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One of the mega trends coming out of the cybersecurity industry is AI-based protection. Especially AI-driven threat hunting is thriving vigorously as organizations navigate a digital world filled with hidden threats and unknown vulnerabilities.
We talked to Chen Burshan, CEO of Skyhawk Security, at AWS re:Invent, to learn how they leverage AI for threat detection and response.
Testing Defenses with AI“One of the benefits and challenges in the cloud is that it’s very easy to deploy changes. The continuous deployment creates a security challenge because the environment changes all the time, therefore the risk changes all the time,” notes Burshan.
It requires paying unusual attention to detail to put one’s finger on camouflaged threats in such a busy environment. Adversaries have the means to build bespoke attacks, that, at machine scale, can cause unprecedented damage.
A familiar concept in cyber security is offensive/defensive security. It is an exercise borrowed from military trainings. The security team splits up to form a red team and a blue team. The red team tries to orchestrate an attack by modeling malicious behaviors, while the blue team tries to defend the ecosystem. This way, they can test the effectiveness and resilience of the network security safely.
Skyhawk adopts the same approach, but with AI. At AWS re:Invent, Skyhawk announced a new a capability that leverages generative AI to forecast attacks proactively. The solution has an AI-based blue team that is the defensive part of the solution. The red team is an offensive addition whose job is to ingest information and generate all possible attack scenarios.
“This helps our customers to prepare against the most imminent risks that are relevant to them. It also helps fine-tune and get the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) piece ready according to the relevant trends to the customers. That’s why the end result is adaptive CDR,” he said.
The platform forms an autonomous purple team that continuously performs this exercise. No matter how complex or dynamic the ecosystem is, continuous testing ensures that the security stack remains effective against all incoming threats.
Tapping into the Power of AIUsing machine learning makes perfect sense in cybersecurity, and no doubt it has changed the equation for attackers, but one’s way of handling also makes big difference. For example, with undertrained models, it is no better than the reactive tools from the pre-cloud era. It can low-ball many of the risks, and open the environment up to breaches. Defenders need to take heed and harness the speed and sophistication that AI is capable of.
Amid industry-wide AI washing, Skyhawk reinforces protection by capturing the full potential of AI. There are three layers of machine learning at work. The first layer is where a glut of raw data is accumulated. Skyhawk models digest all kinds of telemetry from the environment and third-party services over APIs, learning about the inventories, the crown jewels, the topology, and the paths of least resistance.
Stephen Foskett and Chen Burshan at AWS re:Invent 2023“As a company that’s been serving multiple customers over five years, we have a lot of data on threats. We have models that are tuned globally, but also on specific customers’ environment and we apply this data so that we can have the most accurate threat detection for our customers,” says Burshan.
At the next layer, Skyhawk filters out the noise from the data through event correlation and distills down the important bits. Using a second set of AI to crunch this tremendous amount of data saves vast amounts of time and effort.
Skyhawk models are trained and retrained continuously with the latest threat intelligence from the customers’ environments. That data is rolled into the global threat intelligence that Skyhawk has access to. This automated deep learning ensures that the models are learning to recognize new anomalies and behaviors continually, and are getting better over time.
Prolonged periods of decision making in high stake scenarios such as this often leads to cognitive burnout in security professionals. The result is low-confidence decisions that can heavily impact security. To avoid that, Skyhawk organizes threat intelligence into a single alert that carries all the information of interest.
The last layer is the generative AI layer that acts like a virtual incident responder accelerating responses of incident responders.
“In order to be able to deal with data drift as well as to prevent bad actors from being able to evade detection, our models are deploying new models and retraining daily on each customer’s environment. So basically see how the data drift and changing behaviors happen, and update models daily for our customers.”
This allows them to make fine-grained observations and spit out analytics in near real-time.
Skyhawk’s solution works in any cloud-native environment. Burshan dispelled the misconception that the platform works like a firewall. “It’s not an edge protection. It protects the environment from the inside,” he explained.
The red and blue teams, by challenging each other, keep each other sharp. “It also helps to learn how to adapt with the constantly changing environment,” added Burshan.
Available in AWS Marketplace, Skyhawk’s platform is consumed as a SaaS solution with quick, hands-off onboarding, and fast time to value.
Contact Skyhawk Security at Skyhawk.security for a free demo. You can also check out their free Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) product to get hands-on with the solution. For more such interesting interviews from AWS re:Invent, keep reading here at Gestalt IT. Also check out the Utilizing AI Podcast on Gestalt IT for more stimulating discussions on AI.
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Advancing Cyber Readiness with Skyhawk Security’s Continuous Proactive Protection
One of the challenges that customers face in private and multi-cloud environments is with replicating platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings in the public cloud – database services like Azure SQL Database and Amazon RDS being prime examples.
In recent years, owing to ease of deployment in public cloud, there has been a trend of using more than one database in each application. This increase in number of databases has thrown new responsibilities of understanding deployment and management of these system across various environments, at the operations teams.
Introducing Portworx Data ServicesRecent innovations from Portworx by Pure Storage helps change this existing model. Portworx Data Services (PDS) provides a Kubernetes-based data platform that runs in the datacenter and public cloud. More than just providing a set of pods, PDS allows teams to perform day 2 operations with a single monitoring interface, for data services like MongoDB, Cassandra, Kafka, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Redis, and more.
MongoDB is a document database well-known for being developer-friendly. The platform provides features like flexible schemas, straightforward querying of JSON documents, and even advanced JavaScript functions. Its popularity with developers has led to broad deployment and utilization of many applications.
However, achieving consistent management of any database platform without specialist administrators has remained a challenge for many firms. The challenge is exceptionally high for on-premises deployments, where the operations team may have different sets of tools for deploying MongoDB installations, configuring networking, and making them available to the DevOps team. This can easily slow down the development process causing delays in release.
Managing Databases is Challenging Databases typically require specialist knowledge to deploy and manage, as they have complex subsystems. Finding administrators for the various data platforms that make up modern application stacks is a significant challenge, especially for smaller organizations without dedicated database teams.
Portworx Data Services helps get teams started with basic and complex day 2 operations. As a start, users can automate and consistently deploy MongoDB anywhere, either utilizing the user interface or with code through the API. PDS allows creating templates to simplify database deployments, and make them more consistent.
Beyond just deploying services, teams’ responsibilities encompass monitoring database services for performance anomalies and ensuring highly availability. Simple tasks like backing up databases and patching with minimal downtime can be complex for the DevOps team.
Portworx Data Services helps teams execute critical operations like scaling MongoDB cluster automatically as workload increases. PDS has built-in components like PX-Backup, which allow configuring database backups easily, and collecting performance data using popular open-source tools like Prometheus and Grafana.
These tools allow DevOps teams to quickly troubleshoot performance problems, and tackle advanced troubleshooting tasks as part of the deployment process.
Run MongoDB AnywhereThe only dependency for Portworx Data Services is Kubernetes—this means users can run it on any storage or cloud. Whether the environment is hybrid, multi-cloud, or exclusively on-premises, those deployments can all come from the same scripts with only minor changes and a single management interface to provide a DBaaS experience wherever a company runs its databases.
ConclusionDatabases are one of the essential parts of an application. But they can also frequently be a performance bottleneck for the entire application, and protecting their data is critical to keep operating. With the increased number of database solutions, and the various deployment and management methods in the picture, both on-premises and in the cloud, it has been challenging for operations teams to stay afloat. Portworx Data Services aims to meet this need by simplifying deployment, reducing administrative toil, and helping applications move forward wherever one wants them to run.
For more information, check out the Portworx by Pure Storage website.
GuestVenkat Ramakrishnan, VP, Engineering and Products at Portworx by Pure Storage
ModeratorJoey D’Antoni
LinkedInTo learn more, you can connect with Venkat Ramakrishnan on his Linkedin Page.
Twitter@JDAnton
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Portworx Data Services Makes MongoDB Simpler
Sustainability is one of the most pressing themes of our times in IT. Every organization that is a part of this wave is pushing for it by fulfilling their obligations. At Cisco Live EMEA 2023, corporate sustainability resonated in Cisco and its partners’ commitment toward going net zero, transitioning to renewable energy, and in the overall business model. Discussion around climate change and circular economy took centerstage as executives spoke about ESG risks and opportunities, and highlighted Cisco’s goals and initiatives around environmental sustainability.
At the event, former network engineer, and Tech Field Day events lead, Tom Hollingsworth sat down with Eric Blonda, Global Alliance Executive at Cisco, and Remko Deenik, Director Systems Engineering at Pure Storage, backstage to talk about these trends, and learn about their companies’ sustainability strategies.
Turning the Page on an Era of Reckless CapitalismUntil a few decades, sustainability was not a even priority on companies’ tech spend list. Organizations operated with a downright capitalist mentality, with heavy focus on profitability. It was normal to turn a blind eye to problems like emissions and e-waste that were often dismissed as unimportant.
Fast-forward a few years, climate change sweeps through the globe, opening our eyes to the alarming reality that in order to preserve the future of the planet, industries need to reduce the impacts on environment. The first step towards that would be to embed ESG in operations, and modify business models around it.
As awareness grew, customers came at it with a growing intensity. Their purchasing habits changed overnight, making it clear that if their sustainability criteria are not met by a certain vendor, they will spend their money on a vendor that does.
“It’s the top customer concern, and we’re working in every part of our company, every part of our product line, to make sure that sustainability is a priority,” informed Cisco’s Eric Blonda.
Seeing as digital transformation is the best chance to survive in the business, companies in the last few years have started taking small steps towards sustainable practices to create more positive impacts. Today corporate sustainability initiatives are put under heavy scrutiny by authorities and customers alike.
Sustainability Pay-OffsCompanies and consumers have both come to recognize the merits of sustainability in the modern economy. Reducing energy footprint and waste inherently saves money. So, delaying the transition to a sustainable IT is not in the interest of either businesses, or their consumers.
The cost savings generated from sustainability initiatives has driven a lot of companies in the recent years, and inspired their customers to transition to sustainable practices.
Sustainability with Cisco and Pure StorageCisco and Pure Storage are jointly accelerating this transition to a circular economy. Pure Storage has sustainability embedded into their operations since many years.
“The way we’ve designed our system has been very sustainable from the start. But, the last decade, people weren’t all that interested. It’s now really picking up interest, primarily because of the energy consumption part,” said Remko Deenik.
Mr Hollingsworth pointed out, “It’s been a problem in the past in enterprise IT where we get locked into these systems where if you want to increase capacity, you have to get rid of the system you’ve been using, and you have to buy a new one because the new one is 10% faster and 20% quieter. But I could still be using the one that I was using.”
Pure Storage’s Evergreen model offers customers a break from the legacy consumption model. On it, customers can upgrade the components, and still continue to leverage the framework without overhauling it until it reaches expiration. This vastly reduces the amount of e-waste produced at datacenters, not to mention generate substantial cost savings for the operators.
“We’re upgrading all hardware components within the duration of the system. We do that disruptively, but by just upgrading the components that we need to upgrade, we minimize waste and usage of components, in addition to, of course from a sustainability perspective, shipping optimized packaging, optimized power consumption and all of that,” informed Mr. Deenik.
Green Datacenters with FlashStackRecently, Pure Storage and Cisco have launched FlashStack as-a-Service, a converged infrastructure solution that constitutes Pure FlashArray and Cisco UCS X-Series chassis, UCS Fabric interconnects and Cisco Nexus switches.
“It aligns very well, from a technical perspective, to the way we architect our system, and how Cisco’s architecting their system, using stateless design, being able to replace components at will without having to replace the entire system,” said Mr. Deenik.
Mr. Hollingsworth agreed that such flexibility would be needle-moving in the way enterprises stage their upgrade cycles, and will be able to “use the least amount of components possible to produce good performance for their users, but also good performance for our planet.”
“If you look at all the recent product announcements, you’ll see that there has always been a lot of focus on reducing complexity, and reducing the number of cables for example, reducing power, and all of that. It is part of our commitment,” said Mr. Deenik.
FlashStack uses Pure’s Evergreen for discreet scaling and Cisco’s network equipment for reduced complexity. The Pure Storage Evergreen consumption model is fully pay-per-use and lends great flexibility to consumers. Fully managed, it requires no planning at the customers’ end, and users can pay only for what they use. So customers neither overbuy capacity, nor sustain losses from underutilization
“At the start of the contract, a lot of the customers invest for the next five years. They buy a lot of empty capacity that just sits there running in the datacenter, using power for no good reason. We’re able, with this subscription model, to just right-size the solution as well as provide spare capacity so that they’re free to go wherever they want to go. We only put the equipment in place,” explained Mr. Deenik.
Additionally, the model affords flexible downsizing for times when businesses need to scale back their infrastructure when moving to public cloud. Pure Storage removes the free equipment and repurpose them to fit other customers’ environments.
Wrapping UpAchieving sustainability in an industry as robust and impactful as IT requires companies to first, believe that a clean, sustainable future is achievable, and unite in their efforts to power that future. Cisco and Pure Storage are paving the way toward environmental sustainability with their initiatives and innovations. With FlashStack, not only do the customers have a way to control cost, but also break out of legacy infrastructures to be in tune with the circular economy for better e-waste management and emission control.
To learn more about FlashStack as-a-Service, visit flashstack.com. For events from Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live EMEA 2023, check out the Tech Field Day website.
Panelists for Today’s Interview:Remko Deenik, Technical Director Europe at Pure Storage. Connect with Remko on LinkedIn.
Eric Blonda, Global Alliance Executive at Cisco. Connect with Eric on LinkedIn.
ModeratorTom Hollingsworth
Twitter@NetworkingNerd
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Achieving Sustainability in Datacenters with Pure Storage and Cisco
Old-fashioned, one-directional security approaches in the past have opened organizations to nefarious attacks. It’s not just the attackers that deserve the credit for finding the tiniest chink in the armor at the least trouble. We’ve played our part too. Truth is, it’s not so much the solutions that are installed to guard the gates that are the weak links as those that provide fortification from within, as well as the security stance on the whole.
At KubeCon North America 2022, we had the chance to catch up with Fortinet to talk about this, and CI/CD security in particular, that was their subject of focus in KubeCon. Ali Bidabadi, Director of Global Cloud Architecture at Fortinet talked to us about what Fortinet is doing in the DevOps world and how they’re thinking ahead of other vendors in cyber security.
Fortifying the Software PipelineStephen Foskett dispelled the ambiguity about Fortinet’s appearance at KubeCon with the opening question which set the scene for Fortinet – what does Fortinet bring to the DevOps crowd?
Fortinet presents to the K8s community a suite of highly effective and integrated CI/CD security solutions for software development lifecycle that furthers the model that is DevSecOps. That maybe surprising to some who only know Fortinet with respect to network security. It’s remarkable, and in fact pleasantly surprising that Fortinet’s portfolio also encompasses security tools that work inside the CI/CD pipelines.
“We really acknowledge the fact that security for software development lifecycle needs to be comprehensive. It needs to cover the entire CI/CD pipeline from the time that developers start writing code to the time they check in their code into common repositories like GitHub, and further towards the right side of the CI/CD pipeline where they build it into container image and deploy that into orchestration and runtime environments. A comprehensive security for CI/CD needs to cover all of that,” said Bidabadi.
Fortinet Tightens Security from Inside the PipelineFortinet offers a full spectrum of security solutions covering the pipeline start to end. “For each stage of the CI/CD pipeline, we have a product that alleviates customers’ pain points,” said Bidabadi.
A big part of the focus is applications security testing because as Bidabadi pointed out, app security testing is “a key aspect of any comprehensive CI/CD security solution”. That includes continuous static and dynamic testing with things like software composition analysis so as to scan not just the application source code but also libraries and packages.
A Prevention-First ApproachFortinet embraces a prevention-first strategy when it comes to CI/CD security. The sooner a threat is spotted and quarantined in the pipeline, the better it is, vis-à-vis discovering it at the final stages where it has proliferated into something much worse and has wrecked a lot more on its way to that point.
In the face of rising cases of cyber-attacks, lately the industry has been feeling “the need for an integrated approach to cyber security”, and Fortinet’s position on this is aligned with that of Gartner. According to Gartner, a comprehensive cyber security solution needs to be “distributed, integrated and collaborative”, says Bidabadi, and that’s what Fortinet seeks to deliver.
So while on one hand, organizations need to hire professionals with deep familiarity with not just the tools of the trade but also knowledge of the threat landscape at large, what completes the picture is an intelligent solution that protects the environment and the components equally. Fortinet taps into this by bringing to the market solutions that elevate the level of awareness of anomalies in the environment.
Bidabadi said, to Fortinet “an integrated, collaborative, composable and distributed solution” means one that can “continuously leverage the intelligence that different components of the overall solution can share”. Only then can engineers have total visibility of the environment and its assets.
Fabric of SecurityAbout a decade ago, Fortinet put together the Fortinet Security Fabric – a holistic security platform to fight off threats – long before the newer concepts around cyber security took hold. The idea was to create a fabric of solutions that work together collaboratively by sharing intelligence among themselves not just in cloud but also in hybrid multi-cloud environments. The platform was designed to provide that unified single pane of glass policy management control across infrastructures.
Fortinet’s suite of products for CI/CD security integrates tightly with this fabric. A couple of solutions that Bidabadi named especially in the context of CI/CD security are FortiGate 80C firewall and FortiGate-VM. While FortiGate 80C offers broad protection from the latest strains of threats, FortiGate-VM offers context-rich data about applications on Kubernetes. Fortinet has a team of consultants that helps customers examine their security situation and choose solutions from the Fortinet catalogue based on where they are and what they need, so that they can avail the best set of products that work for them.
Wrapping UpAn integrated CI/CD security solution has two key advantages – first, it adds security checks at every stage of the pipeline so that all elements in it are protected at all times, and secondly, it responds to threats dynamically, effectively and speedily, thus minimizing damage. Fortinet’s solutions deliver these outcomes by locking down the CI/CD workflow pipeline from the first stage of coding to the final stages of deployment in the runtime environment, thus delivering a blanket protection to the applications, end to end.
Watch the full video interview above. Check out more such interesting interviews from KubeCon 2022 on Gestalt IT.
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Securing Continuous Delivery Pipelines
Portworx made a flurry of announcements at KubeCon 2022 in Detroit, MI last week. As Gestalt IT was attending the event, we took the opportunity to have a vis-à-vis interview with Portworx and learn more about their upcoming technologies. Venkat Ramakrishnan, VP of Engineering and Products at Portworx by Pure Storage who was the spokesperson for the announcements gave us a quick rundown.
The interview kicked off with the list of announcements which included the Portworx Enterprise – Portworx’s flagship Kubernetes storage and data management platform and the most recent Portworx Managed Enterprise, which, put simply, is Portworx Enterprise as-a-service.
PX-Enterprise’s Fully Managed ServicePX-Enterprise is already a widely deployed product from the Portworx family. A cloud-native storage platform for Kubernetes, Portworx Enterprise is multi-cloud compatible and comes with a breadth of data management and security capabilities. Container-granularity is where it truly shines giving users the option to tune and mange capacity automatically on Kubernetes. Zero RPO disaster recovery and ultra-fast failover ensure high service availability and reliability.
Now all of this is coming as a fully managed service with Portworx Enterprise’s fully managed service. Ramakrishnan informed, “As we work more with our customers, we see there’re much larger deployments of Kubernetes – Portworx being deployed on hundreds of K8s clusters. So we wanted to deliver a much more simplified user experience for our customers so that they don’t have to be concerned with managing Portworx at large scale. So we abstracted the some of the Portworx control plane and management plane aspects. We run it in the cloud and help manage these clusters for our customers.”
The full managed service for Portworx Enterprise includes single-click deployment with auto-discovery, proactive monitoring and observability through a single pane of glass, and automation of Day 2 operations.
The new managed service is built around simplifying operations on Kubernetes with the aim to empower DevOps while at the same time, let operators have a hands-off management experience.
Portworx Enterprise Platform 3.0Next in line is another big news which the rest of the announcements are surrounding. The third generation of the Portworx Enterprise Platform is here. Launched officially in October, Portworx announced it to the Kubernetes community at KubeCon. Taking stock of what the earlier iteration of the platform had, Portworx took its capabilities a step further with this new one. The Portworx 3.0 reaches new thresholds of performance and low latency, all thanks to PX-Fast. PX-Fast is a new capability that delivers “high throughput and lower latency for persistent Kubernetes apps”, enabling faster data ingestion with sky-high performance.
“The Portworx core platform is a complete data management and storage suite that has worked well for our customers managing large scale applications. So with version 3.0, we have taken a closer look at our data management stack and added more performance than enhancements on top of that,” Ramakrishnan says.
“With that, we’re enabling more performance-intensive apps to run in K8s clusters.” He continues. “Customers running high frequency trading platforms or high-speed real time analytics that take split-second decision making can now bring those applications into Kubernetes and run them on scale, and combined with our managed service, they can manage the clusters literally in a zero-touch manner.”
Another new thing on the Portworx Enterprise Platform 3.0 is the Near-Sync DR capability. Near Sync-DR takes the DR capabilities of Portworx to new heights. With this DR feature, users can get “sub-second RPO in failover” between datacenters or cloud in two different regions, for ensured business continuity.
The third interesting thing about the v3.0 is the Object Storage Service. Portworx Enterprise Platform 3.0 has a scale-out object storage, which integrates with its block and file storage control plane. This gives users an additional storage interface for containerized workloads. But the best part is that it automates steps like “bucket creation, policy management and all of the object related enforcements” for the developers, delivering simplicity and speed.
Wrapping UpThe complexity of Kubernetes is notorious, and even through that has helped set our expectations, it has caused a lot of hiccups in the day to day operation. Thankfully, a vast number of companies have stepped forward to do their part to dial down the complexities and make Kubernetes more user-friendly, and Portworx is definitely one of the forerunners in that league. With its gamut of new releases, running containers on Kubernetes is likely to be simplistic, and a lot faster.
Watch the full video interview above and check out more interesting interviews from KubeCon 2022 and others on Gestalt IT.
GuestVenkat Ramakrishnan, VP, Engineering and Products at Portworx by Pure Storage
ModeratorStephen Foskett
LinkedInTo learn more, you can connect with Venkat Ramakrishnan on his Linkedin Page.
Twitter@SFoskett
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Product Refreshes and New Announcements from Portworx
The materialization of multi-cloud has shifted the world of enterprise IT. Among other changes happening, now even the smallest of the organizations are embracing the DevOps style of operation for their day-to-day processes. The model that brings the best of software development and IT operations, has proven to be of great value in shortening protracted development cycles. Its secret formula? Automation.
At the KubeCon 2022 event in Detroit, Gestalt IT’s Stephen Foskett met with Brad Maltz, Sr Director of DevOps Portfolio and DevRel at Dell Technologies to talk about Dell’s new mission centering this trend.
Setting the SceneStephen kicked off the interview with the question that is the big elephant in the room- why is Dell at a Kubernetes Conference? Since decades, Dell has ruled supreme in computers and hardware products – so KubeCon is a rather unlikely place to bump into Dell.
The reason Dell was at KubeCon this year is because it’s headed for a direction change. Lately, for organizations that have gravitated towards a multi-cloud computing model, the DevOps operating model has yielded a ton of benefits. Dell – like any company that cares about its customers – is adapting to that change, helping make that transition easier for its customer.
Maltz clarifies, “When you think of Dell, you typically think about server, storage, data protection, hyperconverged and things like that, but the reality is when people are trying to build out a DevOps operating model, they’re really having to deal with automation of things, of how Kubernetes and containers actually work on top of our portfolio, as well as in a multi cloud world. So realistically, we’re here to help people understand that as they’re moving up from an operational model into the DevOps world, and how Dell can help you do that through our integrations and technologies we build.”
Demand and SupplyWhile it’s true that we’re living in a multi-cloud world, there are still organizations that are building out their own environments, and Dell is not aloof from those businesses. In fact, as Stephen Foskett rightly points out in the interview, Dell’s message maybe more than just about having a tunnel vision for public cloud. It is in fact saying that in the age of increased cloud adoption, hardware still matters.
On-prem infrastructures are not going out of style by any chance just because multi-cloud is booming. In fact, what’s more important now is to have a hybrid infrastructure and for on-prem datacenters, it is a standard requirement to be able to “handle storage in a standardized way where you have the ability to connect data and storage assets between public cloud and on-prem.” A cloud-first stack is the key. According to Maltz, the idea is to be “multi cloud by design” than “multi cloud by default”.
Getting It RightBut storage is not easy to get right. The gold-standard integrated storage takes nuanced knowledge, the perfect configuration and the right hardware, but most importantly, one that integrates fully with orchestration platforms like Kubernetes, for example.
Dell makes storage easy. “Our goal with storage is to make storage easier while enabling all the robust enterprise features to be brought up through Kubernetes,” says Maltz.
Customers on Kubernetes want a simpler storage, one that is easy to manage, and does not require touching the backend controls but can be natively managed from Kubernetes. Dell made that abstraction happen with Container Storage Modules (CSM). CSM is an open-source suite of modules, drivers and applications that help extract enterprise storage controls on to Kubernetes. With Dell CSM, storage on Kubernetes is simpler sans the usual pain points. CSM automate routine tasks like provisioning, snapshotting, encryption, replication and so much more, thus keeping it short and simple.
Dell’s Project Alpine is another one under the Dell banner that can take this initiative a step further by delivering enterprise-class features in a multi-cloud deployment model. With Project Alpine, users can port their software across environments so that no matter where the assets are, the software operate the exact same way on and off-premises.
Dell has a sprawling Developer Relations (DevRel) team in-house that hauls data back from the community to use in development and enhancement of their products, making sure that the emerging and evolving customer needs are met.
A New DirectionCircling back to the topic at hand, how do customers with a Dell stack transition to DevOps and how can Dell help with that? There are two parts to that. As the market is driving towards the DevOps model, automation comes into focus. Dell is making its products more consumable in the IaC (Infrastructure-as-Code)space so that it’s easier for companies to adopt the model. Second part of it is its making Kubernetes more consumable by bringing with things like CSM.
Underneath the turmoil of buzzwords like cloud-native, cloud-intelligent and such things, the meaning of each of these terms are unique to each customer. Maltz adds, “What’s happening right now is the divide in the customer base. Customers are starting to figure out how to come together and Dell plays an extremely important role in that coming together of the market.”
Watch the complete video interview above. Check out more such interesting interviews from KubeCon 2022 on Gestalt IT.
GuestBrad Maltz, Sr Director of DevOps Portfolio and DevRel, Dell Technologies
ModeratorStephen Foskett
LinkedInTo learn more about Dell Technologies, Connect with Brad Maltz over on his LinkedIn Page.
Twitter@SFoskett
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Storage from a DevOps Point of View with Dell Technologies
It is known to everybody in the cloud community that effective resource allocation is a powerful cost optimizer, and yet few have been able to tap into it. Cost remains a major pain point in cloud, and for a majority of the organizations on Kubernetes, it is an ongoing struggle to align their cloud resources tightly to their usage. Manual app optimization seemed a possibility for a hot second, but it requires nuanced understanding of the architectural needs of an application that is above the paygrade of operators. The only safe option left is to overprovision, and overprovision they do. Companies sustain impossible capital outflows every year on account of wasted capacity winding up paying way more than what they got use for. This begs to question -is there really a way to break out of this cycle? Can organizations tune their applications to attain optimal resource utilization on Kubernetes?
StormForge has answers worth paying attention to. At KubeCon 2022 in Detroit, Michigan, we talked to Yasmin Rajabi, VP of Product Management at StormForge about the inherent problems of Kubernetes’ default auto-scaling and learned how StormForge’s ML-based bi-directional auto-scaling helps right-size applications and optimize cloud cost.
Kubernetes Has a ProblemWhen it comes to pod auto-scaling, out of the box, Kubernetes offers the options of horizontal and vertical scaling, but there’s a caveat. One must not use both HPA and VPA scaling because they essentially cancel each other out. One attempts to reduce utilization while the other works to maximize it to reduce waste, and that creates a thrashing action. And when users try to manually tune the settings, they find themselves looking at a vast amount of data from which tracing usage patterns and coming out with the right settings is not humanly possible.
Risk Vs RewardA thing to keep in mind when taking a corrective action with something like resource allocation is that there are risks associated with the gains. Reckless cost cutting can lead to very adverse outcomes. Even when there’re potential savings on the horizon, one must understand that certain tradeoffs have to be made.
If an organization decides to spend less on compute resources, it can come at the expense of degraded performance. For those reasons, clipping can be a risky business and it demands an abundance of caution, proactive risk assessment and predictive utilization analytics.
StormForge’s Two-Way ApproachStormForge tackles the beast two ways. First is in pre-production stage where it lets users preemptively load test applications and work out the optimal configuration for the deployment in prod. With a configuration that has the minimum tradeoffs and the best cost-to-performance numbers, users can tune up the resource efficiency of the applications.
Second is at production. Here, the StormForge platform scans telemetry data like usage and request limits with the embedded ML algorithm to analyze headroom and possibility of clipping. The recommendations engine rolls out the best set of recommendations based on the risk profile and potential for savings. Rajabi says, “Additionally, we set the target utilization of the HPA so that when you are autoscaling horizontally, you’re doing it in the most resource-efficient manner.”
Utilization Peaks and TroughsStephen Foskett brings up the topic of variations of utilization based on business seasons. The reason predicting utilization is precarious is because the patterns of usage aren’t always even. The practice of spinning up and spinning down during certain hours of the day does not fly when the instances max out in peak periods of business like holidays and sale events. If you’re not resourced right in those times, you can wind up with serious performance problems and errors.
Rajabi informs that the StormForge ML algorithm’s strength is in looking at data and recognizing patterns beyond the usual that are imperceivable by humans. As the platform evolves, StormForge plans to expand its scope of data collection and with new generations of algorithm, it will make more precise predictions, even for unplanned spikes.
Trying Recommendations One at a TimeAs good as ML-based auto-scaling sounds, there’s still some hesitation around it. Enterprises are not overly eager to rely on a software or service that may or may not mess up their implementation.
Rajabi says that that’s why StormForge offers users the option to test the recommendations for as long as they want before putting them on auto-pilot. Users can choose to deploy the StormForge recommendations as often as every hour or set them to weekly. Rajabi informed that it has customers that deploy their recommendations hourly so that they can be as specific as possible to the traffic patterns.
StormForge works with cloud monitoring solutions like Datadog and Prometheus and procures all its data from them instead of using a separate software. StormForge also integrates with CI/CD systems and automate that deployment.
Real Numbers from Real World ApplicationsIn terms of real numbers, Rajabi reports that for some customers, StormForge has seen savings as high as 50% which goes to show the startling amount of capacity wastage. Out of the box, the StormForge platform comes with a dashboard that visualizes metrics of utilization. Users get itemized information on excess capacity, predictions and recommendation and potential for savings based on their preferences.
Rajabi emphasizes that StormForge does not swamp users with just data and no actions. Oftentimes, when analytics are presented before operators, the question becomes how can a problem of overallocation be resolved in a way that does not bring down the entire system. StormForge’s recommendations are curated to reduce risk, first and foremost, and show the potential for resizing at minimum sacrifice.
You can download the StormForge platform from StormForge’s website or get a trial pack free of cost. Datadog users can purchase them at the Datadog marketplace.
Watch the full interview above or check out StormForge’s presentations at the recent Cloud Field Day event for a technical demo of the StormForge platform. Come back for more interesting interviews from KubeCon 2022 arriving next week.
GuestYasmin Rajabi, VP of Product Management, StormForge
ModeratorStephen Foskett
LinkedInConnect with Yasmin Rajabi on her LinkedIn Page.
Twitter@SFoskett
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Application Aware Auto-Scaling for Kubernetes
The best security practices are often not the ones that focus on protecting the crown jewels, but holistically everything inside the network. Zero Trust security is a big part of that, but the multi-cloud computing model introduces some baffling complexities in the game making it harder to connect all three of network, users, and applications in a fully secure fashion.
Last week at KubeCon 2022 in Detroit, we met with Ashher Syed, Product Marketing Lead at HashiCorp and talked about how HashiCorp is protecting authentication credentials and making the hybrid multi-cloud environment safe for its clients.
A Twofold ProblemOrganizations’ security ambitions have become magnitudes more difficult since they’ve started down the hybrid multi-cloud road where workloads are in distributed environments and users and applications are linked via interconnects – a situation most ideal for data leaks. Even in a thought experiment, one can come up with a disturbing number of ways to exploit this setting. It’s not like companies are skimping on security solutions, but the problem of threats and risks still prevails.
Not helping with the problem are numberless nodes and clusters in the environments which make it hard to tell which is which. Although that is more of a problem of visibility than security, the two are intertwined in a fashion that if one is to be solved, the other needs figuring out too.
An Infrastructure for the InfrastructuresHashiCorp sees a way through with service mesh. The service mesh is an infrastructure layer that is designed to monitor and control the way data is communicated between applications. HashiCorp wields it to tackle both the problems of visibility and security in one shot.
HashiCorp pieced together a multi-platform service mesh called Consul. The Consul provides a secure workflow between environments, that holds all workloads together in datacenters in multiple regions.
This also has a Zero Trust aspect to it. Under the banner, there are three products- the Consul, the Vault and the most recently released Boundary. Together they cover hybrid multi-cloud connectivity which is top of the list at present, zero trust security, the best way to provide users a safe passage to the applications, and automation for all Day 2 operational tasks. If this sounds ambitious, it’s probably because it is. In a normal situation, what would take armies of operators and support teams weeks to accomplish, the service mesh reduces down to numbered actions performed within minutes.
HashiCorp’s service mesh provides visibility into all Kubernetes workflows, and non-Kubernetes ones too – both inside the K8s environment and any VMs, ECS, EKS and GKE clusters.
Consul has built-in Vault integrations that allows for secure secrets management. Vault encrypts and saves all secrets generated by the secrets engine centrally inside it, instead of storing them in Kubernetes, where unencrypted, they are vulnerable to attacks. For good measure, all encryption keys are put on auto-rotation.
Consul is more than just a secure connection layer. Just on its own, it provides deep and wide observability in a scaled environment. Service discovery enables quick one-minute discovery of any new services on the registry. Users can look inside the clusters and out, and perform monitoring functions like health checks to find how well or not the services are working. By automating a lot of the accompanying networking works, it reduces time to deployment.
But when you factor in the capabilities of the other two solutions – the Vault and Boundary, Consul can accomplish even more on the security side of things. It relies on identity-based authorization which involves authentication, authorization and encryption of all traffic. Service to service encryption creates a hermitically sealed environment for the data packets to travel.
“Zero Trust from our lens is all identity driven. It starts from identity, and application identity brings all the guardrails for Zero Trust security in terms of authentication, authorization and encryption of all the traffic. Also, any secrets that you have, have to be time-bound, and you should be able to audit and log everything after the fact that you bring some data out of it and see if there are any bad actors out there,” says Syed.
Now and in the FutureAs an active participant in the Kubernetes space, HashiCorp is constantly exploring trends and supporting the big K8s community out there. But it’s focused on network, users and application connectivity, not just for Kubernetes environments but others as well.
In things that are new, HashiCorp has a newly released Zero Trust stack which is all over the news. Syed informed that HashiCorp’s plans going forward is to focus on scaling Kubernetes operations. Another forward-looking project is the GAMMA or Gateway API for Mesh Management and Administration for Kubernetes initiative in which HashiCorp is involved.
Wrapping UpToday’s businesses don’t operate in just one cloud, but scale across multiple cloud infrastructures. For that, security is a top concern. With a service mesh, there’s a clear opportunity to consolidate disparate tools for which the Consul is a versatile solution. But the trick is having the right set of tools, and HashiCorp has a great Zero Trust stack that makes it possible to enforce a high level of security and build a safe hybrid multi-cloud space for users and applications.
Check out the full interview above. Keep an eye out for more interesting interviews coming up next, straight from the floor of KubeCon 2022.
GuestAshher Syed, Product Marketing Lead, HashiCorp
ModeratorStephen Foskett
LinkedInConnect with Ashher Syed on his LinkedIn Page.
Twitter@SFoskett
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: A Secure Service Mesh for Hybrid Multi-Cloud
In this interview presented by Portworx and Pure Storage, Calvin Hendryx-Parker meets with Venkat Ramakrishnan to discuss a variety of announcements Portworx made at KubeCon 2022.
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Key Kubernetes Tools Enabling Agility from Local Development to the Edge
In this Roundtable discussion presented by Micron, Stephen Foskett brings together a panel of IT professionals in autonomous driving and experts from Micron and Seeing Machines to discuss at length the importance of driver-specific AI inside the cabin.
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: The Evolution of Self-Driving Technology
In this interview presented by Fortinet, Matt Haedo sat with Nirav Shah discussing Fortinet's unique approach to converging networking and security.
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Fortinet – Keeping Up with the Latest Demands in Networking and Security
In this episode, brought to you by Fortinet, Tom Hollingsworth and his panel discuss Why a Platform Matters for Networking and Security.
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Barry Coombs sits down with Prakash Darji, General Manager of the Digital Experience Business Unit at Pure Storage, to discuss Pure1 Edge Services and how it can deliver a smart connected control plane for your Pure Storage Arrays.
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: SaaSify Your Storage with Pure1 Edge Services – Centralized Advanced Storage Management
In this interview presented by Pure Storage, Calvin Hendryx-Parker interviews Rajiv Thakkar about Portworx BaaS version of PX-Backup on AWS and how Kubernetes has simplified the deployment aspect of launching applications in the cloud.
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Push Past Kubernetes Complexity by Simplifying Compliance and Backup
This Roundtable podcast presented by Micron talks about the ways in which edge and mobile computing are impacting storage, memory and compute and what’s in store for us, the end users.
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In this interview presented by Pure Storage, Karen Lopez talks with Murli Thirumale to discuss Data as a Service, different types of data, and how data can be used to provide a competitive advantage.
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: The Modern CIO Will Invest in Data
In this article presented by Pure Storage, Adam Fisher discusses Portworx' evolution of cloud native storage and what it means for the IT landscape at AWS re:Invent.
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On this roundtable discussion presented by Intel. Itay Yogev and a panel of experts join Stephen Foskett to talk about how AI can be implemented to the benefit of various business processes and how that drives up the company value over time by a significant measure.
© Gestalt IT, LLC for Gestalt IT: Bringing Enterprises into the AI Space with Intel