IDG Contributor Network: Attacking overconsumption of cloud services

In the early 2000's when the IT world was in the throes of ERP, CRM, SFA and ecommerce, IT infrastructure was invariably designed to support the absolute worst-case scenario. I quickly learned there were two options when launching any self-serve solution: it either flat-lines or takes off like a rocket—there is no in-between. The capacity planning challenge drove the development of grid computing, then virtualization, and finally cloud computing. Although with cloud we now have a way to rapidly scale up to meet increasing demand, it seems we have forgotten scaling down to conserve resources is equally important. Instead of provisioning “just in case” our worst fears came true, I find repeated examples where cloud is provisioned “just because.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Can Enterprise Workloads Run on Bare-Metal Servers?

One of my readers left a comment on my “optimize your data center by virtualizing the servers” blog post saying (approximately):

Seems like LinkedIn did it without virtualization :) Can enterprises achieve this to some extent?

Assuming you want to replace physical servers with one or two CPU cores and 4GB of memory with modern servers having dozens of cores and hundreds of GB of memory the short answer is: not for a long time.

Read more ...

Samsung Experts Put Kubernetes Through The Paces

No one expects that setting up management tools for complex distributed computing frameworks to be an easy thing, but there is always room for improvement–and always a chance to take out unnecessary steps and improve the automated deployment of such tools.

The hassle of setting up such frameworks, such as Hadoop for data analytics, OpenStack for virtualized infrastructure, or Kubernetes or Mesos for software container management is an inhibitor to the adoption of those new technologies. Working with raw open source software and weaving it together into a successful management control plane is not something all enterprises have the skills …

Samsung Experts Put Kubernetes Through The Paces was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Why Bloomberg chose Vidyo to improve its video communications platform

Earlier this year, Vidyo announced that Bloomberg selected it to provide the enabling technology for Nexi, Bloomberg’s new global communications platform that enables the company’s employees to connect over video with each other and the rest of the world. So, I decided to dig a bit deeper into Bloomberg’s decision to use Vidyo and talked with the man responsible for the integration: Jeff Fairbanks, Global Head of AV and Media Technology, Technical Operations at Bloomberg.  I asked Fairbanks if he could describe Bloomberg’s use of video and provide some historical context for why the technology is so important today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Integrating Atlassian Bitbucket Pipelines with Ansible Tower

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Customers everywhere are using Ansible and Ansible Tower to deliver the promise of DevOps. Atlassian Bitbucket can be coupled with Ansible and Ansible Tower to create an application workflow. In this example workflow, a developer makes an update to their application, checks the code into source control, a continuous integration test passes, and it is automatically deployed by an orchestration system to the applicable systems.

One of the most popular requests we hear for Tower is to integrate with the Atlassian tool suite. Atlassian provides tools that allow developers to build many components of a CI/CD pipeline. From Bitbucket for code review, to JIRA as a ticketing system, and finally Hipchat to bring all of the teams involved in the pipeline to collaborate.

And, with Atlassian’s recent announcement of Bitbucket Pipelines, we are excited to demonstrate how Tower can now integrate these tools into a complete CI/CD pipeline environment.

Using our example workflow from above, let’s look at what this process looks like today-- without this integration. First, a developer checks in some code to Bitbucket Cloud, and a Pipelines job can build and test an artifact. Next, the developer would need to find the correct build, download it, and Continue reading

Security training programs don’t do enough to mitigate insider risk

Employee-related security risks top the list of concerns for security professionals, but organizations aren't doing enough to prevent negligent employee behavior, according to a new study.Last month, security research firm Ponemon Institute, sponsored by Experian Data Breach Resolution, surveyed 601 individuals at companies with a data protection and privacy training program on the issue of negligent and malicious employee behaviors for the Managing Insider Risk through Training & Culture report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Security training programs don’t do enough to mitigate insider risk

Employee-related security risks top the list of concerns for security professionals, but organizations aren't doing enough to prevent negligent employee behavior, according to a new study.Last month, security research firm Ponemon Institute, sponsored by Experian Data Breach Resolution, surveyed 601 individuals at companies with a data protection and privacy training program on the issue of negligent and malicious employee behaviors for the Managing Insider Risk through Training & Culture report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google and Oracle’s Android copyright fight is up to a jury now

Oracle and Google’s fierce court fight over the code inside Android went to a jury on Monday after closing arguments that sharply differed on the most basic issues. The federal jury in San Francisco is now deciding whether Google’s use of copyrighted Java code constitutes fair use, an exemption that would free the company from having to pay Oracle damages. At issue is "declaring code" that's part of 37 Java APIs Google used. Google says it simply used selected parts of Java to create something new in the form of Android.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to escape that forced Windows 10 upgrade you mistakenly agreed to

On Monday, hordes of angry Windows users pelted Microsoft with complaints about being lured into upgrading their PCs over the weekend. For months, Microsoft has been urging users running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 to upgrade to Windows 10 before the free offer expires on July 29. But the series of dialog boxes and other messages that Microsoft has sent users have become increasingly deceptive, burying the opt-out links amid text that appears to commit users to the upgrade.Normally, closing the dialog box by clicking the red box in the upper righthand corner automatically opted out. Over the weekend, clicking that red box started opting users in to the upgrade.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How IoT will change the job market

The Internet of Things (IoT) is poised to bring millions of devices online, and as many as a quarter million unique IoT applications will be developed by the year 2020. That means opportunities for skilled developers and technologists will abound. However, there are other, subtler ways the IoT will affect the job market."We're seeing tech companies around the globe getting organized and creating IoT strategies, but where they're struggling is they don't have the processes and talent in-house to make these things happen," says Ryan Johnson, categories director for global freelance marketplace Upwork. By tracking data from Upwork's database, Johnson and his team have identified major technology skills companies need to drive a successful IoT strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lawsuit seeks the secrets behind the H-1B lottery

Two business immigration groups have filed a lawsuit seeking information about how the H-1B visa distribution system -- including the visa lottery -- works. It alleges that the U.S. has no right to keep most of the records secret.It is not surprising that the H-1B distribution system is coming under scrutiny in a lawsuit. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) this year received 236,000 H-1B visa petitions for the 85,000 visas allowed under the current cap. The agency distributes visas each year via a lottery. The odds -- roughly one-in-three -- create a lot of frustration for applicants.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to avoid phishing attacks

Keep the network out of reach of criminalsImage by Susana FernandezAccording to the Verizon data breach investigation report published last month, phishing remains a major data breach weapon of choice. Trend Micro added that ransomware is expected to be one of the biggest threats in 2016 and that a single ransom demand will go much higher, reaching seven figures.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to avoid phishing attacks

Keep the network out of reach of criminalsImage by Susana FernandezAccording to the Verizon data breach investigation report published last month, phishing remains a major data breach weapon of choice. Trend Micro added that ransomware is expected to be one of the biggest threats in 2016 and that a single ransom demand will go much higher, reaching seven figures.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Government failing to fully address EMP threats to the grid, officials say

Government agencies have done some work to mitigate the danger of electromagnetic threats to the electrical grid, but it’s not enough, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).Despite some action by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—such as developing a prototype transformer that would significantly speed recovery from a power outage caused by a failed transformer and studying the impacts of severe space weather, such as solar storms—more must be done to protect the grid, Homeland Security News Wire reports on the April-published GAO study (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Government failing to fully address EMP threats to the grid, officials say

Government agencies have done some work to mitigate the danger of electromagnetic threats to the electrical grid, but it’s not enough, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).Despite some action by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—such as developing a prototype transformer that would significantly speed recovery from a power outage caused by a failed transformer and studying the impacts of severe space weather, such as solar storms—more must be done to protect the grid, Homeland Security News Wire reports on the April-published GAO study (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Government failing to fully address EMP threats to the grid, officials say

Government agencies have done some work to mitigate the danger of electromagnetic threats to the electrical grid, but it’s not enough, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).Despite some action by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—such as developing a prototype transformer that would significantly speed recovery from a power outage caused by a failed transformer and studying the impacts of severe space weather, such as solar storms—more must be done to protect the grid, Homeland Security News Wire reports on the April-published GAO study (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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