the cloud

IT process automation can seem like a big step, but there are incremental ways to achieve improved efficiency that reduce risk and drive better business outcomes. The proper approach to automation can turbocharge your administrative teams, open new doors and provide the agility to respond to any business need. It’s the key to unlocking the power of cloud, and new service offerings make it more attractive to those looking to build the right IT business strategy for the future.

cloud is no longer an option — it’s inevitable. But cloud strategies differ extensively, based on the context of your organization and investments. drivers such as industry, risk tolerance, and preparation dictate the pace, scope, and technologies you need. However, every cloud strategy should share key activities. This report guides infrastructure and operations (i&O) pros through forrester’s cloud maturity assessment so they can gauge where their firms are on their journeys and discover which core competencies they need to strengthen or develop to enable their pragmatic cloud reality. This is an update of a previously published report; forrester reviews and revises it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy.

Applications are the modern lifeblood of the enterprise, and the desire to keep up with market demands has elevated most enterprise IT strategies from purely on-premises to hybrid and multi-cloud. But the desire to be even more agile and productive—and connect with end users in new and exciting ways—is pushing investments even further into new application environments, development processes, and management tools all leveraging cloud-native technology. In this executive brief, we home in on one component of the cloud-native movement, Kubernetes, and break down its role in achieving enterprise agility, experimentation, and innovation for competitive gain.

Tech advances like the cloud, mobile technology, and the app-based software model have changed the way today’s modern business operates. They’ve also changed the way criminals attack and steal from businesses. Criminals strive to be agile in much the same way that companies do. Spreading malware is a favorite technique among attackers. According to the 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report, 28% of data breaches included malware.¹ While malware’s pervasiveness may not come as a surprise to many people, what’s not always so well understood is that automating app attacks—by means of malicious bots —is the most common way cybercriminals commit their crimes and spread malware. It helps them achieve scale.

In its guide for buyers considering email-security solutions—a detailed analysis of products and services—Forrester’s evaluation gave Barracuda the highest score possible in the cloud integration, deployment options and support and customer success criteria. Get full report and see all the details for yourself, including innovative solutions for email authentication and incident response and for preventing account takeover, business email compromise (BEC) and spear-phishing. Claim your complimentary copy right now!

Distributed cloud architectures will play an important role in Communication Service Providers’ network transformations. The distributed cloud will be made of numerous edge locations, from the customer premises to mobile base stations to central offices, each of which has its benefits and constraints. CSPs will need to consider attributes such as performance, availability, security, integration, and data and traffic volume to optimize the infrastructure for a myriad of workloads. Learn more about Heavy Reading’s survey results on CSPs adopting a distributed cloud strategy and delivering new services in this white paper.

Businesses increasingly see cloud as the best route to enhanced agility and digital transformation. But this survey reveals that keeping the lid on cloud costs is far from straightforward. Read this report to discover: • whether businesses are realising the benefits they anticipated from cloud migration • how effective companies are at managing cloud investments • the risks and consequences of getting locked into inefficient architectures.

What impact will the cloud-enabled workplace have on your cybersecurity strategy? This year’s research shows that organisations are navigating a myriad of both old and new cybersecurity challenges to bring the cloud into scope. Read this to discover: • how growing cloud dependency has created distinctive challenges around cyber security • what the biggest cyber challenges are for organisations in this context • how intelligent automation and machine learning is being used to overcome operational obstacles hampering cloud security • a set of cybersecurity considerations for modern IT environments.

As Italy’s businesses grew increasingly vulnerable to the threat of ransomware, data breaches, and other malicious malware attacks, service provider Telecom Italia sought an innovative solution to effectively and efficiently protect the network and data of its business users. In this case study, you’ll read about how Italy’s largest service provider partnered with Cisco Umbrella to increase value for customers and accelerate their revenues with cloud security.

"Global professional services firm, Arup, moved from Cisco Cloud Web Security (CWS) to Cisco Umbrella. By implementing a secure internet gateway in conjunction with next-gen endpoint security, Arup secured access to the internet wherever users go, reduced its exposure to malware and improved the ability to detect, respond and remediate when necessary. Impact: -Substantially reduced administrative time -Accelerated response and remediation process -Increased performance of cloud applications -Reduced time to investigate"

Today’s security appliances and agents must wait until malware reaches the perimeter or endpoint before they can detect or prevent it. OpenDNS arrests attacks earlier in the kill chain. Enforcing security at the DNS layer prevents a malicious IP connection from ever being established or a malicious file from ever being downloaded. This same DNS layer of network security can contain malware and any compromised system from exfiltrating data. Command & control (C2) callbacks to the attacker’s botnet infrastructure are blocked over any port or protocol. Unlike appliances, the cloud service protects devices both on and off the corporate network. Unlike agents, the DNS layer protects every device connected to the network — even IoT. It is the easiest and fastest layer of security to deploy everywhere.

"We live and surf in a cyber world where attacks like APT, DDOS, Trojans and Ransomware are common and easy to execute. Domain names are an integral part of any business today and apparently an integral part of an attacker's plan too. Domain names are carriers of malwares, they act as Command and Control servers and malware's ex-filtrate data too. In today's threat landscape - predicting threats, spotting threats and mitigating them is super crucial.. This is called Visibility and Analytics. Watch this on demand session with our Cisco cloud security experts Shyam Ramaswamy and Fernando Ferrari as they talk about how Cisco Umbrella and The Umbrella Research team detect anomalies, block threats and identify compromised hosts. The experts also discuss how effectively Cisco spot, react, filter out IOC, block the network communications of a malware; identify and stop a phishing campaign (unknown ones too). "

"Cloud applications provide scale and cost benefits over legacy on-premises solutions. With more users going direct-to-internet from any device, the risk increases when users bypass security controls. We can help you reduce this risk across all of your cloud and on-premises applications with a zero-trust strategy that validates devices and domains, not just user credentials. See why thousands of customers rely on Duo and Cisco Umbrella to reduce the risks of data breaches and improve security. Don’t miss this best-practices discussion focused on the key role DNS and access control play in your zero-trust security strategy. Attendees will learn how to: ? Reduce the risk of phishing attacks and compromised credentials ? Improve speed-to-security across all your cloud applications ? Extend security on and off-network without sacrificing usability"

Organization leaders and companies of all sizes are leveraging digital transformation in their industry, market, and business using a myriad of disruptive technologies like connectivity, the Internet of Things, blockchain, business intelligence and big data. CFOs who manage to get in front of these technologies will lead their businesses to greater success. This eBook illustrates how cloud-based billing management offers the quickest path toward this transformation. Download this eBook to explore how the right solution can help you: • Monetize IoT and increase revenue • Launch product innovations quickly • Automate billing to improve customer retention • Leverage the cloud to reduce costs Adapting today can mean the difference between success and obsolescence. With the right billing solution your business can thrive in these challenging times. Discover how today.

Discover How Cloud-based Billing Delivers Transformation Enterprise leaders and companies of all sizes are leveraging digital transformation through disruptive technologies like the Internet of Things, AI, business intelligence and big data. This eBook demonstrates 5 strategies for leading the charge for change within your business. Discover how to quickly leverage digital transformation in your technology stack and monetize it quickly with cloud-based billing. Download this eBook to explore how the right solution can help you: • Launch product innovations quickly • Monetize IoT and increase revenue • Automate billing to improve customer retention • Leverage the cloud to reduce costs Adapting today can mean the difference between success and obsolescence. With the right billing solution your business can thrive in these challenging times. Discover how today!

By any measure, Office 365 is a success as millions of Microsoft seats transition from on-premises Exchange to a cloud-based email service as part of Office 365. While Microsoft has been offering hosted email solutions for more than 20 years, they have hit their stride with Office 365, the third major iteration of the company’s foray into hosted/cloud-based email and collaboration. This white paper discusses the key issues that decision makers need to consider as they evaluate the email, security, and resilience capabilities of Office 365. After reading this analyst perspective completed by Michael Osterman of Osterman Research, we believe you will better understand: Special considerations related to hybrid Exchange and Office 365 email deployments The importance of programmatic security efficacy rather than simple functionality How to ensure business messaging continuity in the context of Office 365 outages Whether third-party backup/recovery is critical for protecting your infrastr

A number of recent surveys indicate that cloud costs are becoming a major concern for businesses, many of whom have found cloud computing to be more expensive than they thought. The surveys align with Gartner’s 2017 prediction that “through 2020, 80% of businesses will overshoot their cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) budgets due to a lack of cost optimization approaches”. This could be due to a lack of understanding about cloud pricing, or a lack of knowledge about the full range of measures that can be taken to reduce cloud costs. The one area in which businesses are struggling to control costs more than any other is the hybrid cloud. Analysts attribute hybrid cloud overspend to the complexity of operating a private or public cloud in conjunction with an on-premises infrastructure. Businesses using VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS don’t experience as much operational complexity in their hybrid environments, but they can still be guilty of overspending. This eBook will offer 6 Ways to

City leaders around the world are working to improve the quality of life and increase the number of useful services for their citizens, businesses, and visitors. Smart city initiatives are gaining attention in several countries, as administrators, industry, and citizens are working together to enhance their communities, cities, regions, and nations. After more than ten years of smart city hype, innovative projects have emerged, but few have provided a disruptive impact on the city system itself. Because every city is different, few of the existing models apply universally. An effective response requires leaders to consider a series of prerequisites: • Consider the local culture and the people • Prioritize basic needs and requests • Work at overcoming silos and encourage collaboration across departments • Consider each “smart” initiative as an integral part of an overall city system A smart city reflects a number of aspirations: efficiency, resiliency, connectedness, innovatio

Technology empowers governments to improve how and when they reach citizens. It improves the quality and accessibility of public services, ultimately creating a more productive environment where citizens can thrive. Leveraging the cloud is one way governments can accelerate this shift, with benefits occurring first inside the institution.

Local and regional governments around the world are using the cloud to transform services, improve their operations, and reach new horizons for citizen services. The Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud enables data collection, analysis, and decision making for smarter cities. This whitepaper provides strategic considerations for local and regional governments to consider as they identify which IT systems and applications to move to the cloud. Real examples that show how cities can stop wasting money, move faster, and innovate.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers scalable, cost-efficient cloud services that public sector customers can use to meet mandates, reduce costs, drive efficiencies, and accelerate innovation. The procurement of an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud is unlike traditional technology purchasing. Traditional public sector procurement and contracting approaches that are designed to purchase products, such as hardware and related software, can be inconsistent with cloud services (like IaaS). A failure to modernize contracting and procurement approaches can reduce the pool of competitors and inhibit customer ability to adopt and leverage cloud technology

Innovation requires many ingredients: a great idea, creativity, persistence, the right data, and technology. Governments around the world are taking advantage of the cloud to reduce cost and transform the way they deliver on their mission. The expectations of an increasingly digital citizenry are high, yet all levels of government face budgetary and human resource constraints. Cloud computing (on-demand delivery of IT resources via the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing) can help government organizations increase innovation, agility, and resiliency, all while reducing costs. This whitepaper provides guidelines that governments can use to break down innovation barriers and achieve a digital transformation that helps them engage and serve citizens.

AWS worked with FedRAMP to develop a set of standards under which highly sensitive government data could securely migrate into cloud environments. If ever you doubted that cloud computing was the new frontier for federal data and software management, look around

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides rapid access to flexible and low cost IT resources. With cloud computing, public sector organizations no longer need to make large upfront investments in hardware, or spend time and money on managing infrastructure. The goal of this whitepaper is to help you gain insight into some of the financial considerations of operating a cloud IT environment and learn how to maximize the overall value of your decision to adopt AWS.

Serverless is the native architecture of the cloud that enables you to shift more of your operational responsibilities to AWS. Serverless technologies let you build applications without thinking about the underlying infrastructure, which increases agility and lowers total cost of ownership.