Ah Summertime. It’s synonymous with backyard barbeques, swimming pools and hitting the road. How I love a good road trip. Of course, leaving home for an extended period of time means making sure that it’s locked up tighter than Fort Knox itself. This line of thought invariably has me contemplating network security. Imagine that.

As I’ve touted before, Sentinel is one of our top brands of security here at NetIQ. When it comes to event monitoring, data forensics and regulatory compliance, Sentinel 7 is destined to be the security information and event management (SIEM) solution to beat within the industry. And I’m not the only one who feels this way.

As I’ve blogged about before, I love my iPhone and my iPad. Now Apple is really swinging for the fences, with its new iCloud service. iCloud, of course, is the wireless data storage and device synchronization service announced by Steve Jobs last month at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. It’s scheduled for release this fall along with Apple’s new mobile operating system, iOS 5. I watched the keynote with considerable interest, in part because this is unquestionably a great consumer service, and partly because, as hard as I listened, I don’t think I heard Mr. Jobs say the word security even once.

By all appearances, iCloud will be a perfect example of the cloud’s promise and potential. It will provide online storage and backup for music, photos, documents, apps, contacts, calendar and other personal data, with an automated synchronization layer that keeps a user’s content seamlessly available and up-to-date across up to ten different devices. The base service with 5 GB of storage and an email account will be free to anyone who buys a new iPhone, iPad or Mac.

As a card-carrying member of the information security establishment, I’ve got to admit that these past few months have been more than a little embarrassing—for the profession and the entire industry. Like a row of blue-chip dominos, Citigroup, RSA Security, Lockheed, Sony, NASDAQ and Epsilon Data Management have all suffered major data breaches that compromised intellectual property, exposed personal data to criminal exploitation, and left the companies open to massive financial liabilities. The serious black hats have been on a really serious tear.

Cybervandalism Just for the Lulz

Exciting times we live in. Everyone is talking about the cloud—and not just us IT geeks anymore. Cloud computing has gone mainstream. Primetime TV commercials now talk about people going“to the cloud,” claiming ownership over their very own “my cloud” and generally being unable to carry on living without cloud computing.

But it’s not all marketing hype. There are real cloud-based solutions that real companies are using to make a real difference in their performance, security and finanicial bottom lines. And IT types are actively encouraged these days to look for a cloud solution first.

If you’ve ever worked for a publicly traded company, you probably know how much time and energy is spent focusing on measuring financial performance, projecting future performance—and frankly—presenting your story in the most favorable light. It can really distract you from the real task at hand—creating solutions for your customers that solve real-world problems.

Now that I’m working for NetIQ, a privately-held company, all I can say is, what a difference the right merger can make! No more pandering to Wall Street analysts anymore. The focus is totally different.

The NBA playoffs and draft are history, leaving me time to ponder what makes a player great. Larry Bird and John Stockton are two of basketball’s all-time greatest players. No, they didn’t have the flashiest moves, the tackiest tattoos or even the most expensive bling on their front teeth. What they had were honest skills deep-rooted in the fundamentals—the basics. And that made them great.

Too often, we forget about the basics. A company decides it’s going to embrace the cloud. Suddenly, it’s building the biggest, baddest private cloud infrastructure known to mankind. Everything’s moving to the cloud: business-critical apps, apps that perhaps aren’t so critical—even this week’s cafeteria menu. Every workload will be built to withstand the test of time. And security will rival Fort Knox. It’s an ambitious project. Sure. But the company soon realizes that it has bitten off more than it can chew. And the project collapses under its own weight.

Well, the summer driving season is upon us (again). And once again, the oil companies have us over a barrel—a $100 barrel of crude. Sigh. So I recently bought this handy gauge that plugs right into my car’s onboard computer to tell me all sorts of things: instantaneous fuel consumption, average miles per gallon, cost per mile and a bunch of other stuff. Using this information, I should be able to “tune” my driving habits and save a bit on gas this summer.

Whether you’re talking fuel efficiency or IT efficiency, information is the key. That’s why companies deploy Novell Operations Center into their IT environments. This WorkloadIQ™ product allows IT staff to monitor, map and measure the business services they deliver from end to end. Think of it as a sort of real-time dashboard that helps IT departments ensure that they’re meeting their service levels and commitments to the business units they serve.

You know, there’s a lot to be said for collaboration. I mean, it took more than one guy to put a man on the moon. It took more than one Beatle to compose the White Album. Heck, it even took more than one Steve to build the first Apple.

The recent Attachmate Group acquisition has brought together three incredibly innovative software companies: NetIQ, Novell and SUSE. And we’ve already started putting our heads together to come up with the next evolution of IT management solutions. You might have even heard of one of these: WorkloadIQ.

I have been wracking my brain trying to come up with an analogy that even begins to capture the significance of Novell’s acquisition by Attachmate. I’m certain the if Charles Darwin were alive today, he’d give the merger a major thumbs up, and would agree that these two companies will produce offspring with the predisposition to thrive in any environment and fly through the clouds.

As you are no doubt aware, Novell and Attachmate recently tied the knot—ending years of speculation about Novell. Novell had a great deal of momentum going with its WorkloadIQ strategy for intelligent workload management. Customers were realizing real, measurable value. And industry luminaries continued to sing the praises of why an identity-infused, policy-driven framework is essential to ensure secure, compliant computing—regardless of location.

What’s the leading barrier to cloud adoption? Contractual gridlock. If you want to cut through this red tape and start experiencing the benefits of cloud computing, just put ‘er there. It could be just that simple. The handshake agreement is the oldest contract known to business, and I think it may be time to go back to the basics and use this device to make it practical to use cloud services.

I borrowed this radically simple idea from a NetIQ customer who refuses to sign contacts with business partners. According to him, “I don’t have time to mess around with contracts and I don’t have an army of lawyers create and defend them. After all, a contract isn’t going to determine whether a vendor remains committed to adding value and providing responsive service.”