How to strategize a security architecture to safeguard a private cloud

How to strategize a security architecture to safeguard a private cloud

Modern-day businesses are complex & perpetual both in terms of technology and customer deliverables; to keep agile, enterprises are transforming traditional IT assets with virtual assets and migrating their workloads to cloud infrastructures (private cloud, public cloud, hybrid & multicloud) for the same. Businesses require extremely secured infrastructure to manage data and its privacy. With limitations of vendor lock-ins by public cloud service providers, major enterprises are moving their cloud choices from public to private cloud. Since private cloud being an integral part of enterprises gives users the flexibility to manage, monitor & secure according to their own business needs. Gartner predicts that ‘By 2025, 99% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault’, and from a customer point of view it shows the need for private cloud enabled organizations like you to understand the key strategies and best practices to follow to safeguard a private cloud.

Through this blog we explain everything you need to know about private cloud security and its architecture in detail. Read further to know it.

Need Of Private Cloud Security Architecture

The CIO’s & CSO’s believe cloud security is one major layer of private cloud management that organizations need to look out and understand to safeguard the data and applications. It needs to be addressed right from the stage of building a private cloud architecture for a business ecosystem. In private cloud architecture, security management is a shared responsibility between the private cloud services provider or a private cloud hosting provider and the user. Both the parties need to understand their security management roles and should play an integral part of designing a private cloud architecture as a whole.

Vision to build a security based private cloud architecture eliminates the security holes or leakages which may act as a gate point of vulnerabilities providing easy access for attackers. Planning this phase in the early days of architecting a solution gives the users fruitful results compared to building a security solution to mitigate after threats.

This practice of strategizing a future-proof private cloud architecture for security is the need of the hour as more organizations are shifting their data to clouds specifically to multicloud or hybrid cloud models.

Elements of a private cloud security architecture

The best practice to build a secured private cloud architecture is to start with a statement of goals. The private cloud security architecture starts at the attack points ( ingress or egress ) for private cloud hosting or edge computing. In either case, the private cloud service provider will install intelligent security devices or intrusion prevention systems (ISP)- enabled firewalls as a primary point of threat detector that allows users to monitor the flow of in & out traffic. It follows the implementation of SSL, TSL, VPN, and other advanced security frameworks in the form of security-as-a-service.

The cloud security patterns follow a series of independent yet collaborative functions for private cloud management in the whole architectural design. These include the following layers: network security, data security, application security, and service security. The responsibilities are shared among organizations & private cloud service providers according to their SLAs.

Private cloud security architecture should include the following elements :

    • Security Control endpoints – Includes technologies & steps to secure API endpoints and mechanisms to control the boundaries of network connectivity linkage of applications and services of private cloud.
    • Security protocols – Implementation of security frameworks for private cloud architecture with Integrations such as SSL, IPSEC, SFTP, LDAPS, SSH, SCP, SAML, etc.
    • Security token – Token management approaches such as OTP, secret keys, private keys, etc., for authentication, authorization, & administration of private cloud to safeguard access of applications & its data.
    • Encryption methods – Includes techniques like masking, duplicating, hashing, triple DES, AES, blowfish, RSA to encrypt data to avoid vulnerabilities of a private cloud.
    • Security event logging & auditing – Designing flow of event logging ingestion with the help of tools or discrete approaches to capture, monitor & audit the activities within the private cloud.

    Three prominent private cloud architectural patterns to meet safety

    • Federated identity pattern: It is a system where multiple organizations enable its users to use shared credentials in digital identity to access all their networks.
    • Firewall pattern: It is a system where managed firewalls are installed between users and application resources to validate rights and access.
    • User token pattern: It is a mechanism that allows users to access the resources for a limited period of time

    Private cloud management via shared security responsibilities

    Cloud services are deployed via various models across private cloud: IaaS where a virtual host is provided, PaaS supports platform-specific tools and acts as middleware, SaaS offers entire cloud application service is deployed and in each model, the security architecture varies as per the roles and responsibilities shared between private cloud hosting providers & organizations.

    IaaS deployment gives users a highly flexible network security environment to manage & monitor the status & health of both physical & virtual assets. With IaaS deliverables, private cloud service providers act as pillars of reliable hosting resources. The majority of the application-related security handlings are under the managed schema of the customer.

    Key security inclusions of IaaS cloud deployments

    • Network fragmentation and flow analysis
    • Intrusion detection systems (IDS) and Intrusion prevention systems (IPS)
    • Virtual firewalls, VPN, SSL, SD-WAN connectors for edge compute, SSL/TLS layers to secure web applications.

    PaaS acts as middleware and delivers to customers as platform-based services to support enterprise applications without the overhead of managing complex hardware & back-end services. In this private cloud security model, more focus is aligned towards the creation of trust zones & centralized security fronts. Here most of the private cloud security management is carried out by CSP while compared to IaaS, but still, organizations have their role in securing the infrastructure.

    Key security inclusions of PaaS cloud deployments

    • Secured API gateways (throttling targets, access to VPC, firewalls, SSL certificates)
    • IP restrictions and geo whitelisting
    • User restrictions and audit reports

    SaaS providers offer security through a software-defined application that establishes a relation between the internal workflow components and the organization’s network components via restful APIs. Compared to other security deliverable models in SaaS, CSP maintains the responsibility of most of the security stacks while organizations only need to look after a few modules of security layers.

    Key security inclusions of SaaS cloud deployments

    • Logging, alerting, scheduling
    • User access controls, IAM roles
    • Support of security frameworks (DISA, NIST, etc.) and compliance to guidelines (GDPR, PCI, HIPAA, SOX, ISO,)

    Over the years, the chief security officers of several cloud-enabled organizations realized that the best practice to design a private cloud architecture with the highest levels of security is through the synchronization of the private cloud service provider and the user. So while framing the security frameworks, organizations need to be handheld by security experts, and only the inclusion of best-fit security elements & practices give highly secured private cloud-hosted infrastructure.

    Also you can check our blog on ‘How to improve your private cloud security postures’ from here.

    Security at its best with United private cloud

    Cloud security is no longer a choice; it’s the need of the hour and our G3 private cloud is the epitome of a secure cloud, where users get a fully managed security-as-a-service. With us, you can proactively identify, respond and mitigate any security threats against your IT infrastructure through our industry-leading security solutions. We protect your infrastructure and data through advanced Firewalls, DDoS, VPN, SSL/TLS, VLAN segmentation, restricted IP, and ports.

    G3 cloud is solemnly designed with a motto to ensure our private cloud users with the highest level of security compared to all other major private cloud providers by providing industry leading solutions for ransomware protection, infrastructure protection, hybridcloud acceleration, public cloud data protection and complies with all major data security compliance standards(CIS, NIST, DISA, GDPR, SOX, SSAE, PCI, HIPAA, FEDRAMP) globally with our compliance ready private cloud.

    Talk to our security experts today and get your private cloud security architecture framed.

    5 Private Cloud Trends in 2022 That Will Pay Off

    5 Private Cloud Trends in 2022 That Will Pay Off

    A few years ago, cloud, whether public or private, solutions were buzzwords. Many technology thought leaders predicted that these would be the industry’s “next big thing”. Fast forward to the year 2020, the prediction came into fruition with businesses adopting data-driven models, remote and hybrid work environments, and global supply networks. A study states that the global private cloud solution market alone, valued at $3,703 million in 2016, is estimated to reach $14,111 million in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 21.1% from 2017 to 2023. There are similar figures for hybrid cloud management, edge computing, and public cloud, which only establishes that these solutions are seen as a critical component for companies who wish to work smarter and accomplish projects more quickly.

    Most businesses have speeded up their cloud journey to enable new ways of working and developing future resilience. They’ve come a long way, but there’s still a lot of ground to cover. Cloud computing is not a one-time endeavour. It’s a lifelong commitment, similar to learning a language. Companies need to keep refining their approach to achieve excellence. Hence, there is a need for a paradigm shift from cloud migration to modernization. With that focus in mind, these are the top trends emerging this year of 2022.

    • Rise Of Hybrid Cloud And Hybrid Cloud Management Platforms

    Cost is the key factor for many companies who are migrating to the cloud. Therefore hybrid cloud becomes the most preferable choice in terms of higher security and being cost effective to scale operations and meet higher demands. Additionally, with the rise of multi-cloud, IT infrastructures have become more complex to handle. As of now, hybrid cloud is at an early adoption stage, and organizations across all verticals are implementing it to support their remote workforce. As per a report, a rapid increase in the private cloud solution adoption is driving the hybrid cloud market. This market is only expected to touch an aggregate of $241.13 billion by 2022. It’s only logical to infer that the technical aspects require to handle hybrid cloud will lead the companies to choose various hybrid cloud management tools based on their advantages such as:

    A. Aggregating services: Shows services and applications running on multiple cloud environments in one place and allows them to be managed as a single unit.
    B. Managing costs: Allows users to set flexible policies for cost across cloud solutions and maximize the return on investment.
    C. Self-servicing with ease: Allows users to run, consume, and terminate workloads without them having to worry about the underlying infrastructure.
    D.Migrating workloads: Provides automation, fast and low-risk options for migrating workloads from private to public cloud environments and vice versa.

    •  Popularity Of Kubernetes

    The renowned container orchestration platform – Kubernetes is set to have its breakout year in 2022. Kubernetes, which was first released as an open-source project by Google in 2014 and is now managed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, automates several activities related to the administration and deployment of containerized applications. Developers are increasingly drawn to the platform because it enables a new approach to application development based on a microservices architecture. It is all due to the fact that K8s provide a perfect and consolidated API for deployment and containers. According to a study, which was based on responses from 3,800 people between November 2020 and February 2021, 31 percent of all backend engineers utilize Kubernetes currently, equating to almost 5.6 million developers globally. The figures emphasize that enterprises have made significant progress in adopting cloud-native technologies in public, private, and hybrid environments. Kubernetes private cloud cluster assures efficient deployment and a fully budget-friendly management cost, making it a go-to solution for this year.

    • Fast Emerging Dedicated Private Cloud Services

    Popular cloud service providers such as UnitedPrivateCloud, Cisco Systems, Dell Inc., HP Inc, IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, and others offer private cloud services such as SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS to host, manage, and operate all types of cloud services in a private deployment model. Private cloud services offer all types of users, including large and small and medium businesses, convenient access to servers, networks, and storage either on premises or on a separate infrastructure which is provided by these cloud providers. Allied Market Research’s findings state that due to the rise in ICT expenditure by governments in various developed and developing regions, such as North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, the global private cloud services market is predicted to grow rapidly. A report from Infoholic Research suggests that Dedicated (Private) Cloud Services, which comprises hosted private cloud services and the fast-growing Dedicated Cloud Infrastructure–as-a-Service (DCIaaS) segment, would expand at a quicker 31.0 percent CAGR in 2021, although from a considerably smaller revenue base of $5 billion. The reason behind this is simple, migrating workloads from public to private cloud solutions ensures tailored services, less risky, and better performance. An enterprise-grade private cloud such as UnitedPrivateCloud has such advantages and even more with a guaranteed 30% lower costs than the leading public clouds.

    • Edge Computing Is Set For Growth

    There has been an abundance of the usage of smart devices which has put a strain on internet infrastructure, leading cloud-based companies to adapt and find new avenues to serve their customers. With edge computing, storing and processing data as close to the end user, this ever expanding requirement of real-time data and localized actions are being met. In fact, edge computing is getting traction in industry 4.0. Analytics insight states that the worldwide market for this technology is estimated to reach 10.9 billion USD this year, growing at a CAGR rate of 14%. The solutions backed up with this technology can take many forms be it from mobile in a vehicle or smartphone or static as a part of a building management system, manufacturing plant, or off-shore oil rig. They can also be used as a mixture of these two dynamics to be used in hospital or other medical settings. These diverse applications make edge computing more promising and expansive.

    • Cloud Security At The Center Of Focus

    The last 2 decades have been all about the booming of cloud computing. A lot of innovation has happened so far along the lines of serverless pieces of technology to the evolution of cloud automated security. On the plus side, these advancements have led to companies being more agile and reducing their costs of operation. On the flip side, the cloud computing progress has also led to an increase of the attack surfaces. That’s why organizations must have the right tools and processes in place to manage and secure their data throughout their cloud journey. MarketWatch predicts that the cloud security market size is expected to grow from USD 4.09 billion in 2017 to USD 12.73 billion by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 25.5%. The report further states that factors such as increased adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Internet of Things (IoT0 trends, rise in adoption of cloud-based security solutions, increasing demand for cloud computing & increasing government initiatives, and emergence of smart cities are driving this exponential growth.

    It goes without saying that the cloud helps employees, customers, and partners have better experiences. However, in order to achieve this, companies must foster a cloud culture in which employees welcome change and aren’t scared to try new things. The key to mastering cloud solutions in 2022 and beyond will be a cycle of continual learning, feedback, and innovation — with the correct controls in place.

    AWS OUTAGE ANALYSIS: WHAT WENT WRONG?

    AWS OUTAGE ANALYSIS: WHAT WENT WRONG?

    In the second week of December, 2021, Amazon Web Services experienced one of its worst outages ever. During the holiday shopping rush, the problems spread to the company’s retail operation, which uses AWS-based software and apps.

    According to AWS’s explanation of what went wrong, “An automated activity to scale capacity of one of the AWS services hosted in the main AWS network triggered an unexpected behavior from a large number of clients inside the internal network, this resulted in a large surge of connection activity that overwhelmed the networking devices between the internal network and the main AWS network, resulting in delays for communication between these networks.”

    What happened with the AWS outage?

    The most recent of AWS’s major outages occurred in the second week of December and lasted five hours, affecting customers using specific application interfaces in the us-east-1 region: North Virginia. A five-hour outage is a significant incident in a public cloud the size of AWS. 

    Several AWS services in the region were affected like:

    • Management console
    • Route 53
    • API Gateway
    • Amazon Connect
    • EC2

    Basically, AWS unintentionally triggered a Distributed Denial of Service (or DDoS attack) on their own internal network. The issue had a broad impact, causing varying degrees of difficulty for services like Twitch, Star Trek Timelines, the PlayStation Network, Clash Royale, Intuit Quickbooks, Slack, Netflix, USPS, Ring, Starbucks, Snapchat etc. It also affected many Amazon services, such as Prime Music, Ring doorbells, logistics apps in their fulfillment centers, and parts of the Amazon.com shopping site.

    How were the customers impacted?

    Firstly, the main AWS network was unaffected, which meant that AWS customer workloads were “not directly impacted”. Customers were affected by AWS services that relied on the company’s internal network.

    However, the internal network glitch had a wide range of consequences for customer-facing AWS services, including computing, container, content distribution services, databases, desktop virtualization, and network optimization tools.

    How can United Private Cloud help you avoid these outages?

    A full report from AWS is still to come, but in the meantime, IT pros should start bolstering their cloud disaster recovery strategies now – before the next outage. United Private Cloud can help you avoid these outages by offering SLA of 99.999% service uptime.

    United Private Cloud offers suites of managed services for our private cloud customers to help them meet their dynamic requirements.

    We understand vulnerabilities can occur during day-to-day IT processes, which is why we offer resources to monitor your entire cloud stack, from the infrastructure to the application layer through the operating system.

    The G3 Private Cloud is a software-defined private cloud architectured like a public cloud and engineered for scale and service availability of 99.999% uptime globally. It also comes with 24x7x365 fully managed enterprise support with 15 minutes response time and expert escalation every 30 minutes until resolution. With us, you get all the benefits, including high-performance, high availability, on-demand scalability, along with enhanced security of your cloud computing processes. 

    We also offer a variety of network security services as well as network management, cloud services and disaster recovery services to overcome any unprecedented events,

    We have industry leading partnerships for providing cloud security to our customers with 10+ virtual security solutions in place.

    And lastly, we enable organizations to gain performance advantages, lower costs, rapidly respond to unpredictable demand, and easily solve data sovereignty and compliance requirements across 5 continents. 

    About United Private Cloud

    United Private Cloud comes with all the benefits of cloud computing but with the greater controls and security of an enterprise-grade software-defined private cloud.

    Our experts will assist your company in developing the best multicloud strategy, no matter where it is on its cloud journey. Our experts will also analyze your current infrastructure and application portfolio, evaluate your cost structure, and recommend the ideal platforms for your needs.

    Put our experts to work for your IT transformation here!

    Know Everything About Private Cloud and IaaS

    Know Everything About Private Cloud and IaaS

    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!

    How Is Hosted Private Cloud Different From On-Premise Private Cloud?

    How Is Hosted Private Cloud Different From On-Premise 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:

    1. Upgraded security.
    2. Enhanced control.
    3. Energy-efficient.
    4. Easy on the budget.
    5. 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.

    Why do developers prefer Mac mini?

    Why do developers prefer Mac mini?

    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!