Month: October 2022

Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud giant, released its first quarter earnings for fiscal 2019, on Thursday. It reported $7.7 billion in revenue for March 31st, just exceeding analysts’ expectations.
This is a 3.6% increase over the quarter before, when AWS earned $7.4 Billion, and a 41.4% increase over the year-ago period when it earned $5.4 Billion.
The quarter’s operating income was $2.2 billion. This is a slight increase over the previous quarter, but a significant year-over-year growth of 58.8%.
AWS has been the fastest-growing business unit of its parent company, and Q1 was no exception. Comparatively, the International retail segment grew just 8.9% year over year, while the North American retail segment grew 16.6%.
Amazon.com’s cloud unit accounted for 13% of its total revenues.
Microsoft, which is the closest competitor to AWS cloud, also reported its latest earnings. Microsoft reported that Azure sales increased by 73% in the most recent financial quarter, even though it didn’t break down its Azure cloud revenue.

Okta Inc. published the latest service and business application usage report for Amazon Web Services Inc.
Okta, a San Francisco-based company that provides identity and access services for organizations, periodically mines its internal data in order to determine the popularity of pre-integrated apps and services it offers through its cloud service. The company then publishes the data in its “Business @ Work” reports.
AWS has taken over the No. 1 spot in the rankings, according to the latest report. 4th place in the rankings.
G Suite is Google’s cloud-based offering, which provides e-mail storage, document, and other services as a complement to similar office suites like Microsoft Office.
AWS is ranked No. AWS is ranked 4th in the rankings behind Microsoft Office 365 and Salesforce.com. AWS is rounded out by G Suite, Concur and JIRA, Slack and Zendesk.
[Click on the image to see a larger view.] Top Apps Over Time (source: Okta). While most rankings remain fairly stable, Okta identified two companies that are making significant upward moves.
The company stated that Amazon Web Services had just surpassed G Suite for the number four spot and that Slack jumped from the 12th most downloaded app to the 8th in less then a year.
AWS was also included in other trends identified and reported by the company. Okta stated that the data suggests that automation is crucial for apps containing sensitive data. Users can be deprovisioned immediately if necessary. “This includes Amazon Web Services (with a new code), Salesforce (sales figures), Zendesk, customer service issues and requests, and Dropbox (documents saved).
The Okta research is not meant to be used as an indicator of overall application popularity. It covers a much smaller area. The company stated that the report is representative of Okta’s cloud-forward customers, the apps that we connect to and the ways that users access these applications through the service.

According to Amazon.com’s fourth quarter financial earnings report, AWS earned $17.5 billion in revenue for 2017.
AWS reported $5.1 billion in revenue for the quarter ended March 31, a 44.6% increase over the previous quarter and an 11.5% increase over the third quarter. Wall Street analysts had expected Q4 revenue to be around $4.9 billion.
Operating income was $1.4 Billion, an increase of 46.2% year-over-year.
AWS was responsible for 8% of the total business of its parent company in Q4. AWS grew year-over-year in line with previous quarters. (The North America retail segment saw a 42% increase in year-over-year growth, while the International segment saw a 29% increase.
Another positive note is that AWS saw a slight increase in year-overyear growth in Q4. The platform’s growth rate reached its peak 10 quarters ago when it soared by 81 percent. Although this quarter is not as high as the peak, it is still a significant improvement on the trend of declining growth in recent quarters (see table).
Reporting Period AWS Revenue, (Billions). Year-over-Year Revenue growth (%) Q4 2017 $5.1 45 Q3 2017 $4.1 42Q1 of 2017 $13.743 Q4 2016 $3.255 Q3 2016 $2.9 58Q1 of 2016 $2.256 Q4 2015 $2.664 Q1 Of 2016 $2.664 Q4 2015 $2.4 69Q3 of 2015 $2.178 Q2 2015 $1.8 81Q1 2015 * $1.649 * First time reported as a separate line.
Amazon.com announced its earnings report and attributed AWS’ growth in Q4 to continued cloud infrastructure investments, some high-profile customer wins, and nearly 500 new services or features it launched in Q4, many of which were announced at the re:Invent conference last November.
According to Microsoft’s latest earnings report, Azure, widely considered AWS’ closest competitor, saw its revenues grow by 98% year-over-year. Although Azure is still a significant share behind AWS, it has been showing signs that it is catching up to the market leader and even taking the lead for some segments, such as large enterprises.

• Enhance interactivity in dashboards by setting parameters with onscreen controls. These controls can be set using the on-screen dropdown or text box controls.
• URL actions to connect QuickSight dashboards with third-party applications and internal Web sites
• Enhanced data management and administration capabilities such as: higher SPICE (QuickSight’s in-memory optimized calculation algorithm) data set limits at 25GB; hourly refresh of SPICE data; coowner permissions for dashboards; the option to share dashboards to all users; and an easy way to upgrade your account from Amazon QuickSight Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition.
• QuickSight is now also available in the Asia Pacific (Tokyo), region.

AWS stated in a blog post that QuickSight provides business analytics to organizations of all sizes. It allows them to access data stored in their Amazon Redshift data warehouse, their Amazon Relational Database Service RDS relational databases, flat files stored in S3, and (via connectors), data stored in SQL Server, PostgreSQL and on-premises MySQL databases. QuickSight can scale to accommodate thousands, hundreds, and even thousands of users per company. QuickSight is available for a free 60-day trial. More information can be found in a June 20 Webinar.

Amazon.com, the cloud juggernaut and e-commerce giant, announced Tuesday a major executive transition. It also reported its fourth quarter earnings for fiscal 2020.
In the third quarter 2021, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon 1994, will be retiring to become the Executive Chair of the company’s board of directors. Andy Jassy will take over the reins from Jeff Bezos, an Amazon executive who has been the CEO of the huge Amazon Web Services (AWS), cloud since 2016.
The company made the announcement in its Q4 earnings reports. Bezos stated in a prepared statement that “when you look at our financial results you’re actually seeing the long-run cumulative effects of invention.” “Amazon is at its most creative ever, making this a perfect time for this transition.”
AWS reported $12.7 Billion in revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31, which was 28% more than the year prior, in line to Wall Street estimates. Full-year revenue was $45.4billion, a 30% increase over fiscal 2019. Operating income for the quarter was $3.6 Billion, an increase of 37% over fiscal 2019.
Although it is still the largest cloud vendor, AWS’ year-over-year growth has been slowing. AWS was historically Amazon’s fastest-growing business sector. In Q4, AWS fell behind both North American and International retail units which grew by 57% each year.
Microsoft, whose Azure cloud business rivals AWS, released its latest quarterly earnings last Wednesday. Microsoft claims that Azure revenue increased 50% over the previous quarter, although the exact dollar amount is not disclosed by the company.
Jassy will inherit Amazon’s business from Bezos at the same time that cloud technology spending is expected to increase due to pandemic-related changes in work environments and acceptance of remote work.

After nearly a year-long preview, Amazon Web Services Inc. has made its Amazon WorkMail offering available to all in a challenge for established enterprise e mail vendors.
WorkMail is a managed calendaring service and e-mail service. It can be used with existing providers such as Microsoft Outlook, Web services, or mobile apps that run on iOS or Android. It is compatible with Microsoft Active Directory so that Microsoft Outlook users can sign in to WorkMail using their corporate credentials.
WorkMail is a security feature and control that organizations can use to protect their data. This includes location control, encryption of stored information, message scanning for virus and spam protection, as well as policies and actions for controlling mobile devices. Jeff Barr, AWS spokesperson, said this week in a blog post.
AWS stated that businesses today face a difficult choice when using e-mail. It announced the preview in early last year. Hosting e-mail on-premises is expensive, complicated software licensing, and requires ongoing maintenance. While existing cloud e-mail service providers may be able to help with some of these issues, they don’t offer the security features businesses need (like strong encryption key management, full control over data location, and full control), or integrate with existing corporate directories. They also don’t support popular Microsoft Outlook features such as shared calendaring. Amazon WorkMail offers the simplicity and instant access that enterprises require, as well as the security controls and control required by businesses.
Barr said this week that WorkMail capabilities were expanded and improved during the preview. This will improve security controls as well as ease of use and migration. Integration with AWS Key Management Service, ISO certifications, ease of setup, support for additional customers, and many other enhancements are included.
Barr stated that there are more improvements in the pipeline. He said that Amazon WorkMail users will benefit from a single Global Address Book and be able to access their free/busy calendar information across both environments. He promised more details. We are also working on an electronic mail journaling feature. This feature will allow users to use their existing e-mail archive system to capture and preserve all Amazon WorkMail communications.
The service costs $4 per month and includes 50GB mailbox storage per user. For up to 25 users, a 30-day trial is free.

You need to be prepared for new and existing threats as 2021 is rapidly approaching. You must think like hackers if you want to protect your system. We saw many attacks on companies like Experian South Africa and British Airlines, DigitalOcean and others in 2020. Although these companies have deployed security teams, hackers continue to exploit vulnerabilities.
To protect your environment, it is essential to have a solid foundation. Do not make it easy for criminals infiltrate your network.
These job roles include system administrators, network administrators and security engineers.

These seven things can help you protect your computer.

Install a proper base OS
Network hardening
Application hardening
Web server hardening
Web Application Hardening
Email Servers
DNS Servers hardening

1. Install a proper base OS
Non-essential services – It is important that an operating environment only runs the services necessary to complete the task it has been assigned. It is not necessary to have HTTP and SMTP services running on a system unless it is being used as a web server or mail server.
Patches and fixes – It’s an ongoing task to ensure that all operating systems are updated with the most recent vendor-supplied patches, bug fixes, and other security updates (often referred to collectively as security updates).
Password Management – Most operating systems provide options for the enforcement and management of strong passwords. These options will prevent users from creating weak passwords that can be easily guessed. Additional security measures include the requirement of frequent password changes and the disabling user accounts following repeated unsuccessful login attempts.
Unnecessary accounts: Unneeded and unneeded user accounts should be removed from the operating system. It is also important to keep track of employee turnover in order to disable accounts when employees leave.
File and Directory Protection – Access Control Lists (ACLs), and file permissions must be used to strictly control files and directories.
File and File System encryption – Some file systems support the encryption of files and folders. It is important that all partitions on a disk are formatted with encryption features (NTFS for Windows) to protect sensitive data.
Enable Logging – It is crucial that the operating system is set up to log all activity, errors and warnings.
This is important as logs can be used to identify malicious events in a system. This is an important step as security controls can fail, so it’s necessary to be able check for bad events. Hackers can disable audits and use overwriting techniques to conceal their malicious acts, which can make our job more difficult. We must also back up the log.
File Sharing – Disable all file sharing.

2. Network hardening
Network hardening is the process of eliminating as many security risks and threats as possible. Here are some network-hardening techniques.
Update Software and Hardware – Network hardening is a continuous process of updating all router firmware and software with the most recent vendor-supplied patches.
Password Protection – Most routers or wireless access points offer a remote management interface that is accessible over the network. It is important that these devices are protected by strong passwords. These are some basic password rules and guidelines.
Unnecessary Services and Protocols – All unneeded protocols and services should be disabled and ideally removed form any hosts on the network. In a pure TCP/IP network environment, this could be an example.

This is a question that we continue to be asked all the time.
How can you distinguish between incidents and problems?
This article will address this issue and provide clarification. It will identify the differences between incidents, problems, how they are related and why it matters.

What is an Incident?
ITIL 4 defines an incident as an unplanned interruption or decrease in the quality of a service. The most important factor in determining whether something is considered an incident is whether the service level agreement was violated. ITIL permits you to raise an incident or problem even before the SLA or targets are breached. This allows you to limit or prevent any impact. Automated system monitoring might notice a decrease in response time or another error before the SLA is broken. Customers may even notice it. An incident is a description of an outage.

What is a problem?
ITIL 4 defines a problem as a cause or potential cause of one or more incidents. Problems can be raised to address a single incident or multiple similar incidents. They can be raised even without the existence or occurrence of an incident. Monitoring may uncover an issue that has not yet led to an incident, but if it isn’t addressed, it could cause more problems. A problem is, in layman’s terms: the representation of the cause or potential causes of one or more outages.

What makes best practice distinguish between problems and incidents?
It is easy to distinguish between problems and incidents. Problems are the cause and incidents the effect.
ITIL 4 encourages organizations not to confuse the two, as they are often treated differently. An incident is simply a declaration that the affected service has been “temporarily restored”. This does not mean that the incident won’t happen again in the future. Temporarily could refer to a period of time, such as a minute or ten years. It is important to remember that an incident resolution is not always permanent.
However, incidents are often caused by problems. There are many ways to identify the root cause of a problem. We may also use different techniques to find possible solutions.
By providing a mechanism to quickly restore service if it’s needed, effective incident management will ensure that you as a service provider can keep your promises. Problem management allows service providers to quickly respond to incidents to prevent them from recurring.
These two practices are distinct in ITIL 4 because they often require different skills and activities. Incident management aims to quickly restore service to the level required by any SLAs, while problem management aims to eliminate the root causes of incidents.

Similar training
ITIL(r), 4 Foundation
Workshop on Problem Management: Define and Implement
Define and Implement Service Desk and Incident Management Workshop

Additional resources
ITIL4 Guiding Principles in just 30 minutes

I have been looking at failed projects and am unsure whether to include those that are stopped. Is it a failure if it has been stopped? Or was it the right answer to stop it, so that the business can avoid the costs of completing something not worth it? Microsoft has conducted research that shows that 15% of projects are terminated before they are completed. These projects failed to meet their success criteria so they are failing?
It can be difficult to decide whether or not to end a project. However, it is sometimes necessary. There are many reasons why projects are stopped, such as:
Changes in the organisational culture
The reason for doing the project changes, for instance, if the project is no longer needed
The business operation is changing
The business case is no longer viable.
The project sponsor leaves, and the drive behind it disappears
The regulatory environment is changing
If a division is sold, or another critical project takes up resources, business priorities change.
Any other important element of the project environment is affected.

In these cases, it may be wise to stop the project. It is not worth continuing to deliver something that does not add value or solve a business problem. It would be a waste to continue the project.
This type of project should be managed in a controlled manner. That is, the management of the project’s shut down must be done in a way that redeploys and salvages resources. It also needs to handle awkward questions through a planned communication campaign.
Directors believe that 19% should be shut down. Only 15% of projects are closed, so we can conclude there are an additional 44% of projects that continue and add no value to the companies that pursue them. This adds up to PS13.4 million annually for the average large UK company.
We can conclude that projects that are not completed before they are finished aren’t necessarily failed. Failures are those projects that continue to work when they shouldn’t and don’t deliver any value.

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