The weekend review: cloud security, SDN, and mega data centers

This week the cloud proved to be very popular on GigaOM Research, no surprise as we ramp up for our Structure conference this week in San Francisco. We have just a few tickets left, so be sure to buy yours using your subscriber discount, and join us for two days of talks from our Cloud Trailblazers, thought leaders, and innovators in the infrastructure and cloud market.

First, the rise of cloud computing has brought unprecedented opportunities for companies, bringing enhanced big data processing, mobility for clients and employees, and flexibility in the workplace. But with these advancements come a new set of cyberthreats, which capitalize on the security holes that the cloud exposes. In “Cloud security market landscape, 2013–2017,” Keren Elazari takes a look at the three major shifts that have impacted the global cybersecurity industry since the infamous “summer of Stuxnet” in 2010, and she goes on to identify what market trends, innovations, and business models are currently dominating the landscape. Elazari also provides an overview of emerging cloud-security companies, as well as solutions currently offered by IT giants and compares the different types of available security solutions.

Next, in “Getting your organization ready for SDN: Part 1,” Mark Leary presents the first installment of his two-part guide to software-defined networking (SDN). Leary makes the case for SDN, arguing that “a network actively, reactively, and proactively defined by software is a network that is far more ready for anything than a network constructed of static devices, connections, and configurations.” He outlines the benefits of converting to SDN from the IT perspective, the business perspective, and the end user side, and he closes with a detailed breakdown of the components that comprise an SDN architecture.

Last, Martin Piszczalski takes a look at mega data centers — defined as “a single facility with 15,000 or more servers” — in “How the mega data center is changing the hardware and data center markets.” These massive data centers present a scale and energy efficiency that is unmatched by traditional data centers, and they are on track to become the standard practice in all modern data centers. However, there are still a number of barriers that mega data centers must overcome before they can become the new industry standard. Piszczalski takes a look at the two mega data center markets, including examples from industry giants such as AWS and Microsoft. He also provides a deep dive into the operations and architecture that Facebook uses in its mega data centers, a rare look at the inner workings of an extraordinarily fast industry leader, before concluding with a market outlook and key takeaways.

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