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What You Need to Know About Securing Your AWS Cloud?

Organizations must be agile to thrive in today’s competitive digital landscape. They must be ready to respond fast in the face of continually shifting consumer preferences and evolving technology. How would AWS security best practices help here?   

Companies worldwide are achieving this by turning to AWS. It enables them to rapidly scale and deploy technologies to meet the shrinking or growing demand, with no obligation to invest in costly IT infrastructure. Many AWS consulting agents recommend AWS as a cost-effective and efficient solution that has made it convenient for organizations to reap the benefits of innovation.   

While most businesses are now well-aware of AWS’s value, many still have low awareness regarding cloud security. Experts at Continuum Innovations discuss some major challenges organizations face when building AWS cloud services, followed by ways and some AWS security best practices to protect critical data from cyberattacks.   

What are Some Challenges of AWS?   

It has been estimated that nearly 98% of all cloud security lapses occur due to customers’ faults. Many of these occurrences can be avoided with a better understanding of the Amazon Web Service’s Shared Responsibilities Model. It clearly highlights that AWS secures the cloud infrastructure but ensuring optimal security in the AWS cloud is the clients’ responsibility.   

AWS isn’t responsible for all security aspects, like protecting network traffic, access management, and safeguarding client data. Most of these responsibilities lie with customers, so knowing what role they play in cybersecurity is key for running a secure AWS environment.   

Maintaining visibility is another common challenge most organizations face. Visibility is a crucial aspect of a robust cloud strategy. Additionally, procedures used for on-site security don’t always work as effectively with cloud infrastructure. Cloud Security Managed Service provider will offer you the right solution.  

Security policies must be updated to increase visibility while ensuring your cloud solutions remain protected against the ever-expanding threat landscape.  

Top 3 AWS Security Best Practices 

Always Use Encryption 

While certain types of sensitive data must be encrypted for regulatory compliance, encryption also provides a fail-proof safety barrier for strengthening the security positioning. All data should ideally be encrypted, including the data that’s stored as well as data that’s in transit.  

Encrypting data is easy within the AWS cloud environment. There’s a native encryption feature that protects the stored data. Experts also recommend using client-side encryption to protect data before it goes to the cloud. Using both server-side and client-side encryption offers extra protection.  

AWS also offers a dedicated Key Management Service to give users centralized control over the encryption keys. Using client-side encryption along with server-side encryption will make it easier to manage the keys. Don’t use or create 

Keep the Cloud Up to Date 

Keeping the AWS cloud servers patched at all times is crucial, even the servers that are not accessible publicly. Relying on outdated cloud infrastructure can leave you vulnerable to many cybersecurity threats that could cost your business millions. You can automate patches for the cloud systems using the AWS Systems Patch Manager or use third-party tools to complete the task. 

Implement Robust Cloud Security Protocols 

Having appropriate protocols in place can help ensure company and client data remains safe from cyberattacks. You must not grant anyone privileges beyond what might be needed. Clearly define the roles of users and only grant the essential privileges required to complete the task at hand.  

Once the user no longer needs privileges, revoke them. This can be accomplished by conducting regular privilege audits and comparing the privileges of all users with their current tasks.  

Next, make sure the password policy requires not only the use of strong passwords but also protocols for password expiration. This way, the passwords will automatically have to be changed every few weeks. Session time-outs and multi-factor authentications help add an additional security layer, making it tougher for cyber criminals to access any accounts within the AWS clouds. To properly minimize risks, ensure all protocols are followed consistently throughout the organization.  

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Things to Keep in Mind Before You Start Your Data Migration Journey

Data migration is the process of “migrating” data from one location, application, or format to another.  

If planned and executed correctly, data migration offers a ton of benefits, including enhanced data integrity, greater efficiency, reduced storage costs, massive improvements in ROI, and long-term business growth, among others.  

If you’re considering putting your data migration plans into action, make sure you keep these three things in mind beforehand: 

1. Consult a Team of Experts 

When starting the data migration journey, many companies make the mistake of managing the complex process on their own. Even if you’re working with a small set of files, make sure you consult a team of experienced data migration experts to execute the process seamlessly, smoothly, and systematically. AWS Data Migration Service providers offer perfect solution based upon your needs. They’ll cover all the bases to avoid any errors or delays. 

2. Plan, Plan Plan! 

If you opt for professional data migration services, you won’t have to deal with the hassle of planning. However, make sure you still play an active role in collaborating with the data migration team.  

From choosing the right migration type and methodology to creating the right data migration plan, the entire process requires a lot of assiduous planning and deliberation.  

Provide the data migration team with the required insights about your data, business, systems, and IT processes. This information will help them structure and systemize the plan correctly. 

3. Double Down on Quality 

Before you get started, make sure you have a razor-sharp focus on quality control. At the end of the day, you want the data migration process to yield measurable, tangible, and consistent results.  

Before your data is migrated, it should be completely clean and free of potential errors, duplications, or glitches. Your data migration team will already take care of this, but make sure you double down on this facet.  

Data that has been thoroughly double-checked and cleaned reduces the risk of any delays or mistakes during the migration process. Run a pilot project to ensure the migration process will continue smoothly and systematically as expected. 

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Top Three Benefits of Moving your Business Data to The Cloud

Moving your company’s digital business operations to the cloud may sound like a risky move, especially if you’re used to traditional means of computing. However, a cloud computing environment is extremely secure, reliable, and easy to navigate. 

If you’re on the fence about cloud migration, make sure you give its benefits another looks. We’ve rounded up three of the most notable benefits of moving your company’s digital assets to the cloud. Continue reading! 

1. Enhanced Security 

Whether you run a small business or own a large corporation, data security should be one of your top priorities. If your company’s sensitive information isn’t safely secured, you could face massive financial and/or reputational loss. If customer data is poorly protected, you may have to endure a bitter lawsuit. 

Moving your digital assets to the cloud is a great way to improve security across the board. The cloud relies on data encryption to prevent unauthorized individuals or groups from accessing your data. Each aspect of your company’s information will be carefully monitored and protected. 

2. Stronger Data Backup and Recovery 

While a potential data breach can take a toll on your company, data loss can be just as damaging to long-term business growth and efficiency. Cloud migration makes data backup and recovery extremely easy and reliable. Your data will be safely stored in the cloud. If your device malfunctions, you can easily recover your data. 

Data backup and recovery solutions are carefully designed based on a company’s unique needs. Depending on your business’s type, size, industry, and focus, you can opt for customized solutions accordingly. This is a great way to reap the benefits of data backup and recovery solutions that are tailored to meet your unique business requirements. 

3. Accessibility and Retrieval 

Compared to traditional data storage platforms, cloud-based solutions offer improved accessibility and retrieval. You can easily find the specific file you’re looking for without spending hours sifting through a bulk of data. 

The cloud never takes a break; it’s always up and running. As long as you have a stable internet connection, you can quickly and conveniently access and retrieve resources from the cloud. At the end of the day, you’ll save a ton of extra time, energy, and money. 

Ready to get started? At Continuum Innovations, we offer top-tier cloud migration service Provider for companies of all sizes and scopes. As one of the leading cloud services providers in Princeton, we’re committed to making the transition to the cloud smooth, seamless, structured, and hassle-free. Click here to get started! 

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8 Reasons Why do you need AWS Managed Services?

Businesses recognized change as a necessity not as an option! No wonder that the cloud managed services are being adopted by businesses day by day. As business people need to focus on their visions and goals rather than thinking about safeguarding their cloud data. Here comes the AWS Managed Services. AWS Managed Services Providers are third-party service providers with experienced cloud experts, they take complete responsibility for your data and monitor the cloud infrastructure 24/7 and trouble shoots instantly if any threat occurs. 

Let's have a brief look at 8 pragmatic reasons why you need AWS managed Services on your side. 

Why do you need AWS Managed Services? 

#1 AWS is a Big Network 

You may find this one a little weird but it does make sense! AWS is such a massive network with 200+ features, the main thing to consider is they keep updating and enhancing their features and functionalities. By handling it on your own, you may not include or make use of those features for your business.  

“Some things need to be left over to the professionals” 

Yes! That “some” includes cloud data. Cloud professionals always run along with AWS and get updated with the technologies, tools, features introduced by AWS so they can provide more personalized and effective strategies for your business. Every business is different and so the requirements differ. It’s best to consult cloud managed service providers before stepping into cloud. 

#2 No Downtime 

Downtime is another biggest threat for organizations. Many stated that nearly 100K USD costs over for one hour of downtime. Apart from this, it brings latency, work burden and many un welcoming things that the organization. Cloud Managed Services protects the cloud infrastructure from any kind of internal and external threats so business people need not worry about downtime. 

Statistics state that only 2% of organizations have the capability to recover from downtime of one hour and the remaining needs the average of 4.5 hours to go back to normal. 

#3 Scalability 

As a business expands, its main goal should be to constantly satisfy customer requests. However, there are frequent changes in consumer tastes and interests, which makes the market demands highly dynamic. Enterprises should be able to adjust and scale their current infrastructures and resources to support the stability and growth of their businesses as their customer base grows. 

High-quality MSPs, like AWS Managed Services, proactively investigate and address your technological problem spots to support your businesses' continued productivity and stability. 

#4 Security 

Terms like cyber-attacks, ransomware have the power to take up the sleep of entrepreneurs. By incorporating and taking proper security measures and practices anyone can refrain from cyber-attacks and threats. AWS Managed Services monitor the cloud infrastructure and have hands on working experience with advanced cloud tools and they act as a shielded protection and protect your cloud data from all kinds of threats. 

#5 Better Optimization 

Well defined strategy, planning, choosing of right things are much important things in cloud. You can utilize many benefits with optimized cloud infrastructure in terms of cost and efficiency. The ability of cloud computing to accelerate agility and speed to market by automating manual procedures is a fundamental benefit. This could involve changes to the infrastructure, replication of changes across instances, and deployments. 

One of the main reasons cloud projects don't deliver the benefits promised is a failure to use automation. However, IT staff accustomed to managing on-premises infrastructures are unfamiliar with the abundance of automation capabilities offered by the cloud. A fundamental aspect of what AWS calls "next-generation" among its MSP partners is cloud automation competence. advanced cloud tools so they act as a protecting shield and protect your data from all kinds of attacks. 

#6 Governance & Compliance 

Whatever your line of work or sector, you will have to deal with a variety of IT forms and privacy compliance that will probably keep you on your toes. While compliance requires an organization to exercise due diligence in protecting its digital assets, it focuses on external demands such as those of the government, security laws, or even a client's contractual obligations. 

Given the responsibilities and tasks of each employee, it is laborious and unpredictable to rely on an internal team to keep your company in compliance with the rules. It is advisable to bring in managed service providers to handle compliance management unless you have a dedicated resource who is devoted to handling security and compliance. 

#7 Enhanced efficiency 

Adopting a cloud-focused strategy doesn't involve moving workloads to a different IT environment. MSPs are rewarded for constantly increasing clients' operational efficiencies in order to achieve Service Level Agreements (SLAs), maintain customer relationships, and grow their business. 

Cloud MSPs are concentrating on constantly monitoring AWS consumption and trends to maximize savings, improve efficiency, and take advantage of new tools as they are released, while IT is split between other priorities. 

 For instance, an AWS MSP will pinpoint places where Reserved Instances (RIs) can be used to save money on capacity that has already been reserved or periods of the day when you can switch off specific instance types. Compared to conventional on-premises solutions, moving backups to AWS can also result in increased cost savings and enhanced business continuity. 

#8 You can Relax 

Yes, you can relax! You need not embrace the heavy burden of data protection with your workloads. We also significantly reduce the resources, time and energy to safeguard the data. AWS Managed Services lets you focus more on innovation and progression rather than monitoring and troubleshooting the cloud data.  

Conclusion 

AWS Management Service Providers do not care about the size of your business and the industry you belong to. They strive to develop strategic plans, AWS Data Migration Service and hard work to protect your cloud data. With their experience and skills, they can tailor the perfect cloud infrastructure and identify the key challenges and rectify it instantly. You can utilize the cloud services at its best when you have the professional AWS Managed Service providers on your side. 

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How Media Sector benefits from cloud Technology?

Cloud emerges as a good to go option for every industry. This technology penetrates all the primary sectors and gets into the media and entertainment industry too. We can’t say that all the media companies have adopted cloud yet some companies have adopted it and stand straight as an exemplar to the fellow companies.  There is a big shift in the way the companies deliver content to the users 

Why does the media industry need cloud? 

Media and entertainment industry is kept on evolving and transforming its dimension in a certain period of time. Once people only relied on theatres to watch movies, now OTT platforms enable users to watch any movies at any time. 

For instance, consider Netflix, The well-known OTT platform. Just think about the number of movies, series and documentaries, Pity hard to count, isn’t it? But its users can access any format of video on any devices at any time. How come it is possible! 

The cloud! Yes, Netflix adopts AWS cloud infrastructure to streamline its operation. OTT Sector is resource intensive and they can’t do more with on-data premises infrastructure.   

When clouds are giving more, why do they limit themselves with the outdated server infrastructure. 

Benefits of cloud computing for media companies 

Faster time to market 

Media firms can easily launch new services thanks to the Cloud, which has emerged as a key competitive advantage for competitors in the sector. By processing huge content files and formats in the Cloud, highly scalable and secure on-demand services speed up content production and shorten workflow intervals. Mediacorp, Singapore's largest media firm, recently underwent the digital transformation of its broadcast operations employing Cloud technologies to manage hundreds of video file workflows end-to-end, including ingest, transcoding, and delivery, across Cloud and on-premises systems. It allowed Mediacorp to deliver content across its 35 brands for TV, radio, and OTT systems while orchestrating workflows and offering a centralized view and control point. 

Global distribution 

Many sizable OTT platforms operate in the cloud and use content delivery networks to provide video to viewers (CDNs). Demand can be unexpected if you're working with multiple regions. However, you may grow delivery on the cloud without over-provisioning to meet shifting demand. Additionally, you may use it to stream live, broadcast-quality material and channels online (as several providers do for major sports. 

Streamlined Content Delivery 

Workflows that are cloud-based help speed up the supply chain. This is so that content can be accessed directly by software and users without a chain of distributors once it is in the cloud. In order to disseminate breaking news or a game-winning goal with all distribution channels in close to real time, this can be very helpful for news broadcasting and live sports. Even better, consider automating the procedure. 

Broadcasting 

Finally on the increase is cloud-based channel playout and linear channel originating. The ability to move live streams into, around, and out of the cloud has been made possible by protocols like RIST, SRT, and Zixi, together with ever increasing connectivity and bandwidth. Warning: connection is still a topic that needs to be addressed 

Better Collaboration. 

More collaborative workflows are made possible by the cloud, particularly in the creation of content. Software as a Service (SaaS) technologies for collaborative document editing, file storage, and resource planning have been effectively adopted by many producers. They don't need much training to start enjoying a great user experience. 

Secured Remote work 

It is commonly known that the cloud, in conjunction with expensive collaborative technologies, makes it possible to work remotely and on the go. Applications, data, and devices used by your employees will also be protected by strong cloud security solutions. Employees can safely access their tools and resources anytime they need to thanks to technologies like single sign-on and multi-factor authentication (MFA). from any location. 

Cost Optimization 

Media businesses and broadcasters have been forced during the past few decades to manage their production expenses and delivery of digital content within the same budget constraints, which is highly challenging in this period of expanding the economy. In addition, traditional approaches and antiquated technology are long past their prime, and cloud computing is the ideal replacement because it is both reliable and cost-effective. 

Scalability 

Cloud computing offers simply unequalled scalability. Cloud computing is available to assist any M&E organization that requires a significant number of processing and networking resources to manage workload fluctuations, which may include some shows or live events. The scalability of cloud computing is simply unparalleled when compared to other technologies, and it gives businesses the flexibility to instantly scale resources up or down as needed. Additionally, geographic restrictions are no longer an issue thanks to cloud computing. 

The way to Cloud 

The process of moving your data to the cloud is known as cloud migration. With proper cloud migration strategy, you can transfer all your data successfully to the cloud. Businesses should also be ready for the changes that the cloud brings in. Once you switch to the cloud, everything changes from business practices to relationships. You can manage everything under this one roof.  

Many businesses still hesitate to move towards cloud thinking that it is a complex and tedious process. With Managed cloud service providers, you can shift your data and monitor the cloud infrastructure without any hurdles.  

If you are running a media company then you can get AWS Media Services from managed cloud solutions providers. Assisting with AWS Data Migration Service Providers would be the right thing to get started with. At first, they analyze your business needs and requirements and craft a cloud migration strategy. Once your data has moved to cloud, they take complete responsibility and monitor the cloud infrastructure round the clock. 

Conclusion 

There is no shortage of stars in the media sector, hereafter there will be more clouds! Slowly and steadily the world has started to adopt cloud computing. By following the footprints of big players in the industry, many startups have realized the importance of cloud computing and are growing along with it. Many more technologies will come and go but clouds are destined to stay forever. 

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What is AWS Connect - The Complete Guide

Customers are the backbone of any business and of course businesses know that and are very concerned with customer support services. From electronic car toy company to Tesla, every business recognized the importance of customer support services and so AWS does and craft an exclusive cloud service precisely for customer support there comes AWS Connect. 

What are AWS Connect?    

AWS Connect is a complete customer service portal entirely built for businesses. Businesses can easily get access to AWS connect within a few steps and the pay scale is calculated based upon the usage metrics. In simple terms, AWS connect brings all kinds of customer-related calls and chats under cloud so that the customer support team can help customer anywhere at any time thus everything is stored in cloud.  

AWS connect will act as an open source so that users can integrate their account with salesforce. Its fantastic integration features let users provide a highly personalized way of contact and communication. One can connect AWS connect with any other AWS service to bring out innovative features. Let's have a look at them.   

AWS & AWS Connect: The Powerful Combo    

When we integrate/connect AWS connect with AWS magic will happen. Let's know what are the services that can be integrated with Amazon connect.  

AWS Lambda  

Users can connect AWS connect with AWS lambda to know more insights outside the AWS connect. This means that you can easily spot out many details like customers' recent activity, their orders and many things even if it is salesforce based.  

Amazon S3  

Amazon S3, storage service is created in parallel with AWS connect. All the call recordings, conversations in chats are automatically stored in Amazon S3. One can also use Amazon S3 Glacier for prolonged storage.  

AWS database  

AWS database allows user to check out and have access to all kinds of data in database which is very important in customer support. One can check out former information of any clients via this.  

Amazon Kinesis  

Once the interaction happens everything is recorded in contact records which are used for real-time and past progress reports. Amazon Kinesis helps out in streamlining that data into AWS database for BI analysis.  

ML/AI  

By integrating AWS connect with machine learning and artificial intelligence, you can provide features interactive voice response, text-to-speech, speech to text  

Amazon SNS  

Amazon simple notification service allows user to send and receive SMS with alerts and notifications so that the customer can't miss out the updates.  

Amazon cloudwatch  

Amazon CloudWatch collects all sorts of information like collects logs, service reports, performance reports, etc.   

What's the concept of AWS Connect?    

There must be the intent behind the origin of any tech services. AWS connect holds the following concepts. Amazon itself represents AWS connect as an Omnichannel contact center which provides unified experience for multiple channels. Users can define the flow and can use the same profiles for all channels. The customer service team can handle everything from calls, chats, voice under one dashboard.   

The Contact Flow in Amazon Connect. 

The contact flow is an overall roadmap for a customer in reaching out the particular customer care. The admin can define the mode of contact with an engaging call to action. Many tools come this way. With Amazon Polly, users can customize pronunciation, pitch, and volume based upon the clients. 

In addition, the Connect service offers close to 100 metrics for tracking contact center performance in both historical and real-time reports. These reports can be exported by an administrator and stored in encrypted Simple Storage Service buckets.   

Tech Requirements 

To get complete access to amazon connect, you need some tech requirements. WebRTC is needed to support various browsers like chrome and Mozilla. 

Through an AMCS LLC-provided public switched telephone network, Amazon Connect makes voice communications possible. In addition to text-to-speech (TTS) conversion using Amazon Polly and natural language interactions using Amazon Lex, the service offers dual-tone multi-frequency signals. In order to communicate with customers, contact center agents either utilize a traditional phone or a web-based softphone. A Contact Control Panel is used to oversee these communications. 

Amazon Connect interacts with third-party labor management, analytics, and customer relationship management (CRM) technologies in addition to Amazon cloud services.   

Pricing details 

Amazon connect provides services in all the primary global languages and one can get started with AWS Free tier that offers 30 minutes per month of inbound and outbound calls, 500 messages and 100 tasks. The count varies depending upon the region. AWS connect has different pricing models depending upon the country and integrated service.   

Conclusion   

No doubt that AWS connect is an amazing service of amazon but the user needs to have in-depth knowledge about AWS to get the most from it. To make the job easier and get the best out of it, you can reach out AWS Managed Service providers They offer AWS connect managed services and manage your cloud data. 

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How RTO and RPO helps your Business Withstand?

Cloud is now a familiar term, and it is being utilized everywhere in the world. So, we assume that you have a basic understanding about the cloud and its features. There is no doubt that the cloud is the safest place to store information. Yet cloud experts always recommend ingesting cloud disaster recovery for all sorts of businesses. This kind of DR plan lets us act expeditiously in tough times and act as a perfect protection shield to safeguard the business. 

Cloud disaster recovery is nothing without RTO and RPO. In this article, let’s discuss what it is and why it is important. 

Why are these two parameters so important? 

In difficult situations, we can’t hurry our mind and figure out new solutions. Cloud service providers might have exposure to psychology too and predefined a set of practices for retrieving data. Based upon business and data storage, this methodology varies.  

Here are the four practices 

Backup and Recovery 

Pilot Light 

Warm Standby 

Hot Standby 

RTO and RPO helps out in choosing the perfect methodology for business.  

What is RTO and RPO? 

RTO stands for Recovery Time Objective, which is the maximum time that the business can go offline. In other words, the total recovery time from the outage.  

RPO stands for Recovery Point Objective, which is the maximum data loss that the business can tolerate. It directly depends on the bandwidth. 

By considering RPO and RTO, the targets are measured. The lower the number, the lower is the downtime and data loss. Every business data is different, one needs to specify RTO and RPO for each application and have to group up the RTO of same number and categorize it as Tier 0 and Tier 1. 

The RPO and RTO targets must be set up on an application-on-application basis. 15 minutes of RTO and 60 seconds of RPO is a great thing but you need to ensure that your business really needs that quick recovery time. Keep in mind, fast recovery requires additional resources, excess cost as well as complexity in operation. 

You'll probably come up with numerous RTOs and RPOs for the many data-generating applications your firm utilizes. The RTO and RPO should be lower (closer to zero) for applications that are more mission critical. Your tolerance will be bigger the less crucial the application. 

Consult with business unit leaders and senior management to determine the apps and systems that power your company and provide the majority of your revenue. These systems are the most crucial to maintain operationally and should have low RTOs and RPOs. Following the creation of this business impact study, you may classify your systems into tiers according to their degree of criticality and set suitable recovery goals for each tier. 

Some Important Considerations For RPO 

The RPO for your company depends on a variety of criteria, and it varies depending on the application. The following are some of the variables that may impact RPOs: 

Maximum data loss that a particular company can tolerate 

Factors related to the industry: Companies handling sensitive data, such financial transactions or medical records, must update more often. 

The pace of recovery can be impacted by data storage choices, such as physical files versus cloud storage. 

The price of lost data and operations 

Plans for compliance include measures for recovering from disasters, losing data, and having access to data that may damage organizations. 

The price of putting catastrophe recovery systems in place 

Prominent Considerations for RTO 

Check the below things before determining RTO 

The impact of the unavailability of certain applications 

Think if the application has SLA with external or internal customers. 

Check out if any other applications depend on one application. 

Regularity requirements and external compliance of the application 

Conclusion 

I hope this article will bring some clarity with RPO and RTO.  Defining these two factors are not just like that thing. To get a best, you need a professional cloud expert on your side to determine these factors. Cloud managed services provide perfect cloud disaster recovery services as well as cloud migration services to your infrastructure and they will take care of RTO and RPO.  

Still not getting the concept of RTO and RPO? Then you might want to try reaching out to services provider who are experts in this domain and understand the concept of these two terms. However, if you have trouble finding the right cloud services provider on the internet, you could simply connect with us by following the link that we have provided.  

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The Detailed Insights about Azure networking 

Azure networking – No cloud infrastructure can function without networking, which can make or break a cloud deployment. IT teams need to make resources and performance work in harmony. Therefore, the organization needs to have a coherent and strong network architecture. 

Microsoft Azure Networking provides several advantages to connecting and managing the cloud securely and efficiently. Azure networking owing to its diverse network capabilities offers users a smooth experience by linking the cloud with the on-site services and infrastructure. Since it is built on one of the most extensive fibre networks, it can support many types of hybrid and cloud-focused strategies. Connectivity and performance levels are directly positively impacted as a result.  

Azure Managed Service Providers helps any organization to utilize the azure environment at its best. 

AZURE NETWORKING CAPABILITIES 

Azure ExpressRoute 

For a faster and private connection to Azure with lower latency and reliable speed, trust Azure ExpressRoute. It does not bypass the public network but connects directly to the WAN and on-premise network with the global network of Microsoft.  

This integration alternative gives the most significant cost benefits. The connections enable access to MS cloud services like MS Azure and MS Office 365 service.  

Content Delivery Network 

Making use of the server closest to the user, the Azure Content Delivery Network sends high-bandwidth content like media files and pictures to customers faster and more efficiently. As a result, significant traffic is served through CDNs like popular sites like Amazon, Netflix and Facebook. The analytics capabilities help with getting better insights about the workflows by tracking the content.  

Virtual Networks or VNets 

This alternative helps Azure resources to connect the internet and on-premise resources and networks. A secure and reliable environment is therefore created for the applications in a way that can be controlled by professionals. VNets can also be used for the following: 

● Creating a dedicated and private cloud-only VNet. This allows services within the network to communicate in the cloud. 

● Extending a secure data centre by building conventional S2S (site-to-site) VPNs to scale the capacity.  

● Use the hybrid cloud to connect cloud-based applications to on-premise systems.  

Azure Bastion 

This fully managed PaaS service offers reliable and uncomplicated remote desktop access to virtual machines through the Azure platform. There is no hassle of managing network security policies.  

Azure DNS 

This is a hosting service for DNS domains, facilitating name resolution using Microsoft Azure infrastructure. DNS records can be managed using the same credentials and tools as other Azure services.  

Azure Front Door 

This is a scalable service for protecting applications that run on the web and makes a secure entry point for delivery. The azure front door is a control mechanism to manage web traffic and extracts actionable learnings about the users and back ends.  

Traffic Manager 

Azure Traffic Manager is a load-balancer based on DNS-based capabilities, which enables users to distribute the traffic optimally across different global regions managed by Azure. It also helps to do the same while providing responsiveness and availability. Traffic manager provides a variety of routing methods such as weighted, priority, multi-value or subnet.  

Application Gateway 

This is a web traffic load balancer that helps manage traffic to web applications. It offers 7-layer functionality for web applications.  

Load balancer 

Customer experience transforms dramatically with load balancers. This high-performance layer 4 load-balancing application delivers network performance to applications. It helps integrate virtual machines and cloud services.  

Web application firewall 

This cloud-native software operates through a set of policies that protect the applications from cyberattacks and vulnerabilities caused by the injection and cross-site scripting. It is available as both an appliance and a plugin.  

COMPONENTS INVOLVED IN AZURE NETWORKING SETUP 

● Virtual Network Gateway: Virtual Network Gateway enables connectivity between the subnet and other networks, including VPNs. They facilitate the following: 

– Communication between Azure resources: Virtual Messengers and other types of Azure resources can be used to make Azure resources communicate with one another.  

– Communicate with each other: VPNs can communicate by connecting the resources in the virtual networks. This is termed virtual network peering.  

– Communicate to the internet: By default, all resources of the VNet can communicate with the internet. A public IP address or a load balancer can be used to facilitate inbound communication between the VNet resources and the internet.  

– Communicating with on-premise networks and devices: VPN Gateway or ExpressRoute can be used to link the VNet resources with the devices and networks on the office premises. 

● Local Network Gateway: This is a representation of the customers’ gateway on the other terminal of the network.  

● Border Gateway Protocol: BGP is a mechanism for connecting the on-site routes efficiently to ensure that the protocol communicates the route dynamically.  

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How is Data Stored in the Cloud?

Every now and then tremendous volumes of data have been flowing up and down in the cloud storage. Have you ever wondered how does it happens and the things behind it? Let’s talk about it in this article. 

What is Cloud Storage? 

Cloud storage is the process of storing data in virtual servers. All the virtual servers are designed in a way to stay connected with data centers that store the pool of data. Once data gets into the data center it gets complete accessibility via the internet. Virtual servers are more likely to be highly efficient as physical servers consume more power and hold less capacity. These kinds of highly advanced cloud computing servers are entirely designed, managed and maintained by cloud service providers like AWS, Azure and google cloud etc., 

Users can store and access the data in the cloud anywhere and anytime! Cloud service providers charge the users based upon the space they occupied in the cloud and they all follow pay-as-you-go model. 

In the initial stage organizations use devices and hard disks to store their data. As the volume of data gets elongated, they find difficulty in storage and move on towards Storage Area Network (SAN), however SAN is also a complicated model requires infrastructure and equipment’s for seamless functionality, yet companies need to need servers and networks if the volume of data increases and now cloud has become the Savior for the tech world. 

Types Of Cloud Computing Services 

Cloud based services are classified in three diverse categories based upon infrastructure, Platform and software 

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 

Platform as a Service (PaaS) 

Software as a Service (SaaS) 

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 

IaaS service allows users to make use of the service provider’s infrastructure, servers, virtual machines, etc., and it is a kind of renting process. The user needs to pay on a monthly basis depending upon the volume used. This service is very much appreciated and adopted by startups and small businesses. 

Platform as a Service (PaaS) 

PaaS is precisely built for developers. Through this service, developers can get access to complicated cloud-based tools like APIs, web portals and gateway software’s 

Software as a Service (SaaS) 

SaaS is a widely used offerings. consider Microsoft 365 or google workspace those are the kind of software applications that are designed to be easily accessible via internet with annual or monthly subscription. 

How is data stored in the cloud? 

Cloud holds enormous numbers of servers includes master servers and storage servers both are entwined with each other and connected with data centers. Like traditional data storage cloud also uses servers but the difference is in off-site storage. Based upon the storage needs the service provider allocated virtual servers. In any case, if your volume of data gets enlarged, the service provider will create a virtual server for you. 

The user can connect to cloud storage through any kind of medium like website, app or dedicated private connection or anything. 

For redundancy, the same data is stored on multiple machines. By doing so, the users can get uninterrupted access to their data in any case of natural hazards or server down. 

There are three ways to store in a cloud. 

Public Cloud: In a public cloud, the user can share the space with other users. Service providers typically accessibility to this kind of cloud services from any devices. 

Private Cloud: It is a replica of a cloud built under your network. No other user can share the space with you. Sector maintaining crucial data like banking, military prefer private cloud. 

Hybrid Cloud: Hybrid cloud has the character of both private and public cloud. It allows organizations to make decisions on data storage. They can store ordinary data in the public cloud and highly sensitive data under private cloud. 

Data Security 

Data is a treasure in any business! The cloud service providers need to provide end-to-end data protection again cyber-attacks and threats. All sorts of data like content, e-mail, customer records need to be fortified with layered security with up-to-date technologies. Cloud Security Managed Providers offers high-end security to the cloud environment 

Cloud services have undertaken best practices to fortify the data that are listed below. 

Encryption: Encryption is a complex algorithm used to safeguard data which is commonly known as “data encryption” Any users need to have the encryption key to access the encrypted files. 

Authorization and Authentication: Authentication is the process that requires a username and password to get in. Authorization is when the user can define a certain list of employees to get access to particular files and folders. 

Data Backup is the most exceptional thing with clouds which is as necessary as security. Backup is the indispensable thing when things like cyber-attack or natural disaster occur. Users can decide how often the data can be backed up. However, now cloud based services equipped themselves with automated backups and the user can decide the duration based upon monthly, daily or hourly. 

Who Can Use Cloud? 

Any business no matter how small or big they are! It can be a startup with 10 members or an enterprise with 1M users. Anyone can shift their business towards cloud. Thus, cloud has a fantastic Pay-as-you-go feature, one needs to pay exactly for the services and space they utilized. 

Cloud Service providers keep on enhancing their features and services, but most business people are not aware of it. For instance, AWS itself has more than 200+ features. By choosing the right features and services for your business scale you can effectively make use of cloud as well as the cost also get optimized. It’s always best to have AWS managed services on your side to take care of your data and the cloud engineers provide solutions for your business needs. 

Benefits Of Cloud Storage 

Off-site management: Off-site management lets you free from things like procurement, infrastructure and maintenance 

Fast Implementation: Cloud incorporates cloud service accelerators with that one can utilize the features and functionalities within days or hours 

Cost Effectiveness: No cross option that cloud storage is cost effective. The vast amount of money has been saved from virtual servers 

Scalability: Cloud is very flexible! you can add as much data as you want in the cloud. 

Conclusion 

The most vigorous nightmare for any business person is Losing of data and thus cloud computing emerges as the highly advanced technology that opens all the possible doors of safeguarding data and gives makes entrepreneurs less worried about their data! Whatever comes and goes cloud technology will stand as a frontier in this era! Hope for the best!