Many organizations either have, or are in the process of incorporating cloud services as a strategic component of their overall IT vision. There are many factors why cloud services make sense for each organization, but the big advantages are resiliency, scalability, and predictability. It also doesn’t hurt that organizations are tired of the 5-year hardware refresh cycles and the $100k virtual machine, that requires more compute and storage infrastructure to be purchased in order to run a new server/application. For this discussion I want to focus on predictability. This term is used not only in reference to performance but also for costs. Public cloud providers have calculators that anyone
I have been assessing the security postures of organizations for years. As time has passed, the technology has improved, the attack surfaces have grown, and business have adapted to more advanced threats. Conversations about safely enabled applications are now peppered with orchestration and automation tutorials. Discussions on gaining total visibility now yield introductions into strategies to increase the signal through the noise. Yes, integrating technologies, using machine learning and “artificial intelligence” products can increase effectiveness in detecting and preventing advanced threats. But what I find in most cases and what has not changed over the last two decades is that many org
In social circles, be it the neighborhood BBQ or a fundraising event outside of work, I'm frequently asked what I do for a living. After answering this question numerous times, I’ve found myself asking a few questions before delivering my answer. As with any presentation, small or large, the audience is the most important part. I start by trying to understand who it is that I'm explaining this to in order to gauge their awareness of the industry of which I call home. I used to start with cloud computing and the concept of the power company vs. every residence using a generator. This is easy and simple for people to understand, but personally, I’m tired of telling that story. In recent year
Don’t you feel awkward when you run into someone you’ve already met and just can’t remember their name? Maybe you even second guess what they do for a living and how you met them in the first place. Usually with some casual conversation and tactful probing you will come around to answering the unknown gnawing at you in your gut. Problem solved, right? What if this encounter is on a conference call…oh no! In our line of business, it is paramount that you understand and relate to the customer whom you are interacting with. Sure, you can do a quick LinkedIn search ahead of your meeting, but that may not give you their full story. In those introductory meetings the main purpose usually is t
Over the last several years Katalyst has observed an increase in demand for IT security professionals from our customers. This is due to the real need of these organizations to increase their security posture in order to deal with the ever-evolving security threat landscape. People are starting to realize that a security breach can not only bring huge fines but will also cause damage to their brand, resulting in a loss of customer trust driving those customers away. It is not just the large enterprises that need this talent, smaller organizations are now seeing the need to have those seats filled. A recent Tech Crunch article discusses the increase in job postings over the last year in the U
