Cloud Computing Activity - W/E - 120216
Athena Serverless Query Service Coming from AWS (11/30/2016)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has rolled out its new Athena serverless query service. Athena is designed to analyze large amounts of data stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) with the use of standard SQL. Athena removes the need to build, manage, or tune a cluster or any other infrastructure. The interactive query editor gets the customer up and running and helps them get their results in seconds. Athena is currently available only in the US East (N. Virginia) and US West (Oregon) Regions but will expand to additional Regions in the coming months.
AWS Debuts New Features to Partner Network (11/29/2016)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is expanding its AWS Partner Network (APN) to include new programs to support and differentiate APN partners who provide solutions and expertise for specific services, workloads, and industry verticals. The AWS Service Delivery Program identifies partners that have passed technical reviews and have a validated track record of customer success with any of 15 specific AWS services, including Amazon Redshift, Amazon Alexa, AWS Database Migration Service, or AWS GovCloud (US) workloads. The AWS Public Sector Partner Program is designed for APN Partners to help deliver solutions and experience to government, education, and nonprofit customers around the world leveraging the AWS Cloud. The third program is VMware Cloud on AWS, which will be delivered, sold, and supported by VMware as an on-demand, elastically scalable service. Launching in 2017, the VMware Cloud on AWS Partner Program will focus on supporting customers as they deploy and operate VMware Cloud on AWS. In addition, AWS unveiled the AWS Partner Solutions Finder, which helps customers search AWS-vetted partner profiles through criteria such as location, industry, use case, and products. The Partner Solutions Finder will also identify authorized AWS Resellers or validated AWS Managed Service Providers and find APN Partners who hold specific AWS Competencies and AWS Service Delivery Program distinctions.
HPE Demonstrates Memory-Drive Computing Technology (11/28/2016)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) demonstrated new Memory-Drive Computing concept that is designed to "put memory, not processing, at the center of the computing platform." This proof-of-concept prototype includes compute nodes accessing a shared pool of fabric-attached memory; a Linux-based OS running on a customized SoC (system-on-chip); photonics/optical communication links; and new software programming tools for taking advantage of abundant persistent memory. Further details are available via the HPE Web site.
HPE Introduces Technology for Deploying, Managing IoT Devices (11/30/2016)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced new technology for helping organizations deploy IoT (Internet of Things) devices in wide area, enterprise, and industrial deployments. New offerings include the Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE), for managing IoT devices requiring cellular connectivity and services; a Universal IoT Platform update for managing MVNE devices and providing IoT monitoring, reporting, and analytics services; the Aruba ClearPass Universal Profiler, for helping identify and inventory IoT devices as they connect to the network; and Aruba 2540 Series Switches.
HPE Unveils Hybrid Cloud-Based Software, Extensions (11/29/2016)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) introduced a new hybrid cloud-based offering and technology extensions for HPE hyper-converged systems. This software, which is designed to help more quickly deliver software-defined infrastructure, includes Synergy with HPE Helion CloudSystem 10, which offers composability features across compute, storage, and fabric; as well as a Hyper Converged Operating Environment update that delivers new workspace controls. The offerings will be available in the first quarter of 2017.
IBM Adds New Bluemix Data Services, Features (11/21/2016)
IBM announced cloud-based Bluemix data services and features for helping organizations more easily migrate data to the cloud and generate business insight. These announcements include a Decision Optimization beta, for helping ingest large amounts of data, including predictions, master and transactional data, business goals, and business rules to prioritize and rank business decisions; a Bluemix Lift data migration tool for helping migrate databases from existing on-premise data centers to Bluemix and the Watson Data Platform; and dashDB for Transactions, a managed SQL database service on Bluemix that is optimized for transactional and Web-based workloads to help developers fuel cloud-based applications.
IBM Announces Cloud-Based Data Services (11/21/2016)
IBM announced new cloud-based data services on Bluemix that are designed to help accelerate the migration of data to the cloud. These releases include Decision Optimization, a beta release for ingesting data such as predictions, master and transactional information, business goals, and rules to prioritize and rank business decisions; the Bluemix Lift data migration tool for migrating databases from on-premise data centers to Bluemix and the Watson Data Platform; and dashDB for Transactions, a fully managed SQL database service for transactional and Web-based workloads.
IBM Establishes Watson IoT Consulting Solutions (11/21/2016)
IBM established Watson IoT Consulting Solutions, a new practice that will integrate Watson IoT Platform APIs and technology, development, implementation consulting, and ongoing support services. This practice will focus on offering services that help "drive digital transformation with the Internet of Things (IoT)." It will also offer services via the Watson IoT Platform, including IoT for Manufacturing, for Asset Health Insight, for Automotive, for Electronics, and for Insurance.
Italy Projected as Upcoming Site for AWS Data Centers (11/30/2016)
Reuters reports that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is negotiating to open new data centers in northern Italy. According to sources, the cloud services provider is in talks with state-controlled Enel utility company to convert three to five older power stations that are being decommissioned. Reports say that AWS will spend more than one billion dollars to convert the plants. The operations are part of 23 thermal power stations that Enel announced it was shuttering due to "falling power demand and changing business patterns as green energy replaces fossil fuel generation." Amazon currently employs more than 1,700 people in Italy and during the summer unveiled plans for a major new storage and logistics center to be located outside Rome.
Microsoft Adds New Access Panel for Azure Active Directory (11/29/2016)
Microsoft released a new Access Panel for the Azure Active Directory. This "mobile-friendly" feature includes a streamlined layout with improved notifications and user controls, as well as updated support for group management. The Access Panel, which was previously available as a public preview, allows the user to more easily launch connected applications, change group memberships, and access security settings.
Microsoft Incorporates New Preview Version for Visual Studio (11/21/2016)
Microsoft added a new preview version of Visual Studio software with features for continuously integrating and deploying multi-container Linux applications for Azure Container Service. These tools provide "dev-to-test-to-prod" deployment for container-based workloads, and use development and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment solutions.
Microsoft Releases R Server, Kafka for Azure HDInsight (11/21/2016)
Microsoft released R Server for Azure HDInsight and Kafka for Azure HDInsight. Microsoft's R software, in particular, leverages Hadoop and Spark and provides machine-learning algorithms and statistical functions in the cloud. The public preview release of Kafka, meanwhile, offers an enterprise-grade, open-source, streaming ingestion service for streamlining the provisioning, management, and use process. It is designed to support real-time scenarios such as fraud detection, click-stream analysis, financial alerts, telemetry from connected sensors and devices, social analytics, "always on" ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) pipelines, and network monitoring.
Microsoft Reveals Public Preview Version of Azure Media Redactor (11/21/2016)
Microsoft released a public preview version of the Azure Media Redactor. The Azure Media Redactor offers component software for Azure Media Analytics; it provides scalable redaction in the cloud, and provides a Media Processor that blurs the faces of select individuals for use in public-safety and news-media scenarios. This software is now available in all Azure regions, as well as US government and China datacenters.
Microsoft Rolls Out Azure Advisor (11/21/2016)
Microsoft released its new Azure Advisor personalized recommendation engine. This engine is designed to provide proactive "best practices" guidance for configuring Azure resources. The Azure Advisor analyzes resource configuration and uses telemetry to detect risks and potential issues, then draws on best practices to recommend solutions to improve the security, performance, and reliability of applications. The release is now available in public preview.
Microsoft Shows Off Azure Disk Encryption IaaS VM (11/21/2016)
Microsoft introduced its new Azure Disk Encryption IaaS virtual machine offering. This pay-per-use Infrastructure-as-a-Service runs on Windows and Linux, and is available via Azure Government cloud regions. It is designed to help protect operating systems and data disks that are "at rest" using industry-standard encryption technology. The offering supports BitLocker Windows-based and DM-Crypt Linux-based technology.
Microsoft Unveils StorSimple Extension (11/29/2016)
Microsoft incorporated a new StorSimple extension for its Azure portal that can be used to manage the StorSimple Virtual Device Series. This app is designed to help create Azure Resource Manager-based StorSimple managers to control virtual arrays, and offers a self-service sandbox environment for creating Dev/Test environments.
Microsoft Updates Azure IoT Suite with New Features (11/21/2016)
Microsoft added new features to its Azure IoT Suite for helping better extend, manage, and monitor IoT (Internet of Things) deployments. These additions include enhancements to the IoT Gateway SDK; IoT Hub device management capabilities for more easily organizing, monitoring, querying, configuring, and updating software and firmware configurations; and a new IoT Hub IP filter security feature for configuring IP filtering rules.
New Artificial Intelligence Services Unveiled by AWS (11/30/2016)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is jumping into artificial intelligence with three new services focusing on natural language processing, text-to-speech conversion, and image analysis such as the recognition of facial features, objects, and scenes. The company positions the new offerings as a way for developers to "focus on defining and building an entirely new generation of apps that can see, hear, speak, understand, and interact with the world." Amazon Rekognition is an image analysis service that can identify various attributes of an image. Amazon Polly accepts text or a string and returns an MP3 audio file containing the speech, supporting 47 different voices in 23 different languages with a variety of accents to make applications for users around the globe. Amazon Lex is the natural language processing and automatic speech recognition service that converts text or voice that developers can parse to perform a set of actions. Amazon Lex uses the same deep learning technologies that power Amazon's Alexa and Echo.
SAS Updates Data Management Portfolio (11/21/2016)
SAS updated its Data Management portfolio with a new version of its Data Loader for Hadoop. This software focuses on improving data preparation, data access, cloud-based readiness, and improved Hadoop governance and security. Other new features include adaptive data management during the discovery and deployment phases; added data sources; cloud-ready support for migrating data to remote locations and pushing/pulling from Amazon in cloud-based environments; and features for improved security and governance. These elements, in particular, include functions to better protect sensitive data, ensure secure collaboration, and provide comprehensive lineage across the SAS environment, third-party tools, and traditional and Big Data sources.
Seagate Creates Duet Cloud-Syncing Portable Hard Drive (11/30/2016)
Seagate Technology introduced Duet, a cloud-syncing portable hard drive for Amazon Drive. This product delivers a 1TB storage capacity and offers features for streamlined local transfer and offline access. The release also comes with a free one-year subscription to the Amazon Drive Unlimited Storage service. Seagate's Duet is available for pre-order in the US, exclusively via Amazon, for $99.99.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has rolled out its new Athena serverless query service. Athena is designed to analyze large amounts of data stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) with the use of standard SQL. Athena removes the need to build, manage, or tune a cluster or any other infrastructure. The interactive query editor gets the customer up and running and helps them get their results in seconds. Athena is currently available only in the US East (N. Virginia) and US West (Oregon) Regions but will expand to additional Regions in the coming months.
AWS Debuts New Features to Partner Network (11/29/2016)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is expanding its AWS Partner Network (APN) to include new programs to support and differentiate APN partners who provide solutions and expertise for specific services, workloads, and industry verticals. The AWS Service Delivery Program identifies partners that have passed technical reviews and have a validated track record of customer success with any of 15 specific AWS services, including Amazon Redshift, Amazon Alexa, AWS Database Migration Service, or AWS GovCloud (US) workloads. The AWS Public Sector Partner Program is designed for APN Partners to help deliver solutions and experience to government, education, and nonprofit customers around the world leveraging the AWS Cloud. The third program is VMware Cloud on AWS, which will be delivered, sold, and supported by VMware as an on-demand, elastically scalable service. Launching in 2017, the VMware Cloud on AWS Partner Program will focus on supporting customers as they deploy and operate VMware Cloud on AWS. In addition, AWS unveiled the AWS Partner Solutions Finder, which helps customers search AWS-vetted partner profiles through criteria such as location, industry, use case, and products. The Partner Solutions Finder will also identify authorized AWS Resellers or validated AWS Managed Service Providers and find APN Partners who hold specific AWS Competencies and AWS Service Delivery Program distinctions.
HPE Demonstrates Memory-Drive Computing Technology (11/28/2016)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) demonstrated new Memory-Drive Computing concept that is designed to "put memory, not processing, at the center of the computing platform." This proof-of-concept prototype includes compute nodes accessing a shared pool of fabric-attached memory; a Linux-based OS running on a customized SoC (system-on-chip); photonics/optical communication links; and new software programming tools for taking advantage of abundant persistent memory. Further details are available via the HPE Web site.
HPE Introduces Technology for Deploying, Managing IoT Devices (11/30/2016)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced new technology for helping organizations deploy IoT (Internet of Things) devices in wide area, enterprise, and industrial deployments. New offerings include the Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE), for managing IoT devices requiring cellular connectivity and services; a Universal IoT Platform update for managing MVNE devices and providing IoT monitoring, reporting, and analytics services; the Aruba ClearPass Universal Profiler, for helping identify and inventory IoT devices as they connect to the network; and Aruba 2540 Series Switches.
HPE Unveils Hybrid Cloud-Based Software, Extensions (11/29/2016)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) introduced a new hybrid cloud-based offering and technology extensions for HPE hyper-converged systems. This software, which is designed to help more quickly deliver software-defined infrastructure, includes Synergy with HPE Helion CloudSystem 10, which offers composability features across compute, storage, and fabric; as well as a Hyper Converged Operating Environment update that delivers new workspace controls. The offerings will be available in the first quarter of 2017.
IBM Adds New Bluemix Data Services, Features (11/21/2016)
IBM announced cloud-based Bluemix data services and features for helping organizations more easily migrate data to the cloud and generate business insight. These announcements include a Decision Optimization beta, for helping ingest large amounts of data, including predictions, master and transactional data, business goals, and business rules to prioritize and rank business decisions; a Bluemix Lift data migration tool for helping migrate databases from existing on-premise data centers to Bluemix and the Watson Data Platform; and dashDB for Transactions, a managed SQL database service on Bluemix that is optimized for transactional and Web-based workloads to help developers fuel cloud-based applications.
IBM Announces Cloud-Based Data Services (11/21/2016)
IBM announced new cloud-based data services on Bluemix that are designed to help accelerate the migration of data to the cloud. These releases include Decision Optimization, a beta release for ingesting data such as predictions, master and transactional information, business goals, and rules to prioritize and rank business decisions; the Bluemix Lift data migration tool for migrating databases from on-premise data centers to Bluemix and the Watson Data Platform; and dashDB for Transactions, a fully managed SQL database service for transactional and Web-based workloads.
IBM Establishes Watson IoT Consulting Solutions (11/21/2016)
IBM established Watson IoT Consulting Solutions, a new practice that will integrate Watson IoT Platform APIs and technology, development, implementation consulting, and ongoing support services. This practice will focus on offering services that help "drive digital transformation with the Internet of Things (IoT)." It will also offer services via the Watson IoT Platform, including IoT for Manufacturing, for Asset Health Insight, for Automotive, for Electronics, and for Insurance.
Italy Projected as Upcoming Site for AWS Data Centers (11/30/2016)
Reuters reports that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is negotiating to open new data centers in northern Italy. According to sources, the cloud services provider is in talks with state-controlled Enel utility company to convert three to five older power stations that are being decommissioned. Reports say that AWS will spend more than one billion dollars to convert the plants. The operations are part of 23 thermal power stations that Enel announced it was shuttering due to "falling power demand and changing business patterns as green energy replaces fossil fuel generation." Amazon currently employs more than 1,700 people in Italy and during the summer unveiled plans for a major new storage and logistics center to be located outside Rome.
Microsoft Adds New Access Panel for Azure Active Directory (11/29/2016)
Microsoft released a new Access Panel for the Azure Active Directory. This "mobile-friendly" feature includes a streamlined layout with improved notifications and user controls, as well as updated support for group management. The Access Panel, which was previously available as a public preview, allows the user to more easily launch connected applications, change group memberships, and access security settings.
Microsoft Incorporates New Preview Version for Visual Studio (11/21/2016)
Microsoft added a new preview version of Visual Studio software with features for continuously integrating and deploying multi-container Linux applications for Azure Container Service. These tools provide "dev-to-test-to-prod" deployment for container-based workloads, and use development and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment solutions.
Microsoft Releases R Server, Kafka for Azure HDInsight (11/21/2016)
Microsoft released R Server for Azure HDInsight and Kafka for Azure HDInsight. Microsoft's R software, in particular, leverages Hadoop and Spark and provides machine-learning algorithms and statistical functions in the cloud. The public preview release of Kafka, meanwhile, offers an enterprise-grade, open-source, streaming ingestion service for streamlining the provisioning, management, and use process. It is designed to support real-time scenarios such as fraud detection, click-stream analysis, financial alerts, telemetry from connected sensors and devices, social analytics, "always on" ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) pipelines, and network monitoring.
Microsoft Reveals Public Preview Version of Azure Media Redactor (11/21/2016)
Microsoft released a public preview version of the Azure Media Redactor. The Azure Media Redactor offers component software for Azure Media Analytics; it provides scalable redaction in the cloud, and provides a Media Processor that blurs the faces of select individuals for use in public-safety and news-media scenarios. This software is now available in all Azure regions, as well as US government and China datacenters.
Microsoft Rolls Out Azure Advisor (11/21/2016)
Microsoft released its new Azure Advisor personalized recommendation engine. This engine is designed to provide proactive "best practices" guidance for configuring Azure resources. The Azure Advisor analyzes resource configuration and uses telemetry to detect risks and potential issues, then draws on best practices to recommend solutions to improve the security, performance, and reliability of applications. The release is now available in public preview.
Microsoft Shows Off Azure Disk Encryption IaaS VM (11/21/2016)
Microsoft introduced its new Azure Disk Encryption IaaS virtual machine offering. This pay-per-use Infrastructure-as-a-Service runs on Windows and Linux, and is available via Azure Government cloud regions. It is designed to help protect operating systems and data disks that are "at rest" using industry-standard encryption technology. The offering supports BitLocker Windows-based and DM-Crypt Linux-based technology.
Microsoft Unveils StorSimple Extension (11/29/2016)
Microsoft incorporated a new StorSimple extension for its Azure portal that can be used to manage the StorSimple Virtual Device Series. This app is designed to help create Azure Resource Manager-based StorSimple managers to control virtual arrays, and offers a self-service sandbox environment for creating Dev/Test environments.
Microsoft Updates Azure IoT Suite with New Features (11/21/2016)
Microsoft added new features to its Azure IoT Suite for helping better extend, manage, and monitor IoT (Internet of Things) deployments. These additions include enhancements to the IoT Gateway SDK; IoT Hub device management capabilities for more easily organizing, monitoring, querying, configuring, and updating software and firmware configurations; and a new IoT Hub IP filter security feature for configuring IP filtering rules.
New Artificial Intelligence Services Unveiled by AWS (11/30/2016)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is jumping into artificial intelligence with three new services focusing on natural language processing, text-to-speech conversion, and image analysis such as the recognition of facial features, objects, and scenes. The company positions the new offerings as a way for developers to "focus on defining and building an entirely new generation of apps that can see, hear, speak, understand, and interact with the world." Amazon Rekognition is an image analysis service that can identify various attributes of an image. Amazon Polly accepts text or a string and returns an MP3 audio file containing the speech, supporting 47 different voices in 23 different languages with a variety of accents to make applications for users around the globe. Amazon Lex is the natural language processing and automatic speech recognition service that converts text or voice that developers can parse to perform a set of actions. Amazon Lex uses the same deep learning technologies that power Amazon's Alexa and Echo.
SAS Updates Data Management Portfolio (11/21/2016)
SAS updated its Data Management portfolio with a new version of its Data Loader for Hadoop. This software focuses on improving data preparation, data access, cloud-based readiness, and improved Hadoop governance and security. Other new features include adaptive data management during the discovery and deployment phases; added data sources; cloud-ready support for migrating data to remote locations and pushing/pulling from Amazon in cloud-based environments; and features for improved security and governance. These elements, in particular, include functions to better protect sensitive data, ensure secure collaboration, and provide comprehensive lineage across the SAS environment, third-party tools, and traditional and Big Data sources.
Seagate Creates Duet Cloud-Syncing Portable Hard Drive (11/30/2016)
Seagate Technology introduced Duet, a cloud-syncing portable hard drive for Amazon Drive. This product delivers a 1TB storage capacity and offers features for streamlined local transfer and offline access. The release also comes with a free one-year subscription to the Amazon Drive Unlimited Storage service. Seagate's Duet is available for pre-order in the US, exclusively via Amazon, for $99.99.