Business News Holding

Author: admin

  • VOICECON: 8×8 Intros Enterprise Version of Hosted IP PBX Service


    8×8 today announced the availability of an enterprise version of its hosted IP PBX phone service.

    The solution is intended for deployment in larger organizations located in either a single building, a campus environment or distributed across multiple locations.

    Called 8×8 Virtual Office Enterprise, it is the latest generation of 8×8’s broadband agnostic hosted IP PBX business phone solutions.

    Bryan Martin, 8×8 chairman and CEO, said that unlike premise-based PBX phone systems that require a significant financial investment plus management and maintenance resources, the business phone solution delivers advanced PBX calling features combined with cost-effective IP dial tone service.

    He said this eliminated the need for expensive on-site equipment.

    "Core enhancements to the Virtual Office hosted PBX platform and additional redundancy in our network now enable us to offer this solution to larger organizations that are analyzing the cost and functionality of their current telecommunications infrastructure alongside a requirement for high quality, availability and redundancy from this mission critical service," he said.

    8×8 recently upgraded its service infrastructure, deploying a new triple redundant architecture across three independent data centers with each data center connected to redundant IP access providers.

    Martin said this new architecture allows for failure of any software component, server, cluster or even a complete data center failure without affecting service to the end customer.

  • Hitachi Beats Competitors with Fastest Midrange Storage System


    Hitachi Data Systems Corporation has announced that its next-generation midrange storage platform, the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) 2000 Family, achieved overall best-in-class Storage Performance Council (SPC-1) benchmark results for a midrange storage system.

    In SPC-1 benchmark testing, the Hitachi AMS 2500 achieved the fastest throughput results among all midrange storage competitors with dual controllers.

    It had a throughput result of 89,491.81 SPC-1 IOPS and an 8.98 millisecond average response time.

    Mike Walkey, senior vice president of channels, Hitachi Data Systems, said that with key business applications such as Microsoft Exchange, SQL, Oracle, SAP or any other online transactional processing application, the AMS 2500 allows users to more effectively scale their workloads at a best-in-class price point.

    The Hitachi AMS 2100 achieved among the best SPC-1 Price-Performance ratio in its class at $5.95/SPC-1 IOPS.

    Walkey said it brought high performance to a new affordable price level and allowing customers to realise a lower total cost of ownership.

    He said that with companies scrambling to find ways to manage data growth without increasing storage expenses or performance penalties, this price-performance ratio reiterated Hitachi’s efforts to help customers establish a path towards optimising their storage environment.

    This results in greater return on their storage asset investments and lower overall power and cooling consumption.

  • Cloudera Aims To Capture Data Center Market With Hadoop Cloud Solution


    A startup software dealer is bringing cloud-computing technology used by the likes of Yahoo, Facebook and Google to regular enterprise data centers.

    Silicon Valley-based Cloudera plans to make big data-processing capabilities accessible and affordable for all companies, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    Mike Olson, CEO of Cloudera, said Hadoop is a cloud-computing technology used to store and process petabytes of data on systems consisting of hundreds or even thousands of servers.

    "Processing this kind of big data has been too expensive or too technically difficult for all but the most sophisticated IT organizations until now," he said.

    IDC speculates that the global IT expenditure on cloud services will expand approximately threefold in the next 2-3 years, when it is estimated to total USD $42 billion and account for close to 9 per cent of revenues in five important market sectors.

    IDC also predicts that expenditure on cloud computing will pick up pace throughout the next 2-3 years, and will most likely secure 25 per cent of IT spending growth in 2012.

    This is expected to grow the following year and capture at least a 1/3rd of the market.

    David Smith, Gartner’s vice president, thinks that cloud computing still has some way to go and the competition is just starting.

    "Cloudera is not the only company supporting Hadoop. HP is doing a lot of work with Hadoop, as is Yahoo," he said.

    However, there is a major difference between Cloudera and the others like Yahoo.

    Cloudera is set up as a specific one-stop shop for the free Java software structure that presently sanctions the cloud.

    Christophe Bisciglia, Cloudera’s founder and former manager of Google’s Hadoop cluster, said that listening to the community, he consistently hears that Hadoop installation, configuration, and deployment needs to be easier.

    "That’s the primary reason why we built the Cloudera distribution for Hadoop," he said.

    "But furthermore, a distribution fosters community growth by providing a common platform to share code, experience and, most importantly, innovation."

    Cloudera’s latest Web-based configuration tool will facilitate enterprises to produce custom-tailored packages that meet their exact wants.

    In addition, Cloudera is making a preconfigured VMware image liberally offered for assessment and use with the company’s complimentary online teaching.

    "The Cloudera distribution of Hadoop gives you the same tools you already know to provide standardized packaging and automatic configuration," said Bisciglia.

    He said that Cloudera’s sharing of Hadoop has always been founded on a established code of reliability.

    "We enable users to limit upgrades to major project milestones built on code that is tried, trusted, and proven reliable," he said.

    Finally, there will always be a few users who will need assistance in setting up and using the software for some critical adventures and this is where Cloudera will make up the money.

    "These enterprises need a company to stand behind the package, and help them find and fix problems when they come up," said Olson.

  • Storage Market Slows, Modest Growth Forecast


    Well, it was only a matter of time. The data storage market has slowed down – and much more than anticipated, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    IDC revealed last week that global external disk storage systems’ factory revenues dropped by a half per cent in the fourth quarter.
    This is the first quarterly drop for data storage in more than 5 years.

    According to IDC, EMC, HP, Dell and Hitachi did grow a little in the last quarter, as expected.

    However, IBM, NetApp and Sun Microsystems all posted year-over-year sales declines.

    In the 4th quarter, external system revenues dropped slightly to USD $5.3 billion, while the total disk storage system market dropped 5.9 per cent to USD $7.3 billion chiefly due to limitations in server system sales.

    The other big decline was seen in the total disc storage system capacity, which peaked at 2,460 petabytes, a growth of only 27.3 per cent, but this was down by 50 per cent compared to the growth rate in the past.

    Natalya Yezkhova, IDC research manager for storage systems, said: "Because of the global economic crisis, the last quarter of 2008 was tough for the disk storage systems market, resulting in a market decline from the same quarter last year."

    She said that high-end storage sales were upset by a chill in the end-user expenditures and longer acquisition cycles.

    But some low-end and midrange storage sectors have continued to sale well, "as end users broadened their search for storage solutions in these lower-cost segments to satisfy their increasing storage needs while optimizing investments in storage infrastructure."

    EMC continues to hold the leadership with its external systems market share lead of nearly 23.3 per cent of revenue in the fourth quarter, followed by IBM and HP, with 15.7 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.

    Dell did not fare well and ended the quarter in the fourth position with a 9.3 per cent share.

    Hitachi and NetApp followed with 7 per cent growth, while Sun had 5.2 per cent.

    In the Open SAN market, which only grew 2.2 per cent, EMC was again in the lead with 24.2 per cent of the market.

    IBM followed next with 16.5 per cent.

    The NAS market has grown steadily and recorded a 8.6 per cent rise.

    Again, EMC led the pack with 43.8 per cent, followed by NetApp at 24.1 per cent.

    The sum network disk storage market (NAS combined with Open SAN) grew a modest 3.6 pe cent to USD $4.1 billion in revenues.

    EMC again claimed a 28.6 per cent revenue share, followed by IBM at 14.5 per cent.

    So what are the expectations for the rest of 2009?

    Enterprise Strategy Group and IDC both speculate a modest growth of 2-3 per cent for both the data storage industry overall IT spending.

    In an industry, which has always seen green, adjustment to single digit profits may not sit well for many people.

  • Will HP and Dell Follow Xyratex And Support Savvio's SFF HDDs?


    Xyratex recently announced support for Seagate’s Savvio 15K.2 and Savvio 10K.3 Small Form Factor (SFF) enterprise hard disk drives.

    As a result, Seagate’s Savvio 2.5 inch hard drives have been completely incorporated into Xyratex’s OneStor SP1224s, 2U 24 drive storage system, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    Currently, this is the only fully integrated external storage subsystem to convey the high-performing, energy resourceful drives for enterprise storage systems.

    Xyratex says that when compared to the standard 3.5-inch drives, these SFF drives burn up less power with twice the functioning density.

    The company says this makes the OneStor SP1224s perfect for transaction-intensive use, allowing consumers to get enhanced time to data devoid of any penalties with decreased capacity or higher electric bills.

    IDC is anticipating that 2.5-inch drive consignments will overtake 3.5-inch ones later this year – largely because of their improved performance and lesser power profile.

    This raises the prospect of both HP and Dell coming out with storage products using the 15K.2 Savvios.

    Both companies provided supporting quotes in the Seagate release.

    The 2.5-inch Seagate Savvio 10K.2 enterprise hard drive offers up to 146-GB capacity and has the premier consistency rating in the world.

    Savvio 10K.2 drives are 70 per cent smaller than 3.5-inch drives, enabling more drives per system for improved performance per U (vertical usable space) and optimized performance per watt.

    The Savvio drive also uses less power and enables more airflow to cool faster processors.

    Carla Kennedy, vice president of enterprise PLM at Seagate, said Xyratex and Seagate were committed to meeting the key data center requirements of reduced power consumption and improved system performance with Small Form Factor hard drives.

    "In addition to delivering the highest performance and largest capacity SFF drives in the industry, these new drives enable new levels in system efficiency when the market needs it most," she said.

    The Xyratex OneStor SP1224s is the SFF companion of the company’s highly flexible OneStor Extensible Storage Platform family. The SP1224s is a 2U, 24-drive storage system supported on 2.5-inch drives and make available eighty-five percent proficient power translation.

    While no set time for the shipment has been planned, both the 15K.2 and 10K.3 drives may be ready to go out sometime in December.

    However, the self-encrypting versions won’t be released at least until the beginning of 2010.

  • Kroll Survey: Employees Are "Wildcard" In Data Storage Practices


    While implementing data storage policies that mandate where company files are to be stored is a popular data-protection measure, employees are not necessarily complying.

    This is leaving organizations vulnerable to data loss, according to a survey.

    Kroll Ontrack found that 40 per cent of individuals surveyed said their companies had a policy regarding where data should be stored.

    However, the survey results also revealed that 61 per cent of respondents "usually" save to a local drive instead of a company network.

    While the risks associated with saving to a local drive could be minimized with an external backup drive or backup software, 44 per cent of respondents said that their preferred storage location was not backed up.

    Jeff Pederson, manager of operations for Ontrack Data Recovery, said saving to a local hard drive on a desktop or laptop more often than not contradicts data storage policies.

    He said regulations usually require employees to save to a network folder.

    "With the majority of employees saving to unprotected, local drives, companies could be at risk for losing anything from project plans and spreadsheets to customer data and financial information," he said.

    Pederson added that having guidelines to save documents to a network better ensures employee data is regularly backed up in accordance with company data retention procedures – and reduces the chance of data loss.

    Brian Lapidus, chief operating officer of Kroll’s Fraud Solutions, a practice of the Background Screening division, said the survey results confirmed its findings.

    "Employees are the wild cards in policies and procedures, he said.

    "Companies must ensure that employees receive ongoing education to understand the risk of actions that do not follow the plan."

    To help businesses avoid losing critical data, Ontrack Data Recovery specialists recommend that companies have a clear, well communicated data storage policy in place for their employees.

    Companies should also ensure that data recovery is included in their overall disaster recovery or business continuity plan.

    To this end, they should identify and partner with a data recovery provider that is able to quickly respond to any type of data loss scenario.

    Pederson said the survey showed that data storage polices do not necessarily safeguard a vast quantity of critical company data.

    "This fact, coupled with the vast number of information-oriented regulations that have been enacted reinforces that companies need to be prepared to respond to data loss at the individual-employee level," he said.

  • MyGlobalTalk Prepares Single-SIM Mobile VoIP Solution

    INTERVIEW: Larry Stessel, CMO of i2Telecom, talks to voip.biz-news about a new mobile VoIP solution being readied for launch.
    The new technology will allow users to make low-cost international calls from anywhere in the world using one SIM card.

    i2Telecom’s MyGlobalTalk was the winner of voip.biz-news’ Product of the Year Award 2008.

    i2Telecom’s MyGlobalTalk (MGT) launched in the US last June as a Beta version for BlackBerry and non-smartphones.

    It allows users to bypass their current phone providers’ high international rates and use i2Telecom’s low VOIP Digital Service rates for international calls.

    Since then, support for MGT has expanded and now works on most smartphones – Blackberry, Android, Symbian or Windows devices, with the iPhone expected shortly – plus any cell phone, land line or computer.

    Larry Stessel, CMO of i2Telecom, told voip.biz-news that the current version of MGT worked "perfectly" for international calls made from the US.

    But he said that within the next few months new technology is to be introduced that allows users to call from anywhere in the world using one SIM card.

    Larry Stessel, CMO i2Telecom

    MGT’s goal has been to duplicate the ease with which callers’ were able to phone anywhere within the US – regardless of which state they were in – simply by dialling the number and not worrying about high call rates or complicated call-back systems.

    i2Telecom is also preparing a widgets launch which will allow MGT to be used from Outlook, iGoogle or Facebook.

    "A lot of companies offer the ability to call from overseas for reduced rates," said Stessel.

    "But the technology is often based on call-back systems. We wanted to create something simple.

    "We don’t want people to be carrying a pack of SIM cards when they travel overseas.

    "What we wanted to do was figure out a way to duplicate the American system.

    "In the next couple of months we will be offering a single SIM card that allows users to make calls abroad at the lowest price."

    iPhone Support Soon

    When using a smartphone the application auto detects any international call being made and instantly reroutes it over the MyGlobalTalk Digital Network.

    Stessel, a 30-year veteran of the music industry, said they were still awaiting approval of their application to Apple’s app store.

    But he said the beta worked "phenomenally" on the iPhone, with really fast connection times and crystal clear call quality.

    When the solution is used on home or business lines, callers have to dial an access number, then the international number before being connected.

    Stessel said the seed for MGT came from another of i2Telecom’s products, a flash drive Internet phone service called VoiceStick.

    He said when users sign up for that service they receive a 10-digit DID number as part of the package.

    "We realised that we were missing out a bit on the DID number and over the course of one day we started talking about its possibilities," he said.

    "We realised we could give customers the ability to call from any phone to any number at reduced rates.

    "The more we talked about it, the more excited we became and by the end of the day we had come up with MyGlobalTalk."

    That was in October 2007. Stessel said that over the next year i2Telecom’s technicians created the code that enabled MGT to be a one-touch call on smartphones.

    Users simply go into their contacts, select the one to call and the call goes through.

    By the beginning of September 2008, the Blackberry and Windows versions were completed.

    "We wanted to remove the step of dialling 10-digit numbers and then an international number," said Stessel.

    Aggressive Marketing Campaign

    Marketing of the product has so far been low-key, largely because resources have been used to create the server system and customer services. Everything is housed in a technology park in Atlanta, Georgia.

    That is about to change, according to Stessel, who said an aggressive marketing campaign is being prepared for the roll-out of the new technology, which he forecast would be by the end of June.

    "We have been very careful not to rush out a product overseas that is not ready," he said. "We wanted to get it right first time."

    Key markets for MGT are:

    • SMBs – companies ranging from 1 up to 2000 employees
    • Immigrants
    • Military

    Stessel said the i2Telecom team really understood business users’ needs.

    He said MGT could drastically reduce the cost of communications for enterprises – whether it was for calls abroad from the US or for employees who had to use their mobiles outside the US.

    "I don’t think we have a competitor," he said. "You can talk about Fring all day long, but there are complications with it. I think we are the best app on the market."

  • Visualon Integrates On2 VP6 Video Into Mobile Apps


    On2 Technologies has licensed its On2 VP6 video format and software to VisualOn Inc.

    VisualOn is to integrate VP6 decoding software into its multimedia application suite for mobile platforms.

    These software applications allow consumers to play rich multimedia content on mobile devices without expensive dedicated hardware.

    The power-efficient software codecs and multimedia applications offer everything needed to enable video, audio, and still image applications on a range of devices.

    Last month, On2 Technologies announced a 1080p video encoder aimed at improving image quality and compression performance in battery operated devices and consumer electronics.

    The new hardware design, the Hantro 8270, supports H.264 Baseline, Main and High Profile video along with 16Mpixel JPEG still images.

    Yang Cai, CEO of VisualOn, said the widespread presence of On2 VP6 content on the web makes it an essential format for VisualOn’s product portfolio.

    "Adding VP6 to our application suite will enable mobile users to watch high-quality VP6 without requiring a bleeding-edge processor or a pocketful of batteries," he said.

    "Our customers as well as consumers ultimately benefit from the high quality, lower power, and reduced cost achieved through VisualOn’s partnership with On2."

    On2 VP6, through its inclusion in the Adobe Flash and Sun JavaFX application platforms, has become the de facto format for web video and a fundamental requirement for Internet-connected mobile devices.

    Matt Frost, COO and interim CEO of On2 Technologies, said that when compared to H.264 Baseline profile (a video format used in wireless applications) On2 VP6 content offers 10-20 per cent better video compression performance while requiring less computing power to play.

    He said that as a result, VP6 enables a wider range of mobile devices to play high-quality content without sacrificing battery life.

    "We are pleased to have VisualOn optimize and integrate On2 VP6 to their application suite," he said.

    "They have exceptional skill and experience in delivering highly optimized multimedia software for mobile devices, and we look forward to seeing high-performance playback of our codec as an integral part of their solutions."

  • Gizmo5 CEO Challenges Skype For SIP


    The CEO of Gizmo5 Michael Robertson has responded to last week’s announcement of Skype for SIP by posting a comparison (see below) of the new service and his own company’s OpenSky.

    While welcoming Skype’s initiative, he described it as a "vaporware announcement" with "murky pricing details".

    Writing on his blog, Robertson said he has been a vocal advocate for open standards, both in music with my company MP3.com and in VOIP with Gizmo5.

    He said open standards have always give consumers more choices and ultimately better value.

    "V0IP standards got a huge boost this week with two announcements," he said.

    Roberston said these were Gizmo5’s launch of its SIP for Skype service called OpenSky, which lets any SIP device call Skype and receive their Skype calls, and Ebay’s announcement of Skype for SIP.

    "These announcements are a huge boost for SIP as the open standard which will let calls move freely from any calling device or network," he said.

    "It’s great to see Skype inching towards a more interoperable world. Even if this is a vaporware announcement at least their heart is in the right direction."

    Robertson compared Skype For SIP with Skype for Asterisk, announced last year, saying that Skype’s business offering is not yet available and pricing details are murky.

    In response to Robertson’s blog comments, Skype said its SIP offering is available now.

    While there are other details that will undoubtedly be challenged by Skype, Robertson’s riposte will certainly give any enterprise pondering the services something to chew over.

  • HD Voice Has Potential To Reverse Decline in Landlines


    Deploying HD voice services on both landline and mobile systems would provide carriers with a service differentiator and a product with a price premium people are willing to pay for.

    That’s the opinion of VoIP industry expert Jeff Pulver, who says HD voice has the potential to reverse the trend of declining landline sales.

    "People will start to purchase home lines again because it sounds so damn good," he told FierceVoIP.

    Pulver is organizing the HD VoIP Summit, an event which will explore issues associated with the widespread deployment of HD VoIP.

    It is being held in New York on 21 May and will include vendors demonstrating products and platforms, as well as discussions on the issues and challenges in transforming the existing communications infrastructure into one which supports HD.

    "I believe HD voice holds the same promise for the telecom industry as format changes in the entertainment industry," he wrote on his blog.

    "With enough interest, together we can trigger a replacement cycle like the one observed currently with HDTV."

    Pulver said failure to change the communications infrastructure would put traditional communication networks at risk of becoming disintermediated as better sounding means of communication naturally evolve.

    He said the purpose of the event is to bring together a leadership team, built around vision and change, and to bring together telecom catalysts to effect this change.