Category Archives: Cloud Hosting
Data centres, submarine cables drive Andile Ngcaba to the ‘edge’ – ITWeb
Andile Ngcaba, chairman of Convergence Partners.
Businessman Andile Ngcabas investment management firm Convergence Partners is looking to disrupt Africas edge computing market.
The company is now eagerly awaiting the landing of submarine cables on the African continent to fully exploit the market.
In an interview with ITWeb last week, Ngcaba, who is now based in Silicon Valley, said the sprawling data centres in South Africa and the rest of Africa present significant opportunities for edge computing to thrive.
The interview followed Convergence Partners company inq. last week reaching an agreement to acquire 100% of Syrex, a provider of hyper-converged cloud technology solutions in SA, for an undisclosed amount.
Edge computing is a distributed computing paradigm that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data. From a performance standpoint, edge computing is able to deliver much faster response times.
According to Markets and Markets, the edge computing market is expected to grow from $36.5 billion in 2021, to $87.3 billion by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate of 19%.
Market research firms Forrester and Gartner have forecast that edge computing will become mainstream this year, taking advantage of 5G, the internet of things (IOT) and cloud-native software.
Inq. is one of the leading edge computing technology companies in Africa. The Convergence Partners-owned firm connects over 1 200 corporations across nine African countries.
According to Ngcaba, the company is set to expand into more African countries as it looks to extend its footprint.
He explained the merger with Syrex will result in more job hires across the continent.
Also speaking during the interview, David Heserlman, MD of Syrex, said the coming of hyper-scalers such as Microsoft and Amazon Web Services to SA presents an opportunity for edge computing, as well as the inq.-Syrex merger.
He believes the growth of IOT applications will also spur the edge computing market.
Of late, there has been a flurry of activity in SAs data centre space. As data demand and cloud adoption continue to cause a dramatic surge in traffic, data centres are becoming increasingly important on the continent, with more companies migrating components of their IT infrastructure into the cloud.
According to Ngcaba, the imminent arrival of subsea cables will also result in the jump in data traffic in Africa, further giving impetus to the edge computing service providers.
These include the Google-funded Equiano cable, as well as the other one being bankrolled by the 2Africa Consortium.
However, he did not disclose how the company will capitalise on the landing of these cables, preferring to say: Watch this space.
Convergence Partners-backed broadband infrastructure company CSquared and Google in March announced the landing of the Equiano subsea cable system in Lom, Togo, marking the cables first stop along Africas Atlantic coast.
The Equiano cable will run from Portugal along the West Coast of Africa connecting Europe to Togo, Nigeria, Namibia, SA and St Helena.
CSquared is the landing partner in Togo for the cable system, while Convergence Partners is an investor in the Seacom undersea cable.
Commenting on edge computing developments in Africa, Jon Tullett, senior research manager for cloud/IT services at the IDC, says edge computing is more typically a function of local data centre operations, served by local data centre interconnect and cross-connect networks.
So its the growth of investment in data centre facilities thats more relevant in boosting edge applications, but better international connectivity does spur adoption of data centre services; its all related, says Tullett, referencing the connectivity that will be brought by the subsea cables.
David Herselman, managing director of Syrex.
Data centre investment presents opportunities for edge computing, but the growing opportunities within edge computing are, in turn, a big part of the investment strategies behind data centre construction, he adds.
Similar points apply within hosted private cloud solutions, for often quite similar reasons, Tullett explains.
Edge computing has a lot to offer, but like cloud, its not perfect for every scenario. Very low-latency applications, heavy analytic processing close to the source, scaling out application deployment across delivery networks, sensitivities regarding data sovereigntythese are the sorts of characteristics which indicate an application may be well-suited for edge deployment.
He notes IOT is a good example of a broad spectrum of applications which often benefit.
Africa Analysis telecoms analyst Dobek Pater says the new cables will provide additional capacity and are likely to result in a further decrease in the price of international bandwidth.
To this extent, he points out that international connectivity will certainly not present constraints in terms of accommodating the expected increase in traffic from the introduction of new technologies, such as 5G and IOT, which are expected to generate significantly more traffic.
According to Pater, much of the traffic nowadays, especially in SA, is domestic rather than international.
Therefore, it is just as important to have a very good domestic backbone network. With some of the ICT service providers, including data centre and cloud companies, expanding their operations across Africa, subsea cable systems will play an increasingly important role in connecting such operations across different countries or regions in Africa.
While Pater also believes the growth of the data centre market will propel the edge computing market, he notes: We will also need to see the build-out of smaller data centres or aggregation nodes closer to where the traffic is generated or where apps are consumed for proper edge computing.
This will become increasingly important with applications requiring low latency and quick turn-around times for data computing or analysis and returning information to the user.
The edge of the network needs to move closer to the end-user. The data centre environment will be segmented into three large national or regional data centres, mainly for large-scale storage of data, hosting of cloud environment; smaller data centres distributed regionally, which will aggregate traffic regionally and redirect it; as well as small data centres, such as containers, close to the network edge where the fast turn-around data computing requirements will be addressed.
Concluding, Pater urges African organisations to work with their ICT service providers to determine how edge computing can best serve their requirements.
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Data centres, submarine cables drive Andile Ngcaba to the 'edge' - ITWeb
Codestone Reinforces Position as One of Leading SAP Partners in the UK – InsideSAP
Codestone, one of the top SAP partners in the UK that provides comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) transformation services, recently expanded its IT capabilities with the acquisition of SAP Gold Partner Clarivos.
In March 2021, Codestone confirmed that it had formed a partnership with FPE Capital, a highly renowned investment firm that specialises in the software and services sector. As a leading provider of SAP and Microsoft solutions to the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) and mid-market segments in the United Kingdom, Codestone benefited from the major investment partnership by ensuring that the company stays ahead in terms of innovation in the ever-changing industry.
Fast-forward to May this year, Codestone once again established its position in the IT services market by acquiring Clarivos, an SAP Business ByDesign ERP and SAP Analytics Cloud specialist. Clarivos, which was founded in 1996, provides technological consulting and solutions that aim to empower, innovate, and reinvent the functions of the Chief Financial Officer departments.
According to the statement released, the acquisition was successfully completed on May 3, 2022. Codestone stated that it anticipates that the transaction will create 10 million in additional revenues and 2 million in incremental adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) over the next 12 months following completion.
Codestone Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Jeremy Bucknell said:
This agreement complements our award-winning SAP ERP and Microsoft Cloud offerings and creates one of the most differentiated SAP services in the market. It is perfectly aligned with our customer-centric, cloud-first strategy and will drive greater focus on strategic execution and operational excellence to the Groups already significant value creation.
With Codestones cloud-first approach, Clarivos intends to assist companies in achieving speedy results while also future-proofing their businesses for the future by operating more efficiently through cloud solutions and implementing cutting-edge technologies. Several honours, including the recently concluded SAP UK & Ireland Partner Excellence Awards for Outstanding Performance and the SAP EMEA North Partner Excellence Awards for Outstanding Performance, have been given to Clarivos for its fast development in SAP Business ByDesign implementations.
Sharing his thoughts about the latest acquisition, Kirit Patel, Executive Director of Strategy and Execution at Clarivos, remarked:
Codestones multi-capability Microsoft credentials, cloud hosting expertise and comprehensive support provides much in demand services to our customers. Our mid-market and large enterprise customers will benefit from more comprehensive ERP delivery, cloud and managed services from a pedigree organisation that is widely recognised in this space.
Clarivos will bring approximately 70 professionals to Codestone who have collectively completed more than 350 successful EPM and ERP projects throughout the EMEA market. The Clarivos management team will continue to be part of the expanded organisation, and Kirit Patel will now serve as the Director of Mid-Market and Large Enterprise and as a member of the Codestone Operational Board of Directors.
Furthermore, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the SAP partner ecosystem have increased in recent years as some of the German software enterprise tech giants major UK partners seek to strengthen their positions. These include Accenture snapping up Edenhouse which is one of the countrys largest SAP Platinum Partners specialising in the sale, hosting, support, and implementation of SAP services and products to mid-sized enterprises. Last year also saw Sapphire Systems purchasing InCloud Solutions, a specialist in SAPs business cloud-based ERP software, SAP Business ByDesign.
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Codestone Reinforces Position as One of Leading SAP Partners in the UK - InsideSAP
Rectitude 369 Acquires Managed Hosting Division and Government Cloud – PR Newswire
WOODLANDS, Texas, May 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Rectitude 369 has acquired the Managed Hosting and Government Cloud Division from a Dallas-based IT Solutions Provider. Under the agreement, Managed Hosting and Government Cloud Customers contracts and support will transfer to Rectitude 369.
Rectitude 369 is a technology solutions provider that has more than 75 years of combined experience working with cybersecurity, data center, cloud, networking, and unified communications technologies.
The acquisition has allowed Rectitude 369 to become FedRAMP authorized, a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. Additionally, they have achieved FISMA compliance with data security guidance set by FISMA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
"Rectitude 369 will continue to maintain current colocation facilities to support customers as they transition. Because Rectitude 369 is a partner of the seller, the transition is expected to be seamless," said Jeremy Roach, Founder and CTO of Rectitude 369. "Our organization is committed to building upon the success that has been achieved in the previous years in the Managed Hosting Business, as well as growing our services and maintaining a high standard of customer care throughout every level of service."
"We are honored to have the opportunity to offer our clients more value," said Kevin Hill, CFO at Rectitude 369. "We're excited to grow our partnership with the new customers."
Rectitude 369, LLC & NetRaven, LLC are leaders in secure IT transformation. Their team of technology experts pairs integrity with reliable and scalable technology solutions. They help plan, design, and implement enterprise networking, network security, fully managed NOC/SOC services, and unified communications.
Contact: Rectitude 369866.665.8132[emailprotected]
SOURCE Rectitude 369
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Rectitude 369 Acquires Managed Hosting Division and Government Cloud - PR Newswire
Spear Technologies Announces That George Hills Has Gone Live on SpearCloud – PR Web
Our investment in Microsoft and our partnership with Spear Technologies will provide a strong foundation from which to achieve growth and innovation. We have the flexibility to chart our own course and a cloud-hosting vendor to help us navigate the way, said Chris Shaffer, COO at George Hills.
CORTE MADERA, Calif. (PRWEB) May 03, 2022
Spear Technologies, the first and only insurance solutions provider to develop applications using the Microsoft Power Platform, today announced that George Hills has gone live on SpearCloud, its cloud-hosting environment. George Hills provides the self-insured market with claims, litigation, and JPA management services for the property, liability, and medical malpractice lines of insurance.
Were excited to have this opportunity to work with George Hills. The organization is a true partner to public and private sector organizations. The leaders at George Hills are innovators, always striving to provide improved service and solutions to their customers. The organizations transparent approach makes it one of the most respected TPA and JPA management firms in the market, said Jose Tribuzio, CEO of Spear Technologies.
Chris Shaffer, COO at George Hills, commented on the steps leading up to his companys need to move to a new cloud-hosting environment: In 2021, we made the strategic decision to migrate our entire infrastructure to Azure, a cloud platform operated by Microsoft. We also made the commitment to leverage Microsoft products across our enterprise.
In sync with this strategy, the company decided to migrate its existing claims system to a new cloud-hosting vendor. SpearCloud met all of its requirements, particularly since it used Azure.
Many organizations like George Hills already have an existing insurance solution hosted on another cloud, said Brian Mack, CRO at Spear Technologies. By moving to our secure, reliable, and scalable cloud, companies can benefit from an improved experience. Within our hosted environment, they have the ability to make modifications. They may choose to make the changes themselves or have us perform the configurations for them.
A key advantage was being able to work with Jose and Brian, added Shaffer. They are known as thought leaders within the insurance and claims space, so we had a great deal of confidence in their team. With their background and experience, we knew we wouldnt have to explain our underlying challenges, as theyre already well acquainted with the business.
Once George Hills was signed up, the company began to work with the Spear team to lay out a project plan. We were very intentional about our timeframe. We didnt want the go-live date to cross into a reporting deadline or the end of a financial period. Instead, we carefully selected a Friday night to have the system go down, and the following Sunday morning, to come back up in the new cloud environment, said Shaffer.
The migration and go-live were seemingly effortless. Thats because we performed proper due diligence, said Shaffer. We performed a trial migration, testing, and quality assurance to ensure everything went smoothly. The Spear team did a lot of work as well. They familiarized themselves with our environment and helped us size up our requirements. For example, they assessed our user base, volume of transactions, and storage needs, which helped us define our specifications.
We believe our investment in Microsoft and our partnership with Spear will provide a strong foundation from which to achieve growth and innovation. We have the flexibility to chart our own course and a cloud-hosting vendor to help us navigate the way. Since Spear understands our business, they can help us execute changes quickly. Weve already begun to see the advantage of this type of flexibility and service, concluded Shaffer.
ABOUT GEORGE HILLS George Hills is a well-respected TPA and JPA management firm. The organization strives to provide the best solutions to its clients and to serve as a true partner. George Hills serves over 300 public and private sector organizations, including cities, counties, school districts, joint powers authorities, transit, insurance carriers, and private sector organizations from a broad spectrum of industries. It strives to provide an unmatched level of service, to foster trusted relationships with customers, and to deliver quantifiable results. For more information, visit https://georgehills.com.
ABOUT SPEAR TECHNOLOGIES Spear Technologies aims to provide property and casualty insurance companies with an enterprise claims management system for the future. Developed on the Microsoft Power Platform, SpearClaims delivers unparalleled control, speed, and results. By leveraging this top-rated low-code / no-code development platform, Spear Technologies empowers companies with the ability to easily and quickly configure and tailor SpearClaims to meet their unique needs. SpearClaims architecture provides the capabilities for using built-in AI and automation tools to extend capabilities for competitive differentiation and results. For more information, visit http://www.spear-tech.com/.
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Spear Technologies Announces That George Hills Has Gone Live on SpearCloud - PR Web
Top 3 Cloud security threats to watch out for – Free Press Journal
Businesses, large and small, are moving to the cloud for increased efficiency and streamlined processes. A recent report by O'Reilly suggests that Cloud adoption is surging across industries, and 90 percent of them are using cloud computing. Cloud computing offers your business a competitive advantage, but you mustn't rush without understanding the risks associated.
Whether you are moving to the cloud, thinking about it, or are already there, it is crucial to understand its vulnerabilities and keep some security considerations in mind.
Malware
Cloud malware is a cyberattack on a cloud computing system with malicious code and service. Types of cloud-based systems that are prone to such attacks include- Open cloud-based systems, standard or easy to learn cloud-based systems, and those made of entities such as virtual machines (VMs), containers, and storage buckets. In a typical malware attack, the attacker will inject a malicious service into the cloud-based system, resulting in malicious service implementation modules or virtual machine instances.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is a type of malware attack which is very common, where cybercriminals use large-scale botnets to flood a network with malicious traffic. This kind of attack slows down the cloud computing system significantly and can lead to its misuse. Hypercall type of malware attack is an intrusion where the attacker comes as a guest and requests domain access from the host.
In such attacks, detection and prevention become difficult using standard network security. There are many other malware attacks like Hypervisor DoS (attacks the hypervisor space) and Hyperjacking (takes control of the entire hosting and causes damage to the VMs). There are types of Malware that can specifically attack the live migration of the cloud-computing systems.
Compliance
Data privacy is a common concern nowadays due to rising regulations and industry standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc. To ensure that your organization is compliant, you have to monitor who can access data and to what extent. When you are moving to the cloud, you have to know in which countries your data is being processed, what laws apply, the impact of those laws, and then adopt an approach to comply with them.
It can be challenging for an organization because there are different laws in every region to comply with, like data protection laws, data localization laws, data sovereignty laws, interception laws, access to information laws, etc.
Loss of data
Data leakage is another growing concern for businesses these days. More than 60 percent of the organizations cite it as one of their biggest cloud security concerns. Cloud computing requires businesses to extend some of their control to cloud service providers putting your critical data into the hands of someone beyond your IT department.
Research by Thales Global Cloud Security Study suggests that 40 percent of the businesses have experienced a cloud-based data breach in the last 12 months. There are still businesses that have not encrypted half of their sensitive data stored on the cloud.
Apart from being aware of the above cloud security risks and implementing appropriate solutions, keep in mind that accessibility and visibility are the key strengths of cloud systems. Organizations that adopt cloud services must also adopt a cloud security strategy like data encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and privileged access security.
(Amit Verma is Managing Partner, Codvo.ai)
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Top 3 Cloud security threats to watch out for - Free Press Journal
EU Political agreement reached on the Digital Services Act – JD Supra
On 23 April 2022, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a political agreement on the Digital Services Act (DSA), as proposed by the European Commission in December 2020.
You can read about the background to the DSA in our blog here and about the practical implications of the proposal for various businesses here.
The DSA will cover various online intermediaries and their respective obligations shall depend on their role, size and impact on the online ecosystem. The DSAs coverage includes the following online intermediary services:
The political agreement reached on the DSA follows various compromises, including:
Other key takeaways from the political agreement on the DSA include:
The political agreement reached on the DSA will now need to be approved by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. Once adopted, the DSA as a regulation will be directly applicable throughout the EU and will apply 15 months after entry into force, or from 1 January 2024, whichever is later. However, with respect to very large online platforms and very large online search engines, the DSA could apply sooner, i.e. four months after their designation.
Read the European Commission's press release 'Digital Services Act: Commission welcomes political agreement on rules ensuring a safe and accountable online environment' and the updated Q&A.
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EU Political agreement reached on the Digital Services Act - JD Supra
SANS Institute Hosts Neurodiversity in Cybersecurity Summit on May 12 – PR Newswire
The free, online event features discussions and panels for neurodivergent cybersecurity professionals
"Since taking our Summits virtual in 2020, we've had the privilege of hosting many people who had never been to SANS events before, and we've learned a great deal about the different ways people consume and process information," said Jennifer Santiago, Director of Content Development for SANS Institute Summits. "We respect individual learning and working styles, and we're excited to bring the community this content specifically dedicated to celebrating the unique talents and contributions of neurodivergent professionals in cybersecurity. We hope to share tools and tactics to help these individuals thrive in their cybersecurity careers."
"A sense of community not only brings together people of all learning styles within the cybersecurity industry, but also has a major influence on schools, government, employers, and service providers to collaborate on changing how we support these individuals," said Teresa Thomas, SANS Summit Advisory Board, and MITRE Corporation's Program Lead for Neurodiverse Talent Enablement.
The ND in Cybersecurity Summit is free and open to everyone. It will begin at 9 a.m. ET on May 12 and is worth 6 Summit CPE Credits. Featured presentations, panels, and speakers will include:
For the full agenda and more details about the event, please visit:https://www.sans.org/cyber-security-training-events/neurodiversity-cybersecurity-summit-2022/.
About SANS InstituteTheSANS Institutewas established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. Today, SANS is the most trusted and, by far, the largest provider of cybersecurity training and certification to professionals in government and commercial institutions world-wide. Renowned SANS instructors teach more than 60 courses at in-person and virtual cybersecurityevents and on demand. GIAC, an affiliate of the SANS Institute, validates practitioner skills through more than 35 hands-on, technicalcertifications in cybersecurity
and provides the highest and most rigorous assurance of cybersecurity knowledge and skill globally.TheSANS Technology Institute, a regionally accredited independent subsidiary, offers master's and bachelor's degrees, graduate certificates, and an undergraduate certificate in cybersecurity.SANS Security Awareness, a division of SANS, provides organizations with a complete and comprehensive security awareness solution, enabling them to manage their "human" cybersecurity risk easily and effectively. SANS also delivers a wide variety of free resources to the InfoSec community including consensus projects, research reports, webcasts, podcasts, and newsletters; it also operates the Internet's early warning systemthe Internet Storm Center. At the heart of SANS are the many security practitioners, representing varied global organizations from corporations to universities, working together to support and educate the global information security community.www.sans.org
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SANS Institute Hosts Neurodiversity in Cybersecurity Summit on May 12 - PR Newswire
Notion app review: Why (and how) I rely on this powerful productivity tool – ZDNet
Notionis a cloud-based application that's actually quite a challenge to describe. So, before attempting to explain what Notion is or what it can do, I'll tell you this: I rely on it. I'm a paying customer. Notion comes with a free tier, but my wife and I each have a paying account because it's important to both business and household management.
Notion has been compared to a wide range of other applications, but it's really its own thing. It has the feel of a wiki, the organizational capability of a database, and the note-taking and data archiving ability of a networked notepad. Once you understand it, it's easy to set up, but people sometimes have a bit of a challenge getting their arms around the thing.
In our case, my wife often outlines the problem she wants to solve, and I set up a Notion page to manage it. Page setup is usually a ten or fifteen-minute thing. Although Notion does have an API, it doesn't have an integral scripting language. You're mostly just choosing from the many design and data management elements Notion offers and arranging them on a page.
Probably one of the easiest ways for you to understand Notion is for me to show you some examples of how I use it. I use it for tracking everything, including sensitive personal data and confidential work data. As such, when I do show you screenshots, I'm going to have to blur out a lot. You'll get the idea, but private information must remain private.
Keep in mind that these examples are about how I use Notion. One of the biggest benefits to Notion is that you can sculpt it to your unique needs. Another benefit is that you can always tweak and update your implementations so it grows as you do. So my uses have been sculpted into my workflow. Yours, of course, will fit what you need to do every day.
I can't recall if this was the first project I set up, but it's certainly one of the first. As a tech columnist and product reviewer, I get an enormous flow of review products that show up to be reviewed. I needed to keep track of the products and status of their reviews. To manage this, I started with a kanban board, or what Notion calls the board view. If you think this looks a lot like Trello, you're not wrong. Notion has a full Trello-like implementation as just one of its tools.
My four columns are:
The tabs across the top are In House, To Arrive, On Hold, Posted, All Items, and Cancelled. They're quite powerful because I can assign a given review to any one of these categories (which I created when I set up my board) and can see the product's status and where the product is in the review cycle.
Any one of the product entry blocks can have as many custom fields as you want. I chose a set that helps with review management:
I also use a similar kanban table to track bug reports for the software products I produce:
As you can see, I've set certain tags to specify the product associated with each bug, the urgency level of each bug, as well as the overall category.
Let's switch over to the page where I organize most of my coding information and notes about each project I'm coding. Here's an overview of it. Notice that there are expand/collapse arrows under most of the sections.
You can cram a ton of information under one of those drop-downs. Here's a list of coding resources. Note that I chose to organize this information in three columns:
At the top of the page are some links to more in-depth notes. You can also use Notion as a note-taking system, as I've done here:
I have a similar style page for all the 3D printers I work with. There's a main 3D printing page, then sub-pages with details, tables, images, and more.
For example, here's part of a page with print settings and G-code (the code that tells the 3D printer how to print):
The graphics and code from that set of notes wound up in my Creality Sermoon D1 article and video.
Another powerful data structure is the table. I use one to track all my assigned projects at ZDNet.
One of the most powerful features of Notion is the way it lets you filter data into different views. The above view shows my currently-assigned projects. But I could choose to filter based on a wide range of criteria and build custom tables out of that filtering.
You can even cross-reference tables. For example, I have a set of tables that tracks overall expenses for all the cloud services we use. One table summarizes all the expenses for each category, while another table contains all the detailed information, which can then be sliced up as needed when doing cost management.
When my firm got involved in an international acquisition last year, I put together a massive table that tracked all the moving parts, had detailed notes in the various fields, and allowed us to manage the transition across continents. That was all managed in Notion.
I'll give you one more example before talking more about Notion in general. I wish I had started this section years ago because it's so helpful. Lab Notes is arranged as a gallery. It consists of a set of pages related to many different projects my wife and I are working on.
Each note captures different information. Some just contain dimensions. Some contain detailed instructions for repeating a project. Some are filled with photos and images, while others just have links. The point is if we're involved in a project and want to remember the details, this is an organized place to put it. And because there are fields here as well, we can easily select those projects that are related to the Fab Lab or those related to my wife's projects, or those related to gear configuration and management.
Note the project in the lower-left corner above. That became my first big CNC project, which I showed you last month.
If you keep in mind that every field in a database can open up to a wiki page or an entire semi-structured "app" and that the same is true of every bullet in every list, you begin to become one with the notion of Notion.
Notion is a "slash" application. It's a wiki-slash-database. It's a note tracker-slash-kanban manager-slash-outliner. It's a gallery-slash-document archive. It's a to-do manager-slash-sales tracker. It's ideal when you're mixing information concepts.
If all you need is a single pinpoint application, Notion can be cumbersome. But as soon as you want to mix multiple things together and link them through one or more dashboards, Notion begins to take form.
Also, before I go on, I should mention that Notion does have some wind in its sails. In its last funding round, Notion raised $275 million and has about $340 million in total investment. Its last funding round, from last fall, valued the company at $10 billion. So the services hosting your data are unlikely to be turned off anytime soon.
Here are ten things I really like about Notion in no particular order.
I should also add that there is a wealth of information on using Notion out there. Notion itself does a great job with video training, and there are tons of helpful YouTube videos as well. It also comes with a bunch of moderately useful templates you can copy and customize, so you don't have to start from scratch.
This is hard. Overall, I've found Notion to be a powerful tool. That's said, there are a few things I'm not thrilled with:
Also, there's this: The company clearly owns notion.com, but when you enter it into the browser, you're sent to notion.so. The problem is, dot-s-o is Somalia,which is listed by the US Department of State as "Do Not Travel" due to "crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health issues, kidnapping, and piracy."
Granted, dot-s-o is being used merely as a vanity top-level domain. Even so, the Somalia connection, no matter how limited, could be a tough sell when you're trying to convince an organization to trust Notion with your data.
In reality, you don't need to worry. The fact is, Notion is located in San Francisco, and all its data is on AWS, but the optics of the dot-s-o association could still be problematic. I reached out to the company on this issue and will update this article if there's a response.
I'm at more than 2,200 words, and I've just scratched the surface of this tool. I didn't touch on any of the application integrations, the API, or how other users are using it. But that's okay. The key is deciding whether to try it out, and I can't see any reason why you shouldn't.
Here's my final thought: I rely on this tool. The company never pitched me on it or tried to convince me to write about it. I found it when looking for a better organizational dashboard. I've been using it for a little over two years. I started with the free tier and upgraded for 30-day undos and unlimited document storage. It works well enough that I don't see any compelling reason to stop using it.
Hey, here's a quick note to the folks out there in ZDNet-land who used Lotus Notes back in the day. Is it my imagination, or does it seem like Notion has some Notes DNA in it? Let me know in the comments below.
As for the rest of you, do you use Notion now? Let us know how you're using it. If you're just learning about Notion, what do you think? Do you think you're going to give it a try? Let us know in the comments below.
You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.
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Notion app review: Why (and how) I rely on this powerful productivity tool - ZDNet
Partner ecosystem strategy: Co-innovation and other variants – TechTarget
IT services companies, customers and technology providers are reinventing how they work together in a partner ecosystem strategy.
A growing number of engagements feature closer relationships, a focus on business outcomes and a willingness to create entirely new offerings. Such collaborative approaches operate under several labels: co-innovation, generative partnering, co-creation, service creation and strategic partnerships.
The terms carry different shades of meaning, but stem from the same forces. Technical complexity, time-to-market demands and IT skills shortages encourage alliances rather than DIY approaches. The impetus to rethink partnerships is particularly strong among enterprise customers that rely on technology to power their core business models. Such companies seek relationships that offer innovation rather than off-the-shelf technology offerings. Service providers, meanwhile, believe the newer collaborative approaches foster long-term customer relationships, zero in on customers' specific needs and accelerate delivery schedules.
"The speed of technology change is getting faster and faster," said Brendan Walsh, senior vice president of partner relations at 1901 Group, an MSP in Reston, Va., and a wholly owned subsidiary of Leidos. The pace of development favors partnering over building technology in-house or buying it through an acquisition, he noted.
"Partnering is going to become bigger versus creating everything on your own," Walsh said.
Partnering in the IT sector has been around for years. But arrangements typically resulted in one-off product sales or discrete projects. The emerging set of alliances fall into several categories.
Co-innovation. This term describes relationships where customers and partners, such as consulting firms and other service providers, develop new offerings that address a particular business outcome.
"We look at today's tech execs, CIOs and CTOs, and they need to deliver business outcomes," said Matt Guarini, vice president and senior research director at Forrester's CIO Practice, in a co-innovation podcast. "How do they do that when you are limited by how much tech talent and how much capability and how much money you have to spend within your organization? You can't do everything yourself."
Co-innovation extends the technical capabilities of resource-constrained IT executives. A partner's contribution, however, goes beyond technology to include the methods of invention -- ways to innovate quickly and at scale, noted Ted Schadler, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester.
"You are looking for partners to bring new ideas, sure, but you are also looking for partners to help you get it done in ways you want to get it done," he added.
Co-innovation can also occur between service providers and technology vendors or involve service providers, technology vendors and customers. The task of building an industry cloud, for example, could bring together the customer, a consulting firm and a public cloud provider.
Generative partnering. Market research firm Gartner describes this type of partnership as one in which a customer and a technology partner collaborate to build something that doesn't currently exist. Such efforts aim to achieve a particular business outcome.
Generative partnering is especially prevalent among digital businesses that lead with technology. Those companies view technology as a source of competitive advantage, but can't gain that edge with traditional, market-defined offerings available to any business, said Mark McDonald, a vice president at Gartner and the company's lead analyst on generative relationships.
In this approach, the customer has an outcome in mind, but doesn't specify the technology or combination of technologies needed to reach its goal. The enterprise and its partner work together to figure that out. Generative partnering stands out for its open-ended nature in contrast to tightly scoped projects or deployments based on predefined solutions. The method provides an "unbounded view of technology," McDonald said.
Co-innovation shares the fluidity of generative partnering in that the parties typically don't start with a preconceived notion of what the solution ought to be.
Co-creation. This type of partnering has some of the characteristics of co-innovation in that the participants build something new together. Such arrangements often involve a service provider and a technology vendor, which work together to build an offering that meets customers' needs.
Co-creation arrangements often focus on building an asset -- an app, for example. The partners typically look to commercialize their co-created intellectual property beyond the initial customer or customers, so the asset becomes a saleable product.
A generative partnership, in comparison, would not start with an expectation of commercializing a jointly developed offering, McDonald noted. The partners could tweak an offering for a broader market, but only after the initial customer's business outcome has been achieved, he added.
Service creation. Cisco devised this multistep process to co-create offerings with mid-sized to large channel partners.
Service creation begins with developing the offer and building the service. Next, the parties craft a business plan and pilot the service with customers. Subsequent steps in the process address sales readiness and revenue forecasting, culminating with the launch of the new service.
The process is modular so providers can integrate it within their own service delivery frameworks, according to a Cisco spokesperson.
Strategic partnership. This approach brings together a services provider and a technology vendor or vendors that co-develop technology and also pursue a joint marketing strategy.
Walsh said cooperatively built technologies could potentially just "sit in a lab" without a plan to address the buyer's journey. "The strategic partnership is that one-two punch of innovation and go to market, together," he noted.
Companies entering such partnerships must focus on the operational details, particularly when it comes to defining who does what in a relationship. To that end, the RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) matrix provides a mechanism for assigning roles, Walsh said.
Those emerging partner ecosystem approaches lend themselves to the boldest business and technology initiatives.
Co-innovation, for instance, "is appropriate for the most risky, uncertain ventures," said Alexei Miller, co-founder and managing director of DataArt, a software development services company with headquarters in New York. He cited unproven, experimental technology and untested business models as areas suitable for co-innovation.
The risk of journeying into the unknown means the parties involved should be prepared to accept a total loss, Miller said. He suggested partners consider creating a separate company, with independent management, to control costs and manage the rules of a co-innovation effort.
In addition to tackling new ventures, the engagement models can also help cultivate repeatable offerings.
A partnership between Chicago-based service providers Asperitas Consulting and Villa-Tech provides a case in point. The companies created a virtualized network test lab for two clients that needed a faster way to test on-premises networks. An enterprise's networking team typically struggles to keep up with its cloud counterparts, according to Derek Ashmore, application transformation principal at Asperitas. Cloud personnel can quickly make changes in code, but networking staff must deal with physical devices, he said.
The companies' virtual lab, however, creates a digital twin of a customer's network or a subset of its network for testing. The digital twin links to a customer's cloud providers and services, so customers can evaluate a hybrid environment. An IT group can quickly spin up virtualized networking devices for testing versus maintaining an array of gear in a physical lab.
Asperitas and Villa-Tech now plan to take the virtual lab, which is delivered as a managed service, to a wider audience. "We're coming up with a feature set and consumption model that makes sense for customers," Ashmore said.
The companies will share the revenue and may also include colocation providers as additional partners. Colocation companies have expressed interest in hosting the virtual testing lab, Ashmore said. Their involvement would give customers the option of an externally hosted lab in addition to having Asperitas and Villa-Tech manage an on-premises deployment.
The result of co-innovation or co-creation, however, isn't always an individual product or service. AmolAjgaonkar, distinguished engineer at Insight, a solutions integrator based in Chandler, Ariz., said the company's collaboration with ISVs and cloud providers results in "offerings" that include a mix of products, services and processes.
Customers gain cost and speed benefits when they adopt an industry-specific offering that Insight has deployed on previous occasions. "Since we have done it before, we understand what the cost is and what the real timeline is," Ajgaonkar said. "From a customer's point of view, it gives them peace of mind."
AI has emerged as one technology in which the newer partnering methods come into play, Ajgaonkar noted. Customers may have data to exploit but don't know how to build an AI model. Or, they know how to build a model, but don't know how to scale it from pilot to production. Insight teams up with an inference engine ISV to create or scale an AI model. Working together, the companies can offer an AI pipeline and process that makes those goals easier for customers to achieve, he added.
Results stem from partner discussions focused on strategic problem solving rather than transactional sales.
"You have a part of the solution; we have a part of the solution -- so, how can we make it better?" Ajgaonkar said. "Having those conversations up front has really driven a lot more innovation."
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Partner ecosystem strategy: Co-innovation and other variants - TechTarget
Google Invests $750 Million in a New Data Center – Database Trends and Applications
Google is unveiling a new $750 million data center in Nebraska, on the way to fulfilling its promise of spending $9.5 billion on new Google data centers and offices in 2022.
The massive new Google campus in Omaha will consist of four buildings totaling more than 1.4 million square feet as the demand for Google Cloud services and infrastructure rises. In Google Clouds recent fourth quarter, the company reported sales growth of 45 percent year over year to $5.5 billion.
The new Google data center in Nebraska is part of the Mountain View, Calif.-based search and cloud giants plan to invest a total of $9.5 billion in data centers and U.S.-based offices by the end of 2022.
Google is one of the largest spenders on building new data centers across the globe, according to Synergy Research Group, investing billions each year on constructing and equipping hyperscale data centers to meet its growing cloud customer demands.
Google, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft have the broadest data center footprints in the world, with each hosting at least 60 or more data center locations.
Data centers are the vital anchors to customers and local communities, said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a blog post this month.
Our investments in data centers will continue to power the digital tools and services that help people and businesses thrive, said Pichai.
In addition to the new data center in Nebraska, Google plans to spend billions this year on data centers in Georgia, Iowa, Oklahoma, Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia and Texas.
In the U.S. over the past five years, weve invested more than $37 billion in our offices and data centers in 26 states, creating over 40,000 full-time jobs. Thats in addition to the more than $40 billion in research and development we invested in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021, said Pichai.
Data centers enable Google Cloud services and infrastructure, including its flagship Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offering.
For more information about this news, visit https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/investing-america-2022/.
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Google Invests $750 Million in a New Data Center - Database Trends and Applications