Category Archives: Cloud Computing

Hilliard to expand Think Big Space to six schools – ThisWeek Community News

Hilliard City Schools Think Big Space at the districts Innovation Campus will expand at both sixth-grade buildings and four elementary schools next year.

Mark Tremayne, director of innovation and extended learning, said details still arebeing developed but the expansions will be done at Station and Tharp sixth-grade schools and at Britton, Hoffman, Norwich and Washington elementary schools.

The Think Big Space opened in August 2019 at the Innovative Learning Hub, 3859 Main St., and the Innovative Learning Center, 5323 Cemetery Road; both are part of the districts Innovation Campus.

The Think Big Space was developed as a partnership between the district and Amazon Web ServicesInCommunitiesprogram and is focused on community stewardship, said Stacie Raterman, director of communications for Hilliard schools.

Think Big combines Hilliards curriculum with Amazons cloud-computing technology to provide an environment for students to explore career awareness, business, engineering, entrepreneurship, technology and design.

kcorvo@thisweeknews.com

@ThisWeekCorvo

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Hilliard to expand Think Big Space to six schools - ThisWeek Community News

SASE is coming, but adoption will be slow (especially for large enterprises) – CSO Online

The adoption of edge computing and cloud infrastructure over the past decade combined with the recent surge in remote work, have seriously challenged traditional network architectures and security models. Large enterprises have been better able to adapt to this new reality, having access to larger IT budgets and skilled employees, but small and medium-sized businesses are struggling to keep up with the access control, monitoring and threat detection technologies needed to defend their local and remote assets.

In response to this trend, security vendors, as well as cloud and networking vendors, have been launching new software-defined and cloud-delivered solutions that combine network-as-a-service with network-security-as-a-service functionality. The goal of this new concept, which Gartner has dubbed secure access service edge (SASE), is to allow companies to easily provide secure access to any of their applications, whether hosted in the cloud or locally, for any user, from any device, and from any location without relying on locally deployed security appliances through which traffic would need to be routed and inspected.

According to a recent Gartner report, interest in this new model of network security, which is built around the principles of zero-trust networking, has exploded over the past year. By 2024 the analyst firm expects that 30% of enterprises will adopt cloud-delivered secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), zero trust network access (ZTNA) and branch office firewall as a service (FWaaS) capabilities from the same vendor. By 2025, over 60% of enterprises will have explicit strategies and timelines for SASE adoption encompassing user, branch, and edge access.

An important driver for the adoption of cloud-based network security services is the reduced management complexity and cost savings because IT teams will no longer have to manage different hardware boxes from different vendors to get different security capabilities. The SASE offering of one vendor is supposed to handle multiple security functions and will be managed from the same console.

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SASE is coming, but adoption will be slow (especially for large enterprises) - CSO Online

Cloud Computing? There’s a Lot of Smoke in Those Clouds – Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

When we think about environment problems, we naturally imagine huge smokestacks turning the sky dark and coating the trees with soot. But glitzy high tech stuff like cloud computing and cryptocurrency use a lot of energy too.

Cloud computing, where we use computing resources via the internet without installing and maintaining them, is a huge energy hog we never see:

The music video for Despacito set an Internet record in April 2018 when it became the first video to hit five billion views on YouTube. In the process, Despacito reached a less celebrated milestone: it burned as much energy as 40,000 U.S. homes use in a year.

We tend to think of the internet as immaterial but thats mainly because the material stuff is mostly not where we live:

If you live your life online, both in terms of browsing and storage, its easy to feel a kind of digital weightlessness. Its not often that we consider how many servers are actually propping up our wireless lifestyles. The cloud is not a memory palace to retrieve your data from. The cloud is a physical storage facility that has a burden on the world.

In the US, streaming music services dump between 25,000 and 40,000 tons of CO2 into the air every year. Data centres take large amounts of energy to power and need to be on 24 hours a day to ensure that access to data never drops. So arent data centres the hottest places on earth? Well, not really, as they need to be cooled. That takes a lot of energy.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), one of the biggest cloud providers, is trying to move toward powering its servers with 100% renewable energy. But that will involve a lot of infrastructure investment, not just pre-COVID-style group hugs.

As Mark White puts it, The cloud is a vague place that none of us even think about. Were happy to dump our data there provided we remember the password.

Its the same with cryptocurrency. As programmer Jonathan Bartlett notes, the energy costs associated with having a trustless system such as Bitcoin is immense, with Bitcoin transactions generally costing 400,000 times as much energy as a single transaction on the Visa network. According to the BBC, the Bitcoin network which, again, very few people are regularly transacting in now consumes more energy than the entire country of Argentina. (Mind Matters News, March 15, 2021) If green companies like Tesla are embracing Bitcoin, as he says, we need to ask them some questions. Perhaps it is relevant that Tesla apparently profited more on the Bitcoin investment than in the entire last year of selling cars that are supposed to be green.

Philosopher of technology George Gilder warns that cloud computing is reaching its limits. The cloud isnt something ethereal up there, Gilder reminds us; it is giant factory floors of computers. He sees blockchain (currently used to produce cryptocurrencies) as replacing cloud computing, but that doesnt solve the energy problem.

Thoughts are immaterial and the human brain, while itself material, exceeds the most powerful computers in efficiency. But once we seek to turn our thoughts into actions, energy issues arise. The energy always goes somewhere and does something. Digital lifestyles dont change that. No one has repealed the Laws of Thermodynamics.

So maybe our first step is to recognize how much energy our digital lifestyle really uses, even though we imagine that those digital documents are somehow immaterial. Theyre not. They just belong to an energy budget not directly associated with ourselves.

You may also wish to read: Could carbon computing make computers more environment friendly? As a key component of life forms, carbon is abundant and energy efficient. Carbon-based computing uses vastly less energy than silicon-based, just as a human brain, with as many connections as the internet, uses much less energy.

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Cloud Computing? There's a Lot of Smoke in Those Clouds - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

The 10 hottest cloud computing jobs on Indeed – TechRepublic

If you're looking for job security and salaries averaging over $100,000, it's a good time to gain cloud skills.

Image: iStock/t:Radachynskyi

The top three cloud jobs on Indeed right now are cloud engineer, software architect and cloud consultant.

It is often said that the future looks cloudy. At a time when a globally distributed workforce has meant moving to the cloud or potentially not surviving, and organizations are scrambling to digitally transform their operations, cloud computing jobs are hotter than ever.

Rounding out the top 10 cloud jobs on the site are development operations engineer, senior software engineer, software developer, software engineer, full-stack developer, data engineer and platform engineer.

SEE:13 career fields with a future: Sustained recovery(TechRepublic)

In the U.S., the average base salary for a cloud engineer is $118,003, according to Indeed. A software architect can make an average of $135,473 in the U.S. and a cloud consultant, an average of $108,233, according to the site.

"In addition to high salaries and job availability, cloud computing professionals also benefit from the field's flexibility,'' according to a Northeastern University graduate program blog post. "Most jobs within the industry can be performed remotely, protecting them from many of the workplace uncertainties brought about during the COVID-19 pandemic and allowing professionals to work anywhere in the world."

"Essentially, every meaningful consumer application or service that you can think of today is based on cloud technology,'' said Scott Bonneau, vice president of global talent attraction at Indeed. "As a result, the demand for cloud talent has shot up over this same period of time."

It is hard to compare how this year's top cloud jobs rank to past years as the timeframes are likely different, Bonneau said. But as the chart shows demand has changed over the last few years.

Image: Indeed.com

(Methodology: Indeed calculated the percentage change in the share of job postings (per 1M) and the share of job seeker searches containing the cloud terms in the title from March thru March of the respective year. Cloud terms included: 'amazon webservices', 'amazon web services', 'amazon webservice', 'amazon web service','aws', 'azure', 'google cloud', 'cloud', 'openstack', 'open stack.')

Many cloud computing jobs do not require a four-year college degree, he said.

"It is becoming increasingly common for software development roles to no longer require a four-year college degree--including many cloud engineering roles. I anticipate this trend will continue into the future,'' Bonneau said.

Instead, "practical experience, a demonstrated ability to learn and apply newly learned skills in a professional environment and an ability to be a great team player are often much more key factors than someone's four-year degree."

Given that effectively, all consumer software these days is built for and runs in the cloud, the job opportunity is enormous, Bonneau said. "It's a rapidly evolving field with a ton of innovation, especially right now. I expect this trend to continue."

He offered some tips for employers looking to hire cloud talent:

Clearly define your talent needs. This sounds easy but can actually be tricky. Do you think you need specific industry experience? Or new college grads? Define your target candidate group, and then focus all your attention there.

Know your value proposition as an employer. What sets the opportunity to work for you apart from the others? Are you mission-driven in a unique way? Find what makes you, you, and lean into that, and make sure every candidate experiences that in each touchpoint they have during the process.

Expand your sources of hire. Once you understand your needs and have sorted how you're going to convey your value proposition, look for sources of hire where the talent you need might be. There are lots of great sources that often go overlooked, like coding boot camps that may have candidates with non-traditional backgrounds and huge amounts of potential.

1. cloud engineer

2. software architect

3. cloud consultant

4. development operations engineer

5. senior software engineer

6. software developer

7. software engineer

8. full stack developer

9. data engineer

10. platform engineer

This is your go-to resource for XaaS, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, cloud engineering jobs, and cloud security news and tips. Delivered Mondays

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The 10 hottest cloud computing jobs on Indeed - TechRepublic

#islandertech – Taking the mystery out of cloud computing – Islander News.com

We often hear the term cloud storage or cloud computing discussed, but what exactly is cloud computing or storage? How does it work? Is it safe, and is it the right solution for your needs? Here, we will answer those and other questions about this often mysterious subject.

Boiling it down to its simplest form, cloud computing is storage on somebody elses computer server. It is accessible mainly via a password-protected account, with a device connected to the internet. Some samples of this are Dropbox, Google Drive or iCloud.

In those services, an account is created usually using your email with password protection. You can store files there, such as pictures or documents, just like on a computer folder. The advantage is that your documents are safe and available from just about any device with an internet connection. You dont have to worry if your computer fails; just log into your account with another computer and access your files.

Another plus is the ability to increase your storage capacity, usually for a fee, or go down on storage space when desired. Its like having a flexible hard drive you can access from anywhere. This also makes synchronization between devices easy since you can access all your files from any internet-linked device.

Is cod computing safe? The short answer is yes because it is protected by your user ID and password. Of course, there is always risk so use a safe password and change it frequently.

Dropbox is well known to be safe, and you can get a free account for basic storage, or a paid, full-fledged business account. Google Drive is another expandable solution, but you need a gmail account to use it.

A iCloud account can only be created on an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) running iOS 5 or higher, or on a Mac computer running OS X Lion or higher.

You can set up an account for the services mentioned above by simply creating an account up for them at their websites.

In my next column I will discuss antivirus protection for your computer devices. Who needs it and which one to get.

If you have any suggestions on tech topics youd like to see addressed, contact Leo Quintana at (305) 523-9203 or leo@leoquintana.com

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#islandertech - Taking the mystery out of cloud computing - Islander News.com

Open Grid Alliance aims to support cloud computing at the edge – VentureBeat

Join Transform 2021 this July 12-16. Register for the AI event of the year.

VMware and Vapor IO this week kicked off an ambitious effort to rearchitect the internet via a vendor-neutral Open Grid Alliance (OGA) that aims to make network services easier for app developers to consume.

Other founding members of the OGA include Dell Technologies, DriveNets, MobiledgeX, and PacketFabric. But the OGA is not seeking to define any specific technology implementations and is open to all interested parties, Vapor IO CEO Cole Crawford told VentureBeat. In fact, the OGA is deliberately staying away from creating any type of formal foundation structure, Crawford added. A lot of people are suffering foundation fatigue, he said.

Vapor IO today provides its own framework for integrating edge computing platforms and distributed datacenters to enable machine-to-machine communications that are the core of many internet of things (IoT) applications.

OGA will embrace technologies that distribute the economics and flexibility of cloud computing platforms out to the network edge. That approach will make it possible for developers and other members of an IT organization to declaratively describe their intent, which will then be used to automatically configure network services. This shift is required because, for example, next-generation wireless technologies will not be able to achieve the level of scale required by billions of intelligent devices that will be connected to the internet, Crawford said.

Many of those devices will be running highly distributed applications based on microservices that will not only consume a lot of data but are also latency-sensitive, Crawford noted. Many of the applications will need to run in real time as digital business processes continue to evolve and expand, he added.

The internet in its current form is designed around a core-out model that needs to be replaced by an edge-in approach that enables network services to be delivered more efficiently. It could do this by making sure packets travel more directly to where they need to arrive, instead of being widely broadcasted, Crawford added.

Some members of OGA are using network virtualization overlays and smart contracts currently associated with distributed ledgers based on blockchain databases to enable that goal. But rather than relying on low-level application programming interfaces (APIs), the idea is to allow platforms to describe their capabilities to an application, VMware VP Kaniz Mahdi said.

As the amount of compute horsepower and storage capacity deployed at the network edge increases, it becomes possible to reimagine how the internet could be constructed, Mahdi noted. More automation and abstraction is required, she said, adding More telematics will also be necessary.

The OGA plans to define key principles for the Open Grid and identify open interoperable technologies that adhere to those principles as they emerge. It will also document how these technologies will impact cloud providers, developers, vendors, communication service providers (CSPs), internet service providers (ISPs), and end users.

Intent-based networking is not a new idea, of course. Networking vendors have been using that phrase to describe the next era of networking for several years. It will, however, be several years before we see the level of scale the OGA envisions for applying those concepts. In that sense, the OGA is focused on starting a conversation about how the internet needs to change.

Its already apparent the internet in its current incarnation will need to evolve as the world becomes more interconnected. The issue that needs to be determined now is under what type of framework that goal can be achieved in the absence of a single governing body. That body would need to be empowered to define a set of interoperable internet standards in the way the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) did some six decades ago.

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Open Grid Alliance aims to support cloud computing at the edge - VentureBeat

Career in Cloud Computing: Top job roles and how to get started – India Today

It's abundantly clear there is no going back to how things were pre-pandemic! Everything that we see has undergone a digital makeover and it's critical graduates and young professionals learn how to navigate the changed dynamics of the business world.

A key requirement for the future workforce will be the job roles in domains that are going to be integral to the future functioning of our businesses and economy. This is necessary not just for the sustenance of businesses, but also for bringing down the unemployment rate that is currently accelerating in our country.

Cloud Computing is one such critical domain. From facilitating online learning to supporting remote work, Cloud has emerged as a saviour in the pandemic/post-pandemic for business continuity. Seeing the surge of demand for Cloud services, it is safe to say that graduates and young professionals should understand and pursue careers in this domain.

This is a high-in-demand role in the domain. These professionals are responsible for programming solutions for the Cloud, including automation, orchestration, and integration.

These are professionals who implement the overall cloud strategy of their company. They analyse the requirements of the business and define relevant solutions using appropriate Cloud services.

These professionals are in charge of the security of the Cloud systems in their organisations, including identifying potential threats and recommend best-fit technologies to boost the security of the Cloud.

These are professionals tasked with managing Cloud-based data services, as well as hybrid data sources. They are responsible for identifying and introducing new data management and security technologies to their organisations.

They design, plan and implement Cloud networking solutions specific to the requirements of the organisation or its clients. They usually work with on-premises and cloud-based hardware and software to allow authorized users access to resources.

Regardless of educational background and work experience, you can get started with the Cloud if you have the passion and determination to succeed. Here is the step-by-step guide:

This is the first step for getting into the domain. Get an in-depth understanding of what Cloud is and what problems it solves. Get familiar with the three big players in the domain: Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the services they offer.

Equip yourself with a solid understanding of key topics in the domain such as Cloud Service Models, Cloud Formation & Architecture, Virtualization, and others. All three big players in the market offer both free and paid training courses for building fundamentals on Cloud computing.

Certifications will help you demonstrate your expertise and stay relevant in the ever-changing industry. Zero in on your area of interest in the domain and explore entry-level certifications offered by AWS, GCP, or Azure. Enroll in a career-based certification path and if possible, specialize by getting a role-based certification as well - especially popular are AWS, Azure, and GCP Cloud Developer, Architect, and Security certifications.

This is a good way of standing out and differentiating yourself from other cloud aspirants and getting noticed by recruiters and organizations. Moreover, most certification courses have hands-on training in labs, which will go a long way in preparing you for entry-level jobs.

Cloud computing is a vast field, and there is no end to the learning process. To excel you need to go beyond the immediate concepts, and learn other related skills, including programming languages, Cloud-focused architecture, platforms and applications - API & Web services, containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes), etc.

It's always a good idea to delve deeper into any domain if you want to sustain it in the long run. Improve your knowledge in Cloud Cryptography, Edge Computing, and other related topics. There are numerous resources available like online journals, research papers, credible blogs or you can opt for formal training.

Take up assignmentsminor projects to get experience in the technology and become familiar with Cloud. Some of the topics that you can excel with hands-on expertise are Cloud Migration for Infrastructure and Applications, Server management, and Cloud Monitoring.

Reach out to companies, ideally through your connections or networking sites like LinkedIn. Showcase your credentials and impress them with your hands-on expertise.

The Cloud computing domain is booming as we speak. The pandemic has validated how valuable Cloud is and there is no going back.

Businesses, small and large, all across are modernising their IT infrastructure by migrating to Cloud and are willing to compensate highly for the right talent in the domain. 'Right' being the keyword here! Become the talent that they are looking for by constantly upskilling and reskilling yourself.

By Peeush Bajpai, CEO, Springpeople.

Read: Explained: Why soft skills are important to excel in your career?

Read: Tips for undergraduate and postgraduate students looking to advance their career: All you need to know

Read: 9 in-demand IT careers in 2021-22

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Career in Cloud Computing: Top job roles and how to get started - India Today

Five key best practices for AWS cost optimisation – analysed – Cloud Tech

Keeping cloud costs in check is a struggle. Companies either lose control of their budgets and spend even 23% more than planned or end up overprovisioning their workloads.

Optimising cloud costs is about striking a healthy balance between price and performance. You want your applications to have enough resources, but at the same time avoid cloud waste.

Here are five tips to get you started on your AWS cost optimisation journey.

Several teams or departments might be contributing to your AWS cloud bill, so you need a way to make this visible (and predictable).

AWS offers two handy tools for categorising expenses by accounts, organisations, or projects:

AWS offers 150+ EC2 instance types with entirely different combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity. Each comes in one or more sizes, so you can scale easily.

You might be tempted by an affordable instance but what happens when you start running a CPU-intensive application on it and experience performance issues? This might affect your reputation.

Tip: Take advantage of spot instances for 90% savings: In spot instances, you bid on resources AWS isnt using now and save up to 90% off the on-demand pricing.

Many companies miss out on spot instances because theyre not sure how to handle interruptions.

Thats why your first step is to check if your workload is spot-ready:

To increase your chances, set up groups of spot instances (AWS Spot Fleets) and request multiple instance types simultaneously.

When selecting a spot instance, pick one thats slightly less popular its less likely to get interrupted. You can check its frequency of interruption in the AWS Spot Instance Advisor.

Workloads tend to vary a lot, and sudden surges of traffic might affect their performance if youre not prepared to handle a bigger load automatically.

If your application receives unexpected traffic, you might deliver a poor experience if you rely on manual scaling. And when adding resources, you risk overspending when the traffic goes down.

Scaling your cloud resources manually doesnt make sense.

Use tools like Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and AWS Auto Scaling to monitor your applications and automatically adjust capacity for a steady and predictable performance at the lowest possible cost.

In Reserved instances, you buy capacity upfront in a specific Availability Zone for a much lower price when compared to on-demand. You commit to a particular instance or family you cant change this later on. And what if your requirements change in the meantime?

AWS also offers Savings Plans where you commit to using a specific amount of compute power over some time.

In both cases, you risk locking yourself in with the cloud vendor and committing to pay for resources that might not make any sense for you in 1 or 3 years.

These options remove any flexibility of scaling or ability to configure multi-region/zone distribution easily. As a result, youll be missing out on more cost-effective options.

To reduce your AWS bill, you need a platform that automatically chooses the right instance size, uses spot instances, takes care of autoscaling, and helps you to manage infrastructure dependencies.

CAST AI does just that for Kubernetes workloads. So if you use EKS, you can analyse your clusters for free, identify money leaks in minutes, set cost policies, and let AI keep optimising your cloud bill.

Editors note: This article is in association with CAST AI.

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Five key best practices for AWS cost optimisation - analysed - Cloud Tech

Quali Colony Named 2021 Cloud Computing Product of the Year – PRNewswire

AUSTIN, Texas, April 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --Quali, the Infrastructure Automation at ScaleTMcompany, has been named a winner of a 2021 Cloud Computing Product of the Year award for Colony, its cloud infrastructure automation platform.

Presented by Cloud Computing Magazine, the Cloud Computing Product of the Year Award honors vendors with the most innovative, useful, and beneficial cloud products and services available to deploy within the past year. The award highlights Colony as an industry-leading solution, unburdening application teams from the time and complexity of setting up and operating cloud infrastructure.

"Earning this prestigious award again is validation of our approach to technology and our commitment to continuous innovation," said Edan Evantal, Chief Product Officer of Quali. "Application teams are choosing Colony because they need a new, frictionless way to do infrastructure. One that actually fits the DevOps way and is designed to let innovation fly from day 1, day 2, day whatever."

The 2021 announcement has earned Quali its fourth Cloud Computing Product of the Year award, cementing its place as a cutting-edge cloud solution that continues to innovate at a feverish pace. After a record sales year in 2020, growing its tier 1 customer base including Cisco, Microsoft, Dell, and Verizon and earning increased funding of $54 million in Q1 of 2021, Quali is poised to continue its unique momentum as a market leader in the DevOps and Infrastructure Automation categories.

Colony is a SaaS platform for delivering infrastructure automation at scale for complex application-centric environments on cloud technologies including AWS, Azure, and Kubernetes. IT leaders and DevOps innovators around the world trust Quali to enable self-service automation and governance to streamline application development, testing, and release to production.

About Quali Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Quali provides the leading platform for Infrastructure Automation at Scale. Global 2000 enterprises and innovators everywhere rely on Quali's award-winning CloudShell platform to create self-service, on-demand automation solutions that increase engineering productivity, cut cloud costs, and optimize infrastructure utilization. For more information, please visit https://www.quali.com/ and follow Quali on Twitter and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Quali

https://www.quali.com

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Quali Colony Named 2021 Cloud Computing Product of the Year - PRNewswire

How European CISOs are driving increased IT security investment – Cloud Tech

The chief information security officer (CISO) role has gained new importance, due to increased cyber threats. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on security-related IT investment in Europe, which will continue to grow rapidly in 2021.

During the pandemic, organisations have been re-architecting their IT security perimeters to protect operations and critical data. The pandemic, and measures to curb it with remote working, have pushed the enterprise network outwards and heightened the risk for CISOs.

According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), overall investment in IT security within Europe is projected to exceed $35.6 billion during 2021 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.8 percent between 2020 and 2024 now forecast to reach $46.4 billion in 2024.

The banking sector traditionally has the highest spending on IT security due to the particularly sensitive customer data that is integral to the industry. Besides, financial service organisations are eager to optimise their IT infrastructure via digital transformation.

The COVID-19 pandemic also increased focus on remote servicing of clientele, making data protection and identity and digital trust solutions even more invaluable. Additionally, the European banking sector is leading in terms of spending on services for integration, consulting, support services, and more.

Spending on IT services in the sector is projected at 7.3 percent year-on-year growth in 2021 to reach $4.8 billion. The second-place vertical market is discrete manufacturing with 7 percent projected to reach $3.8 billion, followed by process manufacturing with $3.1 billion in spending based on 7.6 percent growth.

IT Security spending also varies according to regions. In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), for example, the second-largest vertical is federal or central government, with discrete manufacturing in third place.

The adoption of hybrid workforce models will motivate all CIOs to reassess their organisations secure network access requirements. Home-based workers will likely need to reach software applications within a managed data centre, plus a variety of public cloud-based SaaS apps

In Western Europe, conversely, banking is still the largest industry by IT security spending, followed by discrete manufacturing in second place and process manufacturing in third.

Broken down by services category, security services are projected to comprise the greatest share of IT security investment in 2021, with spending expected to accelerate further as organisations in Europe accelerate their digital transformation and migrate systems and workloads to the cloud. However, security software and hardware investments are expected to grow at a slightly lower rate.

After the initial response to the pandemic, organisations in Europe began to plan more strategically for an increasingly digital future, where interactions between businesses, their employees, partners, and customers (or citizens) are predominantly digital rather than physical, says Mark Child, research manager at IDC.

According to the IDC assessment, this transition will require secure infrastructure and processes, and not every organisation has the resources and expertise in-house. This is also driving strong growth in security services particularly public cloud services, managed security services, and IT security consulting.

CEE governments invested heavily in IT security during 2020 and are expected to continue doing so through 2024, owing to the need to provide digitalised services to citizens and businesses, and to enable remote working, distance learning, or other operations in which a physical presence is not possible.

IDC analysts believe that Central and Eastern Europe are catching up to Western Europe when it comes to the maturity of IT security spending in the government sector, and the current spending levels of verticals illustrate these trends.

That said, I anticipate that the adoption of hybrid workforce models will motivate all CIOs to reassess their organisations secure network access requirements. Home-based workers will likely need to reach software applications within a managed data centre, plus a variety of public cloud-based SaaS apps.

Photo byFranois GenononUnsplash

Want to find out more about topics like this from industry thought leaders? TheCloud Transformation Congress, taking place on 13 July 2021, is a virtual event and conference focusing on how to enable digital transformation with the power of cloud.

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How European CISOs are driving increased IT security investment - Cloud Tech