Data protection

I read a news article at http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080826/world/britain_us_banking_internet_company_rbs_ebay_data_1.These kind of articles are making headline and reminding us that we need to handle our Information Technology infrastructure with more care and strong policies. After reading the complete article, I think it is high time we should review Information Technology Best practices regarding the acquisition and access of assets till its disposal. In today’s world when we are storing everything in computer, which includes but not limited to source code for s/w program, customers demographic details, personal details, trade secrets, business model, its security should be first priority for every company. When we dispose off our computers/servers/hard disk special care about data erase should be mandatory. When we don't need computers/servers/hard disk, data should be backed up to the active server (Data retention Policy) and data should be cleaned from the computer asset we are going to dispose. A strict policy regarding asset disposal and handling should be in place in every organization to avoid the mistakes like this in future.Not doing so is like giving our home key to intruder.

Virtualization

Virtualization is a new buzz word in the technology industry. It helps in the full utilization of the current hardware resources, with the help of virtual software; single machine can host number of virtual machine. Virtual machines have their own OS, Software environment etc and don’t interfere with other Virtual Machine on the Host server. Virtualization is advantageous especially in software testing and development environment. A backup copy of production server environment can be maintained on Virtual Machines to make system up and running fast in case of disaster recovery. In virtualization if virtual machine stops working it can be restarted or fixed without affecting other Virtual Machine on the Server. However if server hosting Virtual Machine crashes its fix is more involved. However Virtual machines can’t be relied upon for mission critical and production data’s.

IP Address crisis- IPv6 comes to the rescue

IPv4 is a 4 bytes or 32 bit internet address,which is widely used today.IPv6 is a 16 bytes or 128 bit internet address,which is going to be standard for next generation IP addresses.Given the increase in the use of mobile devices,sensor devices,internet enabled devices and services we need more and more IP addresses.According to a report published by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development we have already used up 85 percent of IPv4 address,and by 2011 we are going to run out of IPv4 address.,some countries like Japan,USA,Europe have already taken an initiative to make their network IPv6 compatible.Its about time to move to IPv6 to make your business competitive and current in technology.However some organization are still reluctant to deploy IPv6 given the cost involved in deployment.

What is social engineering ?

Social engineering is an unauthorized gathering of personal information from peoples which later on used by social engineers for their own benefit.Like what they do,where they work,date of birth etc.Due to lack of security awareness people fall victim of identity theft.People should restrict themselves from disclosing any personal information over the telephone,internet or email.Telephone,email and website are frequently use tool in social engineering.

Fiber Optic Cable

Fiber optic cables are networking cables which uses small strand of glasses.It uses light pulses to send the data from one point to other,so it also immune from Electro Magnetic Interference. It is nearly impossible to interpret the data traveling through fiber optic cable.However they are not the inexpensive option when setting up network of computers.Although some companies have started moving from typical copper wires to fiber optic cable,its an expensive choice.It is very prone to twist turns and run over.They can't be repaired only available option is there replacement.They are best choice when it comes to bandwidth,speed,resistance and speed.There are two types of fiber optic cable,single mode and multi mode.Single mode fiber cable can be used when sending data over long distance.Multi mode fiber cable can be used when sending data over shorter distance.

Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID)

RAID is a technology which uses two or more disk for storage,reliability,availability,fault tolerance. They can have a disk range from minimum of 2 to maximum of 32.Raid are of several level of RAID based on the specifications and configurations.RAID 0 writes data on striped volume,it writes the data into small chunks across all the volume.Reading and writing on RAID 0 devices is faster.However striped volumes are not fault tolerant,that means if one disk fail it would be impossible to recover the data stored on the volumes.RAID 1 is also known as disk duplexing,there is no striping of data,read performance is better since data can be read from any of the disk and it also fault tolerant.RAID 2 is rarely used ,it writes the the across the disk with parity error information.RAID 3 dedicates one disk to store the parity information for data recovery in case of disk failure.RAID 4 writes data in blocks with dedicated parity.RAID 5 uses block level striping with distributed parity,which can be used to regenerate the data in case of disk failure.Usually RAID devices use SCSI interface with multi-pins to connect to server.

Data Storage

We are experiencing explosive growth in digital media.Storage cost and data management cost is increasing day by day.Our home computers are filled with different file types such as .jpgs, mpeg,.mov,.doc etc.Our office computers are filled with.ppt,.doc.xls and several othe file type.Different company uses different software as their standard software.Main problem we are dealing with is the management of different files and their backup on reliable media or device.We need to store our datas for several reasons,ranging from compliance to companies policies to keep a record of digital files.DVDs,CDs even hard drives have limited timespan.Cds, DVDs if not properly kept,they are prone to scratches and thermal effects,which can make data stored on them unreadable.Hard drives have sensitive magnetic surfaces where it store the data's.Magnetic field is prone to thermal effects,means increased temperature can make hard drive to fail.Best device to backup your data are RAID(Redundant Array of Independent Disk) devices,NAS (Network Attached storage),while SAN is expensive data storage option.SAN is used in big enterprises,and falling SAN prices may make small to mid size enterprises business to start using it.In my next blog I will be explaining why the before mentioned devices are best to use as a storage device.