SERVER VIRTUALIZATION
Versa Networks | August 26, 2022
Versa Networks, the recognized secure access service edge (SASE) leader, today announced findings from a commissioned Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study conducted by Forrester Consulting. The study, Total Economic Impact of Dell Virtual Edge Platform (VEP), commissioned by Dell Technologies, revealed that organizations using Dell VEPs powered by Intel processors running Versa Operating System (VOS)™ realize benefits of $1.53 million over three years versus costs of $663,000, resulting in a net present value (NPV) of $864,000 and a return on investment (ROI) of 130 percent, with the combined solution paying for itself in nine months.
To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed four enterprise customers with experience using Dell VEPs powered by Intel processors running Versa Operating System (VOS)™ in a secure software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) environment. These organizations range from serving U.S. and Europe to global operations, in industries described as financial services and banking; oil and gas equipment services; a SD-WAN service provider; and localization, translation, and videogame testing. To create a framework to quantify benefits, Forrester constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees’ organizations. The model measured a three-year ROI based on customer and Forrester interviews, and financial analysis.
According to the study, “By implementing the Dell VEP devices running the Versa Operating System (VOS), users can enhance their existing digital networking stack to promote the efficiency of data transfer throughout their organizations. The senior network engineer for a localization, translation, and videogame testing organization said: ‘The preinstalled Versa software offers remote-access VPN. With our Dell VEP devices already in place, we can easily start utilizing that without having to buy anything else.’”
The independent study found that prior to using Dell VEP and Versa, the organizations used a combination of networking technologies and vendors to manage their networks. Their solutions were limited, slow, and lacked newer technology integrations. Outages were frequent and expensive, and management continually fielded complaints regarding connection speed and downtime. The organizations also faced global supply chain and product quality issues.
According to the study, “The central platform for managing the combined Dell VEP, Intel, and Versa solution allows organizations to monitor and gather accurate data across all appliances and realize efficiencies in responding to that data. One manager explained: ‘With the Dell VEP and Versa combination, we get components that manage the whole solution, all the appliances at all the sites and all the configurations. Now we can do that all in one place, whereas before, it was going to every single router when you needed to make a change. So the centralized management, logging, and reporting have been key to us.’”
Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, a composite company, and an ROI analysis that illustrates the areas financially affected. The composite company is representative of the four companies that Forrester interviewed and is used to present the aggregate financial analysis. The resulting composite organization was characterized as a U.S.-based enterprise in the financial services industry maintaining global operations; having an annual revenue totalling $5 billion; and managing 50 branch offices, increasing to 60 by Year Three.
According to the study, with Dell VEP devices powered by Intel processors running VOS, organizations found a cost-effective solution that met networking requirements, supported their SD-WAN strategy, and came from a vendor that could deliver reliably worldwide. Quantified benefits attributable to Dell VEP and Versa include:
Avoided unnecessary purchases, with a three-year total savings of $216,000
Employee productivity gains from improved supply chain, with a three-year total savings of $237,500
IT resource time saved, with a three-year total savings of $335,160
Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) cost savings, with a three-year total savings of $1,058,063
Unquantified benefits that customers experience include a reliable partnership with Dell; centralized management, reporting and logging; improved visibility and analytics; upgraded security posture; enhanced user experience due to improved traffic steering; and flexibility.
A director of IT network infrastructure at an oil and gas equipment and services organization commented on the combined value of Dell VEP and VOS SD-WAN: “The benefit is that I have a central policy and can push it everywhere. The activation of a device at a new location is a lot easier as well. You just pull the configuration from the directory — you don’t have to individually program it.”
“The customers featured in this study have established Versa as their strategic partner for addressing their complex secure access, networking and digital transformation needs, Versa SASE delivers unique integration of networking and security SASE services – including SD-WAN – via the cloud or, if customers prefer, delivered on-premises or as a blended combination of both. We feel this study by Forrester Consulting highlights the experiences of our customers and affirms the employee productivity gains, IT resource time saved, and upgraded security posture that organizations can achieve with Versa.”
Michael Wood, Chief Marketing Officer for Versa Networks
Versa SASE delivers tightly integrated services via the cloud, on-premises, or as a blended combination of both via VOS with a Single-Pass Parallel Processing architecture and managed through a single pane of glass. Versa began delivering SASE services such as VPN, Secure SD-WAN, Edge Compute Protection, Next-Generation Firewall, Next-Generation Firewall as a Service, Secure Web Gateway (SWG), and zero trust network access (ZTNA) more than five years ago. Versa uniquely provides contextual security based on user, role, device, application, location, security posture of the device, and content.
About Versa Networks
Versa Networks, the leader in SASE, combines extensive security, advanced networking, industry-leading SD-WAN, genuine multitenancy, and sophisticated analytics via the cloud, on-premises, or as a blended combination of both to meet SASE requirements for small to extremely large enterprises and Service Providers, and via the simplified Versa Titan cloud service designed for Lean IT. Thousands of customers globally with hundreds of thousands of sites trust Versa with their networks, security, and clouds. Versa Networks is privately held and funded by Sequoia Capital, Mayfield, Artis Ventures, Verizon Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Liberty Global Ventures, Princeville Capital, RPS Ventures and Triangle Peak Partners.
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VIRTUAL DESKTOP TOOLS
VMware | August 09, 2022
At Black Hat USA 2022, VMware, Inc. released its eighth annual Global Incident Response Threat Report, which takes a deep dive into the challenges faced by security teams amid pandemic disruptions, burnout, and geopolitically motivated cyberattacks. Sixty-five percent of defenders state that cyberattacks have increased since Russia invaded Ukraine, according to report findings. The report also shines a light on emerging threats such as deepfakes, attacks on APIs, and cybercriminals targeting incident responders themselves.
“Cybercriminals are now incorporating deepfakes into their attack methods to evade security controls,” said Rick McElroy, principal cybersecurity strategist at VMware. “Two out of three respondents in our report saw malicious deepfakes used as part of an attack, a 13% increase from last year, with email as the top delivery method. Cybercriminals have evolved beyond using synthetic video and audio simply for influence operations or disinformation campaigns. Their new goal is to use deepfake technology to compromise organizations and gain access to their environment.”
Additional key findings from the report include:
Cyber pro burnout remains a critical issue. Forty-seven percent of incident responders said they experienced burnout or extreme stress in the past 12 months, down slightly from 51% last year. Of this group, 69% (versus 65% in 2021) of respondents have considered leaving their job as a result. Organizations are working to combat this, however, with more than two-thirds of respondents stating their workplaces have implemented wellness programs to address burnout.
Ransomware actors incorporate cyber extortion strategies. The predominance of ransomware attacks, often buttressed by e-crime groups’ collaborations on the dark web, has yet to let up. Fifty-seven percent of respondents have encountered such attacks in the past 12 months, and two-thirds (66%) have encountered affiliate programs and/or partnerships between ransomware groups as prominent cyber cartels continue to extort organizations through double extortion techniques, data auctions, and blackmail.
APIs are the new endpoint, representing the next frontier for attackers. As workloads and applications proliferate, 23% of attacks now compromise API security. The top types of API attacks include data exposure (encountered by 42% of respondents in the past year), SQL and API injection attacks (37% and 34%, respectively), and distributed Denial-of-Service attacks (33%).
Lateral movement is the new battleground. Lateral movement was seen in 25% of all attacks, with cybercriminals leveraging everything from script hosts (49%) and file storage (46%) to PowerShell (45%), business communications platforms (41%), and .NET (39%) to rummage around inside networks. An analysis of the telemetry within VMware Contexa, a full-fidelity threat intelligence cloud that’s built into VMware security products, discovered that in April and May of 2022 alone, nearly half of intrusions contained a lateral movement event.
“In order to defend against the broadening attack surface, security teams need an adequate level of visibility across workloads, devices, users and networks to detect, protect, and respond to cyber threats, When security teams are making decisions based on incomplete and inaccurate data, it inhibits their ability to implement a granular security strategy, while their efforts to detect and stop lateral movement of attacks are stymied due to the limited context of their systems.”
Chad Skipper, global security technologist at VMware
Despite the turbulent threat landscape and rising threats detailed in the report, incident responders are fighting back with 87% saying that they are able to disrupt a cybercriminal’s activities sometimes (50%) or very often (37%). They’re also using new techniques to do so. Three-quarters of respondents (75%) say they are now deploying virtual patching as an emergency mechanism. In every case, the more visibility defenders have across today’s widening attack surface, the better equipped they’ll be to weather the storm.
Methodology
VMware conducted an online survey about trends in the incident response landscape in June 2022, and 125 cybersecurity and incident response professionals from around the world participated. Percentages in certain questions exceed 100 percent because respondents were asked to check all that apply. Due to rounding, percentages in all questions may not add up to 100 percent.
VMware Explore
In addition to VMware’s presence at Black Hat USA 2022, there will be more than 100 security talks at VMware Explore, the global multi-cloud industry event taking place August 29 – September 1, 2022 at Moscone Center in San Francisco. Register today to begin building your agenda.
About VMware
VMware is a leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, enabling digital innovation with enterprise control. As a trusted foundation to accelerate innovation, VMware software gives businesses the flexibility and choice they need to build the future. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is committed to building a better future through the company’s 2030 Agenda.
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VMWARE
Cloudian | September 14, 2022
Cloudian has enhanced its Managed Service Provider (MSP) program to help MSPs and Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) capitalize on new market opportunities by leveraging the company’s expanded object storage solutions portfolio and increased program benefits, including go-to-market and event support, joint business planning and additional training. With over 300 MSP/CSP customers around the world—including 30 added over the past year—Cloudian provides the foundation for a range of S3-compatible data management and protection service offerings, and the enhanced program reflects the company’s commitment to helping these customers deliver greater value to their clients and drive more growth and profit.
Leading S3 Storage Platform for MSPs/CSPs
In recent years, the S3 API has emerged as the de facto standard for cloud storage, with a vast ecosystem of S3-compatible technology providers and applications. Cloudian’s award-winning HyperStore object storage platform was architected to be fully S3-compatible from Day 1 and continues to have the most advanced S3 compatibility in the industry. In addition, as the company initially focused on MSP customers, HyperStore has always included features such as multi-tenancy, quality-of-service and billing.
Other key HyperStore benefits include granular SLA management, data placement controls and industry-leading security certifications such as Common Criteria, FIPS and SEC Rule 17a-4(f).
Foundation for New Value-Add Services
Cloudian has long provided a limitlessly scalable foundation for data storage and protection services such as S3 Storage-as-a-Service, Backup-as-a-Service, Archive-as-a-Service and Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service. Over the past two years, the company has expanded its solutions portfolio and worked closely with other technology leaders — e.g., Veeam, VMware, Splunk — to enable MSPs/CSPs to offer new value-add services. These include:
Ransomware Protection Services – Based on Cloudian’s S3 Object Lock, this service uses data immutability to prevent cybercriminals from encrypting or deleting a backup data copy, thereby enabling quick recovery of the unchanged backup without paying ransom.
Sovereign Cloud Services – With its native S3 API, exabyte-level scalability and multi-tenancy, Cloudian enables MSPs/CSPs to offer locally based sovereign cloud services and further distinguish themselves from global hyperscalers.
Data Analytics Services – MSPs/CSPs can leverage Cloudian’s native S3 compatibility for seamless integration with analytics solutions such as VMware Tanzu Greenplum, Microsoft SQL Server 2022 and Vertica.
Program Benefits
Cloudian’s MSP program benefits include:
Sales and Marketing support for joint events, go-to-market activities and sales campaigns
Joint business planning
Co-branded solution collateral
Subscription and VMware Cloud Provider consumption pricing models
Partner portal for streamlined access to Cloudian tools, resources and educational materials
Online training to stay on top of the latest sales and technical information
Promotion on Cloudian’s website
24x7 technical support
To learn more about the Cloudian program, visit cloudian.com/msp-partners/.
“We have a deep commitment to helping our customers improve their productivity and profitability by keeping their data safe, secure and readily available, With our Cloudian and Veeam-powered ransomware protection service offering, we’re able to assure our customers that their productivity need not be threatened even by such powerful and potentially debilitating cybersecurity threats.”
Jon Williams, chief technology officer, Calligo
“AUCloud is Australia’s sovereign cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider and the first VMware recognized sovereign cloud provider in Australia, focused on meeting the specific data security needs of the Australian Government, Defense, Intelligence and Critical Infrastructure communities, as well as security conscious enterprises more broadly,” said Phil Dawson, managing director, AUCloud. “Cloudian has played a central role in enabling us to meet the data management and protection needs of our customers, with key features such as modular scalability and multi-tenant resource pooling as well as certifications with the most stringent international security standards.”
“Traditional infrastructure solutions often cannot meet the cost, scalability and other requirements for supporting modern apps,” said Adam Svoboda, principal cybersecurity strategist, Eagle Technologies. “Eagle has been at the forefront in helping our customers meet their evolving needs, and our Cloudian partnership has enabled us to pursue new market opportunities, deliver enhanced value to our customers and drive more profitable growth.”
"Cloudian met all our requirements, including scalability and high security standards,” says Martin Endreß, chief customer officer, IONOS. “We noticed from the beginning that Cloudian takes the needs of European customers very seriously."
About Cloudian
Cloudian is the leader in data management software for the hybrid cloud. With military-grade security, limitless scalability and seamless cloud integration, Cloudian’s S3-compatible object storage lets users optimize data access, meet data sovereignty requirements and cut costs by consolidating information to a single, cloud-like platform. Cloudian’s geo-distributed architecture manages and protects object and file data at the edge, core, and in the cloud, for both conventional and modern applications.
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