Microsoft Azure Takes Big Steps Forward

At its AzureCon 2015 event, Microsoft rolled out a number of big improvements to its Azure cloud platform centered around containers, security, infrastructure and the Internet of Things (IoT). The company also announced the availability of Microsoft Azure services in India from three regional data centers:  Central India in Pune, South India in Chennai, and West India in Mumbai

"We live in a connected world, and the intelligent cloud is powering it all,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud + Enterprise Division. “As data and devices continue to proliferate, there is vast opportunity for businesses to tap into their data to make their applications more intelligent

Highlights include:

General availability of Azure File Storage, featuring support of SMB 3.0 and the ability to mount file shares from anywhere (Azure or on-premises).

• More that 40% of revenue on Azure comes from start-ups
• 80% of Fortune 500 are using the Microsoft cloud.
• New Azure Container Service -- building on work with Docker and Mesosphere to create and manage scalable clusters of host machines onto which containerized applications can be deployed, orchestrated, and managed. Azure Container Service makes it easier to create and manage clusters of hosts pre-configured with Docker, Apache Mesos, Marathon and Docker Swarm. This work couples Azure's hyper-scale and enterprise-grade cloud with proven open source technologies to deliver the foundation for the container deployment, orchestration, and management service any team building container apps will need.
• New N-series, a new family of Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) powered by NVIDIA GPUs. Microsoft is the first hyper-scale provider to announce VMs featuring NVIDIA Grid 2.0 technology and the industry-leading Tesla Accelerated Computing Platform for professional graphics applications, deep learning, high-performance computing and more. A preview will be available in a few months.
• New Azure Mobile Engagement -- a new SaaS-delivered, data-driven user engagement platform that enables real-time fine-grain user segmentation, app user analytics, contextually-aware smart push notifications and in-app messaging across all connected devices.
• New Linux for Azure Data Lake -- aiming to make big data technology simpler and more accessible. Azure Data Lake makes HDInsight, which is Microsoft's Apache Hadoop-based service. Customers logging into the Azure Portal will now have a choice to select either Windows or Linux when deploying HDInsight. 
• New Azure IoT Suite -- brings together preconfigured offerings to enable companies to leverage Azure Stream Analytics for IoT. The latest Stream Analytics updates include support for IoT Hub input the ability to output stream analytics to Azure DocumentDB.
• New Azure CDN using the Akamai network -- integrating Akamai’s  CDN capabilities directly into the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. 
• New Shared Access Signatures, delivering full parity with storage account keys and providing a more secure alternative to delegating access to storage users than storage account keys provide.
• New Azure Storage client library for iOS.
• The Azure Storage client library for Java will soon support client-side encryption complementing the existing capability in the Azure Storage client library for .Net.
• New Azure support for the Financial Services Industry, including a detailed set of Payment Card Industry (PCI) and Data Security Standard (DSS) guidance describing Azure and customer shared responsibilities.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/

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Open Cloud Project to Build Silicon Valley Test Bed

The CloudEthernet Forum (CEF) and the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) are launching an "Open Cloud Project" to advance their cloud service delivery paradigm for service providers, industry vendors and over-the-top (OTT) cloud service providers.

The Open Cloud Project includes a dedicated proof of concept test laboratory based in Silicon Valley to provide ongoing testing and support for the iterative development of the CEF’s CloudE 1.0 open cloud environment. It will also provide the basis of future compliance and benchmark testing. Informed by the experience and learning of its close association with the MEF, and seeing the benefits that rapid, iterative development has brought to the cloud industry, the CEF is taking the pioneering step of integrating testing into the standards development process right from the start.

Initial work will be focused on three areas: application performance management, cloud security and traffic load balancing. The project’s open test program will lay the groundwork for a fully inter-working cloud environment, and the advancement of best practices to manage OTT and cloud services.

“This is vitally important work if we are to avoid fragmentation of the cloud,” explains James Walker, CEF President and Vice President of Managed Network Services at Tata Communications. “Cloud services rely on the end to end interoperability of so many players – enterprises, network and datacenter equipment vendors, datacenter operators, orchestration layers, management and reporting platforms, security devices, network service providers – the list goes on. The MEF has shown a successful model of defining service types and attributes which everyone can agree to and align with, which through this test bed we can adapt and bring to the cloud industry. Unless we can define industry best practices and global standards to establish an open cloud environment, cloud services run the risk of becoming more and more fragmented and difficult to integrate.”

http://www.CloudEthernet.org
http://www.MetroEthernetForum.org

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What is the Open Cloud Project?

Bob Mandeville, Founder and President of Iometrix Labs, introduces The Open Cloud Project - an initiative of the Cloud Ethernet Forum aimed at advancing standards for cloud services connectivity.

The ongoing reference architecture of the Cloud Ethernet Forum will be reproduced in a reference test bed. Six cloud Ethernet use cases will integrated into the test bed. 

See video: http://youtu.be/nmBIgeYin9g

 Filmed at Net Event's Cloud Innovation Summit in Saratoga, California.

 

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HP Introduces Cloud Managed Wireless Access Points for SMBs

HP announced new cloud-managed and on-premise wired and wireless network solutions designed for branch offices or SMBs.

The HP Cloud Managed Network Solution, which takes the place of an on-premise WLAN controller, lowers upfront deployment costs and does not require on-site IT staff to manage the network.

For on-premise, HP is introducing two WLAN controller appliances that scale to support up to 30,000 devices.

The rollout also includes new HP 560 and 517 IEEE 802.11ac wireless access points, which offer speeds three times faster than 802.11n. The HP 560 access points will also be OpenFlow-enabled, empowering customers to leverage SDN applications without having to rip and replace existing infrastructure.

HP is also partnering with Citrix and MobileIron to offer mobile device management (MDM) integration with the HP Intelligent Management Center (IMC) platform.

In addition, HP is launching a Location Aware SDN application that locates any wireless-enabled device indoors with approximately two meter accuracy.  The solution could be use in context-aware retail, asset management and security applications. This application will be integrated with the HP Virtual Application Networks (VAN) SDN controller.

“Our customers are telling us that their networks are primarily cost centers that are too complex to manage, while they are at the same time facing increasing end-user demand for a better mobile experience,” said Bethany Mayer, senior vice president and general manager, Networking Business Unit and Network Functions Virtualization Business, HP. “With HP’s cloud-managed and SDN-enabled unified wired and wireless solutions, we are enabling IT organizations to provide an improved mobile user experience, as well as offering simplified management and investment protection.”

http://www.hp.com

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Cloud Innovation: Dell Responds on Today's Frontiers

Where are the frontiers in Cloud Innovation today? Arpit Joshipura, VP of Product Marketing at Dell, says innovation in cloud networking can be seen in two parts - the infrastructure and the software.  Dell is pursuing both. In infrastructure, the company has just announced its highest density data center switch.  In software, it following a disaggregated path to open system.  It has also just introduced an Active Fabric Controller for SDN.

Filmed at: NetEvent's Cloud Innovation Summit, Saratoga, California.

http://youtu.be/kOUoQfIOafs

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