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Tag: Istio

  • COVID Has Really Impacted Aerospace… and the Air Force

    COVID Has Really Impacted Aerospace… and the Air Force

    “COVID has really impacted the aerospace industry in this nation and nations around the world disproportionately to other industries… and the Air Force has not been exempt from these impacts,” says former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Dr. Will Roper:

    COVID Has Really Impacted Aerospace… and the Air Force

    COVID has really impacted the aerospace industry in this nation and nations around the world disproportionately to other industries. The Air Force has not been exempt from these impacts. We have had to go into a wartime posture and engage with exceptional authorities and funding to keep the aerospace industry, which allows us to go to war, whole.

    But aside from the crisis response that we’ve all been in it’s forced us to do some serious reflection about how we engage with production and supply chains going forward. How does the Air Force need to change the way it views its future self so that we’re not just more ready for a crisis when it occurs but we’re actually designing better systems, doing better engineering, and using technology more effectively? Systems that we need to go to war are going to be hidden behind doors where their vulnerabilities are never going to be exposed because of secrecy.

    Secrecy Hinders Our Ability To Digitally Go To War

    We’re moving into an era where we’re leveraging commercial technology more frequently. Because of that, we can no longer hope that secrecy, keeping our systems classified, will be the sole means for us to be secure. We need to find a new paradigm where openness is also part of our security posture. Now we’re not going to be able to copy commercial industry one for one. Our systems in many cases don’t have a commercial analog. We can’t quickly replace them.

    We’re not in a competition where spirals occur in years. Many of our aerospace breakthroughs, especially those in technologies like stealth, take time to do. Secrecy is going to continue to be part of the equation. But secrecy can’t be the catch-all approach to how we ensure systems are able to digitally go to war and be ready to fight in a cyber environment against an adversary as capable as we are.

    Containerization Solves The Secrecy Problem

    The software development capabilities that technologies like Kubernetes or containerization and Istio bring in to the Air Force. It’s amazing that companies like Google that have now transitioned this to an open-source driven initiative have solved a lot of what we would have to solve as a military. How do you write code in a development environment, in that tech stack that may also represent the physical aspects of your system, but it certainly represents the software components?

    How do you go from your development environment out to the edge securely and know your code will run the same way. Containerization solves that problem for us. The military is behind and adopting it. It’s not old but this technology is moving through industry as fast as Linux did. If we don’t get off the dime we will be left behind. Keep pushing the Air Force and Space Force on this. Do not let us get comfortable.

    COVID Has Really Impacted Aerospace… and the Air Force
  • Google Reneges On Promise, Angers Open Source Community

    Google Reneges On Promise, Angers Open Source Community

    Google has found itself in hot water with the open source community by reneging on a promise it made regarding Istio.

    Istio is a “mesh service,” a critical piece of cloud architecture that ensures all the various microservices that comprise a cloud platform work together. Google developed Istio, and it quickly became one of the most popular mesh services available, supported by a wide array of companies. Part of this popularity came from the boost IBM gave Istio, when they merged their own Amalgam8 mesh service into Google’s project and joined forces with search giant to promote Istio.

    The controversy is surrounding Google’s 2017 promise to turn Istio over to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Instead, the company has decided to turn over control to the Open Usage Commons (OUC), a brand-new, open source organization Google created, and then announced on July 8. Needless to say, this bait-and-switch has not sat well with the open source community.

    “Today’s announcement by Google of the creation of the Open Usage Commons (OUC) is disappointing because it doesn’t live up to the community’s expectation for open governance,” writes IBM’s Jason McGee. “An open governance process is the underpinning of many successful projects. Without this vendor-neutral approach to project governance, there will be friction within the community of Kubernetes-related projects.

    “At the project’s inception, there was an agreement that the project would be contributed to the CNCF when it was mature. IBM continues to believe that the best way to manage key open source projects such as Istio is with true open governance, under the auspices of a reputable organization with a level playing field for all contributors, transparency for users, and vendor-neutral management of the license and trademarks. Google should reconsider their original commitment and bring Istio to the CNCF.”

    These are strong words from Google’s Istio partner and should cause the company to reconsider its position. Google has spent years earning the goodwill of the open source community, something this debacle is quickly undoing.

  • Google Scores Defense Innovation Unit Contract

    Google Scores Defense Innovation Unit Contract

    While Microsoft and Amazon battle it out in court over one Department of Defense (DOD) contract, Google has secured a contract of its own.

    The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is an organization within the DOD that helps the military innovate by adopting commercial software. As a result, the DIU helps prototype, deploy and scale commercial solutions to meet needs within the military.

    The DIU has selected Google Cloud to build a secure cloud management solution based on Anthos, providing a multi-cloud approach that is managed from Google Cloud Console. Google Cloud will also use Istio for secure communication and Netskope for cloud security. This will allow the DIU to run web apps on multiple clouds, including Google Cloud, AWS and Microsoft Azure, and help the organization combat cyber threats worldwide.

    “Google Cloud is a pioneer in ‘zero trust’ security and in deploying innovative approaches to protecting and securing networks worldwide,” said Mike Daniels, Vice President, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud. “We’re honored to partner with DIU on this critical initiative to protect its network from bad actors that pose threats to our national security.”

    “Government agencies shouldn’t have to choose between security and throughput,” said Beau Hutto, VP Public Sector, Netskope. “Netskope is a leader in providing complete visibility and control for managed and unmanaged applications. This secure cloud management solution will help the DIU maintain vigilance, while also helping it seamlessly manage applications in service of its mission.”

  • Google Cloud Focusing on Telecom Industry

    Google Cloud Focusing on Telecom Industry

    In its ongoing efforts to gain cloud market share, Google Cloud has launched a version of its platform specifically aimed at the telecom industry.

    Google Cloud is currently a distant third in the U.S. cloud industry, with a mere 4% of the market. CEO Thomas Kurian has set the goal of becoming at least the second largest U.S. cloud vendor within five years. One way the company is working to grow its market share is by appealing to specific industries. The company had previously released Google Cloud Anthos for Retail in an attempt to capitalize on retailers’ aversion to using a cloud solution from Amazon, one of their biggest competitors.

    Now Google has launched Anthos for Telecom, “an open hybrid and multi-cloud application platform offering telecommunications companies the flexibility to modernize existing applications, build new ones, and securely run them on-premises and across multiple clouds.”

    Anthos is based on open source technology and includes “Kubernetes, Istio, and Knative,” enabling “consistency between on-premises and cloud environments and helps accelerate application development.”

    With Google’s latest addition to its cloud offerings, its obviously working to close the gap with its bigger competitors. Whether it will help the company meet Kurian’s goal remains to be seen.