Category Archives: News & Analysis

Brendon Riley, M&A, News & Analysis, Pacnet, Telco Cloud, telstra

Telstra, Pacnet finalise acquisition deal

Telstra is buying Pacnet to bolster its presence in the Asia Pacific cloud and managed services market

Telstra is buying Pacnet to bolster its presence in China’s cloud and managed services market

Telstra’s acquisition of Pacnet has now come to fruition, with the Australian telco today announcing it has completed the purchase of the cloud, managed services and datacentre provider. As reported by Telecoms.com in December, the valuation of the deal came in at $697m.

When initially announced, the deal came with the stipulation of agreement from regulatory bodies, as well as Pacnet financier approval. According to Telstra, all necessary approvals and agreements have now been confirmed, and the firm can now begin the full acquisition of Pacnet.

All that remains, it claims, is full regulatory approval in the United States, which it reckons is expected in due course and will not impact operations or the agreed purchase price.

Speaking on the acquisition, Telstra’s Global Enterprise and Services chief executive Brendon Riley said the integration of Pacnet will see its brand gradually retired, but that the Chinese market remains a big focus for the joint-venture.

“The addition of Pacnet’s staff, intrastructure, technology and expertise will position Telstra as a leading provider of services to multinational and large companies in Asia,” he said. “The completed acquisition will double Telstra’s customers in Asia, and greatly increase our network reach and data centre capabilities across the region. This includes the addition of the largest privately owned intra-Asia cable network, 29 data centres and the ability to further grow our China operations through existing joint venture.”

Riley concluded with a nod towards the Pacnet Enabled Network (PEN), an elastic and on-demand network based on SDN architecture, pioneered by Pacnet. PEN was one of the first live SDN-based networks launched globally.

“The acquisition provides us greater specialisation and scale, including the delivery of enhanced services, such as software-defined networking and opens up significant incremental opportunities for our business,” he said.

Chris Dedicoat, Cisco, DHL, Internet of Things, Logistics, Markus Kückelhaus, News & Analysis, supply chain operations

DHL, Cisco claim Internet of Things will give $1.9tn boost to supply chain, logistics

Deutsche Post DHL and Cisco are looking at how IoT will unlock extra value in the supply chain and logistics sectors

Deutsche Post DHL and Cisco are looking at how IoT will unlock extra value in the supply chain and logistics sectors

DHL and Cisco, which are collaborating on a joint Internet of Things initiative looking at how IoT can improve decision-making in warehouse operations, claim the technology could give A $1.9tn boost to supply chain and logistics operations.

The two companies, which recently inked a report on IoT in logistics, are looking at how IoT sensors strategically embedded in warehouse inventory, stock locations and vehicles and connected to cloud-based services via Wi-Fi can improve warehouse operations through the use of analytics.

“At Deutsche Post DHL Group we have a deeply held belief in the positive powers of global trade. Yet, as our Global Connectedness Index 2014 revealed, the overall level of global connectedness remains surprisingly limited,” said Ken Allen, chief executive officer of DHL Express and Board Sponsor Technology.

“There is huge potential for countries to further increase their connectedness and prosper through trade, integration and technology. We believe the Internet of Things will be a primary enabler of this global transformation,” Allen added.

The companies said there is potential for IoT to expand beyond the warehouse and into supply chain,logistics operations and freight transportation, and could have a “game changing” impact on ‘last mile’ delivery for consumers. Cisco reckons that value to sit in the region of $8tn worldwide over the next decade.

But Markus Kückelhaus, vice president Innovation & Trend Research, DHL Customer Solutions & Innovation said there’s still much to do before that value can be realised.

“The Internet of Things is the connection of almost anything – from parcels to people – via sensor technology to the web and both Cisco and DHL believe this will revolutionize business processes across the entire value chain including supply chain and logistics,” Kückelhaus  said. “We’ll need to understand how all components in the value chain converge and this will require a comprehensive collaboration, participation and the willingness to invest to create a thriving IoT eco system for sustainable business processes.

Chris Dedicoat, president, EMEAR for Cisco said: “Digitization and the expansion of the Internet of Things is a catalyst for growth, which is driving new economic models and enabling organizations to remain competitive and embrace the pace of change happening globally. This report clearly demonstrates that digitization and the IoT will deliver long term efficiencies and growth opportunities across a wide range of industries.”

Ben Uretsky, Datacentre, DigitalOcean, Frankfurt, Germany, News & Analysis

DigitalOcean drops into Frankfurt

DigitalOcean is among a number of US-based incumbents moving into Germany

DigitalOcean is among a number of US-based incumbents moving into Germany

In a bid to tap further into the European market DigitalOcean has expanded its presence in Germany with a new datacentre in Frankfurt.

The dev-focused cloud provider already has a presence in Amsterdam and last year partnered with Equinix to make its cloud platform available in one of the company’s London-based Tier III datacentres.

“We’re here to give our full support to developers throughout the world by offering a simple, ideal cloud solution and infrastructure experience for hosting applications,” said DigitalOcean co-founder and chief exec Ben Uretsky. “Innovative companies in Germany deserve the best tools possible in order to continue to grow and succeed.”

The company also said it wanted to appeal to local companies with strong data residency requirements, a common theme among cloud providers throwing their weight into the German market.

Germany – particularly Berlin – has a big startup scene, but putting the datacentre in Frankfurt means it can benefit from being close to a number of large fibre interconnections. Other US-based incumbents to move into Frankfurt over the past few months include IBM (which also partners with Equinix) and AWS.

The facility is DigitalOcean’s third datacentre in Europe and tenth globally.

Acronis, Appointment, Crenshaw, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, Rackspace, Red Hat, VeriSign

Rackspace taps former VeriSign, Red Hat exec to lead strategy, product engineering

Scott CrenshawRackspace has appointed Scott Crenshaw to the role of senior vice president of strategy and product. Crenshaw, who formerly hails from VeriSign, will oversee the company’s corporate strategy, business development and product and engineering portfolio.

Crenshaw most recently served as senior vice president of products at VeriSign, where he led the development of the company’s new products and services. Before that he served as vice president of strategy and chief marketing officer at Acronis, a data backup and recovery solutions provider, and spent a number of years at Red Hat, where he served as vice president and general manager of the cloud business unit.

He also holds a number of patents related to subscription service provision and monitoring.

“We are excited to have someone of Scott’s caliber and experience joining our team,” said Rackspace president and chief executive officer Taylor Rhodes.

“Throughout his career, Scott has established a strong track record of developing winning strategies, managing and growing unique product offerings and working collaboratively with colleagues and customers. Scott will work closely with our marketing, sales, support and other critical functions to drive compelling product offerings and the best customer experience in the industry.”

Crenshaw said: “I am thrilled to be a part of this talented team at such an exciting moment in the company’s history.”

 

Aaron Levie, Box, Cloud Storage, M&A, News & Analysis, Ross McKegney, Verold

Box eyes retail manufacturers, engineering, construction firms with Verold acquisition

Box is looking to bolster its pitch to niche verticals

Box is looking to bolster its pitch to niche verticals

Box has acquired Verold, a Toronto-based 3D modelling and WebGL specialist, in a bid to bolster its appeal to retail manufacturers, engineering and construction firms.

Verold, which was founded in 2010, offers WebGL-based 3D modelling technology that lets users preview and edit 3D content without much computational overhead.

As part of the acquisition Box will move to integrate Verold’s technology into its platform. Verold’s teams with also become Box employees.

“At Verold, we believe interactive 3D web content has the power to transform a wide range of industries and applications, from manufacturing to ecommerce, and we believe the tools to build the 3D web should be broadly accessible,” said Ross McKegney, chief executive officer of Verold.

“Box’s incredible success in building an enterprise content platform that already reaches 45,000 businesses presents a one-of-a-kind opportunity for us to bring the future of 3D content to millions of people around the world. We’re thrilled to be joining Box and can’t wait to get started,” McKegney said.

The cloud-based storage incumbent said the acquisition would enhance its ability to provide more solutions specifically tailored to various industries. Last year the company launched Box for Industries, a collection of Box offerings tailored to a range of niche verticals.

Box chief executive Aaron Levie discussed some of the drivers for the acquisition on the company’s blog, and hinted at where the next Box for Industries solutions might appear: “We’re finding that nearly every industry is experiencing information-driven transformation in unique ways, and the acquisition of Verold will allow us to go even farther than ever imagined.”

“Take for example a commercial construction contractor, faced with the challenge of collaborating on multiple projects at once with partners and contractors, or previewing detailed design drawings when in the field. Or an athletic wear retailer tasked with delivering the latest product design iterations across geographically dispersed teams. Being able to perform these workflows, right from a web browser, without having to download any additional software is a game-changing proposition in many industries,” he said.

The move comes just one month after Box’s latest acquisition. It recently purchased Subspace, a mobile security startup, for an undisclosed sum.

cloud migration, Enterprise IT, Len Padilla, News & Analysis, NTT Com

Close to 40% of IT DMs find cloud is falling short once implemented, survey finds

Enterprises are struggling to manage the transition to cloud services, an NTT report suggests

Enterprises are struggling to manage the transition to cloud services, an NTT report suggests

Close to four in ten IT decision makers believe the cloud as it is implemented in their organisation is falling short of its potential, nearly the same proportion (41 percent) that say they find managing cloud vendors confusing, according to a recently published report.

A recently published NTT survey of over 1,600 IT decision makers in Europe and the US sheds some light on the challenges enterprises are facing in adopting cloud services.

While nearly half believe cloud as implemented in their organisations is falling short, many are finding that a drive towards cloud services internally is displacing investment in other key areas of IT – and struggling to manage this bi-modal IT framework.

About 17 per cent of respondents agreed they spend more time developing capabilities for applications hosted in the cloud than they do for those in their datacentres, but many more said they were spending significantly more time maintaining the current performance of both cloud (44 per cent) and corporate datacentre (55 per cent) applications.

Still, about 41 per cent of respondents said just migrating their critical apps to the cloud too challenging to warrant the move.

“Our study shows the reality of cloud in 2015 is potentially as complex as the world it was supposed to replace. ICT decision-makers harbor significant frustrations over cloud, and there are no clear answers over which kinds of applications belong where,” said Len Padilla, vice president of product strategy at NTT Com. “There needs to be a far smoother migration path from the datacentre to the cloud. A different kind of planning approach is required for companies to achieve the large-scale digital transformations business executives are demanding.”

“ICT decision-makers see the cloud as a compelling enabling technology for digital transformation – there’s no better way to take a new app from the sandbox to global production quickly.  However, our study suggests focusing on ambitious plans is not the best approach.  Focusing on continuous improvement and incremental steps is a far more effective strategy,” he explained.

While close to 90 per cent of respondents said they plan to move some applications over to the cloud at some point, the results of the report still raise questions about how enterprises can cope with some of the challenges of managing the transition. For a full copy of the report click here.

Database, database tech, John Partridge, M&A, MongoDB, MySQL, News & Analysis, NoSQL, Percona, Peter Zaitsev, Tokutek

Percona buys Tokutek to mashup MySQL, NoSQL tech

Percona acquired Tokutek to strengthen its expertise in NoSQL

Percona acquired Tokutek to strengthen its expertise in NoSQL

Relational database services firm Percona announced it has acquired Tokutek, which provides a high-performance MongoDB distribution and NoSQL services. Percona said the move will allow it to improve support for non-relational database technologies.

Tokutek offers a distribution of MongoDB, called TokuMX, which the company pitches as a drop-in replacement for MongoDB – but with up to 20 times performance improvements and 90 per cent reduction in database size.

One of the things that makes it so performant is its deployment of fractal tree indexing, a data structure that optimises I/O while allowing for simultaneous search and sequential access but with much faster insertions and deletions (it can also be applied in MariaDB).

Percona said the move will position the company to offer the full range consulting and technology services to support MySQL and MongoDB deployments; Percona Server already supports TokuMX as an option but the move will see the later further integrated and ship standard with the former.

“This acquisition delivers game-changing advantages to our customers,” said Peter Zaitsev, co-founder and chief executive of Percona. “By adding a market-leading, ACID-compliant NoSQL data management option to our product line, customers finally have the opportunity to simplify their database decisions and on-going support relationships by relying on just one proven, expert provider for all their database design, service, management, and support needs.”

John Partridge, president and chief executive of Tokutek said: “Percona has a well-earned reputation for expert database consulting services and support. With the Tokutek acquisition, Percona is uniquely positioned to offer NoSQL and NewSQL software solutions backed by unparalleled services and support. We are excited to know Tokutek customers can look forward to leveraging Percona services and support in their TokuMX and TokuDB deployments.”

NoSQL adoption is growing at a fairly fast rate as applications shift to handle more and more unstructured data (espeically cloud apps), so it’s likely we’ll see more MySQL incumbents pick up non-relational startups in the coming months.

 

Adallom, cloud security, Funding, HP, News & Analysis, Saas

Cloud security vendor Adallom secures $30m in series C led by HP

Adallom secured $30m in new funding this week from HP Ventures among others

Adallom secured $30m in new funding this week from HP Ventures among others

Cloud security service provider Adallom announced this week it has secured $30m in a series C funding round led by Hewlett Packard Ventures, which the company said it would put towards research and development.

Adallom, which was founded by cybersecurity veterans Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak and Roy Reznik in 2012, offers a security service that integrates with the authentication chain of a range of SaaS applications and lets IT administrators monitor usage for every user on each device.

The software works with a conjunction of end-point and network security solutions and has a built-in, self-learning engine that analyses user activity on SaaS applications and assesses the riskiness of each transaction in real-time, alerting administrators when activity becomes too risky for an organisation given its security policies.

The company said the latest funding round, which brings the total amount secured by the firm since its founding three years ago to just under $50m, speaks to the rapid growth of the SaaS market, and the need for more flexible security solutions.

“The market’s embrace of our approach to cloud security and our investors’ continued confidence in our products, team and results to date is a strong endorsement of Adallom. It also serves as encouragement to continue to execute on our mission to deliver the best platform for protecting data in the cloud,” said Rappaport, Adallom’s chief executive. “We’re determined to exceed the expectations of our customers and investors, and continue our innovation in this market.”

The company said the investment will be used to double down on development and improve support for more services; it claims the security service already supports over 13,000 cloud apps.

Adallom’s funding round caps off a successful month for a number of cloud security vendors, with Palerra, ProtectWise and Elastica all securing millions in investment.

Big Data, GemFire, News & Analysis, Open Source

Pivotal punts Geode to ASF to consolidate leadership in open source big data

Pivotal is looking to position itself as a front runner in open source big data

Pivotal is looking to position itself as a front runner in open source big data

Pivotal has proposed “Project Geode” for incubation by the Apache Software Foundation, which would focus on developing the Geode in-memory database technology – the technology at the core of Pivotal’s GemFire offering.

Geode can support ACID transactions for large scaled applications such as those used for stock trading, financial payments and ticket sales, and the company said the technology is already proven in customer deployments of more than 10 million user transactions a day.

In February Pivotal announced it would open source much of its big data suite including GemFire, which the company will continue to support commercially. The move is part of a broader plan to consolidate its leadership in the open source big data ecosystem, where companies like Hortonworks are also trying to make waves.

The company also recently helped launch the Open Data Platform, which seeks to promote big data tech standardisation, and combat fragmentation around how Hadoop is deployed in enterprises and built upon by ISVs.

In the meantime, while the company said it would wait for the ASF’s decision Pivotal has already put out a call to developers as it seeks early contributions to ensure the project gets a head start.

“The opening sourcing of core components of products in the Pivotal Big Data Suite heralds a new era of how big data is done in the enterprise. Starting with core code in Pivotal GemFire, the components we intend to contribute to the open source community are already performing in the most hardened and demanding enterprise environments,” said Sundeep Madra, vice president, Data Product Group at Pivotal.

“Geode is an important part of building solutions for next generation data infrastructures and we welcome the community to join us in furthering Geode’s already compelling capabilities,” Madra said.

Amazon Web Services, Apache, Big Data, Docker, Google Cloud Platform, Hadoop, Hortonworks, M&A, Microsoft Azure, News & Analysis, OpenStack, SequenceIQ, Vendor

Hortonworks buys SequenceIQ to speed up cloud deployment of Hadoop

CloudBreak

SequenceIQ will help boost Hortonworks’ position in the Hadoop ecosystem

Hortonworks has acquired SequenceIQ, a Hungary-based startup delivering infrastructure agnostic tools to improve Hadoop deployments. The company said the move will bolster its ability to offer speedy cloud deployments of Hadoop.

SequenceIQ’s flagship offering, Cloudbreak, is a Hadoop as a Service API for multi-tenant clusters that applies some of the capabilities of Blueprint (which lets you create a Hadoop cluster without having to use the Ambari Cluster Install Wizard) and Periscope (autoscaling for Hadoop YARN) to help speed up deployment of Hadoop on different cloud infrastructures.

The two companies have partnered extensively in the Hadoop community, and Hortonworks said the move will enhance its position among a growing number of Hadoop incumbents.

“This acquisition enriches our leadership position by providing technology that automates the launching of elastic Hadoop clusters with policy-based auto-scaling on the major cloud infrastructure platforms including Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and OpenStack, as well as platforms that support Docker containers. Put simply, we now provide our customers and partners with both the broadest set of deployment choices for Hadoop and quickest and easiest automation steps,” Tim Hall, vice president of product management at Hortonworks, explained.

“As Hortonworks continues to expand globally, the SequenceIQ team further expands our European presence and firmly establishes an engineering beachhead in Budapest. We are thrilled to have them join the Hortonworks team.”

Hall said the company also plans to contribute the Cloudbreak code back into the Apache Foundation sometime this year, though whether it will do so as part of an existing project or standalone one seems yet to be decided.

Hortonworks’ bread and butter is in supporting enterprise adoption of Hadoop and bringing the services component to the table, but it’s interesting to see the company commit to feeding the Cloudbreak code – which could, at least temporarily, give it a competitive edge – back into the ecosystem.

“This move is in line with our belief that the fastest path to innovation is through open source developed within an open community,” Hall explained.

The big data M&A space has seen more consolidation over the past few months, with Hitachi Data Systems acquiring big data and analytics specialist Pentaho and Infosys’ $200m acquisition of Panaya.