Category Archives: Cloud Computing
This Cloud Computing Stock Is Transforming the $1.2 Trillion Drug Industry – Money Morning
By Stephen Mack, Associate Editor, Money Morning December 24, 2019
Cloud computing is one of the most profitable niches in the tech industry.
It's the primary driver of earnings growth for both Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ: MSFT). Those stocks are up 53% and 81% in the past two years, respectively.
Some pure-play cloud computing stocks have performed even better
First Trust Cloud Computing ETF (NASDAQ: SKYY), which includes a broad range of companies in the cloud computing segment, has grown 106% over the last five years. That's double the gain of the S&P 500 in that time.
And Gartner Group estimated that $111 billion in IT spending shifted to the cloud in 2016. And that figure is expected to be $216 billion by 2020. That's a 95% jump in four years.
In other words, even an average pick in this space is likely to give you strong returns.
But we can do a lot better than average.
The cloud computing stock we're bringing you today doesn't just benefit from tech. It also taps into the $1.2 trillion pharmaceutical industry.
This is an industry that can be enormously profitable. EvaluatePharma expects 10 drugs launched this year will reach billion-dollar annual sales.
But it's also hit-or-miss. Only about one in 10 drugs in development make it to market, according to Biotechnology Innovation Organization.
Getting a drug to market typically takes about 12 years and $1 billion.
When you factor in all the failures, though, the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development found that the cost balloons to $2.5 billion.
No wonder prescription drug costs are through the roof.
That's where our cloud computing stock comes in.
This company specializes in providing Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries.
The result is increased efficiency and faster development times. In some cases, drug makers have more than doubled their productivity through cloud-based products.
In other words, more drugs are making it to market quicker at a lower cost.
But you don't need to be a patient to benefit from this productivity. If you pick up this cloud computing stock today, Money Morning Defense and Tech Specialist Michael Robinson says you could double your money in three years or less.
And that's a conservative estimate, he stresses.
Join the conversation. Click here to jump to comments
About the Author
Stephen Mack has been writing about economics and finance since 2011. He contributed material for the best-selling books Aftershock and The Aftershock Investor. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Read full bio
Read the original here:
This Cloud Computing Stock Is Transforming the $1.2 Trillion Drug Industry - Money Morning
Debunking the Myths Associated with Migrating to the Cloud & Cloud Visibility – Security Boulevard
Gartner lists cloud computing as one of the top technology investments for the next five years, and the global public cloud computing market is set to reach $258 billion in 2019. The ability to access data from anywhere is the top reason for cloud adoption, with about a third of companies IT budgets going to cloud services.
However, many enterprises transitioning to an only cloud or hybrid cloud environment are unnecessarily hitting roadblocks on issues of security and privacy. There is a common misconception that organizations can fit old security practices into the new cloud environments and when they fail to do so, the cloud environment is blamed. In fact, the cloud is inherently secure if you follow best practices to secure it. In this blog we separate myth from reality when it comes to cloud adoption.
This is one of the most persistent myths about cloud security that just wont die.
The notion that an on-premise data center and its security is more robust than cloud security is fundamentally flawed. On the contrary, the cloud can be more secure than on-prem. However, this requires following the best practices made for the cloud, and leaving behind the checks and balances we had in the pre-cloud world.
Since the cloud is made up of software, it is much more malleable than the physical infrastructure. It can be updated, audited, and secured in a more complete way than was possible with the physical nature of the pre-cloud environment.
This malleability however, is a double-edged sword. The main problems facing cloud security are still security misconfigurations and human errors. It is these glitches and configuration errors that lead to the notion of an inherent insecurity of cloud buckets.
In a recent survey of cloud professionals, nearly 22 percent of respondents linked a data breach to compromised credentials. That is why Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy for cloud apps is one key area that must be prioritized in cloud adoption strategies.
Cloud is inherently safer by design, but only when the best practices of cloud adoption are followed to a T. When set up and maintained correctly, the cloud can be much more secure than on-prem environments.
The cloud is made up of physical servers. While cooling, power, fire suppression, physical security, and server maintenance are someone elses headache, aka, the cloud service providers, the need for backups is still your responsibility.
Bugs, human errors, cyberattacks that corrupt or damage data etc, require the possibility to revert back to a previous known sound version. This is something that youre responsible for, and the cloud provider wont do it for you. Setting up backups is something that you need to handle.
A cloud service provider can support you in your efforts to be secure and compliant. Still, its up to you and your organization to do everything necessary to meet regulatory and compliance requirements. That is why it is crucial to deploy continuous monitoring of both technical and non-technical cloud compliance requirements.
Your cloud provider is responsible for the security of the cloud, while you, as a customer, are responsible for security in the cloud.
The cloud vendor is responsible for managing the host Operating System (OS), the virtualization layer, and the physical security of its facilities. But it is up to the customer to ensure security within a given cloud environment.
Dont forget about your share of responsibilities. You are responsible for configuring and managing the security controls for the guest OS and other apps (including timely updates and security patches), as well as, setting up the access control. Additionally, you are responsible for encrypting data in-transit and at-rest.
One of the most pervasive myths is that data cant be audited as effectively in the cloud as it could be on physical servers. This simply isnt the case. As the CTO of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs states with proper tooling, you can conduct much better audits in a cloud-based environment.
To power up your audits, you need to combine training with tools. Spend time with personnel who conduct audits to see how their work is carried out. Then walk them through your companys tool capabilities and how to utilize these to alleviate some of their pain points.
When set up and maintained properly, cloud can be more secure compared to pre-cloud environments.
It is tempting to sign off and just let your cloud service provider handle everything in the cloud. Providers bring with them powerful capabilities and also take on some parts of the security, such as updating the physical layers, and virtualization layers. But properly conceived security wont be provided straight out of the box, and it never will be.
Your developers and DevOps teams are ultimately the ones who build the cloud environment. If they run wild and you dont have visibility and necessary controls in place, you wont be secure. However, if you handle the cloud the way it should be handled you will be secure. Its as simple as that.
Due to the intertwined and complex nature of cloud environments, the basic foundation of securing a cloud environment is gaining full-stack visibility into all its assets. This entails a complete understanding of what is happening in the entire cloud environment across all of its layers: the cloud infrastructure level, operating systems, applications, and data.
Orcas Cloud Visibility Platform was built for the cloud. Not only does it provide you with full-stack visibility, but it also makes audits easier when compared to pre-cloud environments.
Read the original post:
Debunking the Myths Associated with Migrating to the Cloud & Cloud Visibility - Security Boulevard
Protect the cloud with essential security training – Android Authority
Cloud computing is already a huge industry, and its only going to become more essential in 2020 with new tech jobs being generated every day. If you want to ring in the New Year with some brand new tech skills, you can pick up the Essential Cloud Security Certification Bundle for just $39 with a new 2020 promo code.
You can dive into over 60 hours of content and pursue the area of cloud computing that most interests you. The whole learning kit is based on hands-on practice in cloud security, CCSP, CISSP, and AWS SysOps. The introduction to cybersecurity provides foundational knowledge to set up the rest of the modules, so its a perfect place to start.
The Essential Cloud Security Certification Bundle not only provides you with a certificate of completion, but it also helps you prepare for other certification exams in this industry. Youll gain experience deploying, managing, and operating scalable systems and master the skills to become a networksecurity professional.
The Essential Cloud Security Certification Bundle has a retail value of $2,000 but you can ring in the new year with massive savings. Use the promo code 20SAVE20 at the Tech Deals checkout to get all of the content for just $39.20.
This deal will only be around for a few more days so hit the widget below to check it out.
$39 .20
Essential Cloud Security Certification Use offer code: 20SAVE20
Save $1960 .80
Is this deal not quite right for you? To see all our hottest deals, head over to the DEALS HUB.
See the original post:
Protect the cloud with essential security training - Android Authority
Hybrid Cloud to Gain Traction in 2020: 5 Stocks in Focus – Zacks.com
The hybrid cloud concept is based on the notion of making public and private clouds co-exist, thereby allowing companies to maximize the benefits of both public and private cloud environments. In hybrid cloud computing, IT resources are deployed and managed through a combination of on-premise and third-party cloud computing services.
Notably, hybrid cloud has been one of the most-talked about concept within the cloud computing space. According to an insight from GlobalData, during the third quarter of 2019, hybrid cloud garnered the highest percentage of Twitter mentions in discussions among cloud computing experts. Notably, this was closely followed by multi cloud.
According to IDC, the key features of hybrid cloud are protection, security and compliance, integration and orchestration, and data location optimization.
Speaking of security, hybrid cloud allows organization to choose dedicated servers or network devices that can facilitate isolation of data and ensure better control over critical operations. Although the hybrid cloud isnt faster than a multi-cloud or a public cloud environment, it does however enable network optimization to minimize latency.
Scalability is another advantage as hybrid computing makes use of the public cloud platform. Notably, public cloud resources facilitate development of new applications and can run powerful analytics programs that are beyond the capacity of small organizations.
Hybrid Cloud to Gain Momentum in 2020
Per a TechTarget report, although hybrid cloud has been a popular trend in the cloud computing in the past few years, 2019 witnessed key changes as to how the platform was marketed and sold.
Moreover, hybrid computing is likely to be widely adopted during 2020 as interoperability between cloud systems and private networks take center stage. Further, widespread adoption of AI, ML, IoT and need of high capacity storage is driving the demand of hybrid cloud.
In fact, according to IDC, more than 90% of enterprise IT organizations will commit to multi-cloud architectures. Moreover, 70% of enterprises will integrate their public and private clouds by adhering to hybrid and multi-cloud management technologies, tools, and processes by 2022.
Focus on Top Hybrid Cloud Players
Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) is a dominant hybrid cloud solutions provider. The company is a pioneer in delivering a consistent private cloud experience using Azure Stack, enabling enterprises to build innovative hybrid cloud solutions. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
In November, Microsoft introduced Azure Arc, which extends Azure management tools to on-premises and cloud platforms beyond Azure.
Microsoft currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and a long-term earnings growth rate of 11.9%.
Intel (INTC - Free Report) is investing heavily in hybrid cloud development to ease workloads for client companies. The company is working closely with other industry leaders to accelerate cloud computing solutions and innovations such as Xeon Scalable processor platform, Optane technology, and Omni-Path Architecture.
The company is also extending virtualization from individual servers to the data centers via SDI, enabling a critical on-ramp for scalable hybrid clouds.
Intel currently has a Zacks Rank # 2 and a long-term earnings growth rate of 7.5%.
Year-to-Date Performance
Intel and Alphabets (GOOGL - Free Report) Google Cloud deal in April 2019, in a bid to accelerate deployment of applications on hybrid cloud and on-premise infrastructure, is worth noting. The deal has enabled the development of Anthos reference design by utilizing Intels 2nd-Generation XeonScalable processors.
Markedly, Alphabets acquisition of CloudSimple in November 2019, is another significant step toward bolstering Google Clouds presence in the hybrid space. The company currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) and a long-term earnings growth rate of 16.7%.
Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) has been a crucial hybrid cloud solutions provider in some way or the other, since the inception of AWS. Markedly, AWS recently made Outposts, a managed service that puts AWS-built server racks integrated with AWS software inside customer data centers, generally available.
Amazon currently has a Zacks Rank #3 and a long-term earnings growth rate of 16.7%.
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM - Free Report) has also been taking steps to adhere to the hybrid-shift. Through its Cloud Pak for Security feature, IBM is facilitating locking of data speed and applications across multiple private and public clouds and on-premises locations.
Markedly, the companys acquisition of Red Hat in 2018 is considered by some industry experts to be an important move considering its strategy to shift to hybrid cloud. In fact, IBMs Cloud Paks are bundles of Red Hats Kubernetes-based OpenShift container platform along with Red Hat Linux and a variety of connecting technologies.
IBM currently has a Zacks Rank #3 and a long-term earnings growth rate of 5%.
Zacks Top 10 Stocks for 2020
In addition to the stocks discussed above, would you like to know about our 10 top tickers for the entirety of 2020?
These 10 are painstakingly hand-picked from over 4,000 companies covered by the Zacks Rank. They are our primary picks to buy and hold.
Start Your Access to the New Zacks Top 10 Stocks >>
Read the original here:
Hybrid Cloud to Gain Traction in 2020: 5 Stocks in Focus - Zacks.com
Extending the Circle of Trust with Confidential Computing – Infosecurity Magazine
The benefits of operational efficiency and flexibility delivered by public cloud resources have encouraged todays organizations to migrate applications and data to external computing platforms located outside the perceived security of on-premises infrastructures. Many businesses are now adopting a cloud-first design approach that emphasizes elastic scalability and cost reduction above ownership and management, and, in some cases, security.
Analyzing global trends in public cloud services, Gartner has predicted that spending on these resources will increase from $182.4B in 2018 to $331.2B in 2022, with 30 percent of all new software investments being cloud native by the end of 2019.
Trusting Someone Else to Guard Your Secrets
The benefits of third-party infrastructure and applications, however, come with risks. Deploying sensitive applications and data on computing platforms that are outside of an organizations owned and managed infrastructure requires trust in the service providers hardware and software used to process, and ultimately protect, that data.
Trusting a cloud provider can be disastrous for an organization financially and reputation-wise if they are the subject of a successful cyber-attack. In its Ninth Annual Cost of Cybercrime Study, Accenture reported that in 2018 the average cost of cyber-attacks involving either a malicious insider or the execution of malicious code was $3M per year, according to participants.
Confidential Computing
One response to the problem of the trustworthiness of the cloud when it comes to data protection has been the emergence of the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), which has led to the concept of confidential computing. Industry leaders joined together to form the Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC) in October.
The Confidential Computing Consortium looks to address the security issues around data in use, enabling encrypted data to be processed in memory without exposing it to the rest of the system. This is the first industry-wide initiative by industry leaders to address data in use, since todays encryption security approaches mostly focus on data at rest or data in transit. The work of the Confidential Computing Consortium is especially important as companies move more workloads to multiple environments, including on premises, public cloud, hybrid, and edge environments.
Secure Enclaves
One of the most important technologies for addressing the problem of protecting data in use can be found in the form of secure enclaves, such as the protected memory regions established by Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX). Secure enclaves allow applications to execute securely and be enforced at the hardware level by the CPU itself. All data is encrypted in memory and decrypted only while being used inside the CPU: the data remains completely protected, even if the operating system, hypervisor or root user is compromised. With secure enclaves, data can be fully protected across its entire lifecycle at rest, in motion and in use for the first time.
Secure enclaves can offer further security benefits using a process called attestation to verify that the CPU is genuine, and that the deployed application is the correct one and hasnt been altered.
Operating in secure enclaves with attestation gives users complete confidence that code is running as intended and that data is completely protected during processing. This approach is gaining traction, for example it enables sensitive applications, including data analytics, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence, to run safely in the cloud with regulatory compliance.
Runtime Encryption
Encryption is a proven approach for effective data security, particularly when protecting data at rest and data in motion. However, as discussed above, a key requirement for confidential computing, and the focus of the Confidential Computing Consortium, is protecting data in use. When an application starts to run, its data is vulnerable to a variety of attacks, including malicious insiders, root users, credential compromise, OS zero-day, and network intruders.
Runtime encryption provides deterministic security with hardware-aided memory encryption for applications to protect data in use. Through optimization of the Trusted Computing Base (TCB), it enables encrypted data to be processed in memory without exposing it to the rest of the system.
This reduces the risks to sensitive data and provides greater control and transparency for users. Runtime encryption provides complete cryptographic protection for applications by running them securely inside a TEE and defending them even from root users and physical access to the server.
Expanding the Circle of Trust
The number one concern cited by enterprises in their move to the cloud continues to be security. Confidential computing and protecting data in use gives sensitive applications a safe place that protects them from todays infrastructure attacks.
Confidential computing is critical for protecting cloud data, and it is fundamentally helping establish and expand the circle of trust in cloud computing. It creates isolated runtime environments that allow execution of sensitive applications in a protected state, keeping cloud apps and data completely secure when in use.
With secure enclaves and runtime encryption supporting confidential computing, customers know that, no matter what happens, their data remains cryptographically protected. No amount of zero-day attacks, infrastructure compromises, and even government subpoenas can compromise the data. Confidential computing expands the deterministic security needed for the most sensitive cloud applications, at the performance level demanded by modern Internet-scale applications.
A Secure Cloud Future
As Gartner has reported, businesses are migrating their sensitive data and applications to public cloud services, a practice that saves them from ownership and maintenance of infrastructure that will inevitably be obsolete in the future.
Leading technology providers have recognized that confidential computing provides a security model ready to address the problems of untrusted hardware and software that have hampered this transition to the cloud.
With a growing number of use cases, and interest and deployments surging, confidential computing environments will be relied on to protect data in growing areas such as industry 4.0, digital health, the Internet of Things (IoT), and federated machine learning systems.
As the Confidential Computing Consortium continues its work, individuals and businesses may at some point expect a confidential computing architecture as a prerequisite for the exchange and processing of our private data.
Follow this link:
Extending the Circle of Trust with Confidential Computing - Infosecurity Magazine
Cloud Computing Service Market Structure, Industry Inspection, and Forecast 2025 – Info Street Wire
The research study provided by UpMarketResearch on Global Cloud Computing Service Industry offers strategic assessment of the Cloud Computing Service market. The industry report focuses on the growth opportunities, which will help the market to expand operations in the existing markets.Next, in this report, you will find the competitive scenario of the major market players focusing on their sales revenue, customer demands, company profile, import/export scenario, business strategies that will help the emerging market segments in making major business decisions. The Global Cloud Computing Service Market contains the ability to become one of the most lucrative industries as factors related to this market such as raw material affluence, financial stability, technological development, trading policies, and increasing demand are boosting the market growth. Therefore, the market is expected to see higher growth in the near future and greater CAGR during the forecast period from 2019 to 2026.
Request Exclusively Free Sample PDF Of This Report At https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/20956
Major Players included in this report are as follows AmazonSalesforce.comVMwareSavvisRackspaceIBMDellCiscoDell EMCOracleNetSuiteMicrosoft
Cloud Computing Service Market can be segmented into Product Types as Software-as-a-ServicePlatform-as-a-ServiceInfrastructure-as-a-Service
Cloud Computing Service Market can be segmented into Applications as Private CloudsPublic CloudsHybrid Clouds
Cloud Computing Service Market: Regional analysis includes:Asia-Pacific (Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Australia)Europe (Turkey, Germany, Russia UK, Italy, France, etc.)North America (United States, Mexico, and Canada.)South America (Brazil etc.)The Middle East and Africa (GCC Countries and Egypt.)
Get Full Access with Complete ToC by purchasing This Report At https://www.upmarketresearch.com/buy/cloud-computing-service-market
The Cloud Computing Service report regulates a complete analysis of the parent market including dependent and independent sectors. The report provides strategic recommendations with the senior analysts consultation that gives a clear perspective to clients as to which strategy will help them best to penetrate a market. Further, the report sheds light on the raw material sources, organizational structure, production processes, capacity utilization, value chain, pricing structure, technologies, equipment, product specifications distribution channel, and serving segments. It demonstrates graphical information with figures and pictures for elucidation.
For More Information on this report, Request Inquiry At https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/20956
Key Highlights of This Report: The report covers Cloud Computing Service applications, market dynamics, and the study of emerging and existing market segments. It portrays market overview, product classification, applications, and market volume forecast from 2019-2026. It provides analysis on the industry chain scenario, key market players, market volume, upstream raw material details, production cost, and marketing channels. The growth opportunities, limitations to the market growth are identified using the SWOT analysis It conducts the feasibility study, explores the industry barriers, data sources and provides key research findings The report delivers analysis on consumption volume, region-wise import/export analysis and forecast market from 2019-2026.
For Best Discount on purchasing this report, Visit https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/request_for_discount/20956
About UpMarketResearch:Up Market Research (https://www.upmarketresearch.com) is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.
Contact Info UpMarketResearchName Alex MathewsEmail [emailprotected] Website https://www.upmarketresearch.com Address 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States.
This post was originally published on Info Street Wire
Continued here:
Cloud Computing Service Market Structure, Industry Inspection, and Forecast 2025 - Info Street Wire
Tech stocks are poised to close out their best year in a decade, propelled by Apple and AMD – CNBC
Apple CEO Tim Cook arrives for Apples "The Morning Show" global premiere at Lincoln Center- David Geffen Hall on October 28, 2019 in New York.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
Tech stocks are about to close out their best year since the rebound from the financial crisis.
With December winding down, the S&P 500 information technology index, consisting of 70 members, has gained 48% in 2019, marking the best year for the group since a 60% jump in 2009.
The difference a decade ago was that the tech index was coming off 2008, in which it plunged 44%, creating a buying opportunity and setting the stage for a so-called dead cat bounce.
This time around, tech stocks dipped just 1.6% in 2018 before rallying to new heights in 2019, suggesting that the latest surge is backed by the strengthening financial position of the companies in the group and optimism for the broader economy.
Leading the index this year were a bunch of semiconductor makers and chip equipment companies. And Apple.
Keep in mind, this index doesn't include internet companies, so the mega-cap FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google now Alphabet) stocks fall into different S&P 500 subgroups. Even so, among the FANG stocks, only Facebook has outperformed the tech index, while each of the others underperformed by at least 18 percentage points.
"The FANG trade did not work out this year," said Jake Dollarhide, CEO of Longbow Asset Management, which oversees $110 million in assets and is overweight tech stocks. "Other tech plays stepped up. A lot of it is consumer thirst for more and more mobile technology."
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices was the biggest gainer in the S&P tech index as of Thursday's close, climbing 153%, followed by semiconductor equipment manufacturer Lam Research's 117% gain. KLA, which also supplies the chip industry, rose 100%, and Qorvo, a supplier of radio frequency technology for iPhones, surged 94%. Apple was the eighth-best performer, gaining 84%, but because of its size, the iPhone maker was by far the top contributor to the index's gain.
Despite a saturated smartphone market and perpetual concern that the iPhone can't get any better or more powerful, Apple continues to lure consumers with new features and options and is reportedly preparing to offer models in 2020 that are both smaller and larger than those currently available. In October, Apple reported a 9% decline in iPhone sales, which marked an improvement over previous quarters, and CEO Tim Cook expressed optimism "about what the holiday quarter has in store."
In addition to bolstering the iPhone with cutting-edge camera technology, improved battery life and upgraded speakers, Apple has also created another fast-growth business: The wearables unit boosted sales by 50% from a year ago in the latest quarter, thanks to the popularity of the Apple Watch and AirPods.
Meanwhile, Apple avoided tariffs on its core products after President Donald Trump announced this month that the U.S. had reached a "phase one" trade deal with China.
That all works in favor of Apple suppliers like Qorvo, which counts on the iPhone maker for about one-third of its revenue. Chipmaker AMD provides graphics processors to some Apple iMacs and MacBook Pros. And Skyworks, which has jumped 82% this year for the ninth-best performance in the tech index, gets half its revenue selling mobile chips to Apple and its various contract manufacturers.
Micron, which provides memory technology to Apple, is the 14th-best gainer in the index, up 74%.
"This is an Apple world and we're just lucky enough to live in it," Dollarhide said.
In the chip equipment market, Lam and KLA are benefiting from a trend that includes Apple but extends to the wider explosion of mobile devices. As the world prepares for 5G high-speed networks, manufacturers are developing more connected devices, which means more microprocessors.
To meet that demand, large chipmakers like Intel, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) are boosting their spending on equipment from top suppliers.
Lam and KLA had agreed to merge in 2015 in a $10.6 billion deal, but they canceled their plans amid antitrust concerns. Lam is now closing out its best year since 2003, and KLA is enjoying its biggest annual rally since 1999.
"We are likely entering a decade+ expansionary period in the semiconductor industry as compute applications grow beyond PCs, phones, and tablets," wrote Weston Twigg, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, in a report last month on Lam. He recommends buying the stock. "The ramp of 5G should enable more connected devices and a meaningful ramp in edge compute."
Outside of consumer gadgets, the S&P tech group has reaped the benefits of the ongoing movement to the cloud.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York on November 7, 2019.
Brad Barket | Getty Images for Fast Company
Microsoft, spurred by growth in its Azure cloud infrastructure and Office 365 applications, has climbed 56% this year, propelling the company to a $1.2 trillion market cap, second only to Apple ($1.29 trillion) among U.S. companies.
Adobe and Autodesk, two companies that have transitioned in recent years from traditional packaged software to the cloud, are each up more than 43%, while ServiceNow, a provider of cloud IT services that just joined the S&P 500 last month, is up 61%.
DXC Technology is the biggest decliner in the index and is showing how difficult it is for some businesses to adapt to the cloud computing wave. The company, established two years ago through the combination of Hewlett-Packard's enterprise services unit with Computer Sciences Corp., is down 30% this year, after suffering a plunge of that size on a single day in August. In reporting quarterly earnings, DXC provided a disappointing sales and earnings forecast, which reflected a deterioration in the company's outsourcing business and the "stranded costs" from the legacy way of doing business in traditional data centers.
But only seven of the index's 70 members are poised to end the year in the red. Heading into 2020, the pressure is on to deliver results, particularly for the highest-growth companies.
The index had a price-to-sales ratio of 5, the highest since 2000, according to FactSet. Apple is trading at a historically high multiple to earnings, and Microsoft is expensive relative to its average over the last few years.
Given uncertainties surrounding trade with China, the global economy and the election in November, tech bulls will see next year whether the industry's momentum can withstand all the macro headwinds.
WATCH: AMC CEO talks about going after 'secular growth' in high-performance computing
See original here:
Tech stocks are poised to close out their best year in a decade, propelled by Apple and AMD - CNBC
Can Google Ever Catch Amazon And Microsoft In The Cloud? – Benzinga
Can Alphabet Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Cloud compete with the two industry giants? And if it cant, will it shift its focus elsewhere?
A report in The Information suggested Google is pushing to have its cloud computing services unit beat at least one of the big two in the space, Amazon.com Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AMZN)Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Corporation's(NASDAQ: MSFT)Azure cloud computing services, by 2023.
If it doesnt, the division could lose funding, the article, based on an unnamed sources account of a 2018 meeting, suggests. It's a suggestion Google denies.
"Reports of these conversations from 2018 are simply not accurate, Google said in a statement it sent to The Information after the piece ran.
Cloud services where businesses and organizations essentially rent the hosting company's computing infrastructure capacity rather than investing in their own is becoming huge business in a world increasingly reliant on enormous amounts of data, and where systems that are becoming increasingly interconnected.
Observers and analysts tend to think that while Google has been willing to kill off some services (remember Google Plus?), it seems unlikely it would move away from the increasingly essential and potentially very lucrative cloud services business, especially as the world transitions to 5G.
The worldwide cloud services market grew by nearly 40% in the third quarter of 2019.
"They will need to be in cloud," said Tigress Financial analyst Ivan Feinseth. "I dont think they get out of the cloud hosting business theyre doing very well in it."
Google has been touting the growth in its cloud business for several months, with Google executives noting, for example, on a July earnings call that the Google Cloud platform is one of Alphabet's fastest-growing businessesand the third-largest revenue driver for the company.
Data tracking firm Canalys reported in October that Amazon remains the dominant player in the space even as it is seeing its cloud growth slow a bit.
AWS has about 32% of the market share in cloud, while Microsoft's Azure is at about 17%. Google is a distant third at 7%.
But Google's cloud growth was about 70% in the September quarter to just under $2 billion, according to Canalys, edging it into the list of companies legitimately vying for front-runner status.
Google is investing heavily in that growth, which doesn't signal that it may be considering eventually pulling the plug, Feinseth said.
The analyst said in a November note to investors that cloud infrastructure and machine learning are likely to be the future drivers of the company's growth.
"Google continues to invest in the buildout of data centers, along with the hiring of salespeople and engineers, to support its cloud services platform," he said.
Canalys said that in addition to building new cloud data centers, Google's made "major investment in internal sales and partner resources."
The huge promise of, and need for, the cloud computing sector was highlighted most recently in a story that didn't involve Google, as Amazon lost out to Microsoft on a $10-billion, 10-year contract to runcloud computing for the Pentagon, a contract known as Jedi.
While Amazon's AWS, an early pioneer in cloud, has been the industry leader, Microsoft's win on the Pentagon contract instantly put it in the same category.
Amazondisagrees, alleging in a formal protest that the government gave the contract to Microsoft because President Donald Trump wanted "to screw Amazon" because he doesn't like CEO Jeff Bezos. Amazon's still the sales leader in the space.
Related Links:
Microsoft In The Clouds With Q1 Earnings Report On Continued Strong Azure Performance
Microsoft Could Win Next Phase Of Cloud Battle, Wedbush Says
View More Analyst Ratings for GOOG View the Latest Analyst Ratings
2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
See the original post here:
Can Google Ever Catch Amazon And Microsoft In The Cloud? - Benzinga
GDPR and the Cloud – Helpful DPC Guidance for Organisations – Lexology
Are you a controller of personal data under the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") who uses a cloud services provider ("CSP"), or are you a CSP who acts as a processor to a controller customer who has engaged you to provide it with cloud computing services ("CCS")?
If you answered yes to either question, you are required to be aware of the data protection risks associated with the provision and receipt of CCS and to comply with GDPR obligations appropriate to your status as controller or processor of personal data. Helpfully, the Data Protection Commission ("DPC") has issued a CCS guidance note dated October 2019: "Guidance for Organisations Engaging Cloud Service Providers" which is a useful addition to the range of advice issued by the DPC and provides useful clarification for both customers and suppliers of CCS.
CCS OBLIGATIONS UNDER GDPR
Controllers have an obligation under GDPR to process personal data in a way that ensures appropriate security (as per the data protection principles of integrity, confidentiality and security). The DPC highlights that organisations must ask whether they have appropriate technical and organisational measures in place and ensure their processors do too. The DPC has separately issued guidance
for controllers of personal data on data security, which is a reference guide to assessing whether appropriate security measures exist or are required to be implemented. As the DPC states in the CCS guidance "the use of any cloud services as part of [data controllers'] business is an important area in which organisations need to ensure there is adequate security for the personal data they process".
CLOUD COMPUTING UNDER GDPR
The DPC notes that "people often mean different things when they talk of processing data `in the cloud'", which is undoubtedly true. The CCS guidance is not intended as a detailed guide to cloud computing or different types of CCS and thus generally describes cloud computing, for both controllers and processors, as "usually involves" an external CSP doing some or all of the processing or storage of personal data "on servers and/or in a data centre" under that CSP's control. The DPC notes that CSPs' will "in many cases" be acting as data processors and reminds CSPs to be aware of their obligations as processors, which are less onerous than those that apply to controllers. Whether a CSP is a data processor or controller is a question of fact, which can be a difficult analysis.
TYPES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
The DPC identifies three CCS models, which may involve the provision of a physical infrastructure, operating system, and/or processing software:
The DPC also discusses the distinction between a private, public and hybrid model CCS. It points out the possibility of a chain of CCS applying, where a CSP, acting as a sub-processor, provides CCS to another CSP, who has the ultimate contract relationship with the customer, generally the data controller. The DPC also points to the complicated scenario arising where CSPs "are also data controllers, or `joint controllers'". Again, the question is always one of fact. Overall, the DPC references to CCS service models and architecture models accord to most common industry categorisations.
CCS ASSOCIATED RISKS
The recent CCS boom has offered businesses of all sizes a range of new and favourable storage options. The DPC states it is essential for businesses looking into CCS (or those already engaged with a CSP) to ensure adequate security of personal data being stored in the cloud. Issues may arise where controllers relinquish control of data to their CSP, where there is insufficient information around the service and its safeguards, or where the CSP is unable to adequately support the controller's obligations and/or data subjects' rights. The CCS guidance mainly focuses on CCS risks and recommended steps to remove and reduce such risks.
THE MEANING OF "CONTROL"
The CCS guidance is clear that a data controller "must remain in control of the personal data it collects when it subcontracts the processing to a cloud provider". This
is a key obligation, which cannot be waived or contracted out of. If the data controller cannot demonstrate control, it may potentially be in breach of GDPR. The DPC states that control requires:
SECURE CLOUD COMPUTING
Under GDPR, a controller may only engage a processor if the latter provides sufficient guarantees to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures. Controllers and processors are responsible for ensuring that such measures are commensurate to the risk. In practice, this is a key area of customer difficulty with the procurement of CCS, which in essence is output measured. Customers do not have, and generally the CSP will not or cannot allow its customers, visibility of what goes on under the hood, whether in real time or on ad-hoc basis (e.g. by way of inspection or audit). The DPC states that "a controller must therefore be satisfied that personal data will be secure if it is outsourced to a cloud provider". The reference to outsourcing is interesting and it was long challenged by the cloud industry that this was a form of outsourcing, which is a well understood commercial sector in terms of risk management and commercial arrangements. The industry has largely succeeded in creating a commercial and contractual model, as well as a financial model, unique to itself.
The DPC states that with reference to security, controllers must be satisfied in two main areas. That the CSP:
CSP ASSURANCES
The DPC states that controllers must seek assurances from potential CSPs on key issues, including:
Controllers must be satisfied with such assurances both in advance of entering the contract with the CSP and throughout the arrangement. This may be achieved by:
As mentioned above, customer inspection or audit is a difficult topic in the CCS sphere. In practice, more sophisticated CSPs will commission third party audit-style reports which can be made available to customers. Overall, it is difficult for the customer of a CSP to obtain much if any change to the established supplier financial, technical and contractual model. This is especially true with reference to the large service providers. In certain market sectors, CSPs are more willing to engage in some degree of dialogue, or have pre-prepared responses to the type of requirements listed above, the financial services sector being a prime example. That is arguably as much due to sector specific regulatory requirements as the market leverage of the customer base. For customers lacking leverage, or regulatory requirements to reference, contracting with market leading CSP's is challenging. This includes the public sector, where individual agencies in Ireland are in most cases of modest enough size and thus represent modest enough spend. These specific guidance statements are perhaps the most difficult part of the CCS guidance for data processors to comply with. The more important, but broad, statements in relation to data controllers remaining in control are perhaps not so difficult, if only because CSP contracts deliberately do not express or imply CSP control, which is a condition CSPs strongly argue against as a matter of fact.
TRANSPARENCY REQUIREMENTS
Under GDPR, the CSP as a processor may avail of approved codes of conduct or certification mechanisms to help demonstrate compliance of elements of their processing. This allows a controller to assess if the arrangement is appropriate to the processing operations being contracted. A high level of transparency is required between a controller and data subjects when that controller is processing those data subjects' personal data through a CSP. The CSP must be able to account for its processing operations. The DPC states that a controller must be satisfied as to the CSP's:
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Personal data held in the EEA benefits from a common standard of EU protection. Such protection may extend to data transferred outside of the EEA by relying on one of the following mechanisms under GDPR:
CONTRACT PARTICULARS
The DPC states that a number of key points must be covered in the contract between a controller and its CSP, including details of how the CSP will:
The contract must also outlined the subject-matter, scope, nature, context, purpose and duration of the processing, and how types and categories of personal data are dealt with at commencement, transfer, routine processing and `end-oflife' (including return or deletion).
CONCLUSION
Overall, the DPC's guidance offers welcomed clarity to those seeking to engage or renew their commitments to a CSP in the age of GDPR. In doing so, organisations should keep the DPC's main message in mind and ask whether they (or their CSP) have the appropriate technical and organisational measures in place. We recently published an article on public sector procurement of CCS, which can be read in conjunction with this GDPR related article here.
Go here to read the rest:
GDPR and the Cloud - Helpful DPC Guidance for Organisations - Lexology
HPE goes on the warpath, seeks to scalp AWS over vendor lock-in – The Register
Interview Migrating your data to the machine that is Amazon Web Services is a little like booking into the Hotel California, the title track from The Eagles late 1970's album of the same name, the rub being that customers, like guests at the hotel, can check out anytime they like but never truly leave.
This is the view of HPE CEO Antonio Neri, who told The Register that contrary to early claims from the likes of AWS, the cloud is not democratising IT, nor is it an open environment, just the latest form of vendor lock-in.
At the Discover event in Munich, Neri who started out at HPE in a Netherlands call centre and rose through the ranks to replace Meg Whitman as the boss of HPE on 1 February 2018 noted the General Availability of AWS Outposts in early December: an on-premises rack running native AWS or VMware environments that hooks up to to AWS's public cloud.
"The first message there is I think [AWS] has finally recognised the world is hybrid," he said. "The world is hybrid and apps and data live everywhere, and so for them to continue to drive the growth they need to bring the cloud to the data."
According to HPE's estimates, three-quarters of data will be created outside of the data centre and outside of the cloud, at the "edge" - everywhere else except the bit barn or the cloud.
"It is cheaper and physically easier to move the cloud to where the data is, not the data to where the cloud is. What the public cloud really wants is your data, [providers] don't care about your workloads, and so once you check your data in the public cloud you are kind of locked in, it is like checking into Hotel California - you check in and you never check out."
Data, he said, has a "gravitational force and once that data gravitates to a place it's very hard to move it I think the customer is realising now that the cost of [taking] that data out of the cloud is the biggest part of expense."
He said: "Maybe five years ago or 10 years ago the cost of [public cloud] compute was very attractive to [customers] because they don't have to deal with labor, power, cooling, de-appreciation, all the things that you normally go through when you deploy infrastructure, and that was appealing. Plus the simplicity, right, I don't have to deal with all the software, the maintenance aspect of this. I don't have the skill sets to move to the cloud - the cloud should be all about speed and agility, enabling faster delivery of services, all that was interesting and good."
Neri claimed AWS, via Outposts, is giving customers a "tentacle" to extend its public cloud into their own data centre.
"The reality, they've [AWS] already told you, [is it] will cost you more, at least 30 per cent more than moving your data into the public cloud. So it is a way to attract you back to the public cloud. What we want is an open approach, a true, multi-cloud approach where you have choices, you have the flexibility to move data and apps to where it makes more sense, whether it is for security purposes or for experience purposes or cost purposes."
Lots of easier workloads have moved to the cloud email, dev work but the vast majority of traditional enterprise scale workloads remain on-premise. IDC reckons that as of 2023, 70 per cent of these workloads will remain on site.
What the public cloud really wants is your data, [providers] don't care about your workloads, and so once you check your data in the public cloud you are kind of locked in...
Neri is an engineer by profession but as CEO he seamlessly slips into salesman talk. "We believe we have a better approach, an open, cloud native approach. Intelligent and secure. And this is why we announced our unique partnership with a company that is led by my friend, John Chambers, called Pensando, and in order to deliver that edge cloud experience you need to implement different architectures."
In October, HPE led a Series C round of investment of $145m in Pensando Pensando sells programmable software-defined cloud, computing, networking, storage and security services at the edge. This cash came from HPE's Pathfinder programme that seeks to invest in startups. As part of the move, HPE CTO Mark Potter joined Pensando's board.
HPE has bet the farm on edge computing, and is directing 75 per cent of its R&D spending over the next few years to develop further innovations that let clients capture, analyse and use real time data at the edge rather than sending it all down the pipes to a cloud, which can be prohibitively expensive and relatively slow.
Data continues to "explode", the CEO told us.
"What a customer realises now is that it's not as simple to manage multiple estates which are siloed. I have a public cloud here, I have on-prem there. I have a traditional set of applications which are not going anywhere. How do I bring that unification experience and have control of that estate? [IT managers have] lost control - first because the line of business swiped the credit card and went to the public cloud. Now as they start doing these trials and moving data to the public cloud, they say 'Oh, this is way more expensive'. And so they realise that the world is hybrid and more and more of those workloads are moving to the edge."
CIOs are trying to figure out if they can be the service provider to their organisation and take over control of "expedience, cost, SLA, compliance and security," Neri said.
HPE's big push in this area has been GreenLake, infrastructure sold as a service, configured and managed by the vendor and paid for via a mix of subscription, pay-per-use and consumption-based models. A private cloud-as-a-service, if you will.
By 2022, HPE wants to sell its entire portfolio as a servicethough its hardware and software will still be able to be bought in the classic way.
As of June last year, just 5 per cent of HPE's turnover was transacted as-a-service, so its got a lot of mileage to make up.
With this in mind, HPE recently confirmed availability of GreenLake Central, a self-service portal and ops console intended to let heads of IT working for end user businesses monitor costs, security, compliance and the use of tech resources in terms of clouds (AWS, Azure and - soon - Google Cloud Platform) and what they have on-premises. As we pointed out at the time, the tool has limitations.
Neri told us that through this tool, HPE is passing "back control" to the department, and then "giving them the choice to either be in the running [things] side of IT or be in the innovation side of IT."
Customers want choices, "not locking in", he said. "If you think about the past, customers used to have two vendors on premises, sometimes three. Now we can give them multiple cloud options we still give them an experience, just as a service."
HPE and multiple other vendors have talked about customers trying to escape AWS but very few have gone public with their frustrations and the cost of doing so. Neri said customers are asking for help and the advice is take a "very app and data centric approach". He said the splitting of HP let HPE change the way it uses tech, with a plan to be more nimble.
"We're shutting apps all the time. We are consolidating a number of apps because we are consolidating the way we run the company. So the first question [for customers] is how many apps you can get rid of? How many apps can you run in SaaS? And then ultimately, of the apps that are remaining: how many apps can you put in the cloud?
"Then, based on the data and the experience you want to provide... for customers it can be a hybrid model, but we give them the full experience so customers are asking us for help from an advisory perspective first of all, and then re-platforming of certain apps in a cloud native approach."
This plays to HPE's container launch that happened in November, as does most of the things that Neri says during our 30-minute discussion with him. He isn't alone in this respect. Most CEOs try to discuss issues that conveniently dovetail with the latest and greatest thing they are selling.
AWS is by far the largest public cloud seller in the industry, but how about Microsoft and Google: do they lack an open approach in the same way HPE claims AWS has?
"Google is trying to become hybrid but they have some technology challenges in terms of scale because, you know, the way they architected the cloud was for Google, and if you need a small cloud, like say in a closet, Google does not scale at the rack level or the server level," Neri tells us.
"I think Microsoft definitely has a much more clear strategy on hybrid and that's why Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the biggest provider of Microsoft Azure today because we have done deep engineering integration of Azure," said Neri.
This is true. Sadly for HPE, Microsoft didn't keep up its end of the bargain.
When the alliance over Azure was struck in 2015 after HPE ditched its own public cloud Microsoft pledged to use HPE servers to bulk out its own data centres, but then opted for cheaper kit.
AWS, Neri says, has been "very clear since the beginning - its the public cloud, the public cloud, until a year ago when it came up with the concept of Outposts, but that I think is nothing more than just a way to still bring you in the public cloud, particularly on the pricing".
Vendor lock-in isn't a new term that pertains to cloud vendors. It is one that refers to a range of technology companies that started life in the last century.
Neri concedes that in mission-critical systems, HPE has not always been so open.
"But even then we run on an open-source Linux solution, so I think the reality is you have to define what lock-in means. In my view of HPE, that is a definition of optimising a stack for a specific workload, which is to provide the best possible experience for the lowest possible cost, from silicon all the way to the management layer of that infrastructure, all the way to the PaaS, potentially. And that can be a full stack of HPE. I don't call that lock-in because we are trying to do the right thing."
HPE seems to have a much clearer strategy since its split with HP Inc, and the sale of the Enterprise Services and Software sides of the house. But this isn't necessarily feeding through into the financial results yet.
In fiscal '19 ended 31 October, total revenues were down 6 per cent Neri prefers to highlight that revenues were down just 2 per cent in constant currency (because 60 per cent of HPE's business is "transacted outside the US") and excluding the fall in sales of servers to tier one cloud builders.
Sales were down for each of the divisions - Hybrid IT; Pointnext; and Intelligent Edge. Financial Services shrank too. Operating margins were, however, were up in the hundreds of basis points, and were up to 13.2 per cent in Hybrid IT, a historic high. Of course HPE Next has reduced overheads, including through redundancies, and this, in addition to a mix of higher-margin products, has helped improve profit.
HPE today remains a hardware company, as evidenced by the profile of its revenues, but the future looks software and services shaped.
For 2020, HPE has told investors to expect "sustainable, profitable growth". And judging by the direction of travel with regard to acquisitions MapR, Blue Data, Cloud Cruiser and Red Pixie will there be more investments in services and software businesses?
"Correct, absolutely spot on... as I think about inorganic, which is always on the premises of return on invested capital, and bringing in IP and talent, definitely it's more software and more services oriented."
So one-time CEO Leo Apotheker maybe wasn't so wrong in his plans for HP all those years ago when he plotted to reduce the company's reliance on boxes. Maybe he lacked finesse in execution.
The Reg has asked AWS for comment.
Sponsored: Beyond the Data Frontier
Follow this link:
HPE goes on the warpath, seeks to scalp AWS over vendor lock-in - The Register