Private cloud re-imagined as equal partner in multi-cloud world

techcentral.ie | March 24, 2020

Cloud-first has become the guiding principle for application modernisation and migration. Cloud-native is the mantra for application development. And hot technologies like containers, microservices and serverless computing are all associated with the public cloud. So, where does that leave the private cloud.Private cloud typically an on-premises data centre that enterprises are attempting to retrofit with virtualisation, automation, self-service, capacity planning, and other features that come built into the public cloud – has definitely taken a back seat. For a time, many enterprises seemed to be migrating as many apps as possible to the public cloud and relegating the private cloud to hosting an ever-shrinking collection of legacy, highly customised, out-of-support, end-of-life apps. But as we enter the second decade of the cloud revolution, a new vision has emerged in which private clouds become an equal partner in an integrated, multi-cloud world of private, public, and edge clouds.Gartner is calling this the distributed cloud, and Michael Warrilow, research vice president for infrastructure software, predicts that “it has a great potential for success.Warrilow in 2018 framed the issue facing traditional private clouds, which did not have the infrastructure to match hyperscale public cloud. Infrastructure and Operations leaders must resist the temptation to mimic a style of computing that they are ill equipped to replicate,he wrote in a research report.

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Manufacturers are undergoing a transformative shift in their applications, embracing multicloud and SaaS solutions while enabling remote access. However, this journey often involves legacy networks designed for a bygone era, causing security vulnerabilities, resource strains, and frustrating user experiences. As you transition t


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Cloud Deployment Models

Mirantis’ Lens AppIQ: Upgrading Kubernetes Application Management

Mirantis | September 22, 2023

Mirantis has introduced Lens AppIQ, a new tool designed to simplify Kubernetes application management. Available directly to the 50,000 organizations using Lens, Lens AppIQ offers application intelligence, making it accessible for non-Kubernetes specialists to oversee applications across multiple clusters. Lens AppIQ aggregates information from various configuration files and sources, presenting it in a user-friendly tabbed display. This feature allows cloud-native developers to streamline the deployment and management of Kubernetes applications, offering web-based tools for viewing application details, configuring security measures, and automating deployment processes. With a quick launch time of under a minute, Lens AppIQ swiftly identifies applications in connected clusters and maps their components. Developers can access application architecture, metadata, logs, events, and more through Lens Desktop’s new 'Applications' view or the Lens AppIQ web portal, simplifying debugging, accelerating code releases, and enhancing performance optimization. DevOps professionals, platform engineers, and operators can utilize Lens AppIQ to define, monitor, and enforce policies related to application performance, security, and compliance. Automation features in Lens AppIQ facilitate repeatable deployments and enable effortless application migration to new Kubernetes environments. Miska Kaipiainen, Vice President of Engineering at Mirantis, reportedly stated, While Lens Desktop already provides an incredibly user-friendly experience for Kubernetes management, we understand that cloud-native development doesn't end there. That's why we've created Lens AppIQ. Lens AppIQ complements Lens Desktop by offering real-time intelligence and additional insights into the apps running on your Kubernetes clusters. This not only makes debugging, operation, and security easier but also opens up Kubernetes to a broader audience of developers who can benefit from streamlined processes without having to become Kubernetes experts. [Source – Businesswire] Lens AppIQ is available for free for small-scale and trial use, accommodating up to 10 nodes, two clusters, and two users. A Pro plan is available for larger-scale use, supporting up to 100 nodes, 10 clusters, and 50 users, priced at $35 per node monthly, inclusive of 8 hours/5-day business hours support. Enterprises can opt for a bespoke version with 24/7 support and custom pricing. Lens AppIQ is accessible within Lens Desktop for the 50,000 organizations currently using Lens and is also available as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. About Lens With over 1 million users worldwide, Lens Desktop is a leading tool for boosting productivity in Kubernetes application development and management. This desktop application breaks down barriers for newcomers to Kubernetes while significantly enhancing the efficiency of experienced users. Lens supports all certified Kubernetes distributions on any infrastructure and seamlessly runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. As the world's largest and most advanced Kubernetes platform, it provides real-time workload management, development, debugging, monitoring, and troubleshooting across multiple clusters. Built on open-source principles, Lens enjoys a strong community with over 20,000 stars on GitHub. About Mirantis Mirantis is a leading company streamlining code delivery on public and private clouds with a ZeroOps approach to Kubernetes. It serves global enterprises, enhancing developer productivity and offering secure cloud solutions. Its clients include Adobe, DocuSign, PayPal, and others across diverse industries. Mirantis contributes to open-source projects like Lens and Kubernetes, empowering businesses to tackle complex challenges.

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Cloud App Development

CloudBees Launches Groundbreaking Cloud-Native DevSecOps Platform

Business Wire | September 15, 2023

On September 14, 2023, CloudBees, a leading enterprise software delivery platform, introduces a groundbreaking cloud-native DevSecOps platform that prioritizes platform engineers and developer experiences. The platform, built on Tekton, employs a domain-specific language akin to GitHub Actions and incorporates feature flagging, security, compliance, pipeline orchestration, analytics, and value stream management (VSM) into a fully managed single-tenant SaaS, multi-tenant SaaS, or on-premise virtual private cloud instance. A spokesperson for CloudBees stated that the revolutionary platform was the market's most open and extensible DevSecOps solution, capable of orchestrating any tool in the software development toolkit. They added that it redefined DevSecOps by addressing the challenges of delivering secure, compliant, cloud-native software faster than ever. Meeting the Challenges of Cloud-Native Development As the rush towards cloud-native application development continues, software development and delivery teams grapple with the complexities of modern cloud-native architectures. This has led to the emergence of platform engineering as an evolution of DevOps practices. Platform engineering unites various roles such as site reliability engineers (SREs), DevOps engineers, security teams, product managers, and operations teams with the shared goal of integrating all organizations’ disparate technologies and tools into a streamlined path for developers. The CloudBees platform is purpose-built for this mission. The CloudBees Platform: Speed and Security The CloudBees platform empowers organizations to simplify complex cloud-native development and deployment processes across all DevOps tools, thereby accelerating innovation. It ensures a seamless journey from code development to successful deployment with a focus on: 1. Developer-centric experience: Enhancing developer experience by minimizing cognitive load and making DevOps processes nearly invisible through blocks, automations, and golden paths. 2. Open and extensible: Embracing the DevOps ecosystem, starting with Jenkins, and offering flexibility to orchestrate any other tool, protecting existing tooling investments. 3. Self-service model: Allowing platform engineers to customize the platform, providing autonomy for development teams. Developers can focus on innovation without waiting for automation or resources. 4. Security and compliance: Centralizing security and compliance with out-of-the-box workflow templates containing built-in security measures. Automated DevSecOps is integrated, incorporating checks across source code, binaries, cloud environments, data, and identity. Michel Lopez, founder and CEO at E2F, noted that the CloudBees platform had significantly reduced the time required for their ISO 27001 compliance audit, from 12 hours to just 60 minutes. He also mentioned that the CloudBees platform provided all controls. Shawn Ahmed, Chief Product Officer at CloudBees, emphasized, Our new platform empowers developers, unifies teams, and accelerates innovation while offering unprecedented flexibility and choice. [Source: Businesswire] The CloudBees platform promises to enhance developer experiences, streamline processes, and prioritize security, offering organizations a powerful tool to navigate the complexities of modern cloud-native architectures and accelerate innovation. About CloudBees CloudBees, headquartered in San Jose, California, has been a software development leader since 2010. The company thrives in an innovation-driven industry by addressing the need for balancing development freedom and regulatory governance through its pioneering end-to-end automated software delivery system. Its robust Software as a Service (SaaS) platform encompasses DevOps, Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and more, ensuring secure and compliant innovation.

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Cloud Infrastructure Management

CoreWeave and VAST Data Join Forces to Build the Data Foundation for a Next Generation Public Cloud with NVIDIA AI

GlobeNewswire | September 27, 2023

VAST Data, the AI data platform company and CoreWeave, a specialized cloud provider powering many of the world’s leading generative AI efforts, today announced a strategic partnership that will further CoreWeave’s mission to deliver highly scalable and performant cloud infrastructure for AI and accelerated compute workloads. CoreWeave has selected the VAST Data Platform, the world’s first data platform designed for the AI era, to build a global, NVIDIA-powered accelerated computing cloud for deploying, managing and securing hundreds of petabytes of data for generative AI, high performance computing (HPC) and visual effects (VFX) workloads. CoreWeave did extensive research and testing before selecting VAST Data to power all of its data centers. The VAST Data Platform has the necessary scale, performance, and multi-tenant enterprise AI cloud capabilities required to power the massive AI and LLM training and inference applications that are now transforming everything from business, to science, to society itself. CoreWeave’s customers demand the most secure and scalable solutions on top of the industry’s fastest and most flexible infrastructure to keep their data safe," said Michael Intrator, CEO and co-founder of CoreWeave. We’re delighted to partner with VAST Data to deliver a multi-tenant and zero-trust environment purpose-built for accelerated compute use cases like machine learning, VFX and rendering, Pixel Streaming and batch processing that’s up to 35 times faster and 80 percent less expensive than legacy cloud providers. This partnership is rooted in a deep technical collaboration that will push the boundaries of data-driven accelerated computing to deliver the world’s most optimized AI cloud platform. Through their joint partnership CoreWeave and VAST Data are leveraging NVIDIA technology to engineer a new data platform architecture for large-scale, end-to-end data pipelines and deliver next-generation data services for AI workloads. To support this, the VAST Data Platform boasts an enterprise network attached data store that is certified for use with NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD and eliminates tiers and infrastructure silos to make large scale AI simpler, faster and easier to manage at virtually limitless levels of scale and performance. “Since our earliest days, VAST Data has had a single vision of building an architecture that could power the needs of the most demanding cloud-scale AI applications," said Renen Hallak, Founder and CEO of VAST Data. "We could not imagine a better cloud platform to realize this vision than what we’re creating with CoreWeave. We are humbled and honored to partner with the CoreWeave team to push the boundaries of modern AI computing and to build the infrastructure that will serve as the foundation of tomorrow’s AI-powered discoveries.” About VAST Data VAST Data is the data platform software company for the AI era. Accelerating time-to-insight for workload-intensive applications, the VAST data platform delivers scalable performance, radically simple data management and enhanced productivity. Launched in 2019, VAST is the fastest-growing data infrastructure company in history. For more information, please visit https://vastdata.com and follow VAST Data on Twitter and LinkedIn. About CoreWeave Founded in 2017, CoreWeave is a specialized cloud provider, delivering a massive scale of GPU compute resources on top of the industry's fastest and most flexible infrastructure. CoreWeave builds cloud solutions for compute-intensive use cases — machine learning and AI, VFX and rendering, life sciences, the Metaverse, and real-time streaming — that are up to 35 times faster and 80% less expensive than the large, generalized public clouds. Learn more at www.coreweave.com.

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Cloud Security

Lacework Unveils Cloud Security Community to Unite Customers and Peers

Lacework | September 07, 2023

Lacework, a trailblazer in data-driven cloud security, has introduced an innovative community platform, expanding its arsenal of cutting-edge technical resources. This dynamic community is a hub for Lacework's customers, support teams, and fellow cloud security experts. The Lacework Community is a multifaceted network comprising discussion forums, comprehensive documentation, a knowledge base, immersive events, and educational resources. Members are empowered to delve into a wealth of documentation through the platform's federated search or initiate unique discussions to glean insights from Lacework experts and industry peers. Jay Parikh, CEO of Lacework, said they were always looking for new ways to help their customers succeed and that the community would connect them with their peers and partners to learn and share faster and more broadly. He also added that customers would experience a new level of support from Lacework through the discussions, documentation, and engagement. Key features accessible to users of the Lacework Community include: Discussion Forums: Covering a broad spectrum of Lacework and cloud security topics Knowledge Base: Hosting numerous articles addressing common support issues How-to Guides: Curated by Lacework's Customer Success Architects Product Updates: Summarizing monthly releases and offering in-depth feature insights Networked Events: Featuring daily office hours and marketing events Integrated Documentation: Housing thousands of articles indexed for seamless federated search functionality John Turner, Senior Security Architect at LendingTree, said that things changed fast in the cloud security world and that companies faced new daily threats and tactics. He also noted that quick learning and peer feedback could significantly affect any company's security posture. He added that Lacework's community would provide that critical input and elevate the cloud security conversation. The Lacework Community is now open to both existing customers and potential prospects. Lacework is a platform providing comprehensive cloud security, including threat detection, anomaly identification, and compliance management across multi-cloud systems, workloads, and Kubernetes. However, it faces challenges for a few users as visibility is lacking and compliance-related metrics and IAM security control could be improved. IAM security management controls and detection of deviations and misconfigurations are critical, but have yet to be developed in Lacework. There is no data governance or data visibility. About Lacework Lacework, a data-driven cloud security platform, automates security at scale with its Polygraph Data Platform. This platform uniquely collects, analyzes, and correlates data across AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes, pinpointing crucial security events amid vast data streams. Clients rely on Lacework for revenue growth, safer product launches, and consolidated security solutions. Lacework strengthens cloud security, enabling faster innovation by scaling with an organization's dynamic cloud data, including code, identities, containers, and multi-cloud infrastructure. It offers security and development teams prioritized insights on significant risks.

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Spotlight

Manufacturers are undergoing a transformative shift in their applications, embracing multicloud and SaaS solutions while enabling remote access. However, this journey often involves legacy networks designed for a bygone era, causing security vulnerabilities, resource strains, and frustrating user experiences. As you transition t

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