Blueshell Blog

The BBC today reported on its web page that Google had been fined a record amount with the fines being imposed here including the daily non compliance fine and the up and coming GDPR I get the impression the authorities are becoming tired of companies lip service to rules and regulations . I would suggest any organisation large or small who hasn’t started to tighten up their systems or check whether they are compliant addresses this with some urgency. It may seem like a waste of money now but if you get caught and fined it may well be you won’t have a company after all these new fines are based on Group Turnover not profit and in effect there is no limit.

Whilst many are thinking of moving their systems into the cloud for cost, security and uptime, I would say think again. The principle of cloud is great, but I would suggest that setting up your own cloud with your own equipment is the better option. For example, once you have selected your provider based on your current needs and budget only to find in the future that a competitive provider has become a better option, how do you switch? Often this mean that your data must be bought back to in-house storage before it can be transferred. Once a company has been using cloud computing for 3 or 4 years it is doubtful that they would still have the storage and equipment to do this, after all wasn’t the point of moving to cloud in the first place, to get rid of your kit and reclaim the space used to house it?

The other issue would be the vulnerability to your company should your cloud provider make a mistake. An example of this was the recent 5 hour outage on Amazons cloud-computing which affected a large amount of web and app sites including Slack, Trello and Medium. According to an Article in the Telegraph, Amazon blamed a typo for the outage. Apparently an employee intended to remove a small amount of servers, but instead caused an unprecedented performance issue for thousands of companies. Whilst I accept human error effects us all, the point is, that whilst your on a cloud provider this is not your kit and you have to wait for them to locate and fix the error. Providers may priorities other customers before addressing your companies issues. If the kit is yours, and supported by your own team, this simply wouldn’t be an issue. When evaluating the true cost of cloud from a provider or your own version, it is advisable to take all eventualities into consideration.

It may of course be that you don’t want to use cloud of any sort and just stick to your own Server Infrastructure hard partitioned.

After 47 years since the first message was sent over ARPA net the forerunner to the modern day internet America has finally given up control of the top level DNS and ip allocation. Despite a last minute attempt by some members of congress led by Senator Ted Cruz to get a judge in Texas to grant an injunction the hand over was completed on Saturday the 1st of October 2016. ICANN will now control the allocation of Ip addresses and more importantly the top level DNS service which in effect means who ever controls this has the power to make countries go ‘Dark”. The system is already run by ICANN under contract from the US government but now will be totally devolved of US govt control and influence. We wait to see how this move will work and whether the US will be happy if decisions are made that they see as not in their interest.

Moscow city will replace Microsoft Corp. programs with domestic software on thousands of computers in answer to President Vladimir Putin’s call for Russia’s authorities to reduce dependence on foreign technology amid tensions with the U.S. and Europe.
The city will initially replace Microsoft’s Exchange Server and Outlook on 6,000 computers with an e-mail system installed by state-run carrier Rostelecom PJSC, Artem Yermolaev, head of information technology for Moscow, told reporters Tuesday. Moscow may expand deployment of the new software, developed by Russia’s New Cloud Technologies, to as many as 600,000 computers and servers, and may also consider replacing Windows and Office, Yermolaev said.

Putin is urging state entities and local companies to go domestic amid concerns over security and reliability after U.S. firms shut down paid services in Crimea following Russia’s 2014 annexation. The plan poses a challenge to the likes of Microsoft, SAP SE and Oracle Corp. in the country’s $3 billion software market. Adding to pressure, Putin’s internet czar German Klimenko wants to raise taxes on U.S. technology companies to help Russian competitors such as Yandex NV and Mail.ru Group Ltd.

“We want the money of taxpayers and state-run firms to be primarily spent on local software,” Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov told reporters. From 2017, government entities including the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, General Prosecutor’s Office and Audit Chamber “will be tightening their grip” on state institutions that aren’t switching to domestic alternatives, he said.

Microsoft declined to comment.

Government entities spend about 20 billion rubles ($295 million) a year on foreign software, according Nikiforov. His ministry has produced a list of nearly 2,000 Russian software products that state-run companies should use instead of products from global vendors.

Moscow’s government has already switched Cisco Systems Inc. technology for city surveillance cameras to local software, Yermolaev said. State media company Rossiya Segodnya and Moscow’s regional government switched from Oracle database systems to open-code PostgreSQL software supported by local programmers, according to Digital Russia.

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