Category Archives: Fujitsu

Oracle and Fujitsu partner up to tackle Japanese market

Oracle planeOracle and Fujitsu have announced a partnership to deliver Oracle cloud application and platform services to Japanese customers, reports Telecoms.com.

As part of the agreement, Fujitsu will install will install Oracle Cloud services in its data centre’s in Japan, connect them to its Cloud Service K5 in order to deliver enterprise-grade cloud services. The first service which will be connected will be Oracle’s Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud, though it will extend further to include offerings such as the Database Cloud Service.

“In order to realize the full business potential of cloud computing, organizations need secure, reliable and high-performing cloud solutions,” said Edward Screven, Chief Corporate Architect at Oracle. “For over three decades, Oracle and Fujitsu have worked together using our combined R&D, product depth and global reach to create innovative solutions enabling customers to scale their organizations and achieve a competitive advantage. Oracle’s new strategic alliance with Fujitsu will allow companies in Japan to take advantage of an integrated cloud offering to support their transition to the cloud.”

In delivering the HCM solution first and foremost, Oracle is living up to its promise of targeting this aspect of the SaaS market segment. Back in March, the team released its quarterly statement, in which CTO Larry Ellison took a shine towards Salesforce, mentioning the company six times in a relatively short statement. Oracle has targeted the HCM and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) SaaS markets, as it believes they are currently underserved.

“Oracle Fusion ERP is the overall market leader in the enterprise cloud ERP market. I should say we have more than 10 times the number of ERP customers than Workday. And ERP has always been a much larger market than CRM. Salesforce.com is missing all of that ERP market opportunity,” said Ellison back during the earnings call. “And that in term it should make it easy for Oracle to pass Salesforce.com and become the largest SaaS and PaaS cloud company in the world.”

Widely regarded as a slow starter in the cloud market, Oracle would now appear to be gathering pace through various acquisitions and partnerships. Considering the resource the company has as its disposal, it should not be seen as a surprise Oracle is making strides in the industry.

New Fujitsu data protection appliance backs up hybrid IT

FujitsuFujitsu has announced its new Rapid Recovery Appliance, which it claimed will make it easier to install a cloud backup as a service (BaaS) offering. The new appliance will make Fujitsu’s globally available Fujitsu Cloud BaaS more resilient and secure, it claimed.

The pre-configured system is designed to be installed on the customer’s premises in order to give users of hybrid IT systems greater control over their data protection processes. The new system will solve the logistical problems created by the mixture of internal IT and external cloud services that many companies now have, according to Fujitsu.

The system should combine the benefits of a backup and recovery appliance with the convenience of cloud-computing’s ‘pay-as-you-grow’ pricing policies and data security. According to Fujitsu, it makes an enterprise’s data both secure and readily recoverable, wherever it resides.

The new Fujitsu BaaS automatically replicates data to the secure cloud for offsite data protection. It facilitates the rapid recovery of recent local backup data through the use of Fujitsu’s cloud-based backup data and retrieval services. The system uses deduplication technology from Seagate and compression techniques to minimise the cost of transferring large volumes of data across the cloud.

Fujitsu Cloud BaaS will use 256-bit AES encryption to convert data both in-flight and at-rest in both the onsite appliance backup vault and the cloud backup vault. The BaaS Rapid Recovery Appliance also provides automated, continuous cloud replication, helping to cut the costs and resources needed to maintain system integrity.

The pre-configured system will cut the storage footprint and minimise the bandwidth costs associated with cloud backup, said Fujitsu’s Global Offering Manager James Jefferd. The main business benefit, he said, is that it simplifies and speeds up a process that hybrid clouds could make more complicated for end users.

“With the trend toward a cloud service delivery model, IT buyers want easy-to-integrate cloud offerings that combine the benefits of cloud with existing assets,” said Jefferd. The BaaS Rapid Recovery Appliance can replace traditional on-site, tape-based backup with an easy to use flexible system, he said.

Gartner analyst Dave Russell predicted it would be good for remote-office and departmental computing environments. “Most organisations cite concerns over security as their top cloud issue. The greater issue is often latency, so a disk-to-disk-to-cloud model is emerging,” said Russell.

Fujitsu, Red Hat partner on OpenStack-based private clouds

Red Hat and Fujitsu are partnering to develop OpenStack converged infrastructure solutions

Red Hat and Fujitsu are partnering to develop OpenStack converged infrastructure solutions

Fujitsu and Red Hat have jointly developed a dedicated solution to simplify the creation of OpenStack private clouds.

The Primeflex is a converged compute and storage combines Fujitsu’s server technology with Red Hat OpenStack and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform software, and backed by Fujitsu’s professional services outfit.

The companies said the OpenStack-based converged offering will speed up cloud deployment.

Harald Bernreuther, director global infrastructure solutions at Fujitsu said: “Primeflex for Red Hat OpenStack can underpin any organisation’s plan to transform their business model by leveraging cloud computing. By opting for an OpenStack-based solution, organisations can run new cloud-scale workloads while also optimising costs.

“Primeflex for Red Hat OpenStack extends the philosophy of cost optimisation, through simplifying system maintenance and consolidating technology updates across the entire system stack, all the way from the underlying hardware through to the operating system,” Bernreuther said.

Red Hat said there is value in driving strong integration between software and hardware in the cloud space.

“OpenStack is a rapidly-growing, open source cloud infrastructure platform that is cost-effective, open, flexible and highly scalable,” said Radhesh Balakrishnan, general manager, OpenStack, Red Hat.

“We are excited about Fujitsu’s offering based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform to deliver private cloud infrastructure solutions and we look forward to continuing the collaboration to provide customers with an innovative cloud platform for digital business initiatives,” he said.

Red Hat isn’t the only OpenStack vendor boosting its converged infrastructure strategy as of late. In July Mirantis unveiled plans to work with a range of vendors, initially Dell and Juniper, to deliver OpenStack-based converged infrastructure solutions for enterprises.

Intel, Wipro join IoT, M2M trade body to boost deployments

Intel and Wipro are joining the IMC

Intel and Wipro are joining the IMC

Intel and Wipro have this week joined the International M2M Council (IMC), a global trade association set up to represent Internet of Things vendors and service providers and boost volume IoT deployments.

The trade body, which does advocates on behalf of IoT vendors and service providers, claims to have over 10,000 members and is on track to grow by another 5,000 by the year’s end. In addition to Intel and Wipro companies on the IMC board of governors include Aeris, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Digi International, Inmarsat, Iridium, KORE, Nighthawk Controls, Numerex, ORBCOMM, Synapse Wireless, Telecom Italia, Telit, Verizon, and Wyless.

“The IMC’s focus on business results suits our role as a provider of end-to-end IoT solutions very well,” said Vijay Anand V.R., practice director, IoT Business, Wipro Digital, who has also joined the IMC Board

“This trade group also has a truly global footprint that fits our business model and aspirations.”

Rose Schooler, vice president of the IoT Strategy Office at Intel, who also sits on the IMC board of governors said: “The IMC is an industry-leading professional organisation that is reaching out to adopters of IoT technology on a broad scale. The organisation is gaining an average of 275 new members per week – members that are developing, buying, and deploying IoT solutions. Clearly, there is a demand in the market to learn more.”

Both Intel and Wipro have accelerated their IoT efforts over the past few months. Earlier this year enterprise vendor Software AG and outsourcing giant Wipro teamed up to offer a platform for streaming analytics generated by Internet of Things sensors and devices.

Intel has also ramped up its collaborations in the space, teaming with Fujitsu in May this year to develop Internet of Things solutions for manufacturing, retail and public sector clients.

Fujitsu, Intel collaborating on Internet of Things

Fujistu and Intel are mashing up their IoT tech

Fujistu and Intel are mashing up their IoT tech

Fujitsu and Intel announced a collaboration this week that will see the two jointly develop Internet of Things solutions, initially for manufacturing, retail and public sector clients.

The deal will see the two firms combine Fujitsu’s distributed service management and visualisation technology with Intel’s IoT communication gateway unification platform, which was unveiled at the tail end of last year and co-developed with a range of IT incumbents and SIs including Accenture, Capgemini, HCL, NTT Data, Tata Consultancy and Wipro.

Fujitsu said ensuring the distributed service technology is operating at peak performance some of the processing needs to be pushed down to the gateways themselves rather than concentrating them at the centre of the architecture, which could create bottlenecks.

The companies said they initially plan to target manufacturing, retail and the public sector, and already have a proof of concept set up in Shimane, Japan, which includes real-time visualisation of manufacturing operations.

Both are said to have plans to create more PoCs for retail and the public sector before the year is out.

Fujitsu looks to be striking a range of IoT-focused deals aimed at all levels of the stack. Last month Fujitsu and Microsoft announced a partnership focused on blending the former’s devices and IoT services for agriculture and manufacturing, powered by Windows software and Azure cloud services. And earlier this year Fujitsu announced plans to expand its two core datacentres in Japan in a bid to accelerate demand for its cloud and IoT services.

Fujitsu, Microsoft collaborate on Azure, Internet of Things

Fujitsu and Microsoft are partnering on IoT for farming and agricutlure

Fujitsu and Microsoft are partnering on IoT for farming and agricutlure

Fujitsu and Microsoft announced an Internet of Things partnership focused on blending the former’s devices and IoT services for agriculture and manufacturing, powered by Windows software and Azure cloud services.

The move will see the two companies offer a solution that blends Fujitsu’s Eco-Management Dashboard, an IoT service for the agricultural sector, and Microsoft’s Azure database services so that data collected from sensors deployed throughout the operations can be analysed to help firms save money and streamline processes.

The companies said the platform has uses in other sectors and can be tailored to a range of different niche verticals.

“Leveraging the Fujitsu Eco-Management Dashboard solution alongside Microsoft Azure and the Fujitsu IoT/M2M platform, we are able to deliver real-time visualisation of the engineering process for big data analytics to improve the entire production process and inform decision-making,” said Hiroyuki Sakai, corporate executive officer, executive vice president, head of global marketing at Fujitsu.

“We are proud to partner with Fujitsu to enable the next generation of manufacturing business models and services enabled by IoT along with advanced analytics capabilities like machine learning,” said Sanjay Ravi, managing director, Discrete Manufacturing Industry at Microsoft. “Fujitsu’s innovation will drive new levels of operational excellence and accelerate the pace of digital business transformation in manufacturing.”

Fujitsu has been doubling down on IoT this year, with manufacturing looking to be a strong sector for those kinds of services according to anlaysts. In January the company announced plans to expand its two core datacentres in Japan in a bid to accelerate demand for its cloud and IoT services.

The 2nd annual Internet of Things World event to be held in San Francisco in May is due to address some of the challenges ahead of the industry in terms of IoT. Sign up here.

IoT-World-banner-small

Fujitsu partners with Equinix on Singapore cloud datacentre

Fujistu has opened its third cloud datacentre in Singapore this week

Fujistu opened its third cloud datacentre in Singapore

Fujitsu has set up another datacentre in Singapore this week amidst what it sees as increasing demand for cloud services in Singapore and neighbouring countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The datacentre, hosted in Equinix’s western Singapore facility, will host Fujitsu’s portfolio of cloudservices and offer a number of new connectivity features “currently under development” that would allow enterprises to federate with other cloud platforms.

The recently announced datacentre is Fujitsu’s third in Singapore, and it already operates over 100 worldwide; the company’s cloud services are hosted from six datacentres globally.

The company said it chose to add another datacentre in Singapore because of its strategic location and attractiveness to large multinational firms.

“In recent years, companies increasingly are embracing cloud services as a platform to support the accelerating pace of business in Asia. In particular, because of its low level of natural disaster related risk and its position as an international network hub with reliable broadband network lines, Singapore is often chosen as the location for integrated systems operations by many companies that are pursuing multinational business expansion,” the company said in a statement.

Fujitsu is the latest cloud vendor to view Singapore as a relatively untapped market for cloud services. This week CenturyLink, which recently expanded its managed services presence in China, added public cloud nodes to one of its Singapore datacentres.

Apart from locally established multinationals and the booming financial services sector, the Singapore Government has also shown itself to be looking to invest more in both using cloud services and growing usage of cloud platforms in the region.

According to Parallels, local SMBs are also hopping onto cloud platforms with reasonable pace. The firm believes the SMB cloud services market in Singapore is projected to hit $916M in 2017, with a three-year CAGR of 21 per cent.