Category Archives: Cloud Computing
US Universities Face Challenges With Cloud Computing Education … – The Data Center Journal
Despite an increasing need for cloud computing skills in the global workforce, a large number of colleges and universities are slow to offer courses in this field, according to a new report from Clutch, a leading B2B research firm.
LinkedIn named cloud and distributed computing as their number one global skill of 2016, indicating a high demand for hiring in 2017. Yet, course offerings are still limited at many institutions of higher education.
Clutch interviewed four professors of cloud computing education from Cornell University, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University, and the University of North Florida. The objective was to gain insight into the current state of cloud computing education, as well as its benefits to students and most prominent challenges.
The professors indicated that, while cloud computing courses are increasing in prevalence at universities and colleges, they are still far from routine. Through the interviews, Clutch identified three main obstacles that may be hindering universities or colleges ability to implement a cloud computing course:
In regards to cost, Dr. Majd Sakr, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, said that negligent students led to runaway server usage costs in the early years of his cloud computing course. Typically, cloud computing services are paid for via usage and unless that usage is purposefully regulated, students can potentially accumulate high price tags on projects.
Furthermore, Dr. Ken Birman, a professor at Cornell University, says that cloud computing cannot be taught until its pace of development slows down.
As a purely pragmatic matter, we cannot teach the area until it begins to slow down and hold still for at least a few years at a time, he said.
However, fast-paced innovation may be an issue academia faces with increasing frequency in the future. The report suggests that cloud computings innovation will potentially never slow down.
Lastly, cloud computings recent emergence as a field means that universities and colleges may be slow to find available expertise to properly teach the subject.
Institutes of higher education can potentially address this issue by offering cloud computing training to current faculty, or by reaching out to industry leaders interested in teaching, according to Dr. Sanjay Ahuja of the University of North Florida (UNF).
Despite these obstacles, Dr. Ahuja of UNF, Dr. Sakr of Carnegie Mellon and Professor Kevin McDonald of Georgetown University say they are strongly in support of cloud computing education at universities and colleges.
Its becoming more important to understand cloud computing simply because its being adopted quite rapidly now, said McDonald. Having in-depth experience and knowledge of the cloud is probably a core competency going forward.
For the complete report, please visit: https://clutch.co/cloud/resources/cloud-computing-education-2017.
US Universities Face Challenges With Cloud Computing Education Despite High Workforce Demand was last modified: May 18th, 2017 by Press Release
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US Universities Face Challenges With Cloud Computing Education ... - The Data Center Journal
Keying Longshot Cloud Computing in the Preakness – America’s Best Racing
On Saturday, racing fans across the country will turn their attention to the $1.5 million, Grade 1 Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Maryland, the second leg of the Triple Crown. The race will also draw the attention of handicappers and bettors hoping to make a nice score on one of racings biggest days.
Naturally, all eyes will be focused on #4 Always Dreaming, winner of the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago. Trained by Todd Pletcher, the son of Bodemeister is 4-for-4 this year and hasnt been seriously challenged during that timeframe; furthermore, his Derby win was achieved in eye-catching fashion, as he tracked a solid early pace before taking command to win easily.
Being a speed horse, Always Dreaming is perfectly suited to the Preakness Stakes, which has a tendency to favor horses racing on or near the lead. If he repeats his Derby performance, Always Dreaming will be very tough to beat, though there are a few reasons to consider playing against him. For one, Always Dreaming received a pretty clean trip in the Derby, avoiding trouble at the start and staying clear of traffic while racing near the rail, which may have been the best part of the track. Hell also be a very heavy favorite in the wageringperhaps 3-5 or 4-5which means that playing him to win wont be very appealing.
Always Dreaming could also face a serious challenge from #5 Classic Empire, who finished fourth in the Kentucky Derby after a troubled start left him farther off the pace than usual. With a clean run, Classic Empire might have finished much better in the Derby (he actually ran about 9 lengths farther than Always Dreaming), and as the reigning champion 2-year-old, his talent is undeniable. Prior to the Kentucky Derby, he overcame a tough trip to win the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby with a solid late rally, which marked the third Grade 1 victory of his career. Hes very versatile in terms of running style, and might be just reaching his peak after missing a race and some training during the winter. Expect to see him much closer to the lead in the Preakness, which should give him every chance to run down Always Dreaming in the homestretch.
One longshot that I would strongly consider is #2 Cloud Computing, a lightly-raced colt trained by Chad Brown. Cloud Computing was late getting to the races and didnt debut until Feb. 11, when he won a maiden race sprinting three-quarters of a mile at Aqueduct while defeating the next-out winner Mineralogy. Off of that solid effort, Cloud Computing made his stakes debut in the March 4 Gotham Stakes, where he finished a strong second despite his lack of experience.
Cloud Computing auditioned for a potential Kentucky Derby run when he contested the Grade 1 Wood Memorial on April 8, but a slow start left him off the pace while racing over a track that favored front-runners. Under the circumstances, he had little chance to catch the leaders, but he did well to finish a clear third.
By skipping the Kentucky Derby to await the Preakness, Cloud Computing has had plenty of time to prepare for what will be his toughest race to date. And while its hard to say if he really wants to run this far, his pedigree suggests that the Preakness distance is within his capabilities.
Cloud Computing may also benefit from meeting a field that doesnt appear to have much speed on paper. In fact, according to Cloud Computings Brisnet pace figures (which attempt to quantify early speed), Cloud Computing is the most consistently fast horse in the Preakness field. I think he has a very big chance to finish in the trifecta, possibly even splitting Always Dreaming and Classic Empire for a spot in the exacta.
Since Cloud Computings morning line odds are solid (12-1), lets key him in our wagers to try and boost the potential payoffs while also considering the speedy Arkansas Derby runner-up #10 Conquest Mo Money on one ticket.
Wagering Strategy on a $20 Budget
$4 exacta: 4,5 with 4,5 ($8)
$3 exacta: 4,5 with 2 ($6)
$2 trifecta: 4,5 with 4,5 with 2 ($4)
$1 exacta: 2 with 4,5 ($2)
Wagering Strategy on a $30 Budget
$5 exacta: 4,5 with 4,5 ($10)
$4 exacta: 4,5 with 2 ($8)
$2 exacta: 2 with 4,5 ($4)
$2 trifecta: 4,5 with 4,5 with 2,10 ($8)
Good luck, and enjoy the race!
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Keying Longshot Cloud Computing in the Preakness - America's Best Racing
Microsoft Extends Cloud-Computing Arms Race to Africa – Wall Street Journal (subscription)
Wall Street Journal (subscription) | Microsoft Extends Cloud-Computing Arms Race to Africa Wall Street Journal (subscription) The data centers, which will serve customers of the software giant's Azure cloud-computing business, will be the first of their size built in Africa by one of the three major cloud-infrastructure providersMicrosoft, Amazon.com Inc., and Alphabet Inc ... Microsoft to open Africa data centers to seek edge in cloud computing Microsoft Just Made a Big Bet on Africa Microsoft beats Google and Amazon to announce first African data ... |
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Microsoft Extends Cloud-Computing Arms Race to Africa - Wall Street Journal (subscription)
How Alphabet Views the Cloud Computing Price Wars – Market Realist
Alphabet after 1Q17 Earnings: Verily, Waymo, and Smart Speakers PART 3 OF 17
Alphabets (GOOGL) Google seems to have changed its approach to its competition in thecloud computing market. The company says it doesnt intend to compete with Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), or Oracle (ORCL) in the cloud computing price wars to attract customers, according to a CNBC report.
Instead of engaging in price competition, Google wants to compete on value. For example, the company wants to pitch to customers that its Google Cloud Platform is the best option for data analytics and artificial intelligence services.
If Alphabet isnt going to try to gain an edge against the competition by pricing its cloud services competitively, then that would be a stark reversal from what the company did last year. In 2016, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google cut prices of some of their cloud services in a bid to attract new customers or in the case of the large providers, to defend their market share
AWS is the worlds largest cloud computing platform, controlling an ~31.0% share of the global market, according to Synergy Research Group. Microsoft holds a distant second place with ~11.0% of the market share. IBM (IBM) and Google appear to be underdogs with market shares of ~8.0% and ~5.0%, respectively.
Although Google is currently subdued by Amazon in terms of the cloud computing market share, the company believes its Google Cloud Platform could overtake AWS as the largest cloud provider by 2022. Googles hopes of becoming the cloud computing king in five years hinge on a research finding by Deutsche Bank showing that only 5.0% of cloud-eligible workloads have migrated to the cloud.
Revenues in Alphabets segment that reports cloud sales grew 49% to ~$3.1 billion in 1Q17, which compares with AWS revenues of $3.6 billion during the same period.
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How Alphabet Views the Cloud Computing Price Wars - Market Realist
How telecom is shifting its strategy to support cloud computing … – SiliconANGLE (blog)
Cloud computing has fundamentally expanded the realm ofpossibilities organizationscan accomplish with technology.While a lot of focus has been placed on the cloud technology and dataarchitecture advancements, the underlying telecommunications infrastructure is also seeing a shift in strategies to support the latest trends in cloud computing.
Cisco Systems, Inc., known for its hardware infrastructure deployments, is helping drive this shift. Ian Wells(pictured, left), distinguished engineer, cloud and platform services at Cisco Systems Inc., and Jerome Tollet(pictured, right), distinguished engineer, Chief Technology and Architecture Office, at Cisco Systems, are twoof the companys team membersspearheading this initiative.
Wells and Tollet spoke with host Stu Miniman (@stu) and guest host John Troyer (@jtroyer), of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Medias mobile live streaming studio, during OpenStack Summit in Boston, Massachusetts. They discussed theirtechnicalperspectives on virtualization and cloud computing.(*Disclosure below.)
Of all the advances in telecommunications infrastructure, the most important technology for advancing cloud computing is Network Function Virtualization, according to Tollet. NFV is becoming a first-class citizen for this community. At the beginning, people were kind of ignoring NFV, it was all about cloud. Now its becoming quite the opposite, he said.
NFV is the term used to describe the virtualization of functions that historically have been physical hardware used for things like intrusion detection and routing.As the adoption rate for NVF rises, so does the demand for more features, which can create bottle necks in development.
On the networking side, its always, Id like more functionality. Youll hear people talk about service chaining. MPLS [Multiprotocol Label Switching] comes up quite regularly, which is really integration with the rest of the service provider network, Wells said. We have a ways to go to really address the kind of general purpose model that would suit everyone.
Tollet also brought up a very interesting point about the redundancy and overheadassociatedwith a completely virtualized system.
Think in terms of two containers sitting on the same virtual compute node. Why do you need to create a packet? Why do you need to do crypto? Why do you need to do virtual LAN when the two applications are sitting on the same compute node? Tollet said.We have imported into the virtual world all of the concepts we have used in the physical world now I think we can do something a bit more efficient .
Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLEs and theCUBEs independent editorial coverage ofOpenStack Summit 2017 Boston.(* Disclosure: Cisco Systems Inc. sponsored this OpenStack Summit segment on SiliconANGLE Medias theCUBE. Neither Cisco Systemsnor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
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How telecom is shifting its strategy to support cloud computing ... - SiliconANGLE (blog)
Sundar Pichai Sees Google’s Future in the Smartest Cloud – WIRED
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Sundar Pichai Sees Google's Future in the Smartest Cloud - WIRED
Benefit-risk ‘tipping point’ for cloud computing now passed, says financial trading body – Out-Law.com
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which already hosts some applications in the cloud, said cloud computing has now "moved past a tipping point" whereby it offers greater benefits and fewer risks to traditional outsourcing arrangements.
Financial services and technology law expert Luke Scanlon of Pinsent Masons described DTCC's move as a sign that the barriers that dissuade many financial firms from utilising cloud-based solutions are diminishing.
"The DTCC, after a period of testing and detailed analysis, have here highlighted that some of the traditional reasoning as to why cloud services present significant risk such as concerns around security are no longer valid," Scanlon said.
"In 2017 we are certainly seeing a maturing of the discussion and more and more of a focus on the few remaining regulatory sticking points to cloud adoption, together with the practical concerns around achieving the levels of availability necessary to operate the core systems of financial institutions and utilities, liability and exit arrangements," he said.
In a new white paper it has published, which contained its strategy to leverage the cloud, the DTCC explained why it will move more of its applications and services into the cloud.
"DTCC has been leveraging cloud services for almost five years and believes the cloud represents a viable alternative to corporate data centres," it said. "The maturation, expanded offerings and enormous scale of the technology, resolve the privacy and security challenges of cyber-threats, potential flash crash type market disruptions and the cost challenges facing many financial firms today."
"DTCC believes cloud computing has moved past a tipping point, prompting the firm to pursue a strategy of building a cloud ecosystem with partner vendors that support best practices and standards. DTCC is taking this step because it is confident that the security, scalability, resiliency, recoverability and cost of applications in the cloud are better than almost any private enterprise could achieve on its own," it said.
"DTCC also believes that business services, delivered by applications written to take advantage of the infinite resources, resiliency, and global reach of the cloud, have a significant advantage over legacy applications using traditional models in private data centres. We believe that gap will continue to widen over time," the firm said.
DTCC said it plans to work with regulators to ensure that its cloud-based operations are compliant with "the highest and strictest levels of recommended controls and best practices" it is subject to.
Earlier this year,seven main hurdles to banks' adoption of cloud-based serviceswere highlighted in a joint report by Pinsent Masons and UK banking industry body the BBA.
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Benefit-risk 'tipping point' for cloud computing now passed, says financial trading body - Out-Law.com
CIOs getting the cloud message, new research affirms – Cloud Tech
More than nine in 10 UK CIOs and IT decision makers polled by Trustmarque say they plan to migrate their on-premise apps to infrastructure, platform, and software as a service clouds within five years.
The study, which took the opinions of 200 CIOs and senior IT decision makers from enterprises with more than 1,000 employees, also found that public sector CIOs were more likely to move quickly compared to their private sector counterparts.
Not surprisingly, cost saving was the biggest benefit according to the respondents, cited by 61%, alongside scalability (60%), and improving their business ability to deliver projects and new requirements (51%).
Almost half (49%) said that retiring existing infrastructure was the primary driver of cloud migration, with more than half of CIOs saying the complexity of their existing infrastructure is slowing down their plans.
CIOs and IT decision makers do clearly appreciate the benefits for their businesses from effective migration. However, many are wary of the potential pitfalls and challenges, said James Butler, CTO of Trustmarque.
Cloud-based models of IT delivery have a wide range of benefits that cannot be fully unlocked without transforming the architectural and IT organisation, which is never trivial, he added. Simple lift and shift projects are not enough to do that and may struggle to achieve a good return on investment.
Its vital customers put in place both the underpinning foundations for the new controls and operating models that are common across clouds, along with a holistic strategy that covers new innovation as well as the pre-existing IT estate.
With those in place they can safely build and deliver the application roadmaps to move to the cloud.
Trustmarque has frequently gathered CIO opinion on cloud adoption. In January, a report found that more than half (55%) of UK CIOs saw out of date capex models as the reason for slowing down their adoption of cloud services.
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CIOs getting the cloud message, new research affirms - Cloud Tech
Boston schools CIO Mark Racine takes hybrid approach to cloud computing – EdScoop News (press release) (registration) (blog)
The district is also developing a single sign-on platform to better integrate applications and data.
With nearly 60,000 students and a mix of traditional, charter and pilot schools, CIO Mark Racine is always looking for ways to make educational technology go farther for the faculty and families of Boston Public Schools.
Like many CIOs, Racine has his eye on cloud computing as the future of data management.
But with limited funding preventing an immediate full-on move to the cloud, Racine and his infrastructure team are still banking on a hybrid approach, he said in a recent interview with EdScoop. The approach provides scaling opportunities to relieve stress on the network, especially at certain high-traffic points during the school year.
He likened it to the 1-800-Flowers approach, the way flower companies will need to scale up for Valentine's Day, and then come back inside, Racine said.
We would move to the cloud tomorrow if we could, he said.
View more of EdScoop's interviews with innovative school CIOs.
Among other edtech initiatives, Racine said he and his 50-member IT team have also invested heavily in single sign-on technology, geared towards increasing connectivity across the district.
The technology is also aimed at building toward greater data integration. The platform will take authentication to all kinds of different learning apps, and allow us to take our Ed-Fi database and scale that data to all educational platforms as well, he said.
When an educational technology platform is working well in a classroom or school, we want to be able to bring that up to 130 buildings, he said.
Another big initiative underway for Boston Public Schools, according to Racine, is finding the best way to support the districts school choice program.
Boston schools offer parents the flexibility to walk into a family resource center, explore all the schools that are available to them, learn about the educational programming that's in that building, and then be able to make a choice on where they want to send their child.
The ultimate goal of this is to, as Racine says, Eliminate the amount of lost-learning time, through the process of integrating technology into school choice programs.
Ryan Johnston contributed to this report.
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Boston schools CIO Mark Racine takes hybrid approach to cloud computing - EdScoop News (press release) (registration) (blog)
Achieving compliance in the cloud – CSO Online
More and more organizations are moving towards cloud technologies for scalability, cost reduction, and new service offerings. In this short article we will review cloud basics and look at auditing for compliance challenges in the cloud.
Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.- The NIST 800-145 Definition of Cloud Computing
Lets review the deployment models:
Public Cloud- Cloud computing services from vendors that can be accessed across the internet or a private network, using systems in one or more data centers, shared among multiple customers, with varying degrees of data privacy control.
Private Cloud - Computing architectures modeled after Public Clouds, yet built, managed, and used internally by an enterprise; uses a shared services model with variable usage of a common pool of virtualized computing resources. Data is controlled within the enterprise.
Hybrid Cloud - A mix of vendor cloud services, internal cloud computing architectures, and classic IT infrastructure, forming a hybrid model that uses the best-of-breed technologies to meet specific needs.
Community Cloud - The cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns (for example, mission, objectives, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third party, and may exist on-premise or off-premise.
Service Delivery Models:
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Delivers computer infrastructure, typically a platform virtualization environment as a service. Service is typically billed on a utility computing basis and amount of resources consumed.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Delivers a computing platform as a service. It facilitates deployment of applications while limiting or reducing the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers.
Software as a Service (SaaS) - Delivers software as a service over the internet, avoiding the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computers and simplifying maintenance and support.
So now that we have reviewed the basics of deployment and service delivery, what does it all mean to be compliant in the cloud vs compliance on a traditional perimeter based corporate network? We also have to consider the business sector or compliance model and sometimes this is mixed. For example in healthcare its HIPAA compliance we are trying to achieve, In the credit card retail environment it's PCI DSS and in government it's FISMA or the NIST Cyber Security framework we must achieve. Of course healthcare uses credit cards to create a mixed compliance.
It's important to know where the responsibility is when working in the cloud. As we move from IaaS to PaaS and finally to SaaS, we see that the cloud vendor is responsible for more. For example in SaaS they are delivering it all. In IaaS they deliver the least so the rest is all your responsibility. The more they provide the more you lose control.
Some real challenges in working with a cloud environment are understanding the scope of the cloud environment, Can your current risk assessment work in the cloud? Audit trails in the cloud?
The key is to go with a risk-based approach and know that cloud-based risk is different. For example, the concept of a perimeter in a multi-tenant environment doesnt make sense anymore. Some examples: in service delivery risk, we must evaluate virtualization risk, SaaS risk, PaaS, and IaaS risk.
Then we need to look at deployment risk, business model risk and security risk just to name a few.
What we really need now is a map, this is getting too confusing right? Deloittes Cloud Computing Risk Intelligence Map is very helpful.
Take a look at data management in the cloud risk map. Notice that for data usage we have a lack of clear ownership of cloud generated data, and unauthorized access or inappropriate use of sensitive data, personal data or intellectual property. These are real-world issues with cloud computing because you dont have full control especially if you are in an SaaS environment. At the same time you must be able to apply the deployment and service delivery models to your actual compliance framework as in HIPAA, PCI DSS and FISMA for example.
SOC 1 is for service organizations assessments that impact financials, therefore let's look at SOC 2 and 3. SOC 2 is geared towards technology companies and allows the incorporation of other frameworks into the SOC 2 report. SOC 2 assessment consists of the Trust Service Principles (TSP) framework from American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) for evaluating a service organization's internal controls against the prescribed set of Common Criteria found in the TSPs.
SOC 2 assessments cover a wide range of controls such as operational, technical and information security controls. SOC 3 SysTrust/WebTrust also known as Trust Services, which are broad based and also from (AICPA). We are really talking about e-commerce compliance here! So SOC 3 covers e-commerce web servers and the systems that interconnect and support e-commerce business platforms.
Trust Services are a set of professional attestation and advisory services based on a core set of principles and criteria that address the risks and opportunities of IT-enabled systems and privacy programs. The following principles and related criteria are used by practitioners in the performance of Trust Services engagements:
In cloud environments, multiple partys data and services can exist on a single physical platform running virtual services for its customers. This creates several problems for security, compliance and audit, including:
Limited ability to control data and applications
Limited knowledge and no visibility into the degree of segmentation and security controls between those collocated virtual resources
Audit and control of data in the public cloud with no visibility into the providers systems and controls even in a private cloud that is privately managed, multi-tenancy is enacted at many layers, including storage, application, database, operating platform and hypervisor-based infrastructure. In other words, shared hosts, data centers and networks can potentially exist between the same and different organizations or internal business units. As such, it is critical that network segmentation is created securely with the ability to monitor any anomalies that may occur across virtual network boundaries.
The auditee in this case the cloud provider or consumer is required to produce compliance reports to prove that their security measures are protecting their assets from being compromised. Several open source and commercial tools, including security information and event management (SIEM) and GRC tools, that enable generation of compliance reports on a periodic and/or on-demand basis, exist in the market.
In cloud environments its important to know what is different in an onsite local computing environment vs cloud service providers. Who has responsibility and to capture this in an service-level agreement and system security plan. Nothing can be assumed. The fact that you are sharing a cloud environment to provide growth and on demand scalability means we must realize the issues related to sharing.
Just like renting a room out in your house changes your security, and privacy so too does sharing cloud computing resources. The NIST and Cloud Security Alliance Standards are mandatory to manage the ever changing and complex cloud environment. In both local and cloud environments we are managing risk and in the cloud its more complex, shared and dynamic.
For further reading on cloud virtual machine issues I recommend a paper titled TenantGuard: Scalable Runtime Verification of Cloud Wide VM level network isolation.
NIST SP 800-53, NIST SP 800-144, SP 800-30, Deloitte cloud computing risk intelligence map, ZCloud, Security Alliance Cloud Controls Matrix, ISACA Cloud computing Audit program, FedRamp Federal Risk and Authorization management Program.
References SANS
Deloitte
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