The financial ROI of Cloud security and compliance is judged by decision makers in end-user organizations by the same measures as is done for Cloud computing in general, i.e. by how much it cuts up-front capital expenditure and in-house manual maintenance cost. However, manually translating security policy into technical implementation is difficult, expensive, and error-prone […]
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Windows Azure? What’s in It for IT Professionals
While enterprise IT is transitioning form on-premise deployment to an emerging architecture of hybrid cloud, IT professionals are facing unprecedented challenges to change from managing servers deployed on premise to managing services in hybrid cloud, at the same time extraordinary opportunities to upgrade and expand an individual’s skill profile and become a leader in cloud initiatives and a contributor in IT communities.
Windows Azure relevant to Microsoft private cloud solutions is, in my view, as critical as what Active Directory means to Windows infrastructure. In a Windows domain, Active Directory holds the one version of truth and is the ultimate authority of all resources defined. Similarly when it comes to Microsoft cloud computing, there is no question that Windows Azure is the de facto platform as an extension of Active Directory in the cloud. While enterprise IT is transitioning form on-premise deployment to an emerging architecture of hybrid cloud, IT professionals are facing unprecedented challenges to change from managing servers deployed on premise to managing services delivered with hybrid cloud, and at the same time extraordinary opportunities to upgrade and expand an individual’s skill profile and become a leader in cloud initiatives and a contributor in IT communities.
The Evolution of Single Sign-on
The concept of single sign-on (SSO) is not a new one, and over the years it has successfully bridged the gap between security and productivity for organizations all over the globe.
Allowing users to authenticate once to gain access to enterprise applications improves access security and user productivity by reducing the need for passwords.
In the days of mainframes, SSO was used to help maintain productivity and security from inside the protection of firewalls. As organizations moved to custom-built authentication systems in the 1990’s, it became recognized as enterprise SSO (ESSO) and later evolved into browser-based plugin or web-proxy methods known as web access management (WAM). IT’s focus was on integrating applications exclusively within the network perimeter.
The Evolution of Single Sign-on
The concept of single sign-on (SSO) is not a new one, and over the years it has successfully bridged the gap between security and productivity for organizations all over the globe.
Allowing users to authenticate once to gain access to enterprise applications improves access security and user productivity by reducing the need for passwords.
In the days of mainframes, SSO was used to help maintain productivity and security from inside the protection of firewalls. As organizations moved to custom-built authentication systems in the 1990’s, it became recognized as enterprise SSO (ESSO) and later evolved into browser-based plugin or web-proxy methods known as web access management (WAM). IT’s focus was on integrating applications exclusively within the network perimeter.
Skyera Inc. Named “Bronze Sponsor” of Cloud Expo New York
SYS-CON Events announced today that Skyera Inc., an emerging provider of enterprise solid-state storage systems, has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Skyera Inc. is an emerging provider of enterprise solid-state storage systems designed to enable a large class of applications with extraordinarily high performance, exceptionally lower power consumption and cost effectiveness relative to existing enterprise storage systems. Founded by the executives who previously developed the world’s most-advanced flash memory controller, Skyera is backed by key technology and financial partnerships designed to position it at the forefront of the hyper growth in the solid-state storage sector. The company was featured in the Gartner report “Cool Vendors in Storage Technologies, 2012,” was chosen by Flash Memory Summit as a Best of Show award winner for 2012 in the category of Most Innovative Flash Memory Enterprise Business Application, and won the Visionary Product Award at Storage Visions, 2013.
Cloud Computing: IBM Cuts Price to Push into the Cloud & Big Data
IBM is out to push its Power-based servers into Big Data and the cloud.
Its problem is the cheap commodity servers sold by HP and Dell.
Its answer Tuesday was to cut the price of its proprietary hardware by as much as 50%.
That was the day it unveiled a line of eight Power 7+-based servers running AIX or Linux whose price starts a shade under six grand, the same neighborhood where comparable x86 boxes live, a first for IBM.
They’re supposed to be fitted with technology borrowed from Big Blue’s super-smart Watson supercomputer, the one that beat human contestants on the Jeopardy game show. The Watson widgetry will let users analyze Big Data and run Hadoop and set up a private cloud at a cheaper cost.
Healthcare IT and the Cloud
Over the last few weeks I’ve been hearing a lot of discussion around HIPAA. When we speak about HIPAA, invariably the two components of data security and data privacy arises.
In the traditional data centers database managers and data owners know where their data reside and implement the necessary processes to preserve privacy, and audit access.
However when we move to the cloud, the cloud being all about data, we are looking at servers, network, and storage which are abstracted. What this raises concern is that data owners may not necessarily know where their data sets physically reside and we are looking a Cloud Service Provider (CSP) employees who will be handling confidential patient data or Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
Data Optimization in Cloud Storage
The promise of “the cloud” is that cloud storage delivers users seamless “just in time” storage scalability to handle growth and quickly respond to peak loads. The economics and business impact of cloud storage also delivers a compelling financial proposition in today’s budget constrained IT environments. To the IT consumer shifting what was a capital expense and a fixed cost to a variable cost operating expense is financially compelling. Additionally, the ability to function in a “just in time” mode versus a “predictive” model for consumable storage also changes the CAPEX impact further assisting in justifying an already strong value proposition for adopting cloud storage.
IDC forecasts that cloud-based storage will represent a $15.6B market by 2015 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32%. They also predict 10,000 service providers will focus on cloud storage with a data protection emphasis. The economics of this market transition will continue to evolve and accelerate as costs of delivering cloud services are optimized by service providers that become more efficient – ever mindful of the cost of their plant/facility, operating expenses and business margins.
Microsoft JV Buys Start-Up’s AzureOps Widgetry
Avanade, the global enterprise IT services company started by Accenture and Microsoft in 2000 to focus on Microsoft widgetry, has acquired the software written by a young 15-month-old SaaS operations start-up by the name of Opstera that helps manage cloud solutions, the underlying platform and dependent cloud services.
The price it paid is unknown.
The pair has reportedly been working together on a public cloud management service for Azure. The technology provides application monitoring and management of Windows Azure apps.
The start-up said in a FAQ that “There is a strong need in the enterprise for comprehensive managed services that can guarantee a high level of availability and operational efficiency of the infrastructure similar to what they are used for on-premises solutions. Opstera software will be an addition to an already strong portfolio focused on cloud managed services.”
Virtualization Security in Cloud Computing
2011 ended with the popularization of an idea: bringing VMs (virtual machines) onto the cloud. Recent years have seen great advancements in both cloud computing and virtualization. On the one hand there is the ability to pool various resources to provide Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service. At its most basic, this is what describes cloud computing. On the other hand, we have virtual machines that provide agility, flexibility, and scalability to the cloud resources by allowing the vendors to copy, move, and manipulate their VMs at will. The term virtual machine essentially describes sharing the resources of one single physical computer into various computers within itself. VMware and virtual box are commonly used virtual systems on desktops. Cloud computing effectively stands for many computers pretending to be one computing environment. Obviously, cloud computing would have many virtualized systems to maximize resources.