WebProNews

Category: CloudRevolutionUpdate

CloudRevolutionUpdate

  • Oracle Opens Cloud Regions in Italy and Sweden

    Oracle Opens Cloud Regions in Italy and Sweden

    Oracle is continuing its cloud expansion, opening its first cloud regions in Italy and Sweden.

    Oracle has been making major headway in the cloud market, chipping away at its bigger rivals, AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud. Ever the salesmen, co-founder Larry Ellison has recently taken a jab at AWS over its outages, highlighting Oracle’s reputation for rock-solid stability.

    Beyond stability, however, a company’s geographic coverage is an important factor in being able to effectively compete. The closer a company’s servers are to its customers, the better the performance it can offer.

    To that end, the company has opened cloud regions in Italy, as well as Sweden.

    “It is important that we offer organizations access to cloud infrastructure that is located in Italy to manage their most critical data and applications. We currently see significant growth in our cloud business that reflects our customers’ desire to rapidly digitize their operations so they can better serve their customers,” said Alessandro Ippolito, vice president and country general manager, Oracle Italy. “The Milan region also supports the Italian government’s ‘Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza’ (National Plan of Recovery and Resilience) initiative, which aims to promote the economic recovery of the country through digital modernization. Having a cloud region on Italian soil will help facilitate the adoption of Oracle Cloud services by government entities and Italy’s highly regulated industries.”

    “It is important that we offer Nordic organizations access to cloud infrastructure locally to help manage their most critical data and applications,” said Pelle Ewald, country manager, Oracle Sweden. “We currently see significant growth in our cloud business that reflects our customers’ desire to rapidly scale their digital operations in an effort to continue to best serve their consumers now and in the future.”

  • AWS Experiences Another Outage

    AWS Experiences Another Outage

    AWS experienced another outage Wednesday morning, just days after a massive one that impacted major companies.

    As the leading cloud provider, AWS helps power a large portion of the web. Companies large and small rely on the platform for their websites, applications, and services.

    According to ZDNet, AWS started experiencing issues around 10:26 AM US Eastern Time, although the issues appear to have been short-lived.

    Similarly, Downdetector.com shows a spike in reported issues, but it quickly subsided.

  • Larry Ellison Says Oracle’s Cloud ERP Will Be “A Lot Bigger” Than $20 Billion

    Larry Ellison Says Oracle’s Cloud ERP Will Be “A Lot Bigger” Than $20 Billion

    Larry Ellison has predicted his company’s cloud ERP business will grow faster than projected, being “a lot bigger” than $20 billion in five years.

    Oracle’s cloud ERP business has been gaining traction, building on the company’s wide portfolio of products and services. The company recently released its quarterly results Thursday, handily beating analysts’ expectations, thanks in no small part to the performance of its cloud business.

    Speaking to investors following the repot, co-founder Larry Ellison said he believes Oracle’s cloud ERP business will be worth far more than current projections and growth rate would indicate, according to ZDNet.

    “I think it’s going to be a lot bigger than that,” Ellison said. Ellison then went on say that the company’s plans revolved around partnerships with other companies, especially in the financial services and and logistics industries, partnerships that will help it accelerate its growth beyond the $20 billion mark.

    Oracle has increasingly been making waves in the cloud industry, poaching major customers from competitors and, most recently, pointing out the reliability of its platform compared to market leading AWS.

    If Ellison’s predictions are correct, Oracle could be poised to make serious headway against the top three cloud companies.

  • Microsoft Offering Office Pirates 50% Off

    Microsoft Offering Office Pirates 50% Off

    Microsoft is offering Office pirates a tempting offer, giving them 50% off if they will convert to a paid license.

    As the most popular office suite on the planet, Microsoft Office is a popular target of software pirates. Microsoft is looking to convert them to paying customers, offering pirates 50% off of a genuine license.

    The company is highlighting the risks associated with pirated software as an additional incentive, including:

    • Exposure to virus and malware attacks​​
    • Corrupted files and data loss
    • Inability to receive critical updates or edit files

    The company says users of pirated copies of office may see a notification offering an upgrade to a genuine copy.

    After launching an Office app you might receive a message that says Get genuine Office.

    If you see this, we’ve determined that the Office product installed on your device isn’t legitimate and you may be a victim of software counterfeiting.

    Users interested in taking advantage of Microsoft’s offer for Microsoft 365 Personal or Microsoft 365 Family licenses for 50% off, can do so by clicking on the message notification, which links to this page.

  • Larry Ellison Touts Oracle Cloud’s Reliability in Wake of AWS Outage

    Larry Ellison Touts Oracle Cloud’s Reliability in Wake of AWS Outage

    Larry Ellison isn’t passing up an opportunity to take a swipe at AWS, sharing a note from a telecommunications customer touting Oracle Cloud’s reliability.

    AWS suffered a major outage earlier this week, impacting some of the biggest sites on the web. Coinbase, Disney+, McDonald’s and Amazon’s own Alexa service were just a few of the brands affected.

    Ellison is all too happy to point out Oracle’s reputation for reliability, sharing a note from a telecommunications client at the end of the company’s quarterly earnings call, according to CNBC.

    “Let me close with a note that I’m going to paraphrase from a very large telecommunications company who uses our cloud and all the other three North American clouds — Google, Amazon and Microsoft,” Ellison said. “And the note basically said the one thing we’ve noticed about Oracle, Oracle’s cloud, is that it never ever goes down. We can’t say that about any of the other clouds. We think this is a critical differentiator.”

    Despite not being in the top three cloud providers, Oracle has consistently won praise for offering a full turnkey solution, providing everything from cloud infrastructure to database-driven services. If the company can make the case for better reliability than the top three, it may be able to continue chipping away at their market share.

  • Twitter Acquires Quill, Will Shutter the Service

    Twitter Acquires Quill, Will Shutter the Service

    Twitter has acquired messaging service Quill and is planning on shutting it down.

    Quill is a messaging service that competes with Slack and Microsoft Teams. Twitter has announced it has acquired the service.

    Quill says its service will be shutting down as part of the deal, but users have until December 11 to export their data.

    Quill will be shutting down, but its spirit and ideas will continue on. You’ll be able to export your team message history until 1pm PST, Saturday, December 11th 2021, when we will be turning off our servers and deleting all data. For all active teams, we’re issuing full refunds.

    Neither company disclosed the terms of the deal.

  • AWS Issue Causing Major Outages

    AWS Issue Causing Major Outages

    An issue with AWS is impacting a large swath of the internet, with multiple companies experiencing issues.

    As the world’s largest cloud provider, AWS helps power some of the web’s biggest names. Unfortunately, that also means an issue with AWS can impact a large number of other companies and services.

    That appears to be happening today, with Disney+, PUBG, League of Legends, Coinbase, McDonald’s, Chime, Amazon’s Alexa and others experiencing outages, according to DownDetector.com.

    AWS updated its status page, acknowledging the issue.

    We are seeing impact to multiple AWS APIs in the US-EAST-1 Region. This issue is also affecting some of our monitoring and incident response tooling, which is delaying our ability to provide updates. We have identified the root cause and are actively working towards recovery.

  • AWS Offering EC2 M1 Mac Instances

    AWS Offering EC2 M1 Mac Instances

    Just a year after introducing Mac EC2 instances, AWS is upping the ante by introducing M1 Mac instances.

    Apple’s M1 line is a custom system on a chip (SoC) processor based on the semiconductors that have powered the iPhone and iPad for years. Derived from ARM designs, the M1 has upended the computer industry, offering best-in-class battery life and energy efficiency, combined with performance that rivals the best Intel and AMD have to offer.

    The M1’s unique combination of performance and energy make it an ideal option for cloud computing applications where space and energy consumption are prime concerns.

    AWS’s Sébastien Stormacq says the M1 Mac instances already deliver significant performance/cost benefits.

    The availability (in preview) of EC2 M1 Mac instances lets you access machines built around the Apple-designed M1 System on Chip (SoC). If you are a Mac developer and re-architecting your apps to natively support Macs with Apple silicon, you may now build and test your apps and take advantage of all the benefits of AWS. Developers building for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV will also benefit from faster builds. EC2 M1 Mac instances deliver up to 60% better price performance over the x86-based EC2 Mac instances for iPhone and Mac app build workloads.

    Those interested in running the new M1 Mac instances will need to add a dedicated host to their account, since the instances are running on a bare metal server hosting a Mac mini. The on-demand cost is $0.6498 per hour, although customers can save up to 42% with a Savings Plan.

  • Amazon SageMaker Canvas: A No-Code Machine Learning Service

    Amazon SageMaker Canvas: A No-Code Machine Learning Service

    Amazon has released SageMaker Canvas, the company’s no-code machine learning service.

    No-code is one of the fastest growing sectors within development. In fact, Gartner predicts that no-code development will account for 80% of tech products and services by 2024.

    Amazon is getting in on the action with its SageMaker Canvas, a no-code tool with machine learning applications in mind.

    “Today, I’m excited to announce the general availability of Amazon SageMaker Canvas, a new visual, no code capability that allows business analysts to build ML models and generate accurate predictions without writing code or requiring ML expertise,” writes Alex Casalboni, AWS Developer Advocate. “Its intuitive user interface lets you browse and access disparate data sources in the cloud or on-premises, combine datasets with the click of a button, train accurate models, and then generate new predictions once new data is available.

    “SageMaker Canvas leverages the same technology as Amazon SageMaker to automatically clean and combine your data, create hundreds of models under the hood, select the best performing one, and generate new individual or batch predictions. It supports multiple problem types such as binary classification, multi-class classification, numerical regression, and time series forecasting. These problem types let you address business-critical use cases, such as fraud detection, churn reduction, and inventory optimization, without writing a single line of code.”

  • Crypto Miners Compromising Google Cloud Accounts for Mining

    Crypto Miners Compromising Google Cloud Accounts for Mining

    Google is warning that crypto miners are compromising Google Cloud accounts for mining operations.

    Crypto mining is a profitable endeavor that relies on significant computing resources. According to Google, malicious actors have been compromising Google Cloud instances and using them for mining.

    Google outlined the extent of the threat in an executive summary of their Threat Horizons cybersecurity report.

    Malicious actors were observed performing cryptocurrency mining within compromised Cloud instances. Of 50 recently compromised GCP instances, 86% of the compromised Cloud instances were used to perform cryptocurrency mining, a Cloud resource-intensive, for-profit activity. Additionally, 10% of compromised Cloud instances were used to conduct scans of other publicly available resources on the Internet to identify vulnerable systems, and 8% of instances were used to attack other targets. While data theft did not appear to be the objective of these compromises, it remains a risk associated with the cloud asset compromises as bad actors start performing multiple forms of abuse.

    Google recommends conducting regular audits to ensure credentials are not exposed, hashing downloaded code and using a multi-layered defense strategy.

  • Google and CME Group Announce 10-Year Partnership

    Google and CME Group Announce 10-Year Partnership

    Google and CME Group announced a 10-year partnership that will see the futures exchange operator transition to Google’s cloud platform.

    The financial sector is an increasingly lucrative field for cloud operators, with AWS, Microsoft and Google competing for advantage. Under the terms of the deal, CME will accelerate its move to the cloud, adopting Google’s platform and giving the number three cloud provider a big win.

    “Through this long-term partnership with Google Cloud, CME Group will transform derivatives markets through technology, expanding access and creating efficiencies for all market participants,” said Terry Duffy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, CME Group. “To ensure a smooth transition, we will work closely with clients to implement a phased approach. This partnership will enable CME Group to bring new products and services to market faster – all in a flexible and scalable environment that will create a wide range of opportunities for the marketplace.”

    Google also announced it has made a $1 billion equity investment in CME Group.

    “CME Group has a century-long track record of helping investors access new markets and is known for innovation in financial markets,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “Bringing together CME Group’s best-in-class financial talent with Google Cloud’s deep engineering expertise will help accelerate technological innovation in capital markets infrastructure.”

  • Microsoft Ending OneDrive Support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1

    Microsoft has announced it is ending support for OneDrive on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1.

    OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud storage service. Each Microsoft 365 accounts comes with 1 TB of storage, making it a popular option for many users. The company is discontinuing support for the OneDrive desktop application on older versions of Windows, freeing up resources to focus on current versions and provide improved security.

    Microsoft’s Ankita Kirti made the announcement in a blog post:

    “In order to focus resources on new technologies and operating systems, and to provide users with the most up-to-date and secure experience, beginning January 1, 2022, updates will no longer be provided for the OneDrive desktop application on your personal Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 devices.

    “Personal OneDrive desktop applications running on these operating systems will stop syncing to the cloud on March 1, 2022.

    “After March 1st, 2022, your personal files will no longer sync and should be uploaded/accessed directly on OneDrive for web.”

  • Meta Adopts AMD EPYC

    Meta Adopts AMD EPYC

    AMD has scored another win over Intel, with Meta (formerly Facebook) choosing the EPYC for its data centers.

    Intel has long had a near-stranglehold on the server and data center market. Even as AMD chipped away at its lead in the desktop market, Intel continued to dominate the server market.

    Recently, however, AMD has been making headway in Intel’s core market, scoring a number of high-profile contracts. Cloudflare chose AMD’s EPYC over Intel’s processors, thanks largely to the higher power efficiency AMD’s chips provide.

    Meta has become the latest company to choose EPYC for its data centers, according to an AMD statement.

    AMD announced Meta is the latest major hyperscale cloud company that has adopted AMD EPYC CPUs. AMD and Meta worked together to define an open, cloud-scale, single-socket server designed for performance and power efficiency, based on the 3rd Gen EPYC processor. Further details will be discussed at the Open Compute Global Summit later this week.

  • Google Once Again Pursuing Pentagon Contracts

    Google Once Again Pursuing Pentagon Contracts

    Google is once again pursuing Pentagon contracts after employee activism put the brakes on its last attempt.

    Google famously stopped pursing a Pentagon AI contract three years ago when employees raised a furor. Despite the company’s past setbacks, The New York Times reports that Google is once again looking to do business with the Pentagon, trying to get in on the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract.

    The JWCC contract is the Pentagon’s replacement for it’s ill-fated JEDI contract. The DoD surprised the industry by initially awarded Microsoft the JEDI contract, despite Amazon being considered as the front-runner. Amazon challenged Microsoft’s win and tied it up in court long enough for the Pentagon to abandon JEDI and completely rework its requirements, leading to the JWCC.

    The Times is reporting that Google is making a play for the JWCC, a move that could help the number three cloud provider make major headway in the industry.

  • VMware Completes Its Spin-Off From Dell

    VMware Completes Its Spin-Off From Dell

    VMware has completed its spin-off from Dell, becoming an independent company for the first time in 18 years.

    VMware is one of the leading virtualization companies. Its software is used by some of the biggest companies in the world, and has been instrumental in the transition to the cloud. The company was bought by EMC in 2004, which was in turn bought by Dell in 2016.

    In April of this year, the two companies announced that Dell would spin off VMware in a deal that was expected to top $9 billion, and help the PC maker address its outstanding debt.

    The spin-off was completed Monday, with Dell receiving $9.3 billion and VMWare free to pursue new opportunities.

    “By spinning off VMware, we expect to drive additional growth opportunities for Dell Technologies as well as VMware, and unlock significant value for stakeholders,” said Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer, Dell Technologies. “Both companies will remain important partners, providing Dell Technologies with a differentiated advantage in how we bring solutions to customers. At the same time, Dell Technologies will continue to modernize its core infrastructure and PC businesses and embrace new opportunities through an open ecosystem to grow in hybrid and private cloud, edge and telecom.”

    “VMware’s mission is to deliver the trusted software foundation that accelerates our customers’ innovation,” said Raghu Raghuram, chief executive officer, VMware. “As a standalone company, we will continue to bring our multi-cloud strategy to life by providing our customers the power to accelerate their business and control their destiny in this new era.”

  • Salesforce Unveils New Field Service Tools to Help Mobile Workers

    Salesforce Unveils New Field Service Tools to Help Mobile Workers

    Salesforce has unveiled new Field Service tools in an effort to empower mobile workers.

    Salesforce is establishing itself as a leader in the remote workforce market. The company recently acquired Slack and has made no secret of its goal to become the “digital HQ” for its customers.

    In line with that goal, Salesforce has introduced four new Field Service features, aimed at helping businesses empower their remote and mobile workers.

    The new features include Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization Engine, designed to help companies schedule and manage complex jobs, such as those requiring multiple steps. Lightning Web Components will allow Salesforce companies to customize their Salesforce Field Service app to meet their specific needs. Appointment Assistant Self-Service Scheduling empowers customers to create, manage, and cancel their own appointments. Visual Remote Assistant Two-Way Video allows agents and customers communicate via video chat.

    “With customers and employees looking for fast and easy service, the field service industry is ripe for change,” said Paul Whitelam, GM of Field Service Management at Salesforce. “Salesforce is continuing to evolve our field service management platform to meet the needs of customers and field service employees in this all-digital world, and these latest innovations bring more trust, speed, and convenience to every field service interaction.”

  • Only 17% of US Companies Encrypt Over Half of Their Cloud Data

    Only 17% of US Companies Encrypt Over Half of Their Cloud Data

    Despite a seeming endless litany of data breaches, a new report says only 17% of US companies are encrypting more than half of their cloud data.

    Data breaches have become an everyday occurrence, with company after company notifying users that their data has been exposed. More often than not, the exposure is the result of a database being left unencrypted and easily accessible via the web.

    Unfortunately, it seems that US companies are a little slow on the uptake, as the 2021 Thales Cloud Security Study shows that 83% are leaving over half of their sensitive cloud data unencrypted.

    Even more concerning, industry sectors containing sensitive information are only marginally better.

    Sectors such as financial services, transportation, and media and entertainment are only marginally better at 21% saying they encrypt more than half of their sensitive data.

    The report also found a correlation between multicloud deployments and low encryption levels. Of the organizations using multicloud environments, only 15% have encrypted more than 50% of their cloud data.

    The report emphasizes the need for companies to take action to better protect user data.

    To the extent that protecting customer data is a priority, organizations should strongly consider reviewing their strategies and approaches to proactively protect data in cloud, especially sensitive data. This includes understanding the role of specific controls and technologies including authentication, encryption and key management, as well as the shared responsibilities between providers and their customers.

    As data privacy and sovereignty regulations grow across the globe, it will be paramount for end-user organizations to have a clear understanding of how they remain responsible for data security and how they must make clear decisions about just who is in control of and who can access their sensitive data.

    The 2021 Thales Cloud Security Study gives a disturbing glimpse into how cloud-based companies are (mis)handling data and is well-worth a read.

  • Microsoft Beats Estimates on Strong Cloud Performance

    Microsoft Beats Estimates on Strong Cloud Performance

    Microsoft has announced its FY22 Q1 results, beating analysts expectations on strong cloud growth.

    Microsoft reported revenue of $45.3 billion, an increase of 22% over last year. Revenue easily topped analysts’ expectations of $44 billion. The company’s profit for the quarter came in at $17.2 billion, up 24%.

    Notably, much of the Microsoft’s results were driven by continued cloud adoption. The company’s revenue for its Intelligent Cloud division, which includes Azure, was $17.0 billion, representing a 31% increase over the previous year.

    “Digital technology is a deflationary force in an inflationary economy. Businesses – small and large – can improve productivity and the affordability of their products and services by building tech intensity,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. “The Microsoft Cloud delivers the end-to-end platforms and tools organizations need to navigate this time of transition and change.”

    “We delivered a strong start to the fiscal year with our Microsoft Cloud generating $20.7 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 36% year over year,” said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft.

    Overall, Microsoft appears to have delivered on what Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives predicted would be another “Picasso-like masterpiece quarter.”

  • Wedbush: Microsoft’s ‘Picasso-Like Masterpiece Quarter’ Will Exceed Estimates

    Wedbush: Microsoft’s ‘Picasso-Like Masterpiece Quarter’ Will Exceed Estimates

    Microsoft’s run of good quarters appears poised to continue, with a “Picasso-like masterpiece quarter.”

    Microsoft has been firing on all cylinders, especially in regard to its Azure cloud platform. The company is in second place in the cloud market, but has the advantage of onboarding companies and organizations that have been using its desktop OS and software for decades.

    Daniel Ives, analyst at Wedbush, is once again raising his target price, this time from $350 to $375. According to TheStreet, Ives says the company “will deliver another Picasso-like masterpiece quarter with numbers that should handily exceed Street estimates.”

    Ives also believes Microsoft is continuing to benefit from the accelerated shift to the cloud.

    “We are seeing deal sizes continue to increase markedly as enterprise-wide digital transformation shifts are accelerating,” he continued.

    Microsoft reports its earnings on October 26.

  • Microsoft Accused of Hosting Malware ‘For Years’

    Microsoft Accused of Hosting Malware ‘For Years’

    Microsoft is facing additional cybersecurity scrutiny, as a security expert and former employee says OneDrive has hosted malware “for years.”

    Microsoft has not had a good year, when it comes to cybersecurity. The company has had a number of high-profile issues its services, including its Azure cloud platform.

    Kevin Beaumont, a former Microsoft Senior Threat Intelligence Analyst, is calling the company out for not addressing OneDrive abuses.

    https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1449087925740838922?s=20

    Beaumont also accuses the company of profiting off of its own security failures.

    https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1449096856194195460?s=20

    Beaumont’s entire thread is a damning indictment of Microsoft’s failures, especially at a time when it is trying to emphasize the importance of cybersecurity.

  • Cisco Is Working to Reinvent Itself, Much Like Microsoft

    Cisco Is Working to Reinvent Itself, Much Like Microsoft

    Cisco is working to reinvent itself and cash in on the modern shift to cloud computing, after years of being slow to adapt. 

    Once the world’s most valuable company, Cisco failed to adapt quickly enough to the shift to the cloud. The company built a lucrative business around traditional networking equipment, and didn’t offer emerging cloud giants equipment that adequately met their needs as they built out their cloud data centers.

    According to Bloomberg, the company has been working to reinvent itself, with analysts seeing parallels between Cisco and Microsoft. Much like Cisco, Microsoft missed out on emerging trends, not the least of which was the rise of the smartphone and mobile computing. Under CEO Satya Nadella, however, the Redmond giant has quickly pivoted to the cloud, becoming the second-largest cloud provider in the world. As a result, Microsoft is only the second US company, behind Apple, to cross the $2 trillion valuation mark.

    Despite the parallels, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said Cisco is in a unique position, with unique challenges.

    “The challenge that we have, is that no major technology hardware company has gone through a transformation like this.”

    As part of Cisco’s transformation, the company has been focusing on software and services, acquiring a slew of companies to help build its portfolio. Even there, however, the company has faced challenges and missed opportunities. Despite Webex being one of the premier videoconferencing platforms, and still a top choice among corporate users, it has largely taken a backseat to Zoom during the pandemic.

    “Webex was the premier brand,” says Erik Suppiger, an analyst for JPM Securities, told Bloomberg. “The perception now is that Zoom has considerable market share advantage.”

    Cisco clearly has a long road ahead of it, but the company is optimistic. In fact, it is predicting it will beat analysts expectations in the coming years, predicting its revenue will grow 5-7% each year until at least 2025.

    Whether it can live up to those promises remains to be seen.