COPA-DATA Wins The 2017 Microsoft Internet of Things (IoT) Award

Microsoft has crowned COPA-DATA, the Austria-based software manufacturer for industrial automation, as its global Microsoft Partner of the Year in the Internet of Things (IoT) category. The award was presented at this year’s Microsoft Inspire, the company’s worldwide partner conference, which was held between July 9 and 13, 2017 in Washington, D.C., USA. This award is a recognition by Microsoft of COPA-DATA’s innovations and software solutions based on Microsoft technology.

Each year, Microsoft presents its sought-after Partner of the Year Awards at its worldwide partner conference. This year, projects were submitted by more than 2,800 companies across 115 countries in a total of 34 global categories and 103 national categories. Following on from two victories at the Microsoft Awards last year, this is the third prize for COPA-DATA. The company was honored for its solutions and services involving its zenon software system in the global Internet of Things (IoT) category.

“This success is excellent proof of the high quality and performance demonstrated by our IoT solutions based on our zenon software and the latest Microsoft technologies and products, especially the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, including the Azure IoT Suite,” explains Johannes Petrowisch, Global Partner & Business Development Manager at COPA-DATA. “We are extremely pleased with this award and would like to thank all our customers and partners who have made this achievement possible.”

Pioneering Software Solution

Triumph at the 2017 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards was based on an IoT application by COPA-DATA, which uses the technological interaction between zenon and Microsoft Azure to prepare equipment manufacturers for digitization in the industry. This gives users access to all data relating to individual machines, assembly lines, or a company’s entire production site from a single system. Additional services such as predictive analysis, machine learning, cross-site reporting, remote maintenance, and control can be fully cloud-based or implemented in hybrid scenarios – opening the door to service-oriented business models.

“Our ecosystem of innovative partners is the cornerstone to delivering transformative solutions to our mutual customers,” said Ron Huddleston Corporate Vice President, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft Corp. “We are pleased to recognize COPA-DATA for being selected as winner of the 2017 Microsoft Internet of Things (IoT) Worldwide Partner of the Year award.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

QTS Enhances Carrier-Neutral Cloud Connectivity Ecosystem

Responding to increasing customer demand for diverse cloud connectivity options, QTS Realty Trust announced that customers will be able to access elastic interconnection services powered by Megaport, a leader in global Software Defined Networking (SDN).

Megaport is part of QTS’ multi-phased approach to expand its carrier-neutral cloud ecosystem and simplify customer network strategies by providing diverse connectivity for cloud and hybrid IT environments.

Megaport enables QTS’ customers and partners to connect over a Software Defined Network (SDN), reducing cost, and providing rapid connectivity and provisioning across a single platform. Virtual Cross Connects (VXCs) to services are provisioned via QTS’ portal and managed via any mobile device. Megaport complements QTS’ existing portfolio of network services to include direct connectivity to some of the world’s largest hyperscale cloud providers.

“Expansion of QTS’ connectivity ecosystem supports today’s enterprises seeking speed, agility and efficiency to solve their hybrid IT strategies,” said Dan Bennewitz, chief operations officer, sales, product & marketing. QTS. “By partnering with Megaport, QTS customers can connect with who they want when they want, more efficiently and effectively.”

“QTS has evolved into a highly innovative provider of cloud and hybrid IT solutions backed by an increased emphasis on strategic carrier-neutral cloud interconnection,” said Vincent English, CEO of Megaport. “Megaport provides the ideal foundation for QTS customers to connect easily to each other as well as over 200 service providers across our ecosystem, including the top five global cloud service providers.”

Enterprises will be able to access Megaport from QTS’ mega data centers in Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas-Irving, Texas; Richmond, Virginia; and Santa Clara, California.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Report: Most Businesses Using the Cloud Spend 0,000+ on Additional Security Features

Businesses prefer storing data in the cloud, but plan to invest in extra security precautions, according to the second report in Clutch’s Annual Cloud Computing Survey. Clutch is a B2B ratings and reviews firm.

Nearly 70% of businesses on the cloud prefer storing data in the cloud instead of on a legacy system, and these businesses are willing to invest heavily in keeping their cloud’s data secure.

In fact, over half of companies surveyed spend more than $100,000 annually on additional cloud security features.

One reason for the high investment in cloud security is companies’ greater awareness of the security risks that are out of their cloud provider’s control, according to industry experts. When it comes to application-level security, including user access, password sharing, and other individual interactions, the company and its employees shoulder the responsibility for security.

“There is suddenly a number of people recognizing that application-level security needs to be done by the user, not the vendor,” said Haresh Kumbhani, founder and CEO of Zymr, Inc., a San Francisco-based cloud consulting and agile software development services company. “If this is the case, then they need to invest top dollar in securing the data.”

In another finding, nearly 1 in 4 businesses on the cloud indicate that they use IoT services. However, the quality of security for IoT varies.

“Nascent is the first word that comes to mind [regarding IoT security]. For every company that properly locks down IoT-enabled machines on a factory floor, you have thousands of unsecured ‘smart’ lightbulbs,” said Jamie MacQuarrie, co-founder of Appivo, a platform for developing cloud-based web and mobile applications.

Companies can protect themselves from security threats and prevent issues by following both mandatory and voluntary security guidelines and implementing additional security features, such as extra encryption.

Currently, 65% of businesses follow the security guidelines released by the Cloud Security Alliance, and 64% of businesses use encryption as an additional security tool, according to the survey.

The survey includes responses from 283 IT professionals at businesses across the United States that use cloud computing.

Read the full article here.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

DataSite Launches Its Cloud And IT Enablement Division

DataSite has announced the launch of its cloud and IT enablement division, DataSite Atmosphere. DataSite Atmosphere uses a consultative approach to craft cloud and managed IT solutions designed to specific customer needs and requirements.

Harnessing its vast experience in IT, DataSite Atmosphere’s service solutions are sensitively architected to meet customers’ needs and utilize best-in-class cloud service platforms to fulfill the requirements for compute, memory, storage, and network.  DataSite Atmosphere provides a single contract, embedding services with colocation, to arrive at the smartest and most complete hybrid colocation and cloud service solution for tomorrow’s enterprise. When customer requirements demand, DataSite Atmosphere will build infrastructure necessary to serve those specific needs. DataSite provides creative, custom solutions that include:

• Cloud ramps to AWS Direct Connect, Google Cloud, Interconnect, and Azure ExpressRoute
• Private, public, and hybrid cloud computing
• Network services including internet bandwidth, SD WAN, and edge network connectivity
• Unified communications
• Virtual desktop and hosted exchange
• Backup and disaster Recovery-as-a-Service
• Cloud storage

“The Atmosphere team is keenly aware that the technology ecosystem is ever changing,” says Jeff burges, president and founder of DataSite.  “We believe in creating long-term partnerships that enable customers to continue to evolve utilizing opportune solutions.  Atmosphere is uniquely positioned, with its customer centric model, to craft best-in-class colocation and cloud solutions for today and tomorrow.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Report: Cloud & Hyperscale Growth Forecast

New cloud forecast data from Synergy Research Group shows that worldwide revenues from cloud and SaaS services will grow at an average annual rate of 23% to 29% over the next five years, passing the $200 billion milestone in 2020, which will help to pull through 11% annual growth in sales of infrastructure to hyperscale cloud providers. Meanwhile, revenues from the sale of hardware and software to enterprise data centers will continue to slowly decline, reflecting the ongoing shift in workloads from privately owned infrastructure to the public cloud. Across the major cloud service categories, public IaaS/PaaS will see the strongest growth at an average 29% per year, while managed or hosted private cloud service revenues will grow by 26% per year and enterprise SaaS 23%.

Strong growth will continue to be seen across all of the major cloud service segments, with some of the highest growth being seen in database and IoT-oriented IaaS/PaaS services, and ERP within enterprise SaaS. APAC will be the highest growth region, followed by EMEA and North America.

Synergy’s hyperscale operator tracking research shows that the 24 hyperscale companies now have a global footprint comprising over 360 large data centers. As this figure continues to grow by almost 20% per year, the hyperscale companies are increasingly dominating the cloud market. They will soon account for over 80% of all cloud and SaaS service revenues and almost 40% of spend on all public and private data center equipment.

“As cloud markets reach a massive scale, growth rates will inevitably tail off, but our latest forecasts are still showing that over the next five years we will still see some really robust growth,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director at Synergy Research Group. “As cloud continues to dramatically reshape the IT world it is also clear that the hyperscale phenomenon continues to dramatically reshape cloud. Hyperscale operators are diminishing the growth opportunity for traditional non-hyperscale service providers and are also seriously challenging the technology vendor community to rethink its position in the new world.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Online Tech Extends Hybrid Cloud Service

Online Tech has extended its hybrid cloud offering to support managed Microsoft Azure services. This extension is the first step for Online Tech towards integrating the public cloud into its suite of hybrid IT products, which includes colocation, virtual private cloud and data protection services.

This new service includes SprawlGuard™, the first-of-its-kind technology that will help clients manage their monthly cloud spend. It allows them to set a monthly spending budget, or target, and then alerts them when it looks like they will exceed that amount. In the future, it will help to identify unused or under-utilized resources so clients can be more efficient with their public cloud spend.

“Clients will now not only effortlessly manage their entire environment, but also achieve transparency and control over their expenses with SprawlGuard™,” said Nick Lumsden, vice president of technology and product strategy, Online Tech. “This will provide our clients with a single window into the cost drivers of their critical business systems, so they can harness the power of their multi-cloud strategy.”

Organizations thinking of adopting a multi-cloud strategy often face many challenges. Public cloud bills are frequently unpredictable and complex, and businesses find that they need to hire additional personnel to architect and support their solution.

Online Tech’s managed Azure services solve both challenges: Clients get a complete, fully managed public cloud that integrates with their existing virtual private cloud infrastructure within a single portal and with a simple bill. Their hybrid environment is fully managed by Online Tech’s Azure experts and support team, giving businesses additional depth to their cloud teams.

“One of the biggest challenges we’ve seen with our clients is the struggle to understand their public cloud bill,” said Kurt Schaldenbrand, product design manager, Online Tech. “We’ve effectively solved that challenge by offering our clients who have Azure a complete view into their total environment, where they receive a single bill for all services rendered, allowing them to easily track their spending and better manage costs.”

“We’re really excited that Online Tech is leading the pack when it comes to hybrid cloud,” said Scott Larsen, chief technology officer, Mingle Analytics. “This new service will allow us to easily manage both our public and private cloud and give us the support we need to meet the growing demands of our health care quality reporting business.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Engility Joins Cloud Security Alliance

Engility Holdings, Inc. has joined the Cloud Security Alliance, the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help secure cloud computing environments.

 “Joining CSA means our customers gain the best possible path forward when addressing cloud computing challenges,” said Gay Porter, vice president of Engility’s Technical Solutions Group. “We look forward to collaborating with others in the industry to maintain best practices and drive innovation and advancements around cloud security. We bring extensive systems engineering and enterprise modernization expertise and solutions, such as the recently introduced Cloud ASCEND™.”

Engility’s Cloud ASCEND™ combines state-of-the-art commercial cloud tools with a proprietary methodology and team of certified cloud experts to transform organizations’ digital enterprise. Scalable and tailorable, the tool designs secure and resilient cloud and hybrid enterprise architectures. These new architectures can be modeled using computer-aided design tools before any applications are actually migrated to the cloud. Cloud ASCEND also develops and tests systems bound for the Intelligence Community’s (IC) C2S cloud in an unclassified emulator, saving time and money while helping to design the optimal solution based on specific client needs.

The company helps government organizations with digital transformation. Engility combines state of the art commercial tools with deep operational and mission understanding to deliver secure, modern IT infrastructure to our customers. For example, in 2016, Engility helped the Defense Information Systems Agency establish a Virtual Operating Environment that supports all unclassified laboratory needs within the Joint Interoperability Test Command.

“We’re pleased to welcome Engility to CSA. As a leading aerospace and defense company, Engility brings a fresh perspective and new, innovative tools and approaches to our organization and the clients we serve,” said Jim Reavis, CEO, Cloud Security Alliance.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

IBM To Launch the Next Generation Processors In The Cloud

IBM has announced that it will be the first major cloud provider to launch bare metal servers powered by the next generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors globally on the IBM Cloud. New IBM Cloud bare metal servers powered by the Intel Xeon Silver 4110 processor and Intel Xeon Gold 5120 and 6140 processors will be designed to help deliver greater performance and generate faster insights from big data workloads, and will offer the global reach and security-rich environment of the IBM Cloud.

Data is quickly becoming one of the greatest competitive differentiators for enterprises across industries including financial services, manufacturing and healthcare. IDC estimates that by 2020, organizations that are able to analyze all relevant data and deliver actionable information will achieve an extra $430 billion in productivity benefits over their peers.¹ As the volume of data grows rapidly, enterprises require higher levels of performance and efficiency to quickly and easily generate these valuable insights.

New IBM Cloud bare metal servers will be powered by the latest Intel Xeon Scalable processors and are designed to help enterprises run high performance computing workloads such as complex financial simulations, manufacturing design simulations or genomic analysis faster than previous generation processors, and to decrease the time it takes to deliver insights from mission-critical data. According to Intel, the new processor technology can accelerate insights up to 2.3 times faster for financial services workloads, up to 1.5 times faster for manufacturing workloads and up to 1.7 times faster for life sciences workloads.²

In addition to increased performance, the new bare metal deployment options will also provide a dedicated, security-rich environment that is highly customizable for a client’s most sensitive big data workloads. To help clients gain new insights into their data, the IBM Cloud provides seamless access to more than 160 APIs and services ranging from cognitive and analytics to blockchain and IoT. IBM is committed to delivering the fastest and most comprehensive technology to the cloud including POWER-based offerings for data-intensive workloads, and GPUs for cognitive and high performance computing. For enterprises leveraging private or hybrid cloud environments, IBM utilizes multiple platforms including IBM Power Systems and Z Systems.

“IBM Cloud provides the foundation that enterprises need so that they can fully harness data for better decision-making and transformative growth,” said John Considine, general manager for cloud infrastructure services, IBM. “The launch of Intel Xeon Scalable processors on the IBM Cloud is another milestone in IBM’s commitment to providing access to the latest infrastructure technology so clients can continue to generate greater value from their data.”

IBM Cloud bare metal servers powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors will be available in IBM Cloud data centers in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia in Q3 2017.

1. IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Big Data and Analytics 2016 Predictions http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=259835

2. Up to 1.6x Gains based on Geomean of Weather Research Forecasting – Conus 12Km, HOMME, LSTCLS-DYNA Explicit, INTES PERMAS V16, MILC, GROMACS water 1.5M_pme, VASPSi256, NAMDstmv, LAMMPS, Amber GB Nucleosome, Binomial option pricing, Black-Scholes, Monte Carlo European options.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Red Hat Introduces Next Generation Of OpenShift Online Public Cloud Offering

Red Hat, Inc. has introduced the next generation of Red Hat OpenShift Online, the industry’s first open source, container-native, multi-tenant cloud platform. Based on the same Linux container- and Kubernetes-based foundation as the award-winning Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, Red Hat OpenShift Online gives developers the ability to more quickly and easily build, deploy and scale cloud-native applications in a public cloud environment.

Since OpenShift Online’s launch in 2011 it has hosted more than three million applications built by hundreds of thousands of individual developers, startups, educational institutions, ISVs and enterprise organizations around the world, making it one of the industry’s most popular developer platforms to build any app, anywhere, at any scale on the public cloud.

OpenShift Online enables developers to build cloud-native apps on a cloud-based container platform without having to worry about the inherent complexity of provisioning, managing and scaling applications as demands change. With operations and management provided by Red Hat in the public cloud, developers can focus on writing the code for their business, prototyping new features, or working on their next big idea–all in a self-service environment.

OpenShift is a polyglot platform that supports multiple languages, including Java, Node.js, .NET, Ruby, Python, PHP and more. It offers optimized workflows to help configure and deploy applications on any given framework, such as Spring Boot, Eclipse Vert.x, Node.js and Red Hat JBoss Middleware, helping developers start their project easier and start coding faster.

Red Hat OpenShift Online delivers a world-class developer experience with new capabilities, including:

• Simplified deployment – New one-click and “Git push” command deployment capabilities have been added to help streamline application provisioning and deployment for developers and sysadmins that do not need full control over the deployment lifecycle.
• Automatic scaling – Cloud elasticity is enabled through automatic application scaling, which helps eliminate the need for manual intervention from Operations when an increase in application load requires more application instances.
• S2I builds – Using the source-to-image (S2I) framework to build reproducible container images. This helps eliminate the need for developers to understand docker, or create and manage docker images, reducing errors and enabling them to focus on writing their applications in the language of their choice.
• IDE integration – The platform features built-in integration with popular integrated development environments (IDEs), including Eclipse, Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio, and Titanium Studio, enabling developers to stay within the IDE they are most comfortable with when working with OpenShift.
• Middleware services – Red Hat OpenShift Application Services provide the powerful capabilities of products in the Red Hat JBoss Middleware portfolio as cloud-based services on OpenShift. These services can be used by developers to build applications, integrate with other systems, orchestrate using rules and processes, and then deploy across hybrid environments.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Fuze Named To Forbes 2017 World’s Best 100 Cloud Companies List

Fuze has announced that for the second consecutive year it has been named to the Forbes 2017 Cloud 100 list, the definitive list of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world, published by Forbes in collaboration with Bessemer Venture Partners. Fuze will be celebrated tonight in San Francisco at The Cloud 100 Celebration, an exclusive event hosted by Bessemer Venture Partners, Forbes, and Salesforce Ventures. The celebration is attended by the CEOs of the public cloud companies and the CEOs named to The Cloud 100 and The 20 Rising Stars lists.

“Our goal from day one has been to change the way people work by providing a flexible communications solution that fits the needs of today’s distributed and highly mobile workforce,” said Steve Kokinos, co-founder and executive chairman, Fuze. “This recognition not only reaffirms our position as the leading cloud-based unified communications platform, but also solidifies our strength as an innovator in cloud technology.”

As part of the rigorous selection process for the Forbes 2017 Cloud 100, Forbes’ data partner, Bessemer Venture Partners, received hundreds of submissions from the top cloud startups. With that data, the Forbes Cloud 100 judge panel, made up of a majority of public cloud company CEOs, was then responsible for selecting and ranking the top 100 companies from all over the world. The evaluation process involved four factors: estimated valuation (30%), operating metrics (20%), people & culture (15%), and market leadership (35%), which the judge panel then weighed to select, score and rank the winners.

“Our inaugural Cloud 100 list showed the tech and venture capital community just how many standout private cloud companies there are to watch, and this year’s list is no exception,” said Alex Conrad, editor of the Cloud 100 list, Forbes. “Forbes has a keen eye for businesses, and combining that with Bessemer Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures’ deep knowledge of the cloud industry, any company’s inclusion on the Forbes 2017 Cloud 100 list is cause to celebrate.”

“These companies are leading the cloud technology revolution!” said Byron Deeter, a top cloud investor and partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “The founders and teams behind the Forbes 2017 Cloud 100 companies are of another caliber and we are beyond excited to celebrate the hard work and enormous value these companies are creating as they propel the trillion-dollar software industry forward.”

“The business opportunity for cloud computing is tremendous as the spend on cloud computing and the rate of adoption continues to grow and advance the ecosystem,” said John Somorjai, EVP Salesforce Ventures and Corporate Development. “We’re thrilled to highlight the potential of these top-tier private companies in the field and see where they take their businesses and the economies around the world.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag