Cisco Champions Public Cloud Choice And Partner Flexibility With New Cisco Container Platform

@Cisco Systems is moving to one-up competing vendors in the burgeoning market for @Kubernetes #container #technology with the introduction of a turnkey system designed to allow for deployment and management of containerized applications across public and private clouds. Called the Cisco Container Platform, the system gives partners a clear path into lucrative application lifecycle management and other services sold on a recurring revenue basis, and as the platform expands, those opportunities will only grow, executives said. "Partners love having choices of solutions so they can do real value-based selling," said Dave Cope, senior director, Cisco Cloud Platform and Solutions Group. "They don't have to walk in and try to shove any peg in a hole. They can listen to the customers, understand their needs and from Cisco provide a variety of solutions based on the maturity and needs of their customer."

http://m.crn.com/news/cloud/300098641/cisco-champions-public-cloud-choice-and-partner-flexibility-with-new-cisco-container-platform.htm

Worldwide server market revenue up 19.9%

Vendor revenue in the worldwide server market increased 19.9% year-on-year to $170 billion in the 3rd quarter of 2017, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker. This shows a strengthening of the market after several slow quarters, with demand from cloud service providers propping up overall market performance.

Read in more depth about the state of the server market and its evolution in this whitepaper from IT Pro.

http://www.itpro.co.uk/server-storage/30427/worldwide-server-market-revenue-up-199

Here's What Happens To Private Cloud If VMware Reverse Merges With Dell

This week it was reported that one option for @Dell Technologies to reemerge as a public company would be for @VMware to buy Dell Technologies in a “ #reversemerger .” A reverse merger makes sense, given that @Dell EMC is behind in developing compelling #privatecloud and #multicloud solutions, and VMware is not. VMware has been positioned as strongly independent of Dell EMC. CEO @PatGelsinger said last year “We were an independent company, and we remain an independent company.” Such a reverse merger would throw that independence away. The effect could be profound on Dell Technologies’ enterprise private cloud hardware competitors ( @Cisco, @HPE, @Huawei, @IBM, @Lenovo and @Oracle) and VMware’s private cloud software competitors (primarily @Cloud Foundry, @Microsoft #Azure Stack and @Red Hat @OpenStack). Container vendors and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), plus Microsoft’s Azure Stack, could be the biggest winners. Products that can manage private cloud to multi-cloud application deployment will also benefit, such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) OneSphere and IBM’s Cloud Private products. Containers vs. Virtual Machines Most enterprise IT shops still use VMs to manage deploying legacy application instances. There will be a shift from VMs to containers and private cloud, but it will be a long, slow shift. Because of the massive installed base of enterprise legacy applications, all major enterprise IT vendors must support VMware for their customer base. However, VMware’s relationships run much deeper than simply support: Recommended by Forbes The Whole Story On Microsoft Tapping ARM To Break Intel's Datacenter Monop... AMD EPYC Enters Azure Cloud Through Microsoft Project Olympus Quantum Computing Will Not Break Your Encryption, Yet Microsoft Azure Stack Moving On Private Cloud At Ignite MOST POPULAR Photos: The 10 Most Dangerous U.S. Cities TRENDING ON LINKEDIN Ten Things Never, Ever To Give An Employer -- Until After You're Hired MOST POPULAR Photos: 15 Small Company Stocks You Should Own Now MOST POPULAR Shake Shack Founder Danny Meyer On His Fear Of Fast-Growth And Why He Prefers... Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers VMware Cloud Google partnered with Pivotal to provision VMware NSX HPE has a strategic alliance with VMware IBM has a strategic partnership with VMware, with Dell EMC reselling IBM Cloud for VMware solutions Lenovo sells VMware reference architectures Microsoft Azure offers bare metal instances running VMware One of the effects of Dell’s merger with EMC (resulting in the company’s majority stake in VMware) was that Dell EMC’s IT competitors’ started searching in earnest for long-term alternatives to VMware. Most of them are partnered with or investing in private cloud framework options: TIRIAS Research During 2017, all the top-tier public clouds joined or increased membership levels in the CNCF to declare their support for Kubernetes container infrastructure or simply keep an eye on its progress (“keep your friends close, and your enemies closer…”), including: Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Baidu, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Tencent and VMware. As you can see, many IT vendors have placed redundant investments in private cloud infrastructure. That can’t hold forever. Multi-Cloud VMware Cloud will run apps across vSphere-based clusters, and will integrate, discover and manage VMs and containers on AWS and Microsoft Azure (currently in the US, only). VMware Horizon Cloud Service hosts virtual desktops and applications on VMware Horizon Cloud and on Microsoft Azure. A reverse merger with VMware should be designed to settle Dell EMC’s private cloud and multi-cloud investment strategies on VMware products—otherwise, why bother? Dell EMC is already leaning heavily on VMware. And the rest of the competitive field is already looking for alternatives. Many vendors offer products to scale single-vendor products to multiple datacenters, for example Huawei’s ManageOne and Oracle Private Cloud Appliance scaling to Oracle Cloud for VM deployment (IaaS). But neither of these provides a scalable multi-cloud strategy. HPE OneSphere provides a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) layer on top of Kubernetes containers, plus VMware and OpenStack VMs (and in the future Microsoft Azure Stack). HPE OneSphere enables managing applications across private clouds and in the future, multiple public clouds (for the moment only AWS is supported, though Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform are under consideration). IBM Cloud Private is built on Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry; it provides a branded “Cloud Native” option for deployment. IBM Cloud Private’s open source application environments are consistent with IBM’s public cloud offerings, enabling a clean single-vendor hybrid application deployment model. In addition, IBM Cloud Private also includes multi-cloud management tools in its hybrid cloud management services and can be managed through its SaaS-based IBM Cloud Orchestrator. IBM Cloud Private can be deployed on VMware and OpenStack distributions. IBM Cloud Orchestrator provides multi-cloud support for AWS, IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Note that, like VMware vSphere, HPE OneSphere and IBM Cloud Private can run on pretty much any industry standard (i.e. x86) hardware—they all support heterogeneous hardware. A Post-Independent VMware World In 2017 VMware removed vSphere support for third-party virtual switches, which had a profound effect on Cisco’s enterprise software-defined networking (SDN) products, as well as HPE and IBM virtual switch products. If a Dell Technologies reverse merger with VMware occurs, I think that will be a driving factor for the rest of the industry to accelerate private cloud investments away from VMware. But a fragmented set of private cloud investments and choices will not pose a competitive challenge to VMware. The rest of the industry should pick a direction, much as they did with OpenStack about 5 years ago. The two private cloud infrastructure strategic directions that make the most sense to me are CNCF for containers and Microsoft Azure Stack for both VMs and containers. As much as OpenStack was a truly great idea in 2010, containers became an even better idea with Kubernetes orchestration in 2015. That is why there is so much overlap in IT vendor sponsorship of both OpenStack and CNCF (notably missing from CNCF are the telecommunications carriers, but that is a story for another time). The cloud giants don’t want to enable each other, but public cloud customers want to have choice among public clouds. HPE, IBM and VMware are trying to fill the gap and have the most advanced multi-cloud applications management solutions today. Dell EMC is leaning on Red Hat OpenStack and Microsoft Azure Stack for undifferentiated private cloud software solutions. Dell EMC also does not have a competitive multi-cloud product. A reverse merger with VMware makes sense from that perspective. Dell EMC needs to harness VMware as a competitive advantage to stay in the game.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2018/01/31/heres-what-happens-to-private-cloud-if-vmware-reverse-merges-with-dell/#2b2570d7446c

Rubrik is the First Cloud Data Management and Backup and Recovery Platform to be Certified by the Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN) Approved Product List (APL)

WASHINGTON and PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- @Rubrik, the #Cloud #DataManagement Company, today announced that its platform has been certified for placement on the U.S. @Department of Defense Information Network Approved Products List (DODIN APL). The #DODIN APL provides a consolidated list of products that are approved for purchase by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). In order to be placed on the DODIN APL, products must be evaluated and achieve certification for information assurance (IA) and interoperability (IO) by the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC). The independent evaluation by the DOD found that Rubrik’s Cloud Data Management platform met the criteria of strict security standards allowing the products to be used immediately within existing government networks, while offering customers a streamlined purchase process. The DODIN APL is the latest government certification for Rubrik. The company’s technology enables federal agencies to comply with Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI) and Modernizing Government Technology Act (MGT) mandates, which require agencies to improve infrastructure to be more efficient, secure, resilient, and cost-effective, particularly through increased cloud adoption. Federal agencies use Rubrik to simply and securely manage data across on-premises and cloud environments, reduce data center footprints by up to 70%, and improve operational efficiency with Rubrik’s policy-based automation and robust integrations with third-party technology tools. This compelling ROI enables federal agencies to utilize MGT working capital funds for Rubrik, to speed procurement, deployment and time to value. “The DODIN APL certification reflects Rubrik's continued commitment to providing the public sector with the most secure, powerful, and cost-effective data management capabilities,” said Steve Alfieris, VP & GM of Federal Government, ‎Rubrik. “With the passing of the Modernizing Government Technology Act (MGT) there is a huge opportunity for federal agencies to access funds to modernize their technology infrastructures and this certification makes it even easier for our defense customers to get improved systems up and running quickly in support of the MGT mandates.” Federal agencies across the Department of Defense and Civilian agencies have adopted Rubrik to simplify their data center environments. Rubrik has built the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of government certifications and accreditations across the hybrid cloud, including Common Criteria EAL2+, FIPS 140-2 Level-2 validated self-encrypting drives, and support for all major AWS and Microsoft Azure government infrastructure clouds.

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/01/31/1329380/0/en/Rubrik-is-the-First-Cloud-Data-Management-and-Backup-and-Recovery-Platform-to-be-Certified-by-the-Department-of-Defense-Information-Network-DODIN-Approved-Product-List-APL.html

Hitachi Vantara HCP Scores in Gartner’s 2018 Critical Capabilities for Object Storage

Jan. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- @Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of @Hitachi Ltd. (TSE:6501), today announced Hitachi Vantara #HCP (Hitachi Content Platform) has been scored in the Gartner 2018 Critical Capabilities for #ObjectStorage, published January 25, 2018. Object storage is in high demand to bridge the gap between traditional storage and emerging #cloud technologies to obtain the most value from enterprise data, no matter where it resides. Because object storage uses an integrated approach to manage data through object storage systems, it fuels interest and investment from infrastructure and operations leaders, and enterprise developers. In the report, Gartner analysts, Raj Bala, John McArthur and Garth Landers, wrote about their evaluation of thirteen object storage products based on eight critical capabilities: capacity, interoperability, manageability, performance, resilience, security and multitenancy, storage efficiency, and pricing. The analysts also wrote about their evaluation of the object storage products based on five use cases: analytics, archiving, backup, content distribution, and cloud storage. Compared to the previous iteration of the report, the scores for Hitachi Vantara HCP have improved in all five use-cases.* Hitachi believes it has advanced with the following: Hitachi Content Platform excels at providing a smart cloud object storage solution ecosystem that delivers unique private, hybrid or public cloud storage services. This includes being able to support mixed workloads, faster reaction times, and flexibility to store and move data across multiple public cloud services. It does all of this and reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) and increases the effective capacity of storage.   Handling big data applications can be time consuming, but HCP offers an integrated search and analytics solution to uncover new opportunities and insights data analysis. Analytics help organizations take advantage of the value of their data, surface new insights and accelerate results. As a result, productivity and performance increase.   HCP features certain performance boosters, such as enhanced multipart file transfers for faster uploads of large files, easier resolution of content sharing conflicts, and universal file migration improvements. Enhanced performance is crucial for influential object storage services in order to react more quickly in order to change and to optimize costs.   With built-in capabilities, HCP helps to increase the effective capacity of storage by letting customers smoothly repurpose their existing primary storage, provide ease of use for downloading and uploading, and being able to monitor and control the increased growth of data. "We believe HCP's position in this year's Gartner Critical Capabilities for Object Storage shows our strength and continued investment and innovation in our HCP portfolio," said Brad Surak, chief product and strategy officer, Hitachi Vantara. "Customers turn to us to gather, store, protect and analyze their data, so they can make faster, more informed decisions. We feel that it's no surprise that our award-winning HCP portfolio is the go-to IT storage solution for thousands of enterprises worldwide." Hitachi Vantara announced major updates to Hitachi Content Platform last year in the 2017 Hitachi press release, "Hitachi Content Platform Portfolio Transforms Cloud Infrastructure," highlighting a 400% increase in usable storage per cluster, 67% more storage node capacity via 10TB drives, a 55% increase in objects per node, and simplified software licensing for customers to achieve over 5 time lower storage costs than public cloud, all leading to over 60% TCO savings compared to public cloud for enterprise use cases. Source: Gartner, "Critical Capabilities for Object Storage," Raj Bala, Garth Landers, John McArthur, 25 January 2018.*In the 2016 version of the report, Hitachi Vantara HCP was named as Hitachi Data Systems HCP. Gartner Disclaimer Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. About Hitachi Content Platform The Hitachi Content Platform portfolio allows organizations to advance their digital workplace experience in a way that incorporates existing content repositories, delivers new age file sharing, collaboration and end-user data protection capabilities, simplify searches and provides APIs to design new workflows and customize the user experience. At the core is object storage software that allows organizations to broker a holistic approach to the digital workplace spanning data within the enterprise and in the cloud. The HCP portfolio intelligently automates tasks related to compliance, protection, security, and management. This allows organizations to speed operations, retain visibility and control with faster, simpler methods to find, analyze and share. About Hitachi Vantara Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., helps data-driven leaders find and use the value in their data to innovate intelligently and reach outcomes that matter for business and society. We combine technology, intellectual property and industry knowledge to deliver data-managing solutions that help enterprises improve their customers' experiences, develop new revenue streams, and lower the costs of business. Only Hitachi Vantara elevates your innovation advantage by combining deep information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and domain expertise. We work with organizations everywhere to drive data to meaningful outcomes. Visit us at www.HitachiVantara.com. Connect With Hitachi Vantara Twitter LinkedIn Facebook About Hitachi, Ltd. Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer society's challenges. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2016 (ended March 31, 2017) totaled 9,162.2 billion yen ($81.8 billion). The Hitachi Group is a global leader in Social Innovation and has approximately 304,000 employees worldwide. Through collaborative creation, Hitachi is providing solutions to customers in a broad range of sectors, including Power / Energy, Industry / Distribution / Water, Urban Development, and Finance / Government & Public / Healthcare. For more information, please visit http://www.hitachi.com. HITACHI is a trademark or registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. All other trademarks, service marks, and company names are properties of their respective owners.

http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/hitachi-vantara-hcp-scores-in-gartners-2018-critical-capabilities-for-object-storage-20180130-00737

Violin Systems Among 'Storage Companies to Watch in 2018' in Frost & Sullivan Stratecast Perspectives & Insight for Executives

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- @Violin ® Systems LLC, the enterprise storage industry leader for #extremeperformance with consistent #lowlatency and #dataservices, was selected as one of four companies highlighted as providing "Innovative Solutions to Data Storage Challenges" in a recently published Frost & Sullivan Stratecast Analysis by Vice President of Cloud Services, @Lynda Stadtmueller. Stratecast collaborates with Frost & Sullivan clients to reach smart business decisions in the rapidly evolving and hypercompetitive Information and Communications Technology markets.  Stratecast Perspectives & Insight for Executives (SPIE) Volume 18, Number 1 looked at storage providers that stand out for their innovative solutions and growth potential. Violin was selected as a company worth watching because of its ability to retain and regain the confidence of more than 100 large business customers, including many Fortune 500 companies. "The company originally made its mark with market-leading hardware-based all-flash array storage systems – only to lose ground as the market shifted to software-based controls and features," the report states.  "Today, the new Violin Systems is turning its culture of innovation toward software development, particularly with the Concerto OS 7 data services platform that support advanced functionality for data scaling, cloud data tiering, data protection, data reduction, and business continuity.  The Violin Symphony management system provides granular visibility and insight into the Violin Flash Storage Platform and Violin All Flash Arrays." "We are honored to be named among the select few storage companies to watch in Frost & Sullivan's latest Stratecast," said Ebrahim Abbasi, Violin Systems' CEO and president. "Ms. Stadtmueller definitely captured the spirit of our company's re-emergence when she said that we are returning to our roots as market leader in all-flash arrays by focusing on innovative technology.  With an emphasis on software-based solutions, an aggressive product roadmap and commitment to continued innovation, I'm confident that we will not only be a company to watch for 2018 but for many years to come." Violin has made an excerpt from the Frost & Sullivan SPIE available for download to interested parties from its website at https://www.violin-systems.com/wp-content/uploads/SPIE-2018_Frost-and-Sullivan.pdf. Other companies in this report Other companies selected were Elastifile, SwiftStack, and StorONE. About Violin Violin, the disruptive innovator in All Flash Arrays, is revolutionizing how businesses operate by enabling storage technology to be Instrumental to their company by changing the SLAs and capabilities of private, hybrid and public cloud environments. The Flash Storage Platform™, powered by Concerto OS™, a fully integrated storage operating system, is the industry leader in the combination of every significant category measured in all flash arrays: low latency, affordability, density, scalability and performance. With tightly integrated data services, the Violin Flash Storage Platform provides a unique combination of data protection, business continuity, and data reduction services onto a flexible, uniquely scalable solution called Scale Smart™, delivering significant CAPEX and OPEX savings. Founded in 2005, Violin is headquartered in San Jose, California

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/violin-systems-among-storage-companies-to-watch-in-2018-in-frost--sullivan-stratecast-perspectives--insight-for-executives-300589916.html

CRN Interview: Dell EMC Channel Chief Joyce Mullen On Driving More Storage Sales Through Partners And Her Channel Vision For 2018

Mullen On The Record @DellEMC 's new channel leader, @JoyceMullen, is hitting the ground running with big plans in store for solution providers in 2018 including new Internet of Things skill sets and enabling partners to meet their storage sales quota. Mullen, an 18-year Dell veteran who is now president of global channels, OEM and IoT Solutions, replaced @JohnByrne, who now runs Dell's North America commercial sales. In an interview with @CRN, Mullen talks about enabling partners to drive more storage sales, the potential integration of @VMware into the Dell EMC #PartnerProgram, and her channel vision for 2018. Next Page:

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/storage/300098576/crn-interview-dell-emc-channel-chief-joyce-mullen-on-driving-more-storage-sales-through-partners-and-her-channel-vision-for-2018.htm

Rackspace Achieves Real Economic And Service Advantages Using Scality Software-Defined Storage

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- @Scality, a pioneer of #softwaredefined, multi- #cloud #data #storage, today announced that its customer, @Rackspace, having chosen Scality #RING from among 23 software-defined storage solutions that it evaluated, has seen advantages that exceeded their expectations.  In the competitive business of hosting, infrastructure costs—CAPEX and OPEX both—are key to optimizing profitability. So, when Rackspace embarked on an infrastructure refresh project, lowering TCO was a critical goal—second only to that of maintaining the absolute best in service levels. And, because growth comes with success, Rackspace also required a solution that scales without limits, simply and without interruptions. They found it with Scality RING. "We consider software-defined storage to be critical to our strategy for its growth potential, data center efficiency and efficient —and flexible—use of assets," said Dan Shain, Director R&D, Rackspace Cloud Office. Not only has Rackspace seen a 45 percent reduction in TCO due to substantial CAPEX and OPEX savings, but they're seeing significant secondary benefits with their move to Scality RING software-defined storage, including the ability to vacate an entire datacenter, thanks to the compact storage footprint. Software-defined Scality RING object storage turns any standard x86 server into highly expandable storage. It scales without limits and guarantees 100 percent availability—all while reducing cost by as much as 90 percent compared to legacy systems. Scality RING is deployed by more than 170 petabyte-scale customers around the world. It features native file protocols and high-fidelity AWS S3 API, data encryption, volume and bucket data protection, data-restorative versioning, extended location control for data sovereignty, and geo-replication for disaster recovery for customers requiring ironclad data protection.

http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/Rackspace-Achieves-Real-Economic-And-Service-Advantages-Using-Scality-Software-Defined-Storage-1014553578

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase & Co. health venture likely boon for AWS

@Amazon, @Berkshire Hathaway and @JPMorgan Chase & Co. have formed a healthcare joint venture that aims to cut costs, boost transparency and provide an overall better experience for their employees. The only certainty is that this joint venture is likely to benefit Amazon Web Services. Details about this venture are scant. As noted in the press release from the companies, specifics about the healthcare joint venture's management, headquarters and operations will "be communicated in due course." It's also worth noting that the new venture will operate as a non-profit and focus on "technology solutions that will provide U.S. employees and their families with simplified, high-quality and transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost." Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos noted that success "is going to require talented experts, a beginner's mind, and a long-term orientation."

http://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-berkshire-hathaway-and-jpmorgan-chase-co-health-venture-likely-boon-for-aws/

New Dell Technologies Research Reveals a Divided Vision of the Future

JANUARY 30, 2018 09:00 AM EST     ROUND ROCK, Texas, Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --  New summary New dawn of immense possibility on the horizon: 82% of business leaders expect their workforce and machines will work as integrated teams within five years Leaders divided on what this future means: half (50%) think automated systems to free up time, other half disagree Organizations united in need to transform and how, but not moving fast enough: only 27% believe they are leading the way, ingraining digital in everything they do. Tweet this 3,800 global business leaders forecast the next era of human-machine partnerships – reveal a divided vision of the future: http://del.ly/6005DzJOc #Realize2030 #digitaltransformation Full story We're entering the next era of human-machine partnerships with a divided vision of the future, according to global research now available from Dell Technologies. Half of the 3,800 global business leaders surveyed forecast that automated systems will free up their time, while the other 50% believe otherwise. Similarly, 42% believe they'll have more job satisfaction in the future by offloading tasks to machines, while 58% disagree. The quantitative research conducted by @Vanson Bourne follows @Dell Technologies' seminal story, "Realizing 2030: The Next Era of Human-Machine Partnerships." That study forecasted that by 2030, emerging technologies will forge human partnerships with machines that are richer and more immersive than ever before, helping us surpass our limitations. Business leaders agree: 82% of respondents expect humans and machines will work as integrated teams within their organization inside of five years. But leaders are also split by whether the future represents an opportunity or a threat, and torn by the need to mitigate these risks.1 For instance: 48% say the more we depend upon technology, the more we'll have to lose in the event of a cyber-attack; 52% aren't concerned 50% of business leaders are calling for clear protocols in the event that autonomous machines fail; other half abstained 45% say computers will need to decipher between good and bad commands; 55% don't see a need "You can understand why the business community is so polarized," comments Jeremy Burton, chief marketing officer, Dell Technologies. "There tends to be two extreme perspectives about the future: the anxiety-driven issue of human obsolescence or the optimistic view that technology will solve our greatest social problems. These differing viewpoints could make it difficult for organizations to prepare for a future that's in flux and would certainly hamper leaders' efforts to push through necessary change." Given the promise of monumental change—fuelled by exponentially increasing data and the applications, processing power and connectivity to harness it—56% speculate that schools will need to teach how to learn rather than what to learn to prepare students for jobs that don't yet exist. This thinking corroborates IFTF's forecast that 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 haven't been invented yet. Beset by barriers Furthermore, many businesses aren't moving fast enough, and going deep enough, to overcome common barriers to operating as a successful digital business. Only 27% of businesses believe they are leading the way, ingraining digital in all they do. Forty-two percent don't know whether they'll be able to compete over the next decade, and the majority (57%) of businesses are struggling to keep-up with the pace of change. Main barriers to becoming a successful digital business in 2030 and beyond:      1. Lack of a digital vision and strategy: 61%      2. Lack of workforce readiness: 61%       3. Technology constraints: 51%       4. Time and money constraints: 37%      5. Law and regulations: 20% Unified by the need to transform Leaders may be divided in their view of the future and facing barriers to change, but they're united in the need to transform. In fact, the vast majority of businesses believe they'll be well on their way to transforming within five years, despite the challenges they face. Likely to achieve within five years: Have effective cybersecurity defences in place: 94% Deliver their product offering as a service: 90% Complete their transition to a software-defined business: 89% R&D will drive their organization forward: 85% Delivering hyper-connected customer experiences with virtual reality (VR): 80% Using AI to pre-empt customer demands: 81% Burton adds, "We're entering an era of monumental change. Although business leaders harbor contrasting views of the future, they share common ground on the need to transform. Based on the many conversations I have with customers, I believe we're reaching a pivotal moment in time. Businesses can either grasp the mantle, transform their IT, workforce and security and play a defining role in the future or be left behind." Additional resources For more information on the quantitative research report, executive summary and infographic, please visit www.delltechnologies.com/realizing2030 Blog from Jeremy Burton: 3,800 Business Leaders Declare: It's A Tale of Two Futures Additional information on Dell Technologies Realizing 2030 initiative can be found, www.delltechnologies.com/realizing2030 Find out more about how Dell Technologies is collaboratively solving customers' biggest challenges by visiting Dell Technologies' Annual Report to Customers Connect with Dell Technologies on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn Tables below show business leaders' forecasts for the future, and how they are divided about technologies' upcoming impact on our lives, work and business in general. 2 About the study The research was commissioned by Dell Technologies and undertaken by Vanson Bourne, an independent research company, completed in June to August 2017 with 3,800 business leaders from mid-size to large enterprises across 17 countries. The respondents were drawn from 12 industries and key functions impacting the customer experience (from business owners to decision-makers in IT, marketing, customer service, R&D and finance, etc.). The research explores the changing relationship between technology and people, emerging technologies' impact on business and the way we work and how business leaders and CIOs plan to succeed over the next 10 to 15 years. About Vanson Bourne Vanson Bourne is an independent specialist in market research for the technology sector. Its reputation for robust and credible research-based analysis is founded upon rigorous research principles and an ability to seek the opinions of senior decision makers across technical and business functions, in all business sectors and all major markets. For more information, visit www.vansonbourne.com. About Dell Technologies   Dell Technologies is a unique family of businesses that provides the essential infrastructure for organizations to build their digital future, transform IT and protect their most important asset, information. The company services customers of all sizes across 180 countries – ranging from 98% of the Fortune 500 to individual consumers – with the industry's most comprehensive and innovative portfolio from the edge to the core to the cloud. Copyright © 2018 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved.  Dell Technologies, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.  Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners. 1 Business leaders are divided by what the shift into the next era will mean for them, their business and even the world at large. 2 Below tables showcase business leaders' forecast for the future, and how they are divided about technologies' upcoming impact on our lives, work and business in general: Our Lives Forecast Agree Disagree Automated systems will free-up our time 50% 50% People will take care of themselves better with healthcare tracking devices 46% 54% People will absorb and manage information in completely different ways 54% 46% Smart machines will work as admins in our lives – connecting our lives to highly personalized goods and services 43% 57% It will be harder to disconnect from technology 42% 58% Our Work Forecast Agree Disagree We'll be more productive by collaborating more 49% 51% We'll have more job satisfaction by offloading the tasks that we don't want to do to intelligent machines 42% 58% Schools will need to teach how to learn rather than what to learn to prepare students for jobs that don't exist yet 56% 44% We'll learn on the job with AR 46% 54% Not sure what the next 10-15 years will look like for their industry, let alone their employees 50% 50% Business                                                                                                                                              Forecast Agree Disagree Clear protocols will be need to be established if autonomous machines fail 50% 50% The more we depend upon technology, the more we'll have to lose in the event of a cyber-attack 48% 52% Computers will need to be able to decipher between good and bad commands 45% 55% We'll be part of a globally connected, remote workforce 49% 51% Technology will connect the right person to the right task, at the right time 41% 59%

http://news.sys-con.com/node/4226879

400 Gbps to Comprise Nearly 20 Percent of Data Center Switch Revenue by 2020, According to Dell’Oro GroupHigher Speeds – ≥100 Gbps – Forecast to Drive Significant Growth over Next Five Years

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Jan. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to a recently published report by Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for information about the telecommunications, networks, and data center IT industries, 400 Gbps is forecast to comprise 20 percent of data center switching revenue by 2020. Higher speeds – 100 Gbps, 200 Gbps, 400 Gbps, and 800 Gbps – are forecast to drive signification growth over the next five years. “In December 2017, Broadcom announced its Tomahawk 3 chip based on 56G SerDes, joining both Innovium and Nephos,” said Sameh Boujelbene, Senior Director at Dell’Oro Group. “We expect merchant silicon based on 56G SerDes to drive growth in 200 Gbps and 400 Gbps shipments, with 400 Gbps comprising majority of the volume. By 2020 to 2021, we expect another speed upgrade cycle driven by 112G SerDes, which will drive 800 Gbps port shipments – plus another wave of 200 Gbps and 400 Gbps shipments.” The Ethernet Switch – Data Center 5-Year Forecast Report answers questions like: How is the Ethernet speed upgrade cycle different in the Cloud vs. Enterprise segments? How is the network topology different in the Cloud vs. Enterprise segments? What are the use case deployments for 100 Gbps, 200 Gbps, 400 Gbps, and 800 Gbps and how does deployment vary depending on the SerDes lane driving the speed?

http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/400-Gbps-to-Comprise-Nearly-20-Percent-of-Data-Center-Switch-Revenue-by-2020-According-to-Dell-Oro-GroupHigher-Speeds-100-Gbps-Forecast-to-Drive-Significant-Growth-over-Next-Five-Years-1014553624

Cisco adds new capabilities to its IBN infrastructure

@Cisco has advanced its intent-based networking gear so now it can both verify that networks are actually running according to the intentions set by admins and also so it can help to find and resolve network problems faster on both wired and wireless networks.  The company says this is a new phase in the evolution of its IBN in which it is addressing assurance – the ability to assess whether the intentions that have been translated into policies and orchestrated throughout the network by configuring individual devices are carrying out the intentions they are supposed to.

Assurance is being added to the list of Cisco’s IBN capabilities with a new software product and enhancements to two other pieces of software being announced at the Cisco Live conference in Barcelona today.

BrandPost Sponsored by AT&T

Enterprises and Carriers in Sync with NFV

This gives Cisco a more integrated and comprehensive IBN offering than competitors whose offerings can support targeted core features of IBN, but not across an entire network, says Rohit Mehra, the vice president of network infrastructure for IDC. “It brings policy, security and all capabilities around network assurance, and how network assurance makes the network resilient and secure,” he says. “This is a good, logical next step.”

It’s a step that will up the bar for Cisco’s competitors. Mehra says the IBN market is fairly fragmented with many vendors offering up a piece of an IBN solution, but not many integrated pieces. “Different vendors provide some of these,” he says. “You have to think of them as point solutions, and to the extent they do their job some of them are excellent.”

For example, IDC has written about startups Live Action, 7Signal Solutions, Nyansa, ThousandEyes and Kentik that provide cloud based monitoring, an important piece of IBN. But more established vendors such as NetScout, CA and IBM also offer this type of network monitoring, he says. “Getting IBN coherent from a single vendor, I think there such more value in it,” Mehra says.

Cisco Network Assurance Engine: This is a new piece of software running in a virtual machine and providing the assurance capabilities for data centers with Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) enabled data centers. ACI is Cisco’s software-defined networking that is baked into the network hardware. The Network Assurance engine will enable IT pros to understand the impact of proposed network changes in data centers and verify that network behavior complies with policies that have been set.

Cisco DNA Center Assurance: This is software that gathers and analyzes data from across networks to help identify the root cause of problems and suggest ways to fix them. A separate software platform, Cisco Meraki Wireless Health supports similar features for wireless networks.

Cisco Meraki Wireless Health: This is a software enhancement to the dashboard for Cisco’s Meraki line of wireless gear. It spots anomalies and trends that could indicate problems, helps isolate the causes and suggest remediation.

In earlier IBN announcements, Cisco addressed what it calls translation, the act of capturing the business intent that IT is trying to get out  of the network and translating that into policies the network understands. This phase also checks that these policies can be deployed without conflicting with other intents.

The next phase Cisco announced was orchestrating the policy throughout the underlying infrastructure with configuration of individual devices and making sure they have been provisioned correctly to deliver the intent

https://www.crn.com/news/managed-services/300098601/dell-emc-doubles-down-on-storage-services-unifying-portfolio.htm

Dell EMC Doubles Down On Storage Services, Unifying Portfolio

IT industry behemoths Dell and EMC came together officially over a year ago, but the integration of the combined company's services organization is ongoing. The company's leaders say partners will soon begin experiencing a more unified and efficient operation, especially in storage. To that end, in January @Dell EMC's #ProDeploy and #ProSupport (including ProSupport Plus) services will become available throughout more of the vendor's storage lineup. "There were EMC and Dell platforms, and there was different branding for the services, and as of November, we've started a journey of unifying that and having #ProDeploy as an offer set across the storage portfolio," said @EricaLambert, @Dell EMC vice president of global channel services. Dell EMC's services organization also has rolled out boosted incentives, including a 1.25 percent kicker added to every dollar of storage sales through Feb. 3, the end of Dell EMC's fiscal year. "A lot of storage business is done over the next number of weeks," Lambert said, "and we're happy to support partners We want them taking advantage of the 1.25X kicker. Services are going to continue to be a critical part of the program." Ultimately, Lambert and other services leaders want partners to develop their own services to complement what they sell on Dell EMC paper, which seems to afford the most traction for the channel and the vendor, Lambert said. [Sponsored Suggested Post: New from CRN: The Most Popular Stories Newsletter. Get Our Top Trending Headlines Delivered. Subscribe Today]  "Our strongest partners are the ones that have their own capabilities and delivery practices," she said. "Those same partners have the highest level of services attach with Dell EMC. They're leading with services, and a customer-experience-centric point of view. They're winning, and they're winning for us." Sonia St. Charles, CEO of Davenport Group, said she has positioned the Minneapolis-based solution provider for just that type of services go-to-market strategy.  "We've hired that capability in-house because we didn't have it. Prior to that, we've used Dell to do fulfillment. "We like to work with the customer from the beginning to end so we can do the ful¬fillment from beginning to end of whatever the solution is," she said. The effort to unify the company's services portfolio started with the midrange Dell EMC Unity line, and will be rolled out across the entire storage portfolio beginning this month. Services offerings from Dell and EMC were similar, but bringing them under Dell's existing ProSupport and ProDeploy brands brings a more concrete integration to the suite. Dell EMC has about 60,000 services personnel globally, about half of them working with the channel and "focused on making sure the support and deployment portfolio is aligned with the technology and outcomes [customers] are looking for," said Doug Schmitt, president of Dell EMC support and deployment services. "We're making sure from a sales perspective that the portfolio is unified, simplified." Dell EMC's services organization also published line-of-business sales guides that help partners position their services offerings in the market, and educate them on how services can drive incremental sales and improve the overall customer experience. Services are a key component of partners' storage sales strategies, Lambert said, because they can help drive repeat business and help keep customers loyal. "When partners sell with services, those customers come back and buy [more products] from us and we get incremental revenue," Lambert said. "The end user has a better experience. Services drives sticky customers and drives more overall opportunity for both our partners and Dell EMC. In storage, we need our partners attaching the right level of support service and selling the deployment capability, or developing their own to give the best experience for the customer that's getting that technology."

https://www.crn.com/news/managed-services/300098601/dell-emc-doubles-down-on-storage-services-unifying-portfolio.htm

VMware-Dell Reverse Merger Report Sends VMware Market Cap Plummeting By Nearly $10 Billion

The possibility of @Dell becoming a public company again via a reverse merger with its @VMware subsidiary shook investors and left VMware partners questioning what impact the deal would have in the technology sales trenches. VMware shares dropped $24.95 (17%) to $125.05 in trading on Monday after CNBC reported that VMware might actually buy the larger Dell to pave the way for Dell to go public without filing for an initial public offering. The market capitalization of VMware – which Dell owns 80 percent of and participates in that investment through a tracking stock – stood at $50.90 billion on Monday, down from $60.47 billion at the close of business Friday. [Related: Report: VMware Might Buy Dell In Reverse Merger] Dell's board of directors is scheduled to meet later this month to discuss its options in the wake of new interest tax deduction limitations that went into effect with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act by Congress last month. That bill limits the tax deductibility of interest payments to 30 percent of a company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). That severely impacts the $50 billion in debt that Dell has on its balance sheet in the wake of its historic acquisition of storage market leader EMC for $67 billion in 2016. [Sponsored Suggested Post: Help your customers start a revolution Become a Couchbase partner and help your clients see faster time to value with the world’s first Engagement Database. Learn about PartnerEngage.] Some partners are questioning what impact a reverse merger would have on VMware's ability to partner with Dell EMC rivals such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and NetApp. "VMware now plays Switzerland to the rest of the industry," said John Woodall, vice president of engineering at Integrated Archive Systems, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based solution provider who works closely with Dell EMC as well as Cisco and NetApp. "If Dell said that VMware has to work with its own stack more closely, it doesn't matter whether Dell EMC buys VMware or VMware buys Dell EMC: the upside for Dell EMC is it gets full control of its destiny. It gets control of the orchestration and automation tools." Another solution provider told CRN on condition of anonymity that it is difficult to see how a VMware acquisition of Dell would work for the channel given how closely VMware has teamed with Dell's rivals in the past. "Many vendors talk to VMware first of all when it comes to their products to make sure they are ready to work with the VMware hypervisor," the solution provider said. "VMware's primary value to the market is that it has the best hypervisor. And the hypervisor's success is dependent on being independent. Now, what if VMware is firmly and unequivocally integrated into a hardware vendor?" Dell EMC is already looking at how to use VMware as part of a larger assault on the storage market, Woodall said. "Dell EMC is going after Cisco's Hyperflex business," he said. "Irrespective of how it handles VMware, Dell EMC is more competitive in Cisco accounts. And Dell EMC with VMware will be even more competitive."

https://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300098596/vmware-dell-reverse-merger-report-sends-vmware-market-cap-plummeting-by-nearly-10-billion.htm

Cohesity CEO and Founder Mohit Aron to Host CEO Roundtable on the “Path of an Entrepreneur”

VANCOUVER, B.C., Jan. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --  @Cohesity, the leader of #hyperconverged #secondarystorage, announced that its CEO and founder, @MohitAron, will be hosting an exclusive CEO roundtable breakfast on the “Path of an Entrepreneur” on Tuesday, Feb. 6, starting at 9:30 a.m. in Vancouver, Canada. Designed for IT decision makers, Aron will review the “Path of an Entrepreneur,” from his education and background to the creation of a disruptive technology, and the future of the secondary storage market. The talk will cover the most important lessons he has learned in his over 15 years of experience in building scalable, high-performance distributed systems. Many know him as the “father of hyperconvergence.” His career began at Google, where he was the lead developer on the Google File System. Later he went on to co-found Nutanix in 2009 and in 2013 founded his current company, Cohesity. What: CEO Roundtable on the “Path of an Entrepreneur” Who: Mohit Aron, CEO and Founder, Cohesity When: Tuesday, February 6, 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Where: Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel 1128 West Hastings St. Vancouver, British Columbia Space is limited. Please RSVP here to join the roundtable.

https://americaclosed.com/vmware-layoffs-update-march-2018-warn-notice-159-job-cuts-even-dell-reverse-merger-rumors-spread/

Broadcom Expands Ethernet Switch Software Suite with Industry’s First Fully Open Source Software Development Kit

Open APIs and source code of the Ethernet Switch Software Development Kit accelerate development and deployment of networking stacks SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- @Broadcom Limited (NASDAQ:AVGO), today announced the immediate availability of #SDKLT, the industry's first fully open source Software Development Kit (SDK) for Ethernet switch ASICs. SDKLT offers a revolutionary table-driven approach to configure Ethernet switch ASICs, and is built to accelerate the software development of high-performance networking infrastructure. The release of SDKLT further establishes Broadcom's position as the market leader in not only providing Ethernet switch silicon, but also in delivering an open, scalable, and high-performance switch SDK. By offering a complete open source SDK, Broadcom takes a significant step forward towards fulfilling the vision of an entirely open networking ecosystem. Now, hardware vendors, network OS providers, and SDN controller developers can readily build and customize their switch APIs. They can also freely redistribute their enhancements and leverage the community to quickly deliver high-quality solutions to the market. The innovative logical table-based approach used in SDKLT greatly simplifies the task of configuring the feature-rich Ethernet switch silicon in use today. With this approach, all device physical resources such as MAC Address Tables, L3 route tables, etc. are presented to users as explicitly defined logical tables instead of specific function calls. The new switch software approach empowers data center operators with greater control over their infrastructure resources. SDKLT introduces new ways to monitor, analyze, and provision switch resources, all through the use of industry standard automation tools. Network OS and SDN applications will benefit from this new level of operational efficiencies which are realized through the flexible transaction management, device resource visibility, and performance improvements offered by SDKLT. "We are delighted to announce another industry first with our fully open source SDKLT to accelerate the development and deployment of Broadcom's switch silicon," said Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager of switching products. "SDKLT brings a fresh, state-of-the-art software development approach to the broader community of network software developers where they can now fully and directly control and monitor the rich switch feature set optimized for SDN and cloud use cases." The first open source offering of SDKLT is based on the BCM56960 Tomahawk® switch, the industry's most popular data center ToR and fabric device, and is supported by a wide and robust group of ecosystem partners. SDKLT open source code is now available on GitHub and the logical table APIs are Apache 2.0 licensed. This enables users to build, customize, and share innovation across a wide range of switch platforms and developers. Key Attributes and Benefits of the New SDKLT Software: - Open source code and the logical table APIs are released under Apache 2.0 license - Device behavior is managed by logical tables via small set of APIs - Logical table APIs designed to readily support RPC-able client-server model - Full device provisioning and control through automation (CLI, Yaml, XML, etc.) - Performance optimized software architecture - High visibility and control over device resources provides optimal resource management - Flexible transaction management with comprehensive support for batched or atomic operations via single API call - Architected for High Availability (HA) including support for Soft Error Recovery, Warmboot, and In Service Upgrade Industry Support Cloud Network Operators and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) Dr.Han Li, Director of CMCC Network Institute, China mobile "CMCC applauds Broadcom's decision to open source SDKLT on its flagship Tomahawk product. It is a great step forward in accelerating innovation in the SDN and datacenter use cases. We look forward to continuing our close collaboration with Broadcom in leading edge network technologies." Gavin Cato, Senior Vice President Development Engineering, Dell Networking "As pioneers and firm believers in Open Networking, we developed our Dell EMC OS10 operating system to deliver the unique flexibility necessary for a modern cloud provider. With these new SDKLT capabilities, our OS10 customers can further optimize data center infrastructure for greater efficiency and scale." Yuval Bachar, Principal Engineer, Linkedin "Open source networking has made significant progress over the last few years, but the vendor SDK has been one of the last closed source components. It is great to see Broadcom break that barrier by providing an open source SDK. I think this is a game changing step in moving the open networking ecosystem to the next level." Wen Quan, Switch product division data center product development manager, Ruijie "Ruijie has leveraged Broadcom's industry leading switch silicon to build world class switching and routing solutions. It is great to see Broadcom open source its innovative, high performance SDKLT on the Tomahawk device. We are convinced this step will accelerate innovation in networking and deliver more robust solutions all around." Ecosystem Partners: Prashant Gandhi, VP and Chief Product Officer, Big Switch Networks "SDKLT Logical Table APIs enable Big Switch to accelerate innovations in our automation-centric and zero-touch SDN fabric solutions, which are deployed on open networking hardware platforms that leverage Broadcom switch ASICs. SDKLT being available as an open-source software is also highly synergistic with Big Switch-contributed Open Networking Linux, which together will dramatically speed up adoption of open networking solutions." JR Rivers, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Cumulus Networks: "As a pioneer in the development of open software for networking, Cumulus is thrilled that Broadcom is opening up its SDK. We look forward to integrating this SDK in our Cumulus Linux offerings and work closely with Broadcom to push the entire disaggregated networking ecosystem forward." Guru Parulkar, executive director of the ONF and Stanford Platform Lab "ONF's goal is to deliver high quality open source SDN solutions for operator networks. Broadcom has been a key contributor to ONF over the years, with contributions to multiple SDN use cases such as CORD and software-defined packet transport network (SPTN). A high performance, open source switch SDK is critical for optimized production ready networks, and we look forward to leveraging SDKLT software in current and other emerging SDN projects." Atsushi Ogata, President and CEO, IP Infusion "Broadcom's SDKLT offers a novel approach to device programming. As a strategic partner of Broadcom, IP Infusion is embracing this new approach as it gives the freedom to choose your own software implementation of Broadcom devices. The Logical Table APIs offered by SDKLT brings a new dimension on how we develop device-specific implementation of control plane protocols. The multi-threading and batching capabilities of SDKLT will help networks achieve higher performance and scalability, which are important for our OcNOS network operating system in the service provider market." Hannes Gerdler, CTO, rtbrick "From day one RtBrick has followed a declarative design pattern for our Web-scale SwitchOS 'RtBrick FullStack' (RBFS) where our developers declare the control-plane flow consisting of object, tables and table subscriptions. We are pleased to see that Broadcom is now offering a declarative style SDK for driving their Silicon. We anticipate that by using SDKLT's new style and flexibility it offers, it will help us bring out innovative products out quickly."

http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/broadcom-expands-ethernet-switch-software-suite-with-industrys-first-fully-open-source-software-20180130-00667

Datrium Announces Record Customer Adoption of Open Convergence

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --  @Datrium, the leading provider of #OpenConverged Infrastructure for #hybrid #clouds, announced today that business growth is accelerating as a record number of customers adopt its new breed of convergence. Product innovation and strategic partnerships, together with a growing number of enterprises that have experienced firsthand the limitations of #hyperconverged infrastructure ( #HCI), were largely responsible for the accelerating customer interest and adoption experienced throughout 2017. Significant Customer Adoption Continues With more than 300 DVX deployments in seven quarters, Datrium customers now include large enterprises like global technology powerhouse Siemens, a global consumer products company, and one of the world's leading entertainment service companies, as well as popular consumer brands like Oberto and Osprey Packs. Adoption has been strong across all industry sectors including financial services, healthcare, public sector, and service providers. Revenue also grew many times that of 2016, and included petabyte-size deployments, multiple DR installations and repeat purchases from existing Datrium customers. "We considered all-flash arrays and hyperconverged systems, but nothing compared to Datrium, which gave us the best of both without the drawbacks," said Bryan Bond, Director of Infrastructure at Siemens Corporation. "We spend zero time managing storage, our database performance is off the charts, and backup is built right in so we get data protection without the headache of dedicated backup devices." Record Product Innovation Fueled by one of the four largest financing events in 2016, Datrium maintained a blistering pace of product releases in 2017. The company became the first to introduce several innovative technologies for server-powered converged infrastructure, including: Convergence of primary and backup storage into a single unified system, including a scalable and searchable backup-class catalog, granular VM and vDisk level backup and replication, and in-flight and at-rest data encryption with full data reduction. Split Provisioning software that mirrors modern hyperscale architectures to deliver petabyte-scale, massive performance, and fully independent scaling of capacity and I/O processing. Cloud DVX, a cloud-native instance of Datrium DVX that offers recovery services for VMs and stateful containers running in DVX on-premises, and includes global cloud deduplication – a killer app for any public cloud-based deployment. Strategic Partnerships Datrium has also seen tremendous growth in both go-to-market and ecosystem partnerships. The Datrium channel has grown to 200 authorized partners, including a silver level relationship with CDW. New ecosystem partnerships have spiked to 30 from six just two quarters ago, and now include: New platform relationships with Arista, Docker, Intel, Mellanox, nVidia, and RedHat. New guest OS relationships with CentOS, RedHat and Suse. New application relationships with Amazon Web Services, Citrix, Cloudera, Kroll Ontrack, Oracle, SAP and Splunk. The combination of technology advancements and strategic partnerships have resulted in 2 out of 3 customers selecting Datrium DVX and Open Convergence over Nutanix HCI.  A desire to avoid HCI cluster sprawl, while achieving high performance for large data sets, affordable double-failure protection, and the ability to integrate with existing server infrastructures were some of the reasons customers cited for choosing Datrium over Nutanix. Market Expansion Stimulated by strong customer demand and competitive success, Datrium is moreover announcing the doubling of its sales and solution architect staff across the U.S., and is opening Datrium subsidiaries to serve both Canada and Japan. The new Datrium subsidiaries are partnering with value-added solution providers to deliver Datrium DVX products to their respective markets. In addition to business development, sales and marketing, both subsidiaries provide local technical support and services. New Executive Talent Important additions to Datrium's executive staff were made throughout the year. Mike Park was appointed as VP of Operations, and Andre Leibovici, who left Nutanix in May, was appointed as VP of Solutions and Alliances. In addition, Datrium added a new member to its board of directors, Dave Schneider who is currently the Chief Revenue Officer at ServiceNow. "It has been a phenomenal year for Datrium and our customers," said Brian Biles, Datrium CEO and co-founder. "Our tremendous customer adoption and revenue growth has also attracted leading IT companies like Oracle, Red Hat, and Citrix to partner with Datrium. We look forward to helping more companies benefit from open converged infrastructure in 2018."

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/datrium-announces-record-customer-adoption-of-open-convergence-300589932.html

10 Hot Dell EMC Storage Products

Storage For A Modern #DataCenter World The key to @Dell EMC storage sales returning to growth lies not only in a robust storage market, but a robust product line, and the company in the second have proved it could go toe-to-toe with the best with major enhancements across its offerings. While some of the enhancements stemmed from improved hardware, including new Intel Xeon processors and higher-performance flash storage, the key enhancements were software related. CRN looks at 10 key products in the Dell EMC storage lineup, one that offers the broad capabilities to match the company's position as the world's largest storage vendor.

Elastic Cloud Storage

Elastic Cloud Storage is a software-defined, cloud-scale, object storage platform that brings the availability and serviceability of traditional storage arrays to commodity server infrastructures in a private cloud offering. ECS provides comprehensive protocol support for unstructured object and file workloads on a single platform that lets customers manage globally distributed storage infrastructure under a single global namespace with anywhere access to content. Dell EMC in May updated the platform to include the ECS Dedicated Cloud Service to provide hybrid deployment models. It also introduced ECS Next, which provides enhanced data protection, management and analytics.

Integrated Data Protection Appliance

Dell EMC in May introduced its Integrated Data Protection Appliance, or IDPA, a purpose-built, pre-integrated appliance bringing together data protection storage, software, search and analytics to protect data across a wide range of applications and platforms. According to Dell EMC, the IDPA offers fast deployment of data protection for physical and virtual workloads, and lets coverage seamlessly extend to the cloud with native cloud-tiering for long-term retention to private or public clouds. The appliances feature encryption, fault detection and healing, along with an average 55:1 deduplication rate for data both on-premises and in the cloud.

Isilon

Dell EMC provides scale-out NAS offerings aimed at fast-growing unstructured data in its Isilon line. The Intel Xeon-powered Isilon portfolio, which helps manage demanding enterprise file workloads, is available with all-flash, hybrid flash or spinning disk. It provides high-capacity utilization and automated tiering, and can scale from tens of terabytes to tens of petabytes. Dell EMC in May enhanced its software-only Isilon SD Edge to deploy on a single Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation server to make it available at a lower cost point for smaller remote offices. The updates also include support for VMware vSphere 6.5, as well as deployment using virtual storage platforms like ScaleIO and VMware vSAN.

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/storage/300098041/10-hot-dell-emc-storage-products.htm/pgno/0/3

Is Michael Dell Weighing Another Troubling Deal for Investors?

Investors learned the perils of investing alongside @MichaelDell when he engineered a $24 billion leveraged buyout of @Dell in 2013 that undervalued the technology company he founded. Now Dell, the CEO and controlling shareholder of privately held @Dell Technologies, might be at it again. There have been reports that Dell Technologies, which is highly leveraged, is considering a merger with cash-rich @VMware (ticker: VMW), a company in which Dell Technologies holds a roughly 80% stake. The possibility of such a transaction isn’t sitting well with two investor groups: the owners of the 20% of VMware not held by Dell, and the owners of a Dell Technologies tracking stock for VMware ( DVMT) that was created when Dell bought EMC for $67 billion in 2016 and got EMC’s controlling stake in VMware. Share of both VMware and the Dell Technologies tracking stock fell sharply Monday after a CNBC report that Dell is considering a merger with VMware, the virtualization software company now valued at about $50 billion. The better value of the two stocks could be the Dell tracker, which finished at the day at $74.80, down $7.94, or 10%. VMware plunged $24.95, or 17% to $125.15. While there is uncertainty about how the tracker would be treated in a Dell/VMware combination, it now trades at a steep discount of 40% to VMware, offering a margin of safety. Some think the better trade is to buy the Dell tracker and short VMware to capture that differential, which had been around 35% until it widened sharply on Friday. “Given the discount, I see it [the arbitrage trade] as carrying limited risk,” says Keith Moore, a managing director and event-driven strategist at FBN Securities. The Dell tracker has a current market value of nearly $15 billion based on about 200 million outstanding shares. The VMware (ticker: VMW) selloff today follows a 9% rally last Friday to a record close of $150. The stock rallied on reports, including one in the Wall Street Journal, that Dell was considering buying out the public holders of VMware. Investors in VMware have gone from optimism about a potential deal for VMware at a premium to uncertainty about how a possible merger with a highly leveraged Dell would be structured and how the new stock would trade. VMware had rallied more than 50% in the past year amid hopes that it was positioned as an attractive cloud-computing play, based in part on its alliance with Amazon Web Services. ADVERTISEMENT The Dell tracker has been hit even harder than VMware. On Friday, the tracker fell 7% despite a rally in VMware; the two stocks normally move in lockstep. The drop in the tracker reflected an unwinding of a popular arbitrage trade among hedge funds in which the funds were long the tracking stock and short VMware to capture a spread that has lately averaged about 35%. The divergent moves in the Dell tracker and VMware forced many funds to unwind their positions, selling the Dell tracker and buying VMware. ADVERTISEMENT A Dell/VMware merger would create a potentially unwieldy combination of VMware, a software company with about $7 billion of cash and a market value of $50 billion, and Dell, with estimated core debt of more than $40 billion. Given the market reaction today, VMware holders aren’t happy about the idea of a reverse-merger deal. It is also unclear whether the public VMware holders would be allowed to vote on such a deal. William Blair analyst Jason Ader wrote today in a client note that “after two years, our understanding is that according to Delaware law [VMware is incorporated in Delaware] Dell could pursue a ‘short form’ merger for VMW without prior action by the board [because Dell controls more than 90% of VMW’s voting shares], and there is no duty to pay a ‘fair price’ in such event. If this happens, a minority shareholder’s sole remedy is to seek appraisal of the VMW shares [non-voting shares are entitled to appraisal rights in a merger to the same extent as voting shareholders].” ADVERTISEMENT Dell’s voting interest in VMware exceeds its economic ownership due to ownership of high-vote shares. The two-year period referenced by the William Blair analyst ends in September 2018. A simpler strategy for Dell would be to simply go public on its own and leave VMware remaining as a public company. Dell could try to buy out VMware holders, but that would run counter to its strategy of the past year in which it has bought back shares of the Dell tracker using proceeds from sales of VMware stock back to VMware. ADVERTISEMENT It’s unclear what would happen to the tracker if Dell combines with VMware in a reverse merger, simply goes public, or seeks to buy out the VMware public shareholders. That uncertainty is weighing on the tracking stock. Dell can’t distribute the underlying VMware shares to the tracker holders before 2021 without a significant tax penalty, according to New York tax expert Robert Willens. Bloomberg is reporting that if Dell merges with VMware, the tracker shares “would be subsumed in the newly combined Dell-VMware.” Dell, Bloomberg wrote, “hasn’t decided if it would swap them for shares of the new company or acquire them with cash.” The tracker holders could have some protection in a Dell/VMware merger. According a report by the UBS Special Situations group on Friday, Dell would have to pay a 20% premium to buy out the tracker holders within one year of an initial public offering, with that premium falling to 15% in the second year and 10% in the third. It’s unclear whether a merger with VMware would constitute an IPO. It’s possible that an activist investor could surface in the tracker and try to ensure that tracker holders are protected in any going-public transaction involving Dell. The company attracted activist investor Carl Icahn back in 2013 when Dell sought to go private, with Icahn arguing – correctly, as it turned out – that the buyout offer undervalued Dell. There is still considerable uncertainty about Dell’s plans for VMware, but Dell could face shareholder resistance if it tries to engineer a deal that shortchanges both VMware’s public holders and the Dell tracker investors.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/is-michael-dell-weighing-another-troubling-deal-for-investors-1517269528

Lenovo Data Center Leader On HPE/Dell Competition, Meltdown And Spectre Strategy, And Game-Changing AI Push In 2018

Leading the channel charge for @Lenovo 's #datacenter organization is sales veteran @StefanBockhop, who said Lenovo will outpace its server and #hyperconverged competition through technology differentiation as well as  new initiatives around #artificialintelligence and the SMB market. "AI is going to be a game-changer for a lot of our partners," said Bockhop, executive director of North American channels for Lenovo's Data Center Group, who has been with the vendor since 2005. "We are taking a very forward-thinking position with our alliance teams, our solutions teams and our partners, saying, 'Hey, let's help our customers through this journey.'" In an interview with CRN, Bockhop talks about the biggest partner initiatives in 2018, market competition, and how the company is working with Intel to combat the global Meltdown and Spectre security issues.

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/data-center/300098536/crn-interview-lenovo-data-center-leader-on-hpe-dell-competition-meltdown-and-spectre-strategy-and-game-changing-ai-push-in-2018.htm

Cloud quantum computing calculates nuclear binding energy

#Cloud @quantumcomputing has been used to calculate the binding energy of the deuterium nucleus – the first-ever such calculation done using quantum processors at remote locations. Nuclear physicists led by Eugene Dumitrescu at @Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US used publicly available software to achieve the remote operation of two distant quantum computers. Their work could lead to new opportunities for scientists in many fields who want to use quantum simulations to calculate properties of matter. In previous research, scientists have worked alongside quantum computer hardware developers to create quantum simulations. These typically use between two and six qubits to calculate a quantum property of matter – calculations that can be extremely time-consuming to do with a conventional computer. As the number of qubits available in quantum computers increase, the hope is that quantum simulations will be able to do calculations well beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional computers. However, doing simulations alongside quantum computer specialists can be an inefficient process and the research would be much more streamlined if scientists were able to operate quantum computers themselves. @Rigetti and @IBM In response to this issue, two companies have released software which allows their #quantumcomputers – Q Experience from IBM, and the #19Q from Rigetti – to be operated remotely through #cloud services. The IBM quantum processor has 16 qubits, while the Rigetti device has 19 qubits. Dumitrescu’s team used the software to calculate the binding energy of the deuterium nucleus – the energy required to prise apart the proton and neutron that comprise the nucleus. The team’s novel method required some precautions. Working via the cloud, the rate at which calculations could be made was limited, meaning the researchers needed to adjust their quantum measurements to account for the slower rate. With such measures in place, Dumitrescu’s team calculated the binding energy on both quantum computers to within 2% of the actual measured value.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2018/jan/29/cloud-quantum-computing-calculates-nuclear-binding-energy

Cohesity Presents Joint Solution With Cisco at Cisco Live 2018 Barcelona Conference

BARCELONA, Spain, Jan. 29, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- @Cohesity, the leader of #hyperconverged #secondarystorage, announced that it will reveal how leading enterprises are simplifying and consolidating their secondary storage infrastructures using a joint solution with @Cisco during two sessions at the Cisco Live 2018 conference in Barcelona. Cohesity Principal Solutions Architect Damien Philip will lead the presentation, “Hyperconverged secondary storage, data protection and much more,” scheduled to take place on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 1:50 - 2:05 p.m. local time (CET) and Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2:10 p.m. - 2:25 p.m. CET. Cohesity and Cisco partnered to simplify secondary storage infrastructure and put an enterprise’s data to use. Whether data resides on primary or secondary storage, Cisco and Cohesity can put all data to good use, which maximizes the return on any storage investment. Along with seeing how enterprises leverage the joint secondary storage solution from Cohesity and Cisco, attendees will learn how hyperconverged secondary storage is eliminating complexities of a siloed environment. Cohesity enables customers to increase efficiency and reduce total cost of ownership as well as leverage the economics of cloud services for secondary storage.

http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/Cohesity-Presents-Joint-Solution-With-Cisco-at-Cisco-Live-2018-Barcelona-Conference-1014417775

Dell may sell itself to VMware, a company it already owns

@DellTechnologies has been a privately run company for more than 4 years, but it appears ready to return to public life -- in a convoluted way. @CNBC sources have claimed that Dell is exploring a "reverse merger" with @VMware where the virtual machine maker (80 percent owned by Dell following the EMC deal) would buy its parent and let the resulting company go public without having to launch a new stock offering. It would also let Dell pay off some of its roughly $50 billion in debt. This isn't set in stone. The tipsters also said that a number of alternatives are on the table, including a straightforward public offering, other takeovers (the targets haven't been named) or buying the remaining 20 percent stake of VMware. Dell is unlikely to sell to an outside company or give up VMware, however. Dell has declined to comment on the report. A reverse merger would be one of the more "audacious" options for Dell, but it would reflect how much things have changed for Dell in the space of a few years. It went private at a time when it was struggling and wanted the freedom to restructure without the pressure that comes with publicly traded stock. The situation isn't completely rosy going into 2018 -- Dell posted a $941 million net loss in its latest quarter, due in part to paying off $1.7 billion of its debt. It's in a stronger position than it was in 2013, however, with less dependence on its PC business. A reverse merger could easily help it cut costs and raise funds that would otherwise be out of reach.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.engadget.com/amp/2018/01/29/dell-may-sell-itself-to-vmware/

Databricks comes to Microsoft Azure

@Databricks, the company founded by the creators of @Apache @Spark, first launched its cloud-based Spark services to general availability in 2015. It was a single cloud offering, from Databricks itself, but physically based on the @Amazon Web Services cloud. On the #Azure side, meanwhile, there have been several ways to run Apache Spark, including on @HDInsight, Azure Batch Service, Data Science Virtual Machines and, more recently, Azure Machine Learning services. But if you wanted full-on Databricks, you had to do that on AWS. Redmond-bound Enter Azure Databricks (ADB), a new flavor of the premium Apache Spark service but this time based on, and tightly integrated with, Microsoft Azure. ADB has direct support for Azure Blob Storage and Azure Data Lake Store, and its otherwise standard documentation has been customized to illustrate how to connect to Azure SQL Database and SQL Data Warehouse, and to connect to the service from Power BI. It also integrates with Cosmos DB and Azure Active Directory.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/databricks-comes-to-microsoft-azure/