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Apple reportedly working with Chinese server vendor to help bring cloud services in-house

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Apple is reportedly working with Chinese server vendor Inspur as it seeks to bring the infrastructure for its cloud services in-house.

Apple currently relies on third-party companies to host its cloud content, most of the capacity currently provided by Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, with Google also recently joining the roster. However, the company is said to be working on developing its own data network and infrastructure in a project codenamed McQueen.

While part of the motivation will be cost, it was also recently reported that security is another significant consideration, Apple being concerned that servers received from third-parties may have been tampered with prior to delivery …


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Irish planning body asks Apple to address five concerns before it decides on proposed data center

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Update: Galway Independent (via Business Insider) reports that a hearing date has now been set, for Tuesday 24th May. The venue has not yet been confirmed.

Apple’s plan to build one of the world’s largest data centers in Ireland hit a stumbling block earlier this month when local residents filed objections. The planning body, An Bord Pleanála, said that it would be pushing back its decision from February to May in order to consider those objections.

Business Insider reports that An Bord Pleanála has now written to Apple’s consulting engineers, asking them to address five concerns …


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Apple bringing more of its content delivery in-house, possible preparation for streaming TV

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When you download or stream content from Apple – be it Apple Music, an app or an OS X update – that content is often delivered by a third-party Content Delivery Network, or CDN. The idea is to allow you to download it from a server close to you to maximize download speeds. It now appears that Apple is moving more of its content delivery in-house, as the company brings more data centers online.

Business Insider notes that Apple’s main CDN company, Akamai, has warned shareholders that it expects to see its combined revenue from Apple and Microsoft more than halved this year. Apple is the company’s largest client.

“Over the last two years, our two largest customers in particular, comprise about 13% of Akamai’s overall revenue. As we look ahead to 2016, we expect these two accounts to still be our largest media customers, and they will contribute about 6% of our overall revenue,” Akamai CEO Tom Leighton said during its earnings call […]

“This seven point change in contribution results from their increased do-it-yourself, or DIY efforts,” Leighton said. 

BI cites this as a further hint that Apple is gearing-up for its own streaming TV service. While the move would make sense either way, recent reports have suggested that the company is hard at work on securing the necessary deals, NFL ‘Thursday Night Football’ among them.

Apple is reportedly preparing to build a second data center cluster in Reno, with a major new one in Ireland said to be on hold following community concerns. The company’s own CDN went live in 2014, and was first used to roll out iOS 8.

Apple moves to third-generation Siri back-end, built on open-source Mesos platform

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Apple is now on its third-generation system for handling Siri queries, moving to the open source Mesos platform, according to the Mesosphere blog. Apple reportedly made the announcement at the Bay Area Mesos meetup last week.

During a presentation, Apple engineers said that the switch to Mesos would reduce latency, assist scalability, and made it easier to deploy new services as Siri’s capabilities are expanded … 
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