News Roundup: Week of Nov 10, 2019

by | 14 Nov 2019

Forrester Predicts 2020 as the Year of Edge Computing

According to Network World, a new set of predictions from Forrester Research sets 2020 as the year that “propels edge computing into the enterprise technology limelight for good.” The article suggests that this shift will bring telecom companies into a much more prominent role in the cloud market, especially given the increasing availability of edge computing via 5G infrastructure. Multi-vendor solutions and integrated systems that can leverage this new infrastructure are predicted to be in high demand in the near future.

Edge computing is very similar to the Cloud, Fog and Flood concept Patrick Kerpan described on the CohesiveFT Blog back in 2012. We’ve always believed this was the natural future progression of cloud and distributed computing. We’ll be re-publishing some updated discussions of this and similar insights in the coming weeks, including the Cloud, Fog, and Flood post, so stay tuned!

Google Gets Access to Patient Data via Ascension Deal

The New York Times recently revisited an event earlier this year where Google “signed its biggest cloud computing customer in healthcare to date” with Ascension, in a deal that, according to The Wall Street Journal, allows Google to “collect and crunch the detailed personal-health information of millions of people across 21 states.” Google has promised that patient data “cannot and will not be combined with any Google consumer data” and both parties claim the partnership is in full compliance with HIPAA. Ascension is optimistic that Google’s AI capabilities will allow them to “help improve clinical effectiveness as well as patient safety.”

Microsoft Releases Graphcore AI Chip to Azure Customers

Microsoft recently announced the availability of its new Graphcore AI chip, which promises to better “support the calculations that help machines to recognize faces, understand speech, parse language, drive cars, and train robots.” According to a recent article from Wired, many companies “claim that certain image-processing tasks work many times faster on Graphcore’s chips” and are praising the programmability of the chips. Graphcore plans to increase adoption and usability via their own software framework, Poplar, “which allows existing AI programs to be ported to its hardware.”

Enterprise Cloud Prefers Hybrid-Cloud Deployments

In a recent Yahoo! Finance article , Nutanix, Inc. revealed the results of an Enterprise Cloud Index survey, which suggest that 85% of respondents favored a hybrid-cloud deployment as their ideal operating model. The article highlights some key findings from the report, emphasizing the flexibility and agility offered by hybrid-cloud deployments:

  1. Apps are migrating away from the public cloud back to on-premises infrastructures.
  2. Security remains the biggest factor impacting enterprises’ future cloud strategies.
  3. IT professionals deem the hybrid cloud the most secure of all the IT operating models.
  4. Nearly a quarter (23.5%) of respondents currently aren’t leveraging any cloud technology today.
  5. Enterprises are striving to integrate cloud computing with their digital transformation goals. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of 2019 respondents said digital transformation was driving their cloud implementations, and 64% said that digital transformation was the top business priority in their organizations.

The report emphasizes that “hybrid cloud will continue to be the best option for enterprises, enabling them to securely meet modernization and agility requirements for workloads.”

AWS re:Invent 2019 is Almost Here!

If you’re as excited as we are for re:Invent 2019 than you’re probably also counting down the days. As 2020 shapes up to be a very impactful year for the cloud, hybrid-cloud, and edge computing, we’re intrigued to see what AWS has in store for all of us. If you are joining us as attendees this year please don’t hesitate to contact us beforehand!