The cloud offers companies countless different advantages: It can make processes more flexible, reduce costs, improve user experiences and achieve a generally more profitable business model. All of this is based primarily on the data collected and analyzed through the cloud. One of the most effective and secure ways to store this data is to back it up in the cloud. We explain how it works and how you can benefit from it too. \nBackup in the cloud - the future of data storage \nCloud backup are online backup, web backup or online data backup - many words that all describe the same thing: A method of data backup where data is stored in off-site data centers rather than on internal devices. Cloud backups are often the \nbest solution, especially for SMBs\n, when it comes to data protection. \nFor a cloud backup, the data is usually transferred from the internal sources to the external storage media via the public Internet and with the help of servers. To save costs and increase efficiency, a full backup is usually made only once and from then on only incremental updates are performed: So only the changed or new data is transferred during a backup and not the entire data set. \nWith a backup in the cloud, customers can also access an all-round service. The software for efficient and automatic backups and the entire infrastructure required are provided by a service provider. As a user, therefore, all that is needed is a sufficient Internet connection to be able to store theoretically infinite amounts of data. \nWhy cloud backup is so popular with SMEs \nSmall and medium-sized enterprises in particular now often rely solely on cloud backups and no longer have their own storage or backup capacities. There are various reasons for this, but the most important is certainly cost control. Because, as with almost all cloud computing services, cloud backup also increases the scalability of one's own backups extremely. \nAfter all, with a cloud backup provider, you only pay for the service you really need: Only the bandwidth, storage capacities and additional services that one actually uses are charged. This means you no longer have to worry about sudden load peaks or idle times. After all, the costs always adjust to one's own needs in real time. \nIf you store and back up data internally, however, the situation is different: The internal infrastructure must be able to respond properly to all eventualities, so sufficiently large reserves must be provided. This in turn means that the costs for in-house servers and the necessary service infrastructure rise sharply. \nIn addition, there are personnel costs: In order to enable internal data backup, sufficient manpower is generally required to carry out the maintenance of the servers and the processes involved. But you also need specialist knowledge: In short, without internal IT experts, who are expensive, such a data backup is not possible. \nHowever, if one uses an external provider for the back-up, all these problems are eliminated. This is because a provider such as Amazon AWS or the \nGoogle Cloud Platform\n provide the necessary expertise, manpower, infrastructure and reserves. As a company, all you have to do, as already mentioned, is make sure you have a sufficiently strong Internet connection.  More service and security for SMEs  \nMore service and security for SMEs  \nCloud backups not only make data backup cheaper, but also more user-friendly. This is because the corresponding software from the software provider already comes with everything you need for a professional backup. Updates are carried out automatically, during which the data is first checked for viruses and then compressed, encrypted and finally transferred. \nSMEs also benefit from an external backup solution when it comes to security. First, the firewalls and other security services from AWS, Azure and the other major providers are among the best solutions on the IT market anywhere. Storing data in an off-site data center also increases protection against natural disasters and fire. This is an especially important point considering how critical collected data has become to business performance. \nCloud storage and traditional backup\nAs mentioned earlier, SMBs are now turning almost exclusively to cloud services for data backup. Many large enterprises, on the other hand, use a hybrid between traditional on-site backup and cloud storage. This is primarily because the data volumes here are simply disproportionately larger than at SMEs.\nFor example, large companies more often use a traditional backup solution for storing critical data, as this critical data can then be restored much more quickly if necessary. Finally, there are physical limits to the amount of data that can be transferred, which can delay the process of recovery when large amounts of data are involved. \nIn addition, companies from particularly sensitive sectors, such as healthcare and finance, often need to access in-house solutions to ensure complete control over their own data. However, SMEs should also bear in mind that international \ncloud providers\n do not always act in accordance with German data protection regulations - so a traditional backup may also be necessary here. \n

Backup in the cloud 

One of the greatest achievements of the ongoing digitization and networking of our world is certainly that companies today are collecting, evaluating and reusing more data than ever before. This creates a huge mountain of data: Big Data. In the following guide, we reveal which technologies are used to properly manage Big Data and why this area will become increasingly important in the future. \nWhat is Big Data?\nIn the IT industry, the term Big Data now actually refers to two different things: First, the ever-increasing volume of data that companies collect every day. Secondly, it also refers to new technologies and models that allow this increasing volume to be used sensibly and to the benefit of the company. \nBecause even if data is described as the gold of the 21st century: Just collecting a lot of data is useless if you can't exploit this data and use it profitably. However, with the huge amounts of data that are now generated in modern companies, it is not that easy to implement. Big Data technology is therefore one of the most important technologies and fields of the digital age. \nThe three Vs \nThe phenomenon of too much data has been around since the invention of the Internet. But it wasn't until industry analyst Doug Laney precisely defined the term Big Data in the early 2000s that the term began to be used across the industry. Laney defined Big Data using the Three Vs model, which is still used today. \nThe three Vs:\nVolume\nVelocity\nVariety\nVolume is used to describe that companies now collect an incredible amount of data from a wide variety of sources. This includes, for example, business or financial transactions and the countless sensors of the IoT. But also the collection of data from videos, messages, mails and especially social media activities is becoming increasingly important.\nVelocity refers to the speed at which data is processed and collected in Big Data. Especially since the \nIoT\n (Internet of Things) and social media allow data sets to be collected in the shortest possible time, the data streams must be forwarded and processed at an ever-increasing speed. The goal is always real-time analysis of the data. \nVariety is one of the biggest challenges with Big Data: the huge volumes of data come from a wide variety of sources and are therefore collected in a wide variety of forms: Text documents, videos, transaction files as well as numerical and structured data from databases. This makes it extremely difficult to find a solution that can read and utilize data from all sources. \nTwo more Vs \nMeanwhile, the definition of Big Data has expanded to include two more Vs: Variability and Veracity. Variability indicates that not only the sources of data, but also the actual amount of data collected can vary widely. Especially in areas that are highly user-dependent, such as social media, high variances occur. \nVeracity adds another factor to this problem: the quality, or usability, of the data is also highly variable. As mentioned earlier, it is of little use to collect as much data as possible if it cannot then be utilized. Data from different sources must therefore not only be aligned with each other, but also checked for quality. \nThe hardware for Big Data\nSince Big Data is primarily about collecting, storing and analyzing data, it is little wonder that the available storage hardware is crucial to the progress of Big Data. One of the most important advances is the ability to now store data using in-memory computing, rather than having to transfer it to external storage. \nBut of course, the hardware needed for Big Data also includes the devices that collect the actual data. For actual applications, this would primarily be sensors from the Internet of Things as well as mobile end-user devices such as smartphones and tablets. Again, in both areas, the trend is toward more and more comprehensive data collection. \nThe software for Big Data \nThe available cloud computing or software services for Big Data have evolved greatly in recent years, enabling increasingly effective use of Big Data. This includes, first and foremost, for Big Data analysis. After all, with today's data volumes, it would be absolutely ineffective and simply impossible to have all the data analyzed by a real person. \nBig Data analytics is therefore used to eizuordnen the quality of the data and then provide the Data Scientists with only those data sets that are truly relevant. Furthermore, Big Data analysis is also used to predict load peaks and idle times in order to be able to achieve increased scalability. In addition to this, software solutions are used to actually collect the data, making it much easier to standardize, compress and forward the data streams.\nThe application areas of Big Data are as diverse as the application areas of digitization itself. No matter whether in finance, retail, healthcare, the insurance industry or governments: Big Data applications are already being used everywhere.   

Big Data explained

In the past, companies simply gave their employees a standard desktop computer. Back then, people only worked in the office and from one device. Today, that model no longer works for many companies.\nToday, corporate IT faces different challenges. Many employees are mobile and work from different locations at different times. Often, they also want to use different devices while doing so, sometimes a laptop, sometimes a computer at home, sometimes a tablet. Such challenges make it difficult for enterprise IT to provide support and protect corporate data.\nThe new Amazon WorkSpaces product now gives IT the ability to address these challenges with a unified, cloud-based desktop. Users can connect to their work environment from multiple devices and (if desired) from anywhere and access their applications, documents, and intranet resources they need to get their work done, whether they're using a desktop computer, a laptop, or even an iPad or Android tablet.\nSo what does Amazon Workspaces offer in terms of capabilities - both for the user and the administrator?\n\nWorkSpaces Features\nAmazon WorkSpaces provides a Microsoft Windows-based desktop environment in the cloud. It's easy to provision and maintain, and can be accessed from a variety of endpoints. To do this, the user simply installs the WorkSpaces client application and connects to their desktop. This desktop feels like a Windows 7 environment to the user - technically it is based on Windows Server, but the environment has been designed to behave like Windows 7 from the user's perspective.\nThe WorkSpaces environment has persistent disk space and comes ready configured with additional utilities and productivity applications.\nThe administrator can currently provide four different packages to their users that have different hardware specifications and included applications. Here are the packages:\n\nStandard\n - 1 vCPU, 3.75 GiB main memory 50 GB persistent storage.\nStandard Plus\n - 1 vCPU, 3.75 GiB main memory 50 GB persistent storage, \nMicrosoft Office Professional\n, \nTrend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Services.\n\nPerformance\n - 2 vCPU, 7.5 GiB main memory 100 GB persistent storage,\nPerformance Plus\n - 2 vCPU, 7.5 GiB main memory 100 GB persistent storage, \nMicrosoft Office Professional\n, \nTrend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Services\n\nAll bundles also include Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9, 7-Zip, the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), and other utilities. The bundles can be customized by administrators to include the company's own customizations.\nEach user has between 50 and 100 GB of persistent AWS storage for their WorkSpace (the exact amount depends on the bundle selected). This persistent storage is automatically backed up to Amazon S3 on a regular basis. Like all S3 data, this backup has 99.99999999% persistence and 99.99% availability per year.\nPrices are per month per user:\nStandard\n - US$ 35 per user per month.\nStandard Plus\n - US$ 50 per user per month.\nPerformance\n - US$ 60 per user per month.\nPerformance Plus \n- US$ 75 per user per month.\n\nUse cases for WorkSpaces\nThere are many use cases for Amazon WorkSpaces. Here are a few examples:\nMobile Workers - WorkSpaces allows employees to access their work environment on the go from their iPads, Kindles, and Android tablets. This allows employees to be productive on the go without having to lug around heavy equipment\nSecure WorkSpaces - The WorkSpaces environment can be used to create extra-secure work environments.\nStudents, Seasonal and Temporary Workers - With WorkSpaces, you can create temporary work environments for students, temporary workers, or even outside consultants, and easily delete these environments when they are no longer needed.\nDevelopers- With WorkSpaces, local and out-of-office developers can work efficiently and use the development tools they need. At the same time, source code and other intellectual property remains protected.\nTechnical Background\nSo how does Amazon WorkSpaces work in the background?\nAs part of the setup process, a virtual private cloud (VPC) is created. This VPC can be connected to the corporate network via VPN or DirectConnect. This allows access to an existing Active Directory and intranet resources.\nWorkSpaces runs on Amazon EC2 instances within the VPC. Communication between the EC2 instance and the client is done using the PCoIP (PC-over-IP) protocol. The client must be able to connect using TCP and UDP ports 4172 and TCP port 443.\nThe persistent storage space is regularly backed up to S3, as already mentioned.

Amazon WorkSpaces - Desktop Computing in der Cloud

Amazon Web Services (\nAWS\n) is the largest cloud computing platform, offering more than 200 general-purpose resources, from infrastructure to machine learning. These combinable systems provide maximum ease of use and are designed to optimize the performance of your application through content delivery capabilities, data storage, and more.\nAWS has the most extensive global cloud infrastructure. No other cloud provider offers as many regions and Availability Zones, all with low latency, high availability, and a highly redundant network. AWS is available in 81 Availability Zones within 25 geographic regions worldwide. In addition, 24 more Availability Zones and 8 more AWS regions are planned. \nWhy use AWS services?\nAmazon created innovation with the introduction of the first cloud computing service, such as Amazon EC2. AWS offers more solutions and features than any other provider and has free tiers with access to the AWS Console for centralized control of each service. AWS is designed for ease of use for a variety of skill sets and is tailored for those not accustomed to software development programs. Web applications can be deployed in minutes using AWS facilities, without the need to provision servers or write additional code.\nNow that we've highlighted some reasons why you should consider AWS for your future, let's explore the options that make this possible. This catalog of AWS services provides the basics to help you get started.  \nThese AWS services you should get to know\nYou may have heard of many services offered by AWS - but you may not have discovered all of the services that are right for your business needs. That's why we've created the Top 10 AWS Services List 2021 to take some of the confusion away and help you find a list of essential services that are right for your project implementation.\nIn this blog, we have listed the popular Amazon Web Services that are most commonly used by customers and administrators. \n1.Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)\nEC2 is a cloud platform provided by Amazon that offers secure and customizable compute capacity. Its purpose is to provide developers with easy access and ease of use for cloud computing on the web while giving you complete control over your compute resources. You don't have to invest in costly physical services. Instead, Amazon EC2 lets you create virtual machines while managing other server functions such as ports, security, and storage.\nVisit Amazon's \nEC2\n page.\n2.Amazon RDS (Relational Database Services)\nAmazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) makes it easy to configure, manage, and scale databases in the cloud. Tedious tasks such as hardware provisioning, database layout, patching, and backups can be automated - cost-effectively and on demand. \nRDS is available on multiple database instances optimized for performance and storage, providing six familiar database engines, including Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQL Server. By using the AWS Database Migration Service, you can easily migrate or replicate your existing databases to Amazon RDS. Visit Amazon's RDS page.\nVisit Amazon's \nRDS\n page.\n3. Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)\nAmazon S3 enables object storage at its core and provides leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. Organizations of all sizes can use S3 to store and protect large amounts of data for a variety of use cases, including websites, applications, backups, and more.\nS3 provides a highly secure and redundant file storage service. In addition, S3 stores data in three data centers within a specific region. So your data is safe from attacks and unforeseen disasters, while maintaining data flexibility with near-zero latency.\nVisit Amazon's \nS3\n page.\n4.Amazon Lambda\nLambda allows you to run code without having to own or manage servers. \nWhen it comes to high utilization of their servers, your current server infrastructure may not be able to meet the demands of your current development speed. In this case, AWS Lambda is designed to support any development load. You take care of the coding, and AWS Lambda provides the right amount of support and required resources, while scaling to ensure your systems are no longer stressed beyond their capacity.\nRun code for almost any application or backend service without management. Provision the code and Lambda does the rest, enabling precise software scaling and comprehensive availability. And you only pay for the actual compute time consumed.\nVisit Amazon's\n Lambda\n page.\n5. Amazon CloudFront\nCloudFront is a content delivery network platform that performs secure distribution of data, video, apps, and APIs on a global scale with low lag times at high speeds. CloudFront connects to AWS global infrastructure and integrates seamlessly with systems such as Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, AWS Shield, and Lambda@Edge to manage custom code and personalize the experience.\nThere are no additional data transfer fees when connecting to applications such as Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, etc.\nVisit Amazon's \nCloudFront\n page.\n6. Amazon Glacier\nAmazon Glacier is a major service offered by AWS. Glacier is an online web storage service that provides you with low-cost and effective storage with security features for archiving and backup. With Glacier, you can effectively store information for months, years, or even decades.\nAWS Glacier services provide secure, flexible, and affordable Amazon S3 cloud storage classes for intermediate data storage and long-term backup. These storage classes ensure reliable provisioning while providing comprehensive security and compliance features, while meeting regulatory requirements.\nAs a user, you can store for approximately $1 per terabyte per month, saving both upfront and in the long run compared to their \non-premise\n solution.\nVisit Amazon's \nGlacier\n page.\n7. Amazon SNS \nSNS stands for Simple Notification Service and manages and delivers the messages or notifications to the users and customers from any cloud platform. Amazon SNS is a fully managed messaging solution that provides a cost-effective infrastructure for bulk messaging, especially to mobile users. Users can chat directly with customers through system-to-system or app-to-person communications between decoupled microservice apps.\nVisit Amazon's \nSNS\n page.\n8. Amazon VPC\nIf you are ready to isolate your entire IT infrastructure from the public, the best way to do it is Amazon VPS. This service creates a private virtual network that no one or nothing can access except the people and systems you authorize.\nWith Amazon VPC, you create an isolated area of the AWS cloud where you can provision AWS resources at scale in a virtual environment. With VPC, you have full control over your environment, including the ability to choose your own IP address range, create subgroups, and arrange route tables and network access points.\nNetwork configuration can be easily customized through VPC with flexible dashboard management capabilities.\nVisit Amazon's \nVPC\n page.\n9. Amazon Kinesis\nWorried about how to handle large volumes of data? Gain timely insights by using Amazon Kinesis to collect, process, and analyze data in real time for rapid response. Key features of AWS Kinesis include cost-effective processing of streaming data at scale and the ability to select the most appropriate tool for your application.\nCapture real-time data, including video, audio, application recordings, website activity, and IoT telemetry data for machine learning and other applications. With Kineses, users can track, analyze, and process data in real time for immediate response.\nVisit Amazon's \nKinesis\n page.\n10. Amazon Auto Scaling.\nThe AWS \nAuto-Scaling\n solution monitors your applications and automatically adjusts capacity to ensure consistent, predictable performance at the lowest possible price. Configure application scaling capabilities for different resources across multiple services almost instantly and seamlessly.\nAuto-Scaling has a feature-rich and straightforward user interface that can be used to create scaling plans for various resources. These resources include Amazon EC2 instances and Spot Fleets, EC2 tasks, Dynamo DB tables and indexes, and Amazon Aurora Replicas.\nVisit Amazon's \nAuto Scaling\n page.\nConcluding Remarks\nWith this article, we want to give you an overview of the best AWS services and hope that you now have a better understanding of AWS cloud products. In addition to the services listed here, there are many more services that can help your business become more flexible, agile, cost-effective, and secure in indescribable ways.\nIf you have any questions about the services listed or any other services, feel free to check out our blog or contact us. We will be happy to assist you as a contact person.

AWS Services List - Top 10 AWS Services

Attractive pricing is a decisive criterion in the decision to migrate to a modern cloud infrastructure. If parts of the in-house IT are to be moved to the cloud, above all the result of a correct calculation is an important step towards successful migration. We show you how to correctly compare the costs for cloud instances and in-house solutions.\nThe decision to move to a cloud-based IT solution is closely linked to the question of the costs incurred by a cloud migration. It should be borne in mind that cloud costs cannot be calculated as a lump sum, but always relate individually to your company, your requirements, applications and objectives. \nDigital transformation often starts with cloud solutions. The decision for the cloud can also mean a real competitive advantage, because it forms the sustainable basis for future-proof business models. This article is about the benefit that companies think of first when it comes to \ncloud computing\n: the \nreduction of IT costs\n. We show why almost all other benefits always have to do with cost reductions and what companies often get wrong when they compare current IT costs with cloud costs.\nIT costs\nMany companies feel the same way when it comes to IT management and maintenance or new digital solutions in the company, such projects are associated with high costs. Cost points of a traditional \non-premise\n solution often amount to the same factors in companies, devouring vast amounts of budget in the process. Power and cooling are significant cost drivers that many companies still do not take into account. The operation of server rooms with uninterruptible power supply and air conditioning units, licenses for e.g. \nVMware\n and Microsoft, to name just the most common or largest cost factors here, expenses for the redundancy of the systems (\nbackup\n and disaster recovery) and last but not least the number of employees and ongoing qualifications are further main points. The cloud, on the other hand, greatly reduces IT operations. \nCompared to on-premise solutions, the cloud has only three main cost points that need to be considered.\nStorage capacity\nNetwork capacity \nPerformance\nYou only pay for what you actually use. Due to the high flexibility and scalability of the cloud, the provision can be adapted to the individual needs of the company. \nThere are many reasons for switching to the cloud. One of them is the ability to use different cloud models flexibly. \nPrivate cloud\n, \npublic cloud\n or a \nhybrid\n approach - no matter what challenge a company faces today, the right model already exists. You just have to decide on the right strategy.\nHow the move to the cloud pays off\n1.calculate and compare IT costs\nKeeping IT costs low is a desirable and constant topic for every company. The cloud and cloud computing offer the right apparatus for realizing this desire. \nIn order to compare IT and cloud costs comprehensibly, all cost factors that play a role for an IT infrastructure in both types of provision must really be taken into account. And that is precisely what is not happening in many cases. Because in order to determine what costs one's own IT actually incurs, one must first perform a precise analysis of the cost structures. As is the case in most IT landscapes, you will quickly discover that a large proportion of the expenses are for the IT infrastructure and operations and are not available for other projects. The data center, which serves as a central warehouse for storage, administration and further processing, accounts for the majority of this, including server, storage and software costs. This is followed by network costs. And this is where a crucial error lies in the calculation of actual IT costs. Because costs for installation, operation and maintenance, including energy costs for power supply and cooling, plus expenses for redundancy, backup and disaster recovery are not even taken into account in most comparisons. With a cloud solution, these expenses are borne by the cloud provider, e.g. in an \nIaaS\n model, and are included in the cloud costs. \n2.scalability - reacting flexibly to requirements\nIn order to grow as a company and to meet new business requirements, one's own IT infrastructure must inevitably continue to expand. With the traditional on-premise solution, this means investing in hardware components and more licenses for software. But what if you want to reduce your IT due to economic requirements or changing market conditions? In the local IT infrastructure, this is practically impossible to realize without effort and loss of value. \nThe rapid scalability of the IT infrastructure according to demand in the private cloud is one of the most important arguments for cloud computing. Even short-term load peaks or rapid growth can be easily responded to and resources scaled up or down. \nCheck whether you can flexibly adapt your local IT infrastructure to changing customer requirements or increasing \nload peaks\n. Work out what you would need to invest in your on-premises IT to scale up to exactly the performance you need at the right time and compare that with what it would cost you in the cloud.\nOur cloud experts will help you determine cloud costs and tell you which costs, match those in the cloud. \n->\n\n3.high availability - an investment you don't have to make\nIn on-premises IT, there are various coordinated concepts that ensure that if a server fails, it is immediately replaced by another server that can smoothly continue to work without failure. Large companies, for example, use entire data centers that map their own IT redundantly and can take over work immediately in the event of a failure. However, this is complex and costly. \nSmaller and medium-sized companies (\nSME\n) may not have complex data centers in operation, but high IT availability is also indispensably important for them. After all, downtime costs money.\nWith the right cloud solution, you benefit from the latest and most innovative technology on the market. \nCloud providers\n are constantly investing in the high availability of their systems and the expansion of new services to be offered. So as a business, you benefit from an infrastructure based on the latest technology and services that you can test and use at will without spending huge budgets.\nSo the difference is who has to invest. In a cloud infrastructure, the cloud provider invests. With your own IT and on-premise solution, it's you.\nConclusion\nWith the thought of moving to a cloud-based solution, an investment decision is inevitable. However, one thing is important. You should not be afraid to change anything. If you are thinking about moving a single application to the cloud or using a specific service from the cloud (such as \nvirtual workstations\n), there is no need to make a large-scale comparison, here it is enough to run the desired service in the cloud with the help of a \ncloud service provider\n. However, if you want to benefit from a whole range, most innovative services, high availability, security and flexibility, it makes sense to get an overview and compare what applications and costs incurred compared to a cloud solution. \nDon't be deterred to consider cloud technology and contact us as a consulting partner to get an overview of your requirements and the needs of your business. We help you to plan and calculate your current IT costs and thus create transparency and innovation potential for your IT.

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