IT Infrastructure on the Verge of Technological Singularity

ITInfrastructureontheVergeofTechnological
Singularity:

2030IndustryDevelopmentOutlook
Whitepaper

miraworks.io
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Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................ 2

Global IT Infrastructure Keeps Growing ............................................................................................................. 3

Industry Customers Disrupt IT Infrastructure Development ........................................................................ 7

IT Equipment Manufacturers: Is This the End of Vendor Lock-in? ............................................................ 11

Future IT Specialist: Skill Training or Automation? ....................... ................................................................... 15

IT Infrastructure Design Tools: Looking for the Magic Button ....................................................................... 20

Afterword ....................................................................................................................................................................... 21

About Miraworks ......................................................................................................................................................... 22
Contents

will
continue to grow by 3-5% per year
Over the next decade, the global IT infrastructure
to find itself on the threshold of technological singularity by 2030. The industry is going to experience changes in the
current composition of IT manufacturers, growing customer expectations in terms of IT infrastructure, transformation of
the role of IT specialists, and emergence of new IT solution design tools.
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Industry customers will become the core drivers of global IT
infrastructure development

In the coming 10 years, steady reforms in the IT landscape,
technical policies, and IT infrastructure development strategy
will be observed across almost all economy sectors.

Changes in categories of IT infrastructure manufacturers
The manufacturer market will undergo optimization of
technological and production processes, as well as a shift
toward versatility and cross-vendor system compatibility.
Traditional IT manufacturers will be urged to review their
equipment and solutions stacks to keep up with ongoing
technology and market changes.

Automation and new IT infrastructure design and
configuration tools

Introduction of new design & configuration instruments that
will boost the design processes and enable agility in
development of multi-vendor solutions.

Transformation of IT specialists

Changes in the IT manufacturer market and transformation of
approaches to IT architecture design will strengthen the
demand for versatile IT specialists skilled to create
multi-vendor solutions.

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3 Source: International Telecommunications Union, 2019
Global Internet users
Keeps GrowingGlobal IT Infrastructure
As the global user count is on the brink of reaching the
level of 7.5 billion, it’s imperative that online services and applications
they will employ are backed by communications and the operating IT
infrastructure that will encompass all the sectors of the global economy and
require high-speed instant mobile access to digital resources.

With 4.2 billion users in the world today, the Internet has
become one of the largest segments of the world
economy. By 2050, the world's population will reach 10 billion, with
70-75% of people being active Internet users.

2005 2010 2017 2019 2050 (Forecast)
World population (in billions)
Users in the developing world (%)
Users worlwide (%)
Users worldwide (in billions)
Users in the developed world (%)
1.04 2.07 3.55 4.1 7-7.5
51% 71% 84,4% 86,6% 90-92%
6.5 6.9 7.4 7.7 ±10
8% 21% 42,9% 47% 60-65%
16% 30% 48% 53,6% 70-75%

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further growth of the global IT infrastructure at a pace of 3-5% per year
The global-wide spread of 5G networks that is predicted to come in full force by 2025 will lead to growth of AI-powered applications and
techniques and drive even wider adoption of IoT, Edge Computing, and Industrial Ethernet networks.

All this will precondition and demand upgrading and expanding
the existing IT infrastructure every 3 to 7 years.

Another indicator—bandwidth—directly reflects growth of traffic, user base, and data—the elements that collectively represent the IT
infrastructure’s scope and weight. As the bandwidth keeps enlarging across all the regions of the world, one may assert that the IT
infrastructure continues to scale up and gets denser.

Source: International Telecommunications Union, 2019
97%
82%
1%
97%
53%
Almost the entire world population (97 per
cent) lives within reach of a mobile cellular
signal.
82 per cent of the world’s population lives within
reach of an LTE or higher mobile-broadband
signal, and another 11 per cent have access to a
3G network.
While 93 per cent of the world’s population lives
within reach of a mobile broadband (or Internet)
service, just over 53 per cent actually uses the
Internet.
Billionpeople
4
5
6
7
8
2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019
3
2
1
0
World Population
Internet users
2G
3G LTE or Higher

IT Spending2018-2021 Projected Pattern

Source: Gartner, 2019

*in billion US Dollars
the segments that are going to see the highest growth of IT expenses are IT services and network
infrastructure, telephony and videoconferencing
According to Gartner’s estimates,
—total spending in these realms amounts to over 2.5 trillion dollars. Meanwhile, the global
IT market has almost touched the bar of $4 trillion today, embracing services, application software, and IT equipment—the cornerstones of
the IT infrastructure.

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Global
Revenues
2017-2019
of
Market-Leading
Technology
Manufacturers ($B)

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Disrupt IT Infrastructure
Development Standards

Industry customers
With digitalization grows further across various sectors of economy, it is critical to scale-up and support the existing
IT infrastructure. Depending on the level of digital IQ, all economic segments can be split into two major groups:

Harvey Nash and KPMG's CIO Survey shows that technology, business services, transportation, media, and finance
sectors constitute more than 50% of annual IT budget growth. This is driven both by maintenance of the existing IT
infrastructure and the strategy for developing new promising lines of business.

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Segments with a high level of IT integration and reliance of
key business processes on the maturity of IT infrastructure
and digital assets. This category includes technological,
financial, and media companies, as well as retail, telecom,
educational, and transport businesses.
Segments with a low IT integration level and reliance of
key business processes, financial performance, and
competitive strengths on maturity of IT infrastructure and
digital assets. This cluster comprises industrial, oil-and-gas,
mining business, as well as electric energy, healthcare, and
construction.

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Thus, in the coming years technology companies will remain the core driver of global digital economy. The following organizations will
also expand and maintain their own IT infrastructure and thus become more and more reliant on it:

 
Financial services
Telecommunications
Manufacturing
Education & Healthcare
Oil & Gas
Broadcast/Media
Retail / Consumer Goods
Transport / Logistics

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moving from project implementation to product creation
create new digital products powered by promising technologies
At the same time, more and more companies are . Thus, they see investments
in promising technologies as the key to business transformation. This paradigm shift disrupts both the IT landscape and technical policy
and growth strategy of the entire IT infrastructure among lots of businesses.  

In addition, with growth and maturity of the IT infrastructure, CIOs and CDOs start considering investing in related promising
technology areas.   
This means that, when approving IT budgets and strategic goals, CIOs feel the need not only to develop and maintain the existing IT
infrastructure and services, but also . Such a behavioral switch has a
direct impact on the IT spending pattern and IT landscape of businesses.
Large-scale Small-scale PilotingHarvey Nash KPMG CIO Survey-2019

PointsKey
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Choosing between a strategy for developing in-house digital
assets and resource optimization through improving
performance of the existing IT infrastructure. This decision
determines the business model and upends the approach to
developing the IT framework. To create digital products,
companies will increasingly resort to public cloud solutions
that offer more flexible value than the legacy IT infrastructure.
In practice, companies are likely to adopt a hybrid approach,
being guided by the project and/or product objectives and
industry specifics.

Splitting IT budgets into (1) traditional IT infrastructure
maintenance, expansion, and upgrade costs and (2)
investments in Private Cloud, Mobile Apps (IOS/Android), AI,
IoT/Edge Computing as the most promising growth areas. The
ratio between operating and investment funds will be
determined by the company’s strategy and current capabilities.

Increasing influence of IT functions for business and ramp-up
of IT budgets driven by digitalization and resource and
expense optimization by means of the existing infrastructure.
Having become a more important chain link, the IT framework
will enjoy continuous development and upgrades.

The strategy chosen will outline the IT spending pattern and
the focus on either supporting or expanding or upgrading the
existing IT framework. Companies developing IoT and Edge
Computing will tend to stick to a hardware-based approach,
while companies developing their own products and AI will go
with a software-based approach.

Business digitalization and escalation of online competition
for customers. Digitalization degree and production reliability
will be the core determinants of competitive positions. As
early as today, company audit takes into account server and
network capacity and the state of storage facilities. In the
future, the weight of the IT infrastructure in company maturity
assessment will only grow.

In the next 10years, virtually all the economic sectors will see the following trends in IT strategy development
and shifts in customer expectations:

is this
the end of “vendor lock-in”?
IT Equipment Manufacturers:
Source: IDC, 2020
market forecastCloud IT infrastructure
Corporate IT infrastructure continues to migrate to the cloud. Cloud-based solutions provide greater flexibility in terms of cost, time to
deploy, and compatibility. Also, they eliminate vendor lock-in.

According to IDC, the share of solutions based on traditional IT vendors will decrease to 40% by 2023. Leaders of today’s cloud
infrastructure equipment market are ODM Direct, Lenovo, Cisco, Inspur, HPE, and Dell.
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At the turn of 2025-2030, the share of traditional IT infrastructure in the world may decline to 30%, and the share of cloud IT
infrastructure will reach 70%.  

Migration to the cloud is constrained by storage security issues, regulatory requirements, and in-house policies. However, companies
will step-up their use of cloud-based multivendor solutions to host data that is not critical.

“What percentage of your organization’s workloads run/will
run in the following environments today/in two years?”*
Public cloud does not
meet our security needs
40%
“What best describes your organization’s plans to
adopt the following in the next 12 months?
40%
10%
Public cloud
15%
19%
15%
18% 18%
47%
19%
17%
41%
30%
38%
36%
Internal private cloud Hosted private cloud On-premises hardware
20%
10%
0%
Planning to implement Implemented Expanding/upgrading
All Missioncritical Dataintensive
1.2
1.2
0.1
-2
2.7
-0.6
0.1
-2.3
-0.2
0.1
2
-0.9
Public cloud
Internal private cloud
Hosted private cloud
On-premises hardware
Pts change over two years
“Which of the following reflects why your organization maintains
infrastructure outside of a public cloud platform?”
(Showing top three, ranked 1 to 5 by respondents)†
Base: 350 global decision makers for IT infrastructure environments

Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, September 2019
39% 35%
Data residency is
challenging for some apps
Public cloud does not meet
most of our requirements

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The pace of cloud IT infrastructure growth is pushing traditional IT manufacturers away from their own unique solutions in favor of
greater flexibility, openness, and compatibility.   
These factors, combined with process optimization, will lead to the transformation of the IT infrastructure market, which will have bred
four manufacturer categories by 2030:

Top 5 conventional IT equipment manufacturers whose
share in the existing traditional corporate IT infrastructure
has historically remained high (60-80%). This status requires
supporting, upgrading, expanding, and gradual withdrawal
of the legacy IT infrastructure.

Software Defined Vendors: Manufacturers of
software-defined solutions, including SD-WAN,
SD-Storage, SDDC.

White-box (bright-box) IT equipment manufacturers
producing solutions for establishing a corporate IT
infrastructure with open, compatible, and programmable
architecture.

VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): Cloud vendors (AWS, Azure,
etc.).

pointsKey
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Lifting license and other artificial
constraints, reducing the hardware
prime cost, simplifying equipment
startup, configuration, and
utilization (Open/Cloud OS).

Ensuring compatibility of
equipment manufactured with
elements of the cloud-based IT
infrastructure (SDN/SDD
controllers and orchestrators).
Abandoning the mono-vendor
uniqueness of proprietary solutions
in favor of openness and
compatibility with other
manufacturers (bright box).

The ongoing changes in the IT infrastructure market will drive more and more businesses to switch to
cloud-based multivendor solutions. In order to maintain their own positions, traditional IT infrastructure
manufacturers will have to revise their current "vendor lock-in" strategy, which will result in the following:

Skill training or Automation?Future IT specialists:
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As the systems for automated IT
infrastructure configurationand design evolve
and AI is being integrated into network management
systems, the system admin’s role experiences deep
changes and specialists must now develop—and
possess—new essential skills.

According to Evans Data Corporation,
there were 23 million software
developers back in 2018, and that number was
forecast to reach 28 million by 2023. Should this
trend remain in force, there will be 35 million software
developers by 2030.

At the same time, 67% of companies
surveyed by KPMG are understaffed.

In particular, specialists in Big Data, information security,
artificial intelligence, and corporate architects are in high
demand. With that, the roles that can be partially or
completely automated see a decline in demand.

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New-age specialties growing more demanded is what reflects digital transformation processes business are undergoing. Meanwhile, the set
of needed skills also morphs, with business analytics, cloud technology, and project ownership on top—proven by global data on IT
specialists’ compensations provided in Global Knowledge’s report 2019 IT Skills, Salary and Certifications. Another emerging trend is
demand for cross-certification of traditional IT infrastructure manufacturers Cisco/Citrix/VMware and Amazon AWS.  
Thus, an enterprise architect in 2030 should be a do-all IT specialist who understands all aspects of network/cloud storage and
virtualization without any vendor-specific reference and can look at the architecture established from the commercial point of view.
Source: Global Knowledge World skills and salary report
2019

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Business achitecture
Cybersecurity, Governance,
Compliance and Policy
Microsoft
Red Hat / Linux
Avaya
Cloud Credential Council
ITIL and IT service management
Cisco
HP
DevOps
Nutanix
VMware
Application Development /
Programming
Business process
Dell EMC
Networking
Veeam
Business analysis
CompTIA
Juniper Networks
Citrix
IBM
Google Cloud
Project management
Certification
$129,868
$100,775
$99,969
$121,103
$52,097 $85,363 $73,582 $108,764580
119 $108,641 7 $86,255 73 $73,515 24 $93,335 223
1,321 $36,493 31 $58,267 184 $70,754 59 $87,152 1,595
97 $58,106 9 $76,270 71 $55,036 33
$82,118 152
620 $57,028 45 $82,272 454 $81,743 171
$89,253 120
28 $42,202 4 $65,748 20 $33,333 3 $79,762 55
22 $80,000 1 $99,402 14 $90,915 13 $118,631 50
62 $61,750 8 $63,394 74 $58,639 8
$87,269 678
52 $35,784 9 $75,551 45 $56,565 14
$91,532 281
181 $68,552 20 $81,036 87 $72,489 39 $101,431 327
69 $58,115 7 $77,278 46 $52,030 12 $91,641 134
54 $40,940 11 $66,786 65 $62,565 29
$88,654 2,149
34 $23,354 7 $67,884 35 $107,231 4
$88,960 342
29 301 101 1,011
$118,276
$138,980
$109,456
$125,644
$111,332
$112,052
$101,533
$93,097
$122,544
$147,357
$125,797
$118,657
$149,002
$113,723
$133,208
$119,166
$119,742
$104,127
$110,123
$113,165
$113,233
$45,214 $72,702 $71,552 $91,094194
91 $84,008 14 $101,740 120 $103,491 38 $113,934 263
1,676 $46,406 128 $75,841 817 $71,358 648 $96,308 3,269
892 $45,784 125 $74,832 763 $71,159 369
$94,961 210
164 $35,834 18 $75,659 109 $58,305 51
$102,240 1,290
359
825
$38,988
$33,056
41
160
$70,130
$54,852
277
692
$51,238
$50,906
129
316
$83,038
$71,800
806
1,993
351
66
$50,220
$68,630
44
9
$96,041
$79,282
279
49
$81,005
$66,688
150
16
$112,716
$102,580
824
140
150
1,044
$43,261
$40,353
13
76
$73,715
$67,504
84
661
$63,474
$68,712
34
229 $85,637
$83,165
2,010
159
312 $42,398 43 $70,152 228 $63,385 95
$87,534 80
18 194 45 451
North America Latin America EMEA Asia-Pacific Total
average annual
income
average annual
income
average annual
income
average annual
income
average annual
income
Number of
respondents
number of
respondents
number of
respondents
number of
respondents
number of
respondents
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17 Source: Global Knowledge World skills and salary report 2019
Salary by certification category

pointsКey
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Cultivation of IT specialists’
versatile knowledge and skills
essential for maintaining and
supporting new technology backed
by or augmenting the existing IT
infrastructure and operating
framework.

Dusk of the single-vendor
architecture and increasing
demand for custom IT architecture
solutions. A specialist’s
professional development will
determine their creativity and
ability to find unconventional
solutions provided by various
vendors.

Emergence of new IT professions
reflecting demand for advanced
technology (e.g. IoT system
engineer, AI systems architect, Low
Code application developer) and
irrelevance of potentially-automated
specialties.

Digital transformation progressing in various businesses creates demand for versatile IT specialists that can tackle both technical
knowledge and business analytics skills. Over the next 10 years, the following trends will shape the IT labor market:

LookingfortheMagicButtonITInfrastructuredesigntools:
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Ubiquitousimplementationofdigitaltransformationpracticesformsthedemandforcomplextoolsthatallow
monitoringthecurrentstateofITinfrastructure,designingandselectingtime-andcost-efficientsolutionsthat
regardcompatibilityofequipmentsuppliedbyconventionalandcloudmanufacturers.  

EverytoolofthoseavailabletoITspecialiststodaysolvesaspecifictaskwithinITinfrastructuredesign.Thatsaid,
wearetoofarfrominventing—orfinding—amagicbuttonthatcouldenablealltheessentialfunctionsinone
click.

OurresearchshowsthatsystemengineersandarchitectsemployMicrosoftOfficeinstrumentsandselectand
compareequipmentmanually,usingdefaultconfiguratorsprovidedbyITmanufacturers.Furthermore,they
visualizeITsolutionsingraphiceditorshavingnothingtodowithcalculationsorspecifications.Astandalone
functionthatremainsoutofintegrationintoanyprojectframeworkisITinfrastructuresizingduring
developmentofERPapplications(e.g.SAP,Oracle,1C,etc.).

Thedescribedall-in-oneITinfrastructuredesigntoolswillhelpITdepartmentheadsoutlineITframework
growthandengineersswitchfromroutinetocreatingsolutionsthatwouldservethecompany’sneeds.

IT Infrastructure Design Tools
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MS Excel On-premise Tables, scripts NA Manual data input
Notapad++ On-premise Scripts NA
Cloudockit Cloud/Hybrid Multi-vendor
MS Word On-premise Documents NA
Cacoo Cloud Mono-Vendor Azure
Draw.io Cloud/On-premise Diagrams NA
IT Infrastructure Design Tools IT Infrastructure Type Key Product Features Mono-/Multi-vendor Product Limitations
MS Visio On-premise Diagrams NA
Cloud Draft Cloud Diagrams/Commercial proposals Mono-Vendor AWS
Lucidchart Cloud/On-premise Diagrams NA Does not generate commercial proposals
Does not generate commercial proposals
CPQ On-premise Commercial proposals Mono-vendor Vendor Lock-in
Arcentry Cloud Multi-vendor Does not support on-premise
Private Cloud Quotation Cloud/Hybrid Commercial proposals Multi-vendor Does not support on-premise
Does not support on-premise
Manual data input
Manual data input
Manual data input
Diagrams/Commercial proposals

Afterword
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Multi-vendors: Transition to open, multi-vendor solutions
in IT infrastructure design.

Multi-clouds: Further growth of the
cloud IT infrastructure.

Multi-skills: Development of versatile
competences and skills among IT engineers
and architects.
Multi-configurations: Development of complex IT
infrastructure design tools.
New techniques and entailed acceleration of digital transformation are factors that disrupt approaches to and
specifications of the IT infrastructure and IT solution design engineers. Over the upcoming 10 years, the key trends in the
field of corporate IT infrastructure development will be the following:

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Automatically compare equipment, configure and convert
specifications between multiple IT vendors and check compatibility
risks
configurationMultivendor
Create network diagrams using a built-in IT infrastructure designer
EditorTopology
Turn specifications into proposals, apply discount rates, and print
proposals on the company’s letterhead
Proposals
Use Miraworks to communicate and share information with your team and
partners. Create projects, manage roles and access rights, and store all
information in one place
managementProject
About Miraworks
Integrated IT infrastructure design environment

MiraworksBefore
The Miraworks way
- Excel Visio Word Notepad++

- IT vendors’ data sheets and manuals

- IT vendors’ configurators or Excel

- Google search, Forums

- IT vendors’ supprt

- Email, messengers, IT consultants
Single platform with
all-in-one tool and unified
information
0 houres of waiting
for commercial offers
Multiple multivendor
commercial offers
Multiple programs
+ +
+
=
=
Multiple information
sources
? hours of waiting for
commercial offers
1 single vendor commercial
offer
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Makes IT Solution Design EasierHow Miraworks
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Topology Editor
Topologies Specifications Export
MS Visio, Auto
CAD
MS Excel
vendor
configurator
Emails, CRM,
ECM
MS Word,
Notepad++
+ Multivendor configurator
3-8 SPECIFICATIONS per DAY
topologies, diagrams, Files, Copying & PastingIT infrastructure design
without Miraworks
IT infrastructure design
with Miraworks

MiraworksRoadmap
Nextsteps(August2020-May2021)
Evaluatingcloudsolutions

Comparingcloudproviders
Addingservers,datastorage,virtualization,

andbackupsystemstothemultivendorconfigurator
InfrastructuresizersConfigurator+TopologyEditor
July2020 September2022March2022December2021May2021
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Collatingon-premiseandcloudsolutions
Extendedproposal
Integratedsolutiondescription:

-Topology

-Specification

-Equipmentspecs&certificates
Standardsectionsfromthe
base;withdescriptionof
technologyandverified
designs

AutomaticL2/L3planning,
VLANtopology,distribution
ofIPaddresspoolacrossthe
diagram
HLD
Equipmentgroupingbycabinet:

-Cabinetfrontviewdesign

-Automaticpowerconsumption
heatemissionestimation

-Weight

-Height

Communicationdiagramdesign
(linkfromeveryfaçadeportwith
respecttotopologydiagram)
Statusdashboard

Settinginstallation&configurationtasks

Trackingreadinessandstatusofeverynode
anddeviceinthenetwork(withrespectto
documentation)

Confirmingcompletionstatus;in-app
documenting,photographingtheinstallation
place

Reportinginstallationissues(e.g. noplacein
arack)

Transmittingdatatomonitoringtools

SolutionimplementationEquipmentcommunication
Multivendorcompatibility
checker

Miraworks Ecosystem (2020-2025)
(MiraCloud)
IaaS

and
metadata analyzer
Configuration files
(MiraStore)
Application Store

+ Topology EditorConfigurator
Power
advisor
Rack locator +

(MiraMon)
MaaS
CustomersForum
Independent Software Vendors
portal
Education

СRM ERP BIM
CLIENT ENVIRONMENT
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Business
application sizer
Infrastructure
application sizer

ts@miraworks.io
/miraworks.io
ru.miraworks.io

IT Infrastructure on the Verge of Technological Singularity

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