I was recently watching one of my favorite science fiction TV shows (I’ll confess, ‘Dr. Who’). In classic dystopian fashion, there was a scene in which a young boy is running for his life across some barren ground in a war-ravaged world. One of his compatriots calls out to him to freeze, not to move another inch. The compatriot warns the young boy that he’s in a field of hand mines (no, that is not a typo, he did say hand mines). Slowly, dull gray hands with eyes in the palm start emerging from the ground around the boy and the compatriot. Suddenly, one of the hands grabs the compatriot and pulls him into a whirlpool of dirt in the ground, disappearing from sight, lost forever.
Moving Up to Cloud By @OracleCloudZone | @CloudExpo #BigData #DevOps #Microservices
There are many considerations when moving applications from on-premise to cloud. It is critical to understand the benefits and also challenges of this migration. A successful migration will result in lower Total Cost of Ownership, yet offer the same or higher level of robustness. Migration to cloud shifts computing resources from your data center, which can yield significant advantages provided that the cloud vendor an offer enterprise-grade quality for your application.
How to Restore Application Data By @eFolder | @CloudExpo #Cloud #BigData
In recent years, at least 40% of companies using cloud applications have experienced data loss. One of the best prevention against cloud data loss is backing up your cloud data.
In his General Session at 17th Cloud Expo, Bryan Forrester, Senior Vice President of Sales at eFolder, will present how organizations can use eFolder Cloudfinder to automate backups of cloud application data. He will also demonstrate how easy it is to search and restore cloud application data using Cloudfinder.
The Enemy Is Probably Inside Your Firewall | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Has your organization ever been attacked from the inside? Most companies would say no. In the latest report from the SANS Institute “Insider Threats and the Need for Fast and Directed Response”[1] only 34 percent of the more than 770 IT/security professionals in a range of industries said they’d experienced an insider attack. But Dr. Eric Cole, author of the SANS report, is adamant that virtually every organization has experienced such an attack, in some form. “I’m certain that the other 66 percent of organizations have indeed experienced an insider attack—they just don’t know it,” he says.
LogMeIn acquires LastPass for $125 million to create remote access giant
Remote working SaaS company LogMeIn will acquire password management service provider LastPass for $125 million to bolster its position in identity and access management.
LogMeIn already has a strong position in cloud-based remote login and LastPass is best known as a password manager with an emphasis on enterprise, so it’s easy to see how the two product portfolios complement each other. The combined companies will be in a position to offer a wide range of remote access tools and services.
“LastPass has a great business, a beloved and award winning product, millions of loyal users, and thousands of great business customers – they are synonymous with the category,” said Michael Simon, LogMeIn’s Chairman and CEO. “We believe this transaction instantly gives us a market leading position in password management, while also providing a highly favourable foundation for delivering the next generation of identity and access management solutions to individuals, teams and companies.”
“LogMeIn and LastPass share a great common vision on reshaping identity and access management in ways that not only increase productivity but also improve security for individuals and companies, alike,” said Joe Siegrist, CEO of LastPass. “The striking commonality between our businesses, our products, and cultural DNA make this a great fit for both teams, and we believe a great win for our customers.”
In the rationale behind the move there was much talk of BYOA (bring your own app), which LogMeIn has identified as a key trend. Essentially this means remote workers using whatever tools they see fit and IT managers having to work out how to accommodate them – much as has happened with BYOD (bring your own device). LogMeIn’s strategy is to be the default BYOA enabler.
Alibaba announces second Silicon Valley datacentre
AliCloud, the cloud computing arm of Chinese internet giant Alibaba, has announced the opening of its second datacentre in Silicon Valley.
This is the fourth new datacentre opened by AliCloud this year alone, and its ninth in total.Most of them are at various locations around China, but the company plans to extend its international footprint to other parts of Asia, as well as Europe and the Middle East before long.
This new Silicon Valley site will service the needs of west coast US customers, providing a bunch of cloud services such as: Elastic Compute, Analytic Database, Key-Value Store, Open Storage and Virtual Private Cloud.
“Our data centers are typically located in key innovation and commerce hubs around the world, where we expect growing demand for cost-efficient cloud computing and big data analytics services,” said Ethan Sicheng Yu, VP of AliCloud. “Our second U.S. data center is situated in Silicon Valley which is the epicentre for technology innovation world-wide.
“AliCloud is focused on building a comprehensive and holistic global ecosystem that offers world-class cloud computing and a nuanced understanding of local requirements. We expect to welcome more partners and customers onto the AliCloud platform as we extend our global reach and continue to deliver outstanding value for our cloud computing infrastructure services.”
IoT Redefines Airline-Passenger Experience | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #BigData
Today air travel is a minefield of delays, hassles and customer disappointment. Airlines struggle to revitalize the experience. GE and M2Mi will demonstrate practical examples of how IoT solutions are helping airlines bring back personalization, reduce trip time and improve reliability.
In their session at @ThingsExpo, Shyam Varan Nath, Principal Architect with GE, and Dr. Sarah Cooper, M2Mi’s VP Business Development and Engineering, will explore the IoT cloud-based platform technologies driving this change including privacy controls, data transparency and integration of real time context with predictive analytics.
They will conclude with a look forward to tomorrow’s Smart Airports where airlines use connected baggage to predict plane fuel levels, security is ubiquitous and your seat remembers you.
Sandy Carter to Keynote at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley | @CloudExpo @IBMcloud #Cloud
SYS-CON Events announced today that Sandy Carter, IBM General Manager Cloud Ecosystem and Developers, and a Social Business Evangelist, will keynote at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Amazon continues Internet of Things push with AWS IoT
The new AWS platform is designed to allow IoT devices to connect to the AWS cloud as well as a managed cloud service to assist with processing the data.
AWS IoT has been launched in beta, which usually means it’s not quite ready yet, but it needs people to try it out in order to iron out lingering bugs. In essence it appears to be Amazon’s play to put itself in the thick of the IoT land-grab, as the repository of all the data constantly being generated by the billions of sensors expected to comprise the IoT.
In many ways Amazon’s many previous launches and announcements at this year’s AWS re:Invent seems to have been leading up to this, as they’ve all been about making easier to transfer data into the AWS cloud. Specifically Amazon Kenisis Firehose, which is designed to make it easier to upload wireless streaming data to the AWS cloud, seems to have been launched with IoT in mind.
“The promise of the Internet of Things is to make everyday products smarter for consumers, and for businesses to enable better, data-driven offerings that weren’t possible before,” said Marco Argenti, VP of Mobile and IoT at AWS.
“World-leading organizations like Philips, NASA JPL, and Sonos already use AWS services to support the back-end of their IoT applications. Now, AWS IoT enables a whole ecosystem of manufacturers, service providers, and application developers to easily connect their products to the cloud at scale, take action on the data they collect, and create a new class of applications that interact with the physical world.”
Device connections are handled by a device gateway, which provides tools for predetermining responses to data received. AWS IoT also creates a virtual version of each device in the cloud so it can be interacted with even in times of intermittent connectivity. A dedicated SDK aims to make it easier for developers to do clever things with IoT devices and a bunch of semiconductor companies have already got on-board by embedding the SDK into IoT chips, including Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, Mediatek, Microchip, Qualcomm and TI. There are also a bunch of IoT starter kits which can, of course, be bought on Amazon.
“At Philips we aim to empower people to take greater control of their health with digital solutions that support healthy living and improved care coordination,” said Jeroen Tas, CEO Healthcare Informatics, Solutions and Services at Philips. “Our HealthSuite digital platform and its device cloud are already managing more than seven million connected, medical-grade and consumer devices, sensors, and mobile apps.
“With the addition of AWS IoT, we will greatly accelerate the pursuit of our vision. It will be easier to acquire, process, and act upon data from heterogeneous devices in real-time. Our products, and the care they support, are enabled to grow smarter and more personalized over time.”
On top of moves like the Dash Button IoT consumables automated ordering service, this move cements Amazon’s ambition to be a major IoT player, with AWS at the core. If it delivers on the promise of making IoT easier for companies and developers all the other tech giants currently involved in the IoT land grab may need to raise their game.
Stop Playing Catch-Up with the IoT | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #API #BigData
The IoT is upon us, but today’s databases, built on 30-year-old math, require multiple platforms to create a single solution. Data demands of the IoT require Big Data systems that can handle ingest, transactions and analytics concurrently adapting to varied situations as they occur, with speed at scale.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Chad Jones, chief strategy officer at Deep Information Sciences, will look differently at IoT data so enterprises can fully leverage their IoT potential. He’ll share tips on how to speed up business initiatives, harness Big Data and remain one step ahead by applying machine learning to the core of databases, enabling real stream processing cases vs. historical or predictive analytics.