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Why one Gartner analyst is 'not sorry' about DDoS attack program
This week, bloggers look into the DDoS attack program that leveraged IoT devices, Webscale's cloud-resource-allocation platform and alternative views of digital transformation.
Earl Perkins, an analyst with Gartner, said he believes American industry was overdue for trouble in light of the recent DDoS attack program that leveraged internet of things, or IoT, devices.
"I believe most enterprises attempt to balance the risks they take with the costs they must incur to guard against legitimate risks," Perkins said. "It's a constant game and a complex one, because instead of 52 cards in the poker deck, there can be 300 in one game, [and] then 500 in the next," he added.
As more gadgets are connected to the internet, Perkins said he sees a brownfield environment of hundreds of millions of available devices, including webcams, which are ripe for a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack program to target. He said unlike a traditional DDoS attack program that might have targeted popular websites and had some commercial impact, current attacks represent a far greater threat.
Perkins echoed the director of the National Security Agency, who said enterprises must focus on data flows in their entirety. Perkins cited domain name system providers, which are already gearing up for larger volumes of traffic, while adding that the complaints of consumer-internet users may ultimately end up prompting the industry to take the necessary step to more closely examine critical infrastructure cybersecurity.
"IoT just crushed the hell out of your traditional risk calculations by using an IoT-augmented attack," Perkins added.
Read more of why Perkins isn't sorry about last week's DDoS attacks.
Webscale premieres cloud-resource-allocation offering
Drew Conry-Murray, writing in Packet Pushers, reviewed Webscale Networks' new application delivery services for public cloud apps. The services include a load balancer, application delivery controller (ADC) and web application firewall. The startup plans to aid organizations by keeping cloud costs down and boosting performance.
Webscale uses patented dynamic resource allocation and predictive analytics to manage apps in Azure, Amazon Web Services or Google public clouds. The startup argued its services go beyond the virtualized ADCs and load balancers offered by F5 or Citrix and even Amazon's native auto-scaling, load balancing and content delivery network features for AWS.
According to Conry-Murray, Webscale is working to create a hybrid environment, acting as a unified front end among different cloud providers and offering groups, such as retailers, failover capability during peak sales times.
Explore more of Conry-Murray's thoughts on Webscale.
What form will digital transformation really take?
In a recent blog, Ethan Banks questioned traditional wisdom about digital transformation, especially in regard to the internet of things.
At Dell EMC World 2016, Dell EMC execs told audiences that transformation is happening and they must adapt by modernizing their IT infrastructures, by automating as much as possible and by deploying software-defined technologies throughout their operations.
Yet, IoT won't be a primary driver, Banks said. While some industries will be beholden to their IoT gadgets, most will not. "As I reflected back on the various organizations I've supported over the last 20 years, I came up with ... zero of them that would be significantly impacted by IoT," he said.
Instead, he said he sees three factors fueling transformation: cost control, leveraged by the hybrid cloud; simplification, fueled in part by convergence and automation; and flexibility.
Learn more about Banks' thoughts on digital transformation.
