November 12, 2012
Volume XLI, Issue 8
It's Time to Update the US Electronic Communications Privacy Act
The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) is joining the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) in a politically diverse coalition to launch Vanishing Rights, a campaign to update the US Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).
ECPA was passed more than a quarter of a century ago. It sets out rules for when the government can access our digital information - and it's woefully out of date.
Under ECPA, the government says information stored in the cloud, location data generated by mobile devices, and even basic e-mail and text messages do not receive full Fourth Amendment protection - meaning the government can access it without a warrant.
Postal mail and phone calls, on the other hand for example, receive full Fourth Amendment protection. The distinction makes no sense.
For more on why this matters, please scroll down to Megaupload and the Government's Attack on Cloud Computing and the General Session Keynote by Jim Burger from CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 (CCW:2012) in this week's Report from CEO Marty Lafferty.
This Thursday November 15th, the US Senate Judiciary Committee could take a big step toward bringing privacy law into the 21st Century when it votes on ECPA reform.
This will be a critical vote.
If you care about digital privacy, visit Vanishing Rights to ask your Senators to support ECPA reform.
And please contact the DCIA to learn what more you can do.
Megaupload and the Government's Attack on Cloud Computing
Excerpted from Cryptogon Report
EFF, on behalf of its client Kyle Goodwin, has filed a brief proposing a process for the Court in the Megaupload case to hold the government accountable for the actions it took (and failed to take) when it shut down Megaupload's service and denied third parties like Mr. Goodwin access to their property.
The government also filed a brief of its own, calling for a long, drawn-out process that would require third parties — often individuals or small companies — to travel to courts far away and engage in multiple hearings, just to get their own property back.
Even worse, the government admitted that it has accessed Mr. Goodwin's Megaupload account and reviewed the content of his files. By doing so, the government has taken a significant and frightening step.
It apparently searched through the data it seized for one purpose when its target was Megaupload in order to use it against Mr. Goodwin, someone who was hurt by its actions but who is plainly not the target of any criminal investigation, much less the one against Megaupload.
This is, of course, a bald attempt to shift the focus to Mr. Goodwin, trying to distract both the press and the Court from the government's failure to take any steps, much less the reasonable steps required by law, to protect the property rights of third parties either before a warrant was executed or afterward.
And of course, if the government is so well positioned that it can search through Mr. Goodwin's files and opine on their content — and it is not at all clear that this second search was authorized — presumably it can also find a way to return them.
But in addition, the government's approach should terrify any user of cloud computer services — not to mention the providers. The government maintains that Mr. Goodwin lost his property rights in his data by storing it on a cloud computing service.
Specifically, the government argues that both the contract between Megaupload and Mr. Goodwin (a standard cloud computing contract) and the contract between Megaupload and the server host, Carpathia (also a standard agreement), "likely limit any property interest he may have" in his data. (Page 4).
If the government is right, no provider can both protect itself against sudden losses (like those due to a hurricane) and also promise its customers that their property rights will be maintained when they use the service.
Nor can they promise that their property might not suddenly disappear, with no reasonable way to get it back if the government comes in with a warrant.
Apparently your property rights "become severely limited" if you allow someone else to host your data under standard cloud computing arrangements.
This argument isn't limited in any way to Megaupload — it would apply if the third party host was Amazon's S3 or Google Apps or Apple iCloud.
The government's tactics here also demonstrate another chilling thing— if users do try to get their property back, the government won't hesitate to comb through their property to try to find an argument to use against them.
The government also seeks to place a virtually insurmountable practical burden on users by asking the court to do a slow-walking, multi-step process that takes place in a far away court.
Most third parties who use cloud computing services to store their business records or personal information are not in a position to attend even one court appearance in Virginia, much less the multiple ones the government envisions in its submission to the court.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Thank you to all who participated in CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 (CCW:2012), the inaugural joint activity of the Cloud Computing Association (CCA) and the DCIA, this week in Santa Monica, CA.
The DCIA is especially grateful to Executive Director Don Buford and the entire CCA team for their exceptional work in mounting this high-level industry event and overseeing its execution.
We also thank event sponsors Aspera, DataDirect Networks, Extreme Reach, Oracle, SAP, CSC Leasing Company, i3m3 Solutions, Kaltura, Scayl, Sequencia, Unicorn Media, Hertz NeverLost, MEDIAmobz, Moses & Singer, and Scenios. CCW:2012 could not have taken place without them.
Audio and video recordings of conference sessions will be available next week. Meanwhile, keynote presentations from this extraordinarily instructive and motivating event are now available online here and as noted below.
Our OPENING PLENARY SESSION featured a keynote by Dr. Geng Lin, CTO of the Networking Business at Dell, who introduced three central themes — how are cloud-based solutions in the entertainment sector evolving; how do these and related developments impact broadband network infrastructure; and how should investing in this space be evaluated?
Panelists Jay Migliaccio, Director of Cloud Platforms and Services at Aspera; Mike West, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of GenosTV; and Robert Stevenson, Chief Business Officer and EVP of Strategy at Gaikai then probed these questions in more detail.
Continuing, at ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY, Mike West's keynote address offered an examination of the latest trends in cloud solutions for high-value content production and distribution. Then a panel with Extreme Reach's Dan Brackett, Meteor Entertainment's Sarah Novotny, TransLattice's Robert Geiger, and Kaltura's Russell Zack analyzed the newest cloud offerings for entertainment, and the industry's direction in terms of adopting them.
At BROADBAND NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, a panel with Altman & Vilandrie's Stefan Bewley, Hurricane Electric's Owen DeLong, Integrated Media Technologies' Bruce Lyon, Trend Micro's Bill McGee, and PricewaterhouseCooper's Jeff Sage analyzed network resource usage by data centers and new ISP cloud services. And then keynoter David Sterling of i3m3 Solutions summarized current impacts of cloud migration on broadband network operations and businesses.
Meanwhile at INVESTING IN THE CLOUD, keynoter Ketan Patel of New Venture Partners offered fresh updates on venture capital and M&A activity in the cloud computing space. And the follow-on panel with CSC Leasing's Matt Thompson, Cisco Systems' Bill Williams, and MD Capital Advisors' Derek Cahill analyzed the latest trends in capital structuring and strategic alliances for cloud computing firms.
At our conference luncheon, author Bill Williams discussed The Economics of Cloud Computing, his book that's become required-reading for industry participants.
Our next general session keynote by Jim Burger, Member of Dow Lohnes, outlined key pitfalls to avoid in adopting cloud solutions.
Then a panel with American Standard Television's Francesco Fabbrocino, Verizon FiOS's Jason Henderson, Chyron's Todd Martin, DigiRamp's Peter Rafelson, and Peer Media's Rajan Samtani analyzed problem areas now affecting cloud adoption in the entertainment sector.
Another panel with Attend's Chuck Stormon, UCLA's Songwu Lu, and Huawei's Ning Zong analyzed problem areas for ISPs created by the proliferation of cloud computing.
And a third panel with Edwards Wildman Palmer's Lawrence Freedman, Dynamic Synergy's Mark Landay, and Murchison & Cumming's Steve Spronz analyzed problem areas affecting investments, acquisitions, and mergers involving cloud services.
From there, a series of very focused ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY keynotes by Mark Davis of Scenios, Dave Toole of MEDIAmobz, John Schiela of Phoenix Marketing International, and Roger Tsai of Gracenote, highlighted current developments in cloud collaboration, cloud dailies, cloud pilots, and cloud metadata.
BROADBAND NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE keynotes by Bill Sewell of Wiredrive, Bill Kallman of Scayl, Prabhat Kumar of i3m3 Solutions, Julian Lovelock of HID Global Identity Assurance, and Doug Natal of Oracle examined third-party SaaS, third-party PaaS, third-party IaaS, security, and interconnection.
And INVESTING IN THE CLOUD keynotes by Peter Siwinski of Cumulus Venture Partners, Chris Haddad of WSO2, Sean Jennings of Virtustream, and Ann Greenberg of Sceneplay explored public clouds, private clouds, virtual private clouds, and community clouds.
Finally, we came back together for the day-one closing plenary session with Shahi Ghanem, EVP of Strategy at BitTorrent, and Lucia Gradinariu, Chief Market Strategist at Huawei summarizing all that we covered regarding benefits and drawbacks of cloud computing for entertainment, infrastructure, and venture financing.
After a very full day, we bused from the Santa Monica conference venue to Marina del Rey for a networking cocktail reception and relaxing dinner cruise aboard the yacht Dandeana.
On Friday, at ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY, a series of very-focused keynotes by Dr. Matt Johnson of Unicorn Media, Brian Campanotti of Front Porch Digital, Greg Wiley of Media Science International, Kurt Kyle of SAP America, and Joey Jablonski of DataDirect Networks explored cloud transcoding, cloud storage, cloud delivery, cloud data, and cloud analytics.
Meanwhile, at BROADBAND NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, keynotes by Jean-Luc Chatelain of DataDirect Networks, Linda Senigaglia of Navigation Solutions, Ryan Walters of Philotek, Tim Cavanaugh of Cavanaugh Consulting, and Daniel Kenyon of Equilibrium offered insights into and case studies of cloud architecture, cloud mobility, virtualization, interoperability, and scalability.
And at INVESTING IN THE CLOUD, keynote addresses by Dr. Gigi Johnson of Maremel Institute, Mark Theissen of Cirro, Bruce Cleveland of InterWest Partners, William Engelbrecht of Deloitte Consulting, and Scott Ryan of EMC examined education clouds, big data, business intelligence, VC criteria, and exit strategies.
Then we brought all delegates back together for our conference closing plenary session: "The Future of Cloud Computing for Entertainment, Telecom, and Investment" with Jay Migliaccio, Director of Cloud Platforms and Services at Aspera; Dan Brackett, CTO and Co-Founder of Extreme Reach; and Jean-Luc Chatelain, EVP of Strategy & Technology at DataDirect Networks.
Our next joint activity with CCA will be CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2013 (CCE:2013) on May 20th and 21st in Boston, MA.
CCE:2013 will focus on three additional sectors where the use of cloud-based technologies is revolutionizing business processes, increasing efficiency, and streamlining costs — GOVERNMENT, HEALTHCARE, and FINANCIAL SERVICES.
Our speaking faculty will be comprised of over 100 thought-leaders who will thoroughly examine the ways that cloud computing is streamlining government, revolutionizing healthcare, and providing for the secure and safe functioning of the financial services sector at all levels. Share wisely, and take care.
Proposed EU Data-Privacy Law Will Play a Major Role
Excerpted from Network World by Ellen Messmer
Any enterprise looking to use cloud computing services will also be digging into what laws and regulations might hold in terms of security and privacy of data stored in the cloud. At the Cloud Security Alliance Congress in Orlando this week, discussion centered on two important regulatory frameworks now being put in place in Europe and the US.
The European Union, with its more than two dozen countries, has had a patchwork of data-privacy laws that each country created to adhere to the general directive set by the EU many years ago. But now there's a slow but steady march toward approving a single data-privacy regulation scheme for EU members.
These proposed rules published by the EU earlier this year may not become law until 2016 or later as they involve approval by the European Parliament, said Margaret Eisenhauer, an Atlanta-based attorney with expertise in data-privacy law.
Europe, especially countries such as Germany, already takes a stricter approach to data protection than the US, with databases holding individual's personal information having to be registered with government authorities, and rules on where exactly data can be transmitted. "European law is based on the protection of privacy as a fundamental human right," Eisenhauer said.
The benefit of the proposed EU regulation is that EU countries will, in theory, present a uniform approach instead of a patchwork of rules. The so-called "Article 29 Working Party Opinion" of proposed law specially addresses use of cloud computing, and it presents cloud providers and users with a long list of security-control requirements.
In addition, cloud providers must offer "transparency" about their operations — something some are reluctant to do today, Eisenhauer said.
The proposed regulations also allude to how cloud-based computing contracts should be established. Among many requirements, "you have to state where the data will be processed," Eisenhauer said, plus where it will be accessed from. Customers have the right to "visit their data," she said, which means providers must be able to show the customer the physical and logical storage of it.
Some ideas could become the norm for Europe, such as the concept of the "right to be forgotten," which recognizes that individuals have a right not to be tracked across the Internet, which is often done through cookies today. This "privacy by default" concept means that web browsers, for example, will likely be required to ship turned on by default to their newer "do not track" capabilities to be used in Europe. In Europe, "there are real concerns about behavioral targeting," said Eisenhauer.
Some European legal concepts suggest that even use of deep-packet inspection — often a core technology used in security products today to watch for signs of malicious activities on the network — could be frowned on under European law, and companies will need to be mindful of how deep-packet inspection is deployed, said Eisenhauer. Even today, use of security and information event management (SIEM) monitoring of employee network usage is something that does not easily conform to European ideas of data privacy.
The proposed EU data-privacy rules require reporting data breaches to the governments and their data-privacy authorities there as well as to the individuals impacted by it very quickly. The regulation also points to possible fines for failing to comply with the proposed regulations, fines that start with 2% of the company's annual worldwide revenue.
However, Eisenhauer adds that Europe's data-privacy regulators in government encourage direct communication about any issues that come up with cloud-service providers and their customers and are far more eager to resolve problems, not mete out punishments.
Many companies, including HP, which is a member of the CSA, are tracking these kinds of regulatory requirements from all across the world that impact the cloud.
"You will have to answer to auditors and regulatory regimes," said Andrzej Kawalec, HP's Global Technology Officer at HP Enterprise Security Solutions. This means that there can't be "monolithic data centers" all subscribing to one mode of operation, but ones tailored to meet compliance in Europe, Asia, and North America.
In Switzerland, for example, which is not part of the EU, "the Swiss think the data should remain in Switzerland," he said. But "everyone is getting a lot more stringent" on security and data protection, Kawalec said. Some ideas, such as Europe's notion that even the user's IP address represents a piece of personally identifiable information, are not necessarily the norm in the US.
In the US, there is also a significant regulatory change afoot related to cloud computing and security and it is arising out of the federal government's so-called FedRAMP program unveiled earlier this year.
FedRAMP is intended to get cloud-service providers (CSP) that serve government agencies accredited for specific security practices over the next two years. Although no CSP is yet certified, according to Chris Simpson, CEO at consultancy Bright Moon Security, who spoke on the topic at the CSA Congress this week, the goal is to get CSPs on board by assuring through third-party assessments that their cloud environments conform to specific security guidelines.
These include practices for incident response in the cloud, forensics in a highly dynamic environment, threat detection and analysis in a multi-tenant environment, and continuous monitoring for remediation, among other things. One FedRAMP idea is that service providers must be prepared to report security incidents of many types to the US CERT and the government agency that might be impacted. The agency would also be reporting to US CERT as well, said Simpson.
If CSPs can't meet the FEDRAMP guidelines, they won't be able to provide services to government agencies, said Simpson. Once certified in FedRAMP though, they'll have a path to contracting for all federal agencies. But if a security incident or data breach occurs that is seen as negligence, that might be cause "to pull that authorization," Simpson concluded.
CEOs Have a Message for Washington, DC: Stop It Already
Excerpted from Wall Street Journal Report by John Bussey
Was Tuesday's election the start of a promising new political era for business or the beginning of another four years of bickering?
To hear it from America's chief executives, they hope it's the former but fear it's the latter.
The stakes are big: If the election merely entrenches the status quo and there's no compromise in Washington over the nation's financial ills, then business will stay in the trenches, too.
Companies will hunker down, hoard cash, and do little hiring.
As the election results wrapped up Tuesday, I asked for reaction from members of the Journal's CEO Council, a group of 114 chief executives that gathers once a year in Washington, DC to debate how best to boost the nation's growth (they meet again next week).
They were hopeful and frustrated. They chastised both political parties. They showed impatience.
Here's an edited selection of their thoughts:
Robert Reynolds, Putnam Investments: "Our country is craving leadership, bold direction and greater certainty from Washington, DC. Clearly, the status quo approach to addressing our fiscal health, stimulating economic growth, and laying the groundwork for the long-term vitality of our nation needs a major overhaul now. The election results do nothing to change this essential fact."
Rich Gelfond, IMAX:"The question now is how a country so polarized figures out how to tackle so many intractable issues."
Marcelo Claure, Brightstar: "Honestly — and I have deep love for my country — the divisions that exist and how those play out in the Presidential office, Congress, and the Senate make it very difficult to institute the progressive agenda we need to drive innovation and entrepreneurship, starting in schools. It goes beyond the Presidential election — it is systemic. I really hope that during the next four years we start looking in the mirror and make the tough decisions that will ensure our continued, sustainable greatness versus getting consumed in political bickering."
Gerry Lopez, AMC Entertainment: "Winning does not prove leadership. Barack Obama has demonstrated the one, has yet to show the other. Color me skeptic. He works for me. I pay his bills. He's wasting my money."
Seifi Ghasemi, Rockwood Holdings: "The President's strong victory is an excellent outcome for America and the world. It ensures continuity and gives President Obama the opportunity to implement two of his key policies that I support: 1) bringing manufacturing back to America; 2) getting us off foreign oil."
James Rogers, Eastman Chemical: "It's hard to imagine a CEO with the President's track record not being thankful (and a little bit surprised) to still be in their job. It's time to move from 'divide and conquer' to 'unite and govern.' If this is done with a healthy dose of humility, the country will follow."
David Crane, NRG Energy: "Maybe history will conclude that Obama's demonstration of competence and bipartisanship in the wake of Sandy tipped the national election his way. We need the government to focus on doing well what it does best—with more doing and less dogma."
Daniel Hamburger, DeVry: "No matter who was going to win the election, the nation would face a singular challenge: how to produce an educated workforce that can fill the skills gap. The President and Congress must come together on a clear and reasonable regulatory framework, applicable across all of higher education, that focuses on student outcomes and leverages the tremendous diversity of our nation's colleges and universities."
Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo:"I believe clarity of direction is good for business. So the clear outcome of the US election process will present leaders with the opportunity to focus fully on issues that are most important: creating a growing economy, forging strong and collaborative global relationships, and improving the overall prospects for people and businesses around the world."
NV Tyagarajan, Genpact: "What's good for our clients is good for us. Having the elections behind us — having a winner, whoever it is as the President — and therefore getting decisions made is very important for everyone."
Jim Prokopanko, Mosaic: "We need to remove the political and regulatory uncertainty that has plagued markets and our economy so that business can grow with confidence in the future."
Jim Turley, Ernst & Young: "This election was a repeat of what we have seen for the past several elections — a very divided electorate. The resulting divided governments have produced very little in the way of results. President Obama and Congressional leaders must put partisanship on the back burner and understand that the economy and our nation need solutions to the problems facing us."
"While very few CEOs seemed to favor President Obama winning, the people have spoken and the key issue for business in general is whether there will be continued deadlock and gridlock (given the balance between the House and Senate) or not.
A quick resolution of the US fiscal situation would go a long way to restoring confidence and constructive decision making. not only in the US, but internationally. After all, the US still represents a $15 trillion GDP out of a global total of $65 trillion, twice the absolute size of China."
Dell Launches Expanded Cloud Computing Portfolio
Excerpted from ARN Report by Rimin Dutt
Dell has launched an expanded cloud client computing portfolio in Australia.
The new desktop virtualization and cloud client solutions enable workers to use any app on any device, according to the company. Dell's Desktop Virtualization Solutions in Australia will address the cost and complexity challenges of virtual desktop adoption.
DVS Simplified and Dell Wyse endpoints are available in Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Dell has also announced new support for Citrix HDX 3D technology for thin and zero clients, enabling organizations to virtualize and centrally deliver 3D graphics-intensive applications like CAD/CAM, 3D solids modeling, and HD multimedia.
"Dell is pleased to expand its desktop virtualization solutions in Australia offering our customers the broadest portfolio of end-to-end cloud client computing offerings," Dell General Manager and Vice President, Cloud Client Computing, Tarkan Maner, said.
"These new solutions enable us to offer our customers and channel partners even more choice in designing, implementing and managing their VDI solutions."
Citrix Vice President of Marketing and Partner Engagement, Krishna Subramanian, said that "with an increasingly mobile workplace, the demand for desktop virtualization is accelerating.
To address this need, Dell and Citrix are focused on delivering simple, repeatable, end-to-end solutions in the DVS portfolio that streamline deployment and management while expanding the addressable use cases."
Verizon Stakes Claim as Global Cloud Mobilizer
Excerpted from The Register by Natalie Apostolou
Armed with an expensive war chest of high-end acquisitions in cloud and telematics assets, Verizon is re-positioning itself as "one of the handful" of global players that will survive in the enterprise sector.
"Not every species or company makes it to the next era," said Verizon Enterprise Solutions Chief Marketing Officer John Harrobin at an event in Singapore. He added that the combination of cloud and mobility represented the third major era in computing.
"The very technology that is delivering enterprise IT is shifting from premises-based, to cloud-based and this is massively disruptive. It is in this discontinuity that we see the opportunity for Verizon to re-position itself in the market place and capture additional value," he told media in Singapore.
Following a heady acquisition spree which included the $612 million acquisition of Hughes Telematics, a maker of wireless systems for vehicles and the $1.4 billion purchase of cloud-computing company Terremark Worldwide, Verizon is focusing on leveraging its new capabilities with a strong focus in the Asia Pacific market.
"The assets that we have enable us to do that. The IT delivery model now requires cloud and mobility. Broadband whether wired or wireless not only enables cost savings but business transfer opportunities," he added.
In Australia, Verizon has bolstered its data center presence following the Terremark acquisition and has two data centers in Canberra and one each in Sydney and Melbourne.
While coy on further Australian specific investments plans it did not rule out further data center expansion. "We have very significant plans for our security and cloud services and in Australia these are our biggest pushes," Harrobin said.
It also operates metro fiber networks in Sydney and Melbourne, inherited from its MCI Worldcom acquisition connecting over 150 CBD buildings. The opportunities brought on by the roll-out of the NBN would most likely bring on a slew of partnerships and alliances, the executives said.
"We would seek to partner appropriately to that market on NBN. The wholesale interconnect through the region is very key to us," said Verizon Enterprise Solutions Assistant Vice President for APAC strategy Robert Le Busque. He added that NBN-style deployments and LTE roll-outs gave Verizon two key opportunities in the region to provide enterprises with ubiquitous access.
"All of a sudden we have the potential to access infrastructure and to provide secure links for our corporation or enterprise in a far more agile and dynamic way than ever before.
The Australian market's LTE development would also provide opportunities to, "take the private IP network as a fixed entity and look at ways to extend that to an LTE environment so in effect providing a private LTE connection over the 4G network for an organization," Le Busque said.
He added that Verizon's legacy as a telco provider and longstanding relationship with carriers across the globe and Asia Pacific assist in the "dialog around a different way to being able to deliver similar types of services that we are delivering today."
Scenios Presents Webinar on Cloud-Based Production
Been hearing all the hype lately about "the cloud?"
The fact is, new cloud-based technologies ARE having a profound effect on the way films and TV shows are being created -- as well as being stored and delivered -- around the world.
Please click here to register now for the Scenios Pro Webinar on Wednesday December 5th at 1:00 PM EST.
During this webinar, Mark Davis, CEO of Scenios, will give a live demo of Scenios, the critically acclaimed technology that the Hollywood Reporter describes as a "cloud-based center for all production information, including script, budget, and schedules, as well as video including rough cuts and even final productions."
During this master webinar, you'll receive practical, hands-on advice on how you can make the cloud start working for you now.
DDN Announces Hybrid Flash Storage Appliance
Excerpted from Virtual Strategy Magazine
DataDirect Networks (DDN), the leader in massively scalable storage, this week announced the availability of its next-generation scale-out storage platform: The SFA7700 hybrid flash storage appliance with SFX acceleration.
This innovative modular, scale-out appliance brings an industry-leading level of performance to data-intensive applications such as computational simulation, government intelligence, media, web and big-data analytics that require multi-dimensional storage performance and smart storage tiering combined with leading data center density for both structured and unstructured data.
The SFA7700 is a fully redundant hybrid storage platform engineered for performance and capacity optimization of block-based and file-based applications. The base system supports 60 flash and/or spinning disk drives in only 4U of data center rack space, and is expandable to support up to 396 disks in just 20U of rack space.
Leveraging award-winning SFA OS real-time, highly parallel storage operating systems, the DDN SFA7700 is precision-engineered to deliver maximum storage performance extraction and is capable of achieving performance levels more than 700% greater than competing scale-out file storage platforms.
The SFA7700 is the first platform to feature DDN's new Storage Fusion Xcelerator flash tiering technology, a suite of storage acceleration tools that combine spinning and solid state disk technology with application awareness to intelligently accelerate block-based and file-based data access and delivery while also minimizing the total cost of storage acquisition.
The SFA7700 is designed with a variety of DDN SFA software features that are engineered to minimize complexity and maximize efficiency of high-scale big-data environments.
With optional GRIDScaler and EXAScaler file storage technology from DDN, the SFA7700 is a modular scalable unit that cost-effectively scales file systems beyond 100GBs while intelligently eliminating file storage hot-spots with DDN's SFX Flash acceleration tools.
The DDN SFA7700 will be running live at SC12, the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis in Salt Lake City, UT from November 12th to 15th at booth 1519.
The DDN SFA7700 will be available in early 2013 directly through DDN and via DDN's PartnerLink channel community.
Businesses Move Content into the Cloud to Enable Better Collaboration
Excerpted from Formtek Blog by Dick Weisinger
Many companies are creating plans for moving their documents and internal content to the cloud. In fact, based on the AIIM report Content in the Cloud — Making the Right Decision, 42 percent of companies have already developed plans to strategically deploy their organization's content to the cloud.
And of those companies, 20 percent say that they plan on moving all of their content to the cloud, while 38 percent are looking at using cloud/on-premise hybrid approaches.
The survey of AIIM members found that when asked to rank their top requirements for a cloud-based content management system, they listed the following: 75 percent said security; 51 percent said cost; 25 percent said ease-of-use; 19 percent said integration with on-premise systems.
Many businesses see benefits in moving content to the cloud, especially in the area of collaboration. 68 percent said that putting content in the cloud would enable remote sites to better communicate.
64 percent said that they'd even like to open up their systems to allow closer communication and collaboration with customers — but only 15 percent have actually tried this.
The AIIM report also found that users of cloud content management solutions typically upload their documents one-by-one, more than a quarter of businesses using cloud content management automatically synchronize an on-premise repository or e-mail store with the cloud.
The AIIM report identifies inadequate governance policies as one possible monkey wrench for businesses that are moving to the cloud. Increasingly there is conflict between lines of business and IT over which cloud vendors will be used and who will manage those vendors and services.
Doug Miles, Director of Market Intelligence at AIIM, said that, "Of particular concern is the recent growth in use of cloud-based file-sharing applications. Business users have a tendency to adopt consumer-grade applications as a simple way of getting their job done — often opting for the freemium model. Meanwhile IT departments, concerned about security and governance, prevent access to these services, when they should be acknowledging the business need and setting up an approved and secure business-grade service."
BitTorrent Traffic Up 40%
Excerpted from Ultimate-Guitar Report
Despite efforts to combat online infringement of copyrighted music, BitTorrent traffic has increased by 40% in North America over the past six months.
Internet users who share files on torrent sites are responsible for the vast majority of uploads in North America, with a whopping 37% of all traffic.
But new download statistics paint a different picture. Video streaming services like Netflix and YouTube account for almost 49% of all downstream traffic, with BitTorrent downloads at 12%.
Two years ago, torrents accounted for 17% of Internet traffic, and the percentage reduction is due to an increase in the popularity of video streaming rather than a reduction in torrent use.
"Media consumption through Netflix and other media portals is definitely on the rise, but BitTorrent traffic is still booming," writes TorrentFreak in response to the study by Sandvine.
"It will be interesting to see whether the upcoming 'six-strikes' crackdown in the United States can slow this upward trend in file sharing."
As previously reported on Ultimate-Guitar, the forthcoming six-strikes rules by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will send warnings to people who persistently download unauthorized content.
Huawei Security Chief: We Can Help Keep US safe from Net Threats
Excerpted from Network World Report by Ellen Messmer
The Chief Security Officer (CSO) of Huawei, the Chinese company recently flagged by Congress as a national security threat, says the network equipment maker could actually help the United States defend itself against malicious Internet traffic.
Andy Purdy, Huawei Technologies' CSO, spoke on a Cloud Security Alliance Congress panel of security experts from the US government and industry that raised warnings about Chinese espionage across the Internet.
In representing the sole China-based company on the panel, Purdy said there are ongoing discussions between the US and China on supply-chain safety, and private companies should be part of it. There should be "openness, transparency, and freedom," he said.
"Part of the planning of the US hopefully is collaboration with the private sector and part of the strategy should be planning how to block malicious traffic," said Purdy, adding ISPs could do that. He said, "It's disgraceful the government isn't doing anything to address the Internet underground."
Purdy pointed out that Huawei agreed with the US administration about possible risks to the global supply chain. He noted that Huawei, with $32 billion in revenues, makes less than $2 billion in the US, but a third of its components come from the US, meaning thousands of US jobs are supported.
Nevertheless, China has been stealing vast amounts of US corporate intellectual property (IP) by breaking into networks, said Scott Borg, Director and Chief Economist for the US Cyber Consequences Unit, described as a research organization set up by the US government specifically to look at the nature of cyberattacks and supply-chain safety issues.
"We're also finding malicious firmware in products from China," Borg said. "China and Chinese companies aren't playing by the same rules we are."
Borg said that research indicates that China, as a country rapidly climbing out of poverty into wealth, has done that largely by "copying the developed countries," and if someone doesn't hand you the basic technology to do this, you steal it. "Stealing is part of the national economic development model for China," he said. China has basically held its people hostage, encouraging them in this, in order to raise the standard of living, he continued.
However, Borg said other companies are tired of getting hacked and "taking it on the chin." He suggested there's now increasing interest in fighting back, and this would mean carrying out counter-strikes in some way.
Marcus Sachs, Vice President for Cybersecurity at Verizon, also on the panel, said the idea of hiring private armed guards to defend you is well-established in the physical world, and thus raises the question, "Why not do that in cyberspace?"
But he pointed out that the armed guards in the physical world face limited distances in which to act, while in cyberspace you're across the planet within milliseconds. He said the idea of counter-strikes of any sort will come to deep consideration of policy issues.
John Streufert, Director of the National Cybersecurity Division at the Department of Homeland Security, said offensive cybersecurity is the responsibility of the military in the US, and he said if citizens see specific threat problems they should report them.
But during a session later in the day, Streufert also described a long-planned DHS program called Continuous Monitoring. Coming soon will be a contract solicitation for managed security services called Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation, including cloud-based services, to protect civilian federal agencies' data from stealthy attacks.
The Continuous Monitoring concept calls for a layer of sensors and scanners to check hardware and software used by the federal government for vulnerabilities.
A project expected to take the federal government a few years to complete, it would include a security dashboard view managed by Continuous Monitoring service providers that would likely be shared at the agency department level. Streufert called it a "cyberscope" for the federal agencies.
Streufert said the goal is to get the agencies away from the hugely expensive paper-based vulnerability reports they generate today that are seen as inefficient and untimely. The program could extend as well to state and local government agencies, he said, for an estimated total of up to 25 million seats.
The Key to Success in Cloud Computing? Good Plumbing
Excerpted from Forbes Report by Michael Kanellos
Internet start-ups need to amass a compelling business model, defensible technology, and an experienced team of entrepreneurs to achieve escape velocity.
But they also need to make sure the trains run on time.
Operational competitiveness is the new dividing line between the success stories and also-rans in cloud computing and Internet services, said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation during a panel discussion at the Big Science Conference that took place in San Jose, CA this week.
Companies offering cloud services have to have a good idea, in other words, but it is more important that they make sure their system doesn't crash, annoy users, or leak data like a sieve.
"The barrier to entry is low but getting to scale is a new bar into the game of success," he said. "A new bar of success is operational excellence."
Allan Leinwand, CTO of Platform Development at ServiceNow and a Zynga alum, generally agreed. Zynga, for instance, started out by hosting its own games. The company then quickly found itself overwhelmed: it couldn't order servers from Dell fast enough and plug them in to keep up with traffic. As a result, it shifted over to Amazon Cloud Services.
But then, it faced another problem. Amazon, like other generic cloud services, couldn't provide the type of service Zynga required. The online gaming company moved operations back inside while keeping Amazon as a way to relieve pressure.
"A public cloud is like a four-door sedan," Leinwand said. "You come to a point where you need a specialized cloud."
Both Leinwand and Zemlin noted that the pursuit of better operations has cropped up in recruiting too. If you're conversant in the fundamentals of network architectures or storage systems, you're a far more attractive candidate.
It's a compelling observation and in some ways revives the oldest debates in Silicon Valley: is hardware or software more important? Software, code proponents argue, is obviously more important. Hardware is essentially free. Cell-phone carriers give away cell-phones to land service contracts. Google now produces cheap laptops in conjunction with Samsung to lock customers into their services.
Laptops might be cheap, hardware adherents argue, but data centers aren't. Hardware architecture, or the lack of it, has played a key role in the rise and fall of many companies. Friendster failed because of operational weakness, said Zemlin. Facebook, by contrast, has obsessively fine-tuned its back-end operations to eliminate latency, speed searches, and reduce power.
Then there is the cautionary tale of Direct Hit. Don't remember them? Back in 1998, Direct Hit was the next big name in search. It landed VC funding from Draper, Fisher Jurvetson, and others and was growing like mad.
So what happened? The company based its infrastructure for his company around Sun servers. "We spent our entire hardware budget for the year, and we quickly reached its limits," former CEO Gary Culliss told me. Google built its infrastructure around x86 servers and could continue to expand.
How the battle over operational excellence plays out in the industry should make for interesting viewing. For one thing, it gives a framework for observing the ongoing battle for market share in online storage services. DropBox, Google Drive and all of the other cloud storage services really offer the same thing: free or cut-rate disk space. They aren't very different from each other: consumers would use these services far less than they do if they had the available bandwidth. Ultimately, the winners and losers will be determined less by marketing and buzz than by which service crashes less.
Amazon, which generates headlines every time its cloud crashes, is already going through the public bath of fire on these issues.
The emergence of specialized clouds may also change the mindset of investors regarding the cloud. For years, the cloud was equated with low costs. Cloud architectures do cut costs—for consumers. For cloud service providers, however, the bills could escalate in the pursuit of performance.
The cloud isn't a puffy white thing in the ether, after all. It's a large, tan building near a freeway exit stuffed with blinking boxes.
Rackspace Q3 Profit Seen Up 36% on Cloud Growth
Excerpted from Investor's Business Daily Report by Reinhardt Krause
Analysts covering Rackspace Hosting, the No. 2 cloud computing services provider behind Amazon, will be looking for signs of progress in the company's OpenStack initiative when it reports third-quarter results late Tuesday.
Rackspace has led an industry group that's backing OpenStack open-source software for use in private and public data centers. Many Fortune 500 companies have been testing OpenStack in their facilities. With competition intensifying in the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) market, analysts say OpenStack's adoption is key to Rackspace's growth prospects.
"OpenStack represents an inflection for Rackspace in that it allows the service provider to accommodate Web-scale server deployments in its rapidly growing public cloud segment," William Blair analyst Jim Breen said in a research report. "Our channel checks and Rackspace presentations suggest high enterprise interest that may translate into revenue increases in 2013."
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect Rackspace to earn 19 cents a share in the third quarter, up 36% from a year earlier. Revenue is seen rising 27% to $264.6 million.
San Antonio, TX based Rackspace has seen its stock jump 54% in 2012.
Amazon doesn't break out revenue for its Amazon Web Services unit, but Bernstein Research estimates AWS' third-quarter sales rose 88% to $474 million.
Rackspace gets about 23% of its sales from cloud services, the rest comes from website hosting services. In Q2, Rackspace's cloud revenue rose 69% to $73 million from the year-earlier period.
Google, IBM, CenturyLink's Savvis unit and others are pushing into cloud services, analysts say, taking on AWS, Rackspace and privately held GoGrid and Softlayer.
In IaaS, companies rent computer servers and data storage in remote data centers via the Internet. Customers pay IaaS service providers pennies an hour per server.
Global IaaS Service Launched by Telefonica Digital
Excerpted from Sourcing Focus Report
Telefonica Digital has launched a global infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) service delivering configurable cloud services, aimed at enterprise and mobile applications.
The cloud service will be offered as a customer managed platform allowing for the control, monitoring, and customization of virtual servers.
Carlos Morales, Director at Telefonica Digital, said, "Telefonica Digital seeks to meet the needs of thousands of businesses that require a cloud services platform that is easily scalable, with low latency and totally trustworthy, enabling them not only to rapidly respond to their own needs, but also to the expectations of their customers."
Coming Events of Interest
INTELLIGENCE IN THE CLOUD - December 4th in Washington, DC. This workshop continues the NAB's series of programs developed for military and government professionals to demonstrate how advances in the commercial industries can benefit the military and government sectors. The atmosphere for the workshop is interactive with attendee participation welcome.
Third International Workshop on Knowledge Discovery Using Cloud and Distributed Computing Platforms - December 10th in Brussels, Belgium. Researchers, developers, and practitioners from academia, government, and industry will discuss emerging trends in cloud computing technologies, programming models, data mining, knowledge discovery, and software services.
2013 International CES - January 8th-11th in Las Vegas, NV. With more than four decades of success, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) reaches across global markets, connects the industry and enables CE innovations to grow and thrive. The International CES is owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $195 billion US consumer electronics industry.
CONTENT IN THE CLOUD at CES - January 9th in Las Vegas, NV. Gain a deeper understanding of the impact of cloud-delivered content on specific segments and industries, including consumers, telecom, media, and CE manufacturers.
NAB Show 2013 - April 4th-11th in Las Vegas, NV. Every industry employs audio and video to communicate, educate and entertain. They all come together at NAB Show for creative inspiration and next-generation technologies to help breathe new life into their content. NAB Show is a must-attend event if you want to future-proof your career and your business.
CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE at NAB - April 8th-9th in Las Vegas, NV.The New ways cloud-based solutions have accomplished better reliability and security for content distribution. From collaboration and post-production to storage, delivery, and analytics, decision makers responsible for accomplishing their content-related missions will find this a must-attend event.
CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2013 - May 20th-21st in Boston, MA. CCE:2013 will focus on three major sectors, GOVERNMENT, HEALTHCARE, and FINANCIAL SERVICES, whose use of cloud-based technologies is revolutionizing business processes, increasing efficiency and streamlining costs.
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