Business News Holding

Tag: software

  • EMC Releases New Version of Retrospect


    EMC has launched a new version of its Mac backup software Retrospect.

    As well as adding back support for PowerPC-based Macs, Retrospect 8.1 also improves performance on Intel-based Macs.

    Eric Ullman, director of product management for Retrospect, said the product, which underwent a significant user interface rework in version 8, debuted initially without any support for PowerPC-based Macs.

    But he said such systems still make up approximately 50 per cent of Retrospect users, so it was important for EMC to make sure to release a version of the software that ran on them.

    "Apple doesn’t make PowerPC-based Macs anymore, but plenty of people still use them," he said. "Whether they’re hand-me-downs from other users who have upgraded to Intel-based Macs, or people who are just trying to extend the lives of otherwise useful systems."

    Ullman said Retrospect is particularly well-suited for small and medium-sized businesses that may have outgrown Time Machine – Apple’s backup system integrated with Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard".

    He added that the software is also useful for businesses that want to centralise backups.

    With version 8.1, a PowerPC system that might have otherwise been relegated to a closet can now be used to manage a Retrospect backup server.

    Other changes have also been made in version 8.1 to improve performance on Intel-based Macs. Backup, data verification and restore activities are all faster, and EMC says that local backup performance has been increased from 10 to 15 per cent over 8.0, 30 to 35 per cent over 6.1. PowerPC-based systems will also see a boost over 6.1 – faster, multiple G5 systems run 10 to 15 percent faster under 8.1.

    Some more user interface tweaks have been made to Retrospect 8.1, as well – icons have been updated, workflow has been improved, and the software provides better responses to user actions, according to Ullman.

    Retrospect 8.1 is available as a free upgrade for 8.0 users; Retrospect 6.1 users who bought their software after January 14, 2008 are entitled to a free upgrade. Upgrade prices are also available for other users.

    The new release is available throughout EMC’s distribution network both as a boxed software product and through download services.

  • Open-Source "Tidal Wave" Will Shift Power to Developers


    The number of smartphones shipped with open source operating systems (OS) will increase from 106 million this year to 223 million by 2014.

    That’s the prediciton of telecom consultants Juniper Research, who found that operating systems and applications are playing an increasingly important role in the differentiation of new smartphones.

    They also found that the OS plays a key factor in the choice of which handset to choose from by users.

    Juniper’s research mirrors recent figures from rival market watcher Strategy Analytics, which forecast that Android smartphone shipments will increase 900 per cent during 2009 over last year.

    The last three years has seen a revolution in the OS market, with market leader Symbian moving to open source and Apple leading the way in the distribution of apps through their innovative, but now widely copied, AppStore approach.

    The move to open-source OS has also encouraged developers to design new and attractive applications.

    With over 60 per cent of the OS market now based on open-source, and a sizeable pool of software design talent out there, there is a massive opportunity for innovation.

    However, Juniper said the real key is not whether the OS is open-source but whether it’s easy for a developer to design an application and make money from that effort.

    The combined changes of Apple’s open route to the market and LiMo, OHA and Symbian’s open-source OS approach have generated a tidal wave-like effect which even the economic downturn has been unable to reverse.

    The researchers said there is a clear warning for device manufacturers – the choice of OS is now critical and market share will, to a large extent, follow application development.

    They add that the unexpected side effect, however, will be a shift in the balance of power towards application developers and end users.

    Handset-makers beware.

  • Storage Cost Savings and Dynamic Provisioning


    Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd.  and the only provider of Services Oriented Storage Solutions, has introduced unique capabilities across software and services to enable customers to reclaim underutilised storage capacity and increase the return on their assets.

    This announcement highlights the company’s strategic Global Services capabilities to further extend the economic and optimisation benefits customers can achieve leveraging Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning technology.

    Coupled with the recently announced Switch IT On programme, the enhancements can help customers improve the efficiency of their existing environments by reclaiming storage capacity across all storage tiers.

    Customers have realised up to 200 TB in reclaimed storage capacity and CAPEX savings upwards of $2M, thereby deferring future storage purchases. Specifically, Hitachi Data Systems today announced the following innovative capabilities:

    • Zero Page Reclaim – examines volumes of physical capacity on or on storage connected to the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform, returns unused storage blocks back to the storage pool and reclaims storage space
    • Industry-first Automatic Dynamic Rebalancing – improved automatic performance optimisation on the Universal Storage Platform by automatically rebalancing existing virtual volumes to take advantage of physical storage added later. Hitachi Data Systems is the only enterprise-class storage vendor that does this automatically upon a customer’s pool expansion.
    • Support for the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family – brings the advantages of dynamic provisioning such as cost savings, automated performance optimisation and easy provisioning, to Hitachi midrange customers.
    • Storage Reclamation Service – assesses the customer’s environment, plans the new dynamic provisioned environment, migrates the data and reclaims unused capacity with Zero Page Reclaim without disruption to the application, thereby deferring CAPEX and increasing ROA.

    “Storage economics, our best practices for helping companies assess their storage requirements and investment returns through true ownership cost, has never been more critical to enterprises and thin provisioning can play an integral role in saving organisations money while improving operational efficiency,” said Hu Yoshida, Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi Data Systems.

    “Today’s software and services announcement is part of our focus to help our customers do more with less. Dynamic provisioning simplifies operations by replacing the management of hundreds of volumes with the management of one or two pools of virtual capacity.

    Dynamic provisioning can also reclaim capacity on existing open systems volumes without disruption for significant cost savings that go straight to customers’ bottom line.”

    New Hitachi Storage Reclamation Service

    Hitachi Data Systems has extensive experience helping customers take advantage of its dynamic provisioning technologies to increase utilisation, reduce the cost of storage growth and extend the life of storage assets. Through the Storage Reclamation Service, customers can gain the benefit of this experience to accelerate time to results with lower risk. Key aspects of the service include:

    • End-to-end Service – includes assessment, planning, design, migration and storage reclamation
    • Quick Analysis – to show the type of benefits that customers can expect, Hitachi Data Systems can perform a quick analysis of a sampling of a customer’s environment
    • Shared Risk – to lower the risk to customers, Hitachi Data Systems will perform the assessment in a shared risk model, where customers pay only if Hitachi Data Systems exceeds the pre-set customer expectations for storage to be reclaimed.

    "In today’s challenging economic conditions, enterprise customers are seeking to create highly-efficient storage environments that reduce cost and extend the value of existing investments," said Brad Nisbet, Program Manager, IDC Storage Services Research.

    “With the Storage Reclamation Service, Hitachi Data Systems is creating a services package built on a strong technology portfolio of storage virtualisation and dynamic provisioning, affording customers the opportunity to reduce capital and operational expenses more quickly and with less risk."

    Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning Customers

    Carter Lee, Vice President of Technology Operations, Overstock.com: "Hitachi Data Systems has quickly simplified the process of non-disruptively provisioning storage. With Hitachi virtualisation technologies, we’ve seen storage capacity savings of 50 percent on some arrays, now provision storage in 25 percent of the time, and have increased utilisation rates by over 30 percent. We’ve reduced data migration related down-time from several hours to less than 30 minutes. Overall, by using Hitachi virtualisation, dynamic provisioning and tiered storage, we’ve reduced our capital and operating costs for an improved return on our storage investment."

    Steve Carlberg, Principal Network Administrator, University HealthSystem Consortium: “University HealthSystem Consortium leverages Hitachi Data Systems for the functionality and scalability needed for a large and growing healthcare consortium, while providing an easy to manage system for IT staff.

    Hitachi virtualisation technologies give us the flexibility and cost efficiency to run many heterogeneous applications, databases and workloads concurrently off of a single virtualised storage pool.

    With Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning we have reclaimed 40 percent of our storage capacity, have increased storage utilisation rates and pushed out new storage acquisitions."

  • IDC Reports Storage Software Sales Decline


    Storage software revenue has experienced its first quarterly year-over-year decline in more than five years, according to IDC.

    The analysts’ Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker showed that the device management, replication and infrastructure categories had the biggest declines.

    Symantec was the only vendor to grow revenue year-over-year, increasing 2.5 per cent. Hewlett-Packard’s 21.5 per cent drop was the biggest fall, while market leader EMC slipped 14.5 per cent.

    Michael Margossian, research analyst, storage software at IDC, said the combination of the normally slow first quarter for most companies with the continued economic climate was displayed in the first quarter’s results.

    "A majority of companies displayed either negative or very low year-over-year growth," he said.

  • Fine Point Acquires VoIP Gateway Seller Sonic


    Fine Point Technologies has agreed to buy the German software and systems integration service provider Sonic Telecom.

    Sonic has been an authorized reseller of Fine Point’s device management technologies since 2005 – but also selling VoIP gateway systems and services.

    Fine Point says the deal will broaden its reach in European markets and offers it the potential to sell its software solutions to more communications providers.

    The NYC-based company will retain Sonic’s engineering and sales staff who are already knowledgeable in selling and supporting Fine Point’s products.

    Fine Point will also maintain Sonic’s existing facility in Germany, and rename the entity Fine Point Technologies, Inc.

    Financial terms for the transaction were not disclosed.

  • Vodafone Plans App Store For 289m Customers


    Vodafone is joining the increasingly busy application store game by launching its own venture in a number of European markets later this year.

    The mobile operator will take a 30 per cent share of all app revenue – mirroring Apple’s App Store.

    Interestingly for developers, Vodafone is to supply a program that allows software to run on any Vodafone device.

    Previously, developers had to configure their apps to each handset – a lengthy process and one that restricted uptake.

    The new program will simplify that and give apps access to the operator’s 289 million customer base.

    Vodafone is to handle the billing for the apps that will be charged directly to a customer’s telephone bill.

    This could be a major advantage for the operator. Earlier this month, Nokia announced that it would have to drop operator billing from its US Ovi Store – a set-back for the venture.

    Vodafone will also provide developers and partners with access to "network capabilities," including location awareness.

    This will allow them to create apps that take into account a user’s current position.

    What is certain is that consumers will soon be spoilt for choice – although there may also be confusion over where to go first for apps.

    Vodafone has, however, said that a user with a Nokia phones on its network can chose which app store they want to use.

    The success of the venture will also hinge on the quality of the apps – and that will be influenced by whether developers feel drawn to Vodafone – and are willing to hand over a 30 per cent share of their revenues.

    The first apps are to roll out at the end of the year in the UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Greece, Portugal and Ireland with more territories added later.

  • Oracle Readies Take-Over As Sun's Loss Grows


    As Oracle prepares its USD $7.4bn acquistion of Sun Microsystem, figures have emerged about the server and software maker’s latest quarter losses.

    Sun announced on Tuesday that it lost USD $201 million in the three months ended March 29. A year ago, Sun lost USD $34 million.

    The surprise deal, announced last week, takes Oracle into a whole new area – hardware, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    In a letter to partners and customers Oracle president, Charles Phillips, wrote: "Our customers have been asking us to step up to a broader role to reduce complexity, risk and cost by delivering a highly-optimized standards-based product stack.

    "Oracle plans to deliver these benefits by offering a broad range of products, including servers and storage, with all the integrated pieces: hardware operating system, database, middleware and applications."

    The general opinion in the market, however, is that IBM was a better fit for Sun than Oracle. IBM was already in the storage business.

    Wedbush Morgan’s analyst, Kaushik Roy, said Oracle is getting into totally new markets in which they have no expertise or history.

    "I am skeptical. Oracle is more likely to hold on to the entire storage business," he said.

    "Sun bought StorageTek and destroyed the company because of poor execution. But Oracle has been much better in execution, and it is very likely that the current storage group within Sun will have a better opportunity to grow."

    Oracle president, Charles Phillips

    The impact on other storage players and their relationship with Oracle will be determined in time.

    EMC–Oracle had a good relationship. Now they will be competitors.

    Kaushik Roy said: "But now with Oracle and Sun selling HDS at the high end, it would compete with EMC.

    "We will wait to see how those relationships pan out."

    As a result of this merger, Oracle is likely to wind up Sun’s storage hardware business in the long term.

    However, for the present the operation may continue.

    Illuminata analyst John Webster said that he is going on the assumption that Oracle runs Sun as Sun for a while before it starts restructuring.

    Also unknown as yet, is the positon of Sun-NetApp and the patent dispute over the ZFS file system.

    Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers said that Sun’s Open storage may also hit a question mark.

    "We have often been intrigued by some of Sun’s storage technologies," he wrote in a research note.

    "However, we have continued to see limited traction from an execution standpoint."

    It is expected that the presence of Oracle in the storage market will enliven the scenario. NetApp, EMC or 3PAR must be feeling the heat.

  • NetAlly VoIP Assessment Software Eliminates Deployment Risk


    Fluke Networks has released a new version of its NetAlly VoIP Assessment and Troubleshooting Software designed to help eliminate risk associated with deploying or expanding VoIP services.

    Version 7.0 of the package works by assessing the current state of the network and previewing the service before it is deployed on that network.

    This allows maximum call volume and call quality to be determined quickly, while saving money by reducing post-deployment troubleshooting, according to the company.

    Assessing a network, a requirement of many leading IP PBX manufacturers, makes VoIP deployments faster, more successful and less costly.

    However, a recent Gartner Research report highlighted the fact that some enterprises and integrators still do not perform proper predeployment assessments of the enterprise network.

    It said this often leads to unplanned additional costs or deployment delays.

    NetAlly claims its software shortens installation time periods by performing proper network assessments, detecting deficiencies in the network and pinpointing where corrective actions and fine-tuning need to take place.

    The company offers users a preview of the VoIP service as it will be delivered over a production IP network.

    It says that, unlike network simulation software, the package generates traffic over the actual network and provides responses based on real-world measurements.

    This allows IT professionals to determine if there is sufficient network capacity to support a proposed VoIP project.

    NetAlly version 7.0 is the result of Fluke Networks’ acquisition of key technology from Viola Networks, announced in August 2008.

    The new software version is available for immediate delivery worldwide.

  • Wizi Releases "SMS with Location" for BlackBerry


    Location-sharing start-up Wizi has announced the release of SMS with Location for BlackBerry.

    The application adds a new option to BlackBerry contacts allowing users to send an SMS with their actual position or the location where they are heading.

    Wizi also recommends the best routes when driving in the city using traffic data collected in real time by its community.

    Based in Lisbon, Portugal, Wizi’s SMS with Location lets users:

    • Find actual location on map (F)
    • Automatically insert the full address is SMS
    • Automatically insert GPS coordinates in SMS
    • Copy location to clipboard allowing to paste in any IM application
    • Search location by address (S)
    • Switch between BB Maps or Google Maps (M)

    Wizi’s Andre Goncalves said SMS with Location is currently only available for BlackBerry Device Software 4.5 but would be released soon for Windows Mobile.

  • Verizon's Hub To Get App Store – And Multi-touch Controls


    Verizon is creating an application store for its Hub home phone service as part of plans to broaden its market.

    The move follows the trend among mobile makers such as Apple, RIM and Palm to open up to third-party apps.

    It comes less than three months after the launch of the product – which offers connectivity through any broadband connection and provides unlimited VoIP calling for USD $35 per month.

    Prototype Screen for Verizon’s Hub

    A further development to widen the appeal of the Hub will see Verizon removing the condition that Hub buyers have to be Verizon Wireless customers.

    The application store will launch later this year, although no specific date has been given.

    Initially targeted at families looking to use a phone and access limited Internet services on their kitchen counter, the Hub attempts to close the gap between wireless and wireline services.

    Verizon sees the applications market attracting new types of customers with an array of software suited to their own interests, such as Internet radio.

    A prototype of a smaller, sleeker Hub product – similar in looks to a digital picture frame – has been developed. It comes with a much skinnier cordless phone handset.

    The company is also working on multi-touch controls for future devices, another trend popularized by Apple’s iPhone.

    All these developments are moving the Hub in the right direction.

    Whether consumers will be convinced enough to pay USD $199 for the Hub and $34.99 a month in service fees is another matter.