Daily Archives: February 10, 2020

Cloud computingconsists of hardware and software resources made available on the internet as managed external services. These services rely on advanced software applications and high-end networks of server computers.

Service providers create cloud computing systems to serve common business or research needs. Examples of cloud computing services include:

Cloud computing systems all generally are designed to support large numbers of customers and surges in demand.

Cloud services using a software-as-a-service model, or SaaS, provide fully functional programs to end users even though the programs may not be resident on their local computers. Email providers like Gmail and Outlook.com are SaaS applications, as well as just about any computer program that runs inside a browser. As such, SaaS is most familiar to home consumers.

A SaaS solution sits atop a platform. Vendors that offer platform-as-a-service portfolios generally face corporate clients. PaaS products include virtual servers, operating environments, database environments, and any other middleware component that sits between the hardware and the consumer-facing application.

Platforms, in turn, sit upon infrastructure. Infrastructure-as-a-service solutions generally get to the level of 'bare metal' the physical servers, networking components, and device storage necessary to make platforms (and, hence, services) functional. IaaS is popular with corporate clients, with tradeoffs between speed, cost, and privacy that each vendor balances in different ways.

Many different vendors offer various types of cloud-computing services:

Some providers offer cloud computing services for free, while others require a paid subscription.

A cloud computing system keeps its critical data on internet servers rather than distributing copies of data files to individual client devices. Video-sharing cloud services like Netflix, for example, stream data across the internet to a player application on the viewing device rather than sending customers DVD or BluRay physical discs.

Clients must be connected to the internet in order to use cloud services. Some video games on the Xbox Live service, for example, can only be obtained online (not on physical disc), while some others also cannot be played without being connected.

Some industry observers expect cloud computing to keep increasing in popularity in coming years. The Chromebookis one example of how all personal computers might evolve in the future under this trend devices with minimal local storage space and few local applications besides the web browser (through which online applications and services are reached).

As with any disruptive new technology, cloud computing offers strengths and weaknesses that developers and consumers alike must carefully evaluate.

Service providers are responsible for installing and maintaining core technology within the cloud. Some business customers prefer this model because it limits their own burden of having to maintain infrastructure. Conversely, these customers give up management control over the system, relying on the provider to deliver the needed reliability and performance levels.

Likewise, home users become highly dependent on their internet provider in the cloud computing model: Temporary outages and slower-speed broadbandthat are a minor nuisance today become a significant problem in a fully cloud-based world. On the other hand proponents of cloud technology argue such an evolution would likely drive internet providers to keep improving the quality of their service to stay competitive.

Cloud computing systems are normally designed to closely track all system resources. This, in turn, enables providers to charge customers fees proportional to their network, storage, and processing usage. Some customers prefer thismetered billing approach to saving money, while others prefer a flat-rate subscription to ensure predictable monthly or yearly costs.

Using a cloud computing environment generally requires you to send data over the internet and store it on a vendor-managed system. The privacy and security risks associated with this model must be weighed against the benefits as well as the alternatives.

The average non-IT consumer benefits from SaaS/PaaS/IaaS technologies because of the lower cost, faster deployment time, and increased flexibility that these solutions offer. Although some people prefer to own the license to a piece of unchanging software, others are content to embrace subscription-based software that requires internet connectivity.

Read the rest here:

What Is Cloud Computing, and How Do You Use It?

Organizations worldwide spent a record $107bn on cloud computing infrastructure services last year according to a new report from Canalys.

Spending on cloud computing infrastructure services was up by 37 percent compared to the previous year and a third of this year's spending went to Amazon's cloud computing division, AWS.

As industries continue to digitize, businesses have increased how much they spend on infrastructure as a service (IaaS) as well as their investments in servers, storage, compute and other cloud-based services. According to experts at Canalys, this uptick in spending will likely continue over the next five years and the firm's report estimates that total spending on cloud infrastructure services will reach $284bn in 2024.

In a press release, chief analyst at Canalys, Alastair Edwards credied this increase in cloud computing infrastructure spending to the fact that many organizations outside of the tech space are now transitioning to become technology providers, saying:

"Organizations across all industries, from financial services to healthcare, are transitioning to being technology providers. Many are using a combination of multi-clouds and hybrid IT models, recognizing the strengths of each cloud service provider and the different compute operating environments needed for specific types of workloads."

According to Canalys' report, organizations spent $34.6bn on AWS' cloud infrastructure which is up from $25.4bn the previous year. At the same time, Amazon's market share increased slightly from 32.7 percent in 2018 to 34.6 percent last year with an annual growth rate of 36 percent.

While AWS took the top spot, Microsoft Azure came in second with customers spending 18.1bn last year up from 11bn in 2018. Azure's market share also increased from 14.2 percent to 16.9 percent in 2019 and Microsoft's cloud computing division saw an annual growth rate of 63.9 percent.

Google Cloud surpassed Alibaba Cloud and other cloud providers to earn the third spot with $6.2bn spent by its customers during 2019. The search giant's cloud computing division saw spending almost double from the $3.3bn spent in 2018 and it also saw an impressive 87.8 percent increase in annual growth.

Edwards also highlighted the role that channel partners will play in the future of cloud computing, saying:

"The role of channel partners will become more important, as cloud use increases, in terms of defining application strategies, integration into business processes, optimizing user experiences, governance and compliance, as well as securing data and workloads."

Via ZDNet

See the original post:

Cloud computing spending breaks all records in 2019 - TechRadar

Organizations across the globe splashed out a record $107 billion for cloud computing infrastructure services in 2019, up 37% from the previous year, according to a new report released by analyst firm Canalys and rather unsurprisingly, a whole third of the cash prize was pocketed by cloud behemoth Amazon Web Services (AWS).

As most industries digitize, businesses are increasing their spend on infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and growing their investments in servers, storage, compute and other cloud-based services ranging from billing and monitoring to security.

This, combined with the fact thatenterprises are keen to increase their use of cloud infrastructure to scale existing applications, has caused this year's jump in demand a boom that Canalys experts believe will continue over the next five years. The report estimates that total spending on cloud infrastructure services in 2024 will reach $284 billion.

SEE: Cloud v. data center decision (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic)

"Organizations across all industries, from financial services to healthcare, are transitioning to being technology providers," said Canalys chief analyst Alastair Edwards.

"Many are using a combination of multi-clouds and hybrid IT models, recognizing the strengths of each cloud service provider and the different compute operating environments needed for specific types of workloads."

In other words, in 2019, a successful cloud provider is a flexible cloud provider. This rule of thumb certainly helps explain why AWS attracted 32% of cloud infrastructure investments in 2019, and is still running far ahead of its next largest competitor, Microsoft Azure, which represented about 17% of total spend.

AWS attracted 32% of cloud infrastructure investments in 2019, and is still running far ahead of its next largest competitor, Microsoft Azure, which represented about 17% of total spend.

AWS is effectively securing customer engagement by offering services that can be easily integrated an appealing offer as enterprise users increasingly opt for multi-cloud and hybrid solutions.

Integration typically happens through building a strong ecosystem of channel partners, which are intermediaries that enterprises can rely on to manage various different cloud platforms. And when it comes to engaging with channel partners, AWS has been scoring brownie points.

Last year, for instance, the Amazon subsidiary announced a new product called AWS Outposts, which lets customers run native AWS or VMWare environments in integrated racks connected to Amazon's public cloud. Canalys' report predicts that the general availability of initiatives like Outposts will drive even further growth for AWS.

Edwards said: "The role of channel partners will become more important, as cloud use increases, in terms of defining application strategies, integration into business processes, optimizing user experiences, governance and compliance, as well as securing data and workloads."

As successful as the past year has been for AWS, it is not yet time for the cloud provider to rest on its laurels. Microsoft Azure, for one, is steadily growing, and saw its share of the cloud infrastructure spending market increase from 14% in 2018 to 17% in 2019, according to Canalys.

What's more: another tech giant is racing to catch up in the cloud providing space. The report notes that Google Cloud has continued to make progress in reaching new enterprise customers, and that it is also developing its network of channel partners. The search giant's cloud business represented only about 6% of investments in IaaS in 2019.

SEE: Google Cloud hits a $10B annual revenue run rate

The research published by Canalys focuses on investments in cloud infrastructure; in other words, only on a fraction of spending on overall cloud services, which is estimated to have reached a gargantuan $229 billion in 2019.

And as investments in the cloud explode IDC predicts they will reach $500 billion globally by 2023 it is becoming a priority for customers to make sure that they see a return on investment.

A recent survey, found that optimizing cloud costs is the top initiative for 64% of enterprise customers. Ensuring that users remain engaged, therefore, is likely to be a priority for AWS, Microsoft and Google alike; and the prospect for 2020 is increasingly looking like a battle of the cloud giants.

Excerpt from:

Cloud computing: Spending is breaking records, Microsoft Azure slowly closes the gap on AWS - ZDNet

The newly attained standard certifies the high security level provided by Tencent Cloud to global enterprise users

SINGAPORE, Feb.10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tencent Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Tencent-- a leading provider of internet value added services in China, today announced its acquisition of the Multi-Tier Cloud Security Standard (MTCS SS), an international security standard essential to the adoption of cloud computing services in Singapore.

Tencent Cloud conforms to Tier 3 of the MTCS SS, the world's first security standard that covers multiple tiers, proving its capability to provide the highest level of security to enterprise cloud users in Singapore, Asia and around the world.

According to Gartner[1], the global public cloud services market is seen to be growing by 17% in 2020, bringing it to a total of US$266.4 billion, up from US$227.8 billion in 2019. Almost 60% of organizations are foreseen to be using cloud-managed services from external service providers by 2022, doubling the percentage compared to statistics from 2018.

"The acquisition of the highest level MTCS SS security standard demonstrates how Tencent Cloud continues to establish itself as one of the world's leading industry players, having helped Tencent move from fifth to fourth place in the Asia-Pacific cloud vendor rankings[2] through landmark projects and solutions," said Poshu Yeung, Vice President of Tencent International Business Group. "With the rapid cloud adoption globally, we are proud to receive this international security standard, which adds to our increasingly recognised and adopted cloud offerings in the region. It also emphasises our exceptional capability to host, handle and process highly confidential data, bringing confidence and peace of mind to our enterprise customers."

Launched in Singapore in 2013, the MTCS SS is the world's first cloud security standard with the goal of providing businesses valuable insight to better assess and understand the level of cloud security they require. It covers areas including cloud governance, cloud infrastructure security, cloud operations management, cloud service administration, cloud user access, tenancy and customer isolation, data retention, liability, disaster recovery, as well as incident and issue management.

Tencent Cloud MTCS certificate

Being the first Chinese company, and one of the world's top five companies, to have more than one million servers, Tencent Cloud has achieved more than 20 international certifications related to public cloud information protection, such as CSA STA, ISO/IEC 27001:2013, ISO/IEC 27017:2015 and ISO/IEC 27018:2014. The GDPR-compliant Tencent Cloud is also the first cloud service provider to attain the ISO20000-1:2018 and ISO/IEC 27701:2019 international standards.

Recognized as the second largest cloud player in China[3], Tencent Cloud is expanding its overseas footprint by providing cloud solutions that serve several key industry verticals, such as financial services, telecoms, e-commerce, travel and hospitality as well as online games and entertainment.

Tencent Cloud is a secure, reliable and high-performance public cloud service provider that integrates Tencent's infrastructure-building capabilities with the advantages of its massive user platform and ecosystem. Tencent Cloud provides global access and a rich array of services to organizations that need advanced infrastructure and a resilient environment, such as those in the online games, live broadcast, and financial services sectors.

Tencent Cloud operates in 25 regions and 53 availability zones worldwide, and is a part of Tencent's broader strategy to invest in the latest technologies, such as cloud, security, big data and artificial intelligence, to capture the next wave of growth.

[1]Forecast: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2017- 2023, 3Q19 Update by Gartner, Dec 2019

[2]Cloud Infrastructure Services market share in Asia Pacific - 2018 Q4, Synergy Research Group (https://tech.qq.com/a/20190318/004532.htm)

[3]China Public Cloud Service Market Historical Tracker, 2019

Media Contact

ifung@currentglobal.com

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200210/2715501-1

SOURCE Tencent

See more here:

Tencent Cloud Achieves the Highest Multi-Tier Cloud Security Standard - Yahoo Finance

The Birth of the Cloud-First Approach

For the past several years, federal agencies have gotten pretty good at understanding what to do (and not to do) when it comes to the cloud. That means theyve got a wealth of knowledge you can easily adopt for your own benefit.

For instance, in early 2011 the Obama administration formulated the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, commonly known as Cloud First. That strategy gave federal agencies the green light to go all in on the cloud by requiring them to evaluate safe, secure cloud computing options before making any new investments. It was a visionary, necessary stake in the ground that successfully jump-started cloud adoption at the federal level.

Since then, federal agencies learned a few things.

First, they discovered the practical reality that not every workload is appropriate for the cloud. For example, applications that relied on sensitive data as well as applications that would be too costly to move, or legacy apps that were never designed for the cloud or were going to be retired soon were often better kept in on-premises data centers.

Then, agencies realized the costs of exiting the cloud could be quite high, as were the costs to store data. They didnt discover those costs until they had already taken that on-ramp to the cloud.

The feds learned theres no need to take a wholesale approach and migrate every application to the cloud. A hybrid cloud model, in which some applications are stored in the public cloud while others remain on-premises, is a valid approach that allows for better security while still leveraging the cost and flexibility benefits of the cloud.

Eschewing an all-or-nothing approach can save you from, as my companys CEO once put it, the mother of all lock-ins, where all of your data and applications are designed for a single cloud vendor. In the early days, federal IT professionals were unprepared for the potentially high egress costs associated with extracting data from the cloud. You can learn from their experiences and create an exit strategy that includes an appropriate budget.

MORE FROM STATETECH: Find out how CASBs provide visibility and security for enforcing rules in the cloud.

The tough lessons federal agencies learned led to an evolution in the way the government approached the cloud. Instead of thinking Cloud First, the Trump administration encouraged agencies to become Cloud Smart with a revised strategy introduced in 2019.

Cloud Smart focuses on three pillars: security, procurement and workforce. The idea is to use the cloud to modernize and improve data security, use repeatable practices and knowledge sharing to streamline procurement processes and upskill, retrain, and recruit key talent.

Each of these pillars is based on the need for open infrastructure components (such as operating systems and application servers), automation and knowledge sharing, respectively. By standardizing systems across all platforms and programs, your security will remain strong.

Cloud Smart policy suggests expediting procurement as a centralized process in a common portal. Repeatable processes can be avoided by automating everyday tasks, such as installing upgrades and patches. Knowledge sharing stems from an open organization built upon the willingness of managers and employees to adopt philosophies emphasizing transparency, cross-departmental and cross-agency collaboration and continuous updates.

All of these strategies are viable across levels of government. In fact, its possible theyre more applicable at the state and local levels, where agencies tend to be smaller and have limited budgets to devote to security and training, yet need to make processes more efficient.

MORE FROM STATETECH: Find out about the cloud certifications state and local government employees need.

Cloud Smart isnt the only federal resource states should check out. The CIO Councils Application Rationalization Playbook is a great resource for learning about rationalizing the many applications in your organization and determining which are appropriate for the cloud. The National Institute of Standards and Technology also has a number of best-practice documents downloadable for free.

Theres no reason why you shouldnt cherry pick for your own benefit what the federal government has already put in place. You can do so now and be ready to fully realize the promise and benefits of the cloud and steer clear of the well-known drawbacks, thanks to the trail the feds have already blazed.

Every dollar you dont spend on reinventing the wheel can go into innovation and improved service delivery, and youll be on the same level as those federal organizations all without having to go through the cloud-first learning curve.

See more here:

State and Local Agencies Learn Cloud Strategies from the Feds - StateTech Magazine

We spent a lot of years talking about net neutralitythe idea that the companies that provide access to the internet shouldnt unfairly block, slow down, or otherwise interfere with traffic even if that traffic competes with their services. But theres an even bigger issue brewing, and its time to start talking about it: cloud neutrality.

While its name sounds soft and fluffy, Microsoft president and general counsel Brad Smith and coauthor Carol Ann Browne write in their recent book, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age, in truth the cloud is a fortress. Their introduction describes the modern marvel of the data center: a 2 million-square-foot, climate-controlled facility made up of colossal electrical generators, diesel fuel tanks, battery arrays, and bulletproof doors. At its center is what they call a temple to the information age and cornerstone of our digital lives: thousands of machines connected to the fastest possible internet connections, providing offsite storage and computing power to businesses that otherwise couldnt possibly afford the hardware for all that storage and computing power.

Smith and Browne note cheerfully that Microsoft operates or leases more than 100 such facilities in 20-plus countries and hosts at least 200 online services. Each data center costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build and many millions more to maintain; and you pretty much cant build a successful new company without them. So, thank goodness for Microsoft, right?

The book means to portray this might and power as both a source of wonder and an enabling feature of the modern economy. To me, it reads like a threat. The cloud economy exists at the pleasure, and continued profit, of a handful of companies.

The internet is no longer the essential enabler of the tech economy. That title now belongs to the cloud. But the infrastructure of the internet, at least, was publicly financed and subsidized. The government can set rules about how companies have to interact with their customers. Whether and how it sets and enforces those rules isnt the point, for now. It can.

Thats not the case with the cloud. This infrastructure is solely owned by a handful of companies with hardly any oversight. The potential for abuse is huge, whether its through trade-secret snooping or the outright blocking, slowing, or hampering of transmission. No one seems to be thinking about what could happen if these behemoths decide its against their interests to have all these barnacles on their flanks. They should be.

Almost every modern tech company is paying to outsource its storage and computing services, either all or in part, to the cloud. This setup allows startups to emerge with very little overhead, and huge companies to run more efficiently by avoiding investment in physical hardware. It has spawned a generation of companies that plan to use the cloud to offer everything as a service.

But turn that transaction around, and you realize that the companies that actually built and operate the cloud are essentially incubating and hosting their competition. One easy example? Netflix runs its streaming video product on the cloud-based Amazon Web Services; indeed, it was widely praised for saving money by going all in on AWS in 2009 and 2010. Amazon started its own streaming service in 2011. The two have coexisted for a decade now, but how long will the famously ruthless Amazon tolerate that situation?

The problem is that few have the resources to replicate the cloud infrastructure, should the landlords suddenly turn on their tenants.

The big three cloud providers in the world are Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Theyve collectively spent tens of billions of dollars on data center infrastructure. And to be clear, they have profited handsomely from those investments. Just last week, in fact, Alphabet revealed its cloud services revenue for the first time: it accounts for nearly $9 billion of the companys $37.57 billion in quarterly earnings, up more than 50 percent from 2018. Amazons AWS business made almost $10 billion, and Microsofts Azure business made almost $12 billion. Cloud computing was a $141 billion market in 2018.

Read this article:

We Need to Talk About Cloud Neutrality - WIRED

The cloud trend for the year 2020 is Spoilt for Choices!

Higher focus on security along with DevOps, Data Analytics, Automation and Optimization are few trends that can be expected

The cloud market will continue to grow and its a great time for both consumers and cloud providers

The Cloud trend for 2020 is Spoilt for choices!

Businesses spend over 50% of their time in choosing the right technology stack, rest in maybe implementing it and a little more time in worrying if they made the right choice or not! But there is no one to blame here exactly, this was ought to happen and thats what has made 800+ businesses to relay on the best cloud services companies to help them make these choices through detailed comparisons, pricing options, technical compatibilities and testing.

So, what will shine this 2020?

The first thing we can say will definitely see growth is the focus on security at the core!

India is specifically going to spend a lot of time on security aspects this year. The year 2019 saw a huge number of requests from the consumers with regards to security like conducting GAP Analysis to understand their security implementations and the gaps if any.

We can expect this to grow even more in 2020 with tons of projects in implementing security best practices starting right from the encryptions to complex Nextgen firewall implementations. Organizations moving to cloud or even the ones already on cloud are going to consider these security factors more seriously this year.

Speed will continue to be one of the key success factors for any business in a competitive market like ours. Especially with increasing competition and a greater number of options each day, consumers need to be up to date and modern. DevOps in such cases plays a major role in achieving faster deployments. It helps in continuous implementations and also to seamlessly manage the code from dev through production. There are a whole bunch of DevOps tools out there in the market to look out for and integration with Identity management systems is already a blessing.

We have always liked to make well-informed decisions. But thanks to Cloud, we can now do it without drilling a hole in our pockets. We sure can lookout for tons of Data warehouse, Analytics and Reporting projects. 2020 is estimated to provide more scope and potential in this area.

We spend over 40% of our working hours optimizing customer workloads for better performance and reducing cloud spend. Once the business is established and bottom-line starts to matter, cloud spends optimisation is the first thing entrepreneurs go for because it is one of the top three expenses for any cloud-first organisation. Tons of technology options are available on the cloud today and expert architects play a big role in achieving this. In fact, businesses dont mind hiring experts only to help them optimize their cloud technology spend.

All this said, while these are some of the few trends we can expect in 2020 and coming years based on a survey conducted with extensive Cloud users, Cloud market will continue to grow and choices for the consumers will only keep increasing. We can expect consumers becoming more knowledgeable and informed about all the available technologies and demanding their implementation for their complete growth as an organization.

Jesintha Louis is the Director and Business Evangelist - Partner Success, G7CR Technologies India Private Limited

More:

Trends To Be Expected In The Cloud Computing Space In 2020 - Inc42 Media

Journey to the Savage Planet released in late January to strong critical acclaim. Nathan rated it 8 out of 10, praising it as a spiritual successor of sorts to the Metroid series.

At its best, Journey to the Savage Planet really captures that Metroid magic. That excitement of seeing a temping ledge, cave, or cracked wall just out of reach, and then, bit by bit, figuring out how to get there. Unraveling Savage Planets secrets almost always feels rewarding, as theres very little collecting for collectings sake. Everything you find has a purpose. Often, I would try to play the disciplined reviewer and set myself hard goals, only to lose hours just happily exploring AR-Y 26 with no specific mission in mind. Thats the measure of a good Metroidvania. As a nice bonus, Savage Planet also includes two-player online co-op. The games world isnt specifically designed around it, so you lose nothing by playing on your own, but its always fun to explore with friends.

Journey to the Savage Planet was made by Typhoon Studios, a Canadian developer created by Alex Hutchinson, Yassine Riahi and Reid Schneider. Hutchinson, a long-time industry veteran who has credits as Lead Designer for The Sims 2 and Spore and as Director for Army of Two: The 40th Day, Assassin's Creed III and Far Cry 4, recently spoke with GamingBolt to discuss the specifications of Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Sony's PlayStation 5 next-generation consoles. According to him, cloud computing will be more impactful.

Activision Is Planning to Reveal Several Remasters in 2020, According to CEO

Its more power, but I think the cloud and being able to have large scale simulations and persistence will be the big new things this generation, so not so much the boxes themselves but what they connect to when youre not looking!

As a reminder, Typhoon Studios just became a first-party studio for Google Stadia, which certainly puts the statement in perspective. However, the cloud's potential has been highlighted before by several developers and publishers. We'll see if Typhoon Studios will be among those capable of showcasing what Google Stadia can do.

Share Submit

Read the rest here:

Journey to the Savage Planet Dev Says Cloud Computing Will Be More Impactful Than Next-Gen Specs - Wccftech

As Amazon Web Services continues its cloud computing domination into 2020, the new decade starts with anticipation of how much No. 2 Microsoft Azure can close the gap after better-than-anticipated quarterly results reports from both this month.

The battle between the two public cloud rivals also will play out in the courtroom, where AWS is challenging the U.S. Department of Defenses award of the $10 billion JEDI cloud computing contract to Microsoft amid allegations of political interference from President Donald Trump.

Industry observers will be tracking the progress of No. 3 Google Cloud under CEO Thomas Kurian, as it continues its enterprise push and hybrid multi-cloud strategy with its Anthos platform.

Cloud computing continues to be the top spending priority among the 2,000 largest U.S. enterprises, according to a Morgan Stanley survey of CIOs in December.

Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives, meanwhile, sees this year as an inflection point year for cloud spending thats driven by enterprises multi-cloud strategies.

We estimate that $300 billion has been spent on the cloud globally over the last four years and, looking ahead, upwards of $700 billion-plus will be spent over the next three years, which speaks to the massive cloud opportunity for Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and others (IBM), he said.

Heres a look at six cloud providers everyone will have their eyes on in 2020.

See the original post:

6 Cloud Providers Everyone Will Be Watching In 2020 - CRN: Technology news for channel partners and solution providers

The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) is an actively managed fund with a broad mandate to invest in companies that its managers have identified as benefiting from an infrastructure shift away from hardware and software toward cloud and mobile.

Next Generation Internets wide-ranging directive does not limit its investments by geography or by industry. Instead, the funds managers are tasked with identifying companies they view as engaged in the next generation of internet evolution.

Broadly speaking, the ARKWs managers appear focused on big, recognizable buzzwords such as internet of things, cloud computing, digital currencies and wearable technology. Stocks of companies that fit ARKWs investment profile are expected to benefit from shifting technology infrastructure to the cloud. That transition will enable mobile, local and new services, including those provided by companies that rely on or benefit from the increased use of shared technology, infrastructure and services, internet-based products and services, new payment methods, big data, the internet of things and social distribution and media.

These companies may develop, produce or enable cloud computing and cyber security, e-commerce, big data, artificial intelligence (AI), mobile technology, internet of things, social platforms, blockchain and peer-to-peer (P2P) computing.

The fund is most heavily weighted in the United States, 89.33%, then Hong Kong, 6.76%, and China, 3.91%. Its top sectors include Internet services, 30.46%, Software, 23.09%, and Auto & Truck Manufacturing, 10.50%. Its top holdings are in Elon Musk-led Tesla Inc., 12.43%, Suare, Inc. Class A, 8.57% and Roku, Inc. Class A, 4.22%.

Chart Courtesy of http://www.StockCharts.com

The fund has $454.72 million in assets under management, 44 holdings and a 0.08% average spread. Its expense ratio is 0.74%. According to Investopedia, a low expense ratio is around 0.5% to 0.75%. The funds shares trade around $66 and have paid a 9.46% distribution yield for the past 12 months.

While the funds focus may be appealing for investors who believe in the value of these new technologies, portfolio implementation is a more difficult task. Most of the companies that are developing these advancements are huge corporations whose nascent technologies make up only a small fraction of total revenues. As such, it is very difficult to get pure-play access to ARKWs targeted technologies. So, be sure to confirm that the funds holdings not just its thesis align with your view of the space.

As always, I am happy to answer any of your questions about ETFs, so do not hesitate to send me an email. You just may see your question answered in a future ETF Talk.

Read the original:

Gain Exposure to Cloud Computing, IoT and Cyber Security - Stock Investor