March 12, 2012
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 9
Cloud Computing to Create Nearly Four Million Jobs a Year
Excerpted from Technorati Report by David Amerland
Analyst firm IDC has just published a study which shows that as cloud adoption across businesses increases increased IT spending is creating more jobs to the tune of almost four million a year.
Cloud-based technologies are a critical step forward for companies. The cloud allows them to bring full interaction with their customers in a cloud-based environment that has two immediate effects: First, it speeds up communication and makes business faster within a given time frame, this enables more business to be carried out than was possible before without overloading systems. Second it frees up manpower in management and IT and lifts loads off infrastructures. This allows those in charge who, in the past would have been busy dealing with problems, to now focus on strategic planning and further growth.
Case in point quoted in the study, Vorsite, a Microsoft Tier 3 Cloud Champion Member based in Seattle, WA, is planning to double its workforce this year: "It seems like a threshold has been crossed where customers are no longer asking, 'Is the cloud right?' but 'When can we get it deployed?'" "One of the trends we're seeing is that companies are using cloud-based collaboration software not just for their internal employees, but to engage and share information with partners and vendors," says its CEO.
The move to the cloud is happening across consumer fronts as well. Google's move to unify its entertainment services, serving eBooks, music and movies and take them into a cloud-based environment which makes everything automatically available to those who access it, irrespective of device has found many proponents. For a start there is no synching, no wires and instant access from, let's say a desktop to a tablet to an Android smart-phone.
More than that, this personal cloud which follows consumers wherever they go is also making companies innovate with new products and special offers. which in themselves are leading into an expansion of services and increase of staff.
Cloud technology is now becoming ubiquitous offering business-critical services such as heavy-load websites, where up-time is a requirement, services from hosting providers at ever more competitive prices. For instance in the UK, United Hosting, a frequent receiver of quality awards by the industry has rolled out a true cloud-based hosting solution at prices which match those of ordinary server-based hosting. Affordability plays an important part in the uptake of cloud-based services which in itself drives in the creation of business with better uptimes, more robust web presences and greater cloud-capability which can be deployed with their own customers.
Development in cloud computing is now split evenly across two fronts. On the enterprise side customers are served by traditional global players like Microsoft while on personal cloud computing the lion's share of the business goes to companies like Apple and Google who get what the individual wants within a cloud-based environment.
Job growth and capital spend go hand-in-hand with enthusiasm. Right now the energy and drive being put into cloud computing are creating a momentum which is very hard to stop. Although we are still in its early days, the cloud is promising to revolutionize much of the traditional way services are accessed and business is done.
Personal Cloud Services to Become Widespread by 2013
Excerpted from TelecomTV Report by Guy Daniels
Research firm Gartner believes that most connected consumer devices will incorporate personal cloud services by the end of next year.
Speaking at a briefing for technology industry executives in Singapore, Andrew Johnson, Managing VP at Gartner, told attendees that the emergence of personal clouds reflects the "4S experience" - in other words, the desire of consumers to seamlessly store, synch, stream, and share their content, regardless of device or platform:
"The shift to the personal cloud will accelerate rapidly in 2012 as consumers learn how to use new services on their devices. As cloud services become part of people's lives, device vendors and platform providers must integrate cloud services in order to win customers in 2012 or risk being displaces by those that offer these services. Brands must stretch across multiple devices, platforms and services."
The personal cloud is already with us, of course, and has been for some time - it's just not hit the mass market yet. Services such as Microsoft's SkyDrive, Apple's iCloud and Google Apps are already available and growing in popularity. Gartner's idea of a personal cloud relies on the seamless ability to control and use your media content - such as partially watching a TV show on your smart-phone, then later resuming where you left off on your tablet. Devices can also include connected TVs, computers, or games consoles.
Johnson adds that this has all come about thanks to earlier implementations of cloud for file transfer and backup, such as that offered by Dropbox:
"Online backup and synchronization companies have been offering personal cloud for years.
However, a big change has occurred during the past couple of years, with the growing adoption of mobile and portable devices that have limited internal storage and rely heavily on cloud services. What distinguishes the personal cloud from what came before is its ability to store, synchronize, stream and share as needed allowing consumers greater flexibility in choosing devices and platforms."
Gartner estimates that consumers will spend around $2.2 trillion on digital technology products and services in 2012, equivalent to about 10 per cent of the average disposable household income. It also estimates that by 2015, consumers will spend around $2.8 trillion worldwide on connected devices, the services that run them and content that is transferred through them. Please click here for the full report.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The DCIA is excited to announce three new sponsors for our inaugural CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE, a full-day event-track within the 2012 NAB Show in Las Vegas, NV, taking place on Monday April 16th at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The NAB - CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE will demonstrate new ways that cloud-based solutions are providing increased reliability and security for content distribution.
From collaboration during production, to post-production and formatting, to interim storage, delivery and playback on fixed and mobile devices, to viewership measurement and analytics, cloud computing is having an enormous impact on video delivery.
Aspera, Chyron, and Front Porch Digital, have now signed on as sponsors of this groundbreaking event, joining previously announced charter sponsors Avid and Rackspace.
Aspera's "fasp" transport technology is an emerging standard for the high-speed movement of large files or large collections of files over wide area networks (WANs). Hollywood studios, major broadcasters, telecommunications operators, sports leagues, life sciences organizations, government agencies and Fortune 500 corporations rely on Aspera software for the business or mission-critical transport of their most valuable digital assets - some of them moving in excess of one terabyte per day over their WAN infrastructure.
Aspera software solutions bring breakthrough cost savings and efficiency gains to organizations that need to move large volumes of data over public and private IP networks. Easy-to-deploy, fully cross-platform, file type and network type agnostic, Aspera solutions deliver unprecedented levels of transfer performance to file-based workflows - including maximum speed, security, and bandwidth efficiency - and are widely used across a variety of industries all over the globe, transporting hundreds of terabytes of content each day.
"Take Chyron!" has been heard in virtually every television studio around the globe. For over four decades and counting, the Chyron name has been synonymous with brilliant graphics for live broadcast and production. As the inventor of the character generator and with unrivaled experience gained from the world's largest installed base of CGs and graphics systems, Chyron knows the television workflow.
Chyron's expertise, reliability, and the ability to anticipate the ever-expanding requirements of broadcasters has culminated in a continually evolving range of solutions which exploit the latest technological innovations. From a low-cost, single-channel character generator to a fully integrated HD/SD-switchable system with advanced playout features providing precision creation, management, playout, central storage and networking, Chyron will deliver the system tailored for the success of any graphics operation.
Front Porch Digital is the global leader in content storage management (CSM) solutions and, with the 2008 acquisition of SAMMA Systems, it is now the global leader in the migration and preservation of videotape to digital files as well. Having merged operations with SAMMA, Front Porch provides an end-to-end solution for cost-effectively digitizing, accessing, and preserving media past, present, and future. Front Porch Digital (FPD) now can accelerate migration of vulnerable videotape - on an unprecedented, global scale - to optimize and secure digital storage.
FPD's success is founded on innovation and customer satisfaction. The company takes pride in the quality of its products, the services it provides, and the integrity of its customer engagements. These are core values, and FPD encourage prospective buyers to validate these claims by talking to its current customers.
FPD is an innovator in digital migration and Content Storage Management technology. The company was the first to introduce what are now mission-critical functions within many broadcast operations such as dynamic allocation of resources, timecode-based partial restore, integrated transcoding in the archive workflow, and application filtering. It is also the first company to introduce a fully automated solution for the digital migration of video tape.
From the most prestigious, award-winning productions, to music and movies made at home, Avid creates the technology that people use to make the most listened to, most watched, and most loved media in the world.
Fanatical support has made Rackspace the world's leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry. Rackspace delivers enterprise-level hosting services to businesses of all sizes and kinds around the world.
A few outstanding sponsorship opportunities at the CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE and a small number of exhibiting opportunities at the new CLOUD COMPUTING PAVILION on the show floor are still available.
If IPTV or online delivery is in your current or future operating plans, you won't want to miss these discussions focused on cloud-delivered content and its impact on consumers, television manufacturers, telecom industries, and the media. For information on sponsorship opportunities, please contact advertising@nab.org.
If you are a cloud services provider to digital media, NAB Show's new CLOUD COMPUTING PAVILION offers an affordable and professionally-produced turnkey package to showcase your cloud solutions. Become an exhibitor and position your innovative technology and ideas squarely in the center of this multi-billion dollar marketplace. Contact exhibits@nab.org for more information.
Here are previews of our conference keynotes. There will also be a comparable number of panels that explore these and related topics in even greater depth.
Our opening keynote will feature Bill Kallman, CEO, Scayl, who will introduce "The Latest Trends in Cloud Computing Solutions for the Audio/Video (A/V) Ecosystem." How are innovative cloud-based technology developers impacting A/V content creation and distribution with a host of new strategies, products, and services?
Jim Burger, Member, Dow Lohnes, will step back from the exuberance of such trends in our next keynote to examine "The Key Pitfalls Associated with Cloud Computing in High-Value Content Implementations." How are safety and predictability considerations as well as related liability factors affecting cloud adoption for A/V by content creators, rights-holders, and distributors?
Our next keynote by Jonathan King, SVP, Joyent, will outline "Various Ways that Cloud Computing Is Being Applied to the Content Creation Process - from Pre- to Post-Production." How are Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and even Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions strategically being brought to bear to improve key aspects of file-based workflow for A/V content?
Shahi Ghanem, SVP, Strategy & Marketing, BitTorrent, will present our next keynote on "Alternative Approaches for Implementing Cloud Storage of Content Catalogs and Libraries and Leveraging Cloud-Based Distribution." How is this most publicized area in the implementation of cloud computing for A/V - storage and delivery - progressing? What are the technology policy/rights considerations and economics behind such concepts as "cloud media lockers" and the newest peer-assisted hybrid solutions in "quantum computing?"
Our following keynote, "New Levels of Media Performance Data Enabled by Cloud Computing - and Impact on Other Sectors," will be presented by Scott Brown, GM & SVP Strategic Partnerships, Octoshape. How will marketers, sponsors, and advertisers respond to the ability to access "dashboards" that provide anonymized listener and viewer behavior in an unprecedented level of detail in real-time? How will this affect programming, scheduling, and sell-through services, as well as related industries?
Jean-Luc Chatelain, EVP, Strategy & Technology, DataDirect Networks, will present our next keynote on "Navigating the Current Cloud Environment and Planning for What's Next." What are the proven opportunities for broadcasters and A/V distributors to adapt cloud computing technology now and what changes and new service offerings are imminent?
Our closing keynote, presented by Ashish Gupta, Strategist, Cloud Infrastructure, Huawei, will summarize the ways that the "Disruptive Effects of Cloud Computing Will Continue." How will cloud computing technology continue to disrupt the A/V ecosystem, and where and when will we see the most profound changes to current business models and operations?
Please register early for the 2012 NAB Show and the CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE to take advantage of discounts. This promises to be our most valuable and stimulating conference to date. Share wisely, and take care.
Cloud Computing Concerns & Solutions Webinar
In advance of the CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE at NAB, please join us on Tuesday March 20th at 1:00 PM ET (10:00 AM PT) for an insightful look at "Legal Concerns & Practical Solutions for Media and Entertainment in the Cloud," a webinar produced by DataDirect Networks in association with the DCIA and Dow Lohnes Attorneys At Law.
This webinar will discuss the latest contractual, copyright, and fourth amendment consequences of using cloud based services.
It will also cover possible private media cloud solutions that may help expedite the adoption of cloud storage and collaboration by media and entertainment companies.
Please click here for more information and to register for this free webinar.
IBM: Cloud Computing Use to Double by 2015
Excerpted from eWeek Report by Darryl Taft
A recent IBM study showed that the number of enterprises turning to cloud computing is expected to double by 2015.
At its IBM Pulse 2012 conference in Las Vegas, NV, IBM released the findings of its study, which indicated that businesses that embrace the transformative power of the cloud will have a significant advantage in the race to introduce new products and services and capture new markets and revenue streams.
Indeed, to better understand the shift in how organizations use the cloud today and how they plan to employ it in the future IBM, in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit, surveyed more than 500 business and technology executives worldwide. The findings were compiled in the new study, titled "The Power of Cloud: Driving business model innovation."
"Companies are starting to understand-cloud isn't just about gaining efficiencies and cost savings; it's about driving the kind of fundamental innovation that provides lasting marketplace advantage," said Saul Berman, IBM global strategy consulting leader and co-author of the study, in a statement.
Ninety percent of those surveyed said they are currently using cloud computing or plan to be in the next two years, according to Scott Hebner, vice president of marketing for IBM Tivoli. Yet, increasingly, enterprises are looking to the cloud for significant change.
Although just 16 percent of the executives surveyed said they are already using cloud capabilities for sweeping innovation, such as entering new lines of business or reshaping an existing industry, 35 percent said that by 2015 they intend to use it to transform their business models.
And while a little more than half of the respondents said "improving organizational efficiency" is a top business challenge today, only 31 percent anticipate it will be a top challenge in three years. Instead, the study indicates that their focus is shifting to growth and competitive initiatives in the future.
The objectives cited by survey respondents for adopting the cloud are in line with these business goals, indicating that business needs will soon rival IT motivations for cloud adoption: 62 percent of survey respondents said increased collaboration with external partners is a key objective for adopting the cloud; 57 percent cited competitive cost advantages through vertical integration as a major motivation; and 56 percent pointed to opening new delivery channels and markets as an important objective.
Moreover, examples cited in the report showcasing how the cloud is being tapped to drive new revenue streams and enhance business models include an online marketplace for handmade goods that has taken advantage of cloud computing's cost flexibility to gain access to more powerful analytics online. The company is able to cost-effectively analyze data from the approximately 1 billion monthly views of its website and use the information to create product recommendations, providing it with access to tools and computing power that might typically only be affordable for larger retailers.
The study also cites an online health information network that enables the exchange of health information and transactions among health care providers, employers, payers, practitioners, third-party administrators, and patients in India, IBM said. By connecting more than 1,100 hospitals and 10,000 doctors, cloud computing's capabilities are facilitating better collaboration and information sharing-helping the network pursue a more collaborative business model and deliver improved care at a low cost.
"Cloud has the power to open doors to more efficient, responsive and innovative ways of doing business, and we believe the companies that will come out on top will be the ones that find ways to leverage it as a key point of differentiation in driving business value," Berman said. "Whether they choose to tap cloud to optimize, innovate or even disrupt their business models, they need to start working on it now."
For more information on the study, please click here.
Huawei Introduces World's 1st Mobile Broadband Cloud Acceleration Solution
Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today showcased the world's first mobile broadband cloud acceleration solution at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012. This holistic solution optimizes data through the cloud, pipe, and device platforms, significantly increasing network access rate by 30 to 80% during network congestions.
The Huawei mobile broadband cloud acceleration solution leverages protocol optimization, content identification, and code optimization to lower data traffic in operators' network by 20%, greatly reducing network traffic load and improving network capacity. At the same time, the solution features the most advanced data caching technology, which can reduce operators' bandwidth consumption by 40% to 70%, bringing a significant reduction of bandwidth leasing cost. In terms of end-user access rate, server upgrades are enhanced via cloud, boosting the access speed of data devices by 30% to 80%.
"With the growing use of data devices such as data cards, mobile hotspots, smart-phones, and tablets, the proportion of user data in the mobile network has increased exponentially, creating congestion in the global mobile network which results in user frustration," says Wu Shi Min, President, Huawei Device Mobile Broadband Product Line." Huawei's mobile broadband cloud acceleration solution provides a comprehensive solution that not only addresses network congestion through cloud, pipe and device, but also includes planning tools that help operators optimize transmission capabilities."
As a leading mobile broadband brand, Huawei continues to lead the global broadband industry with the launch of the world's first mobile broadband cloud acceleration solution. As at the end of 2011, Huawei's mobile broadband products have been used by over 530 operators in more than 150 countries and have shipped over 200 million units. Huawei's integrated device and pipe and integrated cloud and device solutions have been creating greater values for mobile operators around the world, as well as providing the latest and fastest mobile Internet experience to global consumers.
Octoshape Helps TM Launch its First Media Delivery Service
Excerpted from CDN-Advisor Report
Last Thursday, Octoshape, one of the leading providers of global streaming solutions, announced that Telekom Malaysia Berhad, one of the leading new generation communications providers, is leveraging its Infinite HD platform for launching the TM Media Delivery Service (TM MDS).
The TM MDS leverages both the video-on-demand (VoD) and the live video streaming services from Octoshape to create an advanced streaming platform, which supports all features like high-definition streaming, TV streaming, and radio streaming.
Apart from this, it also supports digital video recorder (DVR) and on-demand delivery systems with instant seek to allow customers to use it for streaming their content.
Moreover, since the solution has access to a wide network connectivity, good expertise and extensive global connectivity, it will enable TM MDS to make Malaysia as a global hub in South-East Asia.
Both the companies were happy about the development and Octoshape mentioned that this combined solution would enable TM to improve customer satisfaction for both live and on-demand over the top video services in Malaysia.
Telefonica Invites UK Start-Ups to Join Accelerator Program Wayra
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Olivia Solon
Telefonica has announced the UK launch of its technology accelerator program, Wayra. Wayra is inviting technology start-ups to apply to receive up to a $65,000 investment and access to a new shared workspace in Tottenham Court Road.
Wayra launched initially in 2011 in Latin America and Spain to nurture the best technology ideas and talent. The UK is now the ninth company to have a Wayra Academy and the aim is for Wayra to become the world's largest technology accelerator program.
Wayra is aimed at early stage technology start-ups less than two years old working in spaces including cloud services, financial services, M2M, digital security, e-health, mobile applications, social networks, and e-learning. Companies must be less than two years old and should not have taken more than $133,000 in funding.
In return for an equity stake of around 10 percent, successful applicants will gain access to an office space in the newly established Wayra Academy, financing, mentoring, access to technology expertise within Telefonica and O2. After six months in the program, they will be turfed out of their luxury abode and released to fend for themselves in the real world.
Telefonica retains two first rights: first right to future funding and first right to market. This means that Telefonica's VC arm gets first dibs on investing in any of the companies after the six month incubation. Secondly it gets to opt to deliver the new service or product to some of its 300 million customers first. However, Telefonica will not sign up the companies exclusively, meaning that they can take their product to other mobile operators as well.
Simon Devonshire, Director of Wayra in Europe, told Wired, "We are looking for the next Facebook. We have the potential to fast track a business and give them access to Telefonica resources and customer-base."
Many potential participants in the program have challenged the integrity of Wayra's "no exclusivity" clause. However Devonshire says: "We want these businesses to be successful. Why would we stand in the way of that?"
Gonzalo Martin-Villa, global director of Wayra, told Wired, "It's important to be in contact with disruptive innovators creating products that we might want to sell to our customers. We have a lot of innovation within Telefonica, but we need to be open to innovation from outside of the business. Telefonica is often a dominant player in the markets where Wayra has launched, so it's important to develop new business and new growth in those markets. We can also learn an enormous amount."
He added that the links Wayra provides between Europe and Latin America Could lead to some interesting growth opportunities for European and Latin American companies keen to expand overseas.
Wayra will find it challenging to compete for the best startups in London, where there are a lot of existing programs such as Seedcamp. It has the added challenge of needing to gain the buy-in from other stakeholders within Telefonica who may not operate at the same nimble pace. As Martin-Villa puts it: "Elephants can run at a fast pace, but they can't turn." Wayra might just provide a steering wheel.
"If big organizations are going to thrive in this economy they need a start-up mentality. I hope to infect the UK economy and business with enthusiasm," adds Devonshire.
Interested companies have until April 22nd to apply for the program through the Wayra website. A shortlist of companies will be invited to pitch during Wayra Week in May, where they will be assessed by an independent panel of VCs, technology experts and investors. Those that make it through will get to move into the Wayra Academy in June.
Visit the Wayra website for more details.
Space Monkey: Dropbox Meets BitTorrent for P2P Cloud Storage
Excerpted from The Verge Report by Sam Byford
Space Monkey is a new cloud storage service that has some pretty cool ideas about how to serve you up your files. Instead of storing them on its own server for Dropbox-style remote access, it puts a free 1-terabyte hard drive right inside your home and lets you access the data from mobile apps or connected computers.
Where the service really gets innovative is in its application of peer-to-peer (P2P) concepts to data storage - that 1-terabyte hard drive actually has twice the capacity, with the other half being dedicated to storing other users' files. Data is broken up into little chunks like BitTorrent, and when you want to download a file remotely the service will hook you up with the peers closest to you.
You'd think this might be a security risk, but the company is adamant that it's kept things safe with strong encryption. It also results in cost savings, as the bandwidth usage is passed onto users and there's less need for huge server farms.
How much? You'll be paying $10 a month when the service launches this summer - as company co-founder Alen Peacock puts it, "half what Dropbox costs with 10 times the storage."
That's assuming you go for Dropbox's most expensive 100GB plan, of course, and we're not sure Space Monkey will be able to tempt away many of the free users, but those looking for high capacity cloud storage at a low price may well find this new player to be an intriguing proposition.
Amazon Cuts Cloud Computing Prices
Excerpted from InformationWeek Report by Charles Babcock
Amazon Web Services has lowered the price of its basic unit of on-demand computing by 5% to 10% and the price of its reserved instances -- the workloads that promise one to three years of steady use -- by up to 20%.
Jeff Barr, Amazon's senior web services evangelist, posted a blog about the reductions late Monday, with notice of the blog going out at 10:47 PM.. In it, Barr placed the cuts in a context of Amazon's ongoing effort to lower the cost of various services. Adam Selipsky, Amazon VP of product management, previously told InformationWeek in an exclusive interview that price cutting was part of the company's retail DNA.
But the leading cloud service supplier has also come under increased scrutiny recently for its pricing structure for some services, such as its S3 storage service. Art Wittmann, managing director of InformationWeek Reports, compared S3 pricing to the rapid decrease in the price per gigabyte of on-premises storage.
"In 2006, the cost of running a small website with Amazon EC2 on an m1.small instance was $876 per year. Today with a High Utilization Reserved Instance, you can run that same website ... at just $250 per year--an effective price of less than 3 cents per hour," Barr blogged. Amazon's entry level server, a small instance, is defined as a virtual CPU equivalent to a 2007 1-1.2 GHz Xeon processor with 1.7 GB of RAM and 160 GB of server disk storage.
The price on an on-demand small server running Linux dropped from 8.5 cents an hour to 8 cents; Windows dropped from 12 cents an hour to 11.5 cents.
A large instance, with four times the CPU of a small instance, 7.5 GB of RAM and 850 GB of server disk, was formerly priced at 34 cents per hour for Linux and 48 cents per hour for Windows; they're now 32 and 46 cents, respectively, a decrease of 5.9% and 5.6%.
Extra large, with eight times the CPU of a small instance, 15 GB of RAM and 1,690 GB of server disk, was formerly 68 cents per hour for Linux, 96 cents per hour for Windows; they're now 64 and 92 cents respectively, decreases of 5.9% and 6.1%.
But the biggest price cuts came for users of large numbers of reserved instances--the customers who put lots of EC2 infrastructure to work on a regular basis.
The previous price drop in Amazon's on-demand instances took effect November 1st, 2009.
"If you own more than $250,000 of Reserved Instances, you qualify for a 10% discount on any additional Reserved Instances you buy. ... If you own more than $2 million of Reserved Instances, you qualify for a 20% discount. ... Once you cross $5 million in Reserved Instance purchases, give us a call and we will see what we can do to reduce prices for you even further---we look forward to speaking with you!" wrote Barr.
That may mean that Amazon Web Services has found itself with spare capacity on hand, as a major customer such as Zynga switched from relying 80% on Amazon infrastructure to 20%, while building out its own data center capacity. Or it may mean it can add more capacity than it used to at the same price.
The single largest price reduction was the example of an extra-large, multi-Amazon Relational Database Service run continuously. Customers can save "more than $445 per month or 37% by using a 3-year, Heavy Utilization Reserved Database Instance," Barr wrote.
Prices were also reduced on Amazon Elastic MapReduce, a distributed file sorting system; Amazon Relational Database Service; and Amazon ElastiCache, the scalable, in-memory caching system.
There were some variations by region in how the price reductions were implemented, Barr acknowledged. AWS has implemented service price reductions 19 times since it was launched in 2006, he added.
Zynga's Play Platform a Big Test for its Cloud Computing Prowess
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Larry Dignan
Zynga's move to create its own platform and web service for game developers will be a big test for its cloud computing infrastructure.
The game company on Thursday outlined its new platform. In a nutshell, Zynga.com will become a destination for games. The company will also diversify away from Facebook, which accounts for most of Zynga's distribution. Zynga will also open up its platform to third party game developers.
None of those items would be possible without Zynga's Z-Cloud infrastructure. That infrastructure relies heavily on Citrix software and virtualization technology.
The launch of Zynga's platform is notable because the company has totally revamped its approach to cloud computing. In July, Zynga said it would file for an initial public offering (IPO) and noted that Amazon Web Services was its background. On July 1st Zynga said: "A significant majority of our game traffic is hosted by Amazon Web Services, or AWS, which service uses multiple locations."
On February 28th, Zynga's annual report was filed with some word tweaks: "In the fourth quarter of 2011, AWS hosted approximately one-third of our game traffic."
Zynga executives highlighted the move from AWS on the company's fourth quarter earnings conference call. Zynga operating chief John Schappert said, "We have built our own infrastructure, the Z-Cloud, to handle the tens of millions of players we serve each day. We migrated a number of our key games over to the Z-Cloud, which provides ongoing network savings and enhanced performance for our players. By the end of the year, nearly 80% of our daily active users (DAUs) were hosted in the Z-Cloud, compared to just 20% at the beginning of the year. Our technology sets us apart from other companies in our space and helps our games scale higher and perform faster while keeping costs down."
In other words, Zynga is controlling more of its own destiny. With the launch of its game platform it diversifies away from Facebook. With the scaling of Z-Cloud, Zynga controls its infrastructure fate too.
Zynga's engineering blog has key details about the migration from AWS to Z-Cloud. CTO Allan Leinwand said:
"Between 2009 and 2011, we increased our physical server capacity by two orders of magnitude. We turned zCloud into a faster and more automated system. For social games specifically, zCloud offers 3x the efficiency of standard public cloud infrastructure. For example, where our games in the public cloud would require three physical servers, zCloud only uses one. We worked on provisioning and automation tools to make zCloud event faster and easier to set up. We've optimized storage operations and networking throughput for social gaming. Systems that took us days to set up instead took minutes. zCloud became a sports car that's finely tuned for games.
As for vendors, Citrix gets the biggest win here. Citrix executives have been talking up Zynga as a reference customer for quite some time. Why? Zynga is using Citrix's XenServer and CloudStack to deliver its services. Sameer Dholakia, general manager of cloud platforms at Citrix, outlined some of the Zynga economics at a Pacific Crest conference February 15th. Dholakia said:
"Zynga was Amazon's single largest customer. They were spending literally north of a $100 million a year renting infrastructure from Amazon. They needed it for elasticity. What they didn't know, if I put out a game, was I going to get a million users, 10 million users, 50 million users? They had no idea. But once they did know, then you can actually build capacity to it. And so they have basically built what they call a Z-Cloud, a Zynga cloud, that is an Amazon style cloud on premise on our stuff. And they needed CloudStack and XenServer and all this stuff underneath it. And so this is where all of our suite comes together and this is how we make money."
Overall, Zynga found it more cost effective to build out its cloud capacity internally once it could benchmark its traffic spikes. In addition, Zynga is now a cloud provider. Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson noted:
"We believe Zynga.com could alter the Zynga growth story going forward. Importantly, Zynga.com represents a reclassification of Zynga's business model by adding other small-to-mid sized developers as customers. We believe the Zynga.com service is analogous to Amazon Web Services and Fulfillment by Amazon as it opens Zynga's existing technology infrastructure to third parties. This new model is also consistent with Zynga's core competency of analytics and cross promotion."
The economics for Zynga go like this.
According to Dave Wehner, CFO of Zynga, the company will lower its cost of revenue over the next 18 to 24 months as third-party hosting costs decrease. Wehner said that Zynga plans to "roll off the majority of those third-party hosting arrangements."
Zynga's capital expenditures in the fourth quarter were $50 million, down from $63 million in the third quarter. Most of that spending is focused on Z-Cloud. For 2011, capital investments were $238 million.
The building of its own infrastructure will help the bottom line. Zynga can depreciate its gear and lower quarterly expenses. "We believe this investment will have a short payback period and enable us to expand gross margins in the long term," said Wehner.
Now all Zynga has to do is keep Z-Cloud humming so it can handle traffic spikes. In any case, Zynga now controls its own fate-distribution and infrastructure-much more than it did a year ago.
SAS Delivers Hadoop Integration for Big Data Support
Excerpted from eWeek Report by Darryl Taft
Analytics software provider SAS has increased access to big data sources with Hadoop support in its updated SAS Enterprise Data Integration Server.
By employing the popular open-source data architecture, customers using analytics from SAS can increase the value of big data assets.
Hadoop joins more than three dozen supported data sources in SAS Enterprise Data Integration Server, including Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, Teradata (including Teradata Aster), Sybase, Netezza, EMC Greenplum and MySQL. SAS support for Hadoop access is a key requirement for many organizations that are adding Hadoop to their environment. These enterprises include Macys.com, SAS officials said.
"Hadoop is facilitating big data analytics at Macys.com as our data assets continue to grow exponentially," Kerem Tomak, Vice President of Marketing Analytics at Macys.com, said . "SAS Hadoop support will let us fully leverage our analytics talent, our data and our long-term investment in SAS. SAS with Hadoop is critical to our big data plan."
Sponsored by the Apache Software Foundation, Hadoop is an open-source Java-based framework for processing large data sets in a distributed computing environment. SAS integrates with the Apache Hadoop distribution.
SAS' deep integration with Hadoop applies the parallelism of MapReduce, the distributed computing framework commonly associated with Hadoop, the company said. SAS, Hadoop and data warehouse infrastructure Hive match well in analyzing large data sets, simplifying the most common big data analysis and analytic use cases, the company said.
The SAS Hadoop integration means SAS "write-once, run-anywhere" extends to Hadoop deployments. Also, SAS features-such as job flow builder, visual editor, syntax checker and others-are extended to Hive, Pig, MapReduce and Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) commands. In addition, SAS augments native Hadoop security with SAS data security provisions, including authorization and data lineage. And SAS supports popular Hadoop distributions, such as Cloudera, HortonWorks and EMC Greenplum.
Moreover, SAS data quality and profiling cover data moving in or out of Hadoop. SAS access extends SAS capabilities, such as visual analytics explorer, text mining and analytics to Hadoop data. And Hadoop data can be federated along with data from other sources, including the ability to embed the federated query in a data management job flow.
"Hadoop is becoming more important as more organizations evaluate its capabilities and plan for increased deployment," said Jim Davis, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at SAS, in a statement. "Bringing powerful SAS Analytics to Hadoop takes advantage of its distributed processing capabilities and helps effectively manage Hadoop deployments.
"Hadoop lacks good tools to develop and manage complex deployments. SAS' extensive data and analytics management software helps enterprises pull value from Hadoop deployments using minimal resources," added Davis.
"Hadoop's value is in taking very large data collections-from simple, regular data to complex, unstructured data-and [processing] it quickly," Carl Olofson, IDC research vice president for application development and deployment, said in a statement. "IDC expects commercial use of Hadoop to accelerate as more established enterprise software providers such as SAS make Hadoop accessible and easy to use."
Meanwhile, SAS Information Management will deliver greater support for big data, data governance, master data management and decision management this year. Advanced analytic enablement will grow as analytic processing increasingly moves into databases, SAS officials said.
"SAS Information Management enables customers to exploit and govern information assets, resulting in competitive differentiation and sustained business success," said Mark Troester, a SAS IT/CIO strategist. "SAS Information Management uniquely integrates management of data, analytics and decision processes across the entire information continuum."
SAS Information Management delivers data management-including data governance, data integration, data quality and master data management. It also delivers analytics management and decision management.
President Obama appoints Todd Park as US CTO
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report by Chris Marlowe
President Obama has appointed Todd Park as Assistant to the President and US Chief Technology Officer, filling the position vacated a few weeks ago by its first-ever holder, Aneesh Chopra.
Park most recently served as Chief Technology Officer of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he has been described as an agent for change. Among his achievements in that role, he led the of HealthCare.gov, the first website to provide consumers with a searchable inventory of public and private health insurance plans available across the nation; and the development and launch of the Health Data Initiative, which is making HHS information downloadable by the public and third-party apps developers via Health.Data.gov.
"Todd Park has demonstrated a remarkable talent for enlisting innovative technologies to modernize government, reduce waste, and make government information more accessible to the public," said President Obama. "In his new position he will bring those skills to the entire Federal enterprise, ensuring that government will serve all Americans fairly, effectively, and efficiently."
The US CTO's office is situated within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), where Park will work closely with US Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Telecommunications Tom Power. OSTP Director and Presidential science advisor John P. Holdren announced today that Power will perform the duties of OSTP's Associate Director for Technology - a position previously held by Chopra in conjunction with his role as US CTO - while a search is conducted for a permanent replacement.
Darrell Issa Requests Public Comments on ACTA
Excerpted from Slashdot Report
After repeated dismissals by the Office of the US Trade Representative, Congressman Darrell Issa has taken matters into his own hands by posting a copy of ACTA online and asking for public comments.
ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a secretly negotiated multilateral trade treaty with the potential for profoundly affecting the Internet. "ACTA represents as great a threat to an open Internet as do SOPA and PIPA and was drafted with even less transparency and input from digital citizens," Issa said.
Cloud Computing Trends, Cloud Strategy Begins to Emerge
Excerpted from The Server Side Report by Jason Tee and Cameron McKenzie
Cloud computing means many things to many people. Business folks see it as a way to save costs and enable strategic objectives. Technology mavens see it as another cool toy to play with. TSS readers see it as an opportunity. As cloud computing trends continue to evolve, more enterprises are beginning to dabble in cloud-based development environments and cloud strategies are becoming more predominant with early adopters.
According to the 2011 TSS Java Trends survey, 34% of respondents are already in the cloud computing game, 17% are planning to invest within 18 months and 19% are considering cloud-based technologies, but with no immediate implementation plans on the horizon. From these numbers, it's clear that many companies see the cloud as something valuable to the bottom line.
But what is cloud computing exactly?
"People talk a lot about the cloud. It's kind of become the buzz word in the industry. People will talk about one flavor of cloud; they'll talk about another flavor of cloud. The word cloud has become really, really annoying because then some other marketing person has another spin on cloud," says James Gosling, the father of Java, poking fun of the fact that the term itself seems to have taken on all sorts of different meanings, in different contexts, from different people.
In essence, cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing was inspired by the little cloud symbol that's often used to represent the mysterious Internet in flowcharts and diagrams, so it's not a huge surprise to find the term being used in a somewhat haphazard and confusing manner.
But despite the promises of reduced costs and elastic scalability, there appears to still be plenty of reluctance on the part of IT professionals to fully move mission critical apps to the cloud. "Let's face it, there are classes of enterprises for whom having their source code in a public cloud is just not an option for various reasons," says Rod Johnson, the founder of the Spring framework. But there are other enterprises that are actively embracing the cloud. "You'll see a lot of adoption from small to medium business, and I think you'll see in larger organizations a gradual adoption at the departmental level," Johnson says.
Today, organizations often use the cloud for pre-production testing or for providing robust development environments. Hesitation over adopting cloud-based technologies often stems from a lack of confidence in security measures, a lack of tooling around cloud based technologies, and quite simply a lack of skilled and experienced workers who have the competence to develop cloud-based applications.
Some of the hesitation to adopt cloud-based technologies might just be the mentality of the enterprise Java community as a whole. Perhaps the Java community simply has to make a mind shift away from developing applications as though they were all isolated little islands, and think in more of a service-oriented way that is conducive to leveraging cloud-based technology. Johnson explains, "There is a kind of obsession with doing everything in a custom application project specific way in Java. We've got to get over that as a cultural force to succeed in cloud computing."
Perhaps it's the inability to approach application development in a new way that explains why almost one in four survey respondents said their organization didn't have a cloud computing strategy whatsoever. When TSS readers were asked if their organization has a formal strategy for cloud computing, 44% said yes, 32% responded that they were planning one now, while 24% said they have no formal strategy whatsoever. Companies are still adjusting to the cloud, figuring out how to best leverage and optimize the purported economy of scale.
Some reluctance to engage in the cloud stems from the fact that many IT shops are simply not willing to accept an entirely off-site infrastructure model. These organizations may be well tuned in terms of in-sourced development and user support, and are not willing to give up on a process that works. But there is no doubt that even these companies will eventually come on side. They may start by dabbing a toe in to the water and exploring a few cloud based services. Simple service offerings are more appealing and can be eased into, rather than tackling the cloud as though it were a science experiment with unpredictable outcomes.
In any case, the groundwork has been laid and enough time has passed that cloud technologies now represent a significant shift in how Web developers must think and how business folks must adapt. The hype is now mainstream and continues along a healthy upward trend. If JavaEE thinks enough of the cloud to include these technologies directly in its specifications, then TSS readers should pay close attention to how cloud technologies evolve.
Coming Events of Interest
Cloud Computing Imperative 2012 - March 12th-13th in Dubai, UAE. Strategies to implement IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and XaaS. Plan the shift of IT responsibilities, get fresh perspective on managing project budgets, build a strong ROI for cloud computing, understand the shift from managed services to the cloud, master the cloud infrastructure and see cloud security from a hacker's perspective.
2012 NAB Show - April 14th-19th in Las Vegas, NV. From Broadcasting to Broader-casting, the NAB Show has evolved over the last eight decades to continually lead this ever-changing industry. From creation to consumption, the NAB Show has proudly served as the incubator for excellence - helping to breathe life into content everywhere.
CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE at NAB - April 16th in Las Vegas, NV. Don't miss this full-day conference focusing on the impact of cloud computing solutions on all aspects of production, storage, and delivery of television programming and video.
Cloud Computing World Forum - May 8th in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Cloud Computing World Forum Africa is the only place to discuss the latest topics in cloud, including security, mobile, applications, communications, virtualization, CRM and much, much more.
Cloud Expo - June 11th-14th in New York, NY. Two unstoppable enterprise IT trends, Cloud Computing and Big Data, will converge in New York at the tenth annual Cloud Expo being held at the Javits Convention Center. A vast selection of technical and strategic General Sessions, Industry Keynotes, Power Panels, Breakout Sessions, and a bustling Expo Floor.
|
