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cloud computing servers Storage

IT Simplified: Cloud Orchestration and its Use Cases

What is Cloud Orchestration?

Cloud orchestration refers to the centralized management of automated tasks across different cloud systems. It involves controlling automated jobs from various cloud tools through a unified platform. By consolidating control through an orchestration layer, organizations can establish interconnected workflows. Often, IT processes are developed reactively, leading to isolated automated tasks and fragmented solutions. However, this approach is inefficient and costly. To address these challenges, IT operations decision-makers, in collaboration with cloud architects, are adopting orchestration to connect siloed jobs into cohesive workflows that encompass the entire IT operations environment.

Benefits of Cloud orchestration:

  1. Enhanced creativity in IT operations: A fully orchestrated hybrid IT system allows for a more innovative approach to problem-solving and efficient IT operations.
  2. Comprehensive control: Organizations gain a holistic view of their IT landscape, eliminating concerns about partial visibility and providing a single pane of glass view.
  3. Guaranteed compliance: Orchestrating the entire system ensures built-in checks and balances, leading to consistent compliance across the organization.
  4. Powerful API management: Orchestrated workflows can leverage APIs as tools to perform specific tasks triggered by events, resulting in seamless coordination and synchronicity.
  5. Cost control: Cloud-based systems require an automation-first approach to effectively manage resources, optimize costs, and potentially reduce overall expenses.
  6. Future-proofing: It allows IT operations teams to have peace of mind regarding the future of their IT environments, as orchestration enables adaptability and proactive management.
  7. Single point of control: The right tool can serve as a centralized control point for the entire system, ensuring superior performance and consistency.

Cases :

  1. Automating tasks with cloud service providers: Modern workload automation solutions can orchestrate hybrid or multi-cloud environments, unifying the IT system and enabling seamless automation across different platforms and providers.
  2. Compliance and security updates across hybrid or multi-cloud: Orchestration simplifies the process of implementing compliance and security updates across diverse applications and cloud infrastructures, reducing manual effort and ensuring consistency.
  3. Hybrid cloud storage and file transfer: It streamlines the movement of data between public and private cloud platforms in a hybrid environment, ensuring fast, accurate, and secure data pipelines.

Given the prevalence of hybrid cloud environments today, cloud orchestration is vital for organizations to fully leverage the benefits of their hybrid landscapes. Proper orchestration acts as a single point of cloud management, ensuring seamless inter-connectivity between systems. When combined with workload automation, cloud orchestration also minimizes errors by reusing automated tasks as building blocks.

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AI Chatbots for Banking artificial intelligence computing Emails security software

IT Simplified: Generative AI

What is Generative AI?

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, such as ChatGPT, help to create diverse content like audio,images and videos,code and simulations. By training on existing data, Generative AI identifies patterns and compiles them into a model. Despite lacking human-like thinking abilities, the data and processing power of AI models allow them to recognize its patterns.

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computing software

IT Simplified: Stackable Switches

stackable switeches

What are Stackable Switches?

In NETWORKING, the term “stackable switches” refers to a group of physical switches that have been cabled and grouped in one single logical switch. Over the years, stacking features have evolved from a premium (and costly feature) to a core capability of many enterprise-grade switches (and also in several SMB models).

It’s the opposite approach of a modular switch, where you have a single physical chassis with several slots and modules to grow your switch, used typically, at least in the past, in core switches. Both stackable and modular switches can provide a single management and control plane or at least a single configurable logical switch, with some kind of redundancy if you lose stackable switches or a module. Having a single logical switch, with better reliability, makes it easy to translate the logical network topology in physical topology.

What are Stacking Technologies?

In stackable switches, we usually build the stack with cables that connect all the switches in a specific topology. We connect those cables to specific ports of the switches, depending on the type of stacking.

  1. Backplane stacking (BPS), where specific stacking modules (usually on the back of the switch) are with specific cables (depending on the vendor).
  2. Front-plane stacking (FPS)- VSF, standard Ethernet ports to build the stack, using standard Ethernet cables.

The stacking topology also define the resiliency of the stacked solution, you can have typically different kind of cabling options (depending on the switch vendor and models):

  1. Daisy chain or Bus topology do not build switch stacks because it does not provide the desired level of resiliency.
  2. Ring or redundant dual ring provide resiliency, but with more than two switches the packet paths can be not optimal
  3. Mesh or full mesh provide higher resiliency and also optimal packet paths

To increase the resiliency of stacked switches, there are different solutions based on the concept of a “virtual chassis” with separated management and control planes. Usually, high-end switch models typically implement those solutions.

  1. Backplane stacking (BPS)-Vendors utilize specific stacking modules located on the back of the switch, along with specific cables.
  2. Front-plane stacking (FPS)-In VSF (Virtual Switching Framework), standard Ethernet ports hep to build the stack . This method involves using standard Ethernet cables.

Advantages of Stackable switches :

  1. Management Pane: Logical switch view with a single management interface, which  makes the management and operational tasks very easy. By enabling link aggregation between ports of separate physical switches in the same stack, it enhances bandwidth for downstream links. It simplifies network design by treating “multiple cables” across switches as one logical link using link aggregation solution.
  2. Less Expensive: They offer a cost-effective alternative to modular switches, while still delivering comparable scalability and improved flexibility. Resiliency and performance can be different (worse or better) depending on the implementation.
  3. Flexibility: You can typically mix various port speeds and media types, as well as different switch models with varying capabilities. For example, you can combine switches with PoE functions along with other models.

Disadvantages of Stackable switches :

  1. Performance: For SMB use cases, the stack ports and cable speed are enough to provide high bandwidth and low latency. But when speed increases or the stack expands you may increase the latency and decrease the overall performance.
  2. Stability: The stackable switch market is very mature and relatively stable. However, each vendor adds its unique set of features and functionalities. Different vendors utilize different types of connectors, cables and software for their stackable switches. This causes requirements to use the same product line of switches to take advantage of stacking (not necessarily the same model, because, for example, in Aruba 3810 Switch Series you can mix different models in the same stack).
  3. Resiliency: Depending on the stacking topology, if you have some faults your overall stack may not be operating correctly anymore. So be sure to choose the best topology and ensure higher resiliency on each stack member. For example, using dual power supplies to ensure hardware redundancy. The single management or control plane may also reduce the overall resiliency, but the problem is similar also on modular switches.
  4. Manageability: The single management interface is great, but there are also some drawbacks.Expanding an existing stack could cause an extended service disruption, such as when we reboot all the switches to add a stack member or due to a power failure. Second, removing a switch from a stack could be tricky or require a complex process. Last but not least, upgrading the firmware on all the stack members requires a complete reboot of all the switches.

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cloud computing software

IT Simplified : Containers and their Benefits

Containers

What is a Container?

Container is a software solution that wraps your software process or microservice to make it executable in all computing environments. In general, you can store all kinds of executable files in containers, for example, configuration files, software code, libraries, and binary programs.

By computing environments, we mean the local systems, on-premises data centres , and cloud platforms managed by various service providers. ‍Users can access them from anywhere.

However, application processes or microservices in cloud-based containers remain separate from cloud infrastructure. Picture containers as Virtual Operating Systems that wrap your application so that it is compatible with any OS. As the application is not bound to a particular cloud, operating system, or storage space, containerized software can execute in any environment.

A container is a standard unit of software that packages up code and all its dependencies so the application runs quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another.

A container image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of software that includes everything needed to run an application:– code, runtime, system tools, system libraries and settings. All Google applications, like GMail and Google Calendar, are containerized and run on their cloud server.

A typical container image, or application container, consists of:

  • The application code
  • Configuration files
  • Software dependencies
  • Libraries
  • Environment variables

Containerization ensures that none of these stages depend on an OS kernel. So, containers do not carry any Guest OS with them the way a Virtual Machine must. Containerized applications are tied to all their dependencies as a single deployable unit. Leveraging the features and capabilities of the host OS, containers enable these software apps to work in all environments.

What Are the Benefits of A Container?

Container solutions are highly beneficial for businesses as well as software developers due to multiple reasons. After all, containers technology has made it possible to develop, test, deploy, scale, re-build, and destroy applications for various platforms or environments using the same method. Advantages of containerization include:

  • Containers require fewer system resources than virtual machines as they do not bind operating system images to each application they store.
  • They are highly interoperable as containerized apps can use the host OS.
  • Optimized resource usage as container computing lets similar apps share libraries and binary files.
  • No hardware-level or implementation worries since containers are infrastructure-independent.
  • Better portability because you can migrate and deploy containers anywhere smoothly.
  • Easy scaling and development because containerization technology allows gradual expansion and parallel testing of apps.
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computing Storage

IT Simplified: Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU

Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) is an enterprise RAID solution that unleashes the performance of NVMe SSDs. Intel® VROC is enabled by a feature in Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors called Intel® Volume Management Device (Intel® VMD), an integrated controller inside the CPU PCIe root complex. Intel® VMD isolates SSD error and event handling from the operating system to help reduce system crashes and reboots. NVMe SSDs are directly connected to the CPU, allowing the full performance potential of fast storage devices, such as Intel® Optane™ SSDs, to be realized. Intel® VROC enables these benefits without the complexity, cost, and power consumption of traditional hardware RAID host bus adapter (HBA) cards placed between the drives and the CPU.

Features of VROC include:

  1. Enterprise reliability: Increased protection from data loss and corruption in various failure scenarios such as unexpected power loss, even when a volume is degraded.
  2. Extended Management Tools: Pre-OS and OS management includes HII, CLI, email alerts, and a Windows GUI, all supporting NVMe and SATA controls.
  3. Integrated caching: Intel® VROC Integrated Caching allows easy addition of a Intel® Optane™ SSD caching layer to accelerate RAID storage arrays.
  4. Boot RAID: Redundancy for OS images directly off the CPU with pre-OS configuration options for platform set-up.
  5. High performance storage: Connect NVMe SSDs directly to the CPU for full bandwidth storage connections.

Intel VROC support the below three sets that requires a licensing mechanism to activate:

  1. Intel VROC Standard
  2. Intel VROC Premium
  3. Intel VROC Intel SSD Only

The VROC feature debuted in 2017 to simplify and reduce the cost of high-performance storage arrays, and it has enjoyed broad uptake in enterprise applications. The feature brings NVMe RAID functionality on-die to the CPU for SSD storage devices, thus providing many of the performance, redundancy, bootability, manageability, and serviceability benefits that were previously only accessible with an additional device, like a RAID card or HBA. Thus, VROC gives users a host of high-performance storage features without the added cost, power consumption, heat, and complexity of another component, like a RAID card or HBA, in the chassis — not to mention extra cabling.

In order to have VROC work on a system, the requirements were something like:

  1. Intel Xeon Scalable (Skylake or newer) system with BIOS support for Intel VMD
  2. The motherboard needs a header for the VROC hardware key
  3. A VROC hardware key needs to be installed with the correct level of functionality you want
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computing

IT Simplified: Quantum Computing

The term ‘quantum chip,’ or ‘quantum processing unit,’ or ‘QPU’ refers to a physical (fabricated) chip that has several interconnected qubits, or quantum bits. A QPU serves as the basic building block of a complete quantum computer, which also consists of the control electronics, the QPU’s housing environment, and several other parts. A QPU enables a form of computation that’s built on quantum physics— nature’s operating system

How a QPU differs from a CPU 

A quantum computer (with QPU) operates in a fundamentally different way from a classical computer. A bit’ in traditional computing (using a CPU) is a very small unit of binary data, which can be either a one or a zero. A processed bit is implemented by one of two levels of low DC voltage in traditional computer systems. The most recent variation of this concept is the ‘qubit,’ or quantum bit. Qubits use the phenomenon of superposition, which enables them to be in numerous states simultaneously, in contrast to binary bits, which can only be in either/or situations. 

The capabilities of quantum computers surpass those of traditional computers, especially in terms of speed. A quantum computer can complete a task in two or three stages, whereas a classical computer needs thousands of steps to handle the same problem. Therefore, most quantum chips or QPUs are used as accelerators in heterogeneous multi-core computing devices. These can be connected with a classical processor (CPU) to provide a performance boost that cannot be achieved classically. The classical control circuitry and the quantum processing unit (QPU) are two of the most important components of hardware in quantum computing. Some of the subsystems of the QPU include registers and gates (sometimes called QRAM), a quantum control unit for driving the system states, and circuitry to interface between the classical host CPU and the QPU. However, there are various types of QPUs with variations in the subsystems as well as the underlying principles  Quantum computers have the potential to revolutionize the field of computing, but they also come with a number of disadvantages. Some of the main challenges and limitations include noise and DE coherence, scalability, error correction, lack of robust quantum algorithms, high cost, and power consumption. A quantum computer isn’t a supercomputer that can do everything faster. In fact, one of the goals of quantum computing research is to study which problems can be solved by a quantum computer faster than a classical computer and how large the speedup can be. Quantum computers do exceptionally well with problems that require calculating a large number of possible combinations. These types of problems can be found in many areas, such as quantum simulation, cryptography, quantum machine learning, and search problems. As the global community of quantum researchers, scientists, engineers, and business leaders collaborate to advance the quantum ecosystem, we expect to see quantum impact accelerate across every industry.

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cloud computing Service

IT Simplified: Software As A Service

SaaS, or software-as-a-service, is application software hosted on the cloud and used over an internet connection via a web browser, mobile app or thin client. The SaaS provider is responsible for operating, managing and maintaining the software and the infrastructure on which it runs. The customer simply creates an account, pays a fee, and gets to work.

SaaS applications are sometimes called on-demand software, or hosted software. Whatever the name, SaaS applications run on a SaaS provider’s infrastructure. The provider manages access to the application, including security, availability, and performance.

SaaS Characteristics

A good way to understand the SaaS model is by thinking of a bank, which protects the privacy of each customer while providing service that is reliable and secure—on a massive scale. A bank’s customers all use the same financial systems and technology without worrying about anyone accessing their personal information without authorisation.

Multitenant Architecture

A multitenant architecture, in which all users and applications share a single, common infrastructure and code base that is centrally maintained. Because SaaS vendor clients are all on the same infrastructure and code base, vendors can innovate more quickly and save the valuable development time previously spent on maintaining numerous versions of outdated code.

Easy Customisation

The ability for each user to easily customise applications to fit their business processes without affecting the common infrastructure. Because of the way SaaS is architected, these customisations are unique to each company or user and are always preserved through upgrades. That means SaaS providers can make upgrades more often, with less customer risk and much lower adoption cost.

Better Access

Improved access to data from any networked device while making it easier to manage privileges, monitor data use, and ensure everyone sees the same information at the same time.

SaaS Harnesses the Consumer Web

Anyone familiar wit  Office 365 will be familiar with the Web interface of typical SaaS applications. With the SaaS model, you can customise with point-and-click ease, making the weeks or months it takes to update traditional business software seem hopelessly old fashioned.

SaaS takes advantage of cloud computing infrastructure and economies of scale to provide customers a more streamlined approach to adopting, using and paying for software.

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computing security

IT Simplified: Encryption

Encryption is a way of scrambling data so that only authorized parties can understand the information. In technical terms, it is the process of converting human-readable plaintext to incomprehensible text, also known as ciphertext. In simpler terms, encryption takes readable data and alters it so that it appears random. Encryption requires the use of a cryptographic key: a set of mathematical values that both the sender and the recipient of an encrypted message agree on.encryption example

Although encrypted data appears random, encryption proceeds in a logical, predictable way, allowing a party that receives the encrypted data and possesses the right key to decrypt the data, turning it back into plaintext. Truly secure encryption will use keys complex enough that a third party is highly unlikely to decrypt or break the ciphertext by brute force — in other words, by guessing the key.

Data can be encrypted “at rest,” when it is stored, or “in transit,” while it is being transmitted somewhere else.

What is a key in cryptography?

A cryptographic key is a string of characters used within an encryption algorithm for altering data so that it appears random. Like a physical key, it locks (encrypts) data so that only someone with the right key can unlock (decrypt) it.

What are the different types of encryption?

The two main kinds of encryption are symmetric encryption and asymmetric encryption. Asymmetric encryption is also known as public key encryption.

In symmetric encryption, there is only one key, and all communicating parties use the same (secret) key for both encryption and decryption. In asymmetric, or public key, encryption, there are two keys: one key is used for encryption, and a different key is used for decryption. The decryption key is kept private (hence the “private key” name), while the encryption key is shared publicly, for anyone to use (hence the “public key” name). Asymmetric encryption is a foundational technology for TLS (often called SSL).

Why is data encryption necessary?

Privacy: Encryption ensures that no one can read communications or data at rest except the intended recipient or the rightful data owner. This prevents attackers, ad networks, Internet service providers, and in some cases governments from intercepting and reading sensitive data, protecting user privacy.

Security: Encryption helps prevent data breaches, whether the data is in transit or at rest. If a corporate device is lost or stolen and its hard drive is properly encrypted, the data on that device will still be secure. Similarly, encrypted communications enable the communicating parties to exchange sensitive data without leaking the data.

Data integrity: Encryption also helps prevent malicious behavior such as on-path attacks. When data is transmitted across the Internet, encryption ensures that what the recipient receives has not been viewed or tampered with on the way.

Regulations: For all these reasons, many industry and government regulations require companies that handle user data to keep that data encrypted. Examples of regulatory and compliance standards that require encryption include HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and the GDPR.

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cloud computing servers Storage

IT Simplified: Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a combination of servers and storage into a distributed infrastructure platform with intelligent software to create flexible building blocks that replace legacy infrastructure consisting of separate servers, storage networks, and storage arrays.Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) is a paradigm shift in data center technologies that aims to:

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cloud computing security

IT Simplified: Cloud Security

Cloud computing security is a set of technologies and strategies that can help your organization protect cloud-based data, applications, and infrastructure, and comply with standards and regulations.

Identity management, privacy, and access control are especially important for cloud security because cloud systems are typically shared and Internet-facing resources. As more and more organizations use cloud computing and public cloud providers for their daily operations, they must prioritize appropriate security measures to address areas of vulnerability.

Security challenges in cloud computing:

Access Management

Often cloud user roles are configured very loosely, granting extensive privileges beyond what is intended or required. One common example is giving database delete or write permissions to untrained users or users who have no business need to delete or add database assets. At the application level, improperly configured keys and privileges expose sessions to security risks.

Compliance Violations

As regulatory controls around the world become more stringent, organizations must adhere to numerous compliance standards. By migrating to the cloud, you may be in violation of your compliance obligations.Most regulations and compliance standards require businesses to know where data is located, who can access it, and how it is managed and processed, which can all be challenging in a cloud environment. Other regulations require that cloud providers are certified for the relevant compliance standard.

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