IBM Study: More Than Half of Organizations with Cybersecurity Incident Response Plans Fail to Test Them

Press release

Yet Use of Automation Improved Detection and Containment of Cyberattacks by nearly 25%

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) Security today announced the results of a global study exploring organizations' preparedness when it comes to withstanding and recovering from a cyberattack. The study, conducted by the Ponemon Institute on behalf of IBM, found that a vast majority of organizations surveyed are still unprepared to properly respond to cybersecurity incidents, with 77% of respondents indicating they do not have a cybersecurity incident response plan applied consistently across the enterprise.

While studies show that companies who can respond quickly and efficiently to contain a cyberattack within 30 days save over $1 million on the total cost of a data breach on average,¹ shortfalls in proper cybersecurity incident response planning have remained consistent over the past four years of the study. Of the organizations surveyed that do have a plan in place, more than half (54%) do not test their plans regularly, which can leave them less prepared to effectively manage the complex processes and coordination that must take place in the wake of an attack.

The difficulty cybersecurity teams are facing in implementing a cyber security incident response plan has also impacted businesses' compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Nearly half of respondents (46%) say their organization has yet to realize full compliance with GDPR, even as the one-year anniversary of the legislation quickly approaches.   

"Failing to plan is a plan to fail when it comes to responding to a cybersecurity incident. These plans need to be stress tested regularly and need full support from the board to invest in the necessary people, processes and technologies to sustain such a program," said Ted Julian, Vice President of Product Management and Co-Founder, IBM Resilient. "When proper planning is paired with investments in automation, we see companies able to save millions of dollars during a breach."

Other takeaways from the study include:

• Automation in Response Still Emerging – less than one-quarter of the respondents said their organization significantly uses automation technologies, such as identity management and authentication, incident response platforms and security information and event management (SIEM) tools, in their response process.
• Skills Still not Paying the Bills – only 30% of respondents reported that staffing for cybersecurity is sufficient to achieve a high level of cyber resilience.
• Privacy and Cybersecurity Tied at Hip – 62% of respondents indicated that aligning privacy and cybersecurity roles is essential or very important to achieving cyber resilience within their organizations.

Automation Still Emerging For the first time, this year's study measured the impact of automation on cyber resilience. In the context of this research, automation refers to enabling security technologies that augment or replace human intervention in the identification and containment of cyber exploits or breaches. These technologies depend upon artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics and orchestration.

When asked if their organization leveraged automation, only 23% of respondents said they were significant users, whereas 77% reported their organizations only use automation moderately, insignificantly or not at all. Organizations with the extensive use of automation rate their ability to prevent (69% vs. 53%), detect (76% vs. 53%), respond (68% vs. 53%) and contain (74% vs. 49%) a cyberattack as higher than the overall sample of respondents.

According to the 2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study, the use of automation is a missed opportunity to strengthen cyber resilience, as organizations that fully deployed security automation saved $1.5 million on the total cost of a data breach, contrasted with organizations that did not leverage automation and realized a much higher total cost of a data breach.

Skills Gap Still Impacting Cyber ResilienceThe cybersecurity skills gap appears to be further undermining cyber resilience, as organizations reported that a lack of staffing hindered their ability to properly manage resources and needs. Survey participants stated they lack the headcount to properly maintain and test their incident response plans and are facing 10-20 open seats on cybersecurity teams. In fact, only 30% of respondents reported that staffing for cybersecurity is sufficient to achieve a high level of cyber resilience. Furthermore, 75% of respondents rate their difficulty in hiring and retaining skilled cybersecurity personnel as moderately high to high.

Adding to the skills challenge, nearly half of respondents (48%) said their organization deploys too many separate security tools, ultimately increasing operational complexity and reducing visibility into overall security posture.

Privacy Growing as a PriorityOrganizations are finally acknowledging that collaboration between privacy and cybersecurity teams can improve cyber resilience, with 62% indicating that aligning these teams is essential to achieving resilience. Most respondents believe the privacy role is becoming increasingly important, especially with the emergence of new regulations like GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act, and are prioritizing data protection when making IT buying decisions.

When asked what the top factor was in justifying cybersecurity spend, 56% of respondents said information loss or theft. This rings especially true as consumers are demanding businesses do more to actively protect their data. According to a recent survey by IBM, 78% of respondents say a company's ability to keep their data private is extremely important, and only 20% completely trust organizations they interact with to maintain the privacy of their data.

In addition, most respondents also reported having a privacy leader employed, with 73% stating they have a Chief Privacy Officer, further proving that data privacy has become a top priority in organizations.

About the Study Conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by IBM Resilient, "The 2019 Cyber Resilient Organization" is the fourth annual benchmark study on Cyber Resilience – an organization's ability to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of cyberattacks. The global survey features insight from more than 3,600 security and IT professionals from around the world, including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Middle East and Asia Pacific.

To learn more about the full results of the study, download "The 2019 Study on the Cyber Resilient Organization."

Sign up for our upcoming webinar: "Leaders & Laggards: The latest findings from the Ponemon Institute's study on the Cyber Resilient Organization" which will be held April 30 from 12:00-1:00pm EST.

About IBM SecurityIBM Security offers one of the most advanced and integrated portfolios of enterprise security products and services. The portfolio, supported by world-renowned IBM X-Force® research, enables organizations to effectively manage risk and defend against emerging threats. IBM operates one of the world's broadest security research, development and delivery organizations, monitors 70 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries, and has been granted more than 10,000 security patents worldwide. For more information, please check www.ibm.com/security, follow @IBMSecurity on Twitter or visit the IBM Security Intelligence blog. 

https://newsroom.ibm.com/2019-04-11-IBM-Study-More-Than-Half-of-Organizations-with-Cybersecurity-Incident-Response-Plans-Fail-to-Test-Them

Deutsche Cyber-Sicherheitsorganisation

Il mondo cyber è visto come un rischio ma per molte società è anche un'opportunità.

E' il caso di quattro grandi società tedesche che nel novembre 2015 hanno deciso di allearsi per difendersi e offrire i loro servizi, si tratta di Allianz SE, BASF SE, Bayer AG e Volkswagen AG, riunite sotto il nome di "Deutsche Cyber-Sicherheitsorganisation" (German Cybersecurity Organisation) o, in breve, DCSO.

La necessità di affrontare le nuove sfide sempre più complesse e la velocità di cambiamento del settore tecnologico spinge alla aggregazione e così è nata la DCSO.

Tra le principali attività della DCSO vi sono:

- technology scouting, ovvero l'individuazione di tecnologie emergenti, la raccolta di informazioni su queste ultime e la canalizzazione delle informazioni all'interno delle organizzazioni che possono usufruirne nonché il supporto nella loro acquisizione;

- threat detection, ovvero l'individuazione delle minacce, in particolare di quelle riferibili ad APT;

- next generation solutions, per la ricerca di soluzioni di sicurezza cyber di nuova generazione;

- auditing;

- incident response;

- consulenza.

Alcune brevi considerazioni.

Le quattro Big tedesche non sono società che rientrano tra quelle che normalmente vengono considerate del settore, eppure ognuna di esse ha i suoi buoni motivi.

La prima, Allianz SE, è una società di servizi finanziari conosciuta al pubblico per i servizi assicurativi. In questo caso sia la necessità di conoscere meglio il nascente mercato delle assicurazioni cyber, sia la necessità di protezione delle sue reti e dei dati gestiti, può aver spinto il colosso europeo (130 miliardi di euro di fatturato nel 2018, 140.000 dipendenti, un utile netto di circa 7 miliardi di euro) ad occuparsi del settore.

Non poteva mancare la Volkswagen AG, sia perché da più di sessanta anni esistono collaborazioni con la Allianz SE, sia per migliorare la conoscenza del settore, sia in vista delle nuove tecnologie applicate al settore automobilistico.

La BASF SE, una delle più grandi industrie chimiche al mondo (62 miliardi di fatturato 2018, circa 130.000 dipendenti, 4.7 miliardi di euro di utile netto), ha scelto di partecipare all'alleanza, probabilmente anch'essa spinta dalla necessità di proteggere le proprie reti aziendali dalla crescente minaccia internazionale. La crescita degli attacchi verso le grandi società allo scopo di furto di segreti industriali è infatti in crescita, come tutto il settore. 

Infine la Bayer AG, una delle principali società farmaceutiche (circa 40 miliardi di euro di fatturato 2018, 111.000 dipendenti, circa due miliardi di utile), spinta, immagino, dalle stesse considerazioni della BASF. 

Naturalmente l'alleanza risulta importante anche per il governo tedesco che usufruisce così della capacità attrattiva delle società e della loro esperienza nei diversi settori produttivi, spingendo così allo sviluppo del settore cyber nazionale. Anche se si tratta di una società ancora giovane  i presupposti per una veloce crescita nel mondo cyber ci sono tutti.

Alessandro Rugolo

Per approfondire:

- https://dcso.de/de/about-us/;
- https://www.politico.eu/article/germanys-cyber-security-chief-on-hacking-russia-and-problems-to-hire-experts/;
- https://www.basf.com/global/de/media/news-releases/2015/09/p-15-342.html;

Reims, la gemella di Roma...

Mi sono imbattuto per caso, presso un bouquiniste di Parigi, in un libriccino stampato su carta spessa e scura edito dalle Librairie Larousse nel 1933 dal titolo "Vercingétorix, les gestes heroiques", scritto dallo scrittore Charles Gailly de Taurines (1857-1941).

Il libriccino, in lingua francese, racconta appunto le gesta di Vercingetorix, dalla sua gioventù alla fine dei suoi giorni a Roma, attaccato al carro del suo vincitore, Cesare.

Nella lettura del libro mi sono imbattuto in diverse cose interessanti e di una di queste voglio parlare, si tratta della leggenda che parla della fondazione della città di Reims.

Reims è oggi una cittadina francese ma ai tempi di Cesare era una delle città principali dei popoli della gallia belga.

L'autore afferma infatti che sin dai primi tempi in cui Cesare si trovava come proconsole in Gallia, nelle città dei belgi, si cominciava a mormorare che se le Legioni romane avessero cominciato a passare l'inverno sui loro territori dei loro vicini non sarebbero più riusciti a liberarsene e magari un giorno si sarebbero stabilite anche presso di loro.

Poco oltre si fa riferimento al fatto che gli abitanti di Reims inviarono presso Cesare i propri ambasciatori con il seguente messaggio: 

              "In fede del popolo romano, noi vi rimettiamo le nostre città e tutte le nostre ricchezze. Alle richieste pressanti dei nostri fratelli belgi noi abbiamo resistito. Non abbiamo voluto prendere parte alle loro congiure. Noi abbiamo intenzione, invece, a venire in aiuto dei romani con tutto il nostro potere, aprendo le porte delle nostre città e dividendo con essi i nostri viveri e il nostro frumento. Noi amiamo fraternamente i romani, perché noi siamo loro fratelli".

Devo dire che in un primo tempo ho pensato che dovesse trattarsi di un tentativo di inganno ai danni di Cesare ma poi, continuando a leggere mi sono dovuto ricredere infatti gli abitanti di Reims sembra abbiano effettivamente sostenuto i romani.

Ecco la spiegazione dell'autore: secondo una leggenda cara agli abitanti di Reims, il nome della loro città sarebbe derivato da quello di Remo, fratello di Romolo, fondatore di Roma. A seguito del litigio tra i due fratelli riguardo l'interpretazione da dare al volo degli avvoltoi, Remo non sarebbe stato ucciso, come si era creduto, ma portato via segretamente dai suoi compagni egli era riuscito a raggiungere, al di la delle Alpi, la gallia belga, territorio sul quale era stata fondata la città che conservava il suo nome.

Secondo l'autore, a Reims, una porta romana ancora in piedi attestava l'antichità della leggenda. I suoi bassorilievi infatti rappresentavano la lupa romana che allatta i due gemelli e a ricordo del loro padre divino, la porta ha conservato nei secoli il nome di "porta di Marte".

Da quel giorno gli abitanti di Reims furono alleati dei romani e non violarono mai il proprio giuramento.

E' la prima volta che sento parlare di una simile leggenda.
Oggi nella città di Reims è possibile vedere ancora la Porta di Marte, l'unica di quattro porte della città ad essere sopravvissuta ai secoli.
La città ai tempi di Cesare veniva chiamata dai romani "Durocortorum" e la porta sembra sia stata costruita tra il 180 e il 230 dopo Cristo come arco di trionfo.
Che la leggenda abbia o meno un fondo di verità poco importa, certo è che Reims non tradì Cesare e che la città assunse un ruolo importante nei secoli che venirono.

Alessandro Rugolo

Amazon Provides Robotics Grants to 100 Schools in Underserved and Underrepresented Communities Across the Country to Inspire Next Generation of Computer Scientists

Press release 

April 12, 2019 at 3:00 AM EDT

The Amazon Future Engineer grants fund FIRST robotics program registrations to start a robotics club, $10,000 to expand access to computer science education, and a personal tour of a local Amazon fulfillment center

Thousands of children in 100 schools across 21 states set to benefit starting in the fall

Amazon Future Engineer is a four-part, childhood-to-career program that works to inspire and educate 10 million children and young adults each year from underrepresented and underserved communities to pursue careers in the fast-growing field of computer science and coding

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr. 12, 2019-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and FIRST today announced that 100 schools serving students from underrepresented and underserved communities from across the country will receive an Amazon Future Engineer Robotics Grant to inspire the next generation of computer scientists. The 100 schools across 21 states will receive support to launch FIRST robotics teams, including teacher professional development to learn about robotics, $10,000 from Amazon to expand access to computer science education in their school, and a tour of a local Amazon fulfillment center. Read more about the new program here.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190412005073/en/

KIPP Columbus students tour an Amazon fulfillment center as part of Amazon Future Engineer robotics grant program. (Photo: Business Wire)

FIRST’s mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills to students in grades K-12. Data from a 5-year longitudinal study of FIRST by Brandeis University shows competitive FIRST robotics programs works for all youth. Across all demographic groups (gender, race, economic status and geography), FIRST students show significant gains in STEM knowledge, STEM interest, STEM career interest, STEM identity, and STEM activity compared to their peers who don’t participate. FIRST students are more likely to major in tech-focused science fields in college; by their second year of college, over 50 percent declare majors in engineering or technology. The impact on young women in FIRST is particularly profound. By their first year of college, female alumnae of FIRST are 3.6 times more likely to take an engineering course, and 1.9 times more likely to take a computer science course than female comparison students.

“Our students have been working incredibly hard over the course of their educational journeys to be in a position to take rigorous computer science courses, and this experience visiting the fulfillment center, as well as the support to expand our programming next year, is so empowering to them,” said Jake Kuhnline, Assistant Director of Teaching & Learning, KIPP Columbus in Columbus, Ohio. “It's rare that I hear a bus full of high schoolers talking about robotics, computer science, and the future of programming, but that trip generated that much enthusiasm.”

“The Amazon Future Engineer Robotics Grant is a game changer for middle and high school students throughout 53 KIPP schools around the country,” said Dave Levin, co-founder of KIPP Public Schools. “The generosity of Amazon will ensure more KIPP students than ever will have the opportunity not only to pursue successful careers in STEM, but help diversify the industry for future generations.”

"Amazon is helping FIRST in our goal to make robotics teams and programs available in every school,” said Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST and president of DEKA Research & Development. “In FIRST, every kid on every team can go pro. They gain a hands-on learning pathway in technology, computer science and engineering that propels them forward and inspires innovation."

“We can’t wait to bring thousands of students into Amazon’s fulfillment centers to show them the amazing technology operating behind the scenes,” said Jeff Wilke, CEO Consumer Worldwide, Amazon. “These students are the innovators of the future, and we’re confident that this hands-on experience provided by Amazon Future Engineer will inspire them in their academic pursuits and beyond.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2020 there will be 1.4 million computer-science-related jobs available and only 400,000 computer science graduates with the skills to apply for those jobs. Computer science is the fastest-growing profession within the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) field, but only 8% of STEM graduates earn a computer science degree, with a tiny minority from underprivileged backgrounds. Students from underprivileged backgrounds are 8 to 10 times more likely to pursue college degrees in computer science if they have taken AP computer science in high school.

Launched in November, 2018, Amazon Future Engineer is a four-part childhood-to-career program intended to inspire, educate, and prepare children and young adults from underrepresented and underserved communities to pursue careers in the fast-growing field of computer science. Each year, Amazon Future Engineer aims to inspire more than 10 million kids to explore computer science; provide over 100,000 young people in over 2,000 high schools access to Intro or AP Computer Science courses; award 100 students with four-year $10,000 scholarships, as well as offer guaranteed and paid Amazon internships to gain work experience. Amazon Future Engineer is part of Amazon’s $50 million investment in computer science/STEM education. In addition, Amazon Future Engineer has donated more than $10 million to organizations that promote computer science/STEM education across the country.

Press release

13 aprile 1519: nasce una regina

13 aprile 1519, in una Firenze saldamente in mano alla famiglia dei Medici, nasce Caterina, figlia di Lorenzo de' Medici duca di Urbino (e nipote di papa Leone X) e la principessa francese Maddalena de la Tour d'Auvergne. 

Per chi, italiano, si trova a passare da Parigi è d'obbligo andare a visitare la basilica di Saint Denis.  Situata a nord di Parigi, raggiungibile con la metro, è una delle più grandi basiliche gotiche della Francia, al suo interno vi sono sepolti i re della Francia dal X secolo al 1789 con poche eccezioni.  

Entrati nella basilica per vedere la tomba di Caterina, ci troviamo immersi nella suggestiva cerimonia del venerdì santo, la Via Crucis. Ancora pochi giorni ed è Pasqua. Il mausoleo e la tomba del re Enrico II e di sua moglie Caterina si trovano nella navata di sinistra. Ci sediamo, la cerimonia non ci consente di avvicinarci troppo. La penombra e i canti sacri aiutano a riflettere e ricordare. Qualche settimana prima abbiamo visitato il castello di Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Sede del museo nazionale di archeologia, ospitava la mostra sul re Enrico II ed in quella occasione abbiamo potuto osservare i dipinti del re e della sua sposa, Caterina. La ricchezza degli abiti non può non colpire 

Caterina è passata alla storia non solo per essere la moglie del re di Francia. Di lei si sa che amava a tal punto la cucina fiorentina (qualcuno dice "italiana", ma allora l'Italia come noi la conosciamo non c'era ancora...) da essersi portata alla corte i cuochi più esperti (assieme alla forchetta, allora ancora sconosciuta a Parigi). 

La regina é spesso considerata sospettosa, gelosa e machiavellica ma molto probabilmente agì come agì per preservare il trono ai figli minori. Amava circondarsi di studiosi e di artisti, spesso italiani, e lei stessa si cimentava nello scrivere, almeno nel campo del governo dello Stato. 

Nel 1564 scrive una lettera al figlio Charles IX, dal titolo chiarificatore : « Pour la police de Cour et pour le gouvernement », in cui descrive l’impiego del tempo di un re e il comportamento da tenere alla corte.  Sicuramente era una donna forte e non si privava di dire la sua. Non a caso Honoré de Balzac, nella introduzione al romanzo storico « Sur Catherine de Médicis », la definisce come la donna che a salvato la corona di Francia grazie alle sue rare qualità: i doni più preziosi dell’Uomo di Stato. 

Il suo più grosso problema lo ebbe con la religione. Suo marito, il re Enrico II, aveva sempre combattuto con forza il protestantesimo ma alla sua morte, nel 1559, un gruppo di protestanti di Amboise tenta di a seguito di sequestrare il figlio Francesco II (successore del padre Enrico II). Il tentativo é sventato grazie al servizio di informatori esistente in Francia e i complottisti vengono messi a morte per impiccagione e il loro capo è tagliato in cinque pezzi. Caterina non ha alcuna difficoltà ad approvare le azioni repressive.  La Francia sprofonda in una sanguinosa guerra civile che la regina cercherà in ogni modo di ricomporre, con alterni successi. Caterina cercherà infatti di promuovere un rapporto di maggiore libertà e di tolleranza nei confronti delle religioni. 

Le guerre di religione in Francia proseguiranno fino al 1598 quando Enrico IV firmerà l’editto di Nantes concedendo alcune libertà di culto e politiche ai protestanti, ma per quella data Caterina non era già più protagonista da alcuni anni… Caterina, regina di Francia in qualità di moglie del re Enrico II, morirà il 5 gennaio 1589, nel castello di Blois, lasciando ai posteri il ricordo di una donna forte, inflessibile, responsabile di atti politici che lasceranno il segno. Gelosa, dura, machiavellica? 

Non so, sicuramente "donna di potere" e "donna al potere" per buona parte del '500. 

A fine anno Caterina sarà ricordata nel corso dei attraverso le mostre "Les Tapisseries de la Reine" al Castello di Chaumont-sur-Loire e al Castello di Chenonceau. 

Alessandro Rugolo

Fraport and Deutsche Bahn to Test Artificial Intelligence at Frankfurt Airport

Press release

A socially intelligent robot advises passengers

The robotic head smiles at the passenger and greets them: “My name is FRAnny. How can I help you?” FRAnny is an expert on Frankfurt Airport, and is able to answer a wide range of questions – including the correct gate, the way to a specific restaurant, and how to access the free Wi-Fi.

The robotic concierge is a cooperative project between Fraport AG, the operator of Frankfurt Airport (FRA), and DB Systel GmbH, Deutsche Bahn’s dedicated IT service provider. Travelers at major transportation hubs, such as airports and train stations, are very often in need of guidance. In these scenarios, digital assistants and robots can support human personnel by fielding routine inquiries, thus enhancing the customer service offering. A six-week trial at Frankfurt Airport, Germany’s largest aviation hub, will help evaluate FRAnny in terms of functionality, customer acceptance and its practical usefulness in everyday situations

FRAnny is based on an artificial intelligence and a cloud-based voice-user interface (VUI) that can be deployed in a variety of forms – including in chatbots, voice assistants and robots. This digital customer service system was developed by a team of Deutsche Bahn IT experts. Using data drawn from the airport’s information system, FRAnny is able to understand and answer questions relating to travel, airport facilities and more. In addition to providing flight information, FRAnny is well versed in small talk and can communicate in German, English and seven other languages.

Fraport and Deutsche Bahn have been jointly exploring the potential of artificially intelligent, voice-based customer service systems since 2017. The first pilot took place at Frankfurt Airport in spring 2018 using FRAnny’s predecessor: the four-week field trial was very successful. After approximately 4,400 interactions, 75 percent of passengers rated their exchange positively. Based on the feedback received, both the artificial intelligence (AI) component and the robot’s user interface were further improved. The more recent trial underscores both companies’ commitment to ongoing innovation in artificial intelligence and robotics. Moreover, it puts the implemented improvements through their paces under real-world conditions.

In June, the AI-based service is to be tested at Berlin central rail station – which has approximately 300,000 travelers and visitors every day. Human customer service agents at Deutsche Bahn’s information center will receive smart support from FRAnny’s sister, SEMMI.

“From Cloud to Cloud Intelligence” – Alibaba Cloud Outlines Strategic Upgrade after a Decade of Success

Press Release

Product launches in China to broaden Internet and digital technology adoption and empower ecosystem

Jeff Zhang, President of Alibaba Cloud and Chief Technology Officer of Alibaba Group, elaborated on the strategic upgrade of the business at Alibaba Cloud Beijing Summit.

Beijing, March 21, 2019 – Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing and data intelligence arm of Alibaba Group, unveiled at its Beijing Summit the new strategy to develop the company into a more technologically inclusive platform. Jeff Zhang, President of Alibaba Cloud and Chief Technology Officer of Alibaba Group, for the first time elaborated publicly on the strategic upgrade of the business – evolving to serve as a key component of the Alibaba Business Operating System, and empowering customers and ecosystem partners to win in the digital era. Over 3,000 ecosystem partners and industry practitioners attending the Summit have shared the development journey of the company over the past 10 years.

Cloud computing is becoming the main business focus of Alibaba Group and over the past decade Alibaba Cloud has been the technology and public cloud platform underpinning the entire Alibaba economy from e-commerce and payment, to logistics and supply chain management. The scalability, reliability, and security of Alibaba Cloud are paramount to the business and the platform has successfully sustained real-world tests on a daily basis, most notably during the Alibaba 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, the scale of which provides one of the biggest stress tests possible. Businesses of all sizes have leveraged these proven successes to grow and innovate in China and overseas.

Becoming an enabler of SaaS
“Alibaba has championed cloud computing in China over the past 10 years and has been at the forefront of rapid technology development. Today, Alibaba Cloud not only provides infrastructural support to the entire Alibaba economy but has also developed proven technologies to empower millions of customers in China and worldwide, significantly lowering cloud adoption barriers, ensuring inclusive access, and enabling collaboration throughout the ecosystem,” said Jeff Zhang.

“In the future, our highly compatible and standards-based platform will allow SaaS partners to onboard easily and thrive. The offerings will also be enriched by our continued investment in research through the Damo Academy, that will align data science with the development of our products. To empower all participants in our ecosystem, we will boost the integrated development of technology, products and services on our open platform,” he added.

Alibaba Cloud is the IaaS market leader in China with a larger share than the sum of the second to eighth players. The development of the IaaS market meant that in 2018, the cost of technology adoption for businesses in China has reduced significantly compared to 10 years ago.

New product launches to facilitate cloud adoption in China
Adoption of the cloud is expected to continue and become more immersive in the traditional sectors across China. The importance of digital intelligence will become more apparent as enterprises need to derive deeper business insights, make data-driven decisions, and take real-time actions. Alibaba Cloud will continue to invest in technological research and development, ensuring that the company has the capability to offer powerful computing and Internet-based technology products for the further adoption of cloud and data intelligence.

Over the past decade, Alibaba Cloud has developed 162 products and activated 4,610 product features and functions, an average of more than one a day. At the summit, the company announced a full suite of new products in China, with 3 highlights – a super-computing product, a cloud-native database as well as the accelerator to boost the SaaS ecosystem:

• X-dragon Super-Computing Cluster instance SCC-GN6: The most powerful super-computing bare-metal server instance launched by the company to date, with the capability to enhance the cluster performance by more than 100%. This new instance provides 50 Gbps of RDMA networking throughput, 96 custom Intel Skylake vCPUs, 8 NVIDIA V100 Tensor Core GPUs, providing a total of 1000 TFlops to computational throughput, and high-performance parallel file system CPFS with 1TB/s R/W throughput. SCC-GN6 supports supercomputing scenarios such as autonomous driving, machine interpretation, natural language processing and recommendation systems.
• PolarDB: A cloud-native relational database service that is designed for enterprise-grade database applications. PolarDB is compatible with Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL and offers excellent scalability with the architecture of hardware-software co-design. It can scale up to 88vCPUs and 710GB of memory and allows customers to pay for usage by the minute, enabling customers to handle a business peak traffic while minimizing cost. It can also scale up to 100TB in storage which helps customers cope with big data development.
• SaaS Accelerator: A highly efficient and agile platform where ecosystem partners can easily build and launch SaaS applications and leverage Alibaba’s proven business and technology know-how. The accelerator helps SaaS customers quickly deploy and test their applications on the cloud, shorten the implementation lifecycle, and accelerate time-to-market. It features an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface and launch kit while remaining highly compatible with other application programming interfaces (APIs). With the accelerator, a smart SaaS application can go live in as little as five days.

For more information about 2019 Beijing Alibaba Cloud Summit and to view Jeff Zhang’s keynote speech from the event, go to: https://yunqi.youku.com/2019/beijing/meeting

About Alibaba Cloud
Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud (www.alibabacloud.com), the cloud computing and data intelligence arm of Alibaba Group, is among the world’s top three IaaS providers, according to Gartner, and the largest provider of public cloud services in China, according to IDC. Alibaba Cloud provides a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to businesses worldwide, including merchants doing business on Alibaba Group marketplaces, start-ups, corporations and government organizations. Alibaba Cloud is the official Cloud Services Partner of the International Olympic Committee.