Must have competencies for the Cloud in 2013

Following on from my last blog ‘Re-enforcing our doors in 2013’  solving all of the issues of disruptive innovations isn’t going to be possible in a year but we must take some strides towards making some of the changes.  The four members of the disruptive family are Cloud computing, social media, big data and Mobile.

Let’s take Cloud Computing this week and examine some competencies Continue Reading

It seems now as a consumer you are presented with a vast array of solutions in which to store your data. Pat Gelsinger spoke this week of a desire for VMware to become the “Apple of the data centre”, running all your applications and databases in a virtualised environment. This could be either in your own data centre or one of the many hosted now available for use by any size of organisation. And what about all this data, according to IDC data volumes will continue to double every two years, giving you possibly, a  Continue Reading

In his keynote at EMCworld 2012  in Las Vegas, Pat Gelsinger proposed a tongue-in-cheek equation for the “physics of information technology”.  He also used analogies drawn from the world of physics to talk about the transformations that are occurring in information technology — describing the transition from applications to data as a shift in the center of gravity, as well as discussing data in terms of concepts like structure, mass, velocity and half-life.

Pat’s analogy set me Continue Reading

Probably obvious I know but one of the most important aspects of the Olympics has been money. Or more specifically, the ability of consumers, retailers, banks, restaurants, hotels and transport companies to handle transactions without interruption.  Although there have been some signs that systems have been put under strain, key systems have proved to be robust.

London banks had already tested their systems against cyber attack towards the end of last year and the aim was to see how quickly the financial sector could restore services to ‘business as usual’ after major disruption.

The ‘proof of the pudding’ as they say, will be in the delivery of a successful ‘economic games’ and we will be able to claim that all the planning and investment Continue Reading

There is  a lot of truth in the adage of what I was taught in the RAF and what has stayed with me in the form of the ‘5 Ps’ – previous planning prevents poor performance, and the work over the past 7 years that has gone into delivering and securing the Digital Olympics is a great example.

The core digital infrastructure, much of which was locked down months ago, has been relentlessly tested to ensure it can cope with the huge demand placed on it during the 17 days of the Summer Olympics and 12 days of the Paralympics.  Organisers of the London 2012 games are confident that the investment in testing the vast array of IT infrastructure and equipment deployed across London and the Olympic venues, and recovery processes in the case of a major cyber attack, will pay dividends.

With all this data flashing around the networks it is hard to visualise Continue Reading

We assembled our key ingredients for Trusted Cloud in Part 1 so let’s look at how to cook them and taste our creation….

How to mix
The formula for building a trusted cloud is to gain control over and visibility into the cloud’s infrastructure, identities and information.

Information can move instantly, often for perfectly legitimate reasons like load balancing, backup, DR. Information mobility is a great resource though it can be a nightmare Continue Reading

Most of my friends and colleagues know that I like to cook so I will be doing a series of “recipes” in the next few weeks to address some of the key challenges based on conversations I am having with major organizations. So, to get started, here is part 1 on Creating a Trusted Cloud.

Clouds and virtualization offer powerful new ways to manage and use digital information, but they also create complexities for organizations in meeting the fundamental challenge of getting the right information to the right people over a trusted infrastructure. Why? Because clouds and virtualization change the nature of control and visibility. Infrastructure becomes virtual not physical. People access information from devices that are outside of IT’s direct control. Information moves at incredible speeds across networks and the cloud is making it hard to know exactly where sensitive information resides. Organisations must learn new ways to gain visibility into risks, threats and compliance performance.

Security is always cited as an inhibitor for cloud adoption. According to a recent Ovum survey when organizations were asked: “What are the biggest challenges or impediments to using cloud Continue Reading

Back in December I posed the question “Is data nationalisation a challenge to Cloud?”. A number of European Union (EU) governments had reacted negatively to the US Patriot Act and were starting to insist that their data couldn’t be stored with any Cloud provider located in the US, or in the facilities of any provider owned by a US company. My view at the time was that it wasn’t an issue as long as companies considering moving to a Cloud delivery model approached the move in the right way and assessed the risks and the functionality, financial and trust requirements to determine which services are best served by a Cloud approach. My opinion hasn’t changed despite the publication this week of the EU’s new data privacy proposals to amend the 1995 Data Protection Directive. As expected, the new legislation is at odds in some areas with the US Patriot Act. The EU update includes the so-called “right to be forgotten”, allowing people to insist that their data is deleted once no longer required – while the US Act enables the US authorities to search telephone, email, and financial records without a court order and expects retention of data. The updated EU legislation doesn’t, in my opinion, create any problems for business embarking on a Cloud strategy as long as you undertake the sort of assessment of workloads I’ve recommended. In fact the new legislation could actually remove some of the challenges around data privacy that have previously existed in Europe.

While the new EU legislation has some tough clauses, such as Companies suffering data breaches only having 24 hours to tell the relevant authorities or risk legal action Continue Reading

The advantages of cloud computing far outweigh any potential risks, one expert has claimed.

Joe Drumgoole, founder of FeedHenry, said that most businesses will only experience benefits – rather than disadvantages – from using the technology.

"Really, most of the stuff that people scaremonger about – security, accessibility and who might be looking at your stuff on the cloud – is kind of redundant in many cases," he explained.

According to Mr Drumgoole, while large-scale enterprises dealing in multi-billion dollar contracts may need to take further precautions, the majority of firms do not need to worry.

Around 95 per cent of companies will be able to reduce costs, boost productivity, access new user groups and get products to market quicker, he stated, drastically improving their current business procedures.

His comments followed a recent study by KPMG, which revealed that of the 29 per cent of organisations in the UK that have invested in cloud

Some organisations forget to put in place the complete security package when deploying their own cloud computing systems.

Intrusion detection systems and firewalls are just some of the security barriers required for a cloud environment, icomplete.com reminded.

Chief executive of the firm Stuart Hibbert asserted that these things can be missed when creating an in-house system, which is where cloud services could prove useful.

Cloud services should deliver the appropriate level of security when the network is being used outside of the workplace by employees.

"So in terms of reliability, it is a big issue and people will want services [that are] always available and obviously using cloud computing services will enable that to happen," Mr Hibbert said.

It was also advised by the Business Software Alliance's compliance marketing director Julian Swan that corners should not be cut when moving to the cloud, as consequences like security breaches and fraud could occur.