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Clear the mist of cloud computing jargon

  • min read
    • In business, the cloud is here to stay. But getting your head around all things cloud is like learning a new language. It's not just understanding the meanings of the terminology – it's a new way of thinking about how we work and store data. To understand the different ways to use the cloud and why you might choose each, read on. Public cloud means sharing If you're using public cloud, you're accessing a pool of computing resources over the internet. And other businesses and organizations are using this same pool of computing resources. https://youtu.be/pHvTNap4v_k Public cloud means sharing computing resources with others. Why use public cloud? Public cloud can be flexible and cost-effective. You're outsourcing computing resources such as data storage and server processing power, but you only pay for what you use. If your business must change fast, whether increasing or decreasing activity, your cloud capacity and what you pay for it changes to match the needs of your business. Go it alone with private cloud Using private cloud means you're using a pool of computing resources accessed over the internet but dedicated to your company. Why use private cloud? Private cloud is more customizable than public cloud. It may be more cost-effective if you need a lot of computing and storage capacity. There are fewer inherent security risks. Private cloud may be a good option if you know the capacity you need and can predict how it may change in future. Hybrid cloud can be the best of both worlds Hybrid cloud is a popular choice nowadays because it meets businesses' needs better than public or private cloud alone. You can end up with a hybrid structure naturally by migrating some services to the public cloud, while others remain on premises or in the private cloud to be more secure. By using both public and private cloud, you can allocate computing resources to either environment as needed. https://youtu.be/_qJ8-KqK6Rg Hybrid cloud means allocating computing resources to whichever cloud environment best suits them. Why use hybrid cloud? Hybrid cloud lets organizations use the scalability that comes with public cloud and the data privacy and customization benefits of private cloud, depending on what they need at the time. Having servers distributed across several data centers also makes computing resources more reliable. Get together with community cloud Community cloud is another option in cloud computing that encapsulates aspects of both private and public cloud. You're sharing computing resources in the same way you might with public cloud, but with a limited pool of users who have things in common with your business. For example, Salesforce offers Community Cloud to its customers for creating, hosting and taking sales through their own branded websites. Why use community cloud? Community cloud may be the simplest and most cost-effective way of doing something specific for your business. As with the Salesforce example, you may have an existing relationship with the provider, so you're already sharing data with them, meaning you're not adding an extra link to your data sharing chain. Take it out of the building with infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) Today the world is full of acronyms ending in 'aaS,' or 'as a service.' When in the past, your business might've bought something and owned it until it stopped being useful, the 'as a service' model offers everything from office furniture to software to meeting rooms on a pay-as-you-go model. https://youtu.be/AHiLgC-dje8 What is IaaS, and why use it? If you're using IaaS (usually pronounced eye-as,) you're using IT infrastructure like data storage and servers over the internet, rather than using infrastructure your company buys and maintains. Big names in providing IaaS include Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. Many IaaS providers offer public and private cloud options. Why use IaaS? IaaS saves on start-up costs, cuts day-to-day running costs like infrastructure maintenance and building space, and makes it easy to scale up or down as needed. Simplify and secure with software-as-a-service (SaaS) SAAS means your software provider hosts the software you use on their cloud infrastructure. You access that software over the internet. Security-as-a-service (SECasS) is a type of SaaS that can be especially beneficial. You can also enhance your security with managed services from specialist suppliers. https://youtu.be/1nACV5tria4 SaaS can make your business more efficient. Why use SaaS? SaaS cuts down on software maintenance and security. It's often faster and easier to get remote workers and new staff members set up. Because the software vendor takes responsibility for updates, you always get the most up-to-date features, and there are fewer risks around outdated software running without security patches. Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) to develop and deploy A place to develop and deploy software in the cloud, developers use  PaaS to deliver apps and applications of all sizes and levels of complexity. Servers, storage and networks as well as development tools and database management systems are all included in PaaS. Why use PaaS? With PaaS, you can bypass buying and managing software licenses, infrastructure and development tools. It lets developers focus more on managing their applications, will the cloud provider performs many jobs that would otherwise fall to developers. Language is power Now you know the meaning of some of the most common cloud-related terms. Further illuminate cloud jargon with CloudWatchHUB's cloud computing glossary. Cloud computing solutions have brought flexibility, scalability and better value for money to countless businesses and organizations. This lingo will make your cloud conversations less opaque. You'll be able to better choose options that suit your business and take action to keep your cloud resources secure.
fog computing

Industrial data security is finding its way in the fog

  • min read
    • The cloud is a smart way to store data and use virtual services. But some businesses, especially in industrial manufacturing, find it doesn't meet their needs. And that's where 'fog computing' has come to the fore. What is fog computing? In 2011, IT networking hardware company Cisco's vice president coined 'fog computing' to describe a system of devices that process information before sending it to the cloud. According to the Journal of System Architecture, fog computing means computation, decision making and data management happen on the path between internet of things (IoT) devices and the cloud. It links to edge computing, where data is processed close to its source to avoid processing in the cloud. Fog computing defines how edge computing works, and facilitates services between end devices and cloud data centers. Cisco defines the difference: edge is the concept; fog is the standard that delivers scalable performance. With fog, security must be provided at the edge or in dedicated fog nodes, as opposed to central security mechanisms for cloud data centers. Industry needs to beat the cloud lag Why is fog a step up from using cloud alone? Well, cloud is great if you don't need to send data to and from the data center instantly. These legacy systems prioritize safety but weren't all designed to connect to the internet. Today, even firm believers in the air gap approach (when to avoid cybersecurity risks, you prevent a computer storing valuable information or controlling a critical process ever connecting to the internet) are tempted to use machine-learning algorithms. Meanwhile, most also know the benefits of using data to optimize industrial processes. Data collection can be a jumbo problem Engineering company Rolls-Royce reaps the benefits of machine learning on sensor data collected in the cloud. Not from their legendary cars, but their aircraft engines. 4,500 turbines continuously send real-time data about consumption, pressure and temperature to Rolls-Royce's data centers. Machine learning predicts and plans maintenance routines, sending parts and personnel to a specific airport before the plane lands. It optimizes logistics, reducing delays and overheads. But these benefits come at a price: One Boeing 787 flight with two Rolls-Royce engines generates 500 GB of data. For long-distance, it may be terabytes. How could you streamline this? You could collect only some of the sensor data. But how do you decide what to drop, so you don't lose something essential for safe operations? Fog computing may be the answer. In 2016 Cisco and machine tool builders Yamazaki Mazak began a pilot to demonstrate the benefits of fog computing for industrial automation. (Yamazaki Mazak sponsors the McLaren team in Formula 1 racing, rivals of my favorite Scuderia Ferrari.) The pilot processes industrial internet of things (IIoT) data from sensors in machinery, detecting sudden temperature spikes, changes in pressure and coolant liquid levels. Like Rolls-Royce, they want to improve safety and predict maintenance cycles. The benefit is broadly the same, but with less data sent to the cloud. A bright future in the fog Fog computing hasn't had the same recognition as the cloud, but I think that will change. We've seen exponential growth in sales and the computing power of IoT and IIoT devices. The importance of this data to business will keep growing. My colleagues at Kaspersky will stay busy enhancing our cloud security solutions, as seen with our hybrid cloud team adding protection against supply chain attacks. Whether you're flying high in the cloud or keeping data close to its source with fog computing, protecting your industrial technology with up-to-date and effective enterprise-grade cybersecurity will be critical to surviving and flourishing in the future.
services multi cloud

Multicloud may be your cloud strategy’s silver lining

  • min read
    • No one expects to hear bonfire-roasted undersea cables were part of what inspired University of Hawai'i's interest in using the cloud. Galvanized steel conduits come out of the ground right where Honolulu's homeless population tends to light fires. More than once, the undersea cables have ended up cooked, leaving Honolulu with a quarter of its usual bandwidth. It's a novel problem, but the benefits University of Hawai'i is getting from multicloud are shared widely. More than 80 percent of organizations now use more than one cloud provider, say leading technology researchers Gartner. They describe multicloud as, "bringing multiple cloud services under unified management to serve multiple service models such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS,) Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS,) and multiple delivery models (public, private.)" Many businesses are testing ways to use multicloud in digital transformation, to reduce risk, avoid getting locked into using one vendor and get more of the services they need. I spoke with Brian Chee, co-host at TWiT: This Week in Tech – a network of nearly 30 tech podcasts and IT Specialist at University of Hawai'i, to find out how and why the university uses multicloud. He shares his advice for those deciding whether it's a good option for their business, or just getting started. Why multicloud? For Chee, it comes down to none of the major cloud providers doing everything they want. For example, since they've been wooing University of Hawai'i, Chee's been considering the value of Google Cloud. But as they've only just started providing infrastructure as a service (IaaS), he couldn't run anything custom on it without a lot of painful retooling. If he were willing to retool, Google Cloud would be economical. They have many and varied data centers globally, making load balancing and failover capability simple. He thought setting up global load balancing (GLB) on Google Cloud was easier than Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, but that will change, as Microsoft and Amazon invest big in undersea cables. Does multicloud mean chaos? University of Hawai'i has 10 campuses and 30 research institutes. Its IT group acts more like an Internet Service Provider (ISP.) They provide connectivity to the research and instruction units, but departments buy their own equipment and services. Brian says between them, departments use almost all the cloud providers he's heard of. Recently they've started turning the corner and using private cloud. It delivers services through IT infrastructure used only by their organization. About three years ago, they deployed a system based on VMware so they could pool resources and provision systems through a portal. On top of that, Chee says university departments want a hybrid cloud environment. He knows some are experimenting with Microsoft Azure, who has a deal on trial machines for educational institutions. He uses Amazon Web Services' Glacier for data archiving with a failover: An alternative destination if there's disruption on the original transfer method. Getting started with multicloud There's no "one size fits all" solution Multicloud can happen by circumstance rather than design. Kaspersky's Andrey Pozhogin explains: "When changes happen – like a company restructure, merger or acquisition – the IT team are suddenly managing a very different technical infrastructure stack. How to best resolve this is a unique decision based on your needs. There is no cookie-cutter solution." Know your needs from your wants Chee says, start by making two lists, "needs" and "wants." When you test drive, use these to decide where to place workloads. Proof of concept (POC) As they offer deals for test-driving, you should set up test runs with the major cloud service providers. Try to verify the claims in their brag sheets and marketing materials. This is important because all the big players are different. "Too many people just believe salespeople," says Chee. "Independent, unbiased testing is almost non-existent nowadays." Find a cloud-agnostic dashboard Look for a dashboard that gives you one-touch capability on every switch port, several views into the inter-device path and the health of everything connected to it. Switch ports can be physical or virtual, as long as they talk SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol.) Chee says market pressure means vendors are moving their dashboards toward this kind of functionality. Always have security top of your mind Chee thinks security is lagging behind DevOps. "They tend to be separate tools. SecOps hasn't caught up with the DevOps folks or a single pane of glass yet, but they're getting there." He's only heard of one tool, TotalView by PastSolutions, that combines DevOps and SecOps, but expects more are on the way. Reducing multicloud risk People often think trying to set up failover between cloud providers is complex. Not so much anymore, says Chee. "For cloud providers to stay competitive, they've had to develop Application Programming Interface (API) sets to manage and control IaaS and SaaS images remotely." Another good thing to include in your proof of concept. If they don't lead by example, the rest of the company will keep bad habits like weak passwords, using sticky notes and personal web browsing on company equipment. The C-suite must also be willing to invest in cybersecurity training and company-wide licenses for security tools like password vaults. Portability is the future Chee thinks the flexibility to move applications and data from one cloud provider to another will be critical in the next few years, and he says things are happening there. "It shouldn't be long before I can shop complex mathematical tasks around various computing clusters worldwide to find the best price. I think that kind of portability is just half a dozen years away." Businesses are choosing multicloud to diversify where they place their workloads among the major cloud service providers, taking advantage of their strengths.
security as a service cloud migration

Why you need Security as a Service for cloud migration

  • min read
    • From small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to the biggest multinationals, use of cloud computing infrastructure and services is growing exponentially. Spending on end-user information security and risk management will reach 188 billion US dollars by 2023, according to leading technology researchers Gartner. This vote of confidence in the cloud could partly come from greater confidence in Security as a Service (SECaaS.) In our interview, Curtis Franklin, Senior Editor at widely read cybersecurity news site Dark Reading, says SECaaS is a consideration in many cloud migrations, but not the primary factor. Not all businesses are ready to migrate everything to a cloud environment – or in other words, to migrate to Enterprise as a Service (EaaS) – but their cloud assets still need enterprise-grade, cloud-based security. Firewall plus access less identity IT departments have widely accepted security solutions like web application firewalls (WAF,) security information and event management (SIEM) and encryption. Franklin says user identity is there: "Cloud access security brokers (CASB) are an option: On-premises or cloud-based software that sits between cloud service users and cloud applications. It monitors all activity and enforces security policies. Some would have called it the next-generation firewall. It's a firewall and access management in one application, but not so much identity." In the cloud, there's a lot of analytics data, or Security Operations Center as a Service (SOCaaS,) that can be added to user credential management, managing encryption keys and identities. What companies should look for Look at the expertise your cloud service brings to the table. Is it just a service, or a service with people? The security of application program interfaces (APIs) that connect data and applications in the cloud is also critical. Franklin warns against introducing vulnerabilities to take advantage of a new cloud-based experience. "Every time you have one application connecting to another, you have a place where a vulnerability can exist. In the cloud, there are many of those." A lower Total Cost of Ownership (or TCO – direct and indirect costs of an application or system) isn't a given unless the enterprise manager has carefully crunched the numbers. Franklin cites cases where companies on volume-based cloud service pricing schedules didn't know their actual volume, or the cloud got unexpectedly popular with staff, so they ended up with high costs. "Many now understand you're not always reducing your costs, but shifting it. You're exchanging Capital Expense for Operational Expense. For a lot of customers, that's fine or better, because it's taxed differently and hits a different part of the annual report. You're taking the money you'd spend anyway and getting more value for it." Sometimes when you're buying SOCaaS, you're buying expertise in the form of people you can't otherwise find. You're trusting the cloud provider to find and rent those minds to you, rather than trying to find them yourself. Built-in reporting and customer support are critical. If an attacker knows more about your infrastructure and environment than you do, it's an opportunity for an exploit. Franklin suggests using these services to stay on top of what's really happening in your environment, as opposed to what you think is happening. What about cloud service agreements? Review cloud service agreements (CSAs) to ensure you'll get the value you need from the service. There must be enough flexibility to set things up so you can realize that value. Know what you want out of the relationship: Harmonious functionality between the cloud service provider and your existing applications. Everything flows from that. Reporting can help you understand what you're getting from the service. Franklin says, "Are you paying for notification? Are you paying for integration with other systems that will automatically act on signals received? Will it play a role in procedural controls or is it going to be active in process control? You need to know, because if it's process control, there's automation. If it's procedure control, you're getting notifications people will have to review. It's critical to know upfront, as part of your CSA, which it is and where those notifications are going." How will SECaaS solutions evolve? Franklin believes SECaaS solutions will evolve in two ways. On the one hand, there will be SECaaS solutions that augment the intelligence of IT staff, letting analysts and engineers be more productive. On the other hand, some will replace human analysts and engineers. The human replacement may be of more interest to small-to-medium sized business, and automation of more interest to larger enterprises. He says businesses should know which path they're taking when they talk to a service provider. "Are they going to make your current staff more effective, letting you avoid hiring or taking over staff roles?" There'll be much more solution development in authentication and access management because it's a complex piece of the security puzzle. Franklin sees much of that going to the cloud service provider that's handling multi-factor authentication. Whether it's a secondary factor that comes through an app, an SMS or something else, the cloud will handle it. He says more companies want the cloud provider to handle all access management, because it's complicated. They want to be able to do it for their employees on both corporate and personal devices. SECaaS bundled into the cloud service provider services, or bought by the business from a vendor, is an excellent way to do it.
Going green

Reduce your company’s IT carbon footprint, and save money

  • min read
    • While digital usually seems non-physical and ephemeral, digital services run on servers. Servers use energy still mostly produced by burning fossil fuels. This means digital services have carbon emissions and are part of causing climate change. Many of the big IT companies are now reporting their carbon emissions. The numbers look similar to the emissions of whole countries. In 2018, Amazon emitted 44.4 megatons of carbon – as much as Finland in that same year. Most of that is third-party carbon emissions, such as from packaging and transport of Amazon goods and emissions from business travel. Apple's carbon footprint wasn't much less in the same year, at 25.2 megatons –  similar to Mongolia. If we don't count emissions from producing Apple-branded goods, their emissions are just 0.6 megatons — more like the Gambia. Half is from business travel, another 30 percent from employees' commutes. Google's carbon footprint was — 1.2 megatons, comparable to Liberia. Comparing these IT companies' emissions to countries shows their contribution is significant. So what can you do to minimize your company's impact? 1. Use scalable architecture With the rise of cloud computing, many businesses started migrating their infrastructure to the cloud. The typical approach is renting an always-on server that safely exceeds the business's current peak load. But people use the internet, and your services, differently depending on time of day, so loads differ a lot. The load at night is probably significantly lower than at midday. For software with scalable architecture, load balancers can automatically add more computing power on a single machine or add more servers depending on the number of requests you're receiving. That means you don't waste money and energy on servers running in idle mode. Most cloud providers offer both horizontal (adding more machines) and vertical (adding more power to the machine) load balancing. To use load balancing, you'll need to build your services with scalability in mind, but once you start, it will save you money and lower your cloud infrastructure's carbon footprint. 2. Use greener providers Where does your cloud provider get its electricity? It may depend on the region. Sweden relies mostly on renewable energy, such as wind and water. France heavily employs nuclear power, which is also low emissions. Poland gets most of its energy from burning coal. So, your company's carbon emissions vary depending on where the data center that provides its cloud computing is based. Bigger services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure tend to pay more attention to that aspect of sustainability. AWS users can choose where their computing power comes from using a map that shows which data centers run on green energy and which do not. Microsoft built a low-carbon Kubernetes scheduler with a group of scientists. It automatically migrates your tasks to different data centers around the world to maximize green power use, minimizing your carbon footprint. The scheduler can be ported to work with other cloud providers too. You don't necessarily need to choose AWS or Azure if you want to go green. The Green Web Foundation has a directory of smaller providers that use green energy. Running computing on your own hardware usually uses more energy, though. Cloud systems conserve energy by allowing a more even distribution of tasks among computing powers. 3. Choose your programming language wisely Programming languages differ in several ways, including their logic, syntax and capabilities. They also differ in resource consumption. JavaScript and Python tend to consume more resources than compiled programs in languages such as Fortran, C++ and Rust. Object-oriented languages, in turn, consume more than imperative ones. More resources means more power, means more emissions. Faster doesn't necessarily mean greener. A program may be executed for longer but consume less energy. You're more likely to choose programming languages based on the tasks they perform, the abilities of your workforce and the rest of your technological stack, but it's worth taking into account the energy aspect. No matter what the language, optimizing code helps lower your carbon footprint, making it faster and less power-hungry. Profiling your software and rewriting ineffective parts can have a significant impact. 4. Optimize your web pages The average web page is now more than three megabytes. The bigger the page, the more power needed to transfer it from server to client, and to display it. You may think that doesn't account for a large part of carbon emissions, but the Green Web Foundation disagrees. Green Web found running a background video on a Web page resulted in as much carbon as the project team's commutes. Remember that 30 percent of Apple's total emissions coming from its workers' commutes? Now you see the scale. There are many tools for optimizing web pages. Google Lighthouse scores your website on performance, accessibility, best practice and search engine optimization (SEO). The Green Web Foundation introduced another tool, Greenhouse, that analyzes pages and checks which domains run on renewable energy. It's not as useful as Lighthouse for optimization, but it can help ecologically savvy organizations choose service providers. You can also use The Green Web App to find out if your site is hosted on a server that runs on green energy. Unfortunately, not many hosting providers publish information about the greenness of their electricity. Save the planet while saving money For some, trying to prevent global warming is a compelling reason to make an effort. For others, it's not. But when it comes to IT, going green usually means saving money too. For example, after optimizing your hosting and code, you will need less computing power, saving money. Your website will load faster, meaning fewer customers close it before it fully loads. And the faster your site, the higher search engines rank it, so more customers will see it.
5 ways to transition to hybrid cloud

Hybrid cloud: Five reasons businesses like yours are embracing it

  • min read
    • Hybrid cloud makes it easier to move your company to the cloud and make fast progress once you're there. It has rapidly become a crucial enabler in cloud adoption and, iin Flexera's 2020 State of the Cloud survey of 750 business cloud decision-makers worldwide, 81 percent  said they were already using hybrid cloud solutions. But what's driving this?  Let's take a look at the top five reasons organizations are moving to hybrid cloud and what they need to consider when doing it. 1. Hybrid is the natural choice Many companies use hybrid cloud as a part of their cloud journey. It's virtually impossible for a business of any considerable size to move everything to the cloud in one go and the part public, part private, part on-premises approach is a natural way to tackle this. Once there, many organizations remain hybrid because it "just works" and provides what they need. Research backs this up: Leading tech services firm IDG's 2020 State of IT Modernization whitepaper reported 89 percent of those using hybrid cloud had tried all-private or all-public cloud before seeing the need for change. 2. A flexible and affordable solution So, what exactly does the hybrid cloud offer? It provides great flexibility and agility. Public cloud means that your IT demands are a little bit like electricity or water. You pay for as much as you use: if you need more, you can buy it easily and incrementally. The public cloud is highly scalable. The private cloud is often preferred for more sensitive data. What's more, you can use multiple public and private clouds depending on your needs. 3. Hybrid cloud can help with security concerns Government tech solutions provider DLT's 2020 report on hybrid cloud security found hybrid cloud users' biggest security concerns were wrongly configured set-ups, unauthorized access and malware. Implemented well, a hybrid cloud security strategy can help provide the right level of security for the right data. For instance, more sensitive data can be placed in the private cloud part of the hybrid infrastructure. An ideal hybrid solution will also help to support compliance and will offer a suite of helpful security benefits, for example, system hardening and vulnerability shielding for protected systems. The threat landscape is changing faster than ever before; partnering with the right cloud and security providers is one of the best ways to ensure your data is kept as safe as possible and you have a clear overview of security at all times. 4. Hybrid cloud for the way we work today Hybrid cloud is your stepping stone towards the public cloud. This is aligned with current workplace trends such as flexible working and the gig economy. It means your data is available anytime, from anywhere, using any device. This is particularly important with employees increasingly working from home and other locations and supporting a workforce, which is 'fuzzy' at the edges and may include freelancers or contractors. With a flexible, distributed workforce, it's safer to have data stored in the cloud and not on devices themselves. The move to hybrid cloud means that laptops and mobile phones left in taxis or stolen with personal and corporate data on them should be a thing of the past. Using the public cloud means you'll be using the very latest technology without upfront investment. Cloud providers need to compete for business, so often invest in cutting-edge technologies and security that gives them – and also you – a competitive advantage. Even multinationals find it difficult to keep up with tech trends in infrastructure if they rely solely on in-house provision. Like other forms of expert outsourcing, it can mean lower costs too. Finally, it can be a real boost to small businesses as it offers them access to the kind state-of-the-art tech that was once the preserve of billion-dollar companies. 5. Hybrid cloud: means choosing the technology that's best for you Hybrid cloud combines the best of both worlds: customized on-premises technology when you need it, and flexible public cloud services for the rest. By combining both, the hybrid approach can also minimize risk. Rather than putting all your technology eggs into a single basket with one cloud provider, you can mitigate risk by testing and moving over services when the time is right. This is particularly important if you're using a lesser-known provider than the big global tech giants like Microsoft and AWS. For newly-founded companies like tech start-ups, being "born in the cloud" and using SaaS (software-as-a-service) cloud technologies is the new normal. But for a more established business with more complex IT requirements and legacy systems to integrate, hybrid cloud is a game-changer – allowing them to migrate selected services with minimum risk. Businesses of all sizes are now investing in hybrid cloud because it's the most effective, easy and productive way to go.
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Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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