Monthly Archives: April 2020

(Bloomberg) The coronavirus pandemic has pressured nearly every corner of the global economy, but analysts continue to see sunny days ahead for cloud computing and the ecosystem that surrounds the technology.

The virus pandemic has thrown sales cycles, procurement/IT departments, and budgets into a tornado-like state of chaos, resulting in unprecedented risks to IT spending.

The sub-sector is seen as a rare bright spot in the current environment, particularly as the outbreak pushes more people to work remotely, contributing to a long-term trend of rising demand. The boost is expected to be broad-based, helping software companies, communication firms, and chipmakers that focus on data-center products, which are processors used in cloud computing.

The lasting impact of COVID-19 could actually be a net positive, wrote Richard Baldry, an analyst at Roth Capital Partners. Cloud-based communication companies should see increased customer activity, at least once operational bandwidth returns to a somewhat more normal level for prospects. He listed Five9, Medallia, eGain and LivePerson as names that could see stronger demand and which were trading at valuations he views as attractive.

So far this year, the Global X Cloud Computing ETF an exchange-traded fund that tracks an index of companies involved in the space is down 6.4%. A different ETF, the First Trust Cloud Computing ETF, is down 9.2%. Both have outperformed the S&P 500s drop of more than 15% over the same period.

According to Wedbush, the pandemic has thrown sales cycles, procurement/IT departments, and budgets into a tornado-like state of chaos, resulting in unprecedented risks to IT spending. Even in this environment, analyst Daniel Ives wrote, cloud remains a theme; he expects $1 trillion to be spent on cloud computing over the coming decade.

Ives named Microsoft as the Rock of Gibraltar cloud stock to own, but said the trend would also support the cloud-computing businesses of both Amazon and Alphabet.

Earlier this week, Bank of America referred to cloud-focused chipmakers as a shining house in [a] tough neighborhood, referring to the headwinds facing other areas of the industry. Analyst Vivek Arya expects cloud capital expense to rise 13% in 2020. While this is down from a prior view of 16% growth the lower estimate reflects the most current COVID-19 headwinds it represents a robust acceleration from 2019, when capex grew just 3.5%.

The firm listed Broadcom, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, Marvell Technology and Intel among the chipmakers most exposed to this trend. Nvidia has been one of the rare semiconductor gainers this year, and analysts have pointed to its data-center business as a tailwind.

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Cloud technology emerges as a haven during pandemics uncertainty - DigitalCommerce360

A potential COVID-19 vaccine has been developed by researchers using AI and cloud computing to prevent the Spike protein from binding to the ACE2 receptor on human cells.

Australian researchers have developed and are testing a COVID-19 vaccine candidate to fight against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

Working with Oracle cloud technology and vaccine technology developed by Vaxine, the researchers from Flinders University analysed the COVID-19 virus and used this information to design the vaccine candidate.

The vaccine has progressed into animal testing in the US and once we confirm it is safe and effective will then be advanced into human trials, said Professor Nikolai Petrovsky at Flinders University and Research Directorat Vaxine.

As soon as the genomic sequence of COVID-19 became available in January, we immediately used this, combined with our previous experience in developing a SARS coronavirus vaccine, to characterise the key viral attachment molecule called the Spike (S) protein, Petrovsky said.

The researchers used computer models of the S protein and its human receptor, angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), to identify how the virus was infecting human cells. They were then able to design a vaccine to block this process.

Computer simulated model of COVID-19 spike protein binding to the human ACE2 receptor through which it gains entry into cells lining the human lung. Vaxines COVID-19 vaccine is designed to mimic the portion of the S protein attaching to ACE2, with the aim of inducing human antibodies that will bind to the COVID-19 S protein thereby blocking it from binding to ACE2 and getting inside human cells, preventing infection [credit: Flinders University].

The team has exploited the very latest technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), advanced manufacturing and cloud computing to accelerate vaccine design, shaving years off normal development timeframes, said Flinders University Associate Professor Dimitar Sajkov.

We achieved great results with Vaxines swine flu vaccine developed during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, where we commenced clinical trials of a vaccine within three months of discovery of the virus. We hope to achieve similar results with their COVID-19 vaccine candidate when it is ready for human testing, said Sajkov.

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AI and cloud computing used to develop COVID-19 vaccine - Drug Target Review

ETF Overview

First Trust Cloud Computing ETF (SKYY) owns a portfolio of cloud-services stocks in the United States. The fund seeks to track the ISE CTA Cloud Computing Index. Besides a long-term secular growth trend, these stocks should benefit in the near-term from the outbreak of COVID-19 as more and more people use cloud-related services from home. Stocks in SKYY's portfolio are trading at valuations below their historical averages. Therefore, we think investors may want to take this opportunity to add more shares.

Data by YCharts

SKYY's portfolio includes high quality companies

SKYY's top-10 holdings are mostly high-profile companies around the world. As can be seen from the table below, these top 10 stocks represent about 41.7% of its total portfolio.

Morningstar Moat Status

Financial Health Rating

% of ETF

Amazon (AMZN)

Wide

Strong

5.40%

Microsoft (MSFT)

Wide

Strong

5.20%

Oracle (ORCL)

Wide

Moderate

4.49%

Alphabet Inc. Class A (GOOGL)

Wide

Strong

4.34%

Citrix Systems (CTXS)

Narrow

Strong

4.27%

Alibaba Group (BABA)

Wide

Moderate

3.99%

VMware (VMW)

Narrow

Moderate

3.85%

Akamai Technologies (AKAM)

None

Strong

3.61%

MongoDB (MDB)

N/A

N/A

3.55%

Cisco (CSCO)

Narrow

Strong

2.97%

Total:

41.67%

Source: Created by author

Most of these stocks have products or services that are not easy for its competitors to replicate. In some cases, they operate in oligopoly as well. For example, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Alibaba together hold roughly 61.4% of total worldwide cloud market share in Q4 2019 (see chart below).

Source: Parkmycloud.com

Besides having a sizable market share in the cloud market, these stocks also offer other services to continue to attract subscribers. For example, Microsoft's Office 365 subscription service provides a stable and predictable income as it is difficult for its customers to switch due to compatibility and familiarity issues. Similarly, Google also provides a suite of cloud services (Gmail, Google Drive, etc.) to its customers. Likewise, Amazon offers video services and quick delivery services to its Prime members.

COVID-19 is driving significant demand for cloud-based services

SKYY invests in companies that provide cloud-based services to their customers. This sector should experience strong revenue growth in the next few years. In fact, a report published by Gartner late in 2019 points to significant growth opportunities in the next few years. As stated by Gartner,

The cloud managed service landscape is becoming increasingly sophisticated and competitive. In fact, by 2022, up to 60% of organizations will use an external service provider's cloud managed service offering, which is double the percentage of organizations from 2018.

As can be seen from the table below, worldwide public cloud services revenue is expected to jump from $227.8 billion in 2019 to $354.6 billion in 2022. This represents a growth rate of 55.7% from 2019.

Source: Gartner

This growth rate will likely accelerate further due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 and the implementation of social distancing, many people are forced to work from home or stay at home. Therefore, the need to do their everyday activities (work, shopping, entertainments) online is increasing sharply. In fact, SKYY's second largest holding Microsoft has seen 775% increase in demand for its cloud services in regions enforcing social distancing. Its largest holding Amazon is also seeing overwhelming influx in orders. Cisco's Webex video conferencing app drew record 324 million users in March. The app usage grew by 2.5 times in Americas, 4 times in Europe and 3.5 times in Asia.

SKYY is now undervalued

Now, let us take a look at its top-10 holdings and compare these stocks' forward P/E ratio with its 5-year average P/E. As can be seen from the table below, these stocks' weighted average forward P/E ratio of 23.75x is much lower than the 5-year average of 28.87x. Given these stocks' strong growth outlook, we think its shares are trading at a significant discount.

Forward P/E

5-year Average P/E

% of ETF

Amazon

64.52

85.85

5.40%

Microsoft

24.69

22.36

5.20%

Oracle

11.79

14.57

4.49%

Alphabet Inc. Class A

20.08

22.72

4.34%

Citrix Systems

6.08

12.82

4.27%

Alibaba Group

22.03

27.28

3.99%

VMware

17.86

20.25

3.85%

Akamai Technologies

19.57

20.45

3.61%

MongoDB

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First Trust Cloud Computing ETF Should Benefit From Near-Term Surge In Demand Due To COVID-19 - Seeking Alpha

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is considered the worlds most comprehensive and in-depth cloud platform.

As a subsidiary of Amazon, AWS provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, organisations and governments on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Officially launched in 2002, AWS today offers more than 175 fully featured services from data centres worldwide. The organisation serves hundreds of thousands of customers across 190 different countries globally. Recognised as a leader in the field, no other cloud provider offers as many regions with multiple Availability Zones connected by low latency, high throughput, and highly redundant networking.

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It has several different solutions, such as: application hosting, websites, backup and storage, enterprise IT, content delivery and databases.

Why is it considered the leading cloud platform?

Most functionality - AWS has considerably more services and features within those services than any other cloud provider. This ranges from infrastructure technology like compute storage and databases to the latest technologies such as machine learning, AI and the Internet of Things. This allows it to be easier, faster and more cost effective to move existing applications to the cloud and create almost anything.

Largest community of customers and partners - AWS has a large and dynamic community, with millions of active customers and tens of thousands of partners globally. Customers from every industry and of all sizes are running every imaginable use case on AWS.

Most secure - AWS is designed to be the most flexible and secure cloud computing environment today. Its core infrastructure is designed to meet the requirements for the military, global banks and other high-sensitive organisations. AWS supports 90 security standards and compliance certifications, as well as 117 AWS services that store customer data and provide the ability to encrypt that data.

Fastest pace of innovation - Through AWS, it can allow the latest state-of-the-art technologies to experiment and innovate more efficiently. AWS is continuously increasing its pace of innovation to invent new technologies to empower businesses to transform their operations. In 2014, AWS created the serverless computing space with the launch of AWS Lambda, which enables developers to run their code without managing servers.

Most proven operational expertise - AWS has unrivalled experience, know-how, reliability, security and performance. AWS has been providing cloud services to millions of customers worldwide through a variety of use cases.

To learn more about AWS, click here!

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AWS: the worlds most comprehensive cloud platform - Gigabit Magazine - Technology News, Magazine and Website

ETFMG, leading thematic ETF issuer, in collaboration with Wedbush Securities, leading financial services and investment banking firm, launches the Wedbush ETFMG Global Cloud Technology ETF (NYSE Arca: IVES)*, answering investor demand for direct access to a pure-play cloud technology product. IVES, named for prominent Wedbush technology analyst and visionary of the ETF, Dan Ives, is designed for direct access to the cloud infrastructure and cloud "enabler" companies, expected to be major beneficiaries in the estimated $1T in enterprise cloud spending over the next decade.1 The Fund gives global exposure to companies at the forefront of the next wave of cloud technology.

The IVES ETF is a pure-play on the global cloud theme, maintaining small to mid-cap infrastructure players by focusing on vendors and companies driving the backbone of cloud computing, poised to capture a major portion of cloud spending. These "foundational components" of the cloud industry are expected to represent an estimated 60 to 70 percent of cloud spending over the next four years.1 The constituents will include infrastructure equipment, SaaS software, connectivity, data back-up and storage services, and data center management for enterprise-based software applications, as well as those engaged in enterprise cloud services. IVES is also geographically diverse, giving U.S. investors a way to play the global cloud theme over the coming years inclusive of exposure to the key Asian market players.

Dan Ives, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Wedbush Securities, is a world renowned software and technology analyst with 20+ years experience educating on cloud computing, cyber security, big data and the mobile landscape. The IVES ETF leverages Dans globally recognized ability to analyze both the public and private sector of cloud computing, decipher companies direction in tech and software development along with his deep understanding of trends in consumer and enterprise cloud landscape.

"Bringing this next generation cloud ETF to market collaboratively with the team at Wedbush and ETFMG is an initiative I am extremely excited about, with cloud computing poised to see a major acceleration of enterprise spending over the next decade," says Dan Ives. "Our vision behind the ETF stems from an investor demand for direct, true global exposure to the cloud enabler companies I have been covering for decades. In the next two years alone, we anticipate over a 65% increase in workloads managed in the cloud, now there is a way for investors to capture that."

The IVES fund is the fifth product launched by ETFMG in its "disruptive technology" investment theme and the first in-market collaboration between the two privately owned firms, ETFMG and Wedbush Securities.

"We are extremely proud to bring this unique thematic ETF to market alongside Wedbush and cloud technology expert, Dan Ives," says Sam Masucci, Founder and CEO of ETFMG. "IVES answers a void in the investible cloud universe, giving investors exposure to the companies that are the foundation of the entire cloud ecosystem. This ETF is the first product of the powerhouse collaboration between our two firms, and together we look forward to continuing to drive whats next in global investing."

*Effective April 7, 2020, the Funds name (previously the ETFMG Drone Economy Strategy ETF, NYSE Arca: IFLY) has changed to the Wedbush ETFMG Global Cloud Technology ETF (NYSE Arca: IVES). The Funds underlying index has been changed to the Dan Ives Global Cloud Technology Prime Index, which is provided by Prime Indexes. Information on the index can be found at http://www.primeindexes.com.

For more information on IVES, visit http://www.etfmg.com/IVES.

About ETFMG

ETFMG is a provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), founded in 2014 with a vision of developing innovative thematic ETFs that provide investors unique exposure to new markets. Today, the ETFMG fund line up provides access to a diverse collection of global themes and is comprised of 75% first to market products. We turn portfolio management strategies into successful ETFs by partnering with market segment experts to bring long-term growth opportunities to investors. ETFMG funds are proof as to the power of the ETF wrapper and that thematic products can have a place in investors portfolios. For more information, please visit http://www.etfmg.com.

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About Wedbush Securities

Since our founding in 1955, Wedbush has been a leader in the financial services industry, providing our clients, both private and institutional, with a wide range of securities brokerage, wealth management, and investment banking services; Headquartered in Los Angeles, California with 100 registered offices and nearly 900 colleagues, the firm focuses on client service and financial safety, innovation, and the utilization of advanced technology.

For more information visit http://www.wedbush.com.

Carefully consider the Funds investment objectives, risks, and charges and expenses before investing. This and other information can be found in the Funds summary or statutory prospectuses, available on http://www.etfmg.com. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing.

Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Shares of any ETF are bought and sold at market price (not NAV), may trade at a discount or premium to NAV and are not individually redeemed from the Fund. Brokerage commissions will reduce returns. Narrowly focused investments typically exhibit higher volatility. Cloud Technology Companies may have limited product lines, markets, financial resources or personnel. These companies typically face intense competition and potentially rapid product obsolescence. In addition, many Cloud Technology Companies store sensitive consumer information and could be the target of cybersecurity attacks and other types of theft, which could have a negative impact on these companies. As a result, Cloud Technology Companies may be adversely impacted by government regulations, and may be subject to additional regulatory oversight with regard to privacy concerns and cybersecurity risk. These companies are also heavily dependent on intellectual property rights and may be adversely affected by loss or impairment of those rights. Cloud computing companies could be negatively impacted by disruptions in service caused by hardware or software failure, or by interruptions or delays in service by third-party data center hosting facilities and maintenance providers. Cloud Technology Companies, especially smaller companies, tend to be more volatile than companies that do not rely heavily on technology. Companies in the technology field, including companies in the computers, telecommunications and electronics industries, face intense competition, which may have an adverse effect on profit margins.

The Fund is distributed by ETFMG Financial LLC, which is not affiliated with Wedbush Securities or Prime Indexes. Sam Masucci is a registered representative of ETFMG Financial LLC.

Sources:

1. Estimates based on research from the Wedbush Securities company report on March 29, 2020: "COVID-19 Playbook for Tech Investors; Stick With Cloud Themes in the Dark Storm": https://wedbush.bluematrix.com/docs/html/14c67aff-fd92-4f96-9700-78561e37de97.html

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200407005451/en/

Contacts

Deborah Kostroun Zito Partners(201) 403-8185Deborah@zitopartners.com

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ETFMG and Wedbush Collaborate on Pure-Play Global Cloud Computing ETF: IVES - Yahoo Finance

Stakeholders have until May 15 to provide feedback to the National Institute of Standards and Technology on draft guidance for controlling how various users should be allowed to navigate within cloud computing environments.

Security is cited as a clear benefit in the federal governments policy for improving efficiency by driving agencies to use cloud providers for software-, platform- and infrastructure as a service to the furthest extent practicable.

But the push to adopt cloud services has sometimes led to a misconception that cloud providers become responsible for securing sensitive data from hackers.

Draft NIST Special Publication 800-210 dispenses that notion early on, before delving into specific guidelines and recommendations on the cloud services federal agencies are encouraged to adopt.

Regardless of the service model, consumers are entitled to be responsible for the security of their cloud-based data and, implicitly, of who has access to it, the authors write. For this reason, data is never controlled by cloud providers but rather always stays with the cloud customers.

Much like the physical world, security in the cloud relies on limiting the number of individuals who have access to various levels of a shared computing architecture.

Within an IaaS cloud model, which NIST describes as the cornerstone of all cloud services that offer computing and storage through a network such as the internet, virtual machines can use common storage and network bandwidth from a single physical computer. Administrators manage them via a monitor called a hypervisor.

Some cloud systems make it easy to share information among VMs by, for instance, allowing users to create multiple VMs on top of the same hypervisor if multiple VMs are available, NIST notes. This offers conveniences such as the ability to copy and paste information between virtual machines through a clipboard, but NIST warns it could also allow data leakage.

This introduces an attack vector, NIST says, noting isolation between VMs is necessary.

In addition, VM resource usage and management should be monitored and regulated so that a malicious VM can be prohibited from exhausting computation resources.

NIST provides tables to guide administrators on whether a party that has certain capabilities on one level, such as a virtual machine, should be granted access to another level, such as a hypervisor.

An attacker in a VM with lower access rights may be able to escalate their access privilege to a higher level by compromising the hardware resources allocation within the hypervisor, the publication reads. Protecting the hypervisor from unauthorized access is therefore critical to the security of IaaS service.

NIST notes that establishing access control over the hypervisor is only available in privatenot publiccloud environments.

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NIST Invites Comment on Guidance for Who Gets to Access What in the Cloud - Nextgov

This detailed research report on the Global Cloud Computing Chips Market offers a concrete and thorough assorted compilation of systematic analysis, synthesis, and interpretation of data gathered about the Cloud Computing Chips Market from a range of diverse arrangement of reliable sources and data gathering points. The report provides a broad segmentation of the market by categorizing the market into application, type, and geographical regions.

In addition, the information has analysed with the help of primary as well as secondary research methodologies to offer a holistic view of the target market. Likewise, the Cloud Computing Chips Market report offers an in-house analysis of global economic conditions and related economic factors and indicators to evaluate their impact on the Cloud Computing Chips Market historically.

This study covers following key players:

IntelAmazonGoogleCambriconHuaweiMicrosoftBaiduAMDNVIDIAXilinxAlibabaUnisocSamsung Electronics

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Market segment by Type, the product can be split into

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)

Market segment by Application, split into

BFSIManufacturingGovernmentIT & TelecomRetailTransportationEnergy & UtilitiesOthers

The report also lists ample correspondence about significant analytical practices and industry specific documentation such as SWOT and PESTEL analysis to guide optimum profits in Cloud Computing Chips Market. In addition to all of these detailed Cloud Computing Chips Market specific developments, the report sheds light on dynamic segmentation based on which Cloud Computing Chips Market has been systematically split into prominent segments encompassing type, application, technology, as well as region specific segmentation of the Cloud Computing Chips Market.

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1 Report Overview

2 Global Growth Trends

3 Market Share by Key Players

4 Breakdown Data by Type and ApplicationContinued

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Global Cloud Computing Chips Market expected to grow USD XX.X million by 2025 - Curious Desk

The unprecedented shift to new forms of work and play for millions of internet users worldwide has caused a monumental surge in demand among services and applications that operate on cloud infrastructure.

The powerful agility and reliability of cloud computing has been the secret sauce of our world, powering work productivity, virtual gatherings for meetings and interactions with friends and family, online on-demand entertainment, virtually hosting education courses and training seminars, fueling e-commerce, cross border collaborative endeavors, and so much more following the paradigm shift after the coronavirus moved everyone indoors for large quantities of time.

While previously under-utilized software and tools are finally flourishing from home offices, the underlying framework of the major cloud service providers is now being tested on unheard-of levels. In the wake of the crisis, many industry observers expected the Big Four cloud giants of IBM, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure to be overburdened beyond their limits.

In the first true mass test of public cloud coping capabilities, the opposite has instead proven to be the rule: Cloud network support and cloud-based applications have not only been performing at close to optimal levels across the major service providers, they have also handled the lions share of load-bearing duties with barely a performance blip. At least, so far.

AWS has been shouldering the support for most of the consumer-facing applications that have been called into heavy usage over the past two months. This includes the likes of the now ubiquitous Zoom, Netflix, and Slack. These apps have all had to scale rapidly to cope with heightened usage of their platforms, and their backend support has risen admirably to the challenge.

In addition to this, AWS is also hosting and supporting parent company Amazons other digitized holdings, like their Amazon Prime video streaming service, the Twitch gaming platform, and even its namesake online shopping platform all of which have also seen increased traffic.

Even Amazons robust physical delivery and supply chain operations are struggling to cope. So far, AWS has been managing all these loads with aplomb.

As the fallout from the pandemic continues, major cloud operators have even been supplying a selection of their service offerings for free, or at significant cut-rate prices.

In addition to offering its web productivity kit G-Suite for free to the healthcare sector and helping build out new data mining techniques for the COVID-19 open research dataset, Google Cloud has also activated its Black Friday/Cyber Monday Protocol (that deals with unseasonably high traffic surges) to help retailers and other businesses that are going through exponential traffic booms.

IBM, like all major public clouds, has contributed reserve cloud capacity to handle consumption spikes, but also attributes the ease of this with having transformed many of its critical apps such as file transferring and video streaming into cloud-native architectures making it more flexible to shift around heavier workloads to where there is available capacity.

This contained approach to workload management has helped organize strained enterprise loads, delivering a denser application of the cloud-based environment.

Cloud services, especially from the major providers, have really come a long way in the past decade. Data load strains and rationing have hardly been an issue for most enterprise clients, although Microsoft did explain that the accelerated demand for Azures services meant that a few temporary restrictions were implemented to balance the best possible experience for all of our customers, the company said in an Azure blog.

This load balancing was initially announced in the same post that revealed the explosive growth in adoption of Microsofts own proprietary platforms like Microsoft Teams, which saw a whopping 775 percent increase in users in Italy, and Windows Virtual Desktop, which has seen 3x growth in the same month.

The ease that remote connectivity is enjoying this time around is due in no small part to the unsung heroes of public cloud networking. While remote working and social isolation are disrupting other aspects of a balanced life, we can be thankful that at least the technology-driven disruptors are being solidly backed up. A little patch of assurance in a sea of uncertainty for the moment, at least.

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Public cloud muscle has proved it can bear the strain - TechHQ

The electricity consumption profile of companies around the world has been altered profoundly over the past month, as countries have adopted "shelter in place" measures to slow or at least control the spread of the coronavirus, corporate offices have shuttered and industrial production sharply curtailed.

One obvious exception: the worlds data centers and internet infrastructure, which are experiencing an unprecedented spike in usage.

Just one example: As homes have become places of both business and education, the use of videoconferencing and collaboration services has skyrocketed.

Research suggests that the average daily usage of the Zoom application is up more than 300 percent since December (although that was before the backlash about its security in early April). Meanwhile, Microsoft is reporting a massive uptick in adoption of its Teams application with 44 million people using the application as of March 28, up 12 million from the week before.

Thats just two applications, and it doesnt cover the impact of all those exercise videos or movies or multiplayer games that people of all ages are streaming to keep themselves occupied in the evenings or on weekends. I haven't seen any specific data measuring the change in consumption over the past month, but check your own utility bill for evidence.

The good news is many of the biggest cloud computing and data center providers have continued to focus on improving energy efficiency alongside their investments in sourcing renewable energy. This is a story Ive been reporting on since February, but it has become even more relevant in the past few weeks.

How much more efficient? Research released in late February by researchers at Northwestern University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Koomey Analyticsfound that total global data center energy consumption grew 6 percent between 2010 and 2018, even though the number of "compute instances" grew by 6.5 times during that same timeframe.

Put another way: Thats a modest increase, considering there was a 26-fold increase in data storage capacity, an 11-fold rise in data center IP traffic and the number of physical computer servers was up 30 percent. Specifically, the sector consumed about 205 terawatt-hours in 2018, which represents about 1 percent of global electricity usage about the same as back in 2010.

"Considering that data centers are energy-intensive enterprises in a rapidly evolving industry, we do need to analyze them rigorously," said Arman Shehabi, a research scientist with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who co-authored the study. "Less detailed analyses have predicted rapid growth in data center energy use, but without fully considering the historical efficiency progress made by the industry. When we include that missing piece, a different piece of our digital lifestyles emerges."

The big cloud computing providers, of course, have expended much energy on plans to consume less electricity.

Google, for example, can deliver seven times as much computing power today as it did five years ago, using the same amount of electrical power, according to a blog published by Urs Holze, senior vice president of technical infrastructure, in late February. As I reported about 18 months ago, it automates many tasks such as cooling and load balancing using artificial intelligence. That makes the typical Google data center about twice as energy-efficient as localized, enterprise data centers.

Zoom has trumpeted the sustainability benefits of virtual meetings for years, but has said very little about the energy used to support its services. Its strategic data center partner is the worlds biggest provider, Equinix, which supports a 100 percent clean energy goal (as of its latest sustainability report) and is a big customer of fuel cells from Bloom Energy.

Remember that other company that is benefiting bigly from the spike of interest in team collaboration services? Well, Microsoft is testing all manner of approaches in many places, it has figured out ways to minimize or eliminate mechanical cooling entirely, Brian Janous, general manager of energy and sustainability, told me when we caught up last month as the COVID-19 crisis began to deepen.

One of the more novel approaches, for example, is its test of submerged data centers using "free water" rather than "free air" to keep servers, drives, networking gear and other gadgets cool. While its unreasonable to expect this design to dominate in the future, it could be particularly valuable for building new "edge" processing facilities near urban centers with access to water and with limited real estate. "That is where that type of data center becomes interesting," he said.

The key to a 100 percent renewable grid is a really responsive load.

While the needs of business continuity require that data centers include basically a one-to-one ratio when it comes to backup resources, Microsoft is studying ways those idle resources could help stabilize the local grid in times of peak demand or instability. Its moving to lithium-ion battery technologies and deploying artificial intelligence to help with that mission, he said.

One of the more intriguing approaches Ive heard for rewriting the rules of cloud computing energy consumption is being developed by a technology startup called Lancium, which hails from Houston. Technically speaking, Lancium is not focused on data center energy efficiency in the traditional sense but it is working on various technologies that help servers adjust their electricity consumption in unique ways.

Lanciums high-level vision is to create "Pausable Data Centers" specifically meant for high-performance cloud computing. These facilities one is close to completion in Texas are architected to operate alongside wind farms, especially those operating in regions where turbine production sometimes must be curtailed due to the overabundance of clean energy being sent to the grid, so prices sometimes turn negative for operators.

These Pausable Data Centers are designed to balance the electricity being sent to the grid, by taking that excess energy and using it instead for "interruptible" applications such as machine learning, industrial or scientific calculations, and modeling simulations. The technology can be spin up or shut down very quickly.

"The key to a 100 percent renewable grid is a really responsive load," Michael McNamara, co-founder and CEO of Lancium, told me when we chatted earlier this year.

According to the presentation it uses to pitch its concept, Lancium can offer a 50 to 90 percent cost savings over traditional cloud data centers by using ultra-low-cost wind power (helping wind farm operators), siting the facilities on lower-cost real estate outside of expensive urban areas and extending the life of older servers.

Lancium is discussing the concept with both wind farm operators in over-congested wind regions that could benefit from the offtake agreements and organizations that require high-performance computing, such as scientific research agencies, universities or pharmaceutical companies, McNamara said.

Prior to the pandemic, Lancium was hoping to announce its first facility this spring. For now, its not making any official statements. However, the company just secured its fifth patent for its Smart Response power management software. The feature lets data centers adjust server electricity consumption based on factors such as price and other power grid conditions.

"As we are now commercializing Lancium Smart Response, we look forward to working with major data center operators to enable large cost savings and help them achieve their environmental, social and governance objectives," McNamara said in a statement about the new patent.

This article was updated April 8 to clarify the source of the new data center energy efficiency research.

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Coronavirus, the stay-at-home workstyle, and cloud energy consumption - GreenBiz

Written by Paul Katigbak President commercial sales at Dell Technologies, Canada

In a relatively short period of time, cloud computing has transitioned from a foreign concept to an omnipresent service proven to be the most efficient means to manage and store data. While the evolving convenience, accessibility and flexibility of the cloud has changed its perceived value, every organization is moving at its own pace through their cloud journey. Yet, nearly all are working with a multi-cloud approachincluding a combination of clouds hosted on-premises, in public clouds and at the edge. In fact, according to a study by IDC, an overwhelming majority of organizations (93%) are deploying workloads across two or more clouds which are hosted on-premises, co-located or at edge locations.

As organizations embark on their digital transformation journey, it is imperative they have a strategy in place to make the most of the data, security, resiliency and application advantages of multi-cloud environments. There are also challenges that should be considered including multiple application programming interfaces (APIs), longer development time and roadblocks to sharing applications and data across cloud platforms. A hybrid-cloud approach enables consistent infrastructure and operations that can extend customers applications and processes seamlessly across public, private and edge deployment options.

As Canadian businesses place a closer focus on multi-cloud solutions, here are some important considerations to make the most of a multi-cloud strategy.

One of the primary benefits of cloud is that it provides the ability to access data anytime, anywhere, but theres no denying that it also means data is more open to security threats. Weve seen this as data breaches have become increasingly common. Legacy systems, however, are continually being deemed inefficient in the current tech environment. Yet at the same time, as modernization begins to take place, there is an inherent cybersecurity concern that comes from the lack of control and visibility into security practices in hosted cloud environments. Multi-cloud balances this concern by allowing organizations to select the right environment and level of security for each workload. In a multi-cloud environment, sensitive information can stay on-premises but public-facing information can still be hosted off-premises.

To make the most of multi-clouds benefits, organizations must remember to consider cloud as an operating model and should seek relationships with the right partners that allow them to plan and treat cloud on a workload by workload basis while also providing awareness of security policies.

While cloud environments offer clear benefits in terms of efficiency and cost, a business needs can change. Multi-cloud environments provide the ability to adjust through flexibility and transparency helping both IT teams and organizations in general, find true business value. An organization can choose how to handle each workloadbut has the flexibility to easily change how data sets and workloads are stored and used if necessary.

With the complexity that is layered over multiple clouds and multiple vendors, having one central hub for operations and management reduces complexity and can help lighten the load for IT staff/maintenance.

With this type of approach, multiple environments can be monitored and automated from a single control pane, which greatly reduces the time and effort required to maintain multi-cloud environments. This creates transparency across all assets no matter where they reside, allowing for more efficient operations as well as the ability to gauge return on investment from each vendor. To make the most of any cloud environment, organizations should look at their long-term plan to determine how their infrastructure needs will evolve over the next five, 10 or even 20 years.

Transitioning to the cloud is one of the most important and fundamental steps in any organizations digital transformation. A multi-cloud approach, when implemented correctly, should be a best practice to keep data secure. The benefits are numerous, and with the future primed for the evolution and adaptation of emerging tech, multi-cloud provides an essential foundation for tomorrows workloads and workforce needs.

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Making the most of a multi-cloud strategy - IT World Canada