Monthly Archives: September 2019

Privacy has become a big deal. Government regulators are moving to squash indiscretions and protect consumers while preserving constitutional liberties a tall task.

The Federal Trade Commission recently announced wide-ranging monetary settlements withFacebookandEquifaxto resolve ongoing investigations.

Facebook will pay $5 billion for its part in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. State attorneys general asserted that lax standards at the social media giant allowed political operatives to weaponize fake news accounts and influence the 2016 presidential election.

Hacker internet computer crime cyber attack network security password protection

TheNew York Timesreportedthat Equifax, a leading consumer credit reporting agency, will pay $650 million to settle class-action lawsuits related to its data 2017 breach.

In a corporate video released following the attack, Equifax CEO Rick Smith said cybercriminals breached company databases between May and July 2017. They stole full names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver license numbers for 145 million persons. Credit card credentials were lifted for 209,000 customers.

Equifax collects and aggregates financial information on 800 million individuals and 88 million businesses worldwide. Its business is protecting data. The company employs an experienced staff of IT professionals, yet their defenses proved no match for the sophisticated attacks of cyber crooks.

Its a new world, and the bad guys are winning.

Its easy to get distracted by these headline-grabbing fines. But investors should pay attention. New competitive moats are forming around data security, and scale is more important than ever.

Analysts at Gartner, an information technology research company,predictedthat worldwide spending on cybersecurity would grow 8.7% in 2019, to $124 billion. The firm cited security breaches, business needs created by digital transformation and ongoing regulatory changes as growth drivers.

Hidden in that report is the surprising growth of cloud-delivered, Security-as-a-Service deployments. Analysts noted that although on-premises solutions are still the most popular, cloud-based security is becoming the preferred delivery model for a number of technologies.

During the past two months,Microsoft,IBM,Amazon.comandAlphabetall reported dramatic increases in their cloud computing infrastructure businesses.

The scale at which this can be done is the attraction. Enterprises have been able to build applications in the cloud, and then add computing power, storage and data analytics as needed.

Now theyre discovering this scalability is also possible with cybersecurity.

Chronicle, a Google Cloud cybersecurity business,launchedBackstory in March. The cloud service is a lot like Google Photos. Enterprises and organizations dump their data into silos. Then the system structures everything, stores the data in the cloud and compares it to a continuous stream of threats.

Like Photos, Backstory uses real-time machine learning and advanced data analytics. And because it is constantly improving, Chronicle managers claim it gives security professionals the tools to get a leg up against advanced, data-swiping antagonists.

Zscalerbuilds walls around data, not applications. The San Jose, Calif., company makes cloud-based, next generation firewalls.

The idea turns traditional network security on its head. Most enterprise security solutions have been built around security appliances, where threats are pushed to siloed servers. Unfortunately, that model is hopelessly broken.

More importantly, appliances have not stopped hackers. Plus, appliances are expensive and do not scale well. The only way to add more capacity is to buy more appliances. Unfortunately, that increases bottlenecks and latency. Its the anathema of the hybrid and cloud-based infrastructure that dominates modern enterprise computing.

Zscaler claims to operate the worlds largest Security-as-a-Service stack, processing 35 billion requests, with 125,000 unique security updates every day. And its cloud architecture means every client, from powerful workstations and laptops, to smartphones and tiny Internet of Things devices, get the same level of security.

When Zscaler finds a threat anywhere, it blocks it everywhere. In the process, customers get better performance and lower costs than security appliances.

I originally recommended the stock in June 2018 at $28, then again in January 2019, at $41. At the time I explained that although the stock might seem expensive at 520x forward earnings, the business was growing fast and at the center of a new digital security trend. Sharesreached $89, before falling back to $48.

For what its worth, the stock now trades at 174x forward earnings and 20x sales. Sales grew 59% in fiscal 2019. The stock is up 19% year to date.

Zscaler is still in the right place, with the right product.This pullback looks like an attractive entry point in a great longer term story.

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New Cybersecurity Companies Have Their Heads In The Cloud - Forbes

As more businesses embark on their digital transformation journey and shift towards a mobile cloud computing model, they must rethink their entire security architecture. Migrating to the cloud effectively marks the end of the traditional network perimeter, which means that the standard security protocols designed to protect the perimeter are no longer fit for purpose.

A recent report from Outpost24 found that while 42 percent of organisations are concerned about cloud security, 27 percent do not know how quickly they could tell if their cloud data had been compromised. This shows that many organisations are failing to follow cloud security best practices, leaving them vulnerable to security threats. This article outlines some of the best security practice organisations should follow when migrating to the cloud.

The rising popularity of the cloud cannot be understated. IDGs 2018 Cloud Computing Study estimated that 77 percent of organisations use cloud services. Its also been estimated that the average enterprise uses up to almost 1,000 applications. However, the added freedom granted by cloud services also comes with risks. As organisations move to a mobile cloud computing model, their employees have access to critical business data anytime from anywhere, eroding the traditional network perimeter. This has opened up new access points for hackers to exploit and created a massive attack surface that traditional security systems, such as firewalls and gateways, cannot protect against.

With the modern mobile cloud computing model dissolving the traditional network perimeter, organisations need to adapt. Businesses should look to implement a zero-trust security framework, which has been designed in direct response to the diminishing perimeter. Zero-trust considers an organisations network to be already compromised and as a result applies a never trust, always verify logic to network access.

With data flowing freely between various devices and servers in the cloud, there are more potential access points to be exploited. The zero trust model takes this into account and requires the device to be verified, the users context to be established, the apps to be authorized, the network to be verified and the presence of threats to be detected and mitigated. Only after all these checks have been completed will the user be granted access to the data they are trying to view.

The password is the weakest link in enterprise security a recent survey conducted by MobileIron and IDG found that 90 percent of the security professionals questioned had seen unauthorised access attempts as a result of stolen credential and unfortunately, the advent of cloud computing has further exploited the vulnerability of the password. With cloud services and applications presenting organisations with multiple opportunities to streamline the way they handle their data, the risk presented by stolen user credentials has only grown.

The same IDG survey also found that almost half of enterprise users recycle their password for more than one enterprise application. And with the average enterprise using up to 1,000 different cloud applications, it is highly likely that enterprise users recycle their passwords for different cloud services. Thus, just one stolen password in the modern cloud environment could provide hackers with countless amounts of enterprise data. In order to overcome the pain of passwords, organisations should look to more reliable methods of securing access to their data in the cloud, such as multi-factor authentication, or biometrics.

Good security hygiene is always of paramount importance, but even more so when an organisation migrates to the cloud. The advancement of cloud computing has changed the way the modern enterprise works, with mobile devices increasingly being used to access critical business data. In order to best achieve secure access to cloud data, organisations need to understand the environment in which their employees want to work, including what devices they choose to use.

Organisations can then implement appropriate security protocols. With modern work increasingly taking place on applications on mobile devices, rather than on browsers or desktops, organisations will need to develop a new perimeter defined for the device in order to stop data seeping between cloud apps.

This is where enrolling devices in a unified endpoint management (UEM) solution becomes essential. Enrolling devices ensures that devices are encrypted and allows IT to enforce appropriate authentication and security policies. It also gives IT the opportunity to delete dangerous apps over-the-air and stop business data from seeping between different cloud-based apps. Enrolling devices in such a way not only serves to maximise the gains in productivity that cloud computing has to offer but also helps to ensure data stored in the cloud is secure.

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases? Attend the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.

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Best security practices for migrating to the cloud: A guide - Cloud Tech

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

The global cloud computing market size is poised to grow by USD 190.32 billion during 2019-2023, according to a new report by Technavio, progressing at a CAGR of over 16% during the forecast period. However, the growth momentum is expected to decelerate over the forecast period.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190925005540/en/

Read the 154-page research report with TOC on "Cloud Computing Market Analysis Report by service (SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS) and geography (North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and MEA) 2019 - 2023" at:

https://www.technavio.com/report/cloud-computing-market-industry-analysis

The market is driven by the increase in adoption of cloud computing to facilitate cost savings. Also, according to this cloud computing market analysis, rising use of private cloud solutions for data backup and recovery is anticipated to further boost the growth of the market during the forecast period.

To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of cloud computing market research, Download Free Sample

Enterprises across the globe are increasingly focusing on minimizing their overall capital expenditure by deploying customized cloud services as per their business needs. Hybrid cloud deployments allow organizations to set up infrastructure on a private cloud while utilizing public cloud resources when required. Hybrid cloud solutions also allow portability of the applications between different clouds. Furthermore, SMEs and large-scale organizations are increasingly adopting cloud solutions as they provide security, reliability, and result in optimum utilization of resources. Thus, owing to the cost-saving benefits offered, the demand for cloud computing is expected to rise in the forthcoming years.

Given the vast access to Internet, organizations have been facing security and compliance concerns including data theft and critical information leaks. To mitigate these challenges, service providers are offering disaster recovery and data backup options to enable organizations access data available in cloud storage. Furthermore, organizations have also started using private clouds as the private cloud firewall keeps data secure. In addition, vendors have started to offer data backup and recovery solutions to attract customers and help them store data efficiently and securely. The launch of on-premises and multi-cloud environment solutions will further drive the market growth during the forecast period.

To find out more about Cloud Computing Market Research 2019-2023, https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR32028

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The report includes detailed profiles of the leading companies & prominent vendors of the market:

Market Segmentation by Category and Service Types:

The cloud computing market can be broadly categorized into the following:

Key Regions for the Cloud computing:

Featuring a breakdown of region-wise market shares until 2019.

North America

Europe

APAC

South America

MEA

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Some of the key topics covered in the report include:

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market size and forecast

Vendor Landscape

Related Reports on Information Technology Market are:

Public Cloud Services Market Global Public Cloud Services Market by service (software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and platform as a service (PaaS)) and geography (APAC, Europe, MEA, North America, and South America).

Hybrid Cloud Market Global Hybrid Cloud Market by end-user (BFSI, retail, healthcare, telecom, and others) and geography (APAC, Europe, MEA, North America, and South America)

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavios report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavios comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190925005540/en/

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Emerging Trends, Drivers and Challenges in the Cloud Computing Market 2019 2023 | Technavio - Yahoo Finance

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The Era of Cloud Smart: Conversations with Federal Leaders on Cloud Computing Strategy - GovExec.com

RENTON, Wash. Thanks to Microsofts hyper-realistic new version of Flight Simulator, I now know what its like to fly a Cessna 72SP Skyhawk airplane over my neighborhood then crash it into the next street over.

And in connection with a daylong preview of the pre-alpha version of the simulation software, I got to fly a real Cessna almost as close to my real neighborhood. Thankfully, without crashing.

Both adventures were eye-openers for a guy like me a guy who had never taken a flight lesson before, and whose only previous experience with flight simulation programs has been to crash (or nearly crash) virtual spaceships.

But even a newbie like me can appreciate the effort that went into the first full refresh for Microsofts classic Flight Simulator in 13 years.

Flight Simulator is actually older than Windows, Jorg Neumann, head of the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise for Xbox Game Studios Publishing, told me. Its the oldest franchise we have. So theres always a desire to revitalize something like this. This was just the right moment in time. Its what I call convergence: We needed the right tech, we needed the right tools, we needed the right partners to really bring this back.

Rendering tools have come a long way in the past decade, putting Hollywood-level graphics within the reach of game developers. Earth imagery has taken off, thanks to aerial and satellite-based reconnaissance. And cloud computing has opened new vistas for dealing with the massive mapping databases that have been created.

All those trends converged in 2016, when Neumann and his team started remaking Flight Simulator.

The project represents a renaissance for a title that served as an early demonstration of the potential of personal computers. First unveiled for the IBM PC in 1982, Flight Sim, as its known to its many fans, was effectively grounded as an active project a decade ago when Microsoft closed the Redmond studio that made Flight Simulator.

Microsoft went on to launch a spin-off called Microsoft Flight in 2012, but it never really took off and was shut down after several months. Another sequel, Flight Sim World,was made by Dovetail Games under license from Microsoft and launched in 2017, but it went off the market last year. A version of Microsoft Flight Simulator X is available on Valves Steam platform, but its underlying technology dates to 2006.

Much has happened in technology since then. The revitalized Flight Simulator, whose advent was announced in June at the E3 expo in Los Angeles, takes advantage of Bing Maps global imagery and the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Then it adds artificial intelligence to flesh out the details, right down to populating the skies with clouds and putting leaves on the trees that I crashed through.

We plant 1.5 trillion trees every day, Neumann joked.

The result? Realistic re-creations of landscapes ranging from the city centers of Paris, New York and Seattle to the water tower and the recently rebuilt elementary school in my Eastside neighborhood.

That goes for everyones neighborhood, including Neumanns.

When I fly over my house, my car is parked in front, he said. Its not just a simulation. Its the real world.

This months sneak preview, presented at Rainier Flight Service in Renton, was aimed at showing off the pre-alpha version of the new Flight Simulator for journalists, bloggers, influencers and seasoned users of Flight Simulator (known as simmers). Attendees were required to hold back on their reviews, their photos and even their tweets until the embargo lifted today.

One room was set aside for computer workstations, equipped with a Logitech simulation yoke and throttle as well as a Thrustmaster set of rudder pedals and a David Clark headset. Each workstation was emblazoned with an attendees call sign. (I made mine up specially for the meet-up: AlienBoy.)

Youre the first people in the world to get a hands-on today, Neumann told the standing-room crowd. But before they set us loose, Neumann and other developers in charge of the project explained how they kicked Flight Simulators level of reality up several notches.

Developers used a variety of strategies to create a virtual planet. They relied principally on 2 petabytes worth of Bing Maps aerial imagery, stored on Microsoft Azure servers. To re-create the 3-D look of 400 cities around the world in even finer detail, Flight Simulator draws upon high-resolution photogrammetric scans.

But wait theres more: Flight Simulator uses rendering tools that draw upon AI to fine-tune the 3-D imagery and fill in the gaps, ranging from remote stretches of terrain to buildings that are obscured in Bings pictures.

Sometimes some aerial pictures can be covered with clouds, said Lionel Fuentes, lead programmer at Asobo Studio in France, which partnered with Microsoft on the graphics. Some areas are blurred on purpose. (Fuentes later told me that the blurred-out areas are filled with generic graphics rather than, say, accurate renderings of missile silos.)

Asobos developers also dug deep into the physics of how light is scattered by hazy skies, how clouds are built with multiple layers of moisture, and how those clouds reflect and refract light. If you dial Flight Simulators settings just right, you can spot a double rainbow shining through a rain shower as you fly over a virtual Seattle.

The same attention to detail was devoted to replicating the physics of flight right down to the way raindrops stream across the windshield, and the way air flows around a mountain to create turbulence.

It goes down to very small things, like trees, buildings. They also create turbulence when you fly over, like, downtown areas, said Sebastian Wloch, co-founder and CEO of Asobo Studio. So we simulate all that.

The developers made high-resolution scans of cockpits as well, ranging from the trim little Cessna that I flew to big commercial jets.

Because so much data resides on the cloud, youll need a high-throughput connection to enjoy Flight Simulator to the max..The better your bandwidth, the better your experience, Fuentes said.

But if youre bandwidth-challenged, dont fret: The software is programmed to take maximum advantage of the connection thats available. Theres even an offline simulation mode thats based on real-life data, as well as a provision for pre-caching terrain data on your hard drive.

The new Flight Simulator is designed to let hard-core simmers dig deeply into the minutiae of instrument checklists, or allow newbies like me to skip the preliminaries and dive right in. High-fidelity audio replicates the sounds associated with takeoff, landing and in-air maneuvers. The controls let you display the full cockpit view, turn your virtual head to look out the windows, go to an outside-the-plane view or even get rid of the plane and look straight down.

Is the experience true to life? Wloch swears that it is.

All of the aircraft have been designed and/or reviewed by people who have a lot of hours on the aircraft, he said. Every aircraft is different. We wanted them to not only be right on the numbers, but also feel right.

To do that reality check, Microsoft partnered with airline pilots who put in tens of thousands of flight hours comparing the simulation with real-world flying. In one case, flight data readings were compared with the virtual planes performance in Flight Simulator and pointed up a previously overlooked discrepancy in how the software calculated fuel consumption.

Since Im a newbie, I cant compare the new Flight Simulator with previous versions. But I can confirm that even a newbie can get a Cessna off the ground. I took off from a virtual version of Rentons airport, and in just minutes I was flying over Seattle and Bellevue. Sure, I crashed when I tried to land back in Renton but I marveled that I was able to stay up in the air for as long as I did, the first time around.

That first flight turned out to be a classic case of beginners luck. For the next dozen times after that, my plane spun leftward into the trees just as it rose from the runway. I had to ask for help, and found out I should be using the rudder pedals to push the plane toward the right. (I totally ignored those pedals until I asked.)

I must have gone up in the air 40 times in all, and landed successfully just once. Several times, I crashed into the virtual trees of my own neighborhood in Bellevue while trying to get a close look at my house. It was pure frustration and pure fun.

Then it was my turn to go up in a real Cessna with Justin Fancher, a flight instructor at Rainier Flight Service. He insisted that I take the left seat, which usually goes to the pilot in command. As we strapped in, Fancher told me Flight Simulator helped him prepare to be a pilot. When it was time to actually train, I was less overwhelmed, he recalled.

Fancher handled the controls from the right seat for the takeoff, but once we were in level flight, he let me take over. Im sure I gripped the yoke a little harder than I needed to, but I successfully steered the plane through a turn over the Issaquah Alps for a close-up look at Snoqualmie Falls. Then I continued westward to Seattle.

I found that flying the real Cessna was easier than flying the simulated version. For one thing, Fancher adjusted the trim wheel so that the plane naturally stayed level. Heeding his advice, I led each maneuver with a push on a rudder pedal and followed up with a turn of the yoke the opposite of what I was doing in the sim.

Fancher took back control of the plane so I could snap some pictures of the Seattle cityscape, plus shots of my neighborhood as we flew over Bellevue.

After Fancher landed the plane back in Renton, I found out why so many of my simulated takeoffs took a bad left turn. It turns out that Flight Simulator takes account of the slight weight imbalance when theres just one pilot sitting in the cockpits left seat.

If youre alone, its going to have a small tendency to roll left, Wloch told me. Its pretty subtle, but its there. If you fly the plane in the real world and youre alone, youll notice you constantly have to push it right a little bit.

If that bugs you, you can change the settings to balance the weight.

Flight Simulator fans will get their first chance to sample the new version en masse as part of Microsofts Tech Alpha test program, which is due to begin in late October. To start the application process, head on over to FlightSimulator.com.

Microsoft will be fine-tuning the software and moving into beta mode over the next few months. The finished product will be released in 2020, starting with the PC version and following up with Xbox. Therell be a multiplayer option as well.

The baseline is, you can be online with friends, Neumann said. But he and his team at Microsoft are still debating how much farther theyll take the multiplayer concept.

Somebody in the audience today said something about a co-pilot, Neumann said. We actually had that idea two years ago. We looked at it, and it didnt seem like a high priority. But if the community tells us it is a high priority, then we will certainly look at that again.

In one sense, Flight Simulator 2020 will never be finished. Because so much of the terrain imagery is stored in the cloud, it can be regularly updated with new construction and shifts in geography.

The world is a living place, and it always evolves, Fuentes said.

Fuentes and his colleagues at Asobo Studio have already seen that evolution in action: Theyve noticed shifts in the beaches around Frances Arcachon Bay on the Atlantic coast, possibly due to climate change and sea level rise.

Flight Simulator will reflect those and other changes in the years ahead, with Microsoft making adjustments to keep pace with the real world and the world of cloud computing.

We think of this whole thing as a 10-year journey, Neumann told me.

Based on my one-day tryout, Im ready to sign up for the journey not so much to learn to fly, but to travel the world that Flight Simulator has built. And Im probably not the only newbie in that frame of mind.

Because we have reached a level of definition of the world that is so great you can actually enjoy the world as it is in real life from home, there is in this Flight Simulator iteration probably something that speaks to anyone, David Dedeine, chief creative officer at Asobo Studio, told me.

Its what I call the tourist dimension, he said. Everyone is interested in seeing the beautiful places on Earth. Now, for the first time, this will be possible in the sim.

Could there be new types of simulations from Microsoft that let you walk through those beautiful places, instead of flying over it? Neumann had a cagey answer.

There are discussions about all kinds of things, almost overwhelmingly so, he said. Anything could be done, once you have the entire Earth.

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Flight Simulator is back, and its real: Microsoft uses cloud to help classic franchise soar again - GeekWire

The conference will bring together industry leaders and practitioners for an open conversation about cloud computing, outside the context of large cloud providers

NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- This October, cloud architects and chief engineers from leading technology companies will gather at ESCAPE/19, the first independent multi-cloud conference. The conference was conceived and is presented by Cockroach Labs, a leader in the emerging cloud-native category who is focused on delivering a next-generation database through distributed SQL, and will be held October 16-17, 2019 at The Conrad Hotel in New York City.

At ESCAPE/19, industry leaders and infrastructure architects will deliver a mix of technology and business discussions in order to better define what it means to be multi-cloud. This is in contrast to AWS Reinvent, Google Cloud Next, and Microsoft Ignite proprietary conferences launched by the three largest cloud providers, where content is siloed within the context of that single cloud provider.

"ESCAPE/19 breaks the mold of single-vendor cloud conferences. Our goal is to collaborate with change-makers to pave the way for transparent and significant discussions around the future of technology infrastructures, for which multi-cloud is an inevitability," explains Cockroach Labs CEO and co-founder, Spencer Kimball.

"Most organizations adopt a multi-cloud strategy out of a desire to avoid vendor lock-in or to take advantage of best-of-breed solutions," Gartner VP analyst Michael Warrilow says in a recent Smarter with Gartner post. He along with several experts in the space expect that most large organizations will continue to willfully pursue this approach.

ESCAPE/19 aims to provide an open forum to encourage free conversations about all cloud options and the unique challenges professionals face as they analyze and discover how to leverage all of them, especially in conjunction with existing on-premise solutions.

Register for #ESCAPE19 here. Deadline for advanced tickets is October 15.

About Cockroach LabsCockroach Labs delivers a cloud-native, distributed SQL database that ensures your data is consistent, always available and efficiently located so that you can architect your modern cloud applications from local through global scale. Companies like Comcast, Lush, and Bose are building their cloud data architectures on CockroachDB. Cockroach Labs was founded by a team of engineers dedicated to building cutting edge systems infrastructure, and has investments from Altimeter, Benchmark, GV, Index Ventures, and Redpoint. http://www.cockroachlabs.com

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/escape19-the-first-and-only-impartial-conference-to-address-multi-cloud-challenges-in-nyc-300926847.html

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ESCAPE/19, The First and Only Impartial Conference to Address Multi-Cloud Challenges in NYC - Yahoo Finance

Google announced Friday it will open a new cloud hub in Poland as the tech giant seizes on growing sales across Europe.

The announcement underscores Google Cloud's ambitions to expand its cloud infrastructure across the European region. In an interview with CNBC Thursday, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said Europe is a "big area of focus" for the business.

"We're actually growing faster in terms of people, customers, revenue here than in any other part of the world," Kurian said.

Google Cloud currently operates 20 cloud regions around the world, including six in Europe. The company said Friday its new location in Warsaw, Poland will help customers in central and eastern Europe benefit from its cloud services.

Cloud regions include infrastructure like data centers. Cloud computing allows businesses and consumers to store and access data, apps and software over the internet, instead of locally on a hard drive or server.

Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the company is investing $3.3 billion to expand its European data centers over the next two years.

Kurian, who took over as chief of Google's cloud business last year, told CNBC the company is "very very confident" in its growth across Europe. He pointed to "enormous consumer demand" for cloud services in sectors like banking, adding central banks in Europe see cloud as an "enabler rather than a source of risk."

"People here in Europe are really beginning to adopt cloud," he said. "At some point there was reluctance to adopt cloud. I think now they see the value that cloud can deliver."

The two biggest cloud services providers in the world, Amazon and Microsoft, have also been expanding their infrastructure in Europe, while Chinese tech giant Alibaba has opened new data centers in the U.K. and Germany.

Western Europe represents one-fifth of the global cloud market, according to research from IDC.

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Google will open a cloud hub in Poland as European growth outpaces rest of world - CNBC

When Dallas lost out on its bid to become at least half of Amazons HQ2, it represented a setback for the region, but it also created an opportunity.

We could learn from what we lacked and prepare for a future where the worlds biggest and most dynamic companies cannot afford to say no to what our city and our region have to offer.

Dallas has learned this lesson before. When Boeing selected Chicago over us in 2001, it marked a moment when Dallas had to face the fact that it didnt have the cultural amenities nor the vibrant downtown that Chicago offered.

Look at us since then. Downtown is transformed. People populate its streets night and day. Gorgeous new parks have bloomed from parking lots. The Arts District is among the finest in any city in America. We answered the challenge.

The challenge presented by Amazons rejection was different, and in certain ways, more daunting.

Despite our wealth and growth, we simply do not have the workforce that major technology companies need. The truth is most cities off the coasts, absent our own capital, dont have that either.

Part of the pitch our region made when we were courting Amazon was to build an Amazon University with the support of local colleges. The idea was to work together to ensure that we could grow, right here, the sort of tech talent that Amazon needs.

When we lost out on the deal, this page urged local leaders to build it anyway.

Dallas didn't win this fight, but that doesnt mean the city should accept defeat. As the nation advances technologically, more companies requiring tech employees will emerge. It gets a lot of attention when a company promises 50,000 jobs.But when 10 employers bring 5,000 jobs each, the benefit is the same. Why not do the work to encourage all of them to move here, we asked.

Well, that hasnt quite happened yet, but Dallasand the state have taken a valuable step forward.

As reporter Melissa Repko wrote last week, community colleges in Dallas County and elsewhere in Texas will work with Amazon Web Services to create a new degree program that will prepare students for careers in cloud computing.

Joe May, chancellor of the Dallas County Community College District, deserves credit once again for a forward-thinking effort about getting Dallas students the job skills they need as early as possible in their lives and at a price that will not cripple them with debt.

DCCCD will join 22 other community colleges next year in offering a two-year cloud computing degree. As Repko reports, the skills taught to get that degree can lead to well-paying jobs that stand the chance of lifting young people from Dallas ISD and other ISDs out of poverty.

Whats more, having a well-trained and ready workforce means the next time Amazon or another major tech company comes knocking, we will be ready.

Got an opinion about this issue? Send a letter to the editor, and you just might get published.

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Amazon turned us down. Now, we're getting ready - The Dallas Morning News

US government agencies needing high levels of information security can upgrade to use the latest cloud technologies to run their applications, thanks to a pair of new cloud infrastructure regions from Oracle. The cloud data center complexes are authorized against strenuous FedRAMP and Department of Defense requirements.

The two new cloud infrastructure regions are in Ashburn, Virginia, outside Washington, DC, and Phoenix, Arizona. They are part of Oracles goal to have 36 Generation 2 Cloud data center regions, offering services such as Oracle Autonomous Database, live by the end of 2020, including three additional dedicated regions to support Department of Defense agencies and contractors.

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Cyberattacks in both the private and public sector are not only increasing in volume, but in sophistication, says Edward Screven, Oracles chief corporate architect. Business and government must evolve their approach to security and seize the opportunities presented by second-generation cloud architectures and advances in artificial intelligence. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure was engineered to do exactly that, and our FedRAMP authorization brings our best-in-class cloud infrastructure to the service of the government to help improve our nations response to cyberthreats.

Edward Screven, Oracles chief corporate architect.

FedRAMP, more formally known as the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, provides a standard approach to federal security assessments, authorizations, and monitoring of cloud services. With FedRAMP, once a cloud provider is approved to provide a set of services or applications to one branch of government, other departments can use that service without getting a new security authorization.

With FedRAMP authorization in place, a federal agency can more quickly move an application or database workload thats running in a government-run data center into Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Agencies can also build and launch new cloud-native applications directly on Oracles cloud.

Security Designed Deep into Gen 2 Cloud

In Oracles Generation 2 Cloud architecture, customers deploy workloads in an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure region, which consists of one or more fault-tolerant physical data centers within the same geographic area, connected with redundant, low latency, high bandwidth networks. Encrypted high-speed, high-bandwidth interconnects exist between regions, enabling cross-region replication for disaster recovery. Regions can connect to external data centers like those run by government agencies or companies, through encrypted high-performance networks.

Oracles Gen 2 Cloud Infrastructure was architected with security as well as performance in mind. For example, the software Oracle uses to manage its cloud lives on separate servers, isolated from the servers that run the government or business workloads. With that approach, Oracle does not see customer dataand customer code cannot access Oracles cloud control code.

Government agencies also can access Oracle Autonomous Database, announced in March 2018, which automatically takes care of formerly labor-intensive tasks such as backing up, tuning, patching, updating, and securing databases, reducing both cost and human error.

Oracle has a long history of service to the US government going back to the 1970s. Currently, more than 500 organizations at all levels of government use Oracle products and services for public sector clouds, data analytics, security, finance, and citizen services like contact centers and knowledge management.

Oracle's Gen 2 Cloud also includes a set of security services such as locking down customer tenancy to security policy defaults to help avoid insecure configurations; automating monitoring for security misconfiguration and anomalous activity; management for encryption keys, and other credentials or passwords. The Gen 2 Cloud also includes functionality designed to help detect and guard against web-application breaches and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Machine Learning and GPUs

The cloud also lets federal agencies tap the latest technology and analytics strategies, including applying artificial intelligence and machine learning. Those techniques often rely on GPU-based computinggraphics processing unitswhich are used for math-heavy tasks such as high-performance scientific computing, data analytics, and machine learning.

Government agencies can use the cloud to embrace new technologies and also to move existing data center applications to benefit from reduced operating costs, improved efficiencies, and increased scalability, says Scott Twaddle, vice president of product development for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Youve spent a lot of time developing those systems, training employees, and building processes that workthat investment spans years or even decades, Twaddle says. You dont want to throw that all away. Gen 2 Cloud lets you move those foundational systems to cloud, improve them, and use that as a launching pad to build the next generation of systems in the cloud. With Oracles Gen 2 Cloud Infrastructure, agencies and contractors can move some data center applications into the cloud right away, while keeping others in the data center, but linked to the cloudand move them later, if desired.

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With FedRAMP Clearance, Oracle Brings Its Gen 2 Cloud Infrastructure To Government - Forbes

Alibaba Groups cloud-computing arm unveiled a new slate of partners for its China Gateway initiative during the Apsara Conference, the companys biggest technology event of the year.

Canon, Refinitiv and The Trade Desk are the latest to sign on for the service from Alibaba Cloud, which helps businesses scale up in the worlds second-largest economy. They join the growing list of companies from 80-plus countries that have already opted into China Gateway, including Shiseido, WeWork, Chemist Warehouse and Ford.

The China Gateway Program, which launched in March, offers international companies a suite of cross-border compliance, security and networking products to connect their China operations with their offices worldwide. The program also gives them access to payments, e-commerce and logistics applications to better serve their Chinese customers.

We would like to support more customers to innovate in China and transfer their successes to other parts of the world, said Selina Yuan, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence International. We are happy to see an increasing number of customers who innovate with us, and accelerate their global digitalization process with that success.

Japanese imaging-solutions provider Canon said it leverages Alibaba Cloud solutions, including online-to-offline integration, digital marketing and data analysis, and it expects the collaboration to help improve its customer experience in China, Canon China Vice President Ehara Taisei said.

Innovation is happening everywhere in the China market, said Ehara. Alibaba Cloud has become one of the most-important platforms to support business-driven innovation, especially that based on the internet.

Alibaba Cloud Offers SAP Access

Separately, Alibaba Group and German enterprise-software maker SAP said theyve advanced their partnership, which started in 2016 with the goal of helping Chinese enterprises with their digital transformation through cloud computing.

On Thursday, they announced the launch of new options for customers to run SAP applications on Alibaba Clouds platform, including SAP S/4HANA Cloud, a suite of solutions to help companies move their operations to the cloud, and SAP Cloud Platform, a platform-as-a-service for creating new applications or integrating pre-existing applications with third-party technologies.

The new solutions would help Chinese enterprises speed up their migration to the cloud and spur their innovation and transformation, said Stefan Wagner, global senior vice president at SAP.

Alibaba and SAP said they also plan to design solutions tailored to the unique needs of Chinese enterprises and collaborate on projects involving Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and big-data technologies.

Avnet Opens Shop on 1688.com

Also announced during the Apsara Conference, Phoenix-based technology company Avnet launched a store on Alibabas domestic wholesale platform for industrial products, 1688.com. The store allows Avnet to expand its online presence in the market and offer Chinese developers direct access to its electronic components, such as single-board computers designed for the rapid deployment of Internet of Things applications.

Through our alliance with Alibaba Cloud, developers in China can accelerate their IoT prototyping on a familiar and versatile platform with built-in cloud connectivity, said Nishant Nishant, vice president of digital at Avnet.

By giving them easy access to feature-rich products that integrate hardware and cloud, plus experts in the Avnet ecosystem that can help them overcome the challenges of scaling to production, Chinese developers will be able to take their IoT solutions to market faster than before, Nishant said.

Alibaba sees the Apsara Conference, previously known as The Cloud Computing Conference, as a prime platform to announce new technologies and product updates each year. This year, Alibaba Cloud announced 85 new products and features at the event, including the launch of its third-generation X-Dragon Architecture, which can increase server performance by five times in key metrics, such as input/output operations per second or packets (of data) per second. The upgrade will be deployed across millions of its servers worldwide starting next year, Alibaba Cloud said.

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New Alibaba Cloud Partners, Products Revealed at... - Alizila