Category Archives: Cloud Computing
5 Questions Schools Should Ask Before Selecting a Cloud Security Platform – EdTech Magazine: Focus on K-12
1. Can we Use the Security Tools That Come with Our Cloud Platform?
Breach detection and data leakage are two types of security challenges that arent easily managed by standard cloud platform tools. For example, built-in data leak protection tools are often configured to recognize things like credit card and bank account numbers; K12 tools can add specific requirements, such as detecting mentions of self-harm or inappropriate images and language.
Built-in tools may also assume that users have multifactor authentication, but that is not the case in every K12 environment.
RELATED: Learn how cloud access security brokers protect student data in the cloud.
Its true that early adopters of online collaboration tools may not have seen a need for extensive security analysis tools, and were perfectly happy with the outcome. But with todays changing security environment, more demanding school boards, and more open and accessible internet-connected tools, schools should revisit that decision.
In some cases, on-premises security tools, such as security information and event management and data loss prevention toolkits, may extend to cloud-based collaboration platforms. But this could be a difficult integration in a K12 environment with resource and budget constraints.
Once a district has shifted most of its applications to cloud-based services, maintaining on-premises tools linked to a cloud platform will be a long-term maintenance liability.
Even with a substantial investment in on-premises tools, the switch to cloud computing may be a good time to shift security monitoring to the cloud as well.
Obviously, this will depend on how the mix of cloud and on-premises tools changes over time, but the more tools that move to the cloud, the greater the win from removing on-premises data center services.
Add-on K12 cloud security platforms make extensive use of the application programming interfaces that Microsoft and Google provide. APIs let them scan conversations, shared drives and emails, and control and monitor administrative tasks. The tools can also dive deep into the logging and reporting that the platforms use and help with administrative tasks, such as user provisioning and workflow management again, focused on K12 needs rather than enterprise capabilities.
DIG DEEPER: Heres how Google creates a more secure workspace for teachers and students.
This emerging market niche now has several vendors and a variety of approaches. Software suppliers from the network security, data leak protection, vulnerability management and SIEM marketplaces are all exploring how to meet K12 needs by adding to existing toolkits. K12 IT teams looking to protect their cloud-based collaboration tools should cast a wide net in researching products.
Marvell Extends Connectivity Leadership for Accelerated Computing With Two Cloud-Optimized PAM4 Optical DSPs – PR Newswire
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ --Marvell Technology, Inc.(NASDAQ: MRVL), a leader in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, has delivered two optical PAM4 digital signal processors (optical DSPs) to enable cloud operators to serve the exploding demand for AI, accelerated computing and cloud services by optimizing the performance, bandwidth and efficiency of the optical links connecting data infrastructure.
Sampling to select customers now, Perseus is the industry's first 400/800 Gbps 5nm device that monolithically integrates the primary electrical components of a short-reach pluggable optical module an optical DSP, a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) driver into a single die to reduce power, space and cost. Monolithically integrating components also reduces manufacturing complexity for module manufacturers to enable them to scale faster. Perseus is also available with an integrated silicon photonics driver.
Perseus is optimized for both active optical cables (AOCs), which replace passive copper cables for connecting equipment within racks, and short-reach single mode and multi-mode optical interconnects for distances of five to 500 meters.
Meanwhile, the Marvell Spica Gen2, which began sampling in late 2022 and is now in volume production, is an 800 Gbps 5nm optical DSP optimized for longer-reach connections such as the high-bandwidth optical connections linking servers within an AI cluster or the optical connections between racks in a hyperscale data center. Spica Gen2 enables pluggable optical module manufacturers to reduce the power consumption of products to below 12 watts, a 25% savings over the previous generation of devices.1
Both chips are the latest products in a growing portfolio of optical and copper connectivity chips from Marvell optimized for specific use cases to help cloud operators maximize the utilization and performance of their infrastructures while reducing overall cost and power per bit. Both Perseus and Spica Gen2 are based on the Marvell industry-leading PAM4 optical DSP architecture, the most widely deployed optical DSP in cloud data centers and AI clusters.
"AI is impossible without optical," said Vlad Kozlov, CEO and founder of LightCounting, which forecasts that shipments of 800 Gbps and faster optical modules to the cloud will grow from 3 Exabits/second to 19 Exabits/second by 2027, a 78% CAGR. "Marvell has long been at the forefront of expanding the applications and use cases for optical inside data centers. Perseus and Spica Gen2 represent the latest steps in that voyage."
Connecting the Cloud
Optical DSP modules convert electrical signals from switches or other devices so data traffic can move to faster, more efficient and higher bandwidth optical networks. A mainstay in data centers since the early 2000s, optical modules have achieved a 1000x increase in data rate and a 100x reduction in energy per bit.2 The majority of connections within data centers over five meters today are made with optical DSP modules.2
Doubling in bandwidth approximately every two years, optical DSP-based modules are growing at approximately 54% per year in terms of bits shipped,3 enabling the 40-50% annual growth of bandwidth traffic at cloud service providers.3
The rise of accelerated computing will further fuel innovation in optical DSP technology as cloud service providers seek to scale their infrastructure to meet surging customer demand as well as the escalating performance requirements of these new, complex workloads. Some AI training clusters, for example, can contain up to 32,000 processors, 2,000 switches, 70,000 optical DSP modules and consume up to 45 megawatts of power.4
To help cloud operators and others increase their return on investment, Marvell produces connectivity products fine-tuned for different connectivity applications and use cases. Perseus, for example, supports both full retimer use cases for modules requiring both transmit and receiver capabilities as well as transmit-only orreceiver-only half retimer use cases such as linear pluggable optics (LPO). Other specialized products include Nova (the industry's first 1.6T optical DSP for medium- to long-reach connections inside data centers), Porrima (100-400G), coherent DSPs and modules for long-range connections (2-2,000km), and copper-based active electrical cable devices for server-to-server links.
"The optimized approach Marvell takes to silicon design gives us a platform for developing a broader portfolio of products," said Osa Mok, chief marketing officer at InnoLight. "In the AI era, customers will obsessively seek performance and power gains in every part of their infrastructure. Specialized optical modules and technologies will allow them to achieve their goals in a scalable, economical manner."
"Accelerated computing requires accelerated infrastructure," said Xi Wang, vice president of product marketing for Optical Connectivity at Marvell. "Perseus and Spica Gen2 are the latest examples of our strategy to enable our partners and end users to continuously improve the efficiency, performance and resiliency of their critical assets while creating a platform for new services."
Select features of Perseus include:
Select features of Spica Gen2 include:
Availability
Perseus is sampling to select customers now. Spica Gen2 is commercially available.
About MarvellTo deliver the data infrastructure technology that connects the world, we're building solutions on the most powerful foundation: our partnerships with our customers. Trusted by the world's leading technology companies for over 25 years, we move, store, process and secure the world's data with semiconductor solutions designed for our customers' current needs and future ambitions. Through a process of deep collaboration and transparency, we're ultimately changing the way tomorrow's enterprise, cloud, automotive, and carrier architectures transformfor the better.
Marvell and the M logo are trademarks of Marvell or its affiliates. Please visit http://www.marvell.com for a complete list of Marvell trademarks. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate or imply future events, results or achievements. Actual events, results or achievements may differ materially from those contemplated in this press release. Forward-looking statements are only predictions and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict, including those described in the "Risk Factors" section of our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other documents filed by us from time to time with the SEC. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and no person assumes any obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
For further information, contact:Michael Kanellos, Head of Influencer Relations[emailprotected]
SOURCE Marvell
How organizations can learn from cloud security breaches – TechTarget
By
Published: 06 Dec 2023
When Enterprise Strategy Group senior analyst Melinda Marks and I asked organizations if they had experienced a cloud-focused cyber attack in the last 12 months, an alarming 99% claimed their organization had.
Our research on cloud threat detection and response -- which surveyed 393 security pros and asked about their cloud environments' security controls and strategic cloud security plans -- is worrying, but organizations have an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons here.
The following are the top five cyber attacks cited, along with guidance on appropriate countermeasures against future attacks:
My recommendations aren't earth shattering; they are best practices any CISSP could rattle off in their sleep. Why are these breaches occurring then? Too many organizations are so enamored with cloud technology and application development opportunities that they fail to put in basic safeguards.
Companies should commit to a strong cloud security foundation in 2024, starting with the essentials: governance, policies and cloud security training for software developers, IT operations and security professionals. When supplemented with continuous monitoring, alerting and risk scoring, CISOs can avoid many cloud security problems.
Jon Oltsik is a distinguished analyst, fellow and the founder of TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group cybersecurity service. With more than 30 years of technology industry experience, Oltsik is widely recognized as an expert in all aspects of cybersecurity.
Enterprise Strategy Group is a division of TechTarget. Its analysts have business relationships with technology vendors.
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How organizations can learn from cloud security breaches - TechTarget
EU provides 1.2 billion euros for European cloud computing project – Notebookcheck.net
The European Union has just paved the way for a huge investment project, namely the "IPCEI Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure and Services" (IPCEI CIS) project, which is mainly supported by the following seven European countries: France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and Spain.
The EU is spending up to 1.2 billion euros to develop European cloud infrastructure. At the same time, a further 1.4 billion euros will be injected via private investments, supported by state financing.
The economy of the entire EU will likely benefit from the project and see gains in innovation and efficiency. Around 1000 new jobs are expected to be created very soon, with a further 5000 jobs to be added as the project evolves. Data and AI specialists in particular will count among the first employees.
It is also interesting to note that some of the public start-up funding will be paid back privately as soon as the project proves to be profitable. The exact nature of the contracts has not yet been disclosed. The first results of the project are planned for 2027, but in what form is again unknown.
To date, the cloud business has been mainly dominated by three US companies: Amazon, Microsoft and Google. As it currently stands, 19 companies will take part in the European cloud project, including industry giants such as Deutsche Telekom and SAP, but also companies from other participating countries, especially from the telecommunications industry.
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EU provides 1.2 billion euros for European cloud computing project - Notebookcheck.net
The EU just launched a 1.2 billion cloud project to crack US dominance – ITPro
The EU has approved state aid of up to 1.2 billion for a cloud and edge computing project across Europe in a bid to compete more effectively with the US.
The scheme, called IPCEI Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure and Services (IPCEI CIS), has been backed by France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain, and is aimed at creating the first interoperable and openly accessible European data processing ecosystem.
Nineteen companies, including several SMBs, will be involved, helping to develop data processing capabilities, along with software and data sharing tools to enable federated, energy-efficient and trustworthy cloud and edge distributed data processing technologies.
Companies involved in the project include Atos, Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Telecom Italia and Telefonica Espana.
Commissioner Didier Reynders, head of the EUs competition policy, said the scheme aims to drive highly ambitious research to bolster support for EU-based companies.
"This Important Project of Common European Interest is the first one in the cloud and edge computing domain. The participating member states provide up to 1.2 billion in public funding, expected to unlock an additional 1.4 billion in private investments," he said.
"The IPCEI will provide for highly ambitious research, necessary to enable the uptake of innovative data processing applications and services for European businesses, public administrations, and citizens."
The plan is to develop open source software that will allow for real-time and low-latency services, EU lawmakers said, with individual projects covering the entire cloud edge continuum, from the basic software layer to sector-specific applications.
There will be several areas of focus. The first, Cloud Edge Continuum Infrastructure, looks to update existing technology to work with new applications, including developing open source software to help cloud service edge nodes from various providers interoperate.
There are also plans to develop open source software that enables businesses to form their own private clouds by pooling resources from various data centers.
Advanced Smart Data Processing Tools and Services covers cross-industry cloud and edge services, along with AI models that can process text and multimedia in various languages and provide platforms to simplify developing AI applications.
And finally, Advanced Applications are aimed at using these technologies in specific fields such as the energy, health, and maritime sectors.
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One company to receive funding is Italy's Tiscali, which says it will be setting up a lab to develop specific large language models for each European language.
Deutsche Telecom, meanwhile, will be working on a common European cloud and edge cloud infrastructure.
"Edge Cloud represents the next frontier in telecommunications and digital infrastructure," said managing director, business customers, Klaus Werner. "With the support of the German government and European partners, we're not just exploring this frontier; we want to shape and define it."
The project is expected to create around 1,000 jobs, initially for data scientists and AI specialists, with another 5,000 or so coming during the commercialization phase.
If projects receiving a large amount of aid turn out to be very successful, generating extra net revenues, a claw-back mechanism means that the companies will return part of the cash.
R&D and the first industrial deployment phase will last until 2031, with the first result, an open-source reference infrastructure, due around the end of 2027.
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The EU just launched a 1.2 billion cloud project to crack US dominance - ITPro
CoreWeave backed by Fidelity and Jane Street at $7 billion valuation as cloud provider bolsters status as one of AIs hottest startups – Fortune
CoreWeave, a cloud computing provider thats among the hottest startups in the artificial intelligence race, said it closed a minority stake sale to investors led by Fidelity Management & Research Co.
Investment Management Corp. of Ontario, Jane Street, JPMorgan Asset Management,Nat Friedman,Daniel Gross, Goanna Capital and Zoom Ventures also participated in the deal, CoreWeave said, confirming anearlierBloomberg News report. The transaction values the company at $7 billion, said people with knowledge of the matter, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.
Our explosive growth trajectory has been recognized by top-tier institutional investors, and this transaction highlights the differentiation our market-leading performance, significant technology advantage, and strong customer adoption is receiving in the market, Michael Intrator, co-founder and CEO of CoreWeave, said in an emailed statement.
The AI industry is at an inflection point, he added, noting that the company is playing a central role by providing the most differentiated AI infrastructure to customers.
The Roseland, New Jersey-based company earlier this yearsaidit secured a $2.3 billion debt financing facility led by Magnetar Capital and Blackstone that also featured Coatue, DigitalBridge Credit, and affiliates of BlackRock, PIMCO, and Carlyle.
CoreWeave, which counts Nvidia Corp. as an investor, was an early adopter of Nvidias graphics chips for data centers, getting ahead of a wave of demand for powerful processors to run artificial intelligence applications. Its building out data centers based on Nvidias chips to offer AI-related computing.
Morgan Stanley advised CoreWeave on its minority stake sale.
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CoreWeave backed by Fidelity and Jane Street at $7 billion valuation as cloud provider bolsters status as one of AIs hottest startups - Fortune
Broadcom to divest VMware’s end-user computing and Carbon Black units – The Register
Updated Broadcom CEO Hock Tan has announced his intention to divest VMware's end-user computing and Carbon Black units, and signalled a rapid shift to subscription licenses of bigger software bundles.
Speaking on Broadcom's Q4 2023 earnings call, Tan told investors "We are now refocusing VMware on its core business of creating private and hybrid cloud environments among large enterprises globally and divesting non-core assets."
"Our strategy going forward is to enable global enterprises to run apps across datacenters and public clouds by consuming VMware's high value software stack," Tan explained, adding: "To attract and retain workloads we are investing in microservices tools."
Tan named VMware's end-user computing portfolio which comprises desktop virtualization, application publishing, and mobile device management as one asset to be divested. The Carbon Black security software unit is also on the way out, after on November 27 announcing it had become an independent Broadcom business unit.
"We're now going to invest and focus our sales and R&D on those core areas of VMware Cloud Foundation," Tan continued. "And to us, end-user computing, Carbon Black, good assets as they may be, we prefer now to divest them. We'll find good homes for them because there are a lot of very interested parties who are more than happy to take those assets."
The Broadcom boss promised to be "very, very thoughtful about where we put those assets eventually, simply because the customers of many of these two assets are also the same customers to the VMware Cloud Foundation.
Hes right: VMware's desktop virtualization wares rely on the virtualization pioneer's ESXi hypervisor, so won't be easily disentangled.
But Tan doesn't want customers to buy bits and pieces of VMware's portfolio. He intends to have more of them buy Cloud Foundation which includes compute, storage and network virtualization, plus multi-cloud management and automation.
Tan described VMware as having practiced "very loose component sales in the past, particularly on compute only." Changing to sales of Cloud Foundation will mean customers pay more propelling VMware revenue towards Broadcoms goal of adding $8.5 billion of pro forma EBITDA within three years of the deal closing. The CEO predicted the shift to Cloud Foundation sales alone should see that number in sight by the end of Broadcom's 2024 financial year.
CFO Kristen Spears foreshadowed another change for VMware customers, in the form of a push to subscriptions when they renew their licenses.
"We are also converting an install base of licenses that is over 60 percent perpetual today to one that will be mostly subscription by the end of fiscal 2024," she announced on the earnings call.
Spears also revealed that by the end of FY '24, VMware spending will shrink to $1.4 billion per quarter down 40 percent from a year ago.
Some of those savings will clearly come from job cuts. Public filings suggest VMware has axed over 2,000 jobs in the US. The Register has made several requests to Broadcom to detail those job cuts, and how they will change the experience of working with VMware, but it has not responded. In its Form 8-K, Broadcom revealed it "expects to take charges of approximately $1.3 billion through fiscal year 2025 for the implementation of cost reduction activities."
Tan's remarks about Broadcom's plan to focus on global enterprises reflect the playbook the voracious conglomerate followed after the acquisitions of CA and Symantec, which both saw product development focus on the needs of larger customers. Smaller users and the partners who serve them both reported indifference from Broadcom.
Tan said VMware is different because " we're selling a product of the present and of the future. It is a growth product to be able to create a virtualized cloud environment in your own datacenter on-prem for any global company."
Broadcom forecast VMware will generate $12 billion of revenue for eleven months of its next financial year, excluding $2 billion for end-user computing and Carbon Black.
The biz reported $9.3 billion revenue for Q4 up four percent year on year, and an eight percent annual revenue increase to $35.8 billion. Net income was essentially steady for the year and quarter.
FY 2024 revenue was forecast to reach $50 billion, helped by the addition of VMware, secular increases in demand for semiconductors, and some help from the AI boom.
+COMMENT The Register struggles to reconcile the many references on Broadcom's earnings call to VMware Cloud Foundation as an ideal product for global enterprises, the plan to de-emphasize "loose" sales of unbundled products, and past insistence that smaller VMware customers will continue to get the innovation and service they need.
Broadcom is currently offering those customers little succour or information and they're openly fearful and contemplating alternatives.
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Broadcom to divest VMware's end-user computing and Carbon Black units - The Register
Australia building ‘top secret’ cloud to catch up and link with US, UK intel orgs – The Register
Australia is building a top-secret cloud to host intelligence data and share it with the US and UK, which have their own clouds built for the same purpose.
The three clouds were discussed on Monday by Andrew Shearer, Australia's director-general of national intelligence, at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, DC.
"We are working very hard on a top-secret cloud initiative," Shearer told the event, adding that it will interoperate with similar infrastructure already operated by the US and UK, and mean sensitive data can be shared "near instantaneously."
"What that will do is obviously transform how we do our work as agencies but also it'll open up a shared collaborative space that will really, I think, reinforce this sense of working together as a genuine community and bringing all those different capabilities to bear on problems.
"The ability to share vast amounts of data and to work on it together will be a massive change for us as a community.
The US and UK, he added, are already "moving in that direction." Australia can learn from those two nations' experiences building similar clouds.
Shearer suggested that each of the three nations has different procurement rules, but they are aware that agreeing on some hardware and software standards "will let us move forward together as opposed to diverging."
He opined that all Five Eyes partners the intelligence-sharing alliance of the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand "really need to focus on" shared standards.
AI is another field in which Shearer anticipates collaboration among the Five Eyes nations.
"We can do so much better on if we do it in a shared way," he argued. "There are these opportunities for us to really deepen our existing cooperation. It's more than an opportunity, though. I say it's actually an imperative, given what we're up against."
But he also expressed doubt that security analysts will embrace AI. Recalling his own time as a junior security analyst, Shearer noted that such workers live in fear that they will miss a crucial piece of information, and won't assume AI will avoid that sort of error.
The intelligence community will therefore need to understand the limitations of AI. Doing so will, again, require collaboration among partners and allies, in his opinion.
Shearer observed that Australia's intelligence community is increasingly engaged with other Southeast Asian nations sometimes to help them understand the impact of climate change. Japan, he added, has signalled it intends big changes to its intelligence efforts that align with the goals of the Five Eyes group which is pleased with that plan.
European powers, too, currently have many of the same priorities as Australia given Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and the war in the Middle East.
Those overlapping interests mean more opportunities indeed imperatives to share approaches to intelligence, he argued.
More here:
Australia building 'top secret' cloud to catch up and link with US, UK intel orgs - The Register
CORRECTION-Nvidia in talks with Malaysia’s YTL on data center deal- sources – Yahoo Eurosport UK
(corrects city of Johor Bahru to state of Johor)
Dec 8 - Nvidia is in advanced talks with Malaysian power-to-property conglomerate YTL on a data center deal, three sources familiar with the matter said. The potential tie-up would include collaborating on cloud infrastructure, and is likely to be anchored at YTL's data center complex in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, bordering Singapore, one of the people said.
The partnership would target businesses in Southeast Asia to provide them access to Nvidia's AI chips via cloud computing, a second person briefed on the matter said.
It was not immediately clear how much the deal would be worth.
The sources declined to be identified as discussions are not public.
Nvidia, which dominates the market for AI chips, declined to comment. YTL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
YTL's telecoms division already has a cloud gaming partnership with Nvidia agreed earlier this year. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is visiting Malaysia on Friday after meeting with senior officials in Singapore earlier this week. He said the U.S chip designer would "potentially announce some large investments" in Singapore. (Reporting by Rozanna Latiff in Kuala Lumpur, Fanny Potkin and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore, and Max Cherney in San Francisco Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
Original post:
CORRECTION-Nvidia in talks with Malaysia's YTL on data center deal- sources - Yahoo Eurosport UK
NCS announces strategic partnership with Google Cloud to accelerate digital transformation in Asia Pacific, ETCIO SEA – ETCIO South East Asia
NCS and Google Cloud announced today their strategic partnership to accelerate AI-led transformation for public and private sector organisations across Singapore, Australia, and the wider Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
NCS has also integrated its Google Cloud expertise across its service offerings and teams. This enables APAC clients to harness AI and cloud technologies to transform and innovate at greater speed and scale. Clients can tap into NCS' extensive experience and capabilities and its 100-strong APAC Google Cloud team to confidently navigate the full spectrum of innovation, security, and AI transformation.
NCS is a Premier partner for Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspaces, offering clients a range of services from Data Analytics to Infrastructure and Cyber across the Google suite, including Google Cloud, Workspace, Maps, and Mandiant. Supporting this Premier status are Partner Specialisations in Infrastructure Services, Data Analytics Services, and 15 Partner Expertise including retail, healthcare, education, and financial services.
Earlier in September, NCS had announced a partnership with leading cybersecurity specialist, Mandiant, now part of Google Cloud. The combined offering, experience and deep capabilities enable organisations to tap into an intelligence-led approach to cybersecurity, supported by end-to-end applications and infrastructure services delivered by NCS. The partnership also enables clients to take advantage of a single point of contact and accountability, thereby accelerating resilience for organisations.
NCS has also invested in Google Cloud training for over 200 personnel as Google Cloud Certified Professionals, including professional-level certifications in Data Engineering and Cloud Architecture. This is in addition to NCS' 100-strong APAC Google Cloud team.
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