This next weekend our city hosts Super Bowl 50, a week-long media and megastar frenzy overlaid with streaming video, stadium WiFi that may actually work, and for the lucky few in downtown SF, Verizon microcells, a precursor to 5G. But wind the clock back to the winter of 1967. Super Bowl 1, Bart Starr and the Green Bay Packers.
IBM and Catalogic Software combine to slash costs of data management
IBM and Catalogic Software have jointly launched a new set of systems which combine Catalogic’s copy data manager ECX with IBM’s storage offerings, in a bid to help clients trim the excessive costs of duplicate data.
The objective is to make DevOps and Hybrid Cloud initiatives easier and less wasteful for IBM clients by automating storage and data management, creating self-service options and creating access to Catalogic software though IBM’s RESTful API management.
Catalogic’s ECX is described as a virtual appliance that runs on a client’s existing infrastructure and acts as a lever of power over storage controllers, storage software systems and hypervisors. IBM claims it has validated the system through months of testing and the two can work in tandem to improve the operations of the core data centre. The combination of the two creates new tools that are necessary for supporting new workload environments and use cases, according to a Catalogic statement.
Today’s core data centre architecture and associated processes don’t lend themselves to agility and flexibility, though they are reliable and secure. Catalogic’s ECX has given IBM a method of creating the former, without sacrificing the latter, said IBM. The key to this is making the storage infrastructure more flexible so that data can be virtualised and kept in one place rather than endlessly replicated for a variety of different project teams. One of the benefits is that live environments can support key IT functions that rely on copies of production data without having to massively expand the data footprint. ECX and IBM’s service services can jointly create a culture of
elasticity and sharing of cloud resources across a variety of functions including Disaster Recovery, Test and Development, Analytics and other departments.
The lower operating costs of cloud resources and saved manual efforts through ECX’s cloud automation will bring up to a 300% return on investment, claims IBM.
Among the systems that ECX can now combine with are IBM’s Storwize family of hybrid flash/HDD systems, the SAN Volume Controller, FlashSystem V9000, Hybrid Cloud Operations with IBM SoftLayer and IBM Spectrum Protect.
“Copy data management can significantly improve data access and availability and create remarkable cost savings,” said Bina Hallman, VP of IBM Storage and Software Defined Systems.
Why Aren’t You Managing Your Macs? Part 1
Most IT pros admit that Macs are coming into their environment for a variety of reasons. They also know that best practice proves that these Macs should be managed. Unfortunately, the task of managing Macs usually stalls before it even gets started. There are a number of reasons (excuses?) why—including budget, perceived complexity, prioritization, and […]
The post Why Aren’t You Managing Your Macs? Part 1 appeared first on Parallels Blog.
How to Use Windows To Go in Parallels Desktop
Guest blog by Ramakrishna Sarma Chavali, Parallels Support Team Do you remember those times when you had to carry a huge portable external drive to copy a couple of .doc files from one computer to another? We’re pretty lucky to live in the 21st century, because now you can carry a tiny flash drive with […]
The post How to Use Windows To Go in Parallels Desktop appeared first on Parallels Blog.
Gartner argues cloud email is still immature – but gaining traction
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The cloud email market remains relatively immature with Microsoft ahead of Google in enterprise adoption, according to the latest figures from analyst house Gartner.
According to email server domain records of almost 40,000 public companies worldwide, only 8.5% of firms polled use Microsoft, compared to 4.7% on Google’s mail, with the remainder using on-premises, hybrid, hosted, or private cloud email systems.
Gartner also argues a trend of industries using different vendors; regulated industries such as utilities, energy, and aerospace are likeliest to be Microsoft shops, while media, publishing and advertising companies are more Gmail-friendly.
Nikos Drakos, research vice president at Gartner, argues that while it is still early days in cloud email adoption, growth is not slow. “Companies considering cloud email should question assumptions that public cloud email is not appropriate in their region, size, or industry,” he said. “Our findings suggest that many varied organisations are already using cloud email, and the number is growing rapidly.”
Gartner also found that wealthier organisations were more likely to use Microsoft; the Redmond giant has more of an 80% share of companies using cloud email with revenue in excess of $10 billion (£6.95bn).
This correlates with a study from BetterCloud, published in July last year, which argued a “clear trend” for larger organisations to run Office 365 as a cloud collaboration suite as opposed to Google Apps. For smaller businesses, the study argued, Google Apps was a more likely choice as it could be rolled out in one weekend, as opposed to Microsoft Office rollouts which were more of a hybrid deployment.
One anomaly in the Gartner study was that, in industries such as travel and hospitality, the highest revenue firms were more likely to be on a cloud email solution.
How Mobile Is Making the Life of Your Sysadmin a Nightmare | @CloudExpo #Cloud
BYOD is awesome… except for the strain it’s putting on IT. It’s probably giving your sysadmin migraines. We’re going to talk about what you can do about that.
It’s official – BYOD is now the mobile strategy of choice for the majority of enterprises. According to a comprehensive survey carried out in 2014 by the Information Security LinkedIn Group, over 60% of large organizations either tolerate or allow the use of personal devices on their network. Here’s the thing about that statistic, though – allowing it isn’t the same as accepting it.
Many businesses don’t have a choice in the matter.
The Growing Need for Mobile Tech Talent | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Employment statistics reflect what technology-focused recruiters and project managers already know: new talent acquisition, especially in mobile app development, is the competitive environment. The industry keeps adding jobs, as the growth in mobile tech opportunities is driven by the cultural shifts in business models and processes that “mobile everywhere” demands. These shifts aren’t unique to any sector, but apply across the spectrum to retail, financial services, health care, media and entertainment – and they mean big business.
[session] What Is the Business Imperative for Cognitive Computing? By @JHurwitz | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Cognitive Computing is becoming the foundation for a new generation of solutions that have the potential to transform business. Unlike traditional approaches to building solutions, a cognitive computing approach allows the data to help determine the way applications are designed. This contrasts with conventional software development that begins with defining logic based on the current way a business operates.
In her session at 18th Cloud Expo, Judith S. Hurwitz, President and CEO of Hurwitz & Associates, Inc., will put cognitive computing into perspective with its value to the business. The session will detail what it takes to build a cognitive application and the types of solutions that are the best fit for this data-driven approach.
Microsoft’s submarine datacentre makes a splash
Microsoft has released details of a new pilot project for an undersea datacentre designed to cut power costs with free water cooling.
Project Natick, which connects the undersea module using giant steel tubes linked by fibre optic cables, could also use turbines to convert tides and currents into electricity to power the computing and comms equipment. The new sea bed data centres could also improve cloud response times for users living near the coast.
A prototype was placed on the sea bed off the coast of California in August 2015 as art of an investigation into the environmental and technical issues involved in this form of low power cloud service. Microsoft researchers believe that economies of scale through mass production would cut deployment time from two years to 90 days. The project is the latest initiative from Microsoft Research’s New Experiences and Technologies (NExT) which began investigating new ways to power cloud computing in 2014.
In the 105 day trial an eight foot wide steel capsule was placed 30 feet underwater in the Pacific Ocean near San Luis Obispo, California. The underwater system had 100 sensors to measure pressure, humidity, motion and other conditions but the system stayed up, which encouraged Microsoft to extend the experiment to run data-processing projects from Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service.
In the next stage of the research, Microsoft said, it will create an underwater data centre system that will be three times as large. This will be built in partnership with an alternative energy vendor. The identity of the trial partner has yet to be decided, but the launch date is mooted for 2017 at a venue either in Florida or Northern Europe, where hydro power is more advanced.
This “refactoring” of traditional methods will help fuel other innovations even if it doesn’t accomplish its goal of establishing underwater data farms, according to Norman Whitaker, MD for special projects at Microsoft Research and the former deputy director at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “The idea with refactoring is that it tickles a whole bunch of things at the same time,” said Whitaker.
Microsoft manages more than 100 data centres around the globe and is adding always looking for new venues to support its raid expansion. The company has spent more than $15 billion on a global datacentre system that now provides more than 200 online services.
UK parliament warns against new Investigatory Powers Bill
The UK government must ‘urgently review’ the expensive obligations it is about to pass onto the cloud industry, according to a new report on the effects of the Investigatory Powers Bill.
The Investigatory Powers Bill Technology Issues report was compiled by a parliamentary select on science and technology after taking evidence from activists, academics and tech companies. The proposed legislation could prove painfully expensive for Britain’s service providers, by forcing them to incur the costs and extra work involved in storing every customer’s entire browsing history for 12 months, the report warns. It also identifies a problem over encryption, with many in the industry unclear over the legal obligations the new bill will create.
“The Government must urgently review the legislation so that the obligations on the industry are clear and proportionate,” said Nicola Blackwood MP, chair of the Science and Technology Committee.
The draft bill calls for the collection by service providers of data on each user’s internet connection records (ICRs). According to the committee, industry feedback suggests there are too many unanswered questions over the practicalities of meeting this legal requirement. The technology industry is not clear about the meaning of the definition for ICRs framed by Home Secretary Theresa May, one of the co-authors of the draft bill.
According to May, an ICR is a record of the communications service that a person has used, but not a record of every web page they have accessed. “The current draft contains very broad and ambiguous definitions of ICRs, which are confusing communications providers,” said Blackwood, in a statement.
The ambiguity is a critical problem because it leaves service provides unable to predict the time and money they need to meet their obligations, which leaves them unable to forecast and plan. It also introduces a potentially dangerous vulnerability by creating an opportunity for hackers to access that information. The report questions whether it is ‘practical to assume’ that databases of customer activity can be kept ‘secure and safe’.
The draft Bill, in its current form, appears to instruct service providers that customer information must be kept in an unencrypted state ready for inspection, according to the committee. “The Government should clarify and state clearly in the Codes of Practice that it will not be seeking unencrypted content,” said the statement, “there are still many unanswered questions about how this legislation will work.”
There are good grounds to believe that without further refinement there could be ‘many unintended consequences for commerce’ arising from the current lack of clarity of the legislation, the report concluded.