Monday, August 28th, 2017

Time	Event
12:00p	VMware Wants to Be ‘Cloud Switzerland’ After an attempt to become a cloud service provider itself – which appears to have seen mixed results – VMware’s new cloud strategy can be summarized as wanting to be the glue that holds a customer’s multi-cloud infrastructure together, including private cloud (on-premises or outsourced), and numerous public cloud platforms. The company, majority-owned by Dell EMC, first announced this strategy at its annual VMworld conference in Las Vegas a year ago, and today, at this year’s event, it is finally beginning to explain how the strategy, which circles around a platform called VMware Cloud Foundation, translates into specific products and services. “We can act as cloud Switzerland,” Nick King, VMware’s VP of cloud product marketing, said in an interview with Data Center Knowledge. That means VMware wants to help customers use whatever cloud platforms they choose, providing a toolset that remains consistent, whether they’re running applications in their own data centers, on Amazon Web Services, on Microsoft Azure, or on all of the above. To that end, the company today unveiled a number of cloud management tools sold as cloud services, using the Software-as-a-Service delivery model. They include tools for managing cloud resource consumption; monitoring cloud networks for performance, health, and compliance; optimizing cloud costs; creating private virtual networks within or across clouds; cloud security; analytics; and multi-platform app management. See also: VMware, Once the “Easiest Value Proposition in IT,” Defines Its New Role The services will be free between now and November 30th, by which time the company promises to provide pricing details. Like with other SaaS products, users will be able to consume the services on demand and pay per use, or commit to long-term contracts paid for upfront, presumably in exchange for discounts. Pricing is a bit of an Achilles’ heel for VMware, whose corporate clients reportedly often complain in private about high cost of its products. More VMworld coverage here: VMware Pitches Hyper-Converged Infrastructure for Edge Computing Selling an ‘Easy’ Path to Hybrid Cloud Some of the new tools work across AWS, Azure, and on-premises VMware environments; some across AWS and on-prem; and one (AppDefense for data center endpoint security) is on-prem only. The on-prem bit is key here. The huge presence of VMware’s virtualization platform in enterprise data centers is the cornerstone of VMware’s cloud strategy, giving it a natural advantage over competitors in pitching hybrid-cloud solutions to those customers, offering them the path of least resistance (via a consistent toolset on-prem and in the cloud) in integrating public cloud into their service-delivery models. The new Discovery tool, for example, automatically takes inventory of your compute, storage, and network resources deployed in AWS, Azure, and vCenter, the management platform for on-prem VMware environments. (Image: VMware) Another example, NSX Cloud, is the cloud version of VMware’s flagship network virtualization software. The tool gives you a single management console and a common API for networking and security across multiple private and public clouds. At launch, NSX Cloud supports AWS and VMware on-prem only, but Azure and Google Cloud Platform appear to be on the list of options to be added in the future. Outsize AWS Support While “cloud Switzerland” is a worthy goal, it’s hard to ignore the fact that at least today VMware’s partnership with AWS, the world’s largest public cloud provider, is tighter than its relationships with other cloud providers. Most of the new SaaS tools support AWS, while only two support Azure at launch, and none support GCP, or IBM and Oracle’s cloud platforms for that matter. VMware and AWS announced their partnership last October, saying they would offer VMware’s products as cloud services on AWS. VMware Cloud on AWS, which is VMware’s virtualization platform vSphere running on bare-metal servers in Amazon data centers sold and supported by VMware, is currently in preview period. The idea is to offer customers the same vSphere-based cloud they’ve set up in their own data centers, but as an infinitely more elastic and scalable public cloud service. It’s possible that the companies will announce the end of preview period for the service this week at VMworld. Asked whether VMware had plans to strike similar partnerships with other cloud providers, King said the answer will depend on customer demand. “We always look at how we work with cloud providers,” he said. See also: VMware Gives AWS Keys to Its Enterprise Data Center Kingdom (Comment on this)
12:00p	VMware Pitches Hyper-Converged Infrastructure for Edge Computing We don’t often get a chance to stick two buzz-phrases into one headline, but thanks to VMware, today is our lucky day. For companies looking to deploy edge computing, be it computers in retail stores, in remote offices, or on factory floors, VMware has a new hyper-converged cluster powered by vSAN, its answer to hyper-converged infrastructure leaders like Nutanix and Hewlett Packard Enterprise-owned SimpliVity. Companies typically deploy edge computing nodes to process data close to where it originates to get analytics results faster, to save on the cost of transporting data to a central data center, or to avoid problems caused by poor remote-site connectivity. Use of this type of computing infrastructure is on the rise, which is expected to accelerate as next-generation applications, such as self-driving cars or virtual and augmented reality kick into high gear and spur demand for heavy, near-real-time processing impossible if data from the originating device has to travel to a remote data center and back. “Most customers now want to process all the data at the remote site,” Chanda Dani, senior director of product marketing at VMware, said in an interview with Data Center Knowledge. See also: What’s Behind AT&T’s Big Bet on Edge Computing The company’s new HCI Acceleration Kit is a $25,000 pre-integrated three-node cluster that comes pre-loaded with vSphere, its server virtualization software, and vSAN. Each of the three nodes is a single-socket server by one of the hardware partners, who currently include Dell, Lenovo, Supermicro, and Fujitsu. VMware promises fast deployment and management simplicity. “The system can be managed centrally by IT generalists,” Dani said. “And they can expect enterprise-grade storage performance and run as many virtual machines as they want.” See also: Can Windows Server Make Hyper-Converged Infrastructure a Boring Commodity? The company made the announcement at VMworld, its big annual conference that takes place this week in Las Vegas. More VMworld coverage here: VMware Wants to Be ‘Cloud Switzerland’ New OpenStack Distro, No Longer Free Along with the hyper-converged infrastructure package for edge computing, VMware unveiled a new release of its OpenStack distribution: VMware Integrated OpenStack 4.0. The new distro supports all the features that came out with the latest Ocata release of the open source cloud platform, Mahesh Kumar, a senior director at VMware, said. Like with the new edge computing kit, VMware is promising easy deployment and management of its OpenStack distro. The platform is notoriously difficult to set up and manage without help from specialists. But users of VMware’s distro have “absolutely no need for professional services,” Kumar said. For the first time, VMware is now charging for its latest OpenStack distribution. Prior releases were free, but the company provided paid support as an option. VIO OpenStack 4.0 comes in two editions (Data Center and Data Center add-on for vRealize Suite) and costs $995 per server socket, Kumar said. (Comment on this)
3:00p	Does AI Mean More Jobs? James Ramey is CEO of DeviceBits. Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has changed the way many large companies are handling their services. However, the continuous growth of AI technologies are drawing concerns with the public. If AI continues to be an important factor in business plans, will the majority of human-based jobs be taken over by automation? Can AI evolve into something more concerning? In spite of this, AI has contributed to many industries, specifically customer care, and it is possible that it will be able to create more jobs, not less. Many AI technologies have changed the way companies operate business, and in customer care, the use of chatbots and automated interactions allow customers to have their questions resolved quickly without having to wait on hold for a live agent. There are also downloadable supplemental materials customers can use and keep for reference when self-troubleshooting their problems. Because many AI self-support materials are available through web and mobile apps, it’s easier for customers to find the answers they need wherever they are. Harvard Business Review‘s recent article collected several studies on AI and automated jobs in America. From the answers reviewed, one study believed 47 percent of jobs will be automated by 2033. Others believed only a job loss of 4 percent will occur by the year 2020. Instead of harboring on the feared future job losses, the article believes these fears are over exaggerated and consumers should pay attention to the good AI has brought, especially to the customer service industry. Through automated self-support materials, AI mostly focuses on tasks between computer-to-computer. There is though the balance of AI taking over human-based jobs and also providing jobs. ‘Tier-one’ positions in customer care are mostly found offshore. These locations are usually where customers call for customer service. With AI technologies in customer care, such as bots and other self-support materials, they will be able to take over many of these tier-one positions. This allows companies to spend more time and money investing in their “tier-two” departments. Tier-two departments house the live agents who have the skillset in resolving complex customer inquiries. Instead of having these agents overseas, many of these positions are often U.S.-based. With AI handling simple customer questions and live agents resolving complex questions, time and money is saved by businesses across many industries. Live agents will also be able to use AI technologies as their own intelligent assistants. The bots and self-support materials can be modified for live agents to use to lead them to correct answers when they need extra information and support for the customer.  But this also means there is a demand for people to become knowledgeable with AI and other technologies. As the mass majority of consumers go digital, the demand for people to join the workforce with technological skills is in demand. As the world becomes more tech-savvy, there will be creations of more jobs in AI and relevant subjects. It is a possibility that AI might be able to create more jobs for people as opposed to a loss. Opinions expressed in the article above do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Data Center Knowledge and Informa. 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)
5:49p	You Can Now Spin Up VMware Servers in Amazon Data Centers Ever wish you could just run VMware on Amazon’s cloud? Now you can, but not on the entire AWS cloud, just in one availability region hosted in Amazon data centers in Oregon. This morning, on stage at VMworld, VMware’s big annual conference in Las Vegas, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger and AWS CEO Andy Jassy announced initial availability of VMware Cloud on AWS, which is essentially VMware’s server virtualization platform running on bare-metal servers inside Amazon’s data centers customers can consume the same way they consume AWS cloud server instances. The two companies announced a partnership with the goal of seamlessly extending VMware’s environment from the enterprise data center to AWS about one year ago. VMware is nearly ubiquitous in corporate and public-sector data centers, where users deployed the platform to radically increase the utilization rate of each physical machine. More VMworld coverage: VMware Wants to Be ‘Cloud Switzerland’ VMware Pitches Hyper-Converged Infrastructure for Edge Computing While many large IT organizations have deployed applications on public cloud platforms, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform, by many accounts they still run most of their workloads in their own data centers. Giving them a way to deploy software in the cloud using the same underlying software stack they use in-house and the associated management tools will presumably further reduce the friction they face when using cloud services. The partnership highlights a change in the message AWS has been sending to the market about the future of cloud in the IT industry. The company used to paint hybrid cloud, where users have both on-premises data centers and cloud services, as little more than a stepping stone toward a world where nearly all workloads would run in public clouds. Its willingness to partner with VMware on hybrid cloud signals that Amazon recognizes what many industry pundits have been saying for years: for numerous reasons many IT shops simply don’t think deploying the entirety of their workloads in one or another public cloud provider’s data centers makes sense. The partnership is also a big step for VMware, which has in the past attempted to become a cloud service provider itself, making essentially the same pitch: extend your on-premises VMware environment into the cloud, where you’ll find the same familiar platform and tooling. While VMware execs claim the cloud business had been successful, the company ended up selling the business, called vCloud Air, to the French service provider OVH earlier this year. VMware’s new strategy in the cloud services market is to enable customers to use multiple cloud providers together with their on-premises VMware environments using the same toolset. As of now, VMware Cloud on AWS is available in the AWS US West region, but plans are in place to expand the service worldwide next year. Customers pay for each hour a host is active in their account. It includes not only vSphere, the core server virtualization platform, but also VMware NSX for network virtualization, VMware VSAN for storage virtualization, and the management suite VMware vCenter. The technologies are all part of VMware’s fairly new software-defined data center platform VMware Cloud Foundation. The cost is about $8.40 per host per hour; $52,000 for one reserved host for one year (a 30-percent discount compared to on-demand pricing); or $110,000 for a three-year single-host contract (a 50-percent discount). Users of VMware’s on-premises software get further discounts (up to 25 percent off) “based on eligible on-premises product licenses.” A number of companies are providing managed services around VMware Cloud on AWS, such as solutions for DevOps, application migration, data protection, cloud analytics, and security. VMware Cloud on AWS has a rich ecosystem already in the marketplace. #VMworld pic.twitter.com/KJtmcaO0k1 — VMware News (@vmwarenews) August 28, 2017 (Comment on this)
6:20p	Oracle Hiring 5,000 for Cloud Business in Race With Salesforce Gerrit De Vynck (Bloomberg) — Oracle Corp. is hiring another 5,000 employees for its cloud software business as it fights Salesforce.com Inc. for market share in the fast-growing industry.The hiring surge aims to beef up what’s already Oracle’s fastest-growing business, increasing revenue by 58 percent in the quarter it reported June 21 compared with a year earlier. The move is the latest in a back-and-forth between Oracle and its main rival that last week saw Salesforce Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff bragging he was on track to generate $10 billion in cloud revenue this year, a goal Oracle was trying to hit first. It also comes as other major U.S. tech companies are touting their domestic hiring plans in a bid to avoid the ire of President Donald Trump. Amazon.com Inc. has pledged to hire more than 100,000 workers by 2018 and has been holding job fairs across the U.S. Apple Inc. has promised to invest $1 billion in advanced U.S. manufacturing, and its key supplier Foxconn Technology Group is building a factory in Wisconsin. (Comment on this)
7:50p	Four Providers’ Houston Data Centers Online, but Access Roads Flooded Houston data centers operated by four providers have remained online since Hurricane Harvey made landfall Friday evening, but streets surrounding at least most of the facilities are flooded, cutting off customer access. The hurricane (which experts have referred to as unprecedented) and subsequent flooding have left more than 100,000 residents and businesses without electricity as of Monday morning, but Equinix, CyrusOne, Data Foundry, and Digital Realty Trust data centers in Houston have not lost utility power. Staff at the facilities are safe, according to sources. But forecasters say a lot more rain is coming, so more flooding and more power outages are likely. “This is a landmark event for Texas,” CNN quoted FEMA Administrator Brock Long as saying. “Texas has never seen an event like this.” While customers may or may not have to access the data centers before the streets are dry and cleared (and techs living in Houston probably have other things to take care of at this time), the flooding may complicate fuel deliveries in the event of a prolonged power outage that would require running on backup generators. Many data center operators have national fuel-delivery contracts that put them second in line behind hospitals, first responders, and other public-safety organizations, to receive fuel supplies. See also: Hurricane Preparation Tips for Data Center Managers As of Monday morning, HO1 IBX, the Houston data center Redwood City, California-based Equinix acquired from Verizon earlier this year, had not experienced any interruption, an Equinix spokesperson said in a statement emailed to Data Center Knowledge. “The IBX remains open and staffed by Equinix, however, the streets surrounding the HO1 IBX have been closed due to flooding, and the site is not accessible to customers at this time.” The facility’s staff are monitoring and assessing the situation “aggressively,” and Equinix representatives have contacted all of its customers to update them on the status, the spokesperson said. Because of the event’s unprecedented, unpredictable nature, the company is “working with customers to ensure they have disaster-recovery plans in place, should the situation change.” All Equinix employees in Houston and the surrounding areas are “safe and accounted for.” A Digital Realty spokesperson could not comment due to the company’s media blackout period associated with its pending acquisition of DuPont Fabros Technology. But according to an industry source, the San Francisco-based company’s Houston data center had not lost utility power as of Monday morning. Access roads to the facility are flooded, they said. Neither of Austin-based Data Foundry’s two Houston data centers lost utility power, and “no flood waters have reached either of the facilities,” a company spokesperson said. “We have not had to fail over to generator power. Our underground fuel tanks remain full.” While all transportation in the area is impacted by road closures, fuel deliveries can reach Data Foundry’s sites if needed, according to the spokesperson. In an emailed statement, Kevin Timmons, CTO of Dallas-based CyrusOne, which operates three data centers in Houston, said neither of the facilities have lost utility power. “In all Texas data centers, the CyrusOne emergency management and response plan was activated on Friday morning and remains in effect,” he said. “Houston data centers are staffed around the clock, and we are grateful for our dedicated employees, many of whom have been away from their families during this trying time.” He did not say whether or not the facilities could be accessed by transport. While the company’s current priority is maintaining availability as the storm continues, CyrusOne is looking for the best ways to support relief efforts. “We plan to make a substantial commitment to helping people in Southeast Texas get back on their feet in the days, weeks, and months ahead,” Timmons said. (Comment on this)

<< Previous Day

2017/08/28 [Calendar]

Next Day >>