A Tech Talk to Get Caught Up: What's New on the Cloud?

The cloud industry keeps booming while we soak up summer’s sun. From the impacts of COVID-19 that continue to shift cultural and economic trends, to talk of code and service disposal for a cleaner cloud network, to new partnerships and collaborations for better data protection, news from the cloud keeps on coming. This week, we get caught up to share our top cloud news picks on enterprise data storage and protection so that you can Live Easy, up to date, on the cloud.

The cloud industry continues to boom through COVID’s economic impacts

That’s right: we’re still talking about COVID-19, and that’s because of the global cultural and economic shifts it’s walking (or pushing) us through. What has it all meant for the cloud industry? Immense growth.

“Businesses are racing towards cloud maturity,” writes Ntirety President and CEO Emil Sayegh for Forbes. As COVID-19 made its entrance in the spring, newly introduced social distancing requirements made it necessary for retail, medical, educational, and various other industries to change their current IT and network systems and allow for the virtual client engagement essential for business survival. Now six months later, IT departments across the board are adapting to the settled remote-work reality, and it’s causing the cloud industry to undergo “massive change amidst rapid growth,” says Sayegh.

Futorium highlights this growth in an analysis of revenue and capital spending (capex) among key players including Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook for the first quarter of 2020. Not only are major cloud providers experiencing rising revenues amidst COVID-19, leading to a steady increase public cloud capex, but the COVID shift is also leading public cloud providers to seek more control over their infrastructure from telcos. And, while the pandemic has forced many enterprises to slow down network build-outs ad large-scale projects, the demand for remote work support through cloud services isn’t slowing down.

Consequently, the job market is also being affected, and with job security a concern for many, we’re happy to say IT hiring is on the rise. More specifically, cybersecurity and general IT support/systems administration are showing the highest demand for employment. Enterprises rely now more than ever on remote users having full access to corporate networks, requiring support teams with skill sets specific to the technology making it all happen.

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With all this demand hitting cloud providers, the rapid development of cloud networks and testing via disposable prototypes is coming into question lately too; where are all these “forgotten” pieces of code going?

Disposability gains interest in the development of modern cloud networks

In our cloud-based virtual world, software development and systems operations (DevOps) thrive off the ability to break down applications into smaller components (microservices) make for easy prototyping. However, as New Relic developer advocate Nočnica Fee describes, much of the code we deploy for rapid prototyping and experimentation in filling small niches are disposable within a short period of time. As a result, deleting unused code and services should be making it onto the priority lists of today’s DevOps teams.

Unused services, in particular, can lead to system security holes while complicating an organization’s cloud computing service map with extra unused nodes. This is especially important as we continue the technological movement towards container virtualization and serverless computing. In addition, much of the code for disposable prototypes used to get these services up and running then linger, unused, to form what Forbes’ Adrian Bridgwater describes as “clunky limescale deposits” inside IT systems that slow down communication and collaboration within a network.

To avoid these issues, Fee proposes we focus on security auditing, architecture documentation, usage analysis, and observability. Many cloud platforms, for instance, offer data detailing for security auditing and observability, allowing organizations to keep an eye on which services experience drops in usage and as a result, which ones may need to be deleted. Introspection tools for producing accurate, real time service maps are also important in pinpointing unused services, while prioritizing usage analysis over cost analysis via audits and documentation is essential in cases where, for example, unused code paths have no impact on cost. Overall, managing and removing disposable code and unused services relies on the collaboration of the four above-mentioned actions to ensure no productive elements of code are eliminated in the process.

Collaboration is key on the cloud, from multi-cloud deployments and Edge Zones to implementing strong hybrid cloud security strategies. In fact, when it comes to security and data protection, the latest collaboration between Pure and Cohesity is making headlines.

Pure Storage and Cohesity join forces for better data protection

We talked recently about the increase in malware and ransomware attacks on businesses in the face of COVID-19, now Pure Storage and Cohesity are joining forces to assist organizations in rapid ransomware attack recovery. So, who are the players?

First, Pure Storage has been leading the transition to all-flash storage arrays (no spinning disk drives). Pure Storage FlashArray//M snapshots provide an alternative to the traditional backup applications by taking frequent system snapshots, thereby allowing for fast RPOs (recovery point objectives) and RTOs (recovery time objectives). Cohesity, on the other hand, provides a hyperconverged platform for consolidating and managing all secondary data with management functions for converged data protection.

The Cohesity-Pure Storage integration improves snapshot-based data protection by allowing snapshots to be easily tiered between Pure Storage primary storage and Cohesity secondary storage. Together, these tech solutions create a two-layered storage protection strategy that’s making tech headlines.

At LeCiiR, we know the power of corporate collaborations, and we’ve been working on a few of our own. In the meantime, we’re keeping an eye on what’s new on the cloud so we can continue to offer secure, reliable, and innovative services. We tailor our highly scalable and end-to-end secure cloud infrastructure according to your enterprise network security needs so that you can Live Easy. For questions on our services or any other tech topics, don’t hesitate to contact us and leave your comments.