Alex McDonald

Q&A – The Impact of International Data Protection Laws on the Cloud

December 15, 2015December 15, 2015 Alex McDonald Leave a comment

The impact of international data protection legislation on the cloud is complicated and constantly changing. In our recent SNIA Cloud Storage Webcast on this topic we did our best to cover some of the recent global data privacy and data protection regulations being enacted. If you missed the Webcast, I encourage you to watch it on-demand at your convenience. We answered questions during the live event, but as promised we’re providing more complete answers in this blog. If you have additional questions, please comment here and we’ll reply as soon as we can.

The law is complex, and neither SNIA, the authors nor the presenters of this presentation are lawyers. Nothing here or in the presentation should be construed as legal advice. For that you need the services of a qualified professional.

Q. What are your thoughts on Safe Harbour being considered invalid, and the potential for a Safe Harbour 2

A. Since 6 October 2015 when the European Court of Justice invalidated the European Commission’s Safe Harbour Decision, there’s been a lot written about Safe Harbour 2 in the press. But it was clear that a renegotiation was essential two years before that, when discussions for a replacement were started. Many think (and many hope!) that a new and valid agreement in terms of Europe’s Human Rights legislation will be settled between the US and Europe sometime in March 2016.

Q. Are EU Model Clauses still available to use instead of BCRs (Binding Corporate Rules)?

A. EU-US data transfers facilitated by the use of model clauses probably today fail to comply with EU law. But as there appears to be no substitute available, the advice appears to be – use them for now until the problem is fixed. Full guidance can be found on the EC website.

Q. What does imbalance mean relative to consent?

A. An example might help. You might be an employee and agree (the “consent”) to your data being used by your employer in ways that you might not have agreed to normally – perhaps because you feel you can’t refuse because you might lose your job or a promotion for example. That’s an imbalanced relationship, and the consent needs to be seen in that light, and the employer needs to demonstrate that there has been, and will be, no coercion to give consent.

Come See SNIA at the Software-Defined Infrastructure Summit

November 24, 2015November 24, 2015 Alex McDonald Leave a comment

Demand for software-defined infrastructure (SDI) is on the rise, and with good reason. SDI helps data centers meet the challenges of cloud computing, big data/analytics, mobility and social media, in an agile and cost-effective way. I’m pleased to announce that SNIA will be an active participant at next week’s Software-Defined Infrastructure Summit in Santa Clara, CA, December 1-3.

My colleagues and I at the SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative have organized a “Working with OpenStack” Seminar that kicks off the Summit on Tuesday, December 1.

I will keynote an OpenStack fireside chat along with Chris DePuy, VP, at Dell’Oro Group. We’ll be discussing the SNIA Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) and its interface with OpenStack, OpenStack implementations, how standards play, and the future of open source in the 21st century.

My keynote will be accompanied by additional SNIA talks in the Introduction to OpenStack session and the Application Management session:

Sam Fineberg, PhD, SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative member and Distinguished Technologist at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Storage, will provide an overview of the storage aspects of OpenStack including the core projects for block storage (Cinder) and object storage (Swift), and the new shared file service (Manila). He’ll cover some common configurations and use cases for these technologies, and discuss how they interact with the other parts of OpenStack.
Richelle Ahlvers, SNIA Open Source Task Force member and Principal Storage Management Architect at Avago Technologies, will discuss application integration in OpenStack and how SNIA-developed standards enable cross-vendor management interoperability and help open source projects interoperate with more industry solutions.

Tuesday’s Seminar day will include additional sessions from leaders in OpenStack, Ceph, and Software Defined Storage. SDI Summit days 2 and 3 will provide information on hardware, software, and data center technology and applications of software-defined infrastructure featuring keynotes from IBM, Intel, Red Hat, and VMware, all SNIA member companies. It’s a must attend event.

SNIA will also be exhibiting at the Summit. Please stop by booth #408 to learn how SNIA standards are used in open source projects including cloud data management, non-volatile memory, self-contained information retention, and storage management. We will also have information on SNIA programs such as membership, certification, conformance testing, and conferences.

SNIA members and colleagues can use the code SPGP to receive a $100 discount on any level of SDI Summit registration. I hope to see you in Santa Clara!

Cloud Storage Development Challenges – An SDC Preview

July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 Alex McDonald Leave a comment

This year’s Storage Developer Conference (SDC) is expected to draw over 400 storage developers and professionals. On August 4^th, you can get a sneak preview of key cloud topics that will be covered at SDC in this live Webcast where David Slik and Mark Carlson Co-Chairs of the SNIA Cloud Technical Work Group, together with Yong Chen, Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University will discuss:

Mobile and Secure – Cloud Encrypted Objects using CDMI
Object Drives: A new Architectural Partitioning
Unistore: A Unified Storage Architecture for Cloud Computing
Using CDMI to Manage Swift, S3, and Ceph Object Repositories

You’ll learn how encrypted objects can be stored, retrieved, and transferred between clouds, how Object Drives allow storage to scale up and down by single drive increments, end-user and vendor use cases of the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI), and we’ll introduce Unistore – an innovative unified storage architecture that efficiently integrates heterogeneous HDD and SCM devices for Cloud storage systems.

I’ll be moderating the discussion among this expert panel. It should be an enlightening and lively hour. I hope you’ll register now to join us.

SNIA CSI Welcomes Glyn Bowden

March 2, 2015March 2, 2015 Alex McDonald Leave a comment

At our annual SNIA Members’ Symposium in San Jose, the Cloud Storage Initiative (CSI) elected our 2015 CSI board. I’d like to officially welcome our newest board member, Glyn Bowden from HP. HP now joins our growing list of member companies.

The CSI is committed to the adoption, growth and standardization of cloud storage and related cloud data services to promote interoperability and portability of data stored in the cloud. CSI leads as an industry-neutral authority on cloud storage environments and is committed to educating vendor and end user communities on cloud storage & industry standardization benefits.

It’s only the beginning of March and we’ve already hosted several educational Webcasts on topics ranging from OpenStack Cloud Storage and OpenStack Manila, to CDMI and the LTFS Bulk Transfer Standard. All CSI Webcasts are available on-demand. I encourage you to check then out.