Martin Fowler describes how infrastructure automation is a key enabler of microservices:
“Many of the products or systems being build with microservices are being built by teams with extensive experience of Continuous Delivery and it’s precursor, Continuous Integration. Teams building software this way make extensive use of infrastructure automation techniques. This is illustrated in the build pipeline shown below.”
Most people haven’t heard the word, “gamification,” even though they probably, and perhaps unwittingly, participate in it every day.
Gamification is “the process of adding games or game-like elements to something (as a task) so as to encourage participation.” Further, gamification is about bringing game mechanics – rules, constructs, processes, and methods – into the real world in an effort to engage people.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Robert Endo, owner and engagement manager of Intrepid Data, will discuss how wearables, analytics, and geospatial technologies can be combined to transform the world into the ultimate game board. Organizations can grasp consumer, employee, or client intrinsic interest by setting up cool, collaborative, and rewarding systems using the IoT.
SYS-CON Events announced today that AgilData will exhibit at the 17th International CloudExpo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
AgilData offers a seamlessly integrated best-of-breed solution for Big Data problems like streaming analytics, data pipeline orchestration, and batch processing. AgilData unifies proven open source technologies with a seamless developer and operations experience.
Electric power utilities face relentless pressure on their financial performance, and reducing distribution grid losses is one of the last untapped opportunities to meet their business goals. Combining IoT-enabled sensors and cloud-based data analytics, utilities now are able to find, quantify and reduce losses faster – and with a smaller IT footprint. Solutions exist using Internet-enabled sensors deployed temporarily at strategic locations within the distribution grid to measure actual line loads.
Dell has expanded its cloud portfolio with a new hybrid cloud offering with technology jointly developed with Microsoft. The new system is designed to break down the barriers to cloud adoption and offer a simpler but more secure payment system.
According to Dell’s own research, nine out of ten IT decision makers say a hybrid cloud strategy is important to achieve a Future-Ready Enterprise. The recently unveiled Dell Global Technology Adoption Index revealed that 55% of organisations around the world will use more than one type of cloud. The study also identified cost and security as the biggest barriers to adopting the cloud, with complexity being the biggest blockage associated with hybrid cloud.
The new Dell Hybrid Cloud System for Microsoft promises customers an on-premise private cloud with consistent Azure public cloud access in less than three hours. Clients are promised minimised downtime with non-disruptive, fully automated system updates that don’t impose themselves on users when not needed. It also offers workload templates to simplify service provision and governance models. The management of multiple clouds will be simplified by an out-of-the-box integration with Dell Cloud Manager (DCM) and Windows Azure Pack (WAP), Dell says.
The Dell Hybrid Cloud System for Microsoft is built around the CPS Standard, which combines optimised Dell modular infrastructure with pre-configured Microsoft CPS software. This will include Microsoft’s software stack and Azure Services for back-up, site recovery and operational insights.
Meanwhile the Dell Cloud Flex Pay programme gives customers a new flexible option to buy Dell’s Hybrid Cloud System for Microsoft without making a long-term commitment. Cloud Flex Pay will eliminate the risks of being locked into paying for services that aren’t used fully says Dell.
“Customers tell us their cloud journey is too complex, the cost-risk is too high and control isn’t transparent,” said Jim Ganthier, vice president and general manager of engineered solutions and cloud at Dell. “With our new Cloud Flex Pay program, cost-risk is all but eliminated.”
Reacting to the steady flow of reported security breaches in open source components such as Heartbleed, Shellshock and Poodle is making organisations focus increasingly on making the software they build more secure, improving application delivery, agility and security. As organisations increasingly turn to containers to improve application delivery and agility, the security ramifications of the containers and their contents are coming under increased scrutiny.
An overview of today’s container security initiatives
Container providers such as Docker and Red Hat, are aggressively moving towards reassuring the marketplace about container security. Ultimately, they are focusing on the use of encryption to secure the code and software versions running in Docker users’ software infrastructure to protect users from malicious backdoors included in shared application images and other potential security threats.
However, this method is slowly being put under scrutiny as it covers only one aspect of container security, excluding whether software stacks and application portfolios are free of known, exploitable versions of open source code.
Without open source hygiene, Docker Content Trust will only ever ensure that Docker images contain the exact same bits that developers originally put there, including any vulnerabilities present in the open source components. Therefore, they only amount to a partial solution.
A more holistic approach to container security
Knowing that the container is free of vulnerabilities at the time of initial build and deployment is necessary, but far from sufficient. New vulnerabilities are being constantly discovered and these can often impact older versions of open source components. Therefore, what’s needed is an informed open source technology that provides selection and vigilance opportunities to users.
Moreover, the security risk posed by a container also depends on the sensitivity of the data accessed via it, as well as the location of where the container is deployed. For example, whether the container is deployed on the internal network behind a firewall or if it’s internet-facing will affect the level of risk.
In this context, a publicly available attack makes containers subject to a range of threats, including cross-scripting, SQL injection and denial-of-services which containers deployed on an internal network behind a firewall wouldn’t be exposed to.
For this reason, having visibility into the code inside containers is a critical element of container security, even aside from the issue of security of the containers themselves.
It’s critical to develop robust processes for determining; what open source software resides in or is deployed along with an application, where this open source software is located in build trees and system architectures, whether the code exhibits security vulnerabilities and whether an accurate open source risk profile exists.
Will security concerns slow container adoption? – The industry analysts’ perspective
Enterprise organisations today are embracing containers because of their proven benefits; improved application scalability, fewer deployment errors, faster time to market and simplified application management. However, just as organisations have moved over the years from viewing open source as a curiosity to understanding its business necessity, containers seem to have reached a similar tipping point. The question now seems to be shifting towards whether security concerns about containers will inhibit further adoption. Industry analysts differ in their assessment of this.
By drawing a parallel to the rapid adoption of virtualisation technologies even before the establishment of security requirements Dave Bartoletti, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, believes security concerns won’t significantly slow container adoption. “With virtualization, people deployed anyway, even when security and compliance hadn’t caught up yet, and I think we’ll see a lot of the same with Docker,” according to Bartoletti.
Meanwhile, Adrian Sanabria Senior Security Analyst at 451 Research believes enterprises will give containers a wide berth until security standards are identified and established. “The reality is that security is still a barrier today, and some companies won’t go near containers until there are certain standards in place”, he explains.
To overcome these concerns, organisations are best served to take advantage of the automated tools available to gain control over all the elements of their software infrastructure, including containers.
Hence, the presence of vulnerabilities in all types of software is inevitable, and open source is no exception. Detection and remediation of vulnerabilities, are increasingly seen as a security imperative and a key part of a strong application security strategy.
Written by Bill Ledingham, EVP of Engineering and Chief Technology Officer, Black Duck Software.
IBM and the UK’s Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) have jointly announced they will create a centre that tests how to use high performance computing (HPC) for big data analytics.
The Hartree Power Acceleration and Design Centre (PADC) in Daresbury, Cheshire is the first UK facility to specialise in modelling and simulation and their use in Big Data Analytics. It was recently the subject of UK government investment in big data research and was tipped as the foundation for chancellor George Osborne’s northern technology powerhouse.
The new facility launch follows the government’s recently announced investment and expansion of the Hartree Centre. In June Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson unveiled a £313 million partnership with IBM to boost Big Data research in the UK. IBM said it will further support the project with a package of technology and onsite expertise worth up to £200 million.
IBM’s contributions will include access to the latest data-centric and cognitive computing technologies, with at least 24 IBM researchers to be based at the Hartree Centre to work side-by-side with existing researchers. It will also offer joint commercialization of intellectual property assets produced in partnership with the STFC.
The supporting cast have a brief to help users to cajole the fullest performance possible out of all the components of the POWER-based system, and have specialised knowledge of architecture, memory, storage, interconnects and integration. The Centre will also be supported by the expertise of other OpenPOWER partners, including Mellanox, and will host a POWER-based system with the Tesla Accelerated Computing Platform. This will provide options for using energy-efficient, high-performance NVIDIA Tesla GPU accelerators and enabling software.
One of the target projects will be a search for ways to boost application performance while minimising energy consumption. In the race towards exascale computing significant gains can be made if existing applications can be optimised on POWER-based systems, said Dr Peter Allan, acting Director of the Hartree Centre.
“The Design Centre will help industry and academia use IBM and NVIDIA’s technological leadership and the Hartree Centre’s expertise in delivering solutions to real-world problems,” said Allan. “The PADC will provide world-leading facilities for Modelling and Simulation and Big Data Analytics. This will develop better products and services that will boost productivity, drive growth and create jobs.”
Yesterday, Dell announced the largest technology M&A in history with a proposed$67B buyout of EMC and VMware (via EMC’s 80% ownership of VMW). The combined company will have over $80B in revenue, employ tens of thousands of people around the world and sell everything from PCs, servers & storage to security software and virtualization software. Not to be overlooked is the fact that Dell and EMC will be private companies and free from the scrutiny of activist investors.
EMC and VMware are to combine their cloud offerings under a jointly-owned 50/50 shared Virtustream brand led by its CEO Rodney Rogers.
The cloud service will be aimed at enterprises with an emphasis on hybrid cloud, which Virtustream’s owners identify as one of the largest markets for IT infrastructure spending. The company will provide managed services for on-premises infrastructure and its enterprise-class Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform. The rationale is to help clients make the transition from on-premise computing to the cloud, migrating their applications to cloud-based IT environments. Since many applications are mission critical, hybrid cloud environments will be instrumental in the conversion process and Virtustream said it will set out to provide a public cloud experience for its Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud service.
Nearly one-third of all IT infrastructure spending is going to cloud-related technologies, according to a research by The 451 Group, with cloud service buyers now investing on the application stack. Enterprise adoption is increasing, says the researcher, and buyers increasingly favour private and hybrid cloud infrastructure. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is increasingly being run on cloud systems, and enterprises will spend a total of $41.2B annually on ERP software by 2020, says The 451 Group.
Virtustream will incorporate EMC Information Infrastructure, VCE and VMware into one and will offer services using VMware vCloud Air, VCE Cloud Managed Services, Virtustream’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service and EMC’s Storage Managed Services and Object Storage Services offerings. VMware will establish a Cloud Provider Software business unit led by VMware’s senior VP Ajay Patel. The unit will incorporate existing VMware cloud management offerings and Virtustream’s software assets.
The business will integrate existing on-premises EMC Federation private cloud and take them into the public cloud, according to Virtustream. The aim is to maintain a common experience for developers, managers, architects and end users. Virtustream’s cloud services will be delivered directly to customers and through partners.
Virtustream addresses the changes in buying patterns and IT cloud operation models that both vendors are encountering now, said EMC CEO Joe Tucci. “Customers consistently tell us they’re on IT journeys to the hybrid cloud. The EMC Federation is now positioned as a complete provider of hybrid cloud offerings.”
Virtustream’s financial results will be consolidated into VMware’s financial statements beginning in Q1 2016.
Riak TS is focused to handle time series application needs. It can do fast read/write to IOT devices, there in is its strength. It also targets financial and economics data as well as in scientific research applications.
This is straight from Riak TS:
“Riak TS automatically co-locates, replicates, and distributes data across the cluster to achieve fast performance and high availability. The unique master-less architecture enables near-linear scale using commodity hardware so you can easily add capacity as your time series data grows.”