The Internet of Things is clearly many things: data collection and analytics, wearables, Smart Grids and Smart Cities, the Industrial Internet, and more. Cool platforms like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Intel’s Galileo and Edison, and a diverse world of sensors are making the IoT a great toy box for developers in all these areas.
In this Power Panel at @ThingsExpo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists discussed what things are the most important, which will have the most profound effect on the world, and what should we expect to see over the next couple of years.
Analysing the enterprise ‘multi-cloud’ market: IBM and Virtustream lead the way
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By Neil McAvoy, CEO, CloudBestPractices.net
Although the hybrid cloud concept has become the popularised idea of how the enterprise market will inch its way into adoption of cloud services, twinning their own internal private cloud with public resources, this will be a short term label soon replaced by ‘multi-cloud‘.
I agree with the general direction of travel; however, I feel we’ll soon see the hybrid cloud definition as somewhat inadequate, as we’re really dealing with a generalised evolution to a ‘multi-cloud’ environment, as Search Cloud computing similarly describes in their article on the same topic.
Enterprise data centre transformation: Harnessing an enterprise cloud marketplace
The shift to this trend will go hand in hand with an associated evolution of enterprise data centre practices, including one aspect of multi-cloud implementation – the enterprise cloud marketplace.
In this HP article they say the enterprise IT organisation should evolve to become a service broker, as a foundation for organisational change, while Gartner lays out a data centre transformation framework that encompasses aspects like hybrid cloud outsourcing.
The common themes are establishing more of a brokerage operation, as part of increasing maturity of procurement of cloud services.
As the organisations go beyond one-off, Internet-centric apps that Amazon is ideal for, into their broad portfolio of IT, they will increasingly look more for tools that aid in this portfolio analysis, planning and migration.
An ‘enterprise cloud marketplace’ is an ideal platform for this type of functionality. Vendors like Gravitant offers a suite of tools that manages the life-cycle of matching application design blueprints to possible cloud hosting options, conducting price comparisons and so forth. As part of illustrating this type of function they performed a test to determine the best enterprise cloud provider, with Virtustream and IBM leading the pack. A very interesting development then is that IBM has now acquired Gravitant.
Open standards SDDC
A second aspect of multi-cloud capabilities is best understood when we also consider it in union with another key ongoing trend, the data centre virtualisation spreading into the telco industry, headlining their drive towards SDN and NFV powered telco networks.
Pioneering telco providers like AT&T are transforming their core network systems to a Cloud-centric approach via their Domain 2.0 program, describing how it will enable IoT innovations.
The enterprise market will be able to harness and build upon this wave of innovation, applying the technologies within their data centres, as well as using new telco services that they enable. As SearchDataCenter describes NFV offers to unify the data centre.
Industry forum the TMF is pioneering the best practices that will enable other service providers to undertake this transformation, working with vendors via ‘catalyst projects’ such as this case study with Microsoft to define a combined multi-cloud SDN, who also offer the multi-cloud reference architecture.
Open standards like TOSCA from OASIS are key to this scenario, offering the cloud standards for matching blueprints to Cloud providers, and orchestrating the following provisioning of services.
Sadhav of IBM discusses his involvement with the standard, and how it might be applied with OpenStack, the open source cloud platform, is discussed in detail in this whitepaper, and In this video:
“OpenStack Heat is gaining momentum as a DevOps tool to orchestrate the creation of OpenStack cloud environments. Heat is based on a DSL describing simple orchestration of cloud objects, but lacks better representation of the middleware and the application components as well as more complex deployment and post-deployment orchestration workflows.
“The Heat community has started discussing a higher level DSL that will support not just infrastructure components. This session will present a further extended suggestion for a DSL based on the TOSCA specification, which covers broader aspects of an application behavior and deployment such as the installation, configuration management, continuous deployment, auto-healing and scaling.”
We’re additionally seeing how these same innovations can apply to the telco SDN scenario. For example, in this blog Cloudify describe how they implement TOSCA on their platform and can use this to also configure NFV services too.
DRaaS maturity
From an ROI and enterprise strategy point of view, the most interesting dynamic of Multi-Cloud capabilities is that they multiple benefits in different areas. One of the first is improved business continuity capacity.
This Redmond article describes how Microsoft is building Multi-Cloud orchestration into Windows Server, to offer DRaaS via Azure, and this presentation explains how DRaaS can be achieved using Openstack.
The post IBM and Virtustream lead Enterprise Multi-Cloud market appeared first on Cloud Best Practices.
Equinix cleared to buy Telecity but must sell London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt facilities
The European Commission has approved the proposed acquisition of data centre operator Telecity by rival Equinix. However, to assuage anti competition concerns, Equinix had to agree to sell off a number of data centres in Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt.
BCN reported in May that Equinix and TelecityGroup agreed to the $2.35bn takeover in which US-based Equinx would buy all issued Telecity shares. The acquisition gives Equinix a stronger presence in the UK and would extend its footprint into new locations with identified cloud and interconnection needs including Dublin, Helsinki, Istanbul, Milan, Stockholm and Warsaw. Equinix provides colocation services in 33 metropolitan areas worldwide. Telecity operates data centres in 12 metropolitan areas in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Turkey.
However, the activities of Equinix and Telecity overlap in the four EEA metro areas of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London and Paris.
In a statement issued by the EC Commissioner in charge of competition policy Margrethe Vestager said the growing economic importance of cloud services makes it crucial to maintain competition between data centres. However the deal does not necessarily stifle competition, Vestager said. “The Commission is satisfied that the commitments offered by Equinix will ensure that companies continue to have a choice for hosting their data at competitive prices,” said Vestager.
The Commission has concerns that the concentration of data centres controlled by one vendor could lead to higher prices of colocation services in the Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt metropolitan areas. The remaining competitors in these areas are unlikely to be able to match the competitive pressure currently exercised by Telecity, it had concluded, and new players would have faced significant difficulties to enter the market due to the high investment and deployment times needed.
To address the Commission’s concerns, Equinix submitted commitments, offering to divest a number of data centres in Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt.
What Type of Gamer Are You?
Are you secretly a Guardian of Light and the Traveler after work? Do you like to fight all the monsters, and run to pick up the next God of Diablo Vania game when it releases? Or do you schedule days off of work to hunker down and dig into the big Dragon Age game when […]
The post What Type of Gamer Are You? appeared first on Parallels Blog.
IHS forecast shows SDN deployments ramping up in 2015
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Software defined networking (SDN) will move from early adopters into the hands of mainstream buyers by 2017, according to the latest research note from IDS.
The findings, which appear in the latest IHS Infonetics Data Centre and Enterprise SDN Hardware and Software report, also show the market for ‘in use’ SDN Ethernet switches – ostensibly the real market for SDN, compared with the Ethernet switches that lie dormant – at $1.4 billion this year, nearly doubling from last year.
During the first half of 2015, bare metal switches comprised almost half (45%) of global in-use SDN-capable Ethernet switch revenue. Dell garners 100% of branded bare metal switch revenue, while HP has the largest share of SDN-capable – both in use and not in use – branded Ethernet switch ports.
Cliff Grossner, research director for data centre, cloud and SDN at IHS, notes the continued acceleration in the marketplace. “New SDN use cases continue to emerge, and the first half of 2015 was no exception with the establishment of the software defined enterprise WAN market,” he said. “The SD-WAN market is still small, but many startups and traditional WAN optimisation appliance vendors and network vendors have jumped in.”
SD-WAN is a natural progression from SDN, theoretically benefiting wide area networking as it allows businesses to mix and match their WAN network types, better utilising their network resources. As Cahit Akin, CEO of Mushroom Networks points out, VoIP packets can be sent with better quality and reliability by optimising the WAN network through software-configured algorithmic nodes to stop latency and jitter.
In June, IHS released a note which forecast the in use software defined networking market would hit $13bn by 2019, up from 2014’s figure of $781m.
Microsoft Plans to Expand into Germany with Help from T-Systems
Microsoft has recently paired with a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, T-Systems, in offering Azure cloud services to Germany. This announcement comes after news of major expansion into the United Kingdom. Two data centers will be located in Magdeburg and Frankfurt. They will start delivering Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics CRM Online to Germany during the second half of 2016.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has commented “Our new datacenter regions in Germany, operated in partnership with Deutsche Telekom, will not only spur local innovation and growth, but offer customers choice and trust in how their data is handled and where it is stored.” T –System will have control of customer access stored on cloud servers. In order for Microsoft to access information stored on the servers, it will have to obtain permission from either customers or T-Systems. Once permission is granted, T-Systems will supervise the activity. Alex Stüger, area vice president for Microsoft Germany, has stated that: “this will help us meet growing demand for Microsoft cloud services in Germany, and across Europe, by providing an innovative, scalable and consistent cloud computing platform combined with a German data trustee model.”
In addition to Stüger’s comments, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, Timotheus Höttges, has stated, “Microsoft is pioneering a new, unique solution for customers in Germany and Europe. Now, customers who want local control of their data combined with Microsoft’s cloud services have a new option, and I anticipate it will be rapidly adopted.”
The company is also investing in cloud security. The centers will contain features such as biometric scanning, smart cards and other physical access controls while data will be protected by cure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) encryption based on German certificates and multifactor authentication. To ensure data stays within Germany, a private network will be utilized to share data between regions. Doug Hauger, general manager of Microsoft National Cloud Programs has recently written in a blog post, “”These new regions will adhere to the same service and quality standards of all Microsoft Cloud regions. In addition, the services will feature the same industry-leading levels of security, privacy and control, compliance, and transparency that define the Microsoft trusted cloud. Microsoft is committed to innovating to meet the needs of its customers, and understands that customers and partners will only choose technology they trust.”
The post Microsoft Plans to Expand into Germany with Help from T-Systems appeared first on Cloud News Daily.
Millenials Impact on Business Technology
The Millennial Generation, aged 18 to 34 is having an increased impact on business technology. Born into the age of the PC and early internet this demographic is more proficient and demanding of apps, devices and IT services than earlier generations. In the past progressive IT organizations would consider this group as a category to accommodate, making the company appealing to college recruits and new hires. More recently however, this generation is now mainstream with increased influence driving IT strategy. They now include partners at large firms, doctors that never used paper charts and executives making purchase decisions.
Our cloud ambitious are frustrated by barriers, enterprises tell Hitachi
An overwhelming majority of enterprise decision makers want cloud services, but practically all of them are blocked from adopting it, according to new figures released by Hitachi Data System (HDS).
HDS recently announced the results of a study the IT growth issues in UK enterprises. In the research it surveyed 200 UK IT decision makers at companies with over 1000 employees in a bid to discover the issues that cause “innovation inertia”.
HDS reported that a large majority (81%) of IT leaders say their companies aren’t set up for the digital age. It also established two other pieces of evidence for a growing clamour for cloud services, with 75% of IT leaders complaining that they can’t make informed investment decisions and 90% of the study group confession that their organisation is at risk of being outpaced by digitally-born brands.
However, HDS has released statistics to BusinessCloudNews that reveal that even more of the study group are prevented from applying cloud solutions to these problems, with 86% of respondents saying they experience barriers to cloud adoption. The main blockages, according to Hitachi, are security concerns (reported by 50% of the study group), data protection concerns (39%), budget constraints (28%) and legacy technology restrictions (20%).
“It’s not surprising that IT leaders feel concerned,” said Bob Plumridge, EMEA CTO at HDS, “the digital evolution feels scary because they are having to throw out every theory and intuition they have.”
In response HDS has a launched additions to its flash portfolio in order to improve the performance of cloud infrastructure and remove any performance doubts from nervous cloud buyers. The new offerings include an all-flash Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) F Series, enhanced models of the Hitachi VSP G series offerings, next-generation Hitachi flash modules with inline data compression (FMD DC2) and enhanced Hitachi Automation Director and Data Centre Analytics tools for improved response times and greater effective capacity.
CFP for @ThingsExpo 2016 Opens | #IoT #M2M #BigData #InternetOfThings
Internet of @ThingsExpo, taking place June 7-9, 2016 at Javits Center, New York City and Nov 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, is co-located with the 18th International @CloudExpo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world and ThingsExpo New York Call for Papers is now open.
FCA aims to clarify fin-tech cloud legality issues
A new guide from The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has helped clarify some of the legal issues surrounding financial technology and could lead to a boom for cloud service providers catering for the money markets.
The draft guidance briefs readers on the key areas regulated firms must consider when researching into outsourcing to the cloud and covers regulatory issues, data protection and security and business continuity. It also includes a section on how to manage risk and how to ensure regulators have effective access to data.
In the guide the FCA concludes there is “no fundamental reason why cloud services (including public cloud services) cannot be implemented, with appropriate consideration, in a manner that complies with our rules”.
Cloud outsourcing can help improve competition in the financial services sector, the regulator said, because it can “increase the ability” of financial services providers to renew their IT systems more efficiently. Greater choice and innovation in outsourcing should deliver “commensurate benefits for firms and consumers,” says the guide.
The FCA warns about the risks of outsourcing to cloud providers, however, and it briefs financial technology buyers to be vigilant on where data is stored and to check hidden sub-contracting arrangements which may obscure data residence arrangements.
The regulator advises that financial services companies must establish if and how their cloud contracts are governed by UK law and subject to UK court jurisdiction. Even when UK courts do not have jurisdiction financial service companies will have to ensure that their auditor and the FCA have “effective access” to their data, to the cloud provider’s business premises and even to the company’s Human Resource vetting procedures and audit trails. Although the definition of business premises includes head offices, operations and data centres, regulated firms do not have to ensure they have access to all of their cloud provider’s premises.
Writing on the Out-Law blog of law firm Pinsent Masons, fin-tech legal expert John Salmon said the FCA guidance is a “positive recognition that the financial services sector can move ahead with plans to use cloud services as long as appropriate safeguards are put in place.”
The FCA’s guidance is open to consultation until 12 February 2016.
“The consultation period over the next few months will provide a good opportunity for businesses affected to set out clear views about how existing regulation can be addressed in a way that enables cloud products,” said Salmon.