November 25, 2013
Volume XLVI, Issue 2
GVIC Is Next Week in Washington, DC
Tune into the BuZZ Thanksgiving night, November 28th, from 9:00 to 10:00 PM US ET to learn more about next week's GOVERNMENT VIDEO IN THE CLOUD (GVIC).
The DCIA will present GVIC, a Conference within the Government Video Expo 2013 (GVE), next Wednesday December 4th at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.
The opening keynote by Tim Bixler, Federal Manager, Solutions Architecture, Amazon Web Services (AWS), will offer an "Update on Cloud Video Services Adoption in the Public Sector."
Two case studies will explore "Cloud Solutions for Government Video Production" by John Heaton, Director of Sales Engineering, Americas, Aspera, and "Cloud-Based Management of Government Video Assets" by Frank Cardello, General Manager, Platform, T3Media.
Cirina Catania, Independent Video Producer, will join the earlier speakers for a panel discussion covering "Considerations for Creating Government Video in the Cloud."
After a networking break, the second GVIC keynote by Adam Firestone, Director, Solutions, WSO2 Federal Systems, will address "Security & Reliability Concerns Unique to Government Video in the Cloud."
Two additional case studies will cover "Distribution of Government-Owned Video from the Cloud" by Adam Powers, VP of Media Technology & Solutions. V2Solutions and "Analysis of Aggregated Government Video Content" by Michael Rowny, CEO, PixSpan.
The closing GVIC panel discussion will add Larry Freedman, Partner, Edwards, Wildman, Palmer, and examine "Considerations for Cloud Dissemination of Government Video."
GVE, co-located with InfoComm's GovComm, brings the east coast's largest contingent of video production, post, digital media, and broadcast professionals together with government AV/IT specialists. The combined event features over 150 exhibits and nearly 6,000 registrants.
The CCA offers sponsorship opportunities for this event.
DCIA Member Company employees and DCINFO readers are entitled to a $100 discount by using registration code GVE.
Please click here to register.
WSO2 at Government Video Expo 2013
WSO2 today announced that WSO2 Federal Systems Director of Solutions Adam Firestone will present two sessions at GOVERNMENT VIDEO IN THE CLOUD (GVIC) on Wednesday December 4th at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.
Firestone will deliver a keynote presentation, "Secure, Cross Community Access to Real Time Full Motion Video: A Case Study." There he will discuss how advanced access control techniques and technologies can allow multiple agencies and service components to share the capabilities of a single real-time, full motion video asset in a secure manner that provides both flexibility and maximum operational security, enabling the missions of military and government agencies.
He also will participate in a panel discussion, "Considerations for Cloud Dissemination of Government Video." Along with other panel members, he will exchange views on the lessons learned from private sector business intelligence (BI) and mobile device management (MDM) in the cloud, as well as how it can be applied to delivery systems for sensitive government video.
Moderating the panel session will be DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty. Other panel participants will include Adam Powers, V2Solutions Vice President of Media Technology and Solutions; Michael Rowny, CEO of PixSpan; and Larry Freedman, Partner with Edwards, Wildman, Palme.
WSO2 Federal Systems, a subsidiary of WSO2 Inc., is focused on delivering mission-critical solutions to solve computing challenges across the spectrum of defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and civilian government operations. WSO2 Federal Systems will build on the comprehensive, open and modular capabilities of WSO2's award-winning enterprise and cloud middleware. A management team with decades of technical, programmatic and engineering experience leads WSO2 Federal Systems.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The DCIA is pleased to announce the agenda and our call for speakers for CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2014 (CCE:2014) taking place in Washington, DC on May 13th and 14th.
Our partner for this event is the CLOUD COMPUTING ASSOCIATION (CCA), which is handling exhibitions and sponsorships.
CCE:2014 will focus on three major sectors whose use of cloud-based technologies is revolutionizing business processes, increasing efficiency, and streamlining costs.
More than 100 thought-leaders will have the opportunity to bring their industry knowledge, technological savvy, and strategic insight to our in-depth exploration of the ways cloud computing is streamlining government, revolutionizing healthcare, and providing for the safe and secure functioning of the financial services sector.
How can local, state and federal governments improve services and protect citizens with cloud-based tools?
The explosion of data, advances in security and reliability, the need for redundant storage, and putting it all to meaningful use present challenges to natural resource management, transportation and utility grid monitoring, public safety, law enforcement, and emergency responsiveness.
The government at all levels has been mandated to move into the cloud, and billions are being allocated to these purposes.
We will provide a forum for public-sector adopters and private-sector providers alike to discuss their views of how the cloud is transforming the way government performs its essential functions.
With deepening ties to the government in an increasing number of ways, there is perhaps no financial sector that is larger — and at the same time, more fragmented and technologically disconnected — than the American healthcare industry.
This sector — more than any other — has both the resources and the imperative to benefit from adopting cloud-based solutions to help it become more efficient, collaborative, and interactively connected.
Managing private patient records, collecting clinical research data, and big-data imaging are just three of the many healthcare functions for which the cloud is not only uniquely suited — it is urgently needed.
Speakers representing hospitals, clinics, multi-physician practices and more will be welcome to present their perspectives, along with providers of cloud-based solutions that serve every part of the healthcare ecosystem.
International financial transactions and currency exchange; domestic banking and insurance services; as well as timely and efficient investment decision-making are also being impacted by cloud computing.
The cloud is becoming the most advanced platform for an industry that makes up over one-fourth of our economy.
How are banks, insurance companies, and private equity and hedge fund investors making use of cloud-computing?
Business and technology leaders from the financial services industry will be joined by executives and innovators from cloud-computing solutions providers to examine the ways in which the cloud is being put to use by the global financial services industry.
The conference will open on Tuesday morning with a continental breakfast followed by keynote addresses on the "The State of Cloud Computing Adoption for Government, Healthcare, and Financial Services (gCLOUD, hCLOUD, and fCLOUD)."
Next we'll explore "Leading Industry Trends and the Emergence of Standards Impacting gGLOUD, hCLOUD, and fCLOUD Use Cases."
After a mid-morning networking break, our focus will advance to "Common Regulatory Frameworks and Pending Legislation Affecting the gGLOUD, hCLOUD, and fCLOUD Sectors," and then "Outstanding Obstacles and Issues Still To Be Overcome for Continued Advancement."
After the conference luncheon, followed by dessert and coffee service in the exhibit hall, we'll examine current developments in "gGLOUD, hCLOUD, and fCLOUD Service Models, Deployment Models, Architectures, and Management."
Then, following a mid-afternoon networking break, we'll address "Data Storage, Software Applications, Workflow Processes, and Implementation Strategies."
At day's end, we'll enjoy an evening networking reception.
On Wednesday morning, after a continental breakfast in the exhibit hall, we'll take a closer look at "Vendor Criteria, Task Prioritization, Performance Metrics, and Economics."
Our mid-morning networking break will be followed by "Application Development/Programming Challenges/Opportunities for gGLOUD, hCLOUD, and fCLOUDs."
We will close the conference with "Final Considerations for Selecting, Deploying, and Evaluating Cloud Solutions."
Please click here for more information or to apply for a speaking slot on any of our topics. Share wisely, and take care.
CONNECTING TO THE CLOUD Coming to CES in January
The DCIA will present CONNECTING TO THE CLOUD (CTTC), a Conference within the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), on January 8th in the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV.
The CCA is handling sponsorships.
CTTC at CES will highlight the very latest advancements in cloud-based solutions that are now revolutionizing the consumer electronics (CE) sector or — as ABI Research's Sam Rosen referenced that category last week at CLOUD COMPUTING WEST — the "cloud electronics (CE) sector."
Special attention will be given to the impact on consumers, telecom industries, the media, and CE manufacturers of accessing and interacting with cloud-based services using connected devices.
An opening panel moderated by Tanya Curry-McMichael, VP of Strategy and Marketing, Verizon Digital Media Services, will examine "Millennials, Online TV, and Gaming: Now and Tomorrow."
What are the implications of the digital revolution in the way Millennials discover, access, and consume video, music, and gaming content online?
Hear it first-hand from young voices representing leading companies in the digital, social, and tech arenas.
Bhavik Vyas, Media & Entertainment Partner Eco-System Manager, Amazon Web Services (AWS), will further examine this issue in "Who's Connecting What to the Cloud?"
And Sam Rosen, Practice Director, TV & Video, Consumer Electronics, ABI Research, will address, "Where Are There Problems Connecting to the Cloud?"
Next, in two back-to-back presentations, Robert Stevenson, Chief Business Officer & VP of Strategy, Gaikai, will explore "Consumer Benefits of Cloud-Delivered Content: Ubiquity, Cost, Portability Improvements." And Reza Rassool, Chief Technology Officer, Kwaai Oak, will expose "Consumer Drawbacks of Cloud-Delivered Content: Availability, Reliability, Scalability Issues."
The follow-on panel with Jay Migliaccio, Director of Cloud Platforms & Services, Aspera; Andy Gottlieb, VP, Product Management, Aryaka; Larry Freedman, Partner, Edwards Wildman Palmer; David Hassoun, Owner & Partner, RealEyes Media; Jay Gleason, Cloud Solutions Manager, Sprint; and Grant Kirkwood, Co-Founder, Unitas Global, will discuss "The Impact on Telecommunications Industries of Cloud Computing."
Then two sessions will delve into "Telecommunications Industry Benefits of Cloud-Delivered Content: New Opportunities" with Doug Pasko, Principal Member of Technical Staff, Verizon Communications. And then "Telecommunications Industry Drawbacks of Cloud-Delivered Content: Infrastructure Challenges" with Allan McLennan, President & Chief Analyst, PADEM Group.
The next panel will address "The Impact on Entertainment Industries of Cloud Computing" with Mike King, Dir. of Mktg. for Cloud, Content & Media, DataDirect Networks; Venkat Uppuluri, VP of Marketing, Gaian Solutions; Mike West, Chief Technology Officer, GenosTV; Arnold Cortez, IT Consulting Specialist, IBM; Kurt Kyle, Media Industry Principal, SAP America; Adam Powers, and VP of Media Technology & Solutions, V2Solutions.
Two solo presentations with Les Ottolenghi, Global CIO, Las Vegas Sands Corporation, and Saul Berman, Partner & Vice President, IBM Global Business Services, will highlight "Entertainment Industry Benefits of Cloud Computing: Cost Savings & Efficiency" and "Entertainment Industry Drawbacks of Cloud Computing: Disruption & Security" respectively.
Additional sessions will introduce the subjects "Consumer Electronics Industry Benefits of Cloud-Based Services: New Revenue Streams" with Mikey Cohen, Architect & Principal Engineer, Netflix, and "Consumer Electronics Industry Drawbacks of Cloud-Based Services: Complexity" with Tom Joyce, SVP & GM, HP Converged Systems, Hewlett Packard.
The closing panel will draw on all the preceding sessions to more deeply analyze "The Impact on the Consumer Electronics Industry of Cloud Computing" with Michael Elliott, Enterprise Cloud Evangelist, Dell; David Frerichs, President, Media Tuners; Thierry Lehartel, VP, Product Management, Rovi; Russ Hertzberg, VP, Technology Solutions, SoftServe; Guido Ciburski, CEO, Telecontrol; and Scott Vouri, VP of Marketing, Western Digital.
Top program topics will include case studies on how cloud-based solutions are now being deployed for fixed and mobile CE products — successes and challenges; the effects on consumers of having access to services in the cloud anytime from anywhere — along with related social networking trends.
Also featured will be what broadband network operators and mobile Internet access providers are doing to help manage — and spur — the migration to interoperable cloud services.
Some in traditional entertainment industries find this technology overwhelmingly threatening and disruptive — others see enormous new opportunities; and the value proposition for CE manufacturers will also continue to evolve substantially to providing cloud-based value-adding services — rather than conventional hardware features.
Please register now for CTTC at CES.
Government Agencies Moving to the Cloud
Excerpted from Rescale Report by Istvan Jonyer
According to the US Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, the US government instituted the Cloud First policy to accelerate the pace of cloud adoption, resulting in a projected spending of $118 million on public cloud offerings in 2014.
The Cloud First policy mandates that agencies take full advantage of cloud computing benefits to maximize capacity utilization, improve IT flexibility and responsiveness, and minimize cost.
Cloud deployments mitigate costs by sharing services and infrastructure, which, in turn, means that the government must also address the stringent compliance and security requirements (FISMA, FIPS and FedRAMP mandates) to avoid compromising national security.
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for government cloud products and services.
Cloud adoption is also helping government agencies improve operational flexibility. The US Army, Air Force, Navy, Department of Justice, Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Department of Education, among others have been early cloud adopters, setting the trend and direction for others to follow.
The USDA, for example, launched a broad initiative to upgrade and streamline the 21 separate e-mail systems it contracted from various providers. The USDA decided to aggregate demand in a single cloud provider and retire its related internal assets. Doing so effectively transformed the USDA email assets to email service, which vastly improved agility and scalability.
One of the latest examples of security-conscious cloud transformation is the CIA contracting with Amazon to provide a new cloud computing solution. Clearly, the government is satisfied that security concerns can be effectively managed in cloud installations, and that the efficiency and agility of cloud-based resources serve the government's purposes well.
Rescale is excited to work with government agencies in the area of high-performance computing applications. In recent years, the government has shifted its approach to IT infrastructure management in favor of cloud computing, indicating that a number of concerns about the cloud are no longer seen as issues.
With respect to security, Rescale maintains the highest levels of security practices and are certified by multiple security certification programs.
Proprietary IP and mission-critical data must remain within full control of their owners.
For this reason, Rescale employs the same encryption technology used in banking for all of its data transmission, and encrypts data once more for storage in the cloud.
Obamacare a Catalyst for Cloud-Computing Stocks
Excerpted from Daily Finance Report by Tim Beyers
When President Obama lobbied for health care reform, he didn't expect opposition from hackers. Yet that's what we're seeing. Late last month, they started pushing a new distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack aimed at taking down the Healthcare.gov website.
Its name: Destroy Obama Care.
Hackers have made as many as 16 attempts at breaching Healthcare.gov in the time since, according to testimony from Roberta Stempfley, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Cybersecurity and Communications. They've yet to penetrate the site.
Stempfley's testimony before Congress. Sources: YouTube and US House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee.
Scale may be why. Healthcare.gov, for all its faults, likely taps a huge network of on-site computers for processing horsepower, storage, and memory, among other things. The more scale a site has, the more traffic it can handle, and the harder it becomes for a DDoS attack such as "Destroy Obama Care" to work as intended.
In hosting its own massive infrastructure, the feds have demonstrated why it's so important to have one in the first place. Trouble is, only President Obama and a handful of his most senior advisors possess the full resources of the United States government. If we want scale for protecting our websites, we'll need to get it from those who already have it: cloud infrastructure suppliers.
Infonetics Research says the market for cloud-based security offerings will grow to $9.2 billion by 2017. And why not? DDoS attacks are unbearably common. According to security specialist Arbor Networks, various detection systems spot close to 3,000 attacks each day.
Political campaigns and causes are a typical target. For this reason, Google last month opened a portion of its infrastructure to sites serving humanitarian causes that may prove unpopular elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Akamai Technologies has been positioning itself in this area since early 2012 when it introduced Kona Site Defender. The idea is to leverage the worldwide Akamai network as a distinct layer removed enough from corporate networks to keep DDoS attacks at bay. Akamai's Performance and Security revenue rose 19% in the third quarter, matching the company's second-quarter performance.
Radware, too, is cashing in on the trend with a series of devices for controlling and securing applications that live primarily in the cloud. Analysts at Needham recently upgraded the company's stock on the strength of its new Alteon NG, which the firm says is arriving ahead of schedule. The stock has lagged the market this year, up just about 1.5% to date.
Don't be surprised if more of Wall Street takes a kinder eye not only to Akamai and Radware but the entire sector. In March, a massive assault nearly destroyed European spam tracker Spamhaus. The onslaught involved untold numbers of machines banded together to deliver some 300 GB per second of bogus traffic. Attacks are getting fiercer by the day.
Even so, most DDoS attacks top out at 100 GB per second or much less, IT services firm GlobalDots says. I'd put "Destroy Obama Care" on that list. A meaningful attack, certainly, but nowhere near powerful enough to tip over Google or any of the other major cloud computing suppliers, let alone the technology underpinnings of the US government.
Yet the war isn't over. More attacks will come, and each one will be worse than the last. A race to stay ahead that, in my view, favors no one. Save for the arms dealers, of course.
While there are plenty of ways to play the rise of cloud security, you might do even better betting on the infrastructure required to deliver the cloud in the first place.
The Motley Fool's chief investment officer has just hand-picked a wireless web winner for our new special report, "The Motley Fool's Top Stock for 2014." Full and free access is simply a click away, so grab your copy now.
New Cloud Delivery Models for Financial Services Sector
Excerpted from Biztech2 Report
The continued hybridization of the cloud will not only give financial institutions access to the right model for their industry, but grant them a tailor-made solution for each organizational function as well, says Sui-Jon Ho, Market Analyst in IDC Financial Insights.
IDC Financial Insights' latest study, reports that the region is becoming more accommodating to cloud initiatives as once-fragmented financial regulations begin converging on the topics of service interruption, information leakage, and customer data security. Longstanding policy uncertainties are being gradually dispelled, albeit at the price of more onerous measures.
In coping with regulatory and business mandates, four common parameters must be considered: the type of datacenter management (internal or third-party), its location (on-premise or off-site), user tenancy (single-tenant or multi-tenant), and the inclusion data segregation (hardware, software, or none).
This report details how the Dedicated Private Cloud (DPC), Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), and the Community Cloud models (alongside traditional public and private cloud services) could potentially offer a solution to the extensive IT wish-lists of today.
Ho states, "The evolution of cloud technology provides users today with an opportunity to choose the best-of-breed solutions to gain better business efficiency. Hybrid models along the private-public spectrum now have lower barriers of entry and are becoming viable solutions to the longstanding 'cost-versus-compliance' dilemma."
Towards 2014 and beyond, the pursuit of business continuity must accommodate not only the pan-Asian ambitions of the modern FSI, but the super-regional demands of the global client as well. An increasing number of institutions have, as a result, deployed hosted private cloud solutions across various functional processes to meet the twin mandates of cost efficiency and faster time-to-market.
He continues, "Taking full advantage of cloud solutions lies in determining which of Asia's structural environments are becoming more permissive for cloud rollouts. Macro-factors, from regulatory alignment to ICT infrastructure modernization, play a deciding role in deciding where such technologies can be deployed to greatest effect."
Turning to IaaS Changes CTO Role in Financial Industry
Excerpted from TechRepublic Report by Nick Hardiman
One place that IaaS has been making inroads is in the financial services industry. This has changed the role of CTOs at those companies.
A company that manages an investment scheme provides specialist professional services to its clients.
It's a financial company that requires a lot of computing horsepower, but is not a computing specialist. In the past, an investment management company needed stacks of expensive hardware and a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to manage it.
A small company that does not specialize in computers, but does have heavy IT needs, sounds like a company that is better off migrating to cloud services. What's happened to all the hardware and that CTO? Are they still there? Or is the hardware in the garbage and the CTO unemployed?
Abacus Group is an MSP in the USA that has been operating since 2008. Abacus provides IaaS for financial services organizations. Its client base is mainly hedge funds and private equity dealers. Computing resources are all managed and owned by Abacus. They offer hosted private cloud and managed services including telephony, e-mail, hosting and DR.
Jason Elmer, Director of Business Development at Abacus, gave an example of how a client uses their cloud services. "A mature fund may employ six individuals for application type work. The fund spins up a new application, finds out they are trading heavier and they add more resources".
These customers are not the high frequency traders desperate to shave milliseconds off their response times. These are companies with common enterprise challenges.
One of Abacus' clients is a fund employing 26 users, managing $3.5 billion dollars (yes, really) and relying on a portfolio of applications. This fund's hardware required a refresh, which required a significant capital expense. Infrastructure rebuilds, both on-premise and in a remote data center, would cost a lot of up-front cash. The fund managers decided it was more cost effective to hand over to an IaaS provider.
This changed the CTO's role. The CTO in this hedge fund company is now the primary point of contact for Abacus and manages the relationship. The CTO has been freed up to work on other aspects of the business, such as managing the workflow of the fund and implementing a new risk system.
Elmer has witnessed this change of role of a CTO in many private equity and hedge funds. Elmer described what he has seen across the Abacus client base. "In the past the CTO was in-house. They would say 'the IT closet is my responsibility. Operation is down to the COO'".
That simple world is gone. "Now the CTO is wearing many more hats than they initially signed up for. The CTO must improve operations, evaluate software, manage vendors, while doing more with less, as technology budgets have gotten tight".
Elmer described the effect this extra responsibility is having. "The CTO likes the additional responsibility. Decisions are more transparent to him — he has insights into the rest of the business. The CTO is no longer siloed".
There may no longer be an in-house CTO. While the very large players - the multi-billion dollar banks — will have the full suite of C-level executives, the small shops have no CTO and no computer room on-premise. IT services are outsourced to a company like Abacus to gain the cloud benefits of being more cost-effective, more secure, and more scalable.
In the past the CTO had a narrowly defined set of responsibilities, focused on getting more value from expensive IT infrastructure. The CTO role today is multi-disciplinary, and that's the way the new CTO likes it.
Investment companies have the same challenges as other professional services organizations. The companies Abacus deals with are not comfortable operating at the forefront of technology, but they have been using cloud services for some time. Their clients use off-premise services because off-premise is now accepted by everyone in the investment space. If the CTO role has changed in hedge funds, it's changed everywhere.
3 Surprising Trends among Pacesetter Cloud Adopters
Excerpted from InformationWeek Report by Ellis Booker
IBM's latest global research on cloud computing kicks out a few unexpected correlations.
Line-of-business (LoB) decision makers are more interested in cloud computing's strategic potential than are their IT counterparts.
That was one of the surprises in IBM's latest global research into the cloud-computing phenomenon. The survey, released in late October, involved 800 companies in 13 countries and 24 industries.
LoB executives are embracing software-, platform-, and infrastructure-as-a-service more quickly than their IT peers, the survey found.
"Three years from now, 72% of the people we surveyed in the line of business believe it's going to be 'strategically important' to transforming their companies," said IBM's VP of Cloud Services Ric Telford, who teased some of the research's top-level findings during his keynote at last month's Cloud Connect conference in Chicago.
The majority of IT leaders, some 58%, also believe in cloud's impact, the survey found. Today, IT is ahead of LOB on this dimension, 49% to 34%.
The IBM survey segmented respondents into three groups: Chasers, Challengers, and Pacesetters.
The last group, which is leading the charge when it comes to cloud adoption, is using the architecture to differentiate their businesses, Telford said. They're using cloud infrastructure and services, combined with analytics, to wholly rethink how their business works, from supply-chain processes to customer relations, he said.
Indeed, much of that analytical muscle will itself be provided via the cloud -- a fact underscored just days ago by IBM's announcement that it would begin offering its partners cloud APIs into its Watson natural-language query engine.
Another surprise in the research -- Telford was careful to call it a "correlation" not a cause -- was how Pacesetters are outpacing the other two segments from a financial perspective.
Specifically, Pacesetters' compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2009 and 2012 beat the Chasers group by 1.9x for revenue and 2.4x for gross profit.
"A third takeaway from the data is how Pacesetters are planning for the future," Telford told InformationWeek in a follow-up phone call. These organizations are thinking beyond using the cloud for storage or other infrastructure-layer functions, and are planning to use its services as "building blocks" for new products and services, including industry-specific solutions, he said.
"This was one of the reasons we invested in SoftLayer," Telford said, referring to IBM's $2 billion purchase of the seven-year-old infrastructure-as-a-service company in July.
SoftLayer's robust infrastructure will become the core of what he called "composable" services from which businesses will roll out their own offerings.
Pacesetters said the top three most valuable capabilities in their "cloud of the future" would be:
Product/service building blocks: Easy-to-assemble industry or business service components they can use to construct new products or services.
(Even bigger) big data: Access to and management of vast data stores they can't get to now. They're not alone here; this was a top pick across all three groups.
Industry-specific platforms: Cloud platforms with applications and computing environments designed specifically for their industry.
10 Recommendations for Successfully Deploying Cloud Computing
Excerpted from EU-Info Report
The EU's cybersecurity Agency ENISA has analyzed the present state of play regarding governmental cloud deployment in 23 countries across Europe.
In the report the countries are classified as "Early Adopters," "Well—Informed," "Innovators," or "Hesitants" based on specific criteria. Finally, the new report presents ten recommendations for successfully rolling out governmental cloud services, as cloud is recommended as cheaper and safer for data protection of the citizens.
This report presents governmental cloud deployment in 23 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Republic of Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the UK.
Some key findings of the report:
Public and private sector organizations are increasingly switching to cloud computing.
Public bodies are key players in boosting cloud computing, which offers scalability, elasticity, high performance, resilience and security, together with cost efficiency.
Governmental clouds can also simplify citizen interaction by reducing information processing time, lowering the cost of government services and enhancing citizen data security.
Top ten recommendations for the secure deployment of governmental clouds:
Support the development of an EU strategy for governmental clouds.
Develop a business model to guarantee sustainability as well as economies of scale for gov-cloud solutions.
Promote the definition of a regulatory framework to address the "locality problem."
Promote the definition of a framework to mitigate the "loss of control" problem.
Develop a common SLA framework.
Enhance compliance to EU and country specific regulations for cloud solutions.
Develop a certification framework.
Develop a set of security measures for all deployment models.
Support academic research for cloud computing.
Develop provisions for privacy enhancement.
The Executive Director of ENISA Professor Udo Helmbrecht commented, "This report provides the governments the necessary insights to successfully deploy cloud services. This is in the interest both of the citizens, and for the economy of Europe, being a business opportunity for EU companies; to better manage security, resilience and to strengthen the national cloud strategy using governmental clouds."
Please click here for the full report.
Verizon: "Internet of Things" with New Cloud Authentication Service
Excerpted from Techworld Report by John Dunn
The idea that the world stands on the edge of an Internet of Things is barely out of the hype cycle and already Verizon has announced a new cloud system designed to authenticate the billions of devices that might one day populate it.
Verizon's new flag in the sand it its Managed Certificate Services (MCS) platform, designed as a gateway to enable the vast number of machine-to-machine connections that will be generated by smart energy meters, automobile systems, and home monitoring technology.
If consumers ever do start buying the Internet-enabled fridges that can tell them they are running out of milk, the data will probably pass through authentication systems such as MCS.
Importantly, this seductive omni-embedded world can't come into being without such technology existing first and Verizon is chuffed that MCS is on sale now in the US and Europe, with Asia-Pacific due to be added next month.
The core of the system is its certificate-management handling which removes the complexity and expense that normally comes with managing this kind of infrastructure.
Other capabilities included the ability to act as a gateway for shopping cart applications, e-government services such as license plate renewals and even for services requiring strong identify such as passport renewal, Verizon said.
Customers could access the system through a web portal and be confident that it would scale to billions of devices if need be. Usage would operate on a pay-as-you-go service model, the firm added.
Wrapping authentication in cloud services is an expanding business for all sorts of applications far more mundane than Internet of Things devices but security remains an important differentiator as the market develops.
The worry is that as more and more passive — machine - devices are connected, the motivation to connect rogues will increase.
"With the continued explosion of the Internet of Things and the expansion of connected objects and machines, businesses require a simple, scalable and effective way to manage identity and data integrity," said Verizon's vice president of global security solutions, Eddie Schwartz.
"Verizon's Managed Certificate Services build upon our solid digital certificate technology and managed security services expertise with a cloud-based platform to deliver an ideal offering for the age of connected solutions."
In truth, MCS is an Internet of Things story in name as much as reality; the Internet of Things is currently an Internet of very few things. In the meantime, it will have to earn its keep running a range of less hypr-laden applications until that world turns up.
DDN Introduces Industry's Fastest Big-Data Storage Platform
DataDirect Networks (DDN) maintains its lead in supporting the largest Big Data, High Performance Computing (HPC), Cloud and data-intensive environments with the introduction today of its new SFA12K X series (SFA12KX)], the industry's fastest family of storage appliance platforms.
With this latest release, DDN is introducing two new models of its Storage Fusion Architecture (SFA) technology the SFA12KX and the SFA12KXE.
The SFA12KX features the most advanced processor technology and a hyper-optimized operating system to deliver extreme performance at up to 48GB/s and 1.4 Million IOPS from a single appliance, making it the industry leader in all categories of IOPS and bandwidth. This performance boost allows customers to deploy Big Data solutions with the least number of systems dramatically lowering the total cost of ownership.
The SFA12KXE leverages DDN TM In-Storage Processing technology to power DDN's high-performance EXAScaler and GRIDScaler parallel file systems, as well as customer applications running natively within the storage array. The SFA12KXE delivers up to 23GB/s of file system performance and eliminates external servers and storage networking for a converged approach that yields significant acquisition and management savings.
With new capabilities including DDN's SFX application-aware Flash caching, Real-Time I/O and a unique Storage Fusion Fabric technology, the SFA12KX series provides customers a trusted foundation for building innovative storage systems that deliver superior performance for the most challenging Big Data workloads of tomorrow at the lowest overall TCO.
The SFA12KX appliances use the latest generation of Intel Ivy Bridge family of processors and a hyper optimized operating system to achieve extreme performance targets. This architecture enables customers to build file storage systems that scale to 1TB/s and beyond with as little as 21 arrays, allowing consolidation by as much as 10:1when compared to competing technologies.
The additional processing power also gives an added performance boost to virtualized applications running within the SFA12KXE, allowing customers to extract greater efficiencies from their I/O infrastructure, colocate their applications with their data and reduce the cost and complexity of storage by eliminating external server and storage networking layers.
When combined with DDN's SS8460 enclosures, the SFA12KX reduces data center sprawl by up to 40 percent as compared to even the highest density storage array offerings and requires 58 percent less space than competing scale-out file storage offerings.
The DDN SFA12KXE appliance will be available in Q4'13 and the SFA12KX is scheduled for general availability in early 2014.
Jean-Luc Chatelain, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Technology, said, "DDN's SFA12KX appliances are the foundation of many of the world's most demanding and data-intensive environments, each requiring massive performance and scale without high cost. With features such as application-aware Flash caching, Real-Time I/O and in-storage processing, our SFX12KX appliances will perform at up to 48GB/s, making this technology the ideal solution for organizations looking to accelerate Big Data applications and consolidate infrastructure while dramatically lowering the overall cost of data storage ownership."
FCC Chairman Calls for Transforming Phone System Technology
Excerpted from NY Times Report by Edward Wyatt
The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday that the agency would begin "a diverse set of experiments" next year that would begin to move the nation's telephone system from its century-old network of circuits, switches and copper wires to one that transmits phone calls in a manner similar to that used for Internet data.
The Internet-based systems allow more information to be transmitted at one time, making possible the addition of video to phone calls, as employed by services like Skype and Vonage. While consumers can already use those services, most of the legacy telephone networks still use analog technology, employing an out-of-date system of physical switches that is expensive to keep operating.
Those old networks make possible what is known in the communications industry as Plain Old Telephone Service, or POTS, and they use types of switches that in many cases are no longer manufactured, telephone company executives say. The outdated switches limit the ability of companies to expand the networks to carry more traffic and impede a company's ability to refurbish equipment.
The FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler, who took over the post November 4th, announced in a blog post on Tuesday that he expected the commission to approve a plan in January to consider rewriting the legal, policy and technical issues that govern telephone service.
"This is what I call the Fourth Network Revolution," Mr. Wheeler wrote. "History has shown that new networks catalyze innovation, investment, ideas and ingenuity. Their spillover effects can transform society — think of the creation of industrial organizations and the standardized time zones that followed in the wake of the railroad and telegraph."
The transition from the old system, known as time-division multiplexing, to Internet protocol communication, or IP, is both symbolic and substantive. Millions of Americans already have IP-based telephone service, which transmits packets of data and carries larger amounts of that data than is possible with the old system.
In addition to Skype and Vonage, IP-based services include Verizon FiOS and AT&T's U-Verse.
AT&T petitioned the FCC last year to begin the transition to the new system from the old by setting up trials of upgraded service. But some consumer advocates and public interest groups have warned that because the FCC has limited authority over the Internet, telephone systems that use IP might not be subject to many of the rules that produced universal telephone service.
Those requirements include a regulation that one phone company in every geographic area serve as the carrier of last resort, so that anybody in the United States who wants telephone service in their home is guaranteed to receive it.
Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs, said the company welcomed Mr. Wheeler's action.
"Our current infrastructure has served us well for almost a century, but it no longer meets the needs of America's consumers," Mr. Cicconi said in a statement. "The transition to broadband and IP services that has already begun is driven by consumers who are moving to the Internet and choosing to connect in ways not imagined just a decade ago."
He added: "Like any change, it requires planning. The geographic trials directed by Chairman Wheeler will provide the real-world answers needed to ensure a seamless transition." Mr. Cicconi said the company was committed to working "closely and constructively" with the FCC and other groups with an interest in the conversion.
Public Knowledge, a consumer-oriented group, said Mr. Wheeler and the FCC "must ensure that the policies and principles that have guaranteed that the telephone network is universal, accessible and reliable continue to apply to the communications networks of the 21st Century."
Significantly, the consumer group has championed the transition in recent months, agreeing that the technology needs updating. "It's important that the F.C.C. show that this transition is not just about AT&T or any other carrier," Harold Feld, a senior vice president at Public Knowledge, said. "It impacts the lives and well-being of every American."
Mr. Wheeler said a task force would report at the commission's December meeting on what needed to be done, and in January the commission would adopt an order to begin the process. That adoption requires a vote of a majority of the five commissioners, but Mr. Wheeler noted that the three commissioners with the longest tenure have supported moving ahead.
What Does Alec Baldwin Have to Do with Cloud Computing?
Excerpted from Fortune Report by Michal Lev-Ram
What was Alec Baldwin doing at a cloud computing conference in San Francisco?
Delighting fans (and getting paid to do so) in an effort to smooth over his most recent public relations flap in which the "30 Rock" actor was accused of yelling a gay slur at a photographer. Baldwin disputes the account, but the details mattered little here at the Salesforce.com Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco, CA, where the actor received a warm reception despite the city's historic role in the gay rights movement.
It helps that Baldwin was speaking to a business audience. A company called ServiceSource, which sells software that helps corporations manage recurring revenue sources, served as sponsor for Baldwin's talk, entitled, "Breaking Baldwin: The Art and Business of Transformation."
While Baldwin made little reference to cloud computing in his remarks, he did have some advice for the standing-room only crowd of technophiles. "Public relations is an urgent thing," said Baldwin, referencing his recent controversy. "When you have a company, you gotta have PR. I want better PR." The actor also stressed the importance of being decisive, in business and elsewhere. "You strive for the right answers, but once you have it, pull the trigger and go," he told the audience. "The people who succeed are the ones who develop a muscle and make a quick decision."
Despite his PR mishaps and confrontations with the paparazzi, Baldwin's managed to reinvent his career several times, from a daytime soap opera actor to film star to his role on the popular NBC show "30 Rock." He's also hosted "Saturday Night Live" a record 16 times, starred in his own public radio podcast, and launched a short-lived talk show on MSNBC. "My biggest transformation is to avoid things like what just happened to me," Baldwin said.
ServiceSource, a San Francisco-based software provider, said it hired Baldwin to share "secrets of transformation from his long and storied career." But the little-known cloud-computing company wasn't banking on the actor's recent public debacle casting a shadow over its event. In fact, CEO Mike Smerklo told the audience that deciding whether to stick to the program and bring Baldwin on stage was one of the toughest decisions of his career.
It looks like he made a good bet. The audience roared with laughter as Baldwin regaled them with jokes and anecdotes. At one point, Baldwin jokingly professed his love for his manager, who was sitting in the audience. "I love you, Matt," said Baldwin. "I love you in that way."
Baldwin also struck a more serious tone as he addressed his recent controversy head on. "If anything I do makes some kid in the heartland of this country who's gay or lesbian believe I'm part of the intolerance," he said, "that diminishes me and that hurts me and makes me feel bad." He added that he should choose his words more carefully in the future.
Not that he didn't take a few shots where he could. "There is a drive-by justice to the Internet society," Baldwin said. "They indict you, convict you, and hang you on the same day."
When asked what he would do next, Baldwin said he was thinking about "getting into this cloud information thing." The audience — most of them cloud computing execs — ate it up.
Coming Events of Interest
Government Video Expo 2013 - December 3rd-5th in Washington, DC. Government Video Expo, co-located with InfoComm's GovComm, brings the east coast's largest contingent of video production, post, digital media, and broadcast professionals together with the government AV/IT specialists. The combined event features over 150 exhibits and nearly 6,000 registrants.
GOVERNMENT VIDEO IN THE CLOUD - December 4th in Washington, DC. This DCIA Conference within Government Video Expo focuses specifically on cloud solutions for and case studies related to producing, storing, distributing, and analyzing government-owned video content.
International CES - January 7th-10th in Las Vegas, NV. The International CES is the global stage for innovation reaching across global markets, connecting the industry and enabling 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 $209 billion US consumer electronics industry.
CONNECTING TO THE CLOUD - January 8th in Las Vegas, NV. This DCIA Conference within CES will highlight the very latest advancements in cloud-based solutions that are now revolutionizing the consumer electronics (CE) sector. Special attention will be given to the impact on consumers, telecom industries, the media, and CE manufacturers of accessing and interacting with cloud-based services using connected devices.
CCISA 2013 – February 12th–14th in Turin, Italy. The second international special session on Cloud Computing and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and its Applications within the 22nd Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed, and Network-Based Processing.
NAB Show - April 5th-10th in Las Vegas, NV. From broadcasting to broader-casting, NAB Show has evolved over the last eight decades to continually lead this ever-changing industry. From creation to consumption, NAB Show has proudly served as the incubator for excellence — helping to breathe life into content everywhere.
Media Management in the Cloud — April 8th-9th in Las Vegas, NV. This two-day conference provides a senior management overview of how cloud-based solutions positively impact each stage of the content distribution chain, including production, delivery, and storage.
CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2014 - May 13th-14th in Washington, DC. Three major conference tracks will zero in on the latest advances in the application of cloud-based solutions in three key economic sectors: government, healthcare, and financial services.
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