Category Archives: Cloud Hosting
UKCloud Health awarded place on new 3bn framework from NHS London Procurement Partnership – RealWire
UKCloud Health is approved via the Information, Management & Technology (IM&T) framework providing a flexible and compliant way for healthcare organisations to procure UKClouds multi-cloud services.
London 12th March 2020 UKCloud Health, the multi-cloud experts dedicated to powering the Healthcare community, has today announced that it has been successfully selected to provide its services via multiple lots (including Consultancy, Hosting and Cyber Security) on the NHS London Procurement Partnership (NHS LPP) framework.
Health and social care organisations such as NHS trusts, clinical practices and hospitals are all embarking on digital transformation initiatives led by NHSX to improve patient outcomes. Cloud adoption is a key enabler of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and this new framework is designed to service the demand for a more complete Information Management and Technology (IM&T) portfolio, including IT Managed Services, for public sector bodies. The recent State of Cloud Adoption survey revealed that 88% of respondents from UK Health & Life Sciences organisations agreed that lack of skills and resource levels was impeding their cloud adoption. This framework helps the healthcare community address this key obstacle by providing access to approved and compliant services from specialist providers including UKCloud Health.
Cleveland Henry, Director of Cloud at UKCloud Health, said:We are delighted to have won a place on this exciting new framework from NHS LPP. Organisations across the health and social care community are increasingly looking to address their challenges with capability and capacity via partnering with approved providers that offer the necessary specialism and value for money. This framework makes it easy for those organisations to access the portfolio of multi-cloud services from UKCloud Health.
As a cloud services provider with extensive experience working with health and social care organisations, UKCloud Health has a comprehensive portfolio of multi-cloud services, professional services and managed services which spans 5 sublots of the NHS LPP framework:
This new framework provides a robust procurement vehicle providing health and social care organisations with access to the strongest and most competitive suppliers. UKCloud Health is well positioned on the NHS LLP framework to offer its skills, capabilities and guidance to help healthcare communities define and implement strategies for cloud adoption. Its unique multi-cloud platform provides maximum choices and options which enable organisations to assemble the perfect mix of cloud services to match the constraints of their budgets, capabilities and compliance.
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About UKCloud HealthUKCloud Health is a secure, government-assured, cost effective and UK sovereign cloud service. Our easy to use platform offers an open, collaborative environment to help enhance the way you and your Healthcare colleagues work.
UKCloud Health. We power Healthcare communities.
Additional information about UKCloud Health can be found at http://www.ukcloudhealth.com or on Twitter at @ukcloudhealth
Media ContactEllie Robson-Frisby, Head of Marketing E: erobsonfrisby@ukcloud.com M: 07775 538135
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UKCloud Health awarded place on new 3bn framework from NHS London Procurement Partnership - RealWire
How to pick the right third-party CI/CD tool for the cloud – TechTarget
A deployment pipeline is one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure in an application environment. Without it, agile software development feels more like the old waterfall model, as you labor through the standard cycle of develop, test and deploy. This is where a reliable CI/CD pipeline comes into play.
Most cloud-focused organizations have adopted continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines to automate many of the processes associated with software development. These pipelines reduce the lead-time from development to deployment from months to hours, but only if you pick the right CI/CD tool.
CI/CD is one of the most established categories of DevOps tools, and IT teams can choose from an extensive number of third-party CI/CD offerings. There are managed options that specialize in a single technology stack and self-hosted tools that offer more customization. There are also CI/CD tools that run through a collaborative code repository, such as GitHub. But having access to all these options makes it hard to know which tool best fits your needs.
In this third-party CI/CD tool comparison, we'll go over the three types of tools and some of the top options in each category. This should give you an idea of how CI/CD can help your organization.
Before we get into the third-party tools, let's first distinguish them from what's offered natively on the major public clouds. AWS, Microsoft and Google each offer their own CI/CD pipeline tools -- including AWS CodeBuild, Azure Pipelines and Google Cloud Build -- tailored to their platforms. These services often lag behind third-party CI/CD tools, whether it is due to a lack of support for a given technology stack, poor version control integration or limited feature sets. The cloud-native options can also increase vendor lock-in and make it difficult to adopt a multi-cloud infrastructure.
Unlike the cloud vendors' offerings, third-party CI/CD tools integrate with a wide range of other tools and services. This gives you more flexibility because you're not limited to a single cloud vendor or a small subset of languages and tool support.
Application development takes a lot of work. Larger organizations can often adapt to growing infrastructure needs, but smaller companies are not always so fortunate. Managed offerings are an excellent way to bootstrap a CI/CD pipeline.
Travis CI, CircleCI and CodeShip are popular managed CI/CD tools that, for a fee, take care of server management, patching, dependencies and other tasks, so you can focus on moving code into production. Each tool takes its own CI/CD pipeline approach, but at a high level, they're easy to configure and support an impressive number of integrations.
However, be mindful of your usage. While these tools are generally affordable at a small scale, they get more expensive as your infrastructure grows. Organizations often move from a managed CI/CD tool to a self-hosted offering when their infrastructure permanently scales up.
Organizations can manage CI/CD themselves if they don't want to trust a third-party provider to host, maintain, manage and secure their delivery pipeline. This provides more flexibility, as well as more responsibility.
Popular self-hosted CI/CD tools such as Jenkins and Drone have their own hosting and management overheads, but as open source projects, they're exceptionally configurable.
As with all open source projects, one of the biggest advantages is that it's free. However, you do have to pay for the infrastructure it runs on, which can become costly if you aren't careful with the resources your pipeline requires.
The final CI/CD category worth highlighting is CI/CD tools built around collaborative code repositories such as GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket.
These CI/CD tools are popular with companies that already rely on these vendors, as this can simplify the collaborative aspect of software development. Tight integration between the code repository that development teams rely on and the build process that validates that code can make a big difference in the dev-test cycle time.
However, these tools are not as mature as other, more extensive options on this CI/CD tools list. While GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket introduce a lot of flexibility through Docker-based configuration -- a tactic supported by the majority of CI/CD tools -- this CI/CD capability is intended to be a supplemental feature of their primary version-control system. These collaborative code repository CI/CD tools can feel limited compared to the managed and self-hosted options.
Focus on the tool that can best grow with your needs. If your infrastructure growth is slow and predictable, a managed service like Travis CI or CodeShip should work. If you are in a rapid-growth state, then a self-hosted option will scale more cost-effectively. And, if you want to keep your code and build tools all together, rather than spreading yourself too thin, consider the CI/CD tool available through your code repository provider.
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How to pick the right third-party CI/CD tool for the cloud - TechTarget
Cloud ITSM Market Current Trends and Future Aspect Analysis 2018 2028 – 3rd Watch News
Global Cloud ITSM Market: Overview
The growth of the global cloud ITSM market is growing on account of advancements in the organizational structure of large MNCs. The advent of next-generation platforms for employee management and information sourcing has necessitated the need for IT platforms. As companies embrace digital transformations, the need for cloud-based platforms has become indispensable. Moreover, the high reliance of large firms on IT systems and technologies has created a boatload of possibilities for market growth. The unprecedented requirement for managing the complexities of organizations has also given a thrust to market growth. Henceforth, it is safe to expect that the global cloud ITSM market would accumulate large-scale revenues in the years to follow.
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A syndicate review by TMR Research (TMR) outlines several key dynamics pertaining to the global cloud ITSM market. The global cloud ITSM market can be segmented on the basis of end-user, application, service-type, and region. On the basis of application, the demand for cloud ITSM for managing hierarchical structures across organizations has aided market growth.
Global Cloud ITSM Market: Notable Developments
The growth of digitalization across multiple industries has paved way for multiple developments across the global cloud ITSM market.
ServiceNow provides value-added services for cloud ITSM, and has emerged as a key vendor in the market. The agility and speed of cloud ITSM services provided by the company have helped it in attracting a large consumer base. Furthermore, the success stories of the companys services have played an integral role in its popularity. A number of businesses that previously underscored ServiceNows services have now become regular consumers to the company.
The need for developing a strong net of security across large businesses has played to the advantage of the market players. The market vendors are focusing on developing effective cloud-based solutions that can help in garnering the attention of the masses. It is also true that the need for improved monitoring of stored data is an indispensable requirement across large companies.
Some of the leading vendors in the global cloud ITSM market are:
Global Cloud ITSM Market: Growth Drivers
The need for a common portal to access sharable information has necessitated the presence of cloud hosting platforms. There is tremendous demand for securing key assets and information of companies, individuals, and entities. Information stored on hardware devices is at a risk of being lost to cyberattacks and unanticipated system failures. Hence, cloud ITSM has emerged as a panacea for the commercial and industrial sectors. The rapid digitalization of processes within key industries is a key standpoint from the perspective of market growth. Moreover, rising incidence of cyberattacks and intrusions have also driven companies towards the use of cloud ITSM platforms.
There is a large playfield of opportunities floating in the global cloud ITSM market. The market vendors are projected to tie up with large business units in order to develop a permanent consumer base. Moreover, the relentless efforts made by government authorities to standardize business processes has also aided market growth. State-level planning authorities have been quick to adopt digital platforms for accelerated integration of key services. Besides, development of databases for analytic testing across business entities has also driven market demand.
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Cloud ITSM Market Current Trends and Future Aspect Analysis 2018 2028 - 3rd Watch News
Recovery and restoration of content from blogs and windows web hosting UK websites – Lifesly.com
Recovery and restoration of content from blogs and windows web hosting UK websites
There are many reasons why you may need to restore your website or even a blog.You could have forgotten to pay for your hosting or been hacked, losing all the data in the process.You may also have had an old blog before and need to recover the content.With todays technology, it is possible to recover and restore your content as it was before losing it.
The companies that can handle such tasks are the same that help in the design and configuration of websites.This means that they really know everything there is to know about the internal functioning of websites and have the best software to handle recovery and restoration.The software can rebuild a different backup based on a website that is inside the web archive.The software goes through each and every page to ensure they are re-encoded when they are uploaded to a new server.With the use of the most efficient software, it should be operational in a matter of a day or so.
Contents
What can be recovered?
There is so much that a recovery company can help you.You can retrieve your text content.In addition to this, you can also get your images, zip files, documents, and even videos.It means you can be entertained with a complete recovery process.You should also keep in mind that most of the time, the content that can be retrieved is what is inside the web file.
Steps
If you have lost a website and want to recover it, you must configure a domain name and protect that.The second is to get accommodation and three get an archived copy of the website.When all this is done, now what remains is to load the files.You can buy a new domain name, but if you can, try to recover the one you lost.
There are particular areas where you can earn a domain name.Always buy the previous domain name if you can, since you will have all the relevant keywords related to the website and what it offers.
When to get help
Sometimes, recovering a website is not something you can do everything on your own.This is the part where you call experts to take care of the problem for you.Most companies require you to complete a form to process your application.
What you need to know is that search engines generally have cached copies of different pages.It is unlikely that you cannot find an original page in the cache.If it is not available, you must use a web repository where many web pages are backed up.This is a method that can take a long time.However, with a company that had the right software and technical support, it can be done in less time.
Choose the best web hosting service for your small business
Are you thinking of taking your business to the next level by creating a website?If you are looking for a good and affordable hosting company to maintain your small business hillingdon grid webmail , here are some tips to help you before you start.
In recent times a business;It is very rare to find if it is small or large without an online platform since customers always look for their needs on the Internet.Potential customers always look for the best products and their suppliers on the Internet.Here, if your small business does not appear, then that will not be a good sign for them.So websites always play a vital role.
Web hosting companies provide a server to store and maintain their website.They always help customers see the website and get access to all pages easily.The choice of the best web hosting company is the important part.Especially for small businesses, a website helps them attract and interact with customers.
There are three types of hostings;shared, dedicated and in the cloud.Shared hosting shares the server with more than one website.These models provide less disk space and bandwidth.The type of dedicated gridhosting review provides a single website server that offers more disk space and bandwidth compared to a shared vision.
The third type is cloud hosting, which is a combination of shared and dedicated hosting.They provide a network of servers for a single website instead of a single server.It normally gives the website with the same disk space and bandwidth as dedicated hosting.For a small business or a newly started website, it is appropriate to opt for a type of shared hosting.They are cheaper compared to the other two types and saves you overpayments.
Cloud hosting is also a good option since they use the Internet and there will be no need for additional software.They are affordable since the load is based on the use of the site.This category is more stable than other networks, less costly, more productive and more profitable.
Selecting the best type and hosting company, according to your business and your growth is the main factor.Small businesses initially do not expect to have customer traffic.Therefore, it is good to think of a company that offers affordable hosting methods.Choosing the wrong windows web hosting uk company can lead to a loss of potential customers, loss of benefits, security malware, etc.Therefore, customer support is another factor when deciding on the company you choose.
If your website offers the best e-commerce tools with a well-designed interface, it can impress customers and make them adhere to your website to meet their needs.There are free and paid services too.Paid organizations mostly offer better services, while free ones generally impose ads for their fiscal gains.
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IBS Software Takes Lufthansa Cargo Handling to the Cloud – PRNewswire
Lufthansa Cargo's decision to move to IBS Software's SaaS hosting platform is part of its long-term objective to focus on its core cargo business without compromising on IT operations. As part of the decision-making process, Lufthansa Cargo evaluated the capabilities of global hosting service providers on critical areas including application availability, security regulatory and data privacy.
Lufthansa Cargo stands to benefit from IBS Software's industry-first 'zero outage' capability for its SaaS offering. With zero outage capability, planned maintenance is completed with absolutely no outage to the business IT system one of the major benefits for Lufthansa Cargo. This unique capability results in operational stability, which is essential to fulfill the customer promise and to provide effective and seamless cargo handling operations around the clock across all time zones without any service disruptions.
Lufthansa Cargo will also benefit from superior and faster application performance of highly complex cargo business functions and processes. As an example, Lufthansa Cargo processes one million messages per day. Each message will now be processed noticeably faster than before in less than one second on the IBS Software SaaS platform.
Initial performance of the system, which operates from IBS Software's new data centre in Frankfurt, has shown that the SaaS service has exceeded the benchmarks in all parameters set by Lufthansa Cargo, with 100% SLA compliance.
Lufthansa Cargo CIO Dr. Jochen Gttelmannsaid, "IBS Software has consistently delivered beyond expectations throughout our relationship that started with the iCAP implementation. They have demonstrated their capability to take on the established leaders in application hosting and offer a true SaaS provisioning that helps us to focus on our core competencies. We greatly value the responsibility and commitment that IBS Software brings to the table."
"IBS Software is thrilled to sign up Lufthansa Cargo as a SaaS customer, benefitting from our industry leading iCargo platform hosted in our world class data centres. Lufthansa Cargo's selection of IBS Software is testament to our excellent track record of iCAP delivery for the past seven years, andour commitment to consistently deliver value to our customers," said Ashok Rajan, SVP & Head of Airline Cargo Services, IBS Software.
About IBS Software
IBS Software is a leading SaaS solutions provider to the travel industry globally, managing mission-critical operations for customers in the aviation, tour & cruise and hospitality segments. IBS's solutions for the aviation industry cover fleet and crew operations, aircraft maintenance, passenger services, loyalty programs, staff travel & air-cargo management, making it the enterprise with the widest range of offerings for the aviation industry. IBS also runs Demand Gateway - the world's largest distribution network for leisure hotels. For the tour and cruise industry, IBS provides a comprehensive guest centric, digital platform that covers onshore, online, and onboard solutions for the modern tour and cruise provider. IBS is a Blackstone company and operates from 11 offices across the world. Further information can be found at https://www.ibsplc.com/
Latest news and information on IBS Software is found at https://www.ibsplc.com/about/news
SOURCE IBS Software
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IBS Software Takes Lufthansa Cargo Handling to the Cloud - PRNewswire
New realms of measurement, connected data silos, and more in 2020 (Reader Forum) – RCR Wireless News
Editors note: Keysight Technologies offered up these predictions for 2020, from CTO Jay Alexander and Jeff Harris, who leads the companys global marketing.
New realms of measurement will grow in importance in 2020:Measurement basedtools of many kinds are key enablers for the technology-based products and solutions we incorporate into our daily lives, and it will transform as disruptive technologies come into play.
In 2020, advanced applications related to 5G, will explode, using higher frequencies and smaller geometries. To support this growth:
In 2020, the use of software in implementing technology will remain prevalent, especially in networking and position or navigation-based smartphone applications. As a result, software-on-software measurement will see a strong surge and therefore, so will emphasis on interoperability among software tool chains. New standards and certifications will be created, impacting development processes, as well as the marketing required to ensure consumers are aware of what a software-centric product can and cannot do.
In 2020 there will be a substantial rise in specialized processors, such as GPUs and chips, that implement Artificial Intelligence or AI architectures which determine how anetworkprocesses and routes information and maintains security, privacy, and integrity. Quantum computing and engineering will continue to be in an aggressive hype phase in 2020, but the ability to control, measure, and error-correct quantum systems as the number of qubits grows will be important from the start.
As measurement and operation of the computer blends, those interested in building practical quantum computers will require knowledge about measurement technologies and techniques before the quantum computing goes into the mainstream.
Data silos will be connected to extract development insights:Leading companies collect data but typically store it in functional silos: R&D design, pre-production validation, manufacturing, operations and services.
In 2020, companies will start connecting these silos of data using modern cloud architectures, such as private on-premises clusters, or public sites like AWS or Azure. With the data centrally available, teams will correlate performance through the development process, from early design to manufacturing to field deployment and close the loop back to design. The benefits for these teams include the rapid collection and reformatting of data, faster debugging of new product design, anticipation of manufacturing issues, and improved product quality.
To achieve these gains, teams will invest in a computing infrastructure, determine how to store the data, including file location and data structure, as well as choose analytic tools to select and process data to identify anomalies and trends. In addition, teams will change the way they work to shift attention to data-driven decisions.
5G and the Data Center:New 5G capabilities in 2020 will put pressure on networks, revealing new data center and network chokepoints.
Industrial IoT applications will increase access requests and mobile automotive IoT applications will stretch latency demands. Edge computing will become more important to process the increased access requests and meet stringent latency requirements.
Higher data speeds will place more demands for faster memory, faster data busses, and faster transceivers in the data center. Meeting the speed and flexibility demands will be one reason, but customer traceability through the network for application monetization will be the main driver to upgrade to the latest standards.
In 2020 we will see advanced design, test and monitoring capabilities that ensure networks and products deliver the performance and failsafe reliability expected. The industry will experience closer collaborations between chipset and product manufacturers, software companies, network carriers, cloud hosting companies and international standards organizations to build tomorrows networking infrastructures.
Challenges will Abound to get 5G to Maturity:5G represents technical evolution and revolution on many fronts creating new technical challenges that span many domains.
In 2020 the industry will move from a small group of early-movers who have commercialized initial 5G networks, to a global community in which multiple operators in every continent and in many countries will have commercial 5G networks.
The early adopters will add scale and those who launch in 2020 will quickly resolve issues in their initial deployments. Second-generation devices and base stations will be added to the market, and the standards will have another new release in 3GPPs Rel-16.
Key technical challenges for the industry in 2020 will be: ensuring performance in mid-band (3.5-5GHz) frequencies, moving mmWave to mobility, transition planning to a full Stand-Alone (SA) 5G network, and resolving architectural decomposition and standards for centralized RAN and Mobile-Edge computing (MEC).
The Internet of Things will become the Interaction of Things: IoT will rapidly move into the mainstreamwith widening commercial acceptance, increasing public-sector applications and accelerated industrial deployments
In 2020 we will see an increased level of smart experiences when the Internet of Things a collection of devices connected to the internet becomes the Interaction of Things a collection of things that are communicating and working effectively and efficiently with each other.
There will be powerful devices working with other powerful devices to act quickly and efficiently in the background independent of direct human intervention. Mission-critical applications, such as remote robotic surgery in the area of digital healthcare or autonomous driving in the area of smart mobility, will feel the impact of this shift.
While these applications will benefit from the Interaction of Things, new solutions will be developed to ensure they do not suffer from the Interference of Things, especially when communication failure and network disturbances can bring about devastating or life-threatening consequences.The same will be true of Industry 4.0 applications and smart city applications. Uptime will not be optional.
Digital twins will move to the mainstream:Digital twins, or the concept of complete replicate simulation, are the nirvana of design engineers.
In 2020, we will see digital twins mature and move to the mainstream as a result of their ability to accelerate innovations. To fully realize the technologys benefits, companies will look for advanced design and test solutions that can seamlessly validate and optimize their virtual models and real-world siblings to ensure that their behaviors are identical.
2020 will not be the year of the autonomous vehicle. Active cruise control, yes. Full autonomy, we have a couple years to go.The quantity and sophistication of sensors deployed in vehicles will increase in 2020, but fully autonomous vehicles will require more ubiquitous 5G connectivity and more artificial intelligence. Here is where we see the industry on each of those areas:
The ratio of fleets sales with EV or HEV powertrain will grow from single-digit percentage ratio to double-digits in 2020 tripling the shipped units compared to last year.
The first C-V2X network will hit the streets in China, but they will be operating on an LTE-V network until 5G Release 16 evolves the standard.
The technical advances for sensors and in-car networks will continue to evolve on a fast pace, needing faster in-vehicle networks. In 2020, Gigabit Ethernet based in-car networks become a reality and significantly improved sensor technology enables artificial intelligence developers to hit new performance levels.
System level design, test and monitoring will experience a dramatic transformation:The connected world will force a shift in how performance, reliability, and integrity are evaluated.
In 2020, realizing the full potential of sensor systems connected to communication systems connected to mechanical systems will require new ways to test at the system level.
Today, there are available tests for radar antennas and a radar transceiver module. However, testing a multi-antenna radar system integrated into a car will require a different testing approach. The same is true for data centers, mission critical IoT networks, automobiles, and a wide range of new, complex, 5G-enabled applications.
In 2020, the electronics industry will emphasize system-level testing as the definitive, final step to assure end-to-end performance, integrity and reliability across the increasingly connected world.
Education will shift to prepare the next generation of engineers.Universities will adopt holistic, integrated, and multi-disciplinary curricula for engineering education.
Academia will tap into industry partnerships to keep up with the accelerating pace of technology and incorporate certification programs, industry-grade instrumentation and automation systems into teaching labs to train students on current, real-world applications.
To address IoT, Universities will combine methodology from basic electronics, networking, design engineering, cybersecurity, and embedded systems, while increasing emphasis on the impact of technology on society and the environment.
To address artificial intelligence, automation and robotics, Universities will mainstream currently niche topics such as cognitive science and mechatronics into required learning.
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New realms of measurement, connected data silos, and more in 2020 (Reader Forum) - RCR Wireless News
Introduction to the Firebase Database – Database Journal
By Bradley L. Jones
Firebase is a Cloud-hosted, NoSQL database that uses a document-model. It can be horizontally scaled while letting you store and synchronize data in real-time among users. This is great for applications that are used across multiple devices such as mobile applications. Firebase is optimized for offline use with strong user-based security that allows for serverless based apps as well.
Firebase is built on the Google infrastructure and is built to scale automatically. In addition to standard NoSQL database functionality, Firebase includes analytics, authentication, performance monitoring, messaging, crash reporting and much more. Because it is a Google product, there is also integration into a lot of other products. This includes integration with Google Ads, AdMob, Google Marketing Platform, the Play Store, Data Studio, BigQuery, Slack, Jira, and more.
The Firebase APIs are packaged into a single SDK that can be expanded to multiple platforms and languages. This includes C++ and Unity, which are both popular for mobile development.
A Firebase project is a pool of resources that can include a database as well as items such as user accounts, analytics, and anything that can be shared between a number of client applications. A Firebase application is a single application that can be backed by the Firebase Project. A Firebase project can have multiple Firebase applications within it.
To create a Firebase project, go to the Firebase site at Firebase.Google.com. On the upper right corner (as shown in figure 1), click on the Go to Console button. This will take you to the console where you can build your project.
Figure 1: The Firebase site
The first step towards building a Firebase project is to enter a name for your project and accept the Firebase terms as shown in figure 2 where I've created a project called "Test Project - BLJ".
Figure 2: Naming your Firebase project.
After naming your project, youll step through two or three additional screens for setting up your project. The other setting you will be asked about is whether you want to enable analytics. Google Analytics is free and provides targeting and reporting in what you are doing. This will enable you to be able to more effectively do things such as A/B testing, user segmentation and targeting event-based Cloud Functions triggers, and user behavior predictions. The setup process will allow you to use an existing Google Analytics account or set up a new one. Once youve walked through the setup wizard, youll be told when your project has been created as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Firebase Project Setup completed
With the project built, you can click the continue button, which will take you to your projects page that will be similar to what is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Firebase Project
It's important to note that the project has been created under a free Spark plan. This means there will be usage quotas for Database, Firestore, Storage, Functions, Phone Auth, Hosting, and Test lab usage. Overall, the free account will allow you to get up and running with many small projects.
In the area of usage of the real-time database using the free account (at the time this article was written), you can have 100 simultaneous connections, store up to 1 GB of data, and have 10GB of downloads each month. You only have one databases within a project. Having said that, if you want to use storage outside of the database, the free account provides up to 5GB of storage with downloads of up to 1GB per day. You can do 20,000 uploads and 50,000 downloads per day. You can, however, only have one storage bucket per project.
If you need to get around these usage restrictions, or if you want to extend your project with the Google Cloud Platform, then you will need to upgrade to a Blaze account. It expands the usage amounts.
Firebase has two different cloud-based solutions that support real-time data synchronization. These are Cloud Firestore and Firebase Realtime Database. The Realtime Database is the original Firebase database that works with synchronization across clients in real-time. It is an effective, low-latency solution great for mobile applications. Cloud Firestore is a newer offering that offers more scalability and faster access than the Realtime Databases. For example, one change it that when Realtime Database grabs a collection of items from a database, it also grabs all the sub-collections. With Cloud Firestore, queries are shallow in that they dont grab sub-collections.
This article was a quick introduction to Firebase. You can jump to firebase.google.com and create a project using a free account today. In the next article, you will see how to use a Firebase database from a simple web application.
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Source Code Escrow Agreements Are Reaching For The Cloud – JD Supra
Law360
Source code escrow agreements have long been accepted by software providers in traditional on-premises software sales. But how often do we see on-premises software licenses today? An overwhelming number of vital business functions are now offered through cloud applications, including software-as-a-service solutions.
When it comes to SaaS, the customer is often at a greater risk of losing access to the solution than it would be with traditional software, and yet the traditional source code escrow model is not sufficient to mitigate that risk. As tech transactions practitioners who negotiate SaaS agreements on a near-daily basis, we are seeing, in real time, a rapidly changing market in which SaaS customers are demanding source code escrow agreements, and a growing number of SaaS providers are capitulating.
So, how does it work, and how are the risks and costs allocated between the parties?
To understand the new escrow model, one needs understand the traditional on-premises escrow model. Source code escrow offers buyers a contingency plan in the event the provider goes out of business or no longer offers maintenance and support for certain software programs that buyers may consider mission critical to their businesses.
When a business becomes dependent on certain software to maintain operations, a source code escrow provision in its software license agreement (and separate three-party source code escrow agreement among the customer, provider and escrow agent) is considered an essential safety net for business continuity. This model has become so commonplace in the market that buyers expect it and, more often than not, software providers offer it up front, as a standard provision in their agreements. This leads to smoother negotiations and establishes trust between vendor and customer.
On-premises software operates in the customers own live environment, and the customers data is stored on its internal systems and backup systems. The softwares availability depends on the availability of the customers own system. If the software provider decides to discontinue the software, declares bankruptcy, or ceases operations, there is generally no immediate concern to the customer, because the software can continue to run on the customers system.
In such cases, the customer would invoke its rights under its traditional source code escrow agreement, obtain access to the source code and other materials and recreate (or engage a service provider to recreate) the development environment for the software, which would allow the customer to continue to use, maintain and update the software with little downtime, if any.
Because there is little or no threat of immediate, substantial business interruption, traditional source code escrow agreements often contain release conditions that require some time to pass before the escrow agent is permitted to release the materials to the customer (e.g., the provider must cease operations for a period of 60 days or more).
With SaaS, on the other hand, the software code, infrastructure, data and storage exist in a production environment outside of the customers premises. The availability of the software often depends not only on the SaaS provider, but on its third-party hosting/cloud providers. Outages, and inaccessibility to data, lasting mere minutes could result in substantial business interruption for the customer. In such a scenario, a traditional source code escrow agreement is of little or no use to the customer.
Instead, what is required is a far broader scope of escrow materials and services to aid the customer in case of an outage, including a copy of the customers data stored in a secure back up data center, back up hosting, highly detailed documentation containing build instructions for recreating (or engaging a third-party vendor to recreate) the application and production environment, and, of course, the source code and object code.
Recognizing this issue, source code escrow service providers now offer SaaS risk management services. These escrow providers have created programs to ensure SaaS application continuity and data accessibility, by offering capabilities such as copying the SaaS application (and all of the customers data) to a second server located at a secure data center, and even hosting a standby recovery environment on which to seamlessly run the application in the case of mission critical applications where the customer cannot afford even a few minutes of downtime. This concept isnt new; escrow companies have offered SaaS escrow services for over a decade.
SaaS providers, however, have resisted the inclusion of escrow provisions in their subscription agreements, though the tide appears to be turning recently. SaaS providers had previously taken the position that they made no continuity guarantees and have relied upon business continuity and disaster recovery policies to assuage customers (even though such business continuity and disaster recovery policies often apply to the providers business, not the customers business).
However, as businesses are becoming more sophisticated about cloud solutions, and more experienced in onboarding SaaS applications, we are seeing more demand for SaaS escrow provisions in subscription agreements.
There are many things to consider in negotiating SaaS escrow provisions. The scope of the escrow materials is an important issue, because the customer wants the deposited materials to include everything necessary to reproduce the development environment and run the application, and yet it is not always clear what that means. The level of detail that providers may have to give in their documentation to enable the customer or a third party to recompile the executable code may be far above and beyond what the provider typically states in its customer-facing documentation, which could lead to extra costs incurred by the provider.
In some cases, to fully transition the solution to another environment, the customer may need access to third-party ancillary software or data sources that support the SaaS application, and providers must consider whether it is even within the providers rights or ability to place into escrow.
Customers tend to want to use escrow service providers who can maintain mirrored applications that can be instantaneously activated and hosted by the escrow agent, the customer or the customers third-party service provider effectively serving as a business continuity site. Such escrow programs can be expensive, so the issue of cost allocation is another point of negotiation in SaaS escrow provisions as they become more prevalent in the market.
In addition, one of the biggest points of contention between providers and customers with respect to SaaS escrow is the escrow-release conditions. As discussed above, under the traditional software model the release of source code generally requires the vendor to cease all operations for a significant time period (e.g. 30-60 days), file a petition in bankruptcy or any other proceeding relating to insolvency, liquidation or assignment for the benefit of creditors, or officially discontinue the software and/or support for it.
With respect to the SaaS escrow model, savvy customers understand the need for release conditions addressing the urgency associated with downtime. However, providers do not want to release their applications and all of the intellectual property related thereto so easily.
Therefore, SaaS escrow release conditions often dovetail with the applicable service-level agreements. If an SLA provides for reasonable remedies for short periods of unplanned downtime, then the SaaS provider can argue that the escrow should only be triggered by longer periods of unplanned downtime or chronic failures.
Although there are several points of negotiation in these SaaS escrow provisions, providers are more and more frequently accepting the reality of SaaS escrow, including them in their form subscription agreements to appeal to prospective customers wary of business continuity risks.
From the customers standpoint, they must assess (1) whether the application is mission critical; (2) the cost from both a financial and reputational perspective of going down; (3) the availability of substitute applications; (4) the transition time to a substitute application; and (5) the stability and reliability of the vendor.
Even as SaaS escrow provisions become customary in vendor agreements, the question of their effectiveness remains. While the escrow can give customers comfort when taking on the risk of onboarding an SaaS solution, the actual, practical transitioning of the application, data center and hosting environment in the event of a release condition may be more catastrophic than the downtime itself. Its time for customers to make sure they cover their SaaS.
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Source Code Escrow Agreements Are Reaching For The Cloud - JD Supra
Google expanding cloud hosting presence in Canada with Toronto location – MobileSyrup
Google is bringing another Cloud platform region to Toronto, Ontario, to compliment the only existing location in Montreal, Quebec.
Google Cloud Regions are basically data centres where web developers can host their websites plus do a few other behind the scenes tasks that relate to hosting a website on the internet.
This Toronto Cloud Region should help more Canadians access Canadian-specific websites with less latency since the data wont have to travel as far to reach them.
Google Canada says that businesses ranging from financial services, media and entertainment, retail and more can use the new region to help them build applications better and faster, as well as store data.
Overall, this isnt something regular people will knowingly interact with, but it does gove Canadian web developers a local option for hosting their sites. If you are a developer, you can head over to Google Canadas blog to learn more about the new Cloud Region
Source: Google Canada
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Google expanding cloud hosting presence in Canada with Toronto location - MobileSyrup
Mission-critical services migrating to the cloud in 2020 – TechRepublic
Remote workplaces are forcing critical services to the cloud with optimized production and lowered costs.
Image: cofotoisme, Getty Images/iStockphoto
There's no denying the cloud's impact on information services. In a short amount of time, cloud-based services have effectively evolved from copious amounts of storage space to hosting applications to serving as the backbone of an organization's network and security infrastructuresor all of the above.
SEE: Top cloud providers in 2020: AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, hybrid, SaaS players (TechRepublic Premium)
The use of cloud-based services is growing by leaps and bounds, according to a Gartner forecast that sees the public cloud market growing overall by 17% in 2020. Software as a Service (SaaS), which has seen the highest gains in the past, is set to be dethroned by Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), forecasted at a year-over-year growth of 24%--"The highest growth rate across all market segments," Gartner said.
That should not come as a surprise, since the mobile nature of work has made it so that traditional data centers simply cannot keep up with demand from users, who have an average of 6.58 network connected devices each, according to Statistica.
Due to the increased costs associated with procuring and managing more equipment, IT staff, training, expensive support contracts for software and hardware, higher-density networking equipment and bandwidth, many organizations find it cost effective to off-load the maintenance of their core services to managed services in the cloud, which include monitoring, security, and disaster recovery.
Below are my predictions of the services that will make the largest leap to the cloud in 2020--with no looking back.
SEE:Special feature: Managing the multicloud (free PDF)(TechRepublic)
Segment: IaaSNo matter your enterprise's platform of choice, directory services are the crux of centralized user and device management. The large market share for Microsoft's Active Directory has migrated to the cloud under the Azure umbrella. Microsoft added to it an increasingly easy-to-use, scalable, and remarkable web-based solution that provides cloud-based connectivity for domain authentication of devices and does not require traditional "line-of-sight" to the domain controller. In fact, due to its cloud-based nature, users can theoretically authenticate across any network worldwide, freeing them to work remotely without the need to cache credentials but still be able to access shares over their wireless connections.
Azure Active Directory, unfortunately, does not support a security mainstay, such as Group Policy just yet. However, the inclusion of Intune, Microsoft's MDM software, can (and should) be used to manage security on Azure-connected devices to ensure they are hardenedand remain securedthrough the use of remote policies that enforce device management through any network connection.
Segment: SaaS
MDM/UEM applications run just as well on a physical server as they do compared with a virtual machine (VM) instance. Many of the applications offer a version that may be managed on-premise that is identical to the cloud-based version, so why pay someone else to manage what our organization can do itself? The answers are simple: Scalability, security, and less administrative overhead.
SEE:How to choose the best MDM partner: 5 key considerations(TechRepublic)
Almost all MDMs have migrated to cloud-based offerings, with few keeping their on-premise solutions available. The per-device price point between device management and the administrative side to rolling out your own MDM has been shown to increase exponentially as the number of manageable devices increases past a certain pointusually the limits of your infrastructure. At that point, new equipment, software licenses, and bandwidth resources must be provisioned to prevent loss of service to the devices.
Segment: SaaS
Judging by the number of business emails sent and received each day in 2019, 293.6 billion, Statistica saidwe can see why managing email is more than a full-time job for any administrator.
That's before adding the increased threat exposure and hardware costs associated with self-hosted email services. Securing servers, connections, and clients covers only the transmission aspect of email. There are still access considerations, and the biggest points of contention: Spam and phishing-related messages that will almost certainly find their way to a user willing to provide his bank account number to aid an ousted prince.
SEE:Top five on-premises cloud storage options (free PDF)(TechRepublic)
Segment: SaaS/IaaS
ERP, the business backend that integrates hardware and software resources used to manage and automate functions relating to human resources, technology, and services, is a beast of a system that typically involves many man-hours to put together, then countless more to maintain. After all, it drives a large portion of an enterprise's core functions and can be used by just about anyone in the organization to handle many tasks. These systems are large and complex, usually requiring dedicated staff and support contracts to keep ERP operating smoothly.
SEE:Top 10 ERP vendors in 2020(TechRepublic)
Imagine handing off the maintenance of these monolith systems to the vendor or manufacturer. You could save the time, energy, and resources it takes to administer these systems, scale them as needed, and allow your team to refocus its efforts to tasks that add value to the organization. Similarly, SMBs that wish to incorporate an ERP system but may not have the staff or knowledge to do so can provision software- and infrastructure-as-a-service in as little time as it takes to make a call or conduct a meeting.
Segment: IaaS
Nothing is worse than having your organization's equipment destroyed and finding that there was no disaster recovery plan (DRP) in place. Correction: The only thing worse is finding out a DRP exists but data cannot be recovered properly or it will take too many resources to get the organization fully operational in time. Luckily for us, a variety of options exist in the field of disaster recovery to allow organizations of all sizes and budgets to effectively implement a working recovery plan that will allow them to become operational in days, hours, or even minutes.
SEE:Disaster recovery and business continuity plan(TechRepublic Premium)
With the elasticity of cloud-based options, any business can start with the minimum requirements that suit its current needs and scale as needs grow. Whether those needs are storage, servers, clusters, or data centers anywhere in the world, the ability to activate multiple hot and cold sites still requires careful planning, but no longer the upfront expense of purchasing multiple sets of equipment or the long-term costs of maintaining said equipment in the event of failure or catastrophic loss.
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Mission-critical services migrating to the cloud in 2020 - TechRepublic