Even though the future of IT belongs to the cloud, much of the enterprise world is still clinging to legacy systems. In fact, 90 percent of workloads today are completed outside of the public cloud. With this continued resistance to cloud services adoption at the enterprise level, today’s “cloud evangelists” are playing a more important role in the industry than ever before.
The role of a cloud evangelist sits somewhere between the duties of a product marketer and the company’s direct link to customers. These individuals are responsible for spreading the doctrine of cloud computing and convincing reluctant IT admins to make the jump to the cloud. It’s a dynamic role and nowhere is this more apparent than with the talented cloud evangelists at NTT Communications.
In a recent interview from NTT Communications, two of the company’s leading cloud evangelists, Masayuki Hayashi and Waturu Katsurashima, sat down to chat about the current challenges slowing enterprise cloud migration and what companies can do to help mitigate those challenges. In this post, we take a look at the five areas that are top-of-mind for cloud evangelists today.
The Changing Role of Cloud Evangelists
While the role itself may be new, it is not insulated from change. When it was first established, cloud evangelists were responsible for ferrying customers through every stage of cloud adoption. From preliminary fact finding to architecting the final network, cloud evangelists played a prominent role.
Today, that hands-on approach is quickly changing. As Hayashi states in the article, “Evangelists have traditionally played the “forward” position, but recently we are more like “midfielders” who focus on passing the ball to others.” Rather than managing every task involved, evangelists are placing more focus on improving processes and strengthening organizational knowledge.
Slow Migration of On-Premise Systems to the Cloud
The number of enterprises migrating on-premise datacenters to the cloud has been less than stellar in recent years. Cloud services migrations have remained relatively flat year-over-year largely due to the complexities surrounding migration. Enterprises are having difficulty simultaneously managing both their existing infrastructure and bringing new cloud-based services online.
For evangelists, it’s important to consider this added complexity when proposing a migration plan. NTT Communications Chief Evangelist Wataru Katsurashima recommends finding specific solutions that can accommodate the unique needs of enterprise cloud migration such as hybrid cloud infrastructures that function like a single, public cloud environment.
High Migration Costs are Slowing Adoption
The added complexity of enterprise cloud migration also directly affects the price of migration, increasing it beyond reach of some companies. The expensive price tag is forcing many enterprises to rethink their decision to migrate to the cloud, opting instead to delay the migration another year or executing a much slower, gradual migration.
One discussed solution to this high cost is using existing services within the VMware vCloud® Air™ Network. According to Katsurashima, leveraging technology from NTT communications and VMware in a synergistic way can dramatically cut down costs through efficiencies and better utilization.
New Hybrid Cloud Structures on the Horizon
Like the role of cloud evangelists, the hybrid cloud, too, is changing. Hayashi explains:
“In the past, a hybrid cloud was similar to a Japanese hot spring inn, with a single hallway that leads from the hot spring to each guest room. NTT Communications aims to achieve a “modern hotel” model. In other words, there is one front desk and a variety of rooms with different purposes, such as extended-stay rooms for VIPs and rooms for business meetings.”
The hotel analogy provides us with a way to visualize the new features and capabilities that hybrid cloud environments must deliver. Since no one cloud service provider can be everything, establishing greater levels of collaboration and cross-pollination between service providers is critical to success.
Redefining the Role of Information System Departments
The days of information system departments only responding to the demands of individual business departments are over. The IT teams that do not help business departments innovate from the inside-out will become increasingly obsolete.
This article was provided by our service partner : Vmware
Ransomware Attack: Goldeneye
In the wake of another ransomware attack, this one labeled Goldeneye, we’re reaching out to ensure our partners that we’re focused on security first. According to Forbes, there are similarities with WannaCryptor, but experts are labeling this a variant of Petya aimed at the file system—specifically targeting the master boot record—instead of encrypting individual files. It utilizes the same attack vector that WannaCry used last month – an SMBv1 exploit that was patched in March under MS17-010 known as EternalBlue.
The attack has effected systems beginning in Ukraine, and has been confirmed as spreading through a trojanized version of M.E.Doc accounting software. The massive ransomware campaign was launched in the early hours of June 27, and the outbreak is spreading globally. The National Bank of Ukraine has shared a warning on their website to help protect other banks, and the financial sector is taking steps to “strengthen security measures and counter hacker attacks.” The Independent is reporting affected systems in Spain and India, along with issues arising for Danish and British companies.
Reports are now coming in that Goldeneye has reached the US, with systems affected in major companies like Merck. Advanced security systems can block the currently known samples of new ransomware variants like Goldeneye, keeping most users safe from system infiltration.
Just like the WannaCry cyberattacks in May, this attack is highlighting the importance of maintaining up-to-date patching to keep your systems safe from these exploitative malware programs. Keeping your systems fully patched and using a vetted security solution with network segmentation can help prevent large-scale issues.
Patching, in conjunction with third-party products like anti-virus, anti-malware & backup, are critical to providing the best IT services, and an integrated ecosystem of solutions allows you to:
See how our partners and other AV solution providers are addressing the latest attack:
Bitdefender
ESET
Webroot
Malwarebytes
VIPRE
Acronis
StorageCraft
This article was provided by our service partner : Connectwise
Benefits of choosing Private Hosting Services
Looking to make the move into the cloud can be a bit of daunting process, with so many options available. One of the first decisions to make is choosing whether you want to opt for a public provider or choose a Private Hosting Services solution like Knownhost that offers servers with amd ryzen.
With decades of experience within the IT sector, dealing with a range of business clients, we have highlighted security, flexibility and control as the key values to our clients and wanted to ensure all of our cloud services were done so through a highly secure private cloud platform.
We have jotted down 5 top reasons for choosing a private cloud model for your business, to help guide you on your way.
1. Sense of security
Without a doubt, the number one reason to opt for Private Hosting Services is the knowledge that you know, not only, where your data is located but exactly who can access it learn more at Hostens website. Whilst there are certainly a number security controls in place on a good public cloud platform, you will never have the sense control and security that you achieve through a private cloud solution.
Security is especially important for businesses who may hold sensitive documents on their servers such as highly personal customer information or private financial data. Businesses have a responsibility to ensure their data is kept safe and secure at all times, making a private cloud provider the go to platform for rest assured data security.
2. Knowing where your data is
Closely linked to security and privacy, specific data location is another important difference between private and public cloud providers. You cannot be 100% sure where your data is being stored on a public cloud, with many providers holding your data abroad, and often even unable to specify the exact location of your files at any given time.
With a private cloud infrastructure, you will always know the precise location of your data. At NetCal all your data is held on state of the art, enterprise level equipment in temperature controlled environments in a distinct number of data centres, known to you at any given time.
3. Top performance
Another clear advantage for Private Hosting Services is the ability to have dedicated applications and a dedicated server which runs its own operating system for your business. This ensures you do not have to share processing power with other company applications, resulting in a more stable predictable performance which is optimised for your business requirements.
4. Take control
If you want to ensure you have complete control over your hardware and your virtual servers, a private cloud is the clearly favourable option. In addition, private cloud also allows much more control over Service Level Agreement (SLA) management. Public cloud platforms can only give you control over certain features of your operating system, applications and server, and a public cloud provider controls the SLAs with all clients.
Another advantage of a private cloud solution is complete control over your own failover plan, which is put in place to ensure that there is no risk of your cloud service becoming unavailable to users.
5. Be flexible
An enterprise level private cloud service is built from the bottom up and tailored for your individual requirements. This means that, you as a client are able to specify what you need (both technical capabilities and SLAs) and only ever need to take up the processing power that you require.
In summary Private cloud is highly compliant and highly flexible, providing you with complete control over your hardware, virtual servers, SLAs and failover plans, whilst ensuring you are operating at your optimum performance.
If you are considering migrating to a cloud solution, or want to better understand the benefits of opting for a private cloud provider, get in touch with one of the friendly and experienced members of our team and we can get you up and started in no time.
Web Security : Is Your Chat Client Leaving You Exposed?
Popular third-party chat platforms like Slack, Discord, and Telegram are just a few of the many new productivity applications that are being hijacked by cyber criminals to create command-and-control (C&C) communications infrastructures for their malware campaigns. As corporate web security teams become more aware of traditional malware threats and deploy new security solutions to defend against them, cyber criminals continue to innovate. Now they’ve turned to well-known chat and social media applications as platforms to communicate with their deployed malware.
Hiding in Plain Sight
The appeal of these chat programs for cyber criminals is born from the fact that many of them are free, easy to use, and incorporate application programming interface (API) components that simplify connections between the programs and custom-built applications. It’s this use of APIs that allows hackers to operate undetected on corporate networks. This clever technique enables hackers to entrench their access by camouflaging themselves with normal data flows. Plus, because this malware leverages software platforms and services that are readily available (and free), all hackers need to do in order to stay connected to their growing malware bot farm is set up an account on their chat platform of choice. It is better to Send SMS from Slack| to have a secure chat for business purposes.
Granted, not all software using APIs is susceptible to this type of attack. However, these attacks are a clear demonstration that tools used by project management and software development teams can be compromised in ways that expose their organizations to significant risk. I predict that similar vulnerabilities in productivity services and applications used by corporate technology teams will continue to be exploited—at an even greater rate. In many ways, these attacks mirror what we’ve seen recently targeting core protocols that operate on the Internet.
Know Your Enemy
Luckily, knowing the enemy is half the battle. With this in mind, we can manage these types of threats, and some of the steps I recommend come down to basic cyber hygiene. I highly recommend security professionals deploy an antivirus solution that incorporates anti-malware and firewall services to all endpoints. A solid threat-intelligence service is also vital to educate security staff and business stakeholders on the current threats and threat actors targeting their business.
One final point: it’s a good idea to screen all outbound network traffic in order to verify that it’s going to legitimate destinations. Hopefully, you’ve already deployed these recommended security controls. If you are missing one or more of these elements, it’s time to shore up your web security efforts to protect yourself and your organization.
This article was provided by our service partner : Webroot
VMware vCenter Converter : Tips and Best Practices
Vmware vCenter converter can convert Windows and Linux based physical machine and Microsoft hyper-v systems into Vmware virtual machines.
Here are some tips and suggested best practices
Tasks to perform before conversion :
Special considerations for Domain Controllers, MS exchange and SQL servers.
Although – You tend to get warned off converting Domain controllers, they do work OK if you take some sensible precautions:
For SQL and Exchange, you should stop and disable all Exchange and SQL services on the source machine and only start them back up on the target VM once you are happy the server is successfully back on the domain.
( note these steps are not necessary for V2V conversations and you should have the system powered off!)
________________________________________________
Tasks to perform after conversion :
Special considerations for Domain Controllers, MS exchange and SQL servers.
For SQL and Exchange : double check that their is no trust issues on the virtual machine. Try connecting to the ADMIN$ share from multiple locations. If you do find the computer account locked out. Taking the machine in and out of the domain normally fixes it.
Once happy the machine is on your domain without any trust issues – restart and reconfigure the SQL/Exchange services as per how they originally were.
Windows Server 2016 docs are now on docs.microsoft.com
Microsoft have recently announced that their IT pro technical documentation for Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile is now available at docs.microsoft.com.
Why move to docs.microsoft.com?
Well here microsoft promise:
“a crisp new responsive design that looks fantastic on your phone, tablet, and PC. But, more importantly, you’ll see new ways to engage with Microsoft and contribute to the larger IT pro community. From the ground up, docs.microsoft.com that offers:
How to contribute to IT pro content
Microsoft recognize that customers are eager to share best practices, optimizations, and samples with the larger IT pro community. Docs.microsoft.com makes contribution easy.
Community contributions are open for your contribution. Learn more about editing an existing IT pro article.
Open Source Hypervisors and Hyperconverged Environments
We recently started looking at some of the open source solutions such as KVM/QEMU offered by RedHat and Proxmox to replace Microsoft Hyper-V and VMWare vSphere. So far they do appear somewhat feature-full especially for smaller environments. It appears though they do fall short of Enterprise features.
The performance and simplicity were definitely appealing with these solutions. Some of our staff was really into the Linux aspect of them since the Hypervisors have a full Linux shell. Controlling the enviornment easily from a cli was definitely a plus along with the common feel of logfiles and Linux kernel options.
Everything was promising but we got to the point of backing up multi-terabyte VM environments and the flexibility offered by common tools wasn’t working well enough for what we wanted to do. Products such as Veeam really do make it easy for even entry level administrators to use the complex environments.
For now we’ll be sticking with the big boys and keeping a close eye on the developments of Change Block Tracking in libvirt and the user-space tools in the coming year.
5 Trends in Enterprise Cloud Services
Even though the future of IT belongs to the cloud, much of the enterprise world is still clinging to legacy systems. In fact, 90 percent of workloads today are completed outside of the public cloud. With this continued resistance to cloud services adoption at the enterprise level, today’s “cloud evangelists” are playing a more important role in the industry than ever before.
The role of a cloud evangelist sits somewhere between the duties of a product marketer and the company’s direct link to customers. These individuals are responsible for spreading the doctrine of cloud computing and convincing reluctant IT admins to make the jump to the cloud. It’s a dynamic role and nowhere is this more apparent than with the talented cloud evangelists at NTT Communications.
In a recent interview from NTT Communications, two of the company’s leading cloud evangelists, Masayuki Hayashi and Waturu Katsurashima, sat down to chat about the current challenges slowing enterprise cloud migration and what companies can do to help mitigate those challenges. In this post, we take a look at the five areas that are top-of-mind for cloud evangelists today.
The Changing Role of Cloud Evangelists
While the role itself may be new, it is not insulated from change. When it was first established, cloud evangelists were responsible for ferrying customers through every stage of cloud adoption. From preliminary fact finding to architecting the final network, cloud evangelists played a prominent role.
Today, that hands-on approach is quickly changing. As Hayashi states in the article, “Evangelists have traditionally played the “forward” position, but recently we are more like “midfielders” who focus on passing the ball to others.” Rather than managing every task involved, evangelists are placing more focus on improving processes and strengthening organizational knowledge.
Slow Migration of On-Premise Systems to the Cloud
The number of enterprises migrating on-premise datacenters to the cloud has been less than stellar in recent years. Cloud services migrations have remained relatively flat year-over-year largely due to the complexities surrounding migration. Enterprises are having difficulty simultaneously managing both their existing infrastructure and bringing new cloud-based services online.
For evangelists, it’s important to consider this added complexity when proposing a migration plan. NTT Communications Chief Evangelist Wataru Katsurashima recommends finding specific solutions that can accommodate the unique needs of enterprise cloud migration such as hybrid cloud infrastructures that function like a single, public cloud environment.
High Migration Costs are Slowing Adoption
The added complexity of enterprise cloud migration also directly affects the price of migration, increasing it beyond reach of some companies. The expensive price tag is forcing many enterprises to rethink their decision to migrate to the cloud, opting instead to delay the migration another year or executing a much slower, gradual migration.
One discussed solution to this high cost is using existing services within the VMware vCloud® Air™ Network. According to Katsurashima, leveraging technology from NTT communications and VMware in a synergistic way can dramatically cut down costs through efficiencies and better utilization.
New Hybrid Cloud Structures on the Horizon
Like the role of cloud evangelists, the hybrid cloud, too, is changing. Hayashi explains:
The hotel analogy provides us with a way to visualize the new features and capabilities that hybrid cloud environments must deliver. Since no one cloud service provider can be everything, establishing greater levels of collaboration and cross-pollination between service providers is critical to success.
Redefining the Role of Information System Departments
The days of information system departments only responding to the demands of individual business departments are over. The IT teams that do not help business departments innovate from the inside-out will become increasingly obsolete.
This article was provided by our service partner : Vmware
Understanding Cyberattacks from WannaCrypt
Cyberattacks are growing more sophisticated, and more common, with every passing day. They present a continuous risk to the security of necessary data, and create an added layer of complication for technology solution providers and in-house IT departments trying to keep their clients’ systems safe and functional. Despite industry efforts and innovations, the world was exposed to this year’s latest cyberattack with ‘WannaCrypt’ on Friday morning.
The attacked—stemming from “WannaCrypt” software—started in United Kingdom and Spain, and quickly spread globally, encrypting endpoint data and requiring a ransom to be paid using Bitcoin to regain access to the data. WannaCrypt exploits used in the attack were derived from the exploits stolen in an attack on the National Security Agency earlier this year.
On March 14, Microsoft® released a security update to patch this vulnerability and protect customers from this quickly spreading cyberattack. While this protected newer Windows™ systems and computers that had enabled Windows to apply this latest update, many computers remained unpatched globally. Hospitals, businesses, governments, and home computers were affected. Microsoft took additional steps to assist users with older systems that are no longer supported.
Our goal at Netcal is to provide partners with the tools they need to support their clients and prevent these kinds of attacks from happening.
See how our vendors are addressing the latest attack:
-> Bitdefender
-> ESET
-> Webroot
-> Malwarebytes
-> VIPRE
-> Acronis
-> StorageCraft
Choose the best server RAM configuration
Watch your machine memory configurations – always be care to implement the best server RAM configuration! You can’t just throw RAM at a physical server and expect it to work the best it possibly can. Depending on your DIMM configuration, you might unwittingly slow down your memory speed, which will ultimately slow down your application servers. This speed decrease is virtually undetectable at the OS level – but – anything that leverages lots of RAM to function, including application servers such as a database server, can take a substantial performance hit on performance.
An example of this is if you wish to configure 384GB of RAM on a new server. The server has 24 memory slots. You could populate each of the memory slots with 16GB sticks of memory to get to the 384GB total. Or, you could spend a bit more money to buy 32GB sticks of memory and only fill up half of the memory slots. Your outcome is the same amount of RAM. Your price tag on the memory is slightly higher than the relatively cheaper smaller sticks.
In this configuration, your 16GB DIMM configuration runs the memory 22% slower than if you buy the higher density sticks. The fully populated 16GB stick configuration runs the memory at 1866 MHz. If you only fill in the 32GB sticks on half the slots, the memory runs at 2400 MHz.
Database servers, both physical and virtual, use memory as an I/O cache, improving the performance of the database engine by reducing the dependency on slower storage and leveraging the speed of RAM to boost performance. If you are wanting to know how to quickly setup your own web server, then click the link above you will be able to create your own server very easily. If the memory is slower, your databases will perform worse. Validate your memory speed on your servers, both now and for upcoming hardware purchases. Ensure that your memory configuration yields the fastest possible performance – implement the best server RAM configuration -your applications will be better for it!
Healthcare industry embraces Cisco Umbrella
Healthcare industry expenditures on cloud computing will experience a compound annual growth rate of more than 20% by 2020. The industry has quickly transitioned from being hesitant about the cloud to embracing the technology for its overwhelming benefits.
George Washington University, a world-renowned research university, turned to Cisco Umbrella to protect its most important asset: the global reputation as a research leader.
Customers love Umbrella because it is a cloud-delivered platform that protects users both on and off the network. It stops threats over all ports and protocols for the most comprehensive coverage. Plus, Umbrella’s powerful, effective security does not require the typical operational complexity. By performing everything in the cloud, there is no hardware to install, and no software to manually update. The service is a scalable solution for large healthcare organizations with multiple locations, like The University of Kansas Hospital, ranked among the nation’s best hospitals every year since 2007 by U.S. News & World Report.
Like many healthcare providers, The University of Kansas Hospital would spend a lot time combing through gigabytes of logs trying to trace infections, point of origin and identify which machines were calling out. The team turned to Cisco Umbrella for help.
This overwhelming success led the team to later purchase Umbrella Investigate.
University of Kansas estimate that with Cisco Umbrella – they have :
This article was provided by our Service Partner : Cisco