WHAT’S HOT wor ld news
It’s all about security
The latest research from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has again highlighted end user concerns over migrating to a Cloud service model. The research conducted in December 2011 highlighted that widely held view that many organisations cite their number one concern, namely the mitigation of risk, when committing data to the Cloud.
According to Simplexo, a member of CIF and UK search specialist, it’s time to focus on the issue of security, if the Cloud is factually going to be something meaningful in everyday computing life, and stop focusing on the fear, uncertainty and doubt. Simon Bain, CTO, at Simplexo, states: “CIF conducted a highly detailed survey into user adoption levels and trends. When asked to name the most significant concerns about Cloud adoption, users were clear that data security and privacy stood out above all others at 62 per cent and 55 per cent respectively.”
“I am obviously a believer in using the ‘Cloud’ as a way forward for both personal and corporate life. However, there are certain guidelines that I think need to be adhered to before we all start throwing our hard disks away and placing everything in to the hands of others.”
“Let’s be clear – Clouds are fluffy, contain water vapour and sometimes they are not around. That would certainly be no good if we all had our life in one! But seriously the Cloud is
today’s marketing word, if this were to change tomorrow to a new
buzzword with the same meaning; we would all once again be confused. So my first request is STOP.”
“What we need to do is drill down and focus on what the Cloud is in its simplest form. It is a mechanism to store your files, images, music, movies etc, on-line on somebody else’s hard disks. It’s also a way to run applications without having them installed. It is where most of us store and view our emails and have done for many decades, it is where we place our videos and images on Youtube, Facebook and flikr,” he added.
“But it is security we should be focusing on – this is the first and last thing that we and the providers should think about.”
Bain concluded: “Pretty basic stuff you would think but you will be surprised how many of the above are ignored. Security in all aspects of your on-line life is important, and the Cloud is no different. Just because you may not be logging in to your bank, does not mean that the security should be any weaker. Remember you may have placed your bank statements in the Cloud!”
Institute of Directors (IoD) accelerates virtualisation strategy
The Institute of Directors (IoD) has turned to Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD) to increase its network performance and reliability, and lay the foundation for an enterprise-wide virtualisation strategy.
With data volumes having doubled three times in the last five years and with plans to roll out bandwidth-hungry services, such as online training and video streaming, the IoD needed to upgrade its legacy network to deliver 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) performance and a blueprint for future growth.
The IoD provides support and services to over 40,000 business leaders, who are some of the most skilled and experienced leaders in the country, representing the full business spectrum – from start-up entrepreneurs to directors in the public sector and CEOs of multinational organisations.
Member of the IoD have access to a variety of services including director level training, networking events across the UK, and free legal and tax advice.
6
www.dcsuk.info I February 2012
Doug Radford, IT Infrastructure Manager at the IoD, said: “Over the past couple of years we have seen data traffic volumes increase dramatically, which has placed a huge strain on the network and meant that we were challenged in maintaining service quality. Our legacy architecture [based on older Brocade switches] had been enhanced, but we knew a more fundamental change was required to ensure we could keep pace with member demand. Finding a network solution that provided the bandwidth, resilience and scalability, plus long-term total cost of ownership savings, was absolutely key. Migrating to the Brocade® FastIron® SX Series switches has ensured we can continue to deliver high-quality services and support, while maintaining our mandate on delivering ROI through cost-efficiency.”
The IoD selected Brocade FastIron SX Series Switches as the foundation of its resilient 10 GbE solution, which was delivered through local partner, Tatra Systems Ltd. The switches provide industry-leading price/ performance value in a campus aggregation
and core solution that offers a scalable, secure, low-latency and fault-tolerant IP service infrastructure for 10 GbE enterprise deployments. As a result, the switches provide a more scalable foundation that enables increased operational efficiency and is more capable of adapting to changing business opportunities today and into the future.
Radford continued; “Brocade’s heritage in networking and its reputation for quality and reliability made our selection process considerably easier. Over a three-weekend period, we successfully migrated to Brocade’s latest 10 GbE technology to give the IoD a platform to build on for the next decade. We were able to leverage existing switch configurations, which made the migration seamless, and the greater bandwidth and resilience delivered by the Brocade FastIron SX switches supports our vision for the future, delivering dynamic services such as increased video streaming for online training and seminars and the ability to greatly improve our online presence.”
Subscribe to our weekly email newsletter at:
www.dcsuk.info
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52