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The CompTIA Cloud+certification validates the skills and expertise of IT practitioners in implementing and maintaining cloud technologies. This is exactly what it takes to become a good cloud technician. In the past few years, however, the National Cloud Technologists Association (NCTA) has recognized that evolving market demands have changed cloud computing technology in at least 13 ways.

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Regulatory and security burdens are no longer the barriers to cloud adoption that they used to be for the financial sector – and vertical software as a service (SaaS) is now making the leap a true no-brainer.  

The digital economy has created so many opportunities. So much has changed in such a short period of time; just five years ago, the notion of cloud services being used in business would have been an utterly alien concept. Now, it’s well on the way to gaining acceptance across even the traditionally slowest adopting sectors, but much work still has to be done.

For too long, banks have lagged behind in terms of SaaS adoption. While the SaaS model has been widely used for horizontal consumer applications, it has not had the same uptake across financial services – understandably in many instances.

Several factors have served to hinder uptake of SaaS in the banking space, least of all the relative scarcity of banking-specific SaaS on offer. Vendors have had to meet a complex array of requirements from banks, including the effective control, management, audit, and securing of all information flows, while ensuring compliance with a complex array of regulatory requirements – no mean feat. That’s where on-premises applications have appeared more attractive in the short-term as financial institutions have been more comfortable having application providers defined within their firewall.

Yet, by failing to maximise the benefits of the cloud, institutions really are now missing out on a lot. SaaS is evolving in the cloud, and is increasingly closing the gap on how to meet those unique requirements through automation and data consolidation.

Indeed, the scalability of SaaS is massive, having been designed with adaptability inherently in mind. It is also highly resilient , evolving constantly, and providing immediately realised value. Indeed, the cost of ownership is usually significantly lower than other delivery models.

However, the real game-changer has now arrived, heralding the dawn of the cloud service economy in earnest.

‘Vertical SaaS’ offers the same level of control, integration, transparency, and security as that offered by Application Service Providers and, most importantly, can live within an institution’s firewall. Vertical SaaS is fundamentally able to combine the security benefits of the ASP delivery model with the cost benefits of the SaaS model for a true win-win situation.

Vertical SaaS is thus providing a highly viable model and addressing financial sector concerns in new ways – and financial institutions can still take a lead.

Primarily, the vendor solution is able to integrate well with the operating and control environment of the bank, while providing fast and accurate financial reporting which, in turn, allows for better, more informed decision-making.

Vertical SaaS is also offsetting concerns by better understanding data governance procedures and actively meeting requirements by including compliance capabilities, thus ensuring transparency and agility for ever-evolving demands. This further means that operating procedures and infrastructure are audited by an independent third party, providing further peace-of-mind.

With the introduction of, and marked on-going investment in, the more robust model that is vertical SaaS, the reasons for financial institutions to avoid making the adoption leap are becoming fewer and fewer. The hard work has already been done. It’s now quicker, more secure, more agile, and ultimately better – so there really is no barrier left to stop banks from adopting and realising the huge benefits.

Picture credit: Golem

Say hello to Golem. The goal of the Golem project is to allow users to rent unused computing power – think Airbnb for computers – and to create, not entirely modestly, ‘the new way the Internet will work’. But how is it going about this mission?

The answer: by utilising blockchain and paying users in cryptocurrency. In theory, the Golem network will be a decentralised ecosystem where dedicated software and the combined power of users’ machines will be able to complete any computing task.

Julian Zawistowski is CEO of imapp, the company which develops Golem. Describing the Golem project as ‘Uber for computers’ – or in the future, describing Uber as ‘Golem for cars’ – he explains how the idea came about when working on a ‘cool computing chemistry’ project.  “We realised we had scaling up problems,” he tells CloudTech, “because at that point you never have enough computing power when it peaks, but then all of a sudden you need nothing… [it’s] very volatile.”

Enter Ethereum, a public blockchain platform which enables the ability for ‘smart contracts’ – protocols that can verify or enhance the performance of a contract. This enables the backbone for Golem; having an Ethereum-based transaction system can clear payments between providers, requestors, and software developers, while it also compares favourably for developing applications on the platform as opposed to other blockchains, such as Bitcoin.

“The idea of building Golem occurred to us only when we learned more about Ethereum and smart contracts,” says Zawistowski. “Then we realised you could use this blockchain layer with the logic that smart contracts give you to build a system like Golem.”

Golem recently announced the launch of a crowdfunding project, beginning on November 11, using its own Golem Network Token (GNT). Zawistowski explains the GNT is important to give the project flexibility and control, compared to other blockchain tokens, adding that the plan is to be able to deliver Golem as a standalone independent product in six months’ time.

The link between blockchain and cloud technologies – aside from the hype around blockchain being similar to the hype around cloud the better part of a decade ago, as Chirag Mehta recently put it – is an interesting one. If we take the concept of a distributed network of computers as being similar, and the concept of ‘blockchain as a service’ (BaaS), spearheaded by major cloud providers, such as AWS, Google, IBM, and Microsoft, then there is a link.

Zawistowski argues these are where the similarities end, however; not least with regard to redundancy. Redundancy in cloud, creating backup copies, is naturally important – but for blockchain, it’s on a much bigger scale to base the platform’s security. “The biggest advantage of blockchain technology is the biggest disadvantage at the same time,” he explains. “That may not be true for every technology, in details, but basically every node in the network does the same, and scaling up the network does in fact not add to its usability.

“Of course you want some redundancy on cloud for security, but there’s like a backup, a single, or two or three copies of what you’re doing – not 60,000 of them!”

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In a field as competitive as the storage market is, knowing what’s going to happen before it actually happens can be extremely valuable. And right now, the storage market is going through some big transitions, some of which are upending the industry.

This is kind of to be expected when dealing with a business that incorporates the latest technological advances, but even with that in mind, the rapid evolution underway at the moment is impressive to watch. The storage market as we know it today will look quite different in a decade. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves; we’ll keep our projections focused and take a brief but insightful look into the not-too-distant future as we see what the experts are saying about the storage market for 2017.

If one thing is consistent across the range of predictions being made, it’s that the role of cloud storage will be integral. More businesses are turning to the cloud for a wide variety of services with storage being one of the primary choices.

In a study released earlier this year, 451 Research found that the cloud storage market was expected to double by next year. That’s only the start of what could be some enormous growth for cloud storage. Research conducted by MarketsandMarkets similarly found huge rates of growth for the market, only their study went further. The organisation predicts that after doing nearly $19 billion in 2015, the cloud storage market would grow to more than $65 billion by 2020. These findings indicate that businesses are quickly moving many of their storage needs to the cloud.

That’s not the only transition many enterprises are making regarding their storage options. For many years, companies relied on hard disk drives for their storage needs, but starting several years ago, they began to move into the realm of solid state drives (SSDs). SSDs are largely better for performance, much faster than hard disk drives, and better able to handle the workloads businesses have these days. The one downside was the price — SSDs were simply the more expensive option. But that’s not necessarily the case anymore. The price of solid state drives is declining, and many experts are predicting they’ll reach the same price range as hard disk drives in 2017. That means not only will SSDs become more popular among enterprises, they’ll soon be used as a replacement for hard disk drives. The hard disk option may still be used for archived data that needs to be kept around in the long term, but the vast majority of storage usage will likely be solid state drives.

While many companies head over to cloud storage, we can also expect more intense competition. The usual companies will be out in full force, like Google, Microsoft Azure, and definitely AWS, but that won’t be the only place the competition will come from. According to Mark Lewis, CEO of Formation (and the former CTO and GM of EMC), the legacy players will find new rivals in regional cloud service providers. These providers will be businesses fulfilling niche company needs, providing specialised services that can bring more value to their customers.

This marks a big change from the much larger cloud service providers that usually offer features meant to cover a wide range of clients. Whether a company is trying to set up a modular data centre or working to analyse years of sales data, a specialised provider will have a specific service designed to help them.

Lewis also predicts that there will be an increase in adoption for software defined storage. Instead of being used for smaller projects, software defined storage will become a major factor in big data initiatives, an especially important role considering how vital big data is becoming for enterprises. Part of the reason businesses will move to software defined storage is how easy it has become to move legacy applications to there, turning its advantages into key strengths every business can use.

Staying on top of these changes in the storage market can help a business be prepared for the future. It’s all about keeping technology up to date and using the latest advances for the benefits they provide. While these predictions are still more educated guesses, they can provide a helpful guide for a company’s plans for the future.

Picture credit: CenturyLink

Louisiana-based CenturyLink has been particularly busy over the past week. The telco has announced, within days of each other, the acquisition of Level 3 Communications, while also agreeing to sell 57 of its data centres to a consortium led by BC Partners and Medina Capital.

The two moves are linked; CenturyLink says the funding from getting rid of its data centres – priced at $2.15 billion – will be used as part of the Level 3 deal, rated at an eye-watering $34 billion.

According to the press materials, the portfolio comprises 195 megawatts of power across 2.6 million square feet of raised floor capacity. CenturyLink noted that it would still provide a wide range of IT services, including network, managed hosting, and cloud, going forward, which will continue to be hosted in the data centres alongside a range of products from the BC and Medina consortium.

In a series of press releases issued within moments of each other on Friday, the consortium announced the acquisition of Cryptzone, Catbird – cybersecurity companies based in Massachusetts and California respectively – investigative analytics firm Brainspace, and fraud protection provider Easy Solutions.

Medina argued that the new company, with the four companies added in, will be an “immediate leader in the global colocation market”, with more than 3,500 customers currently. According to figures from Synergy Research back in May, CenturyLink was placed in the top 10 colocation providers, although significantly behind the top three of Equinix, Digital Realty, and NTT, with the analysts noting the overall market would reach more than $33 billion by 2018.

“We believe this transaction will benefit customers, employees and investors,” said Glen Post, CenturyLink CEO and president in a statement. “Both CenturyLink and BC Partners have a strong customer focus and are committed to ensuring a seamless transition of the customers and their colocation environments.”

Elsewhere, the move to acquire Level 3 will aim to create the “second largest domestic communications provider serving global enterprise customers”, according to the press materials, while adding the two companies combined offer a presence in more than 60 countries.

Speaking to this publication last year having just arrived as EMEA managing director, Richard Warley said that the telcos should be the “natural winners” in the cloud space because of their network clout. Yet a recent article in Fortune doubted whether the move to acquire Level 3 will help CenturyLink’s cloud ambitions, noting that it’s “hard to see how CenturyLink or any telco-focused company can make a dent in the public cloud market so dominated by Amazon Web Services followed by Microsoft and Google.”