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.

CloudJumper launches distribution agreement with Crayon to improve access to cloud workspace for Azure

CloudJumper announces alliance with Crayon that combines the power of CloudJumper’s Cloud Workspace Management Suite (CWMS) for VDI and RDS workloads with the expertise of Crayon’s managed services and independent 'cloud economics' consulting practice.

CloudJumper and Crayon’s partnership bring new possibilities for customers and MSPs who want the flexibility of choice for management, security options and the ability to build their own value-add services suite leveraging WVD. 

Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) brings new choices for customers who want more control of the managed services running on top of desktop and application virtualization solutions. Legacy VDI providers have historically served as a gatekeepers controlling the workstation management plane. CloudJumper brings to Azure WVD what the legacy vendors will not – the flexibility of controlling managed services on top of managed desktops.

The utility of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) is further enhanced through CloudJumper's Cloud Workspace Management Suite (CWMS). CWMS is an automation, orchestration workflow and policy solution to deploy, configure and manage WVD in real-time and at cloud scale. CWMS will instantly, and continually, optimize the customer’s Azure investment.

WVD is a complex collection of Azure services. CloudJumper simply funnels the hundreds of WVD setup options into a few key questions and then orchestrates and deploys a customized environment. With CloudJumper, the customer is just minutes away from deploying thousands of new WVD VMs– something that is not available in a native Azure user interface (UI).

To provide additional support for this distribution partnership, CloudJumper's product development team has been working closely with Microsoft's WVD product team for over two years. As a result, CloudJumper is proud to be recognized as a Microsoft Preferred Solution Provider for WVD.

Microsoft Azure WVD provides customers with unique licensing options and operating system flexibility for Windows 10 and Windows 7 desktop virtualization. Windows 7 desktops can now be migrated to Azure WVD and receive up to three years extended security updates at no additional costs. 

New Windows 10 multi-session OS options are only offered in Azure. These OS choices along with the many complementary Azure PaaS management and security offerings can be securely delivered directly into the Azure tenant. Native Azure Management, supported by CWMS, means no redirection and no third party vendor lock-in. This allows customers to leverage current Microsoft licensing instead of buying overlapping third party tools.

The partnership with Crayon combines the strengths and expertise of CloudJumper and Crayon to deliver the next generation of cloud DaaS and WaaS VDI and RDS desktop and application virtualization solutions.

Headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Crayon is in over 35 countries, providing more than 8,000 customers with strategic advice, consulting and managed services, and support with complex IT estates. Crayon has been the preeminent IT infrastructure consulting business in the Nordic region for more than 12 years, and has expanded its footprint in the US in the last two years.

“Crayon’s deep experience in all aspects of the digitalization journey helps ensure the success of the new partnership. We are pleased to combine CloudJumper’s advanced platform with Crayon’s unique SAM to Cloud Consultancy Services as companies take the next step in digital transformation with their move to Windows Virtual Desktop,” said Alex Picchietti, global director of cloud services for Crayon. “The wealth of expertise from both companies will support organizations making this important move to improve productivity and operational efficiency.”

“The advent of WVD and the partnership with a respected industry leader like Crayon extends the reach of our combined solutions globally,” said JD Helms, president of CloudJumper. “Customers are demanding choice and flexibility in their managed workspace providers and CloudJumper is uniquely positioned to do just that.”

Ericsson and Telstra achieve container-based commercial Evolved Packet Core milestone

Ericsson and Australian communications service provider Telstra have deployed the industry’s first live cloud-native container-based Evolved Packet Core for 4G and 5G services. The achievement is a significant milestone in network orchestration and automation.

The cloud-native container-based Evolved Packet Core has been deployed in Telstra’s production Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVi), provided by Ericsson. It is fully integrated into Telstra’s mobile core network and is carrying live 4G and 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) traffic.

Telstra’s cloud-native Evolved Packet Core includes Ericsson Packet Core Controller and Ericsson Packet Core Gateway products. They support 4G and 5G Non-standalone (NSA) control and user plane functions in both a centralized configuration and edge-breakout configurations.

As part of this deployment, Ericsson’s Packet Core Controller is deployed as a cloud-native container-based Mobility Management Entity (MME) in an existing MME pool.

Both the Ericsson Packet Core Controller and Packet Core gateway are designed from the ground up to be fully cloud-native container-based solutions. They run on Ericsson’s Cloud Container Distribution (CCD) that is part of Ericsson’s NFVI solution or on other Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) aligned distributions.

Ericsson CCD provides container management and orchestration for the latest Ericsson cloud native applications. CCD can be run on bare metal or within a Virtual Machine in an OpenStack deployment.

Ericsson and Telstra have a long history of partnering in industry innovation. In May 2019 Telstra launched 5G commercial services using Ericsson solutions.  

This achievement is a key step in Telstra’s goal to build a web-scale core network and deliver the full power of 5G to consumers and enterprise customers. The containerization of core network functions will move communication service providers such as Telstra towards greater orchestration and automation of their networks. This in turn will help them to create and deliver new services such as enhanced mobile broadband, network slicing, mobile edge computing, mission critical vertical industry support and advanced enterprise services.

Containerized technologies are also designed to improve network resilience and software upgrade techniques to increase overall network availability for Telstra’s customers and services.

“Telstra and Ericsson are leading the mobile industry with this first container-based cloud-native Evolved Packet Core in Telstra’s production environment and carrying live traffic. This is an important step towards fundamentally changing the way both companies deploy and operate mobile core networks,” said Emilio Romeo, head of Ericsson Australia and New Zealand. “Core networks will become much more flexible and agile, allowing operators such as Telstra to quickly create and deploy compelling new services for their customers. This in turn helps operators build new revenues.”

“Through the T22 initiative, Telstra’s business is being transformed to improve service delivery and provide customers with enhanced experiences. To achieve this transformation, Telstra’s network needs to become more flexible and efficient, and cloud-native container-based applications such as Ericsson’s containerized Evolved Packet Core are a key element of this,” said Shailin Sehgal, product enablement technology executive, Telstra. “This is key to cost effectively scaling and automating our network and speeding up the delivery of innovative new services that are essential in a 5G world. We are pleased to be working with Ericsson to deliver innovation into our network that will assist Telstra maintain its industry leadership.”

KIOXIA’s KumoScale software now put on UNH-IOL NVMe-oF integrator’s list

KIOXIA America (formerly Toshiba Memory America), the U.S.-based subsidiary of KIOXIA Corp., announced this week that its KumoScale storage software with NVM Express over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) v3.11 has been added to The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory’s (UNH-IOL) official Integrator’s List. 

In order to be considered for inclusion on the list, technologies must undergo conformance testing performed by the UNH-IOL through laboratory tests or during an NVMe plugfest. Successful completion of this testing provides a level of assurance that the product being tested will function properly in NVMe-oF environments.

Developed with a strong focus on virtualizing, managing and securing data, the KumoScale software suite provides a feature-rich storage abstraction for containers and virtual machines. It delivers secure flash access, API access to orchestration frameworks, among other capabilities, and takes advantage of the unique performance characteristics of NVMe SSDs. 

KumoScale software was the first storage software technology to be granted NVMe-oF certification by the UNH-IOL, and KIOXIA America continues to submit new releases of the software suite for certification. 

“Ensuring the interoperability of technologies with the NVMe standards is at the heart of what we do,” noted David Woolf, senior engineer, Datacenter Technologies, UNH-IOL. “KumoScale block storage software was the first of its kind to be listed on the NVMe-oF Integrator’s List back in 2017. We commend KIOXIA for their continued software innovations and for making NVMe-oF more deployable in cloud data centers.”

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."

Rescale debuts ScaleX Government, its federally compliant HPC cloud service

Rescale announced Wednesday that they are the initial company to deliver a completely cloud-based HPC platform for the public sector. Rescale’s latest offering, ScaleX Government, is the only fully managed HPC service that delivers the scalability of the cloud with FedRAMP Moderate (In-Process), ITAR compliance, or both.

With this announcement, Rescale can now be found in the official FedRAMP Marketplace. This enables federal engineers, scientists and researchers to shift outdated, fixed IT infrastructure to the latest in on-demand cloud architectures and meet their compliance requirements. 

The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), a division of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), co-sponsored the FedRAMP application with Rescale, to accelerate its energy efficiency and exploration research. HPC in the cloud makes it possible to instantly scale workloads up or down as needed, without requiring resource management that often results in long wait times. This ultimately leads to better research, faster results, and more efficient spending.

Until now, HPC in the cloud has been inaccessible for all Federal Agencies and many research institutions because cloud products and services cannot be adopted without FedRAMP status. ScaleX Government delivers the first cloud HPC service that is compliant end-to-end across every constituent element, including compute, storage, application management, and orchestration stack.

LayerStack updates Cloud Platform to deliver scalable, reliable and flexible infrastructure

LayerStack has launched its own-developed cloud orchestration and cloud control panel, which underlines the good market position and attractiveness of LayerStack, and providing customers with a more scalable, reliable, and flexible infrastructure around the globe.

LayerStack has concentrated its resources on product development in the past two years, successfully developed a new cloud orchestration with more stable and fully under control environment, in order to lower overall IT costs, free up engineering time for new projects, improve delivery times, and reduce friction between its system and development teams. 

At the same time, LayerStack is also satisfied with the results of the better IT management features to their data centers, such as availability, scalability, security, and optimal levels of infrastructure utilization.

Since the company came up with a new idea of developing a new cloud orchestration since 2018, the LayerStack development team perceive their passion as not only enthusiasm for the role but also for the business at large, providing the company with a clear future perspective. 

The new orchestration layer design empowers continuous integration and continuous delivery that could meet the requirements of developers in LayerStack, including high availability (HA), post-deployment, failure recovery, scaling, and more. It also simplifies and de-risk complex IT processes and accelerate the delivery of IT services to quickly configure, provision, deploy, monitoring, backup, and security services. 

Another advantage to the new orchestration is that enables the company to make their products available on a wider variety of cloud environments, meaning LayerStack will increase their products’ exposure to a wider audience, and potentially expand revenue opportunities for the company.

A further key element of this milestone is that the new cloud control panel – LayerPanel v2.0 is now ready for all regions, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and Los Angeles. Over a year in development, LayerPanel v2.0 has been specifically developed to meet the demands of the enterprise users by expanding its control panel features with Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). 

The goal is to provide customers with maximum control over their cloud management. The APIs, developed at the company’s development team, will help users build, scale and sustain cloud servers on the new platform. At the same time, it enables integration into new features such as firewall management, private networking, templates, backups, and so much more.

Furthermore, organizations migrating to LayerStack often need to manage a large number of accounts for different clients. LayerPanel v2.0 gives customers granular control over their environments with the User permission management, like configuring a multi-account structure, managing user permission, centralized monitoring and much more.

LayerStack continued to invest in its technology, providing new solutions for the developer, mobile app development agency, software development agency, system integrator, managed service provider, value-added service provider, and hosting provider.

“We are celebrating our accomplishments from the past two years by continuing to commit to our main focus: Striving for innovative and continuous improvements,” said Dennis Ng. “We look forward to a strong year ahead.”

“We are delighted to have our development team with great experience and standing in the cloud industry,” said Dennis Ng, the CTO of LayerStack. “Every interaction with our customers must be fast and reliable. Especially in today’s fast-moving IaaS market, our cloud infrastructure needs to be agile, adaptable and ready to be changed as our customers change their strategy.”