Thursday, October 10, 2019

Key Factors In The Success Of A New Era In Cloud Computing

Companies of all types accelerate cloud adoption as a central element of their IT strategy. But what about migration behind the scenes?

Over the past 10 years, cloud computing has become increasingly part of our daily lives. Initially, we perceived this as consumers in public email services or personal data stored in the cloud on tools like BOX or Google Drive.

At the same time, several startups were created based on cloud computing. How to imagine services like Netflix, Uber, Airbnb, WhatsApp and many others without the advent of the cloud? In addition to aspects such as consumption simplicity, resource elasticity and worldwide reach, the variable cost financial model has enabled these services to become viable and available around the globe. It is the “born on the cloud” business models that, as its name implies, could not possibly exist without the cloud.

Today, companies of all types accelerate cloud adoption as a central element of their IT strategy. So far, less than 20% of your applications have been migrated to the cloud. This points to two important issues:

1. Most of the transformation is yet to come;

2. Many of the legacy applications rely on security, availability, and performance features that limit some of the capabilities of today's public cloud services.



However, there is a peaceful point: Like any successful technology, cloud computing is "disappearing," becoming ubiquitous. We fail to notice its existence despite being present in our daily lives, in a taxi request in an app, in the recommendation of the movie that you will watch in the evening or even booking tickets on your well-deserved vacation.

But how does this work behind the curtains? What allows us to forget something that is one of the main foundations of our digital society?

Behind the scenes

There is no magic. Behind any public cloud provider are data centers, software, servers, storage, and network devices. But then, what is the difference between this model and the data centers operated by many companies?

There are some fundamental differences. The first is the scale. Hyper-scale cloud providers have volumes many times higher than those employed by any company. We speak of dozens or hundreds of data centres interconnected by robust data communications networks across 5 continents.

It is estimated that a public cloud service needs a scale of 1 million servers before it can start offering a return on investment. This the gigantic scale allows resources to be perceived as “infinite,” meaning that providers are working day-to-day to measure and grow their installed capacity in a balanced manner to meet the almost unpredictable demands of increasing user volumes.

In private data centres, however, companies constantly need to perform capacity planning, investment approval, and resource deployment cycles. All this consumes time and resources and it is common to be dissatisfied with the delay and the quality of the services offered, giving a feeling of always having a passive of unmet demands.

Another central difference is the extensive automation of access to cloud services. One user requests one-click cloud services anywhere in the world and it just happens. For most resources, it takes just seconds or minutes through self-service and without human intervention. Everything is orchestrated by a provider control software layer that can be accessed through a portal or public APIs. Few companies are able to replicate this feat internally, even at limited and much smaller scales like private clouds.

Finally, location is a key factor. Major cloud providers make constant investments to ensure that their services are as close as possible to their users. Here is an equation that balances a variety of considerations such as market potential and growth, geographic location, and issues such as regulation and the cost of doing business in one location. How many companies can reach this kind of global reach?

Where does the 80% go?

As mentioned earlier, enterprise cloud adoption is accelerating and just beginning. IDC estimates that by 2023 over 50% of corporate IT investments will be spent on public cloud consumption *, which demonstrates the upcoming movement. But what are the main factors for success in this new chapter of cloud computing?

1. Flexibility to deploy applications on any model, whether local or on a public cloud provider or any combination of these elements;

2. Open technologies to ensure access to rapid innovation cycles, multiple providers and to avoid situations of dependence on proprietary technologies;

3. A security that ensures horizontal protection on the infrastructure deployed in various providers and environments;

4. Availability and resilience through the use of cloud providers that offer features such as multiple availability zones and applications capable of distributed multi-cloud operation;

5. Transparency of use, management and governance in a new a reality where an application or business services may be on its own infrastructure, one or multiple public cloud providers.

Finally, there is one factor that can sometimes be critical is the location. Although public cloud services are designed for consumption anywhere on the planet and are offered from strategically located data centres, their location is often a critical factor for cloud migration. Some of the reasons may be regulation, when only one data can be used in a country, latency, data severity or even internal data location policies of the companies themselves.

this article was originally published on ------- Read More

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Learn the 4 Biggest Cloud Computing Myths


Investment questions and lack of security are still very common misunderstandings about this technology solution.

Many companies face the need to expand their IT pool, but they run into the limitation of the data centre that is scalable only to some extent. In this scenario, it has become a global trend for companies in various industries to run their cloud applications. However, as the subject is still surrounded by some misunderstandings, Claranet Brazil listed the 4 biggest myths on the subject.


 Investing in the cloud is not so cheap -

 

Myth. In fact, the cloud structure is extremely malleable and allows the company to pay only for the capacity used, the so-called pay as you go. This helps companies with dramatic changes in traffic volume due to campaign seasonality optimize cloud costs. An e-commerce over the Christmas season, for example, will need more cloud space to collect and store its customers' purchase data. After this peak period, the company is back to using and paying only for the smaller traffic structure it needs because the cloud structure is quite scalable.

A cloud environment is not secure -

 

Myth. The cloud environment is much more secure than traditional servers in data centres. This is because the cloud is based on redundancy, which means that the same data is logged in different environments to prevent failures and losses, which is known as disaster recovery. In addition, cloud providers (such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft) use advanced encryption and firewalls to identify potential attackers and preserve all data hosted in the environment. These providers still have the most qualified professionals to ensure cloud security.

Cloud providers scour data –

 

Myth. There is still a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, and it is common for companies to imagine that the cloud provider has access to their data, which in fact does not happen. Players recognized around the world for their professionalism, such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft, have long been active in the market and offer a cloud-only security service, rather than "investigating" or even digging into their customers' data. Still, the market practice is for contracting companies and their providers to sign confidentiality agreements.

Cloud security is the sole responsibility of the provider –

 

Myth. To understand whose task it is to ensure cloud security, it is essential to keep in mind that the market works with the "Shared Responsibility" model. This is to say that security and compliance are shared roles between the provider and the client running their cloud applications.

Under this model, the provider is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs all services offered in the cloud. This infrastructure is comprised of hardware, software, networks and facilities that perform the services of the provider. In turn, the customer has the responsibility determined by the cloud services that he himself has selected. This includes the number of configuration operations that he must perform as part of his security responsibilities.

Therefore, having a partner to support your a public cloud environment is important for compliance best practices, and to intelligently and securely manage all solutions provided. In addition, the partner can also help answer key questions and guide the company on its journey to digital transformation.

this article was originally published on ------- Read More

Monday, October 7, 2019

Is your data safe in the cloud? 3 Important Tips To Protect Them

Understand the role of shared responsibility; understand how architecture affects vulnerability and make sure tools are correct

Data breaches are on the rise due to recent announcements of massive information leaks and the new European privacy protection regulation (GDPR) and the Brazilian version, called the General Data Protection Act (LGPD), which will come into force in August 2020. While the stories of big cases are more prominent, it is important to know that the appropriation of extraneous data is common and that seemingly simple mistakes can leave companies exposed. Therefore, they need to be aware of vulnerabilities.


Experts have identified the roots of a data vulnerability, such as misconfigured cloud servers, which may seem odd, but it is quite common. In the Cloud Cloud Risk Adoption 2019 report, McAfee points out that “organizations have on average at least 14 instances of Infrastructure as a Service ( IaaS ) misconfigured at one time,” and an average of 2,200 configuration incidents. per month, putting every organization at risk. In the list below, Pegasystems, the software company that drives digital transformation, has listed three tips to help keep data secure:

Understand your role of “shared responsibility”

Shared responsibility is at the heart of the Software as a Service (SaaS) business model, and the role your organization plays in securing cloud-based applications is highly dependent on the types of services you use for cloud deployment. SaaS has less impact on the customer, but its staff is responsible for system access and permission level. By migrating to the platform as a service (PaaS), you are managing users and developers. Finally, with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), your responsibility will extend to network and platform security. This is the arena where misconfigured servers are the direct responsibility of their owners, not their service provider.

If you are managing the infrastructure yourself, review your processes and automation to avoid making the most common mistakes:

Storage service data encryption is not enabled

Unrestricted Outbound Access

Resource access is not provisioned by using identity and access management (IAM) functions

Compute security group port is incorrectly configured

Computing security group inbound access is configured incorrectly

Unencrypted Machine Instance

Unused Security Groups

Virtual private cloud flow logs are disabled

Multifactor authentication is not enabled

Filestore encryption is not enabled

Understand how your architecture affects vulnerability

Cloud architecture continues to move forward to enable the use of resources on demand through technologies such as containers and serverless computing. But these are still relatively new technologies and there is still a significant base of virtual machines in use in the world. In the coming years, we will continue to operate in environments that mix these cloud technologies. Speeding migration to new forms of cloud architecture does not eliminate the risk of vulnerability through incorrect configurations. Developing centres of excellence around your infrastructure platform of choice or partnering with service providers who can document controls is critical to the secure deployment of cloud technologies.

this article was originally published on ------- Read More


Thursday, October 3, 2019

NOC: What is it and what is it for?


Digital security and high availability technology infrastructure are essential to prevent system failures from compromising the day to day business of corporations. That's why, to meet the new digital realities, companies are considering applying critical IT services, such as the Network Operations Center (NOC).

After all, the productive processes in corporate environments have changed. Piles of paper have been replaced by archived documents in the cloud with application access. And the most important asset of organizations, information, is no longer locked under bars and padlocks - today data is protected by software.

But how do you manage all of this organically in an increasingly connected and globalized world, where a single drop on the internet can endanger a company's entire operations?



The immediate answer that comes to mind for most business managers is to have IT professionals on hand 24/7 to check the network environment and take action in the event of a service disruption. But the question is, what is the cost for this operation? This is where NOC makes a difference. With the service, a company's IT network is monitored without having to mobilize internal staff.

Generally contracted on demand and according to the needs of each client, NOC brings together a set of tools and processes to monitor and prevent network incidents. Once configured across the entire technology infrastructure, such as desktops and servers, the service generates detailed activity reports and can predict failures, know when updates need to be made, and manage network security against cyber attacks.

In addition, the entire process is managed by teams of highly skilled professionals who work at up to three different service levels and solve everything from basic to critical issues such as disruption to network availability. When a fault is not resolved at the first level, for example, NOC triggers the other two until the problem is remedied, and can even send an on-site professional if necessary.

Service teams can also be staffed by bilingual and even trilingual professionals, answering calls in any country and time zone. That is, everything will depend on the demand of each operation and the contracted specificities, as the NOC adapts to the profile of any company.
But the NOC still goes beyond, far beyond incident prevention.

Through this application, it is possible to collect data on network capacity utilization and suggest scaling to prevent system disruption. It also contributes to the management of the equipment's life cycle by informing each year, through inventories, if it is necessary to replace them or if the manufacturer's support has already expired, for example.

Given these capabilities, NOC has become a strategic, value-added IT service that keeps operations active year-round, regardless of company size or number of branches offices and interconnected systems in different countries.

Still, could network monitoring not be done by in-house professionals? The answer depends. The point, however, is that in addition to impacting on the company's priority activities, this demand requires knowledge of monitoring tools, data interpretation, rapid action in the event of critical downtime, and exclusive dedication.

this article was originally published on ------- Read More

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

What Telecommunications Equipment Installers and Repairers Do


Telecommunications equipment installers and repairers, also known as telecom experts, set up and keep up gadgets or equipment that convey interchanges signals, for example, phone lines and Internet switches.



Duties of Telecommunications Equipment Installers and Repairers:

  • Install communications equipment in offices, private homes, and buildings that are under construction
  • Set up, rearrange, and replace routing and dialing equipment
  • Inspect and service equipment, wiring, and phone jacks
  • Repair or replace faulty, damaged, and malfunctioning equipment
  • Test repaired, newly installed, and updated equipment to ensure that it works properly
  • Adjust or calibrate equipment to improve its performance
  • Keep records of maintenance, repairs, and installations
  • Demonstrate and explain the use of equipment to customers

 

These labourers utilize a wide range of apparatuses to examine the equipment and analyze issues. For example, to find twists in sign, they may utilize range analyzers and extremity tests. They likewise generally use hand apparatuses, including screwdrivers and pincers, to dismantle equipment and fix it.

Numerous telecom professionals work with PCs, specific equipment, and other analytic equipment. They adhere to producers' guidelines or specialized manuals to introduce or refresh programming and projects on gadgets.

Telecommunications equipment installers and repairers who work at a customer's area must track hours worked, parts utilized, and expenses acquired. Labourers who set up and keep up lines outside are named line installers and repairers.

The particular assignments of telecom, experts change with their specialization and where they work.

Coming up next are instances of kinds of telecommunications equipment installers and repairers:

Central office technicians - set up and look after switches, switches, fiber-optic links, and other equipment at exchanging centre points, called focal workplaces. These centres send, process, and enhance information from thousands of the phone, Internet, and link associations. Telecom professionals get alarms about equipment breakdowns from auto-monitoring switches and can address the issues remotely.

Headend technicians per - formwork like that of focal office specialists, yet work at appropriation places for link and TV organizations, called headends. Headends are control focuses on which professionals screen signals for neighbourhood link systems.

Home installers and repairers - once in a while known as station installers and repairers—set up and fix telecommunications equipment in clients' homes and organizations. For instance, they set up modems to introduce phone, Internet, and digital TV administrations.

At the point when clients have issues, home installers and repairers test the client's lines to decide whether the issue is inside the structure or outside. In the event that the issue is inside, they attempt to fix it. On the off chance that the issue is outside, they allude the issue to line repairers.

How to Become a Telecommunications Equipment Installer or Repairer:

Training for Telecommunications Equipment Installers and Repairers
Telecom experts ordinarily need postsecondary instruction in gadgets, telecommunications, or PC organizing. For the most part, postsecondary projects incorporate classes, for example, information transmission frameworks, information correspondence, AC/DC electrical circuits, and PC programming.
Most projects lead to a declaration or a partner's degree in telecommunications or related subjects.
A few managers want to contract candidates with a partner's degree.

Telecommunications Equipment Installer and Repairer Training:
When contracted, telecom specialists get hands-on preparing, normally enduring half a month to a couple of months. Preparing includes a mix of study hall guidance and hands-on work with an accomplished professional. In these settings, labourers gain proficiency with the equipment's inward parts and the devices required for the fix. Professionals who have finished postsecondary training regularly require fewer hands-on guidance than the individuals who have not.
A few organizations may send new representatives to instructional courses to find out about equipment, strategies, and advances offered by equipment makers or industry associations.
Since innovation in this field always shows signs of change, telecom professionals must keep finding out about new equipment throughout their vocations.

this article was originally published on ------- Read More