We’ve just launched the new version of Parallels Remote Application Server v15, with amazing new features. To ensure a smooth transition when upgrading to this version, please review the upgrade procedure (based on best practices) available in this KB article. This article describes one of the new features of Parallels Remote Application Server: Smart Card […]
The post How to Configure a Smart Card Authentication appeared first on Parallels Blog.
(c)iStock.com/valio84sl
Contrasting fortunes in cloud storage this week: Google has tempted its user base with an extra 2 gigabytes of cloud storage if they have their security settings correctly configured, while the StreamNation and CudaDrive services are to shut down in the coming months.
StreamNation was launched in November 2013 with the aim of being the “first personal library in the cloud”, but the company says it hit a roadblock, and is now moving towards Project Noah, originally a side project launched in 2015 which aims to take the pain out of uploading to the cloud.
“While uploading documents is pretty fast through a normal internet connection, uploading heavy files takes a lot of time,” wrote Jonathan Benassaya, CEO and founder of StreamNation, in a blog post entitled ‘Toward a new chapter’.
“We tested different solutions to try and overcome this,” he added. “For a while, we would ship some of our users a hard drive, but we found hard disk drives were unable to sustain more than two deliveries. We also tried to have different data centres across the globe, but while we’ve experienced improved performances, it was not enough.”
For CudaDrive and Copy, a service provided by Barracuda Networks, the “difficult” decision came about after a shift in business focus.
“While this is a big change, the path forward is an exciting one as the CudaDrive engineering team will be joining forces with that Barracude backup team to accelerate the key initiatives for that product,” wrote Barracuda VP and GM storage business Rod Mathews in a company blog, adding: “There is a huge amount of opportunity in backup, data protection and business continuity features in the cloud, and adding the talented people from the CudaDrive team will allow us to more quickly and efficiently deploy new features and satisfy market and customer demands.”
On the other side of the coin, Google is dangling a 2GB carrot to users who check their security settings in line with Safer Internet Day. The move echoes the comments Brian Taptich, CEO of Bitcasa, when he told this publication back in November that competing with the likes of Microsoft, Amazon and Google on their own terms is akin to a “suicide mission” after the former shuttered its unlimited OneDrive service.
StreamNation will be discontinued on March 8, while CudaDrive will shut down on May 1.
(c)iStock.com/Stephan Zabel
IT is challenged by the line of business to deliver a competitive edge to compete in a global market. Securely delivering apps and data to any device is a core IT workflow to enable productivity.
However, if you are like most companies, your IT budget is not growing at the same pace as demand for IT services. To be more agile, the current paradigm around app delivery needs to be turned upside down. IT needs to cut the cord.
IT and the work world have come a long way. Remember the days when the IT department issued you a standard black PC and employees worked at desks? Back then, IT was focused on analysing available IT solutions and then executing multiyear plans. It was common for IT to be working on multi-year programs for SharePoint, ERP, and CRM systems.
Those days are gone. Today, businesses are competing in a much faster paced environment, which requires them to be agile and responsive to market changes. They must also be in tune with their customers’ needs and empower them to make critical business decisions in real-time.
Top executives at the biggest corporations are now handling most of their business via their mobile device because they need to be able to make decisions where customers, suppliers, and employees are at exactly the moment it matters. CEO of Coca-Cola Germany, Ulrik Nehammer, says about his need to be mobile that «the most dangerous place to make a decision is in the office.”
Today, IT is really the X factor that drives business success. Speed is the new IT currency. IT departments must rollout highly flexible plans that can deliver tangible results within a single quarter rather than in 1-2 years.
Increasingly, productivity occurs outside the office. More than 50% of employees work in a remote office outside of headquarters. That means IT needs to provide them with real-time access to productivity apps and data. For many IT departments, these new demands must still be met using a constrained budget. It’s typical for IT to be expected to do more with less.
In response to new user requirements,IT often deploys app delivery technology, such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). This solution quickly delivers desktop, applications, and data to any user on any device.
The problem with VDI is that many companies still believe it requires building significant infrastructure. Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t result in more agile IT. While building IT infrastructure does give the IT department ultimate control, the downside is that it can take several quarters to build it and then move it into production. Typically, it takes at least six to nine months to deploy VDI, and even then it often doesn’t perform well for users. By then, business demands have changed.
One of the biggest drawbacks of buying and building infrastructure is that it locks IT into a generation of technology and a set of vendors for three to five years. It also makes it more difficult to adopt best of breed technology and meet changing business demands.
In today’s environment, IT must respond to business needs as fast as possible. Ideally, the technologies it adopts should be nimble and capable enough of deploying and scaling quickly with rollout completed within a single quarter, and be neutral or platform agnostic, not locking a company into a specific technology or vendor.
The cloud meets these two most important criteria. When companies can figure out how to cut the cord and move to a cloud service, IT gains the agility it requires. Cloud services are platform agnostic, as well as highly flexible, deploying and scaling instantly.
The most efficient method of providing secure access to desktops, applications, and data to any employee’s device is VDI – deployed via the cloud. As a cloud service, VDI does not require IT to build any infrastructure because its infrastructure lives in the cloud. Keep in mind that not all VDI cloud services are the same. Typically, they fall into two categories; traditional architecture hosted on the cloud and offered as a service, or a 100% cloud-based service.
Both provide the benefits of speed. However, the 100% cloud option features these additional benefits:
In the current economic climate, businesses must be highly responsive to customer needs, and employees must be empowered to make critical decisions on the spot. Because the market is constantly in flux, IT must transition to a more agile model that is cost optimised, highly flexible, and doesn’t lock the companies into any long-term solutions. Cloud services are the ideal response to these needs, and a 100% cloud-based VDI solution is the best available.
My colleague, Jennelle Crothers, and I got a chance to chat about the usability and ease of use in this episode of Windows 10 series in TechNet Radio. She’s great and we had much fun doing it. Jennelle did a quick demo on how to make Windows 10 even easier to use.
SYS-CON Events announced today that iDevices®, the preeminent brand in the connected home industry, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 18th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
iDevices, the preeminent brand in the connected home industry, has a growing line of HomeKit-enabled products available at the largest retailers worldwide. Through the “Designed with iDevices” co-development program and its custom-built IoT Cloud Infrastructure, iDevices works with highly recognized consumer brands to bring the power of connectivity to their customers. By designing and developing its technology in-house, the Company is able to seamlessly connect people to their worlds with responsive products that enhance everyday life.
Suspicion of the cloud has lifted so much that trust in cloud services is on par with on-premises applications, according to a survey by the Cloud Security Alliance.
Around 200 IT executives were quizzed about the state of cloud adoption, the evolving role of IT, and how enterprises approach cloud security. The results suggest that while trust in the cloud may be on the rise companies are trying to replicate the same security controls they did for their on-premises systems.
Cloud professionals are now caught between dual responsibilities, says the study: they are obliged to enable the business while at the same time they must tighten security. Only 35% of IT leaders believe that cloud-based systems of record are less secure than their on-premises counterparts. The other 65% say that the cloud is either more secure than on-premises software or equally secure. However, even when enterprise-ready cloud services are more secure than their own data centres, the users present more danger, which is why the ability to enforce corporate security policies is the number one barrier to moving applications to the cloud, said 68% of IT leaders. Another blockage was the need to comply with regulatory requirements (61%) and lack of budget to replace legacy systems (32%).
The top barrier to securing data is a lack of skilled security professionals as businesses are hiring IT security professionals faster than the market can train and develop experienced security professionals. In August, it was reported that JP Morgan expected to spend $500 million on cyber security in 2015, double its 2014 budget of $250 million. Rapid hiring is leading to a shortage of people to fill open positions. A 2015 report from labour analytics firm Burning Glass shows that cyber security job postings grew 91% from 2010 to 2014, more than three times the rate of growth in all IT jobs.
The most important new job is a chief IT security officer (CISO) the report found. Just 19% of companies without a CISO have a complete incident response plan while 54% of companies with a CISO have a complete incident response plan and those with a CISO are also more likely to have cyber insurance to protect against the cost of a data breach.
(c)iStock.com/RapidEye
By Mathieu LeBlanc
If you’ve been selling cloud services for a while, you’ve probably noticed that it’s getting harder to make a decent living as an independent. Yes, the demand for cloud services is high, but there’s a lot of other cloud resellers like you who are getting into the game. Recent statistics from MSP Alliance show that managed service providers (MSPs) generated revenue of about $154 billion (£106.8bn) selling cloud services in 2014.
Faced with these numbers, you’re probably wondering what you can possibly do to stand out from the crowd. What can you offer that will make clients more interested in talking to you instead of the other guy? The answer lies in a good partner program. When you join forces with a trusted cloud service provider, you can be sure you’re giving your clients the best services without sacrificing too much of your own time.
But how can you decide which program is best for your needs? After all, there are plenty of vendors out there who are offering a multitude of programs with more features than you can possibly imagine. We know it’s a tough call. That’s why we’ve put together this simple guide that will show you exactly what to look for and what to avoid when you start shopping for the ideal partner program.
What does their platform look like? Is it put together with top-of-the-line equipment, or does it look more like some spare parts thrown together with chicken wire? Your clients deserve high speed and performance and you won’t get that without good hardware.
You should be able to recognise some of the brands your potential cloud partner is using. Believe it or not, there are many stories about cloud providers who are using seriously out-of-date equipment just to cut costs. For example, do they use enterprise-grade All Flash SSD storage in all his solutions, or just in the more expensive models? If a cloud provider is cutting corners on hardware, it could indicate they’re not that interested in providing good or reliable service.
Let’s face it: good technical support plays a big role in cloud hosting. If you or your client needs help, you want to be sure you can get it, whether it’s during regular office hours or at 3am. You might be tempted to go with a big company’s partner program because there’s safety in numbers.
But remember, dealing with a big company doesn’t mean you’ll have an easy ride. For instance, have you ever tried calling Microsoft’s partner support department? Although Microsoft offers a great online knowledge base and help site, talking to a real person when you need help can be difficult. Look for a partner program that offers free support 24/7/365 by phone, email or chat.
Signing the contract with your new partner is only the first step. You have to be sure you can be properly trained to sell their products. Some cloud providers limit their training and workshops to the bigger resellers who have larger sales volumes. You want to look for a partner program where everyone is treated equally. You want to make sure everyone who signs up for the program is eligible for training from specialists who will teach you the ropes about their products and services. Some programs even offer different models to give you as much or as little control over the customer relationships and offers. So, don’t be afraid to ask questions.
The post Three Essential Tips for Choosing a Cloud Partner Program appeared first on SherWeb.
India based global services company HCL Technologies has launched an Internet of Things (IoT) incubation centre in Redmond, the home of Microsoft.
The two vendors will use the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite to create apps for industry and manufacturing and the Life Sciences and Healthcare sector. According to HCL these are the two key high growth vertical markets in which demand for IoT apps will be strongest.
The top three use cases named by HCL will be in industrial automation, remote patient monitoring and fleet management, but there will be a variety of other apps under development. The centre will develop new methods of using real-time analytics, sensory data and rapid co-creation, says HCL.
The Incubation Centre will aim to combine HCL’s skills in engineering and product lifecycle management, systems integration and infrastructure services with Microsoft’s leadership in IoT, it said.
IoT WoRKS by HCL promises to get more performance out of any company’s existing asset investment and create new services with measurable business outcomes. HCL’s offering has three phases, Define, Build and Run, to help design enterprise IoT programmes, develop IoT systems and manage the uptime of enterprise systems respectively.
“Industrial IoT is the next big productivity and revenue generation lever for enterprises worldwide,” said Sukamal Banerjee, EVP & Head of IoT WoRKS’s Business Unit at HCL Technologies.
Last week BCN reported that Microsoft has put its new Azure IoT hub on general availability. It claims the new system will be a simple bridge between its customers’ devices with their systems in the cloud. The new preconfigured IoT offering, when used with the Azure IoT Suite, can be used to create a machine to machine network and a storage system for its data in minutes, it claims.
Today, approximately 90 per cent of businesses are using at least one cloud application. Yet, only 32 per cent of these companies are running more than a fifth of their applications in the cloud. The obvious conclusion is that many company executives haven’t quite grasped what the cloud can do for them, which is why it is time for IT organisations to take an active role in explaining the cloud to the business.
One of the predominant issues preventing enterprises from realising the benefits of the cloud is their limited understanding of the technology. In simple terms, cloud computing can be defined as a computing environment consisting of pooled IT resources that can be consumed on demand. The ultimate benefit of the approach is that applications can be accessed from any device with an Internet connection.
However, even more commonly, executives are interested in hearing business cases for the implementation of cloud. Now, let’s walk through some of the most compelling pro-cloud arguments with comments from industry experts.
The money argument
“But can we afford it?”
Luckily for you, the numbers are on your side.
As David Goulden, CEO of EMC Infrastructure, explains in a recent interview: “An immediate driver of many implementations is cost reduction. Both McKinsey and EMC analyses have found that enterprises moving to hybrid cloud can reduce their IT operating expense by 24%. That’s a significant number, and in essence can fund the people and process changes that yield the other benefits of hybrid cloud.”
But where do those cost reductions come from? Goulden explains that while lower hardware, software, facilities and telecom costs account for some of the savings, by far the most substantial reductions can be made in OPEX budgets: “The automation of hybrid cloud dramatically reduces the amount of labour needed to deploy new application software, and to monitor, operate, and make adjustments to the infrastructure. Tasks that used to take days are performed in minutes or seconds.”
The agility issue
“But how will it increase our agility?”
When it comes to cloud computing, agility is commonly used to describe the rapid provisioning of computer resources. However, as HyperStratus’ CEO Bernard Golden suggests, the term can be used to refer to two entirely different advantages: IT resource availability and responsiveness to changes in the business.
Furthermore, he argues that although internal IT availability is necessary for success, the ultimate aim of cloud computing efforts should be speeding business innovation to the market: “the ability to surround a physical product or service with supporting applications offers more value to customers and provides competitive advantage to the vendor. And knowing how to take advantage of cloud computing to speed delivery of complementary applications into the marketplace is crucial to win in the future.“
The security concern
“But will our information be safe?”
Short answer: that’s completely up to your cloud. The beauty of a well-designed hybrid cloud is that it allows enterprises to allocate their applications and data between different cloud solutions in a way that brings out the benefits of all and the drawbacks of none.
However, as Tech Republic’s Enterprise Editor Conner Forrest explains in a recent article: “One of the raging debates when it comes to cloud security is the level of security offered by private and public clouds. While a private cloud strategy may initially offer more control over your data and easier compliance to HIPAA standards and PCI, it is not inherently more or less secure. True security has more to do with your overall cloud strategy and how you are using the technology.” Thus, a haphazard mix of public and private doesn’t automatically make a hybrid cloud.
The customer angle
“But how will it benefit our customers?”
More recently, the C-suite has woken up to the reality that cloud applications can help them attract and retain customers. A good example of this comes from the University of North Texas, whose CFO Rama Dhuwaraha explains: “The typical student on campus today has about six different devices that need Internet access for parking services we offer, dining, classroom registration and paying bills online. During enrolment, most of them don’t want to go find a lab and then enrol – they want it at their fingertips. We have to extend those services to them.”
Overall, the value proposition of a customised cloud solution should be pretty clear. However, as Goulden emphasises: “Most companies simply don’t realise how quickly they can implement a hybrid cloud, or how much money and capability they’re leaving on the table until they have one”. Therefore, as IT professionals, it is our responsibility to take this message forward to the business and develop cloud strategies that serve the interest of the enterprise.
Written by Rob Bradburn, Senior Web Operations Manager, Digital Insights & Demand, EMC – EMEA Marketing
Apple has given developers a new option in CloudKit, a new application programming interface (API) into its servers. The new feature is announced on the Apple developer news blog.
The new web interface gives users access to the same data as a developer’s app. It also makes it easier to read and write to the CloudKit public database from a server-side process or script with a server-to-server key, says Apple.
The interface is designed to help developers to extend the use of the iCloud CloudKit database beyond user interaction with iOS, Mac or web apps and run independent code on servers that can add, delete and modify records in the CloudKit stack. Originally, any user interaction with CloudKit was limited to the APIs that Apple provided in apps but now Apple has granted developers greater license for using the technology outside of the confines of its own technology.
Developers had complained that though the CloudKit stack was useful its limitations stopped them from putting the system to more advanced use. One of the complaints was that modern apps rely on servers to perform tasks whilst users are away. The addition of the web API means developers can create a wider portfolio of apps using CloudKit as the backend.
The restrictions had meant that even simple transactions were difficult to set up outside of the confines of Apple. According to specialist Apple user blog 9 to 5 Mac, users were previously restricted from using RSS readers unless they opened a CloudKit-powered app. This, said the blog, was ‘impractical’ and forced developers to use other tools. As a result of the more open API it is much easier to add new feed items to the CloudKit stack from the server.
“Expect CloudKit adoption to rise with this announcement,” predicted blog author Benjamin Mayo. However, the lack of native software development kits for non-Apple platforms may continue to limit uptake, Mayo warned.
With rival cloud framework Parse due to close in 2017, Apple’s addition of a server side request endpoint could position it as the replacement to Parse as a cloud database engine.
Meanwhile, there’s speculation among analysts that Apple is preparing for a move into cloud computing services for enterprise customers.
With Apple expected to invest $4 billion in 2016 on warehouse-sized data centres, analysts at investment banks Morgan Stanley and Openheimer Holdings have suggested that Apple may move its cloud business away from AWS as competition intensifies.
In a report, Oppenheimer analyst Tim Horan mooted the idea that Apple might start its own infrastructure as a service (IaaS) business as it targets the corporate market. IBM and Apple have partnered for enterprise marketing.