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Getting to grips with server and storage virtualisation – Cloud Pro

April 21, 2017 | Author: admin

The way that virtualisation has been talked about over the last decade you would be tempted to think every server and storage system has had the virtualisation treatment, but many organisation still haven't completely climbed on board the virtualisation ship headed for cloud nirvana. That said, there is still time and the benefits still stand.

According to Kong Yang, head geek at SolarWinds, virtualisation can bring many benefits to a business, from cost savings and flexibility to making IT workflows and processes more efficient and effective. "However, one of the key benefits is the ability to abstract infrastructure resources, which allows for the re-distribution of resources to applications at a radically faster rate," he says.

He adds the need to embrace virtualisation comes hand-in-hand with growing hybrid IT environments. The recent SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2017 reflects this, as it shows 52% of companies have server virtualisation included within their hybrid IT strategy.

Yang says hybrid IT is very much a reality for UK businesses, as many host some of their infrastructure in the cloud while also maintaining some on-premises. "In fact, our research shows that in the past 12 months, UK organisations have migrated applications (69%), storage (54%), and databases (37%) to the cloud -- this is more than any other area of IT," he says.

Consolidating servers and storage

So, what's the best way to go about consolidating servers and storage with virtualisation? It is critical to first understand the objectives of the virtualisation project and the outcomes that are desired. Often virtualisation forms part of a larger project, such as an application re-platform or datacentre consolidation or migration and it's important to understand how the larger picture affects the specific project.

"Once the objectives are clear, organisations should consider the individual workloads and operational areas to be implemented and how the implementation programme is to be conducted," says Pete Hulme, data centre technical lead at Dimension Data.

"For example, is it acceptable (or desirable) for test and development to share a platform with production? And is it important to be able to produce 'clones' of production for test purposes?"

He adds that companies should consider how business continuity and disaster recovery will be conducted and how the data management tools interact with the virtualisation platform. Adding, they should consider how security and segmentation is to be managed and who is to hold authority and control.

"Once these decisions are made it should then be possible to select a virtualisation platform for each component and to understand how these will interact and interoperate. It is essential to consider the management platform and interfaces that will be required to deploy and operate the platform and how the processes will interact with both new and existing processes," Hulme says.

Best practices

When virtualising infrastructure there are several best practices to be aware of. All x86 servers are now candidates for virtualisation. But according to Richard Stinton, enterprise solutions architect at iland, the main blockers to virtualisation are normally the risk associated with the migration process, especially downtime, and licensing policies of the software being run, the best example being Oracle.

"For this reason, the main servers still running on physical tend to be large transactional databases, such as SQL Server clusters, and Oracle," he says.

David Cottingham, director of XenServer product management and partner engineering at Citrix, says organisations should understand the characteristics of the workloads it is trying to virtualise, in terms of their CPU, memory, and I/O needs.

"A classic problem in virtualisation is for an overly-optimistic administrator to attempt to pack too many virtual machines onto a server and the end users experiencing poor performance when load is high," he says.

Technologies such as dynamic memory control and storage caching can help pack more VMs per server, workload balancing technologies can also support, "especially where VMs' performance is recorded over time, and then recommendations can be made on how to change the distribution of VMs across physical servers," Cottingham adds.

For storage, different issues come into play. Tom O'Neill, CTO international at all-flash storage provider Kaminario, believes the most important aspect of virtualising storage is to ensure the performance and capacity aspect are sized correctly.

"Storage is often the slowest part of any IT project and virtualised workloads often drive storage solutions harder," he says.

This is due to the I/O blender effect of multiple layers of virtualisation. Friendly sequential I/O can become increasingly random as extra layers of virtualisation are introduced. The impact of random vs sequential is much reduced with modern storage media like flash, but it's still considerable because of the caching and CPU deployed within the storage device (SSD).

Virtualising to move to the cloud

Virtualisation can also be considered a stepping stone to the cloud. However, if organisations opt for a private cloud, they should have a few resources in place - VM templates, resource pools, a user interface for self-service and a request process.

"VM templates let individuals requesting a new VM provision [it] themselves automatically, while resource pools designate a maximum quantity of resources that an end user can consume," says Arun Balachandran, product manager, at ManageEngine. "Organisations should also select the right tool as a user interface for self-service and have a request process in place."

He adds that in moving to private cloud, organisations must confirm that it remains cost-effective by means of constant performance monitoring and capacity planning.

"Without right-sizing VMs and failing to track and anticipate resource needs, businesses could face problems such as VM sprawl and resource overconsumption. Businesses should plan for the long term to ensure they have enough resources on hand to meet future business demands. To keep costs low, they can use low cost hypervisors or hypervisors from multiple vendors," he concludes.

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A Global Industry First: Industrial Internet Consortium and Plattform Industrie 4.0 to Host Joint IIoT Security … – Business Wire (press release)

April 20, 2017 | Author: admin

HANNOVER, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) andPlattform Industrie 4.0 are pleased to announce their plans to host a joint demonstration at Hannover Messe, April 24-28, 2017, in Hannover, Germany, highlighting Industrial Internet security, interoperability and collaboration.

With the rise of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industrie 4.0, manufacturers are adding more connected devices, sharing operational data with IT systems within both their own factories and businesses, as well as extending information exchange across their entire value chain. This increased digitization offers a host of benefits to manufacturers, their partners, suppliers and customers.

In a connected world, this robust connectivity amplifies the importance of security both within a single manufacturers plant and across every participant in the value chain. There is no single, homogeneous security environment; rather there are multiple companies and systems that need to work together.

The joint real-time demonstration at Hannover Messe shows how the IICs recently released Industrial Internet Security Framework and the concepts of secure cooperation in cross company environments developed by the Plattform Industrie 4.0 can be applied to solve this challenge. Mimicking a real-world, multi-vendor, distributed environment, the demonstration integrates Hannover Messe demos from over 20 IIC member companies and Plattform Industrie 4.0 partner companies respectively into a single security demonstration. It spans multiple booths at Hannover Messe and remote sites around the world.

The IIC and Plattform Industrie 4.0 have been collaborating for just over a year to combine the cross-domain approach of the IIC with Plattform Industrie 4.0s focus on the manufacturing industry. The concept of this demonstration was launched only four short months ago.

The demonstration highlights how multiple unique, existing security systems can be consolidated in a set of interacting industrial security systems, leveraging products and technologies available today that demonstrate secure integration of existing systems without disrupting operations. Security events are shared across the entire ecosystem, letting each member in the value chain see all security events that are relevant to them.

Its really terrific to see so many global IIC members from multiple disciplines, working together with Plattform Industry 4.0 to achieve this industry first manufacturing-based real-time demo in a secure environment, said John Tuccillo, Chair of the IIC Steering Committee, and Senior Vice President, Schneider Electric.

The joint demonstration is an important milestone in our cooperation. It shows that the exchange between the partners creates practical and transferable solutions. We are very thankful to our Joint Technology Group Security for this successful work, said Henning Banthien, General Secretary of the Plattform Industrie 4.0.

Security is critical to industrial deployments and the Hannover Messe demonstration highlights the fact that deploying a robust industrial security monitoring solution in a heterogeneous environment across multiple companies and organizations can be achieved using todays technology, said Sven Schrecker, Co-Chair of the IIC Security Working Group and Chief Architect,IoT Security Solutions, Intel.

Our work result illustrates: secure data exchange across domains can be done. This means a central precondition for secure cross-company value networks is met, adds Michael Jochem, Robert Bosch GmbH and Chair of the Plattform Industrie 4.0 Working Group Security of Networked Systems.

Live Demonstration at the Hannover Messe The central presentation can be found in Stands C24 and D24 of Hall 8 of Hannover Messe and live demonstrations can be found in many participating member stands and halls throughout the event, in other parts of Germany and in other parts of the world.

There will be a joint press conference on April 25, 2017 from 9 10 am CET at the Hannover Messe, Convention Center, Saal 15. You can join the live telephone conference via this link where you can submit written questions.

About the Industrial Internet Consortium The Industrial Internet Consortium is the worlds leading organization, transforming business and society by accelerating the Industrial Internet of Things. Our mission is to deliver a trustworthy Industrial Internet of Things in which the worlds systems and devices are securely connected and controlled to deliver transformational outcomes. The Industrial Internet Consortium is managed by the Object Management Group (OMG). For more information, visit http://www.iiconsortium.org.

About the Plattform Industrie 4.0 Plattform Industrie 4.0 is the central network to advance digital transformation towards Industry 4.0 in Germany. In close cooperation with politics, industry, science, associations and trade unions over 300 players from 159 organizations are actively involved in the platform. The platform develops and coordinates information and networking services to make Industry 4.0 solutions better known among companies and to deploy them on site. As one of the largest international and national networks, it supports German companies particularly small- and medium-sized companies in implementing Industry 4.0. It provides companies with decisive impulses through examples of company practices from across Germany as well as concrete recommendations for action and test environments. The numerous international cooperation of the platform underscores their leading role in the international discussions on industry 4.0. For more information, visit http://www.plattform-i40.de

Note to editors: Industrial Internet Consortium is a registered trademark of OMG. For a listing of all OMG trademarks, visit http://www.omg.org/legal/tm_list. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Homeland Security warns of ‘BrickerBot’ malware that destroys unsecured internet-connected devices – ZDNet

April 20, 2017 | Author: admin

A new kind of attack is targeting unsecured Internet of Things devices by scrambling their code and rendering them useless.

Security firm Radware first spotted the newly found "BrickerBot" malware last month after it started hitting its own honeypots, logging hundreds of infection attempts over a few days. When the malware connects to a device with their default usernames and passwords -- often easily found on the internet -- the malware corrupts the device's storage, leading to a state of permanent denial-of-service (PDoS) attack, also known as "bricking."

In other words, this attack "damages a system so badly that it requires replacement or reinstallation of hardware," said Radware.

It's a novel take on an ongoing security problem with Internet of Things devices: Botnets controlled by hackers, like the Mirai malware, typically infect unsecured devices that are enlisted as part of wider bandwidth-stealing attacks to bring down websites and services by overwhelming them with internet traffic.

Like the Mirai botnet, most famous for bringing down wide swathes of the US internet last year in a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, the BrickerBot also uses "the same exploit vector" by brute-forcing telnet accounts with lists of available usernames and passwords.

Radware doesn't have a list of internet-connected devices, like webcams, toys, and even smart bulbs, at risk of being attacked, but it pointed to several kinds of Linux-based devices that run the BusyBox toolkit that have their telnet port open and are exposed publicly on the internet.

The researchers said that the attackers also have an affinity for targeting devices on Ubiquiti networks, which have been targeted by attackers before.

Once inside, the malware runs a sequence of commands, which "try to remove the default gateway, wipe the device through rm -rf /* and disable TCP timestamps as well as limiting the max number of kernel threads to one," which would scramble the device's memory.

The researchers also said that the malware adds extra commands "to flush all iptables firewall and NAT rules and add a rule to drop all outgoing packets," effectively wiping any trace of its infection.

"Unfortunately, even after performing the factory reset, the camera was not recovered and hence it was effectively bricked," said Radware.

(Image: Radware)

And, because the device-bricking bot conceals its location through the Tor anonymity network, there's no way to know where the attack came from, the researchers said.

The emergence of BrickerBot has prompted Homeland Security's Cyber Emergency Response Team (CERT) to issue an updated warning, noting that "no information is available at this time about the type and number of devices used in performing these attacks."

"Control systems often have Internet accessible devices installed without the owner's knowledge, putting those systems at increased risk of attack," said the advisory.

The researchers said that a device search could point to at least 21 million devices at risk, but the motivations for this new attack aren't known.

Homeland Security suggests changing a device's default credentials and disabling telnet.

Employees will hand over work passwords to hackers for money

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Quantum computing could make the encryption behind every internet transaction obsoletesomeday – Quartz

April 20, 2017 | Author: admin

Quartz
Quantum computing could make the encryption behind every internet transaction obsoletesomeday
Quartz
Two basic types of encryption schemes are used on the internet today. One, known as symmetric-key cryptography, follows the same pattern that people have been using to send secret messages for thousands of years. If Alice wants to send Bob a secret ...

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Encryption: Usage grows again, but only at snail’s pace | ZDNet – ZDNet

April 20, 2017 | Author: admin

Encryption is still too complicated, according to businesses.

Business usage of encryption to protect sensitive data, either in their own systems or in the cloud, continues to grow -- but only at a desperately slow pace.

Despite the omnipresent risk of deliberate or accidental security breaches, less than half of companies (41 percent) said they had an encryption strategy that's consistently applied across the organization, according to a survey. One in eight enterprises (15 percent) said they had no encryption strategy.

Compliance remains the top reason for having encryption in place, followed by a desire to protect intellectual property and to defend against "specific, identified threats". Protecting customers' personal information came fourth on the list of reasons, which may be little comfort to many considering that one in five UK companies was hit by some kind of cyberattack in the last 12 months.

Adoption of encryption by businesses.

Employee data is most likely to be encrypted, followed by payment-related data and financial records, according to the survey of 5,000 business users sponsored by security company Thales.

Databases, internet communications, and datacenter storage are the most likely to be deployed (89 percent, 85 percent, and 80 percent, respectively), but in contrast, encryption for big data repositories (53 percent), public cloud services (55 percent), and private cloud infrastructure (59 percent) have much lower usage rates.

Of those that do encrypt data at rest in the cloud, two-thirds either encrypt it before they send it to the cloud, or encrypt in the cloud using keys they generate and manage on premises. The other third turn over complete control of keys and encryption processes to cloud providers.

So why does usage of encryption remain so low?

Over half of respondents said that discovering where sensitive data resides in the organization is their most difficult challenge, while nearly half said that deploying encryption technology remains a "significant challenge". Third on the list was the difficulty of deciding what data should actually be encrypted.

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Encryption: Usage grows again, but only at snail's pace | ZDNet - ZDNet

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Three Trends Shaping The Encryption Industry (And A Look At What’s To Come) – Forbes

April 20, 2017 | Author: admin

Forbes
Three Trends Shaping The Encryption Industry (And A Look At What's To Come)
Forbes
Data breaches are becoming bigger, bolder and more widespread than ever before. As a new government takes office in Washington, we need a mandate that stipulates cyber security as a fundamental right. This will also translate to a call to arms for the ...

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Three Trends Shaping The Encryption Industry (And A Look At What's To Come) - Forbes

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Former NSAers are taking encryption to a new level – Technical.ly Baltimore

April 20, 2017 | Author: admin

In cloud computing, encryption provides protection for storing and moving data. The founder ofEn|Veilsaid the startups technology can keep data encrypted when its being used, too.

The Howard County company is commercializing technology that began development at the NSA that allows encryption to remain in place while searching or analyzing data,said En|Veil founder and CEO Ellison Anne Williams.

Currently, decryption is required before performing these functions, leaving the data and the results of the operations potentially vulnerable to outsiders.The startups algorithms enable a method of encryption that protects in-use data to be used at a larger scale, said Williams.

This is the first time in over 20 years of work into homomorphic encryption that this kind of scale has been achieved, Williams said during a pitch at the RSA Conferences Innovation Sandbox event. The company won second place in the competition, which seeks to name the most innovative startup at the national security conference.

Williams offered finance as an example of one industry that would benefit from the technology, but said it could be useful wherever theres a need to protect your data as its being used.

En|Veil is seven months old, but the technology has been in development for longer. Williams worked at NSA for 12 years, and a year and a half at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. The companys head of engineering also worked at APL, and the other three team members worked at NSA.

The five-member team is now based out of DataTribe, a Fulton-based incubator that helps startups working on government-developed tech. After a year at the incubator, Williams said the company plans to find space in the area.

Stephen Babcock is the lead reporter for Technical.ly Baltimore. A graduate of Northeastern University, he moved to Baltimore following a stint in New Orleans, where he served as managing editor of online news and culture publication NOLA Defender. While there, he also wrote for NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune. He was previously a reporter for the Rio Grande Sun of Northern New Mexico.

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What Do Soft Skills And End-To-End Encryption Have In Common? – Forbes

April 20, 2017 | Author: admin

Forbes
What Do Soft Skills And End-To-End Encryption Have In Common?
Forbes
Seth Godin recently wrote that we give too little respect to skills like self-control, wisdom, influence, listening, the ability to deliver clear and useful criticism, conflict resolution, managing up, etc. when we call them soft. This term almost ...

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What Do Soft Skills And End-To-End Encryption Have In Common? - Forbes

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Donate safely: Avoiding crowd funding scams – KXLY Spokane

April 20, 2017 | Author: admin

Donate safely: Avoiding crowd funding...

SPOKANE, Wash. - The Spokane area has seen several stories that showcase positive effects that crowd funding has had right here in our community.

A GoFundMe page was used to raise thousands of dollars for the family of Lizzie Knudsen, a Deer Park mother killed in a car wreck that also injured her daughter.

The Spokane community also used the site to try and save its beloved Donut Parade and, once, a GoFundMe page even bought former Spokane County Sheriff's K9 Laslo a bulletproof vest.

It's those kinds of stories that highlight the good crowd funding can do, opening the doors for people anywhere to donate to any cause.

When something really tragic like this happens, we all want to reach out and help- that's great, said Kirstin Davis with the Better Business Bureau.

But, online fundraisers also opens the door to vulnerability, which scammers will pounce on.

Anytime that- whether it's a single person or the general public or a certain population thats being affected, they are going to take advantage of that situation, Davis said.

It's exactly what the family of Robert Godwin Sr., gunned down in a Facebook video by Steve Stephens on Sunday, fear could be happening to them. Several accounts have been set up in his name for their benefit, that did not originate with them.

Some of those pages are legitimate, but the family is asking the nation not to donate to GoFundMe accounts.

Closer to home, that's exactly what happened when three people were killed in a Lake Coeur d'Alene boat crash last year. A woman started a GoFundMe page for the families but instead, used some of the money raised to buy a tanning salon.

How do you make sure your money gets where it's supposed to go?

Just take a minute and step back and say: 'What is the best use of my money, and how am I going to get it to that person or where I want it to go,' Davis said.

It might be awkward, but the BBB says a good way to see if a page is legitimate is to ask.

Take that extra step of verification. make sure that that crowd sourcing site or link is actually going to the people that you know or you want it to go to, Davis said.

To check out which crowd funding sites are accredited by the BBB, head to their website here.

You can also check out the BBB Scam Tracker, to report potential fraudulent pages.

GoFundMe has a guarantee for donors and beneficiaries. For more information on that, check out their policy here.

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Why Bitcoin’s Greatest Asset Could Also Spell Its Doom – Forbes

April 20, 2017 | Author: admin

Forbes
Why Bitcoin's Greatest Asset Could Also Spell Its Doom
Forbes
The wonder of bitcoin is that the system manages to get a few groups whose interests are not aligned to interact in a way that results in an optimal outcome for all. However, over the last two years, faced with the question of how to enable more ...

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