Category Archives: News & Analysis

Cleversafe, hybrid cloud, IBM, News & Analysis, Storage, Storage as a Service

IBM acquires storage vendor Cleversafe in hybrid cloud play

IBMEnterprise IT giant IBM has announced it will be acquiring object-based storage software and appliances vendor Cleversafe to boost its storage and hybrid cloud offering.

IBM will integrate the Cleversafe portfolio into its IBM Cloud business unit. The growth in the amount of unstructured data companies are looking to process, coupled with the need to find a balance between on-premise and cloud storage deployments, has created the demand for more storage options and greater flexibility, according to IBM.

“Today a massive digital transformation is underway as organizations increasingly turn to cloud computing for innovative ways to manage more complex business operations and increasing volumes of data in a secure and effective way,” said Robert LeBlanc, SVP of IBM Cloud. “Cleversafe, a pioneer in object storage, will add to our efforts to help clients overcome these challenges by extending and strengthening our cloud storage strategy, as well as our portfolio.”

“IBM is an innovator and leader in cloud and storage and we’re excited about the opportunities that lay ahead once this transaction closes,” said John Morris, President and CEO of Cleversafe. “Together with IBM we can extend our object storage leadership position to address the broadest set of workloads for clients with the most expansive set of object-based solutions.”

The terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but Cleversafe employs 210 people so the size of the acquisition is likely to be in the tens of million dollars.

Incidentally IBM has also announced a new mobile cloud security solution aimed at enterprise, which is a combination of products from both companies.

“More employees are using mobile devices to be more productive. At the same time, data and apps are moving to the cloud. The changes are exciting, but security needs to be top-of-mind,” said Steve McGaw, CMO of AT&T Business Solutions. “Trusted collaborators like IBM are helping us better address changing business models. Together we’re giving options to deliver highly secure mobile access to cloud apps and data.”

Amazon, Analytics, Avere, AWS, Big Data, Business Intelligence, Elasticsearch, News & Analysis

Amazon enhances AWS with new analytics tools

AWSOn the eve of its AWS re:Invent 2015 event internet giant Amazon is positioning itself for a run at the business intelligence market.

Already announced is the Amazon Elasticsearch Service, is a managed service designed to make it easier to deploy and operate Elasticsearch in the AWS cloud, on which more later.

In addition the WSJ is reporting the likely launch of a new analytics service, codenamed SpaceNeedle, which is set to augment AWS with business intelligence tools. The reported strategic aim of this new service is to both strengthen Amazon’s relationship with AWS customers and allow it to broaden its total available market.

Back to the Elasticsearch service, BCN spoke to Ian Massingham, UK Technical Evangelist at AWS, to find out what the thinking behind it is. “This service is intended for developers running applications that use Elasticsearch today, or developers that are considering incorporating Elasticsearch into future applications,” he said “Elasticsearch is a popular open-source search and analytics engine for use cases such as log analytics, real-time application monitoring, and click stream analytics.”

Apparently Wikipedia uses Elasticsearch to provide full-text search with highlighted search snippets, as well as search-as-you-type and did-you-mean suggestions, while The Guardian uses Elasticsearch to combine visitor logs with social network data to provide real-time feedback to its editors about the public’s response to new articles.

Expect more AWS news as the re:Invent event gets underway. Already Avere Systems has unveiled Avere CloudFusion, a file storage application for AWS, that aims to provides a cloud file system to leverage Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) with the cost efficiencies of Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), all with the simplicity of network-attached storage.

Intel, Internet of Things, Linux, M2M, News & Analysis, Open Source, Wind River

Wind River announces upgraded IoT software platform

internet of things farmingEmbedded tech vendor Wind River has announced an upgraded portfolio of IoT software development tools for the internet of things (IoT).

The wholly-owned Intel subsidiary made the announcement at the Embedded Linux Conference in Dublin this week, and claimed to bring added flexibility and interoperability to its open-source platform, Wind River Linux 8. It also says it’s thrown in improved user experience and scalability for addressing IoT, stating that a combination of its virtualization services also allows customers to begin developing apps for IoT platforms within minutes of set-up and installation.

Speaking on the development of the upgraded platform, which will underpin a number of Wind River’s existing technology profiles, general manager of OS platforms Dinyar Dastoor is proud of the work the firm’s doing in driving the development of IoT.

“Wind River Linux allows customers to extract vast amounts of business intelligence and value from their data, and supports devices of all sizes, architectures and industries – from general purpose and high-performing real-time devices to carrier grade, virtualization, and highly secure military applications,” he said. “With the latest version of Wind River Linux and our updated Open Virtualization profile, we are delivering a versatile and robust Linux offering to the market that is ideally suited for the development if IoT devices.”

Wind River’s Linux platform is born out of the Linux Foundation’s Yocto Project, a hardware-agnostic an open-source collaboration project designed to provide templates, tools and methodologies for implementing tailored Linux systems on any embedded product – hypothetically ideal for IoT products, software and infrastructures. Jim Zemlin, the Linux Foundation’s executive director, is looking forward to the company’s continued participation with the project, based on its extensive contribution thus far – Wind River has so far contributed more than one third of the lines of code used by Yocto.

“Wind River continues to do important work with the Linux community, as well as foster open-source innovation,” he said. “We look forward to the company’s ongoing contributions to the Yocto Project, and their market success with products like Wind River Linux.”

Visit Europe’s leading IoT event – Internet of Things World Europe – in Berlin on 5 – 7 October 2015

Analytics, CSPs, Enterprise IT, News & Analysis, Oracle, software, Telco Cloud

Oracle launches Communications Analytics portfolio

OracleEnterprise software giant Oracle has unveiled a new product portfolio called Oracle Communications Analytics, a business intelligence suite aimed at communications providers.

The portfolio is a combination pre-existing products and four new ones: Oracle Communications Customer Experience Analytics, Oracle Communications Network Assurance Analytics, Oracle Communications Analytics Big Data Platform, and Oracle Communications Analytics Diameter Adapter.

The Customer Experience Analytics application is designed to offer customer care people a bunch of useful analytical information in one place. The Network Assurance Analytics app offers insights into Diameter network performance, while the Analytics Big Data Platform pretty much does what it says on the tin and the Big Data Adapters are tools designed to feed in that big data.

“CSPs have an advantage – they have a lot of data about how their network operates and the kinds of experiences that customers are having,” said Doug Suriano, GM of Oracle Communications. “But without the right big data and analytics tools, the data will remain unused and siloed in various systems. Our expanded Oracle Communications Analytics portfolio is designed with this challenge in mind, offering the broader Oracle expertise in big data as well as the industry-specific understanding of the communications market.”

“As the telecommunications industry accelerates its rate of change, it’s critical that CSPs leverage and monetize their network, service, and customer information,” said Clare McCarthy, practice leader, Telecom Operations and IT, Ovum. “To do so, they must first design analytics solutions that address their business problems in real time—and integrate them with existing data warehouse and analytics solutions. The latest releases of Oracle Communications Analytics products respond to this need and can provide value to CSPs looking to advance their big data and analytics efforts.”

cloud research, Corporate, HP, News & Analysis, strategy

HP revamps cloud and software sales as the future is hybrid

Hewlett-Packard’s software boss Robert Youngjohns is to assume control over the company’s cloud research and development and product management, according to report in Fortune.

An internal memo from chief executive Meg Whitman reports that HP is to revamp the way developments in cloud computing are to be managed, with a new management reporting to Youngjohns. HP currently makes $4bn in revenue from software sales.

Cloud research and development, will still be led by Mark Interrante and cloud product management under Bill Hilf but will now be part of the Youngjohn’s software organization

In November HP is to be officially divided into two entities, HP Enterprise (which will include the cloud computing organisation) and HP Inc which will sell printers and PCs.

The HP Enterprise Group, which made $28 billion in sales in 2014, sells servers, storage and network equipment, in addition to software. It’s thought that HP aims to move cloud development closer to the hardware platforms in order to facilitate sales.

The change is aimed at helping HP Enterprise to capitalise on four major market opportunities, according to Whitman’s memo. “At Discover, we introduced four transformation areas to align with a $1 trillion in total addressable market,” writes Whitman. “If we can deliver on the promise of these transformations, we will enable a new era in business for our customers – one where ideas can be turned into value at the speed of imagination.”

First, Whitman said, HP must take an application-first view of their infrastructure. “No two applications will have the same profiles and no two companies will have the same requirements, so our customers each need unique hybrid infrastructure solutions that allow them to seamlessly manage thousands of applications across traditional IT and public, private and managed clouds,” said Whitman.

If the future is hybrid infrastructure, Whitman said, Hewlett Packard Enterprise must be organized to bring together all the pieces for a holistic view from the data centre to the cloud. To accomplish this, HP needs to manage the natural alignment between its cloud and software products.

The unified Cloud and the CDI Sales and Presales teams will be firmly embedded in the EG regional sales structures. “By integrating Cloud into EG Sales, we will offer one face to the customer to enable their transformation journeys to a hybrid infrastructure,” said Whitman.

app development, BlueMix, Content & Applications, IBM, News & Analysis

IBM Bluemix Local promises developers quick fix on hybrid cloud app building

IBMIBM has launched a new hybrid cloud system that could make application building a lot quicker for enterprises – without compromising security. The system, Bluemix Local, is designed to build apps across public, private and on-premises environments.

Bluemix Local solves the time consuming problem of managing enterprise infrastructure, it says. The process of moving data and apps between disparate cloud environments is forcing managers to make comprises, says IBM, with many companies sacrificing security in order to get finished quicker or missing deadlines in order to cover all security bases. Development with Bluemix Local can now proceed quickly, but still remain behind a client’s firewall.

A ‘write once, run anywhere’ feature now helps developers avoid much of the repetition in coding, allowing programmers to quickly stitch existing systems together and connect data and application programming interfaces into a single environment. The system also maintains consistency by keeping apps current across all platforms. IBM’s expansion of the Bluemix platform has been carried out on open architecture.

The system was developed to help companies in heavily regulated industries with strict compliance rules and sensitive customer data, such as banking, healthcare and financial services. IBM recommends a hybrid cloud approach as the preferred model for seamless connection.

New features in Bluemix Local include Relay technology, which conveys sync updates across the cloud so that all environments remain current. It has a single omnipotent admin console and gives access to IBM’s catalogue of 120 open-standards-based services from both IBM and third-parties. With a private catalogue and API Management services, enterprise clients can create, publish, manage and monetize their own APIs, IBM says.

Clients can also sync data across geographies using IBM’s global network of cloud data centres throughout the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe.

“IBM now has the broadest spectrum of hybrid cloud capability in the industry,” said Steve Robinson, general manager, Cloud Platform Services, IBM.

CloudSense, CRM, News & Analysis, Salesforce, Software as a service, Ziggo

Ziggo appoints CloudSense to boost its Salesforce

Money cloudPrice quote service provider CloudSense has been anointed by Dutch cableco Ziggo to boost sales using the Cloudsense Telecoms Platform.

The CloudSense systems integrate with Salesforce’s customer relationship management service to improve the effectiveness of company sales teams. The cloud based service helps employees to configure, price and quote products and services from simple sales of broadband to more sophisticated TV bundles and subscriptions.

In a competitive selection process CloudSense promised Ziggo higher order values, fewer order errors, more automation of sales processes and quicker product launches. CloudSense created a telecoms-specific Configure Price Quote (CPQ) and customer order management, according to Dave Loerts, Director Sales SMB at Ziggo. This means Ziggo can improve both the sales cycle and the customer experience. “We were impressed that CloudSense could offer CPQ across every sales channel,” said Loerts.

One of the deciding factors in the sale was that CloudSense has created a contingency plan for working when no network is available. “Being able to configure, price, quote and contract on an iPad offline means the team are always able to sell more effectively,” said Loerts.

The CloudSense Telecoms Platform brings together the sale and provisioning of the entire range of a mobile telcos’ or communications services provider’s products and services across every sales channel. It then integrates them and provides a single view of the full transactional lifecycle natively on Salesforce. By editing and simplifying the presentation of information, and prioritising the most crucial deal making intelligence, it saves time and speeds up the sales life cycle, CloudSense claims.

Faster quotes lead to more sales, which then creates more opportunities for cross-selling and upselling, according to CloudSense CEO Richard Britton.

“Many companies today are faced with challenges when it comes to selling on-site and over the phone, and CloudSense can have a significant impact on a company’s drive to grow its market share,” said Britton.

Box, Enterprise Cloud, Enterprise IT, governance, IBM, News & Analysis

Box tightens security for enterprise cloud offering with IBM integration

BoxWorks15Box has announced new developments in its security, governance and infrastructure management offerings.

At its annual BoxWorks conference, Box’s general manager for enterprise Whitney Bouck promised users would get better governance and better integration with IBM in a bid to fortify itself as an enterprise class cloud system.

New revisions to Box governance were promised, in order to help companies address their legal, regulatory and business goals for secure content collaboration. The improvements include additions to retention management and collaboration whitelist features. New development work has gone into Legal Holds, which caters for legal discovery or litigation processes. In future, customers can use the Legal Holds system to arrest content stored in Box, which makes a ‘defensible discovery’ on all Box content possible.

A raft of IBM integration initiatives was also announced, in order to improve Box’s capacity to work with IBM’s Content Navigator, StoredIQ, Case Manager and IBM Datacap systems.

Box clients were promised a single integrated view across IBM Content Navigator, while the integration with IBM StoredIQ makes searches of on-premise and Box-based data more thorough, giving users the option to classify and upload data directly back to the Box Platform.

Box and IBM Case Manager can now seamlessly share content, according to Bouck. This means users can put context to content and gives them more license to adapt their business processes. IBM Datacap with Box will simplify management and save clients money by enabling users to capture documents from multiple sources, extract key information and store them to Box, according to Bouck.

Box also promised an improvement in its information rights management service, with new Device Trust features giving intelligent control over sensitive content, without neutralising any of the system’s usability.

The cloud infrastructure has been beefed up with Box now supporting the new Amazon Web Services Key Management Service (KMS), which aims to simplify the self-management of encryption keys in the cloud.

More than 40 million users and 50,000 businesses use Box for collaboration, including 52 per cent of the Fortune 500, according to Bouck, and as more enterprises use Box it is working to fortify it.

“We’re building a new kind of enterprise content management and collaboration platform that meets the needs of the modern enterprise,” said Bouck.

API, App Stores, application development, Content & Applications, Mendix, modeling, News & Analysis

New Mendix system replaces programme writing with system modeling in the cloud

AppsDevelopment system maker Mendix claims its new system can speed application development by replacing the programme writing with application modeling.

It claims the newly announced Mendix 6 system makes it possible to build digital applications quickly by importing and exporting a range of previously made models. It has also introduced a mechanism that supports offline functions in mobile applications, so that mobile workers can still use their cloud applications when cut off from a network.

Mendix claims developers can build mobile applications that make use of static resource storage, and use data and data entry caching in order to maintain consistency of user experience and performance when offline.

The Mendix 6 Model API (application programming interface) and open source platform software development kit will help companies avoid vendor lock-in, help them migrate from or modernize legacy systems, automate tasks and – through fault finding analytical systems – create a new level of quality assurance, claims Mendix.

The processes of legacy migration and modernization are supported by a ‘model importing system’ which, in effect, allows would be developers to use development models that have worked successfully in similar situations elsewhere. This, claims Mendix, allows organisations to ‘accelerate application modernisation at massive scale’.

The model exchange function also aims to save time for clients by making it easier to examples for documentation, to move applications to other platforms and to increase transparency.

Customers running Mendix apps on the open source platform service, Cloud Foundry. will work with simpler configurations and enjoy more resilience said Mendix CTO Johann den Haan.

“Application development doesn’t run fast enough for many companies,” said den Haan, “now you don’t have to programme apps. You model them in the cloud and click run.”

Mendix is available in the Amazon Web Services Marketplace.

Cloud Services, Enterprise IT, Europe, HP, News & Analysis

HP launches cloud service catalogue for European Union

HPHP has launched a new ‘one stop’ cloud shop for Europe. The announcement was made by HP Helion VP Xavier Poisson to a gathering of HP’s Cloud28+ partner community in Brussels.

A new catalogue – also called Cloud28+ – will be a centralised cloud services portal for all the systems created by the 110 official members of the community that create or use cloud services in Europe.

HP claims it has made it easier for enterprises to identify and implement the cloud services they need, while complying with local regulations. In addition, the EuroCloud Star Audit (ECSA) program will, it claims, save members from the expense of performing their own individual audits. The rationale is to create a high level of transparency and guidance for customers and service providers, Poisson told delegates.

Lack of knowledge, security concerns and legal uncertainty are the biggest barriers to cloud adoption in Europe, according to a Eurostat survey, quoted by HP. The study, conducted by the EU’s statistical office, asked staff at 151,000 EU companies about their aspirations for using cloud services and their reservations over purchasing processes.

In response, HP has designed an easy and transparent system for matching cloud services to both functional and non-functional criteria, such as security or data privacy regulations, according to Poisson. The system is also designed to provide a need to know briefing on legal and compliance variations across Europe. The Cloud28+ catalogue is to be hosted and secured in Europe.

It’s time for a common framework of quality, costs and security, said Poisson. “This is already creating new opportunities for cloud service providers, greater choice for enterprises, and better access for developers and will play an integral role accelerating organizations’ transformation to hybrid infrastructure.”