Cloud Strategy and Consulting

3 Steps to ensure that your Cloud Data is Secured

Back in January 2018, LogicMonitor conducted a study – Cloud Vision 2020: The Future of Cloud – which estimates that 83 percent of the workloads of companies will shift to the cloud by 2020. The report also addresses serious data security issues associated with this huge cloud revolution.

According to the same report, after transferring their company data into the cloud, 66 percent of IT professionals assume that security is their biggest concern. The figures that vary over time, but the study points to increasing concern about cloud computing techniques and why protection is not adequate for cloud providers.

Measures for maintaining data security in the cloud

Cloud computing enables companies of all sizes with minimal investment in IT infrastructure to run and scale seamlessly. Nonetheless, taking into account the many risks and threats to cloud security, especially for companies from highly regulated industries such as banking, healthcare, and insurance, it is important to take multiple measures to protect data.

Implement a management system for identification and access

The aim of an Identity and Access Management (IAM) program is to ensure that the right people have access to the company’s right assets. An IAM solution is a critical part of the security strategy of an organization in today’s digitally connected world. Use single sign-on (SSO) systems, multi-factor authentication, and privileged access management, an IAM system helps an organization monitor and control user access. The right IAM solutions help companies to promote safe and efficient access to technology services across a variety of systems while providing a number of benefits, such as:

Easy to access to services through a centralized portal for users to access them.
Reducing the cost of protection because of a single IAM program handles all user access, enabling administrators to concentrate on other work besides security.
Better data protection approach through the integrated authentication and authorization capabilities available on a single platform.

Continue to test the safety measures

While keeping up with the times and constantly updating security measures is important, keeping a check on current measures is also essential. IP addresses, and so on, maybe costly but, relative to the damages that a company might suffer in the case of a cyberattack, it’s minimal. This year, massive data breaches have occurred, causing companies and government agencies to rely more than ever on their data security. The testing of existing security systems is one of the first areas of focus necessary to prevent such breaches. That’s why all sorts of companies are gradually working with white hats or ethical hackers fo in-depth security assessments.

As a bonus, regular testing of your cloud security measures will make a huge difference, not only to ensure security but also to enhance system performance as a whole.

Related Post: 101 Guides to Cyber Security

Consider the potential of an in-house assault

There is a tendency to believe that only outsiders can launch an attack on your enterprise when it comes to data breaches. The entire act of taking strict security measures can be made meaningless by not realizing that an attacker might be responsible for compromising your data.

An attack within the company is not unheard of – indeed, as stated by Cybersecurity Insiders’ 2019 Insider Threat Survey, 70 percent of companies experience indoor attacks very regularly. In the past 15 months, at least one Identity and Access Management system such an attack has been encountered by 60 percent of these organizations. Regardless of the sector in which it operates, the risk of internal attacks should not be taken lightly – particularly given that such violations can often go undetected. Make sure that no user should have access rights beyond the scope of their job to protect the company from internal breaches. Make sure that no user should have access rights beyond the scope of their job to protect the company from internal breaches. This limitation covers computers and software. Remove access to services that are outdated and be prompt when an employee leaves to revoke all access privileges. In addition, place a limit on which data applications the employee/user can access from and through which computer they can access it.

Conclusion

Training users or workers is also important in order to prevent any unintentional leakage of sensitive data. Be consistent with the training and keep up-to-date with development. Our technology consultants and cloud transformation specialists at Ouriken ensure that in every approach we offer data security is an important consideration.

Ouriken’s cloud consulting services identify and prioritize cloud applications, optimization, cloud migration which helps your business. Our cloud security services experience ahs also led to our Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution being developed to do what’s right to protect your data, contact us today!

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Cloud Consulting, Cyber Safety Services, Website Development Company

Things to Consider for Successful Cloud Migration Testing

If you have been following us, you will know that we discussed the methods which can be used in the cloud migration process itself. But most of the tines it may happen that the process of execution according to us happened correctly and efficiently, whereas, unless we test it thoroughly we cannot just assume that its concrete and it needs constant attention and maintenance to run smoothly. That is why just as we do software testing, we have to do the cloud migration testing. And in this blog, we’re going to address the testing considerations for cloud migration.

A comprehensive testing plan is crucial for the migration’s success, once you have decided to move your business to the cloud. The cloud migration process will help you to ensure that you do not face server breakdown issues, database glitches and other errors that can impede a successful cloud migration.

Focus for Cloud Migration Success

The main focus of cloud migration testing is on the various validations required to ensure its success.

Functional Testing

The production-readiness of the migrated applications is tested in functional validation. For ts various aspects a detailed analysis is performed and checked for SLA compliance. Perform end-to-end validation of the applications’ functions to ensure the success of your migration

Checking if the desired output is generating for a valid and required input.
Checking if the service integrations with other applications are complete.
Checking if the object references are working as expected.
Checking if the cross-platform compatibility is ensured.

Integration Testing

To ensure your applications are integrated seamlessly with third-party applications and that communication between them is happening without and issues is an integral part of migration testing. Strikeout the dependencies between applications, and various SLAs that each application comes with. The migration process tends to become more complicated if you are migrating one or more applications. Just consider these following validations to simplify the process.

For integration testing, what interfaces and systems should be covered?
For validation and integration testing, what are the resources needed?
To develop and execute tests with third-party applications, what plan is in place?
How will the identification of coordination problems in the cloud environment?

Many Cloud consulting service providers also provide integration validation as an add-on to their services, which help ensure error-free integration testing.

Security Testing

In the beginning, the biggest discouragement for organizations to move their operations to the cloud was concern over security. Backed up by several advancements in the field, cloud security now has features that can prevent even sophisticated attacks from gaining access to your data and applications. Consider the following while y perform security validation:

Make sure that your cloud network can be accessed only by authorized users.
Take preventive measures against common attacks, and ensure that the measures are working properly.
Validation of data security is important In rest, in use and during transit.

A few other aspects of security testing include data security, privacy testing, business process security, and application security.

Performance Testing

Determining the performance and response time of the applications moved to the cloud is important for determining migration success. This step will also help you in optimizing the workload across resources. These are the things you should consider while performing performance validation.

Checking if the application architecture is supported by the cloud.
As per SLAs, we have to validate response times.
Load testing must be performed in parallel to understand how your services perform under various load types.

Conclusion

Cloud migration is often tricky to execute despite having all that help organization can get on paper, cloud migration is often tricky to execute and can result in more problems than benefits if used misleadingly. Hence, it is important and advisable to understand why to bring a team of testing professionals on-board for a successful migration.

Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations. Our cloud consulting services identify and prioritize cloud applications, optimization, cloud migration which helps your business.

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Cloud Consulting, CRM Software, Web Push Notifications

3 Best Cloud Migration Strategies You Must Know About

For Business purposes companies nowadays have adopted cloud computing platform. There are hardly any companies we’ll find wh does not use cloud today, such as the popularity of cloud. For the successful run of business, there might be many reasons but it is essential to migrate to the cloud platforms in cloud consulting services.

Why Should We Migrate?

As the introduction and updation of newer technologies take place, it is highly recommended to use and adopt these technologies n order to stay in the competition. IT does have many advantages in terms of speed, storage, processing of data, cost and much more it’s the go-to platform every company is adopting right now. Migration isn’t something which can be done overnight, significant planning is required wit required resources. Inclusion of planning should be why you want to shift, what you’re keeping with you, and where is the destination where you will keep all the data again. Let’s dive deep into the strategies.

Strategies

With the necessary resources, the planning of migration is concrete, for achieving the desired result, we can follow a strategy. Though there are many strategies we can use to complete the job, today we will look at the three R’s of the cloud migration strategy. It is very essential to determine the current environment, its dependencies, licenses, types of applications and servers. Organizations that opt for the migration of data and applications to the cloud use these strategies. They are as follows:

Rehost
Revise
Refractor

Rehost

It’s also known as “lift and shift strategy”. This is the most commonly followed strategy when the applications are needed to migrate to the cloud. Involvement of lifting a part of the application or whole application from one on-premise or existing cloud environment and shifting it to another cloud environment, that is why the name. in the process of shifting of an application to the new cloud platform, sometimes there is a need for change in the host configuration. Is your business concerned about operational cost and quick migration without any need of disturbing the existing application workflow?

Revise

Unlike the rehosting strategy, in this strategy, a part or whole application is optimized before migrating to the cloud. This strategy is also known as “re-platforming”. Preoptimization of application really helps in better performance of application rather than improving the entire code architecture. Organizations can leverage more cloud benefits by optimizing the applications rather than just moving them, but rehosting is way cheaper as compared to revising strategy.

Refractor

Not at all similar to the other two strategies. It is too complex as compared to rehosting and revising. It is also known as “re-architecting” because even though this strategy is the most expensive one amongst all three, but it offers the best possible benefits when it comes to cloud migration of data and application in an organization and the refractor approach makes changes to architecture structure of the application. The requirement of time, as well as knowledge about the cloud platform itself, is necessary for the refractor approach and services offered.

There are two types in this strategy namely, partial and complete. In Partial refractor, only a part of the application is modified, since it happens in sequence it results in faster migration whereas, in complete refractor approach, the entire modification of application takes place, which is pocket-friendly and high in performance.

Conclusion

It is not easy to choose an appropriate migration strategy for an organization. Many factors must be considered before taking a decision which includes the right cloud service provider, optimization of necessary application processes, migration strategy, overhead, costs, and more.

Ouriken’s cloud consulting services identify and prioritize cloud applications, optimization, cloud migration which helps your business. Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations.

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Cloud Consulting, Digital Solutions, IoT

What is Internet Of Things [IoT]?

Almost everyone has been heard of this term ‘IoT’, but never could have actually figured out that what it really is. Well, let’s get familiarize to the topic by introducing the person who coined this term. Kevin Ashton coined this topic in 1999 at presentation to Procter and Gamble. Kevin co-founded MIT’s Auto-ID Lab. He believed that Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) is essential to the internet of things, which basically allows computers to manage all individual things. heard of a company named zensi, it’s about energy sensing and monitoring technology, it was started by Kevin Ashton as well.

Introduction to IoT

So, what is IoT? If put in a simple way, IoT can be any ‘thing or object’ which is connected to the internet than people. It is more a device that has sensors in it with the ability to collect and transfer data over a network without human intervention. The technology which is embedded in the device helps it to interact with internal states or within itself and of its external environment which helps in the decision-making process. In short, IoT describes the internet where data is created by things.
Gartner stated, by 2020 there will be more than 26 billion connected devices and will keep on increasing as it grows further and can reach up to 100 billion devices. Just like us, the humans the network is only going to get stronger and will increase the object-object and people-object connection. Imagine the giant network of connected things where IoT does not only impact the standard of living but also how we perform our day-to-day tasks. And just like humans learn from each other those devices who are in a network will learn experiences from other devices.
Here’s a quote by Kevin Ashton on IoT –

“If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things—using data they gathered without any help from us—we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss, and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best.”

Whenever a new product is being released, before going to the consumers they test it manually for the error and defects which that product may come up with, and then we learn from those errors and defects and try to eradicate it. It’s a process. In the same way, a room temperature sensor collects data and transfer it across the network, which is received and used by multiple other devices or sensors to adjust their temperature accordingly. For example, a refrigerator’s sensor will receive the outside temperature and will adjust its internal temperature according to it. And air conditioners are already sensing the room temperature and adjusting the power according to it. This is how devices create their own eco-system by interact, contribute and collaborate. Currently, we are surrounded by lots of IoT enabled devices that are continuously connected to each other and emitting data and communicating through multiple devices. IoT will be the future and will survive as technology grows. All the data is stored in the cloud and many organizations provide cloud consulting services maintain and optimize the data.

Advantages of IoT

IoT has the functionality that devices could be controlled remotely across the internet. So, by the use of the sensors and the internet IoT created opportunities to directly connect and integrate the physical world to the computer-based systems. It will create automation in nearly all fields by the interconnection of these multiple embedded devices. therefore increasing the efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit with less human intervention. It encapsulates technologies such as smart grids, smart homes, intelligent transportation, and smart cities. Some major advantages of IoT

1. Better customer engagement

Automation of action is vastly improved by the help of IoT, for example, a car will automatically detect the issues within the car by the help of the sensors built in it. The driver, as well as the manufacturer, will get notified about it. Till the time driver takes the car to the service station, the manufacturer will make sure that the faulty part is available in the service station so it can be repaired or replaced immediately.

2. Optimized Technicality

Improving technologies and making them better is another benefit of IoT, the car manufacturer can collect the sensor data from so many different cars and analyze them to optimize their design and functionality and make them much more efficient.

3. Reduced Waste

Till now, what we know about the insights are they are superficial, but with the help of IoT, we can get real-time information leading to effective decision making and management resources. For example, just imagine there is a fault in the entire manufacturing belt of the spare part that car which broke down and there are problems with multiple engines, he can track the manufacturing plant of those engines and can correct the issues with manufacturing belt.

Hardware required for IoT

Ever wondered what hardware we might need for preparing an IoT solution? well, the answer is simple. The raw materials required for it is ‘sensors’ which senses the environment, and also a remote dashboard to monitor your output and display it in a clear form. And lastly, you will require a device that can connect to the internet, or is capable of serving and routing. Detecting specific conditions and taking actions accordingly would be the key function of these devices. Here comes the tricky part, we should always secure the connection and communication between the devices and the dashboard.
Accelerometers, temperature sensors, magnetometers, proximity sensors, gyroscope, image sensors, acoustic sensors, light or photosensors, pressure sensors, gas RFID sensors, humidity sensors, and micro-flow sensors are some of the common sensors we are surrounded with. Nowadays, we are familiar with devices like smartwatch, shoes and 3D glasses, these devices are best examples for smart solutions. The 3D glass is capable of adjusting the television’s brightness which is comfortable to one’s eyes, and smartwatches keep track of your daily activities and they also keep track of the heart rate which gives us approximate insights of our health. A device called Raspberry Pi is a credit-card-sized computer developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It has four USB ports, one LAN port, one audio port, one HDMI port, one SD card slot, one general-purpose Input/Output [GPIO] port, and one charger port. The current generation device also houses Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

But, the most important device which has tremendously contributed to IoT is cell phones. Mobile apps are the most revolutionizing contribution to the technology of the world. Cell phones are devices that come with apps and sensors which reveal a lot of information about the user. From geo-location information to tracing light conditions, also to orientation of the device and a lot more information. Since the main function of a cell phone is to make calls, so cellular function, and other functions like Wi-fi, Bluetooth are some of the connectivity options the cell phone comes with which helps them to communicate with other devices. Because of all these functions, the cell phone remains the core of the IoT ecosystem. Further, it can now talk with the smartwatch and fitness band to ease and improve the user experience. Bluetooth, Wifi, NFC, RFID, radio protocols and Wifi-Direct are some major technologies and protocols to communicate with devices based on requirements. Across all industries and markets, IoT applications are flourishing. The IoT has a crowd of expansion over various industries, including the vast group of users, from individual who wants to conserve energy by implementing IoT automation to the large scale companies who want to enhance their business operations. IoT not only is very useful in optimizing critical applications but also they have enhanced the concept of advanced automation which we have imagined a decade ago. Let’s now dig into the capabilities of IoT across different industries and look at how they are revolutionizing them.

Applications of IoT Across Various Industries

Here are some major industries where IoT is integrated and been proven it’s worth. Automation with the help of IoT is the key to the technology of the future.

Energy Industries

Due to an increase in the rates of energy, individuals, as well as organizations, are looking for a way to take control of consumption in their hands. Hence, IoT provides a solution for not only monitor the energy usage at the application level but also at house level, grid-level or maybe at the distribution level. Devices used to measure and monitor energy consumption are smart meters and smart grids. It protects appliances by detecting threats to system performance and stability.

Healthcare Industries

Fitness bands and smartwatches have revolutionized the frequency of health monitoring. An individual can monitor hos own health by the help of it. And if a patient is reaching the hospital by ambulance, his reports are prepared and been diagnosed by doctors by the time he reaches the hospital, and can quickly start the treatment as soon as he reaches there. Furthermore, that data is collected and analyzed by doctors to find various information about the diseases and find a cure for it.

Education Industry

In order to fulfill the gaps in the education industry, IoT provides education aid. It not only improves the quality of education but also enhances the cost and furthermore, enhances the management by taking student’s performance and response into consideration.

Government

IoT also provides solutions for building smart cities. Armed forces systems and services are also enhanced by the help of IoT. Be it better Border Security or high-performance vehicle, everything is taken care of from the data which is collected and analyzed.

Air and Water Pollution

We can detect the pollution in air and water by frequent sampling with the help of various sensors. Substantial contamination is prevented because of it. IoT automation plays a vital role in this industry as is allows the operation to minimize human intervention in farming analysis and monitoring which notifies the user if there is any change in the structure of crops, soil, environment and more.

Transportation Industry

Self-driving cars with sensors, traffic lights that can sense the traffic and switch automatically, parking assistance, giving us the location of free parking space, etc are some of the existing IoT examples in the transportation industry. Like we discussed above in an example, there are sensors in the vehicle which indicate about the current status of the vehicle, so we don’t run into problems while driving. By the end of 2021, it is projected that 82% of cars will be connected to the cloud or the internet.

Marketing Industry

By delivering relevant content and solutions, organizations analyze and respond to customer preferences, using IoT. Business strategies could be improved in real-time.

Business Process Industry

Inventory management and automation are possible by using IoT, ultimately, smart devices will be implemented to track the inventory data in the system. Creating new gadgets, furniture, home appliances, and devices to meet the new demands consumers have will offer a new and reliable source of revenue for the entire business world. A task that used to require the on-site presence of humans for its competition will also be done with IoT. All this massive data generated from smart devices will help businesses to gain knowledge of how and what to create ultimately transforming for the greater impact.

Conclusion

Implementation of IoT is just a beginning, Businesses will get a competitive advantage of this technology who are taking a step to develop or expand IoT technology in services, products and business operations will grow exponentially.
Sooner the digital marketing agencies understand how to integrate IoT in their services and what opportunities and challenges they might face as more devices start to get webbed in the network on IoT.

Ouriken’s cloud consulting services identify and prioritize cloud applications, optimization, cloud migration which helps your business.

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Cloud Consulting

What is the perfect Cloud Computing Service for your Business?

Cloud computing is normally defined in one of two ways, based on the deployment model, or on the service that the cloud is giving. Primarily, programs that are needed to run a particular application are presently more popularly placed on a remote device or machine, owned by another company. This is done with a view as to not to lose on the quality performance which may be due to the processing power of your own computer, to save money on IT assistance, and still, remain beneficial on the market. These machines or networks that run the applications, preserve and store the information, and manage a server system through cloud consulting services, are basically what we call “the cloud”.

Based on a deployment model, we can distinguish the cloud as

Public Cloud

When we speak about the public cloud, we imply that the whole cloud computing service or infrastructure is located on the premises of a cloud consulting company that gives cloud assistance. So the location of the server here remains separate from the customer and he has no physical access over the infrastructure. As public clouds use shared devices, they do excel chiefly in performance but are also prone to or may mostly get exposed to various attacks.

Private Cloud

Private Cloud renders the same advantages of Public Cloud but utilizes dedicated private hardware. A private cloud involves using a cloud network entirely by one customer or organization. It is not shared with others, though it is remotely positioned. The companies have an alternative of choosing an on-premise individual cloud as well, which is more costly, but they do have physical control over the system. The security and authority level is highest when using a private network. But, the cost reduction can be minimal, if the company would like to spend in an on-premise cloud infrastructure.

Hybrid

Hybrid cloud means using both private and public clouds, basically a combination of both, depending on their purpose. For instance, the public cloud can be utilized to interact with clients and for keeping their data secured within a private cloud. Most businesses link traditional public cloud service with flexible scalability and the capacity to handle continuous shifts in demand. Though, performance issues can occur for some data-intensive or high-availability workloads.

Community Cloud

Community Cloud implies an infrastructure that is shared among organizations, normally with the shared data and data management concerns. For instance, a community cloud can refer to the government of a single country. Community clouds can be positioned both on and off the premises.

Based on a service the cloud model is giving, we are addressing either:

IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)

IaaS is the lowest level of cloud solution and refers to cloud-based computing infrastructure provided by a Cloud Strategy and Consulting Services company as a fully outsourced service. An IaaS provider will give pre-installed and configured hardware or software by a virtualized interface. What the clients accessing the cloud services do with the service is up to them. For instance, managed hosting and development environments. A web hosting company is an IaaS provider. Some of the larger players offering infrastructure as a service solution include Google, IBM, Rackspace Cloud Servers, and Verizon.

Benefits of IaaS Solutions

Reduces total cost of ownership and capital expenditures
Companies pay for the service that they want, on the go
Access to enterprise-grade IT resources and infrastructure
Clients can scale up and down based on their requirements at any time

PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)

This kind of cloud computing is related to IaaS although is further advanced. With PaaS, apart from just providing infrastructure, providers also offer a computing platform and solution stack as a service. The IT infrastructure will come with a graphic user interface, run-time system libraries, programming languages or an operating system. PaaS services are often used by companies that require to develop, test, collaborate and deploy cloud solutions for particular applications. Here, the hosting of the application is done by a third company i.e. the PaaS provider. PaaS providers advise a fully configured sandbox and deployment environment for clients to develop, test and deploy their cloud applications. PaaS solutions examples are Salesforce.com’s Force.com, Rackspace Cloud Sites, Google App Engine and Microsoft Azure.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)

Generally, Cloud Consulting Services is thought by people as Software as a Service (SaaS) providers. SaaS providers implement fully functionally web-based applications on demand to clients. The applications are largely targeted at business users and can involve web conferencing, ERP, CRM, email, time management, project tracking among others.

The payment models for SaaS solutions may involve subscription-based (Salesforce), pay-for-use (WebEx) or free. Examples of Cloud Consulting Service companies that offer SaaS solutions are Citrix, NetSuite, and others.

Benefits of SaaS Solutions

Agile Scalability
Conveniently access from any place with Internet
Reduces infrastructure concerns
Customized service offerings
Bundled maintenance and Assistance

Conclusion

It takes hardly a few minutes or hours to set up a Cloud Strategy and Consulting application with full-fledged features that may require less or meager investment. You are able to access the cloud service from any machine or device is connected on the internet including smartphone, tabs or laptops regardless of where ever remote you are located. As your organization grows or shrinks, you can increase or decrease your subscription to the resources you need to go respectively.

Companies that choose cloud services normally benefit from increased efficiency and lowering costs. This awards them an advantage over their competitors and can support them to instantly gain market share. Start-ups opting for cloud services helps them to become profitable quickly without risking investments in huge in-house IT infrastructure, hardware or software. Companies should examine thoroughly to understand their specific requirements and find providers offering solutions that will help achieve their goals.

Ouriken enables organizations to instantly move to the cloud and scale in a factory-based model, that ensures efficiency and the adaptability to adjust with business needs. We also help identify and evaluate the key decisions to start and manage the deployment of Cloud to disrupt brand-new business models and transform the customer experience.