ServiceNow, a cloud-based service ticket workflow application partnered with ZScaler to provide customers the option to maintain security for remote workers via ZScaler’s zero trust access.

Amit Raikar, vice president of technology alliances and business development at ZScaler, said the new integrations will enable ServiceNow users to have zero-trust connectivity to the ServiceNow platform with all the data protection policy enforcement for data in motion and at rest.

The new integration also extends to automation. With integration in ServiceNow and ZScaler, the system can check whether a particular file or url is malicious and automate the process of blocking it. “Typically the processes to respond to these security incidents are manually done,” Raikar said, adding that with the enrichments through automation, security teams can be more effective.

“They can now reduce false positives and false negatives and be more efficient, because by reducing manual tasks you are reducing errors,” Raikar said.

Another benefit of the partnership: ServiceNow customers can connect through one of ZScaler’s 150 data centers around the world, with users connecting to the closest data center geographically, versus getting routed through a centralized data center in the United States.

“The migration of applications and data to the cloud is driving network transformation,” said Amit Sinha, president and CTO at Zscaler. “Simultaneously, organizations are shifting to a hybrid workforce where work from anywhere has quickly become the norm, requiring a completely new approach to security, built on zero trust.”

VMWare is urging users to apply a patch to address two critical vulnerabilities in VMware vCenter and VMware Cloud Foundation to fix remote code execution and authentication vulnerabilities.

According to the company’s advisory, multiple vulnerabilities in the vSphere Client were privately reported to VMware., including remote code execution vulnerability in the vSphere Client due to a lack of input in the Virtual SAN Health Check plug-in, which is enabled by default in the vCenter Server.

“VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the Critical severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 9.8,” the company said in its advisory.

The company also published a blog on the vulnerabilities, saying users of vCenter Server version 6.5, 6.7 and 7.0 need to apply the updates immediately.

“These updates fix a critical security vulnerability, and it needs to be considered at once. Organizations that practice change management using the ITIL definitions of change types would consider this an “emergency change.” All environments are different, have different tolerance for risk, and have different security controls & defense-in-depth to mitigate risk, so the decision on how to proceed is up to you. However, given the severity, we strongly recommend that you act.”

With access to port 443, a malicious actor can exploit the vulnerability to execute commands with unrestricted privileges on the underlying operating system that hosts vCenter Server, VMware said.

According to the company’s blog, the remote code execution vulnerability in the vSAN plugin – which ships as part of vCenter Server – can be used by anyone who can reach vCenter Server over the network to gain access, regardless of whether a vSAN is used or not.

A second vulnerability in the vSphere Client could allow a malicious actor with access to port 443 on vCenter Server to perform actions allowed by the impacted plug-ins without authentication.

The update also improves the vCenter Server plugin framework to better enforce plugin authentication. This could cause some third-party plugins to stop working, VMware says.

If your IT department can’t patch right away and don’t use vSAN, there are workarounds for disabling the plugins affected. That involves editing a text file on the VCSA and restarting services.

However, the company cautions putting off the patch – especially as ransomware attacks increase.

“In this era of ransomware it is safest to assume that an attacker is already inside the network somewhere, on a desktop and perhaps even in control of a user account, which is why we strongly recommend declaring an emergency change and patching as soon as possible.”

With the UK in the midst of its third lockdown of the last twelve months, the enforced shift to remote learning has been a learning curve for schools, universities and other education providers, with teachers and students now required to access course materials and administrative documents via digital means. It has shown just how essential digital solutions are to creating a successful learning environment online.

Additionally, continued advances in the education sector mean that it’s an industry generating huge troves of data. The data produced is vast and varied: from research data to digitised library assets, student and faculty information, and video assets. As institutions continue to operate remotely, the scale of data is increasing rapidly.

The changing landscape of education requires that students and staff become more data literate. It also means that IT departments need to develop a comprehensive data management strategy for planning and implementing increasingly data-intensive education systems – one that’s efficient, compliant, and doesn’t cost the earth.

Keep your data secure
As data proliferates, one of the biggest demands for educational institutions is how to store their data cheaply and in a way that is easily and quickly accessible from everywhere.

Unless checked, organisations can easily lose control of where data is stored and how it is used. This can especially become a problem where IT security policy is concerned, so it is worth enforcing system wide protocols such as two-factor authentication to protect data against potential breaches from external threats or insiders.

A backup and disaster recovery solution is also essential. Here I’d advise adopting the ‘3-2-1 rule’ in association with cloud backups: keeping three copies of your data on at least two different formats with one copy offsite is also a good strategy. Should something happen to the primary copies of your data, your copies in the cloud will remain unaffected and will enable you to get back up to speed with little business impact. Moreover, a good storage provider should offer immutable buckets – a means of storage which renders contents fixed and unchangeable according to the minimum data immutability standards, to guard against accidental alterations or deletions.

Keep costs down
Given the growth in digital data, educational institutions are consuming far more storage space than they did a few years ago. In addition to student records and digital coursework, it’s increasingly common for institutions to need to store video lectures and other supplementary materials. Some universities have even created entire digital libraries and archives from offline resources that are accessible online to students and staff to bolster their offerings to students, teachers and faculty members.

When dealing with the petabytes of data generated by educational institutions, primary, on-prem storage can quickly eat up the IT budget as you keep needing to store more data. Cloud storage takes advantage of economies of scale, providing the ability to dynamically scale resources up or down as required, and is therefore a more cost-effective option for universities looking to store and access their data in a way that’s fast and easy to access.

However, that’s not to say all cloud storage solutions are equally economical. Many first-generation cloud providers, like Amazon or Google, don’t just charge customers based on the amount of data stored, but charge extra for accessing the data. This could quickly prove problematic for universities, if faculty members need frequent access to files. Fortunately, not all storage providers work on these models – a number of second generation services operate on all-you-can eat data models without any surprises in the form of egress fees.

IT decision makers should act as their own managed service providers (MSPs) – offering support for multiple cloud services, rather than being the gatekeepers of one provider. Rather than relying on outside MSPs to help them set up networks, provision compute resources, recommend and implement software, and so forth, education IT departments should play an active role in considering staff and student needs internally to help them choose the right solutions and avoid incompatible and fragmented services.

Embrace the hybrid cloud
Adopting a hybrid cloud approach can give you the ability to flexibly scale up on existing on-premises legacy systems. This approach enables you to keep on hand a larger amount of storage whilst relieving the stress on IT teams by moving some applications into public clouds.

With a hybrid cloud solution, IT decision makers can optimise infrastructure to meet a plethora of needs and diverse workload requirements. For example, there are applications that require rapid deployment and/or rapid scaling which are a better fit for public cloud. Other systems such as HR can be moved to a software as-a-service (SaaS) model to free up storage and on-prem capacities. With hybrid cloud, educational systems can dynamically shift workloads between on and off-premises environments based on specific performance, regulatory needs or for specific periods of time.

A hybrid cloud approach is also useful from a security perspective and can help combat the “shadow IT” problem. Key systems containing sensitive student and school data can remain in-house and behind an educational organisation’s firewall to safeguard student privacy and meet compliance regulations, whilst employees can be empowered to use public clouds for different use cases as appropriate.

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has showcased the importance of transitioning an organisation’s infrastructure to a cloud-centric approach, something that’s been recommended as far back as 2019 by the UK’s Department for Education. Today, educators can see huge benefits from adopting next-generation cloud technologies, and the transition needn’t be costly nor complex – and to protect the future of remote learning and collaboration, it’s no longer a want, but a need.

VMware has announced it’ll continue allowing employees to work from home to promote inclusion and help the environment.

As part of its Future of Work initiative, VMware staff will continue to choose to work from home or in the office. Rich Lang, senior vice president of human resources, said staff members would be able to choose permanent remote work, “flexible” working, working near a VMware office, or working full-time from a VMware office.

Employees can work from any location that accelerates their productivity and advances their personal and professional goals during and after the pandemic,” he added.

Lang said planning for the initiative was well underway before COVID-19 and the pandemic accelerated efforts.

“As our employees demonstrated throughout the pandemic, work location does not dictate success. The choice and flexibility that form the cornerstones of this new distributed workforce model mirror the choice and flexibility we provide to our customers,” he said.

He said the company has discovered that most people prefer to do focused work at home or outside of the office. In contrast, campus offices are better suited for collaboration and community. This has led the company to base its Future of Work program around three things.

The first is to build up a diverse team with access to the resources and support they need to be productive in whichever work environment they choose. These resources and support will include expanded benefits and well-being programs, and reimbursements for home office equipment.

The second will see workplaces become collaboration hubs to tackle climate issues by decreasing the need to come into an office every day.

“Removing the need to commute to an office and reducing carbon emissions in our day-to-day operations has significant impact on our sustainability commitments. This means moving from spaces that prioritize individual work to environments that foster teamwork, innovation, and experiences,” said Lang.

The third idea is to increase diversity and inclusion by decreasing the need for staff to relocate or travel.

“We are leveling the playing field and ensuring equity and inclusion of all employees by providing every employee equal access to support systems, regardless of where they may choose to work,” said Lang.

Lang added that emerging technologies, like augmented reality and virtual reality, will play a key role in bridging distances and shaping a more dynamic and creative workforce.

“Accessibility to a broader talent pool and flexible work will shape a more diverse VMware and help achieve net-zero carbon emissions for operations,” said Lang.

As we settle into remote work for the long haul, it’s crucial to consider how best to support DevOps teams. While DevOps employees face similar challenges working remotely as any other department, they also face increased pressure to deliver as IT professionals, supporting the entire organization through an ever-changing work environment.

By nature, remote work makes it more difficult for your DevOps team to do their jobs. Team members are working in various environments, but also distributed across geographies. And in this new frontier, DevOps must provide service as usual, continuing their development projects and ensuring communication and alignment among departments when it comes to the organization’s technology and IT needs.

Even more, in a distributed, remote workforce, disruptions to application performance and security issues are more likely to occur and DevOps professionals must be equipped to identify and correct them quickly. For these reasons, it’s critical that these teams have the right tools and support to remain operational, communicate effectively across departments and neutralize threats—keeping applications and the organization running.

How to Support Remote DevOps Teams
Remote success looks different for every DevOps team based on organization size, industry and business need. However, the following strategies can be applied universally and may even serve as building blocks on technological foundations you already have in place:

Continue migrating operations to the cloud. Your cloud infrastructure is the backbone of any remote support plans for DevOps teams. Migrating operations to the cloud is the biggest enabler in making sure your team is not tied to any physical location and can do their jobs without relying on a single data center or headquarters. For example, deploying your open source data infrastructure in public clouds not only makes it easier for team members to access the data but also increases developer and operational velocity, which accelerates application innovation. While most organizations are well into their migration to the cloud, it’s critical to accelerate the process to expand across more operational areas. Traditional work environments likely won’t return to fully in-office experiences. Rather, many organizations will implement a hybrid working model. Refining and expanding your cloud infrastructure will help you make that transition and continue supporting an in-office, remote or hybrid team in the future.
Automate security and performance monitoring. DevOps teams are under pressure to scale solutions for remote work, such as company VPNs for network access and secure application logins. They must also be alerted to and able to track any security issues that arose during the hasty transition to remote work. Automated monitoring of software performance and trends keeps teams ahead of threats and minimizes deployment issues. The software sends alerts and allows teams to view data in real-time. Even more, machine learning technology can analyze the data and identify trends about application performance, the cloud environment and data usage. This level of monitoring and analysis is only possible with automation and makes it much easier for DevOps teams to meet IT service requirements as the remote technology landscape rapidly changes.
Increase communication and collaboration efforts. It’s crucial that DevOps teams are in constant communication with key departments across the organization, including security and executive leadership, as well as with other employees to discuss what’s working and what needs to become a priority for change. To help support knowledge sharing across a remote team, first ensure you communicate all application metrics clearly so every member of the team understands and is aligned on projects and next steps. Dashboards can help in this arena, collecting and converting key data points into visuals. And while you can easily create and host meetings with conference calls and video conferencing software, informal face-to-face conversations are harder to re-create—and that’s where ideas are born. To combat this loss, arrange for non-structured discussions without strict agendas or topics to encourage idea sharing, creativity and inspiration among employees.
Remote work has broken down the traditional DevOps team structure, but this new way of work provides an opportunity to build something better—more time for independent, focused work, a superior work-life balance and modern cloud-based solutions for daily tasks. Supporting DevOps teams as they grapple with the new pressures of remote work is the key to ensuring your organization runs smoothly during the transition—cloud infrastructure, automation and communication are just a few of the strategies to do so.

Understanding the underlying basics of Cloud-Native model in IT domain
Cloud has become an essential part of the IT framework. It acts as an accelerator for digital transformation, solves the data woes and enables quicker data processing with better ROI. It also supports the remote work culture that has become a significant part for enterprises amid the pandemic. As per an IBM study, a rapid shift to cloud over the next three years will drive enterprises to move 75 percent of existing non-cloud apps to cloud environments. Today, companies are racing to cloud-native to deliver innovation at scale and lower cost, as a key part of the digital transformation strategy. This is because, having cloud-based applications has help businesses augment their performance, agility, efficiency, scalability while mitigating the shortcomings of internally managed applications and servers.

Cloud-native is an approach to building and running applications that exploits the advantages of the cloud computing delivery model. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation states that these technologies empower organizations to build and run scalable applications in modern, dynamic environments such as public, private, and hybrid clouds. CHCF also mentions that this form of computing uses an open-source software stack to be:

1. Containerized, where each part (applications, processes) is packaged in its own container. This facilitates reproducibility, transparency, and resource isolation from the underlying infrastructure. Further, containers also provide portability and guarantee consistency across environments.

2. Dynamically orchestrated where containers are actively scheduled and managed to optimize resource utilization. Common orchestrated tasks include scheduling, affinity/anti-affinity, detection of failures and health monitoring, networking, scaling, handling failover, service discovery and coordination of incremental upgrades with zero downtime deployment. There are multiple open tools available, e.g. Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon ECS, Mesos, that provide frameworks for handling the critical task of container orchestration.

3. Microservices-oriented, where applications are segmented into micro-services to increase the overall agility, functionality and maintainability of applications. Here, each micro-services has a well-defined boundary and API, and gets developed and operated by a relatively small team. They communicate with others using standard communication protocols such as HTTP/HTTPS, WebSockets, or AMQP.

To develop micro-services and manage it in different cloud environments independent of each other, we need a cloud-native development framework. This comprises of DevOps, agile methodology, microservices, cloud platforms, containers like Kubernetes and Docker, and continuous delivery. Kubernetes is an open-source system that incorporates functionality such as automation, integration, and self-service. It presents a unified environment for cloud-native development that enables teams to manage and modernize applications efficiently.

Next, an IT team must avoid silos in their quest to cloud progression. This is where DevOps can help all stakeholders to stay aligned to one mission and work continuously to achieve it. It also allows collaboration between IT Ops and Dev Teams. Here, the DevOps must have processes like approaches like minimum viable product (MVP) development, multivariate testing, rapid iteration, and working closely across organizational boundaries. This also involves automation of platform provisioning and application deployment via the practice of Infrastructure as Code or IaC.

Why do we need it?
Cloud-native helps IT by removing constraints and shortening the path to business value. It helps businesses automatically log into what’s going on and gives nice metrics, colorful dashboards and automated notifications. Besides, it improves the quality of IT service by continuous optimization due to better detection of problems and areas for improvement. It also provides real-time notifications.

Apps developed on cloud-native platforms have a significant advantage over on-premises ones. For instance, cloud-native apps are always current, and up to date, whereas, latter needs updates that are delivered on a subscription basis by the vendor, and require downtime while the update is installed. This is because the DevOps framework of cloud-native development help is making changes, and updates constant and iterative, promote a culture of seamless and continuous improvement. Further, cloud-native apps are modular, unlike monoliths architecture of on-premises apps. Next, cloud-native apps have no problem working in a virtualized space and sharing resources with other apps. It is important to remember that shifting on-premises apps to the cloud can result in failures and unnecessary challenges. Hence, it is crucial to regularly build new applications and update existing applications while moving to the cloud. Else, one can dismantle existing monoliths and refactor them using cloud-native principles from the ground up.