Since the initial buzz of WebRTC, the ability to enable browser-to-browser applications for voice calling, video chat and P2P file sharing without plugins has been touted as a potential game changer for many industries. What are the parameters around this technology and its placement? Is it secure enough for prime time? Will WebRTC magnify OTT threat for telcos? Is WebRTC really that big of a deal for consumers?
In his session at WebRTC Summit, Keith McFarlane, Chief Technology Officer at LiveOps, will discuss the future of WebRTC and its disruptive tendencies, specifically regarding monetization and customer service.
CheckAction to Exhibit at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that CheckAction will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 13th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
CheckAction is collaborative project management software developed by I.T. engineers for I.T. departments. Through years of experience, research, interviews, and surveys we’ve identified that I.T. departments have a truly unique set of needs when it comes to working with projects. Since we understand our customers’ needs we build in features that save time, help teams collaborate, and provide visibility into what’s going on. We understand that a project requires care throughout the entire lifecycle, so we help teams with every phase of a project, from initiation to close-out.
My VMworld Breakout Session: Key Lessons Learned from Deploying a Private Cloud Service Catalog
By John Dixon, Consulting Architect, LogicsOne
Last month, I had the special privilege of co-presenting a breakout session at VMworld with our CTO Chris Ward. The session’s title was “Key Lessons Learned from Deploying a Private Cloud Service Catalog,” and we had a full house for it. Overall, the session went great and we had a lot of good questions. In fact, due to demand, we ended up giving the presentation twice.
In the session, Chris and I discussed a recent project we did for a financial services firm where we built a private cloud, front-ended by a service catalogue. A service catalog really enables self-service – it is one component of corporate IT’s opportunity to partner with the business. In a service catalog, the IT department can publish the menu of services that it is willing to provide and (sometimes) the price that it charges for those services. For example, we published a “deploy VM” service in the catalog, and the base offering was priced at $8.00 per day. Additional storage or memory from the basic spec was available at an additional charge. When the customer requests “deploy VM,” the following happens:
- The system checks to see if there is capacity available on the system to accommodate the request
- The request is forwarded to the individual’s manager for approval
- The manager approves or denies the request
- The requestor is notified of the approval status
- The system fulfills the request – a new VM is deployed
- A change record and a new configuration item is created to document the new VM
- The system emails the requestor with the hostname, IP address, and login credentials for the new VM
This sounds fairly straightforward, and it is. Implementation is another matter however. It turns out that we had to integrate with vCenter, Active Directory, the client’s ticketing system, and client’s CMDB, an approval system, and the provisioned OS in order to automate the fulfillment of this simple request. As you might guess, documenting this workflow upfront was incredibly important to the project’s success. We documented the workflow and assessed it against the request-approval-fulfillment theoretical paradigm to identify the systems we needed to integrate. One of the main points that Chris and I made at VMworld was to build this automation incrementally instead of tackling it all at once. That is, just get automation suite to talk to vCenter before tying in AD, the ticketing system, and all the rest.
Download this on-demand webinar to learn more about how you can securely enable BYOD with VMware’s Horizon Suite
Self-service, automation, and orchestration all drove real value during this deployment. We were able to eliminate or reduce at least three manual handoffs via this single workflow. Previously, these handoffs were made either by phone or through the client’s ticketing system.
During the presentation we also addressed which systems we integrated, which procedures we selected to automate, and what we plan to have the client automate next. You can check out the actual VMworld presentation here. (If you’re looking for more information around VMworld in general, Chris wrote a recap blog of Pat Gelsinger’s opening keynote as well as one on Carl Eschenbach’s General Session.)
Below are some of the questions we got from the audience:
Q: Did the organization have ITSM knowledge beforehand?
A:The group had very limited knowledge of ITSM but left our project with real-world perspective on ITIL and ITSM
Q: What did we do if we needed a certain system in place to automate something
A: We did encounter this and either labeled it as a risk or used “biomation” (self-service is available, fulfillment is manual, customer doesn’t know the difference) until the necessary systems were made available
Q: Were there any knowledge gaps at the client? If so, what were they?
A: Yes, the developer mentality and service management mentality are needed to complete a service catalog project effectively. Traditional IT engineering and operations do not typically have a developer mentality or experience with languages like Javascript.
Q: Who was the primary group at the client driving the project forward?
A: IT engineering and operations were involved with IT engineering driving most of the requirements.
Q: At which level was the project sponsored?
A: VP of IT Engineering with support from the CIO
All in all, it was a very cool experience to get the chance to present a breakout session at VMworld. If you have any other questions about key takeaways we got from this project, leave them in the comment section. As always, if you’d like more information you can contact us. I also just finished an ebook on “The Evolution of the Corporate IT Department” so be sure to check that out as well!
WebRTC Summit | WebRTC Business Models: Building a Web-Based Telecom Co
What if you could re-invent the telephone company and/or OTT (over-the-top) services using WebRTC? Do you remember all of their service upgrades on top of basic phone services? Here are some of the services from telecoms of yesteryear and even Skype from a decade ago:
In/Outbound minutes
Phone numbers (DIDs)
Vanity phone numbers
Tollfree numbers
Premium Rate 900 numbers
Hunt group ringing
Caller ID
IBM Smart Cloud Enterprise – The Smarter Move
IBM Smart Cloud Enterprise is offered as a service called IaaS to deliver the best infrastructure for any business. The user then gets access to IBM’s virtual server and all the resources that go with it. The services are flexible and the security is unmatched. It also provides a cloud for private and open cloud architecture, while giving software business solutions at the same time.
One would be mistaken if one thinks that all clouds have the same things to offer. That is simply not true and the IBM cloud is far superior in every way to the other clouds in the market.
How cloud opportunities are set aloft by Ethernet
Ian Redpath, Principal Analyst, Network Infrastructure
The 10th Ethernet World was held in Prague September 30 through October 2. The global enterprise Ethernet service market continues to grow robustly. For full-year 2013, Ovum projects a $34bn Ethernet service market worldwide, growing to $62bn by 2018 at a 13% CAGR.
Ovum chaired the cloud services and data center day at the conference. The industry discussion on cloud services continues to mature based on new business model constructs, a growing body of compelling use cases, more data center–optimized connectivity, and growing high-capacity mobility deployments. The industry has been openly discussing impediments to cloud adoption to date, enabling a productive discussion on potential solutions.
The promise and allure of clouds: new Ethernet traffic generated
Three years ago, cloud was an over-hyped marketing term. The industry still uses the term, but it now rests on a firmer, more down-to-earth foundation. Cloud colloquially means …
Day 3 Keynote at Cloud Expo | Navigating Storage in a Cloudy Environment
As the storage landscape continues to change, the industry must differentiate and mature its business beyond a standardized market by designing new platforms, features and products for specific customers and application workloads. New products and services in the cloud are fueling the growth for faster storage solutions and improvement in throughput and I/O performance with no latency. Economical and operational pressures in the data center to do more with less are driving the need for reduced total cost of ownership (TCO).
In his Day 3 Keynote at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Steven Campbell, CTO at HGST, will address industry “pain points” that are keeping IT managers up at night, and the solutions that will help them sleep better.
Cloud Expo: Practical Application of Overlay Networks for Hybrid Cloud
Overlay networks (virtual networks built on top of existing networks) introduce exciting new potential for a highly inclusive Hybrid Cloud.
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Matt Shover, Manager of RackConnect Operations at Rackspace, will talk about the practical application of overlay networks and how it may be able to help you solve scalability, security, and availability challenges. He will cover:
A primer on overlay networks
Practical applications for layer 2 adjacency over disparate layer 3 networks
Benefits of IP portability
The future of networking in the Hybrid Cloud
You should gain a solid understanding of overlay networks and its future for the Hybrid Cloud.
Cloud Expo: Integrate On-site & Cloud Storage Platforms in Minutes
How can one effectively Sync and Move large volumes of content from existing on-site storage platforms like SharePoint, Network File-Shares and ECM systems with Business Cloud services?
In his session at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, Jonas Sostakas, a Senior Systems Engineer at Portal Architects, will illustrate how to overcome the challenges of syncing large-volumes of content across on-site and cloud-based storage platforms, followed by live demonstration. Tightly integrate and bridge any combination of cloud-based and/or on-site storage systems together in only minutes.
Facilitate the transfer of large volumes of files (and the underlying associated data and data structures) in bulk, across any connected storage platform without writing code, learning/deploying complex software, or engaging expensive third-party professional services.
Fasetto to Exhibit at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that Fasetto will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 13th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Fasetto is all current aspects of the cloud on steroids and antibodies. Fasetto natively interacts in your business and personal life eliminating the extra steps created by complex cloud environments. After all wasn’t the «cloud» designed to make life simpler?