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The cloud computing industry is on the cusp of a major transformation, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), multicloud adoption, and industry-specific cloud solutions. These trends are shaping a more complex cloud landscape, but they also offer new opportunities for businesses to innovate and grow.

According to a report by Forrester Research, the AI boom is creating chaos as every cloud provider promotes new services. This abundance of options is challenging enterprises to develop coherent AI strategies. However, embedded AI is also making operations smarter, with technologies like observability, predictive analytics, conversational interfaces and automation. Both cloud vendors and enterprises are infusing AI across monitoring, management and support functions.

WebAssembly (WASM) is emerging as the future of cloud-native applications. WASM is a low-level bytecode that can be executed on any platform, including cloud servers, edge devices, and web browsers. This makes it ideal for developing portable and scalable applications.

With the release of a new server environment standard, WASM is now positioned as a universal application platform. This means that developers can build WASM applications once and deploy them anywhere, without having to worry about underlying hardware or operating system differences.

Also, governments around the world are increasingly enacting digital sovereignty regulations that restrict where data can be stored and processed. This is complicating cloud strategies for enterprises, which must now re-evaluate their supply chain reliance and ensure that their cloud providers comply with all applicable regulations.

In addition, as more workloads shift to the cloud, hardware vendors are pivoting to subscription models to offset declining product sales. This is a win-win for both vendors and customers, as it allows vendors to generate recurring revenue and customers to avoid upfront capital costs.

Cloud cost optimization, also known as FinOps, is seeing renewed interest as businesses seek to rein in their cloud spending. FinOps is a discipline that combines financial management with cloud computing to help businesses optimize their cloud costs.

Multicloud networking also remains an underserved issue, but the convergence of multicloud with zero trust edge (ZTE) architectures offers new hope. ZTE is a security-focused networking approach that can help businesses connect their data centers, clouds, and remote locations securely.

The cloud security ecosystem is advancing to meet the needs of cloud-native enterprises. Cloud vendors and security providers are offering new and innovative solutions to protect data, applications, and workloads in the cloud. Industry-specific clouds are gaining ground as businesses seek specialized solutions to address their unique vertical problems. These clouds are typically led by global systems integrators (GSIs) and offer a range of features and services tailored to specific industries.

Managed service providers (MSPs) are shifting their focus to advisory-led transformations as businesses move to the cloud. MSPs are now helping businesses to develop and implement cloud strategies, as well as to manage their cloud environments once they are in place.

The cloud computing industry is undergoing a major transformation, driven by AI, multicloud, and industry-specific cloud solutions. These trends are creating a more complex cloud landscape, but they also offer new opportunities for businesses to innovate and grow.

The sources for this piece include an article in DataCenterKnowledge.

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Ten key cloud industry trends in 2023 - IT World Canada

Cisco has become Nutanix's closest hardware partner meaning integration of the hyperconverged upstart's stack and Cisco's UCS servers will be stronger, sooner, as their partnership gathers steam.

The two announced a "strategic partnership" in August, when Cisco revealed it would resell Nutanix's stack on its UCS servers. A few weeks later, the real reason for the partnership became plain: Cisco discontnued its Hyperflex hyperconverged stack, and anointed Nutanix as its preferred vendor of such software.

The Register chatted to reps of the happy couple about their relationship this week. Nutanix's senior veep of product management, Thomas Cornely, told us that his company and Cisco have a "much deeper tech partnership in terms of early engagement" compared to other hardware makers.

That matters because while Nutanix started life bundling its stack with hardware, it backed away from that position years ago and now partners with server makers. That arrangement means it needs to tune its stack to work with each vendor's hardware. Earlier access to Cisco kit and closer work should make UCS an appealing prospect.

So might planned integration between Nutanix's stack and Cisco's Intersight cloud manager a work in progress that Jeremy Foster, Cisco's senior veep and general manager for networking and compute, said could mean "We can bring a network in a way that has never been integrated before."

The two haven't had time for the fruits of those labors to ripen, but Cornely and Foster told The Register they believe the team-up is already functional, as each vendor has partners familiar with both parties' technologies.

Those partners, they opined, are excited to sell Nutanix on UCS and capable of doing so. Other partners will be trained in due course.

Foster said in future, Cisco hopes the tie-up will help the networking giant to sell UCS servers for more storage workloads. Cisco has dabbled in storage over the years, but stopped well short of producing dedicated hardware. The UCS S-Series storage servers, which can house up to 56 disk drives, are probably the closest thing to a storage array Cisco has ever built.

For now, Cisco and Nutanix's arrangement focuses on the X-series blade server. But Cornely told The Register Nutanix certainly likes the look of the S-Series and sees them as good fit for the vendor's recent disaggregation of compute and storage nodes.

Foster forecast the evolving Ciscanix relationship will soon be championed by global system integrators. He also thinks managed services providers are a fine target for the alliance, with Nutanix-as-a-service or Nutanix-powered clouds in prospect.

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Nutanix, Cisco say buyers will get the best of them both - The Register

Descending the auditorium steps at the FYUZ event in Madrid this week, attendees were enthusiastically told that a surprise guest would appear for the inaugural session. "Tom Cruise?" one former film studies student hopefully enquired. What no one expected to see was the giant screened face of Fredrik Jejdling, the head of Ericsson's mobile networks unit, hovering above the massed ranks of telecom executives like an alien spaceship. Ericsson is not even a member of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), the organizer of the show, and it has long been seen as an enemy of open RAN, the topic that consumes TIP's attention.

Jejdling seemed keener on talking about Vonage. Ericsson bought the software business for $6.2 billion last year and yesterday wrote down the value of its investment by $3 billion, blaming the dire performance of Vonage peers on stock markets, among other things. But he was able to muster some faint Swedish enthusiasm the kind you saw when Bjorn Borg won a point at Wimbledon for open RAN after his company recently promised to make radios compatible with a certain flavor of the technology.

About 1 million are already in the field, ready for a software upgrade, he told the audience. Operators, then, should expect to see that software by late 2024, posited Santiago Tenorio, the network architecture director of Vodafone and TIP chairman. "I don't want to commit to any particular time," replied Jejdling with a nervous chuckle.

There is predictable skepticism about Ericsson's intentions and commitment. Open RAN's new interfaces could hurt the Swedish vendor by allowing operators to buy only some of its radio access network parts and link those to other suppliers' components. When they shop with Ericsson today, it is all or nothing. But Jejdling's close encounter with open RAN-kind means both Ericsson and Nokia the other big Nordic vendor have beamed down and are voicing support for the concept. And each has probably realized it is under little direct threat in this strange new land.

Investment gaps and duplication

RAN challengers are almost nowhere to be seen. Parallel Wireless, a RAN software developer, is not even a reference anymore, Tenorio told Light Reading last week, after it reportedly cut most of its workforce last year. Chinese vendors have been evicted from the most important markets for Ericsson and Nokia, if they were ever there in the first place.

Others have weakened their research-and-development (R&D) focus by expanding into new areas. Ericsson's RAN market share outside China has risen by six percentage points since 2017, it boasts. Nokia's 5G share is up by the same amount in just 18 months, it claims, citing Dell'Oro research.

The scale of the challenge was neatly summed up by Robert Soni, the RAN vice president of AT&T, who estimates that Ericsson and Nokia spend about $5 billion on R&D in this market each year. "Those numbers that are spent by the incumbents are staggering," he said. And about one in three dollars goes just on integrating their own products, Soni estimates. Others will succeed only if they pool resources, in his opinion.

But the industry is awash with overlapping initiatives government-backed test centers, TIP's facilities, operators' individual efforts. Meanwhile, vendors are foisting their own pre-integrated partner solutions on telcos. "The whole idea was to give the operator the ability to make the choice," said Soni.

The death of general purpose

The virtualization aspect of open RAN is not what it was cracked up to be, either. In recent days, Nokia has attacked the notion that many central processing units (CPUs), supplied largely by Intel, are "general purpose." Instead, it believes they feature a lot of customization to support 5G needs.

Nokia's own cloud RAN products include the same customized silicon from Marvell used in its purpose-built 5G. Hyperscalers now routinely use customized silicon to offload demanding workloads from CPUs, said Joel Brand, Marvell's senior director of product marketing. Why should something with all the specific needs of 5G buck the trend?

Equally suspect is the description of servers including these chips as "common, off-the-shelf" equipment. A server sold to Walmart is not the same as one designed for telcos and compliant with very specific network equipment-building system (NEBS) guidelines, according to Geetha Ram, the head of RAN compute for HPE.

Brand thinks the industry must go even further. "The RAN today is based on custom appliances," he said during a FYUZ panel session. "Those custom appliances are built to operate outdoors, without active cooling, with passive cooling. They are designed for maximum reliability and availability. If we want to succeed to move that to a server environment, we really need to think what a vRAN server looks like." Yet all this would rather undermine some of the original arguments about open RAN economies of scale.

Cloudy economics

None of this means absolutely nothing changes and nobody wins. But open RAN's likely beneficiaries are probably not what the telecom industry intended. Clues lie in the increasing reference to "cloud" rather than virtual RAN and in recent tie-ups between the Nordic vendors and the hyperscalers. Of particular interest is a new deal between Ericsson and Google Cloud.

Under that arrangement, Google would bring its own computing equipment, described as "black boxes" by Ericsson, into a telco's facilities. The public-cloud giant would essentially replace the telco as the investor in that equipment. Ignoring the radios and antennas, the role of Ericsson, previously involved in hardware development, would be limited to contributing the RAN software. Rather than buying appliances and servers, the operator would pay Google on a usage basis.

Dish, a greenfield open RAN operator in the US, already has this kind of relationship with AWS. Decisions about CPU offload to accelerators and other technical features could eventually be taken away from the telcos. AWS, for instance, is working to put RAN workloads on its own Graviton processors, built with the blueprints of Arm.

"We defined an open fronthaul interface so now the processing can be done by a hyperscaler," says Brand. Whether the hardware is Dell, HPE or Graviton, hyperscalers can put their cloud platforms at the site hosting the distributed unit, responsible for baseband processing. "This is not increasing the variety of vendors, because there are only a few of them. Whether it's good for the industry, bad for the industry, will affect Nokia, will affect Ericsson, will affect Verizon, will affect Vodafone, I don't know."

This is not a fait accompli, of course. Hardly any telco workloads run on hyperscaler platforms today. A crop of alternatives Red Hat, VMware and Wind River exists for building a single private cloud that can manage all workloads. But the paradigm has changed now the hyperscalers have entered the private cloud space.

No one seriously thinks Red Hat can move in the opposite direction and establish itself as a public cloud. Nor can it develop chips, build large language models from scratch and do all the other stuff that might attract a telco to a hyperscaler. Nokia insists Red Hat is now its preferred cloud partner, but its anyRAN strategy is also about ensuring its software can work "on any partner's cloud infrastructure." Earlier this year, it showed that its RAN software, split between Marvell and Graviton chips, could run on an AWS platform.

Cloud RAN of this nature would see the public clouds advance even further into the telco sector. It would be especially awkward for supporters of "fair share," the controversial argument that Big Tech should contribute to network costs because demand for their applications is forcing telcos to invest bigger sums. Adding capacity in mobile often means putting in extra compute resources, but these would be rented from Big Tech, not owned by the telcos. Pricing negotiations between landlords and tenants don't often work out well for the latter.

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Nobody wins from open RAN except the public clouds - Nobody ... - Light Reading

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a ubiquitous term in the realm of technology and innovation, promising to reshape the way we interact with our environment and the devices that surround us. This article aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of what IoT is, its core concepts, its impact on various industries, and its implications for our daily lives.

At its core, IoT is a network of interconnected physical objects, devices, vehicles, buildings, and even people that are embedded with sensors, software, and network connectivity. These smart objects can collect and exchange data, facilitating the seamless integration of the physical and digital worlds. The key elements that define IoT are:

1. Connected Devices: These can range from household appliances and wearable fitness trackers to industrial machinery and autonomous vehicles. Any physical object can become a part of the IoT when its equipped with sensors and connectivity.

2. Sensors: Sensors are the workhorses of IoT. They gather data from the physical world, measuring everything from temperature and humidity to motion and location. These sensors act as the eyes and ears of IoT devices.

3. Connectivity: Data collected by IoT devices is transmitted over networks, which can be wired or wireless. The data is then sent to cloud-based platforms for storage, analysis, and interpretation.

4. Cloud Platforms: Cloud platforms play a vital role in IoT by storing and processing the immense volume of data generated by IoT devices. They also provide a centralized location for data analysis and management.

5. Data Analysis and AI: The data collected from IoT devices is valuable, but to make it truly useful, it needs to be processed and analyzed. AI (Artificial Intelligence) and machine learning are often used to glean insights from this data.

IoT devices work together in a structured ecosystem to collect, transmit, and interpret data. Heres how IoT typically functions:

1. Data Collection: Sensors in IoT devices gather data from their surroundings. This can include temperature readings, location data, air quality measurements, or any other relevant information.

2. Data Transmission: The collected data is transmitted to a central server or cloud platform through wired or wireless networks. This data is often sent in real-time to ensure up-to-the-minute insights.

3. Data Storage and Analysis: The data is stored on cloud servers and is processed and analyzed using AI algorithms and machine learning. This stage is crucial for transforming raw data into actionable information.

4. User Interface: The processed data can be accessed by users through web applications, mobile apps, or other interfaces. This is where individuals or organizations can view, manage, and make decisions based on the IoT data.

IoT has had a profound impact on various industries, offering innovative solutions and revolutionizing processes. Some key sectors that have been transformed by IoT include:

In healthcare, IoT devices are used for remote patient monitoring, medication adherence, and even surgeries performed by robotic arms. These technologies improve patient outcomes and provide real-time health data to medical professionals.

IoT-enabled sensors in agriculture can monitor soil conditions, weather, and crop health. This data allows farmers to optimize irrigation, minimize waste, and increase crop yields.

IoT has ushered in the era of smart factories. Machines equipped with sensors communicate with each other and with a central system, allowing for real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and efficient production.

IoT plays a crucial role in the development of autonomous vehicles. Sensors and connectivity enable self-driving cars to navigate roads safely and efficiently. Additionally, IoT has transformed logistics and fleet management, improving route optimization and reducing fuel consumption.

IoT applications in smart cities include intelligent traffic management, waste management, energy consumption optimization, and public safety enhancements. These solutions make urban living more sustainable and efficient.

IoT has introduced innovations like smart shelves that monitor inventory, personalized marketing through beacons, and cashier-less stores. These developments provide a seamless and personalized shopping experience for customers.

IoTs impact isnt limited to industries; it has made its way into our daily lives. Here are some ways in which IoT has transformed our routines:

IoT devices like smart thermostats, lights, and security systems enable homeowners to control and automate various aspects of their homes remotely. Voice-activated virtual assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant make it even easier to manage these devices.

From fitness trackers to smartwatches, wearables use IoT technology to monitor and relay health data, track physical activity, and provide timely reminders.

Refrigerators, ovens, and washing machines equipped with IoT capabilities can communicate with users smartphones, offering convenience and efficiency.

IoT security cameras and sensors enable homeowners to monitor their properties remotely. Alerts are sent to their phones in real-time, providing peace of mind.

IoT allows businesses to offer personalized services based on customer behavior and preferences. This can include location-based recommendations, customized marketing, and tailored product offerings.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is at the forefront of technological innovation, and its future holds exciting possibilities. As IoT continues to evolve, several key trends are emerging, which promise to reshape the landscape of connected devices and data-driven applications. In this article, we will explore these future trends of IoT and their potential impact.

One of the most significant trends in IoT is the convergence with edge computing. Edge computing involves processing data closer to the source, at the edge of the network, rather than sending it to centralized cloud servers. This trend significantly reduces latency, allowing for real-time decision-making. IoT devices, equipped with edge computing capabilities, can make faster and more localized decisions, leading to more efficient and responsive systems. This trend is particularly crucial for applications that require low latency, such as autonomous vehicles and industrial automation.

The rollout of 5G networks promises to impact IoT. The higher bandwidth and lower latency of 5G will provide faster and more reliable connectivity to IoT applications. With 5G, time-critical IoT applications can operate more efficiently, making them more capable and responsive. From smart cities to healthcare and transportation, 5G will enable a wide range of IoT use cases that were previously limited by connectivity constraints.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with IoT is already transforming the capabilities of connected devices. AI-powered IoT systems can analyze and interpret data, make predictions, and adapt to changing conditions. This integration enhances the intelligence and automation of IoT devices, enabling them to learn from data and make decisions without human intervention. For instance, AI-powered cameras in smart homes can identify security threats or monitor energy usage to optimize efficiency.

As the IoT ecosystem continues to expand, security and privacy concerns are becoming increasingly important. With more devices connected to the internet, the attack surface for cyber threats widens. Ensuring robust cybersecurity measures is essential to protect sensitive data and devices. Privacy regulations and user controls are also playing a more significant role in shaping the way IoT data is collected and managed. These considerations are critical to maintaining user trust and the long-term success of IoT applications.

Sustainability is a growing trend in the IoT landscape. As environmental concerns become more prominent, the development of low-power IoT devices and sustainable manufacturing practices is a top priority. Green IoT solutions aim to minimize the environmental impact of IoT technology. These efforts include using renewable energy sources, designing energy-efficient devices, and promoting eco-friendly manufacturing processes.

To realize the full potential of IoT, interoperability and standardized communication protocols are essential. Future IoT systems must seamlessly connect and communicate with various devices and platforms. The lack of interoperability can be a significant barrier to IoT adoption. Industry standards and collaborations will play a key role in achieving this level of compatibility, ensuring that IoT devices and ecosystems work together seamlessly.

In conclusion, the future trends of IoT promise to revolutionize the way we interact with technology and the world around us. Edge computing, 5G connectivity, AI integration, security measures, sustainability, and interoperability are all poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the IoT landscape of tomorrow. As IoT continues to mature and expand, its impact on industries and daily life will only grow, offering innovative solutions and making our world more interconnected and efficient.

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What is the Internet of Things (IoT) - IoT Business News

Shabnam Pervez is a thematic analyst at GlobalData. She has been working on the thematic team for over three years, focusing on emerging technology trends in a myriad of different sectors.

Shabnam Pervez: Major cybersecurity challenges within the packaging industry arise from digitalisation. Like other sectors, technology is disrupting the packaging industry. Various technologies can be integrated throughout the value chain to automate processes and gain better insights into customer behaviour. However, understanding and effectively utilising these technologies pose a significant challenge for packaging industry players who are under pressure to keep up with the rapidly changing technological landscape.

Additionally, the future of work presents another challenge as employment dynamics shift. Many businesses are experimenting with hybrid and flexible work strategies, enabled by collaboration tools and cloud computing. These technologies allow employees to work remotely, reducing travel expenses and improving work-life balance. This shift also allows companies to downsize office spaces, lowering real estate costs. However, transitioning to remote and hybrid work models introduces new security challenges as corporate IT has less control over user actions, devices, and software. The Covid-19 pandemic has further accelerated the trend of remote servicing of packaging machinery.

Lastly, businesses across all sectors face the issue of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations. Investors, governments, employees, and customers share the common goal of becoming more sustainable. Companies that prioritise sustainability will reap financial benefits, such as increased share prices and improved customer and partner loyalty. On the other hand, those that neglect sustainability will struggle. In the packaging industry, companies face mounting pressure to use environmentally friendly packaging materials, reduce single-use plastics, and address their carbon emissions. Government regulations, like the UKs Circular Economy Package, dictate sustainability standards favouring recycling and the circular economy. However, ESG encompasses more than just environmental aspects; companies also have a responsibility to care for their customers and employees while ensuring robust corporate governance structures.

Shabnam Pervez: Packaging companies should prioritise cybersecurity across their entire value chain. As the packaging industry undergoes digital transformation, companies at every stage of the value chain are recognising the vulnerabilities present in their supply chains. To address these concerns, they are collaborating with cybersecurity firms to find solutions. Investments in cybersecurity for the packaging industry should focus on essential areas such as threat detection and response, cloud security, data security, vulnerability management, post-breach response services, and risk and compliance. With the increasing use of cloud servers for delivery management and the storage of large amounts of virtual data, packaging companies face the risk of supply chain sabotage if they fail to implement effective cybersecurity measures.

Shabnam Pervez: The manufacturing sector is undergoing rapid digitalisation. According to a survey conducted by the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI) in March 2021, approximately 79% of companies have integrated smart technologies into their processing lines, 64% on their assembly lines, and 60% at the end-of-line packaging stage. These numbers are expected to significantly rise as the industry continues to explore and adopt new technologies.

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Shabnam Pervez: Certainly not as per IBM, the manufacturing industry is the second most targeted sector by cybercriminals, yet it remains one of the least prepared. The packaging process, which often occurs as the final step in manufacturing, relies heavily on automated machinery, accounting for approximately 60% of end-of-line packaging. The Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI) reports that in 2020, a staggering 88% of small business owners in the manufacturing sector felt their businesses were susceptible to cyberattacks. Furthermore, 28% of all cybersecurity breaches targeted small businesses, and a distressing 10% of these small businesses were forced to permanently close their doors as a result of such breaches. Consequently, small packaging companies must prioritise the implementation of suitable cybersecurity measures wherever feasible, given their heightened vulnerability as frequent targets of attacks.

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Cybersecurity in packaging: Q&A with GlobalData thematic analyst - Packaging Gateway