This builds on Puppet Labs’ first class Windows support, including native .MSI packages for x32 and x64 operating systems, modules to extend common Windows server management tools, including Powershell, and integrations with Microsoft Azure and Visual Studio. By automating common Windows administration tasks, Puppet Labs is enabling users to adopt DevOps practices, thereby reducing the time needed to deploy applications from weeks to hours.
A Practical Guide for ‘Recurring Revenue’ By @AriaSystemsInc | @CloudExpo [#Cloud]
As a marketing executive, I’ve seen my fair share of collateral: overviews, PPTs, ebooks, whitepapers, surveys, Slideshares and product documents. Admittedly, we marketers are often guilty of producing stuff that is heavy on the sell and light on insight and instruction. And while this is great for the occasional comparison shopper, it’s not so hot for many of you who are just getting your feet wet in the recurring revenue waters.
Today, we look to change that. For those that want a deeper dive than the usual marketing document provides, we published the No BS Guide to Recurring Revenue Success. The guide looks to help IT and financial executives better plan for their recurring revenue initiatives.
DevOps Summit Was a Terrific Event! By @QubellInc | @DevOpsSummit [#DevOps]
DevOps Summit at Cloud Expo 2014 Silicon Valley was a terrific event for us. The Qubell booth was crowded on all three days. We ran demos every 30 minutes with folks lining up to get a seat and usually standing around. It was great to meet and talk to over 500 people! My keynote was well received and so was Stan’s joint presentation with RingCentral on Devops for BigData. I also participated in two Power Panels – ‘Women in Technology’ and ‘Why DevOps Is Even More Important than You Think,’ both featuring brilliant colleagues and moderators and it was a blast to be a part of.
The Amazon versus VMware Cloud War Reader | @CloudExpo [#Cloud]
A series of articles written about the new cloud war between Amazon and VMware has attracted plenty of interest, despite being spread across a few media sites andArchimedius. So I thought I would put them together in a single location for easy reference with other blogs that put the conflict within a broader perspective:
DevOps Summit NY Keynote Proposals Now Open | @DevOpsSummit [#DevOps]
DevOps Summit 2015 New York, co-located with the 16th International Cloud Expo – to be held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY – announces that it is now accepting Keynote Proposals.
The widespread success of cloud computing is driving the DevOps revolution in enterprise IT. Now as never before, development teams must communicate and collaborate in a dynamic, 24/7/365 environment. There is no time to wait for long development cycles that produce software that is obsolete at launch. DevOps may be disruptive, but it is essential.
In-Memory Computing By @GridGain | @CloudExpo [#BigData]
In the last year, conversations about In-Memory Computing (IMC) have become more and more prevalent in enterprise IT circles, especially with organizations feeling the pressure to process massive quantities of data at the speed that is now being demanded by the Internet. The hype around IMC is justified: tasks that once took hours to execute are streamlined down to seconds by moving the computation and data from disk, directly to RAM. Through this simple adjustment, analytics are happening in real-time, and applications (as well as the development of applications) are working at-pace with this new standard of technology and speed.
Despite becoming both more cost-effective and accepted within enterprise computing, there are still a small handful of falsehoods that confuse even the most technical of individuals in enterprise IT.
Data Lake and Data Refinery – Gartner Controversy! | @CloudExpo [#BigData]
The concept of a ‘data lake’ was coined by James Dixon of Pentaho Corp. and this is what he said – If you think of a datamart as a store of bottled water – cleansed and packaged and structured for easy consumption – the data lake is a large body of water in a more natural state. The contents of the data lake stream in from a source to fill the lake, and various users of the lake can come to examine, dive in, or take samples. Think of a data lake as an unstructured data warehouse, a place where you pull in all of your different sources into one large “pool” of data. In contrast to a data mart, a data lake won’t “wash” the data or try to structure it or limit the use cases. Sure, you should have some use cases in mind, but the architecture of a data lake is simple: a Hadoop File System (HDFS) with lots of directories and files on it.
Essential Features of Field Service Management Software
Field management software is a system that helps in the running of the business. It takes complete charge of dispatching activities. With this system one can ensure that his material will reach its destination on time.
A dispatcher needs to a keep tab with the driver on where the vehicle is and when will it reach. Constant phone calls connect them. But with this technology, the dispatcher does not have to worry. He can access the vehicle’s information as and when needed. The system helps in field service management and makes the administrator’s task simpler and stress-free. Some of the most important features to look for while buying field management software are:
Client Management
This feature helps you maintain records of your clients including your client’s contact details, purchase history and choices for a lifetime. Any feedback or note can also be stored. You can access the data anytime you want. This will help you to stay informed even on old client related matters thus helping you build strengthened relationships with your client.
Scheduling
This feature is the most vital part of the system. It helps you track the exact location of your vehicle. It also suggests which route to take while travelling. This saves the fuel costs and time taken for hunting the place. You can inform the customer about the exact time your representative will take to reach. This ensures that your delivery is made on time. Also, you can keep proper track of the schedule, work processes, breaks, and completion of any projects. The scheduling system helps you provide your customer with the best of service, thus building on the trust factor.
Billing
Your accounting team can relax as this feature in the system keeps an accurate record of your transactions and is capable of preparing instant bills. It helps to abolish the cumbersome paperwork. The system can take electronic signatures and work orders with an assurance that the data won’t be lost. Papers can be lost or damaged, but electronic data gets stored for a lifetime. Moreover, the customer can also pay your bills through electronic means. Time taken to complete a certain task and the amount of hours that a particular employee dedicates to the office are also evaluated.
Task Management
It is a feature that acts as a planner for your employees’ tasks which provides workforce management solutions. Employees can have their whole planner ready and inform you regarding the progress of each task. You can give them a deadline to inform when a specific task is expected to be complete. They can notify you once a particular task is completed while you can update them about the task that needs to be done on priority. Thus, all the tasks carried out by the employees can be easily monitored using the Task Management system.
Business Intelligence
This feature helps you to develop your business by giving analytic reports of your activities. It will help you identify your shortcomings and work on it beforehand. You can understand your own business better, which will help you to progress and keep abreast with consumer demands and expectations. You can also keep a check on your cash intake and expenditures on a regular basis.
Good field management software will help your business in many ways. It helps you to do away with unwanted tasks by acting as a waste management software too. The efficiency will boost customer satisfaction, and a happier customer is sure to bring more customers, more business and more profits to you.
Click here to get more information on Field Service Management.
Creating the New Big Data Developer By @ABridgwater | @CloudExpo [#BigData]
HP hasn’t exactly coined the term Big Data developer. Except, perhaps, it maybe kind of has if you look at the recent tools being rolled out from the firm’s HP Software division.
All working towards what HP loves to call “business transformation” – the company is now also using the term “new style of IT,” by which it of course means cloud-centric (always hybrid) technology architectures aligned to take advantage of Big Data analytics (even in SMBs) and other more cutting-edge elements such as enterprise social activity and collaboration technology.
AWS Security Tips By @Porticor | @CloudExpo [#Cloud]
When asked how companies can protect themselves, Schmidt says “They need to properly scope encryption [and] use encryption where it is available.”
According to another expert, BBC.com writer Paul Rubens, “Even if cloud service providers are infiltrated or compelled to disclose data, for example, whatever is encrypted will remain unreadable to unauthorized viewers as long as enterprises retain control of their encryption keys. Additionally, placing the focus on the data rather than on infrastructure helps ensure that data will remain safe even if hardware vulnerabilities are exploited.”