Xpertfeed

Western Digital is going after big and fast data workloads. Western Digital expanded its data center portfolio to include an object storage system, new all-flash arrays and hybrid platforms. Here's a look at the Ultrastar system The company, which has expanded its enterprise focus via acquisitions, rolled out the following as it looks to enable big data and analytics workloads. Active Scale 5.3 Object Storage System. The system, which is Western Digital's ActiveScale P100 and X100 systems, is designed for petabytes of unstructured data. Additions include the ability to ingest and manage mixed file and object use cases. Integration with Amazon Web Services, more storage density and support for Docker containers were also added. IntelliFlash NVMe Flash Arrays via Western Digital's N Series of systems. The N Series systems can scale from 19TB to 1.3PB of solid-state storage. The systems are available later this year. Ultrastar Serv60+8 Hybrid Storage Server Pl...

Microsoft is buying one of the AI companies in which it has invested: Bonsai, a deep reinforcement platform for enterprise/industrial applications. After buying  GitHub ,   four gaming companies   and an   educational video-discussion vendor , Redmond purchased on June 20 another artificial intelligence (AI) vendor. Microsoft officials announced the company had  signed an agreement to acquire Bonsai. Bonsai , based in Berkeley, Calif., is one of the companies that Microsoft's Ventures unit (now known as M12) had invested.Bonsai officials describe the company as delivering "the world's first deep reinforcement learning platform for the enterprise." Bonsai officials said the company has been integrating machine-learning and developer tools from Microsoft, Uber, Google and Apple to build its software and services to  build AI for industrial applications , according to Bonsai's web site. (Cue Microsoft's "intelligent edge"campaign.) ...

The low-code environment is targeted at IT departments that don't have the budget for custom apps. Google on Thursday is bringing App Maker, its developer tool for G Suite, into general availability . App Maker is a low-code environment for developers who can use to build custom business apps. It launched in beta in late 2016. As it moves into GA, App Maker is also getting a couple of updates: First, G Suite administrators will have visibility over these custom apps, including oversight of owners, usage metrics and OAuth permissions. Admins will also be able to prevent apps from running without their approval. Additionally, for customers who also have a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account, App Maker is offering built-in support for Cloud SQL. It also supports a "Bring Your Own Database" model so customers can connect to their own database using the JDBC API or a REST API. App Maker also enables developers to connect their apps to data and services from Gmail, C...

GitHub competitors have picked up thousands of new developers but in relative terms the numbers are small.   Rivals of now Microsoft-owned code host GitHub are touting gains from developers who aren't happy with the acquisition and what it could mean.GitLab and Atlassian's BitBucket are both playing up to negative reactions towards the acquisition and uncertainty among developers about the future. Both sites say developers are migrating in larger numbers to their respective sites. GitLab said yesterday it had imported over 100,000 repositories from GitHub since news of the deal was confirmed on Monday.Microsoft said it is paying $7.5bn in stock for GitHub as part of an effort to win developers and give a boost to Azure and the other developer tools it offers. Despite losing some developers, these numbers migrating are minuscule compared with the 85 million repositories on GitHub. BitBucket also claims to have seen a noticeable spike in GitHub migrations sin...

It's feverishly hyped and often misunderstood, but blockchain technology is on track to become a major source of disruption across media and entertainment. Blockchain, best known as the technology behind Bitcoin , is a secure, encrypted database architecture that logs and links all transactions on a tamper-proof ledger distributed among multiple parties. In effect, a blockchain creates an immutable golden record of time-stamped transactions related to any product that can be bought and sold. In the context of buying music, news, and other digital content, the promise of blockchain is to provide decentralized control, trust, and transparency when transacting virtual property. For the creators of digital content and virtual property, this means enforceable copyrights, transparency around royalty payments, and payments made securely without an intermediary. In the music and news media industries in particular, the blockchain could be key to rights management, procuring ...