The cloud computing scandal of the week is looking like being the catastrophic loss of millions of Sidekick users' data. This is an unfortunate and completely avoidable event that Microsoft's Danger subsidiary and T-Mobile (along with the rest of the cloud computing community) will surely very soon come to regret. There's plenty of theories as to what went wrong -- the most credible being that a SAN upgrade was botched, possibly by a large outsourcing contractor, and that no backups were taken... more
I am excited to announce the recent release of the industry first Best Common Practices document for Cloud and Hosting providers for addressing abuse issues that was created by M3AAWG and the i2Coalition. M3AAWG has been collaborating with the Best Practices Working Group of the i2Coalition over the past 2 years to discuss ways to solve malicious activity within hosting and cloud ecosystems. more
Anyone old enough to remember when cross-border data flows were limited to what could be put in a DHL box in New York and sent directly to Milan for the next day? Or when MIPS were so costly and centralized that batch processing was the norm? The world has changed, but the rules governing data protection and privacy haven't (much). Today technology allows and users demand that data flow without the drag of political boundaries or national borders, yet we still want assurances that our information will be protected and respected. more
If you are a cloud provider, whether you are pure play or an internal IT department, it is very interesting to know who is buying cloud services, and why. In a recent survey by PB7 sponsored by EuroCloud Netherlands and others, a group of Dutch companies was interviewed about their motivations and hesitations around cloud computing. The survey's results were quite a bit more interesting than the usual lot. In this article I have cherry picked a few observations from the larger survey. more
Companies are moving to the cloud. According to Cloud Tech, CIOs are on the front lines: In 72 percent of companies surveyed, chief information officers lead the cloud computing charge. However, adoption without the right information is doomed to fail - here are 10 key questions CIOs should ask before moving operations to the cloud... First, it's critical to identify business benefits. Here the key to success lies in specifics rather than generalities... more
It is good to see Europe take an important leadership role in recognizing the critical contribution that commercial cloud providers can play in providing solutions for big science through their recent Helix Nebula -- the Science Cloud announcement. It is estimated that 1/3 of the science applications running on expensive HPC facilities could easily run on commercial clouds, freeing up these facilities to focus on true high computational problems. more
Who do you think deserves recognition in the Internet Hall of Fame? Do you know of someone who has played a key role in the Internet's development who should be recognized? (And is not already among the existing IHOF inductees?) If you know of someone who deserves the recognition, nominations are open until March 15, 2017. As outlined by Internet Society President & CEO Kathy Brown in a blog post today, the Internet Hall of Fame seeks to honor three types of inductee. more
Vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products (server, storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud IT, including public and private cloud, grew by 9.2% year over year to $32.6 billion in 2016, with vendor revenue for the fourth quarter (4Q16) growing at 7.3% to $9.2 billion. more
On Thursday, Oct 1, 2015, from 9:30am-4:30pm US EDT (UTC-4), Dyn will be holding their "TechToberFest" event in Manchester, NH, and also streaming the video live for anyone interested. There are a great set of speakers and a solid agenda. As I wrote on the Internet Society blog, I'll be part of the security panel from 3-4pm US EDT... and we who are on the panel are excited to participate just for the conversation that we are going to have! It should be fun! more
Cloud Computing is a hot topic. Some say it is already here, most agree that it will be much bigger in the coming years. It is pushed forward by the economic benefits of virtualization and consolidation. Take a heterogeneous data center, full of many kinds of servers, running a myriad of applications and consolidate it into a uniform farm of virtual machines, where each application is services by one or more VMs and you have a cloud, what is called a private cloud. more
A new resource dedicated to small and medium-sized digital infrastructure providers highlights the benefits of incorporating sustainability into their operations, offers a consolidated list of best practices and recommendations, and shares additional resources to help make practical changes to save time, energy, and money. more
Bill St Arnoud blogs that he is a big advocate of using commercial cloud services rather than rolling out a do-it-yourself cloud for a number of reasons... The cloud market is intensively competitive and innovative, where scale can make a huge difference in terms of reliability and accessibility. It is much easier to develop a set of common contractual service and interface requirements with commercial suppliers in regards to privacy, reliability etc. more
It is great to see US and European governments undertake initiatives to promote the development of research into Big Data utilizing commercial clouds. Many cloud providers are offering free resources to support these initiatives. R&E networks will play a critical role in linking researchers to the commercial clouds and developing collaboration platforms and portals. more
Wout de Natris writes to report: "EU Commissioner for the Information Society Neelie Kroes today launched the EU co-funded project for the Internet of the future in which everything will be connected to everyone in the cloud. Here's the link to Mrs. Kroes' speech." more
2013 may be a promising year for global trade in technology with the kick-off of the International Technology Agreement expansion discussions, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and as the Trade in Services Agreement gets going. But China calls its own tune, and is now threatening to restrict its market for Internet-enabled technologies through a clever device that could cost its trading partners billions. more