Chuck's Blog

Securing The Private Cloud

So much to write about, so little time. 

I guess I'm going to have to think carefully about the topics I write about going forward -- I could easily spend every day doing nothing but blog posts on interesting topics.  Sure, that'd be fun, but my day job would seriously suffer.

A few interesting announcements last week that we can correlate:

• VMware's vSphere announcement -- all about the private cloud
• The Jericho Forum issued their best practices around secure cloud computing
• VMware and RSA made an interesting announcement as part of last week's RSA Conference

Put it all together?

It's all about securing the private cloud ...

Opportunities for Telcos and Service Providers

Greetings from Istanbul, Turkey!

I'd never been before, but here I am.  It's a surprisingly rich and colorful city -- definitely on my list of gotta-get-back-here-some-time destinations.

I took a quick picture from my hotel balcony.  That's the Bosporus behind me, connecting the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea. 

My side of the water is essentially the end of the European land mass -- across the water is the beginning of the Asian continent and the Middle East. 

Kind of cool when you think about it from a geographical, historical and cultural perspective.

It's even more cool when you think about why I'm here -- it's for EMC's annual Middle Eastern Telecom Summit. 

The Information Protection Wheel

In my travels and discussions, I'm always on the lookout for new ways to create more complete views of challenges we all face.  Sometimes, I stumble on a useful graphic or picture that explains the concept in an interesting way.

My good friend Brian Fitzgerald (VP Marketing at EMC's RSA division) shared just such a graphic with me the other day, and I wanted to share it with you.   

No earth-shattering insights here, just an easier way to explain multiple topics in a single motion.

GRC Thinking From An IT Perspective

Over the last few weeks, I've been fortunate enough to spend some serious time digging into the current state of affairs regarding GRC -- the emerging topic of governance, risk and compliance.

Sure, the topic is hazy, poorly defined and all over the map.  That's probably one of the reasons I'm so interested.

That being said, I've seen a few patterns emerge that might make things a bit easier for all concerned.

Also, for those of you who don't like the long-ish posts that result when I dive into a new and complex topic, maybe you'd better skip this one!

Do You Know Where Your Information Is?

As part of my various duties here at EMC, I get the occasional privilege of introducing new ideas and new lines of thought to our customers and partners on a regular basis.

Understandably, a few of these newer discussions don't do so well, and they get dropped from the rotation.

Others catch on.  Over time, I see more head-nodding, more engagement, more questions, more discussion.  There's almost an invisible line that gets crossed at some point.

And -- at least from a personal level -- I think we've crossed that line with the information risk management and data loss prevention discussion.

It's now something most people want to talk about at some level.

The CFO Of Information Is Gonna Need A System

One of my persistent themes is that tomorrow's CIO will have to think of themselves as the "CFO of information".  The parallels between the evolution of how we've learned to manage money, and how we're going to have to learn to manage information are striking.

There's a very strong linkage between this thought, and RSA's recent offerings around DLP -- data loss prevention.

I've looked at different IT products over my entire career, and have learned to evaluate them in terms of the "big thoughts" they embed.  Of course, execution against those ideas matter as well ...

And I've been watching how RSA's DLP suite is rolling to market, and have been absolutely fascinated by the thinking behind it.

If you're a fan of big ideas, there's a lot to consider in this offering ...

How Are You Going To Monetize The Mobile Web?

That was the key question for the panel I was on this week.

It's an interesting question for mobile operators (that is, cell phone companies) around the globe.

The future of mobile networks is -- surprise -- IP-based.

And once you're running open devices on an open network, you going to have to think a bit harder about how you're going to differentiate.

Data Loss Prevention -- New Thinking

I've had another "aha" moment -- actually, a whole series of them -- recently.

The first hint that something big was going on came as part of a flurry of announcements at RSA World, including this hidden gem around DLP.

It turns out that I only had a half-baked notion of what all the fuss might be about, until late last week.  I was privileged to spend some quality time with the RSA team who went through the concepts and demo'd the product.

When they were done, my head was spinning.  Not so much around the product capabilities (which were very cool, to be sure), mostly it was the new way they were approaching the problem that got me so excited.

I probably won't be able to fit in all into a reasonable-sized post, so consider this the first installment exploring a topic that I'm sure we'll all be interested in -- sooner or later.