Category: Cloud

Alibaba Cloud rises 128% in Q3

Alibaba Cloud has outpaced cloud service provider leaders with growth of 128 percent to reach US$221 million in Q3. However, AWS increased its lead, accounting for 32.2 percent of total spend, followed by Microsoft Azure with 17.3 percent and Google Cloud with 7.6percent, according to Canalys. Both Microsoft (up 115.6 percent) and Google (up 79.6 percent) grew faster than Amazon.

Global cloud infrastructure services expenditure increased 53.1 percent year on year to reach US$10 billion for the first time in Q.

“Alibaba has established itself as the largest e-commerce business in China and is starting to dominate the provision of cloud infrastructure services in the country,” said Daniel Liu, Research Analyst of Canalys.

India public cloud services to hit US$1.26b in 2016

GartnerThe public cloud services market in India is projected to grow 30.4 percent in 2016 to hit US$1.26 billion, according to Gartner.

The highest growth will come from cloud system infrastructure services (infrastructure as a service [IaaS]), which is projected to grow 32.5 percent in 2016, with platform as a service (PaaS) projected to grow 31.7 percent.

“We are witnessing a shift from legacy IT services to cloud-based services. Cloud services are growing due to organizations pursuing a digital business strategy,” said Sid Nag, Research Director of Gartner.

Alibaba joins Microsoft and AWS as leaders in China cloud market

ForresterThe public cloud market in China will more than double in the next five years, from US$1.8 billion this year to US$3.8 billion in 2020, according to Forrester.

Two-thirds of Chinese software decision-makers surveyed by Forrester are making increased use of public cloud platforms a top priority over the next 12 months.

Enterprise public cloud platform vendors in China are improving in terms of their service diversity, simple abstraction for operational efficiency, and operational autonomy for on-demand elasticity. Forrester has evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of 11 cloud vendors Alibaba, AWS, ChinaC, DaoCloud, JD.com, Microsoft, MoPaaS, QingCloud, Tencent, UCloud, and UnitedStack.

NetApp Data Fabric enables seamless data management in hybrid cloud

NetAppNetApp has announced new Data Fabric solutions and services that deliver the data management capabilities organisations need to accelerate success in the hybrid cloud era.

With the new offerings, organisations can seamlessly manage data across whatever IT resource they choose, speeding innovation and enabling better business decisions.

“Management of digital data is essential for organisations to innovate faster and capture new revenue opportunities in a fast changing technology landscape,” said Lee Caswell, Vice President, Product, Solutions and Services Marketing, NetApp.

NVIDIA GRID 2.0 available in Australia

NVIDIAFollowing its announcement at VMworld in August, NVIDIA GRID 2.0 is now available in Australia.

The performance, efficiency and flexibility improvements in the latest release of NVIDIA GRID mean enterprise businesses can now deliver even the most graphics-intensive applications to any connected device virtually.

With NVIDIA GRID 2.0, employees can work from almost anywhere without delays in downloading files, increasing their productivity. IT departments can equip workers with instant access to powerful applications, improving resource allocation. And data can be stored more securely in a central server, rather than on individual systems.

 

Cloud IT infrastructure market to grow 24% this year

IDCTotal spending on cloud IT infrastructure (server, storage, and Ethernet switch, excluding double counting between server and storage) will grow by 24.1 percent to reach US$32.6 billion in 2015, according to IDC.

This amount will account for a third of the overall end user spending on enterprise IT infrastructure, up from 27.9 percent in 2014. In comparison, spending on IT infrastructure deployed in traditional, non-cloud, environments will decline by 1.6 percent in 2015, although at US$66.8 billion will remain the largest segment of the market.

Spending on private cloud IT infrastructure in 2015 will grow by 15.8 percent year over year to US$12.1 billion, while spending on public cloud IT infrastructure will increase by 29.6 percent to US$20.5 billion.

Business intelligence and analytics top priorities for Asean CIOs

GartnerBusiness intelligence and analytics are the top priorities of CIOs in Southeast Asia (SEA), according to a Gartner survey.Next on their list are mobile, ERP and cloud.

Eighty-four percent of CIOs in SEA recognise the need to adapt their leadership style in the next three years to succeed in digital business, compared with the global average of 75 percent. To achieve this, 69 percent said that they want to decrease their controlling approach to focus on significantly increasing their visionary and coaching attributes.

The annual survey covered more than 2,810 CIOs worldwide, representing more than US$397 billion in CIO IT budgets in 84 countries. It included responses from 117 CIOs from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

NVIDIA joins VMware in APAC vForums

NVIDIA GRID vGPU vSphereImagine the power of shared GPUs? NVIDIA and VMware are showcasing how enterprises can leverage the power of shared GPU using VMware vSphere and NVIDIA GRID vGPU at vForums currently on in Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo.

NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology allows multiple virtual machines to share the power of a single GPU to deliver rich graphics experiences with professional 2D and 3D applications.

The partners are also pushing an early access programme that provides a technology preview of these technologies. Enterprises can try the GPU virtualisation and virtual application and desktop infrastructure, ahead of its general availability by signing up at www.nvidia.com/grid-vmware-vgpu. Those selected get to work directly with the engineering teams from both NVIDIA and VMware.

Australia nudges towards hosted and cloud-based UC solutions

frost and sullivanAustralia’s on-premise unified communications (UC) market experienced a decline in revenues in 2013, according to Frost & Sullivan. This was mainly due to the improved understanding of the benefits of hosted and cloud-based UC solutions, which have now reached mainstream adoption.

Organisations are now able to deploy any UC application over a hosted model, and have a much improved understanding of the benefits of hosted and cloud-based UC solutions. In addition, the capital intensive nature of on-premise solutions limits the flexibility for organisations to adapt to the changing communication and collaboration environments. As a result, the on-premise UC market is approaching a phase where growth rates are flat or declining.

According to Anand Balasubramanian, Industry Analyst of ICT Practice, Australia & New Zealand at Frost & Sullivan, the decline in the Australian UC market revenues can be attributed to the changing business preferences for communication and collaboration solutions.

IBM turns to NVIDIA to power OpenPOWER-based systems

IBM PowerHaving exited the x86 server business, IBM has turned its focus to a new range of systems that leverages GPU acceleration delivered by NVIDIA.

Built on IBM’s POWER8 processor, the new IBM Power S824L servers are optimised for big data workloads. The new systems tightly integrate IBM and other OpenPOWER member technologies, including NVIDIA’s GPU accelerator technology for the first time, to unleash computing performance to help enable banks to better analyse risk, energy companies to more precisely locate oil reserves, and scientists to more quickly identify cures for diseases.

They provide clients the ability to run data-intensive tasks on the POWER8 processor while offloading other compute-intensive Big Data workloads to GPU accelerators which are capable of running millions of data computations in parallel and are designed to significantly speed up compute-intensive applications.

Lenovo becomes leading x86 server provider in China

IDCLenovo is now the biggest x86 server provider in China, following the completion of its acquisition of IBM’s x86 server business. And IDC believes this acquisition will enrich Lenovo’s x86 server portfolio and strengthen its products and channels.

According to the research firm’s latest data, Lenovo shipped 99,101 units in the first half of 2014 and is ranked 4th among all vendors in the same category.

Combining IBM and Lenovo’s shipments in this period of time would make Lenovo the biggest vendor in China x86 server market with a market share of 23.9 percent.

NVIDIA unveils new Quadro lineup

NVIDIA QuadroNVIDIA has unveiled its next generation of NVIDIA Quadro GPUs — the K5200, K4200, K2200, K620, and K420.

The new lineup delivers an enterprise-grade visual computing platform with up to twice the application performance and data-handling capability of the previous generation.

“The next generation of Quadro GPUs not only dramatically increases graphics and compute performance to handle huge data sets. It extends the concept of visual computing from a graphics card in a workstation to a connected environment. The new Quadro lineup lets users interact with their designs or data locally on a workstation, remotely on a mobile device or in tandem with cloud-based services,” said Jeff Brown, Vice President of Professional Visualisation at NVIDIA.

Chromebook sales to nearly triple by 2017

Acer Chromebook 13Acer has launched the Acer Chromebook 13, its first 13-inch Chromebook as well as the first Chromebook to use the NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor, which gives the new Chromebook a performance edge and longer battery life of up to 13 hours.

This rollout should help Acer concretise its position as the number in the Chromebook market, behind leader Samsung, which had 64.9 percent market share in 2013.

Gartner expects sales of Chromebooks to reach 5.2 million units this year, a 79 percent increase from 2013. By 2017, sales of Chromebooks are set to nearly triple to reach 14.4 million units.

Mobile data to overtake voice in Malaysia in 2017

IDCMobile data is expected to bring in more revenue than mobile voice in Malaysia in 2017, according to IDC.
Despite the penetration rate of Malaysian mobile users exceeding 140 percent and high prepaid-postpaid ratio, mobile operators have still been able to maintain their revenue growth. Total revenue has grown by 35 percent in the last three years, and IDC expects the revenue to continue to grow to RM27.6 billion in 2018 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.6 percent.
“Mobile data revenue will continue to grow strongly at CAGR of 8.5 percent and become the main driver of the total mobile revenue in the next five years,” said Alfie Amir, Research Manager of Telecommunications at IDC Malaysia.

NVIDIA GRID Test Drive comes to SEA and Australia

NVIDIANVIDIA has availed GRID Test Drive in Southeast Asia and Australia. GRID Test Drive is a simple and secure way to test the power of NVIDIA’s GRID technology for cloud-delivered graphics acceleration.

NVIDIA GRID technology allows knowledge workers and high-end graphics users such as engineers and designers to utilise graphics-rich applications through the cloud anywhere on any device – with the same quality and performance they would have on a professional workstation.

As the demand for virtualised desktop infrastructure (VDI) continues to grow, NVIDIA’s GRID Test Drive allows anyone considering VDI, or those frustrated with the performance of their current VDI deployment, to easily test GRID for free and experience the difference of having powerful graphics behind their remote desktops and applications, without first having to build a proof-of-concept private cloud.

Violin Memory boosts enterprise flash storage with data services software

Concerto 7000

Violin Memory has given enterprises a boost with its new Concerto™ 7000 All Flash Array, which comes with comprehensive data services software for synchronous and asynchronous replication, stretch metro cluster, storage snapshots, thin provisioning, logical unit number (LUN) and capacity expansion, advanced data protection, and storage scaling.

With these data services, enterprises and cloud service providers can have greater business agility, consolidate data centre resources and leverage new business opportunities.

Critical elements of Violin’s Concerto enterprise data services software include continuous data protection, WAN optimised replication and in-flight encryption that can all be configured on a LUN-by-LUN basis, giving enterprises the ability to tailor the solution to their unique deployment and data centre requirements.

Sweet on cloud

Cotton candy — what a simple, yet powerful illustration of the cloud. That’s what Acer offered at its booth at Computex, where visitors were treated to the sweet creation. It’s the Taiwanese IT giant’s way […]

NVIDIA clinches Computex Best Choice Awards for Tegra K1 and GRID

Best Choice AwardNVIDIA has done the double by snaring the Computex Best Choice Award for its NVIDIA GRID technology and the Golden Award for the NVIDIA Tegra K1 mobile processor.

This is the sixth year running that NVIDIA has picked up the award, marking the  longest winning streak of any international Computex exhibitor. More than 475 technology products from nearly 200 vendors competed for this year’s recognition.

Tegra K1 is a 192-core super chip, built on the NVIDIA Kepler architecture — the world’s most advanced and energy-efficient GPU. Tegra K1’s 192 fully programmable CUDA cores deliver the most advanced mobile graphics and performance, and its compute capabilities open up many new applications and experiences in fields such as computer vision, advanced imaging, speech recognition and video editing.

Motorola Solutions delivers cloud-ready wifi services

Motorola SolutionsEnterprises have more options for deployment cost effective wireless local area networks (WLAN). Motorola Solutions’ new VX 9000 is a scalable WLAN cloud solution backed by the functionality of Motorola’s robust NX hardware controller.

The VX 9000 software-based virtualised controller supports up to 25,000 access points in a single instance and can scale to support multiple instances.

Motorola’s new NX 7500 multi-service platform is designed for mid-size enterprises and campus environments and offers comprehensive management of more than 2,000 access points. Powered by WiNG 5, the NX 7500 ensures optimal RF performance, speed and throughput by enabling every transmission to follow the fastest and most efficient route to its destination.

Apacer introduces SATA 3 SSD

Apacer SFD 25H-2_loApacer has launched the SATA 3 SFD 25H-M SSD, which features up to 1TB capacity with really fast sequential read/write speed of 510/420MB/second.

To cater to industrial applications, its 512GB version is also designed to operate in the harsh environment of industry-level extended temperature (-40°C ~ 85°C). The product also features anti-shock, anti-vibration, low-power consumption and high-speed transmission.

It can improve access efficiency of servers as an alternative to traditional hard disks, and provide outstanding efficiency and highly reliable operating environment. In addition, it can be applied to embedded devices for industries such as medical, military, gaming, and transportation, especially in airborne surveillance system. The SFD 25H-M is able to keep on recording data repeatedly when working at heights and in low temperatures.

Violin Memory and Microsoft develop and avail all-flash array solution

WFAViolin Memory has teamed up with Microsoft to develop and avail Windows Flash Array (WFA), the first all-flash high-performance storage array powered by Windows Storage Server 2012 R2. WFA is a tightly integrated combination of Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 and Violin’s award-winning hardware and software into a single solution that delivers high performance all-flash array storage for enterprise and cloud customers.

The solution is claimed to transform the datacentre by dramatically reducing server overhead and application response times through improved storage performance, fundamentally altering the cost structure of enterprise applications. It enables enterprise and cloud workloads, such as SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint and Windows Server with Hyper-V virtualised applications, to meet the needs of global enterprises, while satisfying IT operational demands for maximised agility, automation, and orchestration between network, storage and compute resources.

“Microsoft technologies, such as Windows Server, SQL Server, and Microsoft SharePoint, are already adopted by enterprises worldwide and growing dramatically,” said Bill Laing, Corporate Vice- President of Microsoft. “By jointly developing this highly integrated solution with Violin Memory, we are working together to provide enterprise and cloud customers with dramatically improved performance, scalability, and economics for their Windows applications – virtualised, physical, and cloud.”

NetApp announces unified scale-out storage systems and virtualisation software

NetAppNetApp has introduced a new line of enterprise storage systems and enhanced software designed to accelerate the broadest range of virtualised applications.

The new NetApp FAS8000 series unifies SAN, NAS and storage virtualisation into a single hybrid array. It is NetApp’s first FAS platform designed specifically for scale-out storage environments built on clustered Data ONTAP.

The new FlexArray virtualisation software enables existing storage to be managed by Data ONTAP for a greater return on investment and makes legacy storage cloud-ready. The software enables the FAS8000 to virtualise and manage third-party arrays and delivers a nine-month payback guarantee.

Your smartphone will be smarter than you by 2017

GartnerIn four years’ time, your smartphone may be smarter than you. It will be able to predict your next move, next purchase or interpret actions based on what it knows, according to Gartner. This insight will be performed based on an individual’s data gathered using cognizant computing — the next step in personal cloud computing.

“Mobile phones have turned into smartphones thanks to two things: technology and apps,” Carolina Milanesi, Research Vice President of Gartner. “Technology has added features such as cameras, locations and sensors, while apps have connected those to an array of functions that, for the most part, add and improve our day to day life from a social, knowledge, entertainment and productivity point of view.” 

What smartphones can do through apps has improved and broadened thanks to the personal cloud. “We assume that apps will acquire knowledge over time and get better with improved predictions of what users need and want, with data collection and response happening in real-time,” she added.

Customer experience management is top IT priority for telcos in 2014

ovumCustomer experience management (CEM) has emerged as the top driver of telco IT investments in 2014, according to Ovum’s ICT Enterprise Insights. Telco IT spend is expected to reach US$60.7b by 2017, with investments geared towards telecoms infrastructure (cloud platforms, server virtualisation and BSS/OSS systems to support LTE implementations) and online channels to support customers’ increasingly digital lifestyles.

In the largest survey of senior IT executives ever conducted, Ovum reveals a long-term shift in spending towards customer-oriented systems and on improving customer satisfaction within the telecoms industry.

Survey respondents identified multi-channel integration and service personalisation as top areas of focus in the next 18 months, with 67 percent and 61 percent planning to increase spending in these two areas, respectively. Elsewhere, business intelligence and advanced analytics (predictive or big data analytics) will be key for operators — more than 80 percent of respondents will deploy these at the network level in an attempt to offer an enhanced connected experience with predictable, consistent, and relevant services at each point of interaction in the customer lifecycle.

Cloud Computing to account for most of IT budget by 2016

GartnerCloud computing adoption is growing and will form the bulk of new IT spend in 2016. According to Gartner, 2016 will be a defining year for cloud as private cloud begins to give way to hybrid cloud, and nearly half of large enterprises will have hybrid cloud deployments by the end of 2017.

Gartner describes cloud computing as a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered “as a service” using Internet technologies. It heralds an evolution of business in positive and negative ways. It has also become a hot industry term that has been used in many contradictory ways.

“Overall, there are very real trends toward cloud platforms, and also toward massively scalable processing. Virtualisation, service orientation and the Internet have converged to sponsor a phenomenon that enables individuals and businesses to choose how they’ll acquire or deliver IT services, with reduced emphasis on the constraints of traditional software and hardware licensing models,” said Chris Howard, Research Vice President of Gartner. “Services delivered through the cloud will foster an economy based on delivery and consumption of everything from storage to computation to video to finance deduction management.”

Huawei launches evaluation platform for mobile app developers

HuaweiHuawei has announced MBB Insider Online, a cloud-based mobile platform for evaluating mobile broadband (MBB) app network friendliness.

Developed by mLAB, Huawei’s wireless network innovation lab, MBB Insider Online allows app developers and other third-party MBB ecosystem companies to take unique advantage of evaluation tools that accurately determine the impact their services will have in terms of consumption of traffic, signaling, device power and delivered user experience when installed on a smart device connected to a live mobile network.

These developers can then better fully utilise network resources to considerably enhance their delivered service experience. MBB Insider Online also provides app optimisation recommendations to improve delivered user experience and optimise utilisation of network resources.

Gartner: Top 10 strategic technology trends for 2014

Gartner3D printing, personal cloud, the Internet of Everything — these buzzwords today are expected to be among the top 10 strategic technology trends next year, according to Gartner.

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. These technologies impact the organisation’s long-term plans, programs and initiatives.

Beginning of the Digital Industrial Economy

GartnerWorldwide IT spending is forecast to reach US$3.8 trillion in 2014, a 3.6 percent increase from 2013, but it’s the opportunities of a digital world that have IT leaders excited, according to Gartner.

The beginning of the Digital Industrial Economy will make every budget an IT budget; every company a technology company; every business a digital leader, and every person a technology company.

“The Digital Industrial Economy will be built on the foundations of the Nexus of Forces (which includes a confluence and integration of cloud, social collaboration, mobile and information) and the Internet of Everything by combining the physical world and the virtual,” said Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President of Gartner and Global Head of Research.

Half of large enterprises to have hybrid cloud by 2017

GartnerNearly half of large enterprises will have hybrid cloud deployments by the end of 2017, according to Gartner. In the past three years, private cloud computing has moved from an aspiration to a tentative reality for nearly half of large enterprises. Hybrid cloud computing is at the same place today that private cloud was three years ago. Actual deployments are low but aspirations are high.

When it comes to drivers of private cloud computing, while cost is always an important consideration, a business case for private cloud cannot rely on lower costs as the primary justification.

“Virtualisation reduces capital expenses, and standards and automation reduce operational expenses,” said Thomas Bittman, Vice President and Distinguished Analyst of Gartner. “However, taking the next step of adding usage metrics, self-service offerings and automated provisioning requires investment in technologies without a significant reduction in operational cost. With this in mind, the driving factor for going that next step should primarily be agility.”

Hong Kong to stay as key Asia Pacific data centre market

frost and sullivanLimited land availability and high real estate prices are unlikely to make Hong Kong lose its status as a key data centre market in Asia Pacific, according to Frost & Sullivan.

The limitations are countered by the Hong Kong Government’s continuous support for the sector.

“Hong Kong’s strong political connection to Mainland China allows it to act as a gateway for global companies that seek to tap into opportunities in China’s market,” said Danni Xu, Research Analyst, ICT Practice, Asia Pacific at Frost & Sullivan. “Moreover, Hong Kong’s business-friendly and free-trade environment has drawn a number of multinational corporations (MNCs) to set up their regional headquarters in the country. This has brought in numerous investments and job opportunities, and created demand for data center services.”

Worldwide IT outsourcing market to grow to US$288b in 2013

GartnerThe worldwide IT outsourcing (ITO) market is predicted to reach US$288 billion in 2013, a 2.8 percent increase from 2012, according to Gartner. Compared with Gartner’s previous forecast, nearly all ITO segments are now forecasted to grow more slowly this year.

Gartner’s forecast includes slight upward revisions for both custom application outsourcing and infrastructure utility services (IUS) for 2014 through 2017. Although software as a service (SaaS) impacts the ITO market, it is forecasted as part of the software market, rather than as part of the ITO market.

“We continue to see overall market growth being constrained by near-term market factors, such as evolving ITO delivery models, economic, political and labor conditions, and service provider financial performance,” said Bryan Britz, Research Vice President at Gartner. “Mature Asia/Pacific and Western Europe are the regions where the outlook is most tempered, partly due to currency but also reflective of our view that 2013 is likely to be similar to 2012 in these regions.”

Australia big on cloud computing

IDCAustralian enterprises are taking to cloud computing. According to IDC’s 2013 Australia End-User Cloud Survey, 86 percent of Australian enterprises were currently using cloud computing, up from 71 percent in 2012.

IDC observed that line-of-business (LOB) managers in leading-edge enterprises had begun to add to CIO’s cloud spending by direct acquisition of cloud services as a delivery mechanism for new competitive offerings within their own industries and marketplaces. This was validated by the survey results where the business unit (69.6 percent) was ranked higher than the IT department (59.8 percent) by the respondents when it came to the responsibility for selection of the service providers in their most recent cloud computing projects.

“Until 2012, cloud was primarily an IT label for IT infrastructure services delivered as a service. Now, cloud is no longer just an IT infrastructure play. Cloud-based business services being acquired by LOB managers will now drive growth in the use of externally sourced services. Cloud in 2013 is now business as usual for CIOs, IT managers, and LOB managers. By 2015, cloud will be just another delivery model for a range of “as-a-service” offerings that are based on infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS),” said Raj Mudaliar, Senior Analyst, Cloud Services Research at IDC Australia.

Gartner adjusts worldwide IT spending projection downwards to 2% growth this year

GartnerGartner has adjusted its worldwide IT spending forecast for 2013 downwards to US$3.7 trillion in 2013. Last quarter, the research firm predicted a 4,1 percent increase compared to 2012 but that projection has been sliced by half to 2 percent. This reduction takes into account the impact of recent fluctuations in US dollar exchange rates. 

The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is the a leading indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets. For more than a decade, global IT and business executives have been using these highly anticipated quarterly reports to recognise market opportunities and challenges, and base their critical business decisions on proven methodologies rather than guesswork.

“Exchange rate movements, and a reduction in our 2013 forecast for devices, account for the bulk of the downward revision of the 2013 growth,” said Richard Gordon, Managing Vice President at Gartner.

Gartner: India IT infrastructure spending to reach US$2.3b by 2014

GartnerThe Indian IT infrastructure market, comprising of server, storage and networking equipment, will hit US$2.1 billion this year, growing 9.7 percent compared to 2012, according to Gartner.

“Despite global economic challenges, India provides strong growth opportunities across segments including infrastructure. Infrastructure alone is expected to surpass US$2.9 billion in 2017,” said Naveen Mishra, Research Director at Gartner. “The Nexus of Forces – big data, cloud, social and mobility – are finding real-time business driven use cases which is bringing a paradigm shift in the way IT is delivering business impact and hence, changing the role of an Indian CIO.”

The Indian IT infrastructure market is driven by hardware refresh, optimisation and consolidation efforts. New data centre build out, primarily driven by service providers, is providing added impetus to this market.

Gartner: Indian public cloud services market to hit US$443m in 2013

GartnerLooks like the public cloud services market in India is growing fast. According to Gartner, this market is expected to grow 36 percent from US$326 million in 2012 to US$443 million in 2013.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), including cloud compute, storage and print services, continues as the fastest-growing segment of the market in India, growing 22.7 percent in 2012 to US$43.1 million, and is expected to grow another 39.6 percent in 2013 to US$60.2 million.

Software as a service (SaaS) continues to be the largest segment of the cloud services market in India, comprising 36 percent of the total market in 2012. Gartner predicts that from 2013 through 2017, US$4.2 billion will be spent on cloud services in India, US$1.6 billion of which will be spent on SaaS.

IDC: 3rd platform will drive China’s smart manufacturing sector

IDCIDC believes that IT vendors can leverage business opportunities created by China’s smart manufacturing policies, endeavours to consolidate relationships with governments and industry associations, and enhanced R&D innovation utilising 3rd Platform technologies (cloud computing, big data, social business, and mobility).

Smart manufacturing has been identified and supported by the Chinese government as the key field for further development. In line with this, the national ministries have released research that could drive the continuous construction of IT infrastructure in manufacturing enterprises. Next-generation technology architecture or 3rd platform has triggered clear demands from enterprise customers and created a thorough R&D ecosystem.

Since 2011, the Ministry of Industry and IT of PRC, along with the National Development and Reform Commission, have been releasing a series of research papers on smart manufacturing. IT service providers could identify potential business opportunities by analysing the subject directions and final approved lists.

Dell unveils mobility solutions to support BYOD initiatives

DellDell has unveiled new solutions that help organisations better plan, deploy and manage mobile and BYOD environments to help drive greater business value from their IT investments.

At Dell’s “The Power to Do More — Accelerating Results” event held in San Francisco today, company executives, industry leaders, global customers and channel partners shared insights and perspectives on Dell’s end-to-end strategy for meeting customers’ requirements. Additionally, interactive, customer-led discussions showcased Dell’s integrated technologies and scalable design point, which are proving instrumental in addressing emerging business demands and technology megatrends, including consumerization of IT, cloud computing, data insights, security and business intelligence.

“Dell is uniquely positioned to deliver highly differentiated, complete solutions — from clients to cloud and everything in between — that remove the barriers created by legacy technologies while empowering customers and partners to unlock new business opportunities,” said John Swainson, President of Dell Software. “Software is the catalyst to modernizing today’s IT environments, enabling organisations to do more and achieve greater business results.”

Gartner: Top 10 technology trends for the energy and utilities sector

GartnerGartner has identified the top ten technology trends affecting the global energy and utility markets in 2013, as the industry faces significant challenges from ongoing environmental sensitivity, changing policymaker attitudes and consumer expectations.

“Searching for successful business models that will address these issues and generate anticipated shareholder returns in uncertain regulatory settings is a top priority for this industry,” said report author Kristian Steenstrup, Vice President and Gartner Fellow. “This is in addition to protecting the security of critical generation and delivery infrastructure, as well as maintaining system reliability with aging physical assets. Public and private utilities are looking at how technology can reduce cost, drive efficiency and enhance competitive advantage.”

According to Steenstrup, what was once considered a conservative and slow-moving industry has seen a wide range of innovation from within and outside the traditional IT organization. He believes that understanding business trends is a crucial requirement for energy and utility organisations to create a successful IT strategy in this market.

Transforming computing experiences from the device to the cloud

IntelIntel has announced new technologies and partnerships aimed at transforming how people experience technology from the device to the cloud. The announcements at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) included details on new data centre product lines based on the 22-nanometer (nm) process technology and the new Intel rack scale architecture, along with details on the forthcoming 4th generation Intel Core processor family.

During her keynote, Diane Bryant, Intel Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Datacentre and Connected Systems Group, underscored the importance of the data centre in enabling amazing personal computing experiences to deliver real-time information and services. She also outlined the steps Intel is taking to provide the hardware and software needed for data analytics to improve the capabilities of intelligent devices and data center infrastructure.

“People are increasingly demanding more from their devices through applications and services whether at home, at work or wherever they may be,” Bryant said. “Intel is delivering a powerful portfolio of hardware and software computing technologies from the device to the data center that can improve experiences and enable new services.”

Gartner: 2.4b PCs, tablets and mobile phones to ship in 2013

GartnerWorldwide shipment of PCs, tablets and mobile phones are expected to top 2.4 billion units in 2013, a 9 percent increase from 2012, according to Gartner. Device shipments are predicted to reach more than 2.9 billion units in 2017. However, the mix of these devices will significantly change over the forecast period.

The proliferation of lower-priced tablets and their growing capability is accelerating the shift from PCs to tablets.

“While there will be some individuals who retain both a personal PC and a tablet, especially those who use either or both for work and play, most will be satisfied with the experience they get from a tablet as their main computing device,” said Carolina Milanesi, Research Vice President at Gartner. “As consumers shift their time away from their PC to tablets and smartphones, they will no longer see their PC as a device that they need to replace on a regular basis.”

ACCA launches vendor-neutral cloud assessment tool

ACCAThe Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA) has launched the online version of its Cloud Assessment Tool (CAT), which is designed to help businesses choose the most suitable cloud provider.

CAT provides a standard framework for IT users to measure their requirements against vendor offerings. The vendor-neutral framework will help enterprises make informed decisions as they consider migrating their data and applications to the cloud.

ACCA is currently benchmarking services and platforms provided by its members, including PLDT/Smart, Microsoft, Verizon Terremark, Telenor, Equinix, and Hiring Solutions.

Cisco and NetApp expand partnership with FlexPod architecture

NetAppciscoCisco and NetApp have an expanded partnership to deliver new converged infrastructure innovation to unify branch office, data centre and public cloud infrastructures under the FlexPod architecture. The partnership expansion includes efforts in technology integration, solution development, and continued go-to-market collaboration – all designed to make it easier for customers to deploy and access next-generation cloud infrastructure solutions.

Current IT architectures comprise a fragmented combination of infrastructure along with public, private and hybrid clouds offered by different organizations and addressing distinct customer needs. Through a shared vision of a unified data center, Cisco and NetApp offer the ability to simplify deployment, management and orchestration — connecting enterprise clouds to service providers, enterprises to branch offices, consumers to enterprises, and clouds to clouds.

Deeper integration across computing, networking, storage and orchestration components of FlexPod, combined with broader support for its open ecosystem of partners, will greatly simplify data centre deployment and management, deliver greater budget efficiency, reduce risk, and increase agile business responsiveness.

Leading cloud gaming pioneers adopt NVIDIA GRID platform

Jen-Hsun Huang at CES
Jen-Hsun Huang at CES

Six leading international cloud-gaming companies plan to use the NVIDIA  GRID Cloud Gaming Platform to deliver gaming services to global broadband companies.

The NVIDIA GRID Platform enables the smooth, seamless interactive experience of a high-performance gaming PC anywhere, on any screen – including smart TVs, PCs, tablets and smartphones.

NVIDIA GRID is a server designed to concurrently serve up to 36 times more HD-quality game streams than first-generation cloud-gaming systems, while reducing lag. It is fully integrated with a high density of NVIDIA® GPUs, specialised graphics-application streaming software and NVIDIA® VGX™ Hypervisor technology, which allows multiple users to share a GPU.

Initial partners on the NVIDIA GRID Platform include Agawi (United States); Cloud Union (China); Cyber Cloud Technologies (China); G-cluster Global (Japan); Playcast Media Systems (Israel); and Ubitus (Taiwan).

Gartner: Worldwide IT spending to reach US$3.7 trillion in 2013

GartnerWorldwide IT spending is projected to total US$3.7 trillion in 2013, a 4.2 percent increase from 2012 spending of $3.6 trillion, according to the latest forecast by Gartner. The 2013 outlook for IT spending growth has been revised upward from 3.8 percent in the 3Q12 forecast.

Gartner analysts said much of this spending increase is the result from projected gains in the value of foreign currencies versus the US dollar. When measured in constant dollars, 2013 spending growth is forecast to be 3.9 percent.

The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is the leading indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets. For more than a decade, global IT and business executives have been using these highly anticipated quarterly reports to recognize market opportunities and challenges, and base their critical business decisions on proven methodologies rather than guesswork.

NetApp supports Amazon Web Services Direct Connect with private storage solution

NetAppThe new NetApp Private Storage for Amazon Web Services (AWS) is an enterprise storage solution that utilises AWS Direct Connect to provide customers the ability to establish a dedicated network connection from their existing infrastructure to AWS.

With this offering, organisations can now replicate data from on-premise NetApp storage environments to NetApp Private Storage in an AWS Direct Connect facility to leverage on-demand cloud services. NetApp Private Storage for AWS allows enterprises to build an agile cloud infrastructure that balances internal datacenter resources along with AWS cloud resources to best meet their business needs.

Gartner’s Top 5 IT predictions for China in 2013 and beyond

GartnerGartner has published its top five IT predictions for China in 2013 and beyond, as China’s IT market undergoes major transformation, especially in cloud and mobility. Analysts said that although China’s IT market has similarities with the global IT market, it also faces challenges and opportunities that are very specific to the Chinese marketplace.

Enterprise spending on IT in China is forecast to grow from US$117.8 billion in 2013 to reach $172.4 billion in 2016, representing a compound annual growth rate of 8 percent, compared to a global growth rate of 3 percent over the same period, according to Gartner.

“In common with many emerging markets, cloud and mobile initiatives are hot and enterprises are also making progress in adopting virtualisation technologies, a key stepping stone in the journey to cloud,” said Matthew Cheung, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Without the legacy systems that hamper many western enterprises, Chinese organisations have an opportunity to leapfrog in the adoption of new technologies. However, the current hype around cloud could also result in its failure to live up to market expectation in a few years time. In mobility, China is a market characterised by strong local flavors, especially in the fast growing smartphone and tablet markets.”

Gartner predictions for IT organisations and users for 2013 and beyond

GartnerGartner has revealed its top predictions for IT organisations and IT users for 2013 and beyond.

Gartner’s top predictions focus on economic risks, opportunities and innovations that will impel CIOs to move to the next generation of business-driven solutions. Selected from across Gartner’s research areas as the most compelling and critical predictions, they address the trends and topics that underline the reduction of control that IT has over the forces that affect it.

“The priorities of CEOs must be dealt with by CIOs who exist in a still-turbulent economy and increasingly uncertain technology future,” said Daryl Plummer, Managing Vice President and Gartner Fellow. “As consumerisation takes hold and the Nexus of Forces drives CEOs to certain expectations, CIOs must still provide reliability, serviceability and availability of systems and services. Their priorities must span multiple areas. As the world of IT moves forward, it is finding that it must coordinate activities in a much wider scope than it once controlled, and as a result, a loss of control echoes through several predictions we are making.”