Tag: analytics

SANS: Businesses get security analytics wrong

Posted on October 7, 2013 by - News

datacentrebatteriesAlthough analytics software is a necessary trend for many businesses, companies who’ve splashed out aren’t putting the tools to use properly, according to a survey.

The SANS Institute asked 647 respondents, in collaboration with Guidance Software, HP, Hexis Cyber Solutions, LogRhythm and SolarWinds, about analytics habits within their companies.

Just 10 percent of those surveyed were confident their company could use data sets to analyse security trends, despite as many as 77 percent collecting and monitoring information logs.

Most companies are still relying on log management – at 49 percent – or SIEM platforms – at 47 percent. As few as 17 percent are making use of advanced threat intelligence, according to the report.

Senior SANS analyst and report author Dave Shackleford said there are emerging challenges that traditional SIEM or log management don’t necessarily address. “More scalable and flexible analytics platforms are gaining interest and attention from the security community, and will likely continue to do so, given the threats and attacks we face today,” Shackleford said.

 

Bull flies red rag with fast data analytics

Posted on October 2, 2013 by - News, Products

scotbullBull Information Systems has put together a new big data analytics tool called “bullion fast data analytics”, designed to look at data from the digital economy in real time.

It has been built using Pivotal based technologies in combination with Bull’s bullion servers.

Bull points out that this year there are roughly 3 Zettabytes of data floating around, or 400 Gigabytes for everyone on the planet, with this figure only set to increase to up to 40 Zettabytes by 2020. So for it’s very useful for organisations to be able to sift through this data and extract relevant information, whether that is managing crises, or building customer loyalty. Of course, we have all heard about “big data” this year.

Fast data analytics is, Bull asserts, the “first platform to integrate new data fabrics, modern programming frameworks, cloud portability and support for legacy systems”. The architecture has been designed on top of Pivotal Greenplum Database and Gemfire, and the company promises the end product makes analytics less complex, shifting the focus from software tinkering to applying the actual information.

The company says its technology is highly flexible and can “significantly” reduce Total Cost of Ownership, as well as having been validated with Pivotal and VMware at Bull’s R&D labs. It runs in a virtualised environement, promises lower latency, and cost savings.

VP of Bull’s enterprise service business, Jacqueline Moussa, said the company offers a “unified and robust platform”.

“Organisations can take advantage of lower implementation and operations costs and quick real-time analysis of the huge amounts of data being produced each hour,” Moussa said.

Cachet to offer Prelert’s Anomaly Detective

Posted on February 25, 2013 by - News

holmesBritish reseller Cachet Software has just got the contract to offer Prelert’s predictive analytics software in the automation and operational risk sectors.

Prelert’s Anomaly Detective for Splunk Enterprise will now be on offer from Cachet in the UK, which uses automated intelligence to work out risk and behavioural changes hiding out somewhere in the data. By predicting, finding and fixing this data, Prelert says operational efficiencies are increased “dramatically”.

The MD at Cachet said the analytics technology will fit in nicely with its existing portfolio. Stuart Kenley said in a statement that Prelert’s software provides “fast and efficient” data analytics that will let customers tinker with and improve the availability and performance of their IT systems.

Customers will be able to download and install Anomaly Detective in “minutes” to integrate with Splunk Enterprise. Prelert boasted that the software is completely self learning and as such doesn’t require much configuration.

IBM expands its mobile plans

Posted on February 21, 2013 by - News

next-years-mainframe-model-comes-in-nearly-half-the-spaceBiggish Blue has revamped its mobile products for businesses by merging all its mobile tools into a portfolio dubbed MobileFirst.

The idea is to provide a package for corporations looking to turn mobile screens into revenue drivers.

IBM’s mobile strategy has been becoming more elaborate after realising that mobile enterprise could become the equivalent of its e-business, analytics and smarter planet efforts. The company has started mixing software and services together to pitch its mobile wares.

In a statement, IBM said that enterprises are leaving billions of dollars on the table by not transforming fast enough to take advantage of mobility. It plans to double its investment in mobile in 2013 compared to 2012.

IBM’s MobileFirst Platform includes its Worklight product, which is development tool, single sign-on and Rational testing tools for apps. To reassure companies about BYOD policies, MobileFirst includes a Security product which scans vulnerabilities at the app level on mobile operating systems. The security tools are designed to scan and enforce policies for internal and third party mobile apps.

There is also MobileFirst Management which is an update to EndPoint Manager to support bring your own device programs with additional security tools. This targets all screens from the desktop to the smartphone with policies by device.

Finally there is MobileFirst Analytics which is an expansion of its Tealeaf CX Mobile tools to model customer behaviour on multiple screens.

On the services side, Biggish Blue is rebranding a design unit under the MobileFirst moniker. The design and strategy services consist of workshops as well as IBM Interactive user interface expertise. IBM will offer development, network and integration services.

According to the company, its cunning plan is to target its key verticals such as retail with point-of-sale applications, healthcare and transportation.