The Role of AIOps in IT Modernization

Alex McDonald
The almost overnight shift of resources toward remote work has introduced the need for far more flexible, dynamic and seamless end-to-end applications, putting us on a path that requires autonomous capabilities using AIOps – Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations. It’s the topic that the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative is going to cover on August 25, 2020 at our live webcast, “IT Modernization with AIOps: The Journey.” Our AI expert, Parviz Peiravi, will provide an overview of concepts and strategies to accelerate the digitalization of critical enterprise IT resources, and help architects rethink what applications and underlying infrastructure are needed to support an agile, seamless data centric environment. This session will specifically address migration from monolithic to microservices, transition to Cloud Native services, and the platform requirements to help accelerate AIOps application delivery within our dynamic hybrid and multi-cloud world. Join this webcast to learn: Read More

Are We at the End of the 2.5-inch Disk Era?

Jonmichael Hands
The SNIA Solid State Storage Special Interest Group (SIG) recently updated the Solid State Drive Form Factor page to provide detailed information on dimensions; mechanical, electrical, and connector specifications; and protocols. On our August 4, 2020 SNIA webcast, we will take a detailed look at one of these form factors – Enterprise and Data Center SSD Form Factor (EDSFF) – challenging an expert panel to consider if we are at the end of the 2.5-in disk era. Enterprise and Data Center Form Factor (EFSFF) is designed natively for data center NVMe SSDs to improve thermal, power, performance, and capacity scaling. EDSFF has different variants for flexible and scalable performance, dense storage configurations, general purpose servers, and improved data center TCO.  At the 2020 Open Compute Virtual Summit, OEMs, cloud service providers, hyperscale data center, and SSD vendors showcased products and their vision for how this new family of SSD form factors solves real data challenges. Read More

Where Does Cyber Insurance Fit in Your Security Strategy?

Paul Talbut
Protection against cyber threats is recognized as a necessary component of an effective risk management approach, typically based on a well-known cybersecurity framework. A growing area to further mitigate risks and provide organizations with the high level of protection they need is cyber insurance. However, it’s not as simple as buying a pre-packaged policy. In fact, it’s critical to identify what risks and conditions are excluded from a cyber insurance policy before you buy. Determining what kind of cyber insurance your business needs or if the policy you have will really cover you in the event of an incident is challenging. On August 27, 2020 the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative (CSTI) will host a live webcast, “Does Your Storage Need a Cyber Insurance Tune-Up?” where we’ll examine how cyber insurance fits in a risk management program. We’ll identify key terms and conditions that should be understood and carefully negotiated as cyber insurance policies may not cover all types of losses. 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

Notable Questions on NVMe-oF 1.1

Tim Lustig
At our recent SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) webcast, “Notable Updates in NVMe-oF™ 1.1” we explored the latest features of NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF), discussing what’s new in the NVMe-oF 1.1 release, support for CMB and PMR, managing and provisioning NVMe-oF devices with SNIA Swordfish™, and FC-NVMe-2. If you missed the live event, you can watch it here. Our presenters received many interesting questions on NVMe-oF and here are answers to them all: Read More

Kubernetes Business Resiliency FAQ

Jim Fister

The SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative continued our webcast series on Kubernetes last month with an interesting look at the business resiliency of Kubernetes. If you missed “A Multi-tenant, Multi-cluster Kubernetes Datapocalypse in Coming” it’s available along with the slide deck in the SNIA Educational Library here. In this Q&A blog, our Kubernetes expert, Paul Burt, answers some frequently asked questions on this topic.

Q: Multi-cloud: Departments might have their own containers; would they have their own cloud (i.e. Hybrid Cloud)?  Is that how multi-cloud might start in a company?

A: Multi-cloud or hybrid cloud is absolutely a result of different departments scaling containers in a deployment. Multi-cloud means multiple clusters, but those can be of various configurations. Different clusters and clouds need to be tuned for the needs of the organization.

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Ready for a Lesson on Security & Privacy Regulations?

J Metz
Worldwide, regulations are being promulgated and aggressively enforced with the intention of protecting personal data. These regulatory actions are being taken to help mitigate exploitation of this data by cybercriminals and other opportunistic groups who have turned this into a profitable enterprise. Failure to meet these data protection requirements puts individuals at risk (e.g., identity theft, fraud, etc.), as well as subjecting organizations to significant harm (e.g., legal penalties). The SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) is going to dive into this topic at our Security & Privacy Regulations webcast on July 28, 2020. We are fortunate to have experts, Eric Hibbard and Thomas Rivera, share their expertise in security standards, data protection and data privacy at this live event.  This webcast will highlight common privacy principles and themes within key privacy regulations. In addition, the related cybersecurity implications will be explored. We’ll also probe a few of the recent regulations/laws to outline interesting challenges due to over and under-specification of data protection requirements (e.g., “reasonable” security). Attendees will have a better understanding of:
  • How privacy and security is characterized
  • Data retention and deletion requirements
  • Core data protection requirements of sample privacy regulations from around the globe
  • The role that security plays with key privacy regulations
  • Data breach implications and consequences
This webcast is part of our Storage Networking Security Webcast Series. I encourage you to watch the presentations we’ve done to date on: And I hope you will register today and join us on July 28th for what is sure to be an interesting look into the history, development and impact of these regulations.   

Your Questions Answered on CMSI and More

Marty Foltyn

The “new” SNIA Compute, Memory, and Storage Initiative (CMSI) was formed at the beginning of 2020 out of the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative.  The 45 companies who comprise the CMSI recognized the opportunity to combine storage, memory, and compute in new, novel, and useful ways; and to bring together technology, alliances, education, and outreach to better understand new opportunities and applications. 

To better explain this decision, and to talk about the various aspects of the Initiative, CMSI co-chair Alex McDonald invited CMSI members Eli Tiomkin, Jonmichael Hands, and Jim Fister to join him in a live SNIA webcast. 

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Understanding the Power of SNIA’s Storage Management Initiative

SNIA Storage Management Blog

By Don Deel, SNIA SMI Governing Board Chair

The SNIA Storage Management Initiative (SMI) uses many acronyms that can cause confusion. SMI? That’s the name of the Initiative! SMI-S? That’s a storage management specification. CTP? That stands for Conformance Test Program, but soon there will be two! One already exists for SMI-S and the other is being developed for SNIA Swordfish. Swordfish is a storage management specification that doesn’t have an acronym.

So other than come up with confusing acronyms, what does the SMI do? The SMI is an active group with a mission to unify the storage industry to develop and standardize interoperable storage management technologies. The SMI supports the development of storage management solutions that are based upon standard interfaces instead of proprietary interfaces. This helps lower costs, makes integration efforts easier and provides increased reliability, security and manageability.

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Key Management FAQ

J Metz

Key management focuses on protecting cryptographic keys from threats and ensuring keys are available when needed. And it’s no small task. That's why the SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) invited key management and encryption expert, Judy Furlong, to present a “Key Management 101” session as part our Storage Networking Security Webcast Series. If you missed the live webcast, I encourage you to watch it on-demand as it was highly-rated by attendees. Judy answered many key management questions during the live event, here are answers to those, as well as the ones we did not have time to get to.

Q. How are the keys kept safe in local cache?

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