Cloud Hosting

Key Takeaways

Being Cloud Native is often considered crucial for business success in the current business landscape. However, the perception of becoming Cloud Native as a drastic change for a business might not necessarily be accurate. In this article, we will delve into the concept of Cloud Migration and its effects on the IT support infrastructure of your business.

Cloud refers to a network of remote servers that are accessible through the internet, where organizations can rent infrastructure and services from a Hyperscaler on a pay-per-use basis.

There are three main types of Clouds:

Cloud Native services refer to applications and services that are built, deployed, and run on the Cloud. These services are designed to take advantage of the features and capabilities offered by the Cloud, such as scalability, high availability, and elasticity.

A Cloud Provider is a company that provides Cloud-based infrastructure and services to organizations. These services can be rented on a pay-as-you-go basis, allowing organizations to save on both the upfront and ongoing costs associated with building and maintaining their own infrastructure.

The Cloud Provider is responsible for hosting the infrastructure and investing in the necessary upgrades and maintenance. This includes investing in hardware, software, and personnel to ensure that the services remain secure and reliable. The costs associated with these investments are passed onto the consumers through operational expenses rather than capital expenses.

In the long run, it is often more cost-effective for organizations to rent the services they need from a Cloud Provider, as it enables them to avoid the upfront costs of building their own infrastructure. Additionally, organizations can scale up or down as needed without incurring the costs of adding or removing physical hardware.

In conclusion, using a Cloud Provider provides organizations with access to a range of IT resources and services without the burden of owning and maintaining the underlying infrastructure.

Cloud Native Services are those services and infrastructure specifically designed to run on cloud platforms, hosted and maintained by Cloud Providers. These services can include a variety of offerings, such as virtual machines (VMs), application servers, VPNs, load balancers, routers, databases, and disk storage. They can be divided into three main categories: compute services, network services, and storage services.

Cloud native services provide a powerful and flexible infrastructure that can help organizations to modernize their applications, improve scalability, and reduce operational costs.

Cloud Migration is about moving all or parts of your data, infrastructure, or compute services to a cloud provider.

Here is an overview of the 6-Rs approach to Cloud Migration planning: Migration Types

Throughout the entire project, it is essential to continuously monitor and manage the cloud environment to ensure that it remains secure, cost-effective, and aligned with the business objectives. This may involve ongoing maintenance and support, as well as periodic optimization and updates to the infrastructure and applications. The typical methodology for a cloud migration involves several key stages, including:

Discovery: Discovery is used to define the business and technical case/scope, plus assets to migrate.

Assessment: Assessment is used to plan the migration and see potential methods of execution.

Migration: Migration is used to run the planned migration steps, both technical and organizational.

Run State: Designated run team maintenance going forward.

When you migrate, what do you typically migrate or set up? The following is a sample of the common ones:

Migration use cases are specific scenarios or situations where a business may need to migrate their IT infrastructure and services to the cloud. These use cases can vary depending on the type of business and the current state of their IT infrastructure. A variety of use cases can drive cloud migration and technical scenarios, including:

Firstly, lets look at some of the options for Data Migration.

Static Data:

File Data:

(No)SQL Data:

Secondly, lets look at some of the options for Network and Topology migration.

Network migration is usually the most manually intensive as it requires mapping physical infrastructure and topology to cloud provider-specific IaaS. A typical approach might be:

Lastly, lets look at some options for Compute Service Migration.

Compute migration deals with migrating application servers, applications, and server clusters to the cloud. It is not just about migrating infrastructure but can also be about refactoring service architectures for cloud as well. Common approaches are:

Rehost:

Re-platform:

Refactor:

Docker and Kubernetes are two critical technologies you need to be aware of to benefit from migrating your applications to the Cloud.

Containerization and Docker:

Kubernetes:

Lets take a closer look at the business impacts of cloud migration, both positive and negative.

Like any organizational change, potential impacts need to be considered.

Positive Impacts:

Negative Impacts:

Business

Technology

Migrating to the cloud may seem intimidating at first, but with careful planning and the right resources, it can be a straightforward and relatively painless experience.

Key things to remember: When looking at Cloud Migration, it is essential to remember the following points and the mental maturity model.

Cloud Services refer to managed infrastructure as a service (IaaS) or platform as a service (PaaS) offerings that are hosted in the cloud. Cloud Migration involves transferring data, infrastructure, and applications to these managed services in the cloud. A successful Cloud Migration strategy must consider technical and business objectives and prioritize incremental migration based on business priorities. Utilizing rehost, re-platform, or hybrid cloud strategies can help minimize the work involved in the migration process. Although refactoring migrated services can help optimize their use of the cloud, it is not an essential step. If you plan it right, you can do it in small bits at a time and still get great benefits.

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Migrating to the Cloud: Is It as Intimidating as It Appears? - InfoQ.com

Dell Technologies has announced new security services and products, including a mechanism to help detect pre-delivery tampering with hardware.

Dell's new cloud-based version of its Secured Component Verification provides enterprise customers with additional assurance that their PCs are delivered as ordered and built.

Dell generates and securely stores a digital certificate representing key components put into a particular PC at the factory. These certificates can be used to verify component integrity across an entire PC fleet in one go.

Managed Detection and Response Pro Plus is a fully managed security operations solution protecting endpoints, infrastructure, software, hardware and clouds through 24x7 threat detection and investigation; breach and attack simulations; penetration testing; cybersecurity training; and incident recovery care.

Product Success Accelerator for Cyber Recovery helps customers implement and operate an isolated cyber recovery vault to maintain business continuity in the event of an attack.

Three tiers are offered: Ready (implementation assistance), Optimise (quarterly vault assessments and recommendations) and Operate (operational assistance and support).

Security is embedded in Dells DNA. Its built into our designs, infrastructure, supply chain and our products, said Dell Technologies senior vice president of corporate strategy Matt Baker.

Our growing portfolio of security services and solutions is helping organisations tackle their toughest security challenges and addressing the increasing complexity of how they stay secure across networks, devices and systems. Were helping customers double down on resilience in a challenging environment.

Dell Secured Component Verification on Cloud will be available globally for Dell commercial PCs in May.

Dell Managed Detection and Response Pro Plus is now available directly and through channel partners.

Dell Product Success Accelerator for Cyber Recovery is initially available in North America.

Reducing WAN latency is one of the biggest issues with hybrid cloud performance. Taking advantage of compression and data deduplication can reduce your network latency.

Research firm, Markets and Markets, predicted that the hybrid cloud market size is expected to grow from US$38.27 billion in 2017 to US$97.64 billion by 2023.

Colocation facilities provide many of the benefits of having your servers in the cloud while still maintaining physical control of your systems.

Cloud adjacency provided by colocation facilities can enable you to leverage their low latency high bandwidth connections to the cloud as well as providing a solid connection back to your on-premises corporate network.

Download this white paper to find out what you need to know about enabling the hybrid cloud in your organisation.

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Marketing budgets are now focused on Webinars combined with Lead Generation.

If you wish to promote a Webinar we recommend at least a 3 to 4 week campaign prior to your event.

The iTWire campaign will include extensive adverts on our News Site itwire.com and prominent Newsletter promotion https://itwire.com/itwire-update.html and Promotional News & Editorial. Plus a video interview of the key speaker on iTWire TV https://www.youtube.com/c/iTWireTV/videos which will be used in Promotional Posts on the iTWire Home Page.

Now we are coming out of Lockdown iTWire will be focussed to assisting with your webinars and campaigns and assistance via part payments and extended terms, a Webinar Business Booster Pack and other supportive programs. We can also create your adverts and written content plus coordinate your video interview.

We look forward to discussing your campaign goals with you. Please click the button below.

MORE INFO HERE!

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Dell Technologies adds to security lineup - iTWire

Web3 URLs enabled with the launch of ERC-4804 have made it onto Ethereum, allowing internet users to access Ethereum applications and nonfungible tokens (NFTs)without worrying about centralized censorship.

The new Ethereum standard, titled Web3 URL to EVM Call Message Translation, was first proposed on Feb. 14, 2022, and was co-authored by ETHStorage founder Qi Zhou, Ethereum researcher Sam Wilson, and Chao Pi.

It described the proposal as an HTTP-style URL to directly access on-chain Web3 content, such as decentralized applications (DApps) front-ends and NFTs. More than a year later, ERC-4804 was approved and finalized on the mainnet on March 1.

Anthurine Xiang, a spokesperson for layer-2 storage protocol ETHStorage, explained that in many cases, the ecosystem still relies on centralized web servers to access decentralized apps.

Right now, all the DApps like Uniswap [...] claim to be decentralized apps,Xiang explained, adding: But how [do] we get on the webpage? You have to go through the DNS. You have to go through GoDaddy. [...] All those are centralized servers.

Today, most users access the internet via Hypertext Transfer Protocol, widely known as HTTP.

When an internet user clicks a link or types in a website address, the computer uses HTTP to ask another computer to retrieve the information, such as a website or pictures.

Under ERC-4804, internet users have the option to type in web3:// (as opposed to http://) in their browsers to bring up DApps such as Uniswap or on-chain NFTs directly. This is because the standard allows users to directly run a query to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

Entire websites can theoretically be accessed by these means as long as their content is stored on the Ethereum blockchain or a compatible layer-2 protocol. However, the costs of doing this are still very prohibitive, according to ETHStorage founder Qi Zhou.

The critical issue here is that the storage cost on Ethereum is super, super expensive on mainnet, Zhou said in a recent presentation at ETHDenver.

For example, 1 Gigabyte of on-chain data will cost roughly $10 million. [...] That is unacceptable for a lot of Web2 applications and even a lot of NFTs, Zhou added, noting that layer-2 storage solutions could help mitigate some of the costs.

Xiang suggested that, given the costs, the new URL standard makes sense only for specific applications.

On the other hand, the new standard would be useful for DApps or websitesat risk of censorship, with Tornado Cash as an example.

For example, for Tornado Cash, a lot of people cant get to them through their website because theres censorship, Xiang explained.

If youre a DApp and youve already been decentralized, why are you still using a centralized website for people to get access to you"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2023-03/f32c2728-a3ce-4b7b-8cf6-ced309f67666.PNG" alt="" title="" width="4" height="3" layout="responsive" >

Asked whether the new standard could be leveraged by bad actors to partake in illicit activity, Xiang said:

Instead, Xiang believes, like Bitcoin, theyre just giving people a decentralized option they may not have otherwise.

The new Ethereum standard is the first of its kind for the blockchain, noted Xiang, though its not the first solution to decentralized web hosting.

Related: How to host a decentralized website

The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is an example of a network created to do through decentralized means, what centralized cloud servers currently provide. However, Xiang noted that an IPFS URL can only link to static content, which cant be amended or changed.

ERC-4804 will allow for dynamic data, such as allowing people to leave likes and comments and interact with content on a website, explained Xiang. Being Ethereum native, the standard is also expected to be able to interact with other blockchains much easier, Xiang added.

Original post:
Forget HTTP: Ethereum has a new URL standard that cant be blocked - Cointelegraph

GUEST OPINION: Risk intelligence company Flashpoint has identified cybercriminals registering opportunistic new domains to look like legitimate SVB pages, targeting victims of the banks collapse. The fallout from Credit Suisse and Signature Bank are likely to lead to similar activity.

Flashpoint has seen around 20 new malicious domains such as login-svb[.]com registered, with threat actors also creating domains for competing banks like Revolut.

Financially motivated threat actors will act opportunistically, using the same low-level initial access techniques like phishing, to prey upon those most impacted by the failure, said Flashpoint senior intelligence analyst Ashley Alloca.

Alloca provides insights and comments on the issue below:

Financially motivated threat actors will often act opportunistically, seeking to take advantage of newsworthy events. These events may influence the theme of various social engineering tactics used to gain initial access to compromise victims. Generally speaking, threat actors are likely to execute SVB or Credit Suisse-themed social engineering attacks with an emphasis on phishing scams and malware lures. We are seeing the potential use of newly registered domains that can be used in phishing attacks to collect sensitive information or coerce victims into sharing information or sending funds to actor-controlled accounts.

We have seen threat actors have been registering these new domains to look like legitimate pages affiliated with SVB. For example, on Saturday 11 March, the day following SVBs collapse, new domains like login-svb[.]com, svbbailout[.]com, svbdividendpayout[.]com, and svbfail[.]com were registered. At least 16 other domains using SVB were registered. It is entirely possible not all of these domains will be leveraged for malicious purposes, but it is clear in the case of login-svb[.]com that that page will likely resolve to a login page for SVB affiliates, malicious or otherwise.

Similarly, newly registered domains for known SVB competitors have been and will likely continue to crop up. For example, we have seen domains mimicking Revolut, a British-Lithuanian financial services company, including customer-revolut[.]com, logon-revolut[.]com, and revolutbank[.]net. This may portend social engineering attacks with themes of transferring a financial relationship from one bank to another.

Phishing and stealer malware are commonplace; they rank, respectively, as the top two most discussed malware types and hacking services in 2022. While phishing attacks require little technical skill and sophistication, they are legitimate initial access tactics that continually prove to be advantageous, especially for financially motivated threat actors. Following any newsworthy event, it is likely that threat actors will use that event as the theme of their latest attack.

A victim could be anybody who clicks on a malicious link. This could occur as part of a spear phishing campaign, in which a threat actor sends a personalised email to a specified targeted person, business, or organisation. The email generally impersonates a trusted source and contains either malware-infected documents or links to malicious websites. As there are many concerns about the interconnectedness of financial accounts, we recommend extra due diligence with any requests to update bank account information. There are many companies taking rapid action to update their payment information away from SVB, which presents a prime opportunity for cybercriminals to capitalise on this crisis situation.

Its likely that the fallout from Signature Banks failure and issues surrounding Credit Suisse will lead to similar cyber threats. Financially motivated threat actors will act opportunistically, using the same low-level initial access techniques like phishing, to prey upon those most impacted by the failure.

Reducing WAN latency is one of the biggest issues with hybrid cloud performance. Taking advantage of compression and data deduplication can reduce your network latency.

Research firm, Markets and Markets, predicted that the hybrid cloud market size is expected to grow from US$38.27 billion in 2017 to US$97.64 billion by 2023.

Colocation facilities provide many of the benefits of having your servers in the cloud while still maintaining physical control of your systems.

Cloud adjacency provided by colocation facilities can enable you to leverage their low latency high bandwidth connections to the cloud as well as providing a solid connection back to your on-premises corporate network.

Download this white paper to find out what you need to know about enabling the hybrid cloud in your organisation.

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Marketing budgets are now focused on Webinars combined with Lead Generation.

If you wish to promote a Webinar we recommend at least a 3 to 4 week campaign prior to your event.

The iTWire campaign will include extensive adverts on our News Site itwire.com and prominent Newsletter promotion https://itwire.com/itwire-update.html and Promotional News & Editorial. Plus a video interview of the key speaker on iTWire TV https://www.youtube.com/c/iTWireTV/videos which will be used in Promotional Posts on the iTWire Home Page.

Now we are coming out of Lockdown iTWire will be focussed to assisting with your webinars and campaigns and assistance via part payments and extended terms, a Webinar Business Booster Pack and other supportive programs. We can also create your adverts and written content plus coordinate your video interview.

We look forward to discussing your campaign goals with you. Please click the button below.

MORE INFO HERE!

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Cybercriminals register new domains to prey on SVB, Credit Suisse ... - iTWire

Notion and Obsidian are among of the most popular note-taking apps on the market. Both offer a wide range of features and tools for organizing and managing notes. But which one is best for you? Although both of these apps are capable of creating and organizing a knowledge base, they have different approaches and capabilities.

In this article, we'll compare Notion and Obsidian in terms of their note-taking capabilities, features, API and plugins, storage options, and pricing to help you decide which one is the best fit for your needs.

The two apps use different terminology. Notion uses workspaces which are made up of pages. Obsidian uses vaults, which are, in turn, made up of notes. Both applications offer an intuitive user interface that makes it easy to customize and organize data.

Notion has a minimalist design that makes it easy to find items quickly. It uses a sidebar with a list of options presented as buttons. You can use the visual interface or commands to add blocks to your page. The left pane in the interface organizes your workstation into a hierarchygranting you a quick overview of your workstation.

Aside from note-taking, Notion can serve as your one-stop destination for creating databases, managing tasks, and sharing projects. In fact, Notion is much more than a note-taking app. Notion comes packed with built-in features, and it tries to make formatting as easy as possible through templates. You can use the Notion page templates to quickly set up lists, tables, wiki pages, and more.

Another feature that sets Notion apart from the competition is Notion AI. Notion's AI feature can summarize entire pages, generate new text based on what's already there, and translate text to different languages.

Obsidian, on the other hand, has a no-nonsense approach to note-taking. Obsidian is solely and purely about taking notes and creating a knowledge base. As a result, you need to create your Obsidian notes from scratch by yourself.

Obsidian relies completely on Markdown, which you can use to format your notes. Although not as animated as Notion's blocks, Obsidian's Markdown is more than capable when it comes to formatting your notes. You can create lists and even tables using Markdown.

Obsidian's interface is a distraction-free writing experience that lets you focus on your work. Its core features include a minimalist markdown editor, a built-in graph that displays related notes, and a robust search engine.

The graph view is a feature unique to Obsidian. It displays your notes and their connections to each other as a cluster of nodes. You can customize the graph view and have it display exactly what you want.

Obsidian is built upon plugins. Almost all the features of Obsidian are enabled through its core plugins. As a result, you can add new features to Obsidian by simply installing the related plugins. This way, you can use Obsidian as a database by installing the Dataview plugin. Or use Obsidian as a Kanban organizer by installing the Kanban plugin.

This attribute turns Obsidian into an uncut gem. Despite not having that many built-in features, Obsidian provides you with a platform to customize with various plugins and maximize your workflow to its full potential. Obsidian's API is freely available on GitHub, so if you have a very particular plugin in mind, you can try your hand at building it yourself.

Conversely, Notion does not have any plugins. It compensates for this by having an arsenal of features that come built into the app. Notion has so many features that you probably won't even need a plugin, unless it's for integrating other apps into Notion. On that note, Notion has an API that developers can use to create custom apps that integrate with Notion.

Notion has tons of different integrations that you can add to your setup. With the right integrations installed, you can make Notion truly your ultimate workstationyou won't ever have to switch between different apps.

Obsidian stores data locally by default. This means that you can access your vault even when you're offline. What's more, this enables the possibility of securing your vault in a literal sense by storing it in a physical hard drive.

Obsidian's method of storing files also ensures their technical longevity. Your files are stored as .MD files that you can view and edit with any other Markdown editor.

On the flip side, offline storage means that you won't have access to your vault on other devices. To sync your Obsidian vault online, you'll have to either pay for an Obsidian Sync subscription, or use a cloud service such as Google Drive to sync your Obsidian vault for free.

Notion, however, stores data on its cloud servers. Your workstation is saved under your Notion account, and whenever you log in to Notion, your workstation will automatically load up. This means that you can access your Notion workstation anywhere, without the need to carry a hard copy of it.

However, if you can't log in to your Notion account for whatever reason, your workstation will be unreachable. An advantage that comes with being online is Notion's collaboration feature. You can add other people to your workspace and work on different projects and pages together in real-time.

Both Notion and Obsidian are free to use, but they both come with paid plans for users who want more than the essentials. From a personal note-taking perspective, you probably won't need any more than the free plan on either app.

Notion has three paid plans including Plus, Business, and Enterprise. The Plus plan costs $10 per month, and it extends the version history, the number of guests you can invite, and removes the file upload limit. The Business and Enterprise plans are intended for those who want to manage their company and projects through Notion.

Obsidian has two paid plans called Catalyst and Commercial. The Catalyst plan is a one-time payment of $25, and it grants you access to insider builds. The point of this plan is mostly to support the developers, rather than unlock new features.

The Commercial plan costs $50 per user per year. It grants you the right to use Obsidian for commercial purposes and also includes priority support.

When it comes to Notion vs. Obsidian, both offer an extensive range of features and tools for organizing and managing information. Despite the fact that both apps are powerful tools for note-taking, they have some differences.

Notion is the better choice for users who want a powerful wiki feature and an extensive range of features and templates. If you intend to do more than just take notes, and instead bring everything into a single workstation, then Notion is for you. Obsidian is the better choice for users who prefer a Markdown-based note-taking app and want access to an extensive plugin ecosystem.

Obsidian is purely intended for organizing and managing information, but you can do much more with it through plugins. If you're looking for a note-taking platform to organize your knowledge base without distractions, then Obsidian is the best choice for you.

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Notion vs. Obsidian: Which Note-Taking App Should You Use? - MUO - MakeUseOf