Day 1 of Cloud Expo in Santa Clara, California opened with an inspiring keynote from Jason Bloomberg, president of Intellyx, and industry expert on architecting agility for enterprise environments.
The ProfitBricks team was especially impressed with Jason’s talk about how digital transformation involves more organizational change than simple technology change and how today’s businesses need to capitalize on disruption to not only innovate at a more rapid pace but also drive organizational wide transformation. He further discussed how employing modern digital practices when architecting infrastructure solutions, such as self organization and DevOps, can provide a blueprint to reimagine how ongoing innovation can continually drive strategic value in new ways.
Funding of Dell EMC acquisition could scupper deal – report
Dell’s $67 billion merger with storage giant EMC could raise a tax challenge that would make their integration unfeasible, according to a re/code report. But the difficulties may be reflected across the industry as cloud drives future convergence, according to one analyst.
Deal’s funding of the EMC takeover, by using a new type of stock share, is under regulatory review and could lead to a $9 billion tax bill. The tax logic is built on the success enjoyed by EMC’s investment in the software vendor VMware, whose value rose by ‘tens of billions of dollars’ after EMC acquired it in 2003.
Dell plans to offer EMC shareholders $33.15 a share for the company, with $24.05 in cash and the balance from tracking stock linked to VMware. EMC owns an 81% stake in VMware. The tracking stock would offset the debt Dell would otherwise be burdened with and help Dell avoid tax.
But the scheme is likely to be reviewed by federal regulators who may revise he tax burden as high as $9 billion, according to the report’s sources.
It reports that Dell management are trying to ensure that key aspects of the deal don’t qualify for the level of transaction tax that would make the merger fail. Dell has reportedly hired the New York firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to influence events in Dell’s favour.
The deal isn’t off, yet, but Dell’s funding options are a bit brazen, said analyst Clive Longbottom at Quocrica. “Dell would do better to sell 61% of the VMware shares direct to the market instead,” said Longbottom.
Making VMware a totally separate business would bring in $20 billion, would be totally legal and result in a much lower tax bill,” said Longbottom. The wider issue for the cloud industry, he said, is the scale of consolidation that is being driven by the cloud and the measures to which companies are big forced to finance them. “These tracking shares worry me. It seems to be a case of smoke and mirrors,” said Longbottom.
“This was never going to be an easy deal and Michael Dell has already stated that it will be a minimum of 9 months before it can close. It then comes down to whether the US government decides that having EMC and Dell survive is a good thing and whether other vendors are also happy for the government to allow this to happen.”
Microsoft launches cloud based Blockchain tech for would be bitcoin traders
Microsoft has launched a cloud-based ledger system for would-be bitcoin traders. The Azure service provider aims to ease traditional bankers and financial service companies into a new increasingly legitimised market as it gains currency in the world’s finance centres.
The system uses blockchain technology provided by New York based financial technology start up ConsensYs. It will give financial institutions the means to create affordable testing and proof of concept models as they examine the feasibility of bitcoin trading.
Blockchain technology’s ability to secure and validate any exchange of data will help convince compliance constrained finance institutes that this form of trading is no more dangerous than any other high speed automated trading environment, according to Microsoft. In a bitcoin system the ConsenYs blockchain will be used as a large decentralized ledger which keeps track of every bitcoin transaction.
Cloud technology could aggregate sufficient processing power to cater for all fluctuations demand for capacity in online trading. In turn this means that the IT service provider, whether internal or external, can guarantee that every transaction is verified and shared across a global computer network. The omnipresence of the blockchain reporting system makes it impossible for outside interference to go unmonitored.
The Microsoft blockchain service, launched on November 10th, also uses Ethereum’s programmable blockchain technology which will be delivered to existing banks and insurance clients already using Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. According to Microsoft four global financial institutions have already subscribed to the service.
Until now blockchain has been the ‘major pain point’ in bitcoin trading, according to Marley Gray, Microsoft’s director of tech strategy for financial services. Gray told Reuters that the cloud technology had made the technology affordable and easy enough to adopt. According to Gray it now only takes 20 minutes and no previous experience to spin up a private blockchain. Microsoft said it has simplified the system with templates it created, used in combination with its cloud-based flexible computing model.
The new testing systems made possible by ConsensYs create a ‘fail fast, fail cheap’ model that allows finance companies to explore the full range of possibilities of this new type of trading, said Gray.
SAP claims to have simplified its Business Suite for all enterprise cloud users
SAP has updated its suite of on-premise and cloud editions included in its Business Suite 4 SAP HANA range, which it promised will simplify processes in a range of functions and lines of business.
The announcement of improvements to its SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management system was made at SAP TechEd in Barcelona.
SAP claimed it has invented new, simpler and faster ways of using its systems in eight major areas that affect users working in finance, sales, service, marketing, commerce, procurement and sourcing, manufacturing, supply chain, asset management, research and development and human resources.
Finance, sales and purchasing staff will benefit from a new method of optimized working capital with new accounts payable and receivable cockpits. In the supply chain, workers can benefit from a new system with fewer stock buffers and a simplified data model for inventory management. This, says SAP, will speed things up by catering for more real-time, high-volume processing. In other departments, procurement, sourcing and supply chain management professionals will benefit from new levels of instant insight into stock and material flow.
Meanwhile, in other part of the enterprise, cloud users in Production Departments will benefit from shorter manufacturing cycles, as a result of streamlined material flow for internal requirements and for material requirements planning. Project managers and supervisors will become more productive, claims SAP, thanks to its new augmented reactivity with real-time monitoring of production orders for flow and critical issues.
Operations managers, on the other hand, will make better operational decisions with easier simulation of supply alternatives. Buyers will be able to lower their procurement costs as a result of the advances on standard integration to the Ariba Network. Meanwhile, at the shop floor, enterprises will be able to offer better customer service thanks to a new sales order fulfilment cockpit that could identify and clear bottlenecks instantly.
These line of business improvements will be found across the SAP portfolio in applications such as SAP Cash Management, SAP SuccessFactor, the Ariba Network in procurement and SAP hybris systems for marketing and commerce.
“We worked together closely to identify where digitized operations can provide the most value,” said Bernd Leukert, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Products & Innovation.
Bringing the Cloud to Life with the Microsoft Experience Center
It’s oftentimes difficult to get a legitimate user experience when viewing a canned demo. That’s why I’m a big fan of the Microsoft Experience Center. It’s a mobile kit that operates out of the cloud through an Office 365 instance. This allows users to get that legitimate experience of interacting with Microsoft productivity solutions (while having access to experts to answer questions and provide guidance) because it’s not a prepared environment or running over faster internet. It’s running over whatever the building you’re in is providing so that you can get a real understanding of what the experience will be like accessing these applications from the cloud. Watch the video below where I discuss the Microsoft Experience Center in more detail, including the process, benefits, and key takeaways you’ll leave with.
If you’re interested in learning more about Microsoft Office 365, I’ll hosting a webinar on November 18th entitled, “Microsoft Office 365: Expectations vs. Reality. Strategies for Migrating & Supporting Mobile Workforces. Register here!
This video is also available on GreenPages’ YouTube Channel
By David Barter, Practice Manager Microsoft Technologies
Join Parallels at Angelbeat in Charlotte and Philadelphia!
The Parallels team has just returned from Angelbeat Miami and are already planning the next big Angelbeat events—one in Charlotte on November 10, 2015 and one in Philadelphia on November 16, 2015. Will you be there? Ron Gerber, CEO of Angelbeat, will once again welcome the most relevant technology experts. Developers, business analysts, and IT managers […]
The post Join Parallels at Angelbeat in Charlotte and Philadelphia! appeared first on Parallels Blog.
Cloud continues to give companies competitive advantage, report shows
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More organisations are saying cloud computing gives them a competitive advantage, but fewer are saying it gives their company a significant advantage, according to the latest figures from Verizon.
The report, the third annual ‘State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud’ paper released by the telco giant, found 77% of firms cite cloud as a competitive advantage, compared with 74% this time last year. Yet only 16% argue cloud gives significant advantage this time round, down from 30% in 2014.
37% of organisations say cloud has enabled their firm to adapt its business model, with a further 19% saying they were working towards it, and 25% saying they were considering it. By 2018, Verizon argues half of companies will be putting at least three quarters of their workloads in the cloud.
Verizon argues there are three types of persona which any company can identify with:
- The sceptics: These companies, Verizon notes, aren’t luddites in terms of what cloud can do for their business – they almost certainly will use SaaS apps – but are restricted on what they can do. The financial services industry is a good example. Only 6% of survey respondents expect less than 25% of their workloads in the cloud by 2018.
- The pragmatists: These are companies which are taking a measured approach to cloud, steadily creating an enterprise-class infrastructure using standard components from cloud providers tied together using APIs and orchestration services.
- The natives: These are the cloud-first, or cloud-only, businesses, using cloud-based ERP and CRM software and utilising the subscription economy, rather than buying servers.
Elsewhere, more than a quarter (27%) of businesses are already using private cloud, while a further 17% plan to implement it. Organisations are also becoming less cloud-phobic; 87% of those polled say they think cloud is at least as reliable as on-premises infrastructure, while four in five say it is as least as secure. 93% of companies say they are using two or more cloud providers, while a quarter are using an eye-watering 10.
“Last year, the news was that cloud was being used for mission-critical workloads; now enterprises are using it to transform how they achieve that mission,” commented Ryan Shuttleworth, cloud chief technology officer for Verizon Enterprise Solutions. “Companies are using cloud technologies to create new customer experiences, reengineer their business processes, find new opportunities to grow, and manage risk and compliance measures,” he added.
Choosing your cloud: The good, the bad, and the ugly
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The biggest challenge any business faces is trying to predict the future; knowing what your data will look like in three or five years’ time so you can put in an infrastructure that is flexible enough to grow and accommodate change is a huge challenge.
The amount of data that all businesses are generating themselves and storing on their clients is growing all the time. The infamous statistic from 2013 that 90% of the world’s data has been generated over the last two years continues to be quoted and I suspect if we looked closer now in 2015 we’d find the numbers astounding. Being able to know what data you want to keep, what you want accessible now and what you can file away is going to become increasingly difficult.
Unsurprisingly hybrid cloud has become the cloud model of choice for many organisations that want to build greater flexibility into their infrastructure in a cost effective and future proof manner. What’s not to like about hybrid? You get to keep some of the simple data on-premise yet free up your existing infrastructure by moving critical elements to the cloud, all the while relying on your cloud provider to have the latest provisioning and security in place that helps to ensure you keep abreast of your industry regulation and legislation.
But is there a good, bad or ugly of cloud? Choosing private, public or hybrid is about being methodical in making your choice and not just diving in for what seems to be the quickest and simplest solution on the surface.
Private cloud, as the name suggests, means that only one specific organisation can operate and access data in this particular cloud environment. The idea is that you naturally have greater control and therefore privacy for your sensitive data. This is great if you’re an industry giant with exceptionally deep pockets and can afford excessive operational costs and if you’re someone who doesn’t like to share the same environment.
The public cloud on the other hand offers a great virtualised service for consumers running at a fraction of the cost of private cloud and it’s accessible over any public network. However, the big ‘but’ here is whether any savvy business should be sharing its crucial data on a resource that is so publicly available. In this case cheap doesn’t always mean better. Yes, it will offer the ultimate in scalability because it has such a vast user base and instant flexibility if your business grows overnight, however, with businesses becoming more and more concerned about data security a simple breach could provide a massive headache.
In my experience, a hybrid cloud solution enables businesses to run multiple applications within the platform while also being able to connect back into colocation rack in the data centre or indeed linking straight back into the office using point-to-point connections. We’ve found that while people want all the benefits that cloud solutions have to offer they also want the security of knowing where their data resides and they rightly want to remain in control. A hybrid cloud solution offers just that.
At the end of the day when it comes to cloud the decision is yours. Be guided by your industry regulations and Data Protection laws. Talk to your peers and partners about what has worked best for them. A cloud solution should provide you with:
- Scalability – so you can upgrade instantaneously with no downtime or capex costs
- Performance – that’s as good as a dedicated server
- Easy management – via an online secure control panel
- Reliability – mirrored SAN storage and hot migration of your virtual servers
- A choice of operating systems – Linux, Windows, in a variety of flavours and versions.
And once you’ve taken these requirements into consideration select a partner where you can easily check their security measures – go and see it for yourself. Establish a comprehensive SLA – all reputable cloud providers will gladly provide one. And where possible select a cloud that offers a ‘try before you buy’ model which will help you to establish the success criteria appropriate for your business and ensure the version of cloud you’ve chosen is delivering maximum performance and value for your business.
Microsoft to invest $2bn in Euro cloud infrastructure
Microsoft has announced plans to invest $2bn on building the infrastructure across Europe to support nationally-based data centres supporting national cloud services. It means that commercial cloud services can be run from the UK and other major European countries, allaying some data sovereignty and Safe Harbour fears.
From late 2016 Microsoft Azure and Office 365 will be generally available from local UK-based data centres, CEO Satya Nadella said at an event in London. A locally supported service for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online will follow in 2017. Microsoft will also offer Azure ExpressRoute to provide customers with the option of a private connection to the cloud.
The new local Microsoft cloud regions are designed to ally fears over data residency for customers in the UK. Once the infrastructure is in place Microsoft will be able to replicate data within the UK for backup and recovery.
Services delivered from these UK data centres will not only improve sovereignty and cut latency but create new opportunities for Microsoft UK’s 25,000 channel partners, said Michel Van der Bel, the general manager of Microsoft UK. The UK is a global leader in using cloud-based systems with an adoption rate of 84% claimed Van der Bel.
“Our commitment to run our cloud services from local data centres will help meet demand from those who want their cloud systems based in the UK,” said Van der Bel. Customers and partners who can innovate will grow with the power of the cloud, he said, and now they can meet the strict regulations of the banking, financial services and public sectors.
Microsoft also announced completion of the latest phase of data centre facility expansion in Ireland and the Netherlands, which serve as cloud computing hubs for European customers.
One channel partner said the local data centres for local people plan is an overdue step in the right direction.
“This is great news for the UK and the technology sector as a whole,” said Avanade UK’s General Manager Julian Tomison, “questions around data residency aren’t new, but at least now we have a new solution.”
It’s good for the channel and the cloud industry said Tomison. “The investment validates the sector and will have a positive impact on the cloud industry as collectively customers will feel they have more control. Having data centres in the UK helps us stay competitive when prices and services are becoming uniform. I predict more investments like this as legislation like last month’s Safe Harbour ruling shape the legal situation here.”
Enterprise no longer fears cloud as adoption hits tipping point – Verizon report
Cloud computing is on the verge of becoming the de facto method of buying business systems, according to a new study into adoption and attitudes towards the new generation of technology.
The number of enterprises that are not adopting cloud computing are a small minority, according to Verizon Enterprise Solutions’ 2016 State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud report. As the majority have run mission critical applications over the cloud, and there is near universal recognition of better performance, usability and lower cost of ownership, the fear of adopting cloud and abandon old expensive computing models has disappeared, according to the report.
The lean toward the cloud has reached the tipping point, according to Ryan Shuttleworth, cloud CTO for Verizon Enterprise Solutions and he predicts that companies will push on to look for ‘new opportunities to grow’.
The enterprise user feedback came from a mixture of Verizon’s own cloud customers, anonymised cloud customer usage data and data supplied by analysts such as Forrester and Gartner. This year the highest ever number of enterprises (69%) said they had re-engineered at least one business process using cloud computing, almost double the numbers from the previous year. An overwhelming majority (88%) said it was an improvement on their old computing model and improved responsiveness to the business, while 65% said it improved overall operations.
Having proved the concept of cloud computing, cloud phobia has disappeared, according to Verizon, as 87% of businesses think the cloud at least matches on-premise computing and 80% say they feel as secure or more secure than they do with an internally run IT service. As a result, 87% of businesses are now using the cloud for mission-critical workloads, up from 71% last year and 60% in 2013. By 2016, according to Verizon’s figures, the mission critical penetration of cloud computing could reach 98%.
Last year, it was news when a cloud was used for mission-critical workloads, according to Shuttleworth, but now it’s the de facto standard. “Companies are now using cloud technologies to create new customer experiences, business processes and new opportunities to grow,” said Shuttleworth.
There was some positive news for enterprise IT departments, however, with the revelation that private cloud on the rise with 44% of enterprises using, or planning to use, a private cloud system.