Daily Archives: February 1, 2022

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Citrix, a cloud computing and virtualization company used by companies including Microsoft, Google, and SAP, has revealed plans to be acquired by affiliates of global investment firm Vista Equity Partners, and an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management called Evergreen Coast Capital Corporation.

The all-cash deal is valued at $16.5 billion, representing a near 30 percent premium on Citrixs market capitalization before rumors of a possible deal first started to emerge last month.

Founded in 1989, Citrix was originally known for its Windows-based remote access products, but over the past few decades the company has endeavored to move with the times, and now offers myriad technologies spanning cloud computing, servers, networking, and more. One of its flagship products is Citrix Workspace, a virtualization platform that helps enterprises deploy apps and desktops remotely, including securing all the devices that connect to a network.

Put simply, Citrix Workspace is well-positioned to flourish in a world that has had to rapidly embrace remote and hybrid working.

Over the past three decades, Citrix has established itself as the clear leader in secure hybrid work, Citrixs interim CEO and president Bob Calderoni said in a statement.

Workspace has been a core focus for Citrix as it evolves in an increasingly cloud-first world. Last year, Citrix doled out more than $2 billion for project management platform Wrike, so that Citrix could offer cloud-based collaborative work management smarts to its thousands of enterprise customers. This has also led Vista and Evergreen to Citrixs door with loads of cash in hand.

Vista and Evergreen have indicated that they plan to combine Citrix with Tibco Software, a business intelligence and enterprise data management company that Vista acquired back in 2014, to create what they call a global digital workspace and data analytics leader.

Together with Tibco, we will be able to operate with greater scale and provide a larger customer base with a broader range of solutions to accelerate their digital transformations and enable them to deliver the future of hybrid work, Calderoni said.

But perhaps more important than that, Citrix will no longer be a publicly-traded company, which could afford it greater agility as it recalibrates for the future of work.

As a private company, we will have increased financial and strategic flexibility to invest in high-growth opportunities, such as DaaS (desktop-as-service), and accelerate its ongoing cloud transition, Calderoni added.

The deal should it receive shareholder and regulatory approval is expected to close by the middle of 2022.

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Cloud computing and virtualization company Citrix to be acquired for $16.5B - VentureBeat

DUBLIN, January 31, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Healthcare Cloud Computing Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The healthcare cloud computing market was valued at USD 23,749.33 million in 2020, and it is expected to reach USD 52,303.35 million by 2026, registering a CAGR of 14.12% during the forecast period of 2021-2026.

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have an overall positive effect on the market. There is now an increasing understanding of the potential of cloud technologies, which provide data storage and computing resources that are managed by external service providers to help improve the safety, quality, and efficiency of healthcare. This has become important in the fight against COVID-19.

Due to the huge number of research work and clinical trials being carried out across the world, the research data being generated needs to be stored in a secure environment that can house large amounts of data. Cloud computing solves the problem of both space constraints and security as it allows the hosting of huge amounts of data on private dedicated cloud channels.

A major benefit of cloud-based services to organizations and companies during the COVID-19 pandemic is that they allow faster implementation and upscaling across a range of different settings. They do not require companies to procure additional hardware (such as servers needed for on-premises solutions) and they can be implemented remotely. For example, in March 2020, an AI-enabled auxiliary diagnostic system was offered by Huawei Cloud, the cloud computing unit of Huawei, and artificial intelligence company Huiying Medical Technology Co. Ltd to hospitals in Ecuador remotely.

The major factors that are bolstering the growth of the healthcare cloud computing market include the increasing access to advanced technology, such as machine learning, the rise in adoption of information technology in the healthcare sector, and usage of cloud for reducing cost and improving scalability, storage, and flexibility. Cloud computing involves the use of remote servers that are hosted on the internet to manage, store, and process data.

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A local server is not used in cloud computing, due to which infrastructure costs are reduced significantly. In addition to one-time set-up cost, maintenance cost is also lesser in the case of a cloud-based architecture. The benefits of cloud computing were felt during the COVID-19 pandemic when there was a shortage of healthcare workers, mass lockdowns, and a lack of coordination between healthcare services.

For example, in May 2020, the Oklahoma State Department of Health launched a mobile app that allows healthcare workers to engage remotely with at-risk citizens who may have been exposed to the COVID-19 virus. The app, which was jointly created by Google and MTX Group, uses the Google Cloud to enable the state to quickly contact citizens who report COVID-19 symptoms and send them to testing sites. Agencies were also using cloud-based data dashboards to provide real-time analytics and data visualizations to track and control the spread of the virus.

In the last week of March 2020, the Australian Government's Department of Health launched its Coronavirus Australia App. Built on the Google Cloud, the app can offer real-time information and advice about lockdowns, the spread patterns, and healthcare information pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic. These developments are expected to positively affect market growth.

Key Market Trends

The Electronic Health Record (EHR) Segment is Expected to Hold the Largest Market Share During the Forecast Period

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a positive impact on the market for EHR. According to an article appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) in November 2020, the development, implementation, and evaluation of EHR-based data sharing networks and platforms and public health information systems are required in the fight against COVID-19.

Since EHR systems can be multi-disciplinary, they can be utilized to collect and analyze data from public health departments, healthcare organizations, and socioeconomic indicators. This can be of immense importance while preparing to roll out programs designed to tackle COVID-19.

According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), EHR refers to an electronic version of patient health information that includes vital signs, patient demographics, progress notes, problems, past medical history, medications, laboratory data, immunizations, and radiology reports. Lack of interoperability prevented the sharing of this data. However, as companies are currently working to develop more patient-friendly interoperable devices, the situation is now changing. Complex healthcare systems require diverse EHR products so that information may be shared seamlessly.

By enabling better workflows and reducing ambiguity, interoperable EHR allows data transfer between EHR systems and healthcare stakeholders much more easily. Thus, due to the factors mentioned above, the market is expected to witness a high growth rate over the forecast period.

North America Accounted for the Largest Share in the Market

North America holds a significant share in the healthcare cloud computing market and is expected to show a similar trend over the forecast period. The United States is a leader in the healthcare cloud computing market, mainly due to the high adoption rate of healthcare IT services and the continuous financial and regulatory support from government agencies. The implementation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) stimulated the adoption of EHR and supporting technologies across the country.

According to the Act's provisions, healthcare providers would be offered financial incentives for demonstrating meaningful use of EHRs until a certain period of time, after which, time penalties may be levied for failing to explain such use. Cloud-based services are helpful for all stakeholders. Most healthcare institutions neither have the time nor resources to devote attention to cybersecurity that an established cloud provider may have. Moreover, established cloud providers rarely allow the leakage of data. According to a recent HIMSS Analytics Survey in 2018 in the United States, over 83% of healthcare organizations said that they already use cloud services.

The survey also stated that the United States Department of Health and Human Services listed 412 data breaches that were under investigation in 2018. The huge number of data breaches calls for more robust implementation of cloud technology in the healthcare sector to improve security. Thus, owing to all the aforementioned factors, the market is expected to witness high growth over the forecast period.

Competitive Landscape

The healthcare cloud computing market is a moderately consolidated market, owing to the presence of a few key players in the market. The companies are applying powerful competitive strategies to gain more market share. Some of the market players are Amazon Web Services, Dell Inc., IBM Corporation, Oracle Corporation, and Koninklijke Philips NV.

The companies are involved in various strategies such as new product launches and investments in R&D activities to sustain in the highly competitive environment. For example, in November 2020, Microsoft launched the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare suite to boost patient engagement, health team collaborations, and improve clinical and operational insights.

Companies Mentioned

Key Topics Covered:

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Study Assumptions and Market Definition

1.2 Scope of the Study

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

4 MARKET DYNAMICS

4.1 Market Overview

4.2 Market Drivers

4.2.1 Rise in Adoption of Information Technology in the Healthcare Sector

4.2.2 Access to Advance Technology, Such as Machine Learning, is Easier in Cloud System

4.2.3 Usage of Cloud Reduces Cost and Improves Scalability, Storage, and Flexibility

4.3 Market Restraints

4.3.1 Data Security and Integrity Issues

4.3.2 Lack of Interoperability and Industry Standards

4.4 Porter's Five Forces Analysis

5 MARKET SEGMENTATION

5.1 By Application

5.2 By Deployment

5.3 By Service

5.4 By End User

5.4.1 Healthcare Providers

5.4.2 Healthcare Payers

5.5 Geography

6 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

6.1 Company Profiles

7 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND FUTURE TRENDS

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/jndngd

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220131005627/en/

Contacts

ResearchAndMarkets.comLaura Wood, Senior Press Managerpress@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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The Global Healthcare Cloud Computing Market is Projected to Reach $52,303.35 Million by 2026, at a CAGR of 14.12% - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Yahoo...

From the first gold rush onwards, canny operators have recognized that the safest way to make your fortune is to sell picks and shovels. If youre providing the tools for those hoping to strike paydirt, youll make money whether or not they hit the jackpot its low risk, but still high return.

Germanys Northern Data is one company that is very much applying that principle in a modern setting and it has an eye on a bigger prize. Today, the company is best-known as one of Europes leading providers of the high-performance computing infrastructure required for cryptocurrency mining, the 21st centurys gold rush. In the future, it looks forward to a gradual pivot the quality of that infrastructure gives it an opportunity to take on the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Google in the cloud computing market, the company believes. Think of that as supplying the picks and shovels required for the cloud-driven economy.

Northern Data is going to be the leading cloud computing group in Europe, predicts Northern Data President Christopher Yoshida, who joined the company last July following an extended career in corporate finance and advisory roles at a number of fast-growth technology companies. It is what got me excited about the company.

Yoshida credits the market opportunity now open to Northern Data to the long-term vision of Aroosh Thillainathan, who founded the company three years ago and now serves as its CEO. It is easy to forget this now that we have global supply shortages, but in March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a real surplus in the semiconductor market, Yoshida says, recalling how semiconductor manufacturers customers feared the worst amid the crisis and pulled their orders. Aroosh had the vision to take that opportunity to secure the hardware that has transformed our company.

Two years later, while countless industries are at each others' throats to source the chips they need, Northern Data finds itself in a strong position. We have the most up-to-date kit, Yoshida says. Weve got more computing power and were producing it at less expense.

The company has also made another strategic bet. Strong sustainability is going to be an increasingly important competitive advantage, argues Yoshida. In a world where there is growing concern about the carbon footprint of powerful computers set to the task of cryptocurrency mining and the broader environmental impact of huge data centres and technology infrastructure the worlds biggest technology companies have become some of the biggest buyers of carbon offsets, he points out.

Northern Data, by contrast, has invested heavily in sustainable infrastructure. In particular, its Hydro66 facility in Sweden powers cloud computing entirely from renewable energy. The companys latest trading update reveals that its ether cryptocurrency mining efforts are now powered almost exclusively from renewable energy. It is a huge advantage, says Yoshida.

Northern Data President Christopher Yoshida

All of which puts Northern Data in an enviable position. Its cryptocurrency mining work continues to throw off cash; this provides the business with all the revenues it needs to go on investing in a long-term future that lies in a bigger market.

Its like the tortoise and the hare, Yoshida says of the companys dual ambitions in cloud computing and cryptocurrency. The latter may be wining the race right now, but the former is going to take all the prizes in the end. The sheer scale of demand for cloud computing capacity in Europe and beyond is an incredible prospect for those in a position to supply it. And Northern Data expects to be one of the cheapest and greenest suppliers out there.

The cloud market is today dominated by Amazons Web Services division, Microsofts Azure and Googles Cloud platform. Yoshida doesnt expect Northern Data to go toe-to-toe with these giants, but he does see a huge opportunity as businesses all over the world look to add extra capacity, or to source cloud power for specific purposes on demand. This is a market that it going to grow at 30% a year for the foreseeable future, he says. And with none of the legacy technology that the incumbent cloud providers are now saddled with, Northern Data can grab a healthy share.

As Northern Data capitalises on that growth, it will evolve naturally over time the tortoise will eventually overtake the hare. Amazon, after all, started out as purely an online retailer, before evolving to a stage where cloud is today almost at a point of being its biggest source of revenues. Northern Data may get to that point more quickly, Yoshida believes, though he adds: Our core business of mining is certainly not going away.

Such progress will prompt questions about the status of the business. Northern Data already has a stock market listing in Germany, but for a company with aspirations to become a global technology leader, a Nasdaq listing might make more sense. Its a good North Star to think about, but were focused on building the business stage by stage, Yoshida says.

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Northern Data Bets On Crypto To Bankroll Its Cloud Ambitions - Forbes

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The United States has the most advanced software and IT services industry in the world. In addition, more than 34% of the $5.2 trillion global IT market is in North America, primarily the U.S. U.S. software firms generally operate in a mature, harmonized market and have a reputation for producing reliable and effective solutions that are adopted quickly by the market. International companies and top international talent have shown a keen interest in the U.S. market because of its strong intellectual property rights laws and enforcement, as well as to access one of the leading financial markets. U.S. companies lead the world's packaged and custom-software markets and are competitive in nearly all other market segments with a stable overseas market share.

CompTIA - IT Industry Outlook

Cloud computing, in particular, is one of the areas of focus given the segment's high growth potential. According to Business Wire, the global cloud computing market is expected to grow from $445.3 billion in 2021 to $947.3 billion by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate of 16.3%, which is much higher than the forecasted US GDP growth rate over the same period. Some of the growth catalysts include the inclination of enterprises toward automation, the need for enhanced customer experience, and the surging demand for remote workspaces. In this article, I will be reviewing the First Trust Cloud Computing ETF (NYSEARCA:SKYY) which invests in a basket of cloud computing companies.

The First Trust Cloud Computing ETF tracks the performance of the ISE CTA Cloud Computing Index. The index is a modified equal-weighted index designed to track the performance of companies involved in the cloud computing industry. To be included in the index, a security must be classified as a Cloud Computing company by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and meet the following criteria:

Each security is then classified according to the following three business categories:

If you want to learn more about the strategy, please click here.

From the industry allocation chart below, we can see the index places a high weight on the software industry (representing around 48% of the index) followed by IT services (accounting for 22% of the index) and Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals (representing around 7.5% of the fund). The largest three industries have a combined allocation of approximately 78%.

First Trust

In terms of geographical allocation, the top seven countries represent approximately 99.9% of the portfolio. The United States accounts for 87.57% whereas other countries such as the Netherlands seem to be underrepresented given the low weight (only a 0.36% allocation to the Netherlands).

First Trust

The fund is currently invested in 67 different stocks. The top ten holdings account for ~37% of the portfolio, with no single stock weighting more than 5%. All in all, I would say that SKYY is pretty well-diversified across constituents.

First Trust

Since we are dealing with equities, one important characteristic is the valuation of the portfolio. According to First Trust, the fund currently trades at an average price-to-book ratio of 5.62 and an average price-to-sales ratio of 4.06. Although these multiples might seem high, keep in mind we are dealing with software companies that generally have an asset-light business model. For this reason, I am not surprised to see that SKYY has a price to book ratio above 5. If we turn to the price-to-sales multiples, I wouldn't say it is egregiously expensive. For instance, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) is currently trading at more than 12x TTM revenue.

SKYY has a distribution rate of ~1%. Given the low dividend yield, this ETF is not suitable for the dividend investor. However, if you are looking for capital appreciation, SKYY offers you a way to potentially outperform the S&P 500. I have compared below the price performance of SKYY against the price performance of the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) and the Invesco QQQ ETF (NYSEARCA:QQQ) over 5 years to assess which one was a better investment. Over that period, SKYY outperformed SPY. Compared to the S&P 500, SKYY rose by more than 48 percentage points. To put it into perspective, a $100 investment in SKYY five years ago would now be worth $236.54. This represents a CAGR of ~19%, which is a very good absolute return. However, it is worth noting that SKYY failed to outperform QQQ over that period, although SKYY was leading up until late 2021.

Refinitiv Eikon

If we take a step back and look at the performance from a 10-year perspective, the results don't change much. QQQ finished once again on top, and SKYY clearly outperformed the S&P 500.

Refinitiv Eikon

In my opinion, the Tech sector, and particularly cloud computing, is going to continue on a strong growth trajectory. I think that SKYY is a great tool to get exposure to this megatrend. This ETF is a cost-effective way to buy a basket of leaders in this field. Moreover, I like the fact that SKYY is well diversified across constituents, with no single issuer weighing more than 5% of the portfolio. In my opinion, the recent pullback provides an entry point, and if SKYY goes lower, it is an opportunity to accumulate at lower prices and build a position around it.

Link:

SKYY: Betting On The Future Of Cloud Computing - Seeking Alpha

PaaS is a cloud computing model where a third-party provider delivers hardware and software tools to users over the internet. As such, PaaS enables developers to develop or run new applications without having to install in-house hardware and software.

PaaS got its start with a service called Zimki, launched out of Canon's Europe-based Fotango in 2005. It removed some of the repetitive tasks from development of JavaScript web apps in a pay-as-you-go model, said Scott Cameron, senior architect at Insight, an IT provider in Temple, Ariz. In 2007, Zimki stopped running because Fotango didn't want to focus on it any longer.

When Google Cloud Platform was introduced in 2008, it launched App Engine, a PaaS system that was originally limited to 10,000 developers, according to Cameron. App Engine let customers run their web apps on Google infrastructure, and it's still around today.

"PaaS offerings began finding wide-scale use a little over a decade ago, shortly after the emergence of infrastructure as a service," said Tim Potter, principal of Deloitte Consulting.

Initial PaaS offerings focused on web application development with a marketplace focus on startups or small firms. Over time, the market has evolved in two dimensions: the breadth of PaaS use cases and the providers. Today, PaaS offerings -- or more aptly, managed offerings -- extend beyond compute to include databases, machine learning (ML), security, operations and network offerings, Potter said.

"Increasingly, we are seeing [IaaS] providers, i.e., public cloud service providers, move 'up the stack' to offer PaaS services that reduce the administration burden on engineers building solutions on their core infrastructure services," Potter said. "Similarly, SaaS providers move 'down the stack' to provide their customers the ability to create custom solutions that integrate tightly with their core software systems."

IaaS, PaaS and SaaS are unique cloud computing offering categories with their own use cases, Potter said.

IaaS delivers core infrastructure services, e.g., networks, compute and storage. PaaS delivers platform tools for application or service development, he said. PaaS is built on top of core infrastructure services. SaaS delivers complete applications that serve specific business needs, typically with options that enable configuration and slight customization.

"Each category provides a different level of technical flexibility and accompanying operational complexity," Potter said. "PaaS is significantly less complex than IaaS to manage. The reduction in complexity comes at the cost of flexibility -- engineers are bound by the scope of services offered by the PaaS platform. Conversely, PaaS services offer greater flexibility than SaaS solutions, but at the cost of added operational complexity. Pizza is often used as an analogy for describing IaaS-PaaS-SaaS differences. IaaS is likened to take and bake, PaaS to pizza delivery and SaaS to dining out."

At the most general level, PaaS is a set of development services aligned with a public cloud provider and/or a multi-cloud container development platform, said Lee Sustar, an analyst at Forrester Research. This has evolved as cloud providers have woven managed services throughout their IaaS and PaaS. Today, it's more appropriate to group PaaS as part of cloud development services that typically include database services, big data, AI/ML and IoT.

IaaS gives the customer the most control, flexibility and availability on the cloud, said Michael Gibbs, CEO of Go Cloud Architects, an educational organization focused on cloud computing technologies and based in Port St. Lucie, Fla. IaaS is effectively using the cloud as a virtual rented data center.

"IaaS may cost more than PaaS," Gibbs said. "And IaaS does require more management overhead than PaaS, and it requires more sophisticated personnel."

IaaS, SaaS and PaaS are all about reducing the complexity of information technology, Cameron said.

"In information technology, you have a lot of overhead in managing physical and virtual infrastructure," he said. "You have hardware and software refreshes, and licensing, and patching, and administration. All of those are very manual-intensive and create regular or ongoing challenges for IT departments."

IaaS organizations reduce the complexity of managing the compute and storage of physical infrastructure for servers -- they can create VMs without worrying about the underlying infrastructure as long as there is sufficient capacity allocated to the system, according to Cameron.

"Someone still needs to manage everything -- physical hardware, virtual and the servers -- but you can start to separate those roles out easier and outsource to a cloud vendor if you like," he said.

SaaS reduces the complexity even more than with IaaS -- divorcing a company's consumption of IT from the underlying platform almost entirely, Cameron said. All the company has to worry about is bringing its data to the system or interacting with an application. The physical and virtual bits below the application simply aren't relevant to the organization and are included in the cost of the service.

"[One] concern with SaaS is that you have no control of the application," Gibbs said. "If the SaaS provider does not have a high availability strategy and the SaaS provider has an outage, all their customers will lose service."

In addition, SaaS applications often have less flexibility than custom-delivered applications on either IaaS or PaaS, according to Gibbs.

PaaS fills a gap between IaaS and SaaS, Cameron said. It was born out of a frustration with managing increasingly complex IT infrastructure.

"We needed to give IT consumers the ability to use pre-configured services to build more complex applications without understanding or having to manage the underlying infrastructure," he said. "This allowed us to rapidly create and deploy applications comprised of building blocks and helps to remove the latency of engaging the information technology organization from bringing that value to customers -- internal or external."

With PaaS, environments scale as needed, Gibbs said. PaaS environments can also be more agile, enabling faster deployment and development of new applications. PaaS enables organizations to reduce overhead because the cloud provider performs much of the management.

PaaS is the cloud computing technology of choice for developers, said Tony DiGiorgio, chief architect at Symplr, a provider of healthcare governance, risk management and compliance tools.

"It is a technology framework or environment that provides a space for developers to build applications without worrying about the infrastructure underneath," he said.

Organizations that use PaaS vendors can stay focused on designing and building new capabilities and features into their products, and ultimately deliver those products to their clients faster, DiGiorgio said. Companies that use PaaS services don't have to worry about the underlying management around updating servers, patching OSes and other maintenance tasks required to maintain digital environments.

An example of a PaaS offering is AWS Elastic Beanstalk, which helps developers deploy apps on the AWS cloud. Other PaaS providers include Salesforce, Alibaba Cloud, Oracle, SAP, VMware and Microsoft Azure. The IBM Cloud platform combines PaaS with IaaS to provide an integrated experience.

PaaS offerings give developers the ability to build their applications more quickly by offering pre-built solutions to many of the common problems that developers encounter, said Mohammad Hashemi, co-founder of Gadget, a developer productivity company in Ottawa. They also greatly decrease the cost and effort associated with scaling applications because the platform handles much of that.

In addition, PaaS delivers a framework that developers can use to create customized applications.

Another benefit of PaaS is that the responsibility for continuity of the service doesn't fall entirely on an organization's shoulders, said Pavel Kuznetsov, deputy managing director of cybersecurity technologies at Positive Technologies in Framingham, Mass.

"For enterprises that contribute to the service with their own code and tools, they share this responsibility with the PaaS provider, and for organizations that don't contribute their own code or tools, the responsibility falls entirely on the PaaS provider, which is even better," Kuznetsov said. "Organizations also don't need to hire support for the service anymore."

The challenge is taking advantage of native cloud services while mitigating the risk of lock-in to the platform or its underlying infrastructure, which is a growing concern as multi-cloud strategies are adopted by enterprises and large governmental organizations, according to Sustar.

Gibbs said that the challenges of PaaS include the following:

"The global pandemic has been an accelerator event, driving organizations to bring forward and collapse multiyear programs into shorter time frames to address the demands of new flexible ways of working," said John Rostern, senior vice president and global lead of cloud and infrastructure security services at NCC Group, a consultancy based in Manchester, England.

PaaS enables organizations to get to production faster and easier, he said. Business demands to get to value sooner are driving the practicality of putting PaaS at the end of the CI/CD pipeline, an evolution supported by the development community that has always preferred to focus on code rather than building and maintaining infrastructure.

"The flip side to this is the age-old skills gap, with cloud skills already in high demand being compounded by adding developer PaaS talent to the priority list," Rostern said.

As in most every industry, COVID-19 will have a major effect in the overall spend growth on the PaaS market over the next five to 10 years, according to DiGiorgio.

"Because businesses were forced to adopt and work differently, they needed technology that provided more nimble options for developers -- hence the pandemic resulted in a more pervasive adoption of PaaS technology," he said.

PaaS has evolved a lot in the last few years and is blending with IaaS, said Becky Trevino, vice president of product marketing at Snow Software in Stockholm. PaaS consumption is increasing as the traditional IaaS consumers have matured and are more comfortable putting services in the cloud, whether it's IaaS or PaaS. COVID-19 has also affected PaaS market growth by accelerating this blending of PaaS and IaaS.

"Because organizations were forced to adopt the cloud and accelerate their digital transformation, these organizations began examining how they could offload other tasks," Trevino said.

COVID-19 certainly increased the demand for digital services and put pressure on developer teams to ship faster, said Tyler Jewell, managing director at Dell Technologies Capital, the venture capital arm of Dell Technologies. However, while PaaS businesses grew in 2021, they didn't grow at a faster rate than they did prior to COVID-19, he said.

PaaS is the new IaaS, according to Insight's Cameron. In 2019-2020, the second or third big wave of IaaS cloud movers had completed full or partial uplifts to the cloud, and many of those that weren't moving at that time started updating skills and strategies to begin their own cloud journeys.

A lot of them learned the lessons of those who came before -- they started to upskill their staff, update processes and think about what it really meant to move to the cloud rather than just throwing a few virtual machines on a public cloud platform, he said.

"There is also a lot more general experience with cloud platforms in the market at this point -- engineers are starting to get a good idea where IaaS and PaaS and SaaS all fit within their IT services stacks and how to optimize placement of workloads on the optimal platforms," Cameron said. "Hybrid and multi-cloud are now the default rather than the exception -- most customers are starting with a much more nuanced and realistic vision of where public cloud fits in their organizations."

Positive Technologies' Kuznetsov said that the leading PaaS trend in 2022 will be the further enhancement of computing powers -- essentially, the urge to integrate with edge computing before reaching the clients themselves.

"But we need the next computing technology breakthrough," he said. "Instead of building more data centers, the industry should devise a plan to significantly raise the quality of computing, e.g., practically implement quantum computers and start using them en masse."

"As for the future, half a glance at the booming PaaS vendor market will speak volumes, with AI platform as a service tipped as the next hot topic already well warmed up," NCC Group's Rostern said.

Indeed, the PaaS market size is expected to grow from an estimated $56.2 billion in 2020 to $164.3 billion by 2026, according to a research report from MarketsandMarkets.

Expect to see vendors increasingly consolidating IaaS and SaaS functionality into PaaS, and leading PaaS through its maturity cycles to establish standards and practices, Rostern said. Only then will it hit true escape velocity, and we can expect to see PaaS cyber hygiene stability hit its full stride.

"In the market today and across our clients, we observe two consistent themes," Deloitte's Potter said. "One, the importance of data-driven decisions at scale to maximize customer value and open new market offerings. Two, the refocus of talent to high-value activities using automation to replace low-value activities."

With those two themes considered, in 2022, ML-focused PaaS offerings will mature and better integrate with the provider's service ecosystem and enable engineers to bring data-driven solutions to market faster, Potter said.

Given the increasing adoption of PaaS platforms -- which Deloitte doesn't expect to slow down -- technology firms will continue to place significant investment in their PaaS offerings in 2022 and beyond, he said.

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The state of the PaaS business model and market in 2022 - TechTarget

RIYADH: As the world embraces the most tech-savvy era, Riyadh-based solutions by stc has managed to make digitalization more relevant in Saudi Arabia.

Worth over SR24 billion ($6.4 billion), the company leverages modern techniques to enrich its portfolio with innovative products and services, aimed at revolutionizing traditional businesses.

The company known as 'solutions by stc' took a leap last year when it struck a stellar initial public offering on Saudi Arabias main stock index TASI.

It has seen strong interest from investors regionally and globally, after raising SR3.6 billion in an IPO, which the companys CEO Omar Al-Noamani said would position the company as a top digital enabler in the region.

Investor bids in the IPO surpassed the offered shares by 130 times, attracting more orders than oil giant Saudi Aramcos offering, Bloomberg reported.

The dividend policy, which is yet to be announced, will depend on performance evaluation and growth rates, Al-Noamaniearlier told CNBC Arabia in an interview.

Since its stock market debut, solutions by stc has closed in on major milestones.

Shares have soared 22 percent since then, to reach SR202 on Jan. 27, 2022.

It posted more than a 14 percent increase in profits in the first nine months of 2021, compared to a year earlier, up to SR718 million, and revenues hit SR5.76 billion in the same period.

The company has also secured several contracts worth millions of riyals. One of many is a SR201 million deal with Saudi Telecom Co. to build a data center inNEOMs Telco Parks digital platform.

On a broader scale, Saudi Arabias information and communications technology sector has a strong prospect for growth. It hit a volume of SR33.8 billion in 2018 and is forecasted to reach SR53.1 billion by 2025, according to stc.

Amid a sectoral boom, the Kingdom was ranked first among 140 nations for its digital competitiveness in 2020.

It beat France, China, and Indonesia to claim the top spot among the G20 member states, after being named Top Digital Riser, a statement by Saudi Press Agency revealed.

The local ICT industry represents a key driver of Vision 2030 blueprint for economic and social reform, as it helps Saudi diversify away from oil and brings it closer to becoming the future digital hub.

The Riyadh-basedsolutions by stc, formally known as Arabian Internet and Communications Services Co., represents the internet services arm of the Kingdoms largest telecom operator, Saudi Telecom Co.

It is 79 percent owned by stc and holds a market share of 13 percent in the local ICT sector, according to its website.

Saudi Telecom Co. owns and manages a tech venture capital fund that empowers entrepreneurs across the GCC, wider MENA region, and Turkey to set up technology businesses.

Headquartered in Riyadh, STC Ventures, or STV, marked the Middle Easts largest venture capital fund when it was established with a size of $500 million.

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Saudi Arabia attracts $2bn investments in cloud computing in the past two years - Arab News

31/01/2022 EU Automation

The cloud-native approach is often conceptualised using thePets vs. CattleDevOps concept, which compares traditional server systems, which are unique and cared for, to pets and cloud systems to cattle. Cattle are identical, assigned, scalable systems where if one of the systems were to be unavailable or fail, the whole network would not be affected. In this piece, Neil Bellinger, head of EMEA atglobal automation parts supplierEU Automation, delves into the native cloud and why it is the future of manufacturing.

Given the value of the cloud, one wonders why the manufacturing industry is resisting the move to cloud-native systems, especially with companies already using various cloud-based applications.

Until recently, manufacturing industries have been up to date with the latest innovations, from production tracking systems to artificial intelligence. Although financial and retail sectors have followed business giants like Netflix and Spotify, many still resist the switch to cloud-native. While83 per cent have a strategy for cloud implementationestablished, many still struggle to visualise the business value and cost savings of the cloud-native approach. However, forward-looking businesses are making the first steps in this direction. For example, one company currently implementing cloud-native applications is Volkswagen, training more than 200 specialists for its cloud-innovation centre.

Cloud-native is the term used to describe software and services that run on the internet instead of a local computer system, allowing businesses to be faster and more agile.Cloud-based applications, however, are not created in the cloud but instead transferred from an in-house web application to a cloud server. This cloud-based system allows for the availability and scalability of cloud-native applications without redesigning current applications.Cloud-enabled is similar to cloud-based, with the migration of the traditional application to the cloud. However, it does not have easy availability and scalability of cloud-based or cloud-native.

Some examples of cloud computing in the manufacturing industry are cloud-based marketing, product development, production and stock tracking, and productivity management.

The responsiveness, innovative features and zero downtime deployment of the cloud-native model provide businesses with a database needed to succeed in modern times. Successful examples of this implementation are Netflix and Uber. Netflix currently operates using over 600 services, with an update rate of around 100 times per day. The structural design of the cloud-native enables the rapid response, scalability, and selective deployment observed in companies such as Uber, Netflix and Spotify.

The cloud-native revolution

Cloud-native is the clear future of all businesses, including manufacturing. As seen in the last two years, implementing changes to aid when mass disruption like the pandemic occurs is extremely important for business survival. With accessibility possible from across the globe via the internet, the cloud-native approach is the best change companies could make.

The restriction of large on-premise systems has held back the manufacturing industry for years, but cloud-native applications enable companies to use small, reusable and independently deployable microservices. It can also allow the automation infrastructure, application delivery, recovery and scaling to increase, providing a more resilient and high performing system. The cloud-native model can also aid in lessening the strain of managing back-end software and infrastructure.

Cloud-native apps also enable the sharing and analysing of data across the organisation by being the central repository for data flowing fromsensors, machines, programmable logic controllers (PLCs),and more. At EU Automation, we value the importance of keeping with the times and understanding the cost of downtime. Cloud-native is the next step in lessening the impact of failures in company systems.

If you wish to stay informed about the developments of the cloud-native approach and how to unlock success in an industry 4.0, visit EU AutomationsKnowledge Hub.

Process and Control Today are not responsible for the content of submitted or externally produced articles and images. Click here to email us about any errors or omissions contained within this article.

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Pets versus cattle: cloud computing in manufacturing: The benefits of cloud-native applications in manufacturing - Process & Control Today

New York, USA, Jan. 31, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Market Overview: According to a comprehensive research report by Market Research Future (MRFR), Cloud Based Contact Center Market information by Solution, by Vertical, by Application and Region forecast to 2030 market size to reach USD 45.5 billion, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 24.8% by 2030.

Market Scope: The increased use of cloud-based contact center by different industrial verticals like healthcare and life sciences, government and public sector, consumer goods and retail, BFSI, and others will offer robust opportunities for the market over the forecast period.

Besides, other factors adding market growth include cloud based contact centers help in tracking real-time administration metrics through a customizable control panel, growing awareness about the alluring features of cloud based contact centers such as auto dialer real time monitoring, ACD, call center reports, IVR, Omni-channel support, and call center integration, as well as the growing need for cross-channel communication solutions, among others.

Dominant Key Players on Cloud Based Contact Center Market Covered are:

NICE Ltd. (Israel)

Five9 (US)

8x8 Inc. (US)

Cisco Systems (US)

Oracle Corporation (US)

Genesys (US)

NewVoiceMedia (UK)

Aspect Software (US)

Connect First (US)

Extreme Networks

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Market USP Exclusively Encompassed:Market DriversGrowing Need for Cloud Computing to Boost Market Growth The growing need for cloud computing will boost market growth over the forecast period for its convenience features, flexibility, affordability, and robust scalability. Thus organizations are widely looking in migrating their contact center operations to the cloud from the traditional on-premise model.

Cyber-attacks impacting Business Operations to act as Market Restraint In the current digital world, the access to vital information has resulted to several challenges, of which one of these include enterprises storing their sensitive data that turns into a key target for the cybercriminals. Contact centers, unfortunately that generally handle surplus customer information are no exception. On a regular basis, contact centers collect as well as store enough customer information which attracts cybercriminals for targeting such contact centers.

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High Initial Investment to act as Market Challenge The high initial investment and the dearth of trained expertise/skilled professionals may act as market challenges over the forecast period.

Browse In-depth Market Research Report (100 Pages) on Cloud Based Contact Center Market: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/cloud-based-contact-center-market-6358

Segmentation of Market Covered in the Research:The global cloud based contact center market has been bifurcated based on vertical, deployment model, organization size, services, and solution.

By solution, interactive voice response and automatic call distribution will lead the market over the forecast period as organizations focus to streamline and automate the massive volume of calls cost effectively and efficiently.

By services, the global cloud-based contact center market has been segmented into managed services and professional services.

By organization size, large enterprises will spearhead the market over the forecast period.

By deployment model, the public cloud segment will have the lions share in the market over the forecast period for the low cost associated with public deployment.

By industry, the IT and telecommunication segment will command the market over the forecast period. This will be followed by the BFSI sector as most financial institutions are using cloud-based solutions for making the facilities convenient. The banking sector has turned digital with the growing adoption of cloud platforms.

Regional AnalysisNorth America to Reign Cloud Based Contact Center Market North America will reign the cloud based contact center market over the forecast period. The presence of several key vendors in the region, the adoption of associated services, increasing recognition of cloud-based solutions, the growing adoption of favorable technologies like the IoT, the availability of cloud-based contact centers at a lower price by key vendors, large-scale digitization initiatives, growing number of startups, the presence of influential and innovative vendors like Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Oracle Corporation, and increasing investments of such key vendors in R&D activities are adding to the global cloud based contact center market growth in the region. Besides, organizations increasingly migrating their business operations to the cloud, rising trend of remote working that fuels the adoption of cloud based contact centers, the existence of major vendors, increasing acceptance of related services, and the growing acceptance of cloud-based solutions are adding to the global cloud based contact center market growth in the region.

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APAC to Have Significant Growth in Cloud Based Contact Center Market The APAC region will have significant growth in the cloud based contact center market over the forecast period. Dramatic growth of data center business, the rising number of startups, customers willingness to adopt new technologies, significant adoption of cloud-based solutions, ongoing digitalization, new entrants in the cloud contact center market particularly in Australia that are driving more established traditional on-premises players to aggressively roll out cloud-based solutions, the accessibility of cloud-based contact centers at an affordable cost by the regions leading vendors, and large-scale digitalization initiatives are adding to the global cloud based contact center market growth in the region.

COVID-19 Impact on the Global Cloud Based Contact Center MarketOrganizations are choosing cloud-based contract center solutions for managing contract center operations at the time of the COVID-19 outbreak for executing daily operations remotely. The need for cloud-based contact center solutions surged in 2020 for the different perks that it offers like low setup cost, scalability, and flexibility. Most of the organizations across industries have switched to work from home or remote working for safeguarding the well-being of employees and maintaining operational efficiency thus boosting the need for cloud-based solutions. Organizations which have already shifted their contact center operations to the cloud have survived easily with the continuity of their business during the pandemic. Cloud based contact centers are being preferred increasingly by enterprises for handling outbound and inbound customer communications effectively and delivering flexibility to manage customer service operations through remote workforce.

Competitive LandscapeThe cloud based contact center market is both competitive along with being fragmented on account of the presence of several international and also domestic industry players. Such industry players have utilized an assorted innovative strategies for being at the top along with sufficing to the burgeoning requirement of the esteemed clients including geographic expansions, collaborations, joint ventures, new product launches, partnerships, contracts, and much more. Besides, the players are also investing in different research & development activities.

Related Reports:Hyperscale Data Center Market Research Report: by Component (Servers, Networking, Software, Storage and others), by Services (Consulting, Installation and Deployment, and Maintenance and Support), by Type (Cloud Providers, Colocation Providers, Enterprises), by Tier Type (Tier 3, Tier2, Tier 4 and Tier 1), by Design Type (Electrical Construction and Mechanical Construction) and by Region (North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa and South America) - Forecast till 2027

Data Center Cooling Market, By Components (Chillers, Economizer, Server Cooling), Cooling Type (liquid, air), Service (Professional Service, Managed Service), Organization Size (SMEs, Large Enterprises) Vertical (BFSI, Energy ) - Forecast till 2027

Data Center Security Market: by Component (Solution, Services), Data Center Type (Mid-Sized Data Center, Enterprise Data Center, Large Data Center), Vertical (BFSI, Healthcare, IT & Telecommunication, Media & Entertainment) Forecast to 2027

Data Center Power Market Report Information by Component (Solution, Service), Data Center Size (Small & Medium Size, Large Size Enterprise Size Data Center), End-User (IT & Telecommunication, BFSI, Government, Power & Energy) Global Forecast till 2027

About Market Research Future:Market Research Future (MRFR) is a global market research company that takes pride in its services, offering a complete and accurate analysis regarding diverse markets and consumers worldwide. Market Research Future has the distinguished objective of providing the optimal quality research and granular research to clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help answer your most important questions.

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Cloud Based Contact Center Market Projected to Surpass USD 45.5 Billion by 2030 with a CAGR of 24.8% - Report by Market Research Future (MRFR) - Yahoo...

Against the backdrop of multiple challenges faced by the industry in recent years, the industrial internet of things (IoT) may provide needed hybrid cloud and fog computing to analyze huge amounts of sensitive data from sensors and actuators to monitor oil rigs and wells closely, thereby better managing global oil production. Improved quality of service is possible with the fog computing because it can alleviate challenges that a standard isolated cloud cannot handle.

Recently, the petroleum industry has faced critical challenges including oil price volatility, dramatically increased environmental regulations, the COVID-19 outbreak, and digital solutions to cybersecurity challenges. Oil and gas deals with a huge amount of data requiring an immediate response, with the flow of data generated by the IoT in all domains: upstream, midstream, and downstream. The vast amount of data and different types of IoT will create a barrier to holistic evaluation that does not depend on machine learning and artificial intelligence. Currently, the cloud solves that problem by processing data and applying artificial intelligence and machine learning, along with other applications. However, the cloud cannot work efficiently with such enormous sets of data and produce actions in a limited time because of the physical distance between the IoT and a centralized cloud will increase latency. In addition, cyberattack challenges to the IoTs and the degree of damage to the environment and equipment can halt operations, which can be circumvented using the fog and cloud. These challenges demonstrate that the current architecture cannot handle the large number of endpoint devices and data in a way that effectively provides significant protection to the system.

The fog model has several advantages over the cloud model, including close proximity to endpoints. The fog connects cyberphysical social systems to cloud computing centers and has the potential to lower the bandwidth and strain of industrial clouds. Cloud computing is a critical paradigm for managing all types of calculations, including those that were previously considered insignificant. However, when the task must be completed in real time with a very low latency, the cloud can become ineffective. As a result, fog computing was created to supplement the cloud. Traditional and fog computing are employed to increase the performance of industrial IoT-based applications. When the fog is unable to complete an operation independently because of capacity constraints, heavy computations must be offloaded to the cloud.

Fog computing is thought to be more cost-effective than cloud computing in time-critical applications such as health care because of its decreased latency, and, in some situations, the spare capacity of locally accessible resources.

Fog computing is a novel paradigm for computation that can be represented as the link between the cloud and the networks edge, where it provides computing, communication, control, and storage. The decentralized platform differs from previous traditional, architectural computational methods because the fog computing environment connects resources, including people, to improve the quality of life by running cyberphysical social applications on network edge processing resources.

Fog Nodes or Microdata Centers (MDCs). Such applications can gather and analyze data from local microdata centers by fog computing. Local data processing and analysis are carried out by the MDC to limit the amount of data transferred to a centralized cloud, reduce network latency, and enhance overall performance, especially for time-sensitive services such as connected cars and health monitoring. In order to reduce network congestion, bandwidth consumption, and delay for user requests, MDCs typically are placed between data sources and the cloud data center. The MDC handles most user requests instead of forwarding them to centralized and remote cloud data centers.

Smart Gateway. Because it permits communication between the network layer and the ubiquitous sensor network layer, a smart gateway is an important component of industrial IoT applications. IoT gateways are communication points that connect lower-end users who operate in influential data centers, connect the many devices in use, and perform a variety of functions to complete the computing purpose. The gate is solely used to receive sensor data, incorporate it, and then send it to the cloud for processing.

Virtual Servers. Fog computing has developed as a response to the massive amounts of data being transmitted to cloud servers and the severe latency and bandwidth limits that come with it. As an intermediary computing layer between cloud servers and IoT devices, it distributes numerous heterogeneous fog servers. Fog servers contain fewer resources than cloud servers, but, because they can be accessible over a local area network, they offer better bandwidth and reduced latency for industrial IoT devices.

Management Subsystem. Fog computing optimizes task execution and management system by achieving a balance of attention between resources and tasks. Load balancing is an important resource-management method that can be used in conjunction with task management to produce a reliable system.

Storage Subsystem. The fundamental objective of the industrial IoT is to acquire correct data in real time and then respond quickly and appropriately to provide desired results. Fog and edge computing have been used to help solve these problems and enhance service quality and user experience by effectively distributing data storage and processing across multiple locations physically close to the data source.

Fog computing architectures are built on fog clusters that combine the processing of several fog devices. Data centers, on the other hand, are the clouds primary physical components, with high operational costs and energy usage. The fog-computing paradigm consumes less energy and has lower operating expenses. Because the fog is closer to the user, the distance between users and fog devices could be one or a few hops.

The clouds communication latency is always higher than the fogs because of distance. The fog relies upon a more-distributed strategy based on geographical orchestration, whereas the cloud represents a more-centralized approach. Because of its high latency, the cloud does not allow for real-time contact; however, fog computing can alleviate this problem easily. On the other hand, the fog has a high failure rate because of its dependence upon wireless connectivity, decentralized management, and power outages. When the software is not managed properly, these devices can fail.

Drawbacks of the cloud-based model include the following:

The fogs dispersed design safeguards linked systems from the cloud to the device by placing computing, storage, networking, and communications closer to the services and data sources, offering an extra layer of security. Fog nodes protect cloud-based industrial IoT and fog-based services by executing a variety of security tasks on any number of networked devices, even the tiniest and most resource-constrained ones. For managing and upgrading security credentials, malware detection, and timely software patch distribution at scale, the fog provides a trusted distributed platform and execution environment for applications and services, as shown in Fig. 1.

By detecting, verifying, and reporting assaults, the fog provides reliable communication and enhanced security. If a security breach is discovered, the fog can detect and isolate risks quickly by monitoring the security status of surrounding devices. Blockchain deployments to low-cost IoT endpoints are possible using the fog. If multiple power generators are attacked using malware, the fogs node-based root-of-trust capabilities allows operations managers to remotely isolate and shut down affected generators. This ensures that service interruptions are minimized. If hackers attempt to take control of a smart factory by exploiting a vulnerability in assembly-line equipment, the domains are protected by fog nodes. Traffic is monitored from the internet into the distributed fog network and uses machine learning in the local environment to detect a potential assault once it has been recognized.

Based on a literature review of the use of the fog paradigm in health-care, smart cities, industrial automation, and smart-connected vehicles, great potential for fog computing exists in the petroleum industry. It is an open-architecture methodology that allows industrial IoT 5G and artificial-intelligence advancement. Fog nodes protect cloud-based IoT and fog-based services by executing a variety of security tasks on any number of networked devices. The benefits of using fog computing in the petroleum industry are latency reduction, improved response time, enhanced compliance, increased security, greater data privacy, reduced cost of bandwidth, overall increase in speed and efficiency, less reliance on wide-area-network services, greater up-time of critical systems, and enhanced services for remote locations.

Fig. 1Securing industrial IoT through fog computing.

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 206067, The Role of Hybrid IoT With Cloud Computing and Fog Computing in Helping the Oil and Gas Industry Recover From COVID-19 and Face Future Challenges, by Ethar H.K. Alkamil, SPE, University of Basrah; Ammar A. Mutlag, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka; and Haider W. Alsaffar, SPE, Halliburton, et al. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

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IoT With Cloud and Fog Computing Can Help Industry Recovery, Advancement

Fouling-Prediction Model Uses Machine Learning

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IoT With Cloud and Fog Computing Can Help Industry Recovery, Advancement - Journal of Petroleum Technology

Startup Sync Computing emerged from stealth mode today with $6.1 million in seed funding in a bid to help enable distributed cloud infrastructure for artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data workloads. The company also announced the launch of Sync Autotuner and Sync Orchestrator.

Based in Boston, Sync Computing is a spinout from MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where Suraj Bramhavar and Jeff Chou co-founded the company. The core premise that underlies Sync is that modern cloud infrastructure isn't properly optimized to run distributed workloads across different cloud services.

As part of Sync's launch, the company is also launched Sync Autotuner, a service that helps automatically tune and optimize cloud infrastructure for a given AI, ML or big data workload running the Apache Spark query engine.

In addition, the startup announced Sync Orchestrator, a compute resource orchestration tool for enabling different workloads to run across a distributed cloud infrastructure.

"The larger vision of what we're building is a globally optimized resource allocation and scheduler that is custom-designed for the cloud," Chou, Syncs CEO, told ITPro Today.

Typically, users with a big data job must manually determine what resources are needed on a given cloud platform, which can be a complex process, according to Chou.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has all manner of virtual instance types, with different configurations offered at various on-demand, reserve and spot pricing. Different resource types can impact performance as well as cost.

Another challenge is the orchestration of jobs. With certain AI, ML and big data workloads there are dependencies, such that one particular operation needs to run after another. Manually scheduling the timing and sequence of events is also a complex task, Chou said.

Sync Computing is aiming to enable its users to define their own business goals for a particular workload, whether the goal is better performance or cost optimization, Chou said. He noted that Sync provides an abstraction on top of compute resources, figuring out the details to help users reach business goals.

Chou said the optimization approach that Sync Computing uses is not based on machine learning. Rather, Sync Autotuner uses what he referred to as a mathematical model.

"There are companies that help tune various applications, but they require running the application for a week to train a model," Chou said. "For us, there is no training. We basically mathematically model Amazon's hardware and cost model, as well as Apache Spark."

As such, Chou claimed that a user could just direct the workload to Sync Computing, which will automatically calculate the right place and time to run a job.

While Sync Computing is starting off by helping optimize Apache Spark workloads across distributed cloud infrastructure, Chou said the plan is to enable various types of distributed computing workloads as the platform and the business continue to grow.

"When we first started, we were fundamentally just research scientists, so we had to find the right product andmarket," he said. "We do want to be a horizontal platform company, so that includes anything that benefits from distributed computing, like TensorFlow, PyTorch and other frameworks."

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Sync Computing Launches with Distributed Cloud Infrastructure Tech - ITPro Today