The public cloud computing sector is in a constant state of evolution, as vendors design new IT infrastructure architectures and service providers deploy them in their own unique hyperscale data centre facilities.

According to the latest analysis of cloud pricing by 451 Research, for the majority of new applications, a serverless solution offers a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than both virtual machines (VMs) or containers.

Severless cloud market development

When analyzing serverless offerings from the leading public cloud service providers, 451 Research determined that IBM generally offers the least expensive service, with Microsoft leading for certain other configurations.

According to the 451 Research assessment, the TCO of serverless tends to be lower than VMs, even when the VM is hosting containers, because there is no need for developers to provision, configure and manage the infrastructure.

As an example, when a serverless function is active for just three quarters of the month, it only takes a 10-minute saving in operational overhead for serverless to beat virtual machines on TCO.

451 Research analysts believe that even without the savings in developer time, the ability of serverless to increase utilisation means it is cheaper than using VMs when the code is executed fewer than 500,000 times each month.

451 Research finds that IBM is least expensive for 0.1 second duration scripts, and Azure is cheapest for 10-second scripts – assuming memory requirements match predetermined size allocations.

Besides, IBM offers a distinct cost advantage by allowing users to choose exact memory requirements, whereas other cloud service providers round up the figures, resulting in users typically paying for unused capacity.

That being said, and considering the similarities in pricing methods and offerings between cloud service providers, 451 Research believes serverless is poised to undergo a round of price cutting this year.

«Serverless is more than just hype; it has the potential to transform the way we develop, build and run applications in the cloud. Understanding the economics of serverless technology is vital to understanding its potential to disrupt the industry,» said Owen Rogers, research director at 451 Research.

Outlook for serverless cloud services

Freemium serverless offerings are already fueling the growth of new services by stimulating experimentation and helping enterprises gain skills. In the analyst’s opinion, this could result in serverless solutions becoming the next cloud ‘price war’ battleground.

451 Research expects adoption of serverless – or FaaS (functions as a service) – to continue growing over the next few years. In its 2016 market study, 37 percent of the IT decision-makers surveyed were already using serverless technology.

The term ‘serverless’ implies that no servers are used to run an application or service. But in reality, this model means that developers and cloud service providers do not encounter the typical complexity and maintenance management of VMs or containers.

Cloud Expo, Inc. has announced today that Andi Mann and Aruna Ravichandran have been named Co-Chairs of @DevOpsSummit at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley which will take place Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. «DevOps is at the intersection of technology and business-optimizing tools, organizations and processes to bring measurable improvements in productivity and profitability,» said Aruna Ravichandran, vice president, DevOps product and solutions marketing, CA Technologies. «It’s this results-driven combination of technology and business that makes me so passionate about DevOps and its future in the industry. I am truly honored to take on this co-chair role, and look forward to working with the DevOps Summit team at Cloud Expo and attendees to advance DevOps.»

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Human body is the most complex machine ever created! With a complex network of interconnected organs, millions of cells and the most advanced processor, human body is the most automated system in this planet. In this article, we will draw comparisons between working of a human body to that of a data center. We will draw parallels between human body automation to data center automation and explain different levels of automation we need to drive in data centers. This article is divided into 4 parts covering each of body main functions and drawing parallels on automation. This is 3rd article in the human body series, please go to http://ashishnanjiani.ulitzer.com or http://ashishnanjiani.com

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Public cloud services will be the fastest growing market segment for IT deployment in 2017, according to the latest note from IDC.

Spending on traditional data centres, which ranked at more than 60% of the market in 2016, will dip to less than half by 2021, the analyst firm argues, with public cloud taking the majority of the slack.

Total spending on IT infrastructure for deployment in cloud environments – server, enterprise storage and Ethernet switches – will reach $40 billion (£31.1bn) in 2017, at an increase of 12.4% year over year. Public cloud will grow at the fastest rate, of 13.8%, with off-premises private cloud environments at 11.9% growth and on-prem private clouds growing 9.6% year on year.

iCharts

For cloud IT environments, Ethernet switches will represent the fastest growing segment, with 25.8% year on year growth in 2017, with spending on enterprise storage at 12.0% and servers 9.1%.

IDC had previously examined the numbers by vendor, finding Dell and HPE just ahead of the faster-growing Cisco, and saying global cloud IT infrastructure revenues hitting $8 billion in the first quarter of 2017.

Natalya Yezhkova, IDC enterprise storage research director, said spending will continue on 2016 trends in general, not counting differences in specific technology segments.

“Enterprise adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud IT strategies and the proliferation of cloud-native applications and areas such as the Internet of Things, which embrace a cloud-first approach to supporting IT resources, will fuel further increases in end-user spending on services-based IT.

“In turn, this move will be reflected in a shift of the overall spending on IT infrastructure from on-premises to off-premises deployments and from traditional IT to cloud IT,” Yezhkova added.

One of the worst data breaches in US history recently made the headlines, and it’s a powerful reminder of the importance of protecting data on platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The personal details of nearly four out of every five adult Americans, including virtually every registered voter, were recently exposed online thanks to sloppy security practices. The data not only included contact details and birth dates, but also information on the perceived political views of individuals. Media analytics company Deep Root Analytics had stored the data in an AWS S3 bucket and mistakenly left it exposed for two weeks.

Deep Root Analytics failed to use protected access settings, meaning that the data was accessible to anyone who knew, found, or guessed the six-character subdomain name that Amazon uses to identify an individual bucket.

While in this case it was a very simple user error that was to blame, it’s also a reminder of the wider risks of IaaS platforms such as AWS. Amazon has put a great deal of time and money into AWS’s security, but it’s always possible that either a security misconfiguration by an AWS customer or a particularly powerful attack could create a breach.

Organizations that use AWS also need to take into account the risk of malicious or mistaken activity from their own staff and users along with third parties such as business partners or vendors that require some degree of access to data. The average business faces around 11 threats every month where somebody inside the organization is responsible, whether deliberately trying to compromise security or acting negligently. Meanwhile, third parties with access to data are often to blame for security breaches.

Simply leaving AWS security up to Amazon is neither legally or practically sensible. That’s because AWS uses a shared responsibility system when it comes to security. Amazon itself takes full responsibility for the protection of its cloud systems, including both the software set-up and the physical computers, servers and connections. It’s also in charge of detecting and blocking any intrusions or fraudulent attempts to gain access.

However, the customer is responsible for managing and configuring everything that happens inside AWS. This includes any applications it runs using AWS’s identity and access management system (IAM), along with password protection of the data. The customer organisation is also responsible for protecting its own systems and connections to AWS, including any firewall.

How to use AWS infrastructure safely

This isn’t an all-encompassing list, but it covers the main points and lays a good groundwork for a sensible and effective approach.

Enable CloudTrail everywhere you use AWS: This creates comprehensive logs of all user activities in an AWS service and provides an audit trail for compliance purposes. Remember to do this on all services, including non-geographic services such as CloudFront. You should also switch on multi-region logging as this will pick up any activity in regions you don’t use, a strong sign of a security breach.

Enable multifactor authentication (MFA) on your root user account: This is absolutely key as this account can access all your AWS resources. Use a dedicated device for this MFA rather than have the requests sent to a personal mobile device. That cuts the chances that a lost device or a change in personnel can lead to a breach.

Enforce a strict strong password policy: A good minimum threshold is 14 characters with at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number and one symbol. Set passwords to expire after no more than 90 days and don’t let staff reuse passwords.

Keep CloudTrail log access as tight and narrow as possible: This will reduce the number of staff who could compromise security by falling prey to a phishing attack or being blackmailed.

Make sure multifactor authentication is required to delete CloudTrail buckets: This will reduce the chances of a hacker covering their tracks after getting unauthorized access.

Never use access keys on root accounts: Doing so is simply too big a risk given how much access somebody could gain after compromising an account.

Restrict access for commonly used ports: These can include CIFS, DNS, FTP, MongoDB, MSSQL and SMTP.

Set accounts to automatically expire after 90 days without any use: An inactive account brings you no benefits but increases the number of potential points of entry for somebody trying to breach your setup.

Turn on access logging for your S3 buckets: This compiles the log data from CloudTrail and makes it much easier to track access requests, authorized and otherwise. If the worst happens, these logs can help with breach investigations.

Use restricted access on any EC2 security groups: This cuts out less sophisticated attack tactics such as Denial of Service, man-in-the-middle or brute force. Make sure access is done via IAM roles rather than through individual credentials that can easily be compromised.

As well as taking care of the restrictions and policies of your AWS infrastructure, you should also follow best practice when you use any custom applications deployed in AWS. By following these best practices, enterprises and users alike can safely store their data in the cloud without compromising security, creating a more secure AWS environment.

Read more: Report argues ‘concerning’ lack of understanding over IaaS shared responsibility models

We all know that end users experience the internet primarily with mobile devices. From an app development perspective, we know that successfully responding to the needs of mobile customers depends on rapid DevOps – failing fast, in short, until the right solution evolves in your customers’ relationship to your business. Whether you’re decomposing an SOA monolith, or developing a new application cloud natively, it’s not a question of using microservices – not doing so will be a path to eventual business failure. The real and more difficult question, in developing microservices-based applications, is this: What’s the best combination of cloud services and tools to use to get the right results in the specific business situation in which you need to deliver what your end users’ want. Considering that new streams of IoT data are already raising the stakes on what end users expect in their mobile experiences, the versatility and power of cloud services is going to become the key to innovation that’s meaningful in the market.

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