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2 Cloud Stocks That Are Still Growing Fast – The Motley Fool

Cloud-based companies that sell to businesses are dealing with customer bases that are looking for ways to cut costs. Hiring freezes, layoffs, and other cost-cutting measures are becoming commonplace. For cloud infrastructure and software providers, this means customers are taking a hard look at their current suppliers and potentially putting the brakes on adopting new products.

Growth for cloud companies in general is going to be slower overall this year than it was during the pandemic. But that doesn't mean there aren't good opportunities for investors. Two cloud companies that have managed to maintain solid growth rates despite a tough economy are cloud infrastructure provider DigitalOcean (DOCN -2.25%) and data platform Snowflake (SNOW 0.34%).

Here's why investors should consider these fast-growing cloud stocks.

There's a big market for simple and affordable cloud infrastructure. Developers and small businesses often don't have the time, resources, or desire to wade through the mess of options, features, and products on a platform like Amazon Web Services. And they certainly don't want a surprise cloud bill, the result of opaque and hard-to-predict pricing schemes.

DigitalOcean puts simplicity first, with just enough products and services to handle the needs of its customers. There's no laundry list of overlapping and redundant products, and pricing is easy to understand.

This simplicity has resonated with DigitalOcean's customers. Revenue jumped 34% year over year in 2022 thanks to a combination of new customers and increased spending from existing customers. The company's net dollar retention rate stood at 112% in the fourth quarter, and the average monthly revenue per customer shot up 22% to just over $80.

DigitalOcean's growth is expected to slow a bit this year, not surprising given the state of the economy. The good news is that the company still sees revenue rising about 23% from 2022. That's nothing to sneeze at, and growth should reaccelerate once the economic environment shifts in a more favorable direction.

One part of DigitalOcean's growth strategy is to use acquisitions to bolster its platform, all the while keeping simplicity front and center. The company acquired Nimbella in 2021 and leveraged that company's tech to launch a serverless functions product; it acquired managed cloud hosting provider Cloudways in 2022 to expand its portfolio of high-value and low-maintenance solutions; and it acquired upstart SnapShooter in January to offer its customers a dead-simple backup product and expand its data-related revenue.

DigitalOcean has been successful because it does things differently than the cloud giants. It doesn't try to offer every imaginable service, and it doesn't go after every type of customer. Instead, the company is laser focused on the basic building blocks of cloud computing and offering customers easy, managed, no-fuss solutions. That strategy is working, and while growth is temporarily slowing down, DigitalOcean is on a path to become a much larger company over the next decade.

Large enterprises often have critical data spread across on-premises infrastructure and multiple cloud platforms. That data comes in different flavors, some structured, some semi-structured, and some entirely unstructured. Making the best use of this data requires a platform capable of ingesting, aggregating, and analyzing all of it. That's Snowflake in a nutshell.

You only have to look at Snowflake's financial performance to understand how popular the platform has become for enterprises. Revenue soared 54% year over year in the fourth quarter, and Snowflake's net revenue retention rate stood at an impressive 158%. Once a customer adopts Snowflake's platform, they tend to rapidly grow their spending.

Snowflake has nearly 8,000 customers, and 330 of them have spent at least $1 million over a 12-month period. Snowflake does expect growth to slow this year as customers react to a tough economic environment, but the company is still calling for a 40% rise in product revenue for the current fiscal year. Other subscription software and cloud companies are being hit much harder by the macroeconomic environment, a testament to the stickiness and importance of Snowflake's platform.

Snowflake is an expensive stock to be sure. Its forward price-to-sales ratio sits around 17, and the company hasn't yet produced profits according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). But free cash flow is squarely positive, and the company is confident enough to roll out a $2 billion share buyback program.

If you're looking to invest in the cloud and want the absolute best growth prospects available, Snowflake is the obvious choice.

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Timothy Green has positions in DigitalOcean. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon.com, DigitalOcean, and Snowflake. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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2 Cloud Stocks That Are Still Growing Fast - The Motley Fool

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Just because on-prem is cheaper doesnt make the cloud a money pit – The Register

Comment With cloud costs expected to rise over the next year, you might be considering moving your applications back on-prem or to a colocation facility after all, it worked for 37Signals.

Earlier this year, the Basecamp project management and Hey email developer revealed the $3.2 million cloud hosting bill that spurred its decision to ditch the cloud and rack up its own servers instead.

It's an attractive prospect, especially if your workloads are predictable. The general consensus here is that the ability to rapidly spin up or down additional resources makes the cloud a good choice for bursty or unpredictable applications. But, as soon as compute demands stabilize, the cloud stops making as much sense, and tossing a couple servers in a rack ends up being a lot less expensive. Dropbox figured this out when it ditched AWS back in 2016, and was a central argument at the heart of 37Signals' decision.

The tricky part, of course, is that momentum is hard to overcome, and once the data is in the cloud, the high cost of migration egress fees in particular means it's often easier to leave where it is.

However, as the Uptime Institute recently pointed out, while some business models will benefit from what they described as cloud repatriation aka moving workloads back on-prem it's not as simple as 37Signals or Dropbox might have you believe.

"Very few organizations are moving away from the public cloud strategically let alone altogether," Uptime analyst Owen Rogers wrote in a recent blog post.

What's more, the analysts report that many of the same forces driving up cloud costs are negatively impacting colos and private datacenters too, which means the savings made from ditching the cloud may not be as large as enterprises are expecting.

The reason is multifaceted, but it's rooted in ongoing supply chain issues, increased labor and energy costs, as well as a lack of cheap capital which has been compounded by inflation.

Another factor likely to drive up datacenter costs, according to Uptime, are sustainability mandates. Some jurisdictions, including Amsterdam and Singapore, have enacted efficiency mandates on datacenters. The European Commission also is working to roll out datacenter efficiency mandates of its own, while in the US, several state governments, including Oregon, are weighing similar measures.

Depending on how stringent these requirements are, the cost of building datacenters could go up considerably as operators are forced to change how they build facilities and deploy compute. And in what should surprise no one, operators aren't exactly thrilled about it. Last month, local media in Oregon reported that cloud provider Amazon was pushing back against a proposed law that would force greenhouse gas reductions and fine datacenters that failed to meet sustainability mandates.

These factors combined, Uptime argues, mean that building and running datacenters is going to be more expensive moving forward. And we don't expect colocation facilities are going to eat the higher cost of doing business. More likely, they're going to pass those costs onto their customers in the form of more expensive leases or maintenance fees.

For the time being, Uptime notes on-prem and colocation datacenter hosting is still less expensive than the cloud. However, that doesn't mean that everyone should follow 37Signals' or Dropbox's lead.

The reality, the analysts contend, is this isn't a black-and-white, all-or-nothing issue where folks have to make a decision whether to use the cloud or not. "Some applications can be migrated to the public cloud and perform as expected at an affordable price; others may be less successful," Rogers wrote.

According to Uptime, one of the common threads connecting 37Signals, Dropbox, and other examples of cloud repatriation isn't just that their compute and storage needs scaled predictably, but they may not have been able to take advantage of cloud services, like data analytics, to derive additional value.

"If a cloud analytics service one that would otherwise be time consuming and costly to deploy privately could use this data source to help create drugs or treatments, the price would probably be worth paying," Rogers explained.

Another element worth pointing out is management. For smaller deployments, the cloud may end up being less expensive than hosting the service on-prem or in a colocation facility if doing so requires additional staff to manage it. As we've previously reported, datacenter operators are already struggling to fill positions.

With that said, several colocation providers have rolled out services designed to make deploying compute in their facilities feel less like renting a rack and more like a bare-metal cloud. For example, both Equinix and Cyxtera offer self-service portals for provisioning bare-metal servers, networking, and all manner of software.

Despite these options, and lower prices, it's unlikely enterprises will abandon the cloud altogether. According to Uptime's annual datacenter capacity survey, just 6 percent of respondents said they were giving up on the cloud altogether. Instead, analysts expect that hybrid approaches involving a mix of on-prem and cloud deployments will continue to the norm.

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Top 15 WPX Competitors and Alternatives – Business Strategy Hub

WPX is a leading hosting provider based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Terry Kyle and Georgi Petrov founded the company in 2013 to deliver a fast-loading hosting service for WordPress sites.

Website owners can access WPXs managed WordPress hosting on shared servers via three paid plans.

The pricing starts from $20.83 per month to $83.25 per month. All three options offer robust features, including WordPress installation, SSL certificates, DDoS protection, CDN, email addresses, staging, plugins, layouts, and site speed optimization. [1]

WPX offers a high-performance hosting solution for WordPress websites. The main reason website owners use WPX is its fast-loading capabilities. However, it also provides innovative features to address the common SEO challenges on hosted WordPress websites.

First-time users can access free site migration services to move everything from the current host to their new WPX hosting account. Moreover, WPX performs website backups daily and allows website owners to retrieve lost or damaged files free of charge.

However, the company faces stiff competition from Kinsta, Cloudways, WP Engine, SiteGround, A2 Hosting, GoDaddy, and Bluehost. [2]

Here is an in-depth analysis of WPXs top 15 competitors and alternatives:

Year founded:2013 Headquarter:Los Angeles, California

Kinsta is a cloud hosting provider and one of the fastest-growing players in the sector. It offers managed WordPress hosting powered by Google Cloud Platform. In 2022, Kinsta had over 55,000 users and 100,000 live customer projects.

Kinsta and WPX offer managed WordPress hosting, but Kinsta was the first cloud hosting service powered by the Google Cloud Platform. Users can choose from over 35 data centers spread across the globe to boost website loading speed.

In Nov 2022, Kinsta launched new Application and Database Hosting solutions to expand beyond WordPress. Both enable developers and businesses to run robust applications, websites, databases, and services. Kinsta is the top WPX competitor and alternative. [3]

Year founded:2011 Headquarter:Sliema, Malta

Cloudwaysis a managed cloud hosting solution provider that caters to agencies, bloggers, e-commerce, and developers. According to G2, Cloudways has a 4.8-star rating from 399 customer reviews.

Cloudways hosts managed WordPress websites in five cloud servers, including DigitalOcean,Google Cloud, AWS, Linode, and Vultr. Like WPX, Cloudways offers automated backups and fast load speeds.

However, Cloudways users can choose different cloud servers to cut costs or meet unique website hosting needs. For example, website owners pay $10 per month to host on DigitalOcean servers and $33.18 per month for Google Cloud servers. This flexibility in pricing increases Cloudways competitive advantage over WPX. [4]

Year founded:2010 Headquarter:Austin, Texas

WP Engine is a leading WordPress technology company. Like WPX, WP Engine offers WordPress hosting, but the company also provides other solutions, including WPs Local for WordPress site development, the Genesis theme framework, andAtlas Content Modeler.

WP Engine is renowned for its traditional and headless managed WordPress offerings. In Jun 2022, the company acquired five developer-centric tools for WordPress from Delicious Brains. These plugins includeACF,WP Migrate,WP Offload Media,WP Offload SES, and Better Search Replace.

Around 4 million users have installed these tools on their websites, making WP Engine one of the best WPX alternatives. [5]

Year founded:2004 Headquarter:Sofia, Bulgaria

SiteGround is a Bulgarian web hosting company. It offers shared hosting, cloud hosting, enterprise solutions, email hosting, and domain registration. In 2022, the platform hosted over 2.8 million domains worldwide.

SiteGround offers three paid options with robust features.Customers with only one website can subscribe to the StartUp plan with 10GB SSD storage space and bandwidth to support around 10,000 monthly visitors. Advanced tiers support unlimited websites and offer more storage space and bandwidth.

Like WPX, SiteGround also provides security tools, a monitoring system, and SSL certificates in every plan. SiteGround is a worthy WPX alternative. [6]

Year founded:2003 Headquarter:Ann Arbor, Michigan

A2 Hosting is a high-performance WordPress, virtual private server (VPS), dedicated, and reseller hosting provider.

It combines its SwiftServer and Turbo Servers to ensure web pages load 20 times faster than standard hosting. In Jan 2023, A2 Hosting had 110,000 customers from 223 countries.

The main competitive advantage of A2 Hosting is its wide variety of hosting services. Site owners can access shared and managed WordPress hosting, unmanaged and managed VPS or dedicated hosting, and shared reseller hosting.

Like WPX, A2 offers domains, SSL certificates, email, and free website migration. Its paid plans range from $10.99/m to $749.99/m. In Jan 2023, A2 Hosting was ranked #4 in the US News 360sBest Web Hosting Service list. A2 is one of the top alternatives to WPX. [7]

Year founded:1997 Headquarter:Tempe, Arizona

GoDaddy is a publicly traded company that provides Internet domain registration and web hosting services. It helps entrepreneurs start, grow, and scale their businesses. In Dec 2021, GoDaddy had over 6,600 employees and more than 21 million customers worldwide.

GoDaddy offers more than web hosting. Businesses can use the platform with user-friendly tools to build online stores, sell products and services, and accept payments.

In Q3 2022, GoDaddy expanded its relationship with AWS to allow customers to migrate workloads and development to the cloud. GoDaddy is a worthy WPX competitor. [8]

Year founded:2003 Headquarter:Orem, Utah

Bluehost is a leading web hosting provider and a subsidiary of Endurance International Group. Within seven years of its inception, the platform had over 2 million domains. It offers shared, WordPress, VPS, and dedicated hosting services.

Bluehost offers more hosting services than WPX and combines its website management tools and cPanel to boost user experience and functionality.

In Nov 2022, Bluehosts Online Store + Marketplace won the BIG Award in the New Product of the Year category. This e-commerce solution helps small businesses build online stores without writing a single code. Users can manage inventory across multiple marketplaces, making Bluehost one of the best WPX alternatives for hosting e-commerce websites. [9]

Year founded:2010 Headquarter:San Francisco, California

Pantheon offers a SaaS website operations (WebOps) platform for open-source Drupal and WordPress websites. Users can access its solutions on a monthly subscription basis. In 2022, Pantheon had around 370 employees.

Pantheons app-specific platform combines web hostingand management services and cloud-based web development tools. Developers can use Drupal 7, Drupal 8, Drupal 9, WordPress, or profile installations likeOpen Atrium.

The main advantage of Pantheon is its free-to-use open-source offering. In May 2022, Pantheon was recognized in the Forrester Research Now Tech: Agile Content Management Systems (CMS). Pantheon is one of the top alternatives to WPX. [10]

Year founded:2010 Headquarter:Seattle, Washington

Hostwinds is a web hosting service with 99.9% server uptime and unlimited storage on all plans. The company offers VPS, cloud, and dedicated server hosting.

Hostwinds provides services for businesses and individual consumers. Both options use similar pricing tiers, but business packages offer fast loading speeds with Litespeed web servers.

Like WPX, Hostwinds delivers free SSL certificates, backup services, and network optimization tools, making it a worthy WPX alternative for small businesses. [11]

Year founded:1997 Headquarter:Lansing, Michigan

Liquid Web is a leading cloud hosting and software solution provider for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It offers high-performance managed hosting. In 2022, the company hosted over 500,000 sites and supported 175,000 software subscribers.

Both Liquid Web and WPX offer WordPress hosting, but Liquid Web also provides digital commerce cloud via Nexcess, WordPress tools via StellarWP, and enterprise WordPress agency via Modern Tribe.

In 2022, Liquid Web had more than 2.5 million free version software users. Liquid Web is one of the top alternatives to WPX for small and medium-sized businesses, agencies, designers, and developers. [12]

Year founded:1988 Headquarter:Montabaur, Germany

IONOSis Europes largestweb hosting company. It has more than six million customers across 18 markets in Europe and North America. In Aug 2021, the company rebranded from 1&1 IONOSand1&1 Internet to IONOS Inc.

WPX and IONOS provide web and cloud hosting, domain registration, SSL certificates, and email services; however, IONOS also offers a website builder, VPS, and dedicated servers.

In 2022, IONOS was the leading web-hosting provider in Germany, Spain, the UK, France, and Poland, and it seeks to expand its footprint in North America in 2023. Currently, IONOS is the top WPX competitor and alternative in Europe. [13]

Year founded:2001 Headquarter:Virginia Beach, Virginia

InMotion Hosting provides web hosting, managed services, and cloud-based solutions. Like WPX, InMotion Hosting offers WordPress, VPS, and shared hosting, along with its dedicated servers and OpenStack private clouds.

The main benefit of using InMotion Hosting is its competitive money-back guarantee policy. First-time subscribers get a 90-day free trial before upgrading to paid tiers with affordable pricing. For example, InMotions Pro plan provides unlimited storage, email addresses, and a dedicated IP for $13.99/month.

This option supports unlimited websites and superfast loading speed and performance, making InMotion Hosting an affordable alternative to WPX. [14]

Year founded:1996 Headquarter:Los Angeles, California

DreamHost is a New Dream Network company that provides web hosting and domain name registration. It offers shared WordPress and VPS hosting solutions for large-scale projects. According to the DreamHost website, the companys paid plan starts at $2.59/month.

Both DreamHost and WPX provide WordPress hosting. Additionally, website owners can subscribe to DreamHosts DreamPress to access managed hosting and dedicated servers.

Like WPX, DreamHost offers free domain registration, SSL, content delivery network, bandwidth, and backup service, establishing DreamHost as one of the top WPX competitors. [15]

Year founded:2002 Headquarter:Houston, Texas

HostGator provides shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated web hosting. It offers Linux and Windows-based shared hosting packages with several paid plans for each option.

In 2022, HostGator charged $11.96/month to $17.96/month for Linux-based hosting and $7.96/month to $15.96/month for Windows-based services. [16]

HostGator offers free SSL, storage, domains, dedicated IP, SEO tools, email, data storage, and data transfer services, but all plans dont provide these features.

For example, Linux-based hosting customers under the Hatchling plan get unlimited disk space, monthly data transfers, email addresses, one domain, and third-party apps such as CMS and e-commerce platforms. HostGator is one of the best alternatives to WPX.

Year founded:2000 Headquarter:Phoenix, Arizona

Namecheap provides web hosting and domain registration. It is an ICANN-accredited domain name registrar. In 2022, Namecheap had 11 million registered users and 10 million domains.

Namecheap provides budget-friendly web hosting services. Users can choose from three plans Stellar for $2.18/month, Stellar Plus for $2.98/m, and Stellar Business for $4.98/m.

All tiers offer unlimited bandwidth, free email accounts, and one free SSL certificate installation. Namecheap is one of the best alternatives to WPX. [17]

References & more information

Tell us what you think? Did you find this article interesting? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.

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Introducing a Comprehensive and Feature Rich Cloud Management … – EIN News

IG CloudOps assembles the best-of-breed open-source solutions with CloudOps being the glue that gives you a single management view of all your cloud assets

London, England - IG CloudOps, a leading provider of cloud solutions, is pleased to announce the launch of its latest update to CloudOps, a comprehensive and feature-rich cloud management platform. The platform is designed to streamline cloud management and simplify the deployment and management of cloud resources. IG CloudOps offers a unified platform for managing infrastructure, applications, and services across multi-cloud environments.

The IG CloudOps platform offers a range of features, including cloud resource optimisation, cloud automation, and security management. The platform provides a single pane of glass view of all cloud resources, enabling users to monitor and manage their infrastructure and applications in real-time.

"We are excited to introduce our latest updated cloud management platform, which offers a range of features to help businesses manage their cloud resources effectively," said Garry Forsyth, Chief Technology Officer of IG CloudOps. "The platform provides a single view of all cloud resources, enabling users to optimize their infrastructure, automate their cloud operations, and ensure the security of their cloud environments across AWS & Azure."

The IG CloudOps platform is designed to be easy to use, with a user-friendly interface that simplifies cloud management. The platform offers a range of tools and features to help users manage their cloud resources, including:

Monitoring: Driven by Zabbix "Monitoring anything anywhere" gives you a complete view of all your cloud assets in one place.

Live cost information: The platform integrates directly with AWS and Azure's APIs to give live cost data for real-time and historic analysis. Combined with the monitoring data this provides a powerful way to judge the loads on your workloads and tune them accordingly.

Security Management: The platform offers a range of security management tools to help users ensure the security of their cloud environments, including application penetration testing, and security auditing. This is driven by Saltstack, Jenkins and PENtest tools, all leading open-source and commercial solutions.

The IG CloudOps platform is designed to support multi-cloud environments, allowing users to manage their resources across different cloud providers. The platform supports popular cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.

"We understand that many businesses operate in multi-cloud environments, which can be challenging to manage," said Steve Rastall, MD, IG CloudOps. "Our platform is designed to support multi-cloud environments, providing a unified platform for managing resources across different cloud providers."

IG CloudOps is committed to providing its customers with innovative cloud solutions that help them achieve their business goals. The IG CloudOps platform is the latest addition to the company's suite of cloud solutions, which includes cloud migration, cloud hosting, and cloud consulting services.

About IG CloudOps:

IG CloudOps is a leading provider of cloud solutions, offering a range of services to help businesses migrate to the cloud, host their applications and infrastructure, and manage their cloud environments. The company is committed to providing its customers with innovative solutions that help them achieve their business goals.

For more information, please visit https://www.igroupltd.co.uk/about-us

Contact: Steve Rastall, MD

Email: sales@igroupltd.co.uk

Stephen RastallIG CloudOps+ +447921624502email us hereVisit us on social media:FacebookTwitterLinkedInYouTube

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April 11, 2023, 10:02 GMT

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Sell-Side Technology Awards 2023: Best cloud provider to the sell … – www.waterstechnology.com

Overview

The BT Radianz Cloud provides connectivity to the global financial services community, offering a content- and application-neutral platform optimized for the time-critical demands of the capital markets. These capabilities along with the scale of its member community are integral to its appeal to the sell side.

BT Radianz operates a multi-cloudmanaged services model, offering a management overlay for customers accessing both traditional private cloud services and public hyperscalers (clouds), including AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, with which BT Group has partnership agreements. This enables customers to better manage their cloud environments and helps ensure operational efficiency, as well as addressing security and compliance concerns.

Over the past 12 months, BT Radianz has added 23 new providers and 88 new apps to the BT Radianz Cloud. With institutional interest in digital assets continuing to accelerate, the firm partnered with Kaiko to provide its members with connectivity to Kaikos market data feed across the full cryptocurrency lifecycle. It has also expanded its coverage across the Middle East to include market data services from the Saudi Stock Exchange. This reflects a growth in trading volumes on the exchange and interest in simpler, more cost-effective connectivity solutions from the UK and Europe.

With customers hosting more of their applications across multiple clouds, networks are now increasingly vital for all elements of business performance, including carbon impact. Last year, BT Radianz launched two new digital tools to help customers measure and optimize their carbon footprintthe Carbon Network Dashboard, which provides customers with real-time views of their power consumption; and the Digital Carbon Calculator, which estimates the carbon footprint of a customers network. The firm has also introduced SOC2 compliance standards in addition to its current ISO27001 certification.

BT is developing a new programmable cloud-centric global network, offering:

BT Radianz will be revamping its network edge infrastructure over the next 12 to 18 months.

BT Radianz is no stranger to the winners circle of these and the annual Buy-Side Technology Awards, having walked away with the title across both awards programs on no fewer than half a dozen occasions in recent years. Its easy to appreciate BT Radianz sell-side appeal: It serves as a hub around which large numbers of capital markets service providers, application providers and consumers coalesce, effectively constituting an exclusive capital markets network and community. Its alliances with the cloud industrys largest namesAWS, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azureallow clients to optimize their cloud environments, while simultaneously addressing security and compliance concerns.

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Sell-Side Technology Awards 2023: Best cloud provider to the sell ... - http://www.waterstechnology.com

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Connect anyone, anywhere, anytime: SSC slated to test Enigma infrastructure in June – Breaking Defense

All Domain, Networks / Cyber, Space

WASHINGTON Space Systems Command in June plans to start testing the first set of hardware and infrastructure deliverables under its new Enigma program, meant to seamlessly facilitate collaboration between industry and the Defense Department under one common environment, a service official told Breaking Defense.

The problem that were trying to go after is being able to connect to anyone, anywhere, anytime that we want to, in a secure fashion, and in a way that we have a good user experience associated with it as well, Col. Jennifer Krolikowski, director of Space System Commands chief information office, told Breaking Defense at the sidelines of the AFCEA Tech Summit.

So were trying to have a full integrated picture from device to transportto the cloud environment or the hosting environment where we can do our actual work.

Put simply, Enigma will provide one single cloud-based environment where both industry and DoD can collaborate on a shared network. Those things can include digital engineering, or devsecops, or just regular collaboration on documents or something like that, Krolikowski said. She added that Space Systems Command is trying to create an integrated full picture of how data is generated, transported [and] secured from a full end-to-end perspective, something that currently doesnt exist.

In March, General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) was awarded an $18 million contract to build out an Enigma prototype. The prototype is currently being built out and Space Systems Command is on a very fast track with it, with the first deliverable slated for June, Krolikowski said during her keynote speech at the event.

She elaborated on that first deliverable after her speech to Breaking Defense, saying the work being done encompasses deploying all of the hardware and infrastructure that needs to be in place.

Space Systems Command is trying to use industry as much as possible for the solution versus us building it from scratch and then also having them operate it for us as well.So those connection points are going to be deployed out here in short order, and then start to do some of the early testing and adoption for it, she added.

The first phase of Enigma will span Impact Levels 5 and 6 (IL5 and IL6) classification levels, or unclassified level up to the classified secret level for national security systems.

Its eventually meant to work up to the highest Special Access Program (SAP) classification level that another effort currently being built out, called the integrated operations network (ION), will span, Krolikowski told Breaking Defense. Space Force Chief Technology Information Officer Lisa Costa is spearheading the effort to build out the ION.

Enigmas always meant to scale up to that SAP level as well, Krolikowski said. But with the work that [Costas] doing, we may be able to get there a little bit faster.

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Connect anyone, anywhere, anytime: SSC slated to test Enigma infrastructure in June - Breaking Defense

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EDITORIAL As CPaaS booms, is it time to starting adding AR, VR … – Telemedia Online

The CPaaS market has been a hot topic in telemedia for some time. While some in the industry argue that it is really nothing new, just cloud hosting of services many already offered, the fact that big business is embracing it to the extent that it is now predicted to be worth $42bn globally this year shows that either way, it is now very much an entrenched part of global business.

Indeed, eight out of ten businesses that employ this sort of tech met their financial targets in 2022, despite the worlds economies hitting some severe turbulence. Clearly, having the widest range of messaging platforms works.

And that is no surprise. Consumers are using a raft of platforms to communicate through and commerce needs to be there too. The big driver now is adding social media and social direct messaging channels to these platforms, as this is increasingly the preserve of how Gen Z and millennials want to interact.

But what of the younger generations, the Gen X and Y and even Gen Alpha? These young and very young consumers are soon going to be most businesses target audience they grow up so fast! and they are likely to do things very differently. We have already seen how ChatGPT and a growing number of generative AIs are starting to reshape how we interrogate the internet, with much of this driven by our kids. Similarly, the nascent metaverse bubbles along under the radar of the mainstream as its those kids aged under 15 who are the ones using it.

Likewise, the communications channels that these guys are going to use to interact with each other and, more importantly, the wider world of commerce, are also changing. Sure, research shows that US teens arent embracing helmet-based VR, but that doesnt mean that they arent looking to access the virtual world. No, they dont want a VR helmet that costs $3000, but they do want to play Roblox on their iPads and that, my friends, is the metaverse right there. Forget what anyone over 25 tells you about it; forget what Mark Zuckerberg thinks it will be: the metaverse is flat and the kids are already in it.

Similarly, the market for AR glasses, while super slow to get going, is also set to grow over the next 10 years as these youngsters come of age and look for a more all-encompassing internet-based life.

Finally, even the oldies are getting in on the new ways of connecting, with the majority of European consumers now owning and operating some sort of connected TV.

These are the things that CPaaS companies need to now be focussing on. While most have added WhatsApp and even Telegram, and while many are looking at how to work in Twitter, Facebook and TikTok, they should also have an eye on how connected TVs, AR glasses and the metaverse are all also going to be places and devices through which consumers will want to interact and message businesses.

Unlocking how to build these things into their CPaaS platform should now be an imperative. CPaaS has grown from nothing to huge in about three years. This next tranche of interaction platforms are probably at best two years away from mass adoption. Look at how quickly generative AI and AI in general as come to dominate the tech world.

How users in the metaverse, using AR glasses or VR for that matter will want to message firms remains to be seen, but at the very least it will be an adaptation of the messaging channels we have now. The trick will be getting the interface right and the reply channel sorted so that it is compatible with where consumers finds themselves wanting to message.

It will be challenging, but it needs to happen and, with AI already reshaping how the world works, it is now an imperative.

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EDITORIAL As CPaaS booms, is it time to starting adding AR, VR ... - Telemedia Online

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HCLTech and Temenos deepen partnership to accelerate digital transformation in the banking industry – Content Media Solution

GENEVA and NOIDA, India, April 12, 2023: HCLTech, a leading global technology company, and Temenos, a leading banking software company, have expanded their partnership to accelerate the digital transformation of banks and other financial institutions. The latest collaboration brings together the extensive cloud hosting, implementation, and integration capabilities of HCLTech and Temenos open platform for composable banking and its state-of-the-art enterprise solutions that include core banking, digital banking, and wealth management.

Together, HCLTech and Temenos will enable banks and other financial institutions to progressively modernize at scale, accelerate their digital transformation and support their transition to the cloud to help them deliver omnichannel customer experience. HCLTech has a strong track record of delivering digital transformation services, including cloud migration, application modernization, and customer experience design, to some of the worlds leading financial institutions. The company is positioned to support its clients with end-to-end implementation, encompassing program management, consulting, integration, data migration, quality assurance, upgrade, and organization change management.

We are delighted to double down on our successful partnership with Temenos to enable financial institutions adapt to the digital-first economy and evolving customer preferences. The HCLTech-Temenos collaboration brings best-in-class capabilities to clients in the financial services industry, backed by proven track record and trust, said Sudip Lahiri, Executive Vice President, and Head Europe, Financial Services, HCLTech.

Ross Mallace, Executive Vice President, Global Head of Partners, Temenos said: We are delighted to extend our partnership with HCLTech, a proven partner for delivering strategic transformations of complex, mission-critical systems for financial services firms. Temenos cloud-native banking platform combined with HCLTechs expertise will help banks of all sizes to accelerate modernization timelines, reduce total cost of ownership and sustainably grow their business.

HCLTech and Temenos are already partnering to serve several global banks and have set up the HCLTech-Temenos Center of Excellence, which has over 250 subject matter experts. HCLTech plans to continue investing in the partnership with a vision to become one of the largest global partners in services for Temenos solutions.

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My 5 Top Stocks to Buy in April – The Motley Fool

Investing in stocks ranks as one of the best ways to make money over the long term. That's obvious when you look at the past. And while history doesn't repeat itself, the factors that caused stocks to perform well over the last century will likely prevail over the next 100 years as well.

But which stocks are the best picks to enable you to make money? Like most investors, I have my own opinion on how to answer that question. Here are my top five stocks to buy in April.

Amazon (AMZN -2.09%) stands out as one of the most impressive companies in the world, in my view. It has transformed retail and created a huge cloud-hosting market. I like the stock right now for two primary reasons.

First, I think Amazon Web Services (AWS) still has tremendous growth prospects. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy predicts that AWS's market could expand exponentially over the next 10 to 15 years as organizations shift IT spending from on-premises to the cloud. I'm confident that Jassy is right and that AWS will among the biggest winners from this trend.

Second, Amazon is taking key steps to reduce its costs. The company could be much more profitable if it continues to work to maximize margins. My take is that Amazon's earnings will grow significantly over the next several years.

Few businesses have as clear of a pathway to growth asBrookfield Renewable (BEP 0.16%) (BEPC -0.24%). The demand for renewable energy will almost certainly increase as governments and corporations across the world scramble to reduce carbon emissions.

Brookfield Renewable is in a great position to help address the higher demand for renewable energy. The company's development pipeline includes 110 gigawatts of capacity, more than four times its current capacity of around 25 gigawatts.

I also like Brookfield Renewable's dividend yield of over 4.4%. Of the 12 high-yield dividend stocks in my portfolio, I view Brookfield Renewable as the best of the bunch.

Speaking of great dividends,Devon Energy (DVN 0.44%) currently offers a dividend yield of nearly 9.6%. But should you be worried about the oil producer's two dividend cuts in recent months? I don't think so.

Devon's dividend has two components -- fixed and variable. The variable portion is based on excess free cash flow. As you might expect for an oil company, excess free cash flow fluctuated with oil prices.

The good news for Devon's dividend (and share price) is that oil prices are likely to rise with Saudi Arabia announcing that it's reducing oil production. I expect that Devon will deliver tremendous total returns at least over the next few years.

The Trade Desk (TTD -2.42%) ranks as the biggest winner of these five stocks so far in 2023. Shares of the advertising technology leader have soared nearly 36% year to date. Is it too late to buy this high-flying stock? Nope.

Ad-supported connected TV (CTV) still has tremendous growth ahead. The Trade Desk's platform is ideally suited for helping advertisers buy CTV ads that provide the biggest bang for the buck. Also, only around 10% of the company's advertising spend currently comes from international markets. The Trade Desk has a major opportunity outside of the U.S.

The biggest concern for this stock is that its valuation is at a nose-bleed level. However, I think the premium price tag is worth it based on The Trade Desk's future prospects.

There's no healthcare stock that I like more right now than Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX 0.47%). The big biotech continues to deliver solid revenue and earnings growth thanks to its cystic fibrosis (CF) drugs. Those therapies currently have no competition in treating the underlying cause of CF. The nearest rival is at best years away from even having a chance at winning regulatory approvals.

Vertex is now one step closer to bringing a new blockbuster to market. The company and its partner, CRISPR Therapeutics, recently completed their submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval of exa-cel in treating rare blood disorders sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia. Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics also await European Union approvals in both indications.

Two other pipeline programs could be launched by the end of 2024. Vertex expects to complete late-stage testing for non-opioid pain drug VX-548 by early next year. The company is also evaluating a triple-drug combo in treating CF in late-stage testing. Both products have the potential to generate annual sales of more than $2 billion.

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Keith Speights has positions in Amazon.com, Brookfield Renewable, Brookfield Renewable Partners, Devon Energy, Trade Desk, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon.com, Brookfield Renewable, CRISPR Therapeutics, Trade Desk, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool recommends Brookfield Renewable Partners. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Visualnet Media Inc. Becomes a Zerify Reseller and Adds Rosa … – GlobeNewswire

EDISON, N.J., April 11, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zerify Inc., (OTC PINK: ZRFY), the 22-year-old cybersecurity company focused on Secure Video Conferencing & Endpoint Security announced today that Visualnet Media has become a Zerify Reseller. Additionally, Visualnet Media is proud to welcome Rosa & CO. LLC as a new client, who will be using Zerify Meet to comply with compliance requirements.

Visualnet Media in one of the nations leading Security Hosting and IT Managed Service solution providers, says Mark L. Kay, CEO of Zerify. Their solution enables an entire corporate structure to be run remotely via their Secure Hosting facilities with the latest secure and compliant technology and solutions by custom tailoring each companies programs and needs with security always being baked into the infrastructure. Visualnet distinguishes itself from the competition by prepping companies for GDPR, PCI and HIPAA Compliance and running all company solutions from their facilities.

Rosa & Co. LLC has recently undergone a full migration of its IT platform with Visualnet Media, Inc in order to be GDPR and PCI compliant, says Heather Bingham Rosa Director of Operations. Through this process, we were introduced to Zerify by Visualnet Media, as a very viable option for running the company and client meetings. Because the industry is moving to a highly stringent requirement due to European regulations, Rosa needed a solution that would provide the level of security required by the industry. Rosa plans to use Zerify as its main video conferencing software for internal and external company meetings.

Adding Zerify Meet to our Secure infrastructure to deliver PCI, HIPAA and GDPR Compliant Network ecosystems via our Multi-State Secure Hosting facilities footprint, will help us deliver one of the most comprehensive solutions for the modern remote workplace,says Visualnet Media, Inc.s CEO and Chief Technical Officer Greg Wilson.

Zerify finally solves the security Issue for compliance allowing Visualnet Remote workers an alternative to unsecure Video and screen sharing platforms at the remote workspace by allowing for secure connections for Video, Audio and Screen Sharing via their impressive 2 factor authentication systems in both compliant Desktop and Mobile solutions, says Wilson.

As a reseller for Zerify, Visualnet Media can now offer their clients a range of compliance solutions, including the Zerify Platform, which enables businesses to streamline their compliance processes and improve overall efficiency. With Zerifys cutting-edge technology and Visualnet Medias expertise in network security, businesses can now access a complete suite of solutions to meet the compliance needs, says Kay.

To learn more about Visualnet Media, go to: http://www.visualnetmedia.com/

To learn more about Zerify Defender, go to: https://www.zerify.com/

About Visualnet Media, Inc:Serving customers since 2002, Visualnet Media is a full-service SOC Compliant Hosting Facility and Managed Security Service Provider helping solve technology challenges for any size business. Our Cloud based managed products and Hosting Facilities offer you the latest and most advanced technology for Interior and Perimeter Hosted and local Network defense solutions.

We specialize in Hosting your Remote Desktops, Servers, Applications, Data Files and Email in our Secure Hosting Facility. We have hosting plans in which you can utilize our Servers, or we can host your Servers in our Facility or we can build out your own Independent Hosting Facility and manage the entire process for you as well as manage the facility after completion of your project. We have been in business for 21 years providing our customers with trusted solutions from their local area networks to their web-based presence. We specialize in Cyber Security in all our designs and can safely and effectively migrate your business into the Cloud as well as assist you in maintaining your local area network securely with our Firewall and Managed Security Solutions. Have a project you need help with? Call us today with your project. We look forward to hearing from you! Get secure managed hosting, migrate your legacy applications, develop new solutions and learn about all that the Cloud and our Hosted Facility and Solutions can provide for you and your company.

About Zerify:Zerify Inc. (OTC PINK: ZRFY), formerly StrikeForce Technologies, is an Edison, New Jersey-based company with over two decades of experience in cybersecurity solutions. The company helps to prevent cyber theft and data security breaches for consumers, corporations and government agencies through powerful multi-factor out-of-band authentication and keystroke encryption along with mobile solutions. Zerify offers a video conferencing solution that uses no desktop and is entirely web-based, offering a five-level meeting security control approach designed to protect valuable information. Features include keystroke protection, anti-screen capture, and push and biometric authentication to keep businesses secure.

The technology also protects cameras, microphones and speakers, keeping computers and confidential data secure even when one is offline and not on a video conference. No other video conferencing service on the market, such as Zoom, Webex, LogMeIn, MS Teams or BlueJeans, offers these protections.

Zerify Contact,Mark L. Kaymarklkay@zerify.com(732) 661-9641

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