Category: Cloud Enable

Cloud Enable examines the options available to IT departments considering adopting or managing cloud-based architectures in their business environment.

Malaysia Enterprise Telecom Update Q2 2021: Major Cloud Developments

by Alfie Amir, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate, IT Leader, Mobilize, Network
Alfie Amir
A. Amir

Summary Bullets:

  • Microsoft’s move to open new data centers in Malaysia will drive cloud adoption and may attract other hyperscalers to build facilities in the country.
  • Domestic telcos are expanding their cloud capabilities through partnerships and acquisitions to address the high-growth market.

This report discusses major enterprise telecom events based on announcements from industry players in the recent quarter.  For more on the previous update, please see ”Malaysian Telecom Update Q1 2021” (April 29, 2021).

1. Microsoft’s Plan to Open Data Centers in Malaysia: Microsoft announced plans to strengthen its regional presence by establishing new data centers in Malaysia, adding 1 million skilled local professionals, and forming the MyDigital Alliance Leadership Council to collaborate on cloud-first and digital-native policy recommendations. Continue reading “Malaysia Enterprise Telecom Update Q2 2021: Major Cloud Developments” →

Carrier Global Domination Dreams Conquered by Pragmatism

by Rob Pritchard, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate, Mobilize

R-Pritchard 071521

Summary Bullets:   

  • The refocused geographical target of Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems ICT solutions business highlights a fundamental shift in ambitions from carriers’ earlier global domination goals in the enterprise market.
  • Market evolution, technology developments, and commercial reality (the need to lower costs) have made carriers refocus onto more sharply defined target geographies and customers.

In the heady days of the 1990s, when telecom markets in the Western world opened up to competition, carriers developed plans for global domination – sometimes on a go-it-alone basis, but more often than not via partnerships and joint ventures. Who today remembers Global One (Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom/Orange, Sprint), Unisource (KPN, Swisscom, Telia), and Concert (BT-MCI, then BT-AT&T)?  Billions of dollars were spent investing in worldwide expansion ambitions, but nobody emerged as triumphant in the battle to dominate the global enterprise market.  More recently, Telefonica has been reducing its footprint in Latin America, Vodafone has refocused on Europe and Africa, and BT has been selling off its in-country assets outside of the UK.  T-Systems will still support key strategic accounts under its revised strategy, reflecting a reduction in MNC account ambitions which is salient across the whole sector. Continue reading “Carrier Global Domination Dreams Conquered by Pragmatism” →

AI-Injected Automation is the New DevOps

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Cloud Enable

Summary Bullets:

Charlotte Dunlap – Principal Analyst, Application Platforms

• Modernizing workflow processes has become a complex endeavor as a result of increased data sources and volumes

• Automation, when applied to IT, provides capabilities that bring insights and diagnostics into various backend systems

AI-injected automation has become the power source for digitizing companies in a pandemic era, ensuring resilience, agility, and efficiency for modern, distributed apps. Modernizing workflow processes has become a complex endeavor as a result of increased data sources and volumes, heightening the need for comprehensive data management, integration, and security strategies. Automation, when applied to IT however, provides capabilities that bring insights and diagnostics into various backend systems, including pre-determined automation of problem remediation and policy controls.

Continue reading “AI-Injected Automation is the New DevOps” →

X Marks the Spot: Employees Company-wide Support the Customer Experience via XCaaS

by Gregg Willsky, posted in Cloud Enable

Summary Bullets:

Gregg Profile Photo
G. Willsky

• In combining UCaaS and CCaaS, XCaaS acknowledges that ultimately, employees from all parts of an organization jointly drive the customer experience.

• While the term “Customer Experience as-a-Service” sounds like a gimmick, cloud-based communication, collaboration, and customer service technology are firmly entrenched and will remain so.

XCaaS = UCaaS + CCaaS

On the surface, this equation may resemble algebra, trigonometry, or an amalgam of the two. But you won’t spot it in any mathematics textbook.

Instead, this summation depicts an alchemy that has arisen from the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has driven much higher usage of UCaaS (i.e., Unified Communications as-a-Service) and CCaaS (i.e., Contact Center as-a-Service) solutions which in turn has created a hyper-focus on employee communication and collaboration as well as serving customers. In combining UCaaS and CCaaS, XCaaS (i.e., Customer Experience as-a-Service) is an acknowledgement that every employee ultimately serves the customer, both those who are customer facing and those who are not, and facilitates communication and collaboration between those two universes to optimize the customer experience.

Continue reading “X Marks the Spot: Employees Company-wide Support the Customer Experience via XCaaS” →

Platform Equinix: How the Data Center and Cloud Ecosystem Transforms the Global WAN

by siowmeng, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate, Network

SiowMengSoh
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

  • New network service offerings are emerging and giving enterprise customers more options; the Equinix and Coevolve partnership is a good example.
  • Cloud connectivity and network edge services will become more important in supporting different IT workloads, and enterprises are better served by service providers that have a strong partner ecosystem.

Even for multi-national corporations (MNCs), there are now alternative providers to global carriers and system integrators for wide area network (WAN) services. With the adoption of cloud services, the ongoing shift to enable remote working, and business uncertainties (e.g., travel, retail, and hospitality), the network solution needs to be more agile to adapt to changing requirements.  The Equinix and Coevolve partnership is just one example. Continue reading “Platform Equinix: How the Data Center and Cloud Ecosystem Transforms the Global WAN” →

Cloud Giants Will Drive Supercomputing Demand

by Chris Drake, posted in Cloud Enable

Summary Bullets:

C. Drake

• Major cloud service providers, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, are intent on capturing a larger share of the lucrative market for supercomputing.

• Competition between IT infrastructure vendors and cloud service providers will make supercomputing more accessible, while also helping to drive use case development.

Supercomputers have traditionally been major fixed infrastructure investments that are designed for specific tasks, and which comprise hardware provided by IT infrastructure providers such as Lenovo, Dell Technologies, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). However, increasingly the world’s largest cloud service providers, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, are intent on capturing a larger share of this lucrative market.

Continue reading “Cloud Giants Will Drive Supercomputing Demand” →

New Battle Lines Emerge in Push for Higher-Performance Computing Solutions

by Chris Drake, posted in Cloud Enable

  • Chris Drake
    C. Drake

    The combined growth of IoT, big data, and AI will drive demand for higher-performance computing solutions over the next five years.

  • As IT infrastructure vendors and cloud service providers respond, this will contribute to an increasingly vibrant and competitive market.

Despite the disruption to IT projects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, IT infrastructure vendors and cloud service providers alike remain upbeat about future enterprise demand for new, more powerful computer processing capabilities. These include servers for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, high-performance computing (HPC) servers, and supercomputing. Continue reading “New Battle Lines Emerge in Push for Higher-Performance Computing Solutions” →

Snowflake Offers Something for Partners, Customers, and Developers in Bumper Summit

by Guest Author, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable

Summary Bullets

Alaa Owaineh

• Snowflake’s annual summit sees a slew of platform, data management, and partnership announcements.

• These enhancements bolster its competitive position, but the market remains crowded

At its annual summit in early June, Snowflake announced several enhancements to its data cloud platform, services, and partnership program. These announcements enhance its competitive position, making it more appealing to a wider range of user roles (such as developers) and industries.

Some announcements relate to better support for developers, with the inclusion of Java and Scala support in the Snowpark framework, which allows developers to build queries in their preferred programming languages and execute them on Snowflake’s cloud. Announcements also included support for user defined functions (UDF) in Java, greater ability to handle unstructured data, and support for SQL APIs.

Continue reading “Snowflake Offers Something for Partners, Customers, and Developers in Bumper Summit” →

Rakuten Has Ambitious Plans to Become a Mobile Cloud Network Provider

by Malcolm Rogers, posted in Cloud Enable

Summary Bullets:

m rogers
M. Rogers

  • Rakuten Mobile is taking the cloud-native, open RAN-based mobile network it built in Japan and commercializing it as an open, end-to-end solution for other operators.
  • While Rakuten’s mobile network solution is competing with similar recently launched products from leading technology companies like Microsoft and VMware, they all might have trouble convincing their target operator customers.

Rakuten Mobile, Japan’s fourth mobile operator, made headlines in the mobile industry in 2020 for launching its 4G mobile services using a cloud-native, fully virtualized mobile network, one that works on the principles of open RAN.  (Open RAN is a set of specifications for open and interoperable radio access networks allowing for disaggregation of portions of the radio access network, namely the radio unit [RU] as well as the distributed baseband and core baseband units, and for those subsections to be supplied by different vendors).  However, the company has taken lessons learned from the buildout of its own 4G and 5G cloud-native network and is now trying to productize this into a solution called Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP).  In addition to providing a solution for mobile operators, Rakuten is reportedly developing enterprise use cases for 5G edge computing for industry and IoT that can be also supported by the platform. Continue reading “Rakuten Has Ambitious Plans to Become a Mobile Cloud Network Provider” →

Oracle Drives Competition in the Growing Market for Arm-Based Cloud Compute

by Chris Drake, posted in Cloud Enable

Summary Bullets:

Chris Drake
C. Drake

  • Oracle’s new Arm-based compute service offers several advantages over x86 alternatives, which will help Oracle extend its reach to new markets.
  • Longer term, however, Oracle should expect to face increased competition from key rivals as they add Arm-based cloud services to their portfolios.

The launch of Arm-based instances on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) will help Oracle extend its reach to new market segments, including the Arm app developer community.  Longer term, however, Arm-based servers are likely to play a much greater role as a destination for cloud workloads, coexisting in cloud data centers with x86 alternatives.  Oracle should expect to face increased competition from key rivals, including Microsoft Azure, Alibaba, and Google Cloud, as they add Arm-based cloud services to their existing portfolios. Continue reading “Oracle Drives Competition in the Growing Market for Arm-Based Cloud Compute” →