Cloud Power

Opinions expressed by ICN authors are their own.

Making a business case for Alexa

Alexa is an uncharted territory as far as business applications go. As it stands today, it is a solution in search of a problem. However, Alexa and other voice bots are becoming more popular and can serve as useful channels to reach...

05/30/2017

Lessons learned from the recent AWS S3 outage

Cross-region replication and backups can help applications survive regional cloud service outages.

03/13/2017

Securing applications in the public cloud

In a 1990s-era data center, everything revolves around hardware and virtual machines. Monolithic applications are installed and run on servers. Servers themselves run in the private subnet (secure) or public (DMZ), and they have...

03/08/2017

Alexa revisited: Reflections on living with Amazon's assistant

Having used Alexa for the past few months, I'd like to discuss how we use it and what it could do better.

01/18/2017

Emails, politics and common sense

Like many Americans, I've been trying to explain and justify the 2016 election cycle. I am not an expert political scientist. I am a software engineer. The question I ask myself is "What role did computer technology play in this...

12/20/2016

Check Point SandBlast takes endpoint protection to another level

Check Point has long been known as a firewall company, but it is reaching beyond its roots with a new series of protective technologies under its SandBlast line.

10/17/2016

Don't trust your cloud service until you've read the terms

Customers shouldn't just click "Accept" when presented with a license or terms of service agreement. It is important to read and understand what they agree to.

09/07/2016

What I learned from using Amazon Alexa for a month

Amazon's Alexa is more advanced than interactive voice response systems and sure as hell more powerful than Siri, but it is not human.

07/19/2016

In search of a neutral top-tier cloud service

Both Amazon and Microsoft are visionary companies at the forefront of the public cloud revolution. But neither company is truly neutral and both companies may have potential conflicts of interests.

06/17/2016

How-to: Configuring Linux usage limits with Docker and AWS ECS

With the rise of Linux, Docker and AWS, it is important to understand how ulimits work, what they impact and how to configure them.

05/11/2016

Why it makes perfect sense for Dropbox to leave AWS

On March 14, Dropbox announced it was moving out of the Amazon cloud. It makes perfect sense for Dropbox but should not be an excuse for a reluctant IT department not to proceed with their cloud implementation plans. Here are some of...

04/12/2016

The downside of relying on social network providers for authentication

The option to rely on Facebook or Twitter is not unique to WordPress. Authentication, authorization and password management are some of the key APIs of any useful application. Many apps authenticate via Facebook, Twitter or another...

03/15/2016

Collaborative work in the cloud: What I learned teaching my 9-year-old how to code

By teaching my nine-year-old to code using her Chromebook and Cloud9 IDE I had a chance to observe collaborative learning in action.

02/09/2016

JavaScript as the language of the cloud

With the rise of the cloud, network has at last become the computer. A developer working out of their bedroom can build an app that can reach millions. JavaScript is an essential glue that holds these apps together. The wild array of...

01/20/2016

3 sets of APIs your SaaS platform needs

If you are a SaaS vendor make sure your API covers the basic needs of your customers. There is no need to overcomplicate it or reinvent the wheel. Relying on existing cloud services and integration practices helps control time to...

12/15/2015

OAuth 2.0: The protocol at the center of the universe

Public APIs are becoming a crucial business asset. A strong API strategy depends on openness and standardization. A support for the OAuth 2.0 specification is the first step towards a successful and secure API model.

11/24/2015

Managed IT is not the future of the cloud

Application developers want to build applications. They do not want to manage infrastructure or take part in IT red tape. Where HP cloud could not succeed is at appealing to developers. They did not offer application services. They...

11/10/2015

Operations costs are the Achilles' heel of NoSQL

Companies interested in adopting NoSQL should consider their options carefully. The vast majority of database use cases do not need massive horizontal scalability. Most applications could be better off with traditional SQL databases....

10/27/2015

IT departments must transform in the face of the cloud revolution

Cloud computing democratizes developer and end user productivity at the expense of transparency and IT control. Since developers and users are able to provision and utilize resources as needed, it is easy for costs, overall...

10/19/2015