Server virtualization has already proven beneficial for many enterprises. Through data center consolidation, server virtualization is able to enhance efficiency and reduce operational expenses. As this technology continues to evolve, however, IT professionals are moving beyond the basic benefits of consolidation. With advanced virtualization technologies, IT organizations can provide a variety of cloud-based services for users. These innovative services are best supported through application-driven virtualization, an approach that dramatically simplifies management and deployment.
Virtualization management platforms vary. However, available platforms are able to optimize, configure and manage all components of the application stack. Using such platforms, IT professionals can manage all storage, networks, servers, virtual machines and applications in operation. Because these platforms improve IT’s ability to deploy and maintain its enterprise applications, the organization’s overall agility and efficiency improves as well.
Cloud Expo New York: Why Big Data Is Really About Small Data
Everyone is talking about Big Data but what does that really mean for companies trying to understand how to make data meaningful for decision making. To leverage Big Data, you have to be able to take the key results and use those patterns or anomalies in context with historical data to make decisions.
In their session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Judith S. Hurwitz, President and CEO of Hurwitz & Associates, Inc., and Alan Nugent, Co-Founder of the Boston CTO Group, will provide a pragmatic guide to leveraging Big Data in the right way to impact business decision making.
Data Control and Data Residency
The benefits associated with adoption of the cloud are well documented and understood. Organizations cite tremendous cost savings, fast deployment times and streamlined application support and maintenance when compared to traditional on-premise software deployments. So what is holding many companies back from adopting the cloud? A recent report from Gartner entitled “Five Cloud Data Residency Issues That Must Not Be Ignored” highlights one key reason for this hesitancy – enterprises’ questions and concerns about jurisdictional and regulatory control arising from a lack of clarity on where cloud data truly resides. The report from Gartner recommends that enterprises adopt measures that will simultaneously boost the security of sensitive data as well as assist them in satisfying regulatory compliance with data residency laws.
Anticipating Law Enforement Move to the Cloud, Assocation Publishes Guide
Today, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) released “Guiding Principles on Cloud Computing in Law Enforcement” at the Leveraging the Cloud for Law Enforcement Symposium held at the Newseum. Developed in collaboration with key law enforcement subject matter experts from around the nation as well as experts from SafeGov.org, the principles establish clear and concise parameters and a path forward for the exploration of cloud-based computing solutions and services by law enforcement. The IACP principles come after a newly released IACP/Ponemon Institute/SafeGov.org commissioned survey showed that over half of law enforcement agencies surveyed indicated that they had implemented, were planning or considering implementing cloud-based solutions in the next two years.
“Cloud computing represents an important shift in the way information resources are managed and deployed by law enforcement agencies,” said Bart R. Johnson , Executive Director, IACP. “Realizing the substantial potential benefits of cloud computing, however, requires that we recognize the sensitivity of law enforcement information, make every effort to maintain the security and availability of key systems and data, and that we work closely with industry to build solutions that meet the critical and evolving needs of law enforcement.”
The IACP principles focus on addressing some of the most tangible benefits that cloud computing offers, including cost savings, rapid deployment of critical resources, off-site storage and disaster recovery as well as meeting dynamic operational needs, while maintaining the security of systems and the proper use of data.
Key principles include:
- FBI CJIS Security Policy Compliance – Services provided by a cloud service provider must comply with the requirements of the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Security Policy.
- Data Ownership – Law enforcement agencies should ensure that they retain ownership of all data.
- Impermissibility of Data Mining – Law enforcement agencies should ensure that the cloud service provider does not mine or otherwise process or analyze data for any purpose not explicitly authorized by the law enforcement agency.
- Confidentiality – The cloud service provider should ensure the confidentiality of law enforcement data it maintains on behalf of a law enforcement agency.
IACP will be working in the coming months to develop model policies associated with cloud computing through the IACP National Law Enforcement Policy Center. Model policies are expected to be released at the IACP Annual Conference, scheduled for October 19-23, 2013 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
To view the IACP principles and results and methodology of the IACP/Ponemon Institute/SafeGov.org commissioned survey, please visit http://www.theiacp.org/cloudcomputing.
Datanami Named “Media Sponsor” of Cloud Expo New York & Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that Datanami has been named “Media Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, and the 13th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Datanami is a news portal dedicated to providing insight, analysis and up-to-the-minute information about emerging trends and solutions in Big Data. The portal sheds light on all cutting edge technologies including networking, storage and applications, and their effect upon business, industry, government, and research. The publication examines the avalanche of unprecedented amounts of data and the impact the high-end data explosion is having across the IT, enterprise, and commercial markets.
The Big Data Bottleneck: Uploading to the Cloud
Uploading Big Data from our internal network to the Cloud via an Internet connection is as practical as filling a swimming pool through a drinking straw. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated our Big Data analytics, how super-duper our Hadoopers. If we can’t efficiently get our data where we need them when we need them, we’re stuck.
Data Privacy Day reminds us of the importance of transparency
Luca Schiavoni, Analyst, Regulation, Ovum
The celebration of the Data Privacy Day on January 28, 2013 came at a moment when awareness of the importance of the matter is higher than it has ever been. However, many obstacles get in the way of full data privacy, including companies’ unwillingness to fully disclose what they do with their users’ data, consumers’ unwillingness to actually read lengthy terms and conditions pages when signing up to a service, and the fact that some companies’ business models rely on their users’ data to distribute targeted advertising.
Regulation in this area is often quite confusing and obsolete, and it can be it unclear whether the rules that apply are those of the service provider’s country or the user’s country. There is a clear need for coordinated approaches between regulators around the world.
The rise of OTT services is prompting policymakers to take action …
HPC in the Cloud “Media Sponsor” of Cloud Expo NY & Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that HPC in the Cloud has been named “Media Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, and the 13th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
HPC in the Cloud is the only portal dedicated to covering high-end cloud computing in science, industry and the data center. The publication provides technology decision-makers and stakeholders in the high performance computing industry (spanning government, industry, and academia) with the most accurate and current information on developments happening in the point where high performance and cloud computing intersect. Subscribe now at http://www.hpcinthecloud.com
Solving Substantiation with SAML
Organizations are deploying distributed, hybrid architectures that can span multiple security domains. At any moment, a user could be accessing the corporate data center, the organization’s cloud infrastructure, or even a third party, SaaS web application. SAML can provide the identity information necessary to implement an enterprise-wide single sign-on solution.
Proving or asserting one’s identity in the physical world is often as simple as showing a driver’s license or state ID card. As long as the photo matches the face, that’s typically all that is needed to verify identity. This substantiation of identity is a physical form of authentication, and depending on the situation, the individual is then authorized either to receive something or to do something, for instance, enter a bar, complete a purchase, etc.
In the digital world, identity verification is not as easy as showing the computer monitor a driver’s license. To gain entry, you must provide information like a name, password, randomly generated token number—something you have, something you know, or something you are—to prove you are who you say you are.
Cloud Computing Service Models
In this post I will look at the three different service models for cloud computing as defined by NIST. More specifically I will look at the management and operations overhead for each one of the models and compare it…
Let’s look at how things have been done in the past. Traditionally enterprises have been responsible for managing their own IT infrastructure as well as the software stack that runs their applications. For small companies that meant hiring polyglot employees with wide range of skills varying from low level networking to high level application support. For larger ones, that can afford more staff, it meant creating specialized teams responsible for only networking infrastructure, or only storage or servers and virtualization. However for lot of those enterprises the core business has never been managing IT infrastructure – the only thing they are interested in is to manage their line-of-business (LOB) apps.