June 24, 2013
Volume XLIV, Issue 4
Wednesday June 26th Webinar: ENTERPRISE CLOUD
CLOUD COMPUTING IN THE ENTERPRISE — IMPLEMENTING CLOUD SOLUTIONS, a Market Analyst produced free webinar sponsored by Sprint, will place this Wednesday June 26th at 2:00 PM ET.
Panelists will include Mike West, Co-Founder & CTO, Genos Corporation; Yung Chou, Technology Evangelist, Microsoft; Dino Konstantopoulos, Lead System Software Engineer at The MITRE Corporation and Professor of Cloud Computing at Boston University; and James Gleason, Chief Cloud Strategist, Sprint.
Marty Lafferty, CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), will moderate the panel, which will explore both the benefits as well as the factors involved in implementing enterprise cloud solutions.
Topics will include deployment methodologies in different verticals; technological considerations, security issues; potential hurdles to implementation; the impact of pervasive mobility and "bring your own device" (BYOD) trends; growth factors; and evolutionary progress in enterprise cloud computing.
This hour-long webinar is a must-attend event for those implementing cloud solutions or thinking of implementing one.
All attendees will be entered into a drawing to win a Samsung Chromebook 550.
Please click here to sign-up now for this free webinar.
Tuesday July 16th Webinar: BUILD, BUY, OR RENT?
How to implement your optimal cloud storage solution.
For many companies, one of the biggest decisions they will make, or have made, when moving to the cloud will be how they implement their cloud storage infrastructure.
Issues around ease of access, uptime, security, redundancy, SLA, maintenance, and total cost of ownership drive the decision to one of three options: build, buy, or rent.
This webinar will explore these issues and compare the three options, including an in-depth comparison of monthly Amazon pricing and OpenStack build-it-yourself costs, helping you optimize your plan for your business needs and growth.
Please join featured guest Henry Baltazar, Senior Analyst serving Infrastructure & Operations Professionals at Forrester Research and Tom Leyden, Director of Object Storage Product Marketing, DataDirect Networks on July 16th at 11:00 AM ET, for this educational webinar to learn about the challenges and solution options for implementing storage in the cloud.
The registration deadline for this webinar is Monday July 15th. Participants are eligible to receive a cloud-enabled tablet computer.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 This week, we will be very pleased to announce the first wave of keynote speakers, panelists, and moderators, from such industry leaders as Comcast, Microsoft, and Netflix, for CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2013 (CCW:2013).
CCW:2013 is the Cloud Computing Association's (CCA) and Distributed Computing Industry Association's (DCIA) business strategy summit taking place October 27th-29th at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, NV.
This year's themes are "Revolutionizing Entertainment & Media" and "The Impact of Mobile Cloud Computing & Big Data."
There's no question that advances in cloud computing are having enormous effects on the creation, storage, distribution, and consumption of diverse genres of content.
And most profound among these effects are those involving the increased proliferation of portable playback systems and the accompanying generation of unprecedented amounts of viewership, listenership, and usage information from audiences globally.
The ubiquity and widespread acceptance of user interfaces that reflect the dynamic interactivity exemplified by smart-phone applications is rapidly replacing the flat linearity of traditional TV channel line-ups and changing expectations for a new generation of consumers.
Cloud-based information and entertainment-of-all-kinds accessible everywhere always on each connected device will become the new norm.
And perfect data related to consumer behaviors associated with discovering and consuming this content will displace metering and ratings technologies based solely on statistical sampling.
Two CCW:2013 conference tracks will zero in on the latest advances in applying cloud-based solutions to all aspects of high-value entertainment production and storage, as well as media delivery and analysis options; along with the growing impact of mobile cloud computing on this sector, and the related expansion of big data challenges and opportunities.
DCINFO readers are encouraged to get involved in CCA's and DCIA's CCW:2013 as exhibitors, sponsors, and speakers.
The CCA is handling exhibits and sponsorships. Please click here for more information.
The DCIA's role is to provide keynotes, panelists, and case-study presenters to participate in our comprehensive agenda of sessions in ENTERTAINMENT & MEDIA and MOBILE CLOUD & BIG DATA.
Please click here to apply to speak at CCW:2013.
Speakers will be selected from the community of professionals involved in the production and distribution of media and the deployment of cloud computing technologies, either as solution providers or end-users, in one or more of four specific focal areas:
Producing and Storing Entertainment Content in the Cloud; Delivering Media from the Cloud and Analyzing Consumption; The Impact of Mobile Cloud Computing on this Major Sector; and Related Opportunities and Challenges of Expanding Big Data.
Topics include Ad Hoc Cloud, Adaptive Monitoring, Analytics Applications, Bandwidth Utilization, Big Data Infrastructure, BYOD Trends, Collaboration, Connectivity, Content Everywhere, Crowdsourcing, Data Integration, Data Management, Deployment Models, Interoperability, Liability Issues, Mobile App Security, Mobile Offloading, Performance Measurement, Personal Cloud, Privacy Protection, Quality of Experience, Reliability and Security, Search and Mining, Service Designs, Software Development, Standardization, Storage Architecture, Supported Multimedia, Transcoding, Virtual Communities, and Virtualization.
The conference will include in-depth pre-conference workshops on Sunday, October 27th, followed on Monday and Tuesday, October 28th and 29th, by focused keynote, case study, panel, and roundtable sessions on the following subjects.
Producing and Storing Entertainment Content in the Cloud / Delivering Media from the Cloud and Analyzing Consumption sessions will include Newest Cloud Offerings for Entertainment Content; Current Obstacles to Adoption in the Media Sector; Collaboration Case Study; Production Tools Case Study; Editing Case Study; Transcoding Case Study; Program Element Storage Case Study; Distribution Channel Storage Case Study; Cloud Media Lockers Case Study; Cloud Migration Considerations; Transitional Software Applications; Security and Reliability Concerns; Compliance and Regulatory Issues; Cloud Economics in the Entertainment Sector; Cloud Vendor Selection Criteria for Media Companies; Cloud Implementation Strategies for Media & Entertainment; and Future Cloud Opportunities for Media & Entertainment.
The Impact of Mobile Cloud Computing on this Major Sector / Related Opportunities and Challenges of Expanding Big Data sessions will include Latest Trends in Mobile Cloud Computing; Newest Offerings in Big Data Management; Current Obstacles to Adoption; Lowering Latency Case Study; Bandwidth Utilization Case Study; Adaptive Monitoring Case Study; Big Data Infrastructure Case Study; Search & Mining Case Study; Analytic Programs Case Study; Mobile Storage Considerations; Big Data Software Applications; Security & Reliability Concerns; Compliance & Regulatory Concerns; Mobile Cloud / Big Data Economics; Mobile Cloud Vendor Selection Criteria; Big Data Implementation Strategies; Future Mobile Cloud & Big Data Opportunities.
We will also be pleased to entertain proposals for additional session or workshop topics. Please click here to make your suggestion. Share wisely, and take care.
Dial 1-STOP-323-NSA Now
Mass surveillance and democracy are like oil and water: They just don't mix.
Millions agree. And already close to 220,000 people have joined the movement at StopWatching.Us to urge Congress to investigate the National Security Agency's (NSA) spying programs.
This week the StopWatching.Us coalition is turning it up a notch by urging everyone to call Congress and demand some answers. Fight for the Future has made it super-easy to do:
Call 1-STOP-323-NSA and tell Congress: The American people deserve to know the full extent of the NSA's surveillance schemes.
Since NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden stepped forward, more stories have emerged about the agency's broad "hoovering" of our data.
Some sources say the NSA is capturing every bit of data about our phone calls and online communications and allowing analysts to search through it all.
These details raise more questions than they answer. Exactly how widespread is this surveillance? What is the NSA doing with our data and communications? What is the role of telecoms like and Internet companies in all of this? And most importantly — is the US still a true democracy if it's home to the kind of surveillance apparatus that would have given Orwell nightmares?
European Cloud Computing Firms See Silver Lining in PRISM Scandal
Excerpted from Yahoo News Report by Leila Abboud and Paul Sandle
France has its "Sovereign Cloud" project while across the Rhine data firms have created the label "Cloud Services: Made in Germany", all trying to reassure big companies that their information is stored away from the prying eyes of US spies.
European firms believe revelations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has secretly gathered user data from nine big US Internet companies, including Microsoft and Google, will hand them a competitive advantage as they play catch-up with the dominant American players in "cloud computing".
Yet companies and individuals may have to accept that while storing and processing their most sensitive information on servers owned by Europeans and located in Europe could keep it from the NSA's eyes, intelligence agencies closer to home may be looking anyway.
"If you are going to have a Big Brother, I'd much rather have a domestic Big Brother than a foreign Big Brother," said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Internet security company F-Secure, which also offers cloud services with data stored in the Nordic countries.
Cloud computing - an umbrella term for everything from web-based email to business software that is run remotely via the Internet instead of on-site - is being adopted by big companies and governments globally to cut costs and add flexibility to their IT departments.
In a Normandy town nestled in a loop of the Seine river lies a huge new data centre, a part of France's Sovereign Cloud project that some in the industry once poked fun at as being out of step with the realities of the borderless Internet.
Last year the French government ploughed 150 million euros ($200 million) into two start-ups, including the data centre's owner Cloudwatt, to equip the country with infrastructure independent of US cloud computing giants.
Following the revelations that the NSA's PRISM program collected user data from the nine companies that also include Yahoo and Facebook, the French position now seems prescient to some people.
"People are being spied on without their knowledge, and non-US residents have no legal rights," said Philippe Tavernier of Numergy, another cloud-computing group that got state help. "We feel vindicated that our strategy is right."
As European Union officials seek answers from the US government on PRISM, technology executives, data protection regulators and analysts told Reuters the scandal may prove a turning point for the region's young cloud computing industry.
European companies such as telecoms groups Orange and Deutsche Telekom are trying to exploit the concerns as they build their own cloud businesses.
Government agencies and municipalities, especially in more privacy-conscious countries such as Germany, are more likely to turn to local alternatives for cloud services. Sweden recently banned Google Apps - cloud-based email, calendar and storage - in the public sector over concerns that Google had too much leeway over how the data was used and stored.
Similar changes could also gather pace in Asia where companies and regulators were already concerned about data security in the cloud before PRISM.
A source at a major Chinese company that provides cloud infrastructure said governments were likely to impose stricter controls on where data was stored, although this would not be a panacea. "Frankly, wherever you put your data, someone is always watching. It could be the US, it could be China," he said.
Some lawmakers in the European Parliament also want rules requiring companies undertaking cloud projects to protect European users' data better, and are using concerns around PRISM to lobby for their cause. They want supervisors or judges to oversee the transfer of personal data to overseas security services, and for customers of cloud companies to be able to opt out of their data being stored in the United States.
Caspar Bowden, an independent privacy advocate and Microsoft's chief privacy adviser from 2002-2011, said that before the PRISM revelations the big US cloud companies had been largely able to quell fears about data security with savvy public relations. "The headlines this past week will change all that. The nationality of the company and the location of the data do make a difference," he said.
Even before PRISM, some companies abroad planning cloud computing projects were concerned about the powers given to US intelligence agencies by anti-terrorism laws enacted after the September 11 attacks on the country: the 2001 Patriot Act and the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FISAA).
A European Parliament body said in a report last year that FISAA granted the US "heavy-caliber mass surveillance fire-power aimed at the cloud" and had "very strong implications on EU data sovereignty and the protection of its citizens' rights".
Cloud computing companies and their customers globally are struggling to understand when and how governments can access users' data. Many national and international laws are at a play and different interpretations abound. Also since US anti-terrorism laws require that information requests be kept secret, companies served with such warrants cannot disclose them.
This much is clear: a US cloud computing company must comply with US government search warrants and intelligence requests, just as a French or German company would when presented with a similar domestic warrant. Intelligence agencies also co-operate under what are known as mutual legal assistance treaties to gain access to data stored in one jurisdiction but needed in a lawful investigation in another country.
What remains murky, however, is whether the US government can use anti-terrorism laws on a US-based company such as IBM or Microsoft to force its local subsidiaries across the world into handing over user data. Or more simply, can the US government just order a cloud company to use a US-based computer to access data stored abroad?
"When data comes in to the US or is handled in the cloud by US companies, there is a question whether access can be obtained by the US government," said Ellen Giblin, a lawyer who specializes in privacy and data protection at the Ashcroft Law Firm. "It's a very thick and layered concern."
Contacted by Reuters, major US-based cloud providers including IBM, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google declined to answer specific questions. Many have built data centers abroad - AWS in Ireland and Australia, IBM in Germany and Ireland for example - to address data privacy concerns among non-US companies.
A spokeswoman for AWS noted that it did not take part in PRISM. On its website, AWS says data stored in the EU never leaves the region unless the customer requests it.
Cloud companies in Europe are taking different steps to meet their customers' needs. Some are putting forward their local credentials such as the state-funded Cloudwatt and Numergy in France. German firms use the "Cloud Services: Made in Germany" label as a marketing tool if they can certify certain conditions such as contract terms that comply with national privacy laws.
Axel Heantjens, an executive at Orange Business Services, recently advised a French luxury group that needed computer servers in the Americas for a global cloud project but did not want them in the United States because of security concerns. "I told them to consider Costa Rica or Canada," he said.
Others such, as the German lawyers' association, are turning to technological fixes. It now encrypts data that 800 members of its information technology group put in a cloud computing program provided by T-Systems, the IT services unit of Deutsche Telekom.
Since only the association holds the encryption key and not T-Systems, the product adds an extra layer of security.
Such encryption has been unpopular among companies because the scrambled data crippled the functionality of cloud programs like Salesforce.com or Microsoft Office 365.
Now a number of tech companies have got around some of the problems, including California-based start-up CipherCloud. The company's software encrypts data on the fly as it is sent up or retrieved from cloud applications. The key to unscramble the files is kept by the customer and never given to the cloud provider.
"We've grown rapidly because so many people around the world are worried about cloud security," said CipherCloud CEO Pravin Kothari.
America Needs a Cyber Bill of Rights
Excerpted from ZDNEt Report by David Gewirtz
America has changed dramatically since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. The first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States were designed to patch design flaws and add features to the original functional spec for American freedoms and responsibilities.
The founding fathers were the thinkers and makers of their time. While armed revolution eventually became necessary, the original Continental Congress and the various state delegations worked to draft what would become the fundamental operating system of the new nation.
They carefully considered rights, responsibilities, limits, and even mundane operational policies. Our founders looked at what it was like to live in the British colonies and what they wanted it to be like living in the new American nation, and coded a set of laws that became the DNA, the BIOS, of our society.
Freedom of speech, freedom of press. The right to keep and bear arms. Protection from unreasonable search and seizure, due process, fair trials, protection against cruel and unusual punishment... these were all key elements that would define life in the United States for more than 200 years.
Astonishingly, all ten Amendments amount to less than 500 words.
Our founders found a way to communicate fundamental truths with a brevity and clarity that could be understood (and debated endlessly) by all.
The existence of a united States (which is how it was originally written) is, itself, astonishing. Each of the individual states had wildly different interests, agendas, belief systems, laws, and even currencies. And yet, through the unique mess, ugliness, and wonderment that is American politics, they managed to agree on a uniting set of fundamental rules.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights became an API that everyone in the US could hook into. They built a system that citizens could grasp, that lawyers could work with, that lawmakers could extend, and that merchants could use as the foundation for commerce.
Americans had an identified set of operational freedoms and structures to work with. People knew, generally, what to expect and were able to move forward growing the original 13 colonies into the 50 states we all now know and love.
The America of today is vast and very different from Jefferson and Madison's day. More to the point, how we communicate has changed in ways even Ben Franklin could never have imagined.
The Constitution was written for a spoken word and paper-writing world. Over the years, as technology has changed, our laws have imperfectly attempted to encompass the additions of telephones and wireless communications.
Now, we're moving to an all-digital realm.
We communicate with smart-phones, over Facebook, via Skype, by texting each other, through Twitter, and via e-mail. We can reach anyone in a second, and almost any one of us can reach thousands of people in the time it takes to click "Tweet."
We conduct almost all our business online, store our memories, view our entertainment, plan activities with our friends, collaborate with our co-workers, design our products, and even create real-life 3D objects. It's all made up of digital bits stored in our phones, tablets, laptops, PCs, servers, and cloud providers.
If the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written today, if somehow the greats — Madison, Jefferson, Franklin — were able to put their minds to building an America engulfed in digital data, you can be sure our digital reality would find its way into those documents.
Our problems are different and yet the same.
Sure, we're using Facebook and not parchment, but we're still threatened by enemy nations and violence. Sure, we use Twitter rather than relying on a town crier, but there are still spies and criminals who want to take advantage of our citizens.
When the Bill of Rights was written, it factored in both freedoms and national necessity. Take Amendment IV for example. The amendment protected people "against unreasonable searches and seizures" but also allowed for warrants to be issued for probable cause.
More specifically, Amendment IV even took into account specific circumstances, stating, "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Very specific. Very understandable. Very clear.
That one amendment, a mere 54 words, stated both protections and legal necessity in a way that anyone would have time to read and understand. It was very elegant societal coding.
In fact, it's so well-written and so timeless that, even today, it may be applied to the recent actions of our government (in particular actions alleged of the NSA in its attempts to protect us against threats foreign and domestic).
Even so, it's becoming clear that the 18th century Bill of Rights isn't enough to lay down clear and careful rules for our digital nation. It's still relevant, but it's incomplete. It doesn't account for the scope of our digital nation.
Today, we Americans are rightly freaked because we think our own government may be spying on us.
We're upset, because we worry that our trusted cloud service providers may be in cahoots with the men in the black vans. Americans are now growing more and more paranoid — not just scared of terrorist threats, but of our own government, of saying, emailing, or texting something today and having it indexed, cataloged, and used against us at any time in the future, for any reason.
We Americans may disagree amongst ourselves. We may be Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives, Tea Partiers and Blue Dogs. We may even be Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, or Linux lovers.
But we're all Americans, and we do understand the difference between a threat from a foreign terrorist and the implied threat from G-men listening in on our phone calls.
In its rightful quest to save Americans from terrorist threat, our agencies have gotten aggressive about big data analytics, data mining, trend analysis, and sentiment tracking. They have to. The challenge is huge and even a single missed signal could spell death to our citizens.
But that quest has come at a price.
Our trust has eroded even further, and worse, our trust in the companies we take the most pride in — Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft — has been eroded as well.
I believe the time has come to clarify Americans' rights and responsibilities in a digital world. The time has come not for some 2,000-page convoluted law, but for another 500 words setting out what Americans can expect for the next two centuries.
The time has come for a Cyber Bill of Rights, a clear, concise, powerful, understandable, and relevant governance guide to our modern age.
If only we had Madison and Jefferson in Washington today, instead of Obama and Boehner. Even so, we can take up the cause, we can start the ball rolling. We can frame a series of new amendments, a series of foundational rules that we all can understand and all are willing to abide by.
It may not be practical to expect passage of a whole new ten amendments to the Constitution any time soon.
Even so, we can certainly write a set of guidelines that help us all agree upon where we stand, what we won't stand for, and what we understand together. What do you think? If we had a Cyber Bill of Rights, what would your ten amendments be?
Adobe Releases Major Update to Creative Cloud
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report
Adobe announced that a major update to Adobe Creative Cloud, the company's flagship offering for creatives, is now available. Unveiled at Adobe MAX, The Creative Cloud release reimagines the creative process through a set of "CC" desktop applications and sophisticated cross-device collaboration and publishing capabilities.
Creative files can be stored and shared, via Creative Cloud, on Mac OS, Windows, iOS and Android; and Behance, its online creative community, is now integrated with Creative Cloud, so customers can showcase work, get feedback on projects and gain global exposure.
"We've added a ton of new stunning new imaging and video science. And in addition to the traditional areas of innovation these apps are now connected to the powerful publishing and community features integral to the Creative Cloud experience," said David Wadhwani, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Digital Media, Adobe.
"And with even more great updates coming innovation to all our CC desktop apps like Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. These apps include new features that increase productivity, streamline the effort to build mobile content and showcase some to Creative Cloud throughout the year, we can't wait to see the incredible work our customers are going to deliver." Read more.
The Mobile Explosion
Mobility is a game changer for many organizations, as rapid adoption of smart devices and tablets have enabled workforces to achieve things that were never possible before.
As new mobility technology continues to emerge, so do waves of mobile unified communications applications to optimize these platforms. Access this webcast to separate unified communications fact from fiction as it discusses how to best leverage mobility to accelerate the deployment of unified communications in your organization.
Also discover some key trends, challenges and solutions that are impacting the mobile marketplace.
Mobile and Cloud Computing Are the Future
Excerpted from Brookson Report by James Roberts
Demand for IT contractors will be strongest in mobile computing and cloud services in the future, according to recruiters.
Contractor UK asked three separate IT recruiting firms which skills had been in the greatest demand so far this year and at present, as well as which specialisms will be the most highly sought in the future. Given the way that business technology and Internet usage appear to be developing, it may not be a surprise that demand for expertise in different areas of mobile technology skills was an area of common ground.
According to Jenrick IT's Philip Fanthom, "all things to do with mobile" are enjoying strong demand at the moment, with user interaction right at the forefront: as interest in interactive services which employ JQuery framework or the JSON data interchange standard continues to grow, contractors with a track record in Javascript are becoming the objects of ever-stronger interest from clients.
SQ Computer Personnel agreed that Java development skills are among the hottest commodities at the moment. SQ also added .Net skills into the mix, indicating a lack of specialists in this area that Hays IT supported.
Hays also reported that app analysts and virtualization engineers were noticing higher levels of interest from end-clients, suggesting that companies are continuing to invest in expanding into mobile channels.
But businesses are also looking at their internal systems and turning to self-employed professionals for help. Business analysis skills were highly sought according to both Hays and SQ. Hays added that consultants and functional analysts on enterprise resource planning systems were among their most-wanted contractors, demonstrating that budget-conscious companies are looking to become more efficient and willing to pay for specialist skills to help them achieve it.
Cost-cutting is behind a rise in the outsourcing of IT systems, although some companies are taking systems in-house for the same reason. This is why Hays explained that transition project consultants were in demand both for insourcing and outsourcing. According to Jenrick, IAAS project experience is another hot commodity, both from client and supplier's side.
Project managers are also in short supply, a trend reported by all three recruiters, while Hays said that contractors with experience of managing technology change projects were in demand specifically. Flexibility appears to be order of the day, as Fanthom said that in his experience it was managers with experience of a range of different methods and approaches were more popular than so-called "evangelicals" who stick to one predetermined methodology.
Over the rest of the year, the trend towards mobile expertise is expected to continue, while Jenrick and Hays expect to see further improvements in demand for cloud specialists. As organizational changes come into effect across the public sector, Hays added that it expects to receive more inquiries from clients in need of infrastructure experts too.
Similarly, changes to the regulations governing clients in the financial services will need to be implemented by business analysts and project managers, SQ added.
But Fanthom felt that interest in native mobile apps and back-end cloud projects were likely to make sure that the advanced HTML5 competence remained firmly in the mix.
What GE's Cloud Computing Foray Means for Big Data
Excerpted from Network World Report by Brandon Butler
As if GE doesn't already have enough on its plate, the company entered the cloud computing market this week, announcing plans to provide cloud-based analytics services for its industrial customers.
The move reinforces a couple of major themes across the industry, including a growing trend by both providers and end users to capture and actually get some value from the massive amount of data generated by their companies, machines and other sources.
It also shows how providers are increasingly offering services tailored specifically for certain vertical markets, in this case industry and manufacturing. And finally, in announcing the product in conjunction with partners Amazon Web Services and new analytics firm Pivotal, GE is showing how it can use technologies from others and package them as a service.
Welcome to the world of cloud computing.
GE has two major products, one being its Predictivity line, which will provide real-time data analytics across a company's network, while Proficy Historian HD is a separate service based on open source Apache Hadoop to provide historical analysis.
GE is aiming the services at the customers to which it already supplies heavy machinery and manufacturing goods and services. This software packages can help businesses make decisions about what sorts of products should be made and how, for example.
"It is only in the ability to quickly analyze, understand, and put machine-based data to work in real-time that points us to a society that benefits from the promise of big data," GE Vice President of global software Bill Ruh said during a release party on Tuesday. "This is what the Industrial Internet is about."
Industrial companies have a lot to gain from big data analytics because they have so much data, experts say. Companies across a variety of industries are dealing with the rise of machine-to-machine, batch data and making actionable business decisions based on it, says Wikibon analyst Dave Vellante.
Wikibon estimates that Industrial Internet Technology spending will balloon from $20 billion this year to $514 billion by 2020 as more companies rely on data to drive business decisions in sectors from manufacturing to health care, transportation and utilities. The key, he says, will be architecting systems that are able to capture data, and bring it to the cloud and provide actionable intelligence based on it.
As for how the system will technically work, Ruh says GE will work with customers to architect solutions that run in the public cloud, such as Amazon Web Services, or on customers' own premises to solve the issue of data migration.
Werner Vogels, AWS's CTO who appeared at the announcement, says the company is already providing the infrastructure "building blocks" to support these services. Existing AWS customers can layer GE analytics services on top of data stored in Amazon's cloud, for example.
Paul Maritz, the former VMware chief who is now heading the new spinout from VMware and EMC named Pivotal, says his company's Hadoop-based analytics technology will be baked into the offering as well.
GE is taking the quickest path to releasing these services with partners, instead of developing it all in-house. That's a very different approach than had the company used open source technologies like Apache Hadoop and cloud IaaS platform OpenStack to build this offering itself.
Vellante, the Wikibon analyst, says that's a natural move for the company though, since running large-scale data centers to host a cloud offering is not in GE's expertise.
Using cloud-based resources to host this software allows GE to focus on building the software for customers, and not have to worry about the infrastructure to support it. "This is another boost for the cloud and big data," Vellante says.
Perhaps this news shouldn't be all that surprising though, given that just a few months ago GE announced that it would be making an investment worth more than $100 million in the new Pivotal Initiative.
GE's successful rollout of analytics software for its customers could be a positive first sign for the newborn Pivotal. If anything is surprising, it's the speed with which GE was able to turn around a product offering.
That speed to market could be important for GE because it has some catching up to do with its biggest competitor in this market: IBM. Jeff Kelly, another Wikibon analyst, says Big Blue has about a five-year head start on GE after it launched its Smarter Planets initiative in 2008. "Expect the two companies — GE and IBM — to battle it out to lead the Industrial Internet market in the years ahead," he says.
The winners in all this will undoubtedly be businesses that finally have some tools to manage and get insights from this wave of new data.
Using Predictive Analytics Intelligently
Excerpted from CIO Insight Report by Samuel Greengard
Nary a week goes by without news of some remarkable breakthrough in predictive analytics. Last week, Google announced that it has developed an algorithm that can guess movie box office hauls with 94 percent accuracy. The paper, Quantifying Movie Magic with Google Search, notes that Google can accomplish this task by examining the timing and category of Google searches and paid clicks.
There's no question that predictive analytics is the wave of the future. It holds enormous promise for organizations in a wide swath of industries, including financial services, retail and healthcare. It could revolutionize customer service by helping businesses understand when to replace components like mechanical parts, motors and batteries.
But, like any technology tool, predictive analytics can also undermine creative thinking—if it's not used effectively. Movie industry executives, for example, trot out sequel after sequel of predictable and mindless pap bursting with atrocious dialog—or, worse, no need for dialog. Within a few years, I'm sure we'll be at "Star Trek 509" and "Fast and Furious Part 47."
My point? Once bean counter executives get their hands on a predictive analytics algorithm that offers 94 percent accuracy, you can bet the feedback loop will become more entrenched than "You look fabulous" comments at a Hollywood gala. Executives will further engineer films for maximum marketing response and box office potential rather than any shred of creativity.
There's a problem with that. Greatness doesn't come from engineering products and services to meet the existing marketplace and what consumers think they want. It comes from thinking and acting in innovative and unconventional ways. Think Apple (iTunes, iPhone, iPad), Amazon (1-Click buying and the Kindle) and Starbucks (seamlessly integrated loyalty, e-payment and digital content channels over Wi-Fi). These companies excel at breaking new ground and taking business and IT where it has never gone before.
In Hollywood, it's the occasional exception—the film that barely makes it past the marketing gatekeepers or bypasses the entire studio process by taking the Indie route—that often emerges as the quirky blockbuster or the film that achieves a level of artistic greatness.
So, by all means embrace predictive analytics. Just don't use it to play things too safe—and justify preconceived notions or reverse engineer results, products and services. Otherwise, you will likely wind up with Disaster Movie Part II. You can bank on it.
Microsoft's Cloud Computing Vision for Xbox One
Excerpted from Joystiq Report by Xav de Matos
Though Microsoft has changed its stance on the digital rights management-based requirements for the Xbox One, the company remains committed to cloud computing.
"Our vision around Xbox One and what you can do because of the power of both the architecture of the console, and also the cloud and the Xbox Live service, remains unchanged," Xbox Chief Product Officer Marc Whitten told Joystiq.
When asked why Microsoft would not simply offer an offline mode akin to the one featured on Steam, Whitten said "that's absolutely" what Microsoft is doing.
Whitten listed a host of examples of how cloud computing still exists as part of the Xbox One plan, not ing players will "see great games like Titanfall take advantage of the cloud processing power" as well as have the ability to get games from the online marketplace and use them on any console.
"We're going to continue to really invest in how those experiences work," Whitten added. During E3 2013, Fairfax "Mackey" McCandlish, lead designer on the always-online "Titanfall," told Joystiq that cloud computing on the Xbox One allows Respawn to "spin off dedicated servers" whenever it wants.
"Instead of having everything prepared ahead of time, or misallocate different areas, or have some places be too slow or too much, we can just say 'cloud, find us the right number of computers,'" he added.
Public Enemy Uses BitTorrent to Crowd-Source Remix for new Track
Excerpted from LA Times Report by Ryan Faughnder
It takes a nation of millions … to make Public Enemy's next remix.
The political hip-hop group, best known for such songs as "Bring the Noise" and "Fight the Power," is letting fans remix its new single, "Get Up Stand Up," featuring Brother Ali, for a contest.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service BitTorrent Inc. is providing the raw materials through a "bundle" for fans to download for free. The Public Enemy package gives fans access to the 37-stem multi-track for the song, allowing them to make their own remixes and submit their work.
The bundle also includes outtakes and a music video.
Members of Public Enemy will listen to the resulting tracks and vote to determine their favorite, which they'll release digitally.
BitTorrent has been testing its Bundle service, which lets musicians, filmmakers and other content creators distribute their work online.
File-distribution companies have not often been seen as friends of musicians, but BitTorrent is trying to change that by giving artists new ways to interact directly with fans.
The BitTorrent Bundle program, which will have its official launch by the end of this year, lets artists distribute to the site's 170 million active monthly users. Artists including Death Grips and Kumare have used it, as has Berklee College of Music.
"We're really trying to use the Bundle not only as a distribution and consumption space, but also as a collaboration space," said Matt Mason, vice president of marketing at BitTorrent, in an interview.
For the Public Enemy contest, the first-prize winner will have the winning mix distributed by the group and will get recording equipment and Public Enemy gear. Additional prizes will go to eight runners-up.
Though Public Enemy is making its download available in exchange for an email address, Mason said the Bundle service will let artists make money by requesting donations.
"The idea of the bundle is, you can publish anything and distribute to millions of people," Mason said. "We wanted to give the artists the option for how they want to monetize their content."
Though Public Enemy continues to record and tour with rappers Chuck D and Flavor Flav sharing mic duties, Flavor Flav is perhaps best known currently as a reality-TV mainstay, most notably as the star of VH1's "Flavor of Love."
Huawei Debuts Digital OpenCloud
Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, recently announced it would unveil a new Telco IT solution to support end-to-end digital service operations at TM Forum Management World 2013. The solution is the first to merge service delivery, business support and resource control functions into one pre-packaged solution.
Digital OpenCloud addresses Communication Service Provider positioning and the IT system strategies to gain a greater share of profit from the digital economy. The underlying systems infrastructure must support an open, internetized and cloud-based architecture.
To achieve true user-centric services, CSPs must transform operations to become more 'Internet-oriented' such that it can deliver on-demand and automated self-service processes across the customer lifecycle. This transformation will also require integrated processes to be realized through open APIs, partner collaboration and the development of richer applications through the combination of both IT and CT capabilities. The new system must also have distributed architecture that is capable of providing business intelligence via big data analysis.
Che Haiping, CTO & Vice President of Huawei Carrier Software and Core Network BU, said "Huawei Digital Open Cloud (DOCloud) solution helps operators go through a digital transformation which will require a new business architecture as ecosystem revenue plays greater importance on the operations of on-line digital services." To become a driving and enabling force in the digital service ecosystem, CSPs need to move towards a real-time knowledge-driven enterprise, which is enabled by a new generation IT architecture. DoCloud aims to deliver simpler & better experience to end users, partners and customers in the ecosystem via integrated business processes and service capabilities.
Huawei employs the world's biggest carrier software and core network research & development team with more than 10,000 employees working at six R&D centers in the US, Europe, India as well as Shenzhen, Nanjing and Xi'an in China. Through the end of 2012, Huawei has made cooperation with 350+ operators in more than 155 countries.
Coming Events of Interest
2013 Creative Storage Conference - June 25th in Culver City, CA. Co-sponsored by the DCIA, CSC:2013 offers attendees opportunities to make valuable connections and participate in the latest trends and requirements for digital storage to serve creative minds and create new and growing markets. Register now and save $100.
Cloud World Forum - June 26th-27th in London, England. The Cloud World Forum offers a comprehensive agenda and speaker line-up from the cloud sector, making it an ideal platform for global authorities to present their "how-to" strategy and vision. Many recognized headline participants along with detailed coverage of the enterprise IT market.
Cloud Computing Summit - July 16th-17th in Bradenton, South Africa. Advance your awareness of the latest trends and innovations from the world of cloud computing. This year's ITWeb-sponsored event will focus on key advances relating to the infrastructure, operations, and available services through the global network.
NordiCloud 2013 - September 1st-3rd in Oslo, Norway. The Nordic Symposium on Cloud Computing & Internet Technologies (NordiCloud) aims at providing an industrial and scientific forum for enhancing collaboration between industry and academic communities from Nordic and Baltic countries in the area of Cloud Computing and Internet Technologies.
P2P 2013: IEEE International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing - September 9th-11th in Trento, Italy. The IEEE P2P Conference is a forum to present and discuss all aspects of mostly decentralized, large-scale distributed systems and applications. This forum furthers the state-of-the-art in the design and analysis of large-scale distributed applications and systems.
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2013 — October 27th-29th in Las Vegas, NV. Two major conference tracks will zero in on the latest advances in applying cloud-based solutions to all aspects of high-value entertainment content production, storage, and delivery; and the impact of mobile cloud computing and Big Data analytics in this space.
CCISA 2013 – February 12th–14th in Turin, Italy. The second international special session on Cloud computing and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and its Applications within the 22nd Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed and Network-Based Processing.
|
