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Month: December 2022

Eight Quick Tips to Choose the Best Public Cloud Provider

Posted on by siteowner

Cloud adoption is all pervasive today – across industries, businesses and geographies.

One of the drivers for this high rate of adoption is the fact that cloud services support digital innovation by providing scalable and cost-effective solutions for software infrastructure, storage, security, connectivity and other specialised services. Cloud migration for enterprises of any size is therefore not a question of ‘if’, but of ‘when’ and more specifically, ‘how’.

Cloud Migration: The Big Question

Whether your organization is thinking of migrating its on-premise setup to the cloud or you are a consulting company that needs to offer a recommendation to the client; the biggest and the most fundamental challenge is to identify the right cloud service provider. The obvious top three names in this space are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Compute Engine(GCP). There are others too, but these three are the most mature and hence the most sought after providers. An important aspect to consider here is that not every provider suits every kind of requirement.  While the spectrum of offerings may be wide, yet the choice has to pivot around the business needs that drive the cloud migration.

There are several instances where the companies who migrated their workload to the cloud realized much later in the journey that the chosen service provider was not the right one. Some of them have had to go back to square one and initiate migrating from one cloud to another. A deeper knowledge and understanding of cloud service providers therefore is required to make a wise decision. If the expertise on this subject is not available in-house, consulting cloud specialists for their expert opinion and recommendation is certainly a good idea.

The cloud system infrastructure services (IaaS) segment is forecast to grow by 30.5 percent in 2023 compared to 2022. The public cloud services market as a whole is expected to grow by 21.3 percent, with only cloud business process services (BPaaS) experiencing single digit annual growth rates.
Source Statista

How to Select a Cloud Service Provider?

Now that we have established the need to choose wisely, let us look at the aspects that you should consider before selecting a cloud provider.   I bring you a checklist of eight.

1. On-premise Workload Environment

A thorough research and comprehensive knowledge of the on-premise workload environment that needs to be migrated to the cloud is fundamental to making the right decision. The workload environment includes the operating systems, software, network protocols and many other aspects. Below is a reference list of some elements that comprise this environment:

  • Operating systems (Windows or Linux)
  • Open source or license software requirements
  • Public-facing or internal applications
  • Application network port requirements
  • Virtual machine hardening
  • Dependencies on other applications
  • Internal application releases
  • Security concerns
  • Application auto scaling capabilities.

2. The Goal of the Migration

After identifying the workloads to be migrated, the next important fix is to comprehend, ‘what do we want to achieve from this migration?’. The goal of the migration needs to be clearly defined and communicated correctly within the team and the enterprise as a whole. Everyone in the organization should know the benefits and the reasons why they are migrating the workload to the cloud. Below are a few reasons and benefits that organizations could consider:

  • Accessibility for their customers
  • On-premises hardware expiry
  • Acquisition of additional hardware
  • Organization expansion and subsequent auto-scaling
  • Cost optimization
  • 24 hours’ availability.

3. Motivated and inspired Team

Involving a well-rounded team in the migration plan and taking suggestions from them is often overlooked. Undoubtedly, an inspired and motivated team can be the secret ingredient and a big asset in the long migration journey. Here’s how you can inspire and motivate your team,

  • Involve them in the migration discussions right from the start
  • Take suggestions from them
  • Discuss the goals, objectives and challenges
  • Give appreciation to those who deserve
  • Provide the required training.

4. Costing

It is important to know the cost benefits of each provider before arriving at the final decision.  Compare the costs for the long term in a systematic and objective way. Here are some pointers on how to go about it:

  • Create a Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) for 3 years to monitor and predict expenses
  • Understand the cost for reserved, spot, and on-demand instances for services
  • Compare the major expense component
  • Do a region-wise comparison
  • Compare the cost with Rehost, Refactor, Re-Architect, and Re-build strategy approaches
  • Ask for discounts on specific types of resources that you would be deploying more and the regions where your workloads will be deployed
  • Ask to omit or reduce the software and VM license cost for development and testing environments
  • Understand the cost of hiring the resources for different cloud providers.

5. Perform Proof of Concepts  

Select an appropriate workload to perform POC (Proof of Concepts) on all the cloud service providers you are considering. It will give you a correct overview of your environment and help you to visualize the actual results. You can also get an idea of whether your solutions will work on the cloud or not. Below are the points you can consider after POCs,

  • Feasibility of the solution
  • Architectural approach
  • Cloud readiness and easiness
  • DevOps and Automation
  • Cloud running cost
  • Software availability
  • Performance on each cloud
  • Scalability of each cloud.

6. Cloud Provider’s Resources Availability

Till this step you may have done everything right. From setting up the goal to comparing costs, motivating your team, and completing the PoCs.  You may have even narrowed down your search to a chosen cloud service provider. However before starting the migration process, you will need to recruit specialist resources. That is when you may realize that the skillset for this provider is not available in the market and now your entire plan is at a risk. This problem is usually faced by service provider companies. Finding the correct candidate for your cloud migration project may feel like treasure hunting. If the specific cloud technology is rare, your company will need to spend more time and money to find the correct candidates. The availability of technical resources in the market for cloud service providers is therefore a critical aspect to factor. Some points to note,

  • AWS is a more mature cloud service provider and so AWS skilled resources are available easily.
  • Azure is now slowly gaining traction. So resources with Azure skillset are also available but not as easily.
  • GCP is still in its nascent stage. Technical skills for the GCP cloud are not easy to find.
  • Oracle, IBM and Alibaba are much behind in public cloud penetration and hence finding relevant resources will be very tough.

It goes without saying that cost of hiring resources will go up if their availability is low.

7. Community and Cloud Service Provider’s Support

Before selecting the cloud providers check their service plans, service support time and methods. Do make note of any add-on facilities. Also, check the community support available for the providers. Below are some points to consider along these lines,

  • Cost of support
  • Types of support (Email, Phone, Chat Video conference, etc.)
  • SLA time
  • Marketplace resource support
  • Service support.

8. Software Availability

If you are using Rehost migration approach and you have some specific requirements for the software and its version, then it is worth checking its availability in the cloud service marketplace. Legacy applications usually face this issue of availability in the cloud environment.

Gartner predicts that by 2026, public cloud spending will be more than 45% of all enterprise IT spending. It was below 17% in 2021. The future is definitely on the cloud. For a smooth ride into the future, find a public cloud provider that works best for your organization.

How blockchain can save billions for the media industry

Posted on by siteowner

The global entertainment and media industry revenue today is worth $2.1 trillion. This trillion-dollar industry is often subjected to multiple risks associated with content distribution, rights management, and royalty payments to artists. Illegal streaming and downloading of content have resulted in multi-billion dollar revenue losses. According to another report, the industry is expected to lose around $51.6 billion due to copyright piracy in 2022.

Very often, pirated copies of digital music are made quite effortlessly and most of the attempts to prevent it from piracy have been vanquished. This in turn affects the royalty payments that are paid to the creators for the rights to use or publish their content. Also, payments are not always guaranteed and are based on traditional airtime figures. There is no effective way to control content distribution.

That was, until now.

Regain your control, creators!

With the revolution of blockchain, the industry’s incessant problems will now have apposite solutions. The use of blockchain technology can be extremely effective in solving problems like copy protection and royalty programs. The technology connects consumers, artists and all other stakeholders in the industry and provides full transparency over the distribution process.

Blockchain provides a network where every digital music is cryptographically encrypted to ensure its access only to paid customers. This payment mechanism for accessing the content is controlled by a smart contract, thus eliminating the need for a centralized authority. The payments are made automatically based on the logic embedded within these smart contracts and the permissions prescribed for the number of downloads. All transactions in the blockchain network are recorded and immutable, thus making the process completely transparent and accessible to all the stakeholders. This prevents illegal copying of digital music files altogether, consequently preserving the copyrights for creators.

Blockchain – connecting content & creators

The cryptographic feature of blockchain technology enables the creator to be tied to his/her content to avoid plagiarism. For instance, a digital music file on a blockchain network contains the owner’s information and the time stamp.  Both of these are immutable and traceable. The legal owners of the content are cryptographically linked to it. This ownership cannot be transferred to another user unless the original owner grants permission. Copyright transfers are easily managed and traced with blockchain as all transactions are recorded and cannot be tampered with. Smart contracts can then control all the distribution and payment to the concerned parties.

Blockchain technology provides owners of intellectual property (IP) with tools to better monitor and protect their work. Preventing plagiarism of any previously copyrighted content is just one of the many applications the blockchain technology has to offer. Blockchain for businesses will reduce the enterprises’ dependency on multiple security tools and has the potential to create high levels of trust for any transactions, thus enabling leaders to focus on better marketing strategies. This trust factor combined with the ease of use is driving the demand for blockchain amongst enterprises.

Blockchain for media & entertainment industry

The media industry is on the front lines of the digital revolution. By adopting multiple emerging technologies, the industry is enriching its user experience through data-driven insights that in turn build a strong brand value and engaging social media presence.

The media industry often faces the challenge of controlling ownership and distribution. Web3 applications allow creators to effectively monetize their art. Creators can also set up an NFT marketplace, apply smart contracts to profit from future sales and reward loyal fans who invest early in their success.

Here are some ways by which the media industry can mitigate the existing challenges:

Asset Management Security

The media industry has not been able to control the digital sharing of content effectively. Blockchain applications allow creators to verify identities, limit sharing and retain ownership of digital assets.

New Revenue Streams

Blockchain enables creators to sell exclusive assets as NFTs and retain a portion of the profits from these assets as they are traded further in the future. This accountability also affects streaming, where pay-as-you-go models empower consumers and reward artists directly.

Fan Connections

If an artist wishes to sell shares of their career at a launch party, it allows his/her fans to be part of their journey and reward the fans with loyalty as their career expands. It is similar to a fan club where multiple parties are involved to ensure revenue remains inside the creators’ community.

Blockchain in Television

Blockchain can vet digital assets and eliminate fake videos before they make it to the news. Consumers can pick the channels they want and pay only for the content they wish to consume. NFTs can create exclusivity in a streaming world where everything is available all the time.

Blockchain in Film Distribution

Blockchain can address challenges associated with identity, ownership and copyright. For instance, scenarios where an actor wants to be paid depending on the success of the movie, a studio wants to accurately price ads and product placements or when creators want to control access and ownership of work.

Blockchain in Music

The legacy of Napster lives on in the peer-to-peer sharing of music files to this day, and an entire industry had to adapt. But challenges with payments, stream tracking and payment distribution persist. Blockchain applications like smart contracts, NFTs and micropayments can be the apt solution that this industry needs.

Unique features of Blockchain

Blockchain is a promising technology backed by its three core strengths – transparency, immutability and impeccable security. Though known for its popularity in the banking sector, blockchain is a futuristic technology that is set to disrupt all verticals with its distinctive applications. Here are a few examples of how blockchain’s unique features can be applied to the media industry.

  • Immutability: Helps with censorship resistance.
  • Security: Orderly data structures which result in a high degree of auditability and reliability.
  • Transparency: Enables the visibility of ledger information across all users.
  • Resistance:  Prevents the alteration of data, eliminates asymmetric information.
  • Invulnerable: Blockchains are also distributed, which means there is no single point of failure or attack vector for hackers or other malicious actors.

Benefits of Blockchain in media and entertainment

The music business is still primarily operated on legacy systems and antiquated business models which were developed at a time when songs were predominantly distributed offline and not released on the internet. Only a few competitors have managed to keep up with digitization, and they now control the streaming business, squeezing off income for artists.

The open and decentralized nature of the public Ethereum platform will allow actors in the entertainment industry to reap the following benefits:

  • Decreased IP infringement
  • Disintermediated content from industry intermediaries
  • Direct monetization of all copywritten assets through smart contracts and p2p micropayments

Digital piracy, fraudulent copies, infringed studio IP and duplication of digital items cost the US film and TV industry an estimated $71 billion annually. Enterprise Ethereum enables artists and creators to digitize the metadata of their unique content. It also manages and stores IP rights on a time-stamped and immutable ledger. Blockchain, with its append-only structure, makes it easier for creators to legally enforce their rights if infringement happens .