Microsoft has retrieved a data centre from the ocean floor, just off the coast of Orkney, Scotland, and early signs show that the project was a successful moonshot. 

Of the 864 servers onboard, Microsoft reports that only eight faulted, which is an eighth of the failure rate of a typical land-based data centre.

A team from Microsoft sank the cylindrical storage container, called «project Natick«, in 2018. It was loaded with 12 server racks and ocean water was used to keep the servers cool. The container was also sealed and filled with nitrogen, which is not as corrosive to computer equipment as oxygen.

The Natick research team are now conducting tests on the data centre to see what they can learn from the experiment and how it could help to solve environmental problems raised by conventional data centres.  

«Computers are not designed to work in the environment we humans operate,» said Spencer Fowers, principal researcher for project Natick. «Things like oxygen, moisture in the air, that is really bad for computers, it causes corrosion on the components. 

«You also get temperature fluctuations. The heat from night to day, summer to winter, can cause those components to fail so we had this theory: if we’re in a really stable environment, we’re in this cylinder, we’ve taken all the oxygen out, controlled the humidity, no one’s walking around, bumping into things, causing additional failures, we’d see better reliability.» 

The concept of an underwater data centre first came up at Microsoft’s 2014 ‘ThinkWeek’ as a way to provide fast cloud services to coastal populations. With more than half of the world’s population living within 120 miles of a coast, localised hubs would give data a shorter distance to travel, leading to smoother, faster services. 

Once it was hauled out of the sea, the container was cleaned and air-samples were retrieved. The data centre was then loaded onto a truck and driven to a facility in the North of Scotland, where the server racks were slid out so Fowers and his team could perform health checks and collect components to send to Microsoft for analysis.

Among the components boxed up and sent were the failed servers and related cables. The researchers think this hardware will help them to understand why the servers in the underwater data centre are seemingly more reliable than those on land.

Xero has urged the UK government to step and encourage SMBs to use digital tools to their fullest potential in a bid to help the economy recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a new report from the cloud-based accounting software provider, smaller businesses have been more dramatically impacted by the current financial crisis than larger enterprises, with job losses estimated to be almost twice as big. 

By analysing 300,000 customers’ anonymised and aggregated data, Xero found that resilience and recovery of SMBs is significantly influenced by their digital skills.

SMBs that used business management apps before the financial crisis had 12% smaller revenue declines as well as 12% less job losses. Moreover, businesses with at least five apps connected to their account suffered from losses a third smaller than other SMBs during the crisis, and had 40% fewer job losses.

The findings from the report have resulted in Xero calling on the UK government to encourage small businesses to use digital tools to their fullest advantage. The company’s policy recommendations include a digital tools tax relief, improved regional internet access, as well as an offset of technology expenses against tax in order to aid small businesses in digitising and building resilience for future economic challenges.

Managing director of Xero, Gary Turner, described the economic recovery as “at a crossroads now as furlough and eating out schemes come to an end”. 

“As unpredictable as this year has been, one certainty is that digitally-enabled businesses are likely to recover faster than those who aren’t,” he said.

“We’re calling on the Government to support business recovery with funding for tech adoption and the introduction of a tax offset for expenses against technology implementation. Driving digitisation will help countless small businesses to get back on their feet.”

The message to the government comes as Xero announces changes to its Starter Plan, aiming to facilitate cash flow management and growth for SMBs during the pandemic.

Xero users can now send up to 20 invoices a month and make as many bank reconciliations as they need. The company has also announced the launch of a new Xero Projects’ profitability dashboard, aiming to simplify the overview and management of projects and their profitability by showing total profit margin, all work invoiced, and costs. 

Xero’s chief product officer Anna Curzon said that the company wants “to help these new businesses that are starting off now to be set up for a digital environment right from the start by lowering the barriers of entry”.

“We also know that with COVID-19, being paid on time and controlling cash flow has become more important than ever,” she added. “We want to do all we can to ensure businesses stay strong by providing deeper cash flow insights and creating seamless experiences to help them get paid faster.”

Zoom has added two-factor authentication (2FA) to its video-conferencing platform in an effort to help organisations prevent identity theft and security breaches, as well as reduce security costs for businesses and schools.

Users who are part of an organisation can now use the additional security layer by choosing between one-time password (TOTP) apps, such as Google Authenticator and Microsoft Authenticator, or having Zoom send a code via SMS or phone call.

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Admins can enable the tool by signing into the Zoom Dashboard, selecting Advanced, then Security, and enabling the “Sign in with Two-Factor Authentication” option.

They will then be able to enable 2FA for all users in their account, users with specific roles, or users belonging to specific groups, choosing the groups, and then clicking OK.

In a blog post announcing the update, the company outlined the benefits of the new tool, such as improved security, simplified credential management, being able to meet compliance obligations for sensitive data and customer information, as well as reduced costs of security.

“For small businesses and schools, it can be expensive to pay for an SSO service,” the company said. “Zoom’s 2FA provides a free and effective way to validate users and protect against security breaches.”

The announcement comes days after it was revealed that the company’s revenues were up 355% in the second quarter of 2020, making it one of the biggest beneficiaries of the global lockdown. The firm capitalised on the sudden need to communicate remotely with work, friends and family and averaged 148.4 million monthly active users in the second quarter, an increase of 4,700% year on year, according to CNBC.

However, its sudden success had also been plagued with security issues, such as the infamous Zoom-bombing trend, which recently affected the trial against the teenager accused of July’s mass Twitter hack.

The issue forced the company to improve encryption standards and password security, leading to the hire of former Salesforce and Microsoft security executive Jason Lee.

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Red Hat and its parent company IBM have together launched a one-stop-shop marketplace for customers seeking to run OpenShift enterprise applications on their hybrid cloud infrastructures.

Red Hat Marketplace offers a broad catalogue of more than 50 open-source software, across a dozen categories, available for enterprises to purchase and deploy, including apps in the areas of AI and machine learning, security, and big data, among others.

The marketplace aims to deliver an ecosystem of software from independent vendors so enterprise customers can easily deploy new tools on their hybrid cloud infrastructures, based on Red Hat OpenShift’s container platform. Some of the vendors whose tools are available include CognitiveScale, MongoDB and StorageOS.

“We believe that removing the operational barriers to deploy and manage new tools and technologies can help organizations become more agile in hybrid multi-cloud environments,” said Red Hat’s senior director for technology partnerships, Lars Herrmann.

“The software available on Red Hat Marketplace is tested, certified and supported on Red Hat OpenShift to enable built-in management logic and streamline implementation processes. This helps customers run faster with automated deployments while enjoying the improved scalability, security, and orchestration capabilities of Kubernetes-native infrastructure.”

The companies have also launched a private form of the marketplace, dubbed Red Hat Marketplace Select, available at additional cost for enterprises that want more control and governance over purchases.

The private marketplace allows clients to provide their teams with easy access to curated, pre-approved software, and also tracks usage and spending by departments of all software deployed across hybrid cloud environments.

The marketplace has been devised especially for companies building cloud-native infrastructure and supports the wider drive to cut down on vendor lock-in. Programmes can essentially be deployed across the open hybrid cloud and operate in any environment.

Deployment is automated, too, and purchases will be readily accessible on Red Hat OpenShift consoles, with customers also being offered 24/7 support.

Enterprise customers can access the collection of open-source tools in a metered, pay-per-hour, fashion, with the platform offering a granular understanding of usage and spending patterns. Red Hat claims this payment model allows customers to experiment with an array of tools in early-stage development projects, given there’s no need to commit to any lengthy subscriptions.

US data centre provider Equinix has been rocked by a major security incident, with some of its internal company systems compromised by ransomware.

The company revealed yesterday that its security teams took immediate action against the threat, notified law enforcement agencies, and are continuing to investigate the nature and scale of the infection.

The severity of the attack at this stage is unclear, with the company pledging to release further details soon. Thankfully for its customers, however, Equinix data centres and services, including its managed services, remained fully operational during the period of the attack, according to a statement released by the company.

Cyber criminals are abusing a trusted Docker and Kubernetes cloud monitoring tool to map the networks of their victims and execute system commands.

Having previously been known to use malicious Docker images to infect victims’ servers, TeamTNT has now been observed using Weave Scope as an effective backdoor into the cloud networking infrastructure of its targets, according to analysis by Intezer.

Weave Scope is a trusted tool that gives users full access to their cloud environment, and is integrated with Docker, Kubernetes, the Distributed Cloud Operating System (DC/OS) and the AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (ECS). Hackers, however, have illicitly deployed this tool to map out the environments of prospective victims, and execute system commands without the need to deploy malicious code. 

«To our knowledge, this is the first time attackers have been caught using legitimate third party software to target cloud infrastructure,» said Intezer security researcher Nicole Fishbein. «When abused, Weave Scope gives the attacker full visibility and control over all assets in the victim’s cloud environment, essentially functioning as a backdoor.»

«By installing a legitimate tool such as Weave Scope the attackers reap all the benefits as if they had installed a backdoor on the server, with significantly less effort and without needing to use malware,» she adds. 

The open-source tool, developed by Weave Works, providers monitoring and visualisation over Docker and Kubernetes servers, with users gaining full control over the infrastructure through a dashboard accessible through a web browser.

When successfully abused, attackers are granted access to all information about the server environment, in addition to the ability to install applications, establish connections between cloud workloads, and start or stop or open interactive shells in containers. 

This degree of functionality is equivalent to an attacker having installed a backdoor on the server, with significantly less effort and without needing to use malware, Fishbein added.

To install Weave Scope, a hacker would need to use an exposed Docker API port and create a new privileged container with a clean Ubuntu image. This container would then be configured to mount the file system of the container to the file system of the victim server, and therefore grant attackers access to all files on the server. 

The initial command, as observed by Intezer, was to download and execute several cryptominers. The attacker then attempted to gain root access to the server by setting up a local privileged user on the host server, using this to connect back via Secure Shell (SSH). The attackers subsequently downloaded and installed Weave Scope, which, once launched, connected the cyber criminals with the Weave Scope dashboard via HTTP on port 4040.

From this dashboard, the hackers can see a visual map of the Docker runtime cloud environment and give shell commands without deploying any backdoor. This is the first time that an attacker, to Intezer’s knowledge, has downloaded legitimate software to be used as an admin tool on the Linux operating system.

The cyber security firm has recommended that organisations close any exposed Docker API ports to prevent the initial infiltration, given this attack takes advantage of a common misconfiguration of the Docker API. All Docker API ports should, therefore, be either closed or contain restricted access policies in the firewall.

Organisations should also block incoming connections to port 4040 given Weave Scope uses this as a default to make the dashboard accessible. This port should also be closed or restricted by the firewall.

Blackberry will open additional data centres in France and the Netherlands as well as expanding its existing data centre in the UK to help customers comply with EU data protection regulations and the upcoming Public Warning directives.

The new Directive on the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC), which was adopted in 2018, is to ensure that all EU member states establish a public warning system to protect citizens in cases such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks. 

The data centres will be used to store the personal data of citizens, ensuring that it is compliant with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

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Using its emergency mass notification system AtHoc, Blackberry aims to provide organisations with a secure way of communicating emergencies to their workforce. Staff will be able to be notified with the help of mobile apps, desktops, sirens, and building systems such as fire panels. 

Adam Enterkin, senior VP of EMEA at BlackBerry, said it’s vital for Blackberry to «adhere to new and existing EU data residency requirements per the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)».

«With BlackBerry AtHoc’s new EU based data centres we are able to scale our infrastructure to better support our customers’ needs over a secure and reliable network,» he said, adding that «empowering [Blackberry’s] customers with the most secure communication platform for increasing resiliency and communicating swiftly is critical in a crisis».

In July, the company announced that it was partnering with Vodafone to offer the BlackBerry AtHoc platform as a crisis communications solution for UK emergency services.

The mobile app is already used by military, government, and commercial organisations in order to provide their workforce with physical security, force protection, as well as personnel accountability. 

Greater Manchester Police and Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service were the first two clients to benefit from the partnership, with the Greater Manchester Police inspector Darren Spurgeon saying that the system was chosen to allow the police «to share and receive real time information across our business and police operations».

«BlackBerry AtHoc will help us rapidly respond to internal operational issues and ensure accurate information is shared across multiple police departments and personnel using both analog and digital channels,» he added.

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Today, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced its next-generation HPE Modular Smart Array (MSA), the HPE MSA Gen 6. Designed to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) focus on growing their business, this entry-level hybrid-flash storage solution aims to deliver performance and automation without breaking the bank.

Tech spending is limited for most SMBs. With MSA Gen 6, HPE says SMBs can get the most bang for their buck with an updated entry storage solution. 

Able to secure their most valuable data while also making it easily accessible to employees, the HPE MSA Gen 6 also allows users who run on-demand businesses to manage their distributed applications and workloads easily.

A slew of updates to HPE MSA help satisfy the SMBs’ needs, including:

• Hands-free tiering that delivers workload efficiency with improved performance and lower latencies
• MSA Data Protection Plus (MSA DP+), which spans all drives to improve overall system efficiency
• Enhanced MSA Health Check tool to eliminate common causes of downtime 
• HPE Cloud Volumes Backup integration to provide users a low-priced route to cloud-based data protection

“HPE has continually built on and refined the MSA product family for six generations, focusing on the balance between performance and affordability, as well as looking at the simplicity and customer experience,” said Chris Powers, VP and GM for Big Data and Collaborative Platform Development and HPE. 

“HPE MSA is helping SMBs by delivering the performance and automation they need to keep their businesses running. We take pride in providing our customers with a reliable and fast solution at an affordable price so that their businesses can serve their clients efficiently,” Powers continued.

Sky Cumming, product manager at Dicker Data, an IT distributor and HPE channel partner, added, “The HPE MSA is ideal for the clients we serve whose businesses require a reliable, simple and low-cost storage solution that can match today’s workloads, and scale as their performance and capacity needs grow.”

Cumming continued, “The auto tiering capabilities provide the performance needed to power their applications, and the archive storage provides a flexible enterprise-grade storage solution at an entry-level price point. The new HPE MSA Health Check tool protects against attacks and predicts failures before they happen so small businesses can focus on making their business thrive without an IT headache.”

The HPE MSA Gen 6 is now available for order through channel partners starting under $7,000.

In 2009, during the most brutal part of the recession caused by the global financial crisis, I found myself unemployed, unqualified and without a laptop. 

For six months, my life was held together through financial support from family, job recommendations from friends and daily trips to the local library for a mere hour on the internet. 

Although I fondly remember it as the year I decided to embark on a career in journalism, I can’t help but think myself extremely lucky to have been able to access cloud services through the library. Because without that my life might have gone in a very grim direction.

With those precious internet hours, I did career research, CV workshops, job applications and even some social media networking. Those were the slow and frustrating initial steps I needed to take to get off the bottom and into a career. The first job was horrendous, but when my first payday came I bought a very basic laptop for £200. It served me well, helping me gradually move up the job ladder over the near decade I owned it, as well as seeing me through a number of online courses. And while I can’t remember the brand, nor would I likely recognise it if I saw it, it will always have a special place in my heart.  

You see, while the cloud is free and you pretty much get all you need to get started when you sign up to a Gmail account, the hardware to access it isn’t. For many, particularly the types of people who make up little library communities, limited access to computers is a barrier to a better life.  

It’s not just job-seekers who face this problem, either. According to research by the National Union of Students (NUS), a third of university students were unable to access online learning during the coronavirus lockdown, with disabled students and those from poor backgrounds being worst affected. Among the reasons for this were insufficient course materials, poor internet connections and (surprise, surprise) a lack of IT equipment and software. 

There used to be a government scheme that acknowledged this problem and sought to remedy it by providing low-income households with £500 to put towards a home computer and broadband access. It was launched in 2008 and reportedly helped around 270,000 families over the course of its existence. But with the arrival of the new Conservative government in 2010 and its focus on austerity, the programme was axed and we’ve seen nothing like it since.

Right now, as we begin a new cycle of recession and the government tries to find ways of getting people back to work in the new normal, a £500 handout could feasibly pay for a laptop and some decent internet access. Hell, it could arguably get you an entry-level or second-hand smartphone, too. With these tools, the possibilities are only limited by the imagination. 

For me, getting the hardware I needed accelerated my route into journalism, for others it can be the first step on the path to becoming an entrepreneur.

Laptops and phones are also essential tools for remote working, which may be a barrier to some businesses right now. The cost of kitting out your small operation might be too much and it can turn into a decision to furlough staff, make them redundant or even close down your business if it can’t operate in these difficult times. However, with a little help from some hardware schemes, the government can accelerate some aspects of digital transformation. 

When I see the almost daily reports of mass job cuts now as a result of COVID-19, I can’t help but reflect on my own experience of unemployment. With the coronavirus still lurking, a trip to the library or an increasingly rare internet cafe might not be safe, but help for people to buy the hardware themselves could do wonders for equality and maybe even the economy.

Schlumberger, IBM and Red Hat have joined forces to accelerate digital transformation across the oil and gas industry. 

The collaboration will initially focus on private, hybrid and multi-cloud deployments for Schlumberger’s own services with Red Hat OpenShift. This will then hopefully lead to the delivery of the first hybrid cloud implementation for the OSDU – an open data standard for the oil and gas industry. 

Schlumberger has committed to exclusively using Red Hat Openshift with the container platform deploying applications across all of its infrastructure, from traditional data centres to multiple clouds – including private and public. 

The organisation’s DELFI cognitive exploration and product (E&P) environment is a secure, cloud-based platform that uses data on all aspects of its value chain. It incorporates data analytics and AI, drawing upon multiple sources and automating workflows for seamless collaboration for its domain teams. 

The collaboration with IBM and Red Hat will allow many more oil and gas operators, suppliers and partners to work from the industry’s digital environment where they can ‘write once and run everywhere’, according to Schlumberger. 

The hope is that this new way of hosting will offer the possibility to use multiple cloud providers, addressing critical issues and facilitating in-country deployments in compliance with local regulations and data residency requirements.

«By expanding market access to the DELFI environment we take a major step forward on the journey to establishing the open and flexible digital environment our industry needs,» said Olivier Le Peuch, CEO of Schlumberger. 
 
«Our collaboration with IBM and Red Hat complements our established digital partnerships to produce an industry-first solution to overcome our customers’ challenges,» he added. «Together, we are enabling seamless access to a hybrid cloud platform in all countries across the globe for deployment in any basin, for any operator.»