Enterprises are universally struggling to understand where the new tools and methodologies of DevOps fit into their organizations, and are universally making the same mistakes. These mistakes are not unavoidable, and in fact, avoiding them gifts an organization with sustained competitive advantage, just like it did for Japanese Manufacturing Post WWII.

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Recently, REAN Cloud built a digital concierge for a North Carolina hospital that had observed that most patient call button questions were repetitive. In addition, the paper-based process used to measure patient health metrics was laborious, not in real-time and sometimes error-prone. In their session at 21st Cloud Expo, Sean Finnerty, Executive Director, Practice Lead, Health Care & Life Science at REAN Cloud, and Dr. S.P.T. Krishnan, Principal Architect at REAN Cloud, discussed how they built an Alexa-powered voice application for both patients and nurses. Patients got answers for common questions, it provided service feedback and registered complaints. Nurses can register patient health metrics. They were only able to do this because of cloud-based technologies. The cloud enabled them to complete this complex project while ensuring compliance with HIPAA and other privacy regulations.

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Here are the Top 20 Twitter Influencers of the month as determined by the Kcore algorithm, in a range of current topics of interest from #IoT to #DeepLearning. To run a real-time search of a given term in our website and see the current top influencers, click on the topic name. Among the top 20 IoT influencers, ThingsEXPO ranked #14 and CloudEXPO ranked #17.

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The modern-day enterprise is conscious of the environment, and with many corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes, you will of course find recycling schemes or even smart lights that switch themselves off when no one is in the room, all in order to save energy. But when we look at the biggest energy drain of any organisation, our IT system, we rarely consider measures we can take to reduce this.

As the most likely cause of major power, data centres are the first place to look when considering energy use. According to research from the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), datacentres already consume over 3% of the world’s total electricity and generate 2% of our planet’s CO2 emissions. For context, that’s the equivalent of the entire global aviation industry or a small city.

The concept of a ‘green data centre’ is nothing new and great technological strides have already been made in recent years to minimise the environmental footprint, and many facilities have. But there’s still plenty of work that could – and more importantly should – take place. And not simply to tick a CSR box either, there are tangible business benefits too, such as lower energy bills.

So with this in mind, what can enterprises do to reduce data centre energy wastage? Here are a few areas to focus on as a starting point.

Using a containment system

Excessive heat is often the main culprit when it comes to power waste within data centres. It requires a lot of power to keep systems cool, and often data centres mix hot and cold air in order to keep them at the ideal temperature. This can however limit the capacity of the cooling system, which results in a power drain, and causes it to run less efficiently.

This can be resolved by fixing air tiles into the cold aisle of the system. Not only does this make the cooling more productive, it also raises return temperatures, allowing your computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units to operate more efficiently.

Virtualise servers and storage

Within data centres you will often find a dedicated server for each application, which can be incredibly inefficient, for both energy use and budget.

With virtualisation, you can share servers and storage onto one shared platform, whilst still maintaining a level of segregation between data, operating systems and applications.

This runs more efficiently, saves space, and reduces the number of power consuming servers, which is great for cost and for reducing energy waste.

Turn off idle IT equipment

It might seem obvious, but leaving equipment on idle uses more energy than you think. IT systems are often used far less than capacity allows. Servers for instance tend to only be around 5-15% utilised, for PC’s 10-20%.

When these systems are left on but unused, they still consume a large amount of the power needed to keep them running at full capacity.

To remedy this, it’s important to make an assessment of the equipment used, how often it is used, and whether it could benefit from being powered down during quieter periods of its use.  It may be a minor action, but it’s the cheapest and easiest way to save energy and it can be actioned today.

Move to a more energy efficient UPS system

At the heart of most data centres lies its uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system, an electrical unit which is used to support critical mainstream IT and communications infrastructures when mains power fails or supply is inconsistent.

Previously these units were part of the energy consumption problem. These large, standalone towers used older technology that could only achieve optimised efficiency when carrying heavy loads of 80-90%.

Such fixed-capacity units often tended to be oversized during initial installation to provide the necessary redundancy, meaning they regularly ran inefficiently at lower loads, wasting huge amounts of energy. These sizeable towers also pumped out plenty of heat so needed lots of energy-intensive cooling.

However, the technology has developed rapidly in recent years, and now your UPS system could be part of the solution.

Just as cooling equipment has improved, so too has UPS technology. Modular systems – which replace sizable standalone units with compact individual rack-mount style power modules paralleled together to provide capacity and redundancy – deliver performance efficiency, scalability, and ‘smart’ interconnectivity far beyond the capabilities of their predecessors.

The modular approach ensures capacity corresponds closely to the data centre’s load requirements, removing the risk of oversizing and reducing day-to-day power consumption, cutting both energy bills and the site’s carbon footprint. It also gives facilities managers the flexibility to add extra power modules in whenever the need arises, minimising the initial investment while offering the in-built scalability to “pay as you grow”.

If cutting carbon costs and reducing energy consumption within your data centre is at the top of your agenda, these small adjustments can be made quickly and cheaply, and could see your IT energy wastage drastically improve.

Wayne Williams

Although browser software tends to offer a well-refined experience these days, you’re bound to run into the odd crash or freeze that grinds your work to a halt. The reason may not be immediately obvious, and while some may be quick to blame their machine for a lousy performance, chances are the software itself is blame.

Identify and remove dodgy add-ons

Malfunctioning add-ons are the number one cause of browser problems. If your browser starts freezing or crashing, there’s a very good chance that a malfunctioning extension is to blame, so your first port of call should be to see which ones you have installed and remove any you don’t need. In Firefox, go to and check what’s listed there.

Check which add-ons you have installed to see which could be causing the crashes

You can disable or remove any unwanted ones directly from this screen. In Chrome, go to chrome://extensions. You can disable an add-on by unticking the Enabled box next to it, or remove it entirely by clicking the bin icon for that extension.

If you’re not entirely sure that an add-on is to blame for your woes, you can try running your browser in ‘safe mode’ – that is, without any add-ons and using the default settings. If that stops the crashes, you should be able to narrow down the cause. To run Firefox in safe mode, click the ‘hamburger’ button in the top-right corner and go to Help (or just click the
Help menu if you have it displayed), then select ‘Restart with Add-ons disabled’. In the box that opens, click the Restart button.

Reduce your browser’s memory usage

Browsers consume a lot of memory – especially if you have a lot of tabs open. If your computer doesn’t have that much RAM to begin with, you may find this results in your browser slowing down massively, or crashing frequently.

The easiest way to prevent your browser from using too much memory is to close it down occasionally. Right-click the taskbar, select Task Manager, then select your browser in the list and click End Task. When you restart your browser you should be offered the chance to restore all previously open tabs.

Use The Great Suspender to stop tabs consuming memory in the background

Another option is to install The Great Suspender for Chrome. This unloads, parks and suspends open tabs (aside from the one you’re currently viewing), to stop them guzzling resources in the background. Tabs can also be set to auto-suspend after a set period, and you can whitelist any tabs you want leaving alone – Gmail for example.

Alternatively, there’s OneTab for Firefox and Chrome, which converts all of your open tabs into a list. This frees up memory, and can you easily relaunch any tab by clicking on its link.

Disable unnecessary scripts

Disable unwanted scripts on web pages to stop them freezing your browser

Unwanted scripts running in your browser can cause all sorts of problems, including hangs and freezes. NoScript for Firefox and uMatrix for Chrome block plugins such as JavaScript, Java, Flash and more from running on sites other than those you’ve expressly allowed them to work on. Both add-ons let you easily permit scripts to run on sites you trust. For NoScript just click the icon when on a site and choose between Trusted, Untrusted and Temp Trusted.

With uMatrix, clicking its button lets you quickly enable or block various elements, such as cookies, images, media, scripts and frames, to make web pages load faster and keep your browser working smoothly.

Disable troublesome plugins

Most browsers now disable potentially dodgy plugins automatically, but there’s still a chance they could slip through or be re-enabled and cause trouble, so it’s worth checking them manually. Accessing the plugins page in Chrome used to involve typing chrome:/plugins into the address bar, but Google has disabled this option.

Make sure plugins are disabled in your browser to prevent problems

Instead, you need to type chrome://settings/content to access a page that lets you manage the likes of Flash and JavaScript, and instruct sites to always ask when they want to use a plugin.

To manage plugins in Firefox, type about:addons into the address box and hit Enter, then select Plugins on the left. The drop-down menu next to each plugin lets you choose from Ask to Activate, Always Activate or Never Activate. You can also choose here how automatic updates should be handled.

Block cryptocurrency miners

Cryptocurrency miners are a modern scourge. Some websites, including Salon, now give users with an ad blocker installed the option to devote some of their PC’s processing power to mining. Other sites aren’t quite so scrupulous and mine cryptocurrency in the background without informing their visitors, which can cause your browser to slow down, freeze and crash.

To read more about cryptocurrency malware and to check whether your browser is slurping CPU power behind your back, head here.

Cryptocurrency miners are becoming increasingly popular among cyber criminals

Malwarebytes blocks known crypto-miners, or you can install the No Coin extension in your browser. It’s available for Chrome, Firefox and Opera. You can pause the add-on if required, or temporarily whitelist a site if you need to allow mining to access it.

Reset and reinstall your browser

If you’ve tried everything we’ve suggested and your browser is still freezing, the only option might be to reset or reinstall it.

Doing this in Firefox is very easy. Firstly, you’ll want to back up your browser profile which contains all your passwords, bookmarks, open tabs and more. Launch File Explorer and go to %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ and copy the profile folder(s) to your desktop.

If freezing problems persist, try resetting Firefox to start afresh

To reset Firefox, click the hamburger button, choose Help and select Troubleshooting Information. Click the Refresh Firefox button. If that fixes the problem, you don’t need to worry about your saved profile folder(s). If it doesn’t do the trick, try uninstalling Firefox, and then reinstalling it and copying the saved profile folders back to where you got them from. You’ll need to close Firefox before you do this.

To reset Chrome to its original defaults, open the menu and go to Settings. Type reset into the search box, then click the Reset result. In the box that opens, click Reset.

Repair or reset Edge if the browser keeps hanging in Windows 10

To refresh Edge in Windows 10, click Start and open Settings. Open the Apps section and search for or locate Microsoft Edge. Click it and select ‘Advanced options’. In the new window, you’ll have the option to Repair or Reset Microsoft’s browser.

It turns out Amazon Web Services (AWS) may have been throwing us all a bit of a curveball with regards to blockchain. The cloud infrastructure giant has announced the launch of AWS Blockchain Templates – having previously said the technology wasn’t in the company’s plans.

Back in November, at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, the company’s dozens of announcements focused predominantly on how machine learning (ML) was going to transform user experiences, with the launch of SageMaker – a service which helps developers train and build ML models – as well as transcription and translation services among others.

At the time, Andy Jassy, AWS chief executive, told the audience: “If you think about the history of AWS, we don’t built technology because we think the technology is cool. The only reason we build that technology is to solve problems for you.” At a later press conference, Jassy reiterated the first statement, adding that while he thought many distributed ledgers had limited capabilities, the company was ‘intrigued’ by what its customers would do there.

Just under six months on, AWS is helping give customers a push in that direction. AWS Blockchain Templates aims to let users launch either an Ethereum or Hyperledger Fabric network in a matter of minutes.

Jeff Barr, AWS evangelist, summed up the company’s position in a blog post announcing the launch. “Some of the people that I talk to see blockchains as the foundation of a new monetary system and a way to facilitate international payments. Others see blockchains as a distributed ledger and immutable data source that can be applied to logistics, supply chain, land registration, crowdfunding, and other use cases,” Barr wrote. “Either way, it is clear that there are a lot of intriguing possibilities and we are working to help our customers use this technology more effectively.”

The offering is aimed at smaller businesses with minimal resources for building their own applications, and allows AWS to compete directly with other players in blockchain as a service (BaaS), including IBM and Oracle. The former, in particular, has made its focus particularly clear as a leader in emerging technologies; at IBM Think, according to CCS Insight’s Nick McQuire, blockchain got just as much coverage as artificial intelligence, cloud and quantum computing.

Perhaps Amazon was just a little more subtle in its intentions. As reported by ETH News in November, the company quietly registered three new domain names; amazoncryptocurrencies.com, amazoncryptocurrency.com, and amazonethereum.com. None of these sites are accessible as of publication time.

Elsewhere, AWS announced the general availability of AWS IoT Analytics, a managed service which aims to ‘empower customers to uncover insights that lead to more accurate decisions for their IoT and machine learning applications’, in the company’s words.

In his keynote at 19th Cloud Expo, Sheng Liang, co-founder and CEO of Rancher Labs, discussed the technological advances and new business opportunities created by the rapid adoption of containers. With the success of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and various open source technologies used to build private clouds, cloud computing has become an essential component of IT strategy. However, users continue to face challenges in implementing clouds, as older technologies evolve and newer ones like Docker containers gain prominence. He’ll explore these challenges and how to address them, while considering how containers will influence the direction of cloud computing.

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Clare Hopping

DXWorldEXPO LLC, the producer of the world’s most influential technology conferences and trade shows has announced the 22nd International CloudEXPO | DXWorldEXPO «Early Bird Registration» is now open. Register for Full Conference «Gold Pass» ▸ Here (Expo Hall ▸ Here)

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai says his company’s cloud operations are ‘growing well’ with larger, strategic deals in place as more impressive financial results were revealed.

The company’s parent, Alphabet, posted Q118 financials earlier this week with $31.15 billion (£22.3bn) in total revenue for the quarter. Advertising revenues were at $26.6bn, while ‘other’ revenues – of which Google Cloud is a part – hit $4.35bn, a 35% increase on this time last year. Overall revenues were up 25% on the previous year’s analysis.

Earlier this year, Pichai said Google Cloud was running at more than $1bn per quarter while in July he said the company had tripled the number of its big cloud deals – rated at $500,000 or more – year over year.

“In Q1, we saw increasing momentum,” Pichai said of Google’s cloud bets. “We are growing across the board and are also signing significantly larger, more strategic deals for cloud. Our security capabilities, the easy-to-use advanced data analytics and machine learning solutions and the secure and industry-leading collaboration platform, G Suite, are winning customers over.

“Google Cloud is growing well,” Pichai added.

While cloud was an important factor in the Google chief exec’s remarks to analysts, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) – and how AI is ‘unlocking new opportunities for everyone’ – was evidently the keynote theme.

The combination of machine learning on Google’s cloud has the potential to be an irresistible one. Back in 2016, as regular industry watchers will recall, Evernote cited the capability as key to it becoming a Google customer, while yesterday it emerged Total is working with Google Cloud to develop AI solutions for analysing oil and gas data.

Pichai also noted the importance of Google’s expanding data centre and cable empire, saying the company’s global infrastructure ‘continues to expand to support demand.’ The launch of five new data centre facilities, in Finland, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Montreal and the Netherlands, alongside three subsea cables, were a key highlight for the company in the quarter. Google also secured an important renewable energy target earlier this month.

Alongside this, Google Cloud announced a series of updates to G Suite focused around security and our old friend, AI. On the security side, a new ‘confidential’ mode for Gmail was launched, alongside bigger bolder security warnings so users theoretically can’t miss the fact they are about to open a phishing email. On the AI front, the new features, such as nudging – Gmail proactively reminding you to follow up on unresolved messages – aim for greater productivity and ensuring users don’t ‘drop the ball’, as Google puts it. According to research issued alongside the release, nudging will prevent 1.6 million dropped balls for Google’s users each month – a painful problem indeed.

You can read the full financial report here.