Michael Dell's DellWorld Keynote Was Notable for What He Didn't—Or Couldn't—Say

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

Dell CEO Michael Dell had promised to deliver a "new theory of the universe" during his Dell World 2015 keynote on Wednesday. Well, it didn't quite work out that way.

Rather, Dell spent well over an hour running down the virtues of his company's pending $67 billion mega-merger with EMC, listing the vast array of products and services the combined entity will bring to market, as well as its main strategic plans.

In doing so, Dell employed some high-minded rhetoric indeed. “We are going to build the world’s infrastructure for the next 20 or 30 years," he told the Dell World audience. "You’re going to cure cancer. You’re going to feed and water the world.

You're going to create hope and opportunity on a global scale.”

Seven Big Targets

The Dell-EMC "dream combination," it will focus on digital transformation, the Internet of Things, software-defined data centers, big data analytics, hybrid cloud computing, mobility and security, Dell said.

Meanwhile, EMC has an "unmatched reputation" in the Fortune 1000, while Dell is equally strong the midmarket and small business world, he added.

Dell declared EMC the best in the industry at incubating new technologies. The combined company will also mirror EMC's federated business structure, according to Dell.

The merger is the largest in tech history and will take EMC private. It's often said the advantage of going private means companies can focus on innovation without the constant pressure to raise revenue and profits publicly-owned ones face.

Dell did provide one interesting statistic as evidence this is true: Dell's patent filings increased by 27 percent over the past year, which is a company record. It has more than 8,000 issued and pending patents, he added.

The Bottom Line

This was a product-heavy, feel-good keynote—replete with a cozy and jokey onstage conversation between Dell and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella—and not the blueprint for a new tomorrow.

What vision Dell did spell out is dependent on a successful merger and integration with EMC, a job that's far from done and which carries significant risk.

But Dell's talk didn't—or in fairness, couldn't—address some of the most pressing customer questions about the deal, such as product rationalization and overlap, how the companies' cultures will merge, and potential changes to sales and support operations.

Also missing from Dell's strategy rundown? Any substantive discussion of enterprise applications. Obviously, these aren't a core offering of either Dell or EMC, but the lack of attention to the topic was a bit surprising when you consider that all of the strategic areas Dell-EMC will pursue underpin the emerging next generation of enterprise applications. Too much for one keynote, perhaps.

Data to Decisions Matrix Commerce New C-Suite Tech Optimization Chief Customer Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer

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How Dell and Microsoft's Azure-Powered Box Underscores An Inflection Point for Cloud

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Microsoft and Dell have announced a new private cloud appliance that isn't exactly a new idea—they released a larger, more expensive version last year—but nonetheless underscores that cloud computing has reached another inflection point.

From the release:

Microsoft and Dell announced Cloud Platform System Standard (CPS Standard), the newest addition to the Microsoft Cloud Platform System (CPS) family. CPS is the industry's only integrated system with a true hybrid cloud experience, built on optimized Dell modular infrastructure with pre-configured Microsoft CPS software, including the proven Microsoft software stack and popular Azure services.

The hybrid cloud experience comes from the platform's consistency with Azure, enabling agile deployment and operation of workloads and allowing customers to build multi-tiered, scalable applications.

CPS Standard arrives ready to be plugged in and can be up and running in as little as three hours, while operations, patching and updates are simplified with an automated framework.

In case of a datacenter outage, CPS Standard features archival backup to Azure and failover to Azure that is easy-to-activate, reliable and cost-effective...Its modular design allows customers to start smaller and incrementally scale from four to up to 16 servers based on business needs.

Customers have the option of renting the appliance from Dell for $9,000 a month, and a basic configuration can run about 100 virtual machines, according to IDG News Service.

Dell is also offering payment arrangements through its Cloud Flex Pay program. Following a six-month term, "customers have several options available, including the ability to extend the evaluation period, continue to use the solution, return it or take ownership of it, according to a statement.

The Bottom Line

So what about that inflection point? There are several matters here to ponder, says Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller.

For one thing, the industry initially tried to forklift software that was built for the on-premises world and tried to move it to the cloud, with mixed results, he says: "Now cloud software is coming back on-premises to run standard appliances."

This trend is important in a few ways, Mueller notes.

For one, "IT professionals learn cloud management tools and can run real cloud systems right away," he says. Second, it gives customers a consistent choice of where they'd like to deploy. Finally, "it provides standardization which always drives easier adoption—when you get the standard right," Mueller says.

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SAP TechEd: Inside Cloud For Analytics

Doug Henschen

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Doug Henschen is former Vice President and Principal Analyst where he focused on data-driven decision making. Henschen’s Data-to-Decisions research examines how organizations employ data analysis to reimagine their business models and gain a deeper understanding of their customers. Henschen's research acknowledges the fact that innovative applications of data analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach starting with information and orchestration technologies, continuing through business intelligence, data-visualization, and analytics, and moving into NoSQL and big-data analysis, third-party data enrichment, and decision-management technologies. Insight-driven business models are of interest to the entire C-suite, but most particularly chief executive officers, chief digital officers,…...

SAP’s new platform for BI, planning and predictive analytics promises simplicity and consistency, but it will require a fresh start for BusinessObjects or Lumira customers looking to move to this new cloud.

SAP can point to many benefits in building Cloud for Analytics, it’s new cloud-based BI, analytics and planning platform, from scratch, but one drawback is that BusinessObjects and Lumira customers won’t be able to bring dashboards or reports currently used on premises into this new cloud.

Before I get to this drawback, let’s review all there is to like about SAP Cloud For Analytics. For starters, it will include components for BI (meaning reporting, dashboarding, data-discovery and visualization), business planning, predictive analytics and, eventually, governance, risk and compliance (GRC). The starting point for Cloud for Analytics was Cloud for Planning, the budgeting and planning application introduced last year built on the HANA Cloud Platform. No surprise, then, that the planning component of Cloud for Analytics, renamed “SAP Cloud for Analytics for Planning,” is available immediately.

SAP Cloud for Analytics will include components for data-discovery and visualization, planning and predictive analytics.

As for the rest of the platform, the BI component, which draws on and replaces SAP Lumira Cloud, is expected to be available as soon as next month (and surely by year end). The Predictive Analytics component is expected to show up in the first half of next year (ideally by Sapphire). The GRC component isn’t on a hard timeline yet, so there’s talk of first introducing risk-analysis capabilities within the other components of the platform.

The benefits of Cloud for Analytics start with having BI, predictive analytics and planning all on a single platform – a unique combination in the cloud. SAP is also promising consistent and modern user interfaces that will be easy and intuitive for business users. Pricewise SAP is sticking with the Lumira Cloud freemium approach, starting with a free, basic BI service before graduating to more robust, paid levels of service starting at $25 per-user, per-month. Power-user licenses spanning multiple components and including the most advanced capabilities will top out at more than $1,000 per user, per month.

From what I’ve seen, the new platform delivers a clean design with lots of data-visualization elements. On speed and performance, Cloud for Analytics runs on the in-memory HANA Cloud Platform, so expect fast, in-memory performance.

At TechEd, SAP executives stressed that BusinessObjects and Lumira Server and Lumira Desktop are not going away. There’s a roadmap of new releases and planned innovations for all of these products. Anticipating hybrid deployment scenarios, SAP says Cloud for Analytics will be able to tap into existing BW, Lumira and BusinessObjects data and metadata as well as BusinessObjects Universes. There’s also bi-directional integration between Cloud for Analytics for Planning and SAP Budgeting, Planning and Consolidation (BPC). In another nice touch, Cloud for Analytics will be able to access on-premises S/4HANA and BW data without replication.

As for that one drawback, customers running BusinessObjects and Lumira on-premises will have to rebuild dashboards and reports they’ve accumulated in on-premises deployments if they want to run them on Cloud for Analytics. You can use the same data, metadata and Universes, but reports and dashboards won’t migrate to this HANA-based platform. As has long been the case, you still have the private-cloud option to migrate and run BusinessObjects and Lumira Server deployments as hosted, managed services. But that’s not the kind of agile, multi-tenant, always-current cloud service that many customers are looking for.

MyPOV on SAP Cloud for Analytics

SAP made a conscious choice to start with a clean sheet. We haven’t seen all of the components of the platform as yet, but it will be an attractive option if it lives up to expectations on consistency, ease of use and in-memory performance. It’s a good fit for customers if they’re fine leaving the legacy dashboards and reports on-premises while building out new reports, dashboards and applications in the cloud. And this approach also makes sense if you’re taking a day-forward approach, whereby new dashboards, reports and analytic uses center around new cloud-based apps and data sources.

If you have hundreds (or thousands) of dashboards and reports, as many SAP BusinessObjects customers do, and you want to take them into the cloud, managed services are the only practical option. Many BusinessObjects customers are ready to let go of the old content and start from scratch, but this limitation means that third-party cloud options may be as easy to embrace as Cloud for Analytics. Tapping existing data sets and metadata isn’t the hard part of changing BI tools and platforms.

The good news for customers is that there’s a world of new BI and analytics options in the cloud. Amazon announced two weeks ago that it’s jumping in with QuickSight. Salesforce has revamped and is putting a second push into Salesforce Wave. Microsoft is steadily adding options and capabilities to Power BI. Tableau and Qlik are moving more aggressively into the cloud. And next week we’ll see new analytics and BI cloud services from both IBM and Oracle. We’re clearly seeing plenty of innovation and the fresh competition, and that should help keep prices competitive.

AWS re:Invent: Five Takeaways On New Services

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From Relational Databases to Graph Database Interpretations - Creating Business Value through determining relationships in IoT Data

Andy Mulholland

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Andy Mulholland is Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on cloud business models. Formerly the Global Chief Technology Officer for the Capgemini Group from 2001 to 2011, Mulholland successfully led the organization through a period of mass disruption. Mulholland brings this experience to Constellation’s clients seeking to understand how Digital Business models will be built and deployed in conjunction with existing IT systems. Coverage Areas Consumerization of IT & The New C-Suite: BYOD, Internet of Things, IoT, technology and business use Previous experience: Mulholland co authored four major books that chronicled the change and its impact on Enterprises starting in 2006 with the well-recognised book ‘Mashup Corporations’ with Chris Thomas of Intel. This was followed in…...

Much has been said about Big Data analytics, usually in the context of a definable set of Business goals that allow, equally definable, context to be placed on the data collected. Internet of Things, IoT, massively increases the amount of data points, or flow, as well as looking for a real-time interpretation. To see unique ‘Insights’, or to launch reactive processes, requires a wholly different approach to conventional databases and analytical tools.

Data Graphs are emerging as the Data model for IoT architected solutions building on successful deployments for interpreting complex Social Media data.

Research report now available: The Foundational Elements for the Internet of Things (IoT)

Fog Computing together with Cloud Computing lays down the connectivity architecture to deploy and operating billions of Devices in a cohesive manner. However the Business Value doesn’t lie in the connectivity, but in the data and real-time insights that have had no obvious relational Database context. The very different manner in which a Data Graph stores data is uniquely suited to IOT data flows and the connectivity architecture of Fog and Clouds.

What is a Data Graph, and how, is it the answer for the specific challenges of IoT? Rather than starting with a technology definition, it might be easier to start by understanding the benefits with a real example. A popular and well-known deployment of Data Graph that delivers a unique business value unobtainable by conventional means is Google Photos. Google does not sell storage so on the face of it providing free storage for millions of photos doesn’t make sense, but it does sell advertising. If Google can find a way to profile people better, then its core business proposition, and resulting revenues, from targeted advertising increases.

Google Photos uses Graph Data to provide an analysis of stored photos to figure out from unrelated, undefined photo collections, what a person’s interests and personal relationships might be. The challenge is how to do this at scale and in a timely manner to make advertising offers both relevant and immediate to actions.

A in-depth look at exactly why and how Google use Data Graph can be found in Blumenthals article “Google Photos a visual graph of people places and things”. If you personally wish to experiment with using the power of Data Graphs to search through complex data then the CNet article defining “Five Ways to put Facebook Graph Search to use” provides a practical guide.

With the understanding of what Data Graphs can do, then it is easier to understand what a Graph Database actually is, and even more important why it is so important in the emerging global landscape of mass IoT devices. However this is not the place to provide a fully detailed explanation merely to draw attention to the rising importance of Graph Data. For a greater level of understanding there is an excellent video tutorial that will help both business and technology managers entitled Graphs to power Connected Things. The simple, working summary explanation would go as follows;

Graphs represent data by common denominators and connections; as such Graph Databases are therefore a natural way to represent the connected IoT environment and store originating data. There is no other type of database that works in this manner and enables facilitates rapid matches to be made from the huge amount of complicated relationships and interdependencies that make up an IoT environment.

As might be expected with the rising popularity of the topic there is a huge amount of useful information on Graph Databases to be found on Wikipedia. This includes some highly informative tables of most, if not all, the popular Graph Database types as well as comparisons of their functionality and APIs. This alone makes it a very valuable resource for anybody contemplating developing a Graph Database for a project and wishing to make an informed choice. Wikipedia also notes that Neo4J is the most popular and widely deployed Graph Database, a point the snap shot illustration below listing types of deployment by well-known companies makes clear, as well as showing the level of interest by major Enterprises.

Graph Databases are important part of IoT capabilities, and architecture, due to their unique characteristics that mimic the very structure of a connected interactive network of data flows. The much-hyped Business Value said to emulate from the growth in IoT Devices and the availability of new forms of data requires the use of Graph Databases in association with to a new generation of Analytics and Event Processing.

Irrespective of role, both Business and Technology, managers increasingly must work to understand the art of the possible, to define and deploy competitive business plays. Data is well understood to be at the heart of this, with Graph Data becoming the new differentiating capability in the world of connected IoT Devices.

Resources

The Foundational Elements for the Internet of Things (IoT)

More on Graph Databases:

An excellent presentation that brings together all aspects of Graph used to support IoT; http://www.iaria.org/conferences2015/filesDBKDA15/graphsm_privat_popovici.pdf

O’Reilly’s eBook explaining Graph Databases for those involved in development; http://graphdatabases.com/?ref=blog&_ga=1.93704735.303205197.1444547872

A link to a huge real time example plotting aircraft movements and used to illustrate the scalability of Graph; http://graphofthings.org

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Dell to Reveal 'New Theory of Universe': Highlights from Dell World 2015 Press Conference

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Dell CEO Michael Dell’s opening press conference at Dell World 2015 was rather short in length, but it delivered some interesting nuggets and sound bites nonetheless. Call it the appetizer for what should be quite a hearty enterprise meal this week in Austin, Texas. Here’s a look at some of the highlights from Tuesday’s press event in Austin.

Dell’s New ‘Theory of the Universe’

While Dell’s massive, $67 billion merger with EMC is far from concluded, Michael Dell didn’t shy away from discussing the deal and hinting at how the combined entity will go to market.

Buying EMC gives Dell a strong position in “the IT of tomorrow,” along with valuable new sales channels, the ability to co-innovate, coupled with Dell’s “world-class supply chain” and the ability to operate as a privately held company, he said.

During his keynote on Wednesday, Dell will reveal a new “theory of the universe” that Dell-EMC will try to prove out: “You'll get a sense of strategically where we're heading as a company, how we can deliver tremendous benefits for our customers, and how well-positioned the new company will be."

“This is complicated and doesn’t lend itself to sound bites,” he added. “What we see is a number of things going on. First of all, you have all the CIOs out there trying to fund digital transformation by reducing cost in their current infrastructure. There’s also this move to virtualization, hyper-converged systems where the silos that had been built up in the second platform of IT are starting to go away. It’s very important to be able to lead in that next wave of IT.” Dell-EMC will be able to lead in both existing and new technologies, Dell said.

POV: The timeworn IT industry phrase "end-to-end solutions" was actually invoked a number of times during the press conference, which doesn't bode particularly well for the reveal of a truly new idea. Dell's keynote needs to paint the picture of the combined company's plans with some specifics and real-life customer examples.

It's All About Scale

HP CEO Meg Whitman recently slammed the Dell-EMC deal in a leaked memo, saying integrating the company will be “a massive undertaking and enormous distraction for employees and their managers.” Of course, HP itself is in the process of dividing into two companies, one for enterprise and the other for personal systems and printing.

Dell seemed bemused when asked about Whitman’s comments. “Well…. Hmmm. HP is a great VMWare partner,” he said to laughter. “I don’t have any other comment. I think she got some of the facts wrong, but we’ll let the facts speak for themselves.”

“We have a different viewpoint as to how our company should evolve than HP does,” Dell added. “First of all we think that scale is important. When you look at this industry the companies the have succeeded in the volume data center space have been attached to large PC businesses and client businesses. The volumes really matter. I also think at the very moment there is an explosion in devices … the connection between device and data center is very important. We also find customers don’t want more suppliers, they want fewer suppliers.”

At an executive summit Dell held recently, “the CIOs were telling us, this is great,” he said. “You’re making our jobs a whole lot easier.”

Dell did acknowledge that integrating the company will require “a whole lot of work,” and said that it’s already underway among both EMC and Dell executives.

POV: Dell-EMC will achieve additional scale immediately after the deal is done, of course. But how effectively the integration plan gets executed could determine how quickly the combined entity takes additional market share, as well as keeps existing customers happy. Rival vendors—including HP—will certainly be circling large accounts of both companies, looking to poach. The good news is that this type of courtship provides customers leverage with any deal.

All-In on PCs

Dell is “fully committed to the PC business and all the hardware as you move up the stack,” said Jeffrey Clarke, president of client solutions. “We believe controlling the edge devices as well as all the things that happen in the infrastructure.”

Expect Dell to make a big play in Internet of Things device technology going forward as well, coupling that with its security assets, Clarke said.

One questioner suggested the PC business has become stale, feature and innovation-wise, which made Clarke bristle a bit. Dell recently shipped the industry’s smallest 13-inch notebook with a UHD screen and 18 hours of battery life, he said: “I think we’ve not seen the end of PC innovation—we’re just at the beginning of it.”

POV: Nobody would expect Clarke to say much of anything different about Dell's PC business, but his comments about selling up the full stack have some interest. One questioner asked whether Dell-EMC might move into selling integrated systems combining servers, storage, networking and various combinations of enterprise software, a la Oracle. No direct answer was given, but such a move isn't difficult to imagine given the software assets EMC brings to the table through VMWare and more.

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Breaking Big: Teradata Believes We are in the Internet of Analytics vs #IOT

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

Teradata announced two new breakthrough software capabilities that empower business users to uncover and operationalize the insights hidden within Internet of Things (IoT) data. These were 1. Teradata® Listener™ and 2. Teradata Aster® Analytics on Hadoop make it possible to intelligently listen in real-time and then use analytics to see the distinctive patterns in massive streams of IoT data.

And while Teradata does agree that we are in the age of over 50B connected devices, generating a massive and constant stream of data, the focus has not been on ingesting and maximizing value from the data with machine learning algorithms. Even the most technology-savvy organizations recognize that extracting value from data generated by the IoT is a difficult, skills-intensive process. Even more difficult is integrating the IoT data with business operations and human behavioral data.

Why the Internet of Analytics? Teradata’s latest innovative IoT software capabilities eliminate complexity and latency, while providing organizations with entirely new capabilities to leverage data. Teradata Listener is intelligent, self-service software with real-time “listening internet of things 50B ” capabilities to follow multiple streams of sensor and IoT data wherever it exists globally, and then propagate the data into multiple platforms in an analytical ecosystem. Data propagated to the recently-released Teradata Integrated Big Data Platform 1800 provides access to large volumes of data with its native support of JSON (Java Script Object Notation) data. Data propagated to Hadoop® can be analyzed at scale with Teradata Aster Analytics on Hadoop.

What Does This Mean To YOU? Let’s take for example, a Teradata customer and major manufacturer who sells and services magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), radiography, and ultrasound imaging equipment to global hospitals and clinics. With thousands of patient scans daily, these medical devices have become indispensable in global healthcare. Text logs describing patient behavior and sensor data are streamed 24/7 from the equipment into the manufacturer’s Hadoop data lake. Teradata runs text analytics on the data to uncover insights that help global field service personnel improve machine up-time and extend maintenance windows. Simultaneously, data from the equipment manufacturing process flows into a Teradata Appliance where advanced analytics offer insights for improving quality and manufacturing efficiency and help ensure that problems are not passed to the next product generation.

What Products / Services Were Announced?

Teradata Listener – Teradata Listener is intelligent, self-service software for ingesting and distributing fast-moving data streams–either individual or multiple streams–at one time. It allows customers to push data to Hadoop, Teradata Aster Analytics, Teradata Database, and other platforms. It enables data scientists, business analysts, and developers to quickly and easily analyze new data streams for faster answers to business questions. Without needing to rely on IT for help, users can analyze data from numerous sources including sensors, telematics, mobile events, click streams, social media feeds, and IT server logs.

2. Teradata Aster Analytics on Hadoop – Unique in the industry, the enhanced Aster Analytics on Hadoop is an integrated analytics solution from Teradata now featuring a set of more than 100 business-ready, distinctly different analytics techniques and seven vertical industry applications to run directly on Hadoop®. This allows organizations to seamlessly address business problems with an integrated analytics solution.

The flexibility and simplicity of these capabilities enables everyday business analysts to perform as data scientists by tackling the organization’s most challenging problems. Teradata Aster Analytics on Hadoop allows users to combine machine learning, text, path, pattern, graph, and statistics within a single workflow. Teradata offers flexible Aster Analytics deployments that include the Teradata Big Analytics Appliance, Hadoop , the software only version, or in the Teradata Cloud. And not all clouds are created equally!

4. Teradata Integrated Big Data Platform 1800
Released on Monday, October 19, the Teradata Integrated Big Data Platform 1800 is the ideal platform to support the new IoT capabilities. It enables customers to perform complex ana
lytics at scale and is available at a cost-effective price of approximately $1,000 per terabyte of compressed data. The Teradata Database, running on the Teradata Integrated Big Data Platform, provides access to data in many formats, including XML, name-value pair, BSON (Binary JSON) and JSON from web applications, sensors, and Internet of Things-connected machines.

5. Think Big is First to Offer Comprehensive Managed Services for Hadoop Data Lakes

Many organizations have found that it is relatively easy to download Hadoop software for free, and then load their data. What is far more difficult is to gain a competitive advantage from analyzing big data. The problem is compounded as a result of the current shortage of talented individuals with Hadoop skills. Organizations need individuals who understand the complexities of building and operating distributed systems, and have experience with managing systems at scale. Think Big consulting teams can manage data lakes and build applications with their highly trained and field-tested engineers, developers, and data scientists

“Think Big Managed Services for Hadoop help customers drive business results by building an analytical ecosystem that ensures data quality, reliability, and day-to-day completion of operational tasks,” said Ron Bodkin, president, Think Big. “Hadoop is a maturing technology with a range of challenges. Think Big offers world-class service to help customers address the common Hadoop platform and application challenges.”

For more info check out these links:

Up-coming Webinar, November 16: Real Time Data Streams: What’s in it for Me?
Teradata Listener Data Sheet
Teradata Aster Analytics on Hadoop Data Sheet
Teradata Integrated Big Data Platform 1800 Data Sheet

With all the devices and data, we have to work at making sure we are not collecting data for the sake of collecting data. Data has to be cleansed, managed and mined for insights that drive real business results.

@DrNatalie, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

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Teradata Puts Aster On Hadoop, Adds ‘Listener’ For Streaming Data

Doug Henschen

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Teradata puts Aster database on Hadoop to support ‘multi-genre’ analytics. New ‘Listener’ software collects and delivers high-volume, high-velocity data for IoT and other streaming scenarios.

Teradata is making a slew of announcements at this week’s Teradata Partners conference in Anaheim, CA, but none is more significant than the news that the Teradata Aster database will soon be available to run on Hadoop.

Teradata acquired Aster back in 2011 for its ability to handle newer, variable data types, such as clickstreams, log files and social feeds with unconventional analyses (for a database) including MapReduce and pattern and path analysis. Teradata subsequently extended Aster’s repertoire, adding support for graph analysis an in-database analytics based on the R language. Aster handles all of these analyses, as well as conventional querying, with SQL and SQL-like expressions, making it accessible to non-data scientists.

With Teradata Aster soon available to run on Hadoop, customers won’t need separate infrastructure to gain Aster’s diverse analytical capabilities.

MyPOV on Aster On Hadoop. The question for Teradata customers considering Aster has always been, do I really want to run three separate platforms, assuming the Teradata data warehouse and Hadoop are also in the picture. Now that there’s an option to run Aster on Hadoop, customers won’t need to invest in, deploy and run separate infrastructure for the database. Instead, Aster will run on Hadoop clusters, with YARN as the common resource manager.

In another benefit, customers won’t need to move data from Hadoop to Aster, as the database will access the data in HDFS directly. Finally, Aster’s versatility will stand out against rival SQL-on-Hadoop offerings that focus more narrowly on conventional SQL querying. Aster on Hadoop will be available in the first quarter of next year on Teradata’s Hadoop and Unified Data Architecture appliances. Software designed to run on Hortonworks, Cloudera and other Hadoop distributions will follow soon thereafter.

‘Listen’ to Streaming Data

Among the other announcements at Partners, the company introduced Teradata Listener software for capturing and distributing streaming data. Teradata Listener is designed to work with a variety of streaming sources, including mobile apps, event-processing engines, service buses, Cassandra, Spark, social networks, and a diversity of sensors. Destination options include Teradata, Aster, Hadoop, and more.

Teradata Listener is designed to capture and distribute data in streaming scenarios including IoT use cases.

MyPOV On Teradata Listener. This is focused software that doesn’t try to do too much. It’s not a processing engine, a service bus or integration software. Think of it as multi-point connector for streaming data. And kudos to Teradata for not overhyping the Internet of Things angle. Streaming applications come in many shapes, sizes and speeds, and connected sensors are just one of the sources Listener can capture and deliver to Teradata or Hadoop.

Running Hadoop as a Service

In one final announcement of note at Partners, Teradata announced that its Think Big consulting unit has introduced managed services for running Hadoop clusters. Given the scarcity of talent familiar with Hadoop, the idea is to speed and simplify the path to deploying and keeping Hadoop clusters up and running.

MyPOV On Hadoop services. This offering fills a clear need, but the focus of this service is on platform administrative services. The harder talent to find is data scientists. Think Big can certainly help with its consulting services for big data strategy, but these ongoing managed services won’t fill the talent gap where big data analysis is concerned.

MyPOV Overall on Teradata Partners

Teradata announced new hardware here, too, including an upgraded flagship 6800 active data warehouse platform, an upgraded extreme-capacity 1800 appliance, but it strikes me that Teradata is putting the emphasis on software and services more than ever. With revenue under pressure, Teradata is also pushing more strongly into the cloud with the offering of the Teradata database on Amazon Web Services, as announced two weeks ago at AWS re:Invent. These are all good signs, here at the 30^th anniversary Partners event, that Teradata is adapting for the future.

Data to Decisions Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

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Google's Tempting-Sounding Apps Migration Offer: Mind the Fine Print

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Google has unveiled a tempting-sounding offer aimed at convincing customers to switch to its Docs productivity tools, as competition heightens in the space from the likes of Microsoft Office 365 and IBM SmartCloud. Here's the gist, from the official blog post announcing the deal:

We're so confident that Docs has all the features you need, without the ones you don't, that we're making it even easier to give it a try. If you're worried about switching to Docs because you still have an enterprise agreement (EA) with another provider, we'll cover the fees of Google Apps until your contract runs out. We'll even chip in on some of the deployment costs and set you up for success with one of our Google for Work Partners.

Google will give customers a "simple contract with no traps or gotchas" once their existing EA runs out, and it will be possible to save up to 70 percent by switching to Docs, according to the post.

This all sounds pretty good on the surface, but there are pluses and minuses for customers to consider, says Constellation Research analyst Alan Lepofsky.

On the plus side: "There can be several challenges when switching from one vendor to another, including technical, cultural, political and financial," he says. "This program from Google helps to reduce the financial and technical ones."

The downside: "You’ll be running in a mixed environment until a final decision is made," Lepofsky says. "When a customer has to cutover quickly to avoid costs, it could be easier on the users. With the ability to run both until the end of your existing EA, the mixed environment could be around longer."

There are also some significant terms and conditions not mentioned in the blog post, but which are included in Google's own enterprise agreement for the migration offer.

For one thing, customers must commit to using Google Docs at standard terms and conditions for a year following the end of their existing EA.

"So for current IBM or Microsoft customers evaluating a move to Google, if they use the time until end of their EA to evaluate both, but then stick to renewing with their current vendor, they will be stuck double paying for 12 months to Google," Lepofsky notes.

In addition, the credit offer is good for only up to 3,000 user licenses per customer. One might quibble with the idea of that user count equating an enterprise-sized deployment. Standard monthly fees "will be applicable for any additional user licenses during the Remainder EA Term which will be prorated to the end of such term, and for the one year period following the Remainder EA Term," according to the agreement.

The Bottom Line

As for Google itself, there is little risk in making this sort of offer, Lepofsky says: "I don’t see any short term negatives for Google, as it won’t lose them customers. If it gains them anything greater than one, it would seem like a win."

However, "I can see competitors dropping pricing, or offering similar deals, thus making this program less relevant," he adds.

Finally, while costs and licensing are only two of the decision points used in vendor selection, "based on today’s announcement, customers could use Google’s new offer as a leverage point to reduce the costs associated in renewing their existing contracts," Lepofsky says.

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SAP Tech Ed 2015 Preview: Beyond the Keynotes

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

SAP's major US developer and technology conference, TechEd, kicks off this week in Las Vegas, featuring keynotes from platform solutions president Steve Lucas and Bernd Leukert, global head of products.

As Constellation Research analyst Doug Henschen notes in his own preview of the event, major announcements are expected to include a new Cloud for Analytics service as well as an update on the new S/4HANA application suite.

While the keynote material will be the subject of much attention and analysis, TechEd's massive session agenda provides greater immediacy and interest for customers and partners. While I won't be at this year's event, I dug through the catalog and highlighted some sessions I'd make a point to attend if I were.

SAP's Own Journey to S/4HANA

Dogfooding is a time-honored tradition among software vendors, and SAP doesn't depart from it. On Tuesday, SAP will present a session that describes its move to the Business Suite on HANA and planned migration to S/4HANA:

Explore the international adoption road map for the implementation and learn best practices involved in setting up the project. We talk about insights gained from performance testing and look at how SAP runs its ERP system on S/4HANA. We'll go over our project plan to implement S/4HANA OP1503 SAP internally; we’ll look at the steps needed to ensure a successful migration.

POV: Given the scope of SAP's project and the stakes involved in its success, any customer exploring a move to S/4HANA should get value out of this session.

Cloud Foundry and HANA Cloud Platform: The Convergence

From the session abstract:

SAP plans to integrate the open runtime platform Cloud Foundry, the industry standard for open platform-as-a-service (PaaS), into SAP HANA Cloud Platform. In this session we explore the impact of this evolution, the capabilities that Cloud Foundry adds to the SAP PaaS (such as multi-runtime support and community services) and a preliminary road map.

POV: While SAP wants customers to adopt HANA Cloud Platform as an extensibility and integration framework, Cloud Foundry has emerged as an industry leader in PaaS. The details of how the two platforms will work together are crucial.

SAP Cloud Integration: What's In the Works

Customers will get an update on SAP's cloud integration plans on Tuesday, as the session abstract describes:

Many organizations have invested years and money to connect their on-premises landscapes. They expect continuity and nondisruption as they anticipate and adopt cloud innovation from SAP. This session outlines our strategy for cloud integration and provides a current status of our cloud integration portfolio with a focus on SAP HANA Cloud Integration technology.

POV: Most SAP customers will end up with hybrid environments versus a full-blown move to the cloud, making it crucial for SAP to provide robust prebuilt integrations as well as integration tools.

SAP UI Technology Roadmaps: Seeking Clarity

There are many scheduled TechEd sessions on Fiori, the cross-platform user experience technology SAP is using for all new product development.

While seemingly off to a decent start with the customer base, Fiori remains in its infancy and the fact is that SAP has a sizable collection of older UI technologies in wide use among the customer base. One session promises to give customers clarity into their future:

Learn more about the road map of SAP's most important UI technologies and clients. Get to know their key characteristics, current capabilities, and features, and what to expect for the future. Examples of topics to be covered include: SAPUI5, SAP Web IDE, floorplan manager (Web Dynpro for ABAP), SAP NetWeaver Business Client, SAP Fiori launchpad, and SAP Enterprise Portal.

POV: After pushback from user groups, SAP made Fiori inclusive with maintenance payments, reducing the financial cost of implementing it. Still, it will be years before most customers are able to retire older UIs in favor of Fiori—assuming they even want to—so the information delivered here is of significant importance.

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Event Preview - SAP TechEd 2015

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

A short event preview of SAP's upcoming developer conference, SAP TechEd, happening in Las Vegas this week.

So take a peek:

If you can't watch - have a look:

A year ago (see here) it was (finally!) all about PaaS at SAP. Similar to Oracle, which had Oracle Openworld happening the week before (this year it's the other way around). And similar to IBM, who has been promoting the API economy for quite a while. SAP partners with Apigee and has made good progress as we saw at 'ILoveAPIs' last week (see here).
Anyone remember the yellow SAP logo - it was all new 12 months ago.. time flies.
So what will SAP show the developer community how they can make a living in 2016? I think the Hana Cloud Platform (HCP) will be key and needs to remain forefront of these efforts.
A year ago it was all about HANA SPS9 - let's see how much HANA messaging we will hear the next days. Of course a main focus is the recent HANA Vora announcement (more here). It's a very good move by SAP, TechEd will show how SAP will motivate developers to uptake the new capabilities.
And lets learn more about the new SAP Analytics solution, that was announced last week.
Let's see how the ecosystem is doing, key to see SAP uptake and adoption.

If you are in Las Vegas in person, catch me - I always have a minute. Or follow me on Twitter @holgermu - all my notes are there first!

More on overall SAP strategy and products:

Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Good Progress sprinkled with innovative ideas and challenging the status quo - read here
News Analysis - WorkForce Software Announces Global Reseller Agreement with SAP - read here
First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Day #1 Keynote Top 3 Takeaways - read here
News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors introduces Next Generation of HCM software - read here
News Analysis - SAP delivers next release of SAP HANA - SPS 10 - Ready for BigData and IoT - read here
Event Report - SAP Sapphire - Top 3 Positives and Concerns - read here
First Take - Bernd Leukert and Steve Singh Day #2 Keynote - read here
News Analysis - SAP and IBM join forces ... read here
First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
In Depth - S/4HANA qualities as presented by Plattner - play for play - read here
First Take - SAP Cloud for Planning - the next spreadsheet killer is off to a good start - read here
Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts - read here
First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge and the concern - read here

First Take - SAP's IoT strategy becomes clearer - read here
SAP appoints a CTO - some musings - read here
Event Report - SAP's SAPtd - (Finally) more talk on PaaS, good progress and aligning with IBM and Oracle - read here
News Analysis - SAP and IBM partner for cloud success - good news - read here
Market Move - SAP strikes again - this time it is Concur and the spend into spend management - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done - read here
First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here.

And more about SAP technology:

News Analysis - SAP Unveils New Cloud Platform Services and In-Memory Innovation on Hadoop to Accelerate Digital Transformation – A key milestone for SAP read here
HANA Cloud Platform - Revisited - Improvements ahead and turning into a real PaaS - read here
News Analysis - SAP commits to CloudFoundry and OpenSource - key steps - but what is the direction? - Read here.
News Analysis - SAP moves Ariba Spend Visibility to HANA - Interesting first step in a long journey - read here
Launch Report - When BW 7.4 meets HANA it is like 2 + 2 = 5 - but is 5 enough - read here
Event Report - BI 2014 and HANA 2014 takeaways - it is all about HANA and Lumira - but is that enough? Read here.
News Analysis – SAP slices and dices into more Cloud, and of course more HANA – read here.
SAP gets serious about open source and courts developers – about time – read here.
My top 3 takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote – read here.
SAP discovers elasticity for HANA – kind of – read here.
Can HANA Cloud be elastic? Tough – read here.
SAP’s Cloud plans get more cloudy – read here.
HANA Enterprise Cloud helps SAP discover the cloud (benefits) – read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

Future of Work Tech Optimization Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite SAP developer SaaS PaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer

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SAP Tech Ed 2015 Preview: Beyond the Keynotes

Event Preview - SAP TechEd 2015