Charlotte Dunlap – Principal Analyst, Application Platforms
Summary Bullets:
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) augments leading serverless LAMBDA solution with an innovative operational solution, Firecracker
• AWS announcement prompts Microsoft Azure to respond with numerous portfolio updates
At last week’s developer conference, re:Invent, AWS made the case for why the time is ripe for enterprises to take a serverless computing architectural approach to application development. The cloud giant rolled out new technologies that promise to make DevOps teams more operationally prepared for the heavy lifting needed to deploy emerging serverless and microservices apps. Continue reading “AWS re:Invent Highlights Bold Serverless Strategy, Prompting a Swift Microsoft Response”→
• At a recent Orange Cyberdefense analyst event, the company addressed (among other things) the familiar topic of the skills shortage in cybersecurity
• In doing so, it illustrated ways in which it might turn this fundamental market challenge into an advantage
The theme at Orange Cyberdefense’s recent analyst event was combining the best of both human and technology resources, so it was no surprise that the inescapable cybersecurity skills shortage was a featured topic alongside sessions dedicated to strategy, portfolio, and innovation. Without directly saying so, the managed security service provider (MSSP) is clearly trying to turn this global challenge into an advantage – at least in France, where it can claim market leadership with only about a 15% share due to a highly fragmented environment involving hundreds of solution providers.
With its strategy for retraining and recruitment well underway, Orange Cyberdefense has managed to increase the size of its team despite the people shortage and its associated side effect of high turnover among qualified employees. With 100 Orange employees upskilled and recruited by its own Cyberdefense Academy since 2017, plus the addition of 300 new external recruits in 2018, the group’s security business now has 1,300 “humans” on board. Continue reading “Orange Cyberdefense on Turning the Skills Shortage into an Advantage”→
As one of the first providers to offer SD-WAN in Indonesia, telkomtelstra has the early-mover advantage to capture the early SD-WAN adopters.
Its multivendor strategy addresses the diverse needs of around 30 million enterprises in the country.
Backed by Telkom Indonesia (the Indonesian telco with the largest market share in the country) and Telstra (the Australian incumbent carrier, which is expanding rapidly in Asia-Pacific and globally), telkomtelstra started its operation in 2015 focusing on the managed services market in Indonesia. Within only three years, the provider has rapidly expanded its portfolio and customer base. It now offers managed network services, security, UC&C and cloud solutions. The provider also offers various security consulting services such as advisory and assessments. For more, please see GlobalData’s telkomtelstra company assessment from November 27, 2018. Continue reading “telkomtelstra Takes Multivendor Approach with Its SD-WAN Offerings to Address Diverse Market Needs”→
At its annual re:Invent 2018 conference, Amazon Web Services rolled out a blinding number of micro-specialized solutions that emphasize ‘best of need’ over ‘best of breed.’
But, there’s a danger lurking in this seeming freedom to adopt and combine capabilities at will, namely a new form of vendor lock-in.
At Amazon Web Services re:Invent 2018 this past week, attendees were treated to an avalanche of product launches and pre-release announcements. On display were three new data management services, four new Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities, eight new storage offerings, and thirteen new machine learning (ML) libraries — all designed to encourage developers to build and deploy solutions on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. And that’s just the software dealing with big data and analytics. Continue reading “Amazon re:Invent 2018: Say Goodbye to Best-of-Breed and Hello to Best-of-Need Applications”→
• Reactive, Preventive, and Predictive Maintenance regimes will continue to be major use cases for AI-assisted industrial IoT deployments
• As a start-up, MOVUS has a strong first mover local advantage, channels, an end-to-end platform and OT approach which are unique.
Artificial intelligence (AI) – the science of making computers mimic humans using logic, decision trees, deep learning, and machine learning – is fast approaching the market opportunity around preventive and predictive maintenance. According to a recent GlobalData survey, the top two business challenges in Australia are in improving operational efficiency and reducing costs. Many businesses, such as manufacturers, producers of natural resources, through to the agriculture and health sectors, need ongoing reliability of machines and their constituent parts to keep the lights on in the business. Unplanned outages, for example, can cost an oil and gas company, on average $50 million dollars annually. In the case of a windfarm, in the event of one single fail, an entire turbine needs to come down, a technical crew with a crane needs to be on site costing $100,000 or more for each time a part fails. There are many cases of overheated servers in data centers that caused major outages. The myriad of examples create compelling business cases. Continue reading “The Road Ahead for Australian Start-up MOVUS for AI and Predictive Maintenance”→
Diane Greene led the Google Cloud enterprise charge, helping the provider make up lost ground with an ambitious agenda that included significant acquisitions, investments in AI, and new strategic partnerships.
But, for all of Google’s forward momentum, the provider still hasn’t closed the gap with IaaS leaders AWS and Microsoft Azure.
As Google Cloud chief Diane Green gets ready to hand over the reins to her successor, former Oracle exec Thomas Kurian, the industry is taking a moment to reflect on the progress and conflicts that marked her term. When Greene joined Google in 2015, despite the company’s status as an Internet titan, the organization was an underwhelming performer in the enterprise cloud. Continue reading “CEO Diane Greene Prepares to Exit Google with Its Enterprise Cloud Play Still Incomplete”→
CenturyLink expands and enhances its portfolio in Asia-Pacific to challenge other carriers and grab the growing opportunity.
However, there are still gaps with its competitors, especially in portfolio and presence in the region.
At the TM Forum Digital Transformation Asia 2018 in Malaysia earlier this month, CenturyLink shared its direction to strengthen its presence and expand the business in Asia-Pacific. The move is in line with its global expansion strategy announced this year at its annual Analyst Forum. In Asia-Pacific, CenturyLink has over 2,000 employees, on-net presence in 12 countries and sales presence in six key markets (i.e., Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Singapore). With the existing resources in the region, the carrier plays to its strength by focusing on inbound MNCs as well as Asian-based enterprises expanding beyond the region. It focuses in certain verticals, including OTT/content, media, entertainment, financial services, energy and utilities, retail and manufacturing sectors. Continue reading “TM Forum Digital Transformation Asia 2018: CenturyLink Strengthens Asia-Pacific Business”→
Digital transformation is no longer an option for emerging market carriers today.
It is not just about adopting new technologies. Carriers must also transform to drive sustainable change.
This year’s TM Forum Asia event took place in Malaysia on November 13-15 with ‘digital transformation’ as the main theme. While the topic is not new in the industry, it is actually the right time in Asia. For many years, carriers have been offering enterprise solutions such as cloud, mobility, UC&C, and IoT and positioning themselves as digital transformation enablers in the market. However, many carriers in the emerging Asia markets are still quite behind with their internal journeys. These carriers are still stuck with their legacy infrastructures, processes, and mindset. Continue reading “TM Forum Digital Transformation Asia 2018: No Longer Optional for Asian Carriers”→
The industry is moving beyond the education and PoC stage into a second phase of proving blockchain apps in production via interoperability.
Operators are releasing blockchain solutions leveraging partnerships with platforms providers, including IBM and Microsoft.
Those in blockchain circles are throwing around the term ‘hype’ much less amid more practical discussions of late on how technology providers and systems integrators are actively building points of interoperability between disparate blockchain implementations and cloud platforms. The industry is moving beyond the education and proof-of-concept (PoC) stage and into a phase which aims to demonstrate how blockchain performs in production. This requires concrete steps towards interoperability among partners and various blockchain implementations. Interoperability with the promise of avoiding vendor lock-in is a key theme this quarter among leading providers and integrators such as IBM, Accenture, and AT&T. Continue reading “GlobalData Cites Phase Two of Blockchain: Interoperability of Disparate Systems”→
• If blockchain is such a good idea, why hasn’t the enterprise IT industry already put it to work at scale?
• As it turns out, the reasons behind blockchain’s slow rate of adoption are as complex and multifaceted as blockchain itself.
Blockchain has been in the news recently with a number of notable players announcing the creation of advantageous partnerships, industry-savvy consortiums, and operationalized use cases. In just the last two days, systems integration powerhouse Accenture announced an innovative mechanism to connect disparate blockchain platforms, while IBM together with Telefónica announced a joint effort to use blockchain to streamline international call routing operations. Both investment and positive speculation remain at an all-time high for blockchain. Continue reading “Is the Idea of Blockchain Too Beautiful to Succeed?”→
