Networking the Cloud for IoT – Pt. 2 Stressing the Cloud

NJVC to Spotlight Cloudcuity at Gartner Data Center Conference

By G C Network | November 15, 2012

Las Vegas., Nov. 15, 2012 — NJVC, an information technology solutions provider headquartered in Northern Virginia, announces it will spotlight its Cloudcuity™ framework for delivering secure and unified cloud management…

NJVC Cloud Expert Kevin L. Jackson Launches Second Book: GovCloud II: Implementation and Cloud Brokerage Services

By G C Network | November 9, 2012

VIENNA, Va., Nov. 8, 2012—NJVC, an information technology (IT) solutions provider headquartered in northern Virginia, is pleased to announce that Kevin L. Jackson, vice president and general manager, cloud services,…

Virtustream a Visionary in Gartner 2012 IaaS Magic Quadrant

By G C Network | October 27, 2012

Congratulations to NJVC Cloudcuity partner Virtustream for being positioned as a visionary in the Gartner 2012 IaaS Magic Quadrant! Magic Quadrants provide a graphical competitive positioning of four types of…

GovCloud II: Implementation and Cloud Brokerage Services Now Available

By G C Network | October 22, 2012

I’m happy and proud to announce the release of my second book, “GovCloud II: Implementation and Cloud Brokerage Services” by my publisher Government Training Inc.   The public and private…

NJVC® Introduces Cloudcuity™ AppDeployer to Create and Sell Software Applications

By G C Network | October 18, 2012

Developers Can Create, Deploy and Publish Apps in the Cloud for Free Vienna, Va., Oct. 18, 2012 — NJVC®, an information technology (IT) solutions provider headquartered in Northern Virginia, introduces…

NJVC® Announces the Cloudcuity™ Government Marketplace, Powered by Virtustream’s Secure Cloud xChange

By G C Network | October 4, 2012

Vienna, Va., Oct. 4, 2012—NJVC®, an information technology solutions provider headquartered in Northern Virginia, and Virtustream, Inc., a leading enterprise cloud software company, today announced a new alliance to provide…

Cloudcuity™: Thought Leadership Translated to Operational Excellence

By G C Network | September 26, 2012

As my long time readers have certainly noticed, the frequency of my posts have lengthened over the past few months. First, I would like to offer my apologies for being…

NJVC® Unveils Cloudcuity™ Umbrella Framework for NJVC Cloud Services

By G C Network | September 13, 2012

Vienna, Va., Sept. 13, 2012 — NJVC®, an information technology (IT) solutions provider headquartered in Northern Virginia, introduces Cloudcuity™, a new framework for the company’s cloud service offerings to help…

NJVC® Announces SaaS Accelerate: Specialized Infrastructure Hosting and Managed Services Program for Software-as-a-Service Providers

By G C Network | August 25, 2012

VIENNA, Va., Aug. 15, 2012 —NJVC® announces the release of NJVC SaaS Accelerate, a specialized infrastructure hosting and managed services offering designed to support the business needs of software-as-a-service (SaaS)…

Texas Cloud Computing Lessons Learned

By G C Network | August 12, 2012

Late last week  the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) released an important whitepaper that reviewed it’s multi-year Pilot Texas Cloud Offering (PTCO). This project was designed to allow a…

Dwight Bues & Kevin Jackson
This is Part 2 of a three part series that addresses the need for a systems engineering approach to IoT and cloud network design. Part 1 is Networking the Cloud for IoT – Pt. 1: IoT and the Government.)

IoT: Unprecedented Stress on the Cloud and It’s Underlying Network
Karen Field, Penton Communications’ IoT Institute director, in her article “Start Small to Gain Big,” postulated an oil drilling platform with 30,000 sensors would generate about 1 Terabyte of data per day. She also stressed that only 1% of that data would likely be used. From a systems engineering point of view this data flow is multiplied by the trillions of other IoT sensors in the cloud, introducing unprecedented data processing and data transport stress. Industries and competing companies within those industries will also be forced to weigh the economic impact of paying for this transport and processing.
How will these parochial and business-centered decisions drive networking priorities across the cloud? Will all of the high-priority data get through? Will any data be lost? How will you know? If a piezo-electric sensor detects a crack in the drill pipe, will you get the notification, or will it get out-prioritized by the ambient air temperature reading that you get every 10 minutes? Every day, data gets delayed through the Internet and the results are not catastrophic. Tomorrow, though, a stock trade “trigger” could be delayed costing billions. Key economic indicators could be lost that could trigger large economic movements. As with today’s Internet, tomorrow’s IoT will need to ensure that the RIGHT data gets to its destination in a timely fashion.
Securing the IoT
Programming Research, in their white paper, “How IoT isMaking Security Imperative for all Embedded Software,” recommended that software developers should take a more careful approach to releasing new IoT products, “Security problems often stem from the need to accelerate development and bring new products to market ahead of the competition.  A majority of security vulnerabilities are a result of coding errors that go undetected in the development stage. CarnegieMellon’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), in fact, found that 64% of vulnerabilities in the CERT National Vulnerability Database were the result of programming errors.”  The research firm also believes that software development organizations should incorporate coding standards such as CERT C and utilize the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)database.  Companies like Programming Research, Critical Software, or Jama Software offer tools to assist with static analysis of code against these standards.  Luckily, an increasing number of organizations are making adherence to these guidelines and standards a requirement for both internal development organizations and outsourced application development vendors.
Figure 1, from the TASC Institute “Peer Review” course, illustrates that software defects, although they are “facts of work” act like mines in a minefield.  Typical “Code and Test” methodologies effectively just clear a path through the minefield.  System overload, operator error, or race conditions could force the system off of the “cleared path” and into unexplored territory. This “unexplored territory” has, until recently, been the very place that commercial vendors installed their “back doors,” to enable the vendor to perform maintenance, collect metrics, or verify that the software is an authorized copy.  Commercial software vendors are now cracking down on these features because they represent security vulnerabilities that could be easily exploited by a hacker.

Figure 1: Defect Detection

 

Dwight Bues, of Engility Corp., is a Georgia Tech Computer Engineer with 30+ years’ experience in computer hardware, software, and systems and interface design. He has worked in Power Generation, Communications, RF, Command/Control, and Test Systems. Dwight is a Certified Scrum Master and teaches courses in Architecture, Requirements, and IVV&T. He is also a certified Boating Safety instructor with the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States Power Squadrons. He is currently working several STEM projects, sponsoring teams for competitions in the Aerospace Industries Association’s (AIA) Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) and the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation’s, Vex Skyrise Robotics Challenge.
Kevin L. Jackson is a globally recognized cloud computing expert, a cloud computing and cybersecurity Thought Leader for Dell and IBM and Founder/Author of the award winning “Cloud Musings” blog. Mr. Jackson has also been recognized as a “Top 100 Cybersecurity Influencer and Brand” by Onalytica (2015), a Huffington Post “Top 100 Cloud Computing Experts on Twitter” (2013), a “Top 50 Cloud Computing Blogger for IT Integrators” by CRN (2015) and a “Top 5 Must Read Cloud Blog” by BMC Software (2015). His first book, “GovCloud: Cloud Computing for the Business of Government” was published by Government Training Inc. and released in March 2011. His next publication, “Practical Cloud Security: A Cross Industry View”, will be released by Taylor & Francis in the spring of 2016

 

( This content is being syndicated through multiple channels. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of GovCloud Network, GovCloud Network Partners or any other corporation or organization.)
 

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