Managing Cloud-Native Applications

What's our future if we don't secure IoT devices?

When everything from the coffee maker to the manufacturing plant's robots to the electric grid is connected, shouldn't security be IT's primary concern? Continue Reading

By

• Mike Matchett, Small World Big Data

SaaS support challenges IT ops admins to shift gears

SaaS means no more app support, right? In practice, IT ops teams enter a new realm of upgrade management and capacity planning when their user base migrates to a SaaS offering. Continue Reading

By

• Brian Kirsch, Milwaukee Area Technical College

What's our future if we don't secure IoT devices?

 Continue Reading

Unikernels vs. containers: See the lightweight championship fight

The drive to minimize app hosting resources yielded unikernels and containers, the IT equivalent of a tiny house and apartment. Containing only the barest essentials, unikernels pose unique benefits and challenges. Continue Reading

By

• Alan R. Earls

Jenkins pipeline as code example demonstrates DevOps coordination

Ellucian, which makes software for colleges and universities, offers a pipeline as code example that unifies the release process for multiple generations of apps and brings IT security into the DevOps fold. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

IT ops pros predict routes to DevOps efficiency in 2018

Operations admins have a lot on their plates already, and they'll pile on more in 2018. These IT pros and analysts share what's coming and how to handle it. Continue Reading

By

• Emily Mell, Former Site Editor

Know when to implement serverless vs. containers

Containers save resources and reduce deploy times. So does serverless. Containers are a great host for microservices. So is serverless. But the deployment options are more different than they are alike. Continue Reading

By

• Tom Nolle, Andover Intel

The future of cloud computing looks foggy

The concept of cloud, while never sharply defined, may be growing even less clear. The intenet of things, for example, means more connected devices are showing up in more places, an unstoppable trend that will affect the future of cloud computing.

These edge devices and related functions further blur lines between what's cloud and what isn't. To be sure, there's a good reason these initiatives are often talked about as fog computing.

TechTarget contributor Alan Earls explores all this in the cover story of this issue of Modern Infrastructure. He speaks with experts and IT professionals about how edge and fog computing make a difference in how business is conducted. The ability to meaningfully process data as close as possible to the source is potentially powerful for certain types of organizations, though not an easy task to execute. Having both data and the capability to process it so widely distributed -- rather than collected and centralized -- is a shift in thinking. It's also an acknowledgement that the future of cloud computing is headed in some unexpected directions. IT infrastructures will need to adapt.

The cloud will be a key component in this evolution, a fact that may further stretch our understanding of what -- and where -- cloud computing is.

 Continue Reading

Configuration management processes take down GRC challenges

Configuration management processes speed deployments, but tools that know effective licenses and data storage details aid in another area that businesses are keen to get right. Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

A serverless architecture could live in your data center

Just because you don't see the server doesn't mean it's not there. Serverless frameworks are superseding containers, but is the extra abstraction worth it? Continue Reading

By

• Mike Matchett, Small World Big Data

Machine learning algorithms make life easier -- until they don't

Algorithms govern many facets of our lives. But imperfect logic and data sets can make results worse instead of better, so it behooves all of us to think like data scientists. Continue Reading

By

• Mike Matchett, Small World Big Data

Machine learning algorithms make life easier -- until they don't

 Continue Reading

Deploy patches safely and sanely in a CI/CD workflow

Enterprises engaged in a CI/CD workflow must patch systems and apps strategically. There are multiple technologies to consider, including immutable infrastructure and automation. Continue Reading

By

• Kurt Marko, MarkoInsights

When the big cloud infrastructure providers aren't the right fit

When a business chooses one of the major providers for its cloud services, there shouldn't be a lot of surprises. You do your homework, consider the available services, select instance types, compare costs and then make a decision. At that point, you should know what you are getting. But what if you don't want what you're getting?

There are scenarios where a business seeks out the services of one of the specialty cloud infrastructure providers. These niche providers compete against behemoths such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, but not by trying to match them service for service. Nor can they keep pace on price. Instead, these smaller providers focus on particular niches, trying to offer specialized services, customer care and flexibility that the hyperscale providers may struggle to furnish.

The cover story for this issue of Modern Infrastructure delves into the reasons a business might choose a niche player instead of one of the major cloud infrastructure providers. TechTarget's Kristin Knapp reports on how these situations arise and how businesses respond. The right fit, she finds, might not always be found in one of the expected places.

 Continue Reading

Staring down the security issues in cloud computing

Adoption of cloud computing has no doubt been slowed by worries about the security of those out-of-sight servers and resources. While reasonable, those worries have given way over time to acceptance and even optimism.

In this month's Modern Infrastructure cover story, TechTarget’s Trevor Jones writes about why security issues in cloud computing are not the impediment to adoption that they once were. In fact, some organizations are coming to the conclusion that their workloads run more securely in a public cloud than in an on-premises environment. Cloud service providers possess security expertise and experience at levels that aren’t as readily available on a typical IT staff, and certifications give confidence that providers can actually do all they claim to do.

The public cloud is not a risky place to do business, though its safeguards are different from those you've put in place to protect your own data center. These differences are most clearly seen when looking at the shared-responsibility model, which addresses many of the security issues in cloud computing. Users and providers must each do their part. Otherwise, the risks will become apparent, and cloud computing won't be what you need it to be.

This issue also looks at how a new wave of products in development brings memory and storage technologies closer together. Nonvolatile dual-inline memory modules, for example, combine the speed of memory with the persistent qualities of storage in some interesting ways. Also included is an article on how some IT shops that have adopted flash storage are simultaneously impressed and disappointed with the results. Costly flash products invariably improve performance, but they won't solve every problem or clear every bottleneck.

 Continue Reading

Application support and maintenance add up to operational ALM

An application isn't fully grown when it moves from development to production -- it still needs nurturing to meet its full potential. Continue Reading

By

• Tom Nolle, Andover Intel

How application scalability works in event-driven vs. IaaS computing

Event-driven computing saves IT admins' time and helps application scalability, compared to managing traditional cloud infrastructure. But IaaS and event-driven computing aren't exclusive. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

How is runtime as a service different from PaaS or IaaS?

What is runtime as a service and how does it differ from platform as a service and infrastructure as a service? Continue Reading

By

• Chris Moyer, ACI Information Group

OpenStack infrastructure turns to containers

OpenStack is far from perfect. In fact, there are a number of hurdles it needs to clear before widespread adoption in the enterprise becomes a reality. However, a recent technology trend might just be what the OpenStack infrastructure needs, and it's one that many originally thought would be OpenStack's death sentence -- containers.

A recent study from OpenStack's user survey showed that containers generated the most interest among the community, a sign that IT is ready to take the leap from virtualization to containers. OpenStack leaders say containers are the central piece to the underlying cloud framework that OpenStack lives on.

Meanwhile, data analytics continues to drive the next wave of IT ops tools by combining input from various platforms to create predictive information for the enterprise. So where does IT go from here? Read on to find out.

 Continue Reading

Component cloud model powers agile application development

In the future, IT pros see cloud as a place to spin up applications to respond to problems on the fly. The component cloud model is just step one. Continue Reading

By

• Tom Nolle, Andover Intel