Parallels Desktop® for Mac is dedicated to ensuring users have a seamless experience with their virtual machine performance. It’s very common for Microsoft Windows applications to use a generous amount of CPU power. These resource-hungry programs can range from anti-virus, to Windows Updates installations, to cloud storage syncs such as OneDrive or Dropbox. In the […]
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Parallels is committed to delivering great customer service to both our loyal customers and the newest members of the Parallels community. We’d like to explain our Parallels Desktop® for Mac Tech Guarantee for 2018, and answer questions that users may have about running Windows, Linux, and other popular OSes on Mac® without rebooting. In Parallels […]
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It’s clear: serverless is here to stay. The adoption does come with some needed changes, within both application development and operations. That means serverless is also changing the way we leverage public clouds. Truth-be-told, many enterprise IT shops were so happy to get out of the management of physical servers within a data center that many limitations of the existing public IaaS clouds were forgiven. However, now that we’ve lived a few years with public IaaS clouds, developers and CloudOps pros are giving a huge thumbs down to the constant monitoring of servers, provisioned or not, that’s required to support the workloads.
For decades, Moore's Law has been driving the advancement of traditional computing systems development, leading to the proliferation of smart devices at the edge and centralised cloud computing. However, we're now reaching the limits of legacy computing technology, and the search for another high-performance computing platform has begun. Quantum computing is the next-generation.
Total revenues generated from quantum computing services will exceed $15 billion by 2028, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. Most of these services will be cloud-based offerings.
The demand for quantum computing services will be driven by some process hungry research and development projects as well as by the emergence of several applications including advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, next-generation cyber security encryption, traffic routing and scheduling, protein synthesis, and/or the design of advanced chemicals and materials.
These applications require a new processing paradigm that classical computers, bound by Moore’s law, cannot support. However, one should not expect quantum computers to displace traditional computing systems on-premises anytime soon.
Unlike classical computers, based on sequential processing principles, quantum computers leverage their strengths from two fundamental characteristics inspired from quantum physics — as an example, entanglement and superposition — which make them super powerful for undertaking certain tasks, notably inter-correlated events that need to be executed in parallel.
"Classical computing is not dead, even in the post-Moore’s law era," said Lian Jye Su, principal analyst at ABI Research. "These machines will remain the ultimate processing power for executing traditional tasks such as text, video, speech processing, and signal processing, but will be potentially challenged by quantum machines when it comes executing algorithms that require massive parallel processing."
Quantum computing is, however, still in its embryonic stage of development and is not ready for large-scale commercial deployment anytime in the near to mid-term. Scalability, technology stability, reliability, and cost efficiency are the major factors the industry should address before seeing quantum computers moving beyond lab projects or very restricted and constrained commercial deployment.
According to the ABI assessment, the attempts to create quantum computers that are stable and have low error rate require heavy investment in infrastructure, software development, and human expertise.
The operation is currently performed under extreme low-temperature, high magnetic field, and in a vacuum or sterile environment, making the technology extremely difficult to scale and expensive to operate.
It's therefore not surprising that quantum computing is unlikely to achieve the distribution level of classical computers anytime within the next 10 years. The technology will remain concentrated in the cloud domain for many years to come.
"While the industry explores various hardware implementation methods by exploiting different quantum physics phenomena, they all face the harsh reality of tradeoffs, having to find the right balance between maintaining long coherence time, reducing error rates, minimizing cost, and developing scalable products," said Su.
Therefore, excessive cost and extremely restrictive physical implementation will most likely limit quantum computing technology to federal government and military agencies, as well as major enterprises and the established hyperscale cloud computing providers. That said, the technology will also be made available to the general public via an 'as-a-service' business model.
ABI analysts believe that the future of cloud computing will increasingly rely on parallelism as new types of sophisticated applications and algorithms emerge. The IT infrastructure industry will need to deploy more efforts to accelerate the development of quantum computers as alternatives to their classical computer counterparts.
Cloud adoption in EMEA continues to grow significantly, but security awareness is not growing with it, according to new research from Bitglass.
The cloud access security broker (CASB), in its latest report, used company domains to identify cloud apps deployed in 20,000 organisations across Europe.
Less than half (47%) of organisations analysed had a single sign on (SSO) tool in use, according to the data; while this is higher than the one in four companies globally who use it, it still means serious room for improvement, according to Bitglass. SSO was seen as most widely adopted in education – as with 64% of respondents – biotech (54%), healthcare (53.7%) and finance (53.5%).
Practically every EMEA organisation analysed had deployed more than one cloud app, with many having at least a productivity app, file sync and share and cloud messaging platforms, alongside infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
When it came to AWS, adoption in EMEA is far exceeding global usage rate. Worldwide, only 13.8% use AWS, compared to 21.8% for EMEA. “Many firms in EMEA are also early adopters, willing to try new methods of custom app deployment like AWS that seem promising and are growing rapidly.” In terms of software, Office 365 continues to outpace G Suite, with 65% and 19.2% adoption in 2018 a marked change from 2016 (43% and 22% respectively).
“The results of this survey reinforce what we found in our 2016 study,” said Rich Campagna, CMO at Bitglass. “Organisations in EMEA are embracing cloud productivity apps but still lack the security tools necessary to protect data.
“In cloud-first environments, security must evolve to protect data on many more endpoints and in many more applications,” added Campagna.
According to another piece of research issued by CenturyLink this week, the cloud computing market is forecast to reach $411 billion by 2020. In Germany, the cloud services segment in Germany alone – defined as SaaS, PaaS and IaaS – is predicted to hit more than $20bn.
The latest entry in a never-ending series of data breaches comes courtesy of popular internet platform Reddit. The company revealed that a hacker was able to access usernames, passwords, and email addresses by intercepting SMS two-factor authentication.
It's sad to say, but “giant company suffers massive data breach” has become all too commonplace in our news feeds — to the point that too many organisations are tuning out important lessons. So let’s get a little more personal.
Imagine a business leader who relies on two-factor authentication with SMS to protect his personal and corporate accounts. Unbeknownst to him, a threat actor phishes the executive’s phone number from overseas via a technique called SMiShing. Like email phishing attacks, SMiShing uses text messages to trick users into providing personal information such as passwords or usernames.
The attacker then determines the mobile carrier and transfers the phone number to a different global carrier. Then, he uses the phone number to authenticate password resets and eventually gain access to personal and corporate data.
Think that sounds far-fetched? I’ve witnessed this exact situation — or at least the ugly aftermath. The amount of time, money, and effort it took to help this individual recover data and regain access to his accounts and device could have all been avoided if not for an outdated cybersecurity recommendation.
Of course, all organisations must weigh risk and reward. Using two-factor authentication with SMS is better than not using two-factor at all, for instance. No amount of security will mitigate 100 percent of threats, but business and IT leaders must work together to determine which security controls are necessary, affordable, and worth the time to mitigate risks without hampering productivity and efficiency.
Recent years have seen a much-needed systemic shift from away from the “set it and forget it” mentality. Historically, a firewall was installed, configured, and forgotten. According to the National Vulnerability Database, most firewalls have had at least two critical vulnerabilities in the past year. Like firewalls, IT teams must routinely check security policies to ensure new threats cannot exploit older weaknesses. Because most technology departments lack the bandwidth or experience necessary, managed security services have become increasingly commonplace.
The solutions you implement should complement the structure and working environment of your business, as needs change based on whether your employees work on-site or remotely. Either way, common-sense strategies and affordable tools can protect your business from a host of cyberthreats. Start with these five steps to improve your cybersecurity posture:
The key to effective security is simply knowledge — knowing what your employees and organisation are doing is the key to proper security. The cloud has become a helpful resource in this sense due to the numerous privacy controls it offers to streamline protection across devices and corporate identities.
Cloud app security services are able to identify applications and services used by all devices on your network, allowing you to know exactly what users are doing on your network. With appropriate security in place, companies are able to investigate early and prevent breaches that could otherwise go unnoticed for months.
There are a number of vectors that can leave an organisation vulnerable to cyberattacks, data compromise, or data loss: website visits, endpoint vulnerabilities, email phishing, and user error, to name a few. Adopt a defence-in-depth approach that deploys a holistic strategy via several tools, including cloud web filtering, endpoint protection, and unified threat management (UTM).
UTM can be tailored to your company’s needs, but it generally incorporates features such as a next-generation firewall, anti-virus, intrusion detection, web filtering, and protection against spam and spyware. A UTM system provides a more centralised approach to security management and superior protection while reducing associated installation and upkeep costs.
To stay on top of potential threats, companies must invest in their cybersecurity capabilities. One of the most important priorities is designating specific IT personnel to manage security and data protection. This means individuals who have the certifications, knowledge, and capacity to truly understand the complexity of data protection, legal requirements, and technical controls. Tasking a system admin with cybersecurity — among a long list of other duties — will not cut it.
IT staff members often juggle more responsibilities than there are hours in the day, but a hybridised or fully outsourced IT model can help them stay on top of these endless obligations. If you take this route, make sure any partner you choose has the right skill set, certifications, and experience.
Insiders still pose a significant threat to your sensitive information — whether malicious or unintentional. According to the Verizon "2018 Data Breach Investigations Report," more than one-fourth of attacks involved insiders.
Foster a workplace culture that prioritises data protection, reinforces safe practices, and teaches employees how to identify common phishing schemes and dangerous downloads. Find engaging and interactive ways of teaching team members about cybersecurity. Consider incorporating your marketing team to leverage social and internal communications platforms to get security tips and information out in a visual and fun way. Some businesses are even going as far as phishing their own employees.
A proactive framework includes a recovery and business continuity plan that ensures you can get your business back up and running if you do fall victim to an attack. This plan should include data backup and disaster recovery in addition to an executive-level strategy involving cybersecurity policies, insurance requirements, regulatory responses, and even public relations.
Cybersecurity is no longer about building a firewall and sporadically running antivirus. For optimal outcomes, organisations need an innovative defence-in-depth strategy with the resources to manage it all. The above five steps are a good place to start. Cyber threats are constantly changing, which means defences must evolve even faster. If security is top of mind, you’re headed in the right direction.
In very short order, the term «Blockchain» has lost an incredible amount of meaning. With too many jumping on the bandwagon, the market is inundated with projects and use cases that miss the real potential of the technology. We have to begin removing Blockchain from the conversation and ground ourselves in the motivating principles of the technology itself; whether it is consumer privacy, data ownership, trust or even participation in the global economy, the world is faced with serious problems that this technology could ultimately help us in at least partially solving. But if we do not unpack what is real and what is not, we can lose sight of the potential.
Cloud computing is a goal aspired to by all organizations, yet those in regulated industries and many public sector organizations are challenged in adopting cloud technologies. The ability to use modern application development capabilities such as containers, serverless computing, platform-based services, IoT and others are potentially of great benefit for these organizations but doing so in a public cloud-consistent way is the challenge.
There are plenty of new jobs being created in the cloud sector – but organisations need to think long-term around securing the cloud skills their business needs.
That is according to a new report from UK technical recruiter Experis. The company, whose latest Tech Cities Job Watch focuses on the cloud sector, explores the skills required as well as the employers who may be looking for them.
According to the report, Google offers the most attractive salary out of the four biggest cloud providers from the Q2 data, with £71,701. This is just ahead of AWS (£70,090), followed by IBM (£68,251) and Microsoft Azure (£64,647). For contractors, AWS, with £502 per day, has the best rates, ahead of IBM (£492), Azure (£471) and Google (£445).
The vast majority of roles advertised in the UK however come from the big two. AWS, with more than half (54%) of all jobs advertised, and Azure (41%) made up 95% of postings, with Google (4%) and IBM (1%) severely trailing.
The report gives five takeaways when it comes to businesses looking for the right cloud skills; be willing to offer attractive remuneration; offer the opportunity to upgrade existing skillsets; cross-train your staff, with SQL and MySQL cited as transferable skills; consider outsourcing; and address the diversity imbalance.
This publication has long-since explored the problem of the cloud skills gap, with various reasons blamed as to why supply outstrips demand. According to a study from Skytap published in June, organisations can be ‘their own worst enemy’ in this regard, with many wanting to migrate to the cloud through refactoring or rewriting existing applications – thus requiring the highest level of IT skill.
According to Firebrand Training technical writer Alex Bennett, security, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), and serverless architectures are among the key skills employees need in 2018 to be noticed – but also noting the cross-sector skill sets of Experis. “The key to employability in today’s cloud jobs market is to gain cross-platform skills,” Bennett wrote. “By transferring your knowledge between cloud platforms, you’ll diversify your skillset and boost your employability in 2018.”
“In spite of the difficulties, business models are becoming increasingly reliant on the cloud to function,” wrote Dave Hannah, Experis brand leader in his foreword to the report. “As a result, demand for cloud talent is soaring, as employers recognise that they need to recruit specialists to lead adoption and integration.
“Since cloud adoption is only set to increase in the years ahead, we can expect the war for talent to intensify,” added Hannah. “In a market like this, it’s important that organisations take a long-term view of how they will stay ahead of the competition and secure the skills their business needs.”
You can read the full Experis report here (email required).
These and many other fascinating insights are from MicroStrategy’s latest research study, 2018 Global State of Enterprise Analytics Report. You can download a copy here (PDF, 44 pp., opt-in). The study is based on surveys completed in April 2018 with 500 globally-based enterprise analytics and business intelligence professionals on the state of their organisations’ analytics initiatives across 20 industries. Participants represented organisations with 250 to 20,000 employees worldwide from five nations including Brazil, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. For additional details on the methodology, please see the study here. The study’s results underscore how enterprises need to have a unified data strategy that reflects their growth strategies and new business models’ information needs.
Key takeaways from the study include the following:
The study found that enterprises are also relying on data and analytics to gain greater insights into how current products and services are used (51%), managing risk (50%) and attain customer growth and retention (49%). Across the five nations surveyed, Japan leads the world in the use of data and analytics to drive process and cost efficiencies (65%). UK-based enterprises lead all nations in their use of data and analytics to analyse how current products and services are being used. The report provides graphical comparisons of the five nations’ results.
Japanese enterprises predict cloud computing will have the greatest impact on the future of analytics (28%) across the five nations’ enterprises interviewed. AI/Machine Learning is predicted to have the greatest impact on analytics in the U.K. (26%) globally as is Big Data in Germany (29%). Please see the study for country-specific prioritisation of technologies.
Additional leverage areas include distribution of analytics via e-mail and collaboration tools (49%), analytics embedded in other apps including Salesforce (44%) and mobile productivity apps (39%). Japanese enterprises lead the world in their adoption of advanced and predictive analytics (60%). German enterprises lead the world in the adoption of analytics for collaboration via e-mail and more real-time data and knowledge-sharing methods (50%).
Enterprise reporting (47%), data discovery (47%), mobile productivity apps (44%) and embedded apps (42%) are the top five intelligence applications in use globally by enterprises today. Big Data’s dominance in the survey results can be attributed to the top five industries in the sampling frame is among the most prolific in data generation and use. Manufacturing (15%) is the most data-prolific industry on the planet. Additional industries that generate massive amounts of data dominate the survey’s demographics including software technology-based businesses (14%), banking (13%), retail (11%), and financial services/business services (6%).
The three core attributes of a scalable, comprehensive platform, ease of use, and a vendor’s products having an excellent reputation are all essential. Enterprises based in four of the five nations also prioritise security as the most critical success factor they evaluate potential analytics vendors to do business with. Enterprise scalability is most important in the U.S., with 26% of enterprises interviewed saying this is the most important priority in evaluating a new analytics vendor.
Enterprises from four of the five nations say data privacy and security are the most significant barrier they face in getting more value from analytics. In Japan, the greatest barrier is access limited to data across the organisation (40%).
64% of U.S.-based enterprises are considering moving to a cloud-based analytics platform or solution in the next year. The U.S. leads enterprises from all five nations in planned cloud-based analytics cloud adoption as the graphic below illustrates.
