Malaysia’s largest pay TV operator, Astro Malaysia Holdings, is looking to start a streaming service to take on deep-pocketed, international rivals such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. According to a report by Nikkei Asia, Astro is planning to launch a new streaming service sometime in 2021. The service will mainly focus on the original content made by the pay-TV company. This includes their numerous productions spanning multiple genres such as movies, series, and variety shows. Naturally, the main audience Astro is looking at for now, is the Malaysian audience.
Source: Astro Malaysia
Astro’s ability to subsidize local content production and its understanding of the market gives it and added advantage over global competitors. The report by Nikkei also pointed out that Astro is relying on its knowledge on the Malaysian market as well as its extensive customer, marketing, and sales reach in order to attract other content providers. Astro will be a natural partner to welcome any companies that are seeking to enter the Malaysia market . Astro has so far partnered with HBO GO and China’s iQIYI which aligns with Astro’s efforts to position itself as a “super aggregator” of digital content.
As it enters the Streaming (known in the industry as over the top (OTT)) it will be looking at catering to different groups which have emerged. This can be seen from the pricing strategies adopted by its competition which caters to unique groups with different psychologies. However, it seems that one thing that may take anyone by surprise, the pay TV operator isn’t going to banking on its brand for the streaming service opting to go with a completely new brand.
VMWorld is happening now and coincidently, NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference is also happening. Both are happening online, obviously with the current pandemic situation. In NVIDIA’s most recent keynote, they made an announcement to tell the world that they have just formed a partnership with VMWare to enhance their virtualisation capabilities via NVIDIA’s new GPU based computing solutions.
Today’s start of the show though is not NVIDIA, although they have made some very interesting announcements and progress. Today sees VMWare embracing Kubernetes as a big part of their business. Today is the day of Tanzu.
Kubernetes
Source: Kubernetes
What is Kubernetes? First of all, no; this is not the first time we look into the technology. Secondly, the technology is nothing new, Google has been playing with Kubernetes for the longest time, and other solutions providers have hopped on to the technology for years now.
Kubernetes, in the words of Red Hat, is a container orchestration platform. The keyword, that I missed out on purpose, is Open Source. That also means that anyone has access to it, improve on it, and improvise it for their own use. It is a technology developed by Google engineers for Google’s own use at one point, but because Google is Google, they made it an open source platform.
In simpler words, Kubernetes group processes and application databases into cubes (or containers). These cubes can be called upon whenever an application requires a certain data or run certain processes. That also means that you do not need to necessarily store your application database with your application. It can be kept and shifted around anywhere, even on cloud. It is even clever enough to stack and unstack itself depending on requirements and loads on your hardware. If something fails, you do not lose all your data, because containers. This is the magic of Kubernetes, and it could benefit plenty of enterprises.
The VMware Tanzu
Source: VMware
This is where VMware’s Tanzu comes in. The Tanzu portfolio is not exactly a pure Kubernetes workflow platform. It runs microservices, other sort of containers and Kubernetes as well. To put it plainly, it is an application breakdown tool. It breaks down a large application or database into smaller containers, run them as microservices or work with them as Kubernetes containers, and you get a service that is accessible not only in your office, but at the café down the road as well.
Yes, it sounds generally like what other container type application and tool does. Because it is exactly that but made native to VMWare’s tools. Tools like this allow companies to add capabilities to their applications and processes while keeping them running in tip top conditions. They call this DevOps.
The whole idea of running Tanzu on the VMware platform is to quickly deploy your applications on cloud. Because it is VMware as well, Tanzu is specifically built on Kubernetes to enhance their virtualisation solutions like vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation. That also means that Tanzu is a cloud solution more than anything. It is also technically a Kubernetes management tool to simplify Kubernetes for users. So, it helps you, as VMware’s clients (if you are, when you are, whichever it may be) get started with Kubernetes nearly on the get go.
They may be a little late to the game of deploying Kubernetes and even fully harnessing the power of Kubernetes. They are also not going to be the last adopters of Kubernetes. In some sense too, they are simplifying Kubernetes by a factor of 10 for their customers.
Source: IT Hollow
In this case as well, customers might already have their own Kubernetes and container management tools in their workflow at this point. VMware says that customers still can benefit from Tanzu even if they have a Kubernetes workflow already. According to VMware, Tanzu does not just stop at Kubernetes. It is a suite of tools designed to ease workloads and centralise management efforts for customers. In that sense, integrating Tanzu into an existing Kubernetes workload and process is just a matter of matching what is required via Tanzu’s Mission Control platform.
Why Tanzu and Kubernetes?
Here is the thing though, how does this change our lives? How does VMware with Kubernetes power change our lives? After all, we are all just end-users.
If you work in a corporate environment, at this time of Pandemic, you would most likely be spending more time working remotely more than anything else. Imagine yourself, multiplied by more than a few hundred. There are hundreds, or even thousands of you and your colleagues trying to access your company’s intranet systems. You and your colleagues are going to be accessing the company’s systems to simply key in new data, or pull a previous data, or even share some work information with your colleagues 20KM away.
Imagine if you need to access the whole chunk of applications to do any of that. Imagine if all your colleagues need to access a single application server for all their minor processes too. That could slow down your entire workflow. Kubernetes and container platforms help spread that workload to ease load on a single server and ensure that everyone gets to do what they need to do without overloading your PC and the cloud platform.
Essentially, this is also kind of how your smartphone app works. Your smartphone apps access what you ask it to access when you need it. That way, it saves plenty of storage space in your smartphone, and ensure that millions of others can also access the app and its services when there is demand.
So, why is Tanzu important? It allows your company to do exactly whatever that we have just explained and described. Except that your organisation’s IT department can do it faster, from a single management platform instead of accessing a completely different system. With vSphere, the management can be done across multiple server sites too, thanks to VMware’s know how in machine virtualisation. All this, just so that you will not notice any difference when you work from home, and in the office.
To know more about VMware, their services and solutions, and Tanzu, you can head over to their website.
COVID-19 poses a unique challenge to businesses, forcing them to adopt practices which many only saw further down the road when it came to their digitization plans. In fact, we’ve seen the effects of the pandemic on many businesses who have failed to adapt or adopt plans to build in resilience in these unprecedented times. That said, the big question remains, “How can businesses be more resilient with the COVID-19 reality?”.
There are many factors that lend itself to a business’s resilience but one of the biggest factors is the company’s progress in their plans for digitization. Conor McNamara, Managing Director of ASEAN at Amazon Web Services (AWS), highlights that a company’s progress towards digitization, particularly in their adoption of cloud technologies, has been one of the determining factors of resilience during these times. He has also highlighted that the transition to the cloud isn’t simply a technological one, it’s a multifaceted one that builds in capacity, increases agility, changes mindsets, and transforms the culture of an organisation.
Thriving Businesses Have Used COVID-19 as an Impetus for Digitization
No one can deny it. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way that companies and businesses need to operate. Research has shown that the new realities of the pandemic have led to an increase in demand for resources such as the internet. This is inevitably spurred by the increased adoption of work from home policies necessitated by lockdowns the world over – a clear indication that our business realities have changed. This is corroborated by AWS, which reported an increased uptake of services such as Amazon Chime, their web-conferencing platform, Amazon Workspaces and other productivity related services.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of digital transformation across all industries. So far indications are that organizations, including those in ASEAN, have already adopted DX plans and/or accelerated their transformation plans have been known to have coped better with the crisis.”
Daphne Chung, Research Director, IDC Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) cloud services, and software research group
That said, digitization doesn’t happen overnight. Companies have to create an environment that allows and empowers staff and decision makers to adopt technologies such as AWS. The adoption of public and private cloud technologies have allowed many AWS customers to adapt to the new realities more seamlessly. In fact, Globe Telecom was able to spin up virtual call centers with Amazon Connect which allowed them to adapt to the new realities with ease and even increase staff productivity since the pandemic hit. What’s more, the company was able to affect this transition in 24 hours. Of course, the reality is that not many companies will be able to do this.
“Many businesses and organizations have now understood the importance of the cloud and are committed more than ever to get their business on the cloud. At AWS, we keep many organizations functioning, and allow them to adapt when a crisis such as the pandemic occurs.”
Conor McNamara, Managing Director of ASEAN at Amazon Web Services
The new realities of the pandemic have allowed companies to expedite their plans for digitization and cloud adoption. Those who have been successful in taking advantage of the new realities as an impetus for plans already in the pipeline are the ones who have most demonstrated the most resilience with the current situation.
It’s always been said that digitization is a journey. Yet, we never think to ask who would be the best to guide and determine the course the company takes. Conor McNamara stresses that the business resilience of any given orgranisation is very dependent on the company’s executives. Decisions and policies made by CXOs are what will enable companies to maximize the opportunity that COVID-19 has presented to accelerate a company’s digital trajectory.
It’s pretty simple; when the decision to adopt cloud technologies and further advance the company’s digital journey comes from the level of CXOs, it naturally sets off a cascade which will allow companies to think differently. The CEO’s acceptance that the future of business is in the cloud sets off a cascade of events that start with the search for and upskilling of staff to meet the new needs of the business. The demand for skills that enable the company to be competitive and prepared for further advancements in their journey. It also creates a new mindset mired in the need to be agile and proactive to meet customer needs.
IDC sees an opportunity to manage the downturn better by using technology to minimize the impact of the current crisis and emerge on the other side of the curve resilient, more digitally fit and agile, and ultimately, better equipped to capture their share of the new opportunities as part of the “next normal”.
Daphne Chung, Research Director, IDC Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) cloud services, and software research group
This impetus prepares businesses to handle situations like the current pandemic. The skills, demands and needs of businesses literally changed overnight as countries began to lockdown. Brick and mortar businesses were forced to consider adopting digital and cloud technologies to keep their businesses viable. Businesses which were already making the shift to cloud and digital technologies with CXO driven policies have so far been the most resilient and adaptable.
In fact, the current realities have been used as an opportunity to upskill workforces. AWS shares that since the beginning of the lockdowns, there has been a sharp uptick in the demand for certification courses and trainings in their AWS Education platform.
It’s a People Related Change
Perhaps the most important quote we can share from Conor McNamara is this: “[Digital Transformation] is a People related change”. He said this while he was explaining some of the new realities AWS’s customers have been facing – and when it comes to it, it seems like the statement rings true in every aspect of a business’ digital transformation; every step of the way involves dealing with people.
The digital transformation journey is one that involves a major cultural change. A change that shifts the mindset of preparedness to deal with any given situation. Creating a culture of work which prepares staff for ambiguity and change. In some cases, these businesses have made failure a norm. They adopt providers such as AWS to minimise the cost of failure and continue to innovate. This is one of the hallmarks of a business which has been able to deal with the realities of the pandemic. These companies are ready or have already adopted cloud and are prepared for the new work from home norm; it wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that they may be the ones best prepared for the next norm post COVID.
Adopting cloud and shifting to digital usually has the connotation of being cold and impersonal. However, one take away from businesses that are showing resilience is that it couldn’t be further from the truth. These businesses have shifted their focus to their clients and customers building solutions catered to their needs. Perhaps more importantly, their digital transformation and shift to the cloud has made them more cognizant to the needs of their clients and customers.
Business Resilience is Built from the Top Down and Empowered by the right technologies
Essentially, business resilience is built from the top down with policies spearheaded by CXOs and CEOs that drive a cultural change in the company; one which prepares them for sudden and constant change, allowing businesses to be agile and adaptable. That said, these changes are empowered by companies such as AWS who provide the cost optimizations and technologies that allow this shift to happen. This has been tried and tested with the harsh realities of the pandemic.
‘Samsung AI Forum 2020’ Explores the Future of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)! This is an interesting forum that highlights the future of AI and a platform to exchange ideas, researches and insights . It will be held via its Youtube channel for two days from the 2nd November 2020 to 3rd November 2020. The most exciting part is that the forum gathers industry experts from various industries in a discussion on the future of A.I.
As you know, Samsung is one of the largest technology company in the world and delivers the world with transformative ideas. They make some of the best selling and highly acclaimed electronics in the world too. Samsung technically makes nearly all sort of electronics; including televisions, smartphones, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, LED solutions, memory, and even network systems.
The forum on the first day of the conference, on the 2nd of November, will be hosted by Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT). Dr. Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman and CEO of Device solutions at Samsung Electronics will deliver opening remarks in the forum. There will be no shortage of presentations by the world’s most renowned A.I. Experts on “AI Technologies for Changes in the Real World.”
Many of the professionals will have sharing sessions on day 1 especially the winner of the 2018 Turing Award (it is like the “Nobel Price” in computing), Professor Yoshua Bengio will be co-chairing for the forum in this event. On the first day of the event, the “researcher of the year” award will be presented to the winner as well as a US$ 30,000 prize.
Day 2, themed “Human-Centered AI”, will see Dr. Sebastian Seung the president and head of Samsung Research engage with A.I. experts to deliver a speech and share their different insights. Professor Christopher Manning, a conspicuous expert will also deliver the current status and future of Natural Language Processing (NLP) that required for Human-Centered AI. He has been working with Samsung on Q&A and dialogue modelling on the overall of NLP technologies development.
Samsung’s AI forum, as mentioned earlier, will be held on the 2nd November 2020 onward. It will be held exclusively on their YouTube page, which also means that it will be absolutely free to watch and ‘attend. You might want to register and look for more information on the Forum in their website too.
In this COVID-19 global pandemic era, there is not a single CFO out there who isn’t scrutinizing their company’s spend. It has been very challenging for Malaysian businesses as well – with a weakening economy, supply chain disruptions, knock-on effects from troubled sectors and loss of jobs.
Fortunately, data’s role has exploded in the business world and is favourably impacting the situation. To properly assess a company’s financial position, a CFO needs to be able to effectively access data. The key is to take a large amount of information and narrow it down to action items. Effectively harnessing important data can be an issue.
IT has evolved from being a background cost centre generating reports used to close the books, to a place where data is housed, manipulated and made available, which is key to running a successful business. IT is no longer in the background, carrying out mundane operations; it is capturing vital data and is now a strategic voice in running a business. When a CFO can effectively capture and analyse data, he or she can improve specific strategic areas. As a result, there is an increasing collaboration between CFOs and CIOs as IT formats data and provides insight into what might be most helpful to Finance.
The COVID-19 Challenges
While financial scrutiny is applicable to all areas, IT is different because most CFOs do not know all the specific technological nuances for his or her company. As the pandemic forces businesses to deal with unprecedented financial challenges and pressures, the CIO needs to help provide perspective to the CFO for necessary actions and what items might be able to be temporarily suspended without harming the business.
Buying IT equipment requires cash, and all companies are looking at actions to maximize cash flow and minimize expenses as COVID-19 impacts the global economy. Some expenditures are going to have to be delayed as cash is prioritized away from capital expenses. Most CFOs will not know what IT department costs to reduce without a collaborative conversation with the CIO.
One strategy I consistently employ with our CIO, which has been extremely helpful during this crisis, is a regularly scheduled, detailed review of all ad-hoc expenses across the company, looking for technology items that should be aggregated or are not compliant with standards. This is an area that requires CIO input and experience.
Relying on Each Other
It is very difficult for CFOs to keep up with IT. It evolves so rapidly and requires specialty knowledge; generalists are left in the dust when it comes to technological progress. A CFO can measure costs but determining capabilities and staying ahead of what is on the horizon requires a specialist, a CIO. At the same time, technology often offers glitzy, fancy new toys, and it is imperative that IT professionals stay focused on what type of capital is available, what they want to spend it on, and how their values are aligned with the business.
Communication and collaboration with our CIO to work on business cases for development projects helps validate the financials of the project. A working knowledge of the ever-changing standards in technology protects financial projections and budgets.
CFOs are focused on maintaining normal business activity without increasing expenses. Industry analyst Gartner has reported for many years that third party maintenance is less expensive than what OEMs offer. And the service is just as good if not better. If anybody came to you and demonstrated, “You’re paying $100,000 for this service; I can do it for $50,000-$60,000 and I’m going to do it better,” there’s not a CFO who wouldn’t take that deal, but it would require CIO scrutiny and knowledge.
I.T.’s Unique Contributions
In my collaborations with I.T. leaders, I have learned that I.T. is uniquely positioned to scan the entire company for technology-enabled improvements: revenue opportunities, productivity increases and cost savings. When the CIO and the CFO collaborate to find and implement these improvements, the company becomes more effective than if a siloed approach is taken on a per-department basis.
While COVID-19 is a challenge, it also presents an opportunity to identify improvements. As people are suddenly forced into working in a different model, the traditional ways of doing business can be challenged more quickly. A collaboration between the CIO and the CFO in looking at the results of the workforce being sent home may present opportunities in office utilization, software purchases, hardware deployment and other areas.
While hardware and software expenses are relatively easy to monitor and measure against the company’s metrics, the implementation of IT projects is a key collaboration area for CFOs and CIOs. Every project brought forward to IT can have cost structures that include outside purchases as well as internal labour. Projects need to bring value to the company; and the calculation of that value, perhaps in the form of ROI, requires CIO and CFO collaboration to accurately calculate the value and measure the results after the project is in place.
With our CIO, I consult with an ongoing process analysis team that looks for cost reduction opportunities that won’t impact customer satisfaction. This input is key to make sure a potential financial decision that may benefit the company does not negatively impact customer service.
The Park Place Difference
CFOs will not know that value without CIOs sharing the information. For example, CFOs and CIOs together can protect their business revenues and their business-critical IT by “sweating” their IT assets longer through value-added life-cycle support services. Maximizing payback and ROI on hardware infrastructure can yield financial benefits for the longer term.
There is a new category to look out for: Discover, Monitor, Support and Optimize (DMSO), that Park Place Technologies is uniquely positioned to deliver for its customers. It is a fully integrated approach to managing critical infrastructure that can help businesses manage data centre remotely, optimise network performance with analytics, and simplify the management of complex hybrid environments while realising cost-saving.
As businesses continue their digital transformations, they depend on data that resides on-premises, in public and private clouds, devices at the edge and networks, and operation centers that span the globe. Managing these complex environments is increasingly becoming more difficult. Exponential increases in time, labor and cost, as well as the complexity of navigating a maze of service providers to establish clear accountability and support, requires a more intelligent and flexible approach as DMSO. We are all hoping the COVID-19 era passes quickly. But the long-term necessity and benefits of CFOs and CIOs collaborating will continue well beyond the current crisis and will remain an ongoing part of any business’s evolution, strategy and long-term health
Up until the early part of this year, simple daily activities such as taking a train to work, entering a crowded elevator, and sitting down in an open workspace with colleagues were things no one would hesitate to do, and perhaps even took for granted. The appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic changed that in almost an instant. For employers and employees, the workplace experience moving forward may never be the same, ever again. Businesses are undergoing massive changes in a transformation process to meet the needs and demands of the post-pandemic world.
What does that look like for an enterprise? The answer is simple: create a new model of hybrid working where employees continue to work remotely, only coming into the office to collaborate on projects. In this scenario, the office then turns into a business center – or collaboration space – which may also indicate the end of the open office era and a shift in the purpose of a company’s headquarters as we once knew it.
We all know that this shift is here to stay. According to recent research from Gartner, 82 percent of company leaders are planning to let employees work remotely, at least some of the time. And a new global Lenovo study finds that employees expect a similar swing in employer mentality, with 52 percent of respondents noting they believe they’ll continue to work from home more than they did pre-COVID-19 – even after social distancing measures lift.
As employers realize that this distributed workforce is not going anywhere, the shift to the office as a business center will only continue to grow. This will make the need for a solid IT foundation, inclusive of dependable employee personal devices, strong cybersecurity software (and education), and remote IT support even more integral than it once was.
In looking at the role of technology and how it has evolved during this pandemic, we can take a step back to when COVID-19 first started to impact businesses globally. The number of remote employees increased at a pace more rapid than anyone expected or was even prepared to handle. As a result, collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom saw usage skyrocket, with Teams seeing an increase of users as much as 70 percent and Zoom revenue soars 169 percent ever since the pandemic first struck. In this process, as employees and consumers alike started leaning on videos to spend time with coworkers – whether for meetings or company “happy hours” – these tools evolved their functionalities to make the user experience more seamless.
Today, employers have started to realize that their employees have been just as productive from home as they would have been in the office. Lenovo’s research shows that almost two-thirds of the global workforce surveyed feel they are more productive working from home than in the office. So, the question then becomes – why bring them back to the office, and why not instead save on real estate costs and invest in stronger technology to equip a hybrid workforce?
With that mindset, technology will only continue to evolve to meet employee and employer needs. Beyond collaboration software, the other tools that remain central for employee productivity in our hybrid work environment include personal laptops, noise-canceling headsets, and large monitors.
In the office, that may mean creating a “touchless environment” where employees have their collaboration technology to minimize physical contact. Or it may mean creating smaller phone booths and huddle spaces as a move away from the open floorplan, which could be equipped with standalone video software making it easy to collaborate from one room to the next. On the go, it may be arming employees with a foldable PC that makes it easier and more convenient to transition from the office to a coffee shop to home or anywhere in between. And at home, it may require employers to invest in products employees need for their “home office,” such as standing desks or ergonomic chairs.
For IT departments, this makes it integral to invest in the infrastructure that enables IT to manage a large remote workforce. This can include increasing cloud storage for more remote storage, doubling down on security solutions to manage the increase in cyber threats, and remote IT solutions to help troubleshoot employee tech issues from afar.
While the new “business center” model may not be a fit for all organizations, one thing we know is that office as we know it will be different in the coming years. Work from anywhere will become a norm, company real estate footprints may shrink, and employees will expect much more of their employers than ever before.
The Malaysian creative industry is climbing up the ladder! Since it’s nascent years, the industry has been working to create innovative content and share Malaysian stories. The Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) has been hard at work promoting and upskilling the industry’s key players since 2009 and it has been endeavouring to create an international platform to grow and progress the ASEAN region’s animation and emerging media industries. Kre8tif! was their chosen platform to marry regional talent with international players.
Kre8tif! 2020 is happening on the 7th to 10th of September 2020! This is an interesting conference that highlights the Malaysian Digital Content industry. It is happening virtually now, with over 700 participants from all over the world. You can even attend it for free. Participants will be able to gain insights from companies like Netflix, Epic Games, Pixar and Disney!
In this podcast, we spoke to Hasnul about this year’s Kre8tif! conference and how they are pivoting themselves around the current pandemic. We got a little insight too on what we can expect from this year’s virtual conference! You can find more information on Kre8tif on https://kre8tif.com.my/!
Hasnul Hadi is currently the Vice President of the Digital Creative Content Division over at MDEC. He has spent nearly a decade advocating and championing the game development and creative industry in Malaysia. He and his team have been tirelessly working away behind the scenes pushing policies and connecting companies to build the creative industry. Aside from his dedication in making Malaysia a creative powerhouse in the Southeast Asian region, he’s also an avid gamer. He’s spent many hours honing his gaming skills behind a keyboard, on a controller and on-the-go!
2020 will be remembered as the year the world experienced its largest ever work-from-home experiment as the global pandemic forced businesses to move operations online and adapt to a new distributed workforce.
As some markets around the globe gradually ease some restrictions and allow employees to go back to the office, the situation remains in a delicate balance and work as we know it has been redefined for many. Increasingly, organisations are embracing the new work model and the many benefits that come with it including increased employee well-being and better work-life balance. In fact, some organisations are now establishing permanent work-from-home policies with 60 percent of the largest companies integrating flexible virtual-physical collaborative environments by 2021, according to Bain & Company. This is supported by Lenovo’s Work From Home survey which found that nearly half (46 percent) of employees are as productive when working from home as they are in the office, with 15 percent saying that productivity increases at home.
The survey also found that 87 percent of workers feel somewhat ready to adapt to a distributed, work-from-anywhere environment if required. So too are cybercriminals. The looming uncertainty among employees of the delicate, everchanging global circumstances, combined with their unfamiliarity with the new work arrangement, has created a wealth of opportunities for cyber-attacks. Cyber criminals are taking advantage of the situation to launch COVID-themed attacks, phishing attempts and spread fake news. In Malaysia, cybersecurity cases have seen a surge of more than 90% during the Movement Control Order (MCO) so far compared to the same period last year, CyberSecurity Malaysia revealed.
Watch for your blind spots
With employees accessing confidential data from various devices, locations, and unsecured networks, it opens more endpoints and vulnerabilities for cyberattacks. In our hyper-digital and mobile world, hardware security is becoming ever more critical, as across the globe, each person is expected to own 6.58 network connected devices in 2020. In fact, according to cybersecurity solutions provider Sepio Systems, there has been a 300 percent increase in the number of new connected devices from unknown vendors attached to the enterprise network.
While a majority of employees are working primarily from home, it is only a matter of time before they begin heading back to shared workspaces, coffee shops and planes and once again enjoy the flexibility of working from anywhere. This means that an organisation’s network, database and confidential files may be accessed from unsecured VPNs, unknown networks, and rogue access points. Without proper security standards put in place, hackers can easily gain access to an organisation’s network via vulnerable devices and execute attacks remotely. Organisations must take this into consideration and be on the offensive to mitigate potential attacks before malicious entities infiltrate company systems and confidential data.
Adopt a Zero Trust mindset
The nature of a distributed workforce removes the luxury of face-to-face identification and validation. Tech Wire Asia reported that cyber scams based on COVID-19 becomes prevalent in recent months, as hackers look to capitalize on the virus-driven uncertainty affecting individuals, enterprises, and governments. This means that organisations must double down on their efforts in credential and access management and continue to educate employees to identify and weed out impersonation scams and phishing attempts. As hackers grow in sophistication, organisations and employees must take a Zero Trust. In order to protect business and employee data, organisations must implement a system to ensure that the right people have access to the right data at the right time, on a ‘need-to-know’ basis.
Empowering a distributed workforce with cybersecurity
To reap the full benefits of a distributed workforce in the long run, organisations must provide employees with secure devices and create a safe digital environment to operate in, allowing them to focus on the job at hand. This shift to a decentralised work environment means that IT teams must have extended visibility over digital platforms and the organisations digital ecosystems in order to identify and mitigate potential threats in a timely manner.
However, with the shortage of cyber talent and growing digital footprint, this can take a toll on IT teams. IT teams must be supported to enhance their capabilities with solutions that provide both hardware and software security. For example, Lenovo’s ThinkShield solution helps secure devices from development through disposal, giving IT admins more visibility into end points and providing easier and more secure authentication. Lenovo has also partnered with SentinelOne to leverage its behavioral AI technology to predict tomorrow’s attacks today and allow ThinkShield devices to predict cyberattacks and enable devices to self-heal from any attack instantaneously, adding another critical layer to our ThinkShield offering.
As employees have quickly adapted to new work structures in these unique times, organisations must also embrace the risk that comes with it and put in place the right measures and solutions to create a secure and robust environment for employees to operate in. One way Lenovo helps organisations empower employees is by offering services that supports remote workers. For employees who do not have access to IT helpdesks, Lenovo’s Premier Support allows for direct, 24/7 access to elite Lenovo engineers who provide unscripted troubleshooting and comprehensive support for hardware and software. This results in less downtime for end users when things go wrong, freeing IT staff up to focus on strategic efforts.
Only then will organisations and employees be able to reap the full benefits of a distributed workforce and build a stronger digital foundation to effectively navigate and succeed in the new world of work.
As the world rapidly evolves, digitalization is taking place across all aspects of life, and ushering in a rise in cloud adoption. Today, it is vital for employees to understand and acquire the skills it takes to succeed and stay relevant for jobs in the digital economy. Cloud architects must keep up with the pace by adapting and expanding their existing skillset in order to be considered valuable candidates and employees.
As cloud adoption rises, it is not surprising to see growing demand for cloud expertise. Based on the Malaysian Institute of Accounts’ “MIA-ACCA Business Outlook Report 2020,” 25% of organizations in Malaysia say they are allocating at least 10% of their budget for technology, including investing in big data analytics (64%), cloud computing (57%) and more.[1] Yet, research shows that 90% of IT decision-makers report cloud skills shortages in their workforce.[2]
When I first started out in the IT industry years ago, the role of cloud architect was almost nonexistent. However, cloud adoption has grown considerably since then, and the role of cloud architect is currently in high demand and will continue to present endless opportunities for business growth and innovation.
But first – what does a cloud architect do?
Cloud architects are responsible for managing an organization’s cloud computing architecture. They have in-depth knowledge of the architectural principles and services used to develop technical cloud strategy, assist with cloud migration efforts, review workload architectures, and provide guidance on how to address high-risk issues. To do this, cloud architects need a mix of business, technical, and people skills, as well as an understanding of the always-evolving, technical training that may benefit their team.
At Amazon Web Services (AWS), I lead a team of cloud solutions architect in Southeast Asia, and we are constantly on the lookout for individuals with a builder’s mentality and a desire to build, invent, and innovate on behalf of their customers. This is especially important as the role of cloud architect has evolved beyond just architecting infrastructure solutions like database and storage, to building and innovating reliable solutions that involve emerging technologies such as machine learning.
What skills are most important for a cloud architect?
Flexibility and Eagerness to Learn
A cloud architect must be able to work in a wide variety of scenarios and be open to learn the unique requirements of each project. With a curious mind-set, cloud architects can be better equipped to seek out new approaches to problem solving.
Cloud architecture professionals must possess strong time management skills. Their days are varied and can include customer meetings to discuss problems and needs and designing architectural frameworks for those needs. As such, cloud architects are mindful to plan their days, prioritize their time on tasks, and understand how to maximize small pockets of time.
Communication Skills, Business Acumen, and Decisiveness
Cloud architects are encouraged to ask for a seat at the decision-making table and be prepared to communicate their design to any stakeholder. Successful cloud architects know how to communicate to audiences with little or no technical knowledge, while aligning their recommendations to business imperatives and the bottom-line. Other than that, stakeholders also rely on cloud architects to provide guidance from a calm, leading place of domain authority.
Industry Technical Credentials
A cloud architect must also possess the necessary technical skills to serve as the foundation for cloud architecture planning and management, including basic programming, software development and continuous integration, database, networking and security skills, modern application architecture skills, and more.
Additionally, cloud architects can attain an industry-recognized certification, such as the new AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification, which validates the ability to design and deploy well-architected solutions on AWS that meet customer requirements.
Over the last few years, I have seen cloud computing evolve from a relatively unknown technology to a leading driver of business results. While the technology has grown and changed significantly, most skills needed to succeed in its use have remained largely constant. By committing to understand how to use cloud to its full potential – and empowering the professionals who make that possible – we can make the most of the tremendous opportunity cloud creates for businesses and employees to thrive.
[1] MIA (Malaysian Institute of Accountants) and ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), Business Outlook Report 2020, 2020
Paul Chen is the head of Architecture for Amazon Web Services ASEAN, Paul is responsible for managing a regional team of Solutions Architects, creating architectural best practices and working with customers on how they use the cloud for business transformation.
He has 30 years of pre-sales leadership and solutions experience in the IT Industry, with 15+ years in technical management across ASEAN and Asia Pacific. His breath of technology experience includes cloud architectures, application solutions development, database platforms, web-based applications, networking, enterprise mobility solutions, virtualized unified communications and customer experience platforms.
Can you briefly explain AWS Outposts?
AWS Outposts is here to support your applications that have low latency or local data processing requirements on premise. These applications may need to make near real time responses to end user applications or need to communicate with other on-premises systems or control on-site equipment. These can include workloads running on factory floors for automated operations in manufacturing, real time patient diagnosis or medical imaging, and content and media streaming. You can use AWS Outposts to run applications that need to access data stores that will continue to remain on-premises.
Businesses in Malaysia are stuck somewhere in between when it comes to could computing and going digital. Can AWS Outposts help them accelerate their digitisation? How can they benefit from it?
We continue to believe that in the fullness of time, the vast majority of companies will run almost all of their IT workloads in the cloud. It is today and always has been a priority for us to make it easy for customers to run AWS as a seamless extension of their existing on-premises infrastructure. However, we have many customers who are going to be running on-premises data centers alongside AWS for many years to come and at varying paces. These customers are looking to us to help ensure that they have seamless integration between these two environments. That’s why we have been investing so much in hybrid capabilities over the past several years.
AWS offers the broadest and deepest hybrid capabilities including data integration and transport services, integrated and dedicated networking services, and identity and access management solutions fully integrated with the on-premises environment. Today, customers can take the tools they have from VMware and use them to run their workloads on AWS. This partnership makes it easy for customers to run in a hybrid mode between AWS and their VMware-based on-premises deployments using the same VMware tools and skillsets they have today. And with the availability of AWS Outposts, customers can now use the same AWS APIs, control plane, tools, and hardware on-premises and in the AWS cloud to deliver a truly consistent hybrid experience.
Why choose Outposts instead of using the AWS’s pre-existing cloud infrastructure?
AWS Outposts is designed for several different uses cases where workloads need to run on premises due to latency requirements, like:
Manufacturing automation—operating manufacturing process control systems and automated plant assembly lines
Health care—delivering real-time medical diagnostics and imaging to physicians
Telecommunications—building new network services and deploying virtual network functionality
Media & entertainment—delivering live event streaming, real-time gaming, rendering, and VFX
Financial services—developing low latency trading platforms in a secure environment
Retail—delivering real-time interactive retail services and unifying apps across environments
With Outposts, customer can benefit of running low-latency workloads, processing data locally and be able to harness the innovative services available on the AWS cloud. This can mean advanced analytics to monetize data or adding machine learning and artificial intelligence services such as Amazon Rekognition, Amazon Personalize and Amazon Comprehend.
Customers should run AWS Local Zones when they need to run their applications with single-digit millisecond latencies close to end users, but they don’t want to build and operate a datacenter or co-location facility. They can run the parts of their application in the Local Zone that requires ultra-low latency and connect back to the rest of their application and the full range of services running in AWS.
Customers should run AWS Wavelength when they want to build an applications that require single digit millisecond latency to mobile and connected devices over the 5G network. A range of emerging applications like machine learning inference, industrial IoT, and AR/VR require ultra-low latency to serve mobile users and connected devices, ad developers can place the parts of their application that require single-digit millisecond latency at the edge of the 5G network and then connect back to the rest of the application and the full range of services in AWS.
During the launch at AWS Re:invent last year, AWS announced that it was partnering with Verizon in the US. Why launch with a telco provider?
Amazon is partnering with Verizon to incorporate AWS WaveLength technology into parts of its wireless network. Amazon is also working with other global partners, such as Vodafone, KDDI and SK Telecom to provide this capability. This capability will result in fewer disruptions and shorter lag times when streaming videos, among other applications.
Who are your partners in rolling out Outposts in Malaysia? What are the roles that they are playing in providing the service to customers?
One of the partners in Malaysia is Maxis where they will incorporate Maxis cloud offerings and professional services to incorporate hybrid cloud and technologies to address edge computing.
We also have InfoFabrica who will be working with us to help outfit interested customers with Outposts.
We operate on a few models; customers will come directly to us or work with partners with Malaysia. Marketplace model – direct from us. Reseller model – contact reseller and work with the customers on the Outposts. – NSI model – customer work through NSI.
AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners provide technology and consulting services to help customers migrate, build, and run applications using AWS services.
APN Consulting Partners around the globe can help you with strategy and technology advisory services to migrate your on-premises applications onto Outposts as well as a variety of installation and maintenance options. You can also use Outposts validated technology partner solutions to build and run your applications on Outposts.
Does Outpost require a stable internet connection to operate? Can customers use Outpost offline? What happens to workloads if internet connection is lost suddenly?
To provide a consistent user experience, AWS advises customers to have 1GB internet over direct connect or VPN. The rack only needs 10MB to run but AWS recommends a default of 1 GB to be safe.
An AWS Outpost relies on connectivity to the parent AWS Region. AWS Outposts are not designed for disconnected operations or environments with limited to no connectivity. We recommend that customers have highly available networking connections back to their AWS Region. If interested in leveraging AWS services in disconnected environments such as cruise ships or remote mining locations, learn more about AWS services such as Snowball Edge.
If connection is lost suddenly, EC2 instances and EBS volumes on the Outpost will continue to operate normally and can be accessed locally via the local gateway. Similarly, AWS service resources such as ECS worker nodes continue to run locally. However, API availability will be degraded, for instance run/start/stop/terminate APIs may not work. Instance metrics and logs will continue to be cached locally for a few hours and will be pushed to the AWS Region when connectivity returns. Disconnection beyond a few hours however may result in loss of metrics and logs. As Route53 DNS will not resolve when disconnected, an on-premises DNS resolver should be used if network disconnections are expected. If you expect to lose network connectivity, we strongly recommend regularly testing your workload to ensure it behaves properly in this state when an Outpost is disconnected.
AWS Outposts are a managed service according to your website. What does “Fully Managed” mean? What does this entail?
AWS Outposts is the only fully managed offering available to customers today. AWS delivers, installs, and maintains the infrastructure the same way as we do in our data centers. Competitive offerings do not address key customer pain points in a production grade hybrid environment. They require customers to build against a limited set of services and APIs, forcing them to write custom software that quickly becomes inconsistent and incompatible with cloud services. It requires customers to set up and manage different operating environments for each site, resulting in duplicate effort, higher complexity, and increased risk. Customers must also manually manage, upgrade, and patch software themselves, and risk dropping out of compliance if they fail to upgrade. Customers also have to purchase hardware from third party vendors, who are responsible for providing the first line of customer support, making it administratively difficult to debug and resolve their issues.
How secure is AWS Outpost? Are there built-in redundancies when it comes to preventing data loss and data security?
Each AWS Outposts rack has a built-in tamper detection and a lockable door. AWS engineered a capability in a form of security key that looks like a screw specifically made for the chip. To remove the hardware from the rack, you must use the screw and turn it and it will crush the security chip key and once its crushed, the server and the data is protected. It is also encrypted by default.
AWS Outposts builds on the AWS Nitro system technologies that enables AWS to provide enhanced security that continuously monitors, protects, and verifies your Outpost’s instance hardware and firmware. With AWS Nitro, virtualization resources are offloaded to dedicated hardware and software minimizing the attack surface. Finally, Nitro System’s security model is locked down and prohibits administrative access, eliminating the possibility of human error and tampering.
AWS Outposts have an updated shared responsibility model underlying security. AWS is responsible for protecting Outposts’ infrastructure similar to how it secures infrastructure in the cloud today. Customers are responsible for securing their applications running on Outposts as they do in the Region today. With Outposts, customers are also responsible for the physical security of their Outpost racks, and for ensuring consistent networking to the Outpost.
Securing data
Data-at-rest: Data is encrypted at rest by default on EBS volumes on Outposts.
Data-in-transit: Data is encrypted in transit between Outposts and the AWS Region.
Deleting data: All data is deleted when instances are terminated in the same way as in the AWS Region.
AWS Outposts have been out for more than half a year now. How many countries is the service available in?
Outposts can be shipped to and installed in the following countries
NA – US, Canada, Mexico
EMEA – All EU countries, Switzerland, Norway, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Israel, South Africa
APAC – Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India
SA – Brazil
Support for more countries is coming soon.
Have there been any particular segment of customers that have adopted Outposts more than others? Do you see an opportunity for other segments to take advantage of Outpost?
There has been broad interest in AWS Outposts from both enterprise and start up customers, across a range of industries including financial services, e-commerce, healthcare and manufacturing.
With AWS Outposts infrastructure, customers in manufacturing can AWS services to run manufacturing process control systems such as MES and SCADA systems and applications that need to run close to factory floor equipment. These on-premises applications can integrate with services running in the AWS Region for centralized operations.
Healthcare customers can apply analytics and machine learning AWS services to health management systems that need to remain on premises due to low latency processing requirements. This will enable rapid retrieval of medical information by storing data locally on Outposts.
At the launch, Andy Jassy mentioned that the launch of AWS Outposts is step in providing services for edge computing. How does Outposts do this?
One common scenario for AWS Outposts is running applications that need single-digit millisecond latency to end-users or onsite equipment. Customer may want to run graphics-intensive applications such as image analysis that need low-latency access to end-users or storage-intensive workloads that collect and process hundreds of TBs daily. Others may need to run compute-intensive workloads on their manufacturing factory floors with precision and quality. Customers want to integrate their cloud deployments with their on-premises environments and use AWS services for a consistent hybrid experience. Outposts is both a way to deploy an AWS-centric hybrid-cloud and an edge computing approach.
How do you see the landscape changing with the introduction of AWS Outposts?
With the introduction of AWS Outposts, customer from a broad array of industries can bring the benefits of cloud computing right to their business door-steps. Business solutions requiring low latency performance can seamlessly be integrated to the cloud and deployed to provide a truly hybrid experience. Customers that have large amount of on-premise data can also process these sets of data in more meaningful ways to monetize the data assets. In this AWS hybrid-cloud approach, you use the same AWS application programming interfaces (API), tools and infrastructure both on your premises and the AWS cloud. Outposts bring native AWS services, infrastructure, and operating models to virtually any data center, co-location space, or on-premises facility.
With Malaysia’s big move into supporting and growing its tech space, particularly its animation and game development segment, where do you see AWS Outposts fitting in?
In the gaming industry, the applications tend to be very sensitive to latency and require considerable processing resources to provide rich animation and customer experience.
With AWS Outposts, gaming developers will have access to the latest GPU innovations on premises for graphics processing, audio and video rendering, and for running other media applications. Support live and real-time event streaming applications that require low latency by running those applications in on-premises locations close to end users.
