IoT generates lots of temporal data. But how do you unlock its value?
How do you coordinate the diverse moving parts that must come together when developing your IoT product?
What are the key challenges addressed by Data as a Service?
How does cloud computing underlie and connect the notions of Digital and DevOps
What is the impact of the API economy?
What is the business imperative for Cognitive Computing?
Get all these questions and hundreds more like them answered at the 18th Cloud Expo | @ThingsExpo June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center, in New York City, NY. The Cloud Expo | @ThingsExpo programs are now available for you to inspect and investigate in advance.
Our upcoming June 7-9 event in New York City will present a total of 10 simultaneous tracks by an all-star faculty, over three days, plus a one-day “How to Create Angular 2 Clients for the Cloud” Workshop presented by Yakov Fain, a Java Champion and a co-founder of the IT consultancy Farata Systems and the product company SuranceBay.
DevOps Talent and Challenges | @DevOpsSummit #DevOps #Microservices
With DevOps becoming more well-known and established practice in nearly every industry that delivers software, it is important to continually reassess its efficacy. This week’s top 10 includes a discussion on how the quick uptake of DevOps adoption in the enterprise has posed some serious challenges. Additionally, organizations who have taken the DevOps plunge must find ways to find, hire and keep their DevOps talent in order to keep the machine running smoothly.
Achieving a Secure Cloud Infrastructure for Enterprise SaaS Applications | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a model that has become a popular choice for deploying enterprise applications, delivering efficiencies and value to organizations in many ways. The benefits SaaS solutions deliver include not only avoiding the major resource drain and licensing costs associated with deploying business-critical software across the organization, they also relieve IT from ongoing maintenance tasks associated with on-premise deployments, such as performing upgrades, installing patches and managing availability. Moreover, SaaS can enhance flexibility and scalability for enterprise applications and workloads. Of course, while these benefits gained from adopting SaaS solutions in the enterprise are significant, they must nevertheless be balanced against potential risks. In particular, consideration must always be given as to whether cloud applications are sufficiently secure.
Quantum Delivers Greater Storage Performance | @CloudExpo @QuantumCorp #Cloud
Quantum Corp. has announced three new reference architectures to optimize key surveillance and security environments, addressing the storage challenges presented by new fixed cameras, expansions of existing security systems, and law enforcement implementations. The reference architectures provide the storage performance, capacity and accessibility that customers and integrators require at the foundation of today’s new surveillance and security installations.
Webinars Parallels Desktop for Mac Business and Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM
We would like to invite you to our monthly Webinars about Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition and Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM. Our Sales Engineers Pat Begbie for Northern Europe (in English) and Robert Rengstl for Central Europe (in German) will give you an encompassing overview about all essential details in 30 minutes and will answer all […]
The post Webinars Parallels Desktop for Mac Business and Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM appeared first on Parallels Blog.
How Collaboration Humanizes the Enterprise By @SmartBear | @CloudExpo #Cloud
I’ve spent enough time walking the halls of large-ish-to-massive organizations to have formed some opinions and made some observations.
If I had to characterize the motor that drives these beasts, I’d say it is comprised of two main components: intense risk aversion and an obsession with waste elimination that sits somewhere on a spectrum between neurotic and quixotic.
Understanding the economics of the cloud – its more than just a money saver
A recent survey from Spiceworks highlighted 93% of enterprise organizations are now using at least one cloud based service within their operations, but there does seem to be a general feeling within the community that the benefits are not clearly understood.
While most early adopters of such platforms, as well as other future tech, have focused on the performance capabilities which cloud can offer, the mainstream market believes the cloud is a cost reduction tool, a point which professional services giant Deloitte disagrees with.
“The image of the cloud projected by the market is sometimes that all forms of cloud are cheaper, but it is a question of using the right tool for the right job,” said Gwil Davies, Director & Cloud Lead in the EMEA IT Infrastructure at Deloitte. “What decision makers at these organizations need to realize is that the cloud is not necessarily cheaper.”
“I think it’s more important for organizations get a real understanding of how to use the cloud and perhaps not automatically assume that moving all of their current IT into cloud is going to be the cheaper solution.”
The concept of the cloud being a cheaper alternative to traditional IT is sometimes a case of a lack of understanding of the technology itself, but also the journey on which organizations need to undertake to ensure cloud computing is being used in an effective manner. Selecting a cloud provider is only a small facet of the cloud itself, a fact which can be under-appreciated by enterprise decision makers.
“Technology is a small part of the challenge, business transformation of the organization is key to the success of the cloud,” said Davies. “You have to be really clear on the why, the what and the how. Specifically you have to have a keen eye on value. Some of the most successful cloud implementation projects generate value in new ways. These decision makers have specifically identified where clear business value can be generated. If the answer is to reduce costs, the cloud is not always the right option.”
Speaking at Cloud World Expo, Davies highlighted that a successful journey to the cloud is not one which focuses on reducing CAPEX and OPEX throughout the organization, but identifies where value can be achieved through a cloud-enabled business. Identifying where the value is, but also monitoring the progress of the project can be the difference between effective investment and throwing money away.
“There are sometimes surprises – and most organisations will need to invest in some base capabilities, before a migration of systems into the cloud can begin,” said Davies. “The business case needs to be defined around what the value of the transition is to the business – huge benefits can be realised, and often it’s not just about reducing the current cost of your IT systems.”
One conclusion which can be drawn from the aforementioned survey as well as others, is the concept of cloud computing has penetrated into the mainstream market. But the question as to whether the benefits of scalability, compute power, agility, flexibility etc. have been effectively received is less clear.
“It varies very widely (whether benefits beyond cost reduction are understood), as customers are in different stages of their cloud journey,” said Davies. “In my opinion, the cloud as a technology is one of the most transformative opportunities available to enterprise organizations in recent years. The cloud is unlocking a huge amount of value throughout the organization, which wouldn’t have been possible even two years ago. There is a huge potential to reach new customers, create new opportunities and experiences, as well as become more competitive in the market place.
Different organizations are in different places though. The starting point for organizations, who are at the investigating the cloud, and haven’t identified what the cloud means to the wider business, is mostly cost saving.”
Red Hat bets on OpenStack, DevOps and Containers in new product offerings
Red Hat has launched general availability of Red Hat Cloud Suite and Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8, leaning on wider DevOps trends within the industry.
The company claims the new offerings will assist enterprise organizations in bridging the gap between development and operations teams at the scale of cloud computing, and successfully implement a DevOps business model.
“Everyone is now aware that Uber doesn’t own a car or Facebook doesn’t generate its own content, this is nothing new, but it does highlight the digital disruption which is taking place in the industry,” said Radhesh Balakrishnan, General Manager, OpenStack at Red Hat. “These disruptions are impacting decisions on infrastructure within the organization, but also what kind of development methodology gets adopted. Customers are demanding an agile infrastructure and a Devops model to ensure they can reduce time to market and accelerate innovation within their own organization.
“When you generally look at the CIO agenda, the need to be more responsive to business needs is a priority within almost every organization by default. Given that they are viewing DevOps as a means to facilitate the change in thinking and culture, DevOps is here now and it’s not a fad which the industry has grabbed onto.
“Even internally, we have been aggressive in embracing DevOps. Our oldest business is Enterprise Linux and security updates is an area which of key value to our customers. Heartbleed was a huge issue for our customers 12 months ago, and since we are following the DevOps methodology, we were not only able to provide a patch, but we also pushed out a tool which customers can use to see if they are now compliant. None of this would have been possible without DevOps, so we are seeing the benefits internally as well.”
Red Hat is currently pinning its ambitions on the growth of OpenStack and the belief it will become the choice operating system for cloud infrastructure and the data centres of the future. The company backed the growth of Linux in a similar fashion, effectively riding the wave to its $2 billion annual sales, and is now placing the same bet on OpenStack, and its adoption throughout the industry.
The launch is based on OpenStack Kilo, the release which came out last year, combining the Red Hat cloud, DevOps and container offerings on a single cloud suite, within a private cloud environment. Keeping on the theme of ‘openness’, the tools will also be available as individual products should customers want to work with other offerings also.
Building on another industry trend, Red Hat has also prioritized containers as a technology for its service offering.
“Containers are probably the most attractive technology we at Red Hat have seen in years. Every large customer we have wants to have a conversation around containers,” said Balakrishnan. “We’re including OpenShift in the cloud suite, which is a service offering which was designed from the ground up on Docker (for container image) and Kubernetes (for orchestration layer). We are excited about the fact that we are one of the first in the industry to be bringing container technology to mainstream.
“Containers are one of the biggest priority areas for us as a company, so much so that we include container technology in our Enterprise Linux offering. It’s pervasive both in our technology as well as in our customer minds.”
AWS launches new features at Chicago Summit
Amazon Web Services has launched a number of new features, along with the announcement that AWS Import/Export Snowball is now available in four new regions, including Europe.
Speaking at AWS Chicago Summit, the team announced several updates including new security features, tools which simplify the movement of data around an organizations cloud, platforms for automatically deploying and running apps on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure, testing features, as well as authentication services.
Firstly, the AWS Device Farm Update is a feature, initially introduced last June, which enables customers to test mobile apps on real devices. The service is built on the concept of ‘write once, test everywhere’, enabling developers the chance to test apps in more than 200 unique environments (a variety of carriers, manufacturers, models, operating systems etc.). The update now provides customers with remote access to devices for interactive testing.
Writing on the AWS blog, Jeff Barr, Chief Evangelist at Amazon Web Services said, “you simply open a new session on the desired device, wait (generally a minute or two) until the device is available, and then interact with the device via the AWS Management Console. You can gesture, swipe, and interact with devices in real time directly through your web browser as if the device was on your desk or in your hand. This includes installing and running applications.”
Amazon S3 and Snowball, designed to increase speed of the data migration process, also received attention during the event. The AWS Import/Export Snowball was launched for customers who intend to move larger amounts of data, generally 10 terabytes or more, and has now been beefed up once again. New features for S3 make use of the AWS edge infrastructure to increase speed, and Snowball also has larger-capacity as well as now being available in four new regions.
“Many AWS customers are now using AWS Import/Export Snowball to move large amounts of data in and out of the AWS Cloud,” said Barr. “The original Snowball appliances had a capacity of 50 terabytes. Today we are launching a newer appliance with 80 terabytes of capacity.”
Amazon Kinesis, a service which enables users to manage data that is streamed into the cloud, has been updated to allow users to deploy, run, and scale Elasticsearch in the AWS Cloud, as well interaction with Amazon CloudWatch, its monitoring service.
The Cognito service allows apps to add authentication, user management, and data synchronization without having to write backend code or manage any infrastructure. The ‘Your User Pools’ feature update allows developers to build a user directory that can scale to hundreds of millions of users, to help manage the authentication process.
“Using a user pool gives you detailed control over the sign-up and sign-in aspects of your web and mobile SaaS apps, games, and so forth,” said Barr. “Building and running a directory service at scale is not easy, but is definitely undifferentiated heavy lifting, with the added security burden that comes when you are managing user names, passwords, email addresses, and other sensitive pieces of information. You don’t need to build or run your own directory service when you use Cognito Identity.”
Finally, the Elastic Beanstalk, which automatically deploys and runs apps on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure, has also been updated, by adding support for managed platform updates. Developers are now able to select a maintenance window, and the new feature will update the environment to the latest platform version automatically.
“The updates are installed using an immutable deployment model to ensure that no changes are made to the existing environment until the updated replacement instances are available and deemed healthy (according to the health check that you have configured for the application),” said Barr.
Leadership restructure has little impact as VMWare reports 5% growth
VMWare has reported healthy growth during its Q1 earnings call despite disruptions in the management team over the period.
Revenues for the first quarter were reported at $1.59 billion, an increase of 5% in comparison to the same period in 2015, though license revenues saw a drop of 1% to $572 million. The company now expects second-quarter revenue of $1.66 billion to $1.71 billion, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $1.66 billion.
“Q1 was a good start to 2016, both for results and against our strategic goal of building momentum for our newer growth businesses and in the cloud,” said Patrick Gelsinger, CEO at VMWare. “Our results were in line with our expectations for the period and support our outlook for the full year.”
Over the course of the period, there may have been concerns surrounding changes in the leadership team, and how a restructure would impact the performance of the business on the whole. Carl Eschenbach announced last month he would be leaving his post as VMWare President and COO to join venture capital firm Sequoia Capital as a Partner. CFO Jonathan Chadwick also left the business in January.
Eschenbach joined the firm in 2002 as VP of Sales, was appointed as co-President and COO in 2011 and eventually as the stand-alone President in 2012. During Eschenbach’s time at VMWare, revenues grew from $31 million in 2002, to more than $6 billion in 2015. The changes in leadership would not have appeared to have stifled the company’s performance, as its cloud business units performed healthily over the first quarter.
“We think on the executive side, it really is the combination of being able to attract new players than – I mentioned Rajiv (Rajiv Ramaswami, GM, Networking and Security) we brought in a leader for China, Bernard (Bernard Kwok, Greater China President); we’ve been able to continue to attract talent,” said Gelsinger. “We’ve also had commented on our very strong bench, and – like Maurizio (Maurizio Carli, VP Worldwide Sales), we had brought him over from Europe a year plus ago to prepare for this eventuality, and so we had been grooming and preparing for these transitions.”
The company also reported healthy growth for its cloud business unit, including NSX, VSAN, End-User Computing and vCloud Air Network. The company highlighted standalone vSphere license bookings were less than 35% of total bookings, a figure which was more than 50% two years ago. The team claim this reduction demonstrates the product offering has been successfully diversified.
“Turning to hybrid cloud. Total bookings for vCloud Air Network grew over 25% year-over-year,” said Zane Rowe, CFO at VMWare. “We see significant interest from cloud and service providers around the world wanting to utilize our hybrid cloud technologies. For example, as Pat mentioned earlier, IBM will be delivering a complete SDDC offering based on VMware’s technologies across their expanded footprint of cloud data centres worldwide. vCloud Air also performed well in Q1 with large enterprise customer adoption.”
In terms of long-term strategy, Gelsinger outlined a three-point plan to facilitate VMWare’s growth in the cloud market segment. Firstly, the business will consolidate its position in the private cloud space, a segment which it describes as the ‘foundation of our business’. Secondly, through the vCloud Air service and vCloud Air Network, the company aims to encourage its customers extend their private cloud into the public cloud. And finally, connecting, managing and securing end points across a range of public clouds, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.