One of the biggest concerns IT managers have about moving business-critical applications into the cloud and away from the data center is the issue of security. What you may not realize, however, is that the same tools for automation and provisioning that function in cloud implementations also offer a significant opportunity to improve security.
The first concern, of course, is whether the cloud in question is private or public. If you’re using a public cloud provider such as Amazon Web Services, you know you’re looking at Level 1 PCI DSS compliance. If you’re running a cloud solution in-house, however, you need to make sure you’re handling all of that security via firewalls and network and storage management.
Archivo mensual: octubre 2012
How businesses can engage the hybrid cloud
What is a «hybrid cloud»?
Is it 1) an environment where applications and processes exist both in the public and private cloud and on premise? Or is it 2) a combination public/private cloud without an on-premise component?
For the sake of this discussion, we’ll concede definition 1.
Clarifying this concept is important because the vast majority of cloud-adopting organisations – which is to say the vast majority of organisations, period – are about to become hybrid-cloud-adopting organisations, and for good reason: they’re not ready to simply switch off their existing on-premise systems – legacy systems that already have significant business and operational value – and re-invent them in the cloud.
Let’s clarify this hybrid notion with a simple example of a business process nearly all organisations are familiar with: the HR onboarding process.
- Onboarding begins: A cloud-based recruiting system is used to identify a candidate. When the candidate is hired …
AWS Boring into Government & Ed
Amazon Web Services says it’s got more than 300 federal, state and local
government agencies and 1,500 education institutions leveraging its cloud
for Big Data analytics, HPC, web and collaboration applications, archiving
and storage, and disaster relief.
That being so, it’s got new services and features available in the AWS
GovCloud (US) region, including the addition of High Performance
Computing capabilities.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley Keynote Speaker Profile: John Engates – Rackspace
With Cloud Expo 2012 Silicon Valley (11th Cloud Expo) due to open in just under three weeks’ time at the Santa Clara Convention Center, CA – co-located with 2nd International BigDataExpo – let’s introduce you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical program at the West Coast conference…
We have technical and strategy sessions for you dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing & Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what else have they written and/or said about the Cloud and/or Big Data solutions that are transforming the world of Enterprise IT?
Amazon EC2 cloud suffers more connectivity issues
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 North Virginia cloud went down for approximately four hours yesterday, due to ‘elevated packet loss’.
The issue was first reported on the AWS Service Health Dashboard at 0208 PDT (0908 GMT) on October 15, with the dashboard cautiously noting “possible network connectivity issues” for EC2.
‘Possible’ became confirmed at 0219 PDT (0919 GMT), with a further update at 0320 PDT (1020 GMT) adding that it was due to elevated packet loss.
Only at 0514 PDT (1214 GMT) did Amazon confirm the problem had been fixed, adding that some APIs (application programming interfaces) had experienced increased error rates and latencies.
Some of the AWS customers affected included iSharingSoft, who tweeted that it was “experiencing network issues with #AWS”, and Cirrus Insight.
The Twitter sphere appeared, if anything confused at the lack of information on AWS’ global status page. Giedrius Banaitis tweeted that “as always, Twitter …
Software Defined Networks to be extended for telcos
In parallel with the adoption of LTE in the wireless space, the fixed line community is undergoing its own long term evolution. Speaking to a small group of journalists and analysts outside the RAI yesterday morning, Ulf Ewaldsson, CTO of equipment vendor Ericsson, said the explosive growth in cloud technology was spurring the requirement for Software Defined Network (SDN) specifications for service providers and telcos.
“The architecture of the network must evolve to cater to growth,” Uwaldsson said, referring to forecasts that data traffic will increase 15 fold over the next five years, having already grown 104 per cent year on year between 2011 and 2012.
IronKey Morphs into Marble Cloud
IronKey, the seven-year-old Internet security and privacy house, has changed its name to Marble Cloud in celebration of the introduction its new cloud security service.
Marble is meant to protect employee-owned iOS, Android, Windows and Linux mobile devices and desktop/laptop platforms.
The company says any user – contractor, remote worker, customer or supply chain partner – can securely access enterprise-provisioned public and private clouds from anywhere, on any of their own devices.
It’s a hardened multi-layer environment that’s supposed to be invulnerable – repeat, invulnerable – to Trojans, man-in-the-middle, man-in-the-browser, malevolent Wi-Fi networks, DNS poisoning and other state-of-the-threat attacks.
Being a toughie explains its less-than-fluffy new name.
Garantia Testing asks “Does Amazon EBS Affect Redis Performance?”
The Redis mavins at Garantia decided to find out whether EBS really slows down Redis when used over various AWS platforms.
Their testing and conclusions answer the question: Should AOF be the default Redis configuration?
We think so. This benchmark clearly shows that running Redis over various AWS platforms using AOF with a standard, non-raided EBS configuration doesn’t significantly affect Redis’ performance. If we take into account that Redis professionals typically tune their redis.conf files carefully before using any data persistence method, and that newbies usually don’t generate loads as large as the ones we used in this benchmark, it is safe to assume that this performance difference can be almost neglected in real-life scenarios.
Read the full post for all the details.
Six Trends Driving Workers to the Cloud
Automattic, the hosting company for WordPress.com servers, knows the future is now. They have 123 people that operate like self-employed workers, taking advantage of cloud and mobile apps to communicate across 26 countries and 94 cities. Everyone works from home. Here are six trends driving us out of our offices and into the cloud.
The fact that you are reading this is testament to the increased buzz surrounding SaaS/Cloud computing, a buzz that was absent in previous incarnations of the technology (notably ASP during the 1990s). Whether the buzz is driving vendors to produce applications specific for the cloud, or improved applications are feeding the fervor, is a mute point. The fact is that in order to drive a greater usage of the cloud, applications written specifically for the cloud need to be freely available. Advances in technology, the availability of open-source code, and modern platforms such as AWS, are fueling the development of leading-edge applications. With innovations in distribution like the Apple app store, users are now connected with these applications like never before.
Security and Control in the Cloud
Cloud computing is so alluring. The public cloud economizes infrastructure resources and creates a scalable, on-demand source for compute capacity. Additionally, the cloud can be a strategic asset for enterprises that know how to migrate, integrate and govern deployments securely.
Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak recently said, «A lot of people feel ‘Oh, everything is really on my computer,’ but I say the more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we’re going to have control over it.»
In fact, over 70% of IT professionals worry about security according to an IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing Study.
Boiled down, security, access and connectivity are really issues of control.
As any prudent cloud user, the application has its own unique security features, such as disk encryption and port filtering. But do these layers of security features overlap or conflict? What happens to ownership after migration? Do solutions really have to be architected before and after deployment?