Archivo de la categoría: News & Analysis

Bob Stutz, Field service management, FieldOne, M&A, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Microsoft buys FieldOne in field service management software play

Microsoft has acquired FieldOne to strengthen its Dynamics CRM offering

Microsoft has acquired FieldOne to strengthen its Dynamics CRM offering

Microsoft has acquired field service management FieldOne Systems in a move aimed at complementing its Dynamics CRM customer service capabilities.

The cloud-based field service management software is already built on Microsoft technology on the back and front-end (Dynamics CRM), making integration with Office 365 somewhat more straightforward than it would be otherwise.

“Their industry-leading solution specializes in delivering a full set of capabilities that include work order management, automated scheduling, asset contract, inventory and procurement management, workflow capabilities and mobile collaboration – providing enterprises with a comprehensive modern field service solution,” explained Bob Stutz, corporate vice president of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

“FieldOne is a great fit for Dynamics CRM adding to our extensive customer service capabilities – which includes chat, knowledge management and self-service functionality from Parature which we acquired in January of 2014.  Like Parature, FieldOne is offered to customers as a cloud service. It’s built on Microsoft technology for fast integration, it already works great with other Microsoft productivity offerings like Office 365 and SharePoint, and has cross-platform capabilities meaning it can work on different devices enhancing the mobile experience which is so critically important in field service management.”

Microsoft said the FieldOne acquisition is a “major step” towards helping it round off its customer services software portfolio. The move is reminiscent of a similar acquisition made last year by Oracle when the database and ERP giant bought TOA technologies, which it rolled into its Service Cloud offering.

Craig McLuckie, Google, Kubernetes, Laurent Lachal, Mark Collier, News & Analysis, Open Source, OpenStack, ovum

Google joins OpenStack to build bridges between public and private clouds

Google has joined the OpenStack Foundation, a big sign of support for the open source software organisation

Google has joined the OpenStack Foundation, a big sign of support for the open source software organisation

Google has officially signed up to sponsor the OpenStack Foundation, the first of the big three – Google, Microsoft and AWS – to formally throw its weight behind the open source cloud orchestration software. Analysts believe the move will improve support for Linux containers across public and private cloud environments.

Google has already set to work integrating Kubernetes with OpenStack with pure-play OpenStack software vendor Mirantis, a move the company said would help bolster its hybrid cloud capabilities.

While the company has had some engineers partnering with the Foundation on Magnum and Murano, container-focused toolsets baked into the open source platform, Google said it plans to significantly bolster the engineering resource it devotes to getting Linux containers – and particularly its open source scheduling and deployment platform Kubernetes – integrated with OpenStack.

The formal sign of support from such a big incumbent in the cloud space is a big win for OpenStack.

“We are excited about becoming active participants in the OpenStack community,” said Craig McLuckie, product manager at Google. “We look forward to sharing what we’ve learned and hearing how OpenStack users are thinking about containers and other technologies to support cloud-native apps.”

Mark Collier, chief operating officer of the OpenStack Foundation said: “OpenStack is a platform that frees users to run proven technologies like VMs as well as new technologies like containers. With Google committing unequaled container and container management engineering expertise to our community, the deployment of containers via proven orchestration engines like Kubernetes will accelerate rapidly.”

Although Google has a long history of open sourcing some of the tools it uses to stand up its own cloud and digital services like search it hasn’t always participated with many open source forums per se.

In a sense Kubernetes marked a departure from its previous trajectory, and as Ovum’s lead software analyst Laurent Lachal explained to BCN, it seems to be focusing on containers as a means of building a bridge between private and public clouds.

“Google knows that it needs to play nice with cloud platforms like OpenStack and VMware, two platforms that are primarily private cloud-centric, if it wants to get workloads onto its public cloud,” he explained.

“Joining OpenStack is exactly that – a means to building a bridge between private and public clouds, and supporting containers within the context of OpenStack may be both a means of doing that and generating consensus around how best to support containers in OpenStack, something that could also work in its favour.”

“There’s also a big need for that kind of consensus. Currently, everyone wants to join the containers initiatives in the open source project but there isn’t much backing for one particular way of delivering the container-related features users need,” he added.

64-bit, ARM, Datacentre, DataCentred, Infrastructure as a Service, Mark Jarvis, Mike Kelly, News & Analysis

DataCentred ARM-based OpenStack cloud goes GA

DataCentred is moving its ARM-based OpenStack cloud into GA

DataCentred is moving its ARM-based OpenStack cloud into GA

It has been a big week for ARM in the cloud, with Manchester-based cloud services provider DataCentred announcing that its ARM AArch64-based OpenStack public cloud platform is moving into general availability. The move comes just days after OVH announced it would roll out an ARM-based cloud platform.

The company is running the platform on HP M400 ARM servers, and offering customers access to Intel and ARM architectures alongside one another within an OpenStack environment.

The platform, a product of its partnership with Codethink originally launched in March, comes in response to increasing demand for ARM-based workload support in the cloud according to DataCentre’s head of cloud services Mark Jarvis.

“The flexibility of OpenStack’s architecture has allowed us to make the integration with ARM seamless. When users request an ARM based OS image, it gets scheduled onto an ARM node and aside from this the experience is identical to requesting x86 resources.  Our early adopters have provided invaluable testing and feedback helping us to get to point where we’re confident about stability and support,” Jarvis explained.

“The platform is attracting businesses who are interested in taking advantage of the cost savings the lower-power chips offer as well as developers who are targeting ARM platforms. Developers are particularly interested because virtualised ARM is an incredibly cost-effective alternative to deploying physical ARM hardware on every developer’s desk,” he added.

The company said ARM architecture also offers environmental and space-saving benefits because they can be deployed in higher density and require less power than more conventional x86 chips to run.

Mike Kelly, founder and chief executive of DataCentred didn’t comment on customer numbers or revenue figures but stressed the move demonstrates the company has successfully commercialised OpenStack on ARM.

“The market currently lacks easy to use 64-bit ARM hardware and DataCentred’s innovation provides customers with large scale workloads across many cores. Open source software is the future of computing and the General Availability of DataCentred’s new development will make our services even more attractive to price-sensitive and environmentally-aware consumers,” Kelly said.

DataCentred isn’t alone in the belief that ARM has a strong future in the cloud. The move comes the same week French cloud and hosting provider OVH announced plans to add Cavium ARM-based processors to its public cloud platform by the end of next month.

The company, an early adopter of the Power architecture for cloud, said it will add Cavium’s flagship 48 core 64-bit ARMv8-A ThunderX workload-optimized processor to its RunAbove public cloud service.

Accenture, Amy K. Dale, Avanade, Bertrand Odinet, Enterprise IT, Freeport-McMoRan, News & Analysis

Freeport-McMoRan moves its apps into hybrid cloud

Freeport-McMoRan has given itself five years to complete the cloud migration

Freeport-McMoRan has given itself five years to complete the cloud migration

Copper and gold producer Freeport-McMoRan is embarking on a five-year project aimed at migrating its core IT applications over to a hybrid cloud platform. The company said the move is aimed at helping it become more agile and reduce overall IT spending.

Freeport-McMoRan is migrating to a system developed by Accenture and based on Microsoft Azure; the company said its core applications will be deployed on a combination of private and public cloud platforms, with Avanade and Accenture offering up a series of tools helping the company automate and manage its workloads.

“This program brings innovation and cloud economics to bear as we work to become more agile, drive increased revenue, and continue our focus on items that impact mine production,” said Bertrand Odinet, vice president and chief information officer of Freeport-McMoRan.

“By partnering with Accenture, we will gain the ability to grow our service portfolio and scale our IT services in line with our global business requirements,” Odinet said.

Amy K. Dale, managing director and client account lead, Accenture said: “We are collaborating with Freeport-McMoRan to help them evolve to an everything ‘as-a-service’ model, giving them the ability to easily provision new capabilities, reduce risk associated with vendor ‘lock-in’ and enable them to scale their IT services up and down as needed.”

Freeport-McMoRan is the latest natural resource firm to move its core applications into the cloud. In April this year Rio Tinto announced a partnership with Accenture that will see it move the bulk of its application landscape to Accenture’s public cloud service in a bid to save costs and switch to an “as-a-service” IT model.

Asia Pacific, CSA, New Zealand, News & Analysis, Open Source, STRATUS

CSA lends prototype compliance tool to six-year cloud security project

The CSA is part of the STRATUS project, a six-year cybersecurity project

The CSA is part of the STRATUS project, a six-year cybersecurity project

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) said this week that it is lending a prototype data auditing and compliance regulation tool to the STRATUS initiative, a six-year multi-million dollar cybersecurity project funded by New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment.

STRATUS, which stands for Security Technologies Returning Accountability, Transparency and User-centric Services in the Cloud, is a project being led by the University of Waikato intends to develop a series of security tools, techniques and capabilities to help give cloud users more control over how they secure the cloud services they use.

As part of the project the CSA showed how cloud data governance could be automated by applying auditing guidelines (CSA Cloud Control Matrix, ISO standards, etc.) and compliance regulations using a recently developed online tool.

The organisation, which is leading the data governance and accountability subproject within STRATUS, said it would also help support STRATUS’ commercialisation efforts.

“STRATUS’ approach to research commercialisation is different from typical scientific research grants,” said Dr. Ryan Ko, principal investigator of STRATUS, and CSA APAC research advisor.

“STRATUS understands that for cloud security innovation to reach a global audience, it will require a platform which will allow these cutting-edge cloud services to quickly align to global best practices and requirements – a core CSA strength given its strong research outputs such as the Cloud Controls Matrix and the Cloud Data Governance Working Group,” Ko said.

Aloysius Cheang, managing director for CSA APAC: “We have developed a prototype tool based on our work so far, that has received positive reviews. In addition, we are working to connect STRATUS and New Zealand to the CSA eco-system through our local chapter. More importantly, we are beginning to see some preliminary results of the efforts to connect to dots to commercialisation efforts as well as standardization efforts.”

The organisation reckons it should be able to show off the “fruit of these efforts” in November this year.

News & Analysis, Salesforce, Software as a service, Tod Nielsen, Toopher, Verizon

Salesforce bakes security, compliance into native apps with Shield

Salesforce has launched Shield in a bid to improve confidence among highly regulated cloud adopters

Salesforce has launched Shield in a bid to improve confidence among highly regulated cloud adopters

Salesforce this week announced Salesforce Shield, a portfolio of “drag and drop” security and compliance assurance services that developers can bake into native Salesforce apps.

The Shield services include field audit trail and data integrity tracking, data encryption, archiving and event monitoring.

Salesforce said the services are already in use by some of the company’s clients in the financial services and healthcare services sectors.

“While many companies are leveraging the cloud to build apps at the speed of business, those in regulated industries have struggled to take full advantage of the cloud due to regulatory and compliance constraints,” said Tod Nielsen, executive vice president of Salesforce1 Platform, Salesforce.

“With Salesforce Shield, we are liberating these IT leaders and developers, and empowering them to quickly build the cloud apps their businesses need, with the trust Salesforce is known for.”

Salesforce said the move will help provide assurances to more heavily regulated sectors including developing applications with the Salesforce platform, particularly those that are learning more heavily on mobile platforms.

That said, mobile security has been a big focus for the firm in recent months. In April the company acquired Toopher, a Texas-based mobile authentication startup, and towards the end of last year the company joined Verizon’s dark fibre cloud interconnection service to give its customers more secure options for linking to its cloud platform.

AllSeen Alliance, Internet of Things, IoT, News & Analysis, Qualcomm, Thread

IoT platform Thread unveiled, Qualcomm joins

Another week, another IoT standard ecosystem

Another week, another IoT standard ecosystem

Thread, an IP-based wireless protocol designed for consumer IoT in the home, has been unveiled, with the organisation also confirming Qualcomm Technologies as a member of its board of directors, reports Telecoms.com.

The IoT protocol, according to Thread, is designed for consumers and devices in and around the home, and extends domestic M2M connections into the cloud using IP in a low-power mesh network. Having announced its formation in late 2014, Thread now comprises of more than 160 member companies. Qualcomm has also been appointed to the group’s board of directors, where it will be more heavily involved in the development of Thread-compatible products, as well as the protocol itself.

Considering it’s only been operational for just over nine months, the progress being made within the wider Thread group shows the rate of development within the wider IoT industry in general; a sentiment agreed with by Chris Boross, Thread Group’s president.

“In the nine months since opening membership, more than 160 companies have joined the Thread Group, and now the group is launching the Thread technical specification, which has now completed extensive interoperability testing,” he said. “Today’s announcement means that Thread products are on the way and will be in customers’ hands very shortly. I’m excited to see what kinda of products and experiences Thread developers will build.”

With Qualcomm joining the board of directors, it also shows how large and influential tech firms are hedging their bets on the development of IoT, by also contributing to the AllSeen Alliance, another IoT platform development forum. Raj Talluri, Qualcomm’s SVP of product management reckons the work being done at Thread will help further IoT development.

“When it comes to easily and securely connecting the smart home, the work of industry alliances like the Thread Group are essential,” he said. “Collaborating with the Thread Group allows for the integration of this technology into the world’s leading brands of household appliances, and to thereby speed innovation and market transformation.”

Thread coming to the fore serves to illustrate how progress in various aspects of IoT connectivity is accelerating. There’s a plethora of platforms all addressing separate networking considerations, from Sigfox and its cellular IoT platform, to the Wireless IoT Forum deploying low-powered wide area networks for city-wide M2M connectivity. If the variety of industry stakeholders involved are indeed intent on open collaboration and cooperation to ensure the more altruistic progression of IoT; then sooner or later one would assume a level of convergence of said platforms is inevitable.

Google, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, SQL, Windows

Google Cloud adds Microsoft support as Windows Server 2003 reaches EOL

Google made Windows Server support generally available this week

Google made Windows Server support generally available this week

Making good on commitments the cloud provider made in December last year Google has announced general availability of Windows Server on the Google Cloud Platform. The move comes the same week Windows Server 2003 reached its end of life.

“Making sure Google Cloud Platform is the best place to run your workloads is our top priority, so we’re happy that today Windows Server on Google Compute Engine graduates to General Availability, joining the growing list OSes we support. We’re also introducing several enhancements for Windows Server users,” the company said in a statement on its cloud blog.

“With its graduation to General Availability, Windows Server instances are now covered by the Compute Engine SLA. Windows Server users can now easily deploy a server running Active Directory or ASP.NET using the Cloud Launcher, and can securely extend their existing infrastructure into Google Cloud Platform using VPN.”

Google also said customers the purchase GCP support packages can get architectural and operational support for their Windows Server deployments on its cloud platform. And with Microsoft ceasing support for Windows Server 2003 Google is looking to lure in Microsoft developers by committing to support migration to more current Microsoft Server releases (2008, 2012).

In December last year the company announced it would begin offering Microsoft license mobility for the Google Cloud Platform, enabling existing Microsoft server application users to bring their own licenses and apps – SQL Server, SharePoint, Exchange – from on-premise to the cloud, without incurring any additional fees.

As before the move to expand support for the Microsoft ecosystem is likely to come as welcome news to the .NET crowd, which is fairly sizeable. Microsoft commands a 32.8 per cent share of all public web server infrastructure according to W3Techs.

Africa, Dubai, IBM, Infrastructure as a Service, Middle East, Mubadala, News & Analysis, UAE, Watson

IBM, Mubadala joint venture to bring Watson cloud to MENA

IBM is bringing Watson to the Middle East

IBM is bringing Watson to the Middle East

IBM is teaming up with Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Mubadala Development Company to create a joint venture based in Abu Dhabi that will deliver IBM’s cloud-based Watson service to customers in the Middle East and Northern Afirca (MENA) region.

The companies will set up the joint venture through Mubadala’s subsidiary, Injazat, which will be the sole provider of the Watson platform in the region.

The companies said the move will help create an ecosystem of MENA-based partners, software vendors and startups developing new solutions based on the cognitive compute platform.

“Bringing IBM Watson to the region represents the latest major milestone in the global adoption of cognitive computing,” said Mounir Barakat, executive director of ICT at Aerospace & Engineering Services, Mubadala.

“It also signals Mubadala’s commitment to bringing new technologies and spurring economic growth in the Middle East, another step towards developing the UAE as a hub for the region’s ICT sector,” Barakat said.

Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of IBM Watson said Mubadala’s knowledge of the local corporate ecosystem will help the company expand its cognitive compute cloud service in the region.

IBM has enjoyed some Watson wins in financial services, healthcare and the utilities sectors, but the company has been fairly quiet on how much the division rakes in; over the past year the company made strides to expand the platform in the US, Africa and Japan, and recently made a number of strategic acquisitions in software automation in order to boost Watson’s appeal in customer engagement and health services.

GE, Industrial Internet of Things, Internet of Things, IoT, Jason C. Dies, News & Analysis, Pitney Bowes, Predix, Roger Pilc

GE, Pitney Bowes partner on industrial Internet of Things

GE and Pitney Bowes are partnering on industrial IoT

GE and Pitney Bowes are partnering on industrial IoT

GE is partnering with American ecommerce solutions provider Pitney Bowes to develop a custom asset performance management (APM) application that analyses the data Pitney Bowes generates from its production mailing and shipping machines to improve the efficiency of its equipment.

Pitney Bowes handles the automated mailing and shipping for clients like banks and retailers, and will work with GE to adapt its Predix software analytics platform to its mail handing and shipping environment.

The platform will allow Pitney Bowes to hoover up data generated from IoT sensors embedded into mail handling equipment and analyse the information to help improve operational efficiency and capacity planning, as well as proactively identify, diagnose and resolve asset service issues “before the client is even aware” of any problems.

“Our partnership with GE will help accelerate Pitney Bowes’ pace of innovation in combining physical and digital solutions to enable commerce. It is an important step in a series of activities we are pursuing across Pitney Bowes as part of our technology strategy,” said said Roger Pilc, chief innovation officer of Pitney Bowes. “By adding this next generation of data analytics and digital solutions to our hardware products, we will be able to drive more valuable solutions and business outcomes for our clients.”

Jason C. Dies, president of Document Messaging Technologies at Pitney Bowes said: “We see this initiative as potentially transformative to our Production Mail business . ”By gathering digital data from production mail machines, Pitney Bowes can drive compelling business outcomes for our clients.”

Both companies have already partnered with one another elsewhere in the IoT ecosystem. Pitney Bowes and GE are members of the Industrial Internet Consortium, a membership group of telcos, research institutes and technology manufacturers formed last year and focused on developing interoperability standards and common architectures to bridge smart devices, machines, mobile devices and the data they create.

The move comes barely a week after GE ramped up its IoT commitments with NTT Docomo. The two companies agreed to combine GE Digital Energy’s MDS Orbit Platform, a wireless router for industrial equipment, and Docomo’s embedded communication module, which will provide remote access and monitoring capabilities, for industrial IoT applications.