June 9, 2014
Volume XLVIII, Issue 6
Meet with Octoshape at BroadcastAsia2014
Click here to schedule a meeting with Octoshape at BroadcastAsia2014 taking place June 17th-20th at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
Streaming media innovator Octoshape is bridging the transition from broadcast TV to broadband TV by providing the enabling technology required to bring TV quality, TV scale and TV economics to the public Internet.
The Octoshape approach is more scalable, flexible and affordable than traditional content delivery (CDN) schemes, while providing feature-rich, high-quality viewing to the largest of audiences. Leading broadcasters and direct broadcast satellite service providers around the world are relying on Octoshape to deliver their content over IP Networks to broadband connected devices.
BroadcastAsia, the region's representative and comprehensive digital and multimedia tradeshow for the pro-audio, film and TV industries is back for its 19th year.
BroadcastAsia2014 continues to serve as the area's leading platform where professionals gather to network, exchange business ideas, gather market information and source for the latest products and solutions.
Big Data, Cloud Computing, Globalization Rock the Telecom World
Excerpted from Dallas Business Journal Report by Bill Hethcock
Information and communications industry spending nationwide grew 6.6 percent in 2013, to $1.3 trillion — the fastest growth rate in years and the first time the United States has grown faster than the rest of the world.
That number is forecast to climb to $6.1 trillion by 2017, a rate of growth that Grant Seiffert, President of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), calls remarkable.
The demand for data, especially video, is fueling the telecom industry's growth, as is the proliferation of gadgets "talking" to each other, Seiffert said Wednesday at TIA's Network of the Future Conference in Dallas, TX.
"How the value chain continues to change, and the pace of that change, is incredible," he said.
Specialized services — especially cloud computing and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications — are driving the Big Data revolution, and companies are investing heavily, Seiffert said. A total of $64.7 billion was spent in 2013 in the US on these two areas alone, according TIA's Market Review & Forecast, which was released at the conference.
Against this ever-accelerating backdrop, getting products to market quickly is crucial, said Tim Harden, President of Supply Chain for Dallas-based AT&T.
A few years ago, 18 to 24 months was the norm for new product development, Harden said. Now it's 12 months and quickly moving toward a goal of six months, he said.
People have come to expect access to data anytime, anywhere — and faster, Harden said.
"You see more and more mobile devices being the connection device of choice for customers," he said.
All of that computing consumes a tremendous amount of energy.
Total power consumption of all devices in the United States consumed 39 gigawatts, which is the equivalent of seven New York Cities, said Thierry Klein, head of Green Research for Bell Labs.
That number, like most numbers in the telecom industry, is growing fast, he said.
"The question is, can we afford the future of communications," Klein said.
Globalization is rocking the telecom industry as well, said Tassu Shervani, a Professor at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
"Globalization is the most important trend in the world," Shervani said. "Technology is important, but globalization is the trend that puts technology on steroids."
The market for telecom products and services two decades ago was about 900 million people, Shervani said. Now it's about 7 billion worldwide. The world's population is expected to peak at 9.3 billion in 2053, then start to decline because of already-plunging birth rates in the United States, Europe and most of the developed world, Shervani said.
"The good news," he said, "is that we don't have to worry about overpopulation."
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The questions I've been asked most often this week are whether Netflix is justified in posting an error message instigating its customers to blame Internet service providers (ISPs) for online video stuttering and other manifestations of degraded performance or whether Verizon and other ISPs are justified in protesting these accusations — and what did you think of John Oliver's related viral HBO rant on Net Neutrality?
The short answer to both questions is that Netflix's disputes with broadband operators are actually about how external traffic connects to ISPs' networks — not Net Neutrality as currently defined.
In essence, Net Neutrality is the principle that ISPs should not block or slow down data delivery via their local broadband networks based on individual user, type of content, or particular web-based service; and this precept is limited to traffic internal to their respective operating plants.
But this week's developments also underscore points made in our May 26th Report about the importance of expanding the scope of the current Net Neutrality debate and, possibly, FCC's oversight role, to include so-called "peering arrangements" which cover ingestion of external traffic.
The Netflix online video service, which has now grown to account for more than a third of all data delivery to American homes at peak hours, began to experience deterioration in download speeds at the end of last year.
In February, Netflix entered into a peering agreement to pay Comcast interconnection fees to more directly access to Comcast Internet subscribers and in April it made a similar arrangement with Verizon.
A closer examination of these actions is necessary to understand what's really happening here and why.
The Internet is not controlled by individual ISPs, such as AT&T, Comcast, or Verizon, that connect you to their local broadband services. It's comprised of a series of interconnected networks. To transmit a video from Netflix to an end-user or to communicate via email, the digital data being transferred is packetized and traverses multiple networks before it reaches its final destination.
We've employed the metaphor of physical-world package delivery to explain aspects of this in previous reports: the final truck-roll is comparable to the so called "last mile" controlled by ISP broadband networks.
The jet flight(s), train ride(s), ship voyage(s) and/or tractor-trailer journey(s) that carry the freight from its original destination — and precede this final delivery — represent the other networks and services through which Internet data travels — also obviously impacting the ultimate shipment speed.
This metaphor can also be used to explain how the Internet overall is a shared medium.
While data packets from a Netflix video and a business email travel side-by-side, on different days and under varying circumstances, they can travel at different speeds — just as freight deliveries can be affected by flight delays, highway congestion, etc., and arrive at their destinations in different amounts of time.
While delays don't materially impact the perceived quality of text-based and static-image communications, for streaming multimedia, packet delays are very noticeable in the form of degraded performance with such anomalies as buffering and stuttering.
Various techniques have developed and services gradually brought forth to mitigate such delays and enhance quality.
Comparable to regional storage centers that shorten the trip for physical packages to reach their final destinations by warehousing quantities closer to recipients, content delivery network (CDN) providers like Akamai and Limelight store or cache popular content in servers placed on the edges of the Internet close to customers.
And comparable to large high-volume freight carriers, transit providers like Level 3 and Cogent emerged to offer backbone networks that span vast distances carrying and handing-off traffic to other providers, including ISPs, until Internet protocol (IP) packets reach their destinations.
Over time, these transit providers have added their own warehousing services as well, increasing competition in the CDN space.
These traffic hand-offs are known as interconnection or peering. In a settlement-free peering relationship, network operators simply swap equal amounts of traffic with one another without exchanging payments.
But when the balance of traffic is unequal — as in the heavily asymmetrical delivery of high-definition video as contrasted with two-way textual email communications -- the network operator delivering more traffic than it accepts in return typically pays the receiving operator. These peering arrangements generally are not publicized and not currently privy to FCC oversight.
As multimedia streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and other over-the-top (OTT) IPTV providers have proliferated and grown in popularity, ISPs have experienced enormous growth in the amount of one-way traffic coming from CDNs and transit providers.
ISPs in turn have invested in additional ports of entry for receiving and redistributing what is now increasingly and massively imbalanced traffic.
But now the larger OTT providers, like Netflix, are also investing in their own proprietary and technologically advanced CDNs, and reducing their reliance on multiple third-party transit providers. And as they connect their newly consolidated traffic to ISPs, like Verizon, instead of having this divided among say fifty providers sharing and redistributing this traffic, it's all being delivered in one place.
To use the physical-package delivery metaphor once more, it's as though an extremely high-volume freight carrier has constructed its own super high-tech airport and informed final truck-roll providers that henceforth all packages will be left for pick-up at that super-terminal, seriously exacerbating the burden on them to deliver these packages to their final destinations.
What needs to happen is that new commercial interconnection arrangements be put in place for redistributing Netflix's packets to ISP entry ports -- and the optimal method(s) and particular economics for doing so are rightfully a matter for negotiation among the parties.
For the DCIA's part, we support the optimal resolution of this dispute in the interests of all affected parties to benefit continued industry advancement.
If, for example, if the directly involved entities believe it would be beneficial to establish a temporary working group to explore technological enhancements and/or business practices to support capabilities for handling increased multimedia traffic, as in previous such instances, we will be glad to do so. Share wisely, and take care.
FCC Website Hobbled By Comment Trolls
Excerpted from Slashdot Report
In a recent segment of his new HBO show, "Last Week Tonight," comedian John Oliver delivered a commentary (video) on the current Net Neutrality debate.
He ended the segment by calling on all Internet comment trolls to take advantage of the FCC's open comments section on the topic:
"We need you to get out there and for once in your lives focus your indiscriminate rage in a useful direction," he said.
"Seize your moment, my lovely trolls, turn on caps lock, and fly my pretties! Fly! Fly! Fly!"
While the true impact of John Oliver's editorial cannot be confirmed, the FCC nevertheless tweeted shortly after it aired that its website was experiencing technical difficulties due to heavy traffic.
They accept comments via email as well at openinternet@fcc.gov.
TV Apps Are Soaring in Popularity
Excerpted from NY Times Report by Molly Wood
When it comes to online video, people may not want to cut the cord. Instead, they want to take the cord with them. People are streaming broadcast television on their smartphones in record numbers, according to Adobe's state-of-the-industry report on digital video viewing.
Online video has reached record numbers, according to the report, compiled by Adobe Digital Index, the marketing and research arm of Adobe. Mobile video viewing went up 57 percent over the same time last year, and overall online video was up 43 percent, representing more than 35 billion viewings.
Among the report's more interesting findings are that TV Everywhere — a term for authenticated viewing of broadcast shows from channels you subscribe to on your cable or satellite network — is approaching mainstream use and is growing much faster than other online video sources like YouTube, Hulu or Daily Motion.
However, Adobe's numbers do not include Netflix, which has about 48 million subscribers worldwide, so cord-cutting might not be entirely off the table.
TV Everywhere apps include the very popular HBO Go, standalone channel apps like Watch ESPN, Cartoon Network, CNBC, Syfy and similar offerings. Cable and satellite providers also offer their own branded apps, like Comcast's Xfinity TV Go, Time Warner Cable's TWC TV and Dish Anywhere. Most of these apps were announced within the last two to three years, but have been steadily getting the rights to stream more content and have seen a heavy marketing push over the past year.
Authenticated TV viewing is more palatable to content providers than services like Netflix, because it encourages people to keep their ad-rich cable subscriptions, and gives them the benefit of streaming the TV they already pay for. Critics have, in fact, charged that TV Everywhere is little less than collusion between cable companies and rights holders.
Nevertheless, as streaming television gets onto mobile devices, people appear to be gobbling it up.
TV Everywhere viewing rose 246 percent (you read that right) over last year, said Adobe, driven mainly by interest in sports programming. (To be clear, those numbers do not include streams of the Sochi Olympic Games, which an Adobe analyst said would have skewed the numbers beyond recognition.)
"Over one in five households are watching TV Everywhere content," said Tamara Gaffney, an Adobe Digital Index analyst. "That's really beyond early adopter."
Of course, the other thing that's happened to push TV Everywhere growth is that these apps are actually starting to get some channels. Ms. Gaffney said TV Everywhere offerings had increased by 30 channels in just the last six months, as networks start to lower some (not all, but some) of their resistance to digital distribution.
The most common way for people to watch TV Everywhere content was with iOS apps. In fact, Adobe said, iOS apps just passed the browser as the most popular portal to streaming TV. Browsers remained the second most popular way, and Android apps were third.
In another interesting twist, though, Adobe said viewing on game consoles and so-called OTT (over the top) devices increased by the highest percentage of any platform — 123 percent over last year. Granted, the amount of TV watched on those devices is still tiny: They have just 6 percent of the TV Everywhere streaming market, but that's up from 1 percent last year.
An Adobe Digital Index report shows that gaming consoles and other devices grew market share quickly over the last year.
Gaffney said most of that growth was in game consoles, although the category also included devices like Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast. Adobe said the numbers were too small to break out individual devices, but I'll be curious to see if they continue to grow and how much add-on gadgets contribute to the numbers, as opposed to consoles.
TV Everywhere is still significantly less than everywhere, as even the industry itself admits, and the authentication process for watching shows is legendarily annoying.
But as that improves — and cable operators extend authentication to devices like Apple TV and Roku — it may be that the best way to cut the cord is to keep the cord.
IoT Revenue to Hit $7.1 Trillion in 2020
Excerpted from eWeek Report by Nathan Eddy
A transformation is under way that will see the worldwide market for Internet of things (IoT) solutions grow from $1.9 trillion in 2013 to $7.1 trillion in 2020, according to a report from IT research firm IDC.
The worldwide IoT installed base is projected to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5 percent from 2013 to 2020.
The study updates the worldwide IoT units installed and now includes the revenue opportunity split by region.
IDC defines IoT as a network of networks of uniquely identifiable endpoints — things — that communicate without human interaction using IP connectivity, be it locally or globally.
The full breadth of the IoT ecosystem revenue is put forth in the revenue forecast, encompassing revenue from the IoT system shipments themselves as well as revenue from connectivity services, infrastructure, purpose-built IoT platforms, applications, security, analytics and professional services attributable to the base of installed IoT systems.
"The worldwide IoT market is exploding, and IDC's research examines the full breadth of the IoT ecosystem," Carrie MacGillivray, Program Vice President for Mobile Services, IoT and Network Infrastructure at IDC. "IoT solutions are at the heart of IDC's view of the 3rd Platform and the four pillars — mobility, social business, big data/analytics, and cloud — resulting in millions of applications available to billions of end points."
The research indicated that individuals at a global level are developing a high affinity for full-time connectivity, which makes consumer IoT a compelling proposition.
The report also stated that businesses appear intrigued by the efficiencies, business process implications and revenue opportunities IoT solutions can generate.
"Businesses are taking the necessary steps to gain a deeper understanding of IoT and the overall value," Vernon Turner, senior vice president of IDC's enterprise infrastructure, consumer, network, telecom and sustainability research, said in a statement. "Technology vendors are evolving their solutions in a supply-driven market that's edging toward becoming a more demand-driven market."
In an earlier report, the firm projected the technology and services revenue from IoT to expand from $4.8 trillion in 2012 to $7.3 trillion by 2017 at an 8.8 percent CAGR, with the greatest opportunity initially in the consumer, discrete manufacturing and government vertical industries.
"The vertical opportunity that arises from IoT is already in play, but only if the need for vertical expertise is recognized and offered," the report stated. "Realizing the existence of vertical opportunity is the first step to understanding the impact—and therefore market opportunity that exists — for IT vendors."
Cloud Helps 86% of Americans at Work
Excerpted from Talkin' Cloud Report by Dan Kobialka
SOASTA, which provides a web and mobile application testing solution, found 39 percent of Americans currently are using the cloud.
The company's new "Cloud Computing Survey," released this week, also revealed 86 percent of employed Americans said they believed the cloud has improved their lives at work.
SOASTA commissioned the Harris Poll to survey 2,051 adults about the prevalence of cloud computing in everyday life.
Survey results included:
The highest percentage of cloud users was in the South (44 percent), while the lowest percentage was in the Midwest (29 percent).
Millennials (people between the ages of 18 and 34) used the cloud the most (54 percent) out of any age group.
Households with children were more likely to use the cloud over households with no children (52 percent to 33 percent).
Renters were more likely to use the cloud over homeowners (42 percent to 38 percent).
Individuals who made between $75,000 and $99,000 annually were most likely to use the cloud, followed by those who made more than $100,000 a year. Those who made less than $50,000 annually were least likely to use the cloud.
Students were the most likely to use the cloud (55 percent), followed by the employed (44 percent), the unemployed (33 percent) and retired Americans (24 percent).
Respondents noted the cloud improved their lives in several ways:
Making sharing files easier (41 percent)
Peace of mind and not having to worry about backing up data (41 percent)
Accessing music from any location (37 percent)
More security (22 percent)
Making a job easier (18 percent)
Having the ability to get a cheaper smartphone without paying extra money for more memory (17 percent)
Collaborating with co-workers (14 percent)
"Our latest research shows that the cloud is increasingly recognized as a vital, everyday technology used by consumers to make their lives easier," SOASTA CEO Tom Lounibos said in a prepared statement.
The cloud services market is expected to grow over the next few years as well.
Researchers said they expected the cloud services market to expand at a 21 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in a September 2013 study from 451 Research's Market Monitor service.
16 Cloud Start-Ups That Could Be Acquired for $1+ Billion
Excerpted from Business Insider Report by Julie Bort
Cloud computing is producing a huge crop of big and successful companies. There are already 23 public cloud companies trading at more than $1 billion in market cap, tracked by Bessemer Venture Partners' BVP Cloud Index.
Bessemer has also identified another 300 successful cloud startups; among them, 16 have already hit a $1 billion valuation or on the verge of it, a concept BVP calls the "cloud unicorn." The unicorn indicates the mythical nature of crossing that $1 billion valuation milestone.
BVD predicts many of these companies could hit the $1 billion valuation through an acquisition.
The companies are:
1. AppDynamics: makes "application performance monitoring" software that helps developers find and fix problems.
2. Atlassian: makes software for collaborating on software development and other projects and is already valued at $3.3 billion, after it raised $150 million from T. Rowe Price in April.
3. Box: offers enterprise and consumer cloud storage. Box filed for a much-publicized IPO, but it hasn't priced shares or shared a valuation.
4. Cloudera: offers commercial support for a popular free and open source big data technology called Hadoop.
5. DocuSign: lets businesses securely sign, send and management electronic documents.
6. Domo: offers what's known as a "business intelligence" app that lets companies capture data in spreadsheets and other documents and use that data to create charts, graphs, reports.
7. Dropbox: offers consumer and business cloud storage.
8. Evernote: offers a note-taking app that is popular with enterprises and consumers.
9. HubSpot: offers marketing software.
10. Mobile Iron: offers mobile device security software used by enterprises. Filed for a $128 million IPO in April.
11. MuleSoft: offers a cloud service that connects clouds together so they can share data.
12. New Relic: offers an application performance monitoring service.
13. Shopify: offers e-commerce website hosting.
14. Stripe: turns a tablet or smartphone into a credit card payment machine.
15. SurveyMonkey: offers an online survey tool.
16. Twilio: offers software that lets companies add support for phone calls and text messages in their apps and websites.
10 Most Powerful IaaS Companies
Excerpted from NetworkWorld Report by Christine Burns
We assembled this list with help from analysts at Cloud Technology Partners, Current Analysis, Enterprise Strategy Group, Gartner, IDC, and Neovise who watch the public cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) scene very closely. Each was asked to name the companies they believed have the most influence -- whether that's measured in market share, mind share, revenue, existing enterprise pull or underlying technology links -- in drawing enterprise customers into the realm of public cloud infrastructure. They are listed here in alphabetical order.
1. Amazon Web Services: The gold standard
Amazon is the standard bearer in the public IaaS space, as its paid-by-the-VM Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is both the market share and mindshare leader by a fairly big gap. It's got a huge portfolio of services that run atop its Xen-based virtualized infrastructure and Amazon keeps adding to those offerings while it lowers its prices. The company has built a thriving ecosystem of partners around its public cloud, has clamored to get all the necessary security and compliance certifications and offers world-wide data center coverage.
2. Bluelock: Out of the blue
As a surprise pick as a market leader in the recently published Gartner Magic Quadrant for public cloud IaaS, this 5-year-old Indianapolis-based cloud provider has been gaining some national name recognition. The company's offering is called Bluelock Virtual Data Center, is based on VMware's vCloud, and can be used to build public, private or hybrid cloud deployments and is driven by a strong portal that includes many tools that allow customers to understand how much and which cloud-based services are costing them the most money.
3. CSC: Targeting the enterprise
CSC is a traditional IT outsourcing vendor that latched onto the cloud two years ago, invested heavily in it, and is now getting significant traction with its VCE (the joint VMware, Cisco, EMC venture) Vblock-based CloudCompute IaaS offering. CloudCompute comes in three flavors: public, multitenant hosted at a CSC site; private, single tenant in a CSC data center; and private, single tenant located at the customer's site. CSC gets points for having a common architecture across all the offerings and has outlined a clear plan for how it plans to give enterprise customers the types of management tools to which they are accustomed.
4. GoGrid: All cloud, all the time
GoGrid prides itself on being a pure-play cloud company offering both public and private Xen-based IaaS with optional managed services. This small company has had good success delivering on that story, placing among the top five public cloud IaaS vendors when you count virtual machines and factor in its very competitive price. GoGrid's effort to build a third-party ecosystem on top of its IaaS is called GoGrid Exchange, essentially a program that allows partners to sell their software products on top of GoGrid server images, thereby easing the issues customers sometime face when trying to deploy applications in the cloud themselves.
5. IBM: Leveraging the installed base
With a newfound devotion to the public cloud, IBM plans to cash in on its existing client base and support about 200 million users by the end of 2012 as clients shift core applications and processes to the company's cloud. IBM has recently made huge investments to the underpinnings of its KVM-virtualized public cloud IaaS, rebranded the service as SmartCloud Enterprise and SmartCloud+, and announcing plans to tie in more managed services and enterprise features to it this year.
6. OpenStack: No vendor lock-in
OpenStack is an open source cloud computing platform project started in the summer of 2010 by IaaS vendor Rackspace and NASA. It's got three core component projects up and running, with two more incubating and another 16 coming from the wider community. The draw of an open source platform is that if you use one (either one that you build yourself or one commercialized by an IaaS provider) your applications will not ever be locked to a proprietary vendor. At press time, the project had the backing of 159 companies and 2,685 people actively contributing to the code base.
7. Rackspace: Taking a leadership role
Rackspace went public in 2008. Since then, the company has seen a 400% growth in revenue. It beat analysts' estimates across the board in 2011. Net income was up from 2010 by 85% to $25 million and revenue grew 32% to $283.3 million. In particular, revenue for the public cloud business - driven by a Xen-virtualized service called Cloud Servers -- was up 86% from the previous year's quarter to $58.5 million. Cloud Servers has been hailed as a very easy to use server that comes with exemplary customer service and a low price. Rackspace's direct ties to the OpenStack open source cloud platform project will likely help build its ecosystem further.
8. Savvis: Full range of options
Savvis - which is owned by CenturyLink -- markets its VMware-driven public cloud IaaS called Symphony Virtual Private Data Center right alongside its private cloud offering and with the optional managed services it has already built its enterprise reputation upon. The company offers tiered levels of services, service level agreements and prices to match those levels. The company has put a huge emphasis on deep security and a unified portal across all of its services. The combination puts Savvis in the top five market share leaders in the VMware public cloud IaaS bucket.
9. Terremark: Three-pronged VMware-based approach
Terremark - which is owned by Verizon - has three feet in the public cloud IaaS space. The Enterprise Cloud (which is driven by VMware) homes in on virtual data center needs and is sold in blocks of resources as opposed to VM instances. Enterprise Cloud Managed Edition focuses on facilitating hybrid public/private clouds. With vCloud Express - which you buy by the VM - Terremark is targeting developers who need to do test out applications they are building for the cloud. Terremark's three-pronged approach has put the company pretty high up on the leaderboard.
10. VMware: Key building block
Four of the other nine companies on our list of the most powerful vendors in the public cloud IaaS space are betting on their VMware software-based infrastructures to allow them to keep playing in this growing space in enterprise computing. We've chosen to include VMware in the list based on the premise that if it sneezes, a big portion of the rest of the public cloud is going to get a cold.
Why Move to the Cloud?
Excerpted from Dyanot Report
Many small businesses are migrating to the cloud and are enjoying the perks cloud computing has to offer. For small business owners, the cloud is a great way to save money, time, and a headache. Cloud computing has essentially created a new office space online where employees can access files anywhere and collaborate at anytime, without the delay and frustration of emailing information back and forth. Below are a few awesome benefits of cloud computing for small businesses!
Reduce Costs
With cloud computing, businesses can save on the costs of purchasing and maintaining servers, having dedicated IT staff members, and upgrading software. All of those expenses are covered by the cloud provider, which saves you time, money, and a headache.
Anywhere, Anytime
Cloud computing allows many users to access files from anywhere at anytime with just about any device. Access to programs and documents are no longer limited to the hard drive of just one computer when it's on the cloud. This added convenience makes it great for workers to get the information they need quickly and efficiently.
Collaborate
The cloud allows users to work from the same document together without the frustrating process of having to email information back and forth like the good ol' days. Cloud computing allows users to upload, review, comment, and share information all in one place. Administrators have the power to control access and permission on certain users, which is another great feature to have for some businesses.
Space Efficient
Say goodbye to those memory hogging files on your computer. A big advantage of using the cloud is its capacity to store large amounts data offsite. This saves you a lot of storage on your computer from those memory hungry programs, updates, and documents.
Security
Cloud computing offers multiple layers of security that many small businesses need. Using the cloud reduces risk for users by decreasing the potential for hackers, viruses, and other cyber security threats. Since the cloud also backs up data off-site, if your computer or mobile device were to get lost, break, or fail in some way, your data would be secure because it is saved remotely in the cloud and can be recovered at any time.
Cloud Business Impact: Savings, Speed, or Something More?
Excerpted from diginomica Report by Phil Wainewright
One of my favorite examples of the business impact of cloud computing is the example of video rental chain Blockbuster. I'm sure the IT people at Blockbuster had a plan to move their IT systems to the cloud. Meanwhile, Netflix replaced their entire business model in the cloud, leaving Blockbuster sinking.
The moral of this story is that cloud can mean many things to many people. For most enterprises, the business impact is some kind of improvement over their existing systems. But for some, their entire world is turned upside-down.
This means it's important to know what type of impact cloud will have in your own industry. Incremental improvements (what the guru of disruptive innovation Clayton Christensen calls sustaining innovation) are often valuable. But they won't help you if competitors are sweeping through your core market with a groundbreaking new business model.
At diginomica, we like to document user stories where digital technologies such as cloud computing have made a big impact. Therefore, as we did last year, we are a sponsor of the EuroCloud UK award for Best Business Impact from adopting cloud services.
Based on the many use case stories that we've covered here on diginomica over the past year, what should we expect as award-winning examples of business impact?
Probably the winner will not be a story on the scale of Netflix, even though there are plenty of European and UK examples of startups and indeed some established businesses that have used the cloud to create entirely new markets. Online betting pioneer Betfair is one example. But I suspect such companies are more likely to be found in the startup awards categories.
The contenders for best business impact are far more likely to be examples of sustaining innovation. This is mainly because there are far more of them at large. It's also because it's just easier to measure business impact when there's a prior state you can compare against. Most people can relate these stories to their own experience and situation more readily than the truly innovative.
When looking at improvements to existing businesses, the types of business impact that we see from cloud adoption fall under four main headings.
Cost saving. In cases where cloud computing replaces aging legacy applications or infrastructure, significant like-for-like cost savings are possible. But few adopters go cloud purely to save money. Instead, they end up redistributing the money saved on additional functionality.
Fresher functionality. The big win with cloud-native, multi-tenant applications is the frequent refresh cycle, which brings automatic updates of new functionality at least twice a year without any of the pain of a traditional on-premises upgrade. Even the initial implementation is typically measured in weeks and days rather than months and years, but the real impact is that this gift keeps on giving with every subsequent refresh. Businesses can plan for the future safe in the knowledge that their systems will keep pace with their future needs.
Going mobile/global. Cloud computing typically comes with a built-in global infrastructure and applications often include support for the most popular mobile device platforms. Businesses can immediately roll out the same application internationally or implement a mobile strategy, with significant business impact. Less relevant to day-to-day business processes but just as valuable, a robust availability and disaster recovery capability also comes built in.
Business network enablement. Real-time connectivity is becoming an increasingly important business attribute in the modern world. A useful side-effect of being cloud-native is that cloud applications come with ready connectivity built in. This enables the enterprise to plug in to business opportunities and processes that are typically beyond the reach of an individual company's technology and contacts. This is a less obvious benefit of using cloud services than some of the others already mentioned, but may be one of the most important in terms of business impact.
Will the EuroCloud UK award finalists highlight these benefits or others? Last year's winner had an interesting story about using cloud technology to track down corporate fraudsters. Another finalist used a portfolio of cloud services to run its business and cut its operating costs 15 percent by moving out of office premises.
Unlike the other EuroCloud awards, which are for industry participants, this is open to end user organizations — vendors cannot enter (even on behalf of their customers). The closing date for entries is midnight on 12th June and the finalists will be announced in July, with the UK winner going on to compete for the European award in October. Further details on the EuroCloud UK website.
Cloud More Secure Than Ever, but Transparency Needed
Excerpted from ARN Report by Patrick Budmar
The public cloud is more secure than ever before, although Verizon admits there is still more work to be done.
Cyber Security Vice President, Eddie Schwartz, recommends businesses stay vigilant when considering cloud solutions as "mileage may vary".
"The reality is most security in the cloud is not transparent to organizations," he said.
If a business asks about security in the cloud, Schwartz said they will be typically presented with a list of certifications that the organization has, or documentation demonstrating where a provider may stand relative to security regulatory frameworks.
Instead of merely talking about security, Schwartz said transparency is important for demonstrating security in the cloud.
"In terms of providing this transparency and cloud providers offering the ability for customers to be able to control the outcome, the public cloud still has a long way to go," he said.
Another challenge Schwartz sees with the cloud is data sovereignty and the concerns expressed by each jurisdiction.
This includes proving the data is in fact compliant with the requirements of each country when it comes to protecting it.
"Businesses have to show that they're able to protect the data in line with their security policies and risk management objectives," he said.
Currently, Schwartz has found most cloud providers today are unable to provide the required level of transparency.
Security and the Cloud: Perfect Match
Excerpted from SlashdotMedia Report
Why are security and the cloud a perfectly matched pair for your business?
Independently, they have lots of benefits. Security protects your key devices, like PCs, and mobile devices, from cyber-thieves' malware, viruses and other nasty threats that can compromise, or even destroy, your business' critical information.
Cloud technology, on the other hand, might seem complicated but it's really a simple way to use sophisticated software, like security technology, without the day-to-day hassles of software updates, hardware maintenance, and other expensive and time-consuming tasks.
But both are better together - especially for small and medium businesses who want to protect their key information, but don't have a full-time IT shop to support the infrastructure.
Cloud at its Best: Multi-Tenant Database Architecture
Excerpted from CloudTweaks Report by Syed Raza
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) denotes a novel and innovative paradigm, and the fact that companies do not have to purchase and maintain their own Information Technology (ICT) infrastructure; instead services from third party are acquired. Multi-tenancy permits SaaS providers to provide similar service to various customers (tenants), which share physical and/or virtual resources transparently.
Multi-tenancy database architecture essentially forms a design in which a single instance of the software is run on the service provider's infrastructure, and multiple tenants access the same instance. Simply put "a multi-tenant application lets customers (tenants) share the same hardware resources, by offering them one shared application and database instance, while allowing them to configure the application to fit their needs as if it runs on a dedicated environment."
One of the most conspicuous features of multi-tenant architecture is that allows for consolidating multiple businesses onto the same operational platform or system. Multi-tenancy invariably takes place at the database layer of a service. As an analogy, think of a rental apartment building with numerous tenants, each having its own requirement of storage, space, and utilities.
Easier application deployment for service providers, improved rate of hardware utilization, and reduction in overall costs especially for small-to-midsize enterprises (SMEs) are core benefits of multi-tenant model.
Multi-tenancy was in fact pioneered by salesforce.com. In traditional single-tenant software development, tenants usually have their own virtual server. This set-up is similar to the traditional Application Service Provider (ASP) model. However, in the SME segment, for instance, server utilization in such a model is low. By placing several tenants on the same server, the server utilization can be improved.
There are three different kinds of multi-tenant models that exist in database applications today are as follows:
1. Separate application, separate database, and infrastructure (Isolated Tenancy)
2. Separate application, separate database, shared infrastructure (Infrastructure Tenancy)
3. Shared application separate database, shared infrastructure (Application Tenancy)
Shared application, shared database, shared infrastructure (Shared Tenancy) is perhaps the 'purest' form of Multi-tenancy environment. The above figure illustrates various Multi-tenant approaches as a continuum paradigm. The far left (Isolated Tenancy) depicts each tenant with its own application instance running and as we move further towards the right, sharing of tenancy increases, ultimately reaching the far right side (Shared Tenancy).
From the functionality point of view, the multi-tenant system have limited modifications to the software, because multiple customers are running the same instance of the software and their data is being placed in a pre-configured database format. Multi-tenant SaaS providers generally do a very good job of anticipating the needs of current and prospective customers and the standardized functionality that is often needed by a company.
Due to the low number of instances, multi-tenancy sounds like a maintenance dream. Deployment of software updates becomes much easier and cheaper, due to the fact that a much smaller number of instances has to be updated. However, the complexity of the code does increase, that may possibly lead to maintenance issues. As cloud computing technology continues to grow and mature, further research related to reviewing real world cloud implementations, challenges, benefits, and lessons learned will benefit organizations that are currently considering or planning a SaaS based implementation.
Adoption of Software-Defined Networks Is Growing
Excerpted from Baseline Report by Dennis McCafferty
The adoption of software-defined networks (SDNs) is growing rapidly in enterprises, according to a recent survey from Network Instruments.
The accompanying report, the "Seventh Annual State of the Network Global Study," covers a wide range of IT topics, including the elevated profile of unified communications (UC) and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives, but SDN is growing at a strong pace for a relatively new technology.
Surprisingly, there's no standard definition to describe SDN. More than one-third of the survey participants described it as the automated provisioning of network resources, while another quarter said it's the replacing of tools for network traffic optimization and acceleration with software.
However, 37 percent of respondents said SDN is "undefined, like a trip without a map."
Clearly, SDN remains a work in progress. "As with any emerging technology, IT management is grappling over the definition of SDN, as well as its benefits and importance to the organization," says Brad Reinboldt, Manager of Product Marketing for Network Instruments. More than 240 network engineers and senior-level IT managers took part in the research.
New FedRAMP Security Controls Issued
Excerpted from NextGov Report
One day after the deadline for cloud service providers to assess their offerings against the government's baseline cloud security standards, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, known as FedRAMP, released new security controls and templates for agencies and CSPs to follow as they navigate the initiative's updated requirements.
Friday's updates reflect changes to the National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication (SP) 800-53 security control baseline that went into effect last year and represent the "largest release of information" from the FedRAMP program management office since the initiative's inception two years ago, according to program manager Matt Goodrich.
"From two years ago when we first launched and questions about whether FedRAMP would even work, I think we've made significant progress," said Goodrich, speaking at the Akamai Government Forum Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Indeed, 16 FedRAMP-compliant offerings now exist as options in government, with at least "25 more in the process," Goodrich said, and those 16 compliant offerings are now deployed in approximately 160 instances across federal agencies. FedRAMP isn't just beefing up cloud security in government, its "do once, use many" approach to cloud security assessments has also directly led to significant savings.
Prior to FedRAMP, each deployment would have required a full assessment, which Goodrich estimated would cost at least $250,000 and possibly more.
"Our estimate for any authorization is $250,000 — that's over $40 million in cost avoidance for those 16 authorizations," said Goodrich, noting that his estimates were backed by Federal Information Security Management Act reporting information.
The General Services Administration, responsible for overseeing the FedRAMP initiative, released guidance in April to help agencies and CSPs adhere to FedRAMP's modified standards. The guidance provides specific direction to CSPs at varying stages of FedRAMP accreditation. The plan differs depending how far along CSPs are in the process, but the end goal is for all CSPs to meet the second generation of FedRAMP standards in 2015.
While the June 5 deadline caused a stir of activity among CSPs that want to either enter the federal market or expand their government footprint, much work remains to be done. FedRAMP-compliant cloud deployments likely comprise only a small percentage of actual cloud deployments across government — one CSP executive suggested the difference might be 40-fold — yet two things are likely to continue driving change.
The first is government oversight with teeth. Whether inspectors general and the Government Accountability Office come down hard publicly on agencies that continue to use noncompliant cloud deployments will certainly play a role in governmentwide adoption of FedRAMP. Agencies that want to use noncompliant cloud deployment must justify that decision to the Office of Management and Budget in PortfolioStat reporting. No tech company wants media headlines that cast its solution in an unfavorable light, either.
The second factor driving change is at the procurement level. Speaking on the panel Thursday, Autonomic Resources CEO and President John Keese said some agencies are stipulating FedRAMP-accredited solutions into request for proposal documentation.
"You're seeing RFPs requiring FedRAMP compliance," Keese said.
In those cases, solutions that aren't at least in the pipeline for FedRAMP can't even compete for a contract. With federal investment in cloud computing increasing significantly year by year, that kind of financial motivation is perhaps the biggest key to driving companies through FedRAMP.
Coming Events of Interest
2014 Akamai Government Forum — June 5th in Washington, DC. The 2014 Akamai Government Forum will present a new path forward for the future of cloud-based solutions and cybersecurity in federal government. The event will be produced by Government Executive Media Group, the government and defense division of Atlantic Media.
Enterprise Apps World — June 17th-18th in London, England. EAW is a two day show, co-hosted with Cloud World Forum, that will look at all the implications of going mobile in the workplace and how enterprise apps can help.
Silicon Valley Innovation Summit — July 29th-30th in Mountain View, CA.AlwaysOn's 12th annual SVIS is a two-day executive gathering that highlights the significant economic, political, and commercial trends affecting the global technology industries. SVIS features the most innovative companies, eminent technologists, influential investors, and journalists in keynote presentations, panel debates, and private company CEO showcases.
International Conference on Internet and Distributed Computing Systems — September 22nd in Calabria, Italy. IDCS 2014 conference is the sixth in its series to promote research in diverse fields related to Internet and distributed computing systems. The emergence of web as a ubiquitous platform for innovations has laid the foundation for the rapid growth of the Internet.
CLOUD DEVELOPERS SUMMIT & EXPO 2014 — October 1st-2nd in Austin, TX. CDSE:2014 will feature co-located instructional workshops and conference sessions on six tracks facilitated by more than one-hundred industry leading speakers and world-class technical trainers.
International Conference on Cloud Computing Research & Innovation - October 29th-30th in Singapore. ICCRI:2014 covers a wide range of research interests and innovative applications in cloud computing and related topics. The unique mix of R&D, end-user, and industry audience members promises interesting discussion, networking, and business opportunities in translational research & development.
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