Transformation Infrastructure

Cloud Computing as a Strategic Asset

By G C Network | April 30, 2009

For some reason, this week seems to have more in it than most. While the steady stream of briefing request seem to be increasing, the post briefing discussions also seem…

Vivek Kundra: “Engage the American People in their Daily Digital Lives”

By G C Network | April 25, 2009

Today I attended a very impressive talk by the Federal CIO, Mr. Vivek Kundra at a Northern Virginia Technology Council Public Policy event. His open and “matter of fact” approach…

McKinsey vs. Booz Allen Hamilton !

By G C Network | April 21, 2009

A community skirmish reminiscent of the recent “manifestogate” has apparently erupted around the McKinsey & Co. report “Clearing the air on cloud computing“. Booz Allen Hamilton Principals Mike Cameron and…

Oracle Buys Sun!!

By G C Network | April 20, 2009

Swooping in from nowhere, Oracle buys Sun for $7.4B!! “This morning, the companies announced that they’d struck a deal worth $7.4 billion or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and…

Aneesh Chopra Nominated For Federal CTO

By G C Network | April 20, 2009

Although Aneesh Chopra is a new name for most, he is well know in Virginia as Governor Tim Kaine’s Secretary of Technology. For the Commonwealth, he was charged with leading…

Could Cloud Computing Cost More?

By G C Network | April 16, 2009

In a recent conference, analyst William Forrest says that large companies could end up paying more than twice as much by using cloud based services. According to a Forbes.com report,…

Cisco’s Cloud Computing Strategy

By G C Network | April 10, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, Krishna Sankar provided a glimpse into Cisco’s cloud computing strategy in a presentation titled “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Inter-Cloud” . The presentation outlined the…

NCOIC and Cloud Computing: An Update

By G C Network | April 8, 2009

As the NCOIC gets it’s arms around this new paradigm, the Cloud Computing Working Group has focused on establishing a roadmap for providing value to the industry. Using the established…

SUN-IBM Talks Breakdown

By G C Network | April 6, 2009

As reported in multiple sources today, including Reuters, Sun has apparently rejected a purchase offer by IBM. “Shares of Sun Microsystems Inc tumbled 22.5 percent after it rejected a $7…

Former DoT CIO on Cloud Computing

By G C Network | April 3, 2009

Last month, former Transportation Department CIO Dan Mintz offered his views on cloud computing to Eric Chabrow, Managing Editor of Government Information Security. According to Mr. Mintz, there is currently…

Hybrid IT enables a composable infrastructure which describes a framework whose physical compute, storage, and network fabric resources are treated as services.

Resources are logically pooled so that administrators need to physically configure hardware to support a specific software application, which describes the function of a composable architecture.

This type of transformative infrastructure is foundational to contemporary agile business because a hybrid IT environment, private clouds, public clouds, community clouds, traditional data centers, and services from service providers must be integrated and interconnected.

Composable infrastructures can build new revenue-generating products and services faster while simultaneously addressing the key inhibitors to change, which include the following:     

  • General concerns regarding lack of adequate hybrid infrastructure security     
  • The false impression that cloud cannot support the operational/performance requirements of critical applications (e.g., SAP and Oracle)     
  • Management challenge presented by multi-cloud environments contracts that will include varying levels of governance and service-level agreements (SLAs)     
  • The need to match employee management skills across various cloud platforms 

Composable infrastructure architectures have two major functions. They must be able to disaggregate

and aggregate resources into pools and compose consumable resources through a unified API.

Fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks will significantly enhance the current mobile network environment. These new networks will use multi-access edge computing (MEC) to extend composable enterprise infrastructures to the network edge, a capability broadly referred to as edge computing.

To support this future IT-operating environment, enterprise content and application developers need to collaborate with telecommunications network operators to gain access to edge services.

Using this architecture, “Internet of Things†(IoT) applications can respond in real time to local events and use cloud capabilities for all other data processing functions.

Edge computing application design development model has three locations:     

  • Client    
  • Near server     
  • Far server  

An end-to-end IT service designed to operate in an IoT environment follows this model also but with different reference names or components:      

  • Terminal device component     
  • Edge component(s)     
  • Remote component(s) 

The IoT architecture emphasizes the distribution of components. In this environment, network services (i.e., routers, firewalls, load balancers, XML processing, and WAN optimization devices) are replaced with software running on virtual machines.

To ensure secure operations, key cybersecurity tasks include the following:     

  • Securing the controller as the centralized decision point for access to the Software Defined Network (SDN)     
  • Protecting the controller against malware or attack     
  • Establish trust by protecting the communications throughout the network by ensuring the SDN controller, related applications, and managed devices are all trusted entities     
  • Creation of a robust policy framework that establishes a system of checks and balances across all SDN controllers     
  • Conducting forensics and remediation when an incident happens in order to determine the cause and prevent reoccurrence  

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) establishes a virtualized networking environment dedicated to providing different network services. If NFV is used, the SDN can also act as a hypervisor for NFV virtual machines.

Approaches for implementing cybersecurity protections include the following:     

  • Embed security within the virtualized network devices     
  • Embed security into the SDN servers, storage, and other computing devices 

The Zero Trust security model is centered on the belief that organizations should not trust anything inside or outside their perimeters. This model requires verification of anything and everything trying to connect to its systems before access is granted. The Zero Trust approach uses existing technologies and governance processes in securing the enterprise IT environment.

When designing and deploying transformational solutions across enterprise, cloud, 5G networks, MEC environment, and the Zero Trust paradigm must be extended to include all associated SDNs.

Read more about digital transformation and transformation infrastructure: grab a copy of my new book, Click to Transform, out today!

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