First non-Sony Vaio laptops arrive, but they sure do look familiar

The Vaio laptop brand formerly owned and operated by Sony has returned under a very similar guise with the Vaio Fit and Vaio Pro 13 laptops effectively making a comeback

JIP, the Japanese company now controlling Vaio, has announced the launch (or relaunch) of the Vaio Fit and the Vaio Pro range, which appear to be identical, only without the Sony branding.

While it's unlikely that someone has gone around with a penny scratching off the Sony logos, it appears this is simply a sell off of existing stock.

The laptops will only be on sale in Japan as the new owners seek to establish themselves at home before reintroducing the Vaio brand abroad.

Redux

The Vaio Fit comes in 11-inch, 13.3-inch, 14-inch and 15.5-inch display sizes and features a flip design allowing it to double as a tablet.

It has an Intel Core i7 processor, 1080p full HD screen resolution, up to 8GB of RAM and an Intel HD 4400 graphics card.

The Vaio Pro has a 13-inch 1080p display and an Intel Haswell chipset.

Sony sold off the Vaio brand in February this year after failing to make it profitable.

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Survey finds Hadoop is too slow, big data is too complex

Seventy-six percent of data scientists say that Hadoop is too slow, according to a survey from analytics company Paradigm4. Data scientists believe the open-source software framework requires too much effort to program and isn’t fast enough to keep up with big data demands.

Ninety-one percent of survey respondents say they are performing complex analysis of big data, and as a result 39% of overall respondents say their job is becoming more difficult. Seventy-one percent of respondents say the types of data sources in addition to volume are making analysis more difficult.

Of the 76% of respondents that report problems with Hadoop, 39% say it requires too much effort to program, 37% say it’s too slow for ad hoc queries, and 30% say it’s too slow for real-time analytics.

The ubiquity of big data

Big data is becoming increasingly important for all enterprises. Ninety-six percent of midmarket companies with 2,000 to 5,000 employees are embracing the rise of big data, according to research commissioned by Dell and conducted by Competitive Edge Research. Eighty percent of the midmarket believes they need to better analyze their data, as they believe big data initiatives provide a significant boost to company decision making.

For small businesses, free and cheaper tools are making it more likely that collecting and analyzing big data will become a necessity in order to compete.

The Paradigm4 survey features responses from 111 data scientists in the US. Survey results were culled during a one-month span in March and April.

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Kinvey launches Mobile Identity Connect to simplify security for app developers

Kinvey has launched a service designed to enable mobile developers to secure web-based applications with enterprise identity management systems. The goal of the service is to allow developers to devote time and resources to user experiences, while delegating security concerns to Kinvey.

The service, Mobile Identity Connect, is made with developers in mind. Organizations that create mobile web-based applications can use the service to add single-sign-on authentication and identity management without leveraging persistent connections to desktop apps, according to a Kinvey statement.

Kinvey created Mobile Identity Connect to enable developers to focus on identity management, data services, business logic, and engagement services with one single tool.

Demand for web-based app security solutions

“Most enterprise-grade identity and single sign-on systems were designed in a pre-mobile world, and don’t take the unique challenges of mobile technology into account,” said Sravish Sridhar, CEO of Kinvey, in a statement.

Last month, Kinvey launched support for beacon-enabled enterprise applications designed to improve the knowledge associated with proximity-aware mobile applications.

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Industry voice: The rise of photonic switching in the datacenter

There is a lot of industry inertia around two major datacenter networking trends: white box switching and software-defined networking (SDN). The primary driver behind both is cost. The former is about commoditizing physical switches to reduce overall capital expenses (CapEx).

The latter is about simplifying management to reduce operating expenses (OpEx). Think of this as an effort to commoditize control over the network in distributed, heterogeneous environments.

Networking costs, however, are not limited to just traffic forwarding and network management.

Physical switching costs

Physical switching costs are already coming down due in part to industry convergence on a narrow set of merchant silicon and an increasingly competitive switching landscape. As switching costs continue their downward descent, the cost of interconnecting those switches will begin to play a larger role in the design, purchase and maintenance of datacenter networks.

Currently, more than 80 percent of all traffic in the datacenter is east to west. That means that the dominant path for packets in the datacenter is between servers, not up and out of the datacenter itself, and this number is growing.

The dependence on the interconnect between switches is even more profound for Big Data applications such as Hadoop and Cassandra, which require high volumes of traffic to store and retrieve data.

This dependence creates tremendous demand for low-latency bandwidth between servers, leading to the question: How will this scale?

Does photonic scale?

Today, the most common datacenter switching architectures feature high numbers of interconnect links. In a small, 6-switch leaf-spine architecture that supports 432 access ports, there are a whopping 288 interconnect ports requiring 144 cables. This means that 40 percent of the total switch ports in the entire deployment are dedicated solely to interconnecting switches.

Without factoring in the operational costs associated with cabling (especially during expansion), the sheer volume of cables and ports is becoming a significant contributor to overall cost. If the major trends in networking are all cost-related, there will need to be an emergent trend beyond just the switch hardware and management. The interconnect itself will need to go through the same commoditization evolution.

Fortunately, high-speed, low-latency links are not unique to datacenters. Large service providers have been providing high-capacity links for ages, leveraging optical equipment for transport. Photonic switching hasn’t caught on in the datacenter though, not due to the technology’s capabilities but rather the cost. When used across a small number of devices, the costs are fairly reasonable, but when the implementation is scaled to span an entire datacenter the cost can become prohibitively expensive.

Fortunately, advances in technology are changing that.

In recent years, manufacturing has gone through an evolution that has brought the costs of photonic switching nearly in line with its electronic counterpart. The same technology that makes high-speed transport possible in carrier environments can be applied to the growing needs of the datacenter.

The benefit of this technological shift is that the introduction of photonic switching doesn’t just commoditize the interconnect. It also introduces some of the optical features that make dynamic pathing possible in carrier networks today. Effectively, this allows network architects to provide dynamic bandwidth on a static infrastructure.

Imagine allocating dedicated, high-bandwidth, single-hop paths to applications when and where they are needed. For example, during a Big Data job, the infrastructure could temporarily provide a network bypass that guarantees the fastest connection between two servers. The result is a much more flexible network that works in collaboration with the very applications it supports. And it does so all at the same or lower costs than common networks today.

Ultimately, the future of networking simply has to scale in terms of both performance and cost. And it has to scale across all three - switching, management, and the interconnect. Photonic switching will undoubtedly be the third leg of the commoditization stool.

• Michael Bushong is the vice president of marketing at Plexxi.

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Updated: Surface Pro 3 release date, news and features

Introduction, release date and specs

Microsoft is hoping that three is the magic number after unveiling the latest addition to its Surface family of devices: the Surface Pro 3. We've gone hands on with the tablet, which impresses thanks to its sharper screen, bigger dimensions and great stylus support.

The company has gone all out by making it the biggest, most powerful and feature-packed Surface yet, and many would argue that it needed to.

It's been a rocky road for Microsoft where its Surface devices are concerned: in the two years since Windows chief Steven Sinofsky unveiled the Surface RT and Surface Pro, Microsoft has lost said Windows chief, squandered almost $1 billion on unsold Surface RT stock and replaced its brash and bullish CEO, Steve Ballmer.

Satya Nadella, Ballmer's replacement, has already made progress in evolving Microsoft's mobile and cloud computing strategies (hardly a surprise considering his former position), but the ex-Sun Microsystems engineer still has to earn his hardware stripes.

It was expected that the Surface Pro 3 would be unveiled alongside a Surface Mini, or even a Surface 3, but neither materialized. Instead, it basked in the limelight alone when Microsoft corporate VP Panos Panay took to the stage to show it off to the world.

Surface Pro 3 release date

You can order the Surface Pro 3 now from the Microsoft Store, Microsoft-branded retail outlets and select third-party retailers. However, it won't ship until June 20 in Canada and the US.

Those in the UK and Australia will have to wait until the "end of August" to get their hands on the device. Along with a host of new accessories, it'll ship that month in 26 additional markets.

Surface Pro 3 review

Not only do we know when you can get your hands on a Surface Pro 3, we can tell you whether it's worth getting your hands on it. As it turns out, you totally should! As Joe Osborne puts it in his full review:

"The Surface Pro 3 is not only Microsoft's most striking and versatile device to date, but the most convincing poster child for the hybrid category yet. It might not be perfect, but this is far and wide the brightest shining example of a potential tablet takeover."

Read the full Microsoft Surface Pro 3 review for even more in-depth information, observations and insights on the Redmond firm's most attractive and capable device yet.

Surface Pro 3 design

The Surface Pro 3 an evolution, rather than revolution over the Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2 in terms of design - it's still a touchscreen tablet featuring an industrial design, with sharp lines, wrapped in a magnesium alloy case with a detachable keyboard.

However, Microsoft claims to have done much more work around the Surface Pro 3's fan this time around. At the product launch, Panos Panay said that it's the quietest Surface device yet - and that you wouldn't be able to see, hear or feel its fan thanks to its new custom designed blades.

Surface Pro 3 specs

Microsoft is pitching the Surface Pro 3 as a full-on laptop killer that's large enough to give you the desktop real estate required to be productive while remaining thin and light enough to be portable.

At 12 inches, its display is the largest on any Surface tablet, and it crams in more pixels than ever. With a pixel resolution of 2160 x 1440, it bests the 1080p panels found on the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 and, according to Microsoft, provides 6% more content than devices with 13-inch displays due to its 3:2 aspect ratio.

Microsoft also claims that the display is "optically bonded with the highest contrast ratios in the industry", making us keen to take the Surface Pro 3 for a spin outdoors to test outdoor readability.

Weighing in at 800g (1.76lbs), the Surface Pro 3 is light compared to similar-sized laptops, such as Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air (2.96lbs) and even the 11-inch variant (2.38lbs). It's also 100g (or 0.2lbs) lighter than the Surface Pro 2, and at 0.35 inches thick, it's thinner too (versus 0.53 inches).

If you're interested on what the Surface Pro 3 looks like on the side, TechRepublic has given the tablet the teardown treatment. It found that the device is just as (if not more) difficult to disassemble as the Surface Pro 2 that went before it, and it's just as crackable.

It isn't quite as light as other tablets on the market, such as Apple's iPad Air (1lb) or Sony's Xperia Tablet Z (1.09lbs), which isn't surprising considering its larger size and more powerful components. However, it's only slightly heavier than the 12-inch, Android-powered Galaxy Note Pro 12.2, which weighs 1.66lb.

Microsoft claims that the Surface Pro 3 is 10 per cent faster than the Surface Pro 2. Under the hood, it's being offered with an Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 Haswell processor depending on the level of power you're looking to harness (and the size of the hole you're willing to punch into your sobbing wallet).

For better or worse, Microsoft's Surface tablets have always stood out for their multiple position kickstands, and the Surface Pro 3's has enjoyed a similar evolution. It now sports a 'friction hinge', which allows it to recline to any position up to 150 degrees, which Microsoft calls "Canvas Mode" due to its suitability for drawing.

We may still only be in the pre-order stage when it comes to the Surface Pro 3, but Microsoft has already set about improving various aspects of the device - a few of which are related to its drawing capabilities.

In a blog post, Penny Arcade artist Gabe detailed a flaw in the Surface Pro 3 that means the Home button (Windows flag) on its right-hand bezel can be accidentally activated while drawing, despite there being palm rejection and guard sensors to prevent inadvertent hits. In response, Microsoft worked with Gabe to fix the issue via an update that disables the home button when the pen comes into contact with the screen.

Microsoft is also working on other issues highlighted by Gabe, including stylus sensitivity and lag, but it's unclear whether a fix will be delivered in time for the Surface Pro 3's general release.

Surface Pro 3 pen

You'll be doing that using the new Surface Pro 3 pen, which powers on the device and launches OneNote when pressed to the screen.

By clicking the pen you can save your doodles directly to OneDrive's cloud storage, and double clicking it with the camera open will take a photo that can then be scribbled on in the app.

The Surface Mini was widely expected to be a killer note-taking device, a role that, for the time being, appears to have been assigned to the Surface Pro 3.

According to Microsoft, the Surface Pro 3's optical stack (the LCD screen and digitiser) is the thinnest yet, measuring 0.7mm. This means that when you used the Surface Pro 3's pen, it's more akin to writing on paper than a display as the virtual "ink" practically touches the pen tip when the two interact.

In a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA), the Surface team said that it's working on allowing you to launch the desktop version of the OneNote app by pressing the top button on the Surface Pen, rather than the Metro-style version.

The Surface Pro 3's pen and form factor has already won it a few converts. In June, UPMC, a healthcare delivery and financing system in the US, decided to to deploy 2,000 Surface Pro 3 devices over Apple's iPad. According to a post on Microsoft's Surface blog, UPMC was looking for a device that healthcare workers could carry around instead of laptops and iPads.

In an interview with TechRadar, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Surface Panos Panay said that the Surface Pro 3 is "made for people ... not businesses". However, that hasn't stopped a number of enterprises lining up as early adopters - including BMW, Coca Cola, Louis Vuitton, Moet Hennessy and Avande.

Surface Pro 3 battery life and connectivity

Microsoft claims that the Surface Pro 3 has a battery life of up to nine hours. In the Reddit AMA, the Surface team acknowledged that battery life would be the same across all of the models (i3, i5 and i7), adding that benchmark scores will be around 15 - 20 per cent better on the i7 model than the i5.

The company also confirmed the Surface Pro 3's status as a Connected Standby model, meaning it will wake up in half a second when interacted with. However, should you leave it for longer than four hours, it'll slip into hibernation and will then take a similar amount of time to wake up as the Surface Pro 2.

It also moved to dispel any concerns around how many times you can charge the device before it loses its fizz: charge the device daily (meaning five times a week) for over 4.5 years and it will still maintain 80 per cent capacity.

Microsoft encountered an early charging-related problem when review units were sent out to review. Several journalists reported that their Surface Pro 3 was refusing to charge despite being plugged in. A member of Microsoft's PR team acknowledged the issue in a tweet and assured that the problem would be fixed before devices hit the shelves.

If the battery fails during the warranty period, Microsoft confirmed that it will replace it for free. Outside of the warranty period, you'll need to contact Microsoft support and arrange for the battery to be replaced, along with paying a US$200 (around £119) replacement fee.

In terms of connectivity options, the Surface Pro 3 has 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, USB 3.0 and a TPM 2.0 chip. Its front-facing speakers are 45 per cent louder than previous generations, and front and rear-facing cameras are capable of shooting 1080p video and taking 5-Megapixel photos.

Sensors include an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer and an ambient light sensor. It's lacking GPS and 4G, however, both of which made an appearance in the last Surface device outed, the Surface 2 4G.

Price, covers and accessories

Surface Pro 3 price

The Surface Pro 3 comes in three configurations, starting at $799 in the US for the Core i3 model with 64GB of internal storage and 4GB RAM. There's no word on UK or AUS pricing just yet, but a rough conversion would put that price at £474 and $865 respectively.

Moving up the ladder, the first Core i5 version comes in at $999 (128GB storage, 4GB RAM), the second Core i5 version at $1,299 (256GB, 8GB), the first Core i7 version at $1,549 (256GB, 8GB) and the second Core i7 version at $1,949 (512GB, 8GB).

Surface Pro 3 Type Cover and accessories

Keeping in tradition with previous Surface tablets, the Surface Pro 3 arrives with its own selection of covers and accessories.

First up, the new Type cover has a 68 per cent larger touchpad than the oft-bemoaned ones on the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2's covers and 78 per cent less friction. Unfortunately, you'll have to cough up $120 (£110) for the cover on top of paying for the device.

Microsoft said that it once again decided not to bundle a cover in with the price of the Surface Pro 3 as people may want to buy it and then pick up a different colored cover separately.

In the Reddit AMA the company confirmed that it's no longer offering the Surface Music kit that was outed along with the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, but it hasn't abandoned the idea of providing additional functionality through new covers either.

Arriving in a variety of colors, the new covers now feature a magnetic hinge that attaches to the Surface Pro 2's bottom bezel. This apparently makes it sturdier and provides an even more laptop-like experience when sat in your lap (something that Microsoft describes as "lappability" - seriously), allowing you to shift the device around to find the best viewing angles without excessive wobbling.

Microsoft hasn't forgotten desk workers either - the Surface Pro 3 gets its own dock that can drive a 4K monitor through Mini DisplayPort, providing a dual display setup for apps such as Photoshop or Illustrator.

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Industry voice: 9 questions you should ask before putting your data in the cloud

Cloud computing has been an industry buzzword for some time now, but has continued to evolve at quite a pace. Despite this, one of the predominant themes of discussion that remains is how to take advantage while still avoiding the risks of 'the cloud'.

The noise surrounding software as a service (SaaS) combined with cloud computing has become almost deafening in recent times. Although it's great for exposure and recognition, this hype can also be a detriment to successful adoption of a solution or a technology.

Prospective users can often find this is paired with unrealistic expectations, misunderstandings, and even disillusionment.

No doubt, on paper (or should that be virtual desktop, these days?), the proposition on offer from service providers and the Hyperscale companies, mainly public cloud providers, is tempting.

Benefits include limitless compute power, cheaper costs to run, simple pricing, global access, and end-user transparency amongst many more. It does indeed sound like a fabulous club to join.

Not so fast...

However, there seems to be quite a few catches that need careful thought before heading lock, stock and two smoking barrels towards the cloud. And most of them have to do with your data.

I recommend using the following checklist of nine major topics:

1. Who in your business 'owns' overall data governance and what do they think? IT, Privacy Officer, Security Director, others?


2. What happens if the NSA or GCHQ want to access your data? Is that a concern?


3. What happens if you want to change suppliers – either in an emergency (think what happened with Nirvanix or 2E2) or simply because a newer service might be better for your needs – e.g. the recently announced Google Compute Engine or VMware Hybrid Cloud Service?


4. What data structure(s) will you use? Open standards or otherwise?


5. What level of performance guarantee and Quality of Service do you have? Like broadband, is your service level dependent on how others choose to use the same cloud?


6. Have you considered any network distances involving the speed of light and latency?


7. Are you going to be breaking any laws - Data Privacy, Data location, etc. – by moving your data to the cloud?


8. How will you audit your data in the cloud, or across multiple clouds, if you need to? If you have one, what does your regulator think?


9. And, even if the cost for storing it is next to nothing, what does it cost to retrieve your data when you need it? How long will it take?

How to counteract industry concerns

Despite all this, for many workloads, especially those with fluctuating and/or very high scale resource requirements, no doubt the speed and cost benefits do, or will, outweigh any of these risks.

And, unlike traditional IT, cloud services don't have to be purchased by the IT department. So, there is no real way of stopping eager employees even if the IT or security departments have restrictions in place.

Most organisations will suit a hybrid of private cloud offered by cloud service providers who can offer bespoke IT and applications run 'as a service' in their data centres.

Alternatively, the hyperscale players who can offer global economies of scale for IT infrastructure, that are going to be difficult to compete against and replication in any other way is not an option.

Obviously, price point has been a huge part of technology investment considerations but as we move out of austerity, the flexibility and agility of elastic computing must be the key considerations for infrastructure.

Careful implementation

The key to this will be building a data platform that allows the IT department (led by the CIO) to offer users choices of services they have come to expect, but with the appropriate long term risks and the 9 questions above taken into account.

One unique and invaluable aspect of cloud computing is that you can enlist the vendor to help you convince management that the ROI/business value potential is there.

By testing the concept first, you can help alleviate fears and hesitation before signing a contract. This can eliminate any questions you have before putting your data in any cloud.

Specifically, ask about the ability to pilot the solution. You may still need to pay for implementation services associated with the pilot, but in the new world of cloud computing, look for proof points and results before you make a large investment.

Over the past 6 months, the industry has heard very few senior IT people recently say they are 'all-in' for the cloud. Although slightly ambiguous, one would hope they have thought about what they would do if they decide they need to be 'all-out' at some point in the future.

The cloud should be an extension of your IT strategy, not a replacement for one.

• In his role as Product Alliances and Solutions Marketing Manager, Laurence is responsible for driving market awareness for NetApp products across UK and Ireland.

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