Category Archives: News & Analysis

Bigtable, Cory O’Connor, Database, Google, Hadoop, HBase, MapReduce, News & Analysis, NoSQL

Google reveals Bigtable, a NoSQL service based on what it uses internally

Google has punted another big data service, a variant of what it uses internally, into the wild

Google has punted another big data service, a variant of what it uses internally, into the wild

Search giant Google announced Bigtable, a fully managed NoSQL database service the company said combines its own internal database technology with open source Apache HBase APIs.

The company that helped give birth to MapReduce and its sister Hadoop is now making available the same non-relational database tech driving a number of its services including Google Search, Gmail, and Google Analytics.

Google said Bigtable is powered by BigQuery underneath, and is extensible through the HBase API (which provides real-time read / write access capabilities).

“Google Cloud Bigtable excels at large ingestion, analytics, and data-heavy serving workloads. It’s ideal for enterprises and data-driven organizations that need to handle huge volumes of data, including businesses in the financial services, AdTech, energy, biomedical, and telecommunications industries,” explained Cory O’Connor, product manager at Google.

O’Connor said the service, which is now in beta, can deliver over two times the performance of its direct competition (which will likely depend on the use case), and has a TCO of less than half that of its direct competitors.

“As businesses become increasingly data-centric, and with the coming age of the Internet of Things, enterprises and data-driven organizations must become adept at efficiently deriving insights from their data. In this environment, any time spent building and managing infrastructure rather than working on applications is a lost opportunity.”

Bigtable is Google’s latest move to bolster its data services, a central pillar of its strategy to attract new customers to its growing platform. Last month the company announced the beta launch of Google Cloud Dataflow, a Java-based service that lets users build, deploy and run data processing pipelines for other applications like ETL, analytics, real-time computation, and process orchestration, while abstracting away all the other infrastructure bits like cluster management.

Analytics, Big Data, Charles Clark, Consulting, Google, News & Analysis, PwC, Rosslyn, Yann Bonduelle

PwC, Rosslyn partner on cloudy big data

PwC is teaming up with Rosslyn to help bring analytics-based insights to clients

PwC is teaming up with Rosslyn to help bring analytics-based insights to clients

Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) announced a partnership with Rosslyn Analytics that will see the two firms jointly develop and offer cloud-based big data services to clients.

The two companies said they plan to use Rosslyn’s suite of cloud-enabled data technologies when advising clients on supply chain risk reduction, productivity optimisation and cost reduction, with PwC bringing its deep knowledge of different verticals to the table.

“For our clients, acquiring the knowledge most important to their operations, securing that information and using it optimally are critical – now more than ever before. We are delighted to be teaming up with Rosslyn to offer our joint knowledge and capabilities to clients – giving them one place to go, maximizing experience and assets from both organizations,” said Yann Bonduelle, PwC partner and head of data analytics.

“In our most recent survey of business leaders, 75 per cent of UK CEOs say that data and data analytics are proving valuable to them, whilst 79 per cent see data mining and analysis as one of the top digital technologies. This highlights how important it is to our clients to embrace the technology available to give them greater competitive advantage,” Bonduelle added.

Charles Clark, chief executive of Rosslyn Analytics, said: “Our collaboration is about helping clients to embrace their journey in analytics, and transform their organisations to thrive and maintain relevance in a rapidly changing world. An increasing number of companies, large and small, look to our data technologies to help them reduce costs and risks, and improve their revenue and productivity across their businesses.”

Like KPMG and others in the big four, PwC has struck several deals with cloud and data services providers in a bid to add more value to its client offerings. The company most recently struck a deal with Google that has seen it work closely with its clients to tailor Google Apps for Work to their specific business processes and needs, and help them optimise their operations.

Citrix, EMM, Enterprise IT, enterprise mobility management, Jason Tooley, Mick Briggs, News & Analysis

Cancer Research UK taps Citrix for enterprise mobility management

Cancer Research UK is deploying Citrix's enterprise mobility management software

Cancer Research UK is deploying Citrix’s enterprise mobility management software

Cancer Research UK has deployed Citrix’s enterprise mobility management solution on top of its existing XenDesktop landscape in a bid to enable its employees to work more flexibly.

The charity is deploying an enterprise mobility management solution based on Citrix XenMobile, Citrix ShareFile, Citrix Worx Mobile Apps and NetScaler ADC technologies. It said the move would allow it to centralise its infrastructure management and secure access to corporate data on a wider variety of devices.

“The integrity of the Cancer Research UK brand is vitally important to our ability to raise funds and finance our work.  We cannot risk that through poor data security. We have to protect data we hold on our supporters and, of course, we have a lot of sensitive information. Citrix has helped us to achieve that goal, empowering employees in a secure manner,” said Mick Briggs, head of IT at Cancer Research UK.

The deployment will also make collaboration more efficient by allowing committee members and fundraisers to transact certain types of documents and data securely through ShareFile, where they would have previously relied solely on print-outs and removable storage (i.e. USB thumb drives).

“I want to ‘not care’ about what device people bring to work. Whether using a corporate device or one of their own, XenMobile gives us that policy-driven granularity of control. We’ve become the enablers that let people work where and when they want, on whatever device they choose. That makes our team more effective and it makes Cancer Research UK more effective as a whole,” Briggs added.

Jason Tooley, UK country manager, Citrix said: “Cancer Research UK has enabled its staff with secure access to important and often confidential data, desktops and apps, via any device, over network, significantly improving the productivity of its workforce. In a climate of cost reduction, with pressure to innovate, this project demonstrates the positive impact that IT can have on both individual employees and the organization as a whole.”

Healthcare, IBM, Japan Post, M&A, Mike Rhodin, mobile services, News & Analysis, Vendor, Watch Over

IBM closes Phytel acquisition as healthcare partnerships continue

IBM has closed its acquisition of Phytel

IBM has closed its acquisition of Phytel

IBM announced this week it has closed the acquisition of Phytel, which provides cloud-based software that helps healthcare providers and care teams coordinate activities across medical facilities by automating certain aspects of patient care.

The company originally announced the acquisition back in April, when it also bought Explorys, a provider of cognitive cloud-based analytics that provides insights for care facilities derived from datasets derived from numerous and diverse financial, operational and medical record systems.

“The acquisition of Phytel supports our goal to advance the quality and effectiveness of personal healthcare by enabling secure access to individualised insights and a more complete picture of the many factors that can affect people’s health,” said Mike Rhodin, senior vice president, IBM Watson.

At the time IBM said the acquisitions would bolster IBM’s efforts to sell advanced analytics and cognitive computing to primary care providers, large hospital systems and physician networks.

To that end the company also created a special healthcare unit within its Watson business unit to develop solution specifically for the sector and based on the company’s cognitive compute platform.

Just last week the company redoubled its efforts to target health services, this time through social health and mobile platforms. It announced a deal with Japan Post and Apple that will see Japan Post deploy custom iOS apps built by IBM Global Business Services, which will provide services like medication reminders, exercise and diet tracking, community activity scheduling and grocery shopping as part of the post group’s Watch Over service for the elderly.

Azure, CloudStack, Docker, Microsoft, News & Analysis, OpenStack, Windows Server

Microsoft targets customer datacentres with Azure Stack

Microsoft is bolstering its hybrid cloud appeal on the one hand, and going head to head with other large incumbents on the other

Microsoft is bolstering its hybrid cloud appeal on the one hand, and going head to head with other large incumbents on the other

Microsoft revealed a series of updates to its server and cloud technologies aimed at blending the divide between Azure and Windows Server.

The company announced Azure Stack, software that consists of the architecture and microservices deployed by Microsoft to run its public-cloud version of Azure, including some of the latest updates to the platform like Azure Service Fabric and Azure App Fabric – which have made the architecture much more container-like.

Built on the same core technology as Azure but deployed in a customer’s datacentre, the company said Azure Stack makes critical use of among other things some of the company’s investments in software-defined networking.

The company also said it worked a number of bugs out of the next version of Windows Server (2016), with the second preview being made available this week; the net version of Windows Server will include a number of updates announced last month including Hyper-V containers and nano-servers, which are effectively Dockerised and slimmed-down Windows Server images, respectively.

Azure Stack will preview this summer and Windows Server 2016 is already available for preview.

The company also announced, Microsoft Operations Management Suite (OMS), a hybrid cloud management service that supports Azure, AWS, Windows Server, Linux, VMware, and OpenStack.

For Microsoft the updates are a sign of a significant push into hybrid cloud as it looks to align it’s the architecture of its Windows Server and Azure offerings and help customers manage workloads and operations in a multi-cloud world. Interestingly, by taking the Azure architecture directly to customer datacentres it’s effectively going head-to-head with other IaaS software vendors selling alternatives like OpenStack and CloudStack – Dell, HP, Cisco, Red Hat, IBM and so forth – which is in some ways new territory for the cloud giant.

Apple, Enterprise IT, Ginni Rometty, IBM, Japan Post Group, News & Analysis, Taizo Nishimuro, Tim Cook

Japan Post, IBM and Apple ink cloud, iPad deal

Tim Cook, Apple CEO and Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO, walking the walk and talking the talk

Tim Cook, Apple CEO and Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO, walking the walk and talking the talk

Japan Post, IBM and Apple are partnering to deploy iPads with IBM-developed apps and cloud services to give local seniors access to healthcare and community services.

As part of its Watch Over service for the elderly, Japan Post will deploy custom iOS apps built by IBM Global Business Services, which will provide services like medication reminders, exercise and diet tracking, community activity scheduling and grocery shopping.

“What we’re starting today draws on IBM’s long heritage of innovation at the intersection of technology, business and society,” said Ginni Rometty, president, chairman and chief executive of IBM.

“The potential we see here – as broad as national economics and as specific as the quality of life of individuals and their families – is one example of the potential of mobile-led transformation anywhere in the world where issues of an aging population exist,” Rometty said.

The move will also see Japan Post deploy iPads and IBM cloud services – thinks like analytics, training services and collaboration services – for its own employees.

“We are joining with two of the world’s most respected leaders in technology to bring our elderly generation into the connected world, expand our businesses by deepening relationships, and discover new ways to strengthen the fabric of our society and economy,” said Taizo Nishimuro, chief executive of Japan Post Group.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook also commented on the deal: “This initiative has potential for global impact, as many countries face the challenge of supporting an aging population, and we are honoured to be involved in supporting Japan’s senior citizens and helping enrich their lives.”

Japan Post Group had been piloting iPads and custom apps and cloud services for the elderly since last year and the company hopes to reach between four and five million elderly customers by 2020.

451Research, Kilo, Michael Yoon, News & Analysis, OpenStack

OpenStack Kilo ships with identity federation, storage improvements, bare-metal service

OpenStack Kilo is out, but some challenges persist

OpenStack Kilo is out, but some organisations may think twice about deployment

The OpenStack community released the eleventh version of the open source platform this week, codenamed Kilo, which ships with loads of improvements including new management APIs, security improvements for NFV, and the first full release of the bare metal cloud service. But a number of challenges still conspire to make the platform difficult to implement for some organisations.

The organisation has added improvements across the board, including:

  • Nova Compute: New API versioning management with v2.1 and microversions, which makes it easier to write long-lived applications against compute functionality. Operational improvements include live upgrades when a database schema change is required and better support for changing the resources of a running VM.
  • Swift Object Storage: Erasure coding provides efficient and cost-effective storage, and container-level temporary URLs allow time-limited access to a set of objects in a container. The latest release also brings improvements to global cluster replication and storage policy metrics.
  • Cinder Block Storage: Major updates to testing and validation requirements for backend storage systems across 70 options. Users can now attach a volume to multiple compute instances for high-availability and migration use cases.
  • Neutron Networking: The load-balancing-as-a-service API is now in its second version. The community also added additional features support NFV like port security for OpenVSwitch, VLAN transparency and MTU API extensions.
  • Ironic Bare-Metal Provisioning: The first full release of the Ironic bare-metal provisioning project with support for existing VM workloads and Linux containers, platform-as-a-service and NFV.
  • Keystone Identity Service: Identity federation enhancements to support hybrid workloads in multi-cloud environments.

This is the latest version of OpenStack since Juno, which was first released in October last year. Liberty, the version currently under development, is due to be released in October this year.

The OpenStack foundation said deployments of OpenStack are growing, with production deployments accounting for about half of those. But the project still needs to improve in some areas – which reflects the maturity of the platform more than anything.

“One thing I would definitely call out when considering OpenStack versus something like AWS is that with the former we have the ability to take advantage of innovation more rapidly than would be the case with the latter,” Michael Yoon, chief technology officer of MiMedia, an OpenStack user, told BCN. “So specifically, things like erasure coding, SMR technology, kinetic drive and object storage at the drive level, these are all making a very serious impact when comparing one solution from another.”

“But the container strategy hasn’t really been there in Swift. Also upgradability is certainly a challenge – one that’s been improved upon since the early releases, but still needs a lot of work.”

One of the biggest challenges, Yoon explained, is that there aren’t enough vendor-agnostic best-practice and architectural guides out there today. So the overhead, in terms of the initial research required to stand up an OpenStack cloud in the first place, is high.

“There’s a decent amount of research you need to do if you’re looking to get into this, and the problem is every vendor has their version, stocked with their own IP, of what makes a performant OpenStack distribution; each has a set of best practices and there’s still a fair amount of having to wade through it all to make things less vendor specific,” Yoon added.

This challenge seems to be highlighted in the latest cloud research from 451Research. According to the analyst house’s latest Cloud Price Index (CPI) report the TCO of proprietary commercial cloud management offerings is less than that of OpenStack distributions because of the cost of hiring additional manpower to implement them.

“The proprietary offering’s TCO benefit is simply the result of the high cost of OpenStack engineers – the distributions themselves are priced lower than the proprietary offerings,” the report explained. “With OpenStack, migration should, on paper, be less expensive, but it will be made more difficult than necessary due to a lack of federation among providers and the numerous OpenStack reference architectures.”

Nevertheless, the newly announced features may help improve the attractiveness of the platform among organisations.

“OpenStack continues to grow, and features like federated identity and bare metal provisioning support make the platform more compelling for enterprise IT leadership and application developers who want a stable, open source alternative to proprietary options,” said Al Sadowski, research director at 451 Research and one of the lead authors on the CPI report.

Cardiff Council, Cormac Watters, HANA, News & Analysis, Ross Maude, SAP

Cardiff Council moves customer services onto SAP cloud

Cardiff Council is aligning its IT strategy with a shift towards self-service government

Cardiff Council is aligning its IT strategy with a shift towards self-service government

The City of Cardiff Council is moving onto SAP’s customer service cloud in a bid to streamline customer service operations and deliver budget savings, the organisations announced this week.

The three-year project will see Cardiff Council work with SAP to move onto its customer services cloud, which is powered by the company’s in-memory compute platform HANA.

The Council’s goal is to create a digital self-service portal that will enable residents to interact online with municipal services, which will significantly reduce administrative costs according to the Council.

“The public service mandate of ‘do more with less’ is not going away, but for us, it’s an opportunity to bring our thriving city into the digital age in a way that will bring us long-term financial savings” said Ross Maude, senior enterprise architect at Cardiff Council.

Indeed the Council is facing £124m in budget cuts over the next three years, and to deliver those savings without impacting the services delivered to residents the Council is looking to increase automation – which is where cloud services comes into play.

“The services we provide are important for everyone from the elderly, to university students and public sector workers, and ensuring we’re still able to maintain the level and quality of service we have today despite our financial pressures is crucial. Our relationship with SAP means that together we’re able to implement an integrated cloud-based solution that brings all of our systems together allows us to focus on the growing needs of Cardiff residents,” Maude added.

Cormac Watters, managing director, SAP UK and Ireland said: For local authorities like Cardiff Council, finding ways to minimise costs is their number one priority. Coupled with a young, digitally-advanced demographic, the Council has taken a bold approach to meet today’s and tomorrow’s challenges”

“It will also support the delivery of new digital services geared to the highly-connected user, providing greater choice, more self-service options, better access and flexibility, resulting in improved user adoption and unlocking cost savings at every turn. This is essential at a time when budgets are under substantial pressure,” Watters said.

Azure, Big Data, Data lakes, Infrastructure as a Service, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Oliver Chiu

Microsoft jumps into the data lake

Azure Data LakeAt the company’s annual Build conference this week Microsoft unveiled among other things an Azure Data Lake service, which the company is pitching as a hyperscale big data repository for all kinds of data.

The data lake concept is a fairly new one, the gist of it being that data of varying types and structures is created at such a high velocity and in such large volumes that it’s prompting a necessary evolution in the applications and platforms required to handle that data.

It’s really about being able to store all that data in a volume-optimised (and cost-efficient) way that maintains the integrity of that information when you go to shift it someplace else, whether that be an application / analytics or a data warehouse.

“While the potential of the data lake can be profound, it has yet to be fully realized. Limits to storage capacity, hardware acquisition, scalability, performance and cost are all potential reasons why customers haven’t been able to implement a data lake,” explained Microsoft’s product marketing manager, Hadoop, big data and data warehousing Oliver Chiu.

The company is pitching the Azure Data Lakes service as a means of running Hadoop and advanced analytics using Microsoft’s own Azure HDInsight, as well as Revolution-R Enterprise and other Hadoop distributions developed by Hortonworks and Cloudera.

It’s built to support “massively parallel queries” so information is discoverable in a timely fashion, and built to handly high volumes of small writes, which the company said makes the service ideal for Internet of Things applications.

“Microsoft has been on a journey for broad big data adoption with a suite of big data and advanced analytics solutions like Azure HDInsight, Azure Data Factory, Revolution R Enterprise and Azure Machine Learning. We are excited for what Azure Data Lake will bring to this ecosystem, and when our customers can run all of their analysis on exabytes of data,” Chiu explained.

Pivotal is also among a handful of vendors seriously bought into the concept of data lakes. However, although Chiu alluded to cost and performance issues associated with the data lakes approach, many enterprises aren’t yet at a stage where the variety, velocity and volume of data their systems ingest are prompting a conceptual change in how that data is being perceived, stored or curated; in a nutshell, many enterprises are still too siloed – not the least of which in how they treat data.

Enterprise IT, Eugene Barbashin, Europe, IBM, Mariinsky Theatre, News & Analysis

Mariinsky Theatre taps IBM cloud to improve broadcasting

Russia’s Mariinsky Theatre is using a hybrid cloud to support live performance broadcasts

Russia’s Mariinsky Theatre is using a hybrid cloud to support live performance broadcasts

Russia’s Mariinsky Theatre is working with IBM to deploy a hybrid cloud solution that would improve its ability to stream live videos of performances to mobile devices globally.

The theatre already has more than 250,000 unique viewers around the world tuned into Mariinsky.tv, where it currently hosts webcasts of live performances and on-demand recordings.

It had previously broadcast performances on the web using its own on-premise platform to edit and stream performances, but the company said it sought a cloud-based platform for this in a bid to expand its global reach and improve its ability to withstand peaks in demand.

“To support a growing global community of loyal Theatre audiences, we needed a scalable, hybrid cloud solution that could meet the standards for quality that we and our viewers expect,” said Eugene Barbashin, head of the computer technology department, Mariinsky Theatre.

The company said at times its digital platform would need to scale to support thousands of simultaneous viewers, particularly around very popular orchestra or ballet performances, but that it was struggling to cope with demand at times.

“We tried various competitive offerings from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, but viewers still had buffering issues while streaming performances. We chose IBM Cloud to more fully meet our needs in terms of reliable performance and ease-of-use,” Barbashin added.