The VCE datacentre joint venture formed by Cisco and EMC has unveiled the next wave of its converged infrastructure products, introducing lower-priced mid-range Vblock integrated systems, enhanced management tools and specialised systems for specific applications starting with SAP HANA.

VCE announced the Vblock System 100 for branch office deployments and the Vblock System 200 for mid-sized customers, positioning both of these below the existing Vblock System 300 and 700 series of modules.

Meanwhile, the latter lines have been enhanced with the addition of the Vblock System 320 and 720, which offer three times the performance and three times the scalability of the existing hardware, according to Todd Pavone, VCE’s vice president of product development and strategy.

“Previously, with our enterprise customers, we were selling into the core, but now with the Vblock 100, you can go to the edge, to those remote office locations, while with Vblock 200,we can say to mid-size firms that you can take advantage of the benefits the large enterprise customers been getting,” he said.

VCE’s raison d’être is to offer converged infrastructure to enterprise and cloud computing service providers, combining Cisco network switches and UCS blade servers with EMC VNX storage in pre-built and pre-tested configurations, delivered in racks as modular Vblocks.

Pavone claimed that figures from IDC demonstrate that this architecture delivers five times faster deployment, 83 times better availability and is cost three times less than existing silioed infrastructure.

VCE also introduced Vblock Specialised Systems, versions of the infrastructure optimised for key enterprise applications, with the SAP HANA the first to be delivered.

“We take the app and integrate it for you, certified by SAP, so it is uniquely optimised to architect that workload into Vblock,” said Pavone.

Specialised Systems integrated with other enterprise applications are planned over the next 12 to 18 months, he added.

To simplify management, VCE announced Vision intelligent operations, a single management interface for managing the entire portfolio of Vblock systems and their components, delivering an administrator dashboard for VCE infrastructure.

Vision integrates fully with VMware’s vCentre and vCentre Operations Management Suite, Pavone said plus VCE has an open API and SDK to enable integration with other management platforms, if required.

“We believe this is announcement today represents the foundation for the future, for that end-state datacentre that is predicitive, intelligent and adaptive,” Pavone said.

Vblock System 100 is due to ship in March via VCE and its partners, while Vblock System 200, VCE Vision Intelligent Operations and Vblock Specialised System SAP HANA are all expected early in the second quarter.

VMware’s Horizon Suite, announced this week, is the culmination of multiple projects the firm has had bubbling away in the background for several years, and extends beyond its traditional stronghold in the corporate datacentre to address client-side issues, providing access to applications and data from a broad variety of platforms.

In fact, when you look at the breadth of capabilities baked into the suite as a whole, Horizon can be seen as an ambitious attempt by VMware to position itself as an all-encompassing enterprise computing provider, with the potential for a monumental lock-in for users.

VMware is offering organisations the opportunity to not only consolidate all of their servers and back-end infrastructure into a private cloud, but to then use that platform to deliver end-user computing as a set of centralised services out to mobile devices and Windows PCs alike.

The suite’s three components – View, Mirage and Workspace – provide virtual desktop, physical PC management and access to applications and data, respectively. Although available separately, the three work together to provide a wide-ranging feature set for handling end-user computing.

Horizon Workspace is the newest and possibly most significant piece, as it integrates the Dropbox-like Project Octopus technology for shared documents with Horizon Application Manager, which unifies management of Windows and SaaS applications into a central catalogue from which users can access them.

On non-Windows devices, access to Windows apps can be delivered by remotely accessing a virtual desktop, provided by Horizon View. This works even on devices without a View client, by delivering the virtual desktop inside a browser.

For firms that bought into VMware’s platform some time ago, this must seem like a tempting proposition. For a relatively modest additional cost, they can utilise the infrastructure which they have already invested in to help them solve problems such as bring your own device (BYOD), ensuring that users can have access to the applications they need from anywhere, and securely sharing company documents.

However, that is also where the drawback lies. For all the attractiveness of being able to deliver end-user computing as a centrally provisioned service, you need VMware’s underlying vSphere platform in order to support this, and that doesn’t come cheap.

Western Europe is set for a data explosion that will make the region among the top content consumers on the planet, according to a report from IDC.

The research firm said that by 2020, users in Western Europe will consume some 5.5 zettabytes of data annually. The figure would represent an annual growth rate of 30 percent and would put the market among the highest consuming regions in the world.

The study, which was sponsored by storage firm EMC, noted that enterprises look to increasingly bear responsibility for the data explosion. Researchers estimate that in 2012 at least 80 per cent of all data generated was the direct or indirect responsibility of enterprises as either contact with other firms or direct interaction with customers.

Researchers also noted that Europe has several unique traits which separate it from other regions. Traffic from infrastructure such as video surveillance networks were far higher than the US or Asia, while individual TV consumption is higher than other regions, particularly as carriers migrate to digital TV broadcasts.

Going forward, the firm said that it believes emerging fields such as big data and cloud computing will take over as key drivers for data volume growth. As such, IDC said that new challenges will like arise for enterprises and storage vendors alike.

“In just five years, the Western Europe share of the digital universe will be about the same size as the entire digital universe in 2012. Its share of the digital universe will be many times more valuable than today, but also many times more volatile,” the company said in its report.

“Many times more bytes will need information security, many more systems will need real-time responses, and many more demands for reliability and speedy access will be made of the IT managers, CIOs, data scientists, and chief security officers that manage the actual digital universe.”

VMware is looking to build upon its datacentre presence with the launch of Horizon Suite.

This is a set of technologies that provide access to applications and data from any endpoint device, helping enterprises to deal with the growing BYOD trend while also encompassing existing investments in Windows PCs.

Set to be available by the end of March, Horizon Suite finally delivers on the end-user computing technologies that VMware has been developing over the past few years, enabling firms with VMware’s vSphere infrastructure to have a centralised, universal platform for delivering applications – including a Windows desktop experience – to any user on any device.

Many aspects of the Horizon technology were previewed at the firm’s VMworld conference last year.

“The one-size-fits-all view of end-user computing has just not been able to keep up with what’s happening in the industry,” VMware’s chief market technologist for end-user computing, Brian Gammage, told V3.

“Our approach with Horizon is to turn assets at the back-end into services which can be accessed via a central point, where you can apply policy, so we can deliver the services to any device and any user,” he added.

Horizon Suite comprises three components which can be used and licensed separately or together as a single suite. Two of these – Horizon View 5.2 and Horizon Mirage 4.0 – are updates to VMware’s existing tools for virtual desktop infrastructure and for managing images with physical PC fleets, respectively.

The third piece is Horizon Workspace, a new product that serves as a user portal for access to document storage, applications and virtual desktops, all via a browser and offering single sign-on for access to all resources.

Key for the enterprise is that Horizon is aware of what kind of endpoint a user is using, and can serve up an appropriate experience for that device’s capabilities, whether it is a PC, a Mac, an iPad or an Android smartphone.

For example, Horizon View now incorporates VMware’s AppShift technology, which touch-enables a remote Windows desktop when accessed on a tablet device.

Likewise, View now includes AppBlast, which serves up a Windows desktop using HTML5, so that a user can access a virtual desktop session from any device that has a web browser, removing the need to install a remote desktop client.

Japanese telecoms giant NTT Communications has announced the global availability of its Enterprise Cloud, a virtualised infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offering with datacentres now in the US, the UK and Asia Pacific.

NTT Communications first launched its software-defined networking (SDN)-based Enterprise Cloud offering via datacentres in Japan and Hong Kong in June 2012. The additional datacentres will now allow customers worldwide to take advantage of the offering.

Len Padilla, NTT Europe senior technology director, told V3 that the Enterprise Cloud will be delivered as a public cloud, rather than as an offering that will allow customers to own a private cloud in NTT Communications’s datacentres.

“[The Enterprise Cloud] is a shared platform, so we are not deploying individual devices per customer, but they can configure the available network. So they can segment the network to get the security and availability they want with a lot of flexibility as well,” Padilla told V3.

“Customers, instead of reconfiguring machines on a flat network, will be able to create a multi-tier network, creating eight or nine individual segments. Then they will be able to insert firewalls in-between those segments and load balance over those segments.”

An SDN-driven portal will give customers a single dashboard to obtain real-time resource use and to configure virtual machines, firewalls and load balancers.

The NTT datacentre in the UK is based in Hemel Hampstead, North London. In addition to five datacentres in Asia, the firm has also deployed a datacentre on the US East Coast and another on the US West Coast, as well as one in Sydney, Australia. Customers will be able to specify where their data is to be held.

“The issue of data sovereignty is really important to us. Customers should be able to put data into the cloud and specify where it is. We know for many customers it’s also a regulatory compliance issue,” said Padilla.

A year has now passed since the government launched its G-Cloud programme to try and drive the uptake of cloud computing in the public sector. But is there a reason to celebrate the anniversary of this programme

The G-Cloud system allows the public sector to rent the use of services as needed and do away with lengthy contracts. The system also allows SMBs to sell to government departments alongside larger enterprises.

While the Cabinet Office has been keenly marketing the programme in the public sector, publically celebrating each G-cloud contract signed and holding regular BuyCamp events extoling the benefits of using cloud services, there remain challenges to the programme’s adoption among civil servants and local government workers.

The latest iteration of the framework, launched a month ago in January, offers the public sector a choice of 3,200 services from 459 suppliers, three-quarters of which are small and mid-size businesses. According to the government, G-Cloud suppliers have now made £6m from the programme since its launch, with over 60 percent of this going to SMBs.

G-Cloud programme director Denise McDonagh said there is reason to celebrate the one-year anniversary, although she admitted experiencing challenges in shifting the culture of the public sector.

“After only a year most big government departments have bought services from the Cloud, and there is significant buy-in from local government. Evidence of the benefits of cloud is growing all the time, and we are working with buyers to help them adapt to commodity-based IT purchasing,” she said.

However according to IT advisory partner at Ernst & Young, Graeme Swan, the government’s G-Cloud programme team will need outside help when trying to shift deep-rooted public sector procurement attitudes that have a tendency to favour larger, more traditional and on-premise suppliers.

“My general view is the Cabinet Office [which leads the G-Cloud programme] have done a good job, showing good leadership and good PR. They have built a great website and well done to them,” he said in an interview with V3.

“The problem is that no one is using the G-Cloud. Although the Cabinet Office says it’s the programme’s first year and it needs time to gather momentum, I’m just not sure this is the case.

“The problem is that firstly many government departments don’t understand how to buy these services and secondly they don’t know how to integrate them with the rest of their IT infrastructure.”

Swan said a large number of government departments lack intelligent and competent IT buyers as well as the necessary integration skills. Also many departments tend to lack a service-oriented-architecture (SOA) IT set-up that would allow them to plug and play cloud services easily.

Sunnyvale: The changing role of IT is forcing departments to rethink the way they interact with the rest of the business, according to the chief information officer of NetApp.

CIO Cynthia Stoddard told reporters that lessons learned through the company’s own IT operations have caused the firm to take a closer look at the way its own customers can leverage IT staff and bring technology administrators better in line with the business side.

“I have found that transparency around infrastructure costs really helps,” she said.

“The business side has felt that IT is trying to hide something. If you open up and put some of that on the table it becomes more of the business.”

The result can be support for new initiatives such as hybrid cloud deployments or the addition of support for web services to help supplement on-premise technologies and services.

Stoddard described such a process within NetApp’s own walls. The company has recently adopted a “Net cloud” campaign which gathers information on the various cloud services and instances being used by employees and attempts to migrate them over to a private hosted cloud which allows for improved security and managability.

Big data has also played a role in helping to shape NetApp’s newest platforms. Stoddard said that the company has bolstered its efforts to build and implement big data platforms which collect and analyse information on support queries and incident reports.

The efforts have helped shape some of NetApp product features, such as remote support and “phone home” diagnostic technologies.

The government is celebrating the one year anniversary of its G-Cloud programme, as public sector purchases of such services have shot up by £2m in the past month.

The G-Cloud programme is aimed at driving the uptake of cloud computing in the public sector.

The online system allows the public sector to rent the use of services as needed and do away with lengthy contracts. The system also allows SMBs to sell to government departments in equal capacity to larger enterprises.

According to the government, G-Cloud suppliers have now made £6m from the programme since its launch, with over 70 percent of this going to SMBs.

At the time the third G-Cloud framework was launched just a month ago, purchases of G-Cloud services stood at £4m, with 61 percent of this spend going to SMBs.

The G-Cloud framework is the backbone to the CloudStore, and is the marketplace where suppliers compete for specific contracts with the Government Procurement Services to offer their services to the public sector. The CloudStore is where suppliers list their services.

The government said today it is about to begin the construction of its third iteration of CloudStore, which will go live in the spring with improved guidance, support and resources for both suppliers and buyers to make use of the framework and the cloud.

Plans are also afoot to allow staff to rate the cloud computing services they buy from the CloudStore.

G-Cloud programme director Denise McDonagh said she remains convinced the G-Cloud is a game changer for the way government buys, manages, delivers and operates IT.

“The move to purchasing IT services as a commodity requires a culture shift for the public sector that won’t happen overnight,” said McDonagh.

“After only a year, though, most big government departments have bought services from the cloud, and there is significant buy-in from local government. Evidence of the benefits of cloud is growing all the time, and we are working with buyers to help them adapt to commodity-based IT purchasing.”

The latest iteration of the framework, launched a month ago in January, offers the public sector a choice of 3,200 services from 459 suppliers, three-quarters of which are small and mid-size businesses.

Rackspace is set to open a new UK datacentre facility based on Open Compute infrastructure in order to meet growing demand for cloud services.

The move will eventually double its UK capacity and create 300 new IT jobs in the South East.

While much of the UK economy is still in the doldrums, the hosting firm said it is planning a large new campus-style data facility near London, comprising five data halls, three of which will be online by the end of 2014.

Each hall will be 2MW in capacity, which will deliver a total of 10MW when all five halls are eventually online, more than doubling Rackspace’s current UK capacity in order to meet growing demand for its cloud computing services, the firm said.

“The thing that is driving this is the adoption of cloud, and the significant expansion we need to do both around open cloud and to support people building privately with Openstack,” Rackspace vice president of technology Nigel Beighton told V3.

“It’s the interest in OpenStack and big public open cloud that is driving all of this.”

Rackspace is also adapting the way it builds extra capacity in order to enable it to respond faster to growing demand, according to Beighton.

To this end, the new UK datacentre is being leased from datacentre specialist Digital Realty rather than being built and owned by Rackspace, and will be outfitted with infrastructure based on the Open Compute specifications.

“The plan going forward is for [Digital Realty] to own and we lease from them. The reason is simply the speed of getting it done. They build it and we concentrate on what goes into it,” Beighton said.

Meanwhile, Open Compute allows the firm to standardise a lot more of the infrastructure.

“One of the key aspects of cloud computing is the ability to scale quickly, because customers can come along at any time and take a huge chunk of capacity,” Beighton explained.

“We have published how we are going to scale using those Open Compute principles, and the design allows us to purchase new components much quicker and drop them in much quicker.”

Open Compute is an initiative started by Facebook to drive more efficient datacentres at lower cost, and now counts Rackspace and many IT vendors among its contributors.

However, the OpenStack cloud platform also plays a key part in Rackspace’s strategy, according to Beighton.

“OpenStack has incredibly good provisioning capability, so we are able to deploy huge swathes of bare metal at short notice and then use OpenStack to configure those dynamically into what we want to make them,” he said.

HP has unveiled a business process outsourcing (BPO) service designed to help firms better integrate and manage finance and strategic planning operations.

The company said that its AutoFlow brand would integrate with conventional ERP platforms and provide companies with tools to manage and track financial transactions, invoicing and account management activities. The service combines HP’s BPO platform with services from partner Newgen Software Technologies.

The service will also integrate with HP’s Document Processing Service for file and records management.

In addition to conventional financial management and modelling tasks, HP is looking to target the AutoFlow platform at areas such as inventory management, human resources and supply chain management.

“Today’s chief financial officers are plagued with diminishing resources and the growing complexity of processes and technology,” said HP vice president for BPO Danila Meirlaen.

“HP AutoFlow builds on our strong history in finance, administration and technology to increase process automation and optimize cost structures, so clients can focus on revenue-generating activities.”

The company said that the service would be available internationally with pricing varying on region and usage case.

BPO has long been at the forefront of the IT service outsourcing field as companies look to save costs over on-premise deployment and management. The services have been hailed with helping to cut capital expenditure costs and bringing overall savings to companies.

With the rise of the public and private cloud computing movement, however, the management and deployment of such systems has grown even more complex.