Wind powered Data Centre to Support Facebook's 1.5bn Users

Wind powered Data Centre to Support Facebook's 1.5bn Users Facebook founder has announced from hisd Facebook page  that Facebook's fifth data center will be built in Fort Worth, Texas. He says in his page: "Our data centers power Facebook and will help connect billions of people around the world in the coming years. Fort Worth will be one of the most advanced and energy efficient data centers in the world. It will use 100% renewable energy and it will actually add 200 megawatts of new wind energy to the Texas power grid. It will be built using hardware designed and developed through the Open ComputeProject. This is just one example of new technologies we’re building to create internet services at planetary scale. We’re grateful to the Fort Worth community for helping to make the world more open and connected, and we’re glad to be a part of that community.". Facebook will invest at least $500 million in the global data center, a spokesperson said, and will employ at least 40 full-time employees. The center will also be powered entirely by renewable energy, Tom Furlong, Facebook's vice president of infrastructure, wrote in a blog post. As part of the deal, the 1.4-billion user social network brought 200 megawatts of new wind energy to Texas, Furlong wrote. Facebook opened its first data center in Prineville, Oregon, in 2011. It has also built centers in Altoona, Iowa, Forest City, North Carolina and Lulea, Sweden.

From The Cloud To The Fog

The Internet wave of the 1990s connected 1 billion users, and the mobile wave of the 2000s connected another 2 billion. But the IoT has the potential to connect as many 50 billion “things” to the Internet by 2020, ranging from bracelets to cars to houses.  Fog computing, like many IT trends and advancements, grew out of the need to address certain major concerns: The need for real-time processing of incoming data Limitations on available bandwidth Fog computing is defined by specific characteristics that make it a suitable platform for the IoT, including low latency and location awareness, widespread geographical distribution, mobility, its very large number of nodes, the predominant role of wireless access, the strong presence of streaming and real-time applications, and heterogeneity. Fog computing places some transactions and resources at the edge of the cloud rather than establishing channels for cloud storage, processing and use. In so doing, it reduces the need for bandwidth by not sending every bit of information to the cloud, instead aggregating and processing data at certain access points. Using such a distributed strategy can lower costs and optimize resources. Read More >>

Oracle Claims its Total Cloud Revenues Up 28%

On June 17, Oracle announced its earnings for its 2015 financial fourth quarter. This provides an opportunity to evaluate how things are going with its cloud computing plan. in the last part of 2014 Oracle acquired major players in the cloud, like Datalogix, a data analytics firm that counts major corporate players among its clients. The Oracle cloud engine has four distinct parts: Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service and, most recently, Data-as-a-Service. It is hoped that whatever level of solution that a company needs (such as those solutions needed by mid-level companies) Oracle will be able to provide it. Oracle's latest financial report, released just this week, shows how the software giant is performing in the cloud market. Oracle thinks that cloud revenue will last for a longer time, even though it may not show up on its balance sheet as fast.  Oracle CEO,Safra Catz said: "We sold an astonishing $426 million of new SaaS and PaaS annually recurring cloud subscription revenue in Q4," "We expect our rapidly increasing cloud sales to quickly translate into significantly more revenue and profits for Oracle Corporation. For example, SaaS and PaaS revenues grew at a 34% constant currency rate in our just completed Q4, but we expect that revenue growth rate to jump to around 60% in constant currency this new fiscal year." Oracle CEO,Safra Catz said: "Coming into Q4, we forecast selling $300 million of new SaaS and PaaS annual recurring revenue," "We dramatically beat that forecast by selling a cloud industry all-time-record amount of $426 million of new SaaS and PaaS business. That is a year-over-year bookings growth rate of over 200%. As our multi-billion dollar cloud business gets bigger, our SaaS and PaaS revenue growth rates are on their way up to 60% in constant currency. Compare this to our primary cloud competitors' whose own revenue growth forecasts are on their way down to 44% and 22%." Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison said:"We expect to book between $1.5 and $2.0 billion of new SaaS and PaaS business this fiscal year,"  "That means Oracle would sell more new SaaS and PaaS business than salesforce.com plans to sell in their current fiscal year -- the only remaining question is how much more. Oracle's planned SaaS and PaaS revenue growth rate is around 60% in constant currency; salesforce.com has a planned growth rate of around 20%. When you contrast those growth rates it becomes clear that Oracle is on its way to becoming the world's largest enterprise cloud company." Read More on >>

Alibaba boosting Public Cloud Services Worldwide

Hangzhou, China, June 8, 2015 Aliyun, Alibaba Group's (NYSE: BABA) cloud computing arm, today announced the launch of Marketplace Alliance Program (MAP), a global partnership program that provides enterprises with access to Aliyun's full suite of cloud computing services and international partners. This new program will enable Aliyun to localize its cloud computing offerings by partnering with enterprises in different regions and provide localized hybrid cloud computing services to meet the regional needs of global developers. The initial Aliyun's MAP partners are some of the world's leading technology brands, including American multinational technology company Intel, Singaporean telecommunications company Singtel, Dubai holding company Meraas Holdings, Equinix, a U.S. provider of data centers and Internet exchanges, Hong Kong telco and information technology company PCCW, French website hosting and cloud services provider LINKBYNET, and Hong Kong public utility Towngas. By collaborating with international partners and combining their experience and expertise in local markets, Aliyun is able to reduce infrastructure cost, improve networking efficiency, optimize cloud solutions, pass along savings and provide hybrid cloud services to cloud consumers in internet, finance, energy, gaming, entertainment, healthcare and education. "The new Aliyun program is designed to bring our customers the best cloud computing solutions by partnering with some of the most respected technology brands in the world. We will continue to bring more partners online to grow our cloud computing ecosystem," said Sicheng (Ethan) YU, vice president, Aliyun. Commenting on the scheme, Raejeanne Skillern, general manager of Cloud Service Provider Business at Intel Corporation, said, "For years Intel and Alibaba have collaborated on optimizing hardware and software technology across the data center for Alibaba's unique workloads. As a partner in Aliyun's Marketplace Alliance Program, Intel looks forward to continuing our collaboration to promoting joint technology solutions that are based on Intel Architecture specifically tailored to the rapidly growing market of international public cloud consumers." Aliyun creates sophisticated networking solutions and makes big-data intelligence products and services available to small and medium sized companies, while driving the adoption of cloud services among large enterprises. "As one of the first global partners of Aliyun, Singtel will offer our customers even more choices in cloud infrastructure platforms in China and around the world," said Lim Seng Kong, Singtel's managing director (Global Enterprise Business). "With Singtel's strong Managed Cloud services capabilities, extensive customer reach and strong suite of information and communications technology services, we can also provide the springboard for Aliyun to grow its footprint in the Asia-Pacific, which is one of the fastest growing markets for cloud services." "Worldwide adoption of cloud services continues to rise, with Asia representing one of the fastest-growing cloud markets in the world. Our goal at Equinix is to provide on-demand and direct access to multiple clouds and multiple networks seamlessly around the globe. By joining MAP and offering access to its cloud services on Cloud Exchange, we are one step closer to fulfilling this goal, enabling our multi-national customers the ability to expand their cloud-based applications across Asia, in a secure, direct manner," said Chris Sharp, vice president, cloud innovation at Equinix. "We are honored that Aliyun's scalable and secured cloud technology has chosen to couple with PCCW Globe's extensive geographic coverage, and can thus open up a new vista of opportunities in both developed and emerging markets so as to facilitate productivity and cost effectiveness," said Stephen Pang, PCCW global senior vice president of Asia & CIS. Aliyun has data centers in Beijing, Hangzhou, Qingdao, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Silicon Valley, and Dubai (under construction). As of June 30, 2014, Aliyun served more than 1.4 million customers directly and indirectly through independent service providers. According to IDC's report, public cloud spending globally will grow by 25 percent in 2015 to reach USD $21 billion, and private cloud IT infrastructure spending will grow 16 percent over the year to USD $12 billion. This will give a worldwide total cloud spend for 2015 of USD $32 billion, up 28 percent on 2014's USD $26.4 billion. About Aliyun Established in September 2009, Aliyun (Alibaba Cloud Computing) develops highly scalable cloud computing and data management services providing large and small businesses, financial institutions, governments and other organizations with flexible, cost-effective solutions to meet their networking and information needs. A business of Alibaba Group, one of the world's largest e-commerce companies, Aliyun operates the network that powers Alibaba Group's extensive online and mobile commerce ecosystem and sells a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to support sellers and other third parties participating in this ecosystem.