Category Archives: Cloud Servers
HPE talks up AI’s role in boosting server business – ITPro
AI presents an opportunity for partners to sell more on-premises hardware, according to HPE CEO Antonio Neri.
Speaking at the companys annual Partner Growth Summit ahead of the main HPE Discover 2024 conference in Las Vegas, Neri said:
When you think about AI is not a monolithic workload, its actually a distributed workload, which is obviously very data intensive. That actually opens up the opportunity to bring more infrastructure on premises than ever before.
The fact that AI is a data first business will drive customers to rethink their data strategy, where they store it, [and] how they maintain it in compliance.
By offering customers a cloud-first approach thats also based on-premises (such as that provided by HPE GreenLake), theres an opportunity to really increase revenues off the back of the trend, he suggested.
AI has given a triple shot in the arm to the server business, he added.
Its not just AI where HPE believes the opportunity lies, though. Leaning on one of the key themes of this years conference, sustainability, Neil MacDonald, EVP and GM of compute, HPC and AI at HPE, spoke of the need for companies to modernize their existing infrastructure, saying theres a lot of old, dusty server equipment out there that is ripe to refresh.
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MacDonald claimed that these elderly systems are wasting our customers money, as theyre not very efficient.
There are over 400,000 [HPE] systems out there of over four years of age, MacDonald said.
Legacy systems are consuming about 66% of data center power, but they're only doing about 7% of useful work so theres a huge opportunity for efficiency gains. One Gen11 can replace 11 Gen8 servers and consume 90% less power.
He also pointed out that older infrastructure doesnt have all the security features of HPEs more recent products. All of these are reasons to encourage customers to upgrade, he said.
ITPro's Jane McCallion will be live on the ground in Las Vegas this week with rolling coverage of HPE Discover 2024. Keep tabs on all the latest news, updates, and announcements in our live blog.
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HPE talks up AI's role in boosting server business - ITPro
Apple is building a high-security OS to run its AI data centers – here’s what we know so far – ZDNet
Apple
During last week's introduction of Apple Intelligence, Apple software engineering head Craig Federighi announced that the company will run somegenerative AI models in a secure cloud computing environment.
Called Private Cloud Compute(PCC), the service will be subject to scrutiny by outside security experts. Federighi said: "Just like your iPhone, independent experts can inspect the code that runs on these servers to verify this privacy promise." The goal is to verify Apple's privacy promises, including that user data will never be stored on PCC servers and will be expunged from memory once a request is fulfilled.
Also:Here's how Apple's keeping your cloud-processed AI data safe (and why it matters)
Federighi did not go into detail about how security researchers will inspect or audit the PCC servers, but a subsequent Apple blog poststates the PCC servers will run a distinct version of the company's operating system software that researchers will be allowed to inspect.
"When we launch Private Cloud Compute, we'll take the extraordinary step of making software images of every production build of PCC publicly available for security research," the Apple Security Engineering and Architecture and collaborating teams wrote.
The blog post goes on to say that Apple will "periodically also publish a subset of the security-critical PCC source code, [and] in a first for any Apple platform, PCC images will include the sepOS firmware and the iBoot bootloader in plaintext, making it easier than ever for researchers to study these critical components."
Apple emphasizes that its devices "will be willing to send data only to PCC nodes that can cryptographically attest to running publicly listed software" as a means to ensure its privacy and security guarantees.
Apple makes various promises about the safety and security of using Private Cloud Compute to process some AI tasks.
Apple provided little detail about the nature of the server software, other than the fact that it is a derivation of the iOS and MacOS operating systems.
The servers will run on Apple's own computer chips, analogous to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, powered by "a new operating system: a hardened subset of the foundations of iOS and macOS tailored to support large language model (LLM) inference workloads while presenting an extremely narrow attack surface. This allows us to take advantage of iOS security technologies such as Code Signing and sandboxing."
Also:Apple's AI extravaganza left out 2 key advances - maybe next time?
Apple's iOS and macOS are based on a combination of open-source technologies such as the Darwin operating system, developed at Apple in the 1990s, freeBSD, and closed-source software developed at Apple.
It's unclear when developers will get a look at the new software. In the blog post, Apple researchers say they will give security researchers a "first look" at the software "soon." A note on Apple's developer site says Apple Intelligence will be available "in an upcoming beta" without mentioning anything specific about PCC timing.
ZDNET's Maria Diaz speculates that iOS 18 betas will become available in July, although Apple's website states in a footnote that "Apple Intelligence will be available in beta on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac with M1 and later, with Siri and device language set to US English, as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia this fall."
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Apple is building a high-security OS to run its AI data centers - here's what we know so far - ZDNet
HPE GreenLake adds GenAI capabilities as on-premises PaaS – TechTarget
LAS VEGAS -- Hewlett Packard Enterprises' and Nvidia's latest co-developed offering for the HPE GreenLake platform aims to bring the cloud-like experience of generative AI to on-premises enterprise data centers.
Nvidia AI Computing by HPE is a new portfolio of products and services developed by the two companies and sold by HPE or its partner resellers. The catalog, releasing in full this fall, took centerstage today during HPE CEO and president Antonio Neri's keynote at HPE Discover 2024.
HPE Private Cloud AI is a platform-as-a-service offering that brings HPE hardware and software along with Nvidia GPUs, AI tools and AI models as a managed private cloud service to a customer's data center through HPE's GreenLake.
HPE executives said Private Cloud Al provides a turnkey service for generative AI (GenAI) creation, enabling users to scale hardware as demands dictate with the benefit of keeping data on premises and under the customer's control.
Creating the service has led to updates and features in other parts of GreenLake, with a new GenAI copilot coming to OpsRamp, an IT ops management and visibility SaaS that HPE acquired last year, and a refresh of server hardware to accommodate more potent Nvidia GPUs.
Enterprises are still experimenting with GenAI capabilities and will continue to rely on hyperscaler services through AWS, Azure and others, according to Mike Leone, an analyst at TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group.
As those experiments mature and customers move them on premises and into production, however, many enterprises will lack the ability to build systems and networks capable of managing GenAI at scale, he said. HPE has an opportunity with those customers as GreenLake offers not only hardware akin to offerings from Dell Technologies and other on-premises hardware vendors but also mature data management and query software through its Ezmeral software suite.
"HPE has the technology in place if they put it together and execute well," Leone said. "Data gravity is real and is going to dictate what some organizations do."
HPE Private Cloud AI will come in several hardware configurations depending on the size of AI workloads a customer plans to deploy.
Supporting these configurations are new servers including HPE ProLiant Compute DL384 Gen12 and HPE ProLiant Compute DL380a Gen12, which target small and medium-sized workloads and support Nvidia's H200 NVL GPUs.
Customers looking to train large language models and AI service providers can use the HPE Cray XD670 line for the most demanding workloads with support for up to eight Nvidia H200 Tensor Core GPUs.
Nvidia's contributions to Private Cloud AI include GPUs, Nvidia AI Enterprise cloud-native software platform and AI models through the Nvidia NIM inference microservices.
HPE's software additions include HPE AI Essentials and HPE Data Lakehouse with HPE File Storage, recently updated to support GenAI workloads, to support infrastructure needs. All configurations will include liquid cooling installation options and HPE Sustainability Insight Center software for energy management and reporting.
Unlike a reference architecture, HPE Private Cloud AI will require no component assembly by the user, said Neil MacDonald, executive vice president and general manager of compute, HPC and AI at HPE.
The OpsRamp automation and visibility SaaS for IT ops teams now include an operations copilot to enable customers to ask questions and get possible solutions for operations challenges.
Copilots have become an expected feature in IT ops automation tools, Leone said. But they are still immature. True innovation for copilots and other GenAI assistants will come as these services develop into predictable, analytical and self-acting agents within an IT environment. These agents should not only advise teams on how to fix a given problem but also know based upon past actions what should and could be automated, he said.
"It's a table stake now," Leone said. "When I think of IT ops, it will need to have AIOps. But I still don't think GenAI is the right approach. This has to be the first iteration as we work toward agents."
The addition of copilot into the GreenLake catalog might also send a conflicting message to buyers, said Mike Matchett, founder and analyst of Small World Big Data. GreenLake AI services promise to keep enterprise data isolated from the public cloud, but the OpsRamp copilot relies on cloud services and could affect that data.
Customers who are wary enough to keep their data on premises should question what third-party data is being used to support the copilot and what customer data could be fed back to those vendors, he said.
"Simply adding a chatbot to a tool does very little and may even be counterproductive," Matchett said. "There's some benefit to automation, but there's [a number of] questions you should ask to anyone patching GenAI into your operational tool."
Many enterprises aren't investing in GenAI infrastructure during the early experiment stage, which can quickly tally to hundreds of thousands of dollars, Matchett said.
As experiments mature and become production-ready, enterprises could be looking for ways to process workloads without running proprietary data in the cloud, he said.
"[GenAI] is going to touch a lot of our IP, and we need to keep control of it," Matchett said. "It's a security and a control need."
Bringing workloads on premises will also require a new set of skills to develop and oversee GenAI, another area many enterprises lack expertise, according to Steve McDowell, founder and analyst of NAND Research. A PaaS approach could smooth deployment and eliminate the need to reskill IT teams or hire new employees.
"AI doesn't look like anything we've touched in IT, and the IT guys are trying to figure it out," McDowell said.
Private cloud deployments and other on-premises configurations won't be cheap, Matchett said. But the combination of saving on hiring new employees and data control might outweigh the potential sticker shock.
"Whatever the zeitgeist is, every board room has talked about AI and what they're going to do about it," he said. "There's probably a market there."
Tim McCarthy is a news writer for TechTarget Editorial covering cloud and data storage.
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HPE GreenLake adds GenAI capabilities as on-premises PaaS - TechTarget
Next-Gen Computing: MiTAC and TYAN Launch Intel Xeon 6 Processor-Based Servers for AI, HPC, Cloud, and … – PR Newswire
TAIPEI, June 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --the subsidiary of MiTAC Holdings Corp.(TSE:3706), MiTAC Computing Technology and its server brand TYAN, the leading manufacturer in server platform design worldwide, unveil their new server systems and motherboards optimized for today's AI, HPC, cloud, and enterprise workloads at COMPUTEX 2024, Booth # M1120 in Taipei, Taiwan from June 4 to June 7. Harnessing the power of the latest Intel Xeon 6 processorand 4th and 5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, these solutions deliver cutting-edge performance.
"For over a decade, MiTAC has worked with Intel at the forefront of server technology innovation, consistently delivering cutting-edge solutions tailored for AI and high-performance computing (HPC). The integration of Intel's latest Xeon 6 processors into our MiTAC and TYAN server platforms transforms computational capabilities, significantly enhancing AI performance, boosting efficiency, and scaling cloud operations. These advancements empower our customers with a competitive edge through superior performance and optimized total cost of ownership," said Rick Hwang, President of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation.
New MiTAC/TYAN servers with Intel Xeon 6: trusted performance and exceptional efficiencyIntel Xeon 6 introduces two classes of processors to meet diverse requirements. Featuring high memory bandwidth and rich I/O with up to 8 channels of DDR5, up to 64 lanes of CXL 2.0, and up to 88 lanes of PCIe 5.0, Intel Xeon 6700 with Efficient-cores (E-cores) deliver high core density and exceptional performance per watt, offering distinct advantages for cloud-scale workloads that demand high throughput. With exceptional memory bandwidth and I/O, Performance-cores (P-cores) excel in the widest range of workloads and provide better AI performance than other CPUs. Additionally, the built-in accelerators of P-cores give an additional boost to targeted workloads for greater performance and efficiency. E-cores and P-cores have a compatible architecture with a shared software stack and enjoy the support of the largest ecosystem of hardware and software vendors.
MiTAC presents two new dual-socket server platforms powered by Intel Xeon 6 processors. Tailored for HPC and AI workloads, TX86-E7148 (codenamed "Katmai Pass") is the follow-on model of Intel server D50DNP family that accommodates up to 4 computing modules within a 2U enclosure and supports both air and liquid cooling for different facility infrastructure. TX77A-E7142 (codenamed "Deer Creek Pass"), the follow-on model of Intel server M50FCP family, is a full-featured, performance-optimized platform made for data-intensive applications.
TYAN debuts three Intel Xeon 6-based server products at COMPUTEX. First up is the Thunder HX FT83B-B7149, a 4U dual-socket server platform designed for massive-parallel AI and HPC workloads. Featuring 32 DDR5 RDIMM slots and up to 8 double-width PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, FT83B-B7149 is a powerful platform for computing intensive AI and HPC applications. The next is Thunder CX GC73A-B5660, a single-socket 1U server accommodating 12 hot-swap NVMe U.2 drive bays, 2 standard PCIe 5.0 x16 and 2 OCP 3.0 mezzanine slots for on-prem. edge compute/storage applications. Lastly, TYAN presents the Tempest HX S5662, a single-socket AI server motherboard in standard CEB form factor built for multiple GPU cards deployment. It supports 8 DDR5 RDIMM slots, 5 PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, 2 NVMe M.2 slots, dual 25GbE and one GbE ports.
4th and 5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor server platforms: meeting the growing needs of AI, HPC, and cloudIn July 2023, Intel transitioned the right to manufacture and sell products based on the Intel Data Center Solution Group (DSG) designs to MiTAC. Ever since then, MiTAC has dedicated itself to continuous investment in and support for the DSG product lineup. This year at COMPUTEX 2024, MiTAC unveils its DSG products. The Intel server D50DNP family, powered by 4th and 5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors or the Intel Xeon CPU Max series, delivers exceptional computing performance, along with enhanced AI and in-memory analytics acceleration integrated into the processor. In the meantime, the Intel server M50FCP family delivers outstanding compute performance, high-speed I/O, and memory throughput for most of mainstream server applications.
TYAN also offers a diverse range of products supporting 4th and 5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors. For deskside AI servers, TYAN introduces the Thunder HX FT65T-B5652, a rack-convertible, pedestal single-socket server platform designed for up to 4 double-slot GPU cards adoption.
TYAN provides several types of density servers for different workload requirement in space-constraint datacenters. The Thunder CX TD76-B5658 is a 2U enclosure accommodates 4 single-socket server nodes for high-density computing requirement; Thunder CX GC68A-B7136 is a 1U dual-socket server implementation with 16 DDR5 RDIMM slots and hybrid storage configuration; Thunder CX GC79A-B7132 is the other 1U dual-socket server provides up to 32 DDR5 RDIMM slots and all-flash configuration,
For mainstream 2U dual-socket storage servers, Thunder HX TS75A-B7132 and Thunder SX TS70A-B7136 are the two platforms providing high data IOPs with hybrid 2.5" drive configurations whereas Thunder SX TS70-B7136 is the other implementation for larger storage capacity requirement by having 12 3.5" hybrid drive bays. For cold data storage, Thunder SX TX88-B5652, a single-socket storage server featuring 24 3.5" SATA and 2 2.5" NVMe hot-swappable and tool-less drive bays, is recommended.
In addition to server systems, TYAN also showcases its 4th and 5th Gen Intel Xeon CPU-based industry standard motherboards at the booth. The highlighted products are Tempest HX S5652- an AI server board designed for deploying multiple GPU cards in CEB form factor and Tempest HX S7130, a mainstream dual-socket board supporting 5 PCIe 5.0 slots in EEB form factor.
Apart from the mentioned products, MiTAC and TYAN also provide other solutions to cater to various needs. One solution is the TYAN Thunder CX GX40-B5573, equipped with Intel Xeon E-2400 processors, tailored for cloud and on-premise computing. This 1U one-socket server system is designed for cost-effective edge computing, presenting an ideal option for small businesses. And, there's an O-RAN DU server presented by MiTAC: the WS1S11(Whitestone2). This DU server supports 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with Intel vRAN boost and features IEEE1588 time sync, synchronous ethernet, onboard NIC for ORAN FH/MH, and dual -48VDC power input.
About MiTAC Computing Technology Corp.MiTAC Computing Technology Corp, a MiTAC Holdings Corp. (TSE:3706) subsidiary, specializes in cloud and edge computing solutions and has over 30 years of design and manufacturing expertise. With a strong focus on large-scale data centers, the company offers flexible and customized supply models for various systems and applications. Its product lineup includes TYAN servers, ORAN servers, high-performance AI servers, and data center products. Intel Datacenter Solutions Group (DSG) transited its business to MiTAC since July 2023, allowing MiTAC expanding its product offerings with cutting-edge total cost of ownership solutions for next-gen data center equipment.
MiTAC Computing Technology Corporationwebsite: http://www.mitacmct.com
MiTAC DSG website: https://datacentersolutions.mitacmct.com/
About TYANTYAN, as a leading server brand of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation under the MiTAC Holdings Corp. (TSE:3706), designs, manufactures and markets advanced x86 and x86-64 server/workstation board technology, platforms and server solution products. Its products are sold to OEMs, VARs, System Integrators and Resellers worldwide for a wide range of applications. TYAN enables its customers to be technology leaders by providing scalable, highly-integrated, and reliable products for a wide range of applications such as server appliances and solutions for HPC, hyper-scale/data center, server storage, AI and security appliance markets. For more information, please visit TYAN's website at http://www.tyan.com or MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation website at http://www.mitacmct.com
Intel, the Intel logo, and other marks are trademarks of Intel Corporationor its subsidiaries.
SOURCE MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation
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Next-Gen Computing: MiTAC and TYAN Launch Intel Xeon 6 Processor-Based Servers for AI, HPC, Cloud, and ... - PR Newswire
TYAN Presents AMD EPYC Server Platforms Optimized for Data Center Compute Performance and Large-Scale AI … – PR Newswire
TAIPEI, June 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --COMPUTEX 2024 -- TYAN, an industry leader in server platform design and a subsidiary of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation, brings its latest AMD EPYC server platforms to the COMPUTEX 2024, Booth # M1120 in Taipei, Taiwan from June 4 to June 7.
"With the advanced capabilities of 4th GenAMD EPYC Processors, TYAN's AMD EPYC server platforms deliver optimized performance for modern data centers and large-scale AI/HPC infrastructure, ensuring high energy efficiency and robust security," said Rick Hwang, President of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation. "For the group of smaller businesses and dedicated hosters, TYAN offers AMD EPYC 4004 CPU-based servers that provide cost-effective, user-friendly solutions with enterprise-grade reliability, scalability, and security."
Innovative designs for diverse HPC, cloud-native computing, and generative AI workloadsHigh-performance and energy-efficient server platforms powered by the AMD EPYC 9004 series processoroffer innovative solutions for scaling data centers while prioritizing efficiency and TCO objectives. TYAN presents three models within its AI/HPC product segment. The Transport HX UT85A-B8267 is an 8U dual-socket server equipped with eight AMD Instinct MI300X Accelerators. It features eight 2.5" hot-swap NVMe U.2 tool-less drive trays and supports up to 9TB registered DDR5 memory, rendering it an optimal choice for advanced large-scale AI and HPC infrastructure. Following this is the Transport HX TN85-B8261, a 2U dual-socket GPU server engineered to elevate HPC and deep learning performance. It accommodates up to four dual-slot GPU cards, two half-height PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, 24 DDR5 RDIMM slots, and eight 2.5" hot-swap NVMe U.2 tool-less drive trays. Lastly, there's the Transport HX FT65T-B8050, a 4U pedestal single-socket GPU server featuring support for up to two high-performance GPU cards, eight DDR5 RDIMM slots, eight 3.5" SATA and two 2.5" NVMe U.2 hot-swap tool-less drive trays.
To meet the requirements of contemporary enterprises, cloud servers need to demonstrate exceptional scalability, reliability, performance, energy efficiency, support for virtualization, and robust network connectivity. The Transport CX TD76-B8058emerges as a 2U multi-node server housing four front-serviced nodes. It supports 16 DDR5 RDIMM slots, four hot-swap E1.S drive trays, two NVMe M.2 slots, one standard PCIe 5.0 x16 expansion slot, and one OCP 3.0 LAN mezzanine slot. Excelling in high-density data center deployment, front-end web servers, and various scale-out applications, it delivers adaptability across diverse settings. TYAN offers another streamlined solution, the Transport CX GC68C-B8056, a single-socket 1U server equipped with 24 DDR5 registered DIMM slots and 12 2.5" NVMe U.2 hot swap, tool-less drive bays, addressing the need for efficient and space-saving server solutions.
Optimized to streamline data I/O operations seamlessly between memory and storage elements within data centers, TYAN exhibits the Transport SX TS70-B8056and Transport SX TS70A-B8056, designed for cloud storage applications in a standard 2U form factor. The Transport SX TS70-B8056 houses 12 front 3.5" drive trays, accommodating up to four NVMe U.2 drives, alongside two rear 2.5" NVMe U.2 hot-swap, tool-less drive trays, ideal for storing large datasets. Meanwhile, the Transport SX TS70A-B8056, crafted for high IOPS storage requirements, features 26 2.5" NVMe U.2 hot-swap, tool-less drive trays.
An ideal balance between cost-effectiveness and high performanceTYAN's server platforms, featuring AMD EPYC 8004 series processors, are carefully designed for cloud and edge computing tasks, delivering both cost savings and energy efficiency. The TYAN Transport CX GC73A-B8046stands as a compact 1U server, equipped with 12 hot-swappable NVMe U.2 drive bays and the capacity to support a dual-slot GPU card, making it an excellent fit for AI inference, cloud gaming, and VDI applications. The platform also integrates DC-SCM to meet stringent server security requirements. Furthermore, TYAN offers the Tomcat HX S8040and Tomcat CX S8047 server motherboards, ideal for constructing video streaming and content distribution network (CDN) appliances.
Accessibility, affordability and energy efficiencyWith integrated standard-based manageability and essential security features, TYAN's AMD EPYC 4004 CPU-based solutionseffectively reduce operating costs during business hours while seamlessly addressing the 24/7 demands of hosted service providers. The Tomcat CX S8016, a compact and cost-effective motherboard supporting AMD EPYC 4004 series processors in micro ATX form factor, serves as the foundation for two server platforms. The Transport CX HG68-B8016, a 6U 5-node platform, is designed to meet the hosting demands of cloud gaming. Each server node has the capacity to accommodate a dual-slot high-performance gaming GPU card along with two extra PCIe slots for network connections. Conversely, the Transport CX GX40-B8016, a 1U server equipped with up to 4 internal SATA drives and one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot via riser, is optimized to efficiently fulfill the cost-effective computing needs of both data centers and cloud-edge applications.
About TYANTYAN, as a leading server brand of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation under the MiTAC Holdings Corp. (TSE:3706), designs, manufactures and markets advanced x86 and x86-64 server/workstation board technology, platforms and server solution products. Its products are sold to OEMs, VARs, System Integrators and Resellers worldwide for a wide range of applications. TYAN enables its customers to be technology leaders by providing scalable, highly-integrated, and reliable products for a wide range of applications such as server appliances and solutions for HPC, hyper-scale/data center, server storage, AI and security appliance markets. For more information, please visit TYAN's website at http://www.tyan.com or MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation website at http://www.mitacmct.com
AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, EPYC, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
SOURCE MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation
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TYAN Presents AMD EPYC Server Platforms Optimized for Data Center Compute Performance and Large-Scale AI ... - PR Newswire
HPE takes $4.5bn in enterprise IT AI server orders – ComputerWeekly.com
Growth in the take-up of artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems was among the big wins for HPE as it announced its second-quarter financial results.
The company posted Q2 revenue of $7.2bn, up 3%.
New AI servers are being delivered in as little as six weeks after the company fixes supply chain issues.
In a blog discussing the results, CEO Antonio Neri spoke about the growth of AI, particularly among HPEs enterprise customers. Demand for HPEs AI offerings is accelerating at a faster pace, and our solid execution enabled us to more than double our AI systems revenue sequentially to more than $900m, helped by supply chain conversion through improved GPU [graphics processing unit] availability, he said.
Neri added that HPEs AI business doubled from the prior quarter, driven by a strong order book and better conversion from its supply chain.
We tripled the number of enterprise AI customers year-over-year, now representing more than 15% of our $4.6bn of cumulative AI orders, he said.
In the blog,Neri spoke about HPEs leadership in water cooling technology for AI servers, and its strengths in green IT. HPE now has four of the top 10 worlds fastest supercomputers, all of which are direct liquid-cooled, he said. I am also proud that we have built seven of the worlds top 10 energy-efficient systems.
In terms of water cooling technology, he said the liquid cooling capabilities of its AI servers has resulted in more than 300 HPE patents.
The company also experienced strong demand for its GreenLake offerings, which posted an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of over $1.5bn.
AI was the fastest growth component of ARR this quarter, while storage and networking typically the fastest growth elements of ARR both retained robust growth rates, said Neri.
During the earnings call, he was asked about enterprise adoption of HPEs AI servers. According to the transcript, posted on Seeking Alpha, enterprise customers interest in HPEs AI capabilities is accelerating. As these engagements continue to progress from the exploration and discovery phase, we anticipate additional acceleration in enterprise AI systems orders through the end of the fiscal year, said Neri.
Supply chain constraints due to demand for GPUs has curtailed many IT leaders ambitions to build out their enterprise AI strategy.
Neri also spoke about better lead times on the supply of AI servers. We feel pretty good about the ability to deliver systems [within] six to 12 weeks, he said.
Chief financial officer Marie Myers added: For servers, we expect improving GPU supply for AI systems and improving demand for traditional servers to drive sequential revenue increases through fiscal year 2024.
In the blog, Neri said that along with the AI growth opportunity, HPE was also seeing indications of market recovery in the traditional and cloud infrastructure markets. Orders for traditional servers grew sequentially and year-over-year, driven by enterprise, public sector, and SMB customers in North America and Europe and revenue grew sequentially as customers transition to HPE ProLiant Gen 11 servers, he said.
Its GreenLake offering has also benefited from the AI uptake among HPE enterprise IT customers. The company recently introduced HPE GreenLake for File Storage capabilities, which Neri said had options specifically targeting the unstructured data demands of AI.
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HPE takes $4.5bn in enterprise IT AI server orders - ComputerWeekly.com
MSI New Server Platforms Drive Cloud-Scale Efficiency with Intel Xeon 6 Processor – PR Newswire UK
TAIPEI, June 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- MSI, a leading global server provider, today introduced its latest Intel Xeon 6 processor-based server platforms at Computex 2024, booth #M0806 in Taipei, Taiwan from June 4-7. These new products showcase a new level of performance and efficiency, tailored to meet the diverse demands of cloud-native and hyperscale workloads.
"Data center infrastructure requirements are diversifying, with certain workloads requiring performance measures beyond just cores and watts," said Danny Hsu, General Manager of Enterprise Platform Solutions. "To better cater to today's evolving compute demands, data centers must achieve consistent performance even during peak loads. MSI's new server platforms, built around Intel Xeon 6 processor, drive density and power efficiency, making them ideal for cloud-scale workloads."
"Intel Xeon 6 processors are designed to deliver high performance for the widest range of workloads. With high core density and exceptional performance per watt, servers featuring our new processors offer improved performance per watt and TCO for targeted workloads, helping data centers achieve higher throughput for workloads where power, space, and cooling are limited," said Ryan Tabrah, Vice President, and General Manager of Intel Xeon E-Core products, at Intel.
Catering to cloud service providers, MSI has introduced three server platforms powered by Intel Xeon 6. These platforms, the CX170-S5062 and CX270-S5062, share the same DC-MHS form factor motherboard with a DC-SCM2 module. They support dual-socket processors, 32 DDR5-DIMM slots, and one PCIe 5.0 x16 OCP NIC 3.0 mezzanine slot.
The 1U CX170-S5062 platform accommodates two PCIe 5.0 expansion slots and offers options of eight or twelve 2.5-inch PCIe 5.0 U.2 NVMe drive bays. The CX270-S5062 is a 2U platform that supports up to six PCIe 5.0 expansion slots, with two double-wide slots for GPU cards. This system can house up to 24 2.5-inch PCIe 5.0 U.2 NVMe drive bays to accelerate processing speeds and deliver top-tier performance across applications, such as AI inferencing.
Additionally, the CX271-S3066 is a 2U single-socket mainstream server that provides up to 24 2.5-inch U.2 NVMe drive bays. The system supports 16 DDR5 DIMM slots, three PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, two OCP NIC 3.0 mezzanine slots, and two NVMe M.2 ports. The CX271-S3066 serves as an ideal platform for flash storage applications and general-purpose workloads. These new systems all feature support for the DC-SCM2 Server Management Module with Aspeed AST2600 BMC, ensuring server management flexibility.
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MSI New Server Platforms Drive Cloud-Scale Efficiency with Intel Xeon 6 Processor - PR Newswire UK
HPE’s GreenLake enhances data storage across the cloud and on-premises servers – SiliconANGLE News
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. is enhancing its GreenLake platform with a host of new and expanded features that aim to simplify how users manage and optimize data, storage and workloads across their on-premises and cloud-based information technology environments.
The new offerings include HPE GreenLake Block Storage capabilities for the Amazon Web Services cloud, a new release of HPE GreenLake for Block Storage that comes with some significant performance improvements, and a HPE Timeless Program that provides greater protections to customers using the HPE Alletra MP block storage service.
Todays updates build on last years launch of what HPE says is the industrys first modular scale-out block storage system on a single operating system. That system is based on the HPE Alletra Storage platform that the company introduced three years ago with the aim of delivering on-premises storage with cloudlike management.
With HPE GreenLake Block Storage for AWS, set to launch later this month, the company says, its trying to simplify data management and workload placement on the AWS cloud through the use of software-defined storage. The new offering is said to provide a seamless, unified storage management experience for hybrid cloud environments, with enterprises free to manage, protect and move data, workloads and backups across their on-premises and AWS servers, together with more cost-effective data protection and disaster recovery services.
The underlying HPE Alletra MP platform is also being updated, with new cross-stack analytics capabilities that are said to streamline storage management and help customers to avoid latency issues that might impact workload performance. The new offering combines full-stack correlation of resources with the HPE AIOps engine for workload management and observability to help users observe, predict and mitigate possible disruptions across their virtual machines, compute, cloud, storage and network infrastructure. It also enables customers to keep tabs on energy consumption and carbon emissions.
In terms of performance, HPE Alletra MP can now scale to up to 5.6 petabytes with support for up to 16 JBOF expansion shelves, double the previously available capacity. New advanced built-in global protection supports three-site replication for enhanced data protection. In addition, the platform is now integrated with the Zerto Cyber Resilience Vault, giving customers a way to create secure, immutable copies of their data and perform air-gapped recovery in the event of a cyberattack or other kind of disaster.
Steve McDowell of NAND Research Inc. said the two things that stand out in HPEs updated Alletra MP offering are the performance and capacity upgrades, with the former resulting from a recent hardware switch that saw the company embrace the latest generation EPYC processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. By becoming the first mainstream storage company to ship a product thats built around an AMD processor, HPE gets to take advantage of the PCIe Gen5 technology integrated with that chip.
The industry has seen a flurry of performance-focused upgrades resulting from PCIe Gen5, because the boost is substantial, especially for high-performance workloads such as AI, McDowell said. HPE is delivering the platform upgrade right on time and staying competitive with the rest of the market.
The improved density offered by Alletra is also extremely timely, the analyst said, as enterprises are demanding higher capacity systems. HPE delivers this with high-capacity SSDs and support for additional expansion shelves, McDowell explained. These new capacities are really nice, giving headroom to enterprises that want to build a data lakehouse that coalesces data into a single storage solution. It gives users a nice set of scalability options, supporting both scale-up and scale-out.
The HPE Timeless Program, set to launch in the third quarter, is meant to transform the storage ownership experience for companies by adding investment protection and a more streamlined infrastructure lifecycle path, the company said. Customers that use HPE Alletra MPs block storage will qualify for an upgrade to a next-generation controller whenever they renew their subscriptions, according to HPE. In addition, the program is said to deliver significant savings of approximately 30% on the total cost of ownership for storage, which is achieved by avoiding major major forklift upgrades.
Finally, HPE said its adding new private cloud solutions with the availability of HPE Alletra Storage MP and HPE SimpliVity Gen11 within the HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Business Edition, which is an agile, self-service private cloud offering thats said to simplify VM management across environments. The company said support for HPE Alletra MP will enable mission-critical VM workloads with midrange economics and a 100% data availability guarantee. HPE SimpliVity Gen11 provides access to HPE ProLiant Gen11 nodes to support VMs at the network edge. Both offerings are set to launch in July.
McDowell said todays announcements help HPE to stay current, or perhaps even a little ahead of its main rivals in the storage industry. This is a welcome return to form for HPE, as its momentum in the storage world seemed to slow down ahead of launching the Alletra portfolio last spring, he said. Now HPE is back and the competition should start taking it seriously.
HPE Storage Senior Vice President and General Manager Jim ODorisio said todays update provide enterprises with a transformative platform-based approach to hybrid IT management and data storage. With our innovations across HPE Alletra and HPE GreenLake, we continue to set the standard for simpler, more cost-effective IT and storage management, he said.
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HPE's GreenLake enhances data storage across the cloud and on-premises servers - SiliconANGLE News
Benchmarking The First RISC-V Cloud Server: Scaleway EM-RV1 Performance – Phoronix
Scaleway by way of their Scaleway Labs group recently launched the Elastic Metal RV1 (EM-RV1) as the world's first RISC-V servers available in the cloud. These RISC-V cloud servers are built around the T-Head 1520 SoC and are an interesting way to explore the RISC-V architecture and/or otherwise make use of RISC-V for CI/CD deployments or other testing purposes. In this article are some benchmarks showing the RISC-V EM-RV1 performance against Intel and AMD x86_64 Linux.
Before getting too excited over RISC-V cloud servers, it's important to first take note of the specs: the T-Head 1520 SoC used provides 4 RISC-V 64-bit cores at 1.85GHz. This is just a basic quad-core RISC-V entry level server plus the storage provided is just 128GB of eMMC storage along with 100 Mbit/s Ethernet. This is sufficient for "kicking the tires" of RISC-V in the cloud and doing any basic build testing or similar RISC-V CI/CD exposure but this isn't some high performance server. The four C920 RISC-V cores and 128GB of eMMC storage is paired with 16GB of system memory to provide for a healthy 4GB of RAM per core.
Scaleway Labs on the Elastic Metal RV1 page notes that the EM-RV1 servers are very power efficient at 0.96~1.9W per core at the 1.8GHz clock frequency. In addition to being very power efficient, they are very dense with Scaleway packing 672 servers into a single 52U rack.
Thanks in part to the energy efficiency and allowing very dense deployments, the EM-RV1 access is very cheap: 0.042/Hour(s) (just $0.045 USD) at a hourly rate or 15.99 per month ($17.31 monthly). The very affordable pricing helps to make up for the low RISC-V specs/performance out of this first RISC-V cloud server.
For this testing Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on RISC-V was used along with Ubuntu 24.04 on the AMD and Intel instances tested.
To get an idea for the EM-RV1 RISC-V performance I ran some benchmarks on it compared to the EM-A210R-HDD and EM-A315X-SSD Elastic Metal instances also available in the Scaleway cloud. The EM-A210R-HDD provides an AMD Ryzen PRO 3600 (6 core / 12 thread) processor, 16GB of RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and HDD storage while costing 0.122 ($0.13) per hour. The EM-A315X-SSD instance provides a 4-core / 8-thread Intel Xeon E5 1410 v2 processor with 64GB of RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and SSD storage for 0.153 ($0.17) per hour. Keep in mind these aren't even current-generation Intel and AMD processors but rather Zen 2 and Ivy Bridge era hardware... All of these Scaleway instances were benchmarked on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS in the default configuration.
Page 1 - Introduction Page 2 - RISC-V Cloud Benchmarks Page 3 - RISC-V Cloud Benchmarks Page 4 - RISC-V Cloud Benchmarks
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Benchmarking The First RISC-V Cloud Server: Scaleway EM-RV1 Performance - Phoronix
Cloud Technology Opportunities and Challenges for Security Integrators – Security Sales & Integration
Theres still resistance among end users to turning over data, but security integrators are having more success with cloud-based installs.
Its never easy to give up control, especially when youre talking about turning over proprietary data about your company, business or home to a third party. Even so, security systems integrators are starting to have more success in getting their clients to transition to cloud-based access control and video surveillance services, whether that means through an on-premise, offsite or hybrid offering that streamline operations and increase recurring revenues.
Integrators are making inroads on selling cloud-based security services to their clients, but they know there are still opportunities to grow that sector of their business, whether that means requiring a service contract for all installations or convincing a long-time customer to modernize their systems.
As cloud-based security systems become more robust, integrators expect their customers will become even more willing to jump into the 21st century, head to cloud and let the experts manage their precious security data, in the hopes there will never be an incident they need to review.
GC & E Systems Group, a 22-year-old systems integration firm focused on government, Fortune 1,000 and education customers, has had hosted data center servers for about 12 or 13 years with many of its customers, its director of commercial business, Rob Hile, says. In that setup, the server infrastructure is in the customers data center, which they consider to be their internal cloud, he says.
Montral, Qubec, Canada-based Infynia transitioned from an IT company when it was founded in 1983 to physical security about 20 years later, its president, Alexandre Reid, says. The company works mainly at oil and gas facilities and industrial sites, with most of its customers in Canada and some in the U.S., he says.
Cloud-based security technology represents a small part of Infynias business at this point, says Reid, because industrial clients [are] not quite there yet, says Reid, but were starting to see a change.
People are seeing that youre starting to use cloud solutions for their for their operations, so theyre more open to it, he says. Having a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering from Genetec on the market could help Infynias quest to increase its penetration into cloud-based installations, says Reid.
We were kind of missing that in the past, he says. Now, were leading with cloud when we do a pitch, so were getting more traction than we used to in the past. Were seeing more opening, but theres still some resistance from our client base.
Infynia has been able to show that the cloud-based security integration will be separate from the customer network, which has helped to thaw the resistance from mining companies and other large operations with which they work, says Roger Nepton, director of service and customer success.
One customer dipped their toes in the cloud waters with a license plate reader hosted on a cloud server that does analytics, he says.
The gold mines and diamond companies dont want their video going anywhere other than where they are, so thats a little bit more resistance, says Nepton. But the car dealerships that we have connected to video centers who monitor these after hours, [those] might be easier to go in the cloud.
Salt Lake City-based Stone Security has offered cloud security options to its global, regional and local customers in almost every U.S. state and dozens countries for more than seven years, president and CTO Aaron Simpson says. The company started in 2005.
We got in with some larger global customers, probably much earlier than we had any business doing, says Simpson. Weve grown out of there and started doing work all over the world early on, following customers around the world to help support them.
The company has eight offices across the U.S., two in Mexico (Mexico City and Monterrey) and one in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It focuses more on security solutions than particular vertical markets, says Simpson.
Were always a little hesitant to offer it before its ready, he says. Just because someone has a cloud offering, that doesnt make it ready for the market, so we want to make sure that whats delivered to our customers is good.
In hybrid cloud models, customers handle their infrastructure, and their data centers are on blade servers. Thus, all their facilities are linked to their data center, using the internet, with either the integrator or customer supporting that server infrastructure directly, says Hile. Its different than the traditional Azure or AWS environments that are considered a more traditional cloud offering.
A lot of our customers tend to be very large enterprise customers and theyre very comfortable with that environment being in their data center and their cloud, he says. But weve had a couple over the last five years that have completely taken that environment and put it into what I would consider traditional cloud where Azure or AWS is managing that infrastructure for them. Its partitioned off and we support those virtual servers directly.
Hile continues, As you see more and more IT groups managing the security infrastructure, and in some cases that the whole physical security team now reports up to the CIO or CISO, those guys seem to have a more of an understanding of cloud and I think the biggest challenge on our physical security side is, when you look at AI and you look at some of the advanced analytics that are happening at the edge, to take all of that and really move it into the cloud. He adds, Thats a heavy lift.
Hile says, Youre not just at that point in time passing data packets; youre talking about video. Youre talking about high-frame-rate video. Youre talking about analytics that are being pushed up. I think whats holding the market back a little bit right now and why were still really stuck in what I consider to be a hybrid model is a lot of the power thats being generated at the camera from an advanced analytics and AI standpoint. You just cant take that and transmit it into the cloud easily and readily.
The other thing thats kind of holding us back a little bit, Hile continues, is a lot of the feature sets that are involved in what I would consider to be large enterprise video deployments or even large access control deployments such as intrusion detection, such as intercoms, such as these third-party systems that are by design integrations at the at the prem level. Those have not really moved to the cloud yet.
Traditionally, I can get your access control events to go to the cloud. I can get your basic video to go to the cloud. But when you start layering on the AI and the advanced analytics and third-party plugins and integrations. Thats not ready yet, he says.
So, were not kind of ready for prime time from the large enterprise standpoint to take everything to the cloud yet, says Hile. Were getting close. The beauty about the cloud is, as those integrations come on board, and theyre able to develop them, theyre automatically, seamlessly put into your cloud environment. You dont have to do plugins. You dont have to do firmware updates.
Hile expects large enterprise customers to be ready to jump in on cloud-based security installations in about a year when these hurdles are cleared.
Customers do their own cost/benefit analysis when it comes to going to a cloud deployment, and, sometimes, they have too many doors to manage or cameras to oversee to find value in having an integrator take on the entire security network, according to Reid.
If youve got four doors, its a no-brainer; you go cloud, he says. But lets say you get to 1,620 doors. The more doors you add, at a certain point, you look at the yearly cost and it adds up. Large customers are more likely to update their servers every four or five years and save money that way, says Reid.
In Canada, Law 25 cracks down on sharing peoples personal data. So, thats a big issue for us, says Reid. Customers want to know if their data will be stored in the U.S. or Canada, and who will have access to it, he says.
Nepton expects customers to embrace the idea of unifying access control and video surveillance in cloud-based installations.
We can pitch that a little bit easier to the customer, he says. They do like the fact that they dont have to maintain it themselves or buy the computer hardware. Having this hosted in the cloud removes a lot on the infrastructure side, and thats where for our smaller customers, it seems like its a good selling point.
Many of Stone Securitys larger customers would rather keep their security operations on premise rather than have it managed in the cloud, says Simpson.
We have customers that have big campuses where an on-prem makes more sense for them and thats the route they want to go, he says. But then, as we move into their remote sites, they want to go cloud out there. Its been interesting to watch how people deploy their networks as more things move to the cloud.
Theyre used to having cloud on every other system: all their mail servers and everything else moves to the cloud. Weve always been surprised that video seems to have a little more push or traction than access control just due to the bandwidth requirements between the two, says Simpson.
There are those customers that have very specific requirements as far as their data protection and privacy, but most other industries have a way of having a level of confidence around the data and the security behind the data, he says.
If anything, I think, often, it allows them to outsource their data security fears to someone else so that its not on them. Its on the other people to make sure theyre compliant, says Simpson. Overall, I think most people have been prepped by other industries that, when we come along and talk cloud, as long as they can check that box, as long as their providers are meeting those high levels of security, then theyre comfortable with that.
As advanced as the cloud-based security market is today, Hile sees plenty of room for growth.
I think [whats lacking right now] really is the ability of advanced integrations being seamlessly put into the cloud, he says. I have customers that have multiple levels of integration at the prem level and Im talking about IT systems, IT subsystems, security subsystems, intrusion subsystems intercom and the advanced analytics that are starting to hit these cameras, not just motion detection.
Hile continues, Were way above that. Were talking about gunshot detection. Were talking about people counting. Were talking about hotspots for crowds, where theyre going. Thats pretty heavy, and its pretty heavy at the camera level.
The good news is the cameras are processing that and, if you got an on-prem system, theres no issue with that bandwidth because youre literally talking, but when you start taking that and putting it into a cloud infrastructure, the bandwidth required for that to be seamless is really heavy and a lot of customers arent going to pay for that pipe yet, he says.
Reid can already feel the change in the cloud-based security sector becoming more sophisticated.
In the next two years, I believe that most of the new projects were going to do, or quote, are going to be cloud, Reid says. And I dont know when, but, at a certain point, I feel manufacturers are going to no longer sell on-premise systems. Theyre going to do all-cloud. Its not if, its when. Its going to be only cloud in, lets say, five to 10 years.
To Simpson, the adoption rate for cloud-based security solutions is surprisingly low.
I think all of our customers know that they have that option, he says. They dont want to feel that theyre pigeon-holing to one solution. They want to know that they can grow. I think most do expect that over time they will move into a cloud solution.
[There are] just things you cant do on a cloud system yet when it comes to more advanced, or you get into these operations centers or these high-bandwidth solutions that even the ISPs arent necessarily there. We still have people on relatively low bandwidth with low-bandwidth ISPs, so to push video out to true cloud is not possible. Access control and some of the other ones are more or more doable, says Simpson.
Its getting there, he says. I think were in a good spot now where the cloud offerings do have a lot of the necessary capabilities. Theyre checking all the right boxes now to where we can deliver some pretty high-level cloud solutions. Between that and being able to leverage what is needed and truly integrated on prem versus and in conjunction with cloud, we can usually deliver a high-level product.
Simpson continues, I have to think within the next five years, the infrastructure the bandwidth available would be at a point where we wouldnt have any limitation. I would certainly hope within the next five years, we wouldnt be limited by infrastructure or cloud capabilities.
The hybrid approach does seem to be something that really resonates with a lot of customers, he says. They may not be ready today to make the move. They may not have the policies in place. So, as integrators, it is our job to be integrators. We cant call ourselves that and then not have the ability to pull things together to have these siloed systems that sit out there and [merely] do what they were designed to do out of the box.
I think were in a good spot, Simpson adds. Were moving. Were making progress. Id like to see a big jump ahead by the access control space. I feel like thats one where weve got it up in the cloud and that we can do well, but they really havent changed much in a long time. We still have cards on your readers on walls and status switches and red Xs and there are some ways to modernize that a bit.
At ISC West 2024, held in Las Vegas this past April, virtually every booth had AI on it or cloud on it, says Hile.
The customers that are there are getting educated very quickly, but theres still a lot of smoke and mirrors, he says. Theyre seeing things that arent really ready for prime time and the flipside of that is the market is educating them quickly.
Hile continues, Were doing a good job of educating them and theyre doing a good job evangelizing the cloud but theyre also doing a good job in particular of cautioning the end user on cloud deployments and whats real and whats not real and whats ready today and whats not ready today. Thats probably our biggest challenge today.
These companies, these very large technology providers that know the cloud is the future, are building a migration path, he says. If a customer just throws everything in the cloud today, theyre going to hate it. Its not going to work for them like you did on their prem systems. Building that migration path is going to be key for them and thats what these guys are doing. Theyre starting to go in. Lets crawl before we walk and walk before we run.
It takes a different skill set to sell physical security solutions and cloud security systems, says Hile.
When you talk about an on-prem system, youre talking about sizing the server accordingly, making sure that the server has enough horsepower for the analytics and the cameras, making sure everything is on prem, he says, including on-premise licenses, related services, service agreements and programming.
When you look at the cloud and you look at a cloud deployment, you kind of take that whole model and you turn it on its head, says Hile. The server infrastructure is infinitely scalable. You dont have a prem server, so you dont have to have rack space. You dont have to have a lot of this stuff that we have to design into the premise-based system.
According to Hile, The licensing is different. It is a license, but its a license thats all-encompassing. You dont have the camera or door license and you dont have the services that go along with that. And you dont have the firmware updates that you have to do on a regular basis. All of that is handled in the cloud.
Theres a lot of that stuff that goes out of our estimate and really goes into the value proposition for the customer in terms of how thats going to be, says Hile. Youre talking about a capital expense versus an operational one. These cloud-based systems are going to be a license every year and it includes everything firmware software, the camera connection or the door connection, pretty much everything.
He calls cloud-based installations perpetual systems.
You can grow them, you can expand them and the only thing you really have to be concerned about and that aspect is as long as the server scalable, and since its in the cloud, you can just easily turn it up, says Hile. You dont have to go back.
Its more challenging to convince customers to buy cloud security platforms, says Reid.
Selling a camera and an access controller, youre not really selling because the customer needs that, he says. Where you have to sell is when you sell the solution of, Are you going be on-prem or are you going to be cloud?
Theyve got to be able to explain to the customer how its going to create value for them to have a cloud system: no maintenance, no downtime, etc. But theyve got to have a better understanding of how they explain the value added of having a cloud system. Youve got to be less technical maybe be more operational and try to reach the person youre talking to to explain to them, says Reid.
Infynias sales support team does the quotes, the solutions, and the salespeople sell both physical security and cloud-based solutions, says Reid.
Theyll always pitch the cloud first, he says.
The Stone Security sales team is comfortable selling both physical and cloud security, even as the company has grown to about 200 employees across the U.S., says Simpson.
Its one product, one family of products, he says. Theyre not offering four or five or six different brands as they go out there, so theyre very well-educated in it. Its really been part of our success is having people that are experts when they go and sit down with customer.
Most security integrators do work for customers who are reacting to a situation perpetrated against them and there doesnt seem to be much difference on whether theyre seeking physical security systems or cloud-based solutions.
Weve been designing prem-based systems for 10, 15 years that phone home when theres an issue, says Hile. Thats not only at the technology level, whether that be the VMS or the access control. We dont do a lot of systems that arent unified. So, those access control and CCTV systems are really tied together and even down to the power supplies.
We use power supplies that are IP-enabled, Hile explains. So, if theres an issue with the power supply, its calling us; its sending email to our service desks. Thats really not going to change in where were going as a cloud. Were still going to have premise-based power supplies. Youre still going to have premise-based controllers in some aspects, and those will still phone home if theres an issue.
Hile sees cloud becoming more popular for the management of security and other systems, where the directory server will be in the cloud.
Theyll just email us, just like we have before. So, its really not a big difference for us, he says. Our service desk will still get those alarms a lot of times before the customer even knows that theres an issue. We fixed it already. I think the cloud may help us a little bit in being able to repair some of those issues virtually than having to roll a truck.
According to Hile, We may be able to do more things thats yet to be seen as we start getting more and more into the cloud and some of these larger manufacturers roll out what I consider to be security services, security as a service, if you will. I think thatll help us. I think theres going to be some things we can do virtually that we cant do today. But for the most part were already there. Were getting that notice before it becomes an issue.
Infynia does monthly checkups with its 300 or so customers, says Nepton.
Most of the customer systems are connected to an internal in-house system so, if a server goes down or they lose some equipment, we do get notified, he says. We do have all that in place with our own procedure. And Id say, in the past, not having the real offering we have now, some of the customers bought the on-premise system but hosted it in their own cloud.
Hile sees large enterprises as the segment of the market that can most benefit from cloud-based solutions since the small- and mid-sized businesses have largely been saturated at this point.
Were just starting to stick our toe in the water, so theres a lot of opportunity for further development, he says. Also, I dont want this to come out the wrong way, but much like when we heard about this whole convergence of IT and physical security, I think were seeing that right now with cloud and AI. Theres a lot of people that are talking cloud and AI that dont have a clue what it means.
Hile continues, Theyre just talking about it because its a great marketing buzzword and its the thing to talk about but, when you get down, you look under the hood, its no different than what we already have. I think, from a large business standpoint and a lot of the large enterprise customers, were going to see a big shift in technology being developed for that for that space in the next three to five years.
Then weve got customers today that dont even talk about it, like, I want my video in my closet, I want it locked up. I dont want to listen to anybody, he says. Theres still that Big Brother outlook. Theres going to be those guys that are going to hold out, and theyre OK because theres a position for prem and cloud in this market, and I dont think prem will ever go away.
Infynia has required all customers to sign service agreements when they get integrated systems for the past four years, says Reid.
We dont do break and fix, he says. So, were already in that mode where customer already have a support agreement or theres a base fee, so thats not going to be a big change for us, because they already pay yearly to do business with us.
According to Reid, Its going to maybe be easier to secure the relationship with the customer having a cloud solution, because now they have to keep their service agreement up to date if they want to keep access.
Manufacturers have gone from putting their on-premise systems on the cloud to adding value to their cloud systems with new features that arent available in on-prem offerings, says Nepton.
Now you go into a demo saying you integrated ChatGPT with true text search, where you type in look for blue cars at a stop sign with people in white shirts, and the analytics can go out and do it, he says. Those little nuggets are what captivate some customers and get his interest. Its not the reason he should be going to the cloud, but those little features help sell it and want him to.
Having a steady stream of cash coming in thanks to cloud-based security installations is massively helpful, says Simpson, noting the company used to work in the residential intrusion space and saw the benefits of recurring revenue in that model too.
Youve got to really tool your business to provide that level of support as well, he says. If youre just collecting those checks and not providing the value outside of just a monthly subscription to a cloud service, then I dont know that benefits anybody.
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Cloud Technology Opportunities and Challenges for Security Integrators - Security Sales & Integration