The international horse show wasn’t the only event in Washington DC this week; I participated in the Virtualization, Cloud, and Green Computing event in our nation’s capital. One of the guest speakers was Ira “Gus” Hunt, CTO at the CIA. If you haven’t seen Gus speak, you are missing something. He is very strong on the technical side and extremely energetic and entertaining.
Gus focused on cloud computing activities at the CIA (I’ll blog about this soon), but I was intrigued by one of his slide bullets that referred to something he called the “encrypted enterprise.” From the CIA’s perspective, all data is sensitive whether it resides on an enterprise disk system, lives in a database column, crosses an Ethernet switch, or gets backed up on a USB drive. Because of this, Hunt wants to create an “encrypted enterprise” where data is encrypted at all layers of the technology stack.
The CIA is ahead here, but ESG hears a similar goal from lots of other highly regulated firms. When will this happen? Unfortunately, it may take a few years to weave this together as there are several hurdles to overcome including:
A lot of the technical limitations are being worked on at this point, so the biggest impediment may be based upon people and not technology. We simply don’t have a lot of experience here, so we need to proceed with research, thought, and caution. To get to Gus Hunt’s vision of the “encrypted enterprise,” we need things like reference architectures, best practices, and maturity models as soon as possible. Look for service providers like CSC, HP, IBM, and SAIC to offer “encrypted enterprise” services within the next 24 months.
Tags: CIA, CSC, EFS, EMC, Emulex, Encrypted enterprise, Gus Hunt, HP, IBM, KMIP, Microsoft, Oracle, PGP, RSA, SAIC, Symantec Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
My colleague Mark Bowker and I are at a Virtualization, Cloud Computing, and Green IT conference in Washington DC this week. In one of the panels we hosted, an IT executive from a cabinet-level agency mentioned that the agency was qualifying Microsoft Hyper-V even though it already has an enterprise license in place with VMware. When asked why the agency was doing this, he responded, “we are a Windows shop and have a great relationship with Microsoft. VMware has been great but we simply believe that the world is moving to heterogeneous virtualization platforms and we want to be ready for this.”
This IT executive is not alone. In a recent ESG Research study, 55% of the organizations’ surveyed say that their primary virtualization solution is VMware (VMware Server, ESx, ESxi, etc.). This relationship with VMware doesn’t preclude them from using other hypervisors however. In fact, 34% of survey respondents are using 2 virtualization solutions and 36% are using three or more. This was a survey of 463 North American-based IT professionals working at organizations with more than 500 employees.
My take-aways are as follows:
Yeah, I know, everyone would like one standard IT solution to meet all their needs. It hasn’t happened in the past and it won’t happen with virtualization either. The sooner that IT professionals and the industry recognize this the better.
Tags: Cisco, Citrix, EMC, Hyper-V, Microsoft, server virtualization, VMware Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
According to ESG Research, only 7% of the large mid-market (i.e., 500-1000 employees) and enterprise (i.e., 1,000 employees or more) are not using server virtualization technology and have no plans to do so. Alternatively, 61% are using server virtualization technology extensively in test/development AND production environments.
Okay, so server virtualization technology is everywhere, but how are large organizations using it? Many technology vendors would have you believe that enterprises are using server virtualization as the on-ramp to cloud computing. The industry crows about server virtualization’s use for IT automation and self-service, as VMs are rapidly provisioned, dynamically re-configured, and moved constantly from physical server to physical server for load balancing and resource optimization.
It’s a great vision, it just isn’t happening today. Most organizations use server virtualization for web applications and file and print services but far fewer have taken on transaction-oriented applications or databases. Many firms still struggle with performance issues when trying to align physical networks, storage devices, and servers with virtualization technology. As for VM mobility (i.e., vMotion), only 30% of the organizations surveyed by ESG use VM mobility on a regular basis. Why eschew VM mobility? It turns out that 24% of organizations say they have no need to use VM mobility functionality at this time.
The ESG data does suggest that server virtualization represents paradigm shift driving huge changes in IT organizations, processes, and technologies, but these transitions will take time to work their way out. Many enterprises will get to a state of more dyanamic data center transformation–around 2013 or so.
Take my word for it, the IT rhetoric around server virtualization is visionary hype rather than actual reality. I’ve got tons of data to back this up. There are more average Joe IT shops out there than whiz-bang organizations like , , and Microsoft and there always will be.
Tags: Amazon, Cloud Computing, ESG, ESG Research, Google, Microsoft, server virtualization, vMotion, VMware Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Microsoft and partners announced a series of new mobile phones yesterday. The new phones are based upon Windows 7 which replaces the more antiquated Windows Mobile OS.
This announcement places Microsoft in an unfamiliar spot, the “hot seat.” Everyone is pressing Microsoft on how its Windows 7 phones will compete with iPhone and Google Android. When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer visited NBC’s “Today” show, host Matt Lauer mentioned the iPhone several times. Ballmer continually re-directed him back to the product.
One overused IT cliche is to declare that a company or product is “dead.” I’m sure that many pundits are saying this about Microsoft, trumpeting that Windows Phones are simply too little too late. I disagree for several reasons. Yes, Apple and have become the sexy consumer phones, but Microsoft still has a huge enterprise installed base. According to a recent ESG Research survey, 62% of enterprises already offer formal support for Microsoft mobile phones. Only Blackberry enjoys a higher support status. Combined with its Windows prowess, Microsoft has an opportunity to:
Microsoft shouldn’t try to compete with consumer-focused iPhone or Android. Rather it should combine some sexy consumer features with rock-solid business functionality. Apple and Google have momentum, Blackberry is vulnerable. If Microsoft establishes this position as “good enough” for consumers but superior for the enterprise, it wins where it counts–with software revenue.
Tags: Android, Apple, Blackberry, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, RIM, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
My colleague Mark Bowker and I are knee-deep in new research data on server virtualization. Within this mountain of data, we are discovering some existing and impending networking issues related to network switching.
Today, many server virtualization projects are led by server administrators, with little or no participation from the networking team. As you may imagine, this means that the server team configures all virtual switches to the best of its ability, without considering how physical switches are already configured. As things scale, the server team realizes the error of its ways and quickly calls the networking group in to help out. This is where things really break down. Before doing anything, the networking folks have to learn the virtualization platform, understand how the physical and virtual networks should interoperate, and then roll up their sleeves and start gluing everything together.
This is a painful learning curve but I believe that future issues will be far more difficult. As organizations increase the number of VMs deployed, networking configurations get more difficult — especially when VMs move around. Users regularly complain about the number of VLANs they have to configure, provision, and manage. This situation will grow worse and worse as VMs become the standard unit of IT.
In my mind, it makes no sense for virtualization vendors like Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle, and VMware to recreate the richness of physical L2 switches in the virtual world. So what can be done? Well one alternative is to eliminate virtual switches entirely and do all switching at the physical layer via the Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator (VEPA) standard being developed in the IEEE.
I believe this will happen but in the meantime there is another alternative being discussed this week at the Citrix Industry Analyst Event — Open vSwitch. As described on the Apache web site, “Open vSwitch is a multilayer virtual switch licensed under the open source Apache 2.0 license. The goal is to build a production quality switch for VM environments that supports standard management interfaces (e.g., NetFlow, RSPAN, ERSPAN, CLI), and is open to programmatic extension and control.”
Here’s why this makes sense to me:
At the very least, Citrix, Microsoft, and Oracle should back this as a way to push back on VMware’s marketshare lead.
I’ve been around long enough to know the strengths and limitations of open source and standards but I think that with the right support, this one could have legs. I know that vendors have their own businesses to look after but isn’t another end goal to create products that the market wants? I think Open vSwitch would fit this bill.
Tags: Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Extreme Networks, Force 10, HP, IEEE, Juniper, Microsoft, Open vSwitch, Oracle, VEPA, VMware Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Anyone remotely interested in identity management should definitely download a copy of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) document. It can be found at this link: .
A a very high level, the strategy calls for the formation of a standards-based interoperable identity ecosystem to establish trusted relationships between users, organizations, devices, and network services. The proposed identity ecosystem is composed of 3 layers: An execution layer for conducting transactions, a management layer for identity policy management and enforcement, and a governance layer that establishes and oversees the rules over the entire ecosystem.
There is way more detail that is far beyond this blog but suffice it to say the document is well thought out and pretty comprehensive in terms of its vision. This is exactly the kind of identity future we need to make cloud computing a reality. Kudos to Federal Cyber coordinator Howard Schmidt and his staff for kicking this off.
I will post my feedback on the official website, but a few of my suggestions are as follows:
There will be lots of other needs as well. The document recommends identity and trust up and down the technology stack but it doesn’t talk about the expense or complexity of implementing more global use of IPSEC, BGPSEC, and DNSSEC. There is also the need for rapid maturity in encryption, key management, and certificate management. Good news for RSA, PGP, nCipher (Thales), IBM, HP, Venafi, and others.
The key to me is building a federated, plug-and-play, distributed identity ecosystem that doesn’t rely on any central authority or massive identity repository. This is an ambitious goal but one that can be achieved — over time — if the Feds get the right players on board and push everyone in the same direction.
Tags: BGPSEC, CA, Cyber Coordinator, DNSSEC, Federal Government, Howard Schmidt, HP, IBM, IPSec, Liberty, Microsoft, Microsoft Geneva, National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace. nCipher, Novell, NSTIC, Open ID, Oracle, PGP, PKI, Project Higgins, RSA, Shibboleth, Symantec, Thales, Venafi, Verisign, Web services Posted in Uncategorized |
It’s been a few days since Intel‘s surprising McAfee acquisition announcement. This weekend, I took time to read what others were saying about the merger and there seems to be a lot of posturing and confusion out there. Here is a short list of some of the misconceptions:
Many of the smartest financial and industry analysts can’t make heads or tails out of this deal and I can understand their confusion. There really are no obvious synergies between the two technologies. Nevertheless, I believe that the security market is in transition where new products will need a whole new level of scale, intelligence, integration, and enterprise-class sophistication. The “new” security market will start abruptly and grow to over $1 billion extremely quickly. Intel wants a piece of this transition as well as portfolio diversification. It’s that simple.
Tags: Good Technology, Intel, Juniper, McAfee, Microsoft, Mobile Active Defense, SafeBoot, SMobile, vPro Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
DNSSEC is nothing new. The initial RFC was written in 1997 and the first specification was published in 1999. In spite of these efforts, secure DNS languished during the early 2000s as it wasn’t a requirement for most organizations.
Things have changed, however. DNS security has been called to question many times through cache poisoning attacks and the infamous Kaminsky vulnerability. To address these security weaknesses, DNSSEC efforts are underway. The DNS root servers have all been signed, as have the .gov and .edu Top Level Domains (TLDs). The other TLDs will be signed soon. These efforts will eventually establish a root/chain of trust for all sub-level DNS servers.
Yes, DNSSEC will take years before it is fully deployed, but the foundation is nearly in place. The U.S. federal government is leading the transition to DNSSEC, which means that federal system integrators and leading technology vendors will follow suit. In terms of the market at large, ESG believes that the transition to DNSSEC means:
This migration will mostly fly under the radar, but it will be a lucrative opportunity for smart vendors with the right products and services at the right time.
Tags: BIND, Bluecat, BT, DNSSEC, Infoblox, Microsoft, Neustar, Verisign Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Consumer buzz tends to center on two mobile phones: Apple iPhone and Android. As far as the enterprise is concerned however, these two phones remain down the list.
ESG Research conducted a survey of 174 IT professionals from enterprise organizations (i.e., greater than 1,000 employees) and asked them which mobile device platforms their organizations support. Here is what they said:
Phone: Support today: Will support in the future:
Blackberry 74% 11% Windows Mobile 62% 9% iPhone 43% 18% Palm WebOS 24% 17% Google Android 8% 16% Symbian 7% 14%
A few facts about the survey. First, it was conducted at the very end of 2009 so it doesn’t capture recent momentum or the impact of new products like iPad and iPhone 4. Additionally, this data comes from IT professionals in North America only.
My read of this data is as follows:
Unlike consumers, enterprises want more than just cool devices — application development, device management, security, and integration into the existing infrastructure are all important considerations. Vendors need to find the right combination of consumer cool and corporate requirements support if they want to defend their position or gain share in the enterprise.
Tags: Android, Apple, Blackberry, Google, HP, iPhone, Microsoft, Palm, Palm WebOS, RIM, Symbian, Windows Mobile Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
The latest iPhone commercials feature video calls and multiple couples sharing intimate moments. When describing , wireless carrier talks about, “the apps you crave.” Microsoft’s latest pitch is that Windows Mobile phones fold neatly into social networking.
There are a few common themes here. Each vendor is targeting consumers with whiz-bang functionality and lots of applications. Video capabilities are highlighted in all cases.
Given this focus, you would think that mobile devices = consumer devices but this is not the case. Enterprises are also running to and jumping on the mobile device bandwagon in a big way.
ESG Research surveyed 174 IT professionals about their organizations’ adoption and use of mobile devices. Here are a few data points that illustrate growing mobile device usage in the enterprise.
Question 1. What are your organization’s spending plans for mobile devices and mobile device support?
37% spending will increase significantly 45% spending will increase moderately 14% spending will stay flat 3% spending will decrease 1% don’t know
Question 2. How important are mobile devices to your organization’s business processes and productivity?
38% critical 48% important 11% somewhat important 1% not important today but will be important in the future 1% not important today or in the future 1% don’t know
Question 3: Does your organization develop, or plan to develop, specific applications for mobile devices?
28% already develop applications for mobile devices 34% plan to develop applications for mobile devices 26% no plans at this time but interested in developing apps. 11% no plans or interest in developing apps. 1% don’t know
In summary, enterprises are spending more on mobile devices and device support, they believe these devices are “critical” or “important” for the business, and most already develop mobile device applications or plan to do so.
Sounds to me like every IT vendor in the endpoint (PC, laptop, mobile device), network, security, management, and application markets should have a mobile device strategy. Those that either haven’t developed or articulated their strategies are way behind.
Tags: Android, Apple, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, Sprint, Windows Mobile Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
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