Category Archives: Cloud Servers
Constant, the Creator of Vultr, Announces $150 Million Credit Facility to Expand Its Cloud Computing and Bare Metal Platform – PRNewswire
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., April 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Constant, the creator of the Vultr cloud computing and bare metal platform, today announced the closing of a$150 million credit facility from J.P. Morgan and Bank of America, including a $25 million uncommitted expansion option to accommodate future growth. Constant will use the additional capital to expand its global footprint of automated cloud infrastructure to serve its rapidly-growing customer base, further solidifying its leadership position in the independent cloud provider market.
"We are excited to be part of Constant's growth and to support the company with this new credit facility," said Melissa Smith, Head of Specialized Industries, Middle Marketing Banking at J.P. Morgan. "The independent cloud provider market is growing rapidly as developers around the world seek cost-effective alternatives to the large hyperscalers, representing a tremendous growth opportunity for Constant."
A completely bootstrapped company, Constant has become one of the largest cloud computing platforms in the world, without ever raising equity financing. The business was founded by David Aninowsky, who now serves as Executive Chairman, and the Vultr platform was launched in 2014. Built by developers, for developers, Vultr addresses a fundamental need for easy-to-deploy, flexible, scalable cloud computing and bare metal worldwide.
451 Research, an S&P Global advisory firm specializing in high-growth emerging technologies, defines the alternative or independent cloud provider market as delivering the core value proposition of cloud, but in a simpler, easier-to-use, and lower-cost way than the large hyperscalers. This makes the offerings of independent cloud providers highly appealing to tens of millions of developers, SMBs, and enterprises around the world.
"The cloud infrastructure market is inherently capital intensive, and reaching Constant's size and growth rate without ever raising equity capital is unprecedented in this market this highlights the strength of our technology platform and team," said Constant's CEO, J.J. Kardwell. "As a company, we operate independently, like our customers do. We put the needs of our developer customers first, and we have grown to be a leader in the market by delivering enterprise-grade cloud computing at a price and ease of use that is accessible for developers and businesses of all sizes around the world."
More than 40 million cloud servers have been launched on the Vultr platform, across nearly every country in the world. This new credit facility will enable Constant to further expand Vultr globally to help more developers, small businesses, and large enterprises succeed with high-performance cloud compute, cloud storage, and bare metal.
About ConstantConstant is on a developer-first mission to automate cloud infrastructure. Constant's flagship product, Vultr, is a leading independent cloud computing platform. A favorite with developers, Vultr serves over 1.3 million customers across 185 countries with flexible, scalable, global cloud computing and bare metal solutions. Learn more at http://www.constant.comand http://www.vultr.com.
Contact: Bri Helm [emailprotected]
SOURCE Constant
Microsoft is sharing previously secret information to help cloud customers save energy – CNBC
Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of cloud and enterprise at Microsoft Corp., speaks during the Microsoft Developers Build Conference in Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Monday, May 7, 2018.
Grant Hindsley | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Microsoft plans to tell its customers more about the energy use of the data centers it uses to host Azure public cloud services. With that information, customers can figure out where to deploy their applications in the most efficient possible way.
The practice dovetails with the plan Microsoft unveiled last year to remove more carbon than it emits by 2030. It could also help the company stand out to prospective customers in its bid to become larger in the growing cloud-computing market, where Amazon leads.
Generally, companies that operate these large-scale computing facilities have been secretive about efficiency. Large technology companies spend billions building them each year, and efficiency when running them can be a competitive advantage.
But this year, Microsoft began sharing info about power usage effectiveness for Azure data center "regions" -- groups of data centers located near each other -- to some customers under nondisclosure agreements, said Noelle Walsh, corporate vice president for the company's Cloud Operations and Innovation group.
"We will be increasingly transparent with some of those numbers," Walsh said. Itemizing data center by data center might be too granular, but working by region is fine, Walsh said.
Walsh said the company won't share the information too openly, for fear that it might backfire.
"If everybody was to pick and choose, the overall optimum might not be the most green solution," Walsh said.
In some parts of the world, such as Dublin and Seattle, it's possible to air cool data centers, while in warmer locations, keeping the computing infrastructure cool might require the use of chillers or other equipment, Walsh said.
"Our European customers are asking for a lot more insights into the details as to how we run our data centers," she said.
She said hyperscale data centers are 98% more efficient than on-premises data centers that companies, governments and schools operate for themselves. Last year Microsoft introduced a Sustainability Calculator that customers can use to track the greenhouse gas emissions arising from their use of Azure.
There are ways to lower emissions at existing data centers through technology. Microsoft has tested liquid cooling for servers, and the company plans to try using batteries as an alternative to diesel generators -- one source of emissions -- to deliver backup energy, Walsh said.
The idea of learning more about efficiency across data regions is appealing to Francesco Tinto, chief information officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance, which uses Azure.
"Even in our network, we are making other partnerships with other vendors in a way that we can decrease our carbon footprint, usage and so on. So absolutely, it's top of mind for us," he said.
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Microsoft is sharing previously secret information to help cloud customers save energy - CNBC
Server Market Size Worth $145.31 Billion By 2028 | CAGR: 7.8%: Grand View Research, Inc. – PRNewswire
SAN FRANCISCO, April 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The global server marketsize is expected to reach USD 145.31 billion by2028, according to a study conducted by Grand View Research, Inc. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 7.8% from 2021 to2028.The demand for servers is anticipated to grow considerably over the forecast period owing to the growing focus on the timely update of IT infrastructure worldwide. The rising adoption of data analytics among enterprises to understand consumer trends has resulted in the growing adoption of IT networking equipment. Furthermore, the rollout of 5G networks and technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and virtualization is expected to fuel the demand for high-performance computing servers.
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The rising preference for contactless payments and remote working amid the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to drive the need for high-speed data processing and storage capacity across various industry verticals. Advanced technologies have paved the way for connected appliances and autonomous vehicles, which has prompted IT infrastructure companies to opt for the latest, advanced storage solutions, including flash memory and solid-state drives (SSD), for storing crucial business data. Meanwhile, the demanding and changing configurations required by cloud service providers are driving the demand for servers. For instance, in May 2020, Facebook released its third generation Yosemite scalable server, which is equipped with Cooper Lake CPU and six memory modules. Such developments are expected to cause an increase in the average selling prices of servers, which is expected to subsequently benefit the market growth.
Several enterprises are shifting to managed data center services from colocation data centers owing to the cost advantages offered by managed data center services. Managed data centers allow enterprises to adopt virtual servers by renting the networking equipment, connecting devices and peripherals, and cloud space. The cloud server space can be private or shared, which again allows the enterprises to reduce the total cost of ownership.
The market is witnessing increasing competition between OEMs and Original Design manufacturers (ODMs). OEMs are the companies that manufacture servers as well as sell them through resellers and distributors, while ODMs design and manufacture similar servers and directly sell them to the customer. Besides, ODMs cater to the demand for servers customized according to the user configuration. The increasing demand for customized requirements is expected to drive server sales through ODMs.
The market is characterized by intense competition among established market players. Key market players are focused on product innovation and the introduction of new technologies to their server portfolios. For instance, in September 2019, Dell EMC introduced new products in its PowerEdge server portfolio. These new servers are equipped with 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors, which help to easily manage the platform and offer superior performance to the user. The new servers are built specifically for modern data centers for multi-cloud approaches.
Grand View Research has segmented the global server market on the basis of product, enterprise size, channel, vertical, and region:
List of Key Players of Server Market
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Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead.
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Server Market Size Worth $145.31 Billion By 2028 | CAGR: 7.8%: Grand View Research, Inc. - PRNewswire
Hey MSPs! join Zadara’s Federated Edge to fight cloud giants Blocks and Files – Blocks and Files
Zadara has launched a global Federated Edge offering for managed service providers (MSPs), who will sell private cloud services to their customers using Zadaras global infrastructure and so fend off the public cloud giants.
The firm supplies zStorage on-premises or co-lo storage arrays as a service zNetwork and zCompute on-premises servers with VM images based on its recent acquisition of NeoKarm. The storage, network and compute resources are used on a pay-as-you-go basis.
The idea is that MSPs dont have to make capital expenditures to set up points-of-presence near their customers. Instead they can use Zadaras Federated Edge program to provision IT as-a-service private cloud offers as close as necessary to those customers workloads. Zadara provides all of the hardware and software on a shared revenue basis.
Nelson Nahum, Zadaras CEO, said in a statement: We strive to be a true partner to MSPs, not just a technology provider. We understand their unique challenges and have designed the Federated Edge Program with their specific needs in mind[It] harnesses the collective power of MSPs, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
All the infrastructure servers, network and storage is provided and available on-demand via the Zadaras Federated Edge network. Operators pay only for usage. Zadara says Federated Edge Zones, or points of presence, available in cities across the world ease concerns around data sovereignty and compliance issues. ;
Dave McCarthy, research manager, edge strategies, for IDC, supplied a supporting statement: With their Federated Edge, Zadara is providing a lifeline for MSPs looking to boost their points of presence and deploy anywhere in the world the same way that they deploy in their own data centres.
Latency requirements, cost considerations, operational resiliency, and security/compliance factors all contribute to the need to deploy infrastructures closer to where data is generated and consumed at the far edge of a networks reach, away from the centralised cloud.
Dell is developing a managed storage service with Project APEX. Its not much of a stretch to see APEX including PowerEdge servers as a service too. Pure Storage has a similar deal through Equinix.
Public cloud suppliers have started supplying on-premises kit. For example, Amazon with Outposts, and Azure with its Azure Stack which is supported by Dell EMC and Pure Storage.
Zadara is responding to this increased competition by recruiting MSPs to act as service channel partners and suggesting they can get closer to customers and offer more tailored services than the cloud titans.
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Hey MSPs! join Zadara's Federated Edge to fight cloud giants Blocks and Files - Blocks and Files
Global Cloud Managed Service Market Analysis and Forecast (2018-2024) The Courier – The Courier
During the forecast period, the global cloud-managed service market would expandrapidly. Cloud-managed services can minimize operating costs, optimize recurrentexpenses, and automate business efficiency as the primary drivers for the growth ofthe global cloud-managed services market.Cloud-managed services provide service providers with tools to develop theirinternal functions. These services are widely used for the management of ITinfrastructure which, using cloud computing technology, formats an alliance with athird-party service supplier. In addition, these services assist the providers in settingup security activities, IT cycle and network management.Deployment is an important part of this market, which has been split into the publicand private cloud in 2018. Public cloud decreases business organizations investmentrequirements by developing their independent IT infrastructure. This also helpscompanies to meet their customers needs and requirements and improve theirbusiness activities scalability further.The global cloud-based service sector is divided between large companies and smalland medium-sized businesses based on organizational size. The small and medium-sizedcompanies segment is projected to expand more rapidly during the forecastperiod between these two categories. Businesses may minimize their expense byintroducing cloud-managed services, forecast the monthly bill according to theircapacity and assist service providers with the management of all servers andapplications at a central stage.The end-user sector is divided into government, retail & consumer,telecommunication & ITES, education, manufacturing & automotive, healthcare, andother industries. Overall, cloud-managed services are expected to be the mostrapidly growing market in the retail & consumer sector over the projectedtimeframe. Cloud-managed services enable retailers to have a broad view of theirsupply chain and provide their customers with a personalized experience.A few key factors contributed to the global cloud-managed services sector, primarilygrowing internet access and the increasing adoption of cloud services by variousSMEs in both developed and developing economies. The cloud management systemsinclude security management services, optimization of recurrent costs, networkoperations, and the ability to provide business operations with cost efficiencies.The increased acceptability of IoT devices has also contributed to the use of cloudmanagement services for business operations. In addition, the growth of the marketis highly affected by these factors.North America has accounted for the largest share in the global cloud-managedservices market and is projected to rise dramatically over the forecast period.The growing use of data centers and the higher adoption rate for cloud technology inthis area are due to this markets growth. Furthermore, the emergence in the regionof the IT sector led to the early adoption, acceptance, and promotion of cloudservices in this region. In addition, several vendors of the cloud management systemhave achieved maturity in the cloud management services sector in this area.The cloud-managed service market in Asia-Pacific is expected to expand rapidlyduring the predictions because of growing progress in the IT sector and governmentinitiatives to enhance cloud technology. The rising use of data centers in the regionbecause of the growing momentum of cloud-managed services in the region isfurther enforcing growth. In addition, countries like China and India are the mainmanufacturers that provide their customers with enhanced cloud-managed services.Key players in the cloud-driven service industry are introducing new products andentering into fusions and procurement agreements to broaden and improve theirproduct portfolio.Accenture, Vodafone, Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent S.A., Fujitsu Ltd., Ericsson, IBMCorporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., and NEC Corporation are some of the majorplayers on the global cloud-managed service market.Latest News UpdateCovid-19 triggered a global employee lockout to lead to a digital experiment no onehad planned. This experiment showed business owners and managers the capacitiesof the Cloud. Cloud companies such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS),Alicloud and Google Cloud have raised their sales between 25% and 100%. Thisgrowth has proved transformational, with efficiencies and developments that drivesustained improvements in business at scale and pace.Accenture invests in this transition. Over the next three years, Accenture Cloud First,which puts together the experience of 70,000 cloud professionals and the strengthof the industry and technical capabilities of Accenture, ecosystem alliances and acommitment to responsible enterprise will invest EUR 3 billion.
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Canonical debuts new Ubuntu with Active Directory integration, support for SQL Server and Flutter – SiliconANGLE News
Ubuntu developer Canonical Ltd. debuted an important new release of its flagship operating system today, adding key capabilities such as Microsoft Active Directory integration, use of the Wayland display protocol by default and a new software development kit for the Flutter framework.
The Ubuntu distro is one of the most popular Linux operating systems. It has a big presence in the enterprise, used to run virtual machines, servers and cloud computing services, as well as personal devices and robots.
Canonical, which leads Ubuntus development, also revealed today that its working with5 former rival Microsoft Corp. on performance optimization and joint support for Microsoft SQL Server on Ubuntu.
The company said the integration with Microsoft Active Directory in Ubuntu 21.04 is an important milestone that makes it possible for Ubuntu machines to join an Active Directory domain at the time of installation to enable central configuration. Active Directory is a technology thats used to manage fleets of computers and devices on a network. With the integration, Active Directory administrators can now manage Ubuntu workstations and simplify compliance with company policies, Canonical said.
In addition, Ubuntu 21.04 gains the ability to configure system settings from an Active Directory domain controller, the company said. So, with a Group Policy Client, administrators can now specify security policies on all connected client devices, such as password and user access control policies. It also works for desktop environment settings such as login screen, background and favorite apps.
Meanwhile, Ubuntu is taking a significant leap forward in security through its default use of Wayland for graphics, Canonical said.
Firefox, OBS Studio and many applications built with Electron and Flutter take advantage of Wayland automatically, for smoother graphics and better fractional scaling, the company stated.
The new Flutter SDK is another milestone. Flutter is a software framework thats used by developers to build native apps on multiple operating systems, including Android, iOS, Windows and MacOS. The idea is that they can write their apps just once using Googles Dart programming language and have them run across all of those platforms, without needing to tinker with the code for each version.
The framework is designed to enable what Google calls ambient computing. Thats where people can access their favorite apps and services from any location, be it at home or at work, on any kind of device, using a consistent set of methods and commands.
Canonical, which first revealed it was working to support Flutter last year, said the new Flutter SDK snap build integration means the framework is now compatible with the Ubuntu platform too, and that developers can now use it to publish multi-platform apps for one-click installation on numerous Linux devices.
The support for Microsoft SQL Server is a big deal too. Canonical said SQL Servers database management system and its command line interface are now both available on optimized Ubuntu images on Microsoft Azure, providing Ubuntu users with access to Microsofts renowned, high-performance and extremely reliable database platform.
Canonical said it and Microsoft will provide joint support for Ubuntu with Microsoft SQL Server thats deployed on-premises or through the Azure Cloud Marketplace for mission-critical workloads.
Native Active Directory integration and certified Microsoft SQL Server on Ubuntu are top priorities for our enterprise customers. said Canonical Chief Executive Mark Shuttleworth. For developers and innovators, Ubuntu 21.04 delivers Wayland and Flutter for smoother graphics and clean, beautiful, design-led cross platform development.
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Canonical debuts new Ubuntu with Active Directory integration, support for SQL Server and Flutter - SiliconANGLE News
A Reference Architecture for Fine-Grained Access Management on the Cloud – InfoQ.com
Key Takeaways
Access management is the process of identifying whether a user, or a group of users, should be able to access a given resource, such as a host, a service, or a database. For example, is it okay for a developer to be able to log in to a production application server using SSH, and if so then for how long? If an SRE is attempting to access a database during off-call hours, should they be allowed to do so? If a data engineer has moved to a different team, should they continue having access to the ETL pipelines S3 buckets?
Before the proliferation of various infrastructure and data services on the cloud, access management was a relatively simple problem for DevOps and Security teams to solve. VPNs and bastion hosts were (and still are) the preferred mechanisms to cordon off all critical resources at the network level. Users first authenticate with the VPN server, or log on to the bastion host, before they can access any resource on the private network.
This works well when the resources are static and their number relatively small. However, as more and more resources dynamically spring up in different parts of the private network, the VPN / bastion host solutions become untenable.
Specifically, there are three areas where VPNs and bastion hosts fall short as an effective mechanism for access management.
In this article, we will define a new reference architecture for cloud-native companies that are looking for a simplified access management solution for their cloud resources, from SSH hosts, databases, data warehouses, to message pipelines and cloud storage endpoints.
It solves the following specific challenges VPNs and bastion hosts arent able to overcome:
Additionally, it enables the following business benefits for organizations with sensitive data:
The architecture is built upon the following three core principles, whose implementation allows DevOps and Security teams to exercise full control over all of their environment while improving user productivity with a simple and consistent experience.
The following figure shows the reference architecture and its components.
The VPN / bastion host from the previous figure has been replaced with anAccess Gateway. TheAccess Gatewayis actually a collection of micro-services and is responsible for authenticating individual users, authorizing their requests based on certain attributes, and ultimately granting them access to the infrastructure and data services in the private network.
Next, lets look at the individual components to see how the core principles outlined before are accomplished.
The key insight underpinning this architecture is the delegation of user authentication to a single service (theAccess Controller) rather than placing that responsibility with each service to which the user may need access. This kind of federation is commonplace in the world of SaaS applications. Having a single service be responsible for authentication simplifies user provisioning and de-provisioning for application owners and accelerates application development.
TheAccess Controlleritself will typically integrate with an identity provider, such asAuth0orOkta, for the actual authentication sequence, thus providing a useful abstraction across a wide array of providers and protocols. Ultimately, the identity provider guaranteesnon-repudiationof the users identity in the form of a signed SAML assertion, a JWT token, or an ephemeral certificate. This obviates the need to rely on a trusted subnet as a proxy for the users identity. It also allows configuring access policies down to the granularity of a service unlike VPNs which permissively grant users access to all services on the network.
An additional advantage of delegating authentication to identity providers is that users can be authenticated using zero trust principles. Specifically, identity provider policies can be created to enforce the following:
While theAccess Controllerenforces authentication for users, thePolicy Engineenforces fine-grained authorization on their requests. It accepts authorization rules in a human-friendly YAML syntax (check out examples at the end) and evaluates them on user requests and responses.
The Open Policy Agent (OPA), an open-source CNCF project, is a great example of a policy engine. It can be run as a microservice on its own or used as a library in the process space of other microservices. Policies in OPA are written in a language called Rego. Alternatively, its easy to build a simple YAML interface on top of Rego to simplify policy specifications.
Having an independent policy engine separate from the security models of the infrastructure and data services themselves is advantageous for the following reasons:
Both the Infrastructure Gateway and Data Gateway depend on the Policy Engine for evaluating infrastructure and data activity, respectively, by users.
TheInfrastructure Gatewaymanages and monitors accesses to infrastructure services such SSH servers and Kubernetes clusters. It interfaces with the Policy Engine to determine granular authorization rules and enforces them on all infrastructure activity during a user session. For load balancing purposes, the gateway may comprise a set of worker nodes, be deployed as an auto-scaling group on AWS, or run as a replica set on a Kubernetes cluster.
Hashicorp Boundaryis an example of an Infrastructure Gateway. Itsan open source project that enables developers, DevOps, and SREs to securely access infrastructure services (SSH servers, Kubernetes clusters) with fine-grained authorization without requiring direct network access while precluding the use of VPNs or bastion hosts.
The Infrastructure Gateway understands the various wire protocols used by SSH servers and Kubernetes clients, and provides the following key capabilities:
This involves making a copy of every command executed by the user during a session. The captured commands will typically be annotated with additional information, such as the identity of the user, the various identity provider groups they belong to, the time of the day, the duration of the command, along with a characterization of the response (whether it was successful, whether there was an error, whether data was read or written to, etc.).
Monitoring takes the notion of session recording to the next level. In addition to capturing all commands and responses, the Infrastructure Gateway applies security policies on the users activity. In the case of a violation, it may choose to trigger an alert, block the offending command and its response, or terminate the users session altogether.
TheData Gatewaymanages and monitors accesses to data services such hosted databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL and MongoDB, DBaaS endpoints such as AWS RDS, data warehouses such as Snowflake and Bigquery, cloud storage such as AWS S3, and message pipelines such as Kafka and Kinesis. It interfaces with the Policy Engine to determine granular authorization rules and enforces them on all data activity during a user session.
Similar to the Infrastructure Gateway, the Data Gateway may comprise a set of worker nodes, be deployed as an auto-scaling group on AWS, or run as a replica set on a Kubernetes cluster.
Due to the wider variety of data services compared to infrastructure services, a Data Gateway will typically have support for a large number of wire protocols and grammars.
An example of such a Data Gateway isCyral,a lightweight interception service and is deployed as a sidecar for monitoring and governing access to modern data endpoints such as AWS RDS, Snowflake, Bigquery, AWS S3, Apache Kafka, etc. Its capabilities include:
This is similar to recording infrastructure activity and involves making a copy of every command executed by the user during a session and annotating with rich audit information.
Again, this is similar to monitoring infrastructure activity. For example, the policy below blocks data analysts from reading sensitive PII of customers.
Unlike infrastructure services, data services grants users read and write access to sensitive data related to customers, partners, and competitors that often resides in databases, data warehouses, cloud storage, and message pipelines. For privacy reasons, a very common requirement for aData Gatewayis the ability to scrub (also known as tokenization or masking) PII such as emails, names, social security numbers, credit card numbers, and addresses.
Lets look at some common access management scenarios to understand how the Access Gateway architecture provides fine-grained control compared to using VPNs and bastion hosts.
Heres a simple policy to monitor privileged activity across all infrastructure and data services in a single place:
The next policy shows an example of enforcing zero standing privileges -- a paradigm where no one has access to an infrastructure or data service by default. Access may be obtained only upon satisfying one or more qualifying criteria:
The last policy shows an example of data governance involving data scrubbing:
We saw that for highly dynamic cloud environments, VPNs and bastion hosts are inadequate as effective access management mechanisms in agile cloud environments. A new access management architecture with a focus on a non-repudiable user identity, short-lived certificates or tokens, and a centralized fine-grained authorization engine effectively solves the challenges that VPNs and bastion hosts fail to solve. In addition to providing a comprehensive security for users accessing critical infrastructure and data services, the architecture helps organizations achieve their audit, compliance, privacy and governance objectives.
We also discussed a reference implementation of the architecture using well-known developer focussed open-source solutions such as Hashicorp Boundary and OPA in conjunction with Cyral, a fast and stateless sidecar for modern data services. Together they can provide a fine-grained andeasy to use access management solution on the cloud.
Manav Mital is the co-founder and CEO of Cyral, the first cloud-native security service that delivers visibility, access control and protection for the Data Cloud. Founded in2018, Cyral works with organizations of all kindsfrom cloud-native startups to Fortune 500enterprises as they embrace DevOps culture and cloud technologies for managing and analyzing their data. Manav has a MS in Computer Science from UCLA and a BS in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
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A Reference Architecture for Fine-Grained Access Management on the Cloud - InfoQ.com
Cloud Infrastructure Service Market to Create Lucrative Opportunities for Existing Companies as Well as New Players KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper -…
The cloud infrastructure for data storage offers numerous options for sourcing, approach and control. It brings well-defined set of services that are perceived by customers to have continuous availability, infinite capacity, improved cost efficiency and increased agility. To attain these attributes in customers minds, information technology (IT) must move its traditional server centric approach to service centric approach. This entails that IT must go from organizing applications in silos with the minimal leverage among environments to deliver applications on a pre-determined standardized platforms with agreed service levels. A hybrid strategy that uses numerous cloud options at the same time would become a norm since organizations choose a mix of several cloud models to meet the specific needs.
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Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is a model where an organization is able to outsource the equipment used to support operations, including hardware, storage, networking components and servers. The service provider owns equipment and is accountable for running, housing and maintaining it. Cloud IaaS adoption is growing, as enterprises are turning to cloud based IT model to decrease the capital expenditure. Characteristics and several components of IaaS are:
Cloud infrastructure-as-a-service is among three fundamental service models of the cloud computing beside Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). As with cloud computing services, it offers access to the computing resource in virtualized environment, the Cloud, across public connection, normally the internet. In case of IaaS, the computing resource offered is particularly that of virtualized hardware, in the other words, computing infrastructure. The definition involves offerings such as virtual server space, bandwidth, network connections, IP addresses and load balancers. The pool of hardware resource is dragged from a multitude of networks and servers normally distributed among several data centers, all of that the cloud provider is responsible for maintaining. The client, on other hand, is given access to the virtualized components in order to create their own IT platforms.
Some important factors supporting the growth of cloud infrastructure-as-a-service market include decreased IT structure, disaster recovery plans and support for business continuity, improved compliance and security profile, and reduced IT staff. Cloud IaaS helps reduce complexity by elimination of software, servers, disaster recovery and backups. However, concerns about application reliability and performance, security risks and unwillingness to retreat controls are factors act as a challenge to this market.
Some of the major players for cloud infrastructure as a service market include Amazon Web Services, Bluelock, CA Technologies, Cloud Scaling, Datapipe Inc., Rackspace, Hewlett Packard, Logicworks, GoGrid, Layeredtech, Verizon, Savvis, OpSource and NaviSite among others. Amazon Web Services is the market leader in this market followed by Rackspace and Verizon.
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GCP, AWS to become main drivers of global server demand – evertiq.com
Jakub Jirsak Dreamstime.comAnalysis | April 19, 2021
As such, the rise of CSPs have in turn brought about a gradual shift in the prevailing business model of server supply chains from sales of traditional branded servers (that is, server OEMs) to ODM Direct sales instead. Incidentally, the global public cloud market operates as an oligopoly dominated by North American companies including Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), which collectively possess an above-50% share in this market. More specifically, GCP and AWS are the most aggressive in their data center build-outs. Each of these two companies is expected to increase its server procurement by 25-30% YoY this year, followed closely by Azure.TrendForce indicates that, in order to expand the presence of their respective ecosystems in the cloud services market, the aforementioned three CSPs have begun collaborating with various countries domestic CSPs and telecom operators in compliance with data residency and data sovereignty regulations. For instance, thanks to the accelerating data transformation efforts taking place in the APAC regions, Google is ramping up its supply chain strategies for 2021. As part of Googles efforts at building out and refreshing its data centers, not only is the company stocking up on more weeks worth of memory products, but it has also been increasing its server orders since 4Q20, in turn leading its ODM partners to expand their SMT capacities. As for AWS, the company has benefitted from activities driven by the post-pandemic new normal, including WFH and enterprise cloud migrations, both of which are major sources of data consumption for AWS public cloud.Conversely, Microsoft Azure will adopt a relatively more cautious and conservative approach to server procurement, likely because the Ice Lake-based server platforms used to power Azure services have yet to enter mass production. In other words, only after these Ice Lake servers enter mass production will Microsoft likely ramp up its server procurement in 2H21, during which TrendForce expects Microsofts peak server demand to take place, resulting in a 10-15% YoY growth in server procurement for the entirety of 2021. Finally, compared to its three competitors, Facebook will experience a relatively more stable growth in server procurement owing to two factors. First, the implementation of GDPR in the EU and the resultant data sovereignty implications mean that data gathered on EU residents are now subject to their respective countrys legal regulations, and therefore more servers are now required to keep up the domestic data processing and storage needs that arise from the GDPR. Secondly, most servers used by Facebook are custom speced to the companys requirements, and Facebooks server needs are accordingly higher than its competitors. As such, TrendForce forecasts a double-digit YoY growth in Facebooks server procurement this year.Chinese CSPs are limited in their pace of expansions, while Tencent stands out with a 10% YoY increase in server demandOn the other hand, Chinese CSPs are expected to be relatively weak in terms of server demand this year due to their relatively limited pace of expansion and service areas. Case in point, Alicloud is currently planning to procure the same volume of servers as it did last year, and the company will ramp up its server procurement going forward only after the Chinese government implements its new infrastructure policies. Tencent, which is the other dominant Chinese CSP, will benefit from increased commercial activities from domestic online service platforms, including JD, Meituan, and Kuaishou, and therefore experience a corresponding growth in its server colocation business; Tencents demand for servers this year is expected to increase by about 10% YoY. Baidu will primarily focus on autonomous driving projects this year. There will be a slight YoY increase in Baidus server procurement for 2021, mostly thanks to its increased demand for roadside servers used in autonomous driving applications. Finally, with regards to Bytedance, its server procurement will undergo a 10-15% YoY decrease since it will look to adopt colocation services rather than run its own servers in the overseas markets due to its shrinking presence in those markets.Looking ahead, TrendForce believes that as enterprise clients become more familiar with various cloud services and related technologies, the competition in the cloud market will no longer be confined within the traditional segments of computing, storage, and networking infrastructure. The major CSPs will pay greater attention to the emerging fields such as edge computing as well as the software-hardware integration for the related services. With the commercialization of 5G services that is taking place worldwide, the concept of cloud, edge, and device will replace the current cloud framework. This means that cloud services will not be limited to software in the future because cloud service providers may also want to offer their branded hardware in order to make their solutions more comprehensive or all-encompassing. Hence, TrendForce expects hardware to be the next battleground for CSPs.
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GCP, AWS to become main drivers of global server demand - evertiq.com
Microsoft Partner Liquidware Offers an Alternative to Azure Monitor for WVD – Redmond Channel Partner
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Microsoft only recently released its Azure Monitor product to help organizations assess their Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) environments, but partner Liquidware is touting a solution of its own as a cheaper and better alternative.
Using Azure Monitor, which Microsoft released last month, requires organizations to dive into some potentially thorny details, such as setting up log data storage and understanding Azure Monitor's component-use structure and pricing model. The Azure-based management portal for WVD is also late on the scene, given that the WVD service, which runs from Microsoft's datacenters, was commercially released in September 2019.
Meanwhile, Chicago-based Liquidware has long offered its Stratusphere UX user experience monitoring and diagnostics solution. Stratusphere UX provides support for WVD assessment, design, monitoring and diagnostics.
Liquidware also participates as an Azure Migrate Program partner to help jumpstart organizations getting started with WVD. "Our Azure Migrate Program arrangement with Microsoft enables customers with licenses of Stratusphere UX and our entire Adaptive Workspace Management suite. The purpose of the program is to equip enterprises considering Microsoft WVD with licenses to get them started on their path to adoption of WVD," said Jason E. Smith, vice president of products at Liquidware.
I recently spoke with Smith about the state of WVD monitoring. Liquidware is a pioneer in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions, and also counts Citrix and VMware as partners. Smith offered some perspective for organizations working with WVD or considering it. Organizations may do native WVD provisioning, or work with Citrix or VMware, but Liquidware has been around since 2009 offering VDI solutions for all sort sorts of Windows workloads, and even Linux workloads.
WVD and the Cloud MysteryIn essence, things that run on Azure are running on someone else's computer. Microsoft's WVD service runs on Azure virtual machines that are hosted by Microsoft in its datacenters. One of the basic issues for organizations wanting to use the WVD service is simply how to monitor it.
"When you enter into this new brave new world of hosting desktops in the cloud on Azure, there's a question about what is here in my environment and what's in-between, with all of the connections," Smith said. "You will want to drill down and do inventory. There are questions about what's in your datacenter and how well it's performing. Accountability is a consideration, such as service-level agreement (SLA) assurances, especially if you're doing this as a partner. And that's where the need for monitoring really is mandated. Any enterprise is going to want to know what that is."
Azure Monitor gives organizations insights into the use of Azure resources, but its use also delivers surprises.
"I can tell you what our customers are telling us," Smith explained. "They're telling us that they tried Azure Monitor, and that the storage format may not be as efficient as Stratusphere UX yet. This may cause monitoring costs to rack up really, really quickly."
Monitoring WVD ClientsSmith noted there are differences between using Azure Monitor to track Azure services and using it to track WVD clients.
"Azure Monitor was first developed to help you monitor resources in Azure cloud, especially servers," he noted. "Desktops are very different, and Microsoft is only starting to monitor them with Azure Monitor."
In contrast to using Liquidware's Stratusphere UX, Azure Monitor users will need to figure out what to monitor for their WVD instances, Smith contended.
"The other thing that's unique with Azure Monitor is that you'll need to know what you're looking for, even in the desktop," he said. "That's a big difference in comparison with Stratusphere UX, which has been doing this sort of thing since 2009. We have a turnkey virtual appliance that's based on Linux, and it can be hosted on Azure. The setup of Stratusphere UX literally takes as little as 15 minutes -- and then you roll out a few agents on to the endpoint that you want to monitor, and they start reporting back right away. Our efficient database stores historical and near-real-time data cost effectively. The storage may not be even one-tenth of the cost of Azure Monitor storage."
Stratusphere UX users get "turnkey desktop-centric reports," Smith explained.
"You simply click on them and then you can drill down deeper, and they will tell you things like the overall user experience," he said. "They will tell you about the connectivity of the desktop. They'll tell you about your Wi-Fi access points, if people are working from home, and how strong their connection is, and how far they are from the endpoint. They'll tell you about the input and output associated with a desktop, or even an individual application, that may be causing a detrimental user experience. Our solution is very efficient in the way that it stores data on Azure, and it's very cost effective."
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.
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Microsoft Partner Liquidware Offers an Alternative to Azure Monitor for WVD - Redmond Channel Partner