IT News: Operations, MFA, Big Data, Server, Database (Sept. 20th, 2021)
Volume 282, Issue 3 - Sept. 13th, 2021 — Sept. 19th, 2021
Selections from the weekly newsletter, “IT News and Events.”
Operations
IT Disposal Processes Leave Plenty To Be Desired
There is plenty of room for improvement, study finds
"The audit trails for data removal and IT destruction and recycling are passable, but almost never as good as they could be, a new report states.
The IT asset disposal company DSA Connect recently polled 100 IT directors, and found that more than a quarter (27 percent) consider the standard of audit trails at their firms either poor or average.
The largest section of respondents (50 percent) said the standard of audit trails is good, but also admitted that improvements are in order..." [ITProPortal, September 17th, 2021]
The Post-Pandemic Data Center: Trends To Watch
While the unprecedented global pandemic has paused our lives for more than a year and a half now, it has not slowed the massive digitization of data, often referred to as digital transformation, that is now a primary challenge as businesses evolve their digital strategies
Digitization of the enterprise, and the resulting digital services, are rapidly increasing requirements for larger technology stacks to store, compute, analyze and connect the data. Supporting this is the Valuates Report, which projects the global data center market for power will increase from $15 billion in 2020 to $21.5 billion by 2026.
As a result, enterprise digital infrastructure deployments are accelerating, expanding and starting to take on junior hyperscale-like requirements for space, power and connectivity. What used to be normal enterprise requests for 250-500 KW environments are now requests for multi-megawatt, multi-site, multi-geography engagements. [CIO, September 14th, 2021]
The Dance Between Compute And Network In The Datacenter
In an ideal world, there is a balance between compute, network, and storage that allows for the CPUs to be fed with data such that they do not waste too much of their processing capacity spinning empty clocks.
"System architects try to get as close as they can to the ideals, which shift depending on the nature of the compute, the workload itself, and the interconnects across compute elements - which are increasingly hybrid in nature.
We can learn some generalities from the market at large, of course, which show what people do as opposed to what they might do in a more ideal world than the one we all inhabit. We tried to do this in the wake of Ethernet switch and router stats and server stats for the second quarter being released by the box counters at IDC. We covered the server report last week, noting the rise of the single-socket server, and now we turn to the Ethernet market and drill down into the datacenter portion of it that we care about greatly and make some interesting correlations between compute and network..." [The Next Platform, September 14th, 2021]
Best IT Management Software Solutions 2021
The category of IT management software covers a wide range of offerings: remote management of computer systems, IT Service Management (ITSM), IT infrastructure management, Application Performance Management (APM), Security Information & Event Management (SIEM), and many other areas. Consequently, the tools covered in this guide span the gamut of management areas.
Each vendor has their own approach. Some entered the field via security, some via application performance, and others via Help Desk applications that needed to connect remotely into user systems. Regardless of their origins, they have all expanded into the wider world of IT management. [CIOinsight, September 14th, 2021]
Outsourced IT: Is It Right For Your Company?
Outsourced IT is the concept of hiring external service vendors to handle certain IT functions.
"Companies outsource infrastructure management, application services, utility services, cloud-enabled outsourcing, software-as-a-service and more. Some organizations outsource data storage since it is cheaper to have a third-party vendor take care of your critical data rather than maintaining their own data storage facilities and devices. In general, outsourcing IT helps businesses accelerate time to market, leverage external assets, intellectual property and expertise, and reduce costs..." [Security Boulevard, September 13th, 2021]
MFA
Why MFA Isn't Enough To Protect You
MFA and the increased need to protect mobile app users
"For years we've seen security professionals urging developers to secure their applications by implementing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) as an extra layer of cybersecurity beyond passwords. But, unfortunately, this has proven to not be enough. According to a study conducted by Sift, account takeover fraud grew by 250% in 2020, despite the addition of MFA.
Fraudsters have learned quickly how to bypass the most popular MFA methods such as one-time passwords (OTPs), facial recognition and others. In this article, we will discuss the issues related to OTPs and facial recognition as some of the most popular and effective forms of MFA..." [techradar.pro, September 17th, 2021]
Defeating Ransomware With Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Ransomware threats are now targeting increasingly more organizations.
"IT teams must swiftly take proactive steps to protect data and applications, which have become a high-value target for attackers. One of these steps is enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible, especially in the backup environment.
MFA is an effective method of security that validates a combination of factors requested of the user, with the most common one being their credentials, and the second (or more) being a Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP), biometric, or a key card. MFA can most easily be understood as something you know and something you have. This additional authentication mechanism mitigates cyber attacks when an account is compromised, and reduces unauthorized access, since the attacker needs to pass the required combination of factors during authentication..." [CIO, September 15th, 2021]
The Intersection of Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Regardless of their size, the protection of data remains a key challenge for organizations. It's imperative that the right level of access is only granted to the right users when they need it
"There should never be an instance where unauthorized users from within (or outside!) the organization access systems that are meant for a select few, or authorized users access data not intended for them.
For organizations that provide a service to businesses or the general public, data protection is an even bigger challenge. They remain vulnerable to different attack vectors as unscrupulous actors may try to gain access to customer data. Thus it's vital for processes and policies to be in place that govern user identities and control access. These processes and policies form the foundation of Identity and Access Management..." [Security Boulevard, September 14th, 2021]
Big Data
Gmail Is Using Big Data To Integrate A New VoIP Feature
Big data technology has led to some remarkable changes in Gmail, including the inception of a new VoIP service
"Google is one of the companies that has always used big data to its full effectiveness. They have used big data in their Gmail services to offer better features to their customers. In the past, they used new forms of big data technology to offer more robust security. However, there are other major benefits as well.
Google has recently found an application for data technology in their Gmail platform. They are using a new VoIP service that relies heavily on sophisticated big data technology..." [SmartDataCollective, September 16th, 2021]
Five Online Visibility Guidelines That Incorporate Big Data
Big data is very important for modern branding, so these five benefits should be utilized.
"Big data is playing a vital role in modern branding. Companies need to know how to utilize their online branding strategy effectively if they hope to get the most bang for their buck. Big data can be essential for reaching your branding goals.
Utilizing Big Data to Get the Most Out of Your Digital Media Strategy
You need to know how to use big data effectively if you want to create a successful digital marketing strategy. With the emergence of Digital Media, marketing has changed into various forms and data is becoming more important than ever..." [SmartDataCollective, September 14th, 2021]
Server
Server Optimization: How To Increase Server Speed & Performance
Server optimization provides a way to improve the performance and speed of a server
"Server optimization techniques are practiced extensively by companies to meet expectations such as accessibility, availability, and functionality with their websites.
In this article, we discuss server optimization, its benefits, and trusted techniques for optimizing servers.
What Is Server Optimization?
Server optimization is a set of methods used to improve data processing efficiency and application configuration, along with the overall performance and speed of the server. Server optimization methods allow companies to maintain a highly efficient and operational application delivery network that functions at an optimal level..." [ServerWatch, September 17th, 2021]
BI
10 Power BI Mistakes To Avoid
Power BI is increasingly bringing the power of data to business users, but you may need more guardrails to get the most value from it. These are the most common things organizations get wrong
"As a leading business intelligence tool, Power BI offers business users power and flexibility in dealing with data. The Microsoft tool provides everything from Excel integration to enterprise reporting and an increasing number of AI features that simplify getting deeper insights. In fact, the latest Forrester Wave report on augmented BI goes as far as to say 'it is hard not to consider Power BI as your top choice for an enterprise BI platform.'
But with so much power and so many features, you need to understand how to work with Power BI to get the most out of it. These are some common mistakes enterprises make with Power BI and how to avoid them..." [CIO, September 16th, 2021]
Database
Nearly Half Of All On-Premises Databases Have Unpatched Vulnerabilities
Simply transitioning to the cloud may not be the answer
Almost half of all on-prem database around the world contain some form of known, addressable security vulnerabilities, over half of which were ranked as high or critical severity. according to a new survey.
Conducted over five years by cybersecurity vendor Imperva, the survey scanned around 27,000 databases, finding 46% contained vulnerabilities at an average of 26 vulnerabilities per database. [techradar.pro, September 14th, 2021]