Like millions of other Americans, I learned the other night about the massive data breach at Target. The Washington Post is reporting that sensitive details on over 40 million credit and debit cards were exposed. While the information associated with the crime is still coming out, the implications of this breach could be enormous.
Forrester’s John Kindervag was quoted in the Washington Post article I read saying that “whatever money Target thought they were going to see the holiday season just got flushed down the data breach toilet.” The costs they potentially face include everything from fines, reimbursement to the major card schemes (Visa, MasterCard, American Express), legal fees, system and infrastructure costs to bolster security (once they determine what went wrong) and, perhaps most significantly, brand and reputation damage that could very well impact their top line.
IoT 2014: Tiny Sensors, Open APIs and Hybrid Clouds
Throughout 2013 most senior executives have been exposed to the key emerging business technology trends. During 2014, you’re going to see and hear a lot more about the Internet of Things (IoT) — and the impact will reach just about every industry and all the major markets within the Global Networked Economy.
Let’s consider the forward-looking outlook, from a leading industry analyst. International Data Corporation (IDC) recently offered their predictions for the coming year.
“The 3rd Platform’s impact was felt throughout the ICT industry in 2013 as a high-profile CEO lost his job, a major IT player went private, numerous vendors endured cash cow stagnation, and billion-dollar bets were placed on new technologies,” said Frank Gens, Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst at IDC.
Storage: You Once Were the Weakest Link
One key element that is often missing in the avid discussions on what’s keeping more enterprises out of the cloud is a common recognition that storage in the cloud is simply not what it should be. It may surprise you, but to a large degree the solution to some of the cloud’s biggest concerns – such as security, compliance, control and complexity – has to do with storage.
So what’s wrong with storage in the cloud?
Unlike compute or networking in the cloud, storage in the cloud is very different from the storage enterprises use in their own data centers. If we look at cloud compute, the VMs are exactly the same as those you would provision in your own data center; networking is very similar: Internet Protocol (IP) and Virtual LANs let you connect machines to each other with reasonable performance and low latency. But storage in the cloud is not the same as that in an on-premise data center.
Seven Cloud Predictions for 2014
With the end of the year buzz around predictions, it’s hard not to join in the conversation. Our CenturyLink Cloud leadership team came together for a few predictions for the year head – and to show we are keepin’ it real, we scored last year’s predictions as well.
1. Enterprise-buyer demand fuels cloud consolidation. Well past the “dipping their toes in” stage with cloud-native apps, enterprises are now accelerating the migration of business-critical applications to the cloud. They will demand more complete, mature cloud solutions from the IT providers they already know and trust. This, in turn, will result in more cloud M&A activity as incumbent vendors solidify their cloud strategy and enhance offerings.
Big Data Top Ten
My general prediction is that Cloudera and Hortonworks are both aggressively moving to fulfilling a vision which looks a lot like Gartner’s “Logical Data Warehouse”….namely, “the next-generation data warehouse that improves agility, enables innovation and responds more efficiently to changing business requirements.”
In 2012, Infochimps (now CSC) leveraged its early use of stream processing, NoSQLs, and Hadoop to create a design pattern which combined real-time, ad-hoc, and batch analytics. This concept of combining the best-in-breed Big Data technologies will continue to advance across the industry until the entire legacy (and proprietary) data infrastructure stack will be replaced with a new (and open) one.
NRRC Video Series – Video 8
In September, the NCOIC delivered the Geospatial Community Cloud (GCC) demonstration. Sponsored by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, this demonstration showed how an interoperable, hybrid-cloud operating environment can be quickly enabled and used as a rapid response capability.While this demonstration was designed around lessons learned in the 2010 Haitian Earthquake, the effort showed how a cloud services brokerage approach could be used to quickly provide critical information technology infrastructure support to an unplanned event.
The NCOIC is an international organization for accelerating the global implementation of network centric principles and systems–to improve information sharing among various communities of interest for the betterment of their productivity, interactivity, safety, and security. The NCOIC Rapid Response Capability (NRRC) video series supports that mission by broadly disseminating information about the GCC demonstration for the good of the global community.
NRRC Video Series – Video 8
In September, the NCOIC delivered the Geospatial Community Cloud (GCC) demonstration. Sponsored by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, this demonstration showed how an interoperable, hybrid-cloud operating environment can be quickly enabled and used as a rapid response capability.While this demonstration was designed around lessons learned in the 2010 Haitian Earthquake, the effort showed how a cloud services brokerage approach could be used to quickly provide critical information technology infrastructure support to an unplanned event.
The NCOIC is an international organization for accelerating the global implementation of network centric principles and systems–to improve information sharing among various communities of interest for the betterment of their productivity, interactivity, safety, and security. The NCOIC Rapid Response Capability (NRRC) video series supports that mission by broadly disseminating information about the GCC demonstration for the good of the global community.
PaaS Leads to Healthcare Solutions for Remote Regions of the World
The medical needs of developing countries are staggering and come in many shapes and sizes. The trouble is the real issues can only be understood once an individual or organization gets involved. About 10 years ago, our organization was routinely shipping medical supplies to hard-to-reach places. But what we found was that in many cases there were no hospitals to receive the supplies. We overcame this challenge by adapting the shipping containers used to move goods internationally into portable clinics outfitted with supplies and laptops. Once we were “on the ground” and learned more about the healthcare systems in countries such as Kenya, we found that even where there was an existing brick-and-mortar hospital, the medical software in place wasn’t really compatible with local needs. This was for two reasons: either it was too complex or it was not designed to tolerate the frequent Internet service gaps or disruptions that are common in developing regions.
Storage: You Once Were the Weakest Link
One key element that is often missing in the avid discussions on what’s keeping more enterprises out of the cloud is a common recognition that storage in the cloud is simply not what it should be. It may surprise you, but to a large degree the solution to some of the cloud’s biggest concerns – such as security, compliance, control and complexity – has to do with storage.
So what’s wrong with storage in the cloud?
Unlike compute or networking in the cloud, storage in the cloud is very different from the storage enterprises use in their own data centers. If we look at cloud compute, the VMs are exactly the same as those you would provision in your own data center; networking is very similar: Internet Protocol (IP) and Virtual LANs let you connect machines to each other with reasonable performance and low latency. But storage in the cloud is not the same as that in an on-premise data center.
NAS Cloud Backup: How It’s Done
Having Network Attached Storage (NAS) can be a lot simpler than backing up a large number of individual user machines, however, the rules for NAS cloud backup may be different then you’re used to. Each NAS vendor has its own particular steps to follow. Here is how to back up NetApp devices with Zetta DataProtect. If you need to back up another type of NAS, contact Zetta.net.
Zetta’s NetApp backup works by reading a user generated configuration file which defines the data sources to back up and the appropriate login credentials to gain access to these data sources.
When the config file is read by Zetta, network mounts will be created to the defined data sources and the ZettaMirror agent triggers a snapshot on the NetApp appliance which is used to capture a consistent state of the NetApp file system and replicate the targeted data to the Zetta cloud. The ZettaMirror agent walks the directory tree, finds files that have changed and transmits the delta to Zetta. Once the transfer of data is complete, Zetta creates a snapshot of the file system on the Zetta storage end, deletes the NetApp snapshot and disconnects.