FinOps X 2024: AWS, Google, Microsoft Commit to Normalizing Cloud Billing

C. Dunlap Research Director

Summary Bullets:

• With AWS’ first-time attendance, all three cloud giants were present at FinOps X this year.

• The cost of AI will impact FinOps budgets.

No one is “running” in FinOps, said FinOps Foundation executive director J.R. Storment during last week’s June 19-22, 2024 FinOps X keynote speech. Storment described new community project stages as either being in the crawl, walk, or run phase, depending on their technology evolution and adoption rates. The FinOps X conference has only been around since 2022 but is quickly garnering a following, not only of technology and cloud leaders, but also various personas dedicating careers to the emerging space. Workers range from traditional IT operations professionals to non-IT workers coming from accounting and finance backgrounds as part of a reskilling trend happening in this sector. FinOps, short for financial operations, refer to sets of cloud cost management tools. The practice encompasses a relatively new operational framework and initiative being more broadly recognized among enterprises undergoing digital transformations by migrating applications to the cloud and/or creating cloud native apps.

Telcos Need to Define Their Own Role Within the AI Value Chain

G. Barton Research Director

Summary Bullets:

• Telcos can use AI both internally and in customer facing-roles to achieve differentiation.

• There is an opportunity for telcos to help enterprises adopt AI and become AI enablers – both for large enterprises and the SMB market.

“Nobody knows how AI will impact networks!” so said the CEO of one of the world’s largest telecoms technology vendors at a recent industry event. In this statement lies the potential opportunity and the potential challenge for telcos in becoming major players in the AI boom.

UK Government Investigating HPE Acquisition of Juniper

S. Schuchart

Summary Bullets:

• The addition of Juniper’s enterprise business is unlikely to have a serious anticompetitive effect on the robust campus access market, which includes LAN and WLAN networks, as well as the management and policy software that runs them.

• Juniper will make HPE’s data center business more attractive to enterprises, but often the server/storage decision and networking decision is made separately, especially in greenfield situations.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has started an investigation into HPE’s plan to acquire Juniper Networks, which is set to complete in late 2024 or early 2025. With a deal size of approximately $14 billion dollars and HPE’s position in the enterprise infrastructure market, it’s not a surprise that the deal is receiving scrutiny by regulators. There has been a spate of acquisitions in the tech sector that have been blocked in the last few years, including Nvidia buying Arm and the CMA also put the acquisition of VMware by Broadcom under considerable scrutiny.

What Should Enterprises Look for in a Managed Services Provider?

Gary Barton – Analyst, Business Network and IT Services

Summary Bullets:
• Technology complexity and skills shortages are leading more enterprises to look towards managed network and security solutions

• Enterprises should look for flexible, reliable providers who can offer a full range of managed and professional services from day zero to day two

GlobalData’s conversations with enterprises over the last two years have highlighted a growing trend towards managed network services – a trend that is borne out by GlobalData’s Market Opportunity Forecasts. This trend is true even among large and multinational enterprises in the US who have traditionally favored a DIY approach. Enterprises have indicated multiple reasons for this move, primary among which are complexity and skills shortages.

US Government Accountability Office Sounds Alarm About Critical Cybersecurity Challenges

Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

• In a report to Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the cyber threat environment is throwing challenges at public and private sector entities alike that put national security, the economy, the environment, and human safety at risk. As evidence, the GAO cited the fact that federal agencies reported 30,659 cybersecurity incidents to the Department of Homeland Security’s US Computer Emergency Readiness Team in 2022.

• The report urged government agencies to work in tandem with the private sector to ward off threats.

A GAO report to Congress flagged the serious, and in many cases unaddressed, risks that could jeopardize national security. Since 2010, the agency has recommended to other agencies 1,610 steps to close security gaps. The current cyber risk report noted that nearly 600 of these haven’t been acted upon, putting the security of federal systems and critical infrastructure at risk. The GAO blamed a mix of competing budget priorities, communications failures, and the inability of some agencies to accurately measure outcomes.

US Surgeon General Wants a Warning Label for Social Media

Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

• In an opinion piece published in The New York Times, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy calls for a warning label for social media to educate adolescents and adults about the links between the medium and negative mental health effects.

• Referencing research that ties adolescent depression, poor body image, and harassment to social media consumption, Murthy says that while a warning label will not correct the issues, it would go a long way toward educating the public about the potential for harm associated with sites like Snapchat and Instagram.

Social media companies have long been under fire for using algorithms to manipulate sometimes vulnerable populations into viewing potentially harmful content. By its nature, social media encourages overuse to the point of near-addiction. Research has uncovered links between anxiety and depression in adolescents and social media use. A JAMA Network survey of 6,595 US adolescents finds that spending just 30 minutes on social media leads to an increase in internalizing issues and becoming depressed. The longer the session, the higher the rate of anxiety and depression. The study indicates that teenagers who spend three or more hours daily on social media are at a higher risk for mental health issues.

Operators Face Multiple Hurdles Before 5G Network Slicing Can Be Offered Commercially

John Marcus – Senior Principal Analyst, Enterprise IoT, Mobility, Private Networks, and Service Innovations.

Summary Bullets:

• In January 2024, GlobalData predicted that the business services units of mobile operators would begin promoting 5G network slicing in 2024, educating enterprise customers about the technology being enabled by their rollouts of 5G standalone (SA) technology.

• Even with some progress on 5G SA rollouts around the world (and a handful of commercial trials), it’s already clear that this prediction was premature.

The potential with slicing to create multiple virtual networks within a single physical infrastructure – each tailored to specific needs – is still very much there, but a number of challenges must yet be addressed before operators can successfully launch 5G network slicing solutions for enterprises.

Recalled – AI Frenzy Leads to Microsoft Blunder

S. Schuchart

Recently Microsoft announced a feature for its Windows operating system called Recall. Designed for ‘AI PCs,’ Recall saves all of a user’s activity by taking screenshots of every window, every five seconds. It performs OCR to extract text from images and all other on-screen text. Then it saves it all in a local database. AI indexes the data, making it easy to find.

Generative AI Watch: Salesforce’s World Tour Event Confirms the Trend Toward Vector Databases

B. Valle

Summary Bullets:

• Salesforce is leveraging generative AI (GenAI) capabilities to address customer pain points such as processing unstructured data and unlocking the value in this data creating unified customer profiles.

• With Salesforce Hyperforce, the company is trying to address customers’ growing appetite for compliance, safety, and standardization as well as data residence requirements in the public cloud.

The Salesforce World Tour took place on June 6, 2024, at the Excel Centre in East London (England), with sponsors such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cognizant, Deloitte, and PWC. The annual event included workshops, demos, and discussions with partners, the announcement of an AI center, and innovations in the Salesforce Data Cloud and Slack platforms. For GenAI observers, the most salient news was the general availability of Salesforce Data Cloud Vector Database, built into the Salesforce Einstein 1 Platform, which infuses GenAI into the vendor’s CRM platform, Salesforce Customer 360. The vector database collects, “ingests,” and combines structured and unstructured data regarding end users. This is of great importance to Salesforce’s customers’ customers. According to the vendor, around 80% of customer data is scattered across internal corporate departments in an unstructured configuration, “trapped” in PDFs, emails, chat conversations, transcripts, customer reviews, and so on. This data can be leveraged to create a closer overall relationship with the customer by creating a unified profile of the so-called customer journey. Being able to ground all types of data in Salesforce Data Cloud – where it is processed – unlocks a ton of valuable information and not just to engage with the customer in positive ways: It makes it possible to be agile as possible in case of problems including issues such as product recall, returns, and so on.

Ericsson Flexes Increasing US Strength with 5G Factory, Federal Contract, and AT&T Win

R. Bhattacharyya

Summary Bullets:

• Ericsson is investing to solidify and expand its US presence and ecosystem of partners to gain an edge over competitors based overseas.

• Ericsson’s messaging reflects the evolving domestic political climate and changing global geopolitical environment.

In late May 2024, Ericsson hosted industry analysts to its 5G smart factory in Dallas, Texas (US). The key theme of the event was that Ericsson provides “5G made in the US, for the US.” The Swedish telecom equipment provider reminded attendees that it has been operating in the US for 122 years and that 26% of its sales are from North America. Furthermore, it maintains six R&D facilities, employs 7,600 people, and has invested over $7 billion in acquisitions in the region. In March 2024, the company formed a new division, Ericsson Federal Technologies Group, to help the US federal government deploy 5G solutions. Via its Dallas facility, Ericsson meets the government’s requirements to support open RAN technologies and equipment manufactured in the US.