Dell/EMC, SnapRoute reinforce OpenSwitch networking features

Looking to broaden the qualities of its open source stack, the #OpenSwitch project said #SnapRoute and #Dell #EMC will add new features to its network operating system. Specifically, the new contributions include:

SnapRoute’s open source network stack and management services, which support a modular, hardware independent NOS, accessible through a complete set of APIs.
Dell EMC’s OS10 Open Edition, which represents an open, disaggregated base subsystem incorporating hardware and platform abstraction layers for networking switching applications. On top of OS 10 base module run application modules which include traditional Layer 2/3 networking functions and other IP, fabric, security, and management and automation tools from Dell, Linux, third-parties and the open source community.
“OpenSwitch is now one step closer to providing the data center community with an open source network operating system that enables organizations to focus on developing innovative networking solutions, which can exploit Cavium’s extensible switch architecture to address rapidly changing market needs," said Albert Fishman, Linux Foundation OpenSwitch project marketing chair and senior technical marketing manager of Cavium Switching Platform Group.

HP formed OpenSwitch 2015 to develop a programmable open source network operating system for data centers. At the time HP said traditional networking is based on a closed, proprietary and vertically integrated model that does not let customers or developers innovate and tailor networks to meet business needs because there is no community-based access to NOS source code for modification. An open source NOS lets developers engineer networks to prioritize business critical workloads and functions, ease interoperability, and relieve customers of proprietary software licensing structures.

http://www.networkworld.com/article/3136762/lan-wan/dell-emc-snaproute-reinforce-openswitch-networking-features.html

HPE Advances Among “Leaders” in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Integrated Systems

When the Gartner 2015 Magic Quadrant for Integrated Systems results were released last year, it was clear that the integrated systems market segment was very active. The report showed that hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) continued to represent the fastest growing area in the data center. With the release of this year’s results, it is even more obvious that it continues to grow at an incredible pace. As you would expect with such a hot market trend, #HCI continues to receive lots of attention from analysts, press, vendors, and customers alike. And in this year’s Gartner 2016 Magic Quadrant for Integrated Systems report, Gartner again claims, “Hyperconvergence is disrupting the integrated system market, with major system vendors joining the growing number of startups (some of which are now mature).” #HPE

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3137069/data-center/hpe-advances-among-leaders-in-gartner-s-magic-quadrant-for-integrated-systems.html

Scality Named a Leader in Gartner’s First Magic Quadrant for Distributed File Systems and Object Storage

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- #Scality, world leader in object and cloud storage, announced that it has been recognized by Gartner, Inc. as a Leader in the 2016 Magic Quadrant for Distributed File Systems and Object Storage1 research report. Scality was one of 13 companies evaluated in the Gartner report, in which each vendor was measured across comprehensive specifications including its ability to execute and completion of vision. This is the first such “Magic Quadrant” report that evaluates vendors in the file systems and object storage market.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161031005167/en/Scality-Named-Leader-Gartner’s-Magic-Quadrant-Distributed

Quantum computing is poised to transform our lives. Meet the man leading Google's charge

 R&D #Quantumcomputing is poised to transform our lives. Meet the man leading #Google 's charge John Martinis outlines how he's building his qubit computer and what it will do John Martinis, University of Santa Barbara physics professor and head of Google's quantum computing lab, is less concerned with the well-being of Schrödinger's infamous cat than with how he can train it to solve complex maths problems. Last year, Martinis achieved the first step towards building a quantum computer with a working group of nine quantum bits (qubits) able to perform error-checking1. Now he's begun scaling this up, with the aim of demonstrating a 100-qubit group within the next couple of years. WIRED talked to him to him about the challenges involved. WIRED: Just how powerful does the kind of quantum computer you're building have the potential to be? John Martinis: Classical computation is based on the storage and manipulation of simple bits of information, which can be either a 0 or a 1. With quantum computing, we use the laws of quantum mechanics to build bits that are both 0 and 1 at the same time. This allows us to create a parallel processing machine where, instead of an algorithm running the case 0 and then running the case 1 and so on to get an answer, we can run 0 and 1 simultaneously. With a single bit that parallelisation speeds things up by a factor of two to the power of one - you've doubled the speed - but this power increases for every additional quantum bit you add, so the speed increase is exponential. So once you get to 300 qubits, you've sped things up by a factor of two to the power of 300, which is greater than the number of atoms in the entire universe. You can't achieve that with a classical computer. How do you build qubits and why did you choose that method?

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/googles-head-of-quantum-computing

Insight Named Dell EMC 2016 Premier Plus and Philanthropic Partner of the Year

TEMPE, Ariz., Oct. 31, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- #Insight (Nasdaq:NSIT) today announced it has been named a winner in two separate categories at #Dell #EMC 's 2016 Partner of the Year Awards. The annual awards honor Dell EMC channel partners for delivering commendable solutions for their customers and were presented at the Dell EMC Global Partner Summit in Austin, TX, on October 18, 2016. Award winners are selected from a group of nominations based on their dedicated use of Dell EMC technologies to provide solutions for their customers' needs. "Receiving the Dell EMC 2016 Premier Plus Partner of the Year Award for the second year in a row is a testament to how we, along with our partners, are committed to providing our clients with the best solutions to make their businesses run smarter and better. Our core value of Hunger to help our clients succeed and our value of Harmony to work closely with partners and clients are evident in this recognition," said Bob Kane , SVP, product marketing, Insight. "However, the second award from Dell EMC - Philanthropic Partner of the Year - holds a very special meaning for us. This recognition for the commitments we have made to the communities in which we live and work demonstrates that our teammates truly embody our core value of Heart," Kane said. Insight has a number of standout philanthropic programs under Reach, which brings together Insight's giving efforts to support organizations that provide technology-driven educational opportunities for children. Programs include a partnership with the Arizona Diamondbacks to support science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning through a baseball-driven curriculum in elementary and middle schools, and Noble Cause, an annual charitable initiative that raised approximately $1 million since its inception five years ago. "We congratulate Insight, on receiving both Dell EMC's Philanthropic Partner of the Year Award and Premier Plus Partner of the Year Award, which recognizes partners that have exhibited an exemplary commitment to Dell EMC and our joint customers throughout the year," said John Byrne , President, Global Channels, Dell EMC. "Dell EMC's partners are an important part of the Dell EMC sales force and provide our joint customers deep technology and consulting expertise on their Digital Transformation journey."

Insight Named Dell EMC 2016 Premier Plus and Philanthropic Partner of the Year

Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/insight-named-dell-emc-2016-premier-plus-and-philanthropic-partner-of-the-year-20161031-00572#ixzz4OhZrvbPv

SnapRoute and Dell EMC to Help Advance Linux Foundation's OpenSwitch Project

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - October 31, 2016) - The #OpenSwitch project today announced that #SnapRoute, Inc. and #Dell #EMC will deepen their contributions to the project to advance OpenSwitch as it continues to evolve and meet market requests for a complete open source network operating system (NOS). Today's enhanced contributions include: SnapRoute's open source network stack and management services, which enable a fully modular, hardware independent NOS, accessible through a complete set of APIs. Dell EMC's OS10 Open Edition, which represents a fully open, fully disaggregated base subsystem incorporating hardware and platform abstraction layers for networking switching applications. These contributions will function together to ensure organizations and the open source community have a complete open networking stack. Other OpenSwitch project supporting members and participating organizations include Barefoot Networks, #Broadcom, #Cavium, Inc., #Edgecore Networks, #ExtremeNetworks, #HewlettPackardEnterprise, #LinkedIn, #Marvell, #MellanoxTechnologies, #Nephos Inc., #P4.org, #Quattro Networks and #Terralogic. The OpenSwitch architecture, based on SnapRoute's networking stack contribution, adopts a modular protocol and software approach, allowing organizations to use only what is necessary, also enabling legacy architectures to continue to function. These additional contributions will further accelerate the OpenSwitch project and enable organizations to fully realize the value of an open source network operating system. "The OpenSwitch community continues to demonstrate its enthusiastic commitment to the creation of an open source network operating system," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The #Linux Foundation. "It's exciting to see a rapid influx of contributions to OpenSwitch, which are priming the project to support next-generation requirements and features." "Dell EMC is committed to leading within the open switching community to drive networking innovation and disrupt this historically proprietary industry," said Gavin Cato, senior vice president, Networking Development Engineering, Dell EMC. "By contributing Dell EMC OS10 Open Edition to the OpenSwitch community, in addition to our previous contributions within OCP, we're further unlocking the networking software stack with the power of open platform abstraction and disaggregation."

http://m.marketwired.com/press-release/snaproute-and-dell-emc-to-help-advance-linux-foundations-openswitch-project-2171042.htm

Global Hadoop Market to Grow at CAGR of 59.37% to 2020

MarketStudyReport.com adds “Global #Hadoop Market 2016-2020” new report to its research database. The report spread across 72 pages with table and figures in it. The Research analysts forecast the global Hadoop market to grow at a CAGR of 59.37% during the period 2016-2020. The increased amount of data on the internet from various modes such as web logs, online transactions, social media, and video streaming has forced organizations to take proactive measures to store and manage data and derive useful insights. According to the Research team, approximately 7 zettabytes of data churned out from enterprises globally in 2015. Out of the total, more than 80% was unstructured data that came from social media platforms, clickstreams, server logs, sensors, and the Internet of Things. Storing useful information and deriving insights from unstructured data and real-time analytics are challenging tasks for organizations. Hadoop played a pivotal role for enterprises over the past 4-5 years in handling the increase of data. Apache Hadoop is a framework that works on a clustered file system that can share multiple servers simultaneously. It is an open-source software platform that uses MapReduce technology, which is a programming model that allows for processing and generating large data sets with a distributed algorithm on a cluster. The technology involves two steps. The Map step helps control nodes from various sources such as legacy systems and extensible markup language files. In the Reduce step, various smaller work nodes of information are created and distributed across a computing cluster server. This will help perform distributed computations on various hardware servers.

http://www.newsmaker.com.au/news/147122/global-hadoop-market-to-grow-at-cagr-of-5937-to-2020#.WBe303pOlnE

Have we reached Peak Hadoop?

The fact that #IBM is not using #Hadoop for its new #Watson Data Platform cloud service provides a fresh reminder that the Hadoop vs. Spark debate isn't dead. But don't count Hadoop out. Its data management capabilities are not yet being matched by #Spark or other fit-for-purpose big data cloud services.

Leaving Las Vegas, or more specifically IBM's World of Watson, we're reflecting on the progress that IBM's made towards delivering cognitive computing and the reality that the onramp remains a long one. For the most part, were seeing the steady rollout of point services, such as the Watson Virtual Agent reported by Larry Dignan that offers modest chatbot capabilities.

But the biggest release of this cycle, which IBM has been taking a rolling thunder strategy, is what's now finally called the Watson Data Platform. My fellow Big on Data blogger George Anadiotis, covered the initial announcement, which was all about the strategy (and an interim product name), while Larry's report documented the final announcement.

At the conference, we had a chance to take a deep dive into the new platform, not to mention stepping up to the bar and letting Watson pick out a craft brew based on your profile. For the record, Watson blew it in deciphering my taste, concluding that I prefer lagers because I like blackberries, chocolate cake, and drinking beers in wintertime. We'll do a much deeper dive later this week into the Watson Data Platform, and what it means for IBM's big data strategy,

http://www.zdnet.com/article/have-we-reached-peak-hadoop/

Microsoft’s Storage Spaces Reaches Maximum Density: RAID Inc. Certified JBOD for Windows Server 2016 Qualifies HGST Ultrastar 10TB Drive

#RAIDInc. has achieved #Microsoft certification status of the Ability EBOD Series of Enterprise JBOD storage enclosures for #WindowsServer2016, #StorageSpaces. RAID Inc. has additionally tested and qualified the complete line of HGST Ultrastar® He10 12Gb/s helium drives—including the high density 10TB model based upon third-generation HelioSeal® technology. ANDOVER, MA, (PRWEB) October 31, 2016 RAID Inc., a high performance computing solutions company, today announces it has achieved Microsoft certification status of the Ability EBOD Series of Enterprise JBOD storage enclosures for Windows® Server 2016, Storage Spaces. RAID Inc. has taken this designation a step further and qualified the complete line of HGST Ultrastar® He10 12Gb/s helium drives—including the high density 10TB model based upon third-generation HelioSeal® technology. With its holistic approach and true technical expertise, RAID Inc. welcomes the industry’s largest drive with qualification for the industry leading ultra-dense Ability EBOD 4U 84-Bay 12Gb/s SAS Enterprise JBOD. The massive 840TB capacity Enterprise-Class JBOD is a vital cog in the RAID Inc. range of Microsoft certified server, storage and networking solutions optimized for enterprise, cloud, and data center, as strategically aligned with Microsoft’s software-defined data center (SDDC) strategy. “Working closely with Microsoft, the team at RAID has accomplished notable successes deploying petabytes of Scale-Out File Server architectures featuring Storage Spaces,” says Trenton R. Baker, vice president marketing, RAID Inc. “By earning this Windows Server 2016 certification RAID Inc becomes the leader in storage at scale deployments for Storage Spaces. The Ability 84-bay Enterprise JBOD can meet practical budgetary restrictions and achieve a massive capacity architecture when teamed with the HGST Ultrastar He10 hard drives.”

http://www.pressreleaserocket.net/microsofts-storage-spaces-reaches-maximum-density-raid-inc-certified-jbod-for-windows-server-2016-qualifies-hgst-ultrastar-10tb-drive/

Middle East Data Storage Market Revenue to Expand at a CAGR of 14.4%, 2025

According to a new market report published by Future Market Insights, titled “Data Storage Market: Middle East Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2015 - 2025,” the Middle East data storage market was valued at US$ 1,475.9 Mn in 2014 and is expected to register a CAGR of 14.4% from 2015 to 2025. Growth of the Middle East data storage market is primarily driven by declining prices of consumer storage devices and advancements in information and social technology. On the basis of application, the data storage market is segmented into consumer data storage devices and enterprise data storage. The consumer data storage segment is further sub-segmented into Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Devices (SSD), memory card, optical disk and USB flash drive. The enterprise data storage segment is further sub-segmented into flash storage and hard disk, cloud based storage, software-defined storage and hyper-converged infrastructure. In the consumer data storage segment, the reduction in cost of Solid State Devices (SSD) is contributing immensely to the growth of the segment. The consumer data storage devices segment was valued US$ 275.5 Mn in 2014 and is anticipated to register a CAGR of 12.4% during the forecast period 2015-2025. In terms of volume, the hard disk drive segment accounted for 1,533.0 thousand units in 2016 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 12.1% during the forecast period. The enterprise data storage segment is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 14.8% during the forecast period in terms of revenue. Enterprise data storage is a common repository for business information, ensuring common data management and providing data recovery solutions. Strong growth witnessed in the cloud computing (due to increased spending on storage by service provider) is the primarily contributing to the growth of the enterprise data storage segment in the market

http://www.openpr.com/news/377764/Middle-East-Data-Storage-Market-Revenue-to-Expand-at-a-CAGR-of-14-4-2025.html

VMware boss Pat Gelsinger tackles life after Dell buyout

@PatGelsinger is not your usual Silicon Valley chief executive. A committed Christian who nearly went into the church rather than technology, he gives away 40pc of his salary, prays and sings hymns on journeys from his Californian office to the airport and resolved early in life to never read his daily business newspaper until he had first read the Bible. Right now, however, all that everybody wants to hear is how the chief executive of #VMware, the $32bn (£26.2bn) market capitalisation US technology group, is getting on with #MichaelDell.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/10/30/vmware-boss-pat-gelsinger-tackles-life-after-dell-buyout/

Google taught artificial intelligence to encrypt messages on its own

A team at #Google has built a system to show that #artificialintelligence can build its own form of encryption. While not very complex currently, this research could set the table for encryption that gets stronger as hackers attempt to crack it. To see if the artificial intelligence could learn to encrypt on its own, the AI researchers at #GoogleBrain, a unit of the search company focused on deep learning, built a game with three entities powered by deep neural networks: Alice, Bob, and Eve. Alice was designed to send an encrypted message of 16 zeroes and ones to Bob, which was designed to decrypt the message. The two bots started with a shared key, a foundation for the message’s encryption.  Eve was placed squarely in the middle, intercepting the information and attempting to decrypt it as well. To avoid Eve working out the encryption, Alice started transforming the message in different ways, and Bob adaptively learned how to shift his decryption to keep up. The researchers measured Eve’s success by how close it got to the correct message, Alice’s by whether Eve’s answer was further from the original message than a random guess, and Bob’s by whether he met a certain threshold for arriving at the right answer. The three networks were designed as generative adversarial networks, meaning they weren’t taught anything about encryption or shown examples of encrypted and decrypted messages. They learned by trying to outsmart each other.  Bob, in red, quickly adapted to learn new encryption while Eve, in green, was unable to keep up. (Google) For the first 7,000 messages, Alice and Bob started out simply. Alice’s encryption was easy for Bob to figure out, but that meant it was easy for Eve to guess as well. But over the next 6,000 messages, Alice and Bob devised a kind of encryption that Eve simply couldn’t crack. Bob was able to reliably decrypt the message with no errors, while Eve consistently got seven or eight of the 16 characters wrong. Since the answers were either a zero or one, Eve would have had the same chances if it just flipped a coin. This kind of learning is done over thousands of iterations by a mosaic of mathematic weights being changed within the algorithms, so not even the researchers can understand how the encryption was built without an intensive and time-consuming analysis. While this was a simple test of whether AI can succeed at generating a form of encryption, it does spark questions about the future of security. Cryptography has always been a game of cat and mouse between those encrypting and those attempting to decrypt, constrained by the speed of modern computers. And while authors write that keeping data secure is more than just having strong encryption, cybersecurity might mean one day having AI agents fighting continually to protect your information, while others try to ferret it out.

http://qz.com/822216/google-taught-artificial-intelligence-to-encrypt-messages-on-its-own/

Dell strategies to build security business

#Dell creates a turnkey security bundle to extend value of its commercial PCs, says Jane Wright, principal analyst at TBR. Within the combined security portfolios of Dell, #EMC, #RSA and #VMware, #DellTechnologies possesses many of the components business customers need to secure their users’ endpoints. Just seven weeks after forming Dell Technologies, Dell took the first step to ensure interoperability of its security components and bundle them for easier ordering and support. At Dell EMC World 2016, Dell announced it enabled interoperability of Dell Data Protection Endpoint Security Suite Enterprise (DDP | ESSE), which provides data encryption and threat detection, with Mozy by Dell, which provides cloud-based data backup and recovery. This first bundle is well-timed, as ransomware attacks are becoming more prevalent. DDP encrypts data so it is not useful to the ransomware attacker, and Mozy enables the ransomware victim to quickly recover their data following the attack. The new bundle increases the value proposition of Dell’s commercial PCs, as it affords IT and line-of-business decision makers ease of implementation as well as visibility into and control over users’ PCs. Dell’s endpoint security investments position the vendor to capture a greater share of the enterprise security market Dell’s road map calls for further interoperability and bundling of its endpoint security tools including NetWitness, an RSA product that provides additional endpoint threat detection algorithms, and SecurID, RSA’s widely deployed identity and authentication solution. However, Dell’s planned bundle will leave customers with four different security agents running on each endpoint. TBR believes customers will resist installing and managing so many agents due to complexity, performance and cost issues. This resistance will not be unique to Dell, though, as other vendors aiming to implement different security controls on their customers’ endpoints also require multiple agents.
http://www.infotechlead.com/security/dell-strategies-to-build-security-business-43595

Containers and microservices find home in Hadoop ecosystem

Much of the recent #bigdata experience has been a bare-metal affair, meaning #Hadoop has happened largely on non-virtualized servers. That could change as containers and microservices gain traction in application development circles.

Both containers and microservices break up monolithic application code into more finely grained pieces.  That streamlines development and makes for easier testing, which is one of the keys to more flexible application deployment and code reuse.

It is early on for such techniques to be applied to big data, but, for new jobs like data streaming, microservices shows promise.  For a technology manager at a leading European e-commerce company, the microservices approach simplifies development and enables code reuse.

With microservices, "you can very much economize on what you're doing," according to Rupert Steffner, chief platform architect for business intelligence systems at Otto GmbH, a multichannel retailer based in Hamburg, Germany. He goes further: For some types of applications, not using microservices "is stupid. You're building the same functionality over and over again."

The types of applications Steffner is talking about are multiple artificial intelligence (AI) bots that run various real-time analytics jobs on the company's online retail site. Otto uses a combination of microservices, #Docker containers and stream processing technologies to power these AI bots.
http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/news/450401973/Containers-and-microservices-find-home-in-Hadoop-ecosystem

Hadoop engine benchmark: How Spark, Impala, Hive, and Presto compare

The global #Hadoop market is expected to expand at an average compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.3% between now and 2023, a testimony to how aggressively companies have been adopting this #bigdata software framework for storing and processing the gargantuan files that characterize big data. But to turbo-charge this processing so that it performs faster, additional engine software is used in concert with Hadoop. #AtScale, a business intelligence (BI) Hadoop solutions provider, periodically performs BI-on-Hadoop benchmarks that compare the performances of various Hadoop engines to determine which engine is best for which Hadoop processing scenario. The benchmark results assist systems professionals charged with managing big data operations as they make their engine choices for different types of Hadoop processing deployments.

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/hadoop-engine-benchmark-how-spark-impala-hive-and-presto-compare/

News Bits: LaCie, Dell EMC, Seagate, Datera, Lenovo, Nimble, Barracuda, DDN, & More

This week’s News Bits we look at a number of small announcements, small in terms of the content not the impact they have. #LaCie has introduced what it calls the world’s fastest desktop storage. #Dell #EMC announced the GA of its Documentum for Life Sciences. #Seagate launched what they are calling the world’s fastest HDD for mission critical workloads. Datera announced integration with #Openstack FUEL. #Lenovo is partnering with #Nimble and DDN on two separate projects. All this is among a few other announcements.

http://www.storagereview.com/news_bits_lacie_dell_emc_seagate_datera_lenovo_nimble_barracuda_ddn_more

Pure Storage CEO outlines channel direction

In part two of CDN’s special interview with Scott Dietzen, the CEO of #PureStorage, topics such as channel, new cloud models, hyper converged, market consolidation and new products are addressed. You can watch part one of the interview by clicking here. Dietzen has established a direct to channel strategy for the all-flash array vendor and believes this model best addresses the cloud opportunity with storage. He also believes the storage market is currently crowded and might lead to some consolidation. Also in this video feature, Dietzen talks about how Pure Storage will tackle the hyper converged opportunity along with a new product called FlashBlade that targets the unstructured data issue along with machine learning.

http://www.computerdealernews.com/video/pure-storage-ceo-outlines-channel-direction

Why digitized production needs Software-Defined-Storage for large data

The Technical University of Dresden in Germany is testing the complete individualization of production for #Tesla. In this test bed, robots are able to change their tools themselves and to perform different tasks on changing component parts in the production line. While this needs complex software development and a completely digitized supply chain, it is becoming more and more important to document all steps of this automated production. A German supplier of wheel rims for example is documenting its final products by taking high res pictures from a number of different angles. Documentation can be used to detect defect parts before they are shipped and to have the proof that only flawless products have left the factory. While a refrigerator might only last 10 years and failure will not cause a law suit, a rotator built into a wind turbine might last 30 years or more and a defect wheel rim could easily become a life threat. Why not document every step of production – possibly because of the prohibitive storage cost. #SUSE Enterprise Storage is the most cost effective solution for large data, because it is priced based on nodes rather than on capacity. So customers can deploy commodity servers with densely configured disk storage and can easily scale without having to migrate.
https://www.suse.com/communities/blog/digitized-production-needs-software-defined-storage-large-data/

Asia-Pacific Software Defined Data Center Market (2016 - 2022)

NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Software-defined data center ( #SDDC ) is basically a software based data storage system where resources such as storage, networking, and security are combined and provided as a software service. SDDC offers a highly secured platform utilizing web-based servers to deliver data in an effective manner, and enable access to information by virtualization and cloud technology. The software-defined data centers (SDDC) market recently has been gaining acceptance due to rapid growth in the use of Internet and big data. Additionally, SDDC solutions have been gaining prominence within the enterprise eco-system, owing to a rapid rise in the flow of data traffic and growing demand for efficient data center resources. Efficient data centers are believed to slash IT budget for the organizations, bringing in the profitability. The report highlights the adoption of Software Defined Data Center, in Asia-Pacific. Based on the component type, the Software Defined Data Center market is segmented into Solution and services. Solution market is further segmented into Software-Defined Storage, Software-Defined Networking and Software-Defined Computing. Services segment is further sub divided into Integration, deployment & migration Service, Consulting and Managed services. Based on Data Center Type, the market is segmented into Large Scale, Mid-Scale and Small Scale. The Applications highlighted in this report include IT & Telecom, BFSI, Government Utilities, Healthcare, Education, Retail, Manufacturing and Others.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/asia-pacific-software-defined-data-center-market-2016---2022-300353210.html

Europe Software Defined Data Center Market (2016 - 2022)

LONDON, Oct. 27, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Software-defined data center ( #SDDC ) is basically a software based data storage system where resources such as storage, networking, and security are combined and provided as a software service. SDDC offers a highly secured platform utilizing web-based servers to deliver data in an effective manner, and enable access to information by virtualization and cloud technology. Rapid rise in the number of online shoppers has given rise to unprecedented growth within the e-commerce business. Attractive offers, easy payment methods, wide range of options, and ease of shopping has made the online platform a very attractive mode of shopping, eventually driving the e-commerce industry. Due to rising inclination to shop online, the data generated is enormous and needs to be processed and stored in data centers. The need for highly robust infrastructure would make data centers a costly venture. Other industries including telecom & IT, BFSI, and manufacturing have also been keenly exploring storage systems and high performance computing options.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/europe-software-defined-data-center-market-2016---2022-300353104.html

China Baoan to jointly set up graphene research institute

China Baoan Group * Says it will invest 1 million yuan to jointly set up graphene research institute in Beijing

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL4N1CY3JH

Dell’s venture capital arm to invest on Indian ventures

The combined corporate venture capital arm of #Dell and #EMC will do investments globally, including in India, a senior company executive said. Scott Darling, president of Dell Technologie’s ­ venture capital and corporate development arm, responsible for mergers and acquisitions said the combined entity now enjoys a stronger financial muscle, enabling it to look at more ‘aggressive’ investments. “We now have more capital available for investments than some of our competitors”, Scott Darling added. “Michael Dell (CEO of Dell) is encouraging me to step up the pace of investments in a rational fashion. We are active investors and actually are pretty aggressive in investments for our size. We have just brought the teams together in India”, said Scott Darling. “We are enthusiastic believers in the IT industry in India. I have some proposals for investments from India on my desk as we speak. The proposals include an enterprise infrastructure deal in the storage space and a SaaS company”, Scott Darling said.

https://indianceo.in/news/dell-vc-arm-invests-indian-ventures/

Technical & System Software Stocks Under Scanner -- Nutanix, Infosys, Vmware, and Hortonworks

Technical and System Software firms design, develop, manufacture, and market technical and system software such as assemblers, compilers, file management tools, system utilities, and debuggers. Pre-market, Stock-Callers.com has on its radar the following equities: #Nutanix Inc. (NASDAQ: NTNX), #Infosys Ltd (NYSE: INFY), #VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW), and #Hortonworks Inc. (NASDAQ: HDP).

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/technical--system-software-stocks-under-scanner----nutanix-infosys-vmware-and-hortonworks-599007921.html

Computer hard drives have shrunk like crazy over the last 60 years — here's a look back

When #IBM rolled out its first hard drive in 1956, the computing giant literally had to roll it out. Though its storage capabilities were puny, the 5-megabyte drive was the size of a grand piano and weighed over a ton. Thankfully, the next six decades were marked by rapid innovation. Here's a look back at how hard drives have climbed to new heights in storage while also shrinking like crazy.

http://www.businessinsider.com/computer-hard-drives-evolution-2016-10/#1956-ibm-shipped-the-first-hard-drive-its-5mb-ramac-305-by-todays-standards-it-was-unfathomably-huge-each-megabyte-cost-10000-or-88000-in-todays-dollars-1

Top Trends in High Capacity Enterprise SSDs

Flash has gone from being ridiculously expensive to largely affordable over the past five years. And a staggering drop in price has been paralleled by another spectacular occurrence. The capacity of Solid State Drives ( #SSD s) has gone through the roof. “Higher-capacity, lower-cost flash has resulted in 1 TB to 16 TB 2.5-inch SSDs,” said Greg Schulz, an analyst for StorageIO Group. “There are already some proof of concept technology demonstrations that should enable current densities to be able to double within the same footprint with reduced price over the next few years.” As a result, SSDs continue to eat into the market share of Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). Here are some of the top trends, tips and considerations related to high-capacity SSDs. This includes where the market is heading, when these huge SSDs are useful and when to avoid them, and more
http://mobile.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-hardware/top-trends-in-high-capacity-enterprise-ssds.html

Citi: VMware a Buy, Lifts Target Price (VMW)

After #VMware Inc.’s (VMW) strong third-quarter results, posted Wednesday after market close, the technology infrastructure and network virtualization leader has seen its stock rise a solid 3.5%. Analysts were pleased with the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company’s Q3 earnings and revenue beats, along with VMware’s positive guidance. Amidst the news, Citi Group has upgraded the tech firms stock to a buy rating, raising its price target 20% to $95. Higher Billings Highlighted Amid Revenue Beat In the company’s first quarterly earning report since #DellTechnologies acquisition of VMware parent company #EMC, the virtualization provider posted adjusted profit of $1.14 per share. Non-GAAP EPS reflected a 12% rise year-over-year (YOY) and beat the Street’s estimates of $1.10. Reported Q3 revenues of $1.78 billion for the quarter secured a 6% growth YOY, surpassing the consensus estimate of $1.76 billion.

http://www.investopedia.com/news/citi-vmware-buy-lifts-target-price-vmw/

Dell’s future PC business to focus on services

Services emerge as a key indicator of #Dell ’s future PC business, says Jack Narcotta, senior analyst at TBR. New approaches to services will help Dell expand the profit potential of its PCs Dell’s stated intention to improve its 30 percent-plus service attach rates, which are among the highest in the PC industry, highlights its commitment to establishing its services business as a profit engine on par with its PC hardware business. Its PC hardware business is surging as sales of its premium PCs, particularly notebook PCs from its XPS family, remain brisk despite heightened competition from #HP Inc., #Lenovo, #Asus and #Acer. Dell’s global rollouts of enhanced commercial and consumer PC services over the last year outlined the role services will play in Dell Technologies’ PC business. The importance of these assets to Dell’s Client Solutions business and direction of Dell’s post-PC hardware ambitions were solidified at Dell EMC World 2016. Services are exerting greater influence in PC markets, particularly in commercial and enterprise segments; hardware-centric sales models still exist but are becoming obsolete as the bulk of hardware differentiation among PC manufacturers shrinks.

http://www.infotechlead.com/devices/dells-future-pc-business-focus-services-43540

Did Microsoft just outwit Silicon Valley’s coolest tech startup?

I was shocked to read today that #IBM and Slack are partnering so that #Slack can use #Watson to improve their Slackbot’s cognitive capabilities. It seemed like Slack may be outsourcing the one thing that could become their most valuable strength. Except as I thought about it more, I wasn’t surprised. Slack may have been forced into this deal. I never thought I would write something like this, but Microsoft has just won a big strategic round against one of the Valley’s coolest tech startups. Here is what I think is happening.

I live pretty deeply in this world. Talla has launched three different Slack bots. But ultimately, we noticed that Slack was coming under pretty intense competition — most notably from Microsoft, but also, Google has to play here someday, right? Surely at some point Allo, or something like it, gets into Google Apps. So we made the strategic decision that messaging wouldn’t be a winner-take-all market, and possibly not even a small oligopoly. It may be very fragmented. Better to take an approach that plays to that fragmentation, which is why we ultimately made a different bet on a cross-platform ChatOps tool for HR teams.

http://venturebeat.com/2016/10/27/did-microsoft-just-outwit-silicon-valleys-coolest-tech-startup/amp/

WD gets flash boom bang from SanDisk swallow

WD's disk and #SanDisk-boosted flash sales boomed as overall revenues in its first fiscal 2017 quarter rose to $4.7bn, up 40.6 per cent on the year-ago $3.4bn. But it reported a net $366m loss. Why a loss? A year ago it made a profit of $283m on lower revenues. This time around there were charges associated with WD’s recent acquisitions ( #SanDisk and HGST) and debt extinguishment charges related to repricing and repayment of outstanding debt. Compared to the previous quarter revenues of $3.5bn the revenue growth was abrupt and shows the effect of having SanDisk inside WD’s house. CEO Steve Milligan’s canned quote said: “We are pleased with our performance in the September quarter, the first full quarter as an integrated company following the SanDisk acquisition in May. Demand for both hard drive and flash-based products was strong across all customer categories, driven by cloud and mobile applications, as well as better-than-expected PC market trends.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2016/10/27/boom_wd_gets_disk_demand_and_sandisk_flash_revenue_boost/

Reports Say CenturyLink And Level 3 Are Close To A Merger, Partners Approve

Telecom providers #CenturyLink and #Level3 Communications are reportedly in talks to join forces, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. A possible merger would combine Level 3's robust fiber footprint, with CenturyLink's networking, cloud and software-defined networking ( #SDN ) expertise, partners say. While terms of the reported deal are unknown, a merger could be announced in the coming weeks, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The potential CenturyLink/Level 3 merger comes at a time in which many traditional telecom providers are trying to reinvent themselves in order to stay relevant and bring more value to their customers, said Michael Bremmer, CEO of Moreno Valley, California-based TelecomQuotes.com, a telecom consultancy.

"The problem is, these carriers don't know what they want to be when they grow up," Bremmer said.

Level 3's far-flung fiber infrastructure expands more than 100,000 fiber miles in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Its footprint also includes 30,000 metro route miles and 35,000 subsea route miles. CenturyLink, a service provider with a smaller backbone, has a robust portfolio of cloud, hosting and SDN services that could be expanded to more customers if the two companies come together, partners say.

Carrier Access, Inc., a Des Moines, Iowa-based solution provider and CenturyLink Premier Partner believes that a merger between the two companies would be welcome to the market, said Shane Stark, director of vendor and channel relations for Carrier Access.

CenturyLink and Level 3 have a lot of synergies, Stark said.

"From a partner standpoint, it's a great thing to see two companies that have been partner-friendly come together. I think it would be a fantastic fit, " he said.

A CenturyLink/Level 3 combination will help both companies offer more valuable services to the market, TelecomQuotes' Bremmer added.

http://m.crn.com/news/networking/300082625/reports-say-centurylink-and-level-3-are-close-to-a-merger-partners-approve.htm

Microsoft Hops On Software-Defined Bandwagon

If there was any doubt, here's proof the software-defined networking ( #SDN ) movement has gone mainstream: #Microsoft is fully on board. The company is pitching its new #WindowsServer2016 as the perfect platform for running a Software-Defined Data Center ( #SDDC ), with its new "Software Defined Network (SDN) Stack" playing a key role. A new Networking Blog post -- "Network Virtualization in the Windows Server 2016 Software Defined Networking (SDN) Stack" -- goes into the underlying technical details.

https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2016/10/27/microsoft-sdn.aspx?m=1

VMware Insists Amazon Deal Will Grow, Not Drain, Its Business

On #VMware ’s third-quarter earnings call—the first since the company’s parent #EMC was officially acquired by Dell—there seemed to be more talk about Amazon than of VMware’s new corporate overlord, now known as #DellTechnologies. Many questions focused on VMware’s recently announced partnership with #Amazon Web Services, the online retailer’s cloud business. The gist of that deal is that if a company runs VMware VMW 3.36% vSphere and associated software internally, it will now be easier to run those same jobs, largely unchanged, on AWS. Typically, existing legacy applications need to be rewritten or at least significantly tweaked to run on a public cloud.

http://fortune.com/2016/10/27/vmware-amazon-deal/

Turning diamonds' defects into long-term 3-D data storage

With the amount of data storage required for our daily lives growing and growing, and currently available technology being almost saturated, we’re in desparate need of a new method of data storage. The standard magnetic hard disk drive (HDD) – like what’s probably in your laptop computer – has reached its limit, holding a maximum of a few terabytes. Standard optical disk technologies, like compact disc (CD), digital video disc (DVD) and Blu-ray disc, are restricted by their two-dimensional nature – they just store data in one plane – and also by a physical law called the diffraction limit, based on the wavelength of light, that constrains our ability to focus light to a very small volume.

And then there’s the lifetime of the memory itself to consider. HDDs, as we’ve all experienced in our personal lives, may last only a few years before things start to behave strangely or just fail outright. DVDs and similar media are advertised as having a storage lifetime of hundreds of years. In practice this may be cut down to a few decades, assuming the disk is not rewritable. Rewritable disks degrade on each rewrite.

Without better solutions, we face financial and technological catastrophes as our current storage media reach their limits. How can we store large amounts of data in a way that’s secure for a long time and can be reused or recycled?

In our lab, we’re experimenting with a perhaps unexpected memory material you may even be wearing on your ring finger right now: diamond. On the atomic level, these crystals are extremely orderly – but sometimes defects arise. We’re exploiting these defects as a possible way to store information in three dimensions.

One approach to improving data storage has been to continue in the direction of optical memory, but extend it to multiple dimensions. Instead of writing the data to a surface, write it to a volume; make your bits three-dimensional. The data are still limited by the physical inability to focus light to a very small space, but you now have access to an additional dimension in which to store the data. Some methods also polarize the light, giving you even more dimensions for data storage. However, most of these methods are not rewritable.

http://m.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Turning-diamonds-defects-into-long-term-3-D-data-10414998.php

Brisk growth for storage in China; and a who’s who of Chinese data storage companies

It’s interesting to take a look at IDC’s recently-released market tracker figures for external disk storage systems for China. Interesting in two senses: To see who the key players are, and that largely they’re a different set of storage vendors to those we’re used to, and; to see how the market is progressing there in terms of growth.

The headline facts are that in Q2 of 2016 the China external disk storage systems market was worth $527 million and that was up 7.2% year-on-year (although most growth was in the mid-market, with low- and high-end segments seeing declines).

The top five storage vendors were #Huawei (21%), followed by #EMC (10%), then Hikvision (8%), #Inspur (6%) and $IBM (6%), while “others” accounted for 49% of the market.

http://www.computerweekly.com/blog/StorageBuzz/Brisk-growth-for-storage-in-China-and-a-whos-who-of-Chinese-data-storage-companies

Qualcomm just announced the biggest chip acquisition ever

The smartphone world is starting to slow, and the companies that make the chips that go inside them are teaming up to stave off dwindling profits. Perhaps that's why #Qualcomm today announced that it's picking up #NXPSemiconductor for $47 billion, in what is set to become the biggest ever semiconductor deal. While NXP does make smartphone chips -- it makes the NFC payment chips and once supplied Apple's motion co-processors inside the iPhone -- the company has a huge presence in the automotive, security and Internet of Things industries. In fact, in its disclosure of the deal, NXP boasts that it powers 14 of the 15 most-popular vehicle infotainment consoles. Qualcomm has expanded into similar markets but has found things slow going. The acquisition is all about consolidating efforts, ensuring the merged company will dominate semiconductor markets on a number of different fronts. "By joining Qualcomm's leading SoC capabilities and technology roadmap with NXP's leading industry sales channels and positions in automotive, security and IoT, we will be even better positioned to empower customers and consumers to realize all the benefits of the intelligently connected world," says Steve Mollenkopf, CEO of Qualcomm.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/27/qualcomm-just-announced-the-biggest-chip-acquisition-ever/

Fujitsu confirms Lenovo PC tie-up talks, says to retain brand

Japan's #Fujitsu Ltd on Thursday confirmed it was in talks with China's #Lenovo Group to cooperate in the design and manufacture of personal computers (PC), and that any outcome would see it retain its own PC brand. The announcement comes at a time when sales of increasingly sophisticated smartphones and tablet computers squeeze demand in a global PC market that peaked half a decade ago. The possible alliance with the world's largest PC maker "is aimed at strengthening our brand and business," Fujitsu President Tatsuya Tanaka said at a briefing in Tokyo after the company released its latest earnings report. "Scale is key to cost reduction, especially when operating globally," he said. Fujitsu and Lenovo, in a joint statement, said they were exploring means of cooperation and were discussing financial support with the state-backed Development Bank of Japan.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN12R0YC

Google’s neural networks invent their own encryption

Computers are keeping secrets. A team from #GoogleBrain, Google’s deep learning project, has shown that machines can learn how to protect their messages from prying eyes. Researchers Martín Abadi and David Andersen demonstrate that neural networks, or “neural nets” – computing systems that are loosely based on artificial neurons – can work out how to use a simple encryption technique. In their experiment, computers were able to make their own form of encryption using machine learning, without being taught specific cryptographic algorithms. The encryption was very basic, especially compared to our current human-designed systems. Even so, it is still an interesting step for neural nets, which the authors state “are generally not meant to be great at cryptography”.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2110522-googles-neural-networks-invent-their-own-encryption/

Nutanix looks to leverage Dell partnership post-EMC merger

Former #EMC sales boss and #Nutanix 's newly appointed vice president of EMEA has claimed that he is looking to leverage the hyper converged vendor's relationship with #Dell EMC after the two IT giants became one last month. Having spent 15 years at EMC in EMEA sales and presales leadership roles, Chris Kaddaras moved to spearhead Nutanix's EMEA operations this month. Nutanix signed an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement with Dell in 2014. The agreement saw Nutanix running its software offering on Dell's XC storage series, as well as collaborating on sales, marketing, support and services. Kaddaras said that its merger with EMC has done little to create friction with Nutanix's partnership with Dell, but on the contrary has provided an opportunity to leverage the relationship further. "I was at EMC for 15 and a half years. I was very involved in the integration process between the two companies. I was incredibly implicated in the process and I think they have created an incredible offering for customers and partners. I think they are incredibly focused; I was involved in every detail in the integration process and they have followed through with the execution," he said. "I think that the merger is going to provide a very strong offering to the market. We consider Dell EMC a very strong partner of Nutanix and we think we can leverage that relationship even more now they are one company; I do not see much down side. I am here because I can provide Nutanix with the knowledge to navigate through that and make sure the Dell EMC partnership is still strong." Although Kaddaras has only been in his new role for less than two weeks, he said he has underlined three initial priorities as head of EMEA.
http://www.channelnomics.eu/channelnomics-eu/news/2475317/nutanix-looks-to-leverage-dell-partnership-post-emc-merger

Dell EMC to execute for longevity in new data centers

#Dell #EMC, as a combined company, will execute for longevity in next generation data centers, says Krista Macomber, senior analyst, Data Center TBR. The Dell EMC World 2016 customer and partner event showcased the benefits of scale and early product integration from the newly combined Dell EMC organization. Customers are turning at a quickening pace to increasingly converged and virtualized IT assets and “as a Service” IT delivery to evolve their underlying infrastructure from a cumbersome cost center to an agile enabler of business productivity and advantage. In this climate of heavy disruption, incumbent vendors must disrupt long-standing business models in kind for future relevancy. Discussions at Dell EMC World 2016 indicated that the heritage Dell and EMC organizations have completed initial planning and are beginning to collaboratively execute on a portfolio and go-to-market vision that more effectively addresses customers’ quickly evolving workload requirements as a combined company. Today’s rapidly modernizing business environment requires customers to undergo substantial IT and process change. For its part, the Dell EMC organization will differentiate by providing more comprehensive next-generation infrastructure capabilities as a combined company. It will also mesh the heritage Dell stance as the IT organization for its large concentration of midmarket customers with the heritage EMC cachet in providing reliable innovation for mission-critical large enterprise workloads, to serve as an adviser that maps customers’ evolving workload and application requirements to optimized underlying IT resources. This strategy will enable Dell EMC to maximize its core strengths, go to market with a clear and sticky value proposition, and hone in on the divergent requirements of the vast customer base, spanning SMBs to large enterprises, that it addresses. To serve as this next-generation IT enabler, Dell EMC has identified three core tenets it will execute on: modernizing the underlying IT architecture, automating service delivery and management, and enabling hybrid cloud-driven operations transformation. While Dell EMC will lead the infrastructure modernization charge, it will heavily tap VMware for automation, and Virtustream as well as other third-party cloud service provider partners such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google to support cloud transformation. With these tenets, Dell EMC is establishing a framework that astutely distills the major pillars of data center modernization initiatives that are inherently plagued with complexity, but is also flexible enough to be adapted to customers’ particular requirements.

http://www.infotechlead.com/networking/dell-emc-execute-longevity-new-data-centers-43536

Can Commvault's Software-Defined Data Services Disrupt the Storage Market?

Building on the trend toward Software-Defined everything, Bob Hammer, CEO of #Commvault, is promoting a vision of Software-Defined Data Services that may ultimately disrupt one of the most stable areas of enterprise computing, persistent storage. While this sounds like just another acronym, if you dig in a bit, what Hammer is proposing is a new way for companies to organize their information, one that fits neatly into the points made by the concept of the data lake, the scale-out storage of HDFS, and the theory of technology evolution proposed by @RayKurzweil, the legendary inventor and futurist. What Hammer is proposing is a higher level of abstraction for storing and managing data. Right now, in the current generation of systems, the objects that we use to store data are the storage array and the files and documents inside them along with the database and the tables and records inside it. To manage that information, an external system must track the metadata that describes how it is connected and used.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danwoods/2016/10/26/can-commvaults-software-defined-data-services-disrupt-the-storage-market/#4576b8fd10e1

Dell EMC Defines 'Zero Tolerance' for Channel Conflict

Channel conflict is nothing new for either #Dell or its channel partners, but following its merger with #EMC, there is now a unique opportunity for the combined Dell EMC entity to address this issue. To minimize channel conflict, EMC implemented a "hard deck" that reserved access to key accounts for its sales force. It then went a step further by implementing a policy under which a direct sales representative would be automatically terminated after the second time they took a deal direct that had been previously registered by a partner. The first offense would result in a warning and no compensation. Last week, John Byrne, global channel chief for Dell EMC, initially waffled when asked by attendees at the Dell EMC Global Partner event if the new combined entity would implement the same policy as part of a zero-tolerance commitment he made to the partners. Later, however, Byrne made it clear that the former EMC policy is now the law of the newly combined Dell EMC channel land. While EMC sales representatives are used to that approach, that level of enforcement will be new to salespeople who worked with Dell before the merger. Undoubtedly, there will be some tension as those sales representatives get acclimated after a previous approach to deal registration that amounted to their getting little more than a slap on the wrist for taking a deal direct.
http://mobile.channelinsider.com/blogs/tech-companies/dell-emc-defines-zero-tolerance-for-channel-conflict.html

DarkMatter and Dell EMC Announce Agreement to Deliver Next-Generation Storage and Analytics Solutions in a Secure Package

#DarkMatter, an international cyber security firm headquartered in the UAE, and #Dell #EMC, a global leader in storage, converged systems, servers, big data and cloud infrastructure, today announced a partnership to help regional customers leverage the business benefits of next-generation storage and analytics, while incorporating advanced cyber threat protection.

Through this agreement, DarkMatter will combine its end-to-end, cross platform expertise in securing networks and data, by accessing Dell EMC's best-of-breed technologies and products. Through this agreement, DarkMatter solutions will incorporate cyber security, big data analytics and the modern data centre infrastructure across private and public data, whether housed in data centres or in the cloud.
Big data analytics provides a new horizon of opportunity for organisations looking to achieve a competitive advantage, whether in serving customers or managing their operations. But big data requires big storage, creating a challenge for organisations as demonstrated by the ongoing stream of news stories about data breaches. Securing data has become mission critical.
The cost of a breach, driven by factors such as damaged reputation, loss of customers, destroyed or inaccessible data, stolen IP, and remediation and forensic expenses, adds up quickly. Companies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE reported an average total cost per data breach of nearly US$3.8 million.[1]
Advanced data network implementations are themselves part of the cyber security solution, and the use of Dell EMC's technology underpins the security incident and event management (SIEM) solutions that DarkMatter will incorporate into its Dell EMC-powered security deployments.
Commenting on the partnership, Rabih Dabboussi, Senior Vice President for Sales, Marketing and Business Development at DarkMatter said, "Our customers are increasingly asking us to help tap the powerful world of big data, but in a manner that keeps their data, networks and organisations safe. By partnering with Dell EMC, we can provide hardened data infrastructure that provides world-class defence against advanced threats while delivering architecture that combines operational efficiencies with accessible and powerful analytics."
"With the region fostering a high level of digital enablement, cyber security has evolved into a topmost priority within organizations to protect their most important asset that is Information. Organizations today are inclined to provide cyber security an equal footing in their IT strategies. With our industry-leading infrastructure technologies for the modern data center be it converged architecture, all flash storage, scale out storage, and all being cloud enabled,  we aim to empower organizations with the required technology to address the volume of data generated and provide the platform for analytics to empower them to deal with persisting security risks across all business functions. Through this agreement, Dell EMC looks forward to help Dark Matter enable organizations to secure their networks and strengthen their security foundation to combat advanced threats triggered by the digital transformation and driven by the modern cybercriminal" said Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa & Middle East at Dell EMC.

http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/darkmatter-and-dell-emc-announce-agreement-to-deliver-next-generation-storage-and-analytics-solutions-in-a-secure-package-598681151.html

Nutanix bags ex-EMC exec amid flurry of EMEA appointments

#Hyperconverged infrastructure player #Nutanix has made a flurry of new EMEA appointments including ex- #EMC executive Chris Kaddaras. Kaddaras spent 15 years at EMC where he most recently served as vice president of presales across EMEA. Nutanix also announced that Patrick Cowden will take the helm as vice president of central Europe, DACH and emerging markets, after a previous four-year stint at Hitachi and Dell and two-years at EMC. Finally, Mark Lewis has been appointed senior director of EMEA marketing. He previously held posts at #Cloudera, EMC and #Riverbed. The firm claims the new appointments will help Nutanix capitalise on its Enterprise Cloud Platform offering. "We empower our people to interpret and adapt our values to best fit their needs across EMEA and beyond," said president of Nutanix Sudheesh Nair. "The new strategic hires will have a pivotal role to play, as our growth has been accelerated due to a rapid increase in customers, partners and employees. Chris, Patrick, and Mark will not only drive our enterprise cloud solutions to new markets, but also cement our approach as a global company committed to local markets." US-based Nutanix recently made its debut on the NASDAQ stock market. The firm's shares soared by 133 per cent on its first day of trading; the highest opening day of any US listing to date in 2016. Nutanix has been acquisitive in its ambitions to boost its enterprise cloud platform. It snapped up data storage software vendor #PernixData and development and automation start-up Calm.io at the end of August.

http://www.channelnomics.eu/channelnomics-eu/news/2475163/nutanix-bags-ex-emc-exec-amid-flurry-of-emea-appointments

Nutanix Would Be Worth Even More Without Hardware

Having risen at Mach speed after its IPO, #Nutanix stock has leveled off at around $30 per share. But there’s an argument that the company is worth even more, $43 per share, if you value it as a software-only play. It’s a what-if scenario and not meant to be taken as a formal prediction. But it suggests how far hardware could be commoditized as hyperconverged infrastructure and the cloud become more ensconced in enterprise IT.

The theory was part of an initial Nutanix report issued today by Simona Jankowski of Goldman Sachs. She is one of several analysts that issued reports and recommendations on Nutanix today, following the mandated quiet period after the IPO.

Certainly, Nutanix sells hardware. But Jankowski’s point is that it’s commodity hardware, purchased from outside — and more importantly, Nutanix probably doesn’t make any money off of it.

“Their appliances are commodity x86 servers from Supermicro which we view as largely “pass-through” revenue that is resold at cost (i.e., zero gross margin),” she writes.

Jankowski estimates Nutanix’s revenues will be $766 million for the next 12 months. Take away those zero-margin hardware sales, and the revenue prediction drops to $545 million.

You’d think that would make for a lower stock price — but wait. Analysts’ target prices for Nutanix are based on comparisons with other hardware companies such as Arista. To carry this analysis out, you’d have to compare Nutanix’s value to software companies — Jankowski picks #VMware, #Splunk, and #Tableau.

Those companies trade at higher levels compared with sales. Arista, for instance, trades enterprise value to sales ratio (EV/S) of about 4. (Enterprise value is roughly the value of a company’s common stock minus the company’s debt and cash.) VMware’s ratio is closer to 13.

Jankowski assigns an EV/S of 13.7 to the imaginary, software-only Nutanix — a bit of a premium to its peers, because of Nutanix’s expected growth. That yields an imaginary per-share value of $43.27.
https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/nutanix-stock-worth-even-without-hardware/2016/10/