Cloud Computing Big Data

To keep pace with our times with the IT industry's efforts, the Department of Defense realizes the importance of transitioning from the classic legacy systems to a culture of performance and affordability – a new approach to managing its networking and computing need - that operates at the speed of relevance.


Adopting cloud computing to accelerate the pace that nuclear weapons systems, military organizations, and concepts of operations evolve to meet the requirements of future threats and to develop and deploy new capabilities faster to re-establish military superiority at means that cloud integration security should be concerned with.
A legacy system or also known as a legacy platform is an old piece of computer hardware art. It might serve as a nice back up to the current systems everywhere. Most banks, transportation, hospitals, insurance, retail companies (Metro and Otto), energy companies (including nuclear plants), manufacturing of all types (process control), the defense industry, and more by and large realize the need to modernize their legacy systems to make it suitable with the demands of the current digital technology world.

Even though the legacy system has not been entirely phased out, these unmodified legacy systems may require a significant amount of upkeep and be associated with terminology or processes that are no longer applicable to the current digital transformation journey, thus creating confusion and complicating digital transformation efforts.

Like some good reasons why you should run your new computer with Windows 10 instead of Windows XP, the standard of the operating systems used in the enterprise should be improved. Now more than ever, since businesses face growth and expansion, a significant number of users no longer choose to stick with some baggage carried by the legacy systems.

The Department of Defense’s Cloud Adoption to Operate at the 'Speed of Relevance'

And it is always a good choice to transition from legacy systems to the cloud. Folding it into a more modern digital architecture will, fortunately, improve security and database accessibility, harness modern technology in the battle for cost-saving effectiveness, and boost performance for both the warfighter and business operations across the U.S. Department of Defense with a little effort.

The Cloud Contract

It is undeniable that to maintain the U.S. Department of Defense military’s technological advantage; it is necessary to accelerate its adoption of cloud computing technologies. However, integrations between on-premises and cloud solutions often deal with sensitive data. Also, all non-sensitive data, such as public-facing websites needs moving to the commercial cloud as soon as possible. Therefore, a cloud contract is crucial to be modernizing the Department of Defense and reforming the way they do business. Its predicted multi-billion-dollar cloud contract is considered as an effective means to revolutionize the military’s ability and potential to effectively execute missions and save the U.S. homeland from any attack.

Unlike acquiring ships, planes, or any machine, acquiring software is a big deal, especially when it comes to cybersecurity. Going to the cloud means having modernized the applications and being able to pull the data out of a lot of different applications. But, in order to avoid staying abreast of the ever-changing threat, it is essential to have security requirements on these completely new approaches to the management of military networks and the acquisition of cyber capabilities.

Reliance on a sole-source IT contract, which is not designed with a specific vendor or company in mind will be one of the biggest hurdles in the revolution of the military’s ability. This single-award contract is well worth taking time to conduct a full-range and open competition to find out the best cloud capability for the war fighter. As a result, it is a severe fight for a massive Pentagon Cloud Contract to offer the Department of Defense the most competitive solution.

Instead of operating nuclear weapons to be still running on computers from the last century at a yearly cost of multiple billions of dollars, the Department of Defense’s adoption of cloud computing is such a great means to incorporate enterprise legacy systems into the digital strategy to support the war fighter and to maintain the department’s security and to re-establish military superiority.

A Two-Year Contract

To meet the DoD’s demands to provide the warfighter with the best cloud capability, 46 companies that can rapidly deliver new capabilities responded actively with questions to its very first draft solicitation.

Even though the Department of Defense says it is not the high time to predict the ultimate value of the contract, according to the estimation of the JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure), the contract is worth approximately $8 - $10 billion.


The DoD also published a draft request for proposals that was open to feedback. There were over 1,000 comments/questions and answers relating to the contract. (Comments was closed as of the 30th of April.)

The single indefinite-delivery and indefinite-quantity contract will be awarded for a two-year base period, with five one-year options and then three years after that. It means that after the first two-year contract period, the Department of Defense will re-examine the marketplace and make the next important decision on the capabilities they need for the next option period and whether they should renew for five years or not. A contract expected to be well worth billions over the next decade - the multibillion-dollar price-tag makes the JEDI contract potentially tempting for even the largest of cloud computing tech firms.

Glassdoor (One Of The World’s Biggest Job and Recruiting Sites) To Partner With Cloud Investor Battery Ventures (A Global Investment Firm) for Second Year to Determine and Reveal Top Highest-Rated Private and Highest-Rated Public Cloud-Computing Companies – Where You Can Find The Highest Levels Of Satisfaction At Work In 2018.


With cloud computing on the rise, exceptional cloud growth, and cloud computing companies among the hottest in tech, the most common question among employers is “Which publicly and privately held companies are really the best to work for in 2018? You might be wondering: “Is workplaces’ culture and employee happiness in the current, ultra-competitive tech economy crucial?” Very important! The higher levels of satisfaction at work, the better results of their work will be shown.

With some cloud companies are growing much faster than others in the cloud computing market, it takes time to identify top best cloud computing companies and CEOs to work for this year. This list uncovering the Highest Rated Public and Private Cloud Computing Companies to Work For in 2018 represent those where employees’ satisfaction at work is reported at its highest. In this article, I will tell you more about the most excellent companies.

Glassdoor’s Suggestion On The Best Cloud Computing Companies In 2018

Mendix

While some researchers consider Amazon Web Services the best cloud computing company, Glassdoor says that title actually belongs to Mendix - a low-code software platform founded in the Netherlands in 2005 - in the PaaS and hosted private cloud segment.

As the fastest and easiest high-productivity platform as a service (PaaS) with its membership in the Cloud Foundry Foundation to create and continuously improve multi-channel applications at scale, Mendix promises business and IT to have such a pleasant time working together. Also, the speed at which they can realize value is superior.

Reltio

 As a multi-tenant cloud PaaS platform, Reltio supplies highly customized products and services to help with machine learning across all industries. The super modern data management platform of Reltio solves the hardest data management problems for any industry use case. Regardless of the size of the enterprise, Reltio’s products promise to use a wide variety of anonymized data to help them to grow faster, reduce the expense spent on IT, and remain scalable.

Zoho

Zoho provides your entire business with more than just a single product or a tightly favorite apps’ integration. The cloud services will aid to cope with such business processes across your organization as 40+ integrated applications hosting and running, business intelligence, database management, manage all day-to-day activities, eCommerce hosting, boost sales, email hosting, ERP, step up productivity and collaboration, web content management, and website hosting.

Google Cloud Platform

A PaaS (Platform as a Service) platform, Google Cloud Platform – the most valuable brand in the world as of 2017 provides tools and services to build and deploy cloud-ready sample apps, extensions while still helping business users to minimize the operational costs. Also, Google Cloud Platform helps to increase their productivity by opening integration to connect any digital products regardless of who developed them and where they are.

Among 108 offering services and products, users are spoilt for choices to operate compute process, network (CDN, VPN), storage (Cloud Storage, Persistent Disk, Cloud Storage for Firebase, Cloud Filestore), management, security, data management (SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and NoSQL) as well as analytics and machine learning (Apache Airflow), AI, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, Blockchain, integrations and migration systems.

SAP Cloud Platform

SAP Cloud Platform

An in-memory data platform-as-a-service (PaaS) by SAP SE, SAP Cloud Platform allows connection and integration with other data and business processes in a secure cloud computing environment.

SAP HANA database management system - a strong brand that has received widespread recognition in the business and technology world rapidly became the #1 growing technology solution among all cloud computing companies including Asian Paints, Coca-cola, Accenture, Mercedes-AMG, eBay, Lenovo, Infosys, Colgate Palmolive, Sandisk, Unilever, and Cisco. Starting from its inception on October 16, 2012, and being deployed as an on-premise appliance or in the cloud on May 13, 2013, SAP HANA now has more than 815,000 active customers, who consider SAP HANA as their most popular cloud tools.

Their services cover mobile services, storage, database and storage, integration & orchestration, migration, developer tools, management tools, media services, digital experience, security, data management & analytics, machine learning, app integration, solution extensibility, customer engagement, SAP Cloud Platform Internet of Things (IoT), business productivity spheres.

Netskope Security Cloud

Netskope Security Cloud

Best known as “cloud-security platform for the enterprise,” the Netskope Security Cloud Platform offers the world’s largest organizations unmatched vantage points. Also, it provides fast and intuitive visibility into sanctioned or unsanctioned cloud experience for any individual and application over any web without sacrificing security. Thus, 100 percent of users on-premises, mobile, and remote as well as a lot of companies including Levi’s, ILM, Toyota, and nVidia can deliver superior digital experiences and successfully migrate billions of transactions across thousands of services.

Outsystems

Outsystems Cloud provides PaaS (Platform as a Service), all to accelerate business transformation without the hassle of managing physical software infrastructure. A perfect solution to build web applications like Outsystems is expected to get much more success in the cloud computing sphere in the near future.

In the recent years, the idea of “the cloud” and cloud computing has been actively hyped by the technology companies. We are right now familiar with cloud computing which has taken off with business applications and new innovations. However, from the technological point of view, we are still in the early era of cloud computing, and many big organizations, whether big or small, are taking just some very small steps towards accepting cloud computing.

Even though we are right now in the early days of cloud computing, where some enterprises are taking their very first, tentative steps, the “cloud,” in 2020, is expected to take center stage. Not only gaining its popularity more significantly than ever before, but it will also accelerate the capabilities of technologies like mobile and analytics. Nothing can replace its part as the enterprise’s power of cloud computing computing.

Among a lot of positive changes, the complete freedom from the “no-cloud” policy could be one of the most highly expected ones.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Internet of Things (IoT)

 Do you know that six-sevenths of the new smart applications are being designed with the cloud in mind? That’s why more and more resources are expected to be seen going towards cloud development. Together with the concrete profit operation, IoT devices have long been believed to connect items into the cloud and to bring a new level of connectivity to our homes and workplaces.

By 2020, experts predict that an amount of up to tens of billions of data-spouting devices will be connected to this vast network of vehicles, multi-application sensors, sensors that gather, store, and analyze data, home use appliances, physical gadgets as well as other electronics. The Internet of Things is growing at an incredibly high speed evolving excellent technology which is making everything smart. With an estimated total market worth USD 19 trillion in 2020, these devices that originally possessed only one or two functions are now becoming more and more upgraded, thus smarter and smarter, more and more convenient. By that way, the way people live and work is already being changed. At the same time, companies can expect a steady yet not explosive growth in the third party, commercial and enterprise developers as well as API exchanges.

Blockchain 

Blockchain

Since 2011 and the emergence of Bitcoin, the potential for blockchain technology has been expected to make an inordinate impact, alongside cutting-edge Ultra-book devices. But it was the same year that the prediction of this widespread change really started to capture business’ attention. It is said that the cloud creation’s decentralized aspect has helped the blockchain movement to have been offering some excellent chances in cloud computing computing.

Easy-to-mobile is gradually becoming one of the most important standards, and the similar situation is predicted to be applied to the workforce soon. Employees would be able to work with methods, at the time, and from places of their own preference, remotely. No matter where they are and what time it is, they can easily get access to the same information at their office, hold groups discussions, and receive work tasks remotely. So as to draw servers into the cloud and enable better data investigation from the Cloud, thus to be competitive, owners of companies are advised to adapt to the rapid change in business infrastructure. Stay up to date on mass amounts of hardware and the latest developments in the world of cloud technologies is always the best choice.

Software Will Be Popularly Used

Software is being used in a lot of companies with the aim of encouraging their employees to sign on using security key codes to show their attendance

Due to the evolving features of the cloud and the world’s quick movement in the direction of all virtualized procedures, in the coming time period, the software utilized in everything can be expected to almost completely stay away from hardware.

 In that case, many developers from hospitality and retail industry to taxi services will no longer worry about offering complete provisions like data centers, server networks, switch, and cloud storage and eliminating the need to keep buying new servers.

Those businesses that cannot get software applications that are more complex and larger for scalability are more likely to fight to survive.

Algorithmic Techniques 

The companies tend to get a chance for a huge technological breakthrough thanks to the future of cloud computing

A process to measure computers’ performance against a certain metric, ML (Machine Learning) is usually feasible and cost-effective than the manual programming.

It still takes such a long time (even up to a few years) to make sure to provide stable network connections and prevent websites from crashing. But in the near future, with the ML’s and algorithms’ developments offering efficacy and consumer adventures throughout, it will become much easier to navigate the world.

Conclusion

How does cloud computing make an influence on us? Its development is changing the way we work with smart devices, use technology on a daily basis, and even the way we live. The brilliant feature of cloud computing not only is a great chance for business using this technology today, but also individual users. And 2020 is showing promising signs of steady growth and innovation with the amount of benefit that clouds can bring to the world much more than one can imagine now and the number of users installing these services to store their data.

Description: A virtual cloud computing with Windows 10 interface which allows you to stream games online and offline may sound like a fantasy. However, Shadow PC from Blade has proved that it’s not.

If you ever want to use the Windows operating system on a Mac or Overwatch on cellphones, Blade has the answer. This French cloud computing service provider has introduced its latest technology called Shadow PC in an attempt to enter the US market. Users can now enjoy full accessibility to the cloud service with the Windows 10 experience. That way, they could install their favourite software such as Photoshop, and more importantly, enhance their gaming experiences.

The introduction of Shadow PC cloud computing service from Blade has left many people in awe.

This approach has earned Blade some credits. Since most game providers such as PlayStation Now don’t notice the importance of unlimited access for gamers, and most cloud computing providers ignore this potential area, Blade is regarded as the pioneer.

Shadow PC specifications

Shadow PC offers users what seems to be a good deal: complete access to the could service with excellent graphics, farfetched power and so on. This is a good catch for many gamers since this virtual service could be a synonym to a $2000 PC.

Blade’s super protected data centres in Europe and California could provide a stable and perfect 4K image. Their latest technology allows them to run a virtual Windows 10 eliminating any possible hardware glitches. Featuring the cutting-edge NVIDIA graphic solution, Shadow is able to display perfect image in 1080p at 144Hz. Their out-and-out 8-threads XEON CPU optimises the system. Blade provides up to 256GB for storage space, so that you can freely store your documents and apps.

Shadow is compatible with not only Mac but also windows, Android and soon iOS. This gives users the opportunity to gain access to the server no matter which type of operating system they are using.

For those who want a small but powerful PC system, Blade offers a box which can entirely replace your personal computers and bulky hardware. Shadowbox replace your computer unit and turn it into a beautiful experience with fantastic features such as 4K, HDMI, DisplayPort and USB 3.0

Gaming experiences 

Blade team has been working hard to present a cloud computing service which allows users to stream games online or offline. First of all, they tested Overwatch tournaments in their cloud computing service. The result was stunning. Playing Overwatch in Blade’s cloud service and on a computer does not make much difference.

Shadow was tested thoroughly to ensure its quality.

The team later tested  CS: GO as people distrusted the result of play Overwatch experience. They blamed the technology of Blade to lessen latency as the main reason for the smooth Overwatch experience. However, the result with the hardcore CS: GO proved that Shadow provides a stable and robust platform for any kinds of games.

The team wanted to further their examination to make sure that their promise for a latency-free gaming experience could be kept under any kinds of circumstances. They decided to use Shadow Box and uploaded Rise of The Tomb Raider there. Shadow Box is a creative item which helps users connect to the cloud computing service offline. The resolution while playing was top-notch.

The team later tested their game experience on a tablet. Amazingly, they could play a premium game on a tiny tablet connected to a controller via Bluetooth without any problem. The same test was performed on a smartphone and a MAc, and the result made no difference.

This achievement is mainly due to the machine-learning app that enables Blade to assess the quality of the network at their data centre. AI technology controls the latency-free streaming while playing games, creating smooth experiences.

Shadow subscription 

If you want to have the same incredible gaming experiences, subscription to Shadow service is required. At the moment, this cloud computing service is only available in California, however, soon enough, the introduction of this beautiful cloud computing service will be nationwide.

To use the service, you need to pay $49.95 per month, $39.95 monthly for a 3-month subscription, and $34.95 monthly for an a-year subscription. In other words, Shadow PC will replace your bulky desktop with an updated high-end cloud computing service that will likely cost around $420 for a year commitment. Shadow PC can bring you ultimate gaming server, which allows you to play games like on a high-end PC system that could cost over $2000.

Shadowbox is provided for those who cannot connect to the cloud.

Some people did make their calculation. Compared to Netflix, Shadow PC still needs a lot of work ahead to live up to their expectation. Shadow’s subscription asks players to buy and update their games, whereas services like Nvidia’s GeForce Now provides inbuilt games.

However, if you are looking forward to the prospect of streaming game on the go and also upgrading your old PC system into something new and fancy without paying a large sum of money, then a $35 subscription fee is quite acceptable. Shadow PC team is still working up to expand their market and upgrade their cloud computing service so they can provide better, more qualified service to games. Meanwhile, sceptics remain silent and watch for the next launch of this service and see if it a product of value.

When the mission of CIO keeps on becoming increasingly vital to enterprises' overall objectives and goals, this catalyst for the transformation must work harder to adapt to these changing responsibilities and deliver the best IT solutions.


As the futuristic technology products are believed to be able to make the world a better place, digital business is receiving a transformation from the digital industrial economy. For that reason, the enterprise leaders’ overall objectives and goals increasingly relate to information and technology decisions. As a result, the office of the CIO (OCIO) - an executive position to expand as IT strategy of a company is expected to work harder to meet the meets of employees, customers, and partners.

Let’s take a closer insight into four trends CIO to prepare for 2019 to balance the capabilities of the latest cloud technology and resources while still keeping the security at its best:

1. The Number Of Cloud as Services Models And Solutions (SaaS, Paas, IaaS) Will Continue To Rise And Come Into The Enterprise Through "The Bathroom Window"

SaaS, Paas, IaaS

While CIOs, in the mid-1980s, devoted all the time and energy on the more technical projects, they now find themselves in transition to make the digital era IT become as easily consumable as power out of a socket.

• Subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS): With very few downsides and a lot of upsides, SaaS is gradually becoming part of the mainstream. According to Bain & Company, this software’s popularity is only increasing. It is expected to be growing at an 18% CAGR by 2020.
• Investment in platform-as-a-service (PaaS): A set of cloud-based services that bring tremendous power and productivity to IT departments, business users, and developers at a higher speed than on-premise solutions. According to KPMG, this type of cloud computing is expected to reach 56% in 2019. A growth of 24% from 32% in 2016 makes it the fastest-growing development battleground of tomorrow.
• The infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) - a powerful, flexible option helps enterprises focus on their core competency. According to Gartner, its worldwide market’s explosion is predicted to reach $72.4 billion by 2020.

2. Breakthrough In Quantum Computing -- The Holy Grail For Global Technology Giants

Quantum Computing

With the ability to run calculations far beyond the reach of any conventional supercomputer and create breakthroughs in some of the most complicated data processing problems, quantum computing deserves its title as the holy grail of cloud computing industry.

Nowadays, IBM - an industry-first initiative to build commercially available universal quantum computers for business and science together with other classical computing companies including Intel, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Microsoft as well as a bunch of Quantum computing startups like 1Qbit, Alpine Quantum Technologies, GmbH, Anyon Systems Inc., Artiste-qb.net, Atom Computing, BOHR∞, Black Brane Systems, bra-ket science, etc. is in the severe competition of taking a claim in the emerging field of quantum computing.

The race for cloud supremacy has started, and the quantum computing market is getting bigger and bigger. However, IBM with its 50 years of experience in producing advances in materials science that laid the foundations for the computer revolution is always the leader.

The release of quantum computing with a 50-qubit processor prototype, as well as 20-qubit processor online access – the world’s fastest cloud computing is the most visible evidence about the potential of IBM. In spite of IBM’s pedigree in this area, other top-tech giants are still showing their continuous effort to deliver on the technology's long-promised abilities. Alibaba’s 11-qubit quantum computing service launching and Microsoft announcement of a new quantum computing programming language and stable topological qubit technology show their strong will to lead to greater quantum computing innovation.

3. More Businesses Options For Hybrid Cloud Solutions —  Cloud to Cloud and Cloud to On-Premise Connectivity

Hybrid Cloud Solutions

The demands of the Internet of Things (IoT) on infrastructure – especially around reliability, backup and/or disaster recovery, challenges of cloud connectivity, and computing power can be dealt by the cloud technologies. Public, private, and hybrid are different types of clouds available with the rise of new technologies.

It might not as easy as you have expected to make a full transition to the cloud. That’s where hybrid cloud solutions with its two types of clouds: public and private cloud will play its crucial role.

Due to the hybrid cloud’s advantages that allow all enterprises to transition to the cloud at their own pace, with fewer chances of risk, and with a smaller expense, it is predicted that in 2019, most companies will keep their on-premise solutions as well as connect to the efficiency and effectiveness of cloud-based solutions with heavy customization that will best fit their business needs.

4. Cloud Security Vulnerabilities Will Still Be A Concern

Security is always a concern with cloud technology in any organization in today’s IOT world

Needless to say, security was, is, and will undoubtedly be a concern with cloud technology in any organization in today’s IOT world. Don’t expect cloud security to be exceptional, particularly with the introduction of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Those whose duty is to truly drive the thinking, and resulting strategy, on what to do with all that data will face more challenges than ever before to become more competitive in this ever-changing tech environment.

Through 2020, in spite of all of the hand-wringing over cloud security, 99% of successful cyber attack or vulnerabilities exploited will be able to break into the public Internet and bring IT operations (or related) to a standstill for such a long time.

Microsoft and Xiaomi to share their mutual strategic interests in cloud computing, AI, and hardware, with the aim of making the products and services with Mi logo better fit the global market.

In 2015, Microsoft and Xiaomi marked their very first important milestone in their long-term partnership by a deal to test Windows 10 on Xiaomi devices. One year later (September 2016), to help run other Microsoft Corp’s services on its devices, Xiaomi bought 1,500 of its patents. And this year, these two companies announced another chapter in its collaboration. To boost the chances for effective cooperation around cloud technologies, AI, and hardware products, Xiaomi and Software maker Microsoft Corp have announced an expanded strategic agreement - a Strategic Framework Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

Windows 10 on Xiaomi Mi4

Don’t be surprised by the partnership between a U.S. company and a Chinese company on artificial intelligence. It certainly makes sense since it is an awesome collaboration between the world’s biggest multinational technology company and the fastest growing smartphone maker in the world.

Xiaomi and Software maker Microsoft Corp will work together going forward on four distinct areas listed in the MoU including natural language processing (cloud support), computer vision (laptop-type device), text input (Microsoft Cortana and Mi AI Speaker), and conversational AI (AI services collaboration).

Thanks to Microsoft’s allowance to let Xiaomi use its Cloud computing products, including Azure, the Apple of China is expected to develop upgraded phones, smart speakers, laptops, and improved AI services (Artificial Intelligence-powered service) to dramatically increase its market share and even to gain its popularity among users in all the markets on globe, specifically in the U.S. – one of the world’s biggest markets for those hardware products and services.

Do you want your favorite apps and experiences to work seamlessly on the smartphone or any device of your choice, don’t you? That is exactly what the strategic collaboration between these two big companies offers. Not only does improve Xiaomi’s user data storage and services as well as bandwidth potential, a broad technology collaboration partnership – the integration of Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform with the Mi AI speaker also gives a boost to Xiaomi’s laptops and other services where a smart device ecosystem will be used beneficially. With the active support of Windows software, the plan to join the laptop and “laptop-style” products’ future of the Chinese brand will arguably gain a competitive advantage and accelerate its international growth, especially in the Western countries’ markets.

Microsoft and Xiaomi to share their mutual strategic interests in cloud computing, AI, and hardware

The Chinese device maker Xiaomi is not the only one to take advantage of the new deal that focuses on the cloud computing, hardware, and AI application development. As part of the strategic agreement, the Cortana technology of Microsoft will be integrated with the Mi AI speaker - a budget speaker with a modern look and smart device ecosystem. The result of the integration of Microsoft’s technology with Xiaomi’s smart hardware is Cortana-powered smart speaker. A digital device developed by the Invoke from Harman Kardon and powered by Cortana – a smart personal assistant of Microsoft, the intelligent speaker of Harmon Kardon Invoke is expected to be struggling to win in the competition with other current favorite digital assistant speaker options available on Amazon and Google or personal and home assistants like Alexa and Siri.

And their expanded partnership with a host of proposed collaborative projects to work more actively and efficiently in the areas of cloud computing, AI (including Microsoft’s Cortana technology) and hardware is expected to provide millions of devices and innovative customers with productivity services and excellent experiences on mobile devices.

As part of the strategic global partnership expansion, Microsoft Corp. and Xiaomi Inc. will explore ways to be able to install Microsoft Office and Skype Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook on Xiaomi Android-based smart devices such as phones, laptops, and tablets as well as other laptop-style products. As a result, brand new ways to communicate, work, and collaborate (including Redmi 3, Redmi Note 3, Mi 4s, Mi 5, and Mi Max) will be provided to tens of millions of innovative users and business customers in India, China, and all over the world. By that way, Xiaomi can complete its mission as a pioneer to deliver cutting-edge innovation to people all around the world, especially technology lovers. It will not take Xiaomi much time to achieve its ambition – to become the world’s most popular smartphone company. Also, a cross-license and patent transfer agreement will be included in the two companies’ new collaboration on cloud computing, hardware, and AI applications.

However, it is only the first step of the two big companies’ collaborations on cloud technologies and AI - an ongoing investment for leading software and tech companies. The companies will be working together on expanded strategic projects based on a broad range of the unique strengths and experience in AI of the leading platform and productivity company, such as conversational AI and Speech, Computer Vision, Text Input, Natural Language Processing, Knowledge Graph and Search, as well as related Microsoft AI products and services, such as Cortana, Skype, SwiftKey, Bing, Pix, Edge, XiaoIce, Translator, and Cognitive Services.

Microsoft will also benefit from the expanded collaboration with Xiaomi

And according to Microsoft and Xiaomi spokespersons, as they have chosen to deepen the cooperation around cloud computing through a memorandum, their partnership is not legally contractual, and it is still unclear whether any financials terms to the arrangement are involved at this time or not.

Meta: Serverless cloud has been a hype recently. It is believed to change the future of enterprise apps development by significantly lowering cost and enhancing the efficiency.

Introduction

Serverless is a hot topic that attracts the attention of most cloud industry insiders recently. It is widely believed to become a major innovation in the next few years. In fact, the term “serverless” does not have a clear definition. In this article, we will go through an overview of serverless and the potential that it has to open the door to a new computing era.

Body

With the appearance of serverless cloud computing, the cloud resources are no longer distributed, just to stay idle waiting to power applications when called upon. Instead, the assets are only supplied when a specific event emerges.  In particular, when users get access to their smartphone applications, which is known as an “event”, the virtual machines in the cloud will recover and serve them with the expected information.

Let’s explore the ecosystem of serverless technologies.

Nick Rockwell, the Chief Technology Officer of the New York Times, admitted that serverless cloud computing, also known as Function-as-a-Service (FaaS), would the next breakthrough in the cloud industry. The serverless architecture allows developers to concentrate more on writing codes instead of wasting their time thinking about the servers.  Besides, he claimed that the serverless cloud made the product more scalable and reliable, it would soon become a much better and cheaper choice to make.

The problem of idle instances

When Nick Rockwell moved from Conde Nast to the newspaper, the Times had its computing infrastructure connected to Virtual Private Cloud of Amazon Web Service (AWS). This allowed businesses to connect their data to the virtual private cloud within the AWS. However, they didn’t have a Content Delivery Network (CDN), which means they couldn’t store the data in the place close to customers’ devices.

Nowadays, the Times functions on two separate clouds: the AWS for corporate applications and e-commerce platforms; Google Cloud Platform (GCP)  for consumer applications such as the NYTimes.com and smartphone app. Migrating to the cloud seems helpful, but managing it is not a simple task. The IT team of Rockwell had to measure how many AWS and GCP instances are required, how large they are and whether they need added inputs, outputs, and memory or not.   The next step is configuring the instances, patching and installing software on the operating system.  Then, the developers must strictly manage the dependencies of each application to find out the scale of each part of the apps.

Serverless is the future 

When a predicted event happens, the code for a specific function will be activated; then the server platforms will perform the required task. Customers don’t have to tell the cloud service providers how many times the functions need to be executed; they need to pay a little every time the codes are triggered. Instead of wasting with the idle instances in the cloud, Rockwell suggested that serverless can help us to multiply the efficiency up to ten times.

Developers can benefit from the high availability from Serverless: the fault tolerance are the features of serverless frameworks. So they don’t need to keep their servers to make the apps highly available. In case of unexpected node failures, the framework will immediately respawn the nodes, so it seems like there are no problems at all.

Moreover, serverless architecture offers incredibly flexible scaling. As you have no idea about the physical server, there is no need to be worried about its scalability. The application will be distributed to more resources to meet the demand of capacities.

The outstanding features of Serverless Architecture are just too good for developers to ignore.

Can serverless become the Next Big Thing in the future of cloud computing? That’s still a big question that no one can affirm. But it is predicted that 90 percent of serverless deployment will take place outside of the IT team’s infrastructure.  Cloud vendors are also looking for collaboration with famous organizations like the Times or General Electric, where CTO Chris Drumgoole has shown his ardor for the serverless cloud.

In 2014, Amazon Web Service launched AWS Lambda, their first enterprise serverless platform. There are also many offerings available from Microsoft and Google that customers can choose. At present, Rockwell is responsible for the Times’ crossword puzzle and some other applications using serverless cloud service in Google’s App Engine. And he highly appraises Google’s expertise, especially its Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and the capability to manage containers.

Cloud platforms allow developers to make the right decisions over how to design and manage their products. But the approach of Google seems opinionated: choosing the architecture design options and stick to them. What’s more, Google is trying to create an ecosystem of opinionated products that work in conjunction. Though developers would prefer a wider range of choices, fewer choices can cut down on the cost of planning, designing and structuring an architecture.

Conclusion

The emergence of the term “serverless” has removed developers’ concern about the infrastructure because their software lifecycle will depend more on the cloud vendors. Enterprises are starting to invest more in serverless architecture, but it is never as easy as we’ve expected. Serverless is our future, but it would take businesses a lot of time to reach the destination.