Over the last few weeks I have been struggling with automating deployment and testing of virtual desktops for my own edification. This struggle has pointed out automation weaknesses which need to be addressed for automation and the software defined data center to succeed and not only be deployed from software but also self-healing and all the great things we associate with SDDC, SDN, etc. But current automation has some serious flaws and weaknesses. In essence, in order to automate something you must have a well known exact image from which to work.
TVP Strategy Archives
Edward L. Haletky, aka Texiwill, is an analyst, author, architect, technologist, and out-of-the-box thinker. As an analyst, Edward looks at all things IoT, big data, cloud, security, and DevOps. As an author, he has written about virtualization and security. As an architect, Edward creates peer-reviewed reference architectures for hybrid cloud, cloud-native applications, and many other aspects of the modern business. As a technologist, Edward creates code prototypes for parts of those architectures. Edward is solving today’s problems in an implementable fashion.
News: Splunk App for Enterprise Security Updated
Splunk is well known for analyzing data in large volumes either within a local Splunk installation or within the Splunk Storm their cloud service. However, there has been a general lack of security related capability within both these tools. Yes they can correlate some security data, but requires a bit of hands on work to make happen. This has changed with the introduction of Splunk App for Enterprise Security v2.4. They now have some very powerful out of the box analysis for enterprise security and one that could solve a growing issue outlined within the latest Verizon Breach Report: the time it takes to determine a breach actually happened.
Cyber Defense: Using Virtual Desktops?
There was recently a rather heated twitter discussion between @Guisebule, @VirtualTal, and @Texiwill (myself) about using virtual desktops as a part of cyber defense. While this could be true, there is a need to ensure you know where your virtual desktop(s) start and end, not only within the network, but your applications in use. In addition, it is very important to fully understand the scope of a virtual desktop architecture as well as use.
Virtual Desktop Patching and Data Protection
Data Protection and patch management of virtual desktops, while not a sexy topic, is one that should happen on a regular basis within any organization implementing or working to implement virtual desktops. Recently, we have been testing virtual desktop software and there is a huge difference between patching and protecting data in a small number of instances and 1000s of instances. There are scale considerations as well as ease of use for file level and system recovery as well as issues with patching virtual desktops (not to mention other security issues).
Cloud Tenant PCI-DSS Dilemma
There is a dilemma for all tenants of a public or private cloud: Scope. For the tenant, they want everything to be in scope. For the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) they want to limit scope to the bare minimum. What does it mean for a Cloud to be ‘PCI Compliant’ and why is this a requirement for some tenants. The real issue, is what is in scope for PCI-DSS while your data is in the cloud and how can you as the tenant meet those requirements.
How VirtuStream does Cloud Security
On the 4/4 Virtualization Security Podcast, Pete Nicoletti, the chief information security officer for Virtustream, joined us to discuss how VirtuStream does cloud security. VirtuStream runs some of, if not the largest SAP installations in the cloud for very large enterprises around the world. The key to VirtuStream is that they are an Enterprise Cloud that looks at everything from the Enterprise perspective, whether that is billing or security. For security, they have implemented many changes required by their customers and allowed the end-enterprise to dial that security to 11 if necessary. But what does VirtuStream do that is different from all others?