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TECHNOLOGY

Where Significance and Security Meet

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Where Significance and Security Meet

We’ve all attended big events where security was tight. Maybe not White House level; but people scanned your ticket or personal invitation, another person checked your ID and a cadre of bystanders with headsets and dark glasses stood along the edge making sure the event went smoothly.

You stood in a sea of thousands trading great conversation and creating experiences. Your motivation was an unforgettable time to network, meet old friends and make a few new ones. This was the event of the year.

Welcome to edge computing. It is truly the next big “mega event” for CXOs and their teams leading them into the future.

Use cases will rise dramatically with more interaction, more people, more IoT devices, more data collection and more processing and analytics coming together at the edge. 

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In its report entitled “Predicts 2022: The Distributed Enterprise Drives Computing to the Edge,” Gartner forecasts that IoT units will grow with an 11% CAGR through 2030 – when there will be 500 billion connected devices. Data-heavy verticals like manufacturing, healthcare, oil and gas, transportation, public sector organization, and smart agriculture will grow even faster. 

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The significance of edge computing is about context 

What I mean by context is a shift toward technology becoming agile, operating where and when the action is. Gartner’s report states: “The volume of data at the edge is massive and growing, requiring organizations to address it where it lives rather than send it all back to the core data center or cloud.”

The evolution toward edge computing is not just technology for technology’s sake. Distributed intelligence pushed to the edge solves critical problems like minimizing latency, improving bandwidth, and optimizing bandwidth usage and cost.

The significance of edge varies because edge is defined differently for each market sector. For example, edge for insurance might involve an IoT device alerting a policyholder of a water leak. The data (and I mean a lot of data) then originates from the device. While it’s cost prohibitive to send that data to the cloud, edge computing solves the problem because the location of the processing is in the device. For retail banking or healthcare, however, edge is completely different. 

Here’s the list of priorities to consider from most important to least important: environment, understanding the role of cloud and edge computing, the computing infrastructure, data and transport of that data, security, and, finally, scalability.

Security at the edge puts you on the offense 

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Edge implementation for any organization will only be successful if a strategic cybersecurity approach is in place. To unpack this complex issue, AT&T has published the 42-page AT&T Cybersecurity Insights™ Report. A third in AT&T’s series on the topic, you’ll find questions to explore as you add edge to your technology stack and read about real use cases (the most helpful part of all). 

Here are a few thought starters: 

●     How do you define edge in your market sector?

●     What’s your approach to securing the edge?

●     What framework will you use to assess your risk? 

●     What is the security maturity of your organization?

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●     Have you noticed other enterprises in your space adopting edge?

AT&T’s report found that perceived risk at the edge differs in each industry. Retail and energy and utilities are most concerned. Healthcare has the lowest perceived risk, although the report points out they are still above the midline. Finance and manufacturing cluster in the center with finance companies having the most experience, and thus maturity, with cybersecurity risk. 

Exploring edge-to-edge solutions for specific industries is the key to delivering breakthrough customer experiences while keeping your business ahead of the digital curve. If you’re not sure where to start, AT&T has a helpful playbook talking about the “cyber scaries” .

While emerging technologies come with benefits, consider security first and foremost. Otherwise, your organization steps into reactionary mode. In fact, according to TechRepublic, 66% of IT teams view edge computing as a threat to organizations. Playing offense is your best strategy.

You’re invited.

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From Gartner’s report entitled “Tech Providers 2025: The Future of AI is on the Edge,”  We see this prediction: “An ability to create AI-enabled outcomes across constrained compute ‘edges’ is the most impactful refactoring of value in technology markets since cloud computing. Product leaders must redistribute their products from the cloud to be closer to acquired event data to add value to customer processes.” Edge computing, and making sure you have the right security around it, is fast becoming top of mind for every organization. 

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Think of edge computing as an invitation to the biggest event of the century. Everyone will be there. It’s where the action is. How will you ensure your data, customers, employees, devices, interactions and reputation are protected?

You don’t have to have all the answers. None of us do. Companies like AT&T are leading the way to filling the gaps. Because technology will never live up to its purpose if it doesn’t serve the greater needs of humankind. That’s the foundational principle for securing your world – and employing the right technology that moves people forward.


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TECHNOLOGY

Next-gen chips, Amazon Q, and speedy S3

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AWS re:Invent, which has been taking place from November 27 and runs to December 1, has had its usual plethora of announcements: a total of 21 at time of print.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the huge potential impact of generative AI – ChatGPT officially turns one year old today – a lot of focus has been on the AI side for AWS’ announcements, including a major partnership inked with NVIDIA across infrastructure, software, and services.

Yet there has been plenty more announced at the Las Vegas jamboree besides. Here, CloudTech rounds up the best of the rest:

Next-generation chips

This was the other major AI-focused announcement at re:Invent: the launch of two new chips, AWS Graviton4 and AWS Trainium2, for training and running AI and machine learning (ML) models, among other customer workloads. Graviton4 shapes up against its predecessor with 30% better compute performance, 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth, while Trainium2 delivers up to four times faster training than before and will be able to be deployed in EC2 UltraClusters of up to 100,000 chips.

The EC2 UltraClusters are designed to ‘deliver the highest performance, most energy efficient AI model training infrastructure in the cloud’, as AWS puts it. With it, customers will be able to train large language models in ‘a fraction of the time’, as well as double energy efficiency.

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As ever, AWS offers customers who are already utilising these tools. Databricks, Epic and SAP are among the companies cited as using the new AWS-designed chips.

Zero-ETL integrations

AWS announced new Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Relational Database Services (Amazon RDS) for MySQL integrations with Amazon Redshift, AWS’ cloud data warehouse. The zero-ETL integrations – eliminating the need to build ETL (extract, transform, load) data pipelines – make it easier to connect and analyse transactional data across various relational and non-relational databases in Amazon Redshift.

A simple example of how zero-ETL functions can be seen is in a hypothetical company which stores transactional data – time of transaction, items bought, where the transaction occurred – in a relational database, but use another analytics tool to analyse data in a non-relational database. To connect it all up, companies would previously have to construct ETL data pipelines which are a time and money sink.

The latest integrations “build on AWS’s zero-ETL foundation… so customers can quickly and easily connect all of their data, no matter where it lives,” the company said.

Amazon S3 Express One Zone

AWS announced the general availability of Amazon S3 Express One Zone, a new storage class purpose-built for customers’ most frequently-accessed data. Data access speed is up to 10 times faster and request costs up to 50% lower than standard S3. Companies can also opt to collocate their Amazon S3 Express One Zone data in the same availability zone as their compute resources.  

Companies and partners who are using Amazon S3 Express One Zone include ChaosSearch, Cloudera, and Pinterest.

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Amazon Q

A new product, and an interesting pivot, again with generative AI at its core. Amazon Q was announced as a ‘new type of generative AI-powered assistant’ which can be tailored to a customer’s business. “Customers can get fast, relevant answers to pressing questions, generate content, and take actions – all informed by a customer’s information repositories, code, and enterprise systems,” AWS added. The service also can assist companies building on AWS, as well as companies using AWS applications for business intelligence, contact centres, and supply chain management.

Customers cited as early adopters include Accenture, BMW and Wunderkind.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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TECHNOLOGY

HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces

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Digital comms specialist Cisco and global tech firm HCLTech have teamed up to launch Meeting-Rooms-as-a-Service (MRaaS).

Available on a subscription model, this solution modernises legacy meeting rooms and enables users to join meetings from any meeting solution provider using Webex devices.

The MRaaS solution helps enterprises simplify the design, implementation and maintenance of integrated meeting rooms, enabling seamless collaboration for their globally distributed hybrid workforces.

Rakshit Ghura, senior VP and Global head of digital workplace services, HCLTech, said: “MRaaS combines our consulting and managed services expertise with Cisco’s proficiency in Webex devices to change the way employees conceptualise, organise and interact in a collaborative environment for a modern hybrid work model.

“The common vision of our partnership is to elevate the collaboration experience at work and drive productivity through modern meeting rooms.”

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Alexandra Zagury, VP of partner managed and as-a-Service Sales at Cisco, said: “Our partnership with HCLTech helps our clients transform their offices through cost-effective managed services that support the ongoing evolution of workspaces.

“As we reimagine the modern office, we are making it easier to support collaboration and productivity among workers, whether they are in the office or elsewhere.”

Cisco’s Webex collaboration devices harness the power of artificial intelligence to offer intuitive, seamless collaboration experiences, enabling meeting rooms with smart features such as meeting zones, intelligent people framing, optimised attendee audio and background noise removal, among others.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, HCLTech, Hybrid, meetings

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TECHNOLOGY

Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud

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Canonical has announced the general availability of MicroCloud, a low-touch, open source cloud solution. MicroCloud is part of Canonical’s growing cloud infrastructure portfolio.

It is purpose-built for scalable clusters and edge deployments for all types of enterprises. It is designed with simplicity, security and automation in mind, minimising the time and effort to both deploy and maintain it. Conveniently, enterprise support for MicroCloud is offered as part of Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro subscription, with several support tiers available, and priced per node.

MicroClouds are optimised for repeatable and reliable remote deployments. A single command initiates the orchestration and clustering of various components with minimal involvement by the user, resulting in a fully functional cloud within minutes. This simplified deployment process significantly reduces the barrier to entry, putting a production-grade cloud at everyone’s fingertips.

Juan Manuel Ventura, head of architectures & technologies at Spindox, said: “Cloud computing is not only about technology, it’s the beating heart of any modern industrial transformation, driving agility and innovation. Our mission is to provide our customers with the most effective ways to innovate and bring value; having a complexity-free cloud infrastructure is one important piece of that puzzle. With MicroCloud, the focus shifts away from struggling with cloud operations to solving real business challenges” says

In addition to seamless deployment, MicroCloud prioritises security and ease of maintenance. All MicroCloud components are built with strict confinement for increased security, with over-the-air transactional updates that preserve data and roll back on errors automatically. Upgrades to newer versions are handled automatically and without downtime, with the mechanisms to hold or schedule them as needed.

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With this approach, MicroCloud caters to both on-premise clouds but also edge deployments at remote locations, allowing organisations to use the same infrastructure primitives and services wherever they are needed. It is suitable for business-in-branch office locations or industrial use inside a factory, as well as distributed locations where the focus is on replicability and unattended operations.

Cedric Gegout, VP of product at Canonical, said: “As data becomes more distributed, the infrastructure has to follow. Cloud computing is now distributed, spanning across data centres, far and near edge computing appliances. MicroCloud is our answer to that.

“By packaging known infrastructure primitives in a portable and unattended way, we are delivering a simpler, more prescriptive cloud experience that makes zero-ops a reality for many Industries.“

MicroCloud’s lightweight architecture makes it usable on both commodity and high-end hardware, with several ways to further reduce its footprint depending on your workload needs. In addition to the standard Ubuntu Server or Desktop, MicroClouds can be run on Ubuntu Core – a lightweight OS optimised for the edge. With Ubuntu Core, MicroClouds are a perfect solution for far-edge locations with limited computing capabilities. Users can choose to run their workloads using Kubernetes or via system containers. System containers based on LXD behave similarly to traditional VMs but consume fewer resources while providing bare-metal performance.

Coupled with Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro + Support subscription, MicroCloud users can benefit from an enterprise-grade open source cloud solution that is fully supported and with better economics. An Ubuntu Pro subscription offers security maintenance for the broadest collection of open-source software available from a single vendor today. It covers over 30k packages with a consistent security maintenance commitment, and additional features such as kernel livepatch, systems management at scale, certified compliance and hardening profiles enabling easy adoption for enterprises. With per-node pricing and no hidden fees, customers can rest assured that their environment is secure and supported without the expensive price tag typically associated with cloud solutions.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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Tags: automation, Canonical, MicroCloud, private cloud

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