Category Archives: Cloud Platforms

Cloud Platforms, Email, News, Tech, Technology

Valimail DMARC Solution Available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace

Microsoft Azure customers worldwide gain access to Valimail Enforce to take advantage of the scalability, reliability, and agility of Azure to drive application development and shape business strategies 

Valimail, a leading provider of email authentication and anti-impersonation solutions, today announced the availability of Valimail Enforce in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use on Azure. Microsoft customers can now take advantage of the productive and trusted Azure cloud platform to gain access to Valimail Enforce capabilities, with streamlined deployment and management.

 

Valimail Enforce is a better, proven way to accelerate the journey to DMARC enforcement. Valimail delivers world-class automation tools to get you to continuous enforcement – meaning no manual SPF and DKIM configuration. Users are able to protect their domains at scale and improve email deliverability with Valimail’s best-of-breed solution that offers advanced sending service intelligence, unlimited SPF lookups, and contextual analytics – all in one simple application that anyone can use. With Valimail Enforce, users gain:

 

  • Access to a premier DMARC partner for Microsoft
  • One-click authorization for up to 100% of services within your ecosystem.
  • Access to unlimited SPF lookups so you never risk blocking good email.
  • Confidence in continuous DMARC protection with auto-configuration and updates.

 

“By making Valimail Enforce available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, customers gain an enhanced layer of email security and authenticity directly within Azure’s trusted cloud environment,” said Alexander García-Tobar, CEO and Co-Founder, Valimail. “This integration offers users streamlined access to robust DMARC enforcement, helping to safeguard against phishing and impersonation attacks, while capitalizing on Azure’s global scale, reliability, and comprehensive compliance offerings. This synergy empowers organizations to elevate their cybersecurity posture seamlessly within their existing Azure infrastructure.”

 

“Microsoft Azure Marketplace welcomes Valimail Enforce, which joins a cloud marketplace landscape predicted to grow revenue 500% from 2022 to 2025,” said Jake Zborowski, General Manager, Microsoft Azure Platform at Microsoft Corp. “Thanks to Azure Marketplace and partners like Valimail, customers can do more with less by increasing efficiency, buying confidently, and spending smarter.”

 

The Azure Marketplace is an online market for buying and selling cloud solutions certified to run on Azure. The Azure Marketplace helps connect companies seeking innovative, cloud-based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use.

 

Learn more about Valimail Enforce at its page in the Azure Marketplace.

 

About Valimail: www.valimail.com

Cloud Platforms, Networks, News, Tech, Technology

ANTENNA expands service to all UK Critical National Infrastructure providers

FourNet’s trusted, secure, cloud platform and network broadens its digital reach

ANTENNA, the highly secure cloud platform and network which was designed in partnership with the Cabinet Office and supports dozens of UK Government departments, is expanding to cover all UK Critical National Infrastructure providers.

Digital transformation and customer experience specialists, FourNet, have today announced that ANTENNA is being opened up to unlock major digital advantage for a broader range of critical UK organisations.

Developed in partnership with the Cabinet Office, ANTENNA was launched in 2016 and is currently trusted by more than 40 UK government departments.

 

Announcing the expansion, Richard Pennington, CEO of FourNet, said: “Due to demand and requests from the wider CNI providers, we are making our award-winning, highly secure ANTENNA cloud platform available to all UK critical national infrastructure (CNI) providers.

“Because these organisations are delivering critical services that are fundamental to the smooth running of the country, our economy and the nation’s health and wellbeing, there are bigger barriers to digital transformation and a much higher responsibility and duty of care when it comes to cybersecurity, protection of data, and digital resilience.

“That is exactly what ANTENNA has been designed and built for and we are delighted to be unlocking the benefits to a broader range of providers.”

 

A survey carried out by FourNet ahead of today’s ANTENNA announcement, suggests that one in three (33%) of UK organisations see protection against cyber threats as their key digital transformation goal, with nearly half (47%) saying their biggest challenges were cybersecurity risks.

 

Given the proliferation of cybersecurity threats – from malware and ransomware to foreign state sponsored attacks, and the widening attack surface for all businesses, ANTENNA offers CNI organisations many of the world’s leading solutions, including next generation firewalls, enhanced SD-WAN security, endpoint, edge and cloud security and 24/7 cybersecurity monitoring and expertise.

ANTENNA was initially designed as a shared communications, collaboration and contact centre service for Central Government.

Hosted in Tier 4 Government Data Centres, it has evolved into a secure cloud platform for all organisations providing critical services to UK citizens.

 

ANTENNA also offers a full spectrum of market leading services through a range of leading global technology partners including voice, mobile, contact centre, video, messaging and collaboration solutions as well as world-leading network infrastructure, connectivity and cybersecurity services, enabling all CNI organisations to digitally transform safely and securely.

 

Pennington added: “Our expert citizen experience (CX) team is also now at the heart of our expanded ANTENNA service bringing unrivalled data analysis and diagnosis and focusing on operational and citizen outcomes.

“Our CX function makes sure that the ambitions and targets of the UK’s critical organisations and the expectations of UK citizens can be fully met in the safest, most secure way, while helping to reduce costs, improve efficiency and save money for taxpayers.”

 

Critical National Infrastructure is classified as those facilities, systems, sites, information, people, networks and processes necessary for the country to function and upon which daily life depends. This includes chemicals, civil nuclear, communications, defence, emergency services, energy, finance, food, government, health, space, transport and water services.

 

ANTENNA’s technology is itself designated as Critical National Infrastructure and is hosted in highly secure, energy efficient data centres with a focus on sustainability.

The ANTENNA service is available on the CCS RM6116 Network Services 3 (NS3) framework and via the government’s eMarketplace.

 

Cloud Platforms, Data & Analytics, News

Cohesity Announces Sign Up for Early Access for Cohesity Turing Integration with Amazon Bedrock – Unleashing Comprehensive Capabilities that Unlock the Power of Generative AI and Data

Cohesity has today previewed early access to Cohesity Turing, the company’s comprehensive, patent-pending collection of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and technologies that are integrated into its multicloud data platform and solutions. Cohesity will expand its work with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to integrate Cohesity Turing with Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes foundation models from leading AI companies accessible via an API to build and scale generative AI applications. Customers will benefit directly from this integration by using the latest AI capabilities to drive more efficient operations, garner greater insight into security risks, and derive more value from their data.

Customers can sign up today for the Cohesity Turing Early Access Program here. Cohesity will showcase the power of the integration between Cohesity Turing and Amazon Bedrock at AWS re:Invent 2023, November 27 – December 1, in Las Vegas. Cohesity expects the program to be generally available in approximately six months.

With Cohesity Turing’s integration with Amazon Bedrock, organisations will be able to access and utilise the latest AI capabilities to streamline and enhance data operations securely, while also deriving deep, informed insights from their data. Capabilities will include:

  • Managing, securing, and analysing data: With access to the Cohesity Data Cloud, users will be able to securely index their data and use Cohesity Turing’s AI capabilities for insightful analytics that uncover deep insights and offer informed answers to questions about business and application data.
  • Enriched data interaction and learning: Customers will be able to query their own data with intuitive, natural-language conversations and generate simplified, secure insights from their historical data.
  • Implementing Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG): Cohesity Turing and the Cohesity Data Cloud will leverage Amazon Bedrock to enhance customers’ data interpretation and will provide grounded responses to queries through RAG.

Cohesity developed Cohesity Turing to address customers’ rapidly evolving needs for AI to unlock critical data insights. As new AI use cases emerge, Cohesity will continue to advance the portfolio of technologies powered by Cohesity Turing, while helping customers use AI responsibly and securely.

“For some time, enterprise IT priorities have focused on managing data proliferation, data security, and compliance. We now see a rapidly increasing demand for AI-powered data insights from customers. With our expanded relationship with AWS, we aim to unleash the power of enterprise AI while leading the industry in leveraging AI-powered data security and management to strengthen the cyber resilience of our customers,” said Sanjay Poonen, CEO, Cohesity. “By offering a seamless and secure integration with Amazon Bedrock, we will make it easier for businesses to truly harness the power of their data responsibly and securely.”

Organisations face an ongoing threat from cybercriminals, creating a need to implement AI solutions for greater cyber resilience. In addition to helping customers derive greater insights from data and strengthen their security posture, this integration will make it easier for businesses to benefit from AI solutions in a responsible, compliant, and secure manner.

“We are excited about this expanded collaboration focused on AI and data security that can help us stay one step ahead of cyber threats,” said Jason Haroldsen, manager, IT Infrastructure, Valley Children’s Healthcare. “With the growing risk of ransomware and other cyberattacks, our organisation is always evaluating new ways to boost cyber resilience strategies while keeping our data’s integrity at the forefront.”

“We see tremendous potential and value in collaboration on generative AI that could provide critical insights into our level of cyber resilience and threat profile,” said Sebastian Springer, head of software development, Pro Care Management, GmbH. “We need to embrace the power of generative AI while ensuring our data remains secure and compliant. This holds great promise in achieving that end.”

Additional Expanded Support for AWS and VMware Workloads

At AWS re:Invent 2023, Cohesity will also showcase new upcoming capabilities for protecting critical AWS workloads with Cohesity DataProtect delivered-as-a-service, including support for Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and enhanced support for Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). This expansion complements Cohesity’s data protection solution for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). With a single management plane for on-premises, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and cloud-native workloads, Cohesity customers can streamline data security and management, and better protect themselves against cyber threats or outages.

In addition, Cohesity has joined forces with AWS and VMware to bolster data resilience for VMware Cloud on AWS with Cohesity DataProtect delivered-as-a-service. This solution’s flexible pricing, industry-leading storage efficiency, and unlimited scalability provide VMware Cloud on AWS workloads with comprehensive protection and faster recovery at lower costs. With seamless integration across cloud and on-premises environments, this relationship delivers a proven, integrated data protection solution for VMware Cloud on AWS.

Cohesity at AWS re:Invent 2023

As a Platinum sponsor, Cohesity will host AWS re:Invent 2023 attendees at booth #1572, where they can learn more about data protection, cyber resiliency, and data security best practices for AWS and hybrid environments. At AWS re:Invent 2023, Cohesity will host two speaking sessions:

  • “Think Like a CIO: Cyber Resiliency Starts and Ends with Your Data”with Ryan Reed, Head of IT, JSR Corporation, and Theresa Miller, Director of Technology Advocacy Group, Cohesity.
    November 28, 2023, 5:30 P.M. – 6:30 P.M. Location: Wynn, Lafleur 2
  • “Scale Your Business and Simplify Operations with AWS Marketplace”with Mike Viola, Principal Technologist, Nasdaq; Vikram Kanodia, Sr. Director, Business Development, Cohesity; and Rachel Radziszewski, Global Storage Alliance Manager, AWS.
    November 29, 2023, 10:00 A.M. – 11:00 A.M. Location: Venetian, Summit Showroom

In addition, Cohesity will co-present in-booth sessions with AWS and other AWS Partners, including one on data security best practices for Amazon S3 and Cohesity Turing integration with Amazon Bedrock. To access the demo schedule at booth #1572, click here.

Cloud Platforms, Hyperconvergence, News

Nutanix Rolls Out Elevate Partner Program’s Latest Updates and Incentives

New offerings enable partners to stay competitive while pioneering new frontiers in customer efficiency, agility, and experience

Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, today announced updates to its Elevate Partner Program, including offering a revamped incentive structure and channel-led selling motions that empower partners with deal control throughout the sales cycle. These enhancements offer partners new opportunities to grow their business, elevate their skills, and maximise earnings.

“With technology continuing to advance at an extraordinary pace, organisations across every sector are eager to harness the power of digital transformation, data-driven insights, AI, and the cloud,” said Adam Tarbox, Vice President of EMEA Channel Sales at Nutanix. “To support our valued partner ecosystem in meeting this moment, our commitment goes beyond just words. We remain laser focused on placing partners into the driver’s seat of the sales cycle, allowing them to achieve tremendous business growth and satisfied users.”

Enhanced Incentives Framework to Earn More

Nutanix introduced enhancements to the Elevate Partner Program’s incentives and Performance+ Deal Registration Program for FY24. The updated incentive structure includes:

  • Larger Payout for New Business Individual Incentive: Now partner sellers and sales engineers (SEs) can earn a 2% incentive, up to $7,500 per deal, for identifying, registering, and winning new business with Nutanix. This incentive program complements our New Business Rebate for partner reseller organisations, which maintains its lucrative structure from FY23.
  • Increased Discount Advantage for Deal Registration: FY24 brings an enhanced discount advantage to partners who register deals and quote Nutanix simplified product portfolio SKUs (PnP 2.0), as you’ll now see over a 40% greater discount advantage versus non-registered discounting. Registering deals not only provides you with deal protection but can drive even greater profitability for each deal.
  • Performance Bonuses: Top-performing partners will have the opportunity to earn even more through the Outperformance Rebate program.

Channel-Led Selling Motion Brings Empowerment for Full Lifecycle Ownership

Channel-Led selling provides Nutanix partners deal control throughout the sales cycle for customers and prospects in select accounts, placing partners into the driver’s seat of the sales cycle. Specific updates include:

  • A lucrative channel-led selling rebate incentive in the FY24 Elevate Partner Program built to make partner success even more profitable as partners win new deals with these select accounts.
  • Dedicated Channel-Led sales resource centres across the world, purpose-built to support partners on deals with select accounts when needed in any facet of the sales cycle.
  • Robust new enablement pathways launching mid-October in the updated Nutanix University platform to ensure partners have the sales, technical, and services capabilities needed to be successful around hybrid multicloud solutions.

Additionally, helping partners deliver customer success throughout the lifecycle is paramount to achieving business growth. To support this Nutanix is taking proactive steps to empower partners with increased visibility into Annual Team Renewals (ATR) data. By offering partners a comprehensive view of renewal data, Nutanix will enable partners to proactively address issues, to ensure their customers are not only satisfied, but also thriving.

Getting Customers to Hybrid Multicloud Faster

With the Nutanix Cloud Clusters™ (NC2) solution, partners can deliver on the promise of hybrid without expensive retooling or reworking. Starting now, Nutanix delivers the ability to leverage cloud marketplaces as a new route to market, including integrations with both the Microsoft Azure® and AWS® marketplaces. Most importantly, partners receive the same discount advantages as they would through traditional transaction avenues. Partners can now take advantage of seamless transactions and reduced sales cycles with their customers using programs such as the AWS Channel-Partner-Private Offer (CPPO) and Azure Multiparty Private Offers (MPO) where available.

Learn more about the Elevate Partner Program here.

Appointments, Cloud Platforms, Hyperconvergence, News, Technology

Nutanix Promotes Paulo Pereira to Vice President of EMEA Presales

Nutanix, a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, today announced that Paulo Pereira joins the worldwide leadership team as Vice President, EMEA Presales. 

Paulo joined Nutanix in 2016, where he hit the ground running as a Systems Engineering (SE) Manager for the Middle East. With his dedication and strategic approach, he quickly moved into managing EMEA Emerging Markets, where he has been leading with distinction for the last 5 years. Before Nutanix, Paulo spent 16 years at Cisco, working in diverse roles across Portugal, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Commenting on the appointment, Mike Phelan, SVP Global Solution Sales at Nutanix says, “Paulo’s passion for work, and life, shine through in his leadership style.  Those who have worked closely with Paulo remark on his ability to simultaneously inspire, challenge and mentor others through change. He is deeply analytical, thoughtful, a straight shooter, and someone who doesn’t shy away from a challenge.  I couldn’t be more excited about what he will accomplish in this new leadership role at Nutanix.”

“I am truly honoured to lead Nutanix’s EMEA pre-sales team, at an exciting time when digital transformation is the need of the hour, cloud computing and AI are imperatives and no longer a luxury. In the cloud space, Nutanix is at the forefront of innovation – solving the very toughest challenges that plague organisations as they try to wrap their minds around the complexities of hybrid cloud. We understand that enterprises have unique requirements and are at different stages of the cloud adoption cycle, and our job is to identify and match technology opportunities with customers’ business issues and objectives. I’m looking forward to progressing the great work that’s currently underway and excited to move Nutanix’s business to the next level across the region,” concludes Paulo Pereira.

Cloud Platforms, News, Tech, Technology

Lack of Cloud Management Continues to Drive Significant Waste of IT Resources: Aptum Study 

Data from Aptum study finds cloud modernization delivers the ideal opportunity to reduce and reinvest resources   

Aptum, a global provider of Managed Services and Advisory & Consulting Services, has recently released part two of its annual Cloud Impact Study 2023 – Maximizing Value: Controlling costs and optimizing cloud spend. According to the study, 71% of IT professionals surveyed stated that cloud-related costs make up 30% or more of their total IT spend.

The study involved 400 senior IT professionals from organizations with 250+ employees across the U.S., Canada, and UK. It explores the trends in cloud cost management and how these trends have evolved over time.  

In today’s challenging economic climate, organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the financial implications of their business operations. While the cloud has brought benefits such as flexibility, scalability, agility, and cost efficiency to organizations in recent years, there are still unforeseen costs. More than half (52%) of IT professionals admitted their organizations have wasted significant IT spend due to inefficiencies with cloud platforms and services.  

In fact, 73% of IT respondents reported that their cloud investment has resulted in higher-than-expected IT costs within the last 12 months, marking a 28% increase compared to 2021 figures. Additionally, the majority (92%) of IT professionals stated that they are likely to conduct a full ROI (return-on-investment) analysis of cloud spending, a rise from 89% in 2022. But what is causing these increased costs?  

The survey identified several factors, including poor planning, a lack of internal expertise, the  acceleration of cloud adoption, and a lack of familiarity with complex cloud solutions. These challenges are considerably magnified when organizations implement a hybrid, multi-cloud strategy that incorporates both on-premises and public cloud services for different data services and workloads. Currently, 62% of respondents agree that a lack of internal expertise has prevented them from expediting cloud implementations. However, to mitigate these escalating costs, developing skills and knowledge in cloud strategy is crucial.  

  

“Many organizations believe they are excelling in the cloud, but in reality, like flying in a cloud, they have to rely on instrumentation, which is usually inadequate to begin with, and piloting experience which takes time to develop,” said Ian Rae, CEO & President at Aptum. “It isn’t the cloud that is costly but the lack of observability and governance which hinder management and lead to cost overruns. This shortfall significantly hampers the ability to unlock the cloud’s potential for enhancing operational efficiency while controlling costs.”  

  

The results demonstrate that organizations struggle to fully realize the value of their cloud spending as they expand their adoption of cloud services. The lack of a comprehensive, multi-cloud strategy poses a challenge for many IT leaders, preventing them from fully harnessing the transformative capabilities of the cloud.   

But continued cost savings rely on a clear cloud investment strategy that focuses on visibility and control of costs – especially for those accelerating cloud investment and moving into more complex, multi- and hybrid cloud environments. FinOps principles are key to ensuring organizations are operating efficiently in the cloud:  

  • Cost Visibility and Accountability: FinOps helps gain visibility into cloud expenditures, allowing teams to be more conscious of their spending.  
  • Optimized Resource Usage: FinOps practices help identify underutilized or unused resources, leading to termination or downsizing.  
  • Enhanced Decision-Making and Forecasting: With clear insights, informed decisions can be made based on usage analysis, reducing the likelihood of unexpected overruns.  
  • Cultural Change: A FinOps culture encourages cost to be an organizational mindset and a standard part of operational discussions.

  • Continuous Improvement: The iterative nature of FinOps ensures continuous improvement to cloud financial management
    practices, leading to ongoing savings.      

To access the complete findings from part two of Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study 2023, click here to view the report.  

  

About Aptum  

Aptum is a global provider of Managed Services and Advisory & Consulting Services, enabling customers to control and optimize workloads across multiple public and private clouds. The company helps customers “Own your destiny in the cloud™” by solving complex technology challenges with comprehensive, outcome-based solutions. The Aptum approach is cloud platform-agnostic, empowering customers to improve performance and security of workloads; enable workload portability and optimization; and drive greater flexibility and agility while lowering costs; all with unified management and reporting which span North America, Latin America, UK, and Europe. Aptum is a portfolio company of DigitalBridge, a global investment firm dedicated to strategic opportunities in digital infrastructure. For more information, visit www.aptum.com.   

Cloud Platforms, Digital Transformation, Games Sector, News

First Asian Games Core Systems to be Hosted on Alibaba Cloud

Global cloud leader plays a critical role to support digital transformation of the Hangzhou Asian Games 

In a mission to accelerate the digitalisation of the Asian Games, the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee (HAGOC) has launched its core systems on Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. Alibaba Cloud’s robust, reliable and secure technologies will support the first “Asian Games on the Cloud”, to facilitate more intelligent, sustainable, sophisticated and efficient Asian Games – to be held in Hangzhou, the company’s headquarters, from September 23 to October 8.

The core systems, comprising Games Management Systems (GMS), Results Distribution Systems (RDS) and Games Support Systems (GSS), will support around-the-clock operations of 56 competition venues and other critical facilities such as the information technology management centre, main media centre and the Hangzhou Asian Games Villages, serving more than 100,000 registered users, including the athletes, broadcasters, journalists, staff and volunteers from 45 countries and regions across the globe.

As the Games’ official information technology integrator and cloud service provider, Alibaba Cloud is responsible for running an all-on-cloud Asian Games, leveraging its proven track record in supporting large-scale worldwide sports events.

Selina Yuan, President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, said: “We have extensive experience supporting large-scale global sports events building upon our proven cloud technologies and trusted services. We are proud and excited to return to our headquarters this year to help deliver an innovative, efficient, sustainable and inclusive Asian Games in Hangzhou. With the even more advanced core systems support, we are committed to an effective collaboration with the Games’ stakeholders, and with further improved cloud broadcast technologies, we will bring more engaging viewing experiences to the global audience and sports fans.”

“The Hangzhou Asian Games will be another milestone for Alibaba Cloud to show how robust, scalable and secure cloud computing technologies can help drive digital transformation of large-scale sports events to bring sports and entertainment to every corner of the world,” Yuan added.

State-of-the art architecture seamlessly integrates with cloud-native core systems

Alibaba Cloud provides the fundamental architecture that supports the seamless integration of the core systems as well as intelligent applications such as cloud broadcasting and event organisation and communications.

For example, at the end of each competition the Results Distribution System will receive data from the timing and scoring system at the venue, which will be further integrated into the central system for distribution in different formats through different application programming interfaces (APIs), such as the results display and news feeds. All of these are built on the Alibaba Cloud to ensure efficient, accurate and stable results distribution.

Using cloud-native technology and running it on Alibaba Cloud’s container services, the company enables more agile, scalable and efficient operations of the event. In addition, there is no longer a need for physical data centres that require large dedicated space and maintenance facilities to run. Cloud resources will be released once the event is concluded, making the games more environmentally friendly.

More than 5,000 hours of excitement transmitted through live cloud broadcasting

The Hangzhou Asian Games will also be the first in the games’ history during which Rights-Holding Broadcasters (RHBs) will receive live footage through public cloud infrastructure. Alibaba Cloud expects to transmit more than 5,000 hours of live footage through as many as 68 high-definition (HD) and ultra-high-definition (UHD) feeds during the event. In addition to live broadcast, the cloud-based content platform delivers footage in HD or UHD, highlights of the Games and news flashes for RHBs to present to the audience’s mobile or other devices.

During the Games, the cloud broadcasting will transcend physical boundaries and bring the excitement to audiences across Asia and the rest of the world, through Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure and services in Hangzhou to ApsaraVideo Live Centers in Shanghai and Beijing as well as regional cloud resources in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and Singapore.

Prior to cloud broadcasting, broadcasters had to rely on dedicated and more costly international telecommunication optical circuits and spend a considerable amount of time to set up the equipment, in order to send live footage halfway across the globe back to their home countries. Now leveraging the highly scalable, resilient and secure global infrastructure of Alibaba Cloud and its network acceleration service – Global Accelerator – live multilateral content in high quality over the public cloud with a fraction of the cost and minimum time for set-up can be delivered.

Cloud technology helps bring smart Asian Games Villages

The Hangzhou Asian Games has launched an Intelligent Operation Platform to manage the operation of the three Asian Games Villages, which is expected to host over 20,000 athletes, reporters and officials. The platform leverages Alibaba Cloud’s advanced visualisation tool to analyse real-time intelligence to further streamline the management system, while providing a more seamless user experience for those who live in the Villages.

For example, Alibaba Cloud’s solution utilises real-time information to analyse traffic and crowd management. A warning will be provided on a dashboard if a public area gets too crowded for public safety. Extreme weather, power failure and fire warnings are also available for the organiser’s intelligence-driven decisions.

With Alibaba Cloud’s natural language processing (NLP) technology, an intelligent service robot will also provide all-day online consulting services in both English and Chinese for people living in the Asian Games Villages through a web application service. The chatbot can provide real-time responses related to the services available in the Villages.

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About Alibaba Cloud

Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud (www.alibabacloud.com) is the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. It offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization services, large-scale computing, security, management and application services, big data analytics, a machine learning platform and IoT services. Alibaba maintained its position as the third leading public cloud IaaS service provider globally since 2018, according to IDC. Alibaba is the world’s third leading and Asia Pacific’s leading IaaS provider by revenue in U.S. dollars since 2018, according

Business, Cloud Platforms, Data & Analytics, Digital Skills

Top 10 Reasons to Choose Dynamics 365 Business Central

In the competitive world of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, there are a plethora of options to choose from. However, when it comes to striking the perfect balance between functionality, integration, and cost-effectiveness, few can compete with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. If you’re on the fence about which ERP system to implement, here are the top 10 reasons why Dynamics 365 Business Central stands out from the rest.

1. Comprehensive Integration

One of the main advantages of Dynamics 365 Business Central is its seamless integration with other Microsoft products, such as Office 365, Power BI, and Azure. This makes data flow effortlessly between systems and allows businesses to create a holistic, connected ecosystem.

2. User-Friendly Interface

Business Central boasts a modern, intuitive interface that even newcomers find easy to navigate. With its role-tailored dashboards and visuals, users can easily access the information they need, when they need it.

3. Dynamics 365 Business Central scalability

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to business. Dynamics 365 Business Central understands this and offers scalable solutions. Whether you’re a startup or an established enterprise, the system scales according to your needs, ensuring it’s a good fit no matter how big or small your operations.

4. Cloud Capability

Operating in the cloud has become the new norm for many businesses. D365 BC offers a robust cloud-based solution, which means you get instant updates, reduced hardware costs, and the flexibility to access your data from anywhere.

5. Robust Financial Management

The financial management capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central are top-notch. With real-time financial metrics and built-in analytics, it provides businesses with an edge when managing their financial operations.

6. Tailored Solutions

Not all industries have the same requirements. Business Central offers industry-specific solutions, catering to sectors like manufacturing, retail, finance, and more. This means the software aligns with your industry’s unique challenges and needs.

7. Secure and Compliant

Security is paramount in today’s digital world. Dynamics 365 Business Central provides a highly secure environment, adhering to the strictest of compliance standards. Regular updates ensure that your data is always protected against potential threats.

8. Streamlined Supply Chain Management

For businesses that rely on efficient supply chains, D365 BC offers a comprehensive supply chain management module. This helps in optimising inventory levels, improving lead times, and enhancing customer service.

9. Affordability

Compared to other ERP solutions in the market, Business Central offers a competitive pricing model. It provides a high return on investment, ensuring that businesses get the most bang for their buck.

10. Continuous Innovation

Microsoft’s commitment to innovation means D365 BC is always at the forefront of ERP technology. Regular updates, new feature roll-outs, and a robust support community ensure that your ERP system is always up-to-date and capable of meeting emerging business challenges.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP system stands out as a comprehensive, user-friendly, and scalable solution. With its integration capabilities, real-time insights, and robust features, it’s no wonder that businesses across the globe are opting for D365 BC. Executing a system is frequently more efficient when guided by a licensed Microsoft Partner.

A suitable collaborator grasps your business objectives, guarantees harmonious amalgamation with current operations, and provides essential instruction and assistance. With a licensed Microsoft Partner like Nav24, system implementation becomes efficient and aligned with business goals. Nav24 not only ensures seamless integration with existing operations but also anticipates potential challenges, ensuring optimal system performance. Their track record and expertise make them a top choice for those seeking a dedicated partner to maximise their Business Central’s success.

Cloud Platforms, Cloud Providers, News

Alibaba Cloud Named a Leader Among FaaS Platform Providers

Function Compute received the highest scores across 26 out of the 40 ranking criteria in an independent research

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Functions-As-A-Service Platforms, Q2 2023.

The report states that Functions-As-A-Service (FaaS) platforms should deliver a “world-class developer experience, provide robust security capabilities and enable everyday use cases with enhanced workload portability.” Vendors in the Wave, including Alibaba Cloud’s Function Compute were evaluated across 40 criteria grouped into three high-level categories – Current Offering, Strategy, and Market Presence. Alibaba obtained the highest score (4.43 out of 5.00) in the Current Offering category.

Key features of Function Compute were noted in the report, including its built-in visual autoscaling configuration capabilities, granular pricing models, user adoption strategy and emphasis on open source community support. Its ability to accommodate “web use cases, content-centric workloads and portability across hybrid environments” was also mentioned.

“As digitalisation deepens across the business world, the ability to seamlessly build serverless applications is only going to grow in importance. Our efforts to support the enterprises and developer community with a secure and flexible FaaS platform have, in our opinion, been recognised in this latest Forrester evaluation and we believe it reflects the progress we are making. We look forward to continuing to invest in our capabilities and innovate new ways to push the boundaries of our serverless product offerings,” said Jiangwei Jiang, Senior Researcher and General Manager of Infrastructure Products, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

 

Alibaba Cloud’s serverless computing platform Function Compute for highly simplified, scalable and efficient infrastructure 

Alibaba Cloud’s Function Compute is a fully managed, event-driven compute service which alleviates users from managing their own infrastructure. Its secure and stable, pay-as-you-go platform is designed to simplify the computing experience to enable faster development and iteration of business logic and core code. The FaaS platform also scales and mobilises computing resources within milliseconds to handle spikes in online traffic, delivering reliable performance over time.

Function Compute has a proven track record across a variety of use cases, which include supporting online events, audio and video content, gaming and e-commerce, among others. One example is HEROZ, a Japanese artificial intelligence company providing solutions to a range of sectors, which was looking for a solution to lower its operations and maintenance (O&M) costs as well as better manage its peak and off-peak computing traffic periods. HEROZ adopted Function Compute to enhance its computing stability, improve the user experience while reducing churn, and lower its O&M costs.

 

Sampras (HK) Limited, Alibaba Cloud’s Hong Kong-based web development solutions partner, offers a wide range of services with an expertise in mobile platform and social media integrations. Together with Function Compute, Sampras products help businesses lower costs and optimise their support for e-commerce activity, covering flash sales, lotteries, and virtual queuing.

Alibaba Cloud recently introduced a 3-month free trial program of Function Compute. Global customers can try deploying their applications and services on Function Compute for serverless computing experience.

 

Cloud Platforms, Hyperconvergence, News

Financial Industry Ranks Second in Most Hybrid Multicloud Deployments

Nutanix, a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, has today announced the financial services industry findings of its fifth annual Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey, which measures enterprise progress with cloud adoption. 

The research reveals that mixed deployments among financial companies are at 64%, which is slightly ahead of the global average, and data security considerations drive many of the financial sector’s infrastructure investment and application mobility decisions. This remarkable adoption rate in financialservices reflects the highly competitive industry’s commitment to significantly enhance the customer experience, leveraging hybrid multicloud deployments to fuel digitalisation, advanced data capabilities, and modernise applications.

“Increased infrastructure diversity and a heightened emphasis on data storage, management, security, and cloud-native services are driving all IT professionals to seek hybrid operations that transcend private and public infrastructure. As evidenced by recent regulatory measures such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), operational resilience and concentration risk are additional driving factors to hybrid model adoption,” said Ian Haynes, EMEA Field CTO, Nutanix. “For cloud deployment models, the financialservices industry has emerged as a frontrunner, surpassing many other sectors in embracing the hybrid multicloud approach.”

Key findings from this year’s report include:

  • Hybrid multicloud adoption has accelerated and is expected to rise infinancial  The financial services industry has made significant progress in adopting cloud technology over the past year, with 64% of those surveyed using multiple IT environments – whether a mix of private and public clouds, multiple public clouds, or on-premises and hosted private infrastructure.
  • Cybersecurity is the biggest IT infrastructure driver.The financial sector and global respondents prioritised cybersecurity above all else. This is not surprising, given the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks and the critical role that IT plays in financial services organisations.
  • Mixed environments create new challenges and demand for a single place to manage all workloads and data.Most ECI respondents agree that having a single platform to manage their diverse private and public infrastructures would be ideal. Among those from financial firms, 96% agreed. However, only 42% reported actually having that visibility. The visibility findings indicate a gap in capabilities, highlighting the need for integrated tools to improve hybrid IT operations. Without visibility, IT teams are unable to manage, secure, synchronise, or analyse what they cannot see.
  • The overriding driver of application movement among ECIfinancial services firms in the past year was to improve data access speeds. All respondents in the financial sector (100%) indicated that they had moved applications between IT infrastructures in the past 12 months. Nearly half (49%) cited a desire to accelerate data access as a reason for the move. This driver was followed by aspirations to improve their companies’ security posture or better meet regulatory requirements and to gain the ability to integrate with cloud-native services, such as AI and machine learning.
  • Cost factors remain a wild card. ECI respondents tend to be fickle in their attitudes toward IT cost, which seems to be inching downward on IT priority lists – falling to last on global respondents’ infrastructure criteria lists and tying for fourth in importance amongfinancial At the same time, most respondents rank controlling costs high on their list of challenges. For example, 87% of financial services respondents described cloud cost control as a challenge with managing their current IT infrastructures, and about a third said it was a significant one.

For the fifth consecutive year, Vanson Bourne conducted research on behalf of Nutanix, surveying 1,450 IT decision-makers around the world in December 2022 and January 2023. This report is supplemental to the global 5th Annual Enterprise Cloud Index master report and focuses specifically on cloud deployments within the financial services industry. It sheds light on the cloud plans, priorities, challenges, and experiences of IT professionals operating in this sector, offering valuable insights for comparison with global responses and other industries. Gain a deeper understanding of the cloud deployment journey of financialservices organisations and uncover key trends and benchmarks in this ever-evolving landscape.

To learn more about the report and findings, please download the full fifth Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index, here.