Panzura Introduces Freedom Archive

CAMPBELL, CA--(Marketwired - Dec 21, 2016) - #Panzura ® today announced the general availability of its new #FreedomArchive product -- designed to cost-effectively manage, store and access archive data from any cloud and any location. Freedom Archive is perfect for long-term management, storage and access of surveillance video, healthcare imaging, seismic data, life sciences information, and other valuable data. Today, customers such as Chevron, American College of Radiology, NBC Universal, Time Warner Cable, and multiple law enforcement agencies use Freedom Archive as their high performance, active archive solution. Freedom Archive eliminates the need to store less frequently accessed data on expensive primary or secondary storage from vendors like #NetApp or #EMC or transfer it to more traditional archiving methods such as tape or optical disk. Instead, Freedom Archive combines the benefits of high-performance local cache for high speed, on demand access to important data with the economics and limitless capacity of cloud storage to make archiving of petabytes of data dramatically simpler, faster and less expensive. "As surveillance and body cam video continue to be an integral public safety tool used by police departments and as healthcare legislation increases mandates for the retention of patient data, these organizations run into the problem of how they can safely and cost-effectively store this growing amount of information and still be able to quickly and easily retrieve it when required," said Scott Sinclair, Senior Analyst, ESG. "Panzura's Freedom Archive addresses those needs by providing access to video recordings and/or medical records that wouldn't otherwise be as easily accessible if it resided on tape at an offsite location. Instead, users can implement Freedom Archive to move this data to the cloud to ensure they still have access while keeping costs under control." Freedom Archive includes the ability to identify and move archive data from expensive and older on-premise storage solutions to the cloud at a fraction of the cost. Its smart data policy management ensures high-performance access to the data that matters while storing the colder, inactive data on inexpensive cloud storage. All data is compressed and de-duped to ensure maximum cloud storage efficiency. And, Freedom Archive delivers military-grade encryption for data at rest and in flight for strong data security, enabling use by highly regulated and unregulated industries alike. "With the staggering exponential growth in content resulting from the confluence of technology advancements and digital transformation, cost effectively managing content is now a business imperative for large, medium and even small businesses around the world," said Russ Kennedy vice president, Product Strategy and Customer Success, #IBM Cloud. "The linkage to object storage services in IBM Cloud and IBM Cloud #ObjectStorage through #Panzura 's Freedom Archive offers choice." "We continue to see a tremendous amount of inactive data being stored on-premise in extremely expensive local storage," said Patrick Harr, chief executive officer at Panzura. "By deploying Freedom Archive, organizations now have the opportunity to transfer this still important information to the cloud while retaining the flexibility and accessibility needed in the most secure and cost-effective manner possible."

http://m.marketwired.com/press-release/panzura-introduces-freedom-archive-2184849.htm

Global and China Graphene Industry Report 2016-2020: Chinas Market Size will Grow at a Compound Annual Rate of over 90.0% in 2016-2020 - Research and Markets

In 2015, the #graphene market size in China exceeded RMB500 million, accounting for about 25% of the global total. In the future, as manufacturers keep expanding their capacity and making breakthroughs in technical R&D, graphene will find wider applications, thus stimulating the rapid development of the market. We expect that China's graphene market size will grow at a compound annual rate of over 90.0% in 2016-2020. At present, the graphene industry is at the stage of R&D and industrialization at a time when all countries are aggressively getting down to patent application. In 2015, the global graphene patent filings exceeded 6,000, which mainly came from China, South Korea, the United States, and other countries. Particularly, China's patent fillings, which are mainly involved in such fields as energy storage devices, transparent electrode, and composites, occupied more than 50%. Graphene producers are mainly concentrated in the United States, China, and the UK, and the players consist of #NorthernGraphite, #CVDEquipment, #FocusGraphite, #BeijingGrapheneHoldingGroup, #TheSixthElement, and #2DCarbon, etc. However, owing to their higher product R&D expenditure, graphene manufacturers are generally in the red. For example, The Sixth Element and 2D Carbon, though achieving mass-production of graphene, each still made a loss of more than RMB15 million in 2015. At present, the downstream application of graphene in China principally focuses on powder, that is, graphene is applied as modified additives in the fields like lithium battery, super-capacitors, and composites. In the future, with more breakthroughs in production technology, product performance will get further improved, so that the applications would be expanded to wearable devices, thermal conductive materials, energy conservation, environmental protection, and other fields.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161222005331/en/Global-China-Graphene-Industry-Report-2016-2020-Chinas

Permabit VDO Delivers Record-setting Performance on Samsung's NVMe Reference Design Platform

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- #Permabit Technology Corporation, the data reduction experts, announced today that its #VirtualDataOptimizer ( #VDO ) software for #Linux has exceeded the 8GB/s performance throughput barrier for inline compression. This was accomplished running on a single #Samsung #NVMe All-Flash Reference Design node. The latest version of VDO's HIOP Compression has been optimized to take advantage of today's multi-core, multi-processor, scale-out architectures to deliver maximum performance in enterprise storage. To demonstrate this level of performance, Permabit combined VDO with #RedHatCephStorage software and 24 480GB Samsung PM953 U.2 NVMe PCIe SSDs (solid state drives) running on the Samsung NVMe Reference Design platform. Samsung Electronics is one of the first companies to offer U.2 Gen 3 X4 NVMe PCIe SSDs. The PM953 that was used in the testing also features nine watts TDP (Total Dissipated Power) and a Z-height of 7mm. The resulting reference architecture delivered single-node performance of over 8 GB/s read and 3.6GB/s write performance under workloads generated by Ceph RADOS bench. These results are more than twice as fast as published compression performance numbers by proprietary single node storage arrays and were achieved without the use of hardware acceleration boards. Today's data center managers are increasingly turning to architectures built around Software-Defined Storage (SDS) to provide highly scalable solutions that control costs. SDS solutions (such as Red Hat Ceph Storage and Red Hat Gluster Storage) must be able to handle enterprise workloads such as databases, virtual servers and virtual desktops as well as, or better than, the proprietary systems that they are meant to replace. While data compression greatly reduces storage costs, one challenge up until now, has been finding a compression approach that could run at high-end enterprise speeds, on standard hardware in an open Linux environment. HIOPS compression technology, incorporated into VDO, addresses all of these requirements because it serves as a core service of the OS. Any SDS solution that runs on that OS can then scale out to support petabyte-sized deployments. "Previous systems relied on proprietary hardware acceleration based on ASICs or FPGAs to deliver a similar level of performance. Permabit Labs has demonstrated for the first time that HIOPS compression can be achieved with industry-standard processors and platforms," said Louis Imershein, VP Product for Permabit Technology Corporation. "We're looking forward to also leveraging the full multi-node, scale-out capabilities of the Red Hat Ceph storage platform as we test further in 2017."

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/permabit-vdo-delivers-record-setting-performance-on-samsungs-nvme-reference-design-platform-300382629.html

Hortonworks Advances Cloud Strategy with Availability of Hortonworks Data Cloud for Amazon Web Services

#Hortonworks, Inc. ® (NASDAQ: HDP), a leading innovator of open and connected data platforms, announced the availability of Hortonworks Data Cloud on the #Amazon Web Services ( #AWS) #Cloud . #HortonworksDataCloud for AWS enables users to harness the agility and elasticity of Apache® #Hadoop™ and #Apache® #Spark™ in the cloud for powering new workloads and analytic applications. The new cloud service, powered by open source, delivers the most popular enterprise-grade capabilities of Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP®) with both hourly and annual billing options available on the AWS Marketplace. Businesses’ demand for real-time decision making, gaining a competitive advantage and manageable costs are fueling three primary trends in the IT industry: Cloud Computing, the Internet of Things, and Big Data and Analytics. Hortonworks’ unique connected data architecture approach addresses each trend by giving organizations the optimal footprint for agility, elasticity, cost and most importantly, drives real-time analytics. With Hortonworks Data Cloud for AWS, businesses can achieve insight into data faster and with greater flexibility than was previously possible.

http://insidebigdata.com/2016/12/21/hortonworks-advances-cloud-strategy-with-availability-of-hortonworks-data-cloud-for-amazon-web-services/

Intel Bets It Can Turn Everyday Silicon into Quantum Computing’s Wonder Material

Sometimes the solution to a problem is staring you in the face all along. Chip maker #Intel is betting that will be true in the race to build #quantumcomputers—machines that should offer immense processing power by exploiting the oddities of quantum mechanics.

Competitors #IBM, #Microsoft, and #Google are all developing quantum components that are different from the ones crunching data in today’s computers. But Intel is trying to adapt the workhorse of existing computers, the #silicontransistor, for the task. Intel has a team of quantum hardware engineers in Portland, Oregon, who collaborate with researchers in the Netherlands, at TU Delft’s QuTech quantum research institute, under a $50 million grant established last year. Earlier this month Intel’s group reported that they can now layer the ultra-pure silicon needed for a quantum computer onto the standard wafers used in chip factories. This strategy makes Intel an outlier among industry and academic groups working on qubits, as the basic components needed for quantum computers are known. Other companies can run code on prototype chips with several qubits made from superconducting circuits (see “Google’s Quantum Dream Machine”). No one has yet advanced silicon qubits that far. A quantum computer would need to have thousands or millions of qubits to be broadly useful, though. And Jim Clarke, who leads Intel’s project as director of quantum hardware, argues that silicon qubits are more likely to get to that point (although Intel is also doing some research on superconducting qubits). One thing in silicon’s favor, he says: the expertise and equipment used to make conventional chips with billions of identical transistors should allow work on perfecting and scaling up silicon qubits to progress quickly. Intel’s silicon qubits represent data in a quantum property called the “spin” of a single electron trapped inside a modified version of the transistors in its existing commercial chips. “The hope is that if we make the best transistors, then with a few material and design changes we can make the best qubits,” says Clarke. Another reason to work on silicon qubits is that they should be more reliable than the superconducting equivalents. Still, all qubits are error prone because they work on data using very weak quantum effects (see “Google Researchers Make Quantum Components More Reliable”). The new process that helps Intel experiment with silicon qubits on standard chip wafers, developed with the materials companies Urenco and Air Liquide, should help speed up its research, says Andrew Dzurak, who works on silicon qubits at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “To get to hundreds of thousands of qubits, we will need incredible engineering reliability, and that is the hallmark of the semiconductor industry,” he says. Companies developing superconducting qubits also make them using existing chip fabrication methods. But the resulting devices are larger than transistors, and there is no template for how to manufacture and package them up in large numbers, says Dzurak. Chad Rigetti, founder and CEO of Rigetti Computing, a startup working on superconducting qubits similar to those Google and IBM are developing, agrees that this presents a challenge. But he argues that his chosen technology’s head start will afford ample time and resources to tackle the problem. Google and Rigetti have both said that in just a few years they could build a quantum chip with tens or hundreds of qubits that dramatically outperforms conventional computers on certain problems, even doing useful work on problems in chemistry or machine learning.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603165/intel-bets-it-can-turn-everyday-silicon-into-quantum-computings-wonder-material/

Dell EMC Tees Up 'Significant Investment' In EMC Partner Rebates, MDF

Channel Chief @JohnByrne says he is taking steps to fix one of the most glaring inequities between the legacy #Dell and #EMC channel programs. Byrne and the rest of the #DellEMC exec team have argued that the two companies and their respective channel programs are more alike than they are different, but while Dell offered rebates between 5 percent and 10 percent, EMC's topped out at about 4 percent, and were being cut in recent quarters.

We will be making a significant investment in our EMC partner program," Byrne said. "It will return to competitiveness. It will be competitive on rebate and it will be competitive on MDF [market development funds]. That is massive progress."

Byrne's assertion comes as he and his team push to finalize the company's new, unified partner program in time for the beginning of its fiscal year Feb. 1. Already, Byrne has made moves to address another key difference between the programs: revenue requirements.

To qualify for the top tier of the Dell program, partners had to earn at least $5 billion in annual revenue. Entrance to the top tier of the EMC program required $100 billion in revenue. Byrne said Dell EMC would "status match" partners into the new program, meaning partners in the top tier of either the Dell or EMC programs will move automatically to the top "Titanium" tier of the new program. The same holds for the middle and bottom tiers.

Dan Serpico, president of FusionStorm, a large solution provider that works with both Dell and EMC, said move to boost rebates for EMC business "is very welcome news."

"It's encouraging, very encouraging," Serpico said, adding that while increases to rebates and MDF may not have an immediate impact on Dell EMC's partner base, the move is powerful in other ways. "It's not a flip-of-the-switch kind of thing, but it certainly helps build loyalty and confidence in the partnership," he said.

Serpico said rebate and MDF improvements could prove to be well-timed to take advantage of growth in certain EMC product lines, like VMAX enterprise storage systems, all-flash storage arrays and VxRail hyper-convergence systems.

Stephen Monteros, senior vice president at Sigmanet, an Ontario, Calif.-based solution provider that works with Dell EMC, said a bump to EMC rebates would certainly help, and said it would be particularly important if those rebate levels were fixed.

Sigmanet's EMC business was about $10 million last year, essentially flat with the year before, Monteros said. Rebates that are increased and fixed "allow you to make the investments. With that product set, you need a strong technical bench, and a rebate that's fixed allows you to invest in that resources, people primarily."

http://m.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300083209/dell-emc-tees-up-significant-investment-in-emc-partner-rebates-mdf.htm

Cloudera, Docker Form Data Security Tech Partnership for Govt Clients

#Cloudera and #Docker have partnered to develop and offer an integrated platform for government customers to share data through cryptographically secure containers. Palo Alto, California-based Cloudera said Monday the joint offering will work to protect code and data in containerized workloads while in transit, at rest and at runtime. The platform is based on Cloudera’s Navigator Encrypt data encryption tool that runs on Docker’s Commercially Supported Docker Engines. Navigator Encrypt works to transparently encrypt and secure data at rest without imposing changes to applications. The Cloudera platform has achieved compliance with the Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2, which is used to validate the security of cryptographic modules. Cloudera said the joint offering is currently available to U.S. government agencies and is designed to work with any operating system and cloud platform.

http://blog.executivebiz.com/2016/12/cloudera-docker-form-data-security-tech-partnership-for-govt-clients/

Huawei, Cisco, Nokia & Ericsson Join for NFV Testing

#Nokia, #Ericsson, #Cisco, and #Huawei today announced they have signed an #MoU to create the #NFV Interoperability Testing Initiative ( #NFVITI ). Ericsson and Cisco already have a broad-reaching partnership. But Nokia and Huawei are fierce competitors with each other as well as with Cisco and Ericsson. But apparently, service providers need these top telecom vendors to work together to test the interoperability of virtual network functions ( #VNF s) in multi-vendor environments.

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/top-telecom-vendors-join-nfv-testing/2016/12/

Huawei in talks to buy Israeli cyber company HexaTier: sources

Chinese smartphone maker #Huawei [HWT.UL] is negotiating the acquisition of Israeli start-up #HexaTier, whose technology secures databases in the #cloud, industry sources in the two countries said on Tuesday. The sources, who asked not to be identified, said the deal was expected to go through soon. Huawei will use HexaTier to set up a research and development center in Israel for databases in the cloud, the Israeli industry source said.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1491O6

Microsoft wins $927 million Pentagon contract: statement

#Microsoft Corp has been awarded a $927 million contract to provide technical support to the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Pentagon said in a statement on Tuesday.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1492O4?utm_source=34553&utm_medium=partner

Michael Dell On Leveraging Dell's Scale To Grab Share In 2017, The VMware AWS Deal, The Cisco Partnership And The 'Golden Age' Of Information Technology

#DellTechnologies Chairman and CEO Michael #Dell spoke with CRN about his outlook for 2017 and the company's plan to drive share gains in a consolidating market, Dell's supply chain advantages, the #VMware - #AmazonWebServices partnership, the #Cisco partnership and what he called the new "golden age" of information technology. Dell's comments come just three months after the company completed the biggest acquisition in the history of IT – taking control of storage market leader $EMC in a $58 billion blockbuster deal. The acquisition creates the largest privately held IT company in the world – a $74 billion technology behemoth with a product line that spans PCs to a complete software defined data center portfolio and multiple cloud services offerings. Dell Technologies, which recently posted third quarter sales of $16.8 billion, a 28 percent increase from the year ago period, is set to unveil its new unified Dell EMC channel program in January.

http://m.crn.com/slide-shows/storage/300083197/michael-dell-on-leveraging-dells-scale-to-grab-share-in-2017-the-vmware-aws-deal-the-cisco-partnership-and-the-golden-age-of-information-technology.htm

Partners: New AWS Managed Services Raises A Channel Conflict Red Flag - 'They Eat Into Your Business As They Grow'

#AmazonWebServices ( #AWS ) partners say the cloud services behemoth's new managed services offering for its largest multinational customers lays the groundwork for channel conflict and muddies the waters on where they should focus their AWS consulting practices. "I think the fact they're getting into this business is not a positive thing for partners, whichever way you put it," said one partner, who wished to remain anonymous. "Working with AWS you should know by now as a partner, especially on the technology side, that they eat into your business as they grow."  Amazon has many times in the past launched products that directly competed with those from ISVs, essentially gutting their businesses. For those technology partners, the name of the game is trying to stay ahead of AWS, the partner said. [Related: 6 Key Things To Know About Amazon Web Services' 'Sentinel' Managed Services Offering] "None of that has affected us on the consulting partner piece until now," the partner said. "Am I surprised? No. Am I a little peeved? Yes. But it's business." AWS Managed Services, which was launched last week, delivers a toolkit that enterprises can use to manage their AWS infrastructures, as well as some services — monitoring and incident investigation — provided directly by Amazon's internal engineers. The product is geared for Amazon's largest customers: multinational corporations that, by all accounts, are looking to avoid contracting with MSPs and have been clamoring for a product to free them from doing so. AWS did not provide pricing on the new AWS Managed Services and did not return repeated phone calls and emails for comment. The "service is designed to accelerate cloud adoption," wrote Jeff Barr, Amazon's chief evangelist, in the AWS blog. "It simplifies deployment, migration, and management using automation and machine learning, backed up by a dedicated team of Amazon employees." Barr, in the AWS blog, said, "AWS Managed Services was designed with partners in mind." To that end, Amazon has established two new training programs — AWS MS Business Essentials and AWS MS Technical Essentials — to educate partners on building practices around AWS Managed Services.
http://m.crn.com/news/managed-services/300083210/partners-new-aws-managed-services-raises-a-channel-conflict-red-flag-they-eat-into-your-business-as-they-grow.htm

Is Cisco Falling Behind in Innovation (or Just in PR)?

In terms of innovation, 2016 did not seem like a big year for #Cisco. The company might be doing lots of cool stuff, internally, but it’s keeping most of it secret if that’s the case. So, is Cisco slipping on innovation?

According to some analysts who cover the company, Cisco is doing fine with innovation. It’s just been distracted in 2016 as its new CEO Chuck Robbins reorganizes the company’s business units.

“My viewpoint is: Robbins has been turning the company around,” says independent analyst and co-founder of Packet Pushers Greg Ferro. “Cisco needs to fix itself internally before it can innovate.”

And analyst Michael Howard with IHS, says, “I doubt they are lacking in innovation, but maybe they are getting a good story together.”

New CEOs often make executive changes, and Robbins has certainly done that. The shuffling began even before he officially became CEO. Some of the most startling changes happened this summer when the famed MPLS team, consisting of Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, Luca Cafiero, and Soni Jiandani, resigned. The team was in charge of Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI).

And Cisco’s head of security David Goeckeler got promoted to head of both security and networking, becoming responsible for $32 billion of the company’s business.

In an example of the internal shifting, Goeckeler recently announced via a corporate blog that Cisco has created an “integrated next-generation data center team” led by Roland Acra, who rejoined Cisco as SVP/GM of the company’s Data Center Business Group.

“Acra’s group will include all data center switching products,” including the families of Nexus hardware switches, UCS, SAN, and “associated products and programs,” wrote Goeckeler. “We will consolidate all of the NXOS development team under this group as well.”

Ferro says the new data center group effectively “mashes five or six business units together,” including ACI.
https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/cisco-falling-behind-innovation-just-falling-behind-pr/2016/12/

SDN Vendor PLUMgrid is No More; Some Assets Acquired by VMware

The first time I wrote about #PLUMgrid was in June 2013, when the company emerged from stealth with $10.7 million in funding and a dream to enable the #SoftwareDefinedNetworking ( #SDN ) market. Three and a half years later, that dream is dead as PLUMgrid is gone, with some of its assets and employees joining VMware. No, this is not a grand exit for PLUMgrid, or a great acquisition with big numbers. In fact, there are no public numbers to speak of in regards to what VMware is paying for the limited assets it is picking up. PLUMgrid had raised a total of $46 million in funding over its three years of existence and it's not clear if investors recovered all their money. A VMware spokesperson told Enterprise Networking Planet that on Friday, December 16, VMware acquired certain IP assets from the company and that a number of PLUMgrid employees have now joined VMware.

http://mobile.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netsysm/sdn-vendor-plumgrid-is-no-more-some-assets-acquired-by-vmware.html

CRN Exclusive: Dell EMC Channel Chief Byrne On 'Significant Investments' In EMC Rebates, Competing Against Cisco And The 'Mystique' Of Titanium Black

#DellEMC Channel Chief John Byrne says the unified channel program that his team is designing will be able to go toe-to-toe with the best programs in the world, including #Cisco 's, and will offer legacy #EMC partners "massive progress" on rebates and MDF. Byrne and his team have set the new program's tiers, and has decided to "status match" partners into those tiers. Partners from the top tiers of the old #Dell and EMC programs will be moved directly into the top "Titanium" tier of the new program, for example. Byrne said that while a lot of progress has been made in combining the Dell EMC programs, there's still much to do in the next six weeks, including evaluating partners that may not be hitting their revenue, training and certification goals. The program is expected to be complete and ready for action in time for the beginning of Dell EMC's fiscal year Feb. 1. "We've done a lot of things just listening to the community, and we made a commitment that, one, this was going to be the most desired and lucrative channel program on the planet," Byrne said. "We also said it was going to be very simple, very predictable and profitable. Those tenets remain firmly in focus of everything we're doing." What follows is an edited excerpt of Byrne's conversation with CRN.

Where we are in the journey, we are right on track. I'm even more excited now than I was at Dell EMC World. The team has done a remarkable job. This team's been together for three months. We know clearly where the channel has been playing. We know clearly the partners we have across both communities. We know the share of wallet we have. We know what our capacity is. We know how we're paying people. We know how we want to pay people. We have a clear understanding of how we want to train people. We have a very nice roll out plan. We've been extremely inclusive, and will continue to do so with the partner community. Where we're moving in software-defined, where we're going in cloud, when I look at CI (converged infrastructure) and HCI (hyperconverged infrastructure), I think what we're building here, we're trying to build a world-class program. The EMC program, while it was simple and predictable, people were just not making the returns on investment that those partners deserve.

http://m.crn.com/slide-shows/storage/300083189/crn-exclusive-dell-emc-channel-chief-byrne-on-significant-investments-in-emc-rebates-competing-against-cisco-and-the-mystique-of-titanium-black.htm/pgno/0/15

Back up a minute. So you're saying they're buying fewer appliances?

Glory days... not really. IDC sees the purpose-built backup appliance (PBBA) market shrinking in the third 2016 quarter, by almost 8 per cent on an annual basis, to $737.5mn. This is the market dominated by #DellEMC ’s #DataDomain products. And it seems to be affected, like storage arrays, by an enterprise buying slowdown. The company’s storage systems research manager, Liz Connor, is quoted as saying: “The PBBA market closed out the third quarter on a downturn, following a similar trend as the enterprise storage systems markets. Spending in more mature geographies saw a decline, while the market saw favourable growth in emerging markets. Meanwhile the shift in spending away from commodity hardware continues, with PBBA software spending taking market share." Dell EMC saw the largest revenue share drop of 14.9 per cent to $444.9m. Other share-fallers were #Veritas, which was previously #Symantec up to the final 2015 quarter, and #HPE. #IBM gained a 5.7 per cent revenue share with a massive 42 per cent annual rise.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/20/idc_pbba/

USING VNAS WITH VSAN TO OVERCOME TODAY’S STORAGE CHALLENGES

Many organizations today are looking for ways to scale out their storage so that they can accommodate the data deluge. Virtual SAN ( #vSAN ) enables users to employ storage in ESXi servers without the need for external storage, so when #VMware launched its vSAN in March 2014, companies were excited. The company hoped this offering would be the solution to provide fast, resilient scale-out storage. Since its launch, what has developed and how are users feeling about it? VMware set out its shingle as a competitor to storage-array and storage-software vendors when it rolled out vSAN. Server admins were looking forward to using vSAN because it gave them a symmetrical architecture that didn’t require external storage, enabling storage in existing servers. It also doesn’t require specialized storage skills. But no one solution can be all things to all enterprises, and as enterprises began to deploy vSAN across their environments, they noticed something big was missing.
http://www.datacenterjournal.com/using-vnas-vsan-overcome-todays-storage-challenges/

Apple, Cisco, IBM, Intel, Microsoft: Dow Tech Stocks Need To Provide Leadership In 2017

#Apple, #Cisco, #IBM, #Intel, #Microsoft: Dow Tech Stocks Need To Provide Leadership In 2017  Intelligent Investing Ideas from Forbes Investor Team Richard Henry Suttmeier, Contributor The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended last week up 13.9% year to date and set an all-time intraday high of 19,966.43 on Wednesday, Dec. 14, as the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate. Since then, the “Trump Bump” could face a “Trump Slump” correction. Now it’s up to the five tech stocks in the Dow 30 to provide market leadership, as these names provide the backbone for economic growth in 2017 and beyond. Apple can create high-paying jobs in the U.S. by repatriating its overseas wealth and building manufacturing plants in America. Networking giant Cisco Systems should have solutions to make sure that our infrastructure, both physical and in cloud cannot ever be hacked again. IBM and the intelligence of Watson, has already in the process of hiring to create jobs based upon the IBM cloud computing. Every infrastructure project will rely on computer chips for efficiencies, and semiconductor giant Intel will be called upon to help do so. Microsoft, the innovator of hands-on computer applications and its Surface platform is already providing leadership trading at an all-time intraday high.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2016/12/19/apple-cisco-ibm-intel-microsoft-tech-stocks-of-the-dow-30-need-to-provide-leadership-in-2017/#20a14761639b

Dell/EMC Tech Center ImageAssist - Validate Configuration

The Validation Checker tool enables you to identify common build errors, and ensures that your image will work as a cross-platform image with the #ImageAssist restore tool and also when deployed at the #DellEMC factory.

Dell EMC Set To Downrank Partners Behind On Revenue Goals, Training, Certifications

The clock is ticking for laggard #DellEMC partners. The company's top channel executives are culling the partner herd, and those that aren't meeting revenue targets, doing enough training or earning the right certifications may not be "status matched" into the new, unified #Dell #EMC Partner Program, Channel Chief John Byrne told CRN.  "If you're a legacy Dell or EMC partner today, and you're not achieving the criteria we have, the revenue criteria, and the training and certs as well; if you're not achieving that criteria or on track to achieve that criteria this year, I will reserve the right not to status match you into the program," Byrne said. [Related: Dell EMC To Pay Rebate And MDF To Legacy EMC Partners For January 'Gap Month'] Byrne said partners will begin getting status updates Tuesday "to let them know where they are, and where they've got to be." Decisions about which partners will not be "status matched" into the new program will be made by the end of Dell EMC's fiscal year Jan. 31. Sonia St. Charles, CEO of Dell EMC solution provider Davenport Group, St. Paul, Minn., applauded the move to put partners on notice that are not making the grade. That said, she stressed, it must be done fairly. "One of the mistakes companies make is to set out a program and then they don't stick to the rules," St. Charles said. "That's where companies lose their credibility, but if they deem that these criteria are important and they're going to measure partners against it, that's a fair move. I do agree with that, as long as it's fair and equitable. If there's no way a partner can hit their revenue goal for the full year, that would be a safe measure." With the end of the year approaching, however, Byrne will have to look closely as partners make a push to make the fourth quarter a big one, St. Charles said. "We're planning to book more business than we've ever booked in this period," she said. "Something like that has potential to skew the results." Byrne said partners won't necessarily have to be within a certain range of their goals, or miss them by a set amount, in order to lose rank. "We're going to be fair," he said. "We're going to listen to the voice of the partner. If you're within range and you're pushing, gunning to get there by the end of this fiscal year, we're going to do the right thing. If you're nowhere close and showing no intention of getting anywhere close, that is when we'll reserve the right." Dell EMC intends to "status match" partners into its new program, which is organized into Gold, Platinum and Titanium levels. Legacy Dell partners that are in that company's top Premier Plus tier will be moved into the new Titanium tier. Dell Premier partners will move into the new Gold tier and existing Preferred partners will move into the Gold tier. The same goes for legacy EMC partners. EMC Platinum partners move directly into the new Titanium tier. Gold partners move into the new Platinum tier and Silver partners move into the Gold tier. There is also a new Authorized tier for partners who haven't met the requirements for entry to the three main tiers.

http://m.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300083187/dell-emc-set-to-downrank-partners-behind-on-revenue-goals-training-certifications.htm

Dell EMC Teases Plan to Merge Partner Programs

@CherylCook, vice president of global channels and alliances, told us that she and her colleagues are busy categorizing partners from the #DellPartnerDirect and #EMCBusinessPartnerProgram in the new partner program that will launch Feb. 1. “We’ve been feverishly working at building a unified partner program and articulating and communicating to our respective partners where they’re going to map or line into the framework and the new mode," Cook said. The fine details for eligibility requirements and revenue thresholds are forthcoming, but #DellEMC notified partners on Monday about a fairly straightforward way to determine whether they will be in the Authorized, Gold, Platinum or Titanium tier of the unified program. Those in good standing in the previous programs will fit into the equivalent level with Dell EMC.{ad} “For example, in the legacy EMC model, you might have been a silver level partner. If you’re in good standing, you will be mapped to a gold level in the new program," Cook said. Likewise, if you were in the Dell program, if you were potentially a Premier Plus partner, you will map to the titanium level in the new program." Partners who were part of both programs will attain the highest level status if they are in good standing. Cook said the company also had a decision to make as it tried to aligned the two companies’ fiscal calendars. EMC closes in December and Dell closes in January. The combined company will follow Dell’s calendar, which means that January is a bonus month for EMC partners. “We’re going to allow them to earn rebates and accrue MDF at the rates they are today against the targets they currently have," she said. Cook said that the decision to afford EMC partners an extra month fits into the company’s promises of being “simple, predictable and profitable" for its partners. “Where there’s a jump ball or a tie or a decision to make, let’s go pro-partner. Let’s help them. Let’s just make sure they get into the one-time event — bringing the two companies together," she said. Dell EMC announced the unified program back in October. Global Channel Chief John Byrne talked to us about his goals for it.The unified program launches Feb

http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/news/2016/12/dell-emc-teases-plan-to-merge-partner-programs.aspx

Dell's Marius Haas: This Guy Can Work A Crowd

When you're in the business of brokering relationships, you don't really have control over how the parties being introduced will react or pursue their shared interests. Here at The Channel Company, part of the value-add we offer is putting the right solution providers and the right vendors together in settings that allow for each to engage in meaningful discussions that can benefit both parties. On the vendor side, it's often employees from very large organizations who come to our conferences and they, at times, seem to get bogged down and unable to work the event to its fullest advantage.  At our recent Best of Breed event where we assemble an elite group of solution providers, one of our keynote interviews was with #Dell President @MariusHaas. While Haas was very candid, endearing and open during the interview, I was even more impressed watching him work the crowd over the two days. [CRN Exclusive: Dell President And COO Marius Haas On Integrating A New 'Amazing Asset Pool'] Now, mind you, this is the man directly responsible for driving a huge amount of the worldwide sales number for Dell Technologies. He has both direct and indirect sales channels rolling up to him and is a direct report to Michael Dell. As such, he is understandably a very busy executive. I've had the opportunity to get to know him over the past few years, so maybe I shouldn't have been surprised when he showed up at the event without "handlers," as we like to call them. But what was even more impressive is how hard he worked the crowd. The Channel Company has been running events for more than 25 years, and on more than one occasion I've been subject to a discussion with a vendor executive suggesting he or she didn't get the value out of the event they expected. Those same individuals have often been the ones who come to the event and then hole up in their room on conference calls or spend a great deal of time meeting with their own team. It's why I was struck by the fact that every time I turned around for two days, there was Haas meeting with another solution provider. And they were never a come-hither-and-kiss-the-ring type of meeting. On several occasions, I saw him approach a partner in a hallway and spend a few minutes talking. Other times, he would sit at a lunch or breakfast table and engage. I started to realize this guy was spending all his time building relationships and thinking through how he and the partners he was meeting could work together. I have found Haas to be the type of executive who's honest in his business dealings with you and never uses the "yes objection," as we like to call it. The "yes objection" comes from people who don't want to engage around the business proposal but also don't want to tell you why. All of us—me, you and everyone else truly running a business, trying to manage a P&L or actively trying to sell something—would always prefer to hear what the real hurdles are and be told "no" than to waste additional time working toward something that will not happen. When the conference ended and Haas walked off stage after the final keynote interview, it made me think of how he and the team he has assembled have a make-it-happen-with-hard-work approach. For me, the biggest lesson anyone can learn in business is that no matter how smart you are, you can never be the smartest person in the room every time. What you can be, however, is the hardest worker with an honest approach driven by a desire to engage for mutual benefit. That's a winning model in the channel and business in general, and Haas has it.
http://m.crn.com/blogs-op-ed/channel-programs/300083195/dells-marius-haas-this-guy-can-work-a-crowd.htm

prooV Integrates with Amazon Web Services Service Catalog; Launches 'Deploy' Button to Enhance Enterprise Innovation

TEL AVIV and SAN FRANCISCO, Dec.19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- #prooV, the world's first #Pilot-as-a-Service platform that connects enterprises with independent software vendors, announced an integration with #AmazonWebServices, allowing enterprises to deploy prooV-tested solutions onto the AWS Service Catalog with the click of a button. The implementation of the 'Deploy' button helps enterprises seamlessly duplicate the proof-of-concept (PoC) testing environment from prooV onto their AWS Service Catalog accounts, which store and manage an enterprise's AWS-powered services. This will enable them to advance to the last steps in the corporate innovation cycle—testing solutions on their internal networks and integrating them completely. prooV is the only Pilot-as-a-Service platform that creates an all-encompassing proof-of-concept ecosystem, reducing the amount of time spent on finding, testing, and implementing new software solutions from months to days. Enterprises looking for innovative solutions can open PoC opportunities on prooV's marketplace, and can then use prooV's remote, cloud-based testing environments to test and compare different solutions easily and securely, all while receiving predictive analytics and insights. "With the launch of our new 'Deploy button', prooV is providing the missing link between the testing stage of corporate innovation and the complete implementation of solutions within their IT infrastructure," noted prooV co-founder and CTO Alexey Sapozhnikov. "With all of the careful configuration of a successful testing environment that occurs during the PoC stage, offering enterprises the ability to import the testing environment directly into the Service Catalog takes a solution from testing to operational in a manner of minutes. Now what used to be the time-consuming, inefficient, and overall painful process of finding and implementing software solutions is seamless and streamlined— as innovation should be." With the new AWS integration, prooV customers can duplicate the approved solution and its prooV-generated testing environment onto the AWS Service Catalog account within just five minutes. The button recreates the approved solution, integrated with its configured testing environment, into a Service Catalog product. Once there, it becomes available for developers to test further, tweak to suit certain conditions, or immediately implement into the enterprise's system. For AWS users, prooV provides a complete corporate innovation ecosystem that cannot be matched by any existing solution on the market. prooV is the first company to utilize the recently published AWS Service Catalog API with the launch of its 'Deploy' button. "Enterprises constantly expressed that one of the major pain points after completing a PoC was the transference of the product to their systems," continued Alexey Sapozhnikov. "Our technology allows enterprises to duplicate the solution in its testing environment onto the AWS Service Catalog instead of forcing them to start from scratch."

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/proov-integrates-with-amazon-web-services-service-catalog-launches-deploy-button-to-enhance-enterprise-innovation-300381295.html

Dell EMC Channel Chief Byrne Pushing Solution Providers To Sell More Product Lines

#DellEMC Global Channel Chief John Byrne says solution providers are selling far too few #Dell #EMC lines of business, and he plans to drive them to sell across the IT giant's complete product and services portfolio. "When we look at the partner community today, they're selling less than 1.6 lines of (Dell EMC lines of) business [on average]," Byrne told CRN. "We want them to be selling more. That means they're not selling all of Dell's lines of businesses. We want them to."  The full portfolio sales push is aimed at capitalizing on the $70 billion IT behemoth's massive investment in R and D and its broad and deep product and services portfolio, said Byrne. "We are spending 2x on R and D than #IBM, 2x on R &D #HPE, we dominate Gartner's Magic Quadrant," he said. "No one else has the portfolio that we have. We want our partners to be selling the full portfolio of products." Byrne's push comes as Dell EMC gets set to roll out the new terms of its unified channel program in January. Dell EMC announced today the company will "status match" partners into the new program, essentially moving top tier partners from either the Dell or EMC program into the top tier of the new program and so forth. Under the new unified program, partners will have a couple of ways to advance through those tiers, including selling broad swathes of the Dell EMC portfolio or booking significant revenue from a more limited set of products, while attaching more services. Byrne was careful to point out that he doesn't want Dell EMC's full portfolio channel efforts to seem "artificial," and he conceded that the company won't necessarily force solution providers out of their comfort zones. For example, he said, large enterprise partners that sell across server, storage and networking products won't be required to sell PCs. Related: Dell EMC To Pay Rebate And MDF To Legacy EMC Partners For January 'Gap Month' Michael Tanenhaus, CEO of Mavenspire, a Dell solution provider based in Maryland, said he is 100 percent behind the Dell EMC full portfolio offensive. "It's one portfolio," Tanenhaus aid. "They told people to study up on the other product lines they are not selling. I think it's reasonable. They don't want people telling only part of the story. They want you telling the whole story, and that was true in the Dell world, too." "It's our end of year, and we're doing everything in our power to demonstrate that we can sell both sides of the portfolio," Tanenhaus said. "And our new year's resolution is to drive it even further by the end of the Dell fiscal year." Sonia St. Charles, CEO of the Davenport Group, a Minnesota-based solution provider that works with Dell, said pushing partners to sell more product lines is both understandable, but challenging. "It's a fine balance they walk," St. Charles said. "If a partner's expertise is in one or two product sets, I don't think you should punish partners for succeeding in what they do well." Davenport's data center business stretches across all of Dell's server, storage and networking lines and the solution provider does work with Dell PCs at times. The challenge for partners, that like Davenport were all-in with Dell, is getting up to speed with the EMC portfolio, St. Charles said. "I do understand Dell's perspective, but it's going to be years before we have the level of expertise on the EMC product line that we do on the (Dell) Compellent product line," St. Charles said. "It's hard to have the same expertise when you've been working with a product for 10 years or more and have experience with those customers."
http://m.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300083188/dell-emc-channel-chief-byrne-pushing-solution-providers-to-sell-more-product-lines.htm

In storage, 2016 M&A centered on networking, hyper-convergence

#Broadcom 's $5.9 billion deal to buy #Brocade and transactions involving hyper-converged vendors and cloud provider #Rackspace highlight storage mergers and acquisitions in 2016.

All mergers and acquisitions, or M&A, in the #datastorage world may forever pale in comparison to #Dell 's $60 billion-plus deal in 2015 to purchase #EMC. The transaction closed in September 2016 and remained the talk of the industry throughout the year.

But there were other billion-dollar storage acquisitions this year, as well as plenty of smaller deal activity in the hyper-converged market, with 2016 M&A news involving market leader #Nutanix, #Pivot3 and #Gridstore.

In the largest storage deal of 2016, Broadcom Ltd. moved to further consolidate the #FibreChannel (FC) industry with its $5.9 billion agreement in November to purchase Brocade Communications Systems Inc. If the deal passes regulatory muster, it will leave only three major vendors selling FC storage networking products.

#Cisco sells FC switches, like Brocade, but it is noted more for its Ethernet-based networking products.

For years, #Emulex Corp. and #QLogic Corp. dominated the FC host bus adapter market, until semiconductor providers scooped them up in the past two years. Cavium announced plans to buy QLogic in June for about $1 billion, just over a year after #Avago Technologies closed on its deal to purchase Emulex for $609 million, including cash and acquired debt.

Earlier this year, Avago closed on a blockbuster $37 billion deal, announced in May 2015, to acquire another semiconductor specialist, Broadcom Corp. Avago took the Broadcom name when the acquisition closed in February 2016. It is this version of Broadcom that has agreed to the buy Brocade.

The Brocade acquisition would make Broadcom the primary vendor of the two main components of a Fibre Channel infrastructure -- switches and host bus adapters (HBAs). That could open the door to antitrust scrutiny in the U.S. and abroad. Broadcom said it expects the transaction to close in mid-2017.

Broadcom plans to divest Brocade's IP business, which includes wireless and campus networking, data center switching and routing, and software. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan explained during a conference call that Brocade's IP networking technology would pose a competitive threat to his company's semiconductor customers. Those customers include OEM system vendors Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM. Many Broadcom OEMs also sell IP switches.

Tan called Brocade's FC SAN switch business "a very sustainable franchise, with phenomenal profitability." Brocade's FC revenue exceeded $1 billion in 2015, according to Dell'Oro Group. But Dell'Oro's market projections show FC product shipments in gradual decline and FC revenue to be roughly flat, at $2.2 billion, in 2016.

Industry analysts said they don't expect the Brocade-Broadcom merger to have a significant effect on the FC SAN market's trajectory. Enterprises with investments in FC are likely to continue to use the time-tested storage networking technology for mission-critical workloads, despite the growing popularity of IP-based networking for storage.

Although FC's growth potential is low, Cavium envisioned enough of an upside with HBAs to attempt its first foray into mainstream storage. Cavium CEO Syed Ali cited the ongoing transition from 8 Gbps to 16 Gbps FC and the expected shift to 32 Gbps in 2017 and 2018 as all-flash arrays grow in popularity as drivers of FC sales. Ali claimed all-flash arrays have an FC attach rate of 70% to 80%.

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/450409522/In-storage-2016-MA-centered-on-networking-hyper-convergence

Dell EMC Joins The Linux Foundation in Focusing on Software-Defined Storage

The folks at #EMC always knew a thing or two about storage, and now that they are part of #DellEMC, new storage frontiers are taking shape. The #LinuxFoundation has just welcomed #Dell EMC to the #OpenSDS Project, which is focused on the very promising software-defined storage arena. The OpenSDS community is forming to address #softwaredefinedstorage integration challenges with the goal of driving enterprise adoption of open standards. The #Linux Foundation functions as the steward. As part of its support for the open source project, Dell EMC is also contributing its first project to #OpenSDS, the #CoprHD #SouthBound SDK (SB SDK), to help promote storage interoperability and compatibility. The SB SDK allows developers to build drivers and other tools with the assurance that they will be compatible with a wide variety of enterprise-class storage products. The OpenSDS Project is comprised of storage users and vendors, including #Fujitsu, #Hitachi Data Systems, #Huawei, Oregon State University and Vodafone. The project will also seek to collaborate with other upstream open source communities such as Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Docker, OpenStack and Open Container Initiative. "Dell EMC is a welcome addition to the OpenSDS Project and we look forward to its input," said Cameron Bahar, Senior Vice President and Global Chief Technology Officer of storage at Huawei. "We invite other vendors and enterprise customers to follow Dell EMC's lead, and to join us in creating an open storage controller solution across cloud, containerized, virtualized and other environments, and make storage-as-a-service a reality." "As the first storage vendor to open source a software-defined storage controller, we're very excited to join OpenSDS," said John Mark Walker, Director of Product Management for Dell EMC. "We look forward to collaborating with customers, partners and other vendors to create open source tools and standards for storage interoperability." The OpenSDS technical community hosts discussions on a dedicated mailing list: tech-discuss@opensds.io. According to the Open SDS project's home: "The community hopes to have an initial prototype available in Q2 2017 with a Beta release by Q3 2017. The initial participants expect OpenSDS will leverage open source technologies, such as Cinder and Manila from the OpenStack community, to best enable support across a wide range of cloud storage solutions."

http://ostatic.com/blog/dell-emc-joins-the-linux-foundation-in-focusing-on-software-defined-storage

Researchers propose using software-defined networking to unify cloud and edge

A team of researchers have proposed a method to use cloud and fog, or edge, computing structures to complement one another – rather than viewing edge computing as a replacement for the cloud. Using #SoftwareDefinedNetworking ( #SDN ) to manage the interaction between cloud and edge resources, a network can remain dynamic, agile and efficient while providing a better experience for the end user. Increased use of mobile devices has created stresses on cloud networks, which will only increase as mobile device use increases worldwide. Creating a system where cloud and edge computing resources are unified is a potential response to the challenges of overtaxed resources and unexpected latency, which can cause a degraded quality of experience for the end user. However, combining resources in the cloud and at the edge creates specific challenges for the system. There must be a local coordinator to divert tasks to the appropriate resources in real time, in a dynamic and unpredictable environment. The system must be constantly updated in real time to provide the best information regarding available resources, and have open, programmable interfaces to divert tasks in the most efficient ways. The research team created a software-defined network (SDN) enabled architecture to meet these challenges and create a usable network that uses cloud and edge computing capabilities simultaneously.

https://thestack.com/cloud/2016/12/19/researchers-propose-using-software-defined-networking-to-unify-cloud-and-edge/

Dell unveils VDI solutions at partner meet

#Dell unveiled #VDI solutions that included live demonstrations at the #cloudclient-computing partner meet in Bangalore. Dell showcased VDI solutions at the cloud client-computing partner meet, at Dell’s first partner event on VDI in India, post its merger with #EMC Corporation. The primary aim of the event was to engage with partner community and get them excited about Dell’s VDI solutions and included live demonstration of its entire portfolio of solutions. “With our combined scale, portfolio, reach and resources, we are now confident that our partners can look to Dell as a single unified source for integrated VDI solutions across endpoints, cloud and infrastructure,” said Milind Yedkar, General Manager, Asia Pacific & Japan, Cloud Client-Computing at Dell. “Our partners play a formidable role in driving our continued business success across India as well as across Asia Pacific and Japan region and I am looking forward to working with them on delivering promise of virtualized and secure work environment for today’s mobile workforce.” “Today’s knowledge worker requires access to highly efficient, powerful systems and tools that will enable them to innovate, collaborate and share information in a secure environment,” said Santosh Pandey, Country Manager for India, Cloud Client-Computing at Dell. Our VDI solutions provide the performance and capabilities that knowledge workers require in today’s virtualized desktop environments and furthermore our solutions are easy to deploy and manage as well.” A key highlight of the event was live demonstration of complete portfolio of cloud client computing solutions for India market at Dell’s R&D center in Bangalore. Leading the demonstration Elavarasu Krishnan, Director of Engineering, Cloud Client-Computing said, “We have over 430 patents granted for innovation in cloud client-computing, thin client design, management and security and our enterprise-class thin client can be easily scaled for deployments to tens of thousands of devices, and offers a low total cost of ownership by reducing IT’s time on ongoing management and maintenance.” Commenting on strategic importance of the partner event Ramkaran Rudravaram, CEO of RCU Innovation said, “Transformation of user workspace begins with Dell Cloud Client-Computing. I am impressed by the breadth and depth of product offering in the client marketplace catering to stationary and mobile users. It is imperative to use the client strategy to improve the cyber security posture of the enterprises.”

http://www.channelworld.in/media-releases/dell-unveils-vdi-solutions-partner-meet

Cloudera and Docker, Inc. Partner to Vastly Improve the Security of Data

MCLEAN, Virginia, Dec. 19, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --  #Cloudera, the global provider of the fastest, easiest, and most secure data management, analytics and machine learning platform built on the latest open source technologies, today announced that it has partnered with #Docker, Inc. to provide Commercially Supported (CS) Docker Engines with a jointly developed solution to secure Docker container volumes. This integrated solution allows government agencies to share data via cryptographically secure containers as part of a partnership where #Cloudera provides level one and level two technical support backed by Docker, Inc. Docker and Cloudera worked in close collaboration to meet the specific needs of government agencies. Because these agencies often have sensitive workloads where portability and security are necessary, the two companies worked together on an integration that would protect the code and data running in containerized workloads. Docker and Cloudera made sure that all data and code are protected both in transit, at rest, and at runtime. The integrated solution is based on Cloudera Navigator Encrypt running on Docker, Inc’s CS Engine. Cloudera Navigator Encrypt transparently encrypts and secures data at rest without requiring changes to applications and ensuring there is minimal performance lag in the encryption or decryption process. Advanced key management with Cloudera Navigator Key Trustee Server and process-based access controls in Navigator Encrypt enable organizations to meet compliance regulations and help protect organizations from unauthorized parties or malicious actors gaining access to encrypted data. Docker wraps software in a complete filesystem aka container that includes an application and its dependencies which allows applications to run anywhere. In addition, Docker Content Trust based on The Update Framework (TUF) provides the most secure content distribution model for verifying the creator of a specific dockerized application. Cloudera Navigator Encrypt Key Trustee Server and Client already possess Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 compliance, the U.S. government computer security standard used to approve cryptographic modules. The partnership with Docker, Inc. enables the pursuit of an end-to-end FIPS-validated product to include the Docker platform itself, as well as the encryption and key management platform. Docker provides an abstraction layer for Cloudera’s Navigator Encrypt and the Key Trustee Server, allowing the exchange of dockerized applications so they can be run, but not seen, modified, or tampered with. It has complete administrative separation of duties where administrators, platform owners and users, whether trusted or untrusted, cannot impact each other. Multiple points of control, application fingerprinting, and user roles and network-based authentication are included. “Cloudera is committed to delivering the highest levels of data security for Docker workloads,” said Charles Zedlewski, senior vice president, Products at Cloudera. “We are pleased to have the opportunity to bring the industry leading security controls that are already a core part of Cloudera’s business to the realm of dockerized applications and supporting the U.S. Government with their most challenging problems.” “Docker is increasingly becoming a critical platform for Federal agencies as they modernize their applications, while making them even more secure through Docker’s isolation capabilities and content security framework,” said Nathan McCauley, Director of Security for Docker. “This partnership with Cloudera further elevates the security posture of Dockerized applications by protecting against data leaks through secure encrypted data volumes.” The joint solution is both operating system and cloud agnostic. This early access product is currently available to U.S. government agencies

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/12/19/898720/0/en/Cloudera-and-Docker-Inc-Partner-to-Vastly-Improve-the-Security-of-Data.html

AtScale 5.0 – Modern Business Intelligence Platform, Enables BI on Hadoop, On Premises and Cloud

#AtScale, the company to provide enterprises with a fast and secure self-service #BI platform for #BigData, announced a significant expansion of its services, from BI on #Hadoop to BI on Big Data. With this announcement, the company introduces a Modern BI Platform that enables businesses to work seamlessly across all of Big Data, on premise and in the #Cloud. In addition to Hadoop, the AtScale platform now supports Teradata data warehouses and #Google #Dataproc and #BigQuery. This expands on the company’s existing support for #MicrosoftAzure and #HDInsight. AtScale redefines the modern Business Intelligence Platform to enable lightning fast, interactive and secure analytics on top of Big Data, without data movement and for any data consumer or BI tool.

http://insidebigdata.com/2016/12/18/atscale-5-0-delivers-the-industrys-first-modern-business-intelligence-platform-enables-bi-on-hadoop-and-big-data-on-premises-and-in-the-cloud/

Database, Storage And Backup Software Publishing Global Market Briefing 2017

The #Database, #Storage And #BackupSoftware Publishing industry consists of establishments engaged in the development and distribution of database management, storage and backup software, and middleware to customers. #Middleware acts as bridge between the database and applications. These establishments also assist the customers with the installation and maintenance of the software. The Americas was the x largest geographic region in the database, storage and backup software publishing market in 2016, accounting for $x billion or x% of the global market. Asia was the x largest geographic market, accounting for $x billion or x% of the global market. Europe was the x largest geographic market, accounting for $x billion or x% of the global market. The Middle East and Africa accounted for x% and $x billion, while Oceania accounted for x% of the global database, storage and backup software publishing market. Mergers And Acquisitions – The number of mergers and acquisitions in the database, storage and backup software publishing industry is increasing. Large companies are spending on acquisitions to increase their product and service offerings. High-performance cloud computing businesses and enterprise software vendors are the main acquisition targets for software product companies. For example, #Dell recently acquired data storage provider #EMC Corporation.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/database-storage-and-backup-software-publishing-global-market-briefing-2017-300380873.html

HPE & Cisco Maintain Lead in Cloud Infrastructure; Dell EMC and ODMs Challenge

New Q3 data from Synergy Research Group shows that #HPE maintained a narrow lead over Cisco in the strategically important cloud infrastructure equipment market, while #DellEMC is now challenging the top two after the completion of their historic merger. Meanwhile, ODMs (contract manufacturers) in aggregate continue to increase their share of the market, driven by continued heavy investments in data centers by hyperscale cloud providers. #Microsoft and #IBM round out the group of top cloud infrastructure vendors. HPE and #Cisco have been in a closely contested leadership battle in this market for the last sixteen quarters, over which time their total revenues are virtually identical. Across the different types of cloud deployment, Cisco continues to hold a commanding lead in public cloud infrastructure while HP has a clear lead in private cloud. Total cloud infrastructure equipment revenues, including public and private cloud, hardware and software, are poised to reach $70 billion in 2016 and continue to grow at a double-digit pace. Servers, OS, storage, networking and virtualization software combined accounted for 94% of the Q3 cloud infrastructure market, with the balance comprising cloud security and cloud management. By segment HPE has a clear lead in the cloud server segment and is a main challenger in storage, while Cisco is dominant in the networking segment and also has a growing server product line. Dell EMC is the second-ranked server vendor and has a clear lead on storage. Microsoft features heavily in the ranking due to its position in server OS and virtualization applications, while IBM maintains a strong position across a range of cloud technology markets. "Growth in private cloud infrastructure is slowing down as enterprises shift more attention and workloads to the public cloud, but that means that there is a continued boom in shipments of infrastructure gear to public cloud providers," said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst and Research Director at Synergy Research Group. "For traditional IT infrastructure vendors there is one fly in the ointment though -- hyperscale cloud providers account for an ever-increasing share of data center gear and many of them are on a continued drive to deploy own-designed servers, storage and networking equipment, manufactured for them by ODMs. ODMs in aggregate now control a large and growing share of public cloud infrastructure shipments."

http://m.marketwired.com/press-release/hpe-cisco-maintain-lead-in-cloud-infrastructure-dell-emc-and-odms-challenge-2184118.htm

Fujitsu Confirms PC Merger With Lenovo

#Fujitsu 's president Tatsuya Tanaka says his company hopes to sign a PC business merger agreement with China's #Lenovo before March 31, 2017, which is the end of Fujitsu's financial year. Tanaka made the remarks during a media interview widely circulated on Chinese websites. Prior to this, rumors floated that Fujitsu and Lenovo were discussing a deal in PC design and manufacturing. Tanaka also said that information security will become the core of its information technology business. Over the next three years, Fujitsu plans to invest USD869 million in IT security research and development. With the cooperation of the two parties, Lenovo will focus on Fujitsu's PC business, while Fujitsu can focus on enterprise IT services. With the emergence of smartphones and tablets, the traditional PC market has gradually eroded and the number of Japanese PC makers has been decreasing. Traditional Japanese PC makers like Sony and Toshiba previously announced plans to also to withdraw from the PC market because more people use mobile devices. In recent years, Fujitsu's PC business also suffered difficulties. Once Lenovo acquires Fujitsu's PC business, the Chinese PC maker may keep the Fujitsu brand. By forming a partnership with Fujitsu, Lenovo will further expand its market share in the PC sector. Lenovo previously made several deals in the PC market, including acquiring IBM's PC business in 2005 and establishing a PC joint venture with #NEC in 2011.

https://www.chinatechnews.com/2016/12/19/24603-fujitsu-confirms-pc-merger-with-lenovo

Monitoring Dell Servers through ISM using WMI

This video covers the process of monitoring Dell servers through #iDRAC Service Module ( #iSM ) using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) for Dell Server Management Pack Suite version 6.3 in a #MicrosoftSystemCenterOperationsManager or #SCOM environment. #DELLEMC #DellTechCenter #iworkfordell

ODPi Publishes Operations Specification Providing Developers Consistency Across Application Management Tools

#ODPi, a nonprofit organization accelerating the open ecosystem of big data solutions, announced the availability of ODPi 2.0, which includes the first release of the #ODPiOperationsSpecification and the #RuntimeSpecification 2.0, to standardize the development model for big data solution and application providers and help enterprises improve installation and management of #Hadoop -based applications. With more than 30 members, including recently announced #DriveScale, #Redoop, and #Xavient Information Systems, ODPi is focused on simplification and standardization within the big data ecosystem and further advancing the work of the #Apache Software Foundation. Designed to make it easier to create big data solutions and data-driven applications, ODPi adds Apache Hive and Hadoop Compatible File System support (HCFS) as part of the ODPi Runtime Specification 2.0. Additionally, the ODPi 2.0 release includes Operations Specification 1.0, which provides standard guidelines for application management tools serving as reference platforms; including Apache Ambari. With the release of the first Operations Specification, ODPi is moving standardization forward for Apache projects in a pragmatic, fluid way that embraces developer input,” said John Mertic, Director of ODPi. “ODPi specifications are based input from developers and enterprises and how they are actually big data technologies in production environment and address real issues they’ve encountered. Our technical team developed this latest release knowing that the SQL layer, backend storage, and how applications should be installed, managed and configured in a Apache Hadoop cluster are important to them. We’ll continue to iterate on previous releases and seek industry input to ensure that we are tackling the critical issues that benefit the wider big data ecosystem.”

http://insidebigdata.com/2016/12/18/odpi-publishes-operations-specification-providing-developers-consistency-across-application-management-tools/

Why you should be afraid of Google’s expansion into hardware

#Google first made waves in the hardware market when it purchased #Motorola in 2011 for $12.5 billion. A company on the scale of Google getting involved in hardware put some established manufacturers on edge, though anxiety abated when Google later sold #Motorola to #Lenovo for $3 billion. Without being directly involved in hardware production, Google has continued to exert a huge influence over the market. Numerous hardware companies supported #Android early on, helping it become the de facto alternative to #iOS. Now, smartphone companies have no choice but to embrace Google. The development sounding alarms throughout the tech world, however, is the recent launch of the #Google#Pixel smartphone. The stars truly aligned for the Pixel’s launch, with missteps from Samsung and Apple providing an ideal window for the new device. While Samsung struggles with the worst manufacturing mistake in the history of the mobile industry, Apple has been under fire for its “courage” to release an iPhone without a headphone jack. The conditions are ideal for the Pixel to succeed. That thought should signal terror in the tech world. Playing favorites Google has a near monopoly of the mobile operating system marketplace, with about 88 percent of the market, according to the International Data Corporation. In the same way Google first destroyed its search engine competitors, I believe the company is on a path to dominate the hardware arena. Companies such as Samsung, LG, and others that have come to rely on the Android OS suddenly find themselves in a precarious position. They will have no way to compete once Google begins to give its own devices preferential treatment through software updates and new features. The last time Google attempted to break into mobile hardware with its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility, Samsung seemed ready to jump ship from Android OS. The latest shot across the bow of the smartphone world puts companies such as Samsung and LG in a terrible spot, likely forcing them to seek business outside of the mobile marketplace. HTC — the original equipment manufacturer of the Pixel — has already started to diversify its portfolio by entering the virtual reality space with its Vive. Google’s products differ from competitors because the company can leverage the mountain of data in its ecosystem. The Pixel’s Google Assistant artificial intelligence surpasses Microsoft’s Cortana and Apple’s Siri by drilling down into users’ existing Google accounts to personalize every interaction. Google has snared billions of users with its intuitive and essential services, giving it an incredible advantage over competitors. Some have dismissed the threat of Google’s hardware ambitions, pointing to legendary smartphone failures from Amazon and Microsoft. Others hope privacy concerns raised by Google’s growing digital hegemony will spark consumer backlash, hamstringing Google’s hardware push before it builds momentum.

http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/17/why-you-should-be-afraid-of-googles-expansion-into-hardware/