Category Archives: Cloud Computing

Atos and UCLannounced having successfully run the virus sequencing tool, Viridian, which is used to detect mutation of the SARS-Cov-2 strain of the coronavirus, using an Arm-based Ampere Altra processor in a cloud native environment with Atos' integration expertise. This proof of concept (PoC) was coordinated byAtos' Life Sciences Center of Excellencewhich aims to foster a culture of exploration, discovery and co-creation to harness the power of digital technologies in order to advance precision health and accelerate the discovery and development of drugs.

With data growing exponentially and becoming more difficult to process for life sciences applications, data, scientists rely on high-performance computing and parallel computing to quickly process and analyse massive amounts of data.

The Arm Neoverse-based platform, the Ampere Altra, is dedicated to cloud native workloads, meaning the simulation and the results can be achieved not only on-premises but directly on the cloud, on any type of HPC platforms and from anywhere.

This will be even easier with the use of Atos'Nimbix Supercomputing Suite; offering researchers and scientists flexible, scalable, and easy-to-use cloud solutions for compute-intensive workflows.

With more and more laboratories using Arm-based solutions, this successful PoC means that they will now be able to run Viridian on their systems, enabling them to study life science workflows and to detect various mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, in order to ultimately help combat COVID-19.

This work has combined expertise skills from a team of Atos and Arm experts focusing on hardware and software optimizations, together with a scientific team from UCL dedicated to scientific applications for these specific use cases. This collaboration has enabled the optimization of both software and hardware in this co-designing effort to meet the demands of impactful and cutting-edge genomics workflows, which are already deployed in clinical settings.

Emmanuel Le Roux, Group SVP, Global Head of HPC, AI & Quantum at Atos,commentedBeing the undisputed European leader in HPC is not only about delivering the most systems to European HPC centers in terms of PetaFlops but also about working closely with numerous European research and scientific institutions to empower various crucial data productions and simulations daily. This work, under the umbrella of theAtos Life Sciences Center of Excellence, demonstrates that collaboration between academia and industry through the power of supercomputing is creating new avenues for scientific breakthroughs. Today, we have once again shown the importance of hybrid computing to foster innovation and provide scientists with tangible life sciences applications.

Alex Wade, Research Associate at UCL,said: This codesign effort between Arm, Atos and UCL has allowed for the optimization of both new Arm hardware and cutting-edge genomics software, fortifying both for real world life science applications. Collaborating with industry partners has demonstrated a key idea for the future of HPC applications whereby hardware and software are tuned for performance in tandem, as opposed to the typical story of software continuously being updated to match new hardware releases. This work has been performed as part of the Centre of Excellence in Computational Biomedicine (CompBioMed) and was possible because of CompBioMed's wide interdisciplinary expertise. Arm and Atos were valuable partners in this work and we hope this work leads to future collaborations and can act as a template for other codesign activities.

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About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 111,000 employees and annual revenue of c. 11 billion. European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high performance computing, the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to a secure and decarbonized digital for its clients. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on Euronext Paris and included in the CAC 40 ESG and Next 20 Paris Stock indexes.

Thepurpose of Atosis to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space.

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Atos, UCL and Arm team up to offer wider cloud computing possibilities for life sciences applications - B - Benzinga

For virtually every enterprise today, moving to the cloud is no longer a question of if; instead, the question is, which apps and when? There is urgency in the answer. In fact, when asked about their deadlines for embracing and adopting cloud technology, many IT practitioners will quip: Yesterday!

However, while most executives understand the benefits of transition to the cloud for scalability, operational efficiencies, security or cost-savings, many still harbor understandable concerns. Business executives face not just the technical challenge of cloud migration, but the added hurdle of reaching consensus amongst enterprise finance and technology leaders -- addressing their concerns and easing resistance to enact mission-critical change.

Here are three common areas of concern along with ways to overcome them and, ultimately, build confidence across the enterprise to move forward with a cloud migration.

Shifting to the cloud has a significant impact that most chief financial officers like -- it keeps more cash on hand. It also makes cash planning more predictable. Rather than dealing with spikes of expenditures when new equipment is needed, maintenance is required or updates are implemented, CFOs recognize that the expenditures become smooth. To get this benefit, it is important to move the correct types of applications into the cloud.

Typically cloud costs are based on computing resource usage, data storage, and data transfer. When you move an application to the cloud, you need to understand if it can use compute resources when needed and release them when idle. If the application uses the same compute resources when idle as it does when busy then you should consider local hosting.

Data storage and transfer also impact costs. Are you storing your data efficiently? Do you have unnecessary copies. and are you compressing where possible? Data transfer is another place where surprise costs can occur. Is the application writing and re-writing data unnecessarily?

To prevent unnecessary costs, applications may need to be re-written or new cloud-ready applications licensed. You can also use the cloud service contract to manage costs. When purchasing cloud services, you can secure a committed use discount which ensures discounted prices based on a commitment to use a minimum level of computing resources for a specified term. As organizations mature in their cloud usage, they can begin to forecast cloud costs and pre-buy committed compute usage annually for a discounted rate. In this way, cloud costs can be lowered over time, and become more predictable.

Optimizing compute spend in the cloud is an ongoing engineering challenge. Better application design improves efficiency and lowers costs. In a distinct advantage over the data center model, the cloud makes application costs visible down to the very last application programming interface. That level of visibility empowers engineers to continuously improve cost-efficiency of cloud operations.

In a data center model, internal IT professionals have a time-tested handle on networking, security, data governance and application deployment. The move to the cloud will disrupt that status quo. The best way to mitigate disruption is through employee communications and training.

Common questions IT teams and leadership must tackle when moving to the cloud include how the cloud transition will impact these functions, or whether they even exist in the same form in a cloud environment. Based on our own experiences with this, as well as helping our customers work through these challenges, the most successful approach to these questions takes a perspective of: how does what we know and do today translate to the cloud?

Upfront investment in cloud training for the workforce is a must. Cloud-specific training will help employees understand how basic concepts translate. For instance, to a networking infrastructure lead, virtual LANs (VLANs) become virtual private clouds (VPCs). Training results in a superior system architecture, because the transition team can design the cloud infrastructure to align with cloud best practices versus recreating the exact data center infrastructure in the cloud. Further, cloud training positions the workforce for continued career growth in an increasingly cloud-centric environment. The investment in training will increase employee engagement and build loyalty, which reduces turnover.

While an organization might wish to take a measured and methodical approach to cloud adoption, the clock is ticking when it comes to app modernization. Todays new applications are born in, and designed for, the cloud. Most legacy apps will either shift to the cloud or become obsolete. As many of the apps are business critical, updates can force cloud migration in order to maintain continuity of important apps.

To ease the transition, a hybrid approach often yields the best outcome. This hybrid scenario entails embracing cloud-native apps to take advantage of cloud-only services; redesigning a subset of legacy applications for deployment in the cloud; and migrating remaining apps through a lift and shift approach migrating on-premise virtual machines to identical virtual machines running in the cloud.

This hybrid approach demands careful decision making around which of these approaches to take with each distinct application. While a lift and shift approach is the most straightforward, it is also most expensive and could result in lower performance and efficiency. Selecting a new, cloud-native replacement app may result in the loss of any residual license value on the existing app, the need to port over existing users and data and perhaps the need to learn a new app interface, service/maintenance and integration points. Redesigning legacy apps similarly leads to new interface and integration points and creates a significant workload for IT. Working collectively on a hybrid solution, the IT team weighs the benefits of each approach and decides the right course of action for each application.

As businesses face the pressure and urgency of cloud migration, successfully addressing cost management, employee training and app modernization will help mitigate common causes of resistance from stakeholders and jump-start a transformation. A careful evaluation of technology and business needs in the cloud transition process will help foster a courageous enterprise culture of embracing the latest technologies to drive innovation and operational efficiency.

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Cloud Adoption: 3 Things to Consider - InformationWeek

This pieceis part of the series All About Chinaa journey into the history and diverse culture of China through short articlesthat shed light on the lasting imprint of Chinas past encounters with the Islamic world as well as an exploration of the increasingly vibrant and complex dynamics of contemporary Sino-Middle Eastern relations.Read more...

The strategic rivalry between China and the US that has developed over the past decade includes a struggle for control of the global digital economy, particularly the digital infrastructure and information communications technology (ICT) markets. In recent years, China has become a global leader in some areas of the digital economy such as e-commerce, digital payments, and investment in digital technologies. Digital economic cooperation has emerged as an increasingly important element of Chinas relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and a focal point of Sino-American great-power competition in the Middle East.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Group of Twenty (G20) define the digital economy as a broad range of economic activities comprising all jobs in the digital sector and digital occupations in non-digital sectors. These include activities that use digitized information and knowledge as the key factor of production; modern information networks as a vital activity space; and ICT to drive productivity growth and optimize economic structures.[1] The digital economy is an increasingly important driver of global economic growth and plays a significant role in accelerating economic development, enhancing the productivity of existing industries, cultivating new markets and industries, and achieving inclusive, sustainable growth.

In recent years, Chinas digital economy has developed rapidly and has gradually become one of the dominant forces in its national development plan. China has not only made the digital economy a cornerstone of its future national development but also introduced various digital-specific strategies initiatives to achieve this goal (e.g., the Digital Silk Road and Jointly Building a Digital Community with A Shared Future Initiative). In January 2022, the Chinese State Council issued a plan for the development of the countrys digital economy, aiming to increase this sectors share of national Gross domestic product (GDP), increase from 7.8 percent in 2020 to 10 percent in 2025 by pushing technologies such as 6G and construction of big data centers.[2]

China ranks 50th out of 131 countries based on the World Bank digital adoption index, 59th out of 139 countries in the World Economic Forum index, and 36th out of 62 in the Fletcher School digital evolution index. Nevertheless, Beijing has become a global leader in several key digital industries, including e-commerce, fintech, online payments, cloud computing, and ICT exports.[3] China is also a leading international investor in key digital technologies (one of the global top three investors). Chinas venture capital (VC) industry has grown rapidly and is increasingly focused on the digital sector. The main industries that attract VC investment include big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and fintech.[4]

Traditionally, the GCC economies have depended primarily on oil and gas resources to drive economic and national prosperity. But this reliance on energy has tapered off in recent years, coinciding with a fall in oil prices and the rise of digital technologies. The Gulf monarchies have diversified efforts to develop their financial sectors and establish knowledge-based economies. They have made considerable progress in adopting digital technologies over the past decade. Indeed, digitalization is vital to the success of their national visions and development plans.[5]

There is great potential and bright prospects for the development of the digital economy in the GCC countries, as the number of young consumers in the region is vast, and the use of internet infrastructure is gaining increasing popularity. The rapid development of digital economy industries and relevant companies (in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and UAE) has shown the flexibility of digitization schemes when facing new markets born out of crises. Thus, it is expected that the digital transformation of the economy will play an essential role as Gulf monarchies pursue economic diversification.[6] In 2025, the GCC states will house much of the worlds growing fifth-generation telecommunication networks (5G) subscribers, with a $164 billion annual market for information and communication technology products.[7] The 5G network will positively impact multiple industries in the GCC, specifically energy usage optimization, cloud computing, ultrafast broadband, and internet of things (IoT) innovation, including self-driving cars transportation, and factory equipment.[8]

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted industries such as tourism, aviation, and hotels in Middle Eastern countries. Still, the digital economy has gained tremendous momentum against this trend, making the GCC governments realize the urgency and necessity of developing their digital economies. The coronavirus pandemic has underscored the importance of furthering the growth of the digital economy, making it a requirement for economic resilience and the development and advancement of every sector of the economy. Several GCC countries have increased policy support to facilitate digital transformation by taking initiatives such as expanding their digital sectors, investing in digital infrastructure, adopting e-government platforms, and launching technology parks and business incubators.[9]

Over the past few years, China and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have enjoyed strong relations, and technology and innovation have become a crucial part of their cooperation. The term digital economy has become increasingly commonly used, and digitization is now the engine driving economic growth and transformation of the GCC countries. Their digital economies alone are growing twice as fast as their advanced economy counterparts.[10] Although in the near future energy will remain the central pillar of trade between China and the GCC, the technology sector has emerged as a new and promising area of cooperation.

Growing interest by GCC countries and China in pursuing digital economic cooperation was evident at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen in December 2017, when several countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, agreed to join forces with Beijing to expand broadband access and take steps to spur the development of e-commerce and other related transnational standards.[11] The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led Gulf economies to bolster their digital economic cooperation with Beijing. Since lifting some of its coronavirus pandemic restrictions, China has undertaken major steps to develop global telecommunications providers industrial internet at far lower prices than their Western competitors.[12]

Through the Digital Silk Road (DSR), a component of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing seeks to put herself in the leading position of technological innovation, helping jumpstart global digital development. Because of its central location in Asia, Africa, and Europe, the Middle East is prominent in the Digital Silk Road implementation. The Chinese government has called on Chinese firms to expand digital infrastructure construction and their respective share of ICT markets in countries participating in the BRI.[13] Under the DSR, Chinese technology companies have been rolling out digital infrastructure that facilitates the gathering, transportation, storage, and processing of massive amounts of data from partner countries. Such infrastructure includes e-commerce platforms, mobile payment systems, intelligent data centers, 5G networks, undersea cables, satellites, cloud storage, smart cities, and AI.[14] For instance, telecommunication companies in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have signed massive 5G contracts with Huawei.[15]

Despite Western efforts to curtail their global expansion, Huawei and other Chinese tech firms have been relentlessly extending their digital footprint across the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia has signed agreements with relevant Chinese companies and institutions cooperating in smart city construction and the development of AI technologies in Arabic. Huawei provides a solution for the worlds largest photovoltaic energy storage project in the kingdoms Red Sea region. Huawei is also working with the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah to develop digital infrastructure designed to streamline the pilgrimage to Mecca, including control rooms in Mecca and Medina reception centers. Jollychics platform, one of the most popular e-commerce apps, has extended its services in Saudi Arabia by creating a digital payment wallet and plans to expand its ecosystem to include on-demand food delivery, online travel, and transportation booking.

Alibaba has also been expanding its presence significantly in the kingdom. The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) hassigned an agreementwith Alibaba Cloud to empower Saudi cities with intelligence-driven smart city solutions. Saudi Arabias National Center for Artificial Intelligence (NCAI) will work with Huawei to train local AI engineers to ensure a skills pipeline to support a diversified and data-driven economy. In contrast, Alibaba Cloud technologies will support Saudi Arabias smart city ambitions. Meanwhile, Alibaba Cloud has agreed to work with the NCAI to develop digital and AI for smart cities. Through Alibaba Clouds AI Platform, they will jointly build safety and security, mobility, urban planning, energy, education, and health.[16] The Saudi Digital Academy signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei on developing local talent. They will specifically study artificial intelligence, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and 5G internet uses.[17]

In UAE, innovation and technology are important contents of the cooperation with China. The collaboration includes joint work on COVID-19 vaccines and Huawei 5G technology. Huawei is building a Modular Data Centre Complex Project at Dubaiinternational airportand has teamed up withDubai Electricity and Water Authority(DEWA) to support the construction of fiber-optic infrastructure and video surveillance.[18]Huawei also plans to build the largest solar-poweredUptime Tier III-certified data centerin the UAEs Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park and is working with the Abu Dhabi City Municipality (ADM) to construct aMunicipal Disaster Recovery Data Center.[19] According to research conducted by theRWR Advisoryin 2020, China has exported smart city technology to 15 countries in the Middle East.[20] The Chinese e-commerce portals are accessible to around 80 percent of internet users in GCC countries.[21]

GCC governments are embracing digital adoption to promote sustainability, accelerate economic diversification, and help ensure that the region is well positioned to power evolve into a power-packed digital economy. According to the international consulting firm Kearney Middle East, the total e-commerce business in Gulf countries will reach more than $29 billion in 2021 and climb to $50 billion by 2025. This provides more opportunities for China-GCC digital economic cooperation.[22]

Overall, the economic influence of China through its oil and gas imports from the Persian Gulf, infrastructure investments, technology transfer, and arms sales provide influence and leverage that runs counter toUSinterests in the region. In the age of strategic rivalry, the question is whether China is already well on its way to becoming the most prominent technology partner of the GCC countries.

As, over the past decade, the United States has reduced its involvement in the Middle East, China has begun to fill the vacuum. Clear evidence of this change can be seen in Chinas increasing role in the development of the GCC digital economy. China provides the GCC a strategic opportunity, as it creates a bigger space for its Gulf partners to hedge their bets between two superpowers. It also places greater pressure on the US to align its strategic plan with the GCC states and reassure them about its commitments to their security. Sino-GCC digital economy cooperation is at the heart of the Gulf monarchies national visions and development plans. Both sides are committed to effectively linking the DSR and their national development plan and seeking opportunities to develop new ways of win-win cooperation.

Chinas growing influence in the GCC digital infrastructure network is a challenge to US dominance in the region. Washington has raised concerns about the Chinese internet giants and telecom companies' growing involvement in the region's digital economy. However, unable to compete with China on the digital economy front, the US began to apply coercive diplomacy tactics to pressure the GCC countries to slow Chinas growing influence. Yet, while the US governments efforts to halt Chinese tech companies expansion have succeeded domestically and in parts of Europe, they have thus far failed in the Gulf market.

Even so, as GCC countries become more entangled in Chinas transnational digital infrastructure network and welcome the many benefits such digital integration affords, they must also confront the possibility that this could threaten their ties with the US while expanding and deepening the strategic rivalry between the two great powers.

[5] Mordechai Chaziza, China and the Persian Gulf: The New Silk Road Strategy and Emerging Partnerships (London: Sussex Academic Press, 2019).

[13] John Chipman, Chinas Long and Winding Digital Silk Road, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), January 25, 2019, https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/2019/01/china-digital-silk-road. Sophie Zinser, Chinas Digital Silk Road Grows With 5G in the Middle East, The Diplomat, December 16, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/12/chinas-digital-silk-road-grows-with-5g-in-the-middle-east/.

[15] John Calabrese, The Huawei Wars and the 5G Revolution in the Gulf, Middle East Institute, July 30, 2019, https://www.mei.edu/publications/huawei-wars-and-5g-revolution-gulf#_ftn1.

[16]Karl Flinders,Saudi Arabian authorities work with Chinese IT giants on digital goals, Computer Weekly, October 22, 2020, https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252490964/Saudi-Arabian-authorities-work-with-Chinese-IT-giants-on-digital-goals.

[21] Zhang Yunbi, China, Arab states upgrade digital collaboration, China Daily, March 3, 2021, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202103/31/WS6063b015a31024ad0bab29fe.html.

[22] China and the UAE launch digital economic cooperation, Seetao, December 15, 2021, https://www.seetao.com/details/128827.html.

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China-GCC Digital Economic Cooperation in the Age of Strategic Rivalry - Middle East Institute

Fast computingmicro serversor HPC systems, increased performance efficiency, and smarter deployment &management with high quality of service are some of the primary reasons driving the high performance computing market growth.

Read Full Report : https://skyquestt.com/report/high-performance-computing-market

High Performance Computer (HPC) is a way to integrate computing resources to achieve high performance capabilities while dealing with a large number of problems in science, business, or engineering. All sorts of servers and micro servers that are utilized for highly computational or data-intensive tasks are included in HPC systems. HPC is becoming increasingly significant to countries as it has been related to economic competitiveness and scientific progress. According to some studies, 97% of the companieshave implemented supercomputing platforms and claim that they will not be able to exist without them. Academic institutions and other sectors are alsoadopting HPC technology in order to develop reliable and resilient products that will allow them to maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace. Several vendors are aiming to offer high-performance convergent technology solutions. The global high performance computing market is steadily increasing and will continue to develop in the future as this trend gains major traction. Furthermore, increasing focus on hybrid HPC solutions is also one of the major aspects that create lucrative growth opportunities for the high performance computing market during the forecast period.

Organizations are increasingly focused on hybrid HPC solutions in response to the rising demand for HPC solutions and technological improvements. IT departments are constantly attempting to strike a balance between cloud and on-premises HPC options. On-premises HPC resources are being scaled out as needed by businesses. Simultaneously, Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) have begun to offer turn-key HPC solution settings geared to the specific workload requirements of businesses. The efficiency of a hybrid HPC system is improved. In addition, it addresses security and privacy concerns while simultaneously lowering maintenance costs. As a result, the growing emphasis on hybrid HPC solutions is likely to generate great growth prospects for the high performance computing market.

Read market research report, Global High Performance Computing Market is segmented By Component (Solutions (Servers, Storage, Networking Devices, and Software) and Services) By Deployment Type (On-Premise and Cloud) & By Region- Forecast and Analysis 2021-2027 by SkyQuest

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The global high performance computing market is segmented on the basis of component and deployment type. Based on the component, the high performance computing market is segmented into solutions and services. The solution segment is further segregated into servers, storage, networking devices, and software. Based on the deployment type, the high performance computing market is segmented into on-premise and cloud. Whereas, based on region, the global high performance computing market is categorized into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and MEA. Based on the deployment type, the cloud segment holds the most substantial share in the market. Cloud deployment is the most common in the sector, as cloud-computing technologies are widely used by companies across a variety of industries. According to the research, the cloud technology industry is predicted to rise due to its high adoption rate, while on-premise deployment methods are expected to gradually shrink.

While, in the region, the North American region is likely to hold the most substantial share in the market. The North American region is noted for its early acceptance of innovative technologies, owing to the United States and Canadas vigorous technological development. The rise in big data necessitates the adoption of new technologies and the necessity for security, resulting in the deployment of HPC systems. During the projected period, North America is expected to continue to dominate the global high performance computing market. Government investments in R&D activities at the national level are someothermajor sources driving demand in the North American region.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) (US), Intel Corporation (US), HPE (US), IBM Corporation (US), Dell Technologies Inc. (US), Lenovo (China), Fujitsu Ltd. (Japan), Atos SE (US), Cisco Systems Inc. (US), NVIDIA Corporation (US), Sugon (China), AWS Inc. (US), and Dassault Systems Inc. (France) among others some of the key players operating in the market. The prominent players operating in the market are constantly adopting various growth strategies in order to stay afloat in the market.

For an instance, in June 2021, Travelport has chosen Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its preferred cloud partner, with intentions to use the tech giants portfolio to improve its operations performance and scalability. AWS will employ other technologies, such as HPC, storage, security, analytics, machine learning, and databases, in addition to cloud capabilities, to provide Travelport with a faster, easier, and more personalized trip booking experience. Hence, such activities are likely to drive the global high performance computing industry growth forward.

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The report published by SkyQuest Technology Consulting provides in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions.

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SkyQuest has segmented the Global High Performance Computing Market based on Component, Deployment Type, and Region:

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The Global High Performance Computing Market is expected to reach a value of USD 66.99 Billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 6.20% over the forecast period...

Organizations all over the world had to accelerate their digital transformation agenda in order to cope with the distinguished challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. In these unprecedented times, technology turned out to be the greatest enabler for businesses in virtually every domain. Businesses of today are leveraging cloud computing, AI & ML, and blockchain-driven solutions to achieve scalability of operations and business efficiency. Cloud in particular, has become a key enabler for companies that are going through a digital transformation journey. From maintaining operational continuity to driving innovation and expansion, cloud is at the core of business growth strategy. However, the ever-expanding cloud footprint has increased their susceptibility to sophisticated cyberattacks.

With this backdrop, Palo Alto Networks in association with ETCIO.com organized a closed-door discussion, wherein industry leaders deliberated on the upcoming cloud security challenges in the face of dynamic and new-age cyber threats, as well as best practices to drive consolidated cloud security.

Shipra Malhotra, Executive Editor, ETCIO.com, moderated this session. While moderating, Malhotra pointed out, Cybersecurity threats are getting increasingly complex and the attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated. This calls for a very consistent and integrated approach that provides complete visibility and a granular control across the entire cloud estate. This can be done by simplifying cloud security through an integrated architecture across the life-cycle of your cloud journey.

What are the challenges in terms of cloud security, especially in multi-cloud environments? Priya Kanduri, Lead - Cybersecurity Practice, Happiest Minds, opined, The biggest challenge facing cloud-computing and security is the lack of a security strategy itself. Some of the organizations that started with legacy systems and then shifted to cloud still face operational challenges linked with cloud-computing and SaaS because they failed to formulate and execute a clear strategy. Additionally, some of the DevSecOps challenges are still not fully resolved due to the lack of understanding and awareness about such technologies. Rudimentary challenges like having security built in from the beginning of cloud adoption, having a clear strategy, finding the right tools and bringing them together in the right manner, and having the right platform to facilitate cloud computing still persist.

Commenting on the concerns of people regarding cloud adoption in legacy companies, Vipin Rustagi, CIO, Duroflex, said Organizations that are a part of the traditional consumer goods setup have to convince their people that cloud is secure, since they are very possessive and particular about their data. The major concern such organizations have regarding adoption of cloud technology are around data security. There are also concerns regarding over-exposure and siphoning of data from the cloud storage, since data stored on cloud is available on public access.

Ensuring data security in multi-cloud environments

Ruchir Patwa, VP - Security and Compliance, MPL, highlighted the correlation between cloud security and visibility by stating, Cloud visibility helps an organization figure out its possible attack surfaces. Once the attack surface has been identified, the organization must start its management to mitigate potential attacks and data breaches. Companies that have taken their operations to the cloud must automate cloud control and security. Trivial processes like rotating keys and revoking access after a certain period of time must be automated.

Accentuating the ways in which data security can be ensured in cloud-computing, Nitin Kotwal, Head - Cybersecurity, MoEngage, said, Three basic rules need to be followed to ensure data security in a multi-cloud environment. First, stick to the basics - cloud security guidelines and procedures must be followed at all cost. Second, integrate security in the cloud life-cycle. The organization must define quality gates for security at every stage of the cloud life-cycle to ensure maximum levels of security. All the compliances, regulations and guidelines related to cloud security can act as quality gates. Third, adapt new and emerging technology solutions to resolve the complexities and challenges that you face.

Navaneethan M, Senior VP & CISO, Groww, said, The development team has to focus on speedy delivery due to which, installing a proper security and enforcement framework might take a back seat. At the same time, the DevOps team is also under pressure to fulfill all the requirements of the developer. Everybody has their own set of requirements due to which, the security aspect might get undermined.

Bhagwan Kommadi, Director - Technology and Product Engineering, Infinity Learn, pointed out how employee negligence can impact information security, Companies must organize sessions and seminars for new joiners highlighting the importance of data and information security. Most of the time, negligence of an insider becomes the root cause for cyberattacks and data breach. People often write passwords and other confidential pieces of information on their tables or on sticky notes. These trivial mistakes can pull down information security. Therefore, employees must be warned against such inadvertencies during the induction.

Emphasizing the need for incorporating security at the early stages of cloud development, Sandeep Variyam, Cybersecurity Advisor, Palo Alto Networks, said, A cloud infrastructure must be secure by design. Organizations must have a strong development procedure in place, with security checks at regular intervals that starts with coding and as it moves to the further stages, security automatically helps to resolve the issues that arise. If an organization is able to do a lot of automation in the code to cloud life-cycle then it can save a lot of manual effort as well.

Organizational strategy around cybersecurity and managing cloud apps

Shashwat Singh, CIO, Boat, shared his organizations approach towards cloud infrastructure development and cloud security, We leverage a maker-checker approach to inspect our cloud infrastructure(s). There is one partner who is responsible for setting up the cloud infrastructure, while the other one is responsible for finding all the inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the cloud at each stage of the development process. Their primary KPI for us is to find out any issues that might potentially be in the cloud infra. So, we have two partners working in tandem one is setting things up for us and taking operations to the cloud while the other one is constantly monitoring it. That is how we manage our cloud systems.

During the roundtable discussion, Amit Khandelwal, Senior VP & Head - IT and Digital Business, Visionet Systems Inc, mentioned, We ensure that our developer community is aware of DevSecOps and all the tools and techniques that fall under its ambit. We also run a variety of sessions focusing on the same.

As businesses expand their cloud footprint, adding multiple cloud vendors and creating a hybrid environment, managing cloud security across the entire lifecycle, from inception to build to operations, has become more complex than ever. In order to secure their cloud infrastructure and mitigate the possibility of a potential cyberattack, organizations must institute a strong security framework in the early development stages. With more and more businesses taking their operations to the cloud, the need for cybersecurity is stronger than ever.

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End-to-End Cybersecurity in a Cloud-Native World - ETCIO

Admit it, youve heard the term cloud computing numerous times, and most of us arent sure about it.

Cloud computing can be defined as the availability of several on-demand computing resources, including servers, data storage devices, computing devices, networking, etc., over the internet that helps businesses reinforce innovation without any hassle.

The concept of cloud computing has offered endless possibilities to businesses since enterprises can avoid several upfront costs, security challenges and can quickly rent access to any application or storage from a cloud provider.

Lets dig deeper into this and understand the role of cloud computing in shaping the future of a digitally-advanced modern world.

The concept of cloud computing is simple you only need to rent and pay for the services you need to run your platform, application, software, or program.

Gone are the days when enterprises invested heavily in building infrastructure, and they had to spend vast sums of money on maintaining those infrastructures. Businesses now prefer renting storage or systems rather than owning them in-house.

Also, cloud providers offer different services that meet the demands of businesses of every size. For instance, an enterprise can choose a storage capacity per their requirements or a computational capacity depending on their computing needs.

An enterprise need not invest in infrastructure; they just need to finalize a cloud vendor and deploy their applications or software programs on the cloud.

In an era where rich consumer experiences backed with robust security are all that a user needs, delivering these kinds of up-to-snuff experiences becomes an uphill battle for businesses.

High maintenance costs of in-house infrastructures and changing demands of services have also contributed to the need for a better flexible way to leverage resources.

Hence, cloud computing seems to be the best option for businesses embarking on a digital transformation journey by renting essential services from cloud vendors that save money and resources and help strengthen overall security.

As a result, more and more businesses are deploying their services and platforms on the cloud as it offers stringent data security and ensures a great user experience at minimum costs compared to in-house deployments.

When we talk about cloud computing architectures, there are mainly four types:

Public clouds are the cloud environments created from information technology infrastructure and not owned by the users. This model offers on-demand infrastructure and computing services managed by a third-party vendor and shared with multiple enterprises. Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM Cloud, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc., are some examples of public clouds.

The cloud environments are dedicated to only a single end-user group or a user offered over the internet or an internal private network for selected users instead of the public.

Multi-cloud can be referred to as using multiple cloud services from various vendors within a single architecture that eventually improves cloud infrastructure capabilities. It can be defined as the distribution of various cloud assets, including software, programs, applications, etc., across various cloud environments.

A hybrid cloud is the cloud architecture in which applications or programs run as a combination of various other environments. These environments are connected through VPNs, LANs, WANs, or APIs.

There are three main types of cloud services:

Platform as a service (PaaS) describes the complete development and deployment environment in the cloud that allows businesses to deliver cloud-based services and applications.

Software as a service (SaaS) is the modern way of offering applications and software programs over the internet like a service. SaaS allows zero maintenance and infrastructure costs since businesses can access services via the internet without having to maintain hardware and software.

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) can be defined as a type of cloud computing service offering on-demand computational, storage, or network services to businesses based on their diverse needs.

Enterprises can choose any of the services mentioned above based on their unique business requirements.

A single-tenant cloud runs on a dedicated infrastructure. This means that the hardware, storage, and network are dedicated to a single client, and there are no neighbors to share hosted resources with. They may reside in a dedicated offsite data center or with a managed private cloud provider.

In a single-tenancy architecture, each tenant gets their own database. This way, data from each tenant remains separated from the other. Furthermore, the architecture is built such that only one software instance per SaaS server is allowed.

Multi-tenant cloud architecture is a single cloud infrastructure built to serve multiple businesses. The entire system may cover multiple servers and data centers, incorporated into a single database.

Cloud providers offer multi-tenancy as a gateway to share the same application with multiple businesses, on the same hardware, in the same operating environment, and with the same storage mechanism.

Although relying on cloud servers and systems have its own perks; some security risks cant be overlooked.

Businesses need to understand the importance of incorporating a stringent security policy to ensure their sensitive business information remains safe and their crucial consumer data isnt compromised.

Using cloud identity management solutions like LoginRadius CIAM helps businesses stay ahead of the competition by incorporating cutting-edge technologies like multi-factor authentication (MFA), risk-based authentication (RBA), single sign-on (SSO) and more.

Cloud computing has offered endless opportunities to businesses and is becoming the preferred mode of deployment for applications and software services.

The above-mentioned aspects describe how cloud computing could be leveraged by business organizations depending on their diverse needs.

However, when it comes to secure cloud computing, businesses shouldnt forget to incorporate stringent security mechanisms that can handle security vulnerabilities to ensure maximum safety for businesses and end users.

If youre concerned about your clouds security, you can reach us out to find how LoginRadius cloud services can help you secure your business and consumer data.

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What is Cloud Computing? - Security Boulevard

If you were to list the buzzwords dominating the cloud computing industry today, terms like "multicloud," "hybrid cloud," and "alternative cloud" would probably top it.

But here's one term that may not even make the list: "private cloud."

Related: A Guide to Cloud Architectures: Single Cloud, Multicloud, Poly Cloud and Beyond

Although private cloud architectures were once all the rage, you hear very little about them today. Likewise, major private cloud computing platforms, like OpenStack, don't tend to make many headlines these days.

That's interesting because it's not as if private clouds have gone away. On the contrary, they are alive and well. Platforms such as OpenStack also remain under quite active development, with new features being unveiled regularly.

Related: Lines Between Public, Private, Hybrid Cloud Architectures Are Blurring

So, if the lack of buzz surrounding private cloud isn't due to the death of the private cloud ecosystem, what does explain it? Why have we suddenly stopped talking very much about private cloud computing?

A few factors are likely at play. Let's take a look at each one to gain perspective on the state of private cloud computing as of 2022.

One reason why you hear less and less about private cloud computing today is that the big public clouds haven't found a way to sell private cloud services and so they haven't promoted private cloud in the way they promote other third-party solutions.

It wouldn't make much sense, for example, for public cloud providers to offer something like OpenStack as a service. And, although you can install OpenStack in a public cloud if you want, there are few use cases where you would want to do so. You'd be losing out on many of the privacy and cost benefits of running a private cloud on your own infrastructure, and you'd be duplicating a lot of the features that you could get by using the public cloud directly.

Compare OpenStack in this sense to, say, Kubernetes an open source platform that the public clouds have monetized quite successfully using an SaaS service model and it's easy to see why there is so much hype surrounding Kubernetes in the modern cloud computing industry, but little attention to classic private cloud solutions.

A second major reason why there is not a lot of buzz around private cloud computing at present, I suspect, is that private cloud platforms never really went head-first into the cloud-native computing realm.

What I mean by this is that most private cloud platforms were designed, and remain, solutions primarily for running workloads on bare-metal or virtual servers. They don't target containers, serverless functions, or other more "modern" types of workloads.

To be fair, this is probably because private clouds were conceived before containerization really took off. At the time that systems such as OpenStack were being designed, it was hard to envision a world where so many things would run as microservices and containers.

You certainly can run containers on a private cloud if you want via approaches like Kubernetes integration with OpenStack. But like running OpenStack in a public cloud, there are few obvious use cases for this practice. It would make more sense in most situations just to set up a Kubernetes cluster on its own, without OpenStack.

To put all of this another way, private cloud computing has sort of been left behind as the cloud computing industry as a whole has pivoted toward cloud-native architectures which means containerized, microservices-based architectures over the past several years. That's not due to any fault of the private cloud ecosystem. It's just what happened.

Ten or so years ago, the major talking points for running a private cloud instead of using a public cloud were that public clouds were less secure and they gave users less control.

Those points were mostly valid in the earlier 2010s. Since then, however, public clouds have evolved to become much more secure and flexible. They have built more extensive networking services, enhanced their access control frameworks, rolled out data privacy and compliance, and created sophisticated monitoring and auditing solutions, all of which help secure public cloud workloads. They have also introduced many more types of cloud services, and have given users many more configuration options, than they had in the days when public clouds mostly consisted of VMs, databases, and storage as a service.

Relatedly, the public clouds have also gone head-first into the hybrid cloud world, providing even more possibilities for users to build highly secure and flexible cloud environments using public cloud services and infrastructure.

In these ways, public cloud has become a much more obvious choice even for use cases with high security requirements or bespoke configuration needs. As a result, private cloud is no longer at the center of conversations about cloud security and control.

Private cloud computing is by no means dead. But the days are over when it's a major source of discussion, or when choosing between "private cloud versus public cloud" is a key issue for many businesses. That's mostly because private cloud just hasn't kept up with the other trends dominating the cloud computing industry, and it's hard to see that changing.

See the rest here:

3 Reasons Why We've Stopped Talking About Private Cloud Computing - ITPro Today

The Galactic RainCloudS project, an initiative led by members of the Faculty of Physics, the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB) of the University of Barcelona and the Institute for Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), was awarded the first position in the framework of the Cloud Funding for Research call of the European project Open Clouds For Research Environments (OCRE).

The project competed against 27 proposals from twelve countries in a wide range of research disciplines. This first edition of Cloud Funding For Research funds the use of commercial computational cloud resources for research. The project counts on the collaboration from the private sector, and specifically from Pervasive Technologies, which brings experience in artificial intelligence and cloud computing; Google, and the computing infrastructure from Google Cloud and Telefnica, which offers experience on cloud resource management.

Professor Xavier Luri, director of ICCUB and principal researcher of the project, highlights that The Galactic RainCloudS project is a pioneer one in Europe in the use of commercial cloud infrastructures for research on astronomy, and results from the will to show the benefits of cloud resource uses for the scientific community.

The key of the project lies in interdisciplinarity: combining the extraordinary volumes of data from the European Space Agency Gaia Satellite with the great computational power and the flexibility of cloud infrastructures, and with the data mining techniques, it will enable the team of the University of Barcelona to study the existing links between past galaxy collisions and star formation in a holistic way, a study in which the Milky Way and satellite galaxies will be an experimental laboratory. Cloud computing is like renting powerful customized computers, for a certain period of time, which will enable us to make the necessary calculations to study the interaction between galaxies, notes Merc Romero, researcher at ICCUB.

The project also includes the development of a system to detect traces of past small galaxy collisions with the halo of our galaxy. Teresa Antoja, researcher at ICCUB, notes that the existence of granularities in the galactic halos is a prediction of the current cosmological model of the formation of our Universe: the active search for substructures of this type in the Gaia data can provide vital information on the history of the Milky Way and on the nature of dark matter.

Artificial intelligence and cloud computing

The participation of the private sector in this project shows the closeness between research and companies in the use of cutting-edge technologies as well as their shared interests. In Pervasive Technologies, we are glad to offer our knowledge on artificial intelligence and cloud computing to a pioneer project in the field of research. We will work to get the highest performance of the cloud infrastructures and artificial intelligence for this project, notes Rodolfo Lomascolo, CEO of Pervasive Technologies.

In order to be successful, the Galactic RainCloudS project must have, among other features, big data infrastructures. The Gaia satellite data hide the answer to many questions we want to solve, but we need the right tools to retrieve them, notes Roger Mor, data scientist at Pervasive Technologies and ICCUB collaborator. He adds: The available big data platforms in the commercial cloud and artificial intelligence services are fundamental tools to find, for instance, whether the interaction of Sagittarius with the Milky Way caused the reignition of the star formation in our galaxy between 5 and 7billion years ago, as stated in some studies.

Enrique Gonzlez Lezana, head of cloud sales specialist at Telefnica Tech, says that Telefnica has accompanied the University of Barcelona in the definition and unfolding of the Google Cloud architecture, where the required hypercomputing solution to work on the Galactic RainCloudS project will be hosted. The unfolded infrastructure he adds will enable the processing and analysis of big data in a flexible, scalable way, adjusted to the required needs of the researchers of the University of Barcelona. Telefnica will work with the UB during the entire process to guarantee the successful implementation of the project with teams specialized on Google Cloud services and technologies.

The project launched this May and will last a year. Galactic RainCLoudS is a necessary step in the transition of the world of research toward the efficient use of cloud computing resources. In this sense, we are pioneers in its use at the University of Barcelona and we hope our experience serves to encourage its use. The research teams needs are becoming more specific, and we are making an effort for this project to open the doors of commercial cloud computing in future projects for all research disciplines, concludes Xavier Luri.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Cloud computing to unveil the enigmas of our galaxy - EurekAlert

On a recent trip to the Bay Area, I took a few hours to pay a visit to Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab (BAIR). Professor Ken Goldberg walked me around the lab and introduced me to a couple of projects the students have been working on. FogROS immediately grabbed my attention and not just because it sports a name similar to a problematic French cuisine.

Image Credits: Open Robotics

The offering arrives as part of the latest version of the open source Robotic Operating System, ROS 2 Humble Hawksbill the eight release of ROS 2. In a nutshell, it offers a method for offloading robotic tasks to a remote server, using a cloud computing platform like Amazon Web Services. Advances to server-side computing that have made things like cloud gaming possible with minimal latency can also be applied to robotics operations.

Robots are often limited in their onboard computing capabilities due to weight and power requirements, Jeff Ichnowski, a Berkeley post-doc student who headed up the project, told TechCrunch. They also rarely have hardware accelerators like GPUs, TPUS or FPGAs. But many robot algorithms and recent advances (e.g. deep learning) benefit from high-end computers and hardware accelerators. We envision that using cloud computing to speed up slow computations can enable robots to do more things in the same amount of time.

The platform being announced today as part of the new version of ROS is actually FogROS 2. Version one, which was introduced last summer, was an early proof-of-concept. This March, the teams quietly made a preview of FogROS 2 available through GitHub, and today it goes live for all, sporting a number of improvements designed to optimize cloud-based performance.

Image Credits: ROS

Much like playing Xbox games on a smartphone, the basic principle here is supplying a method to execute complex tasks on a robot that doesnt require equally complex on-board processing. If you can complete the task via a remote server, you can save on size, weight and perhaps most importantly cost. The team notes in a recently published paper:

We demonstrate in example applications that the performance gained by using cloud computers can overcome the network latency to significantly speed up robot performance. In examples, FogROS 2 reduces SLAM latency by 50%, reduces grasp planning time from 14s to 1.2s, and speeds up motion planning 28x. When compared to alternatives, FogROS 2 reduces network utilization by up to 3.8x.

Goldberg notes that such a platform could open up even more possibilities for robotics than those listed above. It can potentially benefit other compute-intensive tasks for robots such as stochastic planning and facilitate supervised and unsupervised deep learning of tasks from multiple robots.

Future versions of the program could open things up to additional platforms, including Google Cloud and Azure. The team notes:

In future work, we will continue to add support for additional cloud computing providers and services. We will explore additional models of computing, such as serverless, spot instances, and more. We will also explore extending the networking capabilities of FogROS 2 to allow robots to communicate, collaborate, and share data more easily.

Humble Hawskbill includes a number of additional features a number of additions beyond the cloud computing platform. Per Open Robotics, which is tasked with maintaining ROS, updates include,

The Robot Operating System made its debut at ICRA thirteen years ago this month and Open Robotics celebrated its ten-year company anniversary in March, Open Robotics CEO said in a release tied to the news, so the release of ROS 2 Humble Hawksbill is the perfect opportunity to thank the global community of thousands of developers and millions of users who contribute to and improve the platform.

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FogROS brings robotic cloud computing to the Robot Operating System - TechCrunch

I came across an interesting blog post over at Finextra which got me thinking about a topic that has been in the back of my mind for a while now the systemic risks of cloud computing concentration. It seems like everyone has made or is making the move from maintaining big, expensive data centers to letting Amazon, Microsoft, or Google worry about the buildings, infrastructure and hardware. I cant say I blame them, especially since getting new servers and other hardware has become a much more difficult and time consuming process now that all of our supply chains seem to have been broken.

But there is a downside as well when one of the big cloud providers is having a bad day, people notice most of the web sites and services we depend on depend on at least one of these providers being up and running. And there have been some major outages in the past year. So far, these outages have not had a systemic impact on the financial system. So far.

While the big cloud providers have all sorts of options to make systems within their perimeters fault tolerant to a degree, we have seen provider level outages which disrupted the Internet. In order to achieve true resilience when one of these events happens, organizations need to be thinking about true multi cloud solutions and there are some significant hurdles which need to be surmounted to do this.

The biggest hurdle is the cloud vendors tempting managed offerings managed Kubernetes clusters, databases, serverless services these are great for standing up new services quickly, but make multi cloud operation difficult, if not impossible. Even if another vendor has the same kind of managed database, it is going to be just different enough from your primary vendor to make porting your systems over expensive and time consuming. This is not a bug it is a feature. Vendors want to lock customers into their product (and who can blame them?).

In the financial world, regulators are taking notice, and institutions and their service providers (as well as cloud providers) need to be thinking about true multi cloud resilience solutions before the next big outage hits.

If you are at the beginning of your cloud journey and your application is critical, design it to be multi cloud from day one this will be waaaaaay less expensive and complex than trying to address the issue after you have a million customers.

When making architectural decisions, consider the benefits and the costs of adopting core services which are specific to your primary cloud provider. Think about how you would/could replicate them in another providers environment BEFORE you get locked in.

Given the increasing automation and speed we are seeing in financial services, it is only a matter of time before there is an event which really galvanizes regulators attention; the time to be thinking about diversifying your cloud infrastructure is now.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Al Berg's Paranoid Prose authored by Al Berg. Read the original post at: https://paranoidprose.blog/2022/05/21/cloud-computing-concentration-and-systemic-risk/

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Cloud computing concentration and systemic risk - Security Boulevard