Risks & Rewards of Cloud & Hybrid Data Centers

One of the most important aspects of security is how to protect the data that is just “sitting there.” How easy is it to get to? Who can get to it? If someone does get access to the data, can they read it? What are the potential risks of the wrong people reading the data? These are just a few of the questions that we try to answer when we go through the process of securing data.

Contrary to popular belief, however, securing “data at rest” is not simply encrypting the data. While it is true that data encryption plays a major role in securing “data at rest,” there are several other factors that come into play and are equally as important – if not more so.

For this webcast, we’re going to talk about those other factors (Encryption is deserving of its own, specific webcast). We will present the end-to-end process to securing “data at rest,” and discuss all the factors and trade-offs that must be considered, and some of the general risks that need to be mitigated, discussing:

• How requirements for “data at rest” differ from “data in flight”
• Legal and regulatory reasons to protect (or delete) data at rest
• Where and how data could be attacked
• Understanding the costs of ransomware
• How to protect cryptographic keys from malicious actors
• Using key managers to properly manage cryptographic keys
• Strengths and weaknesses of relying on government security recommendations
• The importance of validating data backups... how stable is your media?

Encryption has been used through the ages to protect stored secrets, authenticate messages, communicate secretly in broad daylight, and even to check that messages were properly transmitted and received without tamper. Now, it’s often our first go-to tool for making sure that data simply isn’t readable to prying eyes, ears or AI bots.

But how does encryption actually work, what makes it tick, and how is it managed? How do we ensure compatibility? How do we protect the keys; i.e., “Who will guard the guards themselves?”

It’s a big topic that we’re breaking down into three parts: Encryption 101, Key Management 101, and Applied Cryptography.

Join us on May 20th for the first encryption webcast: Storage Networking Security: Encryption 101 where security experts will cover:

•A brief history of Encryption
•Cryptography basics
•Definition of terms – Entropy, Cipher, Symmetric & Asymmetric Keys, Certificates and Digital signatures, etc.
•Introduction to Key Management

After you watch the webcast, check out the Encryption 101 Q&A blog at https://bit.ly/2ZGMisl

Next-Generation Networking [Ep.5]: The New WAN Economics

Enterprise WAN traffic patterns are shifting. The application mix is changing. And the WAN is becoming core to digital transformation (and to resilience in the post-COVID-19 era).

The two fundamental questions that network and telecom managers must answer right now are these: How much should I be spending on my WAN to achieve measurable success, and what services and solutions deliver the greatest bang for the buck (in terms of quantitative success per dollars invested)?

This webinar shares the findings of the 2020-2021 Next Generation Networks research study and compares a cost analysis of solutions such as:
*WAN Cloud Exchanges (WAN-CX)
* Direct Cloud Connect (DCC)
* MPLS
* Carrier Ethernet
* SD-WAN
* Business and Broadband Internet
* Fiber and wavelength services

We compare the network spend by users of solutions and services from providers such as AT&T, Centurylink, Cisco, Citrix, Comcast, Juniper, Oracle/Talari, VMWare Velocloud, Verizon and others. And we correlate the spend and provider with success overall.

More and more we are seeing compute and inference move to the edge. This is driven by the growth in capability to not only generate data from sensors, devices and by people operating in the field, but also by the interaction between those devices.

This new source of data and information brings with it unique challenges to the way we store and transmit data as well as the way we need to curate it. In this webcast we will look at:
•New patterns generated by the explosion of the Internet of Things
•How IoT is impacting storage and data strategies
•Security and privacy issues and considerations
•How to think about the lifecycle of our information in this new environment