Cray And Microsoft Bring Supercomputing To Microsoft Azure

Cray Inc. has announced an exclusive strategic alliance with Microsoft Corp. that gives enterprises the tools to enable a new era of discovery and insight, while broadening the availability of supercomputing to new markets and new customers. Under the partnership agreement, Microsoft and Cray will jointly engage with customers to offer dedicated Cray supercomputing systems in Microsoft Azure data centers to enable customers to run AI, advanced analytics, and modeling and simulation workloads at unprecedented scale, seamlessly connected to the Azure cloud.

Cray’s tightly coupled system architecture and Aries interconnect addresses the exponential demand for compute capability, real-time insights, and scalable performance needed by enterprises today. With this new partnership, Cray and Microsoft have made it easier for cloud customers to harness the power of supercomputing and multiply their problem-solving potential. Cray and Microsoft will also bring these advantages to a new set of customers who were previously unable to purchase or maintain an on-premise Cray system.

The availability of Cray supercomputers in Azure empowers researchers, analysts, and scientists with the ability to train AI deep learning models in fields such as medical imaging and autonomous vehicles in a fraction of the time. Pharmaceutical and biotech scientists driving precision medicine discovery can now perform whole genome sequencing, shortening the time from computation to cure. Automotive and aerospace product engineers can now conduct crash simulation, computational fluid dynamic simulations, or build digital twins for rapid and precise product development and optimized maintenance. Geophysicists in energy companies can accelerate oil field analysis and reduce exploration risk through superior seismic imaging fidelity and faster reservoir characterization. All performed in days and minutes, not months and weeks.

“Our partnership with Microsoft will introduce Cray supercomputers to a whole new class of customers that need the most advanced computing resources to expand their problem-solving capabilities, but want this new capability available to them in the cloud,” said Peter Ungaro, president and CEO of Cray. “Dedicated Cray supercomputers in Azure not only give customers all of the breadth of features and services from the leader in enterprise cloud, but also the advantages of running a wide array of workloads on a true supercomputer, the ability to scale applications to unprecedented levels, and the performance and capabilities previously only found in the largest on-premise supercomputing centers. The Cray and Microsoft partnership is expanding the accessibility of Cray supercomputers and gives customers the cloud-based supercomputing capabilities they need to increase their competitive advantage.”

“Using the enterprise-proven power of Microsoft Azure, customers are running their most strategic workloads in our cloud,” said Jason Zander, corporate vice president, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Corp. “By working with Cray to provide dedicated supercomputers in Azure, we are offering customers uncompromising performance and scalability that enables a host of new previously unimaginable scenarios in the public cloud. More importantly, we’re moving customers into a new era by empowering them to use HPC and AI to drive breakthrough advances in science, engineering and health.”

As part of the partnership agreement, the Cray® XC™  and Cray CS™ supercomputers with attached Cray ClusterStor storage systems will be available for customer-specific provisioning in select Microsoft Azure data centers, directly connected to the Microsoft Azure network. The Cray systems easily integrate with Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Data Lake storage, the Microsoft AI platform, and Azure Machine Learning services. Customers can also leverage the Cray Urika®-XC analytics software suite and CycleCloud for hybrid HPC management.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

CloudJumper Powers WaaS Platform In Switch’s Tier 5® Data Centers

CloudJumper has announced the company has expanded its strategic relationship with ProfitBricks, a leading channel-focused cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider, to deploy nWorksSpace WaaS solutions within the Switch Tier 5® Data Center campus in Las Vegas. CloudJumper partners now have the ability to build highly competitive WaaS and cloud application delivery solutions on this premier brand of ProfitBricks infrastructure which has been recognized by the Uptime Institute for “enhanced availability and reliability.”[Switch, Switch Announces Its New Tier 5® Data Center Standard, June 8, 2017].

The Tier 5® Data Center Standard was introduced this year by Switch, a leader in data center design, development, and mission critical operations. With ProfitBricks cloud infrastructure operations located within Switch’s Core Campus in Las Vegas, CloudJumper will host a growing number of nWorkSpace accounts in this environment. The Switch Tier 5® Data Center Standard not only encompasses the resiliency and redundancy of other data center ratings systems, but also evaluates more than 30 additional key elements, such as long-term power system capabilities, the number of available carriers, zero roof penetrations, the location of cooling system lines in or above the data center, physical and network security and 100% use of renewable energy.

ProfitBricks is a next-generation cloud computing IaaS hosting service, addressing the needs of solution providers for high-performance and dedicated-core IaaS options that can be quickly scaled to variable levels of compute power and storage capacity. The ProfitBricks system employs an intuitive, easy-to-use management interface to configure and manage services delivered with a predictable and affordable fee structure. The combination is a cloud platform on which VARs, systems integrators, and managed service providers can build cloud-based solutions for their customers, as well as managed cloud practices. The company’s competitive advantages have been enhanced through partnership with Switch, a highest-rated data center provider whose core business is the design, construction, and operation of ultra-advanced data center facilities.

“The migration of IT service providers to the nWorkSpace platform continues to accelerate as partners regularly applaud CloudJumper’s channel-friendly business model, excellent margins, unmatched support, and choice of data center partners,” said Max Pruger, chief sales officer, CloudJumper. “We are excited to expand our involvement with ProfitBricks in the Switch Tier 5® data center campus because of the exceptional opportunities that will be made available to our partners in the design of their service portfolios.”

“IT service providers interested in building customizable, reliable, flexible, and scalable solution portfolios are discovering the advantages of ProfitBricks,” said Aaron Garza, vice president of Business Development, ProfitBricks. “The alignment with CloudJumper and ProfitBricks takes WaaS and cloud application delivery to a whole new level, allowing mutual channel partners to design and deliver cloud-based IT solutions that are aligned with market demands and industry requirements.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Zimperium® Deploys ZeroStack’s Private Cloud Solution

ZeroStack, Inc. has announced that Zimperium has deployed the ZeroStack Intelligent Cloud Platform to speed, streamline, and reduce the cost of its software development.

“We are continually enhancing our software-defined mobile threat defense products, and we need to empower our developers with self-service, cloud-based tools,” said Jerome Brock, senior DevOps Engineerat Zimperium. “By integrating ZeroStack’s Intelligent Cloud Platform onto our bare-metal servers, we have created a self-service DevOps environment that is cost-effective and easy to maintain.”

“Zimperium is the leader in mobile threat defense, and their position depends on their ability to continually enhance their software,” said Kamesh Pemmaraju, vice president of Product Management at ZeroStack. “The ZeroStack Intelligent Cloud Platform helps them empower their developers while retaining full control over their cloud resources.”
 

Source: CloudStrategyMag

WordPress Issues Emergency Patch for SQL Injection Vulnerability

WordPress announced the security release of version 4.8.3 this week to patch a vulnerability to website takeover through an SQL injection attack.

The Halloween fright, CVE-2017-14723, was discovered and reported to the bug bounty program in September by researcher Anthony Ferrara.

While WordPress core is not affected, according to the new release announcement, the new version hardens it to protect it from attacks via plugins and themes. In version 4.8.2 and earlier, “$wpdb->prepare() can create unexpected and unsafe queries,” allowing potential SQL injection. The new release changes the behavior of the esc_sql() function, which WordPress says will not affect most developers.

Facebook's WhatsApp Platform Suffers Connectivity Issues

(Bloomberg) — The WhatsApp chat app is suffering a global outage on Friday, with users from the U.K. to Indonesia reporting connectivity issues.

Downdetector, a website that tracks outages, reported that WhatsApp has been having issues since 2:38 a.m. New York time.

WhatsApp did not respond to a request for to comment. A notice on the app said “Our service is experiencing a problem right now. We are working on it and hope to restore functionality shortly.” The chat app, owned by Facebook Inc., has more than 1 billion users.

Beating Amazon.com in the Cloud? Europe's Betting on Paris's P19

(Bloomberg) — What began as a micro-loan from a billionaire, a moving van, and the name P19, now intends to push into the U.S. and rival Amazon.com Inc.’s $12-billion-plus cloud business.

The name stands for Paris and its 19th district, where 42-year-old Octave Klaba set up his first data center after borrowing money from fellow entrepreneur and one of France’s richest people, Xavier Niel, and moving equipment back and forth from hometown Roubaix in the north of France.

Started in 1999, OVH Groupe SAS now has a valuation over $1 billion and is expanding to the U.S., with KKR & Co. and TowerBrook Capital Partners as backers.

VMware To Acquire VeloCloud™ Networks

VMware, Inc. has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire VeloCloud™ Networks, Inc., provider of industry-leading cloud-delivered software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) technology for enterprises and service providers. Once the acquisition closes, VeloCloud will enable VMware to build on the success of its industry-leading network virtualization platform — VMware NSX® — and expand its networking portfolio to address end-to-end automation, application continuity, branch transformation, and security from data center to cloud to edge. This acquisition will also further enable VMware to lead the industry transition to a software-defined future, and help customers bring their businesses into the digital era with networking that is ubiquitous, open, programmable and secure by default.

The transaction is expected to close in VMware’s fiscal Q4 2018. There is no change to VMware’s previously provided fiscal 2018 guidance due to this transaction.

According to Gartner, “While WAN architectures and technologies tend to evolve at a very slow pace — perhaps a new generation every 10 to 15 years — the disruptions caused by the transformation to digital business models are driving adoption of SD-WAN at a pace that is unheard of in wide-area networking.¹

” VeloCloud cloud-delivered SD-WAN technology is deployed globally at-scale by more than 1,000 customers, both directly by enterprises and by Telcos and managed services providers serving enterprise customers. Service provider customers include AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Macquarie Telecom, MetTel, Mitel, Sprint, TelePacific, Telstra, Vonage and Windstream. Enterprise customers include Bay Club, Brooks Brothers, Devcon, NCR, Redmond, Saber Healthcare Group, and Triton Management Services.”

“In the digital era, a new networking approach is required to solve the hyper distribution of applications and data, as we move from a model of data centers to one of centers of data at the edge,” said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware. “At the heart of VMware’s networking strategy is the belief in delivering pervasive connectivity with embedded security that connects users to applications wherever they may be. With the addition of VeloCloud’s industry-leading SD-WAN technology, we will be able to extend the VMware NSX approach of automated, secure, and infrastructure-independent networking to the WAN.”

“Enterprises are transforming how they architect and utilize their infrastructure, with a shift towards a cloud-delivered, software-defined model. This enables organizations to have a globally consistent infrastructure regardless of where it is deployed — from the data center and the cloud to the edge,” said Sanjay Uppal, CEO of VeloCloud Networks. “We look forward to helping VMware, the leader in software-defined infrastructure, in the next evolution of the company’s networking and NFV strategies.”

Leading with Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN
VeloCloud’s cloud-delivered SD-WAN combines the economics and flexibility of the hybrid wide-area network (WAN) with the deployment speed and low maintenance of cloud-based services. It dramatically simplifies the WAN by delivering virtualized services from the cloud to branch offices and mobile users everywhere. VeloCloud leverages intelligent x86 edge appliances to aggregate multiple broadband links at the branch office, and using cloud-based orchestration, connects the branch office to any of type of data center: enterprise, cloud, or software-as-a-service.

With VeloCloud, VMware will enable enterprises to support application growth, network agility, and simplified branch implementations while delivering high-performance, secure, reliable branch access to cloud services, private data centers and SaaS-based applications. SD-WAN technology is ideal for businesses looking to make the transition from static, complex, on-premises networking to the cost-effective, dynamic, and scalable cloud-delivered architecture of the digital era. The VeloCloud solution provides flexibility in network connectivity options that can augment MPLS and improves overall total cost of ownership for branch connectivity.

VeloCloud will enable VMware to help service providers increase revenue and service innovation by delivering elastic transport, performance for cloud applications and a software-defined intelligent edge that can orchestrate multiple services to meet customer needs. With SD-WAN becoming the primary function in virtual customer-premise equipment deployments, VMware expects to be able to simplify the deployment of virtual network functions (VNF) for applications such as security by combining the proven VMware vCloud® NFV platform with a cloud-delivered SD-WAN platform.

“Dell EMC and VMware are committed to digitally transforming branches, the wide-area network and the cloud edge,” said Tom Burns, senior vice president, Networking, Enterprise Infrastructure and Service Provider Solutions, Dell EMC. “We recently announced a partnership with VeloCloud that includes joint product validation, coordination with product roadmaps, simplified ordering, and coordinated sales and marketing to improve solutions for our mutual customers. We look forward to continuing this SD-WAN partnership with VMware upon closing to offer mutual customers best-in-class intelligent edge appliances.”

Guiding Customers to the Software-Defined Future
VMware’s software-based approach is delivering the networking and security platform that enables customers to connect, secure and operate an end-to-end architecture to deliver services to the application wherever it may land. Customers choose VMware NSX because it delivers network and security services closest to the application. With VeloCloud, VMware will bring the same properties to the WAN, resulting in visibility, security, automation with performance, and availability for enterprise and cloud applications.

“Digital transformation has brought about a growing dependency on the network as mobility, cloud, and social business erase many of the barriers pertaining to time and place in the enterprise. Advances in IoT are also driving dependency on the network,” said Matt Eastwood, senior vice president of IDC’s enterprise, data center, cloud infrastructure, and developer research. “The network is becoming more agile, enabled by a new generation of software-based platforms from companies such as VMware and VeloCloud. We see a positive synergy between the two companies, and the opportunity for VMware to build upon the software-based networking strategy the company has been executing on.”

1. Forecast: SD-WAN and Its Impact on Traditional Router and MPLS Services Revenue, Worldwide, 2016-2020, Gartner, November 7, 2016, Document: G00317430, https://www.gartner.com/doc/3505022?ref=ddisp

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Microsoft, Oracle, IBM Are Said to Alter Pay to Push Cloud Sales

(Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and IBM — looking to stoke demand for cloud computing services — are said to be shifting incentives for their sales representatives, pushing them to ensure customers become active users over the long haul.

Microsoft in July revamped the way it pays its sales staff to tie incentives to how much customers actually use cloud-based software — rather than how many sign a contract for cloud services, according to sales chief Judson Althoff. Oracle has been rolling out new rewards for at least some employees that also are connected to customers’ use of its cloud services, according to people familiar with the matter.

International Business Machines Corp. in the past year has restructured its cloud sales team and tied compensation more closely to usage, according to other people with knowledge of the matter. Traditionally, companies would ink large software deals based on factors such as the number of a customer’s devices — and not actual subsequent use of the products.

ManageEngine Updates Its Cloud-Based Service Desk Software

ManageEngine has announced that it is bringing a unified approach to enterprise service management with an update to the cloud version of its flagship ITSM product, ServiceDesk Plus. With the ability to launch and manage multiple service desk instances on the go, organizations can now leverage proven IT service management (ITSM) best practices to streamline business functions for non-IT departments, including HR, facilities and finance. Available immediately, the ServiceDesk Plus cloud version comes loaded with built-in templates unique to various business processes, giving users the flexibility to perform codeless customizations for quick and easy deployment of business services.

Within any organization, employees consume services provided by various departments on a daily basis. While each department offers unique services, the processes and workflows associated with those services follow a pattern similar to that of IT service management. However, organizations often implement ITSM workflows only within their IT department, seldom leveraging these ITSM best practices to manage service delivery across other departments.

“Traditionally, the best practices of service management have only been available to the IT functions of an organization. Other departments, despite the mandate of servicing endusers, make do with processes and tools unique to their domain while not tapping into established standards followed by IT,” said Rajesh Ganesan, director of product management at ManageEngine. “ServiceDesk Plus takes the collective lessons from IT and brings an integrated approach to service management that cuts across different departments to deliver a consistent user experience and provide centralized visibility of all services.”

“Having separate service desk instances for IT, facilities and records allows us to track the issues separately while giving us access to the other departments’ resources. With the new version of ServiceDesk Plus, we feel like the firm’s support and administration departments are working together to provide assistance,” said Beverley Seche, network administrator at Stark & Stark, Attorneys at Law. “I love that it’s customizable, easy to use and available at a great price.”

Reimagining ITSM for Business Operations

Service operations by business teams closely align with fundamental service management processes. Unifying service operations across an organization helps provide a consistent experience for end users. Whether an employee requests information from HR or submits a work order to facilities, non-IT service requests often follow a similar workflow to that of any IT service request. So, instead of disparate applications and disjointed processes, organizations can use a centralized service desk to facilitate request logging and tracking, task automation and delegation as well as request fulfillment and feedback. With a unified service desk, each department can have its own service desk instance with templates and workflows inspired by existing IT service management processes.

Becoming a Rapid-Start Enterprise Service Desk

To date, ServiceDesk Plus has focused on providing ITSM best practices to the IT end of business. By discovering the common thread between the different service management activities within an enterprise, ServiceDesk Plus is now able to carry its industry-leading capabilities beyond IT. As an enterprise service desk, ServiceDesk Plus helps organizations instantly deploy ITSM solutions for their supporting business units by providing:

• Rapid deployment: Create, deploy and roll-out a service desk instance in less than 60 secs.
• Single enterprise directory: Maintain users, service desks, authentications and associations in one place.
• Unique service desk instances: Create separate service desk instances for each business function and facilitate organized service delivery using code-free customizations.
• Service automation: Implement ITSM workflows to efficiently manage all aspects of the business service life cycle.
• Built-in catalog and templates: Accelerate service management adoption across departments by using prebuilt templates and service catalogs unique to each business unit.
• Centralized request portal: Showcase all the services that endusers require using a single portal based on each individual’s access permissions.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

How the World of Connected Things is Changing Cloud Services Delivery

I recently led a session at the latest Software-Defined Enterprise Conference and Expo (SDxE) where we discussed how connected “things” are going to reshape our business, the industry, and our lives. When I asked the people in that full room how many had more than two devices that could connect into the cloud, pretty much every hand went up.

We’re living in a truly interconnected world. One that continues to generate more data, find more ways to give analog systems a digital heartbeat, and one that shapes lives using new technologies.

A recent Cisco Visual Networking Index report indicated that smartphone traffic will exceed PC traffic by 2021. In 2016, PCs accounted for 46 percent of total IP traffic, but by 2021 PCs will account for only 25 percent of traffic. Smartphones will account for 33 percent of total IP traffic in 2021, up from 13 percent in 2016. PC-originated traffic will grow at a CAGR of 10 percent, while TVs, tablets, smartphones, and Machine-to- Machine (M2M) modules will have traffic growth rates of 21 percent, 29 percent, 49 percent, and 49 percent, respectively.