Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

A holistic approach to securing Spark-based data engineering

Apache Spark is an open-source toolkit that helps users develop parallel, distributed data engineering and machine learning applications and run them at scale. In this webinar, Rob Gibbon – product manager, and Massimiliano Gori – senior information security lead, will survey the state of big data security best practices and outline both high level architectures and pragmatic steps that you can take to secure your Spark applications – wherever they may be running.

Docker container security: demystifying FIPS-enabled containers with Ubuntu Pro

In today’s rapidly changing digital environment, the significance of robust Docker container security measures cannot be overstated. Even the containerised layer is subject to compliance standards, which raise security concerns and compliance requirements. Docker container security measures entail safeguarding our lightweight, appliance-type containers –each encapsulating code and its dependencies– from threats and vulnerabilities.

Canonical & Ampere: Building Sustainable, Power-efficient Computing Solutions Together

Canonical's Taiwan General Manager Tony Chiang was invited to join the Ampere event at Computex 2023 and had a great talk with Jeff Wittich, Chief Product Officer of Ampere Computing. Ampere and Canonical have been partnered to build sustainable and power-efficient computing solutions together and we can foresee more opportunities on the way from the cloud to the edge. Watch the video to learn more.

Securing Apache Spark Big Data Operations

Apache Spark is an open source toolkit that helps users develop parallel, distributed data engineering and machine learning applications and run them at scale. In this webinar, Rob Gibbon – product manager, and Massimiliano Gori – senior information security lead, will survey the state of big data security best practices and outline both high level architectures and pragmatic steps that you can take to secure your Spark applications – wherever they may be running.

Business benefits of artificial intelligence in retail

The retail industry is going through a period of major upheaval. AI is transforming the landscape at a rapid pace. Grand View Research evaluated the market value at USD 5.79 billion in 2021 and this is expected to grow at a 23.9% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2022 to 2030. For retailers, this translates into a need to adapt to an entirely new paradigm of customer expectations.

Ubuntu Core as an immutable Linux Desktop base

Canonical began the development of Ubuntu Core in 2014, to create a fully-containerised platform for IoT. In Ubuntu Core, we use the same kernel container technology that Docker and LXC are built on, to put every component of the system into a secure sandbox, with well-defined upgrade and rollback. We did this to enable autonomous connected Internet of Things devices to receive updates which they could apply without human intervention, to address security and business needs at the edge.

What is so Pro in Ubuntu Pro?

Open source is everywhere, but what’s its role in your company? According to Synopsys 2023 OSSRA research, around 96% of companies use open source in their codebases. From which at least 84% contained known vulnerabilities. Nowadays vulnerability exposure lasts for around 98 days, which means that the majority of companies are not fixing known vulnerabilities in their codebases for 3 months. This is simply not acceptable.

How to secure your MLOps tooling?

Generative AI projects like ChatGPT have motivated enterprises to rethink their AI strategy and make it a priority. In a report published by PwC, 72% of respondents said they were confident in the ROI of artificial intelligence. More than half of respondents also state that their AI projects are compliant with applicable regulations (57%) and protect systems from cyber attacks, threats or manipulations (55%). Production-grade AI initiatives are not an easy task.

Secure containerised Ceph with Ubuntu container images

As we announced at Cephalocon 2023 in Amsterdam, Canonical has started to make container images for Ceph available. We received lots of questions at the booth about what it means to the average Ceph user who has or wants to deploy Ceph on Ubuntu. In this blog post, we will cover the benefits to users who are running containerised Ceph on Ubuntu, and specifically how these images can provide an improved security posture.

AI in the public sector: practical applications and use cases

The public sector is investing heavily on artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives. Deloitte AI Institute reported that 60% of government AI and data analytics investments aim to directly impact real-time operational decisions and outcomes by 2024. From automating redundant tasks to increasing the quality of services offered to citizens, public sector institutions have a wide range of applications where they could implement AI.