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1、CLOUD FOR BUSINESSIS FINOPS ANY MATCH FOR CLOUDFLATION?HOW COMPLIANCE HAS BECOME A HOT POTATO0605AI THE NEWEST COST CHALLENGE1028/07/2023INDEPENDEN T P U B L I C AT I O N BY#0878R AC O N T EU R.NE TC L O U D F O R B U S I N E S S you aware of the time and resources your team is wasting on manual doc
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15、U R.N E T03s developments in artificial intelligence gather pace,the superpowers are acutely aware of the risks posed byany AI advance achieved by their rivals,particularly in the military arena.As a result,the US and China have been engaged in a titfortat battle to restrict each others development
16、potential.Washington has added advanced computing chips to its export control list.Beijing has banned some companies from buying products from the USs largest memory chip maker,Micron Technology,and announced export restrictions on metals that are used in advanced chip manufacturing.The Biden admini
17、stration is reportedly planning to oblige US cloud service providers to seek government permission before they can serve any Chinese company using AI processors,particularly in cases where their platforms would be used in the training of an AI model.Such a move would be a significant escalation in t
18、he technological trade war between the superpowers and a step towards the politicisation of cloud provision.Cloud computing“was political from the beginning and it will be political at the end”,declares Trey Herr,director of cyber statecraft initiative under the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Re
19、search Lab.“It requires a tremendous amount of physical infrastructure,which has to sit somewhere.So there are the local politics of the jurisdiction it lives in,”he adds,noting that any discussion of cloud security soon becomes politicised.Caught in the middle are the US cloud providers doing busin
20、ess with Chinese clients.Of those,Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services(AWS)are the big players most likely to be worst affected.“It certainly has an impact on earnings.I think everyone is doing business in the Chinese market,”Herr says.The new AIrelated restrictions will oblige providers to alter
21、 the services they have made available to their Chinese clients.Work to mitigate losing that segment of the market has already started.“This a growing market,not a longexisting one,”notes Gordon McKenna,CTO of public cloud at Ensono.In that sense,cloud providers arent losing as much as they might ga
22、in,as the need for machine learning data ramps up and firms know that they must adopt AI or risk getting left behind.Dr Fabio Goncalves de Oliveira is a lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at Henley Business School and a certified instructor of AI and cloud computing.He notes that Chinese re
23、gulations for multinational companies to provide cloud and telecoms services in China dictate there must be at least 50%local ownership of capital.Microsoft Azure is represented in China by Shanghai Blue Cloud Technology,for instance,and AWS is represented by Beijing Sinnet Technology Co(Sinnet).It
24、still needs to be determined whe ther any new rules would affect these ventures.Moreover,the Western stake in Chinese public and private clouds is relatively small.Research by the International Data Corporation shows that Alibaba has 34%of the market(the biggest share),followed by Huawei,Tencent and
25、 China Telecom.AWS,by contrast,has a market share of 9%.“For cloud AI developers based in China,this could be a problem if the current Chinese cloud providers do not keep up with the pace of development of AI models,”says Goncalves de Oliveira.But this outcome seems unlikely.As Goncalves de Oliveira
26、 points out:“The Chinese regulations for using data,including data about citizens,benefit AI development,while EU and Western regulations constrain the advances of new AI developers and the use of data to train AI models.”In some ways,the White Houses plans are unsurprising,given that US companies a
27、nd investors have been busy weaning themselves off Chinese data and devices,while embargoes have been imp osed on Chinese businesses ran ging from Huawei to TikTok.There is concern among cloud providers US clients about security,particularly the fear that they might be sharing data centres with Chin
28、ese companies.This is not a place that either providers or theirclients want to be in,according to McKenna.“I think Microsoft and AWS have better understood these requirements from their clients and have architected solutions to meet these compliances,”he reports.AWS,for example,has moved beyond the
29、 traditional public and private cloud platforms.Clients in highly regulated sectors can keep their data in GovCloud platforms,which are designed to meet the security and compliance needs of government organisations.The rules in question may also apply only to public clouds,says Goncalves de Oliviera
30、,who adds that multinational firms operating in China usually adopt a hybrid approach.If they have“a private cloud and an authorised network carrier,these companies might still gain access to restricted services”.That said,given the complexities of regulating such a rapidly advancing market,we are s
31、eeing only the beginning of governance in this area.“Sources in Chinese and American big tech have stated that it is impossible for the US government to prevent the spread of cloud AI technologies in both directions,”Goncalves de Oliviera observes.“Chinese AI developers can access pretrained Western
32、 models elsewhere,through their presence in American,British and other Western universities and their participation in Western corporations.”The opensource,pretrained machine learning and deep learning models offered by Californian firm H2O.ai are free,for instance.The cloud will continue to serve a
33、s an extension of geopolitical wrangling and trade wars.Service providers will be able to preempt many future restrictions.Those with larger stakes should have little to worry about in the short term,at least.The cloud forms a cold front in Sino-American trade warCLOUD FOR BUSINESSThe Biden administ
34、ration is attempting to hamstring Chinas burgeoning artificial intelligence sector by restricting its access to US cloud services and infrastructureDistributed inSophia AkramPublished in association withAlthough this publication is funded through advertising and sponsorship,all editorial is without
35、bias and sponsored features are clearly labelled.For an upcoming schedule,partnership inquiries or feedback,please call+44(0)20 3877 3800 or email Raconteur is a leading publisher of special-interest content and research.Its publications and articles cover a wide range of topics,including business,f
36、inance,sustainability,healthcare,lifestyle and technology.Raconteur special reports are published exclusively in The Times and The Sunday Times as well as online at The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources the Proprietors believe to be correct.However,no legal lia
37、bility can be accepted for any errors.No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior consent of the Publisher.Raconteur Media$27bnInternational Data Corporation,2022Chinas expected AI market revenue by 2026G E O P O L I T I C SSophia AkramA freelance journalist with interests in bus
38、iness,foreign policy,global development and human rights.She has worked foroutlets including Vice and Al Jazeera.Nick EasenAn awardwinning writer and broadcaster covering science,technology,business and economics.He has produced content for BBC World News,CNNand Time.Christine HortonA freelance jour
39、nalist and longterm contributor tospecialist IT titles.Shespecialises in writing about technologys impact onbusiness.Ouida TaaffeThe editor of Financial World,the magazine of the London Institute of Banking&Finance.She has previously covered the telecoms industry.Daniel ThomasA writer and editor wit
40、hwork published by TheTelegraph,Newsweek,Fund Strategy and EducationInvestor,amongother outlets.ContributorsAraconteurraconteur.storiesraconteur-media/cloud-for-business-july- Sean Gallup via Getty ImagesReports editorIan DeeringEditorSarah VizardSub-editorChristina RyderChief sub-editorNeil ColeCom
41、mercial content editorsLaura BithellJoy PersaudDeputy reports editorJames SuttonDesignHarry Lewis-IrlamColm McDermottDesign directorTim WhitlockIllustrationSara Gelfgren Kellie JerrardSamuele MottaCampaign managerLevi WigglesworthHead of productionJustyna OConnellProduction executiveSabrina Severino
42、Associate commercial editorPhoebe Borwell8.9%Chinas expected share of total global AI investments by 2026C L O U D F O R B U S I N E S S04Getting engineers to act on cost optimisationMaking accurate spending forecastsEnsuring the organisational adoption of FinOpsEnabling automationReducing waste or
43、unused resourcesAligning finance/procurement teams with tech/engineering teamsFully allocating cloud spendingContainer cost reportingDealing with shared costsMulti-cloud cost reporting30%29%22%20%19%16%13%11%7%7%Companies find their FinOps wanting in the struggle against rampant cloudflation he cost
44、 of everything is going up and cloud computing is no exception.Last year,Google announced price hikes of up to 50%on core services.Amazon Web Services(AWS)put the average price for ondemand computing capacity up by 23%in the year to February,according to data from research firm Liftr Insights.This s
45、ocalled cloudflation has come at a bad time for British businesses,which are already struggling to meet rising wage,input and borrowing costs.It has also underlined the importance of a good FinOps strategy to optimise cloud usage and reduce waste.The principle behind FinOps is that,by getting a clea
46、rer picture of their usage and encouraging all departments to take responsibility for improving efficiency,firms can mitigate those cost pressures.Yet there are concerns about the efficacy of FinOps strategies in this period of high inflation.There are genuine questions about the difference its prac
47、tices can make when prices are rising so quickly.So what can companies do to ensure that FinOps does the job its meant to do?A big part of the problem is that the market is dominated by a handful of big players,while clients are typically nervous about moving to smaller,less prominent cloud vendors.
48、As such,the dominant providers are following“wellestablished playbooks”on pricing,says Richard Palmer,senior managing director at FTI Consulting.“Their strategies include bundling services and features and imposing periodic price increases,”he explains.“And,as organisations data footprints grow and
49、they tap into the extended capabilities in their cloud platforms,their costs will rise with or without price increases.”Its no secret that many companies struggle to use the cloud efficiently or in a disciplined way,leaving some locked into a highly priced service orone thats no longer suitable for
50、their purposes.This can cause costs to spiral,which is when a sound right time”and whether youre minimising waste.Matt Barker is global head of cloudnative services at Venafi,a cybersecurity firm in the machine identity space.He thinks that companies will make FinOps savings on their cloud expenditu
51、re by going back to basics such as accurate provisioning,“rightsizing instances”and something as simple as turning the cloud off when it isnt in use.“Im also seeing opportunities to save money by migrating to cheaper environments,”Barker says.“For example,companies could explore new cloud vendors wh
52、en moving into a new territory as a test,instead of expanding their existing footprint with a major provider.”Durkin believes that successful FinOps is all about ongoing monitoring.For him,the most important principle is to build cost management into everyday processes.“All levels of the business ne
53、ed to understand what their costs are and how their decisions affect cloud costs,”he stresses.“This will reduce the chances of unexpected cloud spend later down the line.”Palmer would advise companies tosplit their FinOps strategies into supply and demandside categories.On the supply side how firms
54、approach vendors they should unbundle services and spread expenditure across several providers.On the demand side how firms use services numerous levers can be pulled to reduce overall computing and storage needs.These include data minimisation,enduser licence optimisation and storage tiering.“A det
55、ailed strategy”,he says,“can help organisations to contain their costs even amid price inflation.”Businesses need strategies to mitigate their soaring costs more than ever.Arethey up to the task of optimising expenditure and minimising waste?FinOps strategy should come into play.Yet getting things r
56、ight in this area is no easy feat.One challenge is that a successful FinOps policy necessitates a cross functional approach,meaning that a company needs to get every department on board with the change.But too many firms take a topdown approach or leave the job of cost control to the finance departm
57、ent.So says Nick Durkin,field CTO at Harness,a platform that streamlines software delivery.“Finance teams dont have the expertise or resources to continuously monitor cloud spending,so changes in resource allocation have the potential to cost thousands in unmanageable expenditure before anyone reali
58、ses what is happening,”he says.Instead,organisations must involve the DevOps and engineering teams as soon as possible,ensuring that they can gain a“realtime view of cloud costs from the offset”.FinOps strategies must also get to grips with the complexities of cloud billing,which is key to obtaining
59、 a proper view of your usage costs.Companies often use several services from a single provider,each of which has different units to determine pricing.Many firms will also be paying for cloud services wrapped inside softwareasaservice fees for other corporate tools such as customer relationship manag
60、ement systems,which can make it harder to delineate specific underlying cloud costs.While its easy to be cynical about the impact of FinOps strategies,experts agree that not having one in place risks making a bad situation much worse in this climate.Jon Chan,another senior manager at FTI Consulting,
61、adds that prices MANY FINOPS TEAMS ARE STRUGGLING TO FORECAST CLOUD EXPENDITURE AND REDUCE WASTEPercentage of FinOps professionals citing the following as challenges in cloud financial managementDaniel ThomasG R O W T HTCobalt88via iStockare unlikely to rise so dramatically as to make FinOps practic
62、es ineffective.Instead,he and other experts agree that firms should focus on updating their strategies for a highinflation environment.DoiT,a partner of AWS and Google Cloud,provides cloud technology and consulting services in almost 70 countries.The firm helps clients to optimise their cloud use th
63、rough processes such as deep inspection,trend analysis and automation.Chief product officer John Purcell says that,while nearly all companies have adopted the cloud,many have yet to streamline their infrastructure and commercial agreements in a way that optimises their spending.Doing so is vital not
64、 only in a period of high inflation,but all year round,because price increases occur in repeated cycles,he says.“In any growing business,we expect cloud costs to increase as it serves more customers.This is one of the most obvious elements of elastic infrastructure,”Purcell adds.“As always,though,th
65、e key is to understand why costs are increasing and to ensure that the rate of increase is proportional to overall business growth.”He says that reaching optimisation involves understanding what your business is paying for,what is driving the cost,whether youre spending the“right amount at the FinOp
66、s Foundation,2022R A C O N T E U R.N E T05Commercial featureDriving value and innovation from your cloud strategyAs organisations seek to maximise the value of cloud and spearhead innovations,especially in AI,they need to reassess their approach to the cloud loud computing was once a disruptive tech
67、nology.Today,its a pervasive reality as the pandemic and remote working acted as a stimulus for its wholesale adoption.Right now,its used for everything from managing client data and AI,to supply chains.But concerns over cost mean organisations are looking to maximise the value of cloud services,min
68、imise its risk and innovate,all at the same time.Cloud computing is appealing agile,elastic and scalable in nature,its at the core of many IT initiatives to modern-ise,digitalise services,utilise new tools and be competitive.Leveraging the cloud strategically is vital.Yet its important for organisat
69、ions to find a balance between utilising the clouds full potential,while safeguarding against cloud risks data breaches,security and privacy issues.“Over time,the cloud has proven its worth.The big question now is how do you calibrate this value in full and how do you continue to capture max-imum va
70、lue over time?This is where the big debate is,”explains Ade Omotomilola,head of cloud and data and analytics at Trustmarque,pro-vider of cloud solutions and one of the most highly accredited IT services providers in the UK.He explains:“Whats changed is the question of whats possible through cloud ad
71、option.The horizon has opened up.The possibilities for inno-vation are super abundant,particu-larly in artificial intelligence.It means organisations now need to structure themselves differently than in the past to take advantage of exponential advances in technology.Cloud adop-tion is part of that
72、process.”Every organisation has a unique cloud roadmapEvery organisation is on a different stage of its cloud journey and each has its own unique roadmap for adoption and migration that reflects its needs.The configuration of a busi-ness in the cloud environment can determine how successful it will
73、be at getting products to market quicker than competitors,improving margins,realising financial gains or dealing with more customers.“During the pandemic there was a rush to put workloads in the cloud.Now organisations are realising that their cloud journey has to be more of a transformational journ
74、ey.Their oper-ating model needs to evolve.Businesses will not maximise the value of cloud computing unless they use it efficiently and effectively,and where workloads are optimised for this environment,”states Neel Dev,practice director for cloud services at Trustmarque,which is one of the only UK-s
75、pecific firms to have all six Microsoft cloud partner designations.This is invaluable when completing projects with the NHS,gov-ernment departments and businesses,including those in financial services.“Assessing where an organisation is on the ladder for cloud adoption is vital.We call it the cloud
76、runway.Its a methodology that allows us to calibrate and then maximise the cloud for a business best practices and frame-works really do matter in this area.”Extract value and provide guardrails:Managed Services for cloud management For instance,some organisations fail to put the right level of secu
77、rity and safeguarding in place in their rush to gain insight from data theyve lever-aged through the cloud.Trustmarque has observed this in UK healthcare settings for instance.With the emergence of generative AI,which collates even more data to pro-duce new content,this issue will become prominent.U
78、nderstanding and delivering on compliance can often be an afterthought.When data is increasingly leveraged for competitive gain,this cannot be the case.“Organisations need to mitigate against the risk of cloud migration.Weve now got this covered with the right tools and frameworks in place so teams
79、can concentrate on adding value with cloud,such as unlocking the potential of data or utilising new information sources,whether its from social media,patient records or customer purchases,”details Dev from Trustmarque,which is on track to become an Azure Expert Managed Service Provider.“By deploying
80、 AI or machine learning on cloud data they can almost predict the future.Its an evolution from reac-tive data analytics to a proactive approach.Instead of understanding what happened yesterday,you can increasingly calculate whatll happen tomorrow.Its a powerful proposition.But you need guardrails in
81、 place to achieve this.”Its why cloud-managed services are also increasingly popular for organisations.The growing complex-ity of IT systems and the need for businesses to focus on strategic,dig-itally driven projects that directly fuel the bottom line,is increasingly creat-ing opportunities for spe
82、cialists to manage cloud security,migration,integration,cost and performance.“This is the reason why cloud man-agement platforms are coming to the fore.Organisations are looking to administer their cloud services effec-tively,respond to security incidents,optimise systems,as well as better understan
83、d their cloud estate.Thats why weve developed a cloud optimisa-tion managed service based on an in-house platform.This tool,called Prism for Azure,is a constituent part of our cloud management platform,”states Omotomilola from York-based Trustmarque,which employs 500 people and now owns cloud optimi
84、sa-tion firm,Livingstone.“One of the things that often stops cloud adoption in its tracks is the fear around costs and losing control of costs.The ability to monitor these and allocate or pull resources is vital.This is where a cloud management platform bringing together optimisation,insights and se
85、rvice management becomes an incredibly powerful tool.”The future is brightIn terms of the future of cloud,there will be more specialisation.Service providers will look to address the needs of each market.Extensive knowledge,deep engagement and expertise will be vital.“Those that provide intellectual
86、 property around cloud services which are specific to each sector will add value.This is what were focused on,especially as organisations seek more innovation in the cloud.They can only do this if they partner with consultancies that are at the fore-front of this technology,especially as AI continue
87、s to evolve at pace,”says Omotomilola from Trustmarque,which has nearly 40 years experi-ence and offices across the UK.“The future also lies in the consolida-tion of products,tools,technologies and services within the large cloud ser-vice provider space,such as Microsoft with Azure,its cloud platfor
88、m,but also with Purview,its data protection and governance solution,and Fabric,which unifies data and insights.”Delivering cloud service at scale and at cost will be increasingly important.This is where self-service will become a key requirement,whether its to do with AI deployments or data-analytic
89、al tools.An increasing number of prod-ucts are now available in the cloud.Today they arent being fully utilised,this will also change.“The futures bright.Data-driven decision-making is the future.We need to make this happen,”con-cludes Dev.Trusted.Technology.Together Organisations now need to struct
90、ure themselves differently than in the past to take advantage of exponential advances in technologyCC L O U D F O R B U S I N E S S06he days of carefree cloud usage are over.As service providers offerings have evolved,so has the level of complexity.Given the expanding smorgasbord of services offerin
91、g ever more functionality,keeping a handle on all things cloud is no easy task for business users.More cloud means more obligations,from cybersecurity to regulatory compliance.Its why hyperscalers and other providers have had to wade in.For instance,Amazon Web Services and Microsoft have developed s
92、hared responsibility models,while Google has adopted what it calls a sharedfate model.Its also why many providers have started offering managed services to help clients account for alltheir various cloud activities.The idea behind the former type of model is straightforward enough:if a business runs
93、 servers on its premises,its fully liable for complying with data protection laws and other regulations.If it moves material on to the cloud,such duties increasingly become shared between it and its provider.Under the sharedfate model,the provider and the client work together towards an outcome grea
94、ter than shared profits,building on mutual trust and effort,so that both parties benefit.Sander Nieuwenhuis is a governance,risk and compliance advisory lead at Nordcloud,a consultancy specialising in cloud computing.Heobserves that,“because of these models,it needs to be clearly defined who is actu
95、ally accountable for,say,cybersecurity.Businesses As organisations shift ever more data and processes away from their premises,the question of whos accountable for what in the cloud is becoming increasingly complex Out of sight,but not out of mindNick EasenBusinesses cannot rely solely on their prov
96、iders for all aspects ofresponsibility.It has to be a collective effortmust understand the consequences of the choices they make about these services at a technical level.In the case of security,we usually apply formal frameworks laying out whos responsible for what.This works well for classic cloud
97、 services.”Nieuwenhuis believes that shared models will oblige businesses to scan for knowledge and accountability gaps and,where any are pinpointed,fill these promptly.“Shared responsibility as a concept is well known by our customers working with public clouds,yet the actual impact of that shared
98、responsibility is often not recognised,”he stresses.Good governance models are one thing,but understanding cause and effect when it comes to business decisions about the cloud is another.For instance,its easy to start a new cloud application,which is likely to require lots of processing power.But th
99、is may have a huge environmental impact that may not have been considered.There can be a disconnect.Matt Watts,chief technology evangelist at data management specialist C O M P L I A N C ETt a time when our commitment to mitigating the impact of climate change has never been more urgent,a sustainabl
100、e approach to technology must be at the heart of any digital transformation strategy.Cloud computing has huge potential to help businesses engage with this challenge,but achieving the best outcomes for the planet requires both providers and users of cloud services to share responsibility for sustain
101、ability.Cloud is a key driver of the UKs digital economy,giving businesses of all kinds access to computing resources that are scalable on demand.Applications,platforms,data storage and infrastructure can all be delivered as a service,allowing for the more flexible and efficient use of resources and
102、,potentially,a reduction in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions compared with legacy infrastructure.That makes cloud an appealing option for organisations,with a recent Gartner CEO survey reporting that 70%of business leaders focusing on sustainability will look to public cloud services
103、to achieve such outcomes.The good news is that providers recognise the demand for sustainable cloud services and many have announced investments relating to the use of renewable energy,hardware recycling and water consumption in their data centres.For example,AWS aims to achieve 100%renewable energy
104、 usage by 2025,while Microsoft Azure has set a goal of 100%renewable energy,as well as being zerowaste and waterpositive by 2030.Oracle already powers all of its European data centres with renewable energy.Google aims to run all of its data centres on carbonfree energy by 2030.Recycling firms such a
105、s Sims Lifecycle Services offer sustainability calculators that enable clients to quantify the environmental benefits of hardware reuse and recycling.Meanwhile,NetApp provides data centre operators with advanced analytics to help them make better decisions about data storage and management,resulting
106、 in improved efficiency and sustainability.All of these use cases show how the cloud industry is trying to mitigate its impact.But a move to cloud will not automatically guarantee the best possible environmental benefits,while computing as a service does not equate to sustainability as a service.Jus
107、t as cloud providers should continue to invest in resource efficiency and in reducing the carbon footprint of their services,cloud customers also have a responsibility to take an active role in using cloud services sustainably.To achieve the best outcomes for the planet,user behaviour is also key.Th
108、is means fostering a culture of sustainability and adapting FinOps practices to track carbon metrics;revising your data strategy to minimise the storage of unused data in the cloud;and harnessing green software principles to develop and use more energyefficient applications.As an industry,we should
109、take a holistic view of cloud sustainability,considering what we can do as individuals,as organisations and as a community to use and operate cloud services as efficiently as possible.By making sustainability the core of a business cloud strategy,leaders can empower teams to identify waste,cut carbo
110、n emissions and energy consumption and mitigate their environmental impact.This approach will be crucial as demand for cloud services grows further as a result of emerging technologies such as AI.Ultimately,as consumer demand and pressure from governments and investors prompt businesses across the e
111、conomy to seek more climatefriendly technologies,cloud computing can play a key role in delivering sustainable digital services.This calls for a shared responsibility model under which users,providers and governments cooperate to adopt best practices,unlock innovation and empower organisations to ac
112、hieve their netzero goals.TechUK and its members are committed to this vision.Achieving the best outcomes for the planet requires shared responsibility forsustainabilityAI N S I G H TSue DaleyDirector,tech and innovation,TechUKR A C O N T E U R.N E T07NetApp,notes that vendors have started providing
113、“tools to show the true emissions arising from companies cloud workloads.Now that these are maturing,it means that both parties can play their part in dealing with cloud growth and climate change.No longer can anyone assume that this is somehow someone elses issue.”Starting a new generative AI appli
114、cation in the cloud also has consequences for a business,presenting tricky questions about data processing,transparency,bias and intellectual property rights.But the overriding message is clear:customers of cloud services cannot outsource all obligations to their provider.They must take accept an in
115、creasingly predetermined degree of accountability.“When businesses hold more power because of their use of generative AI,say,it seems reasonable that they should also accept more responsibility,”argues Elle Todd,a partner specialising in data protection regulation at law firm Reed Smith.Another laye
116、r of complexity results from the fact that cloud service providers are delivering ever more applications its rarely about data storage alone.Calibration is important here.If you cant measure it,you cant manage it,which in turn makes the assignment of liability harder.But there are dataled tools avai
117、lable,including accountability matrices and dashboards,that can help in this effort.“Providers have an increasing responsibility as they expand their services,”says Shane Maher,MD at Intelliworx,a specialist in cloud and managed IT services.“They need to ensure the security,reliability and scalabili
118、ty of their infrastructure to meet the demands of businesses.”But he adds that clients must also“step up and be more responsible.They need to understand and then mitigate the risks associated with using cloud services,including cybersecurity,carbon emissions and AI usage.Businesses cannot rely solel
119、y on their providers for all aspects of responsibility.It has to be a collective effort.”Education is also key.Using cloud services responsibly is perhaps not quite there as an enterprisewide skill,but awareness of the issues is increasing.Cloud obligations are being enshrined in law in the EU with
120、the adoption of the European Cloud Initiative and the Digital Operational Resilience Act,both of which have implications for the UK.Regulation will certainly make organisations focus more closely on their liabilities in this area.If businesses do get their checklist of obligations in order,they will
121、 be better placed to deploy stateoftheart services as a point of competitive differentiation.When accountabilities are crystal clear,far more can be achieved,notes Perry Krug,head of developer experience at Couchbase,a cloud database platform developer.“With a greater understanding of cloud models a
122、nd a commitment to the fine print,enterprises can look to use new types of architecture,such as superclouds,”he says.“These combine three computing models infrastructure as a service,platform as a service and software as a service into one solution.”Some people believe that the cloud is much like an
123、y other utility,such as water,electricity or the road network:the provider maintains the infrastructure to ensure reliability of service,but consumers are liable for how they use it.But,in the case of cloud services,the difference is that the infrastructure providers are also the same organisations
124、selling the products that largely determine how consumers will use that infrastructure.When it comes to the cloud,questions of liability may be slightly more nuanced than they first appear,even if shared models succeed in providing some clarity.Commercial featureor years,multinational busi-nesses ha
125、ve grappled with disparate and complex telephony deployments.Needing to work with local network operators in every geographic market has meant a raft of different contracts,technolo-gies and support systems.Wires have had to be run through buildings,with legacy handsets plugged into thou-sands of in
126、dividual desks.It has been an immense burden to manage these mul-tiple deployments and vendor relation-ships,with huge impacts on personnel time and budgets.In recent years,the Covid pandemic has accelerated businesses move towards more versatile cloud-based rather than on-premises teleph-ony.Nevert
127、heless,most of these cloud telephony services remain coun-try-specific,provided by the local reg-ulated operators that are licensed to serve only their own markets.“Cloud telephony has rapidly become a$20bn industry,because in todays hybrid working environment it enables your work phone number to mo
128、ve with you.You can make and receive calls whether youre at home,in the office,at the airport,or even on the golf course,”explains Steve Flavell,co-CEO of multinational cloud telephony pro-vider LoopUp.“The problem for many multinationals is that they are still buying and managing services from a pa
129、tchwork of local oper-ators,who are unable to provide broader global coverage.It generates complex-ity and cost via multiple disparate con-tracts,management portals,support arrangements and pricing tariffs.”During the pandemic and post-pan-demic period,unified communications platforms which include
130、messaging,collaboration and meeting tools have How multinationals can simplify with cloud telephonyThe global adoption of unified communications platforms has accelerated dramatically during and since the pandemic.Now multinationals can also manage their phone calls in a similarly global wayrocketed
131、 to prominence,going from being a tool someone might use occa-sionally to a standard way of communi-cating and collaborating on a global basis.“Microsoft Teams has become the dominant unified communications plat-form among multinational businesses,”Flavell says.“Unlike telephony,its managed on a con
132、sistent global basis.Telephony is still critically important albeit perhaps secondary to unified communications so why not manage telephony on a similarly global basis?”The global management of telephony is now possible,and it can all be inte-grated with broader Microsoft Teams deployments.Indeed,mu
133、ltination-als are already doing so today by rein-venting their telephony,consolidating with one vendor and one management portal,instead of a patchwork of dispa-rate vendors and inconsistent tools.Many of these companies are now working with LoopUp,a cloud teleph-ony provider which is licensed and c
134、er-tified on Microsofts Operator Connect programme in more than 50 countries,with new countries being added almost every month.LoopUp handles all the connectivity with its 20 underlying car-rier partners.That removes all the man-agement and technological complexi-ties for businesses.“We select the h
135、ighest quality routing carrier for any given call,and we have multiple carrier redundancy should any individual one be experiencing network problems,”explains Flavell.“Our mul-tinational customers,therefore,can benefit from premium quality calls and radically simplified procurement and management:on
136、e vendor,one contract,one global management portal and one support team,all integrated with their broader Microsoft Teams setup.”In practice,this kind of service allows users to pick up any Teams-enabled device,and make or receive a regular phone call to or from another number.Similarly,people can u
137、se a Teams-enabled device to receive calls from anyone,anywhere,where callers have simply dialled the persons standard phone number.No legacy phones or networks are needed.Among the many companies world-wide using the LoopUp system is a stra-tegic communications consultancy with around 7,000 staff i
138、n 30 countries.With LoopUp,the company consolidated more than 20 telecoms vendors down to one.In doing so,it has dramatically simplified processes and saved time and money,all while improving call quality and reliability,and allowing connectivity for its staff anywhere.Looking ahead,the rapid evolut
139、ion of cloud-based technology will provide businesses with ever simpler and more effective phone calls.Multinational busi-nesses that choose a single service pro-vider with global coverage,integrated into Teams,can gain valuable simplicity and efficiency,alongside high-quality,reliable calls and str
140、eamlined management.To find out more about global cloud telephony,visit Multinationals are consolidating with one vendor and one management portal,instead of a patchwork of geographic vendorsFTOP RANKED FOR COVERAGEGlobal coverage of LoopUps telecommunications services,by coverage typeOperator Conne
141、ct and Direct RoutingDirect RoutingBring your owncarrier(via SBC)N/AISC2,CyberEdge,202331%of IT professionals say that maintaining regulatory compliance isa primary challenge for hybrid cloud architecturesFortinet,202330%of business respondents cite legal and regulatory compliance as one of the grea
142、test barriers to wider cloud adoption in their organisationsC L O U D F O R B U S I N E S S08 CLOUD SKILLS DEVELOPMENTAI/machine learningIT technicianCloud computingData analysisData protectionVirtual/augmented realitySecurity software developerSecurity analystSecurity architectSecurity administrato
143、rSecurity engineerMobile developmentComplianceHardware engineeringNo gaps identifiedMOST FIRMS INTEND TO INCREASE THEIR INVESTMENTS IN CLOUD SKILLSPercentage of firms giving the following responses when asked whether they were changing their cloud skill development budgets year on yearGAUGING THE DI
144、GITAL SKILLS GAPShare of business leaders citing the following as areas where their firms lacked skills in 2022 and where theyre likely to lack skills in 2025Equinix,2022of tech professionals believe that the digital skills gap has widened over the past year52%A LACK OF SECURITY SKILLS IS THE MAIN C
145、ONCERN AMONG TECH CHIEFSShare of tech leaders and technologists citing the following areas as where cloud skills gaps exist20222025SecurityNetworkingDataFundamental cloud fluencyAutomationAI/machine learningGovernanceInfrastructureMigrationDevOpsArchitectureWHAT DO EMPLOYERS WANT FROM A TRAINING PAR
146、TNER?Share of leaders citing the following as qualities they seek when choosing a cloud skill development vendorTechnical accuracyCost-effectivenessCustomised solutionsMeasurabilityEase of modularisationCertificationsFun and engaging courses3%23%0%5%10%15%20%25%Revolent,2023R A C O N T E U R.N E T09
147、 Although most organisations have moved at least some of their workloads to the cloud,more than a quarter are finding it difficult to recruit,retain and train all thepeople they require to keep their cloud workloads functional and secure.ITandtech-specific skills are in high demand,but leaders are a
148、lso grappling withensuring basic cloud literacy and data security among the wider workforce.Employersare increasingly turning to cloud skills development programmes and most are planning further training interventions,despite the ongoing economic uncertainty.So what are they looking for in an effect
149、ive development programme?CLOUD SKILLS DEVELOPMENTMOST FIRMS INTEND TO INCREASE THEIR INVESTMENTS IN CLOUD SKILLSPercentage of firms giving the following responses when asked whether they were changing their cloud skill development budgets year on yearA LACK OF SECURITY SKILLS IS THE MAIN CONCERN AM
150、ONG TECH CHIEFSShare of tech leaders and technologists citing the following areas as where cloud skills gaps existHOW DO EMPLOYERS MEASURE SUCCESSFUL SKILL DEVELOPMENT?Share of leaders citing the following as metrics they use to measure the success of cloud training Decrease No change IncreaseSecuri
151、tyNetworkingDataFundamental cloud fluencyAutomationAI/machine learningGovernanceInfrastructureMigrationDevOpsArchitectureWHAT DO EMPLOYERS WANT FROM A TRAINING PARTNER?Share of leaders citing the following as qualities they seek when choosing a cloud skill development vendorTechnical accuracyCost-ef
152、fectivenessCustomised solutionsMeasurabilityEase of modularisationCertificationsFun and engaging coursesSecuring career advancement and/or a pay increase Obtaining personal fulfillment and developmentDeveloping the skills required to complete a projectGaining enough knowledge to change roles/industr
153、iesStaying abreast of developments in my fieldFulfilling a requirement by my employerWHAT DO PEOPLE WANT FROM THEIR TRAINING?Share of employees citing the following as reasons for being interested in developing their cloud skillsSecurity vulnerabilities identifiedCost optimisationInnovationCloud lit
154、eracy across the businessTime of deploymentStaff retentionSpeed to marketAccelerated cloud transformationRecognitionAverage downtime/incident-response timeAchieved return on investmentVendor partnerships40%37%31%20%19%18%16%14%11%11%8%56%41%40%36%36%35%32%30%28%27%27%24%23%22%22%19%17%16%14%46%46%45
155、%40%38%31%74%Pluralsight,2022Pluralsight,2023C L O U D F O R B U S I N E S S10FOR MANY ORGANISATIONS,QUANTUM COMPUTING IS STILL A LONG WAY OFFShare of businesses worldwide citing the following as barriers they face in adopting quantum computinghe cloud is big business and it still has plenty of grow
156、th potential.The global market for public cloud services this year will be worth about$597bn(462bn),according to an estimate by Gartner in April.The research giant expects the total to leap to$725bn in 2024 and believes that this rate of expansion is sustainable at least over the next few years.It h
157、as forecast that threequarters of organisations“will adopt a digital transformation model predicated on cloud as the fundamental underlying platform”by 2026.But what if the massive processing power of the cloud providers servers could be easily outstripped by that offered by an alternative technolog
158、y?Quantum computing can reportedly perform some functions in microseconds that,as things stand,would take several millennia for a conventional computer to wrestle down.Does this socalled quantum advantage mean that demand for classical computing could decline dramatically?“Computing has become incre
159、asingly homogeneous over the past two decades,”notes Richard Hopkins,a distinguished engineer specialising in hybrid cloud solutions at IBM and a former senior quantum ambassador at the company.“We are going to see more speciation,simulation,pricing optimisation and supply chain optimisation,all of
160、which have commercial potential.There are security concerns about the possible misuse of quantum computing.One example of small input,many steps is working out the prime numbers that have been used in a cryptography key.With a 400digit key,a classical computer running a million factorisations persec
161、ond could,over the lifetime of the universe,try out 1024 possibilities.To be sure of cracking the key,it would need to examine 10200 potential combinations.A quantum computer,by contrast,could feasibly break the longstanding RSA cryptography standard on which much of todays online security systems s
162、till rely.The authorities are taking this riskseriously.For instance,the US National Institute of Standards and Technology announced the first four quantum resistant cryptographic algorithms in 2022 after a sixyear competition.Investors are also seeking solutions.Kamil Mieczakowski,a partner at vent
163、ure capital firm Notion Capital,reports that it has invested in Arqit,“a company that helps enterprises to become quantum ready with its quantumproof encryption technology”.Mieczakowski says that its still early days for quantum computing and adds that,once it does become more widely available,its l
164、ikely to be“overkill”for most purposes.Classical cloud computing will still be the main workhorse.He observes that“its very expensive to build and run quantum computers.They are inherently fragile too.The cloud will be the cheapest way to access quantum computing capability.”Quantum computers will,i
165、n effect,become a part of the cloud as it continues to grow and add new tech that can process data more quickly and energyefficiently.But quantum computing is unlikely to usurp the cloud as the“fundamental underlying platform”on which tomorrows businesses will be puting applies to problems beyond th
166、e capability of the algorithms that can be run on classical computers.“For example,in credit card processing,we used a quantum algorithm alongside a classical one and were able to reduce the number of false positives and negatives beyond the state of the art.”Severini says that“some of the Amazon Br
167、aket hardware is universal that is,it tackles any computing problem and some of it is specific to particular problems”.He stresses that quantum computing should not be seen as a panacea.There are some problems that are extremely hard for todays conventional systems to solve that will also be extreme
168、ly hard for quantum computers,such as challenges in combinatorial optimisation.This is the term applied to tasks such as solving the socalled travelling salesman problem,which involves calculating the best route for a salesman to visit all the cities on his schedule once and then return home.As the
169、number of destinations increases,working out the most efficient itinerary gets very computationally intense.Combinatorial optimisation has numerous commercial applications,such as finding the best way to cut up sheets of raw material in a factory so that waste is minimised.“We need to set the right
170、expectations about quantum computing,”Severini says.“It will be able to solve only certain types of problems more efficiently.Uploading data to quantum computers can be very timeconsuming and the notion of quantum storage is still unclear.Its potentially useful when the input is small and the number
171、 of computing steps required is very large.”He does not expect quantum computing to become primarily a business service.In his view,the hardware“will be used specifically as a research instrument and have the most impact on areas relating to quantum physics itself”.Research,though,could cover areas
172、such as molecule interaction technologies at Amazon Web Services and professor of physics of information at University College London.He reveals that the service is still limited in scope,but“the idea is to allow experimentation and to help speed up scientific research and software development for q
173、uantum computing”.Hopkins says that quantum computing“wont enter the mainstream for some years,but at IBM we have 24 quantum computing systems in our cloud.System Two,which can run quantum processing units alongside classical CPUs,is set to be released later this year.”But what is such hardware able
174、 to do?Hopkins explains that quantum Quantum computers promise colossal increases in processing power at far lowerlevels of energy consumption than their conventional equivalents.Could they ever render cloud services obsolete?because we need it.In essence,there are lots of very powerful PCs undernea
175、th the cloud.We cant afford to try solving largescale optimisation problems using conventional computers such as these,because wed be consuming huge amounts of power.”Bloomberg has estimated that the cloud could be using 8%of all electricity generated in the world by the end of this decade.One of th
176、e main reasons for this,according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,is that nearly all of the possible efficiencies have been wrung out of classical computing.Hopkins says that IBM expects quantum computing to be solving complex problems,without consuming anywhere near the sam
177、e amount of energy,before 2030.Quantum computing still has some significant development hurdles to surmount.For instance,the computers need to be cooled to 273C absolute zero and have other demanding operational requirements.Despite this,some quantum capability is already available.Whats more,its ac
178、cessible via the cloud.“Weve launched Amazon Braket,a fully managed service giving customers access to different types of quantum hardware,”says Simone Severini,director of quantum Zapata Computing,2023Ouida TaaffeHow quantum computing will affect cloud usageTda-kuk via iStockQ U A N T U M C O M P U
179、 T I N G44%Security concerns36%Lack of expertise/talent43%Complexity of integrating with existing tech stack34%Lack of clear use cases34%Lack of advanced capabilities(AI/machine learning)tobuild upon29%Concerns about vendor lock-in24%Scepticism inside the organisation27%Lack of internal champions26%
180、Lack of fundingR A C O N T E U R.N E T11Commercial featureata modernisation and digital transformation projects are no easy tasks for businesses to undertake.Little wonder,then,that its often treated as the last thing busi-nesses want to do.Done badly,they can be disruptive and unruly,with sig-nific
181、ant ramifications for an organisa-tions way of working.“Modernisation,in the past,has sometimes been seen as a plumbing project,”says Thilo Rockmann,CEO of LzLabs.“Everyones got an if it isnt broke,dont fix it mindset.And thats a real issue because often these appli-cations arent technically broken
182、at the point they need modernising.”Another problem is that initial pro-jects often tackle small,simple areas of a business,with leaders presuming that biting off less of the problem will make it easier.But if one area is modernised and updated and the rest of the business replenishing institutional
183、 knowledge within organisations.Thats clearly problematic if organisations are relying on old-fashioned systems that under-pin their core business.“You have a small percentage of people who can deal with these old languages,and then a percentage of those that can deal with the old technologies,and t
184、hen a percentage of those who have institutional knowledge of the applica-tions,”says Rockmann,“so youve got fractions times fractions times fractions,and it gets to be a scarily small number of people at the end.”Its a ticking time bomb that could explode at any minute.If anything were to go wrong
185、with a long-established application,the fix may not be particularly complex but it might rely on a very specific bit of knowledge.If theres no one remaining at the company able to make that repair,it could leave a business in a sticky situation.Modernisation helps keep IT and business systems up to
186、date,meaning that they can be agile and flexible to business needs not just whoever has the long-term memory of when it was first installed.Naturally,a need to keep systems up to date means that mod-ernisation is never a one-and-done project,explains Rockmann.“This is not a one-time exercise but a c
187、ontin-uous and recurring process,”he says.“Its a process that can be approached in a variety of ways.”Moving beyond simple solutionsRockmann points out that prior history has recommended following the prin-ciple of the seven Rs(see the seven Rs panel)when considering how to mod-ernise applications.T
188、he majority of com-panies on the cusp of transformations expect to replatform or replace,though other approaches such as rehosting and refactoring are gaining in popularity.However,leaders can fall into the trap of simplifying a modernisation project by picking one approach.Leaders shouldnt feel lik
189、e they have to commit to just one of the seven Rs,as even approaches like replatforming and refactoring wont solve all the issues.For example,refac-toring one element of an organisations IT infrastructure will likely identify the need to take different actions else-where.In some cases,replacing one
190、of the Rs with two of them sequentially can unlock value quickly and reduce risk often taking problem issues out of the critical path.“The seven Rs arent a bad approach,but theyre not elegant when one approach is applied to an entire portfolio,”says Rockmann.In part,thats because the seven Rs are de
191、signed to solve simple problems and as any business leader knows,thats not the reality of any organisation today.Technologies to assist transformations have also evolved beyond these simple approaches.“Modernisation 1.0 is doing the easy stuff,without the dependen-cies,”says Rockmann.“And because th
192、eyre learning,theyve actually found some of that quite hard still.Now,they look internally and see the Gordian knot,and this is the Oh no moment.That sim-plistic,single approach wont work.”LzLabss experience of helping com-panies enact digital transformations successfully shows that there are no sim
193、ple big bang fixes.“We believe in an iterative,incremental and interoper-able approach,”says Rockmann.“We dont believe that there is a one-size-fits-all solution.Not even ours alone.”Business leaders need to indeed look at their systems holistically and find a bespoke solution.They also need to come
194、 to terms with the fact that almost any modernisation pro-ject will also raise further issues beyond those first identified.Being cognisant of that and comforta-ble that its an ongoing,multi-step approach,rather than a quick pro-ject that races to completion is cru-cial to tackling the Everest of a
195、full modernisation project.The trick is not to try and tackle the full climb in one go,leaving lead-ers overwhelmed and organisations stuck at base camp.A step-by-step approach broken down into small stages is the key to reaching the cloudy summit and making worthwhile change within the organisation
196、 quickly,with low risk.Keeping front of mind one thing is vital,explains the LzLabs CEO.“Modernisation is doable,”says Rockmann.“But you need to think in a different way.”For more information please visit isnt,it can cause issues of incompatibil-ity and broken dependencies among a complex set of app
197、lications and systems.Theres often a sense of having reno-vated one area of a property,only to find doing so has uncovered a small moun-tain of issues with the rest of the build-ing.“Theres a huge learning curve in there.People have often hit that brick wall headfirst without a hammer,unfor-tunately
198、,because digital transformation is just as much a people process as it is a technology process,”says Rockmann.Why thorough modernisation is importantAlthough it may seem like a head-ache,modernising legacy technology is a vital requirement for businesses.Experienced developers are becoming more scar
199、ce,younger employees are unlikely to be familiar with older appli-cations and the talent pipeline is not Modernisation 2.0:what got you here wont get you thereTransformation beyond simple projects might feel like conquering Everest but businesses need a sense of urgencyWe believe in an iterative,inc
200、remental and interoperable approach.We dont believe that there is a one-size-fits-all solutionDThe seven RsThe basic approaches to application modernisationReplatform:Recompiling an application on a new platform or operating system.Rearchitect:Changing how the systems work,often splitting them up in
201、to smaller,modular forms.Rebuild:Starting from scratch and building again this can be costly and risky but leads to a clean,modern deliverable.Rehost:Shifting from one environment to another,most commonly associated with moving wholesale to the cloud,with no changes to language or source required.Re
202、factor:Changing code within a system without changing functionality to adapt to new advances.This is often achieved by transcoding from older languages with automation.Replace:Swapping out existing systems for a fresh set of applications,bought especially for the project.Most commonly off-the-shelf
203、packages for non-differential applications.Retire:Giving up the ghost or the old way of working and potentially(but not always)replacing it with alternatives which may take different forms.C L O U D F O R B U S I N E S S12Default setting:the rise of cloud-first strategyS T R AT E GYrom the midnought
204、ies onwards and especially since the Covid crisis,enterpri ses of all sizes have been flocking tothe cloud,entrusting an ever increasing proportion of their data and workloads to third parties.In April,for instance,consumer goods giant Unilever moved all of its 400plus household brands to Microsofts
205、 Azure platform,completing one of the largest cloud migrations ever seen.In November 2022,DIY group Kingfisher the owner of B&Q and Screwfix in the UK announced a fiveyear 80m deal with Google Cloud to move onpremises services,including its ecommerce platform and test environments,to the cloud.It pl
206、ans to scale up from offering 300,000 products on the B&Q website to more than 4 million.operational processes have been designed with the cloud in mind.Among the younger businesses that have made the switch is insurance company Inigo,which was established in 2020 and became a cloudfirst concern in
207、nine months.Inigos chief operations and technology officer,Erdal Atakan,reports that one of the main benefits of the cloudbydefault approach is that itoffers“new capabilities without requiring large infrastructure and security teams,reducing the need for physical space and equipment maintenance.It a
208、lso makes it easier for you to flex and scale your operations up(and down)as and when required.”Canterbury Christ Church University is another organisation thats come to view the cloud as its standard choice for hosting new services and applications.The universitys platform and systems manager,Dave
209、Hailwood,reports that this change of approach has proved advantageous in several ways.“It enables us to be quicker at reacting to technological developments and adopting new features,”he says.“We can test something quickly and create a proof of concept without committing to a large investment in new
210、 hardware.If testing is successful,we can scale the new feature out to production.If not,we can simply turn it off.”Hailwood adds that applying a cloudfirst approach and making better use of software as a service in this way shifts more of the responsibility for infrastructure maintenance to those b
211、etter placed to do it.“We can leave the vendor to think about lowlevel hardware management while we concentrate on delivering a good service to our staff and students,”he says.Despite much of the marketing hype talking up the simplicity of public cloud services,it is worth remembering that managing
212、a migration can be a complex process that may be beyond the capabilities of some smaller organisations inhouse tech departments.Even the 68strong IT team at Canterbury Christ Church University encountered unexpected problems during the Covid crisis while enabling remote access to campus PCs across t
213、he board with Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop.It ended up having to enlist a thirdparty migration specialist called Nerdio to make the process more manageable and costeffective.Cost is obviously a huge consideration for any firm thinking about adopting a cloudfirst policy.A survey of enterprises pub
214、lished by the Uptime Institute in March found that 42%of respondents had spent more on cloud services in 2022 than they had expected to.Nearly a third(33%)reported that they had moved applications back from the cloud to an onpremises data centre or colocation facility.Andrew Bithell is account team
215、lead at CTS,one of Googles largest dedicated cloud partners in Europe.He notes that,“with the costof living crisis still hot on everyones radars,companies need to evaluate the best strategies for making smart choices about their legacy systems and optimising these to get the best return on their inv
216、estments.While its hard to forget how expensive IT systems are,businesses are evolving constantly and adopting digital innovations apace.But not everything needs to be in the cloud.Firms should ask themselves:Will this deliver a return if we put it in the cloud?If the answer is no,its time to reeval
217、uate.”Bithell adds that cloud computing gives users the scope to“modernise and ensure that theyre using opensource licensing and cloudnative technologies.But finding maximum value means modernising,utilising the available technology and transforming existing archicloudasdefault approach to be the nu
218、mberone deployed strategy by the end of 2025.“The economic challenges were facing will fuel greater adoption of cloudfirst solutions,as companies seek to minimise their capital investments,reduce internal costs and outsource more noncore activities,”he predicts.While big corporations have tended to
219、be the most prominent adopters of the cloudfirst approach,smaller firms and startups have been leading the way,as they are less likely to be encumbered by unwieldy tech stacks and legacy processes.In fact,there is an entire generation of cloudnative companies,whose business models and Several organi
220、sations have come to view the cloud as their standard choice for data storage and workflow hosting,but they still need to make case-by-case cost and suitability assessments Christine HortonSuch massive and wholesale migrations indicate a significant change in how organisations view the cloud.A growi
221、ng number of companies,particularly larger ones,are coming to treat it as their default option when it comes to data storage and workload hosting.Its not only businesses that are looking to the cloud as their standard solution.The UK government recently updated its tech procurement guidance to state
222、 that public sector bodies should consider public cloud services first and seek out an alternative only when these arent a feasible option.This approach is mandatory in Whitehall and strongly recommended to the wider public sector.Roy Shelton,CEO of IT support and services company Connectus Business
223、 Solutions,expects the Fshomos uddin via Getty imagesFirms should ask themselves:Will this deliver a return if we put it in the cloud?If the answer is no,its time to re-evaluateThe economic challenges were facing will fuel greater adoptionof cloud-first solutions,as companies seek to minimise their
224、capital investmentsR A C O N T E U R.N E T13tecture into something thats more cloudlike and costeffective.”Organisations should therefore not expect an instant reduction in their IT costs simply because they have adopted a cloudfirst policy.They must reimagine and refactor their architecture,accordi
225、ng to Bithell,who stresses that the cloud“is always going to be expensive”if theyre not able to adapt.A report published by Gartner in April predicted that threequarters of firms will have adopted“a digital transformation model predicated on the cloud as the fundamental underlying platform”by 2026.D
226、espite this,significant barriers to going allin on the cloud remain.Todd Moore,senior vicepresident of encryption products at Thales Cloud Protection&Licensing,explains:“There will always be the need for onpremise or hybrid workloads based on latency,performance and security.And requirements such as
227、 digital sovereignty may always force the need for some onpremise elements.”He stresses that a cloudfirst approach is not the same as an allcloud policy.Under the former,therell always be a balance between the various options based on your technical and operational needs.Ultimately,organisations ado
228、pting a cloudfirst strategy must,just like any other enterprise,focus on extracting full value from each investment in cloud tech,keeping a keen eye on the returns while minimising the risks of incurring unexpected costs.Flexera Software,2023HOW CLOUD STRATEGY HAS EVOLVED IN RECENT YEARSPercentages
229、of firms applying the following enterprise cloud strategies in 2021-23With the rise of generative AI and the growing importance of data management,cloud usage and the costs thereof are only likely to increase.Its little wonder that pay-as-you-go cloud(PAYG)services are becoming more popular.Choosing
230、 PAYG makes sense in certain scenarios.Ideal candidates for this payment model are applications that need to be scaled upin certain periods and down in others becauseof seasonal fluctuations in demand.Butit all comes down to the application.Backups,for instance,will vary by size and frequency on a c
231、ase-by-case basis.“PAYG will not stop the ingress,egress and APIcharges on data.This is one of the biggest areas where unexpected costs for businesses canarise.”So says Andy Ramgobin,chief technology offcerat consultancy MergeIT.He observes thatthe rise of public cloud services and the acceleration
232、in cloud-native adoption has stemmed from technologies such as Kubernetes,containers,serverless computing and software-defined wide-area networks.A public cloud will offer its own native version of Kubernetes,managed by the vendor,and also have a containerservice.“These are not cheap services to con
233、sume,”Ramgobin stresses,adding that serverless computing is“exceptionally powerful so powerful that you sometimes forget youre consuming it.The premise of PAYG is that you payonly for infrastructure when you need it,butyoull be using event-driven code for everything if you arent careful.PAYG could s
234、uit some businesses but definitely wont suit others.This requires careful planning rather than hopingthat PAYG will solve all cost-control issues.It wont,although it could help.”Ramgobin says that firms seeking to fine-tune resources to requirements will have to pay either for native performance-mon
235、itoring tools in the cloud or for a cloud engineer to track costs,which is likely to be the more expensive option.“PAYG is not like the many one-size-fits-all commercial models in existence.A business mustadequately plan from both a technical and acommercial perspective and build a 12-month forecast
236、 as close to what is likely as possible,”headvises.“If you then build in a 30%cost contingency,you shouldnt find yourself struggling with huge unexpected bills.That said,nothing would mitigate this risk completely.”Ultimately,theres no way to avoid unexpected costs completely,whether youre on premis
237、es or in the cloud,according to Ramgobin.“The best you can do”,he says,“is follow best practice,be prudent,plan well ahead and try to control the uncontrollable.”The pros and cons of pay-as-you-go cloudsigmund via UnsplashEver feel out of place?Like every decision you take reveals youre not qualifie
238、d to be a leader?Thats normal.Todays business world is so complex that the more you grow in your career,the less you know about your job.Raconteur clarifies the complexities of modern business with stories that help you make more informed decisions and build more successful companies.So,stop feeling
239、 out of place.Settle into your position.Become a better leader at RStories that connect modern business.202120222023Hybrid cloudMultiple publicMultiple privateSingle publicSingle private84%80%72%11%7%13%5%9%11%0%2%2%0%2%2%C L O U D F O R B U S I N E S S14f cloud migration was a race,some organisatio
240、ns would already have crossed the finish line,others would be strug-gling around the halfway point,and finally,right at the back,would be the non-starters.Instead of trying to keep up with the competition,theyre paralysed by fears of spiralling costs and security breaches.And with every second that
241、passes theyre fall-ing further behind.This uncomfortable truth is borne out by the latest cloud forecast from Gartner.It predicts that worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services will reach nearly$600bn in 2023,up from$491bn in 2022.Whats more,75%of organisations will have adopted a dig-ita
242、l transformation model with cloud as the underlying platform by 2026.So how can the non-starters overcome their migration fears before its too late?Firstly,they need to separate fact from fiction,particularly when it comes to the cost of migration and the security of their data.Concerns that workloa
243、ds will be less secure on the cloud than on-premise are still common according to Stephen Croke,head of business develop-ment at CirrusHQ,an Amazon Web Services(AWS)Advanced Consulting and Solution Provider partner.But in fact workloads are likely to be just as secure in the cloud,if not more so.A c
244、lear pictureOrganisations that want to save money by migrating to the cloud therefore need to develop a clear picture of their current workloads.But the daunting nature of this task means migration projects sometimes stall before they even get going.“Customers often want to make a move on cloud migr
245、ation,but they dont know what the first step is because they dont always know what theyve already got,”says Croke.“Do they have a thousand applications?Do they have four hundred?The IT man-ager can typically tell you,Ive got 40 servers and 400 virtual machines.But what are these all actually doing?T
246、he sheer scale of even thinking about it can lead to decision paralysis.”A cloud migration partner can help organisations to overcome this paralysis,accurately assess their on-premise resources,and build a detailed cost projection for running workloads in the cloud.A migration-readiness assess-ment,
247、for example,can reveal current cloud-readiness strengths and weak-nesses and help to establish a plan for closing any gaps.And typically these services are funded by the cloud ven-dors at no cost to the customer.Croke describes it as“a traffic light system to say youre miles away on tool-ing for ser
248、vice management,for exam-ple,or your IT team knows how to run VMware but dont have a clue about a cloud vendor like AWS,so you need to build in a training plan for them.”Discovery work can also help techni-cal teams to identify how applications might change once theyre migrated to the cloud.“It give
249、s them a technical overview of all of the jumbled parts they have today and how to straighten them out,”Croke explains.“That ones going here,that ones going there,this ones getting deprecated,that ones getting moved to software-as-a-service,etc.”When it comes to actually migrating and modernising wo
250、rkloads,tools like AWS Migration Hub can help organisa-tions to track progress and identify and troubleshoot issues.But also its vitally important they have the right partner on board to support their migration preferably one with specialist knowl-edge of their needs or sector.The right partnerCirru
251、sHQ has extensive experience in helping educational and public sector organisations migrate to AWS.As well as being an AWS Education Competency accredited partner,the company has also attained AWS Well-Architected Framework certification.“Cloud ven-dors set exceptionally high bars for partners to ge
252、t those certifications,”Lucas explains.“So dont pick someone that just started this year and claims to know what theyre doing.They dont.You cannot be up to speed that quickly on everything thats going on.”An experienced partner will also know where there are potholes that could trip up the migration
253、 process,says Croke.For example,an organisation may previously have given away specific rights around licence mobility i.e.the right to deploy software to cloud ser-vice providers for a discount.If they want to migrate to a provider other than the one that sold them the licences,they may be forced t
254、o pay for the privilege.However,a partner with a strong relationship with the desired alter-native provider can help organisations to overcome this issue at little or no cost.Specialist partners can also tap into sources of funding that the organisa-tion may not know of,such as the One Government Va
255、lue Agreement(OGVA)between AWS and the UK government.This treats participating public sector organisations as a single client,meaning they can access cost savings for cloud deployments similar to those available to large commercial customers.An accredited partner will also know how to navigate the m
256、yriad of cloud pricing options on offer and secure the best discounts.“There are tens of thousands of different pricing points,so again,you need someone who understands all that and finds the quick way through to these are the options you have available,”says Lucas.White Rose Education,which supplie
257、s teaching materials used by the majority of primary schools in England,knows just how essential the right partner is for a successful migration.It worked with CirrusHQ to transform its tradi-tional architecture into three separate bespoke applications that could be scaled as required.This resulted
258、in a 70%cost saving against their old environ-ment,as well as increased performance.“Theyre now outstripping their com-petitors,winning awards,taking on bigger customers,”says Croke.“Its trans-formed their whole model and theyre leaving competitors in their wake.”For more information please “Weve ha
259、d situations where a cus-tomer does not have,for example,a recognised international information security standard for their architec-ture,like ISO 27001.And yet they will be worried about moving to a cloud provider such as AWS,when doing so would allow them to inherit almost 150 different security s
260、tandards and global compliance certifications.”Firms that are stuck on the starting blocks also place too much empha-sis on the cost of migration rather than the long-term cost savings it can unlock.“There is no customer in the world with a fully populated on-premises data centre,run with on-premise
261、s hardware,that is not going to save money when they move to the cloud,just purely in terms of the usage-optimisation benefits,”says Croke.But to realise these pay-as-you-go cost benefits,you first need a clear idea of what youre running on-premises.“If you havent kept track of what youve got runnin
262、g,or you lift and shift your environments over to the cloud and leave them there,it will probably cost you more because of the way cloud is priced,”says James Lucas,founder and CEO of CirrusHQ.“But thats because you wont be taking advantage of the ability to turn off resources when youre not using t
263、hem.”Tackle your cloud fears before youre left behindSecurity and cost concerns mean some organisations have yet to get off the starting blocks when it comes to cloud migration.But the right support can help them overcome their fearsCustomers often want to make a move on cloud migration,but they don
264、t know what the first step is because they dont always know what theyve already gotICommercial featureR A C O N T E U R.N E T15The clouded costs of generative AIThe potential of this branch of artificial intelligence is huge,but so are its resource demands.Anyfirms success in using it willhinge on t
265、he efficiency of its cloudmanagementot a day goes by without another business use case for generative AI popping up in the media.But very little of the growing body of coverage mentions the fact that this revolutionary new technology requires vast volumes of data and a hefty amount of computing powe
266、r to process all that material.When an emerging technology has so much potential,such practical concerns do tend to be overlooked amid all the hype.As a result,few organisations will have looked in detail at what cloud capacity they might require to do the heavy lifting and what that could cost them
267、.Moreover,cloud and data centre providers could soon find it hard to scale up their resources quickly enough to meet all the demands of advanced AI.To work properly,generative AI needs to be fed huge volumes of data.As these systems continue to evolve,their consumption of data will increase exponent
268、ially.Training microchips,for instance,requires a tremendous amount of computing power.The advanced chips capable of running the large language models(LLMs)that generative AI is based on can require months of dedicated training time.Even where businesses use pretrained models,finetuning these will s
269、till call for considerable computational clout.The demand for such processing power could easily outpace the supply.Samus Dunne is managing director for the UK and Ireland at Digital Realty,a data centre operator.He points out that“no one knows how much demand theres going to be.But,if generative AI
270、 ends up being anything like the cloud when that first hit the scene,you can bet that theres going to be a huge demand for it.Capacity,or the lack of it,will make or break this technology.”Dunne adds that,while cloud costs will undoubtedly increase,“its important to understand that generative AI is
271、a new frontier.There arent many legacy AI companies,so competition in this field will be fierce.Startups will emerge daily,all of which will be working on exciting new applications.We will reach a point where costs stabilise,but that will take time.”A lot of money is flowing into both AI and cloud c
272、omputing.Global spending on public cloud services is set to increase by 22%to nearly$600bn(458bn)this year,according to Gartner,which cites generative AI as a crucial factor fuelling that growth.Bloomberg Intelligence has predicted that the market for generative AI will be worth$1.3tn within 10 year
273、s.There are other reasons why generative AI is pushing up corporate IT expenditure.The technology requires highgrade central processing units and other microchips.These sell at a premium in any case,but supply shortages are putting upward pressure on prices.In the short term,many firms may need to r
274、econsider their generative AI aspirations once the cloud costs and capacity limitations become clear to them.They may need to become more selective about which workloads they run in the cloud,with a focus on truly disruptive applications and those offering significant profit margins and clear return
275、s on investment.Expect tailored costoptimisation methods to gain prominence.These will help companies to strike the appropriate balance between performance and cost.Dr Chris Royles,could come at the cost of vendor lockin.”Not all generative AI systems are created equal,of course,and some are signifi
276、cantly more efficient than others.A business will often find that the largest LLMs,which contain the greatest number of parameters,arent the most appropriate.Instead,smaller LLMs can be used,which can enable faster finetuning with the firms proprietary data.This could deliver meaningful insights fas
277、ter and at a lower cost,requiring fewer cloud resources.“If not managed effectively,rapid scaling up to accommodate generative AI applications can lead to cost overruns,while being too conservative or slow may hinder model performance,”Pradhan notes.“Its a fine balance.”There are also companies tryi
278、ng to make generative AI more efficient.Players such as dMatrix and Deci are reorganising the neural architecture and redefining how memory is used in chips.The aim is to help firms use less cloud power to achieve the same AI outputs.If businesses want to optimise their investments in generative AI,
279、its clear that theyll need to get smarter about how they manage their cloud resources.Those that can do more with less stand to gain a crucial edge over their rivals.field chief technology officer for EMEA at Cloudera,notes that there are systems available to help them make the most efficient choice
280、s in this respect.“Decisions on whether an AI workload will be better suited to cloud native deployment in a shared public cloud or an onpremise environment must be driven by good data.Workload analytics enable organisations to observe the performance of a workload before making a call one way or th
281、e other,”he says.The cloud and generative AI landscape is also developing apace,especially as businesses and investors continue to show willing to spend heavily on the technology.The hyperscalers Amazon,Google and Microsoft are likely to offer costefficient offtheshelf models and cloud infrastructur
282、e to accommodate a growing AI ecosystem.Rahul Pradhan is vicepresident for product and strategy at Couchbase,a US firm specialising in databaseasaservice software.He predicts that the hyperscalers will“partner heavily with independent software vendors and emerging AI companies to provide a onestop s
283、hop for AI infrastructure.This strategy will help organisations to cut costs by doubling down on the vendor,although this Nick EasenIf not managed effectively,rapidscaling up to accommodate generative AI applications can lead to cost overrunsThe meeting place for companies and dataLearn moreA R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C ENMaksim Tkachenko via iStock