Parlez-vous open source? While wide-spread open source usage is still debated in many companies, the French have been advocating for all open source all the time in government and education. French President Nicolas Sarkozy set up an economic commission that recommended tax benefits to stimulate more open source development. Lesson learned from France: start ‘em early. “All students in France use open source.”

Just in time for Labor Day, John Edwards (no, not that one) comes out with an informative guide on “Who provides what in the cloud”. No doubt, this will be a rapidly expanding list, but what’s really interesting is the comment on the article. People have very strong opinions on the cloud…

Research firm Aberdeen Group reports that network costs will increase slightly more than 5 percent over 2007. Contributing factors: “need for speed”, shift from standard to mobile PCs (more end points of connectivity), and the ever-expanding network. And of course the hidden costs of multiple tools with multiple management consoles – if you’re not smart enough to choose say a comprehensive network management solution that is vendor agnostic…One tool to monitor them all…

And just because I miss the Olympics already, here’s an irreverent take on what it’s like to lose to Michael Phelps. http://www.thetechstop.net/?p=1503

Enjoy your long Labor Day Weekend!

IBM announced today that it was spending US$300 million to build out 13 data centers in 10 countries in 2008 - IBM refers to these sites as "Business Resilience service delivery centers". These centers will certainly help IBM deliver more of its traditional IT recovery services but they will also support the next generation of IT continuity services - repeatable, scalable, productize services such as online backup and virtual recovery.  These types of services don't require massive capital investment in an inventory of heterogeneous server and storage platforms, instead the service provider can focus its efforts on building a scalable pool of virtualized servers and shared storage built with industry standard components.

Online backup is an important service because it provides an affordable information protection service for small and medium businesses and it's even useful for enterprises as a means to backup PCs corporate-wide as well as small servers at remote locations. In addition to the $300 million that IBM is spending on its new resiliency centers, late in 2008, it acquired Arsenal Digital Solutions, one of the major players in online backup.

In addition to online backup, recovery services using software-based replication to a cloud infrastructure will also open up new opportunities. These services will provide a much a better recovery time and recovery point than tape-based services but won't cost nearly as much as custom services based on storage-based replication and dedicated hardware. The cost of these services is more than most small and medium, even some large enterprises can or are willing to pay for. SunGard was the first to announce such a productized service, Forrester expects all the traditional DR service providers to bring similar offerings to market over time.

These cloud-based service offerings are important for several other reasons, first, it could help stem the tide of enterprises who are just so fed up with the traditional disaster recovery services model that they take DR back in house, second, it could convince, more medium size businesses that they can afford more advanced IT continuity solutions and lastly, it will help protect their market against new competitors who can simply partner with cloud providers such as Amazon S3 and Google to offer similar services.

IBM is not only using its expansion and acquisitions to stay competitive, it's also also hoping that customers will recognize the value of IBM expertise, process and best practices in BC.

What do you think? Does the reputation and expertise of BC and IT Continuity service providers like IBM and SunGard critical in your decision-making or can new players enter the market? Do these lower cost services that offer better RTO and RPO renew your interest in service providers or do you still plan to keep DR in-house?

I welcome your thoughts.

Changing Behavior

1. Educate yourself.
At least every 6 to 12 months, surfers should browse the educational information provided by their operating system and security vendors and subscribe to any security-related newsletters they might offer. According to David Perry, familiarity with the latest threats, dangers, and recommended safety tips will allow surfers to make safe choices. “Until you know what’s out there, you’re just flying blind. Without an education, you’re wide open”.
2. Avoid suspect sites.
While criminals can infect even mainstream Web sites, sites such as gambling sites, adult Internet sites, and illegal file-sharing sites are far more likely to carry malicious code. Web sites that offer “something for nothing” frequently recoup their losses by infecting visitors’ PCs.
3. Lose Your Comfort Zone.

Recommended Technology

4. Use an updated virus scanning suite.
The most important component of any threat mitigation system is a virus scanning suite. In addition to detecting and removing known viruses and malware, modern virus scanning suites provide additional protections against new attacks by disabling their known protocols. For example, Trend Micro™ Internet Security encrypts keyboard traffic, protecting personal data from keyboard logging programs that might go unnoticed. Users should update their scanner and virus definitions as frequently as possible to ensure the best possible coverage.
5. Upgrade your OS and browser.
In addition to offering more features, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer version 7 and the latest Mozilla Firefox are both substantially more secure than previous-generation browsers. Users of older browsers should upgrade immediately to take advantage of increased security. Similarly, Windows Vista and Mac OS X are more secure than their predecessors, and users of older operating systems should consider upgrading, as well.
6. Disable scripting and “widgets.”
Many Web-based attacks use various scripting languages to run infectious programs in a browser or use downloadable “widgets” to execute infections locally. By disabling scripting and avoiding downloadable widgets wherever possible, surfers disable these common attack vectors.
7. Rate your Web pages.
Some available services rate the risk of Web pages in search results, allowing surfers to avoid unwanted content and hidden threats before viewing the pages. Rating applications (e.g., Trend Micro TrendProtect™) consume few system resources and run unobtrusively, so they are suitable for any Web-enabled personal computer.
8. Ask your provider.
Commerce companies, banks, and credit card associations are all interested in computer security, and many offer additional features. For example, Visa’s Verified By Visa program requires cardholders to enter a second password to identify themselves during a transaction, while businesses in Poland require cell-phone confirmation of credit card purchases. While nothing will be 100 percent effective, any additional security measure provided by a trusted source will increase protection, and surfers should adopt as many as possible.

This article provided for your reading pleasure by Trend Micro.