Unicorn is a term in the investment industry, and in particular the venture capital industry, which denotes a start-up company whose valuation has exceeded (the somewhat arbitrary) $1 billion. The term has been popularized by Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures. Fortune magazine counted over 80 unicorns as of January 2015. Now its most likely past 100. But their journey lately has been bumpy.
There are signs of cooling the “lofty valuations” of these unicorns. Fidelity wrote down Dropbox by 20%; Snapchat by 25%; and Zenefits and MongoDB by around 50% each. Zenefits had raised money at a $4.5B valuation in May. The reason for the markdown is the slow growth in meeting their targets. Square which had its IPO earlier in November, was valued at $4 billion, about a third less than in its most recent private round. Several others besides Square have faced “markdowns”: Pure Storage, Box, GoPro, News Relic, Hottonworks, etc.
Parallels Access on the iPad Pro
Parallels received its first iPad Pro the other day, and I was able to use it for a few days. Man that screen is big! The first thing I did was to install Parallels Access (version 3.0.2) from the iTunes App Store, and check out how well it works. I tested Mac apps, Windows apps, the […]
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How to Access Your VM Files Without Starting Parallels Desktop
Guest blog by Manoj Raghu, Parallels Support Team “Hold on, John,”—Or How to Save Time While Accessing Your Virtual Machine Files without Starting Parallels Desktop Let’s picture a situation when you are on a call with a client and need to send that file right away, but then you realize you saved it in your […]
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Security and Compliance vs. DevOps | @DevOpsSummit #DevOps #IoT #Microservices
This morning on #c9d9 we spoke with two industry veterans and published authors – James DeLuccia and Jonathan McAllister – on how to bake-in security and compliance into your DevOps processes, and how DevOps and automation can essentially help you pass your next audit.
Why security will make small businesses move to the cloud in 2016
(c)iStock.com/eric1513
It has long been said that security concerns are what drives small businesses away from putting their data in the cloud. Yet according to Oscar Arean, technical operations manager at disaster recovery provider Databarracks, 2016 will see more small to medium firms move towards cloud services as managing security in-house becomes an increasing headache.
In particular, Arean argues the need for small businesses to move to Office 365 – almost by default – because of its simplicity. “Every year, more businesses reach the end of life of their onsite hardware and are faced with the choice of on-premise or move to the cloud,” he explains. “Office 365 will be the default for most small businesses because it’s so simple to use.”
He adds: “You don’t need particularly advanced IT skills to set it up and in many ways it takes the headache out of security because you know Microsoft has a vested interest in protecting your data. The damage to their reputation would be huge if they were to suffer a breach.”
A recent survey from Clutch found that almost half of small businesses in the US do not use cloud storage. Analyst Sarah Patrick, writing for this publication, argued that while “for small business protecting data is often a secondary concern to accomplishing the primary business goal”, cloud storage services provide a high level of security. “For a cloud storage provider, keeping data secure is what they do,” she noted.
Mark van der Linden, UK country manager at Dropbox, wrote for this publication back in July that ‘adoption is key to security.’ “For businesses, the real threat to security is not the cloud itself, but shadow IT,” he explains. “It is time CIOs put adoption at the heart of their IT strategies. By employing user-friendly solutions, adoption rates are higher and the risk of data being held outside official platforms is significantly reduced. IT departments put themselves back in control.”
Arean argues: “Services like Office 365 can obviously never be 100% secure, but you can be safe in the knowledge that they will have a team of skilled security specialists working to eliminate threats – which is much more time and resources than most SMEs can afford to devote to security.”
Yet he admits it is still ‘scary’ for small businesses to migrate their operations into the major cloud vendors. “Even with public cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, AWS or Google, which make the process much simpler, there is still work to be done in making cloud services more accessible and more intuitive for first time users,” Arean explains. “It very much still requires a ‘hold your hand’ approach to set it up which needs to be simplified in order to facilitate more widespread adoption.”
One option, as Arean notes, is to use a managed services provider, but others insist the hypervendors are not the best solution for small businesses. Mashukul Hoque, managing director of Manchester-based Datacentreplus, told this publication: “These vendors’ primary motivation for developing UK data centres is compliance-related so they can attract public sector and other very large customers who will not consent to data being stored overseas.
“Secondly, other than for the very large customer, their offerings are very much a ‘one size fits all’ that is good for a particular type of customer but unsuitable for many others,” Hoque added, citing colocation as a key differentiator.
UK Competition and Markets Authority to launch legal probe into cloud storage
The UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) is to launch a review of how the cloud storage sector may be affected by consumer law, in the wake of rising concerns about pricing and services charges.
With an estimated 40% of consumers now using cloud storage to store music, images and documents, according to the CMA, compliance with consumer law is increasingly critical. The CMA says that it is taking action as reports emerge of possible breaches of consumer law through rogue practices and terms.
In one case consumers were hit with surprise price increases and reductions to their ‘unlimited’ storage capacity deals after contracts had been agreed. The CMA is also concerned about incidents of loss and deletion of some consumers’ data.
The CMA’s review is to investigate how widespread these practices are, whether they breach consumer law and how they are affecting consumers. The process, which begins on December 1st, is open for responses until 15 January 2016. The CMA says it wants to hear from businesses about their practices and from consumers and industry experts about their experiences.
“We want to assess whether companies understand and comply with consumer law and whether cloud storage services are working well for consumers as a result,” said Nisha Arora, CMA Senior Director.
If the review finds breaches of consumer protection laws it will take action to address these, it says. This could include enforcement action using the CMA’s own consumer law powers, namely Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 relating to unfair terms and for contracts entered into before 1 October 2015 the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. It can also invoke the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs). Alternatively, it may seek voluntary change from the sector or provide guidance to business or consumers.
The CMA has a general review function under section 5 of the Enterprise Act 2002. Information gathered can help the CMA to determine whether further action is warranted. However the CMA says it has not taken any decisions about what it might do once this review is completed.
Prioritizing Web Performance | @Catchpoint @CloudExpo #WebPerf #DevOps
The annual holiday shopping season, which started on Thanksgiving weekend and runs through the end of December, is undoubtedly the most crucial time of the year for many eCommerce websites, with sales from this period having a dramatic effect on the year-end bottom line.
Web performance – or, the overall speed and availability of a website or mobile site – is an issue year-round, but it takes on increased importance during the holidays. Ironically, it is at this time of year that networks and infrastructure come under the most strain from traffic and are more vulnerable than ever to performance degradations. Yet busy, hurried holiday shoppers expect better performance than ever, and the stakes for lost conversions are frighteningly high. When customers encounter long load times, they’re likely to abandon their current shopping destination and move on to a competitor’s site that is performing better, sending potential revenue out the door. What’s worse, studies have shown that if a site freezes or crashes, is too slow, or involves an overly complicated checkout process, 75 percent of shoppers will no longer buy from that site.
Cyber Insurance: No Longer a Want, But a Need | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Cyber insurance is an important element for companies as it covers the damage and liability caused by a hack, which are usually excluded from traditional liability coverage. Stricter data privacy notification laws, government incentives, cloud adoption and the increase in high-profile hacks and data breaches have all contributed to the significant increase in the number of companies offering and buying cyber insurance. However, companies need to make sure they have the best technology in place to protect their information, before implementing a cyber insurance policy.
BT offers customers direct connection to HPE’s Helion managed cloud
BT is to give its IP VPN customers direct connections to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) Helion Managed Cloud Services.
BT’s service currently uses HPE’s Rapid Connect to bypass the public internet when it connects to HPE Helion Managed Cloud Services. Now the new direct connectivity gives BT customers access to HPE’s portfolio of services when they need to build and consume computing workloads. It gives BT customers more reliable and secure access, better performance and lower latency, according to Keith Langridge, VP of the Connect Portfolio at BT Global Services.
It also simplifies the process of using cloud services, when a lot of companies are coming to terms with a mixture of private public and hybrid clouds, said Langridge. “We have already optimised our network to help customers take advantage of multiple cloud services through our Cloud Connect portfolio of services,” said Landgridge. “By adding direct connectivity to HPE Helion through BT’s global network, customers will benefit from a solution that is consistent, secure and reliable, wherever they operate.”
BT’s direct connectivity to HPE Helion Managed Cloud Services via Rapid Connect is already available in Germany, France and the UK. This will be followed by additional connections at key business hubs around the world. The services are managed by customers through a single service catalogue using BT’s Compute Management System.
Customers want high performance from the cloud, but there is an evolving regulatory and threat landscape, said Eugene O’Callaghan, VP of Enterprise Services Workload and Cloud at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “Our partnership to deliver these services with BT will bring a whole new level of confidence to global organisations,” said O’Callaghan.
Microsoft launches PowerApps for programming in the cloud
Microsoft has unveiled a new DIY programming system called PowerApps and new features for Office 365 and Dynamics CRM 2016 at its annual Convergence EMEA conference in Barcelona.
The new features in Microsoft Office 365, include meetings and voice services in Skype for Business while there’s a new customer engagement option in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016. Meanwhile Microsoft PowerApps is a new enterprise service that helps employees to create apps and share them with co-workers.
Office 365 now has options for a Skype Meeting Broadcast, Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) Conferencing, PSTN Calling and Cloud Private Branch Exchange. In addition Office 365 customers now have one platform for calling, conferencing, video and sharing, Microsoft claims.
There are new analytics and data visualization tools in the cloud package too. Delve Analytics promises interactive dashboards that tell users who they are spending their time with and how. This, says Microsoft, will help employees to prioritise better. The cloud package will have greater levels of security and compliance, it claims, through a new Customer Lockbox feature which allows each user to set access control limits. A new eDiscovery option makes it easier to manage large quantities of data and find information.
These new features, along with new Power BI (business intelligence) and Advanced Threat Protection are available in a new premium enterprise suite, Office 365 E5.
Meanwhile the new Dynamics CRM 2016, Microsoft promises, will be a more intelligent, mobile and productive system, thanks to new data and intelligence components. Among the features is a new ‘intelligent product recommendations’ mode for sales reps to personalize up-selling.
Dynamics CRM 2016 can also simplify everyday jobs, like meeting follow-ups.
On that same theme PowerApps is a system for creating apps for everything from a simple survey to something more ambitious and mission critical, according to Microsoft. These can connect to line-of-business systems and cloud services and run on any device. They can be used by everyone from employees through IT staff to Professional developers.