You probably felt the pain this past Friday morning from a huge outage. No, not the one on Azure. A misconfigured update to popular security platform Crowdstrike took down over 8 million Windows PCs and servers. The configuration file caused the system to halt and refuse to boot. Affected entities included mulitple airlines, healthcare systems, and even Starbucks Order Ahead. Fixes were developed and put into play but they required a reboot to safe mode or mounting an image on a new system to remove the offfending file, which ground AWS to a halt over the weekend. Crowdstrike’s CEO released a statement that was not well received, especially because he was the CTO at McAfee when a simliar issue happened back in 2017.
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1:03 – NVIDIA’s B20 AI Chip
NVIDIA is working yet another AI chip. This one is targeted at the Chinese market. The new B20 is a variation on the B200 Blackwell series which is designed to be compatible with current export restrictions for China. NVIDIA is reportedly working with a partner, Inspur, to have the chips ready to ship by Q2 of 2025. The B20 would be the fourth line of chips that have been specially manufactured for the Chinese market by NVIDIA since export restrictions went into place in 2023.
Read More: Nvidia has a new AI chip. Here’s what we know about the ‘B20’
5:35 – Wiz Denies Google’s $23 Billion
It’s been a week since we took a closer look at Google’s proposed acquisition of Wiz. Apparently both sides did as well because the reports this week are that the acquisition has been called off. Wiz co-founder Assaf Rappaport said it was hard to walk away from the proposed $23 billion deal but he’s focused on getting the company to $1 billion in annual recurring revenue as well as the IPO that was planned before talks started. No official word on why talks stalled but reports state that pending antitrust litigation from the Department of Justice could have impacted the acquisition.
Read More: Wiz rejects Google’s $23 billion takeover in favor of IPO
9:15 – AMD Acquires Silo AI
AMD is betting big on AI with an acquisition. The chipmaker is paying $665 million to purchase Finnish AI startup Silo AI. The company specializes in custom AI models and platforms aimed at enterprise customers.The aim is to have a ready-made group that can build custom AI models to run on AMD hardware as an attractive alternative to NVIDIA’s dominance in the market. Silo AI is also committed to making their models open source and freely available, as opposed to OpenAI’s closed model. With more on this story we turn to Stephen Foskett.
Read More: In bid to loosen Nvidia’s grip on AI, AMD to buy Finnish startup for $665M
Read More: AMD Builds Out its AI Software and Services Stack with Silo AI Buy
14:07 – BMC Announces Mainframe AI Integration
BMC is adding AI to their Automated Mainframe Intelligence platform. This is a strategic move designed to enahnce mainframe software development and simplifiy operations capabilities. It means better documentation and the ability to simplify complex code analysis. Mainframes may seem like a dated technology but they still run our daily lives, so adding AI sounds like a smart move. The real expert in this area is Fututrum Group’s Steven Dickens. Let’s see what he has to say about this.
Read More: BMC and AI: Enhancing Mainframe Productivity and Innovation
18:04 – Einstein Service Agent Released by Salesforce
Salesforce announced the Einstein Service Agent this week. It’s an autonomous AI that is working to improve chatbots by increasing the range of tasks that can be done automatically without human input. When Einstein encounters a problem that it can’t handle, the system is able to seamlessly hand off the issue to a real person for resolution. The service is in a pilot phase as of today with a target for release later this year.
Read More: Salesforce Debuts Einstein Service Agent
22:18 – Swiss Government Mandates Open Source
Switzerland has decided that open source matters. So much that they’ve enacted the “Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fullfillment of Governement Tasks”, which is a long way of saying they are requiring the use of open source software in the public sector. Code must be disclosed unless third-part rights or security concerns force it to be restricted. The aim is to show the public what their money is paying for when it comes to software.The EMBAG act is also requiring non-personal and non-classifed data to be released as open, in a so-called “open by default” change in the status quo.
Read More: Switzerland now requires all government software to be open source
26:58 – Crowdstrike Update Strikes Microsoft’s Cloud Services
You probably felt the pain this past Friday morning from a huge outage. No, not the one on Azure. A misconfigured update to popular security platform Crowdstrike took down over 8 million Windows PCs and servers. The configuration file caused the system to halt and refuse to boot. Affected entities included mulitple airlines, healthcare systems, and even Starbucks Order Ahead. Fixes were developed and put into play but they required a reboot to safe mode or mounting an image on a new system to remove the offfending file, which ground AWS to a halt over the weekend. Crowdstrike’s CEO released a statement that was not well received, especially because he was the CTO at McAfee when a simliar issue happened back in 2017.
Read More: The CrowdStrike Outage – A Detailed Post-Mortem
Read More: Microsoft Outage Triggered by CrowdStrike Update Causes Global Chaos
What’s Microsoft’s take on all this Crowdstrike news? A promise to do better in the future? A call for better transparency about Windows applications? Nope. They’re blaming the EU for requiring them to allow third party programs at the kernel level. They point to a 2009 agreement that forced Microsoft to allow third parties to run with the same permissions as MS products as opposed to a company like Apple, which regulates kernel access more strictly.
Read More: EU gave CrowdStrike the keys to the Windows kernel, claims Microsoft
The Weeks Ahead
Tech Field Day Experience at SHARE Kansas City 2024 – August 4 – 8
AI Field Day 5 – September 11 – 12
Edge Field Day 3 – September 18 – 19
Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day are now part of The Futurum Group.
The Gestalt IT Rundown is your look at the IT news of the week. Be sure to subscribe to Gestalt IT on YouTube for even more weekly video content.
