by united admin | Dec 10, 2021 | Private Cloud
Private cloud and IaaS are more than hype in this day and age. The adoption of both cloud managed services and infrastructure has tremendously grown. It’s predicted that by 2025, the amount of data stored in cloud servers will surpass 100 Zettabytes (Source: Cybercrime magazine). Sometimes these cloud computing terms such as SaaS, PaaS, Private Cloud, IaaS, Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, and others may seem a bit too confusing. Figuring them out on your own might take much research and probably consultation with various cloud managed service providers. We are here to widen your knowledge base by offering you clarity so that you can take your first step towards cloud adoption.
What is Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) in cloud computing?
The form of cloud technology where you get access to virtual computing resources over the internet is IaaS. The cloud service provider manages your entire IT infrastructure in this particular model, such as network resources, storage, and server. They deliver this managed service to you via virtual desktop infrastructure that is accessible through the internet. The pros for IaaS are:
- Cost-Effective:Your infrastructure is set up and managed by the cloud managed services provider. Therefore, it’s more reliable and robust which helps you save your business’ upfront costs associated with purchasing, maintaining, and operating hardware.
- Security: Security is very important for your IT environment. Most IaaS cloud providers make significant investments in their IT security measures thereby offering you higher levels of security and protection.
- Scalability: You can scale your business up and down based on your requirements. IaaS ensures that your business can handle this scalability through procedures like automatic provisioning of resources
- Prepared against adversities: IaaS cloud computing ensures that your IT environment is prepped up for the worst case scenarios. Most solution providers host their equipment in highly secure, available, and purposely built data centers with access to continuous power, cooling, and network connectivity. In case of any disaster event, time taken to restore your infrastructure will be reduced.
- Ability to expand business: With lesser pressure in running and managing your IT environment, you will be able to focus on growing your business. You will have ample time and resources to develop your applications and solutions.
In short, your cloud solution provider hosts every infrastructure component such as networking hardware, servers, storage, and others that is available on an on-premises data center. IaaS providers also offer a range of services in addition to these infrastructure components such as monitoring, log access, clustering, storage resiliency, and the list goes on. United Private Cloud in particular, offers you a fully managed infrastructure and database irrespective of your business size and platform. You would be able to receive OS and Hypervisor patching/management along with AWS, Azure, GCP management.
What is a private cloud?
Private cloud solution is a computing model which offers you a proprietary environment dedicated to your business. With this cloud managed service, you receive extended virtual desktop infrastructure resources through physical components stored on-premise or at the data center of your cloud vendor. The best part of this kind of cloud solution is that you can configure the environment and manage it in a way that is uniquely suited to your company’s data requirements. There are certain key benefits you receive when you choose private cloud computing:
- You can comply with strict regulatory requirements because sensitive data is held on hardware that anyone else cannot access.
- You can fully configure your cloud environment to run proprietary software.
- When any of your software applications require additional computing resources, you can hybridize these resources from your private cloud to a public cloud. It will keep up the uptime without installing any additional physical servers.
- Private cloud ensures the continuity of your business as you have privacy, technology adaptability, and control of your data for as long as you want to stay in the industry.
- You receive improved levels of security compared to that of the public cloud. All of your data is saved and managed on servers to which no other company has any access, thereby offering you privacy as well. If the servers are located in a datacenter the internal IT team accesses it via highly secure networks instead of using everyday unsecured internet.
Private clouds rely on virtualization technology to combine resources. A layer of management software is then added to help you gain administrative control over the infrastructure, applications, platforms, and data used in the cloud. It helps you to track and optimize usage, oversee integration points, and retain or recover data. Finally, a layer of automation is added to replace or cut down human interaction with repeatable functions.
How are IaaS and Private Cloud related?
Infrastructure-as-a-Service is an entire infrastructure made of networking resources, storage, and server hosted on a public cloud that offers these resources your company’s exclusive ownership. It is not equal to a private cloud when we talk about an apt cloud computing service. IaaS is far more limited than private cloud, which is powerful and can deliver computing resources far beyond just the infrastructure.
Another relationship between the two is that you can deploy IaaS as a part of the private cloud. Still it won’t match the number of offerings that come in with the private cloud deployment. A private cloud solution can be independent of other computing resources and functions similar to an on-site data center. Such a private cloud environment can still be managed virtually while offering more add-on services otherwise not available in a strict IaaS service. Vendors can also package private cloud as a comprehensive cloud computing product. In this case, a hosted cloud would include:
- Traditional infrastructural resources of an IaaS solution and 24/7/365 IT management resources.
- Security.
- Access for the users.
- Cloud assessment and migration.
- Container and mesh service management.
Therefore you must not think of IaaS as a synonym for private cloud, but you definitely get more features and advantages when you opt for the latter than just the infrastructure. It becomes a fruitful venture to combine the power of private cloud and IaaS to maximize your business operations.
Even though there is a clear demarcation between these two cloud computing terms, the primary appeal of IaaS is its ability to virtualize both software and hardware. Suppose your company has a smaller budget for virtualization, or you have minimal requirements from your cloud infrastructure. In that case, you definitely will be intrigued by how much IaaS could offer your business. United Private Cloud has a built-in IaaS private cloud service to manage your systems, database, and network to help you focus on your business growth initiatives. You will be able to drastically improve your performance and customer satisfaction once you adopt our cloud computing managed solution. You experience performance, scalability, and availability along with greater control and security with this enterprise-grade private cloud. Have a peek at our website now to find how we can fit your bill!
by united admin | Nov 9, 2021 | Private Cloud
Transforming IT infrastructure into utility – that’s what cloud computing does. This technology keeps your company at the forefront of the industry and enables you to cut costs, offer stability and flexibility, and above all, provide enhanced security and stability. With that being said, 94% of enterprises already use a cloud service to stay in control of their traditional IT infrastructure.
However, it’s vital to understand which kind of private cloud solution suits your business and fits your bills. Private cloud, in general, is one such kind of solution that makes the entire cloud infrastructure and computing resources accessible by one enterprise only. There are different types of private cloud itself, for example, a virtual private cloud solution. It’s an isolated and safe space compartmentalized within a bigger private cloud. The pros of using private cloud services are:
- Upgraded security.
- Enhanced control.
- Energy-efficient.
- Easy on the budget.
- Improved reliability.
Hence, many companies started adopting it to gain customized solutions for their respective businesses. There are two categories of private cloud solutions: hosted and on-premise. Let’s talk about how different these categories are to give you a clear idea of which one you should choose.
Hosted Private Cloud
These cloud solutions are owned by providers who rent their server space to your business. It allows you to deploy applications and store your data on a flexible infrastructure without investing on hardware, software, servers, or other components. The vendors like United Private Cloud offer you servers in our data centers to make things manageable and easy for you. Benefits of using hosted private cloud are:
- Security management relies on the cloud solution provider so you need not worry about investing in security and control practices.
- You receive additional resources, high-demand scalability features, an easy-to-use dashboard, and an efficient support team to help you with the complexity of server management.
- It’s easy on your budget as you pay for the features your business requires. Hosted private clouds are sized for your business and decrease costs.
Hosted private cloud solution is agile as it allows you to add things as needed, even for a short duration.
- The private cloud solution provider is in charge of control practices set forth by your industry and the security measures. Hence you need to select the right third-party solution provider.
On-Premise Private Cloud
In this particular solution, you host the cloud environment internally on your business location. It offers you total control and flexibility over your internal data center, starting from the types of configurations of the servers to the kinds of hardware utilized. If your business already has system administrators or other apt experts, then on-premise is meant for you. Some of the benefits are:
- You are in complete control of the security, scalability, and configurability of your servers. Although, the size of your data center determines the scalability factor.
- The overall costs related to server hardware, power, and space are your responsibility.
- On-premise private cloud service requires in-house resources to maintain it and its related processes.
- In-house private cloud service allows businesses to collocate their cloud computing devices on premise, which is either managed by themselves or a third-party private cloud solution provider. Due to this very reason, the companies can implement all the security practices which they need to add an extra layer of security to their business processes.
- Numerous professional and technical companies address various aspects of cloud technology offering their own standards, recommendations, and guidance for a successful implementation of private cloud. Some examples can be: Cloud Standards Customer Council, DMTF, European Telecommunications Standards Institute, and others. If your company is subjected to any of these industry regulations and compliance rules, then it’s easier to adhere to such standards with on-premise private cloud hosting.
While there are pros and cons to each of the above services, it all comes down to your needs of flexibility, security, compliance, cost, applications, suitable environments, and organizational capacities. It’s a fact that cybersecurity is a primary concern today, and there were a total of 5,258 confirmed data breaches that occurred in 16 industries and four world regions, as per Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigation Records. For this sole reason, hosted private cloud can do wonders by adding extra layers of security and user identity and access management.
Whichever cloud you choose, you have to bear the expenses for any additional resource to keep you at par with modern technology. At the end of the day, you want to work smarter and eliminate the headaches of the age-old ways of data management and storage. United Private Cloud comes with high performance, high availability, security and compliance, on-demand scalability, multi-cloud connectivity, and many more features to ensure that your business runs smoothly. We manage your systems, databases, and networks with our enterprise-level solution so that you can focus on initiatives that foster your business’s growth.
Are you interested to know more? Visit us at United Private Cloud and get all the answers.
by united admin | Aug 30, 2021 | Private Cloud
The Mac mini is exactly what it says it is: a mini Mac. It’s a compact, portable desktop computer that can transform any screen into a Mac-powered smart computer.
Apple’s computers are fantastic pieces of machinery – there is no doubt about it. But what is it about the Mac mini that makes them so popular among programmers? Read this blog and find out!
Security:
One of the main reasons why developers don’t fancy windows is security. They don’t want their work to be hijacked over by a malicious hacker, and they certainly don’t want to hold their breath every time they’re prompted to click on a pop-up. Some of the security features of the Mac mini has been explained below:
- Exploit mitigation: It includes mechanisms that can help protect against remote code execution or zero-day vulnerability exploits. This includes a hardware-level security mechanism known as pointer authentication, making it far more difficult for an attacker to modify pointers in memory and provides a layer of security against buffer overflow exploits.
- Vulnerability: The checkm8 vulnerability that affected the T2 is now no longer present on the M1-equipped Mac Mini. The T2 chip isn’t even present in M1 Macs. Instead, the security functionality that the T2 supported is baked into the M1.
- System Integrity: During startup, system integrity allows for a hardware-level verification of the operating system. It also continues to protect macOS authorizations in the background as it runs. This strengthens protections against sophisticated malware that tries to hijack macOS regularly.
Cross-Platform Compatibility:
Working with MAC OS X allows you to run all of the major operating systems on your machine, which is a huge benefit for programmers. Running OS X on a Windows device would be difficult, and the only way to do so would be to install hacked versions of OS X. In contrast, Mac mini can efficiently run Windows and even Linux in a virtual environment.
Developers can use Parallels or a similar virtualization tool to give multiple operating systems on their Mac mini if it is sufficiently equipped (it means a Mac mini should have an i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and absolutely SSD instead of a hard drive).
For developers, this is a significant appeal. If they have a powerful Mac mini with Parallels installed, they can run Windows and Linux alongside MacOS applications, even dragging and dropping between them. This level of flexibility is unrivaled by any other operating system.
Applications and UX:
Another reason for the success of the Mac mini is its friendly and elegant user interface, as well as a large number of high-quality applications available. For instance, applications like Alfred, Amphetamine, Pocket, etc are apps that help boost the productivity of many developers.
Why did that prove to be such a game-changer?
The popularity of Apple devices among developers coincided with an era in which web development became more sophisticated, necessitating more specialized tools. The macOS X environment was poised to fulfill the need with text editors, package managers, etc. So, an increasing number of developers began to adopt macOS due to the accurate perception that they provided the most sophisticated development environment.
What are the hardware capabilities of the Mac mini?
- Running Apps on M1 Mac mini: Apple has created tools that allow developers to create Universal app binaries that run flawlessly on both Apple Silicon and Intel chips and the Rosetta 2 translation layer that enables x86 apps to run on the M1 chip.
- Apple M1 Chip: Apple has made the M1 do precisely what the company wants it to because it is a custom design. As a result, many different Mac mini components, including the GPU and the T2 security chip, have been integrated into the M1’s design.This process of miniaturization results in greater efficiency or lower power consumption.Power consumption is likely to be the most tangible benefit for the developers here. The new M1 Chips use half the power of previous Intel chips, which means double the battery life.
Ready to get your organization connected with UnitedMac?
UnitedMac provides managed & dedicated cloud Mac mini devices that can be accessed on-demand for app development and enterprise builds. Get services from our most secure and resilient cloud data centers in San Francisco, USA, and Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Visit our website to know more!
by united admin | Jul 16, 2021 | Cloud Computing
What are the cloud trends to look out for in 2021? With the pandemic’s onset in 2020, the business world has seen a significant shift to cloud-centric digital infrastructure. While incorporating digitalization into IT assets, businesses optimize cloud technology for sophistication, scalability, and security.
Beyond the well-known cloud benefits, the coming years will shed light on capabilities such as seamless collaboration, hybrid cloud power, service provider potential, and practical applications for IoT, AI, Blockchain, and other technologies.
We’ve created a comprehensive list of cloud trends for 2021 and beyond to help you get the most of this technology.
1. Multi and Hybrid Cloud Environments:
The first cloud trend to look out for is multi and hybrid cloud environments. Businesses recognize that cloud data management isn’t about having a single cloud platform or infrastructure; it’s about selecting the best solution for the job. It could be on-premises or even legacy systems in some circumstances, especially if businesses are bound into specific systems for business-critical solutions that are tedious or complex to adapt.
More organizations will develop cloud-native applications in the future, with little to no architecture relying on a single cloud provider. Organizations will learn to grow with more clarity than before by cultivating a deeper understanding of their cloud needs and the cloud industry. However, this paradigm change depends on the development of cloud capabilities, as time-to-market is improving rapidly and the ability to incorporate changing workloads allows enterprises to capitalize on even minor trends.
According to Global Channel Chief at Google, Carolee Gearhart, “Gartner is estimating that by 2021, 75 percent of midsize and large organizations will have adopted multi-cloud or a hybrid strategy.” IDC affirms this in their 2021 report, stating that by 2022, over 90% of enterprises will be relying on a hybrid cloud solutions model that includes on-prem, dedicated private clouds, multiple public clouds, AND legacy platforms.
2. Hybrid cloud:
A hybrid cloud approach categorically focuses on taking advantage of both the private and public cloud. In contrast, a multi-cloud strategy leverages the differing allowances of different providers—regardless of public or private cloud.
Businesses can get the best of both worlds with a well-balanced hybrid strategy. They may scale further and faster due to the public cloud’s creative and adaptable services without sacrificing the higher cost efficiency, faster response time, and regulatory compliance with the private cloud’s advantages.
3. Software as a Service (SaaS):
One of the first and most successful ‘as a service’ cloud services is Software as a Service (SaaS). It includes all internet services and software provided by a third party in exchange for subscriptions and licensing fees. SaaS now adds $20 billion to software manufacturers’ quarterly revenues as one of the biggest cloud application offerings. Each year, the number is predicted to increase by 32%.
Competition between SaaS companies has resulted in a wide range of low-cost solutions, ensuring that public cloud services will continue to dominate the industry for years to come.
4. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) has been since the dawn of cloud computing, but its full potential has yet to be realized. Because of a documented talent gap in the cloud migration process, businesses have been slow to adopt this technology. This up-and-coming cloud solution is predicted to eventually overtake SaaS in revenue, thanks to increased cloud education and understanding borne of necessity.
Pay-as-you-go services for storage, networking, and virtualization are referred to as IaaS. Many businesses have taken the path of least resistance when it comes to cloud migration, opting for a ‘lift and shift’ approach rather than altering their workflows to make the most of the cloud. Organizations have learned that to compete, they must modernize processes, invest in cloud-native development, and refactor apps to achieve proper cloud optimization.
5. Cloud monitoring:
Cloud coalitions, machine learning, and data fabrics allow the cloud industry to fine-tune one of its most essential components: monitoring. Companies are now faced with the problem of consolidating metrics on their numerous cloud servers to provide monetizable insights, as they face pressure to transfer workloads to the cloud quickly. Between 2020 and 2026, the cloud monitoring industry is expected to increase at a rate of 22.7 percent annually, valuing the industry at $4.5 billion.
How can we help you?
Getting the most out of your cloud services requires a commitment to change and agility. These many tendencies are native to the cloud, and they will continue to evolve at a quicker rate as cloud adoption grows and the cloud is tuned to give clearer insights.
By leveraging the expertise and knowledge of the industry, tracking and analyzing these trends will help your company open doors. As the world embraces cloud services, these doors will become increasingly important for long-term growth in 2021 and beyond.
We’ll update these trends up to current as of the industry changes, ensuring that you’ll never be alone in this huge digital landscape of highly diverse architectures. The cloud is the way of the future. When you’re ready to take flight, contact us!
by united admin | Feb 23, 2021 | Containers, Virtual Machines
According to Gartner’s new forecast, worldwide container management revenue will grow from $465.8 million in 2020 to $944 million in 2024. Cloud container orchestration and serverless container offerings are experiencing significant growth and industry-wide acceptance because they ease application deployment and support production environments. To keep pace with the evolving technological environment, there is a demand for application development to be more agile, portable and ensure faster delivery, modernization, and life cycle management. It is necessary to virtualize computing resources. Getting the most out of your hardware is imperative for optimal performance. Both Virtual Machines and Containers can help DevOps get the most out of available computer hardware and software resources.
While containers are relatively new technology, VMs are and continue to be tremendously popular in data centers of all sizes. A virtual machine essentially emulates a computer system, which means that although the hardware is segregated and represents separate computers, it can be run as a single computational unit. This technology’s implications sped up computation and made virtualization easier, making hardware so much easier to handle. The Operating Systems and applications share resources from a single server or a pool of host servers. The VMs virtualize the hardware and require their OS each. The link between the VM and the hardware is a hypervisor, software, firmware, or hardware. The hypervisor is the element that creates and runs VMs.
Companies have primarily embraced VMs to increase efficiency and reduce expenditure. The catch that comes with using VMs, however, is that they take up many system resources. As stated earlier, the VM runs its own OS, but it also has to run a virtual copy of the hardware. It is essential to the smooth performance of the underlying OS. While this can be reasonably economical when compared to traditional computing, it is still fairly overwhelming. That is where containers come in. Containers virtualize the OS rather than the underlying computer hardware. They require a physical server and a host OS. Containers share the host OS kernel; these shared components are read-only but significantly reduce the OS code’s reproduction.
By using containers, servers can run multiple workloads while installing a single OS. They are only a few megabytes in seconds and take just a few seconds to start. VMs take longer to initialize and start in the order of a few minutes and are significantly larger in size than containers.
Containers need a functional OS that supports the resources necessary to run the programs required. This means organizations can now host two to three times as many as applications on a single server using containers than with a VM. Containers create a portable, consistent operating environment for developing, testing, and deploying your applications. Containers are a revolutionary technology that can save time and reduce costs, and it is here to stay.
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