All posts by Lavanya

Computing

What’s the big deal about Nimble Cloud Volumes?

Nimble Storage has launched a new product called Nimble Cloud Volumes, an enterprise-class multi-cloud storage service that runs applications both in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. This company claims that Nimble Cloud Volumes is the only enterprise-grade multicloud service that uses both AWS and Azure for running applications.

Well, what’s the big deal about this product? A lot actually.

First off, this represents the evolution of cloud over the last few years. When cloud emerged as a feasible technology, organizations began to implement their native applications that included both web and mobile-based ones. Then, as cloud technology and security evolved, organizations began to test, develop and migrate their production instances of traditional products such as CRM and financial applications to the cloud. Now, with Nimble Cloud Volumes, organizations can move their critical data to the cloud too as they’ll have the same durability and enterprise-level capabilities that they enjoy on-premises.

Nimble Cloud Volumes is designed to offer the same simplicity as that of a native cloud storage, and at the same time, offer enhanced data protection for critical applications. To top it, Cloud Volumes is also expected to be cost effective as customers are charged only for changed data, and not for complete additional copies. Such a pricing structure optimizes the space available on cloud, thereby making it more cost effective for customers.

In addition, Nimble Cloud Volumes uses two public clouds, and even allows users to move data between these two clouds at any time. This multicloud feature is what makes this product stand out in the crowded cloud market. The obvious advantage with using the combined services of the top two cloud platforms in the world is high data reliability. In fact, Nimble Solutions claims that it offers 99.999999% storage availability and data durability for all applications. For comparison, this is almost one million times greater than what’s available for native cloud storage.

Currently, any person who wants to make the most of the features offered by Azure and AWS have to sign up for both the services, which is practically a waste of money. Also, moving files between these two systems is anything but easy because of the differing protocols and tools used by both the services. With Cloud Volumes, this problem is handled rather easily.

In many ways, this product can be seen as a wrapper for both AWS and Azure, and a bundling of the two under the same wrapper means users can use them interchangeably.

To conclude, Nimble Cloud Volumes is an exciting product as it helps users to leverage the features of the two leading cloud storage platforms, namely AWS and Microsoft Azure. In addition, it makes it easy to move data between these two storage providers, as and when needed. Further, it offers enhanced reliability and high levels of data protection for critical applications. For all this, the cost is also nominal as users get to pay only for what they use.

In this sense, Nimble Cloud Volumes represents the next generation of products in the world of cloud computing.

 

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Uncategorized

Cloud Security Market to Grow to $13.93 Billion by 2024

Cloud security is one of the fastest growing market segments today. The latest report from Grand View Research Inc further accentuates this trend, as it predicts the cloud security market to grow to $13.93 billion by 2024.

Even if this sounds phenomenal, it’s still possible because of a host of factors. Firstly, more companies are moving to the cloud because of the many benefits that come with it. At the same time, the last few years has seen an increasing number of cyber attacks and data breaches that have resulted in millions of dollars of loss for companies. To counter this problem, cloud security strategies will be put in place. Already, many cloud service providers and client companies are working on addressing cloud security flaws, and this is only expected to increase over the coming years.

Secondly, many cloud service providers are investing heavily in security infrastructure in the form of additional infrastructure, research and innovation. Some are even acquiring other companies that have made remarkable progress in cloud security. All these investments are sure to bring in more customers, thereby increasing the size of cloud security market.

Thirdly, cloud computing is erasing geographical boundaries with its widespread reach. As more companies take to the cloud, this market will grow. Along with it, the security market will also grow to keep pace with the growing security needs of customers.

Another important factor that will fuel the growth of cloud security market is the changing government regulations. As cloud computing becomes a mainstream part of businesses, governments are forced to come up with regulations that will protect the interests of businesses and individual consumers. These regulations are more likely to make cloud access and security more stringent, and this in turn, will fuel the cloud security market.

For example, Germany and other countries in the EU are option for high data privacy by enacting legislation to keep data only within their geographical borders. In other words, data pertaining to German businesses and residents should be stored only within the territorial boundaries of Germany. Other countries like the U.S and France are striving to get greater visibility on Internet traffic. With such regulations in place, cloud security is sure to grow.

Along with government regulations, industry specific regulations such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for the healthcare industry, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for the financial sector, Safe Harbor Act and European Union Data Protection Directive are likely to make enhance cloud security, and this could eventually help the cloud security industry to grow.

Due to these factors, the cloud security industry is well on its way to some astounding growth over the next decade.

According to the report, the major players in this market segment are CA Technologies Inc, Cisco Systems, IBM Corp, Intel Corp, TrendMicro and VMWare. Other companies that are vying for a market share in this industry are Whitehat Virtual Technologies, Snoopwall Inc and BMC Software.

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News

Storj Labs Raises $3 Million

This is the perfect time to be a tech startup, as many angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for innovative products and ideas that would propel technological impact to new heights. Over the last year, many startups have successfully raised seed capital and funding. The latest in this list is Storj labs that raised $3 million in funding from companies such as Google Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and Techstars.

Storj (pronounced “storage”) is a distributed cloud-service provider that has created a decentralized peer-to-peer solution. This service works by organizing users who are willing to rent out their spare hard drive space and bandwidth to customers who are looking for the same. All these users are connected through a peer network.

In the past, one of the biggest challenges of having a peer-to-peer cloud sharing technology was security. How can users know that their private data will not be accessed by other users in the same network? In fact, this concern was one of the reasons why this idea never took off in the first place.

Storj claims that it has found a secure solution for this problem. Their system enables users to store their unused space in a secure and decentralized location using block chain features such as a transaction ledger, public or private key encryption and cryptographic hash functions. In this sense, Storj  has brought block chain technology back to the world to ensure that files are safe and not accessed by unauthorized users.

So, what’s the advantage of choosing Storj over the leading providers like AWS and Microsoft?

Cost. AWS and Microsoft need large datacenters to store the data, not to mention the high cost of physical space and electricity needed to power it. This cost is passed on to developers and users. In addition, there is always a possibility for physical servers and networks to have problems, and this can lead to data failure or loss.

In stark contrast, the services offered by Storj is cost-effective because the money goes towards users who are renting out their space. Since they don’t need physical space or electricity, the cost per unit of consumption is low. Besides being cost-effective, users are in control over their device and data because of the decentralized model.

There are no central servers that can be compromised, so data is safe. In addition, the Storj system uses client-side encryption, which means, only the end users have access to their keys needed to decrypt files. This way, security is Storj’s biggest selling point.

Such a unique model has seen good response from both users and customers. Currently, Storj has about 7,500 users who rent out their hard drive space, and about 15,000 API users worldwide who use them.

Storj has also entered into an agreement with Heroku, a cloud-based platform-as-a-service (PaaS). This partnership helps developers to build and run their applications completely in the cloud, as Storj offers them a distributed object storage solution complete with advanced features such as encryption.

Little wonder then that Storj Labs has raised a funding of $3 million. It could be the first of many more to come.

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News

Adobe Introduces new Cloud-based Digital Signatures

Adobe has transformed the way we read, share and sign digital documents. The latest in this category is cloud-based digital signatures.

Now, Adobe Sign will offer cloud-based digital signatures on any device that uses the Adobe Document Cloud. This move is a major step for Adobe and a significant one for the cloud community as a whole, as there have been many challenges associated with implementing it.

Digital signatures are much different from e-signatures, and they require a detailed verification process that can be time-consuming and effort-centric. In addition, the existing digital signatures are fragmented, with most of them being proprietary.

To overcome this challenge, Adobe decided to come up with cloud-based digital signatures that are open to multiple certificate providers. The obvious advantage with such open standards is that it allows interoperability between solutions, and helps in widespread adoption. In this sense, it can be the beginning of exciting times for the digital signature industry.

Adobe is all set to embrace this trend, as a press report released by the company says that its digital signatures are one of the most advanced and secure type of electronic signatures available today, and it can be used for signing many important documents like mortgage applications and healthcare forms.

Besides digital signatures, Adobe has also added a host of other features that is sure to appeal to large teams. Some of the features it has added to its arsenal include document routing and integration with Microsoft SharePoint to allow for easy signing and tracking.

All the changes are based on the recommendations given by Cloud Signature Consortium, a global network of industry experts who are working together to create standardized specifications for online document sharing and digital signatures. For some time now, this group has been advocating for wide and open standards, as it can help to build a secure digital signature functionality across all devices and applications. Adobe headed this consortium in 2016, and is today leading the way, with the world’s first open cloud-based digital signatures.

Alongside introducing digital signature, Adobe has also added new functionality to its Adobe Sign technology, so it can now streamline the flow of documents and tasks across different teams, and even the organization as a whole. This way, the documents can be integrated better with the digital processes and systems of the organization.

As a part of its updates, Adobe has enhanced its mobile app with a new technology called Adobe Sensei. This technology uses machine learning, artificial intelligence and deep learning capabilities to make the right predictions. This mobile app will also make it easy for users to convert any paper document to its digital version with just a smartphone scan.

To top these changes, the process of digital signing complies with standards such as eIDAS that has to be followed in the EU.

With such sweeping changes, Adobe is all set to take the digital signature industry by storm.  It also wants to tap into the growing demand for digital signatures, as workforce are increasingly mobile and prefer to have digital copies of documents.

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News

Cloud Drives Data#3’s Growth

Data#3, a business solutions provider, has released an impressive result for the first half of 2017. It reported  a revenue of AU$506 million, and a net profit of AU$5.8 million. These numbers reflect a 34 percent increase when compared to the same time last year.

Revenue for the first six months that ended on December 31, 2016 included a revenue of AU$58 million from the cloud. This represents almost 11.6 percent of the total revenues of the company, and it reflects the growing contribution of cloud to its overall business.

Out of this, Data#3’s public cloud solutions accounted for AU$53.3 million, representing a 32.5 percent increase. It’s on-premise solutions also saw a steady growth, as it registered a nine percent growth to contribute AU$360.7 million. Product revenue from hardware and software sales grew by 11.5 percent, as it increased from AU$37.1 million to AU$413.9 million.

Data#3 is a publicly traded company in the information and communication (ICT) sector of Australia. It is headquartered in Brisbane, but its operations span across entire Australia. it was founded in 1977 and was established by Powell, Clark and Associates (PCA). With about 900 employees, this company has a firm presence in Australia’s IT market.

Data#3’s result brings up many interesting aspects of its business. Firstly, it reflects the growth of the company from a product-centric company to that of a service-centric one, to meet the changing needs of the IT environment. According to Laurence Baynham, the CEO of Data#3, this company has a strategic growth comprising of three long-term objectives, which are to deliver sustained growth, increase services and grow cloud services revenues.

These objectives show the importance given by Data#3 to its cloud businesses, as the company firmly believes that cloud is an important component of its future business strategies. Already, the company has a list of impressive clients in the cloud market. An example is the Victoria State Emergency Services, for which Data#3 built an emergency solution using Microsoft Azure. With this, Victoria became the first emergency organization in Australia to tap into the power of public cloud.

Secondly, cloud can become an integral part of Data#3’s future operations as the company has opined that it is witnessing a rapid increase in the demand for cloud-based services, and it wants to position itself to meet this demand. In this sense, we can expect the company to make heavy investment in cloud infrastructure over the next few years as it transitions itself to a cloud-based company.

These numbers also show the growing importance of cloud, as companies position themselves to make the most of it. In many ways, it also reflects the penetration of cloud in Australian markets, as much of the clients of this Brisbane-based company is in Australia. Recently, Alibaba also expanded its operations to cater to the growing demands of the Australian cloud market.

Lastly, the company has announced that it will be establishing a health sector practice, similar to the investments it has made in education. We can expect many practices in health sector to be driven by cloud.

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Storage

A Look into Cloudian’s HyperStore 4000

Cloudian has come up with a new cloud data archiving product called HyperStore 4000 that promises to have many unique features to support the changing needs of businesses.

HyperStore 4000 offers object storage, which means, data is stored as objects and not as files. The obvious advantage is that each object acts as a single repository instead of a file system where documents are nested within subfolders.

This cloud archiving option comes with a storage of 700 TB, and even has two separate computer nodes for every chassis. Essentially, what this means is there is a high level of flexibility for data storage, as it can be configured as a three-way cluster. In addition, it ensures the highest levels of data availability as it has a built-in cloud tiering system.

With this product, customers have the choice to store data on their own premises or on popular cloud platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. This data can tier to Cloudian’s public cloud as well.

HyperStore 4000 is the perfect addition to Cloudian’s line of products as it combines their existing expertise with what businesses need today. Data is growing at astronomical speeds. According to a report published by IDC, the amount of data is doubling in size every two years, and this means, by 2020, we’ll reach 44 zettabytes (equivalent to 44 trillion gigabytes). Such a rapidly growing data needs ample storage space, and this is exactly what HyperStore 4000 offers with its 700 TB space.

According to Jon Toor, the Chief Marketing Officer of Cloudian, this device will be particularly useful for industries that deal with large amounts of data such as genome sequencing companies, video surveillance units, and those involved in the entertainment industry. These industries prefer large on-premise storage than cloud simply because it’s safe and they know where their data is located. He also opined that it could replace tape archives that are slowly going out of existence.

In terms of pricing too, Cloudian’s HyperStore 4000 gives a competitive deal. A report released by the company says that this device offers on-premise performance at the price of cloud services, as it costs 40 percent less per GB when compared to other products from Cloudian. This lower pricing is Cloudian’s way of establishing itself in a market that is being dominated by cloud providers with extensive infrastructure.

In fact, one of the biggest reasons for many companies to move to the cloud is cost-saving. If Cloudian can offer the same cost, there is a high possibility for customers to buy HyperStore 4000. To top it, the many recent reports about hacking and data loss has brought up renewed concerns about cloud security. So, when Cloudian offers a solution that is safer than cloud, but at the same price, many businesses are sure to look into it.

In short, Cloudian has come up with a competitive market to bridge the gap that exists between cloud and on-premise storage. Its competitive price, abundant storage and easy-to-use features can after all make businesses reconsider their data archiving strategies.

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Microsoft

Microsoft Optimistic on Asian Cloud Market

Asia, as you know, is the largest continent in the world, both in terms of size and population. It is also one of the fastest growing regions in the world, with China and India leading the way. Over the last few years, this continent has seen many people climb out of poverty, and many countries have a sustainable and growing economy that provides jobs to millions of people. Much of these positive developments can be attributed to education and technology.

Asian companies are always looking for ways to improve their operations , and technology has been a major aspect in its quest for higher efficiency and profits. In such a scenario, it is little wonder that cloud computing is the present and future of these Asian companies. Though the rate of adoption in Asia has been much slower when compared to Europe or the U.S, it’s still picking up fast.

To cater to this growing demand, cloud leaders like Microsoft are going all out. The president of Microsoft Asia, Ralph Haupter, opined that Asian companies are always looking for means to digitally transform their business, and cloud is the technology that will make it possible. His statement is based on a report that Microsoft released recently about the state of cloud affairs in Asia.

According to this report, 78 percent of 1,494 respondents who were surveyed for this report believe that cloud computing is an important component in their digital transformation strategy. In addition, 80 percent think cloud strategy is vital for the long-term growth and economic sustainability of this region. However, only 29 percent of respondents have made plans to implement it.

This difference between those who believe in the need for cloud and those who have plans to execute it, is the opportunity area for Microsoft. If it can talk to the remaining 51 percent of respondents, identify the reasons for non-implementing and provide a roadmap for integrating cloud into their operations, then it can be a huge business for Microsoft. There is even a potential for Microsoft to become the leading cloud provider in Asia, if it plays its cards well.

One of the biggest advantages that Microsoft has over that of its competitors is its brand name. A large number of households in Asia have a computer, so “Microsoft” is a household name here. To top it, Microsoft has 13 data centers in Asia to cater to the demands of its clients, so it’s infrastructure is already in place. Also, all these 13 data centers support Azure, so this makes it easy for Microsoft to expand its cloud presence in Asia.

Further, Microsoft has identified potential cloud partners in different countries and is working with them closely. For example, in China, Microsoft has partnered with a company called 21Vianet to provide local services to clients in Beijing and Shanghai. The obvious advantage is these local players have a better idea of their market conditions, and can provide a better service to local clients.

A combination of these different strategies can help Microsoft take a lion’s share in the Asian market within the next few years. However, it has to keep stay on top of intense competition from companies like AWS and Alibaba.

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News

YotaScale Gets Another Round of Funding

YotaScale announced another round of funding today worth $3.6 million from Engineering Capital, Pelion Ventures, and angel investors such as Jocelyn Goldfein, Timothy Chou and Robert Dykes. This is the third round of funding for Yotascale. In January 2016, it got a funding of $1.2 million from Engineering Capital and in September of the same year, it got $2.4 million from a company called NewDo Venture. In all, the company has raised a total funding of $7.2 million.

YotaScale – Company Profile

YotaScale is an infrastructure performance management platform for cloud computing. Founded in 2015, this company is headquartered in Menlo Park in California. It was founded by Asim Razzaq, a  former Senior Engineering Director at eBay and PayPal. During his stint at eBay, Razzaq realized that there was no dedicated service for monitoring the performance of cloud infrastructure, so he set out to fill this gap with his own company. Abbas Yousafzai is the current CTO, and Razzaq is the CEO of this company.

YotaScale collects and analyzes data collected from billions of data points on a platform. It uses machine learning algorithms to monitor factors such as load balance, performance, cost and availability of any platform. The aim of this system is to ensure that a company’s infrastructure is optimized to meet the changing business priorities of its clients. In fact, using such performance-based information, enterprises can customize platforms to align with their own priorities, so they can make the most of the underlying hardware and software of any cloud platform. In addition, it gives them unique insights about the platform, using which they can create new products and applications, and at the same time, reduce their operating costs.

Performance management for cloud computing is a hot and growing space, and there is much competition in this niche. CloudHealth technologies and Cloudability are two other notable companies involved in performance management, and together, both these companies have raised about $80 million through investments. In comparison, this funding of $7.2 million pales. However, Razzaq is confident that his product will bring in more investors as the company expands.

That said, YotaScale, or for that matter, other companies in this space too, face many hurdles. Different types of cloud infrastructure data are generated at different times because not all hardware or software components run at the same time. Some information is generated hourly, while others daily, and so on. With such disparate data, it becomes difficult to combine them together to get the picture of the platform’s performance at any given time.

For example, let’s say three components run and based on it, the performance is optimal at 1:00 AM, but when data about a hardware component arrives in at 5:00 AM, it changes to sub-optimal. This way, it’s hard to know if the performance was optimal at all at 1:00AM because the data that is needed to get a complete picture hasn’t come in until 5:00 AM.

Another problem is to define what is normal because it is highly contextual. So, what is normal for one situation may not be normal for another one.

Addressing these hurdles will be a crucial aspect for YotaScale in the near future.

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Computing

Alibaba Expands Again

The cloud computing industry is moving at a rapid pace, and every player is under a lot of pressure to constantly expand and innovate, to keep pace with the intense competition. Recently, Google opened its flagship product called Spanner that has been driving its operations for many decades, to cloud users. Microsoft is coming up with a slew of new features such as Azure IP Advantage and Azure AD B2B. AWS, the market leader, is entering into lucrative partnerships, with Snap being its latest customer. Not to be left behind is Alibaba – the Chinese giant that is making a big impact in the global cloud computing industry.

Already, this company is having an aggressive expansion plan, as it opened new data centers in Australia, Japan and Dubai to meet the growing needs of its customers in these regions. Besides setting up new centers, Alibaba has more than doubled its existing facility in Hong Kong to better serve the needs of its Asia-Pacific customers. Primarily, this expansion will meet demand in the areas of disaster recovery, data storage and analytics, middleware, and cloud security services. At present, Alibaba is the largest cloud computing service provider in China.

The company has announced that this expansion is in tune with its strategy to become the preferred cloud service provider world over. It sees itself as a competitor to Amazon Web Services (AWS) – the largest provider in the world today.

So, why are companies scrambling so much to dominate the cloud industry? The cloud industry grew by 16.5 percent in 2016, and Gartner sees the same level of growth in 2017. Organizations around the world, regardless of their size, want to move away from legacy systems and into cloud services to tap into the many benefits that come with it. Currently, AWS and Microsoft account for the lion’s share, though other companies like Google and IBM are catching on.

Alibaba also wants to join in this party, and this is why it is embarking on a “build” approach. In this model, the company wants to build new facilities and expand existing ones, and it believes that such grand facilities will surely bring in users. This strategy is slightly different from the ones followed by companies like Google that want to widen its offerings, so customers get the best value for their money.

However, this strategy has paid rich dividends for Alibaba, as it reported a growth of 115 percent over the last year. Though its revenue of $254 million is a drop in the bucket when compared to the revenues of AWS, Microsoft and Google, it has come within a short time. Over the last year alone, it saw its customer database increase by 100 percent. For the sake of comparison, Amazon’s revenue was $10 billion in 2016.

Currently, Alibaba has operations in 14 global centers including Dubai, London, Sydney, Hong Kong and mainland China. At this rate of growth and expansion, we can soon expect Alibaba to give the market leaders a stiff competition.

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Google

What is Google Cloud Spanner?

Google is going all-out with its arsenal to take on Microsoft and AWS in a growing cloud war. It’s latest product is Cloud Spanner, a global database that’s driven Google to become one of the best tech companies in the world. While this is not a new product as it’s been around for decades, this is the first time Google is opening it up for its customers.

Cloud Spanner is the database that has been powering Google for the last so many years. It all started when a group of engineers came together to create the first database and a system that seemed to defy all logic. Called the Spanner, this database was a mechanism to store information across millions of machines spanning through dozens of data centers in multiple continents. The best part is, Spanner acts as a single piece, even if it is spread across the world.

Today, it is the underlying technology for all of Google’s services such as Gmail, Google Photos and its most important revenue-generating product, Adwords.

Now, for the first time ever, Google is opening up this product to the world by branding it as Cloud Spanner. As per the terms and conditions, customers can rent out some space on Cloud Spanner, and can use it for their own apps and products. This is exactly the same as what Google uses for its in-house operations.

Spanner uses SQL language for querying, so most programmers who’ve worked on popular databases like SQL, Oracle and DB2 should be familiar with it. This translates to little or no training to use the Cloud Spanner, and customers can start making the most of it from day one. At the same time, Spanner is a flexible database that can expand to hold any amount of data, so scalability is never an issue.

On top of it, Cloud Spanner is hosted from the Google data centers, and this means, like other Google products, this is protected against hardware failures and cyber attacks. In other words, customers get to use the patented magic technology from Google for their own apps and products, for a fraction of the cost of developing such a massive system.

For those customers who don’t want to create apps using Cloud Spanner, Google offers a product called Cloud SQL, that’s similar to a traditional database software. In addition, customers can also use BigQuery data analysis engine on both the platforms for big data queries. With such a move, Google has empowered its customers in a big way, as they can choose to either use Cloud Spanner or Cloud SQL, depending on their business needs.

This is a significant move by Google, and one that can shake up the cloud market. Over the last few months, Google has tried a range of different strategies to counter the dominance of AWS and the fast-growing Microsoft Azure, but has seen only limited success. Since Spanner is something that is exclusively available only in Google, there is an increased chance for customers to use Google Cloud over Azure and AWS.

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