Security in 2016: About the Person

In the new year, security is going to move from the organization itself to protecting the individuals who make up the organization. Or more to the point, educating the individual as consumers about operational security with an eye toward family, finances, and self. Without this focus, breaches will continue and become worse before they become …

Next-Generation Private Cloud

A new generation of private cloud environments is being created now, ones where all the management is done via SaaS. This way, the heavy lifting is done by others, and you inherit an IT as a Service environment ready for you to add new workloads without worrying too much about upgrades, management constructs, or even, in some …

Necessary and Sufficient for 100% Public Cloud

When we talk about transforming to the cloud, we often talk about hybrid cloud and what it will take to transition to it, leaving discussions about 100% cloud usage purely to the new startup (greenfield) organizations. What is needed to move 100% off-premises to a public cloud? What is sufficient, what is necessary, and what …

Security for Consumers: Protecting the Family

It is that time of year again, when we look to buying gifts online and offline for family, friends, and associates. When holiday cheer imbues us with brotherly love—well, at least most folks feel that way. There is, however, a group of folks waiting for mistakes to be made so they can capitalize on them. …

A Tale of Two Storages for HPC and Beyond

I was recently at SC15, an international conference for high-performance computing, networking, storage, and analysis. SC15 has grown over the years and shows off some of the more interesting gear I have seen. High-performance computing (HPC) has taken off within the modern data center, whether via traditional HPC clusters, 150-teraflop machines, or even massive arrays of …

Is Cloud a Utility Yet?

The big question I keep asking myself is, “Is cloud a utility yet?” In other words, can I choose an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud based on utility pricing and expect the same thing I expect from a utility—as in, “it just works”—or is there more to it than that? In order to decide if the …