The Best of…Me

Part shameless self promotion while taking a cue from Morning Radio shows, I’m out of the office this week and decided to post some of my most popular blogs – according to you, the viewer.  Or as Kent Brockman puts it, ‘this reporter places the blame for all of this squarely on YOU, the viewers!’

CloudFucius Shares: Cloud Research and Stats: Sharing is caring, according to some and with the shortened week, CloudFucius decided to share some resources he’s come across during his Cloud exploration in this abbreviated post.  A few are aged just to give a perspective of what was predicted and written about over time.

The New Certificate 2048 My Performance: Transactions handled over SSL can require substantial computational power to establish the connection (handshake) and then to encrypt and decrypt the transferred data.  If you need the same performance as non-secured data, then additional computing power (CPU) is needed.  SSL processing can be up to 5 times more computationally expensive than clear text to have the same level of performance, no matter which vendor is providing the hardware.  SSL Offload takes much of that computing burden off the servers and places it on dedicated SSL hardware. SSL offloading can relieve the Web server of the processing burden of encrypting and/or decrypting traffic sent via SSL.

F5’s BIG-IP system with Oracle Access Manager: F5 and Oracle announced plans to unify access management for web applications.  Press release can be found here.  The solution combines F5’s BIG-IP system with Oracle Access Manager to enhance single sign-on (SSO) capabilities and simplify access control.  Unifying application delivery and web access management. 

26 Short Topics about Security: Stats, Stories and Suggestions: The crew at DevCentral has a great series called A to Z, and I decided to build upon (or steal, however you see it) the idea with ‘26 Short Topics about Security.’  Not too technically heavy or all encompassing but definitely areas of concern for IT. 

F5's BIG-IP with Oracle® Access Manager to enhance SSO and Access Control: Learn how F5's BIG-IP LTM/APM helps in conjunction with Oracle Access Manager centralizing web application authentication and authorization services, streamline access management, and reduce infrastructure costs Watch how BIG-IP APM can reduce TCO, lower deployment risk, and streamline operational efficiencies for customers along with having a unified point of enforcement to simplify auditing and control changes in configuring application access settings.

Bit.ly, Twitter, Security & You: I’ve been using bit.ly for a little while both to shorten links and be able to track clicks placed on twitter (and other social sites) – as many of you do.  When the twitter outage hit last week, and many folks found themselves ‘lost’ without it, I decided to review my stats on the bit.ly links I’ve sent and found something interesting; or frightening.

The Threat Behind the Firewall: I had a different name for this blog entry but just ‘Jump Drive’ is an awful blog title.  They go by many names; jump drive, USB drive, flash drive, memory stick and a few others, but removable media is a serious threat to IT organizations.  From consultants, to government employees, to Mortgage lenders, to the International Space Station, what used to be a giveaway staple at trade shows, these tiny less-than-two-inch drives can hit and hurt you in a multitude of ways.

Cybercrime, the Easy Way: The Dummies series is a great collection of ‘How to’ instructions on a wide array of topics and while they have not published a ‘Cybercrime for Dummies®’ booklet (and don’t think they will), DYI Cybercrime Kits are helping drive Internet attacks.  Gone are the days when you had to visit a dark alley to get a crook’s cookbook.  You can get a Cybercrime toolkit to go with your black ski mask, getaway car and evil lair hideout.

How Terms Have Changed over Time: Meanings and terms often change or get adjusted over time, especially with Information Technology.  While never walking 5 miles to school in two-feet of snow, I did live during an era of TV’s without remotes and vinyl record players. 

Have a great week!

ps