APIs – application programming interfaces — are an old technology that has become today’s hottest method for getting critical data to mobile apps. APIs are good for business. APIs drove $2 billion in business for Expedia by securely exposing valuable content to its affiliate network.
But there are hidden dangers to using APIs. APIs share many of the same threats that plague the web, but APIs have unique risk profile that must be managed. It is a mistake to think we can secure APIs the same way we secure the web.
But there are some really simple things that anyone implementing an API can do, right now, that will minimize the risk of APIs. Here’s one I’ve pulled from a new eBooklet by Scott Morrison of CA Technologies called Five Simple Strategies for Securing Your APIs. The tip? Turn on SSL for your API and keep it on.
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OpenStack and the Future of Computing
In his session at 14th Cloud Expo, Chris C. Kemp, former NASA CTO and co-founder of OpenStack, will explore the origins of OpenStack, diving into how this technology advanced NASA’s mission and helped the White House ignite a cloud computing revolution across the federal government. He’ll take a close look at how the fastest growing open source project in history evolved – and where it’s going – before turning our attention to the forces that have catalyzed this revolution and are reshaping enterprise computing. Finally he will look at some examples of cloud technologies and architectures that are enabling the most successful (and often newest) companies to challenge their largest and most entrenched competitors.
Partnering for Cloud Onboarding Success
Enterprise organizations are looking for service providers to be a trusted partner with them throughout the entire transition through steady state process. The key for cloud providers is to develop ongoing relationships with their customers using hands-on engagement processes from beginning to end. A high touch process ensures that customers engage with various members of the transition team throughout the three stages of the on-boarding process: Business and Technology Assessment, Transition Plan, and Business Reviews.
Like most new technologies, cloud computing can require significant changes in business processes, application architectures, technology infrastructure, and operating models that must be properly understood before embarking on any new initiative. Having a well-thought-out strategy can mean the difference between success and failure. The first step to understanding these challenges is the assessment.
Infrastructure as a Journey
I see and read a lot of IT articles almost demanding that organizations must do certain things to ensure that some piece of their infrastructure is secure, highly available, fault tolerant, agile, flexible, scalable, recoverable, cloud’able, whatever the silo needs or face the dire circumstances. I’m guilty of it too over the years. Organizations must have a WAF for PCI compliance or Remote employees need to have an encrypted tunnels to the corporate network or any other command pertaining to the health of your infrastructure.
MetraTech and SOFTRAX Partner
Enterprise revenue recognition specialist SOFTRAX and MetraTech Corp. have announced a partnership to collaborate on billing and revenue management solutions for both traditional transactional and recurring revenue models. These solutions draw on both companies’ long-standing experience in these fields and automate customer acquisition, provide flexibility to handle a variety of pricing models, and improve renewals with easy access to a comprehensive 360-degree view of the business.
Together, MetraTech and SOFTRAX will automate quoting and contracts, billing and revenue recognition processes to support the increasingly complex needs of recurring revenue businesses, including established companies that are transitioning to a recurring revenue model but are still maintaining existing legacy clients. Joint customers will be able to minimize the cost of customer acquisition, identify opportunities for cross- and up-selling, and drive customer satisfaction with differentiated offers to increase renewals.
Cisco and Partners to Build World’s Largest Global Intercloud
As businesses increasingly embrace private, public, and hybrid clouds to cost-effectively and quickly deliver business applications and services, Cisco on Monday announced plans to build the world’s largest global Intercloud — a network of clouds — together with a set of partners. The Cisco global Intercloud is being architected for the Internet of Everything, with a distributed network and security architecture designed for high-value application workloads, real-time analytics, «near infinite» scalability and full compliance with local data sovereignty laws. The first-of-its-kind open Intercloud, which will feature APIs for rapid application development, will deliver a new enterprise-class portfolio of cloud IT services for businesses, service providers and resellers.
Why Local Data Storage Laws Won’t Work
Perhaps you may have read that Brazil recently abandoned their controversial proposal that would have forced global internet companies to store data on Brazilian users inside the country. While many of us can surmise a number of reasons the viability of such a measure might have been unlikely, the list is quite long and includes:
the challenge of enforcement
the difficult logistics facing global organizations serving Brazilian users
the potential loss from the region of high-value services that do not comply
Analyzing the Top 10 Benefits of Unified Security
Cobbling together point solutions provides tools, but doesn’t promote the key collaborative intelligence integrated cloud-based unified security offers.
Of all the strategies and tactics available to prevent breaches, deter data leakage and theft, control access and secure beyond the so-called network perimeter, the one that is emerging as an achievable and affordable best practice is that of unified security from the cloud.
But if you look across the web, you will no doubt come across various versions of what constitutes “unified,” what is “protected,” and, what is “security from the cloud?” Luckily this means that the concept of unified security from the cloud is becoming more and more of a best practice. In general, the practice of unified security is the centralization of all security functions under one umbrella across the enterprise. This means more than ensuring data encryption. It means more than access policies. It means more than intrusion detection, malware blocking, data review. It’s more than ensuring compliance to the various regulatory bodies that provide general guidelines. It is the sum of all these things…and more.
Gigamon Named “Silver Sponsor” of Cloud Expo New York
SYS-CON Events announced today that Gigamon®, a leader in traffic visibility solutions with the innovative Unified Visibility Fabric™, has been named “Silver Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 14th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 10-12, 2014, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Gigamon provides an intelligent Visibility Fabric™ architecture for enterprises, data centers and service providers around the globe. Our technology empowers infrastructure architects, managers and operators with pervasive and dynamic intelligent visibility of traffic across both physical and virtual environments without affecting the performance or stability of the production network. Through patented technologies and centralized management, the Gigamon GigaVUE portfolio of high availability and high density products intelligently delivers the appropriate network traffic to management, analysis, compliance and security tools. With over eight years’ experience designing and building traffic visibility products in the US, Gigamon solutions are deployed globally across vertical markets including over half of the Fortune 100 and many government and federal agencies.
How to Compare Hosting Companies’ Speed & Reliability
What do you look for when you choose a Web hosting provider? These days, it seems difficult to compare the differences between each service, whether you’re talking about supported languages, databases or bandwidth. You might be tempted to pick the cheapest provider and plan in hopes of saving a few dollars. However, you should not overlook the importance of speed and reliability.
Take a small business for example – if its website is down or under-performing, the host is actually hurting the business. Even if the hosting were $1 per month, losing $100 in revenue because of unreliable performance means the customer loses $101. At that price, they could afford to grow their business to a dedicated server.