Intel Joins Forces with Cloud Service Providers Around the World to Reveal What’s Inside Their Datacenters

To help IT organizations make better, more informed purchasing decisions and ensure optimal performance for their cloud applications, Intel Corporation is teaming with 16 leading cloud service providers (CSPs) around the world to introduce the “Intel® Cloud Technology” program. This first-of-its-kind initiative will provide cloud users with a clear view into the technology powering a CSP’s infrastructure before they purchase any services or instances.
With infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) revenue expected to increase 41 percent annually by 2016 and more companies considering outsourcing their IT services, the technology that powers cloud-based services and applications matters more than ever. CSPs participating in the new Intel program will be recognized by using the “Powered by Intel Cloud Technology” badge to distinguish their Intel-based instances where the performance and security capabilities of the underlying hardware become transparent to the end user.
The Intel Cloud Technology program builds on the collaboration announced last September between Amazon Web Services* (AWS) and Intel to communicate to customers the specifications, performance, quality, and security benefits of the Intel technology used in AWS instances.
“Much like when choosing a car, the type of engine that runs a cloud service dramatically affects performance and efficiency,” said Jason Waxman, vice president, Data Center Group and general manager, Cloud Platform Group, at Intel. “Cloud customers want to know what technology their applications are running on because it has direct impact to their business. For the first time, users will have the transparency to select the technologies that are optimal for running their applications in the cloud.”
It has been reported that a heterogeneous cloud infrastructure environment may result in 40 to 60 percent performance variation. Therefore, end users are increasingly looking for more insight into the performance, capabilities and cost trade-offs of the many instances that CSPs offer so they can get the right size and type of performance matched to their specific workloads.
“The key to unlocking flexibility, productivity and cost trade-offs when using the public cloud is choosing a quality provider with platform performance and capabilities that meet our specific needs,” said Don Whittington, CIO of Florida Crystals (owner of Domino Sugar and C&H Sugar). “With our CSP Virtustream participating in Intel Cloud Technology program, we are now aware of the underlying hardware powering the services we buy and we can make better choices to ensure we have the optimal workload performance for our investment.”
In addition to Virtustream (U.S.); Canopy*, an ATOS* company (U.K.); Cloud4com* (Czech Republic); CloudWatt* (France); Expedient* (U.S.); KIO Networks* (Mexico); KT* (Korea); Locaweb* (Brazil); NxtGen* (India); Online.net* (France); OVH* (France); Rackspace* (U.S.); Savvis*, a company of CenturyLink* (US); Selectel* (Russia); and UOLDIVEO* / UOL Host* (Brazil) have committed to participating in the program.

Behind the Program: When Seconds Count
Even a slight change in cloud instance performance can impact sales on e-commerce sites. For example, Shopzilla* increased its revenue by up to 12 percent by accelerating its page load times from seven to two seconds. For enterprise and other IT buyers evaluating hybrid or public cloud services, CSPs participating in the Intel® Cloud Technology program will provide detailed information about available CPUs, hardware acceleration features, storage, software and network capabilities – all of which can have a have significant impact on applications, costs and experiences for end users.
CSPs will promote the users’ benefits of Intel cloud technologies powering their services through multiple channels. The capabilities available today from participating CSPs aim to significantly increase performance of applications and security of end users’ data and include Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX), Intel® Data Protection Technology with Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (AES-NI), and Intel® Virtualization Technology (VT).
Additionally, Intel will drive direct marketing campaigns and participate in co-marketing activities with CSP partners in the program to educate customers about underlying technologies, their impact on applications performance, user experience and ultimately the business. Understanding service capabilities helps the cloud user make better choices, which can lead to significant cost savings.
For example, Novartis Pharmaceuticals* performed an extensive analysis of instances to find that choosing a premium high-performing one would provide the company up to 65 percent cost savings over the lower cost, lower performing options when matching available capabilities with specific requirements of its workloads. It also allowed the company to significantly reduce the time spent on processing, creating faster turnaround of projects.
“Rackspace has customers around the world that trust us to fulfill their cloud infrastructure needs,” said Rajeev Shrivastava, vice president of product marketing at Rackspace. “Our participation in the Intel Cloud Technology program strengthens our ability to deliver a broader range of hybrid cloud solutions to optimize application performance, and helps assure current and potential customers that Rackspace will run their business critical services on a cloud developed with the best available technology.”

Intel® Cloud Finder Helps to Find the Right CSP for the Job
It’s the Intel Cloud Finder tool, which helps end users cut through the complexity of identifying the optimal cloud service by providing comparison guidance across more than 50 CSPs for 80 end-user requirements, will be integrated with the Intel® Cloud Technology program. A new feature will allow end users to select a “trial” option for these services. The ability to “test drive” services prior to purchase will help IT decision makers better understand the underlying technologies and ensure that the services are the right fit for their workload before purchase.

MobileSpaces is First to Provide Enterprises with Native Google Apps User Experience For BYOD

Leading enterprise mobile security company MobileSpaces announced another market first today, with support for the full suite of Google productivity apps for BYOD use on Android and iOS devices. As part of the MobileSpaces 2.1 release, the MobileSpaces workspace can now contain any native Google Apps mobile application, including Gmail, Calendar, People, Chrome, Hangouts, Drive, and Quickoffice. Using MobileSpaces 2.1, enterprises can securely mobilize Google Apps within a container, and employees use the same apps for work that they use in their personal lives with the same familiar user experience.
Over 5 million businesses use Google Apps, and now they are able to multiply the productivity of their employees with a secure BYOD container that provides users with the native Google experience. Using MobileSpaces' app-agnostic container, the enterprise can choose the Google Apps it uses, along with any other built-in, public app store, and custom enterprise app, to provide a complete BYOD experience that is tailored to business needs. With MobileSpaces, the enterprise is free to use the apps it chooses, instead of the apps the container vendor offers.
“Our support for the full suite of Google Apps fills a huge functionality and security hole that prevented our customers from providing BYOD access to their cloud-based services,” said Yoav Weiss, MobileSpaces CTO and co-founder. “Other container solutions fall short. MDM vendors such as MobileIron and AirWatch only support Google Apps with their own proprietary email, contacts and calendar apps. Good Technology does not support Google Apps at all. Only with MobileSpaces can enterprises offer their BYOD workers secure access to the full Google Apps suite of messaging, sharing, collaboration and storage services using the native mobile apps that Google built with the rich integrated user experience that Google intended."
“As employees increasingly make use of mobile apps and cloud-based services to get work done, there is a significant mobile management gap when it comes to public app stores like Google Play and support for services such as Google Apps,” said Chris Hazelton, Research Director for Mobile and Wireless at 451 Research. “MobileSpaces enables IT to close this gap and secure the most readily available and preferred applications with seamless connectivity to supporting services – giving BYOD users secure access to the full suite of Google Apps which traditional mobile security approaches preclude.”
MobileSpaces 2.1 combines proprietary app virtualization technology for Android with Apple’s iOS 7 app management capabilities to create a trusted BYOD workspace. The MobileSpaces workspace downloads as an Android or iOS app and is policy controlled and cloud managed via a browser-based console. The MobileSpaces workspace is an app-agnostic container that protects corporate information against data leakage and loss by encrypting all data at rest, controlling data sharing between enterprise apps and connecting directly to the enterprise VPN. With MobileSpaces 2.1, the MobileSpaces workspace was extended to include Google Cloud Messaging and other Google services that are necessary to support native Google Apps.
MobileSpaces 2.1 lets enterprises focus on choosing apps and services for business and not worry about devices and connectivity. For more information on how MobileSpaces 2.1 secures and empowers the app-centric enterprise, please visit MobileSpaces.com.

CiRBA’s Automated Capacity Control Now Supports Microsoft Hyper-V

CiRBA, a leading provider of Automated Capacity Control software, today announced the availability of CiRBA Version 8. With this release, CiRBA adds support for Microsoft® Hyper-V® to its award-winning Control Console, which enables organizations to maximize efficiency and minimize risk in virtual and cloud infrastructure. This new capability is a key addition to CiRBA’s already strong platform support, which includes VMware® ESX®, IBM® PowerVM®, and Red Hat® Enterprise Virtualization.
Also now shipping in Version 8 is CiRBA’s new Reservation Console, announced last fall, which automates the entire process of selecting the optimal hosting environment for new workloads and reserving compute and storage capacity. The Reservation Console combines with CiRBA’s cross-platform support to enable CiRBA customers to automate “fit for purpose” placements for new workloads across multi-hypervisor, multi-SLA, multi-site virtual and cloud environments.

“The shift toward cloud is placing less emphasis on the specific hypervisor technology, and more on the capabilities it provides,” said Andrew Hillier, CTO and co-Founder of CiRBA. “Having a scientific way to make hosting decisions across all hypervisors and hosting platforms really opens up the playing field, and allows organizations to focus on the bigger picture of enterprise-level supply and demand.”
Concerns about vendor lock-in and hypervisor costs are driving more and more organizations toward multi-hypervisor adoption. In fact, according to research by Torsten Volk of EMA, 82% of organizations plan to adopt more than one hypervisor.

Multi-hypervisor adoption, particularly within private clouds, can present a significant management challenge for organizations in determining which workloads should be hosted on each respective platform. In order to help combat the complexity, organizations need to change how they make workload placement decisions.
“We currently leverage CiRBA from a cross-platform capacity control perspective. As we seek to automate and more closely balance infrastructure supply with the demands of the business, the capabilities found in CiRBA Version 8, and specifically coverage of even more hypervisor technologies, will be a welcome addition,” said Matt McCarter, server engineering lead of McKesson Corporation.
CiRBA’s Hyper-V® support spans the entire scope of CiRBA functionality. Within the Control Console, organizations use it to achieve daily operational control over VM placements, and create predictive, forward looking views incorporating capacity reservations for new workloads providing unmatched accuracy in forecasting requirements. Within the new Reservation Console, the addition of Hyper-V® can have a significant impact on workload routing decisions, and clearly exposes the relative advantages of different hypervisors from a cost and fit for purpose perspective.

“Organizations are keeping their options open, and our new release removes a lot of the barriers that would prevent multiple hypervisors and cloud technologies from being adopted,” continued Hillier. “We are very excited to bring this new level of operational control and automation to Hyper-V® infrastructure, making it an even more viable option.”

Cisco: POS Systems Key Vulnerability in Security Breaches

Cisco security officials say businesses need to strengthen security around POS machines to mitigate breaches like the one that hit Target.
The personal data on the magnetic stripe of payment cards continues to be a prime target for cyber-thieves, whose job is made significantly easier by the vulnerabilities in the point-of-sale machines being used by retailers such as Target, according to security officials at Cisco Systems.

The company's Threat Research, Analysis and Communications (TRAC) team took a look at recent high-profile security breaches at Target and Neiman Marcus and noted that as long as the United States continues to use such magnetic stripe payment cards in everyday transactions, retailers in the country and their customers will be at risk.

In a lengthy post on the Cisco blog site, Levi Gundert, technical lead for TRAC, said the United States is one of few remaining first-world countries that continue to use such cards, which makes U.S. businesses an easy target for cyber-attackers. There are no more efficient ways for thieves to steal "track data" from the stripes on these cards and many times the associated PINs, Gundert wrote. The point-of-sale (POS) machines found in businesses like Target are vulnerable to attacks because they use third-party software that's installed in the systems.

"The problem is that the payment card data is susceptible to interception in memory before the encryption process and transmission across the network," he wrote.

To reduce the instance and damage from future POS attacks, businesses need to consider hardware encryption devices at the point of sale.

"If POS hardware encryption remains an unjustifiable business expense, companies should re-examine security policies to ensure that payment card data is included in the critical data category," Gundert wrote. "This is data that must receive a logical and operational moat to ensure absolute detection of unauthorized access and irregular movement. There are too many ways to initially compromise the network; rather it is the internal critical data that must be identified, segmented, and monitored."

Target acknowledged Dec. 19 that a data breach into its U.S. retail stores had affected 40 million customer credit and debit card accounts (it later updated that number to 70 million). Exact details of the breach have not been released, but Target officials said Dec. 27 that the customer PIN data was encrypted using the Triple Data Encryption Standard (DES). Neiman Marcus confirmed Jan. 10 that hackers also had stolen credit card information of its customers.

In his blog post, Gundert outlines methods hackers will use to work their way into large retail operations like Target and Neiman Marcus, and what they'll do and look for once inside the network. He also outlined some steps and tool sets network security professionals can use to better protect the business from hackers and intruders.

"The most useful indicator of compromise (IOC) chain to focus on for future detection is the importation of a tool set, a new process running on the POS terminal, and finally the exfiltration of compressed files with uniform size and frequency," Gundert wrote. "Create an operational play (and playbook if needed) specific to alerting on this chain of events or any specific event that can be effectively tuned to dispel the typical noise. There are plenty of tool sets to accomplish the play."

In addition, businesses should leverage application and process change detection on all payment card processing systems, he said.

"Any change on the end point or multiple end points should be cause for immediate analysis," Gundert wrote. "Also, while most protocols tend to use compression for efficiency and speed gains, the compression tools themselves should be limited to an approved list."

Businesses that use POS machines need to take steps to better protect customer data because those systems will continue to be at risk.

"The attacks on payment card data will continue to focus on POS systems, but well thought out detection plays, and/or the implementation of hardware encryption can dramatically help prevent future negative headlines," he wrote.

Convirture Adds Microsoft Hyper-V Support to Its Middleware

Convirture sees its entire purpose as being a simplifier of IT management -- specifically management of virtualized assets -- for enterprises.
Anybody who's ever taken an algebra class or can identify a cliche knows what "lowest common denominator" means. IT management software provider Convirture has taken that overused phrase and turned it on its head.

The San Mateo, Calif.-based cloud-system middleware maker came out Jan. 14 with a new version of its ConVirt Enterprise platform that includes Microsoft's Hyper-V as a supported virtualizaion platform in its ever-widening scope of included components.

Convirture, now in its seventh year in business, has several dozen big-time commercial customers and more than 90,000 users of its freemium platform and services. The company sees its entire purpose as being a simplifier of IT management -- specifically management of virtualized assets -- for enterprises.

Managing All Virtualization From One Location

Think about it: How cool would it be to manage all your virtual machines and hypervisors -- no matter what make or license -- across multiple cloud platforms from a single UI? That's exactly what ConVirt Enterprise provides.

"We bring a 'highest-common-denominator,' high-value unified management stack that allows you to bring together all your data center platforms," Convirture CEO and founder Arsalan Farooq told eWEEK. "We started by doing open source (KVM and Xen), adding automation and management to those platforms. VMware we've been supporting for a while; Hyper-V has been the one outlier.

"There's a reason for that -- we had to go with the market leaders first. It's (Hyper-V) now mature enough now, is realistically relevant, and getting more marketshare all the time. It completes our set."

In addition to managing KVM, Xen, VMware and Hyper-V, ConVirt Enterprise also can pool those disparate resources to create private clouds that provide self-service infrastructure without making disruptive changes to existing systems, Farooq said.

Single Point of Control

By combining ConVirt Enterprise Cloud, any type of virtual machine, and cloud management, enterprises can have a single point of control to manage other cloud computing platforms -- such as OpenStack, Amazon EC2, or Eucalyptus.

"There are a lot of businesses that are looking for a more sophisticated tool than Hyper-V Manager to manage multiple Hyper-V hosts, without the expense and complexity of stepping up to System Center, and that's where ConVirt fits in," Farooq said.

However, ConVirt Enterprise does not replace the functionality of a Microsoft System Center; it merely becomes a bridge -- with its own value-added functions -- from Hyper-V Manager to the much more sophisticated System Center.

"We're the 'Goldilocks'  solution: cost-effective, easy-to-deploy and use, but sophisticated enough to manage multiple instances across multiple hosts," Farooq said. "If an organization is using other hypervisors and cloud platforms, ConVirt is the single pane of glass to control them all."

If needed, ConVirt can convert management of multiple Hyper-V hosts into a private cloud so that computing resources are self-serviceable by end-users and can be controlled, for example, with quota management, Farooq said.

ConVirt can do even more than that. Beyond Hyper-V management, ConVirt can serve as a unified management platform for an organization's entire virtualization and cloud infrastructure. So ConVirt can extends its management capabilities beyond internal virtual machines to include public cloud resources, Farooq said.

New features in ConVirt for Hyper-V include a centralized view of resource information for each virtual machine; self-service virtualization management; unified virtualization and cloud management; and centralizing virtual and cloud infrastructure management.

Farooq said that there is no "rip-and-replace" with ConVirt, because it builds on the existing features within each virtualization and cloud platform. Provisioning is done centrally so that cloud computing resources appear as an integral part of the data center, he said.

Apple, Samsung Talks Must Settle Endless Patent Suits: 10 Reasons Why

Will Apple and Samsung ever bring their patent war to an end? Over the past couple of years, the two companies have litigated an endless round robin of patent infringement suits against each other. Neither side has been able to claim a decisive final victory, but Apple can at least claim it's ahead in the game thanks to a major victory in California that could see the company net nearly $1 billion if the award is upheld in final appeal. Recently, however, a report out of Korea claimed Apple and Samsung were holding "working talks" to see if they could come to a compromise and put an end to their patent battles. If it happens, the companies are expected to enter into a cross-licensing deal that would require Samsung to pay Apple a hefty royalty on all devices sold that might have violated patents the iPhone maker holds. Of course, we've been here before. At various times and in various courts around the world, Apple and Samsung have been directed to sit down and try to reach settlements out of court—to no avail. Based on past history, it looks doubtful that these latest talks will result in a settlement. But it would be a good thing for both companies as well as the industry at large if they brought an end to the lawsuit nonsense. Read on to find out why:

Will Apple and Samsung ever bring their patent war to an end? Over the past couple of years, the two companies have litigated an endless round robin of patent infringement suits against each other. Neither side has been able to claim a decisive final victory, but Apple can at least claim it's ahead in the game thanks to a major victory in California that could see the company net nearly $1 billion if the award is upheld in final appeal. Recently, however, a report out of Korea claimed Apple and Samsung were holding "working talks" to see if they could come to a compromise and put an end to their patent battles. If it happens, the companies are expected to enter into a cross-licensing deal that would require Samsung to pay Apple a hefty royalty on all devices sold that might have violated patents the iPhone maker holds. Of course, we've been here before. At various times and in various courts around the world, Apple and Samsung have been directed to sit down and try to reach settlements out of court—to no avail. Based on past history, it looks doubtful that these latest talks will result in a settlement. But it would be a good thing for both companies as well as the industry at large if they brought an end to the lawsuit nonsense. Read on to find out why: - See more at: http://www.eweek.com/mobile/slideshows/apple-samsung-talks-must-settle-endless-patent-suits-10-reasons-why.html#sthash.Sy5TSEmf.dpuf

Intel, AMD Bringing Android to Window Devices

The chip makers unveil initiatives at CES that will make it possible for users to run both OSes on devices without having to reboot.
Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are both pushing initiatives that officials say meets a growing demand from business users and consumers alike: being able to run both Microsoft's Windows and Google's Android operating systems on the same devices without having to reboot.

Systems already can run multiple OSes, but switching means having to shut one down and booting up the other, which can be time-consuming and place significant demands on processor power and storage capacity. At the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, the chip makers unveiled efforts that will enable users to avoid those issues when moving from one operating system to another.

During his keynote address at the show Jan. 6, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich introduced the company's dual-OS strategy based its system-on-a-chip (SoC) products that will let users move from one OS to another simply by tapping on a button. For its part, AMD is partnering with BlueStacks, a software company backed by AMD that has been making technology that enables users to run Android in a Windows environment.

Officials with both companies said their initiatives are aimed at addressing demands coming from OEMs and end users.

The chip makers unveil initiatives at CES that will make it possible for users to run both OSes on devices without having to reboot.

Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are both pushing initiatives that officials say meets a growing demand from business users and consumers alike: being able to run both Microsoft's Windows and Google's Android operating systems on the same devices without having to reboot. Systems already can run multiple OSes, but switching means having to shut one down and booting up the other, which can be time-consuming and place significant demands on processor power and storage capacity. At the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, the chip makers unveiled efforts that will enable users to avoid those issues when moving from one operating system to another. During his keynote address at the show Jan. 6, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich introduced the company's dual-OS strategy based its system-on-a-chip (SoC) products that will let users move from one OS to another simply by tapping on a button. For its part, AMD is partnering with BlueStacks, a software company backed by AMD that has been making technology that enables users to run Android in a Windows environment. Officials with both companies said their initiatives are aimed at addressing demands coming from OEMs and end users.

- See more at: http://www.eweek.com/pc-hardware/intel-amd-bringing-android-to-window-devices.html#sthash.Y0nhLQIX.dpuf

The chip makers unveil initiatives at CES that will make it possible for users to run both OSes on devices without having to reboot.

Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are both pushing initiatives that officials say meets a growing demand from business users and consumers alike: being able to run both Microsoft's Windows and Google's Android operating systems on the same devices without having to reboot. Systems already can run multiple OSes, but switching means having to shut one down and booting up the other, which can be time-consuming and place significant demands on processor power and storage capacity. At the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, the chip makers unveiled efforts that will enable users to avoid those issues when moving from one operating system to another. During his keynote address at the show Jan. 6, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich introduced the company's dual-OS strategy based its system-on-a-chip (SoC) products that will let users move from one OS to another simply by tapping on a button. For its part, AMD is partnering with BlueStacks, a software company backed by AMD that has been making technology that enables users to run Android in a Windows environment. Officials with both companies said their initiatives are aimed at addressing demands coming from OEMs and end users. - See more at: http://www.eweek.com/pc-hardware/intel-amd-bringing-android-to-window-devices.html#sthash.Y0nhLQIX.dpuf

The chip makers unveil initiatives at CES that will make it possible for users to run both OSes on devices without having to reboot.

Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are both pushing initiatives that officials say meets a growing demand from business users and consumers alike: being able to run both Microsoft's Windows and Google's Android operating systems on the same devices without having to reboot. Systems already can run multiple OSes, but switching means having to shut one down and booting up the other, which can be time-consuming and place significant demands on processor power and storage capacity. At the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, the chip makers unveiled efforts that will enable users to avoid those issues when moving from one operating system to another. During his keynote address at the show Jan. 6, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich introduced the company's dual-OS strategy based its system-on-a-chip (SoC) products that will let users move from one OS to another simply by tapping on a button. For its part, AMD is partnering with BlueStacks, a software company backed by AMD that has been making technology that enables users to run Android in a Windows environment. Officials with both companies said their initiatives are aimed at addressing demands coming from OEMs and end users.

- See more at: http://www.eweek.com/pc-hardware/intel-amd-bringing-android-to-window-devices.html#sthash.Y0nhLQIX.dpuf