Category Archives: Cloud Storage
Kaminario ports storage software to the public clouds – Blocks and Files
Kaminario has adapted its VisionOS storage software for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform and claims it offers cheaper storage and more services than the cloud vendors native offerings.
Kaminario is the first block access array vendor to port its storage array software to all three public clouds. The company said it provides a consistent storage facility covering on-premises all-flash array SANs and their equivalents on AWS, Azure and GCP.
Kaminarios Flex container orchestration and information services run across these environments as well as its Clarity management and AIOps service.
CEO Dani Golan claimed in a press briefing this week that no other supplier has this level of private and public cloud orchestration. The service enables customers to avoid storage and storage service lock-in to any public cloud supplier, he said.
Kaminario signalled its hybrid multi-cloud intentions in December last year. At the time CTO Eyal David said: There needs to be a data plane which delivers a common set of shared services that enable companies to decouple the management and movement of data from the infrastructure it runs on.
Flex and Clarity form that data plane.
Kaminario said it can provide a 30 per cent or greater cost-saving compared to the public clouds own block-access storage services. It suggests customers with 100TB storage or more in the public cloud could benefit from the service.
Derek Swanson, Kaminario field CTO, said VisionOS in the public cloud thin-provisions storage meaning you pay for what you use. In contrast, the cloud providers thick-provision storage i.e. you pay for what you allocate. Also snapshots in the public cloud are full copies whereas Kaminario snapshots are metadata-based and almost zero-space. This saves a huge amount of money compared to native public cloud snapshots, according to Swanson.
Storage performance in the public cloud typically rises with allocated capacity, he said. But Kaminario decouples storage from compute in the public cloud so you could have high-performance and low-capacity Kaminario storage in the cloud.
Golan said Kaminarios hybrid multi-cloud capability means it no longer competes for legacy SAN business with suppliers such as Dell EMC, NetApp or Pure Storage.
According to Swanson, Pures Cloud Block Store, with its active:passive controllers, is slower than Kaminarios VisionOS in the public cloud and lacked data services. Also he pointed out that Pure uses proprietary hardware for its on-premises arrays, and this is not replicated in Cloud Block Store, again making it slower.
NetApps Cloud Volumes services were also limited compared to Kaminarios offerings, Swanson argued. He said NetApps Cloud Volumes lacks active:active symmetric controllers, unlike Kaminario, and so is a slower performer than VisionOS.
Blocks & Files expects Kaminario to add support for tiering data off to public cloud archive services, such as Amazons Glacier, with an S3 interface. File-level access protocols might also be supported.
Swanson and Golan said other public clouds would be supported in the future.
Kaminario was founded in 2008 and has taken in $218m in funding. The initial product was the scale-up and scale-out K2 all-flash array. The company separated itself from hardware manufacture in January 2018 with a deal for Tech Data to build certified appliance hardware.
Later that year it embraced Western Digitals composable systems. The company began moving to a subscription-based business model in mid 2019 and now it is 100 per cent subscription-based and cashflow-positive, Golan said.
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Kaminario ports storage software to the public clouds - Blocks and Files
History of Backup and Storage: See How Far We’ve Come – Small Business Trends
Storing just 3.75 megabytes, yes megabytes, took a hard drive that weighed over a ton and was 16 feet tall. Today you can hold terabytes of data in the palm of your hands, which makes them extremely vulnerable to theft or just losing them.
A new infographic from Acronis developed by NowSourcing titled, Backup And Storage Through The Ages looks at the concerns about backup, security, and privacy as the amount of data being generated continues to grow.
The issue of data security and backup is especially concerning for small businesses who are not implementing the proper security protocols. More than half or 58% of small businesses are not ready for data loss. Furthermore, 60% of small businesses with a data breach or loss shut down within six months.
As businesses increase their digital presence with everything from payment systems to websites, the protection of the data has to be paramount. Losing this data or worse, having it fall into the wrong hands could also mean the end of your business.
According to the Better Business Bureau, the average annual cost of cybercrime to small businesses is $79,841.
One of the best ways to protect your data is with a hybrid local and cloud backup. Additionally, you have to deploy a cybersecurity solution with a combination of antivirus, firewall, spam filter, data encryption and password management.
All of this effort requires strong governance to ensure everyone in your company adheres to measures you have put in place.
Even though the 3.75 megabyte of data of that behemoth was small, the magnetic disk drive IBM invented allowed random data access. Eventually the technology made it possible for smaller floppy disks measuring eight inches and storing 80KB of data in 1971.
Coincidentally, the first computer virus called Creeper was also created in 1971. The virus was an experiment and not for malicious use. However, it ushered in a new era in digital security.
By 1978, backup and disaster recovery solutions came into the market. More than cybersecurity, the fear was power outages. But a decade later the Morris worm had infected 1 in 10 internet-connected computers in 24 hours. The solution to get rid of the virus by organizations was to wipe their systems clean.
This incident was responsible for introducing virus detection software along with a new generation of hackers. And it didnt take long for the first known ransomware to demand money. In 1989, Dr. Popp spread through infected floppy disks. After 90 days, the malware locked the infected computer and demanded a payment of up to $378. This led companies to start backing up their data for security reasons.
By 1990 database vendors were offering data backup solutions. As more companies came online, protecting their data was becoming a priority. With its Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform and pay per use pricing, in 2006 Amazon came up with cloud storage.
Amazon was taking over a segment no one was addressing, and by the time Google, Microsoft and others came around, Amazon controlled the majority of the market.
By 2010 ransomware was now part of the global digital threat landscape as were other cyber threats, and companies started to spend a considerable amount on IT security.
According to Acronis, by 2025 the amount of data stored worldwide will reach 175 Zettabytes. And most of this information is going to be in cloud-based data centers.
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning increasing the value of all data, protecting this information is going to be more important. This means having integrated security will become even more essential.
No matter how small your business is, you have to take the protection of your data seriously. The reputation of your company is riding on it. And If people cant trust you with their data, they will find someone they can.
Take a look at how far weve come over the history of backup and storage in the infographic below.
Image: Depositphotos.com
Excerpt from:
History of Backup and Storage: See How Far We've Come - Small Business Trends
Pentagon watchdog finds Defense Department behaved appropriately but doesn’t rule on White House influence over controversial cloud contract – CNN
While the report said that the IG investigation was unable to find any evidence of White House interference in the process, the report noted that Pentagon lawyers blocked witnesses from providing information about their communications with the White House about the hotly contested contract.
"When we sought to interview Secretary Esper and Deputy Secretary Norquist, the DoD OGC advised us that they would not answer questions related to any communications with President (Donald) Trump, members of the President's staff, or other White House officials," the IG report says, referring to the Defense Department's Office of General Counsel.
"The witnesses were instructed not to answer any questions about communications between DoD officials and the President or White House officials regarding the JEDI contract," the report added.
The IG report does say that while the Defense Department lawyers eventually told the investigators that White House lawyers would be willing to provide some written responses to questions, the investigators did not accept those terms, saying "written responses would not allow for direct follow-up questions and would not ensure that we received direct answers from the witnesses."
Amazon Web Services lost the contract to Microsoft's Azure cloud business in October following a late Pentagon review, a decision that surprised many industry experts. Amazon filed a suit with the US Court of Federal Claims contesting the decision, arguing that it was politically motivated by Trump's dislike of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post, which Bezos owns.
However despite allegations that the White House pushed the contract to Microsoft the report said that the investigation found "that the DoD personnel who evaluated the contract proposals and awarded Microsoft the JEDI Cloud contract were not pressured regarding their decision on the award of the contract by any DoD leaders more senior to them, who may have communicated with the White House."
The report did say that the investigators "could not definitively determine the full extent or nature of interactions that administration officials had, or may have had, with senior DoD officials regarding the JEDI Cloud procurement because of the assertion of a 'presidential communications privilege,' which resulted in several DoD witnesses being instructed by the DoD Office of General Counsel not to answer our questions about potential communications between White House and DoD officials about JEDI."
The Pentagon issued a statement welcoming the report's findings while ignoring the report's comments about Defense Department lawyers prohibiting defense officials from being asked questions about communications with the White House.
"The Inspector's General final report on the JEDI Cloud procurement confirms that the Department of Defense conducted the JEDI Cloud procurement process fairly and in accordance with law," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Robert Carver said in a statement.
He added that "the IG's team found that there was no influence by the White House or DoD leadership on the career source selection boards who made the ultimate vendor selection."
The Pentagon's declaration of victory comes about a month after it told a court handling a challenge that it wished "to reconsider its award decision in response to the other technical challenges presented by AWS," it said in a court filing, referring to Amazon Web Services.
The contract -- called Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI -- involves providing cloud storage of sensitive military data and technology, such as artificial intelligence, to the Department of Defense, and could result in revenue of up to $10 billion over 10 years.
The contract, which many top defense and military officials see as critical to bolstering how the military shares information and data collected on the battlefield, has been subject to multiple twists and turns.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper had to recuse himself from the review and several DoD officials were accused of impropriety in the handling of the contract.
The DoD IG report was only able to substantiate two of those allegations, that a Pentagon official who was in personal employment contract negotiations with Amazon during the early stages of the project award and that another defense official participated in discussions while owning stock in Microsoft.
The report said that neither episode of misconduct affected the conduct or outcome of the JEDI Cloud source selection.
Canon Quietly Rolls out Its New Mobile App and Cloud Service – Fstoppers
Without any fanfare, Canon appears to have launched its new mobile device application and cloud service, canon.image. Like most manufacturers, Canon does not have a great record when it comes to mobile applications. Will this new service be an improvement, and is it about to change the way that camera apps operate?
Canon describes image.canon as a free cloud service designed to ease your imaging workflow, allowing you to seamlessly upload all of your videos and movies in their original format and quality. You can then access them from the app or from a web browser.
Once online, you can download photos and videos to other devices, and connect them to Google Drive or Flicker. As of June this year, you will also be able to connect the service with Adobe Creative Cloud and Google Photos.
Registration takes a few moments, though you will need the serial number of a Canon camera or SELPHY printer to hand. Everything that you upload will be kept for 30 days, with the option of storing original, high-resolution files for longer, with a capacity of up to 10 GB.
From ten minutes of playing, it's evident that this is an entirely new type of service offered by a camera manufacturer. While needing refinement, it does feel that theres potential for the future, especially as a means of storing and backing up images on the go, and sharing those images afterwards. Its possible that Canon is yet to make an official announcement as of yet because its still under development.
The interface certainly feels fresher and easier to navigate than previous apps, and it strikes me as a promising move, especially when camera manufacturers have been so slow to build a bridge between clunky old-fashioned cameras and the world of cloud storage and social media.
If you give it a try, let us know your experience in the comments below.
Excerpt from:
Canon Quietly Rolls out Its New Mobile App and Cloud Service - Fstoppers
Oxygen OS vs One UI: A thorough comparison of the two popular Android skins – Android Authority
There are many folks out there who swear by stock Android. While we will agree that many Android skins tend to be bloated and poorly designed in comparison, some skins work so well that they transcend stock Android to become something even better. Today, were going to look at two of those skins in a kind of face-off event: Oxygen OS vs One UI.
Oxygen OS is the Android skin used exclusively by Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus. The skin debuted on the OnePlus One after the failure of the companys partnership with Cyanogen, Inc. and its Cyanogen OS, which originally powered the One. Oxygen OS is all about simplicity with an experience as close to stock as possible while offering only the most important of extra features.
One UI is the Android skin used exclusively by South Korean smartphone maker Samsung. Most would consider it the third iteration of its original Android skin, which was known as TouchWiz. That skin eventually became Samsung Experience which itself evolved into One UI. Samsungs Android skin is all about options it allows the user to do pretty much anything they would want at the cost of simplicity and that stock Android feel.
Related:What is stock Android?
In the Oxygen OS vs One UI debate, you might already know which side youre on. However, some people out there may have only ever used Samsung devices and might be curious to know what all the fuss is about when it comes to Oxygen OS. Conversely, some people may have abandoned Samsung for OnePlus back in the TouchWiz days and would like to know what One UI is like. Hopefully, this article will answer any questions you may have!
Without further ado, lets dive right into the Oxygen OS vs One UI examination!
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If we had to compare the Oxygen OS vs One UI debate to another bout, the best comparison might be macOS vs Windows. While macOS is slightly more limited when it comes to features and compatibility as compared to Windows, it is generally accepted that it is easier to use and more intuitive. On the flip side, its generally accepted that Windows is more powerful and versatile than macOS at the expense of simplicity and usability.
If you accept that comparison, Oxygen OS is more like macOS and One UI is more like Windows. If you were to pick up a OnePlus phone and just start swiping around aimlessly, youd probably think you were using stock Android since its so simple and lean. You definitely would not get the same feeling from a Samsung phone as the look and functionality of One UI is drastically different and positively overflowing with options.
Finding the best computer mice for your needs can make a huge difference in comfort, performance, and precision. There's a sea of options, so we can understand how frustrating finding the right option can be.
If you come away from this article with only one thing, that should be it. Oxygen OS does only what OnePlus thinks youneed to do while One UI offers everything Samsung thinks youwant to do.
Both approaches to Android will have their ardent supporters (and detractors). However, always remember that not everyone uses their smartphone the way you do and some people might appreciate the other system more than the one you prefer!
With all that in mind, lets break down the major aspects of an Android skin and look at Oxygen OS vs One UI in each one!
By default, both Samsung and OnePlus offer up pretty much the same thing here. If you dont have any notifications, the ambient display will show you the time, date, and your current battery level. If you have some notifications, the related icons will show up here, too.
The major difference is the options you have for customizing the ambient display. OnePlus offers a total of four options: the default (as shown above), the same thing but with an analog clock instead of the four numbers, just the analog clock, or nothing at all.
Related:OnePlus finally commits to delivering an always-on display
Meanwhile, Samsung offers tons of options here. Not only does One UI come with nearly a dozen built-in layouts from which you can pick, but you can also download even more from the Galaxy Store. Additionally, you can choose the fonts and colors of each aspect of the ambient display screen.
On a related note, One UI also offers an always-on display (AOD), which is off by default on the Note 10 Plus. This is similarly customizable if you choose to activate it. So far, Oxygen OS doesnt offer AOD at all.
Once you get out of the ambient display you enter the lock screen. Once again, by default, Samsung and OnePlus offer pretty much the same thing here. The only major difference between the two defaults is that OnePlus offers a shortcut for voice commands (through Google Assistant) in the lower-left corner. In One UI, Samsung has a shortcut to the dialer in the same spot.
As one would expect, though, Samsung offers plenty of customization features for the lock screen. You can change those two bottom apps to be whatever you like, for example. If you dont like the lack of security with those shortcuts, you can use the floating button setting which forces you to unlock your device with your fingerprint before swiping to one of the two app shortcuts.
You can also add Face Widgets to your lock screen in One UI, which brings in specialized widgets created by Samsung. Check the screenshots above to see some options you have there.
To its credit, Oxygen OS does allow for you to make changes to the lock screen such as wallpaper (naturally), the way your notifications show up, or even disable notifications altogether. You can also add a brief message to the lock screen such as your contact info (should your phone get lost) or an inspirational quote. However, One UI also offers these settings.
To leave the lock screen and actually gain access to the phone, youll need to unlock it. Depending on which device you have, there could be different options for either One UI or Oxygen OS. However, there will be a lot of crossovers.
Both Android skins offer plenty of ways for you to unlock the phone, including a PIN entry, a swipe pattern, a text password, and the very insecure face unlock (since Samsung and OnePlus have yet to roll out phones with 3D sensors on the front, this isnt an advisable option). If you dont care much about security, you can also choose to just swipe out of the lock screen or even deactivate it all together, as both skins have these options.
Related: Face Unlock easily defeated with photo in over 30 smartphone models
Almost all newer Samsung and OnePlus devices also feature fingerprint scanners, whether they be under the display or elsewhere. This is also an option with One UI and Oxygen OS.
In both skins, you can also choose how the lock screen is activated. For example, how fast after the display goes to sleep do you want the phone to lock itself? The default is five seconds, but you can make this shorter or longer. You can also choose whether or not hitting the power key (which will immediately put the screen to sleep) locks the device or not in both skins.
The only thing you can do with One UI that you cant do with Oxygen OS is turn on Auto factory reset. This will wipe your phone including all personal data if there are 15 incorrect attempts to unlock it. Be careful with this one!
Once youve unlocked your smartphone you hit the home screen. Its actually pretty incredible how similar One UI and Oxygen OS are out-of-the-box here. Although things are re-ordered a bit and Samsung has a few more app icons by default, the layouts have basically the same information and available functions. OnePlus five default dock apps are essentially the same as Samsungs four (OnePlus just throws in its Gallery app), theres a Google search bar, and even the weather widgets look very similar.
Notably, Microsofts cloud storage service OneDrive has a very prominent placement on the One UI home screen by default. This is likely a Note 10 exclusive as Samsung and Microsoft partnered up significantly for the business- and productivity-focused smartphone. The Galaxy Store also gets some prominent home screen attention on One UI.
Related:15 best Android launcher apps to make your home screen perfect
Outside of the dock, OnePlus only offers a folder of Google apps and a Play Store shortcut on the home page, which lines up well with its less is more approach.
If you want to tweak the way your home screen looks, youll need to head into settings on both Oxygen OS and One UI. Here is a list of things you can do on either Android skin:
Here is a list of things you canonlydo with Oxygen OS:
Finally, here is a list of things you canonly do with One UI:
Keep in mind that all of this information is for the default Oxygen OS and One UI launchers. There are tons of third-party launchers available from the Google Play Store that will give you different options.
From the home screen on either Oxygen OS or One UI, you can long-press on some empty space and pull up the home screen settings. Were going to break down each aspect of the various settings here.
Basic settings
Samsung offers a few extra functions here as compared to OnePlus. With One UI, you can add blank home screen pages easily by swiping right and clicking the plus button. Were not sure why you would ever want blank home screen pages, but One UI gives you that option. You can also easily delete home screen pages regardless if they have content in them or not.
If you swipe left in the home screen settings page on One UI you can enable or disable Bixby Home or Samsung Daily, depending on your device. This feature acts sort of like OnePlus Shelf feature (both of which we talk more about in the Miscellaneous section below).
Related:Samsung One UI 2.0 review: A subtle update for Android phones
Meanwhile, Oxygen OS doesnt offer either of these features. To control how Shelf works, you need to go to the main Android settings section. You also cant add blank home screens here. To add a new home screen page, you need to drag an icon from the main home screen to the right which will auto-create a new screen. If you empty out that screen it will auto-delete as Oxygen OS doesnt let you have blank home screens.
One thing Oxygen OS does offer that One UI doesnt here is the ability to quickly arrange a home screen pages icons in a left-alignment. If your icons are scattered about, this is a nice way to auto-organize things.
Wallpapers
Both Oxygen OS and One UI have quick shortcuts to their respective control centers for changing wallpapers. Here you can easily change the lock screen wallpaper or home screen wallpaper, regardless of which skin youre using.
Oxygen OS has a special setting here called Shot on OnePlus. This online-based repository of photos is (naturally) filled with images from photographers using a OnePlus device. You can submit your own photos here if you choose and using any of the Shot on OnePlus files as wallpaper is free.
One UI offers something else called Wallpaper Services. Here you can program your lock screen wallpaper to change constantly between photos in various categories. If you want to do even more with your wallpapers, you can hit the Explore more wallpapers button and visit the Galaxy Themes store where you can browse through free and paid theming aspects to install on your phone.
Widgets
Samsung and OnePlus took very different approaches when it comes to organizing widgets. Oxygen OS presents widgets in a very simple way: a vertically-scrolling list in alphabetical order. It doesnt get much simpler than that.
One UI uses a horizontally scrolling system with six widget categories on each page. If you tap a widget/app category, a new page appears with the widgets in that category. It makes things a little easier to sort through but theres a lot more tapping involved.
The one aspect here where Samsung undoubtedly wins is the fact that theres a search bar at the top of the One UI widget selector screen. Oxygen OS has no ability to search for widgets for some reason.
Theming
Oxygen OS has a theming section called Customization. However, it is not accessible from the home screen settings page youll need to go to Android settings to find it.
One UI, however, offers a quick shortcut to its theming section in the home screen settings area, appropriately called Themes. All this does, though, is open up the previously mentioned Galaxy Themes store where you can find free and paid themes to install.
A quick swipe up anywhere on the home screens of either Oxygen OS or One UI will bring up the app drawer. For some strange reason, though, when using One UI on the Galaxy Note 10 Plus, a swipe down also opens the app drawer by default. Logic dictates this should instead bring down the notification shade, but it doesnt out-of-the-box. Thankfully, you can change that with a tweak in settings. You can also choose to add a tappable button to the home screen that will open the app drawer in One UI.
Once youre in the app drawer, Oxygen OS offers a nifty feature here that One UI lacks. If you swipe left while youre in the app drawer youll find a section called Hidden Space. Here, you can hide apps that you dont want to appear in your app drawer. This is useful for hiding the few bloatware apps that come on some OnePlus devices (since you cant uninstall them) or keeping private apps hidden from anyone who might pick up your phone and start scrolling around. You can even lock Hidden Space behind a password and quickly access it from the home screen by using two fingers and sliding in an outward motion vertically.
Related:The 15 best Android apps available right now
One UI doesnt have something quite like Hidden Space, but it does give you the ability to simply hide apps. However, there isnt an easy way to then access all the hidden apps, which is the real benefit of Hidden Space.
As far as app drawer organization goes, Oxygen OS simply lists out your apps in alphabetical order while One UI allows you to set your own custom order. Because of this, theres also an option to clean up your pages and quickly remove any empty spaces you may have left behind when you were reorganizing.
Oxygen OS only has one option for the layout of its app drawer: a vertical-scrolling list with five columns of icons resulting in 30 apps per page. One UI has horizontal-scrolling pages and allows you to choose how many icons appear on each page, with the minimum being 20 and the maximum being 30.
Thankfully, both app drawers have a search bar at the top, which is essential for anyone who finds themselves with hundreds of apps installed on their phone.
A large portion of the pre-installed apps that come with a OnePlus phone are made by Google. Chrome is the default browser, Google Pay is the default wallet app, Gmail is the default email app, and on and on.
OnePlus does pre-install some of its own apps, though. Theres a weather app, an app designed to help you move your data from another phone, and an app that links to the OnePlus community forums. These three apps can be uninstalled if you dont want them.
Related:Does bloatware drain your battery?
The only third-party, non-Google app that is pre-installed on OnePlus phones is Netflix, which can be easily disabled if you dont want it. It cant be uninstalled.
Finally, there is one app that OnePlus includes with its phones that is a duplicate of what a Google app already offers, living up to the definition of bloatware. The OnePlus Gallery app which has a limited feature set when compared to Google Photos cant be uninstalled. You can disable it and set Google Photos as your default app, though.
When it comes to One UI, pre-installed apps run rampant. There are different apps pre-installed on different phones so you may or may not have them all. Here is a list of the Samsung apps on a Galaxy Note 10 Plus that you cannot uninstall or even disable:
With these apps, the only thing you can do is hide them. They will still be active in the background and taking up internal storage space.
Additionally, Samsung includes a bevy of Google and Microsoft apps as well as Netflix and Facebook. Some of these apps can all be either disabled or fully uninstalled, but some can only be disabled, such as Facebook.
The bottom line when it comes to apps is that Samsung really, really wants you to use its proprietary apps while OnePlus leaves it mostly up to you.
When it comes to organizing your apps into folders, both Oxygen OS and One UI offer almost identical options. Regardless of the platform, you can drag two apps together to automatically create a folder. You can then name that folder whatever you like and then add or remove apps from it to your hearts content.
In both skins, you can also create folders for the home screen and for the app drawer independently. Or, you can make one in the app drawer and drag it onto the home screen to create a duplicate. However, the copied folder will then become independent, i.e., adding an app to one wont automatically add that same app to the other.
The only difference here is that, in One UI, you can change the background color of a folder. Oxygen OS does not have this option.
The notification shade is probably one of the most important and defining aspects of Android. As such, the way an Android skin organizes and displays the information here is incredibly important.
Obviously, both skins will show you all your notifications here. You can also swipe notifications away or long-press one to see additional options related to that application. However, the design of the shade as well as what information is shown there differs across each skin.
First pull
When you pull down the notification shade the first time, both Oxygen OS and One UI show you similar info. The first six Quick Settings tiles show as well as the date, time, and status bar information. Both skins also give you a quick shortcut to jump to Android settings, depicted as a small gear icon.
Although there are differences in how the two Android skins layout this info, they each have access to all those features.
As usual, though, One UI goes the extra mile and shows more information as compared to Oxygen OS. Theres a power shortcut that quickly takes you to the restart/shutdown menu, a link to the Samsung Media center (from which you can control media playing on your phone and other linked devices), and a link to the Samsung Devices center (from which you can control said connected devices).
Second pull
When you do a second pull of the notification shade in Oxygen OS, you see a few more Quick Settings tiles, a shortcut to edit your Quick Settings tiles, a brightness slider, and a quick link to the User section of settings. That last feature allows you to create different profiles for your phone, say one for you and another for your kid or one for your job and one for while youre at home. You can easily swap from one profile to another without ever leaving the notification shade.
Thats it for the Oxygen OS skin as far as the notification shade goes. One UI, on the other hand, basically explodes the notification shade with features once you make that second pull.
By default, One UI on the Note 10 Plus gives you 28 Quick Settings tiles in your notification shade, with potentially dozens more available depending on which apps you have installed. It also brings in a search shortcut (that combs through your apps and internal storage), a brightness slider, and an overflow menu with more settings tweaks.
In the overflow menu, you can change the order of the Quick Settings tiles, turn off the previously mentioned Samsung Media and Samsung Devices shortcuts, move the brightness slider so that it appears even with just one pull, and take a shortcut to tweak the status bar icons.
When you hit the recent apps button from the navigation bar (or use the appropriate gesture), youre taken to the recent apps screen. Here, you can see the last app you viewed as well as all the apps you currently have open. You can also swipe away individual apps by flinging them up to the top of the screen or hit a button to close all the apps at once. This is all the same regardless of which skin you are using.
Oxygen OS gives you a few extra options here, though. At the top right corner of each recent app is an overflow menu. When you tap it, you can choose to lock the app (which prevents it from being closed out when you hit the clear all button) or put the app into split-screen mode. Theres also a shortcut to the apps info page within Android settings so you can force stop it, uninstall it, see how much data its used, etc.
As usual, One UI offers all those same features. However, it adds a few more. Notably, it puts a search bar at the top of the recent apps screen so you can quickly find an open app. It also shows four icons at the bottom of the screen for which the operating system thinks you might be searching.
If you tap the app icon at the top of its recent apps card, you can see more settings for the app. This includes the same stuff we saw in Oxygen OS with the additional features of changing the apps aspect ratio and opening it in pop-up view.
By default, both One UI and Oxygen OS show you the classic three-button navigation bar with a circular home button in the middle and the recent apps and back buttons flanking it on either side. For whatever reason, though, Oxygen OS has the back button to the left while One UI places it to the right.
Thankfully, in both skins, you can swap the button layout to your preference (although the home button must remain in the center).
Interestingly, this is an area where Oxygen OS offers way more features than One UI. First, you can choose to hide the nav bar. This doesnt revert your system to gesture navigation (which well get to in a minute), but rather simply hides the bar when you dont need it. A simple swipe up from the bottom of the screen brings it back and tapping a new button on the nav bar will hide it again.
Related:How to use gestures and gesture-based navigation in your Android app
You can also customize the long-press and double-tap actions of each of the three buttons, giving you a total of six different action shortcuts you can execute just from the nav bar alone. You can do things like open up Google Assistant, turn off the display, open/close the notification center, and more. Unfortunately, you cant do things like open a specific app or launch the camera, you need to stick with the seven options OnePlus offers you.
Meanwhile, One UI locks you into its preset options for the nav bar. That includes launching Google Assistant with a long-press on the home button and quickly swapping to the previously used app with a double-tap of the recent apps button. There are no options for the back button.
Googles gesture navigation
Both Oxygen OS and One UI offer gesture-based navigation options in case you dont want to use the classic three-button layout. The gestures in both systems are the ones developed by Google for Android 10 in which you swipe up on a thin horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen to go home, swipe in from the sides to go back, swipe up and hold to see recent apps, etc.
Oxygen OS offers a unique interesting feature here which allows you to hide the horizontal bar if you think its an eyesore. Without the bar, though, you cant use it to easily swap apps. Instead, you use OnePlus own gesture navigation to perform this function (throw left or right after swiping up). Well touch more on OnePlus gestures in a second.
In One UI, there are a few more options. You can choose whether or not you want to see gesture hints, which is useful if youre just getting acclimated to the system. You can also choose the level of sensitivity of the gestures, show a button to hide the keyboard, and, on the Galaxy Note series, block the use of gestures while youre using the S Pen.
OnePlus gesture navigation
Oxygen OS has its own gesture navigation option that is independent of Googles. Samsung used to have a proprietary gesture system but removed it when Google went all-in on gestures for Android. If you like the idea of gestures but not the way Google does it, Oxygen OS offers a compelling alternative.
The rest is here:
Oxygen OS vs One UI: A thorough comparison of the two popular Android skins - Android Authority
QQQX: Technology And ‘High Yield’ To Beat The Markets After We Beat COVID-19 – Seeking Alpha
Co-produced with "The Value Portfolio"
Adjusting one's portfolio post COVID-19 is key for future performance. We recently highlighted in a report right here on Seeking Alpha which sectors are set to outperform. While some sectors will emerge as very challenged ones, others are set to strongly outperform based on new facts of life including social distancing and an increased trend of working from home. Today, investors are offered the opportunity to start looking beyond COVID-19 and allocate their portfolio opportunistically.
As witnessed since the emergence of the virus and related lockdowns, usage of smart devices, and demand for additional Internet bandwidth and cloud storage, has surged. We believe that this is a trend that will continue in the future. Business owners and managers will reassess the need for employees to commute to the office. This is true today given that the business community was given a chance to test the efficient of work from home. Some functions will need presence in the workplace, but for others, working from home can result in cost savings (reduced office space) and possibly increased productivity. I'm sure many employees value this freedom. Furthermore, small businesses may decide that a separate office to operate is not a bad idea after all.
These are just a few examples of many technologies that have gained advantage today, and this is incredibly important because many of these companies have better services than their peers.
A great way to add a diversified exposure to these great companies is through Nuveen Nasdaq 100 Dynamic Overwrite Fund (QQQX) which is a closed-end-fund with a focus on the largest tech companies.
QQQX is one of the most interesting funds on the market at the current time. The fund attempts to replicate the Nasdaq 100 index while using Covered CALL options to generate significant income for shareholders. Since the start of the year, the fund is down more than 20% vs. 11% for the Nasdaq 100. That disconnect, combined with the potential of tech, and the fund's income generating abilities make the closed-end-fund a powerful investment opportunity.
Credit: Technology Trends - Forbes
One of the most substantial aspects of QQQX is the index fund it attempts to replicate, the Nasdaq 100. The Nasdaq 100 drove a substantial part of this recent bull market gains due to the power of companies like Apple (AAPL), MSFT, AMZN, and GOOG. The strength of these companies is unrivaled, with an unmatched ability to generate cash.
More importantly to their long-term sustainability, the companies each have unmatched moats around their businesses. Amazon's AWS, Google, the iPhone, Microsoft Windows, etc., are all products that would take a well-capitalized company decades to potentially usurp. More importantly, not only would potential R&D competitors be competing against some of the worlds best capitalized companies, theyll be competing against some of the heaviest R&D spenders.
Source: R&D Spending by Company Idea to Value
The above image shows the worlds top 25 companies by R&D spending in 2018. Many of the names on here are the leading names on the Nasdaq 100 such as AMZN, GOOG, MSFT, Intel (INTC), AAPL, Facebook (FB), and so on. This heavy R&D spending and strong financial portfolio mean that these companies have an effectively insurmountable market position that will lead to continued dominance and shareholder returns.
As stated above, because of COVID-19, many of these companies are benefiting. The data released since the start of COVID-19 shows massive growth in the demand for many of these companys products.
At the end of the day, many of these companies benefit in an unprecedented way from the shutdown, and will continue to benefit. People spending more time at home, working remotely, but also using the Internet, will help all the companies.
Fundamentally, when Internet traffic has grown by double-digit percentages, no one would expect the top internet companies not to benefit.
When investing in a closed-end fund, its important to understand the companies that make up its top holdings. For QQQX, we want to highlight that at the current time the companys share price is at ~6.7% discount from its NAV.
Source: QQQX Top 10 Issuers Nuveen
The above image shows Nuveens top 10 issuers. Together, they make up a substantial 64% of the companys portfolio. The classic big tech companies make up an astounding 49.6% of the companys portfolio. Thats important because, as we discussed in the above section, all these companies stand to benefit significantly from the current COVID-19 crisis.
More importantly, these are some of the largest and financially strongest companies in the United States. Outside of AMZN, every company in the top five has tens of billions worth of cash and the financial ability to comfortably handle a recession. That means the chance of any significant percentage of QQQX going bankrupt is nearly zero. The only way that would happen is if a significant percentage of U.S. companies go bankrupt.
Some investors must be wondering, how does QQQX provide investors with almost an 8% yield while owning technology stocks only yielding several percent?
Source: QQQX Option Portfolio Nuveen
The company achieve these returns by utilizing short-term options. The company sells covered CALLs on the stock it holds. That means that if the stock price goes up, investors get their shares called away from them. However, if the stock stays constant or goes down, investors get to keep the additional income. At the same time, in a volatile market, with high option prices, the income can be much higher.
For example, FB stock is currently $158 / share. Right now, CALL options with a $160 strike price for FB stock and an April 17, 2020, expiration date are trading at ~$5.6 / share. Thats an annualized yield on options of 85%. Clearly, investors are pricing in significant volatility into the companys share price. In our current environment, the company will generate significant cash flow due to volatility, while continuing to hold onto quality stock.
QQQX shareholders get broad exposure to technology in a market where they stand to grow significantly in the long run. However, there's one significant downside to this strategy, one that well discuss further in our shareholder return scenarios below. That means, in a market where the Nasdaq 100 is growing rapidly, QQQX could consistently see its stock called away limiting upside.
For those who invest now, lets discuss QQQXs potential shareholder return scenarios.
Source: QQQX Hypothetical Growth Nuveen
The above image shows the growth of a $10,000 investment in Nuveen since 2007. For those who had simply invested in the Nasdaq 100 that $10,000 would be worth ~$42,000 or roughly $10,000 more. However, theres significantly more to the story thats important to pay attention to here especially for income-based investors.
So, investors might be wondering, why invest in QQQX, a fund that has underperformed the Nasdaq 100 index since its inception.
The reason to invest in QQQX is because the past several years represented QQQXs largest weakness. That is, due to the funds covered CALL option strategy, the fund underperforms in a market that's rising rapidly. However, its worth noting that until the 2016-2019 tech bull market, QQQX performed in line with the Nasdaq 100. From January 2007 to February 2016, investors in QQQX saw roughly the same return as the Nasdaq 100.
Since we do not expect the equity markets to gain rapidly over the coming months, as it did in the 2016-2019 tech bull run, we see the chance of QQQX repeating this underperformance compared to the Nasdaq index (QQQ) as low. In fact, QQQXs option strategy outshines in a volatile market where the premiums on options are high. Thats great because we do expect volatility to remain in the markets over the coming months.
Whats important to pay attention to here is the 8.7% dividend that QQQX has paid out across this time period. In 2008, during one of the worst market crashes, it took investors only a year to recover their original investment. However, throughout that time, they continued to earn 8.7% cash flow from options.
Going forward, in down markets, which tend to be more volatile, investors will see returns go up as option pricing increases.
Going forward, there are three scenarios for investors to pay attention to:
Scenario 1 Market declines or stays constant
In this scenario, QQQX will continue to drop along with its NAV while continuing to earn income. As we discussed above, income from options should increase significantly, as investors price in more volatility for options. Those who invest today should earn a steady dividend yield of almost 8%, not affected by dividend cuts by the companies, and will see less volatility than the Nasdaq 100.
Scenario 2 Market goes up
In this case, the rate of an increase really matters. In the event of rapid increases, the technology company shares held by QQQX will regularly get sold through options. That sell price will likely be lower than the current price, meaning that QQQX shareholders will, on average, earn less on a percentage of the portfolio. However, since we view the chance of the market going straight up over the next year as unlikely, this is a less realistic scenario.
Scenario 3 Market goes sideways
In such a scenario, QQQX will also greatly outperform since it's generating income from its call strategy.
One of the reasons why QQQX is such an interesting investment is because it outshines the broader market from a risk perspective in every scenario except the scenario where the market is going up rapidly. In a massively volatile market, like the current one, it can be expected to outperform. The only other risk not discussed here is bankruptcy, but by being composed of the 100 largest companies in the Nasdaq, the company has no significant bankruptcy risk it can basically be expected to track close to the S&P 500.
In a scenario where markets are steady, investors are getting a 7.5% yield from selling these covered tech options.
In a scenario where markets are dropping, investors see the same drop, but gain significant cash from the selling of covered options. That means investors see a lower drop than the broader market.
In a scenario where markets are recovering, QQQX sees its stock holdings called away at lower prices, meaning the recovery isnt as strong as the broader market.
However, investors who invest today in QQQX not only have strong income perspective, but they dont need a specifically-timed market recovery to outperform. That means you get paid to wait. As the markets recover, investors realize strong capital gains from some of the strongest companies in the United States.
Our daily lives and the way of work will look much different after COVID-19. Some aspects will change permanently. We have identified in the article above a few of the tech giants that set to greatly benefit from this future trend. Investing in QQQX is one way to do it.
QQQX has seen its share price drop, along with all other companies, as a result of the bear market, making this CEF trade at significant relative discount to its historic NAV. Furthermore, QQQX has several things going for it that make it an exciting investment. Among these is the fact that it's a technology-driven investment and technology stands to outperform in the current market environment.
QQQX has a unique ability to generate high income on top of its capital appreciation potential. Today, it offers a 7.5% yield thats secure and not dependent on the dividends or financial performance of the companies it holds. In fact, during periods of volatile markets, the amount of income that this CEF generates gets a huge boost.
By investing in QQQX, you are repositioning your portfolio to beat the markets as we beat COVID-19.
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Disclosure: I am/we are long QQQX, AMZN. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
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QQQX: Technology And 'High Yield' To Beat The Markets After We Beat COVID-19 - Seeking Alpha
Lost in translation and adrift in cloud storage – The Register
Who, Me? Welcome to a cautionary Who, Me?, a warning to all those lured by the promises of the cloud storage giants and a language lesson for all.
Our story concerns "Dirk", who at the time of our tale was hard at work in a Netherlands IT department. Dirk himself didn't actually speak much Dutch; his first language was English but that was more than enough to get by with in the land of clogs, windmills and dikes.
Having enjoyed a few relatively peaceful months in the job, Dirk told us he was "getting on with tidying up the systems and dealing with the technical debt that had accumulated since the last Big Cleanup a number of years previously."
"One such system," he said, was "cloud-based storage." The vendor was a well-known giant of the industry, but for the purposes of this story, Dirk called it "Poodle"
The task that day was dealing with obsolete accounts, not just from a security standpoint, but also due to licencing costs and, he said ruefully "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Dirk ploughed through obsolete accounts until he came to one with an odd name: "beheerder". Perhaps an amusing play on "beheader" by some long gone techie? Or something to do with "herding" files? Dirk checked in with his predecessor, who gave the digital equivalent of a shrug. The account had been around since things had been set up back in the day, but nobody had used it in ages.
Indeed, it had been well over a year since anyone had actually logged in using the account. The password was reset and the mailbox scrutinised.
"Perhaps some more notice should have been made of the fact that at one point it was receiving system error messages," sighed Dirk, "but what use is hindsight?"
Anyhow, the messages seemed to have stopped recently and the rest was just junk. To keep things spick and span the account was deleted and, as was standard practice, all files transferred to Dirk.
He thought no more about it until a fortnight later when he decided "to move all those transferred files to the new-fangled Poodle 'Shared Drive'." Heck, everyone else's documents were due to moved there at some point ("with the correct access permission set," he added.)
Dirk clicked "Ignore" on the standard "Files accessed by other users may be affected." This would prove to be a fateful click.
After 20 minutes, one of his colleagues to call to complain that they couldn't access one of their files.
A coincidence, surely. But Dirk began to feel the arse-swooping sensation of dread that something awful might be happening.
Perhaps a little later than he should, Dirk took a closer look at the files being moved. He looked a little closer since some were still in progress. He poked further, down two or three folder levels and saw something that looked familiar.
"Horrifyingly familiar. In fact, it almost looked exactly like the core folder structure that everyone in the office used."
A little more investigation and Dirk realised that he could skip the "almost."
As his stomach sank through the floor, Dirk realised "that over the next few hours file access will disappear for all users."
"It wasn't immediate," he added "because file storage is cloud-based and sometimes it takes its own, undefined, time to do large file moves."
The helpful interface afforded no way to stop the hellish process of borkery. In a panic he called the cloud vendor, observing: "They're rather large and helpful in inversely proportional quantities."
And, of course, they couldn't help. For whatever reason, "there didn't appear to be a way to pause or stop the oncoming slaughter. Everyone was going to lose access to their files."
Having told the increasingly anxious users that there was a "small" problem, Dirk peered at the unfolding carnage he had inadvertently wreaked upon the company's files:
"Some were still in the old location, and some were in the new location."
He tried to move the files again. And again. On the third try he got some response; the system helpfully told him that it was "moving files", but without any kind of countdown of progress bar.
"Empty folders were being created," he told us, "and since the system was still progressing the previous move requests things got very complicated - sometimes files were moving and sometimes not. And sometimes the files were copied before they were moved. On the plus side Poodle Drive would happily create folders before deciding whether or not to copy the files, so that's something isn't it?"
What had happened was that the user "beheerder" had created the root folders back in the day, and other users had created subfolders. A little too late, Dirk discovered that the Move function he had used "only affects folders that you have ownership over. This doesn't include subfolders you didn't create."
"Suddenly," he said "there was a smorgasbord of folders spewn around the system. Some stuff stubbornly in the old location, and some stuff in new locations. Hundreds of gigabytes of data in fact. Smeared everywhere."
The good news was that was a backup, so nothing was actually lost. The only challenge was decide to "Restore" or "Restore with File Permissions." Fearing what would happen to existing files, he restored without those permissions. At least then he'd be able to see all the files and put them back correctly. He could then tidy up the folders and set the correct access levels.
"It took a month," he said.
"Hindsight says that I should have checked out the other option too, but maybe next time(!)"
Our tale ends happily. The users were eventually happy. The storage was tidy. Dirk, while he obviously paid wasn't overtime for his efforts, survived. He also learned to take things a little slower and think a little harder about what those messages were telling him.
Heck, he's even learning Dutch.
Apparently, "beheerder" means "administrator".
Ever been bitten on the behind by cloud storage, or gaily skipped past a message box without fully understanding what it was telling you? Sadly, it is all too common. Share your tale of woe with the sympathetic vultures at Who, Me?
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Lost in translation and adrift in cloud storage - The Register
How to combat insider threats as organisations increasingly rely on cloud computing to telecommunicate – TechRadar
Cloud providers including Microsoft, Google, and others, have recently acknowledged that they are struggling to deal with a spike in remote tools usage.
As organisations hastily adapt for remote working, they might fail to ensure adequate data security. In particular, cloud usage increases the risk of insider threats as 53% of organisations believe detecting insider attacks is significantly harder in the cloud than on-premises, according toa recent report. Therefore, it has never been as important as it is today for organisations to implement proper measures to mitigate the insider threat to protect data in the cloud.
Firstly, remote employees use cloud applications to exchange data, including sensitive data, and could misplace it in insecure locations which could lead to a compliance violation. For example, sharing sensitive data via Microsoft Teams an increasingly popular application for telecommunication will result in data spreading across SharePoint Online storage with a high risk of unauthorised access. In fact, 39% of the UK respondents to our recent survey are sure that employees in their organisations share sensitive data via cloud applications outside of ITs control.
Secondly, remote employees often work from their personal devices which are not controlled by the corporate IT team, and as such are more prone to data breaches than their corporate PCs. Such devices are often unpatched and, therefore, vulnerable to cyber threats. Once an attacker has a foothold in the employee's device, they have "remote control" and can observe and leverage any outgoing connections from this. Essentially, they can gain access to all corporate cloud services the user connects to or even to the corporate network on-premises as soon as the user establishes their VPN connection or remote desktop (RDP) session to any internal servers.
In addition, an employee might lose his/her device, or let other family members use it, which will result in unauthorised access. In some rare cases, employees copy sensitive data to their personal devices from corporate cloud storage with malicious intent, which also is a serious security risk.
In normal circumstances, before asking employees to work from home, an organisation should ideally develop proper security policies with a specific focus on cloud security. First and foremost, it is critical to ensure that all user permissions to storages with sensitive data are granted on a 'need-to-access basis to prevent insiders from accessing the information they do not need to do their job.
In addition, it is important to establish effective access controls as well as efficient identity verification methods such as multi-factor authentication, which will also protect organisations sensitive data in the cloud from unauthorised access.
And last but not least, it is critical that the IT department trains employees on cloud dos and donts, starting from the principles of dealing with sensitive data and ending with instructions for patching and securing their personal devices. All such measures should be implemented on an ongoing basis, with the IT team being ready to support employees with any issue when they work from home, whether its an operational problem or security issue.
If an organisation does not know where its sensitive data resides in the cloud, it cannot ensure that remote employees are following security policies. This is particularly challenging as modern organisations use multiple clouds.
In fact, McAfee has calculated that an average enterprise uses around 1,427 distinct cloud services, while an average employee actively uses 36 cloud services at work. The more cloud services remote employees use, the more challenging it is for an organisation's IT team to track how they handle data. It means an increased risk of misplacing sensitive data and the bad PR and compliance findings that come with that. To reduce data overexposure, it is critical to have technologies in place to automatically discover sensitive data across multiple cloud storages and classify it according to its sensitivity on a continuous basis.
As the cloud is prone to a broad range of threat vectors for data exfiltration by insiders, it is critically important for an organisation to detect such cases in a timely manner. Is it malware trying to break into the corporate network, or an insider aiming to steal customer database? All these cloud security risks, and many others, are accompanied by anomalies in user activity. Therefore, if an organisation uses cloud computing and cloud storage, it is important to have user behaviour analysis (UBA) technologies in place that can detect deviations from normal user behavior and alert an IT team about potential cloud threats.
Examples of the most common anomalies that indicate a threat include abnormal logon activities (such as attempts to log on from multiple endpoints, multiple subsequent logons in a short period of time, and an unusually high number of logon failures); or data access patterns differing from the user's past behaviour or that of their peers. It is important to note the shift from office work to remote access will probably cause initial changes in users' access patterns. Businesses can expect a higher than normal number of false positives from Machine Learning-based behaviour anomaly detection solutions in the first couple of weeks after users move away from their central offices.
Such measures will help organisations minimise insider threats in the cloud not only during the worlds largest work-from-home experiment, asTime has dubbed the COVID-19 outbreak, but also when it comes to an end. With the subsequent economic recession that is likely to follow, cloud computing will remain a cost-effective way to run a business. A sustainable approach to cloud security will enable organisations to avoid unwanted data breaches and hefty compliance fines in the long run.
Matt Middleton-Leal is EMEA & APAC General Manager at Netwrix
See the article here:
How to combat insider threats as organisations increasingly rely on cloud computing to telecommunicate - TechRadar
What the breakup of data management and storage means to you – TechTarget
In this era of digital transformation, organizations of all sorts are becoming data-centric information managers. Technologies such as AI, IoT, 5G and edge computing are creating data at unprecedented rates. That data is being used to deliver more insights, services, customized services, products and innovation. And stricter privacy laws and regulations on personally identifiable information with harsh financial penalties for noncompliance are complicating the situation.
For organizations that want to derive value from data that's greater than the cost of storing and using it, effective data management and storage is becoming more important than ever. The abstraction of data management from storage systems to run on its own is one approach to better data management.
Data management has several meanings depending on the vendor. It has been defined as ingesting, storing, organizing and maintaining the data an organization creates. But that definition is outdated. It's adequate as data management for legacy storage systems; however, even that falls short for modern storage systems.
Data management today means considerably more, including:
That's quite a bit for a data management system to do -- and do well. Remember, the most important responsibilities of a data management and storage system are ingesting, storing, organizing and maintaining the data. All those other data management capabilities are resource-intensive and negatively impact the system's primary responsibilities.
These abstracted data management systems have an outsized positive impact on IT organizations.
And most storage systems don't generally work well with other storage systems. That's not news to storage admins. And many systems have problems working with cloud storage, too. Few -- and that's being generous -- actively work with tape systems.
Multivendor heterogeneous storage is a bigger problem. Storage vendors rarely work seamlessly with one another, which is why storage system-centric data management tends to focus on a single vendor. This approach bypasses the multivendor problem while locking in users to that specific vendor's data management and storage products.
Another data management storage issue is the complicated data management licensing structure. There's the data management software licensing, of course, but it doesn't stop there. There are typically other licensing fees, such as a capacity license fee on the data the storage system moves to cloud storage or other storage systems. Then, there's the cloud storage capacity license fee and potentially egress fees for data access. In addition, when users and applications access moved data, it often must be rehydrated back to the originating storage system. Data movement takes time adding substantial latency to each access request. It makes more sense to access the data where it resides.
One storage-centric approach to this problem is to put all an organization's data in a single scale-out, all-encompassing storage system, historically referred to as a "god box." This system would have all the storage performance and cost tiers, data protection, archiving and so on, along with all data management.
Even if that storage system could meet every performance requirement, scale every tier to meet hundreds of petabytes or exabytes of data, and do everything data management needs to do today, there are other intractable problems. The data management software would still be a heavy draw on the storage controllers negatively affecting performance. More importantly, data still must be moved or migrated from where it currently is to this system. And it fails to solve multiorganizational data sharing problems.
These issues have led to a new approach where data management is abstracted from storage systems. The data management software runs on its own server hardware. It sits out of band, in band or a combination of the two.
Abstracted data management captures the data and metadata in one of three ways. It can mount all storage systems with administrative privileges; Dell EMC ClarityNow, Hammerspace, iRODS (open source), Komprise, Spectra Logic StorCycle, Starfish Storage and StrongBox Data Solutions StrongLink do this. Or it can sit in front of the storage looking and acting like a high-speed network switch -- think InfiniteIO here. And with the third approach, it uses clients, or agents, like Aparavi does. Most of these systems have some level of AI or machine learning built into the software that optimizes operations. Each methodology and vendor have their own pros and cons that will be covered in a future article.
These abstracted data management systems have an outsized positive impact on IT organizations. They commoditize the storage system, reducing both the amount and the cost of storage for each tier. They do that by right-sizing the data to the proper tier and eliminating vendor lock-in.
Storage system compatibility is no longer an issue. Storage systems are merely the containers in which the data resides based on their locality, performance and cost characteristics. These abstracted data management systems also simplify operations in several ways:
Each of these data management systems scales differently. Some are designed to scale to hundreds of petabytes and exabytes. Others scale from terabytes to dozens of petabytes. It depends on their architecture, and most are, by definition, storage-agnostic.
Vendors have different licensing requirements. Some license by terabyte of capacity managed. Others vary that capacity licensing by hot and cold data. Still others license according to the number of servers and server cores required to run their software at the performance level an organization requires.
What does external abstracted data management mean? It means IT organizations can choose storage based on cost and performance, not data management functions. It means storage vendors will no longer have an incumbent advantage. It means simplified IT operations and lower costs. When it comes to data management and storage, all that bodes well for the future.
View post:
What the breakup of data management and storage means to you - TechTarget
How to combat insider threats as organizations increasingly rely on cloud computing for telecommunications – NewsDio
Cloud providers, including Microsoft, Google, and others, have recently acknowledged that they are struggling to cope with an increase in the use of remote tools.
As organizations hastily adapt to remote work, they may not ensure adequate data security. In particular, using the cloud increases the risk of internal threats, as 53% of organizations believe that detecting internal attacks is significantly more difficult in the cloud than on-premises, according to a recent report. Therefore, implementing appropriate measures to mitigate the internal threat to protect data in the cloud has never been as important as it is today for organizations.
First, remote employees use cloud applications to exchange data, including sensitive data, and could mislead them in insecure locations that could lead to a compliance violation. For example, sharing sensitive data through Microsoft Teams, an increasingly popular application for telecommunications, will result in data dissemination in SharePoint Online storage with a high risk of unauthorized access. In fact, 39% of UK respondents to our recent survey are confident that employees in their organizations share sensitive data through cloud applications outside of IT control.
Second, remote employees often work from their personal devices that are not controlled by the corporate IT team, and as such are more prone to data breaches than their corporate PCs. Such devices often have no patches and are therefore vulnerable to cyber threats. Once an attacker has a foothold on the employee's device, they have a "remote control" and can observe and take advantage of any outbound connections from it. Essentially, they can gain access to all corporate cloud services that the user connects to or even to the local corporate network as soon as the user establishes their VPN connection or remote desktop session (RDP) to any internal server.
Additionally, an employee may lose their device or let other family members use it, resulting in unauthorized access. In some rare cases, employees copy confidential data to their personal devices from corporate cloud storage with malicious intent, which is also a serious security risk.
Under normal circumstances, before asking employees to work from home, an organization should ideally develop appropriate security policies with a specific focus on cloud security. First, it is essential to ensure that all user permissions for storage with confidential data are granted on a "need to access" basis to prevent people with internal access from accessing information they do not need to do their job. .
In addition, it is important to establish effective access controls, as well as efficient identity verification methods, such as multi-factor authentication, which will also protect the confidential data of cloud organizations from unauthorized access.
And last but not least, it is critical that the IT department train employees on the "two" and "no" of the cloud, starting with the principles of dealing with sensitive data and ending with instructions for patching and protect your personal devices. All of these measures need to be implemented on an ongoing basis, with the IT team ready to assist employees with any issues when they work from home, be it an operational or security issue.
If an organization does not know where its confidential data resides in the cloud, it cannot guarantee that remote employees follow security policies. This is particularly challenging since modern organizations use multiple clouds.
In fact, McAfee has calculated that an average business uses around 1,427 different cloud services, while an average employee actively uses 36 cloud services at work. The more cloud services remote employees use, the harder it is for an organization's IT team to track how they handle data. It means an increased risk of misplacing confidential data and the poor public relations and compliance conclusions that come with it. To reduce data overexposure, it is essential to have technologies to automatically discover sensitive data across multiple cloud warehouses and continually classify it according to its sensitivity.
Since the cloud is prone to a wide range of threat vectors for data breaches by experts, it is vitally important that an organization detect these cases in a timely manner. Is it malware trying to break into the corporate network, or is it someone with the intention of stealing the customer database? All these security risks in the cloud, and many others, are accompanied by anomalies in user activity. Therefore, if an organization uses cloud computing and cloud storage, it is important to have user behavior analysis (UBA) technologies that can detect deviations from normal user behavior and alert an IT team. about possible threats in the cloud.
Examples of the most common anomalies that indicate a threat include abnormal login activities (such as attempts to login from multiple endpoints, multiple subsequent logons in a short period of time, and an unusually high number of login failures. session); or data access patterns that differ from the past behavior of the user or that of their peers. It is important to note that switching from office work to remote access will likely cause initial changes in user access patterns. Businesses can expect higher-than-normal numbers of false positives from machine learning-based behavioral abnormality detection solutions in the first few weeks after users move out of their headquarters.
Such measures will help organizations minimize internal cloud threats not only during the world's "biggest work-from-home experiment" as Time has called the COVID-19 outbreak, but also when it comes to an end. . With the subsequent economic downturn likely to follow, cloud computing will continue to be a profitable way to run a business. A sustainable approach to cloud security will allow organizations to avoid unwanted data breaches and heavy long-term compliance penalties.
Matt Middleton-Leal is General Manager of EMEA and APAC at Netwrix
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How to combat insider threats as organizations increasingly rely on cloud computing for telecommunications - NewsDio