Looking ahead to 2020, Rackspace CTO Joel Friedman offers his predictions

As the New Year 2020 begins, hybrid and multi-cloud will continue to gain traction, as will software as a service (SaaS). Security remains a tough nut to crack, and edge computing will gain ground, but Joel Friedman, Rackspace CTO, predicts more modestly than the current hype may suggest.

PREDICTION 1: HYBRID/MULTI-CLOUD REMAINS ASCENDANT

Smart organizations have locked onto the benefits of running apps and data in the places that make the most sense, whether that’s public or private cloud, colocation or, most commonly, a bespoke combination of these that can evolve as business needs and resources dictate. However, the complexity of managing multiple clouds across the dimensions of cost, security, governance, identity and DevOps patterns will continue to grow in 2020.

This complexity is related to the forced reliance upon a multitude of platforms, the rate of technological change, disruptions to traditional service delivery models and a real shortage of skill sets required to bring it all together. Due to these factors, it is likely that multi-cloud solutions will prevail, while the search for qualified external help will intensify.

Finding external help may prove difficult, as not only will managed service providers need to maintain a multi- or hybrid cloud instance, but internal and external vendors will need to work together to manage a multitude of issues around cost governance, security and tagging, to name a few. Fortunately, 451 Research has found these growing pains can be alleviated with clear communication and flexibility on each partner’s part.

PREDICTION 2: SAAS = PROBLEM SOLVED

On top of infrastructure, one of the cloud strategies I hear on repeat when working with customers is that “cloud first” starts with SaaS. They don’t want to reinvent the (inferior) wheel by developing applications for ‘solved’ problems. Mature SaaS offerings are a culmination of many iterations of customer mandated features, user experience analysis, and just as important, industry best practices around process workflows.

In many cases, organizations choosing to fit their internal process to best match their SaaS vendor’s implementation – as opposed to always opting for customizing the platform to suit legacy workflows. Furthermore, SaaS has a compounding effect with data; once data is in the system, other ecosystem players can offer turn-key integration and add-on services, further enhancing the value proposition of SaaS. 

While this isn’t necessarily a new trend, Friedman predicts this will be the norm in 2020 and expects to see more and more niche, and vertically-focused applications developing a SaaS model.

PREDICTION 3: SECURITY REMAINS A STRUGGLE

When it comes to security, many organizations remain burdened with legacy systems riddled with technical debt and corresponding security vulnerabilities. They understand the need to harness cloud-compatible security frameworks, operating models and tools to operate securely in cloud-native environments, but it can be slow and rough going.

Most industries simply have not reached the place where mature cloud security practices are being implemented, and this creates fertile ground for breaches. Too many are still attempting to apply traditional security controls and methodologies to cloud-native environments and deployments. 

This generally does not work well; not only is the security implementation likely to be ill fit, it also creates drag on the organization’s desired benefits of agility. This sometimes leads to fragmentation, where business units go around central security and implement on their own shadow security. The risks of this should be obvious.

In 2020, Friedman thinks that the cloud continues to present some growing pains to even the most digital-native and forward-thinking organizations. These organizations understand how the cloud can aid their business in moving fast, but they don’t yet have the maturity to implement real-time or just-in-time posture management and ‘least privilege’ protocols in the ephemeral, complex and constantly changing world of multi-cloud. 

While security teams straddle the old world of insecure legacy applications and platforms (those which cannot or should not be modernized), and the relative newness of cloud operating models, I unfortunately expect to see the breach headlines continue in 2020 along with all of the free credit monitoring can handle.

Even when the security teams agree in concept that it’s possible to be more secure in the cloud, many do not have cloud compatible security frameworks, operating models and tools to aid the business in operating in cloud-native environments securely.

PREDICTION 4: CLOUD CONTROL PLANE WILL BECOME THE NORM

There has been a trend over the past few years in which the management plane has been reversing from the datacenter to the cloud. For early cloud adopters, the datacenter was still the central control point. Organizations burst into the cloud or had back-end projects with no internet accessibility. As cloud grew in popularity, more and more greenfield projects became cloud-native.

Granted, many still integrate with on-premises or hosted private clouds for identity, business intelligence or other data enrichment requirements, but the hyperscalers have now moved past denying that hybrid cloud is real (in attempts to capture all workloads), and pivoted their strategy to capture those datacenter workloads where they stand and bring them into their ecosystem. 

This includes Snowball Edge, AWS RDS of VMware, Azure Stack/Azure Arc and Google Anthos. Expect to see more such services in 2020. And why shouldn’t we? Cloud providers have proven their effectiveness of securely operating at scale, and API-enabling everything.

PREDICTION 5: EDGE WILL GAIN MODERATE GROUND

Edge computing is a new frontier — no player is currently dominating this space, as it is a naturally fragmented market. When choosing locations over platforms to address local markets, data sovereignty, and other use case specific needs, I believe organizations may want to align in a technology-neutral and consistent manner. And based on the trends over the past year, containers and serverless seem like a natural beneficiary for edge.

As Kubernetes dominates in the container orchestration arena, serverless is another story in which, as of yet, there are no victors. AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform all have their own flavors of Function-as-a-Service (FaaS), which are embedded within their respective cloud ecosystems. Will OpenFaaS with kNative gain some ground based on open standards, addressing the often spoken lock-in avoidance and mobility potential? We shall see. 

Either way, Friedman predicts that 2020 will see lots of innovation and exploration in the edge space, but he suspects this is the year of gaining momentum and the floodgates won’t open until 2021.

Centilytics releases initial cloud management platform to debut flat fees and widget-based pricing

In the cloud management industry, Centilytics becomes the initial management platform that offers widget-based pricing. With cloud computing having almost limitless benefits, cloud vendors deliver benefits to attract customers; and this strategy is working quite well. Cloud computing is becoming a preferred choice by entrepreneurs, whether for a startup or a well-established enterprise.

It was all a walk in the park up until the first data breach, or an unexpected cloud bill that can shrink the numbers in the bank account, ergo the dawn of cloud management. 

Gartner was the initial vendor to advocate the importance of a cloud management platform. They acknowledge that a management platform is needed to see through the complexities of the cloud. It should be equipped to protect the user's data under industry defined regulations and provide solutions for any additional cost overhead.

Centilytics is a fully-automated SaaS solution that helps organizations with the management and control of their infrastructure. It is an intelligent cloud management platform that enables public cloud users to gain 360-degree visibility, identify loopholes and deploy one-click fixes on their cloud infrastructure.

Cloud Management Platforms (CMP) can safeguard the data and prevent cost leakages from the accounts. Typically, a CMP charges a percentage fee on the cloud consumption; In other words, that's a part of savings.

Which seems to be a conflict of interest, doesn't it?

On a percentage pricing model, the CMP's revenue becomes directly proportional to cloud spending. It means they'll earn more when the cloud bill increases. This conflict has been generalized and never been visible because users have gotten used to it. Cloud already has a complex pricing model, and in no way, percent pricing going to ease that complexity. When Centilytics, noticed this conflict, it went ahead. It introduced a flat fee model for its customers.

Centilytics is the only CMP that eradicates the conflict of interest by charging one fixed amount, which is independent of increased bills.

The users have finally understood the conflict and are now moving away from the percentage pricing. Not only did the previous pricing take away a chunk of there savings but also that they had to pay for the whole platform, even for the services that they were not using.

Centilytics, yet again, disrupt the market by introducing a widget-based pricing model. To offer this pricing, The entire Centilytics platform was broken down to 5 products, 12 services, and 2200+ widgets. With widget-based pricing, the users can pick and choose only those services which they require. They also get the capability to bundle widgets as per their unique infrastructure requirements. This model eliminates the need to pay for the entire platform and genuinely save money.

SolarWinds Backup for Office 365 delivers cloud-first data protection for Office 365 Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint

SolarWinds, provider of IT management software, launches SolarWinds Backup for Office 365, designed to extend data protection services by helping ensure the retention and recoverability of Office 365 data.

Backup for Office 365 backs up and helps restore Exchange, OneDrive and SharePoint data, managed from the same web-based dashboard used to protect servers, workstations, and critical business documents. The need for effective and affordable tools to help MSPs reduce the potential impact of malicious external attacks or internal user error is growing. 

Related data retention, recoverability, and the ability to demonstrate regulatory compliance is becoming even more critical, as more businesses continue to adopt SaaS applications and shift resources to the cloud.

With Backup for Office 365, users are able to save administrative time by managing Office 365 backups alongside server and workstation backups, keep recoverable copies of Exchange data for seven years, and archive OneDrive and SharePoint data for one year. Backup storage in SolarWinds’ private cloud is included, with more than 30 data centers worldwide to help meet data locality requirements.

Users can often unwittingly (or purposely) delete important emails, or OneDrive or SharePoint files. If this happens, SolarWinds Backup offers the ability to search for, and recover what is needed. If employees leave and the company does not want to continue paying a subscription fee to store their email and shared documents, then the SolarWinds Backup for Office 365 offers an additional way to retain and access this data. If the enterprise must comply under regulations with data-retention requirements, SolarWinds Backup is designed to help retain and archive critical data.

With SolarWinds Backup for Office 365, users can manage Office 365 Exchange, OneDrive, and SharePoint backups from a single web-based dashboard. They can also view and manage backup status across customers, and several devices and data types. SolarWinds Backup also helps strike the right balance between automation and control. Users can manually select which accounts and mailboxes they want to protect, or automatically add newly created Office 365 accounts to the backup schedule.

“Backup for Office 365 has assisted us in making our clients feel more secure and comfortable with cloud solutions because they’ve regained control over their data backups,” said Kelvin Tegelaar​, CTO, Lime Networks. “This solution is easy to manage, is super-efficient, and gives our customers an extra layer of protection and continuity.”

“If you’re relying on storage to do the job of backup, you’re putting your data at risk. Anything from an overzealous email cleanup to a deliberate ransomware attack can leave you scrambling if your data isn’t safely backed up. Microsoft is focused on the availability of active email and data, but potential gaps exist around the recoverability of accidentally deleted or overwritten data that are only solved by an effective backup product,” said Mav Turner, group vice president of products, SolarWinds MSP. “Backup for Office 365 is designed for peace of mind; you retain control over the retention and recoverability of your customers’ data in Office 365 and can be ready to help them in their time of need. Your backups will run seamlessly in the background, and the only difference you’ll notice will be increased trust that your data is safe, no matter what.”

Barracuda boosts MSP offerings through integration of Content Shield Web Security Solution and Managed Workplace RMM

Barracuda Networks announced that it has integrated Barracuda Content Shield with Managed Workplace, its remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform. Managed service providers (MSPs) using the RMM can now leverage the cloud-based web security solution’s web filtering and malware protection to better protect their customers’ end users from web-borne threats. 

Barracuda Content Shield is a SaaS-based solution available at a per-user pricing model, which makes it easier for MSPs to scale based on demand.

Offering content filtering, malware protection, granular policy enforcement and reporting, Barracuda Content Shield works with existing antivirus (AV) solutions to protect against malicious files, stopping malware before it reaches the endpoint.

This integration helps MSPs enhance their end-user online security service offering with agent-based DNS and URL filtering; help protect their customers’ end-users from web-borne threats; and get at-a-glance visibility into threats prevented across all customers.

Additionally, through the combination of the two tools, MSPs will benefit from a centralized view of the threats detected and quarantined. If threats such as malicious files, domains, or URLs are discovered on any device connected by Barracuda’s threat intelligence network, every user is protected against that threat. 

“A recent survey by Spiceworks found that when companies don’t restrict internet activity, 58 percent of employees will spend at least four hours per week on websites unrelated to their jobs,” said Brian Babineau, senior vice president and general manager, Barracuda MSP. “And earlier this year, a study found that 40 percent of malicious URLs were located on good domains. These and other statistics point to the need for robust, easy-to-manage web content filtering that protects end-users from web-borne threats. Barracuda is answering that call with the integration of Barracuda Content Shield within Managed Workplace, a move that illustrates our commitment to providing our partners with a broad portfolio of security and data protection solutions spanning web, network, and e-mail, and backed by our global threat intelligence.”

New Matillion Data Loader release delivers speed and simplicity of data integration

Matillion announced Matillion Data Loader, a free Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) data integration solution that empowers data analytics professionals and business users to load and migrate data with a powerful and scalable product.

Matillion products reduce time to value for cloud data analytics projects with data integration and data transformation solutions for Amazon Redshift, Snowflake and Google BigQuery.

With Matillion Data Loader, data professionals can use a low-friction solution to replicate data from data sources into a CDW using a code-free, wizard-based pipeline builder; monitor jobs with a dashboard view of pipeline runs and data volumes; save on infrastructure, resources, and DevOps costs, using technology built to leverage the speed and scale of the cloud; and upgrade to handle advanced data transformation, integration, and orchestration needs with Matillion's top-rated ETL solution

"Exploding data volumes and the rapid shift toward data democratization mean enterprises have increasingly diverse data analytics needs across teams. A flexible data analytics platform should ensure companies can address simple use cases, sophisticated analytics projects, or both at the same time, without the inherent complexity of other tools," said Matthew Scullion, CEO of Matillion. "Matillion Data Loader works by itself to deliver low-friction data loading but also works with Matillion ETL as a platform to join and transform data sources for analytics. This is a far better option than having to choose between solutions that are either quick and simple or functional and complex."

F5 enters into alliance with AWS to enable users to innovate faster in the cloud

F5 Networks announced a multi-year global Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to allow customers to use F5 for new cloud-native application workloads and extend their existing F5 investments on AWS.

F5’s application services ensure the performance and security of millions of applications for global enterprises. The SCA will enhance companies’ ability to leverage the full suite of F5 Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud-native application services to migrate, build, secure, and operate their applications on AWS. 

The structured framework of this engagement will allow customers to have a consistent and scalable operating model for their application assets on AWS, while exploring future innovations that enhance migration and operation of applications to the cloud. 

Customers can use advanced F5 solutions to standardize, scale, and optimize application services for AWS environments, from lift-and-shift and re-platforming, to full application development and modernization.

“F5 has collaborated closely with AWS for years, most recently on our SaaS offering, F5 Cloud Services. Together with AWS, we are providing a set of solutions that help enterprises deploy apps quickly and securely, while ensuring they are performant and comply with policy,” said Chad Whalen, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales at F5. “This aligns with our strategy of supporting modern DevOps practices and serving engineering teams with capabilities that create the most efficient path from code to customer.”

Enterprises are adopting the cloud to speed innovation cycles and create efficiencies, but today many companies must maintain separate data center and cloud environments, which drive up their operational costs, add complexity, and increase risk. These customers need a hybrid cloud solution that allows their applications to run with consistent performance and security regardless of the location. 

The work F5 and AWS do together addresses this need, allowing organizations to use F5 application services across all environments. Additionally, F5 solutions will make it easier for DevOps teams and application developers to provision, configure, and manage services via APIs or the web portal, without the need for deep networking or security expertise.

“The ability to deploy and run applications on AWS using F5 services is an important requirement for many customers that have standardized on F5 for application delivery and security,” said Mike Clayville, vice president, worldwide commercial sales and business development at AWS. “This Strategic Collaboration Agreement elevates our historic relationship with F5 to a higher level. It will be a great asset for customers as they build new cloud-native applications on AWS and move an increasing number of mission-critical workloads such as SAP and Windows to AWS.”

As part of the collaboration, F5 and AWS will work to allow customers to upgrade to F5’s application services, including F5 Cloud Services using cloud-native, SaaS-based application performance and security services; BIG-IP Virtual Edition with software-based, full-featured Layer 4–7 application delivery and security services; NGINX is a lightweight, highly scalable, and highly performant API management, and full-service proxy software built atop the open source web server; Silverline, its cloud-based managed services platform for application threat protection; and Aspen Mesh, an enterprise-ready, fully supported service mesh built on Istio.

“StockCharts.com is benefiting tremendously from the close collaboration between F5 and AWS,” said Chip Anderson, Founder and President of StockCharts.com. “By leveraging F5’s cloud solutions on AWS, our new cloud strategy is allowing us to provide our customers with a faster, more reliable, secure, and scalable set of web applications. We are now providing more insight and data, faster than ever before.”

stackArmor debuts stackArmor OpsAlert offering to reduce cloud costs by detecting and eliminating idle capacity

stackArmor has unveiled stackArmor OpsAlert cloud operations management solution for busy product managers, product owners and business managers with a stake in financially optimized cloud hosting. 

stackArmor OpsAlert provides actionable intelligence on cloud utilization and cost using simple business oriented metrics. These metrics allow business managers and product managers to detect idle capacity and improve utilization thereby increasing margins for cloud-based products.

Continuous monitoring of cloud operations and costs is a critical need for government program managers, who must stay compliant with Antideficiency Act requirements. It also comes with the capability to monitor cloud costs, detect cloud resource idling, and track cloud contract data in a single dashboard provides situational awareness and transparency.

stackArmor OpsAlert has been designed from the ground up to meet the needs of government agencies in monitoring cloud costs in compliance with FedRAMP, FISMA and DFARS requirements through its unique "ibn-boundary" deployment model. The "in-boundary" deployment model ensures that all operational and cost data remains within the system boundary, unlike SaaS solutions that install agents and are not FedRAMP-accredited.

stackArmor OpsAlert is geared for management oversight using easy to understand business metrics drive accountability. The stackArmor Cloud Idle Score provides an instant and easy to understand metric for detecting idle capacity that is being paid for but not utilized. 

It also aids in  accountability using simple categorization of cloud instances into highly idle, moderately idle or low idle allow managers to ask the right questions and drill-down to eliminate wastage, and increase margins. SaaS product hosted on AWS can improve their margins by improving operational efficiency of cloud assets by eliminating idle capacity.

The ability to interpret complex cost, operations and utilization data is essential for effective management. Using advanced data aggregation, integration and data science methods, stackArmor OpsAlert shows utilization, idle and cost data side by side to enable decision making.

stackArmor OpsAlert include actionable insights with proven algorithms to detect idle and waste to help product managers, SaaS CFO’s and business managers track cloud spend and bring it under control. It offers accountability across distributed teams with dashboards and emails to help agile product teams quickly see cloud spending and eliminate wastage using the Cloud Idle Score across Regions and AWS Accounts.

stackArmor OpsAlert is tailored for fast growing organizations that are unable to dedicate full-time resources for cloud cost and utilization management. Its fully managed billing and cloud operations support services are cost-effective tools for busy cloud product owners, product managers and program managers looking for force-multipliers.