June 6, 2013 News Thursday: Customer Drives Success with Windows Azure and More Server and Tools News…

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by STB Blogger

Insurance business drives success with Windows Azure

To better understand its customers and help them save money, Aviva, a leading provider of financial services worldwide, implemented a hybrid-cloud solution based on Windows Azure that brings together data from mobile devices, on-premises applications, and social media.

Aviva wanted to base auto insurance quotes on the behavior of individual drivers instead of statistics, but found that deploying on-premises infrastructure to collect telematics data from moving vehicles was too complicated and costly. With Windows Azure, Aviva can quickly bring innovative solutions to the marketplace, help customers save up to 20 percent, and reach customers through the devices they use every day. Hear more about how Aviva is driving change with Windows Azure in the video case study.

Microsoft Partners Un-wrap New Offerings at TechEd 2013

Several vendors unveiled new solutions that take advantage of Microsoft networking technologies.

  • Emulex announced plans to support high performance Virtual Network Fabrics in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V environments.
  • Mellanox unveiled its ConnectX-3 Pro 10GbE adapter with Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE), which builds on the foundation in Windows Server 2012 and helps accelerate throughput, increase cloud providers’ scalability, and reduce cost.
  • Riverbed announced Riverbed Stingray Traffic Manager application delivery controller software and Virtual Steelhead wide area network optimization appliances support on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and Hyper-V Server.
  • F5 showcased network virtualization and cloud solutions that combine F5 application delivery services with the flexibility of Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012.
  • Arista announced support for Open Management Infrastructure through Arista extensible operating system software version 4.12.

Visit the Windows Server blog to learn more about Microsoft’s approach to Software-Defined Networking and the ways that we enable partners to  build value-added solutions and extensions on top of Windows Server and System Center.

Storage vendors showcased new Windows Server 2012-based solutions.

  • LSI shipped its Syncro CS storage solution that runs on Windows Server 2012 and is designed to deliver storage benefits at a fraction of the cost and complexity of traditional high-availability solutions.
  • sTec announced its s3000 storage appliance, which combines the benefits of sTec’s solid-state drive technology with Windows Storage Server 2012 storage clustering, virtualization and management features.
  • Nimble Storage demonstrated flash-optimized hybrid storage solutions and highlighted a pre-validated reference architecture designed to meet the high-availability and performance requirements for building private clouds with Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.
  • DataON unveiled the DNS-9000 Series of Cluster-in-a-Box appliances that take advantage of the high availability and Storage Spaces features in Windows Server 2012.

Several vendors introduced new identity and access management offerings.

  • Centrify launched Centrify for Office 365, a comprehensive solution for Active Directory-based single sign-on, user provisioning and mobile management for Office 365. Visit the Centrify Technovations blog for more information.
  • NextLabs announced extended support for Microsoft Dynamic Access Control to protect and control sensitive information across SharePoint, File Servers, Windows, Office, and Outlook.

Keeping the Good News Coming: EMC VSPEX Expands Support for Exchange 2013 and SharePoint 2013

EMC announced that VSPEX solutions for Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint will be updated to include Exchange 2013 and SharePoint 2013 in early July.

VSPEX combines EMC’s industry-leading storage and backup technology integrated with your choice of virtualization, server and networking technology — fully tested and validated by EMC as cloud infrastructure to support your mission-critical applications.

The new VSPEX solutions for Exchange and SharePoint 2013 are designed to dramatically reduce the complexity that comes with planning, sizing and deploying environments for these mission critical applications. Now you can quickly and easily deploy complete infrastructure supporting a virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2013 instance scaling between 100 and 10,000 mailboxes.  The simple, efficient and flexible VSPEX for SharePoint 2013 covers popular use cases such as Document Repository (file shares replacement) and Enterprise Content Management and can scale from 100 users up to 10,000 users.

Grant Dawson, Information Technology Manager for T2 Systems, a VSPEX customer, stated: “With VSPEX, we can dynamically allocate resources to virtualized mission critical applications in Windows Server 2012. The way VSPEX is designed means that we have full redundancy and data is always available.”

EMC will post these new solutions to the VSPEX space on EMC Community Network in early July. To learn even more about these new offerings, visit EMC’s blog for more information.