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Cloud Computing

Blockchain vs The Cloud: Which Is Better?

It’s common to describe the cloud as simply somebody else’s computer. Though not entirely accurate, it does convey the idea that the cloud is actually a physical location where files are stored and computing is done. It’s a powerful server is the gist of it.

On the other hand, the blockchain can be described as millions of people’s computers. There is no actual server for the blockchain. All of the transactions are shared by anybody who has downloaded the blockchain.

This is the one major difference but there are others as well. In this article, we will go over what those differences are so you can decide where you should focus your attention. 

Security

Every transaction that happens on the blockchain is registered and verified before being sealed with encryption. Whether you are buying Bitcoins, sending them to somebody else, or building an app on the Ethereum blockchain, nothing can change the transaction details. 

This is because if it is changed, it would be noticed by everybody else who has the blockchain on their computer and would need verification for the transaction to be resolved. Any input changes on a hash will result in a change of the output. If the input never changes, then the output never will either no matter how many times the algorithm is run.

In the case of a cloud server, there is one server that can be breached and nobody would know until it was too late. There are no so-called “miners” that verify the transactions so security is much laxer on a cloud server than on the blockchain. There is always a vulnerability in any server which can be hacked. Some are more difficult than others, of course, but a very sophisticated hacker, group of hackers or even nation-state actors can find a way in if they are dedicated enough. 

The blockchain is virtually hackproof for this reason but the cloud is something that can be accessed by sophisticated hackers. 

No middleman

A server or the cloud has a centralized management system. It could be the bank that uses it to store their customers’ data or it can be a hosting company that keeps the data from websites on their network. In any case, there is one governing body responsible for how it operates.

The blockchain is totally decentralized and there is no middleman at all. Nobody decides on their own authority how things are going to work on the blockchain. It is a very democratic process that is generally governed by the consensus of its miners or other users of the blockchain itself. 

This means that it is much more efficient when it comes to organically going in a certain direction rather than relying on one authority to make all of the decisions. Even transactions can happen much faster because of this system as opposed to credit card or debit card payments that require more processing time since they go through many different processes.

The whole point of cryptocurrency is to put the power of finance into the hands of the people. Anybody can be their own bank thanks to cryptocurrency. They can lend out the money they have without being at the mercy of a bank or central authority and buy as much of the coins as they see fit. And all of it at a very low cost since the only fees are to pay the miners who are verifying the hashes. 

Transparency

Blockchain helps promote transparency with respect to business operations. In real estate, for instance, blockchain helps property management firms execute data sharing, collect rentals, and perform due diligence across their portfolio with high precision and transparency.

Because the blockchain exists on potentially millions of computers, anybody can see exactly what is happening on it at any given time. The cloud is a mysterious and vague place that is hidden away from sight. Nobody knows what is happening to your data or other information there. 

This lends itself to being much more trustable and can be used in different applications in which transparency is vital. Fraud can happen on the blockchain of course, but it is more difficult to do and everybody sees that it happened right away. There are no secrets on the blockchain. 

Transparency is the reason that the blockchain is becoming more widespread in industries like supply chain management and healthcare. 

In the case of supply chain logistics, it is the perfect way to make sure that there is no miscommunication between the parties involved in getting a product to market. From the manufacturer to the recipient, and everybody along the way, there is a visible trail to which everybody has access. 

Healthcare administration is responsible for a lot of waste of resources from time to money. And it is mainly because of the lack of sharing of information between entities. On the blockchain, transparency helps everybody have access to the same information. With it, a pharmacy can make sure that a patient is not prescribed the wrong medication because they have the same information the doctor has. On the same token, if somebody switches insurance providers or even doctors, their information goes with them thanks to the blockchain. 

Cost

Another downside to cloud computing is the cost. Giants such as Amazon and Microsoft have the market cornered to provide servers for complex operations like rendering video for gaming and other high GPU computations. As such, they can charge whatever they want which ends up costing companies a lot of money.

Since the blockchain is on millions of computers, a lot of complex computations can be done by using idle computing power from individual computers rather than one central server. 

This cuts costs down to a fraction. Rather than be beholden to these corporate giants that can charge whatever they want, most of the processing gets done by ordinary computers since there are so many of them using the blockchain. As more companies end up occupying the blockchain space, the more access there will be to this computational power and the costs will reduce even further. 

*This article has been contributed on behalf of Paxful. However, the information provided herein is not and is not intended to be, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Cloud Computing

Serverless Cloud Computing And Its Benefits

Serverless computing provides a platform which allows the developers to execute code in response to certain events without facing any complexity in building and maintenance of cloud infrastructure. These codes are usually used in conjunction with codes written in traditional server style, like microservices. For instance, part of web application can be written as both as microservices as well as serverless codes. These serverless codes are activated with the help of specific events such as registration with Amazon Cognito or can also be activated by configuring to run behind an Application Programming Interface (API) platform.

Even though there is a word “serverless” in the term “serverless computing”, but it should be remembered that this platform does require servers to run the code. The word “serverless” is used to signify that, the organization or an individual does not need to purchase, rent or provision any server or even virtual machines to develop an application.

One of the attraction of serverless computing deployment is that the cloud customer need to pay, only for the service usage and not for any of the cost associated with idle time or down-time. 

Benefits of serverless computing

It is important to understand that despite the old way of computing which works fine, why would a developer go through the trouble of building a software through serverless computing. The following benefits are the key reasons which can provide an explanation for this.

Simplified management of operations

Serverless computing platforms are meant to provide clear distinction between the infrastructure services and the applications that are running at the upper end of the platform. Thus, the automatic scaling functionality of serverless computing (also known as Function as a Service) not only helps in reducing the computing cost, but also helps in reducing the operational management overheads. Thus, it allows the System engineers and the Software Requirement Engineers to focus on managing and running the underlying platform along with the core services like load balancers and databases.

Packaging and deploying a serverless computing system is easier as compared to the deployment of an entire server. As serverless computing system has no requirement of continuous delivery, continuous integration, and containerization tool thus, enabling the developers to write the code directly in the vendor console and therefore, there is no need of system administration in case of fully serverless solutions.

Reduction in operational cost

Serverless computing saves money, in terms of both, the computing power as well as the human resources. For a developer, it is important to understand that in case of serverless computing you need to pay only for the time your function or functions are running and since, you don’t run the app 24/7, this is a considerable cost saving.

From the perspective of a big company with the huge collection of apps, APIs and microservices, there is continuous resource utilization, no matter whether those resources are currently in use or not. With the help of serverless computing, the company can execute the function for any number of apps in demand and share all the resources, without running the apps 24/7 thus, it reduces idle time to almost zero and provides a fast response time. Therefore, with the introduction of serverless computing, the days of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for servers are gone.

Ease of innovation

Serverless computing has alleviated the problems of system engineering and its underlying platform, thus making it easy for product engineers to innovate at a rapid pace. This less time for operations translates into a smooth application of agile methodologies which is highly attractive to enterprise cloud users.

Serverless computing can handle the regular concerns of the internet facing applications such as identity management, storage, etc. Thus, with the ease of innovation through serverless computing due to its various features, it’s not a dream but the reality that product engineers can thereby focus on developing the actual business logic of the application.

An interesting fact about serverless computing is that, it is not meant to replace the existing delivery models rather, it complements them. The world’s largest online media streaming provider, Netflix planned to reduce the rate of errors and save time by replacing the inefficient processes and use AWS lambda to build rule based self-managing infrastructure. Thus, serverless computing seems to provide a promising future in the betterment of computing scenario.

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Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing Trends to Watch in 2017

Cloud computing is a major technology trend that has become a buzzword in business circles. In a recent survey by IBM, 78% of companies said their cloud systems are fully integrated which is a major improvement from the 34% recorded in 2012. Meanwhile, 45% of workloads remain with on-premise solutions on dedicated servers.

You can avail the benefits of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms by reading detailed Financesonline.com reviews of leading solutions and selecting suitable ones for your needs. The global public cloud services market is predicted to grow 18% to $246.8 billion in 2017 from $209.2 billion last year. This boom is fueled by increasing corporate investments in public clouds as companies seek to integrate their on-premise systems with cloud offerings. As a result, hybrid cloud has become a preferred choice of innovative companies. Now, let’s take a look at the top cloud computing trends that are expected to rule the roost in 2017 and beyond.

Automated Data

Big data has become a major technology buzzword as companies look to analyze the tons of data they collect to get actionable insights from it. Cloud analytic apps are fueling this trend as they enable users to sort, store, and analyze data using automated processes. As a result, businesses expect to get deeper insights from the data with which they can make smarter business decisions.

Cognitive Computing

The growing sea of data accumulated by companies is often unusable and remains “dark”. Cognitive cloud solutions are helping businesses to make use of this “dark data”. These systems can learn, reason, and understand. Cognitive cloud solutions are thus expected to provide new experiences in a range of industries including airlines, healthcare, retail, and financial services.

Cloud without Servers

Cloud systems and capabilities mainly use server storage. But now, serverless cloud is being developed which means vendors can save costs on server maintenance resources such as network infrastructure. This is expected to reduce overall operating expenses. Besides lower cost, the other main advantage of serverless cloud computing is reduction in development time.

Enhanced Security

Reliable security is a major concern for potential cloud adopters. However, security for web-based solutions is expected to improve this year as companies are developing in-depth answers to major cloud security questions. This is expected to boost the cloud services market as more businesses will be convinced that cloud systems are indeed safe and secure.

Another trend is cloud vendors are utilizing cognitive capabilities to convert security loopholes into strengths. These solutions are designed using security intelligence and they generate hypotheses, reasoning based on evidence, and recommendations to improve decision making. For these reasons, cognitive security is expected to resolve skills gap, speed up responses, and reduce the complexity and cost of tackling cybercrime.

More Secure Transactions

In addition to better security, transactions made using cloud systems will also become safer. This is because encryption measures are becoming more sophisticated which makes it harder for hackers to crack the data passing through web-based networks. Thus, consumers can safely carry out financial and purchase transactions on cloud networks.

Use of Blockchain Technology

Blockchain is an exciting peer-to-peer technology that promises to transform personal and business transactions. It is a reliable distributed ledger that is made secure by sophisticated cryptography. For this reason, it is considered a fail-proof system. Only selected participants can access the transaction details and each person is only allowed to see the data they are permitted to view inside a transaction.

Of late, a lot of companies and businesses are opting to use cloud blockchain technology. In fact, experts estimate that use of blockchain to improve global supply chains can help to improve efficiencies and save greater than $100 billion annually. The best blockchain systems are broadly accessible, easily scalable, and usable as cloud solutions or APIs.

Widespread Migration to Cloud Systems

Cloud is no longer considered a vague technology that could be understood only by IT experts. Today, businesses are expressing a keen interest to know about the advantages of cloud solutions and researching ways on how they can profitably migrate their IT infrastructure to the cloud. The IT units of technologically savvy companies are actively planning and executing their cloud strategies to move into the digital age.

Culture Transformation

As more organizations migrate to the cloud, they need to transform more than technology. Businesses and IT developers need to embrace a changing culture that prioritizes collaboration and user experience. They need to experiment freely to develop innovative ideas about how they can make the best use of their cloud infrastructure.

Conclusion

Innovative companies are developing smart devices and apps to make the most of cloud technology. Cloud-based systems are becoming simpler yet smarter. Their growing power is therefore attracting more and more businesses. Feel free to share your feedback on this article as well as any other cloud computing trend you may have read about recently.

Ronald is a digital marketing specialist who has been working with a B2B company. Over the years, he has developed a keen interest on small business trends because of the nature of his work. You can find him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Cloud Computing

Benefits of Using Intranet Software To Build Knowledge Base

Companies with a large number of employees need to find an easier way of communicating, collaborating and sharing information. The best way to do this would be by using a knowledge base. Managing everything through this software would make the workflow quicker and better.

But how do you build a knowledge base? Well, a secure – and a highly beneficial – way of doing it would be by using intranet software. This is a private and safe website that enables communication, productivity tools, and many more things for your employees to use. This way, only your employees would have access to it and it helps ensure security. Also, the software is hosted online, and maintained as such.

It is obvious that intranet software has a plus side, and could benefit your company. Having said that, here are a few advantages of using it to create a knowledge base.

Access everything via the internet

With a SaaS knowledge base software all the information you have will be stored online. Whether it is a financial report, employee information, FAQ page or any other content, it can all exist in the online format; there will be no need to have physical copies, which only require extra storage, and work.

Moreover, the SaaS provider will be the one maintaining the software, including the performance quality, access or functionality. There is no need for any hardware or additional software when everything you need exists in one place. More importantly, the only ones who could get to your valuable documents are the persons granted the access, no one else. This fact makes a great case for using this type of knowledge management, because there is no risk of having your information leaked or misused.

Another benefit is the ability to access the cloud via any device, and from any place or any time. It is a great tool for remote workers, those who are traveling or need to get something while they are not in the office.

You can separate corporate and customer services

Knowledge base can be used for providing customer service with manuals, user guides, as a replacement for a call center or as an online FAQ software. It is a rather convenient tool with which you can share these documents on your website, all with the aim of helping your clients. However, knowledge base can be used as a corporate tool, as well – a tool that would be used only by the employees, not outsiders.

This option provides privacy, even within the company. For instance, you can have several knowledge bases. One would be for the clients, another for the employees, and one more for superiors or for separating different projects. Certainly, having two separate bases would be the best, as you avoid various risks, like the theft of confidential documents.

Easier co-working, and learning

As previously mentioned, online storage of documents enables simplified co-working, and cooperation among workers. With the ability to upload single files or whole folders to the cloud, they create a chance to edit, read or comment on them while online. No longer will the workers need to download and then upload again. Moreover, this can be done from anywhere and whenever.

Furthermore, if only a specific number of people are working on one project, that single group can upload the project online, and work on it directly on the cloud. What they are offered is flexibility, which is much needed in any line of work.

Another thing that benefits from intranet knowledge base is your company’s learning program. For example, if you hire a new batch of employees, or need to teach the old ones something new, you will need to organize a training program. This, of course, requires tons of work. Additionally, it could require extra tasks to be done by some people, or even require you to hire new ones. The point is that a lot of new, unnecessary expenses could arise, as well as too much work for your already busy employees.

In order to avoid this, create a training program that you would upload online. From there, each employee could access it, learn and participate whenever they have time for it. A knowledge base learning center provides a way for speedy knowledge acquirement, sharing of that same knowledge, as well as some other benefits. For instance, things like participating in discussions or answering questions.

Lastly, with this online working space, there would be no more repeated tasks, same questions asked over and over again, because with the easy search option any information can be found and retrieved quickly. This increases productivity, as it is highly efficient, and it also saves your workers’ time.

In summary, there are a lot of benefits coming from creating a knowledge base with intranet software. Not only will you have everything in one common place, shareable within the company, but the efficiency and quality of the work would be much better. More importantly, everything on this cloud is kept private and secure, which is important for any business. Therefore, it is time to start using this, and make your company a superior one.

Author Bio:- Robin is a Technical Support Executive with a combined experience of 6 years. He is well acquainted with various Knowledge base tools and is currently associated with ProProfs. In his free time, Robin enjoys reading and traveling.

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Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing Trends To Watch Out In 2017

Over the past decade, cloud computing has evolved to become a ubiquitous tool for developers and users alike. Businesses of all sizes have migrated to the cloud over the past few years, whether they choose to use private or public cloud solutions. But now that the cloud has become a widely accepted component of our daily computing lives, what is the next step? In 2017, you can expect to see cloud computing evolve and become increasingly efficient. Here are a few of the top trends to watch for this year.

Greater enterprise migration

Forrester research envisions that the biggest trend this upcoming year is an increase in enterprises. Boosts to security and an array of benefits for businesses means that the cloud is prepared for enterprises. Enterprises have larger budgets, complex applications, and correspondingly complex needs. While in the past cloud platforms were still growing in scope, this year they’re mature and secure enough to please even the most cautious enterprises.

Services on a regional level

Although more enterprises will be migrating to the cloud this year, they may not necessarily commit to one provider. Many users are opting to work with a variety of different providers in order to create a more personalized end solution. This means that there will be an increased demand for cloud services at the regional level, as well as the larger companies. The public cloud market is expected to grow at a rapid rate, including services from tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Yet at the same time, smaller providers will be there to fill in the coverage gaps to ensure all enterprises benefit from customized solutions.

Shift to containers

A major trend from 2016 was the use of containers to help manage software code for cloud apps. These Linux containers will be an integrated component of most public and private cloud platform throughout next year. This allows developers to manage their own micro-services, which is useful on many levels.

Integrated security

Cybersecurity is at the top of everyone’s wish list when it comes to any new application. Major telco cloud providers like Nokia Networks have vastly improved their ability to provide security at all levels, and smaller providers are following suit. Expect to see all cloud solutions offering built-in, fully integrated security features with a data-centric focus.  Security features must be built into each layer of cloud infrastructure to protect users from costly breaches.

Reduction in costs

Finally, along with the growth of ever more efficient, secure cloud services comes a drop in pricing. This will open up the cloud to nearly everyone. As it becomes more cost-effective to create cloud services and apps, consumers and enterprises alike will reap the benefits. Because there’s a blend of both big-name public cloud service providers and smaller niche providers, you can mix and match these offerings and scale them up or down as needed. Cloud costs should be more readily contained in 2017, helping the industry to grow even further.

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Cloud Computing Software and Apps

5 Cloud Testing Tools That You Must Check Out

What started as a buzzword is today a primary infrastructural concept. Cloud computing has made business simpler and more efficient; not to mention the cost advantages that it provides over legacy systems. With the proliferation of cloud, there has been an increase in the number of SaaS based tools and services that cater to various industries and business functions. If you are part of your company’s IT quality control, then cloud based testing tools are definitely a part of your arsenal. Given the plethora of options, which one do you choose? Here is a brief rundown of the five best cloud testing tools that you must look into.

CloudTest : QC teams routinely perform multiple kinds of testing. These various techniques can be categorized broadly into performance testing and functional testing. SOASTA CloudTest is a reliable tool that provides a single integrated platform for both these testing requirements. One of the unique selling propositions of CloudTest is what they call ‘visual test creation environment’ that provides a simple interface to create complex test cases. With the availability of real-time analytics, scalable infrastructure and intelligence systems, CloudTest is our first choice for cloud based testing tools.

GCLoad : If your test case includes checking for the load handling capacity of your application, then look no further than GCLoad’s Proxy Sniffer. This is, by far, the best cloud tool for load testing applications. This is a service that is available in both cloud and legacy formats; depending on how you want to use it. For load testing web applications that reside on hosted servers, the cloud-based Proxy Sniffer is a great bet to ensure the server can handle sufficient load. The scale of load testing can be varied on demand – from 100 concurrent users to as many as several thousands. If you are the kind who would like to get a free trial before buying the license, there is a free version of the tool available for short duration tests.

PractiTest : Best suited for startups and emerging IT companies, PractiTest is a test management solution offered as a ‘SaaS’ service (that is, Software as a Service). The benefit of such a tool is that it combines the robustness that comes with the legacy QC software applications with the scalability and affordability of present-day SaaS tools. PractiTest is built keeping the typical testing team in mind – it not only offers a testing solution, but also includes planning tools to schedule and manage various testing tasks, manage the tasks at hand and delegate various responsibilities among team members. Also, since it’s SaaS based, you do not have the heartburn that licensing software brings.

Besides the three cloud testing tools discussed above, we have several other tools like Parasoft, CloudTesting, LoadStorm and BlazeMeter. All these tools are built keeping specific requirements of the tester in mind. What tools do you use? What has your experience been with the tools? Tell us in the comments below.

 

 

 

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Cloud Computing

The UKs Changing IT Landscape: Where Does Cloud Fit In?

Owning and running a business in today’s ever changing and technologically advanced environment is not easy. It requires knowledge, skill, patience, an eye for detail and most importantly the ability to see advantages in your environment and go with them. The way we work has changed over the years and as technology is growing and becoming more complex it give us the ability to do new things in relation to both our business and personal lives.

Cloud is one of these recent technological innovations that will help to make the day to day running of your business and management of your data and information simple and straight forward. With Cloud your business has the potential to become more productive which will in turn improve your chances of growth and success. There are a number of other advantages to using Cloud services, including:

The Flexibility of the Service

As a business your needs are always changing and increasing and it is important that you have a service provider that can keep up with these needs and changes and work with you to ensure the smooth running of your business. The capacity that the cloud remote servers have is second to none and can provide almost instant action if your organisation needs extra bandwidth; and this is one of the reasons that many businesses choose to move to the cloud system.

Fast and Effective Disaster Recovery

Before cloud-based services, companies required complex plans in place in case of the need for disaster recovery. The cloud system is able to take care of most issues quickly and effectively, and faster than many other systems. As all the information is stored in one  place and is Internet-based rather than being computer-based, it is also possible to recover lost information in some cases, if the need arises. So you no longer need to worry about keeping all of your company’s information backed up by a separate organisation or in a different place as this can all be done through the innovative and useful tool that is cloud.

Control of Documents

In many organisations it is important for individuals and members of the company to collaborate and connect with people in different regions and countries; and without the use of cloud these individuals would have to work on one file at a time constantly re-saving it and amending it before passing it back to the other person. This makes the task of updating or changing a document extremely time-consuming for all those involved. With the help of cloud you are able to keep all of your files in a central location so that you can work off one copy. If you need to discuss anything with your colleague then you are also able to do this which can improve collaboration results and increase productivity and performance; which is ultimately what an organisation should be trying to do.

Completely Mobile

An extremely useful benefit of cloud services for Microsoft and other software is that no matter where you are in the country or the world, as long as you have access to the Internet it is possible to connect to cloud. This enables colleagues in different countries and time zones to connect effectively without having to go to the time and expense of travelling to meet each other.

With all these benefits it is easy to see why cloud is such a popular choice for companies throughout the world today. So isn’t it time for your organisation to reap the benefit of a simple and state-of-the-art system.