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How Cloud Computing Will Drive The Future Of Data Analytics – HostReview.com

Cloud computing and data analytics are the present-day superheroes that can run a business solely on their shoulders. Since the introduction of cloud services in 2006, it has evolved so much, and many big players in the tech industry, like Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and Adobe almost all tech giants, big and small, are offering cloud services at various levels.

Data analytics, on the other hand, is the study of statistics and is as old as pyramids, literally! Ancient Egyptians used census statistics for the building of pyramids. Statistics played an important role for governments all over the world in the creation and classification of censuses, distribution of goods, and collection of taxes et al. Data analysis is the process of collecting data from various sources and studying it to extract useful information.

With the introduction of computers, the power of computation has increased tremendously, and it helped data analysis to look deep into the data to find various answers that can be benefitted from. While cloud computing is a modern technological marvel, data analysis existed long before. Before finding out the combined power of the two, lets look at their strengths to understand them better.

Cloud Computing:

Cloud computing had given all business enterprises the option of not buying a cow when they need a packet of milk. The analogy may seem funny, but that was the case with all the businesses before the cloud. Previously, business enterprises used to spend a bomb on IT infra, most of which was used just as a backup to face any eventualities or when the situation demands. When not in use, these IT resources used to occupy a lot of space and waste a lot of energy in terms of the power they consume and, eventually the money. Cloud services have eliminated all this wastage by simply offering every IT resource as a service. Now, businesses can buy a service and pay for what they use and need not own that IT infrastructure.

Cloud computing services are mainly of 3 types. Infrastructure as a Service, IaaS, where businesses can rent infrastructure like servers, networks, virtual machines, operating systems, and storage without having to buy these costly entities. This way, the businesses like e-commerce platforms can make use of these services by scaling up or down depending on the demand; for example, during festive seasons, they can scale up the resources as the traffic is expected to peak, and on other occasions when the traffic is low, they can scale down the resources. This saves a ton of burden for the businesses as they need not worry about scaling their hardware and can concentrate on other important business aspects. Thats one use of cloud computing, scalability of hardware on demand!

The second category of cloud computing service is Platform as a Service, PaaS. The cloud service offers a complete development framework and deployment environment for any web application for the customers. Just like in IaaS, PaaS also includes infrastructure such as servers, networks, and storage, and in addition also includes development tools, database management services DBMS, business intelligence BI tools, and all the middleware required to build and maintain a complete web application lifecycle right from inception, build, test, deploy, manage and update! IaaS is a subset of PaaS in the sense that PaaS offers all the services of IaaS and more.

The third category of cloud computing service is Software as a Service, SaaS where the cloud provider hosts a software application for the end users to make good of it for a price. The software provider can either host the software application, and all the related databases using its own servers and resources and offer services like Microsoft Azure or, in the case of an independent software vendor, ISV can use a cloud provider's help to host his application. These applications can typically be accessed through web browsers and used by B2B and B2C users. SaaS is a superset of IaaS and PaaS.

By using any of the cloud-mentioned computing services, a business can benefit in many ways. The first and foremost benefit of using cloud services would be a drastic cutting in IT costs. Scalability is another main advantage of using a cloud-based service. Also, since cloud services can be accessed from anywhere, businesses can longer confine their manpower to offices alone. The manpower can be scattered anywhere and can work using an internet connection.

This mobility can especially be useful for startups and small businesses where employees can work from anywhere with any device cutting significant costs on premise rent and other amenities. One of the most important benefits of hosting your data on the cloud is security. On-site data storage is as good as the hardware on which it resides and is vulnerable but when you move your data to a cloud, you can rest assured as long as your cloud provider is operational, your data is in safe hands. Cloud service providers offer data security not only from physical theft, natural disasters, and damage but also from hackers and data burglars.

The above gives you an idea of cloud services and how a business can benefit immensely. Lets move on to our next superhero of a business, data analytics.

Data analytics:

Have you ever encountered a puzzle on social media where you need to find a hidden figure embedded inside an image within 30 seconds and if you find it successfully, they claim you have extraordinary IQ? You might be familiar with finding the differences between two almost identical images in magazines or perhaps you would recollect those questions from a competitive exam where you need to find the number or shape that comes next in a series of numbers or shapes. Do you know what is the one thing that is required to solve these types of questions where at first these images, shapes, and numbers appear to be very ordinary and typical? Analytical observation! The ability to analyze the given data and arrive at a conclusion is called analytical thinking or observation.

Data analytics are used to analyze what appears to be meaningless, raw, and abstract data to discover, interpret, and communicate meaningful patterns from that data. The interpretations and patterns thus obtained can be used to optimize a business and can help perform it more efficiently by providing various insights. Since data will be huge and cannot be interpreted by humans, various techniques and processes used to interpret the data have been automated into various mechanical processes, and algorithms were designed to be used on raw data. Implementing data analytics in a business will optimize its performance in various ways such as reducing operational costs by identifying more efficient ways of conducting business, making better decisions, finding customer behaviors, and discovering new business opportunities and trends.

In todays digital age, every business needs data for its success as data conveys many important things. If a business ignores the data, it may miss out on some important opportunities or, even worse, may crash the business. Based on what type of analytics you use on the data, the same is divided into 4 major types. Descriptive analytics on data will give you a description of what happened in the past. This type of data analytics will help you look into what happened previously to plan a course of action. Diagnostic analytics of data will diagnose why and how something has happened, whether good or bad. If it is good, a business can follow it and if it is bad, a business can examine ways to prevent it. Predictive analytics predict future trends based on the current data. These predictions will help prepare businesses for big business opportunities or eventualities. Prescriptive analytics will help guide a business by offering various courses of action on how to proceed based on the given data.

All 4 categories of data analytics mentioned above will help a business to understand its current situation through descriptive analytics, how it got there through diagnostic analytics, where it is headed through predictive analytics, and finally, how to proceed further through prescriptive analytics. Depending on the problem you are facing in your business or trying to set the future goals of your business, you may choose all or some of the data analytics.

But to apply the various analytics, you need the raw material, which is data. The more data you analyze, the more accurate the results will be.

The combination:

Now that we have understood how a business can benefit from both cloud computing and data analytics, lets look at what the combination does to a business.

Theres an ocean of data, all right! But to mine those huge volumes of data and convert it into actionable info, you need to have a powerful infrastructure in-house, more so if the data is stored on-site. Applying data analytics on such in-house stored data is a daunting task. This is where the cloud comes in. Many cloud platforms offer storage solutions to move your enormous data onto the cloud. Not only that, apart from offering cloud-based storage solutions, these cloud platforms also offer integrated cloud analytics to apply to your data.This offers various benefits to a business, the first being not having a host of infrastructure at your premises. The second big benefit is you can easily build customized reports based on the geographical location of your business branches as the data pertaining to all these different locations is now available on the cloud. The third big advantage is the cloud analytics the cloud platform offers are much faster, more robust, and safe than the in-house ones. And lastly, the data will be safe and secure on a cloud rather than on-premise!

All these advantages of combining cloud computing with data analytics will increase the efficiency of a business by arriving at various action plans and staying ahead!

As far as the question of how cloud computing will drive the future of data analytics, it is already driving. In the future, too, we can see these two evolving superheroes shouldering many big businesses to their successes!

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SA’s online threats spiked in October – IT-Online

The November Edition of Trellixs Cyber Threat Intelligence Briefing for South Africa has shown a dip from around 2,6-million total files detected in August, to 2,4-million in September, before shooting back up, past the 2,7-million mark, in October.

This top line data measured all files, including malicious and innocuous files, with public utilities, education institutions and financial services organisations recording the highest incidences.

On closer inspection, the volume of malicious threat campaigns saw a spike, from just over 5 000 files to over 20 000 in September and back down to over 10 000 in October. By far, the highest detected threat was of the MyKings Botnet Clipboard Stealer.

With South African investors entering the cryptocurrency market at a faster pace than ever, we are becoming a more attractive target for global cybercriminals as crypto has become their biggest target, says Carlo Bolzonello, country manager at Trellix South Africa. Alarmingly, the MyKings malware is aggressively used to install itself on machines to download crypto wallets and addresses, allowing hacking groups to clear out users crypto wallets.

Other common threats over the period include: An offspring of the Vega Stealer, the Zeppelin (Buran) ransomware group, which originated out of the United States and has proliferated globally, predominantly targeting the financial services and communications sectors.

Vice Society ransomware group is predominantly known for exploiting system vulnerabilities, especially where organisations may be slow to institute patches for prior threats. Threat actors will typically leverage access brokers, who sell the relevant tool on the dark web.

Crackonosh Malware, which is distributed in cracked software, as well as the Telerik UI Exploitation, which leads to malware infection by exploiting the ASP.net patch last updated in 2019.

Long-term trends

Two of the leading threat actors that have emerged in the South African landscape since the beginning of 2022 are the MuddyWaters Group and UNC1945, which target the banking, finance outsourcing, and hosting services, as well as utilities.Using similar techniques and some of the same tools (like Ligolo and impacket), these infiltrate environments to steal credentials. MuddyWaters might also go further, leaving ransomware in environments, while selling credentials on to third-parties, once acquired.

South Africa has seen a growing emergence of threat actors, using tools like CrackMapExec and BadPotato, which are quite openly available and conduct surreptitious vulnerability assessments of systems to access privileges, Bolzonello says. Other Threat Actors, like APT28 will go after cloud accounts and infrastructure, moving laterally on systems with minimal detection.

Staying abreast of some of these evolving threats will require a comprehensive strategy for cloud-hosted and on-premise threat detection using live data from security operations centres (SOC), he adds.

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Developing Applications in Space with Azure Orbital Space SDK – InfoQ.com

Microsoft recently announced the preview release of the Azure Orbital Space SDK to provide developers with a secure hosting platform and application toolkit designed to enable them to create, deploy, and operate applications on-orbit.

With the SDK, developers have access to templates, samples, and documentation to make it easy to get up and running with template applications for common workload patterns, such as earth observation image processing. In addition, a "virtual test harness" allows developers to quickly test their applications on the ground against an instance of the host platform.

Source: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/any-developer-can-be-a-space-developer-with-the-new-azure-orbital-space-sdk/

Furthermore, the blog post explains that developers can leverage the SDK to write and host more intelligent applications on-board satellite capturing data, use time more efficiently, and even autonomously reconfigure applications. The SDK provides a standard template for completing imaging activities, making it simpler to transfer models and applications from one satellite configuration to another - preventing developers from writing a new solution each time they launch a spacecraft application.

In addition, the SDK also enables more sophisticated management of satellite communications by providing a compute fabric with networking capabilities for hosting telecommunication workloads. Operators can migrate applications more quickly from on-ground cell sites to satellites in space, providing higher resiliency and network utilization.

Steven Kitay, a senior director at Microsoft Azure Space, told InfoQ:

At Microsoft, we are on a mission to combine the power of the cloud with the possibilities of space, and the SDK is the latest way to turn those possibilities into realities. The Azure Orbital Space SDK makes it easier for space developers to create secure applications that run on spacecraft. They can build applications to task, acquire, and process imagery and downlink it from satellites to ground stations. This approach has many benefits for developers and satellite operators alike, including saving time since the data is captured at the edge, allowing for reconfigurability, and providing satellite interoperability and scale.

Earlier in April, Microsoft launched the Azure Space Partner Community and disclosed its first space community partners, including Loft Orbital, Ball Aerospace, and Thales Alenia Space. With the SDK preview release, the company adds Xplore, who will help them continue to shape the future of space technologies and services. It includes leveraging the SDK to gather new insights into how edge computing solutions can better enable government and commercial customers to achieve their mission objectives. Furthermore, Microsofts existing community partners will leverage the SDK.

The Azure Orbital Space SDK is available via private preview for companies through the Azure Space Partner Community and universities through the Azure Space Academic Outreach Program.

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Keep Your Cloud Secure: A Fitness Routine for Your Cloud Environment | – Spiceworks News and Insights

Companies are increasing their cloud adoption. Simultaneously, cloud environments face both the security challenges of on-premises environments and new ones that arise from their core benefits. Hence, companies should become smarter about their defenses. Here, Mark Kedgley, CTO, Netwrix, shares the best practices regarding cybersecurity defenses.

I find that the second week of a diet is easier than the first I have always given up by then! While we all know that the only way to achieve lasting fitness is to eat smarter and be active, it is difficult to stop looking for a magic pill. We want to believe that just a kale smoothie will deliver the results we want.

Similarly, there are no shortcuts to attaining strong cybersecurity, and many organizations are falling short of their goals. Netwrix recently surveyed over 700 IT security professionals, and there were a couple of findings that should grab everyones attention:

Source: Netwrix 2022 Cloud Security Report

Even as the threat to cloud IT systems grows, organizations are increasing their cloud adoption. About 54% of workloads are planned to be in the cloud by the end of 2023, compared to 41% today. Accordingly, it is vital to get a lot smarter about cybersecurity defenses.

As with fitness, strong cybersecurity requires disciplined, consistent practice. It is not quite no pain no gain, but it is much more than just buying a SIEM system and configuring some firewall rules. Indeed, cloud environments face both the security challenges of on-premises environments and new ones that arise from their core benefits, such as:

See More: Cloud Security Posture Management: Four Ways To Clear Your Clouded Vision

Let us assume that a strategic business case has already been made to migrate to the cloud. Today that often happens when the realization dawns that a new data center will be needed or a hardware refresh is coming around. The eye-watering costs and the anticipated logistical challenges almost inevitably lead to the conclusion that cloud computing would make life much better.

A key question that decision-makers should consider: are we re-hosting, re-platforming, or re-architecting? The answer is largely driven by whether or not the assets in question are in-house developed applications and the current state and future direction of IT services. For most organizations, it is a combination of all three paths because every application has different requirements for now and moving forward. If you are stuck with any legacy applications running on old platforms, then it is likely that a hybrid cloud is coming your way. Then you will have the opportunity to reap the benefits of DevOps with a CI/CD pipeline and instantly refreshed, elastic, container-based microservices applications down the line!

From a security standpoint, the cloud is highly attractive if it removes your data center security and business continuity responsibilities. However, even though you will no longer have a physical data center to secure, you will need to implement new access security controls and get a clear understanding of the activities and rights of your in-house resources and those of the service provider.

Start with the basics. One fundamental security best practice is the principle of least privilege. But that principle is as likely to be flouted in the cloud as on-premises. It is simply easier to over-provision accounts than to tailor rights as tightly as possible, much as it is easier to overindulge in treats or skip todays workout than to stick to your fitness plan. For help, look to cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM) tools that facilitate processes like regular entitlement reviews to accurately enforce the least privilege, as well as monitor user activity and maintain clear and complete audit trails. Also, consider adopting a zero standing privilege (ZSP) approach in which privileged access is granted only temporarily, on demand, when required.

Multifactor authentication (MFA) offers another layer of identity security, helping to prevent the hijacking of credentials. In many cloud environments, MFA is offered as a configurable option but is not a default setting. Organizations need to weigh the benefits of increased security against the risk of user frustration and productivity losses.

Pre-built images provide a good starting point for hardening an environment. It is vital to remember that hardening is not a one-time operation; you also need automated, continuous monitoring for drift backed by effective reporting and alerting. It is rather like an exercise log that helps you keep your fitness program on track.

However, effective change control can be a steep challenge. You need a consistent picture across all cloud systems in use, including hybrid and private clouds, as well as the traditional data center and legacy IT platforms and applications. And on top of gaining complete visibility into all changes, you need to understand whether each change was planned or unplanned, good or bad, expected or potentially malicious. Again, there are tools and technologies that can help you achieve and maintain a hardened cloud or hybrid infrastructure.

Cloud technologies and platforms are comparatively new, so none of us have as much experience with the challenges as we do with systems like Linux and Windows. So set the alarm clock and get to the gym early as soon as you finish your workout, there is another busy day of cloud security to get on with!

What are the best practices you are following to keep your cloud environment secure? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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Keep Your Cloud Secure: A Fitness Routine for Your Cloud Environment | - Spiceworks News and Insights

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US Department of the Interior seeks $1b single-vendor cloud contract – The Register

The United States Department of the Interior has posted a final solicitation for a $1 billion cloud computing services contract that runs for 11 years and will be awarded to a single vendor.

According to the final request for proposals [PDF], the department wants a "single Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity contractor" that will deliver cloud hosting across the DoI.

The department, among other things, looks after National Parks. It is supposed to protect the US's natural resources and manage them as commercial entities (it employs park rangers at the Grand Canyon for example).

Under Cloud Hosting Service III, it wants a single Virtual Private Center for cloud services to support its cloud and managed service requirements.

Under previous Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, the department controversially opened some of those federal lands to oil, gas and coal prospectors.

Just two months ago, a federal judge put a stop to coal leases on public lands, with the Obama-era moratorium reinstated under current Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a member of the Native American Pueblo people who has advocated for investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help clean up legacy pollution.

Now the department is looking for a single vendor for a "green IT" solution, saying the main drivers of the effort are a push towards cloud migration and datacenter consolidation, with the notice saying it hoped to "reduce the IT footprint for agencies," consolidate "traditional DCs" (implying it plans to cut a few), and save on hardware. It also claimed the contractor would help terh Department improve its "overall IT security posture" and shift IT investments to more "efficient" computing platforms and technologies.

The winning bidder will need to meet Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) security requirements, so likely will be one of the larger cloud service providers (CSPs), so what it can actually do for carbon offsets will vary though theoretically there would be environmental economies of scale.

The security aspect will be worthwhile according to a 2020 pen-testing report from the department's inspector general, among other failings, the DoI internal wireless network could be broken into over the air using a smartphone and under $200 worth of electronics stuffed into a backpack.

Previously, the DoI contracted its cloud under a multi-vendor contract, with previous tussles over services to the department including a knockdown fight between Microsoft and Google when the department found the latter's apps were not sufficiently "secure."

In 2013, the DoI spent $10 billion on its Foundation Cloud Hosting Services, contracted out to 10 vendors including Verizon.

The current $1 billion project is dwarfed by the Department of Defense's Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability mega-deal, the JEDI replacement that handed up to $9 billion to AWS but whoever scores this one, at least, will not have to divide the spoils.

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Singapore’s government cloud saves country 50% in hosting costs – IT PRO

The Singapore government has managed to save around 50% of its hosting costs after moving to the cloud, according to a recent cost-benefit study.

Around 60% of the government's eligible systems have been migratedthe government commercial cloud (GCC), said Janil Puthucheary, senior minister of state at the ministry of communications and information, and minister-in-charge of GovTech, the nations digital transformation agency, after a continued effort to shift more reliance on cloud infrastructure over time.

New systems are now being developed directly on GCC by default, resulting in significantly shorter lead times, and ensuring the governments engineers and partners become more experienced in cloud development and deployment, said the minister.

Moving software development onto the cloud also allows developers to focus less on infrastructure and compliance, and more on developing application logic, saidPuthucheary. This saves countless hours and reduces human errors.

The minister underlined that the government hasnt been able to grow its cloud capabilities or create a strong tech culture by itself. He said that partnerships are vital and the GCC wouldnt have been possible without these links to cloud service providers.

One of the partnerships the government has established iswith the Singapore Financial Data Exchange (SGFinDex) which was developed in collaboration with seven participating banks. It gives individuals a consolidated view of their financial information held across different government agencies and financial institutions.

Hybrid cloud for video surveillance

What it is and why you'll want one

Its the worlds first public digital infrastructure to use a centrally managed online consent system, backed by a national digital identity, saidPuthucheary. SGFinDex has expanded beyond government agencies and banks, to include insurance companies, and so enhancing the financial planning process for our users.

The cloud has been a focus for the government recently after it chose Microsoft in February 2022 to develop a sovereign cloud to accelerate the digital transformation of the countrys Home Team Science and Technology agency (HTX).

Its set to be built on the tech giants Azure platform and provide HTX with high-performance cloud computing and data storage capabilities. At the time, the agency was set to use the infrastructure to quickly adopt and produce new technologies.

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LEOcloud and Axiom Space cooperate on edge processing in space – SpaceNews

SAN FRANCISCO LEOcloud, a startup focused on space-based edge computing, announced a strategic collaboration agreement Nov. 15 with commercial space station provider Axiom Space.

Under the agreement, the companies will work together to develop and deliver space-based cloud services linked to terrestrial cloud computers.

The value and benefit of edge computing on Earth is well known and understood, Dennis Gatens, LEOcloud CEO and founder, told SpaceNews. Extending that edge into space is the underlying value proposition here. Compute and data storage needs will be met in a local environment versus the application workloads run back on Earth.

For data customers, the primary benefit will be reducing the timeframe from raw data to actionable insight, whether its a government, military or commercial customer, Gatens added.

LEOclouds space-based infrastructure will be designed to host Microsoft, Red Hat and other cloud services.

Microsoft shares LEOclouds strategic vision to extend cloud services into space.

Azure Space hosted on LEOclouds infrastructure will enable customers to run artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in orbit while collaborating with colleagues on Earth.

Our collaboration combines the possibilities of space with the power of Microsoft Azure extending its capabilities anywhere in the universe through new space infrastructure making cloud connectivity and compute increasingly attainable for all at the ultimate edgeon-orbit in space, Steve Kitay, Microsoft Azure Space senior director, said in a statement. Together, Microsoft and LEOcloud can unlock brand new edge and cloud computing scenarios equipping organizations around the globe with fresh insights from space data to drive innovative solutions to their most complex and time-consuming questions.

Similarly, Red Hat sees its collaboration with LEOcloud as helping to provide a common foundation from core to edge to cloud to deliver a reliable and secure infrastructure for mission critical, high-stakes environments like space, Francis Chow, Red Hat Edge vice president and general manager, said in a statement.

LEOcloud has been establishing relationships with industrial partners since the company was founded in 2021 to offer edge computing for space operations and to establish a constellation of space-based data centers.

Partners include Exodus Orbitals, a startup developing an application hosting platform in space, ground segment-as-a-service startup Leaf Space and Ramon.Space, a startup that offers computers designed for the space environment.

Ramon.Space has significant heritage in delivering compute and data-storage solutions into a number of projects, including deep-space projects, Gatens said. That enables companies like LEOcloud to deliver it as part of a service.

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Cloudways Launches Black Friday Offers and a New Pricing Tool to Help Small Businesses – Business Wire

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cloudways, the multi-cloud managed hosting platform and subsidiary of DigitalOcean (NYSE:DOCN), announces the launch of its Web Hosting Savings Calculator for small businesses. As companies prepare for the holiday online shopping blitz and look ahead to 2023, the new tool aims to help small businesses to calculate their expenditures, stay on top of their finances, and more easily evaluate the costs involved in embracing cloud hosting technology.

Rising costs and inflation have presented formidable obstacles to the growth of small businesses and freelancers in 2022 and are predicted to continue their upward trend in 2023. With a shift from brick-and-mortar transactions toward e-commerce purchasing, many companies that depend on web traffic are seeking cost-effective ways to optimize the speed, reliability and security of their online businesses and keep their expenses in check.

The Web Hosting Savings Calculator allows businesses to input details about their website and traffic and receive a comparison of hosting plans across a variety of companies.

Beginning November 14th, in advance of Black Friday/Cyber Monday, Cloudways is also helping small businesses cut costs at a crucial time by offering special pricing for their core web hosting products offering 40% off for 4 months and up to 30 free migrations.

Cloudways champions small businesses, offering flexible and easy-to-use services that make it straightforward for a business to build a modern online presence.

We recognize that small businesses are hurting from rising costs due to inflation and the wider economic conditions, says Aaqib Gadit, SVP, General Manager of Cloudways. Cloudways is proud to offer a service that lets small businesses quickly and affordably build a modern, secure, high performing digital presence. With the launch of the Web Hosting Savings Calculator and our Black Friday offers, we hope we can contribute a little bit to helping the bottom line of small businesses around the world.

About CloudwaysFounded in 2012, Cloudways, a DigitalOcean company, is an intuitive, one-click managed cloud hosting platform that hosts over 100,000 servers globally. G2s Best Managed Hosting Provider for 2021, the platform lets users host WordPress and WooCommerce websites on top of a variety of cloud-hosting providers, including DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Vultr, and Linode. The platform features a web app management function that easily launches cloud servers for the deployment of WordPress, Magento, and PHP.

About DigitalOcean:DigitalOcean simplifies cloud computing so developers and businesses can spend more time building software that changes the world. With its mission-critical infrastructure and fully managed offerings, DigitalOcean helps developers, startups and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) rapidly build, deploy and scale applications to accelerate innovation and increase productivity and agility. DigitalOcean combines the power of simplicity, community, open source and customer support so customers can spend less time managing their infrastructure and more time building innovative applications that drive business growth.

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Cloud security is a shared responsibility enterprises must still ensure their data remains safe in the cloud – ITWeb

Gerhard Fourie, Channel Lead, Commvault Africa.

With an increasing number of organisations moving their infrastructure and services to the cloud, many are adopting multicloud strategies, meaning that a host of different cloud computing and storage services are used in one heterogenous architecture. While there are many benefits of distributing cloud assets, software and applications across several cloud-hosting environments including agility, flexibility, competitive pricing, scalability and reliance this also creates several challenges that need to be addressed.

For instance, organisations often find it difficult to secure a range of different clouds, due to a lack of visibility across hosts and services, making it easier for bad actors to find vulnerabilities that can be exploited within the corporate infrastructure. Because the cloud doesnt have defined perimeters, it makes securing it a fundamentally different prospect to an on-premises environment. As such, a popular myth is that an on-premises environment is more secure than the cloud, but the truth is that cloud security is not more or less effective than on-premises.

What makes most sense

There is a need to start changing users viewpoints around cloud security and the discussion should rather focus on the pros and cons of each, instead of it being good versus bad. Essentially, both offer equal levels of security, and it really comes down to what makes most sense for a customer in terms of meeting their security requirements.

Another commonly asked question is who is ultimately responsible for security in the cloud. Hyperscalers that provide cloud services and infrastructure are very vocal about the fact that it is a shared responsibility.

The platform provider is responsible for the network security and the hardening of the platform, but they are not responsible for the securitisation of the data. This remains the responsibility of the user or application owner, who must ensure the relevant security protocols are in place and that they are following a zero-trust process to secure their data. So, while cloud service providers will do everything in their power to prevent bad actors from entering the environment, the onus rests on the client to protect their data.

Controlling access

Due to the nature of the cloud environment, it is necessary for organisations to control the access of myriad users on the platform, which starts with putting in place a zero-trust policy and applying the principle of least privilege across every access point. As such, companies must typically look at their access control strategies and how they associate permission levels.

They should then follow processes such as managing access control, introduce rule-based access controls, or even role-based access control, and find the right mix that provides them with the level of security they need.

At the same time, companies also want to ensure the safety and privacy of critical enterprise data in the cloud without disrupting operations, and for this there are many storage and enterprise options to choose from. It comes down to choosing solutions that can restrict access, monitor activity and respond to threats as quickly as possible, ultimately safeguarding an enterprises reputation.

Several steps

A commonly used practice that enterprises typically employ to ensure they are secure, and that the privacy of their data is protected, involves several steps. The first is data discovery, followed by the implementation of data loss prevention tools and firewalls. Some cloud users also deploy storage solutions with built-in data protection, followed by choosing the right backup vendor for their environment.

Securing your environment should never be a discussion about whether cloud or on-premises offers the best security, it is about finding the right solutions for your business and managing user access. Enterprises must have the right technology in place to detect intruders, while also ensuring that employees most often the biggest threat to an organisation have adequate knowledge and training to follow security protocols.

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MilesWeb: the future ahead is aligned towards massive growth – HostReview.com

An Exclusive Interview with Deepak Kori, Founder & Director, MilesWeb. The company has been just named one of the Most Innovative Web Hosting Companies in the USA in 2022.

MilesWeb was founded in 2012, with a strong vision to help businesses of every size, industry vertical and large enterprises succeed online with feature-rich, reliable and competitively priced web hosting service.

Looking back at that time, I still remember, we started in a tiny office space, in Nashik Maharashtra (India). Over the inception, weve evolved so much.

Its really an exciting time for us, standing proudly as the extremely renowned and leading Indian web hosting provider, stretching its roots in the international market.

Our portfolio includes a wide range of web hosting solutions including, shared hosting, WordPress hosting, reseller hosting, cloud hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, WordPress cloud, SSL, domains and more.

With this, we promise a 99.95% uptime to keep our clients' sites online and 24/7 support to address their technical concerns.

Making it much much smoother, were committed to giving our clients absolutely everything they need to host and manage a website.

What makes your company innovative/unique? What are the key partnerships and involvements done to drive the innovation?

I believe, in the rapidly developing enterprise market, theres always a scope to innovate, and thats what we follow.

At MilesWeb, we focus on improving the overall web hosting experience of our customers. This includes optimized website speed, improvements in email delivery, premium site scanner, security software and more.

Of course, Customer support is another factor that sets us apart.

We provide 24/7 managed support via email, live chat, phone and tickets, and that too in regional languages, like English, Hindi and Marathi, offering the highest level of convenience.

Be it, our client faces a small or big technical issue, at night 3.am, or 4 pm in the afternoon our team is up for assistance. I think it's our support and professional service that customers prefer choosing us.

Despite this, weve made some strategic partnerships with the top players in the industry. Weve partnered with Yotta and Ctrls, the largest Tier-4 data centers in Asia.

And for managed cloud services, weve partnered with AWS, Digital Ocean, and Vultr. Indeed, together as partners we can sustain a significant impact.

And thats it I think!

Kindly elaborate on any upcoming projects/plans that benefit your customers.

Things are always busy around here. Were constantly investing in bringing significant features and capabilities, advancements in infrastructure, best-in-class technology, security tools and everything thats beneficial for our clients.

How do you see the company and the industry in the future ahead?

Of course, when it comes to us, were looking for an exciting future. To start with, India has more than 7.9 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), as of 27 March, 2022. Exactly, were looking to help these industry segments go online with our reliable web hosting service.

No doubt, MilesWeb is thriving, & with the same pace we want to fill the gap, acquire the market and reach great heights of success.

In addition, the Indian web hosting market is growing very rapidly in terms of infrastructure. Meanwhile, a recent report says that, Over 45 data centers covering 13 million square feet and 1,015 MW of IT capacity are planned to set foot in India by 2025. This would be really a huge step considering the solid infrastructure demands.

I believe that the future ahead is definitely aligned towards massive growth.

Biggest achievements of your company.

I think the biggest achievement of our company so far is the dramatic improvement in the Customer Satisfaction Rate. The point is that, since the start, our focus on customer experience has always remained on the top.

Anything that users expect from a web hosting provider is top-of-the-line hosting service, prices that they can actually pay, security and quality customer support. This all doesnt work in isolation. It is the ultimate combo of success.

We thrive on delighting our customers with all these and a lot more. We have tried to keep our customers happy in each step of their online journey.

Mention some of the awards, achievements, recognitions, and clients feedback that you feel are notable and valuable for the company.

Well, to tell you frankly, we never do business expecting rewards in return. But, yes, whatever we do, we raise the bar of excellence!

And as a corollary to that, were much appreciated for unbeatable customer support, reliable hosting service and being the user's top choice.

Likewise, to date, weve won the Users Top Choice by Hostadvice, Enabler of the Year Award by Nayabharat Jagran Group, for helping SMBs mark their web presence, Great Support & Excellent Service by Hostadvice, Most Viewed Hosting Provider by Hosting Seekers and the badges go on.

Adding to that, we get stellar feedback from our clients each day for addressing their technical concerns and assisting them with a smooth online experience. Weve received more than 10000+ positive reviews from our valuable customers on different trusted review platforms.

I must say, this feedback especially motivates our support associates and remains as the most valuable testament to our company.

This is really a good question. Its obvious that progress is not just a one-day game, its all about the consistent efforts and strategic methods of getting your organization from where it started and where it is now.

Exactly, the same way, we started our company ten years back, with each move progressing just by putting in a lot of hard work and focusing more on customer satisfaction. Since the start, we have purely followed a customer-centric approach, and are ready to go out of the box to make them satisfied.

This is the ethos of why we stand tall with little over 40k+ happy clients on a global scale. Obviously, yes and the number grows daily. In short, this approach has helped to galvanize the progress of our company.

Advice to the future leaders who want to make it big in the market.

Id say, The web hosting world is strongly competitive and you need to go the extra mile to make it big. Heres my advice to future diligent leaders, A leader par excellence leader does not follow a single path.

For this, they need to have the guts to take risks beyond their comfort zone and of course, should have the perfect strike between seasoned expertise and the will to thrive.

Most importantly, a leader needs to have the ability to handle the market challenges, ups and downs and ultimately, understand the customers requirements and keep them satisfied.

Well, and these are the great mantras I believe.

Thank you. Its my pleasure and a super great moment to be a part of this interview!

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MilesWeb: the future ahead is aligned towards massive growth - HostReview.com

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