Volume LIV, Issue 9

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In This Issue

Verizon Report: Cloud Drives Business Transformation

Excerpted from MarketWatch Press Announcement

Sixty-nine percent of enterprises say cloud computing has enabled them to re-engineer one or more of their business processes, according to the 2016 State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud Report from Verizon Enterprise Solutions.

In addition, enterprises report moving mission-critical workloads to the cloud improves business operations — 88 percent say it improves responsiveness to business needs, 65 percent say it improves overall operations.

To read the complete announcement, Cloud is Changing How Business Gets Done — Verizon 2016 State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud Report, visit Verizon Enterprise Solutions’ News & Insights.

Verizon’s third annual report provides original data and analysis of cloud usage within the enterprise, and its impact on the IT organization and business at large.

It is the only report combining internal data from one of the industry’s most experienced cloud services providers with data and insight from third-party analyst and research firms.

It presents both a snapshot of current cloud trends, along with analysis and predictions on the future of cloud in the enterprise. Verizon’s 2016 State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud report is available for download here… Read More

Cloud Adoption Reaching 100% – Hybrid Now Mainstream

Excerpted from FirstPost Business Report

Cloud adoption is reaching 100 percent, which means almost all companies are using cloud, not that all organizations are using cloud for everything, according to Verizon Enterprise Solutions’ 2016 State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud Report.

In last year’s report, Verizon found that cloud spending had grown 38 percent year-on-year.

That phenomenal growth continues, with 84 percent of companies saying that their use of cloud has grown in the last year.

Verizon’s customer survey found that around half of companies will be using cloud for at least 75 percent of their workloads by 2018.

Only 6 percent of respondents said they think their company will have less than 25 percent of workloads in the cloud by 2018.

“In just a couple of years, we believe that significantly over half of all workloads — across companies of all kinds — will be running in the cloud,” the survey added.

One of the biggest changes seen in the cloud market is a dramatic fall in the barriers to entry of private cloud… Read More

Competitive Edge Becomes Greater Challenge

Excerpted from Wall Street Journal Report by Angus Loten

With cloud adoption now the enterprise norm, companies need to build new business models to derive a competitive advantage from their cloud investments, according to a report by Verizon Communications.

The competitive edge found in simply hosting apps in a cloud service is blunting, according to the report, which found that most companies are now using the cloud in one form or another.

Eighty-four percent of Verizon’s enterprise-level cloud customers said their use of the cloud increased in the past year.

Roughly half of the companies surveyed said at least 75% of their workloads will be in the cloud by 2018.

Only 16% said that simply being in the cloud gives their company a significant advantage over competitors, down from 30% a year ago.

The cloud “still has a major role to play in delivering competitive advantage, but using cloud is now just table stakes,” the report said.

Put another way: It’s not just the technology, it’s what you do with it… Read More

Report from DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty

Click Here for Video.

The DCIA is pleased to announce a new partnership with the we.CONECT Group.

Based in Europe, We.CONECT has quickly emerged as a leading company in private sector information, business-to-business (B2B) digital media, and trade events.

Its customers range from global market leaders to medium-sized enterprises to rising-star new players in Europe, Asia, and the USA.

We.CONECT believes in content and knowledge: the heart of its business is high-quality, practice-oriented, timely, relevant, and forward-looking information.

Its core mission is to make its customers more effective and successful in their daily work.

We.CONECT itself was selected in 2014 as the best start-up in Berlin, Germany; and in 2015 as one of the 10 best employers in Berlin.

Its total focus now is on bringing buyers and sellers together to find the most promising business opportunities in new markets with new partners.

Our partnership with we.CONECT will focus on four events in 2016: Industry of Things World USA, Delivery of Things World, Security of Things World, and Industry of Things World Europe.

The first of these, Industry of Things World USA, is a new international knowledge exchange platform bringing together all stakeholders playing an active role in the industrial Internet of Things (IoT).

Over two days, attendees will experience inspirational keynotes and well-moderated, interactive discussions, as well as workshops, briefings, and networking activities.

A special feature will be four concurrent tracks covering topics related to business model generation, technology and infrastructure, data management, and security.

Industry of Things World USA will take place on February 25th and 26th at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego, CA.

Join the conversation at IoT World USA to gain a deeper business and technical understanding of the industrial Internet landscape.

Share wisely, and take care.

Boardroom Becoming Key Driver of Cloud Adoption

Excerpted from CloudTech Report by James Bourne

Three in five (61%) cloud migration projects are driven by business leaders, according to the latest research from Rackspace and Vanson Bourne.

The study, which polled 250 IT decision makers and 250 business leaders during October, showed plenty of boardroom-centric concerns topping the list for driving cloud adoption.

The most popular motivation for migrating to the cloud was reducing IT cost (61%), followed by increased organizational resilience (50%), improved security (38%), and increased agility (38%).

Yet the research also argues a disparity between the boardroom and the server room.

Only a third (33%) of IT decision makers polled said they are highly experienced with cloud-based infrastructure, with more than half admitting they looked to a third party for support.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but Rackspace naturally argues specialist support is key to freeing up employee backlog.

With support, businesses were more able to focus on streamlining operations (49%) and making sure operational models fit (48%)… Read More

Cloud Computing Should Transform, Not Just Replace

Excerpted from Forbes Report by Joe McKendrick

Is the goal of cloud computing to deliver transformative effects to the business, or is it okay to merely replace an existing system, application, or process?

That’s one of the questions taken up at the recent Cloud Business Summit, held in New York, NY and hosted by Saugatuck Technology, a division of ISG.

In a compelling panel discussion, financial and IT leaders debated the impact of cloud computing on corporate financial systems and processes.

The consensus is that finance is an area that is not in sync with technology developments in businesses. It’s not that financial executives are lagging in cloud adoption — it’s just that they have a different view of it.

“After years of cloud denial, we’re now seeing more CIOs and their direct reports bringing cloud into the enterprise,” said Saugatuck’s Bruce Guptill, who moderated the panel discussion.

“There are thousands and thousands of case studies and examples how we can improve our value to our organizations.”

“It’s not replacing us, it’s a new set of tools and a new set of lenses creating more opportunity… Read More

Cloud Computing and Network Security Challenges

Excerpted from Network World Report by Jon Oltsik

A majority of enterprise organizations are embracing cloud computing in one form or another.

According to ESG research, 67% of enterprises use public or private cloud infrastructure today, while 66% use one or several software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.

Wireless network engineers, network admins, and network security pros can expect above-average pay.

So what about network security?

It’s a bit of a struggle today as many organizations move to cloud computing long before they have the right infosec skills, processes, or tools in place.

As proof of this deficit, ESG asked 145 cybersecurity professionals working at enterprise organizations (i.e., more than 1,000 employees) whether they agreed or disagreed with a number of statements about cloud computing security.

Here are the results. 60% of cybersecurity professionals strongly agree or agree with these statements:

My organization’s current network security operations and processes lacks the right level of orchestration and automation needed… Read More

Three Emerging Cyber Threats to Watch in 2016

Excerpted from Think Advisor Report by Melanie Waddell

The cybersecurity landscape is “worsening,” and 2016 “will be a tougher year” in terms of fighting breaches, Matthew Chung, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Information Officer of Technology and Risk Information, said Tuesday.

Speaking on a panel at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s annual conference in Washington, DC, Chung said that the “complexity” along with the cost of keeping up with cybersecurity is an ongoing challenge.

Financial services, energy and healthcare, and the defense sectors are “top targets” for cybersecurity criminals, Chung noted.

He cited three worrisome “emerging threats” that “will start to cause an impression in 2016.”

First, an “increase” in ransomware, which infects a system and causes a firm to lose access to its data unless the users pay a ransom, often in bitcoin.

He noted that the group DD4BC — which stands for Distributed Denial of Service for Bitcoin — has been targeting financial services firms since mid-2014 with threats of locking-up systems unless they are paid a bitcoin ransom.

The second threat is from “malicious insiders,” Chung said, which is someone within a firm with “valid credentials” that’s looking to do harm… Read More

Trump Pledges Zero Tolerance for Chinese Hackers

Excerpted from The Hill Report by Cory Bennett

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is vowing to enforce a “zero tolerance policy” for China’s digital theft of US corporate secrets if elected.

He made the pledge as part of a policy paper on US-China trade released Tuesday.

“China’s government ignores this rampant cyber-crime and, in other cases, actively encourages or even sponsors it — without any real consequences,” the paper says.

“China’s cyber-lawlessness threatens our prosperity, privacy, and national security.”

The paper is one of the first major forays into cybersecurity for Trump, who has been leading most national polls for the Republican presidential nomination in recent months.

Trump’s insistence that he will take a strong stand against China economically has helped the business mogul and reality TV star in his surge to the top of the polls.

Security experts and the White House have accused China of waging a cyber campaign to pilfer corporate secrets from American companies… Read More

Spotlight on DRM as Full TPP Text Revealed

Excerpted from CNET Report by Claire Reilly

After years of secret closed-door negotiations, the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has finally been revealed, shedding light on how the technology world will change under the massive trade deal.

The TPP has met with protest across the Pacific Rim, from Japan to the US.

It has the potential to change your digital rights and bring in new criminal penalties for piracy, all while opening up foreign trade and changing the way Pacific countries do business overseas.

Now, after years of negotiations, the TPP is finally seeing the light of day.

Since negotiations on the TPP began more than five years ago, talks have been conducted out of public view and details on the complex trade agreement have stayed under wraps, with the only public information coming from documents leaked by Wikileaks.

All 30 chapters of the TPP were officially published by New Zealand on Friday, outlining the complex details of the deal and ruining the weekend plans of journalists and trade lawyers around the world.

Negotiated among 12 countries – including Australia, the United States, Singapore, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile… Read More

Fog Computing Will Trend Upwards with IoT Innovation

Excerpted from CloudWedge Report

We often hear a lot about cloud computing in the tech world, but fog computing is also a real trend that is starting to take hold.

So what exactly is fog computing?

Think about the way cloud computing has abstracted computing resources such as compute, storage, and bandwidth.

Fog computing exists on the outer edges of the cloud and its main purpose is to interact with Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

When you explain fog computing as existing on the outer edges of the cloud, it’s important to realize that fog computing is part of the cloud itself; just a more streamlined version of a cloud resource that specifically exists to rapidly interact with other devices in the cloud.

Think about the inevitable cloud connected, driverless cars of the future.

How will those cars communicate with each other?

Does it make sense to risk car-to-car communications by sending data across the cloud and having latency impact the communication… Read More

Amazon Out Front in the Race for the Internet Cloud

Excerpted from Industry Week Report

Amazon is widely known as an online retail colossus, but is also thriving when it comes to sending business aloft in the Internet cloud.

Internet industry giants have long been plowing cash into massive data centers and green energy sources to power cloud computing that essentially lets them use massive computing power to provide data and services to Internet-linked devices.

While titans including Apple, Google, and Facebook have resources and reasons to build their own data centers, it is more common for companies to spare themselves the cost and trouble by “renting” server space from cloud computing operations such as Amazon Web Services.

Ranks of cloud computing rivals range from specialty firms such as Rackspace to century-old technology veteran IBM, which is working to differentiate its offering by mixing in the smarts of its Jeopardy-game-winning Watson artificial intelligence.

“There is a huge race now to dominate what is called the public cloud,” said Forrester analyst Dave Bartoletti.

“It is these giant data centers where any company can run applications and just rent infrastructure… Read More

Introducing the NetApp Data Protection Assessment Tool

Excerpted from NetApp Community Blog by Marie Burke

In today’s world even a small amount of data loss or an outage can result in millions of dollars in lost revenue and potentially mark the beginning of the end for a business.

In fact, according to the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, DC, 93 percent of companies that lost their data for 10 days or more filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster, and 50 percent filed for bankruptcy immediately.

No wonder data protection has become such a hot topic.

Traditional approaches are often too slow, too expensive, too risky, or too complex.

Yet many who want to transform their data backup and disaster recovery strategy are not sure where to begin.

With Data Fabric as the backdrop for NetApp’s vision of data protection, you can augment your existing architecture to help keep your critical information protected.

NetApp Data Protection Solutions can help you find the right balance of cost versus time based on data criticality… Read More

Akamai Debuts Cloud Networking Service for Remote Offices

Excerpted from Talkin’ Cloud Report by Michael Cusanelli

Akamai Technologies is looking to help customers solve weaknesses in their wide area network (WAN) architectures with the release of Akamai Cloud Networking, an integrated system of services designed to protect applications and eliminate network downtime.

The Akamai Cloud Networking service is a globally available system created to strengthen the reliability of enterprise solutions like software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud-based applications.

The system is necessary to meet the increasing connectivity demands created by the use of direct Internet access (DIA) breakouts and hybrid WANs among enterprise users, according to the company.

The service was designed for Akamai’s network of communication service providers, network service providers, and branch infrastructure vendors, and offers a modular approach to complement customers’ existing WAN offering, according to the announcement.

By creating an offering that is easy to institute into customers’ current network setup, Akamai hopes to increase the prevalence of hybrid network architectures and drive network transformation among remote office users… Read More

T-Mobile Video Plan Could Test FCC’s New Net Neutrality Rules

Excerpted from NY Times Report by Cecilia Kang

A new plan from T-Mobile USA to allow unlimited streaming of some video services may become the first test of the federal government’s rules to prevent favoritism on the Internet.

On Tuesday, T-Mobile, the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier, said customers could stream as many videos as they want — regardless of their data plan limits — from more than two dozen video providers, including Hulu and Netflix.

Many customers cheered the announcement. But supporters of new net neutrality rules, which are meant to prevent one content provider from getting preferential treatment over another, quickly warned that the plan could set a dangerous precedent. They urged the Federal Communications Commission, which passed the rules this year after acrimonious debate, to consider taking up the issue.

“Net neutrality doesn’t allow Internet service providers to pick winners and losers, and if we look at T-Mobile’s plan as it is now, it will clearly distort the market for video streaming,” Barbara van Schewick, a law professor at Stanford University and a proponent of the new rules, said on Wednesday.

The rules are expected to face fierce opposition in the courts. But T-Mobile may offer the first real look at how the FCC plans to enforce them… Read More

Why Microsoft vs. US Govt Is a Huge Deal for Cloud Computing

Excerpted from by Computerworld Report by James Henderson

Microsoft’s insistence on safeguarding information from its data center in Ireland, and its subsequent refusal to bow to the pressures of the US Government, stand to have major ramifications for the cloud industry as whole.

For those in the dark, the tech giant is at war with the powers that be in Washington, DC following its refusal to hand over emails related to a narcotics case from a Hotmail account hosted in Ireland.

In a lawsuit that is reverberating throughout cloud computing, the ‘Microsoft Ireland’ case – as it’s now become known – appears set to impact cloud providers and multinational companies from New Zealand to Norway in a landmark case in Europe.

In September this year, the Second Circuit Court heard arguments in Microsoft’s case challenging a US search warrant, with Redmond arguing the warrant puts US citizens’ privacy at risk, improperly expands extraterritorial authority, and circumvents local authorities in Ireland.

Following the second round of court battles and appeals, a decision is expected sometime in November with Redmond carrying the hopes of the technology industry as it bids to stand up for privacy rights across the world… Read More

Coming Events of Interest

2015 US Cyber Crime Conference — November 14th-20th in National Harbor, MD. This is the only event of its kind that provides both hands-on digital forensics training and an interactive forum for cyber professionals to network.

Cloud Asia Forum — November 24th-25th in Hong Kong. Now in its sixth year, this major highlight of the Cloud World Series sponsored by Informa Telecoms & Media is the most comprehensive cloud computing event in Asia.

Government Video Expo — December 1st-3rd in Washington, DC. Sponsored by NewBay Media, GVE 2015 will be the East Coast’s largest technology event designed for video, broadcast, and audio-video professionals.

Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) — December 6th-8th in Dubai. IoTWF is an exclusive event that brings together the best and brightest thinkers, practitioners, and innovators from business, government, and academia to accelerate the market adoption of the Internet of Things.

CES — January 6th-9th in Las Vegas, NV. The world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. CES has served as the proving ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies for more than 40 years.

ADRM Working Group Meeting — January 28th via Global Videoconference. Contact the DCIA for information about joining the group and attending the meeting that will focus on interoperability among DRM platforms and simplifying DRM implementation.

Industry of Things World USA — February 25th-26th in San Diego, CA. A new international information exchange forum featuring four concurrent tracks covering business model generation, technology and infrastructure, data management, and security.

Delivery of Things World — April 25th-26th in Berlin, Germany. DevOps specialists, continuous development strategists, architect newbies, development geeks, and cloud geniuses from across the spectrum of DevOps transformation come together at this stimulating and innovative event.

Cloud and DevOps World Forum 2016 — June 21st-22nd in London, England. Now in its eighth year, C&DWF is firmly established as the leading content-led exhibition for the European Cloud and DevOps community and the premiere meeting place for CIOs.

Security of Things World — June 27th-28th in Berlin, Germany. Topics include securing cyber physical systems for IoT, expanding IT security with intelligence-led ops, business continuity management considerations, data privacy in an interconnected world, and security strategies.

Industry of Things World Europe — September 19th-20th in Berlin, Germany. IoT business models, new IoT markets and strategies, product lifecycle management, next generation data handling and value assessment, IoT organizational impacts, and IoT security issues.

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