Category Archives: Enterprise IT

Adoption, Enterprise IT, hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, News & Analysis, Private Cloud, Public Cloud, Statistics, VMTurbo

57% of organizations still don’t have multi-cloud strategy – survey

Competition. Business concept illustrationResearch from VMTurbo has highlighted 57% of organizations have no multi-cloud strategy at all, where as 35% do not have a private cloud strategy and 28% lack one for public cloud.

Although hybrid cloud is considered one of the growing trends within the industry, the research suggests the noise behind multi-cloud strategies is coming from either a small number of customers, or from vendor organizations themselves. Of those who would be considered in the ‘Functional Multi-cloud Owner’ group, which only represented 10.4% of the respondents, almost half were using a two-cloud model, and just over a quarter were using a three-cloud model. The multi-cloud strategy was favoured by larger organizations in general.

“A lack of cloud strategy doesn’t mean an organization has studied and rejected the idea of the cloud; it means it has given adoption little or no thought at all,” said Charles Crouchman, CTO of VMTurbo. “As organizations make the journey from on-premise IT, to public and private clouds, and finally to multi- and hybrid clouds, it’s essential that they address this.

“Having a cloud strategy means understanding the precise costs and challenges that the cloud will introduce, knowing how to make the cloud approach work for you, and choosing technologies that will supplement cloud adoption. For instance, by automating workload allocation so that services are always provided with the best performance for the best cost. Without a strategy, organizations will be condemning themselves to higher-than-expected costs, and a cloud that never performs to its full potential.”

The survey also demonstrated the total cost of ownership is not fully understood within the community itself, less so within smaller organizations. SME’s planning to build private cloud environments estimated their budget to be in the region of $150,000 (average of all respondents), whereas the total bill for those who have already completed such projects averaged at $898,508.

The stat backs up thoughts of a number of organizations who believe there should be more of a business case behind the transition to the cloud than simply reducing CAPEX and OPEX. Last month, BCN spoke to Gwil Davies, Director & Cloud Lead in the EMEA IT Infrastructure Centre of Excellence at Deloitte, to understand the economics behind cloud computing. Davies believes a successful journey to the cloud is not just focused on reducing CAPEX and OPEX throughout the organization, but identifies where value can be achieved through a cloud-enabled business.

“I think it’s more important for organizations get a real understanding of how to use the cloud and perhaps not automatically assume that moving all of their current IT into cloud is going to be the cheaper solution.” said Davies.

The business case for the cloud is almost entirely dependent on the long-term ambitions of the business itself, though the survey does imply there is a need to further educate some corners of the IT industry on the benefits and perceived cost of private cloud. Cloud computing as a concept could be perceived to have penetrated the mainstream market, though the benefits may be less so.

Bharti Airtel, Enterprise IT, Micrsoft Azure, News & Analysis, Private Cloud

Bharti Airtel bolsters cloud capabilities with Microsoft partnership

Silhouette Businessman Holding PuzzleBharti Airtel has announced the launch of Connexion as well as a new collaboration with Microsoft to deliver Azure ExpressRoute to Indian businesses.

The new Connexion service is designed to maximize network performance over the cloud, whereas Azure ExpressRoute ensures a more secure and scalable connection between enterprises, cloud service providers, and data centre partners, through using a private connection as opposed to public internet. Microsoft claim the service increases reliability, speed and security, while also lowering latency.

“Over the years, at Airtel, we have been serving a vast array of global customers through our world class technology and innovative connectivity solutions,” said Ajay Chitkara, CEO of Global Business at Bharti Airtel. “Today, we are excited to further expand our value proposition for them with the launch of our ‘Connexion’, which is a direct private connectivity to cloud services.

“This platform is the right choice for the service providers and businesses seeking to make their IT infrastructure more agile and flexible. With ‘Connexion’ – we are confident of helping customers seamlessly and more securely connect to Microsoft Azure, by bringing down their network cost substantially and improving performance.”

The partnership further increases Airtel’s international cloud capabilities and ability to serve customers in the Middle East, South Asia and Asia-Pacific regions. Last month, the Airtel business also announced a partnership with GBI to build its influence within the Middle East. GBI operates a multilayer carrier neutral network, connecting the world to the Middle East, a region which is a long-term target for Airtel’s growth ambitions.

“This new partnership with GBI is a significant step in that direction,” said Chitkara. “GBI being a key network asset for the region will not only improve our customers’ experience and reach but would also enable GBI’s customers to experience a seamless extension on the Airtel Global network spanning across 50 countries across 5 continents”

Enterprise IT, News & Analysis, S/4 HANA, SAP

SAP cloud offering lacks clarity – user group survey

SAP sailingThe UK & Ireland SAP User Group has released findings from a survey which state only 58% of current SAP users are considering or using its cloud offerings, and 60% said the company were not good enough at communicating the benefits of their products.

The findings showed only 39% were using or planning to use SAP Cloud for Customer and only 23% planned to use S/4 HANA enterprise cloud edition. Just over a third confirmed they were currently or planning to use SAP’s HANA Cloud Platform (HCP), though 32% said they didn’t know what was, and 10% said they believed the company did an effective job of outlining the benefits and use case of the product itself. Overall, 60% of the user group said the company was not good enough at communicating benefits of the cloud suite to the users themselves.

“Over the last 18 months, we have seen more of our members looking to move elements of their SAP estate to the cloud. However, as the survey results show, users still face challenges when it comes adopting SAP’s cloud offerings,” said Paul Cooper, vice-chairman of the UK & Ireland SAP User Group. “For organisations that have heavily invested in on-premise applications in the past, there still needs to be an attractive business case for them to move to the cloud.

“If users are to fully realise the benefits of SAP cloud offerings, they need to understand the company’s roadmap and strategy. For instance, the survey highlighted that just over half (52%) of respondents were unsure that S/4HANA would make them more readily consider using cloud services from SAP in the future.”

While cloud computing as a concept could be perceived as penetrating the mainstream market, it is worth remembering there is a substantial proportion of organizations that are not in a position to make the transition currently. 58% of respondents said they were concerned the strong focus on cloud computing from SAP could result in installed on premise products being left being left behind, and the users of such products missing out on product updates.

Another area which may worry SAP is that of acquisitions, as 44% of respondents highlighted they were not sure as to where SuccessFactors, Ariba, Fieldglass and Concur would fit into future strategies of the business. Concur Technologies was acquired for $8.3 billion, Ariba for $4.3 billion, SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion and Fieldglass for $1.1 billion (estimated).

“SAP is committed to helping deliver business value to all its customers and we welcome the feedback from the UKI User Group,” said Kevin Kimber, Head of Cloud at SAP UK&I. “At SAP, all our solutions can be tailored to our customers’ individual needs – whether that involves on premise, cloud or hybrid models. By offering this flexibility we can support our customers on their individual cloud journey which varies across industry and user.

“We’re encouraged by the results of the survey that show that the majority of SAP users are either already using or planning to adopt our cloud offerings. We believe SAP provides the most complete end to end holistic cloud portfolio and we continue to strive to enhance our offerings through strategic acquisitions and sustained investment with the goal of providing best of breed cloud solutions. We’re committed to engaging in an active dialogue with our customers and the wider ecosystem to share our vision and roadmap for cloud solutions and will continue to promote this message publicly.”

SAP reported its quarterly earnings last month, in which it was highlighted cloud subscriptions and support revenues grew 33% year-on-year to €678 million, and new cloud bookings grew at 23% over the quarter to €145 million. The cloud business, as well as software support revenues, accounted for 69% of the quarter’s total revenues.

The cloud business unit within SAP has been prioritized as the growth engine, though it might be considering a worrying sign for SAP executives that the cloud offerings themselves are not being communicated to their current customer bases who are reportedly confused about the company’s future direction.

Apple, Enterprise IT, HANA, News & Analysis, SAP, software

Apple bolsters position in enterprise cloud market with SAP partnership

SAP Apple

Apple CEO Tim Cook (Left) and SAP CEO Bill McDermott (Right)

Mobile device giant Apple has announced a new partnership with enterprise software vendor SAP to develop iOS apps based on the SAP HANA cloud platform, reports Telecoms.com.

This marks the latest move by Apple to strengthen its position in the enterprise sector, following a similar partnership with IBM in 2014, and other with Cisco last year. The most recent iPad launch was focused squarely at enterprise and with shipments of both iPhones and iPads having apparently peaked, Apple will be hoping an enterprise push will yield dividends.

The SAP partnership is focused on the development of native enterprise apps for iOS that support SAP’s cloud platform HANA. There will also be a dedicated SDK and training academy to assist in the development effort and a version of the SAP Fiori UX platform for iOS.

“This partnership will transform how iPhone and iPad are used in enterprise by bringing together the innovation and security of iOS with SAP’s deep expertise in business software,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

“As the leader in enterprise software and with 76% of business transactions touching an SAP system, SAP is the ideal partner to help us truly transform how businesses around the world are run on iPhone and iPad. Through the new SDK, we’re empowering SAP’s more than 2.5 million developers to build powerful native apps that fully leverage SAP HANA Cloud Platform and tap into the incredible capabilities that only iOS devices can deliver.”

“We’re proud to take this special partnership between Apple and SAP to a ground-breaking new place,” said Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP. “In giving people an agile and intuitive business experience, we empower them to know more, care more and do more.

“By combining the powerful capabilities of SAP HANA Cloud Platform and SAP S/4HANA, together with iOS, the leading and most secure mobile platform for enterprise, we will help deliver live data to people wherever and whenever they choose to work. Apple and SAP share a commitment to shaping the future, helping the world run better and improving people’s lives.”

Tablet shipment numbers are not much lower than PCs these days but the default enterprise device remains the laptop. For mainly desk-based workers this will probably remain the case indefinitely but Apple will be keen to entrench and expand its foothold in enterprise. The BYOD (bring your own device) era that accompanied the smartphone boom is also a great opportunity for Apple in enterprise, as is the work-provided opportunity created by the decline of Blackberry.

Enterprise IT, enterprise mobility, flexible working, News & Analysis, Powwownow

Powwownow claim 77% of employees look for flexible working in next job

flexible young businessman stretcht outdoor in a sunny dayIn light of Flexible Working awareness day, Powwownow has released research findings which demonstrate employee desires for mobility and flexible working solutions.

The research highlighted while only 25% of brits have the opportunity to work flexibly, 70% believe the opportunity to do so would improve their relationship with co-workers and 62% state they would be more productive if given the option to work outside of the office. 77% of respondents said a job which offered flexible working options was instantly more attractive.

“Flexible working has become a key area now when people are looking for a job and companies in the UK face losing the top talent if they don’t adapt to this way of working,” said Jason Downes, MD at Powwownow. “With the technology now on offer there is no need for people to have to work in an office from 9-5. This is old fashioned and seemingly unproductive and more needs to be done for this to change.”

The benefits of mobility within the workplace has been well-documented by various research and academic institutions, but claims have been seemingly backed up by the research findings themselves. 58% of respondents believe the choice of when and where to work would enable them to think more creatively, and generally be more motivated.

“It’s coming up to two years since the Flexible Working Law was passed in the UK and while there has been progress made, we still see a reluctance from business leaders in terms of adopting flexible working, despite the benefits now being extremely well publicised,” said Downes. “It’s the culture that needs to change and we hope that days such as this will help decision makers sit up and take notice.”

While the desire for enterprise mobility strategies have been on the rise for both employees and leaders within the IT organization, there are still a number of hurdles, both technological and culturally, before it could be perceived as mainstream. A recent survey from Citrix highlighted employee negligence and indifference to IT policy is one of the most significant inhibitors to cloud security.

Although 45% of workers are likely to use passwords to secure documents at home, this number drops to 35% at work, demonstrating the concerns the IT department will have when looking at any mobility opportunities. Until the security of a company’s data can be guaranteed, enterprise mobility is likely to be continued to be viewed through a wary eye.

Communications Platform, Enterprise IT, News & Analysis, Nexmo, Vonage

Vonage agrees to purchase Nexmo for $230m

netVonage has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Nexmo for $230 million in cash and stock, to increase its capabilities in the cloud communications for business market segment.

Nexmo is regarded as the second largest Communications Platform-as-a-Service, CPaaS, company by revenues, a market which IDC estimates will be worth $8 billion by 2018. Nexamo API’s for developers to embed contextual communications into mobile apps, websites and business workflows via text, social media, chat apps and voice, and has a customer base including companies such as Uber, Alibaba and Snapchat. Vonage claims following the acquisition it will have a total addressable market of nearly $28 billion by 2018.

“In 2014, we set out on a mission to become the clear leader in Cloud Communications for business. With the acquisition of Nexmo, we are now uniquely positioned to lead the market,” said Vonage CEO Alan Masarek. “By combining Vonage’s rapidly growing Unified Communications as a Service (“UCaaS”) business, with Nexmo, the second largest player in CPaaS, we are creating the future of Cloud Communications. These companies represent a set of strategic, technology and human resources assets that deliver the broadest services offering in our industry.”

Nexmo currently has more than 350 enterprise customers, 114,000 registered developers and processes 5 billion API calls annually, and its geographical footprint will allow Vonage to expand its influence in the EMEA and Asia Pacific markets.

Cloud Native, EMC, Enterprise IT, News & Analysis

EMC enters native hybrid cloud market

Chad

Chad Sakac (Right), President, VCE, Converged Platform Division speaking with Jeremy Burton (Left), President of Products and Marketing at EMC World 2016

EMC has expanded its cloud portfolio with the launch of Native Hybrid Cloud, a turnkey platform for cloud-native application development and deployment.

Hybrid cloud is proving to be the next major battleground for the tech giants of the world, and cloud native is another one of the industry buzzwords which is gaining traction in all corners. EMC claim the new offering with enable deployments of cloud-native application developer platform and infrastructure services in as few as two days, using Cloud Foundry. The turnkey offering combines the Pivotal Cloud Foundry cloud-native platform with VMware’s IaaS and cloud-native offerings, into a consolidated turnkey solution.

“In the new digital economy, innovation and agility trumps all. Enterprises differentiate themselves through rapid innovation and agile services delivery,” said Chad Sakac, President of VCE and Converged Platform Division at EMC. “Trying to build, iterate and maintain these stacks built on a series of constantly moving elements are completely a waste of resources – resources that can be better applied elsewhere, because EMC is investing many hundreds of engineers to make it a turnkey platform.

“An engineered platform that integrates cloud-native IaaS with Pivotal’s cloud-native platform, EMC’s Native Hybrid Cloud overcomes the challenge in business and IT transformation to enable developers to deliver innovation through new applications, software and digital services better and faster.”

Sakac also highlighted at EMC World that the team are starting to see new trends develop in the way enterprise organizations engage with vendors. In recent years there has been a tendency for enterprise organizations to build their own cloud-native stacks, though Sakac believes trends are now leaning towards consumption of technology as a service (as opposed to building in-house), as customers realize it is cheaper and simpler to buy a turnkey solution. Should the claim prove to be true, it would certainly be good news for EMC, who are one of the first to market with such an offering.

The growth of cloud native technologies and business practises is fuelled by pressure from various aspects of the business to increase the speed of innovation, deployment and experience, responding to the competitive nature of the digital economy.

“With Pivotal Cloud Foundry tightly integrated into Native Hybrid Cloud, developers now can drastically shorten the application development and deployment lifecycle and operators can manage thousands of apps with far fewer people,” said James Watters, SVP of Products at Pivotal. “An idea for an application on Monday can be running in production by Friday. This is the cloud-native way and it’s transforming how the world builds and runs software.”

Enterprise IT, News & Analysis, Oracle

Oracle continues efforts to buy its way into the cloud market with $532 million acquisition

Oracle CloudOracle has announced it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Opower for approximately $532 million.

Opower, which provides customer engagement and energy efficiency cloud services to the utilities industry, boasts a healthy customer list of more than 100 utilities including companies such as PG&E, Exelon and National Grid. The announcement follows a similar one from last week, with Oracle acquiring Textura, a provider of construction contracts and payment management cloud services.

“Utilities want modern technology solutions that work together to meet their evolving customer, operational and compliance needs,” said Rodger Smith, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Oracle Utilities Global Business Unit. “Together, Oracle Utilities and Opower will be the largest provider of mission-critical cloud services to utilities.”

Oracle has certainly changed its tune in recent years, as it was once one of the foremost critics of the technology. “The computer industry is the only industry which is more fashion driven than women’s fashion. I was reading W and it said that orange is the new pink. Cloud is the new SaaS,” Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison said in an analyst briefing in 2008.

While other organizations seemingly embraced cloud as a technology during its embryo days, and have in turn developed a portfolio to compete in this competitive marketplace, Oracle appear to be using financial muscle as a means of levelling the playing field and catching up with industry leaders.

Although the aforementioned acquisitions have increased Oracle’s share in the cloud market place, the company has been on the receiving end of some unfavourable reports recently. Research from JP Morgan highlighted while there are still a number of enterprise organizations who will continue to utilize the services of Oracle, this is more due to the complications of migrating their systems to another vendor, as opposed to the technological strength of the tech giant.

blockchain, Enterprise IT, IBM, News & Analysis

IBM becomes latest tech giant to join blockchain euphoria

Cloud computingIBM has launched its updated blockchain offering for the financial, healthcare and government industries, on IBM’s cloud platform Bluemix as well as Docker.

While blockchain is another trend which has been empowered by the transition to cloud computing, the same security concerns persist as with cloud computing as the more senior technology family member. IBM claims the new blockchain offering answers these demands and concerns, while also meeting existing regulatory and security requirements.

“Clients tell us that one of the inhibitors of the adoption of blockchain is the concern about security,” said Jerry Cuomo, VP of Blockchain at IBM. “While there is a sense of urgency to pioneer blockchain for business, most organizations need help to define the ideal cloud environment that enables blockchain networks to run securely in the cloud.”

The blockchain adoption seemingly fits into IBM’s continued quest to transform its business, moving away from legacy technologies and build new fortunes in the cloud. Although IBM could be seen as being slightly slow to the cloud party, it has made positive strides in putting its name forward in the cognitive computing sub-sector (IBM’s Watson), and now blockchain. Industry insiders have told BCN tech giants such as Microsoft are interesting in the potential of blockchain, though IBM are one of the first to make such a solid commitment.

While the company has been demonstrating healthy growth in the cloud market segment, its recent quarterly earnings highlighted the decline of traditional IT technologies. The company’s quarterly earnings declined for the 16th straight quarter though its Strategic Imperatives projects, which include all cloud computing efforts, grew 14% to $7 billion.

From a feedback perspective, we asked BCN readers what they thought of IBM’s cognitive computing technology, Watson, which seems to be gaining healthy media attention. 40% of the industry believes Watson is the industry leader for cognitive computing and 20% say it’s in the pack. 40% believe the media attention is down to a powerful PR machine in IBM’s corporate team.

Digital Transformation, Enterprise IT, Ingram Micro, News & Analysis

71% of enterprise will be digitally transformed by 2018 – survey

Life cycle of common birdwing butterflyResearch from Ingram Micro Cloud claims the UK is well on its way to the digitally enabled ecosystem, as 71% of enterprise organizations believe they will be digitally transformed by 2018.

The findings highlighted 31% of organizations believe they have a strategy in place currently, 23% are actively implementing one and a further 18% claim they will have one in place within the next 24 months. Roughly 80% of the respondents confirmed cloud played either a critical or very important role within the digital transformation projects themselves.

“Cloud has turned everything on its head,” Apay Obang-Oyway, Director for Northern Europe at Ingram Micro Cloud. “It is no longer about big corporations eating small businesses; now it is small challenging the big because with Cloud, small can be so much more innovative and agile.  Greater opportunities now lie with SMBs. It’s important to realise the potential of the Cloud; it is about doing more with more to develop strong strategic advantage in a world that is fast changing.”

The transition of cloud computing through to the mainstream market has enforced a substantial number of enterprise organizations to redefine themselves through digital transformation projects to ensure they remain relevant in the new digital economy. 56% of respondents highlighted customer engagement was the primary objective of such strategies, 48% claimed identifying cost reduction and 45% stated remaining competitive, were the main drivers of the strategies.

“The ability to digitally reimagine the business is determined in large part by a clear digital strategy supported by leaders who foster a culture of change,” said Obang-Oyway. “While this is nothing new – and let’s be honest the world of business and IT have seen many technical evolutions – what is unique to digital transformation is that risk taking is becoming a cultural norm. More digitally advanced companies are seeking new levels of competitive advantage.

“New market entrants are appearing almost daily, disrupting traditional industries, the small are now challenging the large, the new challenging the old. Just think Airbnb, Uber and Deliveroo. Equally important, employees across all age groups want to work for businesses that are committed to digital progress and this is what will attract the talent of the future. But underpinning this entire revolution is the Cloud. It is without doubt the single most transformative element in this radical rethinking of the way business is done today.”

While digital transformation strategies should not necessarily be considered new within the industry, the increased adoption rate of cloud within enterprise organizations on the whole has accelerated the necessity of such strategies. While it would be considered worst case scenario, Blockbuster is a prime example of the consequences of not accepting the new digital world, and has in turn normalised the concept of digital transformation.