Ping! Zine Issue 70 - -Changing The World, One Person AT A Time by Ping! Zine Web Hosting Magazine

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GUEST POSTING HAS GOTTEN TOXIC FOR SEO twenty two

GAMER: FACEBOOK MEETS OCULUS twenty five

ACCESS: ZENBOOK UX 301 twenty six

ACCESS: FACEBOOK PAPER thirty

MANAGE A CLOUD SYSTEM FROM YOUR SMART DEVICE thirty two

CLOUD SECURITY IN 2014: VIRTUAL WALLS

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Ping! Zine Web Tech Magazine ÂŠ April 2014, Ping! Zine Web Tech Magazine, Published and Copyrighted 2014 by PINGZINE, LLC, P.O. Box 516, Denham Springs, LA 70726. All rights reserved. Permission to reproduce part or all of this issue must be secured in writing from the publisher. Complementary subscriptions are at the discretion of the publisher and may be cancelled or modified at any time. Unsolicited submissions are welcome. We assume no liability for lost or damage of submissions. We assume no liability for the content of this issue and all points and ideas are strictly that of the writers involved and not that of the publisher, publishing company, printing company or editors.

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BRAZILIAN LAWMAKERS APPROVE INTERNET “BILL OF RIGHTS” Recently, Brazil become the first country to pass a bill that protects the rights of Internet users, a bill known as the Marco Civil bill, the Latin Post reports. First drafted in 2009, the Marco Civil bill is intended to protect the freedom of expression, privacy, and net neutrality among citizens in Brazil. In order for the bill to become a law, it must go through the Brazilian Senate before getting approval from President Rousseff. Among the most important issues in the

bill is the protection of net neutrality, which would require all Internet service providers to treat data that passes through the network equally. Under this clause, ISPs would be responsible for “maintaining the same quality of service agreed upon in contract terms-meaning no throttling,” continues the report. Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, says the bill “ushers in a new era” where citizens’ rights can be protected by digital bills of rights.

SMELL TECHNOLOGY EMITS SCENTS THROUGH SPECIAL PLUG-IN ON IPHONES

MICROSOFT FINALLY LAUNCHES OFFICE FOR THE APPLE IPAD

CISCO SAID TO INVEST $1 BILLION IN CLOUD COMPUTING SERVICES

Researchers at City University London are looking into ways of developing cell phone apps that emit smells such as flowers, food, and spices.“Smell is a very powerful, powerful sense. It can trigger an emotion or memory at a subconscious level — before we logically think about it,” says City University London Professor Adrian David Cook. Researchers at the Mixed Reality Lab on campus have already developed a way of sending the smell of flowers via text, which requires a special digital device to be plugged into the earphone jack of the recipient’s smartphone, CBSNews reports. This isn’t the first development in smell technology; the first of its kind was a plug-in released last year in Japan by Hana Yakiniku. The $35 plug-in was released internationally on Amazon in February where refill cartridges smelling of coffee, rosemary, and lavender were sold.

Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, made a big announcement that excited many users; he announced the availability of Office for the iPad.At an event on Thursday in San Francisco, Nadella announced that Word, Excel, and PowerPoint would be making its way to Apple’s tablets. “Our goal continues to be to delight users wherever they are and on whatever device they are using by giving them the full power of native Office apps,” says Microsoft’s blog. Nadella’s announcement comes almost a year after the tech giant released Office for iPhones in June. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are now available from the AppStore. The free version allows users to read Word documents, present with PowerPoint, and view Excel documents, while the Office 365 subscription gives users the ability to edit and create new documents.

Cisco recently announced its plans to merge into cloud services by building “the world’s largest global Intercloud.”According to a press release from the networking company, Cisco has plans to spend over $1 billion in the next two years to expand its Cisco Cloud Services. As part of the “Internet of Everything” campaign, Cisco will be delivering the new service with its partners, including companies such as Telstra, Allstream, Canopy, Wipro Ltd., among others. “Customers, providers and channel partners alike are turning to Cisco to create open and highly secure hybrid cloud environments, and they want to rapidly deploy valuable enterpriseclass cloud experiences for key customers – all while mitigating the risk of capital investment,” added Lloyd. “The timing is right for Cisco and its partners to invest in a groundbreaking, application-centric global Intercloud to provide broader reach and faster time to market.” Cisco’s Intercloud will allow companies and uses to move data and applications across public and private clouds easily and securely.

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GOOGLE GLASS TO GET MAKEOVER FROM EYEWEAR COMPANY, LUXOTTICA

WINDOWS UNIVERSAL APPS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON ALL WINDOWS PLATFORMS AND XBOX ONE

IS PLAYING MINECRAFT BETTER FOR KIDS THAN TV? A RECENT STUDY SAYS YES

Google Glass is getting a makeover from the world’s largest eyewear company, Luxottica..Luxottica, the company behind popular brands such as Ray-Ban, Persol, and Oakley, is collaborating with the tech giant to make its Glass eyewear more stylish and personable. “We see Glass as the next chapter in this long story. Light, simple and modular, Glass introduces new functionality as your glasses get smarter – but bringing your own style to Glass is just as important,” stated Google on its Google + blog. The technology eyewear will combine Luxottica’s avant-garde designs with Google’s innovative technology to make the eyewear a revolutionary device. Google Glass is still in its bets phase and not yet available to the general public.

At the recent Build conference, Microsoft showed off the latest updates to Windows Phone and Windows 8.1, and also unveiled its new universal apps.Developers will now be able to write apps that function on Windows phones, tablets, PCs, and even the Xbox One. According to GameSpot, developers can choose on how to price these apps, they can decide to charge users based on each platform they download the app to or just charge a onetime fee for the app to run on every Windows device. Microsoft also announced that Cortana, the new mobile voice assistant, would be available on Windows Phone 8.1. Additionally, the company introduced the return of the Start menu and that it would start offering Windows for free on smartphones. The Build Conference is being held in San Francisco, CA, and will last until April 4th.

A recent study found that playing video games, such as our beloved Minecraft, is actually better for a child’s health than watching TV.Researchers at the University of Michigan conducted a study of snacking habits of 1,003 middle schoolers, finding that children who watched TV were more likely to eat junk food than children who played computer games or video games, NPR reports. “Our hypothesis is that when kids are watching TV, they’re going to be accessing commercials that are more likely to be food related,” says associate professor of medicine at the University of Michigan Health System, Dr. Elizabeth Jackson. Although the study did show that kids who watched TV and played games did eat more junk food than kids who watched less, the TV watchers were “most adept at eating chips and French fries”, most likely due to the fact that their hands were free from distractions such as typing on a keyboard or operating a game controller.

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changing the world One person at a time! 0

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oDaddy is the largest domain name registrar in the world, managing more than 57 million domain names. But at its core, GoDaddy does not share the same views and visions that other massive companies have. Instead, you will find that the story of GoDaddy is much more down to Earth. "I get a ton of joy when I get one of those interesting success stories from a customer and they actually made it big. And that is freaking cool. That is about being part of something special. We just changed the world one guy at a time," reflected Michael Racki, Director of Hosting of Operations. It has been a little more than one year since Irving, former EVP and Chief Product Officer at Yahoo!, took over GoDaddy and in that time he has managed to assemble a new management team, revitalize employee spirit, and intensify company focus. The new leadership team realized it needed to make some fundamental changes to its products, processes and relationships with their customers. While it's easy to notice the change in the design of the site and the new advertising that is less polarizing, many important changes are less visible but will make a big impact. "The first thing Blake did when he came in was essentially hit the reset button. He took a look at our culture, our vision, our strategy, and then set out a 3 to 5 year product roadmap," said Jeff King, General Manager of Hosting and Security at GoDaddy. >>>

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JEFF KING

Blake was able to hire on a wide range of talented individuals such as Elissa Murphy (former VP of Engineering - Hadoop and Cloud Services for Yahoo!), James Carroll (former Senior Vice President for Yahoo!) and Jeff King (former Senior Director X Commerce Partnerships for eBay). Blake then empowered leadership, creating a proactive environment were each member could advance the company's vision within their department.

Renewed Focus and Company Vision

When Blake signed on as GoDaddy's CEO he brought with him the vision of being the small business person's advocate. The official vision includes the monumental task of "shifting the global economy toward small business." Historically, SMBs are a heavy consumer of Internet technologies (according to SMB Group, SMBs in the US account for 54% of total business IT spend, and firms worldwide account for 62% of IT spend). However, a large portion of the SMB (small and mid-sized business) market continues to lack an online presence, so tapping those without an online presence can be very lucrative. But digging even deeper, many of those employed at GoDaddy have their roots in small business. Some started with online technologies through small businesses, while others have friends running small businesses. In both cases, the SMB focus aligns with their own personal passions.

"When Blake came out and said we want to change the global economy toward small business it didn't shock anyone because it resonated with what we all already believed," said Cedar Coleman, Director of Hosting Support at GoDaddy. Company direction is guided by its management, but it is supported by its employees. When company focus has buy-in from both sides, enthusiasm and passion become the driving forces. There is no stronger advocate than an enthusiastic and passionate workforce and GoDaddy has them in spades.

Cleaning House and Becoming Agile

"In the past few years we killed off about 30 something products. There was a time where we were spinning up all sorts of things. If something was going on in the Internet space we had a product for it. We were trying to do everything, but we didn't do some things well. I think we have really brought that back and coaxed it in. A think a lot of what we have been doing now to this point is brilliant basics, things that we have to do well to be considered a viable option," said Michael Bovich, Director of Development: Web Hosting at GoDaddy. The past parade of products diminished developer focus and slowed product development. When the new leadership stepped in, this was one of the main development issues that had to be resolved. With a new focus on the SMB market, GoDaddy began developing products anew. Instead of developing products and services based on trends, GoDaddy created an ecosystem geared toward the small business owner. And yet, small business is a rapidly changing landscape. To stay competitive against larger companies, small business needs to have the tools now. If GoDaddy was to create tools to help small businesses survive and thrive against their larger rivals, they had to disrupt their traditional development cycle. "Before we moved to the agile method it would take us 6-9 months to get a new product out the door," said Bovich.

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The agile methodology began to pick up speed across the company and consultants were called in for intense training sessions. As a result of developing using the agile methodology, full integrations of cPanel and Plesk control panels were added to GoDaddy's services, including all of the underpinning code as well as theme skins and usability changes. "It's a night and day difference. I have been a big advocate for that switch. I think the biggest impact from a results point of view is we are able to get new products to customers more quickly. With cPanel and Plesk, we rolled out two new products in a three months’ time span completely from the ground up, new implementation," said Bovich. At the same time, GoDaddy worked on a Managed WordPress product. This new product is an enterprise grade deployment of WordPress where GoDaddy handles the security, patching, and support. Built on a redundant platform, the managed product was based on feedback from Web pros and WordPress experts. Three products that zeroed in on customer needs delivered in full within months. Fine-tuning and advancing new products and services goes a long way to ensuring customers are taken care of. However, those products need reliability and availability. It's time to delve into GoDaddy's network.

Defining and Measuring Performance

In order to increase performance, you need a clear means of measuring it. Measuring of a network is a basic function, but now GoDaddy needed to look beyond what was common and into deeper metrics. When it came to measuring the performance of GoDaddy's network, the first thing was to put in place a monitoring tool that could provide end-to-end coverage of all servers and network hardware. Once data began rolling in, the next step was to ensure that the data was actionable. A dashboard was created and used to track everything that was important to network throughput, uptime, latency, and a variety of other approved metrics. NetOps uses this data to ensure a smooth running network. "Your site has to be up and available if it's not then nobody can see it and it's got to be fast. If the site doesn't load in a couple of seconds people are going somewhere else. So it's got to be fast, it's got to be up," said Bovich. When it comes to monitoring, the data collecting process itself 0

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continues to be refined to ensure engineers are given a clear view of the network and everything that happens internally. Building the proper network monitoring system is a continuous process.

Reorganizing One of Hosting's Largest Customer Support Workforces

60% of GoDaddy's workforce is customer support. With an ever growing product catalog, GoDaddy looked into increasing efficiency and decreasing response times. "We have a large array of products between domains and email, Web hosting, website builders. And the goal is that it is too much to ask one person to be a qualified expert in all of these things; we've started to divide into teams within the support organization by product or product family," said Cedar. By dividing support into product families, GoDaddy was able to shorten handle times. Specialization also allows for concentrated training and faster dissemination of best practices. Along with specialization, GoDaddy also removed their tier support system. Originally, tier 1 support acted as a filter, interfacing with the customer and answering easy and common questions. Tier 2 support was fully staffed with senior technicians, acting on a call only after it got past tier 1 support. Unfortunately, this process added a number of minutes to calls as customers had to be cleared by tier 1 before receiving support from tier 2. For the new professional hosting services teams, the tiers were mixed with subject matter experts and less-technical support techs together. The end result, customers have faster access to knowledgeable techs and support techs of all knowledge levels are able to share and learn from each other’s experiences. It is a leader's role to ensure that their employees have all of the resources necessary to do the best job possible. At GoDaddy, CEO Blake Irving has made it his business to ensure that every employee understands where GoDaddy is headed. He has provided vision, goals, and clear leadership. In turn, the employees of GoDaddy have passionately embraced the new vision ready to make it a reality. GoDaddy envisions a world where the small business owner can move mountains and compete with the “big guys” by using the same technology. . "Everybody who's at the company believes in [the fact] that we can actually do something that will have a meaningful impact. And I don't think a lot of people get that about GoDaddy. And I think a lot of people would be extremely surprised, but that's what's motivating us," said Bovich.

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BRAND

Guest Posting Has Gotten

Toxic For SEO

BY GAREN ARNOLD

For over a decade now a lot of SEO's have been using the tactic of guest posting in order to acquire a backlink from a site. For years and years it worked great for search engine rankings. But lately there has been a lot of debate on whether or not you should still guest post in order to improve your search engine rankings. Matt Cutts announced on his blog on January 20, 2014, that guest posting is officially dead. In this article I am going to talk about why it has gotten so toxic over the years and why you might want to reconsider doing it. >>> Â

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If you have been guest posting, you might want to switch up your tactics before it becomes toxic to your website

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Hiring A SEO If you're looking to hire a seo company you want to ask them one key question which can really save you a lot of headaches later on down the road. Simply ask them what tactics they use to build links. If they tell you they are going to focus on guest posting to build links you might want to reconsider. Chances are I have pretty much pegged their tactics in this article which will show you why you want to avoid them altogether. Identifying Spammy Guest Posting So here is an example email you might see in your inbox: My name is [NAME HERE] and I work as a full time writer for a respectable marketing firm. I live [halfway around the world]. I am looking to write on your blog because I found it so fascinating. I have written lots of 100% unique content over they years and would like to write on [TOPIC HERE]. Obviously, this is spam and you can bet that email was sent out to you and hundreds of thousands of other people. Why? Because chances are they work for a SEO company and are trying to build backlinks to their clients site. Nowhere do they mention your name, site, or anything that acknowledges that they have even visited your website. Bare in mind, some people will make it look like they actively read your content and make it sound a little more believable. But in reality, they just want a backlink from your website. Next, the email will typically have a request that you include a dofollow link to their website. They will either want a link in the author bio or the body of the article. Sometimes both. This is a clear violation of Google's quality guidelines. A lot of times they will offer you a small price to publish their article, which is essentially a paid link in Google's eyes. Chances are if you accept them to write for you, they will never follow up on the content they have written on your site. Think of it this way, their client paid them to build links to their site so their job with you is complete, and they must move onto the next client that is paying for their service. Why Guest Posting Got Dirty So why has it gotten so bad over the years? When guest posting was introduced years ago, it was done to write highly valuable content for sites and also build a juicy backlink to a site. Boy have times changed! Over the years, people have used it for the sole purpose of obtaining a backlink. What do I mean? I'm not going to name any names, but buffer sites were setup in order to connect writers with blog

owners. It's really gotten to the point where it's a spam haven for novice SEO's that just want to make a bunch of low value articles and blast them out to tons and tons of sites. When guest posting actually carried weight it wasn't a spam haven. Meaning, people didn't try to pass off 400 word articles as guest post with little to zero value at all. Why did it get to this point in the first place? To be honest with you, Penguin and Panda has pretty much axed a lot of sites. Novice SEO's were scrambling for another "link building" tactic that could help build authority links for the Penguin victim sites. They need to build lots of backlinks in order to dilute the dreaded "exact anchor text" penalty. The perfect solution was guest posting. When they worked with large guest posting buffer sites, or sent out hundreds or thousands of emails to people, they could easily built a lot of backlinks quickly. There were so many niche sites that offered this service and they made a lot of good money doing it for years. Chances are that since the entire industry has gotten so dirty, these niche sites will begin to quickly decline in 2014 and 2015. Should You stop completely This is actually kind of a hard question to answer. Why? Because, if you're guest posting for the sole purpose of just getting a dofollow backlink then you should probably avoid doing it altogether. But, what if you're the 10% that actually understand your building a brand online and don't care so much about just getting a dofollow backlink? If that is the case make sure you "nofollow" the backlink pointing to your site and write some killer content for the webmasters. I would only focus on the super authority sites like Mashable, TechCrunch, Forbs, etc. Nothing on a blog that doesn't get a substantial amount of traffic. If you fail to focus on authority then you will find yourself learning all about the Google disavow tool in order to get your site out of the doghouse. Conclusion Matt Cutts has officially announced that guest posting is dead. To many novice SEOs ran this tactic into the ground, and as a result, Google was forced to take action against people that were abusing it. If you were using guest posting in 2013, you might want to switch up your tactics before it becomes toxic for your website. There are plenty of better whitehat ways to increase your rankings on Google. Focus on content marketing, building relationships, and participating on social media. Your website will slowly, but surely climb up the ranks on Google.

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GAMER 0

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meets

acebook has made another bold acquisition, this time it’s with the $2 billion purchase of virtual reality headset maker Oculus VR. Many are wondering what the social media giant is planning on doing with this purchase, is Zuckerberg looking to make virtual reality a part of everyday life? “Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. For the past few years, this has mostly meant building mobile apps that help you share with the people you care about. We have a lot more to do on mobile, but at this point we feel we're in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences,” writes Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg via Facebook. This acquisition could make “augmented reality become a part of daily life for billions of people.” Imagine putting on a pair of goggles and instantly being transported to a court side seat of a game, or in a meeting with your doctor, or in a classroom filled with students from across the world, adds Zuckerberg. “Over the next 10 years, virtual reality will become ubiquitous, affordable, and transformative, and it begins with a truly next-generation gaming experience. This partnership ensures that the Oculus platform is coming, and that it’s going to change gaming forever,” says a post on Oculus’s blog. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey claims that with the financial backing of Facebook, the Rift would be cheaper and better built when released to consumers. "We have the resources to create custom hardware now, not just rely on the scraps of the mobile phone industry," wrote Luckey on Reddit. "This deal is going to immediately accelerate a lot of plans that were languishing on our wishlist, and the resulting hardware will be better AND cheaper." Also, Oculus would have more money to offer developers to work with them on new titles, although many developers

have already expressed their disappointments about the recent purchase. Minecraft developer Markus “Notch” Persson canceled his deal with the company claiming Facebook “creeps” him out; Proton Pulse developer Justin Moravetz says Oculus will need to do a lot of work to “shake any negative association with Facebook”; George Buckingham, a developer with Die Gute Fabrik, says he’s “irritated” and believes the acquisition is “80% likely to kill their momentum.” Programmer Mykola Bilokonsky thinks it was a good move for Zuckerberg but not so sure about what it means for everyone else. "But I am as queasy as anyone else at the prospect. I don't want to live in a future where a handful of giant companies are dividing up every piece of creative enterprise that stands a chance of reaching mass market." Not all reactions have been negative, others feel it is a smart move for Oculus and that it will bring attention to the headset that it may not have received before. "This is a smart move for Oculus," says Rami Ismail, cofounder of cult Dutch studio, Vlambeer. "We may all know of them in the tech scene, but outside of our bubble nobody has ever heard of them. If VR is to be established as a market, we need the average consumer to know of it, so having Facebook and Sony in the fray is good news.” "For the moment, [Oculus Rift is] a nice toy but without any real market, no-one can really push it forward softwarewise. Perhaps Facebook will provide that?” states Jeff Murray. “Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction. But the internet was also once a dream, and so were computers and smartphones. The future is coming and we have a chance to build it together. I can't wait to start working with the whole team at Oculus to bring this future to the world, and to unlock new worlds for all of us.”

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ASUS ZENBOOK UX 301 THE GOOD Asus’s Ultrabook is a sleek and elegant design with a stylish scratch resistant Gorilla Glass lid. This device has an above average battery life and more storage than other Ultrabooks, along with a fast CPU. THE BAD Priced at $1,839, the Zenbook costs more than most comparable laptops with the same features. The webcam is mediocre and the glass top is not as tough as it seems. THE VERDICT The Asus Zenbook UX 301 offers great overall performance with higher resolution than most of its competitors. It’s an appealing Ultrabook for those willing to spend the money on this premium laptop.

KEY FEATURES Battery: 6 cell 50.6W, 8 hrs. Storage: Up to 512GB SSD (RAID 0) Processor: 4th gen Intel Core i7 Weight: 2.6 lbs. Display: 13.3”

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FACEBOOK PAPER THE GOOD Facebook’s newest standalone app generates specifically curated news articles alongside the standard timeline of friends and family with more features such as articles and images. Paper’s new design is easy to use and the content loads quickly so you don’t have to constantly keep scrolling down to refresh. The best thing about this app is that you can organize content into sections and skim through articles that most interest you. THE BAD Paper does not give you the ability to manage and edit friend lists, events, groups, or news categories. Also, the app is not available for the iPad, Android, or Windows. THE VERDICT Facebook Paper offers a clean and easy way to get the latest news and updates, but it’s still unclear why Facebook needs two different apps to do so. Paper may not be the replacement that Facebook was looking for, but it is free and worth downloading it if you have the extra space on your phone.

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TECHIE

MANAGE A CLOUD BASED SYSTEM FROM YOUR SMARTPHONE OR TABLET By Samuel Evans

ven though cloud systems are definitely no longer just a technology of the future, they have become so commonplace that you can hardly use Internet without stumbling onto a cloud solution that is convenient, affordable and simple to use. Even though there is a host of cloud solutions that come with corresponding smartphone apps, IT managers that need to manage their own cloud infrastructure and servers were usually required to do so from their offices, or over a VPN. Luckily for them, there is a service that may enable them to do just about anything that they need with their servers remotely, using their tablet or smartphone. Tellago Studios, from Boca Raton, FL., started offering their Moesion service in 2011, with the hopes of addressing the mentioned issue. Seeing how most of the problems that IT managers can face with their servers are quite urgent and could easily evolve into full scale disasters if not handled in time, they realized the need for the manager to always be able to apply some quick fixes and ensure the stability of the system that they are maintaining. Their service enables IT managers to do their work from iOS, Android or Windows Phone devices in a convenient interface. A client app is installed on the server you are managing and connects to your device through middleware. It allows you to easily run a check on your IT systems, manage different applications within the cloud, address different issues, and generally do everything that you need to do in order to ensure that everything is working as it should.

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While at first they only focused on the Windows platform, which meant that they could do very little for cloud management, they expanded to include management of Amazonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s EC2 cloud and VMware virtual machines, which extended its usefulness as a server management interface into the cloud area. On the server management side, you can use and publish your own scripts, use SQL Servers 2005, 2008, 2008 R2, apply hotfixes, retrieve operating system info, access and modify file systems, as well as create and update event logs. The service is capable of notifying you of any problems that may come around, and give you a way of fixing them. While this service is more focused on server than cloud management, it still seems to be something closest to the universal solution that is needed. Security is always an issue with services of this kind, especially since it is granted access to your servers, so the provider has made sure that you are covered on all fronts. Apart from investing quite a bit of effort into their transport mechanisms, they have made sure to allow their users to specify authorization layers, both when it comes to particular users, and the devices that they are using to access the cloud. This means that you have complete control over what parts of your systems are accessible to whom, and can manage your one security with a decent amount of control. Even though some of you might need to look for other solutions for your cloud management, as this service only covers some of the needs, it is an interesting attempt at trying to afford their users with a decent level of control over their cloud systems. Even though the size and means of input make mobile devices a slightly inconvenient solution for cloud management, providers of different cloud solutions are recognizing the need for mobility, and some of them are offering apps that you can use on your tablet or smartphone, so make sure to always check if your system is covered in this aspect, as it could make your life much easier.

TECHIE

Using the public cloud for business purposes, especially when sensitive data is concerned, may raise concerns since the cloud doesn't come with walls, doors and locks. But just as safety in physical entities comes from proper security mechanisms such as locks and alarms, cloud computing can be protected by "virtual walls." Cloud Security: Encryption and Virtual Walls Data encryption is the cloud's recognized best practice of ensuring that the doors between data of separate enterprises are firmly shut and locked. In effect, virtual walls separate each account's data and unauthorized access to the data is thwarted. Keeping this segmentation and securing the data is very appealing to many organizations which have become more interested in cloud data encryption solutions. Gartner predicts that in 2014, encryption for the cloud will be one of the fastest growing segments of the security market. Just as there are different types of physical locks (some stronger; some weaker), cloud encryption can be basic or advanced. Most encryption schemes use well known data encryption algorithms such as AES (Advanced Encryption

VIRT WAL

CLOUD SECUR

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Standard). The most important differentiator between approaches is the way encryption keys are handled. Cloud Key Management and ownership When it comes to managing encryption keys, it is all about maintaining ownership. When you use the cloud, you are essentially using infrastructure, platforms and applications owned and managed by someone else. But by keeping the encryption keys to yourself, you keep ownership of your data. The current state of the art in managing encryption keys is homomorphic split-key encryption. This type of encryption has two core capabilities. The first capability is split-key encryption. This guarantees that the key to deciphering the data is in your hands because there are two separate keys, and one of them is always in your hands. The other is in the hands of a cloud security provider. This approach is very similar to a bank security or safety deposit box which requires your key and the bank’s key at the same time and same place. Both halves of the key are needed in order to access the

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data. As long as you keep your key to yourself, hackers or unscrupulous “insiders” will not be able to get their hands on your data. The second capability is homomorphic key management. This ensures that your key is not exposed even when it is being used to access data. This addresses the question of what happens when you enter your key so as to allow a cloud system to work. In this approach, a mathematical technique is used to keep your key encrypted even while it is being used. Industries with sensitive data can safely use the cloud. Some industries, such as healthcare, finance, or legal, are regulated or required by law to protect the privacy of individual citizens. In these industries, it is mission critical to secure data and protect privacy at the highest level possible. Using strong encryption and key management techniques creates the virtual walls an organization needs to run its business securely and efficiently. The benefit is in reducing risk, perceived and real, as well as reducing exposure to liability in the rare event that a breach does occur.

To give you an idea of the value of this approach, the United States Health and Human Services administration accepts encryption as a proper measure taken to protect personal health information and allows a claim of "Safe Harbor." This means that in the event of a breach, the organization can reasonably claim that the attackers could not have gotten away with readable data, since it was encrypted and you kept the encryption keys in your own hands. This rule allows you to avoid fines as well as loss of reputation. Gilad Parann-Nissany is the founder and CEO of Porticor Cloud Security. He is a pioneer in the field of cloud computing who has built SaaS clouds, contributed to SAP products and created a cloud operating system. He has written extensively on the importance of cloud encryption and encryption key management for PCI and HIPAA compliance. Gilad can be found on his blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ discussing cloud security.

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TECHIE

Must Have Dedicated Server Features By Kris Anderson Limestone Networks

I’ve been in the hosting industry for many years and it has been my experience that the purchasers of dedicated servers are usually more reactive than they are proactive. Although the services required to be proactive cost more, the headache, upset clients, and lost revenue will be more costly in the end.

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Which services should you use to be proactive?

DDoS Protection

No one likes latency, or if the attack is strong enough, downtime. Being as client-centered as I am, I hate it even more because I want only what is best for my clients. The fact is, DDoS attacks are becoming more abundant and costly to mitigate. Looking for a way to help clients stay online and running smoothly, we at Limestone Networks developed tiers for DDoS Protection that would allow us to provide enterprise protection options. It is extremely common for me to see tickets from upset clients because their server is offline and their customers are complaining, however they haven’t added DDoS protection. This is why I would say this is the #1 most important dedicated server feature that is overlooked.

RAID Hard Drive Redundancy

Hardware failure happens. We all do everything in our power to keep it from happening to our clients in several ways: pulling hard drives from circulation that are getting old, testing every hard drive after each cancellation, and testing again when we provision a server. No matter what we do, hardware failure will still happen. If you don’t have RAID setup for redundancy you can lose your data. This is sore point for our Support team. Delivering the bad news of a hard drive failure to a person that doesn’t have RAID is extremely difficult. Hardware RAID allows the technician to simply replace the disk that has failed and bring your server back on immediately. Your original hard drive will then re-clone to the new drive while your server is online and serving your employees or customers.

Server Management

Some companies are not large enough to hire an IT staff to manage their server. Unmanaged support teams can assist clients quickly with matters such as operating system reloads, hardware issues, network issues, and power issues. However, if you’re needing work done within your operating system, like spam troubleshooting, software installation, virtual machine maintenance, and more, then you need management. In my years of running Support departments in the hosting industry, I’ve seen some experienced server administrators utilize our server management services simply so that they can focus on other things that are more important to them. For larger companies, management teams act like an extension of their internal Information Technology department– performing routine maintenance and management tasks upon request. So to sum it up, by adding these three services to your dedicated server hosting you are making steps to be proactive and provide the most stable service possible for your user-base or customers. DDoS Protection, RAID hard drive redundancy and Server Management.

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THE PERFECT DOMAIN NAME By Dimitar Avramov

eople usually try to find a magic word and register it as a web address. When it comes to web hosting, this means registering domain names that include “webhosting” as part of the web address. Some say that adding this phrase to their domain name is very important in order to reach a high rank in the search engines. Is it true? Of course not. I don’t ever remember seeing Webhosting.com or Hosting. com rank top by using the search terms, “web hosting” or “hosting”. Hosting.com has always been top ranked using the keyword “hosting”. It would be strange if a popular web hosting service provider did not register Hosting.com to be ranked among top sites on the same keyword. At the same time, this website has not been on the first page of Google's “web hosting” search phrase for years; which means that the website is not well optimized or it is not relevant enough. (However I will not doubt the relevance of Hosting.com’s rank using the search phrase, “web hosting”.) Getting back to the original topic of domain names and web addresses: What tools are needed to make the big decision? It is very important to keep in mind which type of web hosting related website you are preparing to launch. There are always different approaches to use depending on your goals. When choosing a name for a web hosting service provider, you could call it “The Crazy Chicken”, “Web Nest”, “Webware”, etc., as long as you choose a name that consumers will remember. GoDaddy and FatCow are some of the best examples of dot-com business names that I know I have yet to forget. Another option is to register a web address that includes the words “hosting”, “host”, and/or “web hosting”. This is certainly

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an option to consider, but it will not help you very much with your brand name recognition. Hostway, HostMySite, HostGator, Host Color, Hostican, Bluehost, are only a few examples of sites which have included the word “host” as the main part of their domain name. There are many more domains existing with the word “hosting” as a main part of their name. In all honesty, I do believe that it is a good idea to include the word “host” as a part of the domain name of any web hosting service provider. However, the keywords “hosting” and “web hosting” are much more useful when it comes to reference, media websites, or web hosting categories and indexes. Anyone who has been involved in web hosting as a consumer, as a provider, or even as a journalist knows about WebHostingTalk.com, Webhostinggeeks, Webhostdir, Webhosting.info, FindMyHosting.com, and etc. When your plan is to use your web address for a service provider my suggestion to you to stands: Choose a unique and hard to forget domain name. You may include numbers such as 123reg.co.uk (a popular domain registrar) or 1and1 (one of the world’s biggest web hosting companies). The perfect name for your site will always be the one that answers the question: What does this company do? A good example of this is WeDoHosting.com, one of the most popular Canadian web hosting service providers. The best web address for you will be the one that sends your message to the targeted audience. But remember even if you have it in your pocket, the web address will usually be registered by someone else. Today’s web hosting market is saturated and there aren’t many free-to-register web addresses. Those preparing to enter into the market are required to use their imaginations.

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