Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting provider Vultr has expanded its portfolio of cloud infrastructure with an new range of high-performance virtual machine instances, including its first products based on AMD Epyc processors, all with NVMe SSD storage.

Vultr, which has data centers across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, said it was aiming to appeal to cloud customers looking for an alternative to the big platforms. This may be particularly relevant given Googles recent price changes that may see customers paying more for the same services.

The firm's compute platform now features three discrete product lines: Optimized Cloud Compute, Cloud Compute, and Bare Metal. Optimized Cloud Compute is entirely new, while the Cloud Compute lineup is refreshed with this launch.

Vultr said that the Optimized Cloud Compute instances offer dedicated vCPUs, which means that user application performance is not affected by the "noisy neighbour" problem of another user consuming all the resources.

Optimized Cloud Compute VMs start at $28 per month, and are described as elastically scalable. Cloud Compute VMs start at $5 per month, because they run on shared vCPUs. Bare Metal instances start at $120 per month, and provide dedicated physical CPUs.

According to Vultr, the addition of instances powered by 3rd Generation AMD Epyc processors marks the first time it has offered AMD-powered virtual machines. Because of their high per-core performance and maximum frequency of 3.675GHz, the new Epyc-based VMs have now become Vultr's recommended option for most users.

JJ Kardwell, CEO of Vultr's parent company Constant, said in a statement that AMD's efforts with the design, architecture, and performance of its CPUs had helped Vultr to implement an alternative to solutions like AWS EC2.

"This launch represents a big step in helping businesses and developers transition from the Big Tech clouds to our easy-to-use, affordable platform," he claimed.

Optimized Cloud Compute instances are offered in a number of tailored options; General Purpose, CPU Optimized, Memory Optimized and Storage Optimized.

According to Vultr, the General Purpose VMs provide typical balance of CPU, RAM, and NVMe SSD storage, while the CPU Optimized VMs provide proportionally more CPU, as their name suggests, for workloads like video encoding, high performance computing (HPC), and analytics processing.

In the same vein, the Memory Optimized instances are for memory bound applications, providing more RAM for applications such as databases, in-memory databases and caching. The Storage Optimized VMs provide generous proportions of NVMe SSD storage and target use cases such as large non-relational databases like MongoDB, and high frequency online transaction processing (OLTP).

Vultr said that it aims to provide users with a simple interface, plus predictable and transparent pricing, with the performance and enterprise features of bigger players. In the last year, Vultr added VPC Peering and Direct Connect features to make it a more attractive option for enterprise customers.

More here:
Vultr aims at the big clouds with new virtual machines - The Register

Amazon Web Services has built a commanding lead in the cloud computing market by listening to what services and features its customers want and then delivering them. But some application developers believe AWS, in its relentless pursuit of Fortune 500 customers to fuel revenue growth, has become more aligned with corporate IT departments than with the coders who initially propelled its rise starting more than 15 years ago.

This has prompted several former AWS employees, as well as those from other cloud giants like Microsoft and Google, to launch and join startups selling software that makes AWS easier to use for individual app developers. The startups provide back-end services, such as spinning up the cloud servers and databases that power websites or automating the creation of the application programming interfaces that let apps share data. Despite representing a much larger pool of corporate spending, these businesses have received less venture capital in recent years than those developing front-end tools for designing the look and feel of applications and websites.

Read more from the original source:
Five Cloud Startups Going After AWS' Blind Spots - The Information

"The modern data center requires a powerful foundation to balance compute, storage, memory and IO that can efficiently manage growing volumes in the digital transformation trend," said Danny Hsu, Vice President of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation's Server Infrastructure Business Unit. "TYAN's industry-leading server platforms powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processorswith AMD 3D V-Cache technology give our customers better energy efficiency and increased performance for a current and future of highly complex workloads."

"3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology continue to drive a new standard for the modern data center with breakthrough performance for technical computing workloads due to 768 MB of L3 cache, enabling faster time-to-results on targeted workloads. Fully socket compatible with our 3rd Gen AMD EPYC platforms, customers can adopt these processors to transform their data center operations to achieve faster product development along with exceptional energy savings," said Ram Peddibhotla, corporate vice president, EPYC product management, AMD.

Optimized for technical computing workloads to boost performance

Leveraging breakthrough performance of 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology, the TYAN Transport HX product line is built to optimize workloads like EDA, CFD, and FEA software and solutions. The Transport HX FT65T-B8030is a 4U pedestal server platform featuring a single processor, eight DDR4-3200 DIMM slots, eight 3.5-inch SATA, and two NVMe U.2 hot-swap, tool-less drive bays. The FT65T-B8030 supports four double-wide PCIe 4.0 x16 slots for professional GPUs to accelerate HPC applications.

The Transport HX TN83-B8251is a 2U dual-socket server platform with eight 3.5-inch hot-swap SATA or NVMe U.2 tool-less drive bays. The platform supports up to four double-wide GPU cards and two additional low-profile PCIe 4.0 x16 slots that provides optimized topology to improve HPC and deep learning performance.

Optimized for HPC and virtualization applications, the Transport HX TS75-B8252and Transport HX TS75A-B8252are 2U dual-socket server platforms with support for 32 DIMM slots and two double-wide, active-cooled GPU cards. The TS75-B8252 accommodates twelve hot-swap, tool-less 3.5-inch drive bays with up to four NVMe U.2 support; TS75A-B8252 accommodates 26 hot-swap, tool-less 2.5-inch drive bays with up to eight NVMe U.2 devices.

High memory footprints, multi-node servers to power big data computing

TYAN's Transport CX lineup is designed for cloud and data analytics that require large memory capacity and fast data processing. The Transport CX GC79-B8252and Transport CX GC79A-B8252are 1U dual-socket server platforms that are ideal for high-density data center deployment with a variety of memory-based computing applications. These systems feature 32 DDR4 DIMM slots, two standard PCIe Gen.4 x16 expansion slots, and one OCP 3.0 LAN mezzanine slot. The GC79-B8252 platform offers four 3.5-inch SATA drive bays and four 2.5-inch NVMe drive bays with tool-less carriers, while the GC79A-B8252 platform offers twelve 2.5-inch drive bays with all NVMe U.2 support.

The Transport CX TN73-B8037-X4Sis a 2U multi-node server platform with four front-serviced compute nodes. Each node supports one AMD EPYC 7003 Series processor with AMD 3D V-Cache technology, four 2.5-inch tool-less NVMe/SATA drive bays, eight DDR4 DIMM slots, three internal cooling fans, two standard PCIe Gen.4 x16 expansion slots, two internal NVMe M.2 and one OCP 2.0 LAN mezzanine slot. The platform is suited for high-density data center deployments and targets scale-out applications with large numbers of nodes.

Hybrid storage servers to drive outstanding performance

TYAN Transport SX lineup is designed to deliver massive I/O and memory bandwidth for storage applications. The Transport SX TS65-B8253is a 2U hybrid software storage server for various data center and enterprise deployment featuring dual-socket CPUs, 16 DDR4 DIMM slots and seven standard PCIe 4.0 slots. The platform is equipped with up to two 10GbE and two GbE onboard network connections, twelve front 3.5-inch tool-less SATA drive bays with up to four NVMe U.2 support, and two rear 2.5-inch tool-less SATA drive bays for boot drive deployment.

TYAN's Transport SX TS65-B8036and Transport SX TS65A-B8036 are 2U single-socket storage servers with support for 16 DDR4 DIMM slots, five PCIe 4.0 and one OCP 2.0 LAN mezzanine slots. The TS65-B8036 accommodates twelve front 3.5-inch with up to four NVMe U.2 support, and two rear 2.5-inch hot-swap, tool-less SATA drive bays for boot drive deployment; theTS65A-B8036offers 26 front and two rear 2.5-inch hot-swap, tool-less drive bays for high-performance data streaming applications, the 26 front drive bays can support up to 24 NVMe U.2 devices by configuration.

AMD EPYC 7003 processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology can run on TYAN's existing AMD EPYC 7003 platforms through a BIOS update.Customers can enjoy faster time-to-results on targeted workloads powered by new AMD EPYC 7773X, 7573X, 7473X, and 7373X processors.

SOURCE MiTAC Computing - TYAN

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TYAN Drives Innovation in the Data Center with 3rd Gen AMD EPYC Processors with AMD 3D V-Cache Technology - PR Newswire

The migration of everything to the cloud and corresponding rise of cyberattacks, ransomware, identity theft and digital fraud make clear that secure access to computer systems is essential. When we talk about secure access, we tend to think about humans getting access to applications and infrastructure resources. But the real security blind spot is the computing infrastructure, i.e., the machines themselves.

The modern digital economy relies on a massive network of data centers with reportedly 100 million servers operating worldwide. These 100 million physical servers might represent nearly a billion virtual servers, each an entry point for hackers and state-sponsored bad actors. Additionally, depending on which analyst you listen to, the number of connected devices shows no signs of slowing down the installed base for the internet of things (IoT) was reportedly around 35 billion by the end of 2021, with 127 new devices hooking up to the internet every second. That is an incredible amount of machine-to-machine communication, even more so when you factor in the 24/7 demands of the connected society.

At the same time, denial of service (DoS) attacks and most hacking attempts are also automated. Human hackers write software exploits, but they rely on large fleets of compromised computers to deploy them.

In the dangerous world of cloud computing the machines are hacking into machines.

For these reasons alone, it is not hyperbole to say that machine identities and secure access has become a priority for both IT leaders and decision makers alike. In the 18 months since machine identity management made its debut on the Gartner 2020 IAM Hype Cycle, the trust that we need to have in the machines that we rely on for seamless communication and access has become a critical part of business optimization.

The fundamental reason for the increase of successful hacking attempts is explained by the fact that machine-to-machine access technology is not as advanced as its human-to-machine counterpart.

It is well accepted that reliance on perimeter network security, shared accounts, or static credentials such as passwords, are anti-patterns. Instead of relying on shared accounts, modern human-to-machine access is now performed using human identities via SSO. Instead of relying on network perimeter, a zero-trust approach is preferred.

These innovations have not yet made their way into the world of machine-to-machine communication. Machines continue to rely on the static credentials an equivalent of a password called the API key. Machines often rely on perimeter security as well, with microservices connecting to databases without encryption, authentication, authorization, or audit.

There is an emerging consensus that password-based authentication and authorization for humans is woefully inadequate to secure our critical digital infrastructure.

As a result, organizations are increasingly implementing passwordless solutions for their employees that rely on integration with SSO providers and leverage popular, secure, and widely available hardware-based solutions like Apple Touch ID and Face ID for access.

However, while they both outnumber humans and have the capacity to create more widespread damage due to scale and automation, machines are still frequently using outdated security methods like passwords to gain access to critical systems.

These methods include but are not limited to:

If passwords are insufficient to protect applications and infrastructure resources for humans, we need to acknowledge that they are even worse for machines. But what should we replace them with? Without fingertips or a face, Touch ID and Face ID are non-starters.

I believe the answer is short-lived, cryptographically secure certificates. Every machine and every microservice running on it must receive a certificate and use it to communicate with others.

A certificate is superior to other forms of authentication and authorization in multiple ways.

First, it contains metadata about the identity of its owner. This allows production machines to assume a different identity from the staging or testing fleet. A certificate allows for highly granular access, so the blast radius from a compromised microservice will be limited only to resources accessible to that microservice. Certificates also expire automatically, so the loss of a certificate will limit the exposure even further.

Certificates are not new. They adhere to the open standard called X.509 and are already widely used to protect you when you visit sites like this one. The little lock in the address bar of your browser is the result of a Certificate Authority confirming that the website is encrypting traffic and has a valid SSL/TLS certificate. The certificate prevents a phony website from impersonating a legit one. Lets Encrypt is the most popular way to generate these certificates for websites and is currently used by over 260 million websites worldwide.

We need to adopt certificates for all forms of machine-to-machine communications. Like Lets Encrypt, this system should be open-source so anyone can use it regardless of ability to pay. It should be trivial to request, distribute, and renew certificates that uniquely identify a machine.

If all machines have an identity, organizations can manage access to infrastructure with one passwordless system that treats people and machines the same way. This simplicity is not only more secure since complexity is the most common cause of insecurity, but it also dramatically simplifies implementation. For example, companies already have rules that prevent an intern from being able to access root on a production server. Now, they can have a rule that dictates that a CI/CD bot should not be able to login to a production database. Both users can be authenticated with the same technique (short-lived certificates), authorized using the same catalog of roles, and audited with the same logging and monitoring solutions.

The joy of being a human is increasingly mediated by machines. Maybe you are singing happy birthday via Zoom to a distant relative, or opening a college savings account for a grandchild. None of this is possible without a vast fleet of servers spread across the world. We all deserve to know that the machines making up this network have an identity, and that their identity is used to explicitly authorize and audit their actions. By moving machine identity out of the shadows, the world will be a safer place.

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Why machine identities matter (and how to use them) - Help Net Security