10 Best AWS Security Practices That Businesses Should Follow

Amarjeet Singh Walia / aws cloud security, aws cloud services, aws infrastructure, aws risk management / Cloud Services

The concept of information security stands as a matter of high importance to the customers of Amazon Web Services (AWS). In addition to being a functional requirement that safeguards the mission-critical information from any accident data theft, leakage, compromise, and deletion, the information security practices provide integrity to the data.

Hence, it can be easily concluded that the Amazon Web services or the AWS cloud security are important subjects in the cybersecurity environment of the present world. It is so important that an increasing number of businesses are implementing the AWS cloud services to ensure that their information security stays up to the mark. In the present landscape, there is clearly no doubt that Amazon risk management offers the best security features to the users preserving the AWS cloud services.

However, an important thing to note here is that security is a collaborative responsibility of AWS and the users. You can implement the fundamental AWS security practice but due to the fact that a large volume of resources gets launched and modified in the AWS infrastructure frequently, there must be an added focus maintained in keeping up with the cloud security best practices.

In this blog, we will see the 10 best AWS security practices that businesses should follow as important measures. Before we jump on to the best practices, we will begin by understanding what AWS is in detail.

Amazon Web Services

The AWS can be considered as a widely adopted comprehensive and protected cloud platform that provides high featured services such as content delivery, database storage, compute power, and other functionalities that can help immensely in becoming global. It also offers multiple solutions and tools like cloud video editing tools and many more for the software enterprises and developers for the purpose of scaling up and growing.

Related Read: An Introduction to the Amazon Web Services

AWS cloud service is divided into numerous services and every one of these can be configured on the basis of the user’s needs. The services enable the users to host dynamic websites by running the web and application services in the cloud while using the managed databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, or even MySQL for the purpose of storing information and safely storing files on the cloud so that they can be accessed from anywhere.

With so many benefits that AWS offers, there comes an important responsibility of maintaining the security of data in the cloud. Now that we have understood what AWS is, we will implement them for ensuring enhanced security.

1. Understand AWS Security Model

Similar to maximum cloud service providers, Amazon functions on a shared responsibility model. In order to implement security practice, understanding this model is very important. Taking complete responsibility for the AWS cloud security in its infrastructure, Amazon has made platform security an important priority for the purpose of protecting important information and applications.

In its early stages only, Amazon finds all possible occurrences of fraud or abuse while aptly responding by notifying the customers. However, the customer is in charge of making sure that the AWS environment is configured safely and the data is not shared with anyone with whom it shouldn’t have been shared. It identifies when any user misuses AWS and enforces suitable governance rules.

Amazon’s Role: Amazon is excessively focused on the security of AWS infrastructure because it has very little control over how AWS is used by the customers. The role that Amazon plays includes protecting the computing, networking, storage, and database services against any kind of intrusions. In addition, Amazon is also responsible for the added security of hardware, software, and physical facilities that host the AWS services. Rather, it takes responsibility for the security configuration of managed services such as Redshift, Elastic MapReduce, WorkSpaces, Amazon DynamoDB, etc.
Customer’s Role: The customers of AWS are liable to ensure safe usage of AWS services that are otherwise considered unmanaged. For instance; although Amazon has created multiple layers of security features for preventing any unauthorized access to AWS including multi-factor authentication, it is entirely dependent on the customer to ensure that the multifactor authentication is turned on for the users.

2. Prioritize Your Strategy In Sync With Tools and Controls

There is a significant discussion on whether one should put tools and controls in the first place or set up the security strategy on the other hand. The right answer to this may seem like an underlying discussion because it is complex in nature.

At most times, it is recommended to establish the AWS cloud security strategy in the first place so that when you access a tool or control, you can evaluate if it supports your strategy or not. In addition, it also enables you to protect security into all the organizational functions including the ones relying on AWS. When a security strategy is in place first, it proves to be of great help with the concept of continuous deployment.

For example, when a company uses the configuration management tool for automating the software patches and updates, there is a strong security plan in place. It helps in implementing security monitoring all through the tools from the very first day.

3. Strengthening CloudTrail Security Configurations

CloudTrail is an AWS cloud service that helps in generating log files of all the API calls that are made within the AWS including the SDKs, command-line tools, AWS management console, etc. It is a capability that enables the organizations to monitor activities in AWS for both the compliance auditing and the post forensic investigations.

The log files so generated are stored in the S3 bucket. In case a cyber attacker gains access to an AWS account, one of the primary few things that they do will be disabling CloudTrail and deleting the log files. For getting the maximum benefit from CloudTrail, different organizations must take some measures.

Out of them, enabling the CloudTrail across different geographic locations and the AWS service prevents activity monitoring gaps. Turning on the CloudTrail log file validation to ensure the track of any changes made to the log file ensures the integrity of the log file. An access login for CloudTrail S3 bucket that can track access requests and find any potential access attempts is also important. Lastly, turning on the multifactor authentication for deleting the S3 buckets and encrypting all log files can be a good measure.

4.Configuring Password Policy

Credential stuffing, password cracking, and force attacks are some of the common security attacks that cyber criminals utilize to target organizations and their users. Enforcing a strong password policy in the right place is vital to the safety of an organization because it can greatly reduce any possibilities of a security threat.

As an important step of AWS risk management, you can consider setting a password policy that describes a set of conditions for creating a password, modifying, and deleting. For example: implementing multi-factor authentication, a password renewal policy after a period of time, automating the lockout after numerous login attempts that have failed, etc.

5. Disable Root API Access and Secret Keys

With an introduction of the AWS identity and access management, the simple need for root users having unlimited access is over. A root user has complete permission to view and change anything within an environment.

More often than not, the root user accounts are created to give access to the system for administrative functions such as gathering information on the billing and activity. With the help of AWS IAM, users can be explicitly allowed to carry out functions because otherwise, no user is granted automatic access to everything. As a capability, this enables companies to increase agility without any additional risks.

What’s more, is the fact removing the remote access from the system is an easy and simple step that offers many security benefits. Besides creating a secure system as a whole, it also helps in enhancing the productivity of DevOps and other product teams by enabling the teams to operate securely through comfort and immediate management of AWS infrastructure security.

6. Implement Identity and Access Management

IAM is known as an AWS service that offers user provisioning and access control capabilities for the AWS users. The AWS administrators can use the IAM to create and manage users and groups for applying granular permission rules for limiting access to the AWS APIs and resources. For making the most use of IAM, organizations must do the following things:

While creating IAM policies make sure that they are attached to roles or groups as opposed to the individual users for minimizing the risk of an individual user getting unnecessary permissions or excessive privileges by accident.
Make sure that the IAM users are given the least number of access privileges to the AWS resources that still enable them to complete their job responsibilities.
Provision access to a resource that uses IAM roles rather than providing an individual set of credentials for access that ensure any possible misplaced or compromised credentials leading to unauthorized access to the resource.
Rotate the IAM access keys frequently and standardize a selected number of days for password expiration for ensuring that the data cannot be accessed with a potential stolen key.
Make sure that all IAM users have a multifactor authentication activated for individual accounts and restrict the number of IAM users with administrative privileges.

7. Encrypt Data Regularly

Each organization should create frequent backups of the data. In the AWS cloud services, a backup strategy relies on the existing IT setup, industry requirements, and the nature of data. Backing up of the data provides flexible backup and restores solutions that protect your data against any cyber thefts and security breaches.

Using the AWS Backup is extremely viable because it provides a centralized console for managing and automating the backup across the AWS services. It helps in integrating the Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon EFS, Amazon Storage Gateway, Amazon EBS, and Amazon RDS for enabling regular backups of key data stores such as file systems, storage volumes, and databases.

8. Data Policies

All data is not created in an equal measure, which basically means that classifying the data in the right way is important for ensuring security. It is rather important to accommodate the difficult tradeoffs between a stringent security environment and a flexible agile environment. Basically, a strict security posture requires lengthy access control procedures that guarantee data security.

However, a security posture can work in counter to the fast-paced and agile development environments where the developers need self-service access to data stores. Designing an approach to data classification helps in meeting a wide range of access requirements.

The day in which data classification is done does not have to be binary as public or private. Data can rather come in different degrees of sensitivity while having multiple levels of confidentiality and sensitivity. Design the data security controls with a suitable mix of detective and preventive controls for matching data sensitivity suitably.

9. Form a Security Culture

Working on the security best practices of AWS cloud services is more like a top to bottom effort with each member of the organization taking complete responsibility. Particularly in the present time when there is a lack of cybersecurity professionals, it is harder to find individuals who are skilled in the latest technologies and tools.

Irrespective of whether you have a committed security team or no employees, make sure that you train all the employees about the significance of data security and the ways in which they can contribute to strengthening the overall security of the organization.

10. Limit the Security Groups

Security groups are an important way to enable network access to resources provisioned on AWS. Make sure that only the needed ports are open and the connection is enabled from the known network ranges because that is a foundational approach to security.

You can also use services such as AWS Firewall Manager and AWS coding to ensure programmatically that the virtual private cloud security group configuration is what you intend. The rules of network reachability analyze the network configuration for determining if the Amazon EC2 instance can be reached from external networks.

The internet, AWS Direct Connect, AWS Firewall Manager can also be used to apply AWS WAF rules to the internet-facing resources across different AWS accounts.

Conclusion

When you shift to an AWS cloud infrastructure or grow the existing AWS, there will be a need to take a profound look into the safety of AWS infrastructure. In addition, the users also need to stay updated with the new changes so that better and more holistic security measures can be adopted.

The best practice mentioned above can help a great deal in maintaining the security of the AWS ecosystem. However, if you need any more assistance or support in ensuring the same, getting in touch with the team of Encaptechno can be extremely helpful.

Reach out to ensure effective implementation of security practices.

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What is Azure Active Directory and its Benefits?

Amarjeet Singh Walia / azure active directory identity protection, azure data services, cyber security risk management, microsoft azure active directory / Cloud Services

With an increasing number of businesses investing in the infrastructure for handling their remote workforce, many of them are getting inclined to the cloud for handling their in-house IT projects. This works in most scenarios because the cloud is designed in a way that makes the entire process of accessing things simple even if it isn’t in the office.

More than anything, the cloud is capable of handling multiple tasks all at once if not all tasks that require in-house hardware and overhead. One of the best choices of the cloud-based identity solution is that of the Microsoft Azure Active Directory.

The Microsoft Azure Active Directory is also known as the Azure AD or AAD is actually a cloud-based identity solution that offers great functionality that is needed from any identity solution. The simple act of moving the corp identity to the cloud is needed for certain SaaS applications that one might want to use. In addition, it is also a security concern for the companies to integrate the accounts/identities in the cloud.

In this blog, we will have a detailed look at the Microsoft Azure Active Directory and the benefits that it offers.

What is the Azure Active Directory?

The Microsoft Azure Active Directory is a cloud-based identity and an access management service that is meant to assist the employees for things such as signing and accessing resources. With the help of AAD, it becomes possible to access external resources like the Microsoft 365, Azure portal, and many other SaaS-based applications.

Various internal resources like the applications on a corporate network and intranet combine with any cloud applications developed by an organization can also be accessed. Basically, the primary advantage of Azure AD lies in the flexibility that it brings to the table with its entirely cloud-based architecture. This signifies that it can either act as the only directory of an organization or it can also sync with an on-premise directory through the Azure AD Connect.

Both ways, the Azure Active Directory identity protection allows the users to access the same applications and resources simultaneously with the goal to benefit from features like multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, conditional access, etc.

All in all, it offers a single and integrated place from which one can manage the identity, compliance, and security over an entire IT estate.

Who is Azure AD for?

Azure AD is mostly used by the following people:

IT administrators: Being an IT admin, a person can use the Azure AD for controlling access to an application and the app resources based on the business requirements. For instance; once can use Azure AD for requiring multi-factor authentication when accessing significant organizational resources. Other than this, the Azure AD can also be used for automating the user provisioning between an existing Windows Serve AD and a cloud application including Microsoft 365. Lastly, Azure AD also enables some of the powerful tools to automatically assist user identities and credentials for meeting the access governance requirements.
App Developers: Being an app developer, one can use the Azure data services as a standard-based approach for adding a single sign on to an application while enabling it to work with the pre-existing user credential. Furthermore, Azure AD also offers APIs that assist in building a personalized application experience with the use of existing organizational data.
Microsoft 365, Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics CRM Online Subscribers: Being a subscriber, one can use the Azure AD. The Microsoft 365, Azure, Office 365, and the Dynamics CRM online tenant are already an Azure 365 tenant. One can immediately begin to manage access to integrated cloud applications.

Now that we have understood what Azure AD is and who it is meant for, let us now have a look at the innumerable benefits that it is capable of offering one by one.

1. High Availability

Microsoft Azure AD is immensely available with the help of architecture design that is spread over 28 data centres and that too in multiple areas. Additionally, it also consists of an independent building block for providing the scale and availability.

There are three major components for every directory position on Azure AD called the Active primary, Passive primary, and the secondary replica. The first or the active primary component is where the entire write up takes place and gets prompt replicated to another data centre.

The second component is the passive primary which is a similar topology as the Active primary but another data center in which the writes are replicated from the Active Primary. This can take the role of an active primary at any time.

The last component called the secondary replica is right where all the reads happen from these replicas that are located at numerous data centers spread across geographies. There are multiple replicas like these and the data gets replicated in all of them asynchronously. Microsoft offers 99.9% SLA for all the paid versions of Azure AD.

2. Hassle-free access

With the help of Azure AD access to the applications across the cloud and the on-premises can be way more simplified. In just one identity, it is possible to access thousands of SaaS applications and on-premise applications using a single sign-on. One can also achieve a single sign on to an on-premise application using the pass through the authentication or federation.

With the use of Application Proxy, one can also publish the on-premise for a rather safe remote access. There is absolutely no need to change the network infrastructure or use a VPN. Users can access all these applications just as any SaaS application over the internet.

Finally, the access panel is a web-based portal that is usually called my apps. Being an extraordinary and productive choice for a homepage for all the employees, it not only listed all the granted applications to the logged-on user but it also offers account management, group management through one view, and password reset. Moreover, it can also be accessed by supported web browsers and mobile applications.

3. Azure Works With Wide Range of Products

Azure AD works with more than just Microsoft software. Where Microsoft makes some of the most renowned and best productivity solutions in the entire world, there are some businesses that have other products in their office.

By using the Azure AD, one does not have to be locked into using just Microsoft products. The Azure AD helps other operating systems and virtual tools including a wide range of cloud collaboration tools and some popular cloud services like Salesforce, Microsoft 364, and also some corporate social media that enables businesses to mix all the solutions that work best for them.

4. Self Service Benefit

Microsoft Azure Active Directory can assist in saving a great deal of time and cost and these count for extremely safe and reliable features. Through the tool, users can reset the forgotten password by reacting to some of the additional security challenges.

The users can also change the password and unlock the account by themselves when the need arises. With the help of self-service group management, the users can create new groups and memberships for the independent groups owned by them.

5. Security

A secure access is one of the tops for any identity and Azure AD offers numerous features to achieve it. The multi-factor authentication offered by Azure Active Directory identity protection can add some two steps verification for the process of authentication to offer some additional layer of security to the user sign-ins. Azure multi-factor authentication is moreover an easy, scalable, and trustworthy solution and the level of availability guaranteed by Microsoft is almost 100%.

In addition, conditional access is another feature that is all the more beneficial because it provides control on how from where and who can effectively access the Azure data services. One can create policies to get additional access control that relies on the device types, applications, user roles, sign-in risk level, and network.

Another benefit called privileged identity management helps to manage and administer the IT systems while securing the privileged access critical for securing the business assets. With the help of Azure AD privileged identity management, one can reduce the number of admins and allow a just in time administrative access. This ends up offering a rich audit trail of admin access.

Finally, a dynamic group offers automatic group membership reliant on the user attributes. This additionally assists in offering access to the correct people on the attributes such as department, location, or any other, employee type and manually managing it.

6. Real-time monitoring

The Microsoft Azure AD decreases any possible threats that might arise to the business data by finding any unusual user behaviour and enacting the just in time access to the data.

This in combination with the Azure Active directory multi-factor authentication and conditional access enables a business to benefit from the enhanced application security and management control.

Finally, Azure AD offers comprehensive reporting that allows a business to monitor application usage and boost the security required for protecting business data from threats.

7. Collaboration

The Azure AD also offers collaboration outside the organization for the partners to access the internal project site or content. With the help of Azure B2B, the corporates can add in the partner groups and share the important information internally without ever worrying about the identity existence.

The partners can access the information by using their existing identity. For the applications used by the customers, one can create tenants with Azure B2C and customers can log in using their social and corporate email accounts. One just needs to create an app and Azure AD takes care of identity management.

8. Integration with Windows Server Active Directory

The Azure AD also enables integration with an on-premise identity provision that helps in managing access to the cloud features.

With just a single sign-on applied to the on-premise active directory, a seamless and effective working environment can be created for the users irrespective of whether they are working within an office or remotely.

9. Free Test Run

Before the final decision, it is possible to test the Azure Active Directory for free entirely to get a detailed feel for all that a solution has to offer. One can see for themselves that the Azure AD simplifies a business in every area.

What’s more is the fact that the Azure AD comes in various pricing plans for effectively fitting the business needs and budget of every client. The Azure Active directory empower employees to provide an access to the business world’s leading cloud applications and services and this is on the device that they select from anywhere they need.

10. Easy to use

Getting an access to the resources should be made easy for the end users. With just a single on, utilizing the same sign-in for Windows and all the applications means less trouble with credentials and fewer demands on the IT help desk.

This feature makes using Microsoft Azure Active directory very easy to use and work with.

Conclusion

As remote work continues to grow for becoming a viable alternative to working in the office, Microsoft continues to provide small and medium-sized businesses cost-effective and cloud-based solutions that keep the teams in touch and productive.

Being a cloud solution provider, Encaptechno has positioned itself to give the businesses best practices and solutions that can help in taking advantage of the wide range of offerings including the Microsoft Azure Active Directory.

Reach out to our consultants and know more about implementing Microsoft Azure. We will help you find the best fit designed specifically for your organization.

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Cloud Servicesazure active directory identity protection, azure data services, cyber security risk management, microsoft azure active directory

Best Practices to Accelerate Software Development on Cloud Platform

Amarjeet Singh Walia / cloud computing, cloud consulting services, devops, software development, what is devops / Cloud Services

Organizations have the option of accelerating the speed of software development on the cloud platform by combining DevOps with cloud architecture and by adopting agile development methods. With just understanding the process to accelerate development in the cloud, some of the pressing challenges can be prevented altogether while making the job of software developers much easier.

Even though there are many benefits of switching to a cloud-first model, the most immediate and beneficial ones can be accelerated development and testing. Some of the typical roadblocks faced by the software engineers can be solved by only equipping developers with the right tools for the task.

In this blog, we will have a detailed look at the best practice that can be adopted for accelerating the software development process on the cloud platform.

However, before anything, we will understand more about DevOps.

What Is DevOps?

DevOps explains the relationship between software development and IT operation teams. It is essentially a well-defined method that can help both the teams to collaborate in a better way. Traditionally, the operations team and the software development team push each other in different directions which delays the processes.

Where the development team is focused on delivering new features to end-users, the operations team is more focused on reducing the risks and liabilities and streamlining performance. With the implementation of DevOps, this problem is reduced considerably because all the processes are streamlined entirely.

DevOps Practice

DevOps and the implementation of it have been increasing in importance over the last decade and have in fact gone through many repetitions as well. In the most fundamental form, DevOps and cloud are all about enabling a software team to swiftly and securely accelerate their services for running the company’s development and testing.

In large organizations, the process of software development comes with many stages and ranges over a prolonged time period and communication gaps that slow things down.

However, with the introduction all the processes become streamlined. With the help of development on the cloud, it becomes possible to eliminate multiple limitations that otherwise come in the application lifecycle.

There is no need for the software engineering team to stop working or wait for a request to be processed further. This is because there are many ways to overcome this automation process, but in my opinion, the use of the cloud is one of the most proven ways.

Some of the best practices that can be used for enhancing the speed of software development on the cloud platform are:

1. In-depth Knowledge Of Cloud Computing and DevOps

Many people implement DevOps in cloud computing for the purpose of staying in line with technological changes. However, only some of them actually get to the root of understanding the benefits of it in the true sense.

It is very important to move ahead as the world advances and in terms of technology, this becomes all the more relevant. In-depth knowledge of cloud computing and DevOps can lead to a better understanding and in result quick acceptance.

Hence, it is only relevant that some of the important players within the organization participate in the cloud and DevOps training so that a detailed mentoring can be offered as well. Either the team can be told to do something in a certain way or it can be shown and when it comes to gaining knowledge of new technology, it is best to do it first.

2. Don’t Be Restricted To Performance Only

The performance problems can create a limitation in the process of software development while creating situations that did not even exist before. Within an organization, data moves across multiple data centres and travels far.

As the information moves and the systems are faced with network problems, latency, or network pipes, applications are supposed to be constructed in a way that they become sufficient as wide area network resources on every step. This challenge becomes particularly troublesome with the public cloud because customers do not control the size of the pipe coming into the provider’s site.

The thing with cloud computing is that it runs on numerous servers and in some of the extremely large data centres. All developers must be aware of and design while keeping the potential lag time in mind while the information flows on the web, data, and application servers.

Besides this, computers can run in modes that can affect performance. The application design should account for potential server load for making sure that the system is contingent on the service level agreement objectives.

3. Security Is Important

It is pretty normal for the security models to keep changing in the cloud every now and then. The cloud is in fact known for employing identity-based security models and technologies. However, one must learn to extend the benefits of security to the DevOps tools and organizations at the same time.

Ensuring security must be made an important part of the automated testing. It should be built into continuous integration and continuous deployment processes such as those that move to the cloud-based platform.

If a person can afford it then hiring or appointing a security officer responsible for managing the security within DevOps in the cloud can be helpful.

4. Choosing DevOps Tools That Work With Cloud

It must be acknowledged that the DevOps tools are available on-demand, on-premise or they are part of a larger public cloud platform. At the time of selecting tools, most people prefer being restricted to just one cloud platform.

While taking the cloud consulting services, it is best to not be restricted to just one cloud platform. In the long run, it always pays well to get the applications deployed on many different clouds.

This way, one can pick and select the best cloud computing options to do the job. One must not limit his/her choices to make sure that the best advantages are availed.

5. Services and Resource Streamlining

A proper management or streamlining of resources gets overlooked very often when it comes to DevOps and cloud computing. This mostly happens when the number of services, APIs and resources keep growing until a point that it becomes too difficult to manage everything.

This number is reliant on the kind of services and resources under the management but it is possible to hit it during the first year of operations with DevOps in the cloud. To ensure the right management of services and resources, it is important to build a governance infrastructure much before you need it.

These are the tools that differ in features and functions but also offer services and resource directory that is the reason for streamlined management. The best thing is that these tools offer a place for creating policies that govern the leveraging of services like the times and data that can be accessed and so on.

6. Cloud Transformation

It is a common belief within many organizations that DevOps and cloud are able to save the organization money and that can, in turn, be used for funding the transformation. This kind of budgeting might make the overall impact of the annual IT budget simple to manage.

However, this method is not applicable to get the DevOps and cloud projects off the ground which means that the project can fail as well. The fact of the matter is that DevOps in the cloud is suitable for offering the projected cost savings that are needed for investing during the initial years.

Where the normal operations are ongoing, the DevOps and cloud computing projects must be functioning independently for some time. This enables the entire cloud approaches and technologies to prove their worth and understand everything before phasing into production.

7. Using Containers

The use of containers provides a way to put the applications in application components so that they become portable and are easily managed. The developers must integrate the containers in the DevOps as a reliable cloud strategy.

It is always best to spend a significant amount of time with the technology for understanding what works and what does not while targeting the right use of technologies. In addition, one must always be sure to think about factors such as governance, security, orchestration, and cluster management as part of a platform that leverages the containers.

This does not mean that the containers will be suitable for the way an application is built and deployed. It means that one must consider the value of application architecture, the standards, and enabling technology so that no possible value is missed in the technology.

8. Applications Must Be Cloud-Native

For taking maximum benefit of the cloud platform based on the infrastructure as a service and the platform as a service model, it is necessary to design applications in a way that they are decoupled from any physical resources.

The cloud can definitely offer an abstraction or a virtualization layer between the application and the physical resources irrespective of whether they are designed or not. However, that is not good enough.

When a decoupled architecture is considered in the design, it becomes important to understand the efficacy of the software development and deployment stages along with the utilization of the cloud resources.

The efficiency of cloud computing is beneficial for saving money because an organization is only eligible to pay for resources that are being used. This makes the applications run faster and generate small cloud service bills at the end of the month.

Conclusion

All organizations that wish to reduce the application development time must use the cloud platforms. Adopting a cloud-first approach for development requires companies to evaluate any unneeded assumptions. All traditional processes get replaced with a committed IT department.

Choosing a cloud requires the developers to increase their skill set and understand the cloud so that the competency to include the fundamental IT processes can be expanded. The best part is that with the assistance of expert cloud consulting services, this becomes easy and possible.

If you also wish to pay more attention to the cloud-first approach while putting into practice, companies such as Encaptechno can be extremely helpful for getting expert cloud consultation.

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What is CI/CD? – A Brief Guide

Amarjeet Singh Walia / CI/CD pipeline, cloud computing, continuous deployment, continuous development, continuous integration, continuous integration tools, devops tool / Cloud Services

Continuous integration and continuous delivery, deployment, collectively known as CI/CD count as an integral part of modern software development that is intended to decrease errors at the time of integration and development done to increase project velocity. CI/CD is actually a philosophy and a set of practices that are often augmented by robust tools that focus on automated testing at each stage of the software pipeline.

With the incorporation of CI/CD in your practice, you can reduce the time needed to integrate changes for a release and thoroughly test the change before moving into production. CI/CD comes with many advantages, but successful implementation needs a careful plan and a well thought of consideration. Choosing how to use the continuous integration tools and the changes that are needed in the environment or process can be pretty challenging without trial and error. That being said, sticking to the best practices can be helpful in avoiding common problems and attain quick improvement.

In this blog, we will have a comprehensive understanding of CI/CD to serve the organization’s needs. Before jumping to other things, let us first understand the meaning of continuous integration and continuous delivery, deployment independently.

Continuous Integration

Continuous integration is a method by which the developers combine their code into a shared repository multiple times in a day. For the verification of the integrated code, automated tests and builds are run for it.

Continuous Delivery

Continuous delivery is a method by which the development teams make sure that software is reliable for release at any time. The software is made to pass through an automated testing process and if that happens successfully then it is said to be ready for release into the production phase.

Continuous Deployment

The last and final stage of a mature CI/CD pipeline is that of continuous deployment. It is actually an extension of continuous delivery which automates the release of a production-ready build into a code repository because continuous deployment automates releasing an application to production. Since there is no manual gate at the stage of the pipeline before the production, continuous deployment is dependent on well-designed test automation.

What is CI/CD Pipeline?

CI/CD pipeline is actually a significant part of the modern DevOps environment. It is a deployable path that the software allows on the way to its production with continuous integration and continuous delivery practices. It is a development lifecycle for software and includes multiple stages through which a software application actually passes.

The CI/CD pipeline comprises of the following stages:

Version Control: This phase of the CI/CD pipeline is where the code is written by the developers and is committed through version control software. In this step, the commit history of the software code is controlled so that it can be changed if there is a need.
Build Phase: The build phase of the CI/CD pipeline is the one in which the developers build their code and then move on to passing this code through a version control system. After this, the code actually returns to the build phase and enters the position of compilation.
Unit Testing and Staging: When the software reaches this step, there are various tests that are performed to ensure that the software is functioning well. One of these tests is called the Unit test in which each unit of the software gets tested. After the successful testing, the staging phase is in the position to begin again. As the software passes this test, it is ready to be deployed into the staging process again. The software code is deployed to the staging environment/server so that the code can be viewed before the final tests are conducted.
Auto Testing: After the software has passed to the staging environment, another set of automated tests are prepared for the software. It is only when the software completes these tests and is proved deployable that it is sent to the next step, which is called the deployment phase.
Deployment: As the auto testing procedure reaches its completion, the next step is the deployment of the software to production. In case of any errors during the testing or the deployment phase, the software gets sent back to the version control phase so that the development team can check for any possible errors. If there are any errors then they are fixed right at that moment. Other stages may also be repeated if there is a need.

What are CI/CD tools?

The CI/CD process must be automated to get the best possible results. Numerous tools help in automating the process so that the entire thing can be done precisely and with minimal effort. These tools are mostly open-source and are designed to assist with collaborative software development. Some of these tools are:

Jenkins: One of the most commonly used tools for the CI/CD process, Jenkins is one of the earliest and most powerful continuous integration tools. It comes with various interfaces and inbuilt tools that help in the automation of the CI/CD process. In the beginning, it was introduced as a part of a project called Hudson, which came out in 2005. Then it was officially released as Jenkins in 2011 and has a vast plugin ecosystem that helps in delivering the features we need.
GoCD: An open-source tool that helps the development teams in the process of continuous delivery and continuous integration, GoCD was released with the name Cruise in 2007 by the name ThoughtWorks. It was renamed GoCD in 2010.
CircleCI: CircleCI is becoming one of the best-built platforms which is hosted in the cloud and is a modern tool for the CI/CD process. One of the latest features is called CircleCI Orbs. It has sharable code packages which help in building easily and quickly.
Buddy: One of the latest continuous integration tools, Buddy is designed for developers for lowering the entry threshold in DevOps. Officially launched in the year 2015, Buddy was released as a cloud-only service. Although it does not use the YAML configuration, it also supports .yml files.
GitLabCI: One of the famous continuous integration tools, GitLabCI is a web-based DevOps tool that provides a Git-repository manager, which helps in managing the git repositories. This was integrated into the GitLab software after being a standalone project that was released in September 2015. The CI/CD process is defined with a code repository and there are some tools called runners that are used to complete the work.

Benefits of CI/CD

Easy Debugging and Change: It is very simple to debug and change the codes when there are small pieces of codes that are continuously integrating. The pieces can be tested while continuously integrating them into the code repository.
Software Delivery and Speed Increases: With the help of CI/CD, the speed of software release and delivery gets increased along with the software development. After this, the process of software released becomes reliable and frequent.
High-quality Code: The quality of code increases because it is tested each time it gets integrated with the code repository. The development becomes much safer and reliable. Additionally, CI/CD pipeline automates the integration and testing work because a lot more time can be spent on increasing the quality of code.
Cost Reduction: CI/CD helps in automating the development and testing process so that the effort of testing and integration gets reduced. These errors are reduced due to automation and it saves time and cost of the developers. This saves time and cost that can be applied to improve the code quality.
Enhanced Flexibility: With CI/CD, the errors are found quickly and the product can be released a lot more frequently. This flexibility helps in adding new features. With automation, new changes are in a position to get adopted quickly and easily.

What are the Best Practices in CI/CD?

The CI/CD process has some of the best practices that greatly improve the performance of the process while adhering to avoiding some of the common problems. These best practices are:

CI/CD should work independently: It is important for CI/CD to be made the only way responsible for deployment to production. In the case of CI/CD, the failures are prompt and the production process can be stopped until the cause of failure is explored and solved. This is an important mechanism that keeps environments safe from any distrustful code. It is a process that works independently for software development, integration, and delivery work. Therefore it comes with distinct advantages like automation and quick functioning over other processes.
Quick tests should run early: There are some of the bests that run comparatively faster than others. It is necessary that these tests run early. Running these tests first assists in finding the errors easily. It is important to find these errors in software development at the earliest so that any future problems can be prevented.
Local running of tests: The developers must adhere to the habit of running all tests locally before committing or sharing them in the CI/CD pipeline repository. This step is beneficial because it helps in troubleshooting all problems before they are shared with others, which is an advantage for the developer.
Fast CI/CD pipeline: The CI/CD pipeline is one of the most important parts of the process and for this reason, it is responsible for quick integration and delivery process. Methods must be found to enhance the speed and optimization of the pipeline environment.

Conclusion:

CI/CD is the best practice for the DevOps team to implement. In addition, it is an agile methodology that facilitates the development team to achieve all business requirements, the best quality of code, and the security because the deployment steps are automated.

CI/CD assists the teams to become a lot more productive when shipping the software with quality built-in. However, the road to having one-click deployments can be produced on demand and is certainly not an easy one. This is mainly because even though these continuous integration tools can help in achieving CI/CD a lot more effectively, there is a need for a cultural change and that comes when all people in the team understand that change very well.

Encaptechno works to help organizations unleash maximum productivity and results with the implementation of CI/CD. In case you want to know more about CI/CD implementation then get in touch with us.

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The Detailed Overview Of Microsoft Azure

Amarjeet Singh Walia / azure cloud, azure cloud services deployment, azure consulting, microsoft azure cloud services, microsoft azure migration / Cloud Services

In case you are looking to learn more about Microsoft Azure including how a company can possibly benefit from azure cloud services deployment then you are at the right place. In this blog, we will be looking at a detailed overview of Microsoft Azure, which will not only cover the fundamentals but also give an in-depth understanding of why it is helpful for the organizations.

So, let’s begin:

What is Microsoft Azure?

Azure cloud is a computing platform that can offer almost everything a business needs to run or part of its computing operations virtually, including the servers, databases, networking, analytics, storage, or more.

In the past years, the only option that was available to companies was that of building and managing the physical hardware needed for computing, disk storage, servers, and the Ethernet switches. However, at the present time, organizations have the option of using a public cloud computing platform like Azure that purchases and maintains all the computing hardware. This means that the company sources can use the hardware at any time it is needed.

With Microsoft Azure, companies can choose any one of the services for getting the support required for normal business operations like building, deploying, and managing applications.

Multiple companies choose to use a combination of cloud computing and on-premise data centers. Some of them even plan to utilize the azure cloud services depending on the specific needs and requirements. In case you are concerned about making a serious change in your computer environment or if you feel like going ahead with the azure cloud services deployment, then do not worry. With the help of azure consulting, you can get just what you need.

Who Uses Microsoft Azure?

All businesses, regardless of their sizes use the public cloud and many of them choose Azure because it is appealing with many features. Azure cloud helps the businesses to avoid huge capital outlays for equipment while removing any burden of upgrades and maintenance because small organizations might not have in house experts readily available to provide support. Since Azure makes it easy to add or remove computing resources in a matter of minutes as compared to hours, it offers improved flexibility that businesses cannot have with a traditional on-premise data center.

Features of Microsoft Azure:

After you know what Microsoft Azure and the way in which it works, understanding why so many businesses use it is no longer a big deal. There are many good reasons why an increasing number of companies prefer Microsoft Azure.

Below mentioned are some of the most important features that are beneficial to most of the businesses:

1. Back-up and Data Recovery: Azure cloud is mostly like a data backup and disaster recovery dream tool. This is because it is flexible, offers, and advanced site recovery, and comes with built-in integration. Being a cloud-based solution; it is innately flexible because it can back up the data in any language, on any kind of operating system, and from any location. Additionally, you have the choice to define the extent and frequency of the back-up schedule.

The tape back-up has a time and place, however, it is limited in its abilities to stand alone for backup and disaster recovery solution. The Azure site recovery can enhance the tape back-up with an off-site replication, minimum on-site maintenance, and up to ninety-nine years of data retention, minimal operational costs, or no capital investment.

The Azure backup stores three copies of data at three different locations in the data center and then another three copies in a remote Azure data center so that there is never any worry of losing data. In case you are in the Windows Virtual environment then the Azure built-in integration for additional backup is one of the fastest and easiest solutions. The Azure site recovery integrates with the HyperV and System Centre architecture while creating a robust connection between Azure, System Centre, and HyperV.

2. Host and Develop Applications: Irrespective of whether you are looking for a platform for hosting, managing, or developing a web or mobile app, Microsoft Azure makes these apps autonomous and adaptive with patch management, integration, and AutoScale for the on-premise applications.

With the help of automatic patch management for the virtual machines, one can spend less time managing the infrastructure and focus on enhancing the applications. The Azure cloud also comes with continuous deployment support, which allows streamlining the ongoing cost updates.

AutoScale is actually a feature that is built into the Azure web applications that adjusts your resources automatically based on the customer web traffic so that you have the resources you need at the time when the traffic is high while saving money.

With the help of Azure, you can easily link your web apps to an on-premise app. Connecting applications in both locations allow both the employees and partners to safely access resources inside the firewall that are otherwise difficult to access.

3. Distribute and Supplement Active Directory: With the help of azure consulting, you can integrate your active directory for supplementing both your access capabilities and identity. This will give your DNS a global reach, robust security, and centralized management. Azure lets you globally distribute an active directory environment that is direct connect enabled.

The capability of Azure to extend the reach of your domain controller and consolidate AD management is unlike any other cloud provider. In case you have multiple locations or use on-premise and cloud applications like that of Microsoft 365 then active directory integration with Azure will be the main tool for managing and maintaining access to all tools.

Microsoft Azure also allows using the multi-factor authentication by adding a new layer of security to the data and applications with a seamless for the users. One can simply implement the single sign-on for Windows, Android, iOS, and Mac cloud apps.

4. Easy Access to Resources: Azure cloud comes with computing services that offer a vast number of resources that would not have been there on an on-premise data center normally. For example; many organizations are looking forward to applying machine learning and automation to their data analysis for enabling better decision making.

With the help of Azure, you can simply include all needed capabilities into your system without any need for data science expertise or costly resources. For example; if you want to deploy a Linux server, that in a traditional computing environment requires a series of rules to get up and running.

This might take anywhere between a couple of hours to some days for completion. However, with the help of Microsoft Azure, this can be completed quickly.

5. Cost Efficiency: One of the best features of the Azure cloud is its cost-efficiency. There are actually three main reasons why Azure is so effective when it comes to cost-efficiency. The first is there is no need to make large initial investments associated with building an on-premise or remote data center.

Cloud computing can eliminate the need to buy any additional software for development or increased workloads down the road. There will be no need to purchase replacement hardware and one can avoid all the costs associated with service calls and warranty renewals.

Lastly, you will not have to pay for any resources other than the ones in need because Azure bills on the basis of per second used which is rounded down to the last minute.

6. Innovate with IoT solutions: The security, flexibility, and scalability of Microsoft Azure make it one of the best resources for companies moving towards the IoT solutions. You can connect all your devices to the cloud using solutions that integrate with the existing infrastructure by collecting new data about your company.

The Azure IoT Hub helps in monitoring and managing billions of devices and gain insights to help in making better business decisions, enhance customer experience, decrease complexity, lower costs, and speed up development. With the help of enhanced security offered by Azure in IoT solutions, the security gaps that otherwise lead to hacking can be avoided.

Some of the other benefits include remote monitoring and predictive maintenance and analytics. Getting started with the Azure IoT solution accelerators and preconfigured templates that can be customized on the basis of your needs is very easy.

Managing Azure Services

The primary interface responsible for managing the Azure subscriptions is called the Microsoft Azure Portal. This includes a customizable dashboard that provides information at a glance about the running services as well as the point and clicks interface for adding, configuring, and deploying the new Azure resources.

With the help of the Azure portal, one can deploy, manage, and monitor the resources in groups by the Azure Resource Manager. For some repetitive tasks, you can use the PowerShell and the Azure Command Line Interface. The custom dashboard allows in monitoring the operation and performance of Azure-based applications and infrastructure including the ability to question and analyze the logs.

In order to avoid any surprises, you can step up alerts to receive notifications or critical conditions and assign automated actions based on the user-defined triggers. The Azure Security Centre offers a numeric score that is helpful in analyzing the performance of cloud-based resources that stack up against the security best practices.

Based on this score, the AI-based service provides recommendations to help in remediating any vulnerability while hardening these resources against threats. In the end, a separate Cost management center allows in analyzing usage-based costs, configure alerts for avoiding unpleasant budget surprises, and review recommendations for reducing any waste.

Best Practices of Microsoft Azure

After you begin using Azure, there are some of the best practices that must be followed to make sure that you get the complete benefit of the platform. In order to make the most of your investment on the Microsoft azure migration, below given are some of the best practices that you can follow:

1. Data Migration: You are more than likely to have successful migrations in case you completely understand the inside and outside of your business application as well as what Azure has to offer. Some applications can be made easily in the cloud rather than transitioned like the ones that indirectly support the front end services and hold no actual data.

For example; you might waste your time and resources moving an existing firewall over to an Azure IaaS when it can prove to be more helpful if you use a firewall PaaS from the Azure marketplace. By becoming familiar with the available options, you will make your job easier, which will ultimately save time in the long run.

2. Cloud Access Management: The administrators need access to the Azure resources, but at the time some form of gate keeping is also necessary for data protection. With so many experts calling the one-factor authentication unreliable, there is a better security level required.

The Azure Multi-factor Authentication is actually a two-step verification solution introduced by Microsoft which requires two or more verification methods. By enabling this feature, you can manage to access your application.

3. Resource Management: Microsoft defines resources such as virtual machines, networks, and databases as manageable items that are available through Azure. It is necessary to keep a track of all important resources by giving them defining parameters. In order to do that, you can take the benefit of the Azure Resource Manager.

It gives the tools that are needed in tracking and managing the resources. For example; the resource manager provides an ability to create resource groups that hold the related for different Azure solutions whether they are IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS offerings.

The resource groups are arranged so you can easily monitor, control access, and manage the billing in combination with one another. Most of the applications are made up of many resources, each offering full visibility.

Conclusion:

Microsoft Azure has been experiencing remarkable growth in recent times and it is expected that it will continue developing new features and services that will make it rise in the coming future. In case you are looking to become one of the businesses that are already using Microsoft Azure then the detailed overview given above will be extremely beneficial.

As one of the leading Azure consulting providers, Encaptechno can help your business succeed with the help of Azure. Our team makes sure that the entire thing becomes powerful and easy to use for you. With our assistance, your IT teams can learn a simple way to administer, monitor, and secure the cloud resources.

Get in touch with us to help you in quick and easy migration of existing virtual machines to Azure. In case you have any questions or you like to learn more about how we can help businesses succeed, do not hesitate to get in touch with us.

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Migrate On-Premise Data Center To AWS Cloud In Easy Steps | Encaptechno

AWS Migration from an On-Premise Data Center: Easy Step-by-Step Guide

Amarjeet Singh Walia / amazon web services, aws cloud, aws consultant, aws migration, cloud migration / Cloud Services

AWS Cloud Migration from an On-Premise Data Center: Easy Step by Step Guide | Encaptechno AWS Partner

Cloud comes with many important benefits such as increased workforce productivity, cost savings, operational resilience, continuity of services, and business agility. Organizations all around the world realize the significance of Cloud and are making attempts to shift to the cloud. It was expected that over 83% of enterprise workload will be expected to be in the cloud by the year 2020.

Based on a survey conducted in the year 2019, it was found that over 91% of businesses use public cloud and around 69% of enterprises deploy hybrid cloud models.

AWS Cloud or Amazon Web Services is known as the world’s leading public cloud provider that caters to over a million users all over the world. It is one of the most popular cloud platforms with around 175 web services and data centers all across the globe.

AWS cloud offers an on-demand cloud computing platform on a pay as you go, model. The solutions it offers are pretty scalable, reliable, and economical, and so they are used by many organizations. If you are planning to deploy your applications on the AWS cloud then read on to learn how the process can be simplified.

What is AWS Migration?

The process of moving data, applications, and other business components from an organization’s on-premise infrastructure to the AWS cloud or moving them from one cloud service to AWS is called AWS migration.

There is an innumerable amount of data that gets generated every day. With so much of the data being generated around, cloud migration is one of the most ideal solutions today.

Why Do Businesses Need On-Premise to AWS Migration?

Before we talk about the right approach, tools, and the mode to migrate the applications, data, and infrastructure needed for migration of on-premise data to the cloud, we must understand the benefits that this migration offers.

Given below are some of the points that explain the benefits of moving from on-premise to cloud. Let’s begin:

1. Decreases Capital Expense

Capital Expense is the cost of a company that is invested in acquiring, maintaining, and upgrading the physical assets. This also includes an application server, storage, software licenses, networking capacity, development stacks, databases, etc. Capital Expense is utilized to undertake new projects that are aimed at maintaining or improving operations.

The AWS migration helps in decreasing the capital expense cost considerably. Let’s say if your business has invested in application infrastructure and the IT team took around three months to set up the infrastructure completely. This leads to a delay in development for the next six months while reducing the scope of application as well. Situations such as these lead to wastage of cost, resources while leading to an extension of provisioning time.

When the business opts for an AWS migration with the assistance of an AWS consultant, the capital expenses can be reduced significantly. Services like AWS cloud give the flexibility to reduce or enhance the resources that are needed as the application scope scales up or down. Additionally, the best part is that it only takes a couple of minutes to set up the needed infrastructure.

2. No Direct Capacity Planning

Let’s imagine that you have an e-commerce application that is leading to a good amount of traffic. At the time of a sale, the traffic will rise, and to cope with the situation, you will attempt to scale up the infrastructure. Although this capacity planning will enable you to deal with high traffic situations, it might also lead to resource wastage at the time when the sale is off.

If a business is paying for an infrastructure that is not even being used then there is no point. With the help of AWS migration, this capacity planning can be easily handled by the cloud service provider. Services such as scheduling and auto-scaling help a business to stay relaxed about the reduction or expansion in resources while only paying for utilized resources.

3. Compliances

Finance, education, and healthcare, almost every industry needs application compliance for dealing with data security concerns. Let’s say if your business gets a request to create a HIPPA compliant healthcare application. When you do the same, even the data centers are required to follow a standard.

Any business that is subject to HIPAA can use the AWS environment to process, maintain, and store the protected health information. With the help of AWS migration, you will be offered a set of services and features that will help you make key management and encryption of PHI easy to audit and manage including the AWS management services.

For example; the Amazon virtual private cloud provides a set of network security features that are well aligned to create HIPAA compliance. Additionally, businesses can also create a compliant environment for other industries making sure that a standard infrastructure gets set up within very less provisioning time.

4. Lesser Operating Expenses

The everyday cost that is needed to keep the company running is called the operating expense. This includes the environment, space for servers, operating systems, human resources, inventory costs, the fund allocated for R&D, etc. When the application is moved on the cloud, operating expense is reduced considerably because the complete infrastructure is managed by the AWS consultant or service provider.

Cloud infrastructure makes sure that applications have maximum up time along with the fact that businesses do not have to pay for an overhead cost for keeping the infrastructure running at all times. A business has an option to choose from hundreds of available resources and there is no trouble in managing this.

5. Easy Disaster Recovery

Even if there is a brief lapse in the workload, there can be a loss of sales, production, and even customer trust. Hence, it comes off as imperative to achieve business continuity by making the system resistant to any kind of natural disaster, human error, or even a mechanical failure.

The shift from on-premise to AWS migration offers a cost-effective and an easy disaster recovery process along with high availability of resources. With the help of AWS migration, there comes a cloud disaster recovery strategy that helps businesses to stay running in case the physical infrastructure is unavailable for any length of time.

Additionally, AWS also enables quick recovery of critical IT systems without feeling a need to incur a second physical site.

6. Geographical Availability

The AWS cloud spans over 66 availability zones within the 21 geographic regions all around the world. In addition, plans of extending to more regions are always being implemented.

The AWS products at every place are helpful in computation, AI, storage networks, IoT, etc. They provide seamless development and rendering of all applications.

7. Pay-as-you-go models

The AWS cloud works on a pay as you go model which is like a utility bill. This means that you will only be charged for the resources that are utilized. One of the important highlights of this model is that there are no wasted resources. This is because of the reason that a business only pays for services that are procured instead of provisioning for a specific amount of resources that might or might not be used.

A perfect example of pay as you go model would be Amazon EC2. In this model, the users are allowed to obtain and configure resource capacity to their usage. They can select memory, CPU, OS, access controls, networking capacity, etc. This configuration can also be changed as the requirement fluctuates.

AWS Cloud Consulting Services | Encaptechno

AWS Migration For Your Business: How To Make It Happen?

All the digital assets like applications, data, business elements can be deployed to a cloud computing environment with the help of a process called cloud migration. A very common model of cloud migration is the transfer of data and applications from a local data centre to a public cloud-like the AWS cloud.

The AWS migration is not merely about lifting and shifting applications from an on-premise data centre to the AWS cloud. In case you want a deep cloud integration to take advantage of cloud capabilities, there might be a need to modify some applications. You may also face some challenges including legacy application migration, data security, and regulatory compliance.

There is significant planning and expertise required for AWS migration to save time and costs for meeting your business objectives.

Given below is our seven steps process for migration from the on-premise data centre to AWS cloud:

1. Planning

The first and foremost step that is required before AWS migration is proper planning so that the process becomes simple and hassle-free. You can begin by finding out which applications can be migrated to the AWS cloud easily and which are the ones that need modifications.

This stage will include modifying the application architecture for enabling the servers, networks, and data services to run and interact properly in the cloud computing environment. Next, you can plan how to operate and run services on the cloud after the completion of the migration.

In case you think that you cannot afford the downtime for your users at the time of migrating, then you can formulate a strategy to transition without leaving any impact on them. You must evaluate security on the public cloud and plan the migration of data security and regulatory compliance into account. Lastly, define the cloud migration performance indicators for your applications and services to efficiently track the progress and discover issues, if any.

2. Discovery and Migration

In this step, you can start by collecting information about applications, servers, and data along with the inter dependencies. Choose a good discovery tool to track the migration tasks and get reasonably good visibility into the migration progress.

A discovery tool will also help you gather information about the interdependence for workloads with the collection of server utilization data like usage, behavior, and configuration on your own premise data center. The data and application migration must be planned on these dependencies.

After this, you can finalize a migration approach for the applications. Some of the approaches that you can follow for application migration are:

Lift and shift the application from a local data center to the cloud.
Lift the app, change the operating system or database version, and move it to the cloud.
You can repurchase by switching to a different application.
Following the re-architect approach, you can change the middleware and application code for utilizing cloud features for the application
You can remove the application.
Retain by keeping the app just as it is until you can choose one of the other approaches. This might prove to be a temporary approach as there might be a chance that you would want to keep the app on the local data centre.

3. Design

Design your cloud architecture on the basis of your need for a public, private, or a hybrid deployment model while optimizing your applications to run accordingly. You can pick a tool to automate migration to the AWS cloud and set it up for testing either automated or manual.

After this, you can plan for a migration cutover. You can decide to replicate the data continuously so that it gets synced in real-time. This will also help in decreasing the downtime during the cutover window.

Another important thing to do is to follow a rollback plan. If you face a problem at the time of migrating, have a step-wise rollback option so that the last migration gets undo.

4. Migrate

The migration is a very smooth process depending on how well you have planned it because planning can help in minimizing any unexpected problems. In case you have smaller applications and database size the best option is to copy all of them over the internet. However, if you have larger workloads, you might need to compress the data or use physical drives for transferring the data to the AWS cloud.

You must ensure that the sensitive data is secure during migration by protecting the temporary storage locations and the end destination. Additionally, you must also choose the right tools for migration and match the new structures and limitations with the database. After that, track the application metadata for keeping the application portable in the future.

5. Validate

Now is the time to test your services and applications for making sure that they are running smoothly. Check if your applications and services are working and your data gets migrated properly while being accessible to the users.

Additionally, you can also check whether all components are communicating and if the admin tools are rightly monitoring the new cloud app. An automated testing strategy will just be ideal for these checks. You can evaluate your performance against the cloud migration KPIs to find if the migration is successful.

6. Operate

Now is the time to decide whether you wish to switch your application from an on-premise solution to the cloud by taking all users either at once or in steps. Decide what approach should be followed in terms of the complexity and architecture of your applications, data, and data center.

You can move the application to the cloud, check whether it works, and switch traffic to the cloud stack. Shift some of your customers at once and test the application until all customers are on the cloud-based app.

7. Optimize

You can review the application resource allocation and optimization for taking maximum benefit from the AWS cloud. Make a detailed plan for the distribution of resources to your applications.

You can also allocate any additional resources to an application in a cloud by getting in touch with AWS and scaling on the basis of the demand.

Related Read: 10 Best Services Offered by Amazon Web Services

Conclusion

AWS public cloud provides many benefits for any business including enhanced productivity, business agility, and operational resilience. When you migrate to the AWS cloud, it can seem overwhelming based on the level of cloud integration needed and the expertise you have. This is right where an experienced AWS consultant can come into the picture and be of assistance.

You can hire a skilled, dedicated, and experienced AWS consultant for simplifying the process of migrating from on-premise to AWS cloud. An AWS consultant will also help in managing the solutions and offer disaster recovery and back up services for business.

Encaptechno come with years of experience of AWS migration which help organizations to save resources, time, and increase the business efficiency considerably. Contact Us now with your migration requirements.

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Cloud Servicesamazon web services, aws cloud, aws consultant, aws migration, cloud migration

What is Cloud Computing? – A Detailed Overview

Amarjeet Singh Walia / aws cloud, cloud computing, cloud services, microsoft azure cloud services / Cloud Services

Cloud computing is a computing paradigm in which a large number of computers are connected to each other in private or public networks for providing dynamically scalable infrastructure of data, files, and application storage. With the inception of this technology, the total cost of computation, content storage, application hosting, and delivery gets reduced significantly.

This technology is highly recommended because cloud computing offers a practical approach for experiencing direct cost benefits and has the potential to transform a data center from a capital intensive set up to a variable priced environment. The entire idea of cloud computing relies on a very fundamental rule and that is the re-usability of IT capabilities.

Additionally, the reason why cloud computing stands out in comparison to the traditional concepts of grid computing, utility computing, autonomic computing, and distributed computing is that it broadens horizons across organizational boundaries. An apt way to define cloud computing is as a pool of abstracted, managed and extremely scalable compute infrastructure that is capable of hosting end-customer applications.

Examples of Cloud Computing:

Cloud computing highlights a vast number of services that include customer services like Gmail or the cloud backup of photos on smartphones, which allow all enterprises to host their data and run applications in the cloud.

Another big example of cloud computing comes integrated in AWS cloud and azure cloud services. Netflix depends on cloud computing to run its video streaming service and business systems along with having a number of other organizations.

Today, cloud computing has turned into a default option for many applications. For example; software vendors are increasingly providing their applications as services on the internet as compared to the standalone products while switching to a subscription model.

Types of Cloud Services:

Irrespective of the kind of service that we might be talking about, the most popular cloud computing services such as AWS cloud and azure cloud services include a series of functions such as storage, backup, data retrieval, email, audio, and video streaming, delivering software on demand, analyzing data, etc.

The relevancy of cloud computing is such that it is used by a number of organizations ranging from big corporations to small businesses, individual consumers, and even small businesses.

Why Is It Referred To Cloud Computing?

A significant concept behind cloud computing is that the location of service and many details such as the hardware or the operating system on which it runs are mostly irrelevant to the user. With this in mind, the metaphor of cloud was borrowed from old telecoms network schematics in which the public telephone network was often represented as a cloud. This is an oversimplification of course because for many customer locations of services and data remains a serious issue.

History of Cloud Computing:

As a term, cloud computing is being used since the early 2000s, but the concept of computing as a service has been around since the 1960s. This was the time when the computer bureaus would enable companies to rent time on a mainframe, rather than having to buy a new one for themselves.

These time sharing services were mostly overtaken by the rise of PC, which made owning a computer a lot more affordable and in turn with the rise of corporate data centers where companies stored vast amounts of data.

The concept of renting access to computing power has resurfaced again and again in the application service providers, grid computing and utility computing of the late 1990s and early 2000s. This was then followed by cloud computing which really took hold with the rise of software as a service and hyper-scale cloud computing providers such as AWS cloud.

Importance of Cloud:

Building infrastructure for supporting cloud computing contributes to more than over a third of all IT costs worldwide. Simultaneously, spending on the traditional and in house IT continues to slide over as a major computing workload moves to the cloud, whether that is public or cloud services offered by the vendors or the private clouds built by enterprises themselves.

Around one-third of the IT costs will be on hosting and cloud services which indicate a growing reliance on external sources of application, management, infrastructure, and security services. The global enterprises using cloud are slated to adopt it completely by the year 2021.

Additionally, global spending on cloud services is going to reach over $260 billion since it is growing faster than the expectations of analysts. However, it is not completely clear how much demand is coming from businesses that are actually willing to move to the cloud and how much is being created by vendors who offer cloud versions of their products.

Characteristics of Cloud Computing:

– Elasticity: Companies can very easily and freely scale up as the computing must increase and scale down as the demand decreases. This eliminates the need for huge investments in the local infrastructure, which might or might not remain active.

– Pay per use: The resources are measured at a granular level allowing users to pay only for the resources and workloads that are used.

– Workload resilience: The cloud service providers very often implement redundant resources for ensuring storage and keeping the important workloads running across multiple global regions.

– Migration flexibility: Organizations can move certain workloads from and even to the cloud or different cloud platforms just as it is desired. This helps in better cost savings and using new services just as they emerge.

– Self-service provisioning: The end users can spin up the computing resources for any kind of workload on-demand. An end-user can also provision computing capabilities like server time and network storage eliminating the need for IT administrators to manage or provision resources.

– Multi-tenancy and resource pooling: Multi-tenancy enables multiple customers to share the same physical infrastructures or applications while retaining privacy and security over the data. With the help of resource pooling, the cloud providers help in servicing many customers from the same physical resources. The resource pools of cloud providers are large and flexible enough so they can service the requirements of multiple customers.

– Broad network access: A user can access the cloud data or upload data to the cloud from anywhere with the help of an internet connection and any device.

Benefits of Cloud Computing:

Cloud computing comes with many attractive benefits for businesses and end-users. Some of the most important benefits of cloud computing are:

1. Cost Savings: Using cloud computing can help in massive cost savings as organizations no longer have to spend a huge amount of money on maintaining or buying equipment. Further, this also reduces capital expenditure costs as there is no longer any need to invest in facilities, utilities, hardware, or building large data centres for accommodating growing businesses.

In addition, since growing companies do not need large IT teams for handling cloud data centre operations; they can easily rely on the expertise of the cloud provider’s team. Cloud computing cuts down any costs related to downtime. Since downtime happens rarely in cloud computing, the companies are no longer required to spend money and time fixing any issues that might be linked to downtime.

All in all, there are many reasons that can be attributed to lower costs with cloud technology. The billing model is pay as per usage and the infrastructure is not purchased which lowers the maintenance cost. The initial and recurring expenses come out to be much lower than traditional computing.

2. Increased Storage: With the huge infrastructure that is offered by all the cloud providers in the present time, maintenance, and storage of large volumes of data is a reality. Additionally, the sudden workload raises are also managed efficiently and effectively since the cloud can actually scale dynamically.

3. Disaster Recovery: Many organizations worry about data loss. Storing data in the cloud guarantees users can always access their data even if the devices like smartphones and laptops are inoperable.

With cloud-based services, organizations can recover data in the event of emergencies like power collapse or natural disasters very quickly.

4. Flexibility: Flexibility can be counted as an exceptionally significant benefit of cloud computing. With so many enterprises in the need to adapt to the changing business conditions all the more rapidly, the speed to deliver has become critical.

Cloud computing pays extreme importance on getting the applications to market at a quick pace with the use of suitable building blocks considered necessary for deployment.

5. Mobility: Storing the information in the cloud implies that the users can access it from anytime and anywhere with the help of an internet connection. This further means that the users are not required to carry any USB drives around because CDs and external hard drives are enough for accessing data.

The users can also access corporate data through smartphones and other mobile devices while enabling remote employees to stay up to date with their co-workers and customers. The end users can also recover, retrieve, and process resources in the cloud. Moreover, the cloud vendors offer all upgrades and updates automatically, which saves both effort and time.

Cloud Computing Models:

The cloud providers give services that can be majorly grouped into three important categories. These services are as below:

1. Software as a Service (SaaS): In the SaaS model, a comprehensive application is provided to the customers as a service on demand. An important instance of this service runs on the cloud and so many end users are serviced. On the side of the customers, there is absolutely no need for any direct or upfront investment in the servers or software licenses.

However, for the service providers, the costs are lowered, since only a single application is hosted and maintained. SaaS is provided by many prominent companies such as Salesforce, Zoho, Google, Microsoft, etc.

It is expected that the customer relationship management applications and enterprise resource management applications are more than likely to account for more than 60% of all cloud applications until 2021. The number of applications delivered through SaaS is massive right from CRM like Salesforce to Microsoft’s Office 365.

2. Platform as a Service (PaaS): In this service, a layer of software or the development environment is enclosed and offered as a service over which the higher levels of services can be created. The customers have all the freedom to build different applications that run on the infrastructure of the provider.

Keeping the underlying storage, virtual servers, and networking including the tools and software applications intact, the developers build the applications. This could include database management, development tools, operating systems, middleware, etc.

In order to meet the scalability and manageability requirements of the applications, the PaaS providers provide a predefined combination of application servers and OS such as restricted J2EE, Ruby, LAMP platform, etc. Some of the best examples of PaaS are Google’s App Engine and Force.com, etc.

3. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): IaaS can be referred to as the most important and fundamental building blocks of computing that can be rented. These are storage, networking, and virtual servers. This model is preferred by many companies that are interested in building applications from the basic level and wish to control all elements on their own.

However, this also requires companies to have the technical skills that are important for orchestrating services at that particular level. On the basis of many dedicated types of research done in the past; it has been found that IaaS users claim that using online infrastructure is a lot easier because it cuts down the time needed for deploying new applications or services while reducing the on-going maintenance costs.

IaaS offers basic computing capabilities and storage such as standardized services over the network. The storage system, networking equipment, data center space, etc. are all pooled together and made available for taking over the workload. The customer is then asked to typically deploy the software on infrastructure. Some of the examples of IaaS are AWS cloud, 3Tera, etc.

Cloud Computing Deployment Models:

There are different types of cloud models, each of which proves to be different from the other. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of these models can help in deploying applications on Public, Private and Hybrid clouds. Additionally, it will also help you in finding out the right cloud path for each organization.

1. Public Cloud: The public cloud model is mostly operated and owned by the third parties because it helps in delivering superior economies of scale to the customers as the infrastructure costs get spread amongst a mix of users while giving all individual clients a low cost, “pay as you go” model.

All the customers share a similar infrastructure pool with very limited configuration, availability variance, and security protection. Furthermore, the private cloud is supported and managed by the cloud provider. One of the most important benefits of public cloud is the fact that although it might be larger than the enterprise cloud, it has an ability to scale seamlessly and on-demand.

2. Private Cloud: The private cloud system is built exclusively for a single enterprise. The aim of the private cloud system is to address the data security and offer greater control which is mostly lacking in a public cloud. Private cloud has two major variations which are:

– On-premise Private Cloud: The on-premise private cloud also popularly known as the internal cloud is hosted within one’s own data center. This model offers particularly standardized protection and process, but it is limited in the aspects of size and scalability. The IT departments are required to incur the capital and the operational costs for all physical resources in the on-premise private cloud. It is suitable for applications that require complete configuration and control of security and infrastructure

– Externally Hosted Private Cloud: The externally hosted private cloud is the one that is built by hosting externally with a cloud provider where the provider is in charge of facilitating an exclusive cloud environment with a complete guarantee of privacy. It is the most suitable for enterprises that do not prefer a public cloud due to sharing physical resources.

3. Hybrid Cloud: The hybrid cloud model is responsible for combining both the private and public cloud models. With the implementation of a hybrid cloud, the service providers can use any third-party cloud providers in a complete or partial manner while increasing the flexibility of computing.

The hybrid cloud environment has a distinct capability of offering an on-demand and externally provisioned scale. The combination of augmenting a private cloud with the resources of a public cloud can be utilized to manage any kind of unexpected increase in the workload.

The main goal of the hybrid cloud model is to create an automated, scalable and unified environment that can take the advantage of everything that a public cloud is capable of providing while still controlling the data in an efficient manner.

4. Multi-Cloud: The multi-cloud deployment model of cloud computing allows different applications to migrate between cloud providers or to operate simultaneously over two or more cloud providers. Many organizations are increasingly adopting a multi-cloud model with the use of multiple IaaS providers.

Organizations implement the multi-cloud deployment model for many reasons. For example; it helps them in reducing the risk of a cloud service outrage or gaining competitive pricing from another provider.

Businesses and Cloud Computing:

Businesses can employ cloud computing in many different ways. While some of them maintain all applications and data on the cloud, others can use a hybrid model and keep all applications and data on private servers. When it is about offering services, some of the most prominent cloud computing services are Google Cloud, AWS cloud (Amazon Web Services), IBM Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, Microsoft Azure cloud services, etc.

AWS Cloud is completely public and includes a pay as you go, outsourced model. As the person is on the platform, you can sign up for the applications and any additional services. On the other hand, Azure Cloud services enable the clients to keep some data on their own sites.

More and more companies are adopting cloud services which is leading to a rapid growth of the cloud market. It is predicted that many organizations are more than likely to migrate the mission-critical workloads to public clouds. One of the reasons for this is the fact that business executives want to make sure that their companies can compete in the new world of digital transformation.

Furthermore, business leaders are also keen on taking advantage of the public cloud for the modern computer systems, elasticity, critical business units, and the DevOps teams. Cloud providers such as IBM and Google are focused on meeting the needs of IT enterprises by removing any barriers to public cloud adoption that might cause any IT decision-makers to restrict the adoption of the public cloud.

Conclusion:

Keeping the long history of cloud computing intact, it is still standing at a relatively early stage of adoption. Many companies are on the fence considering which applications should be moved and when. However, the usage is expected to climb only if the organizations get more comfortable with the idea of data being at a point other than a server in the basement.

That being said, the cloud vendors are increasingly on the look-out of pushing cloud computing as a medium of digital transformation instead of focusing just on the cost. Moving to the cloud can assist the companies to rethink all of their business processes and accelerate the business change by breaking down the organizational and data silos.

The adoption of cloud is definitely aimed at bringing a multitude of benefits and a streamlined working process. Hence, enterprises must take its adoption very seriously.

Encaptechno is a company that offers the best implementation of cloud services to enterprises. Our team comes with extensive experience in enabling many enterprises to adopt cloud services in a way that helps them to improve many business processes.

Get in touch to know more by calling us at +1-416-405-8185 or emailing at [email protected]

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10 Best Services Offered by Amazon Web Services (2020 Update)

Amarjeet Singh Walia / amazon web services, aws cloud consultant, aws consulting, aws development, aws migration services / Cloud Services

Amazon Web Services is a subordinate of Amazon that provides a cloud computing platform to evolve an organization.

You will also agree that Amazon Web Services have always been a building block for the organization that plans to develop any type of application over the cloud.

Simple implementation, high security, elasticity, scalability, and flexibility are a few must-consider factors of Amazon Web Services. In addition to this, Amazon has different services that cater to fulfill the requirements of different domains. A few commonly used domains of AWS are compute, storage, database, migration, network, content delivery, management tools, security, and identity compliance.

Talking about the broad spectrum of services offered by AWS, here are 10 trending services that can be implemented on apps or databases over AWS cloud to perfectly fit into the project.

Let’s get started!

What are the Top 10 Amazon Web Services 2020?

1. Amazon S3

Amazon S3 is on the top of the AWS service list. This is because storage and retrieval of data plays a very significant role in cloud computing. AWS delivers Amazon Simple Storage Service or Amazon S3 to store and retrieve data from the cloud.

This scalable, inexpensive, and high-speed web-based service is designed for archival and online backup of the application program as well as data. S3 allows the user to access the same system like that of Amazon to run its website. Users can control public and private data.

Besides the intelligent distribution of data in various data centers, Amazon S3 also offers integrations like FedRAMP, PCI-DSS, and HIPAA/HITECH to prevent data compromise.

Most importantly, the drastic growth of annual data transfer on an average with Amazon S3 is predicted to be 91%! This is a clear sign that S3 is one of the most used AWS services.

Do you know that anyone can access a free layer providing a storage capacity of 5 GB? And the best part is, the pricing starts at $0.023 per month to access the first 50TB of storage capacity. Cost-friendly, right?

2. Amazon CloudFront

Have you ever evaluated, how fast is your website?

When the users connect, do they have to wait for a few seconds to open a page?

Amazon CloudFront is one of the best Amazon Cloud services offering the best solution to these issues.

Having a unique feature of improving the speed of the website, the service also helps in accessing user information on the cloud.

CloudFront is basically a Global Content Delivery Service that assists in managing content, delivering it to the end-user thereby ensuring the efficient presentation.

This particular AWS service helps in providing website static files that are obtained from various data centers across the globe. One most considering advantage is the improvement in the loading speed of web pages and user satisfaction.

It becomes very convenient to reach your target users with the Amazon CloudFront. Having effective integration with other AWS services, it offers the least latency possible.

3. Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2)

AWS came up with something unique!

Forget about the expensive physical servers when you have Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute. This Amazon cloud service allows you to create virtual machines and manage other features of servers; such as storage, security, ports, etc.

Amazon EC2 is the best bet as it allows you to build servers within minutes with your preferred operating system. Furthermore, it will help you have more time to take care of your projects and spend less time maintaining your servers.

The Amazon EC2 service basically falls under the category of computing domain. It provides services that help to compute workloads.

This web interface reduces the costly physical servers as it develops virtual machines. Also, it helps in managing various features of the virtual servers. The features include security, ports, and storage. It offers resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Moreover, it helps a lot to aim at the project rather than the server maintenance.

4. Amazon RDS

Amazon helps in creating the infrastructure less complicated, and this is one of the reasons it has come up with something exceptional. Wondering, what is it?

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) allows you to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient and re sizable capacity while automating time-consuming administration tasks like hardware provisioning, database setup, patching and backups.

You can aim at focusing on apps for providing fast performance, high availability, security and compatibility they need. Also, it is able to support multiple database engines like SQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, etc.

This one is another popular addition in the AWS service list 2020. RDS ensures limited complexities in terms of the design of cloud infrastructure

Finally, you will definitely forget all those hours of maintenance and support to the database servers!

The facility of dedicated instances for databases within a limited period and complete management privileges provided by the AWS support team are some of the major reasons that put Amazon RDS in this list of top AWS services.

5. Amazon VPC

Do you feel your data is at risk in the AWS cloud? No, it’s not.

The private network in the cloud makes the data accessible to the people or systems that you authorize. With the help of this Amazon cloud service, you can create a private virtual network. In this particular network, your complete IT environment lives totally isolated from the outside world. This way your information is free of exposure.

Most Amazon cloud consultants say that Amazon VPC is one of the most popular AWS services. This is because it has a primary role in preventing information security risk.

The features of this service also help in the development of a private virtual network. Doesn’t it look like a legitimate approach to secure your information from unauthorized access?

6. Amazon SNS

AWS not only takes care of the requirements of the organizations that are willing to move their infrastructure to the cloud but also supports developers who wish to create a development environment. Something valuable that can automate several processes of development so that time and effort of developers are saved.

With this Amazon service, SNS is the next entry in the list. SNS is a Simple Notification Service that sends SMS, SQS, or HTML endpoint messages. AWS offers a notification system that provides the flexibility of integration with any type of application, whether it is PHP, Python, Node, etc. With this Amazon cloud service, the notifications can be sent to all types of users whether on web or mobile. In addition to this, SNS is also used for operations as an email server.

7. AWS Beanstalk

Another AWS service that is interesting and helpful for the developers.

No developer wants to engage himself in the hassle of managing the infrastructure of a website. This is because maintenance becomes tedious to solve any problem.

Here comes a savior. AWS Elastic Beanstalk relieves all this. Developers don’t have to manage the infrastructure.

Well, this makes the maintenance of the infrastructure highly simplified and flexible. Instead of focusing on managing the resources and infrastructure, developers now can focus on development and coding.

This Auto Scaling Solution can help in automatic updates of new software versions (S3 and then automatic installation on EC2). The best thing-free service!

8. Amazon Lambda

Are you using an infrastructure that isn’t capable of supporting plenty of requests and delays in the development process? Is the server saturated with plenty of requests?

If yes, it is the right time you move to AWS infrastructure using Amazon Lambda.

If your infrastructure does not support the demands of your developments, then AWS Lambda is for you. No need to worry too much about infrastructure and development now.

This Amazon cloud service gives complete freedom of selecting your own infrastructure that meets the latest development demands from resources to coding language to coding standards. Also, you can seamlessly code and upload it on the cloud without misplacing anything. Keeping backups, it also allows you to edit the codes whenever you want. So, whenever you change the version, it automatically updates the latest one.

All the aforementioned features of AWS Lambda is something that makes it the most ideal service for developers. Especially the ones who are looking for flexible infrastructure for coding and software solution development.

9. AWS Autoscaling

Do you have an application that you plan to expand to millions of users? You don’t have large investments or resources for this?

Amazon AutoScaling will help in this case.

The magic of AWS is that it provides flexibility to pick a fleet of servers that support a lot of traffic that demands applications loaded on the cloud. The service is completely free and the only charge is for the number of instances used for the application and that too for the time it runs.

10. Amazon Elasticache

This AWS development service is impeccable.

AWS Elasticache helps in managing, deploying, and distributing a memory-cache in your cloud. The simple to use service takes all the learning cache stress from you. You can easily manage your distributed cache environment.

Here are the caching engines available:

Redis

Memcache

What’s more unique about Elasticache is that it can automatically recover from any cache failure.

Also read: Amazon Web Services – Complete Guide

Wrapping Up

Having comprehensive services, Amazon Web Services is a treasure trove for businesses especially for the ones that are planning to achieve cloud migration goals. AWS brings a lot of opportunities for cloud professionals who have a passion for working with these services.

However, AWS also offers a few more other services. But the objective of this post was to help you find the top 10.

Most important of all, don’t ignore that the cost of the services is also decreasing gradually with better adoption, thereby implying cost-effectiveness benefits for everyone!

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AWS vs. Azure: Cloud Computing Platform Comparison

Amarjeet Singh Walia / amazon web services, cloud computing, microsoft azure / Cloud Services

The implementation of cloud computing has rapidly grown to be key driving energy for today’s businesses, as applications are migrated from on-premise data centers in a desire to innovate, reduce expenses, and boost agility. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) serves as a model, where a third-party service maintains and hosts central infrastructure, consisting of hardware, software, storage, and servers on behalf of a client. Generally, this practice includes the hosting of applications in an extremely scalable environment, where customers get charged only for the infrastructure that they use.

Early issues regarding security and data governance have largely been handled by the two leading public cloud vendors – Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure – with only the most significantly monitored businesses enduring to cautiously rise when it comes to the adoption of cloud services.

Overview

What is AWS?

What is Azure?

Table of Comparison between AWS and Azure

Detailed Comparison between Key Functionalities

Conclusion

Overview

Several organizations need to know the comparison of AWS and Azure before they decide which cloud is best to get started with to fulfill their cloud computing needs. However, in reality, this is not a technology decision. Both AWS and Azure are powerful performers with similarities in nearly 99% of the use cases. Selecting between Azure and AWS is something more than a business decision and relies on the needs of the organization.

For example, if an organization requires a powerful Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) provider or any Windows integration, Azure would be preferred, while if an enterprise requires an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS ) or assorted set of tools then AWS might be the finest solution. Nowadays, another parameter taking immense popularity to make a decision is how much integral analytics tools are accessible on these platforms.

What is AWS?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud service platform by Amazon that offers services in various domains like compute, delivery, storage, and other capabilities, which help the businesses to scale and develop. These domains can be utilized in the form of services to create and deploy diverse types of applications in the cloud environment in such a way that they collaboratively generate a scalable and competent outcome. AWS offerings are classified into three categories that are: Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Software as a service (SaaS), and Platform as a service (PaaS).

What is AZURE?

Microsoft Azure is a cloud service platform from Microsoft that also offers services in various domains such as compute, storage, database, developer tools, networking, and other functionalities. Azure services are also classified as the Platform as a service (PaaS), Software as a service (SaaS), and Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), utilized by developers and software engineers to create, deploy and manage services and applications in the cloud environment.

Detailed Comparison Between Key Functionalities

1. Compute

The fundamental roles of a computer are: Calculate, process, and compute. The right cloud service provider can help scale up to 1000’s of processing nodes in a few minutes. The organizations requiring faster data analysis or graphics interpretation, two choices are available- either purchase additional hardware or migrate to the cloud, which is the motive of public cloud services.

AWS’ primary solution for computing is EC2 that provides scalable computing on-demand and can be customized for various services such as the EC2 container service, AWS Lambda, Autoscaling, and Elastic Beanstalk for app deployment. While the compute offerings by Azure are based on VMs with multiple other tools like Cloud Services and Resource Manager that help to deploy applications on the cloud.

AWS still offers the broadest range of services, more than 100 across compute, storage, database, analytics, networking, mobile, developer tools, management tools, security, IoT, and enterprise applications.

2.Storage

Key functionality of cloud service providers is storage capacity. Running services in the cloud encompass data processing, which needs to be stored at some point in time. AWS’ storage services run longer; however, Azure’s storage functionalities are exceptionally reliable. Both Azure and AWS are robust in this capability and engross all the necessary features like server-side data encryption and REST API access. Azure’s storage mechanism is known as Blob storage, and AWS’s is known as Simple Storage Service (S3).

AWS’s cloud object storage solution presents high availability and automatic duplication across different regions. Temporary storage in AWS begins operating when an instance initiates and stops when an instance ends. It also gives block storage like hard disks and can be connected with any EC2 instance or kept aside. Azure utilizes page blobs and temporary storage for VM based volumes. Its Block Storage option is similar to S3 in AWS, where two types of storage are offered by Azure that is hot and cool. Cool storage is moderately less costly than Hot, but one has to acquire extra read and write costs.

3. Pricing

The price of the platform is a key factor of attraction for organizations planning a shift to the cloud. With the growing competition amongst cloud service providers, there has been a constant descending trend on cost since recent times now. Both AWS and Azure provide free startup tiers with limited usage limits that allow users to experience and use their services before they can actually buy.

AWS offers a pay-as-you-go model and charges per hour while Azure’s pricing model is also pay-as-you-go, but they charge per minute. AWS can ensure more savings with increased usage- as the more you use, the less you pay. You can buy AWS instances based on one of the following models –

Reserved Instances– Paying a fixed price based on the use- you can reserve an instance for 1 to 3 years
On-demand Instances- Pay for the functionalities that you use without paying any fixed cost
Spot Instances- Tender extra capacity based on the availability

Azure offers short-term proposals to its users, enabling them to select between prepaid or monthly charges. When it comes to the pricing model, Azure is a little less flexible than AWS.

4. Database

Nowadays, all software applications need a database to store information. Both Azure and AWS provide database services, irrespective of whether you require a relational database or a NoSQL. RDS (Relational Database Service) by Amazon and Microsoft’s similar SQL Server database both are highly accessible & durable and also present automatic replication.

AWS works seamlessly with NoSQL and relational databases, presenting a mature cloud environment for big data. AWS’ core analytics service, EMR, a managed Hadoop, Spark, and Presto solution, helps to set up an EC2 cluster and enables integration with different AWS services. Azure also supports NoSQL and relational databases both as well as Big Data via Azure HD-Insight and Azure table. Azure offers analytical products through its exclusive Cortana Intelligence Suite that is accessible with Hadoop, HBase, Storm, and Spark.

Amazon’s RDS supports six popular database engines- MariaDB, MySQL, Amazon Aurora, Microsoft SQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle, while Azure’s SQL database service is only based on MS SQL Server. The interface and tools of Azure make it easy to execute different DB operations while AWS has more assortments of instances that you can stipulate and obtain extra control over DB instances.

5. Content Delivery and Networking

Each cloud service provider offers several networks and partners that integrate the data centers across the world through various products. AWS offers Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) for users to make isolated networks within the cloud. Within VPC, users can generate route tables, private IP address ranges, subnets, and network gateways. Similarly, Azure provides Virtual Network (VNET) for users to produce isolated networks. Both providers present firewall options and solutions to expand on-premise data centers into the cloud.

Conclusion

The above-stated comparison has put some light on various functionalities of AWS vs. Azure. There is no clear winner in the race of cloud service providers, as organizations always have the opportunity to select the most important features from each of them to facilitate a multi-cloud strategy. Companies require high service uptime and flexibility to leverage the hosting of multiple data centers.

Comparing Azure and AWS is extremely difficult as both continuously launch new pricing structures, new products, and new integrations frequently. The decision to choose either of the platforms will depend on the needs of organizations. Despite the consequences of the comparisons, concluding the right public cloud service provider needs thorough research on what the organization really needs.

Getting confused about selecting the one? Get expert advice with AWS and Azure Consulting at Encaptechno today!

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An Introduction to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) – A Complete Guide

Amarjeet Singh Walia / amazon web services, aws, aws cloud consultant, aws consulting, aws migration services / Cloud Services

Today, a multitude of mature services are available for cloud computing that offers security, scalability, and reliability for business. What was once a gigantic task to install server racks, build a data center, and design storage collections have now given a whole new way to an entire marketplace of services that you can get just in a single click. Such an abundant cloud leader in that marketplace is AWS.

Table of Content

What is AWS?
Signing Up to AWS
What Services Does AWS offer?
What Is AWS Used For?
What are the Benefits of AWS Services for Businesses?
How Can You Build an Application?

What is AWS?

AWS refers to Amazon Web Services. It’s an international market leader in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) industry, presenting an array of remote cloud services. AWS offers around 175 products and services in a huge catalog that includes cloud storage, compute power, app deployment, user account management, data warehousing, management tools, and Internet of Things device control, and any tool that you can think a business would need.

AWS has gained immense popularity and capability over the last decade. One of the major reasons is that AWS is so secure and reliable. It is a Gold Standard Company and used by some of the most renowned brands in service like Netflix, Uber, and Airbnb, etc. AWS initiated as primarily a cloud infrastructure for computing power, and then storage progressed and scaled rapidly – now companies keep looking for more innovative products from AWS to help them do business.

Amazon Web Services on a beginner’s note, offers, database storage facilities, computing power, content delivery, and networking with additional functionalities to help your organizations grow. It lets you pick up your desired solutions, while you expend on exactly the services you utilize only. AWS is cost-effective that helps you save your assets, which counts more value without cooperating with the performance of applications or user experience.

Signing Up to AWS

Follow these steps to sign up for AWS.

Step 1: Visit aws.amazon.com and then click on the ‘Create an AWS Account’ button.

Step 2: Select the option of ‘I am a new customer’, enter your email address and then press ‘Sign In’.

Step 3: Moving further to the next page- fill in all the relevant details and click on ‘Create Account’.

Step 4: Insert your personal details on the next page and then press on ‘Create Account and Continue.’

Step 5: Enter your credit or debit card details on the next page. After you do that, proceed further by clicking on ‘Verify Card and Continue’.

Step 6: To verify your phone number, enter the desired details, and then click on ‘Call Me Now’.

Step 7: After you get a call from AWS and you will be asked to enter a pin, subsequently up have to select your plan for AWS, but prior to selection, click on ‘Continue to Select Your Support Plan’.

Step 8: Select a plan that fits your needs, whether you can go for a basic plan for learning purpose, or a developer or business plan. And then, click on ‘Continue’.

Step 9: Here You Go! Your AWS Account is ready for use! Just sign in and start deploying applications!

Once you have your own AWS account, you can start hosting your website with any of AWS Cloud products and services and experience the compute capacity in your existing infrastructure.

What Services Does AWS offer?

Well, there is a long list of services and products in the marketplace under AWS; here are some of the major products that serve businesses around the world:

AWS AMI: An AWS AMI (Amazon Machine Image) enables you to implement EC2 instances in the cloud. In simple words, it is similar to an element of a local server in a data center or a virtual machine that processes in the cloud. You cannot possibly exploit the complete benefits of cloud computing without an AMI.

AWS AppSync: AppSync is a cloud-based service that keeps mobile and web apps updated, only when required and scales according to your particular needs. It utilizes a cost structure that is built to preserve only critical data and let the data at rest untouched.

Amazon Athena: Amazon Athena is a boon for the companies that store their data in the cloud with Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). It’s a query service that permits you to run SQL queries inside the cloud, which means you don’t need to access a local database.

Amazon Aurora: The users who need to install a relational database in the cloud; Amazon brings you one main option called Aurora. You can depend on a high-performance database that can hold on with the needs of your applications.

AWS Batch: One of the important benefits of a cloud is that the infrastructure can scale as your needs change. AWS Batch is a batch processing facility for Big Data assignments. As your projects rise in size, the associated cloud infrastructure can adapt.

AWS CLI: You can download the AWS CLI (Command Line Interface) application to control AWS functions. This command-line represents a new, potential way to form commands while making it simple for team members to execute them.

AWS CloudFormation: For the organizations that want to deploy and manage application stacks and resources, AWS CloudFormation is a method to “form the cloud” so that you can implement web and mobile apps effortlessly.

AWS CloudFront: A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is usually a challenging responsibility for companies to develop and deploy. AWS CloudFront is a CDN that works in the cloud and can expand as your media streaming, messaging, and file distribution requirements vary and grow.

AWS CodeDeploy: This service enables you to arrange apps in a cloud environment, such as Amazon EC2, AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda, etc. It means quicker, more effective deployment for companies that need to reach a market segment faster.

AWS CodePipeline: AWS CodePipeline lets companies arrange all of the steps included, from building, testing, and production in modern application development. It’s an efficient method because of a single point of management and control.

AWS Cognito: User account control is easy when you have only a few dozen users. AWS Cognito can support when you begin scaling up to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of users, assisting in the management and authentication processes.

Amazon Connect: Amazon Connect is a crucial approach to advance customer service, particularly for small businesses. It uses the cloud to save storage; it is pay-as-you-go, and proficient and easy to access.

AWS Console: AWS Console works as a primary source of controlling the services you use, expanding your cloud environment, and even deploying fresh services. It is a one-stop-shop for all of your cloud computing needs. AWS Console is exceptionally fast, easy to use, and offers support assistance if any of your services aren’t working correctly.

Amazon Corretto: As a production-ready allocation of OpenJDK, Amazon Corretto helps you to create, run, and deploy Java applications in the cloud environment. It is built to make this process more capable and scalable so that you don’t have to renovate your infrastructure.

AWS Data Pipeline: Data transformation becomes a complicated task, especially when you are managing the complete migration. AWS Data Pipeline makes this process more seamless and efficient, even if you are migrating and transferring data in a multifaceted environment.

AWS Direct Connect: AWS Direct Connect is a bridge that connects the old legacy and non-critical data to data stores that are currently in use for your applications and infrastructure.

Amazon DynamoDB: Amazon DynamoDB is a high-performance database that exists in the cloud, has all of the advantages to scale, and you can rely on it for transforming your modern age complex apps for the web and modern devices.

AWS EBS: AWS EBS (Elastic Block Store) is a cloud service that allows you to save data in the conventional block storage format that is beneficial for legacy apps, Big Data projects, or archiving functions.

Amazon EC2: Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) gives you an IT infrastructure that works in the cloud. It provides power, scalability, and performance, everything at the same time. The greatest benefit of EC2 is that it presents fast, efficient flexibility for users.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk: Elastic Beanstalk provides a flexible approach to scale applications without the standard setup, configuration, and management of the server infrastructure. It’s flexible in the sense that it can familiarize and scale according to your business needs.

Amazon EMR: Amazon Elastic MapReduce is a service to deploy various frameworks required to do Big Data analytics in the cloud. It is generally used for genomic research, drug detection, analyzing materials used for new products, and other sorts of tests that need immense data analysis.

AWS Fargate: AWS Fargate is a serverless compute engine by Amazon that makes it simpler than ever to upgrade or develop an application without worrying for a data breach so that you’re continuously holding up with new infrastructure requirements.

AWS Glue: With AWS Glue, you don’t require any advanced technology for storing all of your data at a single place. AWS Glue is the “bond” that binds together different types of data, making it always available for queries in real-time.

Amazon Kinesis: Amazon Kinesis offers real-time analytics for data as it runs in your cloud infrastructure. The service focuses on analytics and reporting functionalities, to provide the real power to deal with your apps and scale consequently.

AWS Lambda: AWS Lambda is a computing service, which runs code and automatically operates computing resources as required. As it is a cloud-based service, you don’t need to worry about power or storage.

Amazon Lightsail: Amazon Lightsail is a framework developer can use to run applications on virtual servers in the cloud. Because of its secure environment, it has a significant use case and can be used as a complement to other Amazon services like Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

AWS Outposts: What if you could access a copy of any of the cloud services that Amazon offers, but only in your own data center? That’s the exact initiative behind AWS Outposts, a service that gives you all the features and functionalities of cloud services in your local infrastructure.

Amazon RDS: Amazon RDS supports companies to save relational databases in the cloud. You can use it for analytics, web applications, business dashboards, or any other app that uses a relational database. This service also provides added flexibility and a facility to scale to your needs.

Amazon Redshift: Amazon Redshift is an online data warehouse that offers great flexibility, ease of navigation, automatic updates, and security to its users. It is just as efficient for large organizations as it is for small ones.

Amazon S3: Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a well-recognized object storage service. It is a flexible, powerful, and reliable service that fulfills the needs of even the most complicated enterprise-level apps for the largest organizations and institutions.

Amazon SES: Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is the most excellent way to improve messaging. It is available with pay-as-you-go pricing, and it is built to fit perfectly into the existing IT infrastructure that your business has. It has the capability to send several thousand messages, and you don’t need to bother about security or performance.

AWS Snowball: AWS Snowball is a service for data transfer that helps businesses to conduct a more safe and sound data migration. The data under the migration will not go through the Internet; that’s why the migration is faster, safer, and more reliable. Snowball is exceptionally scalable, enabling businesses to transfer huge amounts of data they need.

Amazon SNS: Modern applications continuously communicate with servers and each other. Even some simple changes, such as a new high-score in the gaming app, have to be conveyed. Hence, Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service) tracks, controls, and manages these messages.

Amazon SQS: Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service) is a service for queuing messages. It works independently of the current infrastructure you are using and ensures that the messages between servers and apps run resourcefully, securely, and consistently.

AWS Step Functions: Developers can use Step Functions to build apps that use numerous transactional services. Before cloud computing services such as Step Functions; connecting multiple sources was much more complicated, and this evolved the issues for reliability.

AWS Storage Gateway: AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid storage choice for companies that have legacy data stores and also want to take benefits of cloud storage. This service connects the difference between the two and provides one console to control and manage both data stores.

AWS VPC: AWS VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) a safe virtual cloud that can assist business owners in launching a new website, app, or other services by providing them knowledgeable insights about the new service. AWS VPC is a separate portion of the Amazon cloud that also presents a lot of flexibility and scalability.

AWS WAF: Not all firewalls serve as a hardware tool in a data center. AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall) is a cloud-based firewall you install to guard apps and data in the cloud. Using this, companies can add or eliminate any cloud security feature based on their needs.

AWS X-Ray: It is one of the most unusually named products by Amazon. It’s a cloud service that tracks and manages all of the messaging that is conveyed between cloud-based apps.

What Is AWS Used For?

Based on the usage of the above-stated Amazon services and products, their application can be widely categorized into:

Compute
Storage
Data management
Migration
Networking
Development tools and application services
Management and monitoring
Security
Analytics
Artificial intelligence
Mobile development
Notifications
Productivity SaaS business Products

How Can You Build an Application?

Firstly, you need to understand what your application is. Does it require any primary infrastructure or database? So, when you are aware of all the requirements about your application, you can decide on the domain, and then select a service.

If you want to deploy an application in AWS, you don’t need you to worry about the basic architecture; so you can pick any one service you like.

For computing purposes, Elastic Beanstalk can help you build applications without any typical setup, arrangement, and management of the server infrastructure. Just upload your applications, and AWS will do the rest for you.

If you are not familiar with any of these services, AWS presents an amazing free tier option to help you learn using them. When you register to AWS, you get a free tier option that is eligible for one year from the date of registration. You can use every application on AWS for free and learn how to use them.

What are the Benefits of AWS Services for Businesses?

AWS is the leading name in the market of cloud solutions because it has a variety of products that you can pick according to your particular needs. However, more than that, these are the top five benefits of AWS:

1. Scalability

There is no doubt that AWS services are affordable for businesses of all sizes. It doesn’t matter whether you have started your business today or you are a well established online business with heavy traffic. One of the major benefits of AWS is that it lets you scale your business efficiently by presenting flexibility and storage solutions.

2. Commitment Free

Another benefit of using AWS cloud services is that you don’t require going under any commitment or contract. Moreover, there is not any definite minimum spend to use its service. You get a per hour charge for all server-based services. You can terminate the services any time without harming your pocket any more. This feature is really supportive for businesses that don’t want to overpay for storage or services they don’t use.

3. Security

Since data storage and security are significant components of a business when an organization migrates to a cloud platform. Therefore, it makes sense that they expect high-level security for migration purposes. The AWS services make sure to provide the most powerful security for businesses of all sizes.

AWS provides enhanced security features like:
24/7 technical assistance by the data experts
The built-in firewall that allows exceptionally precise access from highly restrictive to the public domain
IAM services to track user access
Multi-factor authentication and encrypted data storage capacity

4. Reliability

Amazon has a vast reach and a huge team of professional experts. They’ll help you to build a solid system that is reliable and consistent. Several businesses like to have secure and dependable connections to data, which allows them to sustain and create their data infrastructures. That’s why AWS cloud service is a leading choice for many businesses.

5. Flexible and Customizable

AWS lets you choose the programming language, operating system, and database that you like, which enables you to build a solution that’s best for your organization and your team.

The combination of customization with simplicity and user-friendly AWS encourages many businesses across the world to pick up AWS services.

To Sum Up

AWS cloud computing services are secure, reliable, and affordable. Therefore, choosing any of the AWS cloud services will prove advantageous for your business and will allow you to scale your business on a leading cloud infrastructure exponentially.

Hopefully, this guide is enough to help you get a complete overview of AWS Cloud services. But in case you have any doubts about its effective services that fit good to your needs, you can contact leading AWS Cloud Consultant today!

An Introduction to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) – A Complete Guide Read More »

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Author name: Amarjeet Singh Walia

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1. Understand AWS Security Model

2. Prioritize Your Strategy In Sync With Tools and Controls

3. Strengthening CloudTrail Security Configurations

4.Configuring Password Policy

5. Disable Root API Access and Secret Keys

6. Implement Identity and Access Management

7. Encrypt Data Regularly

8. Data Policies

9. Form a Security Culture

10. Limit the Security Groups

Conclusion

What is the Azure Active Directory?

Who is Azure AD for?

1. High Availability

2. Hassle-free access

3. Azure Works With Wide Range of Products

4. Self Service Benefit

5. Security

6. Real-time monitoring

7. Collaboration

8. Integration with Windows Server Active Directory

9. Free Test Run

10. Easy to use

Conclusion

What Is DevOps?

DevOps Practice

1. In-depth Knowledge Of Cloud Computing and DevOps

2. Don’t Be Restricted To Performance Only

3. Security Is Important

4. Choosing DevOps Tools That Work With Cloud

5. Services and Resource Streamlining

6. Cloud Transformation

7. Using Containers

8. Applications Must Be Cloud-Native

Conclusion

Continuous Integration

Continuous Delivery

Continuous Deployment

What is CI/CD Pipeline?

The CI/CD pipeline comprises of the following stages:

What are CI/CD tools?

Benefits of CI/CD

What are the Best Practices in CI/CD?

Conclusion:

What is Microsoft Azure?

Who Uses Microsoft Azure?

Features of Microsoft Azure:

Managing Azure Services

Best Practices of Microsoft Azure

Conclusion:

What is AWS Migration?

Why Do Businesses Need On-Premise to AWS Migration?

1. Decreases Capital Expense

2. No Direct Capacity Planning

3. Compliances

4. Lesser Operating Expenses