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Tips for Reviewing Cloud Computing Security

Guest Blogger — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:00:33 +0000

Sending your data to a cloud system can be a convenient way to use remote servers for your files. This service can free up space on your own systems, and allow multiple users to have access to the files for convenience or different points of access through a variety of devices.

You may want to review aspects of security with these systems as you make decisions on which service to use. Keep in mind that you are ultimately responsible for the security of your computer data even as you use a cloud hosting service and send files for remote storage to an off-site server. You may want to ask different cloud companies about the details of their security measures to provide for a secure transfer. This can help you to gain a better understanding on what exactly each cloud host offers for overseeing and securing your files on the servers.

You also may want to know the location for the cloud servers. Privacy laws can vary in different jurisdictions. You can ask services whether there are any major differences in privacy laws where the server is in relation to your own location that would affect your data storage. Ask for copies of the company’s external audits and security reviews or certifications. Learning more about the company’s controls or policies concerning business ethics may factor into your final selection of which service you trust to handle your computer files. Although you will be using virtual private servers, you also are sharing the space with other customers. You may want to know what type of encryption exists to maintain privacy of your data, depending on your needs. Make sure the encryption offered is compatible with your own system to reduce the risk of files becoming corrupted or blocked from opening.

You also can check to see what type of protection exists for the servers themselves in terms of secured buildings or on-site monitoring. In a perfect world, the cloud servers you choose will always be up and running. However, you may want to know details of the company’s disaster recovery plan. This plan can include methods of retrieving files and any safeguards that are in place, such as periodic backups or archiving of your data. This plan can be crucial to you in terms of recovering your data if servers go down.

When entering an agreement with a cloud storage provider, make sure the terms cover all aspects of your requirements for remote data storage. These terms can cover privacy, encryption and any legal requirements, such as policies for handling the return or disposal of your files if you decide to terminate the cloud agreement. Cloud computing may work for you as a convenient off-site storage option for your data files. Make sure you understand your cloud provider’s security policies so that you can have peace of mind about your files. Sending your files to a cloud may be just the storage solution that is right for you.

Guest Blogger: Natasha is writer and bloger, currently interested in internet, technology, cloud computing and other popular tech related trends.

Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Storage Web Hosting… True Lies?

Admin — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 23:32:15 +0000

“If something seems to good to be true, it probably is”, said Adam to Eve…

Notwithstanding the above common sense axiom that has been around since the dawn of time, people are stupid. In today’s competitive web hosting market, many of the heavy-hitters have come up with an interesting feature. Its what the scientists call a “gimmick”.

gimÂ·mick
â€“noun
1. an ingenious or novel device, scheme, or stratagem, esp. one designed to attract attention or increase appeal.
2. a concealed, usually devious aspect or feature of something, as a plan or deal: An offer that good must have a gimmick in it somewhere.
3. an offer for unlimited bandwidth and/ or unlimited disk storage on any web hosting plan.

What’s wrong with this offer? Its not exactly true. Nothing in web hosting is unlimited. Common sense will tell you that.

So what is it then? Its a marketing ploy, plain and simple. Realize that all servers are limited. For example, here’s an offer for six months free hosting with all the unlimited stuff you can want. Now, don’t get me wrong… if you are a very small website and don’t think you will grow much in the next year or two… go for the cheap stuff. There really is nothing wrong with that.

Back to the point. There is no such thing as a computer with infinite bandwidth and storage.Â Moreover, if it were legitimate, why would larger companies have to pay hundreds (or thousands) per month on dedicated servers… with clearly defined limitations? Maybe their IT people are stupid and they should put eBay on one of these unlimited web hosting plans for $5 per month.

One way to tell if something rings true or not is to take it to its logical extreme. Using eBay or Amazon as an example, you can see that there is a reason they spend big money on their limited servers. So what is the catch anyway?Â I’ll explain…

“So whatâ€™s the problem? The problem occurs when you actually do grow and start impacting the server. “

The small priced web hosting is in reality shared hosting. This means that you are sharing server space, bandwidth, databases, and IP addresses with hundreds or thousands of other small websites. If they can cram 5000 websites onto one dedicated server at $5 a pop, that’s $25,000 per month. Of course the have to pay to operate the thing, but lets just say its a nice profit. On a recent domain research project I foundÂ the website domain I was researching was on a Godaddy server with 5,283 other websites. WOW.

Is shared hosting bad? No, its a great idea for small websites who do not use a lot of resources. Aye, there’s the rub… who do not use a lot of resources - this is how its done. Those micro sites will never, ever come near the real limitations of the server. As a matter of fact 99% hardly move the needle. So why not give them unlimited stuff… they never really use it anyway. They will think they have the best hosting plan in the world and it will make ANY limitation on any other host seem so restrictive.

So what’s the problem? The problem occurs when you actually do grow and start impacting the server. That’s when the hosting company will remind you of the TOS (terms of service) agreement you agreed to when you started. You know, the 942 page legal document you were suppose to read before you agreed? There they will point out one or several clauses that denote any number of limitations that the average website owner wouldn’t understand even if they actually did read the TOS. The usual suspects are CPU and memory. When a website gets real busy, it uses more CPU and Memory. Each shared account has limits, or at least is monitored for unusual increases in activity. Once you trigger the alarm, you will be asked to kindly slow down the usage of your server, or upgrade.

If you say something is â€œunlimitedâ€ yet you put limitations on it, then it ceases to be unlimited. Its a marketing gimmick pure and simple.

I did a test with hostmonster.com who offer their bogus “Unlimited” cheap hosting. I set up my hosting server with about 40 accounts to run backups and save those backups on the Unlimited hostmonster.com account. It worked well for a while until I got a notice that I violated the TOS because I was storing backup files on my hosting account.Â Oh.. so it is limited? Certain files are forbidden such a .zip or .rar. Really? That’s a surprise.

Another example is when I had a client site, whom I was doing SEO work and help make their site much stronger in the search engines. After a while they were getting much busier than ever and some blog posts were taking on a few hundred visitors per day. This slowed the site badly and eventually it was shut down by the host. The reason; too much traffic was causing CPUand memory issues. We had to upgrade it.

Anyone can test this for themselves. Jut move a site that has a decent amount of traffic to a host like hostmonster.com and promote it well. Or if you are lucky or good enough to have a strong site already, try it on one of these unlimited hosts. It won’t take long before you are forced to move or upgrade.

When this happens, I strongly recommend that you move to a host that does not offer such nonsense. If you upgrade with one of these unlimited gimmickers they accomplished their goal with you; lured you in then forced you to pay more. That’s their whole point. It is better to find a more reliable and honest host to begin with. Here’s a premium hosting plan that is about the same price as those cheap “unlimited hosting” plans but has actual limits? Wonder why? Because its higher quality hosting and they don’t get gimmicky.

Most users do not benefit from these supposed non-limitations because they do not use enough resources to even need such a thing. The truth is found in the users who do put it to the test and find out what the limitations really are.Â Its just a dishonest marketing trick, plain and simple. Why trust companies who count on your ignorance to sell you their product? After reading this, you are no longer ignorant.

Need help changing hosts and migrating your site? We do it for a living and can help.

Interesting Facts about Web Hosting

Admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:29:38 +0000

I finally figured out the web hosting business’ trick of the trade. It always boggled my mind that shared web hosting providers progressed from 100mb disk space and 3000mb of bandwidth a few years ago to “UNLIMITED” disk space and bandwidth for the same or even less cost. The cost is as little as $6 per month for all that web server power. How can they do that? Do they have infinite hard drives and unlimited resources for bandwidth? For a long time I wondered… what’s the catch? Well, I figured it out:

“Unlimited” does NOT include CPU usage and Memory.

Those have hard limits. Something as benign as a moderately popular blog (1000 – 2000 daily visits) will crash the server. If it doesn’t crash the server, the site will get shut down by the resource management software running the server so that it does not crash everyone else’s website that is sharing that server. When this happens, you will get a friendly note from your web host that your site is exceeding server resources and needs to scale-back or move to a more powerful server. Of course this is not limited to $6 shared hosting plans; it also applies to VPS hosting.

VPS (Virtual Private Server) is the step between shared hosting and dedicated. It gives you virtual control over your virtual server. However, the same limitations apply. Smaller VPS plans have as little as 128MB of RAM (memory). To put this in perspective, the average PC you can buy at your local PC retailer comes with 2GB (that’s GIGA BYTES) of ram while your basic VPS has 128MB (MEGA). It doesn’t take long to find out that your memory gets maxed out easily and you need to upgrade.

The bottom line is that your account is limited by the CPU and Memory allotted for your hosting account.Â Hosting companies have the right to sell their services as they see fit. I do not claim that they are not offering adequate services or that they are ripping anyone off. I will say that by promoting “UNLIMITED” disk space and bandwidth they are deceiving people. Its misinformation and deceptive to say “UNLIMITED” when there are other limitations. Its sort of like a restaurant promoting an “all you can eat” buffet, but when you get there you find out that its all you can eat that fits on one plate. You can pile on the food, but you are in fact limited.

The real trick is that for the average small static website CPU and memory are never an issue. But as your website grows, you’ll find out that you don’t have what you thought you had and you will have to pay more. This is all well and good. The reason that it is questionable is that by promoting “UNLIMITED” stuff, they are not telling you the truth.

In the end, I respect businesses and entrepreneurship, but I don’t like deceptive marketing. I wish there were a host that would offer straight facts about the hosting service they are offering and disclose ALL the limitations up front, not buried in the 900 page terms and conditions that no one ever fully reads. Maybe I’ll start my own straight talk hosting service. I will give all the details right up front without deceptive marketing tactics. But then again, its hard to compete with “UNLIMITED” anything.