As VM automation becomes more and more predominant in cloud environments, the issue of abstraction becomes more important. Consider if you will, an infrastructure in which the creation and management of VMs is fully automated. Now put all those applications and information and VMs in one big cloud that is all self-sufficient and constantly moving around due to load balancing and other automated processes. Then, add in cloud applications, plugins, security and anything else that could possibly run in that environment. Then, connect it all up so that every part of the infrastructure is inter-dependent and connects through a broker. And for fun’s sake, let’s assume there is a memory leak on one of the servers and your start losing VMs. Continue reading
Virtualization Design
To ensure ongoing quality of service, your death may be monitored for training purposes. Thank you.
I was recently attending a cloud conference and had the chance to talk to several of the key technology vendors that were in attendance. One of the major vendors seems to be working closely with just about everyone in the cloud and virtualization space, and it made me question what kind of benefits to solution providers and other vendors these types of relationships provide. Suddenly the main cloud players are building partnerships to develop solutions for attached security, storage, asset management, performance monitoring and other operational technologies within virtual environments. But what benefit is there to have such tight integration with one or two key cloud platform vendors? Continue reading
I’m a leaf on the wind…watch how I soar!
I recently met with a Canadian cloud innovator, DataGardens, to provide some input on how their solutions would benefit different market segments, and be used for different key continuity and security functions. If you haven’t heard of DataGardens (I have to admit, I wasn’t familiar with them either) or their flagship solution, DataGardens WAVE, you might want to take a look at them again. Especially if you have need for virtualization or cloud business continuity services. Continue reading
Well, all the jokes can’t be good. You’ve got to expect that once in a while.
Organizations are busy working on creating cloud migration paths for their current applications and data stores, assuming that these systems can easily be ported. What is often overlooked is that most applications weren’t created with the cloud in mind, so expecting them to scale to cloud environments isn’t realistic. Unless you have the team to rewrite these applications for running in virtualized or cloud environments, the movement to a cloud model will need to be done in several steps up a steep learning curve. Continue reading
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
I stumbled upon a post via Twitter the other day from Scott Lowe of Tech Republic on IDV (yes, I thought at first I was getting a mild case of dyslexia, but no, it is IDV) and the difference between VDI and IDV. IDV stands for Intelligent Desktop Virtualization and although it essentially delivers the same idea as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) it’s actually not just more efficient, it’s really quite brilliant. Continue reading
Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be.
It seems like the in the last few years, every single service provider has been scratching their head and thinking “how do we sell to the SMBs?”. I’m not talking just cloud providers, but most businesses in general. Part of it is that in Canada, while there are some significantly large enterprises, the majority of organizations fit into the traditional SMB definition. But the question is, will cloud help us finally get enterprise-class solutions to those customers? Continue reading
After very careful consideration, sir, I’ve come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks.
With Friday upon us, it’s the last part of virtualization and PCI. So as promise, I am going to dedicate this last post to giving a final round up on key things that you should hopefully start doing (or at least discussing internally) if you plan on moving down the path to compliance. I can’t promise it won’t be painful, but if you keep these things in mind from the beginning, it will be slightly less intrusive than it could be. Continue reading
Oooh, ahhh, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and screaming.
Today I want to get back to the matter at hand, how to deal with PCI if you have a virtual environment. Because PCI DSS is one of the first glimpses Canadian organizations have into the need to secure their virtual environments, the learning curve for both auditors and IT teams is staggering. There is a lot of grey space at the moment where interpretation of the requirements can have a significant impact on the end result, and often it is a result of auditors walking into mixed environments where virtual and physical resources co-exist and they realize they are in over their heads. In fact, something that seems initially simple, such as the separation of trust zones, can actually be quite complex to not only understand, but to figure out how to comply with. But where to start? Continue reading
Nothing shocks me–I’m a scientist!
I received a few emails looking for more information on how to start mapping their virtual and cloud environments to different compliance standards without starting to invest in security solutions. A free check-up if you will. Since this falls right in line with what I am hoping to get virtualization folks to start thinking about, you can think of this as a modification of Technology Tuesday, let’s call it Woohoo! Wednesday. The key is that it is indeed worthy of that exclamation mark because this compliance tool is not only free, but if you’re running a VMware environment, you probably have it already, you just don’t know it. Continue reading
Bio-digital jazz, man
So it’s Tuesday, and keeping in our theme of “Compliance: things that keep me up at night”, I am happy to highlight a great company that sadly not a lot of people outside us die-hard virtualization security fans know about, Catbird Networks. When it comes to compliance, Catbird is a pretty good place to start, and makes it really quite easy to get an ongoing idea of where your environment stands as it relates to compliance requirements. This is important, because the earlier you can start to see how your environment is shaping up in meeting compliance requirements, the easier it is down the road to ensure that as new systems are deployed, they don’t negatively affect your compliance posture. Continue reading
Tinder Stratus 