Data protector Acronis has shared research from the first half of 2024 in its biannual cyberthreats report, “Acronis Cyberthreats Report H1 2024” The report found that email attacks have seen a 293 percent increase when compared to the same period in 2023. The number of ransomware detections was also on the rise, increasing 32 percent from Q4 2023 to Q1 2024. In Q1 2024, Acronis observed 10 new ransomware groups who together claimed 84 cyberattacks globally. Among the top 10 most active ransomware families detected during this time, three highly active groups stand out as the primary contributors, collectively responsible for 35 percent of the attacks: LockBit, Black Basta, and PLAY.
- Bahrain, Egypt, and South Korea were the top countries targeted by malware attacks in Q1 2024
- 28 million URLs were blocked at the endpoint in Q1 2024
- 27.6 percent of all received emails were spam and 1.5 percent contained malware or phishing links
- The average lifespan of a malware sample in the wild is 2.3 days
- 1,048 cases of ransomware were publicly reported in Q1 2024, a 23 percent increase over Q1 2023
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Cloudera released the findings from its The State of Enterprise AI and Modern Data Architecture survey. Key findings include:
- Top barriers to adopting AI were worries about the security and compliance risks that AI presents (74 percent), not having the proper training or talent to manage AI tools (38 percent), and AI tools being too expensive (26 percent).
- While 94 percent of respondents said that they trust their data, 55 percent also said they would rather get a root canal than try to access all of their company’s data.
- The top use cases for AI included improving customer experiences (60 percent), increasing operational efficiency (57 percent), and expediting analytics (51 percent).
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Data lake service provider Cribl has launched its inaugural Navigating the Data Current Report, which provides insights into how IT and Security teams are modernizing their data management practices. Cribl says it holds the largest amount of data on how IT and Security teams use their telemetry data and how the trends are shifting. A sampling of the key findings:
- Increase in Data Sources: The number of data sources ingested by IT and Security teams grew by 32 percent year over year, with nearly 20 percent of users consuming from ten or more data sources.
- Preference for Single Cloud: Contrary to the multi-cloud trend, only 11 percent of IT and Security teams are sending data to more than one CSP-native destination.
- Growth in Multi-SIEM Deployments: The number of companies sending data to multiple SIEM products increased by 45 percent over the last year. Usage of multiple SIEMs grew from 11 percent to 16 percent, with significant gains for Google SecOps and Microsoft Sentinel.
You can download the full report at the link here and the accompanying blog post here.
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SSD supplier DapuStor says it is expanding its collaboration with Marvell to deliver breakthrough Flexible Data Placement (FDP) technology optimized for Quad-Level Cell (QLC) and Triple-Level Cell (TLC) SSDs. QLC SSDs face challenges such as lower endurance and slower write speeds. TheFDP technology supported in the Marvell Bravera SC5 SSD controller with firmware developed by DapuStor directly addresses these issues. The FDP algorithms dynamically adjust data placement based on workload and usage patterns, ensuring that the most frequently accessed data is stored in the fastest and most durable regions of the SSD. Testing has demonstrated that this can achieve a write amplification (WA) close to 1.0. Marvell and DapuStor will showcase the DapuStor QLC SSD H5000 series with FDP solutions at the 2024 FMS: Future of Memory and Storage conference in Santa Clara this month.
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According to Datacenter Dynamics Google has launched an air-gapped version of Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) hardware for artificial intelligence (AI) edge computing.It’s an appliance that runs Google’s cloud infrastructure stack including Kubernetes clusters, data security services, and Vertex AI platform when access to the Internet is not possible. It was in preview mode last year and is now GA. This Azure Stack-like offering has hardware components supplied by Cisco, HPE, Dell, and Nvidia (GPUs).
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ExaGrid has begun a new strategic partnership with StorIT Distribution, a Value-Added Distributor in the Middle East and North Africa for Enterprise IT Products and Systems. StorIT in partnership with ExaGrid will help organizations to have a comprehensively secure data backup that enables fast ransomware recovery, through its Tiered Backup Storage offering.
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Data pipeline supplier Fivetran announced the opening of its new EMEA headquarters in Dublin. Over the past three years, Fivetran has increased headcount in EMEA by almost 200 employees. Recruitment continues across Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Munich and its latest European location in the Serbian city of Novi Sad.
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FMS: The Future of Memory and Storage, the world’s conference highlighting advancements, trends, and industry figures in the memory, storage, and SSD markets, announced that Harriet Coverston, CTO and co-founder of Versity Software, has won the SuperWomen of FMS Leadership Award for 2024. Her work included developing the Quick File System (QFS), which laid the foundation for SAM-QFS. SAM-QFS was the first multi-node clustered file system combined with archiving, addressing the high-performance scaling needs of large real-time streaming data systems.
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NVMe storage system provider HighPoint Technologies announced a strategic partnership with Phison. It says this collaboration promises to revolutionize compact PCIe storage systems for x86 server and workstation platforms. HighPoint’s NVMe Gen5 x16 Switch & RAID AIC Series, when equipped with Phison-powered M.2 NVMe SSDs, delivers the world’s fastest, densest, secure and field-proven PCIe Gen5 x16 NVMe storage in today’s marketplace, suitable for a wide range of applications and workflows including Data Centers, Professional Workstations, SMB platforms and personal computing.
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HighPoint Technologies says it will unveil the Industry’s first PCIe Gen5 x16 NVMe SSD systems to deliver nearly 60GBps of real-world transfer performance and up to 2 Petabytes of storage capacity from a single PCIe slot at FMS 2024. It will be introducing its Real-time Advanced Environmental Sensor Logging & Analysis Suite, “which enables customers to take a proactive approach to NVMe storage management by closely monitoring the hardware environment in real-time.”
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Cybersecurity company Index Engines announced new data integrity reporting within the CyberSense product to empower data protection and security teams to quickly understand and explain the health status of protected data. CyberSense indexes over 5 exabytes of customer data daily. The new data integrity homepage within the CyberSense 8.7 user interface displays insights into the data that CyberSense has analyzed, details on its integrity, and assurance that triggered alerts are addressed. This content is easily integrated into security platforms to collaborate on data protection and cybersecurity strategies.
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Enterprise cloud data management company Informatica announced its Q2 FY 24 earnings, beating guidance across the board, and demonstrating “that Informatica continues to be the go-to cloud data management platform to help enterprises prepare their data for GenAI.” Highlights from the quarter include:
- Total Revenue: Increased 6.6 percent to $400.6 million
- Total ARR: Increased 7.8 percent to $1.67 billion
- Subscription ARR: Increased 15 percent year-over-year to $1.20 billion
- Cloud Subscription ARR:Increased 37 percent year-over-year to $703 million
These results follow the general availability of CLAIRE GPT – the first GenAI-powered data management assistant now available in North America – as well as expanded partnerships with Microsoft, Snowflake and Databricks.
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Kioxia announced that the building construction of Fab2 (K2) of its Kitakami Plant was completed in July. K2 is the second flash memory manufacturing facility at the Kitakami Plant in the Iwate Prefecture of Japan. As demand is recovering, the company will gradually make capital investments while closely monitoring flash memory market trends. Kioxia plans to start operation at K2 in the fall of 2025. Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson tells subscribers “Per the Nikkei, Kioxia’s plan of record now calls for production to commence in the second Iwate fab in 2025. We believe the ramp of the new fab likely will coincide with the more significant ramp of Kioxia and WD’s BICS8 products. And assuming the Nikkei is correct with its assertion around timing of the fab, it suggests to us that incremental NAND bits from the JV partners will remain at minimal levels until CQ4 of next year. With other vendors, in our view, adopting a similar stance regarding incremental production, we believe NAND fundamentals are set to remain favorable for producers for a prolonged period.”
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Canadian cloud and IaaS provider Leaseweb announced an object storage service with “highly competitive pricing”, S3 compatibility, Canadian data sovereignty and 99 percent uptime by redundantly spanning data across three availability zones. More info here.
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Lenovo has appointed Dr Tolga Kurtoglu as the company’s new CTO, succeeding Dr. Yong Rui. Dr. Kurtoglu brings experience from his previous roles at HP, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, and Dell. His expertise lies in AI, automation, and digital manufacturing. Dr. Kurtoglu will lead Lenovo’s Research team and innovation ecosystem, ensuring alignment with the Group’s technological vision and business objectives. He will also join Lenovo’s Executive Committee. Lenovo has established a new Emerging Technology Group, led by Dr. Yong Rui, which will focus on identifying and leveraging emerging tech trends to fuel future business growth.
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Lenovo has joined forces with Databricks to drive AI adoption amongst its customers. As a Databricks Consulting & Systems Integration (C&SI) Select Tier Partner, Lenovo will work with businesses to help them take advantage of enhanced data management capabilities, streamlining access to data from multiple sources and removing barriers to successful AI usage.
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MemVerge tells us that, during the last year, the CXL vendor community has piqued the interest of IT organizations with the promise of products offering more memory bandwidth and capacity for their memory-intensive apps. During the last year we’ve seen announcements for CXL memory modules and software support from MemVerge, Red Hat, and VMware. The last breakthrough needed get CXL technology into customer’s hands is the availability of servers. At FMS, August 6-8 in Santa Clara, you’ll see in booth MemVerge #1251 a server from MSI that’s integrated with memory peripherals and software, and available for Enterprise PoCs. In fact, the server on the show floor is being shipped to a multi-billion-dollar corporation immediately after the event.
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Cloud file services supplier Nasuni announced a couple of award wins in recognition of their customer service. For the fourth year running, it’s received a NorthFace ScoreBoard Service Award. Nasuni achieved an “excellent” NPS score of 87. For its overall technical support, Nasuni achieved an SBI rating of 4.8 and a 9.5/10 CSAT rating. Nasuni has also achieved eight Badge Awards in G2’s 2024 Summer Reports in categories including Hybrid Cloud Storage Solutions and Disaster Recovery.
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SSD and SSD controller supplier Phison will show an affordable, reliable, secure in-house AI training solution, aiDAPTIVE+, powered by its Pascari SSD, at FMS 2024 this month. It features:
- An inhouse LLM system that can be trained and maintained on premises
- A cost of $40K plus fees for electricity and power
- Organizations fully own their data and can fine tune it
- A turnkey solution: No additional IT or engineering staff is required to run it
- Minimized security risks
- Over 100 enterprises are using it with 12 distinct use cases in less than a year
- Removal of universal pain points like onboarding new employees, ongoing professional development, keeping up with coding demands, and automation of tasks that can keep up with huge data volumes.
- Trained data that reveals valuable inferences to deliver immediate business value
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Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson gave subscribers his view of Samsung’s latest and solid memory results
- View: Samsung’s memory results and outlook appeared in-line to slightly better than expected.
- DRAM bits lifted mid single digits (in line with expectations) while ASPs lifted in the high teens.
- NAND bits lifted mid single digits (slightly above the prior guide) with ASPs up in the low 20 percent range.
- Samsung guided for low single digit bit growth in both categories in CQ3.
- HBM revenue lifted 50 percent Q/Q with Samsung indicating sales will continue to lift through the 2H (with 2H sales expected to be 3.5X 1H results). Management also is looking at HBM capacity doubling into 2025, with some suggestion they might have to lift their capacity plan further to meet customer demand.
- HBM3E sales roughly tripled Q/Q. Samsung shipped samples of HBM3E (8H) and expects mass production to start this quarter. HBM3E (12H) has sampled with Samsung noting supply will expand through the 2H. HBM3E sales are expected to represent a mid-teens percentage of HBM revenue in CQ3 and around 60 percent of HBM3E sales in CQ4.
- Samsung noted industry capacity adds for standard products appear to remain limited given modest capex and the focus on HBM.
We believe Samsung’s results (in particular slightly better NAND volumes and strong pricing) will be seen as positive for US memory vendors, particularly post Hynix’s results and subsequent concerns NAND demand in particular might be slowing.
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Leostream and Scale Computing today announced a joint integration delivering virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for distributed enterprise, SME/SMB, education, and others for whom VDI has been unrealistically complicated. As an alternative to VMware Horizon they have developed a streamlined, complete hardware/software architecture for hosting Windows and/or Linux desktops with greater ease of deployment, best-in-class support, and a competitive price point. Features include:
- Robust tools for dynamic resource allocation to allow more efficient use of hardware and better handling of peak loads compared to more static allocation methods
- Support for hybrid cloud environments with seamless management of both on-premises and cloud-based resources
- Optimized performance for different workloads ensures that applications run smoothly, providing a better end-user experience
- High availability features for minimal downtime and reliable access to mission-critical applications
- Advanced security features such as multi-factor authentication, role-based access control, and end-to-end encryption, ensuring that virtual environments remain secure
- Granular control over virtual environments that allows administrators to fine-tune settings according to specific needs
- Support for custom configurations and automation to streamline operations and reduce administrative overhead
- Support for the widest range of remote display protocols to meet the needs of even specialty applications
- Highly intuitive and centralized management console that is easier to use than more fragmented approaches
- Real-time analytics and monitoring tools for deep insights into the performance and usage of virtual resources
- Streamlined installation and configuration for intuitive, fast setup – less than four hours from start to finish
- Dedicated and responsive support
- A more cost-effective licensing model to optimize IT budgets
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SK hynix introduced what it claimed is the industry’s best GDDR7 memory with improvement of 60 percent in operating speed (32 Gbps) and 50 percent in power efficiency. The company increased the layer number of the heat-dissipating substrates from four to six, while applying the EMC (Epoxy Moulding Compound) for the packaging material in a bid to reduce thermal resistance by 74 percent, compared with the previous generation, while maintaining the size of the product unchanged. Speed can grow up to 40Gbps depending on the circumstances. When adopted for the high-end graphics cards, the product can also process data of more than 1.5TB per second. It will be mass produced in 3Q24.
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Storage supplier Swissbit introduces its first PCIe Gen5 SSD; the D2200 series offering performance of up to 14 GBps for sequential read and 10 GBps for sequential write. It has a sequential read performance of up to 970 MB/s per watt. The series supports NVMe 2.0 and OCP 2.0, making it future-proof. Comprehensive data protection features, including TCG Opal 2.0, are standard. The Swissbit D2200 will be available in U.2 and E1.S form factors with storage capacities of 8 TB and 16 TB in late August, with a 32 TB version in U.2 format following at the end of 2024.
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Enterprise application data management supplier Syniti announced Q2 2024 results:
- Cloud ARR increased 26 percent year over year and was up five percent from Q1 2024.
- Software bookings grew 28 percent over Q1 2024 and were up 23 percent from Q2 2023.
- Total quarterly revenue was up 8 percent when compared to Q2 2023, with services revenue rising 11% from a year ago.
- The company reported an EBITDA margin in the mid-teens.
- More than 11 clients with over $1 million in bookings.
- Strong software renewals at longstanding clients in aerospace and defence and manufacturing, life sciences, oil & gas.
- Robust volume with its SAP business with more than 50 percent of software annual contract value coming from the partnership; Syniti’s software is sold as a SAP Solution Extension and is available as an Endorsed App on SAP Store.
The company expanded its client base with 15 significant new logos in the quarter, adding five more Global2000 organizations to its customer roster including major players in retail, food & beverage, manufacturing and life science.
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Cloud storage provider Wasabi has appointed Andre Carpenter as the managing director of its Australia and New Zealand business as the company continues to rapidly expand in the region. Cloud storage adoption is growing in Australia, with 89 percent of Australian organizations expecting to increase the amount of data they store in the public cloud in 2024, according to the APAC Wasabi Cloud Storage Index. Most recently, Andre was the APAC director of cloud solutions at Crayon, a global technology and digital transformation service company. In addition, Andre has also held leadership roles across sales and consulting for global technology companies including Dell EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp, Oracle and Veeam.
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AI-native vector database company Weaviate is releasing a developer “workbench” of tools and apps along with flexible tiered storage for organizations putting AI into production. They include:
- Recommender app: Provides a fully managed, low-code solution for rapid development of scalable, personalized recommendation systems. Recommender offers configurable endpoints for item-to-item, item-to-user, and user-to-user recommendation scenarios and supports images, text, audio and other forms of multimodal data. Sign up to be part of the private beta.
- Query tool: Enables developers to query data in Weaviate Cloud using a GraphQL interface. Available now through Weaviate Cloud Console.
- Collections tool: Allows users to create and manage collections in Weaviate Cloud without writing any code. Available now through the Weaviate Cloud Console.
- Explorer tool: Lets users search and validate object data through a graphical user interface (GUI). Coming soon to Weaviate Cloud Console.
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ReRAM developer Weebit Nano has taped out its first chip in DB HiTek’s 130nm BCD process. It’s targeting completion of qual/production readiness in the 2nd calendar quarter of 2025. DB HiTek customers can get started now. On Aug. 7, during FMS: The Future of Memory and Storage, Weebit’s VP of Quality & Reliability Amir Regev will share the latest Weebit ReRAM technical data including results on GlobalFoundries 22FDX wafers – the first such ReRAM results.
