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Digital Identity: How a Cryptocurrency Could Lead to the Most Fundamental Change in Identity in Centuries – Westlaw Insider (blog)

Long viewed as the anonymous, digital currency used by those in the illicit drug trade, the technology that makes Bitcoin secure (known as blockchain) is about to radically change how we identify ourselves. More fundamentally, the very concept of what identity means will be altered over the next five to ten years. This paradigm shift will have widespread implications for developed and developing countries, where the lack of trusted institutions has led to large numbers of people being effectively unbanked. Yet, this should not be surprising given that Bitcoin is not actually anonymousto the contrary, it is very transparentnor is it a driver of the illicit drug trade. If every bitcoin in existence was used during this year to buy illicit drugs, it would only account for approximately four percent (4%) of the global drug trade. Based on its universal acceptance and truly anonymous nature, the number one currency of choice for drug traffickers around the World is the United States Dollar.

When applied to identity or information about ourselves, blockchain shows promise of providing a means for people to store that data using public key encryptionan asymmetrical form of encryption impervious to brute force attack. While there are several blockchain-based identity platforms that rely solely on this aspect of the technology, several researchers are leveraging the power of data analytics and machine learning to further enhance the identity security provided by blockchain. Traditional anti-fraud software was good at identifying the occasional transaction that was determined to be suspiciousbut in practice, its effectiveness was limited. Because of advances in artificial intelligence, especially in the areas of deep learning and pattern identifying models, analytics are becoming predictive in nature, which is incredibly more powerful than prior generations of technology. When these advances in artificial intelligence are combined with the secure, tamper proof nature of a blockchain, we are once again able to engage in commerce with significantly less concern about our identity being destroyed by another.

We are also able to move through our economic activities with far less friction. For instance, if you obtain a bank account at Bank #1, then from an AML/BSA perspective, there should be no reason for Bank #2 to request anything beyond what is necessary to determine you are the same person that opened the account at Bank #1. Its important to note that control over the private key associated with a persons identity should not necessarily result in a stolen identity. This is where the advances in AI add an additional layer of value, all made possible by its decentralized form.

Storing data, however, is not in and of itself a panacea, the real paradigm shift lies in the ability of individuals to have granular control over what they share with others. For example, if a person has an account with Bank #1and wants to open an account with Bank #2, then that individual may choose not to tell Bank #1 and provide more documents to Book #2. Its this granular control over data and its dissemination that will ultimately unseat todays incumbent technology giants from their near monopoly over the data we generate from our day-to-day activities, and finally return to each person what rightfully belongs to themtheir identity. A fairly dramatic sea change is possibleall from a not so anonymous cryptocurrency.

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Digital Identity: How a Cryptocurrency Could Lead to the Most Fundamental Change in Identity in Centuries - Westlaw Insider (blog)

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Evolving options for on-premises data centers – GCN.com

Evolving options for on-premises data centers

Ever since cloud computing became a realistic option for large operations, it has dominated the data center conversation. Efforts to consolidate data centers and cut the related operations and maintenance costs have pointed to cloud as a potential option. There are, however, instances when using on-premises computing can be beneficial and necessary. And the terminology in the space has so much overlap that agencies operating an on-prem site often call it a cloud.

So what, exactly, defines a data center? Cameron Chehreh, Dell Federal CTO, said the federal government will often call a couple of servers in a closet a data center, but that skews the more commercial definition: A centralized location that houses an organization's computing, storage and applications. David McClure, chief strategist at Veris Group, said a simple definition is a big building full of servers.

A cloud, meanwhile, might be described as someone elses servers. There's significantly more to it than that, but it is a remote data center that is usually managed by someone other than the organization or agency storing its data there. This is the space filled by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google and many others. I think of cloud as locationless computing, McClure said. It is on demand, as needed and priced according to use.

Blurring the lines further is private cloud, which can mean a few different things. If you put three cloud specialists in the room you may get twelve separate answers on what a private cloud is, Chehreh said. Christian Heiter, CTO of engineering at Hitachi Data Systems Federal, agreed with the lack of agreement on what exactly private cloud is. This is where the definition gets a little fuzzier -- it's a term of art, he said.

The glib definition is that private cloud is just a data center with a fancy name to make it sound like whoever is building it is hip to the trends. McClure, however, said that isnt necessarily accurate. For an on-premises data center to truly be considered a private cloud, it must implement modern technologies like virtualization and scalability, he said. A private cloud could also be a remote data center with a single tenant.

The Army, for example, has recently begun working with IBM to build a consolidated private cloud solution at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Ala. IBM is building and will manage the facility, but it will be an on-premises facility devoted to the Army's needs. The first phase of the project aims to put 38 applications into the cloud and meet the Defense Information Systems Agencys Impact Level 5 -- the highest security level for unclassified data.

McClure was working in the federal government during the Obama administration when the first push to cloud began. Federal officials, including then-federal CIO Vivek Kundra, recognized the opportunity to lower operations and maintenance costs by consolidating on-premises data centers and moving some operations to the cloud. Yet a decade later, were still in the crawl-walk phase of cloud computing, McClure said.

Efforts are being made to make the switch, though, and Dave Powner, director of information management and technology resources issues at Government Accountability Office, is a longstanding proponent of that effort. It is really contingent on how well agencies can optimize what they have, Powner said about the move to cloud.

In Powner's view, however, that optimization has been fairly limited. An Office of Management and Budget memo said the average government server is utilized at just 9-12 percent of its capacity. That was really the impetus to start this data center consolidation effort, he said. The goal is to get that number up to 65 percent.

A 2014 GAO report on the governments consolidation efforts estimated that the Treasury Department avoided more than $577 million in costs through consolidation between 2011 and 2013. Other agencies have also seen tens of millions in savings, the report said.

Some agencies have made big strides, he said. The Departments of Agriculture, Treasury and Justice; the General Services Administration; and NASA have all closed 50 percent of their data centers. The Defense Department has not yet hit 50 percent, but it has closed 700 facilities, Powner said.

I think there is more of an acceptance that you can meet some of the security requirements through cloud offerings, Powner said, attributing that shift to the examples set by early adopters, which have allowed others to see implementations that actually work.

Yet while cloud promises cost savings and flexibility, the future of a government without data centers is nowhere in sight. I dont necessarily see everything moving to cloud," said Sophia Vargas, an infrastructure analyst at Forrester. "I think it's kind of stuck -- potentially for a long time -- in more of a hybrid, multistate.

That seems to be the consensus. At least for the foreseeable future, hybrid solutions will define the data center, and the inner workings of those data centers are changing accordingly.

How hybrid helps

Vargas colleague Richard Fichera, Forrester's vice president and principal analyst of infrastructure, said the simple definition of a hybrid data center is exactly what is sounds like: using both enterprise and cloud solutions for data storage. Using a local data center and one or more cloud services can provide a best-of-both-worlds scenario that can reduce cost and lead to the consolidation that Powner seeks.

People are starting to find balance, Chehreh said. There is nothing but a bright future for hybrid moving forward.

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Impact Guru, GlobalGiving tie-up to scale crowd funding in India – Daily News & Analysis

Impact Guru, India?s leading crowd funding platform for NGOs, medical and personal causes has entered into a strategic partnership with US and UK based GlobalGiving, the world?s first and largest non-profit crowd funding platform.

This partnership will enable vetted Indian NGOs and social enterprises raising money on http://www.impactguru.com to offer tax benefits to international donors in US and UK, particularly NRIs (Non Resident Indians) / PIOs (People of Indian Origin), when they donate towards social causes using GlobalGiving?s technology on the Impact Guru platform.

India is home to the highest number of nonprofits in the world (33 lakh NGOs), and raises more than Rs. 8,500 crore annually from international donors. Tax incentives are often considered a crucial factor in encouraging philanthropy. By offering tax exemptions to US and UK donors, this partnership will help Indian NGOs and social enterprises to attract more philanthropy or grant capital from the Indian diaspora.

The Indian government estimates that there are more than 60 lakh NRIs / PIOs residing in the US and UK. According to a research report by The Bridgespan Group, if the charitable contributions of Indian diaspora in US were consistent with those of other American households in similar income brackets, and they directed 40 percent of their philanthropy to India, Rs. 8000 crore additional funds could flow from such donors towards Indian social causes per year.

International donors can be rest assured about the transparency and authenticity of the participating organizations as all participants will need to go through an intermediary facilitating the process of due diligence or should have been vetted in the past by one.

Social enterprises based in India are also eligible to either fundraise online or route their grants via Impact Guru. Beyond India, this partnership will also enable nonprofits and social enterprises across Southeast Asia (including Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia) to raise funds via Impact Guru.

?Having spent over a decade outside of India prior to starting Impact Guru, we can relate to the desire of Indian diaspora to give back while obtaining local tax benefits, and their concerns around transparency of Indian NGOs. Impact Guru is thrilled to be partnering with GlobalGiving to address these gaps, thereby making us the platform of choice for crowd funding by Indians globally,? said co-founder and CEO Piyush Jain, Impact Guru?s.

?GlobalGiving is excited to partner with Impact Guru to help Indian NGOs transact with donors in India, the US and the UK on a single giving platform. This partnership will help GlobalGiving, Impact Guru and the global social sector to understand more about how donors and NGOs interact locally and globally,? said GlobalGiving?s Spokesperson, John Hecklinger, Chief Network Officer.

In the past, Impact Guru has executed a successful partnership with Fundnel, a Singapore based private investment platform. This collaboration strengthened the Indian platform?s presence in Southeast Asia. Since 2016, Impact Guru and Fundnel have helped mobilize over Rs. 329 crore for various projects across 15 countries.

Impact Guru was also recently chosen as the official crowd funding partner of Project Inspire, an initiative by Singapore Committee for UN Women and MasterCard that focused on creating a better world for women and girls in Asia Pacific. It raised approximately Rs. 25 lakhs from more than 1,100 supporters from over 30 countries in less than a month.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)

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Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap Inches Closer Toward US$40bn … – newsBTC

Bitcoin's value goes up every day, but so is the value of most altcoins

A lot of cryptocurrencies are seeing major value appreciations right now. With a lot of focus on Bitcoin and Ethereum, one tends to overlook everything else. However, it is evident the demand for cryptocurrencies continues to surge. As of right now, the total market cap is heading toward US$40bn. That is quite a significant milestone, even though Bitcoins dominance continues to dwindle.

The past few weeks have been incredibly bullish for cryptocurrency. The total market valuation continues to increase on a yearly basis. Bitcoins value goes up every day, but so is the value of most altcoins. In fact, the entire top 7 of cryptocurrencies have seen increases over the past 24 hours. Monero is the only major altcoin to lose 0.47%, albeit that is almost negligible at this stage.

It is hard to tell what is driving the demand, though. Cryptocurrency investors are diversifying portfolios, which is a positive development. There is no reason to put all eggs in the same basket. Moreover, none of the main cryptocurrencies are competing with one another either. Ethereum focuses on blockchain development and Ripple is a banking solution. Litecoin complements Bitcoin. Dash provides privacy, whereas Monero focuses on anonymity. All of these currencies try to do something differently.

Things are looking very interesting right now. One ETH is worth over US$81 for the first time. Ripples individual native token value surpassed the US$0.05 mark. Litecoin is well underway to head to US$17. Dash is climbing back to the US$100 mark as well. All of those numbers seemed virtually impossible to achieve just a year ago. We have come a very long way since that time, to say the least. It will be interesting to see where things head next.

Anyone looking to invest in cryptocurrency has a tough decision to make. Bitcoins market cap dominance dipped below 60% for the first time in ages. This goes to show people are waking up to the potential provided by these altcoins. It is no longer just about Bitcoin, which is a surprisingly positive development. After all, Bitcoin will always be a major cryptocurrency, but it is not suited to do everything the ecosystem has to offer.

Even though Bitcoin;s dominance is waning, the currency should not be disregarded. One Bitcoin is worth over US$1,365. That is an all-time high for the popular cryptocurrency. Even with a less dominant presence in the market, Bitcoin is rocketing upward over the past few months. There is no telling where this will end. Very exciting times to be involved and invested in cryptocurrency, that much is certain.

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Bitcoin Is Soaring Above $1400 to Another All-Time High – Fortune

Bitcoin surged to an all-time high above $1,400 on Tuesday, after more than tripling in value over the past year, with its most recent rise attributed to strong demand in Japan, where the digital currency has been deemed a legal means of payment.

Cryptocompare, a data website that analyzes bitcoin trading across dozens of exchanges globally, said around 50% of trading volume over the past 24 hours had been on the bitcoin/Japanese yen exchange rate.

"The Japanese have recently warmed their approach towards bitcoin by treating it legally as a form of payment - a ratification and bringing into the regulatory fold," said Charles Hayter, the website's founder.

"China's clampdown on exchanges can also be seen as a positive move for the industry too," he added.

Chinese authorities have increased scrutiny of exchanges this year and have forced them to start charging trading fees, after becoming concerned about bitcoin speculation and its potential use in money laundering.

Bitcoin surged as much as 3% on Tuesday on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, where trading is dollar-denominated, to hit $1,437, its highest since its 2008 launch. That marked a more than 200 percent increase from its price in early May last year.

Its current levels put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation - the so-called "market cap" - close to $25 billion, putting its worth on a par with a large-cap company.

Bitcoin analysts said the price had also been boosted by a request by the BATS exchange that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission review its March decision not to approve a bitcoin-tracking ETF set up by the Winklevoss brothers.

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ISS, VaultDrop Publish Case Study on Offering Free Cloud Storage to Self-Storage Customers – Inside Self-Storage

Inside Self-Storage (ISS) and VaultDrop LLC have released a new publication titled, Case Study: Total Storage, The Profitability of Providing 'Cloud Storage' With Every Rental. The free downloadable PDF explores how self-storage operators can improve occupancy and revenue by offering their customers cloud storage as an added amenity. Customers can use the cloud storage to store and share documents, music, photos and videos. Theyll also be able to receive their self-storage invoices and other information.

The study explains how offering free cloud storage can help a self-storage facility distinguish itself in a busy market. It includes details about program implementation at 10 Right Move Self Storage facilities in Texas.

This and other case studies can be downloaded from the Whitepapers page of the ISS Resource Center. Additional information about Right Moves program can be found in a recent video titled, ISS News Desk: Cloud Storage Opportunities for Self-Storage Operators, which was published on the ISS video portal, Self-Storage TV, last month.

VaultDrop shared its cloud-storage concept during a Vendor Presentation at the Inside Self-Storage World Expo in Las Vegas this week. The session, The Next Great Ancillary Product: Cloud Data Storage, took place on Wednesday and was open to all registered attendees and exhibitors. The company also offered one year of free unlimited cloud storage to all event attendees. Registrants received a sign-up link in their show confirmation e-mail.

Launched in 2016, VaultDrop offers secure, unlimited cloud storage. Accounts are encrypted with contents divided and stored across multiple independently operated servers.

Founded in 2013, Right Move is a real estate firm specializing in the acquisition, development, management and operation of self-storage facilities. It manages storage properties in California, Louisiana and Texas.

For more than 25 years, ISS has provided informational resources for the self-storage industry. Its educational offerings include ISS magazine, the annual ISS World Expo, an extensive website, the ISS Store, and Self-Storage Talk, the industrys largest online community.

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Salesforce report argues IT stands at a ‘crossroads of change’ – Cloud Tech

A new report from Salesforce sheds further light on the shifting sands of IT; eight out of 10 UK tech leaders say IT is now the primary enabler of customer experience, while three quarters admit IT is currently undergoing the biggest historical shift of its role.

IT stands at a crossroads of change, a post from Devon McGinnis, editorial manager of marketing research at Salesforce explains. Companies are increasingly adopting customer-centric models. Business units like sales, customer service, and marketing tasked with creating new experiences that meet elevated customer expectations are changing their views to see IT as a strategic partner.

IT now has the opportunity to not only improve customer-facing tech, but to transform it, McGinnis adds.

Its worth noting here that IT teams generally have modest expectations around their abilities. 61% of the more than 2,200 global respondents said they are moderate performers, compared with 24% who thought they were lower than average and 15% who rated themselves as high performers.

Salesforce argues that with the shifting position of IT the department has turned from a cost centre to a value-based service brokerage. The old model of IT as a maintainer of the status quo infrastructure is giving way to a new mindset, in which IT adds innovative capabilities that bring a competitive edge to the business, the report notes.

This is something which has been covered by this publication for some time as well as Salesforce adding that the role of CIO is fundamentally changing to the role of business leader. More than two thirds (67%) of IT teams polled said improving their collaboration with other lines of business was a high priority, while the 15% of teams who were higher performers were significantly more likely to rate the strength of their partnerships with service, marketing and sales as excellent.

Cloud computing was assessed by respondents as the most likely technology to reinvent business by 2020, with artificial intelligence (AI) and mobile technologies for customers winning the silver and bronze medals respectively. More than four in five (83%) IT leaders polled said they felt more comfortable with their knowledge of cloud security than they did five years ago.

Discussing the UK findings in particular, Adam Spearing, Salesforce area vice president EMEA, noted with interest the position of AI. The rise of artificial intelligence will also help IT teams to automate more mundane, time consuming tasks and free up time for team members to focus on innovation, he said.

While much of ITs work happens behind the scenes, its efforts are at the forefront of customer interactions. Without IT as the companys backbone, UK businesses will fall flat on powering crucial customer experience initiatives, added Spearing.

You can download the full report here (registration required).

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CLOUD COMPUTING IBM Rolls Out an Automated Helpdesk with Watson – CIO Today

Big Blue wants to make tech support a little easier for companies by bringing its Watson artificial intelligence platform to the enterprise helpdesk. The new service, known as IBM Workplace Support Services with Watson, is designed to anticipate, predict, and act on the tech support requirements of enterprise staff members.

The service includes Watsons analytics and cognitive capabilities that enable it to learn from user behavior and improve itself over time.

Automating Helpdesk Actions

The company is focusing its marketing pitch for the service on Watsons ability to deliver technical support service to enterprise staff with varying levels of technical experience, including staff members without IT experience. The new platform also enables companies to offer their staff members a single point of contact for tech support, while making the entire IT helpdesk system both more intelligent and more scalable, according to IBM.

"We need a system that can understand and communicate in a natural language conversation, one that solves problems and continues to learn while engaging with employees," said Richard Esposito, general manager at IBM's Global Technology Services, Mobility Services, in a statement. "Our Workplace Support Services with Watson delivers this value."

One of the key selling points of the new service is its ability to automate common helpdesk actions such as unlocking a user's password, adding additional storage space to an email account, or requesting a new mobile enterprise device, Big Blue said.

Self-Improving IT Support

In addition, IBM is promoting the service's ability to learn from previous interactions with users and improve itself over time. The company said that the Watson platform analyzes virtually every interaction between itself and the user to improve on its programming.

Workplace support is delivered to employees via a chat tool that allows the user to interact with the Watson platform using natural language. IBM said that Watson provides natural language support in the most commonly spoken languages, meaning that it's not only capable of generating content in those languages, but effectively "thinks" in them as well. This provides the Watson platform with a greater understanding of linguistic and cultural nuances, according to IBM.

The result is that Workplace Support Services can support employees on any device they might be using, at any time and at any geographic location, while automating more helpdesk functions and resolving IT problems more quickly. In the event that an employee has an issue for which Watson has not been trained for, the system can transfer the individual to a human service agent, the company said.

The service is being offered under IBM's Global Technology Services division, which focuses on IT consulting and business services based on the company's cognitive and cloud technologies.

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Alex Fung: Is Cloud Computing Providing Heavenly Opportunities? – finews.asia

Alex Fung, Vontobel Wealth Management

Many investors in cloud computing are currently floating on Cloud Nine. It is therefore no wonder that investors are also increasingly interested in this theme, Alex Fung of Vontobel Wealth Management Asia writes.

By Alex Fung, CEO Vontobel Wealth Management Asia-Pacific

For a long time, it was the norm that companies and institutions established their own IT infrastructure with servers and computers that were sometimes huge. By doing so, they put considerable financial and time resources into an area that is very important; but actually is strategically not very relevant.

In the meantime, however, many providers have come on the scene to take over this task from companies by offering cloud computing, often shortened simply to the Cloud.

Rented as a Service

In a nutshell, this means that all the software, storage capacity and computing power can be used as required through a network such as the Internet, or as part of a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

As a result, the IT infrastructure, such as all the hardware and software applications, is no longer owned by the user, but is instead rented as a service from one or more cloud providers that look after its operation.

Enormous Amounts of Data at a Reasonable Price

Cloud computing offers diverse benefits. Lower costs are generally incurred for the IT infrastructure and software applications, since these services only have to be paid for when they are used. As scalability is so straightforward, capacity can be rapidly increased if necessary.

In addition, cloud computing provides simple software updates, greater computing power, mobility and in some cases also improved security. Cloud computing allows increasingly large volumes of data to be stored and then accessed at any time.

As such, this technology is both the driver and solution for dealing with big data. Many companies are unable to handle the constantly increasing demands for professional data management that must satisfy extremely high security standards. Transferring the companys own data and applications into a cloud is the most efficient procedure in many cases.

Attractive Growth Market

According to estimates from the US market research company International Data Corporation (IDC), global spending for cloud services is set to increase in the current year by 18.2 per cent to around 44.2 billion dollars. Annual growth of almost 14 per cent is expected until 2020.

At the same time, the proportion of cloud solutions in comparison to traditional data centres is about to augment steadily. To manage this growth of demand, leading providers are currently investing billions in the development of new cloud infrastructures. Size is very important in this business, because the more computing capacity an IT infrastructure handles, the higher the relative cost savings are.

Numerous Possibilities for Asian Investors

Cloud computing is attracting many new providers and is hotly contested as a rapidly growing market. Careful selection is thus important to determine tomorrows winners. Participation in the Cloud Computing market

There are numerous possibilities for Asian investors keen to participate in the potential of this growth market. Given the rapid pace of change in the market and the intense competition, the main skill for advisory firms is to be able to identify the winners of the future in the cloud computing market. Before making any investment decisions, it is therefore best to speak with experts who have the necessary expertise to pick underlying instruments in this technology segment.

Alex Fung is the Chief Executive Officer of Vontobel Wealth Management Asia, based in Hong Kong.

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Core blimey! 10000 per rack in startup’s cloud-in-a-box – The Register

+Comment Say hello to hyperdense server and NVMe storage startup Aparna Systems and its Cloud-in-a-Box system.

Originally named Turbostor and founded in February 2013, the company has emerged from stealth with the Orca Cloud, a 4U enclosure that converges compute, storage and networking, and offers, Aparna claims, up to 10,000 cores in a rack. The 4015 version has 15 Servers and the 4060 has up to 60. So, have ten of these in a 42U rack and that means 1,000 cores per 4U 4060 box.

The Orca Server is packaged in a box or cartridge-sized like a 3.5-inch hard disk drive, draws less than 75 watts, and comes in two variants: Oserv8 with 8-core Broadwell Xeons, and Oserv16 with 16-core ones.

Oserv16 Server

Both have DDR DRAM, and dual SATA or NVME SSDs. We're told "storage IO is non-blocking based on its support for both SATA at 12 Gbps (6 Gbps per SSD) and NVMe at 64Gbps (32 Gbps per SSD), with latencies of 100 microseconds (s) and 10s, respectively."

The Cloud systems enclosure is NEBS-compliant and features a fully fault-tolerant, non-stop, non-blocking performance, with:

It can be used as a bare-metal system or for running virtualized or containerized environments.

Orca Cloud 4060

Aparna claims its compact convergence of compute, storage and networking, when compared to existing clusters made from rack-level systems or blade servers, can mean an up to 40 per cent CAPEX and OPEX saving, lower space needs and an electricity draw reduction of up to 80 per cent.

It's marketing the Orca systems to service providers and enterprises for mission-critical applications from the edge to the core. The startup is casting its net far and wide, saying Orca's "open software architecture and non-stop high performance make the Cloud-in-a-Box suitable for virtually any networking, computing or storage application, including fog and multi-access edge computing, databases, data analytics, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and machine learning."

CEO Sam Mathan says he expects "the Cloud systems [to be] especially popular for edge computing and aggregation applications. Of course, these same capabilities are also important in the enterprise, where the ability to scale compute and storage resources is often constrained by available data centre space and power."

Other execs are CTO Alex Henderson, a co-founder of Turbostor in March 2013, as was Ramana Vakkalagadda, director for software engineering.

Aparna investors include:

We don't know the funding amounts but Divergent reportedly put in $500,000.

Orca systems and server table

This hopeful killer whale of servers seems to rely on innovative packaging to produce its core density, high per-server bandwidth and precise event timing. It must also have ferociously efficient cooling technology in its 4060 version with 650 x 16-core Xeons milling around in there.

We don't know the storage capacity but suspect it's not much, given the space constraints inside an Orca Server. We don't know if 2.5-inch or M.2 firm factor flash storage is being used either. Aparna simply does not say how much SSD capacity there is.

Nor do we know much about its sales channel. The company has just come out of stealth, has a few customers and what looks like a hot box with neat timing features suitable for carrier types as well as dense server packaging.

We think the funding needs for such a hardware-focussed startup must in the $5m to $10m area, if not more. Aparna now has to sell a fair number of systems and get set for an A-round of VC funding. It has a mountain to climb as it establishes itself, with Cisco, Dell, HPE, Huawei, Lenovo, Supermicro and others selling servers against it. If Aparna can pack server CPUs this close together then, surely, so can they.

Orca Cloud 4015 and 4060 systems, and the Oserv8 and Oserv16 Servers are all available for customer shipment. Pricing for entry-level configurations of the Cloud model 4015 system begins at $49,500.

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