Why You Should Use DevOps Tools?
The DevOps philosophy and practices combine development and operations to ensure the efficient production of reliable goods and provide high-value services to customers. For this, it is essential to establish coordination and collaboration between siloed work areas. These typically include areas like development, IT operations, quality control, and security. You can use free or paid DevOps tools in your production methods to improve your business agility.
Why should you use DevOps tools?
You might want to consider using DevOps tools for the following reasons:
There are planning tools
There are various DevOps planning tools such as Confluence, Jira, and Hipchat that you can use to implement essential changes during the software development process. By working with these planning tools, you can get detailed information about the people who buy your products and how they might use the product. You can learn about their needs and preferences and use this feedback to improve the product and develop original ideas for new products.
There are building tools
By having access to easy-to-use and efficient building tools, you will find it more convenient to compile codes, undertake collaboration in coding work, and test simultaneously. Consider getting building tools like Docker, Chef, and Puppet. These have third-party integration support, and you can check if they are compatible with the other tools you already have.
There are tools for automated testing
DevOp tools like Capture for Jira and BitBucket enable continuous testing of software applications as you build them or introduce new features. You also get a test report to help you to make improvements. That ensures you will not be surprised with errors and bugs when you are ready to deploy them. If the applications have any issues, you can find out about those at once and find the appropriate solutions to resolve them before continuing with the next steps in the software application development work. Additionally, by automating the testing process, you can speed up things.
There are deployment tools
Consider getting deployment tools like Chef, Puppet, Jenkins, TravisCI, Jira, Hipchat, and AWS to automate and test your deployments. Such tools facilitate the entire process of releasing new versions of software and software applications in the market. They allow you to access and monitor the status of the release in real-time. Additionally, the deployment DevOps tools have scripting abilities and can maintain the code in single repositories for better developmental convenience.
There are feedback tools
You can find out what your customers think of your software products by getting feedback from them. Feedback tools like Pendo, SurveyMonkey, and Jira Service Desk make this process easier. With them, customers can provide feedback on whether they found the software products useful and easy to use or if they encountered errors and bugs while using them. They can offer ideas and suggestions to add features and make changes to improve the products. By considering their feedback and making necessary product improvements, you can ensure customer satisfaction with your brand.
Free and paid DevOps tools: Which should you use?
When using DevOps tools, you do not necessarily need tools with extensive features. Tools that can meet and improve your developmental work requirements are generally enough. You can find these in free as well as paid versions. Consider using the free DevOps tools if you are working on a limited budget. However, it is essential to check the usage guidelines first and discover if the tools are available for free for a limited time or specific build identifiers and parameters.
Ideally, use the open source tools that the developers have made available for free without any restrictions and do not have a steep learning curve. Along with being freely available, open source DevOps tools benefit from the active backing of the open source community. Various developers volunteer to regularly update and improve them and ensure they are secure to use. They may also be willing to answer your questions and concerns about the tools.
If you decide on using open source Dev Ops tools, it is advisable to learn how to use them before incorporating them into your software development process. You must understand how to follow the best practices in using them from software development to deployment.
How Have Hotel Reservations Systems Have Changed the Travel Industry?
The social system has changed considerably precisely in sync with the overall technological advancement. You can see the impact of this massive technological leap advancement in the travel industry also. In brief, the travel industry has revolutionized a lot, and consequently, the conventional flight and hotel booking ways are becoming obsolete. In our time, the place of online travel agents is much more significant as almost the bulk of the travelers opt for the online booking system. This system will make reservation procedures handy for the users.
One can do all the travel requirements such a flight booking, accommodation search and reserving, vehicle hiring, tour-destination booking, etc., through the online portals. The entailed processes are not only trouble-free but also highly handy and functional. You will not have to run behind the agent for such matters.
Besides, you can personally check the availability as regards the flight and hotels. Now travelers can compare the price tags of the various entailed travel requirements and buy the most favorable options. In brief, holidaying has become more acceptable and enjoyable.
In the former days, you had to go with the recommendations of the travel agent as regards all aspects of the tour program. For instance, the agent will recommend a specific hotel for a specific rate, and you will have to accept the same without any questioning. The agents were similar to the unquestionable kings, and all those who want their services will have to tone with their recommendations. Gone are those days. Now, one can find a matching hotel that will fit the bill for their specific holiday purpose with the help of the internet platforms.
Besides, hotels, flights, and travel activity centers will constantly update their rates in sync with the climatic conditions and the peak times. You will be able to know the precise pricing through the reservation systems and plan your tour accordingly. All the stakeholders and the other tour-related functionaries, such as tourist destination activity centers, hotels, airlines, etc., are sure to get benefits. However, the coding of the reservations system must be perfect. One benefit for such holiday agents is that there will be a functional platform, which the clients will appreciate. They can use their web portals effectively, and the requirement for the conventional promotional works will be minimal. By making the websites search engine friendly, they can reach the targeted audience.
There is yet another advantage for the hotels and other places of tourist activities. The management can reduce the strength of the staff required for the reception duties. As every minute detail regarding booking will be there in the reservation system, there will not be bothering phone calls and requests. In the same way, they can trim down the size of the sales team and can concentrate more on making the web portals in sync with the algorithms of the search engines. In our time, almost all people use a different way to get the details regarding any particular subject. They make use of web portals, including social media sites, for the same. Hence, making the website customer and search engine-friendly is the prime thing hotels and other tourist activity centers will have to do. Another significant feature that the website, in which you give the reservations system, must carry is reviews of the customers. This point is vital because usually, the prospective clients will peruse the customer reviews before making a decision.
Go For Expertise
The reservations system will be beneficial to the management as well as the customers. Nevertheless, it is a must that the coding of the same must be perfect. Different hotels and tourist activity centers will need different types of systems. Hence, it will be practically wise for the management to hire professional expertise for installing a functional system. When you have such a system, for sure, casual visitors will become regular customers. To sum up, this is a pragmatic way in this day and age to convince the customers about your reliability and professionalism.
Questions to Ask Your New Internet Provider
Outsourcing your IT-related tasks to an external internet service provider company will be advantageous to small and medium companies. Nevertheless, there are some main points that one will have to check. Picking a provider company is practically a bit difficult task. There will be a wide list of such internet companies, and you are sure to get bemused. Hence, it is always sensible to assess the professional integrity and reliability of the internet provider Detroit before you sign a contract. You will have to ask some basic questions to the management. It will be practically helpful to you to clear these practical points before you select a particular company. It’s better to choose an internet provider Detroit Company that operates in and around your area. This proximity will become beneficial when emergency problems occur. You can find companies that offer free installation, free of any taxes. It will be advantageous for you to hire a company that charges no equipment rental fees. Besides, you must make sure that there are no hidden charges. The installation must be quick, and there must be temporary and permanent backup options, and the company must provide this service for multisite locations. They must be able to implement the latest features and services as regards the technological tools they use. Hence, they must be well qualified and trained.
• The provider company must have a dynamic business perspective. This keen awareness as regards the latest technological tools will be beneficial for you and will help you to grow and spread your wings to other parts. They must be able to provide cutting-edge technologies; this will make your business communications perfect and prompt, as well as winning. Besides, the provider should be capable of using competitive and intuitive products. Hence, you can expect to get top technical service. Besides, the employees must be talented and reliable. They must be able to sort out any related problems on the dot. Above all, their behavior must be cordial.
• Qualifications/Experience: The principal point that you will have to check is the qualifications and experience of the management and employees of the internet provider Detroit Company. Remember, if you hire an inept team, you are sure to land up in severe problems sooner or later. Technical perfection is a must, and all the employees must have undergone specific training for the profession.
• Required Equipment: You must confirm whether you will have to buy the required equipment, modem, and software. In some cases, the provider company will take care of such things and will bill you accordingly. That said, there are internet provider Detroit agencies that will not charge you any extra amount as equipment rental fees.
• Pricing: This point is imperative, and you must clear all your doubts before signing an agreement. The main point here is to check the method they employ. There are IT service providers who charge on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. ‘Pay as You Go’ is another option that probably you will get, which is another best practical option. Here, it will be good for you to compare the pricing structure of different leading companies and choose the best one. However, you must also care about the perfectness and promptness of services.
• Customer Service: You must get round-the-clock service, and this point is vital. You don’t know when your system gets stuck, and such a snag can crop up at any time. During such instances, you must get instant support, and for this, the internet provider Detroit should give 24×7 services.
• Speed: The speed of the internet has high significance as far as the performance is concerned. You must get the best speed available so that the communication becomes swift. You must speak to the internet provider Detroit and ensure that there is the required speed.
The best possible way to locate a proximate internet provider Detroit agency is to search through the internet. Such a search will give you the web addresses of the top players. Now, you will have to shortlist and check the website details, including the customer reviews. Thus, you can choose the best option.
Pros and Cons of Lift and Shift Migration
Small, medium-sized, and large companies have begun adopting cloud computing due to its undoubted business benefits. However, it involves moving your data and applications to the cloud in a process known as cloud migration. You can have your in-house team handle the work or outsource it to a company that specializes in cloud migration. Whatever you decide, it is essential to have a good cloud migration strategy. A popular one that you might want to consider in the life and shift migration strategy.
What are the lift and shift cloud migration?
As the name suggests, lift and shift cloud migration involves lifting the data and applications you have hosted on the on-premise infrastructure of your company and shifting them directly to the cloud. The process is also known as rehosting. In it, you do not make any major changes to the data or the applications. You are just moving everything from one place to another as it is. The strategy is popular as it saves time and resources. However, before you decide to adopt the lift and shift cloud migration, you might want to know about its pros and cons.
Pros of the lift and shift cloud migration strategy
If you are still wondering if you should adopt the lift and shift cloud migration strategy to move your company’s data and applications to the cloud, you might want to know about the following benefits:
It is time-saving
Since you do not have to make extensive changes to the data and applications before moving them to the cloud, the entire cloud migration process is quick and time-saving. Your applications will not suffer any downtime, and the move will not affect the end users’ access to the applications. Your business productivity will not be affected.
It is cost-effective
You do not have to put your in-house resources to make changes in the data or applications or hire external specialists for the purpose. That means the cloud migration is not going to increase your expenses. You can optimize the costs further by moving the data and applications simultaneously, without going back and forth and increasing the workload. Additionally, you do not have to set up virtual machines to facilitate the migration process.
It does not require extensive planning
The typical cloud migration process can require extensive planning and data backups. You also have to inform your employees and customers in advance about possible downtime in applications during the migration. However, with the lift and shift cloud migration strategy, none of this is necessary. The process only involves moving the applications and data from the on-premise infrastructure to the cloud.
It does not pose any risk to the applications
You do not have to worry about applications malfunctioning during the move. Since you are moving the applications without changing their configurations, they will remain unaffected. The end-users will not have any troubles using the applications either.
It offers security and compliance
The cloud service provider will handle the cloud security and compliance issues, so you do not have to worry about these. The service provider will also regularly update the security features, ensuring fewer to no risks to your data in the cloud.
Cons of the lift and shift cloud migration strategy
The drawbacks of the lift and shift cloud migration strategy are as follows:
There might be performance issues
While you are not likely to encounter any glitches when moving your applications to the cloud, you might experience performance and resource utilization issues afterward. These generally occur because you did not build the migrated applications to work in a cloud environment in the first place. So, when you use the lift and shift migration strategy to move them to the cloud, it is unrealistic to expect to work just as well as applications built to work in the cloud.
There might be issues with moving custom applications
If you have custom-built applications for handling specific company operations, you might face difficulties in moving them to the cloud as they are. You might have to spend time in modifying them to make them work in the cloud. If that is too troublesome, you can decide to continue hosting them on the on-premise infrastructure.
Different Ways IT Company Can Secure their Clients Data
Data breaches are on the rise, and many industry pundits forecast it will increase in the coming years. Cybercriminals are continuously becoming more thoughtful about hacking their target systems. So, how, as a Houston IT company, can you secure your client’s data? Here are some tips that would help.
Set Up Access Restrictions
All your staff may not need access to every little book and cranny of your company, so issue a divisional pass. Provide necessary access required for the position to each respective employee.
You can implement this idea in your internal networks too. You can protect them internally from one another using firewalls. This will make it much harder for cybercriminals to damage your business.
Let’s understand this with a simple example.
Imagine your backend as a herd of sheep. If you put up a big fence around your herd, all a wolf has to do is jump the fence to catch a sheep.
But, if you keep your sheep away from each other into smaller groups and fence them off, it would be a problematic situation for wolves as they have to cross a lot more fences.
Audit Your Systems
The best way to secure your company’s network is by auditing and putting pressure on it to see where the loopholes are.
You may take the help of an experienced Houston IT company that offers IT support services to conduct an audit for your business.
Also, do not forget to audit any third-party apps you use and figure out what those apps do with your client’s data. Remember, due diligence is the locksmith to your online security door.
Make Sure Your Plugins Are Always Updated
If you use plugins, make sure you keep updating them to reduce vulnerabilities and ensure consumer data protection from a breach by hackers. You may find this point quite evident, but it’s worth stating when you use WordPress, one of the largest CMS platforms, and the plugin vulnerability.
There are over 64 million websites that use WordPress, and 90% of all vulnerabilities from this application originate from plugins. That’s many potential websites and companies at risk by vulnerable or outdated plugins, so again, you need to have a strong focus on due diligence.
Focus on Patches, Firewall, and Encryption
If your network is not continuously updated, then it will be at risk. Also, most of the data breach happens when a patch exists. So go for automated software and patch assessment tools to keep your network up to date and identify malware automatically.
There are many types of firewalls out there. But the web application firewalls (WAF) work better to secure your client data against DDoS attacks. Plus, it provides customization options such as prohibiting traffic coming from users outside your delivery zone.
The next step to secure your client’s data should be encryption. It is the symbolic lock and key when safeguarding your customer data. Make sure that any sensitive data, regardless of where you transferred or stored it should be encrypted.
One example is an SSL certificate that encrypts personal data in the payment processing transaction. It can help safeguard your customer data, primarily if your business uses third-party apps for transaction processing.
It also depends on the SSL certificate type that you select to secure your website. All the SSLs provide the same encryption level, but the number of domains plays a crucial role in choosing an SSL certificate.
Train Your Employees Properly
We all make mistakes, so you cannot avoid human errors unless you have tools and measures to protect your customers’ data.
To ensure a mistake doesn’t include an intrusion on your company’s network or include a massive data breach, train your staff correctly to restrict and react to breaches or cyberattacks.
You can also implement a device control strategy to track what removable devices are used on your network. It will prevent data leakage. And even if a data leakage happens, you can easily find the source and stop the bleeding.
Prepare a Disaster Recovery Plan
If you don’t have a disaster recovery plan yet for your Houston IT company, you should consider creating one. And even if you do, make sure it has specific contingencies for a cyberattack.
So, do you’ve any questions?
