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Amazon jumps on Kubernetes bandwagon – ZDNet

August 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Kubernetes is the most popular open-source container manager. It's been officially supported on every cloud platform you've ever heard of... with one big exception: Amazon Web Service (AWS). Now, AWS has got on board the Kubernetes bandwagon as well by joining the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) as a platinum member.

With this move, all five of the largest cloud providers -- AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Bluemix, and Alibaba Cloud -- are CNCF members. Kubernetes has been validated as the DevOps tool for cloud native computing and containers.

Really, it was only a matter of time before AWS joined the CNCF. According to a recent survey, 63 percent of users were already hosting Kubernetes on Amazon EC2. This was up from 44 percent a year ago. Many well-known companies were already running Kubernetes in production on AWS, including CNCF End User Community participants NCSOFT, Ticketmaster, Vevo, and Zalando.

"Many CNCF projects already run in the AWS Cloud," admitted Adrian Cockcroft, AWS's VP of Cloud Architecture Strategy. "We are excited to join the Foundation to ensure that customers continue to have a great experience running these workloads on AWS."

CNCF also provides a neutral home for other open-source container-related projects, such as: Containerd, the standard container runtime; Container Network Interface for Linux containers; and Linkerd, a transparent proxy for container service discovery, routing, and failure handling. Cockcroft added, "With our membership, we look forward to growing our role in these communities and the overall cloud-native ecosystem."

Cockcroft, who will be a member of the CNCF board, added in a blog posting, "We are interested in several CNCF projects and working groups. AWS were founding members of the Containerd project ... and have lots of ideas around how we can help our customers have a better experience. Our forthcoming ECS Task Networking capabilities are written as a CNI plugin, and we expect CNI to be the basis for all container-based networking on AWS."

With so many customers already hosting Kubernetes on Amazon EC2, Cockcroft continued: "Arun [Gupta, AWS Principal Open Source Technologist] is blogging about his experiences with several Kubernetes on AWS installers, starting with Kops. We have plans for more Kubernetes blog posts and code contributions, and think there are opportunities to propose existing and future AWS open-source projects to be incubated by CNCF."

Dan Kohn, the CNCF's executive director, said in a statement, "As the largest cloud provider, AWS brings years of experience in enabling enterprises to successfully adopt cloud computing and enormous expertise in cloud native technologies."

In an e-mail, Kohn added, "Virtualization was the biggest trend in enterprise computing over the last decade. The age of virtualization is now ending and the cloud-native era has begun, with an open sources software stack enabling portability between public, private and hybrid clouds," With the addition of AWS today, all the major cloud vendors are working together supporting open-source development of cloud-native technologies, with Kubernetes a primary focus of their collaboration."

He concluded, "We believe AWS' participation will help shape the future of enterprise computing."

Kubernetes leads container orchestration

According to a 451 Research study, containers are taking over cloud server deployments, and Kubernetes is taking over container orchestration

Linux Foundation offers free Introduction to Kubernetes class

With Kubernetes gaining popularity quickly as the container orchestration program of choice, sysadmins need to learn all they can about this DevOps program.

Oracle to use Kubernetes to manage its cloud containers

Oracle wants to be a cloud power, but instead of branding their own cloud DevOps program, they'll be working with CoreOS on Kubernetes.

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Amazon jumps on Kubernetes bandwagon - ZDNet

Epic Move: UC San Diego Health Transitions to Cloud Technology – UC San Diego Health

August 10, 2017 | Author: admin

UC San Diego Health has moved its electronic medical records (EMR) system to the cloud. The move to an Epic-hosted cloud environment is part of a long-term strategy to shift away from traditional data centers to a less expensive, more reliable and secure repository for patients medical records.

UC San Diego Health has moved its electronic medical records system to the cloud.

By creating greater operational efficiencies, we can invest more time and resources in patient care, said Mark Amey, associate chief information officer, UC San Diego Health. UC San Diego Health has deployed a number of strategies to allow its hospitals and clinics to be more agile and respond to demand at a rapid pace within a robust disaster recovery environment.

Cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the internet in a hosted, shared environment rather than on a local server or personal computer. The cloud infrastructure is resilient, offering more uptime with redundant systems that protect data. UC San Diego Health plans to fully deploy cloud-based solutions for all data storage needs within three years.

Health systems both large and small are seeking secure and cost-effective approaches to providing EMR capabilities to their users, said Stirling Martin, Epic senior vice president. UC San Diego Health is the first academic health system to make the migration from their own self-hosted Epic infrastructure to Epics state-of-the-art cloud hosting environment.

A cloud-hosted environment helps UC San Diego Health to meet industry standards to safeguard patients protected health information. Cloud computing enables timely cybersecurity updates and patching as well as heightened security controls. Cloud computing also permits easier disaster recovery and enables hosting vendors to focus on application specific security needs.

This is our first significant milestone in moving key pieces of infrastructure into the cloud to provide always-on solutions from anywhere that can be scaled to our growing geographical print, said Adam Gold, chief technology officer, UC Irvine Health and UC San Diego Health. The cloud approach allows us to better provide innovative technology to support outstanding clinical care, research, and teaching.

The information services team has moved approximately 10,000 workstations at UC San Diego Health to this virtual delivery method, allowing users to access the electronic health record via the cloud. The team has also integrated over a hundred third-party applications that work with Epic within the new cloud environment.

UC San Diego Health is the hub for a single electronic medical records system serving UC Riverside Health and community practice affiliates, a cost-saving arrangement that improves coordination of care among physicians. UC San Diego Health will also share its EMR system with UC Irvine Health starting this November.

Additionally, Christopher Longhurst, MD, chief information officer at UC San Diego Health, is the sponsoring executive for the development of a UC Health-wide data warehouse, integrating patient data across the UCs five academic health systems, which together comprise the fourth largest health care system in California. This initiative supports medical decision making, clinical research and population health throughout the state.

In July, UC San Diego Health was named one of the nations Most Wired health systems by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. The award recognizes hospitals and health systems that excel in using information technology to advance patient care and population health, protect the privacy and security of patient information, and bring greater efficiencies to operations.

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Epic Move: UC San Diego Health Transitions to Cloud Technology - UC San Diego Health

St. Cloud to Host Summer Sizzler Downtown Art Crawl – WJON News

August 10, 2017 | Author: admin

ST. CLOUD Creative minds will be filling the streets of Downtown St. Cloud at this seasons Art Crawl.The event featuring multiple vendors, street artists, demo artists, performers and musicians kicks off at 3:00 p.m. Friday.

Nearly 40 downtown businesses will be hosting artists inside their shops or on their walkways. Everything from quilting, to jewelry making, to fine art, the Art Crawl will have several artists work on display.

The night will also feature a fashion show, it will be held from 4:00 p.m. 6:00 p.m. at Mantra Salon and Spa.

During the Art Crawl, Gaslight Creative along with United Way of Central Minnesota will be collecting school supply donations. All donations will be given theSt. Cloud Salvation Army.

Backpacks, notebooks, pens, pencils, folders and art supplies are just some of the supplies that are needed.

Donations can be dropped off at Gaslight, which is located between Bumbledees and The Pickled Loon on West St. Germain Street.

The Art Crawl is a free event, it wraps up at 9:00 p.m. Friday.

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St. Cloud to Host Summer Sizzler Downtown Art Crawl - WJON News

CA Health System Begins Cloud-Based Epic EHR Implementation – EHRIntelligence.com

August 10, 2017 | Author: admin

August 09, 2017 -University of California (UC) San Diego Health recently transitioned its EHR system to a hosted, cloud-based Epic EHR environment as part of a strategy to move from traditional data storage centers to a more secure, cost-efficient patient medical record repository.

By creating greater operational efficiencies, we can invest more time and resources in patient care, said UC Sn Diego Health Associate Chief Information Officer Mark Amey. UC San Diego Health has deployed a number of strategies to allow its hospitals and clinics to be more agile and respond to demand at a rapid pace within a robust disaster recovery environment.

With cloud Epic technology, UC San Diego will gain the ability to use cloud computing to store and access EHR data and programs over the internet in a shared, hosted environment instead of a local server or personal computer.

Cloud infrastructure is more resilient and offers heightened data protection that is more reliable than health IT infrastructure dependent on local servers. UC Davis Health stated it intends to fully deploy cloud-based data storage solutions for its health system within the next three years.

Health systems both large and small are seeking secure and cost-effective approaches to providing EMR capabilities to their users, said Epic Senior Vice President Stirling Martin. UC San Diego Health is the first academic health system to make the migration from their own self-hosted Epic infrastructure to Epics state-of-the-art cloud hosting environment.

Using a cloud-based environment will also enable UC San Diego to meet industry standards for safeguarding patient protected health information (PHI). Additionally, the Epic-hosted technology includes periodic cybersecurity updates and patching as well as improved information security controls.

Cloud computing will also allow for more efficient disaster recovery following incidents including data security breaches. Additionally, Epic can more easily focus on application-specific security needs through cloud computing technology.

This is our first significant milestone in moving key pieces of infrastructure into the cloud to provide always-on solutions from anywhere that can be scaled to our growing geographical print, said UC Irvine Health and UC San Diego Chief Technology Officer Adam Gold. The cloud approach allows us to better provide innovative technology to support outstanding clinical care, research, and teaching.

Thus far, the UC San Diego information services team has successfully transferred approximately 10,000 workstations at UC San Diego Health to the cloud-based environment. The information services team has also integrated more than one hundred third-party applications compatible with Epic within the new cloud system.

Presently, UC San Diego headquarters a single EHR system serving UC Riverside Health and several affiliated community practices. The arrangement is an effort to save expenses and improve care coordination among physicians at all participating facilities.

UC San Diego also plans to share its EHR system with UC Irvine Health beginning in November.

Epic also recently kicked off an EHR implementation project with Meritus Health in Maryland expected to take five years.

Meritus Health officials signed the five-year contract with Epic last month after an 18-month health IT company review process during which over 1,000 Meritus Health employees seriously considered six other vendors for the project.

The health systems EHR selection process included a site visit to a similarly community-based hospital system with 250 to 300 beds to gauge how Epic technology suited the environment.

Expenses for the complete modernization of Meritus Healths patient health records system as well as all associated labor costs is projected to total $100 million.

Link:
CA Health System Begins Cloud-Based Epic EHR Implementation - EHRIntelligence.com

Cloud management platforms offer a unified approach to hybrid IT – TechTarget

August 10, 2017 | Author: admin

The world of cloud can be overwhelming for enterprises that have finally decided to move data off the ground. There are numerous cloud providers, service offerings and pricing structures to choose from; not every enterprise is a one-size-fits-all operation.

With ever-growing compliance standards and workload requirements, enterprises see the value in hybrid cloud or multiple cloud platforms from different providers. But a hybrid model creates huge visibility and management challenges related to governance, compliance, security and performance. Cloud management platforms centralize these tasks -- including across private and public clouds -- under one umbrella.

"The big thing that's pushing the need to go to cloud management platforms is the fact that so many organizations now have these complex environments," said Mike Edwards, cloud computing standards expert at IBM, during a recent webinar hosted by the Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC). "Using different tools for each system you're using is just painful. It's not a good place to be."

Not all cloud management platforms are the same, and some vendors add additional capabilities to meet enterprises' unique needs. Still, all platforms should have these four core capabilities, according to the CSCC:

"If you don't have the capability to discover and manage [your] resources, nothing else matters," said Karl Scott, executive consultant at Satori Consulting.

If you don't have the capability to discover and manage [your] resources, nothing else matters. Karl ScottExecutive consultant at Satori Consulting

Without external and internal integration capabilities, enterprises cannot use existing systems or tools, or manage across multiple cloud environments. APIs published by public providers, such as Amazon Web Services and Azure, as well those for private cloud platforms, such as OpenStack and VMware, achieve integration in cloud management platforms.

Security for hybrid cloud also can get tricky, since enterprises need to make sure all resources are secure when deployed in different clouds. Encryption and identity and access management keep cloud resources secure across all environments. Hybrid and multicloud models also require governance capabilities, such as policy-based management and compliance, to guarantee users handle cloud resources correctly.

"You can never get away from security; it always matters," Edwards said.

Before you perform a cloud management platform comparison, create a deployment plan, and determine your required resources. These resources will help you decide on a hosting model for your management platform -- on-premises or a SaaS offering.

"Whether you are using a SaaS or on-prem deployment, look at a complete picture of what the introduction of a cloud management platform is going to do to your overall cloud ecosystem," Van Order said.

Some vendors gear cloud management platforms more toward private environments and tailor their features accordingly. Check if the vendor has one offering that covers all capabilities or multiple offerings that spread out capabilities. For example, Cloudify, Scalr and Embotics vCommander are single products, while IBM divides capabilities among IBM Cloud Orchestrator, IBM Cloud Automation Manager and IBM Cloud Brokerage.

Consider which cloud environments you want to manage and then which systems are supported. If you have two public clouds, the management platform you choose must support both of the public providers' services. Also, find out whether the platform manages infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service or SaaS. If your enterprise uses containers or microservices, see if the IaaS compute abilities include such management.

"The key is to really understand exactly what you are trying to achieve. What is most important to you? Is it really to manage that cloud spend, or is it really to improve operational efficiency?" Scott said.

Excerpt from:
Cloud management platforms offer a unified approach to hybrid IT - TechTarget

Kaspersky Lab Launches Internet Security Campaign in Asia Pacific – Guiding Tech

August 10, 2017 | Author: admin

The internet is fast evolving into a necessity as it enables and interconnects various products that we use on a daily basis be itthe e-commerce websites, social media or our work emails and much more. And since our life these days is so connected to the internet, its important to focus on security on the internet too.

Towards this end, to educate and inform the public about safety on the internet and how to avert common mistakes, Russian cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab launched a campaign in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region on Monday.

The campaign, called Goondus Awards, has called out for submissions from public related to mistakes that theyve witnessed on the internet that has led to a loss of reputation, finances, property or personal information of individuals.

We want to educate people about safer Internet behaviours and to showcase real world examples of missteps leading to some form of loss or damage. While some stories may be humorous, the repercussions and damage were real and in some cases severe, said Altaf Halde, Managing Director, South Asia, Kaspersky Lab, in a statement.

The campaign aims to raise awareness regarding cyber security through sharing of personal experiences and stories of individuals who have faced security threats on the internet.

This will enable others to learn from their mistakes and help future generations on the internet to avoid making the same errors.

With the ease of access to the Internet, users have developed a sense of complacency or even a mild form of naivety in their daily digital lives, potentially lending themselves to becoming victims of cyber crime, the company said.

The internet has greatly integrated itself with our lives and online security should be deemed great importance by each individual or else they are putting their financial as well as personally identifiable information at great risk.

(With inputs from IANS)

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Kaspersky Lab Launches Internet Security Campaign in Asia Pacific - Guiding Tech

Symantec Announces Plesk Will Integrate Symantec Encryption Everywhere Security Into Its Website Management … – Business Wire (press release)

August 10, 2017 | Author: admin

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ:SYMC), one of the worlds leading cyber security companies, today announced that Plesk, a leading WebOps platform, will now incorporate Symantecs Encryption Everywhere security offerings into its website management platform and control panel, giving web professionals, small businesses, and cloud service providers one-click access to website encryption and customized security offerings. Symantec Encryption Everywhere is a website security solution that enables web hosting providers to seamlessly integrate security into every website. The newest version of Symantec Encryption Everywhere includes secure email and award-winning anti-virus and spyware removal from Norton.

Small businesses, web professionals and cloud service providers want better security for their websites, but are often intimidated by the complexities of online security and encryption, said Roxane Divol, executive vice president and general manager for Website Security at Symantec. Yet, browsers have begun flagging unencrypted websites as unsafe, causing businesses to lose brand trust, increase abandoned cart rates and find themselves open to hacking. Symantec and partners like Plesk are natively integrating basic encryption into websites and applications for easy compliance with browser security requirements, and options to expand beyond encryption as security needs grow.

Plesk will make it easy to manage and activate Symantec security packages within their website management platform and control panel. Plesk services over 11 million websites and 19 million mail boxes in 140 countries. Plesk enables all features deeply integrated and offering all available security offerings from Symantec at your fingertips. Hosting partners of Plesk will be able to resell these as well.

Encryption is no longer a nice-to-have for websites, but a must-have, said Nils Hueneke, CEO at Plesk. Our goal with all our WebOps solutions is to simplify the life of small businesses, web professionals and cloud service providers. By partnering with Symantec, we can offer the worlds most trusted security solutions to our customers seamlessly within our platform. In addition, the Symantec Encryption Everywhere program gives our partners a range of upsell opportunities that not only add value and brand differentiation, but also additional revenue streams.

For more information, visit https://www.symantec.com/theme/encryption-everywhere.

About Symantec Website Security

Symantec Website Security provides industry-leading security for websites, data, and applications with SSL/TLS, certificate management, vulnerability assessment, WAF/DDoS, malware scanning, etc. The Norton Secured Seal and Symantec Seal-in-Search assure customers they are safe to search, browse, interact, and buy. Symantec Website Securitys sophisticated solutions offer the promise of a safe and trusted internet experience across all websites and applications.

About Symantec

Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC), a world leading cyber security company, helps organizations, governments and people secure their most important data wherever it lives. Organizations across the world look to Symantec for strategic, integrated solutions to defend against sophisticated attacks across endpoints, cloud and infrastructure. Likewise, a global communityofmore than 50 million people and familiesrely on Symantecs NortonandLifeLockproduct suitesto protect their digital lives at home and acrosstheirdevices. Symantec operates one of the worlds largest civilian cyber intelligence networks, allowing it to see and protect against the most advanced threats. For additional information, please visitwww.symantec.comor connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Symantec, the Symantec Logo and the Checkmark logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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Symantec Announces Plesk Will Integrate Symantec Encryption Everywhere Security Into Its Website Management ... - Business Wire (press release)

Here’s why IBM Z Mainframe Wants to Encrypt the World – Edgy Labs (blog)

August 10, 2017 | Author: admin

IBMs new approach to fight cyber criminals is a mainframe that enables encryption of an entire dataset and renders it useless to hackers.

Hackers are everywhere and even ships in high seas can be compromised by their malicious deeds.

According to IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, more than 4 billion records were leaked in 2016 alone, which is over a 500% increase from the previous year.

As cyber criminals keep on keeping up with security companies, theres urgent need to find novel approaches and countermeasures.

Think about it: if all sensitive data is efficiently encrypted and hackers cant decrypt it, they wouldnt be able to take advantage. Their attempts to breach security systems would be pointless.

A recent study by thePonemon Institute reveals that, after using effective incident response teams, the extensive use of encryption is the second factor in reducing the cost of data breach (by anaverage of $16 USD per record).

However some companies show passivity when it comes to data encryption; some just dont bother, while others cant afford to encrypt everything.

Current data encryption solutions (on-premises or cloud-based) can degrade systems performance, aside from being too complex and costly to deploy in the first place.

As a result, IBM estimates that, since 2013, of over 9 billion data records stolen, only 4% of the data was ever encrypted, and the company wants to remedy this.

IBMs security solutions span the whole spectrum, from hardware and software to web services, but the company has a universal encryption approach to the problem of data protection.

As a leading tech company, IBM wants to put an end to the global pandemic of security breaches and to do that it is betting on full encryption of sensitive data.

IBM has been making significant progress in cryptographic technology, mainly with its Z series mainframes. We just witnessed the introduction of the 14th generation of thesystem.

Called IBM Z, or z14, the mainframe is a system that enables the encryption of all data contained in databases, apps or the cloud, at any time, with just one-click.

Powered with a novel encryption engine, IBM Z is much faster and can run 12 billion encrypted transactions per day, without being a detriment to performance.

The IBM Z boasts many other features, including Blockchain technology, for businesses of any scale to make use of it.

Nevertheless, IBMs full encryption system might not keep hackers totally at bay. Cyber attacks can still target sensitive encrypted data and steal it.

It remains to be seen if hackers would ever be able to decrypt it.

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Here's why IBM Z Mainframe Wants to Encrypt the World - Edgy Labs (blog)

Buoyant Bitcoin stirs fears of a crypto-currency bubble bursting – The Independent

August 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Bitcoin and other "cryptocurrencies" are big money, virtually as big as Goldman Sachs and Royal Bank of Scotland combined.

The price of a single bitcoin hit an all-time high of above $3,500 (2,699) this week, dragging up the value of hundreds of newer, smaller digital rivals in its wake. Now some investors fear a giant crypto-bubble may be about to burst.

It has been a year of unprecedented growth for the largely unregulated market, with dozens of new currencies appearing every month in "Initial Coin Offerings" or ICOs. They have achieved value almost instantly, drawing in those who are eager to get in and make a quick buck.

At the start of 2017, the total value - or market cap - of all cryptocurrencies in existence was about $17.5bn, with bitcoin making up almost 90 per cent of that, according to industry data firm CoinMarketCap.

It is now around $120bn - around the same value as Goldman and RBS together - and bitcoin makes up only 46 per cent.

Bitcoin Cash, a clone of bitcoin that was split off from the original last week by a rival group of developers, was valued at more than $12 billion less than 24 hours after it had started trading.

"It's just created new value out of nowhere," said Rob Moffat, a partner at Balderton Capital, a London-based venture capital firm who focuses on fintech. "There's no fundamentals behind any of this - it's all based on public perception, so you can start to see some really strange phenomena."

Cryptocurrencies - so-called because cryptography is used to keep transactions secure - allow anonymous peer-to-peer transactions between individual users, without the need for banks or central banks. They use blockchain technology, a shared record-keeping and processing system that means digital money cannot be copied and spent more than once.

Billionaire US investor Howard Marks likens the market to the dotcom bubble of the turn of the century - whose demise he predicted. He said in a recent investor letter that digital currencies were an "unfounded fad ... based on a willingness to ascribe value to something that has little or none beyond what people will pay for it".

But advocates of cryptocurrencies say 2017 is just the beginning of bull run. They argue the finite nature of these currency units - there will never be more than 21 million bitcoin, for example - as well as the technological innovation that underpins them will ensure their enduring value.

"The idea of this thing being a bubble is silly. We're in the bottom of the first innings," said Miguel Vias of Ripple, the third-biggest cryptocurrency, who was previously global head of precious metals and metal options at CME Group.

Whichever way cryptocurrencies move, they are likely to move together because their values are highly correlated, feeding off each other and magnifying the market effect.

That's partly down to investor sentiment, but also because the start-ups issuing new coins in ICOs generally collect money in a more liquid cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin or, more commonly, Ethereum's ether - the second-biggest cryptocurrency in total value.

That has driven demand for ether, which has climbed over 3,000 per cent so far this year and now has a market cap of around $28bn.

Bitcoin, which was launched in 2009, was the first successful cryptocurrency and is still easily the biggest, with a market cap of over $54bn.

Its price has shot up around 225 per cent so this year, and performed better than any conventional, central-bank issued currency in every year since 2010 bar 2014.

The blockchain-based currencies that have been built since bitcoin - 842, at last count - vary hugely in terms of their credibility.

Sceptics say bitcoin and its rivals are not particularly useful as currencies, as they are still volatile and not accepted by most merchants. They are mostly just used for speculative trading purposes.

There are some signs of acceptance of the biggest players by the establishment, however; Ethereum has been piloted by the United Nations as a way to distribute funds to Syrian refugees. Ripple has been successfully used as a payment method between settlement systems in a Bank of England trial.

Some other, smaller cryptocurrencies such as Dash, Monero and Z-cash are seen as having real value by some users because they offer an even higher level of anonymity than the likes of bitcoin. Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks this week said it would accept Z-cash for online donations.

Reuters

At last, a kosher cryptocurrency: BitCoen – The Register

August 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Viacheslav Semenchuk, a Russian entrepreneur, has just launched a cryptocurrency for Jews.

Similar in concept to Bitcoin, it is called BitCoen, "the first Kosher cryptocurrency," as described on the company's Russian website. In the US, Coen and its variant Cohen are common surnames in the Jewish community; in Hebrew, they mean priest.

Semenchuk, according to RT, has invested $500,000 in the project and hopes to raise as much as $20m through an initial coin offering that aims to sell 100m worth of BitCoen digital tokens to investors.

With that much market capitalization, BitCoen would rank at about 115th among the more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies tracked by coinmarketcap.com. Bitcoin's current market cap is about $55bn.

The company began a pre-sale through its website on Wednesday, offering 300,000 BitCoen (under the abbreviation BEN) at a price of $0.75 per token. It expects to launch a wider offering in October.

"Our team came to the conclusion that the Jewish community is the world's only community within the framework of which a full-fledged and self-sufficient cryptocurrency can be created and recognized by the whole community," said Angelika Sheshunova, COO of BitCoen, in an email to The Register.

"We expect that the cryptocurrency will cover all Jewish communities around the world. And the main guarantor of stability here is that the keys from the management of the cryptocurrency will be in the hands of the most respected members of the community."

Sheshunova said there's no way to guarantee that only members of the Jewish community will use BitCoen. "However, the functionality of the system and the inherent features are most appealing to the members of the Jewish community," she said.

Said features include a plan to give 10 per cent of released coins to Jewish organizations as "tzedakah," or charity, and governance by a six-person community council.

Sheshunova explained, "Important decisions in the system are made by the 'council of six.' Each of them is well-respected in the Jewish community, and will represent their preferred course [in] business, politics, finance, technology, public service, [and] culture."

BitCoen will be "a completely new blockchain with its own architecture, its own security and special functionality," according an emailed quote that Sheshunova attributed to Andrei Nedobyolsky, CTO of the project.

That name returned no results in Google, Bing, or Yandex. The Register asked if BitCoen could provide more details about Nedobyolsky's technical qualifications, but has not heard back.

According to Sheshunova, BitCoen plans to make some of its code available, eventually. "In accordance with the ideology of blockchain, we plan to share some of the code that is critical for system users, with requirement specifications of security, transparency and functionality," she said. "However, this will be done after the launch of the main elements of the system."

BitCoen's lack of technical clarity appears to be matched by its muddled public communication. On Wednesday, the firm published a post in Russian on Medium to dispel what it characterized as a fiction about its project.

The post states that BitCoen is still negotiating with the Chief Rabbi of Russia (there are apparently two at present) and Jewish community leaders about potential involvement with the project. It also suggests that the currency will be controlled by those participating in the community and not just Jews.

"All media statements that 'the currency is controlled by the Jews' we consider unconcrete and far-fetched in order to increase the readability and popularity of articles and materials, where these statements are applied," the post says, as rendered by Google Translate.

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At last, a kosher cryptocurrency: BitCoen - The Register

Cloud Hosting

Amazon jumps on Kubernetes bandwagon – ZDNet

Epic Move: UC San Diego Health Transitions to Cloud Technology – UC San Diego Health

St. Cloud to Host Summer Sizzler Downtown Art Crawl – WJON News

CA Health System Begins Cloud-Based Epic EHR Implementation – EHRIntelligence.com

Cloud management platforms offer a unified approach to hybrid IT – TechTarget

Kaspersky Lab Launches Internet Security Campaign in Asia Pacific – Guiding Tech

Symantec Announces Plesk Will Integrate Symantec Encryption Everywhere Security Into Its Website Management … – Business Wire (press release)

Here’s why IBM Z Mainframe Wants to Encrypt the World – Edgy Labs (blog)

Buoyant Bitcoin stirs fears of a crypto-currency bubble bursting – The Independent

At last, a kosher cryptocurrency: BitCoen – The Register

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