The Extended Enterprise Perimeter By @E_deSouza | @CloudExpo [#Cloud]

Cloud has become an extension of today’s enterprise and the traditional perimeter has long disappeared. Increasing business requirements for agility and flexibility make the cloud-extended enterprise ideal for a workforce that works anywhere, anytime and any place. This is especially true as organizations are increasingly made up of third-party resources, partners and suppliers compared to just employees.
However, traditional security models are not equipped to deal with the fluid nature of data and network flows that extend from the enterprise into a mix of multiple clouds. This not only creates concerns about network resiliency and availability, it puts key business transactions, assets and access to critical work streams at business risk. As organizations continue to embrace cloud models, IT and InfoSec teams need to find a way to reinvent security so that they have seamless visibility across their enterprise and into the different cloud models their businesses are using. This is where adopting a data and network-centric approach is pivotal.

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Nurturing the Marriage of Cloud Computing & SOAs By @JohnSavageau [#Cloud]

As the years passed, and we entered 2014, not only did cloud computing mature as a business model, but senior management began to increase their awareness of various aspects of cloud computing, including the financial benefits, standardization of IT resources, the characteristics of cloud computing, and potential for Platform and Software as a Service (PaaS/SaaS) to improve both business agility and internal decision support systems.

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New @Cisco Ad Campaign in ‘Cloud Computing Journal’ | @CloudExpo [#Cloud]

SYS-CON Media announced that Cisco, a worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow, has launched an ad campaign in Cloud Computing Journal. The ad campaign, a webcast titled ‘Is Your Data Center Ready for the Application Economy?’, focuses on the latest data center networking technologies, including SDN or ACI, and how customers are using SDN and ACI in their organizations to achieve business agility. The Cisco webcast takes place January 13, 2015, at 9:00 a.m. PST. Cloud Computing Journal aims to help open the eyes of Enterprise IT professionals to the economics and strategies that utility/cloud computing provides.

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‘Mission-Critical Apps Head for the Cloud’ By @Virtustream | @CloudExpo [#Cloud]

If cloud computing benefits are so clear, why have so few enterprises migrated their mission-critical apps? The answer is often inertia and FUD. No one ever got fired for not moving to the cloud – not yet.
In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Michael Hoch, SVP, Cloud Advisory Service at Virtustream, discussed the six key steps to justify and execute your MCA cloud migration.

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Where Mobile #Cloud Is Driving the Greatest Value By @DHDeans | @CloudExpo

How agile is your IT organization? Have you kept pace with the rapid evolution of cloud computing services? Have you applied that cloud investment to connect with your key stakeholders in the marketplace? Are you ready to seize the opportunities from the emerging mobile cloud trend?
If you answered NO to any of these questions, you’re at a competitive disadvantage with your more digital savvy business technology peer group. The leading organizations worldwide will rely on cloud infrastructure to achieve commercial benefits that extend far beyond IT cost reduction goals.
Informed CEOs and other senior executives are realizing that cloud service adoption can be a much-needed catalyst for operational process improvement — as well as a driver of business transformation.

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Announcing @JonasJacobi To Return To ‘Internet of Things’ Faculty | @ThingsExpo [#IoT]

The definition of IoT is not new, in fact it’s been around for over a decade. What has changed is the public’s awareness that the technology we use on a daily basis has caught up on the vision of an always on, always connected world. If you look into the details of what comprises the IoT, you’ll see that it includes everything from cloud computing, Big Data analytics, “Things,” Web communication, applications, network, storage, etc. It is essentially including everything connected online from hardware to software, or as we like to say, it’s an Internet of many different things. The difference is that what have in the past been disparate and disconnected systems are now rapidly becoming uniform, connected, and always-on systems.

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Data Breaches & Five Stages of Grief By @Vormetric | @CloudExpo [#Cloud]

I try to keep on top of the news, particularly as it relates to the nature and severity of cyber attacks taking place. Sadly, there’s been no shortage of reading material lately.
Last month, there were reports on breaches at Kmart and Dairy Queen (my family loves Blizzards). Updates then came out about a massive breach at Home Depot. Then more recently, there’s been the spate of nation-state attacks on the USPS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Sony Entertainment and the White House. Between the time I finish writing this post and the time you read this, who knows what new reports may surface?

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Guest Post: How to Regain Control Over the “Shadow IT” in Your Environment

Do you need to regain control of shadow IT in your environment? The use of cloud services is growing, and according to a recent Cisco/Intel Study, “The Impact of Cloud on IT Consumption Models,” the cloud occupies 23% of IT spend with respondents estimating that number will grow to 27% by 2016. Recent analyst reports also suggest that of the total cloud spend, Software-as-a-Service (Saas) alone could capture greater than half within the next few years.

shadow ITThese numbers are not surprising, considering growing demand from workers for the latest and greatest technologies and applications, that will enable them to do their jobs with greater ease, efficiency and flexibility than is possible using traditional computing tools and applications. Yet, as anyone working in IT can attest to, not everyone goes through the proper channels when it comes to procuring cloud services. This trend, often referred to as “shadow IT” is creating problems for IT organizations of all sizes as it makes it difficult to gain visibility into their entire infrastructure operations.

 

The fact is, the most tech-savvy employees figured out years ago how to get their hands on the applications they want and need – without IT’s blessing. With quick and easy access to public clouds, analytics, development, and collaboration tools via the Internet, it’s no wonder workers are purchasing and provisioning virtual machines (VMs) on public clouds, downloading apps, or even building their own apps using cloud-based tools, and deploying them on the cloud, with a simple click of a button.

As a result, many IT organizations are still in the dark about how many cloud apps they have running on their system. And, according NetSkope’s 2014 Cloud Report those numbers are on the rise with the average number of cloud apps per enterprise going from 397 in January 2014 to a whopping 579 in October 2014.

 

If You’ve Lost Control, You Are Not Alone

The effects of shadow IT are well-documented in the enterprise with recent research reports and industry surveys estimating that IT has effectively lost control of between 35% and 50% of the enterprise IT spend, with marketing, sales, accounting, HR and other departments regularly purchasing cloud services directly from cloud services providers – and completely bypassing the IT department during the purchasing process.

Yet, when major outages happen, or when these systems go down or troubleshooting is required, you know as an IT professional that your department will be called on to respond and mitigate for any system failures.

So what’s the fix? The first step is to find a way to regain control, not just over the spending, but how clouds and applications are provisioned and managed. This way, lines of accountability are made very clear.

One of the ways to do this is through by automating IT operations via a centralized dashboard. By having a single pane of glass view into your organizations entire IT operations, your team will be aware of where cloud VMs are being spun up, where applications are being used, who is using them, how much is being used, and how they are performing. This, in turn, will put IT back in the drivers seat and help eliminate the threat that your users’ “shadow IT” purchases are having on the business.

 

To learn more about how GreenPages can help you with automating your IT operations, watch this short video on our Cloud Management as a Service Infrastructure Operations offering

 

By Chris Joseph, VP, Product Management & Marketing, NetEnrich, Inc.