As-a-service models offer huge opportunities, but also complicate security. It may seem that the easiest way to migrate to a new architectural model is to let others, experts in their field, do the work. This has given rise to many as-a-service models throughout the industry and across the entire technology stack, from software to infrastructure. While this has unlocked huge opportunities to accelerate the deployment of new capabilities or increase economic efficiencies within an organization, it has complicated and even compromised security. A private cloud is nothing more than the virtualized components of a traditional data center, making it easier to provision, operate, and manage resources more efficiently. Hybrid clouds leverage larger scale public cloud environments to drive further efficiencies. Containers take this a step further, delivering greater micro-segmentation and isolation capabilities with much faster boot times. Security, of course, needs more than just perimeter defenses.
[session] Architecting for the Cloud with Cloud Foundry and Bluemix By @RagsS | @CloudExpo #Cloud
As the world moves towards more DevOps and microservices, application deployment to the cloud ought to become a lot simpler. The microservices architecture, which is the basis of many new age distributed systems such as OpenStack, NetFlix and so on, is at the heart of Cloud Foundry – a complete developer-oriented Platform as a Service (PaaS) that is IaaS agnostic and supports vCloud, OpenStack and AWS.
In his session at 17th Cloud Expo, Raghavan “Rags” Srinivas, an Architect/Developer Evangelist at IBM, will discuss the microservices architecture, 12-factor app, containers, etc., and how to architect applications for the cloud in general and Cloud Foundry in particular. He will harness the power of dependency injection that Spring provides to pick a variety of data sources and services.
Cloud industry shaken by European Safe Harbour ruling
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled the Safe Harbour agreement between Europe and the US, which provides blanket permission for data transfer between the two, is invalid.
Companies looking to move data from Europe to the US will now need to negotiate specific rules of engagement with each country, which is likely to have a significant impact on all businesses, but especially those heavily reliant on the cloud.
The ruling came about after Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems asked to find out what data Facebook was passing on to US intelligence agencies in the wake of the Snowden revelations. When his request was declined on the grounds that the safe harbour agreement guaranteed his protection he contested the decision and it was referred to the Court of Justice.
This decision had been anticipated, and on top of any legal contingencies already made large players such as Facebook, Google and Amazon are offered some protection by the fact that they have datacentres within Europe. However the legal and logistical strain will be felt by all, especially smaller companies that rely on US-based cloud players.
“The ability to transfer data easily and securely between Europe and the US is critical for businesses in our modern data-driven digital economy,” said Matthew Fell, CBI Director for Competitive Markets. “Businesses will want to see clarity on the immediate implications of the ECJ’s decision, together with fast action from the Commission to agree a new framework. Getting this right will be important to the future of Europe’s digital agenda, as well as doing business with our largest trading partner.”
“The ruling invalidating Safe Harbour is seismic,” said Andy Hardy, EMEA MD at Code42, which recently secured $85 million in Series B funding. “This decision will affect big businesses as well as small ones. But it need not be the end of business as we know it, in terms of data handling. What businesses need to do now is safeguard data. They need to find solutions that keep their, and their customer’s, data private – even when backed up into public cloud.”
“Symantec respects the decision of the EU Court of Justice,” said Ilias Chantzos, Senior Director of Government Affairs EMEA at Symantec. “However, we encourage further discussion in order to create a strengthened agreement with the safeguards expected by the EU Court of Justice. We believe that the recent ruling will create considerable disruption and uncertainty for those companies that have relied solely on Safe Harbour as a means of transferring data to the United States.”
“The issues are highly complex, and there are real tensions between the need for international trade, and ensuring European citizen data is treated safely and in accordance with data protection law,” said Nicky Stewart, commercial director of Skyscape Cloud Services. “We would urge potential cloud consumers not to use this ruling as a reason not to adopt cloud. There are very many European cloud providers which operate solely within the bounds of the European Union, or even within a single jurisdiction within Europe, therefore the complex challenges of the Safe Harbor agreement simply don’t apply.”
These were just some of the views offered to BCN as soon as the ruling was announced and the public hand-wringing is likely to continue for some time. From a business cloud perspective one man’s problem is another’s opportunity and companies will be queuing up to offer localised cloud services, encryption solutions, etc. In announcing a couple of new European datacentres today Netsuite was already making reference to the ruling. This seems like a positive step for privacy but only time will tell what it means for the cloud industry.
Rackspace ups AWS functionality and support, becomes authorised reseller
Managed hosting provider Rackspace has announced a ramped up suite of products featuring enhanced support and functionality with Amazon Web Services.
The agreement with AWS, announced at re:Invent in Las Vegas this week, will see Rackspace launch managed service offerings including tools, expertise, application management and operational support for AWS Cloud. “Fanatical Support for AWS” is the core service offering featured as part of the agreement, with three beta offerings supplementing the managed service – Managed Security for AWS, Compliance Assistance for AWS and Managed Cloud for Adobe Experience Manager.
Through Fanatical Support, Rackspace tells its customers to “leave the heavy lifting to us” as it claims to take care of migration, architecture, security and operations for companies looking to adopt AWS for application hosting.
Rackspace has also become an authorised reseller at AWS, as well as a managed services partner, and has joined the AWS Partner Network. CEO Taylor Rhodes spoke about the announcement on the company’s blog page.
“Over the past year, more and more of them [customers] have told us that they love Rackspace expertise and Fanatical Support, and would like to get it for the workloads that they prefer to run on AWS,” he said. “We have spent the past several months working with those customers and with AWS, to create the best managed-service offering on that platform.”
Rhodes went on to say that AWS adds to Rackspace’s existing commitment to support a number of other platforms.
“We help businesses tap the power of the cloud without the pain and expense of managing it all themselves,” he said. “We have gone deep on support for platforms such as OpenStack, Microsoft and VMware. Our success in leading the managed cloud market for those technologies has been validated by industry experts such as Gartner, and most importantly, by our 300,000-plus business customers.”
Finally, Rhodes then highlighted how Fanatical Support has evolved with today’s announcements, and how it will benefit various customer segments. He claims it will appeal to businesses that have desired AWS integration with existing Fanatical Support functionality; for rapidly growing businesses needing to outsource some IT functionality in order to reallocate technical resource to other areas; and for customers new to both AWS and Rackspace.
Meanwhile, AWS’s VP of worldwide partner ecosystem Terry Wise, welcomed Rackspace’s increased integration and functionality of AWS.
“We’re pleased to see Rackspace support AWS customers and achieve membership in the AWS Managed Service Program,” he said. “A growing number of businesses who want the benefit of the AWS Cloud will find value in working with AWS Managed Service Partners like Rackspace. We have been impressed with Rackspace’s commitment to include beta customers in their AWS managed services offerings, along with certifying a large number of their technical staff.”
A roundup of cloud computing forecasts and market estimates for Q315
(c)iStock.com/Barcin
- The global SaaS market is projected to grow from $49B in 2015 to $67B in 2018, attaining a CAGR of 8.14%.
- Global spending on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is expected to reach $16.5B this year, an increase of 32.8% from 2014.
- Cloud applications will account for 90% of worldwide mobile data traffic by 2019, compared to 81% at the end of last year.
These and other insights are from recent cloud computing forecasts and market estimates published by research and advisory consultancies including International Data Corporation (IDC), Forrester, Gartner, Ovum, Wikibon and others.
While the methodologies differ significantly, the findings from a recent Economist Intelligence Unit study provide the galvanizing thread across this diverse set of data. The Economist found that the most mature enterprises are now turning to cloud strategies as a strategic platform for growing customer demand and expanding sales channels. The study found low-maturity or lagging cloud adopters focus on costs more than growth.
Key take-aways from the round-up are provided below:
- Globally, cloud apps will account for 90% of total mobile data traffic by 2019, compared to 81% at the end of last year. Mobile cloud traffic will grow 11-fold from 2014 to 2019, attaining a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 60%. Source: Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2014–2019.
- 57% of IT architects and tech professionals are running apps on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform today. Rightscale’s 2015 State of the Cloud Report found that AWS adoption is over 4X greater than Microsoft Azure IaaS and 5X that of Rackspace Public Cloud. Rightscale found that AWS, Microsoft Azure IaaS, Azure PaaS, Rackspace Public Cloud and VMWare vCloud Air are the top five public cloud platforms used in enterprises today. Source: RightScale 2015 State Of The Cloud Report
- The global SaaS market is projected to grow from $49B in 2015 to $67B in 2018, attaining a CAGR of 8.14%. Global infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) spending globally is projected to grow from $23B in 2015 to $34B in 2018, attaining a CAGR of 10.27% in the forecast period. Source: Technology Business Research presentation The Developer’s Coup: 2015 Applications Development Demands and Vendor Opportunities.
- The PaaS market will grow from $1.7B in 2014 to $68.3B by 2026, attaining a 36% CAGR according to Wikibon Research. Overall, Salesforce.com (24%), Amazon (17%), and Microsoft (10%) are the leaders in PaaS according to the Wikibon Research study.. Source: Wikibon Public Cloud Market Shares 2014 and 2015 by Ralph Finos – 29 August 2015.
- Goldman Sachs is forecasting the cloud infrastructure and platform market will grow at a 19.62% CAGR from 2015 to 2018, reaching $43B by 2018. Their recent market analysis also forecasts that the global market for cloud infrastructure and platforms will grow from $21B this year to $43B by the end of the forecast period. Source: How Big Can The Amazon Web Services Business Grow In The Future?
- AWS is used by the majority of enterprise IaaS customers (57%) today. Rackspace is on par with AWS for its ability to fulfill customer IaaS needs and is the highest-rated IaaS provider for guaranteed SLAs, consistent with Rackspace’s new managed cloud positioning. Source: Amazon Web Services and VMware are Market Leaders in IaaS and On-Premises Cloud Platforms, Respectively, According to 451 Research’s Vendor Window.
- The more experienced an enterprise is with cloud computing the more likely they are to rely on cloud-based apps and platforms to boost customer demand strategies (50%). The Economist Intelligence Unit study (in conjunction with IBM) found that the most cloud-mature enterprises also invest the heaviest in expanding their sales channels (39%). Conversely low maturity enterprises are fixated on improving internal business-process efficiency (41%) and reducing costs and/or liabilities (38%). Source: Mapping the cloud maturity curve: Measuring organizational excellence in the new era of IT. (free, no opt-in, 19 pp.) . The full study, Mapping The Cloud Maturity Curve, can be found here.
- Forrester’s Business Technographics data showed increased reported adoption of hosted private cloud for the US (5%), Canada (2%), and Germany (3%). Conversely, adoption decreased in the UK and France by 7% and 6%, respectively. Source: Forrester Technographics. Adoption Profile: Hosted Private Cloud, North America and Europe, Q3 2014.
- 46% of surveyed firms in the European Union (EU) are using advanced cloud services relating to financial and accounting software applications, customer relationship management or to the use of computing power to run business applications. In 2014, almost twice as many firms used public cloud servers (12%) versus private cloud servers (7%). The following graphic illustrates the degree of dependence on cloud computing, by economic activity, EU-28, 2014. Source: Eurostat Statistics Explained. Cloud computing – statistics on the use by enterprises.
- 64% of Small & Medium Businesses (SMBs) are already using cloud-based apps, with average adoption being 3 apps. 78% of businesses indicate that they are considering purchasing new solutions in the next 2-3 years creating the potential to move the average number of applications used to 7, with 88% consuming at least one service. Source: The small business revolution: trends in SMB cloud adoption.
- The Cloud Analytics Market is expected to grow from $7.5B in 2015 to $23.1B in 2020, attaining a CAGR of 25.1% during the forecast period. Source: Cloud Analytics Market worth $23.1 Billion by 2020.
- Global spending on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is expected to reach almost US$16.5B this year, an increase of 32.8% from 2014. Gartner projects the market will reach a 29.1% a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2014 to 2019, Source: Gartner Says Worldwide Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service Spending to Grow 32.8 Percent in 2015
- Worldwide spending on enterprise application software will grow 7.5% to reach $149.9B in 2015, increasing to more than $201B in 2019 with accelerating cloud adoption driving new software sales. Gartner’s analysis of enterprise software spending shows that alternative consumption models to traditional on-premises licenses are accounting for more than 50% of new software implementations; these include SaaS, hosted license, on-premises subscriptions and open source. Gartner also predicts that by 2020, about a quarter of organizations in emerging regions will run their core CRM systems in the cloud, up from around 10 percent in 2012. Source: Gartner Says Modernization and Digital Transformation Projects Are Behind Growth in Enterprise Application Software Market.
- Public Cloud Services in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are projected to reach $386M in 2015 with SaaS being the largest area of spending (69.0%). Source: SaaS Will Take Nearly 70% of Public Cloud Market in CEE in 2015.
IBM acquires storage vendor Cleversafe in hybrid cloud play
Enterprise IT giant IBM has announced it will be acquiring object-based storage software and appliances vendor Cleversafe to boost its storage and hybrid cloud offering.
IBM will integrate the Cleversafe portfolio into its IBM Cloud business unit. The growth in the amount of unstructured data companies are looking to process, coupled with the need to find a balance between on-premise and cloud storage deployments, has created the demand for more storage options and greater flexibility, according to IBM.
“Today a massive digital transformation is underway as organizations increasingly turn to cloud computing for innovative ways to manage more complex business operations and increasing volumes of data in a secure and effective way,” said Robert LeBlanc, SVP of IBM Cloud. “Cleversafe, a pioneer in object storage, will add to our efforts to help clients overcome these challenges by extending and strengthening our cloud storage strategy, as well as our portfolio.”
“IBM is an innovator and leader in cloud and storage and we’re excited about the opportunities that lay ahead once this transaction closes,” said John Morris, President and CEO of Cleversafe. “Together with IBM we can extend our object storage leadership position to address the broadest set of workloads for clients with the most expansive set of object-based solutions.”
The terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but Cleversafe employs 210 people so the size of the acquisition is likely to be in the tens of million dollars.
Incidentally IBM has also announced a new mobile cloud security solution aimed at enterprise, which is a combination of products from both companies.
“More employees are using mobile devices to be more productive. At the same time, data and apps are moving to the cloud. The changes are exciting, but security needs to be top-of-mind,” said Steve McGaw, CMO of AT&T Business Solutions. “Trusted collaborators like IBM are helping us better address changing business models. Together we’re giving options to deliver highly secure mobile access to cloud apps and data.”
An Interview with Jason Dixon | @DevOpsSummit #API #DevOps #Containers #Microservices
If your primary role within your organization is Operations, you likely realize the importance and significance of monitoring. The DevOps philosophy teaches us that measuring and collecting as much as possible is critical to not only the health of infrastructure, but it also plays a critical role in the architecting efforts of both software and hardware.
Jason Dixon of Librato knows this better than many and has made a career of helping others understand and implement the best tools and processes of successful monitoring. Known by many and first introduced to me as the “Graphite Guy”, Jason’s expertise goes far beyond his contributions to this and other open source projects.
Agile Performance Testing | @DevOpsSummit #DevOps #BigData #Microservices
There once was a time when testers operated on their own, in isolation. They’d huddle as a group around the harsh glow of dozens of CRT monitors, clicking through GUIs and recording results. Anxiously, they’d wait for the developers in the other room to fix the bugs they found, yet they’d frequently leave the office disappointed as issues were filed away as non-critical. These teams would rarely interact, save for those scarce moments when a coder would wander in needing to reproduce a particularly finicky error.
Adopting DevOps – Overcoming ‘Cultural Inertia’ By @sd_architect | @DevOpsSummit #DevOps
Last month, my partners in crime – Carmen DeArdo from Nationwide, Lee Reid, my colleague from IBM and I wrote a 3-part series of blog posts on DevOps.com. We titled our posts the Simple Math, Calculus and Art of DevOps. I would venture to say these are must-reads for any organization adopting DevOps. We examined all three ascpects – the Cultural, Automation and Process improvement side of DevOps. One of the key underlying themes of the three posts was the need for Cultural change – things like trust, collaboration, communication, etc. I will elaborate more on these soon.
13 Tricks to Save Data and Optimize iOS 9
Have you found yourself on a mobile data plan where you’re down to the wire, straining to connect to the next door Starbucks Wi-Fi the last few days of each month? Buckle up—there’s one addition to iOS 9 that might suck up even more of your data. Wi-Fi Assist seems like a great idea, but […]
The post 13 Tricks to Save Data and Optimize iOS 9 appeared first on Parallels Blog.