Virtualisation » Opinions »

  • Does your cloud vendor protect your rights?

    From time to time, organizations are asked to provide access to data for legal reasons. Those requests can be more complicated when the data is in the cloud. But a new report sheds some light on one critical aspect of such requests.

  • The role of startups in the SDN networking revolution

    For decades the leading network companies have been tightly coupling their software to complex, custom-built chips. Besides leaving IT buyers with a staggering array of appliances, the reliance on custom silicon has chilled industry startup activity. But with software defined networking, that is beginning to change.

  • Opinion: The CIA and the Cloud

    Get this: The CIA sees the Cloud as being more secure than conventional IT.

  • Software licensing in the cloud

    Someone at my seminar in Los Angeles last month asked about challenges that the cloud poses for software licensing. That's such a broad and complex topic that it could warrant an entire seminar of its own. But this column can at least provide an overview of the issues.

  • Land O'Lakes CIO shares keys to success at IT Roadmap conference

    Despite all the talk about the economic recovery, the IT purse strings are still pretty tight, at least based on an informal poll of practitioners at the recent Network World IT Roadmap conference in Chicago.

  • Bart Perkins: Cloudbursts ahead

    Service interruptions seem unavoidable as companies move to the cloud. Here are four areas you should manage well if youre going to be dependent on cloud computing.

  • Cloud services: Computus Interruptus

    I use Google Docs as part of my day job. On one recent morning I accessed a file and updated it but when I went back a short time later I got a "502" error page -- something had gone amok in Google land. Everything seemed to work when I tried a few hours later, but the incident was a forceful reminder of one of the important features of cloud services -- when they go down so do you.

  • For credit card handlers, cloud computing guidelines just got clearer

    The fact that regulations evolve at a much slower pace than cloud computing technologies can lead to confusion regarding how to meet regulatory requirements in the cloud. If a client moves a regulated function to the cloud and later falls out of compliance due to a shortcoming on the cloud vendor's part, the client remains accountable. So it's essential to have as much clarity on these issues as possible. Recognizing this challenge with regards to the handling of credit card data, the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council has recently issued guidance on how to apply PCI Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) in the cloud.

  • Opinion: Predicting the tech future

    For my recent column of predictions for 2013 I polled a huge number of IT people to see what they are expecting, and ended up getting more than 400 responses.

  • Opinion: There's no magic pill for security

    Too often, New Year's resolutions to get into better shape are derailed because of a lack of realistic planning. The same thing happens in the security sphere.

  • Converging forces

    Change is a given in this business, but 2013 promises to be particularly interesting because of the convergence of multiple, transformative developments, none of which are new, per se, given we have been tracking them in depth for some time, but each of which is forcing us to rethink long held conventions.

  • Outlook 2013 ... Even more interesting than 2012!

    Gibbs reviews his predictions from last year and surveys the more than 400 predictions that he's been sent by IT professionals

  • The multifaceted budget process

    With the bulk of the IT budgets in place for 2013, it is a good time to reflect on how the budget process has morphed over the years to accommodate shifts in technology and evolving corporate demands and priorities.

  • What does SDN mean for telecom infrastructure?

    Software-defined networking (SDN) has the potential to transform the telecom industry by improving the ability of carriers (both wired and wireless) to flexibly deliver bandwidth "on demand." It is critical that carriers improve both their network flexibility (improved customer value) and reduce their high operational costs as over-the-top providers (e.g., Google, Amazon, Skype, etc.) challenge the carriers' ability to grow their revenues and impact their margins.

  • CompTIA opinion: A technology agenda for Obama's second term

    Among the issues that Congress and the president can tackle are taxation, STEM education and the need for a national standard on data breaches.

  • The (encryption) key to dealing with data insecurity

    Valuable data stored in the cloud is sure to be a target. What can be done to make it harder to steal?

  • The cybersecurity needs of the borderless enterprise

    As the traditional security perimeter dissolves in a virtualized environment, organizations need a new cybersecurity framework and architecture.

  • Big Switch arrives

    The march toward software-defined networking will be a long slog given current investments in the installed base, but industry forces are coalescing rapidly in anticipation of the huge benefits to be reaped from this fundamental shift in the way we build and run networks.

  • Scot Finnie: Personal data syncing to the cloud is broken; let's fix it

    The vendors behind sync services seem to be more interested in positioning their wares against competitors than in delivering solid services that integrate with a variety of platforms.

  • Realtime's push beats Ajax pull

    How's that there cloudy thing working out for you? Sure, you get flexible, elastic infrastructure at a pretty good price, but what about your data transfer costs? The same question applies to "traditional" hosted apps; data transfer costs can mount up quickly for large client populations.

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