Cloud & Telecom Security

Gartner, the leading marketing analysis and strategy firm, released its newly-brew TOP 10 technology list today. They are:

• 1 Cloud computing. Cloud has been the top buzz-term in the past months. Gartner raised it from No.2 at 2009 to TOP1 at 2010.  With no doubt, this statement will be quoted by tons of articles and vendor solutions in the following seasons.
• 2 Advanced analytic.  I would rather explain it as data correlation and data mining tech. This seems to be similar to “business intelligence” (No.9 at 2009).
• 3 Client computing. Mostly client computing is critical for the security impact to the whole Internet.
• 4 Greet IT. It was No.1 at 2008, and No.10 at 2009. Anyway, it’s a concept, containing a lot of technologies, customs, culture, etc.
• 5 Reshaping the data center, with new designs and approaches that include building out incrementally in pod-based approaches, adding only power, chillers and generators to support initial needs.
• 6 Social computing. It has been deeply involved into daily life. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
• 7 Security activity mornitoring.  A variety of complimentary (and sometimes overlapping) monitoring and analysis tools help enterprises better detect and investigate suspicious activity – often with real-time alerting or transaction intervention. Personally,  I think this is similar to the No.2.
• 8 Flash memory. It’s a new face to TOP 10.
• 9 Virtualization for availability. While virtualization has been melted into cloud computing and other diverse areas, Gartner leaves “availability”.
• 10 Mobile applications. No comments at this moment. There have been a lot of developers and app stores you can find at the web. It reflects the hotness. Read more…

当前，虚拟化被Gartner列为接下来最为引人关注的新技术。果不其然，我现在也开始关注研究虚拟化。一般说，虚拟化有三种 – 服务器虚拟化、应用虚拟化、桌面虚拟化。这三种都进入了我们的视野。当前看，虚拟化能够带来的好处主要有两种：其一是费用节省，可能是直接的硬件成本，因为原来一些legacy的应用操作系统利用效率较低，现在可以共享硬件了等，也因为可以节省空间和电力；其二是更为快速的推出服务和管理服务。

出去功能性和维护管理之外，安全性毫无例外也是我的重要关注。看过了两篇很棒和不错的文章。很棒的是Gartner的，作者是Neil；不错的是Tripwire的，作者是Gene.

• Practical Steps to Mitigate Virtualization Security Risks, Gene Kim, CTO, Tripwire, Inc.
• Security Considerations and Best Practices for Securing Virtual Machines, Neil MacDonald,  Publication Date: 6 March 2007

到目前为止，对于服务器虚拟化环境中的安全要点，我愿意总结出下面四点： Read more…

VMware 提供移动终端上的虚拟化产品 – MVP (Mobile Virtualization Platform)。基于MVP，终端用户可以同时运行多个虚拟的移动操作系统， 例如一个作为公司业务使用，另外一个给自己娱乐游戏使用。这样的技术乍一听起来有点悬，就手机、PDA那么小、那么弱的计算能力，还虚拟呢，那计算能力不就更弱了。但实际上，移动终端的计算能力在近几年来已经获得了快速提升，开始有渐渐重复当年的笔记本电脑的态势。 Read more…

2008年10月16日，Gartner如期推出了今年对于2009年前十位最重要的战略性技术的瞻望和预测。以下是我的不算翻译的一个翻译，希望方便大家的阅读分享。

1 虚拟化 Virtualization。 虚拟化这个词已经流行了较长一段时间了，还有更早些的按需(On-demand)计算。大概五年前，我刚刚加入CA后一个月，还特地赶到CA在美国的总部，参加了一次管理按需计算的Workshop和培训。时光荏苒，白驹过隙，当下服务器厂商已经将虚拟化功能技术特色作为重要的售前方案元素来推荐和比较。
2 云计算 Cloud Computing。按照Gartner的描述，云计算具有以下几个关键特征：a 将容量能力按照服务交付；b 服务的交付高度可扩展并充满弹性；c 使用互联网技术和技巧来开发和交付服务；d 用以对外部客户交付服务的设计。可以认为，设计之初就具备的高度弹性和扩展性是“云计算”能够带来的最大收益。 Read more…