Category: Server Security

Our Security blog sections contains trends as well as important security information. In order to prevent you from cyber-attack.

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Server Security

OnApp for VMware Technical Overview in 2020

OnApp-for-VMware

OnApp has launched their latest version of cloud management: a provisioning and billing portal for VMware cloud providers.

OnApp is a UK-based software company. Their products enable service providers and enterprises to build and operate IaaS public cloud, private cloud, Disaster Recovery and Content Delivery Network environments.

OnApp v6.0 now supports VMware vCenter, along with vCloud Director that enables cloud providers to use OnApp’s self-service portal to offer multi-tenant public cloud and at the same time offers the benefit of OnApp’s flexible pricing, packaging and access controls.

It also simplifies cloud management and provisioning for companies with multiple VMware vCloud Director environments; simultaneously simplifying cloud integration with Business and Operational Support Systems (B/OSS); and introducing a new billing and access control system.

Their new billing system, Buckets, makes it easier for cloud providers to package and price new types of cloud services. The new release also adds Veeam support for backing up VMware cloud workloads.

The latest version of OnApp replaces the complexity of native UIs with a single pane of glass for cloud management, provisioning and billing. It also extends OnApp’s automation, monetization and integration capabilities for vCloud Director; also now, it brings the same benefits to vCenter as well.

The VMware cloud is now easier for providers to manage, and for customers to buy. This is made possible by bringing multiple vCloud Director and vCenter instances into one UI.

The new billing and backup options help VMware cloud providers to have more ways of tailoring their services to specific types of customer.

They introduced new export tools for billing data. This helps VMware cloud providers accelerate “lead-to-cash” by simplifying integration of cloud services with their existing Business and Operational Support Systems.

It makes detailed metering and billing data available through its intuitive user interface, as flat file exports, and via its full API. It also adds easy migration of workloads to KVM, allowing cloud providers to offer services with different price/performance characteristics alongside their VMware-based clouds.

Now turn your vCenter environment into a secure self-service cloud OnApp’s latest version helps improve vCenter automation and billing, simplifies multi-cloud management, and enables secure self-service through a fully customizable Graphical User Interface.

Secure Self-Service

With OnApp, you can give departments and end users the ability to deploy, manage and destroy virtual machines without giving them the access to your vCenter environment. They can manage their own cloud resources, just as in a public cloud.

By offering users (developers) the ability to spin up their machines as needed for testing, Self-service significantly improves the agility of your IT department within the constraints set by your business.

Easy multi-cloud management

  • Easy-multi-cloud-management

OnApp gives you the opportunity of managing multiple vCenter environments, multiple private clouds, or a mix of private and public clouds.

You can easily manage clouds built on KVM and VMware, and provide access to AWS and OnApp public cloud resources through one UI.

Automation

OnApp enables widespread automation of virtual server deployment and management.

It contains a built-in workflow automation system that makes it easy to deploy applications during or even after provisioning, add tools and framework technologies to a virtual server, upgrade software automatically, and much more.

Centralized template management

You get a central location for template storage, from which templates can be deployed in any of your vCenter environments.

You no longer have to waste time in setting up separate libraries in multiple locations, or waste storage space through duplication. Any and every new vCenter you add to OnApp has instant access to the same template library.

Centralized service management

OnApp v6.0 maintains a central catalogue of services that can be provisioned by users from a single login, even if the services may exist in multiple locations.

Services can be deployed automatically; they can even generate a request for manual fulfilment by your teams.

It is very easy to add your own services to the catalogue – from virtual server instances and applications, to managed or professional services.

Metering for chargeback

It has a comprehensive resource metering system that supports a wide range of different chargeback, show-back and billing strategies.

Whether you need to assign cost to internal users or departments, or invoice end user clients, it has become much easier with the latest OnApp version.

Governance

The latest OnApp version provides users with a range of access control and auditing features to improve governance across cloud environments.

  • Resource Access: locks down user access to only the resources they need, for any number of different user roles.
  • Template Access: ensures users can access only a specific set of applications or OS templates.
  • Change Tracking: get clear visibility of changes made across your environment easily.
  • Central Change Logging: you can track changes made to machines in multiple cloud environments all from a single location.
  • Approvals: approve changes that were requested before they are made.

Extend beyond IaaS

Extend Beyond IaaS

You can now enhance your vCenter environment with private or public CDN, bare metal servers, smart servers and the huge range of other capabilities enabled by the newest version of OnApp cloud platform.

OnApp v6.0 for VMware cloud providers is now available to everyone through the VMware Cloud Provider Program, and direct from OnApp.

Categories
Server Security

IT Support Services for Disaster Recovery

IT Recovery Services

What is Disaster Recovery?

Disaster Recovery is the process of recovering vital technological infrastructure and system of an organization following a natural or human-induced disaster and thereby resuming its operations to normality as fast and effectively as possible.

A disaster can be anything, from a cyber-attack to equipment failure or natural disruptions that can threaten a company’s business and its theatre of operations. Thus, the goal of DR is to enable an organization to operate normally in case of a disaster and have a quick recovery to mitigate its losses as much as possible.

The process involves planning and execution of the plan by testing it and a physical site for restoring operations.


Importance of DR

In today’s world of high availability dependent business, downtime tolerance is very low. That is why a disaster is the last thing a business needs to experience. Studies show that most of the organizations go out-of-business after they experience a disaster that it could not recover from. This is precisely why Disaster Recovery has become so very important nowadays. DR can help organizations do exactly what the name suggests: “recovery from disastrous events.”

Importance of DR
  • RPO & RTO :

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) are the two most important parameters in a disaster recovery plan and downtime. The objectives guide organizations to chose an effective DR plan and strategize on that.

Recovery Point Objective or RPO is the maximum age of files the organization must recover in case of a disaster from its backup to restore normal operations. Simply put, it determines the minimum frequency of backups required. For example, if a company has an RPO of 4 hours then, it should back up its data every 4 hours.

Recovery Time Objective or RTO, on the other hand, gives the maximum amount of time that can lapse following a disaster that the organization can bear with in order to restore its files and resume operations. In other words, it is the maximum downtime an organization can tolerate. For example, an RTO of 2 hours means that in case of a disaster or system failure the company can stay down for 2 hours and not more than that.


DR planning and strategy

Generally, a DR plan provides a well-thought-out approach for responding to unforeseen events that tend to threaten a company’s IT infrastructure, including hardware, software, network, and connectivity. Thus, the plan should provide a systematic recovery strategy for resuming normal operations as soon as possible. A risk assessment is done to identify the potential threats to the IT Infrastructure; a detailed DR plan outlines the process of recovery of the most important and sensitive elements of the company.

Disaster Recovery Planning & Strategy


Some of the key components a DR plan must incorporate are:

  1. A policy statement, plan overview and main goals of the plan.
  2. Key personnel and DR team contact information.
  3. Description of emergency response actions.
  4. A diagram of the entire system network and recovery site.
  5. Directions for how to reach the recovery site.
  6. A list of software and systems that required for the recovery.
  7. Sample templates for a variety of technology recoveries.
  8. Tips for dealing with the media.
  9. The proposed action plan to deal with financial and legal issues.
  10. Ready-to-use forms to help complete the plan.


Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)

There are various IT support service providers available in the market that specializes in disaster recovery and as such offers Disaster Recovery as a Service or DRaaS. It is basically, a cloud-based method of recovery.

DRaaS generally uses cloud resources to protect applications and data from the disruption caused by a disaster: natural or fabricated. It offers full replication and backup of all cloud data and applications while serving as a secondary infrastructure. Simply put, it acts as a new platform or system wherefrom the organization can carry out its business operations while the original system (the system of the organization itself) undergoes repair.

  • Advantages & disadvantages

The biggest advantage of DRaaS is its reduced downtime, i.e. time to return the application to production. It is especially useful for small to medium businesses where the execution of an effective DR plan is unlikely due to lack of expertise.

DRaaS

However, its biggest disadvantage lies in the fact that the organization is totally dependent on the service providers for implementing the plan effectively to meet the company’s RPO and RTO conditions. Also, possible performance issues and migration issues are also associated with it.

  • How to pick a DRaaS provider

There are various DRaaS providers available in the market. Some of them are Acronis, Axcient, Bluelock, EVault, Infrascale, Net3 Technology, Peak 10, Quorum, etc. Choosing a provider suiting your needs can be a very tough job sometimes. For that, some questions need to be considered. These are as follows:

  1. In case of a natural disaster such as a hurricane, what percentage of customers can the service provider support?
  2. How does the provider manage, track and update the DR resources?
  3. What are the rules for declaring a disaster?
  4. How will users access internal applications?
  5. How does the service provider ensure administrators and users receive access to servers/applications?
  6. How much help can be expected from the service provider in a DR event?
  7. What professional services, skills are available from the service provider to facilitate disaster recovery?
  8. What are the DRaaS provider’s testing processes?
  9. What are the costs associated with the various disaster recovery options


To Conclude :

Thus, we have discussed what disaster recovery means, its importance and the IT support providers available in the market and how to choose them wisely. I hope this helps you in this regard and grow your business.

Categories
Server Server Security Technology Web Development

Why Do You Need Server Management Service For Your Servers?

Why Do You Need Server Management Service For Your Servers

There is a huge demand for server management services; most of the well established and well-known companies are outsourcing such services from the reputed agency to satisfy their business needs. As we all know that all the business is nowadays focusing to shift towards the digital market, servers remain as the most important business tool for the online business.

All the businesses worldwide are using the best server management services from professional agencies for various business needs like storage, processing, and query for the different products and services. If you indulge in the online business sector then having good quality server management services becomes vital because it enables you to concentrate on your core business to run smoothly.

In the present time, the servers are well-considered as backbones of every online business. In a simple term to understand you won’t be able to serve your customer if your server is not working fine 24/7. In general speaking, the server management services are gaining popularity due to various reasons as its maintenance of the web servers that power your business website.

There are huge benefits of hiring professional server management services from outsourcing.

 

  • Well operate an operating system
  • Hardware replacement services
  • Daily checkup services for better performance
  • Low cost of 24/7 server monitoring and network
  • Avail Unlimited SSL installation as per your business needs.

It also leads to serve you Relaxation from server security and concentrate to grab new opportunities in business.

All these services are well covered by the agencies who are professionally established and serving the customer with plenty of monitoring services. In the present scenario, the use of technology is becoming an internal part of every organization as it helping the organization to use the available resources effectively.

The use of best servers’ management services is also necessary for the smooth function of daily works. It can be a big part of a successful business because having the right equipment and technology leads to the success of the business efficiently. Many businessmen are focusing on hiring the best-outsourced server’s services to form the service provider in order to serve the company with complete modern technology requirements.

Having a good quality based server management services really allows the customers or employees to share the significant file sand applications without slowing down their system regular work. It also helps you in keeping all the backup records of the company details effectively and that can be used in the future time when there is the need.

With the advancement to the modern technology and service sit leading to help the organization to fulfill their desired wishes effectively Most of the companies also run their own server but if you are not able to support it then hiring the outer services provider agency will be the perfect solutions for you.

Knowing the present business need is essential and it is good to adopt the new invented technology and services for the final expansion of business activities accurately. Expert outsourced server management services are well capable of serving the best business requirements and deliver you uptime help for your business servers.

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Linux Operating System Server Server Security Technology

DDoS Protection – Avoid Threats

The DDOS - Distributed Denial Of Service - hackers attack. 3D rendered Illustration.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack targets that a business that is linked to the cyber globe through the internet. It’s hard to identify the exact cause, or the objectives of these attacks as of the covert sources controlling the PC that send fake traffic requests to the objective. Yet, there is some common drive behind DDoS attacks. Here we describe some of the common motive of these attacks so that you can start to understand your capacity to act in response to attacks.

Quite frequently DDOS victims are not conscious of the fact that their computers have been compromised, but they will suffer ruin of service and malfunction. Denial of service distress owners, in addition to targeted sites consumer and Anti DDOS must be a priority for all site holders.
One of the most normal reasons of DDoS attacks is called Extortion. It’s really hijacking the victim’s network or net services and demanding money. People do it for cash.
Enmity is one more reason of DDoS attacks. As such it’s a gang war. Both the competitors attempt to disrupt every others’ process and network infrastructure. As it is one of the maximum risky threats, they use it like a weapon in opposition to each other.

The whole thing is fair in love, war and rivalry. Sometimes cyber criminals get engaged in anti-business activities and attempt to take down the challenger’s website or servers through DDoS attack.
A famous hacker group fond of using DDoS attacks is the Anonymous collective. Together with their splinter group LulzSec that shut down previous in 2011, the group presented numerous extremely publicized attacks against the websites of business and even foreign governments. The cause DDoS attacks are so successful is that they are almost impossible to stop. DDoS protection works are centered on trying to mitigate the effects of an attack before it begins. The most effective method to protect against a DDoS attack depends on redundancy. Having multiple servers host different instances of the similar website helps prevent an attack from blocking access to the site overall.
Even if an attack does happen, redundancy should decrease the effects it has. Overloading a single server is simple, but overloading many servers at once is more complex. DDoS protection has to take the structure of an attack into account. A DDoS attack frequently starts with a whole network of enslaved computers named a botnet. Botnets are formed through worms, Trojan horses and additional malicious programs. The customer may be totally unaware their computer has really been turned into a virtual zombie. Customers can aid to by accident spread the botnet because some programs can insert themselves into email messages and set up themselves on receiver’s computers.

It is unnecessary to say that Anti DDOS & network protection services have become necessary for the success of any online business and a safe infrastructure is the foundation for efficient service delivery for whole businesses. Business owners who need to secure their network assets from DDOS attacks can always choose for expert DDOS Protection. Unluckily these attacks will not go away and for this cause Anti DDOS services have become very important.