Review: Tableau takes self-service BI to new heights

Since I reviewed Tableau, Qlik Sense, and Microsoft Power BI in 2015, Tableau and Microsoft have solidified their leadership in the business intelligence (BI) market: Tableau with intuitive interactive exploration, Microsoft with low price and Office integration. Qlik is still a leader compared to the other 20 vendors in the sector, but trails both Tableau and Power BI.

InfoWorld

In addition to new analytics, mapping, and data connection features, Tableau has added better support of enterprises and mobile devices in the last two years. In this review, I’ll give you a snapshot of Tableau as it now stands, drill in on features new since version 9, and explore the Tableau road map.

Source: InfoWorld Big Data

NoSQL, no problem: Why MySQL is still king

MySQL is a bit of an attention hog. With relational databases supposedly put on deathwatch by NoSQL, MySQL should have been edging gracefully to the exit by now (or not so gracefully, like IBM’s DB2).

Instead, MySQL remains neck-and-neck with Oracle in the database popularity contest, despite nearly two decades less time in the market. More impressive still, while Oracle’s popularity keeps falling, MySQL is holding steady. Why?

An open gift that keeps on giving

While both MySQL and Oracle lost favor relative to their database peers, as measured by DB-Engines, MySQL remains hugely popular, second only to Oracle (and not by much):

DB-Engines

Looking at how these two database giants are trending and adding in Microsoft SQL Server, only MySQL continues to consistently grow in popularity:

Google

While general search interest in MySQL has fallen over the years, roughly in line with falling general search interest in Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server, professional interest (as measured by Stack Overflow mentions) has remained relatively firm. More intriguing, it dwarfs every other database:

Stack Overflow

The script wasn’t written this way. NoSQL, as I’ve written, boomed in the enterprise as companies struggled to manage the volume, velocity, and variety of modern data (the three V’s of big data, according to Gartner). Somehow MySQL not only survived, but thrived.

Like a comfortable supershoe

Sure, NoSQL found a ready audience. MongoDB, in particular, has attracted significant interest, so much so that the company is now reportedly past $100 million in revenue and angling to IPO later this year.

Yet MongoDB hasn’t toppled MySQL, nor has Apache Cassandra or Apache Hadoop, as former MySQL executive Zack Urlocker told me: “MongoDB, Cassandra, and Hadoop all have worthwhile specialized use cases that are sufficiently hard to do in [a] relational database. So they can be decent sized businesses (less than $100 million) but they are unlikely to be as common as relational.” Partly this stems from the nature of most big data today: still transactional in nature, and hence well-suited to the neat rows and columns of an RDBMS.

This coincides with the heart of MySQL’s popularity: It’s a great database that fits the skill sets of the broadest population of database professionals. Even better, they can take all they learned growing up with Oracle, IBM DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server and apply it to an omnipresent, free, and open source database. What’s not to love?

Scale, for one.

Actually, that was the original rap against MySQL and all relational databases: They could scale up but not out, and we live in a scale-out world. As it turns out, “It actually can scale” quite well, Linux Foundation executive Chris Aniszczyk affirmed to me. While it may have started from an architecturally underprivileged standpoint, engineers at the major web companies like Google and Facebook had huge incentives to engineer scale into it. As examples of MySQL at scale proliferated, Pivotal vice president James Bayer suggested to me, it bred confidence that MySQL was a strong go-to option for demanding workloads.

This isn’t to suggest that MySQL is an automatic winner when it comes to scale. As Compose.io developer DJ Walker-Morgan puts it, “NoSQL takes care of scaling like me buying diet food takes care of weight loss: only if strict disciplines and careful management is applied.” Again, enough examples exist that developers are motivated to give it a try, especially since it’s so familiar to a broad swath of the DBA community. Also, as Server Density CEO David Mytton underscored to me, “[M]anaged services like RDS … [and] Aurora in particular solve[] a lot of scale pain” for MySQL.

Which is why, 22 years after it first hit the proverbial shelves, MySQL is arguably the most popular database on earth. It doesn’t have the “enterprise grade” label that Oracle likes to slap on its database, and it doesn’t have the “built for horizontal scale” marketing that carried NoSQL so far, but it’s the default choice for yesterday’s and today’s generation of developers.

The fact that it’s free doesn’t hurt, but the fact that it’s a free, powerful, familiar relational database? That’s a winning combination.

Source: InfoWorld Big Data

Oracle's next big business is selling your info

There’s a decent chance you’re part of Oracle’s next big business. Not selling products to you, but selling you as a product. That’s the idea behind the Oracle Data Cloud, a massive pool of information about consumers and companies.

The tech titan has put it together by tracking people across the web and buying data from a variety of sources. People who have their data included may not even know that they’ve opted in for that data collection.

There’s no big red button that someone has to click in order to be a part of the company’s data collection machine. Instead, its base of user data is fed by a network of third parties. The Data Cloud is primarily fed by three types of sources: publishers, like Forbes and Edmunds, retail loyalty programs, and traditional data brokers like Experian and IHS.

All of that adds up to a database of 5 billion consumer profiles, fed by 15 million data sources. Not every profile corresponds to a unique person — people can have multiple profiles — but Oracle has information on billions of people, according to Eric Roza, the vice president of Data Cloud. Using data science techniques, Oracle works to match activity from one browser to others, so companies can make sure the same ads get shown to people on their smartphones, tablets, and computers.

Oracle sees Data Cloud as a key part of its future. The service is being used to help advertisers and publishers better target ads, and it’s attractive to businesses because it’s not tied to a major advertising platform like Google’s or Facebook’s.

The Data Cloud also forms the foundation of machine learning features inside other Oracle software. One of the challenges for companies doing machine learning is getting data sets that are large enough to build accurate models, and Data Cloud can help solve that problem.

But the benefits are mostly borne by Oracle’s business customers, who stand to make more money as a result of using Data Cloud enhanced services. The boon to consumers whose data are being used is less defined.

Oracle isn’t alone in this sort of tracking. There are dozens of companies that exist for the sole purpose of collecting consumer data and then reselling that to other businesses. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and other tech titans have made big money from accumulating customer data and using it to sell ads.

But what makes the Data Cloud different from something like Google’s ad business is that consumers might not know their behavior is being stored for resale, or how broadly it’s shared. Just because someone visits a page on Forbes doesn’t mean they’d expect that information to influence a marketing campaign on a radically different website, but that’s what the Data Cloud enables.

Partners feeding data into Oracle’s Data Cloud must agree they have user permission to collect information. But acquiring that permission is as simple as burying a few sentences deep in a privacy policy. While some might call out Oracle Data Cloud by name, most don’t. 

“Typically, because these things are quite common practice now, there’s a more generalized statement [like] some version of ‘we use this data to inform our own advertising, and select third-party partners,'” Roza said.

Users can opt out from the data collection in a variety of ways, according to Roza. Oracle allows people to install a special cookie in each of the browsers they use to prevent tracking. Deleting the cookie or using a new browser would erase that protection, however. Some publishers may allow customers to opt out of data sharing, and advertising industry groups also support opting out.

But actually knowing whether or not you’re included in the Data Cloud is the first part of the battle. And that’s not the easiest thing to figure out. Meanwhile, Oracle is continuing to pour money into the business and tout it to customers. The company has spent billions on acquisitions to build the Data Cloud, which was created through bringing companies like BlueKai, Datalogix, and Moat into the fold.

Source: InfoWorld Big Data

IBM Named To CRN's 2017 Big Data 100 List

IBM has announced that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named IBM to its 2017 Big Data 100 list, ranking the company as one of the 15 Coolest Big Data Platform Vendors. The annual Big Data 100 list recognizes the ingenuity of tech suppliers bringing to market innovative offerings for harnessing the increasingly huge amounts of data generated in today’s digital world, raising the bar for data management and challenging established IT practices.    

Businesses are constantly grappling with the exploding volume, speed and variety of information they produce and utilize on a daily basis to remain competitive. Solution providers are on a never-ending quest to tame this big data with innovative tools, technologies and services that can convert it into meaningful, usable statistics.

In response to this challenge, the CRN editorial team has identified the IT vendors at the forefront of data management, business analytics and infrastructure technologies and services. The resulting Big Data 100 list is a valuable guide for solution providers seeking out key big data technology suppliers.

IBM was recognized as one of the top 15 Coolest Big Data Platform Vendors for its big data initiatives, many of which are centered on Watson, including the Watson Data Platform and Watson Analytics. CRN also noted recent enhancements to “Watson’s data analysis and discovery capabilities on the IBM Cloud.”

Through the IBM Cloud platform, IBM delivers scale, security, choice and consistency for enterprises worldwide, offering a global network of more than 50 Cloud Data Centers for public, private or hybrid cloud deployments. IBM Cloud’s data-first architecture provides data diversity, data control and isolation capabilities coupled with cognitive capabilities help enterprises unravel key business insights from unstructured data to make smarter business decisions.

“Businesses everywhere are faced with managing information streams of unprecedented volume and complexity, requiring more powerful and efficient tools than ever before for capturing, storing, organizing, securing and analyzing data,” said Robert Faletra, CEO of The Channel Company. “CRN is pleased to present the 2017 Big Data 100, a list of vendors whose ingenuity and creative problem-solving have introduced remarkable new ways to help solution providers tackle this mammoth task. Congratulations to these Big Data aces, who have not only kept pace with the rapidly evolving demands of the data management field, but also innovated and challenged the status quo.”   

“We are honored to be recognized among CRN’s Big Data 100 for our IBM Cloud platform’s data-first architecture and cognitive capabilities,” said David Wilson, vice president, IBM Cloud Business Partners and Channel Innovation. “We continue to help our business partners unlock the power of data through initiatives like the Watson Build, a new challenge that gives our partners the training, tools and mentorship they need to bring new cognitive solutions to market quickly.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Equinix And Oracle Collaborate To Offer Direct Access To Oracle Cloud

Equinix, Inc. has announced the immediate availability of dedicated, private access to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure — Oracle’s next-generation IaaS offering — via the Equinix Cloud Exchange™. This direct access enables enterprise customers to migrate applications and data to Oracle Cloud in a high-performance, low latency manner for optimal user experience. This announcement builds on previous collaborations between Equinix and Oracle to offer direct access to Oracle’s full suite of cloud services — both PaaS and SaaS solutions — in multiple markets around the globe. Access to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure will initially be available via Oracle Cloud Network Service – FastConnect in the Equinix Washington, D.C., International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center, with additional markets expected throughout the year.

Cloud deployments are continually on the rise within the enterprise. Yet, traditionally, enterprise customers with large database workloads have not had a viable way to migrate data and applications easily from their on-premises infrastructure into the cloud. Now, through Equinix Cloud Exchange and its API integration with FastConnect, customers can establish direct connectivity between their on-premises infrastructure and Oracle Cloud environments. This enables them to fully realize the benefits of hybrid cloud — moving application, middleware and database workloads seamlessly between on-premises and Oracle Cloud — with a reliable, low latency, production-ready experience.

Whether a customer is looking to incorporate direct connection to Oracle as part of a broader interconnection strategy, or specifically needing to migrate data-heavy applications to the cloud, connection to Oracle Cloud inside Equinix is an ideal solution for many enterprise users. Specific examples of ideal hybrid deployments include:

Customers looking to migrate and host complex, multi-tier solutions in the cloud while minimizing production downtime can work with Equinix and Oracle to extend their network and communicate with the Oracle Cloud over a high-speed connection inside the Equinix data center.

Customers needing to perform analytics on large data sets residing in Oracle databases can host their Oracle technology solutions on-premises inside Equinix and, with FastConnect on Equinix Cloud Exchange, extend their existing network directly into the Oracle Cloud, removing data size limits and providing lower latency, higher throughput and network-level security protection — all in a highly scalable solution. This is ideal for data privacy, regulatory compliance and data sovereignty scenarios.

Customers looking to consolidate databases into Oracle Exadata Cloud Service yet have little or no capacity in their current data center can place their Oracle Exadata Cloud Service racks inside Equinix and directly connect to Oracle cloud for high availability, disaster recovery and backup.

“As more and more enterprise CIOs deploy interconnection oriented architectures, direct connections like these are critical to their success. The ability to connect directly to Oracle is an essential strategy for CIOs as they deploy workloads to the cloud edge, closer to users and adjacent to related cloud services. Oracle’s common cloud architecture allows customers the choice to leverage Oracle cloud, deploy customer-owned assets inside Equinix, or enable a hybrid solution utilizing both. Offering direct connectivity to Oracle from Platform Equinix is another key step in helping CIOs who are seeking to capture the tremendous benefits of hybrid cloud as the IT architecture of choice. We look forward to ongoing collaborations with Oracle, bringing this solution to Equinix data centers across the globe,” said Charles Meyers, chief operating officer.

Oracle Cloud delivers nearly 1,000 SaaS applications and 50 enterprise-class PaaS and IaaS services to customers in more than 195 countries around the world, and supports 55 billion transactions each day. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is also part of the fast growing sector of cloud computing. According to a recent Gartner report the highest cloud growth is expected to come from IaaS, with a growth of 38.4% in 2016.

“Cloud is the fastest growing part of Oracle’s business. Customers require seamless connectivity from their data centers and networks to Oracle Cloud for their most demanding workloads and applications. This relationship will help our customers leveraging the Oracle Cloud, execute on their business strategies by taking advantage of the Equinix Cloud Exchange for optimal user experience,” said Thomas Kurian, president of product development, Oracle.

Oracle and Equinix have long-standing relationship, and Equinix was recently recognized as Oracle World Wide Gold Level Partner in the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). Oracle FastConnect, providing private access to Oracle Cloud on Equinix Cloud Exchange is scheduled to be available in six markets globally – Washington, D.C., Chicago, Amsterdam, London, Sydney and others by the end of 2017.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

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Source: TheWHIR

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Source: InfoWorld Big Data

CloudHealth Technologies Extends Its Flagship Platform

CloudHealth Technologies has announced that its industry-leading cloud service management platform for public cloud providers now also manages both VMware and physical server environments. CloudHealth is the industry’s first platform to give visibility, optimization, and control across both the data center and the cloud, unlocking all the benefits of the public cloud — such as flexibility and scalability — for the data center.

Hybrid cloud infrastructure is the new normal. Sixty-two percent of public cloud adopters state that they plan to use or are using hosted private cloud, with another 62% planning to use or already using internal private cloud, according to Forrester¹. And more importantly, this isn’t declining. Within the next 12 months, these figures will rise to 81% for hosted private usage and 80% for internal private cloud usage.

CloudHealth now delivers unprecedented levels of insight, along with integrated analysis across cost, usage and performance in the data center. Enterprises can also use the platform to set policies that govern data center environments, assist in planning migrations from the data center to the cloud and rightsize virtual machine assets.

“The market is evolving rapidly,” said Joe Kinsella, founder and chief technology officer, CloudHealth Technologies. “This has created a gap between how customers operate, report, manage and govern cloud versus data center infrastructure. Enterprises now require a hybrid approach to maintain flexibility and agility, and to strategically align their on-premises, public cloud and private cloud infrastructures for maximum business benefit. CloudHealth enables them to bridge the gap.”

“Having a consolidated view of our cloud and on-premises environments is invaluable,” said Adam Japhet, head of infrastructure at Scholastic. “CloudHealth lets me look at critical assets and resources from a business perspective, so I can align metrics and reporting to business objectives.”

“CloudHealth helped us break through a logjam by providing insight into the performance metrics of existing VMware servers and AWS resources,” said Reed Savory, director of IT and Operations for Connotate. “CloudHealth takes the guesswork out of the process of migrating to AWS. Before, you never knew if you were buying too much or too little.”

Platform highlights include the following:

• Track and report on data center costs: CloudHealth has extended its cloud cost expertise into the data center to provide insight across the enterprise. Customers can utilize the platform for cost reallocation to enable financial reporting and chargeback, and for budget tracking and reporting.
• Analyze usage, performance and metrics: CloudHealth offers granular, interactive reporting by accounts, functional business groups, services and service items. With agentless integration into VMware vSphere environments or an agent-based approach for physical machines, customers can track usage, inventory, CPU, memory, and disk metrics.
• Set policies to govern your environment: Customers can define how to manage the cost, availability and performance of data center infrastructure. They can apply governance rules based on multiple data sources, and choose actions to take when policies are violated.
• Data center migration planning: The platform provides cost analysis for assets that are candidates for cloud migration. The analysis provides rightsized recommendations based on asset types, region and costs based on usage profile of individual assets.

The platform will also include new features that give customers the ability to right size virtual machines (VMs) across CPU, memory, network and disk. Customers can optimize infrastructure by identifying when VMs are over-provisioned and receive recommended actions on how to achieve an ideal state.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Epsilon’s CloudLX Platform Now Available At Netrality’s St. Louis Properties

Netrality Properties has announced that Epsilon, a privately owned global communications service provider, has executed an agreement to install its Cloud Link eXchange Platform (CloudLX) within the 210 N Tucker meet me room (MMR) with direct connection to 900 Walnut’s MMR in St. Louis. Through a single physical connection, Netrality Properties’ network operator and enterprise customers can connect to CloudLX and access leading cloud service providers and Internet exchanges, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. 

CloudLX forms as a module within Epsilon’s on-demand connectivity platform, Infiny. Through Epsilon’s dedicated Infiny online portal, users can seamlessly procure and manage global networks over a scalable and assured network. CloudLX uses bespoke intelligent networking technologies and automation to deliver port-to-port, port-to-Cloud and port-to-Internet Exchange globally. Users benefit from simple click-to-connect provisioning as well as end-to-end visibility into network performance. CloudLX provides a single source for solving all cloud connectivity needs. 

“We are thrilled to expand our relationship with Epsilon, specifically in our St. Louis core interconnection locations. Epsilon’s CloudLX will create a unique value for our customers and provide a simple platform for connecting and growing their cloud-based services,” says Clarissa Joyce, director of business development in St. Louis. “We are offering customers new options for cloud enablement and providing a dynamic environment for leveraging the cloud in their operations.”

“Our presence within Netrality’s St. Louis MMR’s means that we are able to bring our platform closer to our partners across the Midwest. Our business model attracts VARs, MSPs, data center operators and other service providers in need of efficient and cost effective connection to cloud service providers and Internet exchanges,” states Paul Verhoeven, general manager Americas of Epsilon. “Netrality Properties offers high quality and secure locations in St. Louis to help drive our U.S. expansion plans and thus, give our partners maximum availability.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Amazon Cloud Growth Is Hardly Hampered By The Chasing Pack

New Q1 data from Synergy Research Group shows that there are five major cloud infrastructure service providers that are growing more rapidly than Amazon Web Services (AWS), but the market leader remains well ahead of the field with a worldwide market share that is holding steady at around 33%. While Microsoft, Google, IBM, Alibaba, and Oracle all achieved Q1 growth rates that were substantially higher than that of AWS, AWS revenues are still comfortably bigger than the other five combined. Microsoft, Google, and Alibaba all achieved annual growth rates of 80% or more. Salesforce and Rackspace are the two other companies that feature in the ranking of top cloud providers. While they have lower growth rates than the other providers, they are maintaining strong positions in particular market niches.

With most of the major operators having now released their earnings data for Q1, Synergy estimates that quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues (including IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud services) have now reached almost $10 billion and continue to grow at well over 40% per year. While AWS, Microsoft, and Google are the lead providers in IaaS/PaaS, IBM continues to lead in hosted private cloud, where Rackspace and some traditional IT service providers feature more prominently than they do in public cloud.

“At the top end of the cloud provider market we’re now seeing a clear stratification featuring AWS, a group of higher-growth chasers, and a couple of more focused niche players,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director, Synergy Research Group. “Beyond those leading companies, the cloud market features a long tail of small-to-medium sized providers or companies that have only a minor position in the market, typically based on either a specific country or focused application area. There are decent growth opportunities for some of these smaller players, but they are unlikely to make much impact in terms of overall worldwide market share.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag