Cloud Security
Avanade | November 06, 2023
Avanade launches an AI-based platform, "Avanade Cloud Impact", to unlock up to 50% of cloud spend.
The platform generates insights on IT estate risks and opportunities by analyzing cloud consumption patterns.
Avanade offers a free cost optimization workshop to clients interested in adopting an AI-first approach.
Avanade, a leading Microsoft solutions provider, launches a new platform, ‘Avanade Cloud Impact’, designed to help businesses establish an AI-ready digital core and unlock funding for innovation. The platform uses AI and machine learning to analyze industry, business, and technical data sources, providing tailored modernization insights for companies on their cloud journey. It has already saved Avanade clients up to 50% of their cloud spend.
The platform works by analyzing cloud consumption patterns and comparing them with various data sources to generate insights on a wide range of risks and opportunities across an IT estate. These insights can include modernization recommendations and cost-benefit analyses. Avanade Cloud Impact can deliver information about data egress cost spikes, application redesign options, and achieve up to 50% cloud cost savings while quantifying sustainability benefits, all without the need to make any code changes.
Andrew Stahel, Regional Applications and Infrastructure Solution Area Lead, Avanade Australia, emphasized the importance of AI in today's business environment and the need for businesses to rethink what the cloud can do for them. He expressed excitement about the potential of the Avanade Cloud Impact platform to help Australian businesses harness the true potential of AI by strengthening their digital core.
Merrie Williamson, CVP, Azure Infrastructure, Digital and App Innovation, Microsoft, also expressed enthusiasm about the new platform and its ability to provide deep insights and recommendations that accelerate value for Azure customers.
While Avanade's new platform, ‘Avanade Cloud Impact’, promises to unlock up to 50% of a business's cloud spend and provide tailored modernization insights, it does come with potential drawbacks. The platform's effectiveness is heavily dependent on the quality and accuracy of the data it analyzes, and incorrect or incomplete data could lead to misleading insights. Additionally, there may be a learning curve associated with understanding and effectively utilizing the insights generated by the platform. Furthermore, the platform might not be suitable for all types of businesses, particularly those with unique or complex cloud consumption patterns.
However, the benefits of the platform are significant. It can lead to substantial cost savings and help businesses make informed decisions on their cloud journey. The use of AI and machine learning allows the platform to handle large amounts of data and provide comprehensive insights. Plus, Avanade offers a free introductory cost optimization workshop, providing additional support for businesses adopting an AI-first approach.
Read More
Cloud Security
PR Newswire | October 30, 2023
Darktrace, a global leader in cyber security AI, today unveiled a new Darktrace/Cloud solution based on its unique Self-Learning AI. The new solution provides comprehensive visibility of cloud architectures, real-time cloud-native threat detection and response, and prioritized recommendations and actions to help security teams manage misconfigurations and strengthen compliance. When combined with insight from Darktrace solutions for network, email, apps, zero trust and endpoint, Darktrace/Cloud provides a deeper, contextualized understanding of the risks and threats currently facing an organization's digital estate.
According to a recent report, "Gartner anticipates over 99 percent of cloud breaches will be based on a customer error, account takeover or misconfiguration until 2027". Cloud environments are constantly evolving so security professionals need to increase the level of visibility while keeping up with changing compliance, risk and security requirements. The rise of cloud-native technologies including containers, Kubernetes and microservices also require new tools and techniques for detecting and responding to known and novel threats.
Unlike static cloud security tools that provide snapshots of a specific point in time, Darktrace/Cloud is real-time, all the time. Our Self-Learning AI continuously learns patterns between workloads, assets, policy configurations and identities to provide a dynamic view of cloud architectures. We analyze the entire cloud stack from data to control plane, combining an understanding of architecture and network with a new flexible, scalable deployment model, said Jack Stockdale, Chief Technology Officer, Darktrace. Our innovative approach to cloud security is built on more than a decade of leadership in Cyber AI that is already protecting our customers' critical business areas from network and email to operational technology.
Available today, the new capabilities in Darktrace/Cloud include:
Comprehensive visibility and architecture modelingfor insights into the constantly changing nature of cloud environments. This visibility is constructed dynamically from configuration, network, users and identity and access management (IAM) data. Darktrace establishes patterns of life for cloud resources, identities, and services to understand who has access to what and how. This is critical for detecting anomalies and unknown threats.
Universal attack path modelingprovides a dynamic view of where attackers may look to move next. Darktrace brings together real-time cloud data and a deep understanding of your cloud environment with a platform approach that provides insights about risks from other covered areas of the business (e.g., network, email) to highlight potential attack paths and prioritize important assets to secure.
Unique real-time and cloud-native threat detection and responsethat provides a dynamic view of known and novel threats within the cloud. Darktrace combines deep cloud attack path knowledge with real-time anomaly and threat detection through cloud-native autonomous response actions, such as detaching a policy from a user or removing a workload from a security group.
Prioritized cloud posture managementthat starts by examining cloud configurations against common compliance frameworks. Where misconfigurations are detected, Darktrace provides a prioritized view of what to fix first, based on a risk profile generated from security and business context. Guided steps can be provided to help teams proactively address these before they become a significant issue.
Cost discoveryto provide a better understanding of cloud resource allocation. This helps teams contextualize their cloud resources according to security and business priorities.
Communication and collaboration capabilitiesto streamline workflows between security teams and DevOps teams. Tickets can be created on demand, teams can communicate directly via messaging platforms, and alerts and anomaly detections can be sent to Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) or Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) products and the Darktrace Mobile app so they can be alerted on the go.
Flexible deployment optionsinclude an agentless deployment by default so organizations can be up and running in minutes. Teams can use the dynamic architectural view and risk context to decide where to deploy agents for enhanced real-time actions and deeper inspection.
Sykes Cottages, a cloud-native travel agency platform in the UK, has experienced significant growth in the last five years and has relied on the cloud to help them scale throughout this period.
"When it comes to cybersecurity, having visibility and an understanding of what you've got and your risks is critical. If I don't know it's there, I can't protect it," said Jonny Mattey, Head of Cybersecurity, Sykes Cottages. "Having a holistic, live view of our cloud environment enables us to work pragmatically and use AI to cut down management time so that we can address security risks and improve our resilience."
The new Darktrace/Cloud solution is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) through the AWS Marketplace, a curated digital catalog that makes it easy for customers to find, buy, deploy, and manage the third-party software they need to build solutions and run their business. Darktrace and AWS have been collaborating since 2017 to help organizations secure their AWS environments. Darktrace protects AWS environments for organizations around the world including Sunwest Bank and ProPhase Labs. Darktrace is an AWS Security Competency Partner and is part of the AWS ISV Accelerate program.
"Security is job zero at AWS," said Paddy Fitzpatrick, Director – Independent Software Vendors, UK & Ireland at Amazon Web Services. "As the threat landscape continues to evolve, the availability of AI-based tools like Darktrace/Cloud on the AWS Marketplace will help customers to gain increased visibility, and respond more effectively to security risks and threats."
Darktrace first extended its Cyber AI capabilities to cloud environments in 2016, applying its world class algorithms to granular network traffic. Darktrace/Cloud was recently named Cloud Security Product of the Year for Large Enterprises by Computing Magazine in its 2023 Cloud Excellence Awards.
ABOUT DARKTRACE
Darktrace (DARK.L), a global leader in cyber security artificial intelligence, is on a mission to free the world of cyber disruption. Breakthrough innovations in our Cyber AI Research Center in Cambridge, UK have resulted in over 160 patents filed and research published to contribute to the cyber security community. Rather than study attacks, Darktrace's technology continuously learns and updates its knowledge of 'you' and applies that understanding to optimize your state of optimal cyber security. Darktrace is delivering the first ever Cyber AI Loop, fueling a continuous end-to-end security capability that can autonomously spot and respond to novel in-progress threats within seconds. Darktrace employs over 2,200 people around the world and protects approximately 8,900 customers globally from advanced cyber threats. Darktrace was named one of TIME magazine's 'Most Influential Companies' in 2021. To learn more, visit http://www.darktrace.com.
Read More
Cloud App Development
Business Wire | November 02, 2023
Box, Inc. (NYSE: BOX), the leading Content Cloud, and Google Cloud today announced an expanded partnership to transform work in the enterprise with generative AI. Box will integrate with Vertex AI to build new gen AI features that help customers more efficiently process and analyze data stored in the Box Content Cloud, which is also now available to customers directly through Google Cloud Marketplace.
Enterprises today want to work with strategic technology platforms that can help them work smarter and more productively, said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box. Google Cloud is an incredibly important partner that helps us serve our customers globally. This deepened partnership underscores our joint commitment to delivering solutions that leverage cutting edge technology to power entirely new ways for users to intelligently interact with their content and revolutionize the way businesses operate in the AI-first era.
“Generative AI can streamline some of the most time-consuming processes facing enterprises today, such as manual data entry and analysis,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “Our expanded partnership with Box will provide customers with new tools that help them quickly process and create insights from documents stored within Box Content Cloud, saving time that users can reallocate towards more impactful work.”
New Box AI Capabilities, Powered by Vertex AI
Box has chosen to integrate with Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s unified AI platform, to help customers process and analyze data faster, create more personalized user experiences, intelligent search, and more.
Building on the earlier announcement that Box will integrate Google Cloud’s advanced large-language models (LLMs) into Box AI, Box will now use Vertex AI to help power its new metadata extraction feature. The new feature, coming first as an API, will save customers’ time inputting and maintaining data by automatically identifying and tagging key context from their documents, including matching metadata fields to attributes within a file. Soon, customers will be able to:
Automatically classify and label documents at scale to surface key insights, such as contracts nearing their expiration and invoices requiring payment within the current month.
Define metadata templates to extract information for custom use cases, such as automatically recognizing and tagging products in images or categorizing PII in specific types.
Populate defined metadata templates and integrate with ERP and CRM systems to automate workflows such as invoicing, executing contracts, client and employee onboarding, and more.
Identify and preserve critical information, such as timestamps, authorship, and document versions history, to maintain compliance protocols.
Recognize and extract metadata in different languages to ensure consistent term recognition while operating in different countries and regions.
Box is Now Available on Google Cloud Marketplace
As part of the expanded partnership, Box is now also available on Google Cloud Marketplace, making it even easier for customers using Google Cloud infrastructure to purchase Box’s content management platform. With the Box app available on Google Cloud Marketplace, eligible customers can realize key benefits including:
Reduced procurement cycles allowing for faster, smoother, and simpler buying process.
Consolidated Google Cloud billing.
Cost savings against existing Google Cloud commitments when purchased through Google Cloud Marketplace.
Box Expands Its Use of Google Cloud
Box already leverages Google Cloud as a key infrastructure provider for data storage and compute globally. Now, Box will expand its usage of Google Cloud by adopting several new services across networking, data analytics, and machine learning to deliver faster performance and higher-reliability to its customers. For example, Box is now applying:
Google Cloud as a storage option for Box KeySafe, which enables Box customers to use their own encryption key within Box. This provides customers with more choice over where they maintain their encryption keys.
Google Cloud’s global networking infrastructure to power Box network communication with customers, resulting in faster content transfers and increased productivity for customers around the world.
Cloud Bigtable for improved performance and uptime for the core data systems that power Box. This enables Box to deliver its customers with a more reliable service to secure and manage all of their content needs.
Google Cloud BigQuery to power Box's data application, analytics, and insights. With BigQuery, Box can now deliver more comprehensive data-driven insights to customers faster.
Google Workspace Integrations
The expanded partnership builds on existing integrations with Google Workspace, which lets Box customers create, collaborate, and save content in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides from the secure Box Content Cloud platform. Additionally, the Box for Google Workspace add-on enables smooth and secure productivity and collaboration across Google Workspace, including Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar. With these integrations, customers can:
Create, open, and edit content using Google Workspace’s collaboration tools directly within Box.
Add Box files directly to emails and save email attachments to Box without leaving Gmail.
Include Box files and link Box Notes directly to your Google Calendar events.
Save files in Google Drive to Box.
Apply Box’s enterprise-grade security, compliance, and governance capabilities to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
About Box
Box (NYSE:BOX) is the leading Content Cloud, a single platform that empowers organizations to manage the entire content lifecycle, work securely from anywhere, and integrate across best-of-breed apps. Founded in 2005, Box simplifies work for leading global organizations, including AstraZeneca, JLL, Morgan Stanley, and Nationwide. Box is headquartered in Redwood City, CA, with offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Visit box.com to learn more. And visit box.org to learn more about how Box empowers nonprofits to fulfill their missions.
About Google Cloud
Google Cloud accelerates every organization’s ability to digitally transform its business and industry. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google’s cutting-edge technology, and tools that help developers build more sustainably. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems.
Read More