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Cloud computing spending is at a record high. But the global chip shortage could create some problems ahead – ZDNet

November 3, 2021 | Author: admin

Canalys pointed to the imminent impact on cloud adoption of the global shortage of computer chips, which has been on-going for several months.

Businesses' adoption of cloud computing services shows no sign of slowing down: according to tech analyst Canalys, the third quarter of 2021 saw worldwide spending on cloud infrastructure services reach almost $50 billion as digital transformation initiatives continue to unfold.

Cloud infrastructure services include the provision of infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service, either on a dedicated hosted private infrastructure or shared infrastructure. These servicescontinue to be in high demand this quarter, said Canalys: expenditure has grown $2.4 billion compared to the previous quarter, and almost $13 billion since the same period last year.

This is largely due to the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced organizations to adopt new digital processes in order to ensure business continuity while employees and customers were locked down in their homes.

Recent research carried out by IBM, in effect, found that the health crisisaccelerated digital transformation at 59% of organizations, with cloud computing remaining by far the biggest investment underway to enable the adoption of new processes, ranging from digitizing products and services to improving customer experience.

Cloud computing revenues, said IBM, reached $219 billion in 2020, and analysts expect the industry to further grow to $791 billion by 2028.

Despite these encouraging numbers, Canalys pointed to the imminent impact on cloud adoption of the global shortage of computer chips, which has been on-going for several months. An imbalance in supply and demand, combined with the difficulty to maintain sustainable supply chains in the context of the pandemic, have led to a worldwide shortage of semiconductors thatsome analysts predict will last well into 2022.

The shortage is having a lasting impact in industries such as electronics or automotive; but it is also affecting the supply of components that are critical to the running of data centers, such as power distribution units, automatic transfer switch units and generators.

Wiwynn, for example, a company that provides computing and storage products for cloud infrastructure,stated in its latest quarterly reportthat the second half of 2021 would come with a "severe" risk of component shortages that could cause supply constraints.

"Overall compute demand is out-growing chip manufacturing capabilities, and infrastructure expansion may become limited for the cloud service providers," said Canalys Research Analyst Blake Murray.

And on top of managing the availability of key components, continued Murray, cloud providers also have to ensure that their services are aligned with the needs of an ever-expanding, more diverse customer base.

"Besides managing supply chains to the best of their abilities, the providers building an advantage are focused on developing their go-to-market channels along with their product portfolios to catch up with an increasingly wide variety of customer use cases that has fueled demand since the start of the pandemic," added Murray.

This is why major cloud providers are now building industry-specific portfolios, and bringing services to the market that are better tailored to a variety of users' needs.

Amazon's cloud subsidiary AWS recently released AWS for Health, which provides specialized cloud services for healthcare, biopharma and genomics customers, for example to ensure cybersecurity and compliance standards. The company has secured deals in the public sector, notably toassist the UK's National Health Services (NHS)cope with heightened demand during the pandemic.

Microsoft's Azure, for its part, has released tools to assist companies with data governance. Azure Purviewlaunched earlier this year, for organizations to keep their data discoverable while also complying with data protection regulations in different jurisdictions around the world. Google Cloud similarly announced Google Distributed Cloud, which gives customers the option to extend their cloud infrastructure to the edge and customer data centers an attempt to cater for users' concerns with data sovereignty.

The cloud infrastructure services market is consolidating around the dominance of those three hyperscalers, with AWS taking the top spot. Amazon's subsidiary grew 39% this quarter and now accounts for 32% of the total cloud infrastructure services spent in Q3 2021. It is followed by Microsoft Azure, which boasts a 21% market share after having grown 50% for a fifth consecutive quarter; while Google Cloud grew even faster (54%) to now hold 8% of the market.

The huge scale of the top three cloud providers comes with benefits: their size enabled the vendors to sell infrastructure that is more resilient, and specifically built to protect workloads from failure.

But the limited number of competitors in the market also comes with risk for businesses, which might find that they are locked into the services of a single provider. The vast majority of organizations (69%), according to IBM's latest report, see vendor lock-in as a significant obstacle to improving business performance in most parts of their cloud estate.

Although the appeal and benefits of cloud computing for business are indisputable, therefore, executives need to think their digital transformation strategy through carefully. In many cases, the solution is likely to lie in a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud approach.

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Cloud computing spending is at a record high. But the global chip shortage could create some problems ahead - ZDNet

Filings buzz in the power industry: 18% increase in cloud computing mentions in Q2 of 2021 – Power Technology

November 3, 2021 | Author: admin

Mentions of cloud computing within the filings of companies in the power industry rose 18% between the first and second quarters of 2021.

In total, the frequency of sentences related to cloud computing between July 2020 and June 2021 was 80% higher than in 2016 when GlobalData, from whom our data for this article is taken, first began to track the key issues referred to in company filings.

When companies in the power industry publish annual and quarterly reports, ESG reports and other filings, GlobalData analyses the text and identifies individual sentences that relate to disruptive forces facing companies in the coming years. Cloud computing is one of these topics - companies that excel and invest in these areas are thought to be better prepared for the future business landscape and better equipped to survive unforeseen challenges.

To assess whether cloud computing is featuring more in the summaries and strategies of companies in the power industry, two measures were calculated. Firstly, we looked at the percentage of companies which have mentioned cloud computing at least once in filings during the past twelve months - this was 48% compared to 25% in 2016. Secondly, we calculated the percentage of total analysed sentences that referred to cloud computing.

Of the 50 biggest employers in the power industry, Enel SpA was the company which referred to cloud computing the most between July 2020 and June 2021. GlobalData identified 50 cloud-related sentences in the Italy-based company's filings - 0.3% of all sentences. Siemens AG mentioned cloud computing the second most - the issue was also referred to in 0.3% of sentences in the company's filings. Other top employers with high cloud mentions included Wartsila Corp, Honeywell International Inc and Dongfang Electric Corporation Ltd.

Across all companies in the power industry the filing published in the second quarter of 2021 which exhibited the greatest focus on cloud computing came from Voltronic Power Technology Corp. Of the document's 2,623 sentences, 18 (0.7%) referred to cloud computing.

This analysis provides an approximate indication of which companies are focusing on artificial intelligence and how important the issue is considered within the power industry, but it also has limitations and should be interpreted carefully. For example, a company mentioning cloud computing more regularly is not necessarily proof that they are utilising new techniques or prioritising the issue, nor does it indicate whether the company's ventures into cloud computing have been successes or failures.

GlobalData also categorises cloud computing mentions by a series of subthemes. Of these subthemes, the most commonly referred to topic in the second quarter of 2021 was 'software as a service', which made up 71% of all cloud subtheme mentions by companies in the power industry.

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Filings buzz in the power industry: 18% increase in cloud computing mentions in Q2 of 2021 - Power Technology

How to go hybrid: The right recipe for mixing on-prem and cloud computing – VentureBeat

November 3, 2021 | Author: admin

When cloud computing first became widely available, the advantages were clear: ease of use, unlimited capacity, availability, and flexible pricing. Suddenly, enterprises didnt have to worry about capacity planning or the cumbersome and expensive process of setting up data centers. Cloud vendors empowered organizations to focus on building their products and their core business instead of setting up and maintaining costly infrastructure, allowing them to scale at an unprecedented pace.

These advantages led to the rapid migration of many enterprises, startups, and new businesses, from on-premises to the cloud.

With time, however, the costs associated with relying totally on the cloud gave rise to new problems. Overprovisioning of cloud resources is one of them. Overprovisioning is a standard practice from the days of on-prem computing that has made the leap to the cloud, primarily as a result of companies employing lift and shift strategies for migrating, and it has sent cloud costs skyrocketing. As new companies got off the ground and looked to begin achieving profitability, budget-conscious executives naturally scrutinized the hefty sums devoted to cloud spending and began asking whether all that money was generating sufficient ROI.

Dropboxs decision to abandon AWS and build its own network of data centers, which famously saved the company $75 million in just two years, continues to resonate. But not every company is Dropbox, and on-prem carries its own costs and complexities.

As companies globally began to prioritize reducing infrastructure costs, many began to contemplate the advantages of the hybrid model. This approach, which relies on on-prem infrastructure and uses the cloud to scale out for peak traffic, is poised to strike the perfect balance.

Two industry trends are making this possible: managed services offerings launched by cloud vendors such as AWS Outposts, Azure Arc, and the Google Cloud Services Platform, Anthos, which allows for dynamic auto-scaling when necessary.

While it would be tempting to view this model as the best of both worlds the ability to both run off on-prem infrastructure and benefit from cloud resources and an easy decision to make, hybrid deployment comes with its own unique considerations and challenges. Here are some key points to consider before taking on a hybrid approach for your company.

Not every enterprise needs to bring its computing infrastructure in-house, but companies that have flagged cost reduction and margin growth as strategic priorities should explore doing so. Likewise, enterprises that are less concerned with their margins at the moment and aim to scale and rapidly increase their market share can comfortably stay fully in the cloud to maintain a greater degree of flexibility.

A hybrid strategy means a return to some of the complexities of on-prem infrastructure and management that enterprises left behind when they blasted off to the cloud. These challenges should by no means prevent a company from going hybrid, but they do require a carefully planned on-premises strategy. The capacity to take on that challenge may be influenced by your institutional memory for self-management. It is essential to have staff who know how to manage data centers, procure servers, and so on. Enterprises returning to on-prem after only a year or two away will be at a clear advantage they may even still own their facility. Cloud-native organizations will be starting on that journey from scratch and would benefit from bringing in people familiar with self-managed infrastructure.

A hybrid approach is all about planning for the usage threshold at which you scale your application out to the cloud. That necessitates effective capacity prediction. A general rule of thumb would be to plan your on-prem for average traffic, not peak, and scale-out to the cloud when experiencing peak traffic.

Scaling out from your metal to the cloud and back again is no mean feat from an infrastructure perspective. But it can also stress and expose aspects of your application itself. If parts of your app are simultaneously running in multiple areas, you have to ensure that your data and code base are uniform across each. To put it plainly, think about the cloud as simply an additional data center youll need to guarantee constant data updates to ensure consistency.

It may seem counterintuitive, but using the cloud on top of data centers purely to service excess demand actually comes with its own kind of hook. Instead of having the option to mix and match data center and cloud vendors, the major cloud vendors managed services solutions for running in data centers scale-out exclusively to their own clouds. The vendor choices for hybrid are just the same as choosing a pure-cloud vendor. Consider whether you can be tied to a particular API and how large the ecosystem is. Identify the specific features that are priorities for your businesses, as some are only available from certain providers.

Faster 5G speeds for consumers may reduce the need for enterprises to keep complex networks of regional services. But the value received from doing so depends on your user footprint, as well as 5Gs roll-out roadmap. In theory, if you serve customers only in the US, enhanced 5G speeds may allow you to jettison those east and west cloud regions,# and instead consolidate onto a single US data center. But a distributed customer base may still demand multi-regional power that the cloud is best positioned to provide, while 5Gs still unrealized rollout means uncertainty abounds and will for several years to come.

Over the next five years, hybrid infrastructure deployments are likely to become increasingly commonplace as many businesses reach a point at which cost-saving becomes imperative and the barriers to entry continue to break down. As cloud vendors managed-services APIs becoming more user-friendly, hybrid will emerge as a dominant go-to solution.

Asaf Ezra is CEO and Co-Founder of Granulate.

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How to go hybrid: The right recipe for mixing on-prem and cloud computing - VentureBeat

Microsoft rolls out new tech to connect its cloud to rivals – Reuters

November 3, 2021 | Author: admin

Nov 2 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) on Tuesday announced a new round of technologies aimed at making its cloud computing services work in data centers it does not own - including the cloud data centers of its rivals.

The strategy, Microsoft executives and analysts say, has been key to the company's rise in the cloud computing infrastructure market, which research firm Gartner estimates hit $64.3 billion and where Microsoft is second only to market leader Amazon.com's (AMZN.O) Amazon Web Services. Microsoft last week said revenue from Azure, its flagship cloud offering, grew 48%, results that helped it overtake Apple Inc (AAPL.O) as the world's most valuable publicly traded company.

Microsoft's strategy has involved constructing its most lucrative cloud software services, such as database tools, so that they can run inside its own data centers, those owned by customers or even those of rivals like Amazon.

Microsoft's cloud and artificial intelligence chief Scott Guthrie told Reuters that the move has persuaded some customers to use its services when they cannot always use Microsoft's data centers. Royal Bank of Canada, Guthrie said, faces legal requirements to keep some of its computing work in its own data centers and uses a technology called Azure Arc to connect those facilities to Microsoft's cloud.

"The challenge with higher-level services historically has been the concern of 'lock in' - what happens if I can only use them in your data center?" Guthrie said. "That freedom of movement causes customers to feel much more comfortable using those services."

Ed Anderson, a vice president distinguished analyst with Gartner, said the approach does open doors for Microsoft with customers, but it also forces the company to compete on the quality of its software services rather than by packaging them with cheap computing power.

"To be honest, that's a better way to compete," Anderson said. "Customers are suspicious of rhetoric. They look for evidence of capabilities and are cautious of things where in principle technology is multi-cloud but maybe the software licensing doesn't support it."

Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Cloud computing grows but agencies lacking resources, auditor general hears – The Mandarin

November 3, 2021 | Author: admin

As government agencies increase cloud computing usage in South Australia, some are claiming they dont have the resources or expertise to support the needs.

In a random review of seven government agencies, South Australias auditor generalfound most were not doing annual independent assessments of the technology, and some were failing to do risk assessments.

The review found most of the agencies planned to increase their use of cloud services in the next two years but four agencies claimed there were not enough internal resources and expertise to support current and future needs.

This is despite six of the agencies individually spending more than $1 million on cloud services annually, and some more than $8 million.

The resourcing issues included insufficient budget funding, difficulties attracting skilled ICT staff, retaining them or providing specialist training.

The report highlights risks of cloud computing including the loss of confidentiality or data leakage, accidental exposure, reliability issues, and lack of transparency from cloud providers as concerns public servants should be highly aware of when adopting a new service or change.

Agencies need to consider these risks in their initial and ongoing cloud computing risk assessments, the report says.

It found three of the seven agencies did not have a formal procedure for procuring and managing cloud computing services, and three agencies were not engaging their ICT team before procuring cloud computing services.

Three agencies said there were a small number of security incidents or disruptions to their cloud services in the past three-to-four years.

Across the seven agencies, there were 178 different cloud computing environments, and 16% of these stored data outside of Australia.

Most of the cloud models were publicly owned, and 30% were private and 8% were public-private models. The report notes most administration and management of cloud services were outsourced but security risks remained with the agency.

Auditor-general Andrew Richardson said the states approach to cloud computing could be strengthened through more collaboration and a centralised point of reporting to either the department of premier and cabinet or an inter-agency forum.

The aim would be to help agencies while they move their services to the cloud by providing guidance, risk mitigation strategies, a more consistent approach to managing cloud computing and the integration of security governance, Richardson said.

The report recommended all agencies should develop a cloud computing policy and description of their procurement and ongoing control requirements for cloud services.

Comparing clouds: which government is winning?

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Cloud computing grows but agencies lacking resources, auditor general hears - The Mandarin

Why cloud bugs don’t get CVEs, and why it’s an issue – TechTarget

November 3, 2021 | Author: admin

A key difference in the way cloud computing and on-premises security bugs are handled is creating a rift between researchers and cloud service providers.

First issued in 1999, Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) entries are public notices that are issued when a security flaw is patched or made public. The entries contain details about a vulnerability and the possible consequences of exploit, as well as the name of the researcher who is credited with the discovery.

Intended to provide administrators with the necessary information for prioritizing and deploying patches, the CVE system was devised at a time when nearly all enterprise software was running on premises.

Enter cloud services in the 2010s. As the vendors themselves remotely host and manage the applications and data, there is no need for patches to be kicked out to end users.

"Our vulnerability research ecosystem comes from a time when virtually all versions of software were packaged and delivered to customers and executed independently on potentially millions of computers, and the goal has been to have all of those individual computers running uniform code with bug fixes," Cloud Security Alliance CEO Jim Reavis told SearchSecurity.

"With cloud you have millions of customers mashing up an infinite number of internal and SaaS applications and likely introducing a massive number of unreported vulnerabilities directly through compiled code and indirectly through the use of APIs."

Because of this, the CVE Numbering Authorities (CNAs) opt not to issue security vulnerabilities on cloud services with CVE designations, due to the fact that in many cases there simply is nothing for administrators or end users to do about the problem.

"One of the biggest differences for that community is who takes action," Dustin Childs, communications director of the Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative, said in an email.

"CVEs are designed to let recipients know that they may need to take action to fix or mitigate. In the case of cloud software vulnerabilities, the user generally has no actions and couldn't take any actions if they wanted to (other than in rare cases where they can mitigate by disabling some functionality, etc.)"

While this is not an issue for most administrators and end users on its surface, the practice has caused some problems for researchers and could have an impact on user data for a number of reasons.

Recently, several infosec experts have said the lack of cloud CVEs is a detriment to enterprise security teams, users and the security research community. Concerns about the discrepancy emerged this summer following the disclosure of the "ChaosDB" bug in Azure's Cosmos DB, which was discovery by cloud security vendor Wiz.

While Microsoft publicly disclosed the ChaosDB bug along with Wiz, other cloud providers with similar critical flaws might not. Experts such as independent security research Kevin Beaumont noted on Twitter that the "massive gap in cloud security" leaves external researchers as the only reliable source of information about cloud vulnerabilities.

For many security researchers, getting credited in a CVE vulnerability report is a major positive for their careers. Having a list of CVE credits acts as a sort of resume for bug hunters, allowing them to get public recognition and as a result boost their reputation within the community and improve their chances of finding more lucrative work.

That is not to say that every person who hunts for bugs is simply seeking to gain fame and fortune, experts note.

"While some are incentivized by the award of CVEs, security researchers have differing motivations for reporting vulnerabilities," Childs said.

"Public recognition and financial compensation also provide significant incentives for those disclosing bugs to vendors."

What should be more concerning to enterprises, however, is the possibility that the lack of designation can allow companies to sit on bugs. With the cloud providers being able to sit on bugs that are not being reported by a third party, patches can potentially be put off, placing researchers in a tough position.

"Sometimes a vulnerability requires a user's action, and there is no way to discuss it," said Nir Ohfeld, a senior security researcher with Wiz.

"If there is not a name to a vulnerability, you have no way to communicate it verbally, and you don't ever know if you are exposed."

The lack of public disclosure with vulnerabilities is not unique to cloud services. For years now, on-premises software vendors have also been frustrating researchers by using various methods to delay patches or get out of public acknowledgement.

The issue has gotten so bad that some bug hunters have considered simply selling their vulnerability finds to third parties who could end up using them for zero-day attacks.

"No vendor has an obligation to disclose bug details regardless of the product or service being on prem or in the cloud," says Childs.

"However, our experience is that transparency wherever possible is best for all involved. Vendors who do not publicly disclose flaws or publicly acknowledge researchers will likely find themselves worse off than those who do."

While there remain a number of issues with the way cloud flaws are reported and disclosed, there are already efforts being made to remedy the issue, both in the form of updates to the CVE system and work on a new cloud-friendly vulnerability disclosure method called a Universal Vulnerability Identifier.

The UVI system looks to be a faster, more accessible system that would also cover the unique circumstances that open source and cloud computing services present when it comes to security flaws. During a Black Hat 2021 session, Wiz researchers also called for a new cloud CVE system.

The hope is that by reworking disclosures to better take into account the cloud compute model, vendors and researchers can both be appeased, resulting in more transparency and clarity for their admins and security professionals.

"We believe that in order to tackle this problem we need to have standards and systems that enable rapid issuance of trusted vulnerability identifiers on demand that can be expanded upon 'wiki-style' over time," Reavis explained.

"These discovered vulnerabilities will be enhanced with richer information as we learn more, cross-referenced with other vulnerabilities, even linked to actual CVEs or proprietary vulnerability databases."

SearchSecurity writer Alexander Culafi contributed to this story.

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Why cloud bugs don't get CVEs, and why it's an issue - TechTarget

Top Hybrid Cloud Computing Companies to Watch in 2021 – Analytics Insight

November 3, 2021 | Author: admin

The digital transformation has drastically transformed the IT sector with the introduction of cloud computing in the existing system. There is ample scope for cloud computing to thrive in tech companies through public cloud, private cloud, multi-cloud, as well as hybrid cloud. Cloud computing has created multiple different job opportunities for human employees such as cloud architects, cloud security architects, cloud engineers, and many more with lucrative salary packages. The global hybrid cloud computing market is set to reach US$380 billion in 2028 with a CAGR of 22.5%. Thus, lets explore some of the top hybrid cloud computing companies to watch in 2021 for efficient services.

Microsoft Azure is one of the top hybrid cloud computing companies in 2021 with multiple hybrid cloud Azure products and services. The products and services include Azure hybrid cloud solutions, Azure Arc, Azure Stack, Azure hybrid benefit, Azure VMWare solution, Azure sentinel, Azure defender, Azure express route, and Azure VPN gateway. This tech company offers hybrid cloud solutions to provide the consistency and flexibility to innovate at any place with a holistic as well as secure approach in cloud computing. Azure helps to build and deploy a truly consistent app experience in a hybrid cloud with unified hybrid security management and advanced threat protection for all kinds of workloads. It helps to build hybrid cloud solutions through some example solution architectures.

VMware is a popular hybrid cloud computing company that offers consistent infrastructure and operations with VMware hybrid cloud solutions. This tech company helps to shift the existing workload with better speed and confidence with VMware tools without cost, complexity, as well as the risk of refactoring apps in cloud computing. It offers consistent hybrid cloud management while modernizing the data center. There are multiple products in this hybrid cloud computing company such as VMware cloud foundation, VMware Cloud on AWS, VMware Cloud on Dell EMC, HCI powered by VMware vSAN, and VMware vRealize cloud management.

Rackspace Technology offers to harness the power of a hybrid cloud with its VMware-based hybrid cloud solutions. It provides the benefits of consumption-based pricing and multi-tenancy, self-service, rapid provisioning, as well as automation. As a leading end-to-end multi-cloud technology solutions company, this tech company has started a collaboration with Dell Technologies for delivering a seamless path to hybrid cloud and an optimized experience with VMware Cloud Foundation in the cloud computing domain.

IBM is a well-known hybrid cloud computing company that offers smarter architecture speed transformation of multiple leading tech companies across the world. The foundation of adopting hybrid cloud solutions is the top hybrid cloud container platform known as the Red Hat OpenShift. There is an artificial intelligence-based software portfolio known as IBM Cloud Pak solutions that run on the Red Hat OpenShift. This tech company provides the most experienced practitioners in this hybrid approach to enhance business transformation. The hybrid cloud software helps to implement intelligent workflows in a business by unlocking the intelligence of AI and the agility of hybrid cloud through cloud computing.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is popular for being a hybrid cloud computing company with its own hybrid cloud solutions to implement a cloud experience for all kinds of workloads efficiently and effectively. It helps to navigate cloud complexities and speed the process of digital transformation through hybrid approaches. A business can build hybrid cloud solutions with leading cloud providers to create an enterprise-ready hybrid cloud. HPE container platform brings the cloud experience to non-cloud native apps while building a business case for a hybrid cloud.

Cisco is one of the top hybrid cloud computing companies with Cisco HyperFlex solutions for hybrid cloud across the world. It works with different hybrid cloud and container management services with multiple choices. This tech company has started working with public cloud providers and the open-source community to develop hybrid solutions for a production-grade experience. A business can seamlessly shift applications from HyperFlex on-premises environment to various public clouds with hi-tech companies.

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Top Hybrid Cloud Computing Companies to Watch in 2021 - Analytics Insight

We’re still just scratching the surface of the cloud’s potential – TechCrunch

November 3, 2021 | Author: admin

Battery Ventures released its State of the OpenCloud report today, providing a set of data points that clearly outline the accelerated growth of cloud services in recent quarters.

The report helps explain the race to invest capital into startups that weve been observing over the past 18 months.

The pandemic pushed companies to start using cloud services infrastructure, platform or SaaS earlier and quicker than they might have otherwise. That resulted in big investments, eye-popping IPOs and tremendous revenue growth for software companies of all stripes, especially those built atop open source code.

Consider this tidbit from the report: The average infrastructure-software IPO valuation has increased 10 times over the last 10 years, and there are more infrastructure-software companies valued at $10 billion or more than ever before. Whats more, the data implies a healthy pipeline of major cloud IPOs.

Battery believes that the cloud market could eventually be worth $1 trillion. When you consider that the vast majority of work, development and computing will be done in the cloud at some point, the investment groups round-number projection may prove modest.

Thats our takeaway. While the digital transformation is evident and startling, this report makes it clear that despite the nigh-incredible growth numbers we have seen recently, we are still just scratching the surface of the clouds potential.

Amazons AWS public cloud platform is big business. Amazon breaks out its results on a quarterly basis, showing the world exactly how much cloud revenue it generates, as well as the resulting operating profit. Microsoft also breaks out growth for its Azure service, but with other services included in the reporting category, the exact number is harder to nail down.

Batterys report gives us per-platform data. In Q2 2021, the venture capital firm reckons that AWS reached a $59 billion run rate, while Azure hit $37 billion and Google Cloud reached $19 billion and this was before the companies reported Q3 results.

Image Credits: Battery Ventures

Critically, Batterys Q2 figures were up an aggregate 44% compared to a year earlier the growth has accelerated from an early-pandemic low of 36% in Q2 of last year. Indeed, since the second quarter of 2020, public cloud growth has either held steady or risen.

Given the sheer amount of dollars involved in these figures, the acceleration of growth from 36% to 44% is incredibly material: The three cloud platforms closed Q2 2021 on a combined run rate of $115 billion.

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We're still just scratching the surface of the cloud's potential - TechCrunch

Cloud-fuelled European IT outsourcing spend hits record high – ComputerWeekly.com

November 3, 2021 | Author: admin

European organisations have mirrored the global spending trend, with record levels invested in IT outsourcingdriven by cloud service investments.

In Europe, the value of contracts signed during the third quarter of this year reached a record 4.7bn, 36% higher than the same quarter last year and 4% higher than the previous quarter this year.

The increase was driven by heavy spending on cloud services, which totalled 2.4bn, 59% higher than last year. In Europe, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) deals were both up 59%, to records of 1.75bn and 677m respectively.

Demand for IaaS and SaaS solutions remains robust as European companies pick up the pace in their adoption of cloud-based technologies and services, said Steve Hall, partner and president of ISG EMEA. The region has been slower than others to move to the cloud due to privacy and security concerns, but that appears to be abating as companies accelerate their digital transformations.

ISG, which measures contracts with a value of 3.6m or more, last week published record global spending figures with $21.8bn spent on IT and IT-enabled business services during the past quarter, with cloud computing accounting for $13.4bn of this. Itexpects global cloud-based IaaS and SaaS contracts to be worth 25% more in 2021 overall, compared with 2020, and expects firm-managed services contract values to increase by just over 10% during the same period.

While the value of traditional IT outsourcing contracts in Europe, including IT outsourcing and BPO, increased 19% to 2.3bn of total spend, UK organisations invested 61% less on them during the third quarter, with a total of 296m spent, making this its weakest since the third quarter 2002.

ISG said that despite the drop in the latest quarter, the first half of the year was robust, and the fourth quarter is expected to see the UK back in line with previous years. The UK had a weak third quarter compared with the past several years, but the first six months were very robust and there remains a strong pipeline of deals. Infrastructure spend in the UK was down significantly, but cloud spend was up, said Hall. Traditional datacentre and ITO deals remain weak in the UK market as organisations continue to shift spend to cloud hyperscalers.

But the UK IT services sector still faces challenges, with spending expected to remain flat in the financial services sector in 2021/22 compared with 2019, with a 23% drop in spending in the energy sector, a 9% reduction in the travel, transport and leisure segment, and a 1% fall in Telecoms and Media predicted.

There will, however, be a 17% rise in the amount manufacturers spend on IT services, with the business services and retail sectors increasing spending by 7%.

The DACH region, which includes Germany, also recorded a decline in spending on these services, with an 8% drop to 379m, but France saw a 201% increase with a total of 552m spent.

Hall put this down to a traditionally slow quarter due to the holiday season and its impact on deal flow. Volume is in-line when normalised for seasonality, so we dont see a long-term trend or broader concern with the DACH market, he said.

On traditional IT services in Europe, Hall said: Deal flow remains active, but we saw a number of them move to later stages in financial services, and we continue to see weakness in the manufacturing sector, as the economic recovery in Europe remains choppy.

Beginner computer classes online: What can you take, and where? – ZDNet

November 3, 2021 | Author: admin

Computers are part of our schools, workplaces, and everyday lives. Whether you're a beginning or advanced learner, taking computer classes online can enhance your foundational, coding, and development skills.

This list provides a host of free and paid platforms offering beginner and intermediate classes in computing basics plus topics like Python, data analytics, and cloud computing.

Basic computer skills are foundational tools for navigating computers and software. These skills are essential for a technology-driven world. They include:

After mastering basic computer skills, consider learning advanced skills such as website design or application development.

Are you ready to improve your basic computer skills? This list of electronic learning platforms offers inexpensive and free online computer classes, training and learning activities, and self-paced tutorials.

Cost: Online courses and assessments are free, though certificates and diplomas are paid. The premium monthly package, which removes ads and gives discounts on certificates and diplomas, is $9.26.

Best for: Full-time students, busy parents, working professionals

Alison is an online learning platform offering courses in information technology and other workplace-specific categories. Learners may earn diplomas and certificates in a variety of industries.

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Cost: Free

Best for: Kindergarten through 12th-grade learners, homeschool children, college and university students, working professionals, career changers

Goodwill Community Foundation Global offers an online learning platform and self-paced distance learning tools for all ages, including free online computer classes for seniors. Learners can enroll in Mac OS, Linux, and creativity and design courses. Other tutorials build proficiency with social media, email, and Google.

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Cost: $6-18 per month per user

Best for: Colleges and universities, businesses, industry professionals

Google Workspace Learning Center offers training resources and tutorials for accessing the video conferencing platform, customizing business Gmail, and navigating word processing and cloud storage. Other courses cover specific products, roles, and industries.

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Cost: $29.99 per month, or $400 per year

Best for: College and university students, business and government employees, graduates seeking career opportunities

LinkedIn Learning provides an online learning platform with over 5,000 courses in business, technology, and creative skills. Learners can select technology and certification preparation courses in cloud computing, security, and CompTIA, among others.

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Cost: $11.99 to $199.99 per course

Best for: Young adult learners, college and university students, career changers, businesses, non-profit organizations, government employees

Udemy offers a variety of business and technical courses for young adults, college and university students, working professionals, and career changers. Learners may select courses in cloud computing, data science, and design along with development, IT operations, and project management and operations.

Read our Udemy review for more information.

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Are you proficient in basic computer skills? Consider enrolling in intermediate and advanced online computer classes. These online learning platforms can help industry professionals with career advancement and workforce development.

Cost: Verified-track course fees range from $50 to $300. MicroMasters programs may have higher costs.

Best for: All ages and learners

edX is an online learning platform with 2,400 global learning sites. Learners may enroll inmassive open online courses for college credit, MicroBachelors programs for undergraduate credentials, and MicroMasters programs for graduate-level courses.

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Cost: Guided projects begin at $9.99. Specializations and professional certificates range between $39 and $79 per month. MasterTrack certifications cost approximately $2,000. With Coursera Plus, learners can pay $59 per month or $399 annually.

Best for: College and university students and adults between 18 and 55

Coursera offers certificate and degree program options. Learners may access on-demand lectures and applied learning experiences in data science, information technology, and online computer science.

Learn more with our Coursera review.

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Cost: Free

Best for: Pre-kindergarten through college students

Khan Academy is a personalized and self-paced learning platform offering online computer classes for kids, adolescents, and young adults. Learners can access instructional videos and practice exercises in math, science, computing, and additional content areas such as arts and humanities. The platform provides test preparation for the LSAT, Praxis, and SAT.

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Cost: $399 per month per course; nanodegree programs are $1,000 to $1,500

Best for: Full-time working adults, degree-holders, government employees, technical workforce professionals

Udacity offers an online learning platform with courses in data science, programming and development, artificial intelligence, and related technical specialty areas. Courses are self-paced, interactive, and delivered in multiple formats.

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Basic computer skills are a necessity for today's workforce. Intermediate and advanced computer skills can boost career opportunities for industry professionals.

College and university students may select online college courses to develop a niche area.

Computer experts may explore the best online learning platforms and earn certificates and certifications.

With affordable or free online courses, busy parents and professionals can select courses that fit their schedules.

Learners can sign up for online introductory courses with online platforms like edX, Coursera, Khan Academy, Udacity, and Udemy.

Fundamental computing skills include messaging and video conferencing, troubleshooting, word processing, data entry, and web searching.

In 2019, Monali Mirel Chuatico graduated with her bachelor's in computer science, which gave her the foundation that she needed to excel in roles such as a data engineer, front-end developer, UX designer, and computer science instructor.

Monali is currently a data engineer at Mission Lane. As a data analytics captain at the nonprofit COOP Careers, Monali helps new grads and young professionals overcome underemployment by teaching them data analytics tools and mentoring them on their professional development journey.

Monali Mirel Chuatico is a paid member of the Red Ventures Education freelance review network.

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Beginner computer classes online: What can you take, and where? - ZDNet

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Beginner computer classes online: What can you take, and where? – ZDNet

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