Category Archives: Cloud Hosting
DataBank Celebrates the Opening of the New Jersey Institute of … – PR Newswire
DataBank is a leader in supporting High Performance Computing (HPC) environments, providing adequate power density and cooling requirements for college research institutions.
DALLAS, May 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ --DataBank, a leading provider of enterprise-class colocation, connectivity, and managed services, congratulates the New Jersey Institute of Technology(NJIT) on the opening of its Wulver High Performance Computing environment, now live in DataBank's Piscataway, NJ EWR2 data center.
"Research has propelled NJIT's growth as a leading national university, and partnering with DataBank will dramatically improve the performance of our research computing environment," said Atam Dhawan, interim provost and senior executive vice president. "This partnership supports NJIT's research mission to advance the knowledge base through new discoveries, and basic, applied and translational research and technology development."
NJIT's steady rise in research activity and output has necessitated the upgrade. NJIT is one of only 146 universities nationwide to earn the R1 ranking by Carnegie Classification the highest research designation and one of just three R1 universities in New Jersey. Research expenditures have surpassed $160 million, up nearly $70 million since 2010. NJIT comprises 150 research institutes, centers, and laboratories, up from 31 in 2010.
The university aims for national and international prominence in research through new discoveries in areas ranging from medical sensors and devices to robotics, to nanotechnology, to cybersecurity, to next-generation materials, among other topics of vital importance in basic, applied, and translational research. Five research clusters exist within the research enterprise of NJIT: Bioscience and Bioengineering; Data Science and Management; Environment and Sustainability; Materials Science and Engineering; and Robotics and Machine Learning.
DataBank is also announcing the creation of a new higher education program and partnership with NJIT where DataBank will offer internships, co-op, and scholarships to students at NJIT and other higher education institutions. "Tailoring this HPC hosting environment was a complicated effort that required close collaboration between key stakeholders from NJIT and DataBank," said Paul Attallah, national account manager at DataBank. "This teamwork inspired us to develop this mutually beneficial program. DataBank will benefit from the contributions of NJIT's students, and NJIT will give its students a chance to advance their careers."
DataBank delivers High Performance Computing environments to NJIT and other higher education institutions in support of their research programs as well as other organizations with requirements for high powered compute and storage.
DataBank and NJIT will celebrate the opening of its HPC environment at the Databank campus on May 31 and will host a live symposium later in 2023.
For more information about available services at Databank's colocation facilities or to request a quote, visit databank.comor call 800-840-7533.
About DataBank
DataBank enables the world's largest enterprises, technology, and content providers to consistently deploy and manage their infrastructure, applications, and data on the right platform, at the right time, in the right place. Our colocation and edge infrastructure footprint consists of 60+ data centers and 20 interconnection hubs in 30+ markets, on-ramps to an ecosystem of cloud providers, and a modular edge data center platform with virtually unlimited reach.
We combine these platforms with contract portability, managed security, compliance enablement, hands-on support, and a guarantee of 100% uptime availability, to give our customers absolute confidence in their IT infrastructure and the power to create a limitless digital future for their business.
To learn more or tour a facility, visit databank.com or call 1 (800) 840-7533.
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DataBank Celebrates the Opening of the New Jersey Institute of ... - PR Newswire
The Importance of Cloud Computing for Your Business: Benefits and Adoption Strategies – BBN Times
The Importance of Cloud Computing for Your Business: Benefits and Adoption Strategies
Businesses of all sizes are turning to cloud computing in today's fast-paced digital environment to streamline operations and boost bottom lines.
Cloud computing offers numerous benefits to help businesses meet their goals more quickly and efficiently; we will explore its importance and how it could assist your company. In this article, we'll look into its matter to your organisation and explore all its possible uses.
Before exploring the importance of cloud computing for your business, it's essential that you fully comprehend its nature. Cloud computing essentially refers to delivering computing services over the internet - such as storage, software and processing power, as well as analytics and machine learning services. Effectively, instead of hosting applications and data on servers owned by yourself or an in-house provider directly on the servers located elsewhere via an intermediary provider who makes them accessible via the internet.
One of the critical advantages of cloud computing for businesses is cost savings. No longer must they invest in expensive hardware and pay for its maintenance or upkeep - instead, they pay for services they use, with flexible scaling based on demand. This allows them to reduce infrastructure costs while decreasing IT staff requirements due to cloud computing's flexibility.
Cloud computing offers greater scalability and flexibility than traditional IT infrastructure, allowing you to rapidly adjust resources up or down according to business demands without investing in extra hardware or software. As a result, cloud computing enables rapid response time when meeting changing customer demand without incurring additional hardware or software expenses.
Cloud computing also facilitates teamwork between members regardless of physical location, providing access to vital information that enables project collaboration in real-time - helping improve productivity while decreasing time and costs associated with traditional communication methods like email or phone.
Cloud computing providers invest heavily in security and reliability, which ensures your data and applications are often safer and more reliable than on your servers. In addition, they typically offer multiple layers of protection like firewalls, encryption and 24/7 monitoring support that help safeguard against cyber threats while ensuring it remains accessible when necessary. This can provide essential protection from potential security threats while guaranteeing you access when you need it most.
Now that you understand the significance of cloud computing for your business, you may be asking how your enterprise can adopt it. Here are a few steps you should follow in this endeavour:
The initial step to adopting cloud computing is assessing your business needs. Consider your goals, the challenges you are experiencing and which tools and applications you currently rely upon - this will allow you to identify where cloud computing may assist.
Just like with any new technology, training your staff to learn more on how to use cloud-based tools and applications is crucial in taking full advantage of all its benefits while mitigating the risk of user error or security breaches.
Cloud computing has quickly become an indispensable business asset, offering cost savings, flexibility, scalability, increased collaboration and productivity, improved security and reliability, as well as agility and innovation for businesses of all sizes. Adopting cloud computing can help businesses meet their goals more quickly while decreasing IT staff and infrastructure requirements - by following these steps, they can migrate successfully into the cloud and start reaping its many advantages.
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The Importance of Cloud Computing for Your Business: Benefits and Adoption Strategies - BBN Times
Size of the Prize: Assessing the Market for Edge Computing in Spaces – Via Satellite
Via Satellite illustration.
This is the second of a two-part series analyzing the value of edge computing in space by the Boston Consulting Group. Read Part One: Size of the Prize: How Will Edge Computing in Space Drive Value Creation?
What key drivers are necessary to ensure that edge computing in space is widely adopted to the degree that it reaches an inflection point of affordability? We at the Boston Consulting Group believe that cybersecurity, cost, and ESG will drive the market for edge computing in space.
Cybersecurity is an area in which edge computing offers distinct advantages. Cloud computing is vulnerable to the ever-increasing risk of cybersecurity breaches, which can lead to major data theft or loss. Organizations across industries that collect personally identifiable information on a public cloud expose themselves to liability and/or compliance concerns, while sensitive intellectual property and proprietary industry data can become vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks at various nodes of transmission particularly given growing dependency on cloud computing.
The main challenge presented by the current cloud computing landscape is that corporate services and data are entrusted to third parties and are exposed to a higher level of risk, both in terms of security and privacy. The top three threats to cloud systems are unsafe API interfaces, data loss or theft, and hardware failure. The widespread use of virtualization in the implementation of cloud infrastructure also creates security problems because it alters the relationship between operating systems and underlying hardware, introducing an additional level that must be managed and protected.
In contrast, edge computing introduces multiple advantages for cybersecurity since data is processed locally. This eliminates risks stemming from data transfers, which are typically encrypted and inevitable when using typical terrestrial cloud solutions. With edge computing, complex calculations occur at the IoT device/perimeter server level and the only transfer is that of the final result to the user. The risk of data loss is driven more by damage to local servers, rather than cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
Cost also presents an area of advantage to edge computing. Organizations could achieve operational cost savings by using edge computing due to the minimal need to move data to the cloud. Since data is processed at the same location where it is generated (in this case, on the satellites themselves, collecting imagery through hyperspectral or SAR capability or remote sensing data), processing these batches of data on the same satellite would also yield a significant reduction in the bandwidth needed to handle the data load.
Hosting applications and data on centralized hosting platforms or centers creates latency when users try to use them over the internet. Large physical distances coupled with network congestion or outages can delay data movement across the network. This then delays any analytics and decision-making processes.
Edge computing in space, in this context, could enable data to be accessed and processed with little or no obstacles, even when there is poor internet connectivity. Importantly, if there is failure with one edge device, it will not destroy the operation of the other edge devices in the ecosystem, facilitating a reliable, connected system.
Finally, there are potential gains to be achieved in terms of ESG metrics by adopting in-space edge computing capability. With the cloud business model dominating, there are emerging concerns about the environmental effects of centralized processing. Processing centers require enormous resources to function; they contribute to carbon emissions, accounting for 0.6% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and produce electronic waste, adding to the burden humans put on the environment in pursuit of advancement.
Edge computing has become a potential alternative to moving data centers to greener practices. The edge helps reduce the networking traffic coming in and out of centralized servers, reducing bandwidth and energy drains. This frees up bandwidth at the data center itself and bandwidth for the organization, overall, in terms of any centralized servers on-premises. Moving edge computing to space would achieve even further reductions in energy consumption required at the terrestrial data center level, while the needs for temperature control and cooling would be eliminated by the freezing temperatures in LEO.
In order to estimate an overall market for edge computing in space and explain why in-space edge computing capability and associated user interface applications need to be built, we triangulated three approaches to the market: Supply, Demand, and Cost.
Today, roughly 20% of data processing and analysis occurs locally, with 80% happening in centralized data centers and computing facilities.
We developed a high, low, and base case for estimating the share of industry addressable by space solutions, and as a core assumption of the model, we used reliance on cybersecurity to gauge what share of industry would be addressable by space. With this model, we expect an estimated $250 million market by 2030 with defense and satcom as leading industries for application. However, it is important to note that the estimated $250 million market is addressed by only one segment of the total scope available as one looks at the Edge Computing in Space Capability Stack (Figure 2).
Figure 2: The capability stack for edge computing in space demonstrates the breadth of functions which could be enabled and supported for different end users. Source: BCG analysis.
Further upside would emerge as addressable market opportunity for connectivity service providers (satcom/telecom), applications developers (who would be responsible for developing the apps for the specific government customer to interpret processed information, for example); terminals/user interface manufacturers; and the residual flow down to data centers for cloud computing purposes. Other segments of Edge Computing in Space Capability Stack would see further value unlocked as Edge in Space comes online, delivers key capabilities to the highest need customer groups (e.g., those in defense), and brings the cost curve down for commercial use cases and applications to emerge.
By estimating demand for cloud computing across target industries, supply for satellite revenue in the aggregate space market, and comparing the cost of terrestrial and space data storage centers, we believe that there is more demand for cloud computing in space than the supply of satcom providers.
Our model indicates that the cost to host data in space will closely approach terrestrial data costs past 2030, while on supply and demand, we anticipate more demand for cloud computing space than supply of satcom providers.
In light of these differentiating factors and our model research, demand for edge computing is established and expected to grow (Figure 3). We project all of Satellite IoT spending, $1.5 billion by 2030, to be addressable given the importance of cybersecurity. We estimate the relevant edge computing market (excluding hardware and non-core service software) to be $0.3 billion by 2030, of which 75% would be in-scope. Finally, we estimate up to 2% of the total $1.2 billion cloud compute market by 2030 to be in-scope due to the selective applicability of cybersecurity and latency needs for real-time analysis.
However, research indicates that supply is currently lagging behind expected need due to insufficient public and private investment, with key implications for government and private investors.
The key drivers to understanding which companies will unlock the potential of edge computing in space include prioritizing cybersecurity, lowering cost burden, and adopting ESG practices. With increasing digitalization, the space economy will further benefit from integrating edge computing into space-based business models. However, companies and governments must help develop the needed supply that our current space investment demands.
While cloud computing will remain an integral part of the overall market for the foreseeable future, the advantages offered by edge computing in space are clear enough that actors in the most promising markets of defense and agriculture should be considering the questions posed earlier. For government, how can they leverage this technology to enhance the security of critical assets and information? How should government invest in developing the market for space-based edge computing, and how can they effectively support its growth? What role will incentives play will they be tied to ESG targets?
For industry, there are questions around how to sell to target customers in key markets such as government and agriculture. Are the start-up and non-recurring engineering costs prohibitive and what investments and partnerships will be required? What scenarios exist for the development of requisite ground infrastructure?
Go to market success will require integrating the edge computing in space-as-a-service capability into a suite of other services that could already be on offer. In addition, as commercial space stations look to develop edge computing in space offerings, successful methods will integrate this capability among others in orbit, such as where and how remote sensors collect the data, where and how the data analytics are performed, and potentially offering various data streams to the same group(s) of customers utilizing the same sensors to optimize quality and quantity of output.
The space industry is no stranger to partnering closely with suppliers and customers, including governments, to develop and deliver new technology and advance the art of the possible. By making the right investments, governments, investors, and users in edge computing can turn democratizing space from an expression into a reality.
This paper is the second two-part series analyzing the value of edge computing in space by the Boston Consulting Group. Read Part One: Size of the Prize: How Will Edge Computing in Space Drive Value Creation?
S. Sita Sonty leads Boston Consulting Groups Commercial Space team. John Wenstrup is a senior leader in BCGs Technology, Media & Telecommunications practice. Cameron Scott is Global Sector Lead for Defense and Security. AndDr. Hillary Child is a Project Leader from BCGs Chicago office.
Additional research by Avril Prakash, Sarvani Yellayi, Ansh Prasad, and John Kim
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Size of the Prize: Assessing the Market for Edge Computing in Spaces - Via Satellite
Cloudflare Is Fixing the Biggest Problem with Its AWS Killer – The Motley Fool
Amazon Web Services is a hulking mess of a cloud computing platform. It offers hundreds of distinct products and services, many of which overlap, with pricing schemes that almost seem designed to confuse. Enterprises love AWS, but then again, they also have armies of IT staff to figure it all out.
There's a big market for cloud computing simplicity. Platforms like DigitalOcean, Akamai's Linode, Vultr, Netlify, Vercel, and many others aim to make life as simple as possible for developers. In some cases, that means a highly curated list of services with dead-simple pricing. In others, it means an opinionated serverless platform that makes deploying applications a breeze.
Cloudflare (NET -0.91%) is taking the latter route with its serverless Workers platform. With Workers, developers can deploy full-stack applications to Cloudflare's global fleet of edge servers. Code runs nearly instantly as close to the end user as possible.
Cloudflare has been building an ecosystem around Workers for the past few years, rolling out products including R2 object storage, Pub/Sub for messaging, and the D1 relational database. But there's been one glaring problem that has made the whole platform a non-starter for many potential customers, and Cloudflare finally has the pieces in place to fix it.
Any useful web application needs some sort of database. There are countless database software options to choose from. In the world of relational databases, there's Oracle, Microsoft's SQL Server, and open-source options like MySQL and PostgreSQL. Outside of relational databases, there's the document-based MongoDB, key-value store Redis, and a slew of others. Some applications may use multiple databases, while others may stick to one. But somewhere, data needs to be persisted in an orderly, queryable way.
The one thing that almost all databases have in common is that they don't work over HTTP. In other words, hitting the database isn't just a simple API call. Databases generally use lower-level, long-lived TCP connections with custom protocols.
Up until now, Cloudflare's Workers did not support TCP connections. That means that a developer running a database somewhere else could not use Workers with that database without resorting to a middleman. A developer could set up a server application outside of Cloudflare that accepts API calls from a Worker, pulls data from the database, and returns it to the Worker, but the Worker could not access the database directly.
That's an annoying problem. Annoying enough, in all likelihood, to make Cloudflare Workers a non-viable option for many developers. The good news is that Cloudflare finally has the beginnings of a solution to this problem. On Tuesday, the company announced a new feature for Workers that allows outbound TCP connections.
Cloudflare Workers can now connect to any service that accepts TCP connections. There are some caveats, though. For connecting to databases, the database driver library a developer uses to initiate and manage the connection must explicitly support Cloudflare's solution. Cloudflare is working on broadening support, but there are currently big gaps.
Database access was the missing piece of the puzzle for Cloudflare workers. Once a Worker can connect directly to any database, the potential of the platform greatly expands. Suddenly, a developer hosting a database on AWS, or on any other cloud platform, can run their actual application on Cloudflare Workers, benefiting from the global reach of Cloudflare's network.
Serverless platforms like Cloudflare Workers take cloud computing and distill it down into deploying applications and not worrying about issues like scaling and performance. The platform takes care of all that. Compare this to the nightmare of managing complex cloud infrastructures on AWS, and you can see why serverless platforms are gaining in popularity.
With database access on its way to being a solved problem, Cloudflare Workers takes another step toward largely eliminating the need for a traditional cloud platform for developers and businesses.
John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Timothy Green has positions in DigitalOcean. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon.com, Cloudflare, DigitalOcean, Microsoft, and MongoDB. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Cloudflare Is Fixing the Biggest Problem with Its AWS Killer - The Motley Fool
S.A. judge tosses proposed class-action suit against Rackspace – San Antonio Express-News
Rackspace Technology Inc. wont have to face proposed class-action litigation in San Antonio over a Decemberransomware attack that hobbled the cloud computing company.
Rodriguez grantedRackspaces motion to compel the plaintiffs to pursue their claims individually in arbitration.
We are pleased with the Courts decision, Casey Shilling, Rackspaces chief marketing officer, said in an email Friday.
Whether the plaintiffs will proceed with their claims individually in arbitration couldnt be determined. An attorney for the group didnt respond to a request for comment.
Four proposed class-action lawsuits had been filed in San Antonio in the wake of the breach, which shut down Rackspaces hosted Exchange email service and led it to exit the business. The cases were subsequently consolidated.
A BRUISING: Rackspaces reputation taking a hit as response to ransomware attack falls short of customers' hopes
The judge agreed with Rackspace that the claims should be heard in private via arbitration because of a long-standing provision in the contracts the companys customers agreed to when they renewed their email-hosting services.
The plaintiffs demanded a jury trial and made a few arguments why their claims should not be arbitrated including that the issues fell outside the scope of the arbitration clause.
Rodriguez didnt buy the arguments.
All hosted Exchange customers must agree to Rackspaces governing terms, including a Master Services Agreement, to complete the transaction and begin using its services, the judge said in his 18-page ruling.
Rodriguez concluded that, under Texas law, the plaintiffs' continued use of the services before and through the security incident served as sufficient evidence of their intent to be bound by terms of the agreement from June 2022. The precise language of the arbitration provision has remained unchanged since 2019, he added.
The judge also shot down the plaintiffs argument that they agreed to arbitration under economic duress because shifting email platforms would have caused them significant hardship.
Plaintiffs have failed to identify any threat made by Rackspace or any reason to believe that they had 'no means of protection' against the arbitration provision, Rodriguez said.
The plaintiffs also said the arbitration agreement was procedurally unconscionable because Rackspace had imposed the provision unilaterally, without notice or an opportunity to negotiate.
On that argument, Rodriguez ruled that plaintiffs cannot plausibly claim to be unfairly surprised by an agreement to arbitrate that has been effective for over a decade.
As to the plaintiffs' claim that arbitration would be prohibitively expensive, Rodriguez said that argument was unavailing. The American Arbitration Association filing fee of$200 for each individual would be more cost-effective than litigating each plaintiffs claim individually in federal court, where the cost to file a lawsuit is $402, he said.
The plaintiffs were seeking damages and injunctive relief relating to the disruption of their email services, which they alleged resulted in the permanent loss of some communications and potential disclosure of sensitive information.
In a similar case brought against Rackspace by a Beverly Hills, Calif., law firm in Los Angeles federal court, both sides announced to the court last month that they had reached a confidential settlement. That case was dismissed Wednesday.
That apparently leaves just one remaining proposed class-action lawsuit. That was filed earlier this year againstRackspace in New York federal court. The company has until Wednesday to file its answer in the case.
The court actions didnt seem to generateany positivemomentum for Rackspaces stock price. Shares dropped nearly a dime to close Friday at $1.13.
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S.A. judge tosses proposed class-action suit against Rackspace - San Antonio Express-News
County presses forward with Old Oak 4, among other less … – Royal Examiner
After sailing quickly through the first of seven scheduled public hearings with no speakers, board questions, or discussion of the long-planned extension of the late-payment deadline on a variety of county taxes from June 5 to June 22 due to delays in approval of a final budget package, the Warren County Board of Supervisors hit a wall of questions about public hearing number two. The topic was planned increases to Building Inspection Fees to cover departmental costs
The bottom line is the board has seldom revisited its fees, first established over a quarter century ago in 1997, leaving the department, and likely county taxpayers, to absorb those uncovered departmental costs. However, the proposed increase would place Warren County at the highest level in the region on building permit fees, raising a number of issues with local builders.
As noted in the agenda packet summary: The Building Inspections fee schedule was first established on July 1, 1997, (after approval perhaps missing here) by the Board of Supervisors on June 25, 1997. It has been revised only three times, with the last full revision in 2009 and the third and final small revision in 2013. The current request will provide funding to cover the actual expenses incurred, and pending permit activity provide funds to increase the services provided.
Despite the absence of Building Official David Beahm, County Administrator Ed Daley recommended the board conduct the public hearing as planned, then if desired, delay final action until additional departmental information could be received. That additional information might be required prior to a final decision soon became apparent as the first of three construction professionals, including one county planning commission member, all raised similar points in questioning the amount of the proposed increase.
First up was George Cline (at the 5:00-minute mark of the linked County video), representing himself as a builder, as well as the Warren County Builders Association, which he currently chairs. On the fee increase, we absolutely agree there is one needed it cannot sit where its at. But when I sat and ran the numbers today, were at a 200% increase. To me, that just seems a little excessive. One, it makes us the highest county in the surrounding area fee-wise. Im not sure why this county would want to be the highest, Cline said of potential impacts on building professionals and property owners.
Cline continued to ask exactly what would be received in return for such high fees. Are we getting more employees and plan reviewers? Are we doing this to reduce our plan review time? he asked what he asserted he has had calls about recently regarding delays in achieving plan reviews contracted for. We need to get someone in there as soon as possible, Cline added of funding additional building department personnel to reduce turnaround times on services.
Cline pointed to one fee increase on what we heard as ENS plans he said was proposed to move from $5 currently to $200. That is slightly more than the cited 200% average across-the-board increase. He concluded that, on average, a 100% overall increase was acceptable, but not the proposed 200% one on the table.
Following Cline to the podium was Ryan Oakes of Oakes Construction. Oakes concurred with Clines comments regarding the need for an increase, but not at the proposed level. And he added to Clines acknowledgment of the one fee proposed to rise from $5 to $200. My biggest gripe at this point is probably the agreement in lieu of, which is a $5-dollar permit going to $200 dollars, a $195-dollar increase on a $5-dollar permit. Theres no one in their right mind who could justify that, in my opinion, Oakes offered.
As to current turnaround times on some permitting services, Oakes elaborated that currently, he was aware of several builders who had seen 37 to 40 days for a plan review to take place. Is that going to improve? he asked the board about the consequences of the proposed 200% fee hike.
Noting he was a Warren County resident, Oakes added from a residential perspective, I feel like Im getting punished if I want to improve my property because, not only will I have to pay a higher building permit fee than the all the other counties, I will also get taxed as my assessed value goes up, which will make me pay more taxes at the end of the day, every year.
A third strike on the proposed 200% building permitting fees on the table was thrown by Hugh Henry. Henry said he was speaking as a citizen and building contractor, who noted he also serves on the county planning commission. I think everybody understands, with the inflation and things, were due an increase because its been a while. But as a county, we also have to compete with our surrounding counties. And if were grossly higher the $200 would be fine if everybody around us was charging $200, but theyre not. I think its very important to look at those rates a little closer so that we can stay competitive as far as growth in our own community, Henry told the supervisors.
He also observed that some other surrounding counties offered cost-saving options, such as one standard design approved for certain structures not requiring an engineers review, that Warren does not offer.
Our county is notoriously known as a hard place to get permits, Henry added, referencing past board discussion during which he observed, Dr. Daley was concerned at the amount of work that was being done unpermitted because of basically being known as (having) an unfriendly policy to get permits. So, weve already got that stigma about that, whether its true or not, people feel like that. Then if youve got an excessively high rate in comparison to the other counties, I think its a bad way to go, Henry told the countys elected officials.
Bottom line is we need an increase, but maybe not this much to stay competitive with our other counties. And we really need to look at our service per price compared to the other counties and compare apples to apples, Henry concluded of how the county analyzes its approved permitting rate increase in conjunction with the functioning level of the building permitting department.
With the public hearing closed (at 13:25 video mark), as the board discussed what it had just heard, County Administrator Daley noted that the rate increase before them was the higher of two options presented by staff, the other option being a 100% general increase over the existing permitting fees. Supervisors and staff pondered the potential impacts on staffing and operational costs of the 100% versus 200% fee increase. Daley noted there were two current vacancies in the building permitting department, a deputy and the public hearing-referenced plans reviewer.
A consensus was reached to table action until more detail on impacts on the building permitting department operations from enacting the 100% increase versus the 200% increase could be established from further conversation with County Building Official Beahm. And on Ms. Oatess motion, seconded by Ms. Cullers, the board unanimously tabled action.
Other Public Hearings
In other post-public hearing actions, in the order they were addressed, the board approved authorization of the Planning, Zoning and GIS Fee schedules modification request. It was noted in the staff summary that: The fee schedule was last approved on April 15, 2003, and amended April 6, 2004. No changes have been made to the fee schedule since that time, and costs in labor, technology, software, and training have increased in cost across the spectrum. The motion to approve was by Ms. Cullers.
On a motion by Ms. Oates, the board also unanimously approved Option 2 adjustments to the Countys tax relief for the elderly package to become effective Jan. 1, 2024. As the staff summary noted of Option 2: The ordinances described in option 2 be amended as presented effective 1/1/24: Option 2: $300,000 maximum net worth, excluding home and 5 acres $ 0 $30,000 100%; $30,001 $40,000 75%; $40,001 $50,000- 50%; $50,001-$60,000 25%.
On a motion by Ms. Cullers, unanimously approved a Resolution to Set a Percentage of Tax Relief for the 2023 Tax Year at a Level of 25% that is Anticipated to Exhaust Personal Property Tax Relief Funds Provided to Warren County by the Commonwealth of Virginia as Authorized by Warren County Code Section 160-109.
Again on a motion by Ms. Cullers, adopted the proposed Tax Rates for 2023, including a Real Estate Rate of 49 cents per $100 of assessed value, which is the equalized post-reassessment rate, actually resulting in a small annual revenue loss to the County.
On a motion by Mr. Butler, unanimously approved submitted Sanitary District tax rates for the coming year.
As to the delay in imposing late payment fees on taxes from June 5 to June 22, if not paid by June 22, a penalty of 10 percent or $10, whichever is greater, of the amount of such taxes which have not yet been paid shall be imposed, provided that in no case may the penalty exceed the amount of tax payable.
Click here to watch the meeting on the County video.
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County presses forward with Old Oak 4, among other less ... - Royal Examiner
AWS is making a huge investment into India – TechRadar
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced plans to invest $12.7 billion into India between now and 2030, bringing its total investment to $16.4 billion over a period spanning almost a decade and a half.
Following its contribution of an estimated $4.6 billion to Indias GDP and 39,500 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs during the first six-year period, AWSs second round of investments are expected to add a further $23.3 billion to the countrys total GDP and 131,700 FTE roles across construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and more.
Supporting its goal to provide cloud hosting services are the AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region which opened in November 2022, and the earlier AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region which has been in operation since 2016.
Speaking of the upcoming funding, AWS India and South Asia president of commercial business Puneet Chandok said:
AWS is committed to driving positive social and economic impact in India. In addition to building cloud infrastructure and helping local customers and partners digitally transform, we have trained more than four million people in India with cloud skills since 2017.
Chandok also alluded to the companys 2025 renewable energy goal, calling out six utility-scale renewable energy projects made up of three solar projects and three wind-solar hybrid projects that collectively produce 920 megawatts of energy.
AWS has committed to helping other key areas across India, including providing access to clean water for 250,000 citizens; creating 11 Think Big Spaces designed to encourage science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) careers; and providing a route into employment via its re/Start program.
More broadly, other tech firms including Amazon rivals Google and Microsoft have started to invest big in the region which represents opportunity for growth and change for good in numerous developing countries.
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AWS is making a huge investment into India - TechRadar
One Top FAANG Stock That Should Crush the Market in 2023 – The Motley Fool
Are you seeking a relatively safe way to invest in this uncertain economic environment? In that case, investing in one of the mega-cap FAANG stocks is an excellent idea, as they have the resources to weather any market downturn.
What is a FAANG stock? It is an acronym investors use to describe some of the most prominent companies in the tech sector. Originally the acronym was FANG for Facebook, Amazon (AMZN -1.61%),Netflix, and Google. The acronym became FAANG in 2017, when investors started including Apple.
One FAANG stock that captured many investors' attention lately is Amazon, which looks like it's turning the page from a tough year in 2022 by starting 2023 with a bang. The stock is up 31.26% year to date, beating the S&P 500 index returns of 7.41%.
Recently, the company released its first-quarter 2023 earnings report. Investors were initially pleased with the quarterly statement, which exceeded consensus analyst revenue and earnings estimates. However, one thing that disappointed investors was hearing that companies have been cutting back on cloud spending in the current challenging economic climate.
Given that cloud computing, its most profitable source of income, is currently struggling, can Amazon's stock crush the market in 2023? Read more to find out why the answer to that question is yes.
Although Amazon Web Services (AWS) revenue growth may be affected by current economic concerns, technology experts still expect the cloud industry to experience long-term growth as more companies shift from on-site hosting to cloud-based applications. Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy confirmed that view on the latest earnings call when he said:
We've spent a fair bit of time analyzing what we're seeing, and I've spent a good chunk of time myself looking as well, and we like the fundamentals of what we're seeing in AWS. The new customer pipeline looks strong. The set of ongoing migrations of workloads to AWS is strong. The product innovation and delivery is rapid and compelling, and people sometimes forget that 90-plus percent of global IT spend is still on-premises.
It's challenging to imagine any company not utilizing the cloud in the future. Once OpenAI released ChatGPT, companies became interested in generative artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models. Most generative AI applications require a large amount of computing power, and the only affordable way for most companies to access such resources is through the cloud. Therefore, as generative AI spreads, it should benefit AWS' long-term revenue and profit growth.
Shareholders have more than AWS to be excited about, though. There are other parts of Amazon's business taking off.
In a 2016 letter to shareholders, then CEO Jeff Bezos wrote: "Customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don't yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf."
Early on, Amazon identified one significant customer dissatisfaction in e-commerce: the consumer wanting their item now, not a week from now. So the company built a world-class logistics and fulfillment operation by working to solve this issue.
The company built its logistics up so rapidly that competitors could never quite catch up to the delivery speed, convenience, and lower costs of Amazon Prime. As a result, Amazon's delivery service became a competitive advantage.
For example, Shopify recently ended its big bet on establishing a logistics operation by divesting Shopify Fulfillment Network, likely because it had a hard time scaling the business to profitability and would also be too costly to attempt to match up to Amazon's logistical capabilities.
During Amazon's first-quarter earnings call, Jassy announced that Amazon Logistics had implemented a new structure. The company divided its national fulfillment network in the U.S. into eight interconnected regions, each with its own wide product selection. This change in structure enables shorter travel distances, resulting in lower costs to serve each customer and improved delivery speed to facilitate even more next-day and same-day deliveries.
Although it started its logistics operation to enhance its e-commerce operation, Amazon Logistics has already reached a scale to directly compete with UPS and FedEx. Tons of upside here!
Although growth in the overall advertising industry declined in this economic downturn, Amazon advertising has continued to thrive and outpace the general ad industry and the most prominent online advertisers, Alphabetand Meta Platforms. Why are advertisers gravitating to Amazon? It's because Amazon ads target shoppers ready to buy right now, which is not necessarily the case with Google or Meta ads.
Today, Amazon's most popular ad formats are sponsored products, sponsored brands, and sponsored displays. But the best days are ahead for its ad segment, as the company is only beginning to actively strategize how to effectively incorporate advertisements into more of its diverse platforms, spanning video, live sports, audio, and grocery stores.
You can expect Amazon's advertising business to experience substantial growth in the long term, especially with the anticipated recovery of the advertising industry.
Amazon trades for 2.16 times trailing-12-month sales. However, the market valued the stock at a median of 3.02 times trailing-12-month sales over the last 10 years, suggesting the market is undervaluing the stock today.
If you're looking for a stock that offers compelling value, has multiple long-term growth drivers, and can survive should the market turn further south, there are few investments better than Amazon.
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Rob Starks Jr has positions in Alphabet, Amazon.com, and Shopify. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon.com, FedEx, Meta Platforms, and Shopify. The Motley Fool recommends United Parcel Service. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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One Top FAANG Stock That Should Crush the Market in 2023 - The Motley Fool
Cloud Storage Market 2023 Research Report With Revenue, Gross … – Cottonwood Holladay Journal
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Cloud Storage Market 2023 Research Report With Revenue, Gross ... - Cottonwood Holladay Journal
Town Planning Commission acts on parking exception proposal and … – Royal Examiner
After sailing quickly through the first of seven scheduled public hearings with no speakers, board questions, or discussion of the long-planned extension of the late-payment deadline on a variety of county taxes from June 5 to June 22 due to delays in approval of a final budget package, the Warren County Board of Supervisors hit a wall of questions about public hearing number two. The topic was planned increases to Building Inspection Fees to cover departmental costs
The bottom line is the board has seldom revisited its fees, first established over a quarter century ago in 1997, leaving the department, and likely county taxpayers, to absorb those uncovered departmental costs. However, the proposed increase would place Warren County at the highest level in the region on building permit fees, raising a number of issues with local builders.
As noted in the agenda packet summary: The Building Inspections fee schedule was first established on July 1, 1997, (after approval perhaps missing here) by the Board of Supervisors on June 25, 1997. It has been revised only three times, with the last full revision in 2009 and the third and final small revision in 2013. The current request will provide funding to cover the actual expenses incurred, and pending permit activity provide funds to increase the services provided.
Despite the absence of Building Official David Beahm, County Administrator Ed Daley recommended the board conduct the public hearing as planned, then if desired, delay final action until additional departmental information could be received. That additional information might be required prior to a final decision soon became apparent as the first of three construction professionals, including one county planning commission member, all raised similar points in questioning the amount of the proposed increase.
First up was George Cline (at the 5:00-minute mark of the linked County video), representing himself as a builder, as well as the Warren County Builders Association, which he currently chairs. On the fee increase, we absolutely agree there is one needed it cannot sit where its at. But when I sat and ran the numbers today, were at a 200% increase. To me, that just seems a little excessive. One, it makes us the highest county in the surrounding area fee-wise. Im not sure why this county would want to be the highest, Cline said of potential impacts on building professionals and property owners.
Cline continued to ask exactly what would be received in return for such high fees. Are we getting more employees and plan reviewers? Are we doing this to reduce our plan review time? he asked what he asserted he has had calls about recently regarding delays in achieving plan reviews contracted for. We need to get someone in there as soon as possible, Cline added of funding additional building department personnel to reduce turnaround times on services.
Cline pointed to one fee increase on what we heard as ENS plans he said was proposed to move from $5 currently to $200. That is slightly more than the cited 200% average across-the-board increase. He concluded that, on average, a 100% overall increase was acceptable, but not the proposed 200% one on the table.
Following Cline to the podium was Ryan Oakes of Oakes Construction. Oakes concurred with Clines comments regarding the need for an increase, but not at the proposed level. And he added to Clines acknowledgment of the one fee proposed to rise from $5 to $200. My biggest gripe at this point is probably the agreement in lieu of, which is a $5-dollar permit going to $200 dollars, a $195-dollar increase on a $5-dollar permit. Theres no one in their right mind who could justify that, in my opinion, Oakes offered.
As to current turnaround times on some permitting services, Oakes elaborated that currently, he was aware of several builders who had seen 37 to 40 days for a plan review to take place. Is that going to improve? he asked the board about the consequences of the proposed 200% fee hike.
Noting he was a Warren County resident, Oakes added from a residential perspective, I feel like Im getting punished if I want to improve my property because, not only will I have to pay a higher building permit fee than the all the other counties, I will also get taxed as my assessed value goes up, which will make me pay more taxes at the end of the day, every year.
A third strike on the proposed 200% building permitting fees on the table was thrown by Hugh Henry. Henry said he was speaking as a citizen and building contractor, who noted he also serves on the county planning commission. I think everybody understands, with the inflation and things, were due an increase because its been a while. But as a county, we also have to compete with our surrounding counties. And if were grossly higher the $200 would be fine if everybody around us was charging $200, but theyre not. I think its very important to look at those rates a little closer so that we can stay competitive as far as growth in our own community, Henry told the supervisors.
He also observed that some other surrounding counties offered cost-saving options, such as one standard design approved for certain structures not requiring an engineers review, that Warren does not offer.
Our county is notoriously known as a hard place to get permits, Henry added, referencing past board discussion during which he observed, Dr. Daley was concerned at the amount of work that was being done unpermitted because of basically being known as (having) an unfriendly policy to get permits. So, weve already got that stigma about that, whether its true or not, people feel like that. Then if youve got an excessively high rate in comparison to the other counties, I think its a bad way to go, Henry told the countys elected officials.
Bottom line is we need an increase, but maybe not this much to stay competitive with our other counties. And we really need to look at our service per price compared to the other counties and compare apples to apples, Henry concluded of how the county analyzes its approved permitting rate increase in conjunction with the functioning level of the building permitting department.
With the public hearing closed (at 13:25 video mark), as the board discussed what it had just heard, County Administrator Daley noted that the rate increase before them was the higher of two options presented by staff, the other option being a 100% general increase over the existing permitting fees. Supervisors and staff pondered the potential impacts on staffing and operational costs of the 100% versus 200% fee increase. Daley noted there were two current vacancies in the building permitting department, a deputy and the public hearing-referenced plans reviewer.
A consensus was reached to table action until more detail on impacts on the building permitting department operations from enacting the 100% increase versus the 200% increase could be established from further conversation with County Building Official Beahm. And on Ms. Oatess motion, seconded by Ms. Cullers, the board unanimously tabled action.
Other Public Hearings
In other post-public hearing actions, in the order they were addressed, the board approved authorization of the Planning, Zoning and GIS Fee schedules modification request. It was noted in the staff summary that: The fee schedule was last approved on April 15, 2003, and amended April 6, 2004. No changes have been made to the fee schedule since that time, and costs in labor, technology, software, and training have increased in cost across the spectrum. The motion to approve was by Ms. Cullers.
On a motion by Ms. Oates, the board also unanimously approved Option 2 adjustments to the Countys tax relief for the elderly package to become effective Jan. 1, 2024. As the staff summary noted of Option 2: The ordinances described in option 2 be amended as presented effective 1/1/24: Option 2: $300,000 maximum net worth, excluding home and 5 acres $ 0 $30,000 100%; $30,001 $40,000 75%; $40,001 $50,000- 50%; $50,001-$60,000 25%.
On a motion by Ms. Cullers, unanimously approved a Resolution to Set a Percentage of Tax Relief for the 2023 Tax Year at a Level of 25% that is Anticipated to Exhaust Personal Property Tax Relief Funds Provided to Warren County by the Commonwealth of Virginia as Authorized by Warren County Code Section 160-109.
Again on a motion by Ms. Cullers, adopted the proposed Tax Rates for 2023, including a Real Estate Rate of 49 cents per $100 of assessed value, which is the equalized post-reassessment rate, actually resulting in a small annual revenue loss to the County.
On a motion by Mr. Butler, unanimously approved submitted Sanitary District tax rates for the coming year.
As to the delay in imposing late payment fees on taxes from June 5 to June 22, if not paid by June 22, a penalty of 10 percent or $10, whichever is greater, of the amount of such taxes which have not yet been paid shall be imposed, provided that in no case may the penalty exceed the amount of tax payable.
Click here to watch the meeting on the County video.
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Town Planning Commission acts on parking exception proposal and ... - Royal Examiner