Volume LVII, Issue 9

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In This Issue

Bills Strengthen US-Israel Cybersecurity Partnership

Excerpted from FedScoop Report by Chris Bing

Congressmen Jim Langevin (D-RI) and John Ratcliffe R-TX) introduced two bills Thursday to strengthen joint cybersecurity research and development efforts between the US and Israel.

“The United States and Israel are the two top exporters of cybersecurity technologies,” said Langevin.

“Our bills will leverage the reservoirs of expertise in both nations to advance the frontiers of cyber-science.”

The bills seek to formalize a grant-funding program for early-stage cyber-innovation and to expand an ongoing R&D program jointly conducted by the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency and Israeli Ministry of Public Security.

“Our recent discussions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed just how important it is that we unite forces to formulate ongoing, effective strategies to best address the rapidly evolving cyber threats faced by both of our nations.”

“After all, cybersecurity is national security,” Ratcliffe.

Introduction of the bills comes two months after a Congressional delegation traveled to Israel to meet with government officials regarding joint cybersecurity operations… Read More

Cloud Will Impact $1 Trillion IT Spending

Excerpted from BCN Report by Jamie Davies

Analyst firm Gartner has predicted more than $1 trillion in IT spending will be directly or indirectly impacted by the transition to cloud computing by 2020.

As IT spend steadily shifts from traditional IT offerings through to the cloud, a process which the Gartner team has coined the “cloud shift,” the rate in which enterprise organizations transition through to cloud is expected to gradually increase year-on-year.

The aggregate amount of cloud shift in 2016 is estimated to reach $111 billion, though this will increase to $216 billion in 2020.

The Gartner team believe cloud computing will be one of the most disruptive forces of IT spending since the early days of the digital age.

“Cloud-first strategies are the foundation for staying relevant in a fast-paced world,” said Ed Anderson, Research VP at Gartner.

“The market for cloud services has grown to such an extent that it is now a notable percentage of total IT spending… Read More

NetApp Boosts Engagement with Adobe

Excerpted from Email Marketing Daily Report by Jess Nelson

NetApp, a data management and cloud storage solution, boosted website engagement and conversions after partnering with the Adobe Marketing Cloud for insight-driven multichannel marketing.

NetApp increased click-through rates by 170% and conversion rates by 13% by collecting data on customer accounts with the Adobe Marketing Cloud and identifying specific segments for targeted marketing outreach.

Segmenting email marketing outreach by customer activity is a surefire way to boost email engagement.

Segmented campaigns increase email opens by more than 14% and clicks by almost 64% when compared to non-segmented campaigns, according to a study of more than 2,000 MailChimp users.

Zann Aeck, Director of Digital Experience at NetApp, discussed how Adobe’s analytical services help her better identify customer segments and discussed the differences between marketing in the B2B and B2C space in an interview with Email Marketing Daily.

“Targeting in a B2B space is absolutely different than a B2C space,” says Aeck… Read More

Report from DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty

Click Here for Video.

We’re pleased to announce the first new agreement of the DCIA’s fourteenth year, a co-sponsorship with the weCONECT Group for the new Rethink! Cloudonomic Minds.

Cloudonomic Minds is a two day event for Internet of Things (IoT) experts, Chief Information Officers (CIOs), cloud computing managers, enterprise architects, and information technology (IT) executives, taking place November 21st and 22nd in London, England.

Attendees will discover how IoT is impacting cloud strategies and how to take advantage of these two key technology trends.

Over 150 cloud and IoT experts will discuss and define the future of IT and the new ways that business is being conducted in this space.

Be part of our exclusive platform that explores the business models, case studies, action items, and paths to profitability – as well as identifies missing gaps that may hold promising new opportunities.

The Rethink! Cloudonomic Minds agenda, developed by and for industry leaders, focuses on the impact that IoT technologies and smart devices have on the cloud.

Some of the key topics will be: IoT and its relationship to cloud computing; smart, connected devices in the cloud; IT strategy, innovation, and industry 4.0; cloud technologies and agile infrastructure; cloud selection criteria; cloud implementation troubleshooting; IoT, big data and analytics; security and compliance; containers and micro-services; and virtualization, infrastructure, and storage.

Set in the heart of one of the world’s busiest commercial centers, Hilton London Canary Wharf places you within easy reach of London’s major tourist attractions and shopping districts via the excellent transport links right on its doorstep.

Inside the hotel, you’ll find stylish rooms and suites, fantastic dining, and first-class business and recreation facilities – everything you need for a productive stay in London.

We look forward to welcoming you in London! Share wisely, and take care.

Verizon Offers Virtual CPE Services

Excerpted from FierceTelecom Report by Sean Buckley

Verizon plans to deliver virtual customer premises equipment (CPE) services to over 30 global markets by the end of the year, allowing business customers to take advantage of software-based services that reside in the telco’s cloud network.

Set to go live this fall, Verizon’s virtual CPE service is a network cloud-based model where the functions are deployed on the same platform for its own SDN-based wired and wireless networks.

“This deployment of the network cloud-based solution will happen in over 30 global markets by the end of this year,” said Victoria Lonker, Director of Product and New Business for Verizon, in an interview with FierceTelecom.

“We believe our offer is unique because it’s fully managed as a service from the device to the application and we have a broad and growing list of vendor functions to choose from.”

Customers that purchase the virtual option can opt to get application routing, depending on their specific needs.

“The customer is not locked into a specific hardware platform that forces them into a custom box,” Lonker said.

Verizon’s cloud-based virtual CPE service is part of its broader Virtual Network Service plan… Read More

NFV Market Worth $15+ Billion by 2020

Excerpted from TelecomTV Insights Report

The global network functions virtualization (NFV) market, which includes NFV hardware, software and services, will be worth $15.5 billion by 2020, according to the latest NFV Hardware, Software, and Services Annual Market Report from IHS Markit, a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.

“Between 2015 and 2020, the service provider NFV market will grow at a robust compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42 percent – from $2.7 billion in 2015 to $15.5 billion in 2020,” said Michael Howard, Senior Research Director, Carrier Networks, at IHS Markit.

NFV represents the shift in the telecom industry from a hardware focus to a software focus, with operators making much larger investments in software than in server, storage and switch hardware. “NFV software will comprise 80 percent of the $15.5 billion total in 2020 – or around $4 out of every $5 spent on NFV,” said Howard.

In 2020, only 11 percent of NFV revenue will be attributable to new software and services. Sixteen percent will come from network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) – servers, storage, switches – acquired in place of purpose-built network hardware such as routers, deep packet inspection (DPI) products and firewalls… Read More

Can Cloud Disrupt HPC Market?

Excerpted from Information Management Report by Theo Lynn

The market for high performance computing (HPC) is huge and growing.

Estimates of the total HPC market range from $21 billion to $29.4 billion.

The cloud category is the fastest growing category in the market at 14%-18% CAGR, and yet it represents an extremely small percentage of the market.

Some analysts suggest less than 20% of current HPC workloads are delivered via the cloud and for good reason.

Many HPC workloads are not ready to run on today’s cloud architectures and most public cloud HPC offerings are designed only to effectively support HPC workloads without meaningful communications and I/O requirements.

And yet in the near future one can see how cloud computing has the potential to disrupt the HPC market in the same way it has disrupted the enterprise software market.

Today, HPC growth, in general, is restricted by architectural complexity, availability of trained personnel and budgetary issues. The HPC discussion typically focusses on technical computing such as large scientific and engineering problems… Read More

Manage Big Data: Back to the Edge

Excerpted from Embedded Computing Report by Adam Justice

With all the gadgets we use each day, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that many of these devices have processing power equal to the old computer towers from just a decade ago.

Add the Internet of Things (IoT) to the equation, and we’re generating a mind-blowing amount of data every second of every day.

According to Cisco, the world generated about two exabytes of data altogether in the past 2,000 years.

Now we generate that amount of data daily.

The IoT relies on data – and massive amounts of it – to fuel connected devices and give us drastic advances in monitoring and automating our environments.

With the information that the IoT provides through these devices, businesses and industries can know sooner and with more accuracy how the business is being affected by external factors.

For example, in an industrial setting, IoT sensors are used to monitor and regulate the humidity of a manufacturing facility… Read More

Microsoft: Future in the Cloud

Excerpted from LA Times Report

In a world where there’s a smartphone app for everything, one company – Amazon – has long been the host for an outsized share of online software and computing services.

Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella wants to change that.

Nadella has poured billions of dollars into building new data centers around the world, hoping to position Microsoft as the leading alternative to Amazon in selling online computing power – housed in remote centers or “clouds” – to Internet start-ups and big corporations, as well as consumers.

As evidence the investment is paying off, Microsoft reported Tuesday that its Azure cloud-computing business more than doubled in sales last quarter, compared with a year earlier.

That growth, combined with increases in revenue from Windows software licenses and other key segments, helped offset a big decline in revenue from the Nokia smartphone business that Microsoft largely shut down last year.

If Amazon has been the undisputed king of the cloud, analysts say Microsoft, Google and a few other tech giants are emerging as rivals… Read More

IBM Also Touts Cloud Services

Excerpted from Network World Report by Brandon Butler

It’s earnings season, which for publicly-traded technology vendors in the cloud market means it’s time to update investors on the momentum of emerging products helping to displace eroding revenue from legacy offerings.

For two technology vendor stalwarts – Microsoft and IBM – cloud computing has played a significant role in their earnings this quarter.

Microsoft’s earnings beat analyst estimates with non-GAAP revenues of $22.6 billion.

CEO Satya Nadella said the company’s commercial cloud unit now has an annualized run rate of $12.1 billion.

Azure IaaS plus on premise server software revenues were $6.71 billion for the quarter.

IBM, meanwhile, reported that revenues from its cloud operations reached $11.6 billion, including $6.7 billion from “as-a-Service” offerings, up 50% from the same quarter a year ago.

That “aaS” line item is made up of IBM’s SoftLayer IaaS business, BlueMix PaaS offerings, as well as its broad set of SaaS apps, data and analytics as a service… Read More

Act Local, Think Global: Retail IoT

Excerpted from IoT Evolution Report by Cynthia Artin

Last week at the IoT Evolution Conference we caught up with Andy Asava, founder and CEO, Qualesce, a software development and systems integration company based in Dallas, TX.

Asava was part of a panel speaking on Fog and edge computing approaches, and the relationship of data processing and analytics in such a way that the information can be acted on in real time without the complications of too much information (TMI).

“It’s easy for people to say the true value of IoT is in the data and analytics, but without understanding how to handle the massive amount of data being generated by more and more sensors, and without understanding how to make a business difference by providing that data through applications to machines and managers, the IoT’s blue ocean opportunities will turn into a failed attempt to boil the ocean,” Asava said.

He shared an example of a fast food chain.

“Of course, the aggregated data showing how sensed equipment is performing, whether HVAC, refrigerators, fryers, grills, security cameras, locks and more is important,” Asava said, “where the near real time analytics can be immediately helpful is at the local level… Read More

Solving Ransomware Presents Opportunity

Excerpted from eWeek Report by Robert Lemos

When ransomware hit the Horry County School District in South Carolina in February, the IT staff’s first warning of the disaster came from teachers who could no longer access their files.

Days later, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center staff “noticed issues accessing the hospital’s computer network” – the organization’s only warning that it too had become a victim.

The incidents underscore the fact that many companies and organizations are still unprepared to prevent – or at least, detect – ransomware infections before their data is held hostage by cyber-criminals.

While ransomware resembles much of the other malware, its defining feature, the ability to encrypt data can cause significant damage to business operations, making the detection of such threats imperative.

Unfortunately for victims, the time between infection and impact tends to be much shorter with ransomware than for other forms of attack, such as data theft.

“The point of entry is not any different for ransomware, but the shot clock really starts pretty quickly,” Ed Cabrera, Chief Cybersecurity Officer, Trend Micro, told eWEEK… Read More

It’s 3 AM – What Are Your Cluster’s Doing?

Excerpted from Enterprise Tech Report by Sean Suchter

Performance challenges in Hadoop environments are par for the course as organizations attempt to capture the benefits of big data.

The growing ecosystem of tools and applications (including new analytics platforms) for Hadoop is becoming increasingly distributed, making the challenges of using Hadoop in production exponentially more complicated.

Which begs the question, do you know how your cluster will react to this kind of growth and change in usage?

It might be operating just fine today, but what happens two months from now once hundreds of new workloads have been added?

Distributed systems make optimal performance a particularly hard goal to achieve.

When your cluster has hundreds of nodes, and each node has dozens of jobs running independently and using up CPU, RAM, disk and network – and the levels of resource consumption are constantly changing – it quickly becomes an extremely chaotic system. Businesses need a way to bring order to the distributed systems chaos… Read More

Spark Speeds up Cloud Adoption

Excerpted from TechTarget Report by Mike Matchett

If enterprise IT has been slow to support big data analytics in production for the decade-old Hadoop, there has been a much faster ramp-up now that Spark is part of the overall package.

After all, doing the same old business intelligence approach with broader, bigger data (with MapReduce) isn’t exciting, but producing operational time predictive intelligence that guides and optimizes business with machine precision is a competitive must-have.

As DevOps is slowly taking over the IT landscape, its vital that IT pros understand it before jumping right into the movement.

In this complimentary guide, discover an expert breakdown of how DevOps impacts day-to-day operations management in modern IT environments.

With traditional business intelligence (BI), an analyst studies a lot of data and makes some hypotheses and a conclusion to form a recommendation.

Using the many big data machine learning techniques supported by Spark’s MLlib, a company’s big data can dynamically drive optimizations… Read More

Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump

Excerpted from NY Times Report by Farhad Manjoo

When the technology investor Peter Thiel takes the stage just before Donald J. Trump at the Republican convention this week, he will become the most prominent public face of a species so endangered it might as well be called extinct: the Silicon Valley Trump supporter.

Nobody knows what Mr. Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, will say (he declined an interview), but in the tech industry, his appearance at the convention is being greeted with more apprehension than excitement.

Venture capitalists have a special term for investment opportunities that offer the potential for a big return but also carry a great deal of risk: high beta.

For Silicon Valley’s political aspirations, Mr. Thiel’s speech is the ultimate high-beta performance.

On the one hand, an emissary from tech will have a national platform to push the industry’s agenda and, more important, its worldview.

By the end of Mr. Thiel’s speech on Thursday night, it’s possible he will have succeeded in showing off an ideology rarely encountered… Read More

GOP: Obama Threat to Internet

Excerpted from Broadcasting & Cable Report by John Eggerton

Forget cyber-criminals and rogue states, it is President Barack Obama that is the biggest threat to a free and open internet.

That is according to the Republican platform approved Monday at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

“The survival of the internet as we know it is at risk,” the platform says in its “Protecting Internet Freedom” plank.

“Its gravest peril originates in the White House, the current occupant of which has launched a campaign, both at home and internationally, to subjugate it to agents of government.”

President Obama pushed for the FCC to reclassify internet access as a Title II common carrier service subject to some new regs (it did), a move Hill Republicans fought and blamed on what they saw as the President’s intervention.

They are also not happy with the Administration decision to move domain naming oversight to a multistakeholder model.

Both were highlighted in the platform.

“The President ordered the chair of the supposedly independent FCC to impose upon the Internet rules devised for the 1930s… Read More

Coming Events of Interest

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.

EuroCloud Forum – October 5th-6th in Bucharest, Romania. The seventh annual EuroCloud Congress will be held for the first time in Romania. With the theme “Creating New Frontiers in European Cloud,” it will be the sector’s largest forum on the future of cloud in Europe.

Security of Things World USA — November 3rd-4th in San Diego, CA. The next event in the DCIA’s partnership with weCONECT Group has been designed to help you find pragmatic solutions to the most common security threats facing the IoT.

Rethink! Cloudonomic Minds — November 21st-22nd in London, England. The newest event in the DCIA’s partnership with weCONECT Group will cover how IoT is impacting cloud strategies and how to take advantage of these two key technology trends.

Government Video Expo — December 6th-8th in Washington, DC. GVE is the East Coast’s largest technology event for broadcast and video professionals, featuring a full exhibit floor, numerous training options, free seminars, keynotes, panel discussions, networking opportunities, and more.

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