Oracle redefines the Cloud at OpenWorld

Oracle OpenWorld 2011 is on this week in San Francisco and it’s a week of networking and hands on experimenting.

There are keynotes from some big names in the industry including Oracle’s own Larry Ellison. Tomorrow is the day for Oracle’s news on the cloud – as the company redefines cloud computing for the enterprise.

“Oracle is the technology that powers the cloud,” according to Ellison. The keynote will outline the company’s cloud roadmap to the future – and then delegates can discover more through the numerous technical sessions and demos.

Ellison opened the 29^th Oracle Openworld with an overview of the major product announcements planned throughout the event, as well as the new offerings from Oracle.

Other speakers include John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, at Cisco; Michael Dell, CEO, Dell Inc; Joe Tucci, CEO at EMC and S.D. Shibulal, CEO and Managing Director at Infosys.

Shibulal’s keynote is one of Accelerating Growth, and the breathtaking pace at which technology and business trends are changing. OpenWorld certainly is capturing that.

Focus On gives delegates a roadmap of sessions, demos, partner’s exhibits and networking events all related to a particular subject matter – such as applications, the Cloud, database, middleware and Oracle services. Following the map will ensure no stone goes unturned.

Hands-on Labs, Oracle DEMOgrounds and the Oracle Support Stars Bar all go towards providing delegates with more than the technical and executive solution sessions.

As the shenanigans between Marc Benioff and Ellison reflect the story of last year and throw some spice into the mix - Oracle continue to send delegates home full to the brim and satisfied.

Cook to unveil iPhone 5 tomorrow

The iPhone 5 has already become rather infamous even before any unveiling.

The rumoured September introduction was squashed by the news of an iPhone5 prototype being lost – from stories of being sold on Craigslist to Apple dispatching its own investigators, and the local police assisting, the new iPhone was raising many questions.

The revised date to remember is, apparently, tomorrow (4^th October) - when Tim Cook, Apple’s new chief executive, will unveil the iPhone 5 at a special media event. Significantly, this will be Cook’s first major product announcement since taking over from Steve Jobs.

And with the iPhone 5 being the most talked about smartphone launch of the summer, other high ranking Apple people can be expected – namely Phil Schiller and Eddie Cue, VP of worldwide product marketing and senior VP of internet software and services, respectively.

Even Samsung, unsuccessfully, tried to call for the smartphone prototypes to be admitted as evidence in the ongoing legal battle between itself and Apple.

Once the (rumoured slimmer case and smaller SIM design) iPhone 5 hits the streets, the designers may be able to relax a little.

Two Larrys tackle the Android-Java dispute

Larry Page and Larry Ellison were planning to meet this month to try and put an end to the Android-Java dispute. The Google and Oracle chief executives had a date at the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Florian Mueller, software patent specialist, wrote in the Foss Patents blog about the meeting, seeing it as a positive move.

“There's a reasonable chance that Larry Page will show the strong leadership he's demonstrated since taking over the helm and make Larry Ellison an offer too good to refuse: a ton of money in exchange for a perpetual licence."

There is the obvious issue of a ‘pay-off,’ in terms of it setting a trend for other patent holders to expect similar treatment. But, as Mueller says, this is ‘not a reason not to do what needs to be done.’

Google are unlikely to come out of this unscathed and so a settlement would be in the Internet giant’s best interest. If the case did go to court, Oracle has got the upper hand, even though Android’s defence is helped by Google’s recent purchase of over 1,000 patents from IBM.

“Oracle probably wouldn't win a trial on all counts, but it's highly likely to win on at least some of them, and quite probably the counts on which Oracle would prevail would be powerful enough," said Mueller.

Oracle had to lower it’s original damages claim (of $2bn to $6bn) after it was discovered that Google had rejected the chance to pay Sun $100m to license the Java platform when it was developing Android.

If the two Larrys cannot come to an agreement the expected court date is 31^st October – probably a Halloween to remember.

The need for data centres grows worldwide

Nick Parfitt, Datacentre Dynamics Research director, has described the growth of Internet use as the ‘perfect storm’, following the release of their latest report.

A ‘storm’ in terms of demand from government, business and users socially – IT and internet use is growing rapidly and as such so is the need for more servers and storage – and thus datacentres.

“The perception is without question that datacentres are the best way of ensuring the availability and reliability of IT services and the machines to deliver them," said Parfitt.

As the world becomes more IT dependent the UK has responded with a 25 per cent increase (compared to last year) in expenditure on datacentres.

The report lists the greatest spender as the US at £2.18bn ($3.5bn) – the UK following closely behind with outgoings of £2.1bn ($3.35bn). China comes in a close third.

The UK and US have invested primarily in existing datacentres, and upgraded them, resulting in a low number of new centres needed. In comparison, emerging markets, such as Turkey, Brazil and Columbia have seen datacentre expansion of up to 60 per cent.

The facts given by the report in response to such growth is self-explanatory. Internet users have more than doubled in five years to 2.11 billion, and 500 million smartphones today is nothing compared to 2 billion expected by 2015.

15 years ago there were 18, 000 websites – today there are 215 million. The storm has been building for a while now, and we are all part of it.

Security threats lie with firms says Gartner

Own the vulnerability; don’t blame the threat, is Gartner’s advice. Fingers have been pointed at China and Russia (amongst others) for some of the recent cyber attacks – but the techniques used are not new.

In Gartner’s last report – Strategies for Dealing with Advanced Targeted Threats – it is clear that security has to evolve to combat the increase in these types of attacks.

“The reality is that the most important issues are the vulnerabilities and the techniques used to exploit them, not the country that appears to be the source of the attack," said John Pescatore, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

Simple, signature-dependent security approaches are not the answer to the level of tailoring and targeting that the new threats present.

Denial of service, theft of information – these are techniques that cyber criminals have worked on for years – and Gartner are clear in their message.

“Targeted attacks are penetrating standard levels of security controls and causing significant business damage to organisations that do not evolve their security controls," said Pescatore.

The message is to reduce vulnerabilities, increase monitoring capabilities, and react quickly to evolving threats – resulting in everyone from teenagers to state-backed attackers hitting a brick wall.

"The use of specialised threat detection, network forensics and situational awareness technologies can be very effective…but require high levels of skilled resources to be effective." Pescatore added.

A ‘lean-forward’ approach is needed towards security where the business is constantly looking beyond the standard level of security, and active threats are continuously being monitored.

However, investment is the key to the lean-forward processes, but also a company has to be able to take action if a breach is discovered.

Government drops plans to shut down social media

Message from the Lords is: “The government is committed to a free and open internet.”

Baroness Browning confirmed that the plan to seek additional powers in order to close down social media networks would not be going ahead.

In the wake of the riots, David Cameron proposed shutting down social media when it was evident that some users were citing disorder. Theresa May had also called for such a plan to be considered which, led to a meeting with police commanders and representatives of social media.

Cameron had discussed with MPs, “whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these web sites and services when we know they are plotting violence".

During the Lords debate it became clear that a middle ground had to be reached. Baroness Miller, of the Liberal Democrats, stressed the unacceptability of a wholesale surveillance operation, whilst Labour minister, Lord West, called it ‘madness’ for the police not to use information from social media to protect the public.

Social media sites do have to take some control - and, according to Browning, many have indicated a commitment to removing illegal content where appropriate.

Browning confirms that Cameron does not want to close down networks – a move that would upset a great many – but he is determined to see what can be done to prevent such a social media hijack again.

1 in 4 believe cloud is more secure

Cloud Watch, a report by network specialist Cisco, has revealed that one in four IT leaders believes the cloud offers better security than in-house IT or managed services.

Leaders across five sectors were spoken with – namely government, retail, healthcare, finance and service providers. However, 76 per cent still think security is a stumbling block when it comes to cloud adoption.

Ian Foddering, CTO of Cisco for UK and Ireland, said: "There are still problems around the perception of cloud services, and these include security and governance.”

Concerns revolved around the location of data, and integrations with in-house IT or other hosted services. Over half questioned saw responsibility as sitting between end user organisations, cloud service providers and applications providers.

In terms of security, the most popular cloud services are web conferencing, video conferencing and unified communications. The real-time links must have some relevance here.

The report also found that only seven per cent of companies considered cloud uptake as critical, though over half had it on the IT agenda (many of these with a plan to invest in the next 12 months).

Foddering said, “These issues are being addressed. The ITU and other bodies are developing standards and adequate governance will address the remaining security concerns."

Security has to work, but also, when it comes to the cloud, and the huge change to the IT landscape – it was always going to be a leap of faith for many.