I recently spent the weekend up in the lakes region of New Hampshire, and made the rounds of all the various country stores and craft shops that are a staple of the area. In one shop, I noticed something I hadn’t seen in a long time: a large set of Russian nesting dolls. The quality, craftsmanship, and level of detail were impressive. As I removed the cover on the first intricately painted doll, nestled inside was the next, slightly smaller one, a duplicate of the outer doll, with all of the same detail on a slightly smaller scale. As I continued opening each successive doll, revealing the next smaller duplicate, I started looking for discrepancies, loss of detail in the duplication as I dove recursively into smaller and smaller dolls. The quality and attention to detail, even at the smallest level, remained for each of the dolls. Each doll was a representation of information, just on different levels and scales.
Driving IoT from Hype to Reality | @ThingsExpo @PubNub #IoT #M2M #API
The Internet of Everything is re-shaping technology trends–moving away from “request/response” architecture to an “always-on” Streaming Web where data is in constant motion and secure, reliable communication is an absolute necessity. As more and more THINGS go online, the challenges that developers will need to address will only increase exponentially.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Todd Greene, Founder & CEO of PubNub, exploreed the current state of IoT connectivity and review key trends and technology requirements that will drive the Internet of Things from hype to reality.
The IoT Is Getting Agile By @Flint_Brenton | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #API
Every day, every hour, every minute, devices are becoming connected. The Internet of Things (or Iot) has gone from a buzzword floating through the echoes of Silicon Valley to a tangible and quickly advancing movement in the world of hardware. But, like a stone tossed into a pond, the effects of the Internet of Things are quickly rippling outward, causing immense changes to the environment surrounding it. And, as it turns out, the IoT is a rather big stone and it’s making a large splash. The IoT revolution is necessitating enormous changes to companies who want to play in this brave new world – and those companies are not few in number.
IoT in the Enterprise One Year Later | @ThingsExpo @Citrix #IoT #M2M #API
I recently attended and was a speaker at the 4th International Internet of @ThingsExpo at the Santa Clara Convention Center. I also had the opportunity to attend this event last year and I wrote a blog from that show talking about how the “Enterprise Impact of IoT” was a key theme of last year’s show. I was curious to see if the same theme would still resonate 365 days later and what, if any, changes I would see in the content presented.
Taking Cloud Databases to the Edge By @IBMCloudant | @ThingsExpo #IoT
Apps and devices shouldn’t stop working when there’s limited or no network connectivity. Learn how to bring data stored in a cloud database to the edge of the network (and back again) whenever an Internet connection is available.
In his session at 17th Cloud Expo, Ben Perlmutter, a Sales Engineer with IBM Cloudant, demonstrated techniques for replicating cloud databases with devices in order to build offline-first mobile or Internet of Things (IoT) apps that can provide a better, faster user experience, both offline and online. The focus of this talk was on IBM Cloudant, Apache CouchDB, and related open source tools and open standards.
Google launches virtual machine customisation facility
Google has announced a new more fitting way of buying virtual machines (VMs) in the cloud. It claims the extra attention to detail will stamp out forced over purchasing and save customers money.
With the newly launched beta of Custom Machine Types for Google’s Compute Engine, Google promised that it will bring an end to the days when “major cloud buyers force you to overbuy”. Google has promised that under its new system users can buy the exact amount of processing power and memory that they need for their VM.
The new system, explained in a Google blog, aims to improve the experience for customers when buying a new virtual machine in the cloud. Google says it wants to replace the old system, where users have to choose from a menu of pre-configured CPU and RAM options on machines that are never quite adjusted right to fit the user. Since VMs usually come in multiples of two, Google explained, customers frequently have to buy eight CPUs, even when they only need six.
The Custom Machine Types system will let users buy virtual CPU (vCPU) and RAM in smaller units (Gigibytes rather than Gigabytes) and give customer more options to adjust the number of cores and memory as needed. If a customer’s bottom line expands, the cloud can be ‘let out’ accordingly. In another tailoring option, Google has introduced smaller units of charging (with per-minute billing) in a bid to create more accurate metering of the customer’s consumption of resources.
In the US every vCPU hour will cost $0.03492 and every GiB of RAM will cost $0.00468 per hour. The price for Europe and Asia, however, is a slightly higher rate $0.03841 per vCPU hour. Rates will decrease on bulk purchasing however.
Support is available in Google’s command line tools and through its application programming interface (API) and Google says it will create a special graphical interface for its virtual machine shop in its Developer Console. Developers can specify their choice of operating system for their tailored VM, with the current options being CentOS, CoreOS, Debian, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Google organisation, it is working with content deliverer Akamai Technologies to reduce hosting and egress costs and improve performance for Akamai customers taking advantage of Google Cloud Platform.
Microsoft moves Dynamics AX into the cloud
Microsoft says the latest incarnation of Dynamics AX will mark its transformation from a packaged application to a cloud service.
On Thursday the vendor announced the latest release of its flagship enterprise resource planning (ERP) system will be generally available in the first quarter of 2016. The main difference, it said, is that the ERP is now a service designed for the cloud.
A public preview of the new solution for customers and partners will be available in early December. The new name of the release, Microsoft Dynamics AX, reflects a departure from branding that reflected the year or the version of the product, a characteristic of software packages, it said. From now on the branding will underscore that Dynamics AX is a cloud-based service that will be regularly updated, it said.
Microsoft said it will also implement a new, simple and more transparent subscription pricing model to make it easier for companies to buy the system as they need it. Dynamics AX will offer a new user experience that looks and works like Microsoft Office and shares information between Dynamics AX, Dynamics CRM and Office 365, according to the vendor. It will also combine near-real-time analytics powered by Azure Machine Learning with the ability to visualise data through Power BI embedded in the application, in order to give users more predictive powers.
In response to usability analysis, Dynamics AX will have a browser-based HTML5 client and a new touch-enabled, modern user interface. Now that it’s a cloud system it will adopt the principles of highly visual applications more akin to consumer applications, according to Microsoft.
The classic rigidity of ERP systems has been replaced, according to Scott Guthrie, Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise’s executive VP. “Our ambition to build the intelligent cloud comes to life with apps optimised for modern business. When you combine the hyperscale, enterprise-grade and hybrid-cloud capabilities of Microsoft Azure with the real-time insights and intuitive user experience of Dynamics AX, organisations and individuals are empowered to transform their business operations,” said Guthrie.
WANdisco’s new Fusion system aims to take the fear out of cloud migration
Software vendor WANdisco has announced six new products to make cloud migration easier and less dangerous as companies plan to move away from DIY computing.
The vendor claims its latest Fusion system aims to create a safety net of continuous availability and streaming back-up. Building on that, the platform offers uninterrupted migration and gives hybrid cloud systems the capacity to expand across both private public clouds if necessary. These four fundamental conditions are built on seven new software plug-ins designed to make the transition from production systems into live cloud systems smoother, says DevOps specialist WANdisco.
The backbone of Fusion is WANdisco’s replication technology, which ensures that all servers and clusters are fully readable and writeable, always in sync and can recover automatically from each other after planned or unplanned downtime.
The plug-ins that address continuous availability, data consistency and disaster recovery are named as Active-Active Disaster Recovery, Active-Active Hive and Active-Active Hbase. The first guarantees data consistency with failover and automated recovery over any network. It also prevents Hadoop cluster downtime and data loss. The second regulates consistent query results across all clusters and locations. The third, Hbase, aims to create continuously availability and consistency across all locations.
Three further plug ins address the threat of heightened exposure that is created when companies move their system from behind a company firewall and onto a public cloud. These plug-ins are named as Active Back-up, Active Migration and Hybrid Cloud. To supplement these offerings WANdisco has also introduced the Fusion Software Development Kit (SDK) so that enterprise IT departments can programme their own modifications.
“Ease of use isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about Big Data, so WANdisco Fusion sets out to simplify the Hadoop crossing,” said WANdisco CEO David Richards.
Hybrid IT Governance: Automation Is Key By @Kevin_Jackson | @CloudExpo #Cloud
As cloud computing continues to grow in importance, enterprises are now facing a new realization. In their almost rampant embrace of cost savings associated with public cloud, many are just now understanding the information technology governance challenge posed by vastly different traditional and cloud computing operational models. Often referred to as hybrid IT, supporting both models has left many executives trying to cope with a lack of hybrid IT operational experience. Challenges can also include security concerns, financial management changes and even dramatic cultural changes.
This myriad of challenges translate into enterprise risk across multiple levels, namely:
How data centre investments are transforming IT industry – and why it won’t slow down
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As global spend on cloud infrastructure continues to rocket, leading cloud providers have to up their game and invest billions of dollars in expanding their network of hyperscale data centres.
That’s according to the latest data released by Synergy Research. The company notes the top four cloud providers – Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, and IBM – have approximately 110 data centres located in 20 different countries.
More than $25 billion has been spent in recent merger and acquisitions related to data centres, Synergy argues, with Equinix, Digital Realty, NTT and IBM at the head of operations. IBM’s $2bn acquisition of SoftLayer in 2013, while NTT’s spree of acquisitions over the past five years includes Dimension Data ($3.2bn), Raging Wire ($0.4bn) and e-shelter ($0.5bn). Digital Realty has over the past five years bought 365 Main ($0.7bn), Sentrum ($1.1bn) and Telx ($1.9bn), while Equinix purchases Switch and Data in 2010 ($0.7bn) and is pending completion of buying TelecityGroup for $3.4bn.
This overall trend relates to a huge impact over how companies support their IT needs. As previous Synergy reports have explored, the four leading cloud infrastructure service providers are growing at rates far in excess of the market. Similarly, as service provider data centre spend continues to go up, outlay on enterprise data centre equipment remains static.
“This is a time of unprecedented change in the IT industry,” explained John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director at Synergy Research. “End users are getting access to flexible and agile IT services that they could only dream about a few years ago and CIOs are pulling back from buying and managing their own data centres.
“It’s all change,” he added. “Companies like AWS and Microsoft are now major players in enterprise IT; IBM is totally reinventing itself; companies like Equinix and NTT are amassing huge data centre footprints, while HP and Cisco are aggressively growing their cloud technology business units.
“We do not expect the rate of change to lessen over the coming years.”