A daily summary of stories in the areas of Big Data, cloud computing and software-led infrastructure from some of the top news sources on the Web.

Business News

EMC Buys Virtustream To Expand Its Cloud Offerings – InformationWeek

If you want to really understand Virtustream and how it will fit into the EMC ecosystem, check out Charles Babcock’s excellent analysis. Babcock, who wrote the book Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution in 2010, knows this market inside and out. He doesn’t see nearly as much overlap between Virtustream and VMware as some other reporters do. He also doesn’t think EMC wants to use Virtustream to build its public cloud business. The company has been growing like crazy in its lucrative niche.

Why EMC’s $1.2B Virtustream purchase could be a big deal in the cloud market

Jordan Novet says EMC’s financial resources could be put to work making Virtustream more self-service and therefore a competitor in the public cloud. “EMC could well start to challenge Microsoft,” he writes.

Jobandtalent Gets $25M To Steer Its Linguistic Analysis Recruitment Platform Toward The U.S. – TechCrunch

The company has raised $39 million and it isn’t done yet. Its service uses linguistic analysis to mine recruitment ads and alert users to new jobs that match their qualifications. The company says it’s signing up more than 450,000 new registered users per month.

Security News

Hackers Hit the IRS and Make Off With 100K Taxpayers’ Files – WIRED

This’ll make your hair stand on end. Thieves hacked into taxpayer file using the “get transcript” option on the IRS website. While they accessed “only” 100,000 files, they got everything – tax returns, Social Security numbers, income information, bank account numbers. Worse is that they appear to have had some of this information before the attack began. See also Thieves stole data on 100,000 taxpayers through IRS app – PCWorld

Ponemon Institute’s 2015 Global Cost of Data Breach Study Reveals Average Cost of Data Break Reaches Record Levels – PRNewswire

“According to the benchmark study of 350 companies spanning 11 countries, the average consolidated total cost of a data breach is $3.8 million1 representing a 23 percent increase since 2013. The study also found that the average cost incurred for each lost or stolen record containing sensitive and confidential information increased six percent from a consolidated average of $145 to $154. Healthcare emerged as the industry with the highest cost per stolen record with the average cost for organizations reaching as high as $363. Additionally, retailers have seen their average cost per stolen record jump dramatically from $105 last year to $165 in this year’s study.”

Kali Linux gives itself a Docker-cut – The Register

“Penetration testing gurus Offensive Security have made their popular Kali operating system available for Docker-addicted system administrators.” Kali is a version of Linux that’s loaded with hacking tools for use in penetration testing.

Trends & Analysis

Top Ten Reasons why CIOs Should Migrate to All-flash Datacenters by 2016 – Wikibon Premium

If you don’t believe that all-flash data centers are inevitable before reading this piece, you will after. All-flash storage will not only cut storage costs, but also improve server efficiency, stave off upgrades, juice developer productivity and help you lose 25 pounds.

OpenStack Foundation Looks To Build A Mega Mall – Talkin’ Cloud

It wants the OpenStack Community App Catalog to be the primary way users buy OpenStack-based software. This article also makes an interesting point about how catalogs (essentially enterprise app stores) could turn the software business on its head. People will install software before ever contacting the company and only reach out to the vendor once they need help. This will completely disrupt the sales process, making the developers effectively the chief sales people. Instead of selling promises, software will need to provide tangible value and only close the deal once the customer is using the product.

Will You Always Save Money with Hadoop? – SmartData Collective

Tamara Dull introduces and demonstrates the Total Cost of Data (TCOD) framework, which can be used to decide which Big Data deployment options make the most sense. She then runs two scenarios through the model to show that data warehouses still make a lot of sense in some cases.

Hortonworks Q1 Earnings Reflect Hadoop’s Momentum in the Enterprise

Hortonworks President Herb Cunitz comments on the company’s most recent earnings report and all the great things that are going on at the company and in the market right now.
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