Author: Sonny Singh

Endace and Cisco ISE: rooting out fraudulent network activity

Original Entry by : Sonny Singh

There is something both cathartic and caustic whenever the term “ice” is added onto something of cultural and artistic value. Let’s see, you have hip hop artists like Ice-T and Ice Cube who rapped about social injustice and the hardships of poverty. Then you have this generation’s iconoclast,  Vanilla Ice (nee’ Robert Matthew Van Winkle) who let us know it was perfectly fine to “play that funky music” when you had a rough day or that humming “Ice Ice Baby” to your newly born child while rocking him to sleep didn’t constitute you as being strange.

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Who needs Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) when you have Cyber Mondays?

Original Entry by : Sonny Singh

I don’t know about you, but the winter holiday season is a bittersweet pill for me to swallow due in part to two occurrences which are aptly named “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday.” The connotations themselves conjure up images of sinister malevolence. Black Friday might as well be called “The Black Plague” and Cyber Monday could very well be the title for the next Terminator movie, “Cyber Monday – Rise of the Machines.” The two lexicons of retail mind-control methods are emblazoned in the pre-frontal cortex of every consumer out there…unless by chance, you have been one of the lucky few individuals who is stuck in the 1950’s and opts to buy their holiday presents from the Sears Roebuck Holiday catalog, I envy you.

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Of NetFlows, Network Security and the Godfather…at Interop NY 2013

Original Entry by : Sonny Singh

There is something very “je ne sais quoi” about traveling to New York which brings out the “I wanna be Michael Corleone” in me. The first step in my ritualistic preparatory precursor is that I break out my extensive catalog of Frank Sinatra tunes and drink a stiff martini (dirty, with extra olives).  Every time I leave for New York, I take the time to re-learn every quotable line from my Godfather trilogy Blu-Ray box set (well, except for part three because it was a travesty) because having a tradeshow in New York and not honing in my “Godfather” lingo would be sacrilegious when speaking to partners and customers. It’s equally crucial to maintain that visage of confidence and cool collectiveness that only Marlon Brando could pull off while sitting at the table during one of his many sit-downs (or Robert DeNiro in “The Godfather Part II”). That said, the standard khaki slacks and one-size fits all black company logoed trade-show booth pullover are not exactly the cut of clothes that Michael Corleone favored, so I guess I’ll have to keep dreaming…

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Go ahead… enjoy that cocktail party at VMworld in peace

Original Entry by : Sonny Singh

Because Endace has your virtualized data center covered!

VMworld has been the IT community’s premier source for gaining knowledge of virtualization and cloud computing technologies for more than ten years now. With hands-on labs, high-impact breakout sessions, and opportunities to network, VMworld brings together key innovators like Endace to help define, shape and execute customer’s business objectives.  This year’s key discussion topic centers on how the software-defined data center is extending virtualization across storage, networking and security.

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Black Hat 2013 – It’s Hogwarts for Information Security Wizards (Or CIA Spooks)

Original Entry by : Sonny Singh

Imagine if Harry Potter’s life had been altered in an Aeon Flux, dystopian kind of way? Instead of inheriting wizard-like-skills and a matching lightning bolt scar on his forehead, he was conversely born with an astute affinity towards programming code, breaching internet firewalls and perhaps secretly working for the CIA?

If this were the case, Harry would clearly need to go to an academic institution worthy of his Information Security (InfoSec) inclined disposition, right? Believe it or not, such an institution actually exists – called “Black Hat,” and it is held yearly in Las Vegas.  Black Hat is a symposium that brings together the best minds in security to define tomorrow’s information security landscape with the ultimate goal of providing the essential knowledge and skills needed to defend the government and enterprises against today’s threats. Before we delve deeper, let’s first define what InfoSec is why it’s an extremely important topic to address in the technology sector.

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Taming the Big Data Beast with Endace Network Recorders

Original Entry by : Sonny Singh

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Big data, the darling buzz words that have transcended the boundaries of the tech industry and proliferated every water-cooler conversation from Silicon Valley to Shanghai took a bit of a beating recently. You see, there has been a little scandal that has percolated through every global media outlet out there and stems from allegations that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly compiling and storing people’s personal web and phone records (without their consent, of course), leading to a much larger debate around the validity of such extensive data-gathering operations in general.

However, like any accused criminal that has to yet to be proven guilty, unless all the facts are gathered and the jury hears both sides of the story, it would be premature to pass sentencing. It’s important to look past the negative publicity that ultimately detracts from all the positive aspects of big data and the equally positive impact it will invoke on our society as a whole.

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