Category Archives: Cloud Computing

Introducing Leapswitch Networks: Innovative Solutions for Digital Cloud Infrastructure – WICZ

"At Leapswitch Networks, we understand the ever-evolving needs of businesses in the digital landscape," said Ishan Talathi, CEO of Leapswitch Networks. "Our mission is to provide innovative solutions that empower our clients to achieve their goals, whether they are startups, developers, small businesses, or large enterprises."

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Introducing Leapswitch Networks: Innovative Solutions for Digital Cloud Infrastructure - WICZ

Amazon to ‘invest $150bn in data centers’ for AI growth – ReadWrite

Amazon is reportedly gearing up to invest nearly $150 billion over the next 15 years in data centers. This substantial financial commitment will equip the cloud-computing giant with the necessary resources to manage a projected rise in demand for AI applications and various digital services.

Bloomberg reports that this investment is a strategic display of dominance, to preserve Amazons leading position in the cloud services sector. Amazon currently holds about twice the market share of its closest competitor, Microsoft Corp.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to ReadWrite that the figures were based on its recent infrastructure announcements found on its website.

However, Amazon Web Services experienced its slowest sales growth on record last year, as corporate clients reduced expenses and postponed upgrades. Now, as spending begins to rebound, Amazon is eagerly securing land and energy for its energy-intensive operations.

In the last two years, Bloomberg said its calculations indicate that Amazon has pledged $148 billion towards the building and operation of data centers globally. The company aims to expand its server farm locations in northern Virginia and Oregon, and venture into new areas such as Mississippi, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia.

Despite the expansion, AWS saw a 2% decrease in its data center investments in 2023, marking its first reduction, even as Microsoft ramped up its expenditures by over 50%, as reported by DellOro Group. However, Amazons Chief Financial Officer announced last month that there would be an uptick in capital investments this year to fuel AWSs expansion, encompassing projects related to artificial intelligence.

As we look forward to 2024, we anticipate capex to increase year over year, primarily driven by increased infrastructure capex to support growth of our AWS business, including additional investments in generative AI and large language models, said CFO Brian Olsavsky.

While Amazons expansion of its data centers aims to cater to the growing need for corporate services, its focus on sophisticated, high-cost chips will provide the substantial computing power needed for the predicted increase in generative AI.

Reports suggest that Amazon is developing proprietary tools to compete with OpenAIs ChatGPT, and has developed partnerships with various companies to enhance its AI services using its servers. As a result, Amazon expects to generate AI-related revenue amounting to tens of billions of dollars.

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Microsoft says Russian companies will be forced off its cloud services within days – TechRadar

Despite recent reports that Microsoft was all set to ban Russian companies from its suite of cloud services from March 20, it turns out this still isnt in effect, but should be by the end of March 2024 - this week - instead, after the company held discussions with IT platform Softline, one of its customers.

As a reminder, the ban isnt a political move on Microsofts part, but several cloud storage providers hands being forced by economic sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russian-owned companies back in December 2023 as a result of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The latest update on the imminent blockade, from BleepingComputer, is that the delay so far appears to only be something that Microsoft is offering, in response to correspondence with Softline, despite the latter issuing a press release (Russian language, machine-translated by us) last week in which it claimed that it has all the necessary resources to ensure a smooth transition to its own infrastructure from Microsoft and Amazon services.

Before the extension, in a letter that Softline has since published on its Telegram channel, Microsoft broke the news gently to Softline, but stated its [commitment] to compliance with EU trade laws and regulations, as well as all other jurisdictions in which it operates.

According to Russian news agency TASS, Microsoft stands to cut off access to over 50 of its products to Russian companies, including video conferencing software behemoth Microsoft Teams and collaboration tool suite Microsoft 365.

Thats not to mention the collateral damage caused by providers such as Google and Amazon withholding their own services without postponing the deadline. BleepingComputer also revealed that business customers of those companies based in Russia received notice of service termination last week.

Its too early to say whether the sanctions will be effective in applying pressure on Russia to withdraw from the conflict: they could, for instance, merely drive the popularity of local cloud and IT providers among businesses, and fuel their expansion.

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But regardless of the European Unions ruling, there is one upside to all this: individuals and solo professionals based in Russia using cloud services from these and similar cloud services aren't affected.

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Microsoft says Russian companies will be forced off its cloud services within days - TechRadar

How AI Is Poised to Upend Cloud Networking – Data Center Knowledge

Much has been said about how AI will accelerate the growth of cloud platforms and enable a new generation of AI-powered tools for managing cloud environments.

But here's another facet of the cloud that AI is likely to upend: networking. As more and more AI workloads enter the cloud, the ability to deliver better cloud networking solutions will become a key priority.

Related: Why AI Workloads Probably Won't Transform the Data Center Industry

Here's why, and what the future of cloud networking may look like in the age of AI.

The reason why AI will place new demands on cloud networks is simple enough: To work well at scale, AI workloads will require unprecedented levels of performance from cloud networks.

Related: Explosion of Data in the Cloud Era Leading to Observability Complexity

That's because the data that AI workloads need to access will reside in many cases on remote servers located either within the same cloud platform where the workloads live or in a different cloud. (In some cases, the data could also live on-prem while the workloads reside in the cloud, or vice versa.)

Cloud networks will provide the essential link that connects AI workloads to data. The volumes of data will be vast in many cases (even training a simple AI model could require many terabytes' worth of information), and models will need to access the data at low latency rates. Thus, networks will need to be able to support very high bandwidth with very high levels of performance.

To be sure, AI is not the only type of cloud workload that requires great network performance. The ability to deliver low-latency, high-bandwidth networking has long been important for use cases like cloud desktops and video streaming.

Cloud vendors have also long offered solutions to help meet these network performance needs. All of the major clouds provide "direct connect" networking services that can dramatically boost network speed and reliability, especially when moving data between clouds in a multicloud architecture, or between a private data center and the public cloud as part of a hybrid cloud model.

But for AI workloads with truly exceptional network performance needs, direct connect services may not suffice. Workloads may also require optimizations at the hardware level in the form of solutions such as data processing units (DPUs), which can help process network traffic hyper-efficiently. Indeed, vendors like Nvidia, which has unveiled an Ethernet platform tailored for generative AI, are already investing in this area and it says a lot that a company mostly known for selling video cards is also recognizing that unlocking the full potential of AI requires networking hardware innovations, too.

For now, it remains to be seen exactly how cloud vendors, hardware vendors, and AI developers will respond to the special challenges that AI brings to the realm of cloud networking. But in general, it's likely that we'll see changes such as the following:

There's no way around it: If you want to take full advantage of the cloud to help host AI workloads, you need to optimize your cloud networking strategy a move that requires taking advantage of advanced networking services and hardware, while also adjusting cloud cost optimization and network performance management strategies.

For now, the solutions available to help with these goals are still evolving, but this is a space to follow closely for any business seeking to deploy AI workloads in the cloud.

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Why Amazon’s multi-billion dollar AI alliance with Anthropic isn’t the game-changer it needs to remain king of the cloud – Fortune

When Amazon announced Wednesday that it had showered the hot AI startup Anthropic with an additional $2.75 billion to complete the $4 billion investment it had announced last fall, the company positioned the news as a royal win.

Amazons AWS, the king of cloud computing (with nearly a third of global market share), was deepening its partnership with Anthropic, the number two prince (Harry, not William) of generative AI foundation models. Under the pact, Anthropic will use AWS as its primary cloud provider for mission critical workloads, and train and deploy its future AI models on Amazons homegrown chips, while AWS customers get access to future generations of Anthropics AI technology.

Look more closely however, and the deal seems less like a sign of Amazon perpetuating its cloud dominance into the Gen AI era, and more like a hint at how vulnerable the company has become in a shifting landscape.

Amazon, considered a laggard in the race to deploy generative AI technology,reallyneeds Anthropics highly-touted models, including the most recent Claude 3. At the same time though, Amazon is hitching its cart to an AI startup that, while boasting impressive technology, will not instantly distinguish or differentiate Amazon from the competition since Google is also an Anthropic partner.

Pairing up with Anthropic is a necessary and beneficial move for Amazon. But with the AWS empire under siege, the question is whether the deal is too little too late.

AWS continues to be the reigning champion of the cloud business, with 31% global market share in 2023s fourth quarter. But the race is getting tighter. Microsoft Azure, AWSs biggest cloud competitor, has edged closer with 24%, while Google Cloud has 11%. Both Microsoft and Google have seen cloud growth thanks to their Gen AI offerings the former with its powerhouse partnership with OpenAI, and the latter with its Bard and Gemini AI momentum.

According to Forrester principal analyst Tracy Woo, Amazons Gen AI efforts have not been very impressive. It took three, four months [for Amazon] to come up with any sort of generative AI-specific announcements [in 2023], Woo told Fortune, adding that the results were really lackluster.

The announcements at Amazons Re:invent conference in December 2023 including Amazon Q, a generative AI work assistant, and next generation AWS-designed chips should have been a resounding response to show that youre firmly back as the number one cloud provider that everyone looks to, Woo said. Instead, it was underwhelming especially given the competition with Microsoft, and its alliance with OpenAI.

Amazon announced the equivalent of a shiny engine, wheel and pane of glass for the windows, while Microsoft came out with a Rolls Royce marketing its Copilot offering for Azure and OpenAI models like a car that flies, it goes in the water, it is incredible.

Microsofts bread-and-butter has always been software packages and solutions that slot perfectly into the enterprise workflow, so its not surprising that the company made such a strong showing. But Amazons underwhelming announcements underscored how mismatched the cloud competitors remain when it comes to the software side of things.

The AWS strong suit has always been infrastructure. And leveraging that skillset to differentiate is one way Amazon could try to get an edge. But theres danger there too, thanks to the rise of Nvidia, whose GPUs rule the roost, and are only getting better with Blackwell, the new Nvidia AI chip announced at its GTC conference.

While its possible for Amazon to pull off an infrastructure cloud play, said Woo, the company would have to do things differently.

Everyone builds on CUDA, she said. So to ask everyone to rearrange their software architecture so they can cater to these AI-based TPUs that AWS has come up with is a huge ask.

At this point, AWS is arguably behind in both AI infrastructure and AI software, but no one should count out the cloud king, Woo emphasized. While Amazon missed the boat on recognizing that the cloud race was no longer at the infrastructure but had moved up the stack to AI-powered software solutions she added that with AWS, anything is possible.

I see this as a little bit of a desperation call from [Amazon CEO Andy] Jassy responding to his shareholders, she said. [AWS CEO] Adam Selipskyreally understands the market and so I have a lot of confidence that he can steer the ship in the right direction. Of course, Amazon has never been identified as the AI cloud king so they have a huge uphill battle ahead of them, she added. But I think they are resilient. They are an aggressive company that moves aggressively they are not fat and happy.

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Why Amazon's multi-billion dollar AI alliance with Anthropic isn't the game-changer it needs to remain king of the cloud - Fortune

Russian businesses get shut out from Microsoft cloud services at the end of this month new EU sanctions come into … – Tom’s Hardware

To comply with the EU regulations outlined in December 2023, Microsoft will cease the provision of cloud services to Russian organizations at the end of this month. This was originally meant to happen on March 20, but extra time has been given to impacted organizations to migrate to alternative solutions.

As a result of the above implementation of EU sanctions, organizations in Russia will no longer have access to best-in-class Microsoft products including Office 365 apps, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Azure, SharePoint, Visual Studio, SQL Server, as well as LinkedIn apps and Media Player development kits.

There have been no reports indicating that Microsoft will be restricting its cloud services to individuals, and hence they remain accessible to the general Russian public for now. Meanwhile, the Russian government has made efforts to promote domestic alternatives to ensure the continued smooth operations of private companies and organizations.

The Russian Ministry of Digital Transformation, Communication, and Mass Media anticipated this kind of move by foreign cloud service providers like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle. Thus, last year it started to advise Russian organizations to make the transition to domestically made alternatives.No specific domestic alternatives were named or pointed to - so we don't know how the affected organizations will cope. The EU regulations specifically mention imposing a ban on providing software for managing a wide range of essential business operations.

This latest imposition of sanctions comes as a result of Russia's war against Ukraine, and the aggression which has continued for over two years. Sanctions are usually used against countries in such situations with some success. Typically some tech products avoid sanctions by being shipped via third-party distributors and sold in Russia, but other important sanction policies cannot be circumvented, such as the SWIFT ban preventing online transactions via banks.

On the hardware side of tech, reports suggest that China and Russia still enjoy component imports for chipmaking equipment, PCs, and servers. Interestingly the sanctions have also provided profits for scalpers from other nations, and we have seen some smugglers get caught, their goods confiscated, and facing likely legal proceedings.Meanwhile, it is thought some Russian entities subscribe to Microsoft cloud services using foreign accounts or using other bypass methods.

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Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Udemy Announce New Partnership to Supercharge the Next Generation of … – PR Newswire

The partnership seeks to help millions of current and aspiring developers upskill on key Kubernetes disciplines to enhance their level of cloud native proficiency

PARIS, March 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe -- The Cloud Native Computing Foundation(CNCF), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, has partnered with Udemy (Nasdaq: UDMY), a leading online skills marketplace and learning platform. Announced at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2024, this new partnership will endorse content to support CNCF's audienceof more than 233,000 project contributors and millions of current and aspiring cloud native developers across the globe to help them prepare for various CNCF certification exams.

"Cloud native technology has become the backbone of what runs the world's infrastructure," said Chris Aniszczyk, CTO at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. "Thousands of leading organizations from Spotify to Zendeskrely on cloud native technologies to drive innovation and scale infrastructure. Udemy has a vast catalog of relevant course content and we believe that togetherthrough the endorsement of courses created by CNCF Ambassadors and project maintainers who are also instructors on Udemywe will enable developers to upskill quickly and keep pace with innovation."

Through this new partnership, developers will be able to leverage Udemy's high-quality technical course content, including a comprehensive library of cloud native content and customized learning paths, to prepare for many of the organization's certification exams, including the prestigious Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA).

As the need for cloud native developers continues to increase, a recent study by CNCF revealed that almost 55% of developers were able to land a new job as a result of training and certification courses. Additionally, 67% of respondents said it made them feel more engaged and fulfilled in their work.

"As one of the world's largest IT certification training providers, with more than 10 million enrollments in IT certification training courses over the past year alone, Udemy is uniquely positioned to help developers and organizations grow at scale," said Greg Brown, President and CEO at Udemy. "We couldn't be more excited to partner with CNCF to upskill and empower the next generation of cloud native developers together."

In fact, more than 840,000 Udemy learners have enrolled in a Kubernetes course over the past 12 months. Additionally, as learners prepare for certification exams, demand for Kubernetes certification preparation courses is up 18% year-over-year, with more than 140,000 enrollments across the Udemy platform.

To get started with the CNCF-endorsed courses on Udemy, developers can visit: https://business.udemy.com/cncf-endorsed-content/.

About Cloud Native Computing FoundationCloud native computing empowers organizations to build and run scalable applications with an open source software stack in public, private, and hybrid clouds. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical components of the global technology infrastructure, including Kubernetes, Prometheus, and Envoy. CNCF brings together the industry's top developers, end users, and vendors, and runs the largest open source developer conferences in the world. Supported by more than 800 members, including the world's largest cloud computing and software companies, as well as over 200 innovative startups, CNCF is part of the nonprofit Linux Foundation. For more information, please visit: http://www.cncf.io.

Trademark DisclaimerThe Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademarkusage page. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

About UdemyUdemy(Nasdaq: UDMY) transforms lives through learning by providing flexible and effective skills development and validation. Through the Udemy Intelligent Skills Platform and its community of instructors, millions of learners gain expertise in a wide range of technical and professional skills from generative AI to leadership. The Udemy marketplace provides learners with thousands of up-to-date courses in dozens of languages, offering a variety of solutions to achieve their goals. Udemy Business empowers enterprises to offer on-demand learning for all employees, immersive learning for tech teams, and cohort learning for leaders. Udemy Business customers include Fender, Glassdoor, On24, The World Bank, and Volkswagen. Udemy is headquartered in San Francisco with hubs in Ankara and Istanbul, Trkiye; Denver, USA; Dublin, Ireland; Gurugram, India; and Melbourne, Australia.

Safe Harbor NoticeThis press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include all statements other than those of historical fact, including information concerning our future operating results and financial position, anticipated future expenses and investments, the timing and impact of our new product initiatives, business strategies and plans, market growth, market position and potential market opportunities, and the impact of acquisitions and business alliances. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, plans, and assumptions, which we have made in light of our experience in the industry, as well as our perceptions of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments, and other factors we believe are appropriate under the circumstances, taking into account the information currently available to us. These statements are only predictions based upon our current expectations and projections about future events. Various factors, including those identified in the "Risk Factors" section of our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Additional factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements can be found in our other filings with the SEC which are available, free of charge, on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this presentation speaks only as of the date of this letter and is expressly qualified in its entirety by the cautionary statements included in this letter. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except as may be required by any applicable laws. You should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements.

Media ContactsJessie Adams-Shore The Linux Foundation [emailprotected]

Ellen D. Kiehl Udemy [emailprotected]

Investor ContactDennis Walsh Udemy [emailprotected]

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Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Udemy Announce New Partnership to Supercharge the Next Generation of ... - PR Newswire

Cloud Computing, AI, and Data Trends in Latin America: Cloud Remains at the Center of Digital Transformation – PR Newswire

DUBLIN, March 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The "State of the Cloud in Latin America: Maximizing Business Success through Cloud Computing, AI, and Data" report has been added toResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

In Latin America, businesses increasingly adopt cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning technologies to support their strategic business growth. Despite a projected slower economic growth in 2024, digital transformation remains robust. Companies seek external partners to assist them in their journey toward full digitization. Sustainability is also gaining relevance, leading businesses to choose technologies that promote energy efficiency and emission reduction.

These are among the key findings from the 2023 Cloud User survey of Latin American businesses. The data is derived from respondents operating in the 4 largest markets in the region: Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia.

Key Topics Covered:

Key Findings

Enterprise Cloud Adoption in Latin America

Cloud Remains at the Center of Digital Transformation

Sustainability Gains Prominence in Latin America

Latin America's Emerging Third-party Collaborations

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/t9k8gl

About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Media Contact:Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [emailprotected]

For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg

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Cloud Computing, AI, and Data Trends in Latin America: Cloud Remains at the Center of Digital Transformation - PR Newswire

Snowflake Stock: Is It A Buy Right Now? Here’s What Earnings, SNOW Stock Chart Show – Investor’s Business Daily

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45 New Members Join the Cloud Native Computing Foundation – PR Newswire

As the community convenes at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe in Paris, CNCF welcomes continued investment from organizations around the world

PARIS, March 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe The Cloud Native Computing Foundation(CNCF), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, announced today that 45 new members have joined the Foundation. Together with hundreds of organizations spanning continents and industries, these new members will help drive cloud native innovation to respond to the diverse and pressing challenges organizations face.

"Every quarter it is inspiring to see the number of diverse organizations who are contributing to and leveraging cloud native technologies, and who endeavor further involvement with the community," said Chris Aniszczyk, CTO of the CNCF. "Without the investment from these forward-thinking companies, we would not be able to achieve what we have thus far in building an incredible ecosystem around Kubernetes, responding to challenges we didn't even know existed when we started in 2015. We look forward to working together with these new members."

About the newest Silver Members:

About the newest End User Member:

About the newest End User Supporters:

About the newest Nonprofit Member:

More information is available about End User support and membership.

The CNCF End User Community group regularly meets to share adoption best practices and feedback on project roadmaps and future projects for CNCF technical leaders to consider.

Additional Resources

About Cloud Native Computing FoundationCloud native computing empowers organizations to build and run scalable applications with an open source software stack in public, private, and hybrid clouds. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical components of the global technology infrastructure, including Kubernetes, Prometheus, and Envoy. CNCF brings together the industry's top developers, end users, and vendors, and runs the largest open source developer conferences in the world. Supported by more than 800 members, including the world's largest cloud computing and software companies, as well as over 200 innovative startups, CNCF is part of the nonprofit Linux Foundation. For more information, please visit http://www.cncf.io.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademarkusage page. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media ContactJessie Adams-Shore The Linux Foundation [emailprotected]

SOURCE Cloud Native Computing Foundation

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45 New Members Join the Cloud Native Computing Foundation - PR Newswire