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Samsung officially unveiled its latest line of Galaxy smartphones Wednesday and the tech giant hit the mark on all of the expected numbers and specifications.
What about the price? The new Galaxy S23 line, which is available for preorder now and will launch on Feb. 17 through various retailers and carriers, is priced the same as the Galaxy S22 line.
The phones start at $799.99 for the 6.1-inch Galaxy S23 with 128GB of storage (you can also get 256GB). The 6.6-inch Galaxy S23+ starts at $999.99 with 256GB (there's a 512GB option). And the top-of-the-line 6.8-inch S23 Ultra starts at $1,199.99 (256GB; you can get up to 1 terabyte).
Improved camera? Check. The S23 and S23+ models each have improved 12MP front selfie cameras and the top-of-the-line S23 Ultra has a massive 200-megapixel sensor, for higher-res shots and improved low-light images. That's nearly double the capacity of the S22 Ultra's 108MP sensor.
Power? All of the new S23 devices use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile platform, which completes processes about 30% faster than the Galaxy S22 series, Samsung says. Graphics processing is improved by 41% too.
Displays? Each has tougher Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 displays.
Samsung vs. Apple's iPhone Pro Max:Can the S23 Ultra deliver the 'best pictures and video in the world'?
Is broadband available near you?:This updated FCC map can tell you. Maybe.
Smartphone camera buffs will be enticed by the new bigger low-light 200MP sensor and the Nightography capabilities on the S23 Ultra. And the new phone will also incorporate Adobe's Lightroom editing program, which handles even uncompressed RAW photo files giving smartphone users the potential for professional-level imagery.
"Enormous camera sensors require additional software and silicon to produce good results, but in the brief hands-on time I got ahead of launch, I saw impressive low-light performance and got a superb portrait shot," Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart said. "With its extensive zoom options, Samsung’s camera system on the Galaxy S23 Ultra is extremely versatile."
Those who preorder an S23 smartphone are eligible for a free storage upgrade; those who pre-order and purchase on Samsung.com are also eligible to receive a Samsung Credit up to $100.
Nabila Popal, IDC's research director for worldwide consumer devices, tweeted that the 200MP camera "likely won’t tip consumers’ purchase decision, faster processing/AI in (the) camera will def push the edge at photo quality – a feature that’s very important to social media frenzy consumers of today."
The new Galaxy S23 devices are missing one "nice to have" feature that the latest iPhone 14 models have: the ability to send SOS emergency texts if you are outside of cellular and Wi-Fi networks, she told CNET.
But the S23 line's use of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip "promises ray-traced graphics and big boosts for AI performance and power efficiency," said Engadget's Jon Fingas. "Batteries are ever-so-slightly larger, and there's greater use of recycled components."
However, if you are a Galaxy S22 owner, "there's no rush to upgrade from the S22 if you're still happy with its capabilities," Fingas said.
Consumers may be able to get deals. That's because the industry saw a decline in smartphone shipments of about 18% from 2021, according to preliminary figures from research firm IDC.
"What (Q4 2022) tells us is that rising inflation and growing macro concerns continue to stunt consumer spending even more than expected and push out any possible recover to the very end of 2023," said IDC's Popal in a report last week.
"It is certainly a challenging economic environment to sell premium devices, but the new Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra are all priced the same as last year, despite inflation," Greengart said. "And in the U.S., carriers will do their best to mitigate the cost with deep discounts and effectively free financing."
Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.
Credit: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/02/01/samsung-galaxy-2023-smartphones/11155773002/
SEOUL/SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) unveiled its latest premium smartphones with a focus on their powerful cameras on Wednesday, in a test of its brand power as the market for mobiles undergoes unprecedented contraction.
Analysts said the Galaxy S23 smartphone series, with its cameras and faster chips than its predecessor, could still face weak demand as consumers spend less amid surging inflation in a struggling global economy.
Acknowledging that challenge, the head of Samsung's mobile experience, or MX Business, told reporters in a briefing after the event that there was a "noticeable shift to the premium segment" in developing and emerging markets. "We intend to focus on the premium segment in developed markets as well as some of the countries where we are seeing solid growth," he said.
The smartphone maker showed off the S23 Ultra's performance at the Samsung Unpacked event in San Francisco with snippets of two films, "Behold" by Ridley Scott, director of "Gladiator" and "The Martian," and "Faith" by South Korean director Na Hong-jin both filmed using the top-line Galaxy smartphone.
It is Samsung's first-ever 200-megapixel camera sensor, and the series uses Qualcomm Inc's (QCOM.O) Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile processor. Qualcomm said that with the S23 series, 100% of the processors used will be from Qualcomm.
At the event, executives from Samsung, Qualcomm and Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google gathered on the stage to highlight their partnership in the XR space, which includes virtual and augmented reality.
Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said the three worked together in the XR space about a decade ago, but the reboot to partner this time comes as Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is expected to launch its mixed reality headset this year.
"I think it's designed to give both Samsung and Google a little bit more credibility in the XR space, because they both have been pretty absent on the hardware side for quite some time," said Sag.
In the United States, the base Galaxy S23 will be priced from $799 and two higher-specification versions, the S23 Plus and S23 Ultra, from $999 and $1,199, respectively. Samsung kept the prices at the same level as for last year's model despite rises in component costs.
However, global smartphone shipments showed the largest-ever decline in a single quarter in the October-December period, when they were down 18.3% on a year earlier at 300.3 million units, according to data issued by research firm IDC last month. The figures cast doubt on forecasts for a modest recovery in the market for mobiles this year.
In that tough environment, analysts said Samsung's mobile strategy would center on profitability through premium offerings, including the S series and foldables.
"Samsung can't afford to focus on expanding volume anymore," said Liz Lee, associate director at research firm Counterpoint.
"It must boldly simplify low- and mid-range products, the parts of the market where Chinese competitors have caught up a lot."
Samsung said on Tuesday that a decline in low- and mid-range smartphone sales in the fourth quarter had been greater than expected.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Credit: https://www.reuters.com/technology/samsungs-newest-galaxy-s-smartphones-test-brand-power-weak-market-2023-02-01/
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(Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co. is counting on demand for premium devices to drive double-digit growth in sales of marquee Galaxy phones in 2023, despite signs the global market may contract a second straight year.
The world’s largest smartphone maker, which warned this week that a record smartphone slump may persist well into 2023, expects to outpace the industry by focusing on quality components while gradually expanding in countries like China where it’s lagged Apple Inc.
Global smartphone shipments fell by the most in about a decade in 2022, but the market for high-end gadgets dominated by Apple and Samsung has held up better during the downturn. On Wednesday, Samsung took the wraps off the latest iteration of its closest iPhone competitor, the S23, with better cameras and battery life.
“We expect that the challenges will continue this year, but we will achieve double-digit growth once again,” TM Roh, president of Samsung’s mobile business, said in an interview ahead of the unveiling. “Even in the midst of those challenges, we were able to expand market share in 2022 and will sustain that trend as it’s our main priority.”
While the country remains one of the world’s biggest buyers of memory chips, its smartphone market shrank last year when Covid Zero disruptions hammered the economy, and a recovery remains uncertain. At the same time, Samsung’s share of the Chinese market had dipped below 1% in recent years. But it made meaningful strides in premium smartphone market share last year, Roh added.
Smartphones rank among the most important businesses for the Korean chips and electronics giant, which counts on mobile devices to hook up a broader ecosystem of services, appliances and content.
Overall, Samsung was able to expand its slice of the global smartphone arena, Roh said. While its Chinese rivals’ sales slumped last year, Samsung’s market share rose to 21.6% in 2022 from 20% in 2021, according to IDC.
The Korean tech giant is now working on a mixed-reality device, dubbed the XR. While Apple’s set to launch its own headset later this year, Samsung is collaborating with Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Qualcomm Inc. on a yet-to-be-unveiled project.
“Moving into 2023, Apple and Samsung are better placed to navigate ongoing uncertainties thanks to their high-end dominance,” Le Xuan Chiew, a research analyst at Canalys, said in a report this week. Samsung is also focusing on profitability by strengthening its high-end lineup and adding premium niche products like the Fold series, he said.
Credit: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/samsung-aims-to-outrun-smartphone-slump-make-headway-in-china-1.1878086
Samsung on Wednesday launched its latest lineup of flagship Galaxy smartphones, touting a better camera and enhanced gaming features as the South Korean tech giant tries to tempt people to upgrade amid weak macroeconomic conditions and waning consumer demand.
The Galaxy S23 smartphone lineup features three new models: the standard S23, a slightly more expensive S23+ and the top-of-the-line S23 Ultra. The S23 and S23+ start at a price of $799 and $1,000, respectively. The most advanced model will retail at $1,200.
All three are available for pre-order today and will hit the shelves on Feb. 17.
The S23 series will go head-to-head with Apple's iPhone 14, which launched last September. Samsung typically releases its flagship Galaxy S models in the first half of the year and its Galaxy Z line of folding phones in the second half.
Samsung mostly made subtle improvements to its new premium handset, including improved camera capabilities.
The most expensive of the three models, the Galaxy S23 Ultra, features a 200-megapixel "adaptive pixel" sensor that combines 16 pixels into one larger pixel for brighter, more detailed shots in low light situations, Samsung said.
Samsung added users' low-light photography with the device would be assisted by much faster processing speeds from its internal chipset, which was developed in partnership with Qualcomm, as well as artificial intelligence.
There's also a video feature on the device called "astro hyperlapse" which lets users take time-lapsed motion shots — for example, of star movements — without any special equipment.
Samsung also touted the gaming capabilities of its new device, saying users will be able to play for longer thanks to a more powerful battery. The S23 Ultra houses a huge 5,000 mAh, or milliampere hour, battery.
The S23 Plus and S23 come with 4,700 mAh and 3,900 mAh batteries, respectively.
The company also unveiled its new Galaxy Book3 laptop lineup Wednesday, which includes a third Ultra model with a 16-inch AMOLED display. Samsung's Galaxy Book2 came in only two options. Samsung hopes the new laptops will make a splash in the premium PC market.
The firm showed off software that lets users drag and drop files between its laptops and smartphones. Users can also pair the Book3 with Samsung tablets to use the latter as a second screen, Samsung said.
The company is launching its new products at a particularly tough time for the consumer tech space. Demand for premium smartphones in particular has softened, with people opting to spend less on big-ticket gadgets due to climbing price pressures and tighter budgets.
Global smartphone shipments plunged 18.3% to 300.3 million units in the fourth quarter of 2022 — usually a big holiday shopping period — marking the largest decline in a single quarter on record, according to market research firm IDC.
A total of 1.21 billion smartphones were shipped in 2022, which represents the lowest annual shipment total since 2013, IDC said.
"Everything is heading in the wrong direction for consumer electronic providers," Paolo Pescatore from PP Foresight told CNBC via email.
On Tuesday, Samsung recorded its worst quarterly profit since the third quarter of 2014. The firm reported operating profit of 4.31 trillion won ($3.4 billion), down 69% from the same period a year ago. Samsung said its performance was hampered by weak demand for mid- to low-end smartphones and memory chips.
Meantime, many people are also suffering from smartphone fatigue whereby, not quite satisfied with improvements promised by newer models, they're holding onto their current phones for longer.
"As has been the case with most flagship launches in recent years, the customers who will feel the most benefit from Samsung's latest devices will be those upgrading from older models or from a mid-range device," said Leo Gebbie, principal analyst for connected devices at CCS Insight.
"Customers who have bought a premium-tier mobile in the last year or two will see little difference between the device they already have and the new Galaxy S23 family."
In that context, Samsung has consolidated its smartphone portfolio to simplify its offering to customers. The firm incorporated its S Pen stylus into last year's Galaxy S22, marking the symbolic end of its high-end Note phone series.
It's also tried to boost consumer appetite for new premium phones with its folding devices. Samsung last year launched two new foldable models, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Z Fold 4.
Credit: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/01/samsung-galaxy-s23-smartphone-lineup-to-take-on-apples-iphone-14.html
As modern enterprises hail data as the lifeblood of their business, comprehensive data protection has become paramount.
Indeed, the accelerated pace of digital transformation in recent years has made data a fundamental and strategic business resource as well as a key production factor.
Already, data is being generated, consumed and stored at an unprecedented pace.
According to IDC, global data creation and replication is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 23 percent from 2020 to 2025.
In 2020, 64.2 ZB of data were created or replicated.
The research firm reckons that the amount of digital data created over the next five years will be greater than twice the amount of data created since the advent of digital storage.
The data deluge is prompting prudent companies to refocus IT budgets on protecting data, especially their most critical business asset – production data.
Efficiency, performance, reliability
The cost of data protection aside, the major challenge for IT is to mitigate the risk of a devastating data loss in the face of mounting ransomware attacks and data breaches.
Further, the rapid development cycles of modern cloud-native application environments and evolving data-intensive applications – such as artificial intelligence, automation, Internet of Things and video surveillance – have increased the required levels of protection, performance and scale dramatically.
Such demands overwhelm the capabilities of traditional backup tools.
In this exacting IT landscape, enterprises need data protection solutions that bear three critical attributes: highly efficient data reduction rates, fast backup and recovery performance, and highly reliable and available data copies
Data reduction efficiency enables enterprises to store and transfer large amounts of backup data expeditiously so they can optimize investments in storage hardware, increase effective capacity and reduce total cost of ownership.
Fast backup and recovery performance enables businesses to minimize operational downtime or disruption, especially in the aftermath of a ransomware attack.
Underpinning these is reliability.
Having a good, clean backup to recover from lays the foundation for an effective data protection strategy.
Geared to deliver these benefits, the Huawei OceanProtect data protection solution adopts a unified approach – protecting exabytes of structured and unstructured data generated by databases, file systems and VMware virtual machines (VMs) – that ensures zero service disruption, zero data loss, and long-term information retention.
Huawei OceanProtect outperforms peer
A recent report (https://bit.ly/3i0CJzG) jointly published by Evaluator Group presented results of comprehensive benchmarking tests that compare the Huawei OceanProtect (https://bit.ly/3ERCIqI) data protection system with a peer product, the Dell EMC PowerProtect DD, based on the three attributes mentioned above.
The test environment was configured for function and performance verification.
Network connectivity and hosts had the same configurations.
Each data protection system was connected to seven servers through IP switches.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 x86_64 operating system was deployed on four of the servers for performance tests.
VMware virtualization applications and Oracle database applications were deployed on two servers to compare and verify data reduction ratios in different scenarios.
The other server was used as the media server for the backup application Veritas NetBackup (NBU).
Rapid backup and recovery
To test backup and recovery speed, the primary tool utilized was vdbench in file mode.
The aim is to accurately perform file operations while ensuring high I/O rates to files as desired.
The choice of tool removes potential bottlenecks from the backup application as well as any bias for or against any third-party backup application.
The Huawei OceanProtect and Dell EMC PowerProtect systems each included a storage pool created with a 1 PB filesystem.
The filesystem was then NFS mounted to eight mount points on each of the four machines running the workloads.
High performance optimizations were set for both test systems.
Test results show that Huawei OceanProtect's Oracle backup performance of 6,853 MB/s was 2.6 times faster than the 2,621 MB/s clocked by the peer product from Dell EMC.
In the VM backup performance test, OceanProtect's speed of 8,004 MB/s was 2.4 times faster than the peer product's 3,383 MB/s.
Next, the write performance of both systems was measured by simulating the first full backup of general applications.
Here, Huawei OceanProtect's 10,591 MB/s was 2.3 times faster than the peer product's 4.640 MB/s.
Overall, Huawei OceanProtect delivered more than two times faster backup data rates than its leading competitor.
The test results bolster Huawei OceanProtect's status as a solution that creates opportunities for improved system utilization, cost savings and management efficiency.
After the backup simulations, the read bandwidth recovery performance of both systems was simulated and tested.
The application restore performance comparison showed that Huawei OceanProtect's read bandwidth after the first backup is 1.5 times that for the Dell EMC system.
Since the recovery test was performed after the first backup, the read bandwidth of systems like Dell EMC's, which use rotating media (i.e. hard disk drive), will decline as additional backups are created and backup data become scattered.
In contrast, this has little impact on the all-flash OceanProtect system so its recovery speed advantage over those systems would increase with additional backups.
Efficient data reduction
The NBU application was used to verify the data reduction ratios of both products in daily full backups of Oracle database and VM data.
The Oracle database to be backed up was activated with the NBU client installed and user authentication on the NBU client and Oracle database completed.
From the management pages of both systems, Evaluator Group observed that the data reduction ratio of Huawei OceanProtect for daily full backup of the Oracle database was 43.4, higher than the 28.1 for the Dell EMC product.
The Linux VM to be backed up was prepared on each solution's VMware ESXi server.
Again, the Huawei OceanProtect's data reduction ratio of 29.3 for daily full backup of VM data was higher than the peer product's ratio of 19.7.
By achieving approximately 50 percent greater reduction ratios for various data, Huawei OceanProtect has an effective capacity of nearly 50 percent greater than Dell EMC PowerProtect when configured with the same raw capacity.
OceanProtect's high data reduction ratios is an endorsement of its efficient usage of data storage infrastructure.
Using advanced algorithms and byte-level compaction technologies, OceanProtect breaks data into chunks based on the source and other data characteristics before it deduplicates, compresses and compacts the data further.
High reliability
The Evaluator Group also observed how the simultaneous failure of any three disks in a storage pool affects backup services on both backup storage systems.
The analysts installed and configured the file backup client, prepared the test data, and recorded the Message-Digest algorithm 5 (MD5) value of the test data.
They created a 1 TB NFS file share in a storage pool on the Huawei OceanProtect system and a 1 TB Mtree NFS file share in a storage pool on the Dell EMC system.
Strikingly, OceanProtect supports RAID triple-parity (RAID-TP) but the peer product does not.
The file shares were mapped to the backup server as a backup storage repository.
The analysts then ran a full backup of the files on the two systems.
Data from this completed backup was then restored.
The success of the recovery was verified by calculating the MD5 value of the restored file and using it to check the integrity of the restored data.
Meanwhile, the full backup job was run on the common file again.
When this job was initiated, three disks were removed from the storage pool.
Then, the status and alarms of the affected storage pool as well as the running status of the backup task were checked.
Consequently, the backup services of Huawei OceanProtect remained normal and showed no loss of access to data, but the backup services of the peer product from Dell EMC reported errors.
Equipped with dual-controller active-active architecture, RAID-TP and ransomware prevention technologies, Huawei OceanProtect is well positioned to deliver 99.9999 percent availability, as can be shown by real-life examples beyond the lab.
Conclusion
The Evaluator Group's test results evidently show that the Huawei OceanProtect outperforms the peer product in all three critical aspects: data reduction ratio, backup and recovery speed, and reliability.
Significantly, Huawei OceanProtect's superior capabilities translate to shorter backup windows and data recovery times, reduced expenditure, and higher levels of uptime.
They also affirm OceanProtect's trustworthiness as an intelligent all-flash backup storage designed to address enterprises' data protection pain points in a dynamic, data-intensive digital economy.
To know more about Huawei OceanProtect, please click here (https://bit.ly/3OtHihX).
Data centers will experience increased regulation and third-party oversight in 2023 as the world continues to grapple with the industry’s rising energy and water consumption against the backdrop of ongoing climate change.
The intensified focus on the overall environmental and community impact of the data center is one of five industry trends for 2023 identified by the global data center experts at Vertiv (NYSE: VRT) (http://bit.ly/3ElZ8ix), a global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions.
“The data center industry is growing rapidly as more and more applications require compute and storage, driving a corresponding rapid increase in energy and water use in data center facilities.
The industry has understood that pursuing energy and water efficiency aggressively is key for future success and survival,” said Giordano Albertazzi, Vertiv Chief Operating Officer and president, Americas.
“Increased regulation is inevitable and will lead to important innovations across our industry.
The process may not always be easy or linear, but it can be navigated with the help of expert data center partners and innovative solutions that can anticipate the changes while meeting the always increasing requirements of the data center applications.”
The advances in chip design and manufacturing that limited server power consumption through the first decade and a half of the 2000s reached their limits in recent years, and a spike in the amount of energy servers use has followed.
In a recent report, Silicon heatwave: the looming change in data center climates (http://bit.ly/3EoKkQe), the Uptime Institute cited data from the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) that showed server power consumption increasing by 266% since 2017.
This surge is among various technical and market forces driving the focus on environmental awareness and sustainability in several of the 2023 trends identified by Vertiv’s experts.
Those trends are:
Data centers face increasing regulation
Mounting pressures to meet consumer demand for energy and water are forcing governments at all levels to take a harder look at data centers and their outsized consumption of those resources.
Data centers are estimated to be responsible for up to 3% of global electricity consumption (http://bit.ly/3tOikjS) today and projected to touch 4% by 2030.
The average hyperscale facility consumes 20-50MW annually – theoretically enough electricity to power up to 37,000 homes (https://bit.ly/3tOikjS).
Vertiv’s experts expect this to prompt increasing governmental scrutiny in 2023.
It’s happening in some places already.
Dublin, Ireland, and Singapore have taken steps to control data center energy use, and data center water consumption – especially in areas prone to drought – is likely to trigger similar scrutiny (http://bit.ly/3OpCoT7).
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the water usage effectiveness (WUE) (http://bit.ly/3VbkyWn) of an average data center using evaporative cooling systems is 1.8L per kWh. That type of data center can consume 3-5 million gallons of water per day (https://bit.ly/3OpCoT7) – similar to the capacity used by a city of 30,000-50,000 people.
The industry will continue to take steps to self-monitor and moderate – including an increasing preference for environmentally-friendly thermal designs – but 2023 will see increases in regulatory oversight.
Hyperscalers and others shop off the rack
According to a recent Omdia survey, 99% of enterprise data center operators say prefabricated, modular data center designs will be a part of their future data center strategy.
That’s more than a trend; it’s the new normal.
In 2023, Vertiv’s experts anticipate a continuing shift in the same direction among hyperscalers as they seek the speed and efficiencies standardization delivers.
This is a newer concept for the world’s leading cloud providers, and they’re turning to colocation providers (http://bit.ly/3V0Pg4Y) – who have been standardizing for years – to make it happen.
Specifically, those cloud providers are outsourcing their new builds to colos to leverage their in-market expertise, proven repeatability, and speed of deployment.
In short order, standardization – ranging from modular components, such as power and cooling modules and skids, to full-fledged prefabricated facilities – will become the default approach not just for the enterprise, but also hyperscale and the edge of the network.
Diesel generators see real competition
The diesel generator has long been an imperfect but inescapable piece of the data center ecosystem.
It represents stored energy that largely goes unused while still requiring maintenance or fuel replacement after periods of inactivity.
Then, when pressed into service, generators produce carbon emissions operators are desperately trying to avoid.
Already, some organizations are relying on batteries for longer load support – up to five minutes in some cases – and even designing their data centers with minimal generator capacity.
These are transitional steps to minimize the role of the generator as the industry searches for other options – including new battery technologies – for extended backup power.
In 2023, Vertiv’s experts anticipate a preferred alternative will emerge – specifically hydrogen fuel cells.
These fuel cells will function much like a generator at first, providing momentary load support, and eventually hold promise for sustained or even continuous operation.
Higher densities alter thermal strategies
After years of relatively static rack densities, data center operators are increasingly requesting higher-density racks.
According to the Uptime Institute’s 2022 Global Data Center Survey (http://bit.ly/3EQaoVU), more than a third of data center operators say their rack densities have rapidly increased in the past three years.
This is especially true among larger enterprise and hyperscale data centers, where nearly half of those operating facilities at 10MW and above reported racks above 20kW and 20% claimed racks higher than 40kW.
This is consistent with the maturity of liquid-cooled server technologies and increasing acceptance and adoption of such technologies.
The aforementioned increases in server power consumption are happening as the need to add capacity quickly is growing, challenging operators from all sides.
This leaves them little choice but to explore the boundaries of existing facilities by adding computing in tight spaces, increasing rack densities, and creating thermal profiles that require liquid cooling.
While liquid cooling is not a new technology, the early wave of successful, efficient, problem-free deployments in high-density environments has provided proof of concept that will boost adoption in the coming year.
The addition of direct-to-chip cooling to new OCP and Open19 standards will only accelerate this trend.
5G meets the metaverse at the edge
Omdia, in its 2022 Mobile Subscription and Revenue Forecast (http://bit.ly/3XkHogc), projects nearly half of all mobile subscriptions – more than 5.8 billion – to be 5G by 2027, pushing computing closer and closer to the user.
The metaverse is an application in search of an ultra-dense, low-latency computing network.
In 2023, we’ll see these two activities intersect, with metaverse implementations leveraging 5G networks to enable the ultra-low latency features the application demands.
Ultimately, this will require higher powered computing in those 5G edge locations, and we’ll see that happening soon – with early forays in 2023 followed by more widespread deployments in the years after.
As the edge of the network becomes more sophisticated, so will the infrastructure needed to support it.
This will include technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality planning and management systems and increased adoption of lithium-ion UPS systems at the edge – an ongoing trend that saw share increase from 2% of sales in August 2021 to 8% in August 2022, according to IDC.
“In recent years, sustainability has been the greatest focus area for the data center industry, and that aligns with the 2023 emphasis on increased regulation from governments, as well as interest in alternative energy sources,” said Karsten Winther, Vertiv president for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
“As we move forward, data center owners and operators will need to choose an infrastructure solutions partner that is able to advise them on the best practices and technologies to help them meet their ‘net zero’ goals.
With greater innovation and industry transformation, particularly in 5G and the metaverse, 2023 will be an exciting year for our customers and industry.”
For more information on 2023 industry trends and Vertiv solutions for data center and communication networks, visit Vertiv.com.
The amount of data that we produce, distribute and consume in our professional and social lives is increasing.
But it's all too easy, especially for non-technologists, to forget that the ruthless increase in data processing and distribution can also lead to a ruthless increase in power consumption.
This dilemma is illustrated with data centers.
They are the engine of computing growth that informs, educates and entertains the world, and enables the collaboration that will help us meet the challenges of climate change.
But substantial research (https://bit.ly/3ClQW0x) by the International Energy Agency shows that data centers accounted for 200 to 250 TWh, or one percent of total global electricity demand in 2020, while data transmission networks, mobile and fixed.
coated: accounted for 1.1 to 1.4 percent of electricity use worldwide.
It's a tribute to the ingenuity of the tech world that, so far, data center operators and technology providers have managed to keep power consumption low.
Data center energy use has remained fairly constant over the past ten years, even as internet traffic has increased 15-fold.
In 2020 alone, global internet traffic increased 40 percent.
But can technology providers maintain this level of efficiency?
More and more people connect to the Internet for work or pleasure, and emerging compute-intensive workloads such as AI or IoT are becoming more demanding.
Indeed, can technology providers step up and support these increasingly demanding workloads, while making data centers and networks more efficient and reducing power consumption in the process?
At this month's MWC in Barcelona, Huawei explained how the company enables providers and operators to meet these more demanding use cases and process and deliver ever more data, while reducing energy consumption at the heart of the data center.
data and beyond.
One way to reduce power consumption within the data center is by using all-flash storage, and the all-flash storage market is expected to grow 7.6% this year according to IDC.
With fewer moving parts and higher density, SSDs require much less power and cooling than their traditional mechanical hard drive ancestors and are considered more reliable.
Plus, they're also more data efficient, cutting access latency in half to 0.05ms, for example, and potentially increasing backup speeds by a factor of three.
Less power, in an instant And when it comes to the AI-driven workloads that put increasing pressure on data centers, Huawei's OceanStor Dorado all-flash (https://bit.ly/3CNL9Bg) can improve the efficiency of algorithms by 60%.
.
The platform offers SAN and NAS, with built-in ransomware detection and protection, and delivers 30% better performance on files and small blocks.
The result is higher CPU utilization, which helps drive overall computing efficiency within the data center.
But innovation within data center storage racks alone will not solve the problem of rising power consumption within the data center.
Networking is also an essential and energy-intensive element within the data center and beyond.
And the data center is just one component of the cloud and the overall digitization equation.
Huawei also used the MWC to highlight its CloudFabric 3.0 strategy, which aims to reduce packet loss in networks.
At the same time, the platform's intelligent algorithms reduce operating expenses by up to 30%.
Reduced operating expenses result in fewer wasted resources.
The result is an SDN architecture that, according to industry consultants Tolly, offers the highest level of autonomous driving (https://prn.to/3SmAOlj) in the industry.
Meanwhile, Huawei's CloudWAN 3.0 technology, based on its NetEngine 8000 F8 routers, introduced at the MWC, enables the construction of IP production networks and experience-centric office services.
The platform launches with a forwarding capacity of 2 Tbps, which will increase to 6.4 Tbps in the future.
But it also features two patented technologies: SRU hot backup and a rectifier circuit, which help deliver a 30 percent reduction in power consumption.
The Cloud Campus 3.0 solution (https://bit.ly/3eJo3Ui) enables greater efficiency, with its "lean structure" that reduces the classic model of three layers of access, aggregation and core, to just two, access and core.
By transforming the access switch into a highly flexible remote extension, Huawei offers an 80 percent reduction in equipment management nodes.
Rectifying the power dilemma The architecture also features Power over Ethernet technology, allowing power to be delivered to terminals over data lines.
Since each port requires less than 1W of power, total power consumption is reduced by 30% compared to the industry average.
On a campus with 2,000 user units, that equates to a savings of 23,800 kWh, figures from Huawei show.
Resources are further conserved, with the PoE fiber optic network maintenance-free for 15 years.
Huawei's vision of the intelligent cloud grid could be thought of as the "power grid" of the digital world, supplying "digital" efficiently, 24/7, to the while reducing the load on the actual power grid.
Looking even further, Huawei's Fiber To The Office (FTTO) (https://bit.ly/3TlhHJS) and Fiber To The Machine (FTTM) solutions enable the new generation of Industry 4.0 applications such as smart factories, while once again working hard to increase efficiency.
For example, at the MWC, Huawei showed how a smart healthcare network project at Union Shenzhen Hospital provided 10Gbps coverage and reduced the number of operation and maintenance nodes by 60 percent, while charging and download 1000 CT images in one second.
Huawei illustrated how the use of FTTM re-streamlines the architecture in oilfield operations from more than 10 layers to just three, and combines blazing speeds with secure data collection and intelligent management.
Again, this reduces network maintenance costs by up to 70 percent, while enabling unattended operations across a field of more than 60,000 oil wells, all on a single network.
The architecture is similarly applicable to other heavyweight applications such as port management, energy infrastructure, and metropolitan transit.
Huawei highlighted the application of its FTTM technology in a metro network, resulting in an 80% reduction in ELV room space and a 90% reduction in cabling space, while providing superior network reliability.
of 99.999%.
These are just some of the examples that Huawei demonstrated at this year's MWC.
At the event, Huawei showcased how it supports customers in implementing innovative solutions and practices, from government and public sector to finance, transportation, energy, manufacturing, and of course ISPs. In all scenarios, Huawei is focused on reducing carbon emissions, which means that whatever customer problem the company is helping solve, it also helps solve the bigger problem we all face.
To dive deeper into how Huawei is changing the data center and the industries that depend on it, check out Huawei Enterprise at Huawei Connect 2022 (https://bit.ly/3VD4I85).
According to the UNWTO, the tourism sector is highly vulnerable to climate change and at the same time contributes to the emission of greenhouse gases, which cause global warming.
Therefore, accelerating climate action in tourism is of paramount importance for the resilience of the sector, as well as for strengthening adaptive capacity.
To mitigate current power and water constraints, the Department of Tourism invites all eligible tourism businesses to participate in the current Green Tourism Incentive Program (GTIP) application window, which is now open through February 28, 2019.
2023.
Celebrating its fifth year since its creation.
, GTIP is a Department of Tourism resource efficiency incentive program that aims to encourage and support private sector tourism businesses to adopt responsible tourism practices by implementing solutions for sustainable resource management water and energy while adhering to responsible tourism practices.
Through grants, the GTIP helps private sector tourism businesses reduce the cost of investing in energy and water efficient solutions, while increasing their competitiveness, profitability and long-term operational sustainability.
This program has produced success stories with grantees nationwide who praised the positive impact of this program.
Mrs. Wilhemina Kutumela of Pimville Guest House and Tours in Soweto says, “The benefit is that arriving guests come to a well-lit property and feel at home.
We now get repeat business and occupancy has increased.
We have been encouraging other colleagues to apply when the window opens again.” Additionally, Mr. Louw Allan of the four-star rated Cullinan Diamond Lodge in Gauteng says, “This is a wonderful and valuable opportunity for any property.
Currently, it helps a lot with load shedding and allows us to provide an adequate service to our clients”.
GTIP's interventions at Cullinan Diamond Lodge not only involve responsible operations and environmental benefits.
After the projected payback period, the cost savings will continue to reduce the company's overall operating cost with direct and sustained benefits in terms of profitability and improved competitiveness.
The program is administered by the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) on behalf of the Department and all applications and approvals are administered by the IDC.
The GTIP generally offers the following benefits to qualifying tourism businesses: • the full cost of a new resource efficiency audit or the full cost of reviewing an existing resource efficiency audit; • provide funding to eligible micro and small enterprises on a sliding scale of 50% to 90% of the total cost of implementing resource efficiency interventions, which is capped at R1 million; and • Qualifying businesses can now implement projects in phases to better manage their cash flow over a two-year project implementation period.
The Department of Tourism wishes all applicants the best and remains committed to advancing a climate-resilient tourism economy.
South African clean energy startup Brayfoil Technologies won the Energy Investment Village pitch competition held during the Green Energy Africa (GEA) summit (https://GreenEnergyAfricaSummit.com/) here this week.
Brayfoil (www.Brayfoil.com) is a company that designs turbine blades that change shape to reduce loads, allowing for larger, more efficient, more reliable and more affordable devices.
The company's technology has applications in the wind energy, aerospace, marine and automotive sectors.
Following the victory, the Brayfoil team organized several meetings with potential investors on the sidelines of the GEA summit.
The Energy Investment Village event saw 10 clean energy startups pitch their business ideas to an audience of potential investors, delegates and supporting partner judges at the Summit.
Energy Investment Village is a joint venture between the Saldanha Bay Innovation Campus, the Research Institution for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS), and the GEA Summit.
The initiative aims to directly support South African companies to access international financing for project development.
International investors with collective assets of $100 billion were invited to attend the launch session.
Several conversations between start-ups and investors were started and will continue after the event.
Brayfoil Technologies won a cash prize of R20,000 from FNB, a one-year business membership with Africa Scotland Business Network (ASBN), and a half-day ASBN branding and marketing workshop.
Sasol and JSE will award another two prizes after both companies have reviewed the finalists.
The prizes are a placement in the JSE 2024 Business Accelerator Program and enrollment in the Sasol Business Supplier Development Program worth R100,000.
An eight-judge panel awarded the start-up proposals considering aspects such as innovation and entrepreneurial merit, among other criteria.
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The judging panel included Wesgro Senior Portfolio Manager, Eimear Costigan Technology; Grace Nndwammbi, Senior Vice President of Business Services at Sasol; Phinda Vilakazi, Senior Vice President, Commercial Power Solutions, Sasol; IDC Business Development Executive David Sekgororwana; the head of CX and incubation of strategic initiatives of JSE, Cleola Kunene; JSE's head of origination and business, Samuel Mokorosi; TIA Head of Enterprise and Innovation Skills Development Senisha Moonsamy; and the president of the Engineers Club, Gijsbert Bakker.
The other finalists in the investment village were: Keren Energy, the first green hydrogen producer in South Africa Atlanthia, producers of green hydrogen and green ammonia Hydrofuels, producers of a plasma waste gasification solution Oceanergy, developers of a Kite Fuel technology Ship SeaH4, producers of carbon-neutral biofuels from algae SlideLuvre, developers of a smart, two-in-one solar tracking solution for Impact-Free Water solar energy efficiency, developers of a pump that uses the energy of waves to pressurize and pump seawater for desalination and electric power Zimi Charge, developers of charging electric fleets through a single application Meta Technologies, producers of an air quality monitor Cumbre GEA.
“This exciting live presentation addition to the program exceeded our expectations by giving innovative clean energy startups exposure to potential investors and facilitating conversations that will continue well beyond the Summit.
We fully anticipate hosting the event again next year."
Energy Investment Village is a partnership with the Saldanha Bay Innovation Campus (SBIC), an initiative of the Freeport Saldanha Development Zone, and the advisory firm of the Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS) "The Energy Investment Village showcases real projects and new energy technology in SA," said Belinda Williams, South Africa Director, Hyve Group.
"The interest and attendance at the event highlighted the enthusiasm for business and social development that is sorely needed on the African continent.
We look forward to enhancing this initiative next year."
Sage (https://www.sage.com/en-za/), the leader in accounting, financial, HR and payroll technology for small and medium-sized businesses, today launched Sage Intacct in Namibia, Botswana and Mauritius.
The award-winning cloud financial management solution gives finance teams the information and automation they need to keep up with the demands of running a business in an ever-expanding digital environment.
Sage Intacct provides finance professionals with: A platform designed by and for CFOs and finance professionals: Sage Intacct is a powerful cloud financial management platform designed for finance professionals, providing deep multidimensional accounting , automation for efficient financial operations, and sophisticated visibility for real-time decision making.
Best-in-class integration: Sage Intacct's technology uses open application programming interfaces (APIs), making it easy to connect to third-party cloud applications, including Salesforce, and providing a highly extensible and scalable platform.
Lower Cost of Ownership – Sage Intacct is a highly modular solution where customers pay for what they need and get more efficient and cost-effective deployments, world-class backup and disaster recovery, delivering a lower total cost of ownership .
Sage Intacct now available in more SADC countries Following a successful introduction in South Africa in 2020, Sage business partners in Namibia, Botswana and Mauritius are ready to help Sage customers unlock the power and value of this platform of financial administration with experience in sales and implementation.
Sage Intacct also offers customers increased functionality through the Sage Intacct Marketplace (https://Marketplace.Intacct.com/).
On average, Sage Intacct clients achieve a 250% ROI, payback in less than six months, and 65% improved productivity.
Gerhard Hartman (https://bit.ly/3M4mDQB), Vice President of Midsize Businesses at Sage Africa & Middle East: “Sage Intacct is a cloud-native financial management solution that helps forward-thinking CFOs and financial professionals future to automate processes and gain insights by dynamically exploring your data in real time.
By enabling the business to run anytime, anywhere, anywhere, Sage Intacct frees up time for finance teams to focus on business and data-driven strategic decision-making.
This solution sets a new standard for finance leaders on their journey to drive digital transformation, all in the cloud."
Sage Intacct achieved the highest product score for Core Financials for the Lower Midsize Enterprises use case in the Gartner report (https://gtnr.it/3ygAZrt), 'Critical Capabilities for Cloud Core Financial Management Suites for Midsize, Large, and Global Enterprises' for the past five years, cementing its reputation as a leading accounting and financial management software.
Sage Intacct is the first and only preferred vendor by the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA), ranked number one in customer satisfaction by G2 Crowd, ranked number one in ERP scoring by TrustRadius, and named a leader in IDC MarketScape: Assessment of SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Mid-Market Finance and Accounting Software Vendors.
Why CFOs and Finance Professionals Use Sage Intacct New research (https://bit.ly/3RBYimc) from Sage highlights how the role of the CFO and finance function has changed, creating a need for state-of-the-art finance platforms.
generation.
The responsibilities of today's redefined CFO and finance professional extend beyond managing and securing the finances of their organizations.
CFOs and finance professionals must be flexible enough to adapt to new challenges and ways of working and growth opportunities.
Increasingly, they need to nurture non-traditional skills that help them navigate complex, technologically-enabled industries and deliver digitization initiatives.
Beyond growing sales and revenue, CFOs and finance leaders' top priorities are updating software and technology solutions to drive digitalization, integrating emerging technologies, and developing new products and services.
Research shows that 78% of finance leaders believe the finance industry needs a new generation of CFOs to build a successful digital future, while 75% of CFOs say their responsibility for digital transformation has increased in the past alone.
last year.
“Today's CFOs and finance professionals must combine attributes that enable them to engage in cross-functional decision-making, operate with purpose, and prepare their organizations for the future,” says Hartman.
“These executives play a multifaceted role in steering their organizations toward productivity, fairness and innovation.
A cloud-based system like Sage Intacct supports its expanded role, putting the right digital tools at the fingertips of finance leaders to drive greater agility and better current and forward visibility for better decision making.” "Our expansion into Mauritius, Namibia and Botswana demonstrates our commitment to the regions, creating customers for life and adding value to their businesses, together with our business partners and through the use of our Sage software solutions."
Hartman concludes.
Visit Sage Intacct Financial Management Software | Sage Africa (https://bit.ly/3M9J1I4) for more information.
