Skyport does one thing, and it does it well. Skyport offers SkySecure Server, a remotely deployable platform for Windows and/or Linux virtual machines in a fortress-like environment.
You can rent one for $2,500 per month, or less.
Skyport SkySecure Servers solve a major pain point for IT execs looking for control over their remote servers. Skyport provides a hardened server that can be safely deployed to off-premises locations with little to no pre-configuration headaches.
It comes pre-built and ready to host and secure either their list or your qualified list of popular host operating systems as VMs. Once deployed it’s largely tamper proof, and its subsequent use is done remotely, securely, with full online-monitoring control. Skyport is as security-paranoid as we are; therefore we liked it, finding only a few foibles.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
There is Software-as-a-Service, Disaster Recover-as-a-Service, SECurity-as-a-Service. What's currently missing, and the crux of much cloud-profiting malaise, is PRiVacy-as-a-Service.Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) software, something that's in the lab right now, does a great job of things like infiltration/exfiltration (read: filtration) of organizational data from SaaS applications. Some do some wicked things as proxies for user apps. The idea is to help keep users honest and prevent organizational assets from jeopardy.But when we-as-civilians do everyday surfing, answering emails and going about our business on the Internet, we're protected at the firewall level as users. Perhaps it's Malwarebytes, or a myiad of client-side security packages. And we admonish people to NEVER open spam, as spam often delivers unbelievably nasty systems attack code, disguised as benign attachments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Today's lesson on how the cloud can work against you, as well as for you, is about your passwords and keys, and how they're becoming useless. I've stolen a link from Mark Gibbs to help.Let's say you've been letting older security encryption methods live out their life in the pastures of your data center. CloudCracker, using massively-induced dictionary attacks, can make mincemeat from a frightening number of password key-exchange seeds.For just $17 per, CloudCracker can conveniently crack the following password seeds: WPA/WPA2, NTLM, SHA-512, MD5s, and/or MS-CHAPv2. No tears, please. And yes, cracked like an egg, a $17 egg. Certainly no one would abuse such a service, would they?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For the most part, the CES 2016 show was largely a yawner—maturation rather than innovation. Yes, there was a lot of interesting stuff outside of IT gear—and the IT gear could be as fun as a 200-node Raspberry Pi cluster running hadoop or wicked-fast IEEE 802.11ac wireless hubs that do endless if secure tricks.The damage, the damnation, the truculent total churl of the event was this: all of the new Interent of Thingies/IoT/KewlGear has no cohesive security strategy. It's a mosh pit of certificates, easy-auth, Oh! Let's Connect Our Gear Together! (add breathy sigh!) meaninglessness.Let's now take this in the curmudgeonly risk-averse cloud space, bit by bit:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
VMware 6 pays more attention to high availability and large deployment than prior editions—with a kick to the throttle in terms of overall speed of scale, not just size of scale. This comes with a mixture of incremental upgrades, and a bit of administrative thoughtfulness.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
VMware's vSphere 6 pays more attention to high availability and large deployment than prior editions—with a kick to the throttle in terms of overall speed of scale, not just size of scale. This comes with a mixture of incremental upgrades, and a bit of administrative thoughtfulness.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
HP’s Gen9 servers are out, and we found them incrementally better than the Gen8 version we recently tested, due to both increased processor horsepower and efficiency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
The very term "cloud" refers to any computing resource not in your current building. There is cloud storage, computing, and various applications ranging from the success of Salesforce online apps to the map you used on your phone (or watch) this morning.The Internet is now synonymous with the The Cloud. Let's dream about the cloud a little bit.Your JourneyYour body token was read by an RFID scanner as you walked in the door to the (train station, airport, building complex entrance) where it authorized you to go inside, noted you have $20 to spend on food in the (canteen, restaurant, company cafeteria), and that you can use the (company self-driving car, network terminals, network itself to Grade 51, doors to all red/green/black restrooms with unlimited toilet paper) and are permitted to exit any door.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In a surprising move, game maker Zynga tried to do its own data center thing, then went back to the cloud, reports the Wall Street Journal.Was it a game of chicken, to see who would bleed first between Zynga and Amazon? Or was it a venture where, as the WSJ cites, you discover that your groove doesn't involve adding expertise in a field where lowering your costs may not pay off? Sorry to sound cryptic. Let me explain.The capex of running a data center can be gruesome. Even with way-cool software-defined routing, eco-cooling, and plentiful cheap connectivity, they're still expensive. The payback is going to come in decades, one can only hope. In the old days, organizations would install a bunker of a data center, often deep in the sub-basements of a building, designing all for the long term, and sinking cooling and initial infrastructure costs that would include some wild-haired expansion factor over the perceived life of the building.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's going to happen, and happen to you and your organization. No, I'm not a salesguy, otherwise bereft of booth babes at RSA. I'm a systems engineer going back to the days of SNA, DSLAMs, CSU/DSUs, ARCNet over NetWare, and other ancient interconnect. Stuff happens.So, whatchya gonna do? What is your plan?Did you notice how none of this cloud stuff talks to none of this cloud stuff among competing vendors? Even the mighty Open Data Center Alliance can't help you if you don't have a plan, and haven't tried to do a failover successfully.This year, thankfully, we dodged a number of hurricanes and tornadoes. The snows were gruesome, but it was rare to see data centers go down because of it. The cloud usually kept on ticking.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I have a certain sadness as I write this. Data center computational densities have incurred a setback.There was a time when it looked as though ARM might give power-hungry Intel designs a run for their money in the world of high-density computing. It's the sort of density that cloud providers need: rack after rack, crammed to the gills, chilled, high-speed buses. But power costs a lot of money, alternate energy initiatives aside.AMD had bought SeaMicro, whose high-density chassis full of power-sipping ARM CPUs form large arrays of calculative strength, without the hefty bill from the power company for oceans of coulombs. HP had initially announced Project Moonshot, the cartridge-based high-density server with ARM, or FPGA cartridges to slowly sip power, but ultimately delivered its chassis with Intel Atom. ARM blades are still available, and FPGAs are said to be shipping.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If McLuhan was right, what we know today as "The Cloud" will be resources linked through massively and continuously variable software-designed networks using largely software-defined linking. Your compute might be in Dallas, but let's store the data in Germany where the privacy laws suit our regulatory/compliance needs.In the bad old days, huge racks filled with "datacomm" equipment and -48v racks of batteries to back them up were anchors in data communications. A big logo sat on the cabinets, claiming space for a carrier. Inside, lots of CSUs/DSUs lived, circuits and monitoring equipment running furiously, and hopefully, 24/7/365.25. The AT&T Cabinet wasn't much different than the Sprint or Verizon cabinet, and Level 3 seemed newer, at least judging by the age of the paint on the rack. Somewhere in that rack was a jack, your jack, fiber, Ethernet, SONET, ATM, and with the jack you were connected to: someplace else.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tom Henderson