Last week at Interop in Las Vegas, Connect launched its new Enterprise Networking Special Interest Group (SIG). We met with lots of HP customers who shared a consistent message with us that was a keen reminder of why community matters. “We want to meet with other users.” “Will there be chapters in our area?” “Will my requests get back to HP?”

Advocacy + Community + Education = Timeless

It put an extra bounce in our step to know that after years of being part of, leading and now supporting our community, what we do makes a difference and helps our members grow personally and professionally. Connect was in the HPN NDA room all week and on Wednesday evening, Connect and HP held a joint reception at Red Square (Mandalay Bay) where Bethany Mayer, Senior Vice President and General Manager of HP Networking, introduced Connect and the new Enterprise Networking SIG with great enthusiasm and support.

As I worked the room, I met a gentleman from GoodWill Industries who was enjoying the opportunity to ‘connect’ with folks. We talked more about working for organizations that help people and the delicious signature drink, the “Moscow Mule”, than talking tech. But he did ask me if I knew anyone at the party that he could speak with about BYOD. I quickly scanned the room and found the right resource. Mission accomplished – I made a new friend and helped him to boot! I so look forward to visiting GoodWill when we hold take our Networking SIG Innovation tour to Bellevue, WA on August 27th.

Our new Enterprise Networking SIG has over 300 members and is growing! Considering the growth of HP Networking, this is no surprise. Add to that, HP Networking has four labs around the world where innovation is brewing daily. We have dedicated a site to the new SIG which will be filled with valuable information on tour dates, documents/journals/eBooks and ways to stay connected. Visit www.connect-netsig.com.

Interop was a big event for HP and HP Networking. Here’s a rundown of the news:

HP Launches Most Complete Software Defined Network Fabric for Cloud

Key Value Statement: SDN Fabric for cloud enables business agility for clients by delivering two times greater scalability and 75 percent less complexity over current network fabrics while reducing network provisioning time from months to minutes.

Related Article:

HP Unveils Its SDN Fabric to Challenge Cisco, Juniper

HP Improves Customers’ Data Center Efficiencies to Support Future Growth

Key Value Statement: HP highlights the outcomes achieved by three data-driven organizations that chose HP Networking data center solutions to make better IT decisions, improve operational efficiencies and enhance business continuity, while laying the foundation for future growth.

Note:

I had the opportunity to sit next to guys from PCL. I enjoyed their genuine perspective on technology, HP and a variety of other topics that we managed to table chat about in such a short time. I hope they come to HP Discover!

Speaking of HP Discover

We will host our first official Networking SIG meeting in Las Vegas on Thursday, June 13 at 11:00 AM (session ID=RT3515). Led by our Networking SIG chair, Heinz-Hermann Adam and HP liaison, Alicia Moody, this is your opportunity to meet with other users, make product recommendations, ask the experts and shape the future of the new SIG.

If you haven’t registered yet, go to www.hpdiscover.com and register today! While there are many codes floating around with the same value, using promo code UG2013 will identify you as a member of the Connect community and get you a member appreciation gift in the community lounge!

We have so much planned for you at Discover – we look forward to seeing you there!

Cheers!
@ninabuik

Security and Big Data: The New Dynamic Duo

Some crime-fighting duos are legendary: Holmes and Watson, Batman and Robin, Crockett and Tubbs. This week at RSA HP unveiled what I think is a technology that will change the way organizations approach security and perhaps make security and big data the new dynamic duo.

First, in its 2012 Cyber Security Risk Report, HP details the current security landscape:

• Total vulnerabilities are on the rise: Disclosures grew 19 percent from 6,844 in 2011 to 8,137 in 2012
• Critical vulnerabilities declined, but still pose significant risk: They fell from 23 percent in 2011 to 20 percent in 2012. Less than 1 percent of URLs tested leverage standard mitigation after more than a decade
• The rate of mobile vulnerabilities continues to increase rapidly: Mobile vulnerabilities rose 68 percent from 158 in 2011 to 266 in 2012. Also, 48 percent of mobile applications tested in 2012 gave unauthorized access

In response to this evolving security landscape which still poses challenging and potentially expensive threats to organizations, HP announced the formation of the HP Security Research (HPSR) organization, which will provide actionable security intelligence through published reports, threat briefings and enhancements to the HP security product portfolio. HPSR will lead HP’s security research agenda, leveraging HP DVLabs, HP Fortify Software Security Research and the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI).

HP has made good on its promise to make the best of its recent acquisitions, ArcSight and more importantly Autonomy, to address the changing security landscape. With HP’s new solutions, organizations can automatically apply sentiment analysis and event information to their Big Data and security event platforms by integrating the security information and event management (SIEM) capabilities of HP ArcSight with the HP Autonomy IDOL content analytics engine. This combination automatically recognizes the context, concepts, sentiments and usage patterns related to how users interact with all forms of data. With this tracking and analysis of human sentiments, organizations can identify threats that would have previously gone unnoticed.

I did get a chance to see these innovations as well as the upcoming Sentinel solution for network security on my recent trip to Palo Alto. There is a tremendous amount of energy and resources being applied to a) security and b) integrating cross BU innovations (FINALLY!). Oh and Meg isn’t fighting cyber crime alone. It was clear to me and others at the HP GPC in Las Vegas that she is surrounded by supporters, both internally and externally.

In addition, HP announced:

• The new HP ArcSight Cloud Connector Framework, which collects application event and log data from cloud service providers, providing a real-time view into user activity and threat monitoring for on-premise and cloud applications.
• The new HP ArcSight/Hadoop Integration Utility, a plug-in ready platform that integrates HP ArcSight 6.0c with Apache™ Hadoop™, speeding the process of digging through Big Data stores to quickly identify security attack trends.
• HP Reputation Security Monitor (RepSM) 1.5, which leverages data from HPSR and enables clients to defend against sophisticated attacks by detecting dangerous interactions with ill-reputed sites to prevent a breach.
• HP ArcSight Express 4.0, a solution for midmarket organizations which combines security information and event management (SIEM), log management, and user activity monitoring in an out-of-the-box solution, including connectors to HP ArcSight IdentityView and HP RepSM.

With data getting bigger by the day and security threats growing by the second, this new crime fighting dynamic duo is sure to be around for quite some time! So, who is your favorite crime fighting duo and what do you think about the combination of security and big data? Hype or happening?

@NinaBuik