The power of a great marketing-IT relationship Seeing the CMO and CIO as wanting different things is an old way of thinking. Now the enterprise benefits when CMOs and CIOs combine their strengths, says Linda Price of Gartner Read More ...
Big Data apps: The next big thing? Apps, recommendations, and 'data equity' could help shape Big Data in 2013 and beyond Read More ...
Vanitha Narayanan named Managing Director of IBM India Narayanan will be responsible for IBM's sales, marketing, services and global delivery operations in the India/South Asia region, including operations in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka Read More ...
1.7 million open cloud positions just waiting to be filled, says IDC Cloud computing, and related areas like virtualization and data management, will create 7 million jobs over the next three years, according to a new study published by Microsoft and IDC Read More ...
Cloud in 2013: From hype to hyper growth 2013 will represent a significant shift from the “testing/development” stage towards a much broader adoption and deployment of cloud solutions, says Steve Caniano of AT&T Business Solutions Read More ...
Accenture opens innovation center at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies The company has set up an innovation center for ERP at Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management and Engineering, NMIMS Read More ...
India third most targeted country by phishing: RSA report The report reveals that India was among top 5 countries to be targeted by phishing attacks by brands this November Read More ...
Atul transforms material procurement using open source route By implementing an online vendor portal, the company has achieved complete transparency and accountability of the entire procurement cycle and clear visibility of spend Read More ...
5 tips to keep your small enterprise cyber-safe this festive season As festive mood is in the air, Dell India offers tips to small enterprises to keep themselves cyber-safe this season Read More ...
Microsoft's big hits and misses of 2012 The past year saw some big wins, and big setbacks, for Microsoft. And then there's the special case of Windows 8 Read More ...
Mobility to accelerate the pace of growth in 2013 2012 was a monumental year for several companies, especially in the mobility space. If that is any indication of what 2013 will be like, tech lovers could be in for a wild ride Read More ...
‘BYOD era needs diligent monitoring of security incidents’ In an exclusive interview, Sanjay Poonen, President and Corporate Officer, Global Solutions and Head of Mobility Divisions, SAP shares how enterprises can ride the BYOD wave, while ensuring security. He also talks about the opportunities emerging in the mobility space Read More ...
Top predictions for IT industry: Gartner According to the research firm, social commons, mobile communications, and cloud computing will be important factors in driving even greater industry transformation and challenging existing business models Read More ...
Signed malware and Bring your own Application, listed among top threats for 2013 by McAfee 2013 will bring along new threats such as ransomware, non-Windows-based attacks, signed malware and threats related to Bring your own Application Read More ...
Oracle buys Eloqua: Watch out Salesforce? Eloqua buy represents the latest move in Oracle's "marketing cloud" acquisitions duel with Salesforce.com Read More ...
‘Analytics enables our business to create micro-strategies and segmentations of our customer base’: MTS CIO Rajeev Batra, CIO, MTS India shares how the company is deriving concrete business benefits by using BI and analytics solutions to target customers with customized campaigns. Excerpts from an exclusive interview Read More ...
Delhi Airport becomes world’s first airport to get BSA CSS (O) certification The airport has received the BSA (Business Software Alliance) certification in Standards-based Software Asset Management (SAM) for organizations, a program known as CSS(O) Read More ...
2013 will witness rise in malware targeting android devices, predicts ESET During the first quarter of 2012, according to IDC statistics, the Google operating system has recorded a year-over-year rise of 145 percent in market share Read More ...
Cognizant to acquire six companies of the C1 Group The acquisition is aimed at strengthening Cognizant’s local presence in Germany and Switzerland, and enhancing its global consulting capabilities Read More ...
Red Hat to acquire ManageIQ for USD 104 million With the addition of ManageIQ technologies to its portfolio, Red Hat will expand the reach of its hybrid cloud management solutions for enterprises Read More ...
Lenovo launches IdeaPad Yoga in India Device offers the user versatility by transforming effortlessly from an ultrabook into a media-friendly tablet in a quick, singular motion Read More ...
The changing face of technology services in 2013 Marshal Correia of HP details the trends that will emerge in 2013 as organizations look to address challenges created by information explosion, mobility and social media Read More ...
Nokia India joins hands with RockeTalk to launch Trendify Trendify on RockeTalk will offer its massive audience, millions of videos, photos, voice and music content that are trending in India Read More ...
Gartner: India Printer Copier and Multifunctional product shipments declined 4.7% in Q3, 2012 Organizations adopted a ‘wait and watch’ approach on their IT spending for peripheral devices Read More ...
ZengaTV comes alive on Windows 8 platform Live HD mobile TV and VOD on Windows 8 PCs and tablets Read More ...
Simmtronics launches XPAD X-720 The XPAD X-720 will be available in all the leading stores along with e-commerce websites at price point of Rs. 4600 Read More ...
Wipro and UN Women pledge to strengthen women’s role in business The six signatories in India have committed to create women friendly workplaces, ensure equal opportunities for women and invest in skills training Read More ...
TVS Motors takes dealer relationship to a new level The deployment of Dealership Management System has helped the firm’s dealers in managing the business, while bringing visibility for TVS Motors on all activities at the dealership retail outlet Read More ...
ManageEngine launches MDM solution for India The web-based mobile device management solution will ensure safe adoption of BYOD along with information security related to company given devices for corporates Read More ...
Top 10 consumer trends for 2013: Ericsson Increase in smartphone subscriptions, rise in video and TV consumption on mobile devices, and heightened use of mobile for learning are some of the trends to watch out for Read More ...
33 percent of consumer brands will integrate payment into branded mobile apps by 2015: Gartner According to the research firm, this trend will be more pronounced for brands with retail outlets, such as those in the fashion, food and drink, grocery and entertainment sectors Read More ...
Belkin aspires to touch USD 100-million mark in India by 2016 With a market share of 30 percent, Belkin is oscillating between the number one and two slots in the wireless networking space in India Read More ...
Claims process automation boosts productivity at Cholamandalam Insurance Post automation, the company has registered a reduction in actual processing time by 25 minutes per claim Read More ...
Top 8 predictions for business mobility in 2013: AT&T In 2013, we will see many more examples of businesses, industries, and eco-systems transforming through the innovative use of mobility Read More ...
How security and acceleration can improve an organization’s security posture The key to maximize performance without negatively impacting security is utilizing tools in the web application optimization or application delivery optimization space Read More ...
IIT Delhi partners with NVIDIA to accelerate research in Exascale computing The new Exascale Research Lab, co-developed by NVIDIA and IIT Delhi, will help the nation achieve the goal of developing an exaflop supercomputer Read More ...
Citrix desktop virtualization solution helps Fareportal slash power and real estate costs Post implementation, the company has saved about 400,000 dollars per annum on real estate costs and 25-30 percent on power costs Read More ...
Forrester Research names TCS as a leader in IT Organization redesign consultancies Among the attributes that Forrester cited in the report were the company’s evaluation and design work around IT processes; and its ability to help IT shops reduce costs, consolidate applications, or upgrade processes for a global organization Read More ...
McAfee warns of the 12 scams of Christmas ‘Tis the season for consumers to spend more time online - shopping for gifts. But Cyber-Scrooges work overtime during holiday season; new threats to hit mobile, email and the Web Read More ...
Blue Coat to acquire Crossbeam Systems Acquisition lays foundation for a broader strategy to transform the way businesses secure and optimize their networks Read More ...
Was Information Rights Management defined 40 years ago? Prabhakar Deshpande, Product Evangelist, Seclore Technology, argues that Information Rights Management was invented almost 40 years ago and finds mention in a document called the Rand report Read More ...
DSCI honors organizations, individuals for undertaking excellent security initiatives Receives overwhelming response for nominations in the Corporate segment and Law Enforcement Agency segment; introduces new sub-segments and new awards to recognize security leaders and the police force Read More ...
5 things to know about Twitter password security Twitter's response to compromised accounts teaches us lessons in social (networking) security Read More ...
23 percent of users are running old or outdated web browsers Research from Kaspersky Labs reveals that when a new version of a browser is released, it takes more than a month for most users to make the upgrade Read More ...
McAfee: Security will be a challenge with 50 bn connected devices Says intelligent, automated real-time asset monitoring is the way to close key gaps in enterprise security Read More ...
Malicious spam targets Skype users Malware steals user credentials, engages in click fraud activities and poses as ransom-ware Read More ...
A third of businesses have not fully implemented anti-malware protection A survey conducted by Kaspersky shows that measures being taken by IT specialists are woefully inadequate - only a little more than half of the respondents believe their company is really secure Read More ...
eScan announces security solutions for Android devices at INTEROP Mumbai 2012 The firm's security solutions are customized in order to ensure complete protection to Android-based devices from evolving cyber security threats in real-time Read More ...
Top 5 deadliest mobile malware threats of 2012 Security pros discuss the most prolific and complex mobile malware threats to appear so far in 2012 Read More ...
Federal Bank implements Finacle enabled two factor authentication solution Finacle from Infosys, through its strategic partnership with CA Technologies has put in place a vigorous security framework Read More ...
5 frequently forgotten factors in assessing risk The most common mistakes organizations make when going through the risk assessment process Read More ...
Cisco releases cloud IPS, upgrades security products Network equipment vendor's new products and services focus on improving security for mixed physical, virtual, and cloud environments, as well as BYOD Read More ...
Discovering security breaches within organizational setups Organizations can learn about potential security incidents faster only if their employees are well-equipped to recognize that something is amiss and react accordingly Read More ...
60 percent of organizations in India struggling to manage digital information In the last year, 89 percent of organizations have lost information, while 94 percent of businesses in India have had confidential information exposed outside the company, says a survey by Symantec Read More ...
Check Point launches ThreatCloud – a collaborative network to fight cybercrime The network gathers threat data from an innovative worldwide network of threat sensors and distributes threat intelligence to security gateways around the globe Read More ...
BYOD users expected to double by 2014 According to a new report from Juniper Research, 350 million employees will be using their own devices for work by 2014 Read More ...
5 Black Hat security lessons for CIOs Beyond the bearded coders and men in black suits was a trove of security best practices for enterprise IT Read More ...
Understanding security concerns in large networks The best protection against high profile attacks is to keep your software updated at regular intervals, says Govind Rammurthy, MD & CEO, eScan Read More ...
7 lessons learned from Yahoo’s password breach What should businesses, users, and regulators take away from the Yahoo password breach? Start with encryption for all stored passwords Read More ...
Bank of India’s Sameer Ratolikar conferred with ‘Best CIO’ award The Institute of Public enterprises ( IPE) has awarded Sameer Ratolikar, CISO, Bank of India as the “Best CIO” working for Information Security Read More ...
Android researchers demo clickjacking rootkit vulnerability Proof-of-concept malware can be used to launch malicious applications, with no warning or rebooting required, computer scientists show Read More ...
Mobile phones set to provide access control with NFC With the advent of Near Field Communications (NFC), your humble smartphone could replace the access control card you use when you enter your company Read More ...
Context-aware security is our best defense against APTs: Chris Young, Cisco Chris Young, Senior VP Security, shares his perspective on why context-aware security is key for thwarting new age threats Read More ...
Can IRM solve security issues related to BYOD? Unlike the device-centric strategy advocated by major vendors to solve the BYOD problem, security vendor, Seclore is proposing a simple content-centric IRM approach that it claims will work on any device Read More ...
New fraud campaign targets Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo users What the attacks share in common, besides being scams, is their use of a specific variant of Zeus Read More ...
Establishing controls and assurance in the cloud Business must work with legal, security and assurance professionals to ensure that the appropriate levels of security and privacy are achieved Read More ...
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram releases NASSCOM-DSCI report The report, “Securing Our Cyber Frontiers" was released by the Honorable Home Minister P Chidambaram in New Delhi Read More ...
Indian Organizations spend an average of 53.5 million rupees to remediate a data breach, says Symantec The benchmark study, conducted by Ponemon Institute in partnership with Symantec, found data breaches have serious, quantifiable consequences Read More ...
How to defend yourself against APTs APTs don’t represent any significantly new attack techniques or vectors; they represent a shift in the motives of the attackers to steal corporate data and make a lot of money. So what can enterprises do to protect themselves from APTs? Read More ...
53 percent of organizations experience data breaches due to insecure mobile devices A survey conducted by Websense and Ponemon Institute, has revealed that a majority of organizations in India are woefully unaware of the security risks posed by mobile platforms Read More ...
Bank of India aims for BS 25999 certification The Bank has set up the required processes and policies to achieve the coveted BS 25999 certification Read More ...
‘Loss of traditional security controls is necessitating a new approach to security’ Shantanu Ghosh, VP and MD, India Product Operations, Symantec shares how consumerization of IT is compelling the CIOs to re-look at their security strategy and frame new policies that would enable them to embrace BYOD in a secure manner. Read More ...
Security in obscurity is a wrong thing to follow: Harish Pillay Harish Pillay, Global Head, Community Architect & Leadership, Red Hat, was in Bangalore for the recently held JUDCon 2012: India conference. InformationWeek caught up with him to gauge his insights into the security culture embedded in the Linux community Read More ...
Advanced Persistent Threats have made Information Security a boardroom discussion Recent security breaches and nation style attacks have elevated security to a boardroom discussion Read More ...
The need for strong authentication systems Strong authentication is no longer a nice-to-have, but rather a mandatory IT pre-requisite for any organization Read More ...
How bad password management can expose critical databases Nortel breach shows how poor password management can give away keys to the kingdom Read More ...
F5 Networks ramps up business in India Building on its vision of dynamic data center, the company also launched its BIG-IP v11 software with which organizations can deploy applications up to 100x faster Read More ...
‘Cloud security platforms can help manage mobile devices’ As mobile devices continue to invade workplace, more vendors will undoubtedly bet big on cloud security platforms for mobile device management, says Steve Rowland, Vice President - APAC, Blue Coat Systems in an interview Read More ...
Security solution prevents leakage of reports at Fugro Survey The company solved about 95 percent of its security threats by restricting the leakage of its reports to competitors, thus preventing business loss Read More ...
Best paying IT security jobs in 2012 Compensation for security pros expected to increase 4.5 percent in 2012, survey finds. Which jobs will see better than average salary bumps? Read More ...
Palo Alto aims to counter malware in one hour Palo Alto Networks discussed the changing security landscape in enterprises at the recently concluded NetEvents APAC summit held in Phuket, Thailand Read More ...
7 Facebook security problems linger The social networking giant might have fixed its porn problem, but it has plenty of other issues to reckon with, experts say Read More ...
Infor joins Project Management Institute’s Global Executive council Infor today announced its appointment to the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Global Executive Council. Infor is the newest addition to an elite group of industry-leading decision makers that excel at project management execution. Council members are unique in their ability to identify opportunities for process improvements in project, program and portfolio management; exchange best practices; and increase the percentage of successful project-related investments. The Council’s criterion for selection focuses on mature organizations which possess sufficiently developed Organizational Project Management (OPM) practices. PMI seeks member companies that actively utilize and promote PMI standards, programs and services. “We are continually striving to attain a greater level of project management understanding and technique,” said Jim Byrnes, EVP, Infor Consulting Services. “Selection to the PMI Global Executive Council is truly a pivotal moment of recognition for Infor as an industry leader.” “Infor’s Hyderabad operation employs more than 1000 people involved in product development, support and also implementation services. Many of our consultants are very actively involved on a regular basis in a lot of PMI activities under the PMI chapter of Hyderabad. Some of our project managers even deliver project management training and also lectures to member companies,” said Ranga Pothula, VP of the Infor Centre of Excellence in Hyderabad. “We also design PMI workshops and course content based on our rich expertise coming from many years of working on complex customer projects at Infor. We are key players in starting the PMIPCC Hyderabad chapter in 2002. Many of our employees served as board members driving key initiatives.” Read More Read More ...
IT deals in India expected to grow by 30 percent in 2012 as compared to 2011, says Zinnov Zinnov has released the “Quarterly IT deal tracker for India market” with aggregated insights on IT deals in India between Q1 2011 to Q3 2012. The tracker released by Zinnov captures 500 IT deals in the enterprise and SMB segment and highlighted key trends which have shaped the domestic IT spending across industry verticals like Manufacturing, BFSI, Government, Telecom, IT- ITeS, Education, Retail, Travel & Logistics and Energy & Utilities. Manufacturing, BFSI, Government, IT-ITeS and Education featured as top 5 verticals accounting for 80 percent of the total IT deals between Q12011 to Q32012. Verticals such as retail, travel & logistics and Energy saw rapid growth, while telecom companies continued to invest into total outsourcing. Indian customers increased their focus on IT solution purchase as 44 percent of all deals during this period were structured as software & solutions deals. Services deals accounted for 44 percent of share, whereas Hardware specific deals accounted for a small 12 percent share in the total number of deals. With 31 percent of all deals, SMB market is starting to evolve in India from an IT consumption standpoint. Nearly 50 percent of all SMB deals were also structured as solution deals.Unlike the hype created on modern IT solutions including cloud, big data, social and mobility, the adoption is only slowly improving in the country. While cloud & managed services deals saw some traction, other forms of modern IT saw a slow response in the last 7 quarters Foreign multinationals dominated the IT deals market in the last 7 quarters. Oracle, SAP, IBM and Microsoft featured as top principal vendors with 33 percent share in all enterprise deals and 36 percent share in all SMB deals. IT services deals were largely driven by systems integration, infrastructure management and managed services as new use cases in verticals like BFSI, telecom, energy/utilities continued to emerge. Speaking about the findings, Praveen Bhadada, Director-Market Expansion, Zinnov, said, “With 30 percent growth in the number of IT deals every year, India has become a key market of focus for most of the IT companies worldwide. India currently has over 3,500 public listed companies, and about 10 million SMBs which can potentially consume technology which is a very big opportunity to tap into. Accordingly, IT companies are now focusing on account mining for large enterprises and channel restructuring for better penetration in the SMB space. The next few quarters will witness lot of companies design new IT solutions and validate fitment of existing solutions for India market” “Modern IT and in particular cloud, big data and mobility is increasingly gaining traction with Indian customers. Newer verticals such as travel, retail, and education are also waking up to the potential of technology to transform their business. India is also becoming the test bed for other emerging markets that many of these IT companies are looking to penetrate. The ecosystem is now coming together and indeed India is at an inflection point towards rapid IT consumption”, he added. {pagebreak} The study further examines the trends across the following industry verticals: Manufacturing: ERP, CRM and SCM related deals accounted for 39 percent of all solutions deals in manufacturing. SMBs accounted for 38 percent of all deals which was higher than the industry average of 31 percent. SAP, Microsoft & IBM demonstrated leadership in the space with 49 percent of deal share among foreign MNCs BFSI: BFSI deals were largely driven by banking solutions enhancements across the board. Modern IT deals formed a significant share in all BFSI capturing a 44 percent deals share. Cloud and managed services accounted for 35 percent of all deals in BFSI. IBM, Oracle & VMware demonstrated leadership in this space with nearly 30 percent share among foreign MNCs Government: IT adoption push in the government is currently driven through large ministries and government bodies, which contribute to around 87 percent of all deals. Managed services in Data Center Setup, large government projects such as UID etc., emerged in modern IT consumption. Hardware firms such as Acer & Lenovo were key vendors in the Government departments, while Oracle & IBM won IT infrastructure deals in this space IT-ITeS: IT/ITES was another key vertical for Modern IT consumption, with 46 percent of all deals being Modern IT deals. Majority of new applications & solutions adopted by IT/ITES have been on the cloud with CRM, E-Mail solution being the fast movers. Contact Center Solutions, CRM/ERP, HR and Testing solutions were some of the other fast moving categories. Microsoft and Oracle emerged as key leaders in the IT-ITeS industry with 54 percent of all deal share among foreign MNCs. Education: Both the K-12 Education sector as well as Higher education, witnessed a good number of deals. While school management / e-classroom solutions were the most prevalent deals in the K-12 sector, cloud offerings saw traction in the higher education segment. Microsoft, Oracle and Educomp emerged as clear leaders in the education space controlling more than 2/3rd of all deals Retail: Modern IT was key IT consumption area for retail firms, constituting almost 45 percent of all retail deals. Cloud based customer experience solutions emerged as the key theme of investments. HR solutions, BPM and ERP/ CRM were the other popular solution categories in retail. Oracle, Microsoft and Kronos emerged as key leaders in this space Energy & Utilities: A large share of all solution deals was focused on ERP/ CRM/ SCM related solutions. Interestingly, business analytics also was a popular solution segment in this vertical. SAP, IBM and Dassault Systems emerged as key MNC players, while Newgen featured as the key Indian ISV in this space Travel & Logistics: Significant push was observed from midsized logistics firms for business management solutions such as ERP/CRM and also niche logistics & freight management software. On the infrastructure side, ports & airports also modernized IT systems in security, business process streamlining & customer handling. Softlink Global along with SAP & IBM emerged as key leaders in this space. Read More Read More ...
Ramco launches ERP on cloud and iPad in Australia Ramco Systems, an enterprise software company focused on enterprise cloud platform, products and services, on Monday announced the launch of Ramco ERP on Cloud, iPad and other tablets and smart phones in Australia. The launch marks the expansion of Ramco’s existing cloud solution that is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the new AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) region. With this new offering, customers in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands (ANZ) will be able to access Ramco’s comprehensive, cloud-based ERP solution that runs on AWS with data residing within Australian shores. Commenting on the launch, Virender Aggarwal, CEO – Ramco Systems said, “Australia is the most mature market for Cloud in the APAC region. We set up operations in the region to serve the local market with our suite of cloud-based offerings. Today, we are excited to have extended our customer offering to host Ramco ERP on Cloud in the new AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) region. We believe the availability of a comprehensive ERP with flexibility to build industry-specific and Australia-specific features, available on the secure and reliable AWS infrastructure, will greatly benefit the growing business environment in ANZ.” Terry Wise, Head of Worldwide Partner Ecosystem, Amazon Web Services, adds, “We are excited that Ramco is growing its momentum on the AWS cloud and expanding their offering for Australian businesses using our newly launched AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) region. Ramco’s innovative mobile platform for ERP on cloud is a great example of how quickly AWS partner network’s technology partners like Ramco can quickly grow their business by leveraging AWS’s global footprint.” With this launch, Ramco turns its attention to the growing mid-sized enterprises from Mining, Professional Services, Equipment Rental, Property Management and Infrastructure maintenance industries. It will also target niche segments like Aviation MRO, GRP (Government Resource Planning) and citizen services, which have a good market potential in the region. The company currently has 150,000+ users globally and has been growing its cloud footprint across global markets. Read More Read More ...
SUSE to join Dell emerging solutions ecosystem The ecosystem will drive collaborative innovation by providing a single point of contact to complementary, best-of-breed hardware, software and services in emerging technology areas such as open source cloud and big data. Customers will be able to purchase SUSE Cloud, an automated cloud computing platform, directly from Dell to accelerate cloud computing deployments in order to respond and adapt to constantly changing customer demands and capitalize immediately on new market opportunities. Launched in August 2012, SUSE Cloud is an enterprise-ready, private cloud solution to help customers improve resource utilization and speed the delivery of IT services across a secure, compliant and fully supported cloud environment. SUSE Cloud combines the power of the OpenStack project and the flexibility of the Dell Crowbar project with SUSE engineering excellence and support. The result simplifies deployment and ongoing administration of the physical cloud infrastructure so customers have maximum flexibility to configure their clouds to meet specific needs. “SUSE Cloud leverages the Dell-developed Crowbar framework so our customers can more easily and quickly deploy OpenStack-powered private clouds,” said Michael Miller, vice president of global alliances and marketing, SUSE. “We’re pleased to be part of Dell’s Emerging Solutions Ecosystem and looking forward to collaborating more with Dell and other ecosystem partners to deliver solutions customers can use to build OpenStack clouds in hours instead of days.” “As cloud computing continues to be a top priority for CIOs in 2013, many organizations are looking to quickly realize the benefits of open source clouds," said John Igoe, executive director of Cloud and Big Data Solutions, Dell. "By having SUSE join our Emerging Solutions Ecosystem, customers will be able to ease the deployment and management of Linux-based private clouds with SUSE Cloud.” SUSE is helping its customers build future-proof private clouds by working closely with open source projects and partners who are committed to the open source vision for OpenStack. Currently, SUSE has in place technical collaboration and/or support agreements with members of Dell’s Emerging Solutions Ecosystem including Dell, OpenStack Foundation, Crowbar Project, Mirantis, Inktank and Ceph. Read More Read More ...
Suresh Vaswani appointed as President of Dell Services Dell today announced the appointment of Suresh Vaswani as president of Dell Services, wherein he will be reporting directly to Chairman and CEO Michael Dell. Vaswani previously led Dell Services’ application and business process outsourcing (BPO) line of business. Vaswani succeeds Steve Schuckenbrock, who held executive leadership roles at Dell since joining the company in 2007. Vaswani will be responsible for developing and delivering end-to-end IT services and business solutions for global corporations, state and local governments. He will also be responsible for Dell’s IT delivery, including the company’s infrastructure and applications worldwide. Vaswani said in a press statement that Dell has the right team and the right strategy in place to help its customers solve their biggest challenges through next generation solutions in support services, security, cloud and infrastructure services, and applications and business process outsourcing. Vaswani joined Dell after 25 years at Wipro, where he served as the co-CEO of Wipro’s IT business and was on the Board of Wipro Limited. Read More Read More ...
3 factors to consider for framing BYOD policy Seventy percent of respondents in a recent survey by Gartner said that they have or are planning to have "bring your own device" (BYOD) policies within the next 12 months to allow employees to use personal mobile devices to connect to enterprise applications. Thirty-three percent of all organizations surveyed currently have BYOD policies in place for mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. “Shifting from an enterprise-owned mobile device fleet to having employees bringing their own devices has a major impact on the way of thinking and acting about mobile security,” said Dionisio Zumerle, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Policies and tools initially put in place to deal with mobile devices offering consumer-grade security must be revised to deal with these devices being under the ultimate control of a private user, rather than the organization.” Gartner believes that organizations must consider and take action on three major impacts when moving to a BYOD policy: Impact 1 - The right of users to leverage the capabilities of their personal devices conflicts with enterprise mobile security policies and increases the risk of data leakage and the exploiting of vulnerabilities. Outside the enterprise's premises, employees may define their own usage policy for personal devices. Users can, therefore, install apps and visit URLs of their choice, whereas enterprises can limit applications and Web access on enterprise-owned devices. Users can also decide the level of protection for their personally owned devices. When enterprise data is allowed on these devices, the risk of leakage increases for the enterprise, not just because of the rise of mobile malware, but also because legitimate but unsupported apps may inadvertently create security risks for the organization and, most importantly, because of device loss. Using mobile device management (MDM) software is one way to enforce policy on mobile devices. Users should obtain access to enterprise information only after having accepted an MDM agent on their personal devices, and possibly a URL filtering tool, such as a cloud-based secure Web gateway (SWG) service, to safeguard and enforce enterprise policy on Internet traffic. Enterprises should consider using application whitelisting, blacklisting and containerization, as well as setting up an enterprise app store, or app catalog, for apps that are supported. Impact 2 - User freedom of choice of device and the proliferation of devices with inadequate security make it difficult to properly secure certain devices, as well as keep track of vulnerabilities and updates. Allowing users, rather than the IT department, to select operating systems (OS) and versions of mobile devices opens the door to devices that are inadequate from a security standpoint. An essential security baseline should require enhanced password controls, lock timeout period enforcement, lock device after password retry limit, data encryption, remote lock and/or wipe. The enterprise mobility baseline must also express minimum requirements on hardware — OS versions will not be sufficient. In alignment with the mobile security policy, network access control policies should be used — for example, to deny access to enterprise resources such as email and apps from devices that cannot support the security baseline. Preventive action should be taken to ban noncompliant devices or create an alert for them by using tools such as MDM software. Nevertheless, excessively limiting the types of allowed devices eliminates the benefits of BYOD for users. There should be no compromise of security for the sake of device variety, but where it is possible to manage and secure a new device model, it should be done. The policies that are enforced will depend on the risk appetite of the organization and the sensitivity of data allowed to reside on the device. Impact 3 - The user's ownership of device and data raises privacy concerns and stands in the way of taking corrective action for compromised devices Most people consider data on their personal devices as their property, and would strongly object to having it manipulated by the organization without their explicit consent. When shifting from enterprise to user-owned devices, "remote wipe," which is a fundamental security feature in a mobile security policy, becomes complicated from a legal and cultural point of view. Thus, sufficient attention should be paid to this issue to avoid repercussions. In practice, "selective wipe" is proving to be difficult in ensuring that all business data, and only business data, has been deleted from the device. In this situation, it is recommended to liaise with the legal department to obtain advice, because there may be legal implications related to device wiping. Problems may arise if the user refuses a remote wipe. Time is of the essence when performing this task, and asking the user for permission after the compromise, when a remote wipe is considered necessary, will be impacted by message exchange delays that can be critical. It is therefore advisable to obtain the explicit, written consent of users to delete their data in case of compromises, or the loss or theft of devices, at the time of the user's initiation to the BYOD program. Read More Read More ...
MphasiS to acquire Digital Risk LLC for USD 175 million MphasiS (an HP Company) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Orlando, Florida, USA based Digital Risk LLC. Digital Risk is one of the largest independent providers of Risk, Compliance and Transaction Management solutions to the United States mortgage market. The acquisition is an all cash deal valued at USD 175 million with an additional earn-out component. Digital Risk provides highly specialized Risk, Compliance and Transaction Management solutions for the mortgage industry. Digital Risk’s proprietary Making Mortgages Safe™ solutions suite is deployed by over 15 blue chip clients across key mortgage constituencies – Originators, Insurers, Issuers and Investors. Digital Risk is licensed to operate in 46 states in the United States. In August 2012, Digital Risk was named as one of America’s entrepreneurial growth leaders by Inc. Magazine. Digital Risk ranked number 11 among the fastest growing private financial services companies in the US, in 2012 Inc. 500 list. Digital Risk is expected to register revenues of USD 127 million in CY2012. The company has grown at revenue CAGR of 70 percent in the last 3 years. “We began our journey of transformation in 2010 focusing on the Financial Services Industry. This acquisition is central to our strategy of offering specialized services in chosen segments. Digital Risk offers highly specialized services in risk and compliance area, specific to mortgage industry. Their analytics platform combined with 1500 mortgage specialists makes them unique and differentiated. I am delighted to have Digital Risk with their strong brand join our family,” said Ganesh Ayyar, chief executive officer – MphasiS. “The need for risk management in the mortgage market is not only a U.S. issue but also a global necessity. This acquisition provides the industry and clients a unique offering,” said Peter Kassabov, chairman and chief executive officer -Digital Risk. “We’ve developed proven processes, analytics and technology that are making mortgages safe and this expertise applies to markets outside the U.S. We are thrilled to merge our talent and expertise with that of MphasiS to set a global standard for making mortgages safe.” said Peter. The transaction is currently expected to close by January 31, 2013 subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Upon completion of the transaction, Digital Risk will operate as a standalone business unit retaining its brand identity. Digital Risk’s founders will continue to lead the company, with Peter Kassabov reporting to Ganesh Ayyar, CEO MphasiS. Digital Risk’s, management team and employees will remain with the company and continue serving their customers. This acquisition significantly enhances MphasiS’ onshore presence in the US. MphasiS, has plans to expand its footprint in United States creating up to 500 new jobs in the near future. “The subprime mortgage crisis set off a chain of events from rising mortgage losses, to a decline in mortgage-backed securities issuance to increased federal and state regulation,” said Craig Focardi, senior research Director - CEB TowerGroup. "From 2009-2011, per loan origination costs increased by 40 percent and servicing costs increased by 36 percent, according to Mortgage Bankers Association. Risk management and compliance activities such as quality control, loan purchase due diligence, loan portfolio surveillance and analytics are a large share of these cost increases. To reduce internal fixed costs, financial institutions need to make improvements in these areas, which is essential for producing defect free loans and restoring sustainability to US residential mortgage marketing and securitization." In this transaction, Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor and Goodwin Procter LLP acted as legal advisor to MphasiS. Portico Capital Securities, LLC served as financial advisor to Digital Risk and Katz, Teller, Brant & Hild acted as legal advisor to Digital Risk. Read More Read More ...
Top ten technology trends for 2013: Anil Batra, Managing Director, Riverbed India 1. Virtualization extends to the edge: Virtualization of data centers has caused a ripple effect and will be increasingly making its way to the edge of the organization in 2013. Virtualization technology has enabled enterprises to create multipurpose “branch office boxes,” completely eliminating the need for conventional remote servers. 2. The stateless branch becomes a reality for more enterprises: In parallel with consolidation within a branch, advances in technology allow enterprises to build “stateless branch” offices. Achieving 100 percent consolidation of edge servers, applications and data into the data center lets IT more effectively secure, manage and protect its resources. 3. Software-Defined Networks & Data Centers come into sharper focus: As enterprises look for ways to increase automated, policy-based computing, a programmable infrastructure enables enterprises to visualize and control their network with their own tools and in essence “program” their network with their own parameters. With software-defined networking and software-defined data centers, more enterprises will begin strategizing how they will build out their future data centers in 2013 so that they can rapidly and dynamically carve up their network and data center as needed. By creating entire functioning ensembles of servers and networking on the fly to meet changing business demands, these new networks and data centers are offering up a level of flexibility and nimbleness that is not available with traditional networks and data centers. 4. Mobility becomes more pervasive: There will be greater penetration of mobile devices in enterprises than fixed access devices in 2013. With the availability of 802.11n Wi-Fi and further enhancements coming such as 802.11ac in 2013 as well as mobile networks increasingly using 4G, the typical office will be wireless soon. More enterprises will also inevitably need to incorporate BYOD policies into its IT planning, especially as enterprises plan and manage BYOD as it converges with virtual desktops adoption. 5. Disaster Recovery becomes highly automated: Disaster recovery will become more automated with simplification of processes and failover in mind in 2013. More organizations are upgrading networking connections to remote offices and adding SANs with virtual servers so they can replicate critical data to these branch locations. Other enterprises are choosing to move to the cloud as providers are continuing to make it an even more affordable option. DR in the cloud is also gaining momentum as cloud storage is being leveraged as a dedicated DR site. 6. Cloud drives cross-functional teams: Enterprises are rapidly adopting virtualization and cloud architectures to consolidate and reduce costs, increase flexibility and efficiency, and dynamically deliver services to end users. In 2013, more enterprises will assemble cross-functional IT groups across computing, storage and networking teams for both troubleshooting and achieving predictable, reliable delivery of applications. 7. VDI adoption gains momentum: Finding a cost-effective and reliable way to manage end users in the branch office has become a priority for many organizations. A growing number of organizations view the centralization and management of branch environments through desktop virtualization as an effective approach to streamline desktop and application management while improving security, meeting regulatory requirements, and increasing flexibility and productivity. As virtual desktop performance improves, more enterprises will consider it. 8. Advances in SaaS leads to better integration and workflow services: Today, enterprises have predominantly adopted monolithic SaaS suites. In 2013, we’ll begin to see value-added SaaS integration and workflow services to create more of a dynamic environment that offers real-time management of end users, application components and IT environments such as multiple or distributed cloud platforms. 9. Big Data leads to federation: Big Data is driving an analytics movement in the network. More organizations will look for ways to consolidate as well as looking to invest in federation solutions, especially those that are cloud-based, to abstract, gather, transform and combine internal and external data from different physical locations and storage types into a consistent format. 10. Scalability continues to concern enterprises: We will see unprecedented levels of data, traffic, users and devices in 2013. Factors including consolidation, video, cloud, DR and organic growth, will drive enterprises to better allocate bandwidth, prioritize traffic and address latency Read More Read More ...
5 innovative ideas for enterprise CIOs Here are five enterprise innovations I am convinced are about to become a big deal 1. Gamification Adding "tion" to a verb in an attempt to make it a noun is usually, well, strained. And in that sense, the term gamification generally misses the whole idea of creating recognition, reward, and engagement programs in the enterprise. Chandar Patabhiram, VP of worldwide marketing for Badgeville Inc. told me that about half of purchased enterprise software applications remain unused due to lack of employee adoption. Badgeville, which he described as a "behavior platform," can increase software usage and customer retention, and foster deeper user engagement. The company recently released a version of its application that allows vendors to embed recognition and reward activities directly into their platform. Once I stopped thinking games and started thinking recognition and reward, the innovation behind Badgeville-type vendors became clear. The business arguments for developing a game strategy are based on overcoming corporate reluctance. Patabhiram pointed to customers such as EMC, Dell and Oracle that successfully use rewards and recognition strategies. He also cited Everyday Health, which increased its free-to-paid conversion rate by 5 percent and lifted user value by 20 percent for its health-related website. 2. Aggregated SaaS Software-as-a-service is growing as an industry, and as long as the service meets your company's privacy, security and compliance requirements, it can be a great idea. Shifting the burden of software uptime, updates and distribution to a vendor whose business is to ensure that their application is the latest and greatest makes a lot of sense, financially and otherwise. But what is the next big thing in SaaS? Kevin Spain, general partner at venture capital firm Emergence Capital, predicts that SaaS vendors will become data aggregators. Much like Google takes all its searches to create its Google Zeitgeist trend index, SaaS vendors also have the ability to create trend analyses, best practices, and support and service information by reaching a range of customers with their service applications. Of course, such aggregation will still require that security and privacy obstacles be overcome. But it would be an innovative next step for SaaS to move from a cost calculation to an added-value application that an on-premise system could not match. For example, aggregated content from a human-resource services vendor might include everything from how to increase employee participation in company satisfaction surveys to salary data over industry segments. 3. Federated Identity Issues around identity have been around since long before the computer industry took hold. The old corporate database question of one person holding many functions, or of one function applied to many people, has accelerated as now that corporate identity takes place in both cloud-based and on-premise applications. Trying to maintain corporate identities in silos (such as human resources, sales, finance, etc.) and identities in social networks (such as Facebook and LinkedIn) leads to juggling of multiple passwords and confusion over employee and customer data across the enterprise. Shelton Waggener, senior VP of Internet2, said that creating a federated identity system was the most innovative enterprise project he has ever undertaken. Similarly, creating a federated identity system at your company might be your most important project in 2013. Waggener has been a driving force in the development of InCommon, the identity management federation for U.S. research and education. The federated identity project has a goal of single sign-on, privacy and secure user access to a wide range of services. It's a goal many private organizations would also like to meet. 4. CIO as orchestra leader One of the topics we discussed during the E2 Innovate CIO panel was the trend of successful CIOs shifting from fighting for budget dollars to encouraging innovation. The CIOs on that panel, along with many other CIOs I speak with, overwhelmingly support a partnership in which business managers identify the best software services for their department while CIOs act as a hub, orchestrating all department decisions into a corporate technology platform. This mindset can be a big change for CIOs, but it provides a strong strategic basis for the future of enterprise IT architecture. 5. The visible corporation As a kid, I spent a lot of time constructing a visible V-8 model engine. After I finished the model, it was a lot easier to tinker with real V-8s. At E2Innovate, Google CIO Ben Fried spoke about building a transparent IT operation. In a transparent operation, users have open access to the products and services they feel they need to do their jobs rather than having to jump corporate approval hurdles. The same users have access to financial reports that include the cost of their technology choices. Such transparency and open access might seem trivial, but I think it represents an innovative approach to upending the traditional top-down model of corporate organization. The combination of a mobile workforce, social networks and real-time data analytics is making the traditional model -- decisions passed down from the top to an awaiting workforce -- cumbersome, slow and non-competitive. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
Wipro joins car connectivity consortium Wipro Technologies recently announced it has joined the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC), to develop smartphone-based connected-car solutions. The Car Connectivity Consortium is a body dedicated to developing cross-industry collaboration global standards and solutions for smartphone and in-vehicle connectivity. Members of the CCC include the world leaders in auto manufacturing, mobile communications and consumer electronics. MirrorLink, a technology standard created by the consortium, ensures seamless communication between compliant smartphones and in-car systems like steering wheels, dashboard buttons and screens. “The CCC is very pleased to have Wipro as a member,” said Mika Rytkonen, chairman and president of the CCC. “Like all of our members, Wipro has demonstrated vision and foresight by supporting MirrorLink. Wipro is a world leader in product engineering solutions and we look forward to the company’s contributions to the connected car industry.” “We support Wipro in its spirit of collaboration to offer drivers and passengers a truly integrated connected driving experience in the future,” said Shoji Suzuki from Clarion Co. Ltd., Japan, a leading manufacturer of in-car infotainment systems, also a core member of CCC. “Wipro’s deep experience in automotive infotainment and mobile technologies will help the consortium build industry standard solutions for the growing market.” “Membership in the Car Connectivity Consortium is the logical next step in our endeavor to create the best driving experience for consumers. We’ve been working on similar technology for more than two years and have built solutions for interfacing with Terminal Mode and Non-Terminal Mode mobile devices. Our membership in CCC will further enable us to provide MirrorLink certified well tested and up to date solutions quickly to our customers.” said John Slosar, General Manager, Automotive Electronics, Wipro Technologies. “We envision a world where built-in and brought-in devices in a car work in perfect harmony with each other. We are excited about the prospect of collaborating with the connected car ecosystem to realize this goal.” Wipro has been working on standardizing experiences across different devices that will help achieve seamless infotainment. In the automotive space, the company provides product development solutions for infotainment and telematics systems, body electronics, instrument clusters, power train & engine management systems. More than 15,000 engineers are engaged with Wipro’s Engineering R&D and Product Engineering Services. R&D services contributed to 12.4 percent of Wipro’s IT services revenue in FY 2011-12. Read More Read More ...
Wipro partners with ThinkVine Wipro Technologies and ThinkVine, a marketing mix optimization software company, have entered into a strategic partnership to provide consumer goods companies a comprehensive package of solutions and services that will optimize marketing plans and drive brand growth by improving forecasting of marketing spends, tactics and timing across consumer groups, products, channels and geographies, on a global scale. ThinkVine’s marketing mix optimisation solution connects predictive analytics and data with behavioural insights that will enable organizations to better understand and predict where and how their consumers respond to marketing, across multiple marketing touch points, and purchase products. “Through our strategic partnership with ThinkVine we can now help the consumer goods industry optimize marketing investments to drive growth and profitability. With the integration of ThinkVine’s marketing mix optimisation solution into our ever expanding Integrated Trade and Marketing expertise, we help CMOs gain competitive advantage by having more predictability and achieve better results through optimizing their marketing investments,” says Srini Pallia, Senior Vice President and Head, Retail, CPG, Transportation & Government, Wipro Technologies. “As CMOs of consumer goods companies are faced with increasing pressure to make their budgets work harder, they are turning to data and analytics for help. But, historical reports, simple metrics and traditional statistical methods only give them a look in the rear-view mirror,” said Mark Battaglia, CEO, ThinkVine. “Marketers need accurate, forward-looking forecasts to quickly address changing market and consumer dynamics and confidently make changes to their marketing mix. Our partnership with Wipro will enable CMOs to stay ahead of the rapidly evolving marketplace and improve their results.” Read More Read More ...
Comprehensive framework helps Infosys improve compliance posture With increasing number of engagements encompassing multiple vendors and multiple lines of service for a customer, there was an implicit need for Infosys to have a formal mechanism to track and ensure contractual compliance. Infosys wanted to create a comprehensive framework to achieve the objective of increasing the awareness on contractual clauses to a larger community of project managers and also ensure that it de-risked itself from any exposure to contractual breach inadvertently. To address this business need, a comprehensive process ably institutionalized by an internal system was implemented to ensure contractual compliance for more than 95 percent of the accounts.
ERP solution helps DIMTS slash operational costs by 30 percent An urban transport and infrastructure services company, Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS), has been implementing strategic projects focused on multi-transport modes using integrated systems. The firm had a vision of developing and delivering world-class infrastructure to the citizens of Delhi. However, unwanted delays, manual processes and duplication of tasks due to multiple disparate applications were proving to be major stumbling blocks for implementing this vision. For example, DIMTS was using multiple disparate bespoke applications for leave and attendance management and for managing timesheets. It also used standalone financial accounting software and Microsoft Office Excel for lead management. Microsoft Office Outlook was used for all email communications. DIMTS was also struggling to deal with large amounts of communication and data flow were paper based, which had to be filed, taped, and moved across departments to transfer information. The firm had a few redundant and time consuming transactions such as movement of papers and files across departments. This resulted in duplication of tasks. Since the firm operated from two locations, reports on project costing and employee utilization were manually generated and each took up a substantial number of hours per day. The most significant aspect was closing of accounts which was a tedious process leading to unwanted delays. “We wanted to reduce our time for reconciliation of accounts. Typically, our finance team worked for 3–4 days during quarter closures to reconcile and cross-check all the accounts,” states Bhaskar Basak, Vice President, DIMTS. Leads were maintained and updated manually in Excel. Project managers’ allocated tasks, responsibilities, and schedules based on personal interaction and skills had to be accessed by them. This often resulted in over- or under-utilization of resources and, at times, tasks were allocated to personnel inept at the particular tasks, leads to delays and ineffectiveness. Automating operations Keeping in mind the firm’s growth prospects, the firm decided to implement an ERP system to centralize information and improve the efficiency and scalability of its operations. After scrutinizing a range of ERP solutions, the firm decided to implement Microsoft Dynamics AX. Initially, the firm deployed the solution for 52 concurrent users at the company’s head office in Delhi. Modules deployed included General Ledger, Accounts Receivables, Accounts Payable, Bank, CRM, and Projects. The implementation had the standard software development life-cycle phases, from planning, analysis, design, and development to implementation and testing. The in-house team later extended the Dynamics AX solution to a number of functional and operational areas by implementing many workflow related enhancements. Several unique requirements pertaining to workflow enhancements such as sending the record to multiple users for discussion or clarification; asking queries of multiple users even at the time of final approval; displaying workflow history in a user-friendly format, were all addressed during the implementation stage. Additionally, the DIMTS deployment team customized the solution to meet their specific needs. Some of these unique requirements include leave and attendance management, and project and department budgets. The team also integrated Dynamics AX with projects such as the Driving License Issuance System implemented earlier for the Government of Delhi. Dynamics AX is also managed the revenue generated by issuing driving licenses across multiple offices across Delhi. DIMTS is also managing and monitoring the operations of public buses in Delhi for the Government of Delhi. Accordingly, DIMTS has implemented an automatic vehicle location system, passenger information system, and electronic ticketing system. The ERP solution is customized to integrate with the bus management and tracking management system. It records all the data such as number of buses, schedules, actual distance travelled by each bus, and passengers on board. Based on this information, the revenue generated by each bus is calculated. At the same time, missed trip details, details of infractions, etc, are also directly linked to the ERP solution. This has helped in facilitating and improving the efficiency, as well as tracking the revenue generated on a daily basis. Improved process efficiency The solution has also eliminated the need for data consolidating from multiple disparate systems. The ERP solution has helped standardize financial processes across the organization, allowing it to reduce reporting time scales, errors, and rectification costs, while increasing reporting accuracy. In addition, the system tracks accounts payable and receivables on a daily basis. Previously, almost all business operations were paper based. The documents had to move physically from desk to desk for approvals. Apart from the delays, the paper consumption was very high. Now, all files are managed in a central location electronically, and available to all relevant personnel. For example, the approval for payments made to vendors is done via the ERP. Vendor invoices, and the related purchase approval documents are electronically attached to the payment approval record in ERP, thereby eliminating paperwork. This has decreased dependency on paper and workflow-based approvals have sped up processes significantly.
IT-BPM Industry in India continues its growth momentum with expected double digital growth in FY 2013 National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) today released its analysis on the Indian IT-BPM sector’s outlook for the year FY 2013 based on industry performance for the first half year and global technology spending trends. Amidst a volatile and challenging global economic environment, the India IT-BPM industry has sustained its growth trajectory during the year. For FY2013, a year marked by significantly varied trends, the industry is expected to meet the lower-end of its growth guidance and at least achieve a double-digit growth. This estimate is based on NASSCOM’s analysis of Indian listed companies, multinationals and GICs; and industry sectors – IT services, BPO, ER&D and Products. N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman, NASSCOM and CEO& MD, TCS, said, “The industry performance for the past half-year has demonstrated the sector’s ability to innovate and deliver in enabling growth of customer businesses in challenging times. Changing business models, solutions around disruptive technologies and verticalized structures are enabling the industry to emerge as a strategic partner for their customers”. Speaking at the press meet, Som Mittal, President, NASSCOM, said, “The IT-BPM industry continues to be a growth sector for India demonstrating double digit growth. The industry continues to reinvent itself – expanding the market, building new capabilities and a globalised model. Competitiveness, efficiency, service excellence and innovation are the key building blocks for the industry”. Technology is increasingly becoming an integral part of every industry and in a multi-device connected world, new opportunities are being created for solutions on mobility, analytics, cloud and collaboration. These opportunities are also enabling growth of new companies from India that are serving both global and local markets. The domestic market in the country industry is also increasing technology adoption within the government sector and the SMB market. Quick Facts
- Industry Export revenues – USD 75-77 billion in FY 2013
- Growth drivers - RIM, BPO and Testing
- Emerging verticals - retail, healthcare, utilities – 2x growth from mature verticals
- Europe – fast growing; increased focus on outsourcing
RFID helps Sheela Foam curb unauthorized dealer selling As one of the largest manufacturers of mattresses, Sheela Foam was facing a serious and critical problem due to selling by unauthorized dealers. Typically, unauthorized dealers increased the customer footfalls by keeping Sleepwell’ products, but they would try to convert the customer to some other brand or local product by talking negative about Sleepwell or by offering heavy discounts on Sleepwell products to spoil product selling by the authorized dealers. Overall, this created a negative brand image in a customer’s mind, which resulted in sale loss and created dissatisfaction amongst authorized dealers. Many structured surveys and feedback had established that the firm annually lost around 5–7 percent of its sales due to a customer moving to other brand through a dealer’s influence. The firm had absolutely no control over an unauthorized dealer and their numbers were also huge. Although, Sheela Foam used MRP labels, which carried unique product serial numbers, the unauthorized dealer tampered with the label making it impossible to track the source of the supply. Mystery customers sent by the firm to check whether its products were kept at unauthorized dealers faced a huge challenge in finding out the product’s serial number without buying the product. On purchase, it was generally found that the MRP label was tampered with, which defeated the purpose of the exercise.
Windows 8 will make Microsoft a serious player in the mobile market: Steve Ballmer Acknowledging that Microsoft's past efforts to bring tablets to the Windows ecosystem largely flopped, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Thursday that Windows 8's arrival finally makes Redmond and its partners legitimate players in one of tech's hottest markets. "For the first time, Windows also has first-rate tablets, in addition to desktops and notebooks," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, during a keynote presentation at a Windows 8 launch event in New York City. With the iPad and other mobile devices stealing market share from Windows PCs, Microsoft needed a way to extend its presence into the slate market, while maintaining its dominance of the desktop. Its answer: Windows 8. The operating systems overlay the traditional Windows interface with a touch-friendly Start screen centered around Live Tiles. The tiles can be used to launch files, applications, or online services like social networks. Microsoft's pitch is that Windows 8 unifies the tablet and PC worlds, in contrast to Apple, which uses one operating system for desktops and laptops, and another for the iPad. "Windows 8 shatters perceptions of what a PC now really is," said Ballmer. "We've truly reimagined Windows, and kicked off a new era for Microsoft, and a new era for our partners." Microsoft partners like Dell, Fujitsu, Acer, and others no doubt welcome the freshness that Windows 8 brings to the PC industry, but may also be wary of Microsoft's own ambitions. For the first time, Microsoft is entering the computer hardware business with the launch of its Surface tablet. The company is currently taking orders for Surface RT, while Surface Pro, which runs Windows 8 Professional, should hit stores in November. But Ballmer, standing before a wide array of Windows 8 tablets, Ultrabooks, laptops, and desktops from a range of manufacturers, said the Windows 8 market will be big enough to accommodate all players. "Everybody should be able to find their perfect PC," said Ballmer. "Are these new designs PCs? Yes. Are these new designs tablets also? Yes." Ballmer was preceded on stage at the event by Windows division head Steven Sinofsky. Sinofsky said Microsoft has sold more than 670 million Windows 7 licenses, and that all those machines are ready to be upgraded to Windows 8. That, along with the more than 400 million PCs that are expected to be sold next year, ensures that Windows 8 has a potential installed base of more than a billion devices in its first year. "The potential market for apps is the largest for any platform," said Sinofsky, in a nod to developers, who will play a crucial role in Windows 8's fate. Windows 8 apps will be sold through Microsoft's new, online Windows Store. "The next era of Windows begins," said Sinofsky. Read More Read More ...
Microsoft launches Windows 8 in India Microsoft announced the availability of Windows 8 for its customers in India and around the world. Beginning Friday, October 26, consumers and businesses worldwide will be able to experience all that Windows 8 has to offer: a new UI, a wide range of apps with the grand opening of the Windows Store, available on a variety of Windows 8 certified PCs and tablets. Windows 8 PCs and tablets will be available in India from 14 OEM partners – Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, HCL, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo, RP Infosystems, Sai Info System, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, Wipro and Zenith Computers on a variety of form factors - from tablets and hybrids to laptops and ultrabooks, on both touch and non-touch devices. In India, over 250 Windows 8 enabled devices, including 23 completely new SKUs of Windows 8 PCs are available across 100 cities and more than 2500 retail stores. “With the launch of Windows 8, Microsoft is unveiling a reimagined Windows to the world,” said Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation India. “Whether you want a tablet or a PC, whether you want to consume or create, whether you want to work or play – Windows 8 delivers a personalized experience that fits your unique style and needs.” Windows 8 comes with a new smooth and intuitive start screen and tiles that are brimming with content, and update in real time. Windows 8 is natively cloud-connected and users only need to sign in once with their Microsoft account, to ensure that all the things they care about most including mails, calendars, contact, pictures etc. are seamlessly synced across multiple devices. Further, Windows 8 comes with a re-imagined browser, Internet Explorer 10 that is touch-ready and delivers a full screen browsing experience. Windows 8 will be available in two versions at retail, Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. And for business customers who have signed up for software assurance, Windows 8 Enterprise offers new possibilities in mobile productivity with features like Windows To Go, DirectAccess, and BranchCache, as well as enhanced end-to-end security with features including BitLocker and AppLocker. Launching at the same time is a new member of the Windows family designed for ARM-based tablets, Windows RT, which will be available pre-installed on new devices. With this launch, the Windows Store is now open and a plethora of global and local apps will be available for download. In India, a range of immersive, free and paid apps can be downloaded including Bharat Matrimony, BigFlix, BookMyShow, Bookyourtable, Burrp, Dhingana, Fastrack Tees, Flyte MP3, Gaana, Goibibo, Hindustan Times, ICICI Bank iMobile, ICICIDirect, JustEat, MakeMyTrip Explore, MapmyIndia, my airtel, NDTV Play, PVR Cinemas, Tarla Dalal, The Times of India, Yahoo Cricket, and Zovi, among many others. In addition to the range of new devices available, consumers can also upgrade their existing PCs. From 2nd June 2012 until 31st January 2013, consumers currently running PCs with Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, are qualified to download Windows 8 Pro for an estimated retail price of Rs. 1,999. And Windows 7 PCs purchased between June 2, 2012, and January 31, 2013 can download Windows 8 Pro for an estimated retail price of Rs. 699 with the Windows Upgrade Offer, available at www.windowsupgradeoffer.com. Read More Read More ...
How Steve Jobs inspired IT execs Five senior IT execs on InformationWeek's advisory board share their thoughts on the Jobs legacy: Steve Jobs never cared much for CIOs. He regularly made that clear by pushing back on the things we wanted and doing what he thought was best for Apple. Thank God. Imagine how much we would have missed out on if he hadn't challenged us all to think differently. As one of those CIOs who he never gave in to, I say, "Thank you, Steve, for all you did for us." -- Rob Carter, executive VP and CIO, FedEx Steve Jobs is the reason I am a CIO today. As a high school student in the '70s, the Apple CEO inspired me and lured me toward technology. I went on to major in computer science in college and wrote a research paper on the Macintosh, even convincing the local computer store to let me borrow its only Mac so I could demonstrate it in my class. As an MBA student in 1988, I read “Steve Jobs: The Journey Is The Reward,” by Jeffrey Young, and studied Jobs in my leadership class. I will never forget the lessons I learned--lessons about focus, simplicity, passion, commitment. To me, Jobs represents the ultimate leader. He has demonstrated consistently that value can be achieved by converging technology with usability. His passion for design detail and his hands-on approach to managing the product delivery process are shining examples of the best we can be as technology leaders. Too many tech leaders abdicate responsibility for the details to others and let their teams lose passion for excellence and the customer. In this day and age, we suffer from too much complexity, and as tech leaders, our job has to be to strive relentlessly for simplicity. Simplicity in design, in delivery, in support, in operations, and simplicity in how we present technology to the business. Jobs exemplified all that and once said: “That’s been one of my mantras--focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” As technology leaders, we add real value to our companies when we take the complexity of our businesses and the complexity of technology and merge them so the result is simple, usable, and beautiful. -- David Smoley, CIO, Flextronics The term "game changer" comes to mind when I consider the legacy of Steve Jobs. I encountered Steve initially in 1991, while I was with Oracle. He was pitching the NeXt computer to Oracle. From the beginning, he had a different take on the enterprise software market from that of traditional vendors. Until recently, enterprise vendors mostly delivered complex software solutions, customized and made more complex to address customers' unique complex requirements. Implementations were lengthy and upgrades were tough. Steve's take was that consumer products can work in the enterprise. With the advent of the iPhone, the employee base has brought the device into companies, and Apple has caused "consumerization" to be the main influence on enterprise software developed today. Steve's game-changing approach is influencing the software industry to learn to offer products that eliminate complexity. -- MR Rangaswami, Founder, Sand Hill Group Steve was one of the first visionaries to make technology accessible to the masses, demystifying technology and making it easy to use. He helped to show the industry the need to think differently and break out of established paradigms, which has had a profound impact from consumers to enterprises. The relentless pursuit of perfection that he championed at Apple is an approach that many established companies can learn from to continue to delight and expand their customer base. There will only ever be one Steve Jobs, but hopefully for the industry, there will be many who will aspire to become the next Steve Jobs. -- Manjit Singh, CIO, Las Vegas Sands Corp. Despite knowing this day was inevitable, I am surprised at the feelings of sadness and loss I feel. I am not an Apple zealot by any means, and our company has few Apple products. But I watched as Microsoft got Windows on track by copying Apple’s designs. And most recently, I watch many smartphone manufacturers copy Apple’s designs. Today I am reading about Steve Job as an innovator. I don’t really see his product innovation prowess as the characteristic that sets him apart from the rest. It was his ability to pull it all together--design, manufacturing, cost, supply chain, marketing, financing, distribution--all of it. And he did it with genuine passion for creating a better quality of life. Really, what other CEO can you say that about? -- Mike Cuddy, VP and CIO, Toromont Industries The few individuals who have the ability to innovate and create things that we didn't realize we needed--and then deliver them on a massive scale in a way that impacts millions of people’s lives--are those very rare people who will be admired for generations: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. --Dave Bent, senior VP of eBusiness services and CIO, United Stationers Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
Smart use of technology can transform core systems of cities Research forecasts point out that every minute, 30 people move from a rural area of India to a city – and that will continue through the year 2025. By 2050, 70 percent of the people will live in cities. There will be at least 27 megacities of 10 million people, compared to 19 today. No doubt, we see a shift in the spending patterns in the by the central and state governments coupled with the adoption of new technologies Significantly, over the next 5 years government spend on technology is expected to be around USD 500 billion – 63 percent of which will be outside Tier-1 cities. Big Blue is looking at this mega-shift as a mega-opportunity and is planning to tap this with its ‘Smarter Planet’ initiative. Dhamodaran Ramakrishnan, Director, Smarter Planet, IBM India/South Asia shares with Srikanth RP of InformationWeek his perspective of why IBM is so bullish on this opportunity What is the business case for building a smart city? What kind of challenges do cities face today? India’s growing economy is placing huge demands on critical infrastructure – power, roads, railways, ports, transportation systems, healthcare, water supply and public safety. Some estimates indicate that while the government has raised its investments in infrastructure, the investment gap remains daunting with an estimated USD 1 trillion required to meet the country’s resource needs over the next five years. This significant investment in urban infrastructure also represents new challenges and opportunity to consider how these systems interact with each other and design them in a more efficient manner. The benefits of a city growth are far-reaching, and multiple players have a stake. At the same time, the existing systems within that city come under new pressures. In order to manage those challenges, civic leaders across the world are looking at innovative solutions that can transform city systems and better prepare them for rapid growth. Please elaborate on the Smarter City initiative from IBM? What is the opportunity? A smarter city is one that uses technology to transform its core systems and optimize the return from largely finite resources. By using resources in a smarter way, it will also boost innovation, a key factor underpinning competitiveness and economic growth. Investment in smarter systems is also a source of sustainable employment. Smart use of technology can go a long way in transforming a city’s core systems. It can help create an efficient transport management system, improve healthcare, energy, public safety, education, transportation, water and develop a robust communication network to connect all businesses, people and systems. With over 2,500 smarter city projects, IBM is helping cities around the world transform into sustainable cites. For instance, the City of Rio de Janeiro automated alerts of changes in flood and landslide forecast to reduce reaction times in emergencies. How can cities serve as platforms of Innovation? Can you give us some examples where cities have already demonstrated this? Cities are complex interconnected network of system of systems, and an integrated and holistic approach can enable city leaders to look at the big picture and improve efficiencies across all citizen services, power, energy, water, healthcare, transportation, public safety, education, green housing, improved emergency system and so on. By doing this they can harness a city’s finite resources in a smarter way, and boost innovation, a key factor underpinning competitiveness and economic growth. Better services attract and retain creative talent, which acts as a powerful, long-term competitive advantage for cities. Consider this: Smart metering in Malta helps citizens pay only for the energy they use. Predictive analytics helped slash Richmond’s crime rate significantly in one year. In Taiwan, almost all of the trains run on time. Data analytics helped cut crime in New York City. In downtown Stockholm smart traffic systems helped reduce gridlock. Underneath this runs a complex pattern of insights leveraging discreet flow of information, anticipating problems, coordinating resources like a cognitive system of a living organism. How can cities optimize their systems to serve as engines of economic growth? As cities grow in both numbers and population, they are taking their place on the world’s center stage, with more economic, political and technological power than ever before. Economically, they are becoming the hubs of a globally integrated, services-based society. Every city is unique, but their leaders face many similar challenges—most of which call for exceptional creativity and innovation to resolve. Cities are perfect for promoting change, and renewable energies. Cities can serve as innovation platforms, creating clusters of business around green energy. Driving sustainable growth and prosperity through the strategic use of technology recognizes the challenges that city leaders face. Proven solutions and new technologies for data management and resource coordination can help transform city systems to make best use of funds and talent. What are the various IBM solutions for better outcomes in Smarter Cities? We believe in adopting a holistic, collaborative, proactive, engagement-driven approach in evolving smarter cities and enabling citizen-centric services through the use of sophisticated technologies. This include Smarter Buildings (Schools, Hospitals, Homes, Office & Plants and Energy, water, waste, emissions management), Smarter Public Safety (Emergency response and communications, Digital video surveillance, crime analytics), Smarter Water Management (Water infrastructure management, Resource planning optimization), Smarter Government Services (Social services, citizen and business interaction and Case Management, visit optimization), Smarter Transportation (Road user charging, congestion pricing and Integrated fare management, traffic prediction), Smarter Energy Management (Smart Grid, Electric Vehicles, Renewable Energy and Intelligent Utility Network Communications & Security), and Smarter Cities – Operations Center (Improved services, operations, safety, sustainability, Incident Management, Domain Correlation and Emergency Response, Citizen Dashboards). Please explain how a smart city can overcome traditional problems for a city like water scarcity problems, transportation, public safety and blackouts due to power scarcity? Increasingly, government, city planners, and municipal bodies are under intense pressure to provide robust services, drive economic growth, anticipate problems and coordinate their responses to crises, all while optimizing existing resources, working smarter, doing more with less. And, technology can help us integrate information from disparate, instrumented systems and create an intelligent, interconnected environment that fosters collaboration, enhances efficiencies and sponsors effective decision making across departments—including buildings, energy, operations, public safety, transportation and water—while facilitating virtually seamless cross-departmental integration. Architecture and urban planning are not going to solve all of a city’s problems, unless they use the information smartly, break down all the silos that have naturally developed in cities over a long period of time. Changing that mindset it is the biggest road block in making progress. People have to think differently, and we have to act together to make it happen. In your view, what are the characteristics of an ideal smart city? To transform our cities, city leaders must be innovative in infusing intelligence into their systems and integrate the city ecosystem, collaborating with multiple agencies and departments as well as citizens and businesses to achieve that innovation. By enabling dynamic interconnections among those groups and constituents, leaders can improve outcomes across the system of systems. For example, they can improve emergency responses by easing traffic congestion, increase school attendance rates by improving student health, and bolster public health by better protecting the city’s water supply. No matter what starting point leaders select, they can implement integrated IT solutions that address specific priorities and align with citywide goals. What kind of growth opportunities do you foresee in India? With major growth opportunities ahead, cities in India and other emerging markets are heavily investing in massive urban infrastructure giving them the potential to leap-frog ahead of others. India too is at the cusp of undergoing rapid urban transformation. By 2030, the urban areas will be home to 40 percent of the country’s people – doubling the urban population within a span of thirty years. At this rate, India will need some 500 new cities in the next two decades. The smarter they become, the better. Read More Read More ...
Best practices in adopting emerging technologies The Essar Group is a multinational conglomerate and a leading player in the sectors of steel, oil and gas, power, communications and business process outsourcing (BPO), shipping, ports and logistics, projects, and minerals. With operations in more than 25 countries across five continents, the group employs 75,000 people, with revenues of USD 20 billion. The group recognizes that a key ingredient to attaining success in a competitive industry is superior customer service. It is therefore constantly looking for ways to use technology to enhance value for its enterprise customers. Essar’s CTO, Jayantha Prabhu, shares with InformationWeek how the group leverages information technology for competitive advantage 1. What are some of the major IT initiatives taken in the past six – eight months that have been focused on emerging or new technologies? Please also explain the business rationale behind each initiative? As a group, we have taken several technology initiatives. This includes desktop virtualization, adoption of cloud technologies, SAP HANA, Juniper Junos and Sybase Afaria. Let me describe each of these initiatives. Essar Group has taken a mammoth leap towards desktop virtualization by adapting Citrix VDI technology. Currently the group has clocked 3000 desktops/laptops virtualized with an end target of 14,000 within a span of year. The key driver behind virtualization is to gain maximum efficiency, and fulfill business requirements in a short time. The group has also taken a step into the public cloud arena with Microsoft Azure and SAP SucessFactors. The group has high plans to take the Azure journey through Phase-2 wherein it will take 6-8 more applications to the public cloud as against earlier two applications. We are a pioneer in adopting Public Cloud services. Essar Group also took a major decision to implement SAP HANA - the latest in-memory computing technology being offered by SAP. The group intends to derive faster SAP responses through this technology thereby driving business operational with relative better speed and cut down earlier operative timeframes resulting into enhance business productivity Essar Group has also associated itself with Juniper whereby it assures secured mobility over Junos client offered by Juniper. Secure mobility is the key driver behind this initiative. With implementation of Sybase Afaria, we focused our intention towards embracing BYOD – a service that will allow its end users to carryout business operations over their personal devices. Afaria solution within its initial phase will encompass most of the mobility devices such as tablets, smart phones and latpops for around 2000 selected end users. The group has promising plans to expand this spectrum to a major segment of its end user base in coming years. 2. Can you describe some business benefits delivered from these initiatives? We have several quantitative and qualitative gains. For example, with virtualization, currently around 300 plus standalone servers are being migrated into virtualized environment, and over 2,000 desktops/laptops are being virtualized through VDI. Through various server virtualization technologies, there has been energy saving of almost around 70 percent. We have reduced around 150 standalone servers, reduced 25 racks within our Data Centers. This has resulted into releasing critical floor space for further scalability and expansion. By migrating two of our applications over public cloud as against dedicated infrastructure based out of our native Data Center, we have saved around 60 percent of our operating cost. 3. What is the process for adopting a new technology? The Essar Group CTO office led by me has structured itself by dedicating a team who takes care of new technology and innovations. This cell is responsible to explore several new technologies that can be mapped later with business requirements after their thorough evaluation process. While this cell also work with several other SME teams within CTO office, collaboratively, as a team works hand in hand with top notch leading technology providers such as SAP, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, IBM, Dell, Oracle, Symantec, Juniper etc. A technology committee meeting steered by Jayantha and selected representatives conduct meetings every fortnight with business CIOs and portrays new technology mapping with business requirements. Detailed POC/Demo results are also shared during this meeting. Later, detailed business case, alignment with Essar Group Enterprise Architecture that directs the strategy and technology roadmap with ROI and TCO is proposed to senior management for its final approval, post which rollout takes place for such technologies. 4. In terms of providing IT solutions to solve business problems- who takes the lead – does the push come from business or IT? We have defined business engagement SPoC from his team with each Essar Group business vertical such as Steel, Oil, Power and Projects. During defined meetings, business problems are shared by business CIOs, which in turn are deliberated within the CTO leadership team for solution mapping. While criticality is the factor raised by business, we decide the technology and propose this to the business 5. If you had to highlight some best practices that you can suggest to fellow CIOs in adopting emerging technologies, what would they be? We have complete transparency with business leads during the initial stages of emerging technologies with technology providers. It is evident that business CIOs/representatives should be involved when the technology is hunted and proposed to business at the primitive stage so that the solution mapping gains complete clarity and achieves completeness to a larger extent. As a team, we arrange several such structured meetings/conferences/forums within the organization. While the final decision lies with us, adequate buying is also required from the business, and that can be achieved only through due and appropriate connectivity with business CIOs and leaders from time to time. - Jayantha Prabhu, CTO, Essar Group, will be speaking at INTEROP Mumbai- the three-day leading annual Business Technology Event organized by UBM India. He will be speaking on the same topic 'Best practices in adopting emerging technologies'. To access the detailed conference agenda, please visit, www.interop.in Read More Read More ...
Microsoft Hyper-V keeps pushing on VMware In enterprise data centers, VMware vSphere is to hypervisors what Microsoft Windows Server is to operating systems: the undisputed kingpin. The numbers don't lie: Our latest InformationWeek Reports Virtualization Management Survey found fully 90 percent of respondents using some version of vSphere as a primary hypervisor platform, with Microsoft's Hyper-V a distant second. In our Windows 8 Survey fielded in June, just 14 percent called Hyper-V their main production hypervisor versus 23 percent saying they will continue to scale out vSphere/Xen/VirtualBox because they don't trust Hyper-V. Microsoft plans to change that perception. At last week's Hosting and Cloud Transformation Summit, Scott Ottaway, Microsoft's worldwide industry director for service providers, made clear that the company is no longer content to play second fiddle in the realm of virtualized infrastructure, and it's going to battle with a significantly revamped Hyper-V. While Ottaway was speaking to a crowd of managed service providers, colocation providers, and data center technology merchants, it's clear that the hypervisor technology in Windows Server 2012 is equally beneficial to public and private clouds alike, so expect a similar Microsoft marketing push to enterprise IT. Ottaway's take on Server 2012's top new features illustrates how Microsoft has been busy plugging holes in a previously serviceable product, but one that invariably lagged VMware's technology: improved virtual machine scalability and performance; network virtualization with quality of service; NIC teaming; disaster recovery with Hyper-V Replica; shared-nothing live migration, such as between nonclustered systems with only local storage; VM failover prioritization; and live storage migration. It's a heady list. One look at Hyper-V's new capacity specs [PDF] shows that when Ottaway says Microsoft has the goods to allow hosting providers to deliver cloud infrastructure at lower cost (presumably compared with VMware, although he kept the ad hominem comparisons to a minimum), he's not just blowing smoke. Over a range of parameters, from the maximum number of virtual CPUs per VM to memory limits per VM to the maximum size of virtual disks, Hyper-V matches, or in most cases, exceeds its main competitor. Now, that's all well and good for infrastructure-as-a-service providers looking for a less-expensive alternative to vCloud, but how many enterprises are putting 4 TB in a server in hopes of running 320 VMs? For your typical IT department, particularly small shops, the real enticement with Hyper-V 2012 isn't massive scale. It's improved reliability and redundancy. Server 2012 now fully decouples VM management from the physical infrastructure and allows nondisruptive migration, simultaneous or queued, of multiple VMs from one host to one or more alternates. For example, you could free up resources on an overloaded server hosting six applications by targeting one application to another smaller machine and two others to a third midsize system. And such sophisticated live migration features don't require a SAN--VMs can live on local file shares. Furthermore, Server 2012 can move virtual hard disks attached to an active VM without disturbing the running applications. Together, these features give IT more flexibility in placing and relocating VMs with no downtime. Whereas the new and improved migration features can improve reliability and resource utilization within a primary data center, Hyper-V Replica [PDF] provides an easy, automated way to replicate VMs to a secondary site. Let's state up front that HVR isn't designed for large organizations that already have an expensive SAN-based replication system. It's squarely aimed at small and midsize companies looking to get some semblance of a DR system by, for example, having a secondary computer room at a branch office host synchronized copies of critical virtualized applications. All you need is HVR running at each location and a WAN connection--that's it. In fact, you don't even need a full-blown copy of Windows Server 2012; Microsoft has a standalone bare-metal hypervisor, Hyper-V Server 2012, as a freely available download. In another boon to smaller shops, the servers needn't be identical and can use any type of supported storage; HVR takes care of the rest. As Aidan Finn describes on his Hyper-V blog, HVR works by maintaining and asynchronously replicating log files from one host to another. These logs are then replayed on the target system every five minutes. Since replication is asynchronous, you don't need a high-bandwidth, low-latency connection between the two sites (although busy servers and slow networks may mean you'll fall behind the five-minute log replay window). Fortunately, since you're just replicating change logs, it's unlikely the data rate will overwhelm even broadband branch office circuits. Another nice touch is that HVR can be configured to store multiple recovery points, any of which can be selected when failing over to the secondary host. One big caveat: Failover and recovery is a manual process. When the primary site goes down, IT must kick into action. Although failover can be managed with Hyper-V Manager, a better option is to automate the process using PowerShell. In fact, to bootstrap creation of automation scripts, Microsoft has developed a library of Hyper-V cmdlets for controlling virtually every aspect of the hypervisor, including most replication features. Circling back to Ottaway's target audience, MSPs, gives a clue of a Hyper-V deployment option that could be even more interesting to IT: a hybrid private/public environment. Suppose you don't have a branch office or one with suitable space for spare server capacity. Lease a Windows Server at an MSP and fire up HVR, then rest assured that not only are your critical apps automatically protected, but they are being replicated to an environment that's probably more reliable and better monitored than your primary site. Given the massive overhaul to Microsoft's virtualization platform--we haven't even touched on features of greater interest to large enterprises, such as NIC teaming, network QoS, VM failover priority, and concurrent live migration--don't be surprised if our next virtualization survey shows some sizable erosion in VMware's share. Who knows, if Microsoft's pitch is successful, Hyper-V just might be the IaaS foundation for your next cloud deployment. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
IndiaFirst Life Insurance looks to carve unique identity using Mobility IndiaFirst Life Insurance which commands less than 2 percent market share in the insurance space in India is aiming to take on established players through a unique tablet-based application initiative called MagicBoard. The application not only automates and simplifies the sales processes at the customer end, but in a single platform, it connects the customer with the distributor, employees and the insurance organization in a 360 degree integration where every stakeholder has a single page view in his hand held tablet PC for real-time information, intelligence and intervention. “Using a tablet, a sales person can now complete a sale on the spot within 15 minutes,” said P Nandagopal, Managing Director & CEO, IndiaFirst Life Insurance.
Oracle lays out app agenda: Cloud, mobile, social Want the latest news on Oracle applications? Be prepared for a long discussion. No fewer than 10 executives took to the Oracle Open World stage Monday to recap their application roadmaps. And despite the numbers, a few of Oracle's latest acquisitions weren't represented. "We ran out of chairs, so we don't have executives from our recent social application acquisitions [Collective Intellect and Vitrue] up on stage," quipped Oracle applications executive Steve Miranda, who presided over the panel discussion. Oracle's apps portfolio now spans diverse applications dating from different computing eras. Represented on Monday's panel were cloud-era apps including Oracle Fusion Applications, RightNow, and Taleo; middle-aged apps like Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and Siebel; and even apps born in the AS/400 era, like JD Edwards World. Much of the attention at Oracle Open World is on Fusion Applications, a hybrid ERP, CRM, and HCM suite designed to run on premises, on private clouds, or on Oracle's public cloud. Introduced at Open World last year, Fusion now has 400 customers who have licensed or subscribed, according to Oracle senior VP Chris Leone. Fusion is being developed aggressively, he said, citing that the app is nearing its fifth release--in the cloud, that is. Leone acknowledged that only 100 of the 400 Fusion customers are in production, and almost all of those are using isolated cloud-delivered Fusion apps rather than anything close to the full suite. Indeed, a few customers signed up for Fusion on-premises apps tell InformationWeek they're waiting for Oracle to deliver key components and updates. We're consistently hearing that the products are green and that adoption is slow. Oracle's new apps tend to be social apps, but one theme that emerged across apps during Monday's sessions was plans to extend social functionality. Oracle's recent acquisitions of Collective Intellect and Vitrue, for example, bring social service and social marketing capabilities that could be deployed standalone or embedded into processes supported by the likes of RightNow, Fusion, and Siebel. The pending purchase of Select Minds is likely to bring social talent collaboration tools to Taleo, Fusion, and PeopleSoft environments. Keynotes highlighting social capabilities are expected on Tuesday at Open World, but thus far the lack of emphasis on all things social is a big contrast to the Salesforce.com Dreamforce event in San Francisco two weeks ago. Social was omnipresent at that event, whereas at Oracle Open World it seems more like an afterthought. Mobile was another common theme, starting with PeopleSoft Mobile Expenses, Mobile Approvals, and Mobile Company Directory applications announced Monday. RightNow and Taleo executives said they're moving quickly to take advantage of Oracle's mobile apps capabilities that they didn't have access to as independent companies. Support will start with iPad apps for managers. JD Edwards recently gained an iPad app for health and safety inspections and reporting in manufacturing settings. Oracle completed its takeover of PeopleSoft (and with it JD Edwards) eight years ago, Miranda noted, and it was at that time that Oracle made its Applications Unlimited pledge to maintain and invest in legacy apps to reassure acquired customers that they wouldn't be forced into painful migrations and upgrades. Oracle has kept that promise, developing new releases even for its oldest applications, like JD Edwards World. The 37-year-old World app saw an upgrade this spring along with a new release for its younger sibling, the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP suite. Middle-aged apps like Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne were born in an era when customizability was seen as a good thing, but customers know now that customizations can be an expensive burden to maintain. Thus Oracle execs said they're building out vertical-industry functionality so customers can configure the app rather than building customizations. The Siebel team, for instance, is building out popular functionality for financial services, high-tech companies, and public sector organizations, according to Oracle senior VP Anthony Lye. PeopleSoft SVP Paco Aubrejuan said his team is continuing to simplify user interfaces and add industry-specific functionality so customers don't have to build it themselves. JD Edwards ERP functionality is already deep and industry specific, but the spring releases filled out the list with new blend-management features for food and beverage manufacturers and a pay-on-proceeds feature for managing agricultural operations. Almost all of Oracle's applications are taking advantage of Oracle middleware and applications for business intelligence (the exceptions are the apps most recently acquired, but stay tuned). Oracle SVP Balaji Yelamanchili said the next move for this BI functionality would be to re-architect to bring that functionality into the cloud. In addition, he promised cloud delivery for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management applications based on Hyperion. That will be a complement to the ERP suites and specifically Oracle Fusion Financials. "Lest there be any doubt in our continued investment, everybody on this panel is taking advantage of the latest in user interface, BI, mobile, and social improvements," said Miranda. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
Asia-Pacific leads race to engage digital mobile consumers in 2012 Research commissioned by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has shown that during 2012, the average-size company (USD 11.2 billion in annual revenue) will spend between USD 13 million and USD 22 million to market, sell and service digital mobile consumers through their mobile devices. The study - The New Digital Mobile Consumer: How Large Companies are Responding - shows that by 2015, investment levels will rise to between USD 22 million and USD 26 million annually. The race to engage this consumer segment is not evenly matched. In 2012, companies in Asia-Pacific will spend far more on responding to digital mobile consumers than companies in North America, Europe and Latin America. In Asia-Pacific, on an average, companies will spend USD 2.41 million per USD 1 billion revenue; the other three regions trail this level of investment with USD 1.43 million being spent in North America, USD 1.59 million in Europe and USD 1.63 million in Latin America. Looking ahead to 2015, levels of investment will grow with spending per USD 1 billion revenue to increase to USD 1.98 million in North America (versus USD 1.43 million in 2012); USD 1.76 million in Europe (versus USD 1.59 million); USD 2.85 in Asia-Pacific (versus USD 2.41 million) and in Latin America a remarkable USD 2.72 million (versus USD 1.63 million). N Chandrasekaran, CEO and Managing Director for Tata Consultancy Services said, “The digital consumer is an exciting and complex customer segment that global corporations have to understand and engage with. These consumers are diverse in their need, their interactions are flexible and often conducted ‘in motion’. Keeping their attention means being able to serve their dynamic needs by leveraging the power of digital and mobile technologies to engage with them.” Chandrasekaran added, “Businesses addressing this smart consumer segment must collect high quality data to understand them in real time; engage them in new and innovative ways; and reinforce their relationships through flawless technology interactions.” The study also reveals that investment levels are driven by organisations that recognise fundamental business changes are needed to win the loyalty of consumers. The TCS study makes it clear that the digital mobile consumer is a highly influential profile of customer. Recognition of their potential impact on the business is such that 82 percent of “leader” firms said they have made the digital mobile consumer a unique market segment. A striking number of these firms (85 percent) created a new product and service offering for digital mobile consumer. In contrast, there are businesses across all four regions which are failing to address the opportunity presented by the digital mobile consumer. Just 28 percent of “laggards” have made the digital mobile consumer a unique market segment, while only 30 percent of such firms have created new product or service offerings for this audience. Companies that participated in the study are exploring innovative ways to engage the digital mobile consumer. Leading companies are not just limiting their mobility strategies to just smartphones and tablet computers but are looking at ways to improve the entire experience that consumers have – beyond the purchase transaction – and are starting to transform the way consumers research, buy, use, adopt and troubleshoot their products and services when they are on the go. Read More Read More ...
Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 adds compliance power Heard the one about the doctor who sent an email blast exposing personal, and highly confidential, information on 7,000 patients? Microsoft did, so it's building tools into Exchange Server 2013 that will make it easier for IT administrators and compliance officers to guard against such mistakes. "We've layered a new policy engine on top of Exchange that allows IT managers, whether they're online or on premises, to define data-loss prevention policies to help keep information inside the network," Michael Atalla, Microsoft's director for Exchange Product Management, said in an interview. The tools include software that scans outgoing emails for information, such as credit card or social security numbers, that could violate industry regulations or privacy laws if sent to a third party. If a potential violation is detected, Exchange Server 2013 can automatically block the outgoing mail, or it can be configured to simply warn the user that they are about to send restricted information. "These are out-of-the-box policies," said Atalla, who earlier in the day touted the software's new features during a keynote at the Microsoft Exchange Conference in Orlando. He noted that organizations can also create their own rules for emails that contain sensitive data such as bank routing numbers, medical reports, financial reports, and the like. One user who could have benefited from such technology is a physician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, who in February unwittingly exposed personal information on 7,000 patients to an outside recipient. "Administrators and compliance officers can now alert their end users to potential policy violations before they take place," said Atalla. Microsoft is beefing up other compliance tools in Exchange 2013. One new feature adds proximity matching to archive searches, making it easier to recover specific communications that may be needed for discovery or other legal proceedings. For example, users can ask the system to retrieve documents that contain the term "financial results", but only if it's a certain number of words, or less, away from another term, such as "third quarter". "The best case in e-discovery results is the most narrow set possible," said Atalla. Microsoft has not released a final ship date for Exchange 2013, but a preview version is now available as a free download from the company's website. Many of the new features in the product will also work their way into Exchange Online, Microsoft's cloud-based version of Exchange Server. About 64 percent of organizations now use a combination of on-premises and cloud-based tools for email and collaboration, according to a survey released this week by Harris Interactive. "We've been on a journey of delivering both on premises server products and online services," said Atallla. "And this version of Exchange really brings complete parity across both." Pricing for the new version of Exchange has not been announced. Atalla said there are "no substantial" licensing changes between Exchange Server 2013 and its predecessor, Exchange Server 2010. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
Engineering R&D in India will be a USD 42 billion market by 2020, says Zinnov Zinnov Management Consulting, recently released its study titled, “Engineering R&D: Advantage India”, a detailed work on the fast-growing Engineering R&D and Product Engineering Services segment in India, which today, is the leading offshore destination in delivering engineering R&D services with a 22 percent market share. The launched study brought to light that the market in India is expected to grow at a 14 percent CAGR from USD 14.7 billion in FY2012 to USD 42 billion by 2020 and is expected to outpace the IT growth rate in India. Globally, organizations are again focusing on R&D, after a period of lull owing to factors such as the economic crisis, natural disasters in Japan, etc. While North America and Europe still account for a major portion of R&D spend with 35 percent and 32 percent respectively, it read that the share of emerging geographies is witnessing a substantial growth rate of about 16 percent. The study says that the ISV segment in FY2012 has contributed most significantly to R&D from North America with 35 percent share, while the Automotive sector spend dominated R&D investments in Europe and Japan, with 54 percent and 49 percent share, respectively. Speaking about the report, Pari Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer, Zinnov said, “There has been significant activity in the Indian captive landscape in FY2012, with presence of 874 centers as compared to 836 in FY2011 and the determining factor for this is that strong focus on emerging nations as target markets across major verticals”. For instance, while Europe and North America are currently the leading markets in Aerospace , this is likely to change significantly by 2030, with countries outside these regions expected to own about half the commercial aircraft in service. Even in the Telecom sector for that matter, deregulation in India and China is fueling the future growth prospects of the industry. Similarly, in the Medical Devices and Consumer Electronics segments, markets like India and China are expected to lead the consumption. Automotive, Healthcare and Industrial verticals are hot sectors that are poised for growth globally and are correspondingly expected to drive future MNC captive center growth in India. The study also read that the MNC Captive centers are also growing in maturity, with many companies starting their core research teams operating from India. While MNC captives today drive the Indian Product Engineering growth story in almost all verticals except Aerospace where service providers have a 76 percent share, Service Providers are upping their game and in fact grew faster in FY2012, at 16 percent CAGR compared to 11 percent growth for Captives. The launched study said that the Service Providers are strengthening their deep expertise in Software Product and Embedded development, which have applications across verticals. They are also increasingly innovating in products and platforms, working closely with the ecosystem by engaging startups, universities, global development forums and MNC captives, increasing investment in domain/vertical-specific infrastructure and talent, as well as partnering with MNCs in their go-to-market strategy. On the other hand, while Engineering for Telecom and ISVs continue to be the mainstays of the Indian Service Provider landscape, their growth is outpaced by emerging verticals such as Medical Devices with 26 percent growth and Automotive with 17 percent growth. Commenting on the study, Sundararaman Viswanathan, Manager-Consulting, Zinnov, said, “India is well-poised to contribute to Global ER&D as the ecosystem of captive centers, service providers and startups, increasingly work together to drive innovation. As relationships mature, service providers and customers will enter into pricing models based on market outcomes. Further, with emerging nations growing in importance as key markets, MNCs are set to leverage the inherent competencies in India to build products for local and global markets.” Read More Read More ...
HCL Technologies signs multi-million IT Infrastructure management deal with Freescale Semiconductor HCL Technologies (HCL recently announced that it has entered into a landmark five year, multi-million dollar deal with Freescale Semiconductor, a global leader in embedded processing solutions. HCL will serve as an exclusive technology partner for Freescale, managing and strategically transforming their end-to-end corporate IT Infrastructure landscape. As part of the engagement, HCL will manage and transform infrastructure operations covering desktop support, compute, storage, database, telecom (network & security), process automation and compliance with the use of its pioneering Management Tools as a Service (MTaaSTM) framework and gold standard processes. As a result, Freescale will develop more resilient systems, optimize its operational costs, increase visibility into IT operations, experience reduced technology complexity and improved quality, sustain highest levels of customer service and drive innovation to existing and new initiatives. “The semiconductor industry is dynamic, fast paced and highly competitive”, said Hal Yarbrough, Director of IT Infrastructure at Freescale Semiconductor. “HCL will be a key partner in sharing our vision of building a robust and agile IT environment required to keep pace with the growing technological innovation demands of the business and creating new ideas and technologies for the next generation opportunities”. “HCL’s ability to quickly demonstrate an understanding of Freescale’s environment and to identify key transformational opportunities through their experience and extensive knowledge was evident throughout the RFP process”, said Dani Guthrie, IT Infrastructure Program Manager at Freescale Semiconductor. "With a decade of industry experience, expansive service capabilities and mature business models, HCL is well poised to help Freescale create the finest experience for its customers as well as employees and accelerate the pace for its mission-critical and novel inventions,” said Vinod Chandran, Sr.VP and Head of North America, HCL Technologies Infrastructure Services Division (HCL ISD). Read More Read More ...
Tech Mahindra forays into the world of mobility Tech Mahindra Limited, India’s sixth largest software exporter today, announced the acquisition of 51 percent stake on a fully diluted basis in Comviva Technologies Limited, a Bharti Group Company, and a global leader in providing mobile Value Added Services (VAS), Mobile Money and Mobile Payment solutions, for a value of INR 260 cr. The deal will be subject to regulatory approvals. The new brand identity will be Mahindra Comviva, reflecting the combined strength and spirit of both the entities. As part of this arrangement, Tech Mahindra will make an upfront payment of INR 125 cr towards the stake acquired and the balance amount of INR 135 cr will be paid out over a period of five years based, on Comviva achieving mutually agreed performance targets. The current promoters will continue to hold a 20 percent stake on a fully diluted basis in Comviva, post the deal closure. Commenting on this move, Vineet Nayyar, Executive Vice Chairman, Tech Mahindra said “This acquisition is a significant step forward, in our vision of being a complete and comprehensive partner to our clients and like always, we are confident of making this a successful venture for our stakeholders. In addition to the market leading capabilities, this will also add to our relationship with large operator groups across the world.” “The world of mobility today encompasses wide range of solutions, where customers be it enterprise or consumers are driving their business and entertainment needs through mobility. This acquisition marks our strong intent and entry into the world of mobility products. We are adding significant capability in areas such as payments and VAS,” added CP Gurnani, Managing Director, Tech Mahindra. Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Comviva said, “Comviva has established itself as a gobal leader in mobile solutions beyond VAS within a short span and has built a solid foundation for the next phase of its growth. We believe that Tech Mahindra, with its deep domain expertise in IT and telecom technologies, is an ideal partner to guide the future growth story of Comviva. We will continue to support Tech Mahindra in their endeavour to take Comviva to the next level and wish them success.” “The combined entity will bring end-to-end capabilities of products, system integration and services in the mobile VAS, money & payments space. Our enhanced customer experience management offerings will deliver greater value to all our existing customers globally, and provide opportunities for accelerated growth,” added Manoranjan (Mao) Mohapatra, CEO, Comviva. This acquisition will significantly enhance Tech Mahindra’s capabilities in the mobile VAS domain and will provide access to a marquee client base, enabling significant cross-selling opportunities. It dovetails into two of Tech Mahindra’s stated strategies, namely investing in emerging areas such as Network, Mobility, Analytics, Cloud and Security and further focus on non-linear growth. Comviva’s primary focus and business model is expected to strengthen this aspiration. Comviva has an extensive portfolio of solutions spanning mobile money and payments, mobile data, integrated messaging, mobile lifestyle and customer life cycle management solutions, which enable mobile service providers to enrich mobile users’ lives, whilst rationalizing costs, accelerating revenue growth and enhancing customer lifetime value. Comviva’s solutions are deployed with over 130 service providers and banks in over 90 countries across Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin America and Europe, and powers services to more than a billion mobile subscribers. Tech Mahindra’s vast geographic reach and access to global telecom players will enable Comviva to take integrated solutions and products to a larger base. Read More Read More ...
mCarbon and Tata DOCOMO enter into strategic technology partnership mCarbon, a leading mobile Value Added Service (VAS) provider, has entered into strategic technology partnership with leading telecom service provider Tata DOCOMO. Under this partnership mCarbon will provide technological support for Tata DOCOMO’s caller ring back tone (CRBT) service. By providing service management with every deployment of CRBT, mCarbon will enable Tata DOCOMO to achieve a rapid return on investment as well as benefit from its extensive experience of running CRBT services across rapidly growing markets globally. mCarbon is live with CRBT in 4 circles Kolkata, UP East, Bihar and Rest of West Bengal. Rajesh Razdan, Co-founder and Director, mCarbon, remarked, “Our association with Tata DOCOMO will enable us to use our extensive experience in the CRBT space for the benefit of their customers.” “We see our CRBT & RRBT solution supporting Tata DOCOMO with its unique features like service through multiple mediums i.e. IVR, SMS, USSD or Web or Client (Channel99) and facilitate DOCOMO to offer unique and innovative services to its subscribers. Our CRBT platform will ensure efficient delivery of music & audio content and rich, compelling information and entertainment to their subscribers”, said Brij Mohan Mahendru, Co-founder & Director - Technology, mCarbon Tech Innovation. DOCOMO subscriber can access or obtain mCarbon enabled CRBT service through multiple mediums like IVR, SMS, USSD or Web or Client (Channel99). Operator can use the service as a tool to promote latest and hit songs and attract users to change its earlier ring back tone (RBT) to new one. Corporates can also tie-up with operator to play their corporate tune on their employee’s numbers (Time based). The service will enable DOCOMO users to play RBT based on predefined dates, that is he/she can select one song to play on Valentine’s day and another for Republic day. Rishi Mohan Malhotra, Head VAS, Tata DOCOMO said “In this day and age, operators are looking at innovative ways to deliver services and every innovation comes with a price tag. Having said that, if the innovation is smartly tagged to an intuitive technology then it becomes a win-win situation for both the VAS partner and the operator. Our partnership with mCarbon has assured good returns on investment and hence we’re very confident of a successful launch in these 4 circles.” mCarbon already has an existing relation with DOCOMO for products like Channel99, Campaign Manager, Name Tunes, Start Stop – Try IVR. Through this partnership companies’ now enter into a long-term and strategic relationship in the technology space. Read More Read More ...
Icertis appoints technology investor Vijay Vashee to its Board of Advisors Icertis, a company focused on providing enterprise solutions in the Microsoft cloud, recently announced the appointment of Microsoft veteran, Vijay Vashee to its Board of Advisors. As part of his new role, Vijay will provide direction and guidance as the company rapidly expands its products, services, and geographic footprint. Commenting on his new role, Vijay said, “It is great to be associated with Icertis, a company riding the right wave, with the right offering, and the right leadership team. The cloud is going to change IT as we know it, and Icertis’ cloud focused strategy and products put it in a fantastic position to win in the new paradigm.” Having begun his career at Microsoft in 1982, Vijay is credited with successfully launching several of its key software products and driving significant milestones for Microsoft in its developing years. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and is also a member of the Computing and Information Science Advisory Council as well as the Cornell University Entrepreneurship Council and the University of Chicago Entrepreneurship Board. In addition, Vijay is the founder of the Seattle chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a not-for-profit organization that supports and mentors budding entrepreneurs. He is an active contributor to the community and is also a private investor, serving on the Board of Directors of various start-ups. “Vijay’s extensive experience, thought leadership and industry knowhow will provide us valuable insights as we build out Icertis. I have known Vijay for well over 20 years, and am looking forward to his strategic counsel and guidance.” said Samir Bodas, CEO, Icertis. Vijay Vashee is a Cornell alumnus with a Master’s degree in electrical engineering, and an MBA from University of Chicago. He obtained his undergraduate degree from IIT, Powai. Read More Read More ...
How changing technology is influencing capital markets Technology plays a significant role in the capital and commodity market, in fact trading firms are the first ones to leverage any cutting-edge technology that can help to get the pulse of the markets faster, help them “execute trades” faster, or measure their risks faster. In the last two decades we have seen several innovations in the industry in terms of new financial products and new ways of doing business, all of which require substantial application of very advanced technologies. Whether it is complex analytical algorithms to predict future movements and perform valuations of complex products, or connectivity to exchanges, technology has been at the forefront of capital and commodities market development. Faster and more efficient technology in this business can lead to better financial results. The line between technology and business functions has become extremely blurred. For instance, better trading strategy algorithms leads to better trading decisions. The key challenge for technologists in this space is to keep pace both with technology and rapidly evolving products and regulations. As a result, it is important to understand the technology trends in this space. These trends are a result of the regulatory changes, innovation in technology and budget pressures. Let us look at each of these trends in detail. Technology required to cater to regulatory requirements In reaction to the global financial crisis, most governments are bringing massive regulatory changes, like Dodd-Frank Act in USA and Basel III in OECD countries. The new regulatory regime, at some level, would bring fundamental changes to the way business is done in the capital and commodities markets. These multiple regulations are also bringing in several significant technology changes like massive reporting requirements, requirements around connectivity and integration with new entities like SEF (swap exchange facilities) and SDR (swap data repositories); moving from end of day risk management to more proactive and near real time risk management. With swaps being cleared though CCPs; ccollateral management will become an increasingly important aspect for investment managers and hedge funds. The collateral management systems will be needed to verify/manage the collateral calls from clearing brokers. Reporting of transactions executed by SEFs will be handled by the SEFs. However, for unlisted transactions reporting will have to be handled by one of the parties (major swap participant or dealer). What to report for what trade will have to be built within the applications supporting trade execution. These regulatory changes are coming with very tight regulatory timelines and in some cases evolving requirements. These regulatory challenges bring to the fore technologies like process grids, elastic application containers, complex event processing, in-memory databases and real time databases. Application of mobile solutions Banks are extending their products and services on smart devices for the retail investors. To begin with banks would provide mobile versions of their website that will allow common transactions through mobile devices. As smartphone usage increases and data connectivity speed improves we will see dedicated mobile apps from banks. That is not all, powerful personal finance, account management and modeling apps would become available. On the wholesale front another related trend is the use of tablet (iPad) based applications in the capital markets industry. Research reports and research tools (time series analyzers, analytical calculators etc) being provided to the clients on iPad would substantially improve productivity and decision making. Key decision makers like Portfolio Managers are always on the road evaluating companies and negotiating deals. Providing powerful data visualization tools along with current information like research reports has the potential of significantly improving decision making. In addition, Sales teams of Capital Market players have started using such mobile applications for institutional clients. Banks offering wealth management services are looking at providing real time portfolio management on iPad to their HNI clients. Adoption of cloud Cloud Computing is a promising paradigm for delivering computing utilities as services. Just as personal computers and servers shook up the world of mainframes and mini computers, or as smartphones and tablets revolutionized the mobile commerce industry, cloud computing is bringing similar far-reaching changes to the licensing and provisioning of infrastructure and to methodologies for application development, deployment and delivery. There are countless opportunities for financial services firms to leverage the benefits of cloud computing by migrating a variety of applications to the cloud.. Although very few firms are currently using cloud computing for their core trading applications, different hosting architectures provided by IaaS cloud providers, private clouds and hybrid cloud space, will drive more firms to move their core applications to the cloud. Given the current business environment and global economic conditions many firms will be forced into evaluating the capital expenditure required for building data centers and maintaining server farms. As a result of this, even the core applications will be hosted on outsourced infrastructure available on cloud. In fact, core solutions, such as batch processes running throughout the day, analytics and reporting applications, are perfect candidates. Growing power of social media There are innovative trends that are emerging in terms of applicability and impact of social media on this industry with respect to predicting stock prices and using social media for retail trading. In the near future, more retail brokers would be offering social media based trading platforms to their clients on which the clients can collaborate and trade effectively. Predicting stock prices based on inputs in the form of sentiment from social media is a promising area for research. Initial research shows encouraging results. However, final verdict on this is not out as yet, so for now there are no right or wrong answers. However, with the right level of investment, accuracy of output can be enhanced and more importantly confirmed. Social media is finding a real applicability amongst the retail investors who are quite open to sharing trading tips on social networks such as currensee.com etc Advanced risk technology With the 2008 global market crash and recession, risk management as a discipline has come to the forefront in trading firms. This is becoming even more critical with regulators bringing lot of focus back into risk management and expecting significant rigour and data reporting responsibilities. Traditionally, a trading firm has been siloed across different asset class based trading desks, where each trading desk having its own profit and loss responsibility. However trading firms are looking to get a better handle of credit risk (exposure against counterparties) and market risk across the organization in a more timely manner. This is leading to significant investment in data consolidation, valuation and analytics on large data. Several technologies like process grid, in-memory databases and data grids are being used to build near real-time risk calculation engines, that not just focus on one trading desk but helps understand exposure across organization. Era of Big Data Another big trend being noticed is the renewed focus on managing operational risks, for example management of trader limits or prevention of insider trading. This is a huge challenge for a trading firm, as they would like to maintain trading and decision making agility to capture market opportunities without losing the ability to comply with laid down policies and practices. Some of the approaches that are being implemented deals with big data analysis technology and semantic based data management technologies. A typical capital market firm generates hundreds of gigabytes of data on a daily basis. Analyzing such massive amount of data to understand trading patterns to identify insider trading is still a very nascent but a promising technology. Similarly using semantic based data management is another upcoming field that is gathering lots of attention. To summarize, technology adoption in capital markets is at a very critical juncture in both developed and emerging markets. Keeping pace with these trends will be very challenging for banks and trading technology vendors. The key challenge for CIOs is to support regulatory requirements through technology and at the same time allocate technology budget for launching new products or new markets. In addition the pace of technology advancement is making it difficult for the CIOs of banks and technology leaders to plan a long term roadmap for IT. - Abhishek Bhattacharya is Director- Technology while Pravin Lal is Director at Sapient Global Markets Read More Read More ...
Will the next Apple or Google emerge from India? Can India see the birth of the next Apple or Google? Well, while time only can answer this question – an encouraging start has been made by Nasscom. The industry association has launched Ip4Biz - a showcase platform for Made-in-India software products that are designed for enterprise users. What is exciting for young startups is that the Ip4Biz group has now announced a call for nominations. A showcase of companies will be made to CIOs and enterprise IT buyers at INTEROP Mumbai - 10th to 12th October (For more details, please visit www.interop.in). In addition, winners will get recognition in local, national and industry-wide recognition. The listing of winners will be done on the NASSCOM website and promoted through newsletters. If you see your company as the next Google or Apple, here is your chance to showcase your capabilities. Companies must have software products in these technology segments: Social, Mobile, Analytics or Cloud. This is open for all software product companies. The last date for nominations is 18th September 2012 IP4Biz will screen the submissions based on eligibility criteria being met and completeness of submission. Shortlisted companies will be rated on various parameters, including the business use case for the software product, the business benefits achieved, the technology employed, customer references etc, by a jury consisting of Academicians, CIOs and industry thought leaders. The top rated companies will be declared as winners, at least 7 days before the event. To register and send in your nominations, please visit: http://www.nasscom.in/ip4biz-0 Read More Read More ...
Apple iPhone 5 still delivers a few surprises Nearly every detail of the iPhone 5 was leaked or spied before Apple's Wednesday announcement in San Francisco. Nearly, but not all. Apple didn't offer any astonishing one-more-thing style revelations, but it still tossed a few unexpected features into the iPhone 5. Here are some of the stand-outs: Improved Audio -- Apple stuck a number of audio improvements in the iPhone 5 that will be welcome additions for those who still like to make phone calls. First, the iPhone 5 comes with three microphones. This will help reduce background noise in the earpiece speaker and result in clearer phone calls. Second, the earpiece speaker has a new five-magnet construction that should give it a boost in the volume department. Third, Apple revealed new headphones called EarPods. The EarPods are the culmination of three years' work, says Apple, and are better at directing sound into the ear canal. Toss in WideBand audio (a carrier-supported feature), and the iPhone 5 is a solid win for audiophiles. A6 Processor -- The A6 processor wasn't a confirmed feature, but is certainly a welcome one. This new processor designed by Apple (and manufactured by Samsung) is 22 percent smaller than the A5 processor, uses less power, and boosts performance by a factor of two. According to Apple, the A6 chews through graphics-intensive apps and games and boosts frame-rates for ultra-smooth video. Improved Battery Life -- LTE is a known power hog. Adding it to smartphones is a sure-fire way to kill the battery quickly. Even though the iPhone 5 adds LTE 4G, it boasts better browsing battery life than the iPhone 4S. In fact, at 8 hours of 4G power, it nearly equals the LTE browsing battery performance of the Retina Display iPad. Additional Camera Features -- Apple was expected to improve the iPhone's camera, but several of the improvements weren't revealed ahead of time. For example, the iPhone 5 can now take panorama shots (up to 240 degrees). The iPhone 5's software accounts for shaky hands when shooting panoramas, and can stitch together uneven shots into a usable final image. Apple advertises panoramas as "28-megapixel" images. The camera also performs 40 percent quicker thanks to the A6 processor. Significant Weight Drop and Waistline Reduction -- The iPhone 4/4S was not a thick, heavy device, but Apple still managed to reduce the thickness of the iPhone from 9.3mm to 7.6mm. Further, the weight has been reduced to 112 grams, or 3.95 ounces. That's less than one-quarter of a pound. The device is lengthier to accommodate the larger display, but the thinner profile and reduced weight go a long way to offset that. Few devices are so thin and so light. The iPhone 5 may not look all that different from previous generations, nor offer that many more new features, but the engineering required to fit everything in such a small package is no, er, well, small feat. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
Infosys strengthens consulting capabilities by acquiring Lodestone Infosys today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Lodestone Holding AG, a leading global management consultancy firm for an aggregate enterprise value of CHF 330 Million in cash. Headquartered in Zurich, Lodestone advises international companies on strategy and process optimization, and provides business transformation solutions enabled by SAP. The combination of the breadth of capabilities delivered by Infosys and Lodestone’s deep experience of driving transformational change, is expected to provide clients across the two companies, a world-class team to accelerate transformation and innovation led growth. Upon completion, the acquisition of Lodestone will strengthen Infosys Consulting and Systems Integration (C&SI) capabilities, by bringing more than 850 employees, including 750 experienced SAP consultants to the company. Lodestone will add more than 200 clients across industries including Manufacturing, Automotive and Life Sciences, to the Infosys pool of over 700 clients. Post-acquisition, the combined Consulting practice focusing on SAP programs will deliver revenues of more than USD1 Billion, firmly establishing Infosys amongst the global leaders in SAP consulting. Infosys Consulting & Systems Integration business, today, has more than 30,000 consultants across 10 industry verticals and accounts for 31 percent of the company’s revenue. The Lodestone acquisition will significantly enhance its global presence, particularly in continental Europe and emerging markets like Latin America and Asia Pacific. Further, Lodestone’s clients will get ready access to the scale and global reach of Infosys, in addition to a broad spectrum of capabilities across consulting, systems integration and outsourcing. Commenting on the transaction SD Shibulal, CEO & Managing Director Infosys said, “A key plank of our Infosys 3.0 strategy is to expand our Consulting & Systems Integration business. This acquisition fits perfectly into that strategy. Lodestone and Infosys share a culture of unwavering focus on nurturing and maintaining client trust. I look forward to welcoming Ronald, his experienced leadership team and Lodestone’s team of top–notch consultants to Infosys.” Ronald Hafner, Chairman and CEO, Lodestone added, “We are eager to leverage the widely acknowledged global reach of Infosys and its leadership in the consulting and technology arena to deliver greater value to our clients” Read More Read More ...
The problem with social collaboration on IT projects I was just putting the finishing touches on our company's bring- your-own-device policy when Sam, our CEO, dropped by for a chat. I eventually got around to the BYOD strategy, mentioning the planned move from company-issued BlackBerrys to employee-paid, personally owned devices of choice. "This is going to be a big change for some of our staff," he said. "You better socialize this." "Socialize" is one of the Über-buzzwords of the day. To socialize an intention is different from communicating, explaining, or discussing it. It requires taking communications to a new level of importance and intimacy with the organization. In fact, to socialize an intention means it's further from implementation than you might expect. Socializing generally involves communicating from one to many and, more important, encouraging much more feedback from and interaction among that many. For example, you might socialize your plan to replace Office 2010 with Office 365 by posting this information on the company blog and asking employees to weigh in with comments and suggestions, even alternatives. In the past, the IT organization would just make this decision and implement it. I'm now working through our new smartphone/tablet/personal device policy, and it's clearly a high-touch, high-feel subject. In the past, my team would weigh the options, consider the overall business case and value drivers, and set a policy that we would then implement. But the past dealt with cell phones and laptops. With consumer devices, most employees have a much stronger opinion. Rather than come to us, the IT experts, for advice ("Which home PC would you suggest I buy?"), employees are now coming to us with advice ("The company should issue everyone iPhones, as I've found that they're the best smartphones on the planet."). Not only does socializing involve a fairly broad audience (socializing with your staff doesn't count), but it also implies true interaction. And with that interaction comes the expectation that the mobile device approach our company ultimately will take won't necessarily be the one my IT team would lay out if we were (no pun intended) left to our own devices. We will start the process at the top. I will send a summary of the initial plan to our CEO, and I will then present it at our next senior leadership meeting--not as a fait accompli, but as an idea. I will provide all of the answers to their questions. Members of the leadership team will chat about the idea, and eventually share it with their direct reports and ask them for feedback. Much of that feedback will come in the form of questions, which my team will answer, and I'll communicate those answers back to the broader management team. This cycle will continue for a few iterations, before we open the discussion to employees and begin to zero in on the end point. The Big But This all may seem like an exercise in bureaucracy and CYA, but I have no doubt that the socializing process will produce a much easier implementation. But … and this is a big but: If the socializing process morphs into consensus-building, we'll have a huge problem, because there's no chance everyone will agree on what to do with smartphones, tablets, and other personally owned devices. At some point, our IT organization will have to make a decision based on our expertise, a decision that will be unpopular with some, even many, employees. In the past, our IT organization's approach was to get our hands on everything and manage the heck out of it. We negotiated cellular contracts, locked down rate plans, set policy on our BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, centralized billing and chargebacks, and monitored expenses. I slept very well at night. Adoption of personally owned, corporately enabled devices is very different. Centralized control will be expensive and will stifle the productivity benefits these new devices have to offer. There's no right answer, but if socializing means coming to a collective agreement, we may be a BlackBerry customer for much longer than I thought. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
Social TV becoming a mass-market phenomenon, says Ericsson The results of Ericsson ConsumerLab’s annual study – presented in the TV & Video Consumer Trend Report 2012 – reveals that social TV is becoming a mass-market phenomenon. Sixty-two percent of consumers use social media while watching TV on a weekly basis, an increase of 18 percentage points in one year. By gender, 66 percent of women engage in this behavior, compared to 58 percent of men. Twenty-five percent of consumers use social media to discuss what they are watching while they are watching it. Niklas Rönnblom, Ericsson ConsumerLab Senior Advisor, says: “Mobile devices are an important part of the TV experience, as 67 percent of consumers use smartphones, tablets, or laptops for TV and video viewing. Furthermore, sixty percent of consumers say they use on-demand services on a weekly basis. Watching TV on the move is growing in popularity, and 50 percent of the time spent watching TV and video on the smartphone, is done outside the home, where mobile broadband connections are facilitating the increase.” Although viewing behaviors and demands are changing, only 7 percent of consumers say they will reduce their TV subscriptions in the future. In fact, instead of looking to cut costs, consumers are willing to pay more for an enhanced viewing experience: 41 percent of consumers say they are willing to pay for TV and video content in HD. More than half of consumers want to be able to choose their own TV and video content. Rönnblom says: ”As the number of screens and services increase, people are eagerly looking for an easy-to-use, aggregated service that can bring everything together. It should allow consumers to mix on-demand and linear TV including live content, facilitate content discovery, leverage the value of social TV and provide seamless access across devices.” Data was collected in Brazil, Chile, China, Germany, Italy, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, UK and the US. In all, 14 qualitative and 12,000 quantitative online interviews were conducted representing more than 460 million consumers. Ericsson ConsumerLab gains its knowledge through a global consumer research program based on interviews with 100,000 individuals each year, in more than 40 countries and 15 megacities - statistically representing the views of 1.1 billion people. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used, and hundreds of hours are spent with consumers from different cultures. Read More Read More ...
Cloud, Mobility and Open Source will drive Indian application development market Gartner believes that the Indian application development software market will reach more than USD 227 million in 2012 – translating into an increase of 22.6 percent over 2011. Growth will be driven by evolving software delivery models, new development methodologies, emerging mobile application development and open source software. “Application modernization and increasing agility will continue to be a solid driver for AD spending, apart from other emerging dynamics of cloud, mobility and social computing,” said Asheesh Raina, principal research analyst at Gartner. “These emerging trends are directing AD demand towards newer architectures, programming languages, business models and user skills.” According to a new Gartner report, “Market Trends: Application Development Software, Worldwide, 2012-2016”, cloud is changing the way applications are designed, tested and deployed, resulting in a significant shift in AD priorities. Cost is a major driver, but also agility, flexibility and speed to deploy new applications. 90 percent of large, mainstream enterprises and government agencies will use some aspect of cloud computing by 2015. “The trend is compelling enough to force traditional AD vendors to ‘cloud-enable’ their existing offerings and position them as a service to be delivered through the cloud,” said Raina. “AD for cloud demands rapid deployment, a high focus on user experience and access to highly elastic resources for software testing, while requiring comparatively less underlying infrastructure for developing applications.” Gartner predicts that mobile AD projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber native PC projects by a ratio of 4:1 by 2015. Emerging mobile applications, systems and devices are transforming the AD space rapidly, and are one of the top three CIO priorities at the enterprise level. Gartner research found that CIOs expect more than 20 percent of their employees to use tablets instead of laptops by 2013, hastening the process of change as AD tools and applications evolve to address the requirements of these new devices. Also driving the AD shift, Gartner expects open source software to continue to broaden its presence and create pressure on market leaders during the next three to five years, especially as open source becomes a key element of the software quality landscape beyond the developer level. It predicts that at least 70 percent of new enterprise Java applications will be deployed on an open source Java application server by the end of 2017. “Open source software tools will continue to erode revenue for some AD categories in design, testing and Web development,” said Raina. “This is being driven primarily by the success of Eclipse and NetBeans, as well as by overall revitalization of the market by new small software providers looking for technical and market disruptive approaches for offering products. Limited budgets and economic conditions compelling enough to focus on cost reduction, also fuel the use of open-source software in various development projects.” Read More Read More ...
LinkedIn profile changes: What you should know LinkedIn has begun rolling out a refresh of its profile page, the online face of more than 175 million professionals. Among the most noticeable changes: Your actual face is more important than ever. The updated profile includes a larger, more prominent picture, which LinkedIn-Makeover.com's Donna Serdula listed as the most obvious impact to the page. As a result, that crop-and-chop job you did on a recent family photo isn't going to hack it anymore. "LinkedIn is really putting that out at the forefront. It's putting the emphasis on the way the person looks," Serdula said in an interview. "It's no longer going to be enough to scan a photograph that was taken at a wedding. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you're going to have to go to a professional photographer and get a headshot." Photography's not the only skill needed to optimize the new LinkedIn profile; you'll want to hone your writing chops, too, because the Summary content now stands under a brighter spotlight. "At one time, a person could copy-and-paste their resume and feel like they did a good job," Serdula said. "That's not true anymore." To hear Serdula tell it, the best LinkedIn profiles require the same level of attention as any business website; without the right mix of content, keywords, and other elements, you're liable to get lost in the fray. Treating the profile as just an online version of your old-school resume is a rookie mistake. "People are using LinkedIn as a search engine and they're looking for people. Simply copying and pasting your resume isn't going to provide enough keywords to be found," Serdula said. "Say to yourself: How are people trying to find me? And: Let me make sure that all of those keywords they're using, I'm peppering throughout my profile so I can be found." An honest, robust summary is also critical, Serdula said, because users are increasingly using LinkedIn to do their homework on people they do business with in a variety of contexts. "People are really using LinkedIn as a way to research and feel more comfortable with candidates, with vendors, with people. You need to take this opportunity and really showcase yourself. Now that the summary is so front-and-center, you can't just not fill it out or copy-paste your introduction from your resume. It's just not going to cut it anymore." LinkedIn's profile updates are part of a broader site-wide reboot that includes the recent redesign of the homepage and the launch earlier this year of LinkedIn Today, the company's social news service. Expect more changes to come, including more updates to the profile page. "We are focused on making it easier for LinkedIn members to get more value out of the services we offer by creating simpler, more relevant, more social experiences," a LinkedIn spokeswoman said via email. "This new look-and-feel to the profile is the first step of many more exciting changes to come to the LinkedIn profile later this year." Serdula pointed out another significant change: Job titles no longer appear in the brief overview that appears next to the photo--only the names of current and recent employers, as well as educational institutions, are listed. In general, that light-gray area atop the profile is much smaller than in the past. "That's huge," Serdula said. "Perhaps they're leveling the playing field there, but that also saves in screen real estate." Contact information, including websites, email, Twitter handle, and phone number, are now housed behind a Contact button just beneath the photo and brief overview. Users need to click to reveal them, but Serdula said this is an improvement rather than a de-emphasis of the content. "Yes, they're saving screen real estate. But they're actually making it easier to reach out outside of LinkedIn," said Serdula. "Success on LinkedIn is getting off [of] LinkedIn. If you want to forge relationships, you can't do that strictly online. You have to call that person up and talk to them directly. That's what's going to separate you and lead you to future success. LinkedIn, I [think], believes that, and that's one of the reasons they've brought that up from the bottom of the page." The space freed up by these tweaks enables the heavier emphasis on the Summary section, which means it's time to revisit what yours includes. Even on LinkedIn, content is king. "You have to tell a story, you have to hook people, and you have to get them motivated to pick up the phone and call you," Serdula said. That's something Serdula said she has been preaching to clients for years; the updated LinkedIn profile is probably a good thing for profile-writing businesses like hers. But she said her advice now will likely include a much sharper focus on picking the right photo, noting that a poor profile picture is already one of the biggest mistakes people make on LinkedIn. That mistake could sometimes be glossed over with the smaller image, but no more. "Over and over and over again, we see people uploading photographs that aren't professional, aren't attractive, aren't appropriate," Serdula. "This picture is [now] so big that there cannot be an error there. It's just going to be too glaring." Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
What every CIO needs to know about user experience design With the commoditization of hardware and software, organizations have started to look to user experience design as their key differentiator. In a recent Forrester study, 93 percent of organizations see customer experience as a key strategic differentiator. So, you are sure to be asked to make more usable and compelling applications. But what do you do? While CIOs are well prepared to deliver efficient and reliable technological solutions, they generally have very little knowledge of the user experience field. So, it’s likely that you won’t be very effective. And we see CIOs floundering worldwide. It is a bit painful. What does NOT work….
- Giving lectures about how everyone must consider the customer.
- Hiring a few customer experience professionals
- Hiring a customer experience vendor that is really just a graphics company
- Hiring a customer experience vendor
- Hiring a LOT of customer experience vendors (that is even worse than one)
- Designing it yourself
- Asking for a iPhone application, personalization, responsive design or other new technology
- Be or assign an executive champion and full time manager of customer centricity
- Find a vendor who can help guide the process and has a suite of IP so you don’t have to reinvent methods, training, standards, etc.
- Develop a UX strategy roadmap
- Put in place the infrastructure (methods, standards, knowledge management, etc)
- Setup the organizational structure and staffing (with training and certification)
Windows 8 RTM free for 90 days Microsoft has released a version of Windows 8 that developers and other IT pros can use free of charge for 90 days in order to test the new OS, which represents the most radical redesign of Windows since Windows 95. The Windows 8 Enterprise Edition 90-day evaluation program makes the OS available as an ISO image in 32-bit or 64-bit editions. In addition to English, it's available in Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean, and several other languages. Developers can access the software through the Windows Dev Center developer downloads page. "This is intended for developers building Windows 8 apps and IT professionals interested in trying Windows 8 Enterprise on behalf of their organization," Microsoft states. Trial versions of Windows 8 Enterprise are also available through MSDN subscriptions, the Microsoft Partner Network, TechNet professional subscriptions, and Microsoft's Volume Licensing and Software Assurance programs. The product must be activated online within 10 days of installing. The evaluation edition expires in 90 days and cannot be upgraded to the full version. It has to be uninstalled before systems can be upgraded. "Consider running the evaluation edition in a virtual environment or installing on a separate hard drive or partition," Microsoft says. "This will allow you to upgrade your original Windows installation to Windows 8." Microsoft said it will not provide technical support for the evaluation edition. "Back up your files and settings before installing this evaluation and again prior to the 90-day expiration," the company cautioned. Windows 8 will be available to the public on Oct. 26, with a range of systems expected to be on sale from vendors like Lenovo, Asus, and Dell. Microsoft's own Surface tablet will also hit store shelves on that date. Windows 8 will come in two main editions. One for x86-based desktops, laptops, and tablets, and another, Windows RT, that's built mainly to run on tablets powered by mobile-friendly ARM chips. With Windows RT, Microsoft hopes to finally become a player in the media tablet market, where it significantly trails Apple and Google Android. Not all of Microsoft's Windows hardware partners have bought into Windows RT, however. Notable exceptions include Hewlett-Packard and Acer. HP plans to build tablets that run Windows 8 on Intel Atom chips. Acer, for its part, has criticized Microsoft for its decision to build Surface, which effectively puts it into competition with its OEMs. Consumers who want to get their hands on Windows 8 prior to October 26 can download the Release Preview from Microsoft's Web site. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
Tieto inks pact with NetIQ Tieto chose NetIQ Cloud Manager to create Tieto Cloud Server, a cloud platform that allows customers to choose from pre-defined service packages based on capacity, storage, service level and business criticality requirements Read More ...
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World’s data more than doubling every two years, says study Global digital data created in 2011 equal to every person in India tweeting 3 tweets per minute for 6,883 years non stop Read More ...
Storage maps the future of digital data The future of storage management must be simple, cost efficient and environmentally friendly Read More ...
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Gulf Oil opts for IBM servers Gulf Oil Corporation has selected IBM servers and storage technology to allow their Lubricants division to manage, track, and leverage information and processes more effectively Read More ...
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IBM tops India external disk storage market According to newly released data from IDC, IBM India has emerged as the number one vendor in revenue for Q4 and full year (2010) in the India external disk storage systems Read More ...
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EMC sets new records for storage Launches 41 new products for mid and lower tiers Read More ...
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Virtualization and cloud technologies add complexity to disaster recovery initiatives in India Symantec research reveals gap in downtime expectations versus reality among Indian enterprises Read More ...
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IBM unveils Power7 and Storage migration offer for HP and Oracle-Sun clients in India IBM has launched a new financing program targeting Oracle-Sun and HP customers in India Read More ...
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Vedanta ropes in IBM to enable strong business growth The company has tied up with IBM to create a robust infrastructure for the resource planning system of its power business Read More ...
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IBM tops India’s storage, non-x86 UNIX server market IBM maintained its market leadership of the overall disk storage market in 2011 with 28.3 percent market share Read More ...
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Dell to launch second tablet Chief Executive Michael Dell showed off a prototype of the 7-inch tablet at Oracle OpenWorld, but did not offer details Read More ...
Oracle introduces the Exalogic Elastic Cloud The machine is designed to provide a complete cloud application infrastructure by consolidating the widest possible range of Java and non-Java application types and workloads Read More ...
HCL Infosystems launches MyEduWorld Interactive, self-learning platform encompasses curriculum, applications, videos, animations, quizzes and more Read More ...
Apple iPhone 5: Opportunities and threats iPhone 5 delights on a device level, but has plenty of rivals to worry about. Take a look at our competitive assessment Read More ...
BlackBerry 10 - RIM doesn't show key pieces At BlackBerry World 2012, Research In Motion gave a preview of its forthcoming BlackBerry 10 platform. Unfortunately, RIM left too much out of sight and didn't deliver on enterprise focus Read More ...
Tablets in the enterprise: Drivers and challenges Businesses that wish to embrace tablets need to maintain a balance between user preference and productivity and corporate security and compliance, says Mahesh Gupta of Cisco Read More ...
BYOD compels re-framing of enterprise security policies With BYOD emerging as an undeniable trend, enterprises across the globe are being exposed to a new set of threats. Organizations are realizing the incompetency in their current security strategy and are exploring new technologies that would enable them to accommodate BYOD in a secure manner Read More ...
Pre-Budget Quote: Karbonn Mobiles I wish to seek a cut in taxes on mobile phone brands of Indian origin, as this will help the Indian phone makers to compete well with the international competition: Pradeep Jain, Managing Director, Karbonn Mobiles Read More ...
Pre-budget Quote: RIM The Government can play a vital role by re-considering the taxation module on mobile devices. This would make it affordable -- reaching out to larger section of the audience: Sunil Dutt, India MD, RIM Read More ...
OnLive Desktop brings Windows apps to iPad Virtual desktop based on cloud gaming tech claims to bring speedier Microsoft Office, Flash to iPad than market leader Citrix Receiver can deliver Read More ...
Global mobile Internet data traffic to grow 18-fold by 2016: Cisco According to Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast, global mobile data traffic will outgrow global fixed data traffic by three times during 2011-2016 Read More ...
Essar turns BYOD into an advantage Faced with the growing trend of many of its employees bringing their own devices to work, Essar addressed this challenge by implementing a comprehensive solution from Juniper Read More ...
Google's bouncer ejects malware from Android market Google is using a technology called Bouncer to monitor and remove malicious apps Read More ...
Mobile app development gains traction in the Indian enterprise Mobile solutions offer businesses the speed of delivery and faster decision making, which directly impacts a company’s bottomline Read More ...
Education 2.0: Mobile technology in education Mobiles can be used for listening, interacting, recording, questioning, reporting and responding – which is what learning is all about, says Sunil Lalvani of RIM Read More ...
How Andhra Pradesh is detecting diseases early using SMSes The state is showing how the power of a simple SMS can be used to quickly track and prevent disease outbreaks Read More ...
RIM targets September for BlackBerry 10 launch Research in Motion 2012 product plans point to a September launch for its BlackBerry 10 platform and two more tablets, says a leaked roadmap Read More ...
CES 2012: VMware shows Android-based virtual machines Android running in a VMware virtual machine can have all your mobile work apps in it along with connections to your work e-mail and contacts Read More ...
Best tech predictions of 2012 I take on four big tech predictions for 2012, from mobile to social--and dish up three of my own Read More ...
Android hits 700,000 daily activations Apple, Google's next closest competitor, is activating a relatively paltry 189,000 iPhones each day Read More ...
5 things RIM must do in 2012 Research In Motion has a tough year ahead of it. Here is what the company needs to do to turn itself around Read More ...
Android market downloads hit 10 billion Apple got to the major milestone faster, but Google is celebrating anyway with a 10-cent app promotion Read More ...
Android buyer beware: 12 least secure phones More than half of most popular Android smartphones run outdated--and insecure--versions of the OS. And update policies vary Read More ...
Google activating Android handsets at the rate of 5,50,000 every day The Android platform has hit 200 million activations. This is up from 100 million devices activated as of six months ago, Google says. Read More ...
Nokia reveals Windows 8 tablet plan Microsoft's closest ally may be first out of the gate with slates that run Redmond's next OS Read More ...
iPhone's Siri threatens Google, Schmidt says Google chairman tells U.S. Senate antitrust subcommittee that Siri could gobble Google's bread and butter--search. But it rings a bit false Read More ...
Why Apple's Siri will change everything Apple's iOS digital assistant, Siri, will be as big or bigger than the iPad. It's the beginning of actually useful natural language processing Read More ...
Windows phone marketplace hits 35,000 app mark The store is still well behind Apple's App Store, which has right around 500,000 active apps, and Android, with about 320,000 Read More ...
RIM says sorry with free apps BlackBerry maker offers customers whose service was disrupted by three-day outage more than USD 100 worth of no-charge downloads Read More ...
RIM outage explanation leaves big questions RIM did more dancing around the issues than frank sharing as it tried to explain the BlackBerry outage--leaving CIOs to speculate. And goodwill's running short Read More ...
Enterprise Mobility – The need of the hour The mobile evolution demands that IT teams keep pace with the business and adapt their processes, tools, and approach to supporting an increasingly dispersed and technologically diverse workforce Read More ...
iPhone 4S: 5 Missing Features Apple boosted the internal specs to create the iPhone 4S, but failed to add some of the most sought-after changes Read More ...
RIM announces BlackBerry client for Microsoft SharePoint The BlackBerry Client app provides a mobile experience for users together with the security of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Read More ...
5 Essential mobile security tips Consider this expert security advice to lock down your smartphone or tablet--plus protect your related apps and data Read More ...
How Enterprise Mobile App Portals can be used to enforce security policies At INTEROP Mumbai 2011, dont miss this session by Prasad Ramanathan, Associate Vice President - Research & Innovation, iGate-Patni as he explains how Enterprise Mobile App Portals can be used to enforce security policies Read More ...
NCR launches mobile banking platform New global service integrates with online, kiosk, ATM and teller channels to help banks drive adoption of mobility within multi-channel self-service Read More ...
‘Unified Communications on route to become pervasive’ Dinesh Malkani, Managing Director, Collaboration Solutions, Asia Pacific and Japan, Cisco shares how UC is evolving from a boardroom technology to become pervasive. Excerpts from an interview with InformationWeek: Read More ...
Verizon introduces new Managed Unified Communications and Collaboration service for Microsoft Lync Businesses can now leave UC&C service and infrastructure management to Verizon -- and focus on promoting greater adoption and productivity Read More ...
Adoption of video in Unified Communications on the rise in India Aided by developments in the telecom and communications technology space, such as cloud computing and wireless networks like 3G and 4G, even smaller companies can now easily incorporate video into their collaboration tools Read More ...
ArcelorMittal to use UC as a service to cut costs ArcelorMittal has chosen Siemens Enterprise Communications to deliver a global Private Cloud Service for Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) based on a centralized OpenScape UCC Solution Read More ...
Changing landscape of Unified Communications market in India While on-premise Unified Communication solutions have already gained acceptance, UCaaS is also slowly gaining momentum Read More ...
Will Atos have "Zero email" by 2013? Organizations like Atos have set up initiatives to reduce the amount of internal email, which is deemed as a productivity damper. Here's Atos's plan to reduce email significantly, if not to zero Read More ...
Vidyo free cloud service bridges videoconferencing systems VidyoWay will let users of Cisco, Polycom, Lifesize, and Microsoft Lync talk to each other. In the meantime, Vidyo starts the conversation about how much better off they would be using its technology Read More ...
Unified Communications slashes communication costs for refinery Bharat Oman Refineries recorded savings of Rs 73 lakh on communication and Rs 82 lakh per annum on operational and maintenance costs Read More ...
Cisco Cius: The little tablet that could What chance does another tablet have in a crowded market? Cisco has cleverly made Cius the centerpiece of its suite of collaboration technologies and tools. We think it could succeed Read More ...
To lure Indian SMBs, Unified Communication providers must develop comprehensive solutions UC in India will grow, when bundled with remotely managed services or hosted collaboration suites, says AMI Read More ...
'Indian men put in ‘extra’ effort to look good for a video conference business meeting' A research conducted by Cable&Wireless Worldwide revealed that Indians are of the opinion that their appearances play a vital role in a face-to-face or a video conference with business associates as it helps to leave a good impression Read More ...
Cisco introduces 15 minute video conferencing system Facing growing competition from Polycom, Vidyo, and others, Cisco introduces a low-cost unit designed to be set up and running in 15 minutes Read More ...
Polycom buys HP's Halo videoconferencing unit Hewlett Packard said Polycom also will be a partner for telepresence and certain unified communications systems and will make its video applications available for HP's webOS platform Read More ...
Skype Deal: Collaboration is Microsoft's game to lose Microsoft’s USD 8.5 billion deal to buy Skype shows it building around its strength in enterprise collaboration software. But will it squander its advantage? Read More ...
Why Microsoft plus Skype is an enterprising idea If Microsoft can meld Skype and Lync, building a sensible enterprise and consumer offering while making Skype the de facto mobile unified communications platform, this may just be a winning combination Read More ...
Tackling the uncertainty of core network planning To avoid breaking the economics of core network provisioning, service providers must extract every bit of cost out of their networks without compromising services or reducing quality of experience for their end users Read More ...
Videoconferencing, telepresence spending to double by 2015 Cisco-Tandberg, Avaya, Lifesize, and Polycom are focusing on conference room systems, projected as the area of greatest growth, according to Infonetics Read More ...
Why is Cisco betting big on video? The networking giant believes that video will drive the next wave of communications for enterprises Read More ...
Cisco unifies enterprise communications with Jabber Cisco rolled out Jabber, a unified communications application that brings together presence, instant messaging (IM), voice and video, voice messaging, desktop sharing and conferencing into a single consistent experience across PCs, Macs, tablets and smart phones Read More ...
Communication trends for 2011 Explore how communication will be influenced by Unified Communications, Video, Tablets, SIP Trunking and the cloud Read More ...
IBM’s cloud version of Lotus Notes finds good uptake in India 12 percent of Lotus Notes adoption has been via the cloud Read More ...
HP partners with IIIT-B to launch Network University The University will aid IT professionals to advance their knowledge in the delivery of next-generation enterprise networks Read More ...
Unified Communications: The new mouthpiece in enterprises Indian enterprises are taking UC beyond basic communications, by using forms such as UC-as-a-service and virtual teams, for R&D, training and client interactions Read More ...
Facebook becoming ultimate CRM system The social network's latest messaging features point to a future in which you can contact someone wherever they are with a single click Read More ...
Verizon outlines top 10 technology trends for 2011 Technology trends include cloud, unified communications, convergence, mobile apps and IPv6 Read More ...
The Office: Who needs it 60 percent of employees in study say they don't need to go into an office to be productive; IT execs worry about security of mobile workers Read More ...
Taj Hotels selects NEC as preferred network solution provider NEC to provide IP telephone systems for eight new hotel locations Read More ...
Cisco to introduce home telepresence system A USD 600 video conferencing system that includes a video camera and a device to connect to a HD TV will reportedly be launched by the network equipment maker Read More ...
Collaboration possibilities for organizations are 'infinite' Right tools and right approach enhance the communication paradigm for employees Read More ...
Interop Mumbai 2010 kicks off Opens up with keynotes which describe IT to be converging, networks going borderless Read More ...
BT delivers B2B telepresence solution for Wipro in India BT’s B2B exchange connectivity will enable seamless video and voice communications between Wipro and its customers Read More ...
Microsoft, Polycom team on Unified Communications Partnership will integrate voice, instant messaging, and videoconferencing for large enterprise, government, and SMB customers Read More ...
Educational training goes virtual at NIIT The educational institute has conducted over 248 training sessions using the UC platform it deployed two years ago Read More ...
"Immersive telepresence has a great future" Managing Director of Polycom India & SAARC, Neeraj Gill, says that Polycom is witnessing increased demand for telepresence solutions Read More ...
SIP gives Avaya a new ‘Aura’ in UC Based on the open standard SIP protocol, Avaya Aura is an important milestone in the evolution of UC architecture Read More ...
The shape of UC to come: On-demand, personalized and ubiquitous In the future, conversations will follow you from one device to another, and you will be able to collaborate from any device–yes, even your television set Read More ...
Spectranet and nivio to jointly offer hosted messaging and collaboration The firm plans to offer a range of hosted solutions such as basic email solutions and high end enterprise applications based on the Microsoft Exchange platform Read More ...
Bharti Airtel, Cisco and Servion team up to provide hosted contact center solutions The consortium is launching ‘customizable’ hosted contact center services Read More ...
Tata Communications and BT to extend Telepresence facilities to each other Using the intercompany service, customers of both the companies can invite clients of the other service provider to join them in multipoint telepresence meetings Read More ...
‘Cisco will focus on Smart Connected Communities’ The network is getting smarter and Cisco wants to apply intelligent networks in other industries through connected communities. Naresh Wadhwa, President & Country Manager, Cisco India & SAARC told Brian Pereira how Cisco plans to achieve this through strategic alliances with domain experts. Internet technology also has a major role in building connected communities Read More ...
AGC Networks to be acquired by Essar Group Essar will acquire Avaya’s stake in AGC Networks, previously known as Avaya GlobalConnect Read More ...
Unified Communications’ day has arrived It seems that all those studies on collaboration along with a couple of years of Web 2.0 messaging have had their effect on us Read More ...
"Our products and technologies will be the foundation for Borderless Networks" Padmasree Warrior, CTO, Cisco tells us why she thinks that the troika of video, virtualization and cloud computing will push enterprise-level productivity to a new level Read More ...
Orange Business Services appoints Bala Mahadevan as India CEO In this role, Mahadevan will be responsible for driving business growth for the company in India in the network related services and IT services domains Read More ...
Siemens Enterprise Communications and T-Systems now speak with one voice This new agreement will let Siemens Enterprise Communications and T-Systems simplify migration Read More ...
Videoconferencing booming during flight ban Travelers stranded by the Icelandic volcano are using telepresence and videoconferencing to stay in contact with their businesses Read More ...
CSC launches Unified Communications as a service Targeted at Fortune 1000 companies, this offering is based on Cisco’s collaboration portfolio Read More ...
Does Green IT make business sense? Finding the right inflection points for “green” change is key for business success Read More ...
Polycom expands its partnerships with HP and Microsoft The new partnerships are aimed at delivering open and interoperable collaboration solutions Read More ...
Cisco to help Government accelerate e-Governance initiatives The initiative aims to deliver transformational education and health care solutions to citizens across India Read More ...
Indian Internet economy forecast to contribute Rs 10.8 trillion to the overall economy by 2016 India's Internet economy growth rate of 23 percent places it as the second fastest across the G-20 and ahead of many other developing nations in the G-20, as per a report by Boston Consulting Group Read More ...
India and APNIC reach agreement on National Internet registry Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers (IRINN) will be run by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) and serve ISPs within the country Read More ...
Google privacy change provokes outrage One user profile and privacy policy to rule all of Google's services. Simple, or evil? Read More ...
CIOs must leverage social media to increase their presence in the boardroom Arun Sundararajan, NEC Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, discusses with InformationWeek the relevance of social media to the overall business, and how CIOs must handle social media Read More ...
2012: India gets set to adopt IPv6 HP partners with Government of Karnataka and IIIT-B to help enterprises adopt the new Internet address standard Read More ...
Google and O-Zone Networks partner to offer free Wi-Fi access As per the deal, YouTube and Google+ users will get free Wi-Fi access across all O-Zone hotspots Read More ...
10 Wi-Fi trends to watch for in 2012 Several trends and developments are emerging and catching up to make a big impact on unabated growth of Wi-Fi. Ajay Kumar Gupta, WLAN Access and Security Specialist, elaborates on 10 such trends Read More ...
Compuware targets 50 percent of APM market in India As the application performance management market is still in its nascent stages in India, the company is confident of becoming the numero uno player Read More ...
6 lakh account logins get compromised every day on Facebook The statistic was revealed in an infographic published alongside an official Facebook blog post trumpeting new security features introduced by the firm Read More ...
Companies will generate 50 percent of web sales via social presence and mobile apps by 2015, says Gartner As the number of mobile phones overtakes PCs, customers will use mobile browsers and applications as the main points of interaction, says Gartner Read More ...
Worldwide social media revenue to reach USD 14.9 billion in 2012, says Gartner As per a report released by Gartner, worldwide social media revenue is forecast for a consistent growth Read More ...
Malware attacks up due to social media, reveals Global Survey More than 50 percent of the respondents report an increase in malware due to social media use Read More ...
Social media for corporate networking or corporate espionage? Today, corporates are looking at social media like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to broaden their online outreach. In a session at INTEROP Mumbai 2011, Abilash Sonwane, Senior-VP, Elitecore Technologies, talked about how social media networks are the next frontier of corporate espionage Read More ...
Social Media: Not a matter of choice anymore Adoption of social media by enterprises is not a matter of choice anymore. It is a must, said Umesh Jain, CIO, YES BANK at INTEROP Mumbai 2011 Read More ...
Internet as important as food and water, says Cisco study A Cisco study reveals that nearly 95 percent of college students and young employees in India have admitted that the Internet is as important in their lives as water, food, air and shelter Read More ...
What Facebook should learn from George Lucas Facebook's latest tweaks are reminiscent of the Star Wars creator's continued changes to his iconic films: No one asked for--or wanted--them Read More ...
Security issues to consider while migrating from IPv4 to IPv6 Despite its innumerable virtues, IPv6 is still vulnerable and poses various security threats Read More ...
How vulnerable are you in the virtual place? As the Internet and new technologies grow, so do their vulnerabilities Read More ...
IPv6: The next-generation Internet When IPv4 addresses are completely depleted, any business expansion, new service, smart device, anything Internet-related will need IP addresses that are IPv6 Read More ...
India ranks 17 globally in terms of unique IP addresses The number of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai's platform from India grew by 21 percent in the first quarter of 2011 Read More ...
The memory game To safeguard the password, we invented the two-factor authentication. It could be a token, which we now trust to suggest us a ‘one-time password’ Read More ...
Is social networking part of the CIO job description? Should CIOs be responsible for the enterprise's social networking use? Read More ...
How IPv6 contributes to a more agile and responsive organization IPv6 can usher in new opportunities for the way people do business and communicate Read More ...
‘IPv6 seeds have to be planted now ' While Indian Internet Service Providers still have some reserves of IPv4 addresses left, the stocks will be likely depleted before the next growing season, says Yves Poppe, Head-IPv6, Tata Communications, in an exclusive interview with InformationWeek’s Srikanth RP Read More ...
Global tech leaders promote open internet Leaders from 34 countries, including notable technology pioneers, have released principles aimed at maintaining the Internet as a forum for open communication and expression Read More ...
Enterprises are not ready for IPv6 With the move to IPv6 imminent, enterprises need to re-work on their IT infrastructure to support the new protocol Read More ...
ICANN's domain name plan could spell trouble Companies next year will be able register their own top-level domains, but the price may be more intellectual property litigation and security problems Read More ...
HCL Infosystems gets broadband connectivity project from Indian Railways The company will provide end to end ADSL 2+ Broadband Network on Indian Railways enterprise Wide Area Network through RailTel Corporation of India Read More ...
80 percent of browsers have known vulnerabilities Most problems are caused by insecure plug-ins, such as Java, Adobe Reader, QuickTime, and Flash, finds Qualys Read More ...
57 percent Indian SMEs use websites as a sales channel: Google Majority of the online spend (43 percent) comes from SMEs who spend between Rs 12 to 25 lakh on advertising on an annual basis, reflecting the low-cost benefit of the Internet Read More ...
Microsoft challenges Google to offer patent indemnification If Google is so sure that the WebM video codec is safe, it should guarantee legal protection against patent claims, Microsoft argues Read More ...
Ipaidabribe.com - a crowdsourcing initiative to weed out corruption The website provides transaction-wise data on the number of bribes paid. It also has a bribometer which gives city wise ranking based on the reports received Read More ...
Low-bandwidth website delights customers ICICI Securities has created a low-bandwidth website that allows customers to access the site over slow Internet connections Read More ...
Top 10 Google predictions for 2011 In the new year, Google TV will struggle but gain traction while Android thrives and Chrome OS proves surprisingly popular Read More ...
Mozilla releases eighth Firefox 4 beta Latest version includes support for graphics rendering in the browser without the use of a third-party plug-in Read More ...
You Tube gives users a terrorism flag YouTube is leaving it up to the users to decide what does and does not promote terrorism Read More ...
Review: Opera 11 beta extends innovation With on-demand plugins and improved mouse gestures, Opera Software's eponymous web browser remains one of the most innovative and cutting edge Read More ...
Mozilla plans Open App store Firefox for Android OS also in the works, according to "The State of Mozilla" report Read More ...
85 percent of the Indian youth ‘hooked’ on to social networking, says TCS study ‘The Web 2.0 Generation’ survey conducted by the company has also observed that the country’s youth are spending more time online than ever before Read More ...
Facebook debuts e-mail service Every Facebook user who wants a Facebook.com e-mail address will get one, the company says Read More ...
YouTube tries being topical directory The video community site is experimenting with category-oriented content discovery Read More ...
Google debuts instant previews Searchers now can see pictures of Web sites before they click through to visit Read More ...
Firesheep simplifies stealing logins Firefox extension created to shine a light on the problem of unencrypted websites fails, because rather than offering a solution, it only makes it worse Read More ...
81 percent of children have an online presence before age two One-quarter of children are online before they're even born, AVG report says Read More ...
Facebook Apps found sharing user IDs The social networking site says media reports exaggerate the privacy risks Read More ...
IPv4 addresses nearly depleted Over 95 percent of IPv4 blocks are taken, increasing the pressure to rapidly adopt IPv6, says the number resource organization Read More ...
Top 4 technology trends for 2013: Intel Technology and computing experiences today are pervasive – increasingly integrated into the fabric of our daily lives and our expectations and human desires for technology. The need to express ourselves, create, share, learn and protect our personal information is growing. We are at the beginning of what is another significant transformational moment for the personal computing experience as we move into 2013. Intel foresees a renewed vigor in computing in 2013 with the emergence of a highly connected multi-device world landscape. Some of the key technology trends that Intel predicts for the year 2013 are as follows. Cloud computing
2013 will be a turning point for cloud deployment in the APAC region. Cloud users will begin to demand standardized, open, interoperable platforms for cloud computing. As businesses begin to rely on the cloud for general business operations, the demand for unrestricted use - bringing data in and out of the cloud - will become a focus in 2013.
Big Data analytics
A trend that is fast being touted as the ‘next big thing’ that will help the industry move forward is Big Data. Storing and analyzing the massive amounts of user data to give near real time insights into customer behavior to tailor products and services to exceed customers’ expectations will gain momentum in 2013.
Compute experience reinvented
The new generations today are experiencing computers for the first time, using intuitive input methods such as touch. And the Indian market has shown a lot of potential for mobility devices and tablets and this has, in particular caught the fancy of the young consumers.
Intel believes that traditional input devices such as keyboards and mouse will be challenged by new input methods like voice and gesture recognition. Tablets, convertibles and new devices will enter the market blurring the boundaries between PCs and tablets.
Online collaboration
The increasing internet penetration means that in 2013 there will be new populations coming online who will look for newer ways to connect and share amongst themselves. Enterprises will also experience resurgence in connectivity, as employees look for better ways to create connections and work efficiently with colleagues.
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Top IT agendas for 2013: Cloud, mobility and analytics According to Symphony Teleca, the year 2013 will see a fundamental reshaping in the way commercial software and software related products are built and deployed in a rapidly merging environment of the cloud, mobility and analytics. Some of the key predictions for the year 2013 are as follows: Computing becomes task-centric There will be a shift to task-centric computing as user interfaces become truly multi-modal and content, services and applications grow to be pervasive, moving with the user across device types. UI keeps leaning towards voice, not touch There will be an increased emphasis on voice recognition enablement technologies such as ECNR as the next phase of UI is not keys or touch, but voice. Consumers will control their digital personas Consumers will demand federated control of their identities across platforms and devices as they seek to manage their digital personas not just on their own devices but across all. Mobile continues to drive impulse purchasing There will be growth in the number of consumers using their mobile devices to perform impulse or opportunity-driven purchases. Retailers will create a simplified transaction process leveraging desktop account credentials. Dynamic analytics using in-memory databases will enable targeted promotions from retailers and other B2C companies on mobile devices. An industry of digital infomediaries will evolve As companies look to leverage social media data, an industry of digital infomediaries will evolve that can provide syndicated, individual consumer level data that is current and actionable. NFC has its day Near Field Communication (NFC) will reach a tipping point. A tremendous number of people will have devices with NFC (in addition to RIM, Nokia, Sony, Google and many others are now shipping with NFC) - a critical mass of NFC-equipped phones just may be coming together and it may find a home in the enterprise as well. NFC tags will enable consumer lifecycle engagement NFC tags on individual consumer products will allow companies to engage and maintain a relationship with individual consumers throughout the lifecycle of the product. Consumers start to pick a car for its infotainment system, not its horsepower The auto industry will see a buying trend around infotainment capabilities and rear-seat features versus historic qualities of evaluation such as engine size or cabin room. The car becomes the new smartphone The auto industry will realize that they're facing the same challenges that phone and tablet developers faced in the last few years and will start to adopt similar approaches to their software development problems. Tablets become workstations There will be continued growth of tablet use in the enterprise as well as a more enterprise apps developed for tablets in particular. Companies will start to consider the devices and technologies necessary for increased collaboration where employees can not only access material via the tablet but can also use it as a mutual working station. Homes get connected with second devices There will be increased sales of the second-screen devices at home. Lower price point tablets like the iPad Mini and Samsung Galaxy will see growth as families will only want to spend USD 300-USD 400 on a second tablet device for their home. Same platform, all devices becomes the new normal There will be a rise in the “all-screen strategy” – using the same platform across device categories, including TV sets. ISVs tap new markets with partners Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) will see new profits generated from aggressively adapting their solutions for new markets. To do this, ISVs will continue to work with innovation partners to reduce time to market including product ideation sessions. Read More Read More ...
5 key enterprise technology trends for 2013: Brocade The Year 2012 will be remembered for many remarkable events, including the Summer Olympics in London that not only showcased the best in human achievement and global collaboration, but also illustrated how technology-obsessed the world has become. More than 4.8 billion people watched the event, with digital viewers outnumbering traditional television viewers for the first time in history. While 2012 was a breakthrough year for broadcasters, enterprises and consumers, let’s see what 2013 holds: 1. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) deployments begin The Olympics proved that consumer demand for information accessibility shows no sign of abating. However, as service providers try to meet said demand, and juggle the complexities of running a profitable business – for instance, to reduce CAPEX (capital expenditure) and OPEX (operating expenditure) and increase service responsiveness – they are looking for technology alternatives that will streamline service creation and foster innovative applications and services. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) offers a means of doing this. SDN links networks and applications, enabling direct programmatic control of both networks and orchestration layers in line with end-user application needs, rather than programming around the network, as is done today. IDC predicts that by 2016, the market will be worth USD 2 billion a year, up from just USD 168 million today. With the promise of SDN architectures radically decreasing total cost of ownership (TCO), and vendor innovation/support continuing to increase, I predict that we’ll see pockets of actual SDN service deployments across the globe, primarily in the U.S. and Japan. The year 2013 will see the start of great things for this technology. 2. Death of the “Transaction-Based” user A “transaction-based user” is an individual that will connect to the Internet to conduct an activity (such as to make a purchase or to stream content), and then log off. The premise is that the user will sparingly use bandwidth and not rely on connectivity for every aspect of their life. With the roll-out of higher-performing networks (such as 4G and LTE) and devices that offer seamless connectivity, I predict that 2013 will be the year that we see the decline of the “transaction-based” user and the rise of the “always-connected” user. Operators will vie for consumer loyalty by offering attractive pricing models, fuelling the trend for 24/7 connectivity. Businesses will leverage this phenomenon and increasingly turn to social media and communities to host a larger portion of their customer experience and support processes. While this will transform engagement models; to be successful, operators and business will need to ensure that their back-end networks can meet user expectations. In situations such as this, even one service disruption could be fatal to the customer relationship. 3. Cloud under the microscope Last year Brocade predicted that non-IT organizations would move towards “Cloud Service Provisioning” in order to uncover new ways of optimizing and monetizing cloud and service provider networks. For the next 12 months, I see this trend continuing, but in an evolved state. First, businesses will scrutinize the impact of the cloud, its benefits, usage and ROI more than ever before. For example, are deployments delivering the agility and cost savings predicted? Are users benefitting? How can one measure cloud ROI when, by design, the assets are not owned by the organization? With this in mind, I predict that IT organizations will attempt to take back control of their own assets and budgets and the deployment of private cloud architectures will accelerate during the second half of the year. IT organizations will also challenge the new breed of service provider by offering competing hosted services. This strategy will help them to bolster revenue opportunities from a market that will be worth USD 73 billion by 2015. This will be good news for users, but will need to be accompanied by a thorough evaluation strategy to ensure that performance, resilience and cost models meet organizational expectations. 4. Customers bite back on vendor lock-in As consumers, we don’t like being shackled. More generally, “product de-siloing” is a clear macro-trend. Whether it is the flexibility to personalize apps on our phone, or select the optional extras on our vehicles, choice is paramount. Within the networking space, choice is even more imperative. As alliances ebb and flow, and integrated offerings continue to break into the mainstream, the importance of open architectures and multivendor solutions will become more prevalent in 2013. Trust is essential when building a network to support mission-critical applications, and enterprises will turn to trusted vendors to deploy flexible and scalable solutions. As such, those vendors not able to coexist in multivendor environments will struggle in this more demanding, and competitive, landscape. Only the agile and collaborative will prosper, and I expect at least one major vendor casualty in the coming year. 5. Technology will begin to overcome human shortcomings I remember when desktop icons did not exist; a time when a user had to manually type the name of an application in a shell-like text window to access applications. This was time-consuming, error-prone and frustrating, but the desktop icon revolutionized the user experience. Innovations such as this overcame human shortcomings and simplified the user experience, and I predict more such innovations over the next 12 months. Think of voice-command devices and the fact that modern smartphones can deliver communications, content and compute services in a single form-factor. This kind of human multitasking would not happen, but technology has innovated to such a degree that it is now second nature to even the most basic user. I expect more breakthrough advances this year. Read More Read More ...
L&T Infotech targets SMBs with App Shop Research firm, Zinnov, estimates that with over 50 million units, India has the largest number of SMBs across the world. While more than one-third of India’s GDP is attributed to the SMB sector, most SMBs are still struggling to compete with large players as most of them do not adequately leverage information technology. A large number of SMBs have still not looked at using IT as a catalyst for driving growth, as they have traditional challenges such as skill set availability and affordable and customized IT products. This market is up for grabs as ambitious SMBs who are increasingly getting connected to their global counterparts, are now looking at using technology to improve their efficiencies and productivity. Not surprisingly, a host of vendors, system integrators and pure play cloud startups have started tapping this attractive market by offering a host of customized solutions. The latest one to announce plans for tapping this huge market is L&T Infotech. L&T Infotech has ambitious plans for making a mark in this segment in the next one year, and has accordingly chalked out a detailed strategy. Explaining the positioning, Abhay Chitnis, VP & CTO, L&T Infotech, says, “Ours is a uniq
Google links Gmail to drive for huge attachments The first automatically encoded email attachment was sent over 20 years ago, on March 11, 1992, by then Bellcore researcher Nathaniel Borenstein, using what would become the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) protocol. It was 406 KB, or thereabouts, assuming the .wav file posted on Borenstein's website is unaltered. Since then, files have put on weight. Graphics files, music files and video files today are routinely measured in tens or hundreds of megabytes, even gigabytes. Internet users, however, still want to send files via email. ISPs, in an effort to prevent overloaded networks, tend to impose limits on email attachments. These limits vary, but tend to be in the 10-25 MB range, with a few services allowing larger files. Google however wants to appear more generous still: It is offering Gmail users a way to email files of up to 10 GB. "Have you ever tried to attach a file to an email only to find out it's too large to send?" wrote Google product manager Phil Sharp in a blog post. "Now with Drive, you can insert files up to 10 GB -- 400 times larger than what you can send as a traditional attachment." However, Google isn't actually changing the mechanics of email attachments. It is integrating Gmail and Google Drive so that the process of attaching a file using Gmail saves the file in the user's Drive storage space. So when the user sends the attached file, he or she ends up sending a pointer to where the file resides in Google's cloud, a URL. Message recipients can then access the file, using the emailed URL to download it from Google Drive or simply to view it in a browser. For Gmail users, the distinction between MIME attachments and Drive attachments isn't likely to matter. It would only come into play if, for example, if the recipient of an email with an attachment immediately went offline. A traditional attachment, within allowed size parameters, would be downloaded automatically by an appropriately configured mail client and would thereafter be available without an Internet connection. A Drive attachment, being just a link until accessed, would be inaccessible if the message recipient was offline. Google isn't doing anything particularly new here: Cloud storage services like Dropbox and Box handle file sharing in a similar way. But Google has made Gmail more useful as a business tool, given that email remains the preferred collaboration application for many people. It has made Gmail into an alternative interface for Drive. In so doing, Google may gain a competitive advantage over standalone cloud storage services -- the popularity of Gmail is likely to encourage more use of Drive, potentially at the expense of other cloud storage competitors. Read More Read More ...
Top 5 tech trends for 2013: Verizon The New Year will see greater adoption of advanced technology to meet changing demands of enterprises while increasing productivity and creating new experiences for customers, according to Verizon’s top business-tech trends for 2013. Verizon Enterprise Solutions has predicted top five business-tech trends and investment areas for enterprises, which include cloud, connected machines, mobility, intelligent networks and security. Here are the Verizon Enterprise Solutions five top business-tech trends: The Forecast Is Bright for Hybrid Clouds Distributed data centers and the intelligent wired and mobile networks that connect them now represent a viable alternative to traditional virtual private network (VPN) methods that long have formed the backbone of distributed enterprise communications for a generation. Next year, there will be a significant shift from VPNs to public, private and, importantly, hybrid clouds. “By 2013, more than 60 percent of all enterprises will have adopted some form of cloud computing,” according to a Gartner report. To keep up with the changing demands of today’s enterprise, the ideal platform needs to be secure and easy to use and configure,” said Small. “In 2013, if you can’t switch workloads between public and private clouds, you won’t be competitive. This next year will require a bold approach to embracing change and re-engineering networks in support of cloud-based applications.” Examples of recent cloud advancements include healthcare clouds that help the healthcare industry address the privacy requirements under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA); clouds that help retail and other business transactions comply with Payment Card Industry standards; and clouds that help the public sector comply with the Federal Information Security Management Act. The Mobile Majority Is Taking Charge According to Forrester, “A full 66 percent of employees now use two or more mobile devices for work”2 — and that has far-reaching implications. “Employees – and the customers they serve – have less and less separation between their work and private lives. Enterprises in 2013 must accommodate and prioritize this new demand for efficiency and productivity, and information technology departments will play a key role in meeting the growing appetite for professional mobility on a personal level,” Small said. As a result, companies will increasingly adopt cloud-based enterprise mobility strategies —creating “personal clouds” where employees can use enterprise applications to do their jobs more effectively. In addition, companies will be more proactive in tackling the challenges associated with dealing with the division of employees’ personal and professional lives, by using mobile-device management and private application storefronts to create a more secure, mobile work environment. Connected Machines Drive New Insights The “Internet of things” has arrived and it will continue to grow to meet specific industry requirements. According to a Gartner report, “In 2011, over 15 billion things on the Web with 50 billion+ intermittent connections will grow by 2020 to over 30 billion connected things, with over 200 billion with intermittent connections.” Machine-to-machine (M2M) connections now cover much more than smart energy delivery and smart cars. For example, elaborate networks of sensors with direct machine-to-machine connections now underpin connected health care and the first consumer-ready wave of automotive telematics. “Verizon’s acquisition of Hughes Telematics, Inc. will help fuel this evolution,” said Small. “In 2013, this dramatic growth will extend to retail, finance and manufacturing.” The ability to collect, store and analyze overwhelming volumes of data will define which enterprises extract the best insights and make the most agile decisions, to their competitive advantage. As a result, all enterprises – both business and government – will need to work with vendors having strong and global ecosystems. Networks will be smarter than you and invisible An intelligent fabric that connects everything and everyone will render underlying networks invisible to end users, even as overall IP traffic grows at a compound annual growth rate of 29 percent through 2016, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index. "Improvements in network reliability and resiliency, coupled with intelligent end points, serve as the foundation for connecting smart machines and smarter people,” Small said. “We will see a shift in 2013 to more dynamic networks, pervasive IP connections, and purpose-built networks that serve businesses, consumers and society. Security is the new arms race In 2013, security will move out of the specialist realm and become a mainstream IT must-have. Security breaches span access, infrastructure and apps. They happen on fixed and mobile networks. They impact physical, intellectual and financial capital. And the scope is global, according to the “Verizon 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report.” “We expect identity security to be a much more prevalent issue in 2013,” Small said. “Two-factor authentication is already gaining adherents, but it won’t be enough to counteract the increasing amount and intensity of criminal activity pursuing both intellectual property and financial gain.” Read More Read More ...
Worldwide PaaS revenue on pace to reach USD 1.2 billion in 2012, says Gartner Worldwide Platform as a Service (PaaS) revenue is on pace to reach USD 1.2 billion in 2012, up from USD 900 million in 2011, according to Gartner. The market will experience consistent growth with worldwide PaaS revenue totaling 1.5 billion in 2013, and growing to USD 2.9 billion in 2016. The category of PaaS includes suites of application infrastructure services, such as application platforms as a service (aPaaS) and integration platforms as a service (iPaaS); as well as specialist application infrastructure services, such as database platform as a service, business process management platform as a service, messaging as a service and other functional types of middleware offered as a cloud service. Users may subscribe to a cloud provider's PaaS or may buy a cloud-enabled application infrastructure product and build their own PaaS for private cloud (private PaaS) or public cloud consumption. "Of all the cloud technological aspects, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) are the most mature and established from a competitive landscape perspective, while PaaS is the least evolved," said Fabrizio Biscotti, research director at Gartner. "For this reason, PaaS is where the battle between vendors and products is set to intensify the most. It comes as no surprise that the PaaS competitive landscape is still in flux, with traditional application infrastructure vendors facing competition from new large players moving into the market, and myriad specialized PaaS pure players cutting into their slice of profits." The largest segments within the PaaS market are cloud application platform services (aPaaS), accounting for 34.4 percent of total PaaS spending in 2012; cloud application life cycle management (ALM) services (almPaaS) at 12 percent; cloud BPM platform services (bpmPaaS) at 11.6 percent; and cloud integration services (iPaaS) at 11.4 percent. Gartner predicts that the potential spending in PaaS technologies is an average of USD 360 million per year from 2011 through 2016. More than 70 percent of PaaS functionality today can be referenced to an application infrastructure and middleware (AIM) capability, calling for AIM vendors to consider PaaS in their offerings or to have a strategy to address the needs of those clients looking at cloud for future deployments. Today, the largest AIM vendors have only marginal share of the PaaS market (lead by Microsoft and some IBM acquisitions), and this leaves the door open for more competitive landscape disruption over the next three years since many of the largest enterprise software vendors are on the cusp of entering the PaaS market with their own offerings. "The fundamental appeal of PaaS is the opportunity for ISVs (independent software vendors) and IT organizations to create new software solutions with minimal capital expense and without the hassle of provisioning and configuring the underlying infrastructure," said Yefim Natis, distinguished analyst at Gartner. "To many SMBs (small or midsize businesses), in addition, PaaS offers the chance to take advantage of some state of the art enabling technologies, they otherwise could not afford. Finally, the popularity of SaaS also drives adoption of PaaS for customization, extension and integration of the cloud-based applications." Despite ongoing economic uncertainties, mature economies, which are also the most mature IT markets, such as the U.S., Western Europe and Japan, are on the forefront of PaaS adoption. PaaS spending globally is relatively small, and it is almost entirely generated by the U.S., with 42 percent of the market, followed by Western Europe and Mature Asia/Pacific. All mature economies combined, account for almost 90 percent of worldwide PaaS spending. Emerging markets are currently only marginally investing in PaaS, but this trend is expected to change as PaaS matures as a technology and the vendor landscape consolidates around fewer mainstream players that have the capability to service wider geographies. "All software mega-vendors are strategically investing in the PaaS market despite the relatively modest projected market revenue," said Natis. "Application infrastructure, and in this case application infrastructure as a service (PaaS), has always played a central role in establishing the standards, architectures and best practices in enterprise software markets. The vendors expect their leadership in the PaaS market to translate to large and effective ecosystems of partners, developers and solutions. PaaS technologies are embedded in many other types of cloud services — all major opportunity channels. The direct revenue in the PaaS market grossly underestimates the importance of this part of the cloud architecture." Read More Read More ...
Worldwide enterprise IT spending forecast to grow 2.5 percent next year: Gartner Worldwide enterprise IT spending is forecast to total USD 2.679 trillion in 2013, a 2.5 percent increase of projected 2012 spending of USD 2.603 trillion, according to Gartner, Inc. Banking, communications, media and services (CMS) and manufacturing are expected to offer the largest volume of growth opportunities through 2016. "The global economic outlook has deteriorated in 2012, leading to scant overall growth in enterprise IT spending," said Kenneth Brant, Research Director at Gartner. "However, our third-quarter outlook points to more substantial growth in 2013, if significant fiscal crises are avoided in the U.S. and Europe, and in subsequent years. Most enterprises have already significantly cut discretionary IT spending growth over the past several years and, barring a global economic catastrophe and significant contraction of operations, they have little room to reduce IT spending further over the long run." Manufacturing and natural resources sector will lead the vertical markets with total spending expected to reach USD 478 billion in 2013, up 2.3 percent from USD 467 billion in 2012. Manufacturers typically plan and manage a significant portion of their IT costs in expectation of changes in their sales. Additionally, manufacturers worldwide have been steadily reducing their IT purchases as a percentage of their sales since the recession of 2008. The manufacturing industry's IT buying center has adopted tighter IT cost controls amid a myriad of mixed market signals. However, IT spending rates are expected will bottom out in 2013 and will be resilient over the long run, as business confidence is restored and the value proposition of a nexus of new technology forces — social, mobile, big data and cloud — is increasingly championed by senior leaders. The banking and securities sector will have strong growth in 2013 and is expected to reach USD 460 billion in 2013, up 3.5 percent from USD 445 billion in 2012. Banking and securities is an IT-intensive industry, spending approximately three times as much on IT as a percentage of revenue than the average of all industries. This trend is expected to continue due to a significant amount of IT required to run activities such as lending, payments, trading and risk management. The CMS sector is forecast to grow 3 percent in 2013 to USD 426 billion, up from USD 414 billion in 2012. Firms in the CMS sectors will typically spend approximately 5 percent of their revenue on IT on average over a five-year period, well above the median for all industries. "Several subsectors within CMS are heavily IT-intensive. Professional and IT services firms, communications service providers, software and Internet services, and media companies invest considerably in IT across hardware, software, IT services, internal services and telecommunications," Brant said. "With demands for a secure Internet connected backbone and faster wireless data services, coupled with the pervasiveness of social media and video, these industries will need to continue to invest in IT." In the short term, transportation and insurance will also be high-growth sectors with both reaching more than 4 percent growth in 2013. IT spending in the transportation sector is expected to total USD 126 billion in 2013, up from USD 121 billion in 2012. IT spending in insurance will reach USD 187 billion in 2013, up from USD 179 billion in 2012. In 2012, government IT spending is forecast to decline 2 percent and the decline is expected to continue through 2013. In 2013, government IT spending is forecast to total USD 445 billion, down from USD 447 billion in 2012. "Austerity measures and budgetary reductions have affected government spending worldwide as measured by the reconciliation of government budget proposals across the U.S. and Europe," said Brant. "However, in some respects, IT budgets are being "decoupled" from the overall operating pressures facing governments. At the same time, government organizations recognize that new technology investments may help reduce the cost of service delivery, improve operational efficiency or reduce future expenditure. Consequently, government IT spending intensity is beginning to diverge from traditional operational spending trends." Large industry market operating under fiscal pressure, such as government, can also provide market opportunities as IT departments must strive to modernize and increase service levels without increasing resources. The need for greater efficiency and productivity gains in industries operating under severe fiscal constraints can also create opportunities for disruptive IT innovation and for the displacement of incumbent IT market leaders. Read More Read More ...
It’s time to value information that’s driving thirst for data analytics, says EMC CTO EMC has chalked out its technology roadmap for 2013 with focus on cloud computing and big data analytics built on a pillar of trust. “All our product roadmap and innovation are targeted at these three pillars,” Jeff Nick, Senior VP and CTO, EMC told InformationWeek. Nick said that though cloud is over hyped, there is a fundamental disruption and shift occurring in the IT industry with the cloud. “It has taken a long time to get us here but it’s finally here and enterprises and public Internet companies today are adopting cloud capabilities ranging from private, public and hybrid cloud.” Given its huge benefit potential, EMC has also internally adopted cloud infrastructure and virtualization for hosting internal apps as well as outsourcing certain apps to public cloud providers. The company claims to have achieved USD 112 million and USD 66 million of CAPEX savings and OPEX savings respectively with their private cloud journey. Commenting on their second area of focus – big data – Nick said that while cloud is changing IT, big fast data is really changing the world. “It’s time to value information that is really driving the thirst for data analytics and the ultimate value proposition is to go for cloud data analytics. More and more data is being generated outside the data center firewall which is more complex.” Disruptive technologies like cloud and big data require constant innovation and EMC has been investing significantly on R&D to stay ahead of the curve. EMC has spent USD 10.5 billion on R&D between 2003 and 2010 and this figure should only rise over the next eight years, according to EMC Chairman and CEO Joe Tucci. EMC spends 12 percent of its revenue on R&D, which is significant in the IT industry. EMC has thousands of technical R&D employees around the globe and its India center of excellence (COE) is the largest R&D hub outside of its Boston headquarters. EMC India has over 3,500 employees most of which are involved in R&D related activities. “Almost every global product and service has contribution from India and it is what we call a microcosm of EMC global,” said Niranjan Thirumale, CTO, India COE. In tune with its focus on innovation and R&D, EMC recently concluded its sixth Innovation Conference aimed at promoting innovative thinking across EMC’s presence globally and incubating the top ideas to the next stage in the marketplace. Over 2,200 ideas were submitted into this year's Innovation Showcase from across 28 countries, of which, 401 ideas were contributed by EMC’s India COE. Read More Read More ...
Amazon Web Services now available from data centers in Australia Amazon Web Services, an Amazon.com company, today announced the launch of its new Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region, the ninth Region in which the company has deployed its global cloud computing platform. Australia-based businesses and global companies with customers in Australia can now leverage the Amazon Web Services (AWS) technology infrastructure platform to build their businesses and run their applications in the Cloud. The newly launched Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region is the third Region in Asia Pacific for AWS (joining the Singapore and Tokyo Regions), and is now available for any business or software developer to get started using today at http://aws.amazon.com. This new Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region consists of two separate Availability Zones at launch. Availability Zones refer to data centers in separate distinct locations within a single Region that are engineered to be operationally independent of other Availability Zones, with independent power, cooling, physical security, and are connected via a low latency network. AWS customers focused on running high availability applications can architect their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even higher fault-tolerance. Prior to the launch of AWS in early 2006, businesses were incurring massive capital expenses from building their own infrastructure or from contracting with a vendor for a fixed amount of data center capacity that they might or might not use. This choice meant either paying for wasted capacity or having to worry that the amount of capacity they forecasted was insufficient to keep pace with their growth. Many organizations spent time and money managing their own data center or a co-location facility, which meant time not spent on growing their actual business or differentiating their offering for customers. Over the past 6.5 years, AWS has changed the way organizations acquire technology infrastructure — incur no up-front expenses or long-term commitments, turn capital expense into variable operating expense, scale quickly and seamlessly by adding or shedding resources at any time, get to market much more quickly with new and critical ideas, and free up scarce engineering resources from the undifferentiated heavy lifting of running backend infrastructure—all without sacrificing operational performance, reliability or security. “Over 10,000 customers in Australia and New Zealand are already using AWS, and this is before opening our new AWS Region in Australia today,” said Andy Jassy, Senior Vice President, Amazon Web Services. “With the ability to achieve single-digit millisecond latency to end users in Sydney, store data locally in Australia, and get to market more quickly and inexpensively by using AWS’s unmatched infrastructure technology platform, we expect the launch of AWS’s Sydney Region to further increase the amount of Australian and New Zealand customers leveraging AWS.“ Among the more than 10,000 customers in Australia and New Zealand that are already using AWS include the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, City of Melbourne, REA Group Limited, MYOB, Hooroo, RedBalloon, Brandscreen, Viocorp, Think: Education Group, Halfbrick, Freelancer, 99designs, Domayne, Joyce Mayne, Cotton On, Snapper, PredictWind and Harvey Norman. In addition to a broad base of customers, AWS has a vibrant partner ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand that has built innovative solutions and services on AWS. Some of the local Systems Integrators include: ASG, Bulletproof Networks, Fronde, Industrie IT, The Frame Group, Melbourne IT, SMS IT and Sourced Group. Among the many local Independent Software Vendors are: Aviarc, Deputy.com, Objective Corporation, Sirca and Technology One. Together with other AWS Partner Network members such as Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, ESRI, RightScale, Wipro and Cognizant, these companies have made or will soon be making their services available on AWS in the new Sydney Region, making it even easier for organizations to take full advantage of the AWS Cloud. For the full list of the members of the AWS Partner Network, please refer to: https://aws.amazon.com/solution-providers. Developers and businesses can access AWS services from the new Sydney Region beginning today, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), Amazon DynamoDB, AWS CloudFront, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), AWS Direct Connect, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS CloudFormation, AWS Storage Gateway, Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), Amazon Route 53, Auto Scaling, Elastic Load Balancing, VM Import and VM Export. More details on each of these services and specific pricing for each is available at http://aws.amazon.com/products/ Amazon has already established a subsidiary in Australia with offices across Sydney, Melbourne and Perth to support enterprises, government agencies, academic institutions, small-to-mid size companies, start-ups and developers on their use of AWS. Amazon will also be adding a local technical support operation in Australia early next year, as part of the AWS global network of support center operations that supports customers around the world. The Australian support operations will help customers of all sizes and technical abilities to successfully utilize the products and features provided by AWS. AWS Support is a one-on-one, fast-response support channel that is staffed 24x7x365 with experienced and technical support engineers. For more details on the multiple tiers of services within AWS Support, Read More Read More ...
EMC launches cloud computing and Big Data analytics courses in India EMC Corporation announced professional training and certification courses to help Indian businesses address skill transformation and the looming cloud computing and data science talent gap. EMC will offer cloud computing, data science and Big Data analytics training and certification programs with an "open" curriculum to help develop professionals who can extract more value and insight for competitive advantage from the new expanse of data that businesses create and capture. In addition, the company aims to train over 30,000 engineering students in the first year itself as part of its EAA program. The new data science and Big Data analytics training and certification would help build a foundation for data analytics with a focus on the opportunities and challenges presented by Big Data, as per the company’s media release. The new cloud infrastructure and services associate-level training and certification will provide a foundation of technical principles and concepts to enable all IT professionals who will be required to collaboratively make informed business and technical decisions on migration to the cloud. The expert-level Cloud Architect IT-as-a-Service training and certification will help IT professionals – cloud architects, designers and consultants – evolve virtualized infrastructures into cloud-based, IT-as-a-Service environments that fully realize the agility and cost efficiencies that cloud computing offers. According to Rajesh Janey, President, EMC India & SAARC “In the emerging digital era, individual need and sentiment has become more prevalent thanks to the proliferation of social and other online networks. Businesses and Government have the opportunity to understand this on a mass scale in real time and take necessary steps that will transform services and service delivery forever. While India has the necessary technical manpower, it is important to skill them in these new areas in order to leverage the power of analytics and deliver benefits. Our new courses will address that gap and provide industry certification and skills development in the areas of cloud computing and Big Data analytics.” In addition to customers and partners, EMC will offer these courses to their university partners through its EMC Academic Alliance (EAA) program, an EMC initiative that aims to collaborate with the leading educational institutions around the world to address the emerging knowledge gap in the areas of cloud computing and data science and Big Data analytics. EMC is offering flexible learning options by providing participants the choice to learn at their own pace via Video-instructor-led Training (VILT) or classroom instructor-led courses. Read More Read More ...
Big Data top reason to deploy PaaS: IBM study In a world awash in data, where complexity is on the rise and the pace of innovation has never been faster, the need to streamline new application development is driving demand for a relatively new form of cloud computing known as Platform as a Service (PaaS), according to a study by IBM Center for Applied Insights. Looking at opportunity, IBM has announced a PaaS offering to help organizations build and deploy their own software applications quickly and effectively by renting IBM's PaaS cloud computing platform of integrated middleware, monitoring, networks, servers and storage. IBM’s survey of more than 1,500 IT decision makers from 18 countries found that forward looking IT leaders are blazing the trail with early adoption of PaaS for business advantage – citing Big Data as the #1 reason amongst several strategic initiatives they were targeting. The study also showed that nearly 20 percent of respondents are currently using PaaS, although more than half recognize the opportunity. Business and technology leaders are beginning to seek out this new type of cloud computing to keep computing costs low and to expedite delivery of new products and services. Unlike other cloud computing services, such as Infrastructure as a Service and Software as a Service, PaaS uniquely offers a foundation of common application services, tools and templates for businesses to rent and build their own powerful software applications quickly and deploy them into an automated environment. “Just as auto makers have used common platforms or chassis to manufacture their lines of cars more efficiently, PaaS allows organizations to standardize their IT platform and quickly introduce new competitive offerings," said Erich Clementi, Senior Vice President of IBM Global Technology Services. The study found that 49 percent of IT decision-makers see the strategic importance of PaaS as a way to drive innovation and improve the whole application lifecycle across the enterprise. They are now contemplating using PaaS as a pragmatic approach to future expansion. The IT decision-makers believe PaaS can drive greater differentiation and strategic impact for a business, by standardizing efforts for development, deployment, production and maintenance. Client Pioneers for PaaS The study identified a group of early adopting PaaS “Pioneers” (comprised 16 percent of the survey respondents) who saw the strategic benefits of PaaS as a way to innovate. The research showed the more strategic the benefit, the greater separation between the Pioneers and the rest of the respondents.
- Among Pioneers, 52 percent are driving towards application integration and better data management.
- The current and planned usage rate for Pioneers is three times higher for analytics than other respondents.
- Pioneers were almost twice as likely to identify pattern-related qualities, such as portable, standardized, and repeatable, as highly valuable compared with the rest of the respondents.
How technology is transforming government services Not long ago, government services were synonymous with piles of files, long queues, tardy processes, and endless wait to avail services. However, the use of emerging technologies to deliver public services has changed the notion associated with services provided by the government agencies. Today, many government offices have not only made their internal processes digital and efficient, but have also started converting tedious manual citizen-facing public processes into simple electronic formats, wherein the citizens are not even required to physically step into the office to avail a particular service. The government is increasingly investing in technology solutions to improve public service delivery and ensure transparent, timely and hassle-free delivery of citizen services. And the investments are driven mainly by the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), which aims to draw public services closer to the citizens and the Right to Information Act (RTI) 2005, which mandates digitization of files and records, and use of workflow solutions for processes and file movements by public authorities. “We hear from various research analysts that total IT spend, including hardware, software and services, for government in 2012 could be around USD 5,000 million, spread across enterprise applications, industry-specific solutions, software packaged applications, ERP, CRM and associated hardware,” says Sitaram Venkat, Director Enterprise Solutions Business, Dell India. Agrees Atul Khatavkar, VP, IT Governance Risk Compliance, AGC Networks, “The expenditure on IT has become triple-fold in the past four years and we forecast an exponential rise further. This rapid growth in the domestic market is most likely to be driven by government’s focus on creating applications and IT infrastructure that is transparent, secure, and scalable and can help citizens to avail government services.” Some transformational IT projects taken by the government that have drastically improved the quality of citizen services include online filing of income tax, passport e-seva, land records digitization, etc. With e-seva Passport service, citizens are no longer required to wait in long queues; the process can be done online, which has reduced the time for procuring a passport, from months to days.
Top 10 strategic technology trends for 2013: Gartner Gartner has highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2013. These technologies will impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives. David Cearley, Vice President, Gartner says, “Technologies are emerging amidst a nexus of converging forces - social, mobile, cloud and information. Although these forces are innovative and disruptive on their own, together they are revolutionizing business and society, disrupting old business models and creating new leaders.” The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2013 include: Mobile Device Battles By 2013 mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access device worldwide and that by 2015 over 80 percent of the handsets sold in mature markets will be smartphones, according to Gartner. However, only 20 percent of those handsets are likely to be Windows phones. By 2015 media tablet shipments will reach around 50 percent of laptop shipments and Windows 8 will likely be in third place behind Google’s Android and Apple iOS operating systems. Consumerization will mean enterprises won't be able to force users to give up their iPads or prevent the use of Windows 8 to the extent consumers adopt consumer targeted Windows 8 devices. Enterprises will need to support a greater variety of form factors reducing the ability to standardize PC and tablet hardware. The implications for IT is that the era of PC dominance with Windows as the single platform will be replaced with a post-PC era where Windows is just one of a variety of environments IT will need to support. Mobile Applications and HTML5 The market for tools to create consumer and enterprise facing apps is complex with well over 100 potential tools vendors. Currently, Gartner separates mobile development tools into several categories. For the next few years, no single tool will be optimal for all types of mobile application so expect to employ several. Six mobile architectures – native, special, hybrid, HTML 5, Message and No Client will remain popular. However, there will be a long term shift away from native apps to Web apps as HTML5 becomes more capable. Nevertheless, native apps won't disappear, and will always offer the best user experiences and most sophisticated features. Developers will also need to develop new design skills to deliver touch-optimized mobile applications that operate across a range of devices in a coordinated fashion. Personal Cloud The personal cloud will gradually replace the PC as the location where individuals keep their personal content, access their services and personal preferences and center their digital lives. It will be the glue that connects the web of devices they choose to use during different aspects of their daily lives. The personal cloud will entail the unique collection of services, Web destinations and connectivity that will become the home of their computing and communication activities. Users will see it as a portable, always-available place where they go for all their digital needs. In this world no one platform, form factor, technology or vendor will dominate and managed diversity and mobile device management will be an imperative. The personal cloud shifts the focus from the client device to cloud-based services delivered across devices. Enterprise App Stores Enterprises face a complex app store future as some vendors will limit their stores to specific devices and types of apps forcing the enterprise to deal with multiple stores, multiple payment processes and multiple sets of licensing terms. By 2014, many organizations will deliver mobile applications to workers through private application stores, says Gartner. With enterprise app stores the role of IT shifts from that of a centralized planner to a market manager providing governance and brokerage services to users and potentially an ecosystem to support apptrepreneurs. The Internet of Things The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that describes how the Internet will expand as physical items such as consumer devices and physical assets are connected to the Internet. Key elements of the IoT which are being embedded in a variety of mobile devices include embedded sensors, image recognition technologies and NFC payment. As a result, mobile no longer refers only to use of cellular handsets or tablets. Cellular technology is being embedded in many new types of devices including pharmaceutical containers and automobiles. Smartphones and other intelligent devices don't just use the cellular network, they communicate via NFC, Bluetooth, LE and Wi-Fi to a wide range of devices and peripherals, such as wristwatch displays, healthcare sensors, smart posters, and home entertainment systems. The IoT will enable a wide range of new applications and services while raising many new challenges. Hybrid IT and Cloud Computing As staffs have been asked to do more with less, IT departments must play multiple roles in coordinating IT-related activities, and cloud computing is now pushing that change to another level. A recently conducted Gartner IT services survey revealed that the internal cloud services brokerage (CSB) role is emerging as IT organizations realize that they have a responsibility to help improve the provisioning and consumption of inherently distributed, heterogeneous and often complex cloud services for their internal users and external business partners. The internal CSB role represents a means for the IT organization to retain and build influence inside its organization and to become a value center in the face of challenging new requirements relative to increasing adoption of cloud as an approach to IT consumption. Strategic Big Data Big Data is moving from a focus on individual projects to an influence on enterprises’ strategic information architecture. Dealing with data volume, variety, velocity and complexity is forcing changes to many traditional approaches. This realization is leading organizations to abandon the concept of a single enterprise data warehouse containing all information needed for decisions. Instead they are moving towards multiple systems, including content management, data warehouses, data marts and specialized file systems tied together with data services and metadata, which will become the "logical" enterprise data warehouse. Actionable Analytics Analytics is increasingly delivered to users at the point of action and in context. With the improvement of performance and costs, IT leaders can afford to perform analytics and simulation for every action taken in the business. The mobile client linked to cloud-based analytic engines and big data repositories potentially enables use of optimization and simulation everywhere and every time. This new step provides simulation, prediction, optimization and other analytics, to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action. In Memory Computing In memory computing (IMC) can also provide transformational opportunities. The execution of certain-types of hours-long batch processes can be squeezed into minutes or even seconds allowing these processes to be provided in the form of real-time or near real-time services that can be delivered to internal or external users in the form of cloud services. Millions of events can be scanned in a matter of a few tens of millisecond to detect correlations and patterns pointing at emerging opportunities and threats "as things happen." The possibility of concurrently running transactional and analytical applications against the same dataset opens unexplored possibilities for business innovation. Numerous vendors will deliver in-memory-based solutions over the next two years driving this approach into mainstream use. Integrated Ecosystems The market is undergoing a shift to more integrated systems and ecosystems and away from loosely coupled heterogeneous approaches. Driving this trend is the user desire for lower cost, simplicity, and more assured security. Driving the trend for vendors the ability to have more control of the solution stack and obtain greater margin in the sale as well as offer a complete solution stack in a controlled environment, but without the need to provide any actual hardware. The trend is manifested in three levels. Appliances combine hardware and software and software and services are packaged to address and infrastructure or application workload. Cloud-based marketplaces and brokerages facilitate purchase, consumption and/or use of capabilities from multiple vendors and may provide a foundation for ISV development and application runtime. In the mobile world, vendors including Apple, Google and Microsoft drive varying degrees of control across and end-to-end ecosystem extending the client through the apps. Read More Read More ...
Cisco, Citrix extend partnership into networking, cloud and mobility Cisco and Citrix announced a significant expansion of their desktop virtualization partnership into three strategic areas: cloud networking, cloud orchestration, and mobile workstyles. The two companies believe the IT industry is on the verge of the next major architectural transition: the mobile-cloud era. To help enterprise and service provider customers capture the market transition and transform their business models, Cisco and Citrix will collaborate to unify best-of-breed technologies into innovative solutions for the mobile-cloud era. The expanded partnership will include a significant investment in people and resources to drive technology innovation, solution integration and validation, customer support, and joint go-to-market investment on a global basis. As part of the strategy, Cisco and Citrix intend to jointly integrate the Citrix NetScaler application delivery controller (ADC) to seamlessly coexist with other Cisco network and security services, such as Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) and Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA). The companies also intend to integrate Cisco Nexus 1000V with Citrix XenServer to enable enterprise and service provider customers to build clouds based in part on key open source technology. As per the company’s media release, Cisco will continue to fully support existing customers of its Application Control Engine (ACE) product line and will recommend Citrix NetScaler as an alternative to customers who want to deploy a next-generation ADC. "The Nexus of converging forces of social, mobile, cloud and information is dramatically changing data center architectures and how services are delivered. The next generation network has to incorporate best-in-class application delivery controller (ADC) capabilities, integrated into a services architecture that is orchestrated at cloud-scale,” said Joe Skorupa, Vice President, Distinguished Analyst, Gartner. The two companies intend to develop an integrated cloud solution for enterprise and service provider deployments based on the companies' best-in-class portfolios. This will include the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), Cisco Nexus Series switching, and Cisco Open Network Environment (ONE) components, as well as Citrix's cloud orchestration solution — Citrix CloudPlatform, powered by Apache CloudStack. Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, Cisco, said, "As IT enters the mobile-cloud era, IT providers need to be more innovative about addressing customers' fast changing needs. Over the past two years, Cisco and Citrix have collaborated to deliver significant innovation into the market. Now we are excited to accelerate our partnership into cloud, networking and mobility." The companies also intend to develop "mobile workstyle and BYOD" solutions that give mobile users a unified way to securely access business apps, data, voice and collaboration services from any device, anywhere. The joint solution, when developed, will link Cisco collaboration technology, including tighter integration of the Cisco Jabber client, with the Citrix Receiver self-service mobile access client and Citrix CloudGateway for enterprise mobility management. The joint solution will also include Citrix ShareFile for secure, cloud-based "follow-me data" services across any mix of user devices. To enable an optimized, monitored and managed rich-media experience for accessing virtual Windows apps and desktops from mobile devices, Citrix will incorporate Cisco MediaNet into Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp. To secure mobile workers, Cisco and Citrix will link Citrix Receiver, Citrix Access Gateway, and CloudGateway with the Cisco secure access portfolio including Cisco AnyConnect, Cisco ASA, and the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE). Read More Read More ...
SAP launches cloud platform built on Hana SAP jumped into the cloud platform-as-a-service market on Tuesday by launching the first in a series of planned cloud-based application services and database services. Announced at the vendor's annual TechEd conference in Las Vegas, the new services make SAP a more comprehensive cloud player and open up new points of competition with the likes of Oracle and Salesforce.com. Uniting both services is the fact that they run on the Hana in-memory database, creating what SAP chief technology officer Vishal Sikka described as a "RAM-optimized platform" that will set the SAP cloud apart from the competition. In the case of Oracle, Sikka said in-memory-based cloud services would enable companies to reimagine and transform cloud-based apps, not just speed them up--a reference to Oracle's recent Open World claims about performance gains with its latest engineered systems. With its announcements, SAP is now challenging Salesforce.com's Heroku unit with a new Java-based cloud development platform called SAP NetWeaver Cloud. The platform runs on Hana, and its in-memory performance ensures that it won't require the "resource governors" that Sikka said Salesforce.com routinely imposes on customers so it can keep up with cloud computing demands. SAP's new platform is called the SAP Hana Cloud, and it includes both AppServices and DBServices. On the database side the vendor introduced SAP Hana One, a new deployment option on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Hana One is aimed at companies that want to experiment with Hana, stage proof-of-concept projects, or put small-scale in-memory applications in the cloud. Hana One can handle up to 32 gigabytes of end-user data and costs 99 cents per hour for SAP's software and another USD 2.50 per hour for AWS EC2 compute capacity, for a total cost of USD 3.49 per hour. SAP had previously offered free Hana developer licenses of Hana on AWS, but data loads were limited to megabytes rather than gigabytes. "At that price point it's pretty hard not to be interested," said Hana customer Adam Recktenwald, enterprise architect at the University of Kentucky, in an interview with InformationWeek. "It would have made it easier to justify an on-premises deployment." The University of Kentucky completed a three-month on-premises deployment of Hana in March and then spent two months performing its first proof-of-concept (POC) project. Had Hana One been available at the time, the school could have saved weeks if not months on the POC effort. Looking beyond Hana One, SAP plans to provide more database-as-a-service options, but Sikka said those services won't be detailed until November. Leveraging the processing power of Hana's in-memory technology, SAP's planned database services will also include certain application-level services, Sikka said, including user management, session management, user authentication, http Web services, and language runtimes. "The separation of the application server and the database server into different tiers is a construct of inefficient [legacy] infrastructure," Sikka told InformationWeek in a one-on-one interview. That argument echoes what SAP has described as the "artificial" separation of today's analytical and transactional environments, and it's another example of the simplification SAP is promising by consolidating layers of obsolete infrastructure with Hana processing power. On the application services side, SAP announced the general availability of SAP NetWeaver Cloud, which is a Java-based development platform as a service for building, deploying, and managing applications in the cloud. Support for Eclipse and industry standard tools will also support the use of Ruby, PHP, and other programming models, according to SAP. More than just NetWeaver pushed into the cloud, the platform runs on Hana and is licensed on an open source model, SAP said. Given the familiarity of NetWeaver to SAP developers, applications built on NetWeaver Cloud are most likely to be integrated with SAP's on-premises or cloud-based applications, or used as extensions to them. But the platform is also suitable for building entirely new, stand-alone applications from scratch, according to SAP. NetWeaver cloud includes integration services, portal services, and mobile services, as well as federated ID management and single-sign-on capabilities. To make the platform more attractive to cloud developers, SAP has introduced free, unlimited developer licenses that eliminate 90-day usage restrictions. Customer adoption will obviously go a long way toward validating SAP's budding cloud platform. But what would also help would be adoption by third-party software vendors as well as systems integrators and resellers. That would prove the SAP Hana Cloud to be a more open universe than Oracle's go-it-alone, all-red-stack Oracle Cloud. It might also begin to challenge the strength of Salesforce.com's AppExchange and vast cloud community. What might make it harder for SAP to shine as a cloud platform provider (and as a database supplier) is the competitive stakes in applications, business intelligence, and analytics. But SAP executives say that shouldn't be an obstacle. "We're totally open to the ecosystem, and if somebody who might compete with us in other arenas wants to use our database or services, we would have no problem with that," said SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott during a brief question-and-answer session at TechEd. Indeed, an independent embrace of Hana would validate either customer demand or the superiority of SAP's in-memory technology, and that would bolster the company's database and cloud ambitions. Read More Read More ...
GAVS Technologies unifies collaboration in the cloud Microsoft recently announced that GAVS Technologies, unified its communication infrastructure and enhanced productivity by choosing Microsoft Office 365 post a comprehensive evaluation process including Open source & Google Apps. More than 700 users are now using Office 365, and the company is planning for a more extensive migration by increasing the number of users over time. Microsoft’s partner Veeras Infotek assisted the firm in the quick deployment. “The limited access to unified communication, lack of collaboration platform for sharing documents and previous versions of server platforms stood as major road-blocks in the path to bolster productivity, information-sharing and reduction of IT costs,” said Sumit Ganguli, President of GAVS Technologies. “Hence, to keep up with the rapid growth of our businesses and cater to the increasing demand from employees for communication access virtually anytime, anywhere, we sought a compelling cloud solution that would enable us to migrate to the cloud on our own terms.” GAVS Technologies with its global footprint in America, Europe, Middle and Far East has its employees in many different time zones. The company has expanded and diversified its business and such growth brings with it the challenge of ensuring reliable, efficient communication and collaboration among increasing numbers of employees in more dispersed locations. Office 365 has given GAVS Technologies a single unified platform for email, instant messaging, collaboration and unified communications. Employees can access virtually anytime, anywhere, and on almost any device, meeting the increased demand for speedier and tighter collaboration across geographies. “Overall, we are very satisfied with the stable performance of Office 365 and have been exploring a more extensive deployment of Office 365,” said Sumit. “We are leveraging productivity in the cloud through Office 365 to achieve new levels of collaboration both internally and externally.” “What’s inspiring about the plans GAVS Technologies has for Office 365 is it really illustrates the power of the cloud by giving its employees a collaborative environment, which would further help to build competitive advantages for the business. Microsoft has given enough reasons to GAVS Technologies to choose Office 365 over Google Apps, as Office 365 is a true productivity suite designed from the ground up to meet business requirements for security, privacy, reliability and manageability,” said Ramkumar Pichai, General Manager - Microsoft Office Division, Microsoft India. Read More Read More ...
Salesforce.com seeks foothold throughout the enterprise Salesforce.com is not trying to replace every application in the enterprise with one of its own. On the other hand, don't be surprised to one day find many enterprise applications turn to a Salesforce.com clearinghouse to get identity management, mobile, and social networking capabilities. What was clear at Dreamforce, the big Salesforce.com show in San Francisco this week, is that Salesforce, at least this year, will be satisfied if its core services and its Force.com platform achieve that much. Doing so would mean a Salesforce.com account would no longer be reserved for the representatives of marketing and sales departments at a company. Many employees, including users of SAP, Oracle PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, or E-Business applications, or even custom, in-house applications, would have their identity and access privileges granted by the Salesforce system. Salesforce might end up in that position because social networking is becoming a component that cuts across a broad swath of applications, from human resources to manufacturing to CRM, judging by Dreamforce guest speakers this week from GE, Wells Fargo, Rossignol, Kimberley-Clark, Comcast, Macy's, and Nissan. What's more, Salesforce co-founder and senior VP for technology Parker Harris demonstrated the new Identity service Thursday afternoon to an audience of 2,000 attending his Salesforce Platform keynote. Through Identity, end users may access a set of back office applications or mobile applications through a single sign-on into a Salesforce account. Identity is a major addition to Saleforce's core platform. Single sign-on is a longstanding but elusive goal at many companies, which end up with diverse applications, each requiring a separate login. If they can get single sign-on through the Salesforce cloud, it becomes a possible channel for adding users to the Salesforce application set. Salesforce's Identity service is a federated identity management system. It's capable of not simply contacting different identity management systems but uploading their contents on individuals into a single, central identity system. "We don't just use other directories. We build a new, central identity management directory," said Andrew Leigh, director of Salesforce Platform, in an interview following Harris' keynote. The Identity service imports identities from any LDAP directory, Microsoft Active Directory, or any other standards-based directory service and then serves as a central clearinghouse for a broad set of applications, he said. In addition, single sign-on that provides access to both back-office and mobile applications would appeal to many white-collar workers who change workspaces over the course of the day. While Salesforce has sought to expand its reach beyond salesforce automation to marketing and human resources, Identity gives IT managers a reason to adopt a Salesforce service as a solution to the single sign-on problem, and have many different types of white-collar workers use a Salesforce account to gain access to enterprise applications. The Identity service is based on SAML (security assertion markup language) 2.0, a language produced by the OASIS standards group. Another broadening role for Salesforce in the enterprise is through its previously announced Touch platform. Touch is aimed at providing user access to standard applications through mobile devices. It was demonstrated supplying Service Cloud customer relationship services to a Nissan support desk representative named Sam. David Mingle, senior director of customer loyalty at Nissan, illustrated during a keynote on the Service Cloud how Sam could learn from social media that a driver of a Nissan all-electric Leaf vehicle was looking for a way to repair a cracked windshield. Sam would identify a Nissan dealer in the driver's neighborhood, then contact the driver to ask if he can make an appointment for the repair. While doing so, he would note that the driver is due for a 10,000 mile tire rotation and, by the way, did she wish to renew her lease on the car, which expires in 62 days, while at the dealership? The scenario demonstrated future capabilities, because Touch doesn't yet connect Salesforce applications to the iPhone, cited in this case as the driver's handheld device. But it does work with the Apple iPad, and is slated to work with Android and iPhone in the near future. The Canvas, a new service of the Force.com development platform, lets enterprise developers take an existing Web application and make it available through the Salesforce user interface, where Salesforce CRM application data and other Force.com services can be accessed. Developers may also use Canvas in developing custom Java or Ruby applications that need to access Force.com services, such as the collaborative Chatter service. Identity management, cross application connections, mobile application access--"you don't have to worry about any of those things. They're all in the (Force.com) platform," Parker told the group. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
OpenStack poised for cloud leadership The new OpenStack Foundation is taking shape as a potentially potent force in cloud computing. Its governing board has been elected, and working groups are accelerating development in eight technical areas. Perhaps more important, it has organized itself on a self-sustaining basis and now has USD 10 million in the bank to pursue its goals. That could have made it a more formidable competitor to VMware, which has also been active in establishing the vSphere and vCloud product portfolio adopted by many of its customers. At VMworld, outgoing CEO Paul Maritz said VMware has 8,500 service providers offering a VMware-compatible virtualization environment, many of them small co-location and regional data center operators. An early impetus behind OpenStack was to form a broad, united front on behalf of a competitive open source cloud stack before the market was swamped by VMware, a proprietary software vendor. That's why it was somewhat surprising, as the group got organized, when VMware applied to become a member. VMware's membership application followed up its July 23rd USD 1.26 billion acquisition of Nicira, a startup in the network virtualization space. VMware said it would join shortly after the acquisition, but the OpenStack board didn't get around to accepting the application until Aug. 28. VMware became not just a member in good standing, but a gold member, meaning it is committed to supporting developer contributions. In VMware's case, that refers to developers at Nicira, a software-defined networking vendor and OpenStack's technical lead in virtualizing network services in the cloud. The day the Nicira acquisition was announced, nobody was sure whether VMware would use it to aid or slow OpenStack's progress. VMware quickly resolved the issue by publicly announcing its plan to join the organization. "There are a lot of members who compete with each other, yet contribute to the OpenStack code base," said Lew Tucker, CTO of cloud computing at Cisco and vice chairman of the board of directors of the foundation, in an interview with InformationWeek. "Nicira is a heavy contributor. We're confident they [will] keep contributing," he added. VMware's decision to join OpenStack was "a very positive move," said Alan Clark, OpenStack's newly elected chairman of the board. By collaborating with OpenStack, he explained in an interview, VMware customers will end up with good interoperability between their on-premises virtualized environments and public cloud services. Clark is director of new initiatives, emerging standards and open source at the SUSE unit of Attachmate Group. (Attachmate acquired Novell, owner of SUSE Linux, in November 2010.) OpenStack was originally formed in July 2010 by Rackspace and NASA, which combined their Swift storage engine and Nova cloud compute engine, respectively, to initiate a new cloud stack. NASA withdrew as an active sponsor of the project earlier this year, saying it no longer had the resources to co-develop cloud software. That left Rackspace, a San Antonio-based vendor of hosting and cloud services, as the sole sponsor. Many observers wondered how an open source project could thrive with its organization impetus coming from a single vendor. Rackspace itself was sensitive to the problem and transferred governance to a foundation patterned on the Linux Foundation and Apache Software Foundation, open source predecessors that successfully governed large projects. OpenStack boasts 190 member companies, including 500 active contributors, and a total of 5,600 members. Individuals may join for free. The organization raises money by charging member companies for use of its logo in connection with their products: A startup two years old or less pays USD 10,000, while an established company pays USD 25,000. There are currently 36 active OpenStack user groups worldwide. The OpenStack code base has been downloaded 300,000 times in the last two years, but there are few accurate measures of how many OpenStack implementations currently exist. More important than downloads are the distributions of OpenStack cloud software as part of the Canonical Ubuntu Linux and of Attachmate SUSE Linux. OpenStack was envisioned as a common code base on which both public service suppliers and private companies could build a cloud infrastructure, sharing common approaches to services and APIs. Currently, Rackspace, eBay's R&D group, and HP's Enterprise Cloud Services are among its implementers. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
Microsoft launches Windows Server 2012 to power Cloud OS Microsoft recently announced the general availability of Windows Server 2012 where Satya Nadella, President of Microsoft Server and Tools Business described how Windows Server 2012 is a cornerstone of the Cloud OS that provides customers with a modern platform for the world’s applications. “The operating system has always been the heartbeat of IT and is now undergoing a renaissance in the new world of continuous cloud services, connected devices and big data,” Nadella said. “Microsoft’s unique legacy in the most widely used operating systems, applications and cloud services positions us to deliver the Cloud OS, based on Windows Server and Windows Azure, helping customers achieve a datacenter without boundaries.” Microsoft built Windows Server 2012 from the cloud up, applying its experience operating global datacenters that rely on hundreds of thousands of servers to deliver more than 200 cloud services. Windows Server 2012 expands the definition of a server operating system, incorporating traditionally separate technologies, such as advanced storage, networking, virtualization and automation capabilities. In combination with Windows Azure and System Center, Windows Server 2012 can empower customers to manage and deliver applications and services across private, hosted and public clouds. Customers can use their existing skills and investments in systems management, application development, database, identity and virtualization to take advantage of Windows Server 2012 and realize the promise of cloud computing. Many enterprise customers are already seeing tremendous value in early deployments. A survey of 70 early adopter customers from across the globe revealed that they expect, on average, 52 percent reduction in downtime, 41 percent reduction in workload deployment time, and 15 hours of productivity time saved per year, per employee. 91 percent of the companies surveyed expect a reduction in server administration labor, and 88 percent expect reduction in network administration labor. ISGN, a global end-to-end technology, analytics and services provider to more than 400 US mortgage lenders, including 7 of the top 10, is using Windows Server 2012 to build their private cloud infrastructure. “We chose Windows Server 2012 and System Center as it offered best-in-class virtualization and integrated management capabilities“, said Kumaran Mudaliar, VP Information Technology at ISGN. “Designed as a modern platform for world’s applications, Windows Server 2012 changes the IT economics of storage for high availability and continuous services. It further empowers IT to provide users with flexible access to data and applications anywhere on any device with simplified management, security and control” commented Srikanth Karnakota, Director Server and Cloud Business, Microsoft. Read More Read More ...
Unilog gains competitive advantage with Microsoft Office 365 Unilog Content Solutions, a company that specializes in Big Data Analytics and Product Data Management for eCommerce, recently deployed Microsoft Office 365 across its offices in Bangalore, Mysore, and Philadelphia. Unilog’s hosted mail service was the primary pain point as it outgrew its existing solutions, resulting in significant downtimes, loss of mission critical e-mails and difficulty in maintaining a higher mailbox quota. These problems were directly affecting business performance. Hence, to improve reliability and communications while reducing costs, Unilog evaluated hosted solutions from Google and Microsoft but finally adopted Office 365. The company deployed Office 365 due to its ability to maintain a hybrid cloud/on-premises deployment and it fits the varying needs of businesses, providing rich features and functionality. The entire transition to Office 365 was completed in three days with the support of Microsoft Partner – Acropetal Technologies. Suchit Bachalli, Executive Vice President, Unilog Content Solutions, said, “With Office 365, we have experienced significant improvement in the reliability of our messaging system, document sharing, and communication capabilities while reducing IT costs and administration. Also, by reducing the time to react to a situation and take appropriate decisions, we are seen as proactive by our customers. This is very positive for the business. Office 365 clearly delivers far greater value than Google Apps at any price point.” Unilog has seen significant benefits since the time it has moved to the cloud with Office 365 – employee productivity has improved by 12 percent through instant messages, audio/video calling between PCs and online document sharing. The transition has enabled the company to reduce administration, maintenance, IT, and up-gradation costs, thus resulting in lower total cost of ownership. The company has experienced zero downtime, which results in increased reliability. “In today’s hypercompetitive marketplace, it has become increasingly important to empower people and teams to deliver exceptional customer experiences, be more productive, and respond quickly to change and opportunities. Unilog’s decision to implement Office 365 over Google Apps validates our approach to a robust and familiar desktop, browser and mobile clients for access virtually anywhere delivering real value,” said Ramkumar Pichai, General Manager - Microsoft Office Division, Microsoft India. Read More Read More ...
Infinite Computer Solutions introduces cloud-based offering Infinite Computer Solutions, a global provider of application management, infrastructure management, product engineering and mobility &messaging products and solutions, has launched a new cloud-based offering, Infinite Tech-Support as a Service (iTaaS). iTaaS automates, standardizes, transforms and consolidates enterprise IT Infrastructure Management and Operations across the global enterprise in line with ITIL standards, according to the company’s media release. iTaaS caters towards the changes that have occurred in enterprises due to consumerization of IT and rising trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in companies. Doug Fallon, Senior Vice President & Business Head, Infrastructure Management Services, Infinite Computer Solutions (India) Limited said, “BYOD business environments are challenging where only 36 percent of all devices and 48 percent of selected devices are supported in the enterprise or virtually. iTaaS will enable optimization in service delivery processes while closely managing key components of client’s IT portfolio and allowing lower operating costs.” iTaaS is easily adaptable to integrate various devices on the go, and it ensures that standardized support is available to the end users across various channels and medium. It supports multiple channels including voice, text, web and chat. iTaaS also ensures round the clock, global support across the enterprise and virtual locations. Read More Read More ...
Wipro Technologies joins Google Cloud platform partner program Wipro Technologies recently announced that it has joined the Google Cloud platform partner program as a services partner. Recognizing that almost every product or IT service will be either cloud resident or cloud attached, Wipro’s Integrated Cloud Solutions and R&D Services team is eager to leverage Google’s Cloud Platform for Wipro’s IT and R&D customers worldwide. “The Google Cloud Platform partner program enables us to help our clients develop new cloud-based solutions that drive their success in the IT and Product R&D by building on the power of the Google Cloud Platform,” said Dr Anurag Srivastava, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, Wipro Global IT Business. “The Google Cloud Platform offers a broad set of application development, cloud storage, large scale computing, and Big Data capabilities that enable us to deliver on our promise of serving our customers with desired business variability and excellent user experience.” Google’s Cloud Platform products will enable customers to implement cloud app solutions such as mobile apps, social apps, business process apps, and websites, using Google App Engine and Google Cloud SQL. Customers can also implement cloud storage solutions, such as high-end backup and recovery, active archiving, global file sharing/collaboration, and primary SAN/NAS, using Google Cloud Storage. Wipro is looking at providing its customers large-scale computing solutions, such as batch processing, data processing and high performance computing using Google Compute Engine. In addition, Wipro will also provide Big Data solutions, such as interactive tools, trend detection and BI dashboards, using Google BigQuery and Google Prediction API. Read More Read More ...
Tata AIA Life Insurance deploys VMware vSphere for building cloud infrastructure VMware recently announced that Tata AIA Life Insurance Company has selected VMware virtualization and cloud infrastructure technology to help the company reduce capital and operating costs, and accelerate their journey to the cloud. Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited is one of India’s leading life insurance companies with pan-India presence. Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited has deployed VMware vSphere to virtualize the company’s IT infrastructure. The VMware deployment has helped Tata AIA Insurance Company Limited consolidate its IT infrastructure from more than 90 servers to only 10 servers, helping the company save in capital and operational expenditure. Tata AIA Insurance Company Limited has also invested in a disaster recovery solution to protect its IT infrastructure and data with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager. “As one of India’s leading life insurance companies, our priority is to optimize our IT support services and invest those savings back in the business to offer our customers a better experience. After evaluating options available, we were confident that VMware could help us achieve these goals,” said Samrat Das, Chief Information Officer, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company. Indian life insurance companies that seek solutions to optimize their IT agility can differentiate themselves in a highly competitive market with innovative products and customer-centric service offerings so that they can increase their share of the Indian insurance pie. “The highly competitive life insurance market in India requires players to be agile and to be able to quickly respond to changing market dynamics, while saving costs and meeting business objectives,” said T. Srinivasan, managing director, VMware India & SAARC. Read More Read More ...
Staying competitive means moving to the cloud In December 2011, market researcher International Data Corporation (IDC) noted that spending on the IT industry's next dominant platform, built on mobile computing, cloud services, social networking, and big data analytics technologies, is growing at about 18 percent per year and is expected to account for at least 80 percent of IT spending growth through 2020. That's a lot of money. It's compelling evidence that we are in the midst of a fundamental transformation, where information is becoming the primary raw material in organizations large and small and maximizing the value created from that information is the increasingly strategic role of IT. This creates enormous opportunities for companies to find and exploit new market niches that may not have even existed a few years ago. In some respects this isn't news, even if the cutting edge aspects of mobility, cloud, social, and big data are. The companies that grew up on the web have had IT technology at their core. Nearly as well known are examples from companies that design and manufacture high technology components. Or financial services firms that depend on the latest and greatest hardware and software to rapidly price and execute trades. These types of businesses are cutting edge on the “3rd Platform,” as IDC calls it, too—but that's what we've come to expect in these industries. What's most different today is that the cutting-edge IT story doesn't begin and end with such companies. Rather, it's nearly pervasive. In part, this is because access to advanced IT is no longer limited to companies with the budgets to buy and operate rooms full of servers. Startups can now routinely rent computing power by the hour at public cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services and Rackspace. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is arguably even more democratic. SaaS—essentially, hosted applications delivered over the Internet—is primarily for fairly standardized applications that are useful to many different types of organizations rather than something unique and differentiating. Nonetheless, SaaS means that even small firms have access to what's often the exact same software used by huge enterprises; they just pay the same per-user charges. This is important when you consider that, historically, small businesses were often disadvantaged by limited IT resources and skills to handle basic keep-the-lights-on tasks. Now, running the same email or customer relationship management system as larger competitors is as close as an Internet connection and a credit card. However, cutting-edge IT is also far more widespread than in the past for another key reason: technology pervades anything. Media today is digital media. The vast server farms at animation studios such as DreamWorks Animation are perhaps the most obvious example. And their computing needs have only grown as animation has shifted to 3D. But essentially all content is digitized in various forms. For example, sports clips are catalogued and indexed so that they can be retrieved at a moment's notice—whether for a highlights reel or a premium mobile offering, a huge monetization opportunity in any case. How about laundry? Now, that's low tech. Yet Mac-Gray Corporation redefined laundry room management. It introduced LaundryView, which allows students/residents to monitor activity in their specific laundry rooms so they can see whether a machine is free or their laundry is done. It's been visited by 5 million people and the company has added on-line payment and service dispatch systems. Agriculture is an industry that suggests pastoral images of tractors and rows of crops. Yet, seed producer Monsanto holds more than 15,000 patents for genetically altered seeds and other inventions. I could continue to offer examples both familiar and less so. However, the basic point is straightforward. Increasingly, information technology isn't something that is primarily important to a few industries and uses. Rather it's permeating just about every place, whether it's about creating new types of services, better connecting to customers, increasing efficiency, delivering better market intelligence, or creating better consumer experiences. For organizations building their own IT infrastructures, building an open and hybrid cloud can break down IT infrastructure silos and gives their developers and other consumers of IT services faster access to resources. This in turn lets them develop and deploy new business services more quickly—contributing to shorter time to revenue and more competitive offerings. However, as we've seen, cloud computing also helps organizations that historically have had little access to cutting-edge technology and lack the skills and scale for building out in-house infrastructure. Whether Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), or SaaS, cloud providers offer these smaller organizations a wide array of options to enhance their business with whatever sort of IT is the best fit. Organizations can choose to leverage the power of cloud computing in order to move their business forward. Or they they can cede their market to more nimble competitors, many of whom will be new entrants leveraging new ways and approaches to doing business enabled by IT. - Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen is Vice President & GM Asia Pacific & Japan at Red Hat Read More Read More ...
Microsoft Office 2013 built for social sharing Install the preview of Office 15, and you'll know something radical has changed the first time you click "save" on a new document. In the next version of Microsoft Office aimed at home users, the default location for saving a document is the cloud--Microsoft's SkyDrive service. In the next version for business, the default will be to save to SharePoint. Or maybe SkyDrive Pro, a version of the cloud storage service featuring more enterprise controls. Of course, you can still store files to your local machine, or change the settings to make that the default--but Microsoft wants to make that the last choice on the list. SkyDrive, SharePoint, and other web locations for storing your document all come first, because when it's stored on the web or your business network, it's easier to share. At some point, Microsoft's USD1.2 acquisition of Yammer will also factor into this picture, but with the deal not yet closed Microsoft offered no specifics on how Yammer will fit. One SharePoint engineer told me they were still figuring out the possibilities. Cloud and social collaboration features were central themes of Monday's press event unveiling the Office preview release, the beginning of an open beta test phase expected to last several months. Microsoft is also touting the touch screen functionality and consumerized user interface of the new Office, which it hopes will align with the Metro user interface design of Windows 8 to make Microsoft a player in the world of tablets currently dominated by the Apple iPad. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said this version of Office was designed to be "fast and fluid and touchable," so that people will find it a pleasure to use. Meanwhile, after years of lagging in social software functionality, SharePoint is delivering what appears to be a competitive enterprise social networking experience. The new SharePoint news feed handles threaded discussions and all the social features you'd expect, such as the ability to "like" a post, mention another user by typing the '@' symbol and getting a popup listing of contacts, typing '#' for suggested hashmark tags, and so on. You develop your feeds by following people, topics, tags, documents, or groups. SharePoint is gaining group collaboration functionality, which it never really had before. Since some of the main things you share on SharePoint are Office documents, the news feed also makes it easy to preview those documents inline--paging through a presentation without the need to open it in PowerPoint, for example. Office 15 will eventually come to market as Office 2013, for those who install it as traditional software, or as an update to the Office 365 subscription service. Microsoft still isn't saying when the software will be commercially available or at what price. But it led by emphasizing the consumer experience it wants to deliver for Moms organizing a PTA event or using online collaboration, or students doing online research and collaborating with their classmates. For the first time, Microsoft will be introducing a consumer edition of Office 365, a product originally targeted at small to midsize businesses. Where the business editions employ SharePoint for file sharing, the consumer editions substitute SkyDrive. Where business users working in Outlook can see presence indicators that allow them to kick off Lync voice, video, or instant messaging sessions with other employees, consumer edition users will be able to do the same with Skype contacts. For good measure, Microsoft is promising to throw in 60 minutes per month of free international calling to landlines in 40 countries and cell phones in 7 countries. As noted by the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is paying more attention to the threat posed by Google Apps, which includes a suite of web-based office productivity apps, and is working hard to show the value of combining cloud services with its traditional desktop software. Office 365 includes web-based document viewers and editors, which work much like the document editors in Google Apps, but they're positioned as alternatives for quick access rather than the primary mode of interaction. "For us in the Office division, the cloud is not the browser," P.J. Hough, vice president of Office Program Manager, said in a presentation on Office for the Enterprise. "We're using the cloud to deliver new experiences." This model is similar to Adobe's Creative Cloud, which is primarily a subscription-based means of distributing updates to the Creative Suite design products to users on-demand, with some web-based services for designers as the icing on top of the cake. However, although the main deployment mode of the Office products is as installed applications, Microsoft uses an "application streaming" technique to speed downloads and allow you to start working with an application almost immediately, by delivering the most important parts of the code first. The Office product family is taking another cue from the worlds of mobile, social, and cloud by introducing an apps market for each of its products. Because these apps are based on web standards--HTML5, JavaScript, OAuth, and REST, together with Office-specific APIs--the same apps can work in both web and desktop contexts. For example, Hough showed the same Outlook extension--one that shows LinkedIn contact records for the people you're emailing with--running in both Outlook Web Access and the desktop version. {pagebreak} The Office 365 offering for home users will include subscription-based pricing for the traditional Microsoft Office desktop apps (which in the Home Premium Preview include Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher) with software updates delivered as they become available. The cloud services that accompany the software allow users to sign into Office 365 from multiple devices and have their documents and settings follow them from one to the next. This same concept is available in business editions, although these include products like Lync and SharePoint as part of the cloud package. One nice touch: Office 365 will greet you with a "welcome back" message, inviting you to pick up where you left off working, and taking you right back to the section of the document you were working on when you last signed off. Microsoft sees this as a way of accommodating a variety of scenarios where you start a document at work, then finish it at home, or start it on your PC and finish it on your tablet. Collaboration also becomes a more integral part of working in Office. For example, if you've been collaborating on a document with several other employees, Word will display presence information for your collaborators, allowing you to see if one or both would be available to answer a question--and if so, allow you to launch a Lync chat or a PC-to-PC call. Multiple tools in the suite now include a common "people card" pop-up screen that shows profile, contact, and presence information. Even the process of marking up a document with comments has become more social, supporting threaded discussions that can be displayed in the margin. "The improvement in the integration is really the key there," said Bryan Garcia, chief technology officer of Equifax, one of the customers who was on hand for the launch event. Having synchronous communication capabilities available from within a document, rather than having to switch to the Lync app to see who is online, will make communication flow more smoothly, he said. Meanwhile, Equifax is just starting to plan the introduction of enterprise social networking based on the improved social functionality of SharePoint. As a credit reporting firm operating in a regulated industry, Equifax has resisted the bring your own device trend in the workplace, ruling out devices like the iPad, Garcia said. That's why he is pleased to see Microsoft introducing a compelling tablet experience that includes Office. "An iPad for a consumer may be attractive, but what this allows me to do is say we can give the user a great usability experience and all the security and monitoring and controls we need can be there, too," Garcia said. He has been working with one of a Samsung tablet running Windows 8 and Office, which he believes delivers "an experience equal to or better than the iPad." As popular as Apple's tablet is, in an enterprise setting "if an iPad can't have the full Office experience and can't have Lync, then it really is a hampered device," he said. Douglas Besse, CIO of Creation Technologies, had a similar take. The new Office offers "seamless integration, going from app to app" in a way that "promises to improve productivity," Besse said. "I think the seamless nature of the interface is going to help us with training and support." Creation Technologies is a contract electronics manufacturer with operations in 14 locations around the world, so collaboration features like being able to see who is available for a quick chat or to carry on running discussions over SharePoint are valuable, Besse said. "We lose so much productivity because of timezone issues" and other coordination challenges, he said. Besse also sees in the newly improved Windows phones and tablets an opportunity to solve some "cross platform" challenges--potentially by making sure that more of those platforms are running Windows and Office. Microsoft also had several consumer and small business testers of the product on hand to tell their stories. As head of a non-profit that teaches children healthy living skills, Sajai Foundation CEO Melissa Hanson said she had experimented with using SkyDrive in the past but found it awkward. "Now because it's by default, you always go there," she said. That came in handy the other day when she was traveling and trying to work remotely with an employee putting together the foundation's newsletter. Because the document she needed was in SkyDrive, she was able to retrieve it and share it easily. The only thing she hasn't been able to do while the new Office was under wraps (and she was the only one in her organization with access) is really use it for more active collaboration. While she only has three employees, she also has board members who are all over the country. "This can be a way to link us all virtually and avoid flying them in," Hanson said. Source: The BrainYard Read More Read More ...
How a startup is seeking to disrupt the recruitment industry by using the cloud As a late entrant, how do you compete in a market that is already dominated by giants? As a small player with limited ability to capital, how do you scale up without any limits? Startup WinHire Technologies was grappling with these questions, as it rapidly scouted for solutions that could help the firm take advantage of technology and level the playing field with the giants. WinHire Technologies had a radically different idea. Instead of text-based resumes, the firm wanted to use videos and the reach of the Internet to simplify and improve the process of recruitment. “We wanted to leverage the power of the Internet and the popularity of videos to create the world’s first video social recruitment and networking website,” says Giri Devanur, CEO, WinHire Technologies. On the portal, a job-aspirant can upload his or her video profile, and increase his or her chance of getting hired, as a video can even highlight personality attributes. While this concept is simple to understand, executing this business model was a huge challenge. As the firm wanted to leverage videos, WinHire needed to invest heavily in the support technologies and infrastructure. However, being an emerging enterprise, the firm did not want to invest heavily in capital expenditure upfront. After evaluating potential technology options, the firm realized that the cloud was perfectly suited to its needs. Cloud power WinHire selected IBM’s IaaS solution to develop and test its portal. The offering helped WinHire avoid upfront capital expenditure on computing infrastructure. Using the pay-as-you-go IaaS model, WinHire could globally deploy its application much faster via automation and rapid provisioning to create the required competitive edge. The IBM IaaS solution provided WinHire rapid access to multi-tenant shared cloud computing infrastructure that could be scaled to the needs of the business. “Using the cloud, we could put together a globally scalable infrastructure, with a significant cost benefit ratio of 1:80. More importantly, it has helped us in getting our infrastructure up and ready in just 15 days compared to the traditional timeframe of 6-8 months,” opines Devanur.
SAP prepares to tap SMAC opportunity IT vendors have been closely monitoring business models and processes, and the way executives capture, store, analyze and apply business data. Software products are designed accordingly, strategies are aligned, billions of dollars are spent to acquire companies, and there are heavy investments in R&D. SAP, a maker of enterprise applications, has moved cautiously along the years, making a late move into areas like cloud and mobility. Unlike its competitors, who have been acquiring numerous companies of all sizes, most of SAP’s acquisitions in the mobility and cloud space were made in the last four-five years. And SAP has been picky about the companies it acquires — the major ones being Sybase (mobility), Business Objects (BI), SuccessFactors, and Ariba (cloud). Apart from this, SAP has strategic alliances with large vendors like Microsoft and smaller ones like NetBase. Now in its 40th year of operations, SAP has a huge base of ERP customers (190,000 customers worldwide including 4,900 in India). It also has a base of 2 million developers. SAP wants to move its customers from a “system of record” to a “system of engagement” so that they can do “business in the moment.” And its strategy to integrate its social, mobility, analytics, and cloud offerings is the key to achieving this objective. SAP has a leadership position in ERP, with a 47.20 percent share of the Indian ERP market (IDC). So when competitors like Ramco Systems and Salesforce.com came along and started offering SaaS-based enterprise software, it started thinking about cloud, and eventually brought out its Business ByDesign (on-demand) portfolio. Today, SAP has solutions for on-premise, on-demand (cloud) and on-device (mobility). In fact, SAP’s business is built on five pillars: cloud, mobility, database & technology, analytics, and core business applications. In the first 30 years it focussed only on core business applications. So, it has achieved a lot in the last 10 years. For this story, we report on SAP’s cloud, mobility, and analytics strategy (SMAC). Analytics, HANA and ERP SAP believes the combination of mobility and analytics will be the next killer app in the enterprise. That’s why it spent USD 5.8 billion to acquire Sybase in 2010. Core to its analytics strategy is HANA, an in-memory database appliance that processes records at incredible speed.
Public cloud yet to hit inflection point in India: Zinnov Bangalore-based research firm, Zinnov, today said the public cloud market has rapidly evolved in the last two years in India. With the current market at USD 160-192 million in CY11, public cloud in India is at a very nascent state and may not have hit the inflection point yet but the market indicates a future potential of reaching USD 685 million by CY14. There has been significant traction across the three forms of cloud – SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. The released study titled, “Public Cloud Opportunity in India,” reveals that the overall Indian market for cloud (both public and private) has grown steadily to reach USD 860- 912 million in CY11. Of the total pie, the study highlighted that the public cloud market comprises of 20-22 percent of the share, while the remaining 78-80 percent is accounted by the private cloud. SaaS market in India -- largely dominated by e-mail, collaboration tools, and CRM/ ERP -- currently stands at USD 123-143 million for CY11. The market has grown at a CAGR of 46 percent from USD 56-67 million in CY09 until CY11. The PaaS and IaaS markets in India, on the other hand, are rapidly growing, though from a small base. The PaaS market in India stands at USD 1.5-2.5 million in CY11, which has grown at a CAGR of 75 percent from USD 0.5-1.5 million in CY09. IaaS market in India has shown promising growth with a CAGR of 84 percent, growing from a market share of USD 11-14 million in CY09 to USD 38-47 million in CY11. “Public cloud market is expected to grow at 55 percent CAGR in the near future and will become a default choice for new IT investments, especially in the SMB segment. We will not be surprised, if the cloud takes up more than 20 percent of the total Indian IT spend in the next couple of years. This would also mean that there will be a significant demand in the job market for cloud computing-related skills,” said Praveen Bhadada, Director-Market Expansion, Zinnov. The study also highlighted that a number of trends are emerging in the Indian public cloud market. Some of them include: price sensitivity of the market; business model around long-term contracts; acceptance of online payment options; focus on offline models; focus on SMBs, clusters and target verticals; channel focus to scale in the market; and increasing relevance for customers. Read More Read More ...
Towards the data center without walls The data center is changing - again. Enterprises are evolving their data centers through consolidation, virtualization, data protection, and into cloud services. A key business driver for enterprises is the need to manage growth with lower costs by being more efficient. Moving expenses from less flexible capital expenses to on-demand operating expenses is now a new option for data center infrastructure based services. The data center is also changing for carriers and data center service providers. Services are continuing to evolve from static physical capacity co-location, to managed services and now to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), turning computing and storage into on-demand, pay-as-you-go services. There are over 7 million data centers located worldwide in small and medium size companies, large enterprises and service providers, ranging from closet size, to huge 500,000 plus square foot uber-sized facilities. As businesses move some of their data processing to the cloud, it stabilizes enterprise data center capacity growth while adding to cloud provider data center demand. For example in 2008, Animoto was one of the initial success stories for Amazon Web Services. Their Facebook application experienced such viral growth that 750,000 users signed up in three days. There was no possible way a startup company could install the sufficient data processing capability to meet this instant demand, but Amazon was able to scale cloud-based server capacity to meet the business growth. Since then the cloud use cases have continued to expand from consumer driven demand to enterprise and government driven demand offering on-demand access to elastic pooled resources. The evolution of cloud toward expanded enterprise IT utility services, and the service provider’s need to efficiently deliver cloud infrastructure services, drives the creation of the virtual data center architecture inter-connected with a cloud backbone network. Multiple provider and enterprise customer data centers are connected to enable workload orchestration, traffic generation and flow. The physical walls of individual data centers effectively are broken down to create a virtual data center capacity encompassing multiple physical ones – a ‘Data Center Without Walls’. We use the term “Data Center Without Walls” (DCWoW) to describe an architecture that creates a multi-data center, hybrid cloud environment, able to function as one virtual data center to address any magnitude of workload demand. A 'Data Center Without Walls' benefits both the cloud service provider or carrier and enterprise IT customers by creating seamless workflow movement and greater resource efficiencies. 'Data Center Without Walls' enables effective asset pooling among data centers to deliver resource efficiencies up to 33 percent for service providers , as well as increased resiliency and performance gains over isolated provider data center architectures. This new hybrid cloud architecture delivers improvements in enterprise economics helping IT to achieve the 25 percent reduction in IT services and hardware expenses promised from cloud adoption. In order to benefit from this operational efficiencies, data center providers will need to pay particular attention to inter and intra data center connectivity needs specifically in support of new cloud applications that have dependencies on network bandwidth, scalability, latency and security. The traditional approach to addressing these network needs has been through bulk network capacity additions onto the network, but this leads to inefficient utilization and higher costs. A more strategic approach is required to dynamically and intelligently adapt to the rapidly changing needs of cloud-based infrastructure services. Approaches such as a flatter switching based architecture, dynamically scalable bandwidth that offers lowest latency when possible, and a network hypervisor-driven architecture that responds to application demands where the network resources ultimately behaves in much the same way cloud compute processing power, memory and storage, and can be billed as such. As the 'Data Center Without Walls' tools continue to mature for workload orchestration, the distinction between the enterprise and cloud data centers will continue to blur. The data center of the future will be federated and intimately inter-connected with an intelligent network operating as the Central-Offices of the future. - Anup Changaroth is Director -Portfolio Marketing, Asia Pacific, Ciena Corporation. Read More Read More ...
HCL Infosystems wins cloud engagement with Narayana Hrudayalaya HCL Infosystems has been chosen as a strategic technology partner by Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH) Hospitals. The tie up is the result of a rigorous evaluation and a painstaking proof of concept exercise which took almost a year to come to fruition. HCL blu Enterprise Cloud’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution is being deployed across 22 NH hospitals and has been already rolled out in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Jamshedpur and Jaipur. The other centers are in the process of being hooked up to the central system. The partnership has been signed for a period of 5 years. This unique implementation by HCL Infosystems is also the first of its kind in India where the Hospital Information Systems (HIS) application for a hospital is completely deployed on the cloud. The solution would reduce capital and operational expenditures for Narayana Hrudayalaya and will enable the hospital to provide faster access to healthcare for its patients such as facilitating faster patient registrations. The implementation will also enable hospital staff to quickly complete their administrative tasks thereby freeing their time to provide healthcare.The HCL IaaS includes components from Cisco, EMC, NetApp and VMware. Elaborating on the deployment, Harsh Chitale, CEO, HCL Infosystems, “We would like to thank Narayana Hrudayalaya for deciding to partner with us in their transformational journey. Cloud computing has come to define the way businesses function today and keeping in line with the present times we are committed to providing the best in class Enterprise Cloud Services. Our cloud solutions are highly customized as per the needs of organizations and focuses on addressing business needs of clients." On the occasion Dr. Devi Shetty, Founder, Narayana Hrudayalaya said, “With this deployment we look to maximize our efficiency and scale up our services. We are sure that our HIS on cloud will be a path breaking initiative in the Indian Healthcare Industry” HCL Infosystem’s IaaS solution would allow NH to provide and manage the infrastructure required to support its systems in the most flexible manner. It would cater to needs like virtual servers, cloud storage network infrastructure components, Cloud security stack and configuration services and also provide 24X7 support and system monitoring. The Cloud Solution for NH will be scalable and will ensure business continuity. Some of the successful cloud deployments by the firm includes deployments for organizations like IIM Bangalore, Continental Engines, Healthsprint, Piaggio, Family Welfare Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, Thiess India and Shell Lubricants. Read More Read More ...
How to define your cloud strategy? Cloud has redefined the way solutions are built across all facets of IT. Other than improving the business process efficiency and flexibility, Cloud also brings in a huge benefit to the environment. In one of the recent Carbon Disclosure Project Study (https://www.cdproject.net/Documents/Cloud-Computing-The-IT-Solution-for-the-21st-Century.pdf) it was found that by 2020, large US companies that use cloud computing can achieve annual energy savings of USD 12.3 billion and annual carbon reductions equivalent to 200 million barrels of oil – enough to power 5.7 million cards for one year. One of Intel's report has predicted that in the next 10 years the number of files that enterprises deal with will grow by 75x3.Therefore, there are more than enough reasons why companies are seriously considering cloud strategy. As you may have seen, cloud adoption has been one of the most trending topics for everyone - right from Enterprises to ISV to Individual. The rate of changes/innovation happening on cloud has left many wondering with multiple options but very little insight on how to decide the correct option. There is one level of strategic decision to be made on what type of cloud to adopt – Private or Public or Community or Hybrid. Each of the models has their own advantage and disadvantages, and therefore, it requires one to carefully analyze what will suit their business model in terms of security/policy compliance, risk threshold, business growth, etc. On the other hand there is also a technical strategy decision to be made on the cloud computing models – IaaS, PaaS or SaaS. Typical solution stack contains a lot of components ranging from networking, hardware, OS and Application. Let's look at each model in detail: IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) - This cloud model targets to address the components that belong in the hardware level. This constitutes of Networking, Storage, Server and Virtualization. A typical IaaS vendor will provide these components and take complete responsibility of managing these components. The best thing is these components are provided "as a Service" and therefore, the consumer can use as much as they want and pay only for what they are using. PaaS (Platform as a Service) - This cloud model is an extension of IaaS model, where it additionally provides OS, middleware and Runtime for executing an application/software. As you can see, IaaS stops with the hardware level ownership where as PaaS goes beyond that and takes full responsibility to provide the hardware as well as the environment (Platform) to design, develop and deploy(run) applications. SaaS (Software as a Service) - This cloud model abstracts all the components from the Consumer there by allowing them to just use the Software without worrying about any of the underlying technical details. As in the above cases, this model is also subscription based which means the Consumer has to pay as they use the software. Infact, there are several innovative subscription models that are available today. - Janakiraman Jayachandran is Head - SaaS & Cloud Practice Management, Aspire Systems. To know more about the various cloud strategy options and the framework to decide your strategy, join Janakiraman Jayachandran’s session on “How to Define Your Cloud Strategy?” on 24th May at the Cloud Connect conference in Bangalore. To know more details about the conference, visit www.cloudconnectevent.in Read More Read More ...
Cloud-Oriented Architecture and the Internet of Things Quick quiz for all your Cloud aficionados out there: what’s missing from the NIST definition of Cloud Computing? To make this challenge easy for you, here’s the definition: “Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” Give up? What’s missing is any mention of data centers. Sure, today’s Clouds typically consist of resources in data centers, running one way or another on racks full of physical servers. But there’s nothing in the definition of Cloud that specifies anything about the physical location of Cloud resources. Look at the NIST definition again. If you’ve seen this definition before, you may notice a new word that NIST presumably added after their now-seminal definition entered the blogosphere: ubiquitous. I don’t know what fevered discussion led to the late inclusion of this word, but its addition is telling. After all, it doesn’t matter how many data centers you have, they will never be ubiquitous. But NIST in their wisdom never intended the resources in the definition of Cloud to be limited to data centers, or for the list of Cloud resources to be exhaustive, for that matter. We could add, say, mobile phones, automobiles, factory equipment, and the proverbial fridge to the list, and as long as we have the convenient, on demand network access as well as the automated provisioning and deprovisioning, then this entire “Internet of Things” is part of the Cloud. This globally ubiquitous interpretation of Cloud Computing should be especially exciting to architects, since it falls to them to understand all the technology resources at the disposal of the organization and how to address business challenges with such resources. From ZapThink’s perspective, the Internet of Things provides a grand stage for our ZapThink 2020 vision to play out. There are fundamental differences, after all, between data centers and the Internet of Things, which means that fundamental Cloud architecture principles must also transform to support this new reality. This transformation promises to be truly disruptive—a true paradigm shift as we figure out what it means to implement what we call Cloud-Oriented Architecture. Understanding resources Since Cloud-Oriented Architecture (COA, natch) extends past the data center to the ubiquitous resources of the Internet of Things, we must expand our definition of resource beyond the list in the NIST definition of Cloud Computing. The obvious place to go for such a definition is the REST architectural style, which defines a resource as “an entity or capability on a network.” Note that resources in “traditional” (i.e., data center-based) Clouds are a subset of this broader definition of resource. In RESTful terms, Web pages, php scripts, and ASP/JSP pages, for example, can all be resources. We wouldn’t normally lump such resources in with servers, storage, networks, and the other Cloud resources we typically talk about in the Cloud context. But in COA, where we free the Cloud from the data center, anything we can give a Uniform Resource Indicator (URI) to can be a resource. And of course, with IPv6 we have plenty of IP addresses to go around, where anything might have one—and if a thing has an IP address, it can certainly have one (or more) URIs. So far, so good, but beware a pitfall in our path: Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA). ROA takes certain elements of REST and recasts traditional integration by leveraging RESTful APIs. ROA has its place to be sure, as it resolves some of the knottier problems of Web Services-based SOA, but ROA is decidedly not COA. In fact, they are at opposite ends of a philosophical spectrum that underscores the paradigm shift inherent in moving to the Cloud. ROA + HOA = COA In fact, COA is really more about Hypermedia-Oriented Architecture (HOA) than ROA. The point to assigning URIs to resources, after all, is to build distributed hypermedia applications, which are the point of REST. This is where you need to make a conceptual leap: while the traditional notion of a hypermedia app is a glorified Web site, with COA, applications consist of hyperlinked resources of any type, from mobile apps to traffic signals. We’ve been networking traffic signals for decades, of course, so what’s really new here? The answer: control. Traditional distributed applications have centralized control, while distributed hypermedia apps do not. In fact, this distribution of control is what we mean by the prefix “hyper,” and is what makes the Web what it is today. Remember the green screen menu-based interfaces from the 1960s and 1970s? You clicked on a menu item to load a different screen. But those links weren’t hyperlinks, because they couldn’t take you to a screen (or page) on a different system. The secret of hypertext (now hypermedia) is that it enables the Web to be worldwide, with no central point of control. Fast forward to the present, and today’s world of distributed computing has a schizophrenic nature: the world of enterprise IT with its inherently centralized control, and the world of the Web—horizontally scalable, partition tolerant, and lacking a single point of control. And now we have the Cloud, and COA bringing the two together. It’s time to bring enterprise IT into the 21st century, kicking and screaming. We managed to survive the rise of the Web itself, as IT managers begrudgingly provided Internet access to employees’ desktops. Now with the ubiquitous penetration of mobile technology (there’s the U word again!), those managers are once again struggling to maintain control, lest the enterprise rank and file download some malicious app or other malware that brings the organization to its knees. This situation is only going to get worse (or better, depending on your point of view). Mobile devices are only going to get more powerful. The Internet of Things will continue to grow past our smartphones as Cloud resources penetrate every aspect of our daily lives. The cybersecurity implications are profound, let alone the day-to-day issues of governance. Enterprises who don’t rise to the challenge and revamp their thinking about how technology contributes to the operations of the business are sticking their heads in the sand. We encouraged IT organizations to loosen the ties of control as far back as 2008, when we explained Why Today is a Perfect Time for No-ESB SOA. Move the control to the Service composition level, we argued, and free yourself from the limitations and inflexibility of a middleware-centric approach to integration. Four years later, this move to lightweight, decentralized Business Process Management (BPM) is still a work in progress, in part because the BPM tools on the market follow the old middleware-centric patterns, but also because the marketplace is not yet ready for the paradigm shift that we’re now in the midst of. Today’s question, therefore, is whether the market—that is, you—are ready for COA. Are you ready to free the Cloud from the data center? Are you ready to give up centralized security in favor of a lightweight, federated approach? Are you ready to discard the API-centric ROA in favor of the truly RESTful HOA? Perhaps. But such changes in thinking take time. But ready or not, change is afoot. Be an ostrich and continue to do things the old way at your peril. The ZapThink take ZapThink has been piecing this story together for years now, and we’ll pull all the threads together in our upcoming book, The Agile Architecture Revolution (John Wiley & Sons, 2013). As we move away from vertically scalable enterprise applications that require and promote central control to a Cloud of distributed resources that cross organizational boundaries, organizations will need to rethink—and in many cases, reinvent—their approach to governance, security, scalability, and change. In other words, a new way of looking at architecture. We don’t call this shift a revolution lightly. True revolutions require paradigm shifts: throwing out old ways of thinking and replacing them with entirely different approaches. As a result, paradigm shifts suggest some manner of disruption and discontinuity that in turn differentiates revolutionary change from evolutionary change. Furthermore, revolutionary change is difficult to identify while it’s happening. People usually aren’t sure they’ve been through a revolution until after the fact. Evolutionary change, on the other hand, is far easier to detect, and can move so fast that people confuse it with a true paradigm shift. We got it wrong in the dot.com era. The hype around the “New Economy” turned out to be just that—hype. The Web turned out to be more of a new marketing channel than a true paradigm shift. The Agile Architecture Revolution, however, is more subtle, because it involves so many different types of change across so many different areas of endeavor. We won’t be sure till we’re done, of course, but the disruption is already upon us. Don’t be an ostrich. - Jason Bloomberg is President at ZapThink. He is also a speaker at Cloud Connect Bengaluru, to be held on May 24 and 25 in Bengaluru, where he will be speaking on the topic, 'Architecting a RESTful cloud: The key to elasticity' To know more about the conference agenda, please visit, www.cloudconnectevent.in Read More Read More ...
Cloud Is Changing CIO Role - Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior The Internet economy is making IT departments more central than ever to business success, but it's also putting CIOs under pressure to deliver more with less. Those pressures will only increase as new technologies like cloud, collaboration, and mobility create a workforce that is connected to the enterprise 24/7, said Cisco chief technology officer Padmasree Warrior during a keynote presentation at the Interop IT Conference and Expo in Las Vegas. "CEOs now expect IT to provide profitable growth and business agility," said Warrior. "The role of the CIO is changing." Warrior said the convergence of the cloud and mobility will drive new, collaborative work styles that will combine conventional text and messaging tools with heavy doses of real-time video. "The number one priority for CIOs over the next few years will be video," said Warrior, adding that online video usage is expected to quadruple over the next two years. As cloud technologies progress, CIOs will have to focus on more than just keeping employees connected, they'll also have to ensure that their company's products and facilities can access real-time analytics and talk to each other--sending messages when inventories are low or leveraging data to predict malfunctions. "The Internet of things is already here," said Warrior. While facilitating new business models, and giving CIOs a louder voice in the executive suite, these trends will also add considerable pressure to traditional areas of IT responsibility such as the network and security. "This creates a foundational requirement for risk management," said Warrior. At the same time, she noted, CIOs are expected to facilitate these new paradigms, securely, in a cost-conscious environment. Warrior said overall IT spending is expected to remain flat or down for the next several years. Cisco is reacting to these new demands by rethinking its approach to the network. In an age of what Warrior called "immersive collaboration," networks need to have visibility, awareness, security, agility, and manageability. One approach Cisco is taking to ensure its products embody these attributes is its adoption of the Software Defined Network (SDN). "We want everyone to think more holistically about SDN," said Warrior. Cisco plans to incorporate the SDN concept into Cloud Connect, a new cloud networking platform it's rolling out this summer that's designed to more securely and efficiently link in-house data centers with cloud operations. Partners or in-house teams will be able to build third-party software applications that add custom or specialized capabilities to Cloud Connect. Tailored solutions are just one of four principles that Cisco is taking in its approach to next-generation networking technologies, said Warrior. Open ecosystems, partnering, and innovation define the rest. "The pace of change will continue to be exponential," said Warrior. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
ICertis bets big on cloud; set to double manpower in India iCertis, a firm focused on providing services and products on the Microsoft Azure cloud and Office 365, is extremely bullish on India, and is set to double its manpower from 150 people to 300 people by December 2012. The firm also plans to invest USD 10 million over the next two years in R&D efforts. “Our pipeline in India is extremely robust, and we are extremely positive on the immense market potential for cloud-based solutions. We see BFSI, Telecom and Manufacturing as the high growth verticals,” says Samir Bodas, co-founder and CEO of iCertis. His firm and a host of other players are competing aggressively to get a first mover advantage for capturing a market which is estimated to reach a massive USD 16 billion by 2020, according to research by Nasscom and Deloitte.
Infrasoft targets co-operative banks with cloud-based solution India has more than 1500 co-operative banks, and a majority of them do not have the required IT infrastructure to offer basic features such as net banking offered by the large banks. With customers opting to go in for banks who offer the latest technology features, co-operative banks too have to keep pace with private sector players. However, unlike private or public sector banks, co-operative banks do not have the required capital to invest in IT – which makes them perfectly suited for cloud-based solutions. Infrasoft Technologies has rightly identified this market segment, and has developed a cloud-based core banking solution. In this model, banks do not need a branch server and branch processes can be accessed at a central remote location, which significantly reduces the investment cost of setting up branch infrastructure and its maintenance.
Zenith Infotech launches TigerCloud Zenith Infotech, a leading Indian IT product company in the US, today announced the launch of its new product TigerCloud which is primarily aimed at mid-size organisations. TigerCloud is a high performance private cloud product that combines server, storage and network virtualization technology and allows customers to build and have their own sophisticated private clouds at costs lower than public clouds. Based on Intel® Xeon® E3 processor family, TigerCloud is a three-in-one product, combining private cloud, business continuity & backup as well as scale out iSCSI storage. As per IDC*, though cost continues to be an important variable constraining technology adoption, small and medium businesses (SMBs) are also exhibiting a perceptible desire for customized solutions and products that cater to their unique requirements. IT spending in SMB will reach record levels in 2012 and as such this market presents huge opportunities. The growing role of "social, mobile, and virtual" will drive major SMB investments in Cloud. Zenith Infotech says its TigerCloud costs 70% less than similar converged infrastructure products from the major multinationals. Based on Intel® Xeon® E3 processor family, Intel® DBS1200BTS board and Intel® 320 series SSDs, TigerCloud is a high performance system and is built around Microsoft’s Hyper-V technology. Zenith Infotech has invested over Rs.200 crore on R&D for its private cloud products. Commenting on the new private cloud computing solution, Mr. Akash Saraf, Chief Executive Officer of Zenith Infotech, said, “We are proud to announce the launch of TigerCloud, a Private Cloud Computing solution, based on Intel® Xeon® E3 processors. This solution will help both mid-sized as well as large organisations to build their own private clouds at costs lower than public clouds. “TigerCloud” as a product is speedier, smarter and stronger and will endeavour to meet the challenging demands and expectations of organisations”. Ms. Debjani Ghosh, Managing Director, Sales and Marketing Group, Intel, South Asia, said, “SMBs with limited resources, and who would like access to the cloud in order to stay productive and agile, will benefit from TigerCloud based on Intel® Xeon® E3 processors. The Intel® Xeon® E3 processor delivers intelligent and adaptive performance, and reliability – features that would be beneficial to SMBs. Its built-in 24/7 dependability and advanced security features help users stay focused on their business - responding quickly to customers, opportunities, and trends”. Read More Read More ...
Converting your product to cloud service: Lessons learned Converting from a traditional technology company into one that delivers its former product as a service from the cloud "requires a dramatic departure from how most incumbent companies are run today," concludes a new Accenture report, "Where the Cloud Meets Reality: Scaling to Succeed in New Business Models." The report cites three companies that are succeeding with cloud business models in one form or another: Salesforce.com, RightNow Technologies, and McKesson. But it also notes many technology company executives don't understand how disruptive cloud business models are to their traditional way of building and shipping products. The main thrust of the report is about how leading technology companies need to convert their products into cloud services and products, but are struggling to do so. Implicit is the possibility that if leading technology suppliers are troubled by the transition, then many other companies are likely to be as well. As a matter of fact, if a technology supplier doesn't understand the cloud and is slow to convert, that's going to leave its customers behind their competitors who are served by more cloud-adept technology suppliers. Some technology companies, such as IBM, HP, Cisco and Dell, have decided to become cloud infrastructure service providers in one form or another, and also supply hardware and software to those companies that wish to build out cloud data centers. Likewise, Intuit and Microsoft, software publishers, are both becoming software as a service suppliers. All of these transitions require new business models to be put in place and new business processes to implement them. Hosting providers "have it the easiest, as the cloud is in many ways just the next generation of services that they already provide," the report said. But they are operations-focused companies that will need to become more innovation and focus more on consultative services in the future, the report warns. Infrastructure as a service suppliers such as Rackspace and SoftLayer have become cloud suppliers by evolving their hosting businesses. "Most companies [that] come from a transactional, product-based and channel-centric mindset are woefully unprepared to deliver the world-class customer experience demanded by anything-as-a-service models," the Accenture authors Tim Jellison, Dave Sovie and Sam Glick concluded. The report, issued April 23, said the transition to cloud products requires a new governance model to handle cloud complexity, and requires the creation of a new role, Chief Operational Architect. Two companies cited in the report for having added cloud business models to their existing businesses are Apple and Sony. Both were previously producers of consumer electronics. Accenture says their emerging business model is that of content and service providers from the cloud; Apple in particular has demonstrated how additional business models in the cloud can be grafted onto a traditional device maker's strategy. Company executives need to define their cloud business model, which consists of how the company will make money in a particular market with its product or service. The business model is a combination of a target customer, an offering or value proposition to the customer, and a revenue model. In cloud computing, revenue is usually raised one of two ways: by charging for timed use, or through subscriptions. These elements are combined with a go-to-market approach for the full business model, according to the report. The business model is distinct from the operational model--the set of business processes, people, and systems that implement the business model. In the Salesforce.com example, co-founder Parker Harris told the Accenture authors that it was important that Salesforce adopted an approach to scale its applications Internet-style to thousands and tens of thousands of simultaneous users, as opposed to developing on-premises software for use by one company. In addition, a healthy tension developed between development teams, focused on innovation in three product releases per year for a total of 500 releases across the product portfolio, versus the operational team, that needed to ensure continuous operation and minimal impact of changes on the customer. Salesforce.com had to devise its own version of agile development and devOps that maintained that tension, Harris said, a different way of operation from a traditional software company. It also uses several scorecards and tools to correlate what's going on with customers in their interactions with Salesforce.com and the likelihood they will renew their subscriptions. Salesforce appoints customer success managers to deal with customers, not technical support personnel, because users want prescriptive advice on how to better use the software in their businesses. RightNow Technologies started out in 1997 as a SaaS and on-premises software company, with 15 percent of revenues coming from the on-premises customer contact software. As it matured, it found the development process for SaaS different from the on-premises model, where customers don't want frequent updates. It was hard to figure out how to incentivize the sales force to sell both on-premises licenses and SaaS subscriptions. And having two operational models for one product complicated revenue recognition and reporting. David Vap, chief solutions officers, told Accenture that the company decided to become a SaaS-only company at a time when its competitors tried to maintain both. The move rationalized sometimes conflicted business processes in the company and allowed the development team to focus on rapid updates and leveraging the power of cloud computing, he said. In the third example, McKesson Technology Solutions unit consisted of many independent builders of healthcare systems, each addressing different market segments and generating a combined $3 billion in revenue. As more of them became SaaS providers, Robert Hendricks, senior VP of technology planning and software development in MTS, and other company officials realized the SaaS delivery model offered new opportunities that the various business units, still operating independently, couldn't capitalize on by themselves. In 2006, new regulations prompted the company to better address governance issues. Hendricks insisted its RelayHealth unit act in a more integrated way, adopting a definition of enterprise application architecture, along with standard process methodology, data management, testing models, and development tools. For its customers, RelayHealth was supplying connectivity solutions for the various functions of healthcare providers, pharmacies, and payers. It was important to maintain one set of standards for determining patient release, for example, across these communities as MTS built its SaaS systems. Governance has required forming strategic collaboration communities of developers, managers and users to evaluate quality and risk of new offerings. The governance communities allow the tensions inherent in providing healthcare to bubble up and be managed across a wider sphere, allowing more effective delivery of new McKesson products and services, Hendricks told the authors. "Growing cloud-based business models is highly strategic and an immense undertaking for high-tech companies," said Mitch Cline, global managing director with Accenture's Electronics & High-Tech group, in a statement. Company executives wedded to traditional ways of doing business will find it hard to sort out what business models are already in use or which ones are needed to capitalize on the new opportunities that come with cloud computing. Based on interviews with 40 executives at 30 high tech companies, many "aren't prepared strategically or operationally to cope with the magnitude of disruption they're facing," he said. The report recommends that companies take these steps to help overcome the challenges: -- Determine what business models they have today and which ones are needed to capitalize on the cloud. -- Build the capabilities needed to deliver business in the cloud. -- Develop a segmented operating model to deliver the right customer experience and economics to the right groups. -- Implement governance to make key product delivery and resource allocation decisions. Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
Hybrid cloud management- understanding the landscape Hybrid Cloud is defined as a multi-Cloud IT environment composed of traditional IT and multiple Private Clouds and Public Clouds in the same enterprise. The definition by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) states “A Hybrid Cloud is a combination of Public and Private Clouds bound together by either standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability.” Hybrid Cloud promises greater control and security than a pure public cloud environment and greater flexibility than a private cloud environment through a phenomenon like cloud bursting which is possible only in a hybrid cloud environment. That’s the biggest reason it is gaining more and more momentum in the cloud world and enterprises are increasingly evaluting hybrid cloud models. The key in a hybrid cloud environment is the ability to achieve federation of data and resources between internal data centers, private cloud and public cloud. The complexity lies in enabling the enterprises with the ability to move data and resources between internal and third party data centers in a seamless manner with zero disruption in end user experience and service levels. Challenges in managing a hybrid cloud environment The key challenges to look out for in a hybrid cloud environment include: Integration: Due to the presence of both private and public cloud environments, enterprises must need to understand that two worlds may or may not be fully capable of integrating with each other. Enterprises need a cloud facilitator or cloud Broker to make these components talk to each other in a seamless manner. Security: With scenarios like multi-tenancy by third party vendor and data transfers over internet becoming a necessity, concerns around data and information security become a major concern especially with the public cloud part of the environment. But with the latest data and information security policies e.g. data encryption, these environments can be secured. Identity and access management: Most enterprises take the easy route and extend their existing identity and access policies to the third party public cloud implementations. But the risks are very different and hence a thorough evaluation and assessment of the impact of this on the organization’s security must be done before finalizing this. Management tools: Existing service management tools manage the traditional environments very well, but they are not completely geared to cater to the intricacies of the new Hybrid world. Moreover rationalization of the tools environment is vital to derive the best out of a Hybrid environment. How day-to-day IT Infrastructure management changes in hybrid cloud environments? Hybrid Cloud is a new IT delivery paradigm, not a service model. ITIL is the framework which shapes this abstract concept into a working value chain enabling structured services to deliver business value to the enterprises. ITIL focuses on services and the services lifecycle which helps define and align the end-to-end service delivery models of Cloud. The core IT management principles will not change even in a hybrid environment, but will shift from the internal IT organization to the cloud service provider with ITIL remaining at the helm of it all. A few considerations need to be taken care in the various disciplines of ITIL:
- Service strategy: Hybrid cloud will have an impact on how the enterprise’s services are delivered and hence also how the roadmap of future offerings will look like.
- Service design: IT service continuity management is an absolutely crucial component to focus on while designing a hybrid cloud environment. Besides this, supplier management requires increased rigor in a hybrid cloud scenario. Availability Management, Capacity Management and Service Level Management remain the other focus areas.
- Service transition: Change Management and Release Management become areas of greater focus in hybrid Cloud as they require high degree of alignment and co-ordination with the third party vendor to ensure successful changes or releases with minimal disruption in the service.
- Service operation: Though Incident Management, Problem Management, Event Management and Request Fulfillment remain important due to their direct impact on user experience, additional focus in a hybrid cloud is required for access management as it poses a huge security vulnerability when liaison with external cloud providers.
- Continual service improvement: There is great potential in this process in hybrid cloud environment but if not implemented properly may result in misalignment of business needs and technical solution. Effective communication of KPIs, SLAs and Change Requests with external Cloud vendors helps resolve this issue in a timely manner.
- How do I provision physical server, virtual machines and public cloud services all through the same console?
- How is configuration management carried out and how is the CMDB populated?
- How is the automation and orchestration of all my processes and workflows taken care of?
- How does capacity management happen and consequently capacity optimization?
Hybrid Cloud model: Challenges and Opportunities In the global marketplace, enterprises must move quickly to capitalize on the latest growth op¬portunities and stay one step ahead of the compe¬tition. IT services play an important role in foster¬ing the innovation required to fuel new business ventures. Today, CIOs need to be in a constant state of readiness to provide their users with the technology services to enable innovative business opportunities and respond to customer demands. Cloud computing, with its promises of fast delivery, flexibility and cost savings, has emerged as a viable option for providing agile IT services. By utilizing cloud services, enterprises can look ahead to anticipate customer needs and predict business trends without having to worry about the IT infrastructure, platforms and applications that might be required to support them. From a business perspective, the appeal of cloud is clear: speed, flexibility, economics. The idea of going to a portal to request a service that is instantly provided has innate appeal, particularly compared to the experience they have with most internal IT departments. It only takes a credit card. For many years, businesses are asking for better user experience with intuitive user interface, access to data and their business processes anytime, anywhere. They want access fast at Internet speed now and last but not least they want a flexible model that adapts to the business changes. While end users believe it is allowing them to respond faster to their business needs, without a comprehensive plan and governance model, they could jeopardize the security of their enterprise data and applications. Additionally, CIO’s cannot effectively track, measure and budget for this shadow IT so businesses don’t have a true picture of how their resources are used. CIO’s are struggling with 70 percent of resources captive in maintenance and operations. CIOs need solutions today that will accelerate the deployment of service-oriented environments, matching the speed, flexibility and economics of public clouds but without the risk or loss of control. The hybrid choice CIOs are mapping their path to the cloud and identifying where public and private cloud solutions will be leveraged - a mix of IT delivery methods to meet their users’ demands. In a hybrid world of IT delivery choices, where public cloud and private cloud are becoming viable options along with traditional IT services, the onus is now on IT leaders to determine which of their current and future technology projects would benefit most from which model. They also must determine how to turn this mix of services into a blended environment where both the man¬agement and the end-user experience are seamless and simple. Creating a hybrid IT delivery environment requires a thorough analysis of each project, as well as tools that manage the different delivery options in a uni¬fied, simplified way Making the decision to go with a cloud model or a traditional IT service is one that enterprise executives rely on CIOs to lead, regardless of whether the idea for a new application comes from IT or a different department entirely. In order to make the right choice, CIOs should first consider the scope and nature of the application If the application in question contains sensitive or confidential data, moving it to a public cloud that is located off-site may not be the best solution due to real or perceived security and privacy risks. The same is true for a mission-critical application that—if hit by performance delays or lapses in availability—will have a significant impact on business. Applications earmarked for cloud services must be able to reside on shared compute resources, and the resource requirements for those programs should be clearly understood up front, to prevent poor performance or unexpected fees once the application is moved to a cloud service. Also required is consideration regarding how the governance of an application—control, policy changes and upgrades—might be altered in a cloud model. Optimize the mix To make the most of a hybrid environment, there needs to be a unified management approach. In doing so, CIOs can deliver the services their users demand without putting additional management strain on the IT department. Application and system management tools are evolving so that IT services, be they cloud-based or traditional, can subscribe to a common management layer and offer a unified view of an organization’s services portfolio. Predefined, fully automated workflows help speed and simplify service delivery, allowing self-service and automa¬tion technology to be applied. With these tools, users can get for themselves the services they need, quickly provisioning IT assets by accessing a self-service portal to build, manage and monitor services. Such tools offer the best of both worlds; users get the speed of deployment and flexibility they need, and IT departments maintain control over their technology environment. This orchestration in essence makes managing hybrid IT delivery environments as standardized and unified as managing homogenous environ¬ments, but at the same time allows enterprises to choose the best delivery method for the task at hand and optimize that method for their own use. A service delivery road map helps IT leaders chart their options going forward, which gives them an opportunity to weigh the advantages of different methods and (hopefully) avoid pitfalls.CIOs today must make the right choice among private clouds, public clouds and traditional IT to maximize benefits, minimize risk and propel business. - Lux Rao is Country Lead, Cloud Consulting at HP India Read More Read More ...
Enabling virtual machine security in unified cloud environments Organizations are increasingly putting their most critical applications on Virtual Machines (VMs). This introduces new security concerns which one must be aware of in order to protect against loss of sensitive data. Let us look at some common concerns: Secure multi-tenancy One of the major security concerns today is lack of isolation between tenants spread across the unified cloud environment. Any unauthorized access or migrations between tenants in a multi-tenant data center weaken the isolation boundaries. It is advisable to ensure complete isolation between any two tenants at Compute, Network and Storage levels. Illegal copy or snapshot of VM Because a virtual machine is encapsulated into one or more virtual disk files that resides on a virtual host server it is not all that difficult for someone with the appropriate access to make a copy of these disk files and access any of the data on it. Once copied, the data can be accessed either by launching the VM using freely available virtual machine software or by parsing or mounting the virtual disk file using freely available mount utilities or SDKs. It is recommended to associate each VM and its resources to the tenant it belongs to and disables launching of VM or access to its data outside the tenant boundary. Bringing rogue VMs into the organization An external spurious virtual machine infected with viruses or spywares may be brought-in, migrated or copied into an organizational environment and made it to function posing a major threat to the organization’s network and data security. It is advisable to auto-discover any rogue VMs entering the trusted environment and prevent them from booting-up in that environment. VM sprawl Creating a new virtualized server or desktop is so quick and easy that number of virtual machines (VM) running in a virtualized infrastructure increases and many VMs become orphans over a period of time. This can consume valuable storage and cause Denial of Service (DoS) during genuine VM provisioning request or any P2V server migrations and also leaves a big security concern when these un-patched VMs are loaded or powered-on after a long time. It is a must to control VM Sprawl by attaching expiry to each VM on its creation and raising alerts to the administrator on crossing the safe utilization levels within a public or a private cloud environment. - Raghuveer Krishna is Technical Director at MindTree Read More Read More ...
Is India the emerging cloud computing capital of the world? Consider these statistics: A study by Nasscom and Deloitte estimates the Indian cloud computing market will reach USD 16 billion by 2020. Similarly, a report by consulting firm Zinnov Management Consulting estimates that the cloud computing market will grow from USD 400 million (currently) to USD 4.5 billion by 2015. A recent Microsoft-IDC study says that cloud computing will generate over 2 million jobs in India by 2015. While these numbers are impressive, they indicate just a glimpse of the immense potential and transformation that is possible from adoption of cloud computing technologies. For a country like India, the importance of a technology like cloud computing is manifold as a majority of small and medium enterprises who cannot afford technology in the current form can now afford to adopt the latest technologies and compete effectively in the marketplace – similar to how most Indians skipped the landline to adopt the cellphone a decade back. Against this context, we at UBM India, are extremely excited to bring the first-ever edition of Cloud Connect in Bengaluru, the Silicon valley of India. The huge interest and enthusiasm for a conference related to cloud computing, was amply reflected in the ‘Call for Papers’ program. This initiative, seeking speaker nominations from cloud experts, practitioners and analysts received an overwhelming response. We received over 100 submissions from some of the most experienced domain experts, CIOs, CTOs and analysts in the cloud computing space. We have 3 keynotes, over 60+ speaker sessions, 3 parallel conference sessions, real-world workshops and panel discussions. This is complemented by an exhaustive exhibition where leading cloud vendors will demonstrate their latest technologies. We believe that this is one of the most comprehensive cloud computing conferences in India, and our effort has been to cover almost every possible topic related to the cloud – from Mobile Cloud, Big Data, Social Cloud, issues (legal aspects, security), and several Application Development and Cloud Architecting-related sessions. We also have presentations from leading companies (Hexaware, Essar, etc) who will showcase in detail how they have gone about adopting the cloud, and their lessons and experiences from the same. We also have sector-based cloud conference sessions (Banking, Media, Telecom and Education). Some of the prominent speakers include: N Nataraj, CIO & SVP, Hexaware; Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Global Head of iON, TCS; T Srinivasan, Managing Director, VMware India & SAARC ; KP Unnikrishnan (Unni), Marketing Director Asia Pacific for Brocade; Srikanth Karnakota, Director, Server and Cloud Business, Microsoft India; Ravi Gururaj, VP Products, Cloud Platforms Group, Citrix Systems; Janakiram MSV, Cloud Specialist; Krishnan Subramanian, Industry Analyst and Researcher; Chidambaran Kollengode, Director, Cloud Computing, Nokia; Jayabalan Subramanian, CTO & Co-Founder, Netmagic; Jason Bloomberg, President, ZapThink; Sunil Varkey, Head Information Security, Idea Cellular. While it remains to be seen whether India will lead the cloud adoption wave or not, it does have the power to transform our existing industries – similar to the way the software outsourcing industry changed the face of Indian IT and India too! To know more about the conference, please visit: http://www.cloudconnectevent.in/conference_agenda.asp Read More Read More ...
5 tips for negotiating cloud software SLAs While negotiating special contract terms is not standard operating procedure in the world of software-as-a-service (SaaS), experts say companies have a much better shot at custom provisions if they know exactly what they're looking for and can frame their needs in the context of why they're critical for business. "You need to spend time figuring out why you need to make the change so you can make a business case to the cloud provider that it's in everyone's best interest that the changes be made," noted David Snead, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who represents Internet infrastructure providers and whose specialty is hammering out service level agreements (SLAs). As an example, Snead cited a social network company that sought custom SLA terms and was successful. Rather than complain that the provider's generic uptime guarantees weren't enough, the company detailed a highly specific scalability requirement to accommodate usage spikes during key time periods. "They said, if your network can't expand during those time periods, we will lose X amount of revenue so we need you to expand your SLA to accommodate that," Snead recounted. "Communicating with your provider about what your business does will get you an SLA that meets your business needs. Other than transparency and a clear accounting of business need, there are plenty of strategies for negotiating the best SLA terms with a cloud software provider. Here are four additional best practices to ensure you cut the best deal: 1. Don't set unrealistic expectations Since many cloud providers offer standard terms, they tend to set the bar pretty high in terms of service-level performance in areas like uptime, security, and high availability. Getting fixated on a particular metric--say 99.999% uptime, for example--as a requirement when your own IT organization couldn't possibly meet that standard can stand in the way of establishing an effective and enforceable SLA. "Be realistic about what you're asking vs. the reality of what you do or need to do," said Liz Herbert, principal analyst at Forrester Research. "Make sure you're not aiming for a pipe dream in your contract." 2. Do proper research and make the SLA part of the selection process Given that there's often less flexibility around SLAs, it makes sense to consider a cloud provider's SLA as part of the due diligence around vendor selection--not as an afterthought, post evaluation. For instance, if your business needs a highly redundant environment, a cloud provider serving up routers, network, server, and application infrastructure for use along with 50 other customers may not be the right fit. "It really comes down to whether a cloud solution offered by provider X is suitable for what your business is going to do," said Jonathan Shaw, principal with Pace Harmon, a consulting company. "The SLA needs to come into play during the selection process rather than at the backend in negotiation." It also makes sense to collect SLAs from other cloud providers so you can make an informed comparison about what most are offering and potentially use the information to your advantage, according to attorney Snead. "If you are able to say that competitors are providing this SLA clause and you can demonstrate why it's important to you, it goes a long way in creating a strong argument," Snead explained. 3. Aim for an SLA that reflects the user experience Whenever possible, insist on SLAs that reflect the full scope of service. So, for example, it's not enough for the cloud provider to say they've met their SLA if their server is up, but the network or Internet connection is down. It's necessary to include providers' switches, firewalls, networks, authentication systems, and whatever other gear as part of how you measure application availability, noted Shaw. "Makes sure they're measuring availability [of the application] from outside of their firewalls, routers, data center, and networks, and that they're not just using a monitor sitting in their data center," he explained. 4. Make sure the provider can meet its SLA claims If it's critical to your business that your data be mirrored in two different locations, Shaw said, don't just settle for an SLA that promises a high level of redundancy or says simply that data will be mirrored. Instead, shoot for SLAs that specify that data will be mirrored to these two very specific and separate locations. "In an SLA, specificity is very important," he explained. "You don't want to leave it open to broad terms. It goes back to knowing what you want--as a customer, you know your business best and you shouldn't rely on a provider to figure out what you need." Source: InformationWeek USA Read More Read More ...
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Virtualization brings major benefits to Wonder Cement The company has achieved 98.5 percent business uptime and 60 percent power savings by implementing Citrix solutions for server, desktop and application virtualization Read More ...
Indian SMB space holds huge potential for server and desktop virtualization, says AMI With only a small percent of organizations in the SMB space opting for virtualization, the potential for adoption is huge Read More ...
Unified architecture helps KPIT Cummins improve data center efficiencies By choosing a unified architecture of networking, storage and computing, KPIT Cummins has significantly enhanced the efficiency of its IT infrastructure Read More ...
Security drives majority of desktop virtualization deployments 92 percent of the organizations are adopting desktop virtualization to improve information security, according to a global research commissioned by Citrix Read More ...
What will eat your IT job? HCL says virtualization and cloud technologies are automating the roles that it used to fill with lots of H-1B workers Read More ...
Virtualization helps K Raheja Corp cut energy costs, boost efficiencies By consolidating and virtualizing its servers, the firm has achieved a drastic reduction in power consumption, with added benefits of improvement in performance and manageability Read More ...
Citrix rides desktop virtualization wave by signing up 1 lakh seats in 10 months Major Indian clients who have adopted desktop virtualization solutions include Essar, Geometric and Perfetti Van Melle India Read More ...
Tiding over downtime challenges in a virtual environment Virtualization has the capability of radically transforming computing by reducing costs and increasing agility. However, an effective downtime management strategy is crucial to fully reap these benefits Read More ...
Will Dell lead the x86 data center market? Can Dell's vStart virtualized rack systems that integrate servers, switches, and storage lead a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars? Read More ...
Cisco, Citrix do video via virtual desktop Technology sends HD video point-to-point through a virtual desktop infrastructure, bypassing the data center and cutting CPU and network consumption Read More ...
VMware Project Octopus: Dropbox alternative VMware's enterprise-grade answer to Dropbox aims to balance effectiveness and IT control Read More ...
End of Microsoft XP support accelerating desktop virtualization With less than thousand days to go until Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP, organizations are migrating to Windows 7 and tying their Windows 7 upgrades with desktop virtualization initiatives Read More ...
The great myth of cloud computing The tools are viable and the payoff is real, but it’s not happening because hardly anyone has the time or money to do it Read More ...
How to maximize virtualization benefits with effective storage resources management By implementing appropriate storage resource management tools, enterprises can overcome new challenges that virtualization introduces in the storage realm Read More ...
A practical approach to virtualization In the drive towards virtualization, organizations must take the approach which gives unbiased opinion about their current infrastructure Read More ...
Majority of SMBs not protecting data on virtualized servers A Symantec survey has found out that many small businesses are neglecting to protect their virtual environments Read More ...
How to deploy end to end desktop virtualization within 60 minutes At INTEROP Mumbai 2011, join Raj Dhingra, Global CEO, NComputing, as he explains how an organization can deploy desktop virtualization within an hour Read More ...
4 ways to avoid desktop virtualization ROI traps As the number of viable virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) increase, enterprises must pay close attention to four key areas when making a decision Read More ...
Geometric virtualizes 250 desktops in desktop virtualization initiative The firm has announced a large scale desktop virtualization implementation based on the Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) architecture with Cisco, NetApp and Citrix Read More ...
VMware unveils vSphere 5 The virtualization specialist has also released a comprehensive suite of cloud infrastructure technologies Read More ...
Orbis Financial’s IT goes virtual With virtualization the company has saved USD 50,000 on physical hardware costs, USD 13,000 per annum on power and cooling and USD 15,000 per annum on maintenance and support Read More ...
Virtualization and cloud computing cannot be treated in isolation, says Symantec Symantec says that virtualization is the first step towards cloud Read More ...
Hexaware virtualizes its DC The consolidation initiative has enabled Hexaware to gain close to 25 percent reduction in upfront costs Read More ...
VMware introduces vFabric 5 vFabric 5 is an integrated application platform for virtual and cloud environments Read More ...
Euronet adopts open source virtualization The company implemented Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization in a phased manner by initially moving less critical applications onto the solution Read More ...
Big technology vendors form open virtualization alliance Red Hat and IBM join with Intel, HP, BMC Software, Eucalyptus, and SUSE Linux to provide an alternative to VMware Read More ...
Virtualization leads to better CPU utilization Server CPU utilization level increased from 20 percent to 80 percent and savings of ` 30,00,000 by deploying virtual machines instead of physical servers Read More ...
Virtualization helps PVM improve hardware utilization by 70 percent Server virtualization freed server capacity to support long-term growth, minimized maintenance tasks and enabled resources to be allocated to applications as per requirement Read More ...
‘To capitalize on 3G, telcos need to efficiently handle data traffic’ Anil Pochiraju, Managing Director- India and SAARC at F5 Networks tells Vinita Gupta how Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) can help enterprises manage emerging information access demands thrown up due to technologies such as 3G Read More ...
2011 Outlook – Symantec The number of applications and amount of data in virtual environments will grow significantly in 2011, says Anand Naik Read More ...
Innovators will lead the market in 2011 In 2011, ICT would again gain prominence as a tool for economic productivity Read More ...
Max New York Life insures itself with server virtualization The virtualization initiative has helped in delivering a significant reduction in carbon emission — which is equivalent to the average emission of taking 64 cars off the road per year Read More ...
Desktop virtualization helps co-operative bank reduce TCO by 50 percent Using VMware View, the AP Mahesh Co-operative Urban Bank has lowered desktop maintenance costs by 75 percent Read More ...
LG and VMware join forces to accelerate enterprise adoption of employee owned smartphones Partnership targets new methods for businesses to manage employee owned mobile devices Read More ...
How to maximize your investments in virtualization What are the steps that a CIO can undertake to maximize investments made in virtualization? Read More ...
Credit card transactions likely in future public clouds The PCI Security Standards Council has recognized virtualization as a safe technology; can cloud computing be far behind Read More ...
You cannot virtualize in a vacuum Implementing virtualization without considering its impact on surrounding IT resources can lead to unexpected results Read More ...
Red Hat upskills IT professionals for cloud computing era Adoption in cloud computing and virtualization technologies across Asia Pacific drives demand for an additional certification Read More ...
Energy is 12 percent of data center costs, says Gartner Energy is rising faster than other category of data center expenses, and the rising population of servers is blamed. Can virtualization help? Read More ...
Citrix refreshes XenServer virtualization platform Storage efficiency and cloud integration features reduce desktop virtualization costs and complexity, according to Citrix Read More ...
‘Virtual computing will enable consumerization of IT’ Mark Templeton, President and CEO of Citrix speaks passionately about everything from tablets to virtualization, virtual computing data centers and the company's efforts in these areas Read More ...
'Organizations cannot run their IT infrastructure the same way for the next five years’ Steve Leonard, President, EMC Asia Pacific and Japan, shares his perspective on how organizations are making their journey to the cloud Read More ...
Virtualization leads server manufacturers to a new paradigm As the number of physical servers decline, server manufacturers are now focusing on revenue per server than on the number of units sold Read More ...
Virtual environments bring in real challenges While adoption of virtualization is growing at a fast clip, Indian enterprises are discovering new challenges in the virtual world Read More ...
VMware CEO on future of virtualization Paul Maritz explains how CIOs can create one giant computer to go beyond CapEx to OpEx reductions and fund new high-value applications Read More ...
Telecom operators defying DoT’s Green Telecom Directive: Greenpeace According to the organization, the telecom operators have failed to adhere to the deadline to publicly announce their carbon emissions as mandated in the Green Telecom Directive Read More ...
SAP’s journey to energy-efficient data centers Raghavendra Rao, Vice President – IT, SAP Labs, Bangalore, shares insights on the measures the company has taken to improve efficiency of its data centers Read More ...
ITC Infotech unveils sustainability management solution The product has been built with the aim of simplifying the process of sustainability management across the globe Read More ...
IT and environmental management Companies experience various problems when they try to implement an environmental program as adequate IT systems are not in place to collect the data Read More ...
Organizations going green mostly to save costs A survey by IDC and HP reveals that while most organizations have policies related to green printing and printers, few think green when it comes to procuring printing solutions. But the mindset is changing Read More ...
Gartner report recognizes Fujitsu’s green initiatives Fujitsu, the ICT-based business solutions provider, is one of the vendors driving initiatives to reduce Greenhouse Gases (GHG) of ICT, according to a report by research firm Gartner and WWF Read More ...
Infosys BPO’s Jaipur building earns LEED India ‘Platinum’ rating The first Platinum rated building for Infosys; will be the basis for all future Infosys buildings Read More ...
IBM, IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur to jointly develop smarter power grids Researchers from the company along with students will develop network architectures to collect data as well as analytics tools to provide valuable information to the grid operators Read More ...
Busting the Green Myth Interop Mumbai 2010 got off to a 'energetic' start with a green session on Green IT Read More ...
Why IT is key to carbon reduction By using IT, organizations can identify inefficiencies and make fact-based decisions on the carbon cost of their business Read More ...
MAIT lauds government for making e-waste rules draft public The draft rules lay emphasis on producers to effectively manage and handle e-waste Read More ...
Ford saves more than one million dollars by switching off PCs at night Simple step of powering down laptops and desktop PCs will help Ford save USD 1.2 million and reduce its carbon footprint by 16,000 to 25,000 metric tons annually Read More ...
Why sustainable ICT is a vital element for business success Sustainable ICT solutions can not only save costs, but can also help in bringing about a transformation in business Read More ...
BT Offers Tool for Tracking Video Conferencing Travel and Carbon Savings Users document millions of dollars in annualized cost savings Read More ...
Zenith Infotech’s PROUD May Redefine Enterprise IT An ambitious Indian product company is attempting to break into the niche space of centralized computing. Zenith Infotech’s product has the potential to firmly etch India’s name on the global map Read More ...
Switching to Power Saving Mode Considering the inadequate power infrastructure in the country, a few solutions adopted at both the active and passive infrastructure levels can help organizations to actively address energy woes Read More ...
In Economic Cloud, Infosys Sees a Green Lining As the demand and costs for computing power soar, a core team at Infosys is undertaking a series of green IT initiatives that could help in raising the bar for Green IT practices in the country Read More ...
Hardware Vendors Pledge Support for VMware's DPM Solution Called Distributed Power Management (DPM), the solution is designed to lower power consumption in the datacenter by aggregating unused capacity and powering off unused servers without disrupting service levels Read More ...
Unique data center design manages space constraints With the company having launched a Direct Market Access web portal for its customers, there was a need to have a data center with high bandwidth infrastructure to provide the level of high availability that online stock trading portals demand. The company decided to deploy the data center within its premises, leveraging on the high speed LAN network. However, it was challenged to accommodate the data center within a height of 10 feet, while providing a full-fledged data center infrastructure Read More ...
Plugging into a green future Aiming to reduce its carbon footprint while reducing costs, improving productivity and overall efficiency, Applied Materials India launched ‘Operation Green.’ Read More ...
Mobile computing, virtualization and cloud driving data center complexity in Indian organizations: Symantec report 96 percent of organizations looking at information governance to address challenges Read More ...
VMware, EMC shakeup hints at data center's future VMware CEO Maritz moves up to EMC chief strategist role and Gelsinger becomes VMware CEO, as virtualization changes how data centers are run. Take a look at EMC's larger vision Read More ...
How to not plan a data center The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency built a bigger data center than it needed. Now the potential federal IT boondoggle is being turned into a storage center for data generated by remote sensors and cloud computing. Read More ...
A peek inside Wipro’s LEED GOLD Certified Data Center Kiran Desai, VP and Business Head, Managed Services Business, Wipro Infotech, talks about the power management and cooling technologies deployed within Wipro’s LEED GOLD-certified Data Center in Greater Noida Read More ...
Software-Defined data centers are future, says VMware CTO, Steve Herrod VMware CTO Steve Herrod predicts that all data center resources will be virtualized and governed by a unified console Read More ...
Netmagic and Spectranet enter into strategic partnership India's first multi-location commercial Datacenter-n-Datacenter worth Rs 200 crore to be set up in four cities as part of the partnership Read More ...
Acquisition by NTT Com will open up global market for Netmagic - Sharad Sanghi Calling the acquisition a huge win-win deal for both Netmagic and NTT Communications Corporation, Netmagic’s CEO, Sharad Sanghi, says that this deal will help his firm access global markets Read More ...
Andhra Pradesh Government launches State Data Centre Spread across 9000 square feet, the Data Centre has a storage capacity of 50 TB Read More ...
Data centers, DR, and private clouds now ‘on-demand’ Want a data center? A company is now offering it ‘on demand’ and claims you can have it in a few weeks. It claims you can save significantly with their on-demand private cloud and on-demand DR site; resources can be self-provisioned much faster Read More ...
Aircel reduces overall DC carbon footprint The data center has helped in establishing service oriented architecture (SOA) that, in turn, has enabled fast rollouts pan-India without compromising on the flexibility to adapt to business requirements Read More ...
'Cloud optimized networks can help organizations solve business challenges' At the Brocade Technology Day 2011 event at San Jose, Dave Stevens, CTO, Brocade spoke to Vinita Gupta about Brocade’s ways of extending data center-class capabilities to the network edge Read More ...
HP Networking becomes EAL 2 CC certified HP is the first company in India to have leveraged the CC certification process, having met the rigorous security standards established by the CC framework, to ensure IT security Read More ...
Cisco introduces portable data centers The containerized data centers house 16 racks and include chilled water cooling systems for enterprises that need a quick, flexible, and mobile computing power Read More ...
Smartlink Network Systems sells Digilink to Schneider Smartlink Network Systems Ltd (SNSL) today announced that it is selling its Digilink Business to Schneider Electric India (Schneider) for Rs 5,030 million, under Business Transfer Agreement (BTA). The transaction would primarily include the transfer of the “Digilink” brand and trademarks, part of the manufacturing facility at Goa, the distribution network and employees who served Digilink. The company has agreed to a non-compete condition for a period of 5 years for the passive networking business. Read More ...
Tech giants push smart networking standard Rivals Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, along with Cisco and IBM to name a few others, are overlooking their differences to promote programmable networking Read More ...
Juniper aims to flatten the network with QFabric QFabric is Juniper’s vision of a single fabric to reduce network latency Read More ...
Ethernet fabric switching solutions to ease data center bottlenecks Brocade introduces VCS technology and the VDX platform for virtualized data centers and cloud environments Read More ...
What will future data centers look like? With the ability to add multiple cores in a single server, combined with virtualization capabilities, data centers of the future might be a fraction of the size they are today Read More ...
Emerging data center designs aimed at deriving highest compute performance per kilowatt New data centers will be able to provide a 300 percent growth in capacity in 60 percent less space than existing data centers, according to Gartner Read More ...
Gartner survey shows data growth as the largest data center infrastructure challenge More than half of respondents plan to expand capacity at existing data center sites by end of 2011 Read More ...
Linux replacing Windows in data centers A Linux Foundation survey found increasing preference for the open source operating system in new server deployments Read More ...
Trimax wins Managed IT services project from Rajasthan Govt As a part of the project, the company will manage end-to-end IT for various organizations of the State of Rajasthan Read More ...
Emerson Network Power launches new data center management tool The firm recently introduced Avocent Data Center Planner, a visual infrastructure planning and management software solution Read More ...
40 GbE will be an important technology for the data center Paul Hooper, Chief Marketing Officer, Extreme Networks shares his perspective on the evolution of the cloud and why 40GbE will prove to be a powerful solution in the data center Read More ...
SafeNet teams up with NetApp to provide storage security This collaboration will provide users with the ability to manage and protect on-premise, cloud-based and virtualized data storage Read More ...
Wipro launches data centers that can be set up in a week Wipro Infotech announced the launch of FluidState data centers, which can be launched almost ten times faster than a conventional data center Read More ...
Data center power can be reduced by 50 percent, says IIT Delhi professor Dr Preeti Ranjan Panda from IIT Delhi is working on a project to reduce power consumption in the data center by up to 50 percent Read More ...
IBM unveils Next-Generation mainframe Big Blue calls new zEnterprise server a "data center in a box" that will appeal as much to CFOs as CIOs Read More ...
HP delivers new collaboration and consolidation solutions for SMBs New offerings include server and storage solutions that HP claims will allow upto 56 percent reductions in total cost of ownership compared to traditional IT infrastructures Read More ...
10,000 cows can power 1 MW data center, says HP Labs Research from HP Labs shows how the manure output of cows and the heat output of data centers can be combined to create an economically and environmentally sustainable operation Read More ...
IBM bets on ex5 to propel x86 market share The firm’s eX5 architecture will allow enterprises to scale the memory in their data centers without having to buy new servers Read More ...
‘Systems are getting instrumented and increasingly interconnected’ If you were stumped by terms like ‘smart grids,’ ‘smarter planet’ and ‘dynamic infrastructure’ and wondered how all this would change the world, you’ve got to have a chat with Dr P (Gopal) Gopalakrishnan, VP, IBM India Software Lab. Dr Gopal has been tracking technology for years and contributes to several major products from IBM in the areas of software and systems. He told Brian Pereira about IBM’s Smarter Planet and Dynamic Infrastructure visions and how these will transform the data center Read More ...
‘Application owners want the infrastructure to be secure multi-tenant’ As data centers become increasingly virtualized there are a new set of challenges to be tackled. Brian Pereira caught up with Rajesh Janey, President – India and SAARC, NetApp, to discuss customer concerns, and how NetApp is addressing these issues through its storage efficiency drive and solutions Read More ...
Are you neglecting your WAN? Web apps and consolidated data centers are adding pressure, and video will bring more. It could be time to explore new options Read More ...
A new approach to IT Infrastructure When it comes to deploying IT infrastructure, organizations are moving from an application-centric approach to a service-centric approach. All eyes are on your data center, which is set to undergo an unprecedented transformation Read More ...
Enterprise data center : Still the core of business tranformation Though SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and the idea of private/public clouds is getting a lot of attention, the enterprise data center will continue to be the key focus area for CIOs Read More ...
India plays key role in Red Hat’s global plans Besides playing a key role in the firm's R&D operations, Red Hat's entire product line is supported from India Read More ...
Amazon makes clever private cloud play Partnership with Eucalyptus, the open-source purveyor of Amazon APIs, guarantees ongoing compatibility between public EC2 and private cloud operations Read More ...
How to reduce your cost and improve time to market by using open source NextGen portals At INTEROP Mumbai 2011, Bharati Lele, Head - Innovation Labs, L&T Infotech, will deliver a session on why open source portals represent a great alternative to commercial portals Read More ...
Rains from private clouds percolate to SMBs In India, a couple of small firms are demonstrating the true value of private clouds Read More ...
No more technology lock-in As much as 90 percent reduction in connectivity, power and other recurring costs Read More ...
Adoption of open source infrastructure management tools on the rise A growing number of Indian CIOs are considering open source network management tools to manage their infrastructure Read More ...
Open source vulnerabilities paint a target on Android With smartphone exploits on the rise, an almost-successful attack against Android devices hints at future dangers Read More ...
Linux developers mull unified App Store Fedora, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and other distros are working on a framework for a universal application installer Read More ...
Indian CIOs open up to open source Indian CIOs are opening up towards adoption of open source but it will not be a ‘rip and replace’ technology and will co-exist along with proprietary software Read More ...
Open source project server hacked, software rigged with backdoor trojan ProFTPD File Transfer server software compromised by attackers; anyone who downloaded it between November 28 through December 2 most likely at risk Read More ...
Red Hat looks to strengthen its PaaS offerings with Makara acquisition By integrating the JBoss Enterprise Middleware infrastructure with Makara’s Cloud Application Platform, the company aims to offer a more comprehensive PaaS solution Read More ...
Microsoft supporting cloud open source code for Hyper-V The software giant says its customers don't necessarily want a single hypervisor cloud, so it's supporting OpenStack Read More ...
Actuate partners with Wipro to drive open source BIRT adoption in India Wipro Infotech will promote the use of Actuate products including Actuate BIRT among organizations in India Read More ...
Indian open standards policy for e-governance finalized India's Department of IT (DIT) has approved a far-reaching policy on open standards for e-Governance Read More ...
Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst says software industry broken Jim Whitehurst believes all vendors, not just Linux distributors, need to embrace open source development methods to improve quality and reduce cycle times Read More ...
mCarbon selects Red Hat Enterprise Linux for new infrastructure platform Post implementation, mCarbon’s voicemail application has seen a steep increase in call attempts from 2 lakh to about 5 lakh in just two years without any drop in performance Read More ...
Go green with Open Source Industry is adopting Open Source because of its many benefits and going green is one of the major ones Read More ...
Informatica aids information management with Marketplace Informatica Marketplace provides a central location for the community members to contribute mappings, mapplets, connectors, templates, dictionaries, vertical solutions and more. Read More ...
Oracle releases 'Unbreakable' Linux kernel Competition with Red Hat heats up with a modified Linux that Oracle says is best for running its software on its hardware Read More ...
Microsoft goes 'open' with Windows Azure The company has announced the availability of a new set of developer tools and SDKs for open source developers to build applications for Windows Azure Read More ...
Symbian and Android to lead mobile OS market, says Gartner The two operating systems will account for close to 60 percent of mobile OS sales by 2014 Read More ...
Red Hat Linux helps NCDEX achieve 99.99 percent uptime With Red Hat Enterprise Linux, NCDEX has designed a high-performance and cost-effective IT infrastructure that has delivered 99.99 percent uptime for its business applications Read More ...
Ubuntu 10.10 Linux released to beta Distribution, codenamed Maverick Meerkat, speeds boot time, enhances cloud integration Read More ...
Red Hat leaps on to PaaS bandwagon A key component of Red Hat Cloud Foundations, Red Hat PaaS will leverage JBoss Enterprise Middleware for open choice in application development and deployment Read More ...
Novell introduces cloud security service The company is targeting more than 200 IaaS and 1300 SaaS and PaaS vendors with the service Read More ...
The idea of version 2.0 of any software will be dead - Red Hat CEO, Jim Whitehurst In an exclusive interview with Srikanth RP and Harshal Kallyanpur, Red Hat CEO, Jim Whitehurst details why the cloud can be the mother of all lock-ins, why the idea of version 2.0 of any software will be dead, and why the new-world IT order will be led by a different set of leaders Read More ...
Red Hat joins hands with Wipro to deliver open source solutions Both organisations plan to collaborate in building integrated solutions on Red Hat technologies through joint investments in Wipro’s CoE Read More ...
Linux Foundation launches license compliance program The non-profit foundation is trying to remove barriers to open source code adoption by easing compliance issues including providing code scanning tools that identify if open source code is linked to commercial code Read More ...
Cloud APIs get open source treatment Red Hat, Rackspace, and others are taking an open approach Read More ...
How to build your own Linux cloud Ubuntu lets you create your own Eucalyptus cloud computing infrastructure on commodity servers, plus it's interface-compatible with Amazon's EC2 Read More ...
Red Hat integrates server and desktop virtualization Red Hat claims that Enterprise Virtualization 2.2 will provide a single infrastructure from which customers can manage their server and desktop virtualization deployments Read More ...
Open source security solutions: An attractive alternative Explore the pros and cons of adopting open source security solutions Read More ...
Rackspace announces open source cloud platform OpenStack counts Intel, AMD and NASA among participants in the cloud computing project that may boost competition for market leading Amazon Web Services EC2 Read More ...
SMBs lead Linux server OS adoption across India: Springboard Constrained by limited budgets, Linux is proving to be the right platform for SMBs Read More ...
Red Hat powers Just Dial’s IT infrastructure Just Dial currently has more than 200 servers with its mission-critical Intranet and extranet applications running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Read More ...
Nine ways to avoid open source pitfalls Follow these guidelines and avoid problems while still benefiting from what the open source software community has to offer Read More ...
Pentaho launches on demand open source BI Rapid-deployment option promises ready-to-run dashboards, metrics and reports within 72 hours Read More ...
New open source OS will feature 'disposable' virtual machines Invisible Things Lab building secure OS that better locks down the VM environment Read More ...
Open source databases pose unique security challenges Most open source database platforms aren't supported by third-party database activity monitoring and security policy tools Read More ...
Linux proving disruptive in smartphone market Android will run a third of the world's smartphones by 2015, and open source mobile operating systems from Intel, Nokia, and Samsung will also compete, says ABI Research Read More ...
DLP gets an open source boost A new agent-based DLP discovery tool has been released to Google Code called OpenDLP Read More ...
‘We positioned Ubuntu as a version of Linux that was personal and non-technical’ Mark Shuttleworth, Founder, Canonical and Ubuntu Linux on why he thinks Ubuntu will succeed on the desktop, where other equally famed competitors have failed Read More ...
eScan introduces antivirus protection for Linux based systems Called eScan for Linux version 3.0 the antivirus software is designed for both Linux desktops and file servers Read More ...
Inside Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 beta New features in the distro's latest version will make it possible to run heavy I/O servers, such as database servers, in a virtual machine under Linux, company says Read More ...
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