Author: AlexMcDonald

How Can You Keep Data in Transit Secure?

AlexMcDonald
It’s well known that data is often considered less secure while in motion, particularly across public networks, and attackers are finding increasingly innovative ways to snoop on and compromise data in flight. But risks can be mitigated with foresight and planning. So how do you adequately protect data in transit? It’s the next topic the SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) will tackle as part of our Storage Networking Security Webcast Series.  Join us October 28, 2020 for our live webcast Securing Data in Transit. In this webcast, we’ll cover what the threats are to your data as it’s transmitted, how attackers can interfere with data along its journey, and methods of putting effective protection measures in place for data in transit. We’ll discuss: Read More

Not Again! Data Deduplication for Storage Systems

AlexMcDonald
As explained in our webcast on Data Reduction, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Storage But Were Too Proud to Ask: Data Reduction,” organizations inevitably store many copies of the same data. Intentionally or inadvertently, users and applications copy and store the same files over and over; with developers, testers and analysts keeping many more copies. And backup programs copy the same or only slightly modified files daily, often to multiple locations and storage devices.  It’s not unusual to end up with some data replicated thousands of times, enough to drive storage administrators and managers of IT budgets crazy. So how do we stop the duplication madness? Join us on November 10, 2020 for a live SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) webcast, “Not Again! Data Deduplication for Storage Systems”  where our SNIA experts will discuss how to reduce the number of copies of data that get stored, mirrored, and backed up. Attend this sanity-saving webcast to learn more about: Read More

Non-Cryptic Answers to Common Cryptography Questions

AlexMcDonald
The SNIA Networking Storage Forum’s Storage Networking Security Webcast Series continues to examine the many different aspects of storage security. At our most recent webcast on applied cryptography, our experts dove into user authentication, data encryption, hashing, blockchain and more. If you missed the live event, you can watch it on-demand. Attendees of the live event had some very interesting questions on this topic and here are answer to them all: Q. Can hashes be used for storage deduplication?  If so, do the hashes need to be 100% collision-proof to be used for deduplication? A. Yes, hashes are often used for storage deduplication. It’s preferred that they be collision-proof but it’s not required if the deduplication software does a bit-by-bit comparison of any files that produce the same hash in order to verify if they really are identical or not. If the hash is 100% collision-proof then there is no need to run bit-by-bit comparisons of files that produce the same hash value. Q. Do cloud or backup service vendors use blockchain proof of space to prove to customers how much storage space is available or has been reserved?    Read More

Applied Cryptography Techniques and Use Cases

AlexMcDonald
The rapid growth in infrastructure to support real time and continuous collection and sharing of data to make better business decisions has led to an age of unprecedented information storage and easy access. While collection of large amounts of data has increased knowledge and allowed improved efficiencies for business, it has also made attacks upon that information—theft, modification, or holding it for ransom — more profitable for criminals and easier to accomplish. As a result, strong cryptography is often used to protect valuable data. The SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) has recently covered several specific security topics as part of our Storage Networking Security Webcast Series, including Encryption101, Protecting Data at Rest, and Key Management 101. Now, on August 5, 2020, we are going to present Applied Cryptography. In this webcast, our SNIA experts will present an overview of cryptography techniques for the most popular and pressing use cases. We’ll discuss ways of securing data, the factors and trade-off that must be considered, as well as some of the general risks that need to be mitigated. We’ll be looking at: Read More

Encryption Q&A

AlexMcDonald

Ever wonder how encryption actually works? Experts, Ed Pullin and Judy Furlong, provided an encryption primer to hundreds of attendees at our SNIA NSF webcast Storage Networking Security: Encryption 101. If you missed it, It’s now available on-demand. We promised during the live event to post answers to the questions we received. Here they are:

Q. When using asymmetric keys, how often do the keys need to be changed?

A. How often asymmetric (and symmetric) keys need to be changed is driven by the purpose the keys are used for, the security policies of the organization/environment in which they are used and the length of the key material. For example, the CA/Browser Forum has a policy that certificates used for TLS (secure communications) have a validity of no more than two years.

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Encryption 101: Keeping Secrets Secret

AlexMcDonald
Encryption has been used through the ages to protect information, authenticate messages, communicate secretly in the open, and even to check that messages were properly transmitted and received without having been tampered with. Now, it’s our first go-to tool for making sure that data simply isn’t readable, hearable or viewable by enemy agents, smart surveillance software or other malign actors. But how does encryption actually work, and how is it managed? How do we ensure security and protection of our data, when all we can keep as secret are the keys to unlock it? How do we protect those keys; i.e., “Who will guard the guards themselves?” It’s a big topic that we’re breaking down into three sessions as part of our Storage Networking Security Webcast Series: Encryption 101, Key Management 101, and Applied Cryptography. Join us on May 20th for the first Encryption webcast: Storage Networking Security: Encryption 101 where our 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
I hope you will register today to join us on May 20th. Our experts will be on-hand to answer your questions.

Networking for Hyperconvergence

AlexMcDonald
“Why can’t I add a 33rd node?” One of the great advantages of Hyperconverged infrastructures (also known as “HCI”) is that, relatively speaking, they are extremely easy to set up and manage. In many ways, they’re the “Happy Meals” of infrastructure, because you have compute and storage in the same box. All you need to do is add networking. In practice, though, many consumers of HCI have found that the “add networking” part isn’t quite as much of a no-brainer as they thought it would be. Because HCI hides a great deal of the “back end” communication, it’s possible to severely underestimate or misunderstand the requirements necessary to run a seamless environment. At some point, “just add more nodes” becomes a more difficult proposition. That’s why the SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) is hosting a live webcast “Networking Requirements for Hyperconvergence” on February 5, 2019. At this webcast, we’re going to take a look behind the scenes, peek behind the GUI, so to speak. We’ll be talking about what goes on back there, and shine the light behind the bezels to see: Read More

FCoE vs. iSCSI vs. iSER: Get Ready for Another Great Storage Debate

AlexMcDonald
As a follow up our first two hugely successful “Great Storage Debate” webcasts, Fibre Channel vs. iSCSI and File vs. Block vs. Object Storage, the SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum will be presenting another great storage debate on June 21, 2018. This time we’ll take on FCoE vs. iSCSI vs. iSER. For those of you who’ve seen these webcasts, you know that the goal of these debates is not to have a winner emerge, but rather provide unbiased education on the capabilities and use cases of these technologies so that attendees can become more informed and make educated decisions. Here’s what you can expect from this session: Read More

Fibre Channel vs. iSCSI – The Great Debate Generates Questions Galore

AlexMcDonald
The SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum recently hosted the first of our “Great Debates” webcasts on Fibre Channel vs. iSCSI. The goal of this series is not to have a winner emerge, but rather provide vendor-neutral education on the capabilities and use cases of these technologies so that attendees can become more informed and make educated decisions. And it worked! Over 1,200 people have viewed the webcast in the first three weeks! And the comments from attendees were exactly what we had hoped for:

“A good and frank discussion about the two technologies that don’t always need to compete!”

“Really nice and fair comparison guys. Always well moderated, you hit a lot of material in an hour. Thanks for your work!” 

“Very fair and balanced overview of the two protocols.”

“Excellent coverage of the topic. I will have to watch it again.”

If you missed the webcast, you can watch it on-demand at your convenience and download a copy of the slides. The debate generated many good questions and our expert speakers have answered them all: Read More

The Great Debates – Our Next Webcast Series

AlexMcDonald
The SNIA ESF is announcing a new series of webcasts, following our hugely successful “Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask” webcasts. Those focussed on explaining storage technology from the ground up, and while they were pretty all encompassing in their storage technology coverage, they didn’t compare or contrast similar technologies that perform broadly similar functions. That’s what we’re going to do in our new “Great Debates” series, the first of which was “FC vs. iSCSI.” It’s now available on-demand. I encourage you to check it out. It’s a great debate with experts who really know their stuff. But wait… FC vs. iSCSI? That “versus” sounds more like an argument than a discussion. Was there a winner? Was this a technology fight, with a clear-cut winner and a loser? The answer is an emphatic “No!” Read More