Category Archives: Cloud Storage
Five things you need to know about cloud file services – ComputerWeekly.com
Cloud file services offer access to file data and the flexibility of hosted cloud storage infrastructure, with the number of suppliers offering cloud-based file storage growing significantly over the last few years.
These services are sometimes pitched as a NAS replacement, and companies including Nasuni, Panzura and Ctera have positioned themselves as enterprise-grade alternatives to on-premise NAS hardware. Some claim cost reductions of more than 80% compared with local NAS or products such as Microsoft SharePoint.
Alongside the specialist vendors are the three hyperscale cloud providers, AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, which all have their own cloud file services.
Industry stalwarts such as NetApp and IBM are also in the market, with NetApp offering its technology via options that range from on-premise systems to partnering with AWS.
The goal is to create a globally distributed file system, so employees and distributed users can access their files from anywhere, and to replace traditional NAS environments, says Brent Ellis, analyst at Forrester.
Changes to the way we work have pushed a lot of businesses to adopt these services, but it was being driven by the move from capex to opex even before the pandemic.
At the basic level, cloud file services present enterprise customers with a file system-based architecture that allows storage of documents and other unstructured data.
This is distinct from block storage for applications, or cloud-based compute infrastructure. Under the skin, file services might be based on object storage, but suppliers present users with a file system, such as NFS or SMB.
This allows the cloud service to work in the same way as on-premise NAS, but with the added advantage of remote access, or access via a browser.
However, enterprise cloud file services are quite distinct from the file-sync-share services offered by the likes of Dropbox, Box, or even Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. These services are focused on individual users.
Consumer-oriented sync-and-share services lack the management and monitoring functions of enterprise cloud offerings, and typically work by synchronising files on a users desktop or other personal device. OneDrive, with its close ties to Microsoft Office 365, is a good example of this.
Although such services are useful on a per-user basis, they are not a replacement for NAS infrastructure or properly managed and secured enterprise cloud storage.
Cloud file storage aims to bridge that gap by offering end-user convenience and enterprise-level control.
Initially, enterprises might look to cloud file services as a way to move from on-premise hardware and the up-front capital spend required to an opex model. Cloud services also provide resilience and redundancy, because data is located off-site. And users can scale storage capacity more quickly, without recourse to physical hardware upgrades in the office or datacentre.
But these are not the only benefits. Often, businesses find that once they have moved to cloud infrastructure for file storage, it is the flexibility that keeps them there.
We are seeing users convert capex spend on a NAS to opex spend on per-user licences, so they can tailor their costs, says Forresters Ellis.
But at the same time, they enable a more mobile workforce, and eliminate some of the frustrations of using traditional file shares over VPNs. You can access files pretty much anywhere you can get a net connection.
Cloud file services can also achieve higher levels of availability than on-premise systems, he adds.
Broadly, CIOs should expect cloud file services to provide robust user account management and security, and high availability. They can also offer additional, NAS-style features, such as versioning and backup and recovery.
But enterprise cloud file services also provide features such as shared workspaces, multi-site collaboration and appliance-based file sync, which go beyond the sync-and-share offerings. File-based locking is critical to prevent users overwriting each others work. Buyers should also be able to specify where their data is stored, which is important for compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation and other regulations.
As with any cloud service, access to sufficient bandwidth can be a limitation, especially for the initial migration to the cloud. One way to address this, adopted by supplierrs such as Ctera and NetApp, is to provide a local appliance that manages on-going file upload and sync. That is especially useful for branch or remote offices that might lack connectivity.
Another limitation is contractual, rather than physical. Buyers of cloud file services need to understand the suppliers obligations in the event of an outage.
What measures does the supplier have in place to back up data, and to provide failover? If an organisation moves files to the cloud to reduce capex, it is possible it will no longer have on-premise hardware to fully recover and restore data. This is all the more critical if the service is being used for production data, rather than an application such as archiving.
IT managers should also consider how much control they will have over resources. Generally, with cloud or consumption-based pricing, you dont have hard [capacity] limits, says Ellis. Costs can get out of control if everyone keeps everything.
Features such as robust account control and tiering less-used data to lower-cost storage will help, he adds.
Suppliers might also claim to offer infinite capacity, so it pays to check the volume sizes that they actually offer and whether these are practical and fit the organisations workflows. And, as with all cloud storage, CIOs should check data egress charges.
Specialist cloud file services suppliers include Nasuni, Ctera and Panzura.
Nasuni is a file- and object-based storage system that can run on top of AWS, GCP or Azure.
Ctera emphasises its support for collaboration, enterprise file-sync-and-share, and its integration with Office. It also uses object storage under the hood, and has multi-cloud support.
Panzura also lists collaboration as one of its features, along with replacing NAS drives, and backup and recovery systems.
NetApp offers its Cloud Volumes for File Sharing, as well as shared block-and-file storage via its user-managed Cloud Volumes ONTAP architecture. This supports NFS, SMB and iSCSCI on top of AWSs S3, Azure and Google Cloud.
IBM offers cloud file storage in capacities up to 12,000GB.
Point solution suppliers emphasise that they can directly replace an organisations hardware NAS technology. They also promote other features, such as team collaboration, which are not usually native to a physical NAS device. They promote a greater range of features than those offered by the big three cloud hyperscalers, including more advanced backup and recovery services and the ability to support small offices, teams and individual users.
Services such as AWS are positioned towards more demanding, data-intensive applications such as content management and media, or big data analytics. These applications need file-based storage, but do not directly aim to replace local NAS hardware.
However, a direct comparison between specialist providers and the hyperscalers is complicated by the fact that the large cloud providers do offer basic file sharing in the form of home directories. And cloud file services, including NetApp, Ctera and Nasuni, work on top of the hyperscalers clouds.
Ultimately, the decision for each IT team will come down to features, reliability and cost.
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Five things you need to know about cloud file services - ComputerWeekly.com
WhatsApp will finally let users encrypt their chat backups in the cloud – TechCrunch
WhatsApp said on Friday it will give its two billion users the option to encrypt their chat backups to the cloud, taking a significant step to put a lid on one of the tricky ways private communication between individuals on the app can be compromised.
The Facebook-owned service has end-to-end encrypted chats between users for more than a decade. But users have had no option but to store their chat backup to their cloud iCloud on iPhones and Google Drive on Android in an unencrypted format.
Tapping these unencrypted WhatsApp chat backups on Google and Apple servers is one of the widely known ways law enforcement agencies across the globe have for years been able to access WhatsApp chats of suspect individuals.
Now WhatsApp says it is patching this weak link in the system.
WhatsApp is the first global messaging service at this scale to offer end-to-end encrypted messaging and backups, and getting there was a really hard technical challenge that required an entirely new framework for key storage and cloud storage across operating systems, said Facebooks chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in a post announcing the new feature.
The company said it has devised a system to enable WhatsApp users on Android and iOS to lock their chat backups with encryption keys. WhatsApp says it will offer users two ways to encrypt their cloud backups, and the feature is optional.
In the coming weeks, users on WhatsApp will see an option to generate a 64-digit encryption key to lock their chat backups in the cloud. Users can store the encryption key offline or in a password manager of their choice, or they can create a password that backs up their encryption key in a cloud-based backup key vault that WhatsApp has developed. The cloud-stored encryption key cant be used without the users password, which isnt known by WhatsApp.
Image Credits: WhatsApp/supplied
We know that some will prefer the 64-digit encryption key whereas others want something they can easily remember, so we will be including both options. Once a user sets their backup password, it is not known to us. They can reset it on their original device if they forget it, WhatsApp said.
For the 64-digit key, we will notify users multiple times when they sign up for end-to-end encrypted backups that if they lose their 64-digit key, we will not be able to restore their backup and that they should write it down. Before the setup is complete, well ask users to affirm that theyve saved their password or 64-digit encryption key.
A WhatsApp spokesperson told TechCrunch that once an encrypted backup is created, previous copies of the backup will be deleted. This will happen automatically and there is no action that a user will need to take, the spokesperson added.
The move to introduce this added layer of privacy is significant and one that could have far-reaching implications.
End-to-end encryption remains a thorny topic of discussion as governments continue to lobby for backdoors. Apple was reportedly pressured to not add encryption to iCloud Backups after the FBI complained, and while Google has offered users the ability to encrypt their data stored in Google Drive, the company allegedly didnt tell governments before it rolled out the feature.
When asked by TechCrunch whether WhatsApp, or its parent firm Facebook, had consulted with government bodies or if it had received their support during the development process of this feature, the company declined to discuss any such conversations.
Peoples messages are deeply personal and as we live more of our lives online, we believe companies should enhance the security they provide their users. By releasing this feature, we are providing our users with the option to add this additional layer of security for their backups if theyd like to, and were excited to give our users a meaningful advancement in the safety of their personal messages, the company told TechCrunch.
WhatsApp also confirmed that it will be rolling out this optional feature in every market where its app is operational. Its not uncommon for companies to withhold privacy features for legal and regulatory reasons. Apples upcoming encrypted browsing feature, for instance,wont be made available to users in certain authoritarian regimes, such as China, Belarus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines.
At any rate, Fridays announcement comes days after ProPublica reported that private end-to-end encrypted conversations between two users can be read by human contractors when messages are reported by users.
Making backups fully encrypted is really hard and its particularly hard to make it reliable and simple enough for people to use. No other messaging service at this scale has done this and provided this level of security for peoples messages, Uzma Barlaskar, product lead for privacy at WhatsApp, told TechCrunch.
Weve been working on this problem for many years, and to build this, we had to develop an entirely new framework for key storage and cloud storage that can be used across the worlds largest operating systems and that took time.
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WhatsApp will finally let users encrypt their chat backups in the cloud - TechCrunch
Mixed (Hybrid) Cloud Storage Solution Market Size, Share, Statistics, Trends, Types, Applications, Analysis and Forecast, Global Industry Research…
The latest business intelligence report of the Mixed (Hybrid) Cloud Storage Solution market, considering important factors like key growth drivers, remunerative prospects and restraints, outlines the growth trajectory of the business domain. It estimates that the vertical is poised to grow at XX% CAGR over 2021-2025, subsequently accumulating a valuation of USD XX by the end of the analysis timeframe.
Moreover, the document consists of detailed market segmentation data, including insights on the regional scope, followed by an assessment of the competitive dynamics. Further, it highlights various methodologies that can effectively address the disruptions brought forth by the Covid-19, so as to assist stakeholders in making right decisions for the future.
Market Rundown:
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Regional outlook:
Product terrain outline:
Application gamut overview:
Competitive landscape summary:
Key Indicators Analyzed
Market Analysis at Global and Regional Scale: The report elaborates on the current status of global & regional market and outlook for 2021-2025. It does so through a top-to-bottom assessment of the business landscape in each region & countries with respect to the consumption, production, import & export, and sales volume & revenue forecasts.
Product Type Analysis: The report hosts granular assessment for majority of the product types in Mixed (Hybrid) Cloud Storage Solution market, including product specifications by each key player, volume, along with sales in terms of volume & value (Mn USD).
Application Type Analysis: Major applications segments are covered, together with their respective market size, CAGR, and forecasts.
Market Players & Competitor Analysis: Prominent players are scrutinized with respect to their business profiles, specifications, production capacity/sales, prices, revenue, and sales & gross margin over 2016-2025 by product types.
Market Trends: Key industry trends including continuous innovations and intensifying competition are discussed exhaustively.
Drivers and Opportunities: Identification of the growing demands and new technologies.
Request Customization on This Report @ https://www.nwdiamondnotes.com/request-for-customization/8695
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Mixed (Hybrid) Cloud Storage Solution Market Size, Share, Statistics, Trends, Types, Applications, Analysis and Forecast, Global Industry Research...
Microsoft: We’ve fixed Azure container flaw that could have leaked data – ZDNet
Microsoft has revealed that it has fixed a bug in its Azure Container Instances (ACI) service that may have allowed a user to access other customers' information in the ACI.
ACI lets customers run applications in containers on Azure using virtual machines that are managed by Microsoft rather than managing their own.
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Researchers from Palo Alto Networks reported the security bug to Microsoft, which recently addressed the issue.
SEE:The CIO's new challenge: Making the case for the next big thing
Microsoft said in a blogpost there was no indication any customer information was accessed due to the vulnerability both in the cluster the researchers were using or in other clusters.
"Microsoft recently mitigated a vulnerability reported by a security researcher in the Azure Container Instances (ACI) that could potentially allow a user to access other customers' information in the ACI service. Our investigation surfaced no unauthorized access to customer data," it said.
Nonetheless, it has told customers who received a notification from it via the Azure Portal to revoke any privileged credentials that were deployed to the platform before August 31, 2021.
Ariel Zelivansky, researcher at Palo Alto, told Reuters his team used a known vulnerability to escape Azure's system for containers. Since it was not yet patched in Azure, this allowed them to gain full control of a cluster. Palo Alto reported the container escape to Microsoft in July.
Even without vulnerabilities, containerized applications, which are often hosted on cloud infrastructure, can be difficult to shield from attackers. The NSA and CISA recently issued guidance for organizations to harden containerized applications because their underlying infrastructure can be incredibly complex.
SEE: Open source matters, and it's about more than just free software
Microsoft noted that among other things admins should revoke privileged credentials on a regular basis.
Microsoft disclosed a separate Azure vulnerability two weeks ago affecting customers running NoSQL databases on Azure, which provides the Cosmos DB managed NoSQL DB service. A critical flaw, dubbed ChaosDB, allowed an attacker to read, modify or delete databases.
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Microsoft: We've fixed Azure container flaw that could have leaked data - ZDNet
AWS execs speak on the top priorities for on-prem to cloud migration – SiliconANGLE News
While organizations are increasingly embracing the value of cloud and hybrid cloud infrastructures for data management, storage and analysis, a few are reticent to make the big bold move of migrating their data over to the cloud.
We still see many customers that are evaluatinghow to do their cloud migration strategiesand theyre looking for, you know, understandingwhat services can help them with those migrations, saidMat Mathews (pictured, left), general manager of Transfer Service at Amazon Web Services Inc..
Mathews;Siddhartha Roy (pictured, second from right), general manager of Snow Family at AWS; andRandy Boutin (pictured, right), GM of DataSync at AWS,spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Medias livestreaming studio, during the AWS Storage Day event. They discussed the current state of enterprise cloud migration from an inside perspective. (* Disclosure below.)
Several data pointers clearly signal a clear shift in favor of cloud storage over conventional on-prem solutions. However, moving petabytes of data at a time can often seem daunting (or even expensive) for some organizations. Where do they start? What cloud provider is best suited for their needs? These are the sort of questions that often make the rounds, according to the executive panel.
Id recommend customers look at theircool and cold data. If they look at their backupsand archives and they have not been used for long,it doesnt make sense to keep them on-prem.Look at how you can move those and migrate those firstand then slowly work your way up into, like,warm data and then hot data, Roy stated.
Through its compelling cost savings to customers, long-standing durability record, and unwavering flexibility, AWS has proven itself time and again as the de-facto industry option in cloud storage services, according to the panel.
How do AWS customers figure out which services to use?It comes down to a combination of things, according to Boutin.
First is the amount of available bandwidththat you have, the amount of data that youre lookingto move, and the timeframe you have in which to do that, he said.So if you have a high speed, say, gigabit network,you can move data very quickly using DataSync.If you have a slower network or perhaps you dont wantto utilize your existing network for this purpose,then the Snow Family of products makes a lot of sense.
Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLEs and theCUBEs coverage of the AWS Storage Day event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Storage Day. Neither Amazon Web Services Inc., the sponsor of theCUBEs event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
We are holding our third cloud startup showcase on Sept. 22.Click here to join the free and open Startup Showcase event.
TheCUBEis part of re:Invent, you know,you guys really are a part of the eventand we really appreciate your coming hereand I know people appreciate thecontent you create as well Andy Jassy
We really want to hear from you, and were looking forward to seeing you at the event and in theCUBE Club.
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AWS execs speak on the top priorities for on-prem to cloud migration - SiliconANGLE News
The need for speed: Amazon uses SAN in the cloud to expedite users’ cloud migration process – SiliconANGLE News
Moving heavy workloads to the cloud, as essential as it is in todays digital economy, is a tough process. Technical debt and risk of error make migrating critical workloads a potential headache and stressor for a lot of companies seeking to join the digital revolution.
With Amazon Elastic Box Storage and its snapshots feature, capable of creating incremental backups, Amazon lessens the load of cloud migration and offers safe storage to those moving their data to the cloud, according toCami Tavares(pictured, right), senior manager of Amazon EBS at Amazon Web Services Inc., who believes using SAN in the cloud is the future of cloud storage, offering high-performance and agility to customers to move them to the cloud and thus the market faster.
When we look at the EBS portfolio and the evolution over the years, you can see that it was driven by customer need, and we have different volume types that have very specific performance characteristics that are built to meet these unique needs of customer workloads,Tavares said. Every business is a data business, and block storage is a foundational part of that.
Tavares and Ashish Palekar(pictured, left), general manager of EBS snapshots at AWS, spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Medias livestreaming studio, during the AWS Storage Day event. They discussed Amazon EBS, EBS snapshots, the announcement of io2 Block Express and more. (* Disclosure below.)
AWS made a few announcements that support SAN in the cloud. One of these announcements is io2 Block Express, a modular storage system offering four times the input/output operations per second.
Its a complete ground app, the invention of our storage product offering, and gives customers the same availability, durability and performance characteristics that theyre used to in their on-premises, Palekar explained.
With the sub-millisecond latency, performance and capacity from io2, customers can expect an easier and more efficient migration to the cloud.
Speed is one of the biggest motivators, according to customer feedback, for businesses moving to the cloud. SAN in the cloud specifically addresses this with its increased speed, with enterprises shelling over $22 million in 2021 in SANs, according to Tavares.
Its transformational for businesses to be able to change the customer experience for their customers and innovate at a much faster pace, Tavares said. With the block express product, you get to do that much faster. You can go from an idea to an implementation orders of magnitude faster.
Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLEs and theCUBEs coverage of the AWS Storage Day event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Storage Day. Neither Amazon Web Services Inc., the sponsor oftheCUBEs event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
We are holding our third cloud startup showcase on Sept. 22.Click here to join the free and open Startup Showcase event.
TheCUBEis part of re:Invent, you know,you guys really are a part of the eventand we really appreciate your coming hereand I know people appreciate thecontent you create as well Andy Jassy
We really want to hear from you, and were looking forward to seeing you at the event and in theCUBE Club.
Cloud is the ‘new normal’ as businesses boost resiliency and agility beyond COVID – SiliconANGLE News
The COVID-19 pandemic and the business challenges it caused were a catalyst for many companies to accelerate their migration to the cloud, and that trend is not likely to change anytime soon.
Amazon Web Services Inc. is betting on companies growing interest in building resilience and agility in the cloud beyond pandemic times, according to Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec (pictured), vice president of AWS Storage.
Were going to continue to see that rapid migrationto the cloud, because companies now knowthat in the course of days and months the whole world of your expectationsof where your business is going and where,what your customers are going to do, that can change, she said. And that can change not just for a year,but maybe longer than that.Thats the new normal.
Bukovec spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Medias livestreaming studio, during theAWS Storage Day event.They discussed how cloud is the new reality for enterprises, how AWS storage fits into the data fabric debate, and what AWS thinks about its storage strategy and about business going hybrid.(* Disclosure below.)
While the cloud is seen as the new normal for businesses, the paths enterprises use to get there remain diverse. AWS customers typically fall into one of three patterns, the fastest being where they choose to move their core business mission to the cloud because they can no longer scale on-premises, according to Bukovec.
Its not technology that stops peoplefrom moving to the cloud as quick as they want to; its culture, its people, its processes,its how businesses work, she explained. And when you move the crown jewels into the cloud,you are accelerating that cultural change.
Other companies follow what Bukovec sees as the slower path, which is to take a few applications across the organization and move them to the cloud as a reference implementation. In this model of cloud pilots, the goal is to try to get the people who have done thisto generalize the learning across the company.
Its actually counterproductive to a lot of companiesthat want to move quickly to the cloud, Bukovec said.
The third pattern is what AWS calls new applications or cloud-first, when a company decides that all new technology initiatives will be in the cloud. That allows the business to be able to see cloud ideas and technology in different parts of its structure, generating a decentralized learning process with a faster culture change than in the previous pattern.
While cloud storage is centralized, it fully fits into the emerging trend known as data mesh, according to Bukovec. As first defined by Zhamak Dehghani, a ThoughtWorks consultant,a data meshis a type of data decentralized architecture that embraces the ubiquity of data in the enterprise by leveraging a domain-oriented, self-serve design.
Data mesh presupposes separating the data storageand the characteristics of datafrom the data services that interactand operate on that storage, Bukovec explained. The idea is to ensure that the decentralized business model can work with this data and innovate faster.
Our AWS customers are putting their storagein a centralized place because its easier to track,its easier to view compliance, and its easier to predict growth and control costs, but we started with building blocksand we deliberately built our storage servicesseparate from our data services, Bukovec said. We have a number of these data servicesthat our customers are using to buildthat customized data meshon top of that centralized storage.
Heres the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLEs and theCUBEs coverage of the AWS Storage Day event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Storage Day. Neither AWS, the sponsor of theCUBEs event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
We are holding our third cloud startup showcase on Sept. 22.Click here to join the free and open Startup Showcase event.
TheCUBEis part of re:Invent, you know,you guys really are a part of the eventand we really appreciate your coming hereand I know people appreciate thecontent you create as well Andy Jassy
We really want to hear from you, and were looking forward to seeing you at the event and in theCUBE Club.
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Cloud is the 'new normal' as businesses boost resiliency and agility beyond COVID - SiliconANGLE News
Microsoft teases new super simple OneDrive interface – TechRadar
Finding the right files in Microsoft's cloud storage service will soon be even easier as the software giant is currently working on a new interface for OneDrive.
According to a new post on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, OneDrive will soon be getting a new command bar later this month.
With this update, OneDrive users will easily be able to identify the right file and access primary commands. However, the simplified view in OneDrive's new interface will also help boost productivity as it allows users to focus on the content they're working on as they won't be distracted by additional menus.
In two separate posts, Microsoft also revealed that OneDrive will also be getting a new sharing experience in November of this year.
The company is updating OneDrive's Share menu to provide easy access to additional sharing options such as email, copy link, Teams chat as well as manage to access settings.
However, the Copy link button is set to be replaced by a footer where users will be able to set permissions before copying links and sharing them with recipients.
After releasing the 64-bit version of OneDrive earlier this year, Microsoft has continually updated its cloud storage service and it will be interesting to see how these visual and sharing updates pan out.
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Microsoft teases new super simple OneDrive interface - TechRadar
Italy says bids for national cloud hub expected this month – iTnews
Italy expects to receive bids by the end of September from companies interested in building a national cloud hub, a 900-million-euro (A$1.4 billion) project to upgrade the country's data storage facilities, a government minister said.
Part of EU-funded projects to help Italy's economy recover from the pandemic, the cloud hub initiative reflects European efforts to make the 27-member bloc less dependent on large overseas tech companies for cloud services.
"I'm confident we will receive some expressions of interest by the end of the month," Innovation Minister Vittorio Colao, a former head of telecom giant Vodafone, told reporters during an annual business conference in Cernobbio on Lake Como.
"Technological independence of Europe is important because it allows the bloc to negotiate (with foreign partners) on an equal footing," Colao said, adding he had discussed the issue with French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire at the conference.
In the Recovery Plan sent to Brussels in April to access EU funds, Rome earmarked 900 million euros for the cloud hub project, according to sources and documents seen by Reuters.
Sources told Reuters in June that Italian state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti was considering an alliance with Telecom Italia and defence group Leonardo in the race to create the cloud hub.
US tech giants such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon, which dominate the data storage industry, could provide their cloud technology to the cloud hub, if licensed to companies taking part in the hub project, officials have said.
Such a structure would be aimed at soothing concerns over the risk of US surveillance in the wake of the adoption of the US CLOUD Act of 2018, which can require US-based tech firms to provide data to Washington even if it is stored abroad.
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Italy says bids for national cloud hub expected this month - iTnews
Pure Storage tantalises with reinvention possibilities Blocks and Files – Blocks and Files
Pure Storage has flagged a major announcement on September 28th. A financial analysts briefing is scheduled to follow the announcement, suggesting news that will affect investors views of Pures future revenues, costs and underlying profitability measures. The company is saying the announcement is about AIOps, the future of storage, storage and DevOps product innovations, and its as-a-Service offerings. What could it announce that could cause analysts to take stock and form a different view of the company?
We ignored the AIOps aspect, as that would be a fairly incremental move, and came up with a list of potential developments:
Hardware array refreshes would be good. Using the latest Xeon processors, for example, supporting PCIe gen-4, that sort of thing but they would hardly move the needle for financial analysts. Possibly committing to support DPUs from Pensando or Fungible might do that. Still, not exactly that much impact on a financial analysts twitch-ometer.
Porting FlashBlade software to one or more public clouds would seem both logical and good sense. It would be additive to the FlashBlade market and we think analysts would concur, nod approvingly and move on. Ditto porting Cloud Block Store to the Google Cloud Platform. Expansion into adjacent market? Tick. Stronger competition for NetApp data fabric idea? Tick. Whats not to like? Nothing. Move on.
Adding file and block support to Cloud Block Store? Trivially there would be a naming problem: do we call it Cloud Block File Object Store? It would seem a logical extension of Pures public cloud capabilities and an improvement in the cross-cloud consistency of Pures hybrid cloud story. We cant imagine analysts would see a downside here.
It could be achieved with another strategy: make the Purity OS software cloud-native and have it run un the public clouds. That would be a big deal with a common code tree and four deployment layers: on-premises arrays, AWS, Azure and GCP. It would be a large very large software effort and give Pure a great hybrid cloud story with lots of scope for software revenue growth. Cue making sure the analysts understand this. An AIOps extension could be added in to strengthen the story as well.
How about doing a Silk, Qumulo or VAST Data, and walking away from hardware manufacturing using a close relationship with a contract manufacturer/distributor instead and certified configurations? Thus would be a major business change, and both analysts and customers would want reassuring that Pure would not lose its hardware design mojo.
A lesser hardware change would be to use commodity SSDs instead of Pure designing its own flash storage drives and controllers. Our instant reaction is a thumbs down, as Pure has consistently said its hardware is superior to COTS SSD vendors such as Dell, HPE and NetApp because it optimises flash efficiency, performance and endurance better than it could if it was limited by SSD constraints.
Such a change would still get analysts in a tizzy. But we dont think it likely, even if Pure could pitch a good cost-saving and no-performance-impact story.
How about a strategic deal with a public cloud vendor similar to the AWS-NetApp FSx for ONTAP deal? That would indeed be a coup having, say, Pures block storage available alongside the cloud vendors native block storage. We dont think it likely, though it has to be on the possibles list.
Expanding the Pure-as-a-Service strategy to include all of Pures products would be an incremental move and so no big deal to people who had taken the basic idea on board already. Analysts would need a talking-to perhaps, to be persuaded that this was worth doing in Annual Recurring Revenue growth terms. This could be thought of as Pure doing a me-too with HPEs GreenLake and Dells APEX strategies.
How about Pure acting as a cloud access broker and front-end concierge supplier, rather like NetApp with its Spot-based products? That would be big news and require new software and a concerted marketing and sales effort. AIOps could play a role here too. Our view, based on gut feelings alone, is that this is an unlikely move although it would be good to see NetApp getting competition.
We are left thinking that the likeliest announcements will be about making more of Pures software available in the public clouds, plus an extension of Pures as-a-Service offerings and a by-the-way set of hardware refreshes. Well see how well our predictions match up with reality on September 28 and mentally prepare for a kicking just in case we are way off base.
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Pure Storage tantalises with reinvention possibilities Blocks and Files - Blocks and Files