cloud orchestration, Enterprise IT, hybrid cloud, Intel, News & Analysis

Intel backs software-defined-infrastructure to bolster position in hybrid cloud market

IntelIntel has backed the growth of software-defined infrastructure to bolster its management and orchestration position in the hybrid cloud market segment.

The company announced the launch of Xeon processor E5-2600 v4 product family, and the SSD DC D3700 and D3600 Series, alongside industry partnerships with VMware and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. To boost its open-source credentials, Intel will also be collaborating with open-source players CoreOS and Mirantis.

“Enterprises want to benefit from the efficiency and agility of cloud architecture and on their own terms – using the public cloud offerings, deploying their own private cloud, or both,” said Diane Bryant, GM of Intel’s Data Center Group. “The result is pent-up demand for software-defined infrastructure. Intel is investing to mature SDI (software-defined infrastructure) solutions and provide a faster path for businesses of all sizes to reap the benefits of the cloud.”

It would appear Intel is backing the growth of SDI as a means of building its position the management and orchestration market. As part of the Cloud for All initiative, Intel is investing in others in the industry to accelerate SDI-enabled clouds. A survey from 451 Research also provides weight to the Intel position as 67% of enterprises plan on increasing spend on SDI over the course of 2016.

The E5-2600 v4 product family also includes Resource Director Technology which it claims will aid customers to move to fully automated SDI-based clouds. The updated product offering will provide 20% more cores and cache than the prior generation, which could provide an improved orchestration position, according to the company.

As part of the collaboration with CoreOS and Mirantis, Intel will assist in merging together the technologies to create an open-source solution to orchestrate container and virtual machine-based applications. It would appear that alongside the move to differentiate the brand through a SDI product offering, Intel are seemingly joining the charge on open-source propositions, a growing trend throughout the cloud industry.

Internet of Things, IoT, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Microsoft steps up IoT credentials

Scott Guthrie, EVP of the Cloud and Enterprise Group at Microsoft

Scott Guthrie, EVP of the Cloud and Enterprise Group at Microsoft

Tech giant Microsoft has launched a number of updates and features for both its Azure and Office platforms, in a move to bolster its position in the intelligent apps and IoT space.

Speaking at Build 2016, the company launched the general availability of Azure Service Fabric and new IoT starter kits, as well as previews of new services to serverless compute for event-driven solutions, Azure Functions, and Power BI Embedded, which allows developers to embed reports and visualizations in any application.

“Microsoft is the only cloud vendor that supports the diverse needs of every organization and developer — from core infrastructure services to platform services and tools to software-as-a-service — for any language, across any platform,” said Scott Guthrie, EVP of the Cloud and Enterprise Group at Microsoft.

“With 30 regions worldwide — more than every major cloud provider combined — Azure’s massive scale means developers and businesses alike can focus on creating the next generation of amazing applications, not their underlying cloud infrastructure. This makes our cloud the de facto choice for enterprises of today and tomorrow — and today, more than 85 percent of the Fortune 500 agree.”

The launch of Azure Service Fabric will allow developers to decompose applications into microservices, for increased availability and scalability. The company claims the offering will handle application lifecycle management for constant uptime and easy application scaling, and builds on the growing popularity of microservices in the industry and is accompanied by the promise of open-source programming frameworks for Linux later in the year. As with a number of Microsoft’s announcements over recent weeks, open-source has been a prominent product position for the company at Build 2016.

The company also highlighted its IoT starter kit would be available for anyone with Windows or Linux experience to build prototypes which use all of Azure’s offerings. Prices for the kit range between $60 and $150, which could potentially open up a new market of students, academics and casual users for the company.

For the more complex IoT projects, the company have also previewed Azure Functions which will enable developers to create apps which will automatically respond to events in virtually any Azure or 3rd party service as well as on-premises systems. The preview is part of the greater trend of automated responses and reactions to events, and appears to be Microsoft’s response to AWS Lambda, which was launched in late 2014.

Qi Lu

Qi Lu, EVP of the Applications and Services Group at Microsoft

Outside of the Azure platform, the company also announced a number of product updates and features for Office. “In terms of reach, Office is one of the few platforms in the world that provides developers with access to over a billion users across a variety of devices,” said Qi Lu, EVP of the Applications and Services Group. “The opportunity to build on the Office platform has never been greater.”

“With new extensions and new connections to the Microsoft Graph — an intelligent fabric that applies machine learning to map the connections between people, content and interactions across Office 365 — developers are empowered to build intelligent apps that can transform the landscape of work,” said Lu.

Alongside Lu, Starbucks CTO Gerri Martin-Flickinger showcased how he has been using the platform to create an add-on which enables customers to send a gift-card through Outlook, and also schedule meetings at the nearest Starbucks. “Building on the Office platform is reaching our customers right on their desktop or device and extending the Starbucks Experience to them in new and compelling ways,” he said.

As part of the announcement, Microsoft previewed six new APIs for the Microsoft Graph which let developers link Office 365 data to third-party solutions. One of which automatically identifies a series of times a predefined group of people are available for a meeting.

Case Study, College, Parallels RAS, Parallels Remote Application Server, PRAS, Tabor College

Tabor College Simplifies IT

“Parallels Remote Application Server is a good solution. It has simplified IT management and significantly reduced admin tasks. Now admins get less work.” Raymond Van Den Berg – Head Systems Administrator Tabor College chose Parallels Remote Application Server to effectively publish Windows applications on remote Mac devices while easily managing the infrastructure from a centralized location. […]

The post Tabor College Simplifies IT appeared first on Parallels Blog.

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Trend Micro Finalizes Acquisition of TippingPoint | @CloudExpo @TrendMicro #Cloud

Trend Micro International has announced the close of an agreement to acquire TippingPoint from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Trend Micro TippingPoint solutions are immediately available to bring customers comprehensive threat intelligence and protection for current and zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits.
“We are very excited to see this agreement come to fruition as it demonstrates our ongoing commitment to enterprise security,” said Eva Chen, CEO, Trend Micro. “With the addition of TippingPoint, Trend Micro provides customers with the unmatched ability to respond to known and unknown threats, exploits and vulnerabilities across the entire attack lifecycle. Trend Micro is now in a unique position to deliver these integrated, layered capabilities to address the complex network security challenges facing global companies today.”

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data backup, Enterprise IT, Interviews, Rackspace

Data, data, data. The importance of backing up data

Cloud datacentreMore often than not when browsing the internet each morning you’ll soon discover that in fact, this morning is “Talk Like a Pirate Day”, or “Hug a Vegetarian Day”, or something equally humorous. Today is an awareness day which, conversely, holds some use to the world on the whole.

World Backup Day encourages consumers to back up their family photos, home videos, documents and emails, on more than one device. The World Backup Day website lists numerous ways in which a consumer’s data or documents can be lost, however this day is also very applicable to the world of enterprise IT.

“The rapid increase in the amount of data that consumers and organisations store is one of the biggest challenges facing the backup industry,” says Giri Fox, Director of Technical Services at Rackspace. “Organisations aren’t always sure what data they should be keeping, so to make sure they don’t discard any important data they sometimes end up keeping everything which adds to this swell of data.

“For many companies, a simple backup tool is no longer enough to make sure all these company assets are safe and available, they need support in keeping up with the sheer scale of data and to fix problems when a valuable file or database goes missing.”

The volume of data being utilized (and in some cases not utilized) has grown astronomically, but to a certain degree, security and employee behaviour has not kept pace with this growth. Cyber criminals always seem to be one step ahead of ahead of enterprise when attempting to access data, but what is more worrying is the trend of employee indifference to IT security.

A recent survey highlighted employee negligence and indifference to IT policy is one of the most significant inhibitors to cloud security with only 35% of respondents highlighting that they use passwords in work.

Giri Fox, Director of Technical Services at Rackspace

Giri Fox, Director of Technical Services at Rackspace

“Over recent years, organisations have become far more aware of the importance of backing up their data and we’ve noticed the impact here at Rackspace, where currently we backup 120 PB per month globally,” adds Fox. “One of the main challenges for us is that businesses don’t just want to back-up more data than ever before, they want it to be done quicker than ever before.

“Also, the process of doing so has become more complex than it used to be because companies are more conscious than ever of the compliance regulations they have to adhere to. Fortunately, with the development of deduplication techniques, we are now able to back-up unique sections of data rather than duplicating large pools continuously, which has sped-up the backing-up process.”

Outside of employee indifference to cloud security, changes to EU-US data protection policy have highlighted the significance of data-backup and prevention of data loss. An instance of data loss could be crippling for an organization, whether it is financial penalties or the loss of information which could prove to be invaluable in the future.

“Initiatives like World Backup Day are a great way of highlighting the importance of backing up in an age where, as Ann Winbald put it, ‘data is the new oil’,” comments Fox.

In a world where data can be seen as one of the most important commodities to any business, the value of securing, backing up and encrypting data cannot be underplayed. That said, the majority of the working world (outside of the IT department), do not appreciate the value of security, mostly not out of malice, more because they don’t know any better.

“In the post-Edward Snowden era we’re also seeing just how seriously companies are thinking about encryption. Many companies now want to make sure their backed up data is no longer just encrypted when it goes outside the four walls of a data centre, but inside it as well,” says Fox.

data backup, Enterprise IT, Kroll Ontrack, News & Analysis

Cloud-based data backup solutions increasing in popularity – survey

Cloud data sharing conceptResearch from Kroll Ontrack has stated cloud-back backup solutions are increasing in popularity, though hardware based options still account for the majority.

The survey, which was only open to participants who have experienced loss of valuable data, highlighted 51% of respondents are still using hardware based options, though this figure is down from 68% in 2015. Cloud-based solutions are currently being considered by 23%, an increase from 18% over the last 12 months.

What could cause concern within the industry is that in instance of data loss, 86% of the respondents said they did have a backup in place, and 48% highlighted they backup the data on a daily basis. If these statistics are to be believed, why is data being lost on such a regular basis? 22% stated the backup was not operating correctly, 21% said the device was not included in backup procedures and 21% commented the backup was out of date.

“It’s no longer enough to have a backup solution where you just hope for the best,” said Robin England, Senior Research & Development Engineer, Kroll Ontrack. “As our survey results indicate year after year, conducting backups is just one step in an overall backup strategy.”

While security and data protection appears to be at the top of the agenda for most organizations, it would appear human indifference and negligence, as well as a shortage of resource are not backing up company claims. A number of organizations have cited recently one of the main challenges for enterprise organizations is the relaxed approach to security demonstrated by its employees.

The statistics also back this point up as 54% of respondents highlighted they did not have the time to effectively research and administer an effective backup solution. While the time factor is a significant barrier here, 24% of respondents said the cost was prohibitive which is down from 31% in 2015. When combined with the statistic that the number of respondents who do daily backups increased by six percentage points over the same period, the findings could imply that enterprise organizations are taking the process of data backup more seriously.

“Storage devices pack more and more data into smaller and more complex systems,” said England. “This not only requires IT teams to dedicate significant time to actually back up the data, but requires even more time to verify the backups worked properly. IT teams face a challenging balancing act when ensuring all of this is managed effectively.”

While the statistics are encouraging, it would still appear that human error and a lack of centralized oversight are the underlying causes for data loss.

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goTransverse a Top Cloud-Based Agile Monetization Platform | @CloudExpo @GoTransverse #Cloud

goTransverse has been listed among the top-rated cloud-based agile monetization platforms in the latest MGI 360™ Market Ratings Report. The 2016 ranking represents a 36 percent increase in the rating for goTransverse’s flagship Consumption-to-CashTM platform, TRACT®, since MGI Research began tracking agile monetization solutions in 2013.

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Broadvoice and @Metaswitch Build Geo-redundant Solution in the Cloud | @CloudExpo #Cloud

Network software provider Metaswitch Networks® has announced that Broadvoice has gone live with a multi-state, geo-redundant configuration of Metaswitch’s clustered MetaSphere Multiservice Telephony Application Server (MTAS) in the cloud.
“With this further investment in Metaswitch’s world-class technology and support services, we are doubling-down on our success to ensure that we are best positioned for taking advantage of NFV while securing our network against potential disasters, including earthquakes,” said Jim Murphy, CEO of Broadvoice. “We are committed to providing a best-in-class communication platform to our channel partners and customers. All of our hosted voice customers have been seamlessly migrated to the new platform, affording them unrivalled redundancy and reliability while giving us the ability to easily flex and scale our services to our customers’ demands, at any location.”

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data protection, EU regulations, Local Government, News & Analysis, Policy and Regulation

Socitm outlines concerns for local government ahead of new data protection regulations

Compliance ConceptThe Society of Information Technology Management, Socitm, has stated that local government bodies should review all information governance arrangements in light of changes to EU-US data protection policies.

In its latest briefing, Data protection: <Control><All><Delete>?, Socitm has recommended that all IT professionals update their information, security and data protection policies, as councils could face difficulty in remaining compliant under the new legislative framework.

Data protection has been a hot topic in recent months, following the European Court of Justice striking down the Safe Harbor agreement last year, as well criticisms of its replacement, the EU-US Privacy Shield. “Legal action in the wake of the Snowden revelations challenged the degree of protection for citizens’ data provided by Safe Harbor,” Socitm said in the statement. “New measures giving foreigners’ data some legal protection have been put in place, but it is not yet known whether the European authorities will consider that US privacy protection is now adequate.”

In recent weeks, Privacy activist Max Schrems, who has been linked to the initial downfall of Safe Harbour, said in a statement reacting to Privacy Shield, “Basically, the US openly confirms that it violates EU fundamental rights in at least six cases. The commission claims that there is no ‘bulk surveillance’ any more, when its own documents say the exact opposite.”

Socitm said in the statement that new European Data Protection Regulation will also update data laws in the UK, which currently don’t account for new technologies. The UK Data Protection Law was written in 1998, several years before the launch of social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, as well as the surge in data usage from both consumers and enterprise. Socitm stated that councils could be let in a vulnerable position when the regulations are brought in officially.

The regulations, a draft of which were released in January, stated that data protection legislation would have to be updated for the digital age, consumers would have to have access to their own data to understand how and where it is utilized, as well as increasing security standards for an individual’s data.

The fear here seems to be focused around the volume of changes that would need to be enforced once the new regulations are in place. It would appear Socitm is concerned that local councils will not be able to keep pace, leaving the councils in a non-compliant and susceptible position.

“Accommodating the changes will be a matter of amending existing processes rather than inventing new ones,” said Dr Andy Hopkirk, Head of Research at Socitm. “Some of the changes could be onerous and problematic. For example, councils will need to be able to deal correctly and completely with ‘right to be forgotten’ requests – perhaps the single greatest challenge in an almost ubiquitously networked and distributed computing world.”

AI, Artificial intelligence, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Microsoft pushes forward with AI despite Tay set-back

Microsoft To Layoff 18,000Microsoft has announced a number of updates for its advanced analytics and machine learning offerings as part of its ‘Conversation-as-a-Platform’ push.

Despite the company facing criticism after its twitter-inspired PR stunt Tay backfired last week, the company has pushed forward within the artificial intelligence space, updating its Cortana Intelligence Suite and releasing its Skype Bot Platform.

“As an industry, we are on the cusp of a new frontier that pairs the power of natural human language with advanced machine intelligence,” said Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft, at the Build 2016 event. “At Microsoft, we call this Conversation-as-a-Platform, and it builds on and extends the power of the Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Windows platforms to empower developers everywhere.”

The Cortana Intelligence Suite, formerly known as Cortana Analytics Suite, is built on the company’s on-going research into big data, machine learning, perception, analytics and intelligent bots. The offering allows developers to build apps and bots which interact with customers in a personalized way, but also react to real-world developments in real-time.

Microsoft also announced two new additions to the suite, Microsoft Cognitive Services, formerly known as Project Oxford and the Microsoft Bot Framework, both of which are still in preview.

The first, Microsoft Cognitive Services, has 22 APIs available for developers including emotion detection, speech analysis and Custom Recognition Intelligent Service. The face application programming interface made headlines last year, as the results of an app which estimated user ages was highly varied.

At the time, the team highlighted “the age and gender-recognition features are labelled as experimental features” and also said that despite the mistakes the app made, the fact that it trended on twitter meant that the volumes of data collected would aid the company in refining the technology over time.

The second, Microsoft Bot Framework, can be used in any programming language, enabling developers to build intelligent bots which can converse with customers in a variety of platforms including text/SMS, Office 365, and the web. The bots can also connect to social channels such as Twitter and Slack. The company claims that the bots can be utilized in a number of different complex scenarios though only simple ones, such as ordering a pizza or booking a hotel room, have been demoed so far.

The company also announced the launch of its Skype Bot Platform, enables developers to build bots which can interact with customers through Skype’s multiple forms of communication, including text, voice, video and 3-D interactive characters. The preview bots are very simple and limited for the moment, however once the bots are combined with the Cortana Intelligence Suite there could be potential for the bots to appear more human.

While it is early days for the Microsoft AI platforms, the team are riding the waves of both positive and negative headlines, seemingly leading the industry in the AI space. The company’s competitors are also pushing hard in the AI world, though the weight behind the announcements this week could imply that Microsoft are investing in a more serious manner than others in the industry.

The cloud news categorized.