Among the topics we covered: 

• As you survey the tech hiring market, what’s driving tech hiring this year? We hear talk of a slowdown – is that affecting hiring?
• How is the tech sector doing in terms of DEI and gender equality?
• What can tech professionals do to improve their employment opportunities?
• The future of tech hiring? It’s often said that hiring is driven by algorithms – then again, personal connection plays a key role. How will this balance change?

Listen to the podcast:

Also available on Apple Podcasts

Watch the video:

The post SThree’s Sunny Ackerman on Tech Hiring Trends appeared first on eWEEK.

Among the topics we covered:

• The CDO is a relatively new role. Yet Forrester in 2019 reported that 58 percent of companies had appointed a CDO, another 26 percent planned to hire one. These numbers sound quite high to me. Do you believe them?
• What are the major responsibilities for a CDO? What are the challenges for CDO?
• Let’s dig into the new report about the role of the CDO.
• The future of the CDO role? What do you predict?

Listen to the podcast:

Watch the video:

The post InterSystems’ Scott Gnau on the Role of the Chief Digital Officer appeared first on eWEEK.

Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of Cloud + Enterprise at Microsoft, on July 12 reminded the database administrator and developer communities that SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 support comes to end on July 9, 2019. While they may continue to run their databases on those older versions, it may not be prudent to do so without Microsoft support, he cautioned.

When Microsoft pulls the plug on a software product, it effectively means the end of security updates. That is, unless a customer pays for premium support, an option typically reserved for the biggest and wealthiest enterprise customers that can afford Microsoft’s bespoke support services. Everyone is likely to accept the costs of upgrading to a newer version like SQL Server 2017.

It may be impractical for organizations to upgrade their databases in the time allotted since many of them attached to critical workloads. So, Microsoft is giving SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 deployments a new lease on life, provided they are migrated to the cloud.

Numoto announced “that Extended Security Updates will be available for free in Azure for 2008 and 2008 R2 versions of SQL Server and Windows Server to help secure your workloads for three more years after the end of support deadline,” in a blog post. “You can rehost these workloads to Azure with no application code change.”

Businesses will have another migration option sometime in the fourth quarter of 2018. That is when Microsoft is planning the general availability release of Azure SQL Database Managed Instance, a managed database-as-a-service product that will enable customers to move their SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 databases “with no application code change and near zero downtime,” Numoto stated.

In fact, the technology giant has its sights set on enterprise database workloads besides those running on SQL Server.

Microsoft is adding Azure Database for MySQL and PostgreSQL support to its Azure Database Migration Service by the end of July 2018, said Julia White, corporate vice president of Microsoft Azure, in a separate announcement. Currently in limited preview, the service supports SQL Server migrations to Azure SQL Virtual Machines as well as Oracle databases to Azure SQL Database or Azure SQL Database Managed Instances.

Finally, Microsoft is offering a new Solid-State Drive storage migration option for businesses that want to transfer databases and other types of workloads to Azure.

A new Azure Data Box option called Data Box Disk allows customers to load up specialized drives with encrypted data and ship them back to Microsoft, where the company copies the data into a customer’s storage accounts. In the case of Data Box Disk, Microsoft ships 40TB of SSD storage capacity overnight to enable customers to copy their data using a SATA or USB connection and return it to Microsoft.

The post Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Support Extended for Cloud Migrations appeared first on eWEEK.

As a globally recognized and trusted authority, SNIA’s mission is to lead the storage industry in developing and promoting vendor-neutral architectures, standards and educational services that facilitate the efficient management, movement and security of information.

“At this time of profound change in the storage industry, SNIA is focused on the hottest data storage trends, delivering standards, technology enablement, and educational materials that help IT to derive the maximum benefit from the new infrastructures and technologies,” new Chairman David Dale said.

The SNIA Board leads the execution of the SNIA mission and vision. Intel, Micron Technology, NetApp, Oracle and Toshiba representatives were elected to the SNIA Board this year, and IBM, Intel, Microsoft Corporation and Samsung Group representatives were elected to the SNIA Technical Council.

Here is the listing of board members:

• David Dale, NetApp – Chairman

• Jim Pappas, Intel – Vice-Chairman

• Thomas Rivera – Secretary, Advisor

• Allan Zmyslowski, Fujitsu – Treasurer 

• Wayne Adams – Chairman Emeritus, Advisor

• Michael Oros – SNIA Executive Director, Advisor

• Sue Amarin, Micron Technology

• J. Metz, Cisco Systems

• Rupin Mohan, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

• Rob Peglar, Symbolic IO Corporation

• Hubbert Smith, Samsung Group

• Tatsuya Tanaka, Toshiba

• Michelle Tidwell, IBM

• Jim Williams, Oracle 

• Mark Carlson, Toshiba – Technical Council Co-Chairman, Advisor

• Bill Martin, Samsung Group – Technical Council Co-Chairman, Advisor

• S.W. Worth, Advisor 

The 2017/2018 Technical Council is:

• Mark Carlson, Toshiba – Co-Chairman

• Bill Martin, Samsung Group – Co-Chairman

• Alan Bumgarner, Intel 

• Craig Carlson, Cavium

• Fred Knight, NetApp

• Philip Kufeldt, Huawei

• Alex McDonald, NetApp

• Peter Murray, Virtual Instruments

• David Pease, IBM

• Tom Talpey, Microsoft Corporation

• Doug Voigt, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

• Arnold Jones, SNIA – TC Advisor

• Gregory McSorley, Amphenol – TC Advisor

• Leah Schoeb, Turbonomic – TC Advisor

• David Thiel – TC Advisor

• Steve Wilson – TC Advisor 

The Storage Networking Industry Association is a not-for-profit global organization, made up of member companies spanning the global storage market. SNIA’s mission is to lead the storage industry worldwide in developing and promoting standards, technologies, and educational services to empower organizations in the management of information.

Thus, the SNIA is uniquely committed to delivering standards, education, and services that will propel open storage networking solutions into the broader market. For more information about SNIA, go here.

The post Storage Networking Group Reveals 2018 Board of Directors appeared first on eWEEK.

Revenue was cited at $24.54 billion against $23.56 billion projected by Thomson Reuters analysts. Earnings per share was 84 cents versus an expected 72 cents, so it was a big win for the Seattle-based software giant.

With the report, Microsoft exceeded its self-imposed revenue goal of $20 billion (an actual $20.4 billion in annualized run rate) for its commercial cloud business.

The company’s Productivity and Business Processes unit, which encompasses the Office business, its Dynamics customer relationship management service, and LinkedIn, recorded a year-over-year revenue gain of 28 percent to $8.2 billion. This includes the cloud-based Office 365 application suite and its set of Dynamics 365 apps for CRM (customer relationship management, up 69 percent) and ERP (enterprise resource planning).

Microsoft is making noise in the cloud-based business productivity markets currently dominated by Salesforce and SAP, but it is still far behind them in marketshare.

Revenues from Intelligent Cloud, the company’s unit that includes its Azure cloud computing service, was up 14 percent from the year ago-period to $6.9 billion. Microsoft doesn’t disclose Azure revenue.

Microsoft’s More Personal Computing unit, which includes its Windows, Surface PC and Xbox businesses, was flat from the year-ago period, bringing in $9.4 billion. Surface revenue by itself was up 12 percent from a year ago, and the Xbox division was up 1 percent.

The post Microsoft Beats the Street on Top and Bottom Lines appeared first on eWEEK.

With the natural events of the last three weeks hitting the south and southeast of the United States, numerous physical photo albums, videos and other irreplaceable memories were lost forever as flood waters and high winds tore communities and dwellings to pieces.

A little planning in advance can save these memories forever, and ScanMyPhotos.com is offering to help people think about doing this.

Irvine, Calif.-based ScanMyPhotos.com, founded in 1990 and a service that has scanned more than 400 million photos for posterity, is offering free photo scanning for hurricane relief and preparedness. Obviously, it’s too late for victims of the recent storms, but it’s not too late to plan for future events like these, because they will happen.

If you are a resident of Texas or Florida, ScanMyPhotos.com will digitize your photos without charge for up to 500 4×6 standard pictures per family/address. See this webpage for full details and ordering instructions. There is a $14.95 return shipping and handling fee.

There are some restrictions, but this offer should get people thinking about storing and preserving what’s really important in their lives. Questions can be directed to (949) 474-7654.

The post ScanMyPhotos Offers Free Service for Residents of Texas, Florida appeared first on eWEEK.

The Seattle-based company revealed July 26 that it has signed an agreement with Seagate creating a partnership around Seagate’s ClusterStor high-performance storage product line and spelling out how the two companies will collaborate on future ClusterStor products. Financial information about the deal was not made available.

Cray will add the ClusterStor product line to its DataWarp and Sonexion storage products and will supply additional development of the ClusterStor product line and support its customers, the company said. Cray said it expects to add about 100 employees and contractors and to handle customer-support obligations involving ClusterStor.

“Current ClusterStor customers and partners can be assured that we will continue to advance and support the ClusterStor products,” Cray CEO Peter Ungaro said.

Cray in 2012 became Seagate’s first original equipment manufacturer and has continued over the years to be its largest and most strategic ClusterStor partner, said Seagate Vice-President and General Manager of Storage Systems Ken Claffey.

The post Cray, Seagate Sign Deal to Develop ClusterStor for HPC appeared first on eWEEK.

In the new February 2017 update, 8 vulnerabilities are rated by Google as critical. Among the critical vulnerabilities is CVE-2017-0405, which is a remote code execution vulnerability in the Android Surfaceflinger graphics library.

“A remote code execution vulnerability in Surfaceflinger could enable an attacker using a specially crafted file to cause memory corruption during media file and data processing,” Google warns in its advisory. “This issue is rated as Critical due to the possibility of remote code execution within the context of the Surfaceflinger process. “

The Surfaceflinger issue was reported by researchers Scott Bauer and Daniel Micay of Copperhead Security. Micay in particular is no stranger to reporting Android vulnerabilities and was credited back in October 2015 for reporting a security flaw that was dubbed ‘Stagefright 2’ at the time. The original Stagefright media server flaw was first disclosed in July 2015 and is the vulnerability that led to Google start its monthly patch process in August 2015.

In the February 2017 update, Google is now patching four stagefright related vulnerabilities. Two of the issues (CVE-2017-0406, CVE-2017-0407) are remote code issues in mediaserver that are rated by Google as critical. Additionally, there are two high severity issues that are being patched including a remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-0409) in the libstagefright library, as well as a privilege escalation vulnerability in mediaserver (CVE-2017-0415).

Among the critical issues patched by Google is CVE-2017-0427 which is a privilege escalation vulnerability in the kernel filesystem.

“An elevation of privilege vulnerability in the kernel file system could enable a local malicious application to execute arbitrary code within the context of the kernel,” Google warns in its advisory. “This issue is rated as Critical due to the possibility of a local permanent device compromise, which may require reflashing the operating system to repair the device.”

Google is also now patching Android for a critical privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2014-9914) in the kernel networking subsystem that was first patched in the upstream Linux kernel back in June 2014.

As has been the case in Android updates since August 2015 and the so-called ‘QuadRooter’ flaws, issues with various Qualcomm components are a leading source of patches in the Google update. With the February 2017 update, there are 19 patched Qualcomm flaws including two rated as critical, 15 rated as high and an additional two flaws that have moderate severity. The patched Qualcomm flaws include remote code execution and privilege escalation issues.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

The post Google Patches 58 Android Vulnerabilities in February Security Update appeared first on eWEEK.

We’ll even go further than that here: Tiered storage may be obsolete before we know it.

This isn’t marketspeak or industry propaganda. The reason for this is simply the rapid performance advancement of hardware and software tech, thanks mostly to solid-state components. The lines between the tiers are melting away; sooner than we know, enterprises will be standardizing only on Tier 0 and Tier 3 active archiving, and even those will look similar in the management of new-gen storage systems.

For the record, let’s define terms:

–Tier 0 is solid-state memory-based storage that is used to improve performance beyond what current Tier 1 hot-data storage can offer. In the past, Tier 0 storage has been in the form of a RAM disk and was quite expensive; that is changing.

–Tier 1 is where most hot data (the data enterprises need to use daily) resides, and that can be contained in either flash (solid-state) or hard disk-drive hardware.

–Tier 2 is usually backup data stored on HDDs or in a cloud service;

–Tier 3 archive content conventionally is stored on older HDDs or digital tape drives and is rarely accessed.

More Data Needs More Storage, Analytics

This preponderance of unstructured data is caused by the convergence of several major factors: more data than ever is being collected and processed; widespread high-bandwidth networks; the massive number of new connected devices, including sensors and cameras; leaner, more efficient application code; and the wide availability of new on-site and cloud-based analytics apps and services to wring business meaning out of piles of data.

All the major storage providers in the business (IBM, Dell EMC, NetApp, HPE, Hitachi Data Systems) have had a flash option for several years. Newer providers, such as Pure Storage, Violin Memory, Kaminario, Tintri, Tegile, and X-10 Technologies have come into the market with their own variations on the fast data-movement power that flash and memory-based media bring to the table. The sales competition is more than fierce.

“Traditionally, unstructured data has been stored over long periods of time to keep a record, history or backup of an organization’s digital transactions,” Matt Kixmoeller, CTO of all-flash storage maker Pure Storage, told eWEEK. “But with the advent of large-scale data analytics, unstructured data has gone from IT afterthought to critical business tool.”

While these petabyte-size data loads aren’t here yet for most businesses, the increasing deluge of data pouring in from smartphones, laptops, sensors and numerous other end points is becoming a problem for many to decipher and process. The faster and better that incoming unstructured data is stored, protected and subsequently made available for use, the more efficient the IT system becomes—and IT systems are now the lifeblood of 21st century enterprises.

Data movement inside storage systems for decades was the industry’s largest stumbling block. Enterprises need to see the big picture and think ahead about all of this. Unstructured data is expected to comprise 70 percent of most data loads in the next few years.

FlashBlade: First All-Flash Storage Blade Server

Pure Storage separated itself from the pack in March 2016 when it introduced the industry’s first all-flash storage blade server, FlashBlade. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has been selling it for the last six months; on Jan. 25, the company officially went to GA (general availability) status with it.

Using FlashBlade, the barrier between Tier 0 hot data and everything else behind it–except for active archiving–may have disappeared. Why have those complex tiers of data separate from the daily production system when it isn’t necessary anymore? Multi-petabyte-scale sets of unstructured data can live on-premises or in the cloud–anywhere the company desires–and still be located fast with a good storage controlling system.

This is all about storing data streams anywhere in the company data ocean and using smart search and analytics to find the correct metadata and other elements in time for whatever production project you’re doing.

Blades in IT are known for their power and influence on the computing side. A blade server is a server chassis housing multiple thin, modular electronic circuit boards, known as server blades. Each blade is a server in its own right and is often dedicated to a single application.

Elastic, Scale-Out Storage

Pure’s FlashBlade, similarly designed, is a key part of the company’s elastic scale-out storage system that uses all-flash media to handle multi-petabyte-scale sets of unstructured data. Used in tandem, FlashBlade and Pure’s Storage FlashArray comprise a complete platform building an all-flash private or hybrid cloud.

Gartner Research, which has analyzed the data storage market since its beginning, has been impressed with FlashBlade.

“Pure Storage continues to execute well on its vision of software-led solid-state arrays that leverage off-the-shelf cost-effective hardware components, providing cost-effective SSAs that are simple to upgrade and maintain compared to traditional storage array forklift upgrade paths,” the researcher wrote in its most recent (August 2016) “Magic Quadrant Report for Solid-State Arrays.”

“Pure has increased customer satisfaction levels as it has scaled the business,” Gartner said. “Many competitors still cannot offer quick and seamless capacity and controller upgrades between models. Pure Storage’s culture and innovation has been able to attract high-quality personnel as it continues to expand across geographies. The new Pure Storage FlashBlade array for use with object and file applications … maintains Pure Storage’s cadence of vision and thought leadership in the SSA market.”

Availability

FlashBlade is now available now. Go here for more information.

The post Guide to Tiered Storage in 2021 appeared first on eWEEK.

The analysis of 163 incidents found that 82 percent could be attributed to cyber-criminals, 11 percent to insiders and 7 percent to nation-state adversaries. The company attributed attacks to financially-motivated cyber-criminals if they included theft of funds, the copying of financial information or personal data, the use of computing power, or ransom of data.

While advanced attacks and zero-day vulnerabilities garner a lot of attention, phishing, exploitation of known vulnerabilities and using websites to launch attacks were the most common methods of compromise. The vast majority—88 percent—of attacks were opportunistic and not targeted, the report stated.

“There are a lot of companies focused on the advanced threats, but when we look at the companies, they don’t have the basics down,” Jeffrey Carpenter, director of threat intelligence and incident response consulting at SecureWorks, told eWEEK. “They are failing at some of the basic, basic components of defense.”

SecureWorks conducts nearly 800 incident-response engagements every year, about half of which were proactive—to check cyber-defenses—and the other half reactive—to help clients clean up after an attack, Carpenter said.

The study involves data from the 163 reactive incident response engagements SecureWorks did in the first half of 2016. The company emphasized that the focus on the victims means that the study reveals the actual attacks that threaten companies.

Malware typically entered a corporate network through the compromise of a vulnerable public-facing system, compromised employee credentials, delivered in an email, downloaded from a website or through a third-party contractor.

Phishing accounted for 38 percent of attacks, while scans for vulnerable systems that were then exploited accounted for 22 percent of attacks. Using a website to host exploits accounted for 21 percent of the attacks.

In one incident, for example, one large-scale manufacturing firm had numerous malware infections. While the company had deployed antivirus software, it did not prevent the attacks, but only created continuous alerts about the infections, SecureWorks stated in the report. Cyber-criminals quickly monetized the attacks by installing banking trojans, bitcoin mining software and remote access trojans.

SecureWorks found that the company had too many users with administrative privileges, still had systems running Windows XP and only a limited ability to respond to an attack.

While phishing is the top attack vector, many companies are not prepared to deal with it, Carpenter said.

“Training alone is not good enough,” he said. “No matter how much you train, you will always have someone who clicks.”

SecureWorks identified many areas where companies could improve their preventative measures, but Carpenter highlighted the need for a strategy balanced between prevention, detection and incident response.

Top preventative strategies included better and more consistent patching, managing user-account privileges and adding web application firewalls or content filters. Companies also have to implement a good endpoint security solution, improve logging and collection capabilities, and help incident responders, he said.

“No matter how many steps you take, you are always going to have an incident,” Carpenter said. “So you need to focus on response as well.”

The post SecureWorks Finds Most Cyber-Threats Involve Phishing, Network Scans appeared first on eWEEK.