Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Talend brings unified data integration platform to public clouds

Talend, an open-source middleware provider, today announced Talend Cloud, a unified integration platform for the cloud and hybrid IT environments.

An extension of the recently announced Unified Integration Platform, Talend Cloud is designed for organizations looking to manage their data integration processes, whether on-premise, in the cloud, via software as a service (SaaS) or for hybrid environments. [Disclosure: Talend is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Talend is not providing its own public cloud offering at this time, but is making Talend Cloud available now to enable other cloud and enterprise hybrid users to mange data via a community-enhanced portfolio of data and services connectors.

For organizations with hybrid IT environments – that combine on-premise, private cloud, public cloud and SaaS – application and data integrations are difficult, yet critical to leveraging these multi-sourced models. Concerns surrounding latency, bandwidth, permissions and security are causing new forms of integration and data management challenges.

Although cloud has become ubiquitous in today’s IT deployments, many organizations are still trying to determine how to function in hybrid environments.



Talend Cloud provides flexible and secure integration of on-premise systems, cloud-based systems, and SaaS applications, said Talend. It also provides a common environment for users to manage the lifecycle of integration processes including a graphical development environment, a deployment mechanism and runtime environment for operations and a monitoring console for management – all built on top of a shared metadata repository.

It strikes me that these services are directly applicable to business intelligence and master data management for analytics, as the data can be cleansed, accessed and crunched in clouds, even as it originates from multiple locations. Hybrid data cloud analytics can be very powerful, the Talend is helping to jump-start this value.

“Although cloud has become ubiquitous in today’s IT deployments, many organizations are still trying to determine how to function in hybrid environments,” said Bertrand Diard, co-founder and CEO of Talend, in a release. “Using Talend Cloud, customers can address these issues within a single platform that addresses a broad range of integration needs and technologies, ranging from data-oriented services to data quality and master data management, via a unified environment and a flexible deployment model.”

Deployment Flexibility

The new platform provides deployment flexibility for Talend’s solutions and technologies within the Unified Integration Platform, including data integration, data quality, master data management and enterprise service bus. All components can be installed transparently in the cloud, on premise, or in hybrid mode. Key features include:
  • The ability to expand and contract deployments as required
  • Support for standard systems and protocols
  • An open-source model that makes resources accessible by various of platforms and devices
  • Modular architecture that allows organizations to add, modify or remove functionality as requirements change over time
  • The ability to maintain security and reliability of integration, allowing organizations to meet customer service-level agreements (SLAs)
Talend Cloud provides automated deployment on such popular cloud platforms such as Amazon EC2, Cloud.com and Eucalyptus. Also included is the addition of new connectors offering native connectivity to a broad range of key cloud technologies and applications as well as the most popular SaaS applications.

New connectors continue to be added on a regular basis, either by the open source community or by Talend’s R&D organization. The Talend Exchange provides the latest connectors which can be downloaded and installed directly within the Talend Studio, at no per-connector cost.

Talend Cloud is available immediately. More information is available at http://www.talend.com/products-talend-cloud/.

You may also be interested in:

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

HP takes plunge on dual cloud bursting: public and-or private apps support comes of age

LAS VEGAS – HP today at Discover here introduced advancements to its CloudSystem solutions with the means for cloud provider and enterprises to accomplish dual cloud bursting, one of the Holy Grails of hybrid computing.

The CloudSystem targets service providers by giving them the ability to allow their enterprise customers to extend their private cloud-based applications bursting capabilities to third-party public clouds too. See more news on the HP AppSystems portfolio.

HP CloudSystem, announced in January and expanded in the spring with a partner program, is designed to enable enterprises and service providers to build and manage services across private, public and hybrid cloud environments. As a result, clients have a simplified yet integrated architecture that is easier to manage and can be scaled on demand, said HP. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

In a demo on stage here today at Discover, HP's Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager of Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking for the Enterprise Business at HP, showed some unique features. The HP CloudSystem demo showed heterogeneous cloud bursting with drag and drop, on HP and 3rd party x86 boxes. Management and set-up ease seemed simple and automatic.

HP CloudSystem should appeal to both cloud providers and enterprises, because it forms a common means to get them both on cloud options spectrum. HP dual bursting works for public clouds that use HP CloudSystem or not, said HP.

HP CloudSystem dual bursting also seems to allow tiered bursting, data on private cloud, web tier on public clouds, just works, said HP. This seems quite new and impactful. And it's now available.

Based on HP Converged Infrastructure and HP Cloud Service Automation software, HP CloudSystem helps automate the application-to-infrastructure lifecycle and operations deployment flexibility, said HP. HP CloudSystem helps businesses package, provision and manage cloud services to users regardless of where those services are sourced, whether from CloudSystem’s “on-premises” resources or from external clouds.

Managing applications resources as elastic compute fabrics that span an enterprise's data centers and one or more public cloud partners offers huge benefits and advantages. Businesses that depend more on customer-facing applications, for example, can hone utilization rates and vastly reduce total cost of ownership while greatly reducing the risk that those applications and their data will not always be available, regardless of seasonal vagaries, unexpected spikes or any issues around business continuity.

"Capacity never runs out," said James Jackson, Vice President for Marketing Strategy, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking in HP Enterprise Business.

With CloudSystem, HP is providing the management, security and governance requirements for doing dual-burst hybrid computing, including hardware, software and support services with. Automated management capabilities help ensure that performance, compliance and cost targets are met by allocating private and public cloud resources based on a client’s pre-defined business policies. As a result, clients can create and deliver new services in minutes, said HP.

HP also announced HP CloudAgile, a program that spans the HP enterprise portfolio including CloudSystem. To speed time to revenue and improve financial flexibility for a broad range of service providers, the program provides participants with direct access to HP’s global sales force and its network of channel partners.

HP expects to co-sell and co-market such hybrid services with telcos, VARs, SIs, and a wide range of new and emerging service providers. I expect many of these providers to customize their offerings, but based on an HP or other cloud stack vendor foundation.

Current approaches to cloud computing can create fragmentation and can only address a portion of the capabilities required for a complete cloud solution, aid HP. Over time more enterprise applications may be sourced directly to public clouds, but for the foreseeable future private clouds and hybrid models are expected to predominate. See more news on converged infrastructure, and EcoPOD developments.

HP CloudSystem is powered by HP BladeSystem with the Matrix Operating Environment and HP Cloud Service Automation. It is optimized for HP 3PAR Utility Storage, and protected by HP security solutions, including offerings from TippingPoint, ArcSight and Fortify. HP CloudSystem also supports third-party servers, storage and networking, as well as all major hypervisors, said HP.

HP said that its customers that have already invested in HP Converged Infrastructure technology can expand their current architectures to achieve private, public or complete hybrid cloud environments.

HP announced yesterday that it is making up to $2 billion available to help clients finance their way to the cloud through HP Financial Services Co., HP’s leasing and asset management subsidiary.

Furthermore, HP is offering HP Cloud Consulting Services and HP Education services for CloudSystem, including HP CloudStart, to fast track building a private cloud. HP CloudSystem Matrix Conversion Service helps transition current BladeSystem environments to CloudSystem, said HP.

HP Solution Support for CloudSystem simplifies problem prevention and diagnosis with end-to-end support for the entire environment. These services deliver solutions right-sized for the client’s environment, protect investments when transitioning from a virtual infrastructure to a private cloud solution and rapidly deploy CloudSystem in a hybrid, multi-sourced cloud environment.

HP also unveiled at Discover two new cloud security services, HP Cloud Services Vulnerability Scanning and HP Cloud Vulnerability Intelligence. Available now worldwide, these allow cloud services providers to identify and remedy missing patches or network node vulnerabilities. The second service recommends remediation to infrastructure, as a service, and provides actionable advice to avoid vulnerabilities before they can manifest.

You may also be interested in:

Monday, June 6, 2011

HP at Discover releases converged infrastructure products and services aimed at helping IT migrate rapidly to the future

LAS VEGAS -- Cloud computing and mobility are redefining how people live, how organizations operate and how the world interacts. Enterprises must constantly adjust then to meet the changing needs of users, customers and the public by driving innovation and agility through technology.

Yet IT sprawl and outdated IT models and processes are causing enterprise complexity and crippling organizations’ abilities to keep pace with enterprise demands. Enterprises know they need to change, and they also have a pretty good idea of the IT operations and support they'd like to have. Now, it's a matter of getting there.

To help mobilize IT for the new order, HP today at HP Discover announced several Converged Infrastructure solutions that improve enterprise agility by simplifying deployment and speeding IT delivery. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Designed to be a key element in an Instant-On Enterprise, these offerings are designed in coordination to help reduce IT sprawl and turn technology assets into interoperable, shared pools of resources with a common management platform. They include:
  • Converged Systems, a new portfolio of turnkey, optimized and converged hardware, software, tailored consulting and HP Solution Support services that enable users to be up and running with new applications in hours vs. months.
  • Converged Storage architecture and portfolio, which integrates HP Store360 scale-out software with HP BladeSystem and HP ProLiant hardware to reduce storage administration, speed time to service delivery, increase energy efficiency and improve access for any data type or application workload. The offerings are complemented by new Storage Consulting services.

    The new solutions announced today extend the benefits of convergence to deliver new levels of speed, simplicity and efficiency that enable clients to capitalize and anticipate change.


  • Converged Data Center, a new class of HP Performance Optimized Data Centers (PODs) that can be deployed in just 12 weeks – and at a quarter of the cost when compared to a traditional brick-and-mortar data center. The HP POD 240a, also referred to as the “HP EcoPOD,” uses 95 percent less facilities energy. See separate blog on the EcoPOD.
  • HP Server Automation 9.1, which provides heterogeneous, automated server life cycle management for enterprise servers and applications for both converged and traditional environments. With new integrated database automation, it enables IT to significantly reduce the time it takes to achieve full application life cycle automation
Research conducted on behalf of HP found that 95 percent of private and public sector executives consider agility important to the success of their organizations. Plus, more than two-thirds of C-suite executives believe that enterprise agility is driven by technology solutions.

For me, enterprise IT strategists now basically know what they need for their data centers to meet the coming hybrid and cloud requirements. They will be using more virtualization, relying on standard hardware, managing their servers, storage and networks with increased harmony, supporting big data business intelligence, and dealing with more mobile devices.

More ways to move to modernization

HP is coming out with data center assets and services that -- pretty much better than ever for IT -- provide many on-ramps to modernizing all core IT infrastructure. The new and augmented products can be used by many types for organizations -- and at any stages of maturity -- to set out to meet modern and compete IT requirements. And they can do so knowing the capital and operating costs can be measured, managed and contained. These total IT costs are also being driven down from advancements in utilization, management, modular data center growth and pervasive energy conservation.

There are only a very few vendors that can supply the end-to-end data center transformation portfolio for the major domains of servers, storage, network and operational management. And HP is providing these globally with holistic and strategic integration so that the operational reliance and flexibility to scale and adapt become givens.

Most vendors are either hardware-heavy or software-centric, or lack depth in a major category like networking. HP has stated it plans to augment its software, and in the mean time is supporting best-of-breed choice on heterogeneous platforms, middleware and business applications -- including open source.

Additions to HP Technology Services were also announced, aimed at a life cycle of consulting support including strategy, assessment, design, test, implementation and training. HP Solution Support provides single-point-of-contact services for the entire turnkey solution, including third-party software.

Converged Storage for rapid response

Legacy monolithic and unified storage architectures were designed to address predictable workloads, structured data and dedicated access. Today’s requirements, however, are exactly opposite, with unpredictable application workloads, such as cloud, virtualization and big data applications, said Martin Whittaker, Vice President for Systems and Solutions Engineering, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN), HP Enterprise Business.

HP’s Converged Storage architecture changes how data is accessed by integrating scale-out storage software with converged server and storage hardware platforms. Advanced management tools that span the architecture help speed IT service delivery. As a result, users can deploy and grow storage 41 percent faster while reducing administration time by up to 90 percent.

New solutions include:
  • HP X5000 G2 Network Storage Systems, which are built on HP BladeSystem technology. They can be deployed in minutes and reduce power requirements up to 58 percent, cooling needs up to 63 percent and storage footprint up to 50 percent.
  • HP X9000 IBRIX Network Storage Systems that optimize retention of unstructured data with new compliance features and the capacity for more than one million snapshots. The solution provides insight to the enterprise on trends, market dynamics and other pertinent facts by simplifying management of massive data sets. Policy management capabilities automate the movement of data to optimize resources.
Enhanced storage systems and services

HP’s fifth-generation Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) family includes the new HP P6000 EVA, offering thin provisioning and Dynamic LUN Migration software along with 8Gb Fibre Channel, 10 Gb iSCSI and fibre channel over ethernet (FCoE) support. This enables users to consolidate application data to speed administration and reduce total cost of ownership.

HP Enterprise Services has integrated HP 3PAR Storage into the HP Data Center Storage Package, which offers storage management services that allow users to “flex” their storage needs up and down with changes in demand.

HP also offers new Storage Consulting Services that help users to design and deploy a Converged Storage environment, optimize the storage infrastructure, reduce costs, and protect and align data while preparing storage for cloud computing.

HP VirtualSystem

V
irtualization technology has been widely adopted to consolidate servers, gain flexibility and optimize return on investment. However, virtualized environments can be difficult to plan, deploy and operate due to the proliferation of management tools, uncertain performance characteristics and unaddressed security concerns.

The new HP VirtualSystem portfolio, based on HP Converged Infrastructure, consists of turnkey server and client virtualization solutions. See more news on the HP AppSystems portfolio.

The offerings are built on the HP BladeSystem platform, HP Lefthand/3PAR storage and HP FlexFabric networking technologies. As a result, they support up to three times more virtual machines per server, three times the I/O bandwidth and twice the memory as competing offerings. Also, the HP VirtualSystem portfolio is heterogeneous, supporting existing IT investments, multiple hypervisor strategies and operating systems with a common architecture, management and security model.

In a world where enterprises must instantly react to changing markets, clients are turning to HP Converged Infrastructure to dramatically improve their agility.



Further, HP VirtualSystem provides a path to cloud computing by utilizing similar hardware infrastructure and management environments as HP CloudSystem. To extend their environments and evolve to cloud computing, users follow a simple, rapid upgrade process, said James Jackson, Vice President for Marketing Strategy, ESSN in HP Enterprise Business.

HP offers three scalable deployment systems for small, midsize and large enterprises. Each includes leading hypervisor technologies from Microsoft or VMware, as well as the leading operating systems and applications.

The open, modular design of HP VirtualSystem simplifies management with a single-pane-of-glass view into each layer of the virtualized stack. HP TippingPoint security can be added for comprehensive threat protection of both physical and virtual platforms.

Users can increase the availability, performance, capacity allocation and real-time recovery of their HP VirtualSystem solutions with HP SiteScope, HP Data Protector, HP Insight Control and HP Storage Essentials software extensions.

Client Virtualization Reference Architecture for Enterprise includes Citrix or VMware software and HP Mission Critical Virtualization Reference Architecture complement the HP VirtualSystem solutions. The reference architecture resources contain a consistent set of architectural best practices, which enable users to rapidly deploy virtualized systems, improve security and performance, and reduce operating costs.

Life cycle support and consulting

To further reduce the complexity of virtual environments, HP Technology Services provides a full life cycle of consulting services, from strategy, assessment, design, test, implementation, training, and then transition to HP Solution Support for ongoing peace of mind.

HP VirtualSystem solutions are expected to begin shipping in the third quarter of this year. Availability of HP Client Virtualization Reference Architecture for Enterprise is expected in June and HP Mission Critical Virtualization Reference Architecture is expected in the third quarter of this year.

On-demand replays of the HP Discover press conference are available at www.hp.com/go/agileIT. Additional information about HP’s announcements at HP DISCOVER is available at www.hp.com/go/agility2011.

You may also be interested in:

HP delivers applications appliance solutions that leverage converged infrastructure for virtualization, data management

LAS VEGAS -- As part of its new Converged Infrastructure offerings, HP today here at the DISCOVER 2011 event rolled out AppSystems Portfolio, which offers a fully integrated appliance-like technology stack that includes hardware, management software, applications, tailored consulting and HP Solution Support services.

The new HP AppSystems portfolio is designed to improve application performance and reduce implementation from months to a matter of minutes. New application deployments can be complex, taking up to 18 months to roll out and optimize for the business.

The complexity of maintaining and integrating these environments often results in missed deadlines, incomplete projects, increased costs and lost opportunities. In fact, only 32 percent of application deployments are rated as “successful” by organizations, in a recent HP survey. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of Briefings Direct podcasts.]

HP AppSystem solutions can be rapidly deployed, supports a choice of applications, and is built on open standards to seamlessly integrate within existing infrastructures. The portfolio includes the following:

The complexity of maintaining and integrating these environments often results in missed deadlines, incomplete projects, increased costs and lost opportunities.


  • The HP Business Data Warehouse Appliance, which reduces the complexities and costs faced by many midmarket users when deploying data warehouses. Optimized for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, the system can be implemented 66 percent faster than competing solutions for less than $13,000 per terabyte. Jointly engineered with Microsoft, the solution results in up to 50 percent faster input/output bandwidth to speed data load and query response.
  • The HP Database Consolidation Solution optimized for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, which simplifies the management of virtualized infrastructures associated with the proliferation of SQL server databases. Optimized for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, it consolidates hundreds of transactional databases into a single, virtual environment while enabling applications to access data.Once installed, new high-performance SQL Server databases can be provisioned in minutes and migrations can be accomplished with near-zero downtime.
  • The new HP VirtualSystem portfolio, also based on HP Converged Infrastructure, consists of turnkey server and client virtualization solutions. The offerings are built on the HP BladeSystem platform, HP Lefthand/3PAR storage and HP FlexFabric networking technologies. As a result, they support up to three times more virtual machines per server, three times the I/O bandwidth and twice the memory as competing offerings. Also, the HP VirtualSystem portfolio is heterogeneous, supporting existing IT investments, multiple hypervisor strategies and operating systems with a common architecture, management and security model.
These new solutions expand HP’s line of turnkey appliances, which also includes: HP Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance and HP Business Decision Warehouse Appliance.

HP Technology Services also provides a full life cycle of consulting services, from strategy, assessment, design, test, implementation, training and HP Solution Support.

Vertica Analytics: Exadata Killer?

A key component of the new Converged Infrastructure offerings is the HP Vertica Analytics System, a potential Exadata killer for real-time Big Data analytics. Traditional relational database management systems (RDBMS) and enterprise data warehouse (EDW) systems were designed for the business needs of nearly 20 years ago. Today, vast amounts of structured and unstructured data are being created everywhere, every instant and from a variety of sources.

Built on the HP Converged Infrastructure, the new HP Vertica Analytics System provides an appliance-like, integrated technology stack that includes hardware, management software applications, consulting and HP Solution Support services.

The scale out cluster architecture of the HP Vertica Analytics System utilizes columnar storage and massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture. This enables users to load data up to 1,000 times faster than traditional row-stored databases and supports hundreds of nodes as well as petabytes of data efficiently without performance degradation, said HP. Further, because the systems are able to query data directly in compressed form, clients can store more data, achieve faster results, and use less hardware.

Only 32 percent of application deployments are rated as “successful” by organizations.



The HP Vertica Analytics System provides:
  • A data-compression technology that delivers a 50 to 90 percent reduction in database storage requirements with 12 separate compression algorithms.
  • An integrated, next-generation analytics database engine that can be deployed in minutes.
  • An optimized physical database design for user query needs with the Database Designer tool.
  • Faster response that can generate results in seconds versus hours and in real time.
  • Ease of integration with existing business analytics applications, reporting tools and open source software frameworks that support data-intensive distributed applications, such as Apache Hadoop.
The HP Vertica Analytics System is available immediately, in quarter, half and full-rack configurations. The HP Vertica Analytics Platform (software) also may be deployed on existing x86 hardware with the ability to run the Linux operating system.

When HP acquired Vertica early in 2011, I wondered if this was their path to a Exadata killer. Exadata, you may recall, was a join warehouse appliance effort between Oracle and HP before Oracle bought Sun. The HP hardware part of the Exadata line kind of fizzled out as Sun hardware was then used.

But now, Vertica plus HP converged infrastructure is architected to leverage in-memory data analytics of, for and by Big Data in the petabytes range. Oracle has its OLTP strengths, but for real-time analytics at scale and affordable cost, HP is betting big on Vertica. It's a critical element at the heart of HP’s growth strategy. These announcements around ease of deployment and support should go a long way to helping users explore and adopt it.

HP Vertica Systems real time analytics platform already has more than 350 clients in a variety of industries including finance, communications, online web and gaming, healthcare, consumer marketing and retail, said HP.

"We're winning deals against Exadata," said Martin Whittaker, Vice President for Systems and Solutions Engineering, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN), HP Enterprise Business.

You may also be interested in:

HP rolls out EcoPOD modular data center, provides high-density converged infrastructure with extreme energy efficiency

LAS VEGAS – HP today at Discover here unveiled what it says is the world’s most efficient modular data center, a compact and self-contained Performance Optimized Data Center (POD) that supports more than 4,000 servers in 10 percent of the space and with 95 percent less energy than conventional data centers.

The HP POD 240a also costs 25 percent of what traditional data centers cost up front, and it can be deployed in 12 weeks, said HP. It houses up to 44 industry standard racks of IT equipment.

The EcoPOD joins a spectrum of other modular data center offerings, filling a gap on the lower end of other PODs like the shipping-container-sized Custom PODs, the HP POD 20c - 40c, and the larger bricks and mortar HP Flexible Data Center facilities. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

The EcoPOD can be filled with HP blade servers and equipment, but also supports servers from third-parties. It is optimized for HP converged infrastructure components, however. HP says the EcoPOD can be ordered and delivered in three months, and then just requires an electric power and network connect to become operational.

The modular design, low capital and operating costs and rapid deployment will be of interest to cloud providers, Web 2.0 applications providers, government and oil industry users. I was impressed with its role in business continuity and disaster recovery purposes. The design and attributes also will help those organizations that need physical servers in a certain geography or jurisdiction for compliance and legal reasons, but at low cost despite the redundancy of the workloads.

The HP EcoPOD also provides maximum density for data center expansion or as temporary capacity during data center renovations or migrations, given that it streamlines a 10,000-square-foot data center into a compact, modular package in one-tenth the space, said HP.

The design allows for servers to be added and subtracted physically or virtually, and the cooling and energy use can be dialed up and down automatically based on load and climate, as well as via set policies. It can use outside air when appropriate for cooling ... like my house most of the year.

The HP POD 240a is complemented by a rich management capability, the HP EcoPOD Environmental Control System, with its own APIs and including its own remote dashboards and control suite, as well as remote client access from tablet computers, said HP.

The cost savings are eye-popping. HP says an HP POD 240a costs $552,000 a year to operated, versus $15.4 million for traditional systems energy use.

Built at a special HP facility in Houston, HP POD-Works, the EcoPODs will be available in the Q4 of this year in North America, and rolling out globally into 2012.

HP is also offering leasing arrangement, whereby the costs of the data center are all operating expenses, with little up-front costs.

You may also be interested in: