Category Archives: opensource

Channel Partner, News & Analysis, Open Source, opensource, OpenStack, Platform9

Platform9 launches OpenStack channel partner program

Key Hole Solution PartnershipPlatform9 has launched a new channel partner program designed for resellers who are focused on deploying enterprise-ready OpenStack private clouds for their customers.

The Platform9 proposition, delivers OpenStack private clouds as a SaaS-based managed service, is built on the continuing wave of OpenStack enthusiasm from enterprise-scale organizations. The team claim to be able to deliver the benefits of public cloud through opensource technologies, without the vendor lock-in and “VMware or AWS” tax.

At the OpenStack Summit last month numerous organizations outlined their commitment to the technology, including Wal-Mart, AT&T, SAP and Wells Fargo, and the OpenStack Foundation also claimed more than 50% of the Fortune 100 is now using an OpenStack platform.

“Our new channel program helps our partners capitalize on the significant business opportunity surrounding customers’ cloud transformation needs. Platform9’s unique SaaS-based OpenStack solution enables partners to deliver immediate value to their customers while enhancing their status as a private cloud ‘trusted advisor,’” said Adam Ulfers, Platform9 VP of Sales. “Most importantly, we can help increase our partners’ share of cloud spending by extending their solutions and services as they build out their customers’ data centre ecosystems.”

Last month, the team also announced a number of updates to its OpenStack-as-a-Service proposition, aimed at increasing the ‘readiness’ of the platform for enterprise organizations. As part of updates, Platform9 included a SAML integration with Okta to provide SSO integration across groups of users and internal organizations, a zero-touch upgrade to OpenStack Liberty and a trial version of Platform9 Managed OpenStack which is available on a USB stick.

The Platform9 Channel Partner Program enables its resellers to implement an on-premises private cloud, which the company claims offers the same self-service provisioning and open APIs as a public cloud proposition. The program also offers resellers a number of sales leads, joint marketing and demand generation campaigns, for resellers who take part.

“With growing concerns about runaway costs and data lock-in with the public cloud, many customers are pursuing hybrid cloud strategy, with IT as internal service providers,” said Alvin Chu, Senior Director, Cloud Practice, FusionStorm, one of Platform9’s resellers. “With Platform9’s private-cloud-as-a-service, we can transform our customers’ existing data centre resources into flexible, enterprise-grade private cloud infrastructure in just minutes – all backed by an operational SLA. Platform9 accelerates the time to value for our customers and for our business as well.”

Accenture, atp, Big Data, Big DData, Data Anaytics, Infosys, News & Analysis, opensource

ATP teams up with Infosys to launch big data driven ranking system

ATPThe Association of Tennis Professionals, ATP, has partnered with Infosys to launch a new statistical way to measure the best performing ATP World Tour players.

The new ATP Stats Leaderboards makes use of Infosys’ data analytics capabilities to bring together recorded stats from various professionals on the tour today to rank them in three categories, Serving, Returning and Under Pressure, and even allows users to compare current players with greats from the past. The three categories can be broken down by surface, by year, by past 52 weeks or by career.

“These new statistics offer players, fans and media interesting new insights into how our athletes are rating in three key areas against their peers on the ATP World Tour,” said Chris Kermode, ATP Executive Chairman. “There is huge potential to understand our sport better through the development of new statistics, and we look forward to further advances coming soon in this area through our partnership with Infosys.”

The project uses the Infosys Information Platform, an opensource data analytics platform, and brings together the vast amount of data collected by the ATP over the years to give fans a concise rating of players on the tour today. The ranking are determined through various big data models combining several metrics including the number of double faults during a game, number of aces, the percentage of points won on an opponent’s serve and the number of successfully converted break points, to give a measure of how players are performing currently and in comparison to previous parts of the season.

“The uniqueness of our partnership with the ATP World Tour lies in being able to challenge the traditional models, and experiment and embrace technology to create a compelling experience for fans across the globe,” said U B Pravin Rao, Chief Operating Officer at Infosys. “We firmly believe that technology can amplify our ability to create this unique differentiation and we will continue to find newer avenues to elevate the fan experience.”

While this would be considered a novel concept for the game of tennis, the use of big data and advanced analytics tools is not new for the world of sports entertainment. Accenture Digital has been using its data analytics capabilities to predict the outcome of the Six Nations and the recent Rugby World Cup.

The company has been a technology partner of the Six Nations for five years now, and this year introduced an Oculus Rift beta virtual reality headset and development kit as part of the on-going marketing strategies to demonstrate its capabilities. The company claims to process more than 1.9 million rows of data during every match, and also developed parameters for 1800 algorithms to bring the data, dating back to 2006, to life. After each match, approximately 180,000 on-field actions were added to the increasing data store to refine the decision making capabilities.