The future of payments lies in the cloud. Prior to the pandemic, the widespread adoption of cloud computing was already prevalent, with industries like healthcare, marketing, retail, and finance all embracing the technology to supercharge their operations. In healthcare, the cloud is used for securing and storing electronic health records, while the marketing sector uses it to automate routine tasks and track trends. Retail businesses utilise cloud technology to market to their customers more effectively, and the finance industry leverage it to make expense management and digital payments much more efficient.

While the situation is not ideal, the outbreak has become the turning point for the payments industry. Enterprises that had invested heavily in cloud solutions have been able to continue with less interference compared to those who didn’t. Since March, cloud-based services for remote workers were responsible for keeping the world working, due to many businesses being forced to shut down and transition to a work-from-home setup. Those previously opposed to the concept are also starting to realise its benefits, and if the prediction by Global Data proves to be correct, the cloud services market will blow up to a whopping $661 billion (£528 billion) by 2024. That clocks into a 19% annual growth rate between 2019 and 2024.

In the coming months and years, the biggest tech companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Alibaba, and IBM, are likely to position themselves as the superior cloud-based collaboration and application providers. Google is already at the forefront of this movement, with Google Cloud announcing that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the UK Crown Commercial Service (CCS) in an effort to make it easier and more affordable for public sector agencies across the UK to take advantage of Google Cloud’s full range of services. This project will aid them in providing a seamless digital transformation for the British public.

Simon Tse, Chief Executive of CCS, highlights how the MoU will also lead to large-scale business benefits for customers and emphasises the CCS’ role in helping the public sector serve the nation in more novel and innovative ways. Organisations will get the chance to leverage a range of technologies available in the cloud, including, but not limited to infrastructure, analytics, artificial intelligence, application modernisation and development, workflow management, and collaboration solutions.

This initiative is likely to push the adoption of cloud computing even further forward, leading to an even more widespread adoption of digital payments. A report by The Business Research Company noted that the decline of cash payments in-store was due to the advice of government bodies and health institutions, resulting in the rise of contactless payment methods. Businesses struggling to stay afloat will definitely benefit from using a cloud-based payment system, given how it’s more convenient and safer for customers due to reduced physical contact and its enhanced data security. Indeed, popular payment provider FIS Global details how cloud-based solutions can integrate seamlessly with a variety of payment channels and platforms, enabling large enterprises to access the same network from around the world. This helps ensure that retail transactions stay securely encrypted due to real-time updates being carried out across all systems. Sensitive data is also tokenised, a process in which a unique identifier is assigned the secure information, allowing businesses to safely conduct payment transactions. This applies to almost all digital payments available, whether it’s recurring bills, subscriptions, or one-time fees.

There’s no doubt that organisations and businesses will benefit from transitioning to the cloud should they decide to do so. However, it should not be done in haste. CIO underscores how transitioning from on-premises infrastructure to multi-cloud or hybrid cloud is no easy feat, and one must consider making a cloud-first commitment. This means taking a deep dive into cloud computing and gaining an in-depth understanding of its economics, as well as planning for continuous compliance. Any mistakes will be very costly to rectify.

But what is clear is it that from here on out cloud computing is no longer a novel phenomenon. It’s here to stay, and, in fact, it’s only just getting started.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post The Rising Popularity of Cloud Computing and Digital Payments appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

• Financial sector employees most distrustful of cloud computing (83% of respondents)

• Data security seen as biggest cloud computing risk across sectors

• Tech sector employees’ technical understanding of cloud computing means only 31% have reservations about implementing the technology

Commercial property experts Savoy Stewart have surveyed 6,000 professionals in 6 countries and across 5 industries to gauge their opinions on cloud computing and whether or not they would trust the cloud with their sensitive business data.

All 5 sectors chosen would stand to benefit from the introduction of cloud computing but would also have to deal with the potential security drawbacks of this technology. Data leaks are a big issue, especially within sectors which store sensitive data about their customers

Data leaks or unauthorised access to customers’ stored data is the biggest overall worry among those working in the financial, insurance, and healthcare sectors.

The data points to a lower level of trust among those who are not in the tech sector, especially those in finance, insurance, and healthcare. This can be, in part, attributed to the lower comprehension rates among professionals in other industries. However, the fact that data can potentially be leaked or accessed by third parties is still seen as a huge risk, even with cloud encryption protocols becoming more and more advanced.

The U.S. financial sector still sees storing data in the cloud as risky business, with 35% of tech employees saying they distrust cloud computing. Only Italians are more pessimistic whern it comes to cloud computing implementation (43% distrust rate).

Those who work in hospitality are most in favour of cloud computing; only 5% of hospitality employees across the 6 countries which took part in the survey said they distrust cloud computing. This is good news for an industry which could stand to cut energy, hardware, and operational costs through the cloud. Receiving direct bookings from clients throught cloud technology would mean cutting booking agency commission, and increasing profit margins for hotel owners.

Those working in the UK’s tech and hospitality sectors are most concerned about the availability of cloud computing services. No service can guarantee 100% uptime; this is a problem for businesses that could stand to lose clients during maintenance periods.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Study: Data Security Is The Biggest Cloud Computing Concern appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Running a successful business is a huge challenge. Every entrepreneur has their own ideas about how they can go about doing this, but this may mean that your approach could be improved. There are a few easy changes that you can make which could have a big impact in both the short and long-term. This includes investing in a few items for your company which you might not currently have. Here are a few good examples:

Cybersecurity

The biggest threat to businesses in today’s digital age is cybercrime. This is an enormous and global problem so business owners need to take steps to make sure that their business is secure. Investing in high-quality cybersecurity can help to protect your company while also providing peace of mind so that you and your team can work with confidence every day.

Cloud Computing

Switching to cloud computing is a smart move for any modern day business. This is because it can help to reduce costs but it also makes it much easier for your team to collaborate and work remotely. Cloud computing can also be used to backup data which should be a key part of your cybersecurity plan.

Generator

Time is money in the world of business so if the power goes out it could cost your company a small fortune. You can avoid this by having a generator which can provide backup power if there is ever an outage. Places like SGS carry a wide range of generators so you should be able to find a suitable one for your business.

Shared Calendars 

A successful business is one which is highly organised but this can be an enormous challenge. It is made much easier with shared calendars which allow you and your team to stay organised and know what everyone is doing each and every day of the week. This will avoid any confusion and stop any double bookings from occurring which can interfere with the efficiency of the operation.

Digital Marketing

There is always more marketing that can be done and this is a highly effective way to increase brand reputation and awareness. You should find an experienced and reputable digital marketing agency to take care of your marketing needs and they should be able to boost sales and help you to compete with the bigger brands in your industry.

These are just a few smart ways to spend money which will help your business in the long run. Intelligent use of money can help a company to succeed in a few different ways but you must know how best to use this money. Currently, these are a few of the best ways that you can invest which should help your company to run more efficiently and find greater success.

This is an article provided by our partners network. It does not reflect the views or opinions of our editorial team and management.

Contributed content

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Services & Items You Never Know Your Business Needed appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

The EDGE network has officially launched as it becomes a first mover in the emergence of edge computing. Designed to be a more cost effective and faster replacement to the cloud, edge computing is expected to address the proliferation of data and connected devices over the coming years, with estimates put at 29 billion connected devices by 2022 and over 75 billion IoT devices by 2025 worldwide.

Furthermore, according to a thorough research carried out by Ericsson, the number of IoT devices have surpassed those of smartphones, with a growing number of connected cars, machines, meters, wearables and other consumer electronics. Likewise, the number of IoT devices with cellular connections is projected to reach 1.5 billion in 2022, or around 70 percent of the wide-area category. This growth is due to increased industry focus and 3GPP standardization of cellular IoT technologies. Cellular IoT connections benefit from enhancements in provisioning, device management, service enablement and security.

The EDGE network is to improve the quality of those connections and make them quicker and more affordable, or, at least, that is what the company is aiming for. “Edge computing will be the answer to the challenges faced by cloud computing as the amount of data and web traffic is set to increase exponentially in the coming years. With EDGE evolving from an already existing business with an established customer base, we see this as the beginning of EDGE network adoption. In the coming months we plan to migrate existing clients to the network, as well as convert an already expansive pipeline of business. At the same time we expect an exponential growth in the number of nodes as more people realise how they can monetise their spare computing capacity just by becoming an EDGE node,” said Joseph Denne, CEO and Co-Founder of EDGE.

In order to do so, they have set up plans to attract new customers to their network thanks to reward programs such as remunerating participants for committing their spare internet capacity to the network. Whilst individuals and businesses will be able to monetise their existing connected devices and hardware by joining the EDGE network, businesses can also reduce their IT expenditure as the cost of the EDGE computing network is far cheaper than using centralised and slow cloud computing infrastructure.

“The EDGE network is already live with 155 ‘founding nodes’ established in 56 countries, who are earning DADI tokens on a monthly basis for pledging their spare capacity. EDGE is a highly secure, cost efficient and environmentally friendly blockchain based computing network that aims to revolutionise and ultimately replace cloud computing,” the CEO commented.

One of the main issues that Edge is trying to solve is the impact  that complex and expensive cloud computing weighs on the environment. The EDGE network, as the company puts it, works by bringing data storage and computation as close to the point of need as possible, pushing data, computing power and applications away from centralised clouds and data centers. This will not only be more environmentally friendly as it reduces the amount of hardware needed to store data, but it reduces the volumes of data that must be moved, the consequent traffic and distance data must travel, providing lower latency and reduced transmission costs.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post The EDGE Network Aims To Conquer The Cloud Computing And IoT Markets Thanks To Its More Cost Effective And Fast Tech appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Alibaba Cloud, the data intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, generated the third largest cloud database management system (DBMS) revenue among global players, according to a recent report entitled Gartner, The Future of the DBMS Market Is Cloud, Donald Feinberg et al., 21 June 2019.

According to this report conducted by global analyst firm Gartner, Alibaba Cloud’s DBMS revenue increased by 116% year-on-year in 2018. Cloud DBMS revenue of the other two market leaders Amazon and Microsoft grew by 75% and 134% respectively.

“Cloud-native databases like Alibaba Cloud’s PolarDB will be the future of database innovations,” said Lancelot Guo, Vice President of Alibaba Group and General Manager of Strategy and Marketing at Alibaba Cloud. “As enterprises increasingly migrate their on-premises databases to the cloud, cloud-native DBMS providers like Alibaba Cloud will be well positioned to benefit from the exponential growth of the DBMS market. We are a strong and competitive services provider for public services, as well as for the retail, finance and manufacturing sectors.”

Alibaba Cloud is a pioneer in open-source DBMS and an advocate of distributed DBMS. The company boasts a full suite of database products, ranging from relational, NoSQL and analytic database services to database migration tools.

Among these products, PolarDB is a new generation of cloud-native database that combines performance with compatibility and availability of traditional enterprise databases at a much lower cost. It can scale up to 100TB in storage, 88 vCPUs and 710GB of memory which helps customers effectively manage big data development. It allows customers to pay for usage by the minute, enabling them to handle peak business traffic while minimizing cost.

Alibaba Cloud has successfully migrated some 400,000 database instances to the cloud. Its powerful database services have endured the toughest pressure test of Alibaba Group’s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, which involved managing peak traffic volumes of approximately 100 times the daily average.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Alibaba Cloud Ranks Third Globally By Gartner’s Database Management Services Revenue appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

By 2022, 75% of all databases will be deployed or migrated to a cloud platform, with only 5% ever considered for repatriation to on-premises. This trend will largely be due to databases used for analytics, and the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. That’s what the latest report carried out by Gartner has found.

“According to inquiries with Gartner clients, organisations are developing and deploying new applications in the cloud and moving existing assets at an increasing rate, and we believe this will continue to increase,” said Donald Feinberg, distinguished research vice president at Gartner. “We also believe this begins with systems for data management solutions for analytics (DMSA) use cases — such as data warehousing, data lakes and other use cases where data is used for analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Increasingly, operational systems are also moving to the cloud, especially with conversion to the SaaS application model.”

Gartner research shows that 2018 worldwide database management system (DBMS) revenue grew 18.4% to $46 billion. Cloud DBMS revenue accounts for 68% of that 18.4% growth — and Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) account for 75.5% of the total market growth. This trend reinforces that cloud service provider (CSP) infrastructures and the services that run on them are becoming the new data management platform.

Ecosystems are forming around CSPs that both integrate services within a single CSP and provide early steps toward intercloud data management. This is in distinct contrast to the on-premises approach, where individual products often serve multiple roles but rarely offer their own built-in capabilities to support integration with adjacent products within the on-premises deployment environment. While there is some growth in on-premises systems, this growth is rarely from new on-premises deployments; it is generally due to price increases and forced upgrades undertaken to avoid risk.

“Ultimately what this shows is that the prominence of the CSP infrastructure, its native offerings, and the third-party offerings that run on them is assured,” said Mr Feinberg. “A recent Gartner cloud adoption survey showed that of those on the public cloud, 81% were using more than one CSP. The cloud ecosystem is expanding beyond the scope of a single CSP — to multiple CSPs — for most cloud consumers.”

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post The Future Of The Database Market Is On The Cloud, New Research Finds appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.