Category: Cloud

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.”