Understanding Ransomware

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Ransomware is a malware attack that uses a variety of methods to prevent or limit an organization or individual from accessing their IT systems and data, either by locking the system’s screen, or by encrypting files until a ransom is paid, usually in cryptocurrency for reasons of anonymity.

By encrypting these files and demanding a ransom payment for the decryption key, the malware places organizations in a position where paying the ransom is the easiest and most cost-effective way to regain access to their files. It should be noted, however, that paying the ransom does not guarantee that users will get the decryption key required to regain access to the infected system or files.

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Join Us for 15 Minutes in the Clouds

Alex McDonald
Everyone is familiar with the term “Cloud” but it’s still worth asking “What is Cloud?”  It can be defined as “networked computing facilities providing remote data storage and processing services via the Internet.” And while that definition is simple (if a little wordy!), the real-world of cloud is complex, dynamic, and ever growing. That’s why we’re hosting this series which will include brief 15-minute discussions on cloud and cloud related technologies:
  • What is Cloud – terminology
  • Cloud application architecture
  • Cloud data privacy & security
  • Cloud provider storage offerings
At this first talk “What is Cloud?” on March 2, 2022, the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative will present a brief history of “The Cloud.” If you are a cloud expert, these sessions might not be for you, but for everyone else, this series of short talks might clear up a lot of questions you may have. Join us for a discussion on: Read More

Storage for Automotive Q&A

Tom Friend
At our recent SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) webcast “Revving up Storage for Automotive” our expert presenters, Ryan Suzuki and John Kim, discussed storage implications as vehicles are turning into data centers on wheels. If you missed the live event, it is available on-demand together with the presentations slides. Our audience asked several interesting questions on this quickly evolving industry. Here are John and Ryan’s answers to them. Q: What do you think the current storage landscape is missing to support the future of IoV [Internet of Vehicles]? Are there any identified cases of missing features from storage (edge/cloud) which are preventing certain ideas from being implemented and deployed? Read More

5G Industrial Private Networks and Edge Data Pipelines

Alex McDonald
The convergence of 5G, Edge Compute and Artificial Intelligence (AI) promise to be catalyst for continued digital transformation. For many industries, it will be a game-changer in term of how business in conducted. On January 27, 202, the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative (CSTI) will take on this topic at our live webcast “5G Industrial Private Networks and Edge Data Pipelines.” Advanced 5G is specifically designed to address the needs of verticals with capabilities like enhanced mobile broadband (emBB), ultra-reliable low latency communications (urLLC), and massive machine type communications (mMTC), to enable near real-time distributed intelligence applications. For example, automated guided vehicle and autonomous mobile robots (AGV/AMRs), wireless cameras, augmented reality for connected workers, and smart sensors across many verticals ranging from healthcare and immersive media, to factory automation. Read More

Storage Life on the Edge

Tom Friend
Cloud to Edge infrastructures are rapidly growing.  It is expected that by 2025, up to 75% of all data generated will be created at the Edge.  However, Edge is a tricky word and you’ll get a different definition depending on who you ask. The physical edge could be in a factory, retail store, hospital, car, plane, cell tower level, or on your mobile device. The network edge could be a top-of-rack switch, server running host-based networking, or 5G base station. The Edge means putting servers, storage, and other devices outside the core data center and closer to both the data sources and the users of that data—both edge sources and edge users could be people or machines. Read More

A Q&A on Discovery Automation for NVMe-oF IP-Based SANs

Tom Friend
In order to fully unlock the potential of the NVMe® IP based SANs, we first need to address the manual and error prone process that is currently used to establish connectivity between NVMe Hosts and NVM subsystems. Several leading companies in the industry have joined together through NVM Express to collaborate on innovations to simplify and automate this discovery process. This was the topic of discussion at our recent SNIA Networking Storage Forum webcast “NVMe-oF: Discovery Automation for IP-based SANs” where our experts, Erik Smith and Curtis Ballard, took a deep dive on the work that is being done to address these issues. If you missed the live event, you can watch it on demand here and get a copy of the slides. Erik and Curtis did not have time to answer all the questions during the live presentation. As promised, here are answers to them all. Q. Is the Centralized Discovery Controller (CDC) highly available, and is this visible to the hosts?  Do they see a pair of CDCs on the network and retry requests to a secondary if a primary is not available? Read More

Cabling, Connectors and Transceivers Questions Answered

Tim Lustig
In our recent live SNIA Network Storage Forum webcast, “Next-generation Interconnects: The Critical Importance of Connectors and Cables” provided an outstanding tutorial on the latest in the impressive array of data center infrastructure components designed to address expanding requirements for higher-bandwidth and lower-power. They covered common pluggable connectors and media types, copper cabling and transceivers, and real world use cases. If you missed the live event, it is available on-demand. We ran out of time to answer all the questions from the live audience. As promised, here are answers to them all. Q. For 25GbE, is the industry consolidating on one of the three options? Read More

Revving Up Storage for Automotive

Tom Friend
Each year cars become smarter and more automated. In fact, the automotive industry is effectively transforming the vehicle into a data center on wheels. Connectedness, autonomous driving, and media & entertainment all bring more and more storage onboard and into networked data centers. But all the storage in (and for) a car is not created equal. There are 10s if not 100s of different processors on a car today. Some are attached to storage, some are not and each application demands different characteristics from the storage device. The SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) is exploring this fascinating topic on December 7, 2021 at our live webcast “Revving Up Storage for Automotive” where industry experts from both the storage and automotive worlds will discuss: Read More

Keeping Pace with Object Storage Trends & Use Cases

Christine McMonigal
Object storage has been among the most popular topics we’ve covered in the SNIA Networking Storage Forum. On November 16, 2021, we will take this topic on again at our live webcast “Object Storage: Trends, Use Cases.” Moving beyond the mechanics of object storage, our experts panel will focus on recent object storage trends, problems object storage can solve, and real-world use cases including ransomware protection. So, what’s new? Object storage has traditionally been seen as an archival storage platform, and is now being employed as a platform for primary data. In this webcast, we’ll highlight how this is happening and discuss: Read More

Fibre Channel SAN Hosts and Targets Q&A

John Kim
At our recent SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) webcast “How Fibre Channel Hosts and Targets Really Communicate” our Fibre Channel (FC) experts explained exactly how Fibre Channel works, starting with the basics on the FC networking stack, link initialization, port types, and flow control, and then dove into the details on host/target logins and host/target IO. It was a great tutorial on Fibre Channel. If you missed it, you can view it on-demand. The audience asked several questions during the live event. Here are answers to them all: Q. What is the most common problem that we face in the FC protocol? A. Much the same as any other network protocol, congestion is the most common problem found in FC SANs. It can take a couple of forms including, but not limited to, host oversubscription and “Fan-in/Fan-out” ratios of host ports to storage ports, but it is probably the single largest generator of support cases. Another common problem is the ‘Host cannot see target’ kind of problem. Read More