Category Archives: Cloud Computing

Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the fairest industry of them all?

In a world where so many companies are struggling, cloud computing stands out as that rare thing: a fabulous growth business that shows no sign of slowing down soon. Measured by market value, three of the worlds four biggest companies are now cloud providers: Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

Put together, these three alone are worth more than $2.8 trillion (2.2 trillion) and much of their value flows from the highly profitable businesses they have built storing and managing data on behalf of others on the public cloud.

As more and more organisations opt to shut down their own in-house data centres and plonkeverything on...

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Heads in the cloud: how worried should we be that so much of our data is in the hands of the few? - Telegraph.co.uk

Earlier this year, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) became just the third company in U.S. history to achieve the distinction of reaching a $1 trillion market cap, capping off a stunning run that was years in the making. One of the biggest contributors to its recent success has been the emergence of Azure as a cloud computing powerhouse, second only to leader Amazon.com's (NASDAQ:AMZN)Amazon Web Services (AWS). This has helped supercharge Microsoft's stock price, which has gained nearly 40% so far this year.

Microsoft cited its cloud business as the principle driver of its success last quarter, and investors will be looking for more of the same when the company reports the results of its 2020 fiscal first quarter (which ended Sept. 30) after the market close on Wednesday, Oct. 23. Let's recap the fourth-quarter results to see what has shareholders so giddy about Azure and why the good times could continue.

Image source: Microsoft.

For the fiscal 2019 fourth quarter (which ended on June 30), Microsoft reported revenue of $33.7 billion, up 12% year over year, and beating estimates by $920 million. Each of the company's major business segments played a part in the better-than-expected results. The tech giant's productivity and business processes grew by 14%, driven by its strong growth in Office and Dynamic commercial products. More personal computing lagged slightly, up 4% on increases in both its Windows and Surface businesses.

It was the intelligent cloud business, however, that exhibited the greatest gains, growing 19% year over year, topping $11.4 billion, and becoming Microsoft's biggest revenue generator in the process. This was driven by server products and cloud services revenue that climbed 22%, while Azure growth stole the show, up 64% compared to the prior-year quarter.

There's evidence to suggest that Microsoft investors will continue to reap the benefits of the ongoing digital transformation. According to research and advisory company Gartner, more than one-third of companies see the cloud as a top three investing priority, driving the overall public cloud market to more than $331 billion by 2022, up from just $182 billion last year.

Some estimates are even higher. International Data Corporation projects that worldwide spending on public cloud services will double by 2023 to nearly $500 billion.

While Amazon remains the industry leader, Azure has been growing more quickly. In the June quarter, AWS grew to $8.38 billion, up 37% year over year. At the same time, Microsoft closed the gap, with Azure growing 64% compared to the prior-year quarter, though it's important to note that Microsoft has yet to divulge how much revenue Azure alone generates.

Investors are clearly expecting the share gains to continue. Analysts' consensus estimates are calling for revenue of $32.2 billion, an increase of about 11% year over year, and earnings per share of $1.24, up about 8.8%. If Azure continues its solid performance -- and many believe that it will -- the company could once again exceed expectations on the strength of its cloud business.

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Cloud Growth Will Be in the Spotlight When Microsoft Reports Earnings - The Motley Fool

A team of researchers headed by Michael Zink, an engineer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will develop a testbed for research and development of new cloud computing platforms thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation. The collaborative project with Boston University and Northeastern University could reach a total of $5 million if fully funded after a review by the NSF in three years. The funding for UMass Amherst is $888,412 for the first three years.

Cloud computing, the delivery of services over the internet, plays an important role in supporting most applications we currently use, Zink says. Testbeds such as the one being constructed by the research team are critical for enabling new cloud technologies and making the services they provide more efficient and accessible to a wide range of scientists focusing on research in the area of computer systems, he says.

Zink is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) at UMass Amherst, and will be working with Orran Krieger, ECE professor at Boston University and Peter Desnoyers, associate professor of computer sciences at the Northeastern University Khoury College of Computer Sciences.

Zink says, This testbed will accelerate innovation in cloud technologies, technologies affecting almost all of computing today. By providing capabilities that currently are only available to researchers within a few large commercial cloud providers, the new testbed will allow diverse communities to exploit these technologies, thus democratizing cloud-computing research and allowing increased collaboration between the research and open-source communities.

This project will construct and support a testbed for research and experimentation into new cloud platforms the underlying software which provides cloud services to applications. Testbeds such as this are critical for enabling research into new cloud technologies. This is research that requires experiments which potentially can change the operation of the cloud itself.

The testbed will integrate capabilities previously developed in the CloudLab testbed with the Mass Open Cloud(MOC), a production cloud hosted by Boston Universitys Hariri Institute for Computing and developed through a partnership of academia (BU, Harvard University, Northeastern, MIT and UMass), government (Mass Tech Collaborative, U.S. Air Force) and industry (Red Hat, Intel, Two Sigma, NetApp, Cisco). Over the past six years, the MOC has grown into a community of thousands of users and provides the ideal environment for this purpose.

The testbed and the MOC are possible because of the Massachusetts Green High-Performance Computing Center, a 90,000 square-foot, 15-megawatt facility located in Holyoke and established as a joint venture between BU, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern and UMass. An important part of the MOC has always been to enable cloud computing research by the academic community, says Krieger. This project dramatically expands our ability to support researchers both by providing much richer capabilities and by expanding from a regional to a national community of researchers.

The new testbed will combine proven software technologies with the MOC while adding new technologies, including programmable hardware called field programmable gate arrays (FPGA). FPGAs provide capabilities not present in other facilities available to researchers today, enabling investigation into hardware acceleration techniques. The combination of a testbed and production cloud allows for work on a larger scale compared to isolated testbeds, reproducible experimentation based on realistic user behavior and applications, as well as a model for transitioning successful research results to practice. All of these features are currently not offered by commercial cloud providers to computer systems researchers.

The community outreach portion of the project aims to identify, attract and retain interested researchers, and to educate them in the use of the facility. Tutorials, workshops and webinars will offer training in the use of the testbed. The project will support educating the next generation of researchers in this field, and existing relationships with industrial partners of the affiliated production cloud will accelerate technology transfer from academic research to practical use.

The testbed also offers a unique sustainability model by allowing additional computing resources to be dynamically moved from institutional uses into the testbed and back again, providing a path to growth beyond the initial testbed.

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UMass Amherst Engineer Michael Zink Leads Research Team Developing New Cloud Computing Platforms - UMass News and Media Relations

Pensando, an edge computing startup founded by former Cisco engineers, came out of stealth mode today with an announcement that it has raised a $145 million Series C. The companys software and hardware technology, created to give data centers more of the flexibility of cloud computing servers, is being positioned as a competitor to Amazon Web Services Nitro.

The round was led by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lightspeed Venture Partners and brings Pensandos total raised so far to $278 million. HPE chief technology officer Mark Potter and Lightspeed Venture partner Barry Eggers will join Pensandos board of directors. The companys chairman is former Cisco CEO John Chambers, who is also one of Pensandos investors through JC2 Ventures.

Pensando was founded in 2017 by Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, Luca Cafiero and Soni Jiandani, a team of engineers who spearheaded the development of several of Ciscos key technologies, and founded four startups that were acquired by Cisco, including Insieme Networks. (In an interview with Reuters, Pensando chief financial officer Randy Pond, a former Cisco executive vice president, said it isnt clear if Cisco is interested in acquiring the startup, adding our aspirations at this point would be to IPO. But, you know, theres always other possibilities for monetization events.)

The startup claims its edge computing platform performs five to nine times better than AWS Nitro, in terms of productivity and scale. Pensando prepares data center infrastructure for edge computing, better equipping them to handle data from 5G, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things applications. While in stealth mode, Pensando acquired customers including HPE, Goldman Sachs, NetApp and Equinix.

In a press statement, Potter said Todays rapidly transforming, hyper-connected world requires enterprises to operate with even greater flexibility and choices than ever before. HPEs expanding relationship with Pensando Systems stems from our shared understanding of enterprises and the cloud. We are proud to announce our investment and solution partnership with Pensando and will continue to drive solutions that anticipate our customers needs together.

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Edge computing startup Pensando comes out of stealth mode with a total of $278 million in funding - TechCrunch

Dive Brief:

Bank of America has focused on improving its customer experience and creating responsive digital tools users expect in the mobile era of computing.

In a "high-touch, high-tech" strategy, BofA has worked to redesign how customers interact with its financial centers and prioritizing digital banking.

Since 2010, BofA has spent $25 billion on new technology initiatives, which includes rearchitecting "major systems," building an internal cloud, and building software with rapid speed to market, Moynihan said in BofA's 2018 annual report.

The bank was formed in 1998 and, much like every legacy enterprise, has technology debt to contend with. Financial services institutions are particularly vulnerable because of regulatory and compliance pressures.

The reliability of mainframes, which handle bulk transaction processing like a dream and power many ATMs, can make it difficult to modernize. Long-running infrastructure becomes nested with modern applications, not primed for the digital era.

In recent years, big banks have heavily invested in technology to update older systems and make way for a digital era. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. allocated $11.4 billion for technology; in 2018, BofA spent $10 billion.

While smaller banks are spending most of their tech budgets on maintenance, larger institutions are looking toward innovation and security. As technology architectures become more digital, infrastructure maintenance shifts to third-party providers, leaving the banks to focus on innovation and customer needs.

BofA is not alone in looking toward the cloud, but its private approach falls in line with compliance and regulatory apprehension. Institutions wary of public cloud risks regardless of the computing power provided look to Capital One as an example of what could go wrong.

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Bank of America prioritized internal cloud. Now it's evaluating third-party providers - CIO Dive

New York City, NY: October 16, 2019 Published via (Wired Release) Global Cloud Computing Marketelaborates on the complete details covering growth factors, opportunities, key companies, applications, and regions. The report covers useful details that are categorized based on regions, major players, and applications which will provide a simplified view of the Cloud Computing industry. This report provides the competitive scenario of the major market players based on the customer demands, sales revenue, company profile, the business tactics used in the market which will help the emerging market segments in making vital business decisions.The Cloud Computing market study is based on major geographical regions, and the regions covered in this report are Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, North America, Europe, and Latin America.

The Cloud Computing report covers all the minute details related to the industry like growth opportunities, innovative strategies, technological developments, threats to market growth, and futuristic market trends. Global Cloud Computing market analyses the report based on supply and demand status, competitive market scenario, customer demand, and industry policies. The company profile of the Cloud Computing market players based on the import/export scenario, sales margin, past, present and future market scenario will filter essential market details.

Download Free Sample Copy of Cloud Computing Market Report:https://marketresearch.biz/report/cloud-computing-market/request-sample

Leading Players Of Cloud Computing Market Are:

CA Technologies, Cisco Systems, Google, HP, Amazon.Com, IBM, Microsoft, SAP AG, Yahoo! Inc., Oracle, Flexiant, Citrix Systems, Inc., ENKI Consulting, Akamai Technologies, Inc., Citrix Systems, Inc.

How is this Report On Cloud Computing Market Useful?

In order to comprehend the knowledge and insights received from this report, some figures and presentations are also included apart from the data. These are in the form of charts, graphs, tables, etc. Rather than reading the raw data, reading through tools is easier and more conclusions can be drawn looking at these explaining diagrams.

This report also provides hands-on ready-to-access analytical data provided by industry professionals. They can understand various vital trends, drivers, and challenges in the Cloud Computing industry. This report will provide a detailed assessment of majorly the major players, regions considered, and applications.

Key questions answered in Cloud Computing industry report 2019-2028:

What will be the market size of Cloud Computing market in 2028?

What will be the growth rate of Cloud Computing market?

What are the major market trends of Cloud Computing market?

What is driving Cloud Computing market?

Who are the leading market players in Cloud Computing market?

What are the challenges to market growth of Cloud Computing market?

What market trends are impacting the growth of the Cloud Computing market?

Global Cloud Computing Market Segmentation:

Cloud Computing Market Segmentation, By Deployment: Private Cloud, Community Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Public Cloud. Cloud Computing Market, By Service:Platform as a Service (PaaS),Infrastructure as Service (IaaS),Software as a Service (SaaS)

Customize Report AndInquiry For The Cloud Computing Market Report:https://marketresearch.biz/report/cloud-computing-market/#inquiry

The report for Global Cloud Computing Market comprises of extensive primary research along with the comprehensive analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market, various industry experts, and industry performance. The report gives a clear picture of the present market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, macro economical, technological advancement, and rule factors in the market. The report provides details of the information and strategies of the top players in the industry. The report also gives an all-inclusive study of the different market segments and regions.

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Global Cloud Computing Market Consumption Growth Rate And Product Segment Forecast To 2019-2028 - The State News - BBState

At the CEATAC event in Japan, Microsoft announced new additions to its Windows and SQL Server family of products to support IoT and Edge Computing use cases. The new portfolio helps Microsoft in realizing its vision of Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge.

Windows 10 IoT Core

During his keynote at CEATEC, Microsoft's Partner Director of Program Management for Intelligent Edge Operating Systems, Ian LeGrow announced the new flavor of operating systems under the Windows for IoT family. He also announced the partnership with NXP, a Netherlands-based semiconductor company that manufactures microcontrollers and processors. There is a new version of SQL Server exclusively designed for the edge. Microsoft is building a set of container images for accelerating machine learning inferencing at the edge.

Windows 10 IoT Core was the first device-specific OS from Microsoft which is optimized for smaller devices with or without a display that runs on both ARM and x86/x64 devices. It can be installed on popular single-board computers such as Raspberry Pi, DragonBoard 410c, MinnowBoard and NXP devices. Developers can use C, .NET Core and Python environments to develop IoT applications.

In addition to Windows 10 IoT Core, Microsoft has invested in additional flavors of Windows - Windows 10 IoT Enterprise and Windows Server IoT 2019.

Windows 10 IoT Enterprise is targeted at independent device vendors and software vendors building industrial IoT products. Microsoft calls it a binary equivalent to Windows 10 Enterprise, which includes familiar development and management tools as client PCs and laptops. The OS is meant to build fixed-purpose devices that run a single application or a fixed-set of applications. Windows 10 IoT Enterprise runs on a wide range of AMD and Intel CPUs.

Edge Computing is not just confined to single-board computers and smaller devices. High-end servers can also be configured as Edge Computing machines. To support the heavy-edge scenario, Microsoft has a flavor of Windows Server branded as Windows Server IoT 2019. It is a binary equivalent to Windows Server 2019 that enables the usage of the same familiar development and management tools as general-purpose servers running Windows Server. Customers can run data processing, machine learning, and analytics workloads at the Edge based on Windows Server IoT 2019.

Microsoft has tightly integrated Windows for IoT family with Azure. All the devices based Windows IoT OS are registered with Azure IoT Hub for management and maintenance.

To bring AI and ML inferencing to the edge, Microsoft has built a container image called the Windows ML container. Currently available in preview, it is specifically designed for delivering AI-inferencing workloads built using the Windows ML API. The container image can take advantage of GPU acceleration provided by the underlying hardware. Applications can use sensors or cameras connected using USB, I2C, SPI or GPIO through the container. Microsoft has optimized the container image to run on devices with resource constraints. The company claims that the on-disk size of the container is approximately 350 MB, significantly smaller than any other GPU-enabled inferencing container in the market.

Apart from the OS, Microsoft has also built a flavor of SQL Server exclusively for IoT and Edge called SQL Server IoT 2019. According to Microsoft, SQL Server IoT 2019 is the binary equivalent to SQL Server 2019, which will be licensed through the OEM channel. The product is specifically designed for dedicated-use, server-class Edge appliances running application software. SQL Server IoT 2019 can be deployed on Windows Server IoT 2019 to bring mission-critical data processing and analytics capabilities to the Edge.

Microsoft has also announced the general availability of Windows 10 IoT Core Board Support Packages for the NXP i.MX family of processors in partnership with NXP. Customers can use the combination of Windows and NXP devices that are connected to the Azure cloud to deploy industrial automation and IIoT workloads.

Having invested in the cloud platform for IoT services, Microsoft is now expanding the OS and server portfolio to support industrial IoT and Edge Computing use cases.

The software stack on the devices based on Windows IoT, SQL Server IoT, Azure IoT Edge, Stream Analytics, Windows ML Containers combined with Azure IoT platform in the cloud covers the whole spectrum of devices and cloud for building intelligent connected solutions.

With Windows for IoT and the Azure IoT platform, Microsoft has a unique advantage in delivering an integrated edge-to-cloud platform to customers.

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Microsoft Expands IoT And Edge Computing Portfolio With Windows And SQL Server - Forbes

NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- This cloud computing market analysis considers sales from SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS services. Our analysis also considers the sales of cloud computing in APAC, Europe, North America, South America, and MEA. In 2018, the SaaS segment had a significant market share, and this trend is expected to continue over the forecast period. The use of SaaS eliminates the expenses and complexities associated with purchasing, configuring, and managing hardware products. This will play a significant role in the SaaS segment to maintain its market position. Also, our global cloud computing market report looks at factors such as the increased inclination toward cloud computing for cost-cutting, control of data backup and recovery, and increased use of containers boosting cloud adoption. However, system integration issues, network connectivity issues and latency, and problems associated with vendor lack-in may hamper the growth of the cloud computing industry over the forecast period.

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Global Cloud Computing Market: Overview

Increased inclination toward cloud computing for cost-cutting

Enterprises are increasingly adopting cloud services for their computing needs as it helps them in minimizing their overall CAPEX. Similarly, organizations are utilizing public cloud resources and setting up the infrastructure on-premises or in private cloud through the deployment of hybrid cloud. Hybrid cloud solutions leverage the cost benefits and allow portability of the applications between different clouds. Furthermore, SMEs and large-scale organizations are increasingly adopting cloud solutions as they provide security, reliability, and result in optimum utilization of resources.?Owing to the cost-saving benefits offered, the demand for cloud computing is expected to rise which will lead to the expansion of the global cloud computing market at a CAGR of over 16% during the forecast period.

Rise in edge computing and shift toward serverless computing

Edge computing improves the server response time and ensures reduced latency. This network architecture is being implemented by large-scale enterprises with the advent of IoT devices and growing demand for the management of data generated by these devices. There is an increase in the demand for technologically advanced edge platforms due to growth in the velocity of data generation in the energy and telecommunication industries. The trend of edge data center deployments is expected to have a positive impact on the overall market growth.

Competitive Landscape

With the presence of a few major players, the global cloud computing market is moderately concentrated. This robust vendor analysis is designed to help clients improve their market position, and in line with this, this report provides a detailed analysis of few leading cloud computing manufacturers, that include Adobe Inc., Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services Inc., Google LLC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP, IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., Salesforce.com Inc., and SAP SE.

Also, the cloud computing market analysis report includes information on upcoming trends and challenges that will influence market growth. This is to help companies strategize and leverage on all forthcoming growth opportunities.

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The global cloud computing market at a CAGR of over 16% during the forecast period Global Cloud Computing Market: About this market - PRNewswire

Cloud computing is undoubtly the promise of having a modern and state-of-the-art IT infrastructure without the need for substantial capital investments and personnel increases.

The possibility of improving your business is something which is appealing to every decision maker across the globe. The year 2000 will always be remembered as the milenium of the more and more oustanding pace of technological progress. New and old technologies are as close together as never before. The almost uncontrollable increase in human knowledge leads to endless incremental innovations. The hunt for the next big thing seems to be never ending.

Even though cloud computing still plays that role, one might think that it is being pushed aside by the likes of artificial intelligence and blockchain. But wait most new technologies are distinguished by a huge number of data and intelligence. In other words, the many disparate servers which are part of cloud technology hold the data which an AI can access and use to make decisions and learn things like how to hold a conversation. But as the AI learns this, it can impart this new data back to the cloud, which can thus help other AIs learn as well as noticed Gary Eastwood from the IDG Contributor Network. Same goes for blockchain and other data intensive technology.Cloud computing is not only the digitization tool par excellence, it is omnipresent and plays undoubtedly a key role in todays technological progress.

Providing IT resources and on-demand applications over the Internet at usage-based prices

Simply put,cloud computing is the delivery of computing services servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics and more over the Internet (the cloud).Companies offering these computing services are called cloud providers and typically charge for cloud computing services based on usage, similar to how you are billed for water or electricity at home. (Microsoft Azure)

Whether you run apps that share photos with millions of mobile users or support critical business operations in your organization, the cloud is a technology providing quick access to flexible and cost-effective IT resources.When it comes to cloud computing, you do not have to invest in hardware in advance or spend a lot of time managing it. Instead, you can provide the exact type and size of computing resources you need to implement your latest breakthrough idea or operate your IT department. You can access as many resources as you need almost immediately by paying only for what you use.Cloud computing provides an easy way to access servers, storage, databases and a full range of application services over the Internet.Cloud providers operate and manage the network-attached hardware needed for these application services, providing and using the resources you need through a web application.

Advantages of cloud computing

The cloud has become a technology that influences everyones daily life. The adoption of solutions and services in the cloud present a number of advantages and benefits, among others:

Types of cloud services: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS

Cloud computing consists of three main types, commonly referred to as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Choosing the right cloud computing type consists in knowing your needs to achieve an optimal level of control with worrying about unnecessary tasks. Microsoft defines these types as follows:

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS):The most basic category of cloud computing services. With IaaS, you rent IT infrastructure servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, operating systems from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Platform as a service (PaaS):Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) refers to cloud computing services that supply an on-demand environment for developing, testing, delivering and managing software applications. PaaS is designed to make it easier for developers to quickly create web or mobile apps, without worrying about setting up or managing the underlying infrastructure of servers, storage, network and databases needed for development.

Software as a service (SaaS):Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a method for delivering software applications over the Internet, on demand and typically on a subscription basis. With SaaS, cloud providers host and manage the software application and underlying infrastructure and handle any maintenance, like software upgrades and security patching. Users connect to the application over the Internet, usually with a web browser on their phone, tablet or PC.

Cloud deployments: public, private, hybrid

There are three different ways to deploy cloud computing resources. These are public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud.

Public cloudsare owned and operated by a third-partycloud service provider, and deliver computing resources like servers and storage over the Internet using a web browser. Todays leading cloud providers Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure are examples of a public cloud.

Aprivate or on-prem cloudrefers to cloud computing resources used in-house and exclusively by a single business or organisation. The particularity here is that a private cloud can be physically located on the companys on-site datacenter.

A combination of both public and private clouds leads to what we callhybrid cloud. The advantage here is that a hybrid cloud allows data and applications to be shared between them. By allowing data and applications to move between private and public clouds, customers enjoy greater flexibility and more deployment options.

After which criteria do customers decide for a cloud provider?

Simply put, customers do not decide for one single cloud provider. Many companies pursue a multi cloud strategy to maintain the ability and flexibility to select different cloud services from different providers.

However,the cloud has always been accompanied by data privacy concerns. Customizable and real-time encryption can separate security and network functions. As a result, an extra layer of data protection is added. On the other hand, private cloud solutions can enhance the security of company specific applications by implementing cloud technology within the companys corporate datacenter. What is important to note is thatthere is no one-size-fits-all solution for cloud security. Hence, customization of the most effective solutions are the best possible solutions to meet specific needs.

Summa summarum, the clouds success is nowadays more and more influenced on the macro level for example with GDPR and CLOUD Act. Governments, regulators, policymakers and standards setting organizations have a big influence especially on standards for cyber security at the micro-level. For the cloud, this meansmore regulation but also more adoption opportunities through new customers who had data privacy concerns towards cloud based solutions. In other words, there is no end to the clouds explosive growth.

What abouta new way of innovative differentiation?

Nowadays we notice more and more a change in cloud competition. Microsoft Azure has surpassed Amazon AWS in terms of annual revenues. The cloud industry with its huge potential seems to undergo a change in competition which can be explained by a few notable trends that are emerging:

Considering these three trends, the cloud market does not appear to be changing any time soon. An innovation-driven sector as the cloud represents is taking a risky step in falling into commodity. An increasingly strong price competition shows how difficult it has become to compete on features.The question therefore is which trends begin to emerge and express exactly what todays customers look for?

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Cloud Computing - The Basics - Finextra

Cloud computing is often touted for its security benefits: its assumed that a company that hosts hundreds of servers for customers has superior skills and resources to secure data on those servers than the individual owners of that data. When a security breach happens in cloud computing, its usually the fault of the data owner who misconfigured their leased cloud server and not the cloud provider.

But researchers in Australia recently found a vulnerability in a cloud-management system used by thousands of cloud-service providers that potentially opened thousands of servers to attack through no fault of customers or their cloud-service provider.

The critical vulnerabilityin OnApp, one of the top cloud-computing management platforms used by thousands of cloud-hosting services around the worldwould allow an attacker to seize control of all servers managed by a cloud provider if he or she has access to just one of those serversfor example, by simply renting space on a server from the same provider, according to the Australian security firm Skylight Cyber, which discovered the issue. The vulnerability would let an attacker steal, corrupt, or delete data belonging to other customers, or encrypt the data to prevent owners of the data from accessing it, all while hiding the identity of the attacker.

Thats because the vulnerability allows the attacker to gain access to those servers using the top-level administrative credentials and privileges of the cloud provider.

This is not just a data leak, CEO of Skylight Cyber Adi Ashkenazy said. You have root access to those servers, so you could install malware, run ransomware, whatever you would like.... Its a horrific mistake. I shouldn't be able to use their authentication.

If data on the servers has been encrypted by the owners of that data, an attacker would at the very least be able to encrypt the data again with the hackers own key, preventing the owner from accessing the data on that server.

Since many cloud providers offer free trial accounts that only require an email address to sign up, an attacker wouldnt have to provide any identifying details to gain access to the first server to launch an attack.

OnApp is a London-based cloud management platform for hosting providers to manage fleets of cloud servers leased by government agencies and small and large commercial companies. Its been called the most popular cloud platform youve probably never heard of, and, according to the company, at least one in three public clouds use its platform, including VPS.net, which has 10,000 customers in more than 180 countries, according to its website. The researchers said they tested the vulnerability across two different cloud providers to verify that it worked, including VSP.net.

OnApp acknowledged the problem and has issued patches for the software, though the researchers say not all customers have applied them. OnApp declined to discuss with Motherboard how many customers hadnt patched their system yet, but in its patch notes, the company warned that There are no feasible workarounds for this vulnerability, we strongly recommend to update.

The issue, outlined in an industry security notice, affects all versions of OnApp used for managing Xen- or KVM-based virtual servers. The company told Motherboard that it did not affect other versions of OnApp. OnApp wouldnt say exactly how many cloud-service providers and their customers were using the versions of their platform that had the vulnerability.

[A]nyone using XEN or KVM hypervisors was affected, Ashkenazy said. Only OnApp know what the percentage of customers using it represent.

The researchers discovered the vulnerability by chance when they opened an account at a cloud provider and noticed an SSH connection (a type of secure, encrypted connection between two systems) to their server from the cloud provider, using the providers private keys. They wondered if the same keys were used to access every server managed by the cloud-hosting provider and in the course of investigating this discovered that they could trigger the system to initiate an SSH connection to any other server operated by the provider using the providers keyswithout ever knowing the providers keysgiving them the same root access and privileges as the provider.

Its very simple. Anyone can do it, Ashkenazy said.

The flaw exists because the OnApp platform is configured to allow so-called agent forwarding with SSH connections. The agent forwarding feature allows a private key used to connect to one system to be used to make automated and authenticated connections to other systems. This would generally be used by an administrator to write scripts to configure and manage a lot of systems simultaneously instead of having to configure each system separately.

But the way it was configured in OnApp, it also allowed the researchers to use that SSH connection to issue a command that triggers a cloud-provider's authentication system to initiate connections to other servers using the private keys stored in the providers authentication system. The researchers said they tested the vulnerability across two different cloud providers to verify that it worked, including VSP.net.

The way agent forwarding works is when they connect to my server [using SSH], they have an open socket that allows me to forward authentication requests to their server, Ashkenazy told Motherboard. [T]heir server, with their credentials that I never get to see, opens a channel [to other servers], and I can send whats known as a key challenge and they answer it for me, which allows me root access to any other server that accepts those credentials.

Ashkenazy said there was no reason for OnApp to have enabled agent forwarding but speculated that the company may have used it for a legitimate purpose at one point, but forgot to disable it when deploying the platform to customers.

In any case, the company was immediately responsive when Ashkenazys team contacted it.

OnApp told Motherboard that in addition to issuing patches, the company contacted all of its customers by email and other means in June and again in July to provide instructions for patching their OnApp control panels and also offered to do the update for customers free of charge. But not all customers applied the patch or took the company up on its free offer.

OnApp praised Skylight Cyber for alerting it to the issue and for withholding the technical details for exploiting the vulnerability until it could alert customers.

What we would like to emphasize, however, is the value of ethical hacking and the importance of vendors remaining vigilant to and responding swiftly to issues like this when they arise, company spokesman Steve Fenton wrote in an email. Wed like to highlight the diligence of the team at Skylight throughout the disclosure process, too: they also played an important role in mitigating this issue by testing the methodology behind the fix before patches were released to our customers.

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