Cloud Hosting

Why it matters: Making cloud servers and data centers more efficient is a crucial step in the push to increase sustainability and reduce carbon emissions. However, one company has started drawing attention to what it calls "data wastage" the retention of large amounts of data no one accesses and the factors making it difficult to cut back.

Up to 70 or 80 percent of the data that some companies store goes unused, according to enterprise data infrastructure provider NetApp. The company has recently started bringing attention to the issue to help clients meet sustainability goals.

NetApp Chief Technology Evangelist Matt Watts recently told The Register that storage comprises 15 to 20 percent of data center power consumption. Furthermore, a national survey indicates that cloud usage of the UK's power grid could grow from 2.5 percent to six percent by the end of this decade.

NetApp provides data tools for clients like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Last April, it published a report on the difficulties of tackling data wastage. Watts initially reported that around 41 percent of stored data is never accessed, but he has since revised the number to as much as twice that in certain areas.

Most leading IT figures believe that cutting back on unwanted data could help reduce carbon emissions, but many companies lack the resources. Some don't have enough time or find differentiating between valuable and unwanted data too daunting.

Obviously, companies that handle clients' data also don't want to cause trouble by deleting information someone might need. Watts highlighted disagreement and confusion in some organizations about whether IT departments are the owners or simply the caretakers of the data they manage, which can present an additional roadblock.

NetApp's BlueXP classification tool, part of a service that gives client companies unified control over diverse data infrastructures, was a significant factor in revealing the scale of data wastage. It retrieved metadata from its data center clients, showing who owned their stored files and when customers last accessed their information.

The issue comes amid NetApp's controversial decision to remove BlueXP's support for services like Google Cloud, Amazon S3, and OneDrive. Watts said that NetApp intends to focus on its internal storage systems instead so the company could stand out.

Read the rest here:
Data waste: According to study, a significant portion of stored server data is never accessed - TechSpot

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."

More here:
Apple is building a high-security OS to run its AI data centers - here's what we know so far - ZDNet

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.

Original post:
HPE GreenLake adds GenAI capabilities as on-premises PaaS - TechTarget