Official: Cloud computing is now mainstream

Cloud computing is so mainstream these days that maybe it should just be called “computing”. That’s what an IDC survey of 6,100 organisations in 31 countries, released today, indicates, with 68 per cent of respondents using public, private or hybrid cloud in their IT mix. This is a 60 per cent jump from 42 per cent of respondents doing cloud in 2015.

IDC reckons that just three per cent of the organisations have deploying cloud-optimised strategies resulting in "superior business outcomes".

And of this select “cloud-advanced” bunch, Ninety-five per cent have built a hybrid infrastructure that uses “multiple private and public clouds based on economics, location and governance policies”.

Gamification of the aviation sector

Restructuring IT systems in the aviation sector requires cross-disciplinary collaboration between experts from different organisations and countries. This isn't easy. Can help be found in the world of computer games?

The use of games mechanics for purposes other than pure entertainment is called gamification. In recent years the method has been used in different settings to boost user involvement and motivation linked to a variety of activities.
"In its simplest form this may just be hype, such as awarding points for things like filling out your time sheet before the weekend," says SINTEF researcher Erlend Andreas Gjære. "But our focus is on quite a different track," he says.
Together with researchers from Italy and Germany, Gjære and his colleagues at SINTEF are going to find out how aspects of games technology can be applied in a context somewhat out of the ordinary. Specifically – how to achieve the best possible adaptive solutions to changes in information security, safety, economics and organisation in the aviation sector.

WORLD HYPERSCALE DATA CENTER MARKET EXPECTED TO REACH $71.2 BILLION BY 2022

According to a new report by Allied Market Research titled World Hyperscale Data Center Market, the world hyperscale data center market is expected to reach a revenue of $71.2 billion by 2022, with a CAGR of 20.7% from 2016 to 2022. Hyperscale data centers are most widely adopted by cloud service providers to house cloud-based resources and cloud services, accounting for a market share of around 63% in 2015. North America is the largest revenue-generating region for hyperscale data centers, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific in 2015.

SDN is Coming. Is Your Workforce Ready?

SDN is moving into the data center at a rapid clip, but while deploying a new technology is one thing, getting people to use it properly is quite another.

According to market analyst IHS Inc., SDN revenues grew more than 80 percent in 2015 compared to the year earlier, topping $1.4 billion. The bulk of that came in the form of new Ethernet switches and controllers, although newer use cases like SD-WAN are on the rise as well and will likely contribute substantially to the overall market by the end of the decade.

This means that, ready or not, the enterprise network is quickly becoming virtualized, severing the last link between data architectures and underlying hardware. This will do wonders for network flexibility and scalability, but it also produces a radically new environment for network managers, few of whom have gotten the appropriate levels of training, if anecdotal evidence is any indication.

Can IT keep up with big data?

Though IT and its functions and responsibilities have changed over the years, there's one area that remains consistent: IT primarily focuses on major enterprise applications and on large machines—whether they are mainframes or super servers.

When IT deals with big data, the primary arena for it is, once again, large servers that are parallel processing in a Hadoop environment. Thankfully for the company at large, IT also focuses on reliability, security, governance, failover, and performance of data and apps—because if it didn't, there would be nobody else internally to do the job that is required. Within this environment, IT's job is most heavily focused on the structured transactions that come in daily from order, manufacturing, purchasing, service, and administrative systems that keep the enterprise running. In this environment, analytics, unstructured data and smaller servers in end user departments are still secondary.

The rise of the micro-data center

The recent 451 Research London conference threw up some interesting thoughts on how data centers might develop over the next few years, where micro-data centers – down to and including the ‘Bring Your Own’ variety – could play an important role.

Some interesting thoughts came to the fore during the recent `Business of Cloud, Data Center and Hosting Summit’ run by analyst firm 451 Research. While the background was painted from sets of figures based on solid research of trends in cloud usage across the cloud services marketplace, the best thoughts were of the still-arguable, ‘we-reckon…’ variety.

Dell could announce the sale of its IT services unit to Japan’s NTT for $3.5 billion as soon as Monday

Capping a process that began late last year, Dell could announce as early as Monday the sale of the company’s IT services unit to Japan’s telecom conglomerate NTT for $3.5 billion, sources briefed on the process tell Re/code.

Getting Serious About Mobile Security

Technologies like biometric authentication and DLP are making enterprise mobility more secure. Are mobile UC and mobile-first team collaboration apps keeping pace?

One of my longtime favorite observations about UC and mobility is that everyone in the UC space talks about mobility, but nobody in the mobile business talks about UC. The focus there instead is on security, which happens to be an area of ongoing concern among those of us watching activities around mobile UC and the rise of mobile-first team collaboration apps.

It might seem that the mobile security story broke onto the scene with the advent of BYOD and the trend of allowing personally owned devices to access corporate systems. This trend, however, only intensified what was already a serious information security concern. On top of traditional worries, an organization's attack surface increased exponentially as it rolled out BYOD and had corporate data residing on so many easy to lose or steal devices. Further, as BYOD took off, the only platform capable of delivering enterprise-grade security was BlackBerry, and no one was bringing his or her own BlackBerry.

Statistics and facts about Big Data

Big data has been a buzz word for a while now, although many are still uncertain as to exactly what kind of impact big data can and will have in the future. This is certainly an area that many businesses and even governments are exploring though and it is predicted that the industry will see rapid growth in the next few years. Market value forecasts from various experts also estimate that this industry will grow to a multi-billion dollar industry in the near future. A number of companies, including IBM, HP, Dell and SAP have already been generating generous revenue figures from their big data related products and services.

While many market forecasts are predicting highly lucrative potential for the big data market, a range of market research amongst IT and business professionals has identified a number of concerns and shortfalls with regards to implementing big data projects. Lack of budget and lack of time to invest, are among the leading concerns of IT professionals. Another concern is the lack of expertise in the field with a significant gap forecast between demand and supply of qualified professionals.

Read More: http://www.statista.com/topics/1464/big-data/

BYOD new to IT service desk

The IT service desk has officially opened in a new location on the first floor of the CCT building, now providing students with a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) space. There is currently a contest underway to name the new space.

Replacing the computer lab previously located in the CCT atrium, the IT service team envisioned extra support for BYOD spaces, which allow and encourage individuals to bring their own mobile devices for educational or work purposes.

According to information and instructional technology director Susan Senese, an increasing number of students are bringing their own devices to school. As part of the IT team’s vision, their strategy was to enrich the student experience by providing students with more study spaces that support their own devices, rather than providing them with additional computers.

In addition to the BYOD space located in front of the new IT desk—which will also be used as a space for instructional activities by IT staff—the back of the new centre is equipped with six stations for full-time employees working on special projects and hosting training sessions.

Also new to the IT service desk are different operating hours.

“We’re going from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. with the hopes of helping staff, faculty, and students throughout the day,” said Michael Young, manager of IT customer service, on Wednesday morning during the grand opening of the service desk. Previous operating hours were 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Read More: http://themedium.ca/news/byod-new-to-it-service-desk

ERP System Provides Flexibility and Security

For many organizations, enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the glue that holds together the fabric of the organization. It provides the data, insight and automation that are essential for operating effectively in today's digital business environment.

At Synalloy, a manufacturer of products and systems incorporating metals and chemicals, the need for a more flexible and agile ERP framework had moved to center stage a few years ago. "We required an ERP system that would help us manage operations and aid in acquisitions," explains Mike Padden, corporate director of IT.

The company, which operates facilities in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, manufactures items for industries ranging from consumer goods and food producers to automotive and oil and gas companies. Because Synalloy relies on a shared services model and aggressively targets other firms for acquisition, it operates with different companies and divisions.

Consequently, "We needed a system that offered greater flexibility, so that employees could log into each individual company and handle various functions without encountering problems," Padden explains. "We have very different types of businesses with different needs, but we require a standardized set of processes."

In the past, the organization tapped a mix of ERP vendors, and this led to a complex, unwieldy and expensive IT and business framework. It also boosted demands on the IT department.

In many cases, employees attempting to handle tasks had to use four or five different ERP systems and handle processes manually. When they required data in a particular system, it could require lengthy load times.

Read More: http://www.baselinemag.com/erp/erp-system-provides-flexibility-and-security.html

European colocation market growth buoyed by M&A and Safe Harbour, says CBRE

The European datacentre colocation market continues to go from strength-to-strength, with investment in the sector nearing $9bn in 2014, according to research from global property advisor CBRE.

The organisation cited the rise in mergers and acquisitions in the colocation sector during the second quarter of 2015 as a key investment driver, and has fuelled market growth by 6% overall in 2015.

The second half of 2015 has seen Equinix make a $3.6bn bid to acquire fellow colocation provider Telecity Group, a deal that looks set to shake up the competitive landscape across Europe in 2016. This is particularly in the wake of the European Commission’s ruling that both firms must sell-off some of their facilities in London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt for the deal to go ahead.

Aside from mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity, the research picks up the uptick in interest from large-scale IT infrastructure and web companies in opening datacentres in Europe, with London emerging as the most popular location.

“IT infrastructure companies are dominating the European datacentre market. We’ve seen overall demand dynamics mirror what these firms are doing,” said Andrew Jay, head of datacentre systems at CBRE.

“The implications are wider as well, with operators seeing proof that deploying an on-off ramp to the cloud in a datacentre will attract enterprise customers, so securing the IT Infrastructure providers to your premises is becoming vital.”


Read More: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500258245/European-colocation-market-growth-buoyed-by-MA-and-Safe-Harbour-says-CBRE

Hardware Encryption Market Expected to Reach $296.4bn by 2020

A new report by Allied Market Research forecasts that the world hardware encryption market is to show a CAGR of 54.6% from 2010- 2020 and be worth just over $296 billion.

The World Hardware Encryption—Market Opportunities and Forecasts, 2014–2020 report proposes that hardware encryption is considered as the most effective form of data protection against unauthorized access, aligning with the actions of various governments across the globe who are coming out with stringent regulations pertaining to data protection. This is seen as a key development that further supplements the demand of hardware encryption as a key data security technology.

The hard disk drives (HDD) segment was found to be the highest revenue generating segment, constituting 57% of the total market revenue in 2014 and is expected to maintain its dominance throughout the analysis period. The segment of encrypted USB flash drives is forecast to grow significantly and register highest CAGR of 58.8% during the forecast period. The increasing demands of robust memory storage devices that are highly compact, offer maximum storage and render better security of data are key factors, which would drive the growth of this segment.

Looking at regions and vertical industries, Asia-Pacific was revealed to be the largest revenue generating region for hardware encryption, followed by North America and Europe, as is set to be the highest revenue generating region, constituting nearly 33.5% of the total market revenue. The region is also likely to registering a CAGR of 56.9% during the forecast period, supplemented by factors such as strong economic growth, development in enterprise IT infrastructure and the large scale outsourcing of BPO operations to China, India and Malaysia.


Read More: http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/hardware-encryption-2020/

IBM vs. Intel Corporation: The Data Center Battle Escalates

IBM (NYSE:IBM) used to sell Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) -powered low to mid-range servers. But last year, IBM sold that unit to Lenovo to focus on selling high-end servers and mainframes powered by its own Power processors instead.

Since then, IBM has positioned its remaining data center businesses directly against Intel, which holds a formidable 99% market share in server chips. In July, it announced the creation of a 7nm chip, which seemingly targeted Intel's plans to launch 10nm chips in 2017. It also expanded its "Open Power" initiative, which shares processor specs, firmware, and software with partners to fuel the third-party production of Power-based servers.

That's why it wasn't surprising when IBM recently partnered with Xilinx (NASDAQ:XLNX), a maker of FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays), to counter Intel's acquisition of FPGA maker Altera. FPGAs are less powerful than IBM's or Intel's server chips, but they can be reprogrammed, making them well-suited for custom uses in connected cars, consumer devices, and airplanes. IBM and Intel are both using FPGAs to complement their server chips by accelerating workloads.

What Big Blue wants
IBM's revenue has fallen for 14 consecutive quarters, due to sluggish demand for its core IT services, software, and hardware. Big Blue wants investors to focus on the growth of its "strategic imperatives" -- cloud, analytics, mobile, social, and security -- which posted 17% annual sales growth last quarter, or 27% on a constant-currency basis excluding its divested System x (Intel-powered server) business. That growth was solid, but it wasn't enough to offset the steep declines in its other aging businesses.

Last quarter, IBM's hardware revenues plunged 39% annually and accounted for less than 8% of its top line. Power Systems revenues slipped 3% and system storage revenues fell 19%, but z Systems mainframe revenues rose 15%. The decline in Power Systems revenue was expected, due to Intel's dominance of the data center market. But the growth in mainframes was surprising, since analysts had predicted the death of fridge-sized mainframes for decades.

Read More: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/11/24/ibm-vs-intel-corporation-the-data-center-battle-es.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004

Readying Your Data Center for the Internet of Things

As 2015 draws to a close, companies are looking ahead to the New Year and crafting business plans for a successful 2016. As you look to refine your ever-evolving Internet of Things (IoT) strategy, it would be wise to position data center infrastructure at the core of your plan.

As IoT continues to develop, computer systems and communications networks are in overdrive trying to keep up with the demand and scale of all the data that is being generated. In order to meet these increasing infrastructure capacity requirements, a growing number of organizations are moving away from traditional on-premises corporate IT facilities and turning to service providers that deliver data center services such as colocation and cloud computing. In fact, market research firm IDC reports IoT alone will generate the need for 750 percent more data center capacity in service-provider facilities than consumed today.

What Colocation Delivers
For companies that may be new to data center colocation, its benefits range from security to transparency. With colocation, instead of maintaining computing systems in a private data center, an organization houses them in a data center owned and managed by a colocation provider.

The colocation customer organization retains all control over its systems, but the colocation provider manages the data center security, network connections, power, and cooling. In some cases, the colocation provider offers value-added services to customers, such as a data center infrastructure management (DCIM) system that provides additional layers of visibility and control.

One of the top benefits of colocation is scalability. Additional capacity can be brought on quickly, which is a key requirement for fast-growing IoT deployments. Colocation also allows for lower total cost of ownership, meaning organizations can typically maintain their data center operations for much lower total cost than they could build and operate a private data center.

Read More: http://www.iotevolutionworld.com/fog/articles/413555-readying-data-center-the-internet-things.htm

Dimension Data launches Managed Security Services in Middle East and Africa

Dimension Data today announced the launch of its Managed Security Services (MSS) in Middle East and Africa. Dimension Data's MSS are a suite of managed and cloud-based services to help organisations establish compliance, minimise business impact, and reduce overall security risk in the face of today's emerging threats.

"Our MSS offerings represent a new milestone in our security capabilities and will strengthen Dimension Data's position as a leading managed security services provider in Middle East and Africa," said Sean Duffy, Security Executive at Dimension Data Middle East and Africa.

"These services offload the burden of real-time network monitoring, advanced security analysis, and global intelligence correlation to Dimension Data, while allowing businesses to keep complete insight into critical business information."

MSS is a global offering, currently delivered by Dimension Data's 24x7 Security Operations Centres (SOCs). The services will be complemented by the extensive knowledge and experience of Dimension Data's professional security services teams across Middle East and Africa.

MSS identifies and solves real-time security risks through a proven, continuous management process. Organisations can outsource the management of specific security activities and services so they can achieve the business flexibility needed to manage IT infrastructure while focusing on core business objectives.


Read More : http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=147634

Apple, Google and Microsoft: weakening encryption lets the bad guys in

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Twitter, Facebook and 56 other technology companies have joined together to reject calls for weakening encryption saying it would be “exploited by the bad guys”.

After Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook’s claims that “any backdoor is a backdoor for everyone”, the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents 62 of the largest technology companies worldwide, said: “Encryption is a security tool we rely on everyday to stop criminals from draining our bank accounts, to shield our cars and airplanes from being taken over by malicious hacks, and to otherwise preserve our security and safety.”

The debate over encryption, which has become the bedrock of the internet used by almost every transmission that needs to be secure and increasingly those that don’t, has erupted after the terrorist attacks on Paris.

The Information Technology Industry Council’s chief executive, Dean Garfield, said: “Weakening security with the aim of advancing security simply does not make sense.”


Tech industry groups urge US to avoid policies that would weaken encryption
 Read more
End-to-end encrypted communications mean that only the sender and receiver can view the contents of the message, which governments say has put intelligence services at a disadvantage.

Read More : http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/23/apple-google-microsoft-weakening-encryption-back-doors