Virtualization has brought us another step closer to the world of Star Trek.
Think back to episodes of The Next Generation where Geordi was able to
control the functions of the entire ship through a single touch-screen
interface. He was able to reconfigure electrical, mechanical and propulsion
systems without needing anyone else or additional authorization. The only
thing to prevent him from doing something risky or damaging was the computer
system itself.
This picture is exciting in its similarities with virtualization. Here, the
hypervisor essentially becomes a datacenter in a box where not only servers
are virtualized, but also networking and storage. One of the challenges this
creates, though, is around separation of duties, since the virtual
infrastructure administrator now has the ability to make changes to each of
these aspects of virtual infrastructure. Thi... (more)
I recently asked a CIO of a large Fortune 100 company how hard would it be
for a person to pull the plug on a backbone switch in his datacenter. His
answer was "Very difficult. We have lots of controls in place to ensure that
level of access is protected." I then probed further and asked what type of
controls he was referring to - card key access, locks on the racks, video
cameras? He nodded at each one. I pulled up the virtual infrastructure
management client on my computer and demonstrated how easy it is to power off
the distributed virtual switch that he was planning to run ac... (more)
In IT terms, virtualization is cool. The rewards include cost savings,
agility, and flexibility. Enterprises reap the benefits of virtualization
through a much more efficient use of IT personnel and resources, faster
delivery time of applications, higher availability/service levels, and
additional capabilities such as high availability and disaster recovery. No
wonder data centers worldwide are being transformed by going virtual.
Now for the bad news: there are definitely serious drawbacks, especially
around compliance. If you think about virtualization, the hypervisor is now
th... (more)
Cloud Security Journal on Ulitzer
The company I work for, HyTrust, recently worked with Intel and VMware on a
very cool project.
Essentially, it was about demonstrating the ability to establish trust in the
cloud, and then enforce policy based on trust.
Trust.
Trust is an important word in the world of security, and in cloud computing
it's an even bigger deal.
Cloud computing offers up the promise that an organizations will be able to
run any application from anywhere at any time. But in a multi-tenant
environment, a cloud application running in a virtual machine might be
loca... (more)
Virtualization Magazine on Ulitzer
Remember the days when banking had to be done in the branch? Regardless of
whether you were making a deposit, withdrawal or just checking your balance,
you had to drive to the local branch during business hours to work through a
bank teller. Long-distance travel became even more difficult because of the
regional nature of bank chains.
Along came the ATM, which allowed you to do transactions without talking to a
teller both during business hours as well as after hours. Customers enjoyed
the ability to do their own banking without needing the "per... (more)
Eric Chiu is CEO and founder of HyTrust, an early stage startup focused on secure virtualization management and compliance. He has in-depth knowledge about what’s needed to achieve the same level of operational readiness in virtual, as in physical I.T. infrastructures. Previously Eric served in executive roles at Cemaphore, MailFrontier, mySimon, and was a venture capitalist at Brentwood/Redpoint, Pinnacle, and M&A at Robertson, Stephens and Company.
Christopher Kenneally
Eddie Budgen
Helen Ching
Tomer Teller
Jason Venner
Steve Capoccia
Hans van de Koppel
Chris Rommel
Andreas Sundquist
Soumya Ranjan Das
