Kategorie: technology

IBM teams up to fight cyber crime on cloud

IBM and another tech giant, Cisco, have announced that they’re joining up some of their security products and services to help organizations identify and weed out threats faster.
Cisco security solutions will be integrated with the IBM Cognitive Security Operations Platform, which will help organizations secure their data from the network into the cloud, and with IBM QRadar, which will enable building security applications. Apps will be available on the IBM Security App Exchange.
The two companies will also integrate the IBM Resilient Incident Response Platform with the Cisco Threat Grid, giving security teams data about malware, breaches or other cyber crime quickly.
“With Cisco joining our immune system of defense, joint customers will greatly expand their ability to enhance their use of cognitive technologies like IBM Watson for Cybersecurity,” said Marc van Zadelhoff, general manager, IBM Security.
For more about how IBM is collaborating to battle cyber crime, read Computer Business Review‘s full article.
 
The post IBM teams up to fight cyber crime on cloud appeared first on Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

Ansible Automation Inside CloudForms

CloudForms 4.5 marks a huge new direction for Cloud Management and Automation, in that CloudForms can now run an Ansible Playbook natively as a Service, Control Action or Control Alert. We also have some other ways like Custom Buttons and RESTapi.
Product Management have put together a selection of tech-notes that can guide you through all the different ways of calling an Ansible Playbook in CloudForms;
This selection of tech-notes are available on Red Hat Network.

Debugging Ansible Automation Inside CloudForms
CloudForms – My First Ansible Control Action
CloudForms Core – Service Resource Linking
CloudForms Deploy VMWare VM from Template

We also have the following in draft and will be published soon, available as PDF.

Core – Playbook from RESTapi
Core – My First Ansible Custom Button
Core – Playbook from Control Alert
VMware – Deploy VM from ISO
Amazon – Deploy Complete Multi Tiered App
Core – My First Ansible Service

Stay tuned for more tech-notes and how-to-videos for CloudForms and Ansible Automation Inside.
 
Quelle: CloudForms

Busting 3 VMware security myths about migration to the cloud

When discussing IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions with partners and customers, I repeatedly encounter three common misconceptions about the security of their workloads in the IBM Bluemix dedicated private cloud infrastructure. I’d like to take a moment to clear up the myths surrounding VMware security in the cloud.
Myth #1: “My workload could be compromised by other workloads running on the same hardware.”
Occasionally, security vulnerabilities are reported against various hypervisors. While public cloud providers are quick to patch these vulnerabilities, it is fair to be concerned about the security of shared servers. But with IBM Bluemix bare metal infrastructure, your VMware workload runs on dedicated servers that are not shared with other customers, and you have full control of the hypervisor installed on the bare metal machine. You can rest assured that no other workload is sharing your server.
Myth #2: “My communications could be compromised by other workloads sharing the same network.”
While public clouds do not provide segregation of network traffic, the IBM Bluemix infrastructure dedicated private cloud provides dedicated network VLANs to segregate your network traffic from all other customers. You can rest assured that your network traffic is not visible to other workloads. For access to your VMware workload, several public and private connectivity options are available for you to connect to your intranet or even the Internet at your discretion.
Myth #3: “My data resides on shared storage infrastructure.”
Regulatory and industry standards may require you to prove the location of your data or to audit all access to it. This can be difficult in public clouds that use a shared storage infrastructure. By contrast, IBM Cloud’s VMware Cloud Foundation offering uses VMware vSAN technology in combination with local storage on your IBM Bluemix bare metal instances to provide highly available fault-tolerant dedicated storage. VMware vSAN virtualizes and mirrors the disks on the bare metal servers themselves to provide a virtual shared data store spanning the systems. Your data remains on your physical servers at all times.
IBM Bluemix for your VMware workloads
If you’ve despaired of using public cloud infrastructure due to VMware security concerns, why not take a second look at IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions on IBM Bluemix’s dedicated private cloud? I also encourage you to explore IBM Cloud Secure Virtualization, which combines Intel and HyTrust technologies to add workload encryption, access control and auditing, and geofencing capabilities to your VMware cloud.
If you want to know more about the security of VMware in the cloud, get in touch and we’ll explain how we ensure security and compliance for your workloads.
A version of this article was originally published on the IBM Bluemix blog.
The post Busting 3 VMware security myths about migration to the cloud appeared first on Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

Why your company should be considering a cognitive IVR system

To those of us in the contact center space, one of the most interesting and promising developments has arrived. We can now build cognitive agents that communicate with customers using natural language through voice calls. The industry is finally listening to what customers have been saying for a long time: Traditional interactive voice response (IVR) systems are a terrible way to communicate with people. Come up with something better or we’ll take our business elsewhere.
Many younger customers tend to bypass the voice channel in favor of chatbots and other forms of social communications. But voice calls are still the primary way most companies communicate externally. The problem for companies: even though it’s extremely cost effective for a call to be completely handled inside an IVR system, most calls result in customers opting out to a live agent. It’s more expensive to the company and frustrating to the caller.
It is finally possible to create a cognitive IVR system that can handle deeper interactions with customers. Cognitive self-service chatbots understand natural language. And there have been significant improvements in speech recognition systems that can accurately transcribe narrowband audio into text utterances. Virtual agents created with technologies such as IBM Watson demonstrate the potential cost savings and improvements in customer satisfaction that are achievable when you unleash a cognitive workforce into the field of call automation.
Cognitive IVRs are a win-win for customers and the companies that deploy them. Any form of call automation that significantly drives down the need for live call center agents can result in huge cost savings. But the additional and more subtle benefits tie to customer retention. Cognitive IVRs hold the promise of shorter resolution times, which have a direct correlation to customer satisfaction. If I can get my questions answered quickly by an automated agent and avoid a call queue to speak with a live agent, I will walk away from the experience happier and more likely to return in the future.
As with any new and disruptive technology, there are challenges. How do I create cognitive agents that can handle subtle variations in the way questions are asked? How do I train the system to understand the intricacies of my business? How do I integrate cognitive agents into my existing call center?
IBM recently introduced IBM Voice Gateway. IBM Voice Gateway is a cloud-native orchestration engine that provides a telephony interface into Watson. It addresses the challenges of traditional IVRs by providing a cognitive solution, aimed at improving the overall customer experience. Read the announcement blog for more details.
For the convergence between IVR and cognitive, the future is now. The impact this technology will have on customer communications shouldn’t be underestimated. Not only does it have the potential to greatly drive down the cost of running a large contact center but also it can improve customer satisfaction.
Watch this quick video to learn more about advancing your call center operations with a cognitive solution:

The post Why your company should be considering a cognitive IVR system appeared first on Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud