“Focused on multicloud governance, security, and ease-of-use features, this product release further simplifies Kubernetes by introducing new developer-focused features that enable instant access to any running Pod, Deployment, or Service,” said Madhura Maskasky, Platform9 co-founder and VP of Product. “The result is tangible and significant productivity gains through the simplicity of consistent single-pane-of-glass management and governance.”

With Platform9 Managed Kubernetes (PMK), users can easily create upstream Kubernetes clusters using the SaaS platform, on bare metal, AWS, and Azure IaaS layer, and with a few clicks, import clusters from EKS, AKS, and GKE.

Featured updates in this release include:

GitOps Profile Engine: Profile Engine enables GitOps style automation in multicloud environments by allowing administrators to define cluster configurations as desired state templates, and then deploy those to any target cluster. The deployment process updates the target cluster’s state to ensure it conforms to the profile. Comparison and drift analytics are built in to detect changes from compliant configurations so users can take appropriate corrective actions. By treating cluster configuration via declarative profiles, which can be treated as versioned source code, it is easier to provision multiple clusters for new applications or teams, to rebuild clusters, or to compare clusters and analyze differences. Furthermore, the Profile Engine ensures consistency, compliance, and standardization to combat sprawl, security holes, and a lack of policy conformance.

Upgrade Strategies: Customers want flexibility in how and when they upgrade their clusters in production. This release provides three options to upgrade:

• Sequential: Worker nodes are upgraded in sequence in a rolling fashion
• Parallel Percentage: Users can specify a percentage of nodes to be upgraded simultaneously
• Batch: Users can manually select nodes

Storage Classes/PV/PVC/CSI Drivers: This release provides comprehensive drill-down views of objects across all cluster types, providing unparalleled visibility into storage details directly in the UI. Adding a new storage class is easy with the auto-detection of CSI drivers for one-click deployment of persistent storage.

KubeVirt Enhancements: Platform9 Managed KubeVirt enables users to run both legacy VM applications and containers on a fully managed unified platform. This new release introduces a management UI and wizard-based configuration and provisioning so that users can easily create VMs, attach disk(s), start/stop VM instances, view instance details, and much more all with a few clicks.

CIS Benchmark: Platform9 is now CIS Benchmark compliant, extending our security posture that includes SoC2 compliance, encrypted networking between Clusters, Pods, and Nodes, encryption at-rest, and ZeroTrust SaaS architecture.

Other significant updates include a 10x improvement in UI performance and responsiveness; drill-down details on storage, pods, deployments, and services views; logs, events across all cluster types; support for Kubernetes 1.21 and containerd.

All of these advances are paired with Platform9’s unique SaaS-based closed-loop automation–including deployment, monitoring, alerting, self-healing, and proactive troubleshooting and support–that guarantees 99.9% multicluster, multicloud SLA. Platform9’s 100% CKA certified solution architects and customer success teams operate as an extension of customers’ SRE and DevOps teams providing in-depth K8s on-demand Kubernetes expertise and proactively resolving issues 24/7/365.

Image Licensed by: Pixabay.com

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The post Platform9 Announces Managed Kubernetes with SaaS GitOps Engine appeared first on Digital IT News.

“Kubernetes is the go-to deployment substrate for new and evolving applications,” said Mark Coleman, Senior Director of Developer Relations at Equinix Metal. “While Kubernetes initially matured in the public cloud with developer-first companies, leaders across all industries are increasingly utilizing it to accelerate their move toward the edge and operate complex hybrid and multicloud infrastructures. Offering first-class support for Kubernetes on Equinix Metal through a wide variety of partners helps our global customers move faster while maintaining flexibility.”

Building upon more than 20 years of history activating advantage for customers through a neutral, partner-led strategy, Equinix is expanding its Kubernetes ecosystem to help companies simplify hybrid multicloud deployments on a global scale. With fully documented and tested partner solutions by Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) Anywhere, Google Cloud’s Anthos, Mirantis Container Cloud, SUSE Rancher and K3s, Canonical Kubernetes, IBM Cloud Satellite, Platform9, Rafay and others now available on Equinix Metal, global businesses have both the choice and the stability required to create advantage with their digital infrastructure.

Highlights/Key Facts:

• Equinix Metal is an automated, interconnected and secure bare metal service that applies a developer and API-first mindset to foundational infrastructure and provides a fully automated way for digital businesses to access the value of Platform Equinix® via its leading collection of DevOps and open-source integrations.

• As more global businesses adopt hybrid multicloud as the architecture of choice, enterprise and cloud native companies alike are turning to Equinix to deliver interconnected digital infrastructure on demand from an ecosystem of providers. To make it easier for companies to run Kubernetes on bare metal and extend their hybrid cloud options, Equinix is continuing to pursue a neutral, partner-first strategy by integrating a variety of solutions from leading Kubernetes providers with Equinix Metal.

• Key activities powering the expanded ecosystem of Kubernetes solutions available on Equinix Metal include:

• • Equinix Metal included as a launch partner solution for Amazon EKS Anywhere in September 2021. Amazon EKS Anywhere can currently run on VMware vSphere, with support for bare metal expected in 2022.
  • Mirantis Container Cloud updated in August 2021 to include Equinix Metal as a default deployment option.
  • SUSE Rancher 2.6 announced September 2021 includes an updated UI and powerful new features, including an updated provider for Equinix Metal and associated technical guide.
  • In August 2021, the Canonical Juju 2.9.8 release enabled users to deploy, integrate and manage Kubernetes, as well as container and VM-native applications, on Equinix Metal.
  • In November 2020, Google Cloud announced general availability of Anthos on bare metal, with Anthos enabled to be deployed on Equinix Metal directly.
  • In August 2021, Equinix Metal certified as a solution to run IBM and Red Hat applications with an initial focus on Red Hat OpenShift, delivered via IBM Cloud Satellite.
  • In August 2021, the Equinix Metal product was added as a supported cloud within Platform9 Managed Kubernetes (PMK). This followed a new Terraform Module for deploying PMK on Equinix Metal in February 2021.
  • The Equinix Metal team joined the major public clouds as a fully supported infrastructure provider on the Gardener Project in September 2021.
  • Rafay, Kinvolk Lokomotive, CodeZero and Joyent Triton updated their support in Q3 2021, including documentation and technical guides for deploying on Equinix Metal.
  • Cloud Provider Equinix Metal (CPEM) 3.2 released in July 2021 and included dozens of improvements to enable the Equinix Metal partner ecosystem.

• Equinix investments in the cloud native community continue to reinforce the company’s commitment to fueling Open Source innovation, including Tinkerbell, a bare metal provisioning platform Equinix donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) program as a sandbox project in November 2020.

• Additionally, in November 2020 Equinix tripled its investment in the CNCF’s Community Infrastructure Lab (CIL), enabling innovators throughout the CNCF community to access up to US$1 Million of powerful on-demand infrastructure resources per year across Equinix’s global footprint.

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Adam talked about his role, some of the challenges businesses face today when it comes to solving for cybersecurity challenges, and also offered his advice to cybersecurity start-ups.

Adam Bolio, EVP of Cyber Risk Services, Entisys360

Digital IT News: Can you share with us a little bit about Entisys360 and its vision?

Adam: We defined our vision by examining what worked from our experience in consulting firms, cyber technology sales, and cybersecurity program delivery, and combining the best aspects of each to create an optimal client experience. We are able to deliver the client experience of a top consulting firm while remaining tactical enough in the technology to support highly-technical integrations. Our vision is to be the premiere consulting-driven, cybersecurity products and services advisor.

Digital IT News: What are some of the vertical markets that Entisys360 focuses on?

Adam: We serve most industries but have organically developed a large focus in healthcare, with finance, technology and state government also constituting a substantial share of our business. Entisys360’s brand has predominantly served the West, mainly in California and Washington, in which have a large number of health systems as well as bio-tech and life sciences clients. Our ability to serve large organizations has created a natural focus on these industries.

Digital IT News: What is your role at Entisys360?

Adam: I am the Executive Vice President of the Advyz Cyber Risk Services Division. In this role, I lead the overall strategy, delivery and go-to-market approach for our division. Our team is comprised of leaders from my network who bring different capabilities and expertise to complement one another and allow us to serve the diverse needs of our clients. Given the depth of knowledge and breadth of experience within our team, we take a highly collaborative approach to innovation. Our primary focus is always on our client, even as it relates to innovation. In that vein, our current focus is on innovating the way cybersecurity technologies are employed for our clients rather than innovating the technology itself. Innovation is embedded in our process and we consistently seek new and better ways for our clients to leverage security tools to improve their security posture.

Digital IT News: What are some of the unique capabilities that Entisys360’s Advyz Cyber Risk Services brings to the table? How does the company differentiate itself in the marketplace?

Adam: The Advyz Cyber Risk Services Division is comprised of leaders who have delivered cybersecurity services in terms of decades, not years. Our singular focus is on delivering the right solutions for each of our clients to solve their unique risk problems. As such, we remain vendor agnostic. Instead of promoting specific technologies, our team brings their depth of knowledge and experience to serve as trusted advisors to our clients. In this way, we are able to bring people, process, and technology, and act as extension of our client’s team.

Digital IT News: What are some of the common cybersecurity pain points for customers?

Adam: Data privacy and protection is a very pertinent topic recently for many reasons. One is due to the exponential daily growth in data exchanged, and the number of places inside, and outside of, the network it which it lives. Another is the increasing number of laws and regulations in response to public demand for privacy and security, which has been fueled by the misuse or failure to secure consumer data. We are providing services in the forms of privacy program assessments and development, as well as well as advisory and technical services related to data protection.

Our privacy services help clients align their business to pertinent regulations. We can also help them build out their consumer facing privacy portals, which enable customers to make decisions about their data relationship with businesses.

Our data protection offerings help clients manage and monitor data across hybrid cloud infrastructure and in the use of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. We can bring solutions that offer a single pane of glass view to an organization’s data, as well as automation of routine data protection activities.

Digital IT News: What advice would you give to today’s cybersecurity start-ups?

Adam: Focus on clients and their business. This will enable solutions that are achievable. I have seen so many products that fail because they don’t work in a business setting. New solutions need to be consumable, manageable and sustainable. Consumable translates to easy adoption that doesn’t require major efforts to get through an organization’s IT change management process. Manageable solutions should be cloud-hosted, with options to have maintenance functions, or more, managed. Sustainable solutions should address a point problem but have the ability to be used for a broader solution set, and have easy to use APIs that can plug and play as other IT services are introduced or retired.

Digital IT News: What are some of the areas that your organization is currently investing in?

Adam: We are investing into people and resources to be the go-to partner for cloud security and Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR). 

Cloud is where technology continues to move. Increasingly, remote workforces have expedited deterioration of the defined security perimeter. With our people and data everywhere, we need to help our clients integrate dependable security solutions across platforms in which their data travels and/or resides.

With data growing exponentially, countless connected devices being added to our networks, and ever increasing regulations, we need technologies that can reduce or eliminate the need for human intervention. This will increase what we can do, as well as let our people focus on higher function, critical tasks. Entisys360 is collaborating with some of the leading SOAR technologies to bring consulting driven solutions based on our clients’ current tools and process maturity.

About Adam Bolio EVP Cyber Risk Services, Entisys360

Adam has 22+ years of experience covering a broad range of security and project management specialties, including the design, management, execution and assessment of cyber security programs. Adam has advised and implemented cyber strategies and technologies in the national security, technology and healthcare communities. He received the Department of Homeland Security Information System Security Officer of the Year award and is a veteran of the United States Navy SEALs.​

Image licensed by: Pixabay.com

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Today’s business environment is changing faster than ever. Applications have become more distributed, workforces are more mobile, and the demands on our systems are greater than ever. In order to face these challenges, IT teams need greater insights and automation to deliver true technology agility. Cisco is unveiling agile IT platforms to help technology groups respond to these market transitions.

“Complexity can paralyze our teams. Our systems can no longer be powerful, but brittle. For IT to be as agile as their businesses require, they need solutions obsessed with simplicity,” said Todd Nightingale, SVP and GM, Cisco Enterprise Networking and Cloud. “This year, technology groups around the globe were tested by unprecedented change. This fundamental shift in how businesses, schools and governments operate requires IT teams to transform how they function. Today, Cisco is announcing IT platforms for multicloud operations that provide advanced insights and automation to help organizations transform faster.”

Cisco is bringing a never-before-experienced level of efficiency to cloud, application, SecOps, NetOps and DevOps teams. As a cloud-neutral vendor, only Cisco allows customers to maintain choice and control across their full IT stack with simplified and consistent operations. Cisco provides unrivaled visibility from the application to the infrastructure, allowing customers to deliver the best application experiences. New solutions include:

• Cisco Intersight: Building on its foundation as a leading systems management platform, Cisco Intersight’s mission is to become the world’s simplest hybrid cloud platform that connects private data centers to private clouds. With the new Intersight Kubernetes Service, infrastructure teams can now automate the lifecycle management of Kubernetes and containerized applications across any environment. This represents a major leap forward in the container ecosystem by driving rapid and consistent application innovation. Intersight Workload Optimizer significantly simplifies application resources management. With a single tool that provides real-time, full-stack visibility and insights, customers can balance application performance and cost. Intersight integration with AppDynamics provides IT teams with visibility to improve management across infrastructure and applications and stay ahead of problems that can impact user experience.
• Cisco Nexus Dashboard: The Cisco Nexus Dashboard is a single insights and automation platform to operate multicloud data center networks spanning on-premise, virtual edge and cloud sites. Bringing together Cisco’s orchestration, insights and assurance services together with critical 3rd party services, Nexus Dashboard is a simple to use interface to transform operations. The Nexus Dashboard drives the adoption of cloud-native application practices leading to a faster path to return on infrastructure investment.
• Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE): Cisco ISE now simplifies secure network access across all domains, extending the zero-trust workplace to anywhere and on anything. With the latest innovations, customers can use ISE to intelligently identify a variety of IoT endpoints to enforce consistent policies from the cloud to give teams the agility and flexibility they need to secure their organizations.

“Cisco’s new solutions are part of an overall effort to transform how customers connect people, secure their organization, and automate their processes,” said analyst Will Townsend, Networking Practice Head, Moor Insights & Strategy. “It is designed to bring together platforms and portfolios to help customers respond and adapt to business disruptions, accelerate cloud adoption and transform IT operating models.”

The new Cisco Intersight innovations and the Cisco Nexus Dashboard will be available by the end of the calendar year. Cisco Intersight Kubernetes Service will be made available in the first half of 2021.  Cisco ISE innovations are available now.

Photo credit: Cisco.

The post Cisco Announces Platform to Drive Workload Agility Across Public and Private Clouds appeared first on Digital IT News.

OVHcloud has also announced the public launch of the OVHcloud Connect Direct service, designed to build a decentralized hybrid cloud, through direct and private connections between OVHcloud data centers and the customer’s on-premise information system.

Leveraging the partnership with Equinix and Megaport, OVHcloud customers can now rely on a global coverage of more than 700 points of presence to interconnect their services with the providers of their choice. At the same time, OVHcloud increases its visibility at Equinix and Megaport points of presence.

Businesses customers can now interconnect their services with OVHcloud Connect by choosing between several options – from the number of private links to the traffic capacity for each of them (from 200 Mpbs to 10 Gbps). Traffic on the OVHcloud network is included in the displayed tariffs. OVHcloud Connect services currently allow customers to connect privately and from anywhere in the world to the OVHcloud infrastructure in Europe. These services will soon be available in Canada, Australia, Singapore and the US.

Image licensed from Unsplash. 

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