Tag: azure

Ensono gets Microsoft’s Azure Expert status

Posted on July 13, 2018 by - News

two-clouds-1385018843_27_contentfullwidthHybrid IT services provider Ensono has been named as one of the first managed service providers to be recognised as a Microsoft Azure Expert MSP from the Microsoft pilot programme after an intensive audit process.

Ensono is now one of just 32 certified Azure Expert MSPs after proving itself as an expert ally in assisting clients in adopting Azure services. This certification recognises that Ensono clients on Azure receive continuous optimisation in spend and technology.

Ensono’s managed Azure clients will receive fully audited managed services and will have access to the most qualified consultants and technical resources throughout their digital transformation journeys.

The outfit underwent an in-depth audit that evaluated its technical expertise, assessment and design, build and migration, cloud operations and service management, security and governance, SLAs customer satisfaction, cost optimisation and reporting for its Azure services. Ensono’s Hyper Cloud Platform was a critical element in receiving the certification. This cloud management platform allows clients to have full visibility of their Microsoft Azure environment without having to worry about day-to-day management and long-term strategy.

Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft Corp. said: “Ensono continuously delivers excellence in Microsoft services to its clients, which is why recognizing them with this certification is well-deserved.  Ensono’s dedication to its clients and leadership in managed services is exactly what we look for in Azure Managed Expert MSPs.”

Ensono worked with Sonoco, one of the largest diversified global packaging companies, to implement a cloud-first strategy through Azure GoLive, Ensono’s process for migrating clients to Azure. Ensono identified opportunities for digitally transforming workloads on Azure and lead the company’s transition from the mainframe to Azure. The migration provided the client with an improved user experience, cost savings, and a competitive advantage by delivering client-specific apps from Azure.

Executive Vice President of Technology and Strategy Brian Klingbeil said: “Our clients and global businesses looking to transform can be assured we provide optimal managed Azure services and a steamless digital transformation journey. “The Azure Expert MSP designation provides our clients with the reassurance that we are the right partner to take their cloud strategies to the next level.”

 

Commvault expands Azure offerings

Posted on April 19, 2018 by - News

cloudEnterprise backup, recovery, archive and the cloud solutions outfit, Commvault has expanded integration with Microsoft Azure Stack enabling enterprises to simplify migration, management, protection and activation of data on Azure Stack, the Microsoft Azure public cloud, its recently announced Azure Government Cloud, and other hybrid cloud infrastructure.

Commvault Data Platform is designed for enterprise customers using on-premises Azure Stack hybrid clouds in hybrid environments have the powerful data management capabilities they need to accelerate digital transformation initiatives, helping them increase agility, reduce risk and improve business outcomes.

Commvault allows global corporations, small businesses, healthcare organisations, public agencies and managed service providers to use Azure Stack as a Commvault appliance, with all of Commvault’s capabilities running and managed from the Azure Stack.

In addition, with Commvault software, they can quickly migrate data and workloads between Azure Stack hybrid clouds, Azure public cloud, other clouds, on-premises and legacy infrastructures. The Commvault Data Platform enables enterprises to protect, archive, move and search data on Azure Stack private clouds, helping them find data for e-Discovery or data privacy compliance purposes, recover data after a ransomware attack or other data disasters, and activate data with analytics and other data analysis tools.

Commvault has strengthened its integration with Azure Stack, providing new capabilities to Azure Stack users that help them further accelerate their digital transformation initiatives,

Microsoft creates the UK’s most powerful cloud service

Posted on February 12, 2018 by - News, Products

PAY-Lion-King-cloud-MAINSoftware king of the world Microsoft thinks that it has created the UK’s most powerful cloud.

The M-Series virtual machines (VMs) in Azure can handle large workloads that involve a lot of data and Vole claims to be the only outfit offering this level of cloud computing power in this country.

The M-series supports up to 128 virtual central processing units (vCPU) and between one and 3.8 tebibytes of RAM – a tebibyte is equal to 1,024 gigabytes – on a single VM. It also offers up to 20 terabytes of memory which is huge for a public cloud.

Data can also be transferred between VMs at up to 30 gigabytes per second, making it easy for companies to back up files or replicate their databases.

The VMs are the only ones in the UK able to handle large workloads on the SAP HANA platform. Microsoft has also announced Dv3 VMs in UK data centres. These are built using new technology, so can perform better and more efficiently, enabling Microsoft to pass these savings on to customers who store data and run apps in the cloud for their businesses.

Microsoft Principle Programme Manager Jon Beck said that ny unlocking more power from the underlying hardware, Vole could harness better performance and efficiency, resulting in cost savings. They will cost up to 28 per cent less than the previous VMs – Dv2.

The Dv3 VMs use “hyper-threading technology” on Intel processors, which allows users to run several processes at once. Along with the new Ev3 VMs, they are some of the first to run on Windows Server 2016 hosts, and also boast nested virtualization – the ability to run a VM inside another VM.

The Dv3s offer up to 64 vCPUs and 256 gigabytes of RAM, while Ev3s offer 432GB of RAM, giving customers more computer memory to run larger workloads.

Vole has announced B-series VMs, a new low-cost range that offers customers flexibility in how much Azure computer power they use.

UK data centres will get a Notification Hub service which lets users send push notifications (information in a pop-up box) to their customers regardless of which platform they are using – Windows, iOS, Android, Kindle or Baidu.

Notification Hubs can send messages to millions of mobile devices with one single process, and can be tailored to specific customers or everyone in a group, in their language.

 

Techdata increases Azure training

Posted on November 21, 2017 by - News

schoolDistributor Tech Data is leaning on Microsoft partners to get up to speed on the Azure platform.

It has put 50 resellers through its Azure Velocity Partner Acceleration Programme in the last year and has plans to put the same number through the scheme in the next six months.

The programme enables a reseller to aim for silver competency with the Azure cloud platform and improve their chances of growing their hosted revenues.

The distributor is highlighting the levels of support that are on offer to those that use the training and tools with the investment per partner reaching £20,000.

Microsoft said that Azure remains a huge focus and it wants more partners selling the platform and associated hosted services.

Tech Data is at the gold level for the Microsoft Cloud Solution Partner (CSP) and in a position to provide this level of training and support.

The outfit has put more than 70 individuals from around 50 resellers through a five-day Azure technical training course and saw their revenues with Azure and with CSP grow significantly over the past six months.

 

PowerOn’s revenues double

Posted on November 13, 2017 by - News

PF-loadsamoney_2177214kMicrosoft Azure partner PowerON’s revenue has doubled thanks to its services business.

The outfit, which is based in York saw year-on-year revenue for the year ending 30 September 2017 jump about 98 percent to £2 million.

The three-year-old company said that the firm’s growth was due to demand for  its IT services, particularly around automation and device management.

The company has a mix of IT and services which it thinks gives it a competitive edge against the competition that take a traditional approach.

These include projects such as Windows 10 upgrades and the operating management. However the company reports genuine industry growth too.

PowerON has offices in York, Chessington and Lincolnshire, is mostly a Microsoft Azure reseller but also develops its own platforms and tools in-house.

It has a consultancy team which focuses on the modernisation of workplaces and device management, and the cloud infrastructure team which specialises in Azure and hybrid IT.

PowerON became an Elite Partner on Microsoft’s Enterprise Mobility and Software Programme this year.

The firm is projecting revenue of £3.2 million in its current financial year, £4.4 million in 2019, and £6.2 million in 2020.

 

Dell EMC will offer Azure Stack

Posted on September 29, 2017 by - News

IMG_1049Dell EMC has signed an agreement with Microsoft to provide w Azure Stack through its channel partners.

Dell EMC was announced as one of three hardware vendors launching the Azure Stack, alongside HPE e and Lenovo. Cisco has since been added. The Azure Stack is an extension of Microsoft Azure, bringing the cloud capabilities to on-premise environments. The solution started shipping earlier this month.

Dell EMC also announced a range of services and updates around backup, data protection and hyperconverged infrastructure management.

“Dell EMC values the strong collaboration we have had with Microsoft for more than 30 years, which has resulted in world-class, innovative solutions delivered to customers worldwide”,  said Armughan Ahmad, senior VP at Dell EMC. No surprises there, then.

“The innovations we’re announcing today are evidence of how our work with Microsoft has truly changed how our customers conduct their day-to-day activities, enabling them to gain greater value from their IT infrastructures and, more importantly, develop and deliver services to help achieve their ultimate business goals.”

Eamon Moore, managing director at Dell EMC and Microsoft partner EMIT, said the partnership means partners can offer a solution to customers no matter how they want their infrastructure to look.

“A lot of customers will have been very pro Microsoft and pro Azure but might not have been able to adapt for certain reasons”, he said. “Now companies that partner with both [Dell EMC and Microsoft] can give a solution no matter what the requirements are.

“If you look at the future of cloud, we’re seeing, for various reasons, that customers might need to go with a hybrid approach, so it fits perfectly into that. We all see that hybrid is the future, so this will give all the advantages and solutions available on Azure in a hybrid platform.

“It’s almost the missing piece to now give an overall solution to customers and not be hindered by certain assets [that need to remain on-premise] that you might have been hindered by in the past.”

NTT Com and Dell EMC build Azure lab

Posted on September 26, 2017 by - News

cloud1NTT Com has teamed up with Dell EMC to provide a Microsoft Azure application testing lab for non-production virtual workloads at limited scale.

NTT Com claims to be the only global service provider to offer a choice of on premises or hosted services in one of its 140 data centres via fully managed private cloud solutions using Microsoft Azure Stack.

The Proof of Concept to test applications on Azure Stack will run on a single node server in one of NTT Com’s data centres. The low PoC fee includes the necessary Azure Stack qualified engineering services to load and test the application, rented time on the test server and fully documented objectives and reported outcomes. With the cost of the Proof of Concept being refunded if the customer opts to take out a managed Azure Stack solution from NTT Com.

Azure Stack is designed to bring many of the features of the Azure cloud computing platform into the enterprise data center, providing hybrid cloud customers with the flexibility and innovation capabilities designed to meet the business objectives of those adopting a data transformation strategy. Azure Stack is now available to order on dedicated server hardware from Dell, however testing your application compatibility before making the move to Azure Stack is highly recommended.

Jay Snyder, Senior Vice President, Global Alliances, Dell EMC said his outfit was delighted to be collaborating with NTT Communications.

He said it would provide a powerful application testing facility focused on the Azure Stack. These capabilities will enable customers the ability to migrate existing applications efficiently as they establish their long-term strategy for hybrid cloud.

The Dell EMC hardware platform delivers an automated, Azure – consistent experience on a single hybrid cloud platform for both traditional and Cloud – native applications, which, when coupled with managed services from NTT Com, provides customers with a credible choice when seeking a viable solution partner to this new cloud product in the market.

Roger Vilà, SVP Enterprise Services at NTT Europe said: “Azure Stack is the backbone of Microsoft’s new Cloud strategy. By utilizing this PoC facility, organizations can help ensure they are harnessing all of the power offered by Microsoft cloud and unify the disparate systems that may be running across their business effectively from the onset.”

NTT Com is a  member of the Microsoft Early Adopter Initiative for Azure Stack for over eight months and is providing global managed services through NTT Com Managed Services, delivering a one-stop shop for managed hybrid cloud services. NTT Com already has numerous large customers on the managed Azure platform and is fully prepared for Microsoft Azure Stack’s release.

Veritas cuddles up to Microsoft

Posted on September 20, 2017 by - News

friends15Veritas’ Las Vegas conference showed how close the outfit has got to Microsoft Azure.

Mike Palmer, executive vice president and chief product officer at Veritas, told the assorted throngs at the firm’s Veritas Vision conference that its customers are adopting cloud at an “unprecedented pace”, but Veritas customers are finding it tricky.

“Those customers have a legacy of applications, many of which were built 20 or 30 years ago and eventually evolved. Now they are moving into the public cloud, but they are struggling with how to make that pivot”, he said.

“These struggles include how to build native applications and how to manage deploying applications in a global environment. They also continue to struggle with visibility of data, particularly around data which is regulated.”

Palmer said regulations such as GDPR are seeing companies need to form data retention policies where in the past they had data deletion policies.

“Our customers are struggling and we know that all the technology transformation that is happening is driving a lot of these concerns, but that is also driving a lot of opportunity for us and our partners”, added Palmer.

However, the conference also heard how close Veritas was getting to Microsoft. Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure at Microsoft, claimed the partnership with Veritas worked due to the vendors’ joint understanding of the enterprise space.

“We are working closely with Veritas around the integration of its technology with Azure so they can produce a high-performing and secure product. We have go-to-market plans together and we also have mutual channels that work together.”

Veritas has announced 360 data management expansions for Veritas and Microsoft Azure customers. These include plans for business continuity and disaster-recovery readiness, hybrid cloud scale-out storage optimisation and data visualisation across disparate sources.

 

Windows Server shrinks its footprint  

Posted on May 19, 2017 by - News

giantfootprintSoftware King of the World, Microsoft, has shrunk Windows Server’s footprint when you run it in Azure.

The slimmed down version of Windows Server is destined for use in Azure’s Managed Disks. This is a storage option that allows the creation of disks without first creating a storage account and without the need to manually assign a universal resource indicator.

Microsoft offers Managed Disks at 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, 512GB and a terabyte, with the two smallest sizes a recent addition. But it looks like users had trouble squeezing Windows into the little ones, because Microsoft’s now announced it has “added a second set of Windows Server offerings with 30GB OS disks for Windows Server 2008R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012R2 and Windows Server 2016”.

Microsoft channel partners can now put it into 32GB Managed Disks and save customers “US$2.18 per VM if you choose to deploy with 32GB Standard Managed OS disk vs. 127GB”.

Windows Server 2012 could be installed onto a 32 GB partition that was an absolute minimum value needed for successful installation. It was providing a  Windows Server Core with IIS and no GUI, which was not very useful.

The new Azure version, though, makes it fit rather well into the tighter partition which makes it an easier sale.

Microsoft looks to channel to sort out its small blue things

Posted on February 14, 2017 by - News

hqdefaultSoftware King of the World Microsoft is ending pay-as-you-go Azure access for new smaller customers on the Microsoft Products and Services Agreement, as it turns to channel partners to win small customers.

At the moment punters are purchasing Azure on a pay-as-you-go basis through the MPSA.  Vole’s new customers seeking the payment plan will be “guided” towards Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) programme.

According to Richard Smith, Microsoft’s general manager for commercial licensing the new licensing focus was a matter of “enhancing and creating synergies” across the ways in which it goes to business.

It means that customers seeking to dip their toes into Azure on a PAYG basis will now need to go through the Channel.

Vole will not make much extra cash from selling through the channel, but Volish thinking is that small suppliers are more likely to stay signed up to a Channel programme than sticking to something more direct.

Many smaller customers don’t see the true benefits of the Azure cloud because they lack the skills.

By encouraging customers to work with partners via the CSP programme, it will mean that there is a  greater chance of success and ultimately a greater consumption of services from the Cloud.

France surrenders to Microsoft Azure Blitzkrieg

Posted on October 4, 2016 by - News

surrenderMicrosoft is pushing hard to get its Azure cloud offerings accepted in Europe and has announced that it will build its first Azure data centre in France this year.

Vole has written a $3 billion cheque to build its cloud services in Europe. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told the assorted throngs in Dublin that the expansion would mean that Microsoft covers “more regions than any other cloud provider. In the last year the capacity has more than doubled.”

The French data centre comes a month after Amazon announced that it would also be building a data centre in France.

Nadella said today that Microsoft has data centres covering 30 regions across the globe, “more regions than any other cloud provider,” with the European footprint including Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK and Germany.

In Germany, its data centre is operated by its glorious Deutsche Telekom allies in a trustee model, a move made both for “digital sovereignty and compliance,” Nadella said, “and a real world understanding of what the customer needs.”

“We have a very particular point of view by what we mean by mobile first and cloud first,” Nadella said today “It’s about the mobility of your experience across all devices in your life [and] the way to achieve that mobility … those experiences… is only possible because of the cloud.”

Vole claims that it is the “more trusted, more responsible and more inclusive” cloud provider, in contrast to Amazon and Google.

HPE unveils new channel scheme

Posted on September 28, 2016 by - News, Products

HPE The former maker of expensive printer ink, HPE has taken the covers off its new channel programme.

The outfit’s new Flexible Capacity model for Microsoft Azure allows partners to bridge private and public cloud with a single pay-as-you-go unified billing consumption model.

HPE unveiled the Flexible Capacity option as part of the launch of a new HPE Microsoft Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) stack for HPE’s DL380 hyperconverged system.

The HPE Microsoft Azure stack should be ready to go in mid-2017 and HPE Consulting for Azure Hybrid Cloud services are available now.

The stack provides customers with Flexible Capacity single pay-as-you-go bill for both on-premise HPE private cloud and Microsoft Azure public cloud.

HPE said the DL380 Azure stack, which will sit in the customer’s data center, can be deployed with HPE SecureData software – protecting data in both public and private clouds and HPE Operations Bridge analytics software.

Microsoft about to knock Amazon off of its cloud

Posted on July 4, 2016 by - News

Every silver has a cloudy liningBeancounters at Morgan Stanley think that Microsoft’s Azure will edge out Amazon Web Services by 2019 for both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

The 2016 CIO Survey worked out that  31 percent of the CIOs will be using Azure for IaaS, versus roughly 30 percent using AWS. Today, about 21 percent are using AWS and 12 percent are using Azure. While nearly 55 percent of the surveyed CIOs said they’re using no public-cloud IaaS today, that number will drop to less than 10 percent by the end of 2019.

Azure is already leading AWS in PaaS and it is used by 18 percent of the respondents, versus AWS’s 16 percent. Azure’s lead will grow slightly by 2019, growing 9.8 percent versus 6.4 percent, Morgan Stanley said.

Software as a Service (SaaS) spending is looking promising with 95 percent of the 100 respondents predicting it will be flat or will increase, up from 90 percent last year.  Its key driver will be marketing applications from the likes of Adobe, HubSpot and Salesforce.

Nearly one-third of all applications will be migrated to the public cloud by the end 2017, up from 14 percent today, the survey said. On-premises apps will decline to 58 percent, from 71 percent today.

Hardware vendors, including conventional and flash storage makers, will continue to suffer as their market is eaten by the cloud. Hardware spending growth is down this year to 3.2 percent, from 3.4 percent last year.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NetApp face the largest threats, the study said. Biggish Blue might be saved by its cloud investments and cognitive-computing offering.

Oracle, EMC, Dell, VMWare and Cisco, in that order, all face declines in their share of the next three years’ IT budgets, ranging from -17 percent to -9 percent.

Microsoft’s Azure cloud growing

Posted on April 4, 2016 by - News

Every silver has a cloudy liningMicrosoft’s Azure cloud computing platform is growing like topsie.

Vole announced that it was signing up 120,000 new business customers and developer subscribers monthly.

Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of the company’s Cloud and Enterprise group, said at a developer conference in San Francisco that more than four million developers are also registered to use Microsoft’s developer tools. In January, Microsoft claimed it had 3.8 million developers registered.

Microsoft is focusing on business services and its Azure cloud services platform is a major competitor to Amazon.com’s AWS. Both companies have huge server banks which run services and software for customers looking for added flexibility, lower costs and reliability.

Vole has been getting its foot in the door thanks to parceling up Azure services through its channel and is doing quite well at getting its cloud to rain on Amazon’s parade.

 

Microsoft to build Azure UK data centre

Posted on November 11, 2015 by - News

Every silver has a cloudy liningSoftware giant Microsoft is building a new UK data centre for its Azure cloud – the announcement follows something similar from AWS.

Vole wants its cloud services based in the UK beginning in 2016 and AWS will have it ready by the by the end of 2016 (or early 2017).

Vole is behind AWS in cloud services but the distance between the pair is huge.

Setting up in the UK makes a lot of sense. London’s status as a financial hub makes it attractive market for cloud vendors, and having a local region (composed of multiple data centres) mimimises latency.

Microsoft is a US corporation there may be circumstances when the US government can demand access to data. This is less likely to be possible if the data is kept in a local data centre.

If the US does succeed in getting court orders for the data stored in Europe chances are the EU would ban American companies running data centres. This would be too much of a political hot potato for the US government which is currently attempting to re-negotiate its safe-harbour status in Europe having lost it due to its spying antics.

Microsoft has the Ministry of Defence signed up as its first customer, which is probably why it has to have the data kept within the UK.

The department will be migrating to a “private instance” of Office 365, hosted partly by HP and in part by the new UK Azure region.