November 10, 2014
Volume XLX, Issue 4
The Internet of Things — The Next Big Thing?
Excerpted from Business2Community Report by Laura Donovan
My mother talks about the first time she heard the word "computer." A television show explained how this machine could do advanced calculations faster than a human being. This computer was as big as a city block. She watched the program on her family's black and white television.
When I bought my first personal computer, it was exponentially more powerful than that early computer — it had a color display and was smaller than my mother's television.
Today, I carry an even more powerful computer in my pocket.
Technology has exploded in the last half century — And we're not done yet.
I recently stumbled upon an article referencing the Internet of Things (IoT) and it piqued my interest. I looked it up on Wikipedia, but still could not grasp the concept. Attaching things to a network in the "cloud?"
After watching a video on Cisco's website, I began to understand. Imagine that you enter a parking lot. Your car then "asks" the parking lot to find an empty pace, and then drives itself to that space and parks. While I have not seen this technology in action, and am not sure if it is yet available, I do know there are cars that can drive and park themselves. Having sensors in parking spaces that show when a space is available is probably the easy part.
I then watched a video by an elevator company that explained that they have attached the working parts of their elevators to a network. The elevators "tell" technicians when they need service and, better yet, when they are about to need service.
Another video talked about adding sensors to jet engines that could alert technicians when they needed maintenance.
Yet another article talked about sensors on bridges that tell your car when there is ice. If you don't slow down, your car will slow itself down. Things talking to things.
I'm not sure how I feel about driverless cars and whether I want to trust an elevator to keep itself from plummeting to the basement when I'm on it, but the point is that the boundaries of technology are constantly being pushed and the implications these advances have for our daily lives are huge.
The IoT Should "Rattle the Imagination"
Excerpted from Singularity Hub Report by Jason Dorrier
We've often written about the "Internet of Things (IoT." This is the idea that as chips get smaller, more energy efficient, and more connected, we'll embed them in everything around us to enliven inanimate objects and get them to do our bidding.
This enormous new digital network will mirror the Internet in the material world. It will be a massive grid of interconnected nodes collecting information, executing commands, and just generally chattering away to each other day and night.
When you first see the potential of an idea like that, it might be mind-blowing. But often the vision outpaces the practicality, and engineering challenges chase out the awe. What about security? Batteries and charging? Coherent operating systems?
These are all valid questions crucial to the development process. But if we're to dedicate so much time and effort to building something, it's useful to zoom out every once in awhile and recall why we embarked in that direction in the first place.
In a new video, Jason Silva reminds us of the potential of the Internet of Things and why it should "rattle" the imagination.
Please click here for Jason's video.
Internet of Things Will Need 400 Zettabytes
Excerpted from Fudzilla Report by Nick Farrell
The Internet of Things (IoT) will generate a staggering 400 zettabytes (ZB) of data a year by 2018, according to a report from Cisco. For those who came in late a zettabyte is a trillion gigabytes which, unless we got it wrong, Catherine Zeta Jones is a much bigger Welsh phenomena than Tom Jones.
Cisco's fourth annual Global Cloud Index study shows that data from devices connected to the Internet will reach 403ZB a year by 2018, up from 113.4ZB a year in 2013. Cisco said that things like a Boeing 787 aircraft, which generates 40TB per hour of flight, or a Rio Tinto mining operation that can generate up to 2.4TB of data a minute.
Despite this huge growth in data from IoT devices, only a small amount will actually be sent to data centers for storage and subsequent analysis. Traffic sent to data centers to grow to 8.6ZB, up from 3.1ZB in 2013. The majority of this growth will come from cloud services, which will represent 76 percent of all data center traffic by 2018, up from 54 percent in 2013.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The Distributed Computing Industry Association's (DCIA) series of demos, displays, and discussions focusing on the Internet of Things (IoT) at the 2015 International CES promises to be valuable and stimulating.
The DCIA is now completing preparations for a four-day marathon presentation, from January 6th through 9th in Las Vegas, NV, of this newest and arguably largest ever industry phenomenon.
A total of twelve hours will be webcast live from the DCIA's exhibit-booth studio in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The IoT is now on an unstoppable growth trajectory to surpass 50 billion smart objects by 2020.
The 2015 International CES Show is the ideal place to start learning in-depth about the multiplicity of opportunities that this rapidly emerging movement offers product developers, software engineers, marketers, entrepreneurs, and other forward-looking professionals across many economic sectors.
The first five sessions will cover the design, architecture, manufacturing, marketing, and analysis of connected devices and systems to support them in five areas of deployment.
On Tuesday, January 6th, "Smart Objects for Fitness & Healthcare" will take place from 1 PM to 3 PM covering devices and systems to support them that people wear, carry to promote physical health, and have embedded in their bodies to provide medical benefits.
On Wednesday, January 7th, "Programmable Homes & Energy Management" will take place from 10 AM to 12 PM covering devices and structures to support them that enable consumers to remotely control and monitor appliances, heating and cooling systems, media centers, security sensors, and other electronic products in their residences.
On Wednesday, January 7th "Media Entertainment & Social Networking Solutions" will take place from 1 PM to 3 PM covering devices and systems that enable audiences to enjoy multimedia and interactive content everywhere, to easily connect with like-minded fans, and to manage their viewing, listening, and playing experiences.
On Thursday, January 8th, "Geolocation Services & Vehicular Automation" will take place from 10 AM to 12 PM covering devices and systems that enable drivers and passengers to interact with information about their physical environment in more useful ways and to computerize their method of transportation, as well as drones and robotic locomotion.
On Thursday, January 8th, "Retail, Public Space & Manufacturing Environments" will take place from 1 PM to 3 PM covering devices and systems that help store managers, government agencies, and factory supervisors control their inventory, enhance security, streamline their operations, and improve their productivity in other ways.
The sixth session, on Friday, January 9th, "Power Consumption, Cybersecurity & Interoperability" will take place from 10 AM to 12 PM covering the development and analysis of solutions for the above "big three" challenges that need to be addressed for the IoT to realize its full potential. The most promising approaches for extending the time mobile products will hold a charge, protecting users against hackers, and enabling an increasingly diverse array of devices to communicate with one another will be discussed.
Approximately 12.1 billion Internet-connected devices were in use in April 2014. Currently, about 100 things connect to the Internet every second, and the number is expected to reach 250 per second by 2020. The IoT holds potential for disruptive change, and its evolution will likely be faster than the Internet.
The DCIA sees enormous promise in smart objects and software for fitness, healthcare, and life sciences; programmable home appliances and systems as well as residential energy management, media entertainment and social networking solutions, geolocation services and vehicular automation, and — for both private sector institutions and governmental agencies — retail, public space, and manufacturing environments.
The DCIA also supports industry efforts to improve efficiency and reduce power consumption, address cybersecurity and related vulnerabilities, establish common protocols and communications standards for interoperability and connectivity among various devices, and enhance ease-of-use for consumers.
"The DCIA's IoT in 2015" will feature the very latest in connected consumer device innovations, wearable creations, machine-to-machine (M2M) advances, RFID developments, remote monitoring and maintenance solutions, micro-sensor discoveries, trusted computing services, smart environment architectures, and more examples from the inventors and organizations that are leading the way in this world-altering trend.
If you'd like to participate as a presenter, please call or email me at your earliest convenience. Share wisely, and take care.
Wearable Shipments Up 40 Per Cent
Excerpted from Mobile Marketing Magazine Report by Alex Spencer
12.7 million wearable connected devices were shipped globally in Q3 2013, according to data from Futuresource Consulting — an increase of 40 per cent year-on-year.
Futuresource predicts a total 52 million units will be sold across the course of 2014, 39 per cent which are expected to fall in Q4, due to the influence of Christmas.
Yearly sales are forecast to grow 44 per cent in 2015, to a total 74 million units.
"We expect connected watches — incorporating smartwatches and wireless watches — to experience extremely strong growth over the forecast period, reaching 83 million shipments in total by 2018," said Futuresource market analyst Oliver Rowntree.
"Longer-term growth is dependent upon how compelling a use case emerges for existing wearable products. While we have an optimistic view of the wearable market, there remain some uncertainties around the usage models for wearables, and whether a compelling raison d'etre for the category will develop."
The Cutting-Edge of IoT
Excerpted from Automated Buildings Report by Therese Sullivan
There were a number of Internet of Things (IoT) community gatherings held this October — GE's Minds & Machines, the IoT World Forum, and GigaOM's Structure Connect — to name just those with members of the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) Consortium as headliners. GE, Cisco, IBM and Intel took to the podiums, often showing their support for the IoT Reference Model covered here.
What are the important takeaways for commercial buildings automation? The model breaks down into seven functional levels the dozens of technologies that, all combined, comprise the IoT: devices send and receive data interacting with the network where the data is transmitted, normalized, and filtered using edge computing before landing in data storage / databases accessible by applications which process it and provide it to people who will act and collaborate.
The IoT Reference Model emphasizes edge computing — all the processing that is expected to happen at the "thing" level, that is among all the physical devices and controllers that now have microprocessors to "think" and radios to "talk" to one another.
Sometimes Cisco has called this Fog Computing, playing on a meteorological metaphor that draws a contrast with Cloud Computing.
It's true, when devices use their data sharing and decision-making capabilities to work together to suppress what is extraneous and prioritize what is important, only select data makes it into the central data stores of Level 4 for further processing in the cloud.
It's not practical to transport, store and centrally process all the sensor data that can be collected from a typical piece of industrial equipment, and there are obvious response-time, reliability, and security advantages to processing locally.
Moreover, while it's clear that sensor-equipped edge devices can generate data much faster than cloud-based apps can ingest it, the differential between the two modes is unknown and varies depending on application.
"Edge software" is the name the model gives to any module that has evolved to configure, address and directly process and temporarily store device data.
The Tridium Niagara framework, DGLogik graphics visualization software and a number of telemetry provisioning toolsets were recognized during the IoTWF presentation as pioneers in the edge software category. The model also specifies a layer of abstraction between such edgeware and cloud applications because there is so much variability above and below to cope with. It calls this layer IoT middleware and counts on it to deliver agility and scalability and eventually interoperability.
The IoT events mentioned above had a wide industrial scope and were not opportune for explaining how the IoT Reference Model can be used to describe IoT-era information flows in the context of data-driven commercial buildings, so I'll take that opportunity here.
The careful wording of Data Element Analysis at the Edge and post-data-cleansing Analytics in the Cloud recall the instructive article by John Petze of SkyFoundry from May 2013, "Analytics, Alarms, Analysis, Fault Detection and Diagnostics: Making Sense of the Data-oriented Tools Available to Facility Managers."
As Petze lays it out, it is useful to look at all these categories of data tools in terms of data scope and processing location. Basic BAS system alarms typically evaluate a sensor versus a limit, referencing one specific point identified to the BAS system.
They have narrow data scope and react in near real-time with local processing at the device level. There are now new controller products equipped with sophisticated analytics engines that still do local, real-time processing, while also tracking events against business and operational rules, thus offering a historical perspective.
In fact, Tridium just announced Niagara Analytics Framework, a new data analytics engine native to the Tridium Niagara controller that does just that. Another example of products with analytics at the embedded-device level is the line of controllers and IoT products from Intellastar.
The Petze article makes the distinction between the alarms and analytics categories this way: "While an alarm might tell us our building is above a specific KW limit right now, analytics tells us things like how many hours in the last 6 months did we exceed the electrical demand target? And how long were each of those periods of time, what time of the day did they occur and how were those events related to the operation of specific equipment systems, the weather or building usage patterns." Edge computing offers the promise of greatly improving the signal-to-noise in results from another category of tool identified by Petze - automated fault detection and diagnostics.
In a building IoT scenario, downstream terminal devices such as VAVs and other boxes would message amongst themselves to determine if there is a problem with their parent AHU and thus stop themselves from triggering hundreds of extraneous faults.
Tomorrow's analytics will build on the ability to capture such hierarchical structure in tagging conventions set by industry standardization efforts like Project Haystack. Another good reason to consider attending Haystack Connect 2015 next May. Niagara Analytics Framework and Intellastar among others fulfill the edge software role described by the IoT Reference model. There is yet one more type of analytics software, this with wide data scope, taking in multiple data sets from sources beyond controller data, such as energy data, occupancy data, weather sources, etc.
The scope might also widen to include security system or lighting data or personal identifiers such as the data from location services built into mobile devices such as the Apple iBeacon system. (Real estate leaders reveal great enthusiasm for mobile connectivity investment in general and location-aware technology in particular in recent interviews.)
The wider the data scope, the more sophisticated a device can be in terms of controlling processes, executing rules and processing data. The processing location can be local as long as the device executing the rule can receive the data from contributing sources in a protocol it understands. To date, many wide-data-scope analytics have featured processing in the cloud because the real-time aspect was not a driving concern.
John Petze's article does emphasize that building operational analytics is a fast-moving field, and he does include a section on the ability of analytics to "command" a control system. This section points to automated demand response as one application for analytics programs that can drive real-time events across multiple edge devices. As both the 2013 Petze article and the new 2014 IoT Reference Model emphasize, analytics tools have to be presented with data in open, accessible formats by the originating sources.
Data collection today is typically via Bacnet or oBix, Haystack, Modbus, etc., xml (perhaps Green Button data), CSV file imports, and queries to SQL databases. In the coming era of IoT, analytics will also collect data via M2M protocols like a messaging protocol (MQTT) or peer-to-peer Data Distribution Service (DDS) that were designed for small-device communications, like sensor events. The data that does make it "north" moves into the cloud via IoT Middleware, where it will be accessible by business applications.
This month IBM and Microsoft announced that they are working together to deliver key IBM middleware such as WebSphere Liberty, MQ, and DB2 on Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform.
This is an example of Industrial Internet of Things Consortium members beginning to collaborate to make this IoT model work.
Real estate CTOs and CFOs should cheer this announcement. For a number of years, they have been working to consolidate the application software they use, such as ERP and workplace management packages, into integrated IT suites.
Now they can benefit from that unified database architecture and cloud apps. As Jim Whalen SVP & CIO of Boston Properties explains in a recent interview, "Now we can move ahead with light mobile apps that put data visualizations and different types of dashboards at the fingertips of our tenants and staff."
Defining the Internet of Things — Time to Focus on the Data
Excerpted from The Guardian Report by Richard Moulds
As the Internet of Things (IoT) passes into mainstream consciousness, more specific definitions are needed in order to secure it. The data it creates could be a good place to start
You could be forgiven for believing that the IoT is a well-defined term and that everyone is on the same page. But you would be mistaken to say the least, given the huge variety of intelligent connected devices that this term refers to. In fact, the thing about the IoT is that it could mean almost anything. In some ways it is better to think of it as the Internet of everything.
Topping nearly every 2015 predictions list in town, including Gartner's renowned Strategic Technology Trends forecast, the world is beginning to acknowledge that the IoT, is in fact, a multitude of very different things, ranging from the mundane to the life-and-death.
The IoT is smart fridges, it's the Apple Watch, it's air traffic control technology and environment monitoring systems. It's space satellite systems, and pacemakers embedded in the human body. But, looking beyond the clutter, from a risk and security perspective, it's perhaps most important to focus on the data that is captured, processed, and communicated (often in real time) among these devices.
As the conversation matures and the industry develops, we will need to move away from the temptation to bundle all these very different things under one generic umbrella term. Much like cloud or big data, it's incredibly overused, and to some degree, almost too vague to be useful.
We saw cloud go through a similar evolution not so long ago. Five years ago, we were talking about cloud as though it were one model. Now, largely propelled by the Cloud Security Alliance, we have the taxonomy to discuss and refer to different architectures, chiefly; platform as a service, infrastructure as a service, software as a service and even security as a service.
These distinctions are important, as each requires the business using the service to negotiate a different balance between trust and control with the cloud provider. Where is the data? Who controls it? Who has access to it? And crucially, what measures are in place to protect it?
There is rarely a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to security, and this certainly applies to the cloud. For businesses to take advantage of the cloud effectively, they must assess the sensitivity of the various data types within the business, so as to define the appropriate security measures to apply. Keeping secrets is much more expensive than guarding non-sensitive data — it would be madness to invest in protecting all data to the same degree.
Like any big technology trend, the Internet of things comes with considerable baggage, as well as some unanswered questions regarding security. It is a significant challenge to establish trust and control across this enormous range of 'things', particularly when they are widely distributed, and often deployed on a scale of millions, to highly untrusted locations, or are handling particularly sensitive data. The information flowing through a network of smart fridges is very different from the information generated by an air traffic control system or array of tsunami detectors.
It is with this logic, and the need to have a sensible conversation about security, that we must begin to separate the IoT. Failing to do so will lead to trying to secure all data on all devices — which amounts to trying to boil the ocean. Unlocking the positive potential of the Internet of things will rely on taking a data-centric approach to security — the very data that brings this network to life and makes it intelligent.
The technology required to underpin this security is not new. Cryptography, used in encrypting data and proving digital identity for devices, is the center of security for ensuring safe identification, confidentiality and integrity — the same technologies that secure nearly every website on the planet, and the payment systems we use every day. The next few years — or even decades — will be a very interesting time as the security industry works to secure the Internet of things. Or rather the data of the things, wherever they might be scattered across the Internet.
Verizon Secures FedRAMP Authorization for Public Sector Cloud Platform
Verizon Enterprise Solutions' cloud-computing platform has received Authority to Operate (ATO) from the US Department of Health and Human Services, under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP).
Securing FedRAMP Agency ATO paves the way for US government agencies to easily and securely migrate mission-critical workloads to the cloud, while reducing the time, costs, and resources required to evaluate the security of cloud services.
It also helps government agencies address federal IT reform programs, such as the Digital Government Strategy, the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy and the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative. F
FedRAMP is a unified, government-wide risk management program focused on security for cloud-based systems. It provides standardization for authorizing cloud services, as well as conducting security assessments and continuous monitoring based on a common set of baseline security controls and consistent processes agreed upon by agencies across the US federal government.
"Verizon operates one of the most mature and secure enterprise-class cloud-computing platforms used today by US federal government agencies," said Michael Maiorana, Senior Vice President of Public Sector Markets, Verizon Enterprise Solutions.
"We are seeing accelerating interest in cloud computing across our public sector business, and achieving FedRAMP authorization underscores our commitment to providing reliable, flexible and high-performance on-demand computing solutions that enable the business of government." Verizon Enterprise Solutions recently released State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud 2014 report found that 65 percent of enterprises, including the government agencies, are now using cloud technology, services and solutions as part of their IT infrastructure.
The report also found that 71 percent of Verizon cloud customers are using cloud for mission-critical applications, up from 60 percent in 2013. Enterprise Cloud: Federal Edition, the Verizon service that has received FedRAMP authorization, is an infrastructure-as-a-service cloud offering as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Available in multitenant and dedicated configurations, the service addresses the stringent security, reliability and flexibility requirements of federal agencies and their mission-critical workloads. The service is delivered from Verizon purpose-built federal data centers in Culpeper, VA and Miami, FL, which feature multiple layers of redundancy facility, security, power, HVAC designed to meet or exceed government criteria for physical and environmental controls.
The hardened data center facilities are under continuous physical and virtual surveillance, and are protected by round-the-clock guards. Verizon Enterprise Cloud: Federal Edition is currently available for purchase from the GSA IT Schedule 70, as well as blanket-purchase agreements managed by the US Department of Agriculture and US Department of the Interior.
Information on Verizon Enterprise Solutions' portfolio of cloud, data center and related offerings for public sector can be found on Verizon's federal cloud computing website. Verizon is the leading provider of communications services to the U.S. federal government.
For more information, visit the Verizon Public Sector Markets website.
BitTorrent Tests Its Cloud Storage Services against Top Competitors
Excerpted from JBGNews Report by Brandon Morgan
BitTorrent has been coming up in the world lately, what with Thom Yorke releasing an entire album, and Alice in Chains debuting a brand new music video on the service. The file-sharing service is definitely making waves around the world, and that is going to continue, as the company has been testing its cloud-based storage services lately.
The company, in an effort to show how well it's doing in the area, decided to test BitTorrent Sync against same massive companies, including Google Drive, Microsoft's OneDrive, and even Dropbox, reports Venture Beat.
Within the test, BitTorrent transferred a 1.36 GB MP4 video clip between two Apple Macbook Pros using two Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapters. The tech company made use of the Time.gov site as a real-time clock, and the Internet connection at their headquarters (1GBps up/down).
The timer started the moment the file transfer was initiated, and was stopped once the file fully synced and downloaded to the receiving machine.
According to the test results, BitTorrent Sync performed 8 times faster than Google Drive, 11 times faster than OneDrive, and 16 times faster than Dropbox. Sync's file transfer had a time of 41 seconds, Dropbox held a time of 11 minutes and 24 seconds, OneDrive sat at 7 minutes and 39 seconds, and finally, Google Drive transferred at 6 minutes and 1 second. It's impressive to their speed test held against such big name cloud storage services.
The test isn't completely fair, however, as the Internet connection at the BitTorrent headquarters is incredibly fast, both downstream and upstream. 1GB per second is far more than any regular individual has in their household, so a test within a user's home would reveal far more towards the cloud storage service's capabilities.
BitTorrent Sync is certainly fast, and we don't doubt it will best the top competitors at this point, but it would be nice to test the connection on a regular Internet speed. The speed all depends on location, too, as a user closer to a Google, Microsoft, or Dropbox data center will see far faster response times. All-in-all, Sync is worth taking the time to explore.
Google Teams with Carriers for Cloud Interconnect
Excerpted from Light Reading Report by Mitch Wagner
Google is forging interconnection links with leading international carriers to help link enterprise customers with the Google Cloud Platform.
Google is partnering with Verizon Communications, Equinix, Level 3 Communications, Tata Communications, Telx Group, and Zayo Group.
Carrier Interconnect is one of three new connectivity options for enterprises to connect to Google's worldwide fiber network and cloud services. Google is also launching direct peering, "a fast network pipe directly to Google in over 70 points of presence in 33 countries around the world," according to an email statement from Google. And, next month, Google plans to introduce VPN Connectivity, to allow customers to create a secure line directly to Google over the public Internet.
In addition, Google plans price cuts on network egress of 47% for its Asia-Pacific customers, excepting China and Australia (sorry, China and Australia).
It is also integrating with the Fastly Cloud Accelerator to improve performance of Google's cloud apps over the public Internet.
Google Cloud Platform, at the heart of the interconnections, is the umbrella brand for all cloud services. It includes the Google App Engine, its platform-as-a-service offering, as well as the Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, and the Big Query data analysis service.
"This is really the first time we're talking about cloud networking," says Morgan Dollard, product lead for cloud networking for Google. "We're talking about networking as one of the core pillars of the Google Cloud Platform -- compute, storage and networking." Compute and storage are becoming commodities, leaving networking as a place to differentiate, Dollard says.
What's missing from Google's cloud interconnect? Other cloud vendors. Enterprise customers aren't just looking to connect to a single cloud provider; they want to choose best-of-breed cloud services and connect to all of them. At least, that's true according to a recent Verizon study. (See Verizon: Cloud Users Seek 'Best of Breed'.)
Naturally enough, Google is focused on connecting enterprises. "Generally speaking, what we're focusing on is our Google Cloud Platform, to give customers the connectivity options they need to connect to the Google cloud," says Dollard. "Customers will have to make their own choices with regard to connecting to any other third party."
That's where Google's carrier partners come in.
Verizon, for example, partners "with other cloud service providers such as Google, Microsoft and [Amazon Web Services] to ensure an optimal user experience for organizations moving workloads to the cloud, with many organizations using more than one cloud provider," Shawn Hakl, who heads up networking platforms and managed services products for Verizon, said in an email. (See Verizon Connects Cloud With On-Demand WAN.)
Likewise, Equinix offers cloud interconnect with Microsoft in 16 markets, Amazon in eight, and now Google in 15.
With the Google deal, "the customer gets quick activation, dedicated capacity, predictable performance, as well as normalization of all the IP connectivity from us to get to Google in 15 markets globally," Equinix CTO Ihab Tarazi said in a phone interview.
The deals with cloud partners help Equinix's enterprise customers move from pubic clouds with Google, Microsoft, Amazon, to private clouds hosted at Equinix, to hybrid clouds that move back and forth and between different cloud providers as demand requires, Tarazi says. (See Equinix Brings Exchange Model to Cloud.)
The deals with carriers help Google catch up with its competitors, particularly Amazon and Microsoft.
"Google's Cloud Interconnect is similar to Amazon's Direct Connect and Microsoft Azure's ExpressRoute," Gartner analyst Lydia Leong said in an email. It's also similar to many other IaaS offerings. "Google needs this capability not just competitively, but in order to enable a broader range of use cases. This is a 'catch up' move, not a groundbreaking one."
The initiative allows Google's customers to use their choice of carrier, Leong said.
In addition to the carrier relationships and connectivity options, Google is also rolling out version 1.5 of its Andromeda SDN software stack for Google Cloud Platform, connecting networks across the Google Cloud multi-tenant environment. Version 1.5 improves TCP throughput and connections per second. (See Google's Andromeda Relieves Cloud Strain.)
IBM Rolls-Out Hybrid Cloud Security Portfolio
Excerpted from CIO Today Report by Jennifer LeClaire
With data breaches making headlines nearly every week, IBM is pressing into next-generation security solutions with what it has deemed the industry's first "intelligent security portfolio" for protecting people, data, and apps in the cloud. If the Dynamic Cloud Security portfolio works like Big Blue claims, it may be a big hit with enterprises looking to shore up their defenses.
Here's the backdrop: Businesses of all sizes are rapidly adopting the cloud but struggle to secure their legacy IT systems in an age of cyberattacks that are increasingly difficult to detect and more sophisticated than ever. IBM's research shows 75 percent of data breaches take days, weeks or months to discover, which magnifies the potential damage.
"Customers are now moving critical workloads to the cloud and they expect enterprise grade security to move with it," said Brendan Hannigan, General Manager of IBM Security Systems. "We have pivoted our entire security portfolio to the cloud to help customers lock down user access, control data and maintain visibility. With the right visibility into threats, enterprises can more securely connect their people, data and processes to the cloud."
While 85 percent of nearly 150 chief information security information officers in an IBM survey said their organizations are moving to cloud, nearly half expect a major cloud provider to experience a security breach. Even in the face of these concerns, critical workloads processing customer and sensitive data continue making their way to the cloud.
The new intelligent security portfolio aims to protect data and apps using advanced analytics across the enterprise, public and private clouds and mobile devices, generally referred to as the hybrid cloud model. The tools promise insight into exactly who is using the cloud, what data users are tapping into, and the location from which they are accessing it.
Both developers and line-of-business executives can use the tools, which leverage analytics and security intelligence for public cloud services like IBM's SoftLayer. The tool set also features Big Blue's Managed Security Services platform that works to help secure the cloud, and offers intelligence from over 20 billion daily security events to detect and protect against threats in real time.
We caught up with Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, to get his take on the announcement. He told us the IBM cloud security announcement is intriguing.
Beyond surveys, his experience in the market confirms that hybrid clouds leveraging privately owned data center assets and public cloud services are preferred by the majority of businesses using the cloud. However, significant challenges remain in effectively securing the "bifurcated" applications and data companies are supporting with hybrid clouds.
"IBM's new security offerings and analytics solutions aim to make that process easier and more effective by keeping a close eye on both individual customers' cloud interactions and the 20 billion-plus daily security events it monitors in 130 countries," King said. "The company's ability to support what amounts to a micro/macro view of security should be welcomed by many customers."
The Dynamic Cloud Security portfolio follows Big Blue's announcement last week of IBM i2 Enterprise Insight Analytics, a high-speed analysis and criminal investigation software that aims to uncover hidden threats buried deep inside mountains of corporate data from various sources.
How to Secure Your Internet of Things
Excerpted from PC Magazine Report by Fahmida Rashid
Is your coffee-maker behind a firewall? Just how paranoid should you be about the appliances in your connected home? Check out the steps you can take to protect your home network and the gadgets connected to it.
The phrase "Internet of Things (IoT)" may be over-hyped, but the connected home is no longer a vague futuristic concept, but a reality. The average home already has multiple connected devices, and it's up to the savvy user to actively secure them by locking down the home network.
The IoT includes pretty much any device capable of connecting to the Internet. The smart refrigerator is a popular example, but the category goes beyond electric appliances to include thermostats, automobiles, and wearables.
Even though there is a lot of conversation about ways to bake security into these devices, the bottom line is that they are all vulnerable. Attackers can conceivably use them as backdoors into your network, or figure out a way to hijack the devices to carry out other operations. It's up to the homeowner to protect the IoT in the connected home — and the way to do that is to protect the home network.
That sounds suspiciously mundane, like setting up WPA2 encryption on the house's wireless network, selecting strong passwords, and keeping certain devices separate from each other. The thing is, the way you protect the IoT isn't all that different from how you should already be protecting your computing devices at home.
The most important piece of equipment for the IoT is the router, said John McCormack, CEO of Websense. That is where the bulk of our security efforts should be.
Let's take a step back.
Perhaps you are thinking that you don't have a lot of IoT devices to begin with. You would be surprised.
It turns out a typical home has around five potentially dangerous things other than computers, tablets, and cellphones, connected to their home network, said David Jacoby, a security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. They include smart TVs, printers, game consoles, network storage devices, satellite receivers, and media players. You don't need fancy gadgets or high-tech equipment to have a networked home.
Just to put things in perspective, Jacoby uncovered over 14 remotely exploitable vulnerabilities on his network-attached-storage (NAS) device which could potentially give attackers access to all his files.
Michael Price, a counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, wrote late last week about getting a new smart TV and being surprised by the "staggering" amount of data it collects.
"It logs where, when, how, and for how long you use the TV. It sets tracking cookies and beacons designed to detect when you have viewed particular content or a particular email message. It records the apps you use, the websites you visit, and how you interact with content," Price wrote.
The camera on the smart TV is equipped with facial recognition. If an attacker can break into the network and get to the TV, they will be able to see what is going on inside the home. The TV also has a microphone, and it can capture and transmit recordings to a third-party. "Don't say personal or sensitive stuff in front of the TV," Price warned.
The IoT expands the amount of information attackers can grab about us. These connected devices also create holes in our network, giving attackers more opportunities to get access to our files and sensitive information. "Protecting the device itself is near impossible," said Christopher Martincavage, a senior sales engineer at SilverSky. Since we can't secure each individual device, let's lock down our home networks and reduce our attack surface to something a little bit more manageable.
We frequently set up our home network by just plugging the router in and not bothering to step through the interface to figure out what it is doing. Change your password — the last thing you want is someone to be able to get in to your router and change around the settings. Disable guest network access entirely so that strangers can't hop on willy-nilly.
Most routers have the option to set up multiple network SSIDs. Set up one network for your computers, printers, NAS, and other computing devices.
Set up a completely different SSID for the Xbox, smart TV, and other appliances, suggests Trey Ford, global security strategist at Rapid7. Set up another SSID for mobile devices. This way, even if one of your devices get hijacked or injected, the attacker is limited to just that single network. It would be much harder to go from a backdoored TV to the NAS if they are on different networks. Segmenting the network this way also means that if one section is hijacked, all the other devices are not accessible and remain safe.
If you are willing to put in the effort, you can list all the MAC addresses for every single device connecting to your network so that the router assigns IP addresses only to those systems. All unknown devices will be blocked from accessing the network. This would prevent attackers sitting outside your home from connecting to your network and wandering through your digital home.
When it comes to setting up a secure wireless network, which encryption scheme you select matters. WEP requires you to enter a password, but it is weak and easily compromised, so having it is just a false sense of security. Use WPA2 encryption and a strong, complex password.
If you are going to be clever about the name of your wireless network, make sure it's actually clever and not something that gives away something about you or your geographic location, such as "Maureen's LivingRoom."
And while you are at it, change the passwords for all your devices, even your TV. Change them to something suitably strong and complex right away, and regularly update these passwords. If you can, change the usernames, too, to make those brute-force attacks even harder to do.
Every network needs a firewall, whether it's a stand-alone device or one turned on inside the router. While it won't prevent all attacks, it will cut down on opportunistic probes and backdoor attempts. In the end, the main thing is that we all need to change the way we think about our networks and all the devices on them. "No one is going to keep the door to their house unlocked. You need to think the same way about the appliances on your network," said JD Sherry, vice-president of technology solutions at Trend Micro.
The key, however, is that each entry point is potentially another front door, back door, attic window, and so on. You've got to make sure they're all locked tight if you want to be safe in the age of the Internet of Things.
Cloud to Power the Rise of Drones and Robots
Excerpted from CloudWedge Report
It might sound like science fiction but according to one senior level executive at Dell, we aren't too far away from having cloud powered drones and robots.
The rise of cloud has led developers to question what limits they can push considering they have the power to leverage a super computer if needed. Google recently mentioned that its line-up of self-driving cars would be powered by cloud computing technology. When you take that fact into account, you must ask yourself what other sophisticated tasks machine learning combined with cloud computing technology can carry out.
The sky seems to be the limit.
Martin Yates, a Director at Dell's offices in the Asia Pacific, was recently quoted in an interview as saying, "You'll see an acceleration of cloud computing in areas like drones." Yates continued my adding that in future, when you call a company asking for customer service, "You won't know if you're talking to a computer or a human."
Yates was quick to denote that Dell does not have plans to sell drones or robots. Dell is leveraging its vast network of consultants and suppliers to fulfill orders that will assist data center engineers in implementing automation solutions for cloud which could theoretically be used in these sophisticated tasks.
When you think about all of the emerging technologies on the horizon, many of them implement cloud in some way, shape or form. Cloud computing will power even the most high tech automation solutions that will become common in our everyday human lives.
Researchers and IT analysts mention that self-driving cars that are powered by the cloud are on the way within the next decade. Cloud will also power home robotic units that are expected to become available to consumers which can be programmed to do menial tasks such vacuum or perform other household chores.
Internet of Things Component Market Set for Rapid Growth
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Charlie Osborne
Gartner says the Internet of Things (IoT) processor, sensor, and communications markets are growing rapidly.
Who are the key players and what are the top technologies to watch out for in the automotive industry this year?
The research firm said Monday the processing, sensing, and communications semiconductor device arenas are set to grow at a rapid pace over the coming years, growing 36.2 percent in 2015, compared with overall semiconductor market growth of 5.7 percent. Processing will be the largest revenue contributor, at $7.58 billion in 2015, while sensors will see the strongest growth, with 47.5 percent growth in 2015.
It is expected that the automotive and household consumer markets will drive this growth, as companies continue to research and develop Internet of Things-based products — including smart lighting and vehicle infotainment systems — as well as create ever-more sophisticated mobile devices that take advantage of sensors and perform power-heavy tasks.
Gartner says demand for new semiconductors in the automotive industry is based around modern safety regulations and convenience — such as autonomous driving — and sensors can be used for "predictive maintenance," in which a car alerts the driver to necessary fixes. LED lighting is a cheap way to enable sensors, and consumers are likely to add to IoT device demand thanks to wearable technology, such as smart glasses, watches and fitness bands.
Dean Freeman, Research Vice President at Gartner commented:
"Gartner forecasts almost 30 percent growth through 2020 for IoT semiconductor revenue. This revenue spans every conceivable industry and is driven by the immense scale of low-cost devices. Some in the industry believe this growth will transform the semiconductor industry. However, further investigation shows that the majority of IoT devices are commodity offerings. The truth is that inexpensive devices are one of the biggest enablers of IoT."
Coming Events of Interest
GOTO Berlin 2014 Conference — November 5th–7th in Berlin, Germany. GOTO Berlin is the enterprise software development conference designed for team leads, architects, and project management and is organized "for developers by developers". New technology and trends in a non-vendor forum.
PDCAT 2014 — December 9th-11th in Hong Kong. The 16th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (PDCAT 2014) is a major forum for scientists, engineers, and practitioners throughout the world to present their latest research, results, ideas, developments and applications in all areas of parallel and distributed computing.
Storage Visions Conference — January 4th-5th in Las Vegas, NV. The fourteenth annual conference theme is: Storage with Intense Network Growth (SWING). Storage Visions Awards presented there cover significant products, services, and companies in many digital storage markets.
International CES — January 6th-9th in Las Vegas, NV. The International CES is the world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. Held in Las Vegas every year, it has served as the proving ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies for more than 40 years — the global stage where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace.
The DCIA's IoT Marathon — January 6th-9th in Las Vegas, NV. Twelve hours of demos, displays, and discussions of the Internet of Things (IoT) in daily segments webcast live from the DCIA's CES 2015 exhibit-booth studio in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) — October (2015 Dates TBD) in Dubai, UAE. IoTWF is an exclusive event that brings together the best and brightest thinkers, practitioners, and innovators from business, government, and academia to accelerate the market adoption of the Internet of Things.
|
