Serverless Computing: What You Need to Know

Serverless Computing: What You Need to Know

By Saumya Sinha

The term serverless grew in popularity as Amazon first launched AWS Lambda in 2014. Since then it has grown in both usage and reference, as more and more retailers enter the market with their own solutions.

Serverless Computing is a computing code execution model where the developers are relieved of several time-consuming activities so that they can focus on other important tasks. This trend is also known as Function as a Service (FaaS) where the cloud vendor is responsible for starting and stopping a function's container platform, check infrastructure security, reduce maintenance efforts, improve scalability, so on and so forth at low operational costs. The aim is to develop microservice oriented solutions to help decompose complex applications into small, easily manageable and exchangeable modules.

This brings us to the question - are there really 'serverless' computing services?

Of course, it is only logical that there should be servers in the background, but developers need not bother about the operation or provisioning of these servers; the entire server management is done by the cloud provider. Thus, the developer can devote more of his time to creating effective and innovative codes.

Here is how it works:

Being serverless, the developers are relieved from the tension of server operation and maintenance and hence, can focus on the codes.

The developer gets access to a framework with which he can create codes, which are adaptable for IoT applications as well, and that means handling the exodus of inputs and outputs. The cause and effect of the code will be reflected in the framework.

It takes on the role of a service, by providing all requisites for a functioning application.

The upsides and downsides of serverless computing

Serverless computing has the following benefits:

It Saves Time and Overhead Costs

Many large companies like Coca- Cola and The Seattle Times are already leveraging the benefits of serverless computing to help trigger code in response to a series of pre-defined events. This helps them to manage their fleet of servers without the threat of overhead costs.

One of the main attractions of serverless computing is that it is a 'pay as you use' model. You just need to pay for the runtime of your function - the duration your code is executed and the number of times it's been triggered. You don't have to incur the cost of unutilized functions as seen in a cloud computing model where even 'idle' resources must be paid for.

Nanoservices takes Serverless Computing to a Whole New Level

Serverless architecture gives you the chance to work with several architectures including nano-services. It is these architectures that help you structure your serverless computing application. You can say that Nanoservices is the first architectural pattern because each functionality comes with its own API endpoint and its own separate function file.

Each of the API endpoints points to one function file that implements one CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete) functionality. It works in perfect correlation with microservices, another architecture of serverless computing, and enables auto scaling and load balancing. You no longer have to manually configure clusters and load balancers.

Enjoy an Event-based Compute Experience

Companies are always worried about infrastructure costs and provisioning of servers when their Functions call rate become very high. Serverless providers like Microsoft Azure are a perfect solution for situations like this as they aim to provide an event-based serverless compute experience to aid in faster app development.

It is event-driven, and developers no longer have to rely on the ops to test their code. They can quickly run, test and deploy their code without getting tangled in the traditional workflow.

Scaling as Per the Size of the Workload

Serverless Computing automatically scales your application. With each individual trigger, your code will run parallel to it, thereby reducing your workload and saving time in the process. When the code is not running, you don't have to pay anything.

The charging takes place for every 100ms your code executes and for the number of times the code is triggered. This is a good thing because you no longer pay for an idle compute.

Developers can Quit Worrying about the Machinery the Code Runs on

The promise given to developers through IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)- one of the service models of cloud computing and serverless computing is that they can stop worrying about how many machines are needed at any given point of time, especially during peak hours, whether the machines are working optimally, whether all the security measures are offered and so on.

The software teams can forget about the hardware, concentrate on the task at hand and dramatically reduce costs. This is because they no longer have to worry about hardware capacity requirements nor make long-term server reservation contracts.

Downsides of serverless computing

Performance can be an issue.

The model itself means you'll get greater latency in how the compute resources respond to the requirements of the applications. If performance is a requirement, it's better instead to use allocated virtual servers.

Monitoring and debugging of serverless computing is also tricky.

The fact that you're not using a single server resource makes both activities very difficult. (The good news is that tools will eventually arrive to better handle monitoring and debugging in serverless environments.)

You will be bound to your provider.

It's often hard to make changes in the platform or switch providers without making application changes as well.

The serverless architecture is an innovative approach to deploying as well as writing an application that enables the developers to focus on code. This kind of approach can decrease time to market, system complexity and operational costs. While the third-party services like AWS Lambda are leveraged by AWS to eliminate the need to set up as well as configure virtual machines or physical servers, it also locks in the application as well as its architecture to the particular service provider. In the near future, more movement towards the unification of FaaS frameworks or APIs like IronFunctions can be expected. This will help to eliminate vendor lock-in and allow us to run serverless applications on various cloud providers or even on-premises

Article Source: Serverless Computing: What You Need to Know

Key Benefits of a Fully Managed Wi-Fi Solution

Key Benefits of a Fully Managed Wi-Fi Solution

By Saumya Sinha

The rapid rise of new disruptive technology trends - cloud, social media and mobility -has added a new dimension to business operations. Connectivity is now the most critical factor for running a competitive business. How will businesses support these devices? Turning to cloud-based Wi-Fi providers is one way. With an outsourced wireless solution, you can overcome many of the challenges of providing access to an ever-increasing number of mobile devices while keeping pace with wireless technology advances.

Wi-Fi providers that offer a hosted, cloud-based WLAN serve a wide range of businesses. Migrating to an outsourced model for wireless network management makes sense for any company that needs to provide wireless. Let's understand a few benefits of a fully managed Wi-Fi solution:

Geographically Dispersed Locations

The traditional wireless network uses a physical hardware controller to direct access points. However, if your business operations are distributed across locations, the traditional controller-based configuration is less desirable. In a cloud-based model, wireless LAN services enable plug-and-play capability for devices across all locations.

Ease of Business

The first and the most noticeable benefit of outsourcing WLAN management is the hassle-free access to connectivity. The IT team no longer needs to deal with the stress of network downtime and constant demands for accessibility from users spread across the company.

The entire WLAN ecosystem is managed by the technology partner, who takes care of all the Wi-Fi requirements of the company - from analyzing enterprise requirements, designing and installing a customized WLAN system to day-to-day management and operations of the system.

Risk management

Mitigating risk is important in all areas of business, and managing a Wi-Fi network should be no different. All businesses are concerned with addressing consumer privacy; however, there are unique considerations that must be addressed as they relate to the Internet. Consumer privacy expectations are an important topic in today's news. It is considered a best practice in implementing public Wi-Fi, so that a user must agree to a Terms of Service (ToS) that usually incorporates an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). This opens them to a serious risk.

Customer engagement

Managed Wi-Fi offers business owners another way to reach their customers. Videos, promotions, surveys, and other types of content can be displayed on the page customers see when they connect to the network, serving as a digital engagement tool for a business to deliver messages. One of the biggest benefits a business receives by offering public Wi-Fi is the potential to develop deeper relationships with customers and the capacity to improve its understanding of customer interests.

Complete visibility

With a fully managed wireless network, companies gain an unprecedented level of visibility and control over the entire network. A cloud based centralized WLAN monitoring dashboard provides deep visibility of the entire WLAN infrastructure and provides application-level and user level control. Managers can control Wi-Fi usage by app category and make quick decisions with weekly or monthly reports.

Dynamic scalability

Managed WLAN services have the added advantage of being highly scalable. Organizations can rely on rapid provisioning and deployment of additional WLAN nodes to match sudden workload spikes.

IT Staffing Constraints

Many companies, especially small- and medium-sized businesses, have insufficient in-house IT resources to manage robust wireless networks. Yet, all businesses must embrace mobility to remain competitive. Service providers can provide the solution you need with access to advanced technology, tools and expertise. If you don't have sufficient in-house IT resources, you're still able to leverage critical mobility capabilities. If you do have in-house IT staff, you can refocus their efforts on other projects.

Growing Operations

A major benefit of working with service providers is the ability to scale your WLAN solution as your business grows. When network demands increase, your managed WLAN solution can scale accordingly. The ability to scale is especially critical for organizations that can't always predict demand, such as when internal staff and outside visitors require network resources for their own devices. Examples include educational institutions, health care facilities, hospitality companies, retail operations and any organization trying to manage unpredictable demand.

The last few years have seen the corporate work culture changing drastically. Employees no longer sit for hours in front of their desktops; mobile devices and laptops allow people to move freely and work from anywhere in the building. This dynamic work culture is perfect for enhancing teamwork and nurturing innovation and an enhanced WLAN ecosystem is an essential component of this new work environment.

Article Source: Key Benefits of a Fully Managed Wi-Fi Solution

Benefits of Network Automation

Benefits of Network Automation

By Saumya Sinha

Network automation is the process of automating the configuration, management, testing, deployment, and operations of physical and virtual devices within a network. Every day network tasks and functions are performed automatically. Using a combination of hardware and software-based solutions, large organizations, service providers, and enterprises can implement network automation to control and manage repetitive processes and improve network service availability.

Today, networks are fully capable of undertaking the following tasks:

Discovering topologies

Managing bandwidth and finding fast reroutes to implement the best computing paths

Performing root cause analysis

Updating and installing routes

Setting performance benchmarks

Updating software

Implementing security and compliance

Working together, automation and orchestration simplify network operations involving complex configurations and devices' management while providing business agility to adapt to an ever-changing environment. You can think of automation as accomplishing repeatable tasks without human intervention, and orchestration as the process of stringing together a series of these tasks to accomplish a process or workflow.

Driving network automation is the rapid expansion of network infrastructure required to support the exponential growth of network traffic generated by video, social media, data, and applications' usage. Additionally, as computing power continues to decline in cost and virtual computing continues to grow, network automation becomes more available to many businesses. Various types of network automation can apply to local area networks, virtualized environments, data centers, and public and private clouds.

Automation Benefits

For many organizations, the lack of agility to adopt to network changes has become a bottleneck, preventing those companies from deploying a robust and highly responsive data center infrastructure. For service providers, automation is the cornerstone strategy to focus on to increase network agility and reliability while controlling operational expenditures (OpEx) and capital expenditures (CapEx). To improve operational efficiency, margins, and customer satisfaction, service providers can automate routine and complex tasks that may be time-consuming, repetitive, or error-prone. The openness and interoperability of automation support APIs, standards-based protocols, and open-source automation frameworks (such as Ansible, Saltstack, Puppet, and Chef). Service providers and enterprises can leverage those automation frameworks to expedite their network automation migration.

By automating networking features and implementing software products that offer automation, organizations benefit from the following:

Lower costs-Because automation reduces the complexities of your underlying infrastructure, dramatically fewer person-hours are required for configuring, provisioning, and managing services and the network. By simplifying operations, consolidating network services, reducing floor space, and cycling underutilized devices off, you need fewer staff to troubleshoot and repair, and reap power savings.

Improve business continuity-By removing the chance for human errors, companies can offer and deliver a higher level of services with more consistency across branches and geographies. For example, Juniper Networks' Service Now is a remote, automated troubleshooting client that enables Juniper to detect quickly and proactively any problems in a customer's network before they become aware of them.

Increase strategic workforce-By automating repetitive tasks subject to human error, companies increase productivity, which helps drive business improvements and innovation. As a result, new job opportunities arise for the existing workforce.

Greater insight and network control-Automation helps make IT operations more responsive to change through analytics. You gain more visibility into the network and understand precisely what is happening in your network with the ability to control and adapt as needed.

Increase business agility-Automation enables companies to develop operational models that improve time-to-market. You can add new services, test new applications, and fix problems. Time to realize improvements is reduced, resulting in greater competitiveness and elasticity, and ultimately, more profits added to the corporate bottom line.

Network Automation: Build or Buy?

Once you've decided that you want to automate your network, the next decision is do you do it yourself, outsource, or some combination of both? Answering these questions can help you make your decision:

Which network automation technologies are best suited to your needs?

Do you have personnel who have expertise in automation technologies?

Do you have sufficient personnel resources to deploy automation technologies?

If not, does your vendor offer professional services that can assist your team with automating your network?

What are the risks of automating, and how do you mitigate the risks?

What are the benefits of automating sooner rather than later?

Do you know how to begin automating your network?

Article Source: Benefits of Network Automation

Book Review of The Perfect Match

Book Review of The Perfect Match

By Lisa Brown Gilbert

A narrative, both sincere and touching, The Perfect Match by author T. Wayne Bloodworth focuses on the complex and emotion ridden journey of Dr. Zack Folsom, a man living life so mired in doubt, sorrow and guilt, that it takes twisted fate for him to let go and start living life as he should.

Central character, Doctor Zack Folsom, a talented cardiac surgeon, loving husband and father, becomes a man preoccupied, after suddenly losing his wife Emily in a fatal car accident. To avoid the pain of his loss, he throws himself into his work dedicating the majority of his time and energy to his medical practice gaining him the reputation of being "all business" while he constantly wields an irascible and crudely sarcastic disposition.

Although he experiences great success as a competent surgeon, he also deeply feels the emptiness of the void left by his wife's death. Meanwhile, his only son Brody who is very much in need of a loving relationship with his father especially after the loss of his mother is now raised and cared for by Emily's family. Consequently, the relationship between father and son eventually festers into a dysfunctional and emotionally fractured relationship as Brody feels ignored and essentially parent-less, and in turn grows to hold onto a deep and resounding resentment against his father.

However, a turning point occurs when things change as a twist of fate brings a lucrative offer to purchase Zack's start up, a surgical robotics company. The offer not only bears opportunities that would allow Zack freedom from a now disenchanting career, but also brings a beautiful and intelligent lawyer, Gabriella Bennett into his life. As a mutual attraction develops, she helps to bring closure to some of the complexities and emptiness in his life.

Overall a satisfying read, The Perfect Match lives up to its name on multiple levels especially with the theme of the perfect match, being well executed by author T. Wayne Bloodworth. He artfully employs a nicely honed knack for evenly paced, detailed storytelling mainly when it comes to his ability to portray vivid images, the medical field and scenes of touching emotion. Additionally, I found the characters to be well thought out. I particularly enjoyed the character of Doctor Folsom. He was a sympathetic character whose emotions were tangibly realistic. I recommend putting this book on your "to be read" list. It definitely would make a good end of summer, feel good read.

Article Source: Book Review of The Perfect Match

Eating Healthy Is a Must for Every Serious Entrepreneur

Eating Healthy Is a Must for Every Serious Entrepreneur

By Beverley Vaughn

Healthy eating is all about balanced and moderate eating, consisting of healthy meals at least three times per day.

Healthy eaters eat many different types of foods, not limiting themselves to one specific food type or food group.

Eating healthy requires quite a bit of leeway. You might eat too much or not enough; consume foods that are sometimes more or less nutritious. However, you should always fuel your body and your brain regularly with enough food to keep both your mind and body strong and alert.

A healthy eater is a good problem solver. Healthy eaters have learned to take care of themselves and their eating with sound judgment and making wise decisions. Healthy eaters are always aware of what they eat, and know the effect that it will have on their bodies.

When someone is unable to take control of their eating, they are also likely to get out of control with other aspects of life as well. They could end up spending too much, talking too much, even going to bed later and later.

Below, you'll find some myth busters on healthy eating.

1. Working out on an empty stomach.

If you hear a rumbling noise in your stomach, the rumbling is trying to tell you something. Without listening to them, you are forcing your body to run without any fuel. Before you exercise or do any physical activity, always eat a light snack such as an apple.

2. Relying on energy bars and drinks.

Although they are fine every once in a while, they don't deliver the antioxidants you need to prevent cancer. Fruits and vegetables are your best bets, as they are loaded in vitamins, minerals, fluid, and fiber.

3. Skipping breakfast.

Skipping breakfast is never a good idea, as breakfast starts the day. Your body needs fuel as soon as possible, and without it, you'll be hungry throughout the day.

4. Low carb diets.

Your body needs carbohydrates for your muscles and the storing of energy.

5. Eating what you want.

Eating healthy and exercising doesn't give you an all access pass to eat anything you want. Everyone needs the same nutrients whether they exercise or not, as well as fruits and vegetables.

6. Not enough calories

Although losing weight involves calories, losing it too quickly is never safe. What you should do, is aim for 1 - 2 pounds a week. Always make sure that you are getting enough calories to keep your body operating smoothly. If you start dropping weight too fast, eat a bit more food.

7. Skip soda and alcohol.

Water, milk, and juice is the best to drink for active people. You should drink often, and not require on thirst to be an indicator. By the time you get thirsty, your body is already running a bit too low.

You should always remember that restricting food in any way is always a bad thing. Healthy eating is a way of life, something that you can do to enhance your body or your lifestyle. If you've thought about making your life better, healthy eating is just the place to start. You'll make life easier for yourself, those around you, and even your family.

Visit my YouTube channel "Awakening Initiatives" and watch (How to Reach High Performance) Every Day.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMld909efY8&t=89s
Want more information about me visit http://www.awakei.com.

Article Source: Eating Healthy Is a Must for Every Serious Entrepreneur

Planning A Holiday Requires One To Consider The Parking Issues Of That City

Planning A Holiday Requires One To Consider The Parking Issues Of That City

By Karen K Williams

A common dream is to see the places you see in movies. The most common is dreaming to visit the United States and to name a few are Chicago, Washington, Miami, LA, New York, Boston and so on. These have the resources and there is nothing to stop you from seeing these places in reality.

If you are fortunate and have relatives, you can travel solo and the key is to have an appropriate visa. Visit the US with a B1 or B2 visa that refers to a non-immigrant visa. This is given to people desiring to see the US for medical treatment, pleasure or business. Applying for visa means you should show a sponsorship letter from a close family member or by your employer to get a residency permit.

You will have to answer question in the embassy, so determine the purpose of the trip and avail the right tourist's visa. Bear in mind to show that you have sufficient money to bear your expense during the trip, besides air tickets, insurance, transportation and other tourism expenses.

If you are from the Europe or USA, travel to Asia sunny part. It offers the comfort of technology and different culture. If you love shopping, visit Bangkok and enjoy shopping galore all day and night. The night market is full and the beaches are inviting.

The Philippines is also a vibrant and colorful country featuring tourist destinations. The culture is different in each island based on the religious festivals. Enjoy different spots such as scuba diving and the beaches white sands.

If you belong to Asia, travel to snowy places or sunny places, of the USA and Europe. Visit the Las Vegas or Hollywood and see the city at night as it comes to life. Taste the snow in winters. Visit the Hawaii and enjoy the fun culture, the poi and the hula girls. Get a firsthand experience with the volcanoes. They are the best places to retire and explore. Plan your itinerary and ensure the best of your trip.

With it comes the major cities experience that includes lots of struggles regarding parking. The parking is a task even to the residents. Individuals living in big cities such as Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Washington and San Francisco are aware of the fact that finding a parking spot is time-consuming task and very difficult.

Major cities are compelled to deal with the parking spaces chronic shortage issue, whether it is on the street or in the garages. Moreover, the large cities in most areas have to pay on weekdays and Saturdays for on-street parking, whereas it is free for parking on Sundays.

Looking for parking is frustrating and very stressful. The usual complaints are:

No enough space, spaces are far away, too much parking cost, where to park, double-parking or finding and parking in an illegal spot.

Car getting towed, non-availability of parking permit, rude parking staff

There are parking issues as you holiday in big cities, so check with the free timing and less peak hours or rely on Millenium Park Chicago parking and Chicago downtown parking.

Article Source: Planning A Holiday Requires One To Consider The Parking Issues Of That City

Kenneth Davids 'bapak baptis kopi' mengunjungi Taipei

Penulis empat buku tentang kopi dan editor Coffeereview.com, Kenneth Davids, menghadiri Pameran Kopi Internasional Taiwan 2024 pada Sabtu (...