Organizations Feel More Confident in their Security Than a Year Ago: Report

Half of IT professionals say their organizations are less vulnerable now than a year ago, compared to only 12 percent who say they are more vulnerable, according to a report released Tuesday by IT management provider SolarWinds.

Penton Research surveyed 221 IT professionals between December 2015 and March 2016 from various sized-companies in North America for SolarWinds.

While 55 percent of those surveyed did not experience a breach in 2015, only 29 percent said they did, leaving nearly one in six who (troublingly) seem to not know. Thirty percent of organizations experienced less IT security incidents in 2015, while only 20 percent experienced more. This could represent a stunning decline in attacks, but more likely reflects attacks becoming more specifically targeted and repeated, in line with other recent research. Indeed, increasing sophistication was cited as the top reason for increased vulnerability.

Tackling Business and Technology Challenges for the Ultimate Win

Business and information technology have a very complicated relationship. Depending on the type of company at which you work, you will notice huge differences in co-dependencies of these divisions. Some companies ceased to exist because of technological progress while others were and are being created due to it. Of course, the majority of businesses and markets learned to use IT to their advantage (some better than others I must say), so this is a work in progress to most of us as technology changes and advances at a tremendous pace.

Infocentric

As organizations become continuously more infocentric and recognize data as an invaluable asset in order to determine, evaluate and execute strategies and tactics, information technology becomes the foundation to successfully managing and operating businesses on a local and global scale. With that in mind, we need to remember that the line of business (LOB) will always have its goals which set the tone to the IT departments’ roadmaps.

Review: HPE’s machine learning cloud overpromises, underdelivers

Developers longing to build more intelligent, more proactive, more personalized apps seem to gain more options with every passing day. With Haven OnDemand, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) has joined the applied machine learning fray, competing directly with IBM Watson Services, Microsoft Cortana Analytics Suite, and several Google ML-based APIs.

Haven OnDemand is a platform for building cognitive computing solutions using text analysis, speech recognition, image analysis, indexing, and search APIs. While IBM based its cognitive computing/machine learning cloud services primarily on Watson, the “Jeopardy” winner, HPE based its recently announced Haven OnDemand services primarily on IDOL, its enterprise search engine.

Source: InfoWorld Big Data

Microsoft Acquires Italian Firm to Help it Stitch Together the Internet of Things

Brought to you by Windows IT Pro

Microsoft is betting big that smarter devices can mean better business, and the company has acquired Italian Internet of Things startup Solair to help get it there.

While big data can sound great in the boardroom, it can be challenging to turn into actionable information. Solair built a platform to address that information, focusing on a few key areas such as helping connected devices phone home when they needed maintenance or allowing smart vending machines to recognize and reward their most loyal customers.

Cloud Management Firm CloudHealth Technologies Raises Million

Cloud management software provider CloudHealth Technologies announced Tuesday it has raised $20 million to increase support for all enterprise cloud environments in a series C funding round led by Sapphire Ventures. Sapphire joins existing investors Scale Venture Partners, .406 Ventures, and Sigma Prime Ventures, and managing director Jai Das will join the CloudHealth board of directors.

Between the three funding rounds CloudHealth has now raised $40 million in total. The first was in 2013, and Ariel Tseitlin of ScaleVP joined CloudHealth’s board in the $12 million B round just over a year ago. CloudHealth said it will spend its current funding round on sales, marketing, engineering, support, and “customer success.”

“Sapphire Ventures has a proven track record of creating global category leaders, which is why we are proud they are leading this round,” said CloudHealth Technologies CEO and co-founder Dan Phillips. “Sapphire engaged with us immediately after we closed our B round and spent the following year learning about our business and culture. During that time, the Sapphire team provided tremendous value to us and aligned very well with our culture. It was an ideal process with a VC in terms of the value and commitment they demonstrated.”

Cloud Companies "Might Feel Good About Themselves" But Good Luck Reaching AWS Heights: Report

After the “big four” public cloud providers, the next 20 companies are growing at an average of 41 percent per year – and still losing market share. The overall cloud infrastructure services market (including IaaS, PaaS, private and hybrid) is growing by 50 percent a year, according to the latest quarterly report from Synergy Research Group. Synergy estimates that overall quarterly revenues have “comfortably passed” $7 billion.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), which just named a new CEO, maintains a dominant position with 31 percent of the global market share for cloud infrastructure services, with 57 percent year-over-year growth. Microsoft, IBM, and Google account for a combined 22 percent, and while IBM had what would normally be considered strong quarterly growth, Microsoft and Google’s infrastructure services revenue grew by over 100 percent on an annualized basis. The next 20 companies (which include Alibaba, Rackspace, HPE and others) make up 27 percent of the total market for cloud infrastructure.

Read more: AWS Celebrates 10 Years in the Cloud

Report: IT Fighting The Good Fight

SolarWinds has released the findings of a new survey that highlights significant improvements in IT security preparedness and effectiveness, including steps the most successful IT departments have taken to improve their security posture, but also demonstrates that the threat and consequences of security breaches remain.

“The most surprising finding of the survey is just how many organizations are less vulnerable today than they were a year ago, and, on a related note, how many have implemented security technologies and better security training,” said Mav Turner, director, business strategy, SolarWinds. “While this is a sign the industry is trending in the right direction, it’s important for IT professionals to never get too confident in their organizations’ security posture, which could potentially result in overestimating one’s defenses. After all, the findings also illustrate how high the stakes are — while less than one-third of organizations experienced a security breach in 2015, of those, almost 72% store potentially sensitive customer data.”

Fielded between December 2015 and March 2016 in conjunction with Penton Research, the survey yielded responses from 221 IT practitioners, managers, directors and executives in North America from small, midsize and enterprise companies.

“Given the heightened international media attention on IT security breaches, it was a pleasant surprise to see that 55% of respondents did not experience any security breaches in 2015, and only 24% believe a security breach is likely in 2016,” said Dr. Kristin Letourneau, director of research at Penton. “The survey data seems to reflect a shifting focus from fear of cyberattack, to the implementation, maintenance and refinement of established and effective security systems.”

Key Findings

While challenges to improving IT security remain, there is a trend towards better security preparedness and effectiveness.

More than half (55%) of IT professionals surveyed said their organizations did not experience any security breaches in 2015, compared to 29% who did.

Fifty percent said their organizations are less vulnerable now than they were a year ago, compared to 12% who said they are more vulnerable. Furthermore:

o   Nearly one-third (30%) said the number of IT security incidents their organizations experienced decreased in 2015 vs. one-fifth (20%) who said they increased.

o   More than one-third (36%) said their time to respond to a threat decreased in 2015 vs. roughly a quarter (28%) who said it increased.

·        Approximately half or more said it typically takes mere minutes for their organizations to detect the following threats:

o   SQL injection attacks (47%)

o   Exploitation of known vulnerabilities (50%)

o   Misuse/abuse of credentials (47%)

o   Rogue network device (52%)

o   Security policy violations (47%)

Organizations whose security posture improved over the past year found success by implementing a handful of vital security technologies and best practices.

Among those who said their organizations are now less vulnerable than they were a year ago, the top five reasons reported were:

• Adoption of intrusion detection and prevention systems
• Introduction or expanded the use of data encryption
• Improved patch management
• Implementation of log analysis, such as security information and event management (SIEM) tools
• Improved or increased security training for company personnel

Endpoint security software topped the list of the most important technologies or practices for ensuring IT security, with 83% identifying it as critical or very important, followed by patch management software (75%) and identity and access management tools (71%) to round out the top three.

More than half also identified configuration management software (60%) and SIEM software (54%) as critical or very important to ensuring IT security.

Despite these positive developments, IT departments must still be vigilant against the threat and consequences of security breaches.

Of those whose organizations experienced a security breach in 2015, 52% said the breaches were of medium to major severity.

Nearly three-quarters (72%) of the organizations breached in 2015 store customer data, with more than one-third (36%) of those storing data on at least 100,000 customers.

While just a quarter (24%) expect their organizations to suffer from a security breach in 2016, three-fourths (75%) of them store customer data, including 45% that store customer social security numbers.

The increasing sophistication of attacks is the number one factor most commonly thought to make an organization more vulnerable (28%).

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Internap Joins The Equinix Channel Partner Program and Cloud Exchange

Equinix, Inc. has announced that  Internap Corporation has joined the Equinix Channel Partner Program as well as the Equinix Cloud Exchange™ to expand its global reach and provide high-performance connectivity to its portfolio of cloud services.  As part of this partnership, Internap will be offering its China Performance IPTM solution via Equinix data centers in Hong Kong.  China Performance IP leverages Internap’s patented Managed Internet Route OptimizerTM (MIRO) technology to identify the fastest route into China across multiple carriers. By offering this solution via Platform Equinix, Internap is able to deliver latency improvements of 2-10X over traditional IP.

With more than 688 million Internet users (according to a China Internet Development Statistics report), China has more than double the amount of users than the United States.  Companies doing business in this burgeoning region face a significant problem in ensuring how to deliver applications to this vast audience in a high-performing, low-latency manner.  Specifically, performance-sensitive applications — including those common to e-commerce, ad tech and financial services industries — can face numerous technological hurdles. Without a direct connection into mainland China, latency issues will arise.  By partnering with Equinix, Internap addresses these issues and provides its customers a low-latency solution via direct connection to multiple Chinese network service providers.

By providing direct, route-optimized connection between Hong Kong and China, Equinix and Internap enable enterprises to gain low latency access to mainland China’s fast-growing markets, removing the complexity, cost and time required to set up operations on the mainland or engage directly with China’s Internet providers. Latency improvements of 2X over Internap’s traditional Hong Kong IP offering is typical, and some mainland China destinations experience latency improvements of up to 10X.

A long-term customer of Equinix, Internap will now be joining the Equinix Channel Partner Program as a Gold Reseller. As part of this arrangement, Internap will leverage Equinix’s global platform to help its enterprise clients quickly and confidently deploy multi-site IT solutions, build cloud infrastructure, and expand into new markets. Internap will deliver best-in-class colocation and cloud solutions across Equinix’s 40 markets in 15 countries. And via the Equinix Cloud Exchange, Internap can offer its customers direct access to its cloud services, enabling multi- and hybrid-cloud deployments.

Source: CloudStrategyMag

intY Joins The Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program

intY has announced its participation in the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program. The program is designed to strengthen customer relationships and expand cloud sales opportunities by enabling partners to provide direct billing, sell combined offers and services, as well as directly provision, manage and support products and services.

Starting today intY owns the complete customer lifecycle, allowing it to easily sell Office 365 plus additional Microsoft services, helping customers take advantage of cloud services by owning the entire billing process and directly managing support.

“We are extremely excited about the opportunity that we can bring to the channel by becoming a Multi-Tier Distributor under the Microsoft CSP Programme”, said Craig Joseph, chief operating officer at intY. “The combination of Office 365, Azure, EMS, Intune and Dynamics CRM Online plus our award winning provisioning portal CASCADE, make a compelling proposition for channel partners to take to market. Partners can also sell via a one or two tier model giving extra flexibility and choice.”

“To meet the growing demand of our cloud-based solutions, we’re thrilled to expand the capabilities for cloud partners under the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program,” said Phil Sorgen, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “By joining the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program, partners will deepen customer relationships and expand business opportunities in the cloud.”

Source: CloudStrategyMag

Dell Rebrands Pending EMC Merger as Dell Technologies

Brought to you by The VAR Guy

Dell Technologies will be the official name of the new company expected to be formed after the pending merger of Dell and EMC Corp., Michael Dell announced during his keynote speech at this week’s EMC World conference in Las Vegas.

Dell founder and CEO outlined the vision and branding strategies for the new company on Monday morning. All of Dell’s and EMC’s existing business ventures – including VMware and RSA – will be housed under the Dell Technologies brand, according to the announcement.