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The Healthcare Industry Must Address Data Security Threats [#Cloud]
Despite the data privacy protections supposedly conferred by regulations like HIPAA and HITECH, consumers’ confidential health and personal information is still not safe enough. That’s the lesson to be learned from Franklin, TN-based Community Health Systems’ (CHS) August 18 regulatory filing. In the filing, CHS disclosed that the names, SSNs, addresses, birth dates, and phone numbers of approximately 4.5 million people across 28 states have been stolen, according to Computerworld. Those 4.5 million victims, whom Computerworld reported had either received or been referred for services to CHS-affiliated physicians, are now at risk of identity theft, thanks to the security weaknesses of their healthcare provider. This latest large-scale data breach serves to highlight just how critical data security is in today’s connected age.
Ericsson’s move to cloud services: Analysing the state of the telco cloud market
Picture credit: Ericsson
Earlier this week, it was confirmed that Swedish telecoms provider Ericsson had bought a majority stake in platform as a service (PaaS) provider Apcera.
The deal, to close in Q4, sees Ericsson strengthen its position in the cloud market. Apcera will continue as a standalone company, with Ericsson shoving funds into Apcera’s technology and sales operations.
The telco cloud is an expansive opportunity and market place. One only needs to look at the initiatives Verizon is introducing with Verizon Cloud, for instance, or how CenturyLink is beefing up its portfolio.
Ericsson’s route, on the surface, looks similar. The Swedish telco’s offering, Ericsson Cloud System, adds cloud capabilities to an existing operator network. Yet Ericsson sees PaaS as key to success in cloud – hence the buying of Apcera. But Apcera’s USP is one of policy and governance – a vital cornerstone to larger enterprises using the cloud.
“Cloud technology is disrupting the global ICT infrastructure market, and service providers must modernise to provide more value to their customers,” an Ericsson press release trumpeted. And this realignment is becoming prevalent elsewhere in the business, too. Only a week ago, Ericsson announced discontinuation of its modem business, “redirecting investment from modems to radio networks”, according to the press bumf.
This all leads in to how Ericsson is going to change its strategy through 2015. Ericsson’s portfolio will comprise three arms: operator telecom cloud, with network functions; operator IT cloud, with OSS/BSS, media and IT functions; and operator commercial cloud, with commercial anything-as-a-service (XaaS) offerings.
Offering cloud services appears, on first glance, to be a straightforward value-add for telcos, who already leverage a huge network. Take CenturyLink, for example. The communications firm slashed their prices on cloud storage, in line with competitors, back in May. More recently they launched a private cloud, but with the aim of private cloud security and public cloud agility.
Richard Seroter, director of CenturyLink Cloud, told CloudTech at the time the company was “bullish” in the public cloud market. It’s an indication of how seriously telcos are taking this – and for more evidence, look no further than Verizon.
Verizon Cloud has got some serious weight behind it, including integration with AWS and partnerships with Oracle. It’s clear that stakeholders from both sides see the benefit, and it helps keep mobile operators and telcos agile – a key point made by Ericsson earlier this week.
SoftLayer Named “Gold Sponsor” of @CloudExpo Silicon Valley [@SoftLayer]
SoftLayer, an IBM Company, provides cloud infrastructure as a service from a growing number of data centers and network points of presence around the world. SoftLayer’s customers range from Web startups to global enterprises. Products and services include bare metal and virtual servers, networking, turnkey big data solutions, private cloud solutions, and more. SoftLayer’s unique advantages include the industry’s first Network-Within-a-Network topology for true out-of-band access, and an easy-to-use customer portal and robust API for full remote-access of all product and service management options. SoftLayer was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. SoftLayer was acquired by IBM in July, 2013.
Announcing @EdgeCast Networks “Gold Sponsor” of @CoudExpo Silicon Valley
Delivering any data, anywhere, anytime, EdgeCast is the world’s fastest and most reliable content delivery network. The company was founded in 2006 by technology entrepreneurs with years of experience building companies in the infrastructure, web services, and application delivery spaces. EdgeCast built its global delivery network to provide the fastest, smartest content delivery on the planet. And, according to the independent experts, they did exactly that – they consistently rank among the very best-performing CDNs in the industry.
Verizon Named “Gold Sponsor” of @CloudExpo Silicon Valley [@Verizon]
SYS-CON Events announced today that Verizon has been named “Gold Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 15th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 4-6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Verizon Enterprise Solutions creates global connections that generate growth, drive business innovation and move society forward. With industry-specific solutions and a full range of global wholesale offerings provided over the company’s secure mobility, cloud, strategic networking and advanced communications platforms, Verizon Enterprise Solutions helps open new opportunities around the world for innovation, investment and business transformation. Visit verizonenterprise.com to learn more.
@CloudExpo | How the #Cloud Fulfills the Best-of-Breed Dream (Part 2)
If the existing system does fifteen things, write down the major tasks of that system and divide them into as many verticals as necessary to describe the broad functional areas that require attention. If the replacement is intended to be a custom-developed, on-premises system, it’s perfectly reasonable for that system to be expected to accomplish most of the fifteen things in question.
However, if SaaS-based solutions are being considered as replacements, keep in mind that SaaS-based solutions are narrow and deep: they are usually highly specialized to take on a very specific vertical and are designed to integrate tightly with other highly-specialized software, feeding cross-referenced information between each other. SaaS solutions are designed to satisfy all your needs in a specific vertical, and that vertical cannot be “the entire operation of the company.”
Managed AWS: Fusing managed services expertise and AWS power
Picture credit: NandorFejer/Flickr
Those who implement cloud computing in general, and AWS in particular, are often confused by the role that managed services providers play. Cost and simplicity are driving the movement to leverage AWS through managed services providers as enterprises look for more ways to consume AWS services. These services are easier to mix and match with existing applications, and provide a better and more effective way to leverage AWS.
Managed services providers can place a well-defined layer of infrastructure, management, and governance between the cloud provider, in this case, AWS, and those who consume AWS as a managed service. Managed service providers get enterprises on-boarded quickly to AWS, and avoid initial issues that many enterprises encounter when going directly to AWS.
What’s more, managed services providers offer another layer of support, including guidance around on-boarding applications, and other best practices you should employ. Proactive monitoring of AWS services, including working around outages and other infrastructure issues, allows to you maintain an uptime records far better than if you leverage AWS directly.
The management of costs is another benefit, including the ability to monitor the use of resources in terms of cost. You can monitor the utilization of resources, and model the cost of levering these resources over time. Or, even monitor cost trends, and predict AWS costs into the future for budgeting and cost forecasting.
Managed services providers typically offer security and governance capabilities, which can augment the governance and security capabilities of AWS. This means you can set polices and implement security that spans your AWS and non-AWS applications.
The value of leveraging managed services providers as a path to AWS comes down to a few key notions:
First, it gives you the ability to remove yourself from having to deal with AWS directly. Managed services providers can quickly set up your environment, and manage that environment on your behalf. This means quicker time-to-value, and more business agility as well.
Second, you have the ability to monitor costs more proactively. There are no big billing surprises at the end of the month, and you have the ability to do better cloud expenditure planning.
Finally, AWS is only part of your infrastructure. Typically, you need to manage services inside and outside of AWS. Managed services providers allow you to manage both traditional applications, as well as those hosted in AWS and other public cloud providers, using the same management, security, and governance layers.
As time moves forward, I suspect that more enterprises will turn to managed services providers as a way of moving to AWS in a managed AWS capacity. The lower risk and lower costs are just too compelling.
The post Managed AWS: Fusing Managed Services Expertise and AWS Power appeared first on Cloud Computing News.
Webinar: @GoVictorOps To Feature Jason Hand | @DevOpsSummit [#DevOps]
Will #Cloud Storage Ever Be Free?
The cloud is proving to be a useful tool for businesses both large and small. What started out as an innovative idea has quickly transformed into a vital component of many business practices. As time goes on, demand for cloud storage has only increased with each passing year as more and more data is being stored in data centers around the world. While only 7% of data was stored in the cloud in 2013, that number is expected to increase to 36% by 2016. With growing demand comes fierce competition among the many cloud vendors out there, and as is the case with most business competition, that has led to falling prices and a better product. As prices continue to fall, some are even wondering if one day cloud storage will even be offered for free. It’s an intriguing possibility but one that is accompanied by a number of complications.