Monday, June 24th, 2013

Time	Event
12:30p	Cloudscaling Bringing OpenStack Clouds to AWS Private and hybrid clouds are all the rage right now, and one  of the companies most keenly focused on this space is Cloudscaling, which specializes in private clouds built atop the open source OpenStack platform. Cloudscaling focuses on making its private clouds compatible with the Amazon Web Services platform, giving customers the option of easily moving workloads between the Cloudscaling infrastructure in their data center and the AWS public cloud. The company just received $10 million in funding from Seagate and Juniper, among others. At last week’s GigaOm Structure conference, we caught up with Cloudscaling co-founder and CTO Randy Bias, who provided an update on the company’s progress and outlook on the cloud market. This video runs about 6 minutes, 30 seconds. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube. (Comment on this)
1:00p	Nutanix Delivers Converged Infrastructure Data center infrastructure solutions provider Nutanix announced two new platforms to enable IT teams to tailor and  grow compute and storage to fit either enterprise branch office with limited on-site IT resources, or core data centers tasked with supporting an increasingly diverse and demanding set of workloads. New NX-1000 and NX-6000 Platforms For small to mid sized companies the Nutanix NX-1000 Series, like other Nutanix platforms, features a flatter datacenter architecture that eliminates the need for centralized SAN/NAS storage, thereby dramatically reducing IT complexity and simplifying management. The NX-1000 requires up to 80 percent less space and power than alternative approaches, providing a single platform to power branch office services, including local applications, virtual desktop deployments, file and print services, DHCP and DNS services, WAN optimization controllers and security-focused virtual appliances. The 2U appliance features pre-installed replication and backup software that automatically protects VM-specific data, and starts at $22,500 per node. The NX-6000 Series is a converged datacenter platform to independently scale storage resources in a single converged infrastructure. The platform makes it simple and affordable for enterprises to design and scale their datacenters one appliance at a time with the ability to add just the right amount of storage and compute resources for any workload. With 3 times the raw storage of earlier Nutanix platforms it can support the most data intensive applications, such as SQL databases, Hadoop-driven data analytics or large-scale VDI rollouts. It includes in-line and post-process data compression to deliver 35 TB to 70 TB of usable storage. The 2U appliance starts at $60,000 per node. “Natively converged infrastructure solutions (also known as CompuStorage solutions in IDC’s taxonomy on file and object storage) are quickly becoming a reality for many enterprises as the need to handle big data projects, high-end databases or demanding VDI dramatically increases,” said Ashish Nadkarni, Research Director, Storage Systems, IDC. ”The key to a successful natively converged infrastructure is flexibility—a single platform that can scale compute and storage independent of each other, and can easily adapt to specific environments and application requirements.” (Comment on this)
3:00p	Aging Infrastructures and Evolving Threats – Data Center 2.0 is Redefining Security The security threat matrix for the data center environment evolving. Why? There are more users, a lot more data and new technologies which are capable of carrying information over vast, distributed distances. All of this has created new targets for the bad guy. Although modern technologies have enhanced the way we conduct everyday business – these same technologies create new risks as they are deployed into the modern IT environment. But what happens when these technologies are deployed on an aging infrastructure? What happens when modern-day threats and vulnerabilities hit an aging data center environment? How can aging data center 1.0 platforms fight against new types of threat vectors? Here’s the real problem: Not only have attacks against the entire data center infrastructure increased, they’ve also become much more sophisticated. The influx of advanced attacks has become a serious issue for any data center provider looking to host modern technologies. Join Robert Butler, Chief Security Officer at IO, as he discusses the challenges that face the data center 1.0 environment. Moderated by Data Center Knowledge writer Bill Kleyman, this webinar will explore where data center 1.0 falls short and how data center 2.0 is helping redefine security for global operations. Register for the upcoming webinar on June 27, 2013 from 2:00pm – 3:00pm EDT to learn about: The security challenges facing the “Data Center 1.0″ infrastructure. The impact of technology trends on business and government – and how it affects you. The cyber-threat evolution in recent years. How an APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) steals secrets and disrupts operations. An integrated approach to physical and logical security. Deploying intelligent security solutions — from the bottom up. With the evident increase in data center reliance, your organization will benefit when you learn how these new threats can affect your IT environment and what you can do to combat the situation. (Comment on this)
3:24p	Fractal Gets $25 Million for Big Data Analytics Fractal Analytics has received a $25 million investment from TA Associates, which is taking a minority stake in the San Mateo-based company. Fractal provides advanced Big Data analytics, with almost all of its revenue coming from Fortune 500 companies. The funding is going towards growth rather than paying the bills, as the company is apparently profitable. The capital will go towards global expansion, growing the sales team and building out more intellectual property and products. Fractal Analytics helps companies understand consumers, help earn customer loyalty and make better data-informed decisions. It consults companies on their various products and pricing strategies based on examining this data, institutionalizing data-driven decision making. The company’s flagship offering is called Customer Genomics, which helps marketers learn complex customer behavior at an individual level. It consists of proprietary pattern recognition and machine learning algorithms that learn from each transaction and customer interaction. Customer genomics also tracks these interactions across social media. The end result is a complete view of customers across attitudinal and behavioral dimensions. Fractal Analytics was founded by former investment bankers Srikanth Velamakanni and Pranay Agrawal in a Mumbai suburb, and it has seen tremendous growth recently. Growing Demand for Analytics “Over the last two years, Fractal has seen revenues almost triple in size, making us one of the fastest growing companies in the industry,” said Pranay Agrawal, Co-Founder and EVP, Fractal Analytics. “We are excited about how this partnership will help us expand our footprint and meet the growing client demand for analytics solutions. We are confident this collaboration with TA will prove beneficial to our clients and employees.” The company now employs over 600 with revenue jumping from $7 million in 2011 to an expected $35 million this fiscal year. The investment will fuel further developments going forward. “We chose to partner with TA Associates because of their excellent track record in helping profitable companies become outstanding businesses,” said Srikanth Velamakanni, Co-Founder & CEO of Fractal Analytics. “We are passionate about helping companies leverage advanced analytics to better understand consumers, optimize pricing & marketing and compete more effectively in the marketplace. Our partnership with TA will help us fuel this passion further.” Analytics and Big data companies continue to attract funding and investment worldwide as many look to capitalize on a market expected to grow exponentially.  “We believe that the big data space represents a very significant opportunity as companies have understood the power of data driven decision making but are struggling to operationalize and institutionalize analytics inside their organizations,” said Naveen Wadhera, Director and Country Head, TA Associates “Fractal is one of the most respected players globally in this space and has been experiencing accelerated growth, making it the ideal company with which to partner. We look forward to working with the company’s management team to further build value in Fractal.” Wadhera will join the Fractal Analytics Board of Directors. “Fractal has a top notch team of data scientists and world-class analytics solutions that continue to create tremendous business impact for leading Fortune 500 companies,” said Kenneth T. Schiciano, a Managing Director at TA Associates who also will join the Fractal Analytics Board of Directors. “We are delighted to back the company in its mission to institutionalize data driven decision making in corporations, and anticipate a very mutually beneficial relationship.” (Comment on this)

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