IBM Announces New All-Flash & Software Defined Solutions

Today #IBM announced new hybrid cloud, all-flash storage solutions that, according to the company, are developed to modernize and transform storage deployments, providing a strong bridge to the development of cognitive applications. These new solutions are all about storing data where it makes the most amount of sense for customers. #SDS

With data there have been three major technologies transforming how it is stored. The cloud gives customers a more cost-effective and scalable option for storing data. Flash has taken storage performance to a completely new level when it is compared to spinning disks, and with new interfaces it continues to improve. And software-defined storage gives companies a wide range of flexibility to meet their changing needs. IBM has taken these three technologies and combined them with security and data management with its new solutions it is announcing today.
New solutions include:
Hybrid cloud enablement for existing and new on-premises storage: enhancements to IBM Spectrum Virtualize bring hybrid cloud capabilities for block storage to the IBM Storwize family, IBM FlashSystem V9000, IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) and VersaStack, as well as nearly 400 storage systems from IBM and others.
Data sharing to the cloud: IBM Spectrum Scale now syncs file and object data across on-premises and cloud storage to connect cloud native applications. Relying on access to data wherever it resides, this can drive cognitive application development.
High density, highly scalable all-flash storage: with a new high density expansion enclosure and new 7TB and 15TB flash drives, IBM Storwize solutions can grow up to 8x larger than previous solutions without disruption. Up to 32PB of flash storage in only four racks to meet the needs of fast-growing cloud workloads in space constrained data centers.
All-flash performance for big data and analytics workloads: IBM’s new DeepFlash Elastic Storage Server (ESS) offers up to 8x better performance than HDD based solutions for big data and analytics workloads. Built with IBM Spectrum Scale it includes virtually unlimited scaling, enterprise security features, unified file, object, and HDFS support.
Faster decision making on larger data sets: new high-performance flash capability for IBM’s DS8880 storage system provides 2x better performance and 3x more efficient use of rack space for mission-critical applications such as credit card and banking transactions as well as airline reservations running on IBM z Systems and IBM Power Systems.

http://www.storagereview.com/ibm_announces_new_allflash_software_defined_solutions

Mellanox Launches Open Source Software Initiative for Routers, Load Balancers, and Firewalls

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & YOKNEAM, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- #Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX), a leading supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems, today announced a new open source software initiative to enable advanced open networking platforms such as routers, load balancers, and firewalls. A key part of the initiative is the release of the first ever software development kit: OpenNPU SDK, for the company's most advanced network processor unit (NPU), the NPS-400. OpenNPU is made available under either GPL or BSD license to enable developers to explore, research, and innovate with true programmable packet processing at 600 million packets per seconds. The OpenNPU SDK addresses the need for open source software aimed at the increasing number of open networking platforms proliferating the market today.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161102005559/en/Mellanox-Launches-Open-Source-Software-Initiative-Routers

Samsung spends $1 billion to strengthen US chip production

Making the chips that sit inside our smartphones, tablets and cars is a big business, and one that's only getting bigger. #Samsung is looking to take advantage of that by spending a further $1 billion on its Texas-based semiconductor facility. That cash is intended to increase Samsung's ability to produce integrated systems on a chip like its Exynos-branded SoCs that reside inside mobile devices. The Austin American Statesman quotes Catherine Morse, Samsung's local general counsel, saying that the move will create more jobs. The executive believes that the firm will seek to employ a further 250 - 500 people in the expanded factory when its upgrades are finalized. That should be completed by mid-2017 and serves as a rare boost for Austin's now-shrinking chip-making economy. It's also a sign that Samsung is looking to go it alone when taking on its global rivals in the chip manufacture wars. Its closest rivals are arguably TSMC, which produces the bulk of the chips for the iPhone, and Qualcomm, which recently announced that it would purchase #NXP Semiconductor for $47 billion.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/01/samsung-spends-1-billion-to-strengthen-us-chip-production/

Tiny graphene radios may lead to Internet of Nano-Things

Wireless communication networks in the gigahertz band could open up new high-speed communication capabilities and extremely small Internet of Things devices. #IoT Most wireless communication uses radio waves, but the airwaves are getting crowded. Tapping into the terahertz band, another area of the electromagnetic spectrum, could open up more and faster communication. "For wireless communication, the terahertz band is like an express lane. But there's a problem: there are no entrance ramps," says Josep Jornet, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Jornet and co-investigators Jonathan Bird and Erik Einarsson are working on “the Internet of Nano-Things,” nanoscale radios made of graphene and semiconducting materials that could speed up IoT devices for computing, medical devices, civil engineering, and other industries that can benefit from high-definition, real-time streaming. "We'll be able to create highly accurate, detailed, and timely maps of what's happening within a given system. The technology has applications in health care, agriculture, energy efficiency -- basically anything you want more data on," Jornet said. # graphene

http://www.stockhouse.com/news/press-releases/2016/11/02/ibm-named-a-leader-in-gartner-s-magic-quadrant-for-distributed-file-systems-and#q8LvkVGEGK8HruWb.99

IBM Named A Leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Distributed File Systems and Object Storage Read more at http://www.stockhouse.com/news/press-releases/2016/11/02/ibm-named-a-leader-in-gartner-s-magic-quadrant-for-distributed-file-systems-and#q8LvkVGEGK8HruWb.99

ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 2, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE:  #IBM ) has been recognized as a Leader for Distributed File Systems and #ObjectStorage in Gartner's 2016 Magic Quadrant for Distributed File Systems and Object Storage 1.

According to Gartner, "Vendors in the Leaders quadrant have the highest scores for their Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. A vendor in the Leaders quadrant has the market share, credibility, and marketing and sales capabilities needed to drive the acceptance of new technologies. Market Leaders will typically be able to execute strongly across multiple geographies with products that cover both distributed file systems and object storage offerings. They will also have consistent financial performance, broad platform support and flexible deployments models."

Earlier this year in Gartner's Critical Capabilities for Object Storage2 report, IBM received the highest scores for key use cases important to customers, including: Analytics, Archiving and Cloud Storage. Further extending the IBM Cloud Object Storage solution offering, IBM recently announced new public cloud services that complement it's scalable object storage on premises offering with unique hybrid cloud options across the expansive network of IBM Cloud data centers around the world.

"IBM Spectrum Scale and IBM Cloud Object Storage have combined to offer clients a flexible, scalable solution that can be deployed on premises and also use public cloud services," said Ed Walsh, general manager of IBM Storage and Software Defined Infrastructure. "By automating the movement of object storage to the cloud within Spectrum Scale, IBM's Transparent Cloud Tiering extends traditional storage in cloud repositories with policy driven, simplicity, security, and control."

Nuance: Managing R&D Data on HPC Grid with IBM Spectrum Scale 
To support its research and development teams, voice and language solutions leader, Nuance Communications utilizes high performance computing (HPC) grids for the development of new applications – everything from speech recognition and imaging to mobile-enabled and healthcare functions. The team tasked with providing the infrastructure for its globally dispersed developers sought a solution to provide scale and anytime, anywhere accessibility, with regionalization and secure segmentation as necessary, to the data stored within its HPC grids.

"Spectrum Scale transparent cloud tiering not only gives us the ability to add cloud and object storage easily but also allows us to move data seamlessly between file, object, and cloud," said Bob Houvener, Sr. Dir Global IT Infrastructure and Advanced Computing, Nuance Communications, Inc. "We can move towards maintaining a unified view of all our data under a single security and management infrastructure."

Today, Nuance has become more efficient in its use of storage both vertically, to scale to growing capacity demands and horizontally to automatically manage different storage types, each with differing costs.

1 Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Distributed File Systems and Object Storage, October 20, 2016. ID: G00307798, Analyst(s): Julia Palmer, Arun Chandrasekaran, Raj Bala.

2  Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Object Storage report, March 31, 2016 ID: G00271719; Analyst(s): Arun Chandrasekaran, Raj Bala, Garth Landers. *Use Cases: Analytics, Archiving, Cloud Storage.

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.

http://www.stockhouse.com/news/press-releases/2016/11/02/ibm-named-a-leader-in-gartner-s-magic-quadrant-for-distributed-file-systems-and#q8LvkVGEGK8HruWb.99

CORRECTING and REPLACING Pivot3 Continues Record Growth in Q3 2016

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In New Sales Leader section, first sentence should read: To maintain and accelerate growth, #Pivot3 recently appointed Jamie Lerner as the new chief revenue officer (instead of To maintain and accelerate growth, Pivot3 recently appointed Jamie Lerner as the new vice president of sales).

Pivot3, the technology leader of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solutions for the software-defined data center, continued to experience record growth and momentum in Q3 2016. Notable achievements include increased revenue, continued customer expansion into multiple mixed workloads, recognition as a leader by major industry analyst firms and the addition of a seasoned executive to lead the Pivot3 sales organization.

“Hyperconverged infrastructure is one of the hottest technology sectors today, and Pivot3’s efficient and scalable platform is one of the reasons they are emerging as a key player in this space,” said Henry Baltazar, research director of storage at 451 Research. “Pivot3’s scale-out architecture with dynamic QoS can provide the increased resource utilization and high availability required for demanding environments.”

Pivot3 achieved the following growth and key accomplishments in Q3 2016:

Increased revenue growth by 105 percent over the same period in Q3 2015, with 67 percent of revenue coming from new customers.
Continued growth across multiple HCI use cases, including enterprise application hosting, data center consolidation, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and business continuity and disaster recovery, with these categories representing 70 percent of new deals closed in Q3.
Named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI), Q3 2016. Pivot3 received the highest scores possible for high availability and data protection, manageability and ease of operations, and client feedback on support quality.
Named a Visionary in the October 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Integrated Systems, for ability to execute and completeness of vision.
Accelerated the Pivot3 Channel Partner Program, bringing increased revenue with 200 percent more deal registrations over the same period in Q3 2015.
Announced the availability of Edge Office, a new HCI product for small-to-midsized business and remote and branch office environments that delivers the same simple management and distributed scale-out architecture valued and depended on by Pivot3’s enterprise customers.
Added new policy-driven data protection capabilities to Pivot3’s patented storage Quality of Service feature.
Achieved compatibility certification on the Cisco UCS and UCS Mini computing platforms.
“Pivot3’s platform can support multiple use cases and applications on its infrastructure, in addition to its remarkable scale and efficiencies around storage performance and data protection,” said Scot Tymowicz, desktop configuration engineer at Southern New Hampshire Health System. “Pivot3 was the only solution that provided the level of performance and scalability to deliver the continuous, uninterrupted service that’s critical to our business.”

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161102005220/en/Pivot3-Continues-Record-Growth-Q3-2016

Cisco Introduces UCS S-Series Storage Optimized Servers, Next Generation Cisco Enterprise Cloud Suite, and Cisco ASAP Data Center for Secure Hybrid Cloud

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 1, 2016) - #Cisco ( NASDAQ : CSCO ) today introduced the #UCS S-Series: a new storage-optimized server category in the Cisco Unified Computing System™ (UCS) portfolio, designed specifically to address the needs of data intensive workloads such as Big Data, and for deploying software-defined storage, object storage, and data protection solutions. The UCS S-Series can handle the rapid growth of unstructured data created by the Internet of Things, video, mobility, collaboration and analytics so that businesses can access and analyze data quickly to generate insights in real time. Data. Unstored. Data has become the lifeblood of every organization, and the way it's used is changing rapidly. Traditionally, data was warehoused and accessed intermittently. Industry analysts estimate that less than 40 percent of stored enterprise data is ever used to create insight. New applications such as video analytics, diagnostic imaging, streaming analytics, and machine learning demand and create data that is "un-stored" and actively processed in real time. Traditional static IT infrastructure no longer works in a world of continuous insight and innovation, while public cloud storage solutions can become expensive as data sets grow quickly and unpredictably.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/cisco-introduces-ucs-series-storage-200000870.html

Quest celebrates first day of independence from Dell with layoffs

Exclusive #Quest, the newly liberated #Dellsoftware division, rang in its first day as a standalone company by announcing a restructuring that included significant layoffs. The Register has now heard from multiple sources that Quest has pink-slipped employees, with top management staff shown the door and deep cuts made to marketing and sales. Among those said to be leaving are president John Swainson, as well as Tom Joyce, general manager of information management, and Curtis Hutcheson, general manager of the network security unit, plus the veep of marketing. We understand that axed staff were offered two months of severance plus one week for every year worked as well as help in finding new jobs. In an internal "Quest employees only" email, obtained by El Reg, newly installed chairman and CEO Jeff Hawn says the biz will look to make the cuts "fast and fair": As we are reconfiguring the company to go to market in new ways and increasing investments in a number of new areas, we will be reducing spending in other areas. As such, we are restructuring, and that will result in job losses. Chopped staff say their IT access credentials have already been revoked and many have already left their offices for good. A Quest spokesperson declined to comment on the matter. The shakeup comes as California-based Quest Software officially begins life outside of Dell. The management software house says it has 100,000 customers worldwide, and its products include database tool TOAD and One Identity. Quest was spun off from its parent Dell Software Group with the backing of investment firms Francisco Partners and Elliott Management for a rumored $2bn. Francisco has installed new bosses amid the layoffs. Here's the latest leadership line up: President, Identity and Security Management – John Milburn President, Information Management – Kathleen Owens President, Platform Management – Michael Tweddle President, Data Protection and Endpoint Management – Ronnie Wilson Chief Financial Officer – Carolyn McCarthy Chief Business Operations Officer – Katherine Tate General Counsel – Brad Haque Human Resources – Amy Nelson Sales, Americas – Larry Humphries Sales, EMEA – Ronnie Wilson Sales, APJ – Brenton Smith In his email to staff, Hawn added: While the large size of Quest provides terrific advantages for us to better serve our customers, the need for speed and focus is most important. As such, we will be reconfiguring the company into four business units that will provide an uninterrupted line of sight from the products, through sales, and services into the customer base. These four units will be Identity and Security Management, Information Management (including Performance Management & Advanced Analytics), Platform Management, and Data Protection and Endpoint Management. Each unit will be managed in a way that will be tailored to specific needs of its customers so that we capture the maximum number of market opportunities. Each business unit will be led by its own President & General Manager. To simplify doing business with our customers and for employees, we will establish a common operating model across the business including Finance, Legal, HR and Operations.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/01/quest_congrats_heres_a_pink_slip/

Will Dell Technologies succeed in competing with Lenovo and HPE

Following #Dell ’s closure of the $67 billion acquisition of #EMC, CEO and Chairman @MichaelDell appointed an integration team comprising executives from both firms, led by Chief Integration Officer Rory Read from Dell and Howard Elias from EMC. “Every piece of the integration was planned from the customer back,” Read said. The goal of the integration and the emergent #DellTechnologies is, “To be the trusted provider of infrastructure to the next industrial revolution.” Each component of the two firms was assessed, and a set of “strategically aligned businesses” emerged that include a combined Dell EMC to #VMware, #Pivotal and #SecureWorks. Instead of making markets with new technologies or spanning hardware, software and services markets, Dell Technologies is 100 percent focused on enabling customer IT transformation and migration to new models of computing. The new company largely completes Michael Dell’s vision of a market-leading, desktop-to-data-center and cloud enterprise systems vendor. Dell Technologies partners with several firms that are making markets — notably General Electric Co. ( #GE ) — but also competes with (and partners with) firms like #Amazon and #IBM, which are leading their business development with new ideas. Dell Technologies is very clear around where and how it wants to play in the market. It is not positioning itself as a vendor of business outcomes or transformation but rather for IT transformation — tied to delivering end-to-end essential infrastructure that will enable business transformation. Dell Technologies will play to its strengths, looking to gain share and deliver the best margins for its own business. This strategy leaves white space

http://www.infotechlead.com/networking/will-dell-technologies-succeed-competing-lenovo-hpe-43627

Cisco Data Center VP Talks Cloud Infrastructure Strategy, 'Taking Share' From Dell, HPE

Are channel partners still building out their own clouds with #Cisco data center equipment? Has Cisco's growth rate increased as solution providers try to figure out the future of #Dell #EMC and Hewlett Packard Enterprise ( #HPE )? Satinder Sethi, vice president of Cisco's Data Center Solutions Engineering and UCS product management, answers these questions and more in an interview with CRN. "We continue to grow at the expense of the likes of HPE, Dell, in the past #IBM " said Sethi. "Some of the transitions that have happened – whether that's Dell EMC, HPE focusing more on infrastructure now – our value proposition has stood above and beyond based on the differentiation."

http://m.crn.com/slide-shows/data-center/300082676/cisco-data-center-vp-talks-cloud-infrastructure-strategy-taking-share-from-dell-hpe.htm

Dell Storage SC9000 review

#Dell is on a mission to bring #allflash storage to the masses as its flagship #SC9000 array delivers the lowest costs around. Its latest SC Operating System 7 (SCOS 7) also introduces plenty of new features including intelligent data reduction, storage QoS and unification with Dell’s PS arrays. The SC9000 controller comprises two #PowerEdge R730 servers equipped with dual 3.2GHz E5-2667 v3 Xeons and 256GB of system memory. Each uses a cache card linked over fibre GBICs where all cache mirroring is carried out automatically using their 4GB of battery protected NVRAM. #DellStorage

The SCOS software runs on an internal SSD and storage shelves are attached using dual-port 12Gbps SAS expansion cards. Storage potential is massive as the SC9000 currently supports up to 960 SSDs and HDDs with a future firmware upgrade expected to push this to 1,024 drives and beyond.

Expansion shelves include the 12-bay and 24-bay SC400 and SC420 12Gbps SAS units plus the 84-bay SC280 which supports low-cost NL-SAS drives. Data port options are plentiful with Dell offering 10GbE copper or SFP+, FCoE or 8/16Gbps FC HBAs with 25GbE coming soon.

http://www.itpro.co.uk/server/27500/dell-storage-sc9000-review

Unravel Data Certified on Cloudera Enterprise

MENLO PARK, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 1, 2016) - Just two months after its launch out of stealth, Unravel Data today announced that its full-stack performance intelligence platform for optimizing #BigData operations (DataOps) has been certified on #Cloudera Enterprise 5 through the Cloudera Certified Technology Program. Cloudera has the world's fastest, easiest and most secure data analytics platform built on #Apache #Hadoop for helping organizations solve their most challenging business problems with data. The Cloudera Certified Technology Program's goal is to simplify the process for Apache Hadoop technology buyers to purchase the right components and software applications to extract the greatest value from their data. The certification provides Cloudera customers with a platform to accelerate Big Data applications, optimize resource usage and provide operations intelligence, all from one single location. The Cloudera Enterprise 5 certification ensures support for mutual Unravel Data and Cloudera customers when Unravel is used in a Cloudera environment. In addition, by leveraging capabilities through the Cloudera Manager Parcels, Cloudera customers can be confident that Unravel deployments on Cloudera clusters are seamless.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/unravel-data-certified-cloudera-enterprise-120000106.html

10 Popular Big Data Software and Tools We Found for you.

Data processing is a do-or-die requirement for businesses today. There are many #BigData software out there. Many of them promise to save you money, time and help you find never-before-seen insights. Although that may be true, navigating the internet for the possible best software can be difficult when there are numerous choices to select from. The following are some of the most popular Big Data software we found for you: #Apache #Hadoop Originally developed by Mike Cafarella and Doug Cutting in 2006, Apache Hadoop is an open-source software framework. It is made to handle numerous data sets. It consists of two main parts: #MapReduce and Hadoop Distributed File System ( #HDFS ). HDFS is a storage part while MapReduce is a processing part. The software is scalable, cost effective, flexible, fast and resilient to failure. Apache Spark Apache #Spark is fast developing as a data processing software built around ease of use, sophisticated analytics and speed. Built in 2009, Spark has over 250 developers who are contributing to it already. Frequently, this software is used as an alternative to Hadoop because of its ability to analyse data faster for some applications. Apache #Storm Apache Storm is used to processes various streaming data including logs or social data. It is a real-time computation that enables users to process limitless streams of data. You can use it for any programming language. Apache Storm advantages include fault tolerance, ease of use and scalability. Apache #Flink Apache Flink is known for processing data fast with high fault tolerance and low data latency. The software processes streaming data in real time. Apache Flink developed quickly as big data processing software and within months, it had captured the attention of a wider audience. Attivio #Attivio software empowers users to get the right data, work with it and quickly use it to make decisions. Many of the world’s top brands rely on this software to gain visibility into their information. #Splunk Splunk software helps users to search, monitor, and process machine-generated data, through web-style interface. The software collects, indexes, and correlates data in a searchable source from which it can create visualizations, dashboards, alerts, reports and graphs. #Samza Samza is a popular data processing software. It is built on #YARN for cluster resource management and Apache Kafka for messaging. Companies that use Samza include LinkedIn, Intuit, MobileAware, Fortscale and Project Florida. DataPlay DataPlay is a cloud based software suite that automates data processing and reporting. It significantly cuts time spent on processing and presentation of data. #DataPlay has a lot of success stories with clients. #SAP #HANA SAP HANA provides users with the ability to store, search, process, explore, and analyse interlinked and textual data with relationships. SAP HANA benefits and capabilities include advanced analytics processing, openness, data access and database services. #Bottlenose Bottlenose makes data processing easy. The software analyses business data to detect trends for brands. It detects trends in huge amounts of fast changing data. The software is used by many successful enterprises to make decisions. For more information about any listed big data software, please visit their respective websites. If you know any software that should be on our list, send an email to us or make a comment below.

http://www.techbullion.com/10-popular-big-data-software-recommended-for-you/

Functionality gaps not stopping Spark usage from growing fast

Organizations aren't letting ongoing #Apache #Spark development, functionality holes or issues deter them from ramping up usage of the technology. Find out why.

Spark usage is growing rapidly, even though the data processing engine still has some growing of its own to do.

For example, software vendor Xactly Corp. is using Spark to run a mix of batch and real-time applications. While Spark's fast performance makes it a valuable processing tool, the big data technology still has some rough edges that need to be smoothed out, in the eyes of Ron Rasmussen, the company's CTO and senior vice president of engineering.

"It's not immature," Rasmussen said. "But when you compare it to running transaction-level Oracle, it's not there yet." For example, Xactly has had to troubleshoot idiosyncrasies in memory usage, sometimes turning to support technicians at Hadoop vendor MapR Technologies Inc. for help. And monitoring Spark queries is something of a guessing game for Rasmussen's team. "It's hard to know if something is supposed to be taking that long," he said.

Increasingly, Spark is pushing aside #MapReduce, #Hadoop 's original programming environment and execution engine, for batch-processing uses due to its performance advantages. But Spark doesn't fully measure up even to MapReduce on some types of functionality, said Nitin Kak, a lead software development engineer at online marketing analytics platform vendor Quaero. In working with Spark, Kak has had to manually provision the amount of memory and the number of CPU cores required by processing jobs, things that he said MapReduce can take care of automatically.

http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/feature/Functionality-gaps-not-stopping-Spark-usage-from-growing-fast

How Dell EMC wants to take on HPE and Cisco in IoT

#Dell #EMC will provide gateways and aims to provide servers, storage, networks and security for #IoT solutions. If this strategy succeeds, and TBR believes it will, Dell EMC will benefit from the rising IoT‐driven tide in IT infrastructure, without engaging in potentially higher‐margin activities such as providing platforms, analytics, business consulting, or build and run services. This is a sound strategy. The market for higher‐margin IoT software and services is hotly contested, and playing in this volatile space would be distracting for a newly formed behemoth. The consistent message of the Dell EMC World event was that Dell EMC is happy being the largest provider of IT infrastructure in the world. The company has drawn a bright line around itself, leaving out potentially more profitable businesses such as business consulting, application software and far‐from‐the‐box services. This helps employees, especially sales people, understand what the company does. It also helps customers and prospects understand what to expect. Perhaps most importantly, it makes the new company safer and easier to partner with. IoT is a role‐player in Dell EMC’s strategy From an infrastructure standpoint, IoT is not one thing a company can focus on. It is one of several broad trends, such as digital transformation, that drive infrastructure sales. Joyce Mullen, Dell EMC’s SVP for OEM and IoT, said, “Every IoT deployment is a bit of a snowflake.” And VP and GM of Commercial IoT Andy Rhodes said, “IoT is just a collection of use cases.” Because of the diversity among IoT solutions, actively engaging in building IoT solutions doesnot scale, and Dell EMC is all about scale. Building or helping to build IoT solutions is the role of a platform provider, a systems integrator or a specialized vendor of turnkey IoT solutions, not Dell EMC. Instead, Dell EMC wants to be a part of each IoT solution, specifically the provider of IT infrastructure. The company does three things to make this happen: # provides a line of IoT edge devices that are attractive to IoT implementers. # has a network of “curated” partners to help customers create and deploy IoT solutions. # collection of existing IoT solution designs that can be used as templates for new IoT solutions. These three initiatives keep Dell EMC in consideration for roles in IoT projects. In almost every case, partners are involved, and Dell EMC’s clear boundaries make the company easy and safe to partner with. The IoT demonstration projects on the Dell EMC World floor packed many of the major IoT partners in a relatively small footprint, including IBM, SAP, Microsoft, PTC, Bosch and GE. Dell EMC’s IoT Go to Market is housed in its Embedded Systems practice, a well‐established business providing Dell EMC infrastructure components to solutions builders. The IoT‐specific offering is a series of “Edge Gateway” devices, which are essentially small, tough computers with more connectivity options than are typically available. These devices are not very different from the embedded devices Dell has been making for years or its PCs and servers, and come with benefits of the company’s scale, including service, support, availability and price. In fact, one of the demonstrations at the event used a standard embedded device instead of a gateway. For customers and prospects, such devices can serve as an entry point to the greater Dell EMC ecosystem, and that is at the heart of the company’s strategy. IoT serves as an on‐ramp to all of Dell EMC’s infrastructure products. Dell EMC IoT is at the forefront of IoT trends Dell EMC’s approach to IoT is modest. The company simply aims to participate in the growth of IoT as it participates in other types of IT‐based projects. At the same time, however, the company’s approach to IoT puts it amid three IoT trends: Hybrid Analytics: It is becoming increasingly clear that many IoT solutions demand processing close to the devices generating the data — the edge. This lowers costs and reduces latency The Dell Edge Gateway devices are intended to do just this, and there were demonstrations running SAP HANA and IBM Watson IoT edge analytics on Dell edge devices. Evolutionary IoT: In many cases, the best approach to an IoT strategy is an evolutionary one, growing incrementally, one use case at a time, and often starting small and growing larger. Dell’s Edge Gateways are cost‐effective platforms for smaller IoT solutions that can be grown by increasing the number of gateways and by adding centralized cloud or data center infrastructure. Turnkey IoT Solutions: Most businesses, and most processes in all business, do not need the benefits of custom IoT solutions. Off‐the‐shelf IoT solutions, often embedded in traditional products and services, deliver the benefits of IoT without the costs of bespoke solutions. Edge Gateways and other embeddable products suit this market very well. Conclusion Dell EMC is a deeply horizontal company. It provides infrastructure appropriate for a wide range of business solutions, without specific products or services and without a focus on specific industries or types of solutions. IoT is intrinsically vertically and subvertically oriented. Becaue it touches the physical aspects of business, it is different for every vertical and subvertical. By sticking to its strategy, Dell EMC will benefit from the growth of IoT without becoming an IoT company. At the same time, by providing horizontally useful IoT products, the company offers an entry point to new customers and partners.

http://www.infotechlead.com/networking/how-dell-emc-want-to-take-on-hpe-and-cisco-in-iot-43624

NetApp rolls out hybrid cloud storage tools

#NetApp launched a series of services and software tools designed to move data around hybrid cloud deployments more easily. Storage vendors have been tapping into the hybrid cloud and using software defined approaches to mix and match public and private resources. NetApp outlined the following additions: Cloud Sync Service, a software as a service tool that synchronizes and manages data between on-premises storage and #AmazonWebServices ' S3. #CloudSync is sold via that #AWS marketplace. NetApp Private Storage for Cloud as a Service. NetApp's private storage ( #NPS ) is being offered through more partners such as Arrow, Faction and ThinkOn to better connect via Equinix. Cloud Control for #Microsoft #Office365, a service to control and protect data in Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and Exchange Online. Support for data retention in AWS S3, Azure and on-prem is also available. Cloud Backup, a cloud backup service for NetApp's ONTAP platform. In addition, NetApp outlined news versions of its #AltaVault, #StorageGRID, #Webscale and #SnapCenter technologies that extract data. The updates all included new interfaces as well as support for cloud simulations and movement of data.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/netapp-rolls-out-hybrid-cloud-storage-tools/

Sizing Up the Newly Combined Dell EMC

Having spent the past year rationalizing its mammoth $67 billion acquisition of #EMC, the newly combined company this month hit the ground running. During the Dell EMC World Conference two weeks ago in Austin, Texas, Michael Dell and the senior executive team of the new #Dell EMC outlined a laundry list of deliverables that will bring together the two organizations' respective technologies. From the outset of this month's conference, company officials emphasized their portfolio approach to bringing together EMC and the companies it controlled (including #VMWARE, #RSA, #Pivotal and #Virtustream) with Dell. All now fall under the umbrella of #DellTechnologies, with Dell EMC consisting of the server, storage, network and enterprise infrastructure assets of the two companies. Experts believe Dell EMC is now the dominant provider of datacenter infrastructure. But it has formidable competition from #Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise ( #HPE ), #Lenovo, #IBM and #Hitachi Data Systems, and smaller players as well. At Dell EMC World, company officials showcased the benefits of coming together with this month's launch of a new software-defined version of its PowerEdge servers with EMC's Data Domain backup and recovery software. The company claims a six times increase in scalability and support when added to the new Dell EMC PowerEdge servers. But Michael Dell showed he clearly wants to provide greater linkage among the assets beyond the core EMC storage business, notably VMware, Pivotal, RSA and Virtustream. Evidence of that was clear with the announcement of plans to deliver an integrated security solution that will bring together the assets of EMC, RSA, VMware AirWatch businesses and Dell SecureWorks. That's just one instance outlined at Dell EMC World. Other examples include the launches of the Dell EMC's #VCE -based hyper-converged appliances built on Cisco's Unified Computing System (or #UCS ), as well as its #VxRack hyper-converged infrastructure that are both now available with Dell PowerEdge servers and the new Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) 3.0 modern object-storage platform for cloud-native environments. VxRack is based on the object store that runs the Virtustream public cloud for mission critical applications that EMC acquired last year and the new Dell EMC Analytic Insights Module (AIM) based on the Pivotal Cloud Foundry Platform. In addition to bringing Dell PowerEdge as an option to the Cisco-powered #VxRail, Dell EMC is offering an option with VMware's Horizon client virtualization platform in December. While Dell Technologies has a controlling interest in the independently run companies, Michael Dell talked of the benefits of this structure. "This unique structure allows us to be nimble and innovative like a startup, but the scale of a global powerhouse," he said in his Dell EMC World keynote address. "For you that means a technology partner that can be number one in everything, all in one place."

https://redmondmag.com/blogs/the-schwartz-report/2016/10/sizing-up-dell-emc.aspx?m=1

Broadcom nears deal to buy Brocade: sources

SAN FRANCISCO - Chipmaker #Broadcom Ltd is nearing a deal to acquire network gear maker #Brocade Communications Systems Inc in a deal that could be announced later this week, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The deal would be the latest in a wave of semiconductor consolidation sweeping the industry. Run by Chief Executive Hock Tan, the company formerly known as Avago is one of the chip sector's most prolific acquirers, having completed a $37 billion takeover this year and changing its name to Broadcom. If the U.S.-and-Singapore-based company succeeds in buying Brocade, it would keep Brocade's fibre channel and storage business, which has roughly $1.5 billion in annual revenue, while it would aim to divest its networking business, the sources said, asking not to be named because the matter is private. Broadcom and Brocade declined to comment. While the companies are in advanced discussions, no deal is final and talks could still fall apart, the people cautioned. A big part of Brocade's IP networking business that Broadcom would look to divest was acquired as part of Brocade's $1.5 billion acquisition of #RuckusWireless earlier this year. This unit generated $209 million in product revenue in the third quarter. A deal for Brocade, whose market capitalization has risen to $4.5 billion on merger talk, would come a week after the semiconductor's industry's largest-ever tie-up when smartphone chipmaker #Qualcomm Inc agreed to buy #NXPSemiconductors NV for about $38 billion. Shares of Brocade closed 6 percent higher at $11.24, while Broadcom shares closed 0.9 percent lower at $168.80 on Tuesday. Brocade would be the latest addition to the sprawling company known as Broadcom, now the third-largest U.S. semiconductor maker by revenue, behind #Intel Corp and #Qualcomm Inc, with a market capitalization of $66.4 billion.

https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN12W4U5?client=ms-android-att-us

A defense of tape storage systems and how they're improving

Tape gets less respect than Rodney Dangerfield among the IT crowd. But tape still has its staunch defenders who say the medium remains technologically sound and continues to improve.

A major challenge is being able to communicate the advantages of tape storage systems, Fred Moore, president of Horison Information Strategies, said at the Fujifilm Global IT Executive Summit in Boston last month.

“The game has really changed,” as tape storage systems have made progress in the last 10 years, Moore said. “That’s the good news.” The bad news, he said, is that people don’t know it yet.

There is a tendency now to favor the tactical quick fix over strategic planning and regard cloud as a storage game-changer, said Jon Toigo, managing principal of Toigo Partners International and founder and chairman of the Data Management Institute. That mindset leaves tape on the outside looking in.

But using tape is getting much simpler thanks to the Linear Tape File System, Toigo said at the summit.

Other advantages of tape storage systems include their affordability, security, energy efficiency, long life and reliability, said Calline Sanchez, vice president of enterprise storage at #IBM, in her presentation at the summit.

As an archive medium, tape’s capacity improvements are outperforming all other kinds of storage and it is ideal for storing less frequently accessed and modified data, Toigo said. LTO-7 offers 15 TB of compressed capacity and sustained data transfer rates of up to 750 megabytes per second for compressed data.

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/blog/Storage-Soup/A-defense-of-tape-storage-systems-and-how-theyre-improving

Francisco Partners and Elliott Management Complete Acquisition of Dell Software Group and Announce the Formation of Two Separate Companies – Quest and SonicWall

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Francisco Partners, a leading technology-focused private equity firm, and Elliott Management Corporation today announced they have completed the previously announced acquisition of the #DellSoftware Group from #Dell, Inc., including both #Quest and #SonicWall. The acquisition bolsters Francisco Partners and Elliott Management’s technology portfolios with the addition of two companies focused on systems and information management, identity and access management, and security solutions.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161101005604/en/Francisco-Partners-Elliott-Management-Complete-Acquisition-Dell