Big Data. Analytics. Internet of Things. Cloud. In the last few years, you cannot have a discussion around technology without those terms entering the conversation. They have been major technology disruptors impacting all aspects of the business. Change seems to occur at breakneck speeds and shows no sign of slowing. Today, it appears the one constant in technology is change. Constant change requires constant innovation which thereby introduces more new technologies. One of the new technologies entering the conversation is machine learning. Gartner identified machine learning as one of the top 10 technology trends for 2016. It is definitely a hot topic.
The top five concerns and takeaways from the techUK cloud security panel
(c)iStock.com/binabina
Last week, iland took part in techUK’s “How to Build Trust in the Security of Cloud Computing” panel debate in London. The event ran in two parts; the first panel looked at the key concerns associated with cloud security and then a second panel examined what needs to be done to help businesses address these concerns.
The UK is incredibly successful both on the supply side with the expertise we have developed delivering products and services, as well as the adoption and exploitation side of cloud. That said, it was evident in techUK’s Cloud 20/20 vision paper that there are still concerns around security and the resilience of cloud, especially as the market continues to mature. The paper cited that nine out of 10 security professionals worry about cloud security and 80% of budgets will be spent on cloud security, yet one third of data loss is put down to inadequate cloud security. So in effect, companies are still losing data.
To me, one of the clearest issues that came out of the conversation is that the broad scope of ‘the cloud’ continues to be a great source of confusion. Companies cannot adequately combat security threats if they do not dig into the details of the specific types of services they plan to use cloud for, whether that be software as a service, infrastructure as a service, disaster recovery as a service, backup as a service, as examples.
Against this backdrop here are the top five concerns raised by the panel about cloud in general:
- Cloud computing is about commodity compute and a one size fits all approach. However, whether you are a large or small corporation seeking the benefits of cloud, you want to partner with providers that offer a tailored service that addresses your specific security and compliance requirements.
- Location matters. Organisations are less concerned about multi-tenancy but more concerned about where the data centre is located, where their data resides, who has access to it and the free flow of that data.
- Unauthorised access, especially by service provider themselves. Cybercrime will target cloud and data centres and there is concern not only about unauthorised access but law enforcement access to cloud data. For example, under what circumstances will your cloud provider disclose data to a law enforcement company?
- Transparency, audits, the sheer volume of data. Keeping an auditable track of that data was high on the list.
- Lock-in, data portability and the smooth and easy movement of data. In other words, how easy it is to exit those outsourcing arrangements.
Other points that came up were the unclear segregation of duties and where the responsibility lies. Whose duty and responsibility is it to secure the platform? Are the skills, experience and resources available to undertake these tasks? And finally, if you if don’t lock down your data, are you raising the risk profile for the organisation and creating opportunities for more vulnerabilities? In terms of the key takeaways here are my top five:
Where cloud service providers are concerned, having a technology platform is not enough
It is more about how that platform is managed, the resilience of the platform, the level of cloud security combined with your people, expertise and providing customers with full transparency. At iland, for instance, not only do we have an advanced security platform that supports all of our cloud services, but we are a curator of security solutions. We bring best of breed technologies and embed these into our platform. Therefore not only do we deliver the expertise but we work hand-in-hand to help customers on their cloud security initiatives.
New technologies will be added into the mix all the time
Organisations therefore need to think about their workloads and whether cloud is suitable. Will they be able to adapt to new security requirements and what level of support will they need to do so?
Accessibility against security
Organisations must consider accessibility versus security and understand the details of various cloud platforms and services to mitigate risks. Don’t overlook location, technology, support, access and transparency.
Education from your cloud service provider around the risks that are prevalent is absolutely vital
Cloud providers need to give visibility and up-to-date information on these risks. For example, at iland we scan for known vulnerabilities and take that information and associated best practices to our customers.
Know how to recover
It happens more frequently than you think, therefore thinking about how you will recover from an attack is vital. For example, do you have the ability to recover quickly and can you recover to a point in time that minimises business impact?
I believe that more education is key to cloud. What type of cloud services are you using or thinking about using, and what are the associated security risks and solutions? Cloud providers need to talk in more specific terms about the solution rather than talk generally about ‘the cloud,’ as this is where there is a lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretations.
Finally, as cloud providers help combat security risks, they must also enable customers to easily consume relevant information about their environments, take action and satisfy compliance. Most organisations find there is so much raw data coming out of their cloud provider, they struggle to consolidate this on a daily, or even weekly basis, in order to prioritise the real and most severe risks. Whether customers are leveraging public cloud, private cloud, disaster recovery or backup services, ensuring and proving cloud security and compliance will only become more important and customers and cloud service providers must work together to achieve it.
Tech News Recap for the Week of 7/25/2016
Were you busy this week? Here’s a tech news recap of articles you may have missed for the week of 7/25/2016! Remember, to stay up-to-date on the latest tech news throughout the week, follow @GreenPagesIT on Twitter.
Oracle has entered into an agreement to buy NetSuite for $9.3 billion. Apple has announced the release date for the highly anticipated iPhone 7. Microsoft’s Iowa data center cluster is set to reach 3.2M square feet. Samsung now leads the smartphone market. The AdGholas malvertising operation tricked ad networks and malware scanners using steganography, Google wants to turn Detroit into a smart city, and more top news from this week you may have missed!
Tech News Recap
- Oracle to buy cloud software provider NetSuite for $9.3 billion
- Long-running malvertising campaign infected thousands of computers per day
- Microsoft’s Iowa Data Center cluster to reach 3.2M square feet
- DNC Hack Serves As Cautionary Tale For IT Pros
- How to Minimize the Damage Done by Ransomware
- New attack bypasses HTTPS protection on Macs, Windows, and Linux
- UK’s top security judges struggle to assess privacy threats
- Google wants to turn Detroit into a ‘smart city’
- Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook Discuss STEM Funding, Immigration Reform
- IDC: Samsung Leads Smartphone Market, iPhone Shipments Decline
- Google Adds New Kernel-Level Protections For Android
- KPGM Study: Breaches Up, Security Spending Down
- vROps – An Introduction to Alert Tuning
- Leading Digital Transformation? Ask this question – What is Everyone Working On?
- Apple’s iPhone 7 finally gets a release date
- A CIO’s Biggest Security Challenge May Surprise You: Cloud Compliance
VMware NSX or Cisco ACI? Get the unbiased scoop!
By Ben Stephenson, Emerging Media Specialist
AWS posts 60% boost as it creeps towards $10bn revenues
AWS has continued its promising progress towards breaking the $10 billion barrier, after reporting revenues of $5.4 billion for the first six months of 2016, a boost of 60% from the same period last year, reports Telecoms.com.
Speaking during its Q1 earnings call in April, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky highlighted there was a very realistic chance the AWS business would exceed $10 billion in annual revenues, becoming the first cloud infrastructure company to do so. After another quarter of healthy growth, revenues were up 58% to roughly $2.9 billion, the team are well on track to exceed the ambitious target. Progress has been healthy over the last few quarters, but the team are looking to push the accelerator harder.
“We actually see nine availability zones in four regions coming out in the next – in the coming year,” said Olsavsky. “The impact on short-term is pretty much indistinguishable from the growth that we’re seeing in our expansion of our base customers in our existing regions, so we don’t see a large step-up from the addition of new regions relative to the large and rapid growth in the business itself.”
With new data centres popping up all over the world to meet the demand of the burgeoning cloud computing sector, AWS is keeping trend, opening up in Mumbai last month, as planning nine new availability zones within the next 12 months. The impact of these new assets are unlikely to be felt during the next quarter, though long-term there the current cloud leader could reinforce its position at the top of the leader board.
“Again, we like our position, our industry leading position in the cloud space, and we’re working on things that would incent more and more customers to accelerate their cloud conversion,” said Olsavsky. “The lower prices and services that we offer, and as I said, we’ll work on things that will make it easier and easier for customers to work with us with their hybrid data centers or transfer their volume to us.”
One area of growth which could have a more short-term impact is the new FedRAMP High compliance certification, which will allow government agencies the ability to use the AWS Cloud for highly sensitive applications and workloads like patient records, financial data, and law enforcement data. Government contracts represent lucrative wins in the technology sector, which could underpin the company’s surge towards $10 billion. The accreditation also creates a useful precedent for the business if/and the team look to expand its footprint with government organizations in the international markets.
[session] The Move to SDI and Networks | @CloudExpo #SDI #SDN #SDDC #Cloud
In his session at Cloud Expo, Robert Cohen, an economist and senior fellow at the Economic Strategy Institute, will provide economic scenarios that describe how the rapid adoption of software-defined everything including cloud services, SDDC and open networking will change GDP, industry growth, productivity and jobs.
This session will also include a drill down for several industries such as finance, social media, cloud service providers and pharmaceuticals.
Two in five execs grumble flash technology is too expensive, research finds
(c)iStock.com/Fodor90
Two in five senior executives believe flash storage technology is too expensive to invest in, according to new research figures released by data management and cloud storage provider NetApp.
The study, which polled more than 1000 UK IT decision makers, also argued that one in four financial purse holders within enterprises do not understand Flash enough to make an investment. Yet the overwhelming majority of respondents (90%) believe there is a need for flash in their business. Respondents in HR (100%) and healthcare (95%) were the strongest supporters of investing in the technology.
The research also found that the cost barrier was an issue for businesses of all sizes. 38% of smaller and bigger businesses polled argued Flash was too pricey, compared to 40% of medium sized businesses.
Yet NetApp argues that the benefits of flash go beyond the bottom line. “Our research shows that while the business value of flash in terms of performance and responsiveness is understood by IT decision makers, education on the true value of flash needs to continue further up the chain,” said Laurence James, EMEA products, alliances and solutions manager at NetApp. “Flash is a long-term investment that can transform business performance and should not be analysed in terms of capital investment alone.”
Let’s give this study a bit of context. NetApp announced its intent to acquire SolidFire, an all-flash storage provider, late in December last year for a reported $870 million. Pure Storage, another flash storage provider which went public in October, took the opportunity to have a dig at the deal – and more specifically, NetApp’s strategy – in a blog post.
No Christmas cards exchanged between those two then, presumably. Yet seven months on, the acquisition has thrown up some interesting developments. Speaking to Tech Target earlier this week, SolidFire CTO Val Bercovici – a former NetApp veteran – argued that the purchase gave NetApp the ability to “enter completely adjacent markets that other storage vendors are just not in.”
Google grows (again) but ‘Other Bets’ cost the giant $1bn
Google has reported its Q2 numbers, continuing a strong run of performances within the technology industry, though efforts to diversify its overall business are not paying off just yet, reports Telecoms.com.
The Alphabet brand was announced last year, with aim of allowing the team to invest in other projects more freely, without being impeded by the advertising business. It would appear the management team are not afraid to throw R&D money at its innovation team as it searches for another billion-dollar business, as the ‘Other Bets’ segment, which includes Google Fibre and the autonomous cars projects, accounted for an operating loss of $859 million. Revenues did grow to $185 million, up 150% on the same quarter in 2015, though this number was made almost insignificant by the $19 billion generated in the advertising business.
The technology industry on the whole has been providing strong numbers over the last couple of weeks, though there has been a question as to whether two advertising giants can co-exist. With Facebook reporting significant growth yesterday, advertising revenues across the period increased 63% year-on-year to $6.2 billion, these numbers were dwarfed by Google, perhaps demonstrating there is potential for both organizations to share advertising revenues, which are decreasing in value, and grow healthily.
With regard to the dwindling value of advertising revenues, Google would appear to be combatting this with volume. CFO Ruth Porat highlighted the mobile search capabilities were the primary driver behind the year-on-year growth, though the desktop and tablet search did also grow.
Numbers such as these will grab headlines, meaning it can be easy to forget about the Google cloud business, one of the top priorities for the Alphabet business moving forward.
On the same day which AWS reported revenues of $2.9 billion for the quarter, Google’s cloud business also demonstrated solid growth. Although the numbers are not specific, the ‘Other’ revenues segment which includes the cloud business, and other services such as Google play, accounting for $2.1 billion through the three month period, an increase of 33% on Q2 2015.
“Many tremendous digital experiences are being built in the cloud today, and businesses are working to take advantage of the cloud as part of their digital transformation,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “We’ve been integrating our cloud and apps products to create more unified solutions for companies large and small, and these efforts are paying off.”
Following on from Pichai’s previous comments on the role of artificial intelligence on the Google cloud platform, and the wider Google business, its importance has been reiterated once again. Machine learning is being prioritized as the differentiator for Google in a competitive technology market, and only last week the team introduced two cloud machine learning APIs for speech and natural language to help enterprise customers convert audio to text and easily understand the structure and sentiment of the text in a variety of languages.
In terms of footprint, the team are not done growing yet. At the end of last month, Google and friends completed work on a new trans-Pacific submarine cable system, which will help the team launch a new Google Cloud Platform East Asia region in Tokyo. Back in March, the team confirmed it would be investing heavily in expansion of its cloud footprint with 12 new data centres around the world by the end of 2017.
AWS has previously stated it intends to break the $10 billion barrier in cloud revenues during 2016, though Google may not be that far behind. With its history of not being afraid to invest, and the growth numbers which have been witnessed over the last few quarters, Google could be set to accelerate.
Facebook puts Twitter into crosshair
Facebook has reported healthy growth in advertising revenues over the last quarter, and also outlined its ambitions to take on Twitter and traditional search engine, reports Telecoms.com.
Speaking on the company’s quarterly earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted his intentions to expand the boundaries of Facebook, mounting a challenge to conversation platform Twitter, building search capabilities for businesses on the social network, as well as directing notable investment into video capabilities. Advertising revenues across the period increased 63% year-on-year to $6.2 billion, with mobile accounting for 84%, though the team are seemingly not satisfied as it prepares to venture into new markets.
“We have a saying at Facebook that our journey is only 1% done,” said Zuckerberg. “And while I’m happy with our progress, we have a lot more work to do to grow our community and connect the whole world. That means making big investments and taking risks, focusing not just on what Facebook is but on what it can be.”
While Twitter was not mentioned specifically during the call, Zuckerberg outlined his intentions to make Facebook the platform where users search for and express their views on current affairs. Most users would currently search for and post updates to their immediate circle of contacts, though this is an aspect which Zuckerberg wants to change. When looking at keyword searches, the team claim there are now 2 billion searches per day of its 2.5 trillion posts, growing 33% over the last nine months. The challenges towards Twitter was not implicitly mentioned by the Facebook chief, though the team are seemingly on a mission to create a conversation platform which extends beyond an users immediate circle, a space which has been dominated by Twitter in recent years.
Another area of potential growth for Facebook is commercial search. According to Zuckerberg, over a third of small and medium businesses in the states do not have a website, though Facebook could provide an alternative. Setting up and managing a website can be challenging, as well as for those who are less technically able, the team are promoting the use of the platform to create company pages and build the online presence of these organizations through Facebook. Although this is a long-term ambition, and the team are not in a stage where notable revenues are realistic, it would appear to be a move to provide an alternative to traditional search engines.
“This is why Facebook pages are the mobile solutions for many of the 60 million businesses using our products each month in the U.S. and around the world,” said Zuckerberg. “We’ve made it easy for business owners to manage their Facebook page from their mobile device. Over 85% of active business pages use mobile, and 40% of active advertisers have created a Facebook ad on their mobile device.
“So when we talk about our strategy (commercial search), I often talk about how when we develop new products we think about it in three phases. First, building a consumer use case; then, second, making it so that people can organically interact with businesses; and then third, on top of that, once there’s a large volume of people interacting with businesses. Give businesses tools to reach more people and pay, and that’s ultimately the business opportunity.
“I’d say, we’re around the second phase of that in search now.”
Artificial intelligence is another area which ties into the commercial capabilities of search, as once AI is perfected by the team, it does offer the opportunity to dramatically increase the relevance of ads put in front of the consumer. While most adverts are placed on historical data and previous customer behaviour, the potential of AI is intuition, the ability to make human decisions on what a potential customer would be interested it. This quarter, Facebook announced the development of DeepText, a deep learning based engine that can understand the context of several thousand posts per second across 20 different languages. It’s the beginning of the move towards AI, but a promising start.
As with other social media brands, video has been outlined as a priority for the team, building on the theme of consumer trends towards mobile. Most recently Facebook has been focused on the implementation of live video, though Zuckerberg highlighted the team will continue to invest in video platforms, to capitalize on the growing role of video in social media.
“We’re also working on new tools to help people express themselves and understand what’s going on with the people they care about. Ten years ago, most of what we shared and consumed online was text. Now its photos, and soon most of it will be video. We see a world that is video first with video at the heart of all of our apps and service.”
The shift towards mobile is fast changing the way customers consume and interact with media, most notably video. Before the phenomena of video can be capitalized on, the right capabilities need to be in place, and firstly this means investment.
All-in-all, most people would comment this has been a successful quarter for the social media giant. Total revenues are up to $6.4 billion, a 59% increase, daily active users standing at 1.13 billion on average for June 2016, an increase of 17% year-over-year, and monthly active users at 1.71 billion as of June 30, 2016, an increase of 15% year-over-year. Facebook has arguably been the most successful company at capitalizing on its captured audience, and should it effectively build capabilities in the conversation and search segments, it will be a worrying sign for Twitter and more traditional search engines.
Happy Birthday Windows 10!
Happy Birthday Windows 10! As of today, Windows 10 has been around for a full year! We’ve been having a lot of fun with the latest (last?) OS from Microsoft on our Macs. The first OS to let you run a virtual assistant on your Mac, way less of the tiles (we weren’t a fan), […]
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Parallels with Nutanix VCC Solution Hits the Market via SHI International
VCC Solution The IDC reports Parallels and Nutanix partnership will help create a VCC Solution (Virtual Client Computing) offering that will help small and medium business achieve great savings, and more efficiency through a targeted VDI offering. This is of interest to managed services looking to establish themselves by offering a DaaS system. Read the […]
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