Companies high on virtualization despite fears of security breaches

Companies are feeling more comfortable with the cloud, virtualization and even software defined data centers than ever before, despite their fears about security breaches, according to a study due out this month by technology companies HyTrust and Intel. While no one thinks security problems will go away, companies are willing to tolerate the risk in the name of agility, flexibility and lower costs.Some 62 percent of executives, network administrators and engineers surveyed expect more adoption of SDDC in 2016, which can quantifiably drive up virtualization and server optimization, while 65 percent predict that these implementations will be faster.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CEO targeted by fraud twice a month

Every couple of weeks or so, Tom Kemp's company gets hit by ever-more-sophisticated attempts to trick them out of large sums of money.It started two years ago, before business email compromise -- also known as CEO fraud -- became as widely-known as it is today.The email came in addressed directly to the company's controller, asking for a wire transfer of more than $350,000. The email seemed to come from the CFO and was part of a longer chain of emails between the CFO and the CEO discussing the transfer."If you looked at the email thread, it looked legitimate," said Kemp, CEO at security firm Centrify. "And there was a real bank account and a real company name associated with it."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CEO targeted by fraud twice a month

Every couple of weeks or so, Tom Kemp's company gets hit by ever-more-sophisticated attempts to trick them out of large sums of money.It started two years ago, before business email compromise -- also known as CEO fraud -- became as widely-known as it is today.The email came in addressed directly to the company's controller, asking for a wire transfer of more than $350,000. The email seemed to come from the CFO and was part of a longer chain of emails between the CFO and the CEO discussing the transfer."If you looked at the email thread, it looked legitimate," said Kemp, CEO at security firm Centrify. "And there was a real bank account and a real company name associated with it."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft releases Skype TX 4 for professional broadcasters

You may have seen Skype used for interviews on cable or local news channels. I see it used regularly on the small One America News Network (OANN) for live interviews, with the "SKYPE" logo plastered large on the screen.While the interview subject may be using the version you have installed on your PC, OANN and other cable news outlets use something very different, something called Skype TX. Skype TX is a "studio-grade" version of the software made for broadcasters to host guests and is integrated with their cable television infrastructure.Microsoft launched Skype TX two years ago and is now up to version 4. Microsoft said it got feedback from broadcasters in nearly 100 markets around the world, and it based the new version on their feedback. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: The platform wars are over

We’ve all heard the expression, “Everyone else was playing checkers, but that guy was playing chess.” And “that guy” is usually the person who came out ahead because he (or she) was able to see past the immediate short-term problems and make plans that would win in the long run.In many ways, this is a microcosm of the battle over what hardware computing platform to use. And while everyone scurried around to figure out what platform won, a clear victor emerged: data.That’s right: data is the big winner.Of course, you are probably wondering why I think the so-called “platform wars” are over. My answer is simple: they’re not over, but they’re not as important as they once were. That's because while the rest of us were busy debating the merits of mainframes, IBM i, UNIX and Windows, data managed to work its way free of any one platform. In fact, any piece of data created on any system can be accessed and used by just about any machine in the world. It’s sort of like driving. Anyone can pull into any service station and fill up their tank regardless of whether they’re driving a Porsche, Chevy Continue reading

Mesosphere open sources DC/OS data center management platform

Cloud computing startup Mesosphere has decided to open source its platform for managing data center resources, with the backing of over 60 tech companies, including Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco Systems.Derived from its Datacenter Operating System, a service that Mesosphere set out to build as an operating system for all servers in a data center as if they were a single pool of resources,  the open source DC/OS offers capabilities for container operations at scale and single-click, app-store-like installation of over 20 complex distributed systems, including HDFS, Apache Spark, Apache Kafka and Apache Cassandra, the company said in a statement Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mesosphere open sources DC/OS data center management platform

Cloud computing startup Mesosphere has decided to open source its platform for managing data center resources, with the backing of over 60 tech companies, including Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco Systems.Derived from its Datacenter Operating System, a service that Mesosphere set out to build as an operating system for all servers in a data center as if they were a single pool of resources,  the open source DC/OS offers capabilities for container operations at scale and single-click, app-store-like installation of over 20 complex distributed systems, including HDFS, Apache Spark, Apache Kafka and Apache Cassandra, the company said in a statement Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Palo Alto Networks working to share threat intelligence

Palo Alto Networks is on board with industry-wide efforts to share threat intelligence and disseminate it so the collective knowledge businesses gather about threats can be quickly turned into defenses against new types of attacks.Its efforts include support for the new federal Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that lifts some of the liability businesses are exposed to if they share data about security incidents. If the data inadvertently reveals personal information but was submitted in accordance with the law, the contributor would not be legally liable.The company is also hammering out the details of the Cyber Threat Alliance it formed last year to gather threat information from security vendors and researchers that can rapidly and thoroughly unmask current threats. The goal is to shorten the useful lives of attacks and put a heavier burden on attackers who want to stay in business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Palo Alto Networks working to share threat intelligence

Palo Alto Networks is on board with industry-wide efforts to share threat intelligence and disseminate it so the collective knowledge businesses gather about threats can be quickly turned into defenses against new types of attacks.Its efforts include support for the new federal Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that lifts some of the liability businesses are exposed to if they share data about security incidents. If the data inadvertently reveals personal information but was submitted in accordance with the law, the contributor would not be legally liable.The company is also hammering out the details of the Cyber Threat Alliance it formed last year to gather threat information from security vendors and researchers that can rapidly and thoroughly unmask current threats. The goal is to shorten the useful lives of attacks and put a heavier burden on attackers who want to stay in business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Breaking down the Ivory Tower part 1 – Vision

Network engineers and operators may often feel themselves at odds with network architects, who live in ivory towers and make pronouncements from on high about how a network should be set up, but aren’t actually responsible for making it work. Now for those that have listened to the Datanauts show on VCDX certification (at around […]

The post Breaking down the Ivory Tower part 1 – Vision appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Breaking down the Ivory Tower part 1 – Vision

Network engineers and operators may often feel themselves at odds with network architects, who live in ivory towers and make pronouncements from on high about how a network should be set up, but aren’t actually responsible for making it work. Now for those that have listened to the Datanauts show on VCDX certification (at around […]

The post Breaking down the Ivory Tower part 1 – Vision appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Microsoft cites new EU personal data rules in support of email dispute

Microsoft has cited new European data protection rules in support of its claim that the U.S. government should use inter-governmental agreements rather than a warrant to force the technology company to provide emails stored in Ireland that are required for an investigation.The General Data Protection Regulation was adopted last week by the European Parliament with an aim to provide an unified data protection regime across member states. It was earlier adopted by the Council of the EU, and is to come into effect in a little over two years after its publication in the EU Official Journal. The legislation will replace the EU Data Protection Directive, which dates back to 1995.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft cites new EU personal data rules in support of email dispute

Microsoft has cited new European data protection rules in support of its claim that the U.S. government should use inter-governmental agreements rather than a warrant to force the technology company to provide emails stored in Ireland that are required for an investigation.The General Data Protection Regulation was adopted last week by the European Parliament with an aim to provide an unified data protection regime across member states. It was earlier adopted by the Council of the EU, and is to come into effect in a little over two years after its publication in the EU Official Journal. The legislation will replace the EU Data Protection Directive, which dates back to 1995.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

With the Hype around SDN- Is it Worth it in a Data Center?

With all the hype about SDN, we wonder: Is it worth deploying it in a data center? What goals does SDN meet? Is there a simpler way to achieve those same goals?

We think there is a better way, and it’s called Open Networking. And Open Networking is available today.

Vivek Venkataraman (my colleague and co-author of this blog) and I recently presented “Achieving SDN Goals through Open Networking” at the Open Networking Summit in Santa Clara, CA. The talk was well attended and interactive. We examined the goals of SDN:

  • Controlling costs
  • Achieving agility and flexibility
  • Easily enabling and encouraging innovation
  • Using the network as a platform

You can achieve all of these goals today in a more pragmatic and efficient fashion using Linux and Open Networking.

Controlling Costs

Reducing both CapEx and OpEx is always an important goal for any enterprise. First, Open Networking reduces CapEx by encouraging vendor competition and giving customers choice, all the way from the optics and silicon up to the OS and applications. The modular choice allows data centers to be designed to their exact business requirements, so customers pay for and deploy only the necessary hardware, features and applications that Continue reading

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