In their new partnership, Synechron would be providing cloud-based solution architecture and operating models to support both the migration of legacy processes, as well as establishing the cloud for new business activities for its clients. Synechrons Google Cloud Centre of Excellence comprises a global group of Google Cloud accredited architects, data engineers and developers who have designed and developed enterprise-grade, cloud-hosted solutions. Mutual clients will be able to create an application landing zone with confidence for their ecosystems with Synechrons cloud migration expertise and managed services framework, increasing operational efficiency and delivering cost leverage.

Express Computer gets into an engaging conversation with Anand Chandra who leads the Technology Practice across UK, Europe and APAC and is responsible for establishing Techno-Functional competency in Synechron focused around Cloud capabilities in Google Cloud, MS Azure across Wholesale, Retail, Institution, Private Banking, Wealth & Asset Management. Edited excerpts:

Could you acquaint us with your recent partnership with Google Cloud?

We recently announced our partnership with Google Cloud to further expand our existing cloud offerings to our clients in financial services. We aim to provide cloud engineering combined with emerging technologies to support both Heritage Modernisation and Ecosystem Innovation, as well as allow our clients provide their customers with digital-first experiences that are secure, seamless and built for the 21st century.

Synechron is working with Google Cloud on live engagements across the UK, The Netherlands and APAC. As part of our Digital Ecosystem Accelerator program, we leveraged Google Cloud suite to create our Treasury-as-a-Service API Orchestration Accelerator called Liquify. Liquify creates an API-enabled ecosystem that automates a banks treasury, liquidity, and cash management functions across different siloed departments within a business division. This accelerator brings together multiple APIs into a microservices layer running in the cloud and then pushes them through an API-Gateway, allowing each API plug-in to serve an independent function free from any existing monolithic systems.

How is Synechron looking forward to expanding its cloud offerings?

We are working alongside our clients on their cloud strategy, feasibility, technology architecture and engineering programs. We are investing heavily into building our Google Cloud Platform capabilities to partner with our clients across multiple regions and have more than 200+ engineers who are being trained on the Google Cloud Platform stack across different modules.

Google cloud practice focus at Synechron is to take value proposition to our clients which includes Analytics API (custom built Real-time & Batch Processing with Microservices on Cloud for cloud-based data engineering), Cloud Adoption Program (Engineering approach to Cloud Migration as part of Heritage Modernization from assessment to evaluation to execution using Synechron CAP Cloud Adoption Program), Open API Marketplace (Synechrons Treasury-as-a-Service Open Banking Cash Management lets banks offer a Treasury-as-a-Service via their platform for intraday cash sweeping) & Big Data on GCP (Infrastructure-as-a-service for Big Data technologies, a MongoDB IaaS being designed & architected for a Tier 1 Bank currently).

Which type of cloud (Public, Private, Hybrid) is best suited for organisations now that they are working remotely?

The cross-over path has Cloud Native vs retire technical debt is somewhere between migration and reinvention. Financial services are moving towards Hybrid cloud strategy to leverage best of features across cloud providers and its followed by multi-cloud strategy where the services are configured across providers. The future will see less of private cloud (interconnected network of VMs) and Public cloud adoption will see a drop due to better data governance with Hybrid cloud implementation.

The financial services industry will witness an accelerated adoption of cloud-driven by the pandemic. It is not optional to move to cloud anymore, it is essential. This pandemic has highlighted the importance of deploying a flexible and scalable cloud system to remain agile and adaptable to get work done in a fluctuating ecosystem. Financial services clients have adopted DevOps first strategy on migration to explore opportunities on cost optimization and operational efficiency. The current thinking is to leverage Application hosting, data management & compute offerings on cloud and associate them with benefits value chain restructuring opportunities. The wider direction of travel is build hybrid cloud target state to leverage best of security, storage and disruptive technologies (Big Data & Native AI tooling). BFSI, being a highly regulated industry, will benefit from a hybrid cloud model. Hybrid cloud solutions due to reduced infrastructure cost, flexibility, better workforce collaboration allow businesses to scale, irrespective of the size of the organisation.

Do you think there are any challenges involved in the adoption of cloud at a time when working from home has been the new normal?

The current new normal is more trust based and then it was before. The basis of emerging technologies like Blockchain, low-code platforms, Cloud and deep learning models are basis of trust and tactical deduction of ROI which is both sentiment and data based. Cloud programs in new normal are being tuned to Assembly line delivery model where Core engineering team will be at Program Vertical (PV) level who would comprise of required expertise from Enterprise group and will be responsible for designing the solution and assisting the implementation. The Delivery and DevOps representation in the enterprise group will ensure execution and rollouts. Implementation team would operate like an assembly line with Design & QC team working remotely & Support team will be a shared services model, working remotely.

Due to the ongoing global crisis, attackers can capitalise on rapid change, confusion, and take advantage of the vulnerability of the systems. It is crucial to enhance security policies relevant to the COVID-19 situation to include remote working access management, the use of personal devices and home networks and the associated risks involved. Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) use advanced firewall technology like Web Access Firewalls, application services, layering and micro-segmentation to safeguard their clients from cyberattacks. The last couple of months saw increased migration of workload to the cloud and moving applications to the cloud can result in extensive troubleshooting and application downtime.

If you have an interesting article / experience / case study to share, please get in touch with us at [emailprotected]

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'This Pandemic Has Highlighted The Importance Of Cloud System': Anand Chandra, Synechron - Express Computer

Digitally focused companies want orderly, incremental changes to their software. What they don't want is time-consuming, expensive enterprise development efforts that tie the business to specific sets of hardware, software and middleware. A software maintenance model can provide the framework to achieve improvements without starting over.

Budget constraints are a major reason to choose software maintenance over a full-on replacement. IT organizations have two sources of money to fund software: money allocated to sustain current operations based on the accepted benefits, and project funding used to obtain new business benefits. It can be difficult to prove the new benefits -- and, thus, to justify major increases to software funding. Maintenance, then, is the only practical way to keep software aligned with business needs.

The maintenance process must be done in a systematic way. Select a general type of software maintenance based on the scope of the project, then choose a maintenance model that has the most benefits and fewest limitations for the specific project.

First, assess the impact scope of the changes the dev team proposes for a piece of software, both for the current cycle and next year.

Set a priority level. If the maintenance is needed to repair an application fault or introduce a capability that will drive business or comply with regulations, classify that as emergency maintenance. If the maintenance will accommodate the application's platform or utility roadmap, consider it scheduled maintenance. If the driver is stability or efficiency improvements, that is application modernization; in this case, evaluate whether the scope of the change justifies a rewrite of the application instead.

Organizations should explore common software maintenance models that align with the maintenance types and scopes laid out in the first part of this article.

Each software maintenance model has benefits and risks. The most common models are:

Quick-fix. In this model, you simply make a change without considering efficiency, cost or possible future work. The quick-fix model fits emergency maintenance only. Development policies should forbid the use of this model for any other maintenance motives. Consider forming a special team dedicated to emergency software maintenance. Make it the only group allowed to use this software maintenance model.

When using the quick-fix model, annotate changes with code comments and include a change ID. Enter these changes into a maintenance history that details why the change was made, who made it and what specific techniques they used. If multiple points in the code change, note each location and tie them together via the change ID.

Iterative. Use this model for scheduled maintenance or small-scale application modernization. The business justification for changes should either already exist or be unnecessary. The iterative model only gets the development team involved. The biggest risk here is that it doesn't include business justifications -- the software team won't know if larger changes are needed in the future. The iterative model treats the application target as a known quantity.

An iterative maintenance approach covers the common development steps of requirements, design, code, and test and verify results. This iterative flow is roughly the same as a complete software project and includes a benefits analysis.

Because it does not include business analysis, the iterative model best suits changes made to confined application targets, with little cross-impact on other apps or organizations.

Reuse. Similar to the iterative model, the reuse model includes the mandate to build, and then reuse, software components. These components can work in multiple places or applications. Some organizations equate this model to componentized iteration, but that's an oversimplification; the goal here is to create reusable components, which are then made available to all projects under all maintenance models. A dev team typically introduces the reuse model in the requirements phase, which means the process has a similar structure to that of the iterative model, once requirements for reuse are met.

When applying the reuse model, the dev team should consider components of the existing application for reuse, and either make modifications to them or add new ones. It's crucial to work within the organization's broader reuse missions with this approach. Dev teams can easily introduce too much specialization into code and prevent its reuse.

Closed-loop. Use the closed-loop model for scheduled maintenance and application modernization. In this model, the dev team proposes the project and stakeholders must validate its business case before work begins. Once the business and development stakeholders approve, maintenance work proceeds via the iterative model's flow. The loop closes when the dev team evaluates the changes in the live software, and proposes additional work to improve the product, kicking off a new round of proposed changes and business validation.

Closed-loop maintenance goes through several phases. In the analysis phase, the organization establishes the business case for changes. Then, the dev team goes through requirements gathering and approval. At this point, the business assesses the project relative to overall software structures, data center and cloud hosting initiatives and other proposed projects. From this analysis, the organization creates the actual project requirements.

The Boehm and Taute models are formal methodologies for closed-loop maintenance projects. The Boehm model adapts economic principles to maintenance decisions. The Taute model specifies estimates and scheduling for a change before the IT team carries out programming, test and implementation. Like in the Boehm model, the IT team observes the updated software product and makes new proposals for changes, restarting the loop. Some organizations say the Boehm model aligns more easily than Taute's to enterprise architecture principles.

Most organizations use multiple software maintenance models, depending on the situation. Emergency maintenance is a standalone situation. For scheduled maintenance, iterative and closed-loop models differ primarily in how tightly they integrate business operations and benefit analysis. Some software maintenance projects should be vetted for their benefits, while others need no such proof to proceed.

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4 common software maintenance models and when to use them - TechTarget

Companies all over the world sell VPN services to secure your online activity, but can you really trust a VPN provider? If you want, you can create your own virtual private network with the open-source Algo software, and the cloud-hosting provider of your choice.

Regardless of what the privacy policy says or boasts about security audits on a company blog, theres nothing stopping a VPN from monitoring everything you do online. In the end, choosing a VPN serviceall comes down to trust.

If trusting faceless online services isnt your thing, one alternative is to run your own VPN server. This used to be a daunting task, but thanks to the open-source project Algo from security company Trail of Bits, creating your own VPN is now easy.

For $5 per month, you can run and control your own full-time VPN server. Even better, you can use Algo to set up and tear down VPN servers as you need them, and save money in the process.

To set-up Algo, you have to use the command line. If thats off-putting, dont worrywell walk you through every step.

These instructions might seem like a lot, but thats only because were explaining as much as we can. Once youve created a VPN with Algo a few times, it shouldnt take very long at all. Plus, you only have to set up Algos installation environment once. After that, you can create a new VPN server with a few keystrokes.

But can you trust that Algos scripts arent doing anything untoward? Well, the good news is Algos code is public on GitHub for anyone to look at. Plus, many security experts are interested in the Algo project, which makes misdeeds less likely.

RELATED: What Is a VPN, and Why Would I Need One?

A VPN is a good way to protect your online activityespecially on a public Wi-Fi network in an airport or coffee shop. A VPN makes web browsing more secure and stymies any malicious actors who might be on the same local Wi-Fi network. A VPN can also help if your ISP restricts certain kinds of traffic, like torrents.

But watch out, pirates! Downloading booty through your own VPN isnt a good idea, as the activity can more easily be traced back to you.

Also, if you wanna watch Netflix over your VPN, youll have to look elsewhereAlgo doesnt work with it. However, there are many commercial services that do support Netflix.

To get an Algo VPN server up and running, you need a Unix Bash shell. On a Mac or Linux system, you can use your Terminal program, but on Windows, youll have to activate the Subsystem for Linux. Hereshow to install and use the Linux Bash shell on Windows 10.

Youll also need an account at a cloud server hosting provider. Algo supports all of the following:

If youve never used any of these services, we recommend DigitalOcean, as its very user-friendly. Its also the service were using in this tutorial. The process will be a bit different if you use a different provider.

When your DigitalOcean account is ready to go, sign in, and then, from the primary dashboard, select API from the left rail under the Account heading.

On the next page, click Generate New Token. An access token is a long string of letters and numbers that permits access to account resources without a username and password. Youll need to name the new token. Generally, its a good idea to name it after the application youre using, such as algo or ian-algo (if your first name happens to be Ian).

After the new token is generated, copy and paste it into a text document on your desktop. Youll need it in a few minutes.

Back on your desktop, open a fresh terminal window, type cd(for change directory, which is what folders are called in the Unix world), and hit Enter. This will ensure youre working from the terminals home directory.

At this writing, Algo requires Python 3.6 or later. Type the following into your terminal program:

If you get a response likePython 3.6.9, youre good to go; if not, youll have to install Python 3.

To install Python 3 on Mac, you can use the Homebrew package manager. When Homebrews ready to go, type the following command in a Terminal window:

If youre using Ubuntu Linux or WSL on Windows, they should have Python 3 by default. If not, installation methods vary depending on your version of Linux. Search online for install Python 3 on [insert your version of Linux here] for instructions.

Next, you need to install Python3s Virtualenv to create an isolated Python environment for Algo. Type the following in Bash on a Mac:

On Ubuntu Linux and WSL, the command is the following:

Note that were tailoring this tutorial for Ubuntu and related distributions, but these instructions will also work for other versions of Linux with some minor alterations. If youre using CentOS, for example, youd substitute the instructions using apt with dnf.

Next, we need to download Algo with the wget command. Macs dont have wget installed by default, so to get it via Homebrew, type the following:

Now, lets download Algos files:

After wget finishes, there will be a compressed file called master.zip in your terminals home directory; lets check that with ls.

If you see master.zip in the list of files and folders that appears, youre good to go. If not, try running wget again.

Now, we need to unzip the file, so we type the following:

After thats done, hit ls again. You should now see a new folder in your home directory called algo-master.

Were almost ready for action, but first, we need to set up our isolated environment and install a few more dependencies. This time well work inside the algo-master folder.

Type the following to switch to the folder:

Make sure youre there with this command:

This stands for print working directory, and it should show you something like /home/Bob/algo-master or /Users/Bob/algo-master. Now that were in the right place, lets get everything ready.

Either copy and paste or type the command below on a single line (dont press Enter until the end):

This triggers a whole lot of action inside the Algo directory to prepare to run.

Next, you have to name your users for the VPN. If you dont name all of them now, youll either have to hold onto the security keys (which is less secure) or start a new server from scratch later on.

Either way, type the following in terminal:

This opens the user-friendly command-line text editor,Nano. The Algo config file has a lot of information in it, but were only interested in the part that says users. All you have to do is remove the default usernames (phone, laptop, desktop), and type a name for each device you want on your VPN.

For example, if Im creating a VPN for myself, Bill, and Mary, the config file might look like the following:

Once youve named everyone, press Ctrl+O to save the file, followed by Ctrl+X to exit.

Were almost ready for action, but first Windows folks need to take a little detour. WSL usually doesnt set the correct user permissions for the Algo folder, which upsets Ansible (the tool Algo relies on to deploy a server).

On WSL, type the following to go back to your home directory:

Then, type the following:

To go back to the Algo folder, type:

And now is the moment of truth.

From the algo-master folder, type the followingin the terminal window:

The Algo configuration should start running. Youll know its working when it asks which cloud provider youd like to use. In our case, we select the number (1) for DigitalOcean.

If Algo fails, it could be a number of reasons we cant possibly predict here. If the error says your directory is world write configurable, then follow the instructions above for changing permissions.

If you get a different error, check the troubleshooting page in the Algo project repository on GitHub. You can also copy the error message and paste it in Google to search for it. You should find a forum post that will help, as its unlikely youre the first person to receive that error.

Next, youll be asked for the access token you copied earlier from your DigitalOcean account. Copy and paste it into terminal. You wont see anything because Bash doesnt display characters for password- and security-phrase entries. As long as you hit paste, and then press Enter, though, it should be fine.

If it fails, you might have just messed up the paste, which everyone does in Bash. Just type the following to try again:

When Algo is running, answer the questions it asks. These are all pretty straightforward, like what you want to name your server (using algo in the name is a good idea).

Next, it will ask if you want to enable Connect on Demand for Mac and iOS devices. If youre not using any of those devices, type N for no. It will also ask if you want to keep the PKI keys to add more users later; generally, youll type N here, as well.

Thats it! Algo will now take about 15 to 30 minutes to get your server up and running.

When Algo finishes its setup, the terminal returns to a command-line prompt, which means the VPN is ready to go. Like a lot of commercial services, Algo uses the WireGuard VPN protocol, which is the hottest new thing in the world of VPNs. This is because it offers good security, greater speeds, and is easier to work with.

As an example of what to do next, well activate Algo on Windows. To set up other devices, you can refer to the Algo repository on GitHub.

First, well install the generic Windows desktop client from the WireGuard site. Next, we have to feed the program our config file for the PC. The configuration files are stored deep in the algo-master folder at: ~/algo-master/configs/[VPN server IP address]/wireguard/.

There are two types of files for configuring VPN client devices: .CONF and .PNG. The latter are QR codes for devices like phones, that can scan QR codes. The .CONF (configuration) files are text files for the desktop WireGuard clients.

On Mac and Ubuntu, it shouldnt be hard to find the algo-master folder outside of the command line. On Macs,algo-master is in the Home folder; just useFinder > Go > Home to get there. On Ubuntu, you can open Nautilus, and itll be in the Home folder.

On Windows, however, WSL is separate from the rest of the OS. For this reason, its just easier to copy the files over with the command line.

Using our previous example, lets say we want the Mary-PC.conf configuration file to use on a Windows 10 PC. The command would look something like this:

Note the space between Mary-PC.conf and /mnt/; thats how Bash knows where the file to be copied is located, and where its going. Case also matters, so make sure you type capitals where specified.

Its natural on Windows to want to capitalize the C in C: drive, but in Bash you dont. Also, dont forget toreplace the bits in brackets with the actual information for your PC.

For example, if your user folder is on the D: drive, not the C:, then replace /mnt/c/ with /mnt/d/.

Once the file is copied, open the WireGuard for Windows client. Click Import Tunnels From File, and then select your configuration file on the desktop. After thats done, click Activate.

In just a few seconds, youll be connected to your very own VPN!

See the original post here:
How to Host Your Own VPN with Algo and Cloud Hosting - How-To Geek

Teradata has become much more serious about working in the public clouds and Western Digital has an NVMe Express-bolstering present for its zoned QLC SSD initiative.

Legacy data warehouse Teradata has its head in the clouds in a seriously big way: AWS, Azure and GCP to be precise. Its pushing more features into its Vantage-as-a-service products on the Big 3 of cloud. Customers get:

There will be more to come over time.

The Amazon and Azure Vantage enhancements are available now. They will also apply to Vantage on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), which will begin limited availability in July 2020.

The NVMe Express consortium has ratified Western Digitals ZNS (Zoned Namespace) command set specification. WD has a pair of zoned storage initiatives aimed at host management of data placement in zones on storage drives.

For SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) HDDs:

For NVMe SSDs:

These are host-managed as opposed to the drives managing the zones themselves. That means system or application software changes. It also requires support by other manufacturers to avoid zoned disk or SSD supplier lock-in. This ratification helps make ZNS support by other SSD manufacturers more likely.

ZNS is applicable to QLC SSDs where data with similar access rates can be placed inseparate zones to reduce overall write amplification and so extend drive endurance. They can also provide improved I/O access latencies.

The ZNS specification is available for download under the Developers -> NVMe Specification section of thewww.nvmexpress.orgpublic web site, as an NVM Express 1.4 Ratified TP.

WD has been working with the open source community to ensure that NVMe ZNS devices are compatible with the Linux kernel zoned block device interface. It say this is a first step and modifications to well-known user applications and tools, such asRocksDB,Ceph, and the Flexible IO Tester (fio) performance benchmark tool, together with the newlibzbduser-space library, are also being released.

It claims public and private cloud vendors, all flash-array vendors, solid-state device vendors, and test and validation tool suppliers are adopting the ZNS standard but these are not named.

Blocks & Files thinks ZNS support by other SSD suppliers such as Samsung, Intel, and Micron will be essential before storage array manufacturers and SW suppliers adopt it with real enthusiasm.

WD claimed that, with a small set of changes to the software stack, users of host-managed SMR HDDs can deploy ZNS SSDs into their data centres. More from WD here.

Data warehouser Actian has announced GA of Vector for Hadoop. This is an upgraded SQL database with real-time and operational analytics not previously feasible on Hadoop. The SW uses patented vector processing and in-CPU cache optimisation technology to eliminate bottlenecks. Independentbenchmarksdemonstrated a more than 100X performance advantage with Vector for Hadoop over Apache Impala.

The Active Archive Alliance announced the download availability of a report: Active Archive and the State of the Industry 2020, which highlights the increased demand for new data management strategies as well as benefits and use cases for active archive solutions.

Backupper Assigra and virtual private storage array supplier Zadara announced that Sandz Solutions Philippines Inc. has deployed their the Cloud OpEX Backup Appliance to to defend its businesses against ransomware attacks on backup data.

AWS Snowcone uses a disk drive to provide its 8TB of usable storage, not an SSD.

Enterprise Information archiver Smarsh has Microsoft co-sell status and its Enterprise Archive offering is available on Azure for compliance and e-discovery initiatives. Enterprise Archive uses Microsoft Azure services for storage, compute, networking and security.

Taipei-based Chenbro has announced its RB133G13-U10; a custom barebones 1U chassis pre-fitted with dual Intel Xeon motherboard and ready to install two Intel Xeon Scalable processors with up to 28-cores, 165W TDP. There is a maximum of 2TB of DDR4 memory, 2X 10GbitE connectivity, 1X PCI-Ee Gen 3 x16 HH/HL expansion slot and support for up to 10X hot-swappable NVMe U.2 drives. It has Intel VROC, Apache Pass, and Redfish compliance.

France-based SIGMA Group, a digital services company specialising in software publishing,integration of tailor-made digital solutions, outsourcing and cloud solutions, has revealed it uses ExaGrid to store its own and customer backups, and replicate data from its primary site to its disaster recovery site.

Estonia-based Diaway has announced a strategic partnership withExceleroand the launch of a new product, DIAWAY KEILA powered by Excelero NVMesh. Component nodes use AMD EPYC processors, PCIe Gen 4.0, WD DC SN640 NVMe SSDs, and 100GbitE networking. Sounds like a hot, fast box set.

FalconStor can place ingested backup data on Hitachi Vantara HCP object storage systems. This means data ingested by FalconStor through its Virtual Tape Library (VTL), Long-Term Retention and Reinstatement and StorSafe offerings can be deduplicated and sent to an HCP target system. Physical tape can ingested by the VTL product and sent on to HCP for faster access archive storage.

Hitachi Vantara was cited as a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave Enterprise Data Fabric, Q2 2020 evaluation. But Strong Performers are second to Leaders and the Leader suppliers were Oracle, Talend, Cambridge Semantics, SAP, Denodo Technologies, and IBM. Hitachi V was accompanied asa Strong Performer by DataRobot, Qlik, Cloudera, Syncsort, TIBCO Software, and Infoworks. Well done Hitachi V but no cigar.

Backupper HYCU has a Test Drive for Nutanix Mine with HYCU initiative. Customers can try out Nutanix Mine with HYCU at their own pace, with in-depth access and hands-on experience by launching a pre-configured software trial.

Data protector HubStor tells us it has revamped its company positioning as a SaaS-based unified backup and archive platform. Customer adoption remains strong and its adding one petabyte of data into the service each month as of recent months.

Chinas Inspur has gained the number 8 position in the SPC-1 benchmark rankings with an AS5500 G3 system scoring 3,300,292 SPC-1 IOPS, $295.73/SPC-1 KIOPS and an 0.387ms overall response time.

Seagates LaCie unit announced new 1big Dock SSD Pro (2TB and 4TB SSD capacities) and 1big Dock (4TB, 8TB, and 16TB HDD capacities) storage for creative professionals and prosumers. Both are designed by Neil Poulton to look good on your desktop. The 1big Dock SSD Pro is for editing data-intense 6K, 8K, super slow motion, uncompressed video, and VFX content. The 1big Dock has direct ingestion of content from SD cards, CompactFlash cards, and USB devices and serves as the hub of all peripherals, connecting to the workstation with a single cable.

Micron Solutions Engineering Lab recently completed a proof of concept using Weka to share a pool of Micron 7300 PRO with NVMe SSDs and obtained millions of IOPS from the file system. The testing used six nodes in a 4 + 2 (data + parity) erasure-coding configuration for data protection. Theres more information from Micron here.

Nutanix Foundation Central, Insights and Lifecycle Manager have been updated to enable Nutanix HCI Managers to do their work remotely.

Nutanix and HPE have pushed out some new deals with AMD-based systems offering better price/performance for OLTP and VDI workloads, ruggedised systems for harsh computing environments, certified SAP ERP systems, higher capacity storage for unstructured data, and turnkey data protection with popular backup software. More from Nutanix here.

Cloud data warehouser Snowflake, with an impending IPO, today announced general availability on Google Cloud in London. The UKs Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership is using Snowflake in London. This follows Snowflakes general availability on Google Cloud in the US and Netherlands earlier this year.

Storage Made Easy (SME)has signed an EMEA-wide distribution agreement with Spinnakar for its Enterprise File Fabric, a single platform that presents and secures data from multiple sources, be that on-premises, a data centre, or the Cloud. The EFF provides provides an end-to-end brandable product set that is storage agnostic, and currently supports more than 60 private and public data clouds. It supports file and object storage solutions, including CIFS/NAS/SAN, Amazon S3 and S3 compatible storage, Google Storage and Microsoft Azure.

StorageCraft announced an upgrade of ShadowXafe, its data and system backup and recovery software. Available immediately, ShadowXafe 4.0 gives users unified management with the OneXafe Solo plug-and-protect backup and recovery appliance. It also has Hyper-V, vCenter and ESXi support and consolidated automated licensing and billing on ConnectWise Manage and Automate business management platforms.

StorOne has launched its Optane flash array, branding it S1:AFAn (All-Flash Array.Next) claiming its the highest-performing, most cost-effective storage system on the market today and a logical upgrade to ageing All-Flash Arrays. CompuTech International (CTI) is the distributor of StorONEs S1:AFAn. Use TRU price to run cost comparisons.

Europe-based SW-defined storage biz StorPool has claimed over40 per cent y-o-y growth in H1 2020 and a 73 per cent NPS score. New customers included a global public IT Services and consulting company, a leading UK MSP, one of Indonesias largest hosting companies, one of Netherlands top data centres, and a fast-growing public cloud provider in the UK. StorPool is profitable and hasnt had any funding rounds since 2015.

TeamGroup announced the launch of the T-FORCE CARDEA II TUF Gaming Alliance M.2 Solid State Drive (512GB, 1TB) and T-FORCE DELTA TUF Gaming Alliance RGB Gaming Solid State Drive (5V) (500GB, 1TB), both certified and tested by the TUF Gaming Alliance.

Frighteningly fast filesystem supplier WekaIO said it has been assigned a patent (10684799) for Flash registry with write levelling, and has forty more patents pending. Forty? Yes, forty.

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This week in storage: Teradata in the cloud, WD Zoned SSDs and more - Blocks and Files

Shared hosting is a cheaper option, so many online retailers tend to start their business with this type of hosting. But as their business grows, they are likely to run into resource constraints, and that negatively impacts their store performance.

It is at this juncture; the online retailer needs to decide whether to continue with the shared hosting or switch over to the cloud hosting.

Unmanaged hosting is not beneficial for the long run, so you need to consider a managed hosting that offers you significant benefits. It also enables you to focus more on your business and make efforts to grow it.

Despite the shared hosting being the most economical option available, it is, however, only for the ones who can manage all the technicalities related to their online store. Or else, it becomes an expensive affair due to a slew of factors popping up. It is not advantageous in the long run.

You also need to manage the server. If you are not tech-savvy, you need to invest in hiring a system administrator for the job. Also, it is your responsibility to add Apache, NGINX, PHP stack, cache, database management, etc.

Unmanaged hosting is not a very good option for online retail stores due to:

You can get rid of all these problems by switching over to the managed Magento hosting. It enables you to free yourself from managing the server, and so you will get ample time to focus on your online store and grow your business.

Managed Magento hosting gives you the following advantages:

Magento is a complex eCommerce platform that is developed on a sophisticated architecture. It calls for a complex mixture of components in the running server, like managed cloud hosting, among others. With managed cloud hosting, you get the flexibility to upgrade as well as downgrade the size of the server anytime. And for online retailers, this feature becomes extremely useful, especially in the holiday period when there is an abrupt rise in the traffic. We recommend you to start your Magento store with a 4GB plan, which is the best option for starters.

Managed Magento hosting is endowed with high security. It provides maximum protection due to the deployment of multiple layers of Intrusion Detection System (IDS), which gives protection against any malicious activity, DDoS attacks, policy violations, etc. And in the event of any security issues, the technical support team springs into action in very little time.

A managed Magento hosting has the latest technology that consists of the latest web server software along with a powerful caching system. As such, it entails faster page loading time as compared to shared hosting. And it is a crucial aspect for all online merchants as their growth in revenues depends upon it. At the same time, a managed Magento hosting provides maximum uptime, and that is a critical component in search engine results pages (SERP) as it gives faith to search engines.

You can get the technical support you need quite often when you opt for managed Magento hosting. The support team gives you round the clock support to fix any issue that might pop up anytime. An expert system administrator is the core member of the support team. He and his team manage all the technical issues of the server to offer you technical support. He manages things, such as domain registration, server launch and website migration.

You cannot put your website off-line when you want to test new changes. So you need to test all updates, plugins or new changes on a development mode rather than the live website.

But with unmanaged hosting testing website changes is a time-consuming process. Managed hosting enables you to do away with the cumbersome process by providing single-click staging features that are developed for testing the changes without putting the website off-line.

Staging allows you to get a clone of your website with a click on a button. You can access the cloned website through a test URL using FTP, SSH or phpMyAdmin.

Single-click installation is a crucial feature of managed magento hosting that is an important time saving and server management feature. It provides you with j-toggle, and the platform itself takes care of everything. Single-click features include Magento-app installation, enabling/disabling services, migration, domain mapping, backup, SSL certificates, among others.

With managed Magento hosting, you can get backups of your website whenever you want. You can schedule automatic backup by clicking on the buttons for the purpose.

You now have an understanding of the difference between managed and unmanaged hosting. At the same time, you also came to know why you should choose the managed Magento hosting. Therefore, if you are starting an online store, you should choose the managed Magento hosting for the reasons outlined above.

Last Updated on June 24, 2020

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Why you should shun unmanaged hosting and adopt managed - MOARGeek