Category: Cloud Enable

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

As VMware Expands Its Multi-Cloud Reach and Toolsets, It Will Benefit from Sharper Articulation of Its DevOps Support and Flexible Consumption Options

by Chris Drake, posted in Cloud Enable
C. Drake

Summary Bullets:

  • 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” →

NTT Communications Opens Nexcenter Labs to Drive Innovations Through Solution Co-creation

by Alfie Amir, posted in Cloud Enable
A. Amir

Summary Bullets:

• NTT Communications’ Nexcenter Lab enables enterprises and technology providers to co-create solutions.

• However, the facilities are only available in Japan while the partner ecosystem is still limited.

NTT Communications launched the Nexcenter Lab program in two of its data centers in Tokyo earlier this month to drive innovation through collaborations among the carrier, technology providers and enterprises. The program enables development and testing of new solutions leveraging the latest services and technologies offered by the carrier and its partners including HPE, Dell EMC, RedHat, Intel, Oracle, and VMware. It also offers enterprises a free use of its server racks and cloud services. NTT group is well known for its research and development (R&D). It spends around US$2 billion a year in R&D to drive innovations, and has commercialized various products such as corevo (AI-based platform), COTOHA (AI-based virtual assistant engine), and CLOUDWAN (SD-WAN). While the group has a Global Innovation Center in California (NTT I3) with a focus on collaborations among technology players (end-user involvement is only in the commercialization stage), the Nexcenter Lab program is more customer-centric by providing enterprises with an opportunity to co-create solutions from the initial stage by sharing real-world requirements as an input to the product developments.
Continue reading “NTT Communications Opens Nexcenter Labs to Drive Innovations Through Solution Co-creation” →

Optus and Cisco Join Forces to Target SMBs in Australia

by siowmeng, posted in Cloud Enable
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

• Optus has partnered with Cisco to launch two new offerings at Cisco Live 2019 – Optus Cloud Calling (BroadCloud) and Managed Cloud networking (Meraki).

• The combination of NBN, LTE, SD-WAN, and cloud UC will meet the needs of many SMBs and branch office scenarios.

Optus and Cisco continue to strengthen their relationship. At the Cisco Live 2019 event in Melbourne, Australia, Optus was the key sponsor and it used the event to announce new Cisco-based solutions. The first solution is Optus Cloud Calling which is a unified communications (UC) service based on Cisco’s (formerly Broadsoft) BroadCloud platform. This is cloud-based UC solution hosted by Cisco. The service offers telephony, native mobility, and advanced conferencing and collaboration tools. BroadCloud is integrated with Webex solutions to assess audio/video conferencing and team collaboration applications. Optus Business is providing this service as a managed service bundled with its Evolved Voice SIP trunking and business mobile services. Continue reading “Optus and Cisco Join Forces to Target SMBs in Australia” →

IBM Consolidates Cloud Platforms to Strengthen Strategies in Hybrid/Multi-Cloud and Blockchain

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Cloud Enable, IT Leader
C. Dunlap

Summary Bullets:

  • IBM Cloud Integration Platform represents more integration capabilities (MQ, Event Streams, API Connect, App Connect) and a public cloud presence.
  • Continued innovation in integration is critical for IBM’s broader cloud strategy founded on IBM Cloud Private (ICP), which now serves as its multi-cloud management offering.
  • IBM released a free beta version of its blockchain platform, componentized to work with Kubernetes containers and operate in hybrid and multi-cloud environments and emphasizing a network-agnostic approach.

At the core of IBM’s cloud strategy is ICP, released a year ago to manage Docker and Kubernetes containers. This year, during last week’s Think conference, the platform’s role graduated to that of multi-cloud management, enabled through best-in-class IBM Cloud Integration Platform and the new IBM Cloud App Platform (WebSphere Liberty solutions which we expect will eventually merge with Red Hat JBoss app platforms). For the past 18 months, GlobalData has noted the importance of dominating the private/hybrid cloud space in order to gain a foothold in the broader multi-cloud ecosystem and carry more influence in modern app development technologies and models. Continue reading “IBM Consolidates Cloud Platforms to Strengthen Strategies in Hybrid/Multi-Cloud and Blockchain” →

Enterprises’ Most Advanced UX Is Enabled in 2019 via New Microservices Innovations

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Cloud Enable, IT Leader
C. Dunlap

Summary Bullets:

  • New PaaS offerings from IBM, Red Hat, and Pivotal will include reactive programming in coming months.
  • Reactive microservices will play a key role in furthering migration from monolithic to microservices in 2019.

Open source software bodies have turned up the heat on important microservices technologies, grabbing the attention of startups in recent years and larger cloud service providers more recently. IBM, Red Hat, and Pivotal are readying reactive microservices technologies for the coming months, innovations which add real-time streaming and machine learning to cloud-based applications and support a critical component for enterprises migrating from monolithic to microservices-based apps. Continue reading “Enterprises’ Most Advanced UX Is Enabled in 2019 via New Microservices Innovations” →

Alibaba Cloud Looks for Growth Outside of China, and Indonesia Is a Good Target

by siowmeng, posted in Cloud Enable, Network, Secure
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

  • Alibaba Cloud is gaining a stronger foothold in Indonesia with its second data centre, a growing partnership ecosystem and an initiative to support start-ups to develop their business through a cloud-native approach.
  • Alibaba needs to grow its international presence, and it is establishing an early presence in markets such as Indonesia where competitors do not yet have a local presence.

Alibaba Cloud has launched a second data centre in Indonesia after launching the first data centre 10 months earlier. The second data centre enables Alibaba Cloud to increase capacity, provide higher availability and improve disaster recovery capabilities. The company also launched the Internet Champion Global Accelerator Program to support the growth of start-ups and local talents. The program will provide training, mentorship and venture capital opportunities to enterprises and professional services. The program is launching in Jakarta, and it will be extended to Bali in January 2019, as well as other global markets in the future. This is a strategic move since start-ups and SMEs in general are more ready to adopt a cloud-native approach and can become heavy cloud users as they scale up. Continue reading “Alibaba Cloud Looks for Growth Outside of China, and Indonesia Is a Good Target” →

Reactive Microservices Breed Compelling New Reactive Networking Protocol RSocket

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable, Mobilize, Network
C. Dunlap

Summary Bullets:

  • Reactive microservices will play a key role in furthering adoption of microservices in 2019.
  • Important OSS technologies will further this mission, including RSocket.

GlobalData’s recent report on application platforms predictions for 2019 anticipates a two- to three-year delay for microservices application adoption among enterprise DevOps teams (please see: “Microservices, Serverless Apps Won’t Take Off in 2019, but Kubernetes Importance Is Elevated,” December 18, 2018). Delays are expected for the emerging app development architecture aimed at helping companies fulfill business transformations and move apps and systems to the cloud, due to complex networking implications around cloud-native architectures. Despite delays, there are promising open source software (OSS) technologies coming to light this year which offer the most likely scenario for microservices adoption among enterprise DevOps groups. Continue reading “Reactive Microservices Breed Compelling New Reactive Networking Protocol RSocket” →

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” →

Microservices, Serverless Apps Won’t Take Off in 2019, but Kubernetes’ Importance Is Elevated

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Cloud Enable, IT Leader
C. Dunlap

Summary Bullets:

  • Kubernetes holds the key to integration with important OSS technologies such as Istio and Knative and for easing ongoing complexity around microservices and serverless apps.
  • Blockchain will continue to rise in importance as the digital ledger to modernize business processes, shifting in 2019 from PoCs to the early stages of moving blockchain apps into production.

As GlobalData reflects on what has been a whirlwind year in the application platforms and DevOps space, including mega multi-billion dollar acquisitions, the growing importance of OSS technologies, and a fast growing competitive landscape, we’ve determined Kubernetes will be at the forefront of importance. No other technology in this space maintains the same clout as Kubernetes for its ability to address the most pressing needs of DevOps teams which are looking to refactor apps into new development architectures. Whether operations is deploying monolithic or microservices-based applications into production, Kubernetes container orchestration technology has become the most viable element in the application platform toolkit. Continue reading “Microservices, Serverless Apps Won’t Take Off in 2019, but Kubernetes’ Importance Is Elevated” →

AWS re:Invent Highlights Bold Serverless Strategy, Prompting a Swift Microsoft Response

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Cloud Enable
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” →