By Suresh Kumar Khemka, Head of Platform Engineering & Infrastructure apna

Traditionally, human resource roles have been perceived as the operational mainstay oforganisations. Despite this, HR departments have been comparatively slower in adoptingtechnology.

However, the pandemic was a blessing in disguise as it nudged HR heads to adopt cloud computing and other AI-enabled technologies in managing functions such as attendance, leave management, training programs, and more to keep operations going during the work-from-home period.

Furthermore, spheres with minimal technology penetration, e.g., talent acquisition, technical training, onboarding and employee engagement, have all gathered momentum now. For instance, no one would have imagined hiring could be managed end-to-end remotely when stakeholders recruiter, interviewee, interviewer and hiring manager were all based across diverse locations.

Likewise, no one would have ever envisioned candidates could be onboarded into the company without being physically present. Yet, that is precisely what happened when organisations hired people via online interviews and remote hiring processes. Thanks to SasS solutions enabled by cloud computing, all the above functions are being done seamlessly, speedily, and securely.

Highlighted below are some salient features that facilitate hiring through cloud computing and allied new-age technologies:Smooth recruitment procedures: Generally, the recruiting process is prolonged and cumbersome. But with cloud computing, recruitment is streamlined completely. As the information linked to each step of the procedure is stored in the cloud-based applications, the entire process is collaborative and accessible to every stakeholder. As a result, feedback and decision-making happen in real-time through the cloud.

Moreover, the democratisation of machine learning models and artificial intelligence has enhanced job relevancy, classification of skills and domains, flexibility to launch new features for the recruitment process for both job seekers and employers, cost-effective delivery of services over different channels, seamless scaling to manage ever-increasing workloads, end-to-end process visibility and the ability to garner invaluable insights through data analytics and data science all are made possible by innovations in cloud computing.

Automation: In the pre-cloud computing era, human resource managers handled core HR processes offline or on internal platforms. Now, data-heavy HR functions, including timesheet submissions and performance reviews, have all been automated with cloud-based/SaaS HR solutions. Cloud-based solutions have enabled agility to build new features or make feature changes to meet the demands of the ever-evolving business needs. Automation has significantly reduced time and effort on tasks, better workflow management, improved communication and status updates, etc. making even non-techteams more efficient, driving higher productivity. Consequently, low-code/no-code solution available over the cloud allows HR heads to focus on the big picture without worrying about mundane, daily tasks.

Data security: Since the cloud enables HR devices to maintain all data in a centralised, secure cloud location, it is accessible at any time. Cloud technologies provide a better overview of inventory, track data flow through data lineage, enforce role-based access control and monitoring of access patterns, security is an intrinsic part of the cloud; cloud-based HR solutions remain more secure since the administrator has fine-grained control over who can access and what information. Other benefits include transparent encryption of data at rest or in motion, secure data sharing, control and visibility of data flow across companies and partner entities as well as data loss prevention.

Best of all, with HR solutions on the cloud, data remains protected yet available even in case of natural disasters or incidents like fire in the office. Access to data is available from anywhere and everywhere, with just a basic requirement of the internet.

Centralisation of key data: Data centralisation brings all data into one place where it is managed and accessed more effectively. Centralisation of information is one of the most salient features of cloud computing because it permits efficient, secure storage and swift retrieval. For example, as HR registries are organised flawlessly, even the heaviest documents can be stored and retrieved easily. Additionally, as the data is available to cross-functional teams, it helps in driving deeper insights and better work outcomes. Advancements in Data lakes and lakehouses allow to store petabyte-scale of data at a very low cost.

Plugging the communication void: Cloud computing ensures a simpler and easier flow of communication through various channels like email, chat, text messages, WhatsApp, and social media as well as collaboration suites such as Google Workspace, Chat, and online shared documents.

It also helps in tracking touchpoints through technology, close monitoring of online conversations, sentiment analysis, and more. Besides, by filling the communication gap between leaders and team members through regular messages both synchronous and asynchronous, it promotes greater employee satisfaction.

Training and administration: Supported by cloud computing, training teams are well-placed to impart training and even hold examinations in a proctored setting despite being virtual. HR teams can also undertake activities related to employee engagement, performance management, annual celebration ceremonies as well as rewards and recognition events all in virtual mode.

Providing a level playing field: Apart from people management, HR can be tasked with overseeing key processes within a company, which requires a consistent approach across its operations. Consider companies with branches across global geographies, where it is most challenging to interpret and implement decisions emerging from the headquarters. With cloud computing, however, HR leaders can create a level playing field across regions, regardless of the location of diverse offices. Therefore, be it training, performance metrics, or remuneration, cloud computing ascertains that every element of employee management is centralised.

Today, cloud technology is living up to its promise by empowering HR departments to act efficiently for more productive outcomes. Naturally, cloud computing has made its presence felt globally in HR management. As cloud computing stands poised to gain greater traction in the days ahead, companies deploying this technology are bound to attract the best talent and, thereby, enjoy better bottom lines.

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Globally, C-suite and Senior Leadership have prioritized Cloud adoption in the business. A similar pattern has emerged in Indian businesses. According to NASSCOM, Cloud technology will account for roughly 5%-8% of GDP by 2026 and has the potential to create unprecedented growth in employment opportunities in this shared digital infrastructure space aka Cloud.

Indian Government has been supporting Cloud adoption by devising policies and providing support to MSMEs (Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) by creating an appropriate ecosystem. The Digital MSME and the Digital India program has led the transformation for Indian businesses and have encouraged them to use Cloud platforms for communications and information technology applications. These initiatives have helped MSMEs to cut on CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) infrastructure and move to cutting-edge applications and infrastructure economically.

Various cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure are building platforms catering to the need of various businesses and providing support for them to implement cloud in their businesses without having adequate technical know-hows. Creating accounts, connecting with cloud platforms, storing files, or accessing cloud-based SaaS apps have been made very easy for businesses and have helped them come to a place from where they can scale their business and have business continuity and resilience.

Cloud technologies and platforms have provided innumerable opportunities for Indian businesses with access to high-end computing, cutting-edge software, pay-per-use model and have helped businesses move from CAPEX model to OPEX (Operating Expense) model.

The various advantages of Cloud in terms of infinite storage, data security, data encryption, data safety, and flexibility & reliability have helped businesses focus on core business drivers, business agility and go to market strategies. Cloud features like fail fast, create quick proof-of-concept have led to innovation and multifold growth creating new products and customized service offerings for our customers in turn creating enhanced customer satisfaction.

While there are multiple benefits of adopting cloud, there are various challenges as well that our Indian businesses need to take care of prioritization of migration, lack of planning, employee training and unrealistic timelines. One of the common myths among businesses is to have immediate cost savings from their adoption of cloud platforms.

On the contrary, there are costs associated with various challenges outlined above but if implemented strategically, investments will not only have better returns but will help businesses with productivity and scalability.

Cloud providers are providing newsletters, seminars, and conducting various events through which Indian businesses can learn what mature cloud players are doing right and create appropriate internal knowledge within their organization.

Businesses and Educational organizations have a symbiotic relationship the more businesses will drive cloud adoption the more educational institutions will create cloud ready courses and workforces thus driving better employment opportunities and in turn help Indias economy & GDP.

While India looks forward to becoming 3rd largest economy of the world, it is time for our businesses to evangelize cloud adoption in their organization and create future-ready workforces.

Authored by -Sharad Kumar, Regional PMO Head, Hanu An Insight company

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of India TV)

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Lewis Smithingham is the SVP of Innovation at Media.Monks. A problem-solver who identifies innovative digital opportunities, he helps usher brands and partners into the future with creative and technical expertise and the forefront of digital transformation and virtualization. With a background in film and fine arts and passion for gaming, he levels up Media.Monks work at the intersection of creativity and technology. Most recently, he was named to Business Insiders list of the top 24 agency executives leading advertisers charge into the metaverse and Web3. He sits on the World Economic Forum working group on Value Creation in the Metaverse. He is a sought-after speaker, taking the stage at the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference, Sports Video Group Summit, Siggraph, CES, NAB, IBC and IAB to name a few.

At a time when the possibilities of technology seem limitless, its hard to imagine we could be on the verge of hitting any sort of ceiling. But the truth is, we are. For a while now, experts have been warning that were approaching the computational limit of deviceswhich means we cant pack more transistors onto a microchip nor make the existing devices smaller than they are.

However, the imminent limits of current hardware are meeting a ferocious hunger for new technological innovations, which are mainly driven by software. This poses the question of how were going to be able to advance in areas like AI and VR when computing performance cant keep upat least not while maintaining the same stability and efficiency.

After years of exploring different tools, services, and technologies to exploit their opportunities, Im convinced that the answer to this conundrum can be found in cloud computing.

The Key Enabler of Technological and Cultural Change

As previously mentioned, the biggest drivers of technological and cultural change are now in software, not devices (although, if you try Half-Life: Alyx in a VR headset, you may beg to differ). Years ago, smartphones wildly evolved from one generation to the next, whereas now they introduce almost no new features. Yet as hardware suffers from the computational plateau, software and GPU are taking off. The improvements in Unreal Engine and Unity, the development of ICVFX, the virtualization of broadcast production and the sudden and rapid onslaught of generative AI are some of the most prominent examples.

At the core of this change lies the fact that people want a type of internet thats experiential, meaningful and useful. ChatGPT reaching one million users in five days is not only a reflection of how good the technology is, but also how much value people are finding in it.

If we want to continue to ride that wave, we have to invest in cloud computing. Considering where Moores Lawcoined by the late Gordon Moore, who recently passed awayis at today (flat and potentially inapplicable), computing has to shift off-device. Unless computers and phones get substantially bigger (thank you, but no) cloud computing will grow as the most valuable infrastructural tool in society.

While digital businesses will still face some profitability challenges, much of this new wave is, quite simply, very useful to the vast majority. And when technology meets cultural needs, commerce waterfalls naturally off their backeven in a recession. People are willing to pay for tools that they find value in, and investors are gazing longingly at the biggest AI startups. Its the reason OpenAI has become profitable, increasing its intake and revenue at a speed that many other technology startups have never seemed able to reach.

The Solution to the Content Distribution Bottleneck

For those of us in the business, its sad to see Moores law coming to an end, even though it will leave a lasting impact. The number of transistors in integrated circuits has become a mainstream metaphor for technological change in general, and interestingly enough, it reached the world of marketing. In fact, Moores law has probably been overshot in the content department.

Soon, well find ourselves with more content than we know what to do with. While we have moved from one-directional, one-stop-shop content (cable TV) to ecosystems encompassing the entire customer journey, supply will still loom over demand, and content distribution will face a bottleneck issue.

Im interested in seeing what we come up with to increase distribution in a way thats cost-efficient and sustainable, and cloud computing will rise as the obvious solution in that regard too.

As Matthew Ball said years ago, The tens of billions that will be spent on cloud gaming over the next decade, too, is based on the belief that such technologies will underpin our online-offline virtual future. Cloud computing will be the key to solving the immediate problems we face in the age of AI enablement, new hardware formats and the distribution of content through new and existing channels.

Ultimately, the internet has developed through punctuated equilibrium. It hasnt been a linear evolution; rather, a series of sudden jumps that pushed the technology forward. AI represents the most recent jump, but weve hit an uncanny valley where its almost but not quite exact. In order to get over that feeling, the technology needs to become more sophisticated, and the cloud will play a key role in enabling itas well as allowing us to effectively navigate whatever advancements and new technologies lie ahead.

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For enterprises to realize the potential that real-time datasets can deliver, cloud tech stacks need hardening with zero trust. In this, confidential computing is essential to securing data at rest, in transit and in use.

VentureBeat spoke with CIOs from banking, financial services and insurance industries who say they are at various stages of piloting confidential computing to see how well it handles their compliance, regulatory reporting and real-time auditing of data transactions. Notably, compliance and support for zero trust frameworks are emerging as the killer apps.

One CIO who spoke on condition of anonymity said that their board of directors team assigned to risk management wants to see proof that data is secured during use within protected CPU enclaves and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), two foundational elements of confidential computing.

Board members on risk management teams recall Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities that target processors that rely on branch prediction and advanced speculative actions. CIOs and CISOs say boards need to see pilot data and simulated attacks thwarted before they go into production with confidential computing.

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Based on period pilots that VentureBeat is briefed on, its clear that confidential computing strengthens zero trust in multicloud tech stacks on which highly regulated businesses rely on. Compliance, privacy, and security use cases, particularly on public cloud, have gained the most significant traction, accounting for 30 to 35% of the worldwide market, according to Everest Groups report Confidential Computing: The Next Frontier in Data Security. And, the confidential computing market is predicted to grow to $54 billion by 2026.

Confidential Computing is a cloud computing technology that secures data during processing by isolating sensitive data in a protected CPU enclave. The contents of each enclave, including the data and analysis techniques, are only accessed with authorized programming codes, remaining invisible and protected from external access.

Confidential computing is gaining momentum because it provides greater data confidentiality, data and code integrity than current security technologies protecting cloud tech stacks and infrastructure.

The Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC) is instrumental in promoting and defining confidential computing across the industry. The CCC is a Linux Foundation project that combines the efforts of hardware vendors, cloud providers and software developers to help increase the adoption and standardization of TEE technologies.

TEEs protect proprietary business logic, analytics functions, machine learning (ML) algorithms and applications. Founding members include Alibaba, Arm, Google, Huawei, Intel, Microsoft and Red Hat. The CCC defines confidential computing as protecting data in use by computing in a hardware-based TEE.

Whats working in confidential computings favor with boards is how effective it is at ensuring regulatory compliance. Its also proven to be effective at enforcing end-to-end security and least privileged access to data at rest, in transit and in use. CIOs and CISOs tell VentureBeat that they expect confidential computing to be complimentary to their Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) frameworks and supporting initiatives.

John Kindervag created zero trust and currently serves as SVP forcybersecuritystrategy and is a group fellow at ON2IT Cybersecurity. He is also an advisory board member for several organizations, including to the offices of the CEO and president of theCloudSecurityAlliance.

He recently told VentureBeat that the biggest and best-unintended consequence of zero trust was how much it improves the ability to deal with compliance and auditors. And, he said that a Forrester client called and informed him how perfectly aligned zero trust was with their compliance and audit automation process.

Mark Russinovich, CTO and technical fellow of Microsoft Azure writes that: Our vision is to transform the Azure cloud into the Azure confidential cloud, moving from computing in the clear to computing confidentially across the cloud and edge. We want to empower customers to achieve the highest levels of privacy and security for all their workloads.

Cloud platform providers endorsed and began integrating CCCs requirements into their product roadmaps as early as 2019, when the CC was formed. Whats guiding cloud platform providers is the goal of providing their customers with the technical controls necessary to isolate data from cloud platform operators, their operators, or both.

Microsofts Azure confidential computing is considered an industry leader because their DevOps teams designed the platform to go beyond hypervisor isolation between customer tenants to safeguard customer data from Microsoft operator access.

CIOs and CISOs have identified to VentureBeat what theyre looking for when it comes to a baseline level of performance with confidential computing. First, remote attestation needs to be proven in live customer sites with referenceable accounts willing to speak to how they are using it to check the integrity of the environment. Second, trusted launch workflows and processes ideally need to be cloud-based, in production, and proven to validate virtual machines starting up with authorized software and continuous remote attestation to check for customers.

Martin G. Dixon, Intel fellow and VP of Intels security architecture and engineering group writes that, I believe the zero trust concepts shouldnt stop at the network or system. Rather, they can be applied down inside the silicon. We even refer to infrastructure on the chip as a network or network on a chip.'

Part of that vision at Intel included the need for attestation to become more pervasive and portable to fuel confidential computings growth, starting at the silicon level.

To address this, the company introduced Project Amber, whose goals include providing independent attestation, more uniform, portable attestation and improved policy verification.

With the introduction of Project Amber, Intel is taking confidential computing to the next level in our commitment to a zero trust approach to attestation and the verification of compute assets at the network, edge and in the cloud, Greg Lavender, Intels CTO said at the companys Intel Vision conference last year.

He continued that Intel is focused on extending attestation services in the cloud data center in the edge computing environments to provide unprecedented security. The Intel Software as a Service offering Project Amber is a trusted service solution that will provide organizations with independent verification and trustworthiness of customer assets no matter where they run.

Getting silicon-based zero trust security right needs to start with TEEs hardened enough to protect sensitive data at rest, in transit and in use. Migrating zero trust into silicon also strengthens authentication and authorization, taking identity and access management (IAM) and privileged access management to the hardware level, which makes it harder for attackers to bypass or manipulate authentication systems and improves the security of confidential computing environments.

Additional benefits of moving zero trust into silicon include encrypting all data and ensuring a higher level of data integrity and applying zero trust principles to data encryption and authentication. With zero trust frameworks requiring continuous security configuration and posture validation for all users and devices, supporting monitoring in silicon will reduce the overhead on cloud platform performance.

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San Francisco, March 28 (IANS) US-based cloud computing company Rackspace Technology has said it would lay off about 4 per cent of its workforce globally amid tough macroeconomic conditions.

According to San Antonio Express-News, the layoffs will cut nearly 275 employees across the company's global workforce.

However, it is not confirmed how many employees would be let go from the company's San Antonio headquarters or what their roles would be.

According to the recent US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Rackspace had about 700 local employees in December, and its global employment was about 6,800 in 23 countries, including 3,100 in North America.

"Like so many companies that are feeling the effects of the macroeconomic downturn, Rackspace is no exception," Casey Shilling, chief marketing officer, was quoted as saying.

"During this uncertain time, it is important that we align our cost structure to the demands of the business. This requires some elimination of roles across the company," she added.

The company said that it will provide severance and other resources to those employees who are laid off, the report mentioned.

-IANS

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Cloud computing firm Rackspace to lay off 4% of workforce - ETCIO South East Asia