Category Archives: Cloud Storage
Eufy S330 eufyCam Review: All the smarts, none of the fees – TrustedReviews
Verdict
Excellent 4K video quality, offline recording, facial recognition and even the option for AI detection with people, animals and vehicles the Eufy S330 eufyCam has it all. The base station does need to be upgraded from 16GB to make it more useful, and the system isnt cheap. However, if you want quality recording and smart features with no ongoing cost, this is the outdoor security camera system to buy, particularly as the integrated solar panels mean you dont have to worry about charging.
It used to be the case that there was a clear choice between security cameras: you could have subscription-free recording, but with less advanced options; or you could have all the motion detection features you could want but pay for cloud storage.
With the Eufy S330 eufyCam this isnt the case: you get high-end features, including 4K recording and facial recognition, complete with offline, subscription-free recording.
With solar panels to keep the batteries topped up, this is a great system for those that dont want to pay a monthly fee.
Rather than connecting directly to your home network, the Eufy S330 eufyCam cameras connect to the provided HomeBase 3. This small box plugs into your home network via its Ethernet port and then provides a wireless connection to the cameras.
Ive reviewed the package that includes two cameras, but three- and four- camera kits are available, as are add-on cameras if you want to expand. Theres a maximum limit of 16 cameras, although Eufy recommends that no more than 10 are connected for performance reasons.
Theres 16GB of onboard storage built in for recording video. Given that the cameras all have a 4K resolution, this is likely to get eaten up quickly. Fortunately, you can insert a 2.5-inch hard disk or SSD, up to a maximum of 16TB, to increase storage capacity. Its worth doing: a one-off outlay will get you all of the storage that youre likely to need with no ongoing fees.
All of the cameras are the same. They can be charged via USB. Its worth doing this when theyre new to make sure that the battery is full. After that, their integrated solar panels, which sit on top, will keep them charged. Thats similar to the way that the Eufy SoloCam S40 works.
Of course, using the cameras with solar power means that they need to be in direct sunlight. Eufy says that two hours of sunlight a day will keep them topped up. It does mean thinking a bit more about installation.
My garden office is south facing, so works well; the kitchen wall is north facing and never gets direct sunlight, so wouldnt work at all. Once youve found the right position, the cameras connect to the screw-in mount, and can be easily positioned.
The Eufy S330 eufyCam is controlled by the Eufy Security app, which is used for all of Eufys security products, such as the Eufy Video Doorbell 2K. Here, the cameras each get their own thumbnail image, which you can tap to go into the live view to see whats happening in real time. Theres then the option to use two-way chat to talk to anyone that you can see on the camera.
As with all security cameras, these are best when configured to record clips when motion is detected. There are motion-sensitivity settings, and the choice to turn on activity zones. These two choices alone can help reduce the number of alerts that the app can set.
However, the Eufy S330 eufyCam is more advanced than this, with onboard AI. Theres the option to detect people, vehicles and pets (effectively, animals), which is the same level of protection that the Arlo Pro 5 offers via a cloud subscription.
In fact, the Eufy S330 eufyCam goes one step further, as it also offers facial recognition. You can use a photo to train the camera to spot familiar people, and then review the footage to help the system learn, removing incidents of false identification.
Ive not seen a camera with facial recognition since the Nest Cam (outdoor or indoor, battery), although that model does require a subscription to Nest Aware to turn on the feature. Getting it for free here is quite incredible.
Does it work? Yes, pretty well. I found that the system was better during the day, always spotting me as I moved towards my office; at night in dark light, the camera didnt always know that it was me but thats to be expected.
Footage is recorded to the HomeBase 3, and clips can be viewed via the app. The interface is quite simple: just a list of thumbnails, organised by date, with filters to jump to a specific date, by camera and even by person detected. Any clip can be viewed or quickly downloaded to your phones album for permanent storage.
The cameras can be managed by security mode, which is chosen using the app. For example, you may want to turn off internal cameras when in Home mode, and have everything on in Away mode. Its good to have manual options, but opt for Ring cameras, and they can operate in synchronisation with your Ring Alarms mode.
Theres no support for Apple HomeKit, but Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant support are built in, letting me stream a cameras footage to a compatible smart screen.
The cameras all have a 135 field of view, which is a touch narrow for an outdoor camera. The Arlo Pro 5, in comparison, has a 160 field of view, which captured a lot more of my garden when both cameras were installed in the same place.
When positioning a Eufy S330 eufyCam its worth checking the feed before you permanently install to make sure that its capturing what you want it to.
These cameras record in 4K (3840 x 2160) making them one of the highest-resolution cameras that I have reviewed. The Arlo Ultra 2 is capable of this resolution, but it also requires a more expensive subscription plan; here, 4K is included for free, recorded locally to the HomeBase 3.
Video quality is largely excellent. During the day, the camera can shoot very sharp video, with plenty of detail. Given that the camera was pointing into the sun, it did a brilliant job of dealing with the issue, creating a well-exposed shot. It was easy to find a freeze-frame that caught someone in full detail.
At night, the camera has a spotlight and can shoot in full colour. Image quality is sharp with plenty of detail through the frame.
With less light, there is more motion blur. As I walked towards the camera, it was hard to find a frame where my face was in full detail and not slightly blurred. To be fair, the footage looks better in motion than when paused like this, and the quality is still very good.
I found that the Arlo Pro 5 was slightly better at night footage thanks to its powerful sensor; likewise, the Annke NC800s low-light lens helped it shoot better footage, although that camera is a lot more fiddly to set up.
Thanks to the integrated solar panels, I didnt have to charge my cameras at all, and they never dropped down to low battery levels. Whether or not thats true for you will depend on how much sunlight your cameras get and how many events are triggered; for the best battery life, the Eufy S330 eufyCam camera should be angled to only trigger when something important happens on your land.
You want high quality video and no monthly fees: These cameras can shoot at 4K and record to local storage, so have no ongoing costs.
You only need a single camera: If you dont need the full pack, cheaper options for a single camera are available.
Available as a two-pack for starters, the Eufy S330 eufyCam isnt cheap up-front, but its not overly expensive compared to the competition. Its clear advantage is that theres no ongoing costs and you can record high-quality 4K footage direct to the HomeBase.
If you dont want to compromise on features and performance, and dont want monthly fees, this is a great choice. If you dont mind paying monthly, the Arlo Pro 5 is hard to beat, and you can see other alternatives in my guide to the best outdoor security cameras.
Unlike other sites, we test every security camera we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. Well always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main security camera for the review period
We test compatibility with the main smart systems (HomeKit, Alexa, Google Assistant, SmartThings, IFTTT and more) to see how easy each camera is to automate.
We take samples during the day and night to see how clear each cameras video is.
Two hours per day should be enough to keep the battery topped up, depending on how many events are triggered.
It has 16GB on the HomeBase 3, but you can install a hard disk up to 16TB in size.
UK RRP
Manufacturer
Size (Dimensions)
Weight
Release Date
First Reviewed Date
Model Number
Resolution
Voice Assistant
Battery Length
Smart assistants
App Control
Camera Type
Mounting option
View Field
Recording option
Two-way audio
Night vision
Light
Motion detection
Activity zones
Object detection
Power source
Eufy S330 eufyCam
493.99
Eufy
54 x 91 x 66 MM
285 G
2023
28/04/2023
Eufy S330 eufyCam
3840 x 2160
Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant
6 months
Yes
Yes
Outdoor wireless
Wall
135 degrees
Local
Yes
Full colour
Spotlight
Yes
Yes
Facial recognition, people, animals, vehicles
Battery (solar panel)
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Eufy S330 eufyCam Review: All the smarts, none of the fees - TrustedReviews
5 ways to reduce digital carbon footprint – NewsBytes
5 ways to reduce digital carbon footprint
May 08, 2023, 01:55 pm 2 min read
Did you know that using digital devices has an environmental impact? Every online activity has an environmental impact. The CO2 emissions from the manufacturing, use, and data transfer of digital devices are known as "digital carbon footprint." Due to our extensive digital presence, leaving a digital footprint has always been disregarded or ignored. Here's how minimizing your digital footprint can help you embrace sustainability.
Every email or attachment sent, received, or stored requires an amount of computing power. It is thus advised to reduce the number of emails you store in your inbox. Remember to unsubscribe to unnecessary newsletters and to report your spam emails so that they don't come back. Similarly, keep your inbox compact by deleting the emails you don't need to retain, including calendar invites.
Turn off devices when not in use
Make sure to switch off your electronics if you are planning to leave your device idle for a long time. Devices like laptops use up energy even when they are in sleep mode. Besides, makes sure you don't leave your devices plugged in for longer than needed. Avoid charging smartphones and laptops overnight. It will degrade your battery and also consume energy unnecessarily.
Every query you type into a search engine consumes energy. Hence try to be as precise as possible when you are searching for something and avoid multiple rounds of searching. Additionally, make sure to bookmark websites you frequently visit. This will reduce the energy used up while searching and entering that particular website every time. Also remember to close inactive browser tabs.
Use cloud storage efficiently
For security purposes, each file you save to the cloud is saved many times. Hence upload and keep only what you believe is truly important. Remove identical photos and any unnecessary shared files with you from your cloud storage. Another viable option is to have such items saved on pen drives or hard drives instead of the cloud.
Video streaming is a major source of energy use and data expansion. Reduce your energy use by not streaming videos that you aren't watching. While it is not practical to avoid streaming completely, one effective way you can manage this is by disabling the 'autoplay' option. Additionally, rather than streaming your audio or music online, try to download them when you can.
The Atmospheric Rise of Cloud Computing – Visual Capitalist
The Atmospheric Rise of Cloud Computing
From the dawn of civilization right up until 2003, human beings generated 5 exabytes of stored information. Now this is created every two days.
And by 2025, half of all the worlds data will be found on the cloud, allowing people to save, control, and work with it remotely or in any other setting.
In the infographic above, sponsored by Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, we dive into everything you need to know about the atmospheric rise of cloud computing.
Many types of data, from text files, images, and videos to large archives and applications data, are stored on the cloud.
Today, the average employee uses 36 cloud-based services daily, and corporations as a whole store about 60% of their data on the cloud.
Different cloud storage services have been created based on this growing demand. Consequently, there are four main cloud storage systems according to Spiceworks:
Cloud storage systems require physical infrastructure, and the primary types are:
Individuals and organisations can increase flexibility and responsiveness when analysing data by using data warehouses processing power and data lakes storage size, both of which are becoming larger and more powerful each year.
Despite the global cloud storage market being just one segment of the overall cloud computing market, it is expected to reach over $376 billion with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24%.
The fastest-growing regions for the cloud storage market are the Middle East and Africa. Moreover, the fastest-growing segment is backup and disaster recovery.
The fast expansion of cloud computing as a whole is expected to catapult the market to a staggering $947.3 billion by 2026almost double what it was in 2022.
Cloud computing and cloud storage are often used interchangeably but are not the same. Cloud computing provides processing power made available over the cloud to do computational tasks, e.g. Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud.
However, cloud storage provides data storage capacity available over the cloud, e.g. Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Dropbox.
By 2026, 45% of all IT spending is anticipated to be allocated toward innovative cloud development and management firms.
Investing in companies like Databricks and those providing modern cloud systems, such as Snowflake, will be key to driving progress and innovation in the future.
Scottish Mortgage gives exposure to these and other pioneers of progress. In the next part of this Pioneers of Progress Series, we dive into the synthetic biology market.
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The Atmospheric Rise of Cloud Computing - Visual Capitalist
Google Launches Biggest Cloud Migration Program Ever: 6 Key Things To Know – CRN
Cloud News Mark Haranas May 03, 2023, 09:00 AM EDT
Google Clouds new Rapid Migration Program combines Google products, resources and best practices with channel partners own cloud migration offerings aimed at accelerating cloud migrations faster than ever before. Here are six things every Google Cloud partner needs to know about RaMP.
Google Cloud is making its biggest investment ever to accelerate cloud migrations by launching a new Rapid Migration Program (RaMP) that unleashes all of Googles products, programs and engagement models into a unified program aimed at accelerating cloud migrations 10 times faster.
Were going to bring everything into one motion with RaMP, which is our biggest investment and focus area for accelerating cloud migrations to date, said Stephen Orban, Google Clouds vice president of migrations, in an interview with CRN.
Were working very closely with partners to align our best practices with their approach, with a goal of 10Xing how quickly and reliably our customers are able to migrate so they can see faster value of moving to the cloud and fund more of those new initiatives, Orban said.
[Related: Google Vs. Amazon Vs. Microsoft: Q1 Cloud Earnings Face-Off]
Googles New RaMP Program
Even as the nearly $30 billion Google Cloud grows cloud sales faster than its competitors, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company believes theres still a significant lack of overall cloud migration in the industry.
Despite cloud momentum, Orban said although many customers he speaks with have goals of moving 75 percent to 100 percent of workloads to the cloud over the next several years, theyre still only about 5 percent to 10 percent of the way there.
If we can help customers migrate faster, and drive 10X the acceleration and the value that they get from moving to the cloud by migrating and modernizing their legacy estates to Google, well be able to help them fund more of the new projects to help them transform their customer experience, said Orban.
RaMP is aimed at creating a successful migration and cloud operating model with best practices supported by channel partners, particularly systems integrators.
The program will include a new RaMP Deck that closely tracks large-scale migrations. RaMP also includes Google products such as StratoZone to discover and assess workloads to migrate. It also includes Database Migration Service, Storage Transfer Service and Migrate to Virtual Machine Service, which lifts and shifts servers, to name a few. On the partner front, Google Cloud Migration Specialization partners are being on-boarded Wednesday into the program with greater incentives and resources available.
In an interview with CRN, Orban breaks down six keys Google Cloud channel partners and customers need to know about the new cloud migration program, which is a priority for the company.
Mark Haranas is an assistant news editor and longtime journalist now covering cloud, multicloud, software, SaaS and channel partners at CRN. He speaks with world-renown CEOs and IT experts as well as covering breaking news and live events while also managing several CRN reporters. He can be reached at mharanas@thechannelcompany.com.
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Google Launches Biggest Cloud Migration Program Ever: 6 Key Things To Know - CRN
AWS might have just fixed the worst thing about managing all your cloud services – TechRadar
Managing your Amazon Web Services (AWS) accounts has just gotten a lot easier with the launch of a new notification center inside the dashboard.
The so-called AWS User Notifications is designed to centralize all the notifications admins would typically receive from its cloud-based services to make it easier to manage accounts, regions, and services.
The announcement covers the amalgamation of more than 100 AWS services - like Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) objects events, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance state changes, AWS Health Dashboard events, Amazon CloudWatch alarms, or AWS Support case updates - as the creation of a consistent, human-friendly format.
As well as their new home, users can choose to check up on changes and other news using the bell icon in the AWS Management Console.
From launch, Amazon has taken steps to make managing notifications less tiresome, with filtering to rule out certain services. The summaries are designed to be quickly readable, but each notification will have its own deep link to the relevant console resource pages to help admins inspect potential issues more smoothly.
Promising to be a powerful and insightful tool, users will first have to create custom alerts by defining which events should generate notifications and implementing other rules such as frequency.
AWS users will also be able to configure notifications in chat clients such as Slack to align with their existing technology infrastructure.
AWS User Notifications are available to use in the following regions:
US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Osaka), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), Europe (Paris), Europe (Stockholm), and South America (So Paulo).
Other regions added after March 2019 will need to have them enabled in their accounts. Full details of the availability and features can be found in the companys announcement (opens in new tab).
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AWS might have just fixed the worst thing about managing all your cloud services - TechRadar
Cloud Storage Technology Market is Set To Fly High in Years to … – Digital Journal
PRESS RELEASE
Published May 5, 2023
Advance Market Analytics published a new research publication on Global Cloud Storage Technology Market Insights, to 2028 with 232 pages and enriched with self-explained Tables and charts in presentable format. In the study, you will find new evolving Trends, Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities generated by targeting market-associated stakeholders. The growth of the Cloud Storage Technology market was mainly driven by the increasing R&D spending across the world.
Major players profiled in the study are:
AWS (United States), IBM (United States), Microsoft (United States), Google (United States), Oracle (United States), HPE (United States), Dell EMC (United States), VMware (United States), Rackspace (United States), Dropbox (United States)
Get Free Exclusive PDF Sample Copy of This Research @ https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/sample-report/118407-global-cloud-storage-technology-market#utm_source=DigitalJournalVinay
Scope of the Report of Cloud Storage Technology
The cloud storage technology market is expected to witness high growth in the forecasted year due to the growing need for an advanced storage solution. The cloud storage technology term basically implies the storage of data online in the cloud network. It is a service model in which data is automatically maintained, managed and backed up remotely. In addition, several industry verticals such as BFSI, retail, healthcare, and public sector with a large customer base tend to store critical business information of stakeholders in cloud storage, owing to data privacy and client information, which in turn augment the global cloud storage technology market growth.
On 23rd August 2019, IBM has announced that it will begin to provide, what the industry would call, quantum-safe cryptography services on the IBM public cloud in 2020 and is now offering a Quantum Risk Assessment from IBM Security to help customers assess their risk in the quantum world. Additionally, IBM cryptographers have prototyped the worlds first quantum computing safe enterprise-class tape, an important step before commercialization.
The Global Cloud Storage Technology Market segments and Market Data Break Down are illuminated below:
by Type (Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Community Cloud), Services (Infrastructure as a service, Cloud bursting, Multi tenant computing, Resource pooling, Platform as a service, Software as a service), Industry Vertical (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI), Healthcare and life sciences, Telecommunications and Information Technology-enabled Services (ITES), Government and public sector, Manufacturing, Consumer goods and retail, Media and entertainment, Others), Organization Size (Large enterprises, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs))
Market Opportunities:
Market Drivers:
Market Trend:
What can be explored with the Cloud Storage Technology Market Study?
Region Included are: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Oceania, South America, Middle East & Africa
Country Level Break-Up: United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, South Africa, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Germany, United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Turkey, Russia, France, Poland, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, India, Australia and New Zealand etc.
Have Any Questions Regarding Global Cloud Storage Technology Market Report, Ask Our [emailprotected] https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/enquiry-before-buy/118407-global-cloud-storage-technology-market#utm_source=DigitalJournalVinay
Strategic Points Covered in Table of Content of Global Cloud Storage Technology Market:
Chapter 1: Introduction, market driving force product Objective of Study and Research Scope the Cloud Storage Technology market
Chapter 2: Exclusive Summary the basic information of the Cloud Storage Technology Market.
Chapter 3: Displaying the Market Dynamics- Drivers, Trends and Challenges & Opportunities of the Cloud Storage Technology
Chapter 4: Presenting the Cloud Storage Technology Market Factor Analysis, Porters Five Forces, Supply/Value Chain, PESTEL analysis, Market Entropy, Patent/Trademark Analysis.
Chapter 5: Displaying the by Type, End User and Region/Country 2017-2022
Chapter 6: Evaluating the leading manufacturers of the Cloud Storage Technology market which consists of its Competitive Landscape, Peer Group Analysis, BCG Matrix & Company Profile
Chapter 7: To evaluate the market by segments, by countries and by Manufacturers/Company with revenue share and sales by key countries in these various regions (2023-2028)
Chapter 8 & 9: Displaying the Appendix, Methodology and Data Source
Finally, Cloud Storage Technology Market is a valuable source of guidance for individuals and companies.
Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/buy-now?format=1&report=118407#utm_source=DigitalJournalVinay
Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Middle East, Africa, Europe or LATAM, Southeast Asia.
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Cloud Storage Technology Market is Set To Fly High in Years to ... - Digital Journal
Security researcher finds trove of Capita data exposed online – TechCrunch
Image Credits: Alexander Spatari / Getty Images
London-based outsourcing giant Capita left a trove of data exposed online for seven years, TechCrunch has learned, just weeks after the company admitted to a data breach potentially impacting customer data.
Requesting anonymity, a security researcher alerted TechCrunch to an unprotected Amazon-hosted storage bucket, which was secured by Capita last week.
The AWS bucket, which the researcher said had been exposed to the internet since 2016, contained approximately 3,000 files totaling 655GB in size. There was no password on the bucket, allowing anyone who knew the easy-to-guess web address access to the files. Details of the exposed cloud server were also captured by GrayHatWarfare, a searchable database that indexes publicly visible cloud storage.
The exposed data included software files, server images, numerous Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and text files, according to a sample of filenames reviewed by TechCrunch. One of the text files contained login details for one of Capitas systems, the security researcher told TechCrunch, and some filenames that suggested data was being uploaded to the exposed bucket as recently as this year.
Its not clear whether data belonging to Capita customers, a list which includes the U.K.s National Health Service and the Department for Work and Pensions, was contained within these files. Im going to guess some of this stuff is not supposed to be available to the internet, given they closed the bucket since, the security researcher told TechCrunch.
Capita was alerted to the data breach in late-April and secured the bucket that same week. The security researcher, who notified Capita of the breach, told TechCrunch that while the exposed bucket was promptly closed, the company doesnt have a responsible disclosure program or a dedicated security contact.
Capita spokesperson Elizabeth Lee told TechCrunch in a statement that the unsecured bucket contained information such as release notes and user guides, which are routinely published alongside software releases in line with standard industry practice. She declined to answer additional questions.
The researcher said he believes this incident is unrelated to the late-March Capita cyberattack claimed by the Black Basta ransomware group. The scope of this incident remains unknown, though Capita admitted last month that it had seen evidence of limited data exfiltration which might include customer, supplier or colleague data.
Samples of the leaked data, seen by TechCrunch, included bank account details, passport photos and drivers licenses, and the personal data of teachers applying for jobs at schools. Capita has also told trustees that some data related to pensions is likely to have been exfiltrated, according to the Financial Times.
These files have not been shared publicly by Black Basta. Its not known whether a ransom demand was paid.
Updated with comment from Capita.
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Security researcher finds trove of Capita data exposed online - TechCrunch
Configure finops processes with the right metrics – InfoWorld
The rise of finops programs and tools is scaring me a little. I believe that many enterprises are misapplying them, and in many instances, finops technology is working against returning value to the business. Some people driving finops dont even understand that they are being counterproductive.
If left unchecked, many of these misguided finops programs could end up doing real damage. To be sure, many enterprises do find the cloud cost savings they are seeking these days. However, their finops programs are also having a negative effect on the business. How does this happen?
Here is the core reality around how cloud computing drives business value. Saving cloud costs, such as reducing the number of resources and optimizing each resource, has a net savings on operational costs, but there also needs to be a focus on something that many dont consider: The effect of value returned to business, which is not necessarily in sync with saving operational dollars.
Weve all heard the saying, penny-wise and pound-foolish. Saving money, while generally a good thing, may have a net negative effect on the core business, specifically driving value.
As an example, lets imagine a healthcare tech company. The team driving a new finops program talks about their ability to manage cloud spending better. This includes only allowing very specific cloud storage systems, where a good price was pre-negotiated, and limiting cloud resources to set allocations in each period. The company realizes net savings of about 30% to support the same number of applications and databases. Good, right?
Unfortunately, our fictitious company found that they missed several market opportunities, such as building net-new applications to support a new health trend that leverages data from your last blood test to create a nutrition plan customized to your specific physiology, using huge amounts of biomedical data and a generative AI system. (Im making this up, in case you want this.)
The company discovered that those charged with creating new products were so limited by the choices of AI systems, storage and compute spending, and databases that building a new product to capitalize on this trend was difficult. Rather than push back on the limitations imposed by the new finops technology and processes, it was easier just to do nothing.
This might be an extreme example, but the message is clear: Using cost savings as your only finops metric is a bad idea, but too many enterprises are doing exactly that. This is because of its simplicity and the fact that only a few finops systems consider value creation as a metric. Most focus on operational cost savings and cloud usage optimization and typically ignore value because its difficult to define and even harder to prove. But, if you dont have the ability to consider the trade-off between value creation and cost savings, youre going to indeed be penny-wise and pound-foolish.
It can be done. When you set up any finops system, establish business value creation as your objective, and dont focus just on cost savings. Yes, smart management of cloud spending can create more value; for instance, the ability to do the same or more with less often has a positive effect on business value. However, companies need processes that evaluate all activities that are likely to create value, and they need other metrics that consider risk/reward and the ability to drive innovation and creativity.
This is not easy. It takes some creative metrics modeling to come up with the correct way to consider cloud spending using something thats dynamic and not static. However, if your cloud finops systems dont consider all the impacts on the business, youre likely to be very successful with cost savings, but youll kill your business at the same time.
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Configure finops processes with the right metrics - InfoWorld
Study Tracks Hard Drive Reliability and Annual Failure Rates (AFR) – Enterprise Storage Forum
On average, hard drives fail after two and a half years, according to new results of an ongoing study published by specialized storage cloud platform provider Backblaze. The Drive Stats report analyzes quarterly and lifetime hard drive reliability and failure rates. The latest edition looks at the first three months of 2023 and shares the average age of failed hard drives by drive size, model, and more to help IT decision-makers shopping for new storage drives for their businesses.
Hardware durability is a critical component of the cloud storage industry. With nearly 250,000 hard drives housed globally across its data centers, Backblaze analyzes and publishes quarterly findings to highlight key trends and data points.
The company began the study a decade ago. It looks at Annual Failure Rate (AFR) by size, model, and manufacturer, and further breaks down the information by average age of hard drive at failure. According to the reports author, Andrew Klein, the AFR for the first quarter of 2023 was 1.54%, up over the first quarter of 2022 at 1.22%.
Quarterly AFR numbers can be volatile, but can be useful in identifying a trend which needs further investigation, Klein wrote.
The average AFR over the last decade was was 1.4%. Among drives with more than 2.2 million days of use, the drive with the lowest AFR (.28%) is a Western Digital Corporation 16TB model. The drive with the highest AFR (2.57%) is a Seagate 4TB model.
While the Seagate drives generally showed higher failure rates overall, they also cost less, the report noted.You could make a good case that for us, many Seagate drive models are just as cost-effective as more expensive drives, Klein wrote.
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Study Tracks Hard Drive Reliability and Annual Failure Rates (AFR) - Enterprise Storage Forum
Industry Insights: Cloud adoption, pain points and security in broadcast – NewscastStudio
Subscribe to NewscastStudio's newsletter for the latest in broadcast design, technology and engineering delivered to your inbox.
As the broadcast and media industry evolves, adopting cloud workflows and transitioning to cloud-based production has become a central focus for many companies.
In this Industry Insights roundtable, we speak with industry vendors to discuss the current pain points, the progress of cloud adoption by broadcasters and the significance of security in the journey towards cloud production.
We delve into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as broadcasters and media companies navigate the ever-changing landscape of cloud technology.
Jon Finegold, CMO, Signiant: The biggest challenge we see is around the economics not just cloud storage, compute and egress costs but many underestimate the costs of homegrown solutions. Engineering teams lean towards building it themselves and the cloud providers offer many powerful tools to build anything you can dream up but media operations teams need speed and agility. Working with off-the-shelf SaaS solutions can help make costs much more predictable and, if designed right with modern APIs, still offer engineering teams the ability to extend and integrate products to meet specific business requirements.
Venugopal Iyengar, deputy COO of digital, Planetcast International: The pain points of moving to the cloud include security issues, latency issues, bandwidth and storage capacity. However, technology providers with proven expertise and gold standard, proprietary infrastructure are building solutions that overcome all these hurdles, ensuring a greater sense of trust in cloud workflows among the media and entertainment community. Its also important that cloud solution vendors deliver predictable project costs and seamlessly enable multiple plug-in integrations for cloud production and support workflows to enable a better customer experience with more transparent pricing.
Grigory Mindlin, general manager of broadcast, Disguise:Were in a transitional period, companies are trying to switch to the cloud, but they also have a lot on prem. From a preparation and cost standpoint, many broadcasters may not be ready to move the whole system to the cloud yet, so lots of the current pain points are around working on prem and the cloud at the same time.
Sam Peterson, COO, Bitcentral:Every organization will have a different answer to that. Certainly, many of our customers have very unique use cases. Ultimately, our main focus is on the production and delivery component. Of course, the cloud is absolutely essential where consumer delivery is concerned.
Stephen Tallamy, CTO, EditShare:Cloud technologies are now mature that is not the issue. Where we still see resistance is in seizing the opportunities that the cloud brings to transform workflows and business processes. Whilst you can lift and shift to the cloud as a first step: you need, as a business, to re-evaluate what you need to do to serve your users creatively and cost-effectively, and develop the workflows that will achieve that.
Rick Young, SVP and head of global products, LTN Global:There are two key pain points that I think are posing challenges for organizations across the value chain. One being the ability to reliably and predictably deliver low latency feeds into cloud environments, and the other being able to affordably deliver produced events and linear channels from cloud environments to final destinations. Both scenarios can be neatly handled with a mission critical global IP network.
Jonathan Smith, cloud solution area expert, Net Insight:There are three competing technical parameters that productions fight with, latency, quality and bandwidth. Latency and bandwidth are often detracting factors when using a cloud environment, so maintaining quality in a cost-effective way can be a challenge.
Miroslav Jeras, CTO, Pebble: As a technology partner we understand one of the pain points is the potential for security breaches and the need to protect sensitive media content while it is stored and shared in the cloud. Additionally, the lack of standardization of cloud services can make it difficult for media production teams to manage live signals and minimize latency.
Julin Fernndez-Campn, CTO, Tedial:There are many, but the two more important pain points are cost: How much I will have to pay for my cloud media operation and what are the variable costs, and efficiency? Will it work as seamlessly as on prem does?
David Rosen, VP of cloud applications, Sony Electronics:Two major challenges are moving big files around and finding them when you need them. Big files and unpredictable internet conditions make that a challenge. Solutions like Sonys Ci Media Cloud reliably deal with these conditions by using file transfer acceleration, built in retry mechanisms and delivery notifications.
Ral Alba, director of solutions marketing, media and cloud, Avid:While media production in the cloud is gaining traction, there are still several pain points in increasing its adoption. These include not only in-house knowledge about cloud technologies to maintain production systems, but also media companies recent investments in on-prem technology and understanding or the true total cost of ownership of on-prem systems. There are also concerns about security and reliability and the complexity of hybrid workflows, particularly in the way media is ingested and egressed.
Frederic Petitpont, co-founder and CTO, Newsbridge:Discoverability of media assets is a large pain point. Many customers want the ability to search through their content in the same way they use Google. However most MAMs lack the full text (semantic) search capability to enable this.
Charles dAutremont, CEO and founder, Cinedeck: Bandwidth limitations present challenges in remote work and disrupt workflow continuity, but external issues like this arent always easy to rectify. At the ingest end of the chain, it is important that delays are minimised so that editors can get to work straight away. By recording ISO streams directly to the codec required for editing and file delivery, it is possible to dramatically reduce the time taken from capture to initial editing.
Chris Kelly, solutions manager for production workflows, Ross Video: Pain points are mostly a function of expectations for how the system will behave. Theres an expectation that there will be delay; this isnt like SDI or IP in an on-prem control room where signals are sent and received within a frame of delay, and I think thats mostly accepted. Where it gets complicated is when you have on-set displays being fed by a cloud resource, and then fed to the ground only to be shot by a camera thats then sent back to the cloud for a program output; that delay profile gets a lot trickier.
Geoff Stedman, CMO, SDVI: The most often mentioned challenges with cloud media production are related to latency, especially for live production. Depending on location, limited connectivity to the cloud, particularly for moving large media files, can also be a bottleneck.
Jon Finegold:Prior to 2020, we saw steady growth of cloud adoption year over year. Then when the pandemic hit we saw an explosion of cloud adoption with nearly five times the amount of data being moved into and out of the cloud on the Signiant Platform. Most media companies are now using the cloud in some way and most remain in a hybrid state with some workloads in the cloud cloud and some on-prem a trend that looks like it will be the norm for the next several years.
Venugopal Iyengar:Increasingly, traditional broadcast customers are looking to migrate to hybrid models that build on the security of on-premise solutions with the flexibility and scalability of cloud. This approach can also have OpEx benefits over fully cloud based approaches. While were seeing media brands embrace hybrid models as a flexible and logical approach to cloud adoption, its worth noting that the technology is mature cloud-based production, media management and distribution workflows are in action today, and proving to be successful on the global stage.
Grigory Mindlin:The worlds biggest broadcasters and media companies lead the way as they have the budgets to adopt first and take chances. I believe those companies are somewhere like a third of the way, meaning theyre doing some things in the cloud. Its not ubiquitous, I cant think of a single broadcaster thats moved everything 100% onto the cloud, theyre all somewhere along the journey.
Sam Peterson:Were in the early stages of cloud production, certainly compared with archive and asset management, which are much further developed. Weve seen some experimentation with limited live workflows, such as production switching, but its early days for sure.
Stephen Tallamy:Inevitably we are in a time of transition. We have users who have enthusiastically embraced cloud workflows including the remarkable power of cloud-hosted editing while some see the cloud as a backup and archive for now, and others prefer to keep their media on premises. As production and post companies are challenged to find new solutions, so the advantages of the cloud will become more attractive.
Rick Young:Cloud workflows have evolved considerably over the past couple of years. Broadcasters are no longer just experimenting with new ways of working, they are embracing and deploying cloud-based solutions across real-word, live production environments. Customers are adopting cloud-enabled solutions to drive scale and flexibility, and increasingly, as a means of enabling efficient content versioning to cost-effectively reach fragmented audiences through global multi-platform digital distribution strategies.
Jonathan Smith:In recent years we have seen a massive increase in the number of live events produced by our customers; a lot of these increases have been associated with lower end productions. In many cases these have been completed in a cloud environment, so the adoption has accelerated quite rapidly.
Miroslav Jeras:With the advent of remote productions, broadcasters are leveraging the cloud to increase operational efficiencies since a reduction in costs is a natural by-product of no longer sending staff out on location. As experts in playout automation, we know there is also a desire to use virtual playout in the cloud for offering greater flexibility and spinning up pop up channels quickly. However, we also know that for now many broadcasters want to adopt hybrid workflows that leverage the use of legacy equipment on-premises whilst deploying cloud-based technologies.
Julin Fernndez-Campn:It really depends on the use cases. Some use cases like localization, collaborations and remote production are widely used already, and other use cases that are quite dependent on the size of the media post-production are getting less adoption.
Ral Alba:Many broadcasters have already adopted cloud technologies for some parts of the workflow, like distribution or playout, and now they are slowly expanding adoption to other parts of the workflow, like media production. Cloud adoption is not running at the same pace across all geographies, with North America and Northern Europe at the forefront of adoption.
Frederic Petitpont:Not where we would expect it to be. The hybrid approach of part-cloud and part on-premises remains popular with broadcasters. We know from the International Federation of Television Archives latest annual research that more than 35% of respondents fear the cloud will be more expensive, almost 30% believe they already have sufficient storage, so have no need for the cloud, and almost one-quarter of respondents had concerns about data protection.
Charles dAutremont:The media and entertainment industry has seen a rapid growth in the adoption of cloud technology for all aspects of workflows. Production and post-production organisations have shifted to cloud because of its flexibility, scalability, and accessibility. The industry is still in the early stages of cloud adoption, but with the development of more solutions and tools, this will only increase and eventually become the norm.
Chris Kelly:Id say were in the early adopters portion of the curve as were all watching things produced in the cloud, and most viewers wouldnt know the difference. REMI has been around for several years, and many of those principles are at least parallel with cloud production which has I think accelerated some adoption. I think mass adoption is still in our horizon though its getting closer, and how we think about cloud will probably shift and adjust as we get closer to cloud production being a common reality.
Geoff Stedman:Where we see a lot of adoption of the cloud for media production is with edit workflows. There has been a lot of innovation with cloud-based editing software so that an editor can access and edit content from anywhere without having to move content to a local computer.
Jon Finegold:Security concerns are at an all-time high and we hear it over and over from the market. In fact, its been a good growth driver for the Signiant Platform, driving companies to finally retire legacy solutions like FTP, harddrive workflows and older software. Customers require cloud and SaaS services that are built with a security first mind set.
Venugopal Iyengar:For an existing linear channel, security can require a paradigm shift when moving to cloud, as customers may need to re-validate compliance with security requirements. Security will always be a top priority for media companies, especially when handling unreleased content. Increasingly, its possible for cloud to be at least as secure as on-premise and hybrid production models.
Grigory Mindlin:Security is really important. As it moves to the cloud, theres been even more secure protocols. Some of our customers have increased their security and adjusted how they provide access to their network for vendors accordingly.
Stephen Tallamy: Concern over security is perhaps the biggest reason for the reluctance to move further into the cloud. It is really important to develop very strict protocols not only to protect against intellectual property theft but also against commercial cyber threats like ransomware. That may mean doing things which are counter-intuitive: remote editing is a standard today, but post houses are finding they need to establish connections from the center out rather than opening up portals for editors to log themselves on.
Rick Young:Security has been at the forefront of the agenda for our customers dating back more than a dozen years when we first started enabling cloud based, IP transmission workflows. This continues to this day but with the right core technology and understanding of business needs, security can remain a concern but not a blocker for our customers.
Jonathan Smith:Security is at the front of most consensus customer minds. As we move into the IP transport domain, especially when over public connectivity, the need to secure feeds and hand-offs is of the utmost importance.
Miroslav Jeras:Security is at the top of the priority list. The current political landscape means cyber security threats and concerns of being on the receiving end of a hacking attack are at an all-time high. Customers want security of their content, especially content they can monetize, and they want full transparency around what measures are in place for disaster recovery when placing a system in the cloud, where their on-premises infrastructure is also protected.
Julin Fernndez-Campn:They are all aware that security is a must and they are always looking for solutions where security is embedded within the system and the vendor itself.
David Rosen: Weve seen a dramatic shift in customers perceptions of the security of the cloud. There used to be a sense that if your content wasnt in your own facility then you couldnt be sure it was safe. Time and experience has taught us that on premise facilities are no safer than cloud infrastructures.
Ral Alba:Security is top of mind, and delegating this to third party vendors like cloud providers is not something all of them are ready to do. One interesting thing is that the security of the average broadcaster is less strict than the standard security in the public cloud. Cloud infrastructure vendors have a business because their solutions are secure.
Frederic Petitpont: Security in the mind of our customers relates to trust when working with SaaS. Pentesting can be quite expensive, and thats also why they are working with SaaS. Security issues are much less likely with cloud editing workstations, and customers are able to use the RBAC (Role-based Access Control) authentication mechanism to provide access to content.
Chris Kelly:It was a lot harder (though not impossible) to hijack an analog signal. In recent years, there have been some high-profile and not-high-profile incidents that influenced the on-air product. I believe all customers see these incidents and recognize that were living in a new world where people dont necessarily work within the four walls of their office, but that very special attention needs to be put in place to mitigate the security risk thats introduced when you open that door.
Geoff Stedman:Security is always top of mind for our customers. All media companies want to protect their content as well as tightly control who has access to their content. Fortunately, there are well-architected methods for securing cloud-based content and workflows to ensure that work can be done by only those who are authorized.
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Industry Insights: Cloud adoption, pain points and security in broadcast - NewscastStudio