Category Archives: AWS

21Vianet, AWS, IBM, Josh Chen, Microsoft, Ralph Haupter

21Vianet, Microsoft renew vows on Chinese public cloud services

21Vianet and Microsoft have extended a partnership to sell Azure-based services in China

21Vianet and Microsoft have extended a partnership to sell Azure-based services in China

Microsoft and 21Vianet have announced the two companies have renewed their partnership to jointly sell Microsoft’s cloud services in China.

The partnership, which now extends until the end of 2018 and will now include Office 365, will see 21Vianet continue to be the exclusive provider of Microsoft’s Azure-based services within China.

“As China’s premier infrastructure provider and cloud enabler, we are extremely excited to extend this important partnership with Microsoft. Since 2012, teams from Microsoft and 21Vianet have worked diligently and seamlessly in the preparation, public preview and commercial launch of both Windows Azure and Office 365 services in China,” said Josh Chen, chairman and chief executive officer of 21Vianet.

“As the growth momentum for cloud services remains exceptionally strong, we believe this partnership extension marks another significant step in solidifying the cooperation between 21Vianet and Microsoft as well as strengthening our leadership role in China’s cloud computing services market,” Chen said.

Microsoft and 21Vianet originally announced their partnership in 2012. Given the stringent data management measures applied to service providers by the Chinese government as well as local business rules, international companies like Microsoft are required to partner with a local service providers if they are to sell their services on the Mainland. 21Vianet also works with AWS and IBM to rollout their cloud services in China.

“We are very pleased to have extended a successful relationship with 21Vianet, following more than 2 years of close collaboration in bringing Microsoft public cloud services to the Chinese market. Both Azure and Office 365 have strong momentum in the market with broad adoption by both local Chinese companies and multinational corporations,” said Ralph Haupter, corporate vice president and chief executive officer of Microsoft Greater China.

“Customers value Azure and Office 365′s enterprise-grade benefits such as security, flexibility, reliability, scalability, openness, cost efficiency and deployment speed. We remain firmly committed to the Chinese cloud market, and we believe this extended partnership with 21Vianet will serve as a strong foundation for both companies to further contribute to the development of the cloud computing ecosystem throughout China.”

According to CCID Consulting, an IT consultancy catering to Chinese businesses, China’s cloud market is on track to reach $6bn by 2017.

AWS, data privacy, data protection, EU, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, Policy and Regulation

EU data protection authorities rubber-stamp AWS’ data processing agreement

EU data protection authorities have rubber-stamped AWS' data protection practices

EU data protection authorities have rubber-stamped AWS’ data protection practices

The group of European Union data protection authorities, known as the Article 29 Working Party (WP29), has approved AWS’ Data Processing Agreement, which the company said would help reassure customers it applies high standard of security and privacy in handling their data, whether moved inside or out of the EU.

Amazon said its inclusion of standardised model clauses within its customer contracts, and the WP29’s signoff of its contract, should help give customers more confidence in how it treats their data.

“The security, privacy, and protection of our customer’s data is our number one priority,” said Werner Vogels, chief technology officer, Amazon.

“Providing customers a DPA that has been approved by the EU data protection authorities is another way in which we are giving them assurances that they will receive the highest levels of data protection from AWS. We have spent a lot of time building tools, like security controls and encryption, to give customers the ability to protect their infrastructure and content.”

“We will always strive to provide the highest level of data security for AWS customers in the EU and around the world,” he added.

AWS already boasts a number of highly regulated clients in the US and Europe, and has made strides to appease the security and data-sovereignty-conscious customers. The company has certified to ISO 27001, SOC 1, 2, 3 and PCI DSS Level 1, is approved to provide its services to a number of banks in Europe, and is working with the CIA to build a massive private cloud platform.

More recently AWS added another EU availability zone based in Franfkurt; it operates one in Dublin.

The rubber-stamping seems to have come as welcome news to some European members of parliament, which have for the past few years been actively working on data protection reform in the region.

“The EU has the highest data protection standards in the world and it is very important that European citizens’ data is protected,” said Antanas Guoga, Member of the European Parliament.

“I believe that the Article 29 Working Party decision to approve the data proceeding agreement put forward by Amazon Web Services is a step forward to the right direction. I am pleased to see that AWS puts an emphasis on the protection of European customer data. I hope this decision will also help to drive further innovation in the cloud computing sector across the EU,” Guoga added.

AWS, Channel, Europe, IBM, Ingram Micro, News & Analysis, VAR

Ingram Micro expands cloud marketplace to EU

Traditional IT resellers are trying to rebuild the business model to fit cloud services

Traditional IT resellers are trying to rebuild the business model to fit cloud services

IT tech distributor Ingram Micro has launched a marketplace for cloud services in Europe in a bid to bolster its appeal to channel partners, many of which are increasingly offering their products as-a-service. The move is aimed at making its proposition in the cloud economy more compelling, particularly as other traditional IT vendors and cloud incumbents move in on reseller turf.

The Cloud Marketplace, which handles billing and service deployment for a range of services offered by cloud vendors, is already up and running in the US. But the most recent announcement will see the platform launch imminently in France, the Netherlands, and the UK.

The company said it plans to launch the marketplace in Belgium, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Sweden in the second quarter of 2015.

In prepared remarks the company said it wanted to enable channel partners to more effectively sell their cloud wares to clients, and in particular, exploit what Ingram sees as a growing opportunity in the SME market for resellers. With the Cloud Marketplace, channel partners can manage the complete end-customer subscription lifecycle from a single, automated platform, provided and supported by Ingram Micro, the company said.

“For our channel partners, enabling businesses to operate in a hybrid environment that includes cloud-based solutions is as much about business transformation as it is about technology,” said Carl Alloin, executive director Europe, Ingram Micro Cloud. “Our Cloud Marketplace was designed to help channel partners quickly scale as they seek to expand their footprint and profitability in the cloud.”

Ingram is among a growing number of resellers refitting their channel models for the cloud (Arrow is another big one in Europe that recently launched a cloud app marketplace), in part because other traditional vendors and cloud service providers are starting to threaten their role in the market. Vendors like IBM, which launched its cloud service marketplace last year, are much more willing to cooperate with other vendors they would otherwise compete with at different levels of the stack, while cloud incumbents like AWS are attracting a range of other software and service providers to its fast-growing ecosystem.

Ajay Chitkara, AWS, Bharti Airtel, Bikram singh Bedi, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, Telco Cloud

Bharti Airtel joins AWS Partner Network service to bolster cloud connectivity

Bharti Airtel will offer enterprise customers private links directly to AWS' cloud

Bharti Airtel will offer enterprise customers private links directly to AWS’ cloud

Bharti Airtel has joined Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Partner Network in a move that will see the Indian telco offer private network services for enterprise customers using the AWS cloud.

Airtel said the move would help enterprise customers across the globe leverage AWS Direct Connect to establish a dedicated network connection between customers’ premises and Amazon’s datacentres globally, and potentially reduce network costs and offer more consistent network performance.

AWS Direct Connect allows enterprise customers to establish a dedicated network connection between their network and any AWS Direct Connect locations using 802.1q VLANs.

“Today, we are seeing more and more organizations embrace the benefits of hybrid network architectures and on-premise environments across the globe. In line with this market adoption, we are excited to strengthen Airtel’s cloud services portfolio by adding AWS to our growing list of cloud services providers,” said Ajay Chitkara, chief executive officer – global business, Bharti Airtel.

“We are confident that this will help our global customers truly leverage the benefits of cloud, and further Airtel’s long-term commitment towards delivering the best technological capabilities for its customers,” Chitkara added.

In canned remarks, Bikram singh Bedi, head of Amazon Web Services India said: “We are excited to be working with Airtel to bring the security and reliability of AWS Direct Connect to Amazon Web Services customers across India. By utilizing AWS Direct Connect, AWS customers are able to reduce network costs, increase bandwidth throughput and provide a more consistent network experience, helping Indian businesses of all sizes to rapidly expand their organisations.”

A number of large telcos have partnered with AWS in a bid to bolster their appeal to their own enterprise customers, and attract large multinational firms – which tend to have a strong interest in harmonising their IT estates globally.

Ajay Chitkara, AWS, Bharti Airtel, Bikram singh Bedi, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, Telco Cloud

Bharti Airtel joins AWS Partner Network service to bolster cloud connectivity

Bharti Airtel will offer enterprise customers private links directly to AWS' cloud

Bharti Airtel will offer enterprise customers private links directly to AWS’ cloud

Bharti Airtel has joined Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Partner Network in a move that will see the Indian telco offer private network services for enterprise customers using the AWS cloud.

Airtel said the move would help enterprise customers across the globe leverage AWS Direct Connect to establish a dedicated network connection between customers’ premises and Amazon’s datacentres globally, and potentially reduce network costs and offer more consistent network performance.

AWS Direct Connect allows enterprise customers to establish a dedicated network connection between their network and any AWS Direct Connect locations using 802.1q VLANs.

“Today, we are seeing more and more organizations embrace the benefits of hybrid network architectures and on-premise environments across the globe. In line with this market adoption, we are excited to strengthen Airtel’s cloud services portfolio by adding AWS to our growing list of cloud services providers,” said Ajay Chitkara, chief executive officer – global business, Bharti Airtel.

“We are confident that this will help our global customers truly leverage the benefits of cloud, and further Airtel’s long-term commitment towards delivering the best technological capabilities for its customers,” Chitkara added.

In canned remarks, Bikram singh Bedi, head of Amazon Web Services India said: “We are excited to be working with Airtel to bring the security and reliability of AWS Direct Connect to Amazon Web Services customers across India. By utilizing AWS Direct Connect, AWS customers are able to reduce network costs, increase bandwidth throughput and provide a more consistent network experience, helping Indian businesses of all sizes to rapidly expand their organisations.”

A number of large telcos have partnered with AWS in a bid to bolster their appeal to their own enterprise customers, and attract large multinational firms – which tend to have a strong interest in harmonising their IT estates globally.

Asia Pacific, AWS, centurylink, Datacentre, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, News & Analysis, Pivotal, Red Hat

CenturyLink expands public cloud in APAC

CenturyLink is expanding its public cloud platform in Singapore

CenturyLink is expanding its public cloud platform in Singapore

American telco CenturyLink has expanded the presence of its public cloud platform to Singapore in a bid to cater to growing regional demand for cloud services.

CenturyLink, which recently expanded its managed services presence in China and its private cloud services in Europe and the UK, is adding public cloud nodes to one of its Singapore datacentres.

“The launch of a CenturyLink Cloud node in Singapore further enhances our position as a leading managed hybrid IT provider for businesses with operations in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Gery Messer, CenturyLink managing director, Asia Pacific.

“We continue to invest in the high-growth Asia-Pacific region to meet increasing customer demand,” Messer said.

The company said it wants to cater to what it sees as growing demand for cloud services in the region, citing Frost & Sullivan figures that show the Asia-Pacific region spent almost $6.6bn on public cloud services last year. That firm predicts annual cloud services spending in the region will exceed $20bn by 2018.

The move also comes at a time when the Singapore Government is looking to invest more in both using cloud services and growing usage of cloud platforms in the region.

Last year the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) said it was working with Amazon Web Services to trial a data as a service project the organisations believe will help increase the visibility of privately-held data sets.

The agency also signed a Memorandum of Intent with AWS that would see the cloud provider offer usage credits $3,000 (US) to the first 25 companies to sign up to the pilot, which will go towards the cost of hosting their dataset registries or datasets.

It’s also announced similar partnerships in the past with Pivotal and Red Hat.

AWS, Birst, Jay Larson, News & Analysis, SAP

Birst scores $65m to grow cloud analytics

Birst has secured $65m to grow its cloud-based analytics platform globally

Birst has secured $65m to grow its cloud-based analytics platform globally

BI and analytics provider Birst has secured $65m in its latest round of funding which the firm said would be used to fuel sales and marketing efforts globally.

The latest funding round brings the total amount secured by the company to $156m.

“We’ve seen an explosion in data volumes, data sources, and end-user demand in the analytics market. Organizations need speed, end-user self-service and robust data governance from their next-generation business intelligence platform. That’s exactly what we deliver at Birst,” said Jay Larson, chief executive officer of Birst.

Doug Leone, partner at Sequoia Capital, one of Birst’s investors, said the business intelligence market is going through a massive transformation at the moment.

“The BI market is going through a major transition as the legacy suppliers continue to decline. The race for next-generation leadership in BI and analytics is going to be won by the supplier that offers world-class technology, great business leadership, and a proven capability to focus on today’s needs versus those from a decade ago,” Leone said.

Birst’s strategy seems to be in line with where enterprises are headed. According to the BCN Annual Industry Survey, which polled over 700 senior IT decision makers globally, about two thirds of enterprises plan to use cloud-based analytics platforms over the next 18 months.

Last year Birst moved to bolster its presence in Europe and the UK, launching a version of its solution hosted in AWS’s Ireland datacentre, and expanding its UK team. It also struck a deal with SAP to make Birst’s analytics platform available on HANA.

Aamzon, AWS, Consulting, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, Software AG, Terry Wise, Vendor, Wolfram Jost

Software AG migrates cloud portfolio to AWS

Software AG plans to deploy its software portfolio on the AWS platform and offer cloud migration services to enterprises

Software AG plans to deploy its software portfolio on the AWS platform and offer cloud migration services to enterprises

Software AG is moving forward with plans to offer cloud migration services to enterprise clients in a move that will see the company deploy its cloud software portfolio onto Amazon Web Services infrastructure.

The company said it has made a “strategic decision” to deploy its entire cloud portfolio on the AWS cloud over the course of 2015, with its Alfabet Cloud and ARIS Cloud suites already running on Amazon’s cloud platform.

t also plans to offer services that help enterprises determine whether and how to move to the cloud while considering ease of access, cost, regulatory, security and business processes transformation issues involved with such a move.

“Software AG is committed to increasing customer choice and ease of use wherever possible and transformation to the cloud is a significant step in this direction, delivering increased enterprise flexibility and adaptability”, said Wolfram Jost, chief technology officer at Software AG. “Not only does this help enterprises and government departments to design and implement individual cloud strategies and architectures, it does so from the cloud, delivering cost efficiencies from the start.”

The company said its focus for 2015 will be on “delivering strategic cloud adoption consulting services,” an area where a good number of boutique consultancies have emerged over the past few years.

Terry Wise, vice president of AWS also commented on the partnership: “Today, more than ever before, leading ISVs are looking for IT solutions that allow them to move quickly, reduce costs, and better serve their customers. Software AG is a leading example of an innovative software vendor going all in on AWS to leverage our secure, robust infrastructure platform, and expanding global footprint to build highly differentiated, value-added solutions for their customers.”

Amazon AWS, Amazon Web Services, AWS, GitHub

Developers Hit With Big, Unexpected AWS Bills, Thousands on GitHub Exposed

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is urging developers using the code sharing site GitHub to check their posts to ensure they haven’t inadvertently exposed their log-in credentials.

When opening an account, users are told to “store the keys in a secure location” and are warned that the key needs to remain “confidential in order to protect your account”. However, a search on GitHub reveals thousands of results where code containing AWS secret keys can be found in plain text, which means anyone can access those accounts.

From a security perspective it means they can basically go in and gain access to any of the files that are stored in the AWS account.

According to an AWS statement,  ”When we become aware of potentially exposed credentials, we proactively notify the affected customers and provide guidance on how to secure their access keys,”

There is more detail (and some cautionary tales involving big, and unexpected, AWS bills) here.

Amazon, Amazon AWS, Amazon Glacier, Amazon Web Service, AWS, Glacier, Storage

Cloud Mystery: What’s the Tech Secret Behind Amazon Glacier?

ITProPortal has a good writeup on Amazon Glacier technology: tape? cheap disks they power down? It’s more than just a post filled with wild speculation because it includes informed reasoning on the current state of the art for each of the candidate technologies behind Glacier:

…of all the services offered by AWS, none have fuelled the same level of speculation and interest as Amazon’s Glacier. Though the service is well-known and widely-used in enterprise, no one knows exactly what’s behind it.

Amazon has retained a thick veil of secrecy around its most mysterious web service. The Seattle-based company has always kept the processes behind its services fairly quiet, but the omerta surrounding Glacier has been especially strict, leaving experts in the tech community perplexed about what Amazon could be hiding.

TL;DR: It might be old-fashioned robot tape libraries; it might be cheap disks they fill up then turn off until they need them for retrieval; it might be some clever hybrid of the two.

Read the article.