Wednesday, November 27th, 2013

Time	Event
1:00p	Using Cloud and Virtualization to Deliver Next-Generation Workloads “Device agnosticism” means more clouds and virtualization. As the days of the PC wind down and more users embrace mobility and device agnosticism, organizations will need to utilize advanced cloud and virtualization methods to deliver new types of workloads to the user. This means creating more data center distribution, utilizing more cloud resources and taking your virtual infrastructure to the next level. So what is cloud and virtualization helping deliver? What are some of these new applications and workloads that require additional resources? How will all of this impact the user today, and in the future? To better understand the cloud, data center and virtualization infrastructure, it’s important to look at what the end-user is actually using and the implications for your environment. Delivering Rich Content and Media. It’s come down to much more than just application delivery. We are now sharing massive amounts of data, video and other types of rich content. This is all being pushed to mobile devices with an ever-present connection to the cloud. By having back-end virtual platform capable of handling vast amounts of users, organizations are able to deliver such content. The great part is that supportive infrastructure has really come a long way. WAN optimization can now be physical or virtual, located at various points in the cloud architecture. Couple this with adaptive user experience orchestration and you create a dynamic platform for rich-media delivery. Adaptive orchestration is able to analyze the inbound connecting device, understand the hardware, check the latency, and optimize the experience based on numerous metrics to ensure the best possible experience. This is all done seamlessly by intelligent cloud systems. Utilizing Converged Infrastructure. Delivering next-generation workloads requires the power of a next-generation data center. As it becomes the modern home of everything, the data center platform had to evolve to handle new types of cloud designs and workload delivery models. A part of this evolution revolved around the server infrastructure that supported their respective workloads. Now, there are platforms to completely unify storage, networking and compute in one intelligent hardware plane. These platforms incorporate software-defined technologies and advanced levels of integration to deliver new types of workloads. These converged systems are capable of higher-density and greater user multi-tenancy. All of this translates to better resources utilization while still delivering complex workloads. Evolving the end-point. There’s a reason that mobile devices and tablets have been doing so well. The user has become more mobile and has created a data-on-demand generation. This evolution of how we compute forced the change in the end-user device model. Devices are smarter, more compact and a lot more versatile than a standard desktop. Zero-clients built around system-on-chip (SoC) technologies are allowing corporations to completely re-define their end-point. These zero-client devices take minimal power, allow for a rip/replace methodology, and drastically reduce maintenance time and costs. Plus, more resource availability allows administrators to steam a rich experience to the user even with these tiny hardware footprints. Also, take a look at what Chromebook is doing with the concept of a completely web-enabled OS and device. This is an open architecture where both corporate and personal applications can be delivered. Ultimately, the device is only used for hardware, but can still provide a very rich experience for the user. The really interesting part is that more applications are being delivered to these types of end-points, but without the use of any clients. New technologies around HTML5 are breaking the barriers in how applications (regardless of the app’s DNA) can be delivered to web-ready devices. The future will see device and application agnosticism as users will be able to utilize intelligent web-ready resources to access their applications.   Next-generation workloads, data, and applications. The infrastructure that supports new applications and data delivery methods will continue to evolve. With that, applications and how they interconnect with their respective resources will evolve as well. Take, for example, the Kinetic Open Cloud Storage Platform from Seagate. This intelligent platform eliminates the storage server tier of traditional data center architectures by enabling applications to speak directly to the storage device, thereby reducing expenses associated with the acquisition, deployment, and support of hyperscale storage infrastructures. We’re seeing this happen with other resources too. APIs have come a long way in helping applications better integrate with the cloud. Cloud-ready APIs can help applications and other resources eliminate entire layers to increase communication efficiency. The ability to cross-connect between various resources, applications, and even entire data centers is a critical piece in delivering new types of workloads to the end-user. There are more cloud services becoming available as the modern data center becomes your home to all evolving technologies. The way the end-user access their personal and corporate resources has completely changed over the past few years. With that change, organizations must also evolve in how they support their users. By enabling mobility and cloud utilization, administrators are able to empower their users to be more productive and utilize end-points that they are most comfortable with. Ultimately, it’ll all come down to the applications and data that are being delivered. The hardware at the end-point will only be utilized for the resources it can provide to allow the application to run. This centralized, web-enabled, delivery model helps centralize critical data and allow the user to be truly on-the-go. Already we are seeing rich content be optimized with intelligent WANOP technologies. As more resources and bandwidth becomes available, organizations will be able to do even more with their data center platforms. (Comment on this)
1:30p	How SMBs Can Keep Their Data Safe When Natural Disasters Strike Dylan O’Connor, CTO, Thrive Networks, A Staples Company DYLAN O’CONNOR</p> Thrive Networks Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, blizzards – any one of these natural disasters could wreak havoc on a data center, leading to power surges, leaks or, worst of all, data loss. And if that happens, the consequences could be catastrophic. The Institute for Business and Home Safety reports that one in four businesses don’t reopen after a major disaster –demonstrating how critical it is to have plan in place to protect the data center. However, that is a much easier task for substantial enterprises, which can afford to house servers on both the east and west coasts of the United States – guaranteeing data won’t be lost should a major storm strike one coast or the other. For small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), it’s much more challenging. Tips to Prevent Catastrophe The good news is there are some relatively simple things SMBs can do to storm-proof their data centers, avoid critical downtime and get through all kinds of extreme conditions or season. The first and most important step to take is developing a backup strategy. A strong backup and archival strategy is critical, especially in case of unanticipated down time. Since SMBs typically don’t have offices in various geographies, most can’t easily backup critical corporate data in various locations like enterprises can. However, what they can do (particularly those in storm-prone areas) is partner with a third-party data center provider for server replication in a different location. Beyond a backup strategy, there are several additional steps SMBs should take regarding the protection of their data center: Make a plan – deciding ahead of time who will be responsible for what during a crisis will help employees remain calm and keep a business operating smoothly even in the middle of a natural disaster. Prevent power loss – a battery backup can allow SMBs to have an uninterrupted power supply, allowing for critical extra time to power down key equipment and backup data to a site away from the storm’s path. Detect leaks – water damage is almost a given when a major storm strikes, and can be extremely damaging. Sensors can detect a single drop of liquid and trigger an alarm (audible, emails or even via text message) to flag a potential problem. Prepare for power surges – lightning and power fluctuations should also be expected with a big storm. In addition to battery backup, proper surge protection guards for routers, hubs, computers, copy machines, etc. are key. SMBs should think through these steps to prepare for any worst case scenario. Securing the data center is an important step in ensuring a business runs smoothly – through the good times and the bad. Industry Perspectives is a content channel at Data Center Knowledge highlighting thought leadership in the data center arena. See our guidelines and submission process for information on participating. View previously published Industry Perspectives in our Knowledge Library. (Comment on this)
3:00p	ScaleXtreme Launches Advanced Cloud Management ScaleXtreme advances its cloud management product, PaaS provider Apprenda receives $16 million to grow, and Jamcracker launches version 7 of its Jamcracker Services Delivery Network. ScaleXtreme Cloud Management.  ScaleXtreme announced general availability of its new Advanced Cloud Management product, including a new workflow and orchestration system, autoscaling, multi-cloud management capabilities, and rich cloud access control. The product has been tested in large corporations, with complex applications and central IT control over their public cloud deployments; including on Amazon Web Services, Terremark Enterprise Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. The enterprise platform provides the ability to create, deploy and manage enterprise cloud applications across private, public and hybrid cloud, and an autoscaling capability. It also enforces access control, governance and compliance to multiple cloud environments, self-service features and provides server management capabilities. “As enterprises evolve their applications architecture to be increasingly cloud-based, they find themselves having to deal with multiple vendors and management tools,” said Nand Mulchandani, CEO and Co-Founder of ScaleXtreme. ”There’s usually no “clean break” between their legacy applications running on virtualized servers in their datacenter, and starting to deploy applications in the public cloud. ScaleXtreme helps IT deal with this complexity. Our Enterprise Platform gives them a single console with which to control all aspects of cloud application provisioning; while still giving them server management functionality for handling the underlying infrastructure on their existing applications.” Apprenda receives $16 million Series C funding.  Platform-as-a-Service company Apprenda announced a $16 million Series C financing round led by Safeguard Scientifics, with participation from existing investors Ignition Partners and New Enterprise Associates. The funding will help advance its private Platform as-a-Service (PaaS) and expand the aggressive customer growth the company has enjoyed by building out product, strategic alliances, sales, client services and marketing functions. “Cloud has caused a major disruption in IT infrastructure creating a new breed of software-defined enterprises that are turning to PaaS to modernize infrastructure and build applications faster, better and more cost-effectively in order to impact the bottom line,” said Sinclair Schuller, co-founder and CEO at Apprenda. “Apprenda has seen massive adoption in the enterprise space with the leading Global 2000 companies using our solution to fuel application development, and we plan to use this round of funding to continue to grow our market share as more companies turn to us for private and hybrid PaaS solutions.” Jamcracker launches cloud services brokering 7.0.  Cloud Service Brokerage company Jamcracker announced the release of the Jamcracker Services Delivery Network (JSDN) 7.0, enabling enterprise service providers and IT organizations to offer IT as a Service (ITaaS). New in version 7 is an improved service catalog, unified billing for all cloud services, a hybrid cloud management console, an open integration framework and a Hadoop-based big data analytics framework. “JSDN 7.0 enables customers to deploy both internal and external CSB solutions, including multi-vendor cloud management features, usage billing and analytics, and comprehensive governance enforcement,” said Mahendra Soneji, VP of product management, Jamcracker.  “This release will help streamline IT operations for enterprises and increase revenue streams for CSB operators, ultimately leading to an ITaaS revolution.” (Comment on this)
4:42p	Cartoon Contest: Gobble, Gobble in the Hot Aisle? Happy Holiday to our U.S. readers! We are voting on the cartoon caption contest because many folks will be off on Friday this week. So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, what would you say if there’s a turkey in the hot aisle? Scroll down and vote for the best entries. The caption contest works like this: We provide the cartoon and you, our readers, submit the captions. We then choose finalists and the readers vote for their favorite funniest suggestion. The winner will receive his or her caption in a signed print by our artist Diane Alber. Take Our Poll For the previous cartoons on DCK, see our Humor Channel. For more Kip and Gary humor, visit their website. (Comment on this)

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