There’s Big Data, then there’s really Big Data from the Internet of Things. IoT is evolving to include many data possibilities like new types of event, log and network data. The volumes are enormous, generating tens of billions of logs per day, which raise data challenges. Early IoT deployments are relying heavily on both the cloud and managed service providers to navigate these challenges. Learn about IoT, Big Data and deployments processing massive data volumes from wearables, utilities and other machines.| By Trevor Parsons | Article Rating: |
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| December 22, 2014 10:00 AM EST | Reads: |
1,596 |
Best Practices for Cloud Logging, Security, & Data Protection
This article originally published on the Logentries Blog.
When we first founded Logentries in 2010 a lot of people thought Viliam Holub (co-founder, CTO, and the brain behind processing billions and billions of log events in real time) and I were crazy. The common response was:
"People are not going to send their logs to the cloud... logs might contain very sensitive data..."
Like typical stubborn founders we persevered in spite of this, and today we have more than 35,000 users across 100 countries. Our customers also range from fortune 100 companies to individual developers across almost all verticals from SaaS companies, to healthcare, financial services, commerce and a bunch of others.
So, why do companies now trust sending log data to a cloud based service? Id like to share some of the reasons we have found our customers are using secure, cloud-based logging.
- For on-prem workloads: Your logs may be a lot safer in the cloud than they are on-premise. Cloud vendors like AWS, Google, Microsoft invest heavily in security and have hardcore security teams looking out for you. For example the level of security provided in Amazon's cloud platform is described in more detail here. Furthermore your logging provider should be looking out for you by making sure data is encrypted on the wire, sensitive data is stripped out before it leaves your network, and encrypting data at rest. It's unlikely that your homegrown logging solution will have your data locked down quite so securely, at least not without significant investment.
- Sending logs to a remote location can be a MORE secure option: With cloud-based logging your logs are stored remotely from your running systems. This is recommended as a security best practice; if your system is compromised, a hacker will often delete the logs on your local system to remove any evidence of his/her activity. By storing your logs remotely this cannot be performed as you will have a redundant copy of the log data at Logentries.
As you consider moving your log management and analytics to the cloud, here are our five best practices you should look for from log management service to assure security:
- Website Integrity: A good indicator of how serious a company takes it's security is how it deals with website integrity. For cloud services this is often the gateway to your data. For example at Logentries we we redirect all web HTTP requests to our website to HTTPS. This ensures the integrity of the Logentries website by using SSL authentication between the Customer and the Logentries web interface. The Logentries service must show a valid SSL certificate to each Customer to initiate this link. Perfect Forward Secrecy is also used on our web servers for HTTPS. In addition to the usual confidentiality and integrity properties of HTTPS, forward secrecy adds a new property. If an adversary is currently recording all a users' encrypted traffic, and they later crack or steal Logentries private keys, by using perfect forward secrecy they should not be able to use those keys to decrypt the recorded traffic at a point in the future.
- What if I have sensitive data in my logs: While it's usually a not a good idea to write PII or sensitive data to your logs, it is not always unavoidable and in some cases it can occur inadvertently or as a result of an oversight. Having the ability to search for and filter out/redact/obfuscate sensitive data from your logs is a key requirement for many organizations. The Logentries Datahubhas been designed with this in mind so that you can easily filter out and redact any sensitive data before it leaves your network. It has been designed in conjunction with a number of our customers who have data protection and security requirements and in particular for those who require PCI, HIPPA or similar audits.
- Is your data encrypted on the wire: Sending your logs is the clear is rarely a good idea. Data sent to a cloud logging service should be done so via SSL so that it is encrypted on the wire. You should check if your log forwarding agent/collector or syslog setup is configured to support this.
- Is your data encrypted at rest: Data at rest should also be encrypted. I.e any data you send to a cloud service should be encrypted when it sits on disk in the cloud environment. Ask your logging provider if this is the case and what encryption they are using for this.
- Where does your data reside: Check where your logs actually reside. Are they in a SOC 2 compliant data center? How is it protected? What jurisdiction is it in and what are the data protection policies in that jurisdiction.
Want to learn more or chat with a cloud logging expert? Get started with a free 30-day trial here, or contact us at [email protected]
Published December 22, 2014 Reads 1,596
Copyright © 2014 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.
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- Cloud Computing: is it safe? Best Practices for Secure Enterprise Cloud Networking
More Stories By Trevor Parsons
Trevor Parsons is Chief Scientist and Co-founder of Logentries. Trevor has over 10 years experience in enterprise software and, in particular, has specialized in developing enterprise monitoring and performance tools for distributed systems. He is also a research fellow at the Performance Engineering Lab Research Group and was formerly a Scientist at the IBM Center for Advanced Studies. Trevor holds a PhD from University College Dublin, Ireland.
There’s Big Data, then there’s really Big Data from the Internet of Things. IoT is evolving to include many data possibilities like new types of event, log and network data. The volumes are enormous, generating tens of billions of logs per day, which raise data challenges. Early IoT deployments are relying heavily on both the cloud and managed service providers to navigate these challenges. Learn about IoT, Big Data and deployments processing massive data volumes from wearables, utilities and other machines.Jan. 13, 2015 08:00 PM EST Reads: 775 |
By Elizabeth White The security devil is always in the details of the attack: the ones you've endured, the ones you prepare yourself to fend off, and the ones that, you fear, will catch you completely unaware and defenseless. The Internet of Things (IoT) is nothing if not an endless proliferation of details. It's the vision of a world in which continuous Internet connectivity and addressability is embedded into a growing range of human artifacts, into the natural world, and even into our smartphones, appliances, and physical persons.
In the IoT vision, every new "thing" - sensor, actuator, data source, data con...Jan. 13, 2015 04:00 PM EST Reads: 3,210 |
By Elizabeth White SYS-CON Events announced today that Solgenia will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, and the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Solgenia is the global market leader in Cloud Collaboration and Cloud Infrastructure software solutions. Designed to “Bridge the Gap” between Personal and Professional Social, Mobile and Cloud user experiences, our solutions help large and medium-sized organizations dr...Jan. 13, 2015 02:30 PM EST Reads: 724 |
By Liz McMillan SYS-CON Events announced today that Cisco, the worldwide leader in IT that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, has been named “Gold Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Cisco makes amazing things happen by connecting the unconnected. Cisco has shaped the future of the Internet by becoming the worldwide leader in transforming how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Cisco and our partners are building the platform for the Internet of Everything by connecting the...Jan. 13, 2015 01:00 PM EST Reads: 2,742 |
By Liz McMillan SYS-CON Events announced today that IDenticard will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
IDenticard™ is the security division of Brady Corp (NYSE: BRC), a $1.5 billion manufacturer of identification products. We have small-company values with the strength and stability of a major corporation.
IDenticard offers local sales, support and service to our customers across the United States and Canada. Our partner network encompasses some 300 of the world's leading systems integrators and security s...Jan. 13, 2015 12:00 PM EST Reads: 2,614 |
By Elizabeth White Internet of @ThingsExpo announced today a limited time free "Expo Plus" registration option. On site registration price of $600 will be set to 'free' for delegates who register during this period. To take advantage of this opportunity, attendees can use the coupon code "IoTAugust" and secure their "@ThingsExpo Plus" registration to attend all keynotes, as well as limited number of technical sessions each day of the show, in addition to full access to the expo floor and the @ThingsExpo hackathon. Registration page is located at the @ThingsExpo site.Jan. 13, 2015 10:00 AM EST Reads: 5,130 |
By Pat Romanski The Internet of Things (IoT) is causing data centers to become radically decentralized and atomized within a new paradigm known as “fog computing.” To support IoT applications, such as connected cars and smart grids, data centers' core functions will be decentralized out to the network's edges and endpoints (aka “fogs”). As this trend takes hold, Big Data analytics platforms will focus on high-volume log analysis (aka “logs”) and rely heavily on cognitive-computing algorithms (aka “cogs”) to make sense of it all. Jan. 13, 2015 09:45 AM EST Reads: 1,135 |
By Elizabeth White One of the biggest challenges when developing connected devices is identifying user value and delivering it through successful user experiences.
In his session at Internet of @ThingsExpo, Mike Kuniavsky, Principal Scientist, Innovation Services at PARC, described an IoT-specific approach to user experience design that combines approaches from interaction design, industrial design and service design to create experiences that go beyond simple connected gadgets to create lasting, multi-device experiences grounded in people's real needs and desires.Jan. 12, 2015 11:00 AM EST Reads: 3,023 |
By Pat Romanski Grow your business with enterprise wearable apps using SAP Platforms and Google Glass. SAP and Google just launched the SAP and Google Glass Challenge, an opportunity for you to innovate and develop the best Enterprise Wearable App using SAP Platforms and Google Glass and gain valuable market exposure.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Brian McPhail, Senior Director of Business Development, ISVs & Digital Commerce at SAP, outlined the timeline of the SAP Google Glass Challenge and the opportunity for developers, start-ups, and companies of all sizes to engage with SAP today.Jan. 11, 2015 11:45 PM EST Reads: 2,877 |
By Liz McMillan The recent trends like cloud computing, social, mobile and Internet of Things are forcing enterprises to modernize in order to compete in the competitive globalized markets.
However, enterprises are approaching newer technologies with a more silo-ed way, gaining only sub optimal benefits.
The Modern Enterprise model is presented as a newer way to think of enterprise IT, which takes a more holistic approach to embracing modern technologies.Jan. 11, 2015 10:00 PM EST Reads: 2,656 |
By Pat Romanski Can call centers hang up the phones for good? Intuitive Solutions did. WebRTC enabled this contact center provider to eliminate antiquated telephony and desktop phone infrastructure with a pure web-based solution, allowing them to expand beyond brick-and-mortar confines to a home-based agent model. It also ensured scalability and better service for customers, including MUY! Companies, one of the country's largest franchise restaurant companies with 232 Pizza Hut locations. This is one example of WebRTC adoption today, but the potential is limitless when powered by IoT. Jan. 11, 2015 06:00 PM EST Reads: 2,419 |
By Liz McMillan The Internet of Everything (IoE) brings together people, process, data and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before – transforming information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. IoE creates new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented opportunities to improve business and government operations, decision making and mission support capabilities.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Gary Hall, Chief Technology Officer, Federal Defense at Cisco Systems, will break down the core capabilities of IoT in multiple settings and expand upon IoE for bo...Jan. 11, 2015 05:00 PM EST Reads: 1,600 |
By Elizabeth White There's no doubt that the Internet of Things is driving the next wave of innovation. Google has spent billions over the past few months vacuuming up companies that specialize in smart appliances and machine learning. Already, Philips light bulbs, Audi automobiles, and Samsung washers and dryers can communicate with and be controlled from mobile devices. To take advantage of the opportunities the Internet of Things brings to your business, you'll want to start preparing now.Jan. 11, 2015 10:00 AM EST Reads: 2,705 |
By Liz McMillan The 3rd International @ThingsExpo, co-located with the 16th International Cloud Expo – to be held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY – is now accepting Hackathon proposals. Hackathon sponsorship benefits include general brand exposure and increasing engagement with the developer ecosystem.
At Cloud Expo 2014 Silicon Valley, IBM held the Bluemix Developer Playground on November 5 and ElasticBox held the DevOps Hackathon on November 6. Both events took place on the expo floor.
The Bluemix Developer Playground, for developers of all levels, highlighted the ease of use of...Jan. 10, 2015 11:45 PM EST Reads: 1,948 |
By Liz McMillan What changes in the cloud computing, Internet of Things and Big Data landscape should you be expecting in 2015? This article offers a round-up of industry experts' opinions on the New Year.
Now that cloud services have become part of IT’s “new normal,” commonly referred to as “hybrid,” it seems obvious that the approaches and tools we use to manage IT would also evolve and mature, though the pace of evolution varies amongs companies, of course. According to a Website Magazine article quoting a Gartner survey, more than 55% of CIOs indicate they would host all critical apps in the cloud by 202...Jan. 9, 2015 04:00 PM EST Reads: 1,782 |
By Elizabeth White Technology is enabling a new approach to collecting and using data. This approach, commonly referred to as the "Internet of Things" (IoT), enables businesses to use real-time data from all sorts of things including machines, devices and sensors to make better decisions, improve customer service, and lower the risk in the creation of new revenue opportunities.
In his General Session at Internet of @ThingsExpo, Dave Wagstaff, Vice President and Chief Architect at BSQUARE Corporation, discuss the real benefits to focus on, how to understand the requirements of a successful solution, the flow of ...Jan. 9, 2015 11:00 AM EST Reads: 2,876 |
By Elizabeth White Web-based real-time communications (WebRTC), which developed significant industry buzz in 2014, will move past the hype and begin to provide real business benefit to companies in 2015, according to 3CX, a provider of software-based VoIP IP PBX solutions.
“In 2014, we have seen the rapid rise of WebRTC, and as the technology continues to snowball, we expect to see an increasing number of businesses turn to WebRTC to boost collaboration and to offer improved customer service,” said Nick Galea, CEO and founder of 3CX.Jan. 8, 2015 02:30 PM EST Reads: 1,573 |
By Elizabeth White “With easy-to-use SDKs for Atmel’s platforms, IoT developers can now reap the benefits of realtime communication, and bypass the security pitfalls and configuration complexities that put IoT deployments at risk,” said Todd Greene, founder & CEO of PubNub.
PubNub will team with Atmel at CES 2015 to launch full SDK support for Atmel’s MCU, MPU, and Wireless SoC platforms. Atmel developers now have access to PubNub’s secure Publish/Subscribe messaging with guaranteed ¼ second latencies across PubNub’s 14 global points-of-presence. PubNub delivers secure communication through firewalls, proxy ser...Jan. 8, 2015 09:00 AM EST Reads: 1,426 |
By Carmen Gonzalez Wearable devices have come of age. The primary applications of wearables so far have been "the Quantified Self" or the tracking of one's fitness and health status. We propose the evolution of wearables into social and emotional communication devices. Our BE(tm) sensor uses light to visualize the skin conductance response. Our sensors are very inexpensive and can be massively distributed to audiences or groups of any size, in order to gauge reactions to performances, video, or any kind of presentation.
In her session at @ThingsExpo, Jocelyn Scheirer, CEO & Founder of Bionolux, will discuss ho...Jan. 5, 2015 11:45 PM EST Reads: 1,847 |
By Liz McMillan Sensor-enabled things are becoming more commonplace, precursors to a larger and more complex framework that most consider the ultimate promise of the IoT: things connecting, interacting, sharing, storing, and over time perhaps learning and predicting based on habits, behaviors, location, preferences, purchases and more.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Tom Wesselman, Director of Communications Ecosystem Architecture at Plantronics, will examine the still nascent IoT as it is coalescing, including what it is today, what it might ultimately be, the role of wearable tech, and technology gaps stil...Jan. 5, 2015 11:45 PM EST Reads: 1,758 |

The security devil is always in the details of the attack: the ones you've endured, the ones you prepare yourself to fend off, and the ones that, you fear, will catch you completely unaware and defenseless. The Internet of Things (IoT) is nothing if not an endless proliferation of details. It's the vision of a world in which continuous Internet connectivity and addressability is embedded into a growing range of human artifacts, into the natural world, and even into our smartphones, appliances, and physical persons.
In the IoT vision, every new "thing" - sensor, actuator, data source, data con...
SYS-CON Events announced today that Solgenia will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, and the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Solgenia is the global market leader in Cloud Collaboration and Cloud Infrastructure software solutions. Designed to “Bridge the Gap” between Personal and Professional Social, Mobile and Cloud user experiences, our solutions help large and medium-sized organizations dr...
SYS-CON Events announced today that Cisco, the worldwide leader in IT that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, has been named “Gold Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Cisco makes amazing things happen by connecting the unconnected. Cisco has shaped the future of the Internet by becoming the worldwide leader in transforming how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Cisco and our partners are building the platform for the Internet of Everything by connecting the...
SYS-CON Events announced today that IDenticard will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
IDenticard™ is the security division of Brady Corp (NYSE: BRC), a $1.5 billion manufacturer of identification products. We have small-company values with the strength and stability of a major corporation.
IDenticard offers local sales, support and service to our customers across the United States and Canada. Our partner network encompasses some 300 of the world's leading systems integrators and security s...
Internet of @ThingsExpo announced today a limited time free "Expo Plus" registration option. On site registration price of $600 will be set to 'free' for delegates who register during this period. To take advantage of this opportunity, attendees can use the coupon code "IoTAugust" and secure their "@ThingsExpo Plus" registration to attend all keynotes, as well as limited number of technical sessions each day of the show, in addition to full access to the expo floor and the @ThingsExpo hackathon. Registration page is located at the @ThingsExpo site.
One of the biggest challenges when developing connected devices is identifying user value and delivering it through successful user experiences.
In his session at Internet of @ThingsExpo, Mike Kuniavsky, Principal Scientist, Innovation Services at PARC, described an IoT-specific approach to user experience design that combines approaches from interaction design, industrial design and service design to create experiences that go beyond simple connected gadgets to create lasting, multi-device experiences grounded in people's real needs and desires.
Grow your business with enterprise wearable apps using SAP Platforms and Google Glass. SAP and Google just launched the SAP and Google Glass Challenge, an opportunity for you to innovate and develop the best Enterprise Wearable App using SAP Platforms and Google Glass and gain valuable market exposure.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Brian McPhail, Senior Director of Business Development, ISVs & Digital Commerce at SAP, outlined the timeline of the SAP Google Glass Challenge and the opportunity for developers, start-ups, and companies of all sizes to engage with SAP today.
The recent trends like cloud computing, social, mobile and Internet of Things are forcing enterprises to modernize in order to compete in the competitive globalized markets.
However, enterprises are approaching newer technologies with a more silo-ed way, gaining only sub optimal benefits.
The Modern Enterprise model is presented as a newer way to think of enterprise IT, which takes a more holistic approach to embracing modern technologies.
Can call centers hang up the phones for good? Intuitive Solutions did. WebRTC enabled this contact center provider to eliminate antiquated telephony and desktop phone infrastructure with a pure web-based solution, allowing them to expand beyond brick-and-mortar confines to a home-based agent model. It also ensured scalability and better service for customers, including MUY! Companies, one of the country's largest franchise restaurant companies with 232 Pizza Hut locations. This is one example of WebRTC adoption today, but the potential is limitless when powered by IoT.
The Internet of Everything (IoE) brings together people, process, data and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before – transforming information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. IoE creates new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented opportunities to improve business and government operations, decision making and mission support capabilities.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Gary Hall, Chief Technology Officer, Federal Defense at Cisco Systems, will break down the core capabilities of IoT in multiple settings and expand upon IoE for bo...
There's no doubt that the Internet of Things is driving the next wave of innovation. Google has spent billions over the past few months vacuuming up companies that specialize in smart appliances and machine learning. Already, Philips light bulbs, Audi automobiles, and Samsung washers and dryers can communicate with and be controlled from mobile devices. To take advantage of the opportunities the Internet of Things brings to your business, you'll want to start preparing now.
The 3rd International @ThingsExpo, co-located with the 16th International Cloud Expo – to be held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY – is now accepting Hackathon proposals. Hackathon sponsorship benefits include general brand exposure and increasing engagement with the developer ecosystem.
At Cloud Expo 2014 Silicon Valley, IBM held the Bluemix Developer Playground on November 5 and ElasticBox held the DevOps Hackathon on November 6. Both events took place on the expo floor.
The Bluemix Developer Playground, for developers of all levels, highlighted the ease of use of...
What changes in the cloud computing, Internet of Things and Big Data landscape should you be expecting in 2015? This article offers a round-up of industry experts' opinions on the New Year.
Now that cloud services have become part of IT’s “new normal,” commonly referred to as “hybrid,” it seems obvious that the approaches and tools we use to manage IT would also evolve and mature, though the pace of evolution varies amongs companies, of course. According to a Website Magazine article quoting a Gartner survey, more than 55% of CIOs indicate they would host all critical apps in the cloud by 202...
Technology is enabling a new approach to collecting and using data. This approach, commonly referred to as the "Internet of Things" (IoT), enables businesses to use real-time data from all sorts of things including machines, devices and sensors to make better decisions, improve customer service, and lower the risk in the creation of new revenue opportunities.
In his General Session at Internet of @ThingsExpo, Dave Wagstaff, Vice President and Chief Architect at BSQUARE Corporation, discuss the real benefits to focus on, how to understand the requirements of a successful solution, the flow of ...
Web-based real-time communications (WebRTC), which developed significant industry buzz in 2014, will move past the hype and begin to provide real business benefit to companies in 2015, according to 3CX, a provider of software-based VoIP IP PBX solutions.
“In 2014, we have seen the rapid rise of WebRTC, and as the technology continues to snowball, we expect to see an increasing number of businesses turn to WebRTC to boost collaboration and to offer improved customer service,” said Nick Galea, CEO and founder of 3CX.
“With easy-to-use SDKs for Atmel’s platforms, IoT developers can now reap the benefits of realtime communication, and bypass the security pitfalls and configuration complexities that put IoT deployments at risk,” said Todd Greene, founder & CEO of PubNub.
PubNub will team with Atmel at CES 2015 to launch full SDK support for Atmel’s MCU, MPU, and Wireless SoC platforms. Atmel developers now have access to PubNub’s secure Publish/Subscribe messaging with guaranteed ¼ second latencies across PubNub’s 14 global points-of-presence. PubNub delivers secure communication through firewalls, proxy ser...
Wearable devices have come of age. The primary applications of wearables so far have been "the Quantified Self" or the tracking of one's fitness and health status. We propose the evolution of wearables into social and emotional communication devices. Our BE(tm) sensor uses light to visualize the skin conductance response. Our sensors are very inexpensive and can be massively distributed to audiences or groups of any size, in order to gauge reactions to performances, video, or any kind of presentation.
In her session at @ThingsExpo, Jocelyn Scheirer, CEO & Founder of Bionolux, will discuss ho...
Sensor-enabled things are becoming more commonplace, precursors to a larger and more complex framework that most consider the ultimate promise of the IoT: things connecting, interacting, sharing, storing, and over time perhaps learning and predicting based on habits, behaviors, location, preferences, purchases and more.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Tom Wesselman, Director of Communications Ecosystem Architecture at Plantronics, will examine the still nascent IoT as it is coalescing, including what it is today, what it might ultimately be, the role of wearable tech, and technology gaps stil...
Cloud computing adds flexibility to enterprise IT. When companies wish to take advantage of this, they are finding they need to turn to microservices instead of their traditional, monolithic architectures to accommodate frequent change.
Microservices can overcome the challnges presented by frequent change, “by splitting monoliths into multiple independent services, each with its own simple business logic,” according to Sergey Sverchkov, a Solutions Architect with Altoros. Doing so leads to an...
Cyber security is rapidly becoming a significant issue in the C-suite as well as the population at large. The results of Dell's Global Technology Adoption Index(GTAI) [1] show that security is a top concern for most of the 2000 global small and medium businesses surveyed. The outcomes further noted that such concerns create barriers to the adoption of critical technologies that drive value and growth: mobility, cloud and big data. In fact, many businesses are unprepared to address their potenti...
According to Pardalis, Salesforce employed the most successful method of exposing their APIs at the event, lessening security measures, and including a visual platform that greatly aided in onboarding developers so that direct calls via REST was not necessary. Now, reading between the lines, I know what is meant here by "lessening security measures". For some APIs, it can be difficult to get started with OAuth credentials or API Keys. That's why it's important that, right in the API Portal, you ...
If you’ve used the term “DevOps” as a job title, you may have been making a big mistake. It sounds innocuous: After all, isn’t DevOps something that you do? If you’re a marketer, hiring manager or non-engineer at your company, it might seem like it.
But nothing could be further from the truth. It’s actually a philosophy and set of practices that guides how your engineering and IT teams work. And using the term improperly doesn’t always sit well with tech teams, even if they have “DevOps Engin...
SYS-CON Media announced today that Sematext launched a popular blog feed on DevOps Journal with over 6,000 story reads over the weekend.
DevOps Journal is focused on this critical enterprise IT topic in the world of cloud computing. DevOps Journal brings valuable information to DevOps professionals who are transforming the way enterprise IT is done.
Sematext is a globally distributed organization that builds innovative Cloud and On Premises solutions for performance monitoring, alerting an...
There are now more people talking about DevOps. They're talking louder. Websites with larger viewerships will now put DevOps in a headline because it has become good for SEO. But amplitude is not the same thing as information. A cat meme shared a million times doesn't have any more information than if it was thrown straight in the trash, and it will certainly never have as much information as, for example, a page of documentation that gets 12 views a year but has exactly the answer you need.
...
Today’s software testing practices are abysmal. You’re a major provider of health insurance services to general consumers. Your website is a primary means of interacting with your customers and allowing them view coverage, locate in-plan providers, review Explanation of Benefits for past services and see real-time information regarding deductibles and fees. It’s midday and requests…
2014 has been another year of growth and change for the workload automation industry. As the industry continues to evolve and mature, we are seeing workload automation becoming a necessary staple for most enterprises. According to leading technology analysts, 2015 promises to continue the trend of digitalizing business. From cloud computing and Big Data analytics to the Internet of Things, digitalization is expanding into every corner of our business and personal lives.
As a result of this dig...
The most common concern our customers voiced in 2014 was the unexpected outcomes of Agile projects. They don't talk about failure as such. But they do talk about loss of consistency; inability to govern; lack of coordination and the increasing time-to-market caused by these precise issues.
I was struck by the results of the Agile Adoption Experiences Survey 2014 published by Scott Ambler. The really significant result to me is that 40% of respondents rates their organizations adoption of Agile ...
There is a difference. One is strategic, one is tactical. One lays the foundation for the future, the other sweeps the past under the rug.
There is a move (again) in technology that pits consolidation as the be-all and end-all of tactical maneuvers in the data center to reduce operating expenses. The hue and cry is not surprising. Many of us have seen it before. An onslaught of technology in the forms of solutions and services rains down upon the data center, promising to solve this pain poin...
As more and more organizations embrace DevOps, lean, agile, and other methods to increase efficiency and accelerate software delivery, it's not surprising that 2014 brought lots of interest in Continuous Testing. In case you missed them, here are the top 10 CT resources of the year. How to Avoid Continuously Delivering Faulty Software: As organizations continue to compress development and delivery lifecycles, the risk of regressions, integration errors, and other defects rises. But how can deve...
These are exciting times to be working in business technology. Now, the convergence of mobile, cloud and social computing has enabled businesses to better connect, engage and capture new customers within their markets from the software applications they develop.
But there’s a catch. These very same forces are presenting nimble and adaptive businesses the opportunity to develop completely new and disruptive business models. Models that by exploiting software innovation can create new markets and...
It is not easy setting your infrastructure free, but when you do, the benefits of better application performance, better tools for developers, and better control over your “datacenter” make it worth it.
There is a whole lot of talk about this DevOps thing. Pushing teams to move faster, increasing focus on results, and doing so with better and better quality. But the elephant in the room is how we go from immutable infrastructure to scalable environments that move with the code, not against it. ...
I’ve been working in small and large software startups for the last 20 years and currently have the privilege of being the CEO of a startup, Storage Made Easy, for the last 3 years. With the advent of 2015 I have not doubt that there will be many people considering whether to take the plunge and commit to founding a startup. There are a diverse number of resources on the web all offering advice and to that mix I add 10 tips of my own. I’ve tried to keep them to things I wish I had known befor...
The problem today’s organizations face is that digital transformation relies both upon technology advancement as well as organizational innovation – and yet, it seems our inability to accelerate the latter may be putting the whole kit and caboodle in jeopardy. If only we could bottle up the secret to Moore’s Law and pass the bottle around.
Wow, this cloud OS scene is really speeding up. Without going all Ray Kurweil on you, I can't keep up - literally! In my last blog post, I said I'd cover Kubernetes in more detail, explore what plans Mesosphere might have for Mesos and explore how Linux containers would play with clustering.
In the intervening six weeks, Google launched the Kubernetes-based Google Container Engine, so I started writing about that. But then CoreOS came out to put containers in their place; and then Mesosphere ...
NuoDB just introduced the Swifts 2.1 Release. In this demo at 15th Cloud Expo, Seth Proctor, CTO of NuoDB, Inc., discussed why scaling databases in the cloud is challenging, why building your application on top of the infrastructure that is designed with this in mind makes a difference, and what you can do with NuoDB that simplifies your programming model, your operations model.
A little while back, we blogged on key performance metrics that top Operations teams track. Mean time to resolution (MTTR) was one of those metrics. It’s the time between failure & recovery from failure, and it’s directly linked to your uptime. MTTR is a great metric to track; however, it’s also important to avoid a myopic focus.
Your overall downtime is a function of the number of outages as well as the length of each. Dan Slimmon does a great job discussing these two factors and how you may w...
You’re probably hearing the word ChatOps more and more – at conferences, on Reddit and Hacker News, around the water cooler (or keg) – but what does it actually mean? And why and how would you implement it at your organization?
ChatOps, a term widely credited to GitHub, is all about conversation-driven development. By bringing your tools into your conversations and using a chat bot modified to work with key plugins and scripts, teams can automate tasks and collaborate, working better, cheaper...
Remote work in ops is divisive. The perks of working from home, your local coffee shop, wherever, can be quite obvious to engineers and contributors. But some team leaders and company execs aren't buying it. One faction sees it as a way to do better quality work. Another has watched deadlines and motivation fall by the wayside because of unresponsive remote workers.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of remote work? What should you consider before you take the plunge into flexible hour...


























