Hammerspace Achieves 10x Revenue Growth in 2024 Fueled by AI Storage and Hybrid Cloud Computing Demand

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 28, 2025 by itnerd

Hammerspace, the company orchestrating the next data cycle, today announced that it has achieved record-breaking 2024 results and business momentum with 10X revenue growth and a 32% increase in the number of customers for the full-year ended December 31, 2024. Hammerspace also posted strong customer retention and account expansion metrics while growing its leadership position in new geographies. The demands for high-performance data storage, global data access and the paradigm of an orchestrated data world are driving rapid adoption. 

Two seismic shifts are fueling unprecedented growth at Hammerspace and across the industry: the rising need for cost- and power-efficient infrastructure to support GPU computing at scale and the rapid adoption of hybrid cloud and multi-data center architectures.

With AI, Enterprise HPC and other data-intensive workloads increasing worldwide, Hammerspace unveiled its Tier 0 capabilities and MLPerf®1.0 benchmark results in November 2024. Tier 0, a new tier of ultra-fast shared storage that uses the local NVMe storage in GPU servers as shared storage, is gaining traction quickly. Designed to eliminate storage bottlenecks and maximize GPU performance, Tier 0 transforms GPU computing infrastructure by improving resource utilization and power efficiency while reducing AI storage costs.  
 

Exceptional Customer Retention and Growth Efficiency

Hammerspace posted notable customer satisfaction, retention and growth efficiency metrics, with Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) > 95%, reflecting strong customer satisfaction and retention strength, and Net Revenue Retention (NRR) > 330%, highlighting growth efficiency and the company’s ability to grow organically within its customer base. The outstanding GRR and NRR metrics are a testament to the demand for users to consolidate workloads and data into a single data platform, as well as the strength of the Hammerspace platform’s capabilities.

The company also expanded its workforce by 75% in 2024, with the most significant growth concentrated in its go-to-market and customer support teams.

2024 was a breakout year in market and use case expansion. Hammerspace customers now span markets ranging from hyperscalers and supercomputing to government, enterprise, and media and entertainment. A few notable new accounts in 2024 included Meta for Llama large language model training, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Department of Defense (DoD) for aggregating and analyzing research data, and Mathematic Studio for visual effects design in multiple global sites while completing production in France.
 

Meta’s engineering team said in its ‘Building Meta’s GenAI Infrastructure’ blog, “We have also partnered with Hammerspace to co-develop and land a parallel network file system (NFS) deployment to meet the developer experience requirements for this AI cluster. Among other benefits, Hammerspace enables engineers to perform interactive debugging for jobs using thousands of GPUs as code changes are immediately accessible to all nodes within the environment. When paired together, the combination of our Tectonic distributed storage solution and Hammerspace enable fast iteration velocity without compromising on scale.”

Industry Recognition

Hammerspace’s robust growth, leading technology innovation and market success have gained significant customer and industry-wide recognition, making it the most highly awarded unstructured data platform in 2024. Among its notable achievements in 2024 and recent accolades, the company’s awards and recognitions include:
 

Global and Management Team Expansion
Hammerspace has jump-started 2025 by expanding its global footprint and hiring Jeff Giannetti as Chief Revenue Officer to spearhead international growth. In January 2025, Hammerspace launched operations in Asia, establishing resources in China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and India. Hammerspace is currently scheduling meetings at the at the upcoming Supercomputing Japan in Tokyo on February 3-4, 2025.

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Leaseweb Boosts AI-focused Infrastructure Portfolio with Launch of New NVIDIA GPU Solutions

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 28, 2025 by itnerd

Leaseweb Global, a leading cloud services and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider, today announced a significant expansion of its processing solutions with the addition of NVIDIA L4, L40S and H100 NVL GPUs to its infrastructure portfolio. By offering powerful new NVIDIA GPUs at scale, Leaseweb is meeting the compute needs of a wide variety of sectors – including the Artificial Intelligence (AI), Media & Entertainment and Gaming industries – at a price point that enables significant cost savings when compared to the wider marketplace.  

Available across Leaseweb’s entire global network, spanning the European, North American and Asia Pacific regions, the expanded GPU offering supports customers with a scalable, efficient deployment framework optimized for high-performance computing (HPC), ranging from AI model training and video analytics to graphics processing and video rendering functionality. Leaseweb’s new NVIDIA GPU solution aims to help customers improve their operations, reduce costs, and enhance computational speed for demanding workloads. The announcement also underlines Leaseweb’s commitment to meeting the demand for powerful infrastructure solutions with industry benchmark performance chips that can be deployed within hours to ensure high availability service provision.

This marks the next step in Leaseweb’s journey to providing a complete AI offering for its customers, which will include integration into Leaseweb’s public cloud and broader set of infrastructure solutions. By providing a comprehensive, scalable solution for a wide variety of workloads, Leaseweb is reinforcing its position as a trusted partner for organizations focused on balancing price with performance and availability. With further plans to integrate this offering into its broader solutions suite, the company is strongly positioned to become a leading provider of GPU infrastructure, supporting customers as they invest in these transformational technologies.

For further information, please visit: https://www.leaseweb.com/en/products-services/dedicated-servers/gpu-server

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Trump Destroys America’s Cybersecurity Agenda

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 28, 2025 by itnerd

Over the past week, President Donald Trump repealed former President Joe Biden’s AI-focused executive order, issued in October 2023. The order had mandated that developers of advanced AI submit safety reports to the federal government. It also outlined plans for setting standards, revising procurement processes, and establishing the U.S. AI Safety Institute.

The new Trump administration also terminated all existing members of advisory committees that report to the Department of Homeland Security which includes members of CISA’s Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) in alignment with DHS’s “commitment to eliminating the ‘misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security.”

The CSRB’s purpose has been to examine and assess cyber incidents and construct recommendations for improved security within private and public sectors, providing advise to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the President. At the time of dismissal, the board was apparently deep in the investigation of the Salt Typhoon hacking incident, the Chinese hacking campaign that penetrated telecommunications companies, spying on the calls and messages of US citizens.

Other advisory boards that have been dismantled include the Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board, Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council, National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, National Infrastructure Advisory Council, and the USSS Cyber Investigations Advisory Board.

Dismissed members are welcome to submit reapplications for their posts.

Willy Leichter, CMO, AppSOC

  “As the Trump administration continues to throw wrenches into anything the Biden administration championed, there will inevitably be negative repercussions. This will delay or eliminate any proactive role for the US government in guiding AI technology. While you can argue that the private sector should drive this, the government has a legitimate role in issues around privacy and security. Gutting expertise and funding from federal agencies will inevitably put critical infrastructure, cyber security, and individual privacy at risk.”

Trump is putting the nation at risk. And this will come back to haunt the US sooner rather than later. There’s simply no other way to say it. You might want to remember that in four years time.

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Today Is Data Privacy Day

Posted in Commentary on January 28, 2025 by itnerd

January 28th is Data Privacy Day, an annual and international effort to raise awareness about the importance of data protection an privacy. Below, the following cybersecurity experts have provided the following insight about this important day and how crucial it is for people and organizations alike to protect their data. 

Paul Bischoff, Consumer Privacy Advocate at Comparitech: 

“Data privacy used to be about protecting your private information from hackers, criminals, and data brokers. Now we can add AI to that list. AI programs scrape as much data as they can from public sources to train their algorithms. As a result, personal info can be included in an AI’s response to a prompt, either intentionally or unintentionally. AI significantly reduces the barriers of finding and collecting information, making it easier for criminals to abuse personal data. I recommend disallowing search engines and other bots from scraping your social media accounts if it’s an option, and remove as much identifying personal information from your profiles as possible. Use a data removal service like Incogni or PrivacyBee to get your data out of the hands of data brokers.”

Chris Hauk, Consumer Privacy Champion at Pixel Privacy:

“It’s important for users to take control of their data privacy. I strongly recommend contacting data brokers to have your information removed from their servers. Data brokers are popular targets for hackers, putting all of the data (your data) on the brokers’ servers at risk. While it can be a time consuming process, it is worth it in the long run. If you are pressed for time, subscribe to a service like Incogni, who will contact the data brokers on your behalf, while keeping you informed of their progress.”

“AI is also a rising threat to data privacy. As the use of AI rises, so does the threat to customers’ data. Organizations must take steps to ensure that they put enough security in place that customer data is not inadvertently shared.”

“We continue to see misconfigured data buckets on cloud storage providers like AWS expose data to hackers. Several times, unprotected databases on AWS and other cloud providers have exposed customer and company data to the world, simply because the security protections are misconfigured. This has to stop.”

Carlos Aguilar Melchor, chief scientist, cybersecurity at SandboxAQ

“Privacy Day highlights the importance of safeguarding personal information and advancing secure systems in an increasingly interconnected world. We are seeing organizations across the globe push toward a Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) strategy, which underscores a shift to “never trust, always verify” principles, enhancing data security and resilience against cyber threats. Simultaneously, the ongoing transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) is crucial to future-proofing encryption against the potential risks posed by quantum computing, ensuring privacy and security in the digital age. We are proud to be contributing to these initiatives through cryptography modernization, and to reflect a proactive approach to evolving privacy challenges.”

Jimmy Astle, Senior Director of Detection Enablement at Red Canary:

The rise of generative AI has brought data privacy to the forefront of global conversations. These AI models, trained on vast amounts of internet-scraped data, have ignited concerns about consent and transparency. Questions are being asked about whether individuals and organizations should be informed if their data is being used in this way.

It’s clear our current privacy laws are struggling to keep pace with the evolution of technology. However, while generative AI adds complexity, it doesn’t eclipse existing data privacy concerns that we’re already grappling with. In fact, the most pressing challenges still stem from widespread data breaches and apps that exploit personal data for profit.

What GenAI has done though is introduce new dimensions to these existing challenges. For example, we’re seeing a rise in AI-driven SaaS tools that collect and process user data. Technology vendors are increasingly offering opt-out options for their AI features to safeguard user privacy, but this underscores a larger need for more clarity around how data is being used.

The path forward demands a balance of adaptability, transparency, and regulation. Organizations must take proactive steps to safeguard privacy, including clear communication around data practices and investment in privacy-preserving technologies. Regulators must also work closely with the technology industry to craft policies that protect individuals without hindering progress.

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Guest Post: Empower individuals to control their biometric data: the new challenge across all sectors

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 28, 2025 by itnerd

An opinion piece by Thomas Decker, VP Product Marketing Finance at Linxens

What if your face, fingerprint, or iris was your greatest vulnerability in a cyberattack? All those parts of you that are most unique and private are now embedded in our devices, workplaces, and airports, promising seamless access and enhanced security. But there is a dark side to this convenience: the fear of knowing where biometric data is stored and how it is used, and cybercriminals have seized on this. Attracted by these potential loopholes, they are questioning the security and integrity of our data storage. Trust in biometrics is being eroded as individuals worry that their sensitive information is being stored in cloud environments that are vulnerable to breaches and misuse. To address these concerns, the future of biometric access security needs to drive action for change on an economy-wide scale. 

Why the cloud is a concern  

The rise of cloud-based systems has accelerated the adoption of biometric solutions. By storing large amounts of data remotely, cloud platforms allow for scalability and easier system updates. However, high-profile data breaches and unauthorized access to personal information have fueled public skepticism. Deloitte’s 2023 ‘Customer data privacy and security’ survey found that 67% of consumers fear their biometric data could be misused if stored in the cloud, and this concern is particularly acute in regions with strict privacy laws, such as the European Union under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).  

Geopolitical tensions also increase the risks. Critical environments such as airports, military installations, and nuclear power plants cannot afford vulnerabilities in their access systems. In fact, they are a goldmine for hackers. They can intercept valuable biometric data and commit serious crimes such as rigging elections, spying on hostile nations, usurping identities, or sabotaging sensitive systems and areas.  These are irreversible actions with potentially dramatic consequences.

Moving to localized storage  

Biometric systems that prioritize edge computing offer a solution. Instead of sending data to the cloud, biometric information is processed and stored locally on secure devices or smart cards. These systems eliminate the need to transmit data over networks, dramatically reducing the risk of potential hacking.  

For example, smart cards embedded with biometric data allow users to authenticate their identity without needing to interact with the cloud. This decentralized approach enhances privacy as the data remains under the control of the user and is less likely to fall prey to cyber-attacks. It also complies with ethical and legal frameworks by giving users autonomy over their personal information.  

Strategically securing high priority environments  

Industries that handle sensitive materials or information – such as pharmaceuticals, energy, and defense – demand the highest levels of access security. Traditional access systems, such as swipe cards or PIN codes, are not enough to prevent unauthorized access. Biometrics offers a reliable alternative to the strategy adopted by these high-risk industries, but only if it is implemented without introducing new vulnerabilities.  

Some organizations have already deployed on-premises biometric solutions that process data in a closed environment, ensuring that sensitive information never leaves the facility. For example, nuclear power plants are increasingly using locally stored multimodal biometric systems (e.g. combining fingerprint and iris scans) to strengthen access controls. Similarly, the military and financial institutions are adopting innovative technologies such as the use of biometric smart cards: personal data is stored exclusively on the card itself, without recourse to the cloud or external servers. This not only reduces the risk of data leakage but also ensures strict compliance with the RGPD by guaranteeing secure, local management of personal data.

Challenges and the way forward

Despite its benefits, localized biometric security faces challenges, especially as local devices must be robust enough to prevent tampering and cyber intrusions.  

To overcome these hurdles, manufacturers are investing in advanced encryption techniques and tamper-resistant hardware. The use of biometric templates —mathematical representations of biometric data rather than raw images — also mitigates risks. These templates cannot be reverse engineered into the original data, further protecting users’ privacy.  

Looking ahead, biometric systems will need to balance convenience, security, and ethical responsibility. By moving away from cloud dependency, organizations can rebuild public trust while securing critical environments. 

Eventually, to fully realize the potential of localized biometric systems, the industry must come together to establish standards and best practices. This is not just a technological shift but an ethical and strategic imperative to rebuild trust and safeguard critical environments.

The future of access security lies not in centralized technologies such as the cloud, but in empowering individuals to control their own data. The question is not whether industries can adapt to this ethical evolution, but how quickly they will embrace this shift.

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Issues With Fitbit Devices Costs The Company A Measly $12 Million

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 27, 2025 by itnerd

You might recall that Fitbit had a bunch of devices that burned people a few years ago which forced a recall. Fast forward to today and those devices have cost Fitbit…. Wait for it….. $12 million:

Google-owned Fitbit has agreed to pay a $12.25 million civil penalty for failing to alert consumers that its Ionic smartwatches could overheat and cause burns, federal regulators said Thursday.

In addition to the $12.25 million civil penalty, the settlement agreement requires Fitbit to maintain internal controls and procedures designed to ensure compliance with the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA), including enhancements made to its compliance program.

You know, that’s not a whole lot of money given that Fitbit is owned by Google and Google has more cash than some countries. This fine is pretty much a rounding error for them and won’t serve as any sort of deterrent as far as I am concerned. But then again, some punishment is better than nothing.

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The United Healthcare Hack Is Worse Than Thought

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 27, 2025 by itnerd

The UnitedHealth 2024 breach is worse than thought. It has now impacted 190 million Americans:

The hack at Change Healthcare affected the personal information of 100 million people, the U.S. health department had posted on its website in October.

The final number will be confirmed and filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ office for civil rights at a later date, the company said in an emailed statement.

Ouch.

Rebecca Moody, Head of Data Research at Comparitech, has the following comment: 

“This breach on Change Healthcare was already the biggest-known ransomware breach to date even before the figure increased from 100 million to 190 million, according to our data. But this latest figure puts it way ahead of second-place MOVEit which saw nearly 96M records breached (at least) in its exploit in 2023.”

“In 2024, we tracked 236 confirmed ransomware attacks on companies operating within the healthcare sector across the globe (this includes those offering direct care, e.g. hospitals, as well as companies like Change Healthcare who offer services/products within the industry). These attacks breached 231,664,818 individual records, making it a record-breaking year for the number of records breached within any industry. We also noted an average ransom demand of $7.4 million across these attacks.”

“This high volume of data breached in ransomware attacks on healthcare companies highlights hackers’ continued double-extortion attempts (encrypting systems and holding data to ransom). And due to the high volumes of sensitive data on offer at these companies, we’ll likely see a continued focus on healthcare companies throughout 2025.”

This is very bad. And I have a feeling that it’s going to get even worse than this. Buckle up your seatbelts because this is going to be a bumpy ride.

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CNOC Argues That TELUS Doesn’t Need Loopholes When It Comes To Providing Internet Access

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 27, 2025 by itnerd

For a few months now, TELUS has been promoting a petition that they want you to sign so that you can push for better choice when it comes to Internet choice in Ontario and Quebec. Now I covered their Internet offering here and at the time I wasn’t impressed. And to be fair to TELUS, more choice and more options are a good thing. But a group called The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) are pointing out that TELUS are one of the “big three” telcos in Canada. And as such don’t need “loopholes”. They argue that TELUS isn’t telling the whole story when it comes to this petition. Regulated wholesale access is meant to remove barriers for local and regional carriers so they can bring additional competition to Canada’s broadband market. It was not intended to help Canada’s Big Three dominant telecom companies from growing even larger. They also argue that the CRTC must act and close this loophole.

The organization has set up this website that goes into the issue more: www.breakfreefromthebigthree.ca

My take on this is as follows. When TELUS first popped up with this campaign, I found it to be as the kids say “sus” or suspect for the reasons that CNOC points out above. So I didn’t report on it. CNOC today has pretty much validated my thinking. Canadians do want more choice. Not just in Internet access, but in all telco services. The TELUS argument really doesn’t advance that goal in my mind. Thus I would argue that Canadians should continue to press politicians to enact real change to get real competition in the Canadian telco space.


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Jeff Giannetti Joins Hammerspace As Chief Revenue Officer

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 27, 2025 by itnerd

Hammerspace, the company orchestrating the next data cycle, today announced the appointment of Jeff Giannetti as its Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to support rapid growth in demand around the world for its Global Data Platform. With more than three decades of global sales leadership experience, Giannetti will drive the company’s global sales team to continue to accelerate revenue growth, new customer acquisition, and use case expansion within existing customer environments. 

Giannetti joins Hammerspace from WEKA, where he served as CRO since 2022. Giannetti was also CRO at Cleversafe (acquired by IBM) and Deep Instinct and held several leadership positions at organizations including Sun Microsystems, Veeam, Digital Ocean and Forcepoint. He worked in NetApp’s sales organization for more than a decade, where the company grew from $700 million in revenues to over $6 billion during his tenure.

Hammerspace’s Global Data Platform revolutionizes the management of data and storage in a world where digital assets can no longer be locked into a single vendor’s storage silo. It enables organizations to use existing data center and cloud storage resources without compromising the ability to explore artificial intelligence and deep learning (AI/DL) and other next-generation uses to extract unrealized value from their data, wherever it may be.

Giannetti joins at a pivotal time in the rapid growth of Hammerspace.  The Tier 0 technology introduced in November of 2024 had already begun to transform GPU computing infrastructure design by transforming local NVMe storage on GPU servers into an ultra-fast, persistent shared storage. By activating this previously “stranded” and siloed local NVMe storage seamlessly into a unified parallel global file system, Tier 0 delivers data directly to GPUs at local NVMe speeds, accelerating checkpointing, reducing power utilization and dramatically improving the cost efficiency of shared storage. 

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Facebook infested with porn and gambling ads

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 27, 2025 by itnerd

A recent investigation by the Cybernews team uncovered a trend plaguing Facebook’s advertising ecosystem: a surge in pornographic and gambling ads infiltrating users’ feeds despite Meta’s strict ad guidelines. 

This issue reveals a larger systemic failure within Facebook’s ad approval process, raising critical concerns about the platform’s ability to ensure user safety. Despite claims that its AI-driven moderation system effectively blocks illicit content, Facebook appears overwhelmed by an influx of sexually explicit material and gambling promotions that violate its own rules.

As Facebook continues to profit from these campaigns, this raises questions about the platform’s commitment to enforcing its ad guidelines. 

Key findings of their investigation include:

  1. There’s a rise of Facebook ads promoting undressing AI apps, like CrushAI, which allow users to erase clothes, and this way generates nudity-containing content involving anyone. 
  2. There’s also a surge in sponsored gambling ads featuring sexually suggestive content, and they explicitly encourage the transfer of funds and supposedly real monetary gain.
  3. Users often report them but remain active for extended periods before being taken down. Even more troubling is the lack of accountability for the advertisers, who continuously find ways to bypass Meta’s ad policies.
  4. These ads are persistent – they come back in waves when taken down. Over a short period of time, ads that featured full nudity or pornography under the keywords “AI girlfriend” and “eraser clothes” rose exponentially, at one point reaching 1900 active campaigns.
  5. They are supported by bot accounts created almost simultaneously in 2023. Most of them lead to pages like crazybody.online, dizyer.info, and pharmacity.today.
  6. These ads also target underage Facebook users. 
  7. Facebook is profiting significantly from those nudity-featuring ads. For instance, a week-long ad campaign can cost from 300 USD, and our team, as mentioned earlier, found 1900 active nudity-featuring ad campaigns.
  8. The process of entering user payment details on the CrushAI page isn’t entirely secure—VirusTotal has found that one vendor for CrushAI was marked as malicious.
  9. Undress AI apps amplify child pornography, and Facebook ads contribute to its promotion. They permit uploads with no content moderation, and there have been cases of child predators using AI to generate deep-fake pornographic content. 

You can access the full article here. 

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