January 20, 2014
Volume XLVI, Issue 10
Want to Speak at CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2014?
TheDCIA & CCA will present CLOUD COMPUTING EAST (CCE:2014), an early May strategic summit for business leaders and software developers in Washington, DC, focusing on three areas of vital interest.
The gCLOUD (The Government Cloud) will examine the ways that local, state, and federal governments can improve services and protect citizens with cloud-based tools. It will also address liabilities and challenges that need to concern government agencies regarding cloud-based services, countering NSA-fallout gloom with energized and confident approaches that overcome concerns raised by the Snowden scandal.
The explosion of data, advances in security and reliability, and options for redundant storage; challenges to natural resource management, transportation, and utility grid monitoring; and the impact of cloud services on law enforcement and emergency responsiveness will be featured topics. Speakers will include end-user organizations, public-sector thought-leaders, and private-sector solutions providers.
The hCLOUD (The Healthcare Cloud) will explore progress being made by the healthcare industry in adopting cloud-based solutions to become more efficient, collaborative, and interactively connected. It will also address liabilities and challenges that need to concern healthcare organizations regarding cloud-based services.
Managing private patient records; collecting clinical research data; big-data imaging, and remote patient monitoring will be featured topics. Speakers will include representatives of hospitals, clinics, multi-physician practices, and healthcare solutions providers.
The fCLOUD (The Financial Services Cloud) will discuss the ways that financial transactions and currency exchange, domestic banking and insurance services, as well as efficient investment decision-making are all being impacted by cloud computing. It will also address liabilities and challenges that need to concern financial services organizations regarding cloud-based services.
International financial activities impacted by cloud computing; how banks and insurance companies are migrating to the cloud; and private equity and hedge fund investor use of cloud computing will be featured topics. Speakers will include business and technology leaders from the financial services industry and executives and innovators from the cloud computing solutions-provider sector.
Please contact Don Buford, CEO, or Hank Woji, VP Business Development, at the CCA to learn more about attractive conference exhibition and sponsorship opportunities. To review conference topics and apply to join the speaking faculty for this event, please click here. If you'd like to speak at this major industry event, please contact Marty Lafferty, CEO of the DCIA, at your earliest convenience.
Federal Appeals Court Nixes FCC's Net Neutrality Rules
Excerpted from Variety Report by Todd Spangler
In a ruling Tuesday, the US Appeals Court for the DC District struck down the FCC's so-called Net Neutrality rules, siding with Verizon Communications that the Commission overstepped its legal authority.
In the 81-page ruling, the court said the FCC did not have the legal authority to adopt the 2010 regulations. The court said that even though the Commission has general authority to regulate broadband, "it may not impose requirements that contravene express statutory mandates."
The decision has broad implications for Internet businesses of all kinds, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook Google, Netflix, and Yahoo, — as well as traditional media companies that rely on broadband networks for content distribution. The ruling for now establishes that government regulators can't dictate how Internet service providers (ISPs) manage their networks and how they choose to prioritize data.
The FCC's Open Internet Order, adopted by the agency in December 2010, forbids ISPs from blocking or degrading traffic based on source. Verizon promptly filed a legal challenge to the rules, alleging the Commission did not have authority to impose them — and on Tuesday, the federal appeals court agreed. However, the court rejected the telco's challenge to the FCC's rules requiring providers to disclose their network-management practices.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler accentuated the parts of the ruling that were favorable to the Commission. "The DC Circuit has correctly held that 'Section 706 of the Communications Act vests the Commission with affirmative authority to enact measures encouraging the deployment of broadband infrastructure' and therefore may 'promulgate rules governing broadband providers' treatment of Internet traffic,'" he said.
Wheeler continued, "I am committed to maintaining our networks as engines for economic growth, test beds for innovative services and products, and channels for all forms of speech protected by the First Amendment. We will consider all available options, including those for appeal, to ensure that these networks on which the Internet depends continue to provide a free and open platform for innovation and expression, and operate in the interest of all Americans."
The appeals court said that because the FCC has chosen to classify broadband providers in a way that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, "the Communications Act expressly prohibits the Commission from nonetheless regulating them as such. Because the Commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules do not impose per se common carrier obligations, we vacate those portions of the Open Internet Order."
In 2010, the appeals court ruled against the FCC's previous broadband-management rules, in a challenge mounted by Comcast. In that case, the court said the Commission had "failed to cite any statutory authority that would justify its order compelling a broadband provider to adhere to open network management practices."
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 This week's ruling by a three-judge panel of the DC Court of Appeals, striking down the US Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Open Internet Order, requires the urgent attention and involvement of all industry participants.
Next steps by the FCC and/or Congress, responding to the influence of affected parties — ranging from broadband network operators to content rights holders to software services providers to the public — will be extremely important to our future
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said on Thursday that he will accept the court's invitation for the Commission to present new legal underpinnings for its Open Internet Order, which was brought forth on the previous watch, while also acknowledging statements by Internet service providers (ISPs) that, notwithstanding the court's decision they will not block or degrade traffic.
"Using our authority, we will readdress the concepts in the Open Internet order, as the court invited," he said, "to encourage growth and innovation and enforce against abuse."
The Chairman also said he noted "with great interest" ISP pledges to continue to honor the open Internet order's remanded concepts — no blocking or discrimination.
"That is the right and responsible thing to do," he said, "and we take them up on their commitment."
Wheeler also said that all options are on the table, including appealing the court decision and reclassifying Internet Access as a Title II service as well as using Title I authority under the Telecommunications Act mandate to ensure universal access — powers that the court reaffirmed the FCC could use.
"What we have learned from previous network revolutions is that change is hard, new networks are disruptive forces, incumbents will oppose the change in a bid for self-preservation, but that by embracing change, you can produce successful results. That is the new network opportunity. That is what makes the open Internet so important," he added.
Some are urging the FCC to reverse its current bipartisan policy of light regulation by reclassifying Internet services under the much heavier regulatory framework of the old-monopoly telephone system.
Others say it's time to go in the opposite direction, for instance, by testing tiered Internet service, where content providers and/or consumers can elect to pay higher fees for faster more reliable delivery of certain services.
There are certainly unknowns at this point, and there could be significant impact even in the near term.
In the wake of the court's decision, for example, one Wall Street analyst said Thursday Netflix could face up to $100 million per year in additional content delivery costs from broadband network operators, but added that Netflix might use the ruling to its advantage by cutting deals to shut-out competitors.
While charging consumers more based on larger amounts of data they transmit seems reasonable, this could also mean they pay more for certain content and have fewer choices.
And start-up content providers could face more obstacles in bringing their services to market.
Disputes like the one that prompted DirecTV to pre-empt The Weather Channel could make their way onto the web.
The DCIA, however, asks whether reclassifying the Internet as a common-carrier service is the only alternative.
What if there could be new approaches to the issues at stake here based on fresh thinking commensurate with the new technologies themselves?
In the past decade and a half, the Internet has gotten much faster and in many ways better — it has been a shining star of both economic growth and societal advancement worldwide.
Has it recently suffered such a negative turn that it now needs massive regulatory control to rein it in and protect the citizenry?
We don't think so.
In the US, 100+ Mbps connections are now available to 85% of households, and the world's top web companies, including brands like Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter represent American contributions to the global economy,
We enjoy an open Internet in America with access to a plethora of websites and services from a multiplicity of access points and devices; and Internet access providers support these realities because meeting these end-user demands is profitable.
Reclassifying the Internet and applying seriously outdated telephone-era rules could threaten continuing investment and stifle further innovation.
While not reverting to past regulatory structures, perhaps ironically, we urge the FCC and Congress to consider the adoption of an overriding principle that predates the first broadcast television station, cable system, or data delivery network, but has in fact stood the test of time.
This principle contributed to the growth and strength of one of America's longest-term success stories — the motion picture industry — and was initiated more than a century ago when vertical integration threatened to foment undesirable monopoly powers.
It can be summarized simply as a division of basic ownership of key components of a very large content distribution system in order to promote competition.
Entities could either own the theater or own the movie, but they couldn't own both: either control the seats audience members sit-in or control what's shown on the screen — but not each of them.
In the rapidly advancing broadband era of digital content distribution, this competition-fostering principle translates to: separate ownership of the conduit and the content.
Own the plant that delivers access service — telephony, cable, satellite, 4G LTE wireless, etc. — OR own what people watch, listen to, or play — TV channel / movie package, music service, game platform, etc. — BUT NOT BOTH.
This bold but simple imperative could stimulate competitive growth and reduce insidious conflicts-of-interest that have crept into the telecommunications and entertainment/media sectors.
This single guideline could inform contemporary legislative and regulatory reform to help eliminate the greatest current threat to continuing innovation.
Because the devil is always in the details, there will be more to come on this. Share wisely, and take care.
Wiley: Communications Law Must Be Flexible
Excerpted from Broadcasting & Cable Report by John Eggerton
Former FCC Chairman Dick Wiley says the problem with communications law is not a failure of Congress or of FCC "vision," but that the government has a tough time writing laws and regulations that can keep pace with changing technology.
According to Wiley's testimony for a January 15th House Communications Subcommittee hearing on communications law reform, he suggests that the Subcommittee's planned rewrite of the Communications Act should not be premised on predictions of what the market may look like in the future, but instead be a "flexible and technologically neutral framework" that can adapt to whatever comes.
He also advocates for a light touch, using for one example the video streaming marketplace that is competing against traditional multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) with new ways to distribute consumer video. "This marketplace is emerging because of innovation and competition, not due to government regulation."
Wiley offered up four key principles that he thinks should guide a draft bill.
1. "The industry silos embedded in the 1996 Act should be abolished and, instead, functionally equivalent services should be treated in the same manner, regardless of who provides them or how they are delivered to consumers."
2. "The traditional dichotomy between interstate and intrastate services should be eliminated because regulatory classifications based on geographical end points no longer make sense in an IP environment."
3. "Legislation should be focused on maintaining consumer protection and public safety regulations. Conversely, economic regulations should be considered in the case of non-competitive markets or in the event of demonstrated market failure."
4. "New regulations should be instituted with a lighter touch, accompanied by sunset provisions so that the rationale for continued government intervention can be reviewed on a regular basis."
President Obama: Limit Use of NSA-Collected Data
Excerpted from Engadget Report by Terrence O'Brien
The scandal surrounding the National Security Agency's (NSA) data collection and surveillance programs seems never ending. Almost every week there are new revelations as to the extent of the spying, which covers everything from social networks, to phone calls, text messages, and location data.
President Barack Obama has already sought to assuage the public's fears once by suggesting reforms to the programs; now it's time for round two.
At a speech today, the Commander-in-Chief announced efforts to limit the use of bulk-collected data and a new process for reviewing data-collection policies. While the NSA won't stop sucking up information anytime soon, added oversight and periodic audits will work to ensure the private data of average citizens is protected not just against governmental abuse, but also external parties that would seek to steal that information.
There will also be annual reviews of the priorities and policies used to collect and analyze the data that will involve the heads of multiple departments and agencies. And, to the extent possible, the presidential directive promises to declassify and release the details of those policies to the public.
The increased transparency will go a long way toward fulfilling the promise the president made back in July, though many privacy advocates will surely find room for improvement.
The biggest change comes in the form of an end to the bulk data-collection program under section 215 of the Patriot Act. A new system will be established that places the collected metadata in the hands of an unspecified third party and requires a judicial finding before any query of the database, except in the event of a national emergency.
There will also be a third-party privacy advocate present to argue before the FISA court at each request for data. The government will also use more stringent standards and "will only pursue phone numbers that are two steps removed from a terrorist organization." That change, from the current standard of three steps, is effective immediately.
The government will have to demonstrate a clear national security purpose for each request, and the President guaranteed that this intelligence would not be used for any other purpose.
That promise was delivered alongside jabs at foreign critics who have similar surveillance capabilities, but lack America's civil liberties protections.
There is still the potential for more reforms, as the President told the American public, "this effort will not be completed overnight, but I want the American people to know that the work has begun." He went on to argue that there is actually broad agreement on the need for these programs, and for strong safeguards against abuse.
"Those who are troubled by our existing programs are not interested in a repeat of 9/11, and those who defend these programs are not dismissive of civil liberties. The challenge is getting the details right, and that's not simple."
The President spent almost as much time discussing what led us to this place as he did talking about plans to reform our spying programs. He reiterated that it is essential that the government have powerful digital surveillance tools in order to disrupt cyber or terror attacks, and to protect its citizens.
He also defended the conduct of government agents saying, "Nothing in that initial review and nothing that I've learned since, indicates that our intelligence community aimed to violate law or civil liberties. Men and women of the intelligence community, including the NSA, consistently obeyed the laws."
That claim, however, is debatable as FISA has reprimanded the NSA on multiple occasions, and even the agency's own Inspector General has admitted that individuals have abused the system to spy on both current and former lovers. The President also reiterated that the bulk collection of telephone records, "does not involve the content of phone calls or the names of people making calls." Instead it contains phone numbers alongside the times and lengths of calls.
While many of the reforms announced are welcome changes, they likely won't silence the President's harshest critics. And it's hard to imagine that he will be able to undo to damage to his public image. You'll find the full text of the Presidential directive here.
Congressmen Launch Cloud Computing Caucus
Excerpted from Herald Online Report
The Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group, a newly-formed, non-profit, non-partisan coalition of industry and key government stakeholders, focused on raising awareness of issues associated with cloud computing, announced its plans to support the Cloud Computing Caucus.
The Cloud Computing Caucus is Co-Chaired by Congressmen Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA.).
Three years have passed since the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the Cloud First Policy, mandating that federal agencies take full advantage of cloud computing benefits to maximize capacity utilization, improve IT flexibility and responsiveness, and minimize cost.
MeriTalk research shows agencies are saving $5.5 billion with cloud implementations but could achieve even greater potential savings of an estimated $12 billion annually. Yet, the federal cloud landscape still lacks widespread adoption — the Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) has approved only 11 certified cloud computing providers to date.
"In order to take advantage of all that cloud computing can do to improve federal government activities, we are pleased to announce the formation of the Congressional Cloud Computing Caucus," said Chairman Issa of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Co-Chair of the Cloud Computing Caucus. "This bipartisan caucus will be dedicated to fostering awareness and understanding of this critical IT issue."
"With a growing demand for cloud adoption, members and policy makers need to understand the untapped potential of cloud computing, the realized savings to date, and remaining challenges to full implementation across the federal government," said Congressman Connolly, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Government Operations and Co-Chair of the Cloud Computing Caucus.
"The Cloud Computing Caucus and the Advisory Group will play a critical role in raising awareness of these issues and ensuring lawmakers have the necessary facts and knowledge to develop policies that promote effective adoption of cloud computing."
The Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group's online platform will include relevant cloud news, cloud computing research, a cloud savings calculator, and serve as the sounding board for cloud discussion. In addition to an online presence, the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group will host quarterly, in-person "Hillversation" meetings on Capitol Hill to bring together cloud computing experts to discuss their cloud priorities, pain points, and best practices.
The first Hillversation will take place in late February and will focus on "Viewpoints on FedRAMP."
"One thing Republicans and Democrats agree on is the IT forecast — and it is cloudy," said Steve O'Keeffe, Founder of MeriTalk and Founding Supporter of the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group. "We look forward to working with Congressmen Issa and Connolly, as well as other law makers, to help fix Federal IT."
"The Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group will play an important role in keeping lawmakers informed about Federal IT and cloud computing," said Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services (AWS), a founding supporter of the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group.
"AWS is committed to supporting the Advisory Group's efforts and offering guidance to Federal lawmakers on the issues surrounding cloud computing. We are honored to be a founding supporter of a program with such a significant impact on the future of cloud computing."
The Founding Supporters of the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group were Amazon, Microsoft, and EMC..
Cloud Standards Set to Mature in Next 18 Months
Excerpted from Out-Law Report
Standards in cloud computing are "more focused" than had been thought but they lack widespread adoption, a report commissioned by the European Commission has found.
The Commission has asked the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to help set out what standards cloud service providers should follow in order to operate in a way that both promotes EU market interests and complies with EU laws. ETSI established a Cloud Standards Coordination (CSC) group which has now reported on the current landscape for standards in cloud computing.
"The analysis has concluded that cloud standardization is much more focused that anticipated," the CSC's report said. "In short: the cloud standards landscape is complex but not chaotic and by no means a 'jungle.' Though several cloud computing standards have seen successful adoption in small-scale and research projects, cloud computing-specific standards have not seen widespread adoption by cloud providers to date."
The European Commission previously suggested that standards in cloud computing may relate to issues such as data security, interoperability, and data portability.
According to the CSC's report, there has been "significant progress" in the creation of standards that will enable the interoperability of cloud-based services. However, it said that it was important for "arbitrary terms including service monitoring requirements and service level agreement concerns" to be "unambiguously defined" if standards affecting interoperability, such as for "APIs, data models and vocabularies," were to become commonplace.
"Interoperability standards need to be formal and complete enough that cloud computing workflows can be automated, but flexible enough that new concepts in the underlying technology or in a particular domain (e.g., public cloud procurement) can be quickly introduced and accommodated," it said.
The CSC said that there are already "many good and widely adopted" standards on security that are in use in the cloud environment. However, it said that security standards that are specific to certain types of technologies may become "obsolete" as new security products and practices emerge.
The body said that some standards on cloud computing governance and assurance were "sufficiently mature" that they could be adopted, and it called for further work to be carried out to standardize practices in areas such as "incident management, cloud forensics, and cloud supply chain accountability management".
Businesses should "clearly identify their security and privacy requirements (including legal and regulatory compliance)" and decide whether existing standards on security are "relevant and applicable" to them, the CSC said.
"From a security and privacy perspective, suitable standards are important for the uptake of cloud computing," the CSC said. "Our analysis shows a need for a common vocabulary to enable the cloud service customer to express their requirements and understand the capabilities offered by a cloud service provider. Some existing security and privacy standards exist which are helpful in this area but further development of common vocabularies and metrics specific to cloud computing is needed."
The CSC said that "open source" projects were worth keeping abreast of because of the potential they have to impact on the way technologies work in the cloud.
"While not formal standards, the open source projects are creating tried-and-tested APIs, protocols and environments which address aspects of interoperability, portability and security relating to cloud computing," the report said. "It is possible that future specifications and standards may derive from one or more of the open source projects. Some examples of positive interaction have already been seen between standards bodies and open source projects that should be encouraged."
The CSC said that the European Commission should task it with providing an updated report sometime between late 2014 and the early months of 2015. This is because it expects cloud standards to mature between now and then and "new conclusions could help the cloud community to better address its standardization longer-term challenges".
"Cloud computing has gained momentum and credibility, thus generating new offers and demands for more complex use cases and services," Luis Jorge Romero, director general of ETSI, said in a statement. "In this perspective, standardization is seen as a strong enabler for both investors and customers and can help increase security, ensure interoperability, data portability, and reversibility."
Ten Mobility Trends Shaping the Enterprise
Excerpted from Baseline Report by Samuel Greengard
It would be an understatement to say that mobility is changing the enterprise. The reality is that this technology is redefining business and IT in profound and permanent ways.
But it isn't only smartphones and tablets that are driving all the disruption. An array of technologies and systems — ranging from the industrial Internet (Internet of things) to the "appification" of everything — are creating remarkable challenges and opportunities.
Moreover, the intersection of cloud computing, big data, and social media is pushing mobility in new directions and affecting employees and customers in profound ways.
As we enter 2014, mobility promises to unleash new and improved capabilities — and put additional stress on IT departments to integrate systems, develop apps, oversee security, handle bring-your-own-device (BYOD), and manage expectations that increasingly center on a consumer-centric approach to design and usability.
Here's a look at 10 mobility trends that are shaping the enterprise, and what business and IT executives need to know to leverage the technology to maximum advantage.
DataDirect Networks Dominates Computing Centers
Excerpted from ABC-27 Report
DataDirect Networks (DDN) continues its leadership of the TOP500.org global supercomputer rankings, with storage infrastructure solutions that today power more than 60 percent of those identifiable sites among the world's 500 largest computers, according to the most recent TOP500 rankings list.
As the premier global list that ranks supercomputers by performance, the TOP500 list is a testament to the computer power of massively scalable computer systems that are being used across high performance computing (HPC) markets.
According to the recent DDN end-user survey, storage I/O is the most critical issue for organizations at today's petascale levels. This is not surprising given CPU performance rises faster than disk. For example, the performance of systems in the Top10 has increased by 14x in less than 5 years and currently nine are powered by DDN technology.
As the number of TOP500 systems with performance greater than a petaflop has increased year on year, DDN has continued to set the performance standard by out-innovating and delivering the highest levels of platform scalability and performance efficiency at the lowest total cost of ownership.
New DDN deployments including, Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL), RRZN, and HLRN join existing DDN customers and TOP500 organizations Oakridge National Laboratory (ORNL), National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) which recognize that site-wide file systems are the next infrastructure trend in HPC environments. These organizations are also at the forefront of exploring other DDN technological innovations such as intelligent cache management, convergence with in-storage processing and Burst Buffer.
Kontiki MediaCenter Redefines "YouTube for the Enterprise"
Excerpted from Broadway World Report
Kontiki, the leading provider of enterprise video solutions, debuted today the Kontiki MediaCenter enterprise video portal, reaffirming their longstanding commitment to furthering enterprise video usage.
Since the 2009 launch of Kontiki VideoCenter, the market's first "YouTube for the Enterprise," Kontiki has consistently delivered high quality video and increased engagement across the enterprise. Kontiki MediaCenter builds on this foundation to deliver a first-to-market, cloud-based enterprise video portal offering with integrated live and on-demand video options and a user-friendly interface, designed specifically for the unique needs of the enterprise, both business and IT.
As the name implies, Kontiki MediaCenter is capable of handling any type of media, including video, audio, RSS feeds, and more.
Kontiki MediaCenter offers a number of key "must-have" features and benefits that make it attractive for today's enterprise deployment, including:
Full Range of Video Options — Offers video on demand, in addition to live event provisioning and viewing, serving both private and public content.
Interactive User Experience — Streamlined usage flows in a responsive design offering a full range of must-have social features, such as sharing, rating, flagging and commenting. Easily create custom versions to fit your brand and user interaction needs.
Robust Enterprise Controls — Includes strong user authentication, single sign on (SSO), integration, access, and moderation controls—all based on best-of-breed security standards.
Powerful Content Management — Accepts all major video and document formats for storage and distribution. Enables easy content embedding, swapping, tagging, and trimming.
Built-in Enterprise Content Delivery Network — The Kontiki ECDN ensures efficient utilization of existing corporate network, with no hardware or bandwidth investment.
Actionable Analytics — In-depth viewership data presented graphically with drill-down capabilities.
Flexible Integration Services — Extensible platform offers rich REST API for enhanced integration capabilities with third party providers.
Desktop and Mobile Support — 100% cloud-based solution runs inside a web browser, supporting PC and Mac browsers, as well as a range of tablets and smartphones.
"We are proud to offer a truly compelling enterprise video portal in our Kontiki MediaCenter," said Dan Vetras, President and CEO of Kontiki. "We were the first to offer a 'YouTube for the Enterprise,' but we didn't rest there. We listened to our customers and the market and after four successful years of enterprise portal commitment, we are proud to roll out an innovative solution that speaks to the unique needs of the video-enabled enterprise."
Kontiki MediaCenter also enables enterprises to move "Beyond YouTube" to fully embrace a distributed workforce. While Kontiki MediaCenter offers traditional portal ease of use and engagement, its robust API enables simple integration with any established social enterprise software. As a result, employee access to video becomes pervasive. Video can be experienced though a centralized enterprise video portal or through integration with any third party software. Kontiki MediaCenter provides the flexibility to grow with your enterprise video usage needs.
"Video is arguably the most sticky medium of communication and is becoming a strategic imperative for organizations across all verticals to fully embrace. In order to realize the value proposition and be truly immersed in a video culture, a successful organization needs to make video a seamless part of its corporate life," says Mukul Krishna, Senior Global Director for Digital Media at Frost & Sullivan. "Employees should be able to experience live and on demand enterprise video anywhere and at any time, just as they are now used to in their everyday lives outside work. Kontiki MediaCenter makes it easy for organizations to offer pervasive engagement through video."
To experience Kontiki's compelling enterprise video portal firsthand, try Kontiki MediaCenter QuickStart, which provides an easy-to-evaluate, fully-deployed solution, ensuring a comprehensive evaluation for users and administrators alike.
BitTorrent Announces Cloudless P2P Storage Software
Excerpted from Silicon Republic Report by Colm Gorey
While more and more organizations begin to move significant amounts of their data to cloud storage, torrent provider BitTorrent announced plans to create a cloudless peer-to-peer (P2P) storage software for increased information security.
The lengths to which governments and organizations like the US National Security Agency (NSA), Google, and Facebook have allegedly gone to access people's personal online information is now well-known to many across the world and a number of companies have begun to fight back with various security devices and software.
Cloud storage, in particular, has been a hot topic with regard to questions raised about how secure is people's information that is being stored in a server room in any one of the locations across the globe.
Not without controversy, file-transfer service BitTorrent is one of the world's biggest torrent software providers and is now looking at taking on storage with the launch of BitTorrent Sync.
As opposed to cloud storage sites like Dropbox or Microsoft's SkyDrive, BitTorrent Sync will remove the concept of data centers in favor of a P2P storage model, where data is stored on dozens of individuals' computers and synced to re-create the file when it's requested.
The model is a progression of the P2P file transfer through torrents, which download a file to a user's hard drive with the data 'seeded' from dozens, if not hundreds, of other people online.
This will offer users, in theory, much better protection from companies and organizations accessing people's information, as a greater level of encryption will exist on a person's computer than an open server.
Perhaps the biggest factor in BitTorrent's favor is a lack of restrictions on storage space.
Users of cloud-storage systems will be familiar with storage limits, as space will obviously be limited on a server. With BitTorrent Sync, there is no storage limit, as the file will be coming from multiple sources across the world.
This in turn creates an obvious drawback to P2P storage. BitTorrent Sync's design means that two devices require constant connectivity to synch, as there is no server in a different location hosting the data.
Data-storage experts will no doubt be keeping an eagle eye on how the service progresses in the coming months, but this could prove to be an interesting step in increased security online.
BitTorrent Sync is now available to download from its website in beta form, and the company claims it should run on Windows, Mac, and Linux devices.
This includes smartphones with Android 2.2 or higher, or iOS 5 or higher.
Huawei: We're Not Leaving US Market
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Eileen Yu
Huawei Technologies has apparently backtracked on its previous declaration to abandon the US market, insisting it is still engaging partners and customers and "not leaving" the country.
Its COO for enterprise in the US, Jane Li, said the Chinese networking equipment maker was still engaging partners and customers in the market about its products and response had been "extremely positive". In an interview with Bloomberg TV, she said businesses seek out suppliers such as Huawei that offer a broad product portfolio that includes networking, compute, and storage, as well as have strong financial background.
"We are not leaving the US, on the contrary, we are growing our business in the US," Li said, suggesting that previous comments made by Huawei's senior executives including CEO and founder, Ren Zhengfei, about the company's departure from the market might be overstated.
Furious over the US government's allegations it was helping the Chinese government spy on the country, Huawei last year described the US market as a "commercial disappointment". It also declared it was no longer interested in the US and was shifting its focus on expanding in Europe.
According to Li, the knee-jerk response might have been the spillover result of tensions between governments from two of the world's biggest economies.
"When you're caught in the crossfire between two large world economic powers, it's hard not to get sentimental about it. But the truth is, this is one of the greatest markets in the world for IT and we like it here," she noted.
Revelations from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden also helped flip the issue around, putting the US government under scrutiny for its own spying activities. For the Huawei executive, it underscores the need for all sides to reexamine bilateral relationships.
"The Snowden effect gives everybody perspective that we need to separate politics from business. Governments need to do what they need to do, and that's the situation for both US and China, and others," Li said, adding that the company will continue to make its products available in the US market.
The Chinese vendor was at the CES exhibition in Las Vegas last week, where it launched the Ascend Mate 2 4G phablet.
Huawei is still trailing market leader Cisco Systems, but clocks bigger growth in the US market than the American networking vendor. Asked if its price-cutting strategy had helped the Chinese vendor gain ground against Cisco, Li told Bloomberg it does not compete on price points, but on providing the technology businesses today want to operate in a cloud environment.
"The best competition is [about] who can win the cloud computing race. There's huge growth in cloud computing and big data, [but] traditional IT equipment are designed for on-premise data centers," she noted. "So we need to have a large research and development (R&D) platform to reinvent those equipment to adapt to the cloud infrastructure."
She added that Huawei spends over 14 percent of its $40 billion revenue on R&D.
Earlier this week, the Chinese vendor hit out at the UK government's ban on its videoconferencing equipment, dismissing concerns over its links to the Chinese government as "misleading" and based on "inaccurate" information. The U.K. government departments including the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, and Crown Prosecution Service were reportedly instructed to stop using the systems during internal meetings amid concerns they could be embedded with tapping devices.
Octoshape to Stream Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has once again selected Octoshape, an industry leader in cloud-based streaming technology, to provide the streaming services for its online TV channel ParalympicSport.TV, ensuring the highest quality multi-screen video delivery of the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games for a global audience.
Around 700 athletes from 45 countries are set to compete in Sochi starting on 7 March 2014 in five sports including alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, ice sledge hockey and wheelchair curling.
"We are delighted to partner with Octoshape again for the Sochi Paralympics to showcase the Paralympic Winter Games to as many people as possible around the world," said Craig Spence, IPC Media & Communications Director. "By using Octoshape's streaming technology we ensure that Paralympic sport fans can enjoy the Games in the highest possible quality."
More than 780 hours of live sport were broadcast on paralympic.org throughout London 2012 across five channels. For 2014, Octoshape will provide enhancements like geo-targeting, picture-in-picture capabilities and video time-shifting which will catapult the sport to even greater levels of popularity.
"We are honored and excited that the IPC invited us back for the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games," said Michael Koehn Milland, CEO of Octoshape. "It is a clear validation of our ability to provide an exceptional consumer video experience to any user on any device anywhere in the world."
Octoshape's technologies are adopted by leading broadcasters, content owners and technology providers in the world enabling them with TV Everywhere and OTT IPTV services at the highest possible quality. The global broadband TV platform outperforms traditional content delivery technologies across all key metrics, including startup time, buffer time; quality and view time.
CES 2014: The Year Technology Got Stylish
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Mary Branscombe
Maybe it's the Mac Pro looking like the most stylish garbage can you ever saw. Maybe it's because of smartwatches and wearable fitness sensors, because when you wear something (rather than just carrying it) you care about how it looks as well as how it works. Maybe it's just because technology is aimed far more at consumers these days.
Whatever the reason, it's nice to see more devices that are stylish as well as functional showing up at CES, and not just the bling-laden iPhone cases and color-changing speakers of previous years.
Tylt has been offering its flat cables, Y-shaped dual chargers and the excellent wireless charging stand in bright colors for a while. Innergie is bringing out red, black, yellow and blue versions of its excellent external chargers (which pack in more battery power than most by using laptop-grade batteries) and even a red version of its new compact notebook charger, and the tiny new laptop charger FINsix will start selling in March will have a stylish red metal case.
Netgear is pitching its high performance wi-fi range extender at gamers, but the red and black design is also pretty stylish if you need to put it next to the TV. D-LINK was showing off prototypes of a wi-fi router the size and shape of a coffee can, in multiple colors.
Most fitness tracker look like a pedometer on a large rubber band; Fitbit and the other tracker makers are offering the bands in several colors now, but it's still the sporty look. For the June sun exposure sensor, Netatmo came up with something that looks much more like costume jewelry, with a faceted gold or silver crystal pierced by tiny holes for the sun sensor; you can wear it on the leather bracelet or clipped on as a brooch. The accompanying app is very obviously aimed at women, showing icons of a floppy sun hat and shades to warn you to cover up on sunny days.
The prototype 'smart jewelry' that Cellini built to show off CSR's Bluetooth chipsets is a little more unisex; a metal pebble on a plaited leather cord that flashes different colors to show you iOS 7 notifications.
Simplehuman's magnifying mirror is designed for women too, because the close-to-daylight white LED that lights up automatically when you get close to it is good for applying makeup. But it would be just as handy for men who want to see clearly to shave, especially with the new smaller model - and the one with a wall mount, which still charges over USB so you don't have to worry about wiring it in.
The Stelle audio clutch is definitely aimed at women; it's a Bluetooth speaker tucked into a shiny clutch purse in colors from gold, silver and copper to turquoise, red and snakeskin. It's fun and girly - and it sounds good as well. Or there's the Audio Pillar, which comes in a range of patterns and designs so you can match your decor, from brushed metal to brown-and-beige patterns that look as if they come from Burberry or Gucci.
La Cie has also been putting storage in stylish French designs for a few years. This year it will have two spherical USB 3 drives. One is a shiny silver globe you'll have to keep polishing fingerprints off, but we love the Cubulto, which has a gold metal base and rubberized top; pull off the tip to reveal the USB cable or push the top to make it tip over and then bounce back upright like a Weeble. You could leave the Cubulto out and tell everyone it's modern art and they'd never guess it's 16GB of superfast storage.
As you walk the halls at CES there is still plenty of disturbing design, like the pyramid bedside lamp that has a pharaoh's head hollowed out of it for the light to shine out or the violin clock (yes, it's a clock made out of a violin), but this year it's far easier to find gadgets that look stylish and work well.
And it's clear that 'design' is no longer synonymous with Apple white polycarbonate or Apple milled aluminum either. You can pick kit to co-ordinate with a red Lumia if you want. Or you could get one of the limited edition all-in-one PCs decorated by artists for Korean manufacturer Moneual with paint, office accessories or painstakingly applied hand-cut metal flowers.
Coming Events of Interest
CCISA 2014 – 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.
Cloud Computing Conference for DoD & Government - February 19th-21st in Washington, DC. This 5th annual CCCDG seeks to build on the success of last year's event and refine its scope by addressing the newest developments in cloud computing for the public sector.
Interop Las Vegas - March 31st to April 4th in Las Vegas, NV. The leading independent technology conference and expo series designed to inspire and inform the world's IT community. New in 2014: Cloud Connect Summit and the InformationWeek Conference.
CLOSER 2014 - April 3rd-5th in Barcelona, Spain. The Fourth International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science (CLOSER 2014) sets out to explore the emerging area of cloud computing, inspired by recent advances in network technologies.
NAB Show - April 5th-10th in Las Vegas, NV. From broadcasting to broader-casting, NAB Show has evolved over the last eight decades to continually lead this ever-changing industry. From creation to consumption, NAB Show has proudly served as the incubator for excellence — helping to breathe life into content everywhere.
Media Management in the Cloud — April 8th-9th in Las Vegas, NV. This two-day conference provides a senior management overview of how cloud-based solutions positively impact each stage of the content distribution chain, including production, delivery, and storage.
CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2014 - May 13th-14th in Washington, DC. Three major conference tracks will zero in on the latest advances in the application of cloud-based solutions in three key economic sectors: government, healthcare, and financial services.
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