Cloud & Big Data

Open-Source AWS Connect Manager for Windows – SSM, WinSCP or RDP with a single click!

 I am not sure if this is going to be useful to anyone, but if you’re working with AWS Linux and Windows instances (especially if these are ephemeral) you’ll know that it’s a bit of a pain to quickly connect to these. I wanted a single-click solution that would allow me to SSM or WinSCP onto Linux servers, and RDP to my Windows instances and always get me the latest information, but I couldn’t find anything on the net, so I wrote my own Windows tool.

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How-To: Reduce the size of AWS EBS root volume

Amazon only allows increasing the size of their AWS EBS volumes. While unfortunate, we can sympathize with Amazon, they’re doing it for a good reason (let’s leave it at that).

So, if you have let’s say 100GB EBS volume attached to your EC2 and you’re only using 20 GBs, modifying the volume to anything lower than 100 GB will generate an error: The size of a volume can only be increased, not decreased.

This essentially means you’re stuck with a large volume, wasting resources and paying large bills. The following article is a walkthrough of the process of getting around this issue and reducing the size of Amazon EBS root volume.

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How-To: Enable unsupported Disk and Memory usage metrics in CloudWatch (Linux instructions)

It’s critical to monitor the disk and memory usage on AWS EC2 production servers, however, as of writing this article, these metrics are still not supported (out-of-the-box) by AWS CloudWatch.

The following post provides a simple guide on how to install and adjust the CloudWatch agent on an EC2 instance to capture these crucial metrics.

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VMware’s NSX™ Distributed Firewall, Intrusion Prevention and Intrusion Detection System.

The security breaches usually occur when the organization does not sufficiently restrict communication inside network perimeter or does not implement lateral security controls, which allow hackers to target the priority systems or infiltrate information. The following article talks about VMware’s NSX™ Distributed Firewall, Intrusion Preventions, and Intrusion Detection System.

Note: Article in Progress. The following is only a basic skeleton for the more comprehensive overview.

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IT Compliance and Auditing in Canada

The following post is intended to explain some of the IT audit standards, control process and associated laws and regulations currently used in Canada. Even though, the 2012 research showed that only 16% of Canadian Businesses were not aware of privacy or security-related standards and we could say, that Canadian IT companies have moderate to high awareness of the compliance standards.

Note: This article is a work in progress. [Read more…]

The future of cloud computing relative to becoming a monopoly

In early days of Cloud computing, media frequently probed and disputed the viability of cloud computing. And not so long ago, in 2009, even the most famous futurists were skeptical. Jamais Cascio, who listed as one of the 2009 Top 100 Global Thinkers said, “I have to admit it: I’m not a huge fan of the cloud computing concept.”(Fast Company, 2009). However, not even a decade later, the positive impact of cloud computing can no longer be disputed. With that, a new concern comes to view, the likelihood of Cloud computing becoming a monopolized technology. This article is a brief look at the current landscape of cloud computing relative to becoming a monopoly. [Read more…]

SaaS Emailing – Short review of SendGrid Email Service

In 2015, the worldwide SaaS market was valued at approximately US $80 billion. According to Forbes magazine, “by 2020, it will grow by estimated 69% to become over $130-billion-dollar industry” (Forbes.com, 2017). The incredibly fast rate at which SaaS adoption grows is primarily the result of a very positive attitude towards ‘software as a service’ model among businesses of all sizes. The following post introduces one of such SaaS technologies, called ‘SendGrid Email.’ [Read more…]