Category Archives: Cloud Storage
When data becomes dangerous, and what to do about it – SiliconANGLE News
Cloud storage has grown massively in the past few years. Simultaneous to that, organizations have been routinely targeted with ransomware, sometimes on a daily basis.
Still, theres so much more to go when it comes to the amount of data that needs to be moved to the cloud, according to Ed Casmer (pictured), founder and chief technology officer of Cloud Storage Security, a company dedicated to solving the security and compliance challenges surrounding data storage in the cloud. So when does data become dangerous?
I would just start by considering all data dangerous, Casmer said. But there are three particular cases to that. One is when the data is unknown, another is when its riddled with issues, payloads, you know, malware, and another is when it falls into the wrong hands.
Casmer spoke with theCUBE industry analyst Lisa Martin at the Cybersecurity AWS Startup Showcase event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Medias livestreaming studio. They dove deep into how data becomes dangerous and discussed how to ensure data is safe to use. (* Disclosure below.)
When it comes to challenges around data being unknown, sometimes it means that organizations really dont have a clue about what data they have in their environment, according to Casmer. There may be certain data paths, but outside of those paths, the organization really doesnt know what data they have.
If we talk about the second piece there, being riddled with payloads, the notion there is the stats prove to us and show to us that one in two organizations are being attacked by ransomware on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, he said. That is really frequent.
The third piece, involving data falling into the wrong hands, is typically a configuration issue. Its not as though someone has compromised a system and isnt always just a brute entry into the environment, Casmer noted.
It proves to us by saying, what data is being compromised? What data is being lost to customers? And it was really interesting findings that we worked with [Enterprise Strategy Group] on, and its about a third of the customers losing it from file stores, he said. Whether these are network file shares or these are block storage attached to computers, 34% of organizations are losing information from data lakes.
The number that might not be as surprising is that 42% of organizations are losing information from their software-as-a-service applications, according to Casmer. Thats whether its the SaaS application being compromised or how its been configured.
Theyre losing data. So, its a wide array of where people are losing their data, he said.
When it comes to the three classifications of data becoming dangerous, there are various business and security challenges at play. The first involves the notion of how people have adjusted to the cloud in general, according to Casmer.
We focused on compute in the early days, but now we have to focus on storage as well. When we look at the business challenges, were looking at areas where data proliferates massively, he said. Whether thats backups now that are being pushed to the cloud, its the notion of having infinite resources versus finite resources on-prem, where you couldnt just make tons of copies of data and put it in places because you didnt have the places to put it. Now you can.
The security team is now focused on data as much as they were on compute, according to Casmer. Where there was shadow IT before, now there is shadow data.
Its easy to make a copy of a production database and put it someplace to start running reports against and doing more activity against, Casmer said. But its very hard for the security team to understand whos done what with that data and how youre securing it.
In the end, much of this comes down to how business and security teams work together to push back against the dangerous nature of data. What that means is the company is seeking ways to empower both the business side and the security side, Casmer explained.
The business side wants visibility; the security side wants control. So, how is Cloud Storage Security helping with that? Well, we provide a tool that locates the unknown data, he said. You get that notion of, there is no more unknown data because you can find everything across all of your infrastructure.
The company makes sure that the data is safe to use but is also classifying it and ensuring it is not too sensitive. Of course, there are multiple ways to lose data, including the configuration aspect.
Were giving you a best-practices review of all of your data stores to say, Are you doing the right things with that data? he said. With a little bit of visibility, a bunch of control and a bunch of scanning or touching of that data to really tell you what you have, we can help those organizations solve both the business requirements, as well as the security requirements.
Heres the complete video interview with Ed Casmer, part of SiliconANGLEs and theCUBEs coverage of the Cybersecurity AWS Startup Showcase event:
(* Disclosure: Cloud Storage Security sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cloud Storage Security nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
TheCUBEis an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate thecontent you create as well Andy Jassy
THANK YOU
Read more from the original source:
When data becomes dangerous, and what to do about it - SiliconANGLE News
Storage and Data Protection News for the Week of September 15 … – Solutions Review
Solutions Review editors curated this list of the most noteworthy storage and data protection news items for the week of September 15, 2023.
Keeping tabs on all the most relevant storage and data protection news can be a time-consuming task. As a result, our editorial team aims to provide a summary of the top headlines from the last week, in this space. Solutions Review editors will curate vendor product news, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital funding, talent acquisition, and other noteworthy storage and data protection news items.
Watch this space each week as Solutions Review editors will use it to share new Expert Insights Series articles, Contributed Shorts videos, Expert Roundtable and event replays, and other curated content to help you gain a forward-thinking analysis and remain on-trend. All to meet the demand for what its editors do best: bring industry experts together to publish the webs leading insights for enterprise technology practitioners.
With the next Solutions Spotlight event, the team at Solutions Review has partnered with network solutions provider Cloudflare. Join this webinar to understand the profound impact DDoS attacks can have on an organizations bottom line and how investing in proactive defenses can yield substantial returns.
Read on for more.
For consideration in future storageand data protection news roundups, send your announcements to the editor: tking@solutionsreview.com.
Tim is Solutions Review's Executive Editor and leads coverage on data management and analytics. A 2017 and 2018 Most Influential Business Journalist and 2021 "Who's Who" in Data Management, Tim is a recognized industry thought leader and changemaker. Story? Reach him via email at tking@solutionsreview dot com.
View original post here:
Storage and Data Protection News for the Week of September 15 ... - Solutions Review
I went to Apples iPhone 15 launch 4 things you missed and the first is good news for your wallet… – The US Sun
GADGET news has been delivered thick and fast at this week's Apple event.
But there were four things you might have missed unless you were watching very closely.
The prices of gadgets are only on the big screen (check out our Apple event live blog) fleetingly.
And it's hard to know if you're getting a good deal unless you compare it to last year's products.
For Americans, the good news is that prices on the new iPhone 15 models didn't rise this year.
The iPhone 15 is $799, the iPhone 15 Plus is $899, and the Pro is $999.
Seemingly the only exception is the Pro Max for $1,199, versus last year's $1,099 model.
But Apple has increased the base storage from 128GB to 256GB for this unit, so the price is the same as last year's 256GB model.
In the UK, it's even better news.
The iPhone 15 is 799 and the iPhone 15 Plus is 899 both a 50 price cut versus the year before.
The iPhone 15 Pro is 100 less than last year's model at 999.
And the Pro Max is flat versus the year before at 1,199.
This was almost a blink-and-youll-miss-it moment but got huge cheers from the audience.
Apple is finally adding some higher-storage tiers for iCloud.
So if you're approaching the limits of your iCloud storage, you'll be able to upgrade to new 6TB and 12TB.
The bad news is that they don't come cheap.
For 6TB, you'll be paying $30 / 26.99 a month, and 12TB will cost a hefty $60 / 54.99 each month.
Of course these are iCloud+ plans, so you get bonus features like Hide My Email, Private Relay, and Family Sharing for cloud storage.
Another quick fire update came for the AirPods.
Like the iPhone 15, the new AirPods feature a USB-C port.
That means new MacBook, iPad, iPhone and AirPods models all use the same type of connector: USB-C.
This has unlocked a brilliant trick: charging your AirPods with your iPhone.
You can now use a USB-C to USB-C cable to connect an iPhone and AirPods to give your headphones a quick boost.
It's not clear how much iPhone charge this will drain yet, but it's a handy trick that could work in a pinch if your AirPods are out of charge.
Another fun upgrade comes with the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2.
Both smartwatches feature upgraded storage.
Back with the Series 5, Apple increased local watch storage to 32GB.
And now for the first time, the two new models feature 64GB of local storage.
It means you can cram even more music or podcasts onto the device and leave your iPhone at home when you're out for a run, for instance.
See more here:
I went to Apples iPhone 15 launch 4 things you missed and the first is good news for your wallet... - The US Sun
First Mile looks to connect you from almost anywhere to the cloud – RedShark News
How do you connect to the cloud when youre not near a fixed network connection? First Mile is an interesting new option to bridge that gap.
For all its ubiquity, the cloud can be tricky to connect with. Any internet connection is, by definition, connected to the cloud, but not all connections are equal to the task of handling video content - especially the high bitrate flavours associated with video production.
For fixed-location production, most buildings in most cities have perfectly adequate - and sometimes very fast - internet connections. But the further you get from population centres, the harder it gets to find a suitable pipeline to the cloud. You might also want to use an entirely separate network for security and performance issues.
Its easy to be lulled into a false sense of available connectivity by smartphones, but these are subject not only to the laws of physics but also to the operational and commercial priorities of mobile networks.
You might have noticed that, sometimes, your mobile signal can come and go, even if youre not moving. That shouldnt happen, but one reason it might is that networks have a fixed capacity. At busy times, if more people are trying to connect than the network has capacity for, it will - counter-intuitively - *reduce* the power of its transmitter until it is only in contact with the number of phones it can cope with. For everyone else, its tough, mainly because these outages are entirely unpredictable. It can happen when theres a traffic accident on a major road, causing everyone to phone ahead to say they will be late.
Networks can be strong in some areas and weak in others. Sometimes, youll find that your phone works well in a location, but the data SIM youre using to access cloud services is connected to a network without coverage.
If your production workflow depends on cloud services, then you need more than this. Combining mobile networks and LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellites can help, but no single mobile service can provide the sort of reliability you need if high bandwidth mobile connectivity is on your critical path. Nor can it match the security of a purposely designed network that always operates within a VPN tunnel.
If youre not already using cloud workflows, lets look at why you might want to. While early camera-to-cloud demonstrations were little more than a proof of concept, cloud workflows have now reached a level of proficiency where they are a viable option for any level of video production, and the advantages are enormous. The cloud is geographically agnostic. Its everywhere, subject only to a decent and reliable connection. It enables remote and collaborative working. You can set up teams across the globe (or across the street) and share media with them at any time.
With camera to cloud you can go from acquisition to publishing on social media - or even a news channel - within minutes. Atomos calls this From Lens to Likes, with good reason: if you can get your material published first, youll get the majority of the traffic. Youll get attention, engagement, and all the benefits of revenue that is proportional to views.
But there is still the question of how you connect to the cloud when even the fast mobile networks are designed for short, bursty, transactional data and not large, long media files. This is the problem that First Mile is designed to solve with scalable options for a wide range of operating scenarios. The companys mobile data products use professionally configured SIM cards, dedicated hardware and technical measures to ensure constant, high-bandwidth connectivity.
The easiest to understand is blending. Unless youre in a cave or a lead-lined room, youll probably get some kind of mobile signal. You might also be in the WiFi range, but the signals unreliable. Blending can spread the data load - and the risk - across multiple, diverse networks. To users, blending is transparent - it just feels like a fast, reliable connection. Whats happening under the hood is that software running on your comms device analyses the current state of multiple networks and allocates your data across them to smooth out differences in data rates and to give a net increase in the available bandwidth - and reliability.
With 5G, which is an entire family of technologies unified around the goal of improving bandwidth and latency, with the appropriate mobile network account - not usually available to consumers - its called network slicing, and it makes it possible to reserve a fixed portion of the network bandwidth for you and your team. It means that there will never be contention between multiple users as they cant encroach on your reserved patch of the data connection.
Beyond this, there are dozens of tricks of the trade and qualified users only tweaks and setups that are only available to companies with a deep level of competence in network configuration.
Frame.io is driving the industry towards a camera-to-cloud workflow, with companies like Atomos, Teradek and Sound Devices releasing hardware and software products that specifically embrace the cloud. Real-time cloud storage company LucidLink is among those underpinning remote, collaborative editing, bringing the prospect of cloud-only workflows closer to every filmmaker.
But if you have no fixed WiFi or physical network connection - usually the case if youre away from home or on location - then First Mile Technologies can make an incredible difference to your ability to use super-productive cloud production workflows. You can start *editing* while shooting, work collaboratively with your teams - wherever they are, and even deliver your edited content directly to social media or even a newsroom.
Check out First Mile Technologies at https://firstmile.tech/
Read the rest here:
First Mile looks to connect you from almost anywhere to the cloud - RedShark News
Manage cloud waste and high costs with automation – TechTarget
Cloud cost management shouldn't be an afterthought for your organization. Manually analyzing usage and growth patterns, allocating costs and conducting cost snapshots are time-consuming activities, prone to human error.
Organizations can automate ways to detect, track and report abnormal cloud activities to keep your cloud spending within budget. The benefits of automating cloud cost optimization include the following:
Read about the manual tasks automation can take off your to-do list and the helpful automation tools to consider.
There are several cloud cost management tasks that teams should automate to reduce human error and improve efficiency.
Right-sizing instances enables organizations to eliminate overprovisioning and allocate resources optimally, reducing cloud waste. To identify underutilized or oversized instances, implement automation, and analyze performance metrics and utilization data. Some tools can recommend appropriate instance types based on workload requirements, as well as automatically resize instances to optimize cost and performance.
Discounted instances can also cut costs. Automated tools can analyze usage patterns and recommend the optimal number and type of instances. These tools can often track the expiration dates of existing reservations and provide alerts or automate the purchasing process.
Automating cost data collection from cloud service providers using scripts or third-party tools saves time. It doesn't require human intervention, while retrieving and consolidating cost data from multiple sources into a centralized system or dashboard.
Cloud cost allocation, especially chargeback, is too important to risk human error. Automating cloud cost allocation enables teams to automatically analyze usage data and predefine allocation rules to automatically assign costs to departments, projects or cost centers. This eliminates the need for manual data manipulation and enables organizations to deliver reporting automatically at a regular cadence -- every week or month.
Locking down policy enforcement with automation enables organizations to implement resource usage policies and rules for countering cloud waste. For example, organizations can set an automated policy to enforce tagging standards, ensuring all resources are correctly labeled for cost allocation and management purposes.
Cloud teams can shut down or scale down resources during nonbusiness hours or periods of low demand with scheduling features and automation scripts. Automating lifecycle policies can manage data retention, archiving and deletion for storage resources.
Automated reporting tools can generate cost reports, dashboards and visualizations based on predefined templates or customizable requirements. These tools eliminate the need for manual data manipulation and analysis. Automated tools help guide cloud teams to deliver appropriate and actionable data to their stakeholders.
Using automation features can help detect unusual spending patterns or unexpected cost increases. For example, automated systems can monitor spending against budget thresholds and send alerts or notifications to relevant stakeholders when costs exceed predefined limits. Additionally, there can be alerts for potential issues or misconfigurations, helping prevent costly leaks and enabling proactive cost management.
Despite the expertise of FinOps teams, making cloud cost optimization recommendations requires automation. Implementing AI-powered cost optimization tools enables teams to analyze historical cloud usage patterns, identify cost-saving opportunities and provide actionable recommendations.
Tools can help in the journey to automate cloud cost management. Consider the following:
View post:
Manage cloud waste and high costs with automation - TechTarget
Apple unveils its biggest iCloud storage tiers – here’s what it means for you – TechRadar
Apple has just announced a significant expansion to its iCloud+ cloud storage plans in response to our continuously growing digital footprints.
For the first time ever, customers can now sign up for allowances much larger than 2TB from the get-go thanks to the launch of new 6TB and 12TB plans.
The announcement, which saw little actual screentime, was somewhat overshadowed by the reveal of Cupertinos latest hardware: the iPhone 15 family and Series 9 and Ultra 2 versions of the Apple Watch.
iCloud+ is one of the most commonly used cloud storage services of its kind, thanks to the way it neatly integrates into all of Apples hardware, including iPads and Macs. Beyond the free 5GB allowance, users can choose to expand to 50GB, 200GB, and 2TB - at a cost.
From September 18 (the same time that iOS is set to go live), iCloud+ subscribers will be able to upgrade their storage to a 6TB plan for $29.99 / 26.99 / AU$44.99 per month, or to a 12TB plan for $59.99 / 54.99 / AU$89.99 per month.
Until now, users seeking more than 2TB have needed to pay for an additional 50GB, 200GB, or 2TB at the usual set price.
Apple confirmed that the two new plans will still get access to premium features, such as Private Relay, Hide My Email, Custom Email Domains, and HomeKit Secure Video, but its unclear whether these more expensive plans will get any additional benefits. The company did not immediately respond to TechRadar Pros request for confirmation.
Given the huge emphasis on Apple's environmental work for this years devices, its decision to encourage customers to upgrade their storage seems a bit counterintuitive. Data centers are notorious for consuming large amounts of energy, water, and other resources. We asked the company to shed some light on this, too, but so far, we have not received a response.
Follow this link:
Apple unveils its biggest iCloud storage tiers - here's what it means for you - TechRadar
iCloud+ adds a 6TB and 12TB storage plan – TechCrunch
Image Credits: Apple
Slipped at the end of its announcements for a new line of iPhones, Apple revealed two new tiers for iCloud+, its cloud storage subscription.
Now subscribers can store 6 terabytes or 12 terabytes of data with these new subscription tiers. While the average consumer wont need that much space, these plans could be useful for photographers and filmmakers, who are getting big camera upgrades on the new iPhone 15.
Catch up on all of our Apple Event 2023 coverage here.
But apparently lots of people need lots of storage, because these new iCloud storage plans got the biggest round of applause of the day.
Currently, subscribers pay $0.99 per month for 50 GB of cloud storage, $2.99 per month for 200 GB, and $9.99 per month for 2 TB. Based on the existing price structure, we can guess that the 6 TB and 12 TB subscriptions will run, at most, $30 and $60 per month, respectively. For purposes of comparison, Googles cloud storage plans for 5 TB and 10 TB of data run $24.99 per month and $49.99 per month, respectively, so theyre in the same ballpark.
iCloud+ subscribers also get existing privacy features like Hide My Email and Private Relay.
See the article here:
iCloud+ adds a 6TB and 12TB storage plan - TechCrunch