The cloud service provider report sponsored by emc - issue 15 -- june-july 2011

The Cloud Service Provider Report Issue #15 · June / July 2011Published by Market Mettle

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THE JOURNEY TO THE PRIVATE CLOUD STARTS NOW

Covering: June / July 2011Next issue: May 2011

The Cloud Service Provider Report Issue #15 ! Jun/Jul11

Sponsored by

1 EXECUTIVE

BRIEF

3 SERVICE

PROVIDERS

3 Americas

6 APAC

13 EMEA

20 INTERVIEW

20 Dave Jilk,

Standing Cloud

30 MARKETS

& TRENDS

30 Markets;

Players

32 Trends

35 INDEX

Executive briefAMERICAS: US telcos’ enthusiastic plunge into the cloud!computing market continued, with: AT&T mooting expansion of hybrid"cloud services in the coming months, using infrastructure strength as a key di#erentiator; and acquisitive rival CenturyLink completing the takeover of hosted"infrastructure player Savvis it announced in April"2011. "Communications and IT service"provider 8x8 outlined an “acceleration” of its cloud plans, announcing a new channel programme for hosted services and deployment of the Vblocks technology stacks of VCE. "Enterprise"communications player

PAETEC"Holding was also active, releasing a suite of virtual"infrastructure propositions, shortly before being acquired by rival telco Windstream"Communications, which was already pushing into cloud"services. [p.3-5,30.]

APAC: Alliance-building activity between Chinese and outside providers was again evident, with Japanese IT"service"provider Fujitsu revealing discussions over a joint"venture with leading fixed-line player China"Telecom. Detail was scant, but the move would raise questions over how it fits with China"Telecom’s existing cloud activity, including an existing tie-up with Taiwanese operator Chunghwa"Telecom. "Fujitsu’s comment came as Chunghwa

rival Far!EasTone!Telecom announced a push into China via a partnership with hardware vendor Quanta!Computer. [pp.6,7.]

More speculation emerged over a move by Amazon!Web!Services to establish on-the-ground cloud infrastructure presence in Australia, which would enable the US player to meet demand for locally-based service"provision, and add to growing competitive pressures in the market for more commoditised, one-size-fits-all services. The!Australian reported that AWS is “canvassing” the market for a data"centre partner, with a view to launching services in early-2012. "Meanwhile, Australian players continued

to bolster their own cloud businesses, with"TPG!Telecom and DWS!Advanced Business!Solutions making acquisitive moves, and BrightHost expanding services into Hong!Kong. [pp.9,10,30.]

NTT’s Dimension!Data IT services business continued to expand its cloud presence, fresh from its recent buyout of international cloud service"provider OpSource. DiData formed a partnership with Hong"Kong fixed-line operator Hutchison"Global"Communications to market its onecloud infrastructure-as-a-service suite locally. [p.9.]

International services group Wipro!Technologies followed analysts in flagging the manufacturing industry as fertile!ground for enterprise cloud!computing, citing “a lot of discussions with the business heads in manufacturing companies” over the productivity implications of cloud"applications and infrastructure. In"its latest quarterly results, the"provider’s Manufacturing"&"High-Tech business unit said 30% of its order book has “come from cloud-related services”. [pp.11,12.]

The Cloud Service Provider Report is produced by Market Mettle Ltd and sponsored by EMC. Information contained within The Cloud Service Provider Report is believed to be accurate. However, no responsibility can be taken for this nor for any actions or decisions that may be based upon it.2

The Cloud Service Provider ReportIssue #15 ! Jun/Jul11

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EMEA: USA hosted"service provider NaviSite followed rivals in bringing cloud!computing infrastructure to Europe, installing a node in the"UK to enable regional delivery of its Managed!Cloud!Services suite, and address regulatory concerns associated with US-based provision. [p.13.]

Mike!Norris, Chief!Executive of European IT service!provider Computacenter, rejected the idea of public!cloud services achieving significant, near-term impact in the large!corporate!market, saying there are “too many hurdles” for them to represent a threat to the company’s enterprise business —"namely: “security, Patriot!Act issues, [and] just reliability”. "Norris’s comments came as IDC predicted significant growth for public!cloud services over the next five!years, but did not put a timeframe on when they could reach the maturity required by large"companies. [p.13,32.]

Portugal!Telecom and Telecom!Italia were among European telcos to report cloud-related activity —"the"former revealing receipt of European"Investment"Bank financing to strengthen its cloud"computing infrastructure and service portfolio; and"the latter introducing a virtual desktop infrastructure proposition, as part of its expanding Nuvola!Italiana service suite. [p.17.]

INTERVIEW: Cloud!Service Provider!Report spoke to Dave!Jilk, Chief!Executive of US platform- and software-as-a-service (PaaS/SaaS) specialist Standing!Cloud, about prospects for expansion into the ‘cloud application layer’ by infrastructure providers, as"desire for di#erentiation and value-add increases, and acceptance of PaaS o#erings outside of the services’ traditional base of “informal!buyers”. [pp.20-28.]

MARKETS / TRENDS: PaaS!start-up CloudBees and cloud!test/dev specialist CloudShare were among players to announce new funding, as"investment activity continued to flourish across the cloud"computing value"chain. "Meanwhile, UK telco BT!cited backhaul network capacity as the “biggest” inhibitor to development of the mobile!cloud market. [pp.30,31,33.]

The Cloud Service Provider Report is"produced monthly by Market Mettle Ltd and"sponsored by EMC.

www.marketmettle.com Tel +44 (0)20-7183-0111 Email [email protected] Mail 34 Buckingham Palace Road, Suite 53, London SW1W 0RH, UK Fax +44 (0)20-3137-1182

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Information contained within the The!Cloud!Service Provider Report newsletter is believed to be accurate. However,"no"responsibility can be taken for"this nor for any actions or decisions that"may be based upon it.

The Cloud Service Provider Report is produced by Market Mettle Ltd and sponsored by EMC. Information contained within The Cloud Service Provider Report is believed to be accurate. However, no responsibility can be taken for this nor for any actions or decisions that may be based upon it. 3

The Cloud Service

Provider ReportIssue #15 ! Jun/Jul11

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AMERICASNew"York Stock"Exchange Technologies (NYSE"Technologies), the"commercial technology division of exchange operator NYSE"Euronext, unveiled a specialised cloud-based solution for financial traders. The"EMC- and VMware-supported Capital!Markets Community!Platform o#ering combines market data, market"access, and secure financial networks. It is intneded to address trading companies’ “unique concerns”, with regard to data governance, performance, and security. NYSE"Technologies is positioning the service as more robust than public cloud, while emphasising that it will enable “rapid provisioning of computing!power and market!data”, and be “ultra-flexible”, prospectively attracting trading start-ups. NYSE"Technologies is initially o#ering the service in the"USA, but is reportedly looking to launch similar propositions in other markets, including Brazil, Canada, and Japan. [Further reference: NYSE!Technologies introduces the world’s first Capital!Markets Community!Platform —"NYSE,"1"June"2011; NYSE!Technologies launches cloud platform —!Financial!Times,!1"June"2011]

Regional US data"centre operator Online"Tech cited “mounting interest in private cloud hosting, managed cloud hosting, and disaster recovery” services as behind a recent decision to boost its sales and support headcount. The company, which is based out of Michigan and o#ers co-location, disaster recovery, managed dedicated servers, and private cloud hosting services to the Mid-west enterprise market, claimed to have experienced “39% growth in the first five!months of 2011”. [Further reference: Interest!in!cloud hosting boosts Online!Tech’s growth by 39% —"Online!Tech, 23"June"2011.]

Service providers

AmericasAT&T talks up hybrid cloud focusTaking internal enterprise cloud to the massesJohn"Stankey, Chief"Executive and President of AT&T"Business"Solutions, the"US"telco’s enterprise arm, used a recent Barclays"Capital Global!Communications, Media, and Technology Conference to promote the"company’s infrastructure strength as a key enabler and di#erentiator as it expands into the emerging hybrid"cloud space.

Stankey said the operator, which is in the midst of a high-profile race with domestic arch-rival Verizon"Communications to expand its cloud"business (Cloud!Service Provider Report, passim), has positioned hybrid cloud (or, in his words, “virtual!private!cloud”) solutions as a key area of focus in the coming months. He characterised the services as taking the benefits of internal"enterprise solutions to a much wider market —"namely, companies that “don’t necessarily have the large scale or size” required to build their own private infrastructure services.

“ We believe we bring a di"erential position in cloud. We think of it quite simply as three!distinct areas. There is the private![or ‘internal enterprise’] cloud that very large companies will build, manage, and deploy on their own. There’s the public!cloud, [which o"ers] very low-cost, commoditised, highly-available compute services that don’t necessarily have the reliability and latency characteristics for mission-critical applications. And, in the middle, there is the virtual private!cloud —![combining]!the!security, the reliability, the capabilities of the private cloud with the availability of the public!cloud.!” —"Stankey.


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Stankey went on to emphasise telcos’ ability to di#erentiate their hybrid"cloud"services through their traditional strength in infrastructure —"an"argument much-repeated by operators, and one often countered by others who claim telcos’ legacy focus on ‘engineering’ could impair their agility in bringing cloud"services to market (Cloud Service!Provider Report, passim).

“ [The virtual!private!cloud] is where we add value with the network. That is where we take our great assets in hosting, our great capabilities in end points and network, our!proprietary technology on routing, and marry it together for a service o"ering…!”

“ Virtual solutions use more ‘intense network’. More intense network is a good thing for our business over time; it only makes us more relevant. We think cloud and virtualisation, and the network go together. They’re compatible and they work hand-in-hand… Many of the aspects of virtualisation on the more challenging applications that a customer wants to virtualise require high reliability and low latency. The end points of our network, and how we’ve engineered it, and… how we have capabilities to host and co-locate services makes us a natural fit in that space.!”

“ In addition, over the last two!years you’ve heard me talk about investments we’ve been making in R&D for proprietary routing plane technology that sits over the top of our IP [Internet!Protocol]/MPLS [Multiprotocol Label Switching] network. It allows for us to do more sophisticated and advanced routing capabilities, which are naturally married to the cloud. So, where services like DNS [Domain Name System] and route reflectors fall short in some instances, we have additional proprietary technology that we bring into the network that allows for a very dynamic reallocation of tra#c and capabilities that makes our network even more relevant in the cloud space.!” —"Stankey.

Stankey’s comments regarding tighter integration of cloud and network services are already evidenced in AT&T’s cloud portfolio, with the telco adding closer virtual"private"network functionality to its flagship Synaptic infrastructure-as-a-service o#ering as part of a wider revamp in February"2011 (Cloud!Service!Provider Report, #12, and passim).

Stankey suggested that further “virtual!private!cloud” solutions have been pencilled in for launch later in 2011.

“ You’re going to see, mid-year, new product o"erings coming out in the market that will begin to commercialise and o"er through partner channels. And I think you’re going to see a very exciting story moving forward on this.!” —"Stankey.

[Further reference: AT&T!Inc at Barclays!Capital Global Communications, Media, and Technology Conference —!final —!FD!Wire, 25"May"2011.]


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PAETEC flags cloud expansion plansPAETEC"Holding, a New"York, US-based enterprise communications player, expanded"its cloud"computing business with the release of a suite of dedicated"server, Hosted![Microsoft] Exchange, managed storage, and virtual"server propositions.

The o#erings are targeted at “mid-market customers”, and will be supported by a parallel expansion of PAETEC’s infrastructure, through which it aims to add 13"new US data"centres to its existing seven"facilities by the end of 2012.

“ Looking at the products and services that were already available in the market, we!saw very strong solutions for small!business and start-ups, and increasing competition for the large enterprise, but very little that was appropriate for the needs of our mid-market customers.!” —"John"Chapman, Chief"Marketing"O$cer of PAETEC.

The move came shortly before PAETEC announced it is to be bought by rival telco Windstream"Communications, which is itself pushing into cloud"services following its recent takeover of infrastructure-as-a-service player Hosted"Solutions (Cloud!Service!Provider Report, #10 and #11).

[Further reference: PAETEC launches powerful cloud!computing portfolio and nationwide data center expansion —"PAETEC, 24"May"2011; Windstream!to!acquire!PAETEC —"Windstream, 1"August"2011.]

8x8 ups cloud presence with channel, VCE dealsUS IT and telecoms service"provider 8x8 outlined an “acceleration” of recent expansion in the cloud"market, with the formation of a new channel programme designed to push its hosted services, and a supporting technology partnership with the Virtual"Computing"Environment"Company (VCE) formed by Cisco"Systems and EMC.

The distribution initiative, called the 8x8!Business Partner!Program, will focus on signing up “agents, resellers, and traditional hardware VARs [value-added resellers]” to market the company’s cloud"service portfolio, which currently includes private"cloud-based compute and hosted o#erings, as well as voice and video communications services. The scheme will o#er “one-time bounties on initial orders, monthly residual payments, and commission on equipment accompanying!the!sale” —"incentives that 8x8 hopes will persuade VARs previously focused on selling hardware-based solutions to expand marketing of services.

The VCE deal, announced shortly after the programme’s launch, was presented by 8x8 as a step designed to aid expansion of its service portfolio, enabling it to launch infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) applications across Vblock pre-calibrated technology stacks developed by the vendor. 8x8 claimed that adoption of Vblocks will be complementary to its recent acquisition of Zerigo, a provider of cloud"service provisioning technology (Cloud!Service Provider!Report, #14), by"facilitating “rapid and automatic deployment” of applications.

The company, which has thus far primarily focused on small- and medium-size enterprises (SME), added that it intends to use the deal to expand its go-to-market focus on “larger enterprise and government customers”, mooting roll out of “tier-one business applications”.

[Further reference: 8x8 announces new cloud-centric channel program —"8x8,"28"June"2011; 8x8 to deliver cloud services on VCE Vblock infrastructure —"8x8, 30"June"2011; 8x8,!Inc. announces record first-quarter fiscal!2012 revenue —"8x8, 20"July"2011.]



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APACUS data centre services provider Telehouse said it is to open a cloud"computing-focused data centre in Hong"Kong during December"2011. The facility —"Telehouse’s 42nd —"is said to be the first of the company’s facilities to concentrate solely on cloud"applications, and will target “increasing demand in the Asian market, including India, from corporations moving their businesses’ IT!needs to cloud platforms”, said Noriyuki"Kita, Executive"Vice-President of Telehouse. The data centre will provide 36,000m2 of space and will be managed by HKColo, a data centre operator in which Telehouse’s parent company KDDI recently bought a 50% stake. [Further"reference: Telehouse!continues its global expansion into China’s South!Coast —!Telehouse,"13"June"2011.]

APACFujitsu, China!Telecom in cloud JV talksJapanese IT"service"provider Fujitsu continued to develop its Global enterprise cloud"computing ambitions, saying it is discussing a joint"venture (JV) with China"Telecom, the country’s largest fixed-line provider and number-three mobile player, which would enable the vendor to extend its on-demand application and infrastructure services to the Chinese market for the first time.

Masami"Yamamoto, President of Fujitsu, told Japan’s Nikkei newspaper that the companies are negotiating a tie-up with the aim of jointly introducing cloud"computing services in China by end-2011. The thinking is to “expand![Fujitsu’s!Chinese] business by combining Fujitsu’s expertise in the cloud field with China!Telecom’s customer base”, the report added.

While detail was scant, the talks come at a time when Fujitsu is in the midst of a project to expand international availability of its flagship Global!Cloud!Platform o#ering, which aims to provide multinational"corporate customers with “unified” infrastructure-, platform-, and software-as-a-service applications and pricing across di#erent markets. The company has so far rolled out Global!Cloud!Platform in data"centres in Australia, Germany, Japan, Singapore, the"UK, and the"USA (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #6-#8, #13, and #14); and China had been seen as a likely next target, with Fujitsu announcing plans to build new data"centre facilities, housing 5,000"“cloud specialists”, in southern"China during 2010 (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #8).

The move will also help Fujitsu meet targets it has publicly laid out to boost revenue"generation from both cloud"computing services, and its Chinese business, post-downturn —"it has previously said it is aiming to boost cloud"computing revenue to JP"¥1.3trn ($16.8bn)–JP"¥1.5trn in FY15–16 (1"April"2015–31"March"2016), more than a quarter of its total Group sales figure (JP"¥4.5trn) in FY10–11; and Yamamoto said the company is aiming to double its JP"¥110bn in annual revenue from China in a shorter timeframe.

“ The Chinese market is just a fraction of our worldwide business. Our o#cial target is to double that in three!years. However, personally, I believe it is a conservative target.!” —"Yamamoto.

An interesting question around any China"Telecom-Fujitsu partnership would how it would fit around China"Telecom’s existing cloud"computing activity —"the telco"has been developing a domestic cloud services portfolio for some time, via its nebula programme, and already has go-to-market partnerships in place with SAP and Taiwanese telco Chunghwa"Telecom, with the latter prominent in seeking to push cloud product exports from Taiwan into China (Cloud Service Provider!Report,"#14 and passim). Outside of its domestic market, China"Telecom has laid out plans to become a top-three player in Asia-Pacific’s data"centre services market, having, in September"2010, launched new data"centres in Hong"Kong and Singapore.


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APACJapanese service provider Internet"Initiative"Japan (IIJ) released an application programming interface (API) to allow customers to integrate the GIO storage-as-a-service o#ering it launched in 2010 (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #9 and #14) with their own applications. The API for the HTTPS/REST interface allows customers to connect to the GIO service’s infrastructure and store large data files, or for"backup. The service comes with a Java"software development"kit to aid development of applications that are compatible with the o#ering, and claims to allow users to change storage volumes “instantaneously”. [Further"reference: IIJ!to!launch!IIJ GIO storage service FV/S with REST API —"IIJ, 1"June"2011.]

NEC, IBM, Fujitsu go head-to-headA tie-up would also pitch Fujitsu against several existing alliances formed by regional and international providers seeking to expand cloud"services into China, including key rivals IBM and NEC"Corporation.

NEC formed a cloud-focused joint"venture with Chinese service provider Neusoft in August"2010, and IBM is backing an initiative to building a huge, 6,200,000ft% cloud data"centre and o$ce complex in the northern Hebei"Province, due for completion in 2016 (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #9 and passim).

Asian wholesale telco Pacnet also recently announced plans to develop an “international cloud!computing hub” in the south-western"region of Chongqing (Cloud!Service!Provider!Report, #13).

[Further reference: Fujitsu looks to double Chinese sales —!Nikkei, 30"June"2011; Fujitsu looks to Chinese market —!China!Daily, 7"July"2011.]

FET, Quanta team up to target ChinaTaiwanese operator Far"EasTone"Telecom (FET) and hardware vendor Quanta"Computer said they are to collaborate on cloud"computing services for smaller"enterprises, in both mainland China and Taiwan.

Targeting firms with fewer than 100"sta#, the companies will reportedly initially focus on compute services, before “tapping [the] cloud platform and cloud software!markets”. FET will provide the communications element and Quanta the IT"side, the companies said. They are also reported to be hopeful that other hardware and software suppliers will join the partnership.

FET is a member of Taiwan’s Far"EasTone"Group, which is a$liated to China"Mobile, the country’s largest telecoms player, but there was no mention of any involvement by the latter in the partnership.

Chunghwa"Telecom, a domestic rival of FET, has also been actively expanding its cloud"computing reach into China, recently forming an alliance with China"Mobile competitor China"Telecom (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #14).

[Further"reference: Far EasTone, Quanta partner on enterprise cloud!computing!market —!Taiwan!Economic!News, 4"July"2011.]

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BrightHost taps Equinix platform for Asia expansionAustralian hosted service"provider BrightHost partnered with US data centre operator Equinix, to enable expansion of cloud"computing o#erings to the latter’s infrastructure platform in Hong"Kong.

The move will see Brighthost use the provider’s Platform!Equinix o#ering, based in the firm’s Hong!Kong!(HK1) International!Business!Exchange data centre, to help “meet its blue-chip customers’ requirement for a presence in Asia”.

“ Our goal was to activate a world-class cloud site within two!months, and Equinix has been a key partner in helping us meet our commercial, technical, and customer service requirements.!” —"Michael"Richardson, Manager, BrightHost.

The agreement represents a first move outside of Australia for BrightHost, which is a subsidiary of marketing group STW"Communications, and o#ers: a VMware-based cloud infrastructure service; an Akamai-enabled content"delivery"network proposition; and, other hosted and professional services. Going forward, the company has said it is planning to open similar facilities in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

The deal comes with Equinix seeking to position itself as the “arms!dealer” of the cloud industry, o#ering hosted infrastructure and interconnection capacity to service"providers that are expanding into the cloud space, or into new markets (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #13, and see!separate!report).

[Further reference: BrightHost leverages Platform!Equinix; expands cloud solutions to Hong!Kong —"Equinix, 30"May"2011; New cloud contender BrightHost unveils Asia expansion plan —!Asia!Cloud!Forum, 1"June"2011.]

Dimension!Data, Hutchison ink HK cloud allianceLocal fixed-line operator Hutchison"Global"Communications (HGC) formed a partnership with Dimension"Data (DiData), the IT services business of Japanese telco NTT, to"market cloud-based infrastructure services to enterprises in Hong"Kong.

Under the Memorandum!of!Understanding, HGC will market Dimension"Data’s onecloud cloud"service"suite to local businesses, using its data centres and fibre"backbone. Applications to be provided will include: “secure enterprise cloud hosting services [including internal!enterprise and public!cloud-based services], [and] business continuity and disaster recovery services”.

The companies have plans to collaborate on software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, including: “enterprise-class email”; Microsoft collaboration applications; and other SaaS tools for both small- and medium-size enterprises and “specific vertical industries”. HGC already has a SaaS partnership in place with Microsoft (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #10).

The deal gives DiData a third Asia-Pacific operator partner on onecloud —"it formed tie-ups on the o#ering with Indian state telco Bharat"Sanchar Nigam"Ltd, and Filipino incumbent Philippine"Long Distance"Telephone"Co. (PLDT) in 2010 (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #9 and #13). DiData parent NTT indirectly holds a 21% stake in PLDT.

[Further reference: Dimension!Data partners Hutchison!Global!Communications to o"er cloud and hosted managed services —"Dimension"Data, 22"July"2011.]

APACJapanese IT service"provider NEC formed a partnership with Amata"Corporation, a Thai property company, to provide cloud services to companies located in the latter’s Amata"Industrial Estate —"the “largest” such development in the country, according to"NEC. The services, which were scheduled to go live in July"2011, will include cloud-based applications for conferencing and human"resources management, and in future be extended to infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, and virtual desktop tools. [Further reference: NEC!enters!new SaaS cloud services agreement with the largest industrial estate in!Thailand —"NEC,"11"July"2011.]



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APACAustralian IT service"provider DWS"Advanced Business"Solutions initiated a new, cloud-focused “specialist business unit”, called DWS"Solution"Centre, after closing an AU"$300,000 ($325,000) acquisition of financial software provider"Taten. DWS"said it sees Taten’s products as applicable “across!other industries including health, government, utilities, and telecommunications”. “With a strong national client base, DWS is well placed to bring these solutions to new markets and new clients”, said Danny"Wallis, the company’s Chief"Executive. [Further reference: DWS!targets!cloud after opportunistic buyout —!Australian!Financial Review, 28"June"2011; Acquisition!of!Taten —"DWS,"1"July"2011.]

AWS preps Australian presence — reportAmazon"Web"Services (AWS) is reportedly set to become the latest international cloud"player to enable local service provision in Australia, extending its on-the-ground presence in Asia-Pacific beyond recently installed facilities in Japan and Singapore.

The!Australian claimed that the provider is “slated to unveil” infrastructure in Sydney by early-2012, having begun “canvassing” the domestic market. The report suggested AWS will seek a third-party data"centre provider to enable its local presence, with candidates said to include US data"centre service provider Equinix, which has a cloud"infrastructure presence in Sydney, and has been heavily pushing its Platform!Equinix indirect infrastructure o#ering for international cloud"players (Cloud!Service Provider!Report, #11, #13, and see separate report).

An AWS spokesperson declined to comment on the claim, calling it “speculation”, but added that, “over time, we plan to have more data!centres in different countries and regions around the world”.

Installation of Australian facilities would create a sixth"“operating region” for AWS, beyond"its two"existing hubs in Asia-Pacific (in Tokyo, opened during March"2011, and Singapore in"March"2010), and previously installed infrastructure centres in the USA (Northern"California and Northern"Virginia) and Europe (run from Ireland). The company recently hinted at plans to roll out data"centre infrastructure in India (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #14).

“One-cloud-fits-all” competition to increaseExpansion of AWS’s ‘commodity’ cloud o#erings into Australia will add to competitive pressures in what is already seen as one of the most developed markets for cloud services internationally, and likely see providers step up e#orts to di#erentiate their o#erings.

The move would also bring AWS into closer competition with several domestic and foreign service"providers that have been marketing cloud"services in Australia with emphasis on talking down overseas-based rivals.

Currently, AWS serves Australian clients primarily from its Singapore hub, but the market (as well as neighbouring countries) is seen as especially receptive to ‘local’ provision, due to regulatory and technical factors; and the"provider had widely been expected to ultimately develop a presence in the country (Cloud Service!Provider Report, passim).

Several international players have already performed similar moves over the last"year, including Equinix itself and Japanese IT"service"provider Fujitsu, as part of its ongoing Global!Cloud!Platform expansion (Cloud Service!Provider Report, passim, and see separate report). Verizon"Business recently outlined plans to extend its flagship Computing-as-a-Service cloud suite to a data"centre in the capital, Canberra (Cloud!Service Provider!Report, #10); and The!Australian hinted at further new entrances, saying AWS’s move comes with “other US rivals eyeing the cloud computing market in Australia”.

Local"players that have been particularly active in cloud"services include domestic telcos, Macquarie"Telecom, Optus (part of Singapore"Telecommunications), and Telstra, as well as IT players like Enspire and Interactive (Cloud!Service Provider!Report, passim).

[Further reference: Amazon!Web!Services to open local data centre —!The!Australian, 12"July"2011.]


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APACNew"Zealand-based IT service"provider Softsource opened an NZ"$10m ($9m) data centre in Albany, on the country’s North"Island, to support an expansion drive around infrastructure-as-a-service. The company is providing “pay-as-you-go” compute and storage services from the facility, which uses Hewlett-Packard technology. Pablo"Garcia-Curtis, General"Manager of Softsource, said customers are able to provision or de-provision capacity from the centre within “15–30 minutes”. [Further reference: Cloud!computing at $10m centre —!The!Press,"22"June"2011; Softsource eyes silver lining in cloud computing —!Stu".co.nz, 22"June"2011.]

Wipro tips manufacturing for cloud growthIndian IT"services and consulting group Wipro"Technologies continued to flag the manufacturing industry as o#ering particularly strong traction for infrastructure- and software-as-a-service (IaaS/SaaS) applications, saying the"company’s Manufacturing"&"High-Tech business unit saw 30% of its order book “come from cloud-related services” in Q1"FY11–12 (April"2011–June"2011).

Speaking on the company’s earnings conference call for the quarter, N."S."Bala, Senior"Vice-President of the unit, said uptake is being driven by a desire for greater productivity and flexibility, rather than cost"cutting, claiming “manufacturing companies want to get into an asset-light mode as they come out of the recession”.

“ Clearly, [manufacturers] want to build a capacity that… will help them manage through the cycles of their business. And that’s actually given us a lot of discussions with the business heads in manufacturing companies to provide both an application and an infrastructure play that can be o"ered on the cloud. That’s one of the trends that’s happening, and that’s really resulted in some wins for us this quarter.!” —"Bala.

Bala went on to say that Wipro has been developing customised, cloud-based solutions for manufacturing clients, although he did not go into more detail.

“ Many of the o"erings that we have put out there along with the customers are new —!they have not been tried before.!” —"Bala.

Several commentators have predicted that manufacturers will be among the enterprises that are the quickest to embrace cloud"services, with particularly high demand expected from Asia-Pacific companies as they shift towards “knowledge-intensive manufacturing”. IDC recently cited cloud"computing as a"technology that Asian manufacturers see as o#ering potential to “improve!productivity, e#ciency, and top-line growth”, echoing an earlier report by Frost"&"Sullivan (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #8 and #10).

Wipro, which is itself a large maker of IT and other hardware, cites the manufacturing market as its third-largest vertical, saying it produced 15% of its IT"services revenue in FY10–11. Its two"largest categories —"financial"services (27%) and ‘retail and transportation’ (15%) —"also represent areas where Wipro has been noticeably active in pushing cloud"services, releasing customised SaaS applications for retailers in 2010, and more recently highlighting large financial"services players as having “moved beyond thinking and planning, into at least taking some action” with"regard"to cloud adoption (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #4 and #11).



Sponsored by

APACIndian data"centre service"provider Sify"Technologies tied with network"protection specialist Fortinet on roll out of two"cloud-based security"services. Under the deal, Sify deployed Fortinet’s FortiGate “virtualised network security services” to provide: an as-a-service “security!layer” for its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) customers, called On-Demand!Security; and another cloud security offering called Clean!Connect, which offers on-demand “unified threat management” for Sify’s internet access"services. The move further extends a cloud"software and IaaS portfolio that Sify has been deploying in India since early-2010, and recently teamed with Saudi"Telecom to"market internationally (Cloud!Service Provider!Report, #5, #7, #12, and #13). [Further"reference: Sify!Technologies partners with Fortinet to roll out virtualised network security services on its entire range of IaaS offerings —!Fortinet, 14"June"2011.]

Wipro to up cloud product development, seeks di"erentiation via IPWipro is one of several global IT services players to have actively expanded their cloud"computing portfolios over the last year or more, amid expectations that on-demand IT"services could have a significant disruptive e#ect on their traditional businesses (Cloud!Service Provider!Report, passim). The"company announced a SaaS partnership with Microsoft in 2010, and, going forward, is reportedly planning to initiate a channel programme to increase distribution of its cloud services in 2012 (Cloud!Service Provider!Report, #5 and #13).

Speaking on the Q1"FY11–12 call, T."K."Kurien, Chief"Executive of Wipro’s IT"Business, said the company is increasingly keen to move beyond IT"‘service!provision’ and develop its own intellectual"property (IP) in the cloud"space, citing the need to retain “di"erentiation upstream”.

“ When you look at cloud, and if you look at analytics… unless you build intellectual property of some sort —!maybe products, maybe reproducible frameworks, maybe!patents where you can keep people out or where you can grab advantage —!those areas will become very, very critical because, in a cloud environment, if!you!don’t own the IP layer, you pretty much don’t own anything…!”

“ So, that’s clearly the direction which we are taking. But it’s a hard one to do for an IT!services company. But it’s something that’s absolutely important for us to do because we’re not creating the death of outsourcing; but we think outsourcing the way we’ve seen it in the past may not exist, and the outsourcing that we would see in the future will be driven around analytics and the big themes that we talked about.!” —"Kurien.

[Further reference: Wipro FY10–11 Annual!Report; Event brief of Q1!2012 Wipro!Ltd earnings conference call (US and European analysts) —!FD!Wire, 20"July"2011.]

Netmagic updates IaaS o"eringsIndian hosted service provider Netmagic"Solutions added to its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) portfolio with three"new cloud"services, targeting “large, medium, and small enterprises across India”. The o#erings comprise:

SimpliCloud, a public"cloud-based compute and storage proposition. The service is charged by the month or hour, either on a contract or prepaid basis.HybriCloud, which adds virtual"private"network connectivity, and the option to combine with in-house hardware, to SimpliCloud. Private!Cloud, an internal"(enterprise) o#ering on whose functionality Netmagic did not expand.

NetMagic operates seven"data"centres in India, o#ering services based on Cisco’s Unified!Computing!System and VMware’s vSphere technology. Cisco and Nokia"Growth"Partners are among its investors (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #10 and #13).

[Further reference: Indian IaaS leader, Netmagic, adds clout to cloud launches enterprise-grade cloud services —"SimpliCloud and HybriCloud —"Netmagic, 27"July"2011.]


The Cloud Service


Service providers

Sponsored by

EMEATRusted"Ecosystem for"Standardised & Open"Cloud-based Resources (TRESOR), a consortium backed by Deutsche"Telekom’s T-Systems enterprise arm, won an award from the German Federal"Ministry of Economics"and"Technology as part of a competition around cloud"computing application development for small- and medium-size enterprises and the public"sector. The group, which focuses on the exchange of patient information in healthcare, was one of twelve"winners of the Sicheres cloud!computing für mittelstand und ö"entlichen sektor —!Trusted!Cloud contest —"and will receive &4.5m ($6.5m) in financial"backing over three"years. The TRESOR project aims to develop a “fast and simple means of exchanging data for doctors, clinics, and health insurance funds that complies with all the applicable laws, and data privacy and security regulations, as well as the respective policies and regulations of the individual healthcare institutions”. [Further"reference: T-Systems!and partners win cloud competition —"T-Systems,"28"June"2011.]

Hrvatski"Telekom (HT), the"Deutsche"Telekom-controlled Croatian telco, commercially launched tCloud, a suite of infrastructure- and software-as-a-service tools for small"business customers, following a “test phase” announced in April"2011 (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #14). The service, which is priced from at HRK"5 ($0.95)-per-day, o#ers data storage space and a family of business software applications from Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla. [Further reference: tCloud!—!inovacija, sigurnost i jednostavnost u slu$bi poslovnog!uspjeha —"HT,"29"June"2011.]

EMEANaviSite expands cloud infrastructure to UKHosted"service provider NaviSite became the latest US player to bring cloud"computing infrastructure to Europe, with the opening of a node in Woking, UK.

The move will see NaviSite provide enterprises in the"UK and Europe with local delivery of its Managed!Cloud!Services (MCS) suite —"a family of usage-billed, hosted services based on its flagship NaviCloud infrastructure (Cloud Service!Provider Report, passim). It"creates the first on-the-ground presence for NaviSite’s cloud"business in Europe.

NaviSite pitched the move as a means to help European customers “comply!with!local!regulations”, while “eliminating network performance issues caused by long-distance broadband connections to o"shore data!centres” —"pressures that have recently seen several US cloud providers locate infrastructure in Europe (and"other regions). Key rivals Amazon"Web"Services, Rackspace, and Savvis have all deployed regional infrastructure in either Ireland or the"UK over the last year or more (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #10, and passim).

The expansion follows NaviSite’s April"2011 acquisition by US cable television and broadband operator Time"Warner"Cable (TWC) —"one of a string of recent cloud purchases by US telecoms players, including: CenturyLink’s acquisition of Savvis; Verizon"Communications’ takeover of Terremark"Worldwide; and Windstream"Communications’ buy out of Hosted"Solutions (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #10–#14).

TWC has since mooted plans to expand NaviSite into the small- and medium-size enterprise market (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #11), although the UK move continued to bill the company’s services as “enterprise-class”.

[Further reference: NaviSite launches new UK cloud node —"NaviSite, 20"June"2011.]

EMC: #1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 2128


The Cloud Service


Service providers

Sponsored by

EMEAKPN, the"Netherlands’ incumbent telco, introduced its SMEs!Workplace cloud infrastructure and application suite for small- and medium-size enterprises (SME). The service is designed for firms with one–150"workstations, and incorporates on-demand data backup, o$ce, and web security applications. Three"versions of the service are available —"a"basic option with software held on the o$ce intranet; a fully managed solution with software and data stored in KPN data centres; and a third, hybrid o#ering, which will not become available until autumn"2011. [Further"reference: KPN!will!start selling complete IT!workplaces through the cloud —!KPN, 31"May"2011.]

Ireland-based managed IT service"provider Hibernia"Evros Technology"Group launched an infrastructure-as-a-service subsidiary called Digital!Planet, o#ering public and private"cloud o#erings. “Using cloud!computing, we are providing server capacity on-demand…The cloud has been hugely over complicated. Too many vendors have jumped on the bandwagon and are talking about cloud o"erings they don’t have. Cloud!computing is simply an alternative way of consuming your computing requirements”, said Brian"Larkin, Operations"Director at Digital"Planet. [Further reference: Tech!firm!open a cloud after!E1.6m funds —!Business!World, 2"June"2011.]

GTS debuts in IaaS space with virtual hosting suiteRegional information and communications technology player GTS"Central"Europe flagged its entrance into the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) market with the release of a new product group, called GTS!Virtual Server!Hosting.

The suite, based on a recent deployment of Cisco"Systems’ Unified!Computing!System server platform by GTS, includes two"private"cloud-based IaaS o#erings: a lower end, o#-the-shelf proposition for smaller businesses, called Virtual!Private!Server (VPS); and"a"more malleable Virtual!Hosting!Environment solution for “large enterprises and public sector organisations”. The latter enables customers to provision multiple VPSs, depending"on requirements, as well as o#ering additional services, including a “dedicated” solution to add greater separation between users’ data and that of other customers.

GTS said it will offer the services to clients in its five"primary markets in Central and Eastern"Europe (CEE) —"Czech"Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia —"and is positioning them as particularly suitable for hosting of websites and web-based enterprise applications.

The move comes with GTS having in 2010 laid out a strategy to strengthen its regional data"centre footprint and service portfolio, via consolidation opportunities and an expansion of its existing facilities (14"centres across the five"markets mentioned above). It subsequently acquired Hungarian data"centre service provider Interware, and Czech provider Sitel"Data"Center, along with the latter’s purported “largest peering point in the CEE region”.

[Further reference: GTS enhances server o"erings with Virtual!Hosting —"GTS, 14"June"2011; GTS CE deploys Cisco’s new server platform —!Computer!Business!Review, 23"June"2011.]

EMC: #1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 2128



Sponsored by

EMEAUK infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider Flexiant highlighted involvement in a UK pilot project that is experimenting with cloud computing to speed up access to patients’ medical records. The project, which went live in July"2011, uses simulated patient records, and is being carried out at the Chelsea"and Westminster"Hospital in London, with participation by the Centre"for Distributed"Computing, Networks"and"Security at Edinburgh"Napier University. [Further"reference: Flexiant!providing cloud platform for e-health pilot —!Flexiant,"20"June"2011; Healthcare cloud computing pilot!launched —!Napier"University, 29"June"2011.]

Computacenter boss dismissive of public!cloud threatMike"Norris, Chief"Executive of European IT service"provider Computacenter, played down the prospect of public"cloud adoption and/or disruption in the large"corporate market, telling financial analysts that he does not expect those services to impact the company “in the next 18!months in any material fashion”.

Asked on a July"2011 trading update conference call how he sees cloud"computing “changing your business”, Norris replied that there are “too many hurdles” for"public"cloud o#erings to represent a threat in the enterprise sector.

“ If there is a major shift very quickly to public!clouds in the large corporate client base —!remembering we rarely deal with people sub-1,000 [seats] —!then that would not be good. I just don’t… believe that’s going to happen to a large extent very quickly…We think there’s too many hurdles in security, Patriot!Act issues, [and] just!reliability.!” —"Norris.

Norris did not indicate any plans for Computacenter itself to o#er public"cloud services, saying it plans to concentrate on private"cloud demand.

“ We are suppliers… on a private cloud basis, [and], as things go… I don’t think it’s going to [a"ect our approach] very much at all. We will run private!clouds for people. We will install private!clouds for people, and —!whether it be client!server-type computing or cloud-based computing —!we will look after devices that attach. We will look after the servers that host those —!whether they be on our sites or customer sites, whether they be shared, or whether they be dedicated.!” —"Norris.

[Further reference: Computacenter!plc pre-close trading statement conference!call —!final —!FD!Wire, 12"July"2011.]


The Cloud Service


Service providers

Sponsored by

EMEAFrance"Télécom (FT)-controlled Polish incumbent Telekomunikacja"Polska (TP) invested in Cisco"Systems’ Carrier!Ethernet solutions to “provide the network infrastructure foundation for the!Group to deliver new revenue opportunities from cloud computing, video, and mobile services”. The newly deployed infrastructure will “provide the network foundation” for a “new array” of o#erings in those areas, said Surya"Panditi, Senior"Vice-President and General"Manager of Core"Routing"Group at Cisco. FT has been developing cloud"infrastructure and services through enterprise arm Orange"Business"Services, including via its Flexible!4!Business-branded venture, announced with the Cisco"Systems- and EMC-backed Virtual"Computing Environment"Company in September"2010 (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #10). [Further reference: Polish!Telecom boosts network with Cisco!CRS-3 and Cisco!ASR!9000 series routers —"Cisco, 14"July"2011.]

Osiatis"France, part of Belgian IT"services group Osiatis, formally unveiled a suite of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) products under the brand Osiatis"Cloud"Center, as mooted earlier in 2011 (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #12). The o#erings are based on architecture enabled by Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Microsoft, and include an on-demand service that can be accessed via virtual"private"networks and dedicated links. Osiatis is also o#ering a “migration service” for both infrastructure and applications, called Dynamic!Datacentre to!be Cloud!Ready (DDCR), and says it plans to expand into desktop- and software-as-a-service provision in future. [Further"reference: L’o"re!IaaS!d’Osiatis est opérationnelle —!Osiatis,"28"June"2011.]

PT preps #350m cloud investment —!reportsPortugal"Telecom (PT), the country’s incumbent telco, is reported to have applied for &150m ($215m) in financing from the European"Investment"Bank (EIB) to fund expansion of its cloud"computing infrastructure and service portfolio.

The financing will reportedly support a larger, &350m investment plan that the operator has laid out to boost capacity and innovation around cloud"services, although further details have yet to emerge.

PT’s activity in cloud"computing has increased in recent months, including via an agreement to resell Microsoft’s O#ce!365 software-as-a-service family, and partnership with Cisco"Systems to roll out “virtual servers, unified communications-as-a-service, and virtual desktop” o#erings based on the vendor’s Unified!Service!Delivery data centre and network architecture (Cloud!Service!Provider Report, #10).

In May"2011, Zeinal"Bava, Chief"Executive of PT, claimed to be seeing “very good demand” for cloud"services in Portugal, but added that “this is an area of business that will require some education on the part of PT to the market so that people understand the full benefits of actually doing cloud!computing”. “We ourselves at Portugal!Telecom expect to be one of the early adopters of cloud!computing and use ourselves as a good example as to how we can use these new technologies to reduce costs”.

[Further reference: Q1!2011 Portugal!Telecom earnings conference call —!final —!FD!Wire, 26"May"2011; Portugal!Telecom plans investment in cloud computing —!Datamonitor, 1"June"2011; Microsoft launches O#ce!365 globally —"Microsoft, 28"June"2011.]

TI adds VDI service to Nuvola!Italiana familyItalian incumbent telco Telecom"Italia (TI) continued recent expansion of its Nuvola!Italiana (Italian"Cloud) portfolio of cloud"computing services by introducing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) proposition.

Called Nuvola IT Virtual Desktop (Cloud"IT Virtual"Desktop), the o#ering is said to be targeted at medium and large"enterprises, and claims to allow a “high degree of customisation”, while “ensuring high speed and ease of installation”.

The launch comes with TI having positioned cloud"computing, alongside fixed-mobile convergence, mobile broadband, and unified communications, as one of the main facets of its strategic plan for the period to end-FY13 (January"2013–December"2013).

It follows shortly after TI’s release of an on-demand storage service for business users, called Nuvola!IT!Data!Space (Cloud!Service!Provider!Report, #9 and #13), and more recent formation of an enterprise software-as-a-service partnership between the operator and SAP, under the banner Fast!Start.

[Further"reference: Nuvola!IT!Virtual!Desktop: la nuova soluzione della Nuvola!Italiana —!Digital.it, 19"May"2011; Telecom!Italia presenta Nuvola!IT!Virtual!Desktop —!Digital.it, 20"May"2011; Fast!Start nella Nuvola!Italiana —"TI, 21"June"2011.]



Sponsored by

EMEAGerman IT service provider dacoma partnered with US-based business resilience technology provider Datacastle to o#er “comprehensive” cloud-based data backup and security services to the former’s customer base. The companies emphasised that the move will see dacoma host Datacastle ‘vaults’ in its data"centre, and that data “will not leave Germany”. “According to Germany’s Federal Data!Protection Act (Bundesdatebschutzgesetz) BDSG, each business partner needs to be informed in case of data breach. Therefore, it is very important to ensure the data will not be compromised”, said Jan"Heumuller, Managing"Director at dacoma. In January"2011, Datacastle signed a related deal with dacoma distribution partner Misco (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #12). [Further"reference: Datacastle!partners with dacoma in Germany to provide cloud-based backup and data!protection —!Datacastle,"15"June"2011.]

Atos!Origin adds cloud test/dev o"eringFrench IT service provider Atos"Origin followed up recently stated cloud"computing expansion plans (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #11) by releasing a “pay-per-use” IT"application testing and development (test/dev) tool.

The o#ering was designed by Atos"Origin and is based on IBM’s Rational!Jazz toolset for collaborative software, and can purportedly be used either alone or in conjunction with other services from its Test!&!Acceptance Management!Service!Catalogue. Atos"Origin says it is targeted at “clients in all industries”.

Test/dev is often cited as one of the early drivers of cloud service use within enterprises, and the provider stressed it had “identified testing services as one of the first and fastest growing areas”.

The service is the first cloud"o#ering to be launched by Atos"Origin since announcing its now-completed acquisition of Siemens’ IT services arm Siemens Information Solutions —"a deal Chief"Executive Thierry"Breton trumpeted as an opportunity for the provider to become the “European leader in cloud computing”, and “maybe the Google of tomorrow”.

[Further reference: Atos!Origin to o"er IT!testing services in the cloud —"Atos"Origin, 7"June"2011; Atos and Siemens have finalised the acquisition by Atos of Siemens!IT!Solutions and!Services —"Atos"Origin, 1"July"2011.]

EMC2, EMC, RSA, the EMC logo, and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 2126

EMC2, EMC, RSA, the EMC logo, and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 2126


The Cloud Service Provider ReportIssue #15 ! Jun/Jul11 Interview

Sponsored by

INTERVIEW

Dave"Jilk, Chief Executive, Standing Cloud

Source: Standing Cloud.

Interview

Standing!Cloud’s Dave!JilkStanding"Cloud is a US-based platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) player, set up in 2009, with a focus on Java, PHP, Python, Ruby!on!Rails, and"other development tools, as well as other commercial software applications.

Unlike some, the company sees PaaS and SaaS as inseparable, and is seeking to push a combination of the two beyond PaaS’s informal buyer/developer customer"base, positioning itself as an ‘application layer’ provider for both enterprises and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers. In recent months, this has seen it form relationships with IaaS players such as OpSource (now being acquired by NTT’s Dimension"Data) and UK-based Flexiant.

Cloud Service!Provider Report asked Dave"Jilk, Chief"Executive of Standing"Cloud, what this melding of application and infrastructure o#erings might mean for service"providers and customers.

Can you give us a brief summary of Standing"Cloud and your aspirations as"a"business?

We started in January!2009 with the idea that there were two!things going on that were interesting in the space. One was that the development of applications seemed to have gotten harder and more complex, and we were looking at the market for application development tools that made it easier. The other piece was Amazon!Web!Services —!at that time, in late-2008, Amazon accounted for most of what was going on in utility computing in the cloud, and with IaaS. We felt there was something going on there that was very interesting.

So, what we did was we looked at combining the two!things, and very quickly we realised that development tools was going to be a tough thing to accomplish. The development market was very fragmented —!developers all had their own preferences in terms of tools that they liked to use. Also, development tools are hard to build —!making something that’s easy to use for development is not easy. We!realised that most of the development tools people want to use, with the exception of Microsoft tools, are open!source, or non-proprietary at least, so we decided to build a PaaS o"ering based primarily on open!source tools, and focus our e"orts on connecting with the di"erent infrastructure services.


The Cloud Service


Interview

Sponsored by

“The idea is you can use SaaS and it’s still your own deployment —!it’s not a big, shared, monolithic system that you’re sharing with many others around you…

How do you see PaaS fitting into the overall cloud industry model, and where do your o#erings sit within that? Do you see yourselves as a pure PaaS player?

The industry has come up with this positioning with IaaS at the ‘bottom’, and then PaaS and SaaS ‘above’ that; and SaaS being aimed at end!users, PaaS being aimed at developers, and infrastructure [IaaS] being aimed at system administrators.

That’s a good, simple view of the marketplace, but it’s not necessarily how things are architected —!for example, if you look at Salesforce.com, which is the kind of quintessential, original SaaS platform, originally there was no PaaS underneath that; the SaaS was not built on top of a platform, it was built on their own infrastructure. It was not built on IaaS either —!so SaaS in that model is impenetrable —!you can’t get at anything underneath it.

Salesforce, of course, subsequently built their Force.com platform, and now they’re giving access to some elements of the software.

But we have a little bit of a di"erent view. We see the whole layer ‘above’ IaaS as the ‘application layer’, and so, by providing PaaS, we can deliver a development environment technology spec for developers while also o"ering what SugarCRM call ‘distributed SaaS’. The idea is you can use SaaS and it’s still your own deployment —!it’s not a big, shared, monolithic system that you’re sharing with many others around you;!it’s actually your own deployment —!but you still don’t have to have to manage it, or deal with the infrastructure or platforms or anything.

So we see that entire application layer as a continuum. An application developer typically doesn’t start with just a blank editor window and start writing code. They work with frameworks and tools, and other open!source components, that they bring in. An end user often does not just use the application as it was originally delivered. They might put themes in, or add some modules like a management system, or hire a consultant to make a few customisations for!them, so there’s an entire continuum from pure PaaS to distributed SaaS.

What’s important about that is it works on top of IaaS, so that providers of infrastructure can o"er that application layer to their customers.



Sponsored by

“In terms of the actual services that the system provides, the!idea is to make it easy to manage the application —!whether you’re developing it or just deploying!it

Which types of services are you o#ering within that layer, in terms of both software applications and platform functionality?

Well, in terms of the actual services that the system provides, the idea is to make it easy to manage the application —!whether you’re developing it or just deploying it. We have a catalogue of about 80!applications. Most of them, but!not all of them, are open source. We’re starting to get into the commercial application arena, and of course you pay an extra subscription fee for those.

Now, if you need to customise applications, we then provide you with access to the platform layer, where you can now add your own code and change the code. We manage the backups and the system so that the codes that you modified are deployed, even if, let’s say, your server has a problem. We will redeploy that application on another server, and get it back up and running automatically if that’s what you want. Or you can move it to a di"erent server of a di"erent size, if the application gets more heavily used. Coming soon, we will have what you might call ‘horizontal scalability’, with the idea that you can scale-out your applications.

So we manage backups, we manage monitoring, we make administration very easy to deal with for the end user or the developer; and another thing we do with certain applications is we can upgrade to a new version with a couple of!clicks. So,!we!support a variety of versions of particular applications that are in our!catalogue, and you can upgrade from one to the next if that comes out, and!actually deploy the upgrade on a test server first, to make sure that everything works properly. That’s particularly important if you’ve made any customisations.

How do you see your portfolio evolving over time? Are there any particular areas you are looking to push into?

I would say that the main things that we’re doing are in two!areas. One is heading heavily into the commercial arena, not only with the application software, but!also with the underlying technology. For example, we have a partnership with Nexaweb, and the market as a whole is also driving us to be able to support tools like Oracle!Database and WebLogic, or IBM’s products. So, for enterprises, having that in the technology stack is important. We’re talking to a number of folks about being able to license their commercial applications on a subscription basis. We do have two!applications that are not well known today running on Standing!Cloud that are commercial and incur an extra licence fee, so we have started that process and you’ll be seeing much more of the commercial application arena within Standing!Cloud over the rest of the year.

The other thing that we want to do is —!quite frankly, our capabilities are not filled out for all the applications, so, for example, only a subset of our supported applications have upgrades available —!we want to make that available more!broadly; so the idea is that we’ve got the basic capabilities in the architecture of the system and built in for a few applications, but it takes a little bit of work to get that going for all of them.


The Cloud Service


Interview

Sponsored by

“The point is that we can support all these different providers easily and, by providing a ‘private label’, we give them the opportunity to offer PaaS and distributed SaaS without invoking this competitive environment where there are a lot of different providers

You mentioned Oracle. They seem to be more cautiously moving into the cloud"now. Is that a threat?

Oracle’s interesting. They are very cautious about it. I suspect that they’re trying really hard not to poach their licence business. They do license Oracle!Database and WebLogic under certain circumstances, on a subscription basis. You know, Oracle’s famous for making deals on its software, but they don’t really make any deals on the subscription stu", so you may occasionally end up being better o" just licensing it and managing the financing that way, rather than licensing a subscription. So!I’m!hoping they continue to evolve in that direction and I think they will. I think they see the value but they want to be careful —!they have a big business to protect.

You mentioned your partnerships with IaaS players earlier. Can you explain the reasoning behind adopting this strategy, as opposed to taking a more universal, independent approach, and how many partnerships do you envisage ultimately"having?

The idea is not making it so people can move from one!cloud to another —!although!theoretically that’s always the case because of the way we sell the system. That’s not the point. The point is that we can support all these di"erent providers easily and, by providing a ‘private label’, we give them the opportunity to o"er PaaS and distributed SaaS without invoking this competitive environment where there are a lot of di"erent providers.

Theoretically, we could build a PaaS in another model and try to run it on everybody’s di"erent infrastructure, but, instead, what we do is we interface with the IaaS capabilities and can deploy things very easily. Because of our architecture, it’s fairly straightforward for us to hand it to a new infrastructure provider. We support around ten!infrastructure providers today, and there are a couple more that are coming in within a few weeks. We actually will be adding a lot of IaaS partners over the rest of the year. So that’s because of the architectural approach that we’ve used that we can do that very easily.

If you look at the OpSource announcement, where we have a joint marketing agreement with them, we’re actually working together with them to o"er this to their customers and it’s actually a private label arrangement, so it’s Standing!Cloud powered by OpSource. You will be seeing more of those; in!fact,!you’ll be seeing some of those in Europe coming soon, I suspect.



Sponsored by

Is there much interest among IaaS providers to move into PaaS yet?

Everybody’s at a di"erent point in the evolution, right? There are some people who are still just thinking about it; and there are others who have already o"ered IaaS for a while, and they’re starting to realise that the ‘application layer’, as we define it, is an important component of a complete o"ering.

In other words, not every end customer needs what Standing!Cloud does —!some!have system administrators and an IT department that’s ready to roll, and!they just want to move into a public cloud environment. But, what these providers realise is certain segments of the customer base that are using their servers need something additional, beyond the raw infrastructure. And so, when a service provider sees that, they get into the market and they say ‘well, what are we going to do?’, and it’s a tricky question because they’re data!centre people; they run great data!centres. They know how to run the network and switches and cooling systems, all the stu" I!don’t understand: that’s all very hard to do well, consistently, and that’s what they know how to do.

Many, especially those coming from the co-location world, don’t even know what applications are running on their data!centres. Many service!providers are maybe more aware —!but, again, they tend to stay at the lower level of the stack!also. They tend to manage the operating!systems and the core!technologies. Building the application layer is not really something they’ve been in before, and,!probably —!at least what we typically find —!it is not a business that they want to be in directly. They need to o"er it to their customers, but they want a way to do it without having to build it themselves, and so that’s what we o"er —!a very fast way for them to get into o"ering those capabilities without having to build!anything.

Are there a few companies out there looking for acquisitions as well?

Sure, but we want to o"er that [value-add capability] very broadly across the industry, to a variety of [service] providers, even to corporations if they have a private!cloud. We’re!working with cloud!providers as a way to o"er a joint service together, but, in terms of more strategic partnerships, we are trying to serve the entire industry.

“Many, especially those coming from the co-location world, don’t even know what applications are running on their data!centres


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What trends are you seeing from the end-user base in terms of level of uptake, and where is demand coming from? Does the partnership strategy represent a shift in terms of the customers you are targeting?

So, until the beginning of this year, we had a retail strategy: so we were just going out into the world and trying to find people who were ready to move to the cloud —!and that’s really di#cult for us as a small company. That’s one of the reasons why we’re [now] working with cloud providers as partners —!the people that they’re accessing have already made the decision to move to the cloud. We’ve really just begun on that strategy, so I wouldn’t want to talk too much about uptake yet.

We do have a number of customers and they typically have been people that we’ve attracted from shared-hosting environments, or they’re running their own server and they’re tired of it. So, they’re typically what we call solution providers —!people!who are managing and developing applications on behalf of their customers. They!might be websites, they might be application providers, small businesses, or!consulting!firms.

As I said, we are moving more into enterprise-ish applications. Ultimately,!these applications will probably be hosted in the corporate data!centre, but the development of them is something they want to do in the cloud. I have to say, I’m!very, very curious to see exactly what we’re going to run into as we start to work with cloud!providers and their customers, but it’s still pretty early. I think, generally, if you dig into PaaS providers, it’s very early from a technology perspective, and also very early from a market!perspective.

Have you got a gauge of enterprise chief"information o$cers’ (CIO) attitude towards PaaS at the moment?

Typically not. As we talked about, [the PaaS market has revolved around] the concept of the informal buyer and, by definition, the informal buyer is not the CIO. They’re people who have worked around IT, or who IT have given a blessing to ‘go!and do something else: we can’t help you right now’. They’re the head of a business unit or a development team, and they’re not going to be the CIO or central!IT.

I’ve had a few meetings with CIOs and those folks. I think what’s on their mind is virtualising their own data!centres, to get to that stage, and what will be interesting is to see —!as they reach capacity in their virtualised data!centres —!will they build a new virtualised data!centre, or will they say ‘we have a set of applications running here that don’t really have to be run on our own data centre, and should we go with public cloud?’. That will be a really interesting transition to see. I think that the infrastructure providers who previously did managed!services, and now are doing IaaS as well, are seeing that [transition to the cloud] already. They were operating these applications in a kind of cloistered environment on behalf of the enterprise. Now they’re running out of space, and they have an IaaS o"ering. They’re moving the less mission-critical applications into the cloud.

“I think that the infrastructure providers who previously did managed services, and now are doing IaaS as well, are seeing that [transition to the cloud] already.



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“We’re just trying to make it easier to manage all the stuff that surrounds the application

Much of the commentary around PaaS suggests it is still early"days, and o#erings remain pretty fragmented in terms of languages and functionality. Do"you see a shift over the next few years, as providers race to bring full service o#erings to market, or do you envisage specialists evolving? How do you see things panning"out?

That is definitely our vision as well —!in other words, once you’ve built the basic capabilities of PaaS, there is no particular reason why you have to limit it to one!language or one!technology stack. Others have done it and have some of that!capability —!where you can select components —!and that’s definitely part of where we’re headed.

There’s a distinction among PaaS providers, in that some of the platforms are essentially shared-hosting environments, with scalability and measurable compute!resources. You’re completely hidden from the underlying infrastructure and technology stack —!you upload your application and it runs. You!have!to conform to certain limitations or standards to be able to operate in that!environment.

Google!App!Engine is a good example of that, where it’s essentially a container where the application lives, and you get billed on the basis of how many compute!cycles you use and how many requests you make, and things like!that. Our platform is very di"erent, and it’s much more along the lines of what people are used to. The idea is that we deploy the application on infrastructure —!and,!although we try to make it easy, so you don’t have to think about!servers —!there are servers there and we’re not avoiding that fact completely; you can get down-and-dirty and look at them, and you can in fact change most aspects of the!infrastructure, as you normally would if you were running the server yourself. But you don’t have to.

Instead of creating an entirely new paradigm for how applications are managed in the core, we have conformed to that [established] paradigm. We’re just trying to make it easier to manage all the stu" that surrounds the application. You end up with the same e"ect, when your apps are running, but you don’t get locked into the platform that the particular provider has. So that kind of approach also makes it easier for us to manage a wider variety of languages and services.


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“After the Amazon outage, people realised the practical benefits of having this kind of portable architecture … if you build it on top of our platform, it’s naturally portable and so that’s the important part of our policy

Have you seen any change in behaviour from your customers since the recent high-profile outages at Amazon and elsewhere? Has it woken people up to the need to have redundancy?

I think we had an increase in understanding of how this needs to be done. Maybe not universally —!obviously some people will take the position that, ‘well,!this just proves that cloud!computing isn’t really there or isn’t really going to work’, or!whatever, because they’re negative on it. I think they’re missing a point, and!I think other people have realised that this is not magic —!it’s a deployment mechanism, it’s a way of doing infrastructure, and a lot of the same rules apply when you use IaaS as apply when you build your own physical data!centre.

Another thing is we built our system so that applications could be portable among cloud!providers, among di"erent data!centres, among di"erent distributions of the operating!system —!we tried really hard not to lock the application into a particular!environment. Again, this is the ‘avoiding lock-in’ philosophy that we have. For the first two!years of our existence, when I would demonstrate that capability to people, I would back -up an application and restore it to di"erent providers, like Amazon and Rackspace, and you can do that in a couple of minutes with Standing!Cloud. I would demonstrate that to people, and they would!say ‘Oh,!that’s!really interesting, but I don’t really see why I would need that. Amazon!does fine’.

After the Amazon outage, people realised the practical benefits of having this kind of portable architecture, whether that means that you can just move to a di"erent data!centre within the same provider, or something else. The point is that you’re not stuck, you’re not frozen in that one!place. This is another reason why, with the Google!App!Engine and Microsoft, which are PaaS o"erings in the other mould, that!your applications don’t work anywhere else. That’s the only place they’ll work. So you are very, very locked in. You know, with Standing!Cloud, if you build it on top of our platform, it’s naturally portable and so that’s the important part of our policy.



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“We haven’t emphasised it yet in terms of our partnerships, but we’ve seen a lot of cloud stuff going on in South!America

Where is your footprint now in terms of geography, and what’s the plan in terms of expansion over the next few months?

So far, we mostly work with providers based in the!US —!you know, from!a!business perspective, we start close to home. We have a few European data!centres going, with Tagadab and Amazon, for example. We have some other things going on. There is no technical limitation on us being able to deploy in Asia and other places. We haven’t emphasised it yet in terms of our partnerships, but we’ve seen a lot of cloud stu" going on in South!America also.

A lot of this reminds me of the cellphone market, where it in some ways grew faster in developing countries because there was no existing telephone infrastructure, or!it!was very limited. Similarly, there’s so much data!centre infrastructure in the US, and in some ways cloud!computing is growing faster in countries where they don’t have that infrastructure. It’s easier now for people to set up infrastructure for the first!time.

So, we anticipate a global footprint at some point; and, technology-wise, that’s very easy for us.

Can you put a timeframe on expansion into emerging"markets?

I would say, in 2011, you’re mainly going to see Standing!Cloud in the US and Europe still. Beyond that, some of the IaaS providers we’re working with are building data!centres all over the world, and there’s no reason for us not to support those. So, you’ll see technical capability of supporting those data!centres as soon as they come online.

Is the OpSource partnership an example of one that could allow you to expand"internationally?

The partnership is worldwide. It’s not clear yet whether we will just mainly focus on the US at first, or do that worldwide. There’s no particular reason not to. Again, one of the benefits of the cloud is that it [location] doesn’t matter as much as it used to. You can move physical infrastructure around —!if your customer is in Europe, you!can deploy things pretty much the same way. We’re a small business so we’re not really in a position to put our feet on the ground in Europe at this point, but!we!will see.

OpSource have an interesting model, and I don’t know if it makes sense to rely on my characterisation of it, but my understanding of it is that, when you partner with OpSource, you have the ability to use their own proprietary data!centres, or the data!centres of their partners. It’s all operated through OpSource technology and APIs [application programming interfaces] as such. Their partners also o"er the IaaS capabilities directly to their customers, and those customers can also use OpSource as a back end. It’s not quite an exchange —!it’s not intended to be a marketplace —!but your ability to deploy in di"erent places and through di"erent providers that are in that network is really flexible.

EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. Copyright ©2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 2125

EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. Copyright ©2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 2125


The Cloud Service Provider ReportIssue #15 ! Jun/Jul11 Markets and trends

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Markets and trends

PlayersCloud investment, acquisition action round-upThere continued to be numerous announcements of investment, and other merger and acquisition activity across the cloud"computing value"chain, with deals seeing:

US telco CenturyLink complete its acquisition of hosted"infrastructure player Savvis, following the deal’s announcement in April"2011 (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #14).Device vendor Acer buy US cloud"software and infrastructure specialist iGware, in a $320m deal aimed at supporting future cloud services rollout. The"move comes with the company (and Taiwan’s IT"industry in general —"Cloud!Service Provider!Report, passim) seeking to diversify beyond hardware through investments in cloud"computing. iGware’s technology —"which focuses on “device!ecosystems, virtual consoles, and personal cloud” systems, including those supporting Nintendo’s Wii —"will be integrated with an “open” cloud infrastructure platform called Acer!Cloud, to be rolled out commercially in 2012. The goal of Acer!Cloud is to “allow our users [to] enjoy and manage all their ICT [information and communications technology] devices, contents, and resources with ease, by integrating all Acer products…within a safe and secure environment”, said"J."T."Wang, Chairman and Chief"Executive of Acer.Australian telecoms player TPG"Telecom acquired local cloud"service"provider IntraPower, to support an expansion into the cloud"computing market. “It’s!very important that we get into the cloud area and integrate our telecommunications o"ering with the cloud and other applications”, said David"Teoh, Executive"Chairman of TPG. IntraPower markets a combined infrastructure, software, and communications o#ering called Business"On-Demand, with customers including Australian financiers Wilson"HTM Investment"Group (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #7).Java-oriented platform-as-a-service (PaaS) start-up CloudBees pick up $10.5m in Series-B funding, following on from a $4m first"round announced in November"2010 (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #10). The financing, led by Lightspeed"Venture"Partners, will be used by the company to “accelerate the roll out of additional product capabilities, and expand marketing and sales”, CloudBees said.Belgian alternative telco Toledo"Telecom buy local virtualisation player Openweb, to aid upcoming plans to launch a family of cloud services under the brand Toledo!Solutions, according to local media reports.Cloud-based testing and development, and enterprise application provider CloudShare announce a $10m third"round of funding, led by Globespan"Capital"Partners, to help it “expand its sales presence and further strengthen its market leadership position in the cloud-based test, development, demo, and training of SharePoint applications”.

MARKETSPer"Dahlberg, Chief"Executive of the recently formed Asia Cloud"Computing Association (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #10), claimed that cloud services could act as the “next great leveller” of global economic competition if common standards can be created to fuel development. “Cloud computing is poised to help accelerate the momentum around trade and economic integration here in Asia”, said"Dahlberg. “The!knowledge economy will fuel Asia’s!future… However, to realise this potential, the region needs to harmonise the policy and regulatory frameworks that will facilitate e"ective trade in digital information and!services”, he added. [Further reference: Cloud!computing is the next leveller —!South!China!Morning!Post, 25"July"2011.]

Recently formed cloud"computing advisory group Belgium"Cloud urged the government to “keep it simple” when formulating policy around cloud computing. The group, which was formed earlier in 2011 and is chaired by Rudi"Lenaerts, the Chief"Executive of IT"distributor interAct, presented the government with a document summarising how it believes cloud computing could be best deployed for Belgian businesses. Belgium!Cloud has stated its aims are to promote cloud computing in a vendor-neutral way, and help Belgian small- and medium-size enterprises match cloud"computing solutions with their business requirements. [Further"reference: Le!pont!belge vers le ‘cloud’ —!Datanews.com, 7"July"2011.]


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US IT application"performance specialist Riverbed"Technology acquired UK-based load balancing and tra$c management solution provider Zeus"Technology, in a deal worth up to $140m. Riverbed described Zeus’s software-based solutions as “better suited” than hardware o#erings “for virtual and cloud environments”.CopperEgg, a Texas, US-based cloud analytics software start-up, receive"$2m"in Series-A funding to help develop its recently launched RevealCloud performance monitoring solution for public and private cloud"applications. Silverton"Partners led the investment round.Networking and virtualisation vendor Citrix"Systems acquire open"source enterprise cloud platform developer Cloud.com, little more than a year after the start-up emerged from stealth"mode (Cloud Service!Provider Report, #6 and passim).Cloud computing technology start-up Gizmox announce a $2.5m investment in its company by Citrix"Systems, as part of a strategic partnership to enable enterprises to convert existing and new applications to operate on HTML5-enabled devices, using Gizmox’s Visual!WebGui cloud conversion solution.US-based virtualisation technology start-up RNA"Networks acquired by Dell. Apica, a Sweden- and US-based performance monitoring technology provider for cloud and mobile applications, close a $2m Series-B round of financing led by Swedish venture"capital fund Industrifonden. The investors —"which also include ALMI"Invest and KTH"Chalmers"Capital —"said they are “betting on the company’s aggressive US!expansion plans”. Nimbic, a specialist in cloud-based electronic design automation solutions, secure $6.9m in Series-B funding from Austral"Capital, Madrona"Venture"Group, and"WRF"Capital —"a move it said will enable it to “accelerate the deployment of the company’s cloud!computing e"orts in 3D electromagnetic signal integrity, power integrity, and EMI!analysis field solutions”.

[Further reference: Nimbic secures $6.9m Series-B financing —"Nimbic,"2"June"2011; Dell acquires cloud memory startup RNA!Networks —!ReadWriteWeb, 23"June"2011; Toledo!Telecom neemt OpenWeb over —"Gazet!van!Antwerpen, 28"June"2011; Gizmox!receives strategic investment from Citrix!Systems —"Gizmox,!30"June"2011; CloudShare closes $10!million VC funding round —"CloudShare, 6"July"2011; Citrix!changes the game in cloud infrastructure with Cloud.com acquisition —"Citrix,"12"July"2011; Federal!Communications!Commission approves CenturyLink-Savvis merger —"Savvis, 12"July"2011; Apica closes Series-B round with $2m for U.S. expansion —"Apica, 14"July"2011; TPG joins the cloud, buys!IntraPower —!The!Australian, 15"July"2011; CopperEgg secures $2!million to bring real-time analytics to the cloud —"CopperEgg, 16"July"2011; Riverbed expands IT!performance business with acquisition of Zeus!Technology —!Riverbed, 19"July"2011; Riverbed!buys UK cloud company for $140m —!Financial!Times, 20"July"2011; Acer to acquire US-based iGware with US$320m for mid- to long-term investment in cloud technology —!Acer, 21"July"2011; Acer to buy iGware with USD!320mn —!SinoCast, 22"July"2011; CloudBees secures $10.5!million in Series-B venture funding —"CloudBees,"25"July"2011.]

PLAYERS

“…out of context…”

Blake"Irving, Chief"Product"O$cer of Yahoo!, sought to wow attendees at the firm’s May"2011 Investor!Day regarding the workload handled by its Hadoop-based data infrastructure, claiming Yahoo! “actually has the largest private!cloud in the world”.

“ [We have] 43,100!servers, and it’s growing daily. We!process over 400!million events every ten!minutes on that Hadoop!cloud. That’s over eleven!billion pages a month. That’s deep science. That’s scale… we have one!exabyte of data generally across the company, but we have 200!terabytes in this Hadoop infrastructure, and it grows by 50!terabytes a day. And if you just want to do a comparison against something else, the Library!of!Congress has 200!terabytes of data in total. We’re growing 50!terabytes a day, and that provides amazing personalised benefit for folks that are on that grid.!” —"Irving.

[Further reference: Yahoo!!Inc!to!host Investor!Day —!final —!FD!Wire, 25"May"2011.]



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TrendsIDC predicts “radical” public!cloud impactResearch group IDC released another set of bullish projections for short- to medium-term growth in the global market for public"cloud services, trumpeting their promise, alongside other disruptive technologies such as mobile and social networking, to “radically expand the users and uses of information technology”.

The company expects the public"cloud market to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 27.6% in the five-year period between 2011 and 2015, rising from $21.5bn to $72.9bn over that timeframe. This will represent a four"times’ faster rate of expansion than total IT market growth over the same period, IDC predicted.

Structurally, the company sees this trend as transformative for the entire industry, asserting that “cloud services represent a strategic growth area for virtually all IT!vendors”, and forecasting that the “winners of the cloud platform wars will likely be the new power brokers of the IT!industry”.

Cloud less US-centric “than thought”The report sees uptake of on-demand application, compute, and storage o#erings as the main drivers of growth in the public"cloud market, as well as noting that regions outside the USA will show “much stronger growth” than the country “as cloud services adoption accelerates”. “There are more cloud services vendors and greater end-user spending in Asia-Pacific and Western!Europe than previously thought”, it added.

IDC also expects public"cloud services to “eventually” mature in terms of reliability and security, but did not provide a more precise timeframe.

“ IDC’s expectation is that public clouds will mature and eventually incorporate many of the capabilities —!particularly security and availability —!that make private clouds a more attractive option today.!” —"Frank"Gens, Senior"Vice-President and Chief"Analyst at IDC.

[Further reference: Public IT!cloud services spending to reach $72.9!billion in 2015, capturing nearly half of net new spending growth in five!key product segments, according to IDC —!IDC, 20"June"2011.]

TRENDSA survey of 1,200"IT professionals in the USA backed up indications that many government and corporate end users will make their early steps into the cloud via private rather than public"cloud o#erings. 7% of the study’s respondents expressed a preference for public"cloud services, while"47% said they are more likely to use private"cloud propositions. The research, carried out by O’Kee#e"&"Co for service"provider CDW, polled 150"individuals in each of the: federal"government; large"business; medium"business; small"business; state and local government; healthcare; higher education; and K-12 public school segments. It also identified that many organisations are still only cautiously embracing cloud services —"while 84% of respondents said their employers have deployed at least one"cloud application, only 28% recognised themselves as ‘cloud users’. Furthermore, 73% reported their first step into the cloud was through a single cloud application, rather than a strategic or more widespread shift. [Further reference: 28!percent!of!US!organisations using cloud computing —"CDW,"26"May"2011; Private!clouds hold a wide lead over public clouds among IT!pros polled —"Network!World,"1"June"2011]


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BT: Backhaul will limit growth of mobile cloudSpeaking at a keynote presentation at CommunicAsia in Singapore, Sean"Bergin, Head"of BT"Global"Telecom"Markets in Southeast"Asia, cautioned mobile operators that capacity on backhaul networks will be the biggest stumbling block to cloud services accessed via mobile devices as the market develops.

“ Backhaul is the biggest bottleneck and the biggest inhibitor to cloud computing taking o"…I spend at least half of my time speaking to mobile operators; the majority of these [cloud] services are being accessed via handsets [and rising data tra#c is] killing backhaul networks, and killing [operators’] costs.!” —"Bergin.

He added that the problem is being amplified by operators o#ering flat-rate data tari#s in a bid to sign new users (although the industry is now moving away from this model). “Business models are being killed by marketers chasing consumers with all-you-can-eat data plans”, he said, and warned that a deterioration in the quality of experience for customers will hamper the development of cloud computing.

Bergin urged operators to bolster their backhaul networks, and invest in caching cloud applications and services closer to end users to ease the load on networks.

[Further"reference: BT: backhaul is cloud bottleneck —!Light!Reading,"20"June"2011; Backhaul is cloud computing’s biggest stumbling!block —!BT —!Total!Telecom,"21"June"2011.]

TRENDSInformationWeek"Analytics released a study highlighting the challenges facing companies in negotiating and tracking compliance of external service level agreements (SLA) when migrating IT"functions to the public"cloud. The survey polled 560"IT service consumers and providers, and 46% agreed it is “di#cult” to monitor service level targets with public cloud service providers. “As companies come to rely more heavily on public and hybrid cloud services for infrastructure and applications, SLAs —!and monitoring of SLAs —!become even more critical. ITIL [Information!Technology Infrastructure!Library] and other service management frameworks are becoming increasingly important because they integrate SLAs in their operational models and, ultimately, increase e#ciency”, said"Lorna"Garey, Content"Director at InformationWeek"Analytics. [Further reference: InformationWeek!Analytics new research finds only 4% of SLAs met all service level targets over the past 12!months —"InformationWeek"Analytics, 24"June"2011.]

Research group In-Stat highlighted a survey whose findings play down the potential impact of cloud-based storage solutions on the network-attached storage (NAS) market among small- and medium-size enterprises. “Over!seven-in-ten” respondents to the poll that use cloud-based storage solutions also use NAS. The company added that those that do not use NAS “tend to” have fewer than 50"employees. [Further reference: Cloud!storage is not the death knell for worldwide small- and medium- business (SMB) network-attached storage (NAS); SMB NAS revenues to reach $2!billion in 2015, says In-Stat —"In-Stat, 23"May"2011.]

EMC: #1 IN SECURITY FOR VIRTUALIZATION

Source: BTC Logic Top Ten Cloud Companies Ranking ReportEMC2, EMC, where information lives, and RSA are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. © Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.


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Issue #15 ! Jun/Jul11 Index

INDEX

SYMBOLS

8x8, Inc., 5

A

Acer, 30, 31

iGware, Inc., 30, 31

Akamai Technologies, Inc., 9

ALMI Företagspartner AB, 31

Amata Corp. PCL, 9

Amazon.com, Inc., 10, 13, 20, 27

Amazon Web Services (AWS),

10, 13, 20

Apica AB, 31

Asia Cloud Computing Association

(Asia"Cloud), 30

Atos Origin, 18

Siemens Information Solutions, 18

AT&T, 3, 4

Austral Capital, 31

B

Barclays, 3, 4

Barclays Capital, 3, 4

Belgium Cloud, 30

Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), 9

BT Group, 33

C

CDW, 32

CenturyLink, Inc., 13, 30, 31

Chelsea & Westminster Hospital

NHS"Foundation Trust, 16

China Mobile, 7

China Telecom, 6, 7

Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd, 6, 7

Cisco Systems, 5, 12, 15, 17

Citrix Systems, Inc., 31

Cloud.com, Inc., 31

Claranet Ltd

Tagadab, 27

CloudBees, 30, 31

CloudShare, Inc. (IT Structures), 30, 31

Computacenter, 16

CopperEgg Corp., 31

D

dacoma GmbH, 18

Datacastle Corp., 18

Dell, 31

Deutsche Telekom, 13

Hrvatski Telekom (HT), 13

T-Systems, 13

DWS Advanced Business Solutions Ltd, 10

Taten, 10

E

Edinburgh Napier University, 16

Centre for Distributed Computing,

Networking & Security (CDCS), 16

EMC, 3, 5, 17

VMware (see also separate listing),

3, 9, 12

EMI Group Ltd, 31

Enspire Australia, 10

Equinix, Inc., 9, 10

European Union (EU)

European Investment Bank (EIB), 17

F

FarEasTone Telecommunications Co. (FET), 7

Federal Communications Commission

(FCC), 31

Flexiant, 16, 20

Fortinet, Inc., 12

France Télécom, 17

Orange, 17

Business Services, 17

Telekomunikacja Polska (TP), 17

Frost & Sullivan, 11

Fujitsu, 6, 7, 10

G

Geographic

Asia, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 27, 30, 32

Australia, 6, 9, 10

China, 6, 7, 30

Hong Kong, 6, 9

India, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12

Indonesia, 9

Japan, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10

Malaysia, 9

New Zealand, 11

Philippines, 9

Singapore, 6, 9, 10, 33

Southeast Asia, 33

Taiwan, 6, 7, 30

Thailand, 9

Europe, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 23,

27, 28, 32

Belgium, 30

Central Europe, 15

Croatia, 13

Czech Republic, 15

France, 17

Germany, 6, 13, 18

Hungary, 15

Netherlands, 15

Poland, 15, 17

Portugal, 17

Romania, 15

Slovakia, 15

Sweden, 31

UK, 6, 13, 16, 20, 30, 31

Latin America, 27

Brazil, 3

North America

Canada, 3

USA, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 18,

20, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32

Gizmox, 31

Globespan Capital Partners, 30

Goodcolo Ltd

HKCOLO.NET Ltd (TELEHOUSE

Hong Kong Cloud Computing

Complex (CCC), see also KDDI), 6

Google, 13, 18, 26, 27

GTS Central Europe, 15

Interware ZRt., 15

Sitel Data Center, 15

H

Hewlett-Packard, 11, 17

Hibernia Evros Technology Group, 15

Digital Planet, 15

Hutchison Whampoa, 9

I

IBM, 7, 18, 22

IDC, 11, 32

Industrifonden, 31

In-Stat, 33

Intelligence Bureau (IB, India), 17

interAct bvba, 30

Interactive (Australia), 10

Internet Initiative Japan, 7

IIJ GIO, 7

K

KDDI, 6

HKCOLO.NET Ltd (TELEHOUSE

Hong Kong Cloud Computing

Complex (CCC), see also

Goodcolo Ltd), 6

Telehouse, 6

KPN, 15

KTH Chalmers Capital, 31

L

Lightspeed Venture Partners, 30

M

Macquarie Telecom Pty Ltd, 10

Madrona Venture Group, Inc., 31

Microsoft, 9, 12, 13, 17, 20, 27

Mozilla Foundation, 13

EMC: #1 IN SECURITY FOR VIRTUALIZATION

Source: BTC Logic Top Ten Cloud Companies Ranking ReportEMC2, EMC, where information lives, and RSA are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. © Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.


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ContactsEMC$

Richard Bradbury, Director Telecoms & Service Providers, Europe, Middle East & Africa

Email: [email protected] +44 (0)20-8758-6075 Address: EMC% Computer Systems (Europe) Ltd EMC Tower Great West Road, Brentford Middlesex TW8 9AN, United Kingdom

Market Mettle LtdTim Lamb, Client Director

Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)7779-713-415 Address: Market Mettle Limited 34 Buckingham Palace Road, Suite 53, London SW1W 0RH United Kingdom

N

NEC, 7, 9

Netmagic Solutions, 12

Neusoft Corp., 7

New York Stock Exchange, 3

Nexaweb Technologies, Inc., 22

Nimbic, Inc. (Physware), 31

Nintendo, 30

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp.

(NTT), 9, 20

Dimension Data, 9, 20

DoCoMo

Philippine Long Distance

Telephone Co. (PLDT, see

also separate listing), 9

Nokia, 12

Nokia Growth Partners, 12

O

Open Cloud, 13

OpSource, Inc., 20, 23, 28

Oracle, 22, 23

Osiatis Group

France, 17

P

Pacnet, 7

PAETEC Holding Corp., 5

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.

(PLDT), 9

Portugal Telecom, 17

Q

Quanta Computer, 7

R

Rackspace Managed Hosting, 13, 27

Riverbed Technology, Inc., 30, 31

Zeus Technology Ltd, 30, 31

S

Salesforce.com, 21

SAP, 6, 17

Saudi Telecom Co. (STC), 12

Savvis, Inc., 13, 30, 31

Sify Technologies Ltd (Satyam Infoway), 12

Silverton Partners, 31

Singapore Telecom, 10

Optus (Australia), 10

Softsource Ltd, 11

Standing Cloud, Inc., 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28

STW Communications Group Ltd, 9

BrightHost Pty Ltd, 9

SugarCRM, Inc., 21

Systemax, Inc.

Misco, 18

T

Technology

API, 7, 28

As-a-Service, 7, 12, 17

Infrastructure (IaaS), 4, 5, 9, 11,

12, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 24,

25, 27, 28

Platform (PaaS), 9, 20, 21, 23,

24, 25, 26, 27, 30

Software (SaaS), 6, 9, 11, 12,

13, 17, 20, 21, 23

VDI, 9, 17

CDN, 9

Cloud, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,

15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24,

25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33

Hybrid, 3, 4, 5, 12, 15, 16, 24,

31, 32, 33

Internal, 6, 7, 9, 31

Public, 3, 9, 12, 15, 16, 24, 25,

31, 32, 33

Ethernet, 17

Fibre, 9

Fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), 17

Hadoop, 31

IP, 4, 12

Java, 7, 20, 30

Mozilla, 13

MPLS, 4

PHP, 20

Python, 20

R&D, 4

Ruby on Rails, 20

Virtualisation, 4, 12, 25, 30, 31

Telecom Italia, 17

Telstra, 10

Texas Pacific Group (TPG), 30, 31

Time Warner Cable, Inc., 13

NaviSite, Inc., 13

Toledo Telecom SA, 30, 31

OpenWeb, 30

TPG Telecom Ltd

(SP Telemedia Ltd/Pipe Networks), 30

IntraPower Ltd, 30, 31

V

VCE Co. LLC

(Virtual Computing Environment Co.,

see"also Cisco and EMC), 5

Verizon Communications, 3, 10, 13

Terremark Worldwide, Inc., 13

Verizon Business, 10

VMware, Inc., 3, 9, 12

W

Washington Research Foundation

WRF Capital, 31

Wilson HTM Investment Group, 30

Windstream Corp., 5, 13

Hosted Solutions, LLC, 5, 13

Wipro, 11, 12

Y

Yahoo!, 31