KuppingerCole Blog

Attending AWS re:Invent is always an exceptional experience and, despite it being virtual, this year was no different. As usual, there were the expected announcements of bigger better and faster services and components. AWS always shows a remarkable level of innovation with many more announcements than it is practical to cover comprehensively. Therefore, in this blog, I will focus on what I think are some of the highlights in the areas of hybrid IT, edge computing, machine learning as well as security and compliance. There is an old adage – “Keep it Simple Stupid” and...

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, the use of language in public life, in the press, and in everyday life has changed. Terms that were formerly confined to the circles directly affected by them are now much more common. For example, every informed and responsible citizen is now familiar with specific terms from epidemiology and immunology such as “reproduction number” and “herd immunity”. Another term that has risen to prominence since the beginning of the crisis is “first-line worker”. These workers literally work on the front line. They are...

Whether you’re a fan of MySQL or not, you cannot dispute the fact that it is the world’s most popular open-source database by a large margin (incidentally, it’s also the second most popular database ever, behind only its owner Oracle’s flagship commercial product). 25 years after its inception, MySQL has evolved into an essential and truly ubiquitous component of every web application stack and cloud platform. Even though some database experts might frown upon it for lacking “enterprise capabilities”, it is widely used by the largest enterprises around...

Ivanti has completed its acquisition of MobileIron and Pulse Secure. Ivanti, headquartered in Salt Lake City, had its roots in desktop management (LANDESK), evolved into endpoint and patch management, and had added full IT asset, service, and workspace management, as well as IAM capabilities. Though headquartered in North America, Ivanti had already become a global IT solutions provider. Pulse Secure, a strong secure access vendor, was spun-out from Juniper Networks in 2014. MobileIron was dedicated to mobile device management, mobile security, and authentication since it was...

If the line "We are detective" only reminds you of "guilty pleasure" radio songs from the 1980s, despite the fact that you are responsible for cybersecurity or compliance in your company, then you should read on. In any case, you probably should read on because this is a trend that is becoming increasingly important in times of growing uncertainty and loss of trust – in contracts, in companies in the supply chain, in "the Internet", and in nation-states. Trust as the foundation for reliable assurance Understanding, assuming, mitigating, and managing risks in our...

The world is caught between high expectations, futuristic fears, and non-legally binding recommendations on how to proceed with AI development and management. This means that although technologies are advancing and that many use cases are being proven effective to support enterprise data management, security, interactions with customers, and many more customized solutions per industry, most organizations are hesitant to board the AI train. For many, they do not feel they have enough guidance to launch a future-proof AI project. For the moment, all we have is a growing collection of AI...

Zero trust and IAM from the cloud as the foundation of hybrid IT must be simple Most companies today rely on a hybrid IT infrastructure: Existing on-premise solutions are extended with flexible best-of-breed SaaS solutions. This improves flexibility and agility, but also increases the scope for cyber attacks due to the growing number of digital identities. For example, the Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report 2020 showed that attack patterns that target end-users - such as phishing and the use of stolen credentials - lead the attack rankings again. With obvious numerical sequences...

15 to 20 years ago, a virus scanner – or let me call it Endpoint Protection – on your private or corporate computer was standard. Today, you must also have something like a virus scanner on your endpoint device. But in 2020, is it sufficient to detect viruses, worms, and rootkits or botnets like we did in the past? There have been a lot of changes in the way attackers try to steal data, get access to your computers, or even block you from working with your computer. This evolution must be part of your strategy for protecting your endpoints. It is called Endpoint...

It’s October and it means that we are having the European Cybersecurity Month again. ECSM is the European Union’s annual campaign dedicated to promoting cybersecurity among EU citizens and organizations. To be completely honest, I do not remember it being much of a thing in previous years, but apparently, in 2020, cybersecurity awareness is much more important for the European Commission and not without, ahem, a very big reason. I have always had mixed feelings about the whole notion of “awareness”. On one hand, raising awareness is basically what we analysts...

Whether you are a firm believer in the bright future of Artificial Intelligence or somewhat of a skeptic like me – you simply cannot ignore the great strides AI technologies have made in recent years. Intelligent products powered by machine learning are everywhere: from chatbots to autonomous vehicles, from predicting consumer behavior and detecting financial fraud to cancer diagnostics and crop harvesting. There is however a major factor limiting even further applications of AI and ML in almost any industry: AI algorithms are very computationally intensive and until quite recently,...