AstrotalkUK

Not for profit website/blog on astronomy, space and my writing

Ben Kepes – Future of Cloud Computing

By Leave a Comment

Ben Kepes

When I speak to anyone in a time zone with a 12 hours difference and in opposite hemispheres it implies we are about as far as two people on the planet can be. You can play or download the recording at the bottom of this page.

Ben is known for amongst other things, as the curator of CloudU. He has been speaking about Cloud Computing from a business perspectives long before it became trendy to do so.

We spoke about CloudU,  CSA’s CCSK and the future of Cloud Computing and its relationship with Open Source.

Links to some of the topics we discussed include.

CloudU

Ben’s Blog

Future of Cloud Computing video from Oscon

Cloud Security Alliance – Cloud Computing Security Knowledge and my blog post  discussing the pros and cons of CCSK.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.5KB) | Embed

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS | More

 

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)

By Leave a Comment

Most of the pictures of Hale-Bopp were spectacular. This is not one of them. It is one I took from the bright night sky of San Francisco in April 1997

The most spectacular comet in living memory was bright, had multiple tails and remained visible with the naked eye  for over a year. Hale-Bopp decorated the Earth’s night sky between 1996 and 1997.

Discovery of another comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) announced this week, if current predictions turn out to be correct,   may exceed the spectacle even of Hale-Bopp.

The comet first photographed on 21st September by two Russian astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok using the  0.4meter refelecting telescope of the International Scientific Optical Network (ISOC) was announced three days later.

The expectations of brightness and size sound too good to be true. Brighter than the full moon, visible in daylight and even a probability breaking up in to multiple smaller units as it approaches perihelion (closest point to the Sun). Predicting cometary orbits  has come a long way over the last couple of decades. Even if the predictions are out by 50%, iC/2012 S1 (ISON) still has the potential for a night sky spectacle of a lifetime.

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) will get close not only to Earth and Sun (0.012AU of the Sun at the end of  November 2013 and then to ~0.4AU from Earth at the beginning of January 2014) but also Mars! May be Curiosity will snap a few pictures too.

 

Fireball over Europe

By 4 Comments

Fireball over Scotland - Craig Usher
Picture from Craig Usher

For a change the sky was clear. I could have seen it but I didn’t.

Last Friday a brilliant (magnitude -7) fireball swept across the sky over western Europe. Numerous visual sightings, pictures and video testify to a great night-sky spectacle but no one still knows what it actually was – meteor or space debris.

A detailed report here from a Dutch blogger brings together video clips and reflects on what the object may have been.  Concluding that it is unlikely to have been space debris. If it was then it must have been associated with secret satellites probably American or Israeli. If so, the only people on the planet who already know the origins of this object are military.

 

Cloud Computing Security Knowledge (CCSK) from the Cloud Security Alliance(CSA)

By 4 Comments

A personal take on current cloud computing security certification.

If you have been working in the Information Security field and already hold the certification such as CISSP and CISM and now want to understand the security challenges associated with Cloud Computing which certification should you go for? The Cloud Computing Security Knowledge (CCSK) from the Cloud Security Alliance is arguably the leading market contender.

Why choose CCSK?

CCSK is not the only course focusing on Cloud Computing security. None of the others like CompTIA, CloudU and the numerous vendor specific courses share the scale of support from the global Cloud Computing industry. The course content and design is the product of input from numerous industry experts from organisations and corporations that are shaping the developing global Cloud Computing environment. Although still in its early days, CCSK has arguably established a clear lead in international recognition.

Best Approach?

Completing the CCSK test is not easy. Writing in the summer of 2011, Jim Reavis, executive director of the Cloud Security Alliance reported that Cloud Security Certification Not So Simple and shared a surprising statistics that only 53% had passed.

How easy or difficult the candidate finds the test depends on the unique circumstances of the candidate. If Cloud Computing security is your thing and are looking for an industry recognised and respected qualification, CCSK could be for you. It is not for absolute beginners. If you have a few years of InfoSec experience and are able to self study, here are some steps in sequences which should help.

  1. Use the social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn groups, blogs and podcasts) to keep abreast of Cloud Security Issues.
  2. Consciously interact with the cloud. Make regular use of one or more of the following:  Skydrive, Icloud, Dropbox, Google Apps or any of the growing list of similar applications.
  3. Setup free accounts on e.g. Amazon Web Services  and use its Simply Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2).  If like me you are a fan of open source try cloudstack instead of Amazon.
  4. A high quality and free cloud security course has been developed by a Ben Kepes, an internationally recognised commentator on Cloud Computing (who also happens to be a farmer from South Island in New Zealand) called CloudU.  Although CloudU is made available under the auspices of Rackspace, it is a vendor neutral Cloud Computing course focusing on security. To attain the certificate you have series of ten lessons/white papers, each followed by a quiz with ten questions followed by a final quiz with fifty questions randomly chosen from all of the ten lessons.  The pass mark is 80% in every case and should you not be successful – simply try again.
  5. Preparation for the CCSK course depends so much on your experience, so there can be no single approach.  Familiarity with the contents of the two key documents and some of the others listed above is crucial. Depending on your personal history you will find the content of some domains so obvious that you will choose to skip them.

Download the full paper in pdf here.