Kategorie: technology

Ensuring Container Image Security on OpenShift with Red Hat CloudForms

In December 2016, a major vulnerability, CVE-2016-9962 (“on-entry vulnerability”), was found in the Docker engine which allowed local root users in a container to gain access to file-descriptors of a process launched or moved into the container from another namespace. In a Banyan security report, they found that over 30% of official images in Docker Hub contain high priority security vulnerabilities. And FlawCheck surveyed enterprises asking for their top security concern regarding containers in production environments. “Vulnerabilities and malware,” at 42%, was the top security concern among those surveyed. Clearly security is a top concern for organizations that are looking to run containers in production.
At Red Hat, we are continuously improving our security capabilities and introduced a new container scanning feature with CloudForms 4.2 and OpenShift 3.4. This new feature allows CloudForms to flag images in the container registry in which it has found vulnerabilities, and OpenShift to deny execution of that image the next time someone tries to run that image.

CloudForms has multiple capabilities on how a container scan can be initiated:

A scheduled scan of the registry
An automatic scan based on newly discovered images in the registry
A manual execution of the scan via Smart-tate Analysis

Having this unique scanning feature with native integration in OpenShift is a milestone in container security as it provides near real time monitoring of your images within the OpenShift environment.
The following diagram illustrates the flow happening when an automatic scan is performed.

CloudForms monitors the OpenShift Provider and checks for new images in the registry. If it finds a new image, CloudForms triggers a scan.
CloudForms makes a secure call to OpenShift and requests a scanning container to be scheduled.
OpenShift schedules a new pod on an available node.
The scanning container is started.
The scanning container pulls down a copy of the image to scan.
The image to scan is unpacked and its software contents (RPMs) are sent to CloudForms.
CloudForms may also initiate an OpenSCAP scan of the container.
Once the OpenSCAP scan finishes, the results are uploaded and a report is generated from the CloudForms UI.
If the scan found any vulnerabilities, CloudForms calls OpenShift to flag the image and prevent it from running.

The next time someone tries to start the vulnerable image, OpenShift alerts the user that the image execution was blocked based on the policy set by CloudForms.

As you can see, Red Hat CloudForms can be used as part of your IT security and compliance management to assist in identifying and validating that workloads are secure across your infrastructure stack, starting with hosts and virtual machines, instances in the cloud, or containers.
Quelle: CloudForms

Why 80 percent of companies are increasing use of cloud managed services

This is the first in a two-part interview series with Lynda Stadtmueller, vice president of cloud services for the analyst firm Frost & Sullivan.
Thoughts on Cloud (ToC): A recent survey by Frost & Sullivan reported that 80 percent of US companies are planning to increase their use of cloud managed services. What factors are driving this increase?
Lynda Stadtmueller, vice president of cloud services, Frost & Sullivan: There are two main factors driving this increase. #Cloud computing is more complex and the stakes are now higher than ever.
With cloud, businesses know they have a tremendous technology delivery model at their fingertips, but they don’t always know how to harness it. They might not have the expertise on staff. The self-service cloud might be more complex than they expected.
Additionally, the stakes for getting it right are high. As a result, they’re turning to specialists who can provide the management overlay to make sure that workloads are secure, efficient and cost controlled.
ToC: Does that 80 percent include companies that already use a managed cloud hosting solution and plan to increase those services?
Source: 2015 Frost & Sullivan cloud survey of US-based IT decision makers
LS: Yes. There are more types of cloud managed services available now than in the past. For example, a company using some sort of cloud infrastructure management may realize that they have non-cloud legacy applications that aren’t running as efficiently as they would prefer. The right provider can bring the benefits of cloud to legacy applications. In these cases, companies are adding that to their managed services agreements. They’re adding more workloads, more infrastructure and more applications to the cloud.
ToC: Is driving cloud value in legacy applications the single biggest reason for that type of increase?
LS: It&8217;s a big one. Interestingly, in many companies these decisions are made separately. The person who manages the SAP workload may not be the same person who makes decisions about cloud infrastructure services.
And yet, as the company moves from point solutions to a holistic hybrid cloud strategy, that&8217;s when those collaborative conversations are happening. At a higher level, the organization may decide it can move its most challenging workloads into a cloud managed service model and recognize the those benefits across multiple lines of business.
Come back soon for part two of our interview with Lynda Stadtmueller. To learn more about the value of cloud managed services, watch a short webcast featuring insights from Frost & Sullivan, “How Managed Cloud Services Can Help You Achieve Your Business Goals.”
The post Why 80 percent of companies are increasing use of cloud managed services appeared first on Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

3 Things you’ll learn about private cloud at InterConnect

Many companies are embracing a private cloud strategy to run their business. They want to reduce cost and effort while improving agility, IT processes and resource scalability. Private cloud addresses these needs. And it offers a dedicated, single-tenant cloud environment either on-site or off-premises.
InterConnect 2017, the industry’s premier cloud conference, is the perfect place to learn about private cloud implementations and best practices from experts and peers. Three key things we’re showcasing through sessions, panels, labs and hands-on demos at InterConnect:

It’s easy to adopt private cloud
Private cloud can transform your business
IBM can help get you there quickly

Here are just a few highlights to work into your schedule.
Session #2133: Five years of business value with PureApplication at DTCO, from bleeding edge to proven technology
The Dutch Tax and Customs Office needed to keep pace with new releases of all the different components of their technology stack. They aimed to simplify their software and application environment to accelerate application delivery. Adopting DevOps, IBM PureApplication, and patterns for WebSphere and Master Data Management (MDM), DTCO not only gained faster time to market but also realized the full potential of private cloud.
Session #2274: How DevOps enhanced quality and speed of delivery for the Israeli Government’s Welfare Department
The Israeli Government’s Welfare Department wanted to deliver applications to market faster and with higher quality. To get there, they used an agile, DevOps approach. They brought in IBM UrbanCode Deploy to automate deployments. And they complimented that with IBM Bluemix Local System to streamline app environment provisioning. As a result, the organization improved app delivery time from three months to three weeks and reduced provisioning times from two weeks to 50 minutes.
Session #4863: IBM Bluemix Private Cloud for cloud service providers: Materna’s experiences and technical insight
IT consulting company Materna succeeded in capturing new customers with a cloud based delivery of its solution on IBM Bluemix Private Cloud. In this session, their executives will walk through their process of adopting cloud technologies. They will discuss how they decided which workloads to run on the cloud and how they addressed multi-tenancy, audit and compliance, networking and more.
Session #5478: IBM PureApplication and Bluemix Local System Patterns: Roadmap and directions
Pre-built, customizable application patterns help you deploy application environments faster and more reliably across your private cloud. In this session, experts will discuss how patterns can help you improve application time-to-market so you can focus more on innovating and serving your clients.
Now that you know about a few of the private cloud sessions at InterConnect, it’s time for you to act. Register now and get ready for an incredible experience of learning and networking with your peers and some of the top experts in private cloud. See you there.
The post 3 Things you’ll learn about private cloud at InterConnect appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

IBM Machine Learning comes to private cloud

Billions of transactions in banking, transportation, retail, insurance and other industries take place in the private cloud every day. For many enterprises, the z System mainframe is the home for all that data.
For data scientists, it can be hard to keep up with all that activity and those vast swaths of data. So IBM has taken its core Watson machine learning technology and applied it to the z System, enabling data scientists to automate the creation, training and deployment of analytic models to understand their data more completely.
IBM Machine Learning supports any language, any popular machine learning framework and any transactional data type without the cost, latency and risk that comes with moving data off premises. It also includes cognitive automation to help data scientists choose the right algorithms by which to analyze and process their organization’s specific data stores.
One company that is evaluating the IBM Machine Learning technology is Argus Health, which hopes to help healthcare providers and patients navigate the increasingly complex healthcare landscape.
“Helping our health plan clients achieve the best clinical and financial outcomes by getting the best care delivered at the best price in the most appropriate place is the mission of Argus while focused on the vision of becoming preeminent in providing pharmacy and healthcare solutions,” said Marc Palmer, president of Argus Health.
For more, check out CIO Today‘s full article.
The post IBM Machine Learning comes to private cloud appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud