Confused? Don't Let the Private Cloud Get You Down

I do not envy the small business owner who has to make sense of the broad terms that are used to describe technology infrastructure.

The cloud is abstract enough. But the term "private cloud" is even worse. Luckily, it's a phrase that looks to have seen its day in the limelight.

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Here's what does make sense. Build on what you have already done to make your organization better prepared for the disruptions that could always possibly occur.

For example, consider how you can use a virtual environment to make your business more secure. Many businesses have consolidated to some extent and virtualization has helped them do that.

The next step may be to develop a disaster recovery plan. We've seen what happened in Alabama and Japan. It's important to consider how your company may survive a major disaster. That might mean connecting your physical servers with a cloud infrastructure.

So don't worry about terms like "private cloud." It makes more sense to have a plan that actually protects your business and keeps resources available for the work you really need to do. And that means making sure your organization has a virtual infrastructure that has a plan for backup and recovery in case crisis ever does strike.

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Confused? Don't Let the Private Cloud Get You Down

I do not envy the small business owner who has to make sense of the broad terms that are used to describe technology infrastructure.

The cloud is abstract enough. But the term "private cloud" is even worse. Luckily, it's a phrase that looks to have seen its day in the limelight.

Sponsor

Here's what does make sense. Build on what you have already done to make your organization better prepared for the disruptions that could always possibly occur.

For example, consider how you can use a virtual environment to make your business more secure. Many businesses have consolidated to some extent and virtualization has helped them do that.

The next step may be to develop a disaster recovery plan. We've seen what happened in Alabama and Japan. It's important to consider how your company may survive a major disaster. That might mean connecting your physical servers with a cloud infrastructure.

So don't worry about terms like "private cloud." It makes more sense to have a plan that actually protects your business and keeps resources available for the work you really need to do. And that means making sure your organization has a virtual infrastructure that has a plan for backup and recovery in case crisis ever does strike.

Discuss

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Sony complies with Congress request, but won?t testify yet on PlayStation Network outage

Sony told a subcommittee of the House of Representatives that it would comply with its request for answers about the outage of the PlayStation Network that resulted in the possible loss of user identity data and credit card numbers. But the Japanese company said it could not yet appear in front of the subcommittee to answer questions in person.

The interaction shows that there will be some tense moments ahead for Sony as it tries to walk the line of cooperating with government requests while keeping the details of its ongoing investigation secret. Congress is interested because Sony lost control of identity data for its 77 million registered users and may have lost credit card numbers for 10 million users.

Representative Mary Bono Mack, chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, asked the company to answer a set of questions and attend a hearing to testify in person. The subcommittee sent Sony a letter on Friday asking questions related to the attack, which resulted in the shutdown of the PlayStation Network on April 19.

Patrick Seybold, a spokesman for Sony, said that the company is cooperating with the request and will provide responses in advance of the subcommittee’s deadline. However, he said the company’s representatives could not appear as early as this Wednesday because of the “ongoing intensive investigation and management of this criminal cyberattack.”

The subcommittee has asked for more information on what was taken during the attack. Sony executives apologized for the outage and data loss and answered questions at a press conference in Japan (Saturday night, Pacific time) for an hour and 42 minutes. The subcommittee is exploring creating a federal data reach notification law to help protect consumers after their personal data is lost.

Meanwhile, Sony Online Entertainment, a separate division that makes online games for PC players, said today it had to shut down its service as it investigated the intrusion. Sony is expected to bring the PSN back online sometime this week.

Tags: PlayStation Network, PSN

Companies: Sony, Sony Online Entertainment

People: Mary Bono Mack, Patrick Seybold

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Did Sony do enough to satisfy angry PlayStation Network users? (poll)

Sony executives have formally apologized to users who were affected by the hacker attack on the PlayStation Network, the online entertainment service that has been down for more than 10 days.

Today, Sony’s Kaz Hirai repeatedly apologized to users for the data breach. The company said it would begin restoring the service for the PSN and Qriocity music and video service within a week. It offered to reimburse customers for the costs related to credit card reissuance and for any needed identity protection service. Sony is also offering a “welcome back” initiative to compensate users for their losses. That includes free content, which may vary based on the region where the user lives; it also includes 30 days free subscription to the paid PlayStation Plus service.

Sony also pledged to move its service to a new data center and to beef up its security so this doesn’t happen again.

The company has been criticized for acting too slowly to respond to user concerns about the break-in and whether or not personal information such as credit card numbers were stolen. Sony’s Hirai said as many as 10 million credit card numbers may have been stolen by the hackers.

Frankly, I think Sony did a good job here, although it should have done it much sooner. It pretty much said everything that I expected it to say. It probably could have disclosed more about the exact nature of the attack, but it erred on the side of not disclosing this information to prevent future attacks.

Are you satisfied that Sony said enough to mollify angry users?

Online Surveys – Zoomerang.com

Tags: outage, PlayStation Network, PSN outage

Companies: Sony

People: Kaz Hirai

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