Someone, somewhere at your organization is discussing cloud. In strategy meetings someone has said “Let’s move it to the cloud.” At the watercooler or in the breakroom you’ve probably overheard snippets of conversation about micro services, DevOps, cloud strategy, and a host of other cloud-speak. The cloud conversation is everywhere because more companies are moving to the cloud. But they are running into trouble by not defining the expected business outcomes.
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If you have even a passing interest in software development, you’re likely familiar with the premise of agile methods and processes: keep the code simple, test often, and deliver functional components as soon as they’re ready. It’s more efficient to tackle projects using small changes, rapid iterations, and continuous validation, and to allow both solutions and requirements to evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. All in all, agile development carves a path to software creation with faster reaction times, fewer problems, and better resilience.
The agile model has been closely associated with startups that are able to eschew the traditional approach of “setting up walls” between groups and departments in favor of smaller, more focused teams. In a faster-paced and higher-risk environment, younger companies must reassess priorities more frequently than larger, more established ones; they must recalibrate in order to improve their odds of survival. It is for this reason that startups have also successfully managed to extend agile methods throughout the entire service lifecycle — e.g., DevOps — and streamline the process from development all the way through to operations.
Welcome to Cloud Strategy’s 2016 Summer issue! We really outdid ourselves this time.
To begin, Allan Leinwald of ServiceNow is here with an in-depth look at cloud architecture for our cover story. But there is more! Kiran Bondalapati from ZeroStack writes about the commoditization of infrastructure; Sumeet Sabharwal of NaviSite writes on the opportunities available to independent software vendors in the cloud; Mark Nunnikhoven of Trend Micro talks about the trend of the everywhere data center and the danger of dismissing the hybrid cloud; Alan Grantham of Forsythe writes about the cloud conversations companies should be having; Peter Matthews of CA Technologies, Anthony Shimmin of AIMES Grid Services, and Balazs Somoskoi of Lufthansa Systems share their tips for selecting the right cloud services provider; Adam Stern, founder and CEO of Infinitely Virtual writes about the importance of cloud storage speed; Shea Long of TierPoint tackles the hot topic of DRaaS; and Steve Hebert, CEO of Nimbix writes on the challenges CIO face in balancing public, private, and hybrid clouds.
Applications are driving the enterprise, whether it is a relatively simple application used by millions of customers or a complex, scalable database that drives an organization's back end. These applications, and the users that count on them, expect rapid response times. In a world that demands “instant gratification,” forcing a customer, prospect, or employee to wait for a response is the kiss of death.
–George Crump, lead analyst, IT consulting firm Storage Switzerland, LLC
In June 2016, CyrusOne completed the Sterling II data center at its Northern Virginia campus. A custom facility featuring 220,000 sq ft of space and 30 MW of power, Sterling II was built from the ground up and completed in only six months, shattering all previous data center construction records.
The Sterling II facility represents a new standard in the building of enterprise-level data centers, and confirms that CyrusOne can use the streamlined engineering elements and methods used to build Sterling II to build customized, quality data centers anywhere in the continental United States, with a similarly rapid time to completion.
Where does your data center end?
It might seem like an odd question as you can probably point out the physical building or buildings that house your data center(s). But does that physical installation line up with the logic concept of the “data center” held by your business?
The commoditization of infrastructure is one of the most significant developments over the last couple of decades. The growth of web-scale companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter (which collect, analyze, and extract information from a large volume of data) has influenced this commoditization of the infrastructure.
Looking back at the last couple of decades, enterprises have realized that the problems faced and solved by web-scale companies end up being problems in the enterprise after a short gestation time. Enterprises start seeing similar issues in scaling, management, and analysis of infrastructure, processes, and data. At multiple layers of the application stack, the enterprises adopt web-scale strategies to solve similar problems (Figure 1).
Advantech’s WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 is an open standardized IoT software platform for users by applying MQTT, a standard and popular IoT M2M protocol for device and server communication.
WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 comes with more than 100 RESTful APIs including, account management, device management, device control, event management, system management, and database management. RESTful APIs create new web services and help integrate functions and data with their management tools. Furthermore, WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 will release WISE-Agent source code as open source. WISE-Agent software works on the device side, helping customers to develop their own applications. WISE-PaaS/RMM highly enhances connectivity for hardware, software, devices and sensors, and helps customers to transform their business to include IoT cloud services.
Riverbed Technology has released enhancements to Riverbed SteelCentral that bring major advances to troubleshooting capabilities and improved monitoring across the cloud while simultaneously improving ease of use and scalability. These enhancements continue to support a common theme of improved SteelCentral platform integration while enhancing several critical capabilities, including:
Extending powerful monitoring capabilities into the cloud with Microsoft Azure and AWS Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and containerized environments Large-scale virtualized network performance monitoring Expanded unified communications (UC) monitoring with new support for Skype for Business Next generation diagnostics and troubleshootingFurther, SteelCentral vastly improves the ability to monitor applications deployed on PaaS and containerized environments. As these environments dynamically scale during peak and off-peak periods, conventional performance monitoring tools that trace interactions between servers cannot coherently represent application behavior. This release introduces the Application Performance Graph that visually maps interactions between application modules in real-time, regardless of the underlying infrastructure. This reveals dependencies and hotspots obscured by the elasticity of the environment so that IT can observe and fix issues with the most overarching business impact.
ioSafe’s BDR 515 is a unique fire- and waterproof hybrid backup and disaster recovery (BDR) appliance designed to eliminate downtime, protect data and provide near-zero recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs), even during times of internet outage. The BDR 515 enables data to be protected onsite as well as securely replicated to the cloud.
Powered by Windows Server 2012 R2 and StorageCraft® ShadowProtect® SPX, the ioSafe BDR 515 has a flexible architecture that can be administered by partners and is available in capacities between 5 and 30TB. Other features include:
All 14 Final Assembly Sites in China are Now Zero Waste Compliant
BEIJING — August 17, 2016 — Apple® today announced a significant commitment by major supplier Lens Technology to run its Apple operations on entirely renewable energy. This unprecedented commitment, combined with zero waste compliance from all final assembly sites, furthers Apple’s efforts to help manufacturers lower their carbon footprint and reduce waste in China, helping to advance China’s transition to a new green economy.
Lens Technology has committed to power all of its glass production for Apple with 100 percent renewable energy by the end of 2018, as part of Apple’s industry-leading supply chain clean energy program announced last year. Lens is the first supplier to make a clean energy commitment for all of its Apple production, and will meet its goal through an unprecedented power purchase agreement with local wind projects.
“We are pleased to report third quarter results that reflect stronger customer demand and business performance than we anticipated at the start of the quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We had a very successful launch of iPhone SE and we’re thrilled by customers’ and developers’ response to software and services we previewed at WWDC in June.”
“Our Services business grew 19 percent year-over-year and App Store revenue was the highest ever, as our installed base continued to grow and transacting customers hit an all-time record,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We returned over $13 billion to investors through share repurchases and dividends, and we have now completed almost $177 billion of our $250 billion capital return program.”
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WHEN: Tuesday, July 26, 2016, 2:00 p.m. PDT/5:00 p.m. EDT
“On average, one person dies every hour in the United States waiting for an organ transplant because the demand for lifesaving transplants far exceeds the available supply of organs — and one donor can save as many as eight lives,” said David Fleming, President & CEO of Donate Life America. “By working with Apple to bring the National Donate Life Registry to the Health app on iPhone, we’re making it easier for people to find out about organ, eye and tissue donation and quickly register. This is a huge step forward that will ultimately help save lives.”
Over 120,000 Americans are currently waiting for a lifesaving transplant — and every 10 minutes, a new individual is added to the national transplant waiting list. Each organ donor can save as many as eight lives and heal many more through the gifts of tissue and eye donation. In the absence of donor registration, families are left to make the decision about donation in what is often the worst moment of their lives, the sudden and unexpected loss of a loved one.
“Apple Watch is the ultimate companion for a healthy life and with watchOS 3, there’s now even more to love,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer. “Favorite apps launch instantly and are simple to access, and the breakthrough new fitness and health features like the Breathe app make it feel like a whole new watch.”
Instant Performance & Simple Navigation
It is easier and faster than ever to perform common tasks with watchOS 3, including replying to a message, starting a Workout or skipping a song. By pressing the side button, users can access the new Dock with their recent and favorite apps. Right from the Dock or the watch face, users can launch their favorite native and third-party apps instantly and have the latest information in the app already updated and ready for viewing. Similar to iOS, users can swipe up from the watch face for the new and improved Control Center, continue to swipe down for Notification Center and swipe left or right to easily switch out a watch face.
“macOS Sierra is a major update that makes your Mac smarter and more helpful than ever with improvements to the apps you know and love and great new features throughout,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “With macOS Sierra, you can get information, find files and multitask using Siri, access your Desktop and Documents from anywhere, copy and paste between Macs and iOS devices, and rediscover precious memories in Photos.”
Siri Debuts on the Mac
Siri on the Mac is now just one click away. The familiar features of Siri are now on the Mac with brand-new capabilities specifically designed for the desktop. Easily accessible from the Dock, menu bar or keyboard, Siri lets you use your voice to search for information, find files and send messages. For example you can ask Siri to locate a specific document you worked on last night, add a meeting to your calendar or start a FaceTime® call. With Siri on the Mac, you can also drag and drop items from Siri search results into your documents or emails, pin Siri search results in Notification Center to keep an eye on information like sports scores or stock prices, and even adjust system preferences, set reminders and search your Photos library. With its debut on Mac, Siri is now on all four Apple software platforms — iOS, macOS™, watchOS® and tvOS™ — and handles two billion requests per week across 36 countries.
“iOS 10 is our biggest release ever, with delightful new ways to express yourself in Messages, a native app for Home automation, and beautifully redesigned apps for Music, Maps, and News that are more intuitive and more powerful, making everything you love about your iPhone and iPad even better,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “iOS 10 adds Siri intelligence into QuickType and Photos, automates your home with the new Home app and opens up Siri, Maps, Phone and Messages to developers — while increasing security and privacy with powerful technologies like Differential Privacy.”
Personal & Expressive Messages
Messages is the most frequently used iOS app, and with iOS 10 it is more expressive and fun with animated and personalized ways to message friends and family. Messages includes powerful animations, such as balloons, confetti or fireworks that can take over an entire screen to celebrate a special occasion, invisible ink to send a message only revealed after a friend swipes over it, and for added personalization, handwritten notes. Automatic suggestions make it easy to replace words with emoji, Tapback creates a quick and simple way to respond with just a tap and rich links let you see content inline and play media without ever leaving your conversation.
“The future of TV is apps, and Siri on Apple TV has changed the way we interact with our television and these expanded features will continue to deliver viewers what they want to watch even faster,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “There are over 6,000 apps to enjoy on your Apple TV including over 1,300 video channels, which are even more fun to watch with the new Siri features combined with single sign-on.”
New Siri Features & Functionality
Since the launch of Apple TV, Siri has gotten more powerful, now searching over 650,000 TV episodes and movies. Siri is available in even more countries with expanded capabilities.
“I wish Swift Playgrounds was around when I was first learning to code,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Swift Playgrounds is the only app of its kind that is both easy enough for students and beginners, yet powerful enough to write real code. It’s an innovative way to bring real coding concepts to life and empower the next generation with the skills they need to express their creativity.”
“The new Swift Playgrounds app from Apple is one of the most powerful, yet approachable, educational coding apps we’ve ever seen, and we can’t wait to incorporate it into our upcoming camp curriculum,” said Jean MacDonald, founder of App Camp for Girls. “It’s a fun and intuitive way for our students to learn the basic principles of coding using the iPad, and also become skilled in Swift, a language that can grow with them in whatever they choose to do.”
By now, the benefits and simplicity of cloud computing are well understood, and the promise of benefits like cost-savings, greater efficiency, and increased application agility have inspired companies of all sizes to kick start their journey to the cloud. In fact, it’s expected that the cloud infrastructure and platform market will grow by 19% annually from 2015 to 2018, reaching 43 billion dollars by 2018.
Ultimately, the question these days is not “if” businesses will move to the cloud, but rather “when.” At the same time, as cloud functionality becomes more complex and IT professionals are increasingly relied upon to manage and deploy cloud services, many organizations struggle to manage their cloud deployment of choice — public vs. private — in a manner that produces the most efficiency and ROI.
