Category Archives: Partnerships

Actuate, Actuate Corporation, Apache Hadoop, Big Data, Hortonwork, Hortonworks Data Platform, MapReduce, Open Source, Partnerships

Actuate, Hortonworks Collaborate to Visualize Big Data

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Actuate Corporation, the people behind BIRT and an open source Business Intelligence (BI) vendor, today announced a collaboration between Actuate BIRT and the Hortonworks Data Platform, to enable Big Data visualization. The Hortonworks Data Platform is a completely open source, tightly integrated and tested distribution of Apache Hadoop, backed by extensive customer support and training.

The ActuateOne integrated product suite—built around BIRT—uses native access Hive query to leverage MapReduce functions to extract data from Hadoop, pulling those data sets into customizable BIRT-based dashboards and scorecards for interactive visualization and analysis.

“We have dedicated significant resources to make Apache Hadoop more robust and easier to integrate, extend, deploy and use,” said John Kreisa, VP of Marketing at Hortonworks. “Our partnership with open source BI leader Actuate enables more users to cost effectively analyze vast amounts of data stored in Hadoop using open source technologies.”

“Actuate’s collaboration with Hortonworks will ease the transition from Big Data hype to Big Data usefulness,” said Nobby Akiha, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Actuate. “We believe the key to success with Big Data lies in building the right infrastructure to manage it. Teaming with Hortonworks will further our goal of helping organizations figure out how best to leverage and integrate Big Data sources to enable better decision making.”

Large organizations are increasingly turning to Apache Hadoop for the storage and management of massive amounts of data and thus need scalable ways to explore, analyze and visualize the insights stored within it. The combination of the Hortonworks Data Platform’s distributed processing of Hadoop data sources of any size, with Actuate’s scalable infrastructure and intuitive data visualization capabilities, enables organizations to more effectively operationalize Big Data for thousands of customers, partners and employees.


Amazon AWS, Amazon Web Services, AWS, MySAP All-in-One, Partnerships, SAP, Windows Server 2008 R2

AWS, SAP Announce Cost-saving AWS Infrastructure for SAP Business All-in-One Solutions

Image representing Amazon Web Services as depi...

Amazon Web Services today announced the expansion of SAP certified solutions on AWS including SAP Business All-in-One solutions for both Linux and Windows, and expanded certification for SAP Rapid Deployment solutions and SAP Business Objects business intelligence (BI) solutions to include Windows Server 2008 R2. Today’s announcements provide customers the flexibility to rapidly deploy SAP solutions on the scalable, on-demand AWS platform without making long-term commitments or costly capital expenditures for their underlying infrastructure. As more enterprises seek to understand cost savings of cloud deployments, Germany based consulting firm, VMS AG has also announced industry research that finds running SAP applications on AWS provides infrastructure cost savings of up to 69% compared to the same solution on-premises. For more information on deploying SAP solutions on AWS as well as detailed research on infrastructure cost savings of running SAP solutions on AWS, visit http://aws.amazon.com/sap

“LIONSGATE is a $2 billion diversified global entertainment corporation that produces feature films and television programming to a worldwide audience,” said Theresa Miller, Vice President, Information Technology, LIONSGATE. “Faced with IT challenges including expanding infrastructure and costs, and increased enterprise application workloads, LIONSGATE began using AWS in 2010 to avoid acquiring additional data center space, saving an estimated $1M+ over three years. Now utilizing SAP solutions in a Windows environment, LIONSGATE has migrated their SAP development, test and QA systems to run on the AWS cloud.”

Emergency Medicine Business Intelligence (EMBI) provides HIPAA compliant analytic tools for hospital emergency departments to monitor productivity, utilization and patient care. “Cloud computing allows hospitals the ability to buy mission critical software and hardware as a service instead of trying to manage demand internally,” said Scott Richards, CEO at EMBI. “Deploying SAP Business Objects BI solutions on AWS, with solution provider DecisionFirst, allows us to leverage industry-leading business intelligence toolsets to provide our customers web-based, on-demand, key performance metrics they need to manage their operations and business. With these solutions our emergency department clients are able to focus on providing a higher level of service to their customers.”

Merrifield Garden Center, one of the largest and most complete garden nurseries in the US, is using SAP Business All-in-One on AWS to manage inventory, purchasing and accounts. “Our IT operations were simply not keeping pace with the rapid growth of our business,” said Bryan Moore IT Director at Merrifield Garden Center. “Running our SAP Business All-in-One solution on AWS, with systems integrator Savantis and managed services provider Protera, provided dependable infrastructure and offered an affordable solution that enhanced security and the flexibility needed to scale up and scale down during seasonal demand swings.”

Leveraging its industry-leading intelligence VMS AG has developed detailed cost analysis of running SAP solutions on AWS using the best practices of more than 2,600 SAP environments. The research found infrastructure savings of up to 69%, on AWS, compared to an SAP Business All-in-One system running on-premises.

“Customers have experienced tremendous success when running their SAP applications on AWS,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, senior vice president, Ecosystem and Channels, SAP. “Today’s announcement offers enterprises and midsized companies alike the flexibility to deploy SAP applications and analytics solutions quickly and scale up as the business grows.”

“We have seen a rapid increase in businesses deploying SAP solutions on AWS,” said Terry Wise, Director of AWS Worldwide Partner Ecosystem. “Whether it’s running SAP applications for development and testing or production applications, businesses can take advantage of the AWS pay-as-you-go model and quickly scale capacity both up and down as needed, paying only for the resources used.”

To learn more about cost savings of running SAP solutions on AWS, visit http://bit.ly/IVsXYI


BPO, Business process outsourcing, Business Processes, GT Nexus, Logistics, Partnerships, Shipping, Third-party logistics, WNS, WNS Global Services

WNS Partners with GT Nexus for Business Process, Supply Chain Services

WNS, a provider of global Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services, today announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with GT Nexus, a market leading cloud-based supplychain service provider, to deliver platform-based BPO services and solutions to the Shipping and Logistics industry. According to the agreement, WNS and GT Nexus will jointly work towards providing shippers, forwarders, 3PLs and carriers with improved quality of service for their end-customers and reduced costs in areas such as documentation, freight management, contracts, pricing and analytics.

“The shipping and logistics industry has been facing multiple pressures created by unfavorable economic conditions,” said Keshav R. Murugesh, Group CEO, WNS. “There is a strong need within the industry for managed services to help shift inefficient and manual transactions onto a global digital platform. We believe that the integration of GT Nexus’s proven cloud-based technology platform with WNS’ deep domain knowledge and operational process excellence will help companies effectively manage this transition.”

“One of the big opportunities for BPO providers is to build entire practices and services around existing, mature cloud technology platforms,” said Aaron Sasson, CEO of GT Nexus. “Through this partnership, WNS is taking advantage of our cloud supply chain platform and offering a much needed new service for the international logistics industry. WNS has made it simple for companies in shipping and logistics to move to a complete digital transaction business process.”

Jaison Augustine, Senior Vice President & Segment Head – Shipping & Logistics at WNS added, “Our ‘BlackBox’ solution will offer 40-60% percent reduction in costs incurred in the production of master and house bills of ladings for NVOCCs and freight forwarders. It will also help increase the digitization of shipping instructions which offers benefits to both shippers and carriers alike. By introducing cutting-edge tools like optical and intelligent character recognition, scanning & imaging and workflow solutions our managed services approach will reduce cycle times and enable error-free documentation at a fraction of the current cost.”

WNS currently offers a broad spectrum of services to the global shipping & logistics industry, including export and import documentation, freight audits, driver logs, trip records, Finance & Accounting and analytics. WNS’s clients in this vertical include ocean carriers, 3PL’s, express companies, truckers and shippers.


IT Management, Networking, PacketPortal, Partnerships

JDSU, NetSocket Partner on PacketPortal

NetSocket, the creator of the world’s first real-time cloud service assurance solutions, announces its relationship with JDSU as a PacketPortal™ application partner. PacketPortal is JDSU’s recently launched Smart Network Application Platform (SNAP) that allows communications service providers to more intelligently capture and analyze network data remotely to provide the highest-quality subscriber experience.

NetSocket delivers immediate insight into cloud networks, providing complete service visibility. It enables network managers to anticipate, isolate and remediate IP service issues before they become end-user problems. NetSocket’s solution automatically provides a comprehensive view of content, session and IP topology on a hop-by-hop basis. It captures and correlates network behavior in real time on any size network and across multiple vendors. NetSocket provides a trouble-free cloud experience, ensuring higher session quality and lower support costs.

PacketPortal enhances the capabilities and improves the efficiency of today’s network monitoring and troubleshooting software applications by extending visibility to the network edge while reducing complexity by focusing on only critical data. The partnering relationship announced today allows customers to use PacketPortal along with the NetSocket application to truly visualize the customer experience for IP cloud-based communications and collaboration services.

“Through our partnership with NetSocket, JDSU creates new opportunities for enterprises and service providers to derive value from the PacketPortal platform,” said Doug Fantuzzi, vice president in JDSU’s Communications Test and Measurement business segment.

“By integrating with PacketPortal, NetSocket can provide carriers and enterprises with immediate visibility into the location and causes of customer experience issues, especially in remote sites where previously it was difficult to obtain data,” said John White, CEO, NetSocket. “Now we can extend our correlation/isolation abilities to a broader market and reduce troubleshooting time and costs, minimize downtime, and improve productivity.”

JDSU will demonstrate the PacketPortal-enabled NetSocket solution this month at Interop 2012, May 8-10 in Las Vegas, Nev., at JDSU’s booth No. 2443. JDSU is also exhibiting at the DISA (Defense Information Systems Agency) Customer Partnership Conference in Tampa, May 7-9, booth No. 942.

To learn more about JDSU, please visit http://www.jdsu.com/.


Cloud gaming, Games, Partnerships, SFR, Ubisoft

G-cluster Global, Ubisoft Partner on Cloud Gaming in France

Ubisoft logo

Today, G-cluster and Ubisoft announced they are partnering to bring many of Ubisoft’s popular games to the G-cluster platform, including Assassin’s Creed 2, Beyond Good and Evil, Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sands, Rabbids Go Home and Tom Clancy’s Hawx 2.

Starting this week, the Ubisoft games will be available on the G-cluster platform for customers of the French carrier SFR. In October, 2010, G-cluster launched a white label Cloud Gaming service in partnership with SFR, and the service is currently available to 3.1 million households on TV, and is also available on PC and Mac. Ubisoft’s games will be available in the form of rentals, purchases and subscriptions, and the company expects to bring more of its high-definition titles to the G-cluster platform in the near future.

“Ubisoft has always been at the forefront of new technological trends, and this partnership with G-cluster further extends our leadership in delivering games to customers on any platform they choose, including the cloud,” said Geoffroy Sardin, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, Ubisoft. “G-cluster’s platform delivers proven quality of service, relationships with carriers, and profitability, and this collaboration will allow millions of new users to seamlessly access Ubisoft’s catalogue of AAA titles.”

G-cluster provides a white-label cloud-based video gaming service using its patented G-cluster technology – the first of its kind to be operational on large scale. The technology allows interactive content requiring low latency, such as high-end video games and full-length DVD films, to be distributed to a wide range of devices. G-cluster has partnerships with more than 30 game studios and more than 90 games are commercially live today on its platform.

“Having this partnership with Ubisoft validates G-cluster as a leading platform in cloud gaming and will allow the discovery of the unique Ubisoft IPs to an entirely new audience”. Said Sevan Kessissian, Vice President of Content and Strategy at G-cluster. “This will be the first time that AAA games are made available in the cloud in the competitive French market.”


AutoCAD, Autodesk 360, Autodesk Subscription, Partnerships

Autodesk VARs Go to Suites, Cloud, Subscriptions

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Autodesk, Inc. is enhancing the Autodesk Partner Advantage Program to better enable the company’s already prominent global partner network to sell a more complete range of Autodesk Design Suites, Autodesk 360 services and Autodesk Subscription.

For the first time, Autodesk Value Added Resellers (VARs) will be able to provide customers with a complete Autodesk 3D design portfolio of software products and help differentiate their solutions by targeting industry specializations and product focus. The expanded scope better aligns members of the Autodesk global partner network to become mission critical solution providers through services such as consulting, technical training, support and industry expertise.

“Customer needs and technology trends are evolving rapidly, and Autodesk is delivering the tools, training and resources our partners need to help their customers take full advantage of 3D design, engineering and entertainment technologies,” said Bill Griffin, vice president, Worldwide Channel Sales at Autodesk. “Never before has there been this kind of global opportunity for our partners to target entirely new industries and grow their businesses by using the complete Autodesk portfolio.”

Autodesk, Inc. is continually evolving by developing the company’s Partner Advantage Program to provide better customer and partner experiences, building on the Autodesk vision to always deliver the best products and solutions to customers, wherever they are. VARs who participate in the Autodesk Partner Advantage Program benefit from:

Access to the complete product portfolio: Partners can now provide their customers with the complete Autodesk 3D design product portfolio, and more complete solutions to address a fuller range of business needs.

Simplified tiering: There is now one tier for Autodesk VARs, which includes Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze levels. This simplified tiering will help make it easier for customers to identify an ideal partner match for their needs.

Partner locator: A new online partner locator tool helps customers to find the right partner expertise and helps enable partners to share best practices and more easily locate each other to collaborate on customer engagements.

Improved business processes: Better global coordination helps facilitate better customer relationship management and more accurate sales pipeline visibility.

New online training platform: The newly upgraded Autodesk Learning Central online training program provides online tools and training to help partners develop expertise.

“As a consultant to the AECO industry, our partnership with Autodesk enables us to provide the best possible business and technology solutions to our clients,” said Microdesk President, Michael DeLacey. “Together we are able to combine resources and expertise in order to fully address our customers’ challenges, as well as develop longer term strategies for improving the way the industry plans, designs, builds and operates our nation’s buildings and infrastructure. That is a level of partnership that we truly value, and our clients feel the benefit of as well.”


AutoCAD, AutoDesk, Autodesk 360, Autodesk Subscription, Partnerships

Autodesk VARs Go to Suites, Cloud, Subscriptions

Image representing Autodesk as depicted in Cr...

Autodesk, Inc. is enhancing the Autodesk Partner Advantage Program to better enable the company’s already prominent global partner network to sell a more complete range of Autodesk Design Suites, Autodesk 360 services and Autodesk Subscription.

For the first time, Autodesk Value Added Resellers (VARs) will be able to provide customers with a complete Autodesk 3D design portfolio of software products and help differentiate their solutions by targeting industry specializations and product focus. The expanded scope better aligns members of the Autodesk global partner network to become mission critical solution providers through services such as consulting, technical training, support and industry expertise.

“Customer needs and technology trends are evolving rapidly, and Autodesk is delivering the tools, training and resources our partners need to help their customers take full advantage of 3D design, engineering and entertainment technologies,” said Bill Griffin, vice president, Worldwide Channel Sales at Autodesk. “Never before has there been this kind of global opportunity for our partners to target entirely new industries and grow their businesses by using the complete Autodesk portfolio.”

Autodesk, Inc. is continually evolving by developing the company’s Partner Advantage Program to provide better customer and partner experiences, building on the Autodesk vision to always deliver the best products and solutions to customers, wherever they are. VARs who participate in the Autodesk Partner Advantage Program benefit from:

Access to the complete product portfolio: Partners can now provide their customers with the complete Autodesk 3D design product portfolio, and more complete solutions to address a fuller range of business needs.

Simplified tiering: There is now one tier for Autodesk VARs, which includes Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze levels. This simplified tiering will help make it easier for customers to identify an ideal partner match for their needs.

Partner locator: A new online partner locator tool helps customers to find the right partner expertise and helps enable partners to share best practices and more easily locate each other to collaborate on customer engagements.

Improved business processes: Better global coordination helps facilitate better customer relationship management and more accurate sales pipeline visibility.

New online training platform: The newly upgraded Autodesk Learning Central online training program provides online tools and training to help partners develop expertise.

“As a consultant to the AECO industry, our partnership with Autodesk enables us to provide the best possible business and technology solutions to our clients,” said Microdesk President, Michael DeLacey. “Together we are able to combine resources and expertise in order to fully address our customers’ challenges, as well as develop longer term strategies for improving the way the industry plans, designs, builds and operates our nation’s buildings and infrastructure. That is a level of partnership that we truly value, and our clients feel the benefit of as well.”


IT Management, Load Balancing, Microsoft, Partnerships, System Center, Tools, Windows Server

F5 Showcases its BIG-IP Solutions for System Center 2012 and Private Cloud

F5 Networks, Inc is demonstrating its F5 BIG-IP solutions for Microsoft private cloud deployments at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012, held this week in Las Vegas. During the event, F5 is emphasizing BIG-IP compatibility with System Center 2012 to help organizations maximize cloud benefits and productivity.

“F5 cloud computing solutions provide customers with a flexible foundation to dynamically provision services and tap the full value of cloud deployments,” says Calvin Rowland, VP, Technology and ISV Alliances at F5. “We’re excited to connect with customers at this event and share our cloud vision and products, which are key building blocks for private cloud environments. For over a decade, F5 and Microsoft have worked together to bring superior IT solutions to our customers. And with our close collaboration on Microsoft private cloud solutions, we’ve extended the value of this relationship.”

Using the BIG-IP system, customers can build dynamic data centers that eliminate deployment barriers and lay the framework for long-term, sustained efficiencies. For the Microsoft private cloud, F5 solutions help organizations unify their network architectures and consolidate their management environments. Together, BIG-IP products and System Center 2012 provide a clear view into how applications are performing over the network. This gives customers the ability to update and optimize configurations to increase performance, scale, automation, flexibility, and security.

Further, the updated F5® Monitoring Pack for System Center helps customers optimize resource utilization by discovering available BIG-IP devices and surfacing health statistics within System Center 2012. As administrators shift the allocation of resources, the BIG-IP system is automatically updated to ensure that the network is in sync with changes to computing and storage resources.

“System Center 2012 enables the private cloud, and the F5 Monitoring Pack for System Center gives customers the added strengths of F5’s BIG-IP solutions,” said Mike Schutz, General Manager, Product Marketing, Windows Server and Management at Microsoft. “Customers need the key components of their private cloud infrastructure to work well with each other, and the deep compatibility of System Center 2012 with F5’s BIG-IP platform can help increase efficiency and reliability while helping reduce operational expenses.”

Cost Effective, Automated, Flexible Cloud Control

BIG-IP solutions for Microsoft private cloud take advantage of key features and technologies in BIG-IP version 11.1, including F5’s virtual Clustered MultiprocessingTM (vCMP™) technology, iControl®, F5’s web services-enabled open application programming interface (API), administrative partitioning and server name indication (SNI). Together, these features help reduce the cost and complexity of managing cloud infrastructures in multi-tenant environments. With BIG-IP v11.1, organizations reap the maximum benefits of conducting IT operations and application delivery services in the private cloud.

BIG-IP solutions for Microsoft private cloud also include:

  • F5 Monitoring Pack for System Center, which provides two-way
    communication between BIG-IP devices and the System Center management
    console. Health monitoring, failover, and configuration
    synchronization of BIG-IP devices, along with customized alerting,
    Maintenance Mode, and Live Migration, occur within the Operations
    Manager component of System Center.
  • The F5 Load Balancing Provider for System Center, which enables
    one-step, automated deployment of load balancing services through
    direct interoperability between the Virtual Machine Manager component
    of System Center 2012 and BIG-IP devices. BIG-IP devices are managed
    through the System Center user interface, and administrators can
    custom-define load balancing services.
  • The Orchestrator component of System Center 2012, which provides
    F5 traffic management capabilities, takes advantage of workflows
    designed using the Orchestrator Runbook Designer. These custom
    workflows can then be published directly into System Center 2012
    service catalogs and presented as a standard offering to the
    organization. This is made possible using the F5 iControl SDK, which
    gives customers the flexibility to choose a familiar development
    environment such as the Microsoft .NET Framework programming model or
    Windows PowerShell scripting.

Availability

The F5 Monitoring Pack for System Center and the F5 PRO-enabled Monitoring Pack for System Center are now available. The F5 Load Balancing Provider for System Center is available as a free download from the F5 DevCentral website. The Orchestrator component of System Center 2012 is based on F5 iControl and Windows PowerShell, and is also free.