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Verizon Sells its Cloud Business to IBM

Verizon announced that it will be selling its cloud business to IBM to help boost the buyer’s presence in the cloud market. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, so we don’t know the exact amount that transpired in the deal.

This is surprising news for many reasons. In February 2016, Verizon said that it wants to continue providing top quality cloud service to its corporate and government customers, and to this end, it is making substantial investments in the cloud business.

But, by  end of 2016, it sold 29 data centers to a company called Equinux for $3.6 billion. Right after that, this news that it has sold its cloud and managed hosting services to IBM.

With this deal, Verizon has completely quit the cloud business, though it announced that it will be working with IBM on a range of strategic issues and initiatives. Again, the exact detail of these initiatives have not been disclosed.

So, what prompted Verizon to sell its cloud business and come out of the industry altogether? The answer may lie in the history of its cloud business.

Looking back, we can say that Verizon’s cloud business had a rocky start. It put together a new division after it acquired an offering from Terremark. It built too much on it too quickly as it moved its VMware to Xen. During this time, it also started a new object store and a block store. There was also a compute service that was offered for some time, but it was closed down in February of 2016 because Verizon wanted to focus on its virtual public cloud.

The message throughout was patchy and disorganized. One of the senior brass in Verizon, George Fischer, said that the company had ambitious plans for its cloud division as it wants to become the world’s leading managed services provider. To achieve this lofty goal, it wanted to created an eco-system using the best technology solutions from Verizon and other service providers. Within a few months though, the company sold its data centers.

Not sure what happened in the company during this time for such wild transitions and the gap between its actions and statements made by the top management.

IBM is silent on this deal. There has been no statements whatsoever from this company, though it is the one that stands to gain the most from this deal. IBM is one of the top players in the cloud market, but it is trailing heavily behind Microsoft and AWS. Google is also fast closing in on the cloud market.

To compete with these players, the infrastructure and client base it has obtained from Verizon can give it a big boost. Already, the company is making rapid strides in closing the gap, and this deal can further bolster these efforts.

In some ways, this is better for everyone because a few large players sharing the market is way better than a ton of small players who fight with each other for market share. Such a trend is healthy for the industry as a whole.

The post Verizon Sells its Cloud Business to IBM appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

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451 Research report affirms cloud services budget to outstrip overall IT this year

Enterprises expect growth in their hosting and cloud services to outstrip overall IT spending this year, with spending on hosting and cloud to go up 25% on average compared to 12% for overall IT, according to 451 Research.

The findings, which appear in the company’s latest Voice of the Enterprise report, show that the trend is most pronounced in larger businesses. For organisations with 1,000 to 9,999 employees, spend on hosting and cloud is expected to rise 33% compared to only 7.3% for IT overall. For organisations with more than 10,000 employees (20.3% and 5.8%) a similar pattern occurs.

88% of respondents overall expect their hosting and cloud services budgets to go up in 2017 compared to last year, with only 70% expecting their total IT budget to rise.

“We see the pace of investment in hosting and cloud services exceeding investment in IT overall, meaning hosting and cloud services are becoming a focus of IT investment, via both new projects and the migration of existing workloads,” said Liam Eagle, research manager at 451 Research and report author. “Even some businesses that are reducing IT spending overall are increasing hosting and cloud spending, meaning service providers should not overlook companies looking to reduce IT costs as prospects.”

The research argues various factors are impacting the increased adoption of cloud and hosted services, from new IT initiatives, adding resource capacity due to business growth, and, naturally, migrating workloads from on-prem environments to the cloud.

Azure, cited by almost a quarter (24.8%) of budget allocation, leads Amazon Web Services (20.2%), with respondents expecting to increase their budget on both providers in the coming year. This was referenced in a study last month, where the research firm argued Azure was emerging as the ‘predominant primary infrastructure as a service provider in Europe’. Around half of respondents said they were using a vendor outside of the top 10 providers.

“Significant adoption profile differences among different company sizes in terms of adoption rates and drivers reinforce the idea that company size is not just a category difference, but indicative of markets with totally different hosting and cloud services characteristics,” added Eagle.

“This gives providers a compelling business case for specialisation and is one of the reasons the hosting and cloud services market is served by such a wide variety of vendors and vendor types.”

You can find out more about the report here.

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Hitachi to Exhibit at @CloudExpo | @HDScorp #DevOps #IoT #IIoT #API #AI

SYS-CON Events announced today that Hitachi, the leading provider the Internet of Things and Digital Transformation, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 20th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., offers an integrated portfolio of services and solutions that enable digital transformation through enhanced data management, governance, mobility and analytics. We help global organizations open new revenue streams, increase efficiencies, improve customer experience and ensure rapid time to market in the digital age. Only Hitachi Data Systems powers the digital enterprise by integrating the best information technology and operational technology from across the Hitachi family of companies. We combine this experience with Hitachi expertise in the internet of things to deliver the exceptional insights business and society need to transform and thrive. Visit us at HDS.com.

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Cloud computing, cloud journey, Featured

CIOs & The Life Sciences Industry Part 3: Factors Overlooked When Changing Your Cloud

The topic of Cloud Computing currently ranks in the top-five of IT articles published for IT professionals. Daily we hear about the benefits of this new world, the range of exciting new services now available, and of course how to make the transition.

Even with the valuable insights provided by these articles, there is one critical aspect given too little attention or even overlooked entirely.  Specifically, how to plan for a breakup.

If one accepts the old dictum that change is the only universal constant, then ask yourself why most people do not plan as carefully for unwinding a cloud / SaaS arrangement as we do in setting one up. The details of ending an arrangement can be tricky and not immediately self-evident.

These issues are beyond standard legal provisions for exit clauses, terms/conditions, and related matters. It deals with practicality and preparedness.

Take this as an example, imagine you use a SaaS system to implement secure e-mail for corresponding with people outside your organization. Even in the world of TLS, many still have a need for such services which provide mailbox-to-mailbox encryption for both e-mails and attachments.

Should you decide to terminate this service, you might be in for some unexpected challenges. If your service provider does not provide bulk decrypt and export tools, you could be in for a painful process.

In a previous role, I ran into this exact situation. We had to write custom scripts to go through each mailbox e-mail-by-email to unencrypt and export; it was slow and costly.

Even without terminating the service, data exporting tools can be useful as a course of normal business. Consider the situation when your organization is involved in litigation. As part of the legal Discovery process, you might have to produce e-mails for individuals covering specific subjects and dates. Should the list be significant or the filters complex, you can again run into unexpected workloads.

Another example is data offloading. Many services, AWS included, offer excellent tools for migration / uploading large volumes into their cloud services. In some cases, particularly with large datasets, such approaches are the only feasible or timely solution.

But what happens when you elect to move those datasets to another Cloud Provider? Don’t assume the comprehensive set of options you have for bringing data into your provider’s cloud is symmetric. You might just find a long slow process to make a change.

In both examples, specific industry or regulatory requirements such as security, data location, and privacy can compound the challenge.

IT professionals have a lot of experience with managing proprietary solutions and data. The key is leveraging that knowledge when considering Cloud-Based solutions. Personally, I have found two methods for reducing these risks.

The first is to run some tabletop simulations on what happens in various scenarios, to develop and expand your punch list over time. Scenarios to consider might include migration, legal requests, disaster recovery or other matters specific to your industry.

My second approach is to network: it is a knowledge and experience multiplier that’s second to none. Check with colleagues; get their advice and listen to their own experiences.

Of course, you don’t know what you don’t know, but thinking of the end, as well as the beginning, should put you in a better spot.

If you would like to set up a conversation with Clint, please reach out.

By Clint Gilliam, Virtual CIO, GreenPages Technology Solutions

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The Human Body and Data Center Automation – Part 2 | @CloudExpo #AI #Cloud #DataCenter

Human body is the most complex machine ever created. With a complex network of interconnected organs, millions of cells and the most advanced processor, human body is the most automated system in this planet. In this article, we will draw comparisons between working of a human body to that of a data center. We will draw parallels between human body automation to data center automation and explain different levels of automation we need to drive in data centers. This article is divided into four parts covering each of body main functions and drawing parallels on automation. This is 2nd article in the human body series

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Avoid Cloud Disasters, Embrace the SLA | @CloudExpo #Cloud #Security

Talk of IT disasters can spark equal amounts of fear of them happening to us, and gratitude that the big one hasn’t happened to us yet. Network World offers some tips on what not to do when migrating to the cloud to avoid disasters-or, at the very least, grumbling users. They recommend splitting apps into two groups: those that will be migrated and those that will be replaced. Counting up all the costs of a cloud migration is also a necessary task before moving apps. There can be hidden people costs involved in moving data to the cloud, even though moving that data will save money over the long run.

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Dell EMC “Bronze Sponsor” of @CloudExpo | @DellEMC #DigitalTransformation

SYS-CON Events announced today that Progress, a global leader in application development, has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 20th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. Enterprises today are rapidly adopting the cloud, while continuing to retain business-critical/sensitive data inside the firewall. This is creating two separate data silos – one inside the firewall and the other outside the firewall. Cloud ISVs often get requests to connect these silos using technologies such as VPN; however, these tend to be difficult to manage and are not engineered for accessing business data from the cloud.

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Carbonite to Exhibit at @CloudExpo | @Carbonite #DevOps #IoT #DX #Backup

SYS-CON Events announced today that Carbonite, the leading online backup service for Windows and Mac users, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 20th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. Carbonite is an online backup service, available to Windows and Mac users, that backs up documents, e-mails, music, photos, and settings.

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[session] #DigitalTransformation | @CloudExpo @Interoute #AI #IoT #DX

Adopting the right Digital Transformation strategy for your enterprise is crucial to keep up with rapid growth, customers’ demands, and technological disruptions while remaining ahead of your market competition. Digital Transformation is no longer an option, it’s a requirement. Are you ready for tomorrow’s challenges? In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, William Morrish, VP of Commercial Operations at Interoute, will discuss these key takeaways.

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Cloud Wars: Is 2017 the Year of the Cloud Land Grab? | @CloudExpo #AWS #Azure #Cloud

Next month will mark the 155th anniversary of a piece of legislation that President John F. Kennedy once described as “the single greatest stimulus to national development ever enacted.” It was the Homestead Act of 1862. By 1862 the United States had grown from approximately 500 million acres of land to almost 2 billion (with a B) acres, a majority of which was in the public domain. Under the act, over 1 billion acres were made available to settlers. An individual could obtain 160 acres of land. If they lived on, cultivated, and improved that land over a 5-year period, the land was theirs. This led to the explosive growth of the west in the United States. Many of the western territories worked hard to entice the settlers to their public lands. Increased population, cultivated land, resources, all increased the territories influence with the U.S. government and provided the path toward eventual statehood.

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