Tag: Cloud and Mobility

A comprehensive guide to developing mobile apps in 2021 and beyond!

• Introduction
• What is Mobile Application Development
• Types of Mobile Applications
• Mobile Application Development Platforms
• Mobile Application Development Process
• Mobile Application Front-end and Back-end
• End-to-end Mobile App Testing
• The Cost to Develop a Mobile App
• Five Reasons Why Mobile Apps Fail and How to Prevent The Let-down
• Tips for Building Successful Mobile Apps
• Develop Your Mobile Application with Fingent

How can companies ensure cloud security amid cyber threats and malicious online activities?  

The explosion of the cloud has changed the face of the business process as we know it. Nearly 90% of companies rely on the cloud. And yet, there has been some skepticism around cloud security. With recent breaches and technological attacks, maintaining cloud security has become the foremost concern for businesses worldwide. 

Security experts at Fingent understand your concern, and so we have put together this blog about the importance of cloud security and the best practices which will ensure that you are secure on the cloud. 

Why is cloud security important?

According to a report by Cisco, cloud data centers process 94% of all workloads. Despite the popularity attained by cloud technology, most of these companies are skeptical about cloud security. There is a reason for this. Statista reports the number of data breaches in the U.S alone increased to 156 million in 2020. It has also been reported that hackers attack every 39 seconds. This can be fatal to businesses in the following ways:

1. Managing remote work

Remote work lets you hire talent from across the globe. However, this arrangement entails inherent security risks. Using personal devices may expose your data to malware and phishing attacks. If a malicious virus enters through them into your cloud system, the damage done could cut your company off at its knees.

Read more: Why It’s Time to Embrace Cloud and Mobility Trends To Recession-Proof Your Business? 

2. Security breaches 

If your company chooses to run your application on a public or hybrid cloud, you are entrusting a third-party to take care of your data. This means you no longer have any control over data security. So it is critical to stay on top of things and ensure that your cloud computing provider is serious about this responsibility. Even when you know your provider will ensure top-tier security, it is your responsibility to verify that your data is secure as a client.

3. Comply with regulations

Data protection standards were put together to ensure the integrity and security of customer data. When you store your customer data on the cloud, it is your responsibility to keep it secure, especially if your organization belongs to a highly regulated industry like finance, insurance, banking, or legal. A data breach will destroy your reputation and brand because external parties will hold you accountable.

4. Build access levels

Unintentional leaks of data will compromise your business integrity and give your competition a leg up. Limiting data access only to those employees who need it can prevent errors that lead to data leaks.

5. Disaster recovery

Disasters such as flooding or fire can strike without warning. Unless your data is secured and protected, you could lose all your data. This may undermine customers’ confidence in your organization, delivering a death blow to your otherwise successful business. 

Read more: How Secure is Your Business in a Multi-Cloud Environment

Best practices to ensure cloud security

• Carefully choose a trusted provider
• Review your cloud security contracts and SLAs
• Understand your partnership of shared responsibility
• Control employee access
• Secure user endpoints
• Maintain visibility of your cloud services
• Implement a strong password security policy
• Highest levels of encryption

“Cloud computing is a challenge to security, but one that can be overcome” – Whitfield Diffie, an American cryptographer.

True to Whitfield Diffie’s words, cloud security measures can be taken to encrypt the system that will help achieve adequate cloud security.

1. Carefully choose a trusted provider

Partnering with a trusted provider is the foundation for cloud security. Choose a partner who delivers the best in-built security protocols and follows industry best practices’ highest levels. You need to ensure that you confirm their security compliance and certifications. 

Learn more: Take a look at how InfinCE, an infinite cloud platform, ensures secured work-collaboration within an organization and helps enhance company efficiency & growth!

2. Review your cloud security contracts and SLAs

In an event, SLAs and contracts are the only guarantees of service and course of assistance. 62.7% of cloud providers do not specify that customer data is owned by the customer, creating a legal grey area. Read through the terms and conditions, annexes, and appendices to ensure who owns the data and what happens if you terminate the services. Also, seek clarity on visibility into any security events and responses.

3. Understand your partnership of shared responsibility 

When you tie-up with a cloud service provider, you enter into a partnership of shared responsibility for security implementation. Understanding the shared responsibility involves discovering which security tasks you will handle and which your provider will handle. It is important to ensure transparency and clarity in your partnership of shared responsibility.

4. Control employee access

Implementing strict control of user access through policies will help you manage employees who attempt to access your Cloud services. Cloud security best practice starts from a place of zero trust. Afford user access to data and systems only to those who require it. To avoid confusion and complexity, create well-defined groups with assigned roles. This will allow you to add users directly to the group rather than customizing access for each employee.

5. Secure user endpoints

Since most of your users access your cloud services through web browsers, it is crucial to introduce advanced client-side security to keep it protected from exploits. Implementing endpoint security solutions that include firewalls, antivirus, intrusion detection tools, and more will help to protect your end-user devices. 

6. Maintain visibility of your cloud services

Remember, you cannot secure something that you cannot see. Using multiple cloud services across various providers and geographies can create blind spots in your cloud environment. Make sure you implement a cloud security solution that provides visibility of your entire ecosystem. You can then implement granular security policies to mitigate a wide range of security risks. 

7. Implement a strong password security policy

Strong password security may sound basic, but it is an important element in preventing unauthorized access. Have a strong and strict password policy. To defend against most brute force attacks, enforce a rule that users update their password every three months. You may also implement multi-factor authentication. This would require a user to add two or more pieces of evidence to authenticate his/her identity allowing you to trust your users while ensuring that they are authorized users. 

8. Highest levels of encryption 

Your data may get exposed to increased risk while sending it back and forth between your network and the cloud service. You must consider using your own encryption solutions for data, both in transit and at rest. Encryption keys will help you maintain complete control over your data. 

Read more: 6 Proven Ways for Businesses to Combat Cloud Security Risks

Don’t wait till it’s too late!

You never know when a stealthy hacker could attack your business and make you go under. All organizations, independent of their size, can benefit from these best practices and improve their cloud usage security. 

At Fingent, our experts go above and beyond to ensure that your business is hacker-proof and secure. If you need to discuss cloud security options, do not put it on the back burner! It could creep up on you and set your whole business afire, ruining your competitive edge and spelling doom for the future. Call our experts and discuss your options today. 

What are the steps involved in a tried and tested cloud migration strategy?

Cloud is becoming an integral part of today’s market. More and more companies are adopting it. Commenting on the statistics of cloud adoption, Hosting Tribunal said that “the hybrid cloud is the weapon of choice for 45% of enterprises.” Also, it forecasts that the public cloud service market is expected to reach 623.3 billion dollars by 2023 worldwide. Why is cloud adoption so popular right now? Is cloud necessary in today’s market? What is the best cloud migration strategy for a smooth transition? These questions will be addressed in this article. 

Is cloud necessary in today’s market?

        “Cloud computing is not only the future of computing but the present and the entire past of computing.”

                                                                             – Larry Ellison, Oracle.

Not so long ago, enterprises had to establish and maintain their own server to host and run applications on their premises. Today, cloud computing is revolutionizing all operations of the business world. Though relatively new, this technology became the cornerstone for the digital transformation of enterprises. Cloud technology provides companies with on-demand data storage, computing power, and many other cloud services. These services are maintained by service providers at remote data centers. 

By partnering with a cloud migration services provider like Fingent, you can easily overcome the challenges that come with sudden operational demands, higher operational expenses, and ineffective processes. This frees your business and employees from maintenance issues. 

Read more: Why It’s Time to Embrace Cloud and Mobility Trends To Recession-Proof Your Business? 

Here are a few more compelling reasons why the cloud is necessary for today’s market:

1. Cost-effective

Cloud computing is a subscription-based model. That would mean there are no purchasing, labor, or maintenance costs. Since cloud computing is a technology that provides services to companies, you only pay for what you use. This allows you to optimize your budget more efficiently.

2. Digital transformation

The traditional ways of operation are becoming too costly and obsolete. Digital transformation is the surest way to remain competitive in today’s market. Digital transformation occurs when a company uses a cloud migration strategy to migrate all business operations to the cloud.

3. Data backup and recovery

One of the greatest benefits of cloud computing is cloud storage. That means cloud makes data accessible and usable, even remotely. Such accessibility does not expose data to risk because, in the cloud, data is never stored in one place. It is split into fragments and encrypted before it is distributed across various locations. This also ensures that your data is protected from cyber-attacks or natural disasters. 

While there are many benefits of cloud migration, you must exercise caution. Miguel Angel Borrega, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner warns: “Through 2024, 80% of companies that are unaware of the mistakes made in their cloud adoption will overspend by 20 to 50%.” What is the solution? A well-planned cloud migration strategy!

Read more: 7 Common Mistakes Non-Tech Businesses Commit While Taking Up Tech Projects 

7 steps involved in cloud migration strategy

Having a cloud migration strategy ensures you do not miss any essential steps during your move to the cloud. Use the steps below to create a cloud migration strategy and make your transition as smooth as possible.

1. Understand and select cloud migration options

Each company has its own peculiar scenarios. Understanding these will help you choose from all available options for a smooth migration. These options could range from leveraging an existing application workload environment to rewriting the application partially or even wholly. These options are:

• Lift and shift/rehosting 
• Extend to the cloud
• Cloud optimized
• Cloud-native
• Replace with SaaS

2. Set up a cloud management team 

The first step is to create a cross-functional team to oversee the transition. This team should be capable of managing the migration from start to finish. Cloud migration teams serve as a central point of contact. This team includes representatives from each department who would either be hosting or using the applications in the cloud. 

They must ensure the following:

• Adjust applications before migration begins
• Monitor each application as it moves to the cloud
• Address any functionality issues
• Collect and implement feedback from users 

3. Pick the right platform and provider 

Don’t make the mistake of picking the first option you come across. Before making a choice compare different cloud platforms and migration models and then pick the one that best suits your business. Here are the three principal levels of cloud platform services:

• Infrastructure as service (IaaS)
• Platform as a service (PaaS)
• Software as a service (SaaS)

After you choose the level of service, pick the cloud provider that works best for your business. 

Read more: Cloud Service Models Saas, IaaS, Paas – Choose the Right One for Your Business 

4. Collect baseline analytics

Ensure to collect baseline analytics before you move anything to the cloud. Such pre-migration data provides you a basis for comparison when you run analytics on your cloud-based applications. This will help you see how speed, user experience, and other metrics have improved. This also allows you to understand when something goes wrong during the transition and correct it.

5. Gauge and Address Security Risks 

Implement cybersecurity to protect sensitive data. Ensure security at your end and in the cloud. Most importantly, ensure that the migration itself is secure. According to Forrester, 43% of internal data breaches were from accidental mishandling of sensitive information. You must evaluate and address any security issues before migrating any applications or data. This will prevent data breaches.

Read more: Safeguarding IT Infrastructure From Cyber Attacks – Best Practices 

6. Initial strategy: Move a single application as a test

Now that everything is in place for a smooth migration, you must be eager to make a complete shift as soon as possible. Hold on! Starting small is a wise cloud migration strategy. First, move one application or a group of applications that do not have a lot of dependencies. Once it starts running in the cloud, evaluate its performance. That first app will help you make pre-migration changes to the rest of the applications.

7. Refine and finalize your strategy: Measure post-migration performance

Once the migration is completed, measure the performance of all your applications with the help of KPIs. Comparing the performance data will help you see how performance changed after cloud migration. That data can be used to make logging improvements and to detect problems. At this point, if you notice errors or low-performance levels, you can address these quickly before they cause any significant downtime. 

Read more: Cloud Migration: Essentials to Know Before You Jump on the Bandwagon 

No-brainer

Cloud computing is called a “no-brainer” because it offers enhanced security, stability, and greater flexibility. To completely benefit from it, companies must have a successful cloud migration strategy. The success of migration depends on meticulous planning and consideration of every aspect of your business. The seven-step cloud migration strategy given above will ensure an easy migration for your organization. Partner with us to ensure that your cloud migration strategy goes without a glitch and propels you to success.

Cloud and Mobility: The two pillars to recession-proof your business

• Introduction
• How Does the Recovery Shape of The Coronavirus Recession Look?
• What is a recession-proof business?
• What can business leaders do now?
• How Do Enterprise Mobility Solutions Help in The Current Crisis?
• Five Unique business benefits of enterprise mobility during recession!
• Recession-proof your business by embracing Cloud
• Cloud is not a future aspiration rather an urgent mandate
• How can you capture the full value of the Cloud to recession-proof your business?
• Staying Afloat Despite the Crisis
• Are You Keeping Up with The New Normal?