As a result of the collaboration between OpenNebula and Microsoft, a new set of plug-ins to support Microsoft Azure has been included in OpenNebula. This partnership has been announced today by Microsoft Open Technologies at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON).
«With this set of plug-ins, IT pros and system integrations can use OpenNebula’s rich set of infrastructure management tools to manage cloud deployments across Microsoft’s private, public and hosted cloud platforms.»
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Test All Apps to Keep Hackers from Penetrating Castle Walls
Despite all the news about hackers infiltrating major corporations, most businesses continue to leave themselves woefully unprotected. Some surveys estimate more than 70% of businesses perform vulnerability tests on less than 10% of their cloud, mobile and web applications. A majority also confess they have been hacked at least once in the last two years.
While most large businesses have begun application vulnerability testing, there is still a long way to go. After all, you are only as strong as your weakest link; hackers will undoubtedly find and attack any application without sufficient defenses.
Although testing and creating protection for high-value and mission-critical applications is better than not doing anything at all, leaving low-priority applications unprotected is still a major risk. If hackers can exploit just one application, that means they can then access the rest of your infrastructure. They’ll eventually figure out a way to also attack your high-value applications.
Monitor App Performance Early and Often
“Vote early and vote often.” Back in the 1920s and ’30s, when neither election technology nor oversight were as effective as they are today, and the likes of Al Capone were at work gaming the system, this phrase wasn’t a joke. It was a best practice.
If you want guaranteed results, what better way than to get people to the polls early, and then repeatedly, to vote for your candidate?
None of this sitting around until the end of the day, hoping that the election goes the way you want. Capone would tell you, “That’s for saps.”
What does this have to do with cloud computing? All too often we see IT teams taking a “buy it and hope it works” strategy when it comes to adopting cloud-based apps. They migrate their entire user base to the cloud on faith, assuming that they can worry about performance and availability issues later, if ever. After all, everybody in the company accesses the Internet today without issues so your cloud apps should work just fine, right?
Demand Revs Up Avaya’s Fast-Track to the Cloud Initiative
Avaya has escalated its efforts to get customers to fast-track to the cloud with the first of several sweeping initiatives that will optimize solutions and processes for delivery of collaboration as a service (CaaS) via the Avaya Collaborative Cloud. Strong demand for Avaya communications and collaboration applications from large and midsize enterprises is driving a focus on expanded scale and reach as well as simpler, faster provisioning that requires fewer resources.
Avaya collaboration solutions, including unified communications, video and contact center via the cloud, offer a new path to greater business agility. While many other areas of IT have successfully adopted cloud-based solutions, the communications infrastructure is one of the last remaining hold-outs due to complexity and concerns around reliability, security and privacy. As the business environment changes, however, new communications solutions and delivery models must support a mobile, flexible workforce that characterizes today’s rapidly changing economic landscape. The Avaya Collaborative Cloud fills this need.
Toward a More Confident Cloud Security Strategy
The cloud has hit the mainstream. Businesses in the United States currently spend more than $13 billion on cloud computing and managed hosting services, and Gartner projects that by 2015, end-user spending on cloud services could be more than $180 billion worldwide. It is estimated that 50 percent of organizations will require employees to use their own devices by 2017, which will depend on shared cloud storage. All of this requires encryption.
Organizational deployment of encryption has increased significantly in recent years. Its use spans everything from encrypting data in databases and file systems, in storage networks, on back-up tapes, and while being transferred over a public and internal networks. Although this might seem that we are moving in the right direction when it comes to enterprise data protection, there’s a real risk of creating fragmentation and inconsistency – referred to as encryption sprawl – as different organizations deploy diverse technologies in different places to secure different types of data. Adding fuel to the fire, the cloud poses its own unique threats and challenges. With an undeniable value proposition, it seems clear that the cloud is inevitable and that protecting data within it will be a top priority.
A Cloud Computing ‘Nutrition Label’
Like most maturing industries, standards are required to achieve broad adoption and maximum value. For the cloud, in particular cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings like Amazon Web Services and Rackspace Cloud, it’s time for a standard method for presenting these services so buyers can reasonably compare and contrast and make better buying decisions.
At the moment, purchasing IaaS is similar to how groceries were bought decades ago – very difficult to compare – both the product contents and the price/value vary from one vendor to another. A recent study conducted by the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) – involving Intel, Appnomic Systems and a number of other ODCA enterprise members – illustrates just how difficult the situation is today.
Domestic and Foreign Spying Threaten Cloud Data Security
If your organization’s got a lot riding on the continued security of its confidential or proprietary data, then you need to stay informed on the threats and how to address them. One of the most worrying threats of late, especially when it comes to cloud data security, is government spying – both foreign and domestic.
Foreign spying and corporate and economic espionage are, of course, not new concepts, but the enterprise’s increasing reliance on the Internet and cloud computing make them more of a concern than ever before. Just this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Justice Department has indicted five officers of the Chinese military on charges that they “hacked U.S. companies’ computers to steal trade secrets” from firms including U.S. Steel Corp. and Westinghouse Electric Co. Wang Dong, Gu Chunhui, Sun Kailiang, Huang Zhenyu, and Wen Xinyu are the first “employees of a foreign power [to be charged] with cybercrimes against American firms,” according to the WSJ, but they won’t be the last.
Strong Cloud Encryption Top Tips
In a post Snowden world it is clear that for cloud data security, we need strong encryption. When properly implemented, encryption in the cloud reduces risk to levels acceptable for sensitive data.
There is no doubt data protection in the cloud computing era is never going to be a ‘one size fits all’ kind of a solution. It requires a 360-degree view of the company with 365-days a year dedication.
The best place to start is with a risk analysis so you know what kind of data you have, its levels of sensitivity, who’s using it, where it’s used and stored, and how and where and over what technologies it’s going to ‘commute’. You need to understand your company’s data – in terms of technology and human weaknesses. Data should be unreadable to an attacker. It must be incoherent at all times to anyone other than you and your trusted personnel: while it’s travelling – or you are; whether it’s in transit, storage, stopping, or resting, data is safest in encrypted form.
DevOps.com Named “Media Sponsor” of DevOps Summit Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that DevOps.com has been named “Media Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s “DevOps Summit at Cloud Expo,” which will take place on June 10–12, 2014, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
DevOps.com is where the world meets DevOps. It is the largest collection of original content relating to DevOps on the web today Featuring up-to-the-minute news, feature stories, blogs, bylined articles and more, DevOps.com is where the thought leaders of the DevOps movement make their ideas known.
How to Win Big When Cloud Computing Is Pervasive
Some people are never satisfied. These fearless agents of change are everywhere. They’re informed, confident and willing to experiment. They seek out the best business technology solution for the job at hand. They act on instinct. Yes, you could say that they’re driven.
However, they’re also at risk of being labeled as «rogue employees» because they ordered a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering and perhaps expensed it without prior approval. Sometimes they’re the champion of progressive projects that are referred to as Shadow IT — intentionally bypassing their company’s formal evaluation and procurement process. How can this happen?
Is it just because their activities are tolerated, or are they being encouraged? If so, by whom? Why would any business leader applaud a team member that breaks the rules? Maybe, the simple answer is that staying within the confines of the status-quo won’t enable a top-performer to fully apply their talent, achieving their absolute best.