“As a technology provider we believe that business comes first and customers should start thinking that technology is something that helps them to enable new business models,” stated Ermanno Bonifazi, Founder and CEO of Solgenia, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 17th Cloud Expo, held November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
17th @CloudExpo | @ThingsExpo Silicon Valley Photo Album | #IoT #Cloud
17th International Cloud Expo | @ThingsExpo | @DevOpsSummit held on November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, featured three content-packed days with a rich array of sessions about the business and technical value of cloud computing, Internet of Things, Big Data, and DevOps led by exceptional speakers from every sector of the IT ecosystem. The Cloud Expo series is the fastest-growing Enterprise IT event in the past 10 years, devoted to every aspect of delivering massively scalable enterprise IT as a service.
[video] Better Security in the Cloud with Tony Teora | @CloudExpo #Cloud
“Security starts very simply at home when you’re on your PC. At DataClear we thought ‘How do we make a secure desktop for people and for corporations,'” explained Tony Teora, CEO of DataClear, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 17th Cloud Expo, held November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Containers at Christmas: wrapping, cloud and competition
As anyone that’s ever been disappointed by a Christmas present will tell you – shiny packaging can be very misleading. As we hear all the time, it’s what’s inside that counts…
What then, are we to make of the Docker hype, centred precisely on shiny, new packaging? (Docker is the vendor that two years ago found a way to containerise applications: other types of containers, operating system containers, have been around for a couple of decades)
It is not all about the packaging, of course. Perhaps we should say that it is more about on what the package is placed, and how it is managed (amongst other things) that matters most?
Regardless, containers are one part of a changing cloud, data centre and enterprise IT landscape, the ‘cloud native’ movement widely seen as driving a significant shift in enterprise infrastructure and application development.
What the industry is trying to figure out, and what could prove the most disruptive angle to watch as more and more enterprises roll out containers into production, is the developing competition within this whole container/cloud/data centre market.
The question of competition is a very hot topic in the container, devops and cloud space. Nobody could have thought the OCI co-operation between Docker and CoreOS meant they were suddenly BFFs. Indeed, the drive to become the enterprise container of choice now seems to be at the forefront of both companies’ plans. Is this, however, the most dynamic relationship in the space? What about the Google-Docker-Mesos orchestration game? It would seem that Google’s trusted container experience is already allowing it to gain favour with enterprises, with Kubernetes taking a lead. And with CoreOS in bed with Google’s open source Kubernetes, placing it at the heart of Tectonic, does this mean that CoreOS has a stronger play in the enterprise market to Docker? We will wait and see…
We will also wait and see how the Big Cloud Three will come out of the expected container-driven market shift. Somebody described AWS as ‘a BT’ to me…that is, the incumbent who will be affected most by the new disruptive changes brought by containers, since it makes a lot of money from an older model of infrastructure….
Microsoft’s container ambition is also being watched closely. There is a lot of interest from both the development and IT Ops communities in their play in the emerging ecosystem. At a recent meet-up, an Azure evangelist had to field a number of deeply technical questions regarding exactly how Microsoft’s containers fair next to Linux’s. The question is whether, when assessing who will win the largest piece of the enterprise pie, this will prove the crux of the matter?
Containers are not merely changing the enterprise cloud game (with third place Google seemingly getting it very right) but also driving the IT Ops’ DevOps dream to reality; in fact, many are predicting that it could eventually prove a bit of a threat to Chef and Puppet’s future….
So, maybe kids at Christmas have got it right….it is all about the wrapping and boxes! We’ll have to wait a little longer than Christmas Day to find out.
Written by Lucy Ashton, Head of Content & Production, Container World
Going 100% SaaS By @YuviKochar | @CloudExpo #Cloud
I was first introduced to SaaS (then ASP) in January 2000 when I joined Brassring, a rollup of 9 small companies in the Recruitment space, as its first CTO. Our flagship product, HireSystems, was the leading Applicant Tracking System delivered as a service to our large enterprise customers. Within a few months of joining Brassring, I realized that this was the how Enterprise technology will be delivered in the future. Ever since, I have continued to be a very strong proponent of SaaS.
Google upgrades Cloud SQL, promises managed MySQL offerings
Google has announced the beta availability of a new improved Cloud SQL for Google Cloud Platform – and an alpha version of its much anticipated Content Delivery Network offering.
In a blog post Brett Hesterberg, Product Manager for Google’s Cloud Platform, says the second generation of Cloud SQL will aim to give better performance and more ‘scalability per dollar’.
In Google’s internal testing, the second generation Cloud SQL proved seven times faster than the first generation and it now scales to 10TB of data, 15,000 IOPS and 104GB of RAM per instance, Hesterberg said.
The upshot is that transactional databases now have a flexibility that was unachievable with traditional relational databases. “With Cloud SQL we’ve changed that,” Hesterberg said. “Flexibility means easily scaling a database up and down.”
Databases can now ramp up and down in size and the number of queries per day. The allocation of resources like CPU cores and RAM can be more skilfully adapted with Cloud SQL, using a variety of tools such as MySQL Workbench, Toad and the MySQL command-line. Another promised improvement is that any client can be used for access, including Compute Engine, Managed VMs, Container Engine and workstations.
In the new cloud environment databases need to be easier to stop and restart if they are only used on occasion for brief or infrequent tasks, according to Hesterberg. Cloud SQL now caters for these increasingly common cloud applications of database technology through the Cloud Console, the command line within Google’s gCloud SDK or a RESTful API. This makes admin a scriptable job and minimises costs by only running the databases when necessary.
Cloud SQL will create more manageable MySQL databases, claims Hesterberg, since Google will apply patches and updates to MySQL, manage backups, configure replication and provide automatic failover for High Availability (HA) in the event of a zone outage. “It means you get Google’s operational expertise for your MySQL database,” says Hesterberg. Subscribers signed up for Google Cloud Platform can now get a $300 credit to test drive Cloud SQL, it announced.
Meanwhile in another Google blog, it announced an alpha release of its own content delivery network, Google Cloud CDN. The system may not be consistent and is not recommended for production use, Google warned.
Google Cloud CDN will speed up its cloud services using distributed edge caches to bring content closer to users in a bid to compensate for its relatively low global data centre coverage against rivals AWS and Azure.
Tech News Recap for the Week of 12/7/2015
Were you busy this week? Here’s a quick Tech News Recap of articles you may have missed!
Tech News Recap
Google says that its quantum computer is over 100 million times faster than a regular computer chip. Learn how Goldman Sachs and Bank of America are using cloud and containers successfully. Get a list of the top gifts and gadgets for under $100 as we head into the holidays. Microsoft now wants to train people to use Linux…and more articles from this week!
- Google says its quantum computer is more than 100 million times faster than a regular computer chip
- Apple’s best apps of 2015
- Why Microsoft will beat Google in the enterprise cloud war
- How Goldman Sachs and Bank of America use the cloud and containers
- 2015 holiday guide: Gifts and gadgets for under $100
- Survey: Public Cloud Metrics Are Still Too…Cloudy
- Microsoft wants to train you to use rival operating system, Linux
- DataGravity CEO Paula Long dicusses data-aware storage
- 10 hottest tech skills for 2016
- Enforced security and compliance with Cloud Identity Management
- Microsoft Researchers Make 2016 Tech Predictions
- Walmart will launch its own mobile payments service
- Yahoo Scraps Plan To Spin Off Alibaba Stake, But Will Split Into Two
- 2016 will be a big year for health IT
- The Employee Password Habits That Could Hurt Enterprises
[Download Whitepaper: 10 Things to Know About Docker]
By Ben Stephenson, Emerging Media Specialist
Adobe posts 22% Q4 revenue growth, driven by Creative Cloud
Adobe Systems has claimed it is only just starting to gain from cloud adoption, after reporting record earnings.
Strong growth in subscriptions to Adobe Systems’ Creative Cloud has contributed to the ninth consecutive quarter in which the software vendor topped market expectations, as it reported revenue of $1.31b in Q4 of the fiscal year ending in November 2015. Of this, revenue from its digital media business, including Creative Cloud, rose by 35% to $875.3 million.
The vendor added 833,000 new subscribers to the Creative Cloud in the three months ending in November, some 150,000 more than market analysts expected. Meanwhile, Adobe Marketing Cloud brought in $352 million in revenue thanks to an unexpectedly strong adoption of its software as a service (SaaS) offerings.
Adobe’s strong growth from Creative Cloud has come as enterprises and professionals have adopted the new model of purchasing apps like graphic design tool Photoshop, web design software Dreamweaver and web video building application Flash. According to Adobe 52% of its customers subscribe to the full Creative Cloud bundle, with the remaining 48% subscribing to individual products within the portfolio.
Adobe Systems’ Photoshop Lightroom is now the fastest growing app in its Creative Cloud, CFO Mark Garrett told Reuters. “It’s growing the most because it’s attracting hobbyists and consumers,” he said. Since these were people that would never buy Adobe’s products before, the Creative Cloud and the switch from traditional licensing to web based subscription has expanded its market, Garrett said. “Our financials show that the benefits of our move to the cloud are just beginning.”
Adobe’s digital marketing business, which makes software that analyses customer interactions and manages social media content, grew by just 2.3% in comparison, to $382.7 million.
The company’s shares jumped 4.7% to $93.10 following the release of its latest trading figures.
SnapLogic raises $37.5m in venture capital for cloud integration innovation
One of the first cloud computing start ups has re-launched with a completely new offering, after industry evolution jinxed its first ground breaking invention.
SnapLogic has announced the receipt of $37.5 million in venture funding for a second major launch. The money was released from a Series E round of funding from backers including Microsoft and Silver Lake Waterman. The new incarnation of SnapLogic will concentrate on making technology that simplifies the process of shifting data between major platforms. It creates software that acts as a control plane which runs in the cloud and another set of software which acts as a data plane which can run anywhere.
This, according to SnapLogic, makes it easier for customers to shift data from, say, Salesforce’s customer relationship management apps into Workday. Another application would be in the emerging Internet of Things sector, where SnapLogic software makes it easier for data gathered from industrial sensors to be flowed into Hadoop data lakes. SnapLogic can be accessed on the cloud via a browser and can support hundreds of simultaneous users at a site.
SnapLogic is one of the few start ups to survive having the rug pulled from it by a major shift in demand, according to CEO Gaurav Dhillon, who launched the company on its search for capital. When it received its first round of investment, led by venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz in 2009, it offered customers “snaps” to connect cloud applications with on-premise applications, allowing them to shift data between the two. However, a combination of the increasing popularity of hybrid cloud alternatives, and SnapLogic’s proprietary nature, gradually undermined the popularity of this solution.
SnapLogic didn’t work in “pure cloud fashion,” Dhillon told the The Wall Street Journal, since every customer needed to create its own SnapLogic software, running on its own premises, to connect to its cloud apps.
Despite being abandoned by some of the original backers, SnapDragon has made a transition to create a new set of cloud system integration problems. Other contributors to the new round of funding include Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners and Triangle Peak Partners. SnapLogic has now raised nearly $90 million in five rounds of funding.
IBM Acquires Clearleap
On Tuesday, December 8th, IBM announced its acquisition of Clearleap, Inc., a cloud based video service provider.
Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president of IBM Cloud “Clearleap joins IBM at a tipping point in the industry when visual information and visual communication are not just important to consumers, but are exploding across every industry. This comes together for a client when any content can be delivered quickly and economically to any device in the most natural way.”
Clearleap has gained the attention of prominent brands within the media and entertainment industry, such as HBO, BBC, and the NFL. The Clearleap video platform works to provide customers from around the world with a scalable, secure and open cloud-based solution in video asset management and multi-screen video processing.
Clearleap comes with open API framework which allows business to make their videos into applications. This open framework gives users access to third-party applications.
Clearleap video services provides 24/7 assistance and technical support. IBM intends to offer the Clearleap API’s on its Bluemix. This will aid in the efficiency of the video offering process.
Clearleap, centered in Georgia, has numerous centers around the world in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
The price for which IBM purchased Clearleap was not disclosed.
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