CIO/CTO Update

A recently discovered 0-day Apache exploit is no problem for BIG-IP. Here’s a couple of different options using F5 solutions to secure your site against it. It’s called “Apache Killer” and it’s yet another example of exploiting not a vulnerability, but a protocol’s behavior. UPDATE (8/26/2011) We're hearing that other Range-* HTTP headers are also vulnerable. Take care to secure against these potential attack vectors as well! In this case, the target is Apache and the “vulnerability” is in the way multiple ranges are handled by the Apache HTTPD server. The RANGE HTTP header is used to request one or more sub-ranges of the response, instead of the entire response entity. Ranges are sometimes used by thin clients (an example given was an eReader) that are memory constrained and may want to display just portions of the web page.  Generally speaking, multiple byte rang... (more)

The New HP Strategy

Last week we read that HP wants to get out of its Tablet business which means the Palm acquisition was a big failure. HP also said that it wants to sell off its PC business due to poor margins, even though its revenue contributed around $40B.  Humorously, Michael Dell twitted that the spin-off unit may be called Compaq. It is only ten years back that Carly Fiorina fought a big battle to acquire Compaq at the extremely high price of $25B. It seems Leo Apothekar, the new CEO wants to change HP to a different company centered around software and services. Last week it announced the a... (more)

Is Cloud Computing for Real?

In October 2009, Enterprise Cloud Computing was considered bleeding edge technology by many but there was something that seemed different about its value potential and adoption rate. For CIOs, it seemed a chance to provision affordable infrastructure quickly, alleviating delays to mission critical deliveries. Federal CIOs interest in Enterprise Cloud Computing was limited to innovators and early adopters. Two years later, where does Enterprise Cloud Computing stand? Is it for real? Today, Cloud Computing is on the Gartner® technology hype curve in the “peak of inflated expectati... (more)

AppDynamics helps Insurance Customer avoid Production Outage

Last week I published my winning Customer X-Ray of the Quarter, which showed how AppDynamics was able to help a media customer solve a production issue that had plagued their application for over two years. This week I’m posting the runner-up X-Ray entry. This one describes how AppDynamics was able to help an Insurance customer avoid a production outage by spotting a major bottleneck as their application was migrated from dev to pre-production during performance testing. All of the X-Rays you see published in this blog were written by customers, so the stories you read are real, ... (more)

Government SaaS Grids – Reinventing Application Solution Delivery

The Canadian Federal Government recently announced plans to create a single IT department ‘Shared Services’ that will save $100-200m a year through consolidation-driven efficiencies. As highlighted in this fact sheet there is lots of ‘low hanging fruit’ for cost savings due to a spread of many different email systems, networks and data-centres. This expensive complexity doesn’t stop there, it also continues into their enterprise application estate. Like most large organizations Governments are organized hierarchically, with different departments for each of their main functions, ... (more)