BT, Cloud Connect, News & Analysis, Riverbed, SteelHead, Telco Cloud

Riverbed says it’ll make apps respond faster on BT’s cloud of clouds

BT cloud of cloudsBT is to use Riverbed’s SteelHead application accelerator in its global telecoms network to bolster its cloud of clouds strategy.

BT and Riverbed will embed the service at global business hubs in Europe, North America and Asia. Installations are to be made at any location where BT has direct links to major cloud providers and high-capacity internet breakout. The service will be globally available from early 2016 and accessible through BT’s IP Connect VPN from 198 countries and territories.

Steelhead is designed to boost application performance and optimise bandwidth use. As a result customers should get faster responses from BT’s own cloud services and other vendors’ Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings. This partnership is the first time Riverbed technology has been installed into the core of a global telecoms network.

App acceleration and bandwidth efficiencies aside, customers using the new service will have greater control over their applications, a more commanding view of performance across the network and significantly more reliability and security from applications delivered over the internet, says BT.

The new service uses network function virtualisation (NFV) to help customers get a broader range of virtualised functions, such as application performance management and fast access to private and public clouds.

The inclusion of Riverbed helps BT tackle the performance and reliability of applications in the cloud, which have become a big issue for clients, according to Keith Langridge, VP of network services at BT Global Services. “This joint offering with Riverbed is a milestone on the journey to software-defined networks and creates an additional differentiator against our competitors,” said Langridge.

CIOs want the benefits of a hybrid enterprise without the challenges of application delivery that this complex environment creates, according to Paul O’Farrell, General Manager for SteelHead at Riverbed. “Riverbed invented WAN optimization in 2004 with SteelHead and now it’s the leader in application performance infrastructure,” said O’Farrell, “we’re offering an easier on-ramp to cloud computing with BT’s Cloud Connect service.”

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Invaluable Lessons from @CloudExpo | @IanKhanLive #Cloud #IoT #BigData

Just over a week ago I received a long and loud sustained applause for a presentation I delivered at this year’s Cloud Expo in Santa Clara. I was extremely pleased with the turnout and had some very good conversations with many of the attendees. Over the next few days I had many more meaningful conversations and was not only happy with the results but also learned a few new things. Here is everything I learned in those three days distilled into three short points.

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Help Desk, IT Management, Managed services

Webinar Reminder: IT Help Desk for the Holidays

As a reminder, we’ll be hosting a webinar tomorrow morning at 11:00am ET! Jay Keating and Geoff Smith will be hosting a discussion on modern IT Help Desk approaches and how cloud platforms and a tech-savvy workforce have fundamentally changed the support game. Learn why your IT Help Desk can’t be an afterthought, and why it needs to be scientific and handled by professionals. Finally, discover how easy it is to leverage IT Help Desk services and why it’s the best present you can give this holiday season to your organization…and yourself.

Topics will include:

  • Market trends in Help Desk: Modern vs. Old School
  • Considerations for building your own IT Help Desk
  • How to significantly reduce ticket resolution time down to minutes.
  • Tailoring Help Desk to unique business needs and IT environments
  • How to support complex devices that require different authentication methods
  • Handling distributed appliances in private data centers needing VDI connections

 

Register now!

 

About Jay Keating, VP of Managed Services – Jay has 21 years of IT experience, with the past 16 years focused on Managed Services, and is currently responsible for GreenPages’ Managed Services organization. He has a strong data center and infrastructure operations background with substantial experience managing and optimizing 24×7 delivery organizations to execute with quality.

About Geoff Smith, Director, New Business Development, Managed Services – Geoff has more than 25 years of experience working in all verticals and markets, from the SMB to the enterprise, focusing on the application of IT solutions that enable businesses to achieve their goals. As a Director of New Business Development, Geoff is focused on the development of co-sourced and federated infrastructure operations, help desk, and cloud service frameworks designed to optimize IT operations and drive economic value to the business

 

 

Clearleap, Enterprise IT, IBM, News & Analysis, Video

IBM acquires Clearleap’s cloud based video

IBM Bluemix CloudIBM says it has acquired cloud based video service provider Clearleap in a bid to make video a strategic source of data on any device at any time.

Clearleap’s video services will be offered through IBM Cloud data centres around the world, which will give clients global 24×7 service and technical support for problem identification and resolution. Clients using the service can now share data and content across geographies and hybrid clouds. IBM will offer the Clearleap APIs on IBM Bluemix in 2016 so clients can build new video offerings quickly and easily.

IBM says Clearleap’s open API framework makes it easy to build video into applications and adapt it to specific business needs like custom workflows and advanced analytics. The framework also means that it works with many third-party applications that customers may already have.

In addition, the Clearleap platform includes subscription and monetization services and data centres from which to host digital video assets. This means IBM customers pass the multi screen video experience on to their own clients.

Clearleap will be integrated into the IBM Cloud platform to make it easy for clients to make money from user video experiences. IBM says this is part of its broader strategy to help clients realise the value of video as it becomes increasingly important in business.

With businesses increasingly using video for CEO webcasts, conference keynotes, customer care and how-to videos, a secure, scalable and open cloud-based system for managing these services has become a priority, says IBM.

Clearleap’s ability to instantly ramp up capacity has won it clients such as HBO, A+E Networks, the NFL, BBC America, Sony Movie Channel, Time Warner Cable and Verizon Communications. Clearleap is headquartered in Atlanta and has data centres in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam.

“Clearleap joins IBM as visual communications are exploding across every industry,” said Robert LeBlanc, Senior VP of IBM Cloud, “clients want content delivered quickly and economically to any device in the most natural way.”

Meanwhile, in a move that will support the delivery of video services over the cloud, IBM announced a new system that lets developers create apps that tap into vast amounts of unstructured data.

IBM Object Storage, now available on Bluemix, promises simple and secure store and access

Functions. According to IBM 80% of the 2.5 billion gigabytes of data created every day is unstructured content – with most of it video.

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IBM announces Clearleap acquisition – will improve cloud users’ access to videos

(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/joel-t)

IBM has announced it has acquired Clearleap to improve cloud users’ access to videos, by integrating with Clearleap’s video library delivery platform.

The financial terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, but IBM has said that the seven-year old company based in Georgia will be integrated into its cloud platform. Clearleap’s platform securely delivers large video libraries to multi-screen devices and conventional televisions. With its integration into IBM’s cloud platform, enterprises will likely get a fast and easy way for growing, monetising and managing user video experiences.

The acquisition forms part of IBM’s largest strategy focused on video, which is growing in importance among businesses. Companies are increasingly looking at videos to connect with partners and customers by sharing training courses, how-to videos, customer care videos and webcasts.

The deal is a smart decision by IBM, according to Enderle Group analyst Rob Enderle. He said: “Video becomes a component of a complete cloud offering and without it, IBM would likely either be locked out of a lot of lucrative accounts or relegated to subcontractor status.”

“Video may not be a major cloud component, but it is a critical one that is necessary to their long-term strategy of becoming a complete cloud service provider at enterprise scale.”

IBM’s most recent video-based acquisition was that of Aspera in 2014. Aspera creates technology for faster large-data transfers in broadband. Another related acquisition in 2014 was Cleversafe, which builds unstructured data storage software and appliances. According to IBM, the Clearleap technology will be integrated with Cleversafe and Aspera technologies for its customers to better index, store, and retrieve video content on IBM Cloud.

Do you think Clearleap will make a valuable addition to IBM? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Better Data Analysis Leads to Greater Student Retention | @CloudExpo #BigData

Nottingham Trent University in England has devised and implemented an information-driven way to encourage higher student retention.
The next BriefingsDirect big-data case-study interview examines how Nottingham Trent University in England has devised and implemented an information-driven way to encourage higher student retention.
By gathering diverse data and information and making rapid analysis, Nottingham Trent is able to quickly identify those students having difficulties. They can thereby provide significant reductions in dropout rates while learning more about what works best to usher students into successful academic careers.

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Cumulocity Is IoT Ready | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #BigData #Microservices

The keywords for this IoT company are Connect, Manage, Extend and do more things. In order to have wide applicability you can connect anything over any network. Connect at Cumulocity has the following features: Connect out-of-the box to more than 30 usable certified devices (whole list is here, but I could only recognize, Raspberry and a Arduino variant). Looks like it is heavy on LINUX and JAVA-based but I may be missing the others)

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Cisco, Deutsche Telekom, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis

Deutsche Telekom launches pan-European public cloud on Cisco platform

T-Mobile Computing cloudDeutsche Telekom has announced the start of a new pan-European public cloud service aimed at businesses of all sizes. The debut offering will be DSI Intercloud, run by T-Systems, which will offer Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) to businesses across Europe. In the first half of 2016, software and platforms as a service deals (SaaS and PaaS) will be launched.

The service, built on a Cisco platform by T-Systems, the business division of Deutsche Telekom, will run from German data centres and be subject to Germany’s data sovereignty regulations.

The pay-as-you-go cloud services can be ordered through Telekom’s new cloud portal, with no minimum purchase requirements and contract periods. Prices start at €0.05 per hour for computing resources and storage at €0.02 per gigabyte. Deutsche Telekom said it hopes to create the foundation for a secure European Internet of Things with high availability and scalability for real time analytics.

Data security company Covata test piloted the platform and will be the first customer to use the DSI Intercloud infrastructure service. Another beta tester was communications company Unify, which used it to investigate the viability of open source cloud platforms running from German data centres.

The new DSI Intercloud marks the latest chapter in the Cisco Intercloud initiative. In June BCN reported how Cisco had bolstered the Intercloud, which it launched in 2014, with 35 partnerships as it aimed to simplify hybrid clouds. Cisco and Deutsche Telekom say they will focus on delivering high availability and scalability for real-time analytics at the edge of the networks, in order to cater for IoT experiences. Edge of networking big data analytics is to become a key a concept in the IoT, BCN reported in December. Last week Hewlett Packard enterprises (HPE) revealed how it is helping IoT system users to decentralised all their processing jobs and devolve decision making to local areas. The rationale is to keep masses of data off the networks and deal with it locally.

Deutsche Telekom said the Cisco partnership is an important building block in expanding its cloud business and aims to at least double its cloud revenue by the end of 2018. In fiscal year 2014, net sales of cloud solutions at T-Systems increased by double figures, mainly in secure private clouds.

Big Data, CloudForms, Datacentre, health, HPC, News & Analysis, Red Hat

Red Hat helps Medlab share supercomputer in the cloud

redhat office logoA cloud of bioinformatics intelligence has been harmonised by Red Hat to create ‘virtual supercomputers’ that can be shared by the eMedlab collective of research institutes.

The upshot is that researchers at institutes such as the Wellcome Trust Sanger, UCL and King’s College London can carry out much more powerful data analysis when researching cancers, cardio-vascular conditions and rare diseases.

Since 2014 hundreds of researchers across the eMedlab have been able to use a high performance computer (HPC) with 6,000 cores of processing power and 6 Petabytes of storage from their own locations. However, the cloud environment now collectively created by technology partners Red Hat, Lenovo, IBM and Mellanox, along with supercomputing integrator OCF, means none of the users have to shift their data to the computer. Each of the seven institutes can configure their share of the HPC according to their needs, by self-selecting the memory, processors and storage they’ll need.

The new HPC cloud environment uses a Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack platform with Lenovo Flex hardware to create virtual HPC clusters bespoke to each individual researchers’ requirements. The system was designed and configured by OCF, working with partners Red Hat, Lenovo, Mellanox and eMedlab’s research technologists.

With the HPC hosted at a shared data centre for education and research, the cloud configuration has made it possible to run a variety of research projects concurrently. The facility, aimed solely at the biomedical research sector, changes the way data sets are shared between leading scientific institutions internationally.

The eMedLab partnership was formed in 2014 with funding from the Medical Research Council. Original members University College London, Queen Mary University of London, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Francis Crick Institute, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute have been joined recently by King’s College London.

“Bioinformatics is a very, data-intensive discipline,” says Jacky Pallas, Director of Research Platforms at University College London. “We study a lot of de-identified, anonymous human data. It’s not practical for scientists to replicate the same datasets across their own, separate physical HPC resources, so we’re creating a single store for up to 6 Petabytes of data and a shared HPC environment within which researchers can build their own virtual clusters to support their work.”

In other news Red Hat has announced a new upgrade of CloudForms with better hybrid cloud management through more support for Microsoft Azure Support, advanced container management and improvements to its self-service features.

The cloud news categorized.