Press release:

NetApp Simplifies Storage and Data Management with Support for Windows Server 2012

Public, Private, and Hybrid Cloud Migration Accelerated by Microsoft and NetApp Technology Integration

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 4, 2012 — Trends toward greater virtualization of IT infrastructure, increased levels of content digitization, faster levels of IT service deployment, and continued service-level availability expectations are driving increased interest in cloud computing. This period of transformation from physical to virtual infrastructures, and then to secure private, public, and hybrid clouds, offers new opportunities for IT professionals to deliver agile, on-demand services built on a flexible pool of shared compute, network, and storage resources.

In close collaboration with technology leaders such as NetApp, Microsoft is unveiling a new Windows Server release to help accelerate this transition. Today, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) announced support for Windows Server 2012 with storage solutions for server and desktop virtualization, storage and availability, Web and application platform development, and private cloud deployment. For organizations of any size and in any industry, this close collaboration simplifies and accelerates how storage is pooled, provisioned, accessed, and managed in Windows environments.

In June, NetApp was named Microsoft Private Cloud Partner of the Year for 2012 in recognition of its commitment to helping organizations move to private cloud solutions. For more than 10 years, NetApp and Microsoft have teamed to develop and provide innovative storage and data management solutions for Microsoft technologies. Today more than 25,000 enterprise customers worldwide store, protect, and manage their Microsoft application data with NetApp® storage solutions.

"Windows Server 2012 is the category benchmark for organizations looking to migrate rapidly to cloud-ready infrastructures for application and service delivery," said Phil Brotherton, vice president, Enterprise Software Ecosystem, NetApp. "To help organizations realize the full value of their Microsoft technology investments, we continue to align our solution delivery roadmaps to address the critical challenges our mutual customers are facing, from increasing storage efficiency to maintaining high availability of servers, applications, and services."

"Windows Server 2012 is built from the ground up to be cloud ready and delivers important storage enhancements to help organizations reduce costs and achieve a whole new level of business agility," said Thomas Pfenning, general manager, File Server Foundation, Microsoft. "We’ve worked closely with NetApp with a focus on giving our mutual customers an efficient, flexible, and reliable IT foundation for delivering business-critical services."

NetApp Supports Windows Server 2012 Capabilities

NetApp offers the following support for key capabilities of Windows Server 2012:

• Storage. NetApp FAS and V-Series storage systems have been thoroughly tested, and are fully supported with Windows Server 2012, which means compatibility and confident deployment of applications. NetApp is committed to providing support for SMB 3.0 and Windows ODX — file storage and data transfer technologies used in Windows Server 2012 storage environments — and is launching a public beta program for this support in October 2012. For more information about this program, go tocommunities.netapp.com/groups/ontap-82-beta-program. NetApp is committed to making data storage and data movement easier by providing storage protocol choices (including support for FCP, FCoE, and iSCSI) that can make server consolidation and virtualization easier, enabling additional cost savings, greater storage efficiency, increased utilization, and simpler high-availability and disaster recovery solutions. NetApp is also a partner member of the Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track program and is developing prevalidated solutions for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V on the NetApp and Cisco FlexPod® architecture managed with Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1.
• Server and desktop virtualization. NetApp Snapshot™ based backup and recovery with SnapManager for Hyper-V 1.2 and SnapDrive® for Windows 6.5 have achieved Windows Server 2012 logo certification and provide integrated data protection in Windows Server 2012 environments, speeding backup, restore, and disaster recovery operations in Microsoft Private Cloud and Hyper-V environments. NetApp’s support for the updated Clustered Shared Volumes in Windows Server 2012 and the new VHDx specification significantly reduce consumption of server and storage system resources, enabling large-scale virtualization and private cloud deployments. For desktop virtualization, NetApp storage systems offer an innovative set of features for efficient, reliable, and scalable VDI deployments, including deduplication, zero-space cloning, Flash Cache, and automation.
• Reduced infrastructure for cloud. With delivery expected later this year, a NetApp reference architecture built with Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 SP1 will tightly integrate with NetApp FAS data storage systems and V-Series open storage systems running NetApp Data ONTAP®. This validated architecture is structured to reduce application deployment times; increase utilization of virtual and physical resource pools; and provide end-to-end interoperability of compute, storage, and network resources in conjunction with the release of Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1.
• Management and automation. For private cloud implementations, NetApp OnCommand® Plug-in for Microsoft 3.2 is designed to provide integration with Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1 for dynamic scalability, automated workflow, on-demand self-service, and infrastructure orchestration in conjunction with the release of the updated management suite for Windows Server 2012 by Microsoft.
• Web and application platform. NetApp provides comprehensive support for application platforms on Windows Server 2012, including support of SQL Server 2012 data protection with SnapManager® 6.0 for SQL Server.

Additional Resources

• For more information about NetApp support for Microsoft: www.netapp.com/microsoftsolutions
• Follow NetApp on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NetApp
• Get the latest on NetApp culture: www.facebook.com/NetAppCulture
• Join NetApp on Facebook: www.facebook.com/NetApp
• View NetApp videos on YouTube: www.youtube.com/NetAppTV
• Connect with NetApp on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=111681

About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that deliver outstanding cost efficiency and accelerate business breakthroughs. Our commitment to living our core values and consistently being recognized as a great place to work around the world are fundamental to our long-term growth and success, as well as the success of our pathway partners and customers. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.

Brocade Delivers Comprehensive Fabric Networking Support for Windows Server 2012

Press release:

Brocade Delivers Comprehensive Fabric Networking Support for Windows Server 2012

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Brocade and Microsoft Collaboration Enables SAN and IP Networking Solutions to Support Private Cloud, Server and Network Virtualization

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 4, 2012) - Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) today announced support for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Server 2012 server operating system across all product lines, including the company's Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) and Ethernet fabric solutions. Together with Windows Server 2012, Brocade^® networks simplify operations and management for highly virtualized cloud data centers, which serve as the infrastructure for enterprises and service providers in supporting their key data center initiatives such as scale-out server virtualization, private cloud deployments and software-defined networking (SDN).

To ensure compatibility and enable new networking functionality with Windows Server 2012, Brocade has implemented enhancements across its SAN and Ethernet fabric switching and adapter products that help enable new features such as:

• Virtual Fibre Channel: Simplifies and enables direct access to ultra-reliable, high-performance Fibre Channel SAN storage by multiple-guest virtual machine (VM) partitions in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V environments. This enables distributed workload clustering and dynamic live migration of high-availability applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SQL Server across VMs without impacting workflows or requiring SAN reconfiguration.
• Dynamic Circuit Network (DCN): Enables Quality of Service (QoS) configuration from a Data Center Bridging (DCB) network. This allows users to initiate ad-hoc dedicated allocation of network bandwidth for high-demand, real-time applications and network services. DCN support has been added to the Brocade adapter family, with DCB enabled in all products.
• Network Virtualization Using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE): As a component of Brocade's network virtualization strategy, the company is reaffirming its commitment to provide future support for NVGRE in Brocade Ethernet fabric switches. NVGRE is the Microsoft-recommended virtualization mechanism for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Network Virtualization deployments.

These new capabilities offer enterprise IT and cloud providers new storage and networking options that help ensure non-stop operations, increase business agility and optimize application performance. Brocade also now supports interoperability and integration with Microsoft System Center 2012. By working closely with the System Center team to test and build integrations, organizations can easily manage any Brocade network as part of a complete Windows-based cloud environment.

"Windows Server 2012 was built from the cloud up and introduces innovations such as software-defined networking and NVGRE for network virtualization and isolation to help enable cloud deployments," said Mike Schutz, general manager, Windows Server Marketing, Microsoft. "From the early design stages of Windows Server 2012, Microsoft worked closely with Brocade to give customers new networking technologies such as software-defined networking via NVGRE and virtual Fibre Channel for more dynamic connectivity to storage resources."

Introduced today, Windows Server 2012 is a highly dynamic, available and cost-effective server platform that enables organizations to deploy private or hybrid clouds in a flexible IT environment that adapts to changing business needs. New and enhanced features provide high performance and scalability to enable a truly multitenant infrastructure where networking, compute, and storage resources are completely isolated between tenants on the same host. For hosting providers, Windows Server 2012 includes the ability to isolate tenants, gain insight into infrastructure resource usage, and provide new services to help create additional revenue streams. It also offers tools to help customers make the transition from on-premises to hosted environments, while continuing to provide the services and reliability demanded by enterprise, mid-market, and small businesses.

"To support next-generation cloud environments, many new networking technologies require support in the operating system to help organizations realize the full benefit of highly virtualized IT architectures," said Jason Nolet, vice president, Data Center Networking Group, at Brocade. "By working closely with the Microsoft engineering team in the early stages of the new OS's development, we have ensured that Brocade Ethernet and Fibre Channel fabric solutions work seamlessly with Windows Server 2012 as well as deliver innovative new networking functionality for highly virtualized, cloud-based data centers."

More Information

Video: Brocade Vice President Jason Nolet, Data Center and Enterprise Networking discusses Brocade's collaboration with Microsoft to help ensure the OS and network together can deliver important new networking functionality in the virtualized cloud-based data center.

Video: Mike Schutz, GM, Windows Server Marketing, explains why Microsoft chose to work with Brocade as a development partner for Windows Server 2012, including work in the areas of SDN and virtual fibre channel.

About Brocade

Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) networking solutions help the world's leading organizations transition smoothly to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. (www.brocade.com)

AT&T Adworks and Turn Announce Secure, Private Cloud-based Audience Management Platform

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AT&T Adworks and Turn Announce Secure, Private Cloud-based Audience Management Platform

Platform is first of its kind in the advertising industry

New York, New York, March 29, 2012

AT&T AdWorks and Turn today announced a new audience management platform that will use Turn’s leading targeting and cross-channel media technology to help AT&T AdWorks’ clients better reach their audiences. The jointly developed platform stores anonymous AT&T data within a private cloud, which protects consumer privacy by encrypting all data that leaves the private cloud.

The platform employs Turn’s campaign management, ad serving and data management capabilities. As a top five* ad network, AT&T AdWorks has access to 450 billion** available monthly impressions - reaching approximately 84% of worldwide online audience. Overlaying our demographic, contextual, behavioral and search audience targeting, AT&T AdWorks helps advertisers effectively reach their target audiences.

“AT&T AdWorks’ main goal is to help our clients effectively connect with their target audience,” said Joshua Koran, VP Digital Product Management, Research and Data, AT&T AdWorks.  “This new platform will strengthen our audience targeting capabilities, providing even greater value to our clients. None of the data we store on the Turn systems is personally-identifiable, and as an extra measure of protection we encrypt it before it leaves the AT&T firewall.”

“We are pleased to work with AT&T AdWorks and contribute our experience in building Internet-scale advertising solutions to this important project,” said Bill Demas, president and chief executive officer, Turn. “Built on our leading privacy compliant, brand-safety controls, this platform expands our ability to help agencies and advertisers ensure consumer privacy as they execute cross-channel campaigns.”

*comScore Media Metrix Core Reports^TM - January 2012

**Owned and operated + 3rd party ad inventory

About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile broadband and emerging 4G capabilities, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse^® and AT&T |DIRECTV brands. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive are known for their leadership in local search and advertising.

Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com. This AT&T news release and other announcements are available athttp://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at@ATT.

About Turn

Turn delivers real-time insights that transform the way leading advertising agencies and marketers make decisions. Our cloud applications and Internet-scale architecture work together to provide a complete picture of customers, execute cross-channel campaigns, and connect with a worldwide ecosystem of over 100 partners.  Turn is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Amsterdam, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, and San Francisco. Company revenue has more than doubled every year of Turn’s existence. For more information, visit turn.com or follow @turnplatform.

About AT&T AdWorks

AT&T AdWorks is a digital media group within AT&T.  Utilizing the inherent strengths of the world's largest telecommunications company and its superior data advantage, AT&T AdWorks connects advertisers with their audiences across online, mobile and TV platforms. Our proprietary, aggregate data and ad offering give us the ability to help advertisers effectively tap into billions of available ad impressions and use advanced optimization technology to increase ad effectiveness.  For more information, please visit adworks.att.com.

Private Businesses Fight Federal Prisons for Contracts

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Private Businesses Fight Federal Prisons for Contracts

By DIANE CARDWELL

As chief financial officer of a military clothing manufacturer, Steven W. Eisen was accustomed to winning contracts to make garments for the Defense Department.

But in December, Mr. Eisen received surprising news. His company, Tennier Industries, which is in a depressed corner of Tennessee, would not receive a new $45 million contract.

Tennier lost the deal not to a private sector competitor, but to a corporation owned by the federal government, Federal Prison Industries.

Federal Prison Industries, also known as Unicor, does not have to worry much about its overhead. It uses prisoners for labor, paying them 23 cents to $1.15 an hour. Although the company is not allowed to sell to the private sector, the law generally requires federal agencies to buy its products, even if they are not the cheapest.

Mr. Eisen, who laid off about 100 workers after losing out on the new contract, said the system took sorely needed jobs from law-abiding citizens. “Our government screams, howls and yells how the rest of the world is using prisoners or slave labor to manufacture items, and here we take the items right out of the mouths of people who need it,” he said.

Although Federal Prison Industries has been around for decades, its critics are gaining more sympathy this year as jobs, competition and the role of government have become potent political issues. Recently, a clothing company complained that the government company had expressed interest in making Air Force windbreakers like one worn by the president. Last month, amid negative news reports and pressure from the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, F.P.I. said it would stop competing for the contract because it could damage the private company that makes the jackets, Ashland Sales and Service.

In addition, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is resuscitating a bill to overhaul the way the prison manufacturing company does business, proposing to eliminate its preferential status.

Under current practice — governed by intricate laws, regulations and policies — an agency must buy prisoner-made goods if the company offers an item that is comparable in price, quality and time of delivery to that of the private sector, with certain exceptions. The company’s prices are not always the lowest, but it frequently has been able to underbid private companies, Congressional aides say.

The bill seeks to limit those advantages by putting a limit on F.P.I.’s sales to the federal government, opening more product areas to private companies and strengthening requirements that the prices for prisoner-made products be competitive. The legislation would also impose federal work-safety standards and higher wages, starting at $2.50 an hour.

Next Time, Greece May Need New Tactics

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Next Time, Greece May Need New Tactics

By LANDON THOMAS Jr.

LONDON The Greek government was able to legally strong-arm most of its private bondholders into accepting the debt reduction deal it completed Friday. But next time — and experts predict there will almost certainly be a next time — Greece might have much less leverage.

That’s because as a result of Friday’s deal, the bulk of Athens’s 260.2 billion euros ($341 billion) in remaining government debt will now be held by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the individual European nations that have lent Greece money and contributed to the region’s bailout fund.

Politically, Greece would be hard-pressed to force debt losses on such a formidable international group, the way it did with the private banks and hedge funds that have just been forced to accept a 75 percent loss on their Greek bond holdings. Greece’s main creditors, in effect, are now foreign taxpayers — who are likely to be much less malleable than the private creditors if Greece needs to renegotiate its staggering debt load a year or two down the road.

“From now on, whatever happens in Greece, it will be a matter between Greece and the taxpayers of the rest of the euro area,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, an analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

The final private creditor deal announced Friday was agreed to by nearly 86 percent of the bondholders; the number was expected to rise to 95 percent after Athens invoked a so-called collective action clause forcing others to join in. Without such a deal, Greece had strongly implied, it might default altogether, with no one getting paid. The outcome has enabled Greece to reduce its debt load by just over 100 billion euros, or about $132 billion.

Later in the day, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association ruled that the agreement was nonetheless a technical default by Greece — a ruling that will mean payouts on some insurance contracts, known as credit-default swaps, that various investors had taken out on the privately held Greek debt. Around $70 billion in default swaps on that debt are outstanding, although analysts expect the net payout to end up at only $3.2 billion or so.

News Release from NetApp - Transition

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Cisco and NetApp Help Customers Accelerate Transition to Microsoft Private Cloud

Avnet Technology Solutions Expands Its FlexPod Services to Offer Custom Configuration of the Validated Cisco, Microsoft, and NetApp Solution to Resellers

SAN JOSE AND SUNNYVALE, Calif. — February 23, 2012 — As data center virtualization becomes more pervasive, IT functions are increasingly seeking to lower cost of ownership and improve manageability by unifying silos of information with shared IT infrastructures and multi-hypervisor environments. To meet growing customer demand for choice and flexibility, Cisco and NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) are announcing the availability of a Cisco® Validated Design (CVD) for the FlexPod™ shared infrastructure and Microsoft private cloud. The new FlexPod solution validated with Microsoft private cloud builds on a reference architecture that was announced last year and is designed to reduce infrastructure and application deployment time from days to hours while helping achieve greater utilization of physical and virtual resource pools. Part of a series of innovative joint solutions that Cisco and NetApp are bringing to market with support from Microsoft, the FlexPod solution is currently available for demonstration in select Microsoft Technology Centers (MTCs) around the world, allowing partners and customers the opportunity to see firsthand the many benefits of the solution.  

To help channel partners further accelerate and simplify customers’ transitions to private clouds, Cisco and NetApp are working with Avnet Technology Solutions, an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), to expand its FlexPod Services to provide partners in the United States and Canada with the validated, pretested data center solution for the cloud.

Key Facts / Highlights:

New FlexPod solution validated with Microsoft private cloud

• Validated by Microsoft as part of its Private Cloud Fast Track program, the new FlexPod validated shared infrastructure features the Cisco UCS™ server, Cisco network switches, NetApp® unified storage systems running on Data ONTAP® software, and the Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track architecture with Windows Server 2008 R2 and System Center.
• FlexPod is a pretested architectural design guide that combines networking, computing, and storage in a shared infrastructure and supports multiple applications and workloads to help customers accelerate and simplify their transition to the cloud. The flexible, scalable shared infrastructure is pretested to lower deployment risk, increase data center efficiencies, and create a flexible information technology (IT) environment to build a Microsoft private cloud.
• The FlexPod solution validated with Microsoft private cloud goes beyond virtualization to drive real business value through deep insight into applications and to simplify the evolution to IT as a Service (ITaaS). The platform allows customers to orchestrate IT resources so they can deliver applications as services, rapidly resolve problems, increase application uptime, and meet desired Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
• The FlexPod solution validated with Microsoft private cloud is deployed at select MTCs worldwide, allowing customers to see the power of Microsoft System Center with Windows Server Hyper-V on the FlexPod shared infrastructure. Partners and customers have direct access to FlexPod deployments and can engage with Cisco, Microsoft, and NetApp technology experts through briefings, architectural design sessions, and proof-of-concept engagements.

Avnet Support for the FlexPod solution validated with Microsoft private cloud

• As part of its FlexPod Services, Avnet will now provide its channel partners with a single source for delivery of the Microsoft private cloud built on FlexPod solution. Avnet will offer multiple configurations to help channel partners meet different customer requirements, especially for those working with customers in the high-growth vertical markets of energy, finance, government, healthcare, and retail.
• Avnet’s expanded FlexPod Services are designed to help channel partners deliver the FlexPod solution validated with Microsoft private cloud quickly and easily. They include pre-sales support, consolidated quoting, single order capability, assembly and testing, ship complete, and tracking. Additionally, channel partners will be able to work hand in hand with a dedicated Avnet team to support all of their FlexPod needs, as well as draw upon additional support and expertise from Avnet's dedicated Cisco and NetApp teams.
• FlexPod Services from Avnet allow channel partners to focus their resources on core business strategies while Avnet handles the complexities of solution development and supply-chain management.

Cisco and NetApp FlexPod Shared Infrastructure

• Since Cisco and NetApp’s FlexPod was announced in November 2010, both channel partners and customers have embraced the benefits of the solution. To date, approximately 500 joint channel partners worldwide are certified to sell FlexPod and more than 600 customers have deployed FlexPod in their data center infrastructure, representing more than 400% growth in customer adoption since May 2011.
• To provide greater flexibility and customer choice, FlexPod currently offers 13 Cisco Validated Designs supporting multiple hypervisors, business applications and workloads. Cisco and NetApp will sponsor Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2012, where these and other private cloud solutions will be demonstrated.
• NetApp and Cisco offer programs to support FlexPod to give channel partners access to a wide range of unique tools and resources to help partners differentiate their services, speed time to market, and grow their revenues. The channel programs include technical trainings and service benefits, as well as marketing and sales support.

Supportive Quotes:

• Brad Anderson, corporate vice president, Management and Security, Microsoft
  “Customers find unique value in Microsoft’s private cloud because of our cross-platform approach—you can build one private cloud for your heterogeneous workloads and platforms. The FlexPod solution validated with Microsoft private cloud implements best practices for effectively integrating server, storage, and network elements with Windows Server, Hyper-V, and System Center. By combining Cisco and NetApp solutions with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center, we can give our joint customers an integrated, agile, and efficient data center environment.”

• Carol Kinney, vice president for FlexPod Services, Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas
  “Working collaboratively with Microsoft, Cisco, and NetApp, Avnet focused on streamlining the development and delivery of Microsoft private cloud built on FlexPod solutions for our channel partners. Avnet also created a suite of services to shorten and simplify the sales cycle, making it easier for our channel partners to go to market with this new solution. Avnet's FlexPod Services and our single-resource capabilities allow us to ensure that our channel partners, and their customers, have a consistent and positive experience.”

• Satinder Sethi, vice president, Server Access Virtualization Technology Group, Cisco“The FlexPod validated with Microsoft private cloud reinforces Cisco’s commitment to offering a range of data center solutions that enable our channel partners to offer customers more choice and flexibility. Microsoft customers can now use shared infrastructure and integrated management to complement Microsoft’s deep application insights, along with the ability to automatically orchestrate resources from the FlexPod, to enable customers to deliver applications as services and meet demanding business service-level agreements.”

• Phil Brotherton, vice president of the Enterprise Software Group, NetApp“The strong market demand for Microsoft private cloud solutions built on NetApp and Cisco technologies further reinforces the importance of this strategic three-way partnership. Together, we are bringing compelling, innovative solutions to market that enable our joint partners and customers to build secure private clouds optimized for efficiency, flexibility, and fast time to value. NetApp’s ongoing and proven integrations with Cisco UCS and Windows Server, Hyper-V, System Center, and applications underscore our commitment, and we look forward to much more to come at the Microsoft Management Summit in April.”

Additional Resources:

• The Cisco Validated Design for the FlexPod solution validated with Microsoft private cloud.
• Other Cisco tested and validated designs for key Microsoft applications, such as Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL Server--are also available at www.cisco.com/go/microsoft.
• To learn more about the Microsoft private cloud platform visit www.microsoft.com/readynow/ and www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/new.aspx.
• Customers and channel partners interested in purchasing the FlexPod solution validated with Microsoft private cloud should contact Avnet at 1-855-GO-FLEXPOD (1-855-463-5397).
• Learn more about Cisco Unified Computing.
• Get information about NetApp Microsoft Private Clouds.
• Partners and customers can learn more about the Microsoft Fast Track Architecture Guide.
• Read more about the NetApp Private Cloud Solution Brief.
• Connect with NetApp experts and storage enthusiasts in the NetApp Community.
• Visit the NetApp for Microsoft Environments blog: blogs.netapp.com/msenviro/.
• Follow NetApp on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
• Follow Cisco on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

Apple Loophole Gives Developers Access to Photos

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Apple Loophole Gives Developers Access to Photos

By NICK BILTON

SAN FRANCISCO - The private photos on your phone may not be as private as you think.

Developers of applications for Apple's mobile devices, along with Apple itself, came under scrutiny this month after reports that some apps were taking people's address book information without their knowledge.

As it turns out, address books are not the only things up for grabs. Photos are also vulnerable. After a user allows an application on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to have access to location information, the app can copy the user's entire photo library, without any further notification or warning, according to app developers.

It is unclear whether any apps in Apple's App Store are illicitly copying user photos. Although Apple's rules do not specifically forbid photo copying, Apple says it screens all apps submitted to the store, a process that should catch nefarious behavior on the part of developers. But copying address book data was against Apple's rules, and the company approved many popular apps that collected that information.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

The first time an application wants to use location data, for mapping or any other purpose, Apple's devices ask the user for permission, noting in a pop-up message that approval "allows access to location information in photos and videos." When the devices save photo and video files, they typically include the coordinates of the place they were taken - creating another potential risk.

"Conceivably, an app with access to location data could put together a history of where the user has been based on photo location," said David E. Chen, co-founder of Curio, a company that develops apps for iOS, Apple's mobile operating system. "The location history, as well as your photos and videos, could be uploaded to a server. Once the data is off of the iOS device, Apple has virtually no ability to monitor or limit its use."

Obama Responsible for Greater Oil & Gas Production?

U.S. Chamber’s Energy Institute Comments on President Obama’s Energy Speech

February 23, 2012

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s remarks on energy delivered at the University of Miami today:

 

“As the President said, there is no silver bullet that will decrease gas prices and improve our energy security. However, there are a series of significant steps that this President could take that would lead us to a more secure energy and economic future, but this Administration has rejected that path.

 

“Today’s speech contained two fundamental mischaracterizations. The first is the notion that raising taxes on oil companies is going to lower gas prices. It won’t, and we know it won’t because it has been tried before. The result was higher prices and more imports. 

 

“The second is that this Administration is somehow responsible for the uptick we’ve seen recently in domestic production. It’s not. Because of the restrictions this Administration has placed on accessing public land, as well as the ever-increasing amount of red tape, the energy industry has moved to produce oil and gas on private lands. Also, credit is due to policy decisions made years ago in previous Administrations. The fact that the Administration would repeatedly try to take credit for this shows a troubling lack of understanding of energy production in this country. 

 

“The results of the President’s ‘just say no’ energy policy will be felt in the years to come. The facts speak for themselves. President Obama’s administration has issued 50.7 percent fewer annual leases on public lands than President Clinton’s did. Gulf of Mexico energy production is down 16 percent since 2009 and is projected to decrease even further in 2012. President Obama denied the Keystone XL pipeline permit, which would have created thousands of jobs and provided all Americans with a steady supply of oil from a friendly ally. He also has banned new offshore areas from oil and gas exploration, and recently his Administration took one million acres of onshore land rich with oil shale off the table.

 

“The American people can see that the current approach is not working. But we cannot have a constructive conversation about energy policy as long as this Administration fails to put forward any new ideas, relying instead on four year old campaign rhetoric. It isn’t enough just to be for an ‘all of the above’ energy policy in a speech. It’s time to actually propose one.”

 

The mission of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy is to unify policymakers, regulators, business leaders, and the American public behind a common sense energy strategy to help keep America secure, prosperous, and clean. Through policy development, education, and advocacy, the Institute is building support for meaningful action at the local, state, national, and international levels.

 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations.

And the Privacy Gaps Just Keep On Coming

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times
Monday, February 20, 2012

And the Privacy Gaps Just Keep On Coming 

By NICK BILTON

SAN FRANCISCO -- Another week. Another privacy debacle.

This time, Apple is to blame. Yes, the company that has promoted itself as more private and secure than the other guys, with its stringent app approval process, has actually been handing out people's address books as if they were sausage samples on a toothpick at the supermarket.

Next week there will be another privacy slip. And again the week after. Like the movie "Groundhog Day," where the day repeats itself. Where the day repeats itself. Where the day repeats ... you get the point.

It might be Google, Amazon, Sony, Facebook or Apple, again. Or perhaps a small Silicon Valley start-up in such a rush to get its product out in the face of competition that it will focus more on designing the icon of its app, than ensuring users' privacy.

Imagine if a bank paid more attention to the color of the carpet in its lobby than the type of safe it uses to store its customers' valuables. No one would want to store anything there, that's for sure.

During the time it took to write this column, yet another privacy violation was reported. The Wall Street Journal said Friday that Google and other advertising companies bypassed privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser in order to track people's online behavior; three legislators called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate. Google said it immediately moved to address the concerns.

Whose fault is all of this? We can't just point fingers at the companies that make iPhones, apps, social networking services and Web sites - although there are a lot of fingers that can be aimed in their direction. We're all somewhat to blame.

Researchers Find Flaw in Online Encryption Method

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times
Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Researchers Find Flaw in an Online Encryption Method 

By JOHN MARKOFF

SAN FRANCISCO — A team of European and American mathematicians and cryptographers have discovered an unexpected weakness in the encryption system widely used worldwide for online shopping, banking, e-mail and other Internet services intended to remain private and secure.

The flaw — which involves a small but measurable number of cases — has to do with the way the system generates random numbers, which are used to make it practically impossible for an attacker to unscramble digital messages. While it can affect the transactions of individual Internet users, there is nothing an individual can do about it. The operators of large Web sites will need to make changes to ensure the security of their systems, the researchers said.

The potential danger of the flaw is that even though the number of users affected by the flaw may be small, confidence in the security of Web transactions is reduced, the authors said.

The system requires that a user first create and publish the product of two large prime numbers, in addition to another number, to generate a public “key.” The original numbers are kept secret. To encrypt a message, a second person employs a formula that contains the public number. In practice, only someone with knowledge of the original prime numbers can decode that message.

For the system to provide security, however, it is essential that the secret prime numbers be generated randomly. The researchers discovered that in a small but significant number of cases, the random number generation system failed to work correctly.

The importance in ensuring that encryption systems do not have undetected flaws cannot be overstated. The modern world’s online commerce system rests entirely on the secrecy afforded by the public key cryptographic infrastructure.

The researchers described their work in a paper that the authors have submitted for publication at a cryptography conference to be held in Santa Barbara, Calif., in August. They made their findings public Tuesday because they believe the issue is of immediate concern to the operators of Web servers that rely on the public key cryptography system.

AT&T's "Virtual Cloud"

News Release from AT&T:


Introducing AT&T's "Virtual Private Cloud"

New AT&T Cloud Capability with VMware Brings Together Industry Leaders in Virtual Private Networking and Cloud Infrastructure

Dallas, Texas, February 13, 2012


Business cloud computing users will take note: the power of AT&T’s “virtual private cloud” has arrived.

AT&T* today announced AT&T Synaptic Compute as a ServiceSM with VMware vCloud® Datacenter Service.

The new enterprise-class cloud service combines technologies from virtual private networking (VPN) industry leader AT&T1 and cloud infrastructure software industry leader VMware.

Like AT&T’s other cloud offers, this new cloud capability is embedded directly into its network. This means compute and storage services can be scaled, managed, routed and delivered to business customers, down to virtually any fixed or mobile device, quickly and flexibly, on demand, with enterprise-grade security and performance.

The service allows VMware’s more than 350,000 customers to extend their private clouds across and into AT&T’s network-based cloud using AT&T’s industry leading VPN. The benefits of this “virtual private cloud” include the flexibility and cost efficiencies of using private and public cloud systems interchangeably and strategically.

The service allows users to rapidly provision and scale compute resources and easily and flexibly shift workloads between their private clouds and AT&T’s network-based cloud.  It also supports bursting, data center extensions, disaster recovery, and mobile application development and deployment.

“Our new cloud offer with VMware can help customers simplify the way they orchestrate their cloud resources between private and public clouds, allowing them to have the best of both worlds,” said John Potter, VP, As a Service Solutions, AT&T Business Solutions.

Concur, a leading cloud provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions, uses AT&T Synaptic Compute as a Service for its disaster recovery capabilities. The company, which has virtualized almost 80% of its IT environment over the last three years with VMware cloud infrastructure software, expects AT&T’s new Synaptic Compute as a Service to allow it rapid access to compute capability in the event of an outage in its primary network.

“We see the combination of AT&T’s VPN-based cloud service with VMware’s virtualization and cloud infrastructure technologies as an optimum pairing that will speed our ability to shift computing workloads between private and public clouds efficiently and effectively,” said Stephen deRham, Sr. VP of R&D, Concur Technologies, Inc.

The offer is a new version of AT&T Synaptic Compute as a ServiceSM. AT&T has achieved certification according to VMware’s rigorous standards for its vCloud Datacenter Service program which was created to ensure globally consistent enterprise-class cloud computing infrastructure services. It is available immediately in the U.S. with global availability expected by year-end 2012.

“AT&T’s participation in the VMware vCloud® Datacenter Services program creates a new cloud offer for our customers that harnesses the security, performance and reliability of AT&T’s network-based cloud with the industry-leading VMware vCloud platform that is the standard datacenter environment for our enterprise customers,” said Dan Chu, Vice President, Cloud Infrastructure and Services, VMware.

The new version of AT&T Synaptic Compute as a Service signals AT&T’s most recent advance in the execution of its strategy to deliver cloud services that meet the needs of a wide variety of users including large and medium enterprises, developers, and internet-centric businesses. This new service is complemented by a series of cloud offers announced by AT&T in the last 90 days which includes:

AT&T Unified Communications Services: news release; sign up here
AT&T Cloud Architect: news release; sign up here
AT&T Platform as a Service: news release; sign up here
AT&T’s portfolio of cloud services also includes AT&T Synaptic Storage as a ServiceSM, and AT&T Synaptic HostingSM.

1 AT&T is the market-leading VPN provider according to Vertical Systems Group – ENS (Emerging Networks Service), ‘Dedicated IP VPN Services Market, 2010 U.S. Services Site Share’, March 2011)

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

VMware and VMware vCloud are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions.

Digital Security Bills Bruised by Antipiracy Fight

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times
Thursday, February 09, 2012

Digital Security Bills Bruised by a Lingering Antipiracy Fight 

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

The ghosts of two doomed antipiracy bills hang over a new and unrelated issue on Capitol Hill: proposed legislation to help secure the nation’s nuclear plants, water systems and other essential infrastructure from hackers and terrorists.

In both houses of Congress, legislation is gaining steam that would authorize the federal government to regulate the security of privately owned critical infrastructure, much of which is controlled by Internet-connected systems and susceptible to being hacked. The legislation is already riven by competing interests and fears.

National security interests want the government to be able to collect and analyze information from private companies about how they protect themselves from attack. Those companies are skittish about government regulation generally. Civil liberties advocates warn against excessive information-gathering by the state in the name of computer security.

And members of Congress are wary of taking any steps that could infuriate the Internet lobby, which scored a surprise victory against would-be antipiracy laws last month.

Representative Dan Lungren, Republican of California, who recently introduced a computer security bill, acknowledged that Capitol Hill had learned some lessons about the new political muscle of technology companies and their users.

“One of the things we learned is that we have to raise the debate such that no one believes things are being done behind closed doors,” Mr. Lungren said in a phone interview.

A Congressional aide who did not want to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, put the lessons of the antipiracy efforts more bluntly. Some members, the aide said, “were kind of scarred by that experience and don’t want to go down any road where they are viewed as regulating the Internet.”

Bid Rigging at Foreclosure Auctions

News release from the FBI, Sacramento Division:

California Investor Pleads Guilty to Bid Rigging and Fraud at Public Real Estate Foreclosure Auctions
Ninth Guilty Plea in the Investigation to Date

U.S. Attorney’s Office January 27, 2012

Eastern District of California (916) 554-2700

— filed under: Fraud, Press Release, Sacramento Top Stories

SACRAMENTO, CA—A real estate investor pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Sacramento to conspiring to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions held in San Joaquin County, Calif., Sharis A. Pozen, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, and Benjamin B. Wagner, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, announced.

Kenneth A. Swanger pleaded guilty to conspiring with a group of real estate speculators who agreed not to bid against each other at certain public real estate foreclosure auctions in San Joaquin County. The primary purpose of the conspiracy was to suppress and restrain competition and to obtain selected real estate offered at San Joaquin County public foreclosure auctions at noncompetitive prices, the department said in court papers.

According to the court documents, after the conspirators’ designated bidder bought a property at a public auction, they would hold a second, private auction, at which each participating conspirator would bid the amount above the public auction price he or she was willing to pay. The conspirator who bid the highest amount at the end of the private auction won the property. The difference between the price at the public auction and that at the second auction was the group’s illicit profit. The illicit profit was divided among the conspirators in payoffs. According to his plea agreement, Swanger participated in the scheme beginning in or about June 2009 until in or about October 2009.

To date, nine individuals, including Swanger, have pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in connection with the investigation. They are: Anthony B. Ghio; John R. Vanzetti; Theodore B. Hutz; Richard W. Northcutt; Yama Marifat; Gregory L. Jackson; Walter Daniel Olmstead; and Robert Rose. In addition, four other investors, Wiley C. Chandler, Andrew B. Katakis, Donald M. Parker and Anthony B. Joachim, and one auctioneer, W. Theodore Longley, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Sacramento on Dec. 7, 2011.

“This type of illegal scheme undermines the transparency and integrity of the competitive market for residential real estate. Today’s guilty plea sends a clear message that the Department of Justice does not tolerate anticompetitive conduct that harms consumers,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Pozen. “The Antitrust Division will continue to work with its law enforcement partners to prosecute the perpetrators of anticompetitive schemes in public real estate foreclosure auctions in the Sacramento area and into northern California.”

“The Department of Justice is bringing greater scrutiny to auctions of foreclosed properties as part of our effort to root out fraud in the real estate industry in all its forms,” said U.S. Attorney Wagner. “The days when a few players could rig these auctions for their own benefit are ending.”

Swanger pleaded guilty to bid rigging, a violation of the Sherman Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime if either of those amounts is greater than the statutory maximum fine. Swanger also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

These charges arose from an ongoing federal antitrust investigation of fraud and bidding irregularities in certain real estate auctions in San Joaquin County. The investigation is being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, the FBI’s Sacramento Division and the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office. Trial attorneys Anna Pletcher and Tai Milder from the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco Office and Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell L. Carlberg are prosecuting the case.

Today’s charges are part of efforts underway by President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. President Obama established the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes. One component of the task force is the national Mortgage Fraud Working Group, co-chaired by U.S. Attorney Wagner. For more information on the task force, visit www.StopFraud.gov.

Anyone with information concerning bid rigging or fraud related to real estate foreclosure auctions should contact the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco Office at 415-436-6660, visit www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.htm, contact the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California at 916-554-2700 or contact the FBI’s Sacramento Division at 916-481-9110.