Category Archives: IDC

Enterprise IT, IDC, Internet of Things, Interviews, IoT, Phil Carnelley

Phil Carnelley, research director at IDC on cloud, big data, Internet of Things

Philip Carnelley shares his views on the big disrupters in IT

Philip Carnelley shares his views on the big disrupters in IT

As we approach Cloud World Forum in London this June BCN had the opportunity to catch up with one of the conference speakers, Philip Carnelley, software research director at IDC Europe to discuss his views on the most disruptive trends in IT today.

What do you see as the most disruptive trend in enterprise IT today?

This is a tricky one but I think it’s got to be the Internet of Things – extending the edge of the network, we’re expecting a dramatic rise in internet-connected cars, buildings, homes, sensors for health and industrial equipment, wearables and more.

IDC expects some 28 billion IoT devices to be operational by 2020. Amongst other things, this will change the way a lot of companies operate, changing from device providers to service providers, and allowing device manufacturers to directly sell to, and service, their end customers in the way they didn’t before.

What do you think is lacking in the cloud sector today?

There are 2 things. First, many organizations still have concerns about security, privacy and compliance in a cloud-centric world. The industry needs to make sure that organizations understand that these needs can be met by today’s solutions.

Second, while most people buy into the cloud vision, it’s often not easy to get to there from where they are today. The industry must make it easy as possible, with simple solutions that don’t require fleets of highly trained people to understand and implement.

Are you seeing more enterprises look to non-relational database tech for transactional uses?

Absolutely. We’re seeing a definite rise in the use of NoSQL databases, as IT and DB architects become much more ready to choose databases on a use-base basis rather than just going for the default choice. A good example is the use of Basho Riak at the National Health Service.

Is cloud changing the way mobile apps and services are developed in enterprises?

Yes, there is a change towards creating mobile apps and services that draw on ‘mobile back-end-as-a-service’ technologies for their creation and operation

Why do you think it’s important to attend Cloud World Forum?

Because cloud is the fundamental platform for what IDC calls the 3rd Platform of Computing. We are in the middle of a complete paradigm shift to cloud-centric computing – with the associated technologies of mobile, social and big data – which is driving profound changes in business processes and even business models (think Uber, AirBnB, Netflix). Any company that wants to remain competitive in this new era needs to embrace these technologies, to learn more about them, in the way it develops and runs its operations for B2E, B2B and B2C processes.

Americas, centurylink, Datacentre, David Meredith, IDC, Kelly Quinn, News & Analysis, Server Farm Realty, Washington

CenturyLink adds clean cloud datacentre in Washington

CenturyLink has added a datacentre in Washington to its footprint

CenturyLink has added a datacentre in Washington to its footprint

CenturyLink has opened a datacentre in Moses Lake, Washington this week, which is powered in part by hydro-electric energy.

The facility is powered in part by hydroelectric generators located on the nearby Columbia River, and because the local climate allows for significant use of free-air cooling (which is much less power-intensive than traditional cooling methods) the company said the datacentre has among the lowest power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratings in the industry.

“CenturyLink’s new low-cost power datacentre services provide many benefits to our customers, including a highly resilient solution coupled with power costs and efficiency metrics that rank among the best in the industry, and the facility serves as an excellent disaster recovery location,” said David Meredith, senior vice president, CenturyLink. “Enterprises enjoy global access to CenturyLink’s portfolio of cloud and managed hybrid IT services, and we continue to extend the reach of our data center footprint to new markets to meet from the needs of our customers.”

The datacentre is being hosted by Server Farm Realty, a managed datacentre and colocation provider, and offers access to cloud, colocation, networking and managed services.

This is the second datacentre CenturyLink has added to its footprint in recent months. Two weeks ago the company announced a partnership with NextDC to broaden its datacentre footprint in Australia, and in March brought its cloud platform online in Singapore.

While most datacentres are typically located close to large metropolitan centres, Kelly Quinn, research manager with IDC reckons CenturyLink’s latest datacentre could bring more attention to the region’s potential as a hub for other facilities.

The central part of Washington state is one of the geographies in which I see substantial potential for further growth as a datacentre hub,” Quinn said.

“Its potential stems from the area’s abundance of natural, power-generating resources, and its relative immunity from natural disasters.”

“It also may offer customers who are ‘green’ conscious the ability to work with a provider that can satisfy their datacentre needs with renewable energy sources, Quinn added.

Channel, Datacentre, IDC, Intelligence, Kuba Stolarski, News & Analysis, Private Cloud, Public Cloud

IDC: Cloud to make up nearly half of IT infrastructure spending by 2019

Enterprise adoption of public cloud services seems to be outstripping private cloud demand

Enterprise adoption of public cloud services seems to be outstripping private cloud demand

Total cloud infrastructure spending will grow by 21 per cent year over year to $32bn this year, accounting for approximately 33 per cent of all IT infrastructure spending, up from about 28 per cent in 2014, according to IDC.

The research and analyst house echoed claims that cloud computing has been significantly disrupting the IT infrastructure market over the past couple of years. The firm estimates last year cloud infrastructure spending totalled $26.4bn, up 18.7 per cent from the year before.

Kuba Stolarski, research manager, server, virtualization and workload research at IDC said much of the growth over the next few years will be driven largely by public cloud adoption.

Private cloud infrastructure spending will grow by 16 per cent year on year to $12bn, while public cloud IT infrastructure spending will grow by a whopping 25 per cent in 2015 to $21bn – nearly twice as much, the firm believes.

“The pace of adoption of cloud-based platforms will not abate for quite some time, resulting in cloud IT infrastructure expansion continuing to outpace the growth of the overall IT infrastructure market for the foreseeable future,” Stolarski explained.

“As the market evolves into deploying 3rd Platform solutions and developing next-gen software, organizations of all types and sizes will discover that traditional approaches to IT management will increasingly fall short of the simplicity, flexibility, and extensibility requirements that form the core of cloud solutions.”

By 2019, the firm believe, cloud infrastructure spending will top $52bn and represent 45 per cent of the total IT infrastructure spend; public cloud will represent about $32bn of that amount, and private cloud the remaining $20bn.

According to IDC, 15 per cent of the overall infrastructure spend in EMEA was related to cloud environments in 2014, up from 8 per cent in 2011. $3.4bn was spent on hardware going to cloud environments in EMEA in 2013, up 21 per cent from 2012.

Big Data, Enterprise IT, ERP, IDC, Internet of Things, IoT, Kimberly Knickle, Manufacturing, News & Analysis

Close to half of manufacturers look to cloud for operational efficiency, survey reveals

Manufacturers are flocking to cloud services to reap operational benefits

Manufacturers are flocking to cloud services to reap operational benefits

About half of all large manufacturers globally are using or plan to use IT services based on public cloud platform in a bid to driver operational efficiency, an IDC research survey reveals.

A recently published IDC survey which polled 437 IT decision makers at large manufacturing firms globally suggests manufacturers are looking to cloud services primarily to simplify their operations.

A majority of manufacturers worldwide are currently using public (66 per cent) or private cloud (68 per cent) for more than two applications, and nearly 50 per send of European manufacturers have adopted or intend to adopt ERP in the public cloud.

But only 30 to 35 per cent of respondents said operations, supply chain and logistics, sales, or engineering were likely to benefit through adoption.

“Manufacturers are in the midst of a digital transformation, in which 3rd platform technologies are absolutely essential to the way they do business and in the products and services they provide to their customers.  Consequently, a strategic approach to adopting cloud is absolutely essential,” said Kimberly Knickle, research director, IDC Manufacturing Insights.

“Because of cloud’s tremendous value in making IT resources available to the business based on business terms –speed, cost, and accessibility- manufacturers must  ensure that the line of business and IT management work together in defining their requirements,” Knickle said.

The firm said manufacturers are likely to opt for private cloud platforms in the near term in a bid to expand their IT estates to the cloud, but that capacity requirements will likely eventually shift those platforms onto larger public cloud platforms. A big driver for this will be the Internet of Things, with a cloud a key component in allowing manufacturers to more easily make use of the data that will be connected from sensors throughout manufacturing operations.

Big Data, data managementd, Database, Funding, IDC, Manish Sood, News & Analysis, Reltio

Cloud-based data management provider Reltio scores $10m

Reltio scored $10m, which will be used to expand its sales and marketing efforts

Reltio scored $10m, which will be used to expand its sales and marketing efforts

Reltio, a startup founded by Informatica veterans, has secured $10m in its first round of funding and announced the launch of its cloud-based data management platform.

Much like the integration element Informatica specialises in, Reltio is pitching its services at those that don’t necessarily want to acquire and set up all of the front-end and back-end big data tools in piecemeal, siloed fashion, but instead want an integrated platform that can query, analyses and display multiple data types.

The company said its data management platform is designed for those accustomed to using services like Facebook or Linkedin, but within traditionally data-intense industries like healthcare and life sciences, oil and gas, retail and distribution.

“Data is the new natural resource, but it’s truly valuable only when it’s effectively mined, related and transformed into insight with business actions that can be taken within the context of day-to-day operations,” said Manish Sood, founder and chief executive officer of Reltio.

“With Reltio, data is collated and analysed for actionable intelligence with the speed needed to support innovation and spark new revenue streams. IT gets a modern data management platform while business users get easy to use data-driven applications to address their everyday needs,” Sood said.

The company was founded largely by Informatica data management specialists: Sood led product strategy for master data management at Informatica; Anastasia Zamyshlyaeva, chief architect for Reltio, helped design the core components of Informatica’s MDM offering; Curt Pearlman, vice president of solutions, previously held positions in sales consulting with Informatica, as did Bob More, Reltio’s senior vice president of sales.

Reltio is throwing its hat into an increasingly competitive but lucrative ring. Analyst firm IDC estimates spending on big data and analytics will reach $125bn in 2015, with Database-as-a-Service growing in importance as cloud and commercial vendors open up their data sets.

Cloud Decision Framework Tool, IDC, International Data Corporation, Research

IDC Debuts Cloud Decision Framework Tool at the Cloud Leadership Forum

English: Diagram showing overview of cloud com...

Worldwide public IT cloud services spending is forecast to surpass $55 billion in 2014. Yet IT leaders continue to struggle with quantifying the operational, organizational, and financial implications of their application hosting and platform decisions. To help IT decision makers to better understand their options and the associated implications as they move various enterprise workloads to the cloud, International Data Corporation (IDC) has developed a new Cloud Decision Framework Tool.

A robust tool for any IT organization wishing to more precisely evaluate its cloud computing strategy, IDC’s Cloud Decision Framework Tool officially debuted during a comprehensive, three-hour IDC analyst workshop that took place in conjunction with the IDC/IDG Cloud Leadership Forum in Santa Clara, California.

“This tool was carefully designed to help guide IT managers in their decisions around on-premise, private and public cloud computing options,” said Joe Pucciarelli, vice president, Technology Financial & Executive Strategies at IDC. “The painstaking evaluation struggles that once plagued the cloud decision-making process have been all but eliminated as the Cloud Decision Framework Tool does all the heavy lifting.”

IDC’s Cloud Decision Framework Tool Helps IT Managers:

  • Become more agile in the cloud decision making process
  • Understand and take advantage of the profound technology, platform,
    staffing, and economic opportunities that will shape IT strategies in
    the coming years
  • Identify customer priorities for IT cloud system management software
    investments
  • Align business/IT governance around a specific cloud vision
  • Restructure IT purchasing and sourcing approaches
  • Evaluate overall cloud goals

“The Cloud Decision Framework Tool allows you to decompose a very complex business decision by breaking it down into its key components. A CIO can use the tool to collaborate with the rest of the executive team and get them on board with moving to a cloud,” commented Allyn McGillicaddy, Principal, Office of the CIO.com.

Click here to access IDC’s Cloud Decision Framework Tool. For more information, please contact Joe Pucciarelli at jpucciarelli@idc.com or Randy Perry at rperry@idc.com.