Archive for February 2016

Cancer, cloud and privacy shield

February 23, 2016 0 Comments A+ a-


(Originally published in Dell PowerMore)
For more than 10 years, the rapid rise of cloud computing has enabled an even more rapid application of cloud to genomic medicine. In fact, since the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) lifted a 2007 ban on uploading their genomic data into cloud storage, the explosion in cloud use has accelerated. Some of the most impressive accomplishments in this field have included the:
• Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) project, that brings together whole-genome sequencing data from the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) projects. This resource describes over 2000 tumor and matched control samples that cover more than 30 cancer entities. Academics will be using the EMBL-EBI Embassy Cloud and high-performance computing centers at the University of Chicago, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in Seoul, the University of California in Santa Cruz, the University of Tokyo and the Heidelberg Center for Personalized Oncology at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) (http://news.embl.de/science/1507-genome-cloud/);
• 100,000 Genomes Project in the United Kingdom includes genomic data from 70,000 people including National Health Service patients with a rare disease, plus their families, and patients with cancer;
• Phoenix, Arizona-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and the Neuroblastoma and Medulloblastoma Translational Research Consortium on personalized medicine trials which uses high-performance computing in the cloud to sequence tumor samples to create new treatment database that help determine personalized drug therapy approaches for children. The project is also being expanded to pediatric cancer clinical trials in EMEA, starting with sites in France and Lebanon.
“Cloud Powered Genomics” brings with it:
• Speed. The time it takes to process the required 90 billion data points is reduced from 10 days to 6 hours or less



• Precision. The analysis of multiple terabytes of data now enables an ability for doctors to prescribe treatments that are fully matched to the individual patient instead of relying on treatments designed for a broad base of patients.
• Collaboration. Researchers and doctors worldwide can now share diagnostic and case information while drawing on an existing storehouse of massive medical knowledge which, in turn, helps improve outcomes and refines treatment protocols.
• Scalability. Storage and processing capacity grow over time as vast amounts of data are collected.
While cloud computing enables researchers and doctors to cost effectively analyze the enormous amount of data necessary to produce these insights at a rapid rate, the privacy issues raised are also daunting. Last year’snullification of Safe Harbor by the European Courts brings these issues to the forefront.
Even without announcing specific details, the European Commission announced a new framework for governing the flow of data across the Atlantic Ocean. Referred to as “Privacy Shield”, the agreement is meant to be a reflection of the requirements set out by the European Court of Justice in its ruling on 6 October 2015, which declared the old Safe Harbour framework invalid.
“The new arrangement will provide stronger obligations on companies in the U.S. to protect the personal data of Europeans and stronger monitoring and enforcement by the U.S. Department of Commerce and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), including through increased cooperation with European Data Protection Authorities. The new arrangement includes commitments by the U.S. that possibilities under U.S. law for public authorities to access personal data transferred under the new arrangement will be subject to clear conditions, limitations and oversight, preventing generalised access. Europeans will have the possibility to raise any enquiry or complaint in this context with a dedicated new Ombudsperson.”
Specific elements highlighted by the EC include:
• “Strong obligations” and “robust enforcement” on companies that handle Europeans’ personal data
• The U.S. Department of Commerce will monitoring of company published commitments to “Privacy Shield” that make the commitments enforceable under U.S. law by the FTC.
• Applicability to companies that handle human resources data from Europe.
• “Clear safeguards and transparency obligations” on U.S. government agencies’ access to data,
• Written assurances from the United States that access will be subject to “clear limitations, safeguards and oversight mechanisms”.
While the agreement has been lauded by many, its effect on the use of cloud computing on trans-Atlantic genomic research is still questionable. This new development will certainly introduce uncertainty and doubt into the business side of this important and burgeoning industry. We can only hope that any unintended circumstance don’t hinder this important medical progress.
( This post was written as part of the Dell Insight Partners program, which provides news and analysis about the evolving world of tech. Dell sponsored this article, but the opinions are my own and don’t necessarily represent Dell’s positions or strategies.)




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Hybrid Cloud Versus Hybrid IT: What’s the Hype?

February 02, 2016 0 Comments A+ a-

(Originally posted on Point B and Beyond)



Once again, the boardroom is in a bitter battle over what edict its members will now levy on their hapless IT organization. On one hand, hybrid cloud is all the rage. Adopting this option promises all the cost savings of public cloud with the security and comfort of private cloud. This environment would not only check the box for meeting the cloud computing mandate, but also position the organization as innovative and industry-leading. Why wouldn’t a forward-leaning management team go all in with cloud?

On the other hand, hybrid IT appears to be the sensible choice for leveraging traditional data center investments. Data center investment business models always promise significant ROI within a fairly short time frame; if not, they wouldn’t have been approved. Shutting down such an expensive initiative early would be an untenable decision. Is this a better option than the hybrid cloud?

Hybrid Cloud Versus Hybrid IT

The difference between hybrid cloud and hybrid IT is more than just semantics. The hybrid cloud model is embraced by those entities and startups that don’t need to worry about past capital investments. These newer companies have more flexibility in exploring newer operational options.
Mature businesses, on the other hand, need to manage the transition to cloud without throwing away their valuable current infrastructure. They also deal more with organizational change management issues and possible employee skill set challenges. The new, bimodal IT model is also a concern for these enterprises, Forbes reported.

This is a tricky dilemma because both hybrid cloud and hybrid IT have been known to deliver some pretty significant advantages. Some of the biggest benefits of moving to an updated cloud or IT environment include:
  • Architectural flexibility that allows you to place business workloads where they make the most sense.
  • Retention of technical control by keeping the final decision on if, when and where a multitenant IT environment is acceptable.
  • Staff have the choice on the use of dedicated servers and network devices that can isolate or restrict access.
  • Tighter management control, which often translates into a better ability to satisfy auditors and meet compliance requirements.
  • Enhanced financial management because the company owns and funds the base configuration with a capex budget while simultaneously gaining the option to consume pay-as-you-go resources with opex funds for unanticipated spikes.
  • More technical stability through the use of dedicated servers for baseline performance and supplemental multitenant cloud servers when needed.
  • Enhanced operating system flexibility for testing and evaluation or providing technical customers the option to choose their preferred environment.
  • Promotion and support of innovation with an ability to spin up and tear down cloud servers quickly and easily for proof of concepts, pilots or software trials.
These hybrid advantages do need to be balanced with the operational challenges of moving to such a nontraditional environment. Things like automated resource provisioning/deprovisioning, cloud ecosystem management, dynamic service pricing and other IT service brokerage skills are new requirements for most organizations. This type of technology shift may also require many personal and organizational changes as well.

How to Manage the Shift

Shifting to a hybrid anything comes down to evaluating and managing both traditional and cloud IT, balancing various on-premises and off-premises suppliers and making dynamic choices about technology on the fly as the business requires new capabilities. All these tasks must be done simultaneously to achieve:
  • User and customer empowerment;
  • Application delivery optimization; and
  • Service-centric IT that accelerates business responsiveness.


So in the end, the hybrid hype is really about delivering business value. Within these models, technology becomes an ecosystem of providers, resources and tools. Interactions between old and new IT need to be devised, modeled, tested, implemented and improved.

Functionally, IT organizations need to manage the end-to-end IT service delivery model. They must be empowered to broker a set of IT services, some of which are on-premises and some of which are off-premises. The task of the IT organization is to offer internal and external customers the price, capacity and speed of provisioning of the external cloud while reducing IT service costs maintaining the security and governance the company requires.





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( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2015)



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