Check out the Tech News of April 2024, where tech giants continue to drive innovation and digital transformation. Discover key updates shaping efficient and forward-thinking landscapes. This month’s top 10 CIO-centric news highlights include partnerships, acquisitions and other updates such as data protection solutions, data centers for cyber resilience and more. As businesses maneuver through the intricacies of modern IT environments, these developments underscore the role of CIOs in shaping secure, efficient, and intelligent futures. Gain valuable insights and strategies to navigate evolving technological terrains with confidence.
Also Read: Top 20 AI Cloud Companies to Know in 2024
#1 Dell Technologies Expands Cyber Resilience Through Multicloud Data Protection and AI Innovations
Dell Technologies will further develop its data protection portfolio to help companies achieve cyber resilience against growing cyberattacks. Based on concerns raised in the 2024 Dell Global Data Protection Index, Dell will offer an enhanced portfolio that will help organizations protect their data across on-premises, cloud, and edge environments.
Among other things:
- New PowerProtect Appliances: Dell PowerProtect Data Domain systems provide greater performance, security, efficiency, and scale for large enterprise and mid-size customers.
- Partner Ecosystem: Dell data protection solutions form the foundation for a broad and expanding partner ecosystem, enabling the industry’s leading software vendors to build customer resilience.
- Integrated GenAI Assistant: Dell APEX Backup Services AI automates and optimizes protection processes, making backup and recovery easier and more efficient with the power of AI.
- Storage Direct Protection Innovation: Storage Direct Protection in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager provides fast, efficient, and secure backup and recovery for Dell PowerMax enterprise storage, including those in multi-cloud environments.
Also Read: What is Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)?
Palo Alto Network Offers First-ever Cloud-Optimized SOC Platform
Palo Alto Networks unveils Cortex XSIAM for Cloud, a breakthrough in cloud security operations. The innovative platform brings Cloud Detection and Response capabilities in the industry’s first SOC platform built for the cloud.
Gonen Fink, SVP of Products for Cortex and Prisma Cloud, highlights the AI-driven approach that does away with data silos and increases efficiency for security operations teams. The new capabilities provide full visibility into cloud assets, easy deployment with an expanded security agent, and enriched context with native integration with Prisma Cloud.
This innovation addresses the growing demand for cloud-centric security solutions, allowing SOC teams to mitigate threats involving cloud resources.
Cloudflare Advances Serverless Performance with Baselime Acquisition
Cloudflare has announced its entry into the observability market by acquiring Baselime, a cloud-native observability platform. By merging Baselime’s technology with its developer platform, Cloudflare aims to enhance serverless app performance by offering comprehensive observability solutions.
What will this acquisition offer the developers?
- Analyze observability data across numerous fields and values to detect errors, requests, or performance issues for specific users or entire applications.
- Enable and adopt OpenTelemetry-based tooling and standards to ensure easy integration with the many application frameworks and cloud providers and, therefore, instrument an application uniformly for observability data.
- Extract insights from observability data, enhanced by a developer experience with real-time error tracking, actionable alerts, trace diagrams, an approachable query engine, and an AI debugging assistant.
Cisco Introduces New Approach to Secure Data Centers and Cloud
Cisco, one of the leading companies in security and networking, has introduced an approach to data center and cloud security. This new approach will address the growing demands posed by the AI revolution. Through the industry-first Cisco Hypershield, the company is redefining how AI and other modern workloads are enhanced and safeguarded.
Hypershield represents a revolutionary security architecture, drawing on technology originally developed for hyperscale public clouds but now accessible to enterprises of all sizes. Unlike traditional security approaches, Hypershield acts as a fabric, allowing security enforcement to be deployed wherever necessary, from application services to Kubernetes clusters, containers, virtual machines, and even network ports.
The architecture of Hypershield revolves around three key pillars:
- AI-Native: Designed to be autonomous and predictive, Hypershield manages itself once trust is established, enabling hyper-distributed security at scale.
- Cloud-Native: Built on open-source eBPF, Hypershield leverages Cisco’s acquisition of Isovalent to connect and protect cloud-native workloads, ensuring compatibility with hyperscale cloud environments.
- Hyper-Distributed: Hypershield integrates advanced security controls into servers and network fabric, leveraging hardware acceleration to analyze and respond to real-time anomalies, thus providing security from cloud to edge.
IBM Acquires HashiCorp with its Deep Focus in Hybrid Cloud and AI
IBM and HashiCorp, a multi-cloud infrastructure automation company, have announced agreeing. The agreement includes that IBM will acquire HashiCorp for $35 per share in cash, representing an enterprise value of $6.4 billion.
HashiCorp’s suite of products provides enterprises with extensive Infrastructure Lifecycle Management and Security Lifecycle Management capabilities, enabling organizations to automate their hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
HashiCorp’s capabilities allow companies to use automation to deliver lifecycle management for infrastructure and security. It offers a system of record for the critical workflows required for hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Terraform by HashiCorp is the industry standard for infrastructure provisioning in these environments. It allows clients to take a cloud-agnostic and highly interoperable approach to multi-cloud management.
The offerings also complement IBM’s commitment to industry collaboration, which includes deep and expanding partnerships with hyperscale cloud service providers, developer communities, and open-source hybrid cloud and AI innovation.
Also Read: Hybrid Cloud Demands: Advancing Beyond First-Gen IDaaS Solutions
Lenovo’s LISSA offers AI-powered Capability to Reduce IT Footprint
Lenovo announced Lenovo’s Intelligent Sustainability Solutions Advisor (LISSA), a new Lenovo AI-powered sustainability engine. This engine empowers businesses to make more data-driven and sustainable IT buying decisions.
LISSA helps customers to understand estimated emissions impact across their IT life cycle with actionable insights related to sustainability. It also deploys customized solutions that align with their sustainability goals.
Additionally, LISSA with Generative AI also provides visibility into estimated carbon emissions. Those carbon emissions are related to many of Lenovo’s sustainability solutions, including TruScale Device as a Service (DaaS), Asset Recovery, packaging efficiencies, lower-carbon shipping options, lifecycle extensions, certified refurbishment, and more.
Through LISSA, Lenovo is also working to empower customers to make more sustainable IT choices backed by data and help drive measurable outcomes. In addition, LISSA will help fulfill Lenovo’s commitment to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
AXA, AWS Working on Global B2B Risk Management Platform
AXA and Amazon Web Services announced that they are developing the AXA Digital Commercial Platform (DCP), the next-generation solution in risk management.
AXA DCP combines industry data with location-based analytics and AI technologies, empowering clients worldwide to monitor their assets and better navigate risk. Leveraging AWS analytics, AXA looks forward to providing services to existing and AWS clients to enhance risk management insights and services.
Insights:
- Risk Management Security: AXA DCP brings data and analytics into risk management to address natural catastrophes, cyber risks, and more.
- AWS Partnership: AXA will use AWS analytics capabilities to offer services to both existing and AWS clients.
- Innovative Insights: Amazon Bedrock provides real-time data and analytics that show possible disruptions and further improve risk prevention services.
- Predictive Risk Mitigation: The insights from DCP support AXA’s risk prevention services and developments in insurance products.
Akamai Introduces Its New Solution Brand Protector to Disrupt Phishing Sites
Akamai Technologies, the cloud company, has announced the availability of its new solution, Brand Protector. Brand Protector helps detect and disrupt fake stores, phishing sites, and brand impersonations. The solution also enables companies to retain and grow customer loyalty while reducing the numbers in losses, productivity and negative customer feedback.
Four-Step Approach of Brand Protector to Protect Fraudulent Impersonation
- Intelligence: Brand Protector taps into Akamai’s deep distributed edge and cloud platform, analyzing more than 600 TB of data per day. Third-party data feeds boost intelligence, granting broad visibility into attacker actions worldwide.
- Detection: Brand Protector detects brand abuse in real-time with live traffic tracing, usually before phishing campaigns even have a chance to start. As a result, the proactive approach reduces the impact of attacks to ensure customers and brand trust are not negatively affected, nor is it based on stale listings.
- Visibility: With a customer-centric design, Brand Protector provides security teams with a single dashboard view into critical insights. Using heuristic and AI detectors, it instantly flags real-time threats, ranking findings by threat score and surfacing detailed threat data, including confidence score, severity rating, and affected users.
- Mitigation: Integrated takedown services enable rapid action against brand fraud. Security teams can initiate takedown requests from the detection screen; evidence and supporting details will attach automatically for a smooth use flow. This closes the loop in the effective fight against brand abuse.
Microsoft and Cognizant Expanded their Partnership to Avail Generative AI and Co-Pilots in Enterprises
Cognizant and Microsoft have announced an expanded partnership. The partnership aims to make Microsoft’s generative AI and Copilots available to enterprises. It also aims to transform enterprise business operations, improve employee experiences and boost cross-industry innovation.
Cognizant is a digital transformation service provider that operates at the intersection of industry and technology. Merging with Microsoft’s advanced generative AI and Copilots, the partnership can deliver substantial innovation for enterprise customers.
This partnership also has the potential to significantly boost AI adoption and innovation in India. It is expected to add USD 450–500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025.
Additional Details about the Partnership:
- Cognizant purchased 25,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot seats for Cognizant associates, including 500 Sales Copilot seats and 500 Services Copilot seats.
- This purchase was to enhance productivity, streamline workflows and transform customer experiences.
- Cognizant will work to deploy Microsoft 365 Copilot to a million users within their global 2000 clients and across 11 industries.
Google, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and other Giants Upskills and Reskill IT Professionals in AI
Google, Cisco, Accenture, Eightfold, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and SAP have introduced the AI-enabled Information and Communication Technology (ICT) workforce Consortium. The companies with this launch aim to prepare their employees for the revolution brought by artificial intelligence.
The Consortium will allow an understanding of AI’s impact on jobs in the ICT Sector. The first project will analyze 56 key ICT job roles, including most advertised positions in the US and major European markets. Based on the analysis results, the Consortium will recommend training programs.
In addition, the Consortium aims to positively impact over 95 million people worldwide within the next ten years.
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