Even with respect to the diverse array of powerful cloud computing services that have recently come into the picture, an organization's attachment to its legacy IT infrastructure is understandable in this day and age. Internal staff typically spend years - if not decades - assembling, configuring and optimizing on-premise assets to the exact specifications of their business. Along with an entrenched sense of pride and tradition, legacy systems also offer familiarity and comfort to companies that may not be receptive to the idea of a constantly changing IT environment. However, there comes a time when these in-house units become more of a problem than a solution, and decision-makers must reassess their strategies for the next generation of enterprise technology. 

Legacy systems - an unnecessary burden?
Determining whether on-premise storage and server units are still productive and profitable can be a challenge, especially when decision-makers have nothing to compare against their current infrastructures. However, there are a few signs that IT leaders can look for to help gauge if legacy systems are moving things along or inhibiting progress, according to CSO Online. The source pointed out that software compatibility and update issues, weak links in network security and cost inefficiencies are all indications that it may be time to finally say goodbye to old servers and tapes. As the world of technology continually migrates to cloud computing environments, business leaders must draw the line, just as consumers weigh their options when upgrading their personal devices or software. 

"It's probably even worse on the business side," Stefan Frei, research vice president with NSS Labs, a security research firm, told CSO Online. "The end user can just run auto update. But the corporation has policies and testing in place to delay the patching. And with some systems, there are legal barriers, where you're not allowed to touch the system without losing your warranty of certification. You are in a very bad situation - you are doomed if you don't update, and you are doomed if you do."

Network vulnerabilities cannot be risked
Aside from the inconveniences of endless patches and upgrades, businesses are faced with more grave concerns by holding onto legacy systems for longer than they should. CSO Online pointed out that in light of an increasingly hazardous threat matrix, IT leaders must look at their infrastructures from a network security perspective and consider whether current systems provide the protection necessary to defend against malicious cyber attacks. 

"Attackers can easily obtain default passwords and identify Internet-connected target systems," stated a recent alert from the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, part of the Department of Homeland Security, CSO noted. "Passwords can be found in product documentation and compiled lists available on the Internet. An attacker with knowledge of the password and network access to a system can log in, usually with root or administrative privileges."

While some decision-makers may be put off by the prospect of an all-out upgrade, InsuranceNetworking recently suggested that even a gradual shift to a cloud infrastructure can help organizations to bolster their network capacity, improve security measures and stay in stride with the competition. 

Among all of the cloud hosting options, hybrid solutions offer the most flexibility and room for customization. It's little wonder, then, that the hybrid cloud is becoming so popular, with many organizations seeking just the right mix of cost-effective storage, high performance, security and elasticity for their evolving business needs. In fact, according to TechNavio's recent report entitled "Global Hybrid Cloud Market 2014-2018," this option is poised to become the most used segment of the cloud industry.

However, deploying hybrid cloud resources effectively and efficiently is still proving to be a challenge for many IT teams.

Taking advantage of flexible options 
TechNavio's report indicated that the global hybrid cloud market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 30.16 percent between 2013 and 2018. This figure includes Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Software-as-a-Service delivery models, with organizations highly motivated by the need to reduce their IT spending and establish business continuity. Reporting on the study, ZDNet explained that nearly half of large organizations are expected to have hybrid cloud solutions by 2017, driven also by a desire to improve productivity and reduce the security concerns that are often associated with the public cloud.

Hurdles remain for managing the hybrid cloud
Despite its optimistic outlook for the hybrid cloud market, the TechNavio report identified several challenges, ZDNet added. These included the need to overcome data segmentation issues, build on IT policies and protocols, and address latency in data transfer.

In addition to these factors, an article from TechTarget recently explored the struggles IT teams are having with managing hybrid cloud deployments on their own. For starters, decision-makers have to plan strategically for the different aspects of the hybrid system.

"When people think about hybrid, it's not one size fits all," said Judith Hurwitz, president and CEO of Hurwitz and Associates, a Massachusetts-based research firm, during the Cloud Industry Symposium, according to the source. "Companies need to determine which apps are a good fit for each platform based on security, latency and dependencies."

Organizations must also consider network dependencies, software updates, performance needs and security issues, the source added. These factors don't always come to mind when organizations view deploying the hybrid cloud as a simple matter of migration. For that reason, taking advantage of the assistance and tools offered by managed service providers could better prepare corporations to turn their cloud aspirations into a reality that lives up to expectations.

The phrase "Internet of Things" refers to the increasing connectivity of items that previously had no relationship to computers and data centers. In other words, sensors, computer chips and transmitters are being integrated into more and more devices that people use in their daily personal and professional lives. This, in turn, is creating unbelievable amounts of data - and equally remarkable opportunities for organizations to derive insights based on analytics.

Naturally, the expansion of this sort of technology and the actualization of the possibilities it presents requires the right foundation. Cloud computing is one of the resources that makes the IoT possible by accommodating mammoth volumes of data and providing cost-effective ways to process all of that information. Companies considering solutions such as managed cloud hosting might be swayed by the potential benefits their industry could enjoy from IoT projects. 

Omnipresent and worth billions
How important will the IoT be in the next few decades? According to a recent report, the prospects are impressive. The study predicted that the IoT market will be worth $1423.09 billion by 2020. That's over a trillion dollars, within the next  five or six years. 

The report also suggested that over the next decade, the IoT will "transform our world." It'll probably be a disrupter for businesses and a fact of life for most consumers. Pew Research Center arrived at similar conclusions - its survey of 1,600 industry experts revealed that 83 percent believe the trend will "dominate the mainstream" by 2025, Mashable reported. 

"Many experts say the rise of embedded and wearable computing will bring the next revolution in digital technology," wrote Janna Anderson, director of the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University and author of the report, according to the source. "They say the upsides are enhanced health, convenience, productivity, safety and vastly more useful information for people and organizations. The downsides: challenges to personal privacy, over-hyped expectations and tech complexity that boggles us." 

Laying the foundation 
As the Pew report indicated, maintaining data security and deriving meaningful insights from information will likely be a complicated - though critical - component of the IoT trajectory. Companies looking to implement smart devices for their operations or to gather and analyze data produced by connected gadgets will need adequate cloud computing services that uphold the proper security measures. Consumers will likely be excited to embrace these cool devices, but keeping personal information safe is central to building trust and confidence in the technology.

Your organization depends on ready access to its information resources. That's probably part of the reason you decided to adopt cloud solutions, such as Amazon Web Services: Not only are these options cost-effective and flexible, they make it easier for employees to tap into important data and tools from just about anywhere. However, if your services experience outages, you lose out on this advantage and suffer the consequences of downtime. To proactively prevent such incidents and recover faster when they do occur, you can turn to Datapipe Cloud Analytics for insights into usage patterns and best practices.

Time is money: The cost of downtime 
According to a study by the Ponemon Institute, a single minute of downtime costs enterprises an average of $7,900 in 2013, amounting to more than $627,000 for each incident. When your system is down, your employees can't access the resources they need to do their jobs. This results in a loss of worker productivity, missed business opportunities, IT effort to rectify the situation, data loss and sometimes reputational damage. Therefore, it's important to avoid outages in the first place and to get your system up and running again as soon as possible when a problem does throw a wrench in the works.

Business continuity and disaster recovery plans are designed to address these issues. However, it can be difficult and costly to establish and maintain a sufficient plan, especially if IT operators lack the information they need to understand how the system is performing and identify potential problems before they result in an outage.

Datapipe Cloud Analytics: Using predictive analytics to bolster availability 
With Datapipe Cloud Analytics, you can monitor and assess all of your AWS services and their performance. This includes addressing issues with availability for all of your instances, empowering you to create a strong baseline disaster recovery status. The power of cloud analytics resides in its ability to draw together data points about how your AWS solutions are running and present them in the context of AWS disaster recovery best practices. That way, you can ensure that your system is implemented in the right way to avoid outages, increase availability and have the fastest possible recovery in the event of a downtime.

By identifying patterns and monitoring performance based on algorithms for optimal availability, Datapipe Cloud Analytics can alert you to potential problems before they impact your system. Instead of being caught off guard when your system goes down, you can receive emails with recommendations for improving your configuration to minimize the chances of experiencing outages. For example, best practices dictate that you should have at least one backup snapshot for every EBS volume. Your daily analytics email could inform you if you have any volumes that fail to comply with this recommendation. That way, you can put the appropriate measures in place, rather than suffering the consequences should your system encounter difficulties.

Taking charge of your cloud 
AWS offers remarkable opportunities for businesses to enjoy cost-effective, scalable storage and computing. However, many organizations are uncomfortable with the cloud because they believe they'll lose control over their technology and data. Datapipe Cloud Analytics empowers IT operators and other decision-makers with the information they require to shape their cloud solution according to their needs - and make adjustments as their company grows by moving more resources to the cloud.

Maintaining consistent, reliable availability isn't a perk in today's business landscape - it's a necessity. With insights from Datapipe Cloud Analytics, you can have confidence in your uptime levels and maximize the ROI on your AWS solutions. Like other predictive analytics endeavors, it's not about cleaning up after disasters - it's about putting the right system in place from the start.

Cloud providers tout the affordability and flexibility of their service - and for good reason. These options typically are far more cost-effective and elastic than building and maintaining on-site infrastructure. However, getting the most out of these benefits requires governance and insight into resource utilization. Before jumping into cloud initiatives, organizations should consider how the transition will impact their existing governance processes and ensure they have resources in place to maintain the same degree of oversight and decision-making.

How the cloud impacts governance 
As Business 2 Community contributor Christian Buckley recently outlined, switching from on-site infrastructure to the cloud, such as Amazon Web Services, requires different tools and approaches for governance. At the end of the day, effective cloud solutions must be matched to business needs and objectives. Having these requirements and goals outlined clearly is important both for planning migration to the cloud and ongoing utilization of the services.

You should consider how you currently report on and monitor your system to ensure you have comparable data for your cloud solution. This includes more than the total expenses included in your bill - you need to know how each department is drawing on resources so you can understand how your costs align with business operations. You should also be able to track changes in usage as well as monitor the performance of your system to keep everything running at optimal levels.

Analytics pulls the pieces together 
Whereas in a home-grown system your IT team might have created ways to report on such metrics to assess network activity, cloud services don't always come with all of the tools you need to see how they're being put to use throughout your organization. Cloud sprawl is a common issue, where departments are able to provision resources without the control of IT or decision-makers. To have a comprehensive view of the system, complex environments like the cloud require innovative tools. For example, Datapipe Cloud Analytics for AWS provides customers with 360-degree insight into their resource provisioning and utilization throughout the entire enterprise.

Through advanced data-mining, Datapipe Cloud Analytics offers robust intelligence tools to empower decision-makers to match their cloud services to their business needs. Intuitive reports provide insights on:

• cost and asset usage trends over time
• utilization heat maps for capacity planning
• security issues and vulnerabilities
• resource usage tied to business groups and functions
• recommendations for optimal resource decisions

In addition to this information, Datapipe Cloud Analytics offers 24/7 access to support teams. With this robust tool at your fingertips, transitioning to the cloud doesn't mean less governance - it might actually bring more.

Big data means big workloads 
Big data is often tied to three words: volume, variety and velocity. Rapidly changing and emerging information from a wide spectrum of sources and data types in huge quantities need to be collected to power remarkable analytical processes. As such, traditional infrastructures composed of on-site servers and networking are rarely sufficient.

Not only does data need to be collected and stored, it also must be processed and accessible to employees and decision-makers. To feed information and insights into their applications and business programs, organizations must consider the strain big data can have on their system performance. The process needs to happen efficiently so stakeholders can benefit from real-time information, but it also must not detract from the performance of other applications and programs. This requirement necessitates a more advanced IT infrastructure, one that can accommodate space requirements, ensure top performance and provide the necessary levels of security in line with the type of information collected.

Complex databases complicate workloads 
In addition to sheer volume, big data is set apart for its variety, often including both structured and unstructured resources. Processing this type of information requires special computing capabilities, such as the ability to break down data silos so that the resources can be analyzed together for deeper, more varied insights. At the same time, some resources and tools are appropriate to keep separate - such as distinguishing between big data raw information and core enterprise programs - and the system may run more efficiently if they're maintained in different environments. For example, organizations might keep their mission-critical applications in a private cloud while hosting their databanks in the public cloud so they can run advanced analytics without impacting their employees' regular business activities.

Managing the workloads for complex databases is more demanding than traditional IT systems, which are focused primarily on uptime. Workloads might need to be scheduled to avoid overloading the system or creating lag. For that reason, even with cloud solutions, companies may find their IT teams struggling to manage and make use of data resources effectively. With the right connections within the system, however, businesses can stop thinking about workloads and start making use of their big data endeavors.

Nurturing big data with the right foundation
For big data projects to flourish, they require the right setup that will accommodate the scale of the information, allow data from various sources to be integrated and facilitate high-performance and yet optimally efficient workload processes that don't weight down the rest of the system. A hosted cloud solution is a variety of hybrid cloud that can offer these benefits.

Organizations have a variety of cloud options to choose from, centered on three basic categories: public, private and hybrid. Although there are unique benefits in each of these arrangements, causing businesses to choose an option depending on their specific needs, the hybrid choice is gaining significant ground, thanks largely to its customizability. Gartner predicted that about half of large enterprises will utilize the hybrid cloud by the end of 2017, attracted by its affordability and flexibility. However, there's another key element in this trend: visibility and governance.

The research firm noted that the "next step" for cloud customers usually involves investing in technology to derive usage metrics and automated provisioning while also looking for ways to promote agility. Leaders need to understand where these changes could benefit the organization and have insight into how technology could be used to make it happen. For the cloud, a core piece of this puzzle is utilizing analytics that provide clear, comprehensible insights. 

More information mitigates security concerns 
Visibility and governance, such as that facilitated by Datapipe Cloud Analytics, empowers IT operators with greater control over their cloud resources so they can allocate services in the most effective manner and keep a closer eye on security, compliance and other best practices. In other words, by having more information about the arrangement and performance of their cloud configurations, decision-makers can ensure that sensitive information is stored in tiers with greater security, that data is backed up appropriately for compliance purposes and that their public and private allocations are configured optimally.

With the right tools at their fingertips, organizations can strategically plan a hybrid cloud and monitor its performance to ensure it's meeting needs as the business grows and puts more data and tools in the cloud. 

Cloud adoption becoming the norm 
Although organizations are still evaluating their options as far as specific cloud arrangements go, the vast majority see the some sort of cloud deployment as the future of their IT system. Particularly with growing data storage, application and mobility demands, it's hard to deny the great advantages that cloud platforms can offer.

Traditionally, enterprises have hesitated to embrace the cloud whole-heartedly because of security concerns and a desire to retain a greater degree of control over their systems. With more robust metrics and cloud analytics, companies can have greater confidence as they embark on their migrations to the cloud.

Big data is one of those buzzwords that gets thrown around so frequently it almost loses its meaning. If you're a little hazy on the details of what big data entails, you're not alone - even industry experts disagree on the nitty-gritty details of the definition. At its core, big data involves analyzing massive amounts of information larger than the human mind and traditional computing techniques could manage. Often, the data comes from diverse sources, usually including both structured and unstructured information.

The volume, speed and complexity of the data involved in these initiatives requires more advanced IT infrastructure for organizations to take advantage of their resources. At the same time, companies need convenient ways to process and access their tools and databases. Finally, big data involves much more than the raw materials: Leaders need refined strategies for deriving and applying data-driven insights.

Watch the rhetoric, but get ready for big data 
Forrester Research recently conducted a study in an attempt to evaluate whether the challenges of big data will render the trend a passing fad, or the advantages will turn it into the next status quo, The Wall Street Journal reported. Although many marketing executives and business leaders are rather confused on the details of big data, technology managers are more confident.

As a whole, the report advised against getting too caught up in the hype of big data: Organizations shouldn't expect to flip a switch and have their operations transformed overnight. At the same time, it's probably wise to start taking advantage of growing digital information coming from sensors, Internet activity and other devices. 

"The data explosion has changed how we do business," Forrester noted, according to The Wall Street Journal. "Every interaction, every communication, every touchpoint creates a digital breadcrumb – a piece of data that can be analyzed and manipulated."

Big data applications 
In terms of where big data initiatives can take companies, Forrester pointed to a number of examples that could see growth in the near future, the source explained. These included:

• Building apps to help customers find their way around stores
• Product-stocking strategies based on data mined from social media, such as illness trends
• "Anticipatory shipping" processes, such as those planned by Amazon

Finally, the research firm emphasized that the importance of data privacy and security will grow in tandem with information volumes, particularly for businesses handling consumer data. Consequently, organizations should look into strong cloud security and general network protection as a foundation for big data initiatives.

Understanding the financial benefits of any business investment is central to an organization's success. You wouldn't purchase new equipment without researching the pros and cons, as well as considering the financial impact the change will have on your company over time. But evaluating the cost and return of an investment involves more than the price tag. You also have to think about productivity, efficiency, expansion opportunities and resource usage.

Many decision-makers are still grappling with evaluating the impact the cloud could have on their organization. To make matters more complicated, many leaders think they'll have trouble evaluating certain metrics, especially if they turn over the reins of their IT infrastructure to a cloud provider. However, with the right tools and approach, companies can address the question of cost and ROI with confidence and accuracy.

Here are a few pointers to keep in mind:

1. Understand your current costs and activities. In order to evaluate an ROI, you need to know where you're coming from. Transitioning to the cloud will carry costs outside of the service bill, and the advantages of utilizing cloud services extend beyond infrastructure cost savings. You should take note of the energy your current system uses, tasks your IT team has to manage, frequency of upgrades, downtime rates and so on.
2. Evaluate the expenses involved in migration. As betanews.com emphasized, you need to consider the migration process itself - including deciding which applications to move to the cloud - as well as integration and licensing costs. Furthermore, your IT team may need to be trained or expanded to develop expertise in working with the cloud, unless you take advantage of managed services. The source also noted that you need to ensure disaster recovery, security and compliance measures are all in place, which should be considered for cost evaluation and compared to the price - or risks - of previous arrangements.
3. Utilize reporting tools. With resources like Datapipe Cloud Analytics, leaders don't have to feel like they're in the dark or have lost control over their infrastructure. Reports can reveal utilization levels, identify potential problems and provide deeper insight into billing and resource allocation. With this asset, companies can evaluate the expenses and benefits associated with the cloud, as well as tailor their system for ultimate performance and ROI.
4. Consider predictable pricing models. Finally, to have more confidence about cloud ROI, businesses should consider taking advantage of predictable pricing managed cloud services. While still allowing firms to benefit from the scalability and flexibility of the cloud, this option gives decision-makers a better, more reliable sense of their total expenditures, making it easier to evaluate ROI and plan for the future.

Even before there were computers, backups for records were an important consideration for businesses. Many kept duplicate copies of key files in fire-proof safes or secondary locations. Now, with the rapid expansion of digital resources and business applications, managing backups has taken on a renewed centrality for disaster readiness. Whereas the tape-based backup systems of the early computer age could take a significant amount of time to update and restore, today's leading solutions facilitate business continuity, not just disaster recovery.

Evolving DR processes
Thanks to technological advancement such as cloud services, organizations now have more diverse and advantageous DR and BC options. As CloudTweaks recently highlighted, many of the benefits that make the cloud an attractive choice for data management and application hosting in general qualify it as a prime DR/BC resource: It provides cost-effective solutions, rapid provisioning, scalab​ility and elasticity. Consequently, cloud-based backups can easily adapt to changing business needs and enable entire servers to be protected by virtualization or other DR strategies.

Additionally, just as the hybrid cloud promises great flexibility for companies to create systems tailored to their unique needs, the leading DR offerings enable organizations to optimize their processes by better planning which resources are replicated and protected in which manner. This added customization helps businesses ensure that their mission-critical data and tools will be readily available even if they experience a disaster, all without straining their bandwidth or burning a hole in their pocketbooks.

Hot, warm or cold?
Because downtime and data loss can have devastating effects on organizations, it's important not to be lukewarm or ambivalent about DR. However, when it comes to choosing the manner of protection, there are a few "temperatures" that decision-makers can choose from to meet their companies' unique requirements.

Datapipe offers hot, warm and cold sites for DR plans. Each option has benefits that make it appropriate for particular types of resources:

• Hot sites facilitate continuous performance and almost immediate recovery by mirroring production environments in dedicated data centers. This is particularly appropriate for mission-critical applications and resources that businesses need to access without pause.
• Warm sites synchronize infrastructure, applications and data periodically and provide near-real time recovery. They are suitable for businesses and resources that can stand to wait for a few hours for systems to be fully updated following an incident.
• Cold sites are ideal for non-mission-critical data and tools. They provide restoration at a disaster recovery location, but because they do not mirror data prior to a disaster, these solutions require some downtime before resources are up and running again.

Big data has been given a lot of attention in the tech and business industries. Digital resources are growing at an astronomical pace and organizations are looking for ways to collect, process and utilize this information. Whether you consider it big data or simply the natural progression and expansion of existing business intelligence and data analytics, the trend offers remarkable opportunities - and equally large risks.

Raising the stakes for the protection of sensitive information
Big data involves collecting great amounts of information from customers, using resources such as cloud computing to store and process it. These factoids comes from various sources, such as consumer gadgets and social media platforms, and could cover just about any topic imaginable. Much of this data is pretty mundane, but it often includes sensitive information or personal identification facts.

As The Washington Post emphasized, even data that falls outside of the scope of regulated sensitive information could be private and confidential in the eyes of consumers. For example, some people might not want the world to know their favorite book series or their most common sweet indulgence. In addition to feeling exposed if this data seems too widely available, some customers also use such facts in their passwords or verification questions.

Therefore, collecting greater amounts of any sort of consumer data increases organizations' risks, especially as information resources are consolidated in central repositories.

Don't throw out the baby with the bath water
This doesn't mean that businesses should back away from big data initiatives. Baseline Magazine noted that information is quickly becoming a critical tool that's both a differentiator and a fundamental necessity for organizations trying to keep pace with their competition. Referring to the government's recent "Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values" report, the source explained that mitigating big data risks isn't about stepping away from the project: It's about balancing benefits and risks, taking into consideration consumer expectations and privacy.

"If we want to continue to encourage innovation and take advantage of what digital technologies offer, we must acknowledge trade-offs and understand the need for balance," Lanny Cohen, global chief technology officer for Capgemini, told the magazine. 

Managed service providers can help enterprises navigate some of the complexities of managing and protecting increasingly large and complex volumes of data. With a robust, secure IT foundation, business leaders can focus on strategically approaching big data projects in a manner that addresses customer privacy with the appropriate sensitivity. 

Oracle has long held a position as one of the world's leading hardware and software providers, offering an impressive suite of open, integrated solutions. Especially with the assistance of managed service providers, organizations can turn to Oracle offerings to build an impressive, robust system that supports their business operations and helps them achieve their goals. Oracle has continued to improve and enhance its products, and these advancements are helping to make the vendor a top choice among consumers.

Oracle second only to Microsoft 
Among software providers, Oracle is now the second biggest in the world, falling short only of Microsoft's steady hold on first place, according to recent Gartner research. Surpassing IBM's revenue and growth rate, the vendor has proven itself as a dependable, competitive player in the market.

"There is a shift in vendor rankings from 2013 at the top of the worldwide software market," said Chad Eschinger, research vice president at Gartner. "This is the first time in Gartner's global software market share research that Oracle has ranked second in terms of total software revenue with $29.6 billion and capturing 7.3 percent of the global market. Global trends around big data and analytics with business investment in database and cloud-based applications helped to drive Oracle's top-line growth."

Impressive offerings 
In addition to global technology trends, including cloud computing, Oracle's success can be attributed to the excellence of the products it offers, especially as partnerships with managed service providers make these solutions easier to implement effectively. InformationWeek reported that Mark Hurd, president of Oracle, explained how the company has been focusing on developing a customer-centric approach to better meet the needs of IT teams and industry leaders. 

Further, PCWorld noted that the software and hardware giant has made a number of changes in its relational database offering to significantly boost performance, doubling the speed of MySQL query handling. This advancement can help organizations cut costs on their server investments, since it facilitates more efficient processes and reduces strain on resources. Other products have also been enhanced by better performance capabilities, including the Memcached caching plug-in, the source added.

Overall, Oracle continues to press forward with developing and enhancing its products. Like any hardware and software solution, companies can take advantage of performance and functionality improvements to optimize their own operations, particularly with the assistance of managed IT services to help them navigate the offerings and ensure that the developments are implemented in the most strategic and secure manner.

Recognizing the vast opportunities offered by the cloud to accommodate growing data needs, corporations are beginning to transition to new systems for storing and managing their information resources and enterprise applications. However, although cloud technology has advanced rapidly in the last few years, offering additional options and greater security, businesses are struggling to take full advantage of the vast, high-performance capabilities. One of the greatest challenges when switching to a new solution - particularly one as complex as the cloud - is integration. Managed service providers can help achieve this aim by implementing the necessary architecture and processes for optimal performance.

Integration is far from optional 
Consolidating data resources in the right way can create more robust channels for data analytics and cross-organizational collaboration. In short, it's essential to have a well-integrated system for companies to get the most out of their data resources and to function efficiently. For example, sharing data across departments reduces redundancies, which means that customers don't have to offer the same information more than once. The approach also helps to ensure everyone is working off the most up-to-date, accurate data.

Businesses need integrated systems that are designed with the end-users' experience in mind, CIO Magazine asserted. Workers should enjoy the same performance, results and processes, regardless of where the data they're working with is stored. In hybrid cloud systems, for instance, some information is kept on private cloud servers, whereas other data is sent to the public cloud. The average employee shouldn't even be aware of this difference. The only thing that matters is whether the information they need is available in the format they expect, at the moment it's required.

Getting the infrastructure right
Unfortunately, fluid integration is easier said than done. Joe McKendrick, analyst at McKendrick & Associates, told TechTarget that having multiple applications draw from a single set of data is considered the "holy grail" of IT, but it's impossible to do without the right system in place.

"It's all about architecture," McKendrick explained. "You want a flexible architecture that accommodates any and all changes, such as new data sources being added, older ones being removed or interfaces changing,"

That's why many businesses are turning to managed IT services to coordinate their infrastructure and establish the right foundation for their data needs. These providers have the expertise necessary to design systems that work seamlessly across applications, data centers, applications, hybrid solutions and social resources. Given the importance of integration, having a well-designed and managed setup can give companies the edge they need to derive the greatest value from their investment.

Organizations in many industries handle data that must be gathered, stored and processed according to specific guidelines. For example, credit card information, medical data and other sensitive files must be kept secure at rest and in transit. Only authorized people should be able to access these resources, which means that sign-ins and authentication procedures need to adhere to regulatory requirements.

Since the guidelines and laws governing these processes change frequently and involve many aspects of the corporate network, implementing an acceptable solution can be complicated. Therefore, organizations might want to consider managed IT services as a way to simplify and improve their approaches.

Compliance critical, but not an easy task 
A recent Osterman Research report, which was sponsored by security awareness training company KnowBe4, revealed that while nearly two-thirds of enterprises think compliance is "very important," only 13 percent are satisfied with how they manage the requirements, Dark Reading reported. Staying compliant is so difficult in part because of the frequent changes in control measures, often coming from government regulations.

Additionally, companies have to devote a lot of time and energy to seeking information about their systems, running reports and filling out spreadsheets to evaluate and demonstrate compliance. Manual processes in particular can be very costly, creating additional strain on budgets and staff.

Managed IT services for regulatory compliance 
To enjoy the peace of mind of having a dependable, compliant solution, organizations can consider getting professional assistance for setting up and maintaining their IT infrastructure. With experts who are very familiar with the requirements and methods involved in data regulation standards, managed service providers are able to help enterprises monitor and demonstrate that their systems are running in line with the most up-to-date controls, including standards such as:

• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI)
• Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX)

Failure to comply with the necessary protocols can result in heavy fines and put businesses at greater risk for data breaches and cybercrime. These incidents, in turn, can be devastatingly expensive, costing hundreds of thousands - even millions - of dollars as companies have to resolve the issue, manage public relations, offer credit monitoring and deal with legal measures and other consequences.

Upholding the regulations isn't really negotiable, especially as digital resources continue to grow and take a more central role in enterprise operations. There are a number of solutions that can help companies maintain compliance, but selecting a trusted partner that will ensure the system is compliant, reliable and secure throughout the entire organization eases the burden off staff and decision-makers so they can get back to business.

Technology is transforming the health care industry. From better medical sensors to electronic health records (EHRs), doctors and other providers have information at their fingertips like never before. However, there's a lot of work that must be done to ensure the data stays in their hands - and not in the hands of unauthorized viewers.

Strictly regulated by legislation such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), protected health information (PHI) must be stored and shared only under approved circumstances and through appropriate processes. The widespread adoption of EHR makes it easy to rapidly transfer patients' records and other data, but weaknesses in information security make hospitals and clinics vulnerable to data breaches and lawsuits. Therefore, solutions that facilitate data exchange while upholding comprehensive regulatory standards are urgently needed throughout the industry.

Adapt or fall behind 
According to CIO Magazine, recent Forrester research has indicated that medical organizations must implement leading technology in order to stay competitive. The advantages of modern systems are too great in terms of information availability and decision support to let fears about security and cost prevent adoption. At the same time, recent breaches in the retail industry and other sectors have showcased the danger of letting security and regulatory compliance slip.

For that reason, hospitals and other facilities need to select infrastructure support that provides the appropriate protections. Managed service providers with expertise in engineering HIPAA-compliant, secure systems provide dependable options for organizations with limited in-house knowledge and support. 

Employees must be on board 
While setting up the right IT infrastructure is a crucial component to protecting PHI resources, clinicians and other staff members need to play an active role in maintaining data security as well. Government Health IT explained that increasing security awareness among the workforce is critical to protecting sensitive information, particularly in an age where employees bring their own devices to work and access sensitive information from a variety of portable platforms.

"At the end of the day, your ultimate goal is to get your employees to believe that patient health information is part of their responsibility, their civic duty, so to speak," Daniel Berger, president and CEO of Redspin, told Government Health IT. "They need to look beyond 'here's our policy' to adopting a personal stake in keeping patients records secure."

With the right technical foundation and an appropriate emphasis on training and action, health care organizations can form a formidable partnership in their quest to keep sensitive information secure while facilitating better patient care.

Mobility is all the rage in the enterprise world right now, and one of the reasons it's so attractive is that it can offer employees greater opportunities to collaborate with each other and share resources, even when they're out of the office. However, these benefits require the right tools. Companies need to keep their systems secure while providing workers with the right technology to complete their jobs efficiently and effectively. Managed service providers can help businesses empower their workers, whether they take advantage of the flexibility offered by the cloud or turn to enterprise applications that are hosted on-site.

Why collaboration? 
A number of business analysts have commented on the growing importance of collaboration in the enterprise, noting that this approach is replacing the more competitive workplace environment of old. Not only does teamwork foster a positive company culture, bolstering employee engagement, it also has a great impact on the bottom line. By bringing more heads to the table, businesses can tap into the wealth of knowledge shared across the workforce and benefit from myriad combinations of different ways of thinking and varying educational and professional backgrounds. In short, collaborative efforts are often greater than the sum of their parts.

Mobility, collaboration and technology 
To support greater cooperation at their companies, many executives look for the right tools for their workers. Recently, social technology has made a strong debut, as CMS Wire noted. Modeled on consumer-facing services, such as Facebook and Twitter, applications designed for the enterprise aim to facilitate faster messaging and information-sharing while keeping discussions within a closed environment. 

However, the proliferation of mobile technology in the workplace, whether that encompasses employees working remotely or bringing their own devices on-site, has also created a greater need for better collaborative technology, the Financial Post explained. As workforces become more dispersed, there is a rising need for secure, reliable applications that enable employees to share corporate documents and communicate from afar. Often, it's hard to get all stakeholders in one room to work on a project, so robust connectivity resources are a must.

As Forbes Magazine reported, organizations have found a high degree of success using cloud services to host their enterprise applications, making their tools more easily accessible from remote locations. Other businesses rely on Web application programs, such as Microsoft Sharepoint. In any event, it's crucial for these services to be implemented and maintained appropriately so they uphold the same degree of security as the rest of the company's network.

When you partner with a managed service provider to implement and manage your cloud solutions, you take a lot of pressure off the shoulders of your IT teams - but that doesn't mean you want to relinquish visibility and control over your infrastructure. On the contrary, your service provider should empower you with a high degree of insight and expert support, without the heavy technical work that this usually requires. 

That's the goal behind Datapipe Cloud Analytics, a robust reporting service for all of your AWS services. This option gives you the information you need in an easy-to-access and intuitive format so that you can make strategic decisions about the governance of your cloud usage - and your IT operations. With comprehensive cloud governance, you have the insight and resources you need to maximize your ultimate cloud setup and ensure it keeps running optimally. 

Battling common cloud issues 
The cloud offers remarkable, cost-effective opportunities for businesses looking to expand or enhance their computing power and IT infrastructure. However, you have a lot of options to choose from and making the right decisions can have a big impact on whether you'll get the most out of your investment. For example, cloud services allow for very broad distributed access to IT services on demand, a new paradigm for IT operations teams to manage. You also need to make sure your services are in line with compliance regulations and supporting good data quality for your analytical projects.

Many companies struggle to make these objectives a reality. These are a few of the problems they run into:

• They pick instances that are bigger than their needs or provision too many instances.
• Their instance type selection isn't aligned with their requirements for CPU or memory, I/O performance, volume or other purposes.
• They forget to clean up idle or stale resources, which can lead to waste and management complications.
• Their security groups aren't configured correctly, leading to inherent security flaws and vulnerabilities.
• They don't take advantage of multiple AWS Availability Zones, which can lower risk in case an outage does occur.

Issues like these, among others, can be addressed, but only if you have the instrumentation of your environments and the intelligence tools to identify them as well as the expertise to remedy them - ideally before they become a significant problem. In addition to mitigating these issues, you'll want to be able to keep an eye on how your organization is utilizing cloud resources so you can regulate your services and optimize workflows, into the future.

Datapipe Cloud Analytics offer a comprehensive view 
Maintaining cloud governance can be challenging, especially for organizations that take advantage of multiple AWS services within their hybrid cloud solution. Datapipe Cloud Analytics offer powerful tools in this regard because the data can give you a comprehensive view of your entire system, with the ability to drill down into the nitty gritty details of particular components.

Our cloud analytics aim to give you the broadest, fullest picture of your cloud performance. They cover 100 percent of your AWS services, which helps you understand how all of the components fit together in order to optimize your total solution. You can also look across multiple accounts to compare how different resources or departments are performing.

Analytics help to align cloud optimization to business strategy 
To take governance to the next level, you can create groupings within your Datapipe Cloud Analytics reports to assess your resources in a way that offers deeper insights into how your cloud services are impacting your business objectives. This makes it possible to:

• Segment your AWS resources according to their associated business activities, such as products, customers and or departmental units.
• See how your cost centers and other structures within your organization are aligned with the actual consumption of the associated cloud services.
• Track, account for and analyze precise usage and spending for specific components of your operations so you can better understand your actual business costs.
• Align your revenues with your costs and identify ways to increase margins and profits.
• Perceive supply and demand trends in the context of your cloud usage.

Although cloud services are lauded for their scalable, affordable offerings, you invest a significant amount of time and money into your cloud infrastructure. How can you be sure that you're using these new highly elastic cloud resources in the most efficient manner possible and getting the best return on your investment? In fact, a recent IDG Cloud Computing Survey found that 38% of users cite difficulty measuring the ROI and determining the economic value of cloud investments.

Instrumenting and analyzing your cloud environments can give you the insights you need. By monitoring cloud usage and other metrics, you can identify issues before they become large-scale problems and determine ways to dramatically improve processes. This new form of business intelligence ensures that the cloud remains a valuable tool for your organization, and not a strain on your budget or on the operational processes you pride yourself on.

Data-driven intelligence
How does this work? Like other big data initiatives, it's not just about pulling a lot of information – it's about gathering the right data and analyzing it in the correct manner and then having the expertise to act. Your IT team could try to keep tabs on cloud usage, but it can't process the quantity of data necessary to oversee 100 percent of AWS services and drill down to underlying cost, availability, security and governance drivers.

AWS generates billion of data points every day. By tracking these points and retaining them, cloud analytics can reveal insights about behavior, offer predictive analytics, drive better planning for growth, fuel benchmarking and provide oversight for compliance purposes.

Room for improvement
The cloud is a valuable asset, but maybe you're not truly optimizing its deployment. By seeing what your company is actually utilizing, you can make decisions about scaling up and down or adjusting the types of services you employ to have the most cost-efficient configuration. For example, AWS's Reserved Instances are a more cost-effective model that some organizations are failing to use to their advantage.

In June 2013, reporting showed several cost-optimizing opportunities for AWS customers:

• 31 percent of active On-Demand Instances could be reduced by moving to Reserved Instances
• 13 percent of EC2 instances could be resized to reduce costs

Recognizing opportunities like these helped companies become more proficient in strategically using their AWS resources, with utilization efficiency increase from 75 percent to 87 percent over the course of a year.

Datapipe Cloud Analytics for AWS
At Datapipe, we know that it's important for your company to get the most out of its IT services. That's why we want to be a partner in your success. As part of our industry-leading suite of managed services for AWS, we developed Datapipe Cloud Analytics. This tool can monitor 100 percent of your AWS resources so you can assess consumption, make sure your utilization levels match your investment, assure you are meeting availability requirements and understand your costs.

In addition to analyzing usage and performance, Datapipe Cloud Analytics also offer a detailed and granular view of cost and billing data. Drawing information directly from your billing rather than API-metered consumption gives you the most accurate data that correlates exactly with your invoices. That way, you can reconcile your AWS bills with the resources you actually used. 

For example, in 2013, we determined that 40 percent of our AWS users could benefit from moving their On-Demand Instances to Reserved Instances, with cost savings of up to 50 percent. This could amount to tens of thousands of dollars.

Tap into the expertise to maximize your cloud operations
Datapipe Cloud Analytics provides industrial-strength analytics and creates value for our customers. When coupled with our Datapipe cloud management portal and our expert managed services, clients can move beyond the value of advanced cloud analytics to have the piece of mind of partnering with an industry leader in designing, migrating and operating AWS environments.

Fueled by advancements in big data analytics and cloud computing, business intelligence initiatives offer possibilities for optimizing company strategies like never before. However, despite the great potential in BI (business intelligence) processes, many organizations are struggling to see a return on their investments. While there's certainly a learning curve in adopting new technologies and procedures, business leaders can take a few steps to accelerate their path to success. Here are a few common blunders that are all too easy to make when adopting a BI strategy.

1. Providing inadequate or misdirected tools 
In addition to establishing a robust IT infrastructure to support rising data volumes and high-performance processes, organizations must consider the features and functionality their employees need in order to derive value from their data. According to Enterprise Apps Today, many businesses make the mistake of ignoring what their workers require in terms of reporting capabilities. In addition, these tools must be appropriate for the level of technical expertise end-users have - if they're too complex, they're not going to be of much use.

2. Collecting data from poor sources or through insecure frameworks 
If you are what you eat, BI is whatever data you feed it. It's not enough to implement powerful data analytics technology without making sure the information resources are from worthy sources and gathered in a way that is both secure and maintains data integrity. Baseline Magazine emphasized that information should come from sources that are trustworthy, particularly when companies are bringing in big data resources. Information must also be held to regulatory guidelines and be transferred and stored without being compromised. That's where cloud security, for example, plays a vital role.

3. Being short-sighted
Business technology is evolving, data resources continue to expand and new strategies develop. IT infrastructures must be able to accommodate these transformations if a BI project is going to have a sustained, enduring impact. Enterprise Apps Today explained that many corporations fail to think past their current needs to anticipate future BI requirements. While it's hard to foresee the details of the future, preparing with scalable solutions, such as cloud hosting, can give businesses greater flexibility. 

4. Underestimating the project
Like other modern technology ventures, BI is a complex, challenging project. The source mentioned that many organizations fall short of their aspirations because they try to do it all themselves. Setting up the infrastructure to support BI and applying the technology in an effective way often requires the guidance of experts, such as managed service providers.

Attracted by opportunities to cut down expenses and enjoy flexible, expandable data management resources, business leaders are increasingly interested in moving their operations to the cloud. However, the cloud isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, and transitioning to it is hardly a matter of flipping a switch. A substantial amount of research and planning needs to go into cloud migration to ensure companies adopt an effective system.

Selecting a cloud setup and provider 
The first step in transitioning to the cloud is understanding the many variations of solutions that are out there. From public, private and hybrid options to different types of managed services, organizations have the luxury of choosing solutions that can address their specific requirements. To help with this important decision, they should consider data volumes and whether their information must be protected by adhering to regulatory guidelines. This assessment might guide their discussions with cloud providers about the degree of privacy and security needed for their cloud infrastructure to have.

After deciding on a basic cloud structure, decision-makers must select a provider they can trust and work with as a partner. Reliability and security are often top concerns for companies moving to the cloud, so it's imperative to have service providers that offer consistent availability, uptime and accessibility. Discussing additional processes, such as disaster recovery support, backups and automatic failover may also guide decisions. After settling on a service, executives and IT teams should know their provider's Service Level Agreement.

Planning and preparing for the switch 
Cloud migration doesn't have to happen all at once. Particularly with hybrid cloud options, companies have a great deal of flexibility in moving their resources gradually, enjoying the scalability offered by the cloud. Tech Page One suggested creating short-term and long-term plans for the transition, with the first phase involving non-mission-critical apps and data. Then, once the system is tried and tested, businesses can move more of their assets to the cloud.

It's also important to prepare IT teams for the transition and plan other business processes and projects around the migration period to ensure key operations aren't interrupted or short-handed.

Migrating to the cloud 
With the assistance of managed service providers, the transition process doesn't have to be intimidating. It is important, however, to ensure data is properly assessed and cleaned to prevent corrupted or obsolete information from making the move. With the right preparation and support, the risks associated with migrating can be drastically reduced. Then, it's time to test the results and enjoy the capabilities of a well-designed solution.

Anyone keeping an eye on the tech sphere will attest to the proliferation of "as-a-service" designations. There's Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service and a number of others. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of what the difference are and how these solutions promise to make a positive impact on organizations' network processes. Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is another manifestation of managed services. Here's what you need to know.

What is DBaaS? 
As its name suggest, DBaaS means that a third-party provider takes care of setting up and maintaining a company's database. In a study commissioned by VMWare, Forrester defined the option as follows:

"An on-demand, secure and scalable self-service database platform that automates provisioning and administration of databases and can be used by developers and nontechnical personnel."

With DBaaS, providers engineer servers, operating systems and application support. Drawing on the knowledge of a team of Certified Database Administrators devoted entirely to managing optimal databases, this service helps organizations improve their network performance, troubleshoot issues and constantly monitor activity to keep things running properly.

In essence, users gain access to the database resources they need without having to set up or maintain the infrastructure themselves. This can be particularly useful for companies that want to get up and running quickly, without investing heavily in on-site infrastructure and in-house expertise. It also alleviates the burden of implementing and managing sometimes complex systems for IT support teams, which are frequently understaffed due to talent shortages and budget constraints.

The benefit of expert help 
At a basic level, turning to a DBaaS partner makes life a lot easier for organizations that need network solutions. Beyond convenience, however, it's crucial for databases to be protected by proactive security measures. These resources are usually connected to the rest of the enterprise's network, so the proper setup and ongoing monitoring are critical to ensuring overall system security. 

In addition to offering comprehensive security, managed IT services can help enterprises save money, improve IT productivity and accelerate application development, according to the Forrester report. The study explained that today's organizations often require hundreds of databases, supporting even greater numbers of applications. Developing and maintaining these apps is already a challenge, so being able to provide new databases quickly and seamlessly can help IT teams work more efficiently on apps.

The majority of organizations using DBaaS offerings were able to save money by repurposing servers and storage more efficiently, the report indicated. With skilled database administrators working to optimize the performance of the system, employees can work efficiently without straining network resources or requiring an excessive amount of storage.

From big data to cloud computing, recent technological advancements offer abundant opportunities for corporations to radically transform and enhance their business operations. However, as technology becomes more robust and complex, it presents significant challenges along with its extraordinary potential. Therefore, many executives are facing the problem of wanting additional digital tools, but lacking the expertise necessary to apply these successfully at their organizations.

Technological aspirations 
PricewaterhouseCoopers' 6th Annual Digital IQ Survey questioned 1,500 business and IT executives to understand their digital priorities and the characteristics of high-performing digital corporations. The report indicated that new IT platform investments, as well as an integrated approach to making technology a strategic aspect of business operations, were distinctive features of successful enterprises. For example, instead of relegating IT to the back room or considering it separately from the organization's systematic goals and initiatives, there should be an embrace of outside ideas for transforming the company through technology, bolstered by a strong relationship between the CIO and the CMO, the report explained.

"Today, all roads lead to digital. From business strategy to execution, digital technology has become the foundation for everything we do," said Chris Curran, PwC advisory principal and chief technologist. "Simply put, you can't afford to underestimate digital. Through all of our research, CEOs have made it clear that they see both the promise and the peril of digital technology and we believe that charting their company's course in the digital age is the No. 1 challenge business leaders will face in 2014."

Outside expertise 
However, not all CEOs are confident they have the expertise or in-house resources to implement technological programs effectively. Despite identifying technology as a crucial enterprise strategy, only 20 percent of executives claimed an excellent digital IQ, the report said. Consequently, many companies may be struggling to turn their aspirations into reality and take full advantage of the opportunities presented by advanced technology.

That's where managed service providers can make a positive impact for enterprises that perceive the possibilities afforded by solutions such as cloud hosting and data analytics. Relying on the expertise of seasoned, trained professionals, decision-makers can work with trusted partners to develop and implement systems tailored to their unique requirements and goals. As Nextgov explained, referring to the federal industry, many IT managers see "tremendous potential" for how cloud computing could help them overcome a number of challenges including data storage and security, but for many agencies, it's still just potential. A little extra expertise and guidance might be able to change that.

Changes are coming to the health care industry, many of which are driven by remarkable advancements in technology such as cloud computing. From electronic health records (EHR) to nuanced sensory devices, medical providers have extraordinary opportunities to enhance their processes and make decisions informed by greater quantities of data than ever before. Big data holds significant potential for the industry, as it promises to fuel analytics and best practice advisory initiatives, helping professionals to identify health trends faster and deploy optimal treatments more efficiently.

However, all of these dreams and aspirations come to naught without the right infrastructure and support in place to facilitate advanced technological strategies. In addition to maintaining stringent network security, including HIPAA compliance, health care organizations need to make sure their systems have the capacity to handle increasing information and application loads as well as the right data management processes to keep resources both secure and useful.

Driven by pressures, medical centers turn to tech 
As SingularityHub reported, Dr. Daniel Kraft, faculty chair for medicine and neuroscience at Singularity University, recently assessed the trajectory of the health care field, particularly through the lens of IT developments. He noted that with increased pressures from government initiatives and demographic shifts, the adoption of more portable, highly efficient and extremely effective technology is critical to ongoing success.

To achieve these goals, medical centers might need to turn to a managed IT services provider to engineer the right foundation and properly integrate the diverse technologies within a single system that functions fluidly and intuitively. Referring to Forrester research, CIO Magazine noted some of the issues health care facilities face in deriving value from their information management systems. These challenges include maintaining data quality so organizations can uphold standards such as continuity of care (CCD), investing in proper data analytics and management tools, facilitating mobile workflows on a range of devices and taking advantage of the cloud to accommodate growing resources. Of course, all of these initiatives must also be conducted with careful consideration of HIPAA compliance and other regulatory guidelines.

Coordinating the adoption of new technologies and methodologies can be both intimidating and difficult, especially as medical professionals are already strained by rising demand for health services. Managed services can be a great support system for organizations looking to optimize their solutions. As Forrester's Skip Snow advised, implementing this sort of system is no longer about gaining a competitive advantage - it's a matter of survival.

If your enterprise applications aren't quite running up to par, it might be time to take a look at your cloud infrastructure performance. While many users are quick to blame individual apps and programs when they're sluggish or unresponsive, the fact of the matter is that they can't function at top capacity without reliable, well-run cloud services. 

Mobile apps are only as good as the underlying system
A recent study by mobile applications performance management company Crittercism revealed the extent to which cloud performance impacts app behavior. Although the survey focused on consumer-facing programs, the insights apply equally to enterprise apps, which are often hosted through cloud solutions. 

The report explained that user expectations are high for applications - to be effective, apps should be able to respond within one second. Most fall short of this goal, and sometimes crash, because the underlying infrastructure is insufficient. In fact, 47 percent of apps crash more than 1 percent of the time, and 32 percent terminate unexpectedly 2 percent of the time, the study found.

Poor uptime and lackluster performance doesn't just evoke user frustration, it can also impact a company's bottom line. The estimates that the report provided for a business with $1 billion in annual revenue speak volumes to the importance of consistent app responsiveness:

• 0.1 percent downtime costs $82, 192 per month 
• 1 percent downtime costs $0.8 million per month
• 3 percent downtime costs $2.5 million per month

Thus, even with 97 percent uptime, companies can be losing out on significant profits. For internal apps, similar rates can be applied to lost employee productivity.

Implementing dependable cloud infrastructure 
With the support of managed service providers, companies can achieve more consistent uptime and optimal cloud performance, which can ultimately improve their app offerings for internal or customer-facing purposes. In addition to engineering a robust, highly functional foundation, companies should seek partners that can help them maintain and continually optimize their solutions.

For example, cloud reports offer business leaders insights into the performance and usage of their assets, allowing them to plan for future costs and make better decisions about resource allocation. Services can also assist corporations by enhancing availability, improving response times and specifically managing application performance. By relying on the expertise of these partners, company leaders can devote their attention to developing or implementing the best applications and tools for their companies, confident in these apps' ability to support their firms with a robust, highly functional infrastructure.

Cloud computing is taking off in the corporate world, providing ample opportunities for companies to radically transform and enhance their operations. Recent research by IHS Technology projected that businesses would spend $235.1 billion on cloud-retailed technology by 2017, TechTarget reported. This transition is fueled by IT leaders' desire to take advantage of the scalability, agility and cost-effectiveness of the platform, particularly as managed service providers help to ease security concerns and simplify the implementation process.

Just using the cloud is one thing, however - to truly gain a competitive edge, corporations should seek to become cloud-first enterprises, argued Gigaom contributor Christian Gheorghe, founder and CEO of Tidemark. 

Cloud-first companies and business strategies 
Integrating cloud resources and tools into company practices opens the door to a wide range of strategic possibilities. Gheorghe focused on the opportunities for business analytics, noting that the cloud could prove to be a true disrupter, radically altering how corporations conduct their business intelligence initiatives. By engineering and making use of the appropriate architecture, organizations can expand their analytical capabilities, taking advantage of resources such as big data and real-time reporting. He added that being cloud-first enables business leaders to extract information from huge stores of structured and unstructured data - including from social media and other online sources - and turn these raw facts and figures into actionable insights.

A cloud-first mindset fully embraces the capability of the cloud, rather than simply retaining legacy systems and perhaps using some cloud storage, Gheorghe explained. While all organizations have different requirements and objectives, the point is that they should consider how the cloud's offerings can help them transform their business in a positive way, instead of simply regarding it as a bigger server.

That's why cloud services hold great potential to assist corporations even beyond computing and analytics. TechTarget mentioned how transitioning to the cloud, particularly with the assistance of managed services, can free up IT teams to devote their attention to other aspects of their companies' needs and projects.

"There's been a big shift over the last 10 years in what I've been able to do with my staff. Our brightest minds were getting too involved in day-to-day tasks and were not able to be visible players in areas that were adding value to the company," Don Baker, CIO of Mediaocean, told the source.

By alleviating some of these day-to-day management pressures, cloud services can enable employees to turn their attention to developing new technology and coming up with innovative ways to improve their organization and its products.

The cloud offers a number of powerful business advantages for enterprises: It provides an affordable, scalable data storage solution, empowers employees with highly accessible collaborative resources and streamlines disaster recovery processes. Companies looking to take advantage of the cloud have a number of options, from public to private services as well as an array of managed hosting solutions. Choosing the right match for the organization can make all the difference between an acceptable solution and a resource that truly optimizes business operations.

Organizations take to the hybrid cloud
According to Gartner research, the hybrid cloud is growing in popularity: The report predicted that close to half of all large enterprises will use the hybrid cloud by 2017. The hybrid approach is attractive to companies that need the security and flexibility of the private cloud without sacrificing the cost-effectiveness of the public cloud. Hybrid arrangements can be tailored to an organization's unique needs, allowing it to tier data according to security and access requirements. In a business environment that is permeated by rapidly evolving data and technology, agility is key to sustainable success.

"Virtualization reduces capital expenses, and standards and automation reduce operational expenses," said Thomas Bittman, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "However, taking the next step of adding usage metrics, self-service offerings and automated provisioning requires investment in technologies without a significant reduction in operational cost. With this in mind, the driving factor for going that next step should primarily be agility."

Hybrid cloud offers agility, oversight
Gartner explained that agility is emerging as the primary reason corporate leaders are moving their operations to the cloud, as they outsource infrastructure to transform their business processes and strategies. In addition to agility, companies also value the cloud for efficient ways to host their applications. Although the public cloud offers extremely affordable services, not all operations are appropriate for the platform, so organizations need hybrid options that let them delegate certain processes to the private cloud.

The cloud is also a valuable resource for meeting the demands of an increasingly mobile workforce. With the growing popularity of BYOD policies, enterprises need solutions that provide employees with company tools they can access on their devices while still allowing the IT team to manage security. As NetworkWorld observed, the convenience of the public cloud has motivated some workers to go around their IT teams to use services. With the hybrid cloud, companies can offer similar - but managed - services to their employees to discourage "shadow IT" behavior.

As cloud computing rapidly becomes the norm, organizations have a variety of data storage options. There's a lot of thought that goes into choosing the right type of cloud and the right provider: Businesses need to carefully consider all of their possibilities with a solid understanding of their own operational goals and requirements. As an industry leader, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the biggest, most robust cloud providers out there, with an emphasis on continual innovation to offer additional options and services. For that reason, many organizations are choosing AWS as the basis of their cloud infrastructure, which can be optimized with the help of cloud service experts.

The power of AWS
AWS offers a powerful cloud platform, which is appealing to companies that need reliable, cost-effective data management systems. For example, Scope Technologies recently selected AWS to safely accommodate its expanding data volume without straining its network resources. 

"We [...] chose the company that offered more storage than we thought we'd ever need as well as segmentation, scalability, cost control, incredible support and additional product offerings," said Matt Hannan, director of software development at Scope Technologies. 

Many executives are concerned about data loss and site crashes due to overload, which is why it's important both to select the right infrastructure and work with experts who can implement and maintain cloud solutions effectively. Even organizations that don't have the internal resources and personnel to develop high-performance systems can benefit from AWS through top-notch connection services. These solutions, such as Database-as-a-Service, can make transitioning to a cloud provider like Amazon a little less intimidating and complicated.

Adopting Amazon's cloud 
To derive greater value from their cloud systems and enhance their operations, companies must be able to tailor the cloud environment to fit their unique needs. To assist with this task without requiring extensive training for their IT teams, businesses can rely on managed service providers to help them implement and maintain their system. In other words, they can still enjoy a customized, high-performance cloud solution without needing to set it all up themselves.

Cloud storage is becoming a necessity for rapidly expanding data volumes, but it's imperative to select the right tools that will empower, not obstruct, business activities. Most organizations choose AWS for the efficient, flexible, high-speed solution it offers - drawing on expertise to implement and govern their cloud service in the best way possible can help turn these expectations into reality.

When you hear the word "audit," you probably don't think about an ongoing, regular process. Instead, your stomach might drop a little at the thought of an examination by the IRS, or maybe you've established a periodic internal assessment. Continuous auditing, however, can be an ally in keeping your system secure, and with advancements in technology, it's not that intimidating to take advantage of it. In fact, some managed service providers take care of the details, tailoring a continuous audit system to your organization's unique needs.

Why audit continuously? 
According to a white paper by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), companies have successfully used continuous auditing and continuous monitoring (CA/CM) processes to make better decisions about risk by analyzing key business data and metrics, giving them an important competitive advantage. By constantly tracking your data system, you can evaluate it against industry regulations, such as PCI, and identify deviations or risks faster. Because breaches in compliance or information security can quickly spiral out of control, it's a huge advantage to be able to recognize and respond to any issues before much time elapses.

The AICPA found that few companies are taking advantage of CA/CM. One of the significant hurdles holding organizations back in this area is the diversified skill set required to effectively implement and maintain a CA/CM system. The white paper explained that CA/CM experts need to have the following qualifications: 

• An audit foundation
• Knowledge of business processes, controls, and inherent risks 
• Internal audit experience
• Familiarity with audit planning, audit processes and forensic accounting
• An understanding of data extraction tools (IDEA, ACL)
• Data analytics background (regression, ANOVA, data mining, SQL, probabilities)
• Knowledge in statistics
• Technical skills (ERP, programming)
• Professional skepticism and judgment 

Not all corporations have the resources to develop this skill set in-house. For businesses that use cloud services, however, there are easier ways to reap the benefits of CA/CM.

Taking advantage of continuous auditing services 
When working with a cloud service provider, you should inquire into their continuous auditing offerings, such as Tripwire Configuration Assessment. You can partner with your provider to track your system according to your own custom rules, ensuring that the monitoring process addresses your specific infrastructure setup and the metrics that are important to your business.

Continuous auditing services can give you peace of mind knowing that any deviation from a trusted system state will trigger alerts in real-time. Real-time reporting makes it possible to react to system changes without compromising performance or compliance, helping to keep your solution secure.

Target's massive data breach and similar incidents amon

g other large retailers have taken the national spotlight in the last few months. In the wake of these attacks, many merchants are taking a renewed look at Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards and other safeguards to bolster their security.

The pressing need for better security
Through vulnerabilities in retailers' systems, cybercriminals were able to gain access to millions of people's personal and financial information, leaving them at risk for fraud and identity theft. The financial impact of these breaches is still unfolding: From PR struggles and wary consumers to fines and the need to offer affected parties free credit monitoring, a data breach can carry a mammoth price tag, even if criminals don't act on the information. For Target, Reuters reported in February that costs related to the breach had already reached $61 million.

Reflecting on the frequency of attacks, industry experts point to a widespread failure to maintain PCI compliance. PCI DSS is the basic standard by which the Payment Card Industry Council regulates transaction systems. Compliance must be upheld as a component of a broader network or cloud security program to guard against attacks and accidents. Unfortunately, many retailers are struggling to ensure their systems stay compliant.

For example, as Retail Gazette noted, PCI regulations stipulate that organizations should incorporate network segmentation if they store or process payment card data. In the event of criminal activity, this requirement helps prevent hackers from gaining access to additional systems once they gain entry to one part of the network. The goal is to prevent a situation like Target's, where hackers gained access to the core system after hacking into one point on the network.

PCI compliance is too important to be a once-a-year consideration. Instead, it should be actively and continuously maintained to prevent giving hackers opportune moments to strike.

Expert assistance can help 
The increasing frequency of malicious attacks has created a new urgency for merchants and other businesses that process payments and collect sensitive customer or employee information. As they implement technological solutions to accommodate growing volumes of data, such as cloud-based services, organizations might not have the in-house expertise and personnel necessary to give PCI and other security the attention it demands.

Managed service providers can help companies establish and maintain robust data solutions guarded with comprehensive security, including services to ensure PCI compliance. Following PCI guidelines alone cannot ensure protection against an incident, of course, but it's a crucial component of a security program that includes other protections, employee training and regular support. 

Three significant factors having a major impact on the role of Database Administrators

The Explosion of Fast and Cheap and Data Storage 

The explosion of cheap and fast data storage has completely changed they way we approach the task of database administration. Recently one of my customers released a code change that generated over 1 TB of change log files in under 24 hours. Beyond thinking about how solve the issue, I started thinking about how truly amazing this problem is and how this issue is representative of the current state of database administration.

A chronological look at 1TB of change logs generated in under 24 hours:

• 3 years ago it would be difficult to find a small to medium server model that could process the data fast enough to generate this rate of change
• 5 years ago, it was considered a resume enhancement to have managed a TB size database - now they are everywhere
• 7 years ago, it would have cost about $50,000 for the disk trays to hold the change logs (not to mention the data set) and even then, only a computer the size of a refrigerator would have the power to perform the task
• 15+ years ago it would have taken the resources of a large corporation or government to handle this task

The throughput and capacity of the current generation of disk storage technology is astounding. This is particularly impactful for legacy applications/databases that cannot be altered or improved. Instead of throwing up our hands and saying there is nothing we can do; we can discuss solutions that offer 250,000 or more IOPs.

Clustering in the Cloud

The cloud computing phenomenon is here to stay and database environments are no stranger to this fact. Recently, I dabbled in our cloud service offering and in a matter of minutes and a few button presses I configured and deployed a three-node database cluster with a small front-end server for application testing. Total time to configure and deploy: 30 minutes. I am amazed. The last time I built a similar environment on physical hardware, it took 3 days and the efforts of at least 6 highly trained people. (data center tech, network admin, storage admin, Unix admin and database admin).  

Equally impressive is how well these virtual computers perform. It is a testament to how utterly amazing the recent generation of 2U and 4U servers have become. If you are interested in cloud computing but have not yet had the chance to use it, I would recommend that you attend an Amazon one-day workshop. Datapipe’s Cloud Reports for AWS is an excellent tool for understanding the efficiencies of the AWS platform (free trial available). Hearing IT professionals describe the alphabet soup of acronyms in IT terms you are familiar with is crucial to understanding the features and limitations a cloud environment offers.

A Growing Interest in New Database Platforms

Why is no one in a hurry to adopt the latest and greatest database versions? In the past year many major software companies have released major updates to their flagship products. In the database world, Microsoft and Oracle have major upgrades to their flagship product lines and my list of adopters is near zero. It is not even on the radar, there is almost no interest at all.  

In the past month I’ve participated in several RFPs and nearly all of them want to use a database that is either out of vendor support or one I had to use a search engine to find. MongoDB, Cassandra and memcached are now mature products, but there are over 150 other variations of NoSQL and that number grows every time I look. I understand that the software design process takes time and testing against new releases costs money. The only thing I can figure here is that we hit the sweet spot on relational database features and performance several years ago and no one is upgrading their databases because what they have does everything they need.  

I’ve seen this trend in operating systems too, but I don’t want to start a Linux vs. Windows flame war. I wish the primary database vendors would embrace the cloud more robustly. I spend too much time explaining to customers the difference between hard and soft partitioning and how they could run their database in a VM, it will work fine, but will cost them a wheel barrow full of gold and won’t be supported by the vendor. I’m hoping this is a trend that changes over the next few years. This is driving application and database development towards a multitude of new database technologies. As alien as NoSQL is to those of use used to relational databases, that is one area experiencing rapid growth and a great deal of consideration from startups designing their own product lines.

DBAs are Here to Stay

We live in amazing times where our computers have become so powerful we can’t keep them busy. Where virtualization frees us from mundane build tasks and cuts the build time to fractions of what they once were. Where databases of many terabytes are easy to build and manage. Surprisingly, these trends have not ended my career or usefulness. In fact, as one who understands how computers function and communicate, I feel more useful than ever.

As data volumes and technological resources expand, cloud storage is quickly becoming the norm. In the past, many organizations were held back by privacy and security fears about information managed on someone else's servers. However, cloud services have advanced significantly in the last few years, with additional options and greater support creating robust security programs for sensitive data. Experts at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco agreed that the cloud now offers safe options for corporate data management, and sometimes provides better security than companies' private infrastructure.

Debunking security misconceptions

Venture Beat explained that many security professionals think cloud security is harder to maintain than their own on-site services. At the RSA Conference, 74 percent of polled attendees cited cloud security as a bigger concern now than in 2013. However, many of the security complications are rooted less in the technology itself than in the difficulty of managing diverse mobile devices. 

Although many large organizations fear the security implications of migrating to the cloud, the vast majority are satisfied after making the transition, Computer World reported. In fact, most of the failures surrounding cloud-based data management can be attributed to enterprise or employee error. As with any internal networks, cloud-based systems depend on organizations to implement in-house security measures and train employees on best practices to keep data safe.

Managed services can fill the gaps

Public, private and hybrid cloud options give organizations better control over how their information is stored and protected, allowing them to choose the appropriate resources based on the sensitive nature of sets of data. Additionally, high-end cloud service providers offer comprehensive security support for the information they store on their servers. Not only do these advancements help to fill the gaps where the cloud was previously viewed as a vulnerable solution, they can actually offer greater protection than many in-house IT teams are able to build within company networks.

"When we outsource infrastructure, we do it because when we consolidate expertise you get better results. You don't run your own airline or do your own taxes. There is enormous value in having an entity that is in charge of that," Bruce Schneier, a cryptographer and CTO of Co3 Systems, said at the conference, according to CRN.

In other words, by partnering with the right cloud service provider, organizations gain a wealth of security expertise that many are unable to afford within their own tech teams. These experts are dedicated to designing and maintaining a robust security program for each company's unique needs.

The retail industry has been in the spotlight for data breaches of late, but few sectors have as pressing a need for data security as the healthcare field. From HIPAA compliance to meaningful use guidelines, medical organizations are bound by an urgent need to keep patient data protected while facilitating a great amount of collaboration in high-intensity, fast-paced situations. The development of electronic health record (EHR) software and data management technology has created incredible opportunities for the medical field, but with these advancements comes the need to protect and secure this digital information with managed security services and compliance solutions catered to the healthcare industry.

Data breaches an ongoing problem in healthcare
Despite efforts to prioritize the safety of patient health information, healthcare organizations are struggling to implement adequate security measures. According to the 2013 HIMSS Security Survey, data breaches remain a top concern for medical facilities, regardless of increased efforts to focus on information protection. In addition to exposure due to hackers and equipment loss or theft, organizations are at risk when employees are inappropriately able to access data.

"Though progress is noticeable, it is critical that healthcare organizations put in place a comprehensive plan that addresses potential security threats – whether internal or external – to prevent electronic health data breaches and minimize the impact of a breach should one occur," said Michael Bruemmer, vice president for Experian Data Breach Resolution.

Impact of breaches highlights need for better security solutions
Data breaches and HIPAA compliance violations can carry a heavy price tag for healthcare networks, in addition to eroding patient trust and exposing people to identity theft. As a recent example, Skagit County in Northwest Washington was fined $215,000 for violating HIPAA breach notification rules, Health Data Management reported. Meritalk's February 2014 report revealed that nearly 20 percent of medical organizations worldwide experienced a breach in the last year, costing an average of $810,189 each. eSecurity Planet indicated that 30 million Americans have been affected by health information breaches since 2007, with 7 million exposed in 2013 alone. This represents a 138 percent increase since 2012, the source added. In short, the problem is big, it's growing and it's incredibly important to address it.

Protecting patient health information is a top priority for medical centers. As they take advantage of the opportunities afforded by EHR technology and cloud-based data storage that accommodates greater volumes of information for analytics and cloud computing, it's imperative for them to implement solutions with top-notch cloud security.

Unix – The Beginning

First created as a small time-sharing (multiuser) system, Bell Labs implemented Unix in Assembly Language in early 1972. It was then migrated to the high level language "C" late in 1972. This rewrite of the kernel in a high level language made Unix highly portable, which would soon lead to Unix being ported to other hardware platforms. Over the next five years Unix grew in usability and in 1977 the first ports to non-DEC hardware were achieved. One Unix port took place at the University of Wollongong using an Interdata 7/32 system. Another took place in the basement of the Bell Labs facility in Holmdel, NJ using an Interdata 8/32 system.

The Perkin-Elmer Corp. purchased Interdata in 1973 and continued to use the Interdata name for the computer product line until about 1978. The Perkin-Elmer systems were fast real-time systems. Real-time meaning guaranteed response time to interrupts and a fully interruptible kernel. One of the more interesting early applications was the original Space Shuttle Simulator which was built using about 25 Perkin-Elmer 8/32 systems and a real-time OS called OS/32.

I joined Perkin-Elmer in 1977 and first saw Unix in 1982 when the company had implemented an internal system on Version 7 Unix. Ten years after creation Unix was already finding it’s way into the Enterprise on a very limited basis.

Replaced by Doorstops - Moving from an IBM Mainframe to AIX

After spending a couple of years honing my skills as a Fortran programmer on real-time systems, I wrote a debugger and graphic system for digital oil refinery simulators and projects for the DOD.  In 1985 I moved to a company where I was doing Process Control using Perkin-Elmer systems. In 1988 I joined the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) with an interest in Unix and how it could benefit my company’s development efforts. The Vice-President of Special Projects became aware of my interest in Unix and told me he had deployed business systems on Unix servers as a Proof of Concept in one of our divisions. I was given a terminal, a 9600 baud modem and a serial connection through our SNA network to access the system in Texas from New Jersey. At this point in my career I had just learned C and my experience with this proof of concept system taught me quite a bit about Unix. Of course, being an IBM mainframe shop, the Unix systems were not taken seriously for any real work.

Later that year I found a copy of “Xenix” in the office purchased for our Novell admin for use in a test. Xenix was found to be “useless” during testing. 6 months later I had Oracle 5 installed on Xenix. We ran 5 dumb terminals for programmers to develop and debug SQL-Forms apps before uploading them to production on the mainframe. By 1990 we were installing Sun equipment for scientific computing in a research division. In August, 1990 the RS6000 with AIX went GA and we immediately purchased 2 Model 320 systems. The mainframe manager called them “Expensive Doorstops”. They were used to write geologic mapping systems used in house. 

I became a player in the cabal to push Unix throughout the company. In 1992 Gartner made a recommendation to upper management to pursue AIX based systems to replace the mainframe running the company’s business systems. We purchased beefy RS-6000 gear and the mainframe was outsourced. Literally picked up and moved to a third party location - replaced by “Doorstops”.

Unix Adoption and Growth in the Financial Industry 

We were very early adopters moving to AIX in 1992 but slowly Unix was creeping into enterprise organizations around the world. The Internet and a world networked together with TCP/IP exploded in 1995. I moved on to spend a few years at Bellcore and Bell Labs where I worked on Unix systems used for research and management of traffic on AT&T’s Frame Relay Network product. 

During the 90s the financial industry had made a huge move to Unix based systems for high-speed daily transactions. In the late 90s I worked for a company that sold a specialized database. It was sold standalone or packaged with a daily feed of financial data. The system came with data going back to the 1950s and the daily feed contained global market close data. The system was implemented and delivered on Sun Sparc hardware.

I had been using Linux at home since 1995 and became a bit of a Linux evangelist at the office. I pushed for a Linux version of our product, but there was no demand. In the early 2000s, one of our very large customers told us they wanted the product running on Linux as soon as possible. After porting and delivering the Linux version it was not long before it was our most popular version of the product.

Linux was becoming the darling of people looking for solutions that ran on small but powerful systems that were much less expensive than proprietary Unix. Proprietary Unix and mainframes still owned the very large scale, processing in large companies. Meanwhile Linux was taking over much of the rest of server market.

Enter the Cloud 

In 2008, I joined Datapipe. I liked that we were building large and small Linux solutions for large clients. At this time we already had a VMware based virtualization platform available to customers, it was a precursor to the cloud. When I joined, we were already engaged in exploring the software and hardware components of building a cloud product. The cloud initiative progressed successfully and we now have the Stratosphere public/private cloud offering for clients in every region of the globe. 

The most exciting part for me today is that I get to manage cutting edge technologies. Projects that are using technologies like puppet and razor to provision and manage the configuration of servers and virtual cloud instances. Using puppet to instantiate cloud hardware clusters and hundreds of VMs in a few short hours. The provisioning of bare metal servers at the push of a button and software defined networking bring automation to a level I never thought possible. I envy the younger people for being able to use languages and software technologies in ways that could not be even dreamed of 35 years ago. I enjoy guiding their efforts and watching them grow and have fun out on the edge.

This pretty much sums up one mans subjective take on Unix over the years. How an OS that was cobbled together to play a game became the OS whose derivatives run nearly every smartphone, phone system, business system and web server in the world.

By deploying the Threat Manager virtual appliance in your Cloud setup and installing the agent on the systems you want to protect, you are tapping into Alert Logic's 24x7 Security Operations Center (SOC) which will alert Datapipe's 24x7 Security Team to any potential attacks or intrusions into our environment.

To start using Alert Logic Threat Manager in your environment, you will need to access Alert Logic through the Cloud Apps portion of the Datapipe Cloud Dashboard.

 Once you have opened Cloud Apps, you can then select "Alert Logic" to get started.

From the Alert Logic Cloud Apps page, you can start deploying the Alert Logic Virtual Appliance that will be needed for your environment. You will need to deploy one appliance for each Public Zone and EPN Zone (and, if you want hard isolation between EPN networks, each network).

As you can see when deploying your appliance, the Appliance should be available for every Zone that Datapipe Stratosphere provides.

You will then go through a wizard similar to the standard Datapipe Stratosphere New Virtual Machine wizard. Selecting different Offerings will provide you different amounts of traffic that can be analyzed by Alert Logic Threat Manager.

You then can select the Security Groups or Primary Network for the instance.

In the final step of the appliance deployment, you will have the option to set the instance metadata (just as you would a normal instance).

After a few minutes, once your appliance has been deployed, you will then have the option to install the Threat Manager Agent on the instances you want to protect.

The Agent can be installed on RPM or DEB package based Linux Distributions as well as Windows.

Once your Appliance has registered with Alert Logic (may take up to 10-15 minutes after the appliance provisioning is complete) your installation instructions will include your Threat Manager API key in-line to make for a simple copy & paste install on Linux instances.

For Windows, you will have to run through the MSI installer, but your API Key is displayed on the page for you to copy & paste into your RDP session for the install.

Once your agents are installed, you will need to assign them to your Threat Manager Appliance.

The process of Assigning the agents to the Appliance is already documented for you to work through on the Assignment page.

Once assigned, you will have full access to your Alert Logic Threat Manager dashboard to set up your Threat Manager settings.

Once this process is complete, your instances with the Agent installed and assigned to your appliance are now fully protected by Alert Logic Threat Manager and you will receive notifications from the Datapipe Security Team when any issues arise.

To access your AWS Instances, you will need to go to the AWS tab in the Dashboard.

From the AWS portion of the Cloud Dashboard, you can select any instance running in the EC2 Public Cloud and click the "Enable Advanced Monitoring" button.

This will start the Wizard that will allow you to select what user you would like to connect via and which Security Group you would like updated to include the rules needed for the Advanced Monitoring to connect and monitor your instance.

After selecting and entering the connectivity details, you will be presented with the Terms of Service.

To boil these down, Advanced Monitoring is an agentless monitoring solution that uses SSH (for Linux/UNIX) and WMI (for Windows) to connect to the instance and monitor the devices, processes, services, and health of the instance. If you change the credentials of the user you specified (SSH key for Linux/UNIX and password for Windows) or remove the rules in the security group allowing the monitoring collector located in your Region to connect, then monitoring will break and no one will be notified if a problem arises.

After accepting the ToS, the device will be submitted to the queue of devices to be added and monitoring should begin in less than 5 minutes.

The Advanced Monitoring system will automatically discover services, processes, file systems, and all other components of your system. Therefore, it's recommended that you enable Advanced Monitoring after setting up your software inside the instance. However, if you missed something, the device will have a fresh autodiscovery process run every 24 hours, so your changes will be picked up.

If there are processes which aren't automatically discovered or you have any other issues with Advanced Monitoring, please feel free to open a Support Request and someone with Datapipe will assist you in resolving this issues as soon as possible.

Datapipe has proven that you can run large, mission critical infrastructure in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. Every day our customers run large, complex systems as well as business applications such as MS SharePoint.

Yet, enterprises are still challenged by the notion that the cloud is “uncontrolled”. I’ve spoken with dozens of enterprise technology leaders, and have found this perception stems from several issues, the most salient being the perceived lack of transparency into this intangible IT environment.

Why does this perception exist? 

In order to migrate to the cloud, a clever CIO will first move non-critical workloads to minimize risks. For instance, a proof of concept can confirm the cloud value proposition, the transformational nature of the change, and the overall ROI.

As these developments progress, the effortless and swift provisioning of cloud resources create greater opportunities for innovation, while simultaneously producing a perceived chaos. As the development and tech teams increase consumption of cloud resources, the lock-in level grows higher, and projects are generally not managed for compliance, security, or efficiency.  Transparency (or the lack there of) then becomes a key issue. The growing monthly invoice manifests itself as a CFO and CIO’s typical alert, consequently jeopardizing continued adoption.

The unique benefit of a true cloud platform like Amazon Web Services is that you can assert control using systems like APIs and SDKs; contrasted with the data center, where assertion is driven by policy and procedure. Ask any enterprise CIO if they have the ability to completely audit their entire technology estate for efficiency or security at the click of a button; they will most likely say “no.” But making these assertions, querying this data, and relating it to business and technology stakeholders in a clear and concise fashion, is not a trivial exercise.

The advantage of working with solutions like Datapipe, is that we leverage our experience and innovation that has been baked into the products and services our customers rely on – to turn the chaos of the cloud into controlled peace of mind. Having a manageable IT estate allows enterprises to focus time and energy on innovation.

With the Newvem acquisition, Datapipe customers can now get all the benefits of transparency and governance – efficiency, security, and availability. All of this, without interfering how the customer – the developer or the IT engineer does business. Datapipe’s award-winning support with Managed AWS enables businesses to take action on these assertions. With the Newvem acquisition, Datapipe is the full cloud lifecycle management solution for the enterprise.

I began my journey in the world of cloud computing roughly about 9 years ago, leading cloud and SaaS products and development teams. Two years ago, as part of my position as Cloud Evangelist for Clicksoftware, I had the pleasure of meeting two progressive entrepreneurs, Zev Laderman and Ilan Naslavsky.  At that time, they had just begun developing cutting edge technology that supported AWS cloud users, optimizing usage and utilization. They had asked me to test this innovation, which was in its early alpha stage. So, being the optimistic and supportive early cloud adopter that I am, I immediately gave them the AWS keys (back then, you had only one option – the full right keys). Ilan, who came up with the idea, went over the AWS account Newvem’s analysis with me.  During his explanation, we came across a single Windows SQL EC2 instance that sat underutilized in the region of Japan.  Apparently, it had been running for nearly 5 months, resulting in approximately $6000 worth of Amazon operating costs. Eventually I managed to save around 40% of the AWS bill (tens of thousands of dollars).

I was the Newvem’s first alpha customer. Not long after, I joined the Newvem team, excited to be a part of this extremely innovative company. It was one of the few companies at the time to have the SMAC (Social, Mobile, Big Data Analytics and Cloud) notion as one of its leading concepts.

Newvem’s founders were very clear about their need to move fast. They understood the importance of the AWS cloud, its exponential growth pace as well as the highly dynamic nature of the public cloud and the extreme complexity of moving from hardware to an IaaS.  Together with the core product values, Newvem’s founders realized that the three imperative values for every innovative company today, were social media, content and community. This is where they let me take the wheel, as the company’s Chief Evangelist and Community VP.

The last two years have been extremely interesting, taking part in not only leading a company, but in a vision as well, within the ground-breaking cloud industry. Looking back, Newvem managed to define and build a new silo within the cloud management domain – usage and utilization optimization. Closely tracking the market evolution and competition, it was interesting to see how our statements and definitions for the new service were followed and used by other market players.

"Datapipe's acquisition of Newvem is aligned with our commitment to be the industry leader in managed cloud services for the enterprise,” said Robb Allen, Datapipe CEO. “Combining Datapipe's proven enterprise IT and cloud services with Newvem’s cloud optimization platform provides our clients with 360 degree insight into cloud operations and optimization." Check out the complete press release

As a cloud enthusiast, I can say without a doubt that this acquisition is one of the most important ones in the cloud arena.  As Newvem’s amazing team already knows, we have yet again reached another milestone in the evolution of cloud computing. AWS business grows fast and its ecosystem is the first component that enjoys the tremendous success. Datapipe is one of the leading innovative IT Managed Service Providers (MSPs) that I’ve encountered over the last few years. This statement may seem overly confident, but let me explain. Datapipe has been in the market for over a decade. Their business approach is tailored to each customer’s needs on an individual project basis. However, what happens when your customers want to migrate from the traditional environment to the cloud? Datapipe leaders read the market changes correctly and today the company is one of the most important AWS cloud players in the field; enabling enterprises and government agencies to move to the public cloud while delivering enterprise grade cloud principles such as security and compliance. In order to become such a player, a Managed Service Provider (MSP) needs to be fast and find different ways to enhance its team’s skills and professionalism as well as make moves such as this acquisition.

I welcome you to read my analysis on the cloud broker player, which relates nicely to this topic.

Newvem services’ core capabilities are very important to the enterprise, including the ability to capture and analyze enormous amounts of machine-generated data and translate it to real business values. This is cutting edge technology that perfectly complements the core capabilities of the cloud MSP. Datapipe made a very smart move with ideal timing, paying close attention to the relevant needs of its customers. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing how Datapipe incorporates Newvem into its future business ventures.

Ofir.

Cross posted on my blog - iamondemand.com

AWS is a significant player in the public cloud domain with an estimated 32% of the $6.2 Billion spend over the public cloud. We have been analyzing trends in AWS cost and usage based on our users activity over Amazon Web Services. By comparing cost and usage data from last year, we’ve revealed significant improvements in everyday use of AWS EC2 On-Demand and Reserved Instance services, security, availability, and utilization.

This post written by Robb Allen, Datapipe Founder and CEO

For the first half of this year, we witnessed an increasing trend toward an enterprise-level adoption of the cloud. Companies are deploying projects in a combination of public and private cloud environments. We predict this trend will continue as enterprises become more confident in utilizing cloud as part of their infrastructure. 

As the C Level becomes more educated and aware of real world cloud use cases they gain added confidence in the capabilities and cost benefits of cloud services.  When those same users experience the expertise, accountability, and agility of the managed cloud model they gain an added comfort level in trusting the delivery of strategic business applications and services to the cloud.

Following the same pattern as consumer app store adoption, cloud service providers and ISVs will empower enterprises to build similar marketplaces for instant access to business applications. This type of solution drives value back to the enterprise for greater agility and cost optimization.

Also helping to evolve the cloud marketplace is the noticeable trend of IT taking on the role of a curator of business applications.  With cloud applications, developers have at their fingertips the ability to make on-demand and on-the-fly decisions to meet the goals of all front office entities, such as R&D, marketing, and line-of-business management.

Please visit our website to learn more about our expertise in managed cloud services. http://www.datapipe.com/products_services/cloud_computing

This post written by Robb Allen, Datapipe Founder and CEO

Expanding global footprints, increasing market share, and the acquisition of intellectual property and innovative technologies are among the many reasons that businesses merge. However, when enterprises grow by acquisition, the efficient management and integration of disparate IT infrastructures require a significant amount of dedicated resources. This presents a challenge in consolidating and managing an optimized infrastructure to cut operational expenditures and drive efficiency. 

Managing one data center is hard enough.  Now, add multiple configurations, interdependencies and management structures – and the bar is raised even higher.  As we’ve previously noted, IT infrastructures are the very lifeblood of business – delivering core applications like CRM, payroll, and sales operations.  Any misstep, slow-down or poor management decision can significantly impact IT services and affect the bottom line.  Data center consolidation poses difficult questions, and the agility and scalability of cloud is often the answer.

Recently, we worked alongside CDW and audio giant D&M to streamline the company’s global data centers via the cloud.  D&M is a $1 billion audio and video company offering brands such as Boston Acoustics, D&M Professional, Denon DJ, Premium Sound and Alan & Heath.  Their growth through acquisition over the years has resulted in a collection of disparate IT organizations across various continents.   

Working together, our teams consolidated 15 global data centers into a hybrid cloud solution across three data centers – running on our high-performance, Stratosphere® Cloud platform. The consolidation enabled D&M to increase its level of virtualization from 18 percent of servers and storage to 75 percent. Considering only the servers, the consolidation transformed 100 physical servers into just six.  

D&M now has fully optimized its IT infrastructure and can quickly ramp-up new applications in less than half the time it previously took. The new hybrid infrastructure removed unnecessary infrastructure and improved operational costs enabling D&M to scale on-demand in heavy use periods.

Read more about the Datapipe solution for D&M Holdings in this Case Study: Data Center Cloud Consolidation.

This post written by Robb Allen, Datapipe Founder and CEO

Global availability, performance increases in the latest hardware, and the powers of cloud computing all have significant potential to optimize your IT infrastructure. However, managing the performance of your infrastructure takes valuable time away from the strategic development initiatives of your IT staff. For many enterprises, managed service providers are the right answer to maintaining an optimal environment for their mission critical data and applications.

A managed service provider should do more than manage servers, storage and bandwidth. The right partner provides full administration, migration services and uncovers the perfect balance for managing the network, databases, security, storage, and applications. Unburdened with these daily tasks, IT managers can help the CIO/CTO with more strategic initiatives to grow the business – driving efficiency and cost savings.

The power of managed services is seen in business scenarios across the globe. Recently, we contracted with Presidiohealth – a leading provider of Web-based revenue solutions for doctors, hospitals, and caregivers. The company was undergoing a major transformation from a technology to services provider. But the infrastructure necessary to support the business just wasn’t there.

Developing an actionable plan for both cloud computing and colocation, Datapipe migrated all of Presidiohealth’s existing data – managing the Oracle database while providing back-up – and delivered a PCI package layered on top of the current infrastructure. Working closely with auditors we focused on security to create network diagrams and rules surrounding data retention. The company is now better aligned to provide their core service to customers – accurately consolidating all business-critical information to manage patient payments, coding, and billing.

Presidiohealth is just one example of a major shift happening throughout the IT industry. Companies are quickly realizing that removing the burden of IT management can boost IT optimization and result in increased performance, productivity and profitability.

Click here for additional details on our work with PresidioHealth.

Our partner Alert Logic publishes reports on cloud security twice a year. These aren't the usual surveys of IT managers that we see – Alert Logic analyzes its customers’ intrusion detection data, looks at what kinds of threats they are experiencing, and sees what’s really happening in the cloud compared to other environments.

The Fall 2012 edition and has plenty of interesting conclusions:

• Threats in the cloud and on-premise are different, but there’s nothing inherently insecure in the cloud. In fact, some threats are seen by more customers on-premise than in the cloud, and most types of attacks are more frequent on-premise.

• Web application attacks are a big problem for everyone. The report looks at the tools used to launch these attacks, and finds that the majority use automated tools. That means that it takes a lot less sophistication and effort for someone to go after your data through web application vulnerabilities.

• Different kinds of attacks come from different parts of the world – the incidents coming out of China and India look different than those from the US and Europe.

There aren’t a lot of data-driven studies like this, so have a look – you can get a copy of the new report here: info.datapipe.com/2012-alert-logic-cloud-security-report

Have you been cloud washed? You may not be alone. Our partner Compassites; offers free consulting and a customized cloud rating score for your business. Please take this quick 30 second survey and Compassites will help you understand how you are doing compared to other organizations.

This consulting offered by Compassites will help you gauge how effective your cloud strategy is or can be and most importantly, what more could be done to ensure effective use and implementation of all cloud technologies for your product targeted for your Content Delivery Network and your end users.

Take the survey for insight into your approach to cloud computing: http://www.compassitesinc.com/cloud-survey/

Thank you to Business Insider for recognizing Datapipe for the third consecutive year on the Digital 100. Datapipe was ranked #70 in 2010, #24 in 2011 and sits at #14 between Pinterest and Spotify on this years list.

From Business Insider:

"Our rankings are based on several metrics, including revenue, users, market opportunities, growth rates, and the perception of investors and tech gurus.

A lot has changed since we published last year's list. Since then, three of the top private tech companies—Facebook, Zynga, and Groupon—have gone public. And all of their stocks have crashed."

Well deserved recognition for all companies named including our partner RightScale, who have marked their 2nd appearance on the list.

The fifth annual MSPmentor 250 report is based on a global survey of MSPmentor site readers conducted from May through July 2012. The MSPmentor editorial staff also weighed in with nominations, based on the team’s daily coverage of the managed services market. The resulting MSPmentor 250 coverage represents Managed Service Provider experts across business, technology, sales, marketing, community development, coaching and more.

Datapipe would like to thank MSPmentor for recognizing CEO Robb Allen as one of the world's top experts in Managed IT Services.

I am pleased to announce that our Stratosphere enterprise cloud computing platform now supports RightScale cloud management.  Using our CloudStack based API, Datapipe customers can now leverage the power of RightScale to connect, manage, and deploy resources on Stratosphere.

To add Stratosphere to RightScale, please follow the instructions here: https://docs.cloud.datapipe.com/tutorials/registering-with-rightscale

Learn more about Stratosphere here: http://www.datapipe.com/solutions/cloud_computing_virtualization/

Recently, I gave a presentation at AWS Cloud Summit in NYC discussing the adoption of hybrid cloud infrastructures. Datapipe has seen tremendous demand for hybrid clouds from our enterprise customers.  These customers want the power and innovation of public cloud, with the assurance of managed services and connectivity to reliable, high-performance database and storage infrastructure. My presentation from the AWS NYC Summit can be found below.

Please note, at the AWS Summit I went through some details that you won't find in the slideshare deck. I have outlined a number of these highlights below the presentation:

Datapipe and New Relic have partnered to offer all Datapipe customers New Relic Standard free of charge! With New Relic you can monitor your apps in real time, track real end-user experiences, and diagnose and eliminate bottlenecks.

Datapipe clients can gain complete visibility into their application in a few minutes! Everything is ready for to start using New Relic today. It's easy so what are you waiting for?

Datapipe has been managing complex private virtualization solutions on hypervisors like VMware for many years, in addition to public cloud resources from Amazon Web Services (Datapipe’s managed services have been available for AWS since Nov 2010).Our cloud portfolio is also driving hybrid cloud platforms – our AWS Direct Connect Enabled Service realizes our vision as single provider IT solutions provider and provides a great way for existing AWS customers to grow and expand their footprint into diverse delivery models (i.e. Hybrid big-iron database + public cloud) with the same OPEX economics as public cloud.

As we looked to evolve our virtualization and cloud solutions to respond to the growth of the cloud ecosystem, we chose to leverage Citrix CloudStack, for a number of reasons:

• CloudStack is designed with AWS-style architecture in mind.  Our customers want AWS compatibility – and so do we.  We leverage AWS infrastructure in our managed cloud services, CDN, and storage.  As a managed service provider, these options give us new ways to provide high-level SLAs to our customers.

• CloudStack allowed for new hypervisor options to lower cost and provide more value to our customers.  Before CloudStack, we had little choice in hypervisor because of all the mechanics and logistics required to operate at scale, across public and private deployment styles.  We now have a world of new options like KVM and Xen available to our customers.

• Proven at scale in real production environments. CloudStack has proven itself over competition in actual cloud deployments – the case studies are well known, but their impact in a fast moving market like cloud computing can not be understated.

• CloudStack is a true open-source platform.  Open platforms are key to our vision for single vendor governance – allowing us capability to “command and control” the architecture in the future. Our customers come to us for turnkey solutions, expecting quick turnaround, full management, and diverse set of options – not a “you only get what’s in the box” solution.

The Citrix’ decision to elevate CloudStack into the Apache Software Foundation, ensures true openness and community governance. We look forward to contributing and participating in the initiative.

Learn more about Datapipe’s cloud solutions:

• AWS Direct Connect Enabled Services

• Datapipe Managed AWS

• Stratosphere

• Content Delivery Network (CDN)