The rise of supercloud, a hybrid and multicloud abstraction layer that sits above and across hyperscale infrastructure, reflects the key dynamics that drive enterprise tech today. Two of the most significant of those drivers, generative artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, will be the central focus of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s next supercloud event.

Running July 18 and 19, “Supercloud 3: Security, AI and the Supercloud,” presented by SiliconANGLE and theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, will bring together cybersecurity experts, practitioners, technologists and thought leaders for an exploration of the impact of AI and other technologies on cloud security.

“Security and AI are two critical pillars of a supercloud architecture,” said Dave Vellante, industry analyst for theCUBE and SiliconANGLE. “Together, security and AI, along with data platforms and programmable infrastructure, are driving the evolution of the supercloud, making it more secure, smart and service-oriented, fundamentally transforming the way we create digital businesses at scale.”

The editorial event will feature interviews with top executives from major industry players, such as Cisco Systems, Red Hat, VMware, Google, Snowflake, MongoDB, Okta, Cloudflare, Zscaler, Rapid7, HCLTech and Mercury Financial. Participants will explore what’s happening now and what comes next as new generative AI models continue to offer promise and peril for the enterprise.

Addressing complexity

Supercloud architectures are built around significant amounts of business-critical data, which can result in greater complexity as organizations navigate across various cloud services. Innovations such as OpenAI LP’s generative AI engine ChatGPT present an opportunity for supercloud’s underlying layer to shoulder more of the complexity burden.

“In order for me as a developer to create applications, I have so many things to worry about, and that’s complexity,” Howie Xu, vice president of machine learning and artificial intelligence at Zscaler Inc., said in an interview with theCUBE. “But with ChatGPT, with the AI, I don’t have to worry about it. Those kinds of details will be taken care of by the underlying layer.”

What Xu and others note is that powerful AI tools, such as ChatGPT, are providing the capabilities to handle the intensive data requirements of supercloud. Information technology teams can solve infrastructure complexity by accessing AI services that live across superclouds, and companies are building models to support exactly this proposition.

One example of how this is developing can be seen in the rollout of VMware’s Cross-Cloud Services offering earlier this year.

“Where you want to get to is a common service with a common operational team behind it that is trained and can work across clouds,” VMware Chief Technology Officer Kit Colbert said in an appearance on theCUBE. “It’s about moving away from these single cloud services that just solve a problem for one cloud to something we call a cross-cloud service, something that can support a set of functionalities across all clouds. When you evolve that across the board, you get this sort of supercloud. That’s really the important evolution here.”

Challenge of security

One of the most important cross-cloud services is security. Will enterprises that embrace supercloud have the focus, bankroll and engineering depth to secure a wider, more comprehensive infrastructure?

“Security is going to be one of the most important and difficult challenges for the idea of supercloud to become real,” Vellante said in a Breaking Analysis post last year.

In the first Supercloud event in August 2022, a panel session explored the challenges confronting supercloud security. One issue the group identified was the difficulty of applying zero-trust security.

Implementation of zero-trust security practices on supercloud becomes more complicated, because the components of a traditional operating system are distributed in a cloud model across the internet. The solution may be the development of a common set of standards, driven by the largest cloud providers, according to Tony Kueh, investor and former vice president of products at VMware Inc., during the session with industry experts.

“If you don’t even have an operating system, how do you implement security?” Kueh asked. “That’s the pain, because today it’s a one-off direct link from service to service. I think what we need is a mindset where these big guys … collaborate with the ecosystem around a set of standards so that they can bring their differentiation and then embrace everybody together.”

Finding the ideal model

As supercloud gains more visibility in the enterprise world, a set of companies are setting out to build security solutions tailored for the new paradigm. Palo Alto Networks Inc. is seeking to build a single global security instance as the ideal supercloud deployment model.

“We’re building something that abstracts the underlying cloud such that securing each of these clouds, and by the way, I would add private cloud to it as well, looks exactly the same,” Nir Zuk, founder and chief technology officer of Palo Alto Networks, said in an interview with theCUBE. “In the supercloud, we’re starting from scratch; we can do things differently.”

One major industry player is integrating security and networking into a supercloud platform powered by generative AI. Earlier this month, Cisco Systems Inc. began previewing AI capabilities for its Security Cloud, an open integrated security platform for multicloud environments. Cisco’s approach encompasses key elements of how superclouds will likely evolve. The strategy is to integrate important services, such as security, into a cross-cloud platform with a layer that provides a consistent interface for all users.

“We’ve now got a very complete portfolio of security that’s fully integrated that ties to the Cisco networking cloud,” Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of Cisco’s security and collaboration business units, said in a recent interview on theCUBE. “We’re doing one experience for all the people, regardless of where they are and how they go out and access it.”

TheCUBE event livestream

Don’t miss SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the “Supercloud 3: Security, AI and the Supercloud” event July 18-19. Plus, you can watch the event coverage on-demand after the live event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the “Supercloud 3: Security, AI and the Supercloud” event, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go. There are also analyst deep dives in the Breaking Analysis podcast, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify.

Guests

Stay tuned for the complete guest lineup.

Image: SiliconANGLE