As part of the partnership, IBM is migrating to SAP S/4HANA Cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, according to the companies last month.

The transformation is intended to improve IBM business processes with RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud — private edition, premium supplier option with IBM Consulting.

The migration will help IBM perform work across more than 120 countries, 1,000 legal entities, and numerous IBM businesses, supporting software, hardware, consulting, and finance. 

The project will move more than 375 TB of data to IBM Power on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on IBM Cloud. 

IBM plans to eventually move more than 300 SAP instances and consolidate 500 servers with the RISE with SAP solution on IBM Power on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on IBM Cloud. 

IBM Consulting, with thousands of trained SAP consultants, is leading the transformation, an example of the companies combining their technology and consulting expertise to embrace a hybrid cloud approach and move mission-critical SAP software workloads to the cloud.

“This expanded partnership will enable IBM to accelerate its business transformation in the cloud and fuel its future growth,” said Christian Klein, CEO, SAP. 

“As a result, IBM will be positioned to provide the highest value of support and flexibility to its clients.”

The project is a “milestone business transformation initiative for both companies due to its complexity and scale,” said Arvind Krishna, chairman and CEO, IBM.

Krishna said with IBM’s experience using RISE with SAP internally, the company will be “even better prepared to support our clients on their hybrid cloud and business transformation journeys.”

Microsoft adopted the RISE with SAP platform on Microsoft Cloud, shifting the company’s SAP ERP software systems to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, according to SAP last month.

Microsoft’s implementation of RISE with SAP is intended to deepen Microsoft’s expertise with SAP solutions and establish best practices that can be shared to benefit their joint customers.

Microsoft is the first public cloud provider to adopt RISE with SAP internally for some of its large SAP ERP deployments, according to SAP.

See more: Nippon Gases Europe Implementing SAP ERP Software

RISE with SAP will help Microsoft “deploy new capabilities and technologies faster” and run its business on a platform that is integrated with the other SAP cloud solutions that Microsoft uses.

Microsoft uses various SAP applications: SAP SuccessFactors; SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain; SAP Business Technology Platform; and other SAP software running on Microsoft Azure. 

SAP has also migrated several of its “business-critical IT landscapes” to Microsoft Azure. 

SAP will optimize IT operations for some critical internal business systems under the operations model used for the RISE with SAP platform hosted on Microsoft Azure.

SAP and Microsoft have a long-standing partnership of co-innovation and engineering, which “forms the basis for the mutual support” of their products. SAP is also a Microsoft customer, and Microsoft is an SAP customer.

See more: Microsoft and Morgan Stanley Partnering on Cloud in Financial Services

“We will be sure to use the learnings from these deployments and share best practices with our customers,” said Florian Roth, chief digital and information officer, SAP. 

Roth said that Microsoft’s move to RISE with SAP is “a testament to the commitment and strength of SAP and Microsoft’s ongoing partnership to simplify customers’ journey to the cloud.”

“Modernizing highly complex, legacy SAP systems is directly relevant to us at Microsoft and to many of our customers,” said Charlotte Yarkoni, president of commerce + ecosystems, Microsoft. 

“Leveraging the power of the RISE with SAP solution on Azure will give us the flexibility and agility needed to scale quickly, meet the needs of our own business, and share that experience with our customers.”

See more: SAP: Cloud Platform Review

Panasonic selected Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) to “drastically reduce” administrative activities and strengthen business management, according to Oracle last month.

With Oracle Cloud ERP and Oracle Cloud EPM, Panasonic intends to streamline business operations, gain deeper financial insights, and position the company for a new era of expansion.

Panasonic, a technology conglomerate, serves several industries, such as consumer electronics, housing, and automotive. 

The project will be implemented by Panasonic Information Systems, Oracle Japan Consulting Services, and IBM Japan.

As part of its Panasonic Transformation (PX), Panasonic is transitioning its business model to a holding company structure to support autonomous management, market expansion, and changing business conditions. To accomplish the goal, Panasonic needed to upgrade its 20-year old finance systems.

With Oracle Cloud ERP, Panasonic will gain a “comprehensive view” of financial data from every part of its business and critical insights to improve its accounting processes. 

With Oracle Cloud EPM, Panasonic plans to improve financial planning, forecasting, and execution. 

Panasonic will also use the artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities built into the Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite to reduce the time it spends on administrative processes and focus on “more strategic, innovative work.” 

Oracle expects its cloud applications can help Panasonic “better respond to change, improve operational efficiency, and optimize new business processes,” said Toshimitsu Misawa, member of the board, corporate executive officer, and president of Oracle Japan. 

“In an industry characterized by rapidly evolving needs, this continuous stream of innovation with cloud technology is critical to success.”

SAIL selected HPE GreenLake to deliver an on-premises private cloud with on-demand capacity for its Central Marketing Organization (CMO), according to HPE last month.

SAIL’s infrastructure was reaching “end of life,” and the organization needed to migrate to SAP’s S/4 HANA enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to improve application availability and business continuity. 

SAIL wanted a cloud experience with flexible capacity to handle its constant growth in data, but it also wanted to keep its data in its data center.

HPE led the design and implementation of the end-to-end solution, covering HPE and third-party products, including data center deliverables.  

HPE Pointnext Services worked with SAIL to manage the system integration project and implementation. HPE designed an architecture based on open standards and a storage refresh. The HPE team migrated from Unix to Linux with minimal application downtime.

The new environment lowered the data center footprint and resulted in reduced power consumption and operational complexity, improving operating costs.

The HPE GreenLake platform meets regulatory compliance and requirements, with the data remaining on-premises, and delivers the private cloud through a pay-per-use model.

HPE GreenLake Central also gives SAIL a dashboard to monitor and plan the daily consumption of IT, enhance spend visibility, and improve budget planning. 

The implementation allows SAIL to “address their current and future business challenges,” said Som Satsangi, managing director, HPE India. 

“We look forward to further build on this and offer the same services to other public and private entities,” Satsangi said.

2022 promises several nascent and growing data initiatives across segments of the market and within enterprises. 

Read on to learn what a group of experts predict we can expect in data science and analytics in 2022:

9 Data Predictions for 2022

1. Addressing growing data quality concerns
2. Investing in remote worker cybersecurity and threat detection
3. The growth of natural language processing
4. Commodifying the Internet of Things for real business needs
5. Leaning on AI for network monitoring
6. Data fabrics aiding the management of unstructured data
7. Tech workers demanding new benefits
8. Shifting cloud security landscape
9. Localization meets globalization in data compliance

Also read: Big Data Trends in 2022 and The Future of Big Data

1. Addressing growing data quality concerns

Everything from machine learning (ML) models to network security monitoring tools to enterprise resource planning (ERP) software requires access to large pools of big data.

And while many organizations have been collecting and finding the data they need to fuel these tools, they have not always placed data quality management at the forefront of their priorities. 

2021 was one of the first years when data quality improvement started to receive focus, but still, many organizations do not feel confident that their data is clean or usable.

Tendü Yogurtçu, CTO at Precisely, a global leader in data integrity, believes that data quality initiatives will not only continue in the new year but will grow as many organizations expressed concerns about the operationality of their data in 2021. 

“Data quality and data integrity will continue to be major focuses for organizations in 2022,” Yogurtçu said. Organizations are becoming more data-driven, which seems obvious, but now the pressing need is ensuring the quality of that data over quantity. 

“And while most enterprises have established a basic foundation for data-driven decision making, they also report struggles with achieving data integrity at scale. In fact, 80% of chief data officers surveyed by Corinium have data quality issues that interfere with integration.

“Businesses will enrich their data by adding context from third-party data and eliminating data silos, allowing better quality data for their organization.”

Learn about data analytics trends: Top Data Analytics Trends

2. Investing in remote worker cybersecurity and threat detection

A number of companies have permanently or semi-permanently shifted their teams to remote work. 

There are definite pros and cons to this workplace shift, with one of the most crucial drawbacks being the limited network security infrastructure and visibility when workers are on their home networks and personal devices.

Brian Robertson, senior product marketing manager for RSA NetWitness, a top security information and event management (SIEM) and extended detection and response (XDR) security solutions provider, believes there are several key threat detection technologies and techniques that can help companies improve their remote worker security posture and reduce their risk of a cybersecurity breach.

“Many organizations are now supporting remote work, so now cybercriminals are finding ways to exploit that through either infiltration techniques or ransomware,” Robertson said.

“There are multiple approaches to address this, but a couple seem to be gaining a lot of momentum. The first is extended detection and response, and the second, which some look at as complimentary to XDR and some view it as part of XDR, is SOAR.

“XDR is designed to detect threats, regardless of where they live, by using endpoint and network data and applying advanced analytics to it. We also feel that XDR should incorporate vast threat intelligence and leverage automation and orchestration to act against identified threats.

“SOAR is designed to leverage vast threat intelligence to identify threats, and those threat intelligence sources can be open threat feeds, subscription threat feeds, industry intelligence, and even crowd-sourced intelligence. However, having all this intelligence is only useful if you can take direct and focused action against it, either by orchestrating activities across the security team or through automation performed by an orchestration and automation solution.”

Learn about cybersecurity trends: Top Emerging Cybersecurity Trends

3. The growth of natural language processing 

Natural language processing (NLP) is continuing to take new shapes as different businesses discover valuable applications of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Several experts believe that NLP will grow across industries in the next year. 

Ali Siddiqui, chief product officer at BMC, a large IT consulting and services firm, said more companies will recognize the value-add of NLP-driven customer service bots in the near future.

“We can expect natural language processing to grow in the future,” Siddiqui said. 

“Chatbots built on NLP improve efficiency and provide better customer experiences. They provide fast, relevant answers and streamline communication by closing feedback loops and improving productivity gains, allowing employees to spend time on more meaningful tasks.”

Ranjan Goel, VP of products at LogicMonitor, a cloud-based infrastructure monitoring platform, said NLP has started and will continue to help with unstructured data and security management.

“Natural language processing has advanced significantly in consumer use cases and is now moving into enterprise products to help with unstructured data,” Goel said. “It’s enterprise use cases vary, including finding anomalies in the logs, cluster logs, and alerts.”

Jean-François Gagné, head of AI product and strategy at ServiceNow, an IT service management (ITSM) and service desk software provider, said low-code/no-code applications are starting to be developed through natural language interfaces.

“Fundamental research in text to SQL is paving the way for software applications to be built through natural language interfaces, without the need for any knowledge of how to write code,” Gagné said. “A user describes the application they want to an intelligent chatbot, along with the data to use for training, and AI can take care of building the application on the fly.”

Learn about artificial intelligence trends: Artificial Intelligence Trends & Predictions

4. Commodifying the Internet of Things for real business needs

Many Internet of Things (IoT) developers and customers have explored different IoT applications for a while now, but piecemeal IoT engagement has not driven true business gains for most users. 

Some experts predict now that many companies are comfortable with the basic idea of and need for IoT, they’ll begin to truly strategize how IoT can meet their business goals.

Vishal Gupta, chief information and technology officer at Lexmark International, an IoT and cloud imaging solutions company, believes many organizations, including those that do not have in-house IoT expertise, will find ways to create actionable IoT products that optimize their existing products and services.

“I view IoT innovation as being more integrated to key business outcomes,” Gupta said. “Until now, there has been a mentality to push technology forward, even if the results didn’t necessarily produce any tangible benefit for the business. In other words, innovation for innovation’s sake. 

“The problem, as identified by McKinsey, is that a majority of these IoT experiments, 84%, to be exact, get stuck in the pilot phase. The foundation already exists with cloud, 5G, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. With the pandemic, there is a pressing need to make IoT matter.

“In 2022, organizations who cannot build their own IoT solutions will partner with experts — in software or services — to start realizing predictable, repeatable, and measurable outcomes. If they don’t, they risk falling behind.”

Learn about IoT trends: Top Internet of Things (IoT) Trends: The Future of IoT

5. Leaning on AI for network monitoring

Artificial intelligence use cases have grown across industries in process automation, cybersecurity, and customer service, to name a few. 

But AI has typically been used as a supportive technology for legacy solutions, like workflows, campaigns, and dashboards. Few companies have used AI to completely replace these technologies.

Jeff Aaron, VP of enterprise marketing for Juniper Networks, a top global networking company, believes that 2022 may see AI take over standby technologies in network monitoring, such as administrative dashboards. 

“AI-driven assistants will largely take over the monitoring and troubleshooting process in networks,” Aaron said. “They say ‘video killed the radio star,’ and now artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and natural language understanding (NLU) are going to kill the dashboard star.

“Looking ahead, the days of hunting and pecking or looking at charts will go by the wayside, because you can now type in a question and get an answer or have issues flagged for you and in some cases, actually fixed on their own — known as self-driving.

“You’re going to see a trend around AI-driven assistants replacing dashboards and changing the way we troubleshoot, essentially eliminating the ‘swivel chair’ interface.”

Learn about networking trends: Latest Trends & Developments in Networking

6. Data fabrics aiding the management of unstructured data

Data fabrics intend to connect and eliminate silos across different enterprise data storage setups. 

In 2022, experts expect that data fabrics will become a planned, fleshed-out initiative for several companies, especially as their big data management needs grow in size and complexity.

Krishna Subramanian, president, co-founder, and COO of Komprise, an unstructured data management-as-a-service (DMaaS) company, believes that data fabrics will be solidified as more companies need a better solution for managing unstructured data.

“Data fabric is still a vision,” Subramanian said. “It recognizes that your data is living in a lot of places, and a fabric can bridge the silos and deliver greater portability, visibility, and governance. 

“Data fabric research has typically focused on semi-structured and structured data. But 90% of the world’s data now is unstructured — think videos, X-rays, genomics files, log files, sensor data — and this data has no defined schema. 

“Data lakes and data analytics applications cannot readily access this dark data locked in files. So data fabric technologies need to bridge the unstructured data storage, file storage and object storage, and data analytics platforms — data lakes, ML and natural language processors, image analytics, etc. 

“Analyzing unstructured data is becoming more important as machine learning relies on unstructured data. Data fabric technologies need to be open, standards-based, and look across environments. 

“In 2022, the data fabric should move from being a vision to a set of architectural principles of data management. Technology vendors need to incorporate unstructured data into their data fabric architectures, given its rising importance and sheer magnitude.”

Learn more: What is a Data Fabric?

7. Tech workers demanding new benefits

The job market is a job seeker’s market, where the demand for new staff makes it possible for candidates to ask for higher salaries and better benefits. 

For technology workers in particular, experts are predicting that organizations will not only need to offer higher salaries in 2022, but also benefits that support their professional development and personal health.

Dice, a top technology career marketplace and research company, recently released “Tech Hiring Trends for 2022” with this explanation of what technologists will expect from job offers in the next year.

“But compensation isn’t all technologists will be asking for. In the 2021 ‘Dice Tech Salary Report,’ released earlier this year, we reported on the top benefits technologists currently have and the benefits they want. As to be expected, traditional benefits, such as health insurance, paid vacation days and 401(k) matching/pension topped the list, but there were some significant gaps midway down the list in what technologists desire and what they are receiving. 

“There was a 23% gap for training and education and a 17% gap for stock programs, hinting at where employers could differentiate their offerings to attract and retain tech talent. There was also a 15% gap in flexible schedule options, which is another lesson learned in 2021 that we discuss in the ‘Flexibility in Work Structure’ section.

“We believe these are the gaps that industrious employers, and especially those who may not have the resources of larger competitors, can look to fill through new programs or adjustments to current initiatives, giving them an advantage in conversations with technologist talent.”

Learn about data science career trends: Data Science Job Market: Build a Career in Data Science

8. Shifting cloud security landscape

The cloud computing industry continues to grow into new sectors and lines of business, and at the same time, cloud computing continues to shift its identity to meet new corporate challenges and priorities.

Vishwas Manral, chief architect of cloud at McAfee Enterprise and co-chair of the Cloud Security Alliance, thinks that 2022 will likely bring change to the cloud security vendor landscape, specifically through consolidation.

“There are currently way too many cloud security tools on the market and because of this, we are now seeing a trend towards consolidation,” Manral said.

“Because of this, there is now a large number of mergers and acquisitions happening in the cloud security market with even more consolidation on the horizon.”

Learn about cloud security trends: Top Cloud Security Trends

9. Localization meets globalization in data compliance

New global data regulations and deadlines for compliance are already planned for the next few years and more continue to join the list. 

Many companies have traditionally focused on their own industries’ regulations, but as global companies continue to move to new markets with stringent policies, localized data compliance and management will be even more necessary in 2022.

Sovan Bin, CEO of Odaseva, a data management and compliance solution designed for Salesforce, said more global regulations will require action by companies. 

“Privacy regulation will continue to go global while requiring increasing localized implementation and storage,” Bin said. 

“2021 saw the China Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) passed at astonishing speed, cementing this trend. The extent of the requirements will become clearer as implementing regulations are introduced in 2022.”

Read next: Top Data Management Platforms and Software

What are some of the most successful enterprises in the world doing to analyze their data most effectively? 

Read on to learn about some of the top data analytics software providers and how their customers are applying their tools.

Data Analytics: Enterprise Use Cases

• FedEx on Oracle Cloud
• Pizza Hut on AWS
• American Eagle Outfitters on Google Cloud
• NHL on SAP
• Members 1st Federal Credit Union on Microsoft Azure

Also read: Data Analytics Market Review 2021

FedEx on Oracle Cloud

In an industry where speed, efficiency, transparency, and accuracy are paramount to the customer experience, FedEx turned to the Oracle suite of cloud applications to improve its visibility on performance analytics and the overall shipment life cycle. Many of its innovations are focused on making enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain data available in real-time.

“The Oracle Analytics tools allow us to drill into the operations on an almost real-time basis and see what’s going on and evaluate how things are developing worldwide,” says Chris Wood, VP of business transformation, FedEx.

Industry: Shipping

Use Cases: ERP, enterprise performance management (EPM), supply chain management, AI-powered analytics, unified platform, platform scalability, cloud application optimization

Outcomes:

• Oracle Cloud’s advanced dashboard features and analytics tools enable complex cost analysis for finance operations
• FedEx standardized more than 220 operations with over 40 Oracle Cloud applications 
• More than 3,000 employees use Oracle Analytics Cloud for data-driven decision making that includes AI, machine learning, and service automation
• 2X faster speed to market for code deployments and other digital operations
• Complete virtual deployment of Oracle Cloud ERP software now possible and implemented in nine new instances during the COVID-19 pandemic

Read the full FedEx on Oracle Cloud case study here.

Pizza Hut on AWS

Pizza Hut is the largest pizza chain restaurant in the world, with a particularly large presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Pizza Hut’s Asian franchises were each analyzing their own data metrics and sending them into a central location to be consolidated. But the restaurant’s leadership wanted to find a solution that would be more efficient for tracking performance across the region. The chain’s primary goal with AWS was to create a single dashboard where authorized users could input, view, and create reports on different insights from the region.

“Within two months, we could see whether the region was hitting sales targets and performance goals with green and red indicators,” says Pin Yiing Kwok, APAC digital experience manager, Pizza Hut.

 “We could also drill down on any potential issues and identify what needed troubleshooting.”

Industries: Food, beverage

Use Cases: Data consolidation, quicker franchise performance insights, real-time visualization and analytics, business intelligence reporting, scalable data ecosystem

Outcome:

• Single dashboard consolidation of data from 2,800 stores and 15 countries
• Real-time consumer data and insights available to internal stakeholders
• Developed 20 business intelligence reports over five months
• Data pipeline advances make it possible to generate unique business intelligence reports in minutes
• AWS CloudTrail and AWS Organizations improve user access management, permission management, cost management, and compliance

Read the full Pizza Hut on AWS case study here.

American Eagle Outfitters on Google Cloud

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) is a retailer that has long engaged with data analytics technologies, but it went to Google Cloud to improve its knowledge of customer behavior with more granular data analytics. By working with Google and a professional services firm, AEO updated its analytics setup and created a test environment to isolate different buyer data and determine what data is contributing to sales changes.

“We’ve been on the cutting edge with respect to fabrics, fashion, and overall product-line innovation,” says Jimmy Hunkele, director of data analytics at AEO. 

“Every year, we are making significant investments in marketing, merchandising, and in-store, and we need to make sure that we are making the right decisions on this digital frontier. Powerful solutions for analyzing large volumes of data with advanced analytics are critical to achieving this outcome.”

Industries: Retail, fashion, e-commerce

Use Cases: Big data analytics, data storage, scalability, growing processing power, data warehousing, reporting, embedded analytics

Outcomes:

• Developed centralized data storage for transaction, inventory, and web data that optimizes performance
• Established an analytics testing and deployment environment in four months
• Millions of dollars in savings through store testing and a cost-effective analytics platform
• BigQuery used to analyze customer site interactions in real-time on a large scale
• Reduced extract, transform, and load (ETL) times, furthered data consolidation, and optimized web analytics and testing platforms through a single system

Read the full American Eagle Outfitters on Google Cloud case study here. 

NHL on SAP

The National Hockey League (NHL) is one of the most popular professional sports leagues in the world. While most industry improvements are focused on the audience, the NHL turned to SAP’s analytics solutions to improve the coach and player experience. The league specifically worked with SAP to create a mobile application for real-time analytics to help coaches use data to coach their teams.

“SAP has proven to be a great partner in working with us on the development of the SAP-NHL Coaching Insights app,” says Dave Lehanski, SVP of development and innovation, NHL.

“SAP technologies, along with expert guidance from SAP Preferred Success, allowed us to quickly and effectively roll out the app with overall buy-in from everyone involved. We couldn’t ask for a better partner.” 

Industry: Professional sports

Use Cases: Mobile application development, real-time insights, smart data integration, business technology platform development

Outcomes:

• Development of the SAP-NHL Coaching Insights mobile app
• Real-time, decision-oriented player metrics available for coaches through SAP Mobile Services
• SAP Extension Suite and SAP HANA Cloud translate all in-game hockey data to the application
• A mission-critical system with rapid incident reporting
• Managing player development and coaching insights for 31 NHL teams

Read the full NHL on SAP case study here. 

Members 1st Federal Credit Union on Microsoft Azure

Members 1st Federal Credit Union went to Azure to develop a more unified and automated approach to customer insights and internal goals reporting for its branches. Primarily through Power BI, the credit union created a user-friendly dashboard that enables all of its branch leaders to understand their own numbers and how they relate to the numbers of other regions and the organization as a whole. This automated approach to analytics is also improving the customer experience:

“Instead of our associates spending time tracking their own goals, they now have more time to spend helping our members achieve their goals,” says Anita McAllister, assistant vice president of data and analytics, Members 1st Federal Credit Union

Industry: Banking

Use Cases: Reporting, data visualizations, dashboards, data quality assurance, unifying branch data and goals, digital transformation for desktop and mobile interfaces, marketing data

Outcomes:

• Automated, aggregated reporting of data from several branch locations through Power BI
• Automated reporting dashboards have eliminated data discrepancies from the previously manual process and ensured the use of validated data in reports
• A Power BI dashboard gives branch leaders insight into products, regions, and staff responsibilities
• Newly created branch reporting dashboard is saving the credit union an estimated 10,000+ hours a year
• Recent launch of a data-driven online banking platform and a redesigned mobile app for an improved customer experience 

Read the full Members 1st Federal Credit Union on Microsoft Azure case study here. 

Also read: Data Analytics Market Trends 2021

Last week, voting wrapped up for the Third Annual ServerWatch Product Excellence Awards. The anticipation has been building for a week, but we can now bring you the results.

After two years of holding this reader-driven program, we thought we knew what to expect. How naive we were. While in some cases history repeated and patterns continued, in others, new and sometimes surprising winners emerged.

As usual, innovation was a key driver, but this year, with enterprises tightening their belts and IT budgets growing leaner, the mindshare that accompanies being tried-and-true appears to have given these products an advantage.

To request an EPS version of a Product of the Year Award logo click here.

Small Business Server

There’s nothing small about small businesses. With 25 million in the United States, according to the Small Business Administration, they are responsible for creating roughly two-thirds of all new jobs.

So it’s no surprise the big vendors continue to see big opportunities in small and midsize business market. Despite ever-intensifying competition in the Small Business Server category, Dell defended its title edging out the Apple xServe.

The winning Dell PowerEdge 2970is similar to its predecessor (the PowerEdge 2950) in that it’s built to be a general-purpose server that shines whether it’s playing the role of a application, database, file/print, e-mail or other type of server. However, PowerEdge 2970 does feature some notable distinctions. The biggest, of course, is that unlike the Intel Xeon-based 2950, the 2970 is based on AMD’s Opteron dual-core processor.

Apple grabbed the runner-up spot with the Apple xServe. It took home the prize two years ago, so it’s clear that Dell and Apple are now consistent favorites among ServerWatch readers.

As is typical with Apple products, the xServe carries a pricing premium over comparable Windows servers. The xServe is based on Apple’s 64-bit OS X Server and includes an unlimited client license, which helps make up for that pricing premium. Because OS X is built on a Unix base, many server functions are repackaged open source applications, including Apache, Tomcat, MySQL, and Samba. Apple adds value by integrating its administration into an accessible, unified interface.

Winners and Runners-up Small Business Server Winner: Dell PowerEdge 2970 Runner-up: Apple xServe Midrange Server Winner: Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 Runner-up: HP Integrity rx7640 High-End Server or Mainframe Winner: HP Integrity Superdome Runner-up: IBM System z10 Blade Server Winner: HP BladeSystem C3000 Runner-up: IBM BladeCenter Storage System Winner: NetApp FAS2000 Series Runner-up: Hitachi Simple Modular Storage Model 100 Operating System Winner: Windows Server 2008 (Microsoft) Runner-up: Mac OS X Server “Leopard” 10.5 (Apple) Virtualization Platform Winner: VMware Infrastructure 3 Runner-up: Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition Runner-up: Sun xVM Virtualization Tool Winner: VMLogix LabManager Manager Runner-up: Hyperic HQ Automation or Compliance Tool Tool Winner: CommVault Simpana Software Suite Runner-up: GridApp Clarity Green Initiative Winner: The Green Grid (thegreengrid.org) Runner-up: Sun Eco Innovation

Midrange Server

The midrange server category has evolved to point where it’s unclear what it means. Multicore has muddied the waters and no one is looking at raw processors anymore. Still, there are servers that are neither entry-level nor high-end and that are designed to meet needs that don’t fall neatly into either category.

And some servers, like the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220, which took first place, are particularly nimble. Unveiled in October, the T5220 was one of the the first rack-mount systems to use Sun’s T2 processor, which features eight cores and supports eight threads per core. Although the 2U server contains a single processor, a spec that would not place it in the midrange categories of yore, it contains 64GB of memory and has room for eight hot-pluggable drives and can run either a 1.2GHz or 1.4GHz processor.

Readers also embraced the HP Integrity rx7640, a server that the OEM describes as midrange and well-suited for scaling to database hosting, ERP, CRM, business intelligence, data mining and data warehousing needs. The server holds up to eight dual-core Itanium processors and has 1200 GB (4×300 GB) of internal storage. Its memory capacity extends up to 256 GB, custom-designed 278pin DIMMs and bus bandwidth of 34 GB/s.

High-End Server or Mainframe

Historically, the high-end server market has been a crowded space with few players. HP and IBM typically dominate. Similarly, the pool of customers is small and deep-pocketed, yet they cannot afford downtime. Although the demographics are changing, most enterprises shopping for a mainframe fall near the Fortune 1000 line.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that the traditional won out yet again. This year the HP Integrity Superdome took back top honors. It boasts more than twice the performance of the previous-generation, single-core products, and it achieves that at a reduced power consumption rate.

Perhaps the key selling point of this new generation of Superdome servers is the configuration choices available. Enterprises can choose from in 16-, 32-, and 64-socket models. Dual-core Itanium processors and the sx2000 chipset power the servers, which have no internal disks, and thus must relay on direct-attached storage (such as SCSI) or network-attached storage (e.g., Fibre Channel or high-speed Ethernet).

Meanwhile, IBM, which in 2007 won for its z9 mainframe Enterprise Class, took the runner-up slot with its latest mainframe offering — the z10. The z10 was unveiled in February, and is the biggest overhaul to Big Iron in nearly three years. The z10 was designed with an eye on energy efficiency and virtualization as the paramount goals. It’s also primed for consolidation: Up to 1,500 x86 servers can fit on a single z10.

The two OEMs have been in winner’s circle together before. In 2006, ServerWatch readers voted the HP Integrity Superdome to the top spot with the IBM z9 at its side.

Storage System

Storage continues to be a growing concern for businesses of all sizes. Not only are storage needs building, but the pressure to manage and retain data for compliance is growing as well. Increased capacity needs isn’t the only storage constant — so is the winner of the Storage System category: NetApp repeated as champ with its award-winning NetApp FAS2000 Series.

Last year, NetApp StoreVault S500 took top honors. As it turns out, the StoreVault went out on top — earlier this year the vendor announced it was folding its small and medium business StoreVault division into its FAS storage unit.

At the time, NetApp said combining the product lines would allow it to expand the StoreVault platform into remote and branch offices as an extension of it core product line.

Apparently, ServerWatch readers agreed with the decision, as NetApp sailed to the win to defend its storage title.

In a bit of surprise, Hitachi’s Simple Modular Storage Model 100 beat out EMC and IBM to take the runner-up award. Aimed at the SMB market. the Simple Modular Storage Model 100 supports four servers and protect up to 9TB of data.

Blade Server

Despite new-found competition from Sun and Hitachi, and perennially strong offerings from Engenera, the blade server market is still pretty much a two-horse race, according to ServerWatch readers.

However, like any good story, there’s a bit of twist: The IBM BladeCenter was shooting for a three-peat in 2008, having taken the category in both 2006 and 2007. Although IBM is still on the mind of blade users, this year HP broke through to claim the top spot with the HP BladeCenter C3000— aka, Shorty.

To knock IBM off its blade perch, HP needed to innovate, and it did. Shorty, as its name implies, is a compact blade enclosure aimed at smaller companies and remote offices. One of the appeals of C3000 is that it’s compatible with HP’s larger enclosure, the C7000. That is, it supports the same server and storage products and doesn’t require special power, cooling or IT expertise to implement.

With the blade market heating up, IBM didn’t earn the runner-up award sitting still. HP has Shorty, and Big Blue has the BladeCenter S. The 7U unit can be expanded to 11U for more blades, storage or tape backup. Aimed at smaller offices that may not have a dedicated server room, the BladeCenter S includes two useful features: a set of built-in air filters that block dust and a noise attenuator that muffles the sound of the fans.

Operating System

We’ll be honest and say it was this category that surprised us the most. Windows Server 2008 was released on February 27, qualifying for the awards program by mere days. Windows gets a lot of press, but let’s face it, it’s more often than not press that Microsoft doesn’t want.

Yet despite competition from what is often considered hipper and cooler — a leading enterprise-class Linux, a popular up-and-coming variant, a mature Unix distro, and the cultish Leopard — Windows Server 2008 was far and away the favored operating system. If our results are any sort of barometer, the reign of Windows Server 2008 in the data center has just begun.

And really, it’s not all that surprising when one casts an unbiased eye. Windows Server 2008 contains myriad new functionality and improved features: Read-Only Domain Controller, Hyper-V and Role-based installation are at the tip of the iceberg. In addition to enhancements to ever-present security issues and terminal services, IIS 7 Web server has been updated to meet changing Web serving needs.

Nevertheless, the zeitgeist also had its day as Apple’s Mac OS X Server “Leopard” 10.5 claimed the runner-up spot. Not bad for an operating system that in recent years has become more of an afterthought than the main event. Released in October 2007, Leopard’s leap to the desktops of Mac enthusiasts was well-documented. Traditionally, Apple-enuthusiast love doesn’t extend as far into the server room as it does in the enterprise, but it runs deep. Deep enough to bring it to runner-up status.

Virtualization Platform

Here, like the high-end server category, few players make for a crowded space. For the third year running, VMware took top honors. Unlike prior years, however, where ESX paved the road to victory, in the 208 awards, VMware Virtual Infrastructure brought home the gold.

VMware Virtual Infrastructure is no stranger to glory either. In 2007, it was runner up in the Virtualization Tool category. This year, we looked to recategorized the awards so that holistic virtualization offerings could be compared against each other.

VMware Virtual Infrastructure is positioned as the cornerstone of a VMware-based virtual infrastructure. Announced in fourth quarter 2007, Virtual Infrastructure 3 is designed to ease key pain points server admins face in both the physical and virtual worlds. Its two core modules are VMware ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 modules, but additional modules are available as well, including, VMware Storage VMotion, VMware Update Manager and VMware Distributed Power Management.

As unsurprised as we were that VMware took the lion’s share of votes for first place, we were equally surprised to see Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition and Sun xVM end up in a dead heat for the runner-up slot. In 2007, XenEnterprise for Windows took the silver. Since then the company was acquired, and the product repositioned, bolstered and re-released.

xVM made waves late last week when it announced it had surpassed the 5 million download mark. Clearly its x86 virtual infrastructure offering is indeed ready for prime time. The Sun xVM Infrastructure consists of xVM Server (a hypervisor component) and xVM Ops Center (a set of management tools) and scales across the shrinking server, storage and networking divide and to grow Sun’s virtual footprint beyond its homegrown operating system.

Virtualization Tool

The virtual tool category is filled largely with small players meeting specific needs. The votes were tight, but VMLogix LabManager Manager edged out from the pack.

VMLogix, aside from competing with VMware Lab Manager, has nothing to do with VMware. In fact, the virtual lab automation solution lays claim to being the only one that supports Citrix XenServer (as well as VMware ESX). Its emphasis is on automation and the process leading to greater consistency and efficiency.

Hyperic HQ, meanwhile, took the runner-up spot.

Hyperic HQ automates systems and application management tasks for software in production. It runs on more than 65 different technologies, across all major operating systems, including Linux, Unix, Mac OS X and Windows natively. Of particular interest, here, is that the software monitors every layer of the infrastructure — physical and virtual.

It collects real-time and historical metrics from production hardware, network and application layers, then defines intelligent alerts that enable admins to anticipate problems as they brew. In addition, metrics can be set for resources to better assess equipment status.

Automation or Compliance Tool

The Automation and Compliance tool category is new to the ServerWatch Product Excellence Awards and reflects both the rise in data center automation tools and the need to ensure compliance thanks largely to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure act.

The Automation or Compliance Tool category covers a wide spectrum of products. However, readers had no problem zeroing in on CommVault Simpana Software Suiteas the winner.

The Simpana Software suite is designed to integrate backup, recovery, replication and archive operations into a single platform. The Web-based interface for the search facility is designed to be straightforward enough for business, legal or compliance staff members to use.

Last year, GridApp took runner-up honors in the Server Appliance category. This year, the company once again made a strong showing to capture the silver in the Automation and Compliance category with GridApp Clarity.

GridApp Clarity’s automation tool validates database and server configurations, provisions and patches new database environments, and manages environmental changes on an ongoing basis.

Green Initiative

Green is the color of the data center these days, so how could we not include a category that rewards environmentally friendly (as well as financially prudent) green initiatives?

The winner of ServerWatch’s Green Initiative award is be hard to argue with, because it’s an industry team effort. The Green Grid is a consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. The group was started by AMD in 2006 with founding members HP, IBM and Sun. Joining the four founder on the Green Grid’s board are Dell, APC, Intel, Microsoft, Rackable Systems and Spray Cool.

While the finalists may have joined forces to create and perpetuate the Green Grid, HP, IBM, Intel and Sun were battling it out for the runner-up award. Sun left its peers green with envy as it emerged as the clear favorite for second place. The Sun Eco Innovation initiative is designed to cut energy costs and IT environmental impact by assessing, optimizing and virtualizing data center infrastructure.

This article was first published on ServerWatch.com.

For years, chipmaker VIA Technologies has not competed with Intel and AMD in the desktop and notebook space, but now it’s challenging them with a very low power processor that even runs the notoriously taxing game Crysis.

The VIA Nano, developed under the code name “Isaiah,” is a single-core, 64-bit superscalar x86-compatible processor with a power draw ranging from 5 to 25 watts, considerably lower than anything from Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and AMD (NYSE: AMD).

VIA has traditionally stuck to the ultramobile and embedded markets with its C3 and C7 x86 processors, but with Nano, it feels it can compete for the low-end laptops and desktops markets.

“With the C7, we had been focused on miniboards and miniATX, but not in huge volume,” Richard Brown, vice president of international marketing at VIA, told InternetNews.com. “What Nano will allow us to do is address the much larger mainstream PC market. There’s very good performance and excellent power consumption, so that gives it a chance to be competitive.”

VIA backs up the Crysis claim because it is working with nVidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), a company rumored to be considering purchasing VIA just a few months ago, to make chipsets and graphics cards that will work with Nano systems.

The Nano product line ranges from the 1.8GHz L2100 processor, with an 800MHz frontside bus and a 25-watt power draw, down to the U2300 processor, which runs at 1.0GHz and draws only 5 watts. It is pin-compatible with the C7, so existing C7 systems can upgrade their chips and get a two to four-fold performance boost.

The Nano supports new instructions for Streaming SIMD Extensions, or SSE (define), and has two 64KB L1 caches and a 1MB L2 cache, with advanced juice and thermal management that can drop the power draw into the single digits when idle. Its PadLock security engine allows for real-time cryptography with on-die support for AES Encryption Engine, NX-bit, and SHA-1 and SHA-256 hashing.

Jon Peddie, president of the Jon Peddie Group, thinks VIA can compete on the merits of the chip, but says, “It remains to be seen if they can do it in terms of matching the marketing dollars Intel and to a lesser degree AMD can throw at the problem,” he said. Intel and AMD practically co-market laptops with the OEMs, something VIA doesn’t have the spare money to afford.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.

If the age-old adage “time is money” holds any truth for you and your small business, then you might be interested in AT&T’s latest high-speed Internet service, AT&T U-Verse for Business.

The new service offers small businesses download speeds of up to 10 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps. Burt Winter, AT&T’s executive director of product management, said that U-Verse for Business is the first AT&T business broadband service to offer these speeds.

“We leveraged the platform that we built for consumer video, and we run it over a mixed fiber and copper network to offer the service to small businesses,” Winter said.

For a bit of perspective on the U-Verse for Business download and upload speeds, you can compare it to AT&T’s Business Class DSL service, which offers a download speed of up to 6 Mbps and an upload speed of up to 768 kbps.

“Today’s small businesses need velocity to better serve their customers, stay ahead of their competitors and continue moving forward,” Roman Pacewicz, senior vice president, AT&T regional business Marketing said in a written statement. “Our new Business U-verse provides outstanding connectivity at a great price for small businesses by offering higher speeds than ever before.”

The company says that the service, depending upon the types of applications a small business uses, delivers and supports up to 32 Internet access connections (four wired, 28 wireless) over existing phone wire.

Four of the connections are wired, while the other 28 are wireless (at no additional charge), which, Winter said, gives small businesses more flexibility around the office. The wireless equipment includes four Ethernet ports, a USB port for direct connection and AT&T’s two-tier firewall.

U-Verse for Business also includes free installation (eventually it will cost $95), unlimited e-mail storage and security applications for anti-spyware, anti-virus, pop-up blocker and spam. Winter said that service subscribers also receive unlimited access to AT&T’s Wi-Fi network of more than 17,000 hotspots nationwide (including approximately 7,000 Starbucks locations).

The service is currently available in the following markets:

• California:portions of Los Angeles; Sacramento, San Diego; the Bay Area, Riverside, San Bernardino and Carlsbad
• Connecticut:Hartford, Stamford and New Haven
• Georgia:Atlanta
• Indiana:Anderson, Bloomington, Indianapolis and Muncie
• Northeastern Illinois
• Missouri:Kansas City and St. Louis
• Michigan:Detroit
• Ohio:Cleveland, Akron and Columbus
• Oklahoma:Oklahoma City
• Texas:Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio
• Wisconsin: Milwaukee and Racine

The company said that it plans to add more markets within its 22-state service area in the coming months.

The service, which includes a 30-day, money-back guarantee, is available in two pricing plans based on the up-and download speed. Forty dollars per month buys up to 1.5 Mbps download speed and up to 1 Mbps upload.

For $100 per month, you get the up to 10 Mbps download speed and the up to 1.5 Mbps upload speed.

“The vast majority of customers move quickly in a business environment,” said Winter. “Every minute counts, and U-Verse for Business lets you take advantage of every minute of every day.”

Lauren Simonds is the managing editor of SmallBusinessComputing.com

This article was first published on SmallBusinessComputing.com.

Marc Andreessen Source: ThinkPanmure

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. – Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen had some words of advice for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) and others who’d like to take on Google in search: Try something different.

Speaking at ThinkPanmure’s ThinkTomorrow venture capital summit, Andreessen responded to a question about whether Google’s dominant position in search could be challenged. While he said he’s a big fan of Google (GOOG), he said plenty of opportunities exist for competitors.

“If you put your hand over the logos of the other top search competitors, they all look like Google,” Andreessen said.

Of course, part of Google’s early appeal was the simplicity of its sparse search screen, which others have mimicked. “I actually think Yahoo and MSN has helped feed Google’s growth by looking more and more like them,” he said.

Social networks were the main focus of Andreessen’s onstage interview with famed Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ron Conway.

Andreessen co-founded Ning, a platform for letting anyone create a social network. Ning users have created more than 250,000 social networks, and Andreessen predicted it will eventually spawn millions.

The 150-plus effect

While the number of new Ning-powered networks has grown (from personal ones focused on families to special interests and community groups) the number of participants in each one depends on the initial growth rate. Andreessen said 150 users turns out to be a kind of magic figure.

“When there are three to 150, the membership numbers stay pretty stable,” Andreessen said. “Virtually all the groups with 150 or over are growing rapidly.”

One example is rapper 50 Cent, whose Ning network has hundreds of thousands of members. “He’s using it to recruit young ladies for his concerts. He considers it a killer app,” Andreessen cracked.

As for social networking in general, Andreessen was very bullish. He noted MySpace has become “the poster child” for the challenge of making money in social networks, “but look closely at the numbers and you see MySpace has generated close to a billion dollars in revenue.”

While profits may be slim to none, he added, MySpace and others will likely “make it up in volume” over the long haul.

Andreessen commented that as other media — including television, newspapers and radio — continue to bleed red ink, consumers are clearly migrating to the Internet and video games for news and entertainment. “The money has to follow,” he said.

He also positioned social networks as part of a much broader trend of killer applications that have emerged over the past decade or so that will help people better connect. As examples, he named eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), PayPal, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Skype, which all have a social component. “People love people — socialization runs deep in the human DNA,” he said.

But he also warned companies that think they can simply add social networking features to more static applications are likely to be disappointed with the results. “I don’t think in the long run that’s what users want,” he said.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.