A new report on the DevOps industry should be a concern for the top three cloud providers, showing that organizations are increasingly looking for alternate providers.
AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud dominate the industry, accounting for a 71% share of the market. Similarly, the three companies account for 65% of all cloud spending. Nonetheless, it appears some organizations are looking to support smaller, independent rivals.
A new report, commissioned by Linode and conducted by Techstrong Research, shows that despite 93% of respondents using one of the Big Three, two-thirds would consider an alternative.
The largest three hyperscalers (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Compute) are used by 93% of respondents. Yet many DevOps buyers are re-thinking a reflex default to these hyperscalers. Two-thirds of companies surveyed would consider bringing in an “alternative” CSP; almost 22% have already done so. In fact, the combined market share for the top alternative vendors is fourth in the category, just behind Microsoft and Google.
Even more troubling for the Big Three is the growing interest in alternative providers, as well as the reasons that interest is growing.
Interest and adoption is highest in small and medium organizations (fewer than 10,000 employees). Main reasons for bringing in a new vendor include reducing reliance on a single provider, improving price performance and ease of use, and better data protection.
Another growing concern is competition from a company’s cloud service provider (CSP). Each of the Big Three are part of larger companies that offer a wide array of products and services, many of which can compete with the products and services of their cloud customers.
More than 50% of DevOps professionals and leaders surveyed say their CSP is already a competitor to their B2B or B2C business or is expected to become one. Fear of IP loss and rapid market displacement is also evidenced in respondent’s strong stated desire to work with a trustworthy, capable provider who shares their company values.
Needless to say, the Big Three hold a commanding position in the market, and it will be a long time before they face a serious challenge. Nonetheless, the report should be a cause for concern and highlights areas where they must improve in order to keep their customers happy.
FedEx is preparing to shut down its data centers and mainframes, opting for cloud-native solutions instead.
Company CIO Rob Carter made the announcement at the FedEx investor day, according to DCD, saying the company will save some $400 million.
“We’ve been working across this decade to streamline and simplify our technology and systems,” he said. “We’ve shifted to cloud…we’ve been eliminating monolithic applications one after the other after the other…we’re moving to a zero data center, zero mainframe environment that’s more flexible, secure, and cost-effective.”
“Within the next two years we’ll close the last few remaining data centers that we have, we’ll eliminate the final 20 percent of the mainframe footprint, and we’ll move the remaining applications to cloud-native structures that allow them to be flexibly deployed and used in the marketplace and business. While we’re doing this, we’ll achieve $400 million of annual savings.”
FedEx currently uses both Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud for its cloud needs. Nothing was said about whether the company will go all-in on a single vendor or whether it will continue its multicloud approach.
According to new research, the top three cloud providers are extending their lead in the market, accounting for 65% of total cloud spending.
AWS is currently the market leader, although Microsoft Azure has been making significant gains, and Google Cloud has been establishing itself as a multi-cloud provider. While the overall market continues to grow at a whopping 34%, these three providers account for 71% of the cloud market share, according to Synergy Research Group.
As the cloud market has grown, the top three providers’ share of cloud market spending has grown as well. In the first quarter of 2022, global cloud spending was $52.7 billion, with the top three raking in 65% of that. In contrast, several years ago, the top three accounted for 52% of global cloud spending, demonstrating their growing dominance in the market.
According to Synergy, smaller companies will need to differentiate themselves by targeting niche markets in order to remain competitive.
“While the level of competition remains high, the huge and rapidly growing cloud market continues to coalesce around Amazon, Microsoft and Google,” said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group. “Aside from the Chinese market, which remains totally dominated by local Chinese companies, other cloud providers simply cannot match the scale and geographic reach of the big three market leaders. As Amazon, Microsoft and Google continue to grow at 35-50% per year, other non-Chinese cloud providers are typically growing in the 10-20% range. That can still be an attractive proposition for those smaller providers, as long as they focus on regional or service niches where they can differentiate themselves from the big three.”
The EU may be taking aim at Big Tech over antitrust concerns, but the bloc doesn’t yet have concerns about cloud providers.
The cloud market has numerous companies vying for market share, but the top three — AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud — control the lion’s share of the market. Despite the three companies dominating the market, EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager says there’s not been any major concerns.
Vestager credits Gaia-X, a project aimed at bolstering the EU’s independence from Silicon Valley, with creating a relatively healthy market.
“This is not something that we are engaged in, but I basically see it as pro-competitive when you have someone to show potential customers that there are more than two giants where you can place your business,” she said.
Vestager’s response is interesting, especially since Microsoft has already been hit with an antitrust complaint in the EU from other cloud providers. Vestager’s comments may indicate the complaint is not likely to gain much traction.
Google is staring down a possible revolt amongst its staff over cloud layoffs impacting hundreds of Google Cloud employees.
Google Cloud is the third largest cloud provider and is working hard to take market share away from AWS and Microsoft Azure. Despite its plans for future growth, the company announced layoffs on March 2 that impact at least 100, and possibly several hundred, individuals.
According to Business Insider, the move has not gone over well with employees, including ones completely unaffected by the decision. Googlers have expressed their concern for their colleagues, especially those whose visas are tied to their employment at Google, believing they are not being given enough time to find and transition to new jobs.
“Many Googlers have visas tied to their employment,” reads a petition signed by 1,400 employees. “Successful transfers take more time due to added mobility delays from governments’ and Google’s immigration processes.”
Employee dissatisfaction with the company’s decision has already spilled out in at least two company town hall meetings. Some employees said the handling of the layoffs did “not show Googleness from senior management.”
“Several hundred roles for Cloud Support Roles including TSEs were eliminated on March 2nd,” one employee wrote on Google’s internal question submission platform, used for large meetings, as viewed by Insider. “Without getting into the complete opaqueness of internal planning and messaging, isn’t this antithetical to Cloud’s push into Enterprise?”
Microsoft continues to gain ground in the cloud market, even pulling ahead of leader AWS in some usage scnarios.
AWS and Azure are the top two cloud platforms, with Google Cloud coming in third. Despite AWS still being the market leader, Flexera’s 2022 State of the Cloud Report shows Microsoft is making some impressive headway.
According to the report, Azure surpassed AWS in the enterprise, with 80% of enterprises using it, as opposed to 77% using AWS. Similarly, 71% of enterprises are running at least 51 Azure virtual machines (VMs), as opposed to 69% for AWS.
Microsoft is also slightly edging out AWS on spending among its installed base, with 53% of enterprise Azure users spending at least $1.2 million annually, as opposed to 52% of AWS users.
Year-over-year adoptions rates also help gauge the relative strength of each platform in the market, with Microsoft showing the largest increase over 2021. Azure’s adoption rate in 2022 is 77% across all organizations, up from 73% in 2021. In contrast, AWS’ adoption rate dropped a point, from 77 to 76%. Google Cloud increased by one point, from 47 to 48%. Oracle dropped from 29 to 28%. IBM held steady at 24%, as did Alibaba Cloud at 12%,
Microsoft has also made headway against VMware, with the Azure Stack being used in 37% of private clouds, compared to VMware’s 31%.
Flexera’s report is good news for Microsoft as the Redmond giant clearly has significant momentum in the cloud market, putting pressure on its competitors, both above and below it.
Volkswagen is preparing to defend its home turf, ramping up electric vehicle (EV) production to take on Tesla in Germany.
Tesla’s Gigafactory is the company’s first manufacturing operation in Germany, as Tesla works to maintain its dominance in the EV market. Unfortunately for the company, virtually every major automaker is racing to transition to an EV lineup, and Volkswagen is no exception.
According to TheStreet, Volkswagen is planning on spending some $2.2 billion on a new factory to produce its Trinity EV. Construction will begin in early 2023, with the first vehicles slated to roll off the assembly line in 2026. Volkswagen’s goal is to make the Trinity a carbon-neutral vehicle.
“We are setting benchmarks in the automotive industry with Trinity and the new factory and turning Wolfsburg into the global lighthouse for cutting-edge and efficient vehicle production,” CEO Ralf Brandstätter said in a statement.
The company is also “seeking to attract new groups of customers and tap additional sources of income” as it continues to work on autonomous vehicles. Like other automakers, the company has been working on the next evolution of the automobile, developing its own autonomous software and partnering with Microsoft Azure to help power it.
Microsoft has scored a big win, snagging Charlie Bell just two week after he left rival AWS.
Charlie Bell was a heavyweight inside Amazon’s cloud business, a 23-year veteran of the company. When Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO, and AWS head Andy Jassy succeeded him, many saw Bell as the most likely candidate to take over as AWS CEO.
Instead, Bell left the company he had spent more than two decades with, sparking a major reshuffling to help fill the gap.
CNBC has now confirmed that Microsoft has hired Bell, although he’s currently listed as reporting to Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft’s head of HR and an executive vice president. It’s a somewhat odd placement for Bell, given his background, and is likely temporary.
However things shake out, Bell joining Microsoft is a big blow to AWS, especially since Microsoft is Azure is the AWS’ closest cloud competitor.
Google Cloud has unveiled its latest innovations, aimed at helping companies unify database, analytics and AI.
Google Cloud is the third leading cloud provider, behind AWS and Microsoft Azure. The company is particularly viewed as a good option for machine learning development, and has strong support for open source software.
The company’s latest tools will go a long way toward improving its stand even further, with Dataplex, Datastream and Analytics Hub.
Dataplex is designed to “centrally manage, monitor and govern your data across data lakes, data warehouses and data marts, and make this data securely accessible to a variety of analytics and data science tools.”
Datastream, currently available in preview, helps “move and synchronize data between heterogeneous databases, storage and applications reliably to support real-time analytics, database replication and event-driven architectures with Datastream, our serverless change data capture (CDC) and replication service.”
Analytics Hub is designed to make it easy to “access and share valuable datasets and analytics assets (think BigQuery ML models, Looker Blocks, data quality recipes, etc.) across any organizational boundary.” Those interested will need to sign up for preview access.
The company’s latest tools should go a long way toward helping its customers make the most of their data, as well as AI applications.
Oracle has told employees on various cloud projects to prepare for “24×7” work as the company fights for cloud market share.
Oracle is currently behind the market leaders — AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud — in the cloud market. The company has had some major wins, however, as it offers a complete end-to-end solution.
The company is now telling employees it will be redoubling its efforts, in a leaked memo seen by Business Insider. The memo emphasizes the need to focus on cloud projects and goals for the next few quarters, even if it means putting other projects on pause.
“Other feature and development work is paused to assist in this effort,” the memo reads.
“Region bootstrap, across regions, will need to happen on a 24×7 basis in order to hit our delivery dates. All teams will need to resource appropriately to accommodate this expectation,” the memo continued.
Oracle is even willing to reallocate personal from other projects, if needed, to help it meet its goals.
“This means, in some cases, temporarily reallocating personnel from other projects, teams, or orgs,” the memo added.
The memo is one of the clearest signs yet of how seriously Oracle is taking the cloud market, and the lengths it will go to advance its position in the market.
A new Competitive Assessment report puts Microsoft Azure and AWS leading the pack in IoT deployment.
AWS and Microsoft Azure are the two largest cloud platforms, and the two companies play an important role in IoT. According to ABI Research, the two companies are also leading the pack in core IoT deployments.
“Understanding the intricacies of the market is key,” Dimitrios Pavlakis, Senior Analyst of IoT and Digital Security at ABI Research. “Cloud device management alone is not enough to guarantee victory; the importance of critical partnerships is as relevant as ever to increase market reach and not be consumed by the competition. Intelligent solutions and automation are required for a sustainable lifecycle management environment, and even criteria like dev-tools and resource modularity can greatly add to the popularity of certain solutions and shape future IoT-borne revenue streams.”
According to ABI Research, Pelion, Intel, Telit, Device Authority, Thales, and Digicert were in the middle of the pack, with Avsystem and Sequitur Labs following.
All together, twelve criteria were used in the assessment, including encryption and hardware security, dev tools, cloud, software options, IoT connectivity and ecosystem support, strategic partnerships, regulatory policies, FOTA, automation, trusted ID, pricing and monetization.
“Innovation without a clear device-to-cloud roadmap, a flexible monetization strategy, and a solid partnership circle is utterly meaningless in most cases,” Pavlakis concludes.
Cloud infrastructure spending grew a whopping 29% in Q1 2021, buoyed by the impact the pandemic has had on businesses.
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, organizations of all sizes accelerated their transition to cloud computing in an effort to stay productive. Especially as employees were sent home to work remotely, cloud computing became one of the single most critical factors in many businesses’ success.
The accelerated digital transformation continues to impact the cloud market, according to data from Canalys. In fact, spending increased some 29%, hitting $18.6 billion.
Cloud infrastructure services spend in the United States grew 29% in Q1 2021 to a record US$18.6 billion. Total expenditure increased US$4.2 billion in the last year and US$621 million in the last quarter according to the latest Canalys data. Dollar for dollar, annual expansion was the highest in two years, indicating robust demand for cloud services. The focus on digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic was the main factor behind the continued investment momentum, aided by the economic recovery and subsequent restart of some delayed projects.
As the US rolls out the Biden administration’s modernization initiatives, Canalys sees cloud providers benefiting even more, especially with the addition of $1 billion added to the Technology Modernization Fund, part of the larger America Rescue Plan. AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud — with 37%, 23% and 9% of the US market respectively — are rapidly building out their infrastructure to keep up.
“Cloud service providers have a big opportunity with the US government, not only with its stated desire to modernize technologies, but also its renewed focus on cybersecurity efforts,” said Canalys Vice President Alex Smith. “The recent SolarWinds hack affected nine federal agencies and the Colonial Pipeline hack exposed the high risk all organizations face. With intense competition over large government cloud contracts, such as the US$10 billion JEDI contract, a security advantage will pay off for bidding cloud service providers.”
Microsoft may lose out on its $10 billion JEDI contact, but it just scored a $21.9 billion contract to provide the US Army with augmented reality (AR) headsets.
Unlike virtual reality (VR), which creates a completely immersive environment, AR augments the real world with virtual reality overlays. The US Army wants to use AR headsets to improve battlefield communication and awareness, providing soldiers with important information.
Microsoft and the US Army will work to quickly move the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program from prototype to production.
The IVAS headset, based on HoloLens and augmented by Microsoft Azure cloud services, delivers a platform that will keep Soldiers safer and make them more effective. The program delivers enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing and decision-making in a variety of scenarios. Microsoft has worked closely with the U.S. Army over the past two years, and together we pioneered Soldier Centered Design to enable rapid prototyping for a product to provide Soldiers with the tools and capabilities necessary to achieve their mission.
Microsoft’s announcement is the latest example of the many ways VR and AR are poised to revolutionize multiple industries.
Nextech AR has announced it is integrating Microsoft Azure across its virtual experience platforms and applications.
Nextech AR provides a wide range of augmented reality (AR) and virtual experience technologies (VXT). Augmented reality has become an increasingly important technology, especially for marketers and e-commerce, allowing individuals to visualize how something will look.
Similarly, VXT has experienced major growth, in large part as a result of the pandemic. Virtual experiences have supplanted in-person meetings for everything from work meetings to major industry conventions.
Integrating Azure will allow Nextech AR to better scale its offerings, for both virtual and hybrid events.
“We pride ourselves in offering truly scalable events and services for today’s digital age. With our existing data center, making quick changes to event size and scale was an involved process that required hardware changes and sometimes took weeks,” said Mark Pace, CTO, Virtual Experience Platform at NexTech AR, “By migrating our platforms onto Microsoft Azure, we can scale events at the cloud level, with the push of a button, enabling us to elevate our event and customer experiences simultaneously. Azure is a trusted, industry-leading solution with game-changing potential for the event and experience creation industry. Our customers have come to rely on our growing portfolio of products to provide next-level tools and services which makes cloud-computing integration a perfect addition.”
“Azure, Microsoft’s cloud and edge computing platform is the gold standard and positions us perfectly for large enterprise customers who are looking for a convenient and reliable cloud-based computing platform. We see this as a major building block which is crucial to our business model as we look to expand the footprint of our virtual events and experiences,” said Evan Gappelberg, CEO of Nextech AR. He continues, “In 2020 we worked with notable organizations including Amazon, Northwell Health, Dell, Bell Canada, Grundfos, UNESCO, Restaurants Canada and Carnegie Mellon University to create virtual experiences and tools. In 2021 we now have the ability to offer Microsoft Azure to new and existing partners which will be instrumental to our growth as we look to build on our new client wins with new product offerings, and first-class customer service.”
Nextech AR’s announcement is a big win for Microsoft, as it continues to battle for dominance in the cloud market.
Oracle has formed a new organization, focused on the cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) and helmed by executive VP Don Johnson.
Oracle has been making significant headway in the cloud market, although it still lags behind market leaders AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Nonetheless, the company is doubling down on its cloud and AI business, and has scored some big wins agains its bigger rivals.
According to Business Insider, Oracle is tapping Don Johnson, the former Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) boss to run the new organization, called Oracle Cloud Platform & AI Services. Johnson was once considered a top contender for the co-CEO job, making his appointment to the new role an indication of its importance.
Interestingly, the new organization does not replace or operate independently of OCI, but will serve as an extension and expansion of it.
“It’s important to note: this is an extension of OCI, not a division of it,” said an email announcing the change that was seen by Business Insider. “Together we’ll operate this as a unified OCI team, with a common all-hands, product roadmap, the usual meetings and processes, etc. One big tent and a common culture.”
The email also emphasized how much the company is betting on the cloud moving forward.
“Oracle is now fundamentally a cloud company, with a clear and simple vision: a marriage of the best cloud infrastructure, and leading data platform, together with the most pervasive cloud applications,” the email continued.
As the global pandemic has accelerated cloud adoption, Microsoft Azure and AWS have emerged as the clear winners.
Flexera has released its 2021 State of Tech Spend Report. As expected, digital transformation and cloud adoption are on the rise. Some 56% of respondents said digital transformation was a top initiative for 2021, as opposed to 54% in 2020. Cloud adoption saw even greater jump, with 48% of respondents making it a top priority in 2021, vs 40% in 2020. Not surprisingly, work from home was the single biggest driver for change, with 74% citing it as the leading factor.
Of the cloud providers, Microsoft Azure and AWS were the clear winners. Some 61% of respondents said they were going to increase spending on Microsoft Azure in 2021. Similarly, 57% plan on increasing their spending on Microsoft SaaS, while 54% plan on spending more on AWS. Google appears set for more modest gains, with only 31% planning on increased spending on Google Cloud.
The forecast looks even worse for IBM and Oracle. Respondents plan on increasing their spending on IBM Cloud a mere 16%, with 14% planning to decrease spending. While 20% said they planned on increasing spending on Oracle Infrastructure Cloud, 13% plan on decreased spending. The outlook is even worse for Oracle Licensed Software, with 22% planning to increase spending, as opposed to 25% planning to decrease expenditures.
Flexera’s report is an important look into the cloud industry and the ongoing digital transformation, and is even better news for Microsoft and AWS.
Google Cloud has announced it has opened three new cloud regions, expanding its worldwide cloud presence.
Google currently stands in third place, behind AWS and Microsoft Azure, in the cloud market. CEO Thomas Kurian has made it his stated goal to lead Google Cloud into at least the number two spot within five years. A big step in that direction is expanding Google’s cloud regions.
“Today, we’re excited to announce the expansion of our global network with new cloud regions in Chile, Germany and Saudi Arabia,” writes Dave Stiver, Senior Product Manager, GeoExpansion. “When launched, each region will have three zones to protect against service disruptions, and include a portfolio of key Google Cloud products, while offering lower latency to nearby users and a more robust global network of regions for multinational enterprises. “
Having local cloud regions enables Google Cloud customers to better serve their own customers’ needs.
“Google Cloud is a strategic partner as we optimize our operations performance to better serve our customers around the world,” says Henning Krüger, VP Ops Suite at Lufthansa Group. “We’re digitizing our operations atop Google Cloud’s global infrastructure, and we’re using their machine learning capabilities to combine previously disparate systems and data feeds into one unified platform.”
Microsoft announced today that it is launching Azure Space to focus on the burgeoning space industry. Microsoft says that Azure Space will bring together Azure technology and an extensive network of expert partners offering solutions for the industry. Additionally, Microsoft announced a major collaboration with SpaceX to provide satellite-powered internet connectivity on Azure.
“Today we’re launching Azure Space,” tweeted Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “A thriving ecosystem of satellite providers is essential to meet the world’s growing network needs, and we’re expanding our offerings to provide access to satellite data and connectivity from Azure.”
“Microsoft is taking the next giant leap in cloud computing – to space,” tweeted Azure head Tom Keene. “With the enormous challenges #space presents, there also comes great opportunity. Today, I am sharing details about our strategy for Azure Space.”
Tom Keene, Corporate Vice President of Azure Global, further discusses Azure Space:
Today, Microsoft is taking the next giant leap in cloud computing… to space. At Microsoft, our approach to space is different. This difference is evident across our platform, product, partnerships, and people.
We’re very excited about about the partnership between Microsoft and SpaceX and all of the incredible innovation that it brings for our customers and all of the possibilities that it offers to the future.
By building on new and existing partnerships within the space community, learning and leaning in to our culture of innovation and investing in people we are extending the Azure Edge capabilities with worldwide satellite connectivity.”
“If you think about Microsoft which is empowering people and organizations to achieve more and then you put that with SES which about doing the extraordinary in space to deliver amazing experiences anywhere on Earth and just look at the intersection of this,” says the CEO of SES Networks JP Hemingway. “I’ve got these fantastic cloud capabilities, this great intelligence, and we want to get to as many people as we can around the globe. Then you add that to what SES is doing. It’s providing that vehicle to get to everybody around the world whether they’re floating, flying, or in really hard to reach places.”
“What’s changing for space is that technology is propelling us forward,” says Azure Space Senior Director Steve Kitay. “Microsoft Azure Space is focusing on developing partnerships. There are many companies in the space community that have tremendous capabilities. We’re looking at bringing new and unique value along side those companies to the customers.”
Microsoft Launches Azure Space – Partners With SpaceX, SES
Verizon partners with Microsoft to create new ways for enterprises to accelerate the delivery of fast and secure 5G applications to enable state of the art low-latency IoT solutions.
Verizon’s on-site 5G Edge network integrated with Azure edge services can enable ultra-low latency, many times faster than the blink of an eye, according to Verizon, which can help businesses tap into real-time data analysis and delivery. Applications incorporating computer vision, augmented, mixed and virtual reality, digital twins or machine learning can be enhanced with 5G and MEC on the customer premise, helping transform the way industries such as retail, transportation, and logistics operations.
Think of automated high-precision asset localization, tracking and positioning in manufacturing. In healthcare, the increased speed, reduced latency and high bandwidth connectivity of 5G networks could enable real-time precision medicine leveraging mixed reality and AI capabilities as well as seamless and fast sharing of large files to improve patient care.
“We have built a network that provides real-world, 5G-enabled solutions TODAY,” said Rima Qureshi, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer at Verizon. “By bringing together Verizon’s 5G network and on-site 5G Edge platform with Microsoft’s expertise in cloud services, we will enable the development of the next-generation technologies everyone has been envisioning.”
The collaboration brings Azure cloud and edge capabilities together with Verizon’s on-site 5G Edge, a mobile edge computing platform designed to enable developers to build applications for mobile end-users and wireless edge devices with ultra-low latency. By utilizing on-site private 5G, businesses will be able to realize increased power efficiencies and reduced costs of end user devices while addressing their privacy and security needs.
Logistics and supply chain solutions company Ice Mobility is already testing on Verizon’s on-site 5G Edge platform, integrated with Microsoft Azure. The company is using 5G and MEC to help with computer vision assisted product packing. By gathering data in near real-time on product packing errors, the company has the potential to improve on-site quality assurance and save 15% to 30% in processing time.
“We are especially excited to join Verizon and Microsoft to test how 5G and MEC can improve the quality assurance process,” said Mike Mohr, CEO of Ice Mobility. “They truly have listened to our needs to provide automated real-time quality oversight and feedback, which will enable us to cost-effectively launch unique new products, while maintaining the highest execution standards, significantly increasing throughput and reducing costs. And, this is just the beginning.”
“By leveraging Verizon’s 5G network integrated with Microsoft’s cloud and edge capabilities, developers and businesses can benefit from fast, secure and reliable connections to deliver seamless digital experiences from massive industrial IoT workloads to precision medicine,” said Yousef Khalidi, corporate vice president Azure for Operators at Microsoft.
Moving forward, Verizon will explore opportunities to co-innovate with Microsoft to deliver new value to industries ranging from manufacturing to healthcare.
Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network enables throughput at least 25 times faster than today’s 4G networks*; delivers ultra-low latency; and offers very high bandwidth. Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband is expected to eventually enable 100 times larger data volumes than 4G; and the ability to connect more than a million devices per kilometer. Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband service is available to people in 55 cities and its 5G Nationwide service is available to more than 200 million people in more than 1,800 cities around the U.S.
“Today starts a new chapter in our close collaboration with the telecommunications industry to unlock the power of 5G and bring cloud and edge closer than ever,” said Microsoft Azure Executive Vice President Jason Zander in a blog announcement. “We’re building a carrier-grade cloud and bringing more Microsoft technology to the operator’s edge. This, in combination with our developer ecosystem, will help operators to future proof their networks, drive down costs, and create new services and business models.”
Jason Zander, Executive Vice President, Microsoft Azure, announces new collaborations with the telecommunications industry that will unlock the power of 5G and bring cloud and edge closer than ever:
The increasing demand for always-on connectivity, immersive experiences, secure collaboration, and remote human relationships is pushing networks to their limits, while the market is driving down price. The network infrastructure must ensure operators are able to optimize costs and gain efficiencies, while enabling the development of personalized and differentiated services. To address the requirements of rolling out 5G, operators will face strong challenges, including high capital expenditure (CapEx) investments, an increased need for scale, automation, and secure management of the massive volume of data it will generate.
Today starts a new chapter in our close collaboration with the telecommunications industry to unlock the power of 5G and bring cloud and edge closer than ever. We’re building a carrier-grade cloud and bringing more Microsoft technology to the operator’s edge. This, in combination with our developer ecosystem, will help operators to future proof their networks, drive down costs, and create new services and business models.
In Microsoft, operators get a trusted partner who will empower them to unlock the potential of 5G. Enabling them to offer a range of new services such as ultra-reliable low-latency connectivity, mixed reality communications services, network slicing, and highly scalable IoT applications to transform entire industries and communities.
By harnessing the power of Microsoft Azure, on their edge, or in the cloud, operators can transition to a more flexible and scalable model, drive down infrastructure cost, use AI and machine learning (ML) to automate operations and create service differentiation. Furthermore, a hybrid and hyper-scale infrastructure will provide operators with the agility they need to rapidly innovate and experiment with new 5G services on a programmable network.
More specifically, we will further support operators as they evolve their infrastructure and operations using technologies such as software-defined networking, network function virtualization, and service-based architectures. We are bringing to market a carrier-grade platform for edge and cloud to support the operator’s goals to future proof their infrastructure with disaggregated, and containerized network architectures. Recognizing that not everything will move to the public cloud, we will meet operators where they are—whether at the enterprise edge, the network edge, or in the cloud.
Our approach is built on the acquisitions of industry leaders in cloud-native network functions—Affirmed Networks and Metaswitch and on the development of Azure Edge Zones. By bringing together hundreds of engineers with deep experience in the telecommunications space, we are ensuring that our product development process is catering to the most relevant networking needs of the operators. We will leverage the strengths of Microsoft to extend and enhance the current capabilities of industry-leading products such as Affirmed’s 5G core and Metaswitch’s UC portfolio. These capabilities, combined with Microsoft’s broad developer ecosystem and deep business to business partnership programs, provide Microsoft with a unique ability to support the operators as they seek to monetize the capabilities of their networks.
Your customer, your service, powered by our technology
As we build out our partnerships with different operators, it is clear to us that there will be different approaches to technology adoption based on business needs. Some operators may choose to adopt the Azure platform and select a varied mix of virtualized or containerized network function providers. We also have operators that have requested complete end-to-end services as components for their offers. As a part of these discussions, many operators have identified points of control that are important to them, for example:
Control over where a slice, network API, or function is presented to the customer.
Definition of where and how traffic enters and exits their network.
Visibility and control over where key functions are executed for a given customer scenario.
Configuration and performance parameters of core network functions.
As we build out Azure for Operators, we recognize the importance of ensuring operators have the control and visibility they require to manage their unique industry requirements. To that end, here is how our assets come together to provide operators with the platform they need.
Communication Service Providers
Interconnect
It starts with the ability to interconnect deeply with the operator’s network around the globe. We have one of the largest networks that connect with operators at more than 170 points of presence and over 20,000 peering connections around the globe, putting direct connectivity within 25 miles of 85 percent of the world’s GDP. More than 200 operators have already chosen to integrate with the Azure network through our ExpressRoute service, enabling enterprises and partners to link their corporate networks privately and securely to Azure services. We also provide additional routes to connect to the service through options as varied as satellite connectivity and TV White Space spectrum.
Edge platform
This reach helps us to supply operators with cloud computing options that meet the customer wherever those capabilities are needed: at the enterprise edge, the network edge, the network core, or in the cloud. The various form factors, optimized to support the location in which they are deployed, are supported by the Azure platform—providing virtual machine and container services with a common management framework, DevOps support, and security control.
Network functions
We believe in an open platform that leverages the strengths of our partners. Our solutions are a combination of virtualized and containerized services as composable functions, developed by us and by our Network Equipment Provider partners, to support operators’ services such as the Radio Access Network, Mobile Packet Core, Voice and Interconnect services, and other network functions.
Technology from Affirmed and Metaswitch Networks will provide services for Mobile Packet Core, Voice, and Interconnect services.
Cloud solutions and Azure IoT for operators
By exposing these services through the Azure platform, we can combine them with other Azure capabilities such as Azure Cognitive Services (used by more than 1 million developers processing more than 10 billion transaction per day), Azure Machine Learning, and Azure IoT, to bring the power of AI and automation to the delivery of network services. These capabilities, in concert with our partnerships with OSS and BSS providers, enables us to help operators streamline and simplify operations, create new services to monetize the network, and gain greater insights into customer behavior.
In IoT our primary focus is simplifying our solutions to accelerate what we can do together from the edge to the cloud. We’ve done so by creating a platform that provides simple and secure provisioning of applications and devices to Azure cloud solutions through Azure IoT Central, which is the fastest and easiest way to build IoT solutions at scale. IoT Central enables customers to provision an IoT app in seconds, customize it in hours, and go to production the same day. IoT Plug and Play dramatically simplifies all aspects of IoT device support and provides devices that “just work” with any solution and is the perfect complement to achieve speed and simplicity through IoT Central. Azure IoT Central also gives the Mobile Operator the opportunity to monetize more of the IoT solution and puts them in a position to be a re-seller of the IoT Central application platform through their own solutions. Learn more about using Azure IoT for operators here.
Cellular connectivity is increasingly important for IoT solutions and represents a vast and generational shift for mobile operators as the share of devices in market shifts towards the enterprise. We will continue our deep partnership with operators to enable fast and efficient app development and deployment, which is critical to success at the edge. This will help support scenarios such as asset tracking across industries, manufacturing and distribution of smart products, and responsive supply chains. It will also help support scenarios where things are geographically dispersed, such as smart city automation, utility monitoring, and precision agriculture.
Where we go next
Our early engagement with partners such as Telstra and Etisalat helped us shape this path. We joined the 5G Open Innovation Lab as the founding public cloud partner to accelerate enterprise startups and launch new innovations to foster new 5G use cases with even greater access to leading-edge networks. The Lab will create long-term, sustainable developer and commercial ecosystems that will accelerate the delivery of exciting new capabilities at the edge, including pervasive IoT intelligence and immersive mixed reality. And this is just the beginning. I invite you to learn more about our solutions and watch the series of videos we have curated for you.
While Microsoft and Amazon battle it out in court over one Department of Defense (DOD) contract, Google has secured a contract of its own.
The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is an organization within the DOD that helps the military innovate by adopting commercial software. As a result, the DIU helps prototype, deploy and scale commercial solutions to meet needs within the military.
The DIU has selected Google Cloud to build a secure cloud management solution based on Anthos, providing a multi-cloud approach that is managed from Google Cloud Console. Google Cloud will also use Istio for secure communication and Netskope for cloud security. This will allow the DIU to run web apps on multiple clouds, including Google Cloud, AWS and Microsoft Azure, and help the organization combat cyber threats worldwide.
“Google Cloud is a pioneer in ‘zero trust’ security and in deploying innovative approaches to protecting and securing networks worldwide,” said Mike Daniels, Vice President, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud. “We’re honored to partner with DIU on this critical initiative to protect its network from bad actors that pose threats to our national security.”
“Government agencies shouldn’t have to choose between security and throughput,” said Beau Hutto, VP Public Sector, Netskope. “Netskope is a leader in providing complete visibility and control for managed and unmanaged applications. This secure cloud management solution will help the DIU maintain vigilance, while also helping it seamlessly manage applications in service of its mission.”
