Red Hat has added a host of features to its flagship Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform to refine the product as a lightweight, production-grade operating system for edge computing. 

With RHEL 8.4, which will launch in the next few weeks, the company is adding Linux container deployment and management capabilities scaled for the intensive demands of edge computing. The latest version of the flagship operating system adds container images, enhanced management of edge deployments at scale, and automatic container updates.

Together, these improvements comprise the foundational layer for the ‘Red Hat Edge’ initiative, which aims to extend the capabilities of the firm’s hybrid cloud portfolio to edge computing across various industries. The segments being targeted initially include telecoms, transport, as well as smart vehicles. 

“The vision of open hybrid cloud – that sort of build once and deploy anywhere – that gets extended to the edge as we have seen this incredible thirst for the capabilities that edge can bring,” said senior vice president and general manager for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Stefanie Chiras, speaking on a panel at Red Hat Summit 2021. 

“As we look at what we have done with open hybrid cloud, edge becomes that next extension for us to broaden out that hybrid cloud, bringing that choice that our platform delivers out into edge use cases.”

“To me when we look at our value in edge, it fundamentally comes to our capabilities in Linux. What we’ve done in RHEL, how we’ve built that out to be the heart of an ecosystem, and a stable, secure platform, how we’ve brought that into the OpenShift platform to deliver Kubernetes and management around containerisation – all of that consistency is critically important when we get out to the edge.” 

With updates to Podman, RHEL’s open standards-based container engine, the platform will help to maintain standardisation and control across several Linux containers, which is critical to edge deployments. 

There’s also new functionality to Image Builder, a tool that creates customised deployable operating system images for a variety of users. This tool supports the creation of installation media tailored for bare metal, which helps IT teams maintain a common foundation across disconnected edge environments.

Finally, the Red Hat Universal Base Image (UBI), which allows containers to retain RHEL’s traits such as security at the application level, is now available in a lightweight micro image. This makes it ideal for building redistributable, cloud-native app standardisation on an enterprise-grade Linux foundation, minus the overhead of an entire operating system deployment. 

The latest version of RHEL also adds a few non-edge-oriented features, including greater flexibility for cloud-based applications, more simplified and automated system configuration and management, as well as greater security. 

Microsoft Teams has suffered a global outage for the second time this month that is preventing users from sending messages and logging in to the service. 

The tech giant confirmed the issue on Twitter and said it was currently investigating the root cause. 

The issue, which is throwing up a 401 error code, is preventing users from accessing the service via the web and blocking messaging systems on the app itself. Some have managed to log in, but Microsoft has warned that they might experience «degraded performance with multiple features». 

«We’ve confirmed that this issue affects users globally,» says Microsoft’s 365 status account on Twitter. «We’re reviewing monitoring telemetry and recent changes to isolate the source of the issue.»

The problems began around 10:30am BST, according to DownDetector, with login and server issues the most commonly cited by users. Other Microsoft services, such as Azure and Xbox have so far been unaffected, but with the pandemic still lingering and many still working from home, the outage is causing trouble for many in the UK and around the world – including Doncaster’s local planning committee.

«Unfortunately due to global issues with Microsoft Teams today’s scheduled Planning Committee is cancelled,» the organisation said on Twitter. «The meeting will be rearranged in due course, we will share details of the new date once it becomes available.»

Since, Microsoft has said that it’s identified the root cause of the issue and «performed mitigation actions». 

«We’re seeing signs of recovery and will continue to monitor the service,» the company added. «Users still experiencing impact should restart their clients to expedite recovery. Further details can be found under TM252802.

This is the second outage Teams has suffered in April and the third its experienced in the past two months. In March, users lost four hours of usage after an authentication change knocked out access to the comms platform. That coincided with an Azure Active Directory outage that impacted Office web apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and other Microsoft services. 

IT Pro has approached Microsoft for details and will update this article when more information is released. 

Zoom has rolled out a video background feature called Immersive View that aims to make its video calls feel more like physical, in-person meetings. 

The feature was unveiled last year at the firm’s Zoomtopia conference but has this week rolled out to both free and paid-for accounts for meetings and webinars of up to 25 participants. 

Zoom already has virtual background options, but Immersive View – which is available on Zoom desktop for Windows and macOS – adds functions to select and move participants into more realistic scenarios. It can be enabled via the dropdown menu where you can find ‘Speaker’ and ‘Gallery’ view.

From there, users will have the choice to either automatically place attendees in a variety of built-in virtual scenes, such as a boardroom or auditorium, or do so manually. 

Each attendee can be resized by the host and moved around a chosen scene, and users can even upload their own. It’s possible to use any image as an Immersive View background, but Zoom recommends that matching up file type, aspect ratio and resolution, as it has with its choices, will produce the best results. 

«Whether you want to create the feeling of being in a classroom, a boardroom, a conference auditorium, or your favourite place to catch up with friends, Zoom’s Immersive View assembles up to 25 participants in one fun, consistent meeting environment,» Zoom product marketing specialist, David Ball, said in a blog post.

Unfortunately, there are some limitations; calls over 25 people will see remaining guests in a strip of video thumbnails at the top of the scene. Worse, participants that are not using the latest version of Zoom will simply see the standard grid. Recordings are also subject to these limitations; they’ll be recorded in the standard Speaker or Gallery View, rather than a fun virtual scene.

IBM has unveiled a set of improvements to its storage portfolio designed to give its customers greater access to and management of their data across their complex hybrid cloud environments. 

The technology giant, which has pivoted its operations towards hybrid cloud in recent months, will launch IBM Spectrum Fusion later this year, in addition to updating its IBM Elastic Storage System (ESS). 

IBM Spectrum Fusion is described as a container-native hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) system that integrates compute, storage and networking functions into a single platform. It’s been designed to come equipped with Red Hat’s OpenShift to allow customers to support environments for both virtual machines (VMs) and containers, and provide software-defined storage for cloud, edge and containerised data centres. A software-defined storage (SDS) version will follow in 2022.

Updates to IBM’s ESS suite, meanwhile, include a revamped model ESS 5000 that delivers 10% greater capacity, as well as a new ESS 3200 which offers double the read performance of its predecessor. They’re designed to provide scalability at double the performance of previous models for faster access to enterprise data.

“It’s clear that to build, deploy and manage applications requires advanced capabilities that help provide rapid availability to data across the entire enterprise – from the edge to the data centre to the cloud,” said Denis Kennelly, general manager for IBM Storage Systems. 

“It’s not as easy as it sounds, but it starts with building a foundational data layer, a containerised information architecture and the right storage infrastructure.”

Spectrum Fusion integrates a fully containerised version of the parallel file system and data protection software to provide businesses with a streamlined way to discover data across the organisation. Customers can also use the system to virtualise and accelerate data sets more easily by using the most relevant storage tier. 

Businesses will also only need to manage a single copy of the data, no longer needing to create duplicate data when moving workloads across the business. This eases processing functions such as data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI).

With regards to IBM’s ESS updates, the IBM ESS 3200 is designed to provide data throughput of 80Gbps per node, which represents a 100% performance boost from its predecessor, the ESS 3000. The 3200 also offers up to eight InfiniBand HDR-200 or Ethernet-100 ports for high throughput and low latency.

The IBM ESS 5000 model has been updated to support 10% more density than the previously available, for a total storage capacity of 15.2PB. In addition, all ESS systems are now equipped with streamlined containerised deployment capabilities automated with the latest version of Red Hat Ansible. 

Both these models include containerised system software and support for Red Hat OpenShift and the Kubernetes Container Storage Interface (CSI), CSI snapshots and clones, Red Hat Ansible, Windows, Linux and bare metal environments. IBM Spectrum Scale is also built into them. The 3200 and 5000 units also work with IBM Cloud Pak for Data, its fully containerised platform of integrated data and AI services

The global semiconductor shortage will last for at least another six months, according to Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins.

Robbins told the BBC that it would take “another six months to get through the short term” of the global chip shortage, adding that the crisis is unlikely to be fully resolved until 2022.

«The providers are building out more capacity. And that’ll get better and better over the next 12 to 18 months,” he said.

According to Robbins, the shortage has been caused by unprecedented demand for semiconductors, which “go in virtually everything”.

“When COVID hit, everyone thought that the demand side was going to decline significantly and in fact we saw the opposite,” Robbins said. “And at the same time demand went up instead which was a complete shock to so many of us.”

The UK’s first national lockdown saw a massive surge in demand for virtual office components such as laptops and network peripherals as companies scrambled to accommodate their employees in the mass shift to working from home. 

Robbins’ statement comes as the European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton announced plans to hold discussions with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and TSMC Europe president Maria Marced on 30 April.

Breton is reportedly looking to secure the EU’s role in chip production by persuading a leading chip manufacturer, most likely TSMC, to open a fabrication plant in the region, with France, Germany, or Poland mentioned as potential locations.

Opening a major factory in Europe would help the continent to become less reliant on shipments coming in from Asia, which has proven increasingly difficult due to pandemic travel and transport restrictions. Breton is seeking to double the EU’s share of global semiconductor production to 20% by 2030.

«Increasing our autonomy does not mean isolating ourselves in a world where supply chains are global,» Breton told Reuters. «In parallel to exploring how we can increase Europe’s capacity…we will continue to build bridges with international partners – but with us in the driving seat,» he added, confirming the meetings.

The NHS has partnered with AI startup Faculty to improve its forecasting and predictive capabilities to improve patient care.

The new partnership, which saw Faculty appointed as a partner following a tender process, will reportedly help the NHS to build on its success using AI so far and address new areas where AI forecasting tools can improve service delivery and patient care, such as understanding and predicting A&E demand and winter pressures.

Faculty has been working with the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic and developed the Early Warning System (EWS). This AI tool is purportedly based on Bayesian hierarchical modelling, using aggregate data to warn hospitals about potential spikes in cases so they can divert staff, beds and vital equipment to where it’s needed.

Currently, there are around 1,000 users of the forecasts across the NHS, who use the outputs for their own analysis or to help inform the prioritisation of safe care delivery for patients on a daily basis, according to Faculty.

“The response to the pandemic has demonstrated the importance and impact of using data and machine learning techniques to make predictions about the future and inform more effective decision-making, wrote the company.

“The techniques applied in the EWS allow forecasts to use specific information from that trust, as well as incorporating a broader set of contextual information that impacts the forecast, such as what’s happening in COVID-19 admissions in other local hospital trusts.”

Faculty has faced controversy in the past when it comes to government contracts. Last year, the startup, which had worked on the Vote Leave campaign, won a contract to analyse social media data, utility bills and credit score ratings, according to the Guardian. However, the full details were unknown as the published version of the contract was partly redacted.

After facing pressure from Open Democracy and Foxglove in June last year, the UK government released contracts governing its deals with a number of companies including Faculty. It emerged the Dominic Cummings-linked firm was being paid over £1 million to provide AI services for the NHS, with Open Democracy claiming that the terms of the deal were changed after initial demands for transparency were made under a FOI request.

Furthermore, cabinet minister Lord Agnew owed £90,000 of shares in the company when it was awarded a £2.3m contract from the NHSX to help run the NHS Covid-19 Data Store, according to Digital Health. A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed the conflict of interest, although the organisation found «no evidence he was involved in awarding or managing the procurements». It also notes he relinquished his shares on 23 August 2020.

At the start of the month, NHS Digital signed a deal with Scandit, an augmented reality solutions provider, to digitise the UK’s Covid testing process. The company was going to provide the NHS with a data capture service in the form of barcode scanning technology to make it easier to track and identify tested samples.

Embattled Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is pivoting towards software and cloud services in a bid to attract more developers.

The firm launched six new cloud products over the weekend, further expanding its ambitions to take on the likes of Alibaba, Amazon, and Google, according to CNBC. 

The six cloud products include containers, artificial intelligence (AI) programming assistants, databases, computing services and infrastructure software. Each was launched at the company’s three-day developer conference in Shenzhen, which has cloud, AI and open source as its main theme.

The announcement also included a $200 million investment in Huawei’s developer programme, which aims to boost its software ecosystem and cloud services. 

Huawei’s cloud efforts have paid off, according to Canalys Research, with revenues jumping 168% year on year in 2020. However, the firm is still far behind the likes of Amazon and Alibaba in China. Huawei Cloud is currently the second-largest player in China with a 17.4% market share, compared to Alibaba’s 40%, according to Canalys.

«By 2025, 100% of enterprises around the globe will be utilising cloud technology,»  said Richard Yu Chengdong, executive director of Huawei. «Cloud is the future of the ICT industry and the foundation for enterprises digital transformation. Developers are the soul of the industry.»

The cloud update comes after a tough year for Huawei, with its hardware unit struggling in the face of US sanctions. Its 5G equipment and services have been shunned in the US and UK over security fears and its smartphone sales have declined swiftly. It is widely believed that the lack of Google services on its Mate and P series of handsets is a big turn off for Western customers – although reports also suggest a decline in China too. 

The firm has been rapidly building out its own operating system, pivoting Harmony OS from an IoT-focused platform to one that can work on high-end smartphones. It is due to be released on Huawei handset in the coming weeks, but it’s still in need of development and is a far cry from Android. 

Intel’s data centre division sustained a 20.5% year-on-year decline, according to the firm’s first-quarter financial results for 2021, with overall revenues falling by 1%.

The embattled US chipmaker earned $19.7 billion during the first three months of 2021, with its data centre business accruing $5.56 billion. This, however, represents a $1.43 billion drop in earnings for its data centre business compared with the first quarter of 2020.

Intel’s overall revenues remained roughly flat, falling 0.6% over this period, with a 54% surge in revenue for notebook CPUs, driven largely by COVID-19, offsetting declines elsewhere.

«We are in a slowdown of cloud consumption – the cloud market typically goes through two to three quarters of purchasing activity and then one to two quarters of digestion,» Gartner VP Analyst and Intel analyst Alan Priestley told IT Pro. «Throughout 2020 cloud was a buying period and now we are entering a digestion period.

«The overall enterprise market is still impacted by the pandemic, 1Q20 was relatively strong (pre-pandemic) but it has been in decline since. Both Intel’s average selling price and units sold were down in this report while in 1Q20 they were relatively strong.»

The company described its data centre revenue as “better than expected” in a call with analysts, with Intel’s chief financial officer, George Davis, suggesting he expects revenues to increase through the rest of the year. This is because he expects momentum to pick up in the firm’s dealings with enterprise and government customers.

Intel is also pinning its hopes of a data centre recovery on the launch of its third-gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor, codenamed Ice Lake, which claims to deliver 62% greater performance against the previous generation of data centre chips.

The company also claims that this chip is the only data centre CPU with built-in artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced security capabilities.

Intel faces competition, however, in the form of Nvidia’s newly-announced Arm-based data centre CPU, which combines Arm CPU cores with a low-power memory subsystem to help it analyse gigantic datasets.

Dubbed Nvidia Grace, the launch of this chip is an attempt to topple Intel in the data centre market, after its chief executive Jensen Huang outlined plans to go after the chipmaker in August 2020.

In an interview with the Financial Times (FT), he spoke of the firm’s intentions to supply “the full technology stack needed to run data centres”. This launch also comes a year after Nvidia’s $7 billion acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, which makes critical data centre components.

Intel recently announced plans to revitalise its business after a rocky year, with the firm investing $20 billion into building two Arizona-based factories, alongside the pursuit of its integrated device manufacturing (IDM) 2.0 strategy.

This strategy will also see the company launch a fully-fledged foundry service, which will involve making custom CPUs for tech firms and national governments.

Google has released a diagnostic app for Chrome OS that lets users initiate a scan for hardware faults within a Chromebook.

The app is part of a recent update to Chrome OS that also aims to reduce the number of tabs you open by giving the launcher more instant capabilities.

The diagnostic app will be accessible from the launcher so users can instantly scan various parts of their device for issues. This can be used on their Chromebook’s CPU, memory, and battery and give quick insights on what might be slowing their device down.

The Chromebook launcher, which is where users can normally find apps, local files, or Google search, will now also include a calculator, weather updates, stock prices, and even quick word definitions in an attempt to create a single source for all of a Chromebook user’s needs.

For example, if the battery is draining faster than one would normally expect, the app can run a ‘discharge test’ to see if the hardware is the cause of the problem. The app will also offer up links to relevant support articles and save the test results in a session log that can be shared with customer support teams if the problem is severe enough. There will also be a list of standard troubleshooting advice for more minor faults.

In the coming weeks, Chrome OS will also receive the ‘Live Captions‘ feature that was recently added to the Chrome browser. These are automatic, real-time captions for any media that has audio, and will be an option on «most» Chrome OS devices inside the Accessibility menu.

The updates come as Chromebook sales continue to increase, according to recent Gartner research, which suggests that shipments reached «triple figures» for the first quarter of 2021. This follows on from strong sales in Q4 of 2020, where Canalys suggested demand was «through the roof«.

The UK’s Meteorological Office has signed a multimillion-pound agreement with Microsoft for the provision of a new supercomputing capability designed to protect the public and infrastructure from the effects of severe weather brought on by climate change.

Part of a £1.2 billion investment fund announced last year, the new supercomputer will be built using HPE’s Cray supercomputer hardware and will place it in the top 25 supercomputers in the world, and twice as powerful as any other in the UK.

Apart from providing highly-accurate weather forecasts, it will also be powered entirely by renewable energy and will use market-leading energy efficiencies, saving 7,415 tonnes CO2 in the first year of operational service alone.

With work on the supercomputer already underway, it’s expected to become operational in July 2022.

The liquid-cooled HPE Cray EX supercomputer will be used to create elaborately detailed city-scale simulations, designed to improve the accuracy of localised weather predictions. The data will also be used to improve city design and help reduce risks associated with the rollout of new transport networks.

The deal will see Microsoft provide the Met Office with Azure’s supercomputing as a service platform, including those across its artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance data archive systems.

In order to be able “to make progress with the ecological challenges we face, [this] requires innovation, technology, and partnerships”, according to Microsoft UK CEO Clare Barclay.

“The potential of the deep expertise, data gathering capacity and historical archive of the Met Office, combined with the sheer scale and power of supercomputing on Microsoft Azure will mean we can improve forecasting, help tackle climate change and ensure the UK remains at the forefront of climate science for decades to come,” she said.

Met Office chief executive Penny Endersby said that, by working with Microsoft, the Met Office “will provide the highest quality weather and climate datasets and ever more accurate forecasts that enable decisions to allow people to stay safe and thrive”.

“This will be a unique capability which will keep not just the Met Office, but the UK at the forefront of environmental modelling and high-performance computing,” she added.

The news comes as the UK government signed a new three-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Microsoft, which provides public sector organisations with discounts and beneficial terms for Microsoft 365, Azure, and associated consulting services. The new MOU, titled the Digital Transformation Arrangement 2021 (DTA21), is the first to also include Dynamics 365 and Power Platform cloud services.