My team embarked on building a data lake for our sales and marketing data to better understand customer journeys. This required building a hybrid data pipeline to connect our cloud CRM with the new Hadoop Data Lake. One challenge is that IT was not in a position to provide support until we proved value and marketing did not have the experience, so we embarked on the journey ourselves within the product marketing team for our line of business within Progress.
451 Research argues ‘formidable’ Azure continues to close gap on AWS
It’s a trend which has been monitored extensively over the past several months, and now another research firm has lent its weight to the theory: Microsoft Azure is gaining ground over Amazon Web Services (AWS) in cloud infrastructure.
451 Research, in its latest report, argues that Azure has emerged as the predominant primary infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider in Europe, cited by 43% of the more than 700 respondents compared with 32% for AWS. Globally, the figure for AWS rises to 55%.
Yet digging further into the statistics adds a further layer of intrigue. For the first time in the survey, AWS fell behind other IaaS providers in terms of value for money – with Google topping the bill – and the ‘understands my business’ category, with IBM SoftLayer and Azure scoring higher.
Taking into account the two overall variables of promise and fulfilment (below), AWS still rules the roost with 76 for promise and 77 for fulfilment, ahead of Microsoft (74 and 73), Google (73 and 74) and IBM (72 and 70). The analysis also shows, as this publication has previously reported, how far ahead the four main players are ahead of the competition.
One aspect which could be considered, however, is around multi-cloud. According to 451’s Cloud Transformation Vendor Window study, 48% of AWS users are also using Azure, with 51% on Azure using AWS.
Melanie Posey, research vice president and lead analyst on the study, argues that organisations are not actively using both providers to support the same workload, such as compute in AWS and storage in Azure.
What companies are doing, however, is leveraging the two providers to host and support efforts in different regions, such as workloads being delivered from AWS to customers and end users in North America, but an app on Azure for European customers.
Last month, Microsoft published an extensive comparison guide between AWS and Azure services, going through the entire gamut from storage and compute, to Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile.
“As the leading public cloud platforms, Azure and AWS each offer businesses a broad and deep set of capabilities with global coverage. Yet many organisations choose to use both platforms together for greater choice and flexibility, as well as to spread their risk and dependencies with a multi-cloud approach,” the document explains. Posey, however, argues that despite the chummy opening, the guide’s real aim is to ‘translate’ AWS services into Azure, and showing organisations how to migrate from one to the other.
Elsewhere, almost four in five organisations polled said their IT environments required ‘moderate’ or ‘significant’ transformation to meet business requirements in the coming five years, while 22% of enterprises say they have adopted a ‘cloud-first’ approach.
Last month, a survey from Sumo Logic found that, of the 230 respondents from organisations with more than 500 employees, Azure (66%) outranked AWS (55%) in usage.
Beware Your Digital Blind Spot | @CloudExpo #Cloud #Agile #DigitalTransformation
By now, every company in the world is on the lookout for the digital disruption that will threaten their existence. In study after study, executives believe that technology has either already disrupted their industry, is in the process of disrupting it or will disrupt it in the near future.
As a result, every organization is taking steps to prepare for or mitigate unforeseen disruptions. Yet in almost every industry, the disruption trend continues unabated.
How Cloud Makes Marketing Automation Powerful | @CloudExpo #Cloud #MachineLearning
While marketing automation by itself is extremely powerful and is mostly based in the cloud, the effectiveness of such strategies can be enhanced by leveraging the benefits that cloud computing offers.
Not too long ago, marketers had to inevitably choose between two options – keep marketing budgets low through marketing broadcasts, or spend more on highly targeted and personalized marketing strategies. Not surprisingly then, low margin products (like soaps or toothpastes, for examples) were marketed over TV while high margin enterprise software tools (like ERP software) had dedicated sales managers reaching out to prospective clients for business.
Internet Privacy 2017 | What You Need to Know | @CloudExpo #IoT #M2M #Cloud
There has never been a reasonable expectation of online privacy, and there never will be. Regardless of what you may have recently heard about joint resolutions or nullifications, nothing has changed. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have always had the right to use your data as they see fit, within a few Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) parameters. This has not changed. And you have given FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) the right to use your data as they see fit (with a few privacy policy exceptions and within the few aforementioned FTC and FCC parameters). So regarding online privacy, for all practical purposes, absolutely nothing has changed.
VMware Sells vCloud Air
While many companies are looking to have a market share in the public cloud space, VMware wants to move away from it. This is why it sold its public cloud business called vCloud Air to OVH, a French cloud provider. Terms of the deal was not disclosed.
vCloud Air is a line of business through which VMware provided data center services to companies that run VMware’s server virtualization technology. Over time, it also extended this service to third party data centers, as a way of creating a new revenue stream.
Unfortunately, vCloud Air could not compete with AWs and Microsoft Azure, and this meant that vCloud Air was a big failure. With this product, VMware realized that running massive cloud infrastructure is best left to the experts, and it’s better off focusing on what it knows best, which is to focus on technology.
It changed its strategy last year to keep pace of the changing dynamics of the cloud business. It now wants to focus on software-defined infrastructure stack that is expected to deliver more value for its investment and at the same time, help the company to go deeper into the business of hybrid cloud. The line of products that’ll come for this idea is still not known and there is much skepticism around it. For now though, that’s the plan.
Keeping in tune with this strategy, VMware has sold vCloud Air for an undisclosed sum. This is, in fact, a good move as it can save the company a substantial chunk of money. Though this product gave the company a few million dollars a year, it’s nothing compared to the almost $7 billion the company earns every year. Also, the first set of servers for vCloud Air was setup in 2013, which means, this infrastructure is coming to its end-of-life. By selling it to OVH, VMware has passed on the responsibility and capital expenditure of upgrading these servers to the buyer. To top it, VMware has even got some in the financial deal.
An added advantage with this sale is VMware has eliminated the conflict that arises between its own cloud and that of the 4,000 and odd servers that are owned by vCloud Air network partners that run vSphere-powered clouds.
This sale was expected on many fronts. The growing clout of AWS, Azure and the fast-catching Google Cloud means that the public cloud space is heating up like nothing before. This also explains why companies like Dell and HPE couldn’t make a mark in public cloud and had to withdraw. The same is for VMware too. At least in this case, the timing is perfect as the company does not have to incur more capital costs.
So, what’s in this deal for OVH?
For starters, OVH is one of the leaders in European cloud market and this acquisition can helped it to consolidate its position. Another reason is OVH is looking to expand rapidly in the US and vCloud Air may give it a good entry point.
VMware will also continue to be a technology partner for OVH.
The post VMware Sells vCloud Air appeared first on Cloud News Daily.
Supermicro to Exhibit at @CloudExpo NY | @Supermicro_SMCI #SDN #AI #ML
SYS-CON Events announced today that Super Micro Computer, Inc., a global leader in compute, storage and networking technologies, 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.
Supermicro (NASDAQ: SMCI), the leading innovator in high-performance, high-efficiency server technology, is a premier provider of advanced server Building Block Solutions® for Data Center, Cloud Computing, Enterprise IT, Hadoop/Big Data, HPC and Embedded Systems worldwide. Supermicro is committed to protecting the environment through its “We Keep IT Green®” initiative and provides customers with the most energy-efficient, environmentally friendly solutions available on the market.
Key trends in cloud infrastructure: Hybrid, smart storage, security, and more
(c)iStock.com/johnason
The past decade has brought much change to the IT infrastructure industry as enterprise IT companies scale up their data consumption to unprecedented levels. Today’s enterprise IT giants require far more speed, power and bandwidth to successfully run their businesses and this is only possible via enhancements to the underlying infrastructure.
Infrastructure develops so quickly that industry practices in 2020 will likely be unrecognisable from what they were 10 years ago. Infrastructure has become more powerful, faster and more secure – and we have still only just scratched the surface of what’s possible.
This article will examine some of the current trends within the industry as it stands, as well a look at what the future holds for IaaS in 2017.
The evolution of cloud technology
The thinking behind cloud technology can be traced back to the sixties but it has been somewhat of a late bloomer. Technology giants are now investing more in cloud technology and this has had a strong impact on Internet infrastructure providers and consumers. At the same time, the rate of adoption of cloud technology is growing among smaller-sized businesses and also in the consumer market, as the cloud continues to permeate our daily lives.
Thanks to the advancements in infrastructure, there are now multi-cloud solutions. That means, using cloud hosting technology across multiple data centres to harness their collective power. A multi-cloud solution can offer increased resilience in the network and can mitigate latency issues for IaaS providers. The best multi-cloud solutions are those with integrated management and security hosting environments, as they allow for a seamless transfer of information.
Nowadays, IaaS providers are using the cloud to implement big data solutions. Big data computations and storage can now all take place within the cloud environment which means data is more widely available and can be accessed instantly. However, as big data solutions become commonplace, the mainstream infrastructure must also scale up accordingly to meet the needs of modern businesses.
Smart storage and security
As big data continues to grow there is an increased need for storage (now known as smart storage). Autonomic storage is the next generation of hybrid storage solutions and is an example of real innovation in the IaaS industry. It places data on the appropriate storage tier, enabling tier-to-tier data migration meaning that storage is no longer passive but instead improves both the performance and flexibility of the network.
In addition to smart storage, advances in technology have also made data more secure. With so many high-profile cyber security attacks and breaches in 2016, the security of data within the Internet infrastructure has become paramount for all IaaS providers and businesses alike. IaaS providers implement managed security systems as part of their offering, adding an increased layer of security to the network whilst specialist infrastructure providers are best placed to implement security on the network. In fact, many companies are currently reaping the rewards of outsourcing their data security to high-quality cyber security specialists.
As 2017 goes on, it is clear that the cloud will be undergoing significant developments. Multi-cloud and hybrid cloud solutions will also require vigilant management as workloads increase, whilst cloud infrastructure providers will have to ensure that they are capable of managing modern cloud solutions and ensure as much of the process as possible is automated to eliminate the risk of human error.
Serverless Computing – The Latest “as a Service” Offering | @CloudExpo #Cloud #Serverless
We’d all like to fulfill that «find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life» cliché. But in reality, every job (even if it’s our dream job) comes with its downsides.
For you, the constant fight against shadow IT might get on your last nerves. For your developer coworkers, infrastructure management is the roadblock that stands in the way of focusing on coding.
As you watch more and more applications and processes move to the cloud, technology is coming to developers’ rescue-most recently, in the form of serverless computing.
The Hotel California of #AI | @CloudExpo @ReneBuest #ArtificialIntelligence
In 1977, the Eagles released “Hotel California”, a song about drugs and the effects an addiction has on people. Putting «We are all just prisoners here, of our own device» in the context of our today’s digital lifestyle we find a lot of truth. There is a reason why Google provides most of its services for free or why Amazon wants us to have an Echo in every home or why Facebook has become our directory of “friends”. What looks pretty convenient is a threat. It is a threat to the end consumers but also a threat to the established economy. And even if we have the choice to check out any time – we will never leave.