Category Archives: Cloud Computing

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Microsoft has joined the OpenInfra Foundation as a platinum member, linking up with existing member companies (and financial contributors) such as Facebook, Red Hat, AT&T, and Ericsson.

The OpenInfra Foundation was formed initially back in 2012 to govern OpenStack, an open source and open standards-based cloud computing platform that developers use to build and manage private or public clouds. It constitutes various components, including a compute service for running virtual machines (VMs); a networking and storage service; and a self-service dashboard for companies to provision all their resources.

In the intervening years, the foundation has expanded its focus to other open infrastructure initiatives as the datacenter itself has evolved. Today, the foundation helps foster open source communities looking to create tools for all manner of use cases, spanning cloud-based datacenters, containers, edge computing, 5G, and more, with hosted projects including:Airship, Kata Containers, OpenInfra Labs, StarlingX, Zuul, and OpenStack itself.

That Microsoft has elected to join the OpenInfra Foundation makes a great deal of sense. Though Microsoft offers its own OpenStack alternative for private clouds in the form of Azure Stack, many companies want more flexibility in a hybrid cloud world they may prefer to use OpenStack on top of Azure.

Microsoft is joining this effort to support building the next decade of open infrastructure technology because hybrid cloud is an important element of our technology portfolio, noted Ryan van Wyk, Microsofts partner software engineering manager for Azure for Operators, in a press release. We believe in a variety of clouds public and private, from hyperscale to edge, each tuned to the unique workloads that our customers need to deliver and we cant do it without open source.

But that isnt the sole reason why Microsoft has joined the OpenInfra Foundation.

Microsoft added that its ultimately aiming to represent the interests of its telecom customers in the OpenStack and OpenInfra communities, while actively contributing to OpenInfra projects including OpenStack and Airship, and identifying ways to integrate these projects into Microsoft Azure product roadmap as it evolves.

With the continued rollout of 5G, operators are restructuring their networks for the cloud, allowing them to introduce new services more quickly and reallocate resources as required. As such, back in JuneMicrosoft announced a major partnership with AT&T which will see the telecom giant transition its 5G mobile network to Microsofts cloud, paving the way for Azure to manage all AT&T mobile network traffic.

This deal goes some way toward helping Microsoft grow its fledgling Azure for Operators platform which it announced last year, meshing cloud, cellular, and edge computing functionality. Azure for Operators is designed to help operators offer more efficient and cost-effective 5G services to consumer and enterprise customers using both Azure and open source technologies like Airship, according to the press release. Azure for Operators will also meet customers where they are today by supporting OpenStack deployed on Kubernetes, and allowing for a controlled evolution of Operator SDN deployments from VNFs to CNFs.

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Microsoft joins OpenInfra Foundation to support open source infrastructure - VentureBeat

The world has changed in a great many ways in the last 18 months. Of all those changes, one has become integral to our lives post-pandemic: the absolute critical necessity of cloud access.

The way we collect, store, and share information has become increasingly remote. From working at home to online shopping, the way we stay connected and informed has become a constant stream of sending, receiving, and updating data in real time, all the time.

That is why, on Wednesday 22nd September, Computing's next Deskflix event (Season 6, for those keeping count) will cover Regrowth in the Age of Cloud, to unpack the multifaceted and rapidly changing world of cloud services. Acting as your guide to the mutable world of modern cloud computing, Deskflix will feature a diverse range of specialists and IT leaders, each with a wealth of experience and knowledge to answer your questions.

Hybrid, cloud-first, multi-cloud, cloud native - which one best fits my company? What is the best way to manage costs and compliance? How are regulations evolving post-Brexit? Can cloud help me hit my sustainability targets?

Join us for free at Deskflix Season 6: Regrowth in the Age of Cloud on Wednesday 22nd September, from 10am to 13:30, and get the answers to all of your questions directly from the experts. Click here to reserve your free place.

We'll have our usual mix of informative and thought-provoking keynotes, panel sessions and presentations. The event is free to attend, and better still, you can earn CPD points as you learn.

Register today for Deskflix Season 6: Regrowth in the Age of Cloud

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Have you noticed the change? It's time for Deskflix Season 6: Regrowth in the Age of Cloud - http://www.computing.co.uk

September may historically be a rough month for stocks, but it didn't stop National Securities' Art Hogan from hiking his S&P 500 year-end target by 7%.

He made the bullish move based on a strong second quarter earnings season and the notion Covid-19 delta variant cases are likely peaking.

"September gives us a chance to reboot," the firm's chief market strategist told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Tuesday. "I actually think we see a pick-up in economic activity in September, and I think that will ward off some of that negative sentiment that we typically get at or about the September month."

Hogan, who oversees $34 billion in assets,hiked his S&P 500 target to 4,700 from 4,400 on the month's first trading day. On Tuesday, the index fell 15 points to close at 4,520. It's still just a fraction of a percent away from its all-time high.

"This has been one of those years where earnings and earnings expectations continue to grow, and that's where we're getting that higher target from," said Hogan.

He believes September will buck the historical negative trends due to the robust economic recovery driven by unprecedented fiscal and monetary policies. Plus, Hogan's hunch is delta cases will peak and spark more enthusiasm for stocks.

Despite seasonal headwinds and the risk backdrop, Hogan is sticking to the game plan he has employed during the pandemic. He sees equal exposure to growth and cyclical stocks as the best way to play the rapid rotations in the market.

"Have growth on one end of a barbell and you can express opinions in things like cloud security, 5G [and] cloud computing," Hogan said. "On the other side of that, you want to be invested in things like financials, industrials and materials for their economic sensitivity and cyclicality."

Disclaimer

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September may have a bad reputation for stocks, but one top strategist just hiked his S&P 500 year-end target anyway - CNBC

The Pentagon has long led the way in developing advanced technology that found its way into civilian applications, such as GPS and the internet. That balance has shifted, according to tech leaders and others. They contend that the private sector has more talent and greater research budgets than the governmentand more advanced capabilities in artificial intelligence and cloud computingall while the military grows more reliant on technology.

From the president on down, everyone is saying, OK, we are in a competition with China," said Robert Work, a former U.S. deputy secretary of defense. We are not organized to win the competition, and if we do not correct that, we are doomed to lose it."

Mr. Work is vice chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a panel created by Congress in 2018 and chaired by former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. Other members include Andy Jassy, chief executive of Amazon.com Inc.; Oracle Corp. CEO Safra Catz and top scientists from Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.s Google.

In a report released this year, the commission laid out a road map for the Pentagon to buy commercially designed software and hardware to maintain a strategic edge, as China and other nations step up their tech investments.

The effort faces an array of skeptics and critics, including in some cases rank-and-file tech engineers. Google stepped back from an AI-driven software project with the Pentagon when employees in 2018 found out about it and revolted.

The Pentagon remains a profit-rich target for big tech companies. Analysts say Amazon, Microsoft, Google and others have ambitions to win more of the billions of dollars the Pentagon spends on procurement annually, a market historically dominated by contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp.

They dont enter markets with the goal of being No. 15," Andrew Hunter, a former Pentagon official and congressional staffer now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said of large technology companies.

Google, Microsoft and Amazon declined to comment.

Outside the industry, many of those who believe tech companies have become too powerful are concerned that regulating these companies will become even more difficult if they hold additional sway as critical defense contractors.

Tech companies cast themselves as the only solution to what they portray as an existential threat from China," said Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard Business School professor emerita and author of the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism." She says that the data-collection and ad-targeting practices of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon pose the bigger threat.

The Artificial Intelligence commissions recent findings have nonetheless won support from the Biden administration, the Pentagon and Congress.

You have made crystal clear that our country needs to play catch-up, and fast," Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Mr. Schmidt and other commission members at a conference in July.

The commissions 756-page report concluded that China is already a peer of the U.S. in some areas of artificial intelligence and is funneling those advancements into its military. In contrast, U.S. tech leaders and government officials talk about the importance of public-private partnership, but there is little action in either direction to deepen it in concrete ways," the report says.

The commission envisions the military and intelligence bureaucracy working more like a large tech company, with a vast cloud-computing infrastructure enabling teams of engineers to constantly test new software and upgrade capabilities. Other recommendations by the commission, which also includes academics and former Pentagon officials, include boosts to tech-focused research, training and recruitment efforts.

Reshaping the Department of Defense will require rewiring not only hardware and software but also sprawling bureaucracy and procurement processes, a project that has been under way for years. The Pentagon has established Silicon Valley outposts, funded promising startups and tested technologies such as autonomous aircraft. But the department has struggled to adopt new technologies on a large scale, as exemplified by the yearslong legal and administrative battle over the JEDI cloud-computing initiative.

Mr. Schmidt says these hurdles can be overcome.

What Ive observed about the government bureaucracy," Mr. Schmidt said in an interview, is you go in, and you pushand if you push really hard, you can really make something happen."

Mr. Schmidt has been pushing his vision since the end of the Obama administration, when Secretary of Defense Ash Cartertapped him to lead the Defense Innovation Board, a panel of military tech advisers.

An antiwar protester in his younger days, Mr. Schmidt donned a Pentagon access badge, met top commanders and jetted to faraway bases. Aboard a wooden-hulled naval vessel in Bahrain several years ago, he watched a sailor sweep for mines using a computer running an outdated version of Windows.

The government is not prepared," Mr. Schmidt said in the interview. There are so many examples where digital technology would completely change the way the systems work."

Key Pentagon officials and members of Congress have endorsed ideas that Mr. Schmidt and other industry leaders back. Those have included creating a special technology section in the National Defense Strategy, a crucial document for Pentagon spending plans, and speeding up the process for buying new software.

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, in a June speech, said the department is adopting a software-engineering mind-set."

Stalwart military contractors arent standing pat. Lockheed Martin is now competing to hire AI experts and invest in tech startups while seeking business partnerships with tech companies. Chief Technology Officer Steven Walker said Lockheed has experience from its existing military platforms that large tech companies lack.

Its going to require both of those entities with their different areas of expertise to provide what the U.S. and allied warfighter really need," Mr. Walker said.

The rise of a tech-military partnership faces other obstacles, not least of which is resistance among the technologists the Pentagon needs.

In 2017, Google agreed to help the Pentagon develop AI for recognizing objects on video. When the companys involvement in Project Maven was reported the following year, employees protested and petitioned senior executives to pull back. Google capitulated, promising not to renew the contract and later vowing not to develop AI for weapons.

Mr. Schmidt, who departed Google in 2019, has said he disagreed with Googles decisions around Project Maven, which left sour feelings in Washington.

Im not sure that the people at Google will enjoy a world order that is informed by the norms and standards of Russia or China," Gen. Joe Dunford, then chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a forum hosted by the Washington Post in 2018. Were the good guys."

Microsoft received similar pushback from employees in 2019 for letting Army soldiers test the HoloLens augmented-reality headset, originally conceived for the likes of architects and surgeons.

At the AI commissions first public event in November 2019, Mr. Schmidt invited Google policy executive Kent Walker on stage next to the officer in charge of Project Maven. Mr. Walker characterized the dust-up as an isolated event. We are a proud American company," he said.

Microsoft this year signed a contract worth up to $21.9 billion to supply the Army with HoloLens. All three tech giants are competing for the Pentagons business in cloud computing and other areas, armed with the capital and computing infrastructure to draw top talent.

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Tech industry seeks bigger role in defense. Not everyone is on board - Livemint

Cloud computing has taken over most industries online processes -with92% of businessesstating that their IT environment (infrastructure, applications, data analytics, etc.) relies on the Cloud.

Red Hat defines cloud computing as the act of running workloads within clouds - which are IT environments that abstract, pool, and share scalable resources across a network. Neither cloud computing nor clouds are technologies unto themselves.

Cloud computing is an act - the function of running a workload in a cloud.

Clouds are environments - places where applications run.

Technologies are things - software and hardware used to build and use clouds.

Theres a reason85% of enterprises areusing multiple clouds- we share our top five reasons why you should consider moving to the Cloud instead of using on-premise infrastructure.

Time-saving:Getting started with the Cloud is far quicker and easier compared to installing a brand new local server - especially if it means ordering new hardware, which could take weeks to arrive. Application development happens more quickly in the Cloud, and we can help you seamlessly migrate, doing what you need to in seconds.

Scale:The Cloud is incredibly flexible, and you can scale resources automatically according to load; for example, at seasonal peaks when your server might have a higher workload.As importantly, you can scale back when the load reduces.

Cost saving:Moving to the Cloud can be a good business investment.Cost can be spread out monthly, rather than having to buy hardware up-front, and you wont have to spend money on physical equipment and maintenance.

Resource:Cloud computing requires fewer physical servers, which means fewer resources are used. There is no need for additional tech supportto look after the Cloud, unlike on-premise hardware, which takes teams of people to maintain. If an issue arises, you also wont need to send someone down in person to look at it.

Fewer operational issues:The Cloud has far fewer operational issues than other infrastructures and is more reliable than on-premise servers. The Cloud is operated, maintained and supported through companieswhose only job is to make the cloud functional and bug-free, so small issues are found quicker. Undetected bugs on your own hardware infrastructure can easily turn into a larger problem, which takes time and money to fix.

These are just a handful of the many advantages of moving to the Cloud - you can also benefit fromincreased efficiency, improved security, boosted performance, and have the opportunity to downsize your data centres (or completely get rid of them).

Looking to reduce your carbon footprint? Astudy by Microsoftalsofound that cloud storage can be between 79-93% more energy-efficient than a traditional on-premise data centre.

If your business is not actively utilizing the cloud,theres no better time to switch than now.

At Tier 2, we use Cloud-Native techniques, based on Cloud principles, andcan build new applications, and moderniseexisting ones. We're experienced in helping our customersdeliver Cloud-Native solutions in OpenShift. We are the UKs first Red Hat Premier Middleware Partner, and have formally recognised Red Hat OpenShift skills.

Cloud-Native development with Tier 2>>

Hearhow we helped customer Motability Operations migrate to the Cloud in our new case study, and discoverhow their cost of deployment has been reduced, without any business impact:

Customer Case study: Motability Operations migrate to the Cloud with Tier 2 >>

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Five reasons to move to the Cloud - Cambridge Network

PHOTO:Benjamin Suter | unsplash

Theres a new COSO preacher in town. Are they a threat or an enabler of a peaceful and safe community? Should we embrace them and listen to their advice?

COSO's "Enterprise Risk Management for Cloud Computing" is an interesting document. I am not a fan, but if you are in IT or responsible for addressing IT-related risk, you might find it of some interest.

It starts reasonably well: "Leveraging cloud computing in some industries may have been a strategic advantage at one point. What the pandemic brought to light was the need for more remote and flexible work environments and the IT infrastructure to support the organization in that effort. Utilizing cloud computing has become an essential element to compete in the marketplace.

"The speed at which cloud computing can be procured and implemented is one of its many valuable traits. However, facing the inertia of accelerated access to cloud based capabilities, some organizations may not have had the capacity to implement appropriate controls designed to mitigate the risks in their cloud environments."

Lets acknowledge, though, that cloud computing is not new. It has been with us for many years.

I am (just) old enough to remember some of the first database systems. I was a manager with a major public accounting firm, responsible for the technical IT audit approach, when I heard Tom Gilb address the British Computer Society.

Tom shared his experiences helping a major Swedish car company implement an integrated set of applications using one of the first database management systems from IBM on their newest and most powerful mainframes. He told us he was often asked about the differences in deploying database vs. traditional systems. His answer was: Its just another file structure.

In many ways, cloud is similarly a simple evolution rather than a gigantic leap. Many of the issues related to managing a traditional outsourced computing system continue in a cloud environment. There are a few more challenges, but not so many that IMHO justify a publication from COSO specifically on cloud computing.

COSO would have done better if they had simply shared their thoughts on integrating IT-related risk into enterprise risk and performance (or success) management. (Actually, they would have done better to read and build on my book, "Making Business Sense of Technology Risk").

They get this right: "An organizations management is responsible for managing the risk to the organization. Management must incorporate the board and key stakeholders into the ERM program so that risk management is integrated with the organizations strategy and business objectives. Effective ERM involves multiple departments and functions; it should be integrated into the strategy of the organization and embedded into its culture. Successful ERM goes beyond internal controls to address governance, culture, strategy, and performance. Effective cloud computing and cloud enterprise risk management is integrated within the organization to support the organizations strategy and objectives, align with the culture, and enhance value."

Related Article:Modernizing Legacy Tech: Big Bang or Piecemeal?

The rest of the document takes each of the five components of the COSO ERM Framework and explains how they relate to cloud computing, with suggestions on how each of the related principles might be addressed.

But, and it is a huge but, the authors start with "Governance and Culture." Now I agree that is an important topic, but you dont establish governance structures and processes before you understand the risks and related processes.

They are starting with the COSO model and plugging cloud into it, rather than understanding what risks (both positive and negative) flow from the use of cloud and only then determining what governance-related processes and structures are needed.

So, lets leave COSO behind and take a far simpler approach:

One concern with starting with a focus on cloud, as this COSO guidance does, is you might end up dedicating scarce resources to a source of minimal risk to the enterprise.

There is, as always, more to be said. The COSO document can be of value by considering all of its detailed suggestions as food for thought, but I cannot recommend adopting it as a framework.

I welcome your thoughts.

Norman Marks, CPA, CRMA is an evangelist for better run business, focusing on corporate governance, risk management, internal audit, enterprise performance, and the value of information. He is also a mentor to individuals and organizations around the world, the author of World-Class Risk Management and publishes regularly on his own blog.

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Fitting IT-Related Risk Into Broader Business Objectives - CMSWire

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the worlds leading organization dedicated to defining standards, certifications, and best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, today announced that it will host its 8th annual Federal Summit on Oct. 28 at the Washington Marriott at Metro Center (Washington, D.C.). With its theme of Reset Normal: Building Trust & Security, the Summit will address the ways in which both government and industry have adapted and collaborated to reset normal and build trust and security into people, processes, and technology.

Among the topics to be discussed will be the impact of the Presidents recent Executive Order on Improving the Nations Cybersecurity, as well as the ways in which the security community can help effect positive change within the federal community.

The Presidents executive order and subsequent national security memo articulate major challenges in building out our cybersecurity workforce, implementing Zero Trust strategies, attaining software assurance, and other objectives inside the federal government and within critical infrastructure sectors. CSA is committed to comprehensive collaboration between our community and federal stakeholders to make real progress in our nations cybersecurity capabilities using events like our Federal Summit, said Jim Reavis, co-founder and CEO, Cloud Security Alliance.

This informative, in-person event will draw information security professionals from civilian and defense agencies, as well as innovators in cloud security, who will share case studies, lessons learned, and new technologies that promote secure implementation of cloud computing to support agency missions. A world-class program of speakers and panelists will provide perspectives on the Federal cloud computing strategy, civilian, and defense agency cloud security standards, and real-world implementation experience with state-of-the-art cloud security architectures.

This years event is hosted by the Cloud Security Alliance, the CSA DC chapter, and ISACAs Greater Washington D.C. Chapter.

Register today for this FREE event. Members of the media and analyst community interested in attending the event should contact Kari Walker for more information, to receive press credentials, and to schedule interviews with CSA leadership and conference speakers.

About Cloud Security Alliance

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is the worlds leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment. CSA harnesses the subject matter expertise of industry practitioners, associations, governments, and its corporate and individual members to offer cloud security-specific research, education, training, certification, events, and products. CSA's activities, knowledge, and extensive network benefit the entire community impacted by cloud from providers and customers to governments, entrepreneurs, and the assurance industry and provide a forum through which different parties can work together to create and maintain a trusted cloud ecosystem. For further information, visit us at http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org, and follow us on Twitter @cloudsa.

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Cloud Security Alliance Federal Summit 2021 Live Event to Focus on Building Trust and Security in the New Normal - Business Wire

The cloud computing market is not only changing rapidly, but also growing into new industries and use cases, as a growing number of companies move to the cloud for their digital transformation goals.

Through a pandemic and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), ethical tech, and other cloud trends, what does an experienced cloud executive have to say about the changes happening in cloud technology?

Briana Frank, the director of product management for IBM Cloud, recently shared her thoughts with Datamation about the innovations happening at IBM and in the greater cloud market.

Frank directs the product management teams within IBM Cloud Developer Services. Frank also leads the Offering Management and Design teams that built the IBM Cloud Kubernetes service in five months and now manages tens of thousands of clusters worldwide. She believes in creating exceptional experiences that enable users to build and innovate using IBM Cloud. She builds high-performance teams in order to make data-driven decisions. Frank is an entrepreneur and a problem solver who translates that energy into building great products.

More on Cloud Computing: Cloud Computing Market 2021

Datamation: How did you first start in or develop an interest in cloud computing?

Frank: My first introduction to working in technology was during a summer job while attending The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I was a receptionist for an advertising agency during my sophomore year. Clients often called with urgent changes needed for their websites. Those changes often took time, as there was no one in-house who could make the updates. I took a one-day class in HTML and was able to update client websites myself, often the same day or even immediately. Clients were pleased with the timeliness of the updates, but most importantly, the information they needed to convey was up to date and accurate, which better served their users.

Since then, technology has changed dramatically. Ive continued to evolve my career and my skills based on solving client problems. Cloud has emerged as a way to accelerate innovation. My desire to help clients has guided the technologies Ive worked on over the course of my career and led me to work in cloud computing.

Datamation: What are your primary responsibilities in your current role?

Frank: Today, I am the director of product for IBM Cloud Developer Services. I oversee a portfolio of 17 cloud services that enable clients to innovate faster. These services include Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, serverless, observability, developer tools, and IBM Cloud Satellite, our new distributed cloud offering, which allows clients to run cloud services securely in any environment. As a product director, I spend a lot of time talking to clients about the problems they are facing and brainstorming solutions. Prioritizing our road map to meet client needs is one of the most important of many responsibilities in product management.

Datamation: What makes IBM Cloud unique as a cloud computing platform? What sets your solutions or approach apart from the competition?

Frank: IBM Cloud is the industrys most secure and open public cloud for business. IBM Cloud is protected with the highest-level certified hardware security module Hyper Protect services: FIPS 140-2 Level 4. IBMs cloud platform is built on a foundation of Kubernetes, containers, and open source software.

IBM Cloud is a key part of IBMs broader hybrid cloud strategy. Our hybrid cloud offerings are built to bring secure and open cloud services anywhere a client needs to run them whether on premises, in multiple public clouds, or at the edge.

Taken together, this means that clients can run IBM Cloud services securely and in any environment of their choosing.

Datamation: What do you think makes a cloud computing company or platform successful?

Frank: Enterprises today are pushing ahead with digital transformation, deploying existing tools to fuller potential, and leveraging new ones to advance further. And cloud is leading this shift, with 64% of companies surveyed in an IBM Institute for Business Value report saying they have shifted to more cloud-based business activities during the pandemic.

Yet, only 25% of mission-critical workloads have moved to the cloud. Organizations often cite concerns about security and privacy of sensitive data, such as constituent data, medical records, or financial information.

How to help drive innovation in the cloud while ensuring data remains secure and protected? One way is by giving clients the ability to run secure cloud services in any environment whether on premises, in multiple public clouds, or even at the edge. Especially for companies in regulated industries that may be subject to data sovereignty requirements, this opens up the possibility to embrace innovation in the cloud, while ensuring data remains secure and compliant.

Datamation: How can cloud technology impact the success and/or efficiencies of an organization?

Frank: Having the right hybrid cloud architecture in place allows companies to take advantage of the flexibility, efficiency, and cost savings of cloud computing, while ensuring that their critical data stays protected.

IBM is working with clients across all industries to implement these strategies. Were also seeing even greater promise for cloud in highly regulated industries, like financial services, government, telecommunications, and health care, especially with the work we are doing to de-risk third- and fourth-party supply chains.

By reducing risk consistently, you also increase the opportunity of how fast you can innovate.

Datamation: What are some common use cases or scenarios where a hybrid cloud is the best solution for a business?

Frank: Hybrid cloud can be leveraged anywhere across a computing environment. Case in point, earlier this year, we announced that Lumen Technologies is using IBM Cloud Satellite on its Lumen Edge Compute platform to give its customers more flexibility in how they securely tap into the benefits of IBM Cloud at the edge. For example, a customer can deploy an application at a Lumen Edge location where cameras and sensors can function in near real-time to help detect the time since surfaces were cleaned or flag potential worker safety hazards.

Datamation: What is the biggest cloud development mistake that you see enterprises making?

Frank: Many clients today are dealing with cloud sprawl, meaning they are using more than one cloud and are therefore challenged with managing these different cloud environments. I wouldnt call this a mistake in fact, these days, its not uncommon for an organization to use four to five or more cloud vendors but it is a reality of leveraging many different technologies for different yet very valid reasons. This kind of multicloud environment can be challenging and costly to manage and operate, and in this scenario, each of those vendors has a different view on security wrapped around their services.

Datamation: What do you think are some of the top trends in cloud computing/hybrid cloud/multicloud right now?

Frank: Were seeing tremendous opportunity for digital transformation in the highly regulated space in particular. To help organizations successfully and safely embrace cloud, we have built industry-specific offerings for sectors such as financial services and telecommunications. With these solutions, we are able to help organizations think through how theyve created digital platforms from the outset. A key piece of this is ensuring they have the right controls in place to maintain security and compliance. Weve found that unless you build in these controls as a baseline, it stifles innovation. This is why IBM has built a hybrid cloud platform where there is consistency in cybersecurity controls across the board.

In addition, major breaches have impacted business and life and grabbed headlines in past months, making enterprises more cautious than ever when migrating workloads to the cloud. And indeed, all cloud architectures are not created equal when it comes to protecting sensitive data. I believe the key missing piece that many cloud providers lack is trust. Gaining this trust calls for new methods of protecting data, to fill in the gaps in some of the traditional methods.

With the traditional methods of securing data, youre trusting your provider not to access or otherwise share it, but the reality is that the data could be accessed such as if the provider were compelled by a court order to hand over the data, or it could more easily be accessed by malicious actors for their own nefarious purposes. But with confidential computing, the cloud provider is incapable of accessing this data. Therefore, you as the customer are ensuring privacy across the entire life cycle of data, including while its in use.

Think of confidential computing as an office in an office building. The office is a private, secure location where you can have a meeting. There are a number of other offices in that building too, but you can lock your door and have a private meeting in your office, and no one has access to your discussions, even though you are in the same building. The owners of the office building and tenants in other offices do not know what is going on in your office. In the case of confidential computing, the cloud is the office building, and the enclave is the office.

Datamation: How have you seen AI/ML impact cloud computing over the past few years, and how do you think these trends will continue to change cloud development and customer expectations?

Frank: We are generating data from more sources than ever before, and users are expecting insights from the data immediately. It isnt a question of whether AI/ML are needed, but how AI/ML can produce insights that can be leveraged instantaneously. The trend we see most commonly is the need to analyze the data where the data is generated to reduce latency, due to not needing the data to flow to another location. In addition, keeping the data in a specific location can assist with regulatory constraints.

Datamation: What do you think well see more of in the cloud computing space in the next 5-10 years? What areas will grow the most over the next decade?

Frank: When it comes to recent breaches, these are stark reminders of the reality business and governments live in today. Businesses must realize that they are only as secure as their weakest link.

Many believe that that weak link can come when outsourcing their digital infrastructure to a third-party cloud provider that this is simply the price you can pay to speed innovation. But this is not true. It is incumbent on cloud providers to lead the way in creating a culture that continues to push us to improve upon the current state of security.

So as technology leaders, we need to not only provide cloud infrastructure solutions, but take care to provide ones that the C-suite can feel comfortable with adopting in light of hackers sophisticated methods. We need to introduce the right strategies and help build the right technological foundation, enabling our clients to embrace innovation in the cloud with trust that their data will remain protected.

By adopting the right open, hybrid cloud architecture one that enables built-in controls and selecting a cloud provider that enables sophisticated encryption capabilities, like confidential computing, youre helping ensure that your data truly remains yours.

Datamation: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you/your colleagues/your clients approach to cloud solutions?

Frank: The pandemic has amplified how much of our lives we live online. From ordering food for delivery to completing a banking transaction to visiting a doctor, our personal data is out there. So, the natural question is, who can access it, and is it at risk of being compromised? How can we, as consumers, trust the organizations we communicate with for a frictionless experience, while safeguarding our most critical data?

And how can our cloud providers serve as stewards of their clients sensitive data? By building in cybersecurity controls from the outset, we can help more clients across industries embrace cloud.

Datamation: How do you think that cloud computing can better be leveraged as a technology for global good (i.e., slowing climate change, alleviating poverty, ethical business practices, social justice causes, etc.)?

Frank: Last year, IBM Cloud team and Santa Casa da Misericrdia de Lisboa built and launched a simple and secure telemedicine platform to meet the physical and mental health needs of underserved citizens in Lisbon, particularly the elderly and vulnerable during the accelerating pandemic. The solution is built on the IBM Cloud and incorporates a state-of-the-art cryptographic technology called Keep Your Own Key.This encryption gives the doctor and patient enterprise-level data protection over a secure platform, designed so patients can easily communicate with their medical providers and psychologists to get the assistance they need, quickly and from home. The platform schedules patient care via SMS and email, and sessions are conducted through phone, video, and chat.

SCML has been able to increase their patient support, care, and follow-up, while serving citizens from the comfort of their own homes.At scale, the platform has the potential to open up access to all underserved communities and the elderly in particular, who often have no means of transportation or who are at greater risk of serious complications from COVID-19.

Datamation: How have you seen the cloud computing market change since you first started? How have the technologies, conversations, and people changed over time?

Frank: Technology is more accessible than ever before. The ability to learn about a technology is no longer gated by a class, textbook, or employer. You can learn a great deal about how a technology works just by reading documentation, watching YouTube videos, or even enrolling in free courses. IBM Skills offers free online courses, workshops, and badge credentials created in partnership with governments, NGOs, and schools from all over the world, designed to help students and professionals alike skill up in relevant technology areas. This accessibility has allowed a more diverse group of individuals to enter the industry. In my experience, a diverse set of voices produces richer outcomes, no matter the task at hand.

Datamation: How do you stay knowledgeable about trends in the market? What resources do you like?

Frank: Its important to stay curious, but I think you also have to genuinely care about what problems are being solved and the unique ways they are being solved across the industry. I have traditional ways to learn about trends, including my favorite analyst reports, but Ive often learned about new announcements and breaking news via social media platforms. I also surround myself with interesting and curious people. Not a day goes by that someone doesnt link me an article on Slack. The resulting informal discussions are some of the most valuable to me personally.

Datamation: How do you like to help or otherwise engage less experienced tech professionals?

Frank: I mentor dozens of individuals inside and outside of IBM. IBM has amazing resources that allow me to give back, like product management boot camps, women-in-technology round tables, mentoring, management training, and so much more. I also volunteer for organizations outside of IBM helping entrepreneurs. Most recently, weve helped small businesses struggling to pivot during the pandemic. My approach is to be very transparent about my unique background and non-traditional technology education to inspire others who may not have taken the traditional path to technologist.

Datamation: What do you consider the best part of your workday or workweek?

Frank: The best part of my week is when Im solving problems. Whether Im ideating with a client on technology decisions or working with my team to brainstorm new ideas, the process of solving problems is one that I truly enjoy.

Datamation: What are you most proud of in your professional life?

Frank: I am most proud when I push myself to do something out of my comfort zone and achieve something I didnt think possible. My first patent was very special to me for that reason. The first time I stepped on a large keynote stage was very special to me. I get a lot of satisfaction when I can take an idea and make it real. When you do that enough times, you become known for that characteristic, and Im proud of that reputation.

Read Next: Top Trends in Cloud Computing 2021

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Cloud Computing: Executive Q&A with Briana Frank at IBM - Datamation

Over the last few years, technology has evolved through an acceleration of innovation across industries, bringing forth new combinations of technologies, new use cases and new business models. Technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, machine learning and big data have combined to solve business challenges that plagued industries for decades.

According to IBM, a hybrid cloud is infrastructure that connects at least one public cloud and at least one private cloud, but the definition can vary.[i] A hybrid cloud provides orchestration, management, and application portability between public and private clouds to create a single, flexible, optimal cloud infrastructure for running a companys computing workloads.

Despite the growth in public cloud computing, enterprises often need to use a combination of public and private (on-prem) clouds. Often overlooked in the hype around public cloud computing, private clouds offer greater flexibility, security and compliance.

A private cloud environment is generally accessible only through private and secure network links, rather than the public internet. Industries such as healthcare and finance have specific regulations about storing and processing data and thus favor using private clouds. A company can run a private cloud on-premises in its data center, local server room or access it as a securely hosted offering by a cloud service provider (CSP).

Crucially, hybrid cloud computing enables companies to accelerate their digital transformation efforts, primarily if they work with legacy hardware and infrastructure. They can extend their existing infrastructure by adding one or more public cloud deployments modernising applications and processes in stages rather than a complete digital transformation upheaval.

IoT technology is ubiquitous, with connected devices collecting more and more information through sensors, cameras, accelerometers, LiDAR and depth sensors. All this information requires collection, storage, processing and analysis to create data-driven insights. Some of this data comes from mission-critical applications where a split-second delay can have significant consequences. For example, factories, smart traffic consoles, an insulin pump, and smoke and noxious gas monitoring.

As a consequence, edge computing use cases have grown. Edge computing places processing (and some storage) capabilities close to the data source, enabling fast data analysis in real-time. Its particularly useful in poorly connected environments such as oil refineries, mines and wells. Companies are moving more of their compute and financial investments toward edge computing. Grand View Research predicts that companies will spend $43.4 billion on edge computing by 2027, a compound annual growth rate of 37.4%.[ii]

Despite the predictions of some analysts, this does not mean the death of cloud computing. Cloud computing and edge computing have a beneficial functional relationship. And this relationship extends the hybrid cloud concept.

According to Gartner, Edge computing augments and expands the possibilities of todays primarily centralised, hyperscale cloud model and supports the systemic evolution and deployment of the IoT and entirely new application types, enabling next-generation digital business applications.[iii]

A hybrid environment with workloads at the edge and various cloud locations offers advantages to companies seeking greater efficiency and cost savings. Running business and time-critical workloads at the edge ensures low-latency and self-sufficiency. This means transactions can occur even in rugged environments where internet connections are poor.

Take the example of industrial IoT and a factory that uses sensors to monitor machines for temperature, sound, pressure and vibration. The factory can use a locally hosted compute device from a nearby cloud provider, or even something like a Raspberry Pi, to process and filter and aggregate data from the machines in near real-time. If this edge compute instance detects an urgent anomaly, then it can generate an alert for investigation. It can send the filtered and aggregated data to a public cloud instance during regular operation to perform further analysis, machine learning processing, decision making, and storage with a service that provides better efficiency and value for such tasks.

Connected cars are another example, which are effectively data centers on wheels with hundreds of in-car sensors creating a deluge of data. Autonomous driving systems, such as those tested by Equinix customer Continental, must aggregate, analyse and distribute that data, as well as data from other sources such as traffic and weather information, in real-time with all the necessary security and privacy controls in place. And as the degree of autonomy advances (from level 1 for some driver assistance to level 5 for fully autonomous), the amount of data to aggregate and analyse will continue to soar. Current test drives for L2 autonomy are generating up to 20 terabytes (TB) of data a day, while more advanced sensor sets for higher levels of autonomy (L4 and above) may generate up to 100 TB/day.

A car needs some of this data in real-time to make split-second decisions, like whether to move lanes or whether the road is clear of pedestrians. The processing of this data could happen on the onboard computer or on any available local edge compute instances the vehicle happens to be near at the time. When the car returns to a WiFi connection, it can then upload any other less important data to a public cloud instance, receive software and machine learning model updates, a driver can review their data, or the manufacturer can download for analytical purposes.

The communication between edge computing and the rest of the hybrid cloud neednt be in one direction. Once compute services have processed, analysed and reached decisions on the data they have, they can then push relevant updates to edge compute instances.

Like many other aspects of modern infrastructure, containers and orchestrating them with Kubernetes can help standardise edge and cloud deployments. Kubernetes standard runtime layer enables you to develop, run and operate workloads consistently across computing environments and move workloads between edge and cloud.

Equinix Metal provides the foundational building blocks that give businesses the ability to create and consume interconnected infrastructure with the choice and control of physical hardware and the low overhead and developer experience of the cloud. Digital leaders use Equinix Metal to create digital advantage by activating infrastructure globally, connecting it to thousands of technology ecosystem partners, and leveraging DevOps tools to deploy, maintain and scale their applications. This means that on-demand bare metal servers with dedicated GPUs optimised for edge-type workloads such as machine learning are within your reach.

Metal integrates with a range of common hybrid cloud tooling such as Anthos, VMWare Tanzu, and RedHat OpenShift, allowing public cloud vendors and users alike to leverage any existing infrastructure and tooling.

Equinix Fabric supplements Equinix Metal by offering software-defined interconnection to connect Equinix Metal and your other infrastructure together, including all leading cloud providers. Equinix Fabric helps companies who want to take advantage of hybrid multicloud but need to reinforce privacy and security for data as it travels between edge and public cloud locations. On top of providing these security guardrails, Equinix Fabric is affordable and performant, not adding any other overheads to applications.

To learn more about how enable the hybrid cloud for your organisation today, download the Equinix Whitepaper on Enabling The Hybrid Cloud.

[i] IBM, Hybrid Cloud, October 19, 2019.

[ii] Grand View Research, Edge Computing Market Worth $43.4 Billion By 2027 | CAGR: 37.4%, March 2020.

[iii] Gartner, 2021 Strategic Roadmap for Edge Computing, Bob Gill, 3 November 2021 ID G00723410.

Image credit: stock.adobe.com/au/arrow

Originally publishedhere.

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Pushing to the Edge with Hybrid Cloud - Technology Decisions

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O) on Thursday warned thousands of its cloud computing customers, including some of the world's largest companies, that intruders could have the ability to read, change or even delete their main databases, according to a copy of the email and a cyber security researcher.

The vulnerability is in Microsoft Azure's flagship Cosmos DB database. A research team at security company Wiz discovered it was able to access keys that control access to databases held by thousands of companies. Wiz Chief Technology Officer Ami Luttwak is a former chief technology officer at Microsoft's Cloud Security Group.

Because Microsoft cannot change those keys by itself, it emailed the customers Thursday telling them to create new ones. Microsoft agreed to pay Wiz $40,000 for finding the flaw and reporting it, according to an email it sent to Wiz.

"We fixed this issue immediately to keep our customers safe and protected. We thank the security researchers for working under coordinated vulnerability disclosure," Microsoft told Reuters.

Microsoft's email to customers said there was no evidence the flaw had been exploited. "We have no indication that external entities outside the researcher (Wiz) had access to the primary read-write key," the email said.

This is the worst cloud vulnerability you can imagine. It is a long-lasting secret, Luttwak told Reuters. This is the central database of Azure, and we were able to get access to any customer database that we wanted.

Luttwak's team found the problem, dubbed ChaosDB, on Aug. 9 and notified Microsoft Aug. 12, Luttwak said.

A Microsoft logo is pictured on a store in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

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The flaw was in a visualization tool called Jupyter Notebook, which has been available for years but was enabled by default in Cosmos beginning in February. After Reuters reported on the flaw, Wiz detailed the issue in a blog post.

Luttwak said even customers who have not been notified by Microsoft could have had their keys swiped by attackers, giving them access until those keys are changed. Microsoft only told customers whose keys were visible this month, when Wiz was working on the issue.

Microsoft told Reuters that "customers who may have been impacted received a notification from us," without elaborating.

The disclosure comes after months of bad security news for Microsoft. The company was breached by the same suspected Russian government hackers that infiltrated SolarWinds, who stole Microsoft source code. Then a wide number of hackers broke into Exchange email servers while a patch was being developed.

A recent fix for a printer flaw that allowed computer takeovers had to be redone repeatedly. Another Exchange flaw last week prompted an urgent U.S. government warning that customers need to install patches issued months ago because ransomware gangs are now exploiting it.

Problems with Azure are especially troubling, because Microsoft and outside security experts have been pushing companies to abandon most of their own infrastructure and rely on the cloud for more security.

But though cloud attacks are more rare, they can be more devastating when they occur. What's more, some are never publicized.

A federally contracted research lab tracks all known security flaws in software and rates them by severity. But there is no equivalent system for holes in cloud architecture, so many critical vulnerabilities remain undisclosed to users, Luttwak said.

Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by William Mallard

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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EXCLUSIVE Microsoft warns thousands of cloud customers of exposed databases - Reuters