SigmaWay Blog

The industry-wide cloud services pricing curve have inclined downwards with respect to time. Courtesy to the big players like Amazon, Google & Microsoft, price cut is a routine phenomenon in this industry. Amazon Web Services is well known for its belief in the phrase “change is the only constant”. AWS has made frequent changes to its cloud service in recent years, from price cuts to tighter integration with private data centres, to accommodate the enterprise market and branch out beyond its original clientele of developers and start-ups. They had reduced their price 42 times over the past 8 years! At the same time, with huge amount of data available today, a lot of hidden, unearthed insights can be found for each and every industry. AWS Kinesis is an amazing platform to perform various operations on big data. There are also other third party tools to help you explore your data. Matt Wood, General Manager for data science, Amazon Web Services, said “One of the biggest trends is the augmentation -- not the replacement, but the augmentation -- of traditional business intelligence reporting with more real-time services. … Being able to use the two together is very empowering”.

In a recent conversation, Matt Wood, General Manager, AWS, spoke about cloud pricing, big data trends etc. To read, visit the following link:

http://searchaws.techtarget.com/news/2240217081/AWS-chief-data-scientist-talks-cloud-pricing-big-data-trends

In recent times, if you have surfed internet, then you have probably come across cloud computing. Due to its benefits like mobility, cost advantage, etc. companies are switching rapidly to cloud environment from existing on premise platforms. With Big Data in forefront, the usage of cloud computing has spurted.

To win the heart of prospective customers, cloud based IT service providers have started to offer cloud services and at present, a stiff competition is going on between them. Surrounded by this fierce competition, you may become confused about choosing the right type of cloud service provider for your organization, since it comes at a cost. Whether you are a technology chief, a business owner or alike, while selecting your cloud service provider, you should ensure that its potential benefits are in tune with your business objectives. For that, it is a must that you should ask some critical questions about the architecture and management of the service being considered.

So, what are the areas that you should consider while framing up the questions before you actually avail the services from a cloud service provider? Read them at http://www.zdnet.com/key-questions-when-selecting-a-cloud-based-provider-7000027391/ to know.

There is a huge demand for production ready MongoLab plans on Microsoft Azure. The MongoLab and Microsoft are excited about their latest high-memory MongoDB database plans with virtual machine options that can immediately supply up to 56GB of RAM per node. These will be available in all eight Microsoft Azure data centres worldwide, which will be able to fulfil the massive need.The cloud-served MongoDB instances come from MongoLab, a fully managed database service provider that works with major cloud platforms such as those provided by Amazon and Google. Along with the new memory capacity, the service also provides management tools for backups, performance monitoring of key metrics, analysis to speed up queries and index recommendations. Support is also provided via e-mail or an around-the-clock emergency hotline, depending on the plan.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2014/04/22/announcing-new-mongodb-instances-on-microsoft-azure.aspx

With the introduction of Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 4.0, Red Hat has moved one step forward in OpenStack cloud system. This platform can be used in both public and private cloud. Some new features are also added in this version. To know more on the key features of this platform, go through the article written by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, writer about technology and the business of technology.

http://www.zdnet.com/red-hat-enterprise-linux-openstack-platform-4-0-is-here-7000024518/

AWS has been authorized to operate under FedRAMP(U.S. government-wide general security standard) since May of 2013. Under FedRAMP, AWS has already made contracts with U.S. Military, Air-force & Navy. With the recent authorization from United States Defence Department’s cloud security standards, AWS can work with all agencies within the U.S Defence Department from now on. It’s like a new feather added to the AWS hat! Teresa Carlson, AWS’s vice president for the public sector, said the new certification could mean more than just new Defence Department business. This would let AWS work with more defence agencies to host several sensitive projects.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/amazon-web-services-gets-defense-security-authorization/2014/03/28/7959ad8a-b500-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.html

Teradata launched a technology called QueryGrid. It aims to extract analytical data from multiple systems storing, both big and little data. QueryGrid can bridge the division between data warehouses and big data. To know the model of QueryGrid, follow the article by Larry Dignan, Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet. - See more at:

http://www.zdnet.com/teradata-launches-querygrid-one-workflow-for-big-little-data-7000028044/

Want to know more about future car! The car of the future is going to drive itself, brake itself, park itself and it will be a part of a worldwide communication system which will be based on 4G. It will gather and communicate data. It will be more like a Facebook-style personalized experience to drivers. Gil Golan, director of GM's Advanced Technical Center (ATC) in Israel, has also come up with a prototype of the future car. GM is aggressively pursuing the smart car market. To know more details on General Motor's future vision, go through the article by David Shamah, writer about Israeli technology.

http://www.zdnet.com/big-data-4g-and-life-saving-sensors-gms-vision-of-the-smart-car-future-7000023029/

"This is the dirty secret of the analytics world - that there are so many errors" - Velamakanni, CEO, Fractal Analytics. Company politics, bad data and inefficient analysis are affecting many organizations, leading to some wrong conclusions. To know more about this aspect, follow the article by Toby Wolpe, senior reporter at ZDNet in London:

http://www.zdnet.com/lies-damned-lies-and-big-data-how-firms-get-analytics-wrong-and-how-to-get-it-right-7000023476/

Horton Networks is giving an effort to fit Hive to work with the component that frees Hadoop from the tyranny of batch processing in order to bring Hadoop more into enterprise mainstream. With the release of Horton Networks Data platform 2.1, the company has completed that Hive interactive query capability, known as Stinger Phase 3 - and is simultaneously releasing it for both the Windows and Linux platforms. To know more about this big release, follow the article by Andrew J. Brust, a developer, consultant and entrepreneur in the software industry:

http://www.zdnet.com/hortonworks-announces-data-platform-2-1-7000027949/

The two open-source software companies, Red Hat and Horton Networks are aiming at speeding up enterprise big data Apache Hadoop projects. The two firms unveiled the beta of Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) combined with Red Hat Storage, which is designed to give companies a unified storage pool for all Hadoop workloads. They also announced the integration of HDP with Red Hat JBoss Data Visualization, enabling Hadoop to work with existing data sources including warehouses, SQL and NoSQL databases, on premise and cloud apps and flat and XML files. To know more on this aspect, go through the article by Toby Wolpe, senior reporter at ZDNet:

http://www.zdnet.com/red-hat-and-hortonworks-unveil-hadoop-big-data-collaboration-7000026154/

Hyper growth - this term is on its way to become attached with the 'Public Cloud' market.

As per the report of Forrester Research, the global public cloud market is expected to rise to $191 billion by 2020 as compared to 2013 which stood at $58 billion. The reason behind this growth is the shift from on premise technology to cloud which has proved to be cost effective. Nowadays cloud technology is considered as a replacement of the existing systems. Forrester’s report also predicts that by 2020, the global public cloud platform service will soar to $44 billion, the cloud business service will hit $14 billion and the cloud applications which will be Software – as – a – Service or SaaS, will hit $131 billion. The cause of this whopping valuation is attributable to the fact that more and more CIOs and their technology management organizations are taking initiative for this change.

So, what’s the future of public cloud market? Read at http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247883/Public_cloud_market_ready_for_hypergrowth_period_ for more details. 

Software as a Service and cloud computing service providers are targeting school administrators. The objective is to demonstrate to the students the virtues of the vendors' hardware products and software solutions to gain their allegiance later in the business world. So, smart SaaS companies can capitalize on the data they collect to provide benchmarks and KPIs that offer greater value to their customers.

To know more about this aspect, read the article by Jeff Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies and founder of the Cloud Computing Showplace, visit http://www.technewsworld.com/story/79979.html

Building a strong relationship with your customers is very important for your company to prosper because then only they will return to you and buy products or services from you time and again.

Earlier, what used to happen is that customers went to favorite retailer and the product they needed was made readily available in front of them – this happened because the retailer knew what type of product they wanted. Now there is a shift. People are going to supermarkets or even they are buying products online. Unlike the old days, where the retailer chatted with customers to know their likings, they do not chat with the owner – be it supermarkets or online shops. So, how, you as a shop owner or a retail owner must try to maintain strong relationship with your customers in order to attract them and make repeated purchases?

Thanks to Big Data, you can now again personalize your relationship with consumers and build strong bonding with them so that your customers buy more and more. But what are the ways to do so? Read them here: http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/21/5-ways-big-data-is-helping-companies-help-their-customers/.

When we talk about Big Data and the stuffs alike, we normally think of how it helps in running any business. But, hold on a second. Here, we will talk about something fundamental related to our society.

In order to drive a country economically forward, we need talented people, no matter whether the country is a developed country or a developing country. You know that talented people cannot be formed just like anything. For this, you have to invest in education and training. To end poverty, bridge the gap of economic inequality and rise on the economic ladder, we must find better ways to teach that are cheaper and can be applied on a vast scale – because, we are talking about a country. It is of no doubt that binding technology with education has proved fruitful tremendously; and now, with techniques of analyzing Big Data known to us, we can leverage the power of it for betterment of education. With the help of Big Data, teachers and companies can get several information about students’ learning patterns and depending on that, schools can design personalized instructions in a more sophisticated way.

Big Data technologies can even be used in strengthening a country’s national educational system. In fact, The World Bank Group in association with its private sector lending arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) are presently working on this to support national educational systems. They recently launched an initiative named Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER), which collects and shares comparative data on educational policies and institutions from countries around the world. In private sector, Big Data can create favorable impact by collecting information about interactions between teachers and students and between students and learning systems. Spreading the light of education can become much easy with increasing a country’s literacy rate and educating poor students.

Read more at http://businessdayonline.com/2014/04/big-data-for-poor-students/#.U1SHFPmSxqI on how the power of Big Data and adaptive technologies can be utilized in fortifying education.

It is of no doubt that switching to cloud platform will benefit you; but, have you ever thought which cloud platform will you use? Now, you may be wondering what the various cloud platforms are. Let's know it.

Cloud platforms can be private, public, managed or hybrid. The first two types are self-explanatory. While private cloud refers to an infrastructure operated and run for the benefit of your company only, in public cloud, this infrastructure is available for public use and can be accessible over the internet. On the other hand, managed cloud platform gives you services that are offered to manage and maintain the underlying technology to run cloud services.

So, what is hybrid cloud? You may have guessed it right – it’s the combination of two or more cloud services. Hybrid cloud has an edge over types of cloud services. If you opt for private, then it may prove costly to you, on the other hand, if you choose public, then although you will get the cost advantage, but a security concern will lie over you. However, if you go for hybrid, then they remain unique and in addition to that, you can access extra resources on an as – needed basis. So, for example, when you use hybrid cloud, you may use your private cloud application to store confidential data and for billing and ERP, you may use your public cloud application which is cost effective. The other main advantage of hybrid cloud is that, you have the option to switch to public cloud resources temporarily, if at any time your own capacity is exceeded.

Thinking of switching to hybrid cloud? Read more at http://cloudtweaks.com/2014/04/importance-hybrid-matters/ to get an idea about what is the importance of hybrid cloud and why it will matter to you. 

Whether you are a startup, entrepreneur, SME or a large business enterprise, cloud technology is the thing that should come to you handy. Unlike the past, where a newbie in a business has to think twice over investing in costly equipment, cloud has made the job easy. With scalability, ubiquity and user centricity, it is the cloud that should be on your agenda in setting or developing up your business, irrespective of size.

With cloud, you can have access to technological advancements at a cheaper cost enabling you to compete with your rivals. With cloud technology in your hands, it can even happen that you are defeating your rivals!

Read more at: http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/apr/15/cloud-computing-large-businesses-benefit.

As disruptive technologies are taking place often, CIOs need to take a look at their roles and they need to rebrand themselves as drivers of digital innovation. According to a survey done by consultancy firm EY (known formerly as Ernst and Young) titled 'Born to be digital: How leading CIOs are preparing for a digital transformation', social media, cloud, data analytics and mobile are acting as disruptive forces for businesses across all industries - whether it's a retailer or an automobile manufacturer. The way social network, cloud, data analytics and mobile have evolved; companies need to think alternate approaches to interact with their customers. Not only this, the change has helped the businesses to search for new opportunities to expand.

All these have redefined the roles and responsibilities of the CIOs. To take their organization forward, they have to become key drivers of digital innovation and can handle the technological transformations the businesses are undergoing.

Read more about how the leading CIOs are preparing for the technological changes that will guide you through the path here: http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY_CIO_-_Born_to_be_digital/%24FILE/EY-CIOs-Born-to-be-digital.pdf.

When technology is running fast in the cloud way, taking multinational companies as its partner, restaurants are not very much successful in it. Most of them are still using costly proprietary software that never gives benefits in return. If MNCs can adopt the cloud and mobile technology, why do restaurants, which have large number of transactions per day, are not able to do it?

With the world becoming increasingly mobile, cloud services becoming cheap, restaurants have ample chance to switch over to cloud and mobile technology. You may be thinking of what are the benefits of switching? Well, you will be able to increase your operational efficiency and better manage your employees and that too while dealing with your customers and simultaneously not sitting in front of your desktop.

So, what are you thinking of? Making your restaurant system interesting and keeping in sync with the technological advancement?   Larry Abramson, CEO of Red Book Connect writes about why you should switch to cloud and mobile technology. Read them at at http://www.fastcasual.com/article/231005/3-reasons-why-restaurants-need-mobile-cloud-technology.

An article by E-Commerce Times columnist, Peter S. Vogel, says that it is hard to detect which is growing at a faster pace - cloud or cybercrime. Cloud may be anywhere in the world which creates interesting and complex legal questions regarding privacy of data stored in the cloud. Nevertheless, more businesses are migrating to the cloud to host data, often without regard to the legal consequences.  Many companies are migrating to the cloud to reduce their IT costs but are creating new malware-based and cyber-crime risks to their businesses. If cybercrime and cloud-focused malware continue to grow along with the cloud, the predicted growth of cloud migration may not be realized.

To know more follow http://www.technewsworld.com/story/80107.html

MongoDB added new backup and recovery abilities to its monitoring service to track deployments. People can set up the monitoring service for free when they use it as a cloud-based service and companies can pay to run it in an onsite data center. In version 2.6, the database supports index intersection, which makes it possible to search for information with multiple characteristics.

To read more read the article by Jordan Novet, staff writer based in San Francisco, follow http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/08/mongodb-bigwig-says-new-features-keep-it-way-ahead-of-everybody-else/