Author: John Marcus

John is a Principal Analyst for Business Network and IT Services at Current Analysis. His focus is on new developments in cloud services and service providers in Europe.

What to Expect in Data Center and Cloud Services Next Year

by John Marcus, posted in Cloud Enable
J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

• Global hyperscale IaaS providers will build capacity in new regions around the world, often leveraging colocation providers that can support their scale

• Multi-cloud requirements will drive new interoperability from major providers, more choice in multi-cloud connectivity, and more demand for cloud-native managed services

GlobalData expects core cloud market segments like infrastructure (IaaS), platform (PaaS), and software (SaaS) as a service to maintain their strong momentum of growth in 2019. For the enterprise seeking solutions, we expect to see more specialist assistance available in the form of cloud enablement solutions directly in response to the reality of a multi-cloud world. Globally, the major cloud service providers will extend their reach farther around the globe, often partnering with colocation players to speed time to market rather than buying or building their own sites. They will also need to respond along with the rest of the overall ecosystem to hybrid and multi-cloud imperatives, trading improved interoperability for continued customer loyalty. Specifically, we expect to see:

• Expansion in Middle East/Africa and Asia among global cloud IaaS providers: with China-based players now expanding beyond Asia, we expect western cloud service providers to build more capacity in the Middle East, Africa, and the APAC region. Local and regional hosting has become an imperative for some use cases, but these regions also offer the highest rate of near term growth. Continue reading “What to Expect in Data Center and Cloud Services Next Year” →

IoT Projects Increasingly Target Revenue Growth

by John Marcus, posted in Internet of Things
J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

• Most IoT projects to date have focused on increasing efficiency or reducing costs

• In 2018, IoT deployments are increasingly intended to generate new revenues as well

IoT offers operators and enterprises a slew of opportunities, with the rise of pervasive connectivity opening up new ways to both collect and generate data in pursuit of stronger businesses and a better experience for customers. The GlobalData IoT Innovations Tracker is following new deployments across sectors worldwide, capturing the key use cases and technology choices made by the deploying organizations. But it also considers the key questions for each deployment: Why are we doing this? What do we hope to gain from this IoT project?
Continue reading “IoT Projects Increasingly Target Revenue Growth” →

Orange Cyberdefense on Turning the Skills Shortage into an Advantage

by John Marcus, posted in Secure
J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

• 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” →

Huawei Eco-Connect Europe 2018: IoT Strategy Depends on Ecosystem Investment

by John Marcus, posted in Internet of Things
J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

  • Huawei made clear its strategy is now based on ‘platform + ecosystem.’ This is the case across the business, but nowhere more acutely than in IoT.
  • While investing in the ecosystem is a requirement, its diverse nature makes for a highly fragmented IoT market.

Huawei held its flagship European event in Rome this week, combining a showcase for customers and partners with a series of broad brush announcements around investing in its global digital platforms and ecosystem. The key takeaway from the waterfall of positioning messages is that Huawei not only recognizes its need to partner with other players across its business; it has also made its ecosystem central to its strategy and is therefore investing heavily in strengthening relationships with suppliers, developers, partners, and customers. In the Internet of Things (IoT), it already has a head start, but a number of new developments will support the ongoing commitment to the ecosystem: Continue reading “Huawei Eco-Connect Europe 2018: IoT Strategy Depends on Ecosystem Investment” →

Vodafone Sets Sights on Vertical Services in IoT, but Which Ones Will Take Priority?

by John Marcus, posted in Internet of Things
J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

  • Vodafone stated at its analyst conference this month that its IoT strategy will focus on vertical services.
  • It has picked five verticals so far, but some reflect future potential rather than previous successes.

At its annual analyst conference, Vodafone’s enterprise business presented updates across its portfolio and associated strategy, and when it came to the Internet of Things (IoT), one thing was clear: a new determination to focus on a set of priority verticals to deliver sector-specific IoT services. The idea is that, if it is to access the biggest market opportunities, it must become more of a technology solution provider in order to maximize growth potential as a trusted, ‘go-to’ supplier in digital industries. Continue reading “Vodafone Sets Sights on Vertical Services in IoT, but Which Ones Will Take Priority?” →

Brexit Is Forcing Business Decisions, but a ‘No Deal’ Scenario Puts the IT Focus Firmly on Risk Mitigation

by John Marcus, posted in IT Leader
J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

  • Brexit is driving demand for risk management advice in IT as well as in financial and legal domains.
  • Integrators like DXC Technology are offering tactical and strategic solutions, suggesting the disruption of Brexit be used as an opportunity for transformation.

It should surprise no one that a ‘Brexit strategy advisory firm’ is a thing that exists. The increasing potential for the UK leaving the European Union in March 2019 without a trade deal in place is creating bittersweet opportunities not only for financial and legal advisors, but also in tech. Global IT services company DXC Technology has hooked up with specialist consultancy Brexit Partners as its UK and European customer base takes account of imminent risks. Other IT firms will soon be doing the same, if they’re not already. Continue reading “Brexit Is Forcing Business Decisions, but a ‘No Deal’ Scenario Puts the IT Focus Firmly on Risk Mitigation” →

Advanced SOC Capabilities Give Back Time

by John Marcus, posted in Secure
J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

  • AI and machine learning are reducing the constraints of traditional SOC operations.
  • Time saved through resulting automation can be put to use on high-priority investigation and response.

Recently, classic rock band The Kinks brought out a previously unreleased track called “Time Song,” which muses on the slippery ubiquity of this thing called time:

Time is ahead of us
Above and below us
Is standing beside us
And looking down on us…

While the song’s message is universal, that last part of the quoted lyrics above may be true when it comes to the key realities of security operations management. The number of person hours available does not come close to the number required to investigate every incident reported by an organization’s systems and users. When it takes a security analyst 10 to 15 minutes to research each incident, but the number of incidents pouring in via collected intelligence is in the hundreds or thousands daily, it can indeed feel like time itself is “looking down on us” and cruelly watching us fail to keep pace. Continue reading “Advanced SOC Capabilities Give Back Time” →

Multi-Cloud Services: Service Provider and Vendor Approaches Keep Coming

by John Marcus, posted in Cloud Enable
J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

  • Just as multi-cloud usage is recognized as a necessity, IT suppliers are keen to help enterprises reduce its inherent complexity.
  • IT, hosting, and network service providers have rolled out specific offers over the last year to address the demand.

As multi-cloud consumption becomes the reality for transforming enterprises, solutions are now appearing from service providers as well as platform vendors (beyond their initial solutions for hybrid cloud). Each player has its own take – with varying levels of focus placed on self-service tools, automated operations, and good old-fashioned managed services. Continue reading “Multi-Cloud Services: Service Provider and Vendor Approaches Keep Coming” →

When Cloud-Based Security Can Mean Everybody Wins

by John Marcus, posted in Secure
J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

  • Software-defined networking is turning concern about security in the cloud on its head, enabling a winning model for protecting businesses.
  • Enterprises get predictable cost and value, security vendors streamline go-to-market and service delivery, and network providers gain revenue from vendor partners by hosting ecosystems in a B2B2B role.

Protecting a business network has traditionally meant plugging in a bunch of different security ‘appliances,’ in each business location, to protect all the many different devices and machines connected to the LAN or WAN. Managing the process can be a nightmare for companies of even a modest size, to the point where many often simply give up. Continue reading “When Cloud-Based Security Can Mean Everybody Wins” →

Multi-Cloud Services: Fujitsu’s Take

by John Marcus, posted in Cloud Enable
J. Marcus

Summary Bullets:

  • Just as multi-cloud usage is recognized as a necessity, IT suppliers are keen to help enterprises reduce its inherent complexity.
  • Fujitsu is strengthening its multi-cloud integration and operations services by partnering with key platform vendors and training thousands of service professionals to achieve relevant certifications.

Starting in the second half of last year, the focus on hybrid cloud implementations shifted towards the need to accommodate concurrent management of workloads running on multiple cloud platforms, and this has emerged as one of the biggest themes in cloud computing. Whether it is the case of central IT looking for some level of control over enterprise-wide consumption or the equally common justification for the same organization using, say, Amazon EC2 for one set of workloads while using Azure and/or VMware for others, ‘hybrid’ management solutions now need to support this multi-cloud usage. Continue reading “Multi-Cloud Services: Fujitsu’s Take” →