Symantec Research Labs

Space Saver

Organizations will soon be able to take better advantage of their virtual machine-based data centers, thanks to a new storage management technology being investigated by Symantec Research Labs (SRL).

Today's enterprises are increasingly moving to virtual machines (VMs) to save money on equipment and to reduce complexity. While migrating to a virtual machine-based environment confers benefits, it also creates challenges for administrators, especially with regard to storage management.

SRL's new technology, known internally as VM-Aware Storage, will reduce disk space by several orders of magnitude in data centers that employ large numbers of virtual machines. "Imagine you have 100 virtual machines in a data center. They're each running the same Apache Web Server. Suppose each of those virtual machines has 100 gigabytes of hard drive space associated with it," says SRL Vice President Stephen Trilling. "A traditional storage management solution would store 100 gigabytes for each of the 100 virtual machines, equaling 10 terabytes of storage. However, we know all the VMs are running the same Web server software, meaning that each has a largely similar set of files. So we thought rather than storing all that data, let's eliminate duplicate files and save companies money."

With the new solution, just one copy of the base image of the Apache Web Server (100 GB) would be stored, plus any machine-specific differences (1 GB for each machine or 100 GB total). In this example, the total storage needed is 200 GB, which is 50 times less than the 10 terabytes required with traditional storage mechanisms.

Symantec researchers plan to extend the VM-Aware Storage system to improve efficiencies in patching, cloning, backup, and rollout of VM storage in the future. VM-Aware Storage will be built into Symantec's existing storage management solutions.

Green: The New Black

Whether your motivation is social or economic, there's plenty of green (as in dollars) to be had in going green (environmentally conscientious).

Companies around the globe are starting to wear their environmentally friendly policies on their sleeves. Industry leaders such as Dell and HP have initiatives offering to recycle hardware and peripherals for free. As data centers grow-and along with them, the energy bills to keep them cool-CIOs are likewise giving 'eco-nomics' a closer look.

Implementing sustainable policies and processes is not only good for publicity, it's good for the bottom line. Here are some steps your organization can take to demonstrate a commitment to cleaner environments:

• Buy from local suppliers whenever possible. It cuts transit costs and lowers fuel consumption.
• Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.
• Create and distribute a report that discloses energy usage by function (printing, faxing, running reports, queries, etc.) to make people conscious of the cost and environmental impact of their actions.
• Work with vendors who demonstrate a commitment to green business practices.
• Use videoconferencing instead of travel whenever possible.
• Create a committee within IT to explore ways your organization can become more energy efficient. Can you consolidate servers? Implement virtualization technologies?

Making Sure the Big One Gets Away

U.S. Department of Defense casting a wider net to deter spear phishing

Trolling for information is one thing; setting a trap is another. While neither is acceptable to agencies such as the United States' Department of Defense (DOD), the latter-known more commonly as spear phishing, where specific types of information are sought from specific individuals or agencies-is the more dangerous. To combat spear phishing, the agency, which oversees the U.S. military, is adding additional layers of security.

System users at the DOD must now log on to networks with a common access card (CAC) that verifies identity and provides a digital signature with the key contained on the card. Email messages must be in plain text to avoid malicious programming code that can plant viruses, keystroke loggers, and other malware on computers.