Cloud Enable examines the options available to IT departments considering adopting or managing cloud-based architectures in their business environment.
• Cost sharing between vendors/SPs and customers can strengthen relationships in a difficult time.
• Calm and deliberate planning by vendors/SPs and customers is key to minimizing impacts to business.
The new tariffs on imported goods in China and the U.S. will have a significant impact on pending and future deals, both for service providers, vendors, and customers. The technology industry has a complex and deeply international supply chain, with U.S. and Chinese companies both utilizing components and intellectual property. Component price increases will lead to sharp increases in product costs. These increases will slow or stall deals as customers may wait and see if the issues can be resolved in a short time frame. Continue reading “Geopolitical Issues Roil IT Sector”→
Digital media faces a ‘fake news’ problem where sources may be biased or worse, and actual content may be manipulated.
Orange is behind Safe.press, a blockchain-based consortium for certifying news sources as legitimate – and not ‘fake.’
As investigative journalists and whistleblowers struggle to be heard in calling out the rampant abuse of social networks in propagating ‘fake news,’ one startup is trying to tackle the issue with new technology. Continue reading “Can We Use Blockchain to Thwart Fake News?”→
Red Hat OpenShift 4 reflects a reengineered platform service shored up by CoreOS management technology and integrated with RHEL, targeting operations’ need for ALM automation.
Red Hat and Microsoft deepen their partnership to offer enterprise-grade Kubernetes under a one-click service and include Azure services such as ML, IoT, and serverless computing.
Red Hat is strengthening its OpenShift strategy and competitive standing by leveraging its recognition in the Linux world through Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and integrating, for the first time, its two flagship technologies. The move serves to tackle enterprise operations’ need for improved application lifecycle management (ALM) as customers move into complex projects that modernize app development and deployment. Continue reading “Red Hat’s Reengineered Cloud Platform Addresses Ops Automation, Hybrid Management”→
Charlotte Dunlap – Principal Analyst, Application Platforms
Summary Bullets:
Key technologies promote management and isolation of untrusted containerized workloads on par with VM security
Watch for new operational management technology supporting advanced ALM capabilities
I’ve been moving outside my comfort zone and attending OpenStack conferences, including next week’s Open Infrastructure Summit in Denver, to gain insight into what enterprise operations teams are up against as they shift from a virtualized world into modern app development scenarios. The success around containerizing applications (by running them on an operating system’s kernel versus hardware) is finally prompting interest in microservices, a new app architecture which breaks cumbersome monolithic apps into smaller, composable services.
This intersection of virtualization and Kubernetes, where VMs and application containers are being managed together is not without its security concerns. Vendors have therefore realized a need for technologies which provide an extra level of management and isolation for those untrusted workloads running in containers in order to reduce risk levels. Some examples include Google’s gVisor, which provides secure isolation for containers, and Amazon’s Firecracker, micro-VM technology which leverages modified KVM and manages and secures serverless infrastructures such as Lambda.
Last week’s Open Networking Summit in San Jose attracted the largest of telecommunications and networking companies, all reiterating the importance of 5G networks for supporting digital transformations and cloud native implementations. Now companies like Ericsson, AT&T, and Huawei are revealing more on their strategies to include DevOps technologies in 5G telecom networks alongside software defined systems and emerging open source software projects including Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) and others. Continue reading “Open Networking Summit: Despite Cloud Native Advancements, Networking Providers Are Years Away from Offering DevOps Technologies”→
A new breed of San Francisco startups is addressing microservices connectivity issues head-on.
Infrastructure and cloud providers will integrate innovative service mesh technologies into management solutions this year.
A new crop of San Francisco startups is addressing a major sticking point among enterprise app modernization projects: the need for more lightweight connectivity solutions which address those points of intersection between apps and networks. Complexities around infrastructure implementations of modern architectures have finally taken their toll on app modernization projects within enterprises, stalling critical DevOps initiatives and prompting key OSS technologies to come to the forefront along with the disruptive innovators behind them. Continue reading “New Market Disruptors Tackle Microservices Network and App Management”→
• Last week Microsoft announced two new additions to the Azure family of solutions with the goal of targeting an even broader set of customer workloads.
• Microsoft needs to continue innovating with Azure Stack to ensure it remains competitive vis-à-vis a growing number of alternative hybrid cloud solutions.
It’s been a little over a year since the first distributions of Microsoft’s Azure Stack became commercially available, offered by hardware partners that include Dell EMC, Cisco, HPE, Huawei, and Lenovo. Azure Stack is Microsoft’s hybrid cloud play, allowing the vendor to target enterprise customers that, for various reasons, need to keep certain workloads on-premises, while still taking advantage of cloud-based services and resources, including developer tools. According to Microsoft, Azure Stack is now available in 92 countries/regions worldwide and, although the number of Azure Stack customers has not been disclosed, notable customers include Airbus, Royal Dutch Shell, Heathrow Airport, and InterContenential Hotels.
Over the past year Microsoft has continued to add more Azure Cloud features to Azure Stack as part of its regular updates. These updates and additions contribute to a more consistent experience for Azure Stack customers across both their on-premises and public cloud environments, thereby enhancing the utility and overall effectiveness of the solution for a range of use cases. One important new Azure Stack feature, currently in preview, is support for Kubernetes. Users will be able to deploy Kubernetes clusters using the same resource manager templates as in the Azure cloud. This means that applications built using containers can be deployed both on-premises and in the Azure public cloud, while using the same code across each platform. In addition, developers will have access to Azure’s existing service fabric, simplifying migration to and from the public cloud. Continue reading “Microsoft Adds New Solutions to its Hybrid Cloud Portfolio, as AWS and IBM Accelerate Their Hybrid Cloud Strategies”→
Cisco’s soon-to-be-launched HyperFlex 4.0 will come with simplified deployment options and an emphasis on enabling HCI in remote locations such as edge environments.
As part of its edge computing strategy, Cisco needs to be able to address adjacent customer concerns about security, architecture design, and workload placement.
Singtel is strengthening its IoT portfolio through a partnership with Microsoft by integrating a range of Azure capabilities into its network.
Its service coverage is still limited in Singapore, China and Australia (Optus) compared to the global IoT networks offered by competitors.
Singtel announced its partnership with Microsoft in February 2019 to launch an AI-powered IoT network over Microsoft Azure. This is achieved through integration of Singtel’s IoT network into Microsoft Azure cloud capabilities, including IoT Hub, IoT Edge, and other machine learning and cognitive services. Singtel has a comprehensive IoT portfolio with software-defined network capabilities, a range of technologies including LPWAN standards, a private IoT network for added security (‘IoTConnect+’), competitive pricing (as low as SGD1 per month for 10 MB on NB-IoT) and various solutions across industry verticals. The additional capability gained from the partnership with Microsoft complements the carrier’s IoT portfolio. The AI capabilities enable the carrier to deliver more efficient services, especially in the orchestration and automation of applications and workloads across IoT stacks (e.g., devices, network and clouds), thus accelerating enterprises’ business outcomes and the ROI. The cloud services offer scalable deployments, addressing the high upfront investments required by enterprises to implement IoT use cases. It also enables Singtel to retain its IoT leadership in Singapore and address the increasing demand in the key Asian hub. GlobalData research shows that 62% of 1,664 global enterprises interviewed (including 65% of 57 in Singapore) are making major or large investments in IoT in the next three years. The access to Microsoft’s vast range of development tools, developers and other packaged solutions enables the carrier to further strengthen its own IoT platform capabilities, while IoT Hub offers an additional platform option to its customers in addressing diverse market demands. Continue reading “Singtel Collaborates with Microsoft to Enhance Its IoT Portfolio”→
Additions to VMware’s multi-cloud portfolio reinforce the company’s ability to serve enterprises that require a mixture of cloud environments, including on-premises private clouds and two or more public clouds.
To succeed in an increasingly competitive market, VMware needs to continue innovating its developer and DevOps tool sets, as well as in relation to things such as price and flexibility.
VMware recently announced several enhancements to its multi-cloud solutions portfolio, which include the latest version of its hybrid cloud stack, VMware Cloud Foundation, and updates to multi-cloud management tools such as VMware vCloud Director and CloudHealth. The company also announced a growing number of go-to-market partners and the launch of the VMware Cloud in Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers in Canada, Paris, and Singapore, increasing the total number of AWS data centers where VMware Cloud solutions can be offered to 13 globally. Continue reading “As VMware Expands Its Multi-Cloud Reach and Toolsets, It Will Benefit from Sharper Articulation of Its DevOps Support and Flexible Consumption Options”→
