CloudJumper launches distribution agreement with Crayon to improve access to cloud workspace for Azure

CloudJumper announces alliance with Crayon that combines the power of CloudJumper’s Cloud Workspace Management Suite (CWMS) for VDI and RDS workloads with the expertise of Crayon’s managed services and independent 'cloud economics' consulting practice.

CloudJumper and Crayon’s partnership bring new possibilities for customers and MSPs who want the flexibility of choice for management, security options and the ability to build their own value-add services suite leveraging WVD. 

Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) brings new choices for customers who want more control of the managed services running on top of desktop and application virtualization solutions. Legacy VDI providers have historically served as a gatekeepers controlling the workstation management plane. CloudJumper brings to Azure WVD what the legacy vendors will not – the flexibility of controlling managed services on top of managed desktops.

The utility of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) is further enhanced through CloudJumper's Cloud Workspace Management Suite (CWMS). CWMS is an automation, orchestration workflow and policy solution to deploy, configure and manage WVD in real-time and at cloud scale. CWMS will instantly, and continually, optimize the customer’s Azure investment.

WVD is a complex collection of Azure services. CloudJumper simply funnels the hundreds of WVD setup options into a few key questions and then orchestrates and deploys a customized environment. With CloudJumper, the customer is just minutes away from deploying thousands of new WVD VMs– something that is not available in a native Azure user interface (UI).

To provide additional support for this distribution partnership, CloudJumper's product development team has been working closely with Microsoft's WVD product team for over two years. As a result, CloudJumper is proud to be recognized as a Microsoft Preferred Solution Provider for WVD.

Microsoft Azure WVD provides customers with unique licensing options and operating system flexibility for Windows 10 and Windows 7 desktop virtualization. Windows 7 desktops can now be migrated to Azure WVD and receive up to three years extended security updates at no additional costs. 

New Windows 10 multi-session OS options are only offered in Azure. These OS choices along with the many complementary Azure PaaS management and security offerings can be securely delivered directly into the Azure tenant. Native Azure Management, supported by CWMS, means no redirection and no third party vendor lock-in. This allows customers to leverage current Microsoft licensing instead of buying overlapping third party tools.

The partnership with Crayon combines the strengths and expertise of CloudJumper and Crayon to deliver the next generation of cloud DaaS and WaaS VDI and RDS desktop and application virtualization solutions.

Headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Crayon is in over 35 countries, providing more than 8,000 customers with strategic advice, consulting and managed services, and support with complex IT estates. Crayon has been the preeminent IT infrastructure consulting business in the Nordic region for more than 12 years, and has expanded its footprint in the US in the last two years.

“Crayon’s deep experience in all aspects of the digitalization journey helps ensure the success of the new partnership. We are pleased to combine CloudJumper’s advanced platform with Crayon’s unique SAM to Cloud Consultancy Services as companies take the next step in digital transformation with their move to Windows Virtual Desktop,” said Alex Picchietti, global director of cloud services for Crayon. “The wealth of expertise from both companies will support organizations making this important move to improve productivity and operational efficiency.”

“The advent of WVD and the partnership with a respected industry leader like Crayon extends the reach of our combined solutions globally,” said JD Helms, president of CloudJumper. “Customers are demanding choice and flexibility in their managed workspace providers and CloudJumper is uniquely positioned to do just that.”

Commvault data protection software now fully tested and validated to support AWS Outposts

Commvault announced on Thursday that Commvault software has been tested and validated to support AWS Outposts, which is a new, fully-managed service that extends Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, services, APIs and tools to virtually any data center, co-location space, or on-premises facility for a truly consistent hybrid cloud experience.

Many customers need to keep certain workloads on-premises while managing other workloads in the cloud. Commvault has robust and expansive support for the ever-growing number of diverse workloads rapidly migrating to AWS from other platforms and delivers the same look, feel and performance for data protection and management on-premises as it does in the cloud. 

As a complement to AWS Outposts, Commvault’s software provides a true single solution, not just a single interface, which creates cost efficiencies, provides simplicity and reduces risk.

Commvault is an Advanced Technology Partner in the AWS Partner Network (APN) and holds AWS Storage Competency status. Working with the AWS engineering team allows Commvault to offer integrated cloud storage solutions and support, giving customers the ability to migrate, backup and store data in the cloud. The depth and breadth of Commvault’s software with the wide array of storage services available from AWS allows customers to rest assured that their data is secure and available in the cloud. 

“Our tested and validated support for AWS Outposts allows our customers to leverage Commvault’s powerful cloud data protection and management capabilities on AWS,” said Karen Falcone, Vice President of Worldwide Cloud GTM, Commvault. “With the growth of cloud services and so many Commvault customers moving into AWS, we are helping organizations achieve the same level of data protection in the cloud as they did on-premises without the complexity and costs of installing and managing infrastructure.”

In October, Commvault announced product and experience enhancements to Commvault Activate, its data insights and governance solution that gives users greater visibility into their data, identifies opportunities for storage efficiencies and manages risk. Enhancements include the addition of file access controls for file storage optimization and new redaction functions with sensitive data governance. 

ABI Research recognises blockchain innovators kicking up a storm in decentralized cloud

ABI Research has identified the 15 hot tech innovators in the space that are already kicking up a storm in the cloud space: 0Chain, ælf, Ankr, DFINITY, Ethernity, Edge, Filecoin, iExec, Internxt, Golem, PPIO, Oasis Labs, Sia, Sonm, and Storj. Together, these startups have amassed over $600 million in funding in the last three years, through VCs and token sales (initial coin offerings).

Traditional centralized cloud computing has become a consolidated market with heavy-weight incumbents making penetration by new market entrants difficult. As a result, the offerings are high-priced and often locked into other cloud services from the same provider. Further, the complex nature of cloud configuration and the centralization aspect has made data security an emerging risk. 

Over the last few years, the decentralized cloud market has emerged with the goal to displace public cloud service providers with cheaper, more secure blockchain-based compute and storage alternatives. 

“The technology being built promises significant cost benefits over traditional offerings from existing cloud services, with containers, blockchain, and trusted computing being leveraged for security as well as simplicity. As the startups launch their mainnets and commercial offerings, the cloud market is likely to undergo significant upheaval,” says Michela Menting, Digital Security Research Director at ABI Research.

The technology leveraged is relatively new and untested, with founding developers looking to improve on existing blockchain technologies used in applications like Bitcoin. 

“The startups in the space are developing the infrastructure and the networks to be more power-efficient and scalable, as well as more resistant to common blockchain vulnerabilities such as 51 percent attacks, consensus delays, selfish mining, smart contract, and Denial of Service,” Menting added. “Critically, they are set to give traditional cloud providers a run for their money by offering significantly lower price points for cloud services. They are achieving this by leveraging a network of peers to offer spare computing power and storage capacity in exchange for token-based incentives.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s Hot Tech Innovators: Decentralized Cloud Computing and Storage report. This report is part of the company’s Blockchain & DLT research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. 

Hot Tech Innovators reports focus on companies at the forefront of transformational innovation, particularly those that are younger and less well-known than the incumbents, at the technological forefront of their markets, developing new business models, destabilizing the current market and prime acquisition targets.

Arlo and Verisure announce alliance to provide European clients with latest offerings in smart home segment

Arlo Technologies and Verisure Sàrl, provider of monitored security solutions in Europe, announced that they have entered into definitive agreements to create an alliance that leverages both companies’ capabilities to create incremental scale to address growing demand for residential and commercial security. 

The companies will combine Arlo’s connected cameras and cloud services platform with Verisure’s professionally monitored security solutions to provide a new level of smart security for European customers.

The deal will create the first European multi-channel go-to-market strategy for consumer security and surveillance services by adding Arlo’s retail and e-commerce channels to Verisure’s existing direct sales channels. 

The addition of Arlo’s European commercial operations will enable Verisure to accelerate adoption of security and surveillance services across Europe, as well as bolster Arlo’s position in smart home security solutions.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions and is expected to close by the first quarter of next year, upon which Verisure will assume full ownership of Arlo’s European commercial operations, including sales, marketing and customer care. Arlo users will continue to enjoy the same user experience through the Arlo app and services such as Arlo Smart, and all backend services including cloud recordings will continue to be managed and operated by Arlo Technologies.

Verisure is a European provider of professionally monitored security systems with 24/7 response services. The company’s mission is to bring peace of mind to families and small business owners by providing them with the best security solutions and services. Verisure is known for category-creating marketing, sales excellence products and services, and customer-centricity. 

Verisure also has a highly satisfied and loyal customer base, with some of the strongest growth rates and best retention rates globally in consumer-facing services, demonstrating its service levels and strong value proposition to its customers.

The strategic partnership includes sale of Arlo’s European commercial operations, and multi-channel supply partnership. Verisure will acquire Arlo’s European commercial operations for $50 million. This will include marketing and distribution of Arlo products and services, the Arlo brand in Europe, and Arlo’s existing installed base in Europe. Arlo will continue to own and grow its channels of distribution in territories outside of Europe. The combined insights and efforts between the two companies will accelerate the adoption of Arlo’s products and services globally.

In connection with Verisure’s addition of Arlo’s retail and e-commerce go-to-market channels, Arlo will become a key supplier to Verisure for smart security cameras. Verisure has a guaranteed minimum purchase commitment of $500 million cumulatively over the next five years. Verisure will also purchase associated cloud services from Arlo, including artificial intelligence, computer vision and other advanced technologies.

With an portfolio of smart security products and services with more than three million registered households worldwide, Arlo will continue to operate all channels outside of Europe and its secure, global cloud operations that enable Arlo users to protect and connect with the things they love most, from anywhere in the world. 

Arlo will also continue to own and innovate their product and services roadmap and the Arlo experience built upon the Arlo app, along with the advanced CV and AI-capabilities of Arlo Smart which provide sophisticated object detection, personalized notifications and cloud storage for additional peace of mind for its users.

“Arlo and Verisure share the same singular mission to provide their customers with peace of mind through connected security products and services that protect what matters most,” said Matthew McRae, CEO of Arlo Technologies. “Today’s agreement enables each brand to further accelerate their growth and innovation streams to deliver smart security solutions across residential and commercial markets, leveraging Arlo’s industry-leading cloud platform and services that deliver more than 120 million video events a day.”

“We are delighted to partner with Arlo, the global leader in the fast-growing camera surveillance area,” said Austin Lally, CEO of Verisure. “We are people protecting people. We believe feeling safe and secure is a human right. It should be for everyone. And, this partnership opens new opportunities for us to accelerate the growth of security and surveillance services, bringing peace of mind to many more European customers. We will now be able to add retail and e-commerce go-to-market channels alongside our existing direct channels. Of course, we will also continue to work closely with our existing technology partners and to leverage our own in-house innovation expertise.”

Atos delivers data center, cloud and digital workplace solutions for gas and oil company Wintershall Dea

Atos has signed a long-term contract with Europe’s independent oil and gas company Wintershall Dea to build up its new IT structure, including operations and workplace environment. 

Atos will work on the project together with Cegal, a specialized IT provider for the oil and gas industry, to provide global datacenter and cloud services and deliver modernized digital workplace solutions and collaboration platforms.

This contract includes the challenge of creating a new IT infrastructure and integrating former Wintershall’s and DEA’s two IT systems following the merger in May 2019. 

Atos and Cegal will deliver datacenter and cloud services, as well as a best practice workplace environment, which includes a new framework to provide virtualized workstation solutions (VDI) for geologists and engineers.

“Our new IT structure will lay the foundation for our planned strategic growth in the coming years and for our innovations in the field of digital initiatives,” said Steffen Jean Gelder, senior vice president information technology of Wintershall Dea. “Therefore, we decided to sign a long-term contract with Atos, leveraging its digital transformation capabilities and global reach, and Cegal, the world’s leading oil and gas IT specialist.”

 “We reached this position by building on years of experience, combining industry software solutions and 3D data visualization through Cegal’s GeoCloud,” added Svein Torgersen, CEO of Cegal.

 “The joint team developed the industry’s best-in-class solution in order to fulfill Wintershall Dea’s ambitions for a new way of working,” summarized Robert Vassoyan, senior executive vice-president, Group Chief Commercial Officer of Atos. “This new approach improves collaboration and transparency between the corporate headquarter and the business units in different countries and leads to modern digital workplace solutions and collaboration platforms. Altogether, this is a major step in the oil and gas industry worldwide, as our partnership is the only one to provide those kinds of services on a global scale.”

Apptio introduces Insights & Action Plans to automatically discovery cost optimization opportunities

Apptio Inc. has introduced "Insights & Action Plans," which will be available throughout Apptio's cost analytics applications, starting with cost transparency and IT financial management, and provides users with intelligent alerts designed to highlight opportunities for cost savings, increased productivity, risk reduction, and improved data quality.  

The scale of technology spending in most modern enterprise organizations has grown at a rate that is nearly impossible to manage manually. The average enterprise organization spends hundreds of millions of dollars on technology, often managed in spreadsheets alone. 

This lack of a business management system can lead to pervasive overspending, waste, and no discernible business value across hundreds of vendors, cloud services, infrastructure, labor and more. 

To address this complexity, Apptio is launching Insights & Action Plans to automate the identification and delivery of cost saving insights to users.    

Insights & Action Plans users will receive automated notifications of spend overages, hidden spending, costs associated with closed projects, poor forecast accuracy and much more. This solution works by applying machine learning and a system of rules to users' financial, operational, and vendor data, analyzing anomalies and identifying areas of redundancy. 

Apptio then alerts users to these insights and tracks and manages progress made against them through Action Plans. The first set of insights launching today was selected based on input and validation from hundreds of Apptio customers and represent the highest areas of risk for overspending.

"Today's launch represents one of the most important advancements to Apptio's technology platform since our founding," said Sunny Gupta, Apptio CEO. "More than a year in the making, our vision is to eliminate the need for our customers to 'insight hunt' within their own data, one of the most pervasive challenges with modern business intelligence and analytics platforms."  

After each insight is discovered, users have the option to track and manage progress through dedicated Action Plans. These plans start by assigning work to an insight owner, correlating the associated data with each insight, and automatically updating the plan once action is taken. These Action Plans track the history of each insight and project future efficacy. 

"We've heard from customers who spend a significant amount of time every month attempting to achieve this level of awareness and understanding using spreadsheets or paying a premium for specialized consultants to conduct the work on their behalf," said Scott Chancellor, Apptio chief product officer. "Our customers want timely and actionable insights into their IT investments without that level of overhead—we've unlocked this today with Insights & Action Plans."

Additional insights will be added quarterly, examples include notification of unused SaaS licenses, non-critical applications using Tier 1 storage, end of life on mission-critical assets, new development work on retired applications and physical serves running non-production workloads.

Insights & Action Plans and Action Plans are currently in beta and will be generally available in early next year.

Silver Peak expands integration with Microsoft Cloud Services; automates enterprise branch office connectivity to Office 365, Azure Virtual WAN

Silver Peak announced on Monday expanded product integration with Microsoft cloud services. Its expanded integration enables enterprise IT organizations to centrally define workflows within Unity Orchestrator to automate direct branch connectivity to Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure across deployments of the business-driven Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform. 

These advancements allow cloud-first enterprises to deliver the highest quality of application experience to branch users, dramatically simplify network operations for IT, and achieve a multiplier effect on Microsoft cloud investments.

As cloud-first enterprises embrace leading productivity tools like Office 365, IT organizations are tasked with delivering the highest levels of performance to achieve the full productivity benefit. 

To help enterprises deliver the best Office 365 experience, Microsoft has defined a set of connectivity best practices for connecting branch office users over the internet to the closest Office 365 service front door. The Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform is now fully integrated with Office 365 IP address and URL web services, providing default support for Microsoft connectivity best practices. 

This expanded integration extends the value of advanced capabilities like First-packet iQ application classification and local DNS resolution (for Office 365 endpoints), allowing EdgeConnect to identify and classify Office 365 application traffic on the first packet and now automatically directs it to the nearest Office 365 endpoint. Directing traffic to the nearest endpoint significantly reduces round trip latency for the full suite of Office 365 applications, assuring the highest levels of performance.

For enterprises migrating applications from the corporate data center to the cloud, Microsoft Azure offers a compelling value proposition. The Azure cloud infrastructure spans Microsoft’s worldwide footprint of global data centers, hubs and entry points interconnected over Microsoft’s private high-performance global network. 

The Azure Virtual WAN service provides an API-driven software-defined paradigm that enables Unity Orchestrator to perform per-branch geolocation of the closest Azure hub, and then automatically establish, monitor and maintain IPsec tunnels from each branch location into Azure. This ensures that application traffic traverses the shortest distance possible on the public internet before merging onto the Azure backbone. 

Using the Silver Peak cloud API, network administrators can now establish and automate integration workflows within Unity Orchestrator, enabling joint customers to build optimized network access to workloads and resources hosted in Azure VNETs, fully leveraging the performance advantages of the Microsoft global backbone network.

“Virtually all Silver Peak customers rely on a combination of Microsoft products and cloud services, and the expanded integration announced today enables our joint customers to maximize user experience with Office 365 and Azure,” said Fraser Street, vice president of technical alliances for Silver Peak. “Today’s announcement underscores our commitment to customers to deliver a portfolio of API-driven integrations to automate connectivity to the most widely deployed, business-critical cloud applications and services from recognized leaders like Microsoft.”