Category Archives: News & Analysis

Aruba, Edgeline, HPE, Internet of Things, IoT, News & Analysis

HPE launches Edgeline systems and Aruba Sensors for IoT

HPE datacenterHewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has announced a new invention that means that Internet of Things (IoT) systems can decentralise all their processing and devolve decision-making to local areas. It has also unveiled plans to simplify the roll out of IoT services with the Meridian cloud service.

HPE’s new Edgeline IoT Systems 10 and 20 are designed to sit at the network edge, so that customers can aggregate and analyze data in real-time, more quickly and securely, and control devices and things, it says. By keeping data localised, they can also alleviate traffic across the network.

The systems come in ruggedized, mobile and rack-mounted versions and are aimed at a variety of industry sectors, with HPE specifically naming the logistics, transport, health, government and retail sectors. The new systems are certified to work with Microsoft’s Azure IoT Suite.

The Edgeline range is the fruit of a partnership with Intel to create open systems for the IoT market. Models include the HPE IoT System EL10, a rugged entry level priced edge gateway designed with long lifecycle components and the pricier but more powerful HPE IoT System EL20. The Edgeline range is built on HPE’s Moonshot system architecture, which is designed to use less energy and space than typical servers.

Meanwhile one of HPE’s companies, Aruba, has unveiled a cloud-based beacon management system for multivendor Wi-Fi networks.

The new, enterprise-grade IoT Aruba Sensor is the next wave of Aruba’s Mobile Engagement strategy, it says. The sensors combine a small Wi-Fi client and BLE radio, so that organizations can remotely monitor and manage Aruba Beacons across existing multivendor Wi-Fi networks from a central location using the Meridian cloud service.

The upshot is that any company can introduce location-based services more easily, using Aruba Beacons and Sensors at the edge and the Meridian cloud service to interface with business and analytics applications.

HPE’s goal is to simplify IoT for customers and drive more business, according to Antonio Neri, HPE’s general manager. “The new solutions today are important elements of our strategy to  deliver more connectivity and computing power at the edge,  help customers maximize the value and minimize the risks from IoT at the speed of business,” said Neri.

Enterprise IT, HPE, hybrid cloud, News & Analysis, Synergy

HPE launches Synergy to help balance hybrid clouds

HPE street logoHewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has launched a new service aimed at helping hybrid cloud users strike the right work-cloud balance.

As companies adopt hybrid clouds, they will become increasingly aware that these half private half public clouds do not provide an instant one size fits all solution and HPE Synergy, it says, will give hybrids the fluidity to adjust.

HPE Synergy will work with existing systems from established brand such as Arista, CapGemini, Chef, Docker, Microsoft, Nvidia and VMware, said HPE in a statement. It will be available to customers and channel partners in around April 2016.

The new HPE Synergy service is an intelligent system with a simplified application programming interface (API). This combination of artificial intelligence and a portal will apparently create liquidity in the computing resources of the public and private cloud, meaning that conditions can be constantly monitored and adjustments constantly calculated. The upshot, according to HPE, is a system that can load balance between its public and private capacities and create the right blend for each set of circumstances.

Synergy creates resource pools comprising computing, storage and fabric networking capacity. These can be calculated for each case, according to its needs and the available resources. This capacity management is achieved through a system that can legislate for physical, virtual and containerised workloads.

According to HPE, Synergy’s software-defined intelligence self-discovers and self-assembles the perfect configuration and infrastructure possible (given the resources available) needed for repeatable frictionless updates. Meanwhile, the single unified API offers the chance to programme and control the bare-metal infrastructure as a service interface. The HPE OneView user interface acts as a window on the entire range of different types of storage that an enterprise might have.

The rationale is that everyone is going to hybrid computing, so it makes sense to help them move their resources across the border between private and public cloud as easily as possible, according to HPE general manager Antonio Neri.

“Hybrids of traditional IT and private clouds will dominate the market over the next five years,” said Neri. Clients will want the speed and agility of the cloud and the reliability and security of their own data centres. “With HPE Synergy, IT can deliver infrastructure as code and give businesses a cloud experience in their data centre,” said Neri.

Netwrix, News & Analysis

Lack of visibility in cloud makes IT pros nervous and insecure – report

Unauthorised access and account hijacking are the biggest risks that IT professionals associate with the cloud, according to a new global cloud security survey.

The survey, conducted on behalf of IT auditor Netwrix, asked 600 IT professionals from across the globe about cloud security, their expectations of cloud providers and what measures they take to ensure data security. The IT Pros, who work in sectors including technology, manufacturing, government, healthcare, finance and education said that migrating to the cloud scared them. The majority (65%) of companies are concerned about security and 40% worry about their loss of physical control over data in the cloud, the survey found.

By extension, 35% are presumably not concerned about the insecurity of the cloud, which could be a source of encouragement to many public cloud service providers in this relatively new market.

The biggest fear among the survey group appears to be about unauthorised access with 69% of the respondents thinking this is more likely to happen as a consequence of cloud migration. By the same token, 43% of the sample of IT pros worried about account hijacking once the cloud is being used. However, the number of IT Pros who said they would invest extra in the additional security of a private cloud were in a minority, with only 37% of organisations prepared to put devote money to the cause. A bigger proportion, 44% of respondents, cited hybrid clouds as their preferred transition model from an on-premise infrastructure to a cloud-based model.

When planning to enforce security in the new cloud model, 56% plan to improve identity and authentication management, while 51% will use encryption and 45% of medium and large enterprises plan to audit changes and user activity.

However, despite their fears, these IT Pros seemed to think cloud migration is inevitable with only 13% of organisations rejecting the idea of adopting of cloud technology in the near future. A large minority (30%) are holding out until cloud security mechanisms are improved.

“We wanted to find out what’s preventing cloud adoption,” said Netwrix CEO Alex Vovk, “true visibility of cloud infrastructure will help companies minimise security risks, take back control and accelerate cloud adoption.”

Enterprise IT, Helion, HPE, Managed Cloud Broker, News & Analysis

HPE says new Cloud Service Broker could put IT back in control

HPE office logoHewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has launched a new service to help clients regain control over their increasingly unwieldy cloud estate.

The new HPE Helion Managed Cloud Broker is a managed service that aims to simplify the management of cloud services across multiple workloads and providers. HPE says it allows businesses to provision, access, consolidate and securely control services. It’s necessary, it says, because companies are being over run as easily accessible cloud applications threaten to cause chaos in many IT departments as they bypass all controls.

New systems are increasingly being ordered and set up without the approval of the IT department, so the cloud threatens the security and management of IT estates. Cloud fever also undermines the potential cost savings achievable through a hybrid infrastructure.

The new Helion Managed Cloud Broker will give IT administrators control and instant visibility over their IT assets, be they traditional IT kit, private clouds or public services. The Cloud Broker will orchestrate all these assets and improve responsiveness, financial management and end-user satisfaction, claims HPE.

The Cloud Broker will support HPE’s entire Helion portfolio including the Managed Virtual Private Cloud, CloudSystem and OpenStack, as well VMWare technology and a range of public cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. The Cloud Broker service will be generally available in 2016 and charged as a pay per use system.

Features include a self-service portal with a direct interface to service providers. The Broker’s management options cover security, performance, finances, compliance, audits, catalogs, subscriptions and service requests. It also provides monitoring tools, dashboards and reports.

The service was built from HPE Cloud Orchestration Software, ITSM automation software and operations bridge software.

Cloud computing promises speed, agility and costs advantages but they’re soon lost in a sprawl of unmanaged, uncoordinated cloud instances, according to Eugene O’Callaghan, VP of Enterprise Services Workload and Cloud at HPE. “HPE unifies all enterprise cloud resources together, giving our clients a single view,” said O’Callaghan.

CMA, consumer cloud, News & Analysis, Policy and Regulation, UK

UK Competition and Markets Authority to launch legal probe into cloud storage

personal cloudThe UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) is to launch a review of how the cloud storage sector may be affected by consumer law, in the wake of rising concerns about pricing and services charges.

With an estimated 40% of consumers now using cloud storage to store music, images and documents, according to the CMA, compliance with consumer law is increasingly critical.  The CMA says that it is taking action as reports emerge of possible breaches of consumer law through rogue practices and terms.

In one case consumers were hit with surprise price increases and reductions to their ‘unlimited’ storage capacity deals after contracts had been agreed. The CMA is also concerned about incidents of loss and deletion of some consumers’ data.

The CMA’s review is to investigate how widespread these practices are, whether they breach consumer law and how they are affecting consumers. The process, which begins on December 1st, is open for responses until 15 January 2016. The CMA says it wants to hear from businesses about their practices and from consumers and industry experts about their experiences.

“We want to assess whether companies understand and comply with consumer law and whether cloud storage services are working well for consumers as a result,” said Nisha Arora, CMA Senior Director.

If the review finds breaches of consumer protection laws it will take action to address these, it says. This could include enforcement action using the CMA’s own consumer law powers, namely Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 relating to unfair terms and for contracts entered into before 1 October 2015 the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. It can also invoke the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs). Alternatively, it may seek voluntary change from the sector or provide guidance to business or consumers.

The CMA has a general review function under section 5 of the Enterprise Act 2002. Information gathered can help the CMA to determine whether further action is warranted. However the CMA says it has not taken any decisions about what it might do once this review is completed.

BT, Helion, HP, News & Analysis, Telco Cloud, UK

BT offers customers direct connection to HPE’s Helion managed cloud

BT Sevenoaks workstyle buildingBT is to give its IP VPN customers direct connections to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) Helion Managed Cloud Services.

BT’s service currently uses HPE’s Rapid Connect to bypass the public internet when it connects to HPE Helion Managed Cloud Services. Now the new direct connectivity gives BT customers access to HPE’s portfolio of services when they need to build and consume computing workloads. It gives BT customers more reliable and secure access, better performance and lower latency, according to Keith Langridge, VP of the Connect Portfolio at BT Global Services.

It also simplifies the process of using cloud services, when a lot of companies are coming to terms with a mixture of private public and hybrid clouds, said Langridge. “We have already optimised our network to help customers take advantage of multiple cloud services through our Cloud Connect portfolio of services,” said Landgridge. “By adding direct connectivity to HPE Helion through BT’s global network, customers will benefit from a solution that is consistent, secure and reliable, wherever they operate.”

BT’s direct connectivity to HPE Helion Managed Cloud Services via Rapid Connect is already available in Germany, France and the UK. This will be followed by additional connections at key business hubs around the world. The services are managed by customers through a single service catalogue using BT’s Compute Management System.

Customers want high performance from the cloud, but there is an evolving regulatory and threat landscape, said Eugene O’Callaghan, VP of Enterprise Services Workload and Cloud at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “Our partnership to deliver these services with BT will bring a whole new level of confidence to global organisations,” said O’Callaghan.

developers, Microsoft, News & Analysis, powerapps, Software as a service

Microsoft launches PowerApps for programming in the cloud

Microsoft powerappsMicrosoft has unveiled a new DIY programming system called PowerApps and new features for Office 365 and Dynamics CRM 2016 at its annual Convergence EMEA conference in Barcelona.

The new features in Microsoft Office 365, include meetings and voice services in Skype for Business while there’s a new customer engagement option in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016. Meanwhile Microsoft PowerApps is a new enterprise service that helps employees to create apps and share them with co-workers.

Office 365 now has options for a Skype Meeting Broadcast, Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) Conferencing, PSTN Calling and Cloud Private Branch Exchange. In addition Office 365 customers now have one platform for calling, conferencing, video and sharing, Microsoft claims.

There are new analytics and data visualization tools in the cloud package too. Delve Analytics promises interactive dashboards that tell users who they are spending their time with and how. This, says Microsoft, will help employees to prioritise better. The cloud package will have greater levels of security and compliance, it claims, through a new Customer Lockbox feature which allows each user to set access control limits. A new eDiscovery option makes it easier to manage large quantities of data and find information.

These new features, along with new Power BI (business intelligence) and Advanced Threat Protection are available in a new premium enterprise suite, Office 365 E5.

Meanwhile the new Dynamics CRM 2016, Microsoft promises, will be a more intelligent, mobile and productive system, thanks to new data and intelligence components. Among the features is a new ‘intelligent product recommendations’ mode for sales reps to personalize up-selling.

Dynamics CRM 2016 can also simplify everyday jobs, like meeting follow-ups.

On that same theme PowerApps is a system for creating apps for everything from a simple survey to something more ambitious and mission critical, according to Microsoft. These can connect to line-of-business systems and cloud services and run on any device. They can be used by everyone from employees through IT staff to Professional developers.

Black Friday, Content & Applications, Datacentre, News & Analysis

Web companies create their own problems on Black Friday – research

online shopping cartThe artificially created surge in demand for online bargains on Black Friday could be damaging many brands, according to a recent report by hosting giant Rackspace.

Though Black Friday falls on a national holiday in the US, its lack of cultural significance in the UK hasn’t failed to prevent it become an online retail landmark. Companies ranging from Amazon to John Lewis to Orange have created one day, limited offer shopping deals to generate demand surges, with customers flooding both their online and in store outlets on Black Friday.

On Friday traffic analyst Traffic Defender live blogged that the John Lewis online store was unavailable and gave a low down on the performance of a variety of online players.

With e-commerce loyalty at an all time low, according to Rackspace, these artificially engineered spikes in traffic and public interest in cloud computing performance may be counter productive to any cloud based service provider.

In a Rackspace survey of 2,000 consumers, 39% of respondents recognised that websites failure is due to poor construction and maintenance. The vast majority (83%) of UK consumers claim a consistently slow or unavailable websites negatively affects their brand loyalty. Almost one in five consumers (18%) would only wait 10 seconds or less for a website or page to load before they would abandon their search and look elsewhere.

“This Black Friday, ecommerce loyalty is at an all-time low. Consumers now have a vast choice of retailers available to them online, so it’s easy for them to change their mind about which shop to spend their hard earned cash with,” said Paul Bolt, VP of Technology Practices at Rackspace.

The ‘inevitable website traffic spikes’ and ‘uncompromising demand from customers’, however, could contribute to the tarnishing of a brand, warned Bolt, “There really is no place for outages.” If companies are going to risk their brand image for a single day of busy trading they must put the cloud foundations in place, Bolt argued.

Conficker, Malware, News & Analysis, ThreatCloud

Conficker is commonest criminal in the cloud says ThreatCloud report

Secure cloudThree families of malware account for 40% of all the crime on the cloud across the globe, according to a new report from security firm Checkpoint.

The company’s ThreatCloud report looked at statistics drawn from intelligence feeding in from Check Point’s global presence in October 2015. It identified more than 1,500 different malware families globally active in that month alone. The ThreatCloud World Cyber Threat Map uses software agents and monitors to tracks how and where cyberattacks are taking place worldwide in real time.

Three malware families, the Conflickers, Salitys and Cutwails, accounted for 40% of all recorded attacks. The report also uncovered a new trend for criminals to try to assume control of networks by focusing on remote control of infected PCs. Increasingly, these are used to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) and spamming campaigns against service providers.

Attacks on individuals also rose sharply, though these tended to be concentrated around malware families that are involved in ransomware scams. Identity theft and the stealing of users’ information  also rose sharply. The use of kits, such as the Neutrino ransomware exploit kit Fareit malware, which steals user information from web browsers and emails, increased dramatically. In one month this criminal modus operandum rose from being the 93rd most used scam to the 10th most common form of malware seen in October.

International organisations, such as cloud service operators, are most likely to be targeted by Conficker which accounted for 20% of all attacks globally. The UK experienced a lower number of attacks than many countries European nations and was ranked 110th most vulnerable region out of 133 target countries globally. By comparison Germany ranked 93rd, Switzerland 89th, Spain 57th and France 54th. Italy is home to Europe’s most endangered cloud, being the 40th most likely country to house a victim of an attack.

It’s easy for hackers to make small changes to malware code to enable it to bypass conventional cloud defences, according to Checkpoint’s UK regional director Simon Moor. “Companies should consider deploying advanced technologies,” said Moor.

The ThreatCloud database holds over 250 million addresses analysed for bot discovery, over 11 million malware signatures and over 5.5 million infected websites.

China Telecoms, India, News & Analysis, Telco Cloud

China Telecom launches cloud service to Indian market

business cloud network worldThe Indian subsidiary of China Telecom (China Telecom India) has launched a business cloud service to Chinese businesses operating on the India market. The service, it says, will straddle the public private computing divide and cater to demand for hybrid cloud systems.

The new hybrid cloud service offers professional system management, security and disaster recovery, along with 24-hour, 7 days a week customer service in Chinese.

The launch ceremony took place at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in New Delhi, India. With over 100 Chinese enterprises among the audience, the launch of the service was overseen by Cheng Guangzhong, Minister Counsellor of the Chinese government.

“We proudly launch this cloud service in India to provide safe, convenient and quality cloud computing services, helping Chinese enterprises to tackle IT deployment problems in the new era. With this cloud service, we can provide new development impetus and create new opportunities for Chinese enterprises in international expansion,” said Alen Wang, Managing Director of China Telecom India.

This service is part of a China Telecom strategy, The Belt and Road Initiative, to invest in cloud-based resources in the core regions and key countries in Asia Pacific, Europe and America, said Wang. “We are committed to building an ecosystem that fosters win-win cooperation and open collaboration, and we partner with world class players in offering cloud computing products and services to the Chinese enterprises expanding overseas,” said Wang.

Hong Kong based China Telecom now has branches in 26 countries across Asia, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It is now launching its FD LTE and TD LTE 4G mobile networks across China.