by, Pavan Vyas, Product Marketing Manager, Asigra Inc

Making the right choice for cloud backup delivery platform – Why is it important?

When you are deciding to expand your practice to include backup and recovery services, the first and most important decision you face is choosing the right cloud backup platform.

This single decision governs the entire spectrum of possibilities related to the business – the service options that you can provide your customers, flexibility in supporting multiple sites and deployment models, competitive pricing options, and the support you can expect in promoting your services to the marketplace.  

This may seem like an exaggerated claim to you. However, having worked with service providers for over 26 years now in a 100% channel focused model and having supported them in building their businesses, we at Asigra can assure you that this is very much the case.

Your ability to support your customers’ backup and recovery needs, providing them the assurance that you can, not just backup all their enterprise data across their various devices, data centers and operating platforms, but can also recover the data in the event that they need it, is totally dependent on the platform that you choose. You also need to consider that your   customers will want the flexibility of different cloud deployment models – public, private or hybrid based on the changing needs of their business.  One size fits all may not be the best approach so you will want to have this flexibility.  Also, you will want to be able to support multitenant operations, set and achieve SLAs, and support varied operating platforms, therefore, the underlying platform needs to provide you with the flexibility and scalability to do so.

Your choice of cloud backup platform will also dictate the resources that you will need, the investments that you will need to make and the pricing that you can command for your services. All of these considerations will have a direct impact on the returns that you can expect on your investments and the profitability that you can enjoy by extending cloud backup and recovery services to existing and new customers. Finally and most importantly, you also need support beyond just technology capability to get to market quickly and easily with this new offering – and it is important for you to have the support of a larger marketing and business partnership to help you promote and grow your business.  A good platform provider will look to support you with extensive marketing and sales resources.

In short, 4 key factors to consider while choosing a cloud backup platform are:

1. The platform needs to offer flexibility and scalability by offering support for multiple operating systems, databases, devices and hardware environments.
2. The ability to offer different cloud deployment models – public, private and hybrid.
3. A vendor who wants to be your business partner providing extensive sales and marketing resources.
4. A vendor that lets you set your own margins.

This blog post just scratches the surface of what the decision entails and what you should be looking for. We know that you will want to know a lot more and may have a number of additional questions. To help you with that process, we have put together a resource for you on some of the things that you should look for and the questions that you should ask of your cloud platform provider. Download the free guide titled “How to choose a cloud backup delivery platform”.

by, Brian Spector, CEO, Certivox

When my team started to work on a paper about the vulnerabilities of usernames and passwords recently, I decided we would defy typical cryptography vendor behaviour. Instead of a technical whitepaper full of architecture diagrams and mathematical notation, I told my team I wanted them to do wide-ranging research to argue a cause, in order to support a business case. The material they researched became The Death of Username and Password, a unique new study launched exclusively at Parallels Summit 2013.

Tenfold shame

The paper explores ten core truths that show the weaknesses of username and password so clearly, that when I found out what they had unearthed, I frightened myself.

Did you know, for example, that the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) – one of the most respected organisations in the world – lost over 100,000 user logins to hackers because it was storing username and password information in a file on its website? And that the areas of the site that were compromised potentially included sensitive Western military engineering data?

And had you considered that the speed and ease with which hackers can now access username and password files has so increased the volume of confidential user data being illegally traded online that this data now sells for next to nothing? (European credit card data, for example, will sell for around $3 per card on the internet – US and Canadian, a mere $1). Like I said, scary stuff.

Not just a consumer story

But it was the data on users’ real-world experience of actually using passwords that really made me wince, because its consequences aren’t restricted to consumers or hobbyists. Rather, it’s an issue for every single internet and cloud user, from the provisioning supplier to the individual end-user – and every party in between.

Users forget passwords. Consider this:

• ·         64% of end users have written down their password at least once
• ·         70% of people do not use a unique password for each website

More worryingly, users routinely pick passwords that are laughably weak, in an effort to increase their memorability. A recent security breach at Yahoo, for example, showed that thousands of users’ passwords were either “password”, “welcome”, “123456” or “ninja”!

What gives?

The world is perpetuating a login method that is inherently weak, has been repeatedly compromised, is single-handedly responsible for making the thousands of dollars’ worth of credit tradable on the internet for less than the price of a packet of cigarettes – and that everybody hates and finds difficult to use anyway.

Why? Well, read the paper first. You can download it here: https://certivox.com/death-username-password/ Then come and find me on Booth 704 and tell me.

Because I’m still none the wiser.

Our partner theatre/developer track

Come and hear what we’ve got to say here:

• ·         Partner Theatre –  5^th Feb  at 12:45 – Growing Your Revenues with Single Sign-On, Multi-Factor Authentication for the Cloud and Mobile  – Frank Boening (CertiVox)
• ·         Developer Track – 6^th Feb at 10:30 – Extending APS packages with Single Sign-On – Brian Spector and Gene Myers (CertiVox)

SaaS-based application performance monitoring start-up New Relic, which has already raised $34.5 million in venture capital, has gotten a whopping $80 million in mezzanine financing to move into native mobile applications, open an office in Europe, add staff and prepare to IPO.
The handsome sum, which gives it a total of $115 million and a reported valuation of $750 million, comes largely from Insight Venture Partners and T Rowe Price, marking the first time since Twitter that the pair has funded a start-up together.
Other participants include Dragoneer Investment Group, Passport Ventures and the company’s existing investors Allen & Company, Benchmark Capital, Trinity Ventures and Tenaya Capital.

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With more than 23,000 customers around the world, a software defect in any of Novell’s products has far-reaching ramifications. With a globally distributed development operation, Novell needed a flexible static analysis solution that could be used by its dispersed internal development teams and partners.

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SYS-CON Events announced today that Code 42 Software, the creator of CrashPlan, CrashPlan PRO, and CrashPlan PROe award-winning onsite, offsite and cloud backup solutions, will exhibit at 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.
Starting out as a software development company in 2001, Code 42 Software is the creator of CrashPlan, CrashPlan PRO, and CrashPlan PROe award-winning onsite, offsite and cloud backup solutions for home, businesses, and enterprise.

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VMware is without a doubt a major platform for private as well as public cloud deployments. But as in any other cloud-based system, data security, and more specifically cloud encryption and key management are fundamental building blocks.
We have found that external users have many of the same security requirements, whether the cloud is public or private: from an external user’s point of view, the differences between public and private clouds are technical details, and the user requires the same guarantees from the provider.

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Organizations are faced with the requirement to migrate applications from Windows Server 2003 to Windows 2008(R2) or even Windows 2012 when adopting a private, managed or public cloud. AppZero’s tool extracts Windows server applications from production environments and packages them for movement to any datacenter or cloud, without re-engineering, change, or lock-in, fast.
The fastest and most flexible way to move server applications from the datacenter to the cloud, AppZero took a market-setting step forward on Tuesday with the release of “up-level OS migration” now available in V5.2. This technology allows users to effortlessly move server applications from old operating systems to new ones.

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Organizations are faced with the requirement to migrate applications from Windows Server 2003 to Windows 2008(R2) or even Windows 2012 when adopting a private, managed or public cloud. AppZero’s tool extracts Windows server applications from production environments and packages them for movement to any datacenter or cloud, without re-engineering, change, or lock-in, fast.
The fastest and most flexible way to move server applications from the datacenter to the cloud, AppZero took a market-setting step forward on Tuesday with the release of “up-level OS migration” now available in V5.2. This technology allows users to effortlessly move server applications from old operating systems to new ones.

read more

After 25 years as a public company, the Dell board met Monday night to approve an offer to take the company private for $24.4 billion.
The deal, which values Dell at $13.65 a share, was announced Tuesday morning. The stock closed at $13.27 Monday, down 2.6%.
Stockholders still have to approve the buyout. The agreement gives the company 45 days to “go shop” and find a better deal. It would mean a $180 million termination fee.
Taking Dell private is supposed to give the one-time PC leader now under pressure from Apple and the tsunami it released the chance to get into mobile computing. It also wants to catch up with the cloud and sell to the enterprise.

read more

After 25 years as a public company, the Dell board met Monday night to approve an offer to take the company private for $24.4 billion.
The deal, which values Dell at $13.65 a share, was announced Tuesday morning. The stock closed at $13.27 Monday, down 2.6%.
Stockholders still have to approve the buyout. The agreement gives the company 45 days to “go shop” and find a better deal. It would mean a $180 million termination fee.
Taking Dell private is supposed to give the one-time PC leader now under pressure from Apple and the tsunami it released the chance to get into mobile computing. It also wants to catch up with the cloud and sell to the enterprise.

read more