Elevology Blog

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 troubleshooting

Further, 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:

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.

As we move from the data center and transition into the cloud, what comes next? That’s the question on many CIOs’ minds as they contemplate how to increase customer experience and deliver an environment of true digital enablement where users are capable of conducting their jobs in an always-on, anywhere, anytime world. What they run into at the edge of the cloud is a hazy area — The Fog — where the Internet of Things (IoT) exists. This fog is going to become increasingly critical to both endusers and CIOs alike as smart and connected devices, meant to bring data from every point imaginable, become part of the enterprise.

We are defining the digitally enabled enterprise as an organization that embraces technology and services to improve the customer experience (CX) it delivers to both internal and external customers and, in doing so, often changes the nature of the organization itself. The alignment of and investment in technology and business models is critical to more effectively engage digital customers at every touchpoint in the CX lifecycle. It doesn’t matter the type of business, where it’s located, or in many cases, how large the organization is; the focus on customer experience is pervasive and all consuming.

Cloud is the IT structure of the future due to its scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency. But does the option of a public cloud, private cloud, or even a mix of these environments work for every organization? The simple answer is no. Companies in highly regulated industries such as financial services, health care, education, and government are often stymied by governance, risk, and compliance concerns related to data stored and accessed in the cloud. But all hope is not lost — there is the fourth option of the community cloud.

A community cloud is the lesser known version of cloud infrastructure, although it is relatively popular amongst particular industries. As defined by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), community cloud is an “infrastructure [that] is provisioned for exclusive use by a specific community of consumers from organizations that have shared concerns. It can be owned, managed, and operated by one or more of the organizations, in the community, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises.” In essence, a community cloud is a subset of the public cloud, but tailored for a particular industry and may be offered as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) or Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Since the community cloud is personalized, it is adapted to fit the exact performance, security, and compliance requirements of the industry or community it serves.