If last year underscored anything, it was the significant and far-reaching impact of breaches by trusted insiders – case in point, the Edward Snowden affair. What makes this such a critical trend for 2014 is the fact that as more and more organizations are adopting cloud strategies, there is now an added layer of complexity and sophistication when it comes to protecting who can access what types of sensitive data. The cloud makes it easier for organizations to conduct business, but that simplicity also translates into easier ways for insiders or un-trusted individuals to steal data – identity has become the new perimeter.
The number of organizations around the globe turning to a combination of traditional computing, virtualization, and public-cloud infrastructure to deliver business applications quickly, efficiently, and cost effectively is growing exponentially. As they migrate systems to the cloud, or leverage the scalability and elasticity of cloud computing to deliver entirely new applications, they can run headlong into security and compliance issues that must be solved to protect systems and make auditors happy. In addition to protecting privileged access to servers and network gear, virtualization and cloud computing add important new items that need to be locked down. First, organizations need to protect virtualization and cloud management consoles that provide unprecedented administrative power to create, configure, delete and copy network and server resources. Second, organizations must ensure the cloud management application programming interfaces (APIs) that transfer enormous administrative power to scripts, programs and DevOps tools are adequately controlled. Companies that want to ensure their data remains safe regardless of whether it is in a traditional database, in the cloud, or some variation of both, now need to seriously consider the security ramifications of having a lax privileged user policy – especially in an era where a few clicks of the mouse in the console, or a few commands in a script can wreak havoc.

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If last year underscored anything, it was the significant and far-reaching impact of breaches by trusted insiders – case in point, the Edward Snowden affair. What makes this such a critical trend for 2014 is the fact that as more and more organizations are adopting cloud strategies, there is now an added layer of complexity and sophistication when it comes to protecting who can access what types of sensitive data. The cloud makes it easier for organizations to conduct business, but that simplicity also translates into easier ways for insiders or un-trusted individuals to steal data – identity has become the new perimeter.
The number of organizations around the globe turning to a combination of traditional computing, virtualization, and public-cloud infrastructure to deliver business applications quickly, efficiently, and cost effectively is growing exponentially. As they migrate systems to the cloud, or leverage the scalability and elasticity of cloud computing to deliver entirely new applications, they can run headlong into security and compliance issues that must be solved to protect systems and make auditors happy. In addition to protecting privileged access to servers and network gear, virtualization and cloud computing add important new items that need to be locked down. First, organizations need to protect virtualization and cloud management consoles that provide unprecedented administrative power to create, configure, delete and copy network and server resources. Second, organizations must ensure the cloud management application programming interfaces (APIs) that transfer enormous administrative power to scripts, programs and DevOps tools are adequately controlled. Companies that want to ensure their data remains safe regardless of whether it is in a traditional database, in the cloud, or some variation of both, now need to seriously consider the security ramifications of having a lax privileged user policy – especially in an era where a few clicks of the mouse in the console, or a few commands in a script can wreak havoc.

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As businesses look to leverage cloud technology to drive growth, many times the questions IT leaders within the company ask are: “Where do I start? What part of my infrastructure should I move into the cloud first?” IT leaders must pick a place to begin with cloud adoption. The decision becomes easier when teams focus on incremental adoption, starting with small, low-risk applications that can be easily tested and improved through an iterative approach before fully launching. Here are some best practices businesses should consider when getting started with cloud technology.

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As businesses look to leverage cloud technology to drive growth, many times the questions IT leaders within the company ask are: “Where do I start? What part of my infrastructure should I move into the cloud first?” IT leaders must pick a place to begin with cloud adoption. The decision becomes easier when teams focus on incremental adoption, starting with small, low-risk applications that can be easily tested and improved through an iterative approach before fully launching. Here are some best practices businesses should consider when getting started with cloud technology.

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AppZero, the fastest, most flexible way to move enterprise applications to the cloud, has announced that Nimbo, Microsoft’s 2013 Windows Azure East Region Partner of the Year, has joined the AppZero Partner Program (APP) as a Gold Partner. Through the partner program, AppZero collaborates with system integrators, service providers and resellers to support enterprise application migrations to and across datacenters and clouds.
AppZero partners combine cutting edge products and services that open up the business potential of the cloud.

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AppZero, the fastest, most flexible way to move enterprise applications to the cloud, has announced that Nimbo, Microsoft’s 2013 Windows Azure East Region Partner of the Year, has joined the AppZero Partner Program (APP) as a Gold Partner. Through the partner program, AppZero collaborates with system integrators, service providers and resellers to support enterprise application migrations to and across datacenters and clouds.
AppZero partners combine cutting edge products and services that open up the business potential of the cloud.

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Every recent major innovative change in networking has ultimately been about operational efficiencies; about people time and not product costs.
Financially, IT is a study in capital versus operating expenditures. It’s a study in short term versus long term; in product cost versus people time.

The major innovative shifts in the industry – starting with cloud and moving on to SDN and devops – have really been about the latter – operations – despite the initial laser-focus on capital cost savings. That’s because over time, the bulk of the cost of any product, solution or service is always in people time. Whether measured in dollars or hours, most of the costs in IT are the result of configuration, management, upgrades and maintenance over time. Refresh cycles are generally the demesne of financial analysts and vendors, but they play heavily into the reasons why operational costs are almost always higher than capital costs. IT simply doesn’t replace its entire network or any large portion of its infrastructure often. There are very predictable cycles on which such events occur and in between, the operational costs are wracking up the bulk of the total cost of ownership.

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Every recent major innovative change in networking has ultimately been about operational efficiencies; about people time and not product costs.
Financially, IT is a study in capital versus operating expenditures. It’s a study in short term versus long term; in product cost versus people time.

The major innovative shifts in the industry – starting with cloud and moving on to SDN and devops – have really been about the latter – operations – despite the initial laser-focus on capital cost savings. That’s because over time, the bulk of the cost of any product, solution or service is always in people time. Whether measured in dollars or hours, most of the costs in IT are the result of configuration, management, upgrades and maintenance over time. Refresh cycles are generally the demesne of financial analysts and vendors, but they play heavily into the reasons why operational costs are almost always higher than capital costs. IT simply doesn’t replace its entire network or any large portion of its infrastructure often. There are very predictable cycles on which such events occur and in between, the operational costs are wracking up the bulk of the total cost of ownership.

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ScaleOut Software has announced the availability of ScaleOut StateServer Version 5.1. The latest version includes C++ APIs, additional solutions on Amazon Web Services, a Windows version of ScaleOut hServer, performance improvements in data management, and SSL support for enhanced security.
ScaleOut provides in-memory data grid (IMDG) products with breakthrough performance to the rapidly expanding in-memory computing market. ScaleOut’s products enable applications to seamlessly scale performance to handle increasing workloads and provide real-time analytics.

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Introducing the concept of cloud computing into your existing environments can seem to be a daunting task. Cloud computing is the next generation of computing and taking your first step into the cloud can be revolutionary for you and your company. The question you need to ask yourself is where to start? What are some of the low risk workloads that I can test the cloud with? More important, which cloud do you use as there are many different forms of clouds to choose from that could benefit your business. In this article we will take a look at some of the common clouds in today’s computing world, and then we will focus in on using infrastructure as a service, as this probably provides the easiest entry point into the cloud.

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