have been shut down. The list includes interne giants Sina, Tencent and Kingsoft as well as DBank and Alibaba.

Alibaba announced in March a complete closure of the service but dates have not yet been specified. Sina soon followed on April 25 with their announcement to close cloud services. DBank has become the sixth company to close or reduce operations after this crackdown. DBank will close all services and delete all data on July 1st, 2016. . Sina and Xunlei, which operate Vdisk andKuaiPan storage services respectively, announced closure of free accounts on June 30.

Homemade videos may still be created and uploaded to personal accounts as long as the content is treated as private information.

Throughout the massive crackdown, few companies, such as search engine Baidu and Internet company Qihoo360, have no plans to suspend any operations.

This is not the first of mass censorship in China, as Google Drive, Dropbox, Apple iTunes, Walt Disney’s DisneyLife services, and many online streaming shows have been blolcked in China. The Chinese government has expanded the word pornography to include any material it finds to be objectionable, such as political criticism. What will be censored next?

 

Comments:

Xie Yongjiang, deputy director of the Institute of Internet Governance and Law at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications: “The government has the right to supervise and intercept illegal information spread online, while companies are also obliged to prevent such information from being uploaded online in the first place by using filtration technology.”

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IBM Partners with Reliance Communications

Emerging cloud giant IBM has recently announced its new partnership with Reliance Communications. This partnership serves to expand IBM’s current list of cloud services; IBM aims to provide “highly secure and scalable infrastructure as a service (IaaS)” on the IBM cloud. Reliance Communications will have the ability to provide its client base, consisting of upwards of 39,000 large enterprises, with the robustness that IBM’s cloud platform is able to offer. This infrastructure platform will securely run the business applications of these enterprises.

Reliance Communications has also launched new cloud service offerings that are designed to provide “end-to-end integrated e-commerce services” for India’s small and medium businesses; all of these services will be run on the IBM cloud.

Indian enterprises are increasingly leveraging cloud services and thus require more secure and refined levels of support in order to develop their growing e-commerce business. Research conducted by IBM indicates that many communication service providers have recognized the trend of increased interest in cloud services for their organizations. Reliance Communications joins a long list of communication service providers that IBM has partnered with, including Telstra, AT&T, and Verizon.

About Reliance Communications:

Reliance Communications is an Indian based Telecommunications company with company headquarters in  Navi Mumbai. Founded in 2002, Reliance Communications is India’s foremost and truly integrated telecommunications service providers. The company has a customer base of over 118 million. Reliance Communications owns and operates the world’s largest next generation IP enabled connectivity infrastructure. The company aims to become a world class communication service provider.

Comments:

 

Braham Singh: SVP of Global Product Management, Reliance Communications and Global Cloud Xchange: “Through our partnership with IBM, customers will instantly benefit from the added flexibility and global reach to be more competitive, especially as we look at new opportunities from the ‘Digital India’ program.”

Vivek Malhotra, Cloud Leader, IBM India / South Asia: “We are delighted to partner with Reliance Communications and support their efforts to offer our Cloud services in the Indian market. With a broad cloud portfolio, deep expertise and data privacy, the IBM Cloud offers businesses the ability to optimize its resources and investments to drive growth. With this collaboration, we will be able to address the requirements of organizations who have limited access to enterprise-grade cloud solutions”

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Oracle Hybrid Cloud

Oracle has recently unveiled a new hybrid cloud service that allows customers within highly regulated industries transition to Oracle’s cloud at its own pace. Oracle has effectively placed its public cloud behind the enterprise firewall.

Called Oracle Cloud at Customer, this new service allows customers to enjoy the benefits of Oracle Cloud Services within their own data centers. This service involves a server that runs in the customer’s data centers but is managed by Oracle. This hybrid cloud runs on-premise.

Customers also have the freedom to choose which services they would like to utilize, including disaster recovery, infrastructure services, and data management. This new software is compatible with Oracle Cloud, allowing for workload portability.

Highly regulated may now meet legal requirements pertaining to sovereignty, security, and privacy with this hybrid cloud.

Microsoft, cloud giant, has the most well developed enterprise business compared to other cloud giants such as Amazon and has also developed software similar to that of Oracle in the form of Azure Stack. Azure Stack allows customers to run Azure public cloud in their own data centers, as Oracle Cloud at Customer does.

Oracle has also recently expanded its cloud services to expand across all layers of the stack (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS). These services now include data management, enterprise integration, customer service, supply chain management, and data integration.

 

Comments:

Thomas Kurian, president, “The exact same software that runs our cloud is now available on customers’ data center floors so Oracle infrastructure as a service and Oracle platform as a service is now available in your data center – same software, same APIs – and because it is the same software and because it is the same APIs, it gives you the ability to get seamless workload portability.”

Amit Zavery, senior vice president for the Oracle Cloud Platform, “We bring in a cloud machine, which is basically a replica of our public cloud services, and install it at the customer site. Customers can get the infrastructure, the database, all the public cloud services, but behind the firewall

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Bosch’s IoT

An annual two-day conference for company customers, partners and employees, Bosch ConnectedWorld addressed the company’s plans for the Internet of Things. Bosch, a German global engineering and electronics firm, has launched a series of cloud services for the Internet of Things. These services are intended to improve existing software and connectivity. At the conference, programs pertaining to big data technology were also addressed.

CEO Volkmar Denner has commented, “The Bosch IoT Cloud is the final piece of the puzzle that completes our software expertise.” The company will begin offering these new services in 2017, while the company itself will begin using them this year. 2017 is set to become a milestone year for the company.

The foundation of the Bosch IoT Cloud will be the Bosch’s IoT Suite that has the ability to identify Web-enabled objects and coordinate data exchanges, in addition to the services that it offers. Bosch already offers a myriad of cloud services, including remote access services.

Bosch’s “Industrie 4.0” unites German standards and the Industrial Internet Consotrium (IIC). The program hopes to provide a common language for industrial applications in places such manufacturing and building management.

The company claims that because its cloud infrastructure is located in Germany, it is safer than companies located in the United States, due to increasing security concerns surrounding the National Security Agency (NSA). New concerns arose from the battle between Apple and the FBI. The FBI demanded that Apple develop software that allowed the FBI entry into the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, but Apple claimed that it could not do so without compromising security of all phones. So, not only must American based companies protect against attacks from hackers, but demands from the government as well.

As Bosch is eager to enter the ever growing race for influence over the Internet of Things, Frank Gillett, a principal analyst with Forrester Research Inc., notes that it may not be about who wins the race, but “how much share each gets.”  We will see how large Bosch’s share is in 2017.

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Telstra and Cisco Unveil New Products

Telstra and Cisco have recently announced three new software-designed networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) products that aim to improve both cloud security and global data center interconnection. These products come in addition to Telstra’s two additional functions for its SDN PEN platform, announced in January.

Cloud Gateway Protection: This product was the first of the three made available in beta. It is a virtual security application that aims to secure cloud services and  internet access, as well as Next IP networks against cyber-attacks.

Internet Virtual Private Network (VPN): This product will provide both a secure and encrypted office network over public internet. This can be used by businesses across several sites. The launch is expected to occur later in March.

Data Center Interconnect: This product will extend Telstra’s SDN PEN1 global data center interconnection. Australian data centers will be added. Customers may configure links between domestic and foreign data centers.

These products aim to revolutionize the cloud. The three new products will be connected by Telstra’s self service portal. The two companies have a long standing partnership and this combined effort utilizes both companies’ assets.

The additional features Telstra added in January allow customers to call upon network functions and make digital partnerships.

PEN Exchange: This function allows customers to connect their network services with other customers’.

Improvements to PEN Marketplace: This function improved the marketplace; businesses may order NFV equipment from various vendors.

In addition to the strong partnership between Telstra and Cisco, Telstra has also formed a strong connection with HP and other businesses, allowing Telstra to further its BFV strategies and other programs.

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Comments

Philip Jones, Telstra executive director of Global Products and Solutions: “By allowing us to overcome the constraints of traditional network infrastructure, the software-driven customer experiences dramatically increases our agility by enabling us to quickly create new solutions, and puts the control of those solutions into the hands of our customers.”

Kelly Ahuja, Cisco senior vice president of Service Provider Business, Products, and Solutions: “By combining Cisco’s agile and flexible software platform with Telstra’s customer-focused and customer-friendly range of products, we send a powerful message to the industry and a provide a clear example of how to develop and design the network services of tomorrow.”

David Robertson, Telstra Operations director of Transport and Routing Engineering for Networks, said at the time: “Partnering with multiple vendors helps us to deliver impactful virtualization and orchestration capabilities within a flexible architectural framework. As service providers look to build seamless application delivery networks, vendors that have qualified their technologies with the industry’s standardization groups are seen as more attractive to customers.”

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