Oh, how the year has flown by. We can’t believe we’re in the home stretch of 2023 already, Silverliners! We wouldn’t have preferred to share the ride with anyone else.
We thought we’d close the year with a look back on the stories that generated the most page views on the site. And since looking ahead is our jam, you can bet these pieces will set the stage for some big news items you’ll hear about in 2024.
Let the roundup begin.
1-4) The Broadcom-VMware saga
Four out of the top 10 stories this year focused on the will-they-or-won’t-they saga of Broadcom’s VMware acquisition. Two of these focused on whether or not the deal would receive approval from regulators in the U.K. and China, and what might happen if it didn’t. The other two took another perspective, looking at what the deal meant for customers and why some recommended that customers make contingency plans.
Alas, all the speculation died down when China granted the final approval the pair needed and Broadcom closed its acquisition a day later. We expect to hear more about this in 2024, though, as layoffs at VMware continue and Broadcom overhauls its portfolio and licensing strategy.
5) Nokia’s private wireless plans
Our audience was also enthralled by a story about Nokia’s plans to use private wireless for public safety and power grid applications. Notably, the systems in question provide support for up to half a million voice endpoints rather than the millions telcos need.
It remains to be seen whether its efforts to secure gains in various verticals can offset the hit it took when it lost out on AT&T’s $14 billion open RAN contract to Ericsson. Oof.
6) Scenes from AWS’ Public Sector Summit
When we traveled to Washington, DC this summer for Amazon Web Services’ public sector summit, we decided to take our audience along for the ride. This photo story offered first-hand scenes from the event as well as blurbs with information we gathered about the company’s disaster recovery jeep and drone, modular data centers and more. Pretty cool stuff!
7) How AWS uses eBPF to identify security risks
Open-source software security emerged as a huge topic of concern at Silverlinings’ Cloud Executive Summit in December, with Kubernetes co-founder Craig McLuckie warning “existential” vulnerabilities could be on the horizon if the industry isn’t careful. While he said enterprises are particularly at risk, he noted hyperscalers are generally on top of the problem when it comes to their own infrastructure.
Indeed, back in February, we took an in-depth look at how AWS is using the open-source tool eBPF for its GuardDuty offering to help monitori AWS instances, container workloads and storage. Though eBPF is primarily used for threat detection, AWS said it could also help prevent attacks in the future. Check it out.
8) Docker and Kubernetes founders talk about the future of cloud
The end of the year is typically the time everyone starts looking into their crystal balls to predict the future, but this time we did so in March! The founders of container company Docker and open-source software Kubernetes and a handful of other key companies all hopped on a call with press to talk about the future of the cloud. Their take? It’s all about automation and artificial intelligence (AI).
See what they had to say here.
9) CyrusOne says this is why data center sites are getting bigger
Data centers are the lifeblood of the cloud and if you haven’t noticed (like we have, living in the data center hub that is Northern Virginia) they’re becoming not just more numerous but also bigger. CyrusOne told Silverlinings that data centers are evolving from being just buildings to campuses, and they need more space for potential future expansions.
But why campuses? It’s all about economies of scale, friends. However, there are some hangups. Read on, here.
10) Broadcom-VMware merger will hatch a new ‘supercloud’
Did you think we were done with Broadcom and VMware? Silly, silly, Silverliner. In the run up to the deal’s close, Aisera predicted the acquisition would yield a new “supercloud” competitor to challenge hyperscale incumbents.
As a bonus, don’t forget to check out our deep dive into what the heck a supercloud is, here.
Honorable mention
Here are a few stories and topics that didn’t make it into our Top 10 but still covered key events or trends in the industry that you’ll need to know about heading into 2024: