What’s eating B2B SaaS
Recently however, there has been increasing speculation that large language
models (LLMs) are a threat to the entire Software ecosystem. In an aptly named
short essay titled “The End of Software”, venture capitalist Chris Paik of
Pace Capital contends that can significantly lower the cost of software
development and maintenance, leading to a proliferation of new, agile software
solutions that could replace traditional SaaS models. Paik argues this shift
may result in a fundamental rethinking of how software is built, sold, and
consumed, potentially rendering existing B2B SaaS business models obsolete as
the market transitions to AI agents. He goes so far as to say “Majoring in
computer science today will be like majoring in journalism in the late 90’s”.
... Most SaaS is priced by the seat. Given there is a direct correlation
between the workforce reduction and revenues, this easily equates to billions
of dollars in lost recurring revenues across the industry. Indeed, one of the
main benefits touted by SaaS companies was this ability to scale up and down
as needed without commitment.
Deploying scalable modular data centers at the Edge
Requirements around the build-out of data centers have also led to a rethink
of how these buildings need to be constructed. Building data centers at the
Edge is the way to combat some of the challenges that the industry faces,
Lindsey argues. “We see Edge as a way to activate infrastructure very quickly,
where today, as you know, we have a wildly low vacancy rate,” he says. “That
should continue through the next several years, and people still need data, so
we see this as a way to scale out where we have now. We’re now on track over
the next five years to be able to scale out at gigawatt scale.” ... “We wanted
to create an integrated platform that allows for our customers to build and
deploy data centers, with an experience that's much more akin to building and
buying a car,” he explains, noting that Flexnode focuses on connecting three
key parts. “The first part was an industrialized building system that is
designed for disassembly, configurability, adaptability, and designed to go
anywhere.” The second part, he says, is focused on its fully digitized process
which helps its customers design and configure their data centers. The final
part, he adds, is the ecosystem of partners Flexnode partners with, spanning
engineering and construction.
Saudi entrepreneurs launch fintech startup to spur open banking growth in GCC
The projected growth of open banking in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries
has motivated Rayan Azab and Salah Khashoggi to partner with Dubai-based
fintech entrepreneur Ash Kalra to spearhead this venture after four years of
market research. This comes as open banking is projected to account for over
$124 billion worth of transactions in the GCC region alone by 2031, up from
$14 billion in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 22 percent, according to a
report by Allied Market Research. ... “Saudi Arabia has recently advanced its
open banking initiatives and is poised to become a regional leader in open
banking," he explained. Highlighting the potential impact of open banking
growth in the GCC on their trajectory, Azab mentioned that the segment is
already established in the region, and they are not introducing something
entirely new. “We are just revamping it. Thimsa is going to come and help
small businesses that cannot afford to just go and do the huge accounting or
whatever,” he said, adding that they will be adding value to these businesses.
A Journey From the Foundations of Observability to Surviving Its Challenges at Scale
The amount of data generated in cloud-native environments, especially at
scale, makes it impossible to continue collecting all data. This flood of
data, the challenges that arise, and the inability to sift through the
information to find the root causes of issues becomes detrimental to the
success of development teams. It would be more helpful if developers were
supported with just the right amount of data, in just the right forms, and at
the right time to solve issues. One does not mind observability if the
solution to problems are found quickly, situations are remediated faster, and
developers are satisfied with the results. If this is done with one log line,
two spans from a trace, and three metric labels, then that's all we want to
see. To do this, developers need to know when issues arise with their
applications or services, preferably before it happens. They start
troubleshooting with data that has been determined by their instrumented
applications to succinctly point to areas within the offending application.
Any tooling allows the developer who's investigating to see dashboards
reporting visual information that directs them to the problem and potential
moment it started.
Faultless with serverless: Cloud best practices for optimized returns
The Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) is an essential rule to ensure the
modularity and scalability of serverless computing. According to the rule,
functions should be small, stateless, and have only one primary reason to
modify. Stateless functions can easily scale up or down based on demand
without any overheads of managing the state. ... An asynchronous, event-driven
architecture is best suited for a serverless execution model. Serverless
applications achieve resilience, scalability, and efficiency by decoupling
components and handling the workloads asynchronously. The technique involves
queues and event streams, where the tasks are offloaded and exclusively
processed by serverless functions. ... With built-in monitoring solutions,
organizations can track function invocations, durations, errors, and resource
utilization. This helps them identify and resolve issues proactively and
optimise opportunities. To understand this better, consider a serverless IoT
platform. Through a strategic process for monitoring and observability,
enterprises can remediate issues pertaining to data ingestion, processing, and
delivery.
Emerging Trends in Application Security Testing Services
The integration of security into DevOps practices, known as DevSecOps, continues
to gain traction. DevSecOps emphasizes collaboration and communication between
development, IT operations, and security teams. By automating security checks
throughout the development pipeline, DevSecOps ensures that security is not a
bottleneck but an integral part of the development process. This proactive
approach significantly enhances the overall security posture of applications.
... Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) are revolutionizing
application security testing. Advanced ML algorithms can analyze vast datasets
to identify patterns and anomalies, helping security experts detect and respond
to threats more effectively. AI-driven tools can automate identifying
vulnerabilities, predict potential attack vectors, and suggest remediation
strategies. ... With the proliferation of APIs (Application Programming
Interfaces) in modern applications, API security testing has become a critical
focus area. APIs facilitate seamless communication between different software
systems but can also be vulnerable points if not properly secured.
Kenya & US Aim to Bolster Digital Security in Africa
The news comes as Kenya has seen a spike in attacks, including significantly
disruptive incidents. For instance, the country suffered a massive
denial-of-service attack that disrupted access to its e-Citizen
government-services site last year, nd eventually affected electric utilities
and rail-ticketing systems. ... "The government ought to adopt good
multi-stakeholder practices such as courting local private sector
players—especially small and medium-sized enterprises operating in and affected
by developments in cyberspace—alongside the local sector leaders and tech
multinationals operating in the country," the group stated. "Kenya also has a
vibrant information security community that should be incorporated in cyber
drills through professional associations." ... Both Kenya and the United States
highlighted the efforts of private industry in partnering with the East African
nation to improve its cybersecurity posture. In addition to its cyber operations
work, Google will be aiding Kenya with incident-response solutions and improving
infrastructure resilience.
How to Find the Right AI Solution: 3 Innovative Techniques
The real issue is that AI, as a product or service, doesn’t fit well into the
RFP process. First, AI isn’t akin to a magic wand. It works slowly and
deliberately, producing incremental -- but very real and significant --
improvements over time. These gains are hard to explain using an RFP, which,
again, demands results that are achievable rapidly and according to a strict
timeline. Instilling confidence -- without conveying false hopes or unrealistic
expectations -- is difficult given the sheer volume of specific and detailed
questions that RFPs require. ... For AI to do what it does best, it requires
access to every bit of available data over an extended period of time. Limiting
AI to a very brief timeline, which includes piecemeal and/or partial access to
data, yields results that are effectively useless. A POC, in short, gives no
indication of what the technology could do if these restrictions didn’t exist,
which makes it hard for vendors of all sizes to use proofs of concept to bolster
their submissions -- and even harder for organizations to trust what the POC is
claiming.
Advanced CI/CD: 6 steps to better CI/CD pipelines
One surprising data point in the State of CI/CD report was the number of CI/CD
platforms respondents had in place and how it impacted DORA metrics. Companies
using a hybrid approach of self-hosted and managed CI/CD platforms outperformed
those who standardized on one approach or were not using CI/CD platforms. Of the
companies using a hybrid approach, 49% had a lead time of less than one week for
changes, and 24% had a lead time of less than one day. Sixty-six percent could
typically restore service performance from an unplanned outage in under a day,
and 25% could do so in under an hour. These rates were significantly better than
those using only one approach. The report also showed that organizations using
three or fewer CI/CD platforms generally outperformed those with more than three
tools. There are many reasons why organizations may have multiple CI/CD
platforms. For example, a company may use Copado or Opsera to deploy apps to
Salesforce, use Jenkins for data center apps, GitHub Actions for cloud-native
applications, and then inherit implementations using AWS CodeBuild and AWS
CodePipeline after acquiring a business.
Key Considerations for C-Suite Leaders Involved in Digital Transformation Initiatives
Poor data can lead to poor decisions, especially with AI-based technologies
where foundational models rely solely on data without context. While making good
decisions relies on complete and accurate data, using incorrect data can lead to
significant financial losses. ... Before embarking on a transformation,
leadership needs to understand the regulatory environment specific to their
industry. This requires looking at current regulations and understanding
potential changes happening in the relatively short term. ... Before and during
a transformation, C-suite leaders must keep their finger on the pulse of
cybersecurity. Newer technologies are aggregating large datasets of customer,
banking, and personally identifiable information (PII), which demands a premium
and can be extremely valuable on the dark web. Implementing an innovative
technology is a perfect time to ensure adequate cybersecurity measures, and
post-implementation testing of new integrations will provide additional peace of
mind. Protecting digital assets is not only a technical challenge; it’s a human
challenge.
Quote for the day:
"Earn your leadership every day." --
Michael Jordan
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