Enterprises see the sunshine on big data opportunities. It is only an issue of time before mainstream data-management environments evolve. What’s the status of the large data revolution? Fresh clues emerged with week with Hadoop vendor Cloudera scoring a $160 million round a chance capital funding, big data analytics company Platfora getting a $38 million capital infusion, and Allied Market Research issuing an estimate that the $2 billion Hadoop ecosystem (as measured in 2013) will quickly grow to $50 billion by 2020. Citing that heady $50 billion stat, Rob Bearden, CEO of Cloudera-rival Hortonworks, said that he expects see “60%, 70%, 80%” of enterprise data stepping into Hadoop over the approaching years. Speaking at this week’s GigaOM Structure Data big data event in Long island, Bearden said Hadoop changes the economics of managing data, giving companies a sought-after “single platform that manages all data types and structures.” Structure keynoter Paul Maritz, CEO of EMC-spinoff Pivotal, said his company is targeted on making Hadoop enterprise-ready so... Read More »

Platform-as-a-service differs from IaaS. IBM’s Ric Telford predicts what we’ll see because it matures in the course of the next two years. More than two years ago I wrote the blog post “PaaS Comes Of Age,” where I posited we were entering a platform-as-a-service era — one by which platform services would become the critical cloud capability for enterprises. a whole lot has happened since I wrote that post, and now we’re seeing this “coming of age” story continue into maturity. For the uninitiated, PaaS could be considered a delivery model for functionality you traditionally go along with middleware. Not so coincidently, it also sits inside the “middle” of the cloud stack, between infrastructure-as-a-service and software-as-a-service. PaaS can deliver any combination of application “development” and “runtime” services from the cloud, in some sort of measured model (subscription, pay-as-you-go, etc). Today there are quite a number of PaaS services, such a lot of that it’s hard to maintain them straight. Many companies have converged in this... Read More »

SmartCloud Data Virtualization puts virtualized copies of application data within the cloud, then makes it available wherever it’s most needed. IBM Predicts Next 5 Life-Changing Tech Innovations (Click image for larger view.) IBM has launched SmartCloud Data Virtualization, a cloud storage service that depends Actifio’s Virtual Data Pipeline technology. Actifio’s “one golden copy” option to data may entice enterprises that need multiple copies of every application’s data but try to scale back storage costs. IBM previously recommended a few of its customers store data in now-defunct Nirvanix’s cloud datacenters. Its partnership with Actifio acknowledges that cloud storage have to be backed by stronger vendors with more sophisticated data management systems. SmartCloud Data Virtualization is IBM’s first major foray into data management in accordance with cloud services since Nirvanix declared bankruptcy last October. Actifio can put a front end on multiple applications, each with its own storage system, through IBM’s SmartCloud Data Virtualization service. Enterprise users of the info continue to access it the identical... Read More »

Three initiatives meant to enhance government IT security are languishing from funding challenges, yet CIOs are asked to deliver at the promise of shared services. 6 Cool Apps From Uncle Sam (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) The Obama administration has made an unprecedented commitment to creating government data driven. It has also made cybersecurity a centerpiece of its IT strategy. However it now finds itself mired in controversy on both fronts.   The less-than-stellar rollout of the web site designed to support the Affordable Care Act was a tremendous embarrassment, while the revelations surrounding NSA surveillance methods has cast doubts on the administration’s commitment to privacy as a keystone of national policy. These two story lines symbolize among the many challenges the administration faces in balancing the federal government’s IT investments: It must maintain public support for a sturdy cyberdefense without losing specialize in the civilian agency systems which are the general public interface with “e-government,” but which also must be made safer.   They... Read More »

People who claim Gmail violates anti-wiretapping laws must pursue their claims individually instead of as a set. 10 Great Google Apps Tips (Click image for larger view.) Google on Tuesday won a meaningful victory in a legal conflict that threatens Gmail and the company’s data mining practices. US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., denied class-action status to plaintiffs who claim that Gmail’s automated content scanning violates state and federal anti-wiretapping statutes. As a result, Gmail privacy claims will proceed individually, all alone merits. Not facing the possibility of an immense aggregated damage claim, Google could possibly reach settlements more easily or prevail outright. The ruling is way more favorable than the only issued by Judge Koh last September, when she denied Google’s motion to dismiss the claims. Google argued that its automated processing of email content falls under allowed “ordinary process business” exemptions and that the plaintiffs consented. The judge rejected the primary justification, saying Google must show its email interception was... Read More »