Tuesday 30 October 2012

Global Cloud Index: Traffic to Grow six fold by 2016


Global Cloud Index: Traffic to Grow six fold by 2016
In the second annual Cisco Global Cloud Index (2011-2016), Cisco forecasts global data center traffic to grow fourfold and reach a total of 6.6 zettabytes annually by 2016. The company also predicts global cloud traffic, the fastest-growing component of data center traffic, to grow sixfold - a 44 percent combined annual growth rate (CAGR) - from 683 exabytes of annual traffic in 2011 to 4.3 zettabytes by 2016.
For context, 6.6 zettabytes is equivalent to:
92 trillion hours of streaming music - Equivalent to about 1.5 years of continuous music streaming for the world's population in 2016.
16 trillion hours of business Web conferencing - Equivalent to about 12 hours of daily Web conferencing for the world's workforce in 2016.
7 trillion hours of online high-definition (HD) video streaming - Equivalent to about 2.5 hours of daily streamed HD video for the world's population in 2016.
The vast majority of the data center traffic is not caused by end users but by data centers and cloud-computing workloads used in activities that are virtually invisible to individuals.
For the period 2011-2016, Cisco forecasts that roughly 76 percent of data center traffic will stay within the data center and will be largely generated by storage, production and development data. An additional 7 percent of data center traffic will be generated between data centers, primarily driven by data replication and software/system updates.
The remaining 17 percent of data center traffic will be fueled by end users accessing clouds for Web surfing, emailing and video streaming.
From a regional perspective, the Cisco Global Cloud Index predicts that through 2016, the Middle East and Africa will have the highest cloud traffic growth rate, while the Asia Pacific region will process the most cloud workloads, followed by North America.
Overview of the Latest Worldwide Market Study:
The Cisco Global Cloud Index (2011-2016) was developed to estimate global data center and cloud-based Internet Protocol (IP) traffic growth and trends. The Cisco Global Cloud Index serves as a complementary resource to existing network traffic studies, providing new insights and visibility into emerging trends affecting data centers and cloud architectures. The forecast becomes increasingly important as networks and data centers become more intrinsically linked in offering cloud services.
The Cisco Global Cloud Index includes a "workload transition" forecast, which shows the workload shifting from traditional data centers to more virtualized cloud servers.
The forecast also includes a supplement on Cloud Readiness Regional Details, which examines the fixed and mobile network abilities of each global region (from nearly 150 countries) to support business and consumer cloud-computing applications and services.
The Cisco Global Cloud Index is generated by modeling and analysis of various primary and secondary sources, including 40 terabytes of traffic data sampled from a variety of global data centers over the past year; results from more than 90 million network tests over the past two years; and third-party market research reports.
"As cloud traffic continues to proliferate in a new world of many clouds, the Cisco Global Cloud Index provides all cloud computing stakeholders with a very valuable barometer to make strategic, long-term planning decisions. This year's forecast confirms that strong growth in data center usage and cloud traffic are global trends, driven by our growing desire to access personal and business content anywhere, on any device. When you couple this growth with projected increases in connected devices and objects, the next-generation Internet will be an essential component to enabling much greater data center virtualization and a new world of interconnected clouds," said Doug Merritt, senior vice president, Corporate Marketing, Cisco Systems.
For further information visit: http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/2416832
Article No.2
Big Data Security for Apache Hadoop
Ten Tips for HadoopWorld attendees
Big Data takes center stage today at the Strata Conference & Hadoop World in New York, the world’s largest gathering of the Apache Hadoop™ community. A key conversation topic will be how organizations can improve data security for Hadoop and the applications that run on the platform. As you know, Hadoop and similar data stores hold a lot of promise for organizations to finally gain some value out of the immense amount of data they're capturing. But HDFS, Hive and other nascent NoSQL technologies were not necessarily designed with comprehensive security in mind. Often what happens as big data projects grow is sensitive data like HIPAA data, PII and financial records get captured and stored. It's important this data remains secure at rest.
I polled my fellow co-workers at Gazzang last week, and asked them to come up with a top ten list for securing Apache Hadoop. Here's what they delivered. Enjoy: Think about security before getting started – You don’t wait until after a burglary to put locks on your doors, and you should not wait until after a breach to secure your data. Make sure a serious data security discussion takes place before installing and feeding data into your Hadoop cluster.
Consider what data may get stored – If you are using Hadoop to store and run analytics against regulatory data, you likely need to comply with specific security requirements. If the stored data does not fall under regulatory jurisdiction, keep in mind the risks to your public reputation and potential loss of revenue if data such as personally identifiable information (PII) were breached.
Encrypt data at rest and in motion – Add transparent data encryption at the file layer as a first step toward enhancing the security of a big data project. SSL encryption can protect big data as it moves between nodes and applications.
As Securosis analyst Adrian Lane wrote in a recent blog, “File encryption addresses two attacker methods for circumventing normal application security controls. Encryption protects in case malicious users or administrators gain access to data nodes and directly inspect files, and it also renders stolen files or disk images unreadable. It is transparent to both Hadoop and calling applications and scales out as the cluster grows. This is a cost-effective way to address several data security threats.”
Store the keys away from the encrypted data – Storing encryption keys on the same server as the encrypted data is akin to locking your house and leaving the key in your front door. Instead, use a key management system that separates the key from the encrypted data.
CIO, CTO & Developer Resources
Institute access controls – Establishing and enforcing policies that govern which people and processes can access data stored within Hadoop is essential for keeping rogue users and applications off your cluster.
Require multi-factor authentication - Multi-factor authentication can significantly reduce the likelihood of an account being compromised or access to Hadoop data being granted to an unauthorized party. Use secure automation – Beyond data encryption, organizations should look to DevOps tools such as Chef or Puppet for automated patch and configuration management.
Frequently audit your environment – Project needs, data sets, cloud requirements and security risks are constantly changing. It’s important to make sure you are closely monitoring your Hadoop environment and performing frequent checks to ensure performance and security goals are being met.
Ask tough questions of your cloud provider – Be sure you know what your cloud provider is responsible for. Will they encrypt your data? Who will store and have access to your keys? How is your data retired when you no longer need it? How do they prevent data leakage?
Centralize accountability – Centralizing the accountability for data security ensures consistent policy enforcement and access control across diverse organizational silos and data sets.
Did we miss anything? If so, please comment below, and enjoy Strata +HadoopWorld.
For further information visit: http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/2416407
13)    DATA SECURITY/NETWORK SECURITY/CYBER SECURITY:
Article No.1
Northrop Grumman to Build Cyber Test Range in Australia
Northrop Grumman has been awarded a contract to build a cyber test range for the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Canberra campus at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) in Australia.
The ADFA is a partnership between the Australian Defence Force and the University of New South Wales. ADFA's primary mission is training and educating the future leaders of the Royal Australian Navy, Army and Air Force.
That training and education is supported by world-class research, including the burgeoning area of cyber research."We are proud to contribute our extensive cyber test range experience and capabilities to UNSW Canberra, at ADFA, and are looking forward to an enduring partnership," said Kathy Warden, vice president and general manager for Northrop Grumman's Cyber Intelligence division.
"This award reaffirms our dedication to providing our allies with best-value cybersecurity solutions, and our commitment to science, technology, engineering and mathematics education."
Northrop Grumman is an industry leader in all aspects of computer network operations and cybersecurity, offering customers innovative solutions to help secure the nation's cyber future. For more about cybersecurity at Northrop Grumman, go to www.northropgrumman.com/cybersecurity.
Article No.2
'Mini-Flame' virus hikes Mideast cyber war
Amid U.S. warnings about a potentially cataclysmic cyberattacks, with Iran the most likely culprit, cybersecurity experts say they've uncovered a new powerful espionage virus in the Middle East that's reserved for high-value targets.
The virus, used in recent attacks in Iran and Lebanon has been dubbed "Mini-Flame" by researchers at Moscow's Kaspersky Lab, a leading cybersecurity company, after the W32.Flame malware discovered earlier this year.
Flame and another new virus known as Gauss were used in a series of cyber attacks against targets in Iran recently, which Kaspersky claims come from the same "cyber-weapon factory" as these two variants, as well as the Stuxnet program used against Iran's nuclear program in 2009-10.
Lebanese banks that U.S. officials say are suspected of laundering money for Iran and Hezbollah, its powerful Lebanese proxy, have also been hit in recent weeks. This suggests that these viruses are the work of the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services, which at one time or another over the last three years have hit Iran's nuclear program, and more recently its oil industry, and that further cyberattacks are likely amid an armed confrontation in the Persian Gulf.
Stuxnet is widely believed to have been developed by Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies, including Israel's super-secret Unit 8200, as part of their clandestine campaign to sabotage Tehran's uranium-enrichment program, allegedly aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes.
The New York Times reported in June that Stuxnet was part of a joint U.S.-Israeli cyber war operation codenamed Olympic Games directed against the Islamic Republic. The concern now is that the Iranians are driving to develop their own cyber weapons -- and recent evidence suggests they're well advanced -- to strike back against the United States and Israel in what Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, director of intelligence at the U.S. Cyber Command, calls "a global cyber arms race."
It's these fears, plus well-publicized attacks on Citigroup, Lockheed Martin and other U.S. companies, that led U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to warn Thursday that Iran could be preparing to launch a retaliatory major cyber attack on the United States.
Panetta did not specifically mention Iran as a threat in this regard. But he said the recent attacks on U.S. companies were probably "the most destructive attack that the private sector has seen to date."Tehran denied Sunday it was behind those cyberattacks.
Israel too has been the target of increasing cyber strikes. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting Sunday there has been "an escalation in attempts to carry out a cyber attack on Israel's computer infrastructures. There are daily attempts to break into Israeli systems."
Kaspersky's chief security specialist, Alexander Gostev, says the information-stealing Mini-Flame works in tandem with Flame and Gauss."If Flame and Gauss were massive cyber-espionage operations, infecting thousands of users, then Mini-Flame is a high-precision, surgical attack took," the Russian researchers concluded.
Mini-Flame, Kaspersky researchers say, is apparently reserved for attacks against high-value targets "having the greatest significance ... to the attackers."
Gotsev believes that Mini-Flame is designed to be used as a second-wave" of attack on targets already hit by W32.Flame or Gauss."Mini-Flame is a high-precision attack tool," he said. "After data is collected via Flame and reviewed, a potentially interesting victim is defined and identified, and Mini-Flame is installed in order to conduct mire in-depth surveillance and cyber espionage."
The Financial Times, which has called for urgent efforts by industrial, financial and commercial concerns to build defenses against cyber-attacks, said the discovery of Mini-Flame has raised fears "that researchers have only begun to scratch the surface of cyber warfare being waged" in the Middle East.
"The covert cyber war being waged in the Middle East and North Africa -- particularly against Iran and its allies -- is even more sophisticated and widespread then had previously been understood, according to new research," one informed Western source observed.
The recent intensification of cyber operations in the Middle East has heightened concerns that these could trigger military conflict in the region, particularly in the gulf."Next year will see the escalation of cyber weapons," Eugene Kaspersky, co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, told a recent conference in Dubai.

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