Category Archives: News & Analysis

AT&T, Ericsson, Networks, News & Analysis, NFV, SDN, telstra

Ericsson cloud lab to focus on NFV, SDN

Ericsson is opening up a lab to help coordinate SDN and NFV research among telcos

Ericsson is opening up a lab to help coordinate SDN and NFV research among telcos

Ericsson has opened a lab in Italy which will coordinate research among telecoms operators on deploying software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualisation (NFV) in their datacentres.

The company said the lab, which will be based in Rome but will also have an associated cloud platform for data sharing and collaboration, will help develop multi-vendor SDN and NFV solutions that primarily address the needs of telcos.

Participating organisations will be able to link up to the cloud platform and share their results.

Nunzio Mirtillo, head of Ericsson in the Mediterranean region said: “Cloud will enable the biggest evolution of the telecom business and this new lab is an example of Ericsson’s passion for driving innovations in Italy.”

“As great ideas come from collaboration, operators can turn cloud-based approaches to their advantage and implement new architectures that provide network efficiency and shorter time to market for innovative services,” Mirtillo added.

The company said the lab is intended to help operators experiment with getting SDN and NFV technologies integrated into their existing infrastructure estate, which can be quite a challenge for most that aren’t refreshing their hardware for SDN or NFV compliance quickly enough. As a result many have been forced to take the overlay approach.

Ericsson is already working with a number of operators on SDN and NFV. Last year the company was tapped up by Telstra and AT&T to help virtualise key aspects of their networks.

EMC, Joe Tucci, M&A, News & Analysis, Rodney Rogers, SAP, Virtustream

EMC to acquire SAP specialist Virtustream in cloud push

EMC is buying SAP cloud specialist Virtustream

EMC is buying SAP cloud specialist Virtustream

EMC announced this week that it will acquire Virtustream, a firm specialising in deploying SAP software in the cloud, for $1.2bn.

The all-cash deal will see Virtustream, a specialist in SAP software automation and cloud on-boarding, form EMC’s managed cloud services business and operate alongside other EMC businesses in the Federation including VMware and Pivotal, which offer their own cloud services.

Up until now EMC only sold on-premise cloud storage systems largely tuned for supporting VMware customers, offering them a hybrid cloud capability, and the company said the acquisition will enable it to bolster its capabilities in both private and public cloud.

“Virtustream is an exceptional company and this is a critical and transformative acquisition for EMC in one of the industry’s fastest-growing and most important sectors,” said Joe Tucci, EMC chairman and chief executive officer.

“With Virtustream in place, EMC will be uniquely positioned as a single source for our customers’ entire hybrid cloud infrastructure and services needs. We could not be more delighted that Virtustream will be joining the EMC Federation family. It’s a game changer,” Tucci said.

EMC also said it plans to offer Virtustream’s xStream cloud management software, which is already integrated with VMware vSphere, to its partners.

“Virtustream has established itself as an industry leader and innovator for running mission-critical enterprise applications in the cloud,” said Rodney Rogers, Virtustream chairman and chief executive officer.

“We’re proud to be joining the EMC Federation where our combined capabilities, products and services will allow us to accelerate our vision of delivering the platform of record for enterprise systems, and address the complete breadth of cloud computing needs,” Rogers said.

Virtustream’s unique sales point is its cloud workload management and automation software, which will almost certainly see deeper integration with similar offerings across the federation (particularly VMware’s).

The acquisition is a pretty significant step for the storage specialist which more recently, with the exception of Virtustream, has seemed more interested in acquiring its way deeper into infrastructure than software; the move is part of its broader goal, announced last year, of becoming more cloud-centric.

Beovax Computer Services, Capita, HP, M&A, News & Analysis, Pervasive, Peter Hands

Capita buys Pervasive to boost mobility expertise

Capita is acquiring Pervasive to boost networking, mobility expertise

Capita is acquiring Pervasive to boost networking, mobility expertise

UK IT and professional services outfit Capita has acquired Pervasive, an IT solutions provider specialising in mobility and wireless networking services.

Pervasive, which consists of both Pervasive Networks (a large Aruba Networks channel partner) and Beovax Computer Services (an HP and VMware cloud technology specialist Pervasive bought in 2013), is an IT service provider catering mainly to higher education, local government and the health services sectors.

Capita said the acquisition will help bolster its position in those sectors as well as its expertise in networking.

Following the acquisition Pervasive will sit within Capita IT Enterprise Services as part of the Technology Solutions division, and will focus on networking, mobility, and BYOD.

“We are continuing to see a shift in working habits with the increased use of mobile devices, requiring flexible technology that enables employees to enhance productivity,” said Peter Hands, executive director, Capita IT Enterprise Services.

“Pervasive has a strong record of providing wireless networks to clients across multiple sectors, offering the agility to respond to changing customer requirements. The addition of Pervasive further enhances the range of services offered by our Technology Solutions division, which already offers clients expertise in information security, networking, unified communications, cabling and data management,” Hands added.

Alex Tam, Datacentre, Equinix, hong kong, IBX, News & Analysis, Singapore

Equinix to bolster cloud in Hong Kong with $40m expansion

Equinix is investing $40m in expanding its datacentre estate in Hong Kong

Equinix is investing $40m in expanding its datacentre estate in Hong Kong

American datacentre giant Equinix is looking to expand its cloud and colocation footprint in Hong Kong, the company announced this week.

Equinix said it will spend about $40m upgrading its existing Hong Kong datacentres, HK1 and HK2. The latest expansion of HK2 will provide space for an additional 900 cabinets, bringing the total capacity of the datacentre to 2,350 cabinets, while the HK1 expansion will add 275 cabinets.

The company said the upgrades should be completed by Q4, 2015.

“With the strong momentum of cloud and content companies deploying in Hong Kong, as well as datacentre services demand from worldwide customers including many in China, it was a clear strategic business decision to expand our presence in Hong Kong,” said Alex Tam, managing director, Equinix Hong Kong.

“The investment in HK1 and HK2 further positions Hong Kong as an important regional hub, not only for financial services firms but for cloud and content companies as well,” Tam said.

The company said it is expanding the datacentres to cater to growing demand for its cloud services, particularly from local content and media customers  – a client segment it said grew by about 16 per cent year on year.

Equinix seems to be on a streak in the Asia Pacific region and abroad, adding a third datacentre in Singapore in March this year and its first datacentre in Melbourne late last year.

Last month the company also added its sixth datacentre in London, and approached European datacentre incumbent Telecity Group about a potential acquisition.

Financial Results, Marc Benioff, News & Analysis, Salesforce

Salesforce bags $1.5bn in Q1 2016, on track for $6bn annual run rate

Benioff reaffirmed the company's goal of reaching $10bn in annual revenues

Benioff reaffirmed the company’s goal of reaching $10bn in annual revenues

CRM giant Salesforce announced another record quarter this week as it took home over£1.5bn in revenue for Q1 2016, up from £1.44bn the previous quarter. The company claims it is on track to become the first pure-play enterprise cloud company to surpass the $6bn annual run rate mark.

At £1.51bn for the quarter revenue is up 23 per cent year-on-year and the company also reported deferred revenue of $3.06bn, up 31 per cent year-on-year.

Salesforce also raised its fiscal year 2016revenue guidance to £6.55bn, up from £6.52, and said it is on track to be the first pure-play enterprise cloud company to surpass the £6bn annual run rate mark. Full fiscal year 2015 revenue was $5.37bn.

“Salesforce has surpassed the $6 billion annual revenue run rate faster than any other enterprise software company, and our current outlook puts us on track to reach a $7 billion revenue run rate later this year,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive officer, Salesforce.

“Our goal is to be the fastest to reach $10 billion in annual revenue,” Benioff said, echoing his call-to-arms from the previous two quarters.

Salesforce has recently been the subject of a series of rumours suggesting its potential acquisition by another enterprise technology firm, although Salesforce has repeatedly denied commenting on the speculation. If the rumours are true it’s almost certain another record fiscal quarter would send the asking price to even greater, eye-watering heights.

Enterprise IT, HP, Leeds Building Society, News & Analysis

Leeds Building Society targets customer engagement with HP deal

Leeds Building Society shifted its savings and lending business onto a hosted HP platform in 2013

Leeds Building Society shifted its savings and lending business onto a hosted HP platform in 2013

Leeds Building Society is to revamp its customer engagement tools through a ten-year deal with HP Enterprise Services, which will encompass a number of independent software vendors working on different parts of the business. The deal builds on the earlier deal between the two firms in 2013, which focused on moving the building society’s core banking platform to the cloud.

Under the 10-year agreement, HP Application Transformation Services will work with independent software vendors TIBCO, Numéro and Infor to provide Leeds Building Society with customer engagement capabilities hosted in an HP Helion managed virtual private cloud environment. This will help the society streamline its mortgage and savings processes, making it easier to grow market share and penetrate new market segments.

The deal has several parts. Omni-channel customer experience management specialist Numéro will provide contact management capability for new customer communication channels. The idea is to ensure the building society can offer support across any communications channel, without the customer having to start the process again. Infor’s multi-channel, interactive campaign management solution, Infor Epiphany, will help the building society to offer customers personalised communications, allowing the society to strengthen individual customer relationships. HP Exstream will provide customer communication (such as statements, notices and renewals) through customers’ preferred channel. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM software will digitise its business processes, systems and applications.

“Like all financial institutions, our future is dependent upon delivering the right services for current and future customers,” said Tom Clark, chief information officer, at Leeds Building Society. “ICE represents the cornerstone of our long-term strategy to deliver significant productivity and customer communication channel improvements while reducing costs and meeting regulatory requirements. HP already hosts our core application for mortgages and savings and, with a proven track record of delivering large-scale hosted services and innovative technology, can help us to achieve our business objectives.”

Leeds Building Society joined the shared services alliance founded by HP Enterprise Services and the Yorkshire Building Society in September 2013, in a deal that saw the society move its core application for mortgages and savings to the cloud. The deal also marked a growing recognition among the UK’s mid-tier institutions of the power of cloud to help them move with the times.

HP’s original deal with the Yorkshire Building Society involved shifting the building society’s core mortgage and savings application to the cloud. That in turn enabled the Yorkshire to effectively offer its automated mortgage sales, lending and savings account processing product as a white labelled solution to other financial institutions (which it had been doing for years), through HP.

The Leeds Building Society is the fifth largest of its kind in the UK, with assets of £10 billion. Founded in 1875, the society has approximately 703,000 customers and 65 branches in the UK, with 29 in Yorkshire and a branch each in Dublin and Gibraltar.

Axis Technology Software, Big Data, Data as a service, Database, Delphix, Jedidiah Yueh, Michael Logan, News & Analysis

Data-as-a-service provider Delphix buys data-masking specialist Axis

Delphix has acquired data masking and de-identification specialist Axis Technology Software

Delphix has acquired data masking and de-identification specialist Axis Technology Software

Data management provider Delphix has acquired Axis Technology Software, a data masking software specialist, for an undisclosed sum.

Delphix offers software that helps users virtualise and deploy large application databases (i.e. ERP) on private and public cloud infrastructure, while Axis offers data masking and de-identification software, particularly for large financial service firms, healthcare providers and insurers.

Delphix said the move will give it a boost in verticals where Axis is already embedded, and help strengthen its core offering. By adding data masking and de-identification capabilities to its data services suite, the company hopes to improve the appeal of its offerings from a security and privacy perspective.

“We believe that data masking—the ability to scramble private information such as national insurance numbers and credit card information—has become a critical requirement for managing data across development, testing, training and reporting environments,” said Jedidiah Yueh, chief executive of Delphix. “With Axis, Delphix not only accelerates application projects, but also ​increases​ data security for our customers.”

Following the acquisition Michael Logan, founder and chief executive of Axis Technology Software will join Delphix as vice president of data masking, where he will be responsible for driving development and adoption of the feature set Axis brings to Delphix.

“We’ve built a sophisticated platform to secure customer data at Axis, proven at many of the world’s biggest banks and enterprises,” Logan said.

“The integrated power of our platforms will provide our customers the ability to protect their data where and when they need it.”

Axis Technology Software, Big Data, Data as a service, Database, Delphix, Jedidiah Yueh, Michael Logan, News & Analysis

Data-as-a-service provider Delphix buys data-masking specialist Axis

Delphix has acquired data masking and de-identification specialist Axis Technology Software

Delphix has acquired data masking and de-identification specialist Axis Technology Software

Data management provider Delphix has acquired Axis Technology Software, a data masking software specialist, for an undisclosed sum.

Delphix offers software that helps users virtualise and deploy large application databases (i.e. ERP) on private and public cloud infrastructure, while Axis offers data masking and de-identification software, particularly for large financial service firms, healthcare providers and insurers.

Delphix said the move will give it a boost in verticals where Axis is already embedded, and help strengthen its core offering. By adding data masking and de-identification capabilities to its data services suite, the company hopes to improve the appeal of its offerings from a security and privacy perspective.

“We believe that data masking—the ability to scramble private information such as national insurance numbers and credit card information—has become a critical requirement for managing data across development, testing, training and reporting environments,” said Jedidiah Yueh, chief executive of Delphix. “With Axis, Delphix not only accelerates application projects, but also ​increases​ data security for our customers.”

Following the acquisition Michael Logan, founder and chief executive of Axis Technology Software will join Delphix as vice president of data masking, where he will be responsible for driving development and adoption of the feature set Axis brings to Delphix.

“We’ve built a sophisticated platform to secure customer data at Axis, proven at many of the world’s biggest banks and enterprises,” Logan said.

“The integrated power of our platforms will provide our customers the ability to protect their data where and when they need it.”

Asia Pacific, Brendon Riley, Hacking, Network security, News & Analysis, Pacnet, telstra

Telstra’s recent buy Pacnet suffers IT security breach

Pacnet's IT network was hacked earlier this year

Pacnet’s IT network was hacked earlier this year

Telstra’s recently acquired datacentre and cloud specialist Pacnet suffered a security breach earlier this year whereby a third-party managed to get access to its IT network, the telco revealed this week.

Telstra was quick to point out that while the breach occurred on Pacnet’s IT network (which isn’t connected to Telstra’s) before its acquisition of Pacnet was finalised in April, it did do and has since done all it can to try and understand the reasons for the breach and its potential impact on customers.

The company has alerted customers, staff and regulators in the relevant jurisdictions.

Group executive of global enterprise services Brendon Riley said the investigation is ongoing, and that the company will apply its own tried and tested security technologies and techniques to Pacnet’s network.

“Our investigation found a third party had attained access to Pacnet’s corporate IT network, including email and other administrative systems, through a SQL vulnerability that enabled malicious software to be uploaded to the network,” Riley said.

“To protect against further activity we rectified the security vulnerabilities that allowed the unauthorised access. We have also put in place additional monitoring and incident response capabilities that we routinely apply to all of our networks.”

He said the firm is alerting customers of the potential impact of the breach, and hopes that the extra precautions the company has put in place will restore confidence in the firm.

The company has so far declined to comment on the scope or volume of data exposed to hackers.

Telstra seems keen to pre-empt any privacy-related regulatory challenges, something the company has had to deal with in recent years – which, it was eventually found, was due in part to its own negligence.

Last year for instance the firm was fined by the Australian Information Commissioner for making the personal details of almost 16,000 customers accessible via the internet between February 2012 and May 2013 after several spreadsheets containing customer data dating back to 2009 was found through Google Search.

Asia Pacific, Brendon Riley, Hacking, Network security, News & Analysis, Pacnet, telstra

Telstra’s recent buy Pacnet suffers IT security breach

Pacnet's IT network was hacked earlier this year

Pacnet’s IT network was hacked earlier this year

Telstra’s recently acquired datacentre and cloud specialist Pacnet suffered a security breach earlier this year whereby a third-party managed to get access to its IT network, the telco revealed this week.

Telstra was quick to point out that while the breach occurred on Pacnet’s IT network (which isn’t connected to Telstra’s) before its acquisition of Pacnet was finalised in April, it did do and has since done all it can to try and understand the reasons for the breach and its potential impact on customers.

The company has alerted customers, staff and regulators in the relevant jurisdictions.

Group executive of global enterprise services Brendon Riley said the investigation is ongoing, and that the company will apply its own tried and tested security technologies and techniques to Pacnet’s network.

“Our investigation found a third party had attained access to Pacnet’s corporate IT network, including email and other administrative systems, through a SQL vulnerability that enabled malicious software to be uploaded to the network,” Riley said.

“To protect against further activity we rectified the security vulnerabilities that allowed the unauthorised access. We have also put in place additional monitoring and incident response capabilities that we routinely apply to all of our networks.”

He said the firm is alerting customers of the potential impact of the breach, and hopes that the extra precautions the company has put in place will restore confidence in the firm.

The company has so far declined to comment on the scope or volume of data exposed to hackers.

Telstra seems keen to pre-empt any privacy-related regulatory challenges, something the company has had to deal with in recent years – which, it was eventually found, was due in part to its own negligence.

Last year for instance the firm was fined by the Australian Information Commissioner for making the personal details of almost 16,000 customers accessible via the internet between February 2012 and May 2013 after several spreadsheets containing customer data dating back to 2009 was found through Google Search.