Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Article | July 13, 2023
Consider IaaS (infrastructure as a service) as a virtual version of your traditional data center. IaaS is a branch of cloud computing technology that offers virtualized storage, server, and networking wrapped together as a self-service platform. It is highly cost-efficient and makes up for easier, faster workloads. Although incredibly convenient for business, it largely depends on what your company needs to use it for.
What is IaaS, and How Can It Benefit Your Business?
IaaS first rose to popularity in the early 2010s. Since then, it has become the standard abstraction model for many types of workloads. But with the rise of the microservices application pattern and the arrival of new technologies like containers and serverless IaaS is still a foundational service, but the field is more crowded than ever.
The most common household cloud computing names—AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure— are all IaaS providers. They all maintain giant data centers around the globe. It includes tons of storage systems, physical servers, and networking equipment under a virtualization layer. Cloud customers access these resources to deploy and run applications in a highly automated manner.
Developing a cloud adoption strategy is a vital step forward for modern-day business. And this subscription-based cloud computing service, IaaS, offers a remote management solution and reduces your purchase cost at the same time.
Additionally, IaaS also provides key solutions vital for any company’s future plans, such as big-data analysis. It allows businesses like yours to analyze massive data sets and see future trends, patterns, and associations that a human wouldn’t.
Understanding the IaaS Architecture
In an IaaS service model, your cloud provider will take over your infrastructure components, such as traditional on-premises data centers and host them on the internet. This includes virtual computing, servers, networking hardware, and infrastructure components, as well as the hypervisor layer.
IaaS service providers will also provide a wide array of services to accompany those infrastructure components.
Monitoring
Detailed billing
Security
Log access
Load balancing
Clustering
Storage resiliency
Backup
Replication
Disaster Recovery
IaaS services are automated and highly policy-driven, so you can implement all your infrastructure tasks effortlessly.
How Does It Work?
IaaS customers access their resources through a WAN (wide area network). Leveraging the cloud provider's services, they will install the remaining elements of an application stack.
For example, you can log in to the IaaS platform to create VMs (virtual machines), install operating systems on each VM, deploy middleware like databases, create storage buckets for workloads and backups, and install the enterprise workload on that VM. Afterward, you can also use the IaaS provider's services to track costs, balance network traffic, monitor performance, troubleshoot application-related issues and manage disaster recovery.
IaaS Use Cases
As IaaS provides general-purpose computing resources, it can be used for any kind of use case. IaaS is most often used today for the development and testing environments, websites, and web apps that interact with customers, data storage, analytics, and data warehousing workloads. Plus, it also offers backup and disaster recovery services, especially for on-premises workloads. IaaS is also a good way to set up and run common business software and apps like SAP.
Real-life Examples
GE Healthcare: Reputed medical imaging facility GE Healthcare adopted Amazon EC2 from AWS to design the GE Health Cloud. GE Health Cloud platform successfully empowered its consumers by collecting, storing, accessing, and processing information worldwide from different types of medical devices to obtain value from data.
Coca-Cola: The beverage giant Coca-Cola collaborated with SoftLayer adopting a pay-as-you-go architecture to manage their CRM system effectively during peak seasons.
Final Thoughts
Before choosing a provider, you will need to think carefully about the services, reliability, and costs. First, you should thoroughly assess the capabilities of your organization’s IT department and determine how well equipped it is to deal with the ongoing demands of IaaS implementation. Accordingly, you will be prepared to choose an alternative provider and move to the alternative infrastructure if you need to.
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Application Infrastructure, Application Storage
Article | July 19, 2023
Unveil the Hyperconverged Infrastructure adoption strategies, build an effective HCI implementation plan and align them with businesses of all sizes. Know leading companies for HCI adoption.
Contents
1. Introduction to HCI in B2B Markets
2. Evaluating HCI Readiness for B2B Organizations
2.1. Identifying Business Use Cases for HCI Implementation
2.2. Hyper-Converged Management and Orchestration
3. Building an Effective HCI Implementation Plan
3.1. Implementation of Managed Service Providers
4. Aligning HCI Strategy with Business Objectives
4.1. Integration and Compatibility with Existing Systems
4.2. HCI and Cloud Integration: Hybrid and Multi-Cloud for HCI
5. Top HCI Companies to Improve Cloud Management & Data Security Solutions
5.1. Virtual Tech Gurus
5.2. CTC Global
5.3. Winslow Technology Group
5.4. Internetwork Engineering
5.5. Eastern Computer Exchange
6. Maximizing Business Value through HCI in B2B Markets
1. Introduction to HCI in B2B Markets
HCI, a software-defined solution that organizes and abstracts networking, CPU, memory, and storage devices as resource pools, utilizing commodity x86-based hardware and virtualization software, enables the administrator to combine and provision these resources as virtual machines and independent storage resources such as network-attached storage (NAS) filers and object stores. Organizations face numerous infrastructure difficulties. They frequently receive urgent demands from the business to keep their organization agile and proactive while implementing new digital transformation initiatives. For many organizations, a cloud-only IT strategy is not a viable option; as a result, there is a growing interest in hybrid scenarios that offer the best of both realms.
Hyperconvergence makes administration much easier, enabling management of all aspects of infrastructure from one place while reducing complexity by removing compatibility problems between multiple vendors. AllHyperconvergedInfrastructure offerings serve as the foundation for on-premises infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) by unifying and integrating computing and storage as fundamental HCI technology infrastructure services.
The global Hyper-Converged Infrastructure market size was valued at USD 4805.24 million in 2022 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 26.53% during the forecast period, reaching USD 19719.08 million by 2028.
2. Evaluating HCI Readiness for B2B Organizations
2.1. Identifying Business Use Cases for HCI Implementation
Software-Defined Data Center: Businesses face challenges due to surging market costs, increased competition, and the need for improved business agility. Scaling data centers and managing the addition of new resources pose a concern for an efficient workforce and time consumption. HCI is a key component of the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) strategy for centralizing business operations. SDDC abstracts hardware resources, enables policy-driven automation for resource allocation, and manages data resulting in an agile, pooled, automated data center environment.
High-Performance Computing: As technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and three-dimensional imaging advance, the size and quantity of data that organizations must manage grow exponentially. Here, High-Performance Computing (HPC) comes into play, which employs clusters of powerful processors operating in parallel to process massive multidimensional datasets (big data) and solve intricate complexities at extremely high rates. It is fueled not only by rising demands but also by the prevalence of RDMA networking with reduced latency and higher throughput, as well as the widespread availability of public and private cloud HPCaaS.
Software-Defined Networking Integration: Business requirements require quick responses from enterprises and service providers to improve network control. Like storage, software-defined networking (SDN) virtualizes networking functions within a hyperconverged infrastructure. It creates a centrally managed and programmable network by separating network forwarding functions from network control functions. It allows for the centralized administration of networking devices and facilitates the automation of network devices and evaluating HCI solutions for business-specific needs.
2.2. Hyper-Converged Management and Orchestration
A modern hyper converged data center supports growing workloads while keeping a check on capital and operating expenses. This paves the way for a simplified transition to a hybrid cloud that allows for scalable performance, streamlined administration, and enhanced orchestration.
It delivers rapid deployment, orchestration, management, and monitoring of containerized environments, allowing focus on running businesses instead of infrastructure. This functionality enables IT departments to find a middle ground between empowering developers to choose their own containerized infrastructure and meeting the demands of service-level agreements in terms of reliability and availability.
The secure integration and smarter work are done through the use of open, extensible features that interface seamlessly with third-party platforms and applications to automate lifecycle operations and enable consistency and governance. It allows teams to intelligently visualize, optimize, and orchestrate the entire infrastructure and set of apps.
3. Building an Effective HCI Implementation Plan
3.1. Implementation of Managed Service Providers
Typically, the implementation ofmanaged service providers(MSPs) takes about 90-120 days, depending on the readiness of the organizations.
Meet the core subject matter experts in procurement to perform an organizational analysis and assessment.
Document current-state processes and policies helping identify the ROI for organizations.
Conduct an in-depth organizational assessment to capture operational and cultural requirements, adjusting the core implementation methodology.
Perform testing, configuration, and system design.
Carry out build & unit testing and user acceptance testing.
4. Aligning HCI Strategy with Business Objectives
4.1. Integration and Compatibility with Existing Systems
Business applications and specific technologies, including third-party services and service-level contracts, require HCI. Businesses use cloud-based ERP and CRM applications. Before choosing an HCI solution, decision-makers should consider if the hyperconverged infrastructure supports business application back-end systems. Containers and other workload-supporting technologies are equally significant. Multiple cloud services power businesses. Even if they run their cloud systems, they may use third-party disaster recovery or identity and access management (IAM) services. Decision-makers must ensure that the chosen HCI can integrate with these other services without extra steps.
4.2. HCI and Cloud Integration: Hybrid and Multi-Cloud for Hyperconverged Infrastructure
According toNutanix, 91% of IT decision-makers who consider hybrid cloud the ideal IT model for organizations.
Hybrid cloud is prevalent for comparable reasons. This architecture provides a comprehensive range of public and private cloud-based computing, storage, and services. Many organizations are discovering that integrating these technology trends can yield substantial benefits. By implementing HCI for their hybrid clouds, businesses are better equipped to address a variety of IT challenges, such as distributed workforces resulting in distributed data. As businesses increasingly adopt multi-cloud strategies, utilizing multiple public cloud services with private cloud or on-premises infrastructure becomes increasingly crucial. HCI simplifies multi-cloud management by reducing the difficulty of tracking resources, managing security, and optimizing performance across various cloud environments.
To assure compatibility between the HCI platform and different cloud services, network connectivity and data transit speeds management is required, which affects the performance and efficacy of a multi-cloud configuration. Hyperconverged infrastructure and cloud computing complement one another to provide a flexible, efficient, and scalable IT infrastructure that can adapt to the ever-changing requirements of businesses. Educating employees about hyperconverged technology, throughHCI certifications and courses,will empower them with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively deploy, manage, and optimize hyperconverged infrastructure, leading to enhanced operational efficiency, streamlined IT management, and the ability to harness the full potential. By comprehending the relationship between HCI and cloud computing, businesses make more informed IT strategy decisions and capitalize on the benefits of both approaches.
5. Top HCI Companies to Improve Cloud Management & Data Security Solutions
5.1. Virtual Tech Gurus
Virtual Tech Gurus (VTG), specializes in delivering Hybrid Solutions that seamlessly integrate the advantages of hyperconverged data center and public cloud technologies. It offers various insights, from data center inventory and discovery to user access auditing, cyber and business resiliency assessments, chargeback insights, capacity reporting, and cyber-configuration auditing. Its Cyber-Resolutions services are designed to encompass prevention auditing, response services related to user risks, cyber resiliency assessments, monitoring, and comprehensive incident response. This offers flexible, cost-effective services that translate into tangible business value for customers. VTG bolsters business performance in critical growth-oriented areas by providing consulting and project services across cloud services, data center migration, cloud migration, infrastructure assessment, and staffing. By elevating infrastructure performance, VTG achieves the twin goals of cost reduction and heightened availability, ultimately facilitating the swifter deployment of new services.
5.2. CTC Global
CTC Global, a prominent conglomerate, is a pivotal player in the HCI technology landscape. In the current era, enterprises embrace the choice of on-premise cloud networking resources to construct private cloud networks or opt for cloud-based networking resources for hybrid clouds. These cloud networking resources encompass virtual routers, virtual firewalls, HCI network monitoring, and management software, among other tools and functions readily accessible as needed. Its services include orchestrating a targeted response to cyberattacks to curtail their impact on business operations, Establishing an efficient third-party governance program to safeguard against ecosystem-related risks that could undermine business performance, Addressing the intricate digital risk management challenges a dynamic, distributed, and diverse workforce poses, equipping businesses with the knowledge to embed resilience into their day-to-day operations ensures smooth adaptation to the increasingly digital sphere.
5.3. Winslow Technology Group
Winslow Technology Group (WTG), a prominent leader in IT solutions offers managed services and cybersecurity services since 2003, consistently delivering exceptional business outcomes to its customers. WTG is committed to facilitating innovation and transformation for its clients' businesses by harnessing the advantages of data center solutions, digital workspace solutions, networking, and cloud infrastructure solutions. WTG serves a broad spectrum of clients, from medium-sized enterprises to Fortune 50 corporations, across diverse market segments, including the public sector, finance, healthcare, insurance, education, manufacturing, and technology. Data center advantages include reduced downtime enhanced security increased efficiency, optimized performance, automation of data centers and downtime & security management.
5.4. Internetwork Engineering
Internetwork Engineering (IE) fosters meaningful interactions by connecting individuals to its customers, colleagues, suppliers, patients, citizens, and students. IE is a strategic solution provider catering to mid-market and enterprise clients. Its comprehensive services span consulting, implementation, and operational services, enveloping four validated architectures: collaboration, data centers, intelligent networks, and security. Advancing data protection strategy in the modern landscape encompasses more than mere security and recovery, it extends to data availability, access privileges, and data center considerations. Data protection figures prominently in evaluating storage, backup solutions, network design, and security controls. IE addresses this essential facet with various solutions to ensure seamless business operations such as meeting backup and recovery goals, navigating data center breaches, cyber-attacks, and DDoS attacks, facilitating data replication to remote or cloud data centers, and more.
5.5. Eastern Computer Exchange
Eastern Computer Exchange (ECEI), a technology company, boasts an impressive legacy of three decades in the industry. ECEI offers holistic technology solutions, encompassing migrations, consolidations, cloud integrations, and global desktop rollouts. ECEI's specialty solutions encompass a broad spectrum, including private/public/hybrid cloud strategy and implementation, operations managed services, cloud management platform implementation, DevOps strategies with container management and orchestration solutions, hyper-converged infrastructure solutions, and end-user compute modernization solutions. The crucial interplay between network and security is the foundation of ECEI's offerings. Recognizing the inadequacy of traditional detection and blocking defenses, ECEI aligns with the zero trust network architecture (ZTNA) trend, offering valuable expertise for evaluating and orchestrating the migration to ZTNA.
6. Maximizing Business Value through HCI in B2B Markets
Hyper-converged infrastructure has emerged as a potent solution that holds the potential to enhance business value. It brings inherent data protection and disaster recovery features, assuring business continuity and upholding the critical trust of B2B partners. Security and compliance are prioritized through integrated measures that safeguard data integrity and adhere to industry regulations. This technology also empowers business agility. Swift deployment and flexibility enable rapid responses to market shifts, thereby boosting hyperconverged market sizes, ensuring B2B enterprises seize emerging opportunities and adapt to evolving customer preferences. By optimizing operations, hyperconverged infrastructure frees up resources that can be allocated to a customer-centric focus, nurturing stronger and more responsive client relationships.
As we peer into the future, the trajectory of HCI's influence reveals promising trends and a wide-ranging scope poised to redefine how businesses extract value within B2B environments. One of the prominent trends on the horizon is the deepening integration of HCI architectures into diverse business ecosystems. Furthermore, the burgeoning scope of HCI extends beyond conventional data center management. The forthcoming years are anticipated to witness an increased convergence of HCI with cloud technologies, resulting in a hybridized infrastructure model. Moreover, the integration of HCI aligns harmoniously with the ascent of Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things. The seamless connectivity and resource optimization offered by HCI are poised to drive transformative shifts in industrial automation, supply chain management, and predictive maintenance, ultimately nurturing enhanced productivity and innovation within B2B sectors.
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Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Article | October 3, 2023
Containers have emerged as a choice for deploying and scaling applications, owing to their lightweight, isolated, and portable nature. However, the absence of robust security measures may expose containers to diverse threats, thereby compromising the confidentiality and integrity of data and apps.
Contents
1 Introduction
2 IaaS Container Security Techniques
2.1 Container Image Security
2.2 Host Security
2.3 Network Security
2.4 Data Security
2.5 Identity and Access Management (IAM)
2.6 Runtime Container Security
2.7 Compliance and Auditing
3 Conclusion
1. Introduction
Infrastructure as a Service has become an increasingly popular way of deploying and managing applications, and containerization has emerged as a leading technology for packaging and deploying these applications. Containers are software packages that include all the necessary components to operate in any environment. While containers offer numerous benefits, such as portability, scalability, and speed, they also introduce new security challenges that must be addressed.
Implementing adequate IaaS container security requires a comprehensive approach encompassing multiple layers and techniques. This blog explores the critical components of IaaS container security. It provides an overview of the techniques and best practices for implementing security measures that ensure the confidentiality and integrity of containerized applications. By following these, organizations can leverage the benefits of IaaS and containerization while mitigating the security risks that come along.
2. IaaS Container Security Techniques
The increasing IAAS security risks and security issues associated with IAAS these days are leading to a massive data breach. Thus, IAAS security concerns are taken into consideration, and seven best techniques are drafted below.
2.1. Container Image Security:
Container images are the building blocks of containerized applications. Ensuring the security of these images is essential to prevent security threats. The following measures are used for container image security:
Using secure registries: The registry is the location where container images are stored and distributed. Usage of centrally managed registries on campus, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) can scan them for security issues and system managers may simply assess package gaps, etc.
Signing images: Container images can be signed using digital signatures to ensure their authenticity. Signed images can be verified before being deployed to ensure they have not been tampered with.
Scanning images: Although standard AppSec tools such as Software Composition Analysis (SCA) can check container images for vulnerabilities in software packages and dependencies, extra dependencies can be introduced during the development process or even at runtime.
2.2. Host Security:
Host security is a collection of capabilities that provide a framework for implementing a variety of security solutions on hosts to prevent attacks. The underlying host infrastructure where containers are deployed must be secured. The following measures are used for host security:
Using secure operating systems: The host operating system must be safe and up-to-date with the latest high severity security patches within 7 days of release, and others, within 30 days to prevent vulnerabilities and security issues.
Applying security patches: Security patches must be applied to the host operating system and other software packages to fix vulnerabilities and prevent security threats.
Hardening the host environment: The host environment must be hardened by disabling unnecessary services, limiting access to the host, and applying security policies to prevent unauthorized access.
2.3. Network Security:
Network security involves securing the network traffic between containers and the outside world. The following measures are used for network security:
Using Microsegmentation and firewalls: Microsegmentation tools with next-gen firewalls provide container network security. Microsegmentation software leverages network virtualization to build extremely granular security zones in data centers and cloud applications to isolate and safeguard each workload.
Encryption: Encryption can protect network traffic and prevent eavesdropping and interception of data.
Access control measures: Access control measures can restrict access to containerized applications based on user roles and responsibilities.
2.4. Data Security:
Data stored in containers must be secured to ensure its confidentiality and integrity. The following measures are used for data security:
Using encryption: Data stored in containers can be encrypted, using Transport Layer Security protocol version 1.1. (TLS 1.1) or higher, to protect it from unauthorized access and prevent data leaks. All outbound traffic from private cloud should be encrypted at the transport layer.
Access control measures: Access control measures can restrict access to sensitive data in containers based on user roles and responsibilities.
Not storing sensitive data in clear text: Sensitive data must not be stored in clear text within containers to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches. Backup app data, atleast weekly.
2.5. Identity and Access Management (IAM):
IAM involves managing access to the container infrastructure and resources based on the roles and responsibilities of the users. The following measures are used for IAM:
Implementing identity and access management solutions: IAM solutions can manage user identities, assign user roles and responsibilities, authenticate and provide access control policies.
Multi-factor authentication: Multi-factor authentication can add an extra layer of security to the login process.
Auditing capabilities: Auditing capabilities can monitor user activity and detect potential security threats.
2.6. Runtime Container Security:
To keep its containers safe, businesses should employ a defense-in-depth strategy, as part of runtime protection.
Malicious processes, files, and network activity that deviates from a baseline can be detected and blocked via runtime container security.
Container runtime protection can give an extra layer of defense against malicious code on top of the network security provided by containerized next-generation firewalls.
In addition, HTTP layer 7 based threats like the OWASP Top 10, denial of service (DoS), and bots can be prevented with embedded web application and API security.
2.7. Compliance and Auditing:
Compliance and auditing ensure that the container infrastructure complies with relevant regulatory and industry standards. The following measures are used for compliance and auditing:
Monitoring and auditing capabilities: Monitoring and auditing capabilities can detect and report cloud security incidents and violations.
Compliance frameworks: Compliance frameworks can be used to ensure that the container infrastructure complies with relevant regulatory and industry standards, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR.
Enabling data access logs on AWS S3 buckets containing high-risk Confidential Data is one such example.
3. Conclusion
IaaS container security is critical for organizations that rely on containerization technology for deploying and managing their applications. There is likely to be an increased focus on the increased use of AI and ML to detect and respond to security incidents in real-time, the adoption of more advanced encryption techniques to protect data, and the integration of security measures into the entire application development lifecycle.
In order to stay ahead of the challenges and ensure the continued security of containerized applications, the ongoing process of IaaS container security requires continuous attention and improvement. By prioritizing security and implementing effective measures, organizations can confidently leverage the benefits of containerization while maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of their applications and data.
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Article | April 20, 2021
Communications giant Verizon last week launched 5G for Business Internet in 20 new markets, targeting SMBs and enterprises alike.
The fixed-wireless plans provide download speeds of 100Mbps ($69/month), 200Mbps ($99/month), and 400Mbps ($199/month) with no data limits. Upload speeds are slower. Verizon is also offering a 10-year price lock for new customers with no long-term contract required.
“As 5G Business Internet scales into new cities, businesses of all sizes can gain access to the superfast speeds, low latency and next-gen applications enabled by 5G Ultra-Wideband, with no throttling or data limits,” Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon Business, said in a statement.
“We’ll continue to expand the 5G Business Internet footprint and bring the competitive pricing, capability, and flexibility of our full suite of products and services to more and more businesses all over the country.”
The service was previously launched in parts of Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles. Verizon started rolling out 5G services last year using lower spectrum bands. According to a study by IHS Markit’s RootMetrics, Verizon offers speeds similar to those of T-Mobile but behind AT&T.
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