Tech Data said it will integrate Microsoft's new Office 365, mobility and security suite with the distributor's pre-configured Microsoft Azure-based cloud server for small businesses.

The Clearwater, Fla.-based company said it will be one of just five companies and the only distributor going live during the 2017 Microsoft Inspire conference with a system around Microsoft 365 Business that can be demoed, according to Reza Honarmand, vice president of Tech Data Cloud Europe.

"The Microsoft guys were extremely surprised we were able to turn it around," Honarmand told CRN. "We're very proud that we were chosen for this."

[RELATED: CRN Exclusive: Tech Data Gives SMB-Focused Partners A Leg Up With New Pre-Configured Microsoft Azure-Based Cloud Server]

Tech Data has been working very closely with Microsoft since April to integrate the Redmond, Wash.-based vendor's 365 Business into the distributor's small-business cloud server, which debuted last month, according to Stacy Nethercoat, vice president of Tech Data cloud solutions, Americas. The distributor is Microsoft's second-largest partner globally, and the market leader in many segments and geographies.

As Microsoft developed 365 Business, Nethercoat told CRN that Tech Data developed its connection into the vendor's end point, and completed its work in record time. The combined offering will be available to Microsoft partners by the fall through StreamOne, Tech Data's cloud aggregation, management and billing platform.

Integrating Microsoft 365 Business with Tech Data's small business cloud server will make it easier for channel partners and end users to move into the cloud rather than replace old hardware, Nethercoat said. Prior to the launch of 365 Business, Nethercoat said partners had to stitch Microsoft's Office 365, mobility and security capabilities together on their own.

Combining Microsoft 365 Business with Tech Data's cloud server will provide channel partners with more ongoing control and management over Windows Server 2016, Active Directory, and the Intune cloud-based management offering, Nethercoat said. This will make it easier for MSPs to manage the Microsoft environment, devices and data of their end-user clients, according to Nethercoat.

Tech Data's offering will also help facilitate connections between the Microsoft Office suite and third-party vendors, Honarmand said, with applications from such suppliers as Sage running on the distributor's small business cloud server and enjoying a connection to Office 365.

The integrated offering will benefit a wide range of channel partners that are responsible for either deploying instances of Office 365 or rolling out servers, Honarmand said. Nethercoat expects the joint offering to grow rapidly since it pulls together a complete, secure solution.

"The vast majority of our VARs would benefit from this," Honarmand said. "It can be a pretty good opportunity for VARs to upsell security into an Office 365 environment."

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Tech Data Tightens Cloud Integration With Microsoft To Unlock Simpler Experience For SMBs - CRN

Lexington Herald Leader

Retail apocalypse may jump start suburban renewal Lexington Herald Leader But the end of brick-and-mortar retail is certainly a concern, for a very different reason. Modern U.S. cities, especially the suburbs, are built around retail stores. If those stores evaporate into Amazon.com Inc.'s cloud servers, huge gaping holes ... and more »

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Retail apocalypse may jump start suburban renewal - Lexington Herald Leader

Cloud technology has changed the way we use computers, moving our software and data to the cloud instead of installed on our own devices. We worry less about our files knowing they are stored safely in a data center, encrypted and secure, spread across multiple drives for redundancy.

But what about the data centers themselves? Many people are concerned about privacy ever since Edward Snowden lifted the veil on NSA spying, let alone the threat of cybercrime, so how are cloud services protecting your data?

To answer that question, lets first take a look at what data centers are. You probably imagine a room full of computers and though thats not incorrect, its likely a little different than you might imagine.

Thats one of Googles many data centers. The company is very transparent when it comes to their data centers, revealing as much as they can without compromising security. They have such centers across the world to both ensure redundancy in the case of an outage and also to provide reliable connections to users irrespective of geographical location.

A data center is a centralized location for IT infrastructure, whether privately owned, for a companys internal IT needs, or whether it provides public services and infrastructure, such as Amazons Web Services. As you can imagine, centralizing all this equipment is risky without the proper precautions.

Data centers typically require at least the following to keep data safe:

Environmental controls: these are necessary to keep equipment cool, since a room full of high-powered technology generates an incredible amount of heat. Excess heat can lead to equipment failures and shorten the lifespan of server components.

Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS): in the event of a power outage, servers and other equipment must keep running to meet the data centers SLA, or service-level agreement. UPS units and backup generators can keep servers running until power is restored.

Security systems: to ensure the security and privacy of customers, data centers employ a wide range of security measures to prevent unauthorized access, including biometric access measures, locked server cages, surveillance systems, multiple forms of identification and some go so far as using mantraps a small room that connects an unsecured area to the secure data center.

Though those first two are worthy of their own respective articles, let us focus on security for now.

Though compiling a full list is practically impossible, these are the most common security measures you can find in any given secure data center.

One of the first lines of defense in any security plan is adequate surveillance. For starters, cameras installed around the perimeter of a data center are used to watch for suspicious activity. Inside, video surveillance acts as a record in the event of a security incident, while metal detectors ensure that hardware is not snuck into or out of the facility.

Most data centers will employ security guards inside the facility, but some such as Google and Apple have security guards that routinely patrol both the interior and exterior of their facilities.

Though it is unlikely that anyone will try and take a data center by storm, some companies arm their guards, further securing the premises.

Data centers are typically one of two styles depending on function and the needed security: single-purpose, or multipurpose. Multipurpose data centers are less secure, as they have other employees on site besides those responsible for the data center itself. They may contain adjacent offices for the business and arent usually used for sensitive data or infrastructure.

Secure data centers are built strictly for the purpose of housing IT infrastructure and are designed accordingly. Typically they are removed from the road, keeping a buffer zone around the site, including crash-proof barriers and security patrols.

Most do not have exterior windows and if they do they are typically made of bulletproof glass. Fire exits open strictly to the outside and there are a limited number of entry points, usually a front entrance and a loading area.

The interior is designed to separate the main data center area from any other rooms, such as a break room, entrance lobby or restrooms. Security increases the closer you get to the heart of the data center, requiring multiple forms of identification or access control.

Only authorized personnel should be allowed in these secured areas, where the servers, routers and other equipment live. To prevent unauthorized individuals from waltzing in and out with customer data or installing malicious hardware, data centers employ a wide array of access controls throughout a data center.

Google, for example, uses custom-designed electronic access cards and the closer you get to the data center floor the more sophisticated the authorization protocols get. The heart of the data center is only accessible via a security corridor that uses multifactor access control with badges and biometrics, with less than one percent of Google employees ever stepping foot inside the data center.

Mantraps are often employed to limit access to authorized individuals and prevent an criminals from tailgating, the practice of following someone closely to gain unauthorized entry to a secure area. Typically, a mantrap is a set of two doors with an airlock in the middle.

Both doors of a mantrap require authentication, such as a biometric lock or keycard, and only one door can open at a time. The area is kept under surveillance so that guards can identify any issues or stop someone from proceeding further.

Scales are used to measure visitors, and are sensitive enough to weigh someone and determine if someone leaving is heavier than they were upon entering, indicating they might be sneaking out stolen hardware. If the scale detects a difference, the door refuses to open and requires a security guard to bypass the locking mechanism.

For sensitive servers and equipment, separate rooms and cages or cabinets are used to segregate sensitive equipment from non-sensitive servers. Companies such as Iron Mountain allow customers to request CCTV cameras in the cage as well as custom fencing materials and other features, if needed.

This is just a few of the many countermeasures employed by data centers. Google goes so far as to build their own custom servers from the ground up, removing unnecessary hardware or features to reduce the attack surface. No one else has the servers that Google uses.

Other data centers may employ similar custom solutions, and dont disclose other security systems or countermeasures they employ to reduce the possibility of compromise. Security is, after all, serious business.

Hacking, malware and spyware are the obvious threats to your data, but few people stop to think of the physical aspect of IT security. Data centers take security to a whole new level. They are costly businesses to run and their entire purpose is to keep IT infrastructure up and running 24/7, secured from any and all possible threats.

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Now that you know the measures companies take to protect their servers, you can worry a little less about storing data in the cloud. The biggest weak spot in cloud computing is user errors, so take some time to learn how to create a strong password and learn how to encrypt your data, including texts and emails.

Thank you for reading and please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Data Center Security: How Cloud Services Keep Your Files Safe - Cloudwards

An employee of the Ukrainian Cyberpolice Department leaves the headquarters in Kiev. Silicon Valley companies helped keep information flowing during the cyberattack.

An employee of the Ukrainian Cyberpolice Department leaves the...

BORYSPIL, Ukraine - When departure information disappeared from the website of the main airport serving Kiev after last week's cyberattack, employees trained a camera on the departure board and broadcast it to YouTube. When government servers were switched off, officials posted updates to Facebook. And office workers turned to Gmail to keep businesses going.

As Ukraine's digital infrastructure shuddered under the weight of last week's cyberattack, Silicon Valley companies played an outsize role in keeping information flowing, an illustration both of their vast reach and their unofficial role as a kind of emergency backup system. Google's mail service has been keeping the lights on at some firms after their email servers went down, while Facebook is credited as a critical platform for digital first responders.

"Our war room, nationwide, migrated to Facebook," said Andrey Chigarkin, the chief information security officer at a Kiev-based gaming company and an active participant in the early hours of the online response. "All the news - bad, good - was coming through Facebook."

Facebook has a relatively low take-up in Ukraine, counting between 8 to 9 million monthly active users, compared with 10 to 15 million in Poland, a neighbor of roughly the same size, according to figures provided by analytics firm SocialBakers. But it's still a powerful medium there and is credited with being an accelerant for the protest movement that toppled the Russia-friendly leader Viktor Yanukovich in 2014. Today, government agencies regularly post official statements to their Facebook walls and press officers eschew emails to chat with journalists over Facebook Messenger.

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"Facebook in Ukraine is a big thing," said Dmytro Shymkiv, the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential administration and a former director of Microsoft Ukraine.

Shymkiv was among the many officials to post updates about the outbreak as it happened (to Facebook, naturally). In an interview at his office, he said that the cloud - a marketing term for the pool of sometimes free computing power offered by the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and many others - provided the safety and redundancy that many businesses in Ukraine lacked.

"It's a global backup," he said, adding that, as a former tech executive, he knew that Silicon Valley companies put an "enormous focus on the security of the cloud services."

Private businesses and government offices are still relying at least in part on Silicon Valley companies' email and chat services, mainly as a substitute for downed mail servers.

Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said the outbreak had shown that the Silicon Valley's "cloud" was much more resilient "than a Ukrainian physical server standing alone in a post office," a reference to one of Ukraine's worst-hit agencies.

But he expressed reservations about leaning too heavily on American computing power in times of need. After all, what would happen if a differently tailored cyberattack brought the cloud crashing down?

"Definitely we should build a much more sustainable network in case of emergency," he said. "We cannot just rely on Facebook as a backup."

Officials said Wednesday that Ukraine dodged a second cyberattack this week.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the second strike - like the first one - originated from servers at the Ukrainian tax software company M.E. Doc, which sheds a little more light on Tuesday's heavily armed raid on M.E. Doc's office and the seizure of its servers. Police said there were no arrests.

Ukraine has blamed Russia for the chaos. Kremlin officials routinely deny claims of electronic interference in Ukraine and elsewhere.

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As cyberattack hit, Ukrainians turned to Facebook and Google - Houston Chronicle