Category Archives: Cloud Servers

Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet have traveled similar paths on the road to $1 trillion – CNBC

Written by admin on February 1, 2020 — Leave a Comment

Four technology giants now sit on top of the list of most valuable U.S. companies, each worth more than $1 trillion and there's a familiar theme to each of their stories.

Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet have all looked to services and cloud businesses for growth in the past couple of years. In turn, the market has rewarded the companies richly, as each of the tech companies' market values have climbed to record levels.

A year and a half ago Apple became the first U.S. company to surpass the $1 trillion mark, doing so in August 2018. Analysts at the time noted Apple's growing software and services revenue as catalysts driving the valuation.

Five weeks later, Amazon reached $1 trillion for the first time. Although Jeff Bezos' e-commerce giant was only above that benchmark for a short time, analysts again pointed out how Amazon Web Services its cloud business was a key driver of the company's growth.

Microsoft was the third to pass $1 trillion last April, its value driving higher after a better-than-expected earnings report. Its sales growth that quarter was, like the others, driven by growth in its public cloud service Azure, with big corporations handing off servers and data storage to Microsoft.

Then Alphabet hit a $1 trillion, just two weeks ago. While its cloud growth has lagged behind Amazon and Microsoft, Alphabet doubled its cloud services revenue run rate to $2 billion per quarter from $1 billion per quarter between February 2018 and July 2019.

Finally, while Amazon had fallen off the pace last year, the company on Friday once again joined the trillion-dollar club. After a knockout earnings report, Amazon's market value gained about $96 billion from Thursday's closing price a one-day gain that is bigger than the entire market value of either UPS or 3M.

More:
Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet have traveled similar paths on the road to $1 trillion - CNBC

Directory Migration Timing: 11 Opportunities to Ditch Active Directory – Security Boulevard

Written by admin on February 1, 2020 — Leave a Comment

By Mike Ranellone Posted January 30, 2020

For some organizations, replacing Microsoft Active Directory (AD) is like replacing a cars engine it cant be done while youre cruising down the highway. But just as vehicles need to pull off for gas and maintenance from time to time, convenient opportunities to migrate from on-prem servers to a modern cloud directory service sometimes emerge. With a little bit of planning, you can be prepared to take advantage of those opportunities.

The concept of Active Directory migration itself isnt new, though were thinking about it in a different way. If youre a seasoned AD admin, youve probably already gone through the directory migration process at some point to move AD objects like computers, users, and groups from one Windows Server AD domain or forest to another, perhaps as part of a licensing upgrade, infrastructure overhaul, or merger.

Migrating to an entirely new cloud directory is actually a pretty similar process, so if youre approaching a major Active Directory migration project due to one of the above factors, now might be a great time to zoom out and think about whether you could benefit from replacing Active Directory altogether. Lets look at a more comprehensive list of good AD stopping points, then preview the process of migrating to a modern cloud directory.

Here are 11 of the most popular opportunities that make the move from AD to a modern cloud directory especially easy:

Read the original:
Directory Migration Timing: 11 Opportunities to Ditch Active Directory - Security Boulevard

Australias Iconic Hotels taps cloud for speed and cost savings – ComputerWeekly.com

Written by admin on February 1, 2020 — Leave a Comment

As a fast-growing hotel chain in Australia, Iconic Hotels, formerly Abode Group, could no longer depend on its on-premise systems to support guest reservations and its property management needs. In less than five years, its portfolio grew from three to eight hotels, with two more properties in the works.

Rudy Kalele, director of revenue, distribution and central reservations at Iconic Hotels, says the company had been using Oracle Opera to manage its properties and guest reservations, but the rapid expansion had made it difficult to scale up deployment of the software.

Now we want to access software from everywhere and at any time, he says. We want to multitask on one screen, and we want cost effectiveness and security ... so cloud is the way to go.

That led Iconic Hotels, which considered other offerings in the market, to go with Opera Cloud, the cloud-based version of its Opera on-premise software. The experience, however, was not without hiccups, at least during the first six months after the project went live.

For one thing, Iconic Hotels was using Opera Cloud hosted out of Germany, and so it found itself grappling with latency issues while accessing the service in Australia, says Kalele. But thanks to Opera and the Oracle team, they moved us to a closer server in Singapore at their own cost.

On its part, Iconic Hotels assisted with the move by migrating each hotel to the new server, an effort that took about six weeks. Since then, Opera Cloud has been running fantastic for us, he says.

Opera Clouds improvements over the on-premise version of the software proved its worth quickly by providing an overview of its properties from a single dashboard, as opposed to separate screens previously. Our central reservations teams can now pick up reservations and access any property in one environment, says Kalele.

He says the migration from Opera on-premise to Opera Cloud was spaced out. It took about a week to migrate data and processes for one hotel, leaving some time for the new system to stabilise before moving on to the next hotel.

The Opera installers were very experienced and helpful, says Kalele. They literally held our hands and showed us what needs to be done, and my team got the hang of it for the first couple of properties and then it was just the same afterwards.

During migration, the only challenge that his team faced was that it had to consolidate customer profiles and decide which ones to port over to Opera Cloud. We did this manually and although we could have the Oracle guys do this for us at a cost, we had enough resources on the ground to transfer the data across on our own.

The move to Opera Cloud has resulted in cost savings, as Iconic Hotels no longer needs a dedicated IT team to manage the system. We dont need someone to restart or back up the server, or to take care of its security, says Kalele. Weve saved the cost of having at least two IT managers. Also, instead of having five people in my central reservations team, we can do the same job with four people, because its all on one screen and the time taken to enter reservations is much lower.

From an operations perspective, the hotels housekeeping staff can provide updates on whether a room is cleaned or not using a tablet or smartphone, without the need to inform the front desk.

As a cloud-based application, Opera Cloud also lets the hotels staff access the reservations system anywhere without using a virtual private network. If youre at a conference and you need to access some reports or information, you can do that anywhere as long as you have an internet connection, he says.

Iconic Hotels is now looking at rolling out the Opera Payment Interface, a payment gateway that will allow its credit card machines to be integrated with Opera Cloud. Plans are also underway to implement some of the softwares functionalities on tablet computers so guests can fill in check-in information on a tablet instead of on paper.

Visit link:
Australias Iconic Hotels taps cloud for speed and cost savings - ComputerWeekly.com

The 28 Best Data Analytics Software and Top Tools for 2020 – Solutions Review

Written by admin on February 1, 2020 — Leave a Comment

Solutions Reviews listing of the best data analytics software is an annual sneak peak of the solution providers included in our Buyers Guide and Solutions Directory. Information was gathered via online materials and reports, conversations with vendor representatives, and examinations of product demonstrations and free trials.

The editors at Solutions Review have developed this resource to assist buyers in search of the best data analytics software to fit then needs of their organization. Choosing the right vendor and solution can be a complicated process one that requires in-depth research and often comes down to more than just the solution and its technical capabilities. To make your search a little easier, weve profiled the best data analytics software providers all in one place. Weve also included platform and product line names and introductory software tutorials straight from the source so you can see each solution in action.

Note: Companies are listed in alphabetical order.

Platform: Alteryx Platform

Related products: Alteryx Designer, Alteryx Server, Alteryx Connect, Alteryx Promote

Description: Alteryx is a self-service data analytics software company that specializes in data preparation and data blending. Alteryx Analytics allows users to organize, clean, and analyze data in a repeatable workflow. Business analysts find this tool particularly useful for connecting to and cleansing data from data warehouses, cloud applications, spreadsheets and other sources. The platform features tools to run a variety of analytic jobs (predictive, statistical, spatial) inside a single interface.

Platform: AnswerRocket

Description: AnswerRocket offers a search-powered data analytics platform designed for business users. The product enables you to ask business questions in natural language, and no technical skills are needed to run reports or generate analysis. AnswerRocket features a combination of AI and machine learning, as well as advanced analytic functionality. The platform can also automate manual tasks and answer ad hoc questions quickly. AnswerRocket is mobile-friendly and includes native voice recognition.

Platform: Arcadia Enterprise

Apples redesigned Maps app is available across the US, adds real-time transit for Miami – TechCrunch

Written by admin on February 1, 2020 — Leave a Comment

Apples updated and more detailed Maps experience has now rolled out across the U.S., the company announced this morning. The redesigned app will include more accurate information overall as well as comprehensive views of roads, buildings, parks, airports, malls and other public places. It will also bring Look Around to more cities and real-time transit to Miami.

The company has now spent years upgrading its Maps experience to better compete with Google Maps, which Apple replaced with its own Maps app in 2012. That launch didnt go well, to say the least. Apple CEO Tim Cook even had to apologize for how Maps fell short of customers expectations and promised Apple would do better going forward.

Over time, Apple has been making good on those promises, by updating Maps with better data and notably, by announcinga ground-up rebuild of the Maps platform back in 2018. Last year, Apple also introduced the new Look Around feature in iOS 13 essentially Apples version of Google Street View, but one that uses high-resolution 3D views that offer more detail and smoother transitions.

iOS 13 also brought more Maps features, like real-time transit schedules, a list-making feature called Collections, Favorites and more.

However, some of these Maps updates have been slow to roll out. Look Around, for example, has only been live in major cities, including New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, LA, Las Vegas, Houston and Oahu. With the nationwide launch, its safe to assume youre about to see it pop up in more major metros, though Apple hasnt provided names of which ones will get it first. Real-time transit information is offered only in select major cities, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, D.C., New York and LA.

Today, Apple is adding Miami to that list of supported cities offering real-time transit, just in time for Super Bowl weekend.

Over the course of 2019, Apples improved, more detailed Maps experience has steadily expanded across the U.S., finally arriving in the North East as of last fall.

Today, the new Maps experience its starting to go live across all of the U.S. But that doesnt necessarily mean youll see it right away when you launch the Maps app the rollout is phased.

We set out to create the best and most private maps app on the planet that is reflective of how people explore the world today, said Eddy Cue, Apples senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, in a statement about the launch. It is an effort we are deeply invested in and required that we rebuild the map from the ground up to reimagine how Maps enhances peoples lives from navigating to work or school or planning an important vacation all with privacy at its core. The completion of the new map in the United States and delivering new features like Look Around and Collections are important steps in bringing that vision to life. We look forward to bringing this new map to the rest of the world starting with Europe later this year, he added.

The updated Apple Maps includes Look Around and real-time transit in some markets, Collections, Favorites, a Share ETA feature, flight status information for upcoming travel, indoor maps for malls and airports, Siri natural language guidance and Flyover a feature offering immersive, 3D views of major metros, as seen from above. The latter is available across more than 350 cities.

Going forward, Apple will use the imagery it collects to deliver Look Around to more U.S. markets and begin to upgrade the Maps platform in Europe.

Maps biggest selling point today, however, may not be the sum of its feature sets. Instead, Maps standout feature is its focus on privacy.

While Google does use the data collected from Google Maps for many handy features like reporting on a businesss busiest times, for example its not a private app. In fact, its so not private that Google had to add an incognito mode as an option for users who didnt want their Maps app collecting data on them.

Apple, meanwhile, notes that its app requires no-sign in, isnt connected to your Apple ID and its personalized features are implemented using on-device intelligence, not by sending data to cloud servers. In addition, any data collected when using Maps, like search terms, navigation routing and traffic information, is only associated with random identifiers that continually reset to protect user privacy.

Apple also uses a process called fuzzing that converts a precise location where a Maps search originated to a less precise one after 24 hours. And it doesnt retain a history of what a user has searched for or where theyve been.

In an era where people assume, usually correctly, that the mere act of launching an app is an agreement to have their data collected, Apples increased emphasis on user privacy is welcome and a good reason to try Apple Maps again, if you never came back to it after the shaky launch.

Apple Maps, now used in over 200 countries, is available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and in cars via CarPlay.

Visit link:
Apples redesigned Maps app is available across the US, adds real-time transit for Miami - TechCrunch

HyperFlex becomes mates with K8s: No need to go through vSphere first – Blocks and Files

Written by admin on February 1, 2020 — Leave a Comment

Ciscos hyperconverged HyperFlex system has been re-engineered to support containerisation with native Kubernetes and Intersight cloud-based management.

The rationale is that users need to be able to move apps between on-premises and public cloud environments. Cloud-native apps can do that efficiently and Kubernetes is the way to orchestrate them and their myriad components. Giving HyperFlex native Kubernetes (K8s) support, running on Linux, enables it to operate effectively in the hybrid, multi-cloud world.

Liz Centoni, SVP and GM for Cloud, Compute and IoT atCisco, issued a quote saying: With the HyperFlex Application Platform (HX-AP) we are making Kubernetes, the new de facto standard for app developers, much easier to deploy and manage for both app and infrastructure teams.

Up until now HyperFlex has supported K8s running in a VMware virtual machine, necessitating an ESXi license. Now customers can go one hundred per cent cloud-native with no intervening vSphere layer.

The Intersight management service has had container support added so it integrates with HX-AP.

With no virtual server layer, there is a common HX-AP environment shared by DevOps app teams and the infrastructure managers. Apps can be developed either in the public cloud or on-premises, with self-service resource provisioning attributes, and deployed anywhere AWS and Azure for starters. The Google Cloud Platform will surely soon be supported as well.

Cisco says K8s HyperFlex has a curated stack of components above basic K8s, and a turn-key infrastructure, but supplied no component details. It functions as a container-as-a-service platform.

The cloud, compute and IoT GM blogged about HX-AP obviating customers from paying the V-tax, so to speak: The HyperFlex Application Platform is designed to take the hard work out of K8s and make it as easy as deploying an appliance. We integrate the Kubernetes components and lifecycle manage the operating system, libraries, packages and patches you need for K8s.

Plus, we manage the security updates and check for consistency between all components every time you deploy or upgrade a cluster. We then enable IT to deliver a Container-as-a-Service experience to developers much like they are used to getting in the public cloud.

Users can run HX-AP and traditional, VMware-based HyperFlex software on the same hardware should they wish. HyperFlex will also support bare metal Linux in the future.

Todd Brannon, senior director for Data Centre Marketing at Cisco, told Blocks & Files in a briefing that HX-AP looks and feels like Kubernetes in the cloud. He added: The cloud is not a place but an operating model.

Google has its Anthos cloud-based container services system, which enables application container movement between on-premises and the AWS, Azure and GCP clouds. How that will interoperate with HX-AP, if it does so, is not clear.

HPE and Google are providing a hybrid cloud for containers, using Anthos. It does yet support HPEs hyperconverged systems, such as SimpliVity. Nimble storage is supported and HPE has its distributed HCI (dHCI) product using ProLiant servers and Nimble storage.

Cisco says Intersight can understand the resource needs for applications at all layers of the stack, for bare metal apps, ones running in virtual machines and also containerised ones. It integrates with Ciscos AppDynamics performance monitoring software for this.

Intersight also has a Workload Optimiser function, a real-time decision engine, to help decide where, in the on-premises, multi-cloud environment, its bet to run an app. Together, Cisco says, HX-AP, Intersight and AppDynamics provide a closed-loop operating model.

HyperFlex Application Platform for Kubernetes will be available for early access inthe second quarter of calendar 2020.

See the original post here:
HyperFlex becomes mates with K8s: No need to go through vSphere first - Blocks and Files

ControlUp Update Adds Native Integration with VMware Horizon – Virtualization Review

Written by admin on February 1, 2020 — Leave a Comment

News

ControlUp this week announced version 8.1 of its flagship IT management and monitoring solution, which adds native integration with VMware Horizon and better scalability among other enhancements.

The monitoring software specialist touted the integration with Horizon, a leading virtual desktop infrastructure (VDIs) offering that last month was updated to version 7.11, as providing significant benefits to Horizon administrators.

"With ControlUp 8.1, Horizon administrators get full-stack visibility to their Horizon environment, starting with the hypervisor hosting the VMs all the way down to the end users' processes. In other words, seamless management of their Horizon environment, from a single pane of glassthe ControlUp console," said the company in a Jan. 9 blog post by Tom Fenton, who also writes for Virtualization & Cloud Review.

Benefits to IT admins are said to include:

Another highlight of the update as outlined in another blog post is scalability of the real-time monitor for up to 100,000 machines, as the solution gathers data in 3-second intervals from hypervisors, end-user computing (EUC) environments and machines with ControlUp installations.

"With much intense thought and some imaginative rearchitecting, ControlUp 8.1 delivers high scalability without losing the simplicity and ease of use you know and love," the company said while detailing technological approaches such as data aggregation and clustered monitors powering the scaling functionality behind the scenes.

In a Jan. 28 news release, Asaf Ganot, ControlUp co-founder and CEO, said, "Until now, ControlUp has placed more emphasis on enabling control and optimization of Citrix environments. In the last year, however, we have seen an increasing number of new customers buy ControlUp to manage Horizon, and many of our customers now manage EUC environments that include Citrix and Horizon. This release will allow us to provide a powerful platform that serves both markets."

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.

Read the original post:
ControlUp Update Adds Native Integration with VMware Horizon - Virtualization Review

Arista Networks – Is This A Phoenix And The Implications Of The Apparent Big Switch Acquisition – Seeking Alpha

Written by admin on February 1, 2020 — Leave a Comment

This article was highlighted for PRO+ subscribers, Seeking Alpha's service for professional investors. This article was highlighted under our Tech vertical. Find out how you can get access to the best content on Seeking Alpha here.

The shares have Arista Networks (ANET) have experienced woeful performance until the last few weeks. Overall, they lost 42% of their value from peak to trough, with the latest trough occurring in early November after the release of Q3 earnings, which were fine and guidance which was dreadful. Lately the shares have bounced around 15% since the start of the year based on hopes that guidance was a bit of a sandbag and regarding the possibility of Arista acquiring Big Switch, one of the key movers in the networking world. (Industry press has confirmed that the deal closed, but there has yet to be a formal press release from either party. I assume a press release is most likely when Arista announces its quarterly earnings on February 13th. The deal is said to be on very favorable terms (a song according to the linked article, and is more about Arista acquiring people and technology.)

Should readers consider taking a position in the shares at these levels? I think a strong case can be made for entering the name at this price and at this time. There are plenty of demand growth drivers that have yet to be felt by Arista and which could turn current estimates upside down. The acquisition of Big Switch could mark a renewed period of growth for Arista based on the combination of technologies. And the Intel (INTC) announcement regarding strength in its business from the equivalent of Aristas cloud titan segment has to be taken positively. But most of all, in a sea of high valued names, ANET shares are painfully cheap, particularly on an EV/S basis, if only the growth, forecast to be negative for the next two quarters, resumes at a meaningful pace.

So yes, this is a call to buy the shares, and I intend to do so opportunistically, perhaps starting this week.

In the course of editing this article, I became a ware of a downgrade of Arista shares by the analyst at Barclay's from buy to hold. The principle issue raised by the analyst is his contention that Arista is losing market share or its market share gains have stalled in the cloud titan space. That is such an inflammatory comment that I needed to reference it in what is a rather long article. I am not sure as to the basis comment by the Barclay's analyst. Needless to say, it is one that I feel is way off base. At the end of the day, given there aren't very specific statistics by quarter that can be used to determine market share data with regards to cloud data center switching revenues, one is left to rely on proxy data. As I will detail in this article, Arista has indicated that its forecast both for the quarter to be reported, and the for 2020 are predicated on flat to down capex for switching in its key cloud titan vertical. The evidence we have is that is exactly what is happening. Later in this article, I have illustrated from company data that Microsoft has indeed cut its capex. The business results of FB also suggest a company that is likely reducing its capex in an effort to size its infrastructure growth to the growth in revenues. That is precisely the forecast that was made by the Arista management.

Because this is a key point for me, I think it reasonable to look at the precise answers made by company management on the market share issue. "

Alex Henderson -- Needham & Company -- Analyst

Great, thank you very much. I was hoping you could spend a little bit of time relative to this cloud issue, to what extent you're confident that there is no competitive incursion here that's causing it, and that in fact you have sustained share at that customer. How can we judge that -- how do you get your arms around, clarity around that point?

Jayshree Ullal -- Director, President and Chief Executive Officer

Alex, that's a very good question. From our perspective, the competitive dynamics have not changed in the cloud or in general as we always have aggressive competition and we will continue to see aggression there. But what gives us confidence the cloud titans are delaying their spend or distributing their capex differently is, as you know, we always pride ourselves in a close partnership and relationship with cloud titans. And generally, especially in the case of Facebook and Microsoft, they have been not only a vendor customer relationship, but really a core development that requires the kind of partnership which is engineering to engineering, it's not just business.

So, when you look at that, there is no evidence that competitively or white-box wise, there has been any change, there has been a process processing, there is better inventory management, there is better procurement, optimization etc.. And you can always expect these cloud customers of ours to want to be multi-sourced, but it isn't any different than we've seen in the past in behavior, in relationship, in our innovation we have 10, 400 gig products, and lot of then in styles . So, relationship and the technology partnership couldn't be better. Anshul, do you want to add to that?

Anshul Sadana -- Chief Operating Officer

Sure. Thanks, Jayshree. Alex, we work very closely with these customers to a point where we are working on this 2021 roadmap along with these customers right now. And quite well aware of the thesis they are making with the architecture as well and have very direct feedback from customers as well that there is no alternate that's pleasing us, it's simply the demand has gone down and we are very confident of our share when that demand comes back as well since we collaborate with these customers. So, we're not worried about it. And the customers are pretty direct as well, this is not our share going to someone else. Their demand reduce.

Alex Henderson -- Needham & Company -- Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much."

One can either accept the specifics of management commentary on market share, or accept the unsubstantiated assertions of the Barclay's analyst. The Barclay's analyst has apparently had some issues in calling this name properly having initiated Arista as a buy last August before the company forecast its problems with the cloud titans. I might also observe that the analyst is positive about Cisco. At some level, it is not really possible to be positive about Cisco and positive about Arista. Either one company has staunched market share losses and is suffering because of macro demand issues, or its smaller rival is continuing to take share. I will take the latter side of that argument based on the industry sources, such as they are, that seemingly suggest that Arista's competitive position remains positive.

Arista Networks was founded to cater to users who needed high capacity switches that took advantage of the latest technology-an oversimplified description bound to irk some readers but one that captures the essence of what Arista does. One of its co-founders, Andy Bechtolsheim, is well known as the co-founder of Sun and a founder of Granite, a company that became the core of Ciscos (CSCO) Gigabit systems unit. And he was one of the early investors in Google. (GOOG).

The companys CEO, Jayshree Ullal has held that role since 2008. Before that, Ms. Ullal had held senior management roles at Cisco and was responsible for the companys switching portfolio and its offering of unified communications technology.

The company was a pioneer in software defined networking and in offering multi-layer switching technology. The companys Extensible Operating System (EOS) is the core of its technology. The company has always used merchant silicon as part of its technology, allowing it both to take advantage of advances in technology and to achieve very high gross margins which are greater than 64% on a non-GAAP basis. The low latency of the companys switches has appealed to important users, and in particular, what the company calls Cloud Titans, which are firms such as Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT).

For some years, the story was a happy one with but few distractions other than a hard fought IP lawsuit between this company and Cisco. The company was wildly successful and very profitable selling its offerings to both the Cloud Titans identified earlier, to smaller cloud vendors, to financial services companies in need of the low latency and to service providers and enterprises. The company went public back in 2014 at a price of $43/share and first traded at around $58/share.

The year the company went public, ANET had revenues of $392 million, EPS of $1.29 on a GAAP basis and operating cash flow of $132 million. This year (2020) the company is forecast to have revenues of $2.4 billion with non-GAAP EPS of $9.06. So, over a span of several years, valuation has compressed noticeably. Is ANET a value name-not quite, but it has an EV/S of less than 3 on a forward basis and it has a 30% free cash flow margin.

Over the past year, the ANET story has been shaken by issues regarding the growth in demand for some of its cloud titan customers. Different titans at different times have slowed down their procurement of network infrastructure. The issue hasnt been loss of share, or even an overall slowdown in growth of the cloud titans, but essentially changing architecture that has allowed some of the titans to achieve their latency goals without continuously upgrading servers and switches.

And some of the companys growth initiatives such as the 400 gb switch and the companys campus switch offering have simply not taken off-or taken off more slowly than the rate that some commentators, including this writer, had once hoped for.

Overall, revenue growth which had been 45% as recently as 2017, is now forecast to have been 12% last year and the First Call consensus estimate for 2020 shows a forecast of no growth at all. EPS is forecast to decline by more than 6% at this point, which actually would be a strong result if revenues dont grow at all. These next two quarters, essentially congruent with company guidance, forecast the nadir of revenue decline, with March quarter revenues expected to fall by 12%.

With those kinds of expectations, it is little wonder that Aristas share price has suffered grievously. Last year, after hitting a high of $328/share in April, the shares imploded to as low as $188 by the start of November. Since then, there has been a strong rally and the shares are now back to the mid-$230 range.

Starting earlier this month, Arista shares have rallied very strongly, rising from about $203 at the start of the year to Fridays close of $238 last Friday, prior to the current panic regarding the Coronavirus and its possible impact on world economic growth. Over that span, the companys Chief Customer Officer resigned, and then rumors started to fly about the company winning the race to acquire Big Switch. In addition, the earnings release of Intel (INTC), which spoke about robust demand from cloud service provider customers, has lead to some speculation that what Intel saw, Arista is likely to see at some point in the near term.

Not all of the potential positives are likely to emerge in one fell swoop. But I do believe there are enough positive potentials to suggest that the risk/rewards of establishing a position at this level makes sense in a portfolio that is willing to own some speculative names.

The acquisition of Big Switch by Arista is all about a new direction for the company that involves a much greater focus on the enterprise, and a much lower level of customer concentration. While we do not know just how much revenues the 4 cloud titans have accounted for at Arista, we do know that their slowdown in network switch acquisition has brought the companys growth to a halt. By acquiring Big Switch, Arista is changing the center of gravity of its go-to-market effort and should become perceived as more of a software company. I do not think that any hyper-growth vendor can survive at this point simply peddling boxes, even if the boxes come with lots of software. I think it is premature for me to speculate precisely how the numbers are going to work. And I think that commentators that might look at historical revenues of Big Switch in evaluating this transaction will be looking at it upside down-this is a merger about changing the future of Arista by buying the technology leader in software defined networking. Just how the revenue synergies play out is really indeterminable at this point and any guesses I make would be just that-guesses

At this point, it hard to speculate just how the relationship between Dell and Big Switch might evolve. Presumably that has been a component of Aristas evaluation. Overall, the acquisition is likely to help Big Switch revenues maintain triple digit growth for several years into the future, but perhaps of more importance it is likely to help Arista sell its high performance switches to enterprise vendors who may have been reluctant to buy from Arista before it acquired this capability.

As mentioned, there has yet to be a formal press release detailing the purported transaction. So much of the following is speculative-although even after the deal is announced, there will be much white space and speculation in figuring out how the two companies will combine and achieve the revenue synergies required to pay for what was inevitably an expensive transaction.

How much Arista might have paid for Big Switch is not known-although it is said to be "a song." Big Switch is thought to have had multiple suitors over the last several months and of course some of these suitors like Dell have significant financial resources. Arista had gross cash of more than $2.4 billion on its balance sheet at the end of September, and is generating cash at a rate in excess of $800 million so it should not have had trouble in financing the deal. Big Switch may have been burning cash lately; its last capital raise was back in 2017 and just the working capital needed to support an enterprise of this size and with triple digit growth might suggest that the company needed to find a home where capital constraints were not an issue.

Big Switch has been a private company which has been growing at triple digit rates for some time now. As opposed to much of Aristas focus on the cloud titans, this company is focused its sales effort on selling to the Fortune 100 and it has some installations in 30% of those users. While there is no real estimate for revenues, the company has raised about $120 million in venture funding. Some analysts believe that the company has a current revenue run rate of as much as $150 million-but obviously Arista is not buying Big Switch for its current revenues-this is deal about major revenue synergies and one that is likely to redirect some of Aristas focus.

Big Switch was founded by some of the research team that developed software defined networking. There are some observers who have maintained that its founders were just too far ahead of its time. Just to be clear, it is a software company and it has partnered with hardware vendors, and in particular Dell and HPE, with the Dell relationship said to be the most meaningful. It also has relationships with Nutanix and VMW. Big Switch only sells through channel partners at this point. The company uses and contributes to many different open-source communities. I have linked to a couple of evaluations of the Big Switch technology by current users.

The company currently offers 2 primary fabrics. The Big Cloud Fabric is built with cloud networking design principles and delivers cloud-Network as-a service performance for private cloud platforms such as those offered by VMW, Nutanix, Microsoft and Red Hat. It is another visibility platform, but one that is designed to operate in a multi-cloud environment offering one-click trouble shooting.

Its other major product is called Big Monitoring Fabric. It is known by users as Big Mon-and I have had nothing whatsoever to do with making up that name. That platform is all about providing users with what is known as pervasive visibility which includes elements of predictive analytics, security monitoring, connection tracking and correlations between events and applications.

Users have adopted this technology because it lowers TCO by 50% over 5 years, it apparently speeds up new service enablement dramatically and improves change management. There are many competitors in this space, and most larger networking vendors have bought a specialist vendor so they can offer their users something in terms of network management. Arista has lacked a significant competitive capability in attempting to compete in the enterprise with both its network and campus switches by not having this technology and will inevitably be able to enter far more competitive procurement processes than had heretofore been the case.

In closing this segment, I think it worth noting that on last quarters call, Arista talked about its introduction of CloudVision 2019, a platform designed to bring cloud principles to network operators across Places in the Cloud. This is very similar to some of the offerings of Big Switch and I expect to see the Big Switch technology offered as part of Aristas CloudVision platform as an important offering for the companys enterprise and financial users.

As mentioned earlier, part of the reason for Aristas share price decline at the time of its last earnings release was its guidance and its comments about demand from cloud titans. Two of Aristas customers, Microsoft and Facebook are each more than 10% of revenue. Both of these users have seen some variable capex and indeed, this afternoon, MSFT announced that its capex in the December ending quarter had fallen, rather than risen, and that was enough to drag shares of Arista down after hours.

I have chosen to provide readers with the exact quote from the call rather than interposing my own filter. Here is the part of script that is relevant, After we experienced the pause of a specific Cloud Titans orders in Q2 2019. We were expecting a recovery in second half 2019 for cloud titan spend. In fact, Q3 2019 is a good evidence of that. However, we were recently informed of a shift in procurement strategy with a material reduction in demand from a second cloud titan, reducing their forecast dramatically from original projections for both Q4 2019 and for calendar 2020. Naturally, this type of volatility brings a sudden and severe impact to our Q4 guidance.

Given the step in forecast and volatility of this cloud segment, we believe the cloud titan forecast should be modeled as flat to down in calendar 2020.

The following quote is from the CFO and is perhaps somewhat different in terms of providing an outlook than the quote from the CEO,

All indications or are these actions do not represent a loss of positioning our share for Arista at these customers, but will likely effect -- will likely result in demand from this part of the business being flat to down on a year-over-year basis for the remainder of 2019 and into 2020. While we are not at this point in a position to provide overall guidance for 2020, we did want to make the following points. at this point, we believe this trend combined with typical Q1 seasonality and the recent updates to cloud forecast described above may result in revenues for the first quarter of 2020. They are approximately 5% below Q4 2019 level.

The current consensus forecast for Q4 and Q1 are almost exactly consistent with the guidance that was in those passages. The guidance as provided would lead to Arista showing revenue declines in Q3 and Q4 by 7.5% and 12% respectively.

The CEO elaborated that her concern related to the fact that she believed that cloud titan capex was likely to be flat to down, and that the titans would pivot their capex from networking to infrastructure. Further, the CEO said that the 400gb product line, while shipping to customers, is not seeing adoption at scale tracking the results that were seen when the 100gb product line were introduced. Adoption is slower, although why that might be is not quite clear.

Intel, however, in its latest earnings report, covering the period down through 12/31/19 had a different experience and a different outlook as can be seen in the following quote from that company's conference call. Intel's collection of data-centric businesses achieved record revenue in the fourth quarter, led by record Data Center Group (DCG) revenue. DCG revenue grew 19 percent YoY in the fourth quarter, driven by robust demand from cloud service provider customers.

Intel is a much larger company than Arista, and even the DCG segment is several times the size of Arista. Intel and Arista are not competitors; they often partner and collaborate. And it seems unlikely, simply based on the overall business trends for the cloud titans, that they would make a decision to slow capex growth. While there obviously is not a one for one correlation between revenue growth and capex spending, and cloud titans have many capex priorities, it seems unreasonable to believe that the titans are actually pausing capex or can pause it for very long, and far more reasonable to expect that cloud titans are investing heavily in their infrastructure.

It is much more difficult, at least for me, to determine whether the comments of the Arista CEO regarding the reprioritization of capex at the titans is still valid. Apparently, the one titan that essentially shut down their procurement of Arista switches did so in the wake of a shutdown in the procurement of servers. So, at least in this one instance, capex for servers and capex for switches has been correlated. If capex for servers is now rising again, per the comment in the Intel earnings report, than so too, should capex for switches. I think it is evident, given the rather dramatic changes in the forecast being seen for the titans and their procurement of either infrastructure or switches, that there is a material lack of visibility.

It isnt that Arista, and its management had any specific data when they last reported numbers, but the numbing effect of being shut down at one particular user that unnerved management, and lead to what I believe to be hyper-cautious guidance and commentary. My own guess, and I freely acknowledge that is all it is or can be, is that Arista will report upside in revenues, and a return to a more benign demand environment for their cloud titan segment over the course of 2020-although this trend is likely to take a couple of additional quarters before it becomes totally apparent. Overall, I think the likelihood that Arista can achieve double digit revenue growth in 2020 is better than 50/50 and despite the run-up in the shares, the valuation does not reflect that kind of outcome, in my opinion.

My thesis regarding investing in Arista is long term. Aristas success is not specifically about calling a turn in demand for high performance switches from cloud titans. The company itself doesnt have a perfect record in terms of understanding how cloud titan demand wanes and waxes-and that is putting it kindly. I would be foolish to suggest to readers that I have specific knowledge regarding the outlook for the quarter that will be reported or the quarter that has recently started. And even more emphatically, I cant foretell what guidance this company might provide for the full year.

In one sense, if you are a long term investor, it doesnt matter greatly. Of course I like to get quarters right, and depending on what is reported and what is forecast the shares will react materially. If the guidance for the full year is still marginal, and still calls for a revenue decline, the shares will go down, and I would far rather buy for less than more. So buying before this quarterly earnings is a gamble-although less of a gamble than it might appear because of the companys still compressed valuation.

My contention is that this company can and will return to mid-teens growth over the next 12-18 months as several demand generating factors start to generate business. I do think it is reasonable to believe that cloud titan capex, and the demand of cloud titans for network switches will revive. But investors should also take account of the other factors that will influence growth.

Of course the acquisition of Big Switch is a component of that, and indeed, if it works out as I have tried to suggest might be the case, the revenue synergies from the deal alone would go a long way to change the overall demand curve for Arista. But beyond that, over the past couple of years, the company has made several conspicuous product announcements that are likely to be factors in generating growth for the company outside of the cloud titan area by the second half of this year.

Probably the most significant is Aristas line of Campus Switches. Arista indicated that volumes for the product family had reached or were reaching an annualized rate of $400 million or about 15% of current revenues. I think that the campus switch offering from Arista has some unique features and is quite differentiated from the offerings of competitors. Importantly, about 50% of customers are new to Arista. It is apparent that the campus switch offering has driven Aristas enterprise segment into position as the companys second largest revenue segment. It doesnt seem farfetched to expect campus switch revenues to provide a 1000 basis point tailwind to total revenues both in 2020 and beyond.

The company has launched the next generation of switches, its 400GB -7500 product family It is now about 16 month since the launch, and the company hasnt seen the kind of acceptance it initially had been expecting. Many observers, including this writer, had expected a demand growth cadence similar to that which had been seen during the introduction of the 100GB product line. Why it has taken longer for the 400GB architecture to get accepted is not readily knowable. Many in the industry have different theories. Arista has talked about the optical components, necessary for deployment, having moved out such that initial deployments of the switch on a mass basis will come in 2H of this year.

The introduction of the 100GB solution set made Arista. It was the single most salient factor in the companys hyper-growth and market share gains in 2016-17. The reasons users have migrated progressively to higher performance switches havent changed. Users need more bandwidth to support digital transformation applications. The cadence of the migration will not determine the amplitude.

Does Arista enjoy the same level of perceived product differentiation withing the 400 GB switch category as it has enjoyed heretofore. That is another issue that is hard for me to determine with any degree of confidence. I have every reason to believe that the advantages that Arista has enjoyed havent changed much in this category when compared to the 100GB switch. My guess, too, is that when the apparent logjam of implementation breaks, the upside in demand for Arista will be far greater than anyone might prudently forecast. I have no reason to believe that the growth in demand caused by the advance in technology will not be of a similar magnitude to the growth seen in 2016-17, and that is obviously not what is being factored into forecasts or valuation analysis.

Finally, it might be well to suggest that some growth for Arista is likely to be coming from Aristas other two acquisitions, Metamako and Mojo. Both of these are smaller companies, but both of them have solutions that fit well for Aristas strategy. Can they produce a few hundred basis points of revenue growth. Both of them fit the thesis of pivoting this business to one with a more balanced revenue profile: Metamakos solutions are focused on users in financial services with ultra-low latency requirements and Mojo invented the Cognitive WiFi offering that has facilitated the development of cloud managed wireless networking.

Recommending ANET shares at this point involves a certain amount of a leap of faith or a leap into the dark if one prefers. I chose to write this article at this time to take advantage of that uncertainty and to comment positively on the potential ANET has to use its Big Switch acquisition to emerge as a different company from one exclusively based on selling high-performance switches to Cloud Titans.

There are certainly straws in the wind suggesting that some of the demand obstacles that Arista commented about last quarter have abated. Amongst these would be multiple comments from various companies talking about strength in enterprise IT spending, comments from Intel that its business with cloud providers was very strong in the December quarter and commentary from some 3rd party industry analysts suggesting that the pullback in IT spending is, or will shortly abate. Fundamentally, the growth of the cloud titans, and their need to manage data hasnt changed; whether the timing of their capex, or its priorities may have changed they still have to manage data in their centers to provide their end-customers low latency service.

On the other hand, MSFTs quarterly report out this afternoon as I write this, showed a noticeable fall in Q4 capex, confirming in part the rather subdued guidance for Arista about which I commented earlier. That said, MSFT is not likely to be able to continue to grow its cloud revenues by over 60% and to grow other components of its business at elevated rates without the necessity of upping its capex at some point over the coming quarters.

Arista talked on its latest call about demand issues with its two smallest verticals, Tier 2 Cloud Vendors and Service Providers. I imagine the Service Provider space will continue to be a negative for Arista as it has been for most other vendors selling to service providers . I think the negative sentiment expressed by the management of Arista on its latest call regarding Tier 2 cloud vendors may have been overstated. The overall growth in traffic in the cloud is not slowing, even if that is not always reflected in revenues.

I wrote extensively about Big Switch and its potential revenue synergies as well as its acquisition changing the center of gravity of this company. I suppose we are going to have to wait until February 13 before we see an announcement, and just how many details will be revealed at that point is not knowable by this writer. Still, I think that taking the core capabilities of Arista, and moving them into the broader networking space is likely to produce a highly favorable outcome that has yet to be fully discounted.

While ANET shares have bounced noticeably from the levels they fell to after the last conference call, the valuation metrics that I use are still materially constrained. Even after a rally of about 26% from the companys trough, the EV/S ratio is still less than 3X and the free cash flow margin is at or over 30%. I have used a 3 year 10% growth rate in finding a growth cohort for Arista. I obviously believe that Arista has a potential to substantially exceed that kind of growth over the next several years, but regardless the shares are more than 40% below the average EV/S for 10% growth. In addition, the shares have a free cash flow margin that is 30% above average for the 10% growth cohort I think the management team is particularly strong as I have detailed in prior articles on the company. Not all of the positives are going to emerge in a single quarter or on a single conference call. But I think the risk/rewards are very strongly stacked in favor of a commitment to the shares at the current time and at the current price.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, but may initiate a long position in ANET over the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Unlocking the Key to the Cloud – Security Boulevard

Written by admin on January 23, 2020 — Leave a Comment

Managing keys to assets and data in cloud deployments have become a key concern for many organizations. As explained by Kenneth Hui, a Solutions Architect at Rubrik, paraphrasing Kerckhoffs Principle, poor key management is like having a state of the art anti-burglar system for your home but leaving the house keys and alarm codes under the welcome mat.

Keys provide access to countless cloud resources, from SaaS services to SSH servers. Compromised keys can be used to access encrypted data, reissue digital certificates, or even steal cars. Keys provide a great deal of security and convenience, but can become extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. Well explore the risks of storing cryptographic/access keys insecurely, and how you can protect yourself with Orca. At the end of the day, an improperly saved key is usually the difference between a contained incident, should one machine be breached, to a full blown data leak which makes the morning news.

At its core, a cryptographic key is a string of bytes used to decrypt data or authorize access to a resource. They allow you to secure and restrict access to cloud assets, even if those assets are accessible from a public network. However, keys commonly leak due to accidental exposures, misconfigurations, or other means. They must be stored securely so that they can be used without becoming vulnerable to attackers.

One of the top challenges in key management is verifying that in fact keys are stored ONLY where they should be. Keys can be found in several locations, including:

Developers also tend to leave keys in semi-hidden locations such as file archives. While these might mask keys from superficial scans, a more dedicated attacker can easily extract them and use them for lateral movement. In addition, keys have a variety of forms. A private SSH key is significantly different from a GitHub personal access token, but both could be used to wreak havoc on your applications and infrastructure.

It only takes one stolen key for an attacker to cause mayhem. For example, an exposed SSH key can give attackers access to internal servers, potentially granting access to private data or the ability to move laterally to other resources. An exposed service account key for a cloud platform can allow attackers to provision new services, control infrastructure, steal data, or perform any number of malicious actions. Any proper security strategy must assume that some assets will be breached, and ensure that if this happens, the attacker will not be able to access all of the organization crown jewels.

To build a strong defense, you need to think like an attacker. Defenders tend to think in terms of checklists, while attackers think in graphs. They find an opening and leverage it to access connected insecure resources. All it takes is one small opening, a weak backdoor, and a swath of other systems are immediately at risk.

The most effective way to detect insecure keys is with a comprehensive security solution like Orca Security. Orca scans your entire environment for exposed keys and not only identifies where theyre located, but which assets are put at risk as a result. We will automatically alert you when keys that can be used to perform malicious actions are detected, but havent yet been revoked. Time is of the essence when it comes to insecure keys and our goal is to provide you with the information you need to prevent a breach.

Securing keys is not an easy task. Like any other form of private data, keys must be managed and stored securely to prevent abuse and theft. Orca reduces the potential impact of poorly managed keys by performing in-depth scans of your environment, immediately alerting you to exposed keys, and determining which resources are placed at risk.

View original post here:
Unlocking the Key to the Cloud - Security Boulevard

What is the difference between SaaS and Cloud Computing – WhaTech

Written by admin on January 23, 2020 — Leave a Comment

SaaS is the short form for Software as a service and it is commonly used now along with cloud computing often interchangeably.

These both are becoming the norm of many businesses now. Before we go deep down to the definition of both, lets understand the basic difference between both. Cloud is the basic platform or the hosting space, on which the SaaS service is used. For pointing out the difference between both SaaS and Cloud computing it is important to know what these two are.

Cloud Computing and Saas - Explained Cloud computing

Cloud computing is quite different but has some common benefits as well. First of all, what is the cloud? To put it in simple terms, the cloud can be thought of as the internet. If you are using cloud-based software, you can use the internet to access it wherever and whenever you want. You have to have a proper internet connection of course.

You should also have the skill to log into the system via a web browser. Cloud computing can be done via PC, phone or desktop from your home or office quite comfortably.

No wonder many companies who are providing varies level of services and launching their products over different variants, opt forcloud computing services. There are many benefits of cloud computing such as you do not need to have a host, maintain, upgrade or worry about data security of the servers. The hosting company maintains the working of the servers and the operating system. For those companies who deal with cloud hosting are all professionals in these fields and can easily handle cloud integration services. Some of the major cloud service providers include- Amazon Web Browser, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure among many.

Considering the various advantages that cloud computing offers to associations, a reasonable case can be made that cloud computing is progressively turning into the new typical. Cloud computing is helping the general public to adapt to future issues, for example, overseeing huge information, digital security, and quality control.

SaaS

Software as a Service is a software licensing and delivery model in which the software is properly licensed to the user. SaaS can help find the right cloud integration services based on your needs. Generally, SaaS applications can be licensed on a subscription basis. The application is accessed through the internet and a web browser. Needless to say, you should have an adequate internet connection for this as well.

SaaS application development can be achieved with the help of a professional developer or by hiring a company. The application runs on the SaaS providers server. With SaaS, you dont have to worry about your server maintenance. Like cloud computing, SaaS is a cost-effective way to access your data anywhere and everywhere. Due to the increasing demand for software as a service method, many experienced companies have started providing SaaS development services. Some of SaaS applications include- Salesforce, Quickbooks Online, Citrix GoToMeeting. Hence to conclude in simple ways SaaS is a simple licensed way to a software application through the internet. Software as a Service has a great deal to offer. On being utilized appropriately, it can enable your business to set aside funds, time and HR. By disposing of issues like programming support and contradiction, SaaS can give streamlined concentration and more noteworthy efficiency. In any case, just like others, SaaS has a few downsides as well.

From the above explanations, we have got some idea of what SaaS and Cloud computing is and why are they gaining worldwide application in many businesses nowadays. This will, however, grow with the years to come for sure. Now lets dig into the difference between these two.

Cloud Computing and SaaS: Major differences

By now we have understood the fact that cloud computing services and Software as a Service are closely related terms but are still a bit different.

On the other hand,

Conclusion

Hence from the above description, the differences, similarities, and benefits of the two closely related terms- Software as a Service and Cloud computing are quite clear. After this thorough discussion, it must be understood how both are different ideas but work together complementing each other to bring about easy to access, cost-friendly software applications to its worldwide users.

By not basing themselves on the users computer or device or even for that matter on the companys server, bothSaaS development servicesand Cloud computing removes the need for complicated installations and regular maintenance. One does not need to worry about updating their software that responsibility lies with the vendor. Hence this makes your company free of the extra workload and helps you in focusing on more important areas that require your immediate attention. It offers an alternative that maintains and updates the software of your users and makes things a bit more efficient and simpler.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

See original here:
What is the difference between SaaS and Cloud Computing - WhaTech

Cloud Hosting

Category Archives: Cloud Servers

Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet have traveled similar paths on the road to $1 trillion – CNBC

Directory Migration Timing: 11 Opportunities to Ditch Active Directory – Security Boulevard

Australias Iconic Hotels taps cloud for speed and cost savings – ComputerWeekly.com

The 28 Best Data Analytics Software and Top Tools for 2020 – Solutions Review

Apples redesigned Maps app is available across the US, adds real-time transit for Miami – TechCrunch

HyperFlex becomes mates with K8s: No need to go through vSphere first – Blocks and Files

ControlUp Update Adds Native Integration with VMware Horizon – Virtualization Review

Arista Networks – Is This A Phoenix And The Implications Of The Apparent Big Switch Acquisition – Seeking Alpha

Unlocking the Key to the Cloud – Security Boulevard

What is the difference between SaaS and Cloud Computing – WhaTech

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives

Media Sites

Pages

Site admin