The repurposing and reuse of abandoned buildings, especially brownfields, is not new and doesn’t need anything to do with IT. Back in 2010, an abandoned mall in Cleveland became an urban farm; and in Leipzig, once famous for its printers, print shops have become lofts and business premises.

A former colliery on the banks of the river Ruhr, closed in the 1990s, is now a ski arena; and a related steel plant has become a residential, recreational, and work area. In Munich, a former chip factory became offices. Before the semiconductor age, it was an iron factory. The irony of fate: Today, they would like to have the chip factory back…

Industrial brownfields are also well suited for redevelopment as data centers (or other tech labs). They generally benefit from robust infrastructure, as well as satisfying building technology requirements such as industrial-grade power and water utilities, and internal infrastructure such as cabling. 

A prestigious example is Mare Nostrum, in Barcelona, a high-performance computing center in a chapel. I find the symbolism intriguing: Technology as a new world religion, perhaps? But given the numbers of abandoned churches, especially in Europe, this is certainly not the last rededication of a place of worship.

Reuse does not stop with physical infrastructure, but also with the energy itself – which (according to the first law of thermodynamics) cannot be used up, only redistributed. Secondary buildings can be straightforwardly supplied with data center waste products such as cooling water and waste heat. 

Indoor farms can immediately benefit from this idea. One pioneer in the ‘field’ is BlockHeating, which recognizes that a ‘regular’ data center generates more residual heat than a greenhouse needs.

Multi-story farms could be the answer, solving problems in quite a different way from recycling existing resources. 

As shown in the diagram, at the lower level is an algae, fish, mussel, crab, or lobster farm; above come the plants; and at the top insects, including a flower meadow on the roof, for honey bees. Water from the aquariums is filtered by the plants, which are grateful for the fish-generated nutrients – just like in nature. Source energy comes from solar panels on walls on rooftops and wind turbines on the grounds.

The creation of farmed products also drives local sourcing – data center providers could supply their canteens with food from their own production, saving packaging, emissions and otherwise contributing to saving the planet.

Such principles remain for high-efficiency hyperscaler data centers, as well as large industrial plants and businesses that run their own data centers (and the trend is going back to that, thanks to the edge, hybrid cloud and data sovereignty), or even large telcos. 

This can also work on a small scale. In northern Germany, pilot projects are underway in which villages and smaller communities are supplied with energy and heat from their own combined heat and power plants, based on decentralized underground mini data centers. 

Another pioneer in this space is Cloud&Heat, which uses decentralized data centers in the basements of buildings, including residential buildings, and the waste heat from IT facilities to heat the building (see diagram).

Whilst initial attempts back in 2016 (article in German) did not catch on, an unexpected new push could come from Web 3’s decentralization of the Internet, its services and applications, and indeed from edge computing and processing. One Polish startup dedicated to sustainability is developing solutions for distributed and edge workloads, as well as extremely dense data centers.

Ultimately, if we assume that the demand for computing power will continue to increase (and it shows no signs of slowing) then a combination of data centers and energy reuse is obvious. Considering the unsolved problems of climate change, it is imperative we look for better ways of managing resources.

As society evolves, so do industry, working, living, and lifestyle habits. We need to be reviewing our use of physical infrastructure, and the energy it requires, constantly. I could take this further – reuse can also be applied to the data we generate, and the insights created from processing it – take a look at WindHPC for an example.

We are all on a journey. Unfortunately, the latest generation MareNostrum5 could no longer be housed in the former chapel, but required a new building – showing the limits of reusing existing infrastructure. Nonetheless, by thinking about our physical, energy, and other resources as reusable assets, we will avoid the costs of creation from scratch. Which has to be a good thing. 

The post For Sustainability, Buildings and Energy are Strategic Resources appeared first on Gigaom.

The application layer of a NaaS provides not only typical network functions such as load balancing and monitoring, but also additional security applications such as intrusion detection systems, firewalls, and tools for zero-trust network access (ZTNA). With NaaS, integrated marketplaces with access to public cloud platforms or access to software as a service (SaaS) offerings help optimize IT service landscapes. Technological and, most importantly, operational silos are eliminated within the enterprise. The end-to-end service delivery, high availability, and optimized data streams all lead to a better user experience.

Technically, a NaaS is an overlay of a virtual network on a physical infrastructure. Some NaaS providers operate their own physical network infrastructure, while others use the existing networks of well-known telecommunications service providers (telco carriers). The latter focus on the control layer with policy management and connectivity, as well as the application layer and service integration. For the user, there is no difference. Provisioning is done programmatically, either with integrations or via APIs. Integrations are best suited to organizations without in-house programming expertise, as well as small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

By decoupling network intelligence from hardware, organizations can be much more flexible in adapting their topology. This has advantages in onboarding and offboarding employees and remote facilities. In the case of mergers and acquisitions, NaaS can dramatically reduce costs. Merging two or more networks has always been costly and vulnerable to mistakes with traditional branch networks, especially if existing contracts had to be paid off. With NaaS, the infrastructure of the newer network can simply be reused and easily integrated into the existing network topology. Central policy management also makes it possible to quickly set up new workloads with the appropriate rights and key parameters. Resources can be dynamically allocated, for example, to buffer peak loads. In a NaaS, each application will be provided with the quality of service (QoS), security, and performance it needs to perform at its best.

The term network on demand (NoD) can be used synonymously with NaaS, as both refer to networks that are software-defined and can be programmatically altered. These networks also possess centralized administration tools and the ability to quickly turn services up and tear them down.

Companies opting for a NaaS should ensure that the network and services can be managed directly and are vendor-independent. Easy-to-use self-service portals and comprehensive service marketplaces help with the central management and administration of even complex IT service landscapes.

This GigaOm Radar report highlights key NaaS vendors and identifies vendors and products that excel. In the corresponding GigaOm report “Key Criteria for Evaluating NaaS Solutions,” we describe in more detail the key features and metrics used to evaluate these vendors. Together, these reports provide an overview of the category and its underlying technology, identify leading e-discovery offerings, and help decision-makers evaluate these platforms so they can make a more informed investment decision.

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NaaS combines agile cloud computing with modern IT security approaches, such as secure service access (SSA) and zero-trust network access (ZTNA). NaaS offerings are software-defined and programmable. Services can be quickly set up or removed with centralized management tools. Standardized interfaces ensure interoperability with existing solutions—for deployment or identity management, for example. A NaaS solution is based on orchestration and flexible services that go far beyond pure enterprise networking. All of this differentiates NaaS from both managed networks, a service for existing legacy networks, and enterprise-managed software-defined wide area networks (SDWAN).

NaaS is sometimes referred to as network on demand (NoD). In both cases, enterprises benefit from on-demand provisioning with a pay-per-use model. There are no investment costs for hardware or line rental, no long installation and delivery times or complex configurations. NaaS takes into account the dynamic requirements of software as a service (SaaS) offerings as well as the use of different cloud service platforms and edge computing. In addition to infrastructure optimization, NaaS enables better planning of resources and budgets.

NaaS solutions can be obtained not only from a variety of providers, such as network or cloud service providers (NSPs and CSPs) and telecommunications providers (commonly known as telcos), but also increasingly via content delivery network (CDN) operators or cloud security platforms. These providers operate the network infrastructure, including software-defined interconnection (SDI), software-defined cloud interconnection (SDCI), and software-defined internet exchange (SD-IX).

It’s not just startups and fast-growing companies or business units with a need for great flexibility that are turning increasingly to NaaS. Established organizations also appreciate being able to better focus on their core competencies and leave networking, security, and related functions to a provider whose core business is to deliver highly secure network services to enterprises.

This report is an update to the 2020 GigaOm Radar for Network as a Service report.

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Industries such as manufacturing, logistics, energy and utilities, automotive, healthcare, and agriculture become highly vulnerable to cyberattacks—and an attractive target for cybercriminals. Outages or production downtimes caused by compromised software, data, or communication channels cause major economic and material damage. Attacks on critical infrastructure (such as energy/water supply, transportation, healthcare, and telecommunications) threaten public safety.

The number of open ports in industrial internet of things (IIoT) environments is alarming. So is the use of outdated firmware and code libraries, with no limitations on access rights or insufficient authentication using shared and default passwords. Therefore, visibility is the most important tool in the fight for effective security. You can only protect what you know about. Security solutions should be implemented as an additional, preferably transparent, layer.

A now-common approach is to prohibit everything first and allow exceptions based on a combination of rule sets, predefined roles, certain device characteristics, and other guidelines. The network’s behavior is monitored and re-evaluated constantly to detect changes in the behavior of people, hosts, machines, or network devices at an early stage. This concept makes it more difficult for attackers to exploit unknown vulnerabilities for so-called zero-day attacks. Furthermore, with next-generation firewall technology, it becomes possible to apply a more granular zero trust approach (including layer 7), which further limits network access to just the industrial protocols and applications needed for business use. It also protects against internal perpetrators and helps to avoid too many open ports. The prerequisite to applying comprehensive network security is the initial inventory of all users, devices, applications, processes, and services, as well as their privileges and the documentation of all access options and accounts for users, administrators, and external parties. After the initial recording, the inventory becomes part of security management as an ongoing process.

Compatibility with existing solutions is important, not just for reasons of investment protection. IIoT security solution providers must cover not only the IT part of the network but also OT devices, protocols, and services. While OT already has its own monitoring and security information and event management (SIEM) applications, integration into the cybersecurity landscape of the IT part, with its firewalls and multiple security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solutions, must also be ensured. Furthermore, IIoT security solutions should be able to verify compliance with standards in both IP and industrial networks. For details, please see the report “Key Criteria for Evaluating Industrial IoT (IIoT) Security Solutions.”

In conclusion, we find that full protection of complex and often hybrid industrial IoT landscapes cannot be achieved with a single product. It requires a comprehensive portfolio and multilayered approaches in security solutions. The greatest possible protection can be guaranteed only with both vendor and technology redundancy. Nevertheless, in this report, our main focus is on maximum possible transparency and threat detection in IIoT environments.

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Previously negligible vulnerabilities now can be easily exploited. Insecure mobile and web interfaces represent additional gateways and attack surfaces. The number of open ports in industrial internet of things (IIoT) environments is alarming. Additional risks can be found in the use of outdated firmware and code libraries, lack of limitations on access rights, and insufficient authentication with shared and default passwords.

Still, the greatest danger to industrial plants is not the vulnerabilities in systems but the OT operators themselves. Often forced by external factors to digitize, many OT operators lack the necessary understanding and awareness of the risks of a networked world. This lack of understanding about IIoT security should not be underestimated—most personnel, such as machine builders and plant installers, will know more about safety than security.

At the same time, many IT security solution providers don’t understand OT needs. Due to long investment and depreciation cycles, manufacturers and vendors of IIoT security products must support a variety of legacy standards in addition to the current ones, and the proprietary protocols used in industrial networks and equipment.

Security solutions should be implemented as an additional, preferably transparent, layer. Visibility is the most important tool in the fight for effective security. You can only protect what you know.

The post Key Criteria for Evaluating Industrial IoT (IIoT) Security Solutions appeared first on Gigaom.