Research Note: FortiGate 700G Series for the Modern Campus

Executive Summary Fortinet’s recent introduction of the FortiGate 700G series marks a significant advancement in Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) technology, purpose-built to address the evolving security and networking demands of today’s complex campus environments. This new series leverages Fortinet’s proprietary ASIC technology and unified operating system, FortiOS, to deliver exceptional performance, advanced threat protection, and energy […]

Research Note: HPE GreenLake Intelligence

HPE GreenLake Intelligence

At the recent HPE Discover event, HPE introduced GreenLake Intelligence, an agentic AI framework that attempts to address the operational complexity of modern hybrid IT environments through autonomous agent orchestration.The platform combines domain-specific large language models with real-time telemetry from HPE’s infrastructure portfolio, enabling proactive, cross-domain IT operations management.

Research Note: HPE’s Updated AI Factory

At its recent Discover event, HPE announced an expansion of its NVIDIA-based AI Computing portfolio with three distinct AI factory configurations targeting enterprise, service provider, and sovereign deployment scenarios.The offerings center on the upgraded HPE Private Cloud AI platform, which integrates NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs with HPE ProLiant Gen12 servers, custom storage solutions, and orchestration software.

Research Note: Pure Storage’s New Enterprise Data Cloud

At its recent Pure //Accelerate event, Pure Storage introduced its new Enterprise Data Cloud (EDC) architecture, positioning the concept as a unified data management platform that consolidates storage operations across hybrid environments.

The EDC centers on Pure Fusion, the company’s storage orchestration layer, with new automation capabilities, including workload presets, workflow orchestration, and enhanced security integrations.

Research Note: Meter NaaS

Meter, a networking company founded in 2015, stands out in the networking world by offering a complete, integrated approach to Networking-as-a-Service (NaaS). They combine their own hardware, software, deployment, and ongoing operations into a single, straightforward subscription. This setup differs from traditional networking models and many other NaaS options, which often focus just on management […]

Research Note: Snowflake Evolves into AI Platform at Summit 2025

Snowflake Summit 2025

Snowflake recently held its annual Snowflake Summit in San Francisco where the announcements show the company evolving from a data warehouse provider to an AI platform orchestrator. The announcements address three core enterprise challenges: democratizing data access beyond technical teams, accelerating AI development workflows, and reducing data integration overhead.

Research Note: Broadcom Releases VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0

Broadcom has announced the general availability of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, a major release that advances its unified private cloud platform across on-premises, edge, and managed service provider environments.

This release consolidates infrastructure management and developer operations into a single interface while integrating support for AI workloads, modern applications, and advanced cost transparency and security features.

Research Note: AMD Raises its Game at its Advancing AI 2025 Event

AMD Instinct MI350

AMD announced a comprehensive portfolio of AI infrastructure solutions at its recent Advancing AI 2025 event, positioning itself as a full-stack competitor to NVIDIA.

The announcements include the immediate availability of MI350 Series GPUs with 4x generational performance improvements, the ROCm 7.0 software platform achieving 3.5x gains in inference, and the AMD Developer Cloud for broader ecosystem access.

AMD also previewed its 2026 “Helios” rack solution, which integrates MI400 GPUs, EPYC “Venice” CPUs, and Pensando “Vulcano” NICs.

Research Note: Cisco Introduces AI Canvas

Earlier this week at Cisco Live San Diego 2025, Cisco unveiled AI Canvas, a groundbreaking Generative UI designed to redefine IT operations. This initiative is a core component of Cisco’s broader AgenticOps strategy, aiming to infuse AI agents directly into network management.  AI Canvas targets the increasing complexity of modern IT environments, particularly with the […]

Research Note: VDURA Data Platform 11.2

VDURA Architecture

Earlier this month, VDURA announced Version 11.2 of its Data Platform, featuring native Kubernetes CSI support, end-to-end encryption, and the VDURACare Premier support package.

The release also includes a technology preview of V-ScaleFlow, a data movement capability that VDURA claims will reduce flash requirements by over 50% through intelligent tiering between QLC flash and high-capacity HDDs.

Research Note: Snowflake’s Crunchy Data Acquisition

Deal

At its annual Snowflake Summit in San Francisco, Snowflake announced its intent to acquire Crunchy Data for approximately $250 million. The deal brings enterprise-grade PostgreSQL capabilities into Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud through a new offering called Snowflake Postgres. This acquisition addresses a critical gap in Snowflake’s platform, while intensifying competition with Databricks for dominance in AI infrastructure.

Research Note: HPE’s New Storage SLAs and Edge-Ready Backup Appliances

HPE recently introduced new service-level guarantees and product innovations focused on cyber resilience, energy efficiency, and zero data loss for its flagship HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 platform.

It also expanded its StoreOnce data protection portfolio with new appliances tailored to remote offices and SMBs.

Research Note: Nutanix & Pure Storage Partnership

Pure Storage Logo

At the recent Nutanix .NEXT event, Pure Storage and Nutanix announced a collaboration to deliver a jointly certified solution combining Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure with Pure Storage FlashArray over NVMe/TCP.

The alliance targets enterprise customers seeking alternatives to traditional virtualization stacks, particularly VMware deployments.

Research Note: IBM Orchestrate for Enterprise Agentic AI

IBM watsonx Orchestrate

At IBM Think 2025 in Boston, IBM announced its new watsonx Orchestrate, catching the shift that sees enterprise AI moving beyond simple model deployment toward agent orchestration.

The platform enables organizations to build, deploy, and manage AI agents across enterprise environments with minimal technical expertise required.

Research Note: CrowdStrike’s Falcon Adversary OverWatch

CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike expanded its threat-hunting capabilities, introducing its new Falcon Adversary OverWatch Next-Gen SIEM, extending visibility beyond endpoints to third-party data sources.

The new solution uses managed threat hunting to uncover threats in their early stages using available third-party SIEM data from network edge devices, identity and access management tools, SaaS applications, and email security tools.

Research Note: Palo Alto Networks Prisma AIRS for AI Protection

Palo Alto Networks Prisma AIRS

At RSAC 2025, Palo Alto Networks launched its new Prisma AIRS (AI Security), a comprehensive security platform targeting threats across enterprise AI ecosystems. Building upon their “Secure AI by Design” portfolio introduced last year, Prisma AIRS addresses emerging security challenges posed by the proliferation of AI applications, agents, and models.

Research Note: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSIAM 3.0

PANW Cortex AI 3.0

Palo Alto Networks recently released Cortex XSIAM 3.0, expanding its security operations platform with proactive exposure management and advanced email security capabilities. The update shifts the platform’s focus from primarily reactive to proactive security measures.

Research Note: Veeam’s VeeamOn Announcements

Veeam

At its annual VeeamON 2025 event, Veeam Software announced three significant expansions to its data resilience platform. The updates focus on identity protection, AI integration, and security partnerships.

Research Note: Atlassian Team ’25 Announcements

Atlassian Team '25

At Atlassian’s Team ’25 event in Anaheim, the company unveiled a comprehensive set of product updates that unify cross-functional collaboration, strategic execution, and service delivery capabilities under a single AI-enabled platform.

The key announcements focus on expanding the Rovo AI system, launching new strategic planning and workforce management tools, introducing a Customer Service Management solution, and bundling core collaboration tools into the new Teamwork Collection.

Research Note: Scality-Veeam Unified Software Appliance

Scality-Veeam Appliance

Scality and Veeam have developed a unified software appliance that runs on commodity x86 servers. It combines Scality’s ARTESCA object storage with Veeam’s Backup and replication software.

The new integration promises to streamline deployment, enhance security, and reduce implementation costs. It also eliminates the need for separate physical or virtual infrastructure for Veeam while providing a hardened security environment with reduced attack surface.

Research Note: CrowdStrike Falcon Privileged Access

CrowdStrike Falcon Privileged Access

CrowdStrike recently introduced Falcon Privileged Access, a new component of its Falcon Identity Protection portfolio that adopts a just-in-time access model for privileged access management.

CrowdStrike also announced complementary capabilities, including integration between Falcon Identity Protection and Falcon Next-Gen SIEM, Charlotte AI Detection Triage for identity-based attacks, and new CrowdStrike Pulse Services for security maturity improvement.

Research Note: Hitachi Vantara’s CyberSense Integration

CyberSense

Hitachi Vantara is partnering with Index Engines to integrate CyberSense, an AI-powered ransomware detection solution, into its Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One). With this move, Hitachi joins Dell, IBM, and Infinidat as the fourth OEM to adopt Index Engines’ technology.

Research Note: IBM Updates Concert Platform

IBM Concert

IBM has introduced three significant updates to its IBM Concert platform, extending its capabilities in resilience management and hybrid infrastructure support. These updates allow IT organizations to shift operations from reactive to proactive posture by applying AI and workflow automation across observability, remediation, and mainframe operations.

Research Note: VMware Tanzu’s AI Makeover

VMware Tanzu AI

Broadcom’s VMware is repositioning Tanzu from a Kubernetes-centric application platform to a GenAI-first PaaS. The latest release introduces support for Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) for agentic AI, deepens integration with the Claude LLM, and introduces a rearchitected platform focused on private cloud AI workloads.

Research Note: Fortanix Armet AI Public Preview

Fortanix Armet AI

Fortanix recently launched a public preview of Armet AI, a turnkey generative AI platform that integrates confidential computing and enterprise-grade data governance.

Targeted at enterprises managing sensitive or regulated data, Armet AI addresses the challenges of building secure and compliant generative AI systems by combining Intel’s trusted execution environments (SGX, TDX) with fine-grained access control, policy enforcement, and AI-specific security mechanisms.

Research Note: NetApp Updates Google NetApp Cloud Volumes

NetApp Logo

At the recent Google Cloud Next event, NetApp and Google Cloud announced enhancements to Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, their fully managed file storage service. The updates focus on increasing scalability, performance, and integration capabilities while reducing complexity for enterprise workloads.

Key improvements include throughput increases to 30GiBps for Premium and Extreme service levels, independent scaling of capacity and performance for the Flex service level, integration with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Platform, and support for Google Cloud Assured Workloads.

Research Note: Azure NetApp Files Enhancements

NetApp Logo

NetApp recently announced enhancements to their Azure NetApp Files (ANF) offering, introducing a new Flexible service level along with new capabilities to provide greater control over storage resources.

Research Note: UALink Consortium Releases UALink 1.0

UALink

The UALink Consortium recently released its Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) 1.0 specification. This industry-backed standard challenges the dominance of NVIDIA’s proprietary NVLink/NVSwitch memory fabric with an open alternative for high-performance accelerator interconnect technology.

Research Note: Hammerspace $100M Series B to Accelerate AI Infrastructure Growth

Hammerspace

Hammerspace, which provides a high-performance data orchestration solution for AI and hybrid cloud environments, announced it’s raised $100 million in a Series B funding round.

The round, led by Altimeter Capital and including participation from ARK Invest and other strategic investors, values Hammerspace at more than $500 million.

Research Note: Dynatrace & AWS New Strategic Collaboration

Deal

Dynatrace and AWS announced a multi-year strategic collaboration agreement, deepening their decade-long partnership that began in 2014. This expanded collaboration aims to address enterprise challenges in digital transformation through enhanced AI-powered observability and security solutions.

Research Note: HPE Updates Aruba Networking Central

HPE Aruba Buildling

Hewlett Packard Enterprise recently announced significant enhancements to its HPE Aruba Networking Central platform, which expand its deployment options and strengthen AI and analytics capabilities. The platform now supports four distinct deployment models: public cloud SaaS, virtual private cloud, on-premises, and network-as-a-service.  

Research Note: Cohesity’s Updates Cyber-Resilience for Google Cloud

Abstract image representing cybersecurity

At Google Cloud Next 2025, Cohesity announced several enhancements to its cyber resilience portfolio that provide deeper integrations with Google Cloud’s security capabilities. The announcements focus on AI-driven threat intelligence, incident response, secure recovery environments, and operational integration with Google Security Operations.

Research Note: Rubrik Expands Annapurna to GCP

Rubrik Annapurna

At Google Cloud Next 2025, Rubrik announced the expansion of Rubrik Annapurna, its API-driven AI data security and governance platform, to Google Cloud. The announcement sees Rubrik delivering Annapurna as a secure data access layer for AI-driven application development within Google’s Agentspace framework.

Research Note: Anthropic/Databricks Partnership

Deal

Anthropic recently announced a new five-year strategic partnership with Databricks to integrate its Claude language models, including the newly released Claude 3.7 Sonnet, into the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform.

The deal, valued at approximately $100 million, will allow Databricks’ enterprise customers to build, deploy, and govern AI agents that operate directly on their proprietary enterprise data. Databricks will offer Claude models natively through its platform across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

Research Note: IBM QisKit 2.0

IBM Quantum

IBM recently released Qiskit SDK v2.0, a major update to its open-source quantum software development kit. The new release is a key element of IBM’s long-term strategy to support utility-scale quantum computing by delivering architectural improvements, higher performance, and expanded interoperability with classical HPC systems.

Research Note: Enhanced Google Cloud NetApp Volumes

NetApp Logo

At the 2025 Google Cloud Next event, NetApp and Google Cloud announced a significant expansion of capabilities for Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, their jointly developed fully managed file storage offering.

The updates provide enhance performance, scalability, and integration with AI and compliance frameworks, targeting large-scale enterprise workloads

Research Note: OpenText Titanium X in CE 25.2

OpenText

OpenText recently launched Titanium X, part of its Cloud Editions (CE) 25.2 release, its most comprehensive AI-native upgrade across all major product clouds. The release introduces new AI agents, expanded automation capabilities, and integrated cloud security enhancements.

Research Note: Portworx Enhanced Kubernetes VM Support

Portworx KC EMEA 25

At this week’s Kubecon event, Portworx announced significant updates to its Enterprise 3.3 and Portworx Backup solutions, focused on enabling virtualization administrators to run virtual machines natively in Kubernetes environments.

Research Note: Siemens Acquires Altair Engineering

Deal

Siemens AG recently announced the acquisition of Altair Engineering, a leading provider of industrial simulation and HPC software, for an enterprise value of approximately $10 billion.

This is Siemens’ largest acquisition to date and expands the company’s industrial software portfolio with core technologies in mechanical and electromagnetic simulation, data science, AI, and HPC.

Research Note: Verizon Trusted Connection

Abstract image representing cybersecurity

Earlier this month at MWC 2025, Verizon Business announced the release of its new Verizon Trusted Connection, a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and Security Service Edge (SSE) platform that unifies secure connectivity and policy enforcement across enterprise devices, networks, and applications.

The new offering sees Verizon targeting midsize enterprises seeking to consolidate security and networking services under a single provider and management interface.

Research Note: Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE for 5G

Palo Alto Networks Prisma 5G SASE

Earlier this month at MWC 2025, Palo Alto Networks announced the general availability of Prisma SASE 5G, its new cloud-delivered cybersecurity solution for enterprises leveraging 5G connectivity.

The offering expands the company’s SASE portfolio to provide integrated Zero Trust security for 5G-enabled infrastructure, including mobile users, IoT/OT devices, and SD-WAN endpoints.

Research Note: Lenovo AI Announcements @ GTC 2025

Lenovo logo

At NVIDIA GTC 2025, Lenovo showed off its latest Hybrid AI Factory platforms in partnership with NVIDIA, focused on agentic AI.

The Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage framework integrates a full-stack hardware and software solution, optimized for both private and public AI model deployments, and spans on-prem, edge, and cloud environments.

Research Note: NetApp AI Data Announcements @ GTC 2025

NetApp

At the recent GTC 2025 event, NetApp announced, in collaboration with NVIDIA, a comprehensive set of product validations, certifications, and architectural enhancements to its intelligent data products.

The announcements include NetApp’s integration with the NVIDIA AI Data Platform, support for NVIDIA’s latest accelerated computing systems, and expanded availability of enterprise-grade AI infrastructure offerings, including NetApp AFF A90 and NetApp AIPod.

Research Note: WEKA Augmented Memory Grid

WEKA Augmented Memory Grid

At the recent NVIDIA GTC conference, WEKA announced the general availability of its Augmented Memory Grid, a software-defined storage extension engineered to mitigate the limitations of GPU memory during large-scale AI inferencing.

The Augmented Memory Grid is a new approach that integrates with the WEKA Data Platform and leverages NVIDIA Magnum IO GPUDirect Storage (GDS) to bypass CPU bottlenecks and deliver data directly to GPU memory with microsecond latency.

Research Note: HPE’s New Full-Stack Enterprise AI Infrastructure Offerings

At the recent NVIDIA GTC 2025, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and NVIDIA jointly introduced NVIDIA AI Computing by HPE, full-stack AI infrastructure offerings targeting enterprise deployment of generative, agentic, and physical AI workloads.

The solutions span private cloud AI platforms, observability and management software, reference blueprints, AI development environments, and new AI-optimized servers featuring NVIDIA’s Blackwell architecture.

Research Note: HPE Storage Enhancements for AI

HPE AI Storage

At NVIDIA GTC 2025, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced a slew of new storage capabilities, including a new unified data layer. These capabilities are designed to accelerate AI adoption by integrating structured and unstructured data across multi-vendor and multi-cloud environments.

Research Note: VDURA V5000 All-Flash AI Storage Appliance

VDURA Architecture

VDURA recently announced its new V5000 All-Flash Appliance, a high-performance storage solution engineered for AI and high-performance computing workloads. The system integrates with the VDURA V11 Data Platform for a combination of high throughput, low-latency access, and seamless scalability.

Research Note: Pure Storage FlashBlade//EXA

Pure Storage FlashBlade//EXA

Pure Storage recently announced the launch of its new FlashBlade//EXA, a high-performance storage platform designed for AI and HPC workloads. FlashBlade//EXA extends the company’s Purity operating environment and DirectFlash technology to provide extreme performance, scalability, and metadata management that addresses the increasing demands of AI-driven applications.

Research Note: Couchbase Edge Server for Offline-First Data Processing

Couchbase Edge Server

Couchbase recently announced its new Couchbase Edge Server, a lightweight, offline-first database and sync solution designed for edge computing environments. The new solution extends Couchbase’s mobile data synchronization capabilities to resource-constrained deployments where full-scale database solutions are not feasible.

Research Note: ServiceNow to Acquire Moveworks

Deal

ServiceNow has agreed to acquire Moveworks, an enterprise AI assistant and search technology provider. The cash-and-stock transaction, expected to close in the second half of 2025, is ServiceNow’s largest acquisition.

The acquisition strengthens ServiceNow’s agentic AI strategy and expands its capabilities in AI-driven enterprise automation, employee experience, and search.

Research Note: IBM FlashSystem C200 High-Capacity Flash Archive

IBM FlashSystem C200

IBM recently announced its FlashSystem C200, a new storage platform integrating 46 TB QLC NAND drives to provide an archive tier within a FlashSystem grid. The C200 expands IBM’s FlashSystem portfolio with a high-density flash solution that competes with traditional nearline HDD storage.

IBM claims the C200 provides flash-like performance with QLC-level economics, enhanced endurance, and seamless grid integration.

Research Note: Rubrik Expanded Cyber-Resilience Capabilities

Rubrik recently announced new cyber-resilience features to strengthen data protection across public cloud, SaaS, and on-premises environments. The latest enhancements focus on threat detection, data protection, identity recovery, and automated recovery processes to mitigate cyberattack risks.

Research Note: Check Point & Wiz Enter Strategic Partnership

Deal

Wiz and Check Point recently announced a strategic partnership to integrate cloud network security with cloud-native application protection. The collaboration will merge Check Point’s AI-driven cloud security and networking capabilities with Wiz’s Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP).

Research Note: NVIDIA & Cisco Partner on Spectrum-X

NVIDIA Spectrum-X

Cisco and NVIDIA announced an expanded partnership to unify AI data center networking by integrating Cisco Silicon One with NVIDIA Spectrum-X.

The companies will create a joint architecture that supports high-performance, low-latency AI workloads across enterprise and cloud environments.

Research Note: IBM to Acquire DataStax

Deal

IBM recently announced its intent to acquire DataStax, which specializes in NoSQL and vector database solutions built on Apache Cassandra.

The acquisition aligns with IBM’s broader strategy to enhance its watsonx enterprise AI stack by integrating advanced data management capabilities, particularly for handling unstructured and semi-structured data.

Research Note: OpenText Core Threat Detection & Response

OpenText Cyber Cloud

OpenText recently announced its new Core Threat Detection and Response, an AI-driven cybersecurity solution that will become generally available with its Cloud Editions 25.2.

The new platform integrates with Microsoft security tools, including Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Entra ID, and Microsoft Security Copilot, to enhance threat detection and response capabilities.
The solution operates as an Open XDR (Extended Detection and Response) platform, enabling enterprises to integrate telemetry from multiple security tools and applications.

Research Note: IBM Granite 3.2 Models

IBM sign

IBM recently introduced Granite 3.2, bringing significant new capabilities to its AI model lineup that brings enhanced reasoning, multimodal capabilities, improved forecasting, and more efficient safety models.

Research Note: WEKA & HPE Set SpecStorage Records

Data Center

WEKA and HPE recently announced record-breaking results across all five benchmark workloads in the SPECstorage Solution 2020 suite. The results were achieved using the WEKA Data Platform on the HPE Alletra Storage Server 4110, powered by Intel Xeon processors.

The results show the system’s ability to handle data-intensive workloads, including AI, genomics, software development, and video analytics, with high efficiency and low latency.

Research Note: HPE ProLiant Gen12 Servers

HPE ProLiant Gen12

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) recently introduced eight new ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers for enhanced security, performance optimization, and AI-powered management. These servers will feature the upcoming Intel Xeon 6 processors and are built for data centers and edge environments.

Research Note: SAP Business Data Cloud & Databricks Partnership

SAP BDC

SAP recently announced SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC), a fully managed SaaS platform that unifies SAP and third-party data while embedding AI-driven analytics and governance capabilities.

The new solution expands upon SAP Datasphere and integrates with Databricks’ Lakehouse technology to improve data unification, AI adoption, and advanced analytics.

Research Note: Snowflake Deep Integration with Anthropic’s Claude

Snowflake Cortex Agents

Snowflake announced that it’s integrated Anthropic’s Claude models across its Cortex AI platform, enabling enterprises to query and analyze data using natural language instead of SQL. The partnership targets the fundamental challenge of data democratization, allowing business users to access insights without requiring technical expertise.

The integration spans three core products: Cortex Analyst converts natural language to SQL, Cortex Search retrieves unstructured data, and Cortex Agents orchestrates complex multi-step operations.

Research Note: Deloitte & May Mobility Partner on Transparent Autonomous Vehicle Safety

Deal

Deloitte and May Mobility recently announced a strategic partnership to improve safety in autonomous transportation through data analytics. By combining Deloitte’s expertise in data analysis with May Mobility’s autonomous vehicle (AV) technology, the two companies will track safety events, provide actionable insights, and help cities and businesses optimize their AV systems.

Research Note: Palo Alto Networks Cortex Cloud

Palo Alto Networks Cortex Cloud

Palo Alto Networks recently introduced Cortex Cloud, its integrated cloud security and security operations (SecOps) platform that consolidates the capabilities of Prisma Cloud and Cortex CDR.

The new platform provides a unified approach to managing cloud security risks, real-time threat prevention, and automated response workflows.

Research Note: Delinea Platform Enhancements

Abstract image representing cybersecurity

Delinea recently introduced new features to its cloud-native identity security platform, focusing on centralized identity lifecycle management, credential security, and behavioral analytics.

The updates give enterprises enhanced visibility, automation, and security control over human and non-human identities. They also include mobile access via the new Delinea Platform App, which supports remote identity and access management (IAM).

Research Note: Databricks Acquires BladeBridge

Deal

Databricks announced the acquisition of BladeBridge, a provider of AI-powered migration solutions, to facilitate the transition of enterprise data warehouses to Databricks SQL (DBSQL).

BladeBridge automates the migration of workloads from over 20 different data warehouses and ETL platforms, using large language models for code analysis, conversion, and validation.

Research Note: CyberArk/SentinelOne Partnership

Deal

CyberArk and SentinelOne have formed a strategic partnership to integrate CyberArk’s Endpoint Privilege Manager (EPM) with SentinelOne’s Singularity XDR platform.
The collaboration enhances endpoint security by combining privilege management with advanced threat detection and response capabilities.

Research Note: AMG Systems’ New Hardened NTP Time Servers

Time

AMG Systems recently introduced its new line of NTP Servers aimed at closed industrial networks needing a secure and industrial hardened time synching solution. The product line consists of four models allowing for AC/DC power flexibility and both DIN Rail and 19-inch rack mounting options.

Research Note: ServiceNow Unveils New AI Agent Capabilities

ServiceNow

ServiceNow announced the expansion of its agentic AI capabilities by introducing the AI Agent Orchestrator and AI Agent Studio. The new capabilities provide centralized coordination of AI agents within enterprise workflows, integrating with the ServiceNow Platform to improve automation and task execution across IT, HR, customer service, and other business functions.

Research Note: Kioxia’s Open Source AiSAQ ANN Search

Kioxia RAG SSD

Today, Kioxia announced the open-source release of All-in-Storage ANNS with Product Quantization (AiSAQ), an approximate nearest neighbor search (ANNS) technology optimized for SSD-based storage. AiSAQ enables large-scale retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workloads by offloading vector data from DRAM to SSDs, significantly reducing memory requirements.

Research Note: Komprise PII Protection Capabilities

Komprise recently introduced new capabilities in its Smart Data Workflow Manager, enhancing its ability to detect and protect personally identifiable information (PII) within unstructured data environments.

The enhanced features are currently in early access and are expected to be generally available by the end of Q1 2025 as part of the Komprise Intelligent Data Management Platform.

Research Note: Cisco AI Defense

Cisco logo

Cisco recently introduced its Cisco AI Defense, its new enterprise security solution to address the growing risks associated with AI adoption in multi-cloud and multi-model environments.

Research Note: DeepSeek’s Impact on IT Infrastructure Market

DeepSeek

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek recently introduced an AI model, DeepSeek-R1l that the company claims that it matches or surpasses models from industry. The move created significant buzz in the AI industry. Though the claims remain unverified, the potential to democratize AI training and fundamentally alter industry dynamics is clear.

Research Note: The Stargate Project

Stargate Project

The Stargate Project, announced at a political event on January 25, 2025, is a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX that will invest up to $500 billion by 2030 to develop AI infrastructure across the United States.

Research Note: IBM Consulting Acquires Oracle Specialist AST

Deal

IBM announced that it intends to acquire Applications Software Technology(AST), a leading global Oracle consultancy. AST specializes in delivering digital transformation solutions via Oracle Cloud Applications, with a focus on the public sector, including local governments and K-12 education.

Research Note: ServiceNow to Acquire Conversation Data Analysis Company Cuein

Deal

ServiceNow has entered into an agreement to acquire Cuein, a company specializing in AI-native conversation data analysis and insights. This acquisition bolsters ServiceNow’s strategic focus on Agentic AI—autonomous AI agents capable of processing data, making decisions, and executing tasks across enterprise workflows.

Research Note: Lenovo to Acquire Infinidat, Grow into High-End Storage

Deal

In a surprise move, Lenovo has announced its intention to acquire Infinidat, a privately held enterprise storage company specializing in scalable, high-performance, and cyber-resilient storage solutions.

Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. This acquisition marks Lenovo’s strategic entry into the high-end enterprise storage market, complementing its existing portfolio, which primarily focuses on entry and mid-range storage solutions.

The deal is expected to close sometime in 2H calendar 2025.

Research Note: UALink Consortium Expands Board, adds Apple, Alibaba Cloud & Synopsys

UALink

The Ultra Accelerator Link Consortium (UALink), an industry organization taking a collaborative approach to advance high-speed interconnect standards for next-generation AI workloads, announced an expansion to its Board of Directors, welcoming Alibaba Cloud, Apple, and Synopsys – joining existing member companies like AMD, AWS, Cisco, Google, HPE, Intel, Meta, and Microsoft.

Research Note: Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Engine

Red Hat

Red Hat announced the general availability of Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Engine, a tailored version of its OpenShift orchestration platform for virtualization workloads.
The new offering utilizes the open-source KVM hypervisor and can run on-premises hardware with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and bare-metal cloud services.

Research Note: Oracle Exadata X11M

Oracle SIgn

Oracle recently launched of its latest Exadata platform, the Oracle Exadata X11M. Purpose-built to optimize the performance of Oracle Database, including Oracle Autonomous Database, X11M is a significant leap forward in speed and efficiency compared to previous generation Exadata systems for cloud, multi-cloud, and customer data centers.

Research Note: Marvell Custom HBM for Cloud AI

Marvell Custom HBM

Marvell recently announced a new custom high-bandwidth memory (HBM) compute architecture that addresses the scaling challenges of XPUs in AI workloads. The new architecture enables higher compute and memory density, reduced power consumption, and lower TCO for custom XPUs.

Research Note: Enfabrica ACF-S Millennium

Enfabrica ACS-F Millennium

First detailed at Hot Chips 2024, Enbrica recently announced that its ACF-S “Millennium” chip, which addresses the limitations of traditional networking hardware for AI and accelerated computing workloads, will be available to customers in calendar Q1 2025.

Research Note: Cohesity & Veritas Complete Merger

Deal

Cohesity completed its long-awaited merger with Veritas’ enterprise data protection business. The combined entity, valued at $7 billion, now serves 12,000 customers globally and generates $1.5 billion in ARR.

Research Note: Dell AI Products & Services Updates

Dell AI

Dell Technologies has made significant additions to its AI portfolio with its recent announcements at SC24 and Microsoft Ignite 2024 in November. The announcements span infrastructure, ecosystem partnerships, and professional services, targeting accelerated AI adoption, operational efficiency, and sustainability in enterprise environments.

Research Note: AWS Trainium2

AWS

Tranium is AWS’s machine learning accelerator, and this week at its re:Invent event in Las Vegas, it announced the second generation, the cleverly named Trainium2, purpose-built to enhance the training of large-scale AI models, including foundation models and large language models.

Research Note: Hammerspace Global Data Platform v5.1 with Tier 0

Hammerspace Architecture

Hammerspace recently announced the version 5.1 release of its Hammerspace Global Data Platform. The flagship feature of the release its new Tier 0 storage capability, which takes unused local NVMe storage on a GPU server and uses it as part of the global shared filesystem. This provides higher-performance storage for the GPU server than can be delivered from remote storage nodes – ideal for AI and GPU-centric workloads.

Research Note: NVIDIA SC24 Announcements

NVIDIA Infrastructure

At the recent Supercomputing 2024 (SC24) conference in Atlanta, NVIDIA announced new hardware and software capabilities to enhance AI and HPC capabilities. This includes the new GB200 NVL4 Superchip, the general available of its H200 NVL PCIe, and several new software capabilities.

Research Note: Minio AIStor Object Storage

Minio AIStor

MinIO recently introduced AIStor, its new object storage solution designed for AI/ML workloads. AIStor leverages insights from large-scale customer environments, some exceeding 1 EiB of data, to address the unique challenges of managing and scaling data infrastructure for AI applications.

Research Note: Tanium’s New AEM & Cloud Workload Solutions

Tanium

At its recent Converge 2024 user conference in Orlando, Tanium announced two significant portfolio updates: Tanium Autonomous Endpoint Management (AEM) and Tanium Cloud Workloads.
The new solutions advance endpoint and containerized workload management through real-time insights, automation, and AI-powered functionalities.