Archivo de la categoría: partnership

Azure, Microsoft, partnership, SAP, SAP HANA

SAP and Microsoft expand partnership

SAPPHIRE now

SAP CEO Bill McDermott (Left) and Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft (Right) speaking at SAPPhire Now in Orlando

Microsoft and SAP have extended a long-standing partnership to deliver broad support for the SAP HANA platform on Microsoft Azure.

The extended partnership will focus on greater integration between the two portfolios to simplify work-through integrations between Microsoft Office 365 and cloud solutions from SAP. The new team also claim the combined proposition will provide enhanced management and security for custom SAP Fiori apps.

The announcement builds on a previous relationship which was debuted in 2014, allowing SAP customers to build HANA applications in the Microsoft cloud platform, taking advantage of public cloud scalable resources, though the new partnership now incorporates more of the Azure security and management capabilities.

“This partnership is perhaps one of the broadest things we’ve done together,” said Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft. “Take the cloud. We’ve taken the best of SAP and the best of our hyper-scale cloud. It means SAP certifications are now certified on Azure, HANA is certified on Azure and S/4 HANA is certified on Azure.

We’ve taken our hyper-scale cloud and made it real for customers. Every application which SAP run is now compatible with Office 635 meaning we now have seamless integration. This recipe is going to accelerate the growth which our customers seek, by combining two product portfolios which are customers probably already use.”

As part of the new agreement, there will be a new deployment option for SAP HANA on the Azure cloud. The updates will certify SAP HANA to run development, test and production workloads on Microsoft Azure, including SAP S/4HANA, and will enable customers to run larger and more demanding workloads than previously possible. New integrations will also enable customers to combine Office 365 features (including communications, collaboration, calendar etc.) with SAP cloud-based applications including Concur, SAP Fieldglass and SAP SuccessFactors.

New developments which can be expected towards the latter end of the year also include the ability to deploy custom mobile hybrid SAP Fiori apps on SAP HANA Cloud Platform with an open standards plug-in framework, which will enable Microsoft Intune capabilities to be embedded within the app itself. The team believe these integrations will be available in Q3.

“We believe the IT industry will be shaped by breakthrough partnerships that unlock new productivity for customers beyond the boundaries of traditional platforms and applications,” said SAP CEO Bill McDermott. “SAP and Microsoft are working together to create an end-user experience built on unprecedented insight, convenience and agility. The certification of Microsoft Azure infrastructure services for SAP HANA along with the new integration between Microsoft Office 365 and cloud solutions from SAP are emblematic of this major paradigm shift for the enterprise.

The news follows another partnership announcement from SAP with Apple made in recent weeks. Apple has made multiple moves over the last 24 months to improve its position in the enterprise IT space, partnering with Cisco last year, to optimise iOS device performance across Cisco’s suite of enterprise communications services, and IBM in 2014, bringing IBM’s strengths in big data and analytics to Apple devices.

EMC, Enterprise IT, EY, News & Analysis, partnership

EY and EMC announce strategic technology partnership

Red Hat and Fujitsu are partnering to develop OpenStack converged infrastructure solutions

EY and EMC have announced a formal strategic partnership over business technology services, building on a long-standing relationship between the two firms.

The partnership will offer a number of different services to clients ranging from enterprise mobility management, hybrid cloud enablement, governance risk & compliance and cyber security.

“Working together as an integrated team, combining advisory services and innovative products, we will be able to connect on both existing and future initiatives to help our clients maximize their technology investments and drive better  business outcomes,” said Mark Weinberger, Chairman and CEO at EY. “The alliance will further expand EY’s digital capabilities and range of services offered to clients.”

Addressing growing trends in the industry, security will form one of the central pillars of the partnership. One of the first offerings from the team is Isolated Recovery, an offering which protects company data from cyber-attacks. The team claim a combination of cyber, business impact analysis and resiliency services, will provide a more secure environment for company data.

The partnership will also include Identity Access Management Monitoring (IAM) for single sign on, which will utilize real-time monitoring technologies. Security monitoring is not something that enterprise organizations traditionally engage in, though it is a growing trend as organizations aim to reduce risk when moving through to a cloud environment.

The alliance builds on EMC’s trend of partnering with major technology players to deliver alternative solutions. Last month, EMC and VMware jointly launched a family of hyper-converged infrastructure appliances (HCIA) for VMware environments.

The VxRail appliance family combines EMC’s data services and systems management with VMware’s software such as vSphere and Virtual SAN.

Datacentre, Juniper Networks, Lenovo, News & Analysis, partnership

Juniper Networks and Lenovo form global datacentre partnership

datacentre1Lenovo and Juniper Networks have announced a global strategic partnership to drive development of next-generation datacentre infrastructure solutions.

The partnership will focus on next-generation converged, hyper-converged, and hyper-scale data centre infrastructure solutions for enterprise and web-scale customers. The aim of the union will be to deliver flexible and cheaper solutions for customers, with a strong focus on simplifying user experience.

“Partnering with Lenovo expands Juniper’s strategy to deliver a full-stack solution for a wide-range of data centres, from the mid-range enterprise to private cloud and to hyper-scale customers,” said Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim. “We are excited about collaborating with Lenovo to leverage the full power of our IP-networking portfolio based on JunosOS and Contrail, in delivering the next generation of converged, hyper-converged, and hyper-scale solution to customers in China and globally”

As part of the partnership, customers will be able to purchase Juniper networking products directly through Lenovo, as well as receiving a consolidated support function for both companies. With the move to disaggregation of hardware and software in the datacentre, the two companies intend to bring open, flexible solutions to market, leveraging the ONIE (Open Network Install Environment) model.

“Lenovo is on a mission to become the market leader in datacentre solutions. We will continue to invest in the development and delivery of disruptive IT solutions to shape next-generation data centres,” said Gerry Smith, Executive VP and COO at Lenovo’s PC and Enterprise Business Group “Our partnership with Juniper Networks provides Lenovo access to an industry leading portfolio of products that include Software Defined Networking solutions – essential for state-of-the-art data centre offerings”

With a focus on the Chinese market, currently plans centre on a joint go-to-market strategy, as well as a tailor-made resell model to address unique localization requirements in China.

Cisco, cloud based collaboration, News & Analysis, partnership, Telco Cloud, Verizon

Cisco and Verizon team up to launch Cisco Spark

Cisco corporateCisco is expanding its partnership with Verizon Enterprise Solutions to offer its new cloud-based collaboration service, Cisco Spark, to Verizon’s customer base.

The announcement builds on continued efforts from Verizon to bolster its range next-generation collaboration solutions, which already includes offers such as Cisco WebEx Cloud Connected Audio, Collaboration Meeting Room and Verizon’s UCCaaS Mobile First service.

The new joint offer will deliver Spark Message and Spark Meet features integrated with Verizon’s business collaboration services. The ultimate goal of the partnership will be to develop a service delivered in such a manner that customers are unable to differentiate between the Cisco and Verizon components. While currently available in the US, the service will be available to enterprise and government customers worldwide towards the end of the year.

Cisco has also announced the allocation of $150 million to the Cisco Spark for Developers Fund to generate new ideas for the ecosystem. The fund will cover direct investments, joint development, additional enhancements and developer support.

Verizon has been making considerable efforts over the last 12 months to increase its cloud-based communications offerings, to meet the demands of an increasingly mobile and collaborative workforce. With enterprise increasingly searching for opportunities to create a more productive working environment, software- and cloud-based offerings which enable employees to work in the office, from home or on the road, are quickly becoming the norm.

“Verizon is a leader in delivering global, mobile-enabled unified communications solutions to our business and government clients,” said Bob Minai, Executive Director, Advanced Communications at Verizon. “By integrating Cisco Spark meeting and messaging capabilities into Verizon’s collaboration portfolio and global network, Verizon and Cisco will continue to help enterprise clients with digital transformation initiatives that drive better customer experiences and meaningful, measurable business outcomes.”

The partnership continues Verizon’s trend of collaborative business, following up on last month’s announcement that it would be teaming up HyperOffice. As part of the agreement, HyperOffice would distribute its Share.to communications suite from Verizon Cloud infrastructure. Primarily, the tool will enable employees to work alongside freelancers, customers and other stakeholders all using different collaboration tools that need to work together.